I am not much of an art man. I own a few original pieces myself, but not because they are valuable, fashionable, or hanging in the right gallery. I bought them because I loved them. They spoke to me. There was little analysis, no attempt to understand what the artist was trying to say. I simply looked at them and knew.

Likewise, you will rarely find me wandering through galleries on a Sunday afternoon. Drag me through the Tate Modern and, if I am being completely honest, I would probably classify 80% of what I see as complete nonsense. I am very much a love-or-hate person. There is rarely a middle ground.

A few years ago, however, my wife dragged me to a David Hockney exhibition. Until then, I knew remarkably little about him. What followed was one of the few artistic experiences that genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

This week, the world lost Hockney at the age of 88. One of Britain’s greatest artists, he spent more than six decades reinventing how we look at the world, moving effortlessly between painting, photography, digital art, iPads, and multi-screen visual installations. He never seemed interested in staying comfortably inside the boundaries of what art was supposed to be.

What captivated me was not simply the beauty of the work. It was the clarity. His famous A Bigger Splash remains one of the defining images of modern art. A swimming pool. A burst of water. California sunlight. At first glance, it appears almost absurdly simple. Yet the longer you look, the more impossible it becomes to ignore. Like the best trades, the best ideas often look obvious only after someone else has had the courage to express them.

Hockney also embraced technology long before most artists dared. While many complained that digital tools somehow diminished creativity, he was producing remarkable works on iPads and experimenting with entirely new ways of seeing. He understood that the tool was never the point. The vision was.

Perhaps that is why his work resonated with me.

When I look at art, I react in exactly the same way as when I look at a chart or a macro setup. I either love it or I hate it. There is very little in between.

I am not interested in forcing myself to appreciate something because everyone else does. I either see it, or I don’t. I either play or I pass.

Markets are remarkably similar.

The greatest trades I have ever put on were not the ones that required endless debate. They were the ones where the picture emerged clearly. The ones where the asymmetry jumped off the page. The ones where the market offered something that felt undeniable. At the moment, I do not see much of that.

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Aside from a short-term short in gold that has since been covered and some bond positions picked up recently, I have largely been standing aside. Not because opportunities do not exist, but because the canvas currently feels dominated by noise rather than beauty.

The market is transfixed by the latest creations of Elon Musk. The political theatre surrounding Donald Trump, who celebrates another birthday this weekend, continues to generate headlines at a pace that would make even the most experimental artist blush. Every day seems to bring a new exhibition of hype, outrage, speculation, or narrative-driven nonsense.

Perhaps it is art. Perhaps it is performance art. Perhaps it is simply bullshit.

Whatever it is, I find little desire to chase it.

One of the hardest things in investing is accepting that not every period requires participation. There are times to paint, and there are times to stare at a blank canvas.

There are times when the market offers a masterpiece.

And there are times when the wisest course of action is to sit quietly in the gallery, hands behind your back, waiting for something worthy of your attention.

That is where I find myself today.

Watching. Waiting. Looking for the next setup that makes me feel the same way Hockney’s paintings did all those years ago.

The next trade is impossible to walk past. The next masterpiece. It will come.

Below, we have Macro D’s latest Macro FX spreadsheet and his thoughts before we scan the weekly macro calendar, study the latest macro dashboard output and see what the asset allocation model has in store for us this week.

I am still travelling, but I am keeping a very close eye on developments. I will be dialling into the Warsh’s first FOMC meeting as chair. Look at the art piece of a chart below, and I’m sure he will be familiar with this setup. Good luck trying to be dovish.

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The beauty of being on the road and in a different time zone is that time shrinks, and trading decisions are less frequent. My week has been very profitable, as the shorts in Gold paid off nicely, and, thanks to the reversal signal, I was able to monetise them in a timely manner. Similarly, there was a reversal in the DAX and US Treasury futures that I was able to turn into holiday money. This is a trading market, not much to do with traditional macro (yet).

Then, of course, we have the hyped up SpaceX IPO coming down the pipe. I have never bought an IPO in my lifetime. This time will be no different. It will be on my radar, but at these valuations, boy, you will have to think twice. 1.77 trillion against 18.7bn of 2025 revenue and a 4.2bn operating loss — for context, the smallest of the nine existing trillion-dollar companies by revenue is Micron at 58bn. That's ~95x trailing sales, with revenue growing 33% and all operating profit coming from Starlink while the rocket division loses money. The SpaceX IPO alone is raising more than all US IPOs combined in 2024 and 2025.

