“People are missing the catalyst,” he said. Rain fell in sheets, lashed the windows. The room shook. Rattled by the incessant cracking of jackhammers, far below, chipping away at Manhattan’s bedrock. Making way for skyscrapers. “A trend started in Jan and Feb, in the place where all bad financial things happen; Japan,” continued the CIO. “One of my traders called early this year to say the damndest thing had just hap

He cracked another cold Bud. Shot-gunned it. Burped. And picked up USA Today. Smearing frackin’ shale grime on its colorful pages. Scanned some boring headlines. China’s gonna be richer than America someday soon, but nearly everyone in China’s still gonna be desperately poor. “Damn Chinese,” he muttered, shaking his head. Thirty of thirty-one Chinese provinces missed growth targets, but national GDP is on track. “Bur

Hope all goes well… “If you have a strong thesis and get a deep pullback,” started the CIO, a fella who has the former and stopped out due to the latter, “you mechanistically put the position back on.” Long growth and short emerging markets has suffered the kind of swift trend reversal seen every 5-10 yrs. “But only once market positioning gets cleaned up.” Which is closer to done, than just begun. “Markets periodica

“No Asian nation ever successfully transitioned from a mercantilist to a consumption-based model,” said the CIO. “Part of the problem is cultural, part is age; their societies grow old so fast.” But China’s not just any Asian nation. Earth’s 2nd biggest economy grows quicker, compounds faster, consumes more oil, coal, steel, food and water than any nation. China’s 1.36bln citizens breathe 19% of the air that enters h

“We don’t have a magic wand,” bellowed Vitor Constancio, with a theatrical twirl of his cape. “Otherwise all countries would be rich, because monetary policy would cure everything,” continued the ECB’s Portuguese Vice President, vanishing in a puff of smoke. And denied QE’s intoxicating illusion, the crowd of spoiled, drunken traders erupted. Throwing beer bottles, tipping tables. The nervous emcee grabbed a micropho

“City Hall looks odd, no?” grunted the Russian commando to some other thug. You see, he and his closest comrades, poorly disguised as freedom-fighting locals, stormed the Kharkiv opera house, mistaking it for City Hall. They’re not the only ones confused. “New Russia – Kharkiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, Odessa – were not part of Ukraine in czarist times, they were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows,” exclaimed P

“Shhh…Be vewy, vewy quiet…I’m hunting wabbits,” whispered Elmer Fudd, as Bugs strode up behind the hapless hunter, munching a carrot, “What’s up Doc?” I’ve often felt like Fudd. Then there’s Wile E. Coyote. Building elaborate ACME traps. Heavens knows how often my best-laid plans rewarded me with horrid gunpowder burns. Left me wide-eyed, hair standing on end, smoldering, staggering. Naturally it’s not always disaste

Hope all goes well… “The US is self going now,” he said, scanning the globe, from the soaring heights of a Scandinavian monetary mountain. “They’ll raise rates farther and faster than markets price.” To prevent bubbles. “They’re really behind the curve now, historically speaking.” They’re printing $55bln/mth. Real overnight rates remain -1.5%. US gov’t bond real yields are negative out to 4yrs. “The Fed has changed,

Hope all goes well… “I’ll probably regret saying this because it can always get worse,” started the macro CIO, one of the very few who’s made money this year. “I’m fully expecting to walk in Monday and wish I hadn’t done it,” he continued. “Truth is there’s only one reason I did,” he admitted. “I did it because I couldn’t possibly feel worse about this position.” You see, he watched Japan’s biggest 1wk stock plunge s

“What is Dollar/Yen?” asked the renowned macro investor, using that exchange rate as a metaphor for the abstract instruments he trades. “It is nothing, that’s what it is,” he said, answering his own question, smiling, aware of the irony that by trading ‘nothing’ he built a fortune. Unlike a company, Dollar/Yen neither produces a product, nor a pays a dividend. You can create it from thin air. There’s no practical lim