Insights from the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group have been informing the investment community for 28 years. Today it increasingly sees “political risk as a relevant factor for investors across all geographies and all asset classes,” Neil Weller says.
A former Citadel macro strategist who has also worked for J.P. Morgan and BlackRock, Weller joined Eurasia last November as director of fixed income strategy. In a blog, Connor Lapping of Lapping.AI interpreted the move as “a sign that the firm is leaning even harder into the idea that you cannot separate risk in the bond market from risk in the world, and that clients want someone who speaks both languages fluently.”
“Neil’s background as macro strategist and his experience managing foreign exchange portfolios will enable him to connect Eurasia Group’s political and macroeconomic analysis to tangible investment outcomes,” the firm said on LinkedIn. “He will work closely with our country and sectoral analysts to analyze global market trends through a macroeconomic and geopolitical lens.”
Neil Weller
Based in London, Weller takes in a global geo-economic landscape in which emerging markets, for decades the predominant source of political risks, have receded in that regard and been overtaken by the United States. He sees the Trump administration “seeking to break norms and establish laws in a way that is different to any U.S. administration since FDR.” Calling it a “revolution” is strong language, he acknowledged, but a case can be made by Eurasia Group historians with a perspective on two centuries of American political dynamics.
“2026 is a tipping point year,” began the overview of Eurasia’s annual Top Risks forecast. It went on to say: “The United States is itself unwinding its own global order. The world’s most powerful country is in the throes of a political revolution.”
Eurasia Group’s most public face is its founder and president, political scientist Ian Bremmer, who according to his bio page “is credited with bringing the craft of political risk to financial markets, and for establishing it as an academic discipline.” He claims responsibility for defining emerging markets as “those countries where politics matters at least as much as economics for market outcomes.”
Bremmer, also founder and president of GZERO Media, has authored 11 books on topics including globalism and looming crises in health, climate change and technology.
Bremmer opined in late August about public reaction to tariffs on Canada: “Americans have zero interest in picking a fight with Canada, for generations the closest friend and ally the United States could hope to have.”
Weller said, “What I bring from my background as an investor is a sense as to where political risk interacts with and impacts markets, and also economies.” The firm’s geo-economics team analyzes political risks to “work out how significant the impact is likely to be on economies and markets.”
The team’s analysts apply deep expertise in covering virtually every country, including places where sell-side firms have limited research resources of their own, according to Weller. The team generates risk scores on a scale from zero (most risky) to 100 (least), along with indications of whether a risk level is improving or getting worse. As of end-August, Singapore had the best political risk score (84), Iran the worst (16).
“We review government stability, measuring strength and durability of the regime, measure social factors and capture the potential social conflict risks,” he explained. The risk scores also account for security risks like military conflicts or terrorism, as well as short-term and long-term economics, through a political lens.
“Our role as market strategists is to provide context around our views, to give analysts a sense as to where their views have the greatest market impact, and help them identify how markets are pricing the risks they know. That cooperation and collaboration with analysts is a key strength the firm has in taking political risk and making it relevant.”
In evaluating the U.S.-Iran conflict, the Eurasia team considers how political dynamics affect incentives for conflict, and combine that knowledge with their military expertise and energy market insights, to understand and relate the impacts. Then Eurasia Group can interpret effects on energy market pricing. Oil futures and options are key barometers.
Weller offered an example: “An extension of the conflict would be oil trading above $100 a barrel for a period of time. We looked at the pricing of options on $100 oil and how that evolved along the futures curve, as a rough benchmark to interpret our political calls and probabilistic scenarios.”
They tracked disruptions from the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, and how they were felt throughout Asia.
They identified as an ancillary effect rising futures prices for fertilizer, also having a big economic impact on Asia. Weller emphasizes that this energy market shock is different from the one in 2022. Some Asian countries are facing growth risks, and constraints on policy responses can amplify the risks, Weller had noted in a series of LinkedIn posts.
Eurasia Group analysts believed the conflict was likely before it started – and before markets were pricing for the risk, Weller said. But they did not anticipate that it would go on as long as it has.
About every six weeks, the geo-economics team publishes highlights of its 10 most impactful calls for the markets. While Iran has been front and center, France’s 2027 presidential election, trade disputes between the EU and China, and weather disruptions are on their radar.
The team has been looking at artificial intelligence’s impacts on society, through the economy and politics. “Our expertise as a firm is around the political impact and the regulatory dynamics around AI,” Weller explained. “I think that’s an area where we bring a differentiated perspective, and those insights can give us a unique take on the risks that AI poses.”
AI’s own “competencies” are sure to affect firms like Eurasia. Weller stressed that the group has unique access to policymakers and a network of experts: “The analysis we do is very distinct from what can be done by AI. It’s quite attractive that we have this unique human aspect to our work that is hard to replicate with rapidly evolving AI tools.”