View from the East

March 
2021

Archegos Capital demise though shocking again affirmed my conviction that there is much hidden key risk for hedge funds and family offices who are running leveraged and concentrated bets in dealing with especially US investment bank prime brokers. There are a few realities with regard to hidden risks in this space:
1. Never play an opened hand with these prime brokers. Despite confidentiality somehow at critical moments your concentrated positions will be leaked. And you will be the hunted.
2. Prime brokers have hypothecation risk with your excess funds placed with them.
3. Be wary of big house players like Goldman Sachs.
4. When you are in trouble, the reality is that your broker actually instead of being your friend may be your enemy. The hike in margins is a practical way to kill you and force liquidation at the worst prices possible.....

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View from the East

January 
2021

It was a volatile January with stock market initial euphoric surge continuingly supported and influenced by frenzy short squeeze in hype up stocks (Tesla, GameStop, etc.) in platforms like Reddit, playing Pipe Piper to millions of Millennial novice speculators into options buying and cultish herd behaviour, justifying as inflicting social justice as Brave Young Ones versus Establishment propaganda. But as shorts among some prominent hedge funds were forced to cut out significant positions, losing tens of billions and the reality of month-end options delivery into actual crazily priced stocks kick in, the stock market declined sharply into its last few days of trading erasing its earlier gains....

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2020 & Beyond 2020: Major Rewards & Major Risks

November 
2020

2020 has been a unique year in many ways.
The world was devastated by Covid-19 pandemic at a human, social and partially economic level.
Countries and leaders responded in different ways, with a range of vastly different results.
Generally, societies that have authoritarian governments with discipline and cooperation from citizens did much better like China, Vietnam and many East Asian nations, while the reverse was true of fragmented governments with divided views and lack of united discipline and cooperation among its citizens, with the USA leading the pack....

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