?I keep six honest serving men. (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.? said the writer, Rudyard Kipling.
Global Market Comments
July 15, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JULY 31 ZERMATT, SWITZERLAND GLOBAL STRATEGY SEMINAR)
(FLYING WITH SIR RICHARD BRANSON)
Global Market Comments
July 14, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JULY 22 MILAN, ITALY GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON)
(REPORT FROM LONDON),
(TESTIMONIAL)
Come join me for lunch at the?Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s?Global Strategy luncheon, which I will be conducting in Milan, Italy on Wednesday, July 22, 2015. A three-course lunch will be followed by an extended question and answer period.
I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, precious metals and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I?ll be tossing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $267.
I?ll be arriving at 11:30 AM and leaving late in case anyone wants to have a one on one discussion about the financial markets.
The lunch will be held at a boutique Hotel in the downtown area of the city near the Galleria and the Duomo Cathedral.
Milan is one of the great renaissance cities of Italy. Even your local neighborhood trattoria?serves the best food on the planet.
I am spending a few days there to visit the 2015 Milan Expo, which is expecting 20 million visitors this year (click here?for the website).
Not far from the hotel you can view Leonardo da Vinci?s greatest masterpiece,?The Last Supper?at the Santa Maria delle Grazie church.
Opera lovers will find?La Scala?just around the corner, which is doesn?t perform during the summer, but offers a fascinating museum and tour.
And if you like to shop, Milan is your town, as it the fashion capital of the world. Every year, I find the pull of the local?Brioni?store irresistible.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research.
To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please?click here.
I write this to you from my double suite on the Orient Express crossing the Swiss Alps. My manservant, Charles, is off fetching a cup of tea and steam pressing my white dinner jacket for tonight?s luxury soiree.
Customs at London?s Heathrow airport was a breeze, and the new express train whisked me into Paddington in a mere 18 minutes.
That night at the Naval & Military Club, a group of British Army officers just back from Afghanistan, and their dates, hosted a blowout black tie homecoming party, complete with disc jockey and disco ball.
While singing a drunken ?Rule Britannia? at 4:00 AM we maxed out the amplifiers and ended up blowing the power, not only for our building, but for the entire block.
Suddenly, our 18th century building was plunged back to the 18th century, meaning no lights, Internet, or flushing toilets. Candelabras solved the first problem, and a pink hard copy Financial Times the second, but when nature called, I had to retire to the pub across the street.
Each time I did so, I enjoyed a pint of Fuller?s London Pride, not sure if I was making my problem better or worse. Two days later, two truck sized diesel generators on loan from the British Army magically showed up and solved the power problem, and we returned to the 20th century.
In England, it?s always been all about who you know.
The next morning, I staggered out of the club, my eyes blinking at the light, my head pounding, to be greeted by 1,500 cyclists, completely naked in all their glory.
It was some form of protest against the use of cars in the city. London never changes, does it? It is only a matter of time before the movement migrates to the states, I hope.
The Globe Theater is a magnificent reproduction of the original, which burned down in 1613 during a canon scene in Henry VIII (click here for the link at http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/).
Its thatched roof, open-air seats, and 12-inch roughhewn oak beams led me to expect The Bard from Stratford-upon-Avon to walk out any moment. Actors tore through the standing crowds, reciting lines, and embracing a startled few theatergoers.
Half way through As You Like It, I realized that the devotees sitting next to me were mouthing the lines. They had memorized the entire script.
One afternoon I asked a somewhat doddering old taxi driver to take me to Kensington Palace, who seemed quite impressed. He drove me directly to Harry and Kate?s private entrance.
After giving me the gimlet eye, Scotland Yard directed us to the correct entrance for the tourists. I try not to cause international incidents when on vacation, and this time I came close.
England definitely did not show its best face when I walked out of a comedy club into Leicester Square at 2:00 AM. The women were so drunk that they walked barefoot across the vomit-covered pavement, unable to walk in high heels.
Another day found me at Christie?s auction house for a private viewing of John James Audubon?s spectacular Birds of America. The multi-volume set was in mint condition, the colors as bright as the day they were printed.
Only 70 of the original print run of 140 in 1838 are known to exist. One sold for $11.5 million last year, making it the world?s second most valuable book after the Gutenberg Bible.
