AI Debate: Multiple guests argue the AI boom is over-capitalized with weak revenue, while others see a shift toward robotics/automation as the next practical leg.
Precious Metals: Strong conviction in gold and gold miners continues, with potential for another outsized year as portfolio allocations rise and inflation headlines recur.
Energy Rotation: Oil and natural gas remain out of favor but could surge on rotation from crowded tech trades; small sector size amplifies flows.
Chemicals Contrarian: The Specialty Chemicals space screens washed out with improving asymmetry if China competition eases and global stimulus lifts demand.
Global Macro: Calls for reflation and economic reacceleration on fiscal stimulus in the US, Europe, and China; risk that inflation resurges and questions Fed independence.
Regional Tilt: Increased focus on Latin America and broader Emerging Markets, with China and Hong Kong equities highlighted as potential positive surprises.
Key Tickers: NVDA shows persistent resilience amid topping chatter; ADBE is derated as an "AI loser" but potentially inexpensive; SBUX flagged as ex-growth and overvalued within restaurants.
Outlook: Expect choppy equities with sector rotation—commodities and cyclicals (gold, energy, chemicals) favored over crowded AI leaders as policy and liquidity drive divergent outcomes.
Transcript
and let's hit it. It's Friday, [music] December 26, 2025, episode 281. I'm Patrick Szna. And I'm Kevin Mure. This week, it's a special year-end market huddle. And man, we have a great show lined up. We were lucky enough to have a baker's dozen of previous market huddle guests come back and give us each a 10-minute interview highlighting what surprised them in 2025 and what the market will be surprised by in 2026. Then make sure you stick around for a fun interview session that Danny had with the guests. We learn what they really think of myself, Kevin, and the market huddle. >> And I guess we're gonna also drink, but I'm not drinking a beer. >> Are you guys drinking beer? I got a beer. So, I'll start. >> My guy started from Winnipeg. Uh, he moved to Sweden, but he was in Winnipeg recently, and he picked me up the Gray Cup, Winnipeg Blue Bombers beer. Who knows what it's going to be like. I appreciate that. It's always good when a good pal brings the beer. So, let's give it a whirl. >> There you go. I'm uh >> I'm drinking uh mold wine. It's the season. And uh you know, Portugal is the land of affordable wine. You can easily find a couple euros for a bottle. So throwing that into some with some seasoning and not seasoning but like some uh uh not seasoning. What the [ __ ] Like anyway >> festive stuff inside but uh drinking some nice hot wine. It's perfect for this week's episode. >> How about you, Dad? >> Nice. Uh well, today actually I've got a lovely bottle of wine here from my friend Luish uh from a place called Sabal, which is uh Portuguese for onion. And it's a natural red wine. It's lovely. My [laughter] lovely. >> That was the most British thing ever. It's lovely. >> It's lovely. All right, Kev, give us some side effects, buddy. >> Nothing in this podcast should be viewed as investment advice. Listeners should consult an investment professional before making any decisions regarding topics mentioned in this show. Side effects of too much huddle may include the holiday liquidity hallucinations. >> I suffer from those all the time. [laughter] >> Oh yeah. >> The Santa rally dependency and then the thin tape overconfidence. Love it. >> Oh yeah, definitely. >> Let's get to our guests. >> All right. >> All right, folks. It's that time. It's the fellow who needs no introduction, but I'll give him one nonetheless. Harris Copperman aka Copy. One of the first guests, one of the most popular guests, actually the most popular guest of all time. Harris, thanks for coming back on the show and doing this year end thing with us. >> Hey, I'm happy to be here. I can't miss it. >> Um, okay. So, let's start with 2025. It's been a quite a year. Topsy turvy, up and down, lots of different moving parts. What surprised you the most out of this past year? I guess I'm going to take two things. One, AI is so stupid. There is no revenue. There will never be revenue. There it's the stupidest bubble. It it just like they're going to spend a half trillion dollars on this thing that produces 20 billion of revenue. And there is no path to close the gap between the two. Yeah. >> And I'm really upset that I figured this out like two and a half years ago. Uh because I would have made a to a ton of money just being long AI because I I like bubbles. I mean, I chased after [ __ ] codes and Ponzi schemes and bitcoins and all sorts of crazy stuff, but I thought this was stupider than bitcoins and I refuse to chase after it. And it's just surprised me because it's so obvious and just now people are starting to say, "Hey, wait a second. Where's the profits?" And you have companies that you have companies like like Meta guys are like, "So there's never going to be any cash flow again because this guy is just going to build data centers on Mars and everywhere else that like like anywhere you can put a data center, they're going to put a data center." Um I mean, if Venezuela doesn't want if they don't want to get invaded, they need to build a data center like right now. Like it's safe. Once there's a data center, no one can touch it. Um and so like I just don't get it. Like it's so stupid. And look, the sh this is a lot like like I remember in 2016 you'd have these calls with these shell company CEOs. You'd be like, "Dude, stop drilling." Like take the cash flow, pay down the debt, and then buy back stock. You guys trade like like way below PDP. And then the guy from Texas is like, "But if we don't drill, we can't grow." I'm like, "No one wants you to grow." Like like you trade, you know, below your PDP value. like like it's not like your your PP PDP. It's like and the guy be like but then we don't grow. And it's just like if we don't grow then the stock's going to get hit. How much have you seen your stock chart? It's been hit like it's been obliterated, right? >> These guys just kept drilling and you'd beg and plead with them stop [ __ ] drilling. >> I think that's how uh AI is going to end. It might take another year or two. >> Yeah. >> But guys are going to look at these AI companies and be like just stop spending money. Just stop it. It's the same thing. >> Yeah. I I think that um first of all, in terms of catching the inflection point, I think you were spot on and I remember you wrote that piece and the moment you sent it to me, I was like, "Holy smokes, this is someone articulating the bear case in a way that actually makes sense." And I like, "We got to get them on get you on the show right away." We, you know, made spot for you immediately. you came on the show and from then on you were just kind of like almost the poster child for the person that was screaming, you know, this is this is insane. Talk to us about that experience. What was what it was like? Like it wasn't, you know, you you went up and you stopped slumbing it with us at the huddle and started talking to guys like Fortune and like real like real organizations. What was that like? >> I don't know. Fame is fleeting. No one wants to talk to me again. I'm doing reruns of the huddle now. >> [laughter] >> Well done. Well played, buddy. >> But look, yeah, it's weird, right? Like I said something that no one had said before. Everyone kept focusing on how cool AI is. And look, it's really cool. I use AI all day long to research dumb stuff. I make memes. It's super cool and it keeps getting better. Um, and that was the whole story for three years. And suddenly I asked the question of does this ever earn a return? And people are like, "Oh, yeah. We're in the the business thing. Money in, eventually money comes out, right?" >> Yeah. [laughter] >> And I'm the first person to ask the thing. And they're kind of at scale. When you spend a half trillion dollars at stuff, you're at scale. >> And once I said that, I mean, what was it like six weeks later? Mckenzie put out a report that said the exact same thing as me. Um, they didn't give me any credit naturally, but it's just everyone started asking the same question. That's kind of when AI topped out. uh because it stopped being a meme and people said like where's the return? >> Yeah. No, you absolutely nailed it and I kudos to you buddy. You you were at the forefront of of catching that wave. You were the first one the a big set of rollers came in and you were the first one to catch the wave. Uh do you have anything else that's surprised you for 2025 that you wanted to talk about? >> I think I've just been surprised by how weak the economy has been and the fact that you have this like I talk to a lot of people in the real world. I have friends who live in the real world. Uh I feel like Wall Street people mostly talk to Wall Street people and so if the stock market goes up everyone's like ah things are good you know stocks are usually a leading indicator of next year's economy and like and then you talk to real economy people and they're like yeah everything sucks like it's comping negative inflation's like serious like my costs are going up like everyone you talk to is just like really worried but then stocks go up and you know I think the dichotomy of divergence is Trump spent two weeks now tweeting about how great the economy is and you look at the tweets and it's just hundreds of comments and they're just like, "You bo the economy sucks." And [gasps] >> you should really copy, you should really give some other people the chance to tweet in there, [laughter] [gasps] >> but eventually the economy is AI and I really do think that maybe next year is the year that uh stocks catch down to where the economy is. Okay, so let's get on to next year, 2026. What surprises markets the most in 2026? >> The economy is not detonating. It's just like a slow fade. Um, and the slow fade continues. And eventually, I mean, it started with, you know, really consumerf facing businesses and it's moved on to industrials and chemicals and housing. And eventually I think enough sectors are tarnished that all you have left is basically stuff that gets government large s like healthcare and and you know military industrial and then you have AI and the AI eventually slows a bit just because rate of change it can't just keep you know doubling every six months what they spend on it and eventually the wealth effect goes in reverse from the AI and that's the last thing holding up the economy and people start to say hey wait a second stocks are really expensive I think uh I don't think we crash that's not My prediction, I think it's a lot more like the 1970s where you have big up and down whippy moves and stocks kind of go nowhere for a very long period of time in real terms, but it starts with a down 30 year. I'm not saying it would crash like a down 10% day, but I think it's more like it just doesn't go up. If it doesn't go up, it starts to go down. Um, that's my view. >> And so, uh, you say it's like the 70s. I think the 70s there was a period what 68 to 82 we were in a trading range and went nowhere in nominal terms like we we in essence I think tried to break a thousand on the Dow and and although we kind of ticked above it we never really broke through it and it was there for like at least a decade it kept bumping up against that but in real terms you were just kept losing money because you know inflation was running high do could you see something that bad like nominal going sideways for a decade but you know inflation eating away at it. >> I think that's the the base case. I mean, most things are really overvalued right now. Um I'm amazed how many companies trade at 50 100 times earnings, they don't grow. >> Yeah, it's kind of it's shocking, isn't it? >> Like and then >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I was just going to say and it's strange companies that like although they're growing, they just don't seem to deserve a 50 multiple. Like Costco, terrific, fabulous company, but do is it really worth a 50 multiple? Like it's insane. That's insane. I mean, when did Walmart get to be like a 50 multiple? >> But then you have all these other companies like Starbucks that are exrowth and they're also a 50 multiple. Like I don't see why Starbucks deserves to be in anything. It's kind of stuck in the middle between Dunkin Donuts at a $2 coffee and something like Panther Coffee and a $10 coffee. Like it's $7 for a crap coffee. And I don't get it. Like I don't understand what their their business case is anymore. I just don't understand why people are willing to pay those sorts of multiples at a, you know, at a time when there's other alternatives. >> I mean, what's happening is Mike Green is right. Dollars go in and it buys more Starbucks and eventually dollars stop going in. I I think money gets reallocated. I mean, there's a world overseas of really cheap stocks and I think money starts going to other places. >> Is that what you're doing? spending more and more time looking for uh kind of bargains around the world. >> Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I mean, we own we own more international than I've owned in in a decade. Uh >> Oh, really? >> But there's really cheap stuff to be had overseas like rapidly growing businesses, single digit multiples. >> And uh where would you say the opportunities? Where do you think you you foresee yourself investigating the most? Like is it China? Is it Africa? Is it everything? Like, you know, is the whole world growing or do you think there's gonna be better parts? >> I like Latam. Uh about every five years, every 50 years, they kind of figure it out and then they, you know, screw it up again. I think it's their five years. Um there's been a bunch of elections already. Uh there's a bunch more coming up in the next year and LAM has embraced uh progrowth uh you know, I guess you call them right of center governments. uh you know the persistent problem in pesos is that pesos only go down and so you need foreigners to trust the country so that they stop yanking money out and so when you have a right of center government um usually the currency stabilizes they can lower interest rates and things boom and then the left or center guys run huge deficits and the currency falls apart the central bank panics and jacks real rates up and the economy dies and so you're finally going to see prog growth I mean Malay is kind of the first of them Chile in the next week or too is going to be the second of them. I think Peru and Colombia come next and then the big enchilada is Brazil and have a big bet there. >> Oh, that's awesome. Well, Kubby, it's always a pleasure having you on the show. Why don't you tell people more where they can learn more about you, uh the stuff you write, um just the whole kind of nine yards. >> So, I got a blog, uh pray.com, p r a cap. Uh I don't write too often, but when I do, I try to make them a banger. And then uh I'm a big fan of uh Kedm keedm.com. Go there and take a free trial. You you will be impressed. Uh we've got some new blood in there and they've made some dramatic changes and I think the product just keeps getting better and better. >> Thanks again for being on the show CPY. >> Hey, happy holidays guys. >> It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show Porter Collins. He's partners with Vincent Daniel from Seawolf Capital. Porter, thanks for coming on. >> All right, great to be back. All right. So, 2025, what a year it's been. Uh, what surprised you the most this year? >> Well, you know, I uh you know, we're big gold bulls, but uh I don't think that surprised us this year. So, I'm going to go with um Trump's tariffs. That kind of surprised me the most. And you know, you know, he talked about it on his campaign a lot, but I think the way he handled it and, you know, with the the Office Depot 3M board up there talking with with random numbers and you can kind of see it in, you know, the way the stocks played out, you know, basically everything nonAI was terrible this year, right? and you know that you know the the core economy, real estate, staples, uh chemicals, you know, all that that that whole bucket of stocks were terrible this year. And so if you had anything AI related, it was great. So I think that was my I wasn't surprised by AI, but I was more surprised about how Trump handled the tariffs, the uncertainty around it. And you can really see in the ADP numbers, right? They just they're they're the ADV employment numbers, they're terrible. And so I think that's what what surprised me the most. >> So um like that brings me on to the the the K-shaped economy. Do you see any hope for that getting better and and and how does that resolve itself? >> Well, how about I lead myself uh you led the witness here. How about lead myself into the if I if I'm surprised by anything in 26. >> Okay. Yeah. So we'll go to the Okay. So we'll work it in there. So, in 2026, what do you think the market will be surprised by the most? >> Well, I don't know if this is a surprise, but if you if you kind of go through, we've been going through the last couple days going through the the one beautiful bill >> and you know, thinking about the midterms are at the end of the year and you know, the one beautiful bill was designed to have a lot of front half stimulus, >> right? >> And and to really turbocharge the economy. And so, you know, if you kind of look through, you know, this year's winners of what worked, you know, Warner Brothers in in the communication services was the was the number one winner. You know, it was a value stock not too long ago. Was it nine bucks sitting around there and and and it ripped Google uh in the tech space was a value stock in financials. Uh hood at one point was was a value stock. Healthcare the winner was CVS. It was, you know, nine 12 months ago it was a it was a value stock in in energy. It uh you know this year the refiners were ripped. You couldn't give them away last year. Right. Right. >> You know look at uh materials the number one winner new the only the one gold stock newmont mining ripped. You couldn't give it away. Right. And so and so now now as the the clock turns I think about Trump