THIS WEEK · 10 PODCASTS · WEEK OF AUGUST 17, 2026
Ten conversations this week, and they converge on one argument: the cost of capital is being reset, and very little in the standard portfolio is positioned for it. Warren Pies opens with the tactical picture — oil positioning, a Fed caught between supply-side inflation and a softening labor market, and a downgrade of his own equity overweight. Robin Brooks supplies the arithmetic underneath it, with the United States running a 7 percent deficit in an expansion and Japan's two arms of government working against each other. Michael Howell explains the mechanism, arguing the liquidity cycle peaked last autumn and the real economy is now draining money out of financial assets. Jason Trennert and Chris Verrone bring it back to the tape, where concentration is extreme, internals have quietly improved, and nobody has yet found the interest rate that pulls money out of stocks. Rupert Mitchell shows what defensive positioning actually looks like, and Chris Whalen walks through the first real private credit unwind alongside the input-cost inflation no CPI print is capturing. From there the edition turns prescriptive. George Noble argues the 60/40 portfolio is precisely backwards for an inflationary regime, Rick Rule lays out the $250 billion copper capital stack and why streaming captures it, and Frank Giustra and Ian Harris put a project-level face on the supply cliff. Bob Robotti closes with the discipline that makes any of it work: own businesses, not indices. Each summary is designed to be immediately actionable — whether you are allocating capital, running a business, or simply trying to understand the forces reshaping the world around you.
THIS WEEK'S LINEUP
EP 1 Oil Positioning, a Hawkish Pause, and Owning Tech Alongside Energy — Warren Pies — 314 Research Founder — Watch Full Video
EP 2 Seven Percent Deficits and the Return of the Debasement Trade — Robin Brooks — Brookings Institution Senior Fellow — Watch Full Video
EP 3 The Liquidity Cycle Has Turned and China Is Driving Gold — Michael Howell — CrossBorder Capital CEO — Watch Full Video
EP 4 Concentration, the Rate That Breaks Equities, and an Alpha Market — Jason Trennert & Chris Verrone — Strategas Founder & Market Strategist — Watch Full Video
EP 5 Front-End Fragility, the China Collar, and a Tough Second Half — Rupert Mitchell — Blind Squirrel Macro Founder — Watch Full Video
EP 6 Private Credit's First Big Unwind and the Insurance Problem — Chris Whalen — Whalen Global Advisors Chairman — Watch Full Video
EP 7 Peak Hawkishness, a Broken 60/40, and Why Energy Beats Tech — George Noble — Noble Capital Advisors Managing Partner — Watch Full Video
EP 8 The $250 Billion Copper Capital Stack and the Streaming Boom — Rick Rule — Rule Investment Media CEO — Watch Full Video
EP 9 The Copper Supply Cliff and Colombia's Opening — Frank Giustra & Ian Harris — Fiore Group CEO & Copper Giant CEO — Watch Full Video
EP 10 Grassroots Macro, the Physical AI Trade, and the Stock Picker's Opening — Bob Robotti — Robotti & Company Founder & CIO — Watch Full Video
Full summaries with actionable insights and investment focus for each podcast follow on the pages below.
EP 1 - Oil Positioning, a Hawkish Pause, and Owning Tech Alongside Energy
Warren Pies — 314 Research Founder
Warren Pies joins the Macro Dirt Podcast for a conversation running from oil positioning through the Fed's reaction function to sector allocation. His frame throughout is process over headlines: when the news flow gets complicated, reduce it to the indicator that actually moves price. He downgraded his own equity overweight two days before recording, and explains why that is caution rather than bearishness.
Actionable Bullet Points
Positioning, not headlines, is the oil signal: Pies says managed money short positions hit the third highest reading in fifteen years before reversing during the early July bottom, and the unwind is still running (4:03). Trade the positioning extreme, not the truce count.
Inventories are gone, so the floor is higher: roughly 15 percent of global inventories have been erased across SPRs, commercial, onshore and floating storage, which is why he calls a return to $70 Brent a fairy tale and puts the new equilibrium near $80 (4:19). He pairs equity risk with a commodity overweight because oil is the natural hedge (4:56).
A hold is right, but the hike odds are mispriced: Pies argues you do not hike into supply-induced inflation while cyclical labor rolls over, citing four straight monthly declines in residential construction payrolls (10:34) — yet he thinks 38 percent September hike odds are too low given committee dynamics (13:08).
He cut