players

Hope all goes well… “If a founder comes here with national or regional ambitions I’m not interested,” said the Emirati, a decade or more younger than I, bursting with enthusiasm, energy, capital. He was raised in Abu Dhabi; I grew up in New York City. We attended the same boarding school in a small Connecticut town, although I didn’t mention it. International students intrigued me back then, usually shy, observant, c

Anecdote: “Since 2008, all investors have been punished together and then rescued together,” said the investor at one of the great Sovereign Wealth Funds. “Policy makers panic, the liquidity hose comes out, and there’s no real cost, because there has been no inflation,” he continued. “We’ve operated this way for so many years, and it has created such distinct market behaviors that our governments have legislated to f

Hope all goes well… “Hong Kong is filled with frustrated bulls,” barked Biggie Too, chief global strategist for one of Wall Street’s Too-Big-To-Fail affairs. “And New York is full of frustrated bears,” said Biggie, finishing up another world tour. “People don’t understand why the S&P is here. Look beneath the surface and there’s horrible damage. But you have these 10 tech stocks in a different universe,” bellowed

Anecdote: “You Americans generally do not understand the Chinese,” said the CIO from Asia, visiting us in Connecticut. “And we Chinese generally do not understand Americans,” she continued, a unique thinker, independent, aggressive, blunt. “And this is where I hunt for opportunities, in these kinds of misunderstandings,” she said, our teams brainstorming, looking for ways to work together more closely. “Do you think

Hope all goes well… “When regulators accept transfers of these congressional responsibilities, they not only drift outside their designated lanes, but they also remove the incentive for Congress to pursue legislative solutions,” wrote Jay Clayton and Gary Cohn in a New York Times opinion piece titled The Microsoft-Activision Mess Is a Blow to American Sovereignty [read here]. “Why go through the messy legislative pro

Hope all goes well… “Had this flashback of when I had just started playing, the old grass field in Santa Barbara,” said Jackson, my oldest. “And now I’m here. It just seems kind of surreal that I made it to this place, this team, this game, national television, all of it,” he said, on a high, electric. The Army/Navy lacrosse game was just 18hrs away. Army ranked 8th in the nation, Navy buried deep below, but with thi

Anecdote: “Credit started tightening six to nine months ago,” said the developer, a close friend, entrepreneur, with large residential projects across the nation. “It started with the money center banks,” he continued. “This pushed us to regional banks for our latest projects, but then SVB happened.” The market froze. “The lender for our latest 30-story project in a tier-one city backed out, so we scrambled, and spok

Anecdote: “Why are we so often our own worst enemies?” I asked myself. I didn’t bother asking GPT4, it couldn’t possibly give me the real answer. We feed these large language models everything we’ve ever learned, which is why they tell us what we already know. And this question remains as deep a mystery as any in the universe. I first started to appreciate it as a young trader. The profession requires one to make fre

Hope all goes well… “Prepare yourself Teddy, you have an extremely tough year ahead,” said Jackson, my oldest, serious, his Plebe year at Navy far in the rearview. Teddy was euphoric, his appointment to West Point confirmed. But celebration time was evidently over. It lasted five minutes. “Jackson is right, but you can definitely do this,” said Liv, still living through the trauma of her first year at Army. Mara sigh