Anecdote: “Mao’s Great Leap Forward was intended to rapidly advance industrialization and agriculture output in China,” I said to a few of our investors. We had shifted from discussing near-term opportunities, and I turned to bigger, obscure possibilities. “They estimate 45mm died due to starvation and other causes. The economy collapsed. And I could never understand how such a thing could happen. Mao was surely inte

Hope all goes well… “No one wants to hear about markets anymore this year,” I said to Mara, my wife, editor, critic. “It’s been that sort of year. Exciting, exhausting. And at this point, people are mentally spent, I kind of am too,” I admitted. “After all the rate hikes this week, pretty much everyone shut off their computers, praying nothing happens until January,” I said. “Well then just write that to start your n

Hope all goes well… Cold but clear. We arrived early, for the March On, uncertain which side to support, a family divided. Liv entered the stadium first, lost amidst West Point’s Corp of 4,500 Cadets, in tight formation, company by company, filling the field at Lincoln Financial Stadium. Jackson marched in second, one of the Naval Academy’s Brigade of 4,500 Midshipmen. The game wouldn’t start for hours still. The par

Hope all goes well… Dusted off a Thanksgiving anecdote from 2015 about not overthinking things (see below). See you next Sunday with full weekend notes. E Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Saudi’s deny earlier report of OPEC+ 500k bpd output hike, Beijing records 3 covid deaths over the wknd (first in over 6m) / Shijiazhuang (11m people) increases covid restrictions, Israel CB hikes 50bp (75bp exp), PBOC

Anecdote: Speculative trading is hard. Almost impossible as a career. My undergraduate thesis evaluated the non-linearities of stock market rumors of takeovers. Precise words were identified from the Heard on the Street column – on microfiche. I begged the Center for Research in Security Prices for data. No data, no paper, no degree. I devoured practical finance. And Jessie Livermore’s story sobered me. He made his f

Hope all goes well… Marcel and I were discussing what an utterly extraordinary period in market history we find ourselves in today. That led to a broader discussion on equilibria, and more specifically, how the concept of balance in markets and perhaps in all things is illusory. It was a discussion he had years ago, in his previous life, as the chief strategist for one of the greatest investors of all time. Seemed li

Anecdote: By November 2020, it had become evident that government had adopted policies to accelerate the inflating away of its extraordinary debt and entitlement obligations. We figured the process would take ten years or more. Digital assets represented an unorthodox and highly convex way to play this investment theme. We executed the largest institutional purchase of these assets, inspired and funded by one of our

Hope all goes well… “Keep me posted when anything material pops up,” I told our team, scanning Twitter feeds for developments in the unfolding FTX drama, everything moving fast. “This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 33yrs of doing this,” I said. “It has hints of many crises – Lehman, Enron, Madoff, MF Global – but moving at light speed with no lender of last resort. It’s like banking in the late-1800s.

Anecdote: We ran an internal exercise at One River this week which included exploring our individual strengths and weaknesses. Often the former is also the latter. I’ve always wanted to lead an exceptional life, without ever quite pinning down what that means. In my teens I focused on sports, fighting my way onto the field in college. In my twenties, I took crazy risks, in my career, in markets, on motorcycles. Late

Hope all goes well… “Want to drive down to Philly to watch Jackson on Saturday?” I asked Charlie. “Definitely,” said my little guy, thirteen. Navy was playing UPenn, a scrimmage. “You miss him don’t you. We all do,” I said. “Camp robbed me of my time with him this summer,” said Charlie. “You know that’s about the nicest thing you could say about your big brother?” I asked. “Hey, it’s how I feel.” Overall: “Taking int