Polls (not so) apart

In a recent blog post, I discussed the notion of consensus expectations following on from my own views for 2015 which I published for Thalesians subscribers (and given it's Christmas, I've given it away for free download). There are many ways to measure market consensus (or the world the market...

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Imagine

The days between Christmas and the impending new year seem like days in limbo. The current year is withering away by the hour too quickly to amount to anything, whilst the new year is still somewhat of an intangible mirage. Whilst these days might be occupied by the tail end of left overs and frenzied...

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Consensus-ing agreement in FX markets in 2015

Why is Manhattan real estate so expensive? The simplest explanation is that a lot of people want to live there. There seems to be a consensus that Manhattan is a great place to live. At the same time, supply is relatively constrained. Yes, developers are continually building higher, providing more...

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Tip of the ice-burger

Minetta Tavern. New York. Black Label Burger. Everything about this burger suggests it has a certain quality lacking from most other burgers. The meat is tender, from a sirloin steak, without any of the unpleasant stringiness that might afflict other burgers. It appears that many people agree, judging...

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What's the best way to trade?

Boston is to America what Cambridge and Oxford are to Britain. Indeed, the neighbouring town to Boston, Cambridge is named after its English predecessor and has within it both Harvard and MIT. Boston also served as one of the hot beds of the American revolution, being the home of the Boston Tea Party....

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New York Style of Trading

Martin Amis is a master of the English language. I remember reading one of his books (or maybe it was Hitchens quoting Amis, somehow after reading so many books, they all seem to coalesce into one another). The whole discussion in the book was an attempt to describe Las Vegas using a single word. I'll...

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Learning Rhapsody

I see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango Thunderbolt and lightning - very very frightening me Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo Figaro – magnifico Song lyrics, they always seem faintly odd, when written down on a page. In a sense, it’s akin...

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Write once, read many

Youth vanishes from the stage first, supposedly to reappear in a later act, as wisdom. As each generation drifts into the past, its wisdom and experience seeps into the fabric of collective memory, weaving what will be called history. Just as the present is debated vigorously among its many actors,...

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The Brevity of Modernity

Coffee whispers to my sense of smell, whirring through my consciousness, as I sit here in an American coffee shop. Above me, sitting aloft are skyscrapers their crests emblazoned with the names of American banks, a corner of London more Empire State than Wren. My fingers tap on my keyboard has slowed,...

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The small in Big Data

Waltzing along the Thames from the Tower Bridge to Westminster, in amongst the plethora of skyscrapers struggling to reach the gods and tourists snapping photos, there lies the White Tower, its stone weathered by a thousand years of rain and wind, battering the British landscape in all seasons. The...

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When an idea gets currency

Anguish had ensued for months, with declining volatility seeming to compound the misery of the market, killing any potential trend. Traders in currency markets were being rebuffed by a currency that did not wish to rise. It had been the consensus year ahead trade at the beginning of 2014. The moves...

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If you start(up) me up

Music began with the heartbeat. Every one of us has rhythm, every moment of our lives, that heart beating, whilst time cascades on, a visitor whose sojourn among us is briefer than any of us would like. And so, as our heart beats on, through the music, we hear our heart whispering thoughts and...

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Lehman Brother can you spare a yard?

It has been six years ago this week, when I could say that green was our colour. It wasn’t a bright green, but a dark, somewhat dignified green, like the shade which adorned British racing cars for much of the twentieth century. It was the green of the leaves of Californian redwoods, standing in...

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Great Scot! Vol over the Scotland vote

For much of the summer the market had largely been looking at the Scotland referendum as a relatively low risk event. Common wisdom was that the vote would likely be "no". What binds is more than what separates? Perhaps another factor was simply that it was just too far away for the market, as...

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