Month

“I reckon a poor man who’s about to become less poor is generally happier than a rich man who’s about to get less rich,” mused the CIO. I smiled, hearing a hint of Charles Dickens, who remarked, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six pence, result misery.” Australi

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” wrote Charles Dickens. Long ago. A breakthrough exposed pancreatic cancer’s Achilles heel; another week, another technological triumph. Extending lives. Boston Dynamics revealed its life-sized humanoid, capable of resisting attempts to topple it, or stop it. Advancing far more rapidly than imagined, robots will solve our needs, replacing our jobs (google it

Hope all goes well… “Bottom line is we basically accept things are gonna get tougher,” said the CIO, Down Under. “Hence the pessimism,” he continued, surveying the distant horizon from a superannuation summit. The world’s great fortunes have all been built by unabashed bulls. Australia’s no exception. “As you know, necessity is the mother of invention and we’ll ultimately pull through with flying colors.” Despite tod

Hope all goes well… “So here’s the question,” said the CIO, “Is pouring over balance sheets, or knowing when to pour over balance sheets, the most important thing?” I considered the profound struggle of so many legendary stock pickers that began just as the age of central bank omnipotence drew to a close. “It’s the latter,” he said, uninstalling Excel, waiting patiently for dislocations to buy, short-covering rallies

“One of my guiding lights is the notion that macro is aggregated micro,” said the CIO. A collage of micro images yields a macro picture. “It’s not a philosophy, it’s the truth.” US consumers hold $100trln of assets, $69trln of which are financial assets, much of which now yield nothing or negative. The rest yield little and GDP growth is slow, even after six years of unprecedented stimulus that pulled future demand (

“A marketing decision!” cried the FBI, furious with America’s greatest marketer. Of course the Bureau’s right. Apple’s decision to withhold an encryption key is all about pushing product. Tim Cook doesn’t love terrorists, he just hates missing sales forecasts. He knows we all hate being spied on, even though we love feeling safe. So we distrust those who protect us, up until we face a crisis. When it all reverses, an

Week-in-Review: Mon: China closed for week, China FX reserves fall $99bln (better than exp), India Q4 GDP +7.3% (Q1 estimate +7.6%), Turkey IP +4.5%, Spain industrial output +3.7%, Russia vehicle sales -29%, EU financials under severe pressure, US labor mkt conditions 0.4 (exp 0.2), S&P -1.4%; Tue: HK food vendor riots, Japan machine tool orders -17.2% (prev -25.7%), Japan M3 +2.5%, JGB 10yr yields turn negative

Hope all goes well… “Do we now know?” asked Yoda, high in the Rockies. “Is this where QE leads?” he whispered, gazing at distant peaks, summit winds lifting their white, painting the blue. Then vanishing. “Is folly not beautiful too?” he asked, closing his eyes, growing quiet. I considered this historic ascent, led upward by so much central banking novelty. But with European stocks now 28% below their highs (17% belo

“Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” whined the Winner, devastated, watching his odds fall faster than some drunk dude at the Trump Taj. You see, the Donald knows odds don’t lie. But they do change. His odds to win the Presidency were 3-1 before Iowa; leading Republicans by a mile. Today they’re 8-1; trailing Rubio (2-1), and Hillary (1-1). Now, if the strongest horse lost his first of fifty races by a nose, should h

“We need a resolution in China,” said Eagle, soaring high above Gotham. “Can’t be sure what it is, or when it will happen, but we’ll know it when we see it.” The pressure on China to devalue is building. They can’t ease aggressively without letting the currency go. But a big devaluation risks Beijing’s political credibility. Social stability. “When a system comes under stress, frauds surface. The scale of corruption