Month

Hope all goes well… “Wow, I got real coal – what did I do wrong this year?” whispered one of my many younger brothers, looking around, laughing, kind of. Our four kiddies noticed but barely cared. A nephew giggled, the room chaotic. Mara and I had hosted yet another family holiday, our home bursting at the seams. And late Christmas Eve with fifteen empty stockings lined up on the hearth, Santa considered the na

Hope all goes well… Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. To you and your families. Resurrected one of my favorite little memories, an opening note from Christmas past… Christmas Day 2013: “Santa slipped down the chimney. Left big boot prints in the ash that spilled across our hearth. And the jolly fella stuffed stockings. Built a train set too. Sprinkled magic everywhere. Moments before the kiddies emerged, sporting thei

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote about oxymorons, from September 2014, at the dawn of a volatility burst. See you again in January with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Bitcoin futures begin trading on CBOE, Saudi Arabia to allow cinemas for 1st time in 35yrs, Russia signs $21bln deal to supply Egypt with 5 gigawatt nuclear reactors, Putin announces Syrian pullout, Turkish Q

“What are the odds we come across an opportunity in the coming 4yrs to earn 20%?” the investor asked his team. “High,” they answered. “The odds are 100%,” he said, having seen this movie a few times. “So our cost of capital is 5% per year (20% divided by 4yrs), plus the 1% we earn on cash,” he said. His team nodded. “Under no circumstances should we deploy capital unless it earns well more than 6% per year from here

Hope all goes well… 11 tons of gold bullion. 173 Bugatti Chiron’s. 1,785 four-year Harvard degrees. 9,384 years of paper pushing for an average Saudi civil servant. 79,250 years of Egyptian labor. 90,000 years of Iraqi labor. 203,340 years of Yemeni labor. 281,250 years of slavish Pakistani labor. 450,000,000 US dollars. Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud considered these monetary equivalents, each identical in value to 2 s

“Let’s step into my office,” he said. So I did. He was my boss. “The firm’s most important client needs help.” I listened, uninterested, unconcerned about clients, their problems. Barely cared about my boss. I had a game to play, solo sport, and loved it to the exclusion of all else. “They need to do a very large trade.” A twenty-six-year-old proprietary trader’s mind is rather primitive. Which is good and bad. Being

Hope all goes well… “When the smartest guys say we’re ninth inning,” bellowed Biggie Too in baritone, “we’re 7th inning, maybe 8th.” The S&P 500 finished November +2.8%, its eighth consecutive monthly gain, a refrain last heard in 2007. Year-to-date the index jumped +18.3%, the forward P/E is 19. Bitcoin popped +1,015% in that time. Market volatility faded to 50yr lows. $8trln of bonds carry negative yields. Inte