Ridley Jacobs

@recouso @dhotyaar

Waitress just told me that I can't work on my laptop during the weekend. That I must close my laptop because it's weekend. I'm about to lose it right now.

Okay guys, had a few cultural shocks in Spain: > Go to the gym, opens 10am on a Sunday > Go to work from a coworking, closed > Go to a coffee shop, no wifi Absolutely unthinkable in a barely productive economy like the US, yet alone UAE. Europe is a daylight museum.

@Frencheconomics Fills me with at least some positivity that the ratio is more towards the latter even if not enough!

@thunderhorseDB Quite out of date as last data is for 2023/24. Would suspect >£600bn given appreciation in global equities over this period.

The UK household love of the cash ISA shows no sign of abating. Another £4.4bn added in March. Honing in on half a trillion pounds of deposits.

@gbrew24 Why are all the other contracts down too?

As expected, a sharp drop today as June rolls into July. Brent climbed to $122 yesterday and is now back down to $113, where the July contract was yesterday. That's still higher than at any point since the ceasefire was called. #OOTT

@ClausVistesen They already are implicitly. Inflation target defacto 3pc

@thunderhorseDB Yes, eventually the currency will go too, but that only happens if/when the Treasury asks the BOE to monetise the debt. They might have to choose ...

See lots of reference to higher gilt yields and the threat to public finances. As long as nominal GDP is purring at +5% it doesn't matter. But if you have a recession, and a nominal slowdown, with automatic stabilisers blowing out the deficit to 7% of GDP, and yields don't fall, or even rise ... then you have a problem, a big one.

@ClausVistesen Especially dangerous when you run persistent CA deficits and have 35pc of your bond market held by foreign investors

@ClausVistesen Inflate away your debt and watch your global purchasing power decline via FX weakness

@Frencheconomics The challenge you have is that BOE also needs to be apolitical. Commenting too directly on bad supply side policies creates that risk.

The Bank of England’s latest policy decision is announced at noon. Widely expected to see a Hold in UK interest rates, but with most attention - quantitatively - on the vote split, and qualitatively on whether any of those voting to Hold are approaching the threshold of evidence to flip to a Hike at the June meeting. The central inflation forecast will be highly sensitive to the conditioning energy price assumptions and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a range of scenarios illustrated in the MPR - as any price assumption always ran the risk of being out of date by the time of this afternoon’s press conference. Don’t rule out a question or two on tolerance for elevated Gilt yields - we have seen (Sept 2022, Jan 2025) interventions from the BoE to address rapid shifts in financial conditions. We are probably not there yet, but some form of framework for intervention is a reasonable question for the Governor to face. Personally, I’d vote for a Hold but also (hope) that I’d be increasingly vocal that the monetary authority’s ability to credibly look through inflation of this nature is impaired by the UK’s track record on inflation (3% for 15Y) which largely stems from a lack of focus on the health of the UK supply side. My column last month laid out why this “speaking truth to power” on this issue is important. thetimes.com/business/econo…

@Frencheconomics My contacts at HMT CC suggest this wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world 😂

I am “considering” opening the bowling in the first test of the summer vs NZ. Hopefully this rather daft suggestion has a similar chance of happening….

@M_C_Klein If they distribute a fixed percentage of the balance sheet, won’t the cantons (who presumably want/need CHF) have to sell the foreign investments and buy CHF these strengthening the franc which SNB doesn’t want due to deflationary impact?

Interesting article on some of the implications of the Swiss National Bank's massive balance sheet (worth roughly $1 trillion, mostly due to years of FX interventions) gianlucabenigno.substack.com/p/the-fiscal-s…

@ShotPattern Would be very interested in testing this on my phone!

‼️All-New Shot Tracking! Looking for testers!‼️ We’re about to roll out an all-new on-course shot tracking experience. • Auto shot tracking on Apple Watch • Low-touch, intuitive tracking on iPhone • Easy in-round edits • Scorecards And more! Comment 👇🏼 for early access

@TimDuy Provided the higher unemployment figure doesn’t include themselves. The issue is you can’t have higher unemployment without anyone individually losing their jobs!

