Hope all goes well… “Tens of thousands of sailors and Marines are deployed forward at the tip of the spear and will be celebrating Thanksgiving to the best of their abilities with their shipmates, their fellow Marines,” said Vice Admiral Sean Buck via video feed, announcing a complete US Naval Academy lockdown, no home leave for his young men and women. Mara and I sighed, Jackson’s siblings too. “They do it well, wit

It was a decade of great change. Some blamed its start on the pandemic, which of course was a catalyst. But more than that, the virus was a mirror. In another time and place, perhaps we would’ve seen the same image; a common people under siege, setting aside differences, rising to a noble calling. But in 2020, we each saw what we wanted to see, heard what we wanted to hear, believed what we wanted to believe. It beca

Hope all goes well… “Cases doubled since this time last week,” texted Doc, Saturday evening. Over recent months, cases slowly tripled from a low base. Then they doubled in a week. This past week they doubled yet again. “It’s crazy. But things remain under control here right now, fewer are on ventilators than last time,” said Doc, one of America’s most prominent respiratory disease experts, fighting a noble battle. “I

Wore the same ugly tie for every employment report in the 1990s. It gave me an edge, tilting luck in my favor. Dampening the nervous energy, butterflies, fluttering. Certain numbers I liked more than others. In time, I fell for 13. Made it all mine, unloved, lonely, my type. Rented a flat in Fulham, Number 13. But in time, all that faded. I think those lucky charms helped me transition to a life of accepting uncertai

Hope all goes well… I bought Biden at a 62% probability, which was oddly cheap to Nate Silver and Elliott Morris’s probabilities. I sold Trump’s odds of winning the popular vote at 20%. That should’ve been nearly 0% given the 2016 election. I bought a Dem House/Senate clean sweep at a 57% probability. And sold a Rep House/Senate sweep at 17% which should’ve been ~0%. On Nov 4th, I was surprised Biden/Trump was so clo

Ten years from today, what will market historians write about the present time? After decades of white whale hunting, you come to discover that this is amongst the most important questions. In 2012, they wrote that Gordon Brown sold half of the UK government’s gold between 1999-2002 at 20yr lows, around $300/ounce. The world had lost its mind, wildly overvaluing intangibles, shunning hard assets. No sooner had Brown

Hope all goes well… “You know they have catacombs beneath Paris, filled with six million dead Persians?” asked Charlie between zoom classes, both of us working at the kitchen table, humanity’s latest pandemic resurgent. “You mean Parisians little man – Persians usually die in Persia,” I said. “Hmmm,” he whispered, fact checking me on his laptop. “Well, did you know they celebrate death in Mexico?” he asked. “Da

“Look at any technology industry and you’ll observe compounding market power,” said Big Foot. “Lots of people don’t believe this phenomenon applies to asset management, but I don’t understand why it would not,” continued the CEO of one of the industry’s largest investment firms. “Your first job is to invest in research to develop your alphas. Those produce profit and don’t just go away, even if over time they may dec

Hope all goes well… Nine days until the election. Nate Silver gives Trump a 13% chance of winning. The Economist’s Elliott Morris gives him closer to 10%. They both note that polling improvements since 2016 make a surprise less likely. And while there were 13% undecided voters then, there are 6% now. But there could be 154mm voters (144mm-165mm estimated range) today versus 137mm then. And there are rising risks of v

“China is now fully engaged in a financial war with the United States,” said the CIO from Asia. “And this view rises all the way to the top of the power structure in Beijing,” continued one of the region’s leading investors. “Whatever can attract foreign capital to China is seen by Beijing as being in the national interest,” he said. “So if it is in the national interest for a leading Chinese technology company to fa