On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman, Brooks Cutright and their guest Jerry Jordan unpack a market increasingly driven by flows, leverage, momentum and corporate buybacks—and what that means for investors trying to separate underlying fundamentals from price action. They discuss the hidden weakness beneath top-heavy indices, record valuations and margins, and the danger of putting peak multiples on peak earnings.
The group also debates the outlook for energy and commodities, inflation, Treasury intervention and a weaker U.S. dollar before diving into the economics of the AI boom: hyperscaler CapEx, Anthropic and OpenAI, model commoditization, and whether the enormous investment cycle can generate sustainable returns.
Finally, Jerry lays out the contrarian theme he believes the market is still underpricing: hard assets. His central call is that continued dollar weakness and eventual policy support for the bond market could create an environment where gold outperforms the stock market over the next three to five years.

Timecode Markers

00:00 – Introducing Jerry Jordan
05:17 – Why Market Flows Matter More Than Ever
10:01 – “Price Is 99 of 100 Factors”
13:24 – The Hidden Carnage Beneath a Top-Heavy Market
16:05 – When Cutting Equity Exposure Makes Sense
20:02 – The Danger of Peak Multiples on Peak Earnings
21:54 – The Bull Case for Energy & Commodities
25:49 – A Different Way to Think About Inflation
27:49 – Treasury Intervention, the Dollar & Hard Assets
29:44 – Could AI Economics Prick the Equity Bubble?
31:19 – The Bull Case for Anthropic & AI Profitability
35:02 – Is AI Becoming a Utility Business?
37:48 – Why AI Models Could Become Commodities
45:59 – What the Market Is Mispricing
47:03 – Why Gold Could Outperform Stocks
50:30 – What Breaks With a 7% 10-Year Yield?
51:30 – Private Equity, Insurance & Hidden Systemic Risk

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman, Brooks Cutright and David Salem reunite for a wide-ranging market roundtable built around David’s “five follies” framework. With U.S. markets near all-time highs and the domestic setup still broadly bullish, the group debates the risks investors may be underestimating beneath the surface.

Topics include the Iran conflict, energy positioning, resource nationalism, global supply-chain fragility, dollar weakness, Fed credibility and the limits of trying to control inflation with blunt tools. The conversation then shifts to AI, where the team digs into open versus closed models, hyperscaler CapEx, cloud economics, compute capacity, security risks and whether today’s spending boom will earn returns above its rising cost of capital. It’s a thoughtful look at markets, geopolitics and technology through a risk-first lens

00:00 Welcome to Protect the Pile
 01:17 Markets Near Highs & the Bullish U.S. Setup
 02:58 David Salem’s “Five Follies” Framework
 08:46 Energy Positioning & the Iran Conflict
 11:06 Resource Wars, Hormuz & the Red Sea
 17:24 Dollar Weakness, Allies & a Fragmenting World Order
 24:26 The Fed, Inflation & the Limits of Control
 29:07 Treasury Intervention, Japan & the Yen Carry Trade
 36:59 Open vs. Closed AI Models
 38:36 Hyperscaler CapEx, Cloud Economics & Compute Risk
 51:55 Cybersecurity, Cost of Capital & AI Folly

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

On Friday afternoon, after US equity markets closed, the United States government bought Japanese yen for the first time in twenty-eight years.

And every explanation we've seen from the mainstream media looks like fish floundering. 

So Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough called the money doctor. Professor Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins has spent forty years watching governments try to outsmart currency markets, and he does not grade on a curve.

"Not only the analysts, but the financial press just have Japan completely wrong, and they've had it wrong for a long time." — Steve Hanke

In a new (hopefully) regular segment, Keith and Steve discuss the topics that Wall Street and its media are missing - or getting dead wrong.

Visit HedgeyeAM.com for more information

00:00 — Welcome to Protect the Pile

01:01 — Meet Nick Nemeth of Mispriced Assets

02:43 — 20 years in markets at 31: Nick's origin story

06:11 — The open letter to Secretary Bessent

11:43 — GFC flashback: no adults in the room

16:22 — "Loans are bad the day you write them"

20:41 — The AI CapEx problem: who actually builds the data centers?

30:16 — Small caps and the experience-economy trade

39:36 — Bank shots: Vertiv, Quanta, and letting winners run

44:36 — The insurance time bomb: bigger than 2008?

 Twenty years in the markets at just 31, no college degree, and a Substack that climbed to 18,000 followers on the back of one open letter to the Treasury. This week on Protect the Pile, Patrick Kent flies solo with Nick Nemeth of Mispriced Assets — the self-taught generalist sounding the alarm on the leverage buried inside private credit and the life insurance industry. They dig into why he thinks the next crisis could dwarf 2008, why AI CapEx can't keep compounding at 20%, and how "functionally fake" wealth is propping up housing and credit. Along the way: hunting overlooked small caps, the experience-economy trade, and the bank-shot winners most investors missed. A no-nonsense conversation about where the real risk — and the real opportunity — is hiding. 

