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Hope all goes well… We laid to rest Ryan and Daisy McRandal’s beatific son Julian Lucas McRandal yesterday. Ryan is my great friend, partner and Deputy CIO. His son, Julian, was nine-years-old and fought a battle with brain cancer, forever inspiring us with his courage and spirit. The day was at once profoundly sad and magnificent. Ryan and Daisy wanted to share an anecdote from the ceremony (see below). Julian’s obi

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from June 2013 about training to win. I take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you again on September 11th with full weekend notes. E Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: China cuts 1y Loan Prime Rate 0.05% and 5y LPR 0.15%, China plans $29b in special loans to struggling developers, German year ahead power s

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from June 2013 about flags, colors, policy, politics. Written during the Taper Tantrum, a time that rhymes with QT (see below). I take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you again in September with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: PBOC cuts 1y MLF rate 10bps (unexp) in response to much

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2021 about finding nobility in great struggles (see below). I take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you again in September with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: US Senate passes $739b climate/healthcare/tax deal – the Inflation Reduction Act – revives Biden’s agenda, China extend

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2014 about a natural law that defies physics (see below). It has been fun to watch Marcel work with Mara on weekend notes for the month of July. We all take August off from writing to recharge, read, roam. Hoping the same for you and your crew. See you in September with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Ukraine’s first grain shipment sinc

Anecdote: “One pound of uranium is worth about three million pounds of coal or oil,” James Lovelock shoveled to his audience in support of nuclear. It isn’t a conventional stance for an environmentalist. The interest of innovators is never in convention, but in truth. And the truth can hurt, often ridiculed before accepted. Working with NASA on a Mars mission in 1961, Lovelock was disappointed in his biology colleagu

Hope all goes well…Marcel Kasumovich, our Head of Research, takes the pen on wknd notes, the last one before One River takes our August break from writing. Scientist James Lovelock inspires a theme of innovation and optimism. Overall: “Jay Powell said things that, to be blunt, were analytically indefensible,” former Treasury Secretary Summers lamented. “There is no conceivable way that a 2.5% interest rate, in an eco

Hope all goes well…Marcel Kasumovich, our Head of Research, is writing wknd notes this week with a thematic focus on Quantum Change in the monetary system. Today’s system arrived at its ‘equilibrium’ by accident, not design. Won’t last. Can’t last. Pressure builds gradually. We’re all FX traders now. Overall: “There is no ex-ante limit to that [Transmission Protection Instrument] programme,” said ECB President Lagard

Anecdote: “No clubs, no hobbies, no fraternities, no athletics…how do you network?” the head trader asked, miffed. Welcome to Wall Street 1990s – I was not an obvious fit. Driven by curiosity. I had just finished careful study of FX intervention tools as a signal to markets. Really careful. Nuanced tools never worked. Traders demanded bluntness – rate hikes always came next. “So…you see things in FX intervention to p

Anecdote: “Marcel,” his voice so distinctive, a charming, gentle accent. “It’s the beginning…please…let’s find…as they say…the next weakest link. Okay, bye-bye.” It’s Feb 2007, subprime just tanked. At that point in my career, I had mostly solved solvable problems –it’s a safe way of thinking. He was asking me to think through something with no verifiable solution but a verifiable outcome: The weakest link. New Centu