The Launch of Gregor Weekly

Gregor Macdonald
August 22nd, 2009

Welcome to Gregor Weekly.

The launch of Gregor Weekly is an organic outgrowth of the friendly relationship I’ve had over the past year with StockTwits.com. Howard Lindzon, Soren MacBeth, and my long time friend Philip Pearlman have all been very helpful to me, in my launch last year of Gregor.us. Philip in particular helped me to conceive of Gregor.us, largely owing to the fact that I’d been sending Phil macro and energy analysis for nearly 10 years. Starting in late 2007, Phil said, “You’ve got to stop sending me this stuff and send it out to the world instead. We need to get you a blog.” Thus, Gregor.us was launched last September.

Over the past 9 months, many of my friends and readers on Twitter and StockTwits have also known me through my Sunday night MacroTwits show. The MacroTwits show frankly started out as an experiment, both for me and for StockTwits. The central question was as follows: could the Twitter platform be used to have a more focused conversation? Indeed it could. Personally I was surprised by the result. In addition, I had not anticipated that MacroTwits would also move to a live, video broadcast platform. Nor, that it would be eventually covered by the media including Investor’s Business Daily, True/Slant and Barron’s Online. What started at the level of 140 characters per tweet, has now grown into a rich platform.

Gregor Weekly then gives me the opportunity to produce a different, and more actionable newsletter. And, to embed a service more closely with StockTwits. For those of you who take my current newsletter from Gregor.us, you’ll know that particular letter is quite theoretical, does not make specific investment recommendations, and sticks to themes that surround energy and the price of oil. Gregor Weekly will bring a broader, more theoretical macro view together with a model portfolio. I will address interest rates, currencies, policy, equities, commodities, and the economy. And, I will start with a notional, model portfolio of 100,000 USD. The running of that portfolio will constitute the actionable nature of this newsletter.

On Twitter, at Gregor.us, and even on MacroTwits I have generally avoided giving actionable advice. That approach will remain. And so Gregor Weekly will be a great outlet for me. My goal is to run the portfolio like a fund, seeking positive absolute returns on both a Monthly, and a Quarterly basis. StockTwits now offers a rich menu of shorter-term traders from which to choose. With Gregor Weekly I hope to add something different yet again: an investing-trading newsletter that subscribers can follow either closely, or loosely as they invest and trade for themselves. You can be sure I’ll be generating alot of ideas.

-Gregor