stimulus. you know, Trump wants this Uber Dove in in in the Fed. You know, people I don't know, they'll cut two, three, four times. We'll we'll see. You know, we'll worry about the consequences later. But, you know, in the bad bucket of this year was, you know, if you go to C if you go to uh materials, chemicals, disaster, right? They're all 52- week lows. >> If you look at uh real estate sector, anything that touches core real estate's been terrible. It was, you know, data center, you know, uh, real estate's been good. Staples terrible. Consumer, you know, Lululemon, they report in the next couple days, I think Chipotle has been terrible. Home Depot has been terrible. The builders terrible. And in energy, it's basically been uh oil that sucked, right? Oil names have been have been bad. Um, you know, in tech the uh tonight Adobe reports, you know, that's at a 52- week low. So, it's kind of interesting. And maybe, you know, I'm I'm working into a uh a mosaic here, but if you think about what hasn't worked and what maybe can go right next year is maybe the the core economy can do a little bit better, maybe lower rates, maybe all this stimulus and the the one beautiful bill. And so there there's my mosaic. And so, you know, you funny enough, you know, the the the names that usually are, you know, the huge winners are the ones people hate. Like they like if you look at the chemical stock, you look at even I look at them and I go, "Oh god, this is terrible." And so, you know, that that that's the contrarian angle on it at least. So, there you go. >> Actually, one of the my smartest pals uh that is just he's always way early. He's a huge, you know, like whale of a hedge fund guy and he always tells me things and and at the time nobody's talking about them and nobody cares and he says, you know, you should really look at blah blah blah blah. And and then kind of six months later I look and I'm like, geez, he's right again. And one of his big uh themes is he loves chemicals. And he his argument is and I just I'm just going to throw this out there for you is that he argues that the China anti-involution is actually going to make all these boring stocks that have been getting crushed through by Chinese com competition for the past couple of decades finally shine. Do you buy that? >> Yeah. The answer is yes. The question is timing. >> Yeah. uh you know if you're off by six months you could be deadly wrong. So but you know some of these things they they you know they get washed out and they and you know if you look at them on a on a price to sales basis you know they're 0.1 2.3 you know it's kind of you know that's bouncing along the bottom. >> Right. >> Right. you know, the the the IBIDA, you know, metrics are a little bit higher, obviously, because the profits aren't there and the and then the, you know, obviously when the profits go down, the the leverage looks a little funky, but, you know, all it needs is a little bit of a a switch and you get the earnings up, leverage doesn't look so bad anymore. You know, a couple of these things like we were looking at Huntsman, we were looking at uh Chamores, we were looking at uh Olan is another one, you know. So, we we've been we've been hunting and pecking around this sector. Um, you know, look, like I said, it looks terrible. [laughter] It feels terrible. And so, uh, you know, >> trades are always the right trades. >> You know, they got like the they, you know, we've been talking a little bit about Adobe, right? And Adobe's earnings have actually held up fine, but it's it's quote unquote the AI loser, >> right? >> And so, it's it's really derated. um you know was probably too expensive before but it's it's rated to a you know a fairly uh inexpensive multiple for what it is now. We'll see what the earnings come up with and we'll see what Lululemon does. You know it's kind of interesting. >> Right. All right. So I can't let you go without asking you because you nailed the gold trade. Absolutely nailed it. Does it have another year in it? Is it going higher? Are we still you know gold is it is it uh going to get better? I'll ask you. Have the governments [laughter] become responsible? H have are we did is Elon coming back and and he's going to, you know, warm up the Doge engine again and uh you know, so >> Okay. Well, we answered an a question with another question and we'll let our listeners decide, you know, what you think from that. I'll exit my gold trade when when when I see some responsibility coming back to governments and and that that that until then, you know, it's my uh it's my port in the storm. It's it's it it keeps me from, you know, getting too bearish and shorting stocks. And so that there you go. That's my >> There we go. All right. Thanks for coming on. And for those who want to get more of this great kind of insights, you guys have a Substack, you have a podcast, you have all sorts of stuff. Why don't you tell people where they can find more about you and your partner? >> Yeah, we do have a uh we have a great new uh Substack with my uh former partner Danny Moses and Vincent Daniel. It's called What are we doing uh on Substack? And you can follow me on uh uh Twitter, Seawolf Cap. >> Great. Thanks again. [music] It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show Dario Perkins, managing director of global macro at TS Lombard. Dario, thanks for coming. >> It's good to be back. Yeah, it's terrific. And uh this is uh I know you're a big fan of year-end reviews, right? This is something you really love. >> I love them. I've read them all. Yeah, I've read about 20 of these things and they all say the same thing that next year is going to look exactly the same as this year. And I'm like, well, why did it take 45 pages to to [laughter] explain that? >> Okay, so let's start with what surprised you most in 2025. I think basically it's the resilience of the economy because if you go back 12 months and you look at what the sales side was saying about this year, there were some really dodgy assumptions about what the new Trump administration would do. Basically, that it would do all of the things that were good for financial markets like deregulation and tax cuts and none of the stuff that was bad. So the the tariffs wouldn't happen, the deportations wouldn't happen, that stuff was just all policy bluster. And obviously that set us up for this really nasty surprise on liberation day when suddenly the consensus realized [ __ ] all of our assumptions were wrong. This looks bad. >> But actually you look at the way sort of forecast evolved. Everyone downgraded their forecast after liberation day and then through the second half of the year they've had to put them back to where they were. So we sort of finished the year where we started in terms of forecast. And I think you know part of that is that businesses in the US were quite well prepared. So they had this sort of buildup of inventories but the big thing has been productivity. So I think companies have been reluctant to hire and they sort of forced these efficiency gains on their workforce and that's upset that's sort of offset a lot of the margin squeeze that would have come from tariffs. So it's quite a bullish story I think. >> And uh you don't think it's AI causing those productivity gains? >> You're trying to wind me up. >> I am trying to wind you up. >> I don't think it's anything to do with AI. I think this is you had this period after the pandemic where you had these massive labor shortages. Companies were just desperate to get workers in and they didn't really care about efficiency. And then this year that all changed. The staff shortages were gone. They had this squeeze coming from the margins and they basically had this fat in the system and they took it out. And that's a sort of cyclical story. I mean you can't continue with that indefinitely. Um but I think that that's been the big I don't think there's anything to do with AI at all. Everything about AI winds me up as you know. [laughter] >> And you don't think that the the product or not the sorry the economic growth that we're seeing is the result of all these AI data center buildouts. >> All right. You are trying to wind me up now. >> Yes, I am. [laughter] >> So I so I did this chart in a in a note last week and it was the contribution to GDP from AI capex and everything else. And if you look just at one quarter, so the second quarter, there was this sort of big um you know the AI was sort of disproportionate part of the story. But overall, there's nothing in this story. It's just not true that all of US GDP growth is being driven by AI capex. It's just this myth that's out there. >> Okay. All right. So that was what surprised you most in 2025. What do you think will markets will be most surprised by in 2026? not what you'll be most surprised by is what will markets be most surprised by in 2026. >> That's good because nothing surprises me as [laughter] you know. I I think that so you look at the consensus and as I said I read dozens of these reports. They're all saying next year is going to be exactly the same as this year. Everyone's stopped using the R word because it's too embarrassing to talk about recessions anymore having been wrong every year. So, it would sort of be fabulously ironic if the US just sank into a recession. I just don't think that's where things are going to go wrong. I think that this is about reaceleration. I think the consensus is wildly underestimating how much policy stimulus is coming in next year. Not we're not even talking about the Fed here. We're talking about fiscal policy in the US, which is going to turn very reflationary. I think you've got pentup demand from this year and all of those capex and hiring decisions that were postponed. The global environment is much more reflationary. You know, people are seriously underestimating Europe. There's going to be a lot more stimulus coming out of China. You know, all of sort of European macro analysis is basically memes now on X. You know, it's stuff about bottle tops in Europe. And and the reality is that the the European economy is actually in a pretty good situation. you got this big German fiscal boost. Um the consensus is underestimating what that means for the rest of Europe. And so I think we're going to get a much more reflationary environment. The economy is going to reacelerate. I think you know GDP numbers everywhere are going to seriously outperform. The issue is that they're doing this into supply problems. You know the labor force isn't growing anymore in the US. So you sort of think about how this plays out very quickly. You start to get labor shortages again in the US. the labor market starts to tighten up. You start to get wage pressures reemerging and then minimum we're having a debate about is monetary policy actually restrictive enough. Worst case we start to actually see some inflation and then you think well if the Fed isn't doing something about this why isn't it doing something about this? You know what's going on at the Fed? So all of these questions about independence suddenly become a bit more relevant. And again, if you look at the distributional forecast for next year, everybody, and there's 60 people in that Bloomberg survey, everybody expects inflation to be lower and everyone expects interest rates to be lower. There's just no there's no outliers. So, I think if you're thinking about where that's going to be wrong, I think it's reaceleration. It's reinflation. For a while, that's bullish. You know, you look into next year, this is quite a bullish environment. Global economy reacelerating. At some point, though, it becomes more toxic. And I keep talking about this analogy with the late 60s where you had these big rate cuts in ' 67. Economy rebounds, stock market loves it, the bond market loves it because the Fed is cutting. And then halfway through the year, it's like [ __ ] maybe we shouldn't be doing this, inflation starts to reacelerate, and then the Fed has to come back and do something about it. And at that point, things turn pretty toxic. >> Do does the US have a Liz trust moment? >> I don't think so. I mean, I I don't think this is so much about the bond market. I I think it's going to be it I don't think I don't think it'll be about fiscal, but it could be that um you start to see the reflation. The Fed is maybe the Fed is still cutting at that point. Who knows with the with the new Fed chair, right? >> Um I think there will be this question about maybe the Fed is doing the wrong thing. Maybe the Fed isn't independent enough. And then at that point, the bond market does it for the Fed. So either way things turn quite quite difficult I think. >> And does the US dollar bear the brunt? >> I I think so. I think that there are a lot of global investors that quite nervous about the US. Um I know we've had this big rebound since liberation day. Not so much in the dollar but in US stocks. You can see that global investors are behaving quite differently. So hedging ratios have gone up massively. there is this continued sort of angst about the Fed and about what US policy makers are doing and you know that could turn pretty nasty pretty quickly as well if if it's if it does become clear that the Fed is not doing what it should be doing. >> All right, great stuff. Thanks for joining us Dario. And for those who want to learn more about you and your shop, where can they go? >> Uh best place is on X or LinkedIn. I'm quite busy on there. usually taking the piss out of people and myself, but it's a good place to start, I guess. >> All right, go look up Dario on X and LinkedIn. Dario Perkins from TS Lombard. Thanks for joining us. >> Well, it's been a while since I've had this fellow on the show, but it is Tony Greer, editor of the Navigator newsletter. Tony, thank you so much for going coming back. >> Kev, you're one of my favorites, man. I'm honored to be here. uh you still hold the uh record for the market huddle uh most beers ever consumed in one session. Nobody has ever that's gonna you know live in infamy. I think >> I tell you if anybody takes it out I'll be back to top it again because I [laughter] I I wasn't even feeling my best that day. And just to let you know >> I can tell you one time I wasn't feeling my best is when I came to see you. you were uh interviewing me for Real Vision and then we went out afterwards and um >> well, we had a lot of fun and I was uh was pretty messed up for a while. So, [laughter] >> I remember leaving you off and throwing you in the cab and being like, "You going to be okay, bud? I think we're cool, right?" And you're like, "Yeah, see you later. Let's go." >> And I [laughter] But we did have fun. >> We did have some fun. Okay. Um let's talk a little bit about markets. 2025, crazy year. What surprised you the most this year? >> A couple things, Kev. I'll say this. I will say, you know, there a couple of things are subtle and a couple of things are kind of in your face, I suppose, about what surprised me, right? So the the the gold rally didn't surprise me, but the way that there is this delayed reaction flywheel now of all of a sudden, you know, first it was gold and then platinum went berserk and everybody was like, "What the hell's going on here?" And by the way, why is silver not moving? Like silver's 30. Like nobody cared. Like while the gold rally, Bitcoin was 106, gold was exploding, and silver's $35. And I was like, what is going on here? You know, and I'm I'm long I don't have a silver position. I have a gold trading position, but I've got physical silver. I've got physical gold like everybody else that's in this market paying close attention. So, I am rooting for it. And I'm just noticing that it's like amazing that all of a sudden now silver 60 bid and you know, things have changed. Natural gas is finally $5 bid. So, I guess it's one of those things where you don't get what you want or what you expect in markets. you get what you get, right? You know, you get what you that you get what last sale says and you deal with it, you know. So, that was kind of weird for me how that, you know, commodities are very much an inun trade. Maybe you could separate the grains out a little bit, but they're very much a student body right, student body left trade or like we've been for the last four or five years, go three years going sideways. >> Yeah. >> And so, I feel like that if anything, we're due for that to break out. But that was surprising to me that like it was gold and and some of the and and still we've still got crude oil left for dead down here. >> Well, that's might be the next one. >> Right. So that so it's like one of those things where do I get long crude oil because of course it's going to go or do I stay away from this because it's telling me that it's not going, you know? So I have a problem. I'm wrestling with that right now. >> All right. >> That's that's kind of what Yeah, that's that's been the confusing part for me. Quite honestly, I thought Nvidia was going to [ __ ] the bed at some point this year. And the buying that keeps coming back into that. >> Isn't it amazing? >> Oh my god, Kev. Right. I mean, after the unbelievable false top, you know, false breakout that it left on the highs based on earnings and then back down, >> but it it gives a signal that it's going to curl over and two days later it's back in the middle of the range and you're like, "Oh my god." >> It's like it's like a zombie apocalypse movie. Like they just won't die. they just keep coming at you. So, do you have any theories on that? >> No, I don't. I mean, you know, [sighs] I think that it might be a sign that it's actually topping, quite honest with you. You know, I remember there being volatility like this at the highs in the dot bubble, right, where where stocks were dislocating higher, lower, higher, lower at the highs and you were like, what is going on here? Like, I this crossfire, >> all I know is that it's not generating a higher NASDAQ price. like these stocks are shooting all over the place. So maybe it's something like where it is actually a delayed reaction. Everyone knows with the bull market that Nvidia has been in, it's going to take a long time to erode the thought process that buying the dips is not working, >> right? >> It's time for that. I but I don't you feel like a little bit