Caroline Ritchie
Reporting in from Sydney this week.
Bondi is right where I left it, exuding money and yoga mats. Swathes of palatial new glass face the surf, jutting at angles not found in nature, demanding attention.
Slowly, the bearded, pierced-nipple surfer-dude culture is being moved on to make way for a new league.
Here, cash flattens everything before it. You can feel it thrumming through the city's veins. Like London, or San Francisco.
I can't decide if this is good or bad. Things are highly bullish, moving very fast.
Finance and property appear deeply caffeinated, and there is an awful lot on show.
The suits fan out, early, down to the waterfront, and quaff and stuff themselves with delights paid for by their ballooning golden corporate handcuffs.
This palpable ambiance of wealth, in a market where even Steve Eisman is not shorting a single stock, seems hyper real.
Because a trip across the ditch is not complete for me without visiting at least two Aussie fundie friends, I duly line 'em up and quiz 'em down.
These are not the front-desk sales fodder, more research specialists who pick shares and asset allocations for big, nationwide accounts.
Neurotic by necessity, madly fun, hugely talented, the kind who try to drag you to a 17-martini lunch.
And they are sitting on cash for clients. In one case, 48 per cent. Of his whole lot.
Risk-category aggressive. Not for ever, he chastened his declaration, palms pushing against air for emphasis, not for ever. For now, though.
Another says "Overvalued" a lot.
Which bits, I query, too keenly. Oh, you know, in general, she replies.
This is a tad sobering because usually the retort is something like: "Ah YES, the scorched stretchmark part of THIS market, CAROLINE (as if I am 5 years old and it is all so mind-numbingly obvious) is the inner left corner of the multi-leveraged emerging Christmas-cracker futures sector."
I double check. You reckon, Sheila, (not real name), that our usual listed stuff, is, hmmmmm, how to put this in terms of financial worn-carpet phrases - ripe for correction?
"Yes."
There it is, full stop.
She clangs her glass down to signify no more shall be elucidated on the topic, and we move on to the usual relaxed debate: who WILL BE the first to invent TRUE portfolio insurance and sell it in a frenzied bidding war between Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan?
Is Timothy Geithner sexy? Dreams are a free carry, y'all.
But behind the razzle dazzle, my two anonymous professionals, in a town of thousands, are wary.
Are they in the majority? Should we take this incredibly small sample set seriously?
How are the ladies and gentlemen of the investing jury to judge?
Well, you can't, as ever, but the best advisers admit they don't know the half of it, and refer to their mates on the ground, scattered over the Earth's crust, who might do.
In this game, several Almost-Do's is infinitely better than one I'm-So-Great.
So I relinquish the brokers' ingrained tendency to try and always be right, and I treat Mr M and Ms M's advice about Oz with gravity.
I give it the cautionary equity eyeball. One half of them was Australian Fund Manager of the Year for 2016, at the end of the (gid)day.
• Caroline Ritchie is a former AFA, sharebroker and portfolio manager. She runs Investment Stuff, a sharemarket-based investment-coaching service. Visit her at www.investmentstuff.co.nz. This column is not personalised advice.