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.

As always, let’s have a look at the current portfolio setup before we jump into the macro stories

Our clear lean over the past couple of weeks has been to find trades that perform decently well, even as tariff headlines arrive right, left and center. With a weekly return of 2%, the portfolio has done exactly that.

The decision to increase our positioning in gold while cutting broader exposure to emerging market equities has been spot-on, as India has suffered significantly—being one of the countries most exposed to tariffs and hit hardest by the steel and aluminum tariffs, along with China and Brazil. Our MindMed position is also off to a fantastic start following the announcement that RFK will be Trump’s health secretary (which we anticipated last Friday).

European equities have been on an absolute tear as well, and our position in French equities is really starting to pay dividends now, becoming our best-performing position alongside copper. Both copper and gold remain heavily exposed to the global metals inventory shift, with everyone transporting gold, silver, copper, and other metals to the U.S. to avoid potential tariffs—a narrative we’ve emphasized all week.

With the portfolio covered, let’s jump straight into the macro!

Chart 1: Portfolio performance is rebounding from low levels