weekend notes

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an Jan 2011 anecdote I was thinking about when Bloomberg broke the story this week about our launch of One River Digital Asset Management (see below). I’ll be spending December writing a longer piece on something disruptive, emerging, important. Something digital. All the best, E Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: US begins administering Pfizer’s vaccine,

Hope all goes well… “Dad, Dad, Dad, come now!!!!” screamed Charlie, racing into my office Saturday night. I closed my laptop, took off the headphones, music cranking, thinking, working. All sorts of commotion filled the house, we ran downstairs. Jackson had surprised us, returning unannounced, managing to come home directly from the Army/Navy football game. His first-time back since July 1st. Mara

Hope all goes well… Dusted off a Jan 2018 anecdote about the reflexivity in volatility markets (see below). It’s something I think about when tracking cycle phases. Of course, the cycle that started in early 2020 is unique relative to anything seen for decades. The unprecedented policy response to the pandemic has forced investors to now build portfolios of risk assets without being able to rely o

Hope all goes well… Dusted off a Jan 2018 anecdote about crowds and counterintuition (see below). It’s something I think about during booms, to maintain balance, mental preparedness. Time to start thinking in ways we haven’t. 2020 changed the world. The coming ten years will be profoundly different from the past decade. It’s hard to imagine a more exciting environment for the game we all play R

“A night sky, dancing with stars,” said Charlie in the kitchen, reciting his latest poetic creation. He’s produced a few at this point, online learning assignments. Mara flagged the first one, surprised by what he’d written, and ever since, I tuned in. She and I love words, their endless combinations. If well engineered, the most wonderful ideas and images form, blend, bend, magic. “A river, full

Hope all goes well… “Tens of thousands of sailors and Marines are deployed forward at the tip of the spear and will be celebrating Thanksgiving to the best of their abilities with their shipmates, their fellow Marines,” said Vice Admiral Sean Buck via video feed, announcing a complete US Naval Academy lockdown, no home leave for his young men and women. Mara and I sighed, Jackson’s siblings too. “

It was a decade of great change. Some blamed its start on the pandemic, which of course was a catalyst. But more than that, the virus was a mirror. In another time and place, perhaps we would’ve seen the same image; a common people under siege, setting aside differences, rising to a noble calling. But in 2020, we each saw what we wanted to see, heard what we wanted to hear, believed what we wanted

Hope all goes well… “Cases doubled since this time last week,” texted Doc, Saturday evening. Over recent months, cases slowly tripled from a low base. Then they doubled in a week. This past week they doubled yet again. “It’s crazy. But things remain under control here right now, fewer are on ventilators than last time,” said Doc, one of America’s most prominent respiratory disease experts, fightin

Wore the same ugly tie for every employment report in the 1990s. It gave me an edge, tilting luck in my favor. Dampening the nervous energy, butterflies, fluttering. Certain numbers I liked more than others. In time, I fell for 13. Made it all mine, unloved, lonely, my type. Rented a flat in Fulham, Number 13. But in time, all that faded. I think those lucky charms helped me transition to a life o