Global macro

Global macro is the strategy of investing on a large scale around the world centered on economies, history, and international relations. The strategy is typically based on forecasts and analysis about interest rate trends, the general flow of funds, political changes, government policies, inter-government relations, and other broad systemic factors.

Macro trader Yra Harris claims that "global macro" is really a new term, which used to be called "geopolitics".George Soros employed a global macro strategy when he sold pound sterling in 1992 at the time of the European Rate Mechanism debacle.

In the 2010 Opalesque Roundtable discussion of global macro, hedge fund manager John Burbank discussed the increasing importance and shift of private and institutional investors toward more global macro strategies. Burbank defined global macro as "having a reason to be long or short something that is bigger than a fundamental stock view."

Global macro trading

Global macro trading strategies are based on educated guesses about the macroeconomic developments of the world. Mike Novogratz, former president of Fortress Investment Group, is a global investment management firm with total assets under management of approximately $41.6 billion and $4.3 billion in a global macrohedge fund in 2015 discussed global macro trading in his video interview. Novogratz described global macro strategies as monitoring these macroeconomic stories, such as global imbalances, business cycles, the survival of the Euro, and changing growth models of emerging economies. He says that there is an inherent difference between global macro fund managers and traditional equity managers. Most long/short equity managers started in research as analysts and look to follow these macroeconomic stories based on what positions they believe in and stock positions they rely on.