About
In one paragraph: Detrended is a newsletter about what's actually happening beneath the headlines. Markets, economics, demographics, cities — whatever's interesting, stripped of noise. One chart. A few hundred words. Two or three times a week.
The slightly longer version
Most market commentary is noise. Prices move, pundits react, opinions are had. Very little of it helps you understand what's actually going on.
Detrended is my attempt to do the opposite: take something that happened, look past the noise, and figure out what's actually there. Sometimes that's a structural shift everyone missed. Sometimes it's nothing — just mean reversion dressed up as news. Either way, you'll know which is which.
I'm not here to tell you what to buy (and even if I were, you probably shouldn't listen). I'm here to help you think a bit more clearly about what you're looking at.
Who writes this?
I'm Justin Pyvis. I have a PhD in economics and 20+ years of experience in policy and investment analysis from working at the WA Treasury and AECOM in Perth, and Aletheia Capital in Hong Kong. These days I spend a lot of time reading, walking cities, and trying to understand how things actually work.
Detrended is where I write about what I find.
Who is this for?
Anyone who wants context without being told what to do with it.
That might be a portfolio manager looking for a second opinion on a macro call. It might be someone saving for retirement who wants to understand what a central bank is actually saying (hint: often not much). Or it might just be a curious person who likes charts and clear thinking.
If you want hot takes and bold predictions, you're in the wrong place. If you want help seeing the signal through the noise, stick around.
Why "Detrended"?
In statistics, to detrend something is to remove the underlying trend from a data series so you can see the fluctuations around it. It's how you separate signal from noise.
That's the goal here — not to predict where the line goes next, but to understand what's actually driving it.
Subscribe
It's free. I'll email you when I publish; usually a few times a week, never more. No spam, no upsells, unsubscribe anytime.
Say hello
If you have a question, a correction, or just want to say hi, go ahead and shoot me an email: [email protected]