that like I remember the dot and I remember Nortell here in Canada and it it went up and then it collapsed and then people were buying it and trying to hope for that resumption of the rally for years like years. >> Yeah, we that you know that's what it's going to look like in AI. I I reckon, you know, it very much I don't know, you know, I hate to call tops in this because the markets are still going up, but you see the headlines of all the circuitous deals taking place and you just got to raise an eyebrow at that and say that I mean would they still be here if they weren't signing all these agreements with each other which are all >> promulgating the same business, you know, like so that's troubling and and and you want to see the outcome but you know that it's not going to happen today or tomorrow. >> Yeah. And I'm with you that that was a big surprise for me as well. Not that it went up, it's just that the kind of ability to continually inflate it more and more was a big surprise for me. Um 2026, what do you think the market will be surprised by? Not you, but what will the market be surprised by? So, uh, man, you know, when I try to think of when I try to think of some of the things that I've tried to look into for next year and think about what's crazy, the reality is one of the crazier things that I think about, I'm afraid that maybe the market is expecting this. So, one of the things that I'm thinking about when I look at this year's leaderboard and I see gold miners up 140% year to date. That is an anomaly, right? For years, we haven't seen something like that. So, I think that that I think that we've woken up the sleeping giant there. I really do. I'm very encouraged that we see Morgan Stanley coming out and saying the new portfolio, guys, it's 60 2020, man. And you got to own gold. So, I still think next year gold miners could be up 200%. Or yeah. Or 250. >> Like, I'm like there's I'm not a valuation trader, but I know that on that kind of a metrics, they're still relatively cheap. You know, if you compare them to technology, >> right? and and you want to buy bargain stuff even up 147 140% they're cheaper than a lot of sectors in the in the S&P. So I feel like we're setting up I feel like there's going to be another whiff of headline inflation. I think there's going to be a massive leg higher in gold. I think that's going to push gold miners up 200% and they're going to have a better year than this year. And that is going to be, you know, I saw something today that while I'm thinking about this and while we've got this potential for technology to back off because we know AI is in some sort of a bubble. I saw somebody post a chart today where silver versus the Dow Jones is breaking a huge longstanding trend line and you're like, "Wow, that's like exactly what I see for next year, right? I feel like the gold and precious metals and uranium and industrial miners markets, they're kind of flipping the bird at like the huge paper securities market that's been running on high for years, right? Like the technology and the derivatives and now the AI trade and it's like high techch all the time and the natural resources markets are going, "Oh yeah, you want to see who's going to perform?" >> Yeah. >> And you look at Mag 7 and it's flat on the year and uranium miners are up 100%. you know, >> right? >> So, I think that we're in for more anomalies like that, I I wouldn't be shocked to see a complete an uncontrollable kurfuffle in the energy space, right? Because if it's sitting here percolating down here and and gold is going to keep going and if I'm mentally expecting gold to have another leg next year, silver, I'm sure, is going to be higher. Um, >> what was I just saying? Uh, >> oil energy. >> Oil. Yes. Sorry, sorry. Great part because I looked at the chart. So, >> that's what happens when we tape during the day. >> I know, I know, I know. And I have risk on and I'm losing money. [laughter] So, that usually makes me more entertaining. >> Um, so it's like you got to you can't take your eye off the oil sector or natural gas, right? Because natural gas went from three and a half to five. It can go from five to 10 just as fast. >> Oh, 100%. And and and the other thing I think that people have lost sight of is that these markets are tiny compared to Max 7. >> And if we get a rotation, it could be huge. And I'm with you. Like that's a great call, Tony. Like another 200% in in gold miners. It's not like that's that crazy, right? If we see plain vanilla funds, Kev decide to raise their allocation 50 basis points. >> Yeah. Then then we're talking about that Hoover Dam through the garden hose metaphor. You know what I mean? Because there's just not enough stock to go around and they're going to want to own them for the reason that, you know, gold and silver are going bonkers. >> Completely agree. All right. You know what? We'll let you get back to your risk on. Um why don't you tell people about where they can find more about your your thoughts and your you know your great calls uh in terms of the Tony Greer newsletter. What's it called and where can they go? >> Yeah, the navigator is found. You can f go to my website tggmacro.com. There are samples of the navigator there. There is a guide to the other packages that I offer investors. Um, you can follow me on Twitter, Tgmacro. Tgmacro.substack.com is where we post our uh macro dirt podcast with Jared Dillian. So, I feel like I'm all over the place, man. >> Awesome. Well, thanks a lot. Great seeing you, Tony. >> Thanks for having me, Kev. You're the best. >> [music and bell] >> It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show, Jacob Shapiro, the director of geopolitical research at Bespoke Group. Jacob, thanks for returning back. >> Kevin, great to be with you. Let's do it. >> Okay, so let's get to it. First, let's start with um 2025. What surprised you most about uh what happened over the past year? >> Yeah, I'm going to cheat and I'm going to give you two things. And the first one is larger and macro and the second is maybe more specific. Um, going into to 25, I was really thinking that President Trump was going to be an isolationist and I was sort of invoking George Washington when I was talking about President Trump leading into the the campaign in 24 and into November. And I thought that was going to be his impulse. And it became very clear early on in 2025 that he was not going to govern like an isolationist at all, that he was going to govern like an early 1900s style imperialist. Um, so I felt like I had a little bit of egg on my face at the end of 24 because I was talking about him in that isolationist vein. Um, and I pivoted very quickly to say there's something different here. Um, those are both standard foreign policy traditions in the United States. By the way, it's not completely crazy. I think people react to Trump as if you know this has never happened in US history before. It has happened. If you've read your history from the 1880s to 1920s, President Trump would fit perfectly in that time period. So that surprised me. And I'll also say um something I got wrong. Uh Israel not just bombing Iran, but kicking Iran's butt. It wasn't even a contest. Uh and that follows on with Israel kicking Hamas's butt and eliminating Hezbollah. I mean, they just went from strength to strength. And I didn't know that the Israeli military had that capability in it. I didn't know that the Israeli government had the willingness to take on that level of risk to do it. I was just I was completely surprised um by what Israel did in the Middle East in 2025. And I've reset sort of my calibrations on what Israel's capable of and I'm sure all the other different countries in the Middle East have also reset their calibrations. That might be what Israel was after in the first place. >> Okay, great stuff. What about 2026? What do you think the market will be most surprised about when we look back a year from now? >> Yeah. Um and I have a few here as well. Um, and we'll see how many of these uh look bad uh next year if you're if you'll have me back too. Um, the first, and this is something I've been steady on this year, but I really think um the USMCA the US Mexico Canada relationship in general. I think it's all been a soap opera. I think we get a renewed USMCA deal by the middle or towards the end of the year and that everybody's happy. And by the end of the year, we're not talking about 51st state. We're not talking about cartels and all these other things. I think it's going to be the United States integrating more closely economically with Canada and Mexico simply because the alternative to doing that makes no economic sense whatsoever. And President Trump is many things. I don't think he's a [ __ ] So I think that's one thing. Um, another thing is I think the tables have really turned in the Russia Ukraine war in Ukraine's favor. Uh, we've seen Ukraine use drones in the past 8 to 12 months to exact real costs on the everyday Russian citizen. You're seeing them attack energy infrastructure. You're seeing energy shortages inside of Russia. You're seeing the common person in Russia now being affected in a meaningful way. And that means that we've gone from Russia thinking of this as a grinded out conflict where they have more tanks and more shells and more people to Ukraine saying, "Hey, we can drone you whenever we want, wherever we want." So, you want to keep this dance up and keep on, you know, going centimeters on the contact line um in occupied Ukraine? Fine. We're going to blow up refineries and we're going to blow up highways and we're going to blow up infrastructure. And I think that will make things very very dicey uh for Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. I think they're going to have to either come to the table or face some serious um populist unrest. Um and then the the last thing, and I'm I don't know how high confidence interval I I am on this, but obviously the last year has been the year of AI. >> Um I don't want to go so far as to say that the AI bubble is going to pop. I think we do have to come back to Earth a little bit. I'm long-term very bullish on AI. Uh but I think we've gotten a little bit over our skis and I think particularly in US markets we are operating under the delusion that general artificial intelligence is just [laughter] couple data centers down the road just a couple billion down the road. We're almost there. It's coming. And I just don't think that's true. And one thing I've noticed since co is that there seems to be a market fad every single year. And I say take this with a grain of salt for me because this is this doesn't come from my geopolitics background which was which is what I'm really good at. But when I'm looking at the psychology of the market, I feel like there's going to be another fad. And it feels to me like the the fad that makes the most sense is robotics and automation. I think we've been talking a lot about AI in the past year and data centers. And I feel like maybe the conversation switches to okay and what is what is the actual thing that uses AI and uses these data centers and things like that to do things, right? >> And I think maybe that's that's robots and automation. You've already seen that a little bit in China. I think one of the most underreported stories of 2025 was that, you know, Chinese manufacturing workers are losing their jobs not to Indians or to Ethiopians, but to robots because the Chinese are employing industrial robots at scale and their own economy. I I think especially with immigration numbers where they're at, we're at, you know, record low border encounters, the US Mexico border. I think robotics is is going to be a a sexy theme for 26, but we'll see. >> That's some great stuff. Now, usually we'd end it here, but uh while I'll have you, I think that there's, you know, a geopolitical expert like yourself. Recently, uh Trump unveiled the national security strategy, and I've just finished watching the two guys from Rest is Politics, and they are losing their [ __ ] about this. Um uh overreaction, or is this really truly a a huge slap in the face of Europe because that's how they interpreted it. And does it mean anything for markets? Well, I don't know that it's a direct I mean, Europe's already been slapped so many times. Are they really surprised they're going [laughter] to get slapped again if if they're not expecting the slap? Like, they're really behind the times. And I think you've seen that, by the way, in how Europe's operating. Like, look at Germany's defense budget and what they're talking about. They're they're transforming, you know, auto factories into making tanks and shells again. Like, a chill goes down my spine every time I talk about the Germans and what they're doing in their military complex. Uh Marco and I just did a an hour's long conversation about the national security strategy too and he was a little more constructive. I I'll give you my sober take and then I'll give you my unhinged take. Okay. >> My sober take is that there are some things in the document that I actually kind of like. I like a a more narrowly defined US interest. I think it's good that um it's recognizing that the United States cannot be all things to all people to all nations in all places. I think US foreign policy went off the rails a little bit with the neocon delusion in the 2000s and I think in some sense there are parts of this document that feel like a corrective. Um the problem and it's really a two-fold problem is they they get that conclusion and then they they have the wrong next step because you would think that means okay focus on these alliances or focus on on these regions. Instead they double down and say and that means we need to be strong everywhere. That means we have to be the most advanced, the most strongest military. Everybody has to do what we say because that's the only way that we're going to preserve peace. Peace through strength. And it's sort of like, okay, you finally got the diagnosis right, but you're prescribing the exact same medicine as the people who made all of these mistakes. So, I have that conceptual problem. I also there are just parts of the document that um have nothing to do with with politics or ideology. I just think they're wrong in the sense that they are misunderstanding the world. And I think if you look at the world through a mistaken lens, you are going to spit out policy that is not good. One tangible example of this, and you can make jokes about this, but it's not a joke for me. Um, in the in the document, it refers to President Trump as the president of peace, and it says that he has brought peace to nine different conflicts in the world, uh, including Kosovo and Serbia, uh, the DRC and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Cambodia and Thailand, uh, Egypt and Ethiopia, etc., et, etc. Um, that's not true. Uh, President Trump did did a great job, I think, in getting hostilities between Israel and Iran um to come off the boil, but he hasn't done any of the things that this document says he's done as president of peace. And as you probably know, Cambodia and Thailand are taking pot shots at each other again here today on Wednesday, December 10th. And President Trump said, "Oh, I have to make a phone call." Like, yeah, you have to make a phone call. And like you can make the joke about it, but the sober take is just to say if you're going to allow yourself to drink your own Kool-Aid, if you're going to allow yourself to believe that you are this thing, then you're going to create faulty policy. And there are a couple different moments in this document like the president of peace line, like the line where it says, you know, the United States produces um the best manufactured goods in the world and the countries will realize that it's a better long-term bet because the United States is the best at making these things. No, it's not. Maybe it needs to be. Maybe the strategy is that it should be, but that's China today. That's part of the problem that you're in right now. So, this healing solve of self-d delusion about how great we are and how we've done all these great things to me flies in the face of the first couple of pages, which is a really good um diagnosis. Um and then the unhinged take and the unhinged take really is not about the document itself. It's about okay, we have this document and what is the United States doing? Again, we're recording here on December 10th. What are we doing with Venezuela? like Iraq war 2.0 wasn't enough for us. We really think we're going to deploy an aircraft carrier and some Marines and take out a dictator and what comes after the dictator is going to be better than before. I thought the whole point of this strategy in the first place was look like we're not going to care about people's ideology. We want to work with countries that have our interest in mind and we're going to not work with countries that don't have our interest in mind. The Maduro regime is heinous. It's authoritarian. It's barbaric. They've offered to work with us. They've offered us everything they want. They've offered we're not going to do with China anymore. US oil companies, come on in. We we'll give you a front row seat. We'll even have uh interim elections. Like Madura will step aside. There'll be an interim ruler, the vice president for six to 12 months, and then we'll have elections. Of course, it'll be a sham, but at least you can say that you go to us into elections. [laughter] They've given the United States everything it wants. And we're still deploying the aircraft carriers. We're shooting fishing boats in the Caribbean. And for what? That makes no sense in the context of a national security strategy that says we don't care about ideology. We can't be anything to everywhere at once. and the neocons were wrong. So, you can have the best strategy in the world and if you're ignoring it in your policy practice, who cares? And that's sort of where I'm at. If they're going to continue down this dark road um with, you know, neocon policy dressed up in America first Trumpism, then then the national security strategy is not worth the paper that it's printed on. So, that's my my unhinged take. [laughter] >> That's great. It's a great take. Well, I appreciate you spending some time with