Is it the market top? Nobody knows, of course, but there are some historical precedents. Let’s have a look.

• BP privatisation, Oct 1987 — priced days before Black Monday; underwriters carried the loss.

• The 1999–2000 cohort (theglobe.com, Pets.com et al., plus the AOL–Time Warner deal, Jan 2000) — within weeks of the March 2000 Nasdaq peak.

• Blackstone, Jun 2007 — the smart money selling itself to the public four months before the equity top.

• Glencore, May 2011 — almost to the day, the top of the commodities supercycle.

• Aramco, Dec 2019 — the previous record-holder, listed within months of what may prove peak oil-demand psychology and the COVID crash.

• Coinbase, Apr 2021 — Bitcoin peaked the day of the direct listing, then halved. Rivian (Nov 2021) did the same for the speculative-growth complex, top-ticking it within a week.

A reminder that subscribers now have access to the full suite of tools, all housed in our dedicated site at pa-globalmacro.com. I would recommend the “how-to guide” to get started. There are daily dashboard updates and signals straight to your inboxes. In addition, we have the entire chart book printed daily (covering more than 200 securities), the newly launched sector map, and a daily performance run of our buy-and-hold portfolio. It’s all there, and there is more to come.

Macro D is sharing his latest macro thoughts and central bank analysis below. He has been holding the fort while I’m away and has published the June series of the Macro FX trade corner (wee below), presenting 7 new trades.

Have a wonderful weekend. The FIFA World Cup has started. Usually, I’m getting excited for it, but not this time. Not sure why that is. Rest assured, I will be observing markets from afar and will update subscribers on any notable market shift that catches my attention. Oh yes, Trumpy-boy is turning 80 on Sunday. What surprise does he have in store for us all? You can say what you want, but it won’t be boring for sure.

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Macro FX is a noisy business. You can have the right story and the wrong timing, or the wrong story and still get paid. So what matters is process, levels, and risk.

Macro D’s trade ideas have been excellent so far. Calm, structured, and very clear about what has to happen for a trade to work (and what invalidates it).

This month, you’ll see 7 FX new trades, with entry, sizing, stop, and take-profit laid out plainly.

Behind the paywall, subscribers also get access to Macro D’s detailed trade spreadsheet, updated weekly with ATW, so you can track the full blotter over time.

Let’s dive in.

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After more than half a day of travelling, I have finally arrived at my holiday destination, and boy, am I jetlagged. I’m on my second cup of coffee, while it's just past midnight in London town.

Friday brought some blood to the streets. A hotter-than-anticipated NFP has once again lit up the US bond market and front-end pricing. The ripples spread to a structurally weakening US equity complex, which ran out of steam just as realised volatility was tracking at ridiculously low levels. I have stayed away from equities for a few weeks now and regard this correction as natural and, once again, a timely reminder that when it gets too easy, too boring, moves can happen.

No system can predict these moves. Having said that, my technical models detected a sell setup in the Nasdaq on Thursday, which triggered a rotation into value first before the whole market violently adjusted. The usual pattern takes longer to play out; this time, it unravelled at record speed.

The volatility rippled through other asset markets, with commodities and FX also experiencing outsized moves relative to recent history. Bitcoin was already in a downmove after breaking the 70k barrier earlier in the week and is now sitting at key support levels from February.

We just experienced a Minsky moment. Energy builds in the quiet, then the system lets go. After a snap like Friday’s, out of a dead-calm environment, what does the next week and the next month actually look like? A 2.6% drop from a genuinely calm regime has occurred only a handful of times in 75 years. I did some digging, and some historical patterns surprised me. Charts, tables, named precedents back to the Nifty-Fifties and some other findings for subscribers further below. Important read as we head into a new week.

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We then follow the usual ATW script, looking at Macro D’s latest Macro FX spreadsheet and trades (up 2.25% last week), before we scan the weekly macro calendar, analyse the macro dashboards’ latest readings, and then reveal what the weekly asset allocation model has in store for us for the coming week.

A reminder that two new tools have been uploaded to the pa-globalmacro site, including the full tracking of our buy-and-hold portfolio since its 2022 inception. On Friday, the portfolio outperformed the SPX by nearly 1% as some of the hedges worked in protecting the downside. That’s by design.

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With the inkpad in hand, I put down thoughts and smaller comments or take out a few sentences of a research report. It’s a process that then manifests into a vision or a trade. It works for me.

As I am packing my bags for a few weeks away (don’t worry, the laptop is coming with me), I just wanted to share my overall macro thinking with my subscribers. This is the driving force behind my investment decisions. There are many moving parts, but I am trying to keep it simple, aside from what political noise is on the daily menu.

