London Evening Standard - “Christmas cards are the veriform appendix of communication: a right pain but completely and utterly useless.”
A Glass and a Half Full of Joy.
(via: aja)
Love to hate the Tube
The “PRDC menace” as USDJPY breaches 95
“But just as deleveraging has created domino effects in numerous other asset classes, there are signs that volatility in the foreign exchange markets is starting to affect PRDC trades.”
Yeah, you reckon. And Mrs Watanabe is stuck with 30y jpy zeroes. Also, The Times UK had this to say recently:
“The products, which are known as power reverse dual currency notes (PRDC), were sold to Japanese households as simple products offering higher yields than regular savings but the bonds were in reality hugely complex structures “with 15 moving parts and multiple points of pain”, derivatives experts at RBS in Tokyo said.”
When you see PRDCs mentioned in two different daily broadsheets, it’s time to be worried. Long-dated IR/FX vol, smile, correlation/x-gamma… multiple points of pain indeed.
Hailstoning outside - winter’s arrived in London. Another good excuse for a phat cheeseburger lunch at GBK.
Random observation: why do Rock & Republic jeans cost GBP 250 in London and USD 250 in NYC?
Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar
Damn, if there ever was another reason to head back to NYC again.
The Volcano: Imagine the most delicious knish ever, filled with potato gratin, gruyere cheese, and Benton’s bacon. ‘Nuff said.
Pork and Egg Bun: Another excuse for Chang to gild the pork bun lily with a deep fried soft poached egg.
The candy bar pie has toffee, housemade nougat, and a chocolate cookie crust. Bonus: it’s topped with mini-pretzels for some extra-added crunch.
Oh yes indeed.
Pro glass Nikkor
Ever since the early days starting off on a Nikon F65 with 28-100mm FX, glass has progressively become more important in my mind. Along came a new D70s and I used the 18-70mm kit lens (and other glass) for a while but ditched it in favour of the 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 VR DX which was released in 2005 and this became my sole walkabout workhorse. Instead of swapping multiple lenses, I had pretty much the whole focal range I wanted. The 2 or 3 extra stops from the VR was a dream. And a few years on, I still love this lens.
But for what and how I want to shoot now, pro glass is required. I need faster apertures, super-sharp optical precision and tough durability.
I’ve been looking to get the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR for quite a while.
OK it’s USD 1700 but what a piece of kit - about 1.5kg, solid metal, fixed aperture across the focal range, 21 glass elements (with 5 ED) in 15 groups. This is going to kill it on safari. Well, and also on weddings and reportage. It’ll be able to take a proper beating in the field.
Anyone really interested should check out the modulation transfer function (MTF) curves just for fun.
Next on the list would be the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 50mm and 85mm f/1.4 primes for portraits. I’ve seen some amazing liquid bokeh on the primes.
Anyway, let’s hope the 70-200mm f/2.8 is in stock somewhere!
BoE cuts rates by 150bps!
Asian rout! Usdjpy has dropped a few big figures the last I checked and Nikkei closes down nearly 10%. One word: x-gamma.
Might be time to get a new BTO MBP.
WTI vol skewed to the downside?
Hmm, pretty bearish, if OPEC does slash production this week as expected…
