Views and Analysis
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Research Papers
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Nov 5, 2025
Navigating the Green Tightrope
Oct 9, 2025
A Transparent Alternative to Neural Networks
Sep 16, 2025
The Power of Narrative Attention
Working Papers
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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, ...
Articles
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Dec 8, 2025
An unprecedented Fed pass
For all the volatility in the macro environment, disagreement across the FOMC and public criticism of the central bank, the Fed in theory is still very predictable. So, with Fed fund futures discounting 23bps of easing at the December meeting it is highly unlikely that the Fed will not deliver. Looking back to 1994 at all the Fed meetings where rates were left on hold, there are no instances of market discounting such a sizeable move, in either direction. In short not delivering a cut this week ...
Nov 26, 2025
Market Signals and Shifts: An end-of-year assessment
In our January 2025 look-ahead report, we pinpointed several critical fault lines and promising updrafts for financial markets. Among the questions we sought to answer during the year were: Will United States’ exceptionalism continue to dominate market consensus, or are we on the brink of a significant shift away from the US? Where does the US dollar go from here? Will Treasuries get some traction? With less than two months remaining in 2025, we assess key developments on these topics and more, ...
Nov 24, 2025
Will UK Gilts Smile or Frown?
The UK Government is set to release the next Budget on 26 November, the day before the US Thanksgiving holiday. The run-up to the announcement is full of ‘pitch-rolls’ and odd briefings. The OBR forecasts, particularly the productivity downgrade, compelled the Labour government to find ways to create 30bn of fiscal headroom. At the same time as the Labour government is cobbling together what the FT calls is a hotchpotch plan; and there are worries about whether a leadership challenge is in the offing. ...
Podcasts
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Dec 2025
The Best Reads of 2025
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 ...
Dec 2025
Trading Notes for ‘26
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 ...
Dec 2025
The 12 Trades of Risk-mas: A 2026 Macro Outlook
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 ...
Videos
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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. Risk Appetite Risk appetite has eased to neutral as investors rotate out of cyclicals and commodities into defensives and the US dollar, while still taking selective risk in high yield credit and technology rather than retreating from equities.
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.