Geopolitical Challenges and Statecraft
As Germany gears up for federal elections this month, we take a look at the top candidates seeking to fill Chancellor Angela Merkel’s shoes. Her successor will not only take on the challenge of ushering Germany through a pandemic in a period of geopolitical volatility...
Digital Currencies, T.S. Eliot, and the Land of Endless Money: Part II
In our August 10th commentary we touched on the parallels between T.S. Eliot’s poem Waste Land and the rehypothecation of assets/bonds (a dangerous endeavor that could undermine financial stability). Furthermore, the subliminal statecraft messages derived from T.S....
Weekly Market Update
Global Market News Global equities make gains Global equities made gains this week. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones both gained 1.52% and 0.96% respectively, while the Nasdaq soared, closing 2.82% up. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury jumped up four basis points to...
The Day After & the Era of Transformation
Here is our take on the articles summarized below: As the stability of the global economic system is increasingly shaken, more and more potential outcomes are becoming “known unknowns” - fields where an excess of uncertainty challenges our heuristics to interpret...
Removing Friction
“You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies. I can never make it easy by saying, “Here are three things.” You have to derive it yourself to ingrain it in your head for the rest of your life.” “Take a simple idea and take it...
Weekly Market Update
Global Market News Global equities tumble Global equities tumbled this week as the US reported weak sales data and the Federal Reserve announced it is considering tapering its bond purchases. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones both decreased 0.59% and 1.11% respectively,...
Geopolitical Challenges and Statecraft
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban this week has prompted a flurry of news and analysis of not just Afghanistan’s instability but also of the fragility of democracy in the Middle East. The US foreign policy approach to the Middle East has been criticized following...
The Two Types of Corrections
As of yesterday’s close, the S&P 500 is up 19% in 2021 with the Nasdaq up just shy of 15% and the Russell 2000 up about 11.5%. This even though underneath the surface breadth has largely weakened since February (albeit there are pockets of improvement in the last...
The Day After & the Era of Transformation
Here is our take on the articles summarized below: The pillars of the free market are under duress. One of the greatest free-market inefficiencies - environmental conservation - has brought forth the bitter fruit of its negligence, as a monumental report from the UN...
T.S. Eliot in the Land of Endless Money, Rehypothecation, and Crises: Part I
We all have heard the parallels between the Covid-19 crisis and war. Close to eighteen months after we started being concerned about the possibility of the pandemic, Cicero’s words that “endless money forms the sinews of war” come to mind. War and wasteland go...