I will aim to keep to the usual schedule while away, although I will be operating out of a different time zone. The daily pa-globalmacro publishing service will continue as usual. It’s the place where all my models/dashboards and chart books live. In addition, a daily email is sent to subscribers, notifying them of any significant changes in the 200+ securities tracked.

I have added two new additions to the offering this week, which all existing and future subscribers can now benefit from. A reminder that you can access it on the pa-globalmacro.com site using your email. If you subscribe to this space, you will be granted access to the other site as well. No trials are given.

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One new feature is the US sector map, which shows leading/lagging sectors relative to the index. This is updated daily and tracks sector-relative strength over time.

The other one, available from mid-week, is the PA - Global Macro Buy-and-Hold Portfolio summary, which is now updated daily as well. Since 2022, I have been tracking a portfolio and initiating changes at year-end for the next 52 weeks. I often reference the current portfolio, but here you have the full history. For rebalancing once a year, we haven’t done too badly.

Let’s now dive into my macro framework, which covers rates, equities and overall macro drivers. We then check Macro D’s latest thoughts on Macro and his Macro FX book.

Have a wonderful weekend, enjoy.

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AI is omnipresent now, and for a lot of things, that’s genuinely useful. I don’t feel moral panic when a tool helps me sand down boring work.

But every movement creates a counter movement. It’s almost physics.

The more polished things get, the more we start craving texture. The more “optimal” the interface becomes, the more we want a bit of resistance. A little mess. A little hum.

As an avid music fan, I couldn’t escape the rise of Angine de Poitrine.

They’re a duo from Quebec, and the whole thing is wrapped in anonymity and theatre. Papier-mâché heads, costumes, this surreal stage persona that’s half Dada, half punk art project. They went properly viral off a filmed live session (see their KEXP performance below), which is a sentence I didn’t expect to write about microtonal math rock in 2026.

Musically, it’s tight drums, looping, odd time, and this double-neck microtonal guitar that bends the grid under your feet. “Asymmetrical and dissonant” is how one agency bio puts it, and for once, that doesn’t feel like PR fog.

The thing that gets me is how imperfect it sounds, because it’s literally built around half-steps and quarter-tones that don’t resolve the way your brain expects. You keep waiting for the familiar landing spot, and they keep taking the exit ramp you didn’t know existed.

And somehow it’s captivating. Mesmerising, even. I was looking to get tickets for their London gig, but it was impossible to get my hands on any.

Is that the counter movement? Something stubbornly human that a machine won’t ever replicate, not because it can’t generate the notes, but because it can’t carry the same lived impulse behind them. The “why this, why now, why like that” that only makes sense inside a particular body, with particular scars.

A friend of mine is thinking about launching a business that just creates boring machines. No digital display. No voice commands. Buttons, levers, maybe a spring that snaps back the way it should. A bit of human skill required, and the quiet satisfaction that comes with it. The kind of tool you can understand by looking at it.

I find that idea comforting.

Because finance is doing the same dance. I see more and more Twitter posts about programmed algorithmic trading using AI. It’s great. I mean that. It’s fast, consistent, and it helps people analyse and explore strategies.

But it will never replicate human nature. Instinct. Pattern recognition that was earned the expensive way. The life-long scars that shaped the investors who are still standing.

A machine can optimise execution, but it can’t internalise humiliation. It can’t feel what a drawdown does to your breathing, or how conviction gets brittle when you’re under pressure. That part is learned through exposure, not downloaded through a repo. Do you think Druckenmiller or Paul Tudor Jones use AI much? I doubt it.

There are no shortcuts. Especially not in investing.

That’s also why I have created this little place for readers who are interested in learning, expanding and growing. Together with Macro D, we provide our best knowledge on all things macro - several decades of real experience put together. Tools are now housed in pa-globalmacro.com, a site dedicated entirely to models and technical analysis. I have written a brief how-to guide for those interested.

The point isn’t to cosplay certainty. It’s to open the workshop door and let you see the process, the tools, the mistakes, the risk framing, and the slow habit of staying in the game. This, my friends, will never be replicable. Click to join.

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Let’s now look at Macro D’s latest thoughts and his refreshed Macro FX spreadsheet, which captures all his activity from last week. He closed up May with a solid +4.36%. We then scan the weekly macro calendar, analyse the latest dashboard output, and wait for the asset allocation model to reveal its latest asset allocation preference.

