question for macro trader

Prepping for macro interviews and just had a few questions, hopefully some macro guy could help me out.

1. Is there a difference between inflation/growth or are they always synonymous? If not, how would a shock in either impact equities?

2. In FX is it nominal or real rates which we should be looking at when gauging interest rate impact on FX pairs?

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Short answer is there is no real answer, most people solve backwards to fit their thesis. That being said...

1. Yes, there is a difference. Nominal growth = real growth + inflation. Impact on equities depends on situation, too complicated really to explain here but tl;dr inflation up = good for cyclicals bad for "duration heavy" equities e.g., tech, speculative shitcos, etc. anything with a relatively large % of value tied up in "terminal value."

2. Nominal. 

 

1. Is there a difference between inflation/growth or are they always synonymous? If not, how would a shock in either impact equities?

This one should be obvious. Supply side growth almost always decreases inflation and increases growth. Just look at computers. As those have gotten cheaper and cheaper, revenues for computer companies have grown faster and faster. 

 

Regarding 2, you should read the 'FX carry' literature and do your own research on which rates measures are most effective for FX trading. It's a simple and intuitive concept and some tinkering should help evolve your quant and conceptual abilities (e.g. I've found unconventional carry factors through simply logical/empirical iteration).

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