There are many global macro investing strategies that make use of the yield curve. While primarily used to trade bonds, there are also several good uses for trading stocks and currencies as well. In fact as powerful as the yield curve is, there is likely a few yield curve strategies for every asset class out there.
Anyone that has been trading for a long time has heard that diversification is the only free lunch our there, referring to the economics principle that nothing good is free. The problem has been that if you went to the typical financial planner you were deworsified and not diversified. Dont worry because diversification is still very useful if done properly and really does help to increase returns and lower risks.
Among the ten asset classes we have cash, equities, fixed income, commodities, currencies, real estate, private equity, venture capital, collectibles, and statistical arbitrage. Obviously not all of these are easily accessible by most retail investors but you can still get into five or more.
Often times when you tell someone that you are a global macro trader they will assume that you are a commodity trading advisor. The truth is that while they both share some similarities they are actually quite different. The typical commodity trading advisor will focus on the technical aspect of the markets as well as risk management with total disregard of the underlying trading instrument. This doesn’t make them a good or a bad investment it is just that a global macro trading firm uses a lot of other types of analysis.