Director, Sentiment Matters

Lars Kreckel

Sentiment Matters brings structure and insight to one of the most underused drivers of investing: sentiment and positioning.

Whether you’re a macro strategist or a stock picker, it always matters whether your view is consensus or contrarian. Yet investors often spend too much time on things that are impossible to forecast (inflation), not consistently market-moving (geopolitics), or where they have little edge (Fed-speak).

Sentiment and positioning are different: they’re measurable, often overlooked, and have a clear impact on returns. That’s where Sentiment Matters comes in.

Drawing on 20+ years of buy-side and sell-side experience, I’ve built the tools I always wished existed.

What we offer:

• Powerful visualisation tools that show, at a glance, which assets are loved or hated — helping separate genuine signals from noise.
• Independent analysis and reports highlighting sentiment shifts, extremes, and cross-asset trends that support idea generation and risk management.

These tools are delivered through flexible packages for different types of investors — from macro strategists and tactical asset allocators to wealth managers.

While use cases vary, they typically include idea generation (extreme sentiment + strong fundamentals), risk management (identifying crowded trades and vulnerabilities), focusing research effort where incremental insight pays off most, and timing entry and exit with greater conviction.

Director

The mood of the market, mapped and decoded

Sentiment Matters

Investor sentiment is the overall mood of investors - how bullish or bearish they are on a market or asset.

Sentiment is part of every investor’s investment process. Whether for macro investors, stock pickers, or thematic investors, it matters whether a position is consensus or contrarian.

Cross Asset Strategy

Multiple Countries / Cross Asset Strategy

<ul>
<li>EPU can work as a contrarian indicator: periods of very high policy uncertainty have historically been followed by strong equity returns.</li>
<li>Broad news-based EPU measures have produced the strongest backtest results, while non-news components and specialised categories have generally been less reliable.</li>
<li>Trade Policy Uncertainty is becoming more promising in both monthly and daily data, although the history of genuinely extreme readings remains limited.</li>
</ul>


EPU can work as a contrarian indicator: periods of very high policy uncertainty have historically been followed by strong equity returns.
Broad news-based EPU measures have produced the strongest backtest results, while non-news components and specialised categories have generally been less reliable.
Trade Policy Uncertainty is becoming more promising in both monthly and daily data, although the history of genuinely extreme readings remains limited.


Sentiment Matters: Economic Policy Uncertainty Primer - Part 2