Market writing without the noise. Dry, considered, and institutional in tone — the kind of notes you actually keep.
01 / From Claire
Capital Notes began as a discipline. I would find myself reading a dozen research pieces, three earnings calls, two white papers, and a handful of long-form essays — and extracting, with effort, the two or three ideas that actually mattered. The newsletter is what remains after that extraction.
I write it the way I wish institutional research notes were written: stripped of jargon, direct about uncertainty, and willing to say when the evidence does not support a conclusion. If something isn't clear in the writing, it wasn't clear in the thinking.
The notes come out irregularly. Frequency is determined by the quality of the idea, not the cadence of a content calendar. There is no filler. When there is nothing worth saying, I say nothing.
02 / Coverage areas
Market Structure
How capital moves, and why it moves the way it does
Credit & Rates
The bond market's view of everything equity traders ignore
Earnings & Fundamentals
Reading through management language to the actual numbers
Macro Frames
The slow-moving forces that outlast the quarterly consensus
The desk.
03 / On method
Most market commentary begins with a conclusion and works backward. A headline is drafted, a narrative is assembled to support it, and the data is arranged in the most favorable configuration available. The result reads like analysis but functions like advocacy.
The discipline I apply here is simpler and harder: what does the data actually support? Not what I expect it to support. Not what would make an interesting argument. What can be said with appropriate confidence, and what requires significant qualification? The qualifications matter as much as the conclusions.
"The baseline skill of analysis is not forecasting. It is knowing, precisely, what you do not know."
— Capital Notes · Vol. 22
Capital Notes · Vol. 18
“The market is not wrong. The market is what it is. You are either prepared for what it does next, or you are not.”
04 / Past notes
On the dollar index and what the consensus keeps getting wrong about reserve flows
May 2026Reading the credit spread — what IG and HY divergence historically precedes
Apr 2026Earnings quality: three accounting signals that preceded margin compression in prior cycles
Mar 2026The duration risk no one is pricing in small-cap valuations right now
Feb 2026Macro framing: the four regimes and why identifying the current one matters more than the trade
Jan 202605 / Recurring ground
Capital Notes
Subscribe to receive Claire's Capital Notes. Sent irregularly — governed by quality of insight, not frequency of publication.
