Macro with Julian Brigden, on Inflation, Bubbles and the Dollar

Mar 8, 2021

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day.

In 1971, US president Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar to gold bullion, terminating what was known as the Bretton Woods system, which also kept other major currencies pegged to the greenback at a fixed exchange rate. Since then, the US dollar has experienced three major cycles of appreciation followed by weakening, all of which have greatly impacted asset prices around the world.

Our guest this week is Julian Brigden (‎Co-Founder & President: ‎Macro Intelligence 2 Partners), a macro strategist who is particularly focused on secular USD trend and their ramifications across global markets. Our conversation included:

• His general framework, favorite macroeconomic indicators and putting the pieces together
• Why the ISM is a fantastic metric to gauge activity
• (Portfolio) size matters – tactical vs strategic calls
• Parallels with the 1960s, financial repression and how this may impact the US dollar
• Central banks’ independence in check, and the growing role of fiscal policies
• Inflation – expectations of the coming commodity bonanza and knock-on effects across the globe
• Rates, bubbles and the outlook for equities
• Gold vs silver vs copper – portfolio hedges under secular inflation

We also discussed liquidity crunches, the role of the Fed, the wealth gap and alternative paths to overcoming the current enormous debt overhang. As long-time followers of Julian’s work, we had been looking forward to this episode for some time, and it exceeded our expectations.

Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.