The financialization of everything
Up in the air
“I feel like memories are so short. Have people forgotten the volatility during Trump 1.0? Why is this a surprise to anybody? I call him the “long gamma1 president,” because you need to effectively be long gamma during his presidency”
“The Trump Administration is attacking some obvious issues, but in a very disruptive way.”
This was probably the most succinct explanation I’ve heard for the general tariff panic, from Steve Englander of Standard Chartered:
“I think what happened is that the emphasis on tariffs was an order of magnitude more than the market expected it to be. The implementation of the tariffs was more disorganized than the market expected it to be, and I think that would they have come in saying, okay, they've been planning this for four years, there's a blueprint here for how they're going to do it - you know, the realization struck or or the possibility struck that there was no blueprint.”
[more on tariffs below the fold]
There's something rather amusing about a “global expert in currency risk management" getting killed by...checks notes...currency fluctuations.
"Dollar rout forces UK currency risk specialist to suspend shares"
Argentex[???], a UK-listed specialist in managing foreign exchange risk, has become a casualty of market volatility…
The company, which trades on the UK’s junior stock exchange Aim, said on Tuesday that it had suffered a “rapid and significant impact on its near-term liquidity position” from margin calls on its currency derivative positions…
The company calls itself a “global expert in currency risk management and alternative banking for businesses and financial institutions”. Its shares have risen 50 per cent this year as activity surged in the FX market, giving it a market value of just over £50mn.
Here’s the “dollar rout”:
$2,100 ago…
Oh no!!
Stunning. I think overpriced housing (and the high cost of living in general) is a major reason for the plummeting birthrates. Kids are expensive. Thanks Ben, Janet and Jay!
Much more below for paid subscribers. Godspeed.
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