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Jan 21, 2026
The Economic Logic of Large Language Models
Nov 5, 2025
Navigating the Green Tightrope
Oct 9, 2025
A Transparent Alternative to Neural Networks
Nov 12, 2025
Confidence Revisited: The Distribution of Information
By Megan Czasonis, Mark Kritzman, Fangzhong Liu, and David Turkington Relevance-Based Prediction can assess a prediction’s reliability from the consistency of the information that forms it, providing a novel perspective that complements conventional measures of confidence. Prediction is like a voting process. Each datapoint casts a “vote” for the unknown outcome, and the final forecast averages these diverse views. But to know how confident we should be in the average, we need transparency into ...
Oct 14, 2025
The Fallacy of Concentration
By Mark Kritzman, and David Turkington Evidence shows that concentrated market capitalization weights do not make an index riskier, because larger stocks are inherently more diversified and their increased weights are offset by their lower volatility compared to small stocks. The dominance of large tech firms in market-cap-weighted indices has sparked recent concern about concentration risk, but historical data and empirical analysis suggest these fears may be unfounded. A review of nearly 90 ...
Sep 23, 2025
Permanent Capital Meets Private Markets
By Alexander Cheema-Fox, Megan Czasonis, Piyush Kontu and George Serafeim We analyse the transformative impact of life insurance platform integration on the business models, financial profiles, and market valuations of prominent alternative asset managers (AAMs). Relying on episodic fundraising through closed-end funds has long defined the growth and operating model of alternative asset managers (AAMs). Many firms have depended on periodic capital commitments from institutional investors, which, ...
Feb 2, 2026
Inflation Threat
Chair Powell characterized the current inflation situation as being distorted by the inflationary impact of new tariffs, while expressing confidence that the Fed will bring inflation back to the 2% goal. It may be the case of Lucy pulling the football away. The graph shows the average z-score of copper, aluminium, lead, tin and nickel. Based on a long history, the surging z-score suggests upside risk to US 5-year breakeven rates. There is an old adage that states when the Fed becomes more complacent ...
Jan 23, 2026
Crisis averted?
The dramatic turnaround over the course of the week in the US pursuit for the control of Greenland has seen markets recover their losses from Tuesday and the threat of fresh trade tariffs on a number of European countries has now been removed. But how significant was the mini-crisis? Our FX political risk index produced by GeoQuant helps us to quantify the extent of the concern. The latest week has seen a dramatic increase in the US political risk index, with the size of the jump the largest we ...
Jan 20, 2026
JPY talk is cheap
The continued weakness of the JPY is testing the rhetoric of Japanese officials who argue the currency is not reflecting fundamentals. With the JPY diverging from rate differentials and still more than 40% undervalued by our PPP metrics, this point is not really up for debate. The challenge is the perception that the Takaichi govt’s policy mix will favour a weak currency. Perceptions, and indeed policy, can, and of course, do change; but ultimately with the decision rights for intervention in ...
Jan 2026
The Roots of Risk
Everybody loves an origin story, this week’s podcast has two. Featuring clips from our first episode, before the podcast even had a name, with our first guest, Fred Goodwin, a.k.a. Mr. Risk, we talk about the formative years of both the medium and the messenger. As his retirement nears, we look back over Fred’s long career as a trader, salesperson and strategist, and the many lessons learned along the way, especially on how to think about markets at their extremes. In detailing how his contrarian ...
Jan 2026
The US Dollar Time Machine: Relevant Lessons from History
Extrapolating past results to predict future outcomes is typically futile. But what if we could isolate the most statistically relevant historic parallels towards making better forecasts? This week, we discuss the techniques of relevance based prediction and how more robust and successful outlooks can result from their use. Joining us are Megan Czasonis, Head of Portfolio Management Research at State Street Associates, and Michael Metcalfe, Global Head of Macro Strategy, to discuss recently-published ...
Jan 2026
Taking Stock of ’26: A Conversation with Ron O’Hanley
Ron O’Hanley, Chairman and CEO of State Street, is back on the podcast for a wide‑ranging discussion, looking back on the main stories of 2025 and ahead to the forces shaping 2026.
Dec 2025
Investors neutral amidst data uncertainty
Holdings Institutional portfolios remain heavily overweight in US equities and technology, favouring quality, growth and large caps, with stock allocations at an eighteen‑year high and bonds and cash still out of favour.
Nov 2025
One Step Forward, One Step Back
Holdings Institutional portfolios remain heavily overweight in US, Tech, and growth oriented styles, with stock allocations at an 18-year high. Risk Appetite The risk appetite index has dropped to neutral as investors rotate out of cyclicals and commodities into defensives and the US dollar.
Oct 2025
Sentiment not falling into Fall
Holdings The State Street Holdings Indicators showed that long-term investor allocations to equities slightly increased, remaining at the highest level in sixteen and a half years. Risk Appetite The State Street Risk Appetite Index rose to 0.54 in October, resuming the risk seeking activity seen previously.
1. Peter L. Bernstein Award for Best Article in an Institutional Investor Journal in 2013; Bernstein-Fabozzi/Jacobs-Levy Award for Outstanding Article in the Journal of Portfolio Management in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013 (2), 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021; Graham & Dodd Scroll Award for article in the Financial Analysts Journal in 2002 and 2010. Roger F. Murray First Prize for Research Presented at the Q Group Conference in 2012, 2021, 2023. Harry M. Markowitz Award for Best Paper in the Journal of Investment Management in 2022, 2023. Doriot Award for Best Private Equity Research Paper in 2022.