I have come to believe the median voter has a different loss function than the Fed. The median voter wants inflation at 2% or lower and would tolerate higher unemployment as a tradeoff. The Fed’s revealed preference is at best a 2% floor but comfortable with 3%.

@Rory_Johnston Yeh but you did get paid as much in that one 😂😂

There's a timeline in which the Iran War never happened, the Strait of Hormuz was never closed, and I spent the past two months doing really interesting niche data work on US refineries, light-heavy crude balances, and tracking the post-Maduro recovery of Venezuela's oil industry.

@M_C_Klein @Rory_Johnston Do you mean Robin Brooks specifically 😂😂

@Rory_Johnston also worth noting that there is some overlap between these people and people who thought (still think?) that oil sanctions on Russia would collapse its economy and force it to end its war on Ukraine

@ClausVistesen If you are waiting to deploy your capital until the oil price has actually got back to $70/bbl then you are going to miss a massive part of the rally

It's over if/when the oil price returns to it pre-war level and refined product mkts normalise. Until then, a big inflation shock gets more entrenched by the day. If you think it's over, less talking more selling oil/buying bonds, and if you think its recessionary, sell stocks too! 2/2

I don't have a particularly strong view on equities here—the sector churn is conducive for active managers and leaves the index protected to the downside—but for those who claim this crisis is "over" ... what are you smoking?! 1/2

@EffMktHype These nomina flow numbers always get bigger over time because of inflation! Maybe better to scale by GDP or underlying market cap or something?

Only 4.5T yen of selling foreign stocks for quarterly rebalancing out of japan. only to buy back 3T yen last week lol. largest on record both ways

@LouStagner Rory’s approaches last year on 5, 7, 15 weren’t at all about skill or shaping the ball were they Fred? These guys just talk absolute nonsense. And also if you really want to stop people hitting it 350 just put some big deep bunkers there…not hard!

The "imagination and creativity" argument doesn't hold up. Fred Ridley says golf used to be a game of "imagination, creativity, and variety." What does that actually mean? That players used to curve the ball more? That they hit more creative shots? Here's the problem... if you roll the ball back, elite players aren't going to suddenly start shaping the ball more. They'll still optimize for the lowest score possible. That's what they do. That's what you would do if you were playing for tens of millions of dollars. Curving the ball costs distance. Costing yourself distance will tend to cost you money. Players know this. They have launch monitors and decades of strokes gained research telling them exactly what works. Rolling the ball back doesn't change that math. They'll still hit the shot that gives them the best chance to score. And here's something most people don't realize, distance was actually MORE valuable per yard in the 1980s than it is today. The USGA's own research found that the scoring value of an extra yard of driving distance was at its highest in 1983-85 and declined over the next 30 years. Players weren't hitting more creative shots in the 1980s because the game rewarded creativity. They were optimizing with the tools and knowledge they had back then. The tools and knowledge they had back then were rudimentary by today's standards. We have MUCH better tools (trackman, etc..) and better knowledge today. Our knowledge and understanding have evolved. You want players to curve the ball more? Rolling back the ball won't do it. Plant more trees. Design holes that demand it. Create situations where the optimizer says, "the best play here is a draw with driver around that tree line." The irony is that many in the rollback crowd who want more "shot shaping" also seem to be in the "chop down all the trees" crowd. You can't have both.

@cameronponsonby You still count as young?!? Congrats buddy

Won ECB best young journalist 2025. Feeling proud and pleased.

@BobEUnlimited It just shows spec positions got wiped enough for gold to start doing its rightful thing again

Gold moving up as stocks and bonds sell off is a notable change in the intermarket action. Only one day so don't want to read too much into it, but worth keeping an eye on.

@ClausVistesen Maybe this is what we need though rather than worrying about recession we need to go through a proper one again (2020 didn’t count as was effectively enforced by regulation)

The sting in the tail is that automatic stabilisers will then torch fiscal balances, forcing governments to cut spending. Then my friends, you will get those rate cuts that you covet; all you can eat too. I guarantee it. 2/2

We're inching closer every day to an equilibrium where the only way to kill this energy shock is to push economies into recession ... central banks can do this with relative ease if they must, but well. 1/2