Strategy read in numbers, geopolitics and economics.
From systematic strategy to energy markets and political economy — evidence-based research notes from an independent analyst’s notebook.
AI Model Tracker
The current state of frontier & open-weight models — supply risk, licensing and local runnability.
TCMB Reserve Tracker
Turkey's central-bank international reserves — weekly gross + daily nowcast, dollarization, swap breakdown.
Strait of Hormuz Traffic Tracker
Daily vessel transits through the world’s most important oil chokepoint — free IMF PortWatch satellite-AIS data.
Systematic / Quant
07A Tale of Two Cities · Part III — An Interest-Rate Option in Disguise: The Theory of USDTRY Options under a Managed Float
Under a managed float, the delta-hedge cost of a USDTRY call comes from the forward, whose volatility is almost entirely rate/basis-driven. Closed forms (T³/3 fair vol, caplet equivalence) predict the losses of 96 real-data episodes, episode by episode.
A Tale of Two Cities · Part II — Same Option, Two P&Ls: The Onshore/Offshore Cost of a Delta Hedge
An experiment on real intraday USDTRY data (Jan–Jun 2026): delta-hedging the same 1M call with spot + swap rolls, where rolling onshore vs offshore splits realized P&L by exactly the cumulative basis.
The Hedging Basis Trap: Unhedgeable Offshore Rho
A regulatory firewall does not merely sustain a static cross-currency basis — it bifurcates the onshore and offshore TRY forwards into different asset classes. The onshore forward carries near-zero rate vol; the offshore forward is a hybrid FX–rates swaption. The '4-vol-point phantom vega' a local desk sees is unhedgeable offshore rho — traced through a +1000 bps squeeze and the closed-form offshore-basis rho.
A Tale of Two Cities · Part I — Two Prices for One Lira: The Onshore–Offshore Basis
A measure-theoretic, multi-curve framework for onshore/offshore TRY rate divergence: why mixing the onshore forward with an offshore-quoted volatility surface is inconsistent and mispriced, and a jump-diffusion model that explains a 22% implied vol on a near-zero realized-vol peg and resolves the cross-currency basis as an XVA reserve.
FX Option Pricer — Garman-Kohlhagen
An interactive Garman-Kohlhagen pricer for European vanilla FX options: premium, forward outright and the full Greeks (delta, gamma, vega, theta, dual-currency rho) with an expiry payoff diagram. T+2 spot, Modified Following roll, ACT/365 and continuously compounded rates.
Cross-Currency Option Hedging and Replication: EUR/TRY as a Worked Example
An option on a cross rate is an option on covariance. Why correlation risk ('cega'), gamma/cross-gamma and the joint devaluation tail can't be statically replicated with leg vanillas — and why, for EUR/TRY, the offshore swap squeeze and FRTB capital (NMRF/RRAO) are the real reasons desks quote wide.
Survival Alpha: Why Minimizing Drawdown Maximizes Return
The fact that compound return is geometric, not arithmetic, shows why putting drawdown minimization at the center is the rational choice.
Geopolitics & Energy
02Oil's Two Regimes: In the Iran Ceasefire the Price Drop Is Not Cancelled, Just Delayed
Where Brent and WTI land within days–weeks in a full de-escalation scenario — and why the real story is the 2027 supply glut. Reading Hormuz's reopening as two distinct price regimes.
As Hormuz Closes: Who Pays the Energy Bill of the 2026 Iran War?
The energy shock from the conflict ongoing since March 2026 is distributed asymmetrically: Asia and Europe are squeezed, the US comes out a net winner — and among big importers China is the most resilient.
Political Economy
01Which Technologies Is China Investing In, and Why? A Map of Structural Imperatives
China's tech priorities are not a wish list but a map of imperatives produced by demographic, geopolitical and energy pressures — a structural reading.