Street Signals

The start of the year is always a convenient time to think about consensus risk. Market watchers have all updated their forecasts and published their year ahead pieces. For the first episode of Street Signals in 2026, host Tim Graf, head of Macro Strategy for EMEA, carries on a tradition in going through a few of the most prominent consensus outlooks, mapping them to the message from our proprietary indicators and highlighting opportunities to go with or against the herd.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before Christmas, it's tradition for the Macro Strategy Team at State Street Markets to publish recommendations of the best things we've read, listened to or watched over the previous year. Common patterns often emerge and it is often the case that our choices are informed by our work analyzing macroeconomics and markets. But as you're about to hear, many of the choices have nothing to do with our day jobs. This year, we published our 12th edition of that list, available now on our Insights platform. This week's podcast is an audio summary of that document and a chance to bid you a very festive and happy holiday season, and wish you a Happy New Year!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After getting the year-ahead views of the Macro Strategy team at State Street Markets last week (which you can listen to here), this week we hear from our FX Trading team. Questions of central bank independence and policy divergence top the list of risk factors for 2026, with implications of the AI investment cycle also factoring heavily into a macro outlook. We catch up with Peter Vincent, EMEA Head of Trading, for his thoughts on the state of the US labor market, inflation, policies of the Federal Reserve, ECB and Bank of Japan, and the other critical drivers for rates and FX around the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Macro Strategy Team at State Street Markets has published their top ideas for the year ahead. Will the tech stock bull run continue, or are recent, rising credit concerns enough to derail sentiment and valuations? Was 2025's dollar decline the beginning of a multi-year trend or is the buck on the brink of reversal? And are Japan's recent attempts at reflation about to stall or take the next step to success? We present a dozen ideas, across equities, fixed income and FX, all with an eye on which themes will continue into and emerge from 2026.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The signal events and dominant narratives of 2025 have not had quite the advertised effects where global current account and capital flow trends are concerned. As Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes, tariffs raise revenue for the US but so far its external position relative to Asia has, if anything, worsened. De-dollarization has been an eye-catching idea that still has little basis in fact. The expected revaluation of currencies relative to the USD has been much more limited in scope than one might appreciate. These and many other threads are pulled together in a globe-spanning episode this week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we dive into the nuanced world of macroeconomics and geopolitics. Elliot Hentov, Chief Macro Policy Strategist at State Street Investment Management, joins us to explore the state of deglobalization and the current status of geo-strategic competition in trade, technology, energy production and capital allocation. As we navigate the shocks of recent years and move towards a new equilibrium, the discussion focuses on the trade-offs embedded in each aspect of these competitions and the pressures on resources, carrying profound implications for consumers, investors and the political class.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marija Veitmane, Head of Equity Strategy at State Street Markets, shares valuable insights on global equity trends. She dissects the recent Q3 earnings and their implications for a potential Santa rally. Marija highlights the long decline of value investing and the need for skilled stock-pickers amid a preference for momentum strategies. She points out overlooked opportunities in European small caps and healthcare, arguing the sector could see renewed interest. Additionally, she analyzes the impact of tech earnings and AI on market dynamics.

A stand-out macro trend of 2025, the weakness of the US dollar remains a focal point for a market that is still heavily short. Is the consensus risk ripe for a surprise or are further headwinds in store for the world's most widely traded currency? And how might macroeconomic developments in Japan, Europe and the UK add to or detract from the appeal for dollars? This week, we discuss these factors and the broader FX landscape for developed markets, with Lee Ferridge, Head of Macro Strategy for the Americas at State Street Markets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Investors tend to underestimate the probability of tail risk events and assume market correlations will be stable. These are well-understood yet persistent blind spots that damage long-term portfolio performance. This week, we talk to David Dredge, CIO of Convex Strategies, as he shares his experiences and perspectives on the importance of overcoming these biases and incorporating convexity exposure, towards building greater resilience, maximizing compounding effects in return streams and optimizing for actual, rather than historic, returns.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Growth stocks are driving returns and economic dynamism, but also sparking discussions of whether we sit in bubble territory. Our guest this week, Matt Smith, portfolio manager at QSM Asset Management, a long/short hedge fund with a value focus, provides a timely reminder of how a consistent, fundamental-oriented approach can still offer compelling risk-adjusted returns. We also walk through current equity markets and how modest pullbacks in the AI trade could pose economic problems.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.