weekend notes

Hope all goes well… “Thursday was the first sort of day,” said Roadrunner, the mkt’s top volatility trader. “We came in long a ton.” And sold here and there, as traders rushed to cover shorts. “It was the first time in ages when the scramble for vol spread across asset classes; stocks, bonds, oil.” There’s geopolitical conflict everywhere. Ukraine. South China Sea. Middle East. Africa. And oddly e

Hope all goes well… “Oh yeah, we’ll look great in a family pic,” said Teddy, tired of being teased, having impulsively cut his own hair with kitchen scissors. “Olivia with her black eye, Jackson with his snaggletooth, and Charlie with his ugly face,” he continued, cracking himself up. Jackson hid his broken front tooth (lacrosse injury). Olivia blushed. But Osama bin Charlie declared jihad,

Hope all goes well… “Good news is still good,” said Yoda, high on grappa. “And bad is still good,” continued the S&P mkt’s biggest local, sailing the Amalfi coast. “Open at 1971, trade to 67, close at 78; that is good.” The cry of boat hands tacked in the distance. “Open 71, trade to 78, close at 50; that is bad.” Our historic rally’s been built by the former, and is absent the latter. “This i

Hope all goes well… “I can’t find anything; Argentina 2038 bonds were trading in the 30’s and 40’s,” said the investor. “But now they’re close to 50,” he said. “Guess there’s some carry left in Venezuela,” he said, more to himself than to me. “And Ivory Coast’s defaulted bonds yield 6%.” We both laughed. Simultaneously seeing that he’d found something after all. ‘Cause when you realize the only th

Hope all goes well… Pushed open the Ministry’s heavy doors. The magnificent building a monument to Argentina’s prosperous past. Behind the shoddy front desk sat seven young women, chatting leisurely. To my right stood two guards, to my left another. I presented my passport, exchanged pleasantries, confirming their English was superior to my Spanglish. And with no other visitors in the grand lobby,

Hope all goes well… Enroute from Argy. Snuck in all sorts of meetings before they shut the joint down for World Cup. Back next Sunday with full weekend notes. In the meantime, dusted off a futbol anecdote from early last year (see below). Week-in-Review: Mon: China trade +7.0% (+6.6 exp), Japan Q1 GDP +6.7% qoq (Q2 exp -4.0%), Japan Apr C/A surplus Y187bln (3rd mthly surplus), S&P +0.1%; Tue:

Hope all goes well… “Hard to find cheap stocks for the wrong reasons,” admitted the global strategy head for some too-big-to-fail bank, far from home. “But there’s something wrong in a system where money needs to be free,” he said – I think. You see, yet another LaFerrari had just rumbled into valet at Nobu, Malibu. “Yet in the real economy, even at zero, no one’s really borrowing, lending,

Hope all goes well… “Here with the kiddies for the paddle-out, crying,” texted Mara. I paused, in Times Square, opened the photos. Thousands headed into the Pacific, with their surfboards. At sunset. Carrying flowers. To honor the slain UC Santa Barbara kids. The surfers formed a vast circle. Tossed flowers into the middle. And sang in sad celebration of the young lives. Lost. Overall: “The focus

Hope all goes well… “There were robots absolutely everywhere,” said the scientist, developing innovative materials to cut the costs of harnessing solar. “Their productive efficiency was staggering,” he continued. “What takes us hours to do with prototypes for one wafer, they do with sixty wafers in 3 seconds.” The Chinese continue to dominate global production, transforming manufacturing hubs into