贝森特回购与沃什利率现实：市场解读分歧

It's a great question. We haven't heard much from him so far. That really is the issue. We have had mixed messaging. We've had a lot of airing of dissent, which has not exactly calm markets. We've also had Scott Besson, really, I would suggest even undermining some of what's been going on at the fed with his intervention when the fed has has not done anything with respect to rates. So investors are having a hard time reading it.

We knew that they did doubt whether the fed would be able to get inflation under control. That was possibly why the bond market sold off. Right now there is a real adjustment phase going on, and I do think there will be parsing of every word. And that's perhaps not a situation he's particularly used to. You say that a big theme for you right now is the resilience of Europe. Maybe getting lost in the sauce here. Where are you seeing opportunity in Europe?

Well, let's actually look at the numbers. European growth has been positive despite many of the headwinds coming its way and much of the negative momentum. So it has been marginally positive, not the same as the U.S.. We're also seeing Germany having a had strong growth, a bit of a surprise there. Strong startup activity in Germany. Yes, it's industrial base is under threat, but there always are green shoots. We've seen this in the UK too.

Some important initiatives around technology there. And equally the focus on AI sovereignty for by European governments really wants to know that they can source their AI locally. That will not be dependent on geopolitical frictions. A subject to a sudden change. So I'd say all of that is pointing to quite a positive second leg of this AI wave that will be focused on Europe. And when we look at this second leg, what does it look like, perhaps that there will be more productivity gains, particularly in the small and mid-cap arena of Europe?

And so I'd say don't write Europe off yet. That's our message. So the weak dollar here brings into question this debasement trade, where maybe people are selling the US dollar and maybe buying some hard assets like, I don't know, gold, maybe even bitcoin. But I'm looking at bitcoin up near 80,000. Um, how do you guys think about that debasement trade. Well, the basement trade kind of comes and goes at the forefront of the minds of investors.

Clearly, the bond market has this on its mind. The fact that we're seeing gold level off around here and also Bitcoin's surge, there is a concern that just there will be a trade off between supporting the bond market and supporting the dollar. We saw that in Japan they were not able to support the yen. They chose to support their bond market. And now when it looks like there is the support of the bond market clearly at the forefront of U.S. government policy, the dollar will be sacrificed.

That doesn't affect the local investor too much, except when they're on that trip to Europe. But it definitely will have an important effect on international investors and how they invest in the U.S., and how that those U.S. assets make sense to them. That's going to be a big factor. Massive holding of U.S. assets by non-U.S. investors. And overall, it is going to import inflation into the U.S., too. So that's going to be that delicate balance between supporting the bond market and keeping inflation at bay.

What about, um, new, uh, companies coming to market, and we're going to be hit with a flood of really big IPOs this fall. Uh, anthropic possibly. Uh, OpenAI. We just heard today from Sheehan going public with an IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange, going to value the company. This is that fast fashion company valuing them about $27 billion. What's your takeaway as we sort of gear up for what's really going to be a very busy IPO season?

Well, it really illustrates how timing is everything when it comes to IPO. We're seeing massive changes in expectations around growth and growth. We've seen this just in terms of this, the volume of venture capital activity and even the projections we're seeing coming out of something like an anthropic. We've had astronomical revenue figures being touted there. So timing is everything. If they managed to get at anthropic and while the momentum is strong and before some of the doubts creep in, that will be great for them.

When it comes to OpenAI, if their timing is wrong or it hits just at a moment when doubts have started to really circulate, then they will miss that window. Sina is a great example of missing a window. They still need to go public, but the valuations at a fraction of what it was before. And when we're looking at some of that IPO pipeline. It is really varied. We're seeing brands Duncan brands, um areas quite as diverse as that.

So definitely that suggests a breath in the market, a desire for some fresh activity, perhaps a jaded ness with some of the concentration that we're seeing overall very positive. But timing is everything, and the market may not stay this resilient for that long. Yeah. So, um, I think you bring up a really good point. Point about timing is being first really important for anthropic because it looks like they're going to beat OpenAI to the market.

Is that going to really matter as much. I don't know that it matters in the long run. Certainly if I successfully OpenAI successfully comes to market, there will be there are certainly room for two frontier model companies and that they've got massive share there. Growing costs seems to be growing on that side of OpenAI a little bit faster than it is in anthropic, so I don't know that it really matters in the scheme of things, but the actual timing of the actual IPO.

Then the momentum around that. We saw with SpaceX things were priced to perfection. We had pretty much that open space in terms of that IPO market at the time. Things went well. There was oversubscription, a lot of hype. Ultimately some settling of that. But it timing will matter. But I don't think it'll matter in the long run. I do think there is enough demand to cope with this. We still have the threat of the open models that could also place some some strain on on the growth, but overall growth is still positive at the top line.

So but they will need to manage their timing extremely well. Ethan, we've had just extraordinary earnings for the first half of your earnings in the second quarter. Like we rarely, rarely ever see here setting up tough comps, if nothing else for for 2027. How does that factor into your outlook? It's great that that old adage of investing past performance is no guarantee of future returns. But yes, the anchor always stays in place in terms of what we've just seen.

Certainly earnings we have to remember are retrospective. They are reflecting a strong consumer that may have been on borrowed time Um, certainly they were perhaps pushing the limits of what was affordable and, and companies that felt they could had the chance to, with their inventories, maybe push through tariff price increases, maybe absorb some of that pain. So we've seen these strong earnings. I don't know that we will expect to see the same trajectory going forward.

Much of the headlines have been lifted by the just the massive growth at the hyperscalers and around the. I demand that CapEx has really been lifting that, and it will be ultimately strong for growth and strong for inflation, I would suggest. But as far as the earnings go from here, a lot will depend on whether there is a pull back on some of that spending, whether we see also a consumer that we see with consumer sentiment is starting to fracture.

So I would suggest that's not extrapolate from the earnings we've just seen. But we do expect them to be positive. But also remember companies are masters of communication today. They are telegraphing so well um, so that expectations are tied to perfection. And that is again something that, um, that we're going to see. It's an act. It's a dance with the investor expectations.