Remarks by Tony Deden at the Grant's Fall Conference in New York on 9 October 2018 on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer
Stay tuned for more from Grant’s 2018 Interest Rate Observer which took place on October 9th 2018 in NYC All content will be posted at this link and in our Q3 letters archive so stay tuned.
See Stan Druckenmiller on his macro outlook
See Francine McKenna on accounting games played by MoviePass, Tesla, Valeant, GE, and … Berkshire Hathaway
See Moffett Nathanson Pitches Short $T Debt
See Jason Trennert – Strategas
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is delightful to be among you in this inaugural conference of the next 35 years and I am grateful to the editor of Grant’s for the honor of inviting me to address you today.
It is remarkable that years into a financial world that has abolished the notion of failure, ushered a seemingly everlasting prosperity, and has brought monetary meddling to a level unimaginable by our ancestors, a publication named Interest Rate Observer can remain relevant and vibrant. Our world may indeed be unrecognizable to anyone over 60 or so, but Grant’s remains, always, passionate, principled, erudite, intellectually honest and a genuine inquirer as to the causes rather than symptoms that ail our world.
Reading Grant’s is like listening to Beethoven. He demands your undivided attention; he grabs you and envelops you. Eventually, you get used to discovering the nuances between the lines—the foresight, the perspective, the relevance, the subtle irony and the underlying principle. It is not hyperbole to suggest that Grant’s is that rare antidote against the intellectual and moral fatuousness of our times.
So, Jim, after so many years and also on behalf of so many to whom you have given so much, I thank you and look forward to the next 35 years.
Before delving into my topic, I want to give you my perspective. I spent the first half of my professional life as an investment counselor. Long ago, the practice became a very private investment fund and, more recently, an investment holding company. I’ve come to understand that savings accumulated over a lifetime is something precious and irreplaceable and that in order to protect it one must first respect it. And in seeking to deploy it one must acquire a sense of detachment from the noise of the dance hall and find what is valuable in the context of such irreplaceability. As a fiduciary, the task is very difficult. The idea of a prudent man has been replaced with Microsoft Excel, financial calculus, risk officers and the compliance industry. And the idea of investment value became very fuzzy.
Throughout modern history, savings in the form of money has never ceased to bedevil its owner. In the end, the preservation of its purchasing power has always been extremely difficult. Perhaps some of you will agree with me that in our so-advanced society, such an endeavor borders on the impossible.
A prudent man must seek to satisfy himself about the means to an end. This demands that he must revisit, again and again, the very elemental principles of his craft independent of how others think and act. What is money? What is wealth? What is savings? What is time? What is scarcity? What is value? What is risk? What can we learn from failure? Or from history?
To make the most of my few minutes among you, I will limit my remarks to a summary of summaries. And even though these remarks may be both imperfect and incomplete, I hope they serve as a source of inspiration that leads you to your own reflections.
Read the full article here by Edelweiss Journal
