Morning Coffee: The secret Zoom dress code. Grizzled macro hedge fund manager living his best life

If you've been wondering about the most appropriate outfit for your approaching Zoom interview, the answer appears to be: not a suit. Nor a tie. Nor a jacket. The New York Times has conducted some research into Zoom-wear and it turns out there's only one thing you need: a single shirt. 

It must be a good shirt. For men, the NYT is advocating a merino wool dress shirt costing $175 made by Proper Cloth which keeps its shape even when it's chucked on a chair. Given that this will be the only shirt you need, it's worth spending money on. 

You won't really need two shirts because you won't need to wash the shirt very often. And you won't need to wash the shirt often because you won't be wearing it much. For most of its life, your Zoom shirt will be on the chair or on a door and you will simply scramble into it for Zoom meetings. The NYT's inquiries suggest that no one remembers what you wear during these meetings, so it won't matter that you've worn the same shirt for 70 consecutive days, particularly if it happens to be an innocuous white shirt that was never going to stand out in the first place. 

For women, dressing for Zoom appears to be more complicated. The NYT suggests a $1,500 floral ruffle blouse made by Burnett New York, a company that happens to be run by a former analyst at Goldman Sachs who happens to recommend it. Not only does the blouse seem unfairly expensive compared to the male option, but it's so ornate that it's unlikely to go unremarked if worn consistently. Nor does it look like you could toss it on a sofa and put it back on again without consequences.

The best option for a woman in a Zoom meeting might instead by the 'Zoom scarf.' Again, it needs to be a statement item: think Hermes or Louis Vuitton. Yes, it will set you back, but think too of all the savings: shoes, skirts, trousers, bags: all superfluous in Zoom world. All you need is one thing, on the top half of your body, that can be picked up and put down to embellish your appearance while you sit there in track pants and flipflops for the rest of the time.

Separately, someone highly familiar with flipflops these days appears to be Hugh Hendry, the Glaswegian former hedge fund manager who shut his shop and moved to St. Barts in 2019. There, 51 year-old Hendry, who is known for 'speaking his mind,' was supposed to be setting up a $50m property fund. This may still be the case, but Hendry also appears to have gone full Point Break-OId Spice now that he's definitively escaped the grey skies of Britain. The video below, which recently appeared on his YouTube Channel illustrates the new vibe. There are also some reflections on Ayn Rand and quantitative easing for those who want to get deeper and do more than checking-out Hendry's abs/armpit hair, plus Hendry has an Instagram account where he shares more flattering and unflattering beach selfies, along with market observations like, "What if we’re moving from a bull market in fear to a bull market in WTF?"

Meanwhile:

Boosted by debt sales, investment banking fees rose to $57bn in the first six months of the year. There was a 30% jump in revenues from underwriting bonds and a 37% jump in fees related to stock sales. Previous records were $54.9bn in the first half of 2018 and $53.9bn in the first half of 2007. (Financial Times) 

13 unwritten rules for being black on Wall Street, including 'develop a white voice' and 'get used to hearing about the supposed lack of qualified black applicants.' (Bloomberg) 

Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan stand to make the biggest credit losses as a result of spiking COVID cases in Florida, Texas, California, Arizona and Georgia. (Bloomberg) 

Hedge funds like Ovata Capital Management, Oasis Management Co., York Capital Management and AM Squared Ltd all made big gains on the dividend futures trades that lost big money for French banks in the first quarter. (Bloomberg) 

Wirecard suspended the payment of June salaries to its employees in Germany, France, Luxembourg. (Financial Times) 

EY sent a memo to its senior partners where it claimed responsibility for discovering the fraud, despite signing off Wirecard’s accounts for more than a decade in the face of growing questions about its accounting practices from journalists and some investors. (Financial Times) 

Barclays' head of UK M&A was cleared of causing death by careless driving. "Words cannot begin to express how devastated I am and the sympathy I wish to convey to his family. I'm devastated I've been involved in an accident that resulted in a tragic loss of life." (Daily Mail) 

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Photo by Vanessa Rauer on Unsplash