Posts

January 2021 Macro Markets Post

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  Recap Hi all, and thank you for tuning into the January update from MacroSquawk. First looking back to the November update. A lot of the views written about at the time had come to fruition. From that writing we saw continued weakness in dollars, and a major rally in cyclical commodities which was the highlight of the last post. The challenges were an underestimation of the robustness of the rally in cyclical stocks, which was a massive outperformer to the rest of the equity market. We have also seen what's presumably a fundamental shift in the macro with the Georgia elections that has shifted the interest rate and monetary policy outlook. Macro Thesis In a rare moment in the history of this blog, it seems looking forward into 1Q21 and 2Q21, we are entering into a more tepid outlook for risk assets where sentiment can, and might actually, roll over more easily. Most of the street is pricing in the possibility for record gains in the real economy. However, this view ignores the ...
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2020 year-end performance review, and analysis of lessons learned

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Intro I had started this blog in November of 2019 while I was interning my senior year of NYU at a macro fund in New York. At the time I had gotten far enough along in developing my macro framework that I started this blog as way for me to clarify the thoughts I had about markets. To my good luck, there was interest in my writing and I continued. Now that I have a full year's worth of blog posts published, it seems only fitting to hold myself accountable to the performance of my recommendations. I plan to do this as long as I write the blog, through the good times and through the (hopefully not as many) bad times.  With that being said, being a newer market participant, 2020 has been an excellent training ground for developing skill in macro earlier on in my career. I have thought about the skills that must be developed as following two different avenues, which sometimes relate. The first of these is the fundamental global macro framework required to develop the views I have writte...
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November 2020 Macro Markets Blog Post

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Recap Hi all, and thank you for tuning into the November update from MacroSquawk. First looking back to the September update, there were several positives and challenges that might serve as clues to what's coming next in - what's likely to be an incredibly challenging end of year environment. One of the more prescient points made was a reference to the slowdown in the initial labor market recovery from reopening. Another was the continuation of the short dollar trade and that inflation might be reflected in the commodities markets. A most important reference was to the possible strengthening that might be enjoyed in EM assets as a result. The challenge, as with most things in macro, was the timing. What the last post failed to predict was the importance of the stalling out of the labor market recovery. This stalling out, in my opinion, was the primary cause of the grinding action that we had seen in risk assets in September and October (hence no blog posts). This failure in tim...
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September 2020 Macro Markets Blog Post

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  Recap Hi all, and thank you for tuning into the September update from MacroSquawk. If you were able to read the previous month's update, I think it is going to be indicative of the kind of environment we will be in at least until the US elections. Outside of the steepener trade on TY 10s30s I had written about, markets have been quiet through the August summer session period. Now that we've got Jackson Hole out of the way, that might start to change, which will be the subject of this blog post.  Macro Thesis    I think that in the current environment, a lot of the early positive news from the reopening story has been played out. Inflation from aggregate demand is going to be harder to come by, especially as we get into the winter season with fears of a resurgence and with news of possible reinfections. The saving grace might be the monetary inflation from dollar weakness as a result of the Fed's guidance at Jackson Hole. In this vein, I see the macro environment be...
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July 2020 Macro Markets Blog Post

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Recap Hi all, and thank you for tuning into the July update from MacroSquawk. If you were able to read the previous month's update, I think it is going to be indicative of the kind of environment we will be in for the next few months. We got the rally in commodities and stocks I had described, along with the selloff in dollars that I have been writing about for the past few months. Interestingly enough however, the rally in commodities has been largely contained to the metals complex. I think that this is interesting in the context of the macro environment we are seeing, and I think it is laying the foundations for an extremely inflationary move in the next few months to a year out. Macro Thesis    Right now the most important things to note are the guidance coming out of the Federal Reserve, the signals coming from global rates, as well as the passage of European stimulus. Firstly, as has been described in previous updates, the passage of stimulus in Europe would be ...
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