Excess Returns

Excess Returns

Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham argues that AI will ultimately become a commoditized cost of doing business rather than a driver of permanently higher corporate profits, while defending his reputation as a selective "perma bear" who believes mean reversion remains the dominant force in markets despite recent monopoly distortions.

Excess Returns

Marc Rubinstein argues that while the Fed downplays private credit redemption risks, the sector's explosive growth—fueled by post-2008 regulatory arbitrage—has created dangerous liquidity mismatches for retail investors and hidden leverage throughout the financial system, exemplified by the Blue Owl gate crisis and the HSBC-Atlas-MFS 'layer cake' failure.

Excess Returns

Andy Constan argues that markets have entered the 'peaking phase' of an AI-driven bubble, drawing parallels to five historical bubbles he has experienced, emphasizing that while bubble regimes are identifiable through root conditions and escalation events, timing the exact peak remains impossible due to human nature and market mechanics.

Excess Returns

Financial historian Edward Chancellor explains that historical technology booms from railroads to the dot-com era follow a predictable capital cycle pattern: massive overinvestment driven by competitive 'fear of missing out' leads to fragmented markets and destroyed profits, even when the underlying technology proves transformative for society.

Excess Returns

Top stock pickers succeed with just a 49% hit rate where outlier magnitude drives returns, while current inflation differs structurally from the 1970s due to weak labor force growth creating a disinflationary environment rather than demand-driven price spirals.

Excess Returns

Options expert Brent explains why escalating Middle East tensions and $115 oil haven't derailed the market's AI-driven meltup, citing record call option volumes, the removal of pattern day trading rules, and the market's willingness to ignore short-term macro risks for long-term capex growth.

Excess Returns

A Bridgeway quant manager reveals that only 46 S&P 500 stocks currently drive index returns, while new research shows that filtering for persistently small companies (not just current small-cap status) revives the size premium, and explains why multifactor strategies with rigorous human oversight outperform single-factor smart beta approaches.

Excess Returns

Jim Paulsen argues that policy officials are fixated on inflation and the tech sector while ignoring a weak '90% of the economy' nearing stall speed. He predicts the Fed will be forced to pivot toward easing this year as growth concerns overtake inflation fears, driving a rotation from mega-cap tech into small caps, value, and international equities while bond yields fall.

Excess Returns

As AI commoditizes financial data and quantitative analysis, the only durable edge left for stock pickers is physical "presence"—building deep, long-term relationships with management teams and maintaining multi-year time horizons that algorithms and passive screens cannot replicate.

Excess Returns

Chris Davis reveals how his mother's buy-and-hold strategy outperformed his fund by 5% annually for 20 years through extreme concentration, while Rich Bernstein argues current fiscal policy mirrors the inflationary 1960s "guns and butter" era more than the 1970s oil crisis.

Excess Returns

Despite facing oil shocks, war, and a frozen private credit market, equities remain resilient as investors 'buy the dip' and look through short-term disruptions toward AI-driven growth, though systemic risks may already be exploding beyond our current sightlines.

Excess Returns

Richard Bernstein argues the current economy mirrors the inflationary 1960s "guns and butter" period rather than the 1970s oil shock, making the S&P 500 a dangerous bet for the next decade while favoring cash and short-duration assets as the Fed lacks the political will to defend its outdated 2% inflation target.