Category

Overall: “You watch Saturday Night Live?” asked the CIO, high atop his prodigious pile. Of course I had. “How about Colbert?” he asked. Yup. “The Daily Show?” Naturally. “Did you make it through the debate or just catch the highlights?” Watched it all. “I’m not the puppet, you’re the puppet!” he shouted, repeatedly, losing his mind. We all are. And attempting to move on, I asked if he’d seen Norway’s $880bln sovereig

Overall: “Extreme economic events have often challenged existing views of how the economy works and exposed shortcomings in the collective knowledge of economists,” said Yellen, searching for excuses, groping, blind. “The Fed is likewise engaged in ongoing research to seek answers,” she explained, announcing a series of questions that her board of economic scientists are exploring to better understand our post-crisis

Overall: “I was inspired by the interlocking forms in Celtic art,” explained Dr. Feringa, the Nobel recipient, a nano-machine pioneer. Scientists created inert molecular rings, but a machine requires moving parts, and he discovered how to build dynamic interlocking rings around a charged copper ion. Fifteen years later, his molecular machine spun 12 million times per second. “I feel a little bit like the Wright broth

Overall: “Tell me, what is happening to America?” he asked, in Johannesburg, our presidential debate broadcast into the highest towers and lowest townships. “Can it be possible that Trump becomes your president?” he asked, perplexed, concerned. For South Africans, US leadership is not reality television, it’s reality. Globalization is America’s greatest export, weaving us all together, and for those on the economic e

Overall: “If I could, I would rewind time by many, many years, so that I could better prepare,” announced Merkel. “Wir schaffen das (we can do it) has become a simple slogan, almost an empty formula that underestimated the scale of the integration challenge,” admitted Angela, her mea culpa lifting the burden of denial, liberating her to act, to lead Europe once again. Her party had just lost its 4th regional election

Overall: “Stimulus fears drag $1trln of bonds back to positive yields,” cried the Financial Times. And he sipped a skinny latte, afraid of whole milk. “The EU is in a critical situation,” warned Merkel, the headline racing through the Twittersphere, embedding itself into the homepage of every website on his iPad. The horror of European disintegration flashed through his mind, which was even scarier than the prospect

Overall: Kaboom! The earth shook. A manmade tremor. The chubby North Korean kid had popped off another plaything. The dark side of mankind’s technological coin. You see if Apple can waterproof an iPhone 7 supercomputer, any paranoid dictator can eventually miniaturize a nuclear weapon; if we allow him. And we have. Naturally, every coin has two sides, and mankind’s eternal tale is shaped by how we react to our tails.

Overall: “The biggest things tend to be done by people who primarily believe in a mission and are not trying to build a company,” said Mark Zuckerberg in Rome, describing common traits of successful entrepreneurs. “They’re done by teams, not by individuals; and by people who just don’t give up,” he continued. A SpaceX rocket exploded. An awe-inspiring fireball. A shockwave whose force rippled outward in direct propor

Week-in-Review (stats in YoY terms): Mon: S&P maintains negative HK outlook, India appoints Urjit Patel central bank governor (inflation hawk), UK economic surprise index 3yr high, Mexico Q2 quarterly GDP contracts 1st time since 2013 (+2.5% yoy), Fed’s Fischer “inflation within hailing distance of 2%,” S&P 500 trailing 12mth PE hits 25.3x (vs post War avg 19.2x), S&P -0.1%; Tue: China FX basket new lows

Week-in-Review (stats in YoY terms): Mon: Japan GDP +0.2% (exp +0.7%) IP -1.5%, 10yr Gilt yield record low 0.50%, US declares Puerto Rico Zika health emergency, US Empire manufacturing survey -4.8 to -4.2%, S&P +0.3%; Tue: Shenzen Connect to be launched by year-end, Yen strengthens past 100, RBA minutes upbeat on economy despite rate cut, India wholesale prices +3.6% (2yr high), Russian stocks hit record, German