Markets Happy Hour Podcast with Aoifinn Devitt

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - November 11, 2025 - with Special Guest Rich Nuzum

In today's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we are delighted to host Rich Nuzum, Head of OCIO at Franklin Templeton, for our usual canter through the macro drivers of investor portfolios - inflation, interest rates, equity markets, geopolitics and other asset classes. We look at inflation firstly - and ask about expectations, which, remarkably, are diverging along political lines in the US. It seems that inflation is very much in the eye of the beholder - an aspect noted by Rich who suggests that averages "often lie" and are not an accurate depiction of client by client inflation.We move then to central banks and their challenging task of navigating in the fog without even less data than usual, and we move then to geopolitics where Rich discusses the oil price and demand and supply issues as well as the importance that investors think through the ramifications that current geopolitical forces have on their portfolios.We move to US equity markets and the AI underpinning, the effect of the shutdown and why non-US markets seem to be signalling something else today.We end with a detailed discussion of credit markets and Rich gives an alternative take on some of the weakness that seems to have recently been noticed in credit markets.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast November 7, 2025 - The Discovery Continues

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast (our second recorded this week - there will be a special episode featuring Paula Campbell Roberts from KKR released shortly), we focus on recent rumbles in markets around the integrity of the AI story, the increased concern about power costs and how our "discovery phase" around Bitcoin is continuing, with more and more clues added weekly.We start with the usual inflation analysis and the strain that power costs are likely to have for the lower income consumer. Fixed income volatility continues to be subdued, even among government bonds which suggests an interesting sense of calm among a cohort (bond investors) which continues even in the government bond arena.Equity markets continue to be rattled by the scope of spending on AI infrastructure as well as some high profile shorting in the space, and it is worth recalling three hallmarks of bubbles - as suggested by a Financial Times journalist - Leverage, Liquidity and Lunacy. We trace each of these with reference to the current market context.Finally we examine recent behavior in Bitcoin and see how it has decoupled from gold and ask what this tells us about its characteristics as an asset class.

Markets Happy Hour - Live in Chicago - October 30, 2025

In today's live recording of the Markets Happy Hour Podcast we gathered a group of allocators, hedge fund, private credit and real asset specialists to debate the changing shape of inflation and whether certain assets continued to represent paths to inflation resilience.We also dug deeper into the private credit landscape and asked whether the recent poor performance in diversified financials firms was merited, and what might be behind it? Stay tuned for some exceptional detailed insight into the trajectory of direct lending and its fee structure. We finish with an analysis of the AI segment, examine how hedge funds are exploiting or taking advantage of bubble talk and stretched valuations. This moves then to a discussion on market concentration and whether all of these changing factors will affect fundamental tenets of asset allocation.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast October 30, 2025 -with Michael Blayney of Hesta - The Sting in the Tail

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we sit down with Michael Blayney, who is General Manager, Dynamic Asset Allocation at Hesta, an Australian Superannuation fund with $100 bn AUD in assets under management. The sting in the tail is a reference to AI and the "sting" being the job losses that have moved from murmurs to full-blown company announcements, with more to come. As always we kick off with our inflation discussion, where it does indeed appear that 3% is now the new normal in the US, where expectations and core measures are all higher, and Australia too is experiencing a negative surprise - it's number jumped to 3.2% for the year in the latest print, up from 2.1% in the last quarter, in that case due to electricity rebates expiring in some states. Whereas in Australia that might herald a pause in interest rates, in the US a 25 bps cut came as expected, but it was, as Michael suggests, a "hawkish cut" given the abundance of caution in Chairman Powell's statement about "slowing down", "driving in the fog" etc. Spreads are still tight across the board in fixed income, suggesting that risk is either being underpriced or that risks are low, and this euphoria has indeed carried over from the fixed income area to the equity market, with a few exceptions, one of which is discussed below.Equity markets continue to grind higher, with the S&P in reaching distance of a 7000 target and Nvidia just crossing the $5 trillion market cap barrier, which is greater than the market cap of the UK public market and Singapore combined. One exception to the ebullient treatment is the diversified financials segment - which includes many alternative asset managers. The shares of these companies have struggled year to date and we ask whether investors are signaling their concern about some of the fundamentals in private credit as well as structural headwinds in private equity given a low level of distributions and some issues with fund raising. We look outside the US to China and its strong pace of growth as well as the dependency that both China and the US have on the outcome trade negotiations. Finally we examine the areas for R&D for an allocator at present - which may include bitcoin as a new "element" and gold as an traditional element that is continuing to act differently. While these are portals of discovery for allocators, they often do not represent mainstay or even token investments, and we discuss the kind of insights that these emerging asset classes can provide about investor sentiment and market risk.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - October 23, 2025 - Data Lakes and Data Deserts

