Jack Forehand

This was so much fun. @CliffordAsness joins @CultishCreative and me on @excessreturnpod to walk through the greatest hits of his research. We covered: • Bubble Logic and what investors still get wrong about bubbles • Why volatility is a useful measure of risk • The myth of “cash on the sidelines” • How private markets hide volatility • Why missing the best (and worst) 10 days is a bad argument • The case for international diversification • When to pull the goalie in hockey • Machine learning, overfitting and the future of quant investing bit.ly/4wLUk00

“Most of the tightening we’ve had this year is just now reaching the point where it’s going to start to bite.” Jim Paulsen joined Last Call to discuss why the biggest economic and market risks may not come from what is happening today, but from the restrictive forces still working their way through the system.

Thanks to Jack Forehand @practicalquant from the Excess Return Podcast for inviting me back for a month-end thoughts on the stock market with 3 other sharp minds. Please take a look & listen! PaulsenPerspectives.Substack.com youtu.be/ojQGZm5PJbA

"That my first slide of my speech is a funeral wreath that says data, and then has its date of its year of death as 2025. And I made the argument that data has died. A lot of the data that we used to rely upon that was by definition reliable, helped us predict cycles, helped us understand which way the economy was going, helped us understand even which way the market was going." "Where this used to be so much more of an art than a science, it's even more of an art, and actually it's like an ugly art." Cameron Dawson on the deteriorating quality of data.

“There are only so many trillions to go around.” From delayed policy pain and AI’s growing demands on capital to forced market flows, fragile profit margins and a less predictable Fed, July’s calm indexes hid a much messier market underneath. On the latest Last Call, we are joined by Jim Paulsen, Ben Hunt, Brent Kochuba, Dave Nadig and Cameron Dawson to break it all down. ✅ Why restrictive policy may still be working its way through markets ✅ Why the AI buildout has become too important to slow ✅ Inside the Situational Awareness blowup ✅ How operating leverage is inflating corporate margins ✅ What less Fed guidance means for markets

July is in the books, so it’s time for a new Last Call. @CultishCreative and I have a market recap filled with things you won’t find on other wrap shows. We’ve got @jimwpaulsen on why the pain from restrictive policy may still be ahead. @EpsilonTheory updates his World War AI thesis from his great new show, Why Am I Reading This Now? @spotgamma explains what happened behind the scenes when Situational Awareness blew up. And @CameronDawson and @DaveNadig join us to air some market grievances. If you want a different perspective on some of the most interesting stories in markets, we’ve got you covered. youtu.be/ojQGZm5PJbA

“I think there’s an expectation among people in the business of selling financial assets that the Fed is going to step in before the crisis.” “Every day, somebody says there’s a Trump put, a Bessent put, or whatever put you want to call it, so you can buy stocks on leverage because there’s no downside.” “If so, our interest costs will remain very high, the national debt will continue to grow, and inflation will stay well above target for the rest of our lives.” “You can make choices so that investors never feel the pain. I don’t think those are the choices that will be made, because the consequences for non-investors are very, very high.” Andy Constan on why “the Fed will always bail investors out” is not a sound reason to buy financial assets.

“We’re going to get a government bailout in another form.” America may spend as much on AI infrastructure, in inflation-adjusted dollars, as it spent fighting World War II. On the debut episode of Why Am I Reading This Now?, Ben Hunt breaks down why the AI buildout may be too important to slow, and who ultimately pays for it. ✅ Why AI CapEx is driving a major share of U.S. economic growth ✅ How private credit became central to the buildout ✅ Why data centers could consume 25% of U.S. electricity ✅ How higher energy and capital costs could reshape markets ✅ Why the government may eventually take an ownership stake in AI

"There is no disconnect in my mind to be able to say these two things and keep a straight face. I am super optimistic on the long-term prospects of the US economy and stock market, and I am hella bearish on how expensive the S&P five hundred market cap weight is." "There's a great quote that we end the book on from old J.P. Morgan, and he says, "The man who is a bear on the future of the United States will always go broke." Meb Faber on balancing short-term valuation concerns with long-term optimism.

