Events in the Middle East this year have been devastating for countless people and families. That reality sits above any market observation, and it is important to say so.

But markets respond to the world around them. And what is happening in energy prices right now raises a question worth sitting with.

Inflation in the United States has just hit a three-year high. Petrol prices are up 30% since February. Fruit and vegetables are 6% more expensive than a year ago. The cost of living is rising — and it is being felt.

US Consumer Price Index — the spike you can see above is inflation hitting a three year high. Source: MacroMicro.me

The conventional explanation is simple: conflict disrupted oil supply, oil prices rose, and everything else followed.

But here is the question I keep returning to.

Was the supply already tightening before the conflict began? Were the conditions for this price environment already building — and did the conflict simply accelerate something that was already in motion?

That question is at the heart of how cycles actually work.

Events don’t create cycles. They reveal them.

So what is a market cycle?

A market cycle — the repeating pattern of expansion, peak, contraction, and recovery that economies and markets move through over time.

Think of it like the seasons. Summer does not arrive because of a single event. It arrives because the conditions have been building — the angle of the earth, the accumulating warmth, the lengthening days. Winter does not end because of one warm afternoon. The cycle turns gradually, then all at once.

Markets work the same way. The conditions build quietly, beneath the surface, long before the headlines catch up.

Inflation rising is not the cause of a cycle change. It is a signal that you are already in a specific phase of one. The energy crisis did not create the conditions — it made them impossible to ignore.

This is why understanding the cycle matters more than watching the news.

The news tells you what has already happened. The cycle tells you where you are.

The investor who understands the cycle doesn’t need the headlines to tell them what’s happening. They already knew the environment was shifting. The headlines are confirmation — not a surprise.

That calm doesn’t come from predicting the future. It comes from understanding the pattern.

We will come back to this thread throughout the coming weeks. For now — just notice how differently you feel reading financial news when you have a framework versus when you don’t.

Every time prices rise, the conversation turns to who is to blame. Governments blame companies. Companies blame supply chains. Supply chains blame geopolitics. And the cycle turns quietly underneath all of it, largely unnoticed.

It was turning before the energy crisis. Before the headlines reached your morning news. Before the price rises showed up in your weekly shop.

The question worth asking now is not who caused this.

It is — where are we in the cycle? And what does that mean for what comes next?

Think about the last time a financial headline made you feel anxious.

Rising prices. A market drop. A warning about inflation.

Now ask — did you have a framework to read that moment? Or were you relying on the headline to tell you how to feel?

That gap — between reaction and understanding — is exactly what the coming weeks will begin to close.

Next week — now that you know markets move in cycles, next week I introduce you to the four phases — and what each one means for your money.

At the end of this month I will be launching a paid tier for Phase First. One detailed market update per month — the cycle read, the capital flows, and what I am watching. More details soon.

Catherine x

Phase First.

Phase First is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All investing involves risk. I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant, not a regulated financial adviser. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.

One thing to notice this week.

Last week I showed you capital rotation through a supply chain.

AI needs chips. Chips need factories. Factories need materials. Materials need mining. Everything needs energy.

This week I want to show you the same thing — but at the scale of governments.

Tavi Costa, one of the most respected macro analysts in the world, published a chart this week that stopped me in my tracks.

Foreign governments now own the lowest share of US Treasuries in history.

In 2008 they owned roughly 35% of all US government debt. Today that number has fallen to 12.5%.

Chart: Tavi Costa, Crescat Capital — tavicosta.substack.com

That is not a small shift. That is a twenty year rotation playing out in one of the most important markets on the planet.

And almost nobody is talking about what it means.

One concept, explained simply.

First — what is a US Treasury?

When the American government needs money, it borrows it. It does this by issuing bonds called US Treasuries. A bond is simply a loan. You lend the government money. They promise to pay you back with interest after an agreed period of time.

For decades, foreign governments — China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others — bought enormous amounts of these bonds. It was considered one of the safest investments in the world. You were lending money to the United States. What could go wrong?

But that is changing.

Foreign governments are now buying far fewer US Treasuries than they used to. The share they own has fallen from 35% to 12.5% over twenty years — and it is still falling.

