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About Us

Founded in 1978 as an independent research firm, Wrightson joined the ICAP group of companies in 2000. We specialize in the analysis of Federal Reserve operations and policy, high-frequency economic data and Treasury financing trends. Our clientele includes portfolio managers and traders in the money, bond and currency markets, as well as economists, strategists and central bank officials around the world.

A Wrightson ICAP subscription provides access to our weekly analysis, The Money Market Observer, and to our daily on-line research and commentary. A subscription also provides access to our chief economist, Lou Crandall, and his research staff. In addition, we provide customized consulting services, including the preparation of briefing papers and special reports, customer presentations and special-purpose publications.

Clients may integrate our website with their internal market-data systems on a site-license basis, and portions of our content are also available for co-branding on external websites.

 

Heard on the Street ...

  • Paul McCulley (Retired), PIMCO Investments

    “Lou Crandall and his team are the most used and least cited analysts on Wall Street. Lou is the unquestioned Michael Jordan of federal debt projections; he plays the game, week in and week out, at a level that no other Street economist has ever remotely reached. While most wouldn't admit it, no chief economist at one of the major houses would even think of issuing a forecast of Treasury activity without privately benchmarking it against Wrightson. Lou's detailed analysis and forecasting of the whole range of high frequency forecasts is also highly valued; there's nobody better at separating noise from information in the data. When I was Chief Economist for the Americas for UBS, I paid to read Wrightson, even though the firm was ostensibly a competitor. Now that I'm head of the Short-term Desk here at PIMCO, I still pay to read Lou and value his work even more.”

  • Gene Epstein, Barron's

    While he's hardly a household name, when I think "Fed-watcher" or even "money-market economist," I always think Crandall. From his perch as chief economist at the New York-based consulting firm Wrightson Associates, the 42-year-old iconoclast turns out a steady stream of common-sense commentary, including his weekly Money Market Observer, which is must-reading for the bond markets. After receiving his degree from Cornell in 1980, he took a research position at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he participated in the monetary-policy process as a reserve forecaster. His tenure at the Fed coincided with the brief period when the central bank did target reserves (instead of the interest rate on federal funds), experience Crandall now deems invaluable…

  • Bloomberg Markets Magazine

    Crandall is No. 1 among forecasters for the two-year period ended on Sept. 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. He ranks second for his projections of movements in the consumer price index and fourth in predicting sales of existing homes.

    Crandall gained his top ranking by accurately predicting, month by month, U.S. progress toward weathering the recession and returning to growth. He doesn't think the administration of President Barack Obama, or a new Republican-controlled House of Representatives, can speed up the process.

    "The recovery is going to continue to be painfully slow, but there is not much that the government can do about that," Crandall says. "Some progress is being made, but it is from such dismal levels that we have not yet re-established a sense that things are moving in the right direction."

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