weekend notes

Hope all goes well. Busy wk, lots of visitors and jumpy mkts. Been fortunate to have low risk, gives us ammo to re-load as mkts puke. You never buy the low, or sell the high so getting in tends to hurt a bit. Overall: German Fin Min Schaeuble spoke plainly, “America’s growth model is stuck in a deep crisis, has lived beyond its means for too long, its financial sector is disproportionately inflate

Hope all goes well. What a fascinating week. Spent it here in CA watching mkts obsess over elections, printing presses and employment reports. Overall: Global power continues to shift. Dilma Rousseff, former Marxist guerilla and now Brazil’s first female President, spoke with Obama and discussed US unemployment. She called to end “Currency Wars”, pledged fiscal conservatism – S&P/Fitch w

Hope all goes well. Spent an interesting few days in London. Uncertainty about the direction of mkts and the world economy persists. Flows in our industry are warming up. Overall: The G20 called for a truce in FX mkts and offensive operations ceased. The generals surveyed the field, stocked up on supplies: bought insurance (VIX +13%); food (corn +4%); and Gold (+2.5%). Stocks & Dollars were qu

Hope all goes well. Mkts continue to adjust to too many cooks in the FX kitchen. Heading into this weekend, knives were flying and it got pretty messy. We got cut up on some Renminbi and Brazil longs, Euro shorts hurt too – took some of our bigger risks off on Fri – G20 is a wildcard. Overall: There’s a war in progress. The world needs a grown-up in the sandbox or kids are gonna get hu

Hope all goes well. Had a great trip to NY, met loads of fascinating folks. Most everyone thinks QE is driving the equity rally and don’t want to buy – ‘cause they think it’s a bad reason to own stocks. But up goes the S&P, all alone, with many sad faces waving goodbye. Speculative USD shorts hit all-time highs, but the sell-off stalled on Fri. Overall: The Chilean miners emerged from th

Hope all goes well. Foreign Exchange is the world’s chess board; and now everyone’s joined the tournament. With any luck, the novice players will make it easier for old dogs like us to win trophies. Overall: Global politicians debated the precise meaning of “currency war”; took me back to Clinton’s “what exactly is the definition of is” days. Meanwhile, in the voting booth, traders pulled the “Sel

Hope all goes well. Just finished an insane 2 wk tour of NY/Switz, met great folks and had fun but there’s no place like home. The Swiss are more concerned about the world than New Yorker’s, but their economy’s humming and FoF industry stabilizing. Overall: Brazil’s Fin Min Mantega started the wk by stating the obvious, warning of an emerging “currency war” on Mon. Geithner ended the wk, embarrass

Hope all goes well. No place buzzes like money-making Manhattan, I got pretty high. Things are picking up, you can feel it; maybe not in the real economy, but certainly in the paper economy. Met lots of bears with bulging eyeballs, squeezing does that. Guys don’t seem long yet. Overall: The mkt jumped and dollar dumped Mon in anticipation of Bernanke restarting his printing press. Free money is su

Hope all goes well. Great wk; saw my family, made some money, added some risk. Looked for clever option structures to be short the US dollar. Found a bunch. Lucked out and took some Euro/Yen shorts off before the Bank of Japan intervention. Off to NY next wk and then Switzerland the wk after; thank god we manage risk better than my schedule. Overall: StrongChinese data printed, IMF judges said the