"The dot-com boom and bust was almost entirely equity funded. You're saying, 'So what?' Well, when the bust came, there were shareholders who lost sixty, seventy, eighty, or even ninety percent of their money. You felt sorry for them, but the loss was restricted to the shareholders." "The problem with the AI CapEx boom is not only is it immense, but a big chunk of it is funded with debt, the debt coming from private capital rather than banks. And there is a very real chance that if there's a correction and companies start having problems, that problem is gonna show up as distress and default and that pain doesn't stay restricted." Aswath Damodaran on the difference between the dotcom boom and AI.

The top 9 ideas (mostly about declining transparency) from the latest issue of Click Beta (with a playlist of course). Here's the article: etf.com/sections/news/… Here's the playlist. open.spotify.com/playlist/2eCB0…

We are excited to launch a new show: Why Am I Reading This Now? hosted by @EpsilonTheory and @CultishCreative In each episode, they will use Perscient’s narrative data to explore the major stories driving markets and what they mean for investors. Subscribe: 🎙️bit.ly/3TsHLYx 🍏bit.ly/451s6Sx

Why are you reading this now? Because @EpsilonTheory has a new show on @excessreturnpod - and the first episode is all about how WORLD WAR AI is progressing: youtu.be/iAtsLTVmfHs?si…

“All of this movement away from transparency and frequency of disclosure is just flat-out bad for investors.” What happens when the Fed offers less guidance, companies disclose less information and the economic data investors rely on becomes less trustworthy? On the latest Click Beta, Cameron Dawson, Dave Nadig and Matt Zeigler discuss: ✅ Who benefits when public markets become less transparent ✅ Why less Fed guidance could increase rate volatility ✅ How semiannual reporting could widen Wall Street’s information edge ✅ Why traditional recession indicators have stopped working ✅ What could land on the Fed’s balance sheet in the next crisis ✅ Why physical books and records matter more in an AI-driven world ✅ What Metallica can teach investors about success, reinvention and selling out

“Whenever equity prices have fallen really dramatically, we’ve seen effects in the economy, and the Fed has eased.” “While I think there’s probably going to be more sensitivity to what’s happening in the equity market, I think that sensitivity has always existed.” Some view the “Fed put” as a relatively new phenomenon. Aahan Menon explains why it has been part of the Fed’s reaction function all along.

Five Lessons from Jack Schwager: 1. Big Returns Mean Little Without a Long Record 2. Bad Stretches Are Part of Getting Better 3. The Hard Part Is Protecting Yourself From Yourself 4. Even the Best Are Wrong More Than Half the Time 5. The Market Gives You What You Actually Want excessreturnspod.substack.com/p/walk-on-wate…

“Those labels should not do the work for you. You don’t want to just put a label on something and let that label do your thinking.” “You have to look at it like you’d look at any other business. Start taking apart the segments, assessing their competitive position, looking at their growth rates, how much capital they’re going to need and what kind of returns they can potentially earn on that capital.” When a company like SpaceX goes public, investors will hear plenty of exciting labels. Chris Mayer explains why those labels, and the analogies that come with them, are no substitute for doing the real work of valuing the business.

“I wrote up a call to buy one of the worst-looking charts that you could possibly imagine.” Rupert Mitchell joins us to explain why he bought the equal-weight S&P 500 against the Nasdaq 100—and why the trade may have much further to run. We also discuss: ✅ How AI spending is turning the corporate buyback bid into new share issuance ✅ Why mega-cap technology leadership may finally be cracking ✅ How China has created a price collar that could benefit energy stocks ✅ Why bonds may no longer provide the diversification investors expect ✅ The takeover bid beneath deeply discounted UK equities ✅ Emerging-market opportunities in Uzbekistan and Turkey

Got questions about Federal Reserve uncertainty, the decline of market transparency, and what weaker economic data means for investors? Don't click bait, CLICK BETA! Out now on @excessreturnpod ft. @DaveNadig and @CameronDawson: youtu.be/FrW8B-6KZYI?si…

“You have to love that endeavor enough to devote your life to it. And not for the money, for the endeavor itself, for the game of winning against all these other players.” Ed Seykota said, “Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market.” @jackschwager explains how that idea applies both to the great traders he has studied and to his own path as a writer.

He previously called it the worst chart imaginable, but on this episode of @excessreturnpod, we have @SquirrelMacro explaining why he bought it. When you're ready for a break from all the Fed-talk, come take a trip around the world with me and Rupert: youtu.be/4Ow-sQzII_Q?si…