Hope all goes well… “We live in a world without one single truth,” said Yoda, high in the Rockies. “We’re told so many different truths that people struggle to choose which to believe,” continued the S&P 500’s largest market maker. “The process erodes faith, trust, leaving us grasping, swinging from one thing to another.” And he looked out, distant peaks, the snow slowly melting at altitude, a heavy winter yieldi

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2016 about sucking less, playing smart (see below). Back next Sunday with full weekend notes. And Happy Easter. E Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Credit Suisse to take majority stake in its Chinese joint venture (2nd finance company to do so), Putin plans meeting with North Korea’s Kim, Rusal plans 1st US investment since sanctions lifted (buying 40% stake

AFor earth’s first 4,539,800,000 years there was no one. 3,200,000 years ago, Australopithecus stood upright in Ethiopia, took a step, left a footprint, we named her Lucy. 400,000 years ago, Homo Erectus harnessed fire. 200,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens appeared, hunting, gathering, looking upward in wonder. 12,000 years ago, we took to farming, at which point progress accelerated, slowly at first. We invented fabulous

Hope all goes well… “They’re all liars mate,” said my London cabbie. “May was a Remainer. How were we going to get a good deal when our negotiators don’t want to leave?” he asked. I shrugged. “They’ll stall until they can say it’s not what people want no more — happened in every country that ever wanted a referendum or held one,” he said. “The EU paid to move a Land Rover factory from the Midlands to Slovakia w

Hope all goes well… “I think they should drop rates and get rid of quantitative tightening. You would see a rocket ship. Despite that we’re doing very well,” said President Trump from the White House lawn, his helicopter all warmed up, waiting. “I would say in terms of quantitative tightening it should actually now be quantitative easing,” added the President, packing his Fed with hacks like Moore and Cain. On the gr

A“The second term of Barack Obama was the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind,” said Mara, incredulous, reading aloud an email from my mother. I sighed, my Mom, an otherwise loving woman, has taken to forwarding fanaticism. “A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, govern

Hope all goes well… “We strongly caution actors external to the Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations,” warned national security advisor John Bolton as Russian military cargo planes dropped 100 Special Forces and 35 tons of unidentified cargo onto Venezuela. “We will consider such provocative

A“Only optimists start companies,” I answered. The Australian superannuation CEO had asked if I’m an optimist or pessimist. “I see the potential for technological advances to produce abundance in ways difficult to fathom. But I also see the chance of something profoundly dark,” I continued. He observed that people seemed consumed by the latter but spend so little time on the former. “That’s good. Humans are wonderful

Hope all goes well… “The 737 Max 8 can be flown safely without these two gauges,” said the pilot union spokesman, “But there’s a broader margin of safety if you’ve got them.” Boeing charges a little extra for a safety feature that alerts pilots to faulty information from key sensors. Boeing’s CEO weighed the risk/reward, then chose to charge customers for something that should obviously come as standard on every $120

“When we can’t come up with a clear catalyst, that’s when we know whatever arises will (1) be unexpected, and (2) cause a greater reaction,” said the endowment. They were discussing what worried them, why they continued de-risking, exiting short volatility strategies, and adding long volatility. “The inability to point to a catalyst means that the asset class (vol) is cheaper and becoming a better risk/reward opportu