Outside the Box

What’s the point of macro?

John Mauldin

June 21, 2010

I am back in Tuscany and will head to Milan tomorrow early, give a speech at the Bloomberg offices and then back home. But it is Monday and that means it is time for another Outside the Box. And I have found a most excellent offering. Dylan Grice from Societe Generale in London wrote on value for an OTB a few weeks ago, and he follows that up with more thoughts on the use of macro trends versus value investing. This is a real think piece, and worthy of more than one read.

I have to hit the send button, as my last dinner in Italy awaits (and real Italian food has been a revelation, and the wines! I am something of a chardonnay snob, and usually turn my nose up at Italian and French whites, but I found some local Tuscan chardonnays that were up to the best in California. And at reasonable costs.).

Your not wanting to leave Tuscany analyst,

John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box

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What's the point of macro?

By Dylan Grice

Most people would see the macro strategist's role as timing macro events ... switching between defensives and cyclicals, adjusting duration, risk-on/risk-off trades, and so on ... the only problem is that most of us are rubbish at seeing macro events coming, let alone timing them, as our evolutionary programming blinds us to events which are forecastable (and many are not even that). Perhaps we should embrace…

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