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There is that negotiating trick, ask for a lot, get something less but still pretty good. Or something like that. Trump is a big user of that

No surprise in French elections with Macron being a good favorite for the run-off plus Trump saying a big tax plan comes out wednesday. ES up 20+ points and Fed futures in free fall

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/20/conservative-republicans-reportedly-pleased-with-changes-to-health-care-proposal.html Good example of that "A Freedom Caucus source told CNBC the changes to the health bill would secure 25 to 30 "yes" votes from the Freedom Caucus, and the new bill would get "very...

Not that I'm in the business of trying to predict political votes, I think thats so hard it borders on insanity. A more robust approach is to assume the worst case and see how the trades/investments do, then go from there. Political votes that help those trades/investments are bonuses

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/goldman-we-have-become-less-confident-about-near-term-hikes " Q: Others seem to have moved their view much more. The market-implied probability of a hike in June stands at only about 40%, little more than one hike is priced for the remainder of 2017, and...

I added some more to Fed futures short, now I got double of the initial position. My baseline scenario is for 2 hikes this year and 3 next year. This will produce a gain of around 60-80bps, against a risk of 0 to 20-30bps

Hatzius last month talking about Fed hikes http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-16/not-reaction-fed-wanted-goldman-warns-yellen-has-lost-control-market

https://assets.pershingsquareholdings.com/media/2014/09/19160907/PSH-Announces-Share-Buyback-Program-and-Change-in-Central-Securities-Depositary.pdf PSH announces buyback for up to 5% of outstanding shares. That's over $200M worth of purchases, more than I thought they would do

The long-term Fed funds contracts tend to embbed a risk premium that reflects the chance of an economic downturn/stock market sell-off (and hence, they look off compared to the Fed forecasts) but that premium is just way too distorted right now, yields are too low, I mean Dec 2018 Fed funds...

" Third, I think this take on Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's talk last week from Marc Chandler is accurate: 'We had detected a shift in the Fed’s stance that we characterized as looking for data to confirm the recovery to now looking for opportunities to normalize conditions. Yellen sees...

I'm down 1% on the Fed futures trade but that is offset by gains on my 30y UST and other UST positions plus gold and gold stocks. Overall, I"m probably down 0.5% or less, so because it has been a limited bleed, I'm considering increasing the position quite a bit, maybe even like in the old days...

But even if nothing gets passed, most likely the economy continues to grow at a 1.5%-2.5% pace. The US economy is very resilient, there is a lot of slowdowns and recessions predicted for every one that happens, it will take a lot to break this trend. At that pace, the Fed will be forced to hike...

I'm not too worried about that healthcare thing messing this trade up beause the republicans can always do a 10 year Bush style corporate tax change, those ones don't need to balance the books. So if anything, if they cant agree on health care (and this messes up corporate tax reform) they are...

I added a bit to the short Fed futures trade. As I see it, at these prices the risk is that the Fed only hikes once in the next 1.5 years. I lose 25bps, if they do anything other than that, I break even (on the adds) or gain a lot. Most likely scenario is that the Fed hikes 3-4 times

US front end seems ridiculously priced now. Dec 2018 Fed futures is pricing in a 1.45% Fed funds by then, that against a 2.1% median Fed forecast, I'm losing on my shorts there but this just looks retarded. If GDP avgs 2% to that month, Fed funds will be 1.91%, at least, probably higher

Its tough because before Brexit and Trump, betting in those outcomes seemed like a waste, most traders/investors weren't expecting it. Now, its the opposite, everyone is looking around to bet in a surprise. This suggests that those bets are more expensive that they would otherwise be. This...

the extra charges affect risk/reward in expensive stocks

Now with T+2, it makes sense to cover expensive stocks on wednesdays (for settlement on friday) in order to avoid weekend fees. Assuming no holidays

When it comes to stocks, I want to avoid large drawdowns relative to wealth expectations. Those big/giant drops that take forever to recover from. I do not want to avoid 2016 type declines (not in my investment account). Those 10-20% drops that quickly are reversed because they were UNJUSTIFIED...

When these wall street types with contrarian bugs inside of them are wrong over and over again, at some point some investors question their method and some of them learn the lesson of 'timing the market is a folly, just buy and hold'. That's one lesson one can learn but I think that is dangerous...