France's borrowing costs are surging. Politicians are fighting. The debt pile grows. Analysts whisper the word "contagion" like it's a dinner party scandal.
I have a chart. It's a line. It goes up and down. Sometimes it does the opposite. The chart does not care about Paris.
Here is what the headline wants you to believe. France, the country that invented the guillotine, the baguette, and the eight-hour lunch, is now a threat to the euro. The fault lines are "different this time." Different from Greece. Different from Italy. Different from whatever your uncle lost money on in 2011.
They are always different this time. That is the one thing financial journalists get right. Every crisis is different until it is the same.
Meanwhile, you bought a French bond ETF because the ticker looked classy. You have never been to France. You think Macron is a type of cookie. You are half right, because he is also crumbling.
The 10-year yield rises. The spread over German bunds widens. Germany watches calmly, like a man whose neighbor's house is on fire and who has just remembered he owns a hose and a grudge.
Analysts ask whether the stress could spread across the euro zone. Of course it could. Stress spreads. It spread to your marriage after you bought that call option on a Tuesday.
I do not care about French politics. I care about support at 3.5 percent and resistance at whatever number makes me look smart. Technical analysis says the bond is going up, or down, or sideways, which in French is called "Thursday."
The European Central Bank has tools. Nobody can say which ones, but they sound expensive and are kept in a drawer in Frankfurt. Christine Lagarde will open the drawer when the time is right. She will find a note inside. The note will say "be calm."
You will read twelve articles about this crisis. You will understand none of them. You will sell at the bottom and buy at the top, a tradition older than the Bastille.
France will be fine. France is always fine. You, however, are holding the bonds.
Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash
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