I’ve linked and provided a brief commentary on some of the recent insights from Ray Dalio, Howard Marks, and Paul Singer.  I found the analyses insightful as I navigate the complexity of a COVID-19 world.

 

Money, Credit, and Debt – This is the second chapter in Ray Dalio’s new book that he is publishing as a work-in-progress on LinkedIn.  Like Ray’s books Principals and Principals for Navigations the Next Big Debt Crises, this book is not an easy read. Still, it does an excellent job of laying out the world’s current monetary systems, putting the financial systems in historical context, and articulating what could happen next.

 

An April 14^th Note from Howard Marks – Marks is one of my favorite investors and investment philosophers.  I’ve noticed that when things get complicated, some professionals get quiet while others will go to great lengths to try to be even more helpful to their clients. Marks is in the latter camp, and you can understand the severity of today’s events by the cadence of his updates. This not examines the requirements and trade-offs in reopening the economy and bailing out over-levered entities. My favorite quote from the insightful piece is, “it’s my view that if you’re experiencing something that has never been seen before, you simply can’t say you know how it’ll turn out.” 

 

An April 16^th Perspective Note form Paul Singer – Singer provides historical context on today’s market. All the media attention was on this view that the equity market would go lower.  I thought Singer’s thoughts on investment-grade credit were a lot more interesting.

 

How COVID-19 is Changing Science – Sticking with my theme of looking for the silver lining from this pandemic, I enjoyed the linked Scientific American article that discusses the increased level of sharing and the speed of collaboration in the scientific community as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully, this enhanced level of cooperation will continue, and we’ll see advances in how scientific research shared, reviewed, and published.

 

Comments welcome.

 

Delli (delli@cibc.com)

 

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