So the question is — where is that money going instead?

That is capital rotation.

Capital rotation — when large amounts of money move from one type of asset into another, following shifts in the global environment.

For twenty years the environment rewarded financial assets. Stocks. Bonds. US debt. Paper promises.

Something is shifting.

When governments stop buying bonds, that money has to go somewhere. Historically, when confidence in paper assets falls, capital moves toward hard assets — things with physical value that exist regardless of what any government decides.

Gold. Commodities. Real assets. Energy. Land.

We are at the early stages of that shift. Not the end. The beginning.

The thing you’ll still be thinking about on Friday.

For the last fifteen years the advice was simple.

Put your money in a broad fund. Leave it alone. Trust the long run.

That advice was built for a specific environment.

An environment where financial assets were winning.

That environment is changing.

Not overnight. Not in a crash. Slowly — the way all big things change.

And the people who see it early are already positioning.

One question connecting this week’s lesson to your own financial picture.

Your money is sitting somewhere right now.

Probably in financial assets. A pension. A tracker fund. Savings.

Ask yourself — was that decision made for the environment we are in today?

Or was it made for the environment of ten years ago?

Next week — there is a framework/ that explains exactly how markets move through environments. It has four stages. Once you understand them, you will never look at a market chart the same way again. Next week I introduce you to the cycle.

Catherine x

Phase First.

Phase First is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All investing involves risk. I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant, not a regulated financial adviser. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.

THE PHASE PULSE

Tim Cook said something recently that stopped me in my tracks.

Apple is raising prices. Not because they want to. Because AI companies need so much memory and storage that there simply isn't enough left for consumer products. Cook called it a hundred-year flood. Something he said he's never seen anything like in his entire career.

Here's what's actually happening.

When demand is bigger than supply, one of two things has to happen — prices rise to slow the demand down, or supply increases to meet it. Since supply can't increase overnight, prices rise first.

Your next iPhone will cost more because of it.

That is not a story about Apple. That is capital rotation — and you just watched it happen in real time.

So where does the money go next?

When a supply chain can't keep up with demand, money flows backwards through it. All the way back to the beginning. Think of it like a queue that's too long — eventually someone opens more tills. But first they have to build them.

Most people see AI.

Investors look one step behind.

AI needs chips.

Chips need factories.

Factories need materials.

Materials need mining.

Everything needs energy.

That is capital rotation. Money moving through a system — backwards up a supply chain — until supply catches up with demand.

Not a theory. Not a prediction. Something already happening right now, if you know where to look.

The thing you'll still be thinking about on Friday.

The market is not one thing.

It never was.

It's a whole system — equities, bonds, commodities, gold, energy, materials — all connected. All moving. And right now, a lot of the movement is happening far away from the S&P 500.

Most people are watching one corner of the room.

Phase First is about learning to watch the whole room.

One question connecting this week's lesson to your own financial picture.

Think about the last thing you bought that cost more than it used to.

Groceries. A phone. A flight. A laptop.

Now ask — who benefited from that price increase? Where did that money go?

Follow the money backwards. That is how investors think.

Next week — now you know money moves backwards up a supply chain. But this happens across every market, every asset, all the time. Next week I show you the bigger picture — and once you see it, you will never look at markets the same way again.

Catherine x

Phase First.

Phase First is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All investing involves risk. I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant, not a regulated financial adviser. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.

New here? The full story and the framework live in the welcome →

There is a question I could not stop thinking about after I was made redundant in 2020.

I had spent years building a skincare routine I actually understood. Not just following instructions — understanding. I knew why vitamin C brightens. I knew why retinol needs to be introduced slowly. I knew that SPF is not optional, it is the foundation everything else builds on.

Nobody handed me that knowledge. I sought it out because my skin mattered to me and I wanted to look after it properly. Not outsource it entirely to a facialist and hope for the best. Actually understand it.

And yet there I was — Fellow Chartered Accountant, twenty-five years in finance — holding a lump sum and realising I had never applied that same curiosity to my money. The advice I had received my entire career was the financial equivalent of: just use this one moisturiser. Leave it. Do not overthink it.

