Thoughts – Insights

1. The Fed Jerome Powell can breathe a sigh of relief. Nearly six months after he was re-nominated for a second term, he has finally passed his Senate confirmation vote. Acting as well as talking tough on inflation has served him well. He told the WSJ journalist Nick Timiraos during research for the latter’s 

1. Inflation Once again it’s the Chinese inflation numbers on Wednesday that matter more than the US release later the same day. The rise in Chinese producer prices has moderated over the past few months but it is difficult to imagine that will persist given the extent of Chinese lockdowns. Not that the US number really matters…

As expected, it’s not been a good night for the Conservatives in London, particularly with the loss of three totemic councils Wandsworth – a resounding Labour win, +8 councillors Westminster – at the worse end of expectations, given the Conservatives had 41 councillors to Labour’s 19 going into this election, the Tories

++ The local elections are not the much-vaunted bellwether of national opinion that the media might hope they are. But a combination of low turnout, favourable baseline comparisons and redrawn boundaries will ensure they contain enough nuggets to please both Boris-backers and Boris-sackers. ++ The Baseline: 2018 vs 2022 Most of the seats up for…

We now know from the SEC legal complaint against Archegos that Bill Hwang parlayed their massive mark-to-market gains into bigger and bigger positions with their prime brokers until in March 2021, as the SEC complaint puts it, “the house of cards collapsed”. This sounds like the classic cautionary tale of a hubristic hedge fund manager, when instead it should…