anecdotes

“Can you believe how universally despised this guy is?” asked the CIO, not waiting for a reply. “CNBC, Republicans, Democrats, economists, strategists, nearly everyone hates him,” he continued. “His biggest supporters are at best ambivalent, and it goes down from there.” You see, we were discussing central bankers. “Maybe ten people in the world understand central banking, and by the way, most of them are not running

Strutted down Avenue of the America’s. Like John Travolta. Humming with puzzles, riddles, inspirations. You see, I’d been moving and shaking. With my boys. NY Titans. Devising solutions to finance’s biggest problems: overspending, entitlements. Relax bro, we cracked the code, got it covered. My phone shook. “We got a bunny Daddy! Mommy said you’d just love it!” shrieked Olivia. “Hershey’s so cute, she loo

“Poker’s a metaphor for life,” explained the gambler. Over drinks/dinner at Bouchon Bistro, Beverly Hills. “A game of math, people-skills, luck.” And this fella played his hand well. Amassing a fortune. Betting on people. Stacking the deck. Filling his hand with Queens. Kings. Aces. “Ok, this guy walking over here photographs more of the world’s most beautiful naked women than anyone in the industry.” And the photogr

Rolled past Santa Barbara’s ancient Mission. Headed north. On the historic Camino Real. Built by Franciscan Monks. To connect their 21 western Missions, spaced one day’s journey apart by horse. Of course today’s drive up the Camino Real takes 21hrs, not 21 days. ’Cause the Real is now Highway 101. Running from LA to Oregon. And standing alongside the 101 are historic bells. Reminding travelers of a distant time. But

“The reason the UK isn’t polar is the Gulf Stream,” he said, on a dreary, drizzling London evening. In mid-March. While any other city at 51.5 degrees latitude was freezing. Frozen. “Imagine if anything were to disrupt that flow.” And a tribe of shivering, kilted Scotsmen, with ice-cold stones, flashed through my mind. “Well, it feels like something’s changing,” said the CIO, one of Britain’s coolest cats, a saber-to

A simple poem sits, framed on my desk. Called the Road Not Taken. It’s a Robert Frost masterpiece. Dad gave it to me back in 1996. A year later I ditched Credit Suisse’s shiny Canary Wharf tower. For a shack in the French Alps. To climb mountains. And knowing how way leads on to way, doubted if I should ever go back. Naturally, I didn’t. Which is not to say that was a great call. Or the most lucrative one. In fact, I

They got no grand entry. No art collections. No mahogany boardroom. No twenty-foot ceilings. They don’t need ’em. ’Cause they got no investors. They just got hundreds of millions of dollars of capital. All their own. Accumulated by trading options, through a tumultuous decade. And they got an army of young kids; Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, MIT. Dressed in baseball caps, frat-house wear, and mathematics di

“Yours,” I yelled, amidst chaos. And the closing bell rang, surprising me. Frightening me. Leaving me short 100 wheat contracts. Which may not sound scary. But in 1990, I was a pit trader. Trading my own money. Which wasn’t much, but was everything. And 100 contracts was 80 too many – to hold overnight anyway. Naturally, news hit the tape that Egypt purchased wheat. So I raced to call my roommate, who assisted

“We held 40% of the outstanding dealer holdings of treasuries one month,” admitted the founder/CIO of one of the world’s biggest hedge funds, in a tone that combined pride, amazement, and concern. “The street is stepping away from making markets, spreads are widening, liquidity’s disappearing.” So he’s hiring flow traders to fill that void. “When rates inevitably go higher there will be no one to buy — 10yr bon