Peter Randall is the president of SETL.
Peter Randall, SETL
What is the next watershed moment that Wall Street should expect?
The bond markets are signaling deep uncertainty. They are tighter than they look due to the effects of the runoff of quanitative easing. There is trouble in the private markets and bond issues are being left with underwriters, it is likely that the next major watershed could be the finale of the global financial crisis with some of the large Euro-land banks finally having to take the medicine that Anglo-Saxon markets took seven to nine years ago.
Which hot topics should be left in 2018?
It would be “robo-advisors.” The concept is nonsense on a stick. How long do the good folk of the various robo-advisory land think it takes for high-frequency analysts to game the algorithms and scalp the trading strategy?
Will 2019 be “The Year of Institutional Crypto?”
As interest rates rise, driven by tight bond markets and policymakers inability to restart QE programs, the outlook for alternative assets could not be bleaker.
Remember that anyone who has entered the workforce since 2008 has probably never seen a rising interest rate or dealt with the effects. Crowd-funding and crypto-currency plays and peer-to-peer lending are all a phenomenon of preternaturally low-interest rates. As rates rise, these effects will cause most of the ‘new’ economy to become good, old-fashioned, one-way markets: the best price being, nothing to a jam-tart.
