The Daily Spark
Torsten Slok's daily one-chart note is the fastest way to see what a top Wall Street economist is watching: rates, AI capex, credit, housing, energy and private markets, each with a bottom line.
Free to read
Torsten Slok, Apollo's chief economist, posts a short note almost every day, usually one or two charts with a few paragraphs of argument and a bolded bottom line. The archive on apollo.com runs to more than 660 posts, and older ones remain on the Apollo Academy site. Recent topics include whether the AI investment boom is paying off outside the tech sector, whether monetary policy is actually restrictive, why M&A is picking up, and how falling bond duration makes bonds a weaker hedge.
The value is in the data selection. Slok pulls from Fed surveys, the BLS, credit market data and private sources to make one point at a time, often against consensus, and the charts are downloadable. Reading him daily for a few months is a good education in how a macro economist builds an argument from a single chart.
Subscribe by email, skim the bottom lines, and save the charts you want to reuse. Slok also releases a longer chart book from time to time on the outlook for public and private markets, which brings the daily themes together.
Start with
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1
Monetary Policy Is Not Restrictive
A typical example of the format: one Fed survey chart makes a contrarian point about rates.
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2
M&A Is Booming Because Rapid Change Is Forcing Firms to Rethink Their Business
Links the macro backdrop to deal activity, which drives private equity and credit.
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3
Outlook for Public and Private Markets (April 2026 chart book)
Slok's longer chart book, which pulls the daily themes together in about 48 slides.