Let’s go!

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I spent much of the month actively finding refuge from the political noise while thinking, observing, and mapping the likely road ahead. I have been burying my head in charts and history, trying to shape a picture of thinking that will dominate markets in the weeks and months to come. Some of my initial thoughts were captured in the post below, where I analysed a historical sequence and tried to find parallels to today. I have more to say on those topics and will publish further posts to subscribers. I think there are exciting times ahead for those who prepare appropriately.

While markets might currently signal very benign conditions, there are setups and undercurrents worth monitoring. I have been looking at Gold, which brought me so much joy over the past few years. The precious metal’s action might not be in the news limelight, as it’s currently in a downtrend, but its relative underperformance to both equities and bonds is interesting. Yesterday, Gold threatened to close below the 200-day line, and we know nothing ever good happens below that line. Behind the paywall, I analyse the current setup, and we go back in time and see what it is trying to tell us.

For those who recently joined, the subscription here also grants you access to our dedicated technical analysis/model site at pa-globalmacro.com. Simply use your email to access your account, where you can see the latest dashboard/chart books/signals. You can also subscribe to receive automated emails whenever they are updated (daily). I have also created a reference guide for those using the tools.

I believe those tools, combined with all my posts, which include my friend Macro D’s views on the world, are worth the relatively modest subscription fee. And as it’s a principle in this place, any educational pieces have always and will always be free. So come and join the pack.

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Let’s now dig into the world of Gold and what its current trajectory is telling us, before we read Macro D’s latest thoughts and Macro FX implications on his running book and positions.

Have a wonderful weekend ahead!

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I’ve been chewing on this one for a while. The 1998 LTCM blow-up, the panicky Fed cuts, the V-shaped recovery, then the part everyone forgets: the Fed slamming it into reverse and the Nasdaq losing 80%.

April 2025 has been rhyming with it in a way that’s hard to ignore. Same gut-punch shock, same policy backstop, same melt-up off the lows. The S&P is up 29% from the trough. In 1998, at the same point, it was up 29%. Spooky.

But the equity match is the easy part. The interesting bit is where the two stop rhyming: rates, the dollar, and what the Fed is actually doing. Those are screaming something different, and I think that’s where the real signal lives.

So I lined up six series from each crisis through and laid 1998 to 2001 over the 2025 path to today. Below, I walk through where we are in the sequence, what the divergences are telling us, and the blueprint for what comes next if the analogue holds.

A caveat before you read on: this is a map, not a guarantee. The whole point of an analog is to give you signposts to watch, not a script to trade blindly. Some of these signposts are flashing. Some aren’t. That gap is the entire trade.

Paid subscribers, the full breakdown and charts are below.

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I hope everyone is enjoying their well-deserved long weekend. It’s a sweltering heat here in the UK, where temperatures are meant to hit 33 degrees Celsius (91 F) tomorrow. For a country where things operate smoothly between say 5 and 20 degrees, that’s bound to create some chaos. Atypical for a bank holiday weekend here is that shopping malls are full, where people seemingly enjoy free air conditioning. I am sitting at my desk with a loud mobile air-conditioning unit blaring at an uncomfortable decibel level while keeping me cool. We are exploring getting our place fully air-conditioned soon. It’s about time.

As I scan market screens, renewed enthusiasm is sweeping through markets. Hell, even bonds are loving it, and I like it as I’m still long following last week’s reversal signal, which our models called the top in yields globally. Well done.

Is it the lack of an escalation over the weekend that is driving markets, or the renewed optimism pushed by the White House? Admittedly, we are trading in very low-volume sessions here. There were so many messages over the past few days, I am losing count. All that matters is that nothing has really changed. As I’m typing this, Trump has, once again, pushed out a long message, starting with the following, which, in his true style, means absolutely nothing:

His latest statement on Iran and the Abraham Accords reads like an attempt at a grand regional bargain: a nuclear settlement tied to broader Middle East normalisation, Gulf capital flows, energy stability and economic integration. But beneath the optimism lies a harder reality about leverage. As Trump himself wrote in The Art of the Deal: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood.”

The market implication is that Washington increasingly appears focused on avoiding an energy shock and recession at almost any cost, while Tehran understands its strategic leverage via the Strait of Hormuz. Markets are clearly interpreting this as a de-escalation signal — lower geopolitical risk premia, improved growth sentiment, and softer support for oil and gold — but the risk remains that a failed grand bargain could ultimately lead to an even larger repricing of geopolitical risk.

