trading recap

Overall: “It crossed a lot of lines for me. Many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines,” said Trump, a kaleidoscope of bright colors swirling before him. “The attack on innocent children, beautiful babies, that had a big impact on me – big impact,” he admitted, incensed. “My view toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.” And that’s not the only thing that changed very much. You see, for all the talk o

Overall: “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” declared Trump, signing an executive order, his favorite kind. His only kind. And within no time, nothing happened. Not a single thing. No more coal was mined. No more miners were hired. No more CO2 was emitted. Not a sole CEO approved capital investment in a new coal power plant. Because of course, these kinds of decisions are made with a 50yr time h

Overall: “You cannot spend all the money on drinks and women, then ask for help,” said some Dutch dude with an utterly unpronounceable name, trying on a little Trump, just to see how it feels to call it as you see it. “Dijsselbloem lost a great opportunity to be quiet,” responded Italy’s failed former prime minister Renzi. “Dijsselbloem’s European vision is evident in the union’s policies: a presumed economic, moral

Overall: “The end result was that levels came down and down and down and we’ve seen levels lower now than we have ever seen before,” stammered the scientist, excited like a child, quite obviously not referring to global temperatures, carbon emissions, sea levels, or mass extinctions. Nor was he talking about implied volatility. Though he could’ve been. Because volatility is collapsing, despite so many things happenin

Overall: “Some people blindly invested offshore and were in a rush to do so,” explained China’s central bank chief, justifying his recent capital controls. “Some of this outbound investment was not in line with our own policies and had no real gain for China.” No doubt he’s right. The tycoons fleeing Chinese capital markets have done so selfishly. “So to regulate capital flows, I think it is normal,” concluded the ce

Overall: “Fly me to the moon… OK,” tweeted Elon Musk, an American original, an immigrant. “This should be a really exciting mission that hopefully gets the world really excited about sending people into deep space again,” said Musk, announcing plans to send the world’s first two private citizens on a journey they’ll never forget. Nor will we. Because it’s the breaking of boundaries that propel us forward. Inspi

Overall: “The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first month,” tweeted our president, his latest work of high art. The ability to express concise complexity is a sublime talent. Of course, Hemmingway rises above all others, and wrote a great American novel in 27-characters – “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” But Trump’s

Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Chinese iron ore and copper prices jump 7%, Japan GDP -0.3 to +1.0%, India CPI 3.17% (5yr low), Macron says Russia is hacking his campaign, German wholesale inflation 4.0% (6yr high), OPEC cuts Jan oil output 1.1mm barrels, EIA says US oil production to jump 80k barrels in March, Mnuchin confirmed as Treasury Secretary, S&P +0.5%; Tue: China PPI +6.9% (5yr highs), Chi

Overall: “More than absurd!” cried Jens Weidmann, outraged by Pete Navarro. Trump’s trade advisor had deliberately talked-down the dollar to boost US exports by accusing Germany of deliberately weakening the euro to boost European exports. The argument is quite obviously absurd, because everyone’s trying to engineer a weaker currency. But according to Jens, it’s so absurd as to be more than absurd. Like lifting yours