FO Research / Learn
The mechanics,
explained plainly.
The research is Premium. The machinery behind it stays open. These explainers cover what the desk’s notes rely on: term premium, the yield curve, the auction tail, the carry trade, the crack spread, real yields and the dollar. Written for readers who want to follow the reasoning, not just the conclusion. Free, permanently. The section is built as a ladder: start at the foundations, finish reading the desk’s own tools.
The Ladder · The Road Ahead
Every piece the desk will explain,
and where it sits.
This is the published map of the Learn section: what is live, what is in production and what is planned. Pieces ship when the tape arms them, so the map carries no dates; it carries the promise that the machinery the research relies on will all, eventually, be explained here. Free, in full.
- Reading the Yield Curve
- The Dollar, Decoded
- Dr Copper and Real Assets
- What Actually Moves MarketsPlanned
- Basis Points and Bond ArithmeticPlanned
- Inflation 101: CPI, PCE and “Core”Planned
- Central Banks 101Planned
- Risk-On, Risk-OffPlanned
- Steepeners and Flatteners
- Payrolls Revisions and the Benchmark
- Gold vs Real Yields
- The Carry Trade
- Credit Spreads and HY OAS
- How Treasury Auctions WorkIn production
- Real Yields and BreakevensIn production
- The COT ReportIn production
- CPI vs PCE, and the WedgeIn production
- The Macro CalendarPlanned
- The Crack Spread and the Next CPI Print
- Treasury Buybacks and the Issuer’s Hand
- FX Intervention and the Line at 160
- Term Premium, Explained
- R-Star and the Neutral Rate
- Quant vs Discretionary Macro
- QT and Who Absorbs the DurationPlanned
- Reaction Functions: Modelling a CommitteePlanned
How the research holds itself accountable: the scoring, the pre-registration, the right to be wrong in public. The lowest search volume on this page and the highest signal.
- How We Score Our Calls
- The Scored Record itself →
- Pre-Registration: Publishing the Test FirstPlanned
- Scenario Maps and InvalidationPlanned
Four Threads Run Through Everything
Market Mechanics
How the machine works: curve shapes, auctions, term premium, carry, positioning, intervention, the issuer’s own bid.
Indicators Decoded
Data literacy: what each print actually measures, what it misses and what the desk reads first when it lands.
Policy and Central Banks
Reaction functions, the dot plot, r-star, QT and what a committee can and cannot reach on the curve.
The Desk’s Method
Scoring, pre-registration and invalidation: the discipline that separates a call record from a highlight reel.
Live Now · Newest First
What Is a Credit Spread? HY OAS Explained
A credit spread is the extra yield a company pays over the government for the same maturity. High-yield OAS is that number for the below-investment-grade bond market, and it separates a rates problem from an economy problem. The mechanism, the levels and why it stayed quiet until it did not.
Bear Steepener vs Bull Flattener: Curve Moves Explained
Bull and bear, steepener and flattener: four names that encode which end of the yield curve moved and who moved it. The 2x2 map, the reading discipline and the late-August 2026 week when the same curve was written by a different hand on consecutive sessions.
FX Intervention and the Line at 160
How currency intervention actually works: who decides, how operations run, why joint action is rare, what makes a defended line credible and why a crowded short against a state's level turns every surprise into a gap.
Payrolls Revisions and the Benchmark
US jobs numbers are estimates published fast and corrected slowly. Why payrolls get revised, what the annual benchmark actually re-levels, how to read a -911,000 or a -79,000 honestly and the reflex trade that fails in an inflationary regime.
Crack Spread Explained: How Refining Margins Drive Inflation
The refining margin, not the oil price, decides whether an energy shock becomes inflation. What the 3-2-1 crack spread is, how it transmits to consumer prices with a month's lead and how the desk's own series called 2026's inflation pipe before the statistics did.
Treasury Buybacks and the Issuer's Hand
The world's largest borrower is bidding for its own bonds. What buybacks are, how the operations work, why they are not QE, and the discipline the desk applies when the issuer's hand is on the long end.
How the Desk Scores Its Calls: the method behind the FO call record
The desk scores a published call by entering at the close nearest publication, measuring one named price series, marking to a single as-of date and judging the note's own wording. The five rules, what the headline number counts, and what the record cannot tell you.
Dr. Copper and Real Assets: What the Metal Is Really Diagnosing
Copper earned its doctorate by reading the growth cycle early. At a record $13,552 a tonne, the desk asks what it is actually diagnosing now, and what real assets genuinely hedge.
The Carry Trade Explained: Mechanics, Risk and the Yen Unwind
A carry trade earns a small, steady income in exchange for an occasional, sudden, large loss. The desk explains the mechanics, why unwinds turn violent, and what USD/JPY did in 2024 and since.
r-star Explained: Is Monetary Policy Actually Tight?
r-star is the line between tight and loose policy, and nobody can see it. The desk explains what sets the neutral rate, why estimates are bands not numbers, and what the real policy rate says today.
Reading the Yield Curve: Inversion, Un-Inversion and the Timing Trap
Inversion has preceded most modern US recessions, but the danger has tended to follow the un-inversion, and the record 2022-24 inversion bent the rule further. The desk explains the machinery and the trap.
The Dollar, Decoded: the DXY, Rate Differentials and the Dollar Smile
A currency's strength is a relative price, not a verdict on a single economy. The desk decodes the DXY, the four forces that move the dollar and the smile framework it reads them through.