Over at pa-globalmacro.com, our home for models and technical research, members can now save the dashboards, signals, and chartbook as a PDF by clicking the button in the bottom-right corner.

For anyone new or existing, I have put together a guide to using and interpreting the output from our daily scans.

A reminder that I am currently running a 7-day free trial for anyone interested in exploring the full offering.

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Behind the paywall, I am outlining my current macro view and roadmap, which I am slowly building. I am also working on a separate post for subscribers outlining the similarities between the present and recent history. I am not normally a fan of analogs, but I think we have a setup similar to what we experienced during that historic period. No history, of course, repeats, but it’s interesting to look at similarities and then see how things develop from there.

Then we take the normal turn in exploring Macro D’s vision of the macro world and checking out his latest weekly performance spreadsheet, all laid out, every single trade, entry, exit and stop for full transparency.

I then quickly review this week’s macro calendar before we analyse the latest Dashboard signals and explore the asset allocation model’s latest output.

Have a great week ahead, and stay cool.

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How are we meant to make sense of it? When confronted with this amount of noise, I refer back to checking the price action being exhibited. The first crude future shown below would still indicate relative tightness, with little signal of an immediate deal being struck.

As for the curve, backwardation remains in play, with little change in its slope over the past week and month, still indicating normalisation down the road, which gets stretched every day.

Yields were the talk of the town this week, with US 10-year yields nearly touching 4.70%. Our models and allocation tools disliked bonds for most of the year. This week, subscribers were alerted to a possible reversal from the highs, which is now playing out.

Even politically-inflected Gilts (UK 10-year yields) have staged a comeback, with yields rallying nearly 30 bps from recent highs. This was helped by weaker inflation readings and softer economic impulse data during the week.

Much of the global bond sell-off was once again partially driven by Japanese government bonds and their curve (5/30s), which reached the top end of the recent range (5/30s) before reversing sharply.

The reversal does not mean that the bond sell-off is done. For those of you who know how my reversal indicators work, know that this usually does not alter the prevailing dominant trend.

SFRZ6 (Fed year-end expectations) has slowly moved back toward the March lows, with markets now pricing in a fine balance between a Fed on hold and inflationary pressures. I would think that is fair, just as Warsh is set to begin his tenure.

This re-pricing has also given the Dollar a bit of a backing as relative monetary policy rate dynamics take hold. It was particularly interesting to see how EURUSD couldn’t bounce on good geopolitical news, with general European data disappointing and further accentuating the relative rates play, which I think many are now looking to engage in. This is the macro theme I am going to be following from here as some economies have seemingly lost a bit of economic momentum relative to the US. FX implied volatility is still at the lows, so I think there are going to be great opportunities, which I’m sure Macro D’s FX book is going to engage in.

As for the 2026 portfolio, we are still tracking around 11.9% YTD in USD terms, with May so far not giving us much action, as some of the tail-risk exposure holding us back, but that’s ok as it helped us outperform during March.

As mentioned above, subscribers were alerted about the reversal in bonds during the week. This is part of the offering now on our dedicated site at pa-globalmacro.com, where all models, dashboards, and the entire chart book are housed.

For those interested, I have put together a brief summary and a guide for subscribers at the following link.

If you are a subscriber, simply use your email to access the full range of the current offering and any new tools in the release pipeline.

If you are curious about the offering, why not try this place for 7 days? Hit the button below and enjoy.

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Let’s now read Macro D’s latest thoughts and FX trade implications

Wishing you all a fantastic weekend. Temperatures in the UK are soaring just as we are enjoying a bank holiday Monday. I am going to listen to Waller’s speech today, which should prove interesting as he usually a good guy for the commitee as a whole.

Keep in mind that it's a US holiday on Monday alongside a UK bank holiday. So have a great rest and enjoy!

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So below, he is laying out 3 trades that express the same core view through a broader toolkit. The process doesn’t change: define the risk first, stay honest about what we don’t know, and size things so we can survive being early or wrong. Same discipline, different tools.

Let’s dig in.

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I have now returned from the hills and valleys, my body aching, but my head and mind are cleared and fully recharged. There is something special about connecting with nature, sitting atop a hill, and just watching the clouds go by.

The upcoming week will be very interesting as it will reveal the momentum behind the entrenched global yield sell-off, which culminated with a sizeable global move on Friday. Both my asset allocation model (see the latest allocation below) and our momentum model (dashboard on pa-globalmacro.com) have been flagging underperformance in global bonds for a while. Key levels are being tested in US 10-year yields as I laid out in my last post.

