[huitzitziltzin]

I’m an economics professor (not in macro, but I’ve taken more macro and at a higher level than you have).

I think this comment is right on the money. None of what I learned in graduate school would help you forecast the price of a specific asset.

Some of the large investment firms do employ economics PhDs to help them make forecasts of particular broad macro variables (inflation, unemployment, etc.). I don’t know of anyone who uses their macro background to forecast specific asset prices (e.g., Amazon’s share price).

(Note that there are people in economics who study time series forecasting - that can be used to make forecasts for specific assets but is considered somewhat separate from most macro modeling, which is micro founded and done in a DSGE framework.)

I’d recommend you study macro bc it is interesting and intellectually rewarding, but I don’t think it’s going to tell you anything about pricing a specific asset.

[snake_doc]

I disagree, because macro view investment managers exist. Also, fixed income instruments react very predictably to macro trends. ie Ackman’s recent bet on interest rates that paid off [1]

Entire prop trade desks exist to bet on macro news like labor job reports, on many different asset types through derivatives like index futures, FX futures, etc… This is very easy to observe if you view tick data for these derivatives before and after news is released.

While macro view is less relevant on a single equity, it’s very much a proven way of investing in a variety of asset classes.

[1] https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1vl6gf18v9f5v...

[syntheweave]

My bachelor's agrees on this. Macro is a set of theories that can explain a certain set of economic norms, but in most circumstances these theories don't have anything like the predictive power of scientific theories backed by experiment.

However, my retail investing experience suggests that what macro is good for is spotting cracks in the framework with respect to specific countries and industries. Cracks aren't prices - when a market is way out of equilibrium, prices can go along saying one thing for quite some time while the real economy does something else. But it can produce broad strokes answers of "don't touch this asset" vs "only temporary setbacks here".

[fuzzfactor]

>don’t know of anyone who uses their macro background to forecast specific asset prices (e.g., Amazon’s share price).

I can agree with that,

OTOH someone with uncanny ability to predict asset prices might be expected to do exceptionally well in macroeconomics, perhaps without any formal background at all.

A good deal of math would always be helpful and I like a mixture of business math and non-business math operating in the background.