us. Uh why don't you tell people where they can find more about you and your firm? Yeah. Uh, bespokegroup.io is the bespoke group's website. I'm on Substack. Um, you can just find Jacob Shapiro Substack. You've also got the Jacob Shapiro podcast. And I do a podcast with Marco Papish called Geopolitical Cousins. So, I'm I'm not hard to find. You You Google Jacob Shapiro. I'm not related to Ben, so don't go down the Ben rabbit hole. Go down the Jacob rabbit hole. It's far superior. >> Thanks a lot. Thanks for coming, Jacob. [music] >> All right. It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show, as I said before, a fan favorite and one of my favorites, director of global macro for Stone X, Vincent Delaward. Vincent, thanks for joining us. >> Oh, it's a pleasure. Excited this. >> Exciting. Okay, so 2025, it's been quite a year. All over the map. What surprised you the most? >> So, I'm going to surprise you two. Uh, I'm gonna go with uh I've been surprised by the success of the Trump administration. >> Okay, fair enough. >> Um, you know, I thought this was going to be a train wreck and uh for the first, you know, two months it looked like [laughter] >> it was it looked like a train wreck. It did look like a train. >> We had we had Doge, we had the liberation or like the shows up in the Rose Garden and the Chad GPT formula and just like oh my god like this is this is going to be fun [laughter] and uh I mean now I must you know I I think even if I I suspect you you do not care much for Trump either. Uh but we we have to be somewhat objective like >> right trade the market you have not the one you want. >> Yeah. So growth did not uh and that that I was both you and I we're both saying okay the the growth scare but it's it's still you know like impressive that you know we like real GDP I mean we don't have stats because we don't but you know my guess is in around you know 3 4% real >> yeah [snorts] >> uh and then he got stuff like this these crazy tar things like it did work uh like he uh with the major exception of China and I think maybe you can come back to that later. But if you look at the Euros, the Canadians, the uh um the the Japanese, the Saudis, the uh I mean uh praise to the man like he has unconventional uh methods, but um eventually it bullying worked uh objectively like he did manage uh >> um and we talked he did manage to to squeeze a little bit from from foreigners uh which which I don't think you know I I thought they would be much more uh because my my view was always okay well we have this for foreign the the US has all the leverage but the foreigners have all the money >> right >> right because of the the capital surplus the rest of the world has with with the the US has with the rest of the world so the for very easy for foreigners to to just uh >> you know shut him down it's like okay I'm going to start sending treasuries game over and start saying the stock market and it there are days it looked like that in April But ultimately that that has come to pass. Borns have not sold. >> Uh Trump got his tariffs and if if you know >> a year ago would have been said that the US would have you know effective tariff rate of about 15%. I don't think people would have thought that the stock market would be where it is today that uh inflation is I mean of course I mean still inflation is stopped but it's hasn't surged as much as one would have thought. uh and um that uh yeah growth would be uh still fairly good. So that with the foreigners and and also with the Fed. I also thought that you know his insane bullying there would be so much more institutional resistance to it. >> Oh yeah. >> Uh but no man they fall in line like it's it's amazing power works like uh it [laughter] really works. We are much um you know humans are much weaker than I gave them credit for. Same thing if you look at the universities for example like >> um >> you know like where is like and I'm I'm looking back at at Trump one you know when we had the the mass protest and the uh >> uh yeah this this I mean there's a a dark angle we can push that but this this this and sometimes I feel that this march towards you know this is what the the duche or the the the great leader wants >> and everybody falls in line. It's it's it's been remarkable. >> Yeah, I I completely agree and I do think it's kind of amazing how much it it has been successful at times. Um you mentioned something about you thought the foreigners have the money. I saw this article recently about how European leaders were tossing around the idea about using that power to influence the US Ukraine. Do you think that there is like a concerted uh effort at times to say let's all sell the bonds? Like do you think that that's on the table and they realize that power? >> I mean I wish uh I I wish uh but uh no I I I'm I'm so beaten down on on on on Europe and uh >> Yeah. So you don't think that they realize their power >> anything done? No, it's I mean theoretically it's there. Uh it's >> but it's yeah they really I mean there really is a leadership problem in in Europe and I mean M is just I mean it's depressing right? I mean it's you see them with M with Stormer. It's just uh um and I don't know if it's incompetence or um or that uh there's you know pressures that um you know make them uh unable to uh but like you saw that even in the national security strategy they you know when when basically we read like a regime change plan for for Europe and there's this kind of like uh almost like wake up like Yeah, we we keep punching you in the face and you're just not not doing anything here. It's uh so yeah, and it goes back to one of the conversation we had about the bond market vigilantes. I think part of it comes from the the apathy and and the lack of confidence of uh of of foreign managers who would rather uh get punched in the face and stay in the US capital market than uh you know take a chance on their own which is >> all right. So that's that's 2025. It surprised you. Trump's uh success surprised you. Uh what does 2026 look like to you? What do you think the market will be surprised about in 2026? >> It's going to be the same thing as every year. Uh it's going to be that the imaginary recession is not going to happen. And I to be honest I I I feel this is one of the dumbest ones. I mean so we had five years in a row, right? I mean pretty much every year you have me in the fall on on the huddle and there is a new thing right. Oh so the first time we talked about it was the uh the postcoid hangover like the race and the fiscal impulse blah blah that was that was crazy. Uh the second one that Fed is hiking too high rates too much and we kind of talked about how the the duration argument and that you know the third the the third year was the regional value regional banking crisis that I will say of all the fake recession that was probably [laughter] the most uh >> the one that had the biggest chance of working. >> Yeah. the most credible and I think the reason it didn't happen is because the Fed kind of ring fenced it very rapidly and uh >> uh but like there could have been uh commercial real estate but that that the the and then the last year was the the the tariffs and the uh uh you know the IMF took down. Now this one to me is the dumbest possible one is oh the the robots and the AI are going to take all the jobs and the rate going to surge. Like what the I mean can anyone point me to like a a you know case of like you know significant rise technologically driven rise in the unemployment rate in any country at any point in history. I mean um no uh so uh I think the market is again wrong. I think the market is wrong somewhat on purpose. I think part of the reason why we see this recessionary ghost uh come back is is because at the end of the day we want rate cuts. You know we have we are an average industry. uh everybody uh everybody wants so we have to constantly come up with a narrative to justify for the Fed to cut uh and I think that's why they given such prominence I never thought about that calls it out but um so yeah the market is still wrong about the state of the economy I don't think the labor market is is is collapsing I don't think there is a a monster behind the door um and on the other hand I think what the market will be surprised is uh the amount of fiscal stimulus uh we will receive uh in 2026. Uh I think there's more fiscal room than people realize. And even if there is no room, you could argue that there is no room, but Trump will take it anyway. Uh I would argue that there is a little bit of room. Like there's probably like couple hundred billion dollars that we can distribute. Uh it's an election year. Uh this election comes with very high stakes uh for Trump. Like personally, he could go to jail if he loses. Uh so the incentive I think is to go all in. Uh and uh that means that we will get uh checks uh in the mail. Uh my guess is uh we need one maybe in the spring so that you feel the effect on the economy and then one just before the election so that the ink on the DJ Trump signature is fresh. Maybe send it with the the the ballot, you know, like [laughter] >> there's your check along with the voting ballot we filled in for you. >> Yeah. And that that could lead to like a almost like a 2021 um um stock market insanity like we we may see like uh meme stocks and and and depending on what people decide to do the checks, right? I mean [snorts] so you could argue that in 2021 it was it went in the stock market because the economy was closed, right? that otherwise would have gone to like strip clubs and and then movie theaters and uh uh so maybe here this time and you know I always go back to my inflationary style uh yeah in things. Uh so my guess is people are maybe going to spend it more instead of bringing crypto because you know so that that kind of repowers the innovationary machine and that gets me to my my main goal for for 2026 which is energy. Um I I think that could be the the market surprise is is energy uh is the top performing sector in 2026. >> All right. For those who want to learn more about great calls like this, where can they reach you? have Vincent. >> Um, Twitter is the best place to go. Um, so my handle is Vincent Vincent [ __ ] Uh, under my pin tweet. Uh, there is a link uh where we offer a free trial to my research for for StoneX. Uh, I recommend that you click on it. You sign up. If there's any issue, uh, you can DM me. Uh I I usually monitor that and I you know I generally like I I don't post frantically because I I want to keep some some mental sanity but I I do spend a lot of time on on on Twitter um and I I try to get as many conversation and then finally if you're a SOX client uh reach out uh to your broker and ask if you can be added uh to my list. >> Thank you very much. Great talking. All right. I'm pleased to have back my friend Eric at YWR. Eric, thanks for joining us. >> Kevin, great to be here again. >> Uh, you're you're looking like you're somewhere different, by the way. You're not in London. Back in the good old USA. >> I'm in the US this week. Yep. >> Yeah. Uh, so are you, by the way, are you are you getting your cold snap there? We're recording this the week of December 10th. Is it cold where you are? >> Ah. Um, I'm down in North Carolina, but I yesterday I was in Boston and it was surprisingly cold. And um, made me kind of think London was pretty good. I mean, it was raining a little bit when I left, but it was, you know, not that cold. And then I got to Boston, I was like, "Woo!" >> All right. Um, so let's let's talk about the markets. We'll start with 2025. What surprised you? >> Yeah, Kevin. I um if you remember end of 2024 Trump was elected and we were all super bullish about US exceptionalism and the dollar and I thought the con the surprise would be that we're actually about to enter a multi-year trend of dollar weakness that you would start you would have dollar weakness emerging markets would all these asset classes which hadn't worked for years would start to work emerging markets commodities um that actually the US economy would be quite strong and the surprise. So the one surprise was going to be dollar weakness, not massive crashing, but just weakness. And the second was going to be that this combination of tariffs, commodities, weak dollar, um that you were probably going to get a you could get a move up in the 10-year yield. >> Okay. >> Um I thought the surprise that by the end of this year, like where we are now, that we could be looking at a 5% 10ear that the Fed we would get nowhere. I mean or that we would not get anywhere near this 2% inflation target. Remember at the beginning of the year we all year we've been kind of you know awaiting these Fed cuts. There's always been this overhang or not support backdrop of a Fed cutting. And I thought if you layer on top the Fed cutting while all this is happening you know weak kind of a weak dollar strong economy commodities working and the Fed cutting that's the risk would be that you get the 10-year move to 5%. And that hasn't happened. And that was um I think that was a surprise for me. The the dollar trend has been okay. It h it's happened a little bit, not much. Commodities are, you know, gold's working, copper starting to work, and oil hasn't. So, it's been a kind of like a squishy version of what I what I was expecting, and and it hasn't the tenure hasn't moved. So, >> the the tenure has confounded a lot of folks. Um there I remember the point where we were worried about term premium and now no one talks about it and there's no worries there at all. Do you have any theories of why that is like why the bonds have been so well behaved and you highlighted that you thought you know inflation we still haven't gotten to the 2% target and yet here we are cutting and four years no one cares about it. So do you have a theory of why the bond market doesn't care about term like why term premier hasn't blown out? I I don't have a sophisticated uh view like you, Kevin. I I was more I was sitting there in in I think it was this summer and I was going I think the market could rip. I think the market could do really well. But I was like, ah, but what about the bonds? That will ruin it if the bond yields go up. And I was like, you know what? I'm worried about bonds. Everybody's working about worried about bond. Everything I've read, everything I've read is about how bonds are going to ruin the market and the 10 years is going to go up and so the S&P is going to have to trade at a PE of 12 and the whole I was like, you know what, [snorts] if if I know all this and everyone else out there knows this and it's not happening, there's something going on that I don't like. It's like the dog that didn't bark, right? So, I said, you know what, screw it. For some reason, which I don't get, >> they're not moving and uh it's for some reason it's going to be a non-issue for the moment. So um you know >> that's my favorite Bruce Cner quote is he says what I'm looking for is a market that is not confirming consensus and to your point and you I think there's a lot of wisdom in your statement. You said like everyone was expecting this and it wasn't happening. So I was like okay so it must be there's something else going on that people don't understand. And I think >> yeah and I don't know what it um >> anyways you don't need to know. you just I think that your your next step and you being correctly bullish this this this whole year I've been listening to you just kind of pound the table being bullish and you're still bullish but so let's go to 2026. What do you think surprises markets next year? >> I know this is so bad but I'm going to actually say that I think that this trend is happening and that we're going to get um the dollar does continue to weaken. EM outperforms and especially bullish on China. the commodity trade has been work, you know, has been filtering through. I mean, remember, gold wasn't even supposed to work, right? Gold wasn't supposed to go up because because of Bitcoin. It was a boomer coin. And then platinum and platium weren't supposed to go up because they were related to the internal combustible engine, which we don't need anymore. And then copper wasn't going to go up because of the Chinese property market. So, all these things like dominoes have gone. Natural gas is working now. And there wasn't supposed that wasn't supposed to go up because we had all this natural gas we don't need. And now there's an AI boom. So the last one standing is oil which everyone has and it has confounded me and it's been a bad call from last year as well. But anyways, so I think the commodity trend I think oil joins the commodity boom and I think we do >> I do think we have to there's going to have to be some reaction to the tenure in um in 2026. So >> you're gonna go and kick that football, right? Like Lucy's got the football and you're going to kick it. >> Yeah, [laughter] I'll go for it. But it's good. I mean, it's still like stuff's working, you know. I think that hangs market will go up 20% this year. I think I think the Chinese stock market will be the big, you know, well, you think it will do it'll be a positive surprise for everyone. No one's talked about it this year. It was up 30%, but lots of things have done well, but I think when it happens again next year, people go, whoa, this is starting to turn into a big trend. >> That is awesome. All right. Uh, and you, as I have said, you have been really, really spot on with your bullishness this whole year. Uh for those who want to learn more about your process, about you know all your terrific calls, where do they uh you know reach out to you? >> I'm on Substack, but the domain is www.ywr.world. It's so YWR is for your weekend reading andworld because we like to talk about the whole world. >> Awesome. Thanks for joining us today, Eric. >> Thanks, Kevin. [music] >> Hey guys, just jumping on here. I hope you've been enjoying the Christmas special so far, but make sure you stick around because we have part two coming up. In part two, we have more guests and we have a blooper reel at the end where I ask all of the guests some very, very uncomfortable questions. Stick around because we'll be releasing this tomorrow, Saturday, December 27th. Make sure you stick around. Part two coming tomorrow.