Furthermore, risk assets have begun to react to higher yields, and the increased volatility they create across asset markets is evident. One day doesn’t change the overall trend, but it is important to see it in the context of a Fed chair transition.

Powell’s term as chair expired last Friday, May 15, and Kevin Warsh was confirmed by the Senate two days earlier in a 54-45 vote — the most partisan ever for a Fed chair, with only Fetterman crossing from the Democrats. He hasn’t yet been sworn in, but his first FOMC is already on the calendar for June 16-17. So we’re sitting in the handover window: a market that knows who’s coming, hasn’t seen what he’ll do, and has roughly four weeks to price it before he opens his mouth in an official capacity. The table is designed exactly for this moment.

The historical pattern is harsher than the median suggests. Looking across all fifteen chairs back to Harding in 1916, the median six-month return after a new chair takes office is a perfectly respectable +2.4%, and the median first-year return is +10.6% — numbers you’d happily take if offered.

But the drawdown columns tell a different story: the median peak-to-trough decline inside year one is roughly 13%, and the average is closer to 17%, dragged there by chairs who walked in just before the wheels came off — Eugene Meyer into the Depression, Greenspan eleven weeks before Black Monday, Burns into the early-70s bear, Powell into the Q1 2018 correction. The other regularity worth flagging is that markets aren’t usually flat going into a new appointment; they tend to have just rallied (Powell himself had a +14.3% six-month run-up before taking the chair) and then test the new chair on the way in.

Warsh inherits the trickiest version of that setup. S&P at all-time highs into the handover, CPI at a three-year high after the energy shock from the US-Israel-Iran conflict, four FOMC dissents in April (the most divided since 1992), and a president openly demanding cuts, the data may not support. Warsh’s stated preferences — faster balance-sheet runoff, tighter inflation discipline, a more narrowly focused Fed — point hawkish relative to where Trump wants policy to land, which makes the June 16-17 meeting a genuine event-risk catalyst rather than a procedural one.

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The historical base rate says the test usually comes within six months; what it can’t tell you is whether Warsh’s reputation as a balance-sheet hawk dampens the drawdown (by reassuring on inflation credibility) or amplifies it (by tightening financial conditions into an already-stretched market). Either way, the table is a reasonable prior for sizing the next six months of equity risk — not a forecast, but a base rate worth carrying in the back of the head.

Let’s now read Macro D’s latest thoughts as we view his latest Macro FX trades, before we scan next week’s macro calendar, analyse the latest Macro Dashboard insights and then find out what the asset allocation model’s latest output is.

Have a successful week ahead!

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Looking at my screens, I am very comfortable with the decisions I have taken before I left. Rates are being repriced globally, which supports my hypothesis. In addition, bonds now seem to also put the brake on risk premia across equities, credit, and emerging markets assets. Sure, it might only be a few days, but the overall framework I have set out is in play, and I am preparing accordingly.

Technically, the story is also building with US 10-year yields touching long-term trend lines, which looks like a bull flag (in yield terms) building for a breakout.

On a longer time-frame, you can argue that the recent inflation impulse should justify a level of retracement of yields to 6.25% as a possible target - a level last seen at the start of the millennium.

I think volatility across assets is vastly underpriced. Many are still living in the vision of a low-volatility era, which was never a natural state to begin with. It was engineered: rates pinned, term premia crushed, uncertainty managed, and every drawdown trained to expect a response. If that framework is now constrained by stickier inflation, heavier fiscal issuance, and more obvious supply bottlenecks, then volatility stops being a temporary visitor and becomes part of the furniture. And if that’s true, the real risk isn’t the next shock — it’s our reflex to treat every shock as a mistake that will be corrected, rather than a feature of a system that’s repricing the cost of risk.

This is the design of a new investment regime in which old macro models no longer work. What doesn’t change are tools like our models, which capture human behaviour in this changing landscape. A reminder that pa-globalmacro.com now houses all model outputs, and readers can choose to receive daily updates straight to their inbox.

The above is exactly why we keep coming back to “reference points” — the idea we wrote about in the PTJ piece. Not copying trades, not worshipping outcomes, but internalising a way of seeing: how uncertainty is handled, how losses are carried, how conviction is sized, and how ego behaves when the tape refuses to cooperate. It’s a discipline-light you follow, not because it guarantees success, but because it keeps your path honest when regimes change, and the old map stops matching the territory.