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Visit HedgeyeAM.com for more information

00:00 Welcome to Protect the Pile with Danielle DiMartino Booth
02:01 The Fed’s “Punched in the Mouth” Moment
04:34 Kevin Warsh, Fed Independence & the Next Market Test
06:12 Commercial Real Estate, Credit Risk & 2026–2027 Maturities
08:03 The Fed’s Ambiguous Mandate
10:21 Is the Fed Fighting the Wrong Inflation War?
14:29 Can Kevin Warsh Actually Change the Fed?
18:15 The New “Too Big to Fail” Problem
23:25 Fixing the Fed’s Broken Data Problem
31:35 Real-Time Inflation Data & the Fed’s Framework
40:18 AI, Accounting Games & the Integrity of Earnings
47:06 The Fed Chair Who Got It Right

On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman and Brooks Cutright break down a summer market that keeps defying the noise. With the S&P 500 up double digits, small caps suddenly outperforming and the Mag 7 barely positive on the year, the group debates whether the market’s leadership is truly broadening or just rotating through crowded trades.

They dig into early earnings season signals from banks, healthcare, semiconductors and AI infrastructure, including the warning sign of stocks failing to rally on strong numbers. The conversation also tackles global dollar liquidity, Korea’s leverage unwind, Meta’s AI strategy, hyperscaler spending, model commoditization and whether AI’s real value will show up in applications rather than raw compute. It’s a timely check-in on what’s working, what’s crowded and what could crack next.

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

***This webcast originally aired live on Hedgeye.com on July 22, 2026***

The age of frictionless globalization is over. Investors are now operating in a world where geopolitical conflict, national security policy, supply-chain control and technology leadership can move markets as much as earnings, rates or inflation. 

For decades, investors benefited from a world shaped by globalization, open supply chains, low-friction trade and the steady expansion of market-cap weighted benchmarks.  

That world is giving way to something more complex. 

Geopolitical conflict, strategic competition, supply-chain vulnerability, technology leadership and national security policy are now direct inputs into the investment process. 

Hedgeye Founder and CEO Keith McCullough will host a new Real Conversation with John O’Connor, Chairman and CEO of J.H. Whitney Investment Management. 

The discussion will focus on how investors should think about geostrategic risk in today’s market environment. Keith and John will examine why yesterday’s benchmark construction may not fully account for today’s risks, how geopolitical exposure can show up inside major public companies and why critical technologies are becoming a central battleground for capital, policy and national security. 

Visit Hedgeye.com for more great investing content.

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman and Brooks Cutright break down a summer market that keeps defying the noise. With the S&P 500 up double digits, small caps suddenly outperforming and the Mag 7 barely positive on the year, the group debates whether the market’s leadership is truly broadening or just rotating through crowded trades. 

They dig into early earnings season signals from banks, healthcare, semiconductors and AI infrastructure, including the warning sign of stocks failing to rally on strong numbers. The conversation also tackles global dollar liquidity, Korea’s leverage unwind, Meta’s AI strategy, hyperscaler spending, model commoditization and whether AI’s real value will show up in applications rather than raw compute. It’s a timely check-in on what’s working, what’s crowded and what could crack next. 

• 00:00 Welcome to Protect the Pile 
• 01:21 Summer Market Level Set: S&P, Mag 7 & Small Caps 
• 03:33 Global Dollar Liquidity Warning Signs 
• 05:26 Early Earnings Season: Banks, Healthcare & Semis 
• 07:02 Big Banks Start Strong 07:29 Healthcare Utilization Risks 
• 13:40 AI’s Potential Impact on Drug Development 
• 17:34 Strong Earnings, Weak Reactions & the Semi Trade 
• 25:13 Korea, Leverage & Margin Call Risk 
• 31:59 Meta, Hyperscalers & the AI Compute Debate 
• 49:42 Netflix, Streaming & Lessons for the AI Buildout 

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, John McNamara and Brooks Cutright sit down with Dan Rasmussen, Founder and Managing Partner of Verdad Advisers, for a sharp, skeptical look at private markets, Japan, small caps and the AI boom. Rasmussen explains why private equity may be less of a magic asset class and more like “levered microcaps” with delayed marks, inflated valuations and growing liquidity risks. The group digs into private credit, zombie funds, roll-ups, venture capital, Japan’s corporate governance reforms and why cheap markets getting better can create opportunity. They also debate whether AI’s biggest winners may not be the mega-cap companies spending the most, but smaller businesses that can use the technology to improve margins. It’s a candid, practitioner-level conversation about risk hiding in plain sight.

