He would have me throw the bones, seated on skins in a quiet yurt. The cup’s contents tumbled across the floor. Tiny bones, hyena, lion, leopard, vulture, a small gold Krugerrand, colorful beads, ivory, crystal, ironwood. The South African had dedicated his journey to studying western medicine and Namibian shamanism; the former a miracle, the latter magical. He combined the two, shared the gift. Shamanism connects us

Hope all goes well… “How many do you think will hatch Daddy?” asked Charlie, buckled in the back seat. He’d discovered a prehistoric snapping turtle laying eggs in our yard. We collected all 27, placed them in an incubator. “Not sure little man, depends on how many were fertilized.” He nodded, processed. “So how exactly do turtles fertilize eggs?” he asked. And seeing an early opportunity to put one of life’s most aw

“I very strongly disagree with you,” he said. I smiled, happy to have smart friends eager to argue. Because being wrong sucks. I’d rather hear it than endure it. But it’s rarely so simple as being right or wrong, because assets are priced based on a consensus view of the future. So you can be right and make no money. Anyhow, since tomorrow often looks like today, which usually resembles yesterday, most people look be

Hope all goes well… Every so often I depart from the usual weekend notes format to share a particularly thought-provoking piece of our internal research. Today’s is titled, “Considerations on Rising Inflation” [click here to view the thought piece]. Lindsay Politi authored it. She spent the first 15yrs of her career building a $10bln TIPS business for Wellington where she was a consistent top quintile performer and w

Hope all goes well… “Dad, you won’t believe what just happened!” cried Charlie, running into the house, finding me writing, in need of an opening paragraph. “Two hawks were fighting in the sky and one dropped a huge frog that landed right at our feet!” Mara and I had kicked them all out of the house. “It had a dislocated shoulder, so we put him in the pond, but then his heart stopped. He was probably scared to death.

Change is magnificent, he thought, along the stream. Walking. Spring had become summer, lush, in what seemed an instant, little by little, then all at once. The barren banks were now covered in green, dense bramble, concealing. Across the world change is taking hold. For the entirety of his career, with few exceptions, the study of markets had been an examination of central bank policy. On the Chicago floor in 1989,

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote about the point of this ride (see below). Back next Sunday with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: China/US announce trade war détente,   Japanese exports +5.7 to +7.8% (imports +6.5 to +5.9%), Iran rejects 12 new US demands for new nuclear treaty, Turkish lira -2% (10yr bonds +35bps to 15.00%), Italy’s Five Star and League propose Giuseppe Con

On he walked. So many charts swirling in his mind, each its own story, all somehow connected, everything is. Major highs and lows are rare moments of wild hope or great fear, vivid, mistaken. He’d lived the 1989 Nikkei high, that euphoria, the hysteria, Japan’s Rockefeller Center purchase. He’d experienced every turn since. While it’s impossible to pick a high or low, the character of each is distinct. In 1989, with

Hope all goes well… “Teddy was talking in his sleep again,” said Charlie, stumbling into the kitchen, eyes bloodshot. “He kept saying, ‘That was such a great idea, I should’ve done it.’” I felt Teddy’s pain, haunted by that same recurring nightmare; the unavoidable consequence of 28yrs trading markets. “But I didn’t want to wake him up even though my mouth was really dry, and figured if I got a drink in the bathroom

Hope all goes well… “It’s no longer the case that the US will simply just protect us. Rather, Europe needs to take its fate into its own hands, that’s the task of the future,” said Chancellor Merkel. “Washington has lost vigor, and because of it, in the long term, influence,” said Jean-Claude Junker. “It is dangerous and devastating that the US is challenging the WTO’s fundamental guiding principles,” said Beij