weekend notes

Hope all goes well… Marcel and I were discussing what an utterly extraordinary period in market history we find ourselves in today. That led to a broader discussion on equilibria, and more specifically, how the concept of balance in markets and perhaps in all things is illusory. It was a discussion he had years ago, in his previous life, as the chief strategist for one of the greatest investors of

Anecdote: By November 2020, it had become evident that government had adopted policies to accelerate the inflating away of its extraordinary debt and entitlement obligations. We figured the process would take ten years or more. Digital assets represented an unorthodox and highly convex way to play this investment theme. We executed the largest institutional purchase of these assets, inspired and f

Hope all goes well… “Keep me posted when anything material pops up,” I told our team, scanning Twitter feeds for developments in the unfolding FTX drama, everything moving fast. “This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 33yrs of doing this,” I said. “It has hints of many crises – Lehman, Enron, Madoff, MF Global – but moving at light speed with no lender of last resort. It’s like bankin

Anecdote: We ran an internal exercise at One River this week which included exploring our individual strengths and weaknesses. Often the former is also the latter. I’ve always wanted to lead an exceptional life, without ever quite pinning down what that means. In my teens I focused on sports, fighting my way onto the field in college. In my twenties, I took crazy risks, in my career, in markets, o

Hope all goes well… “Want to drive down to Philly to watch Jackson on Saturday?” I asked Charlie. “Definitely,” said my little guy, thirteen. Navy was playing UPenn, a scrimmage. “You miss him don’t you. We all do,” I said. “Camp robbed me of my time with him this summer,” said Charlie. “You know that’s about the nicest thing you could say about your big brother?” I asked. “Hey, it’s how I feel.”

When hunting for opportunities, look for things that make little sense. Pull on those threads, see where they lead. Europe grew utterly dependent on Russia for energy. America grew strategically dependent on Taiwan for semiconductors. Each is grossly negligent and should never have happened. But they did. Which makes no sense on the surface and can’t be solely attributed to corruption. These thing

Hope all goes well… “Limited beauty sleep, and lord knows I need it,” typed Marcel, Deputy CIO of our digital business, on the internal markets chat, sharing his analysis of the nature of the economic downturn now approaching. It was 3:11 AM his time and I was 5hrs ahead, prepping for the Goldman Apex Symposium. “But I feel strongly prepared for today’s discussion,” he added, grinding, ahead of an

Anecdote: Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Six rings of white smoke raced from the cannon muzzles, billowing out across the water. The Black Knights had just marched into the endzone, and Army’s artillery squad marks each point scored with a shot. I had left the stadium after the first quarter and sat near three cannons, to write this piece, my weekly meditation. Some people concentrate best in

Hope all goes well… “You a fast runner Peters?” asked Liv’s Company Commander, the stadium loud, alive, paratroopers descending, hitting the 50-yard line in quick succession. “I’m a swimmer sir,” answered Liv, a crystal blue autumn day, leaves turning, helicopters circling. “Well, this is going to be funny then,” said the First Sergeant, handing her a long pole, a large American flag. “You’re runn