The Watchtower Series
Global Watchtower
Global Watchtower
Global Watchtower
Occasionally insightful. Espousing views built over many years on the frontline of global financial market integration. Offering analysis on the nexus between global financial markets and geopolitics as we enter the era of heightened geo-economic rivalry.
Areas of deep knowledge: global financial markets, trading, asset management industr
Occasionally insightful. Espousing views built over many years on the frontline of global financial market integration. Offering analysis on the nexus between global financial markets and geopolitics as we enter the era of heightened geo-economic rivalry.
Areas of deep knowledge: global financial markets, trading, asset management industry, BoJ, central banks, currencies, Asia, US geopolitical relationships, international relations, geopolitical risk, crisis forecasting.
Always highlighting the relevant dimension of time. Adjusted for time, global macro and international systems analysis adds value.
Dollar Watchtower
Global Watchtower
Global Watchtower
My 35 year career in global financial markets spans all major global money centres (NY, Tokyo, HK, Singapore, Sydney, London) and covers all major asset classes as a proprietary trader, hedge fund PM, and asset management PM. However, managing the Macro Currency Group for BT Funds Management & Principal Global Investors for 22 years solid
My 35 year career in global financial markets spans all major global money centres (NY, Tokyo, HK, Singapore, Sydney, London) and covers all major asset classes as a proprietary trader, hedge fund PM, and asset management PM. However, managing the Macro Currency Group for BT Funds Management & Principal Global Investors for 22 years solidified my reputation as a currency specialist. Managing Currency Overlay programs for the largest institutional investors in the world, as well as launching some of the first absolute return currency hedge funds, my career has been intertwined with the fate of the US dollar for as long as I can remember.
As an American that spent his entire adult life living and working in foreign countries, I’ve developed a unique view of the dollar from both outside-in and inside-out. My career in global markets also sits between two significant dollar hegemonic book-ends; the Plaza Accord (3 months after I arrived to work in Tokyo) and Covid lockdowns (the end of global integration naivety). The long cycles of the US dollar, and the continuous politics that surround its ‘free-float’ make for a perfect continuous thread throughout the phase of globalisation. The Dollar Watchtower is there to offer expert horizon scanning on this crucial component of global financial markets and their evolution.
BoJ Watchtower
Global Watchtower
BoJ Watchtower
In 1986 I began working in Tokyo for a NY-based Fed Watching company called Money Market Services (MMS). Post-Plaza Accord, Japan’s financial markets were opening and exploding, and yet little was known about the Bank of Japan. I was gifted the task of being the first foreign BoJ Watcher.
Writing real-time, live, in English on MMS’s globa
In 1986 I began working in Tokyo for a NY-based Fed Watching company called Money Market Services (MMS). Post-Plaza Accord, Japan’s financial markets were opening and exploding, and yet little was known about the Bank of Japan. I was gifted the task of being the first foreign BoJ Watcher.
Writing real-time, live, in English on MMS’s global financial products distributed on Reuters, Telerate, and Bloomberg, we began moving markets. We launched the Yen Market Report in January 1987, quickly becoming the authoritative voice on BoJ open market operations, interpretation of economic policy directives, and market analysis. The BoJ took me under its wing, gave me incredible access to all parts of the Bank, and regularly collaborated with me in getting the correct (English) interpretation of their policy signals to help guide the market.
Eventually I transitioned from analyst to portfolio manager with Bankers Trust, but still, after 30+ years managing money, I rely on my basic training from many central banks on how monetary policy transmission and financial conditions ultimately drive markets.
While major central banks around the world have a collegiate relationship and converge on trend ‘best practice’, each Bank operates within a unique economic, cultural, and governance environment that can often make policy decisions difficult to predict and decipher. The BoJ Watchtower offers readers continuous insights into this challenge for Japan, drawing on my many decades covering the BoJ.
Book
Global Watchtower: Global Macro and Geopolitical Systems Analysis
The Global Watchtower provides readers with a condensed version of Mark's analysis over the past 5 years featured in the Watchtower Series on Substack, along with detailed examples of how insights were drawn from historical analogues, using his highly cultivated Watchtower approach to global macro investing. This book showcases the difference between a systems analyst approach and someone attempting to forecast specific events. It provides method for distilling the infinite noise and confusion generated by the two overlapping systems of global financial markets and geopolitics. Through a seasoned observer's lens, the Global Watchtower makes sense of a complex world.
About Mark Farrington
Mark spent 30+ years in global financial markets as a portfolio manger in the front row of historical change. Born in the US, he's lived and worked in Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, and London. A pioneer in emerging markets and an expert in forecasting Financial crises, Mark mans the Global Watchtower.