Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from June 2013 about flags, colors, policy, politics. Written during the Taper Tantrum, a time that rhymes with QT (see below). I take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you again in September with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: PBOC cuts 1y MLF rate 10bps (unexp) in response to much

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2021 about finding nobility in great struggles (see below). I take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you again in September with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: US Senate passes $739b climate/healthcare/tax deal – the Inflation Reduction Act – revives Biden’s agenda, China extend

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2014 about a natural law that defies physics (see below). It has been fun to watch Marcel work with Mara on weekend notes for the month of July. We all take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you in September with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Ukraine’s first grain shipment sinc

Anecdote: “One pound of uranium is worth about three million pounds of coal or oil,” James Lovelock shoveled to his audience in support of nuclear. It isn’t a conventional stance for an environmentalist. The interest of innovators is never in convention, but in truth. And the truth can hurt, often ridiculed before accepted. Working with NASA on a Mars mission in 1961, Lovelock was disappointed in his biology colleagu

Hope all goes well…Marcel Kasumovich, our Head of Research, takes the pen on wknd notes, the last one before One River takes our August break from writing. Scientist James Lovelock inspires a theme of innovation and optimism. Overall: “Jay Powell said things that, to be blunt, were analytically indefensible,” former Treasury Secretary Summers lamented. “There is no conceivable way that a 2.5% interest rate, in an eco

Anecdote: “No clubs, no hobbies, no fraternities, no athletics…how do you network?” the head trader asked, miffed. Welcome to Wall Street 1990s – I was not an obvious fit. Driven by curiosity. I had just finished careful study of FX intervention tools as a signal to markets. Really careful. Nuanced tools never worked. Traders demanded bluntness – rate hikes always came next. “So…you see things in FX intervention to p

Hope all goes well…Marcel Kasumovich, our Head of Research, is writing wknd notes this week with a thematic focus on Quantum Change in the monetary system. Today’s system arrived at its ‘equilibrium’ by accident, not design. Won’t last. Can’t last. Pressure builds gradually. We’re all FX traders now. Overall: “There is no ex-ante limit to that [Transmission Protection Instrument] programme,” said ECB President Lagard

Anecdote: “Marcel,” his voice so distinctive, a charming, gentle accent. “It’s the beginning…please…let’s find…as they say…the next weakest link. Okay, bye-bye.” It’s Feb 2007, subprime just tanked. At that point in my career, I had mostly solved solvable problems –it’s a safe way of thinking. He was asking me to think through something with no verifiable solution but a verifiable outcome: The weakest link. New Centu

Hope all goes well…. Just made it back from the Middle Teton with Jackson and his buddies. No better way to spend time with people than to share adventures. Marcel Kasumovich, our Head of Research, is writing wknd notes for the rest of July. Marcel is a truly special human being, one of the top five minds I’ve encountered in all my travels, filled with wonderful market stories, life lessons, and sporting a few scars

Anecdote: “Cognitive psychologists call it recency bias – a built-in mental tendency to exaggerate the significance of recent events and experiences while slighting those further back in time,” Gideon Rose offered in explaining the seemingly invisible fraying of living standards. “The fault lies not in our algorithms but ourselves.” It creeps into all aspects of our lives, our thinking, and most certainly our i