XMAS SPECIAL PT.1
Summary
Transcript
and let's hit it. It's Friday, [music] December 26, 2025, episode 281. I'm Patrick Szna. And I'm Kevin Mure. This week, it's a special year-end market huddle. And man, we have a great show lined up. We were lucky enough to have a baker's dozen of previous market huddle guests come back and give us each a 10-minute interview highlighting what surprised them in 2025 and what the market will be surprised by in 2026. Then make sure you stick around for a fun interview session that Danny had with the guests. We learn what they really think of myself, Kevin, and the market huddle. >> And I guess we're gonna also drink, but I'm not drinking a beer. >> Are you guys drinking beer? I got a beer. So, I'll start. >> My guy started from Winnipeg. Uh, he moved to Sweden, but he was in Winnipeg recently, and he picked me up the Gray Cup, Winnipeg Blue Bombers beer. Who knows what it's going to be like. I appreciate that. It's always good when a good pal brings the beer. So, let's give it a whirl. >> There you go. I'm uh >> I'm drinking uh mold wine. It's the season. And uh you know, Portugal is the land of affordable wine. You can easily find a couple euros for a bottle. So throwing that into some with some seasoning and not seasoning but like some uh uh not seasoning. What the [ __ ] Like anyway >> festive stuff inside but uh drinking some nice hot wine. It's perfect for this week's episode. >> How about you, Dad? >> Nice. Uh well, today actually I've got a lovely bottle of wine here from my friend Luish uh from a place called Sabal, which is uh Portuguese for onion. And it's a natural red wine. It's lovely. My [laughter] lovely. >> That was the most British thing ever. It's lovely. >> It's lovely. All right, Kev, give us some side effects, buddy. >> Nothing in this podcast should be viewed as investment advice. Listeners should consult an investment professional before making any decisions regarding topics mentioned in this show. Side effects of too much huddle may include the holiday liquidity hallucinations. >> I suffer from those all the time. [laughter] >> Oh yeah. >> The Santa rally dependency and then the thin tape overconfidence. Love it. >> Oh yeah, definitely. >> Let's get to our guests. >> All right. >> All right, folks. It's that time. It's the fellow who needs no introduction, but I'll give him one nonetheless. Harris Copperman aka Copy. One of the first guests, one of the most popular guests, actually the most popular guest of all time. Harris, thanks for coming back on the show and doing this year end thing with us. >> Hey, I'm happy to be here. I can't miss it. >> Um, okay. So, let's start with 2025. It's been a quite a year. Topsy turvy, up and down, lots of different moving parts. What surprised you the most out of this past year? I guess I'm going to take two things. One, AI is so stupid. There is no revenue. There will never be revenue. There it's the stupidest bubble. It it just like they're going to spend a half trillion dollars on this thing that produces 20 billion of revenue. And there is no path to close the gap between the two. Yeah. >> And I'm really upset that I figured this out like two and a half years ago. Uh because I would have made a to a ton of money just being long AI because I I like bubbles. I mean, I chased after [ __ ] codes and Ponzi schemes and bitcoins and all sorts of crazy stuff, but I thought this was stupider than bitcoins and I refuse to chase after it. And it's just surprised me because it's so obvious and just now people are starting to say, "Hey, wait a second. Where's the profits?" And you have companies that you have companies like like Meta guys are like, "So there's never going to be any cash flow again because this guy is just going to build data centers on Mars and everywhere else that like like anywhere you can put a data center, they're going to put a data center." Um I mean, if Venezuela doesn't want if they don't want to get invaded, they need to build a data center like right now. Like it's safe. Once there's a data center, no one can touch it. Um and so like I just don't get it. Like it's so stupid. And look, the sh this is a lot like like I remember in 2016 you'd have these calls with these shell company CEOs. You'd be like, "Dude, stop drilling." Like take the cash flow, pay down the debt, and then buy back stock. You guys trade like like way below PDP. And then the guy from Texas is like, "But if we don't drill, we can't grow." I'm like, "No one wants you to grow." Like like you trade, you know, below your PDP value. like like it's not like your your PP PDP. It's like and the guy be like but then we don't grow. And it's just like if we don't grow then the stock's going to get hit. How much have you seen your stock chart? It's been hit like it's been obliterated, right? >> These guys just kept drilling and you'd beg and plead with them stop [ __ ] drilling. >> I think that's how uh AI is going to end. It might take another year or two. >> Yeah. >> But guys are going to look at these AI companies and be like just stop spending money. Just stop it. It's the same thing. >> Yeah. I I think that um first of all, in terms of catching the inflection point, I think you were spot on and I remember you wrote that piece and the moment you sent it to me, I was like, "Holy smokes, this is someone articulating the bear case in a way that actually makes sense." And I like, "We got to get them on get you on the show right away." We, you know, made spot for you immediately. you came on the show and from then on you were just kind of like almost the poster child for the person that was screaming, you know, this is this is insane. Talk to us about that experience. What was what it was like? Like it wasn't, you know, you you went up and you stopped slumbing it with us at the huddle and started talking to guys like Fortune and like real like real organizations. What was that like? >> I don't know. Fame is fleeting. No one wants to talk to me again. I'm doing reruns of the huddle now. >> [laughter] >> Well done. Well played, buddy. >> But look, yeah, it's weird, right? Like I said something that no one had said before. Everyone kept focusing on how cool AI is. And look, it's really cool. I use AI all day long to research dumb stuff. I make memes. It's super cool and it keeps getting better. Um, and that was the whole story for three years. And suddenly I asked the question of does this ever earn a return? And people are like, "Oh, yeah. We're in the the business thing. Money in, eventually money comes out, right?" >> Yeah. [laughter] >> And I'm the first person to ask the thing. And they're kind of at scale. When you spend a half trillion dollars at stuff, you're at scale. >> And once I said that, I mean, what was it like six weeks later? Mckenzie put out a report that said the exact same thing as me. Um, they didn't give me any credit naturally, but it's just everyone started asking the same question. That's kind of when AI topped out. uh because it stopped being a meme and people said like where's the return? >> Yeah. No, you absolutely nailed it and I kudos to you buddy. You you were at the forefront of of catching that wave. You were the first one the a big set of rollers came in and you were the first one to catch the wave. Uh do you have anything else that's surprised you for 2025 that you wanted to talk about? >> I think I've just been surprised by how weak the economy has been and the fact that you have this like I talk to a lot of people in the real world. I have friends who live in the real world. Uh I feel like Wall Street people mostly talk to Wall Street people and so if the stock market goes up everyone's like ah things are good you know stocks are usually a leading indicator of next year's economy and like and then you talk to real economy people and they're like yeah everything sucks like it's comping negative inflation's like serious like my costs are going up like everyone you talk to is just like really worried but then stocks go up and you know I think the dichotomy of divergence is Trump spent two weeks now tweeting about how great the economy is and you look at the tweets and it's just hundreds of comments and they're just like, "You bo the economy sucks." And [gasps] >> you should really copy, you should really give some other people the chance to tweet in there, [laughter] [gasps] >> but eventually the economy is AI and I really do think that maybe next year is the year that uh stocks catch down to where the economy is. Okay, so let's get on to next year, 2026. What surprises markets the most in 2026? >> The economy is not detonating. It's just like a slow fade. Um, and the slow fade continues. And eventually, I mean, it started with, you know, really consumerf facing businesses and it's moved on to industrials and chemicals and housing. And eventually I think enough sectors are tarnished that all you have left is basically stuff that gets government large s like healthcare and and you know military industrial and then you have AI and the AI eventually slows a bit just because rate of change it can't just keep you know doubling every six months what they spend on it and eventually the wealth effect goes in reverse from the AI and that's the last thing holding up the economy and people start to say hey wait a second stocks are really expensive I think uh I don't think we crash that's not My prediction, I think it's a lot more like the 1970s where you have big up and down whippy moves and stocks kind of go nowhere for a very long period of time in real terms, but it starts with a down 30 year. I'm not saying it would crash like a down 10% day, but I think it's more like it just doesn't go up. If it doesn't go up, it starts to go down. Um, that's my view. >> And so, uh, you say it's like the 70s. I think the 70s there was a period what 68 to 82 we were in a trading range and went nowhere in nominal terms like we we in essence I think tried to break a thousand on the Dow and and although we kind of ticked above it we never really broke through it and it was there for like at least a decade it kept bumping up against that but in real terms you were just kept losing money because you know inflation was running high do could you see something that bad like nominal going sideways for a decade but you know inflation eating away at it. >> I think that's the the base case. I mean, most things are really overvalued right now. Um I'm amazed how many companies trade at 50 100 times earnings, they don't grow. >> Yeah, it's kind of it's shocking, isn't it? >> Like and then >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I was just going to say and it's strange companies that like although they're growing, they just don't seem to deserve a 50 multiple. Like Costco, terrific, fabulous company, but do is it really worth a 50 multiple? Like it's insane. That's insane. I mean, when did Walmart get to be like a 50 multiple? >> But then you have all these other companies like Starbucks that are exrowth and they're also a 50 multiple. Like I don't see why Starbucks deserves to be in anything. It's kind of stuck in the middle between Dunkin Donuts at a $2 coffee and something like Panther Coffee and a $10 coffee. Like it's $7 for a crap coffee. And I don't get it. Like I don't understand what their their business case is anymore. I just don't understand why people are willing to pay those sorts of multiples at a, you know, at a time when there's other alternatives. >> I mean, what's happening is Mike Green is right. Dollars go in and it buys more Starbucks and eventually dollars stop going in. I I think money gets reallocated. I mean, there's a world overseas of really cheap stocks and I think money starts going to other places. >> Is that what you're doing? spending more and more time looking for uh kind of bargains around the world. >> Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I mean, we own we own more international than I've owned in in a decade. Uh >> Oh, really? >> But there's really cheap stuff to be had overseas like rapidly growing businesses, single digit multiples. >> And uh where would you say the opportunities? Where do you think you you foresee yourself investigating the most? Like is it China? Is it Africa? Is it everything? Like, you know, is the whole world growing or do you think there's gonna be better parts? >> I like Latam. Uh about every five years, every 50 years, they kind of figure it out and then they, you know, screw it up again. I think it's their five years. Um there's been a bunch of elections already. Uh there's a bunch more coming up in the next year and LAM has embraced uh progrowth uh you know, I guess you call them right of center governments. uh you know the persistent problem in pesos is that pesos only go down and so you need foreigners to trust the country so that they stop yanking money out and so when you have a right of center government um usually the currency stabilizes they can lower interest rates and things boom and then the left or center guys run huge deficits and the currency falls apart the central bank panics and jacks real rates up and the economy dies and so you're finally going to see prog growth I mean Malay is kind of the first of them Chile in the next week or too is going to be the second of them. I think Peru and Colombia come next and then the big enchilada is Brazil and have a big bet there. >> Oh, that's awesome. Well, Kubby, it's always a pleasure having you on the show. Why don't you tell people more where they can learn more about you, uh the stuff you write, um just the whole kind of nine yards. >> So, I got a blog, uh pray.com, p r a cap. Uh I don't write too often, but when I do, I try to make them a banger. And then uh I'm a big fan of uh Kedm keedm.com. Go there and take a free trial. You you will be impressed. Uh we've got some new blood in there and they've made some dramatic changes and I think the product just keeps getting better and better. >> Thanks again for being on the show CPY. >> Hey, happy holidays guys. >> It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show Porter Collins. He's partners with Vincent Daniel from Seawolf Capital. Porter, thanks for coming on. >> All right, great to be back. All right. So, 2025, what a year it's been. Uh, what surprised you the most this year? >> Well, you know, I uh you know, we're big gold bulls, but uh I don't think that surprised us this year. So, I'm going to go with um Trump's tariffs. That kind of surprised me the most. And you know, you know, he talked about it on his campaign a lot, but I think the way he handled it and, you know, with the the Office Depot 3M board up there talking with with random numbers and you can kind of see it in, you know, the way the stocks played out, you know, basically everything nonAI was terrible this year, right? and you know that you know the the core economy, real estate, staples, uh chemicals, you know, all that that that whole bucket of stocks were terrible this year. And so if you had anything AI related, it was great. So I think that was my I wasn't surprised by AI, but I was more surprised about how Trump handled the tariffs, the uncertainty around it. And you can really see in the ADP numbers, right? They just they're they're the ADV employment numbers, they're terrible. And so I think that's what what surprised me the most. >> So um like that brings me on to the the the K-shaped economy. Do you see any hope for that getting better and and and how does that resolve itself? >> Well, how about I lead myself uh you led the witness here. How about lead myself into the if I if I'm surprised by anything in 26. >> Okay. Yeah. So we'll go to the Okay. So we'll work it in there. So, in 2026, what do you think the market will be surprised by the most? >> Well, I don't know if this is a surprise, but if you if you kind of go through, we've been going through the last couple days going through the the one beautiful bill >> and you know, thinking about the midterms are at the end of the year and you know, the one beautiful bill was designed to have a lot of front half stimulus, >> right? >> And and to really turbocharge the economy. And so, you know, if you kind of look through, you know, this year's winners of what worked, you know, Warner Brothers in in the communication services was the was the number one winner. You know, it was a value stock not too long ago. Was it nine bucks sitting around there and and and it ripped Google uh in the tech space was a value stock in financials. Uh hood at one point was was a value stock. Healthcare the winner was CVS. It was, you know, nine 12 months ago it was a it was a value stock in in energy. It uh you know this year the refiners were ripped. You couldn't give them away last year. Right. Right. >> You know look at uh materials the number one winner new the only the one gold stock newmont mining ripped. You couldn't give it away. Right. And so and so now now as the the clock turns I think about Trump stimulus. you know, Trump wants this Uber Dove in in in the Fed. You know, people I don't know, they'll cut two, three, four times. We'll we'll see. You know, we'll worry about the consequences later. But, you know, in the bad bucket of this year was, you know, if you go to C if you go to uh materials, chemicals, disaster, right? They're all 52- week lows. >> If you look at uh real estate sector, anything that touches core real estate's been terrible. It was, you know, data center, you know, uh, real estate's been good. Staples terrible. Consumer, you know, Lululemon, they report in the next couple days, I think Chipotle has been terrible. Home Depot has been terrible. The builders terrible. And in energy, it's basically been uh oil that sucked, right? Oil names have been have been bad. Um, you know, in tech the uh tonight Adobe reports, you know, that's at a 52- week low. So, it's kind of interesting. And maybe, you know, I'm I'm working into a uh a mosaic here, but if you think