GeoMacro

For investors, there are two ways to think of President Trump’s bellicose rhetoric and military positioning vis-à-vis Venezuela

Special Report

Every year, the Global Asset Allocation team compiles a list of our favorite books, essays, and articles from our strategists ahead of the holiday season. This year, we focus on writings by practitioners in the world of finance, business, and beyond. While diverse in their backgrounds, one theme stands out: Adaptation.

Rumors are swirling in Washington, D.C. that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will rule on President Trump’s tariff policies either this week (according to Barron’s) or in early January (according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent). A ruling against the tariffs would be a major strike against President Trump and, at the very least, upend markets in the short term.

Special Report

The US is ripe for a third major political party, but the two-party system will probably prevail in the 2028 election. The macro context will determine whether the US elects a left-wing populist.

2026 will see geopolitical risk move sideways globally as the US pursues a ceasefire in the proxy war with Russia and a tariff truce with China ahead of midterm elections that will produce gridlock.

We had a good year in 2025. For two years now, we have been unabashedly bullish, proving that the GeoMacro framework works.

Washington’s new strategy sheds liberal idealism for hard-edged multipolar realism: spheres of influence accepted, allies chided, Asia red lines firm, Latin America elevated, and AI-plus-digital assets crowned as national-security sinews. The result is a world steadied by US offshore balancing – an unexpectedly bullish backdrop for emerging markets in the years ahead.

We got Trump's tariff shock and backtracking correct and predicted Israel's attack on Iran. But we missed the China rally — and there is still no Ukraine ceasefire.

Special Report

The Kingdom faces a troika of global factors in the next 12-18 months: (1) US policy rates will be cut considerably; (2) the US dollar will depreciate significantly; and (3) crude prices will remain low. How should investors position themselves in this market?

On purely macroeconomic terms, the US economy appears to be heading towards a recession. But the whole point of our framework – GeoMacro – is to forecast the interplay between politics, geopolitics, and macro. The White House is taking control of the Fed in 2026 and, together, they will look to re-lever the US consumer.