weekend notes

Hope all goes well… “Hard to pinpoint why this happened,” said Roadrunner, the market’s biggest equity volatility trader. “But this kind of move usually reflects something below the surface.” Poorly designed VIX exchange-traded products are the fall guys. “Could it have simply been too much leverage and complacency? Doubt it.” VIX finished the week at 16.5, back below where it started the morning

Hope all goes well… “My heart goes out to every child who had to walk back into their classrooms today,” said the radio host as I drove my kids to school. “That’s what I’m talking about! I love this station!” cheered Teddy, laughing. “Shut up Teddy, she’s talking about the 17 kids who were shot dead at a school,” said Jackson, shaken, uncharacteristically. The car went quiet. “Who shot them?” aske

Hope all goes well… “March 2009,” whispered Yoda, high in the Rockies. “The market bounced sharply off 666, and minutes before the close rallied 30 points. This is how bear markets end.” The economy was in freefall, 10% unemployment, banks, earnings awful. “Bear markets find valleys. Bull markets find summits.” said Yoda. Gentle white trails swirled off distant peaks, winter’s fierce wind, snow. “

Hope all goes well… “Things had been too easy for too long,” said Roadrunner, the equity market’s biggest volatility trader. “Yet vol has found a bid on each dip for weeks,” he said. “The market saw this coming.” The S&P 500 rallied +7.5% in the first 18 trading days of 2018. Yet implied volatility levels rose. Then stocks fell -3.9% in 5 days. “When stocks dump on a Friday, closing at the low

Hope all goes well… Weekend notes started in 2010, almost by accident. I jotted down things each week that made me think. As it evolved, I pushed harder to discover unique perspectives, interesting questions, occasional answers. From exceptional people. And that led to a series of discoveries. The first of which is that exceptional people are rather similar, in that they have a deep, insatiable, c

Hope all goes well… “Under the political ecology which is built by the factional rivalries, factional interests are prioritized, and it is hard for the gov’t to focus on the management of the national economy and social development,” wrote China’s credit rating agency, downgrading US gov’t debt from A- to BBB+. “The perennial negative impact of the superstructure on the economic base has continued

Hope all goes well… Our Santa Barbara team is safe and sound. Thanks for asking. Chase’s parents survived the mud slides, they were ground zero. Somehow their house didn’t collapse. Everything around it did. Their next-door neighbor and close family friend died. He woke his son in the middle of the night to escape but the house collapsed and they were swept away. Holding on to one another. The son

Hope all goes well… “You know the best thing about Jackson jamming Charlie head-first into a snow pile?” asked Teddy, attempting to lighten conversation. The family dinner table shrugged, Charlie’s Chernobyl-red cheeks evaporated his dwindling tears. They’d been shoveling the driveway in the dark. Which is what happens when I come home to discover our kids spent the snow-day doing every conceivabl

Hope all goes well… “Wow, I got real coal – what did I do wrong this year?” whispered one of my many younger brothers, looking around, laughing, kind of. Our four kiddies noticed but barely cared. A nephew giggled, the room chaotic. Mara and I had hosted yet another family holiday, our home bursting at the seams. And late Christmas Eve with fifteen empty stockings lined up on the hearth, San