Story by J.J. Krause
Cascade is a serialized satire about four Seattleites –– a failed homosexual, a crypto-obsessed mom, a party-girl-turned-caretaker, and an unorthodox professor, all trying to hold it together in a world coming apart. Catch updates every few weeks on the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. Want to skip ahead? Get the book.
Morning in Bellevue
It was 5:30am on Monday and Dave was already in Bellevue, on the 21st floor of a concrete castle. He was at Sanford & Co, his office—the feudal HQ itself.
He entered the bathroom in bike shorts, and, in two minutes flat, emerged as a finance professional: donned in a Brooks Brothers button-down and Costco wool pants, both billowing heterosexually as he walked down the sterile hallway. Through gold plated doors, he waved at Kristy, the blonde behind the front desk. He crossed the trading floor, a pen of low-rise cubicles each with four monitors, graphs aglow shining onto frowning male faces. It was eerily quiet. Weaving to the edge of the room, he found his own cube, with one monitor, next to a middle-aged Indian woman named Rana.
“Happy Monday,” she whispered.
“You too,” said Dave, sliding into his chair. Pulling up his emails, he felt the numbness set in. Across the room, he could see a window, and outside the window, he could see the lake. Yesterday, surrounded by men in speedos drinking rosé, felt a world away.
At 6am, the traders spun their chairs around for the huddle. Dave listened in, glancing over the cubicle wall.
An older man with a long face and a missing upper lip began. “We have to gross up this week. Valuations are absurd but retail flows are stronger than ever. I know people are cautious, but we need to hit our targets for leverage. Pick your best positions and extend them.”
Frowning faces all around.
“It’s a weak macro week. We’re past CPI. The ten year is chopping. Semis are running on the AI theme. It’s risk on. Don’t fight the tape. Barry, you go first with retailers.”
An overweight man with thick black glasses cleared his throat. “We have a few companies reporting this week, mainly off-price and dollar stores. Margins aren’t coming down at all. And the K-shaped bifurcation theme seems to be holding up—high end is spending, low end under pressure.”
“So back to normal?” said the older man.
“Yes. As long as the stock market rips, the high end spends. Rates impacts seem to be a wash so far—any credit constriction is offset by interest income. Not seeing any problems.”
“You looking at the SNAP expirations?”
“Yes we are shorting a few of the affected retailers.”
“Great. Gross up. Let’s do financials next.”
A lanky young man hesitantly stood. “We’re still evaluating the CRE situation, but unfortunately we hit a few stop-losses on shorts with the rally—”
“Triston,” interrupted the old man, “I’m gonna stop you right here.”
Triston nodded, clearing his throat.
“I want to be clear,” continued the older man, “We need beta. You’re overthinking this. You don’t need to map out the future of the banking industry. Respect momentum. Follow the Reddit boards if you need to. Nobody cares about these risks until banks are blowing up. Have you ever hiked Mount Rainier?”
“Excuse me?” said Tristan.
“Mount Rainier,” said the man, “have you hiked there?”
“Sure, yes,” said Tristan.
“It’s an active volcano. Were you worried about an eruption?”
“I see what you’re saying.”
“We’re benchmarked against funds that are invested. Skepticism is worthless in a multi-decade multiple expansion. Everyone knows there is a Fed backstop. Look at the political context — the White House wants this market higher. Add to your longs. We need more out of you.”
Deflated, Tristan sat back down. “Yes, I’ll get on that.”
“Next up is materials.”
The huddle moved quickly. At 6:15am, they all swiveled back to their screens, and at 6:30am, the market opened. The sound of clacking keyboards increased slightly, but beyond that, the room remained silent.
Dave started blankly at his screen, thinking about the update. Valuations are ridiculous… doesn’t that mean we should sell? Dave wasn’t on the investment side, so his opinions didn’t matter, but he often wondered if his better-compensated colleagues knew what they were doing. Didn’t they read Minsky? The house of cards had to crumble any day now…
But the White House wants the market higher? Does the president get to decide how rich we are? These days, it seemed the more screwed up politics became, the higher the markets went. The market, after all, was just a reflection of the delusions and distortions of American society at large—and there was no shortage there. Maybe I should be less bearish, thought Dave.
“Did you see the redemption request?” whispered Rana over the wall, snapping him out of his thoughts, “We need the paperwork today.”
“I thought we sent that to India last week,” Dave whispered back.
“They fucked it up,” said Rana, “can you do it?”
“Sure,” said Dave, scrolling through a convoluted chain of messages with a pension fund.
“Should we send it back to India and have them try again?” Dave asked, craning his neck into her cube, his eyes betraying distaste for the artificial plants she’d arranged on her desk.
“There’s no time. And they’re incompetent. Just do it.”
Dave nodded, returning to his screen. But just then the old man, Dick Sanford, walked up.
“Dave,” he said, staring into his phone, “where are we with the deck?”
“Uh,” said Dave, cycling through screens on his computer, “looks like we updated all the charts last week.”
“We’re gonna need to redo that,” Dick replied, “we got back some revised trade data from Goldman. And we need to fix the formatting. Did you make the changes?”
“You mean updating it to the latest style guide?”
“No, I thought we talked about this. Warren’s girlfriend works at an advertising agency and they suggested some things.” Raising his voice, he spoke across the room, “Warren, did you send Dave the notes on the fundraising deck?”
From the other side of the room, a young man—also with a long face and a missing upper lip—turned from his screens and said, “Yes I did.”
“Find the email,” said the older man, “We need the deck to be more professional. We need to look like the funds in New York, not some Seattle backwater. We can’t raise money with a deck that looks like a school assignment. ”
“Got it, I’ll look,” said Dave, flustered.
The man glanced at Rana’s desk. “Is this the latest Seattle Times?” he said, picking up the paper, which was open to the Food section (Rana had a passion for brunch).
“Yes,” she replied.
“Do we subscribe to this?”
“Yes, we get all the papers.”
“Well we probably don’t need this one,” said the man, flipping to the business section. His lip-less mouth curled sideways as he glanced at the lead article. “Look at this nonsense,” he said. The column was titled, “It was Transitory, The Transition Just Took Time,” by Bill Lorie, PhD.
“These academics,” said Dick, speed-reading, “if they only knew…”
Dave and Rana mumbled their support in unison, staring at their boss intently. Dave had read the piece and reluctantly agreed with Dick’s assessment; Rana hadn’t and didn’t care but was worried about losing the food section.
“What are they teaching in the schools? Does this guy really thinking printing $5 trillion and sending checks had no impact?” Dick asked, to nobody in particular, shaking his head. “Actually,” he said, “this might help us understand retail investors better. Maybe we should keep getting it. Mind if I take it?”
“Of course not,” said Rana to the old man’s back as he walked away.
They turned back to their computers. Dave heard the whooshing noise of a new email coming into his inbox. It was from Warren Sanford, with the subject line, “Fundraising Deck Design Notes.”
It was 6:45am in Bellevue and Dave couldn’t wait to bike back home.
CASCADE 1: Going Downhill | A Failed Homosexual |.Crypto Karen | New Neighbors
CASCADE 2: Madison Park Beach | Home Economics | Morning in Bellevue
J.J. lives in Seattle and can frequently be found on foot trekking up and down hills, stopping only to record one-liners and half-baked ideas.
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