I recently finished Inside the House of Money by Steven Drobny. The book is a series of interviews with global macro strategy hedge fund managers. Global macro has many definitions as a read through Drobny’s book will show you, but one can think of it as the ability to invest in any market and instrument around the world. These are some interesting quotes and thoughts from the book. (There is a link to the book at the end of this post)
Answering a question about missing “the trade [that] never would have happened” Christian Siva-Jothy says markets “are unbelievably slow to react to big events that there is no script for.” I like this quote because it reminded me of the ‘never sell in a panic’ and similar cliques; it explains that markets are driven by humans who exhibit irrational behavior, especially when surprised.
How often are we taught the lesson of ‘if it sounds too good’…Dr. John Porter reminds us why this occurs in finance and business time and again: “It’s funny how people are very reassured by numbers just because they’re numbers. They rarely look at where the numbers come from or how stable they might be.” It would be valuable to remember this lesson.
Some quick quotes for you…
If you’re right at the wrong time, you’re wrong.
-Yra Harris
Politicians throughout history have gotten things wrong turning a semicrisis into a crisis and then into a disaster.
-Jim Rogers
A little education about short selling:
This quote explains how the return from shorting is maximized and that waiting for the downtrend to start is equally profitable. Scott Bessent said, “You made just as much shorting $100 million of Enron at $25 as you did shorting $100 million of Enron at $50. It’s better to have more conviction and do twice as much.”
And a little something for the GREED in us…
Anybody who knows how much he is worth does not have enough.
-Jim Rogers
