What Druckenmiller Style Investing Gets Wrong - Alfonso Pecatiello on Edge in Macro Trading

My Substack: https://ethankho.substack.com/

Alfonso Pecatiello — known as "Alf" and founder of The Macro Compass and founder of Palinuro Capital, a macro hedge fund— joins Ethan Kho to break down the frameworks behind global macro trading, real economy money creation, and what it truly takes to build a macro hedge fund from the ground up.

Alfonso Pecatiello spent years as a senior portfolio manager at ING overseeing a multi-billion dollar fixed income portfolio before founding Palinuro Capital. In this episode, Alf shares the macro investing edge that drives his process: why central bank QE and bank reserves are largely irrelevant to real economic outcomes, how commercial bank lending and government fiscal deficits are the true engines of money creation, and why tracking the second derivative of real economy money printing is one of the most powerful signals in global macro trading today.

But Alfonso Pecatiello doesn't stop at markets. The Macro Compass founder opens up about the brutal reality of launching a macro hedge fund with no seed money, no GP stake deal, and an 80% industry failure rate. He shares the moment Palinuro Capital nearly didn't survive — and the risk management mindset that carried him through.

This episode covers global macro trading strategy, hedge fund position sizing, portfolio diversification, tail risk management, factor-neutral mandates, and the real process behind founding a hedge fund from scratch.

If you're interested in macro investing, hedge fund careers, global macro strategy, money creation, central bank policy, or fund management — this is essential listening.