Skip to main content

About

Financial market price trends and risk sentiment not only signal but affect expectations pertaining to the future which in turn influences economic decisions today and in the future.

 Economic decisions today and expected economic decisions affect financial market price tends and risk sentiment!

 Self-reinforcing: Economic conditions influence the financial environment which then shape expectations.  Expectations feed back into both.
 Theory of reflexivity: Financial market participants attempt to anticipate the future and in doing so make decisions that end up validating their forecasts.  That is until the future present diverges to the point where a rethink and reposition are forced upon markets.  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Upon graduating from Fairfield University in 2008 with a BS in economics, I started my career working in financial services for Fidelity Charitable Services (Boston) before moving to State Street (Boston).  Although very appreciative of these opportunities, I decided to dedicate myself toward the reexamination of my macroeconomic worldview (money, banking, and the financial system).  From the point of view of an economics graduate, the Global Financial Crisis, Great Recession, and their aftermath forced me to rethink much of what I had learned during my time in college.  Thus, the decision to commit time toward this endeavor felt necessary even if this meant incurring some unpleasant personal risks. 

After a few years of independent study, writing in blog form felt like the obligatory next step.  The reason I write is to hold myself accountable for my current macro worldview while also using new events and data to revise my mental model.  Moreover, unlike a fundamental analyst who uses their understanding of the macro landscape to predict financial market price trends, my strategy utilizes financial market price trends to inform me of the global macro picture.  Only after using technical analysis/trend following strategies in FX, debt, equity, commodity markets etc to recognize price trends, do I attempt to analyze the present macroeconomic situation.  

Currently I am employed by the Edinburg Center (Bedford, MA) as an overnight recovery counselor for individuals suffering from schizophrenia and mood disorders.  Not only has this position given me the opportunity to learn a great deal about myself and the human condition, my overnight hours enable me to continue studying macro and finance.  With that said, my hope is to transition back to a career path that allows me to provide value to a team of people who have also committed themselves to macro and financial market analysis. 

Whether to discuss potential opportunities or just chat about macro trends and the capital markets, please feel free to reach out to me via email

barbieri.rafael9@gmail.com

or follow on Twitter:

@RafaelBarbieri9

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Global bonds continue their rise as the Fed pauses

Given that 2018 ended with the suspicion that decelerating global growth and falling inflation/inflation expectations would force the Fed to pause, bond markets all over the world had begun to rally along with risk assets.  Seeing how his rebound has unfolded in Q1, the strength and broad-based nature of the uptrend in credit and risk suggest that the global economy may have averting the potential disaster scenario that was being priced in by markets in Q4 2018.  In this light, 2018-2019 so far has more in common with 2015-2016 and 2011-2013 when compared to the prior two pre-recession periods leading up to the cyclical turns in 2000/2002 and 2007/2008.  With that said, current market conditions still requires that market participants remain flexible even if a bias toward optimism continues to be favorable.  All it would take is for the 2018 lows in credit and risk to give way for major trends and sentiment to shift meaningfully. Before discussing the rally in glob...
Post a Comment
Read more

Treasury yields have plunged over the last 12 months. What's next?

At the end of January 2019, the 10-year treasury yield stood at roughly 2.7%.  Fast forward 12 months later, and the 10-year yield has dropped to below 1.5%.  In other words, this is a 44% collapse in one year which helped usher in an epic bond rally.  Having just occurred, how does this dive in the 10-year yield compare to past periods and what does this reveal about the likely path forward in long-term rates?  Looking back to 1963, this posts will review other times where the 10-year treasury rate rose or declined by at least 20% on a year-over-year basis (monthly closing basis).  Doing so will hopefully provide context as to how far long-term rates have dropped in such a relatively short period of time. (*The blue line is the 12-month rate-of-change of the 10-year treasury yield while the black line is the absolute level.  The dotted red and green lines are the +20% and -20% year-over-year (YOY) thresholds that will be used throughout this post.) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Global Markets hit by a supply shock due to the Coronavirus

Due to family commitments, this post almost exclusively focuses on the price action following a historic week in global markets.  Time permitting and after some reflection, next month's post will provide fundamental thoughts on how a supply shock risks creating a demand shock and why the Fed must mitigate the risk of recession by following market interest rates lower.  However, for now attention will be squarely placed on the charts. The 10-year treasury yield has finally closed below the 1.3% on a weekly and monthly basis. As mentioned in almost every monthly post since December 2018, the monthly trend is down and should be respected. With that said, the 10-year yield has collapsed a whopping 58% in 12 months.   This is a historic drop and is stretched by almost any measure.  Even during this secular decline in interest rates that began nearly 40 years ago, such 12-month declines usually produce significant rebounds before proceeding lower. The bullish ...
Post a Comment
Read more