Hope all goes well… Snuck off to the mountains for long weekend, some altitude, skiing. Dusted off an anecdote from 2018 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. (see below). Back next Sunday with full weekend notes. Marcel Kasumovich, Deputy CIO of One River Digital, wrote an excellent piece on Ethereum, evaluating assets based on how they weather market crashes, and positive catalysts on the horizon [click here]. &n

“The Fed rightly or wrongly has a lot of confidence that they can easily open the spigot and turn the economy back on at any moment,” said the CIO. “They’re like 15 out of 10 confident. They’re like, let’s just have a recession. And that should make investors nervous,” he continued.  “They’re so confident, because of how they’ve controlled the economy for the last 15yrs and then particularly after Covid. If they coul

Hope all goes well… “Pre-pandemic a heavy jet cost $7k-9k an hour to charter. Now it costs $18k-$20k,” said the CIO, discussing his private economic indicators. The market remains white hot. No sign of softness. “All these guys worth $100mm got sucked into a portfolio mix with 75% illiquid investments, 25% liquid. Guys like that spend $3mm-$5mm year and make $2mm after tax. They’re slowly bleeding, but even after las

Hope all goes well… Wishing you and your families a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2023. Filled with adventure, challenge, volatility, introspection too. Dusted off an anecdote from 2011 that I reflect on at the dawn of each year, in preparation for what is to come (see below). One River Digital’s Doug Wilson, who leads our credit activities, published a piece [click here] that compares boom/bust cycles in the deregu

Hope all goes well… Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays. Happy New Year. To you and your families. Resurrected one of my favorite little memories, an opening note from Christmas past… Christmas Day 2013: “Santa slipped down the chimney. Left big boot prints in the ash that spilled across our hearth. And the jolly fella stuffed stockings. Built a train set too. Sprinkled magic everywhere. Moments before th

Anecdote: “Mao’s Great Leap Forward was intended to rapidly advance industrialization and agriculture output in China,” I said to a few of our investors. We had shifted from discussing near-term opportunities, and I turned to bigger, obscure possibilities. “They estimate 45mm died due to starvation and other causes. The economy collapsed. And I could never understand how such a thing could happen. Mao was surely inte

Hope all goes well… “No one wants to hear about markets anymore this year,” I said to Mara, my wife, editor, critic. “It’s been that sort of year. Exciting, exhausting. And at this point, people are mentally spent, I kind of am too,” I admitted. “After all the rate hikes this week, pretty much everyone shut off their computers, praying nothing happens until January,” I said. “Well then just write that to start your n

Hope all goes well… Cold but clear. We arrived early, for the March On, uncertain which side to support, a family divided. Liv entered the stadium first, lost amidst West Point’s Corp of 4,500 Cadets, in tight formation, company by company, filling the field at Lincoln Financial Stadium. Jackson marched in second, one of the Naval Academy’s Brigade of 4,500 Midshipmen. The game wouldn’t start for hours still. The par

Hope all goes well… Dusted off a Thanksgiving anecdote from 2015 about not overthinking things (see below). See you next Sunday with full weekend notes. E Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: Saudi’s deny earlier report of OPEC+ 500k bpd output hike, Beijing records 3 covid deaths over the wknd (first in over 6m) / Shijiazhuang (11m people) increases covid restrictions, Israel CB hikes 50bp (75bp exp), PBOC

Anecdote: Speculative trading is hard. Almost impossible as a career. My undergraduate thesis evaluated the non-linearities of stock market rumors of takeovers. Precise words were identified from the Heard on the Street column – on microfiche. I begged the Center for Research in Security Prices for data. No data, no paper, no degree. I devoured practical finance. And Jessie Livermore’s story sobered me. He made his f