38 Comments

Thanks, just started following yesterday. I appreciate your framework and perspective,. I say yes to " publishing long/short recommendations with entry, stop loss, profit targets and live P&L tracking in a more structured format?"

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Ok, soon on your screens!

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Very useful, I didn't know you had a blog too. I'm in a learning process (I'm a MD...) and the way you put the stuff out is understandable and allows me to think and learn.

Absolutely could be interesting to add some inputs about specific long/short positioning, only thing (if you decide to go for it), keep it relaxed.

I already follow a couple of blogs with same structure (macro outlook + specific inputs about equities etc...) and I've tried some others (all paid for, btw...). The dynamic IMO is that they end up trying to hide their wrong calls (of course they make wrong calls... probably they fear that if they admit a mistake you will be going to stop paying them), at the expense of the reasoning process (learning from mistakes is critically useful).

In a nutshell, keep it relaxed, regardless as to whether you add a paywall in the future.

In any case, great stuff! Thanks for sharing this :)

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Very valuable comment, Andrea. I don't plan to get hysterical about it, but rather just to post what I do with my personal investments and trust me: I get stopped out a lot :) no problems whatsoever in admitting it. Whoever claims the opposite is just a charlatan.

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I 100% agree with Andrea.

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To answer your question: definitely would appreciate P&L tracking. Skin in the game makes the message so much stronger!

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Ok. Will start providing that from the next update onwards. +6% YTD and no trades on, but nowhere to hide now that I'm gonna make this public! :) thanks for following me, Daniel.

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I started following you very recently. Very useful content and I appreciate P&Ltracking. One question: where do you get the data from for the global credit Impuls?

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All sources for the inputs are available online, but it's a lot of work collating them and building the credit impulse the right way. I take care of that part :)

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Thanks

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Hi Alfonso, Thanks for the easy to follow insights even for macro amateurs like me.

Can you at some point also add a little more granularity into your compass quadrants?

As you now already referenced it twice and at least prt of your audience is not as well educated in capital markets as you are, adding granularity in the positions you would go long or short etc per quadrant might be beneficial.

As to your question on positions: while added transparency makes it even easier to follow your investments, people might also blindly follow you and this board at some point (depending on the success of the positions) could turn into a wsb/reddit like echo chamber and will require significantly more moderation. Just my 2 cents. Have a great weekend.

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Thanks, Fabian. I just plan to publish what I do with my personal investments. Anybody is free to do what they want: this will not be financial advice at all. Just a journal to keep track of my discretionary trades and how they're doing - spoiler: I am human and will lose money in certain trades. Hope to keep it in the green at the end of the year :)

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thanks for publishing this. If real yields are at risk of rising for the worst reason, there must be a possibility that central banks will recognise it as a problem and stay loose. However easing has diminishing returns each time so the scale they'd need to do it on is hard to fathom. Plus we have China pretty clearly deciding to slow down, which could push the world into quad 4 regardless.

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once we get a negative direction in 10yr yields and 10yr inflation expectation how long until equity markets start to react? also does it matter what the base level of where current rates are (where we are and where we have come from) or is it a universal that regardless of current or past conditions, when 10yr yields and 10yr inflation expectations diverge, bad things happen?

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Not universal, the absolute level also matters. 10y real yields at -0.75% can hardly be considered restrictive but the direction of travel matters.

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Thank you do you know how long it took for equity markets to react to this in 2013 or 2018?

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Anytime between 1 month and 6 months, but the time windows are now getting more compressed as the system is more and more leveraged. Takes a smaller mistake and less time to feed in.

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Has there ever been a time that yields were up and 10yr inflation expectations were down yet market did not budge? I am just a bit confused on the frequency of this happening leading to a correction.

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thoughtful observations thank you. are your quadrants quantitatively defined or subjective interpretation of environment after using quantitative indicators to guide judgement?

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Leaning towards the latter, but in principle it can be transformed into fully quantitative.

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Looking forward to asses your performance.

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Very interresting view. It really makes sens, though I still have in mind that we are in a situation we have never had before. The U6 Unemployment rate is at 10.2 %, which was at 6.8 pre pandemic. I do see the bottle neck inflation based on logistical issues and commodity shortage. Order books are filled and job openings are still high. opec, eia, iea Oil forecasts are still expansionary for the coming years. Copper looks like it is retracing and the semiconductor shortage sould take about 1-2 years. With the QE we had so far it seemed like we worked through Qudrant 1 to 3 in lightning speed, but more as a need jerk reaction base on the credit surge than on real ecomnomical growth. I do also see that the housing market is slowing down and credit growth too, but like Powell said, you can only see a trend with at least 3 data points. And considering the the COT report, dealers were heavily short EUR. Lets see how it plays out, and if we are good for fishing or if we are moving back in the Quadrant to tackle the cylcle in real speed. Hope that makes sense, and sorry if not since I'm not working in finance.

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It does make sense to me!

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Thank you would love that please

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Question: would you be interested if I’d publish my long/short recommendations with entry, stop loss, profit targets and live P&L tracking in a more structured format? That would be interresting :-)

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Will do.

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Yes, I would love to see your trade set ups, logic, and portfolio composition, and an explanation on why a certain thesis didn't work as expected.

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Ciao, I've just subscribed and I'm going through the history. Very Nice work.

I wanted to ask what you are using for your 5y5y Real as it's not anything like the history using FWCM function for US Tips curve. The tIcker out of FWCM is GO169 5Y5Y BLC2 Curncy. That history has 5y5y Real peaking in Mar above 40bp and falling smoothly to now be -10bp.

Love seeing the trading history too!

cheers,

karl.

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Thanks for subscribing!

If I recall correctly, I created a new index using 5y5y OIS swap - 5y5y inflation swap.

That's the cleanest form of 5y5y risk-free real rates.

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Hi Alfonso, firstly FORZA ITALIA!

I created the index you are using and compared it to the 5y5y from the TIPS curve and the estimate of R* from Laubach-Williams model. Interestingly the forward from the TIPS curve seems to be a better market based estimate of R*. Hopefully you can get the following link; https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1422hcfcdwcy0lb/AACFOogmLgtuYayF0ln3sX9Ia?dl=0

cheers,

karl.

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Hi Karl. So let me see if I understood it correctly: you're saying 5y5y inflation derived from TIPS works better than 5y5y inflation swaps?

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Hi Alfonso, Unfortunately the Bloomberg Ticker describes it as (USD INFL FORWARD RATE 5Y5Y) when in fact it is a Real Rate forward, and yes I think the Real Rate Forward is better than the OIS less Inflation Forward. If you use the FWCM function for the US TIPS curve you'll see the forwards and you can right click and graph them or whatever.

cheers,

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Hi! as per your diagram, from Oct20-Mar21 we were at the Quadrant3 i.e monetary policy was net tightening..is that right? or am I missing something! ps: excelent work!

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Too kind, I'd love if you would share this newsletter on your social media and with your network. Oct 20-Mar 21 was a transition period from Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 3. Monetary policy was mildly tightening on a net basis as few Central Banks started scaling back their programs (Bank of Canada for instance) and at the end of Q121 some other CBs started moving their forward guidance slightly towards the more hawkish side.

A small, small net tightening though. We're now moving towards a more aggressive tightening.

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thank you!

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What impact for the euro zone? Would you applied same advice?

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Perhaps a good topic for one of my next articles. Stay tuned and share it with friends if you like the newsletter!

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