Tax alpha bulletin board…

🎉 Basis Northwest is my taxable wealth conference. It’s in Seattle in 2026.

🔬 Call for papers… Nathan Sosner, a principal at AQR, is Special Section Editor for the Journal of Wealth Management’s Fall 2026 issue. Submit a paper by Feb 1, 2026.

📗 The Adviser’s Guide to Seeding an ETF In-Kind (via Section §351)

📢 Not Advice Podcast: Andre Nader and I recorded End-of-Year Tax and Investment Planning… for Nerds. Check it out.

Yes, really, $1 trillion in box-spread AUM

A month ago, I wrote 5 ways to intuit the box spread and followed up with $1 trillion box-spread AUM is up for grabs.

The only thing that’s changed since then is that more vendors have popped onto my radar.

I have more box spread work on the way, including a close look at SyntheticFi’s mortgage product, but that will have to wait until Jan 2026.

Several folks wanted to know more about the $1 trillion figure, so below is a breakdown using Fed and FINRA data.