Macro Themes

Water Cooler Investing
#1

AF community, does anyone work for a macro fund or other position where you think about global themes? Or do you just have an opinion about these things? If so, I would be interested in your thoughts on various issues:

  1. Currencies: USD, EUR, CNY/Asia - which will perform the best over the best 1-2 years and why?

  2. Commodities: Gold, Crude Oil/petroleum products - are you bullish or bearish and why?

  3. Equities: Are they over/under/fairly valued now? If you have a case for US, Euro or other country equities, what is that?

  4. Regulation, interest rates and politics: What global changes will happen soon that are not already priced into the market?

Thanks.

#2

Carp! I just wrote a bunch of stuff and my browser crashed. I’m not so involved in the macro stuff lately - it’s been hard to do macro since about 2011 - very little is behaving as it “should,” although ex-post, you can always come up with a reason for stuff (whether it’s good or not is another question, of course).

I’ll try to come back and rewrite some of my macro thinking when I have some time.

#3

what the hell is this filth doing in the Water Cooler? Somebody needs to put a stop to this kind of discussion!

#4

Thanks. I think it is also fun to write out things like this, as it helps to organize loose thoughts into coherent structures for use at work or at bars to impress entry level finance girls.

#5

if it’s for use at bars to impress entry level finance girls, you may proceed in this forum. if it’s used at work, cease and desist.

#6

^ I don’t know any girls that are impressed by finance talk. I tried explaining CAPM to my GF once.

#7

It needs to be specifically entry level finance girls, as these people aspire to move up in finance and are impressed by people with greater finance knowledge.

#8

Macro themes impress (non-finance) women at bars.

Sure, saying “DDD is so undervalued now, I wouldn’t be surprised if you get a reverse-merger at a PB of only 1.5” may get them to yawn.

But saying “Gold and Bitcoin are going to be the wave of the future, and I’m putting all of my money in Chinese Real Estate, because Putin is going to make megabux on oil after Crimea and all that money’s got to go somewhere,” makes you sound like a BSD.

You just better hope the woman you’re talking to doesn’t have a CFA or top-2 MBA, or you’ll be going home alone later on…

#9

I opened this forum thinking this would be about diets… I am in the wrong profession.

Speaking of impressing girls, in the slight chance i stop studying and actually go out on a weekend prior to june, i am asking this community for some pickup lines to use strictly on tinder. I have a habit of giving women the idea that i am bf material (i am besides my sociopathic ways) so i would like lines to represent the fact that i am not seeking anything serious. At the same time, it wouldnt just be a an insta hookup, i would be willing to do the dinner / movie dates but i would have to draw the line at texting throughout the day and the calls at night ect.

Here is one my buddy gave me which i have no intention to use but thought it was clever, “If i flipped a coin, what would be the chances of me getting head?”

#10

^Texting constantly is the worst.

#11

^ Absolutely agree. She’ll want you more if you don’t act so available.

#12

It’s not only in your attitude, but also in the types of girls you are attracting. Go more after girls on the rebound or mention that you are on the rebound. They will understand.

#13

There’s a 0.5% chance that a HCB is a CFA or top 2 MBA. The odds are in your favour.

#14

The secret is talking about Fibonacci levels.

#15

You guys know the wrong women. I just met a girl who is a 9, graduated at the top of her class from an Ivy and works in investment banking, wants to move to a hedge fund. Oh, and she’s Russian, which we all know makes her even hotter because Russian people have no emotions or soul.

Also, the love of my life is a 10/10 Japanese beauty who works on the sell side in Tokyo and has a British accent she picked up at Cambridge. OMFG.

I would marry either of these women in a second and I have no intention of getting married, ever.

More generally, I think lots of women are interested in business but not the technical aspects. You can’t start a conversation talking about bootstrapping bond yields. You have to be like, “Hey, I just took over this public company and fired the entire board, it’s an amazing story.” That works.

#16

Also, I think it helps to be absurdly promotional in general. Men are value investors – we want to purchase quality assets at a cheap price. Women are all momentum investors but most are notoriously bad at knowing what really has momentum, so facts matter little, it’s all about sizzle.

Just pretend you are the CEO of a company that has no fundamentals, but also has no shame. Your only viable option is to mercilessly promote your company. So basically try to be like anything that is getting pumped hard on SeekingAlpha. Go read up on PLUG, UNIS, ONVO, INO, UNXL, etc. if you need inspiration.

#17

bro we need to drink some vodka together

#18

I’m in, let’s go to a Russian bar, those are the best.

#19

Russian Vodka Room? I had some good times there.

#20

People usually say women have great intuition. I couldn’t disagree more. Your post makes a good parallel.