players

I swung through Silicon Valley, one of my favorite spots on the planet; it’s where miracles get invented. And make no mistake, it’s miracles that we need if we’re gonna keep proving Thomas Malthus and his doomsday disciples wrong. The Valley boys forgive failure ‘cause they know that without a healthy dose, you’ll never achieve greatness. But they don’t suffer fools gladly. So they forgave baby Bush for his early fai

Hope all goes well. Foreign Exchange is the world’s chess board; and now everyone’s joined the tournament. With any luck, the novice players will make it easier for old dogs like us to win trophies. Overall: Global politicians debated the precise meaning of “currency war”; took me back to Clinton’s “what exactly is the definition of is” days. Meanwhile, in the voting booth, traders pulled the “Sell” lever; USD fell v

Brazil’s Fin Min Mantega started the wk by stating the obvious, warning of an emerging “currency war” on Mon. Geithner ended the wk, embarrassing himself on Fri, saying he wasn’t sure what a currency war is, but at any rate “we’re not going to have one”. Ever eager to teach bumbling Treasury Secretaries valuable lessons, Mr Market pressed the USD lower vs everything. Gold hit an all-time high, oil broke $80 and coppe

Hope all goes well. Just finished an insane 2 wk tour of NY/Switz, met great folks and had fun but there’s no place like home. The Swiss are more concerned about the world than New Yorker’s, but their economy’s humming and FoF industry stabilizing. Overall: Brazil’s Fin Min Mantega started the wk by stating the obvious, warning of an emerging “currency war” on Mon. Geithner ended the wk, embarrassing himself on Fri,

Switzerland’s the most magnificent country on Earth; it’s a fact. You know, I spent my 30th yr in the mountains high above Geneva, lived alone in a hut — quite literally. I did nothing but climb, and bagged a good many peaks. Left my childhood behind and discovered myself that yr. That’s why we climb mountains, to discover ourselves. Somewhere within the responsibility and vulnerability of being tied to another

I like all kinds of people, rich and poor. But poor people sadly don’t have much money. And of course plenty of rich people are poor in other ways and vice versa, but I’m talking about paper here. So I spend most of my time with rich ones — call it an occupational hazard. They tend to be more interesting but don’t laugh as hard, still though, we have lots of fun. So a buddy invited me to a conference. He was ke

Hope all goes well. No place buzzes like money-making Manhattan, I got pretty high. Things are picking up, you can feel it; maybe not in the real economy, but certainly in the paper economy. Met lots of bears with bulging eyeballs, squeezing does that. Guys don’t seem long yet. Overall: The mkt jumped and dollar dumped Mon in anticipation of Bernanke restarting his printing press. Free money is such a powerful halluc

The mkt jumped and dollar dumped Mon in anticipation of Bernanke restarting his printing press. Free money is such a powerful hallucinogen that you see all kinds of funny things. The PIIGS had good bond auctions, despite CDS in Ireland jumping to record highs (476bps). But more surreal was Petrobas’s $70bln share issue, 3.7x the biggest IPO ever, 10 days before presidential elections. Elsewhere, some lousy news conti

Hope all goes well. Great wk; saw my family, made some money, added some risk. Looked for clever option structures to be short the US dollar. Found a bunch. Lucked out and took some Euro/Yen shorts off before the Bank of Japan intervention. Off to NY next wk and then Switzerland the wk after; thank god we manage risk better than my schedule. Overall: StrongChinese data printed, IMF judges said they’ve stuck a “soft l