about what hasn't worked and what maybe can go right next year is maybe the the core economy can do a little bit better, maybe lower rates, maybe all this stimulus and the the one beautiful bill. And so there there's my mosaic. And so, you know, you funny enough, you know, the the the names that usually are, you know, the huge winners are the ones people hate. Like they like if you look at the chemical stock, you look at even I look at them and I go, "Oh god, this is terrible." And so, you know, that that that's the contrarian angle on it at least. So, there you go. >> Actually, one of the my smartest pals uh that is just he's always way early. He's a huge, you know, like whale of a hedge fund guy and he always tells me things and and at the time nobody's talking about them and nobody cares and he says, you know, you should really look at blah blah blah blah. And and then kind of six months later I look and I'm like, geez, he's right again. And one of his big uh themes is he loves chemicals. And he his argument is and I just I'm just going to throw this out there for you is that he argues that the China anti-involution is actually going to make all these boring stocks that have been getting crushed through by Chinese com competition for the past couple of decades finally shine. Do you buy that? >> Yeah. The answer is yes. The question is timing. >> Yeah. uh you know if you're off by six months you could be deadly wrong. So but you know some of these things they they you know they get washed out and they and you know if you look at them on a on a price to sales basis you know they're 0.1 2.3 you know it's kind of you know that's bouncing along the bottom. >> Right. >> Right. you know, the the the IBIDA, you know, metrics are a little bit higher, obviously, because the profits aren't there and the and then the, you know, obviously when the profits go down, the the leverage looks a little funky, but, you know, all it needs is a little bit of a a switch and you get the earnings up, leverage doesn't look so bad anymore. You know, a couple of these things like we were looking at Huntsman, we were looking at uh Chamores, we were looking at uh Olan is another one, you know. So, we we've been we've been hunting and pecking around this sector. Um, you know, look, like I said, it looks terrible. [laughter] It feels terrible. And so, uh, you know, >> trades are always the right trades. >> You know, they got like the they, you know, we've been talking a little bit about Adobe, right? And Adobe's earnings have actually held up fine, but it's it's quote unquote the AI loser, >> right? >> And so, it's it's really derated. um you know was probably too expensive before but it's it's rated to a you know a fairly uh inexpensive multiple for what it is now. We'll see what the earnings come up with and we'll see what Lululemon does. You know it's kind of interesting. >> Right. All right. So I can't let you go without asking you because you nailed the gold trade. Absolutely nailed it. Does it have another year in it? Is it going higher? Are we still you know gold is it is it uh going to get better? I'll ask you. Have the governments [laughter] become responsible? H have are we did is Elon coming back and and he's going to, you know, warm up the Doge engine again and uh you know, so >> Okay. Well, we answered an a question with another question and we'll let our listeners decide, you know, what you think from that. I'll exit my gold trade when when when I see some responsibility coming back to governments and and that that that until then, you know, it's my uh it's my port in the storm. It's it's it it keeps me from, you know, getting too bearish and shorting stocks. And so that there you go. That's my >> There we go. All right. Thanks for coming on. And for those who want to get more of this great kind of insights, you guys have a Substack, you have a podcast, you have all sorts of stuff. Why don't you tell people where they can find more about you and your partner? >> Yeah, we do have a uh we have a great new uh Substack with my uh former partner Danny Moses and Vincent Daniel. It's called What are we doing uh on Substack? And you can follow me on uh uh Twitter, Seawolf Cap. >> Great. Thanks again. [music] It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show Dario Perkins, managing director of global macro at TS Lombard. Dario, thanks for coming. >> It's good to be back. Yeah, it's terrific. And uh this is uh I know you're a big fan of year-end reviews, right? This is something you really love. >> I love them. I've read them all. Yeah, I've read about 20 of these things and they all say the same thing that next year is going to look exactly the same as this year. And I'm like, well, why did it take 45 pages to to [laughter] explain that? >> Okay, so let's start with what surprised you most in 2025. I think basically it's the resilience of the economy because if you go back 12 months and you look at what the sales side was saying about this year, there were some really dodgy assumptions about what the new Trump administration would do. Basically, that it would do all of the things that were good for financial markets like deregulation and tax cuts and none of the stuff that was bad. So the the tariffs wouldn't happen, the deportations wouldn't happen, that stuff was just all policy bluster. And obviously that set us up for this really nasty surprise on liberation day when suddenly the consensus realized [ __ ] all of our assumptions were wrong. This looks bad. >> But actually you look at the way sort of forecast evolved. Everyone downgraded their forecast after liberation day and then through the second half of the year they've had to put them back to where they were. So we sort of finished the year where we started in terms of forecast. And I think you know part of that is that businesses in the US were quite well prepared. So they had this sort of buildup of inventories but the big thing has been productivity. So I think companies have been reluctant to hire and they sort of forced these efficiency gains on their workforce and that's upset that's sort of offset a lot of the margin squeeze that would have come from tariffs. So it's quite a bullish story I think. >> And uh you don't think it's AI causing those productivity gains? >> You're trying to wind me up. >> I am trying to wind you up. >> I don't think it's anything to do with AI. I think this is you had this period after the pandemic where you had these massive labor shortages. Companies were just desperate to get workers in and they didn't really care about efficiency. And then this year that all changed. The staff shortages were gone. They had this squeeze coming from the margins and they basically had this fat in the system and they took it out. And that's a sort of cyclical story. I mean you can't continue with that indefinitely. Um but I think that that's been the big I don't think there's anything to do with AI at all. Everything about AI winds me up as you know. [laughter] >> And you don't think that the the product or not the sorry the economic growth that we're seeing is the result of all these AI data center buildouts. >> All right. You are trying to wind me up now. >> Yes, I am. [laughter] >> So I so I did this chart in a in a note last week and it was the contribution to GDP from AI capex and everything else. And if you look just at one quarter, so the second quarter, there was this sort of big um you know the AI was sort of disproportionate part of the story. But overall, there's nothing in this story. It's just not true that all of US GDP growth is being driven by AI capex. It's just this myth that's out there. >> Okay. All right. So that was what surprised you most in 2025. What do you think will markets will be most surprised by in 2026? not what you'll be most surprised by is what will markets be most surprised by in 2026. >> That's good because nothing surprises me as [laughter] you know. I I think that so you look at the consensus and as I said I read dozens of these reports. They're all saying next year is going to be exactly the same as this year. Everyone's stopped using the R word because it's too embarrassing to talk about recessions anymore having been wrong every year. So, it would sort of be fabulously ironic if the US just sank into a recession. I just don't think that's where things are going to go wrong. I think that this is about reaceleration. I think the consensus is wildly underestimating how much policy stimulus is coming in next year. Not we're not even talking about the Fed here. We're talking about fiscal policy in the US, which is going to turn very reflationary. I think you've got pentup demand from this year and all of those capex and hiring decisions that were postponed. The global environment is much more reflationary. You know, people are seriously underestimating Europe. There's going to be a lot more stimulus coming out of China. You know, all of sort of European macro analysis is basically memes now on X. You know, it's stuff about bottle tops in Europe. And and the reality is that the the European economy is actually in a pretty good situation. you got this big German fiscal boost. Um the consensus is underestimating what that means for the rest of Europe. And so I think we're going to get a much more reflationary environment. The economy is going to reacelerate. I think you know GDP numbers everywhere are going to seriously outperform. The issue is that they're doing this into supply problems. You know the labor force isn't growing anymore in the US. So you sort of think about how this plays out very quickly. You start to get labor shortages again in the US. the labor market starts to tighten up. You start to get wage pressures reemerging and then minimum we're having a debate about is monetary policy actually restrictive enough. Worst case we start to actually see some inflation and then you think well if the Fed isn't doing something about this why isn't it doing something about this? You know what's going on at the Fed? So all of these questions about independence suddenly become a bit more relevant. And again, if you look at the distributional forecast for next year, everybody, and there's 60 people in that Bloomberg survey, everybody expects inflation to be lower and everyone expects interest rates to be lower. There's just no there's no outliers. So, I think if you're thinking about where that's going to be wrong, I think it's reaceleration. It's reinflation. For a while, that's bullish. You know, you look into next year, this is quite a bullish environment. Global economy reacelerating. At some point, though, it becomes more toxic. And I keep talking about this analogy with the late 60s where you had these big rate cuts in ' 67. Economy rebounds, stock market loves it, the bond market loves it because the Fed is cutting. And then halfway through the year, it's like [ __ ] maybe we shouldn't be doing this, inflation starts to reacelerate, and then the Fed has to come back and do something about it. And at that point, things turn pretty toxic. >> Do does the US have a Liz trust moment? >> I don't think so. I mean, I I don't think this is so much about the bond market. I I think it's going to be it I don't think I don't think it'll be about fiscal, but it could be that um you start to see the reflation. The Fed is maybe the Fed is still cutting at that point. Who knows with the with the new Fed chair, right? >> Um I think there will be this question about maybe the Fed is doing the wrong thing. Maybe the Fed isn't independent enough. And then at that point, the bond market does it for the Fed. So either way things turn quite quite difficult I think. >> And does the US dollar bear the brunt? >> I I think so. I think that there are a lot of global investors that quite nervous about the US. Um I know we've had this big rebound since liberation day. Not so much in the dollar but in US stocks. You can see that global investors are behaving quite differently. So hedging ratios have gone up massively. there is this continued sort of angst about the Fed and about what US policy makers are doing and you know that could turn pretty nasty pretty quickly as well if if it's if it does become clear that the Fed is not doing what it should be doing. >> All right, great stuff. Thanks for joining us Dario. And for those who want to learn more about you and your shop, where can they go? >> Uh best place is on X or LinkedIn. I'm quite busy on there. usually taking the piss out of people and myself, but it's a good place to start, I guess. >> All right, go look up Dario on X and LinkedIn. Dario Perkins from TS Lombard. Thanks for joining us. >> Well, it's been a while since I've had this fellow on the show, but it is Tony Greer, editor of the Navigator newsletter. Tony, thank you so much for going coming back. >> Kev, you're one of my favorites, man. I'm honored to be here. uh you still hold the uh record for the market huddle uh most beers ever consumed in one session. Nobody has ever that's gonna you know live in infamy. I think >> I tell you if anybody takes it out I'll be back to top it again because I [laughter] I I wasn't even feeling my best that day. And just to let you know >> I can tell you one time I wasn't feeling my best is when I came to see you. you were uh interviewing me for Real Vision and then we went out afterwards and um >> well, we had a lot of fun and I was uh was pretty messed up for a while. So, [laughter] >> I remember leaving you off and throwing you in the cab and being like, "You going to be okay, bud? I think we're cool, right?" And you're like, "Yeah, see you later. Let's go." >> And I [laughter] But we did have fun. >> We did have some fun. Okay. Um let's talk a little bit about markets. 2025, crazy year. What surprised you the most this year? >> A couple things, Kev. I'll say this. I will say, you know, there a couple of things are subtle and a couple of things are kind of in your face, I suppose, about what surprised me, right? So the the the gold rally didn't surprise me, but the way that there is this delayed reaction flywheel now of all of a sudden, you know, first it was gold and then platinum went berserk and everybody was like, "What the hell's going on here?" And by the way, why is silver not moving? Like silver's 30. Like nobody cared. Like while the gold rally, Bitcoin was 106, gold was exploding, and silver's $35. And I was like, what is going on here? You know, and I'm I'm long I don't have a silver position. I have a gold trading position, but I've got physical silver. I've got physical gold like everybody else that's in this market paying close attention. So, I am rooting for it. And I'm just noticing that it's like amazing that all of a sudden now silver 60 bid and you know, things have changed. Natural gas is finally $5 bid. So, I guess it's one of those things where you don't get what you want or what you expect in markets. you get what you get, right? You know, you get what you that you get what last sale says and you deal with it, you know. So, that was kind of weird for me how that, you know, commodities are very much an inun trade. Maybe you could separate the grains out a little bit, but they're very much a student body right, student body left trade or like we've been for the last four or five years, go three years going sideways. >> Yeah. >> And so, I feel like that if anything, we're due for that to break out. But that was surprising to me that like it was gold and and some of the and and still we've still got crude oil left for dead down here. >> Well, that's might be the next one. >> Right. So that so it's like one of those things where do I get long crude oil because of course it's going to go or do I stay away from this because it's telling me that it's not going, you know? So I have a problem. I'm wrestling with that right now. >> All right. >> That's that's kind of what Yeah, that's that's been the confusing part for me. Quite honestly, I thought Nvidia was going to [ __ ] the bed at some point this year. And the buying that keeps coming back into that. >> Isn't it amazing? >> Oh my god, Kev. Right. I mean, after the unbelievable false top, you know, false breakout that it left on the highs based on earnings and then back down, >> but it it gives a signal that it's going to curl over and two days later it's back in the middle of the range and you're like, "Oh my god." >> It's like it's like a zombie apocalypse movie. Like they just won't die. they just keep coming at you. So, do you have any theories on that? >> No, I don't. I mean, you know, [sighs] I think that it might be a sign that it's actually topping, quite honest with you. You know, I remember there being volatility like this at the highs in the dot bubble, right, where where stocks were dislocating higher, lower, higher, lower at the highs and you were like, what is going on here? Like, I this crossfire, >> all I know is that it's not generating a higher NASDAQ price. like these stocks are shooting all over the place. So maybe it's something like where it is actually a delayed reaction. Everyone knows with the bull market that Nvidia has been in, it's going to take a long time to erode the thought process that buying the dips is not working, >> right? >> It's time for that. I but I don't you feel like a little bit that like I remember the dot and I remember Nortell here in Canada and it it went up and then it collapsed and then people were buying it and trying to hope for that resumption of the rally for years like years. >> Yeah, we that you know that's what it's going to look like in AI. I I reckon, you know, it very much I don't know, you know, I hate to call tops in this because the markets are still going up, but you see the headlines of all the circuitous deals taking place and you just got to raise an eyebrow at that and say that I mean would they still be here if they weren't signing all these agreements with each other which are all >> promulgating