THE FRAMEWORK · TRACK RECORD · RESEARCH EXAMPLES
Three decades of debt cycle analysis translates into market insight
My research is grounded in a single, consistent framework — one that treats private and public sector debt dynamics as a key primary driver of economic cycles, inflation, interest rates and asset prices. This page explains how that framework works, why it has repeatedly identified major themes ahead of consensus, and what it looks like in practice.
THE FRAMEWORK - HOW IT WORKS
Most macro analysis focuses on GDP growth, inflation and central bank policy as if they operate independently. My framework starts one level deeper — with the debt dynamics that drive all three. By understanding where private sector credit, government borrowing and debt funding pressures sit in their respective cycles, it becomes possible to anticipate economic turning points, inflation regimes and asset price moves well before they appear in consensus forecasts.
01
Private sector debt
Household and corporate debt growth is one of the most powerful drivers of economic expansion and asset price appreciation. When private credit accelerates, growth and inflation follow. When it stagnates or contracts — as it has across most advanced economies since the GFC — disinflationary pressures dominate regardless of what central banks do. Tracking private credit cycles is the foundation of every country analysis.
02
Government debt & fiscal policy
When private sector credit weakens, governments step in — borrowing to sustain growth that the private sector can no longer generate. This has been the defining dynamic of the post-GFC era. But government borrowing has its own limits: when the debt burden becomes too large, fiscal sustainability comes into question, sovereign risk rises and bond markets begin to price in stress. Identifying that inflection point is central to fixed income and FX positioning.
03
Debt funding & currency debasement
How government debt is funded matters as much as how much is borrowed. When the burden falls too heavily on domestic investors, private sector assets are crowded out and can underperform. When central banks monetise debt through quantitative easing, the result is currency debasement — a fall in the real value of money that drives up nominal asset prices, particularly gold and real assets. Understanding this distinction between real and nominal returns is essential to navigating today's markets.
WHY CONSULT ME
Credit as the primary variable
Most macro frameworks treat credit as a byproduct of growth. My framework treats it as the cause. This distinction — drawn from 30 years of studying debt cycles across Japan, Scandinavia, the US and Europe — consistently surfaces risks and opportunities that growth-focused analysis misses.
Real vs nominal returns
Currency debasement — the erosion of money's real value through debt monetisation — is one of the most underappreciated forces in modern markets. My research explicitly distinguishes between real and nominal asset price moves, giving clients a clearer picture of where genuine value is being created and where it is simply being inflated away.
Pattern recognition across geographies
The same debt cycle dynamics repeat across different economies and time periods — often a decade apart. Japan in the 1990s was the template for the US and Europe in the 2000s. Scandinavia in the early 1990s foreshadowed Ireland, Spain and Italy in the 2010s. Recognising these patterns early — and knowing how they resolve — is the foundation of every major call.
Understanding how policymakers think
Over 30 years I have met and worked alongside central bankers and politicians across the major economies. Understanding how they think, what constraints they operate under, and where their blind spots lie is an essential input into any macro forecast — and one that cannot be derived from data alone..
TRACK RECORD - MAJOR CALLS
Rates & Duration
Early 2000s
Japanification of the US and Europe
In the early 2000s, I identified that the rise of global trade would bring structural disinflation, and that the simultaneous build-up in private sector indebtedness across the US and Europe would eventually trigger a debt-driven crisis — forcing governments to borrow heavily and central banks to cut rates to zero, exactly as Japan had done in the 1990s. This framework was the basis for a sustained long duration position across US and European bond markets that played out over the following two decades.
Long Duration across US & European Bond markets
Real Estate
2006-2007
US and European real estate stress
Drawing on first-hand experience of the 1991/92 UK construction sector collapse, I identified in 2006 and 2007 that the debt-fuelled real estate bubbles building in the US and UK shared the same structural characteristics — and would require an enormous fiscal response and emergency interest rate cuts when they burst. This informed both the rates and real estate positioning well ahead of the 2008 crisis.
Long bonds, short real estate exposure ahead of 2008
Credit & Banking
Early 2009
European banking crises — Ireland, Spain and Italy
In early 2009, I flagged the mounting losses on Spanish and Irish bank loans extended to a pricked real estate bubble — and the critical inadequacy of bank capital to absorb the resulting provisioning surge. Simultaneously, I identified Italian banks as vulnerable to rising non-performing loans from a weakening economy. I also identified a specific error in the Irish government's initial NAMA bailout structure, correctly forecasting that it would lead to an extraordinary rise in Irish government debt and a sovereign bond market crisis.
Short peripheral sovereign bonds; flagged Irish sovereign risk ahead of bailout
Sovereign Debt
Post-GFC
G20 government overleveraging
Following the GFC, I highlighted the structural necessity for governments across the advanced economies to dramatically increase borrowing to offset the collapse in private sector credit growth. I identified early that this would not be a temporary fiscal response but a sustained, structural shift — resulting in the over-indebtedness now visible across much of the developed world, with significant long-term implications for sovereign risk, inflation and currency values.
Long-term sovereign risk and inflation framework for advanced economies
FX & Gold
2023
Currency debasement and the gold trade
In 2023, I demonstrated that the combination of surging government borrowing and the overhang of pandemic-era quantitative easing had produced a serious and underappreciated episode of currency debasement across the globe — one that would drive a sustained appreciation in hard and real assets. My preferred expression of this theme was a long gold versus short yen trade, capturing both the debasement dynamic and the divergence in monetary policy between the Fed and the Bank of Japan.
Long gold vs short yen — captured gold's sustained appreciation from 2023
RESEARCH EXAMPLES - FREE TO READ