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we are joined by Luba Nikulina, Head of Global Strategy for IFM Investors. She is responsible for leading the development of IFM’s global strategy with a focus on private markets solutions that meet the needs of Australian and global pension funds and their members. Luba has always thought in an orthogonal way, finding links between different factors in the economy and trying to apply a fresh perspective to common problems.This podcast does not disappoint in this respect - we first focus on the complexity of the inflation problem - the role of food and oil prices, as well as expectations more broadly. We speak then about how investors are approaching this dilemma and preparing their portfolios for inflation resilience.Moving to interest rates Luba refers to the high level of government debts and the destabilizing backdrop that this presents, and then we discuss the oft stated cockroach analogy this week - with Luba noting that the ethos and high standing of the commentators noting this issue (Jamie Dimon and the Governor of the Bank of England) only adds to its integrity as a potential real issue. The "data desert" in the title referred to the dearth of data in the private area, which makes knowing whether a problem is in fact endemic very difficult. We don't forget the tariff turmoil either - noting that it has again dragged on markets this week, and in another spot of orthogonal thinking talk about the way that the arteries of global trade are clogged and what this might mean for risk factors. The challenge of estimating risk, particularly when it comes to geopolitics should not be overlooked either, we note, and overall relying on diversified portfolios with careful monitoring remains sound counsel for institutional investors.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - October 17, 2025 Prizes and Prices

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we dig through some "anecdata" to see what is driving global markets through white knuckle moments and back again. We are forced to rely on "anecdata" due to the ongoing shortage of data due to the US government shutdown, so are missing official inflation figures and jobs data. Anecdotally, however, CEOs (Walmart in particular) are reporting that consumers remain resilient (notable given that the Walmart consumers will not be the highest earners) and we can also see firm data that oil prices are hovering close to 5 year lows, which will drive lower prices at the pump. While an easing in Middle East hostilities was in the news this week this may more be a sign of growing US inventories that are keeping a lid on prices. There remains actual data around the world outside the US and UK inflation data showed a stickiness at a challenging 3.8% level, although there some positive soundings out of the UK as the Chancellor committed to cut spending and raise taxes, and market seemed to indicate their approval by buying long dated UK gilts, which saw their largest drop in yields since April.US stock markets have experienced a rocky week, from the "white knuckle moment" of the surprise tariff news regarding China last weekend, to the emergence of worries around regional banks - in particular Zions Bank and Western Alliance which spooked investors with a sense of "deja vu" from early 2023, when other regional banks created worries. The entire financial sector suffered in this case, as the news came close to the news of the credit issues around First Brands and Tricolor, which Jamie Dimon described as the "cockroach" that could well signify other sources of trouble around. We conclude the podcast with some interesting - lateral thinking around the actual effect of AI on GDP and jobs, some positive suggestion re. the lowest quintile of wage earners and analyze what the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2025 can teach us about growth and innovation. Finally we look at the unstoppable march of gold (up 65% ytd) as well as the correlation that Bitcoin is showing to China/US trade relations, which is an interesting relationship to unpack with time.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - October 9, 2025 - Alarms or False Alarms?

In this week’s Markets Happy Hour Podcast we discuss alarm bells - where we see them, whether we are finding them where none exist and what we can do about it, if anything. We are joined by former CIO of Royal Mail, Ian McKnight. A few weeks ago, in a podcast with John Normand of Australian Super, we asked if the US economy was actually stronger than we thought, in that US GDP growth figures looked to be revised upwards and the consumer as well as the stock market proved to be stubbornly resilient. Of course, the stock market does not equal the economy - we are reminded of that over and over again, but when the stock markets rises to fresh highs (over 29 in the S&P alone in 2025 year to date) and Main Street increasingly participates, the two do start to march in step (at least at times).This week we discuss how optimism around the US economy is presenting strangely - on the one hand inflation expectations are subdued - as expressed by US breakevens and swap rates, which are hovering below 3%, so well out of the danger zone and on the other hand the strong equity markets are being supported by strong corporate cash flow and corporate margins - which presuppose pricing power and ongoing inflation.Given Ian's location in the UK we do a bit of deep dive into the current malaise in the UK around low growth, high debt to GDP and high inflation and look at some of the dependencies that lead to that. We look at potential cracks in the bond market, ask whether the rise in demand of gold is actually an alarm signal, or just a sign of all of the return seeking capital out there. Finally, given the breaking news today on the Israel/Hamas peace deal we ask what this may mean for geopolitics and the market impact beside the massive human relief.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - LIVE from San Francisco October 3, 2025

