It must have been quite a wrench. After circa 19 years, the ultimate bears’ bear, Albert Edwards, is on the move from Dresdner Kleinwort.
Destination Societe Generale, where Edwards plans to join his strategising partners, UK-watcher James Montier, who we also learn has resigned from DK, and global quant specialist Andrew Lapthorne.
We use the word “plans” with intent. The last time a team departed for SocGen from DK, highly-rated banking duo James Eden and Ian Gordon, they didn’t quite arrive.
Or at least they didn’t stay. Says a putative SocGen colleague: “James turned up, but only for about three hours, and then he was off again. Ian didn’t actually arrive at all, which is a shame because he seemed to be a very jolly chap.”
The latest rumours of Eden’s and Gordon’s whereabouts takes us to BHP Paribas, but a switchboard operator there is mystified.
Meanwhile, we must assume that Edwards will now have to put in a stretch of gardening leave – something that we can only describe as appallingly timed.
Edwards is about as close as you get in the markets to a man with a sandwich board and loudspeaker, warning that the end really is nigh. And yet, despite crying “Sell” all the way up this and every other modern bull market, the portender of financial doom is routinely voted London’s top equity strategist.
We suspect this is because he’s a great read. Here’s Edwards explaining the relationship between copper, Wile E Coyote, and liquidity. And here he provides a reworking of the Canadian Mountain Guide’s lesson in how to survive a bear attack.