Week-in-Review: Mon: China manufacturing PMI 50 (exp 51.0), China new export orders 47.9 (down from 48.2 in June – lowest since June 2013), Korea exports -3.3% yoy (exp -6.8%), EU manufacturing PMI 52.4 (exp 52.2), Greece manu PMI 30.2 (previous 46.9, largest fall on record), UK manu PMI 51.9 (exp 51.5), Swiss manu PMI 48.7 (exp 50.5), US personal income +0.4% (exp +0.3%), personal spending +0.2% (exp +0.2%), ISM man

“Should have seen it coming, but we’re scientists,” he said. “The first study estimated America faced a 70 gigawatt deficit by 2030 to meet new commercial real-estate needs.” Seven years later they estimated a 30 gigawatt surplus – a 100 gigawatt swing. “Landlords are earth’s cheapest people and have long time horizons. They’re introducing energy-saving efficiencies in old buildings faster than they build new o

Overall: Mullah Omar died, blind to his abomination. An astronomer saw an aurora, one million times brighter than our northern lights, on a brown dwarf 18 light years away. India hanged the 1993 Mumbai bomber, his neck snapped. Facebook announced plans to bring internet connectivity to remote corners of the world using solar-powered drones, transmitting data using lasers that can hit a dime 11-miles below. One of fiv

Hope all goes well… “I meant to do that,” said Osama bin Charlie, blushing, picking himself up off the ground. His bike lay there, tire spinning. Knee red, skinned. Determined not to cry, he lifted it, proud. In a flash, I recalled a day a 40yrs ago, a bike wreck, and the pride of picking myself up. First of my many falls. “Of course you meant to, little man.” And on we rode, the two of us. Overall: Mullah Omar died,

Week-in-Review: Mon: China property prices extend rebound (70-city price index +0.3% m/m), Gold gaps through recent lows, RBNZ Keys acknowledges the speed of NZD fall, Athens repays E6.8bln to creditors, Greek banks reopen with E240/week withdraw limit, Hollande calls for creation of an EU gov’t, German PPI -1.4% yoy, EU May current account +E18bln (prev +E22.3bln), S&P +0.1%; Tue: China FDI +0.7% (exp +5%), BOJ

Hope all goes well… “We failed at the highs and volatility barely budged,” said Yoda, high in the Rockies. “There were no outside forces pushing prices, just US earnings,” continued the largest S&P 500 local, winding his way upward, through fields of granite boulders, each the product of an ancient little crack. “The market fell even with Google and Amazon surging to historic highs.” And Yoda sat in the shadow of

“Remember how California got it, but New York didn’t?” asked my favorite futurist, hands-free on Highway 1. “That in itself was reason to invest.” 500% ago, when people viewed autonomous autos as outlandish, he piled into Tesla. “People now accept Elon’s vision as almost inevitable.” But the future will not simply be dominated by solar-powered, self-driving Teslas, ordered on iPhones, navigated by Uber, on Google Map

He sat in his cell. Quietly. Reading El Universal, scanning headlines, checking stock quotes. The Greeks had attempted escape. But were recaptured by German guards; to be expected. You see, if there’s one thing El Chapo learned in his sixty ruthless years, it’s that the most frightening sound is silence. With so much European screaming, there was relatively little to fear. Loudest amongst the crowd had been Varoufaki

Hope all goes well… “When I run massive positions, at best I feel apprehensive, but I usually feel like crap,” he admitted, lightening up enormous European longs. “I don’t know what I would’ve done on Sunday if markets had been open.” Last weekend was the most politically volatile in recent memory. “Having them closed probably saved me from myself,” he admitted, knowing stocks would’ve tanked on the break-up of the E

“Netscape and all the internet stuff went crazy between 1996 and 1998,” said the CIO. “But extrapolating those trends ad infinitum was insanity and ended with Pets.com.” Investors look for patterns, when they find one they apply it to everything. The process is reflexive; as a pattern repeats, it becomes more widely recognized, thus driving new investment flows to profit from it, which amplifies the trend, and reinfo