weekend notes

“Sneak out and get candles for your brother’s birthday cake,” my mother whispered, I was ten, summer of 1977. The NYC blackout was in its 2nd day. Three successive lightning strikes on various substations caused catastrophic grid failure. When the lights shut off, my mother immediately filled our apartment’s bathtub. Survivor instincts. “That should hold us over for some time,” she said reassuring

A“The S&P 500 this week has had two of the largest single-day losses of the twenty worst days in its ninety-four-year history,” wrote the CIO to his investors late Thursday night, his investment and operations team working round the clock, exhilarated, exhausted. “I expect that the Fed has no choice but to act aggressively. They started today with a re-introduction of QE (though they didn’t ca

Hope all goes well… “Read this article, think hard about it, and afterwards we’ll have a family discussion,” I said Saturday, texting the link: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca. “Visualize yourself in a leadership position, and tell me how you’d answer the following questions: What are America’s objectives in combating this pandemic? What are the

Anecdote: With each passing year of this crazy game, he placed less weight on the value of price action, he thought, reflecting, walking, wandering. He recalled, as a young trader, how lower stock prices following a strong employment report turned him bearish. He loved to buy markets that rallied for no reason. And sold things that fell suddenly. The faster the better. The less things made sense,

Hope all goes well… If Apple and other cash rich employers tell employees to work from home and not travel lest they get sick and some die, what shall other less prosperous companies do? If those other companies insist employees come to work and some get sick and die, won’t those companies get sued now that Apple set this standard? If the answer is yes, then how many companies will send employees

Where might this lead? he thought, the stars bright. He’d always loved walking at night, shadows, noises that heighten the senses, turning the everyday ordinary into something extraordinary. But mostly, he loved the heavens. And marveled at how the setting sun unveiled the infinite. This new virus seemed sure to sweep the globe, as such things periodically do. In his discussions with scientists, s

“Deglobalization is the most powerful theme in the world,” said the investor. “It will reshape politics, economics and markets in profound ways.” The process has only just begun. “Everyone built global supply chains to produce goods for the US consumer.” In making those capital commitments, they assumed the geopolitical landscape and international trade relations in coming decades will remain unch

Hope all goes well… The ritual began. A retelling of the day’s worst wipe-outs. We had a foot of fresh powder, which for a family accustomed to New Hampshire blue ice, takes some getting used to. Of course, every White Mountain gift comes at a cost, and today’s bill amounted to 25-40mph winds and negative 4-degrees Fahrenheit. Olivia had some hilarious face plants. Teddy had a full yard sale, skis

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2016 (see below). A discussion with an extraordinary human being, on the long fight for freedom. See you next Sunday with full weekend notes. Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: China CPI +0.9 to +5.4% (PPI +0.6 to +0.1%), Turkey imposes new controls on currency speculation, Italian industrial production -4.3%, Merkel’s protégé Annegret Kra