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Hope all goes well… 11 tons of gold bullion. 173 Bugatti Chiron’s. 1,785 four-year Harvard degrees. 9,384 years of paper pushing for an average Saudi civil servant. 79,250 years of Egyptian labor. 90,000 years of Iraqi labor. 203,340 years of Yemeni labor. 281,250 years of slavish Pakistani labor. 450,000,000 US dollars. Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud considered these monetary equivalents, each identical in value to 2 s

Hope all goes well… “When the smartest guys say we’re ninth inning,” bellowed Biggie Too in baritone, “we’re 7th inning, maybe 8th.” The S&P 500 finished November +2.8%, its eighth consecutive monthly gain, a refrain last heard in 2007. Year-to-date the index jumped +18.3%, the forward P/E is 19. Bitcoin popped +1,015% in that time. Market volatility faded to 50yr lows. $8trln of bonds carry negative yields. Inte

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from Thanksgiving 2015 (see below). Back next Sunday with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Beijing tightens shadow banking regulations, Japan exports -0.1 to +14% (imports +6.9 to +18.9%), German coalition talks fail (Merkel calls new election), US sues to prevent AT&T/Time Warner merger, S&P +0.1%; Tue: Tencent market cap surpasses F

Hope all goes well… “This market will end not in euphoria,” said the CIO. “It will be a cynical end, with investors publicly expressing their concern about valuations, while carrying maximum risk in their portfolios.” Hedge fund net long positioning just hit 11yr highs, along with so many extended barometers. “The shadow of 2008 still hangs over the industry. No one wants to sound overly optimistic.” Current valuatio

Hope all goes well… “You know the biggest difference between coaching 3rd grade and high school?” asked Head Coach Grant. And our team fidgeted, squirmed, joked. What a football season we’ve had. I think we won one game but it’s hard to say for sure, after so many months of torture your mind starts to play tricks. Charlie really sucked. But he never cared. Nor did I. Way too early to take this seriously. Charlie’s th

Hope all goes well… “There is no one left at a bottom and no one left at a top,” said Yoda, high in the Rockies, autumn fading, peaks dusted. “Value investors bought the S&P 500 down to 800 in 2009, yet it fell to 666.” That last panic leg found the final seller. “The search for the final buyer has begun,” said Yoda, the market’s biggest S&P 500 local, stepping carefully, deliberate, staff in hand. “We’ll fin

Hope all goes well… Abe wins landslide, Nikkei soars to 21yr high. Xi Jinping is named in China’s constitution, cementing his place alongside Mao, equities jump. House Republicans pass $4trln budget resolution, lifting hopes for a $1.5tlrn tax cut/reform. Despite devastating hurricanes, US Q3 GDP expands 3%, S&P 500 hits record high. VIX 9.80. Biggest Nasdaq 100 daily gain in 2yrs. Bezos becomes world’s richest m

Hope all goes well… They sat in silence. One hundred billionaires, surrounded by their 2,200 political peers, all fantastically wealthy. Some still remembered Mao’s Great Leap Forward, when 45mm peasants died of starvation, one misstep in his thousand mile march, 1958-62. Most did not. But they all reflected on their triumph over Soviet Communism. Since its collapse in 1991, Russian real GDP is nearly unchanged, its

Hope all goes well… “What’s the endgame?” bellowed Biggie Too, in baritone. “What’s the final moment?” barked the Chief Global Strategist for one of Wall Street’s too big to fail affairs, letting the verse float like a bubble, warping, distorting, morphing in the autumn air. “It started with liquidity and it’s ending with technology,” hummed Too. “Big money, big tech. Big tech, big money. Uh huh. Uh huh.” The sunligh

Hope all goes well… “My wife is a four-time veteran, she told me to suck it up, an epidural is the least of my problems,” I said to Wesley. “Yeah, she’s got a point sweetheart, you’re not going to be doing a lot of pushing,” said my nurse. “You see all I’m going to do is inject this little bit of something into your drip and all you’re going to do for me is count backwards from thirty to twenty.” In it went. “But I’m