Global Macro Update Archive

Last week's issue generated more thoughtful replies than we expected. What struck me wasn't that some of you disagreed with a point or two. It was what you agreed on. Almost nobody argued that nothing had changed. The debate was over why.

For roughly three decades after World War II, worker pay rose almost one-for-one with productivity. As the economy grew, so did wages. That allowed a single income to buy a house, two cars, and take the family on vacation every year. Then, around 1979, it stopped.

I was talking recently with a CEO I know. He runs a company worth about $3 billion—thousands of employees, dozens of manufacturing plants spread across the US and Asia .

Do you ever feel like you’re being steamrolled by change? Everywhere we turn, we see mind-blowing advances that make our childhood years feel like a bygone era.

Here’s a number that should get your attention: 25%.

I sat down with Jacob Shapiro this week, my go-to expert on all things geopolitics, to talk about what’s unfolding in the Middle East after the coordinated US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

This week I sat down with Eric Fine, who manages emerging market bond portfolios at VanEck. Eric has over 30 years of experience dedicated solely to emerging markets debt, and he makes an argument that, once you hear it, is hard to shake.

I’ve been tracking economic trends and reading economist reports for three decades. The post-COVID period ranks among the most unclear of my career when it comes to economist consensus.

If you remember Saturday mornings with Schoolhouse Rock!, you probably remember waiting in lines at the gas station to fill the tank of the family station wagon.

Gavekal CEO Louis Gave is one of my favorite people to speak with on anything related to portfolio construction and the non-US perspective, and I knew our latest conversation about emerging markets (EM) would be anything but conventional.

If you’re still attempting to make investment decisions without fully integrating geopolitics into your analysis, you’re operating at a significant disadvantage in today’s markets.

Every so often, a single word surfaces and cuts through the noise. If you’re like me, you know the noise all too well.