Macro.

Research notes

• 30 May 2026

  El Niño 2026: the agriculture and fertiliser thesis, and the trade that survives it

  A two-part note. Part one tests the popular El Niño thesis as a chain (weather to crop prices to farm income to fertiliser demand, plus a war-driven supply squeeze) and finds it weak. The event has not started yet (the Pacific is neutral, about 82 per cent likely by summer), the harvest effect is small and cuts both ways, a poor harvest lifts prices only when stocks are thin, and Indian farm prices are walled off by policy so the demand link partly runs in reverse. The one genuinely strong force, the 2026 fertiliser spike, is a Strait of Hormuz supply shock that is already reversing, not a weather story. Part two builds the trade that does survive: an India-only equity play on listed fertiliser producers, because a weak monsoon there lands in the subsidy bill and producer margins rather than in crop prices. Screened with our own fair value and quality work across seven names, the conclusion is a barbell (a high-quality anchor plus deep-value asymmetry) with a finite shelf life tied to the Kharif season.

• 26 Apr 2026

  The Reflexive Trinity in Indian Equities

  A 22-month panel test, June 2024 to March 2026, of whether the Indian equity market is now jointly governed by domestic flow, fiscal credit divergence, and the rates cycle. Ten pre-registered hypotheses, seven supported, three rejected. The textbook FPI-led model is no longer the dominant lens. The marginal mover of price across this panel is domestic systematic flow plus the sectoral credit cycle, with rates and the rupee acting as second-order conditioning variables. The SIP stoppage ratio is the single signal worth watching from here.