weekend notes

Hope all goes well… “Tough day little man?” I asked Charlie, kicking off family dinner. He looked at me, puzzled. “Your hair’s turned grey, seems premature, you’re six.” The table erupted. Jackson, Olivia, unable to contain their laughter. Teddy pounded the table, howling. Mara and I looked at one another, confused. And there sat Charlie, quiet, a sly smile. “Ok Teddy, so what happened today

Hope all goes well… “The market is not positioned for a big move to the upside,” said Roadrunner, the industry’s biggest equity vol trader. “We’ve seen massive volume in options, someone’s selling skew, distorting volatility in way you almost never see.” The consequence is option traders are heavily short futures. On weakness they buy. On a strong rally, they’ll scramble to cover. “If volatility p

Hope all goes well… “Jackson’s so dumb, he threw a rock at the ground and missed,” taunted Teddy. “Teddy’s so stupid, he put a ruler next to his bed to see how long he slept,” countered Jackson. “You’re both so ugly that when you entered an ugly contest, they said, no professionals allowed,” chortled Charlie, wiggling in. I turned our Suburban’s radio up. “Yo Mama is so done with you boys that whe

Hope all goes well… “I am the king of debt. I do love debt. I love debt and I love playing with it,” stammered The Donald, lips pursed, sitting in his sandbox, now nearer than ever to toying with mankind’s most prodigious pile of the stuff. “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal,” he cried, knowing all too well that if you owe someone $1bln it’s your problem, b

Hope all goes well… “Amazon and Facebook are two of the top GDP destroyers,” said Lithium, hands-free on Highway 1. “They’re run by brilliant guys, obsessed with innovation, creative destruction.” Their earnings were great; frightening for competitors. “Apple was a GDP destroyer, but no longer, they’re too large, they’ve saturated the market.” Apple’s performance sucked tailpipe. “Think deeply abo

Hope all goes well… “On Thursday this bull market will become the 2nd longest in American history,” bellowed Biggie Too. “2,607 days old,” barked Biggie, not missing a beat. “Gonna surpass the 1949-1956 raging run. The 1990-2000 bubble was the longest.” From 2009 to the end of QE in Oct 2014, a 50/35/10/5 weighted portfolio of equities, bonds, commodities and cash returned 98%. But since then it’s

Hope all goes well… “In the act of taking risk, it’s a rare thing to initiate a trade and make money right away,” said Simplicity. “You almost always face challenges, hurdles, things that force you to question yourself,” he continued, walking Occam’s razor. “If you then discover you took risk to avoid missing out on a move, or because it seemed like it just made some sense, you’ll be shaken out an

Hope all goes well… “You know what I’m going to bring with me when I die?” whispered Charlie, curling up in my lap, our tears rolling. I stroked his hair. “I’m going to bring a leash.” I’d put down our beloved Wolfie, loyal retriever, our family’s best friend for nine golden years. Cancer. A sudden diagnosis. An unexpected farewell. All in the space of a single devastating Thursday. “So when I see

Hope all goes well… “You can buy as much insurance as you want in every asset class,” said Roadrunner, pecking at a pile. “In a few weeks, we’ve swung from the end of the world to the end of volatility.” Markets overshoot on the downside and upside, vol is no exception. “They’re getting over confident, they’re recklessly selling volatility.” The market’s biggest vol trader glanced left, right, ove