Cycles of Stupidity - Keep giving alcoholics tequila? That's Insanity

Dear Reader,

Did any of you watch the Ghostbusters remake?   I have not as I think it would be impossible to improve upon perfection. Apparently it absolutely sucked and if I am not wrong actually lost around 70 million dollars.

There seems to be this ever increasing habit of remaking old classics in Hollywood but very badly.  'Starwars 450 - A bit more woke but still with C3PO'  is going to be a blast.  Terminator Dark fate  - 'The  wokiness is back' is equally promising to be atrocious.  Thank goodness I have a vast library of old films at home.

How do rubbish new versions of old films relate to markets I hear you ask...

I read with interest and a immense feeling of Deja Vu  that Argentina has been downgraded again as it has 'selectively defaulted' on its debt.  The IMF (goodbye Mrs Suntan by the way) gave the land of beef a 57,000,000,000 USD bailout less than a year ago its largest ever bailout program.  Well done fellas nice work there.  

Argentina reminds me of a wayward alcoholic family member that swears this time for sure he is clean but repeatedly falls off the wagon and spends the entire family budget on tequila.  Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Standard and Poors have downgraded their debt to SD.  Apparently it means 'selective default' but secretly we all believe it probably really means 'shitty debt'.  It seems it is all to do with reprofiling their debt - bottom line is they can't pay their bills so very much a market to avoid.

The net effect on the overweight USD play I have been in for the last year has of course benefitted me.  I will still avoid EM funds in the shortand near  term as really there is very little good news out there from my point of view.

I wanted to say that bringing out new versions of old movies is very much like investing in international markets. We knew that Argentina was likely to not be able to cover its bar tab debt yet the IMF merrily shelled out 57 yards because this time they said they were clean.  This time was meant to be a new 'better' version - inside we knew it was never going to be like the old one.

It seems we will never learn and are locked into a repeating cycle of stupidity.  My advice to stick to core G10 investments.  Generally speaking the fx fluctuations intra those is far more stable and although you don't get super stellar returns like you might in emerging markets; you equally don't get super stellar losses when they default.

On that happy note I wish you a great weekend ahead.

Don