End Of Year Message For Our Macro Hive Members

As the year draws to a close, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on our journey at Macro Hive. We launched in June with a simple website and a newsletter. At the time, the team was small – just me, in fact. But the concept was big. Why can’t there be a trusted destination for top macro content sourced not just from a single bank or think tank, but from anywhere and everywhere?

The Destination

Well, six months on I believe we have created that destination at Macro Hive. We now regularly acquire insights from world-leading macro thinkers, we select and summarise the best academic research available, and we curate leading blogs and podcasts. And all of this we deliver in concise, clear prose aimed at time-poor readers. To achieve this, our core team has expanded to ten. But Macro Hive has always been about more than the people at its core. We’re also proud to have created a sixty-strong network of contributors, each of whom has bolstered Macro Hive’s service with their expertise.

Thriving Community

On top of our expansion, we have completely revamped our website to bring our growing community closer together. I’m not a big fan of web stats, but they do sometimes contain grains of truth. Our site has had 130,000 page views, with close to 30,000 unique users visiting the site. Several thousand (and counting) have signed up to become members where they receive our email newsletters. Their calibre is impressive – CEOs, CIOs, and policymakers from some of the most well-known institutions in the world.

Kind Words

But perhaps more important than these stats is some of the feedback we have received. The CIO of a major credit fund finds our content “super high quality” and he “loves the filtering”. The Head of Fixed Income at one of the largest asset managers in the world “really appreciates the brevity”. The CFO of a larger corporate kindly told us that “frankly, I love how different this is than everything else I look at.” A Harvard professor thought our work was “wonderful”. And perhaps the biggest compliment was from the partner at a very large hedge fund who said, “I have been forwarding your mail list to my peers saying that it’s the best list to be on!”

Expanding With a Daily Cup of Tea

We have big plans for 2020 – to have more exclusives, more summaries of academic papers, a podcast show, and member events. To realise our ambitions, we will need to introduce a membership fee and so from early 2020 the website will have a paywall. We’ve been very scientific about the pricing – basically it will cost around the same as if you bought a daily Chai Latte. So you buy us a tea, and you can get our insights. Sounds like a fair deal? We believe so! And of course, as existing members, you will get a special discount for your loyalty.

Your Problem Solver

Finally, I’d like to introduce a whole other side of Macro Hive that many of you may be unaware of. We have a special “Professional” package where clients receive high-end macro views ranging from models to trade ideas. We also offer consulting services. Some of the recent commissions we have had include:

• Review, analyse, and recommend a revamp of the research department of a major bank.

• Provide out-of-sample data for the quant group of a large financial institution.

• Create macro content for a fintech firm to differentiate it from its peers.

And we do a whole lot more than that! Think of us as your problem solvers for all things macro.

With that, we’d like to thank you all for being on this journey with us and we wish you happy holidays and a prosperous new year.

Bilal

PS. I’d also like to extend a big ‘thank you’ to the Macro Hive team. This includes my partner and COO Andrew Simon and employee #1 Alamin Hussain. I also have to mention Presiyana Karastoyanova as one of the critical early helpers. Then there is the rest of team, regular contributors and of course, everyone on our hyperactive WhatsApp group!