My last morning in London found me desperately hailing a taxi in a torrential downpour. The taxi gods smiled upon me, and I was soon barreling down the streets of Piccadilly and Westminster on the way to Victoria Station.
It seems that a ?20 tip can move mountains here. I arrived with more than enough time for a pre-prandial glass of Champagne before boarding the Orient Express.
To be continued.
?If they don?t screw things up in Washington, stocks here are undervalued. If they do, then stocks are overvalued,? said hedge fund manager, David Tepper, of Appaloosa Management.
Global Market Comments
July 13, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(REPORT FROM VENICE),
(AN EVENING WITH TRAVEL GURU ARTHUR FROMMER)
If you ever need someone to owe you a big favor, make sure it is the world?s best hotel.
That is what I discovered when I checked into the legendary Cipriani Hotel in Venice, Italy. I had booked their cheapest room at $1,500 a day. Due to a screw up on the reservations, I learned to my great distress, that I could stay only one night.
The good news was that they graciously offered me a free upgrade to their presidential suite, a two-bedroom palace stuffed with 18th century antiques, exquisite Murano glass chandeliers, and its own private pier.
All of this was a bargain for $12,000 a day. Would you care for a $1,000 complimentary dinner for two? And, oh, seniore, could we please cover the cost of the rest of your entire stay in Venice at the Hotel Danieli, a 16th century palace that was the city?s other trophy hotel? Total value of these freebees: $18,000.
Thank you Orient Express!
Thus, my stay in Venice was off to a spectacular and serendipitous start. They say ?See Venice, and die.? That?s because so many drop dead when they get the bill.
Feel like a continental breakfast for two with cappuccino for $100? It was all worth it, as breakfast on the roof of the Danieli was one of those once in a lifetime, bucket list type experiences.
Watercraft churned by in the hundreds, including ancient gondolas, wheezing, smoky old vaporetos, water taxis, inflatable dinghies, and even sail boats. I fought the sea gulls for the butter patties, which if not eaten immediately, melted in the heat.
Squeezing my way through the crowded alleyways of this enchanted Renaissance city, I caught a snapshot of the global economy.
The only Americans I saw were either young hedge fund traders wearing Rolex watches, or technology moguls cashing in this this year?s bubbliscious prices. The rest were clearly scared off by the price tag.
The Japanese were still there in force. But the groups included many single spinster women in their thirties and forties escorting their parents, unable to get married in an economy that has shown almost no growth in two decades.
They were joined by large tour groups from the up and coming economies of China and Brazil, their leaders barking out orders and leading the charge with large umbrellas or flags.
The super yachts of the Russian oligarchs lined the waterfront, conspicuous with their obscure Caribbean flags of convenience.
Extended Arab families that included two, three, or even four wives, and uncountable children in designer togs could be spotted in the best restaurants, the women laboring in their burkas in the 95-degree heat. It seems that oil at $100 a barrel will cover every bill and excuse any excess.
I have been coming here since 1968, and am never disappointed. I made my ritual stop by Harry?s Bar for a Champagne Bellini, and strolled past the American Express office where I used to pick up my mail during my wild and reckless, pre Internet youth.
I made a pilgrimage to Quadracci?s on the Piazza San Marco, where my grandfather used to sip espresso with another young ambulance driver named Earnest Hemingway during WWI. Family legend has it that Hemingway modeled his Italian driver friend on grandpa, who in the book gets killed.
That night, I had the concierge send a speedboat around to my room to take me across the lagoon to the Casino at the Lido. An Arab at my blackjack table was losing $50,000 a hand and sending out hugely negative vibes, so I moved.
I just wanted to let you know where the money for your $4 a gallon gasoline was going. As I was playing merely to see who was there, I gave my winnings to the dealer, who gave me a big grazie. It seems that Italians are lousy tippers.
On my way back, I stood in my powerboat alone, holding on to the cabin and racing across the water at 40 knots in the darkness, wearing my white dinner jacket and bow tie, the wind blowing through my hair, thinking life is good.
I better come up with some new trades to pay for all of this. I mentally prepared myself for my strategy luncheon the next day in Milan.
To be continued.
?If you can?t make yourself loved, make yourself feared,? said Meyer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the banking dynasty.
Global Market Comments
July 10, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE FALLING MARKET FOR KIDS),
(HOLLYWOOD CASHES IN ON WALL STREET TROUBLES),
(THOUGHTS AT SEA ABOARD THE QE2-PART I)