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Equity Sector Rotation Chartbook, February 2026 - The Tangible Economy Strikes Back

The February 2026 edition of the S&P 500 equity sector rotation chartbook can be found here You can read more about the methodology and underlying assets here.

The SaaSpocalypse is upon us and with it comes the inevitable soul searching among investors who thought that a concentrated bet on US/global tech was a never-losing source of excess returns relative to the wider market. This looks to me like a long overdue sell-off in search of a narrative rather than the other way round, but it’s a pretty compelling narrative, all the same.

Markets and Tradingclaus vistesenFebruary 8, 2026equities, equity sectors

Pro-natal fertility policies and eugenics

I am reading this volume at the moment, which presents fertility case studies across a number of countries. It was published in 2015, so it is a bit out of date relative to the past decade’s ongoing and broadening fertility decline. But I was struck by the chapter on Singapore and the initial phase of the country’s pro-natal policies in the mid-1980s, which were strongly influenced by so-called positive eugenics. From the relevant chapter:

“ (… ) in 1984, the state implemented selective pro-natalist policies, described as the “eugenic phase” of Singapore’s population policy. Educated women were given incentives to reproduce under the “Graduate Mother Scheme,” while sterilization cash incentives were offered to less educated women.”

As the authors—Gavin W. Jones and Wajihah Hamid—go on to explain, this overtly eugenic policy was quickly abandoned. Still, it made me to think more broadly about the extent to which eugenics have driven pro-natal policies, either overtly or implicitly, since WWII, and what this history can tell us about modern policy design as governments attempt to raise birth rates for women facing different opportunity costs of childrearing depending on educational attainment, and opportunities in the labour force.

Demographicsclaus vistesenFebruary 6, 2026fertility, eugenics, birth rates, ChatGPT

Global Leading Indicators, December 2025 - Broad-based strength

The disconnect between momentum in global macroeconomic leading indicators, benign conditions in financial markets, and volatile global geopolitics could hardly be greater at the moment. Granted, leading indicators will always lag the latest gyrations in global geopolitics—especially in a world where Mr. Trump is conducting the orchestra—but judging by the past 12 months, not even the potential collapse of NATO or a full-blown EU–U.S. trade war will knock risk assets off course for more than a few minutes. That is not because such events would lack significance, but because markets are now deeply wedded to the idea that Mr. Trump’s bark—on tariffs and otherwise—is much worse than his bite. Time, as always, will tell. The fundamental problem for markets is that lofty valuations and generally exuberant investor sentiment mean that any repricing in response to a less optimistic view of the world would be violent.

Global Economyclaus vistesenJanuary 19, 2026leading indicators, Greenland, Donald Trump, Denmark

Things to think about #16 - Fatherhood, The Spectator, The Untethered Soul and the Dragonlance novels

My wife gave birth to our daughter, Veera, at the start of December, and it’s been a wild ride so far. Your job in the first few weeks and months, I now realise, is basically to keep your baby alive, which involves submitting yourself, and (in)famously your sleep patterns, to the needs of a lizard brain in a human suit that it has no control over. She feeds, sleeps, pees and poos, and screams in between all of these. More recently, she’s been doing mostly screaming.

Trying to look beyond this very intense period—and the miracle that my daughter is—can be difficult. People with children will tell budding parents that their life is about to permanently change, which is true, but in what way? It depends, I guess. Parenthood—in this case, fatherhood—is a strange initial feeling for me, best described as low-key dread and fear that something will go wrong and I won’t be able to help my daughter, mixed with a profound sense of responsibility. Cometh the hour, cometh the new father, I hope.

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