Substacks I Read to Make Sense of the Macro Fog

In a world flooded with noise, the Substacks I choose to follow matter a lot. They’re more than reading material — they’re part of the scaffolding I use to interpret markets, geopolitics, and human behavior.

Each of these writers has helped me sharpen a different part of my framework — through a mix of trade ideas, cultural signal detection, historical grounding, or plain old wisdom.

Here are a few I come back to regularly, and why.

Short-term trades, long-term frameworks

Le Shrub has quietly built one of the strongest macro communities on Substack. He blends short-frequency trading ideas with durable macro themes, drawing from his experience as a global trader (from Cyprus, no less).

I can’t follow every trade — and that’s not the point. What I value most are the frameworks buried inside the flows: how he sees risk, how he reads sentiment, how he picks up on cross-asset dislocations. His Substack chats are a real-time case study in market thinking. And his use of memes to explain market mood? Underrated and spot on.

Canadian roots, global insights, and meme-surfing macro

Kevin Muir brings something rare: deep experience and a willingness to explain things simply. His writing blends a Canadian outsider’s perspective with sharp calls on macro shifts — often ahead of consensus.

What makes his work stand out is tone. It’s funny, irreverent, but grounded. He can break down a complex credit setup and catch the right meme to explain it — a powerful skill in today’s attention-driven world. His accompanying podcast is also one of the few I listen to regularly.

Independent thinking for building wealth in a changing society

BowTied Bull is refreshingly unplugged from the institutional world. Rather than ranting about the problems of modern society, he builds playbooks for how to adapt: how to build businesses, how to think about leverage, how to escape the wage cage and become structurally independent.

He’s part writer, part strategist, part online educator. What I admire most is the practicality — he doesn’t just talk about macro conditions; he shows what to do about them.

Global macro with a sharp, regional edge

One of the few truly global macro voices that blends sharp trade ideas with a Southeast Asia / Australia lens. The author brings decades of experience in markets and combines a healthy skepticism of narratives with actionable theses — especially on FX, commodities, and the edges of geopolitics.

It’s the kind of writing that reminds you macro isn’t about being clever — it’s about understanding how capital moves through the world.

An emerging markets lens with New York clarity

A close collaborator of Le Shrub, Paulo brings a different angle. Raised in the U.S. with Brazilian roots, he bridges perspectives between developed and emerging markets — often highlighting dynamics in rates, FX, and energy that others overlook.

His writing is more analytical than theatrical, and that’s a feature. He helps me calibrate what’s priced in across geographies, especially in EM and commodity-linked trades.

Together with Shrubstack, Paulo helps form a layered view: one focused on tactical setups, another on structural shifts.

We live in a world that often feels nihilistic. Memes aren’t just jokes anymore — they’re compressed signals. Ways to express fear, conviction, absurdity, or alignment in an age of fractured trust.

Both Kevin Muir and Le Shrub are exceptional at catching these signals early — not to go viral, but to better understand market psychology. That matters.

Understanding memes, mood, and momentum has become part of the macro craft.

Something else worth noting: four of the five Substack writers I follow here — Shrubstack, PauloMacro, BowTied Bull, and Blind Squirrel — write pseudonymously or anonymously. Only Kevin Muir writes under his real name.

That’s telling.

Anonymity, in this context, isn’t about hiding — it’s about creating space. Space to challenge consensus, to be candid, to explore ideas without the weight of institutional affiliation or personal exposure. It's a way to let ideas stand on their own, without performance or persona.

It’s also a form of protection. In a world that’s increasingly hostile to ambiguity, it has never been easier to be misunderstood, targeted, or prematurely dismissed. Anonymity offers optionality — a buffer that allows for intellectual risk-taking in an environment that often punishes it.

In many cases, it’s not about secrecy — it’s about sovereignty.

And from where I sit, these pseudonymous thinkers are some of the most original and valuable voices in today’s macro conversation.

These writers have shaped how I interpret the volatile world we live in — not just markets, but systems, incentives, and cultural shifts. They’re part of a broader toolkit I use to stay grounded, curious, and better positioned.

I’ll continue to share how I evolve my own frameworks — and how these voices influence them — in future posts.

— Art
Writing to think. Sharing to learn.