ET Pro Regulation Monitor

B3 Debt is the New Black

By Ben Hunt | May 30, 2019 | 1 Comment

I’m not sure that people who aren’t immersed in this world realize how crappy B3 debt is. Or how much of it is getting pushed into the market.

THIS is financialization.

Red Dawn

By Ben Hunt | May 30, 2019 | 2 Comments

How will you know that the US-China trade Narrative is shifting towards a protracted game of Chicken?

When the narrative becomes dominated by national security language and clusters.

Rusty and I have been all over this for a year. More to the point, we have been right. If you want to know what’s happening with the Trade & Tariff narrative structure, you should subscribe to ET Professional. This is what we DO.

In the Flow – Chef’s Knives

By Ben Hunt | May 28, 2019 | 9 Comments

It’s easy to get waaaay too precious when it comes to professional kitchens, whether we’re talking about restaurants or a trading desk.

But credit default swaps are like chef knives. They’re not an affectation, but a necessary tool for so many tasks. Even if you don’t cook or trade a portfolio professionally, you’ll want to own a good knife and you’ll want to know the mechanics and the rationale of a CDS trade.

Spree

By Ben Hunt | May 28, 2019 | 0 Comments

The word “spree” is so evocative in narrative-world, implying at a minimum some sort of wantonness and excess, some sort of moral bankruptcy.

How threadbare and slow-growing is the financial services world today? It’s a “hiring spree” just to open up a New York office. With 30 people. By 2022.

Amazon, Facebook and the Modern Trust [the ET Zeitgeist]

By Ben Hunt | May 28, 2019 | 3 Comments

Facebook is a master at implementing price increases under the narrative of “optimization”, as if the company was doing you a favor by raising their ad prices so much. Now Amazon is reading from the same playbook in their advertising business.

Time to break up the trusts. Again.

Never Run the Same Gag Twice [The ET Zeitgeist]

By Ben Hunt | May 28, 2019 | 1 Comment

It’s the best line in a movie full of great lines: You don’t run the same gag twice. You run the next gag.

Elon Musk is running the next gag.

A Song of Ice and Fire

By Ben Hunt | May 27, 2019 | 13 Comments

We are the human animal.

We are non-linear.

We ARE a song of ice and fire.

It’s a song that has built cathedrals and fed billions and taken us to the moon. It’s a song that can do all of that and more … far, far more … if only we remember the tune.

The Pack remembers.

A Holy Day

By Rusty Guinn | May 27, 2019 | 3 Comments

If Memorial Day is anything, it is a day for telling and re-telling stories about Full Hearts. Let me tell and re-tell you the story of Milton Lee Olive III.

The Holiday Zeitgeist – 5.26.2019

By Rusty Guinn | May 26, 2019 | 3 Comments

It’s the Holiday Weekend Zeitgeist! In which we see an election season narrative make its way into other topics, hear the FDA’s plans to deal with expiring salt, hear from local man about local bear, hear from local man about local swimming hole, begin to doubt our judgment about the political import of impeachment proceedings, and read some perverse New York Times fanfic.

Going Gray

By Ben Hunt | May 23, 2019 | 2 Comments

Huawei Founder Says U.S. Won’t Disrupt Business As Analysts Warn Of Sales Slowdown [Forbes]