the same business, you know, like so that's troubling and and and you want to see the outcome but you know that it's not going to happen today or tomorrow. >> Yeah. And I'm with you that that was a big surprise for me as well. Not that it went up, it's just that the kind of ability to continually inflate it more and more was a big surprise for me. Um 2026, what do you think the market will be surprised by? Not you, but what will the market be surprised by? So, uh, man, you know, when I try to think of when I try to think of some of the things that I've tried to look into for next year and think about what's crazy, the reality is one of the crazier things that I think about, I'm afraid that maybe the market is expecting this. So, one of the things that I'm thinking about when I look at this year's leaderboard and I see gold miners up 140% year to date. That is an anomaly, right? For years, we haven't seen something like that. So, I think that that I think that we've woken up the sleeping giant there. I really do. I'm very encouraged that we see Morgan Stanley coming out and saying the new portfolio, guys, it's 60 2020, man. And you got to own gold. So, I still think next year gold miners could be up 200%. Or yeah. Or 250. >> Like, I'm like there's I'm not a valuation trader, but I know that on that kind of a metrics, they're still relatively cheap. You know, if you compare them to technology, >> right? and and you want to buy bargain stuff even up 147 140% they're cheaper than a lot of sectors in the in the S&P. So I feel like we're setting up I feel like there's going to be another whiff of headline inflation. I think there's going to be a massive leg higher in gold. I think that's going to push gold miners up 200% and they're going to have a better year than this year. And that is going to be, you know, I saw something today that while I'm thinking about this and while we've got this potential for technology to back off because we know AI is in some sort of a bubble. I saw somebody post a chart today where silver versus the Dow Jones is breaking a huge longstanding trend line and you're like, "Wow, that's like exactly what I see for next year, right? I feel like the gold and precious metals and uranium and industrial miners markets, they're kind of flipping the bird at like the huge paper securities market that's been running on high for years, right? Like the technology and the derivatives and now the AI trade and it's like high techch all the time and the natural resources markets are going, "Oh yeah, you want to see who's going to perform?" >> Yeah. >> And you look at Mag 7 and it's flat on the year and uranium miners are up 100%. you know, >> right? >> So, I think that we're in for more anomalies like that, I I wouldn't be shocked to see a complete an uncontrollable kurfuffle in the energy space, right? Because if it's sitting here percolating down here and and gold is going to keep going and if I'm mentally expecting gold to have another leg next year, silver, I'm sure, is going to be higher. Um, >> what was I just saying? Uh, >> oil energy. >> Oil. Yes. Sorry, sorry. Great part because I looked at the chart. So, >> that's what happens when we tape during the day. >> I know, I know, I know. And I have risk on and I'm losing money. [laughter] So, that usually makes me more entertaining. >> Um, so it's like you got to you can't take your eye off the oil sector or natural gas, right? Because natural gas went from three and a half to five. It can go from five to 10 just as fast. >> Oh, 100%. And and and the other thing I think that people have lost sight of is that these markets are tiny compared to Max 7. >> And if we get a rotation, it could be huge. And I'm with you. Like that's a great call, Tony. Like another 200% in in gold miners. It's not like that's that crazy, right? If we see plain vanilla funds, Kev decide to raise their allocation 50 basis points. >> Yeah. Then then we're talking about that Hoover Dam through the garden hose metaphor. You know what I mean? Because there's just not enough stock to go around and they're going to want to own them for the reason that, you know, gold and silver are going bonkers. >> Completely agree. All right. You know what? We'll let you get back to your risk on. Um why don't you tell people about where they can find more about your your thoughts and your you know your great calls uh in terms of the Tony Greer newsletter. What's it called and where can they go? >> Yeah, the navigator is found. You can f go to my website tggmacro.com. There are samples of the navigator there. There is a guide to the other packages that I offer investors. Um, you can follow me on Twitter, Tgmacro. Tgmacro.substack.com is where we post our uh macro dirt podcast with Jared Dillian. So, I feel like I'm all over the place, man. >> Awesome. Well, thanks a lot. Great seeing you, Tony. >> Thanks for having me, Kev. You're the best. >> [music and bell] >> It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show, Jacob Shapiro, the director of geopolitical research at Bespoke Group. Jacob, thanks for returning back. >> Kevin, great to be with you. Let's do it. >> Okay, so let's get to it. First, let's start with um 2025. What surprised you most about uh what happened over the past year? >> Yeah, I'm going to cheat and I'm going to give you two things. And the first one is larger and macro and the second is maybe more specific. Um, going into to 25, I was really thinking that President Trump was going to be an isolationist and I was sort of invoking George Washington when I was talking about President Trump leading into the the campaign in 24 and into November. And I thought that was going to be his impulse. And it became very clear early on in 2025 that he was not going to govern like an isolationist at all, that he was going to govern like an early 1900s style imperialist. Um, so I felt like I had a little bit of egg on my face at the end of 24 because I was talking about him in that isolationist vein. Um, and I pivoted very quickly to say there's something different here. Um, those are both standard foreign policy traditions in the United States. By the way, it's not completely crazy. I think people react to Trump as if you know this has never happened in US history before. It has happened. If you've read your history from the 1880s to 1920s, President Trump would fit perfectly in that time period. So that surprised me. And I'll also say um something I got wrong. Uh Israel not just bombing Iran, but kicking Iran's butt. It wasn't even a contest. Uh and that follows on with Israel kicking Hamas's butt and eliminating Hezbollah. I mean, they just went from strength to strength. And I didn't know that the Israeli military had that capability in it. I didn't know that the Israeli government had the willingness to take on that level of risk to do it. I was just I was completely surprised um by what Israel did in the Middle East in 2025. And I've reset sort of my calibrations on what Israel's capable of and I'm sure all the other different countries in the Middle East have also reset their calibrations. That might be what Israel was after in the first place. >> Okay, great stuff. What about 2026? What do you think the market will be most surprised about when we look back a year from now? >> Yeah. Um and I have a few here as well. Um, and we'll see how many of these uh look bad uh next year if you're if you'll have me back too. Um, the first, and this is something I've been steady on this year, but I really think um the USMCA the US Mexico Canada relationship in general. I think it's all been a soap opera. I think we get a renewed USMCA deal by the middle or towards the end of the year and that everybody's happy. And by the end of the year, we're not talking about 51st state. We're not talking about cartels and all these other things. I think it's going to be the United States integrating more closely economically with Canada and Mexico simply because the alternative to doing that makes no economic sense whatsoever. And President Trump is many things. I don't think he's a [ __ ] So I think that's one thing. Um, another thing is I think the tables have really turned in the Russia Ukraine war in Ukraine's favor. Uh, we've seen Ukraine use drones in the past 8 to 12 months to exact real costs on the everyday Russian citizen. You're seeing them attack energy infrastructure. You're seeing energy shortages inside of Russia. You're seeing the common person in Russia now being affected in a meaningful way. And that means that we've gone from Russia thinking of this as a grinded out conflict where they have more tanks and more shells and more people to Ukraine saying, "Hey, we can drone you whenever we want, wherever we want." So, you want to keep this dance up and keep on, you know, going centimeters on the contact line um in occupied Ukraine? Fine. We're going to blow up refineries and we're going to blow up highways and we're going to blow up infrastructure. And I think that will make things very very dicey uh for Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. I think they're going to have to either come to the table or face some serious um populist unrest. Um and then the the last thing, and I'm I don't know how high confidence interval I I am on this, but obviously the last year has been the year of AI. >> Um I don't want to go so far as to say that the AI bubble is going to pop. I think we do have to come back to Earth a little bit. I'm long-term very bullish on AI. Uh but I think we've gotten a little bit over our skis and I think particularly in US markets we are operating under the delusion that general artificial intelligence is just [laughter] couple data centers down the road just a couple billion down the road. We're almost there. It's coming. And I just don't think that's true. And one thing I've noticed since co is that there seems to be a market fad every single year. And I say take this with a grain of salt for me because this is this doesn't come from my geopolitics background which was which is what I'm really good at. But when I'm looking at the psychology of the market, I feel like there's going to be another fad. And it feels to me like the the fad that makes the most sense is robotics and automation. I think we've been talking a lot about AI in the past year and data centers. And I feel like maybe the conversation switches to okay and what is what is the actual thing that uses AI and uses these data centers and things like that to do things, right? >> And I think maybe that's that's robots and automation. You've already seen that a little bit in China. I think one of the most underreported stories of 2025 was that, you know, Chinese manufacturing workers are losing their jobs not to Indians or to Ethiopians, but to robots because the Chinese are employing industrial robots at scale and their own economy. I I think especially with immigration numbers where they're at, we're at, you know, record low border encounters, the US Mexico border. I think robotics is is going to be a a sexy theme for 26, but we'll see. >> That's some great stuff. Now, usually we'd end it here, but uh while I'll have you, I think that there's, you know, a geopolitical expert like yourself. Recently, uh Trump unveiled the national security strategy, and I've just finished watching the two guys from Rest is Politics, and they are losing their [ __ ] about this. Um uh overreaction, or is this really truly a a huge slap in the face of Europe because that's how they interpreted it. And does it mean anything for markets? Well, I don't know that it's a direct I mean, Europe's already been slapped so many times. Are they really surprised they're going [laughter] to get slapped again if if they're not expecting the slap? Like, they're really behind the times. And I think you've seen that, by the way, in how Europe's operating. Like, look at Germany's defense budget and what they're talking about. They're they're transforming, you know, auto factories into making tanks and shells again. Like, a chill goes down my spine every time I talk about the Germans and what they're doing in their military complex. Uh Marco and I just did a an hour's long conversation about the national security strategy too and he was a little more constructive. I I'll give you my sober take and then I'll give you my unhinged take. Okay. >> My sober take is that there are some things in the document that I actually kind of like. I like a a more narrowly defined US interest. I think it's good that um it's recognizing that the United States cannot be all things to all people to all nations in all places. I think US foreign policy went off the rails a little bit with the neocon delusion in the 2000s and I think in some sense there are parts of this document that feel like a corrective. Um the problem and it's really a two-fold problem is they they get that conclusion and then they they have the wrong next step because you would think that means okay focus on these alliances or focus on on these regions. Instead they double down and say and that means we need to be strong everywhere. That means we have to be the most advanced, the most strongest military. Everybody has to do what we say because that's the only way that we're going to preserve peace. Peace through strength. And it's sort of like, okay, you finally got the diagnosis right, but you're prescribing the exact same medicine as the people who made all of these mistakes. So, I have that conceptual problem. I also there are just parts of the document that um have nothing to do with with politics or ideology. I just think they're wrong in the sense that they are misunderstanding the world. And I think if you look at the world through a mistaken lens, you are going to spit out policy that is not good. One tangible example of this, and you can make jokes about this, but it's not a joke for me. Um, in the in the document, it refers to President Trump as the president of peace, and it says that he has brought peace to nine different conflicts in the world, uh, including Kosovo and Serbia, uh, the DRC and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Cambodia and Thailand, uh, Egypt and Ethiopia, etc., et, etc. Um, that's not true. Uh, President Trump did did a great job, I think, in getting hostilities between Israel and Iran um to come off the boil, but he hasn't done any of the things that this document says he's done as president of peace. And as you probably know, Cambodia and Thailand are taking pot shots at each other again here today on Wednesday, December 10th. And President Trump said, "Oh, I have to make a phone call." Like, yeah, you have to make a phone call. And like you can make the joke about it, but the sober take is just to say if you're going to allow yourself to drink your own Kool-Aid, if you're going to allow yourself to believe that you are this thing, then you're going to create faulty policy. And there are a couple different moments in this document like the president of peace line, like the line where it says, you know, the United States produces um the best manufactured goods in the world and the countries will realize that it's a better long-term bet because the United States is the best at making these things. No, it's not. Maybe it needs to be. Maybe the strategy is that it should be, but that's China today. That's part of the problem that you're in right now. So, this healing solve of self-d delusion about how great we are and how we've done all these great things to me flies in the face of the first couple of pages, which is a really good um diagnosis. Um and then the unhinged take and the unhinged take really is not about the document itself. It's about okay, we have this document and what is the United States doing? Again, we're recording here on December 10th. What are we doing with Venezuela? like Iraq war 2.0 wasn't enough for us. We really think we're going to deploy an aircraft carrier and some Marines and take out a dictator and what comes after the dictator is going to be better than before. I thought the whole point of this strategy in the first place was look like we're not going to care about people's ideology. We want to work with countries that have our interest in mind and we're going to not work with countries that don't have our interest in mind. The Maduro regime is heinous. It's authoritarian. It's barbaric. They've offered to work with us. They've offered us everything they want. They've offered we're not going to do with China anymore. US oil companies, come on in. We we'll give you a front row seat. We'll even have uh interim elections. Like Madura will step aside. There'll be an interim ruler, the vice president for six to 12 months, and then we'll have elections. Of course, it'll be a sham, but at least you can say that you go to us into elections. [laughter] They've given the United States everything it wants. And we're still deploying the aircraft carriers. We're shooting fishing boats in the Caribbean. And for what? That makes no sense in the context of a national security strategy that says we don't care about ideology. We can't be anything to everywhere at once. and the neocons were wrong. So, you can have the best strategy in the world and if you're ignoring it in your policy practice, who cares? And that's sort of where I'm at. If they're going to continue down this dark road um with, you know, neocon policy dressed up in America first Trumpism, then then the national security strategy is not worth the paper that it's printed on. So, that's my my unhinged take. [laughter] >> That's great. It's a great take. Well, I appreciate you spending some time with us. Uh why don't you tell people where they can find more about you and your firm? Yeah. Uh, bespokegroup.io is the bespoke group's website. I'm on Substack. Um, you can just find Jacob Shapiro Substack. You've also got the Jacob Shapiro podcast. And I do a podcast with Marco Papish called Geopolitical Cousins. So, I'm