Welcome to Lighthouse Macro. We write institutional-grade macro research for two kinds of readers. The first trades on the macro picture: funds, allocators, individual investors. The second lives with it without ever placing a trade: business owners, operators, the people running budgets and payrolls and hiring plans. The same data answers different questions for each of them, and we try to answer both.
Lighthouse Macro was founded by Bob Sheehan, CFA, CMT after roles on a macro-equity strategy & multi-asset book at Bank of America Private Bank. Following that, he landed in more traditional macro focused roles on the sell side boutique Trahan Macro Research and then back on the buyside, as the 2nd member of Strom Capital Management, a Discretionary Macro fund where he produced research directly alongside the CIO.
Most recently he was VP of Data & Analytics at EquiLend. If you’d rather hear how we think before you read it, start with his conversation on Blockworks’ Forward Guidance, How To Trade The New Warsh Fed.
The philosophy fits in a line: flows over stocks. How fast something is changing usually tells you more, and sooner, than where it sits. By the time a headline number moves, the story underneath it is mostly over.
The framework
Everything we publish runs through one framework, the Diagnostic Dozen: twelve pillars of the economy across three engines. Each pillar got its own free deep dive on what it measures, how it connects to the others, and the thresholds we watch.
- Macro Dynamics: Labor, Prices, Growth, Housing, Consumer, Business, Trade
- Monetary Mechanics: Government, Financial, Plumbing
- Market Structure: Market Structure, Sentiment & Positioning
The piece that introduced it, Why Most Americans Don’t Care About Your Market Call, is the best place to see why it’s built this way. The Foundation Is Set. Now We Build. ties all twelve together.
Six places to start
- Two Economies. The headline consumer data averages two populations that have almost nothing in common. One is spending down an asset base that keeps appreciating. The other is being repossessed.
- Banking on Nonbanks. One New York Fed paper, walked through our framework piece by piece. It made FT Alphaville’s reading list.
- The Fed Put, Retired. For fifteen years every selloff was bought on faith that the Fed would step in. The new chair spent his career arguing against the rescue.
- Markets Turn in Order. The leading parts of the market turn first and quietly, the lagging parts last and loudly. A framework earns its keep in the gap between the two.
- From Foundations to Fault Lines. Part I asked in August 2025 whether the Treasury market’s foundations were weakening. Part IV, The 5% Long Bond Is Back, is what the answer turned out to be.
- One Step Removed. The first Marginal Matters: the banks never really left private credit, and the Fed’s own data shows where they went.
What we publish
- Marginal Matters: free. One overlooked mechanic, relationship or paper, explained against the data.
- The Beam: the tactical read on the print that just hit.
- The Beacon: long-form, one thesis taken all the way down.
- The Horizon: the forward view, and where the risk sits.
- The Chartbook: the data, laid out to be looked at.
- Crosscurrents: our live book. The framework turned into positions, with the rules for getting in, sizing and getting out set before the trade.
- Pharos: the terminal. The research, the charts and the dashboards in one place.
The framework, the history and Marginal Matters are free. The live readings, the positioning and the forward views sit with paid subscribers.
Inside Pharos
Pharos is the terminal the research is built on. Every board recomputes from our master database with each build, and every chart carries its own read and its sources. It comes with the Complete subscription.
Join the WatchSign in to Pharos
For decks, monthly/quarterly meetings, or advisory work, write to advisory@lighthousemacro.com.
For custom research requests or institutional settings, write to research@lighthousemacro.com.