Which brings me straight to frameworks. In a shifting regime, plenty of changes — correlations, term premia, the cost of carry, the reliability of the “put.” But some things don’t: the need for humility, for process, for risk to be defined before the market defines it for you. The success of this place isn’t built on luck. It’s built on observation, humility, and the stubborn desire to seek truth through the lenses of well-tested frameworks — and then to apply them with rigour, especially when it feels emotionally inconvenient.

If you want to follow your curiosity and connect with like-minded people, consider joining the community. Please note that the subscription price now includes exclusive access to pa-globalmacro.com, including all future features.

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Behind the paywall, our friend and co-contributor Macro D reflects on the week just gone and its implications on his Macro FX positions.

Have a wonderful weekend.

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Every human being chooses a reference point.

Sometimes it’s a parent. Sometimes it’s a teacher. Sometimes it’s a figure so far above the horizon that following them feels like a kind of voluntary madness. And yet, people do it anyway—quietly, stubbornly, without needing a reason that would satisfy a court of law.

Why? Because the choice is rarely “rational” in the way we pretend it is. It’s a daring mix: experience, feeling, instinct, and a tolerance for risk.

That mix matters even more in trading.

Markets don’t reward purity of intention. They reward durability. And durability is not built by copying someone else’s trades, or memorising someone else’s opinions. It’s built by internalising a way of seeing: how uncertainty is handled, how losses are carried, how conviction is sized, how ego is managed when the tape refuses to cooperate.

In this piece by Macro D, his reference point is very specific: Paul Tudor Jones.

Not as a poster on the wall, and not as a shortcut to genius—but as a watershed between the world we live in and the world we’re trying to reach. A light you follow, not because it guarantees success, but because it disciplines your path.

It begins in the human world, where ambition can burn you. Then it moves, step by step, into the market world, where the same dynamic repeats under a different name.

Behind the paywall, Macro D turns “reference points” into a trading problem: how conviction forms, who we choose to trust, and why rationality usually arrives late. He lays out his four-part lens—proof, feeling, instinct, risk—and shows how Paul Tudor Jones became his compass.

From there, it becomes less about a legend and more about durability: how a trader adapts across regimes without drifting, and why introspection matters in macro only if it keeps you honest about uncertainty rather than seductive about prophecy.

Let’s dive straight into it.

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What if AI’s acronym should really read “Accelerating Inflation”?

Markets have moved on from inflation. The narrative is settled: the wave is behind us, the grind back to 2% is a matter of patience, and the next interesting story is somewhere between AI capex and the next Fed cut.

I’m not so sure.

The more I look at the data ahead of Tuesday’s CPI print, the less it resembles a normal late-cycle disinflation and the more it looks like the early shape of a structurally different regime. Not a 1970s replay — history doesn’t repeat that neatly — but something with echoes. Energy that ratchets rather than mean-reverts. Tariffs that the market thinks are “done” while the Fed’s own research says full pass-through is still in progress. Shelter is doing all the disinflation work while everything else quietly plateaued. A price level that never came back to trend, and a market still positioning as if it will.

What follows is the framework I’m using to think about this, the charts that convinced me, and — for paid subscribers — how I’m translating it into portfolio positioning ahead of what may be a more important inflation print than the consensus believes.

Let’s dive straight in.

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Apologies for the slight delay in running this service. I was away for a long weekend and travelling all day yesterday, without the right surroundings to write this piece.

There is, however, little to add to my Friday Thoughts, which was printed just before the payroll report was published.

Better numbers, yes.

A bit weaker under the hood for those who look for details.

And then we move on to those things that actually drive markets these days.

Much of the talk in financial town is about the massive rally in tech stocks and AI. Bubble talk is back in the cafes and at dinner parties. It must be the sign of our times that there are surely no other worries but tech valuations.

But let me be clear: “bubble” is a word people reach for when they feel intellectually cornered.

On proper trading floors — and in the minds of serious investors — the B-word rarely does any real work. Not because excess can’t exist, but because the label doesn’t help you manage risk, sizing, or timing. It’s theatre. It’s comfort. It’s a story you tell yourself so you can feel smarter than price.

In my approach to markets, that word almost doesn’t exist. Why? Because complex adaptive systems are not there to be reasoned with. They just are. Price is an emergent outcome of countless feedback loops, reflexivity, liquidity, narrative, positioning, and plain old human behaviour. You don’t “win” by arguing with that. You win by bringing reason to your own process.

So the only question that matters is embarrassingly simple:

Do you want to participate or not?

And if you do, how?

Bubble talk, behaviourally, is often a buy signal to me. Not because it means price must go up tomorrow, but because it tells me people are trying to explain what is — and they can’t. So they pull out the old label in the absence of a better one. It’s a psychological coping mechanism.