We would never accept that for our skin. I decided I was not going to accept it for my finances either.

That is when I started learning. Really learning. And the first thing I discovered — the thing that changed everything — is that markets, like skin, work in cycles. There is a rhythm. A pattern. A framework underneath the advice everyone gave me.

In skincare, we understand our skin before we choose our products. We do not start with the retinol and hope for the best. We check what our skin actually needs first. In investing, the rule is exactly the same. We understand where the market sits before we choose our investments.

THIS WEEK’S LESSON

Here is the clearest way I can explain what Phase First actually means.

Skincare — Check your face first → then choose your products. Dry skin? Sensitive skin? Acne? Rosacea? Ageing? Then choose: Retinol. Hyaluronic acid. Vitamin C. Niacinamide. You don’t start with the product. You start with the face.

Investing — Check the phase first → then choose your investments. Reset? Build? Crowded? Breakdown? Then choose: Stocks. ETFs. Gold. Commodities. Cash. You don’t start with the investment. You start with the phase.

Understand first. Then choose. Same logic. Different canvas.

You do not need to know what Reset or Build or Crowded means yet. That is what the next few weeks are for. Right now I just want you to hold this one idea: there is a question you should be asking before you do anything else with your money. And almost nobody taught us to ask it.

That question is — what phase are we in?

And by the time we are done you will ask it automatically. The same way you check your skin before you choose your products.

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Next week — We are told the market is one thing that goes up or down. It is not. Next week I show you what it is actually made of — and why that single piece of knowledge changes everything.

Catherine x

Phase First is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All investing involves risk. I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant, not a regulated financial adviser. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.

I love that I know it. It makes me feel capable. Like I am properly looking after something that matters.

In 2020 I was made redundant after twenty-five years as a Fellow Chartered Accountant. I walked away with a lump sum, a professional background in finance, and the sudden realisation that I had absolutely no idea how to make my money work the way my skincare routine works. I knew how to account for other people’s money. I had no real framework for my own.

The advice was simple: put it in the S&P 500 and leave it. It compounds over time. You will be fine.

And whether it’s a severance payment, savings built slowly, or the first spare money you’ve ever had — that advice is where the explanation usually stops.

And I thought — would I ever accept that for my skin? Just put something on it and walk away? Never look at the ingredients? Never understand what is actually happening underneath? Never adjust as the situation changes?

I would not. So I decided I was not going to accept it for my money either.

What followed was four years of daily learning. Podcasts on every commute. Books at the weekend. Charts at the kitchen table after the kids were in bed. Slowly — the same way skincare started to make sense once I understood the ingredients — markets started to make sense too. And what I found underneath it all was a sequence. An order to learn things in. Nobody had ever shown me the order.

Since applying the Phase First framework two years ago, the money I have invested has grown by more than 180%. Not because I am exceptional. Because I finally understood what I was doing and why — and because I gave my finances the same consistent attention I give my skin.

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THE FRAMEWORK

Phase First is built on one idea taught in a deliberate order:

Environment → Investment → Behaviour.

Most investing education starts with “what should I buy?” I start one step earlier: what environment are you investing in? Markets move through four phases — Reset, Build, Crowded, Breakdown — the way a year moves through seasons. You will learn each one properly, in order. The phase is the season. The price is the weather. Once you can read the season, everything else finally has context.

Only then does it make sense to look at individual investments — what makes a business worth owning, and whether it suits the environment you are in. And only when you understand both does the last piece work: the behaviour. Staying calm when prices fall. Knowing the difference between the weather changing and the season changing.

Environment first. Investment second. Behaviour always.

WHAT PHASE FIRST IS NOT

You will never get a stock tip here.

Not because I have no opinions — I have plenty. But a tip makes you dependent on the tipper. You buy without understanding why, so you have no way of knowing when to hold, when to question, or when the environment underneath it has changed. The tip feels like a shortcut. It is actually the long way around, because it teaches you nothing you can use next time.

I believe financial freedom is understanding, not following.

So instead of telling you what to buy, I teach you how to see: what environment you are investing in, what makes something worth owning inside it, and how to stay steady while you own it. Understanding compounds just like money does — every concept you learn here makes the next one easier, and none of it expires.

