Happy Friday! 

Every week, we dive deep into macro trends, analyze asset movements, and uncover the best value plays in the world of macro. These insights are shared with hedge funds and institutional clients, and each Friday, we bring them directly to you.

While the macro landscape can be complex, we believe it doesn’t have to be intimidating. In this recurring series, we break down the key takeaways from the week, explain what we’ve told hedge funds, and outline how we’re trading these ideas — all in a straightforward and actionable way.

Let’s briefly touch on the current portfolio setup and review the performance since last week. Last week, we added a short Nasdaq position as we had been trading in a bearish channel since December. While that initially proved to be a great idea, the comeback towards the end of the week was fierce, breaking the channel to the topside. Hence, we’re throwing in the towel. Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit. This was shit. End of story. My bad. Optimism is the keyword when we’re this early in the cycle.

Do note that we had, and still have, plenty of long exposure against the Nasdaq position. With equities breaking higher across the board, we’re inclined to say that we’ve entered an “up, up, up” regime with a reasonably high likelihood. We think it makes the most sense to avoid the noise around Trump next week, though we’ll obviously keep an eye on the tariff war for any potential market ramifications. We don’t see Nasdaq as offering the strongest risk/reward here and aim to gather returns elsewhere.

Chart of the week: Is the bear market over in Nasdaq?