Blood Moon

'Bad omen for the markets' the old man said

Peering out betwixt the shutters mumbling dire prognostications

Ere his guests had fled.

'He had it coming or he knew it all along that President Trump

And 'twasn't Mary Marshall's cat 'Foreclosure'

-all she had left killed - balump balump

Dead as mutton as she crossed the street?'

'Hard times, so dry the soil blows away

Takes rain and growth to make it stay

And the sheep all hungry, squeezin' under fences 'fore they died.

As if. Stuff all here or on the other side.

Should have took those January prices

'Fore it hit the fan in Yarrawonga and all those other bloody crises.'

George Smiley

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." - Yogi Berra

This poem really was penned before the deluge, after a dinner party Wednesday in which we had looked out the window to see this once- in- a- lifetime astronomical blue/blood co-incidence.  The markets had looked very toppy and Yogi's problems are easily surmounted by careful selectivity. No-one will remember your mistakes for long. But you can put your successes out there interminably and so gain something of a reputation. 

It was no great personal success however, I didn't even bother to replenish my small put option portfolio that had twice expired after equally persuasive moments and 'third time lucky' is a superstition that didn't even cross my mind - if correct there would be better opportunities to come that aren't hamstrung by some ever-expiring contango.