Can You Wait Forever, If Time Is All It Takes

Yesterdays P&L: GBP 255.70

Yesterdays Booze: Nothing

Yesterdays Soundtrack: Random Rock

Despite the continuing bizarre market movements, managed to scrape a few quid today by range trading the FTSE 100 index at ten pounds per point. Its a chancy business and unless your going to go fifty pounds a point or more the risk is hardly worth it. Still at least its some money in the bank. The markets continue to be absurd and I am clearly caught in traditional "old-school" thinking. This kind of thinking means that currencies move in line with economic prospects and inflationary and interest rate expectations and stocks move in line with company results and news. Clearly the new reality is different. A company can be investigated for fraud and its share price rises. A sovereign nation can be declared effectively bankrupt and the currency strengthens. I still believe that the core problem in the global economy is the huge amounts of cash swirling around looking for a decent return while low interest rates are leaving fewer choices. The low global interest rates are what was primarily responsible for the wave of exotic, (toxic), securities. I worked at a bank that hired a specialist team to structure such securities and the (potential), revenues were enormous, consequently the team of three shared a first year bonus of over twenty eight million dollars. during the year of crisis, much was made about the amounts paid to bankers but despite Obama, (surely the most ineffectual President since Carter), global banking salaries this year are at a record high. Are bankers paid too much? Perhaps, but few people outside the industry understand the compensation structures put in place. In my opinion, the problem with bankers salaries is that they reward revenue generation, (no bad thing), but the major problem is the banks never rewarded the people who policed the traders to the same extent. The variation in seniority would be like a ballboy in football team dictating to the star players on team selection and strategy rather than a Ferguson or Mourinho.



Today I was listening to random music, the top five on my playlist were:

Learning To Fly - This song always makes me feel good. I am not a huge Pink Floyd fan but they do bemuse me. This is a band of guys who look like middle aged accountants and have generated spectacular success with music that is not always easy to listen to. The band is largely unidentifiable despite the average concert being attended by seventy thousand people. An ex-girlfriend of mine met David Gilmour a few times when she lived in Holland Park and said he was very nice and polite. I am not so sure I would be the same if I had sold hundreds of millions of records. My favourite line in the song, "A soul in tension that's learning to fly, condition grounded but determined to try".

Fool To Cry - More old rockers but the Stones are different to Floyd, talk about a carefully cultivated image. This song is so sad and seems to be about the unhappy lot of the working man, something Jagger hasn't really had to think about since he started having his accounts done by Prince Lowenstein. This song is all about the singing though. Jaggers voice is often lost in the mix of the Stones. Nobody is saying he is a great singer but he sounds like he means it in this song.

Always The Sun - The Stranglers, everyone knows them for Golden Brown but this song is far more uplifting. It makes me think that things can only get better, "How many times have you been told, if you don't ask you don't get? How many liars have taken your money, your mother said you shouldn't bet? Who has the fun, is it always the man with the gun? Someone must have told him, if you work too hard you can sweat".

Only You - Whatever happened to Alison Moyet? She had a great voice. This song is classic eighties, reminds me of breaking up with girlfriends and how serious young love seems when you are fifteen or sixteen. Funny how everything seemed so possible back in your teenage years.

Ace Of Spades - Motorhead madness, this is not a song for romantic nights or quiet moments of reflection. This song demands to be played loud, it appeals to me in my nihilistic moments. The song is short and brutal but has some good lyrics "You know I'm born to lose and gamblin's made for fools. But that's the way I like it baby, I don't want to live forever".


In case I don't see 'ya...good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!