Month

A Mon rally on China’s FX flexibility failed miserably, setting a “sell-rallies” tone for wk. Ozzy presented an austere looking budget — said the right things. Japan’s Kan pledged to cap spending for 3yrs, the German cuts thru ’14 look to be 80bln Euros. Austrians in; Keynes out. Soros warns Germany leading EU down deflationary funnel (The Economist, Krugman and his ilk agree). US housing data collapsed, sparki

My Dad fought in Korea, engineering PhD on GI bill, designed spy planes and spaceships. Raced the Reds most of his life. He moved on. Designs Predators to hunt cavemen. We have fun talking economics, he finds the theories amusing, and no one dies. I explain Ricardian Comparitive Advantage Theory and the shift of labor overseas. He says sounds great, then drives me through the Hartford ghetto, once a gem of US manufac

Moody’s downgraded Greece and BP 3-4 notches, as always, ahead of the curve. S&P 500 and EM equities flipped the bird and extended rally from June 7th low to 6.4% and 7.2% respectively. Spain bond auction went fine, spread to Germany tightened from 212 to 186. CDS on European junk bonds fell to 1mth low of 521. $2.5bln EM equity fund inflow is 2nd highest of yr. No real changes to earning expectations in the US l

Few mths back, Obama sent Mara an email blasting “greedy bankers”. Took ‘em to the woodshed. My leftie friends gave me an earful. Few days later the SEC launched the Goldman investigation to leftie applause. Hard not to connect the dots. Two wks back, MoveOn.org sent Mara an email raging over the $1trln we’ve spent in Afghan/Iraq. This wk General Petraeus told the NY Times we’ve found $1trln of mine

Overall: Moody’s downgraded Greece and BP 3-4 notches, as always, ahead of the curve. S&P 500 and EM equities flipped the bird and extended rally from June 7th low to 6.4% and 7.2% respectively. Spain bond auction went fine, spread to Germany tightened from 212 to 186. CDS on European junk bonds fell to 1mth low of 521. $2.5bln EM equity fund inflow is 2nd highest of yr. No real changes to earning expectations in

Volatility of both prices and sentiment rule the day. Papers and mags starting to call this a trading range, they’re exhausted like everyone else. The Economist ran “Hope at Last” 6wks ago and then ”Fear Returns” last wk. Israel is now the mag’s cover (much easier to deal with the Middle East than stocks). Blackrock’s Fink gives the all-clear for a bull run on Wed; on Thurs Hungary’s new PM says he may default. Echo’

A buddy in Santa Barbara (Dan) was a US Olympic coach and built a nice training biz. Makes $200k/yr which in the real world (non-finance) is a lot. He couldn’t afford to buy a house and rents for $3,500/mth. His next-door neighbor (Bob) bought an identical house and paid $1.2mm. Bob stopped paying his mortgage 1yr ago because the house is now worth $750k. The bank hasn’t bothered to kick Bob out. Guessing

Overall: Volatility of both prices and sentiment rule the day. Papers and mags starting to call this a trading range, they’re exhausted like everyone else. The Economist ran “Hope at Last” 6wks ago and then ”Fear Returns” last wk. Israel is now the mag’s cover (much easier to deal with the Middle East than stocks). Blackrock’s Fink gives the all-clear for a bull run on Wed; on Thurs Hungary’s new PM says he may defau