Mark Astley

I'm a macro-financial economist with experience both in the Bank of England and in investment banking. My particular expertise is on the FX market, so you can equally call me an FX strategist.

I worked at the Bank of England for nearly 20 years – covering a wide range of macro and financial sectors, writing top publications like the Inflation Report, undertaking academic research (bit of an econometric bias), doing presentations to MPC on money and credit and financial markets, managing teams of economists producing research & briefing material and representing the BoE at interestign places like the Jackson Hole Symposium and the NBER Summer Institute. But during that time I kept coming back to exchange rates and financial markets e.g. writing the “official” BoE view on why the pound fell so sharply during the financial crisis and what the implications of it for a central bank might be. I subsequently moved to Credit Suisse as an FX strategist – writing weekly reports on G10 FX developments and joint notes with the economists, meeting with clients and enjoying the buzz of liaising with the trading and sales desks. I’m currently looking for my next challenge, having fallen foul of the slimming down of investment banking.

This blog is all about macro-finance interactions: the links between what is going on in the “real world” of output, inflation and central banks and financial market (especially FX) developments. In the latter I’ve got a bias to FX (my research background) but know a thing or two about bond and equity markets as well.

My aim is to bring my broad mix of skills and experience to bear to bring out some interesting insights. I hope you find the posts useful, feel free to reach out (politely) if you do. Of course, I assert my copyright over the arguments contained within them.

Mark Astley