Follow a tip and you have borrowed someone else’s decision.

Understand the framework and every decision after that is yours.

HOW THE WEEKS BUILD

This newsletter teaches the framework one concept at a time, in sequence. No week assumes anything you have not already learned here.

We start with the foundations: what the market actually is (it is not one thing), the different places money can live, and how money moves between them. Then the heart of it: markets move in cycles, and those cycles have four recognisable phases. We walk through each phase properly — what it feels like, what tends to happen, how to recognise it. Then we apply it: what the framework says about the investments you already hold, starting with the S&P 500 itself.

Each issue takes three minutes and follows the same rhythm: The Phase Pulse (one observation to start your week), The Lesson (one concept, one ingredient at a time), The Aha (the thing you will still be thinking about on Friday), and Your Money Moment (one question connecting the lesson to your own financial picture).

By the end of this year you will know what the four market phases are and how to recognise them. You will understand why the S&P 500 is not the whole market — just one part of a much bigger picture. You will be able to look at your investments and understand what they are actually doing and why. The financial equivalent of a skincare routine you actually understand.

That is the promise. One week at a time. Starting now.

Subscribe now

FREE AND PAID — HOW PHASE FIRST WORKS

The weekly newsletter is free, and it will stay free. The framework — the phases, the environment, the way of seeing — is the foundation everyone should have, and I won’t put a foundation behind a paywall.

For readers who want to go further, a paid tier is coming. It will do what the free newsletter deliberately doesn’t:

A deep analysis of where the market is right now — which phase we’re in, what the environment is showing, and exactly how I read it. Not predictions. The reasoning, shown in full.

And the layer beneath: how to analyse the investments themselves. Financial statements, ratios, valuation — the numbers, taught the same way everything here is taught. One ingredient at a time, in plain language, phase first.

The free newsletter teaches you the framework. The paid tier is watching it applied — and learning the analysis underneath it.

If you want to be told when it opens, you’re already in the right place. Subscribers hear first.

But none of that is where this starts. It starts the same way my skincare did — with one small thing, properly understood. Then another. Then one more.

A year from now, the market will still be moving through its phases. The difference is, you’ll know how to read them.

I’m glad you’re here.

Catherine x

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Phase First is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes financial advice. I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant, not a regulated financial adviser. Past performance — including my own — is not a guarantee of future results. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.

I know my skincare routine inside out. The vitamin C in the morning, the retinol at night, the SPF that is non-negotiable regardless of the weather. I did not learn any of this in school. Nobody handed me a manual. I figured it out through friends, the internet, trial and error. And now I do it without thinking — because I understand why each step matters.

For a long time I did not give my finances the same attention. And I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant. Twenty-five years in finance. If anyone should have known what to do with a lump sum, it was me.

But when I found myself with one in 2020 after being made redundant, the only advice I received was — put it in the S&P 500 and leave it. No detail. No why. No here is what is happening underneath and here is why it matters to you personally.

Imagine if that was the skincare advice. Just buy a moisturiser and leave it alone. We would never accept that. So I decided I was not going to accept it for my money either.

I spent four years learning what nobody had translated. The knowledge existed — it filled entire books — but it was written in jargon, by professionals, for professionals. Nobody in my life had ever talked about money in plain language. And what I found underneath all of it was a sequence that was actually simple: markets move through four phases, the way a year moves through seasons — and once you can read the season, everything else finally has context. Since applying the Phase First framework two years ago, the money I've invested has grown by more than 180%. Not because I got lucky. Because I finally understood the order.

Phase First is where I teach that framework — for women who have money and want to understand what to actually do with it. One concept a week. Three minutes. No jargon. Environment first, investment second, behaviour always.

You will never get a stock tip here. Financial freedom is understanding, not following.

If you want the full story — the framework, how the weeks build, and where this is going — it’s all here:

That’s where the whole journey starts.

Catherine x

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Phase First is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All investing involves risk, including the loss of capital. I am a Fellow Chartered Accountant, not a regulated financial adviser. Past performance — including my own — is not a guarantee of future results. You are responsible for your own financial decisions.