To be clear: I’m not saying bubbles don’t exist. They do.

But they are not neat little balloons you can pop on schedule. They’re complex structures. They can inflate, broaden, rotate, and persist for years before they ultimately deflate — and often in ways that don’t satisfy the neat morality tale people want.

Everything moves in cycles. Our job is to recognise what is from what isn’t. Not to moralise. Not to predict. To observe, to size, to manage, and to extract.

And extraction is the point.

Munger and Buffett wouldn’t buy here, that’s for sure — and that is perfectly consistent with their approach. They want a certain type of certainty, a certain type of valuation, a certain type of business reality they can underwrite.

Others buy hands down because it’s the next new thing. They’re chasing monthly or quarterly returns, league tables, and high-water marks. That’s also a “process,” of sorts — just not one I find survivable over time unless you’re exceptionally disciplined and exceptionally lucky.

As for me — and our approach here — it is to not get carried away.

Filter noise from the signal. Detach from narrative.

And apply a systematic model framework that has no feelings about dinner-party words, headlines, or fashionable fears. Models can be wrong, of course. But at least they’re honest. They show you what the tape is doing without trying to impress anyone.

That’s why I created the dashboard on pa-globalmacro.com — so subscribers can see that unfiltered view and then reflect it against their own decision-making. I genuinely believe I’ve created something truly special there. Not because it predicts the future, but because it improves behaviour in the present. The model has shifted to Nasdaq and tech stocks long before the narratives started, and participated in nearly 17% of the rally (see dashboard below).

My subscription prices now include access to both Substack and the technical analysis site at pa-globalmacro.com. For existing members, nothing changes as they can enjoy the full offering at their current prices forever. Those only interested in the models can subscribe directly on the site.

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Let’s now attack the week by reading some of Macro D’s thoughts and his latest trade summary of Macro FX trades of the week. We then review the upcoming calendar, examine the latest dashboard output, and analyse the most recent asset allocation decision of our long-standing PAAM Model.

Let’s go!

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All eyes are on the Xi–Trump summit in Beijing, with the market hoping that a permanent resolution to the war in Iran is finally being tabled. Hope is cheap, though. Call me a sceptic, but I’ll believe it when we see results — and, more importantly, when the follow-through survives the first headline wobble.

On the macro front, we have the upcoming payroll report. I’m positioned for a stronger print, even if Treasuries have already done a decent bit of the heavy lifting on the sell-off.

Momentum in US rates remains bearish, as highlighted by our dashboard, which is gaining popularity. I don’t love leaning on any single read, but when the tape keeps telling you the same thing, it’s usually worth listening—if only to manage your own behaviour and avoid fighting ghosts.

In addition, Macro D has been busy on the Macro FX front, and we’ve published to Trade Corners this week — I suggest you read them in full.

Below the paywall, he’s reflecting on this week’s macro developments, tying the moves back to positioning and the bigger picture.

Have a great weekend ahead!

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Behind these trades is a broader thesis: markets may be underestimating how quickly political pressure and central-bank credibility can reshape capital flows. The implications could extend far beyond these individual currency pairs.

Let’s explore.

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let’s explore.

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Beyond this, I am working on expanding the pa-globalmacro offering. Currently, it contains the dashboard, the signals, and the individual charts. Also, a reminder that you can use my trading models in TradingView scripts, which I made available for subscribers to use on their charts. This is not free and also incurs an additional cost. These are the momentum, reversal, and intra-day models I often reference. If you are interested, ping me an email with your TV username. Note that only paying subscribers will be granted access. No exceptions.

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Let’s now review the weekly macro calendar, the key highlights from the latest dashboard update and the PAAM allocation model, which has switched to long equity exposure in early April. The combination of discretionary thoughts for the road ahead, along with a signalling system for shifts and allocation preferences, is the best possible way to navigate macro markets.

I have tested and looked at many others, but this one is what works for me. Many are losing the forest for the trees by going down rabbit holes of complicated models and analysis that are all microcosms of what really matters. Substance over complications. In the end, what we aspire to here is to get the big shifts roughly right rather than being precisely wrong. The performance of our models, as well as the 2026 portfolio so far this year (+13%), speaks for itself.

Let’s also read Macro D, our loyal friend and macro thought contributor, and his latest thoughts while we analyse his latest running Macro FX portfolio, which had another successful week with a gain of +6.5%.

Have a wonderful week ahead. May, here we come.

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