Life Comes At Us Way Too Fast: One Banker’s Striking Explanation Why Nothing Makes Sense Any More
Deutsche Bank’s postmodern philosopher-cum-credit strategist Aleksandar Kocic, who missed his true calling and instead of writing a sequel to Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake or some other pomo stream of consciousness piece in the style of Lacan, Derrida, Deleuze (or even Foucault, Beckett, Ginsberg or Burroughs) was reduced, no pun intended, to predicting the future by describing the shift in yield curves or their “Greek” derivatives, has always had a way with words and he certainly uses them in his 2020 vol market outlook which can be summarized – and we use the term very loosely – as follows, in his own words: “We see last year as the final stage of an on-going process of vega collapse caused by the chronic lack of demand, disruption of the vol/leverage cycle, and activity of the Central Banks. At the core of these developments resides an emerging new perspective of uncertainty: On top of the structural drivers, low volatility levels, compressed vol risk premia, and flat vol forwards present an articulation of the flattening of horizons.”
Like we said, “a way with words.”
While it would be an injustice to the Deutsche Banker to summarize what he talks about in simplistic terms (the problem with post-modernism is that it can’t by definition be reduced, hence why nobody really reads it), what the Serbian strategist focuses on in broad strokes is the ongoing collapse of vega (and its deficit), which however may be approaching the “boundaries of vol decline” (i.e., the moment when the Fed loses control so to speak)…
