Month

Week-in-Review: Mon: China property prices extend rebound (70-city price index +0.3% m/m), Gold gaps through recent lows, RBNZ Keys acknowledges the speed of NZD fall, Athens repays E6.8bln to creditors, Greek banks reopen with E240/week withdraw limit, Hollande calls for creation of an EU gov’t, German PPI -1.4% yoy, EU May current account +E18bln (prev +E22.3bln), S&P +0.1%; Tue: China FDI +0.7% (exp +5%), BOJ

Hope all goes well… “We failed at the highs and volatility barely budged,” said Yoda, high in the Rockies. “There were no outside forces pushing prices, just US earnings,” continued the largest S&P 500 local, winding his way upward, through fields of granite boulders, each the product of an ancient little crack. “The market fell even with Google and Amazon surging to historic highs.” And Yoda sat in the shadow of

“Remember how California got it, but New York didn’t?” asked my favorite futurist, hands-free on Highway 1. “That in itself was reason to invest.” 500% ago, when people viewed autonomous autos as outlandish, he piled into Tesla. “People now accept Elon’s vision as almost inevitable.” But the future will not simply be dominated by solar-powered, self-driving Teslas, ordered on iPhones, navigated by Uber, on Google Map

He sat in his cell. Quietly. Reading El Universal, scanning headlines, checking stock quotes. The Greeks had attempted escape. But were recaptured by German guards; to be expected. You see, if there’s one thing El Chapo learned in his sixty ruthless years, it’s that the most frightening sound is silence. With so much European screaming, there was relatively little to fear. Loudest amongst the crowd had been Varoufaki

Hope all goes well… “When I run massive positions, at best I feel apprehensive, but I usually feel like crap,” he admitted, lightening up enormous European longs. “I don’t know what I would’ve done on Sunday if markets had been open.” Last weekend was the most politically volatile in recent memory. “Having them closed probably saved me from myself,” he admitted, knowing stocks would’ve tanked on the break-up of the E

“Netscape and all the internet stuff went crazy between 1996 and 1998,” said the CIO. “But extrapolating those trends ad infinitum was insanity and ended with Pets.com.” Investors look for patterns, when they find one they apply it to everything. The process is reflexive; as a pattern repeats, it becomes more widely recognized, thus driving new investment flows to profit from it, which amplifies the trend, and reinfo

“Who am I?” he asked. And the mirror reflected the answer; his silent eyes. “Well, how will I be remembered?” he pleaded. Silence. “Tell me the future!” cried the Greek leader. Silence. And all alone, away from the communist cacophony, unable to escape the fact that we are what we do, Alexis Tsipras swallowed the bitter hemlock. “Who am I?” asked Angela. Silence. “How will they remember me?” begged Merkel. Silence. A

Hope all goes well… “When a market breaks more than 20%, it’s brutal,” whispered the CIO, ear to the ground, listening for sounds of opportunity. Greeks groaned, Germans grunted. “Investors mentally budget for a 10% loss, some even budget for 20%, but no one prepares for 33%.” Brazilians bawled, South Africans squealed. “So when a market falls through 20%, it usually gets a lot uglier.” Amidst Turkish tantrums, as Ma

“What were you guys talking about?” asked Jackson, as we left the office. My 13yr old had swung by after practice, waiting for a ride home. Instead of answering directly, I asked him what he thought our investment team had been discussing. “You were all trying to figure something out, and it seemed like you kind of did, but it also seemed like you kind of didn’t.” He wasn’t wrong. And sensing an opportunity to explai

“Say what?” said Xi. “Shanghai fell 12.1%,” said Zhou. “Last week?” said Xi. “No Shanghai fell 12.1% this week,” said Zhou, correcting his President, “You must be thinking of 2 weeks ago, when Shanghai fell 13.3%, because last week it only fell 6.3%.” Xi pouted worse than usual, sat in silence. Zhou squirmed, filled the void with a parade of policy pronouncements, “Last Friday we cut the required reserve ratios by 50