I'm not hard to find. You You Google Jacob Shapiro. I'm not related to Ben, so don't go down the Ben rabbit hole. Go down the Jacob rabbit hole. It's far superior. >> Thanks a lot. Thanks for coming, Jacob. [music] >> All right. It's our great pleasure to welcome to the show, as I said before, a fan favorite and one of my favorites, director of global macro for Stone X, Vincent Delaward. Vincent, thanks for joining us. >> Oh, it's a pleasure. Excited this. >> Exciting. Okay, so 2025, it's been quite a year. All over the map. What surprised you the most? >> So, I'm going to surprise you two. Uh, I'm gonna go with uh I've been surprised by the success of the Trump administration. >> Okay, fair enough. >> Um, you know, I thought this was going to be a train wreck and uh for the first, you know, two months it looked like [laughter] >> it was it looked like a train wreck. It did look like a train. >> We had we had Doge, we had the liberation or like the shows up in the Rose Garden and the Chad GPT formula and just like oh my god like this is this is going to be fun [laughter] and uh I mean now I must you know I I think even if I I suspect you you do not care much for Trump either. Uh but we we have to be somewhat objective like >> right trade the market you have not the one you want. >> Yeah. So growth did not uh and that that I was both you and I we're both saying okay the the growth scare but it's it's still you know like impressive that you know we like real GDP I mean we don't have stats because we don't but you know my guess is in around you know 3 4% real >> yeah [snorts] >> uh and then he got stuff like this these crazy tar things like it did work uh like he uh with the major exception of China and I think maybe you can come back to that later. But if you look at the Euros, the Canadians, the uh um the the Japanese, the Saudis, the uh I mean uh praise to the man like he has unconventional uh methods, but um eventually it bullying worked uh objectively like he did manage uh >> um and we talked he did manage to to squeeze a little bit from from foreigners uh which which I don't think you know I I thought they would be much more uh because my my view was always okay well we have this for foreign the the US has all the leverage but the foreigners have all the money >> right >> right because of the the capital surplus the rest of the world has with with the the US has with the rest of the world so the for very easy for foreigners to to just uh >> you know shut him down it's like okay I'm going to start sending treasuries game over and start saying the stock market and it there are days it looked like that in April But ultimately that that has come to pass. Borns have not sold. >> Uh Trump got his tariffs and if if you know >> a year ago would have been said that the US would have you know effective tariff rate of about 15%. I don't think people would have thought that the stock market would be where it is today that uh inflation is I mean of course I mean still inflation is stopped but it's hasn't surged as much as one would have thought. uh and um that uh yeah growth would be uh still fairly good. So that with the foreigners and and also with the Fed. I also thought that you know his insane bullying there would be so much more institutional resistance to it. >> Oh yeah. >> Uh but no man they fall in line like it's it's amazing power works like uh it [laughter] really works. We are much um you know humans are much weaker than I gave them credit for. Same thing if you look at the universities for example like >> um >> you know like where is like and I'm I'm looking back at at Trump one you know when we had the the mass protest and the uh >> uh yeah this this I mean there's a a dark angle we can push that but this this this and sometimes I feel that this march towards you know this is what the the duche or the the the great leader wants >> and everybody falls in line. It's it's it's been remarkable. >> Yeah, I I completely agree and I do think it's kind of amazing how much it it has been successful at times. Um you mentioned something about you thought the foreigners have the money. I saw this article recently about how European leaders were tossing around the idea about using that power to influence the US Ukraine. Do you think that there is like a concerted uh effort at times to say let's all sell the bonds? Like do you think that that's on the table and they realize that power? >> I mean I wish uh I I wish uh but uh no I I I'm I'm so beaten down on on on on Europe and uh >> Yeah. So you don't think that they realize their power >> anything done? No, it's I mean theoretically it's there. Uh it's >> but it's yeah they really I mean there really is a leadership problem in in Europe and I mean M is just I mean it's depressing right? I mean it's you see them with M with Stormer. It's just uh um and I don't know if it's incompetence or um or that uh there's you know pressures that um you know make them uh unable to uh but like you saw that even in the national security strategy they you know when when basically we read like a regime change plan for for Europe and there's this kind of like uh almost like wake up like Yeah, we we keep punching you in the face and you're just not not doing anything here. It's uh so yeah, and it goes back to one of the conversation we had about the bond market vigilantes. I think part of it comes from the the apathy and and the lack of confidence of uh of of foreign managers who would rather uh get punched in the face and stay in the US capital market than uh you know take a chance on their own which is >> all right. So that's that's 2025. It surprised you. Trump's uh success surprised you. Uh what does 2026 look like to you? What do you think the market will be surprised about in 2026? >> It's going to be the same thing as every year. Uh it's going to be that the imaginary recession is not going to happen. And I to be honest I I I feel this is one of the dumbest ones. I mean so we had five years in a row, right? I mean pretty much every year you have me in the fall on on the huddle and there is a new thing right. Oh so the first time we talked about it was the uh the postcoid hangover like the race and the fiscal impulse blah blah that was that was crazy. Uh the second one that Fed is hiking too high rates too much and we kind of talked about how the the duration argument and that you know the third the the third year was the regional value regional banking crisis that I will say of all the fake recession that was probably [laughter] the most uh >> the one that had the biggest chance of working. >> Yeah. the most credible and I think the reason it didn't happen is because the Fed kind of ring fenced it very rapidly and uh >> uh but like there could have been uh commercial real estate but that that the the and then the last year was the the the tariffs and the uh uh you know the IMF took down. Now this one to me is the dumbest possible one is oh the the robots and the AI are going to take all the jobs and the rate going to surge. Like what the I mean can anyone point me to like a a you know case of like you know significant rise technologically driven rise in the unemployment rate in any country at any point in history. I mean um no uh so uh I think the market is again wrong. I think the market is wrong somewhat on purpose. I think part of the reason why we see this recessionary ghost uh come back is is because at the end of the day we want rate cuts. You know we have we are an average industry. uh everybody uh everybody wants so we have to constantly come up with a narrative to justify for the Fed to cut uh and I think that's why they given such prominence I never thought about that calls it out but um so yeah the market is still wrong about the state of the economy I don't think the labor market is is is collapsing I don't think there is a a monster behind the door um and on the other hand I think what the market will be surprised is uh the amount of fiscal stimulus uh we will receive uh in 2026. Uh I think there's more fiscal room than people realize. And even if there is no room, you could argue that there is no room, but Trump will take it anyway. Uh I would argue that there is a little bit of room. Like there's probably like couple hundred billion dollars that we can distribute. Uh it's an election year. Uh this election comes with very high stakes uh for Trump. Like personally, he could go to jail if he loses. Uh so the incentive I think is to go all in. Uh and uh that means that we will get uh checks uh in the mail. Uh my guess is uh we need one maybe in the spring so that you feel the effect on the economy and then one just before the election so that the ink on the DJ Trump signature is fresh. Maybe send it with the the the ballot, you know, like [laughter] >> there's your check along with the voting ballot we filled in for you. >> Yeah. And that that could lead to like a almost like a 2021 um um stock market insanity like we we may see like uh meme stocks and and and depending on what people decide to do the checks, right? I mean [snorts] so you could argue that in 2021 it was it went in the stock market because the economy was closed, right? that otherwise would have gone to like strip clubs and and then movie theaters and uh uh so maybe here this time and you know I always go back to my inflationary style uh yeah in things. Uh so my guess is people are maybe going to spend it more instead of bringing crypto because you know so that that kind of repowers the innovationary machine and that gets me to my my main goal for for 2026 which is energy. Um I I think that could be the the market surprise is is energy uh is the top performing sector in 2026. >> All right. For those who want to learn more about great calls like this, where can they reach you? have Vincent. >> Um, Twitter is the best place to go. Um, so my handle is Vincent Vincent [ __ ] Uh, under my pin tweet. Uh, there is a link uh where we offer a free trial to my research for for StoneX. Uh, I recommend that you click on it. You sign up. If there's any issue, uh, you can DM me. Uh I I usually monitor that and I you know I generally like I I don't post frantically because I I want to keep some some mental sanity but I I do spend a lot of time on on on Twitter um and I I try to get as many conversation and then finally if you're a SOX client uh reach out uh to your broker and ask if you can be added uh to my list. >> Thank you very much. Great talking. All right. I'm pleased to have back my friend Eric at YWR. Eric, thanks for joining us. >> Kevin, great to be here again. >> Uh, you're you're looking like you're somewhere different, by the way. You're not in London. Back in the good old USA. >> I'm in the US this week. Yep. >> Yeah. Uh, so are you, by the way, are you are you getting your cold snap there? We're recording this the week of December 10th. Is it cold where you are? >> Ah. Um, I'm down in North Carolina, but I yesterday I was in Boston and it was surprisingly cold. And um, made me kind of think London was pretty good. I mean, it was raining a little bit when I left, but it was, you know, not that cold. And then I got to Boston, I was like, "Woo!" >> All right. Um, so let's let's talk about the markets. We'll start with 2025. What surprised you? >> Yeah, Kevin. I um if you remember end of 2024 Trump was elected and we were all super bullish about US exceptionalism and the dollar and I thought the con the surprise would be that we're actually about to enter a multi-year trend of dollar weakness that you would start you would have dollar weakness emerging markets would all these asset classes which hadn't worked for years would start to work emerging markets commodities um that actually the US economy would be quite strong and the surprise. So the one surprise was going to be dollar weakness, not massive crashing, but just weakness. And the second was going to be that this combination of tariffs, commodities, weak dollar, um that you were probably going to get a you could get a move up in the 10-year yield. >> Okay. >> Um I thought the surprise that by the end of this year, like where we are now, that we could be looking at a 5% 10ear that the Fed we would get nowhere. I mean or that we would not get anywhere near this 2% inflation target. Remember at the beginning of the year we all year we've been kind of you know awaiting these Fed cuts. There's always been this overhang or not support backdrop of a Fed cutting. And I thought if you layer on top the Fed cutting while all this is happening you know weak kind of a weak dollar strong economy commodities working and the Fed cutting that's the risk would be that you get the 10-year move to 5%. And that hasn't happened. And that was um I think that was a surprise for me. The the dollar trend has been okay. It h it's happened a little bit, not much. Commodities are, you know, gold's working, copper starting to work, and oil hasn't. So, it's been a kind of like a squishy version of what I what I was expecting, and and it hasn't the tenure hasn't moved. So, >> the the tenure has confounded a lot of folks. Um there I remember the point where we were worried about term premium and now no one talks about it and there's no worries there at all. Do you have any theories of why that is like why the bonds have been so well behaved and you highlighted that you thought you know inflation we still haven't gotten to the 2% target and yet here we are cutting and four years no one cares about it. So do you have a theory of why the bond market doesn't care about term like why term premier hasn't blown out? I I don't have a sophisticated uh view like you, Kevin. I I was more I was sitting there in in I think it was this summer and I was going I think the market could rip. I think the market could do really well. But I was like, ah, but what about the bonds? That will ruin it if the bond yields go up. And I was like, you know what? I'm worried about bonds. Everybody's working about worried about bond. Everything I've read, everything I've read is about how bonds are going to ruin the market and the 10 years is going to go up and so the S&P is going to have to trade at a PE of 12 and the whole I was like, you know what, [snorts] if if I know all this and everyone else out there knows this and it's not happening, there's something going on that I don't like. It's like the dog that didn't bark, right? So, I said, you know what, screw it. For some reason, which I don't get, >> they're not moving and uh it's for some reason it's going to be a non-issue for the moment. So um you know >> that's my favorite Bruce Cner quote is he says what I'm looking for is a market that is not confirming consensus and to your point and you I think there's a lot of wisdom in your statement. You said like everyone was expecting this and it wasn't happening. So I was like okay so it must be there's something else going on that people don't understand. And I think >> yeah and I don't know what it um >> anyways you don't need to know. you just I think that your your next step and you being correctly bullish this this this whole year I've been listening to you just kind of pound the table being bullish and you're still bullish but so let's go to 2026. What do you think surprises markets next year? >> I know this is so bad but I'm going to actually say that I think that this trend is happening and that we're going to get um the dollar does continue to weaken. EM outperforms and especially bullish on China. the commodity trade has been work, you know, has been filtering through. I mean, remember, gold wasn't even supposed to work, right? Gold wasn't supposed to go up because because of Bitcoin. It was a boomer coin. And then platinum and platium weren't supposed to go up because they were related to the internal combustible engine, which we don't need anymore. And then copper wasn't going to go up because of the Chinese property market. So, all these things like dominoes have gone. Natural gas is working now. And there wasn't supposed that wasn't supposed to go up because we had all this natural gas we don't need. And now there's an AI boom. So the last one standing is oil which everyone has and it has confounded me and it's been a bad call from last year as well. But anyways, so I think the commodity trend I think oil joins the commodity boom and I think we do >> I do think we have to there's going to have to be some reaction to the tenure in um in 2026. So >> you're gonna go and kick that football, right? Like Lucy's got the football and you're going to kick it. >> Yeah, [laughter] I'll go for it. But it's good. I mean, it's still like stuff's working, you know. I think that hangs market will go up 20% this year. I think I think the Chinese stock market will be the big, you know, well, you think it will do it'll be a positive surprise for everyone. No one's talked about it this year. It was up 30%, but lots of things have done well, but I think when it happens again next year, people go, whoa, this is starting to turn into a big trend. >> That is awesome. All right. Uh, and you, as I have said, you have been really, really spot on with your bullishness this whole year. Uh for those who want to learn more about your process, about you know all your terrific calls, where do they uh you know reach out to you? >> I'm on Substack, but the domain is www.ywr.world. It's so YWR is for your weekend reading andworld because we like to talk about the whole world. >> Awesome. Thanks for joining us today, Eric. >> Thanks, Kevin. [music] >> Hey guys, just jumping on here. I hope you've been enjoying the Christmas special so far, but make sure you stick around because we have part two coming up. In part two, we have more guests and we have a blooper reel at the end where I ask all of the guests some very, very uncomfortable questions. Stick around because we'll be releasing this tomorrow, Saturday, December 27th. Make sure you stick around. Part two coming tomorrow.