Pottsie

Multi-decade derivatives, EM Trading and 'Head of' Trading history. Taken early retirement, so may be more active now that I have been allowed... but may not!

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

I have got to agree with Mark Sterling on this. If you want a varied and diverse society, you have to support varied and diverse interests and education to avoid complete human homogeneity. Society must actively encourage the less productive degrees and if stare subsidy through the loan system is part of that then that's what is required. I am not sure what's up with you this morning, but your posts on this seem really wacky, narrow-minded and all a little Truman Show.

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

Italy 139%, France 118%, Belgium 109%, Spain 100% Q1 2026 debt-to-GDP. Official numbers, not a forecast. Four of the eurozone’s core economies are already past the point where the interest bill starts eating the budget alive.

Italy is paying ~3.9% of GDP in interest. France’s interest line has overtaken defence. Spain and Belgium are climbing fast as cheap old debt rolls off and new paper is issued at higher yields. This is no longer manageable. It is a structural squeeze.

No serious spending cuts. No pension or labour-market overhaul that sticks. Just higher taxes, more rules, and the same political class promising the next growth plan. Markets are already charging a premium. Spreads are widening. The snowball is rolling.

When the next shock hits, slower growth, another energy spike, or rollover risk, these governments will not choose austerity. They will demand the ECB do whatever it takes. Again.

That means the Transmission Protection Instrument, more balance-sheet expansion, or outright monetisation dressed up as monetary transmission. The euro gets diluted. Eurozone savers pay the bill. Real wages and pensions get crushed by the inflation that follows.

High debt + rising rates + no reforms = the same movie as 2011–2012, except this time the fire department is already out of water and the only tool left is the printing press.

The euro was supposed to impose discipline. Instead it became the mechanism that lets politicians postpone it until everyone is poorer.

[jbulltard @jbulltard1]

🤣🤣🤣

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Delilah has been fighting cancer for over 4 yrs. During treatments, her favorite song is "Hey There Delilah".

What happened next is beautiful

[Gordon Johnson @GordonJohnson19]

Every market has a fellow who is certain the prices are wrong and that he alone knows the right ones. Usually the market charges him tuition for this belief. Occasionally, it hands him the Treasury.

Consider the record. In 2000, Scott Bessent left Soros to run $1 billion of his own. Five years later, the fund no longer existed. In 2015 he tried again with Key Square, co-founded with Soros alum Michael Germino and seeded with $2 billion of Soros money — which is a bit like failing your driving test and being handed a Ferrari. Assets peaked at $5.1 billion in 2017 and finished 2023 at $577 million. Institutional investors reportedly went from 180 to 20, a retention rate that would embarrass a gym in February. And in 2018, Soros — the man who staked him — took his chips off the table. When your own anchor investor would rather not watch, that is not typically a buy signal.

Which brings us to the question: is the man now confidently dictating where oil, the dollar, Treasury yields, and stocks ought to trade a macro mastermind the market tragically failed to appreciate? Or did the market spend two decades doing its due diligence on him — and sell? He believes he’s smarter than the market. The market already graded that exam. Twice.

[Bart Mol @Bart_Mol]

Me explaining AI to friends

[Mikhail Khodorkovsky @khodorkovsky_en]

I once ran Russia's largest oil company. Here is what Ukraine's strikes are really doing to oil refineries — and why the damage may soon become irreparable.

(🧵Read on and follow for more)

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@LukeGromen Totally agree... unless we see YCC (or proxy). My money is that long 30yr TIPs at >300bps and long gold is the trade for the next 12 months (slightly biased by the fact that it clearly was today!)

[James Moore @honjamesmoore]

In every way, he is the model of what I am teaching my son not to be: vile, small, cruel, ignorant, petty, corrupt. And he models it daily. Today’s example:

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@LukeGromen @RandPaul I respect you, but don't have a Dunning Kruger moment. Stay in your well researched lane. Thank you

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

Let me guess... There is a basic fitness test that the officers insist on all their men taking every month, all while the officers eat cake and go on business trips? Surely if you have such a role in the army you can have the self-discipline to keep yourself as a role model for the troops?

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@ctindale @Microinteracti1 The UK "has areas that are...". Really? To prove an incorrect point you need to change the metric being measured. The UK is the UK, it is not West Yorkshire, nor Luton, nor number 47 Acacia avenue. Don't screw with stats so blatantly. Some people here will believe you!

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@nexta_tv "twice as cheap"... Grrrr

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@AndreasSteno @ttmygh *size it

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

Not your finest moment ASL. To measure risk and exposure you HAVE to know the risk appetite and measure every potential trade against that. He's not saying "take no risk" as you simplistically infer, he is saying "make a trade and some it within the limits that you can tolerate". There are emanu plonkers on X, but I'd guide you spray your vitriol with more judgement, else you become one.

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

If you are poor and consume little, this free healthcare is exactly that. Sure for the top rate tax payers your argument is true. However most countries in Europe follow a mederately liberal approach to ensure there is a safety net to catch the vulnerable. I think posts that imply that this is a nonsensical aspiration are pretty selfish and ugly and I am anything but liberal!

[il Donaldo Trumpo @PapiTrumpo]

STOP IT!!!🤣🤣🤣

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@nic_carter In the world of the blind, the one-eyed man in king. You have one eye but sadly, on football matters, the world has two. Only if delivered to a uninterested dinner party audience of football novices, could your ill-researched post be well received. Absolutely clueless.

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

So Trumpians petitioning to the supreme court to get rid of natural born citizenship (which was only rejected as recently 2 weeks ago), but then getting a red card rescinded by FIFA on one such unwanted citizen as it benefits the US soccer team, is pretty marvellous.

[Pottsie @RichardPott]

@dampedspring #3 is just bollox unless you are a Visa or MasterCard shareholder and benefit from their their entrenched oligopoly. Sending USDC across the world, instantly, for cents, demonstrates that existing payment rails are very very flawed.