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Hope all goes well… “This is the anaconda trade,” said Bulldog, panting, eyes bulging. The Trump trade caught most everyone off-sides. The only question is how to get back on track. Of course, you can go with these new trends, haunted by the risk of reversal. You can hold tight, praying that the world has not changed, despite all evidence to the contrary. Or you can try and trade your way out of it. “Every little mov

Hope all goes well… “It’s like Kuroda replacing Shirakawa at the Bank of Japan,” he said. “Or Draghi replacing Trichet at the European Central Bank,” he continued. “It’s that kind of philosophical shift, but on a far larger scale.” Kuroda stemmed Japan’s multi-decade deflation, and Draghi saved the EU from economic collapse. But America’s $18trln economy is growing near potential at 1.6%, just 4.9% of workers remain

Hope all goes well… “Markets are most dangerous when they’re extremely overbought and oversold,” said Yoda high in the Rockies, the jagged landscape freshly dusted. “The most probable risk is always a sharp reversal,” he said, looking far into the distance, back in time, so many patterns. “That’s why it’s this outcome that they experience most often – it’s this risk they most fear.” Yoda paused, the decades swi

Hope all goes well… “Absent Trump winning, nothing changes,” said the CIO. “But if he does, everything could.” Weinergate hit the tapes late Friday. Yet another Dickileaks scandal, and this one with just 11 days to go. “As an immigrant here in America, I don’t want to see the kind of change he represents, but as a guy running a macro fund, I kind of do,” he admitted, pounding the Mexican peso like a piñata. “I reckon

Hope all goes well… “You do know that in 2012, Obama won Florida by just 74k voters?” asked the political analyst. I didn’t. “There were still 725k eligible Latinos who didn’t vote,” he said. “And did you know that there were 2.5mm eligible white voters in Florida without a college education?” Didn’t know that either. That’s a lot of votes in a state where Obama received 4.237mm votes to Romney’s 4.163mm. It’s an awf

Hope all goes well… Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize winner, artist, mirror. Ballad of a Thin Man: You walk into the room, With your pencil in your hand. You see somebody naked, And you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard, But you don’t understand. Just what you’ll say, When you get home. Because something is happening here, But you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones? You raise up your head, And you ask, “Is

Hope all goes well… “They can do anything these days,” said Charlie, seven. “Can they take your eyeballs out and replace them with robot eyes that see a million times better?” asked Teddy, eleven, hopeful. “They can turn a boy into a girl,” said Olivia, thirteen. “But they haven’t figured out how to turn a girl into a boy yet,” countered Teddy. “I have two transgender kids in my class, they’re brother and sister,” sa

Hope all goes well… “You’re an American so you’ve read Atlas Shrugged,” said the investor. We sat looking out across Johannesburg, fragrant, hazy. “When you read that book you can’t imagine such things could really occur,” he continued. “You think they’re exaggerated stories, told to make a point. But when I pick up the papers and read today’s stories, they’re taken straight from Atlas Shrugged.” Mo

Hope all goes well… “I’m a clever money maker, always have been,” said the CIO. “My father taught me well,” he continued. “And if you forced me to put my own money to work, there’d be only a few things to do.” Small idiosyncratic opportunities. “You couldn’t pay me to give my money to an equity manger.” Nor a credit manager. “No single sector gets me excited. There’s no major asset class that I would invest in.” And

Hope all goes well… “You must fade any meaningful rise in real interest rates,” said the CIO. “While dodging those moments when either politics or philosophy interrupt this trend.” German politicians punished the PIIGS for being profligate. But when soaring real rates threatened the union, they agreed to do whatever it takes. The Fed is hiking to provide room to cut, it’s a bizarre, flawed philosophical construct. “I