PajMon Information Blog

Over the last thirty years global macro investors have been some of the most consistent and successful investors in the world. I fact as a group they have the highest Sharpe ratio of any trading style in most hedge fund databases. In this article we will go over a few of the different reasons why this is.

Since global macro trader trade anywhere they can take advantage of any opportunity. In fact that is a good way to describe global macro they are opportunistic and truly capitalistic. Many traders focus on one segment of the financial markets, but global macro focuses on the markets.

Another factor that separates the global macro investor from many of his trading brethren is that he or she uses very strict risk management rules. The idea for this likely came as more traders left the pits and were sick of seeing people blow their accounts up due to leverage. If you trade levered up and do not cut your losses quickly then you will eventually go the way of the dinosaur and disappear with no money. So risk management is very key to the global macro investor’s success.

All that aside one of the best reasons to look global and to think top down, the very definition of global macro, is so that when you formulate an investment theme you can trade all the way through it. For instance if you put together a potential scenario that has commodities doing one thing, then it bleeds over into the economy and makes bonds do something, all the while having some stocks participate, etc. then wouldn’t you want to be part of the whole process? After all you just spent a bunch of time figuring out the whole cycle.

Depending upon your trading vehicle you can take advantage of part of the theme. And instead of participating in the second leg of the theme with a proxy security, or one that doesn’t meet the exact scenario but comes close you can use the right security.

On the other hand if you are a global macro trader you can take advantage of the entire path. If you saw the housing bubble coming you could short the homebuilding stocks, then go and short the mortgage backed securities, then go long Treasuries as the Fed lowered interest rates, and then finally you could come back and buy some of the mortgage backed securities when they became very beaten down and cheap.

It is amazing that it makes so much sense and yet most traders leave so much money on the table due to the tunnel vision of only following stocks or bonds. If you are a successful trader you should be trading multiple asset classes and getting the full benefit of your trading expertise.

As you can see the benefits and opportunities to being a global macro trader are very powerful and can help you to maximize your returns, all the while using strict risk management practices. If you want to maximize your returns then it is worth your while to look at global macro trading and global macro investment themes.

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