Month

The king has died. Long live the dyed king. So no sooner had one 90-year old monarch discovered what comes next, than one of his innumerable 79-year old sickly half-brothers came next; sporting a midnight black goatee. You see, while elderly despots happily rob their young subjects of opportunity, prosperity and dignity, they’ve not yet figured out how to steal youth. So surrounded by sycophants, they pretend and ext

“The rich and powerful always win; that’s the starting point,” said the clear-eyed cynic, more interested in making mountains from molehills, than tilting at windmills. “When upstarts periodically challenge their dominance, buying leveraged assets at wide credit spreads, central bankers throw the economy into recession, bankrupting new money, consolidating and preserving the existing power structure,” he continued. “

Hope all goes well… “Know what drives me crazy?” asked the CIO. “When people say a trade is crowded; what does that even mean?” By traditional measures, the short oil trade has been crowded. The long dollar trade too. “If the short Euro trade is so crowded, why can’t it rally for more than a day?” There are times when markets mean revert, and times when they trend. “Speculative systematic traders keep piling on these

Hope all goes well… “How is it that investors are lulled into believing things are not changing?” asked Yoda, high in the Rockies. “When everything’s changing.” Energy, exchange rates, interest rates. “And when markets start changing their nature, why do traders not stay small and nimble?” continued the S&P 500 market’s biggest local. “Why do they cling to their dip buying belief, when deep within their psyche th

“Can we talk Dad?” asked Jackson, serious, solemn. I sat on the couch, curious, prepared for anything. “Can I try out for West Coast Stars again?” he asked, voice strained. He tried out for All-Star lacrosse last January. The rejection letter arrived, he went quiet, retreated to his room. So I sat on his bed, explained how I moved from NYC at twelve, where I’d never played sports. And years behind, suffered the humil

“These days everything’s padded and comes with warning labels,” said Jorgensen, triumphant, tiny, towering above Yosemite. He’d just free climbed El Capitan; once considered impossible. But there is no impossible, there’s only not yet possible. “This just lights a fire under me, and that’s a really exciting way to live,” continued the young alpinist, fingers raw, embracing uncertainty, pursuing extraordinary. You see

Hope all goes well… “The last few years, every time vol popped you sold it,” said Roadrunner, the equity market’s biggest volatility trader. “This year, that changes – 2015 will be special,” he continued. “The S&P vol curve is flat for 9mths, at 19.5-20.0, which tells you it’ll be volatile; that’s good for the market, it’s great for traders, it’s bad for buy-and-hold investors.” And terrible for guys with leverag

“How do you bet on deflation when bond yields are already so low?” asked one of the industry’s best performing CIOs, years running. We discussed the one thing even more important than forming the right answers: identifying the right questions. America’s exit from six years of zero rates looms large, Japan doubled down on unorthodox policies, China’s reengineering its economic model, and Europe will soon capitulate &#

“The odds of success are 50/50,” said the baby-faced billionaire, smiling. “But I pretty much made that up,” admitted Elon Musk, “I have no idea.” And how could he? After all, he was attempting to gently land his rocket, upright on a barge, floating in the Atlantic, at night, in the fog. Which quite frankly isn’t all that hard. It just takes imagination, an entrepreneur, capital, and technology; America’s abundant re

Hope all goes well, and that your 2015 is something special; filled with adventure, mystery, flexibility, prosperity. Dusted off an anecdote from a hot day that I’ll never forget (see below). Back next Sunday with full wknd notes. Week-in-Review: Mon: China loosens LDR, Japan approves $29bln economic stimulus spending, Greece fails to elect president (Jan 25th elections), Weidmann reiterates opposition to sovereign Q