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman and David Salem sit down with Meb Faber, Co-Founder and CIO of Cambria Investment Management, for a wide-ranging conversation on America’s 250-year market story, the power of long-term equity ownership and the risks hiding beneath today’s bull market.

Faber discusses his new book, Investing in America, and explains why the U.S. stock market has compounded through wars, depressions, crashes and political dysfunction — but also why valuation, governance and speculative excess still matter.

The group covers AI, SpaceX, market-cap concentration, zero-day options, financial literacy, endowment investing and whether the next generation is being pulled toward capitalism or casino-style speculation. It’s a thoughtful, entertaining look at what history can teach investors trying to protect and grow their pile.

About Meb Faber:

Faber is a co-founder and the Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management. Faber is the manager of Cambria’s ETFs and separate accounts. Mr. Faber is the host of The Meb Faber Show podcast and has authored numerous white papers and leather-bound books. He is a frequent speaker and writer on investment strategies and has been featured in Barron’s, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Mr. Faber graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Engineering Science and Biology.

Faber's new book Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market is available to order now.

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Visit HedgeyeAM.com for more info

00:00 - Welcome to Protect the Pile
01:18 - Market Setup: S&P, Rates, Dollar and Credit Spreads
02:02 - Leyla Kunimoto’s Background and Accredited Investor Insights
04:38 - RPK’s Top 5 Market Notes
08:26 - Redemption Gates and “Semi-Liquid” Funds
12:01 - David Salem on the Yale Model vs. Democratized Alternatives
20:17 - The Problem With Retail Access to Private Equity
26:16 - Evergreen Funds, Secondaries and Liquidity Mismatch
32:24 - Valuation Markups and Day-One Gains
39:46 - Why IRR Can Mislead Investors
47:19 - How Private Market Stress Could Play Out
49:31 - Private Credit vs. Private Equity: Where Is the Bigger Risk

This week on Protect the Pile, HAM Portfolio Managers R. Patrick Kent, David Salem and Sam Rahman dig into the growing risks and complexities inside private markets with special guest Leyla Kunimoto, founder and chief editor of Accredited Investor Insights.

The discussion examines how private equity and private credit products have evolved from institutional, long-lockup vehicles into “semi-liquid” evergreen funds increasingly aimed at retail investors. The group breaks down redemption caps, liquidity mismatches, secondary transactions, valuation markups, IRR reporting, and why “democratized access” may come with tradeoffs investors do not fully see.

They also debate whether private credit or private equity poses the bigger risk, how fund structures can obscure price discovery, and what happens when the music stops in a $15 trillion private markets ecosystem.

About Leyla Kunimoto:

Leyla Kunimoto is the founder and chief editor of Accredited Investor Insights, an independent newsletter focused on private markets from the limited partner perspective. With a background in finance and more than two decades of experience investing in public markets, she began researching private markets after expanding into real estate, private credit, and private equity in 2020.

Frustrated by the lack of independent, investor-focused resources on alternative investments, Leyla launched Accredited Investor Insights in 2024 to examine the structures, valuations, mechanics, and fine print that often receive too little scrutiny. Her work covers private equity, private credit, and real estate, with a focus on how returns are calculated, reported, and understood by end investors.

Accredited Investor Insights is read by major asset managers, ratings agencies, and financial publications. Leyla has been quoted in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and other leading outlets.

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

In this episode of Protect the Pile, the RPK, Sam & Brooks discuss the market’s hidden flow machine. Brooks breaks down the June quarterly rebalance, explaining how Marvell, Flextronics, SpaceX, and major index changes forced large-scale buying, selling, and completion-index redistribution beneath the surface. The panel connects those mechanics to small-cap outperformance, mega-cap pressure, sector distortion, and the danger of fading a flow-driven trade too early. They also frame the backdrop of dollar strength, Fed balance-sheet risk, easing oil prices, financials, private credit, semis, software, Accenture’s AI-driven selloff, and Micron earnings.

Get an investing edge on the enormous amount of money flowing into options every day, what they’re signaling, and the structural and behavioral trends driving markets higher or lower. The Market Situation Report™ includes access to a daily newsletter and weekly webcast featuring analysis of the Tier 1 Alpha team's proprietary models. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.

Turn off that tired “Old Wall” TV and tune into The Macro Show, Hedgeye’s live daily broadcast featuring key market and economic insights, investing implications and interactive viewer Q&A. See for yourself why more and more investors in the U.S. and abroad have made this “must-see” market TV. We are live online every weekday morning at 9:00am ET. CLICK HERE to check out our product page.