In this podcast we feature snippets from our live conversation in San Francisco where we were joined by guests from across the venture capital, programming and fund management spectrum. Over coffee and donuts we debated:Whether we feel a disconnect between the economic backdrop and the current equity market strength?Whether there is a bubble in AI?What inflation feels like on the ground?It was a lively discussion with a range of cross-generational insights around affordability, the job market and AI adoption. I hope you enjoy it.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast October 2, 2025: Memes and Milestones

In today’s Markets Happy Hour podcast we focus on Memes and Milestones, in a week that has been filled with news of a government shutdown in the US, landmark deals and valuations and market highs. The US government shutdown now is reaching its 3rd day, and has been punctuated with odd bursts of meme-ing involving Sombreros and Mariachi bands as partisan shots across the bough continue. This barely called a ripple in the equity markets though, which continued to grind higher. This is in line with historical equity market resilience in the case of shutdowns, and as the chart below shows markets have generally been resilient and agnostic during these periods. With the third quarter now in the books, the S&P has touched its 29th high of the year, while the DOW has closed at a record high for the 9th time. With the rising tide of resilience lifting all boats, even the often-neglected Small Cap index – Russell 2000, has participated in the positive momentum. As noted last week, the technical factors have been stacking up as supportive of the current market strength – notable the excess of $7 trillion in Money Market Funds and the sliding return on these funds as rates come down.Bond markets barely took a breath from the September rate cut, and immediately started to discount in the next one, aided by a continuing slow down in jobs numbers – as confirmed by private sector ADP data that saw the US lose 32,000 jobs in September. That sent bond prices higher – again nonplussed by the shutdown shenanigans or the ongoing attempts to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, which have now reached the supreme court. The bond market is clearly looking forward to what we deemed last week the “twilight” of Chairman Powell’s tenure and excited about the boost seems to be incoming. Large numbers continue to dominate headlines, as markets ruminate on the investment – noted last week – by Nvidia in OpenAI ($100 bn), while OpenAI itself wrapped up a $6.5 bn share sale mainly to employees that valued it at $500 bn. Berkshire Hathaway made a $10 bn purchase of OxyChem, the first under the stewardship of the CEO elect Greg Abel, while Electronic Arts was taken private in the largest ever US buyout deal ($50 bn) by a consortium of buyers including Silver Lake and the Saudi Arabian fund PIF as well as Affinity Partners controlled by Jared Kushner. The spend on compute that seemingly insatiable demands for AI require are driving the obvious question as to whether the current pace of AI spending can be sustained, as well as concern around the interconnectedness of the various large players. Meanwhile other geopolitical rumblings occur – the US extension of a helpline to beleaguered Argentina was once more lacking in detail, which caused further erosion of asset values there, while taking stock of tariffs revealed that the OECD expected tariffs to hit the US “hard” in 2026, while the monthly duties collected neared $30 bn, a stark rise from recent history.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - September 25, 2025: Bottlenecks, Bailouts and Breakthroughs

In today’s Markets Happy Hour Podcast, we dissect a busy week of news flow including a show down at the UN, growing tensions on the geopolitical front, growing indicators of economic strength and the continuation of the AI big-spending era. We are delighted to be joined by John Normand - Head of Investment Strategy for Australian Super. John's long history in investment strategy and asset allocation gives him a unique way of constructing a narrative with a smooth story arc. We start our discussion by asking whether the economy in the US is actually better than we think - citing the upward revision in GDP to 3.8% for the second quarter, the fact that the weak employment numbers may have been distorted by an immigration clampdown leading to a worker shortage, and other signs that tariff revenue will boost the US coffers with little impact on inflation. These indicators - if true - would point to a slower rate lowering cycle than previously estimated. We move then to discuss equity market breadth, and how it is improving, which John relates to this point in the growth cycle. We contrast this with some of the signs from fixed income markets, which seem to suggest that we are late cycle (tight spreads). We end with a discussion of the portfolio implications of the current rotations, and casts our minds forward to an asset class mix with a backdrop of lower rates. This would be positive for infrastructure and other asset classes such as private equity. John discusses his view that private equity and public equity valuations will start to converge in 1-2 years, aided by lower rates on the one hand and a dampening of the current AI euphoria driving public equity markets on the other. This is a fascinating and timely discussion which contains much food for thought.