Structural Macro Themes
In-depth research on the long-term forces shaping economies, and the implications for markets and portfolios.
Dispatches From The Future: World War E
In 2026, against the backdrop of plunging birth rates around the world, investors were focused on AI bottlenecks. Little did they know that the biggest bottleneck to artificial intelligence was, ironi…
Europe’s Earnings Renaissance: Can It Last?
Europe’s earnings recovery is increasingly difficult to dismiss. Margins, ROE, ROIC, and capital efficiency have all improved, while banks have re-emerged as an earnings engine. Cyclical conditions re…
A Unified Framework For Forecasting Bond Yields
We propose a unified framework for predicting the direction of short-term interest rates and long-term bond yields that brings together three approaches: 1) the saving-investment approach; 2) the Tayl…
China And EM Profitability: A Floor, Not A Launch Pad
Outside semiconductor stocks, EM/China profitability has been well below both their US peers and the levels that prevailed during the EM structural bull market in the 2000s. Over a 3- to 5-year horizo…
What Really Ails China
China does not produce too much. It spends too little. The only viable way for China to reduce investment without raising unemployment is by lowering national savings. Doing so is likely to be politic…
Japanese Profit Margin Expansion: The End Is Nigh
Over the past 10 years, Japan’s profit margin expansion has been driven neither by advances in labor productivity nor by operational efficiency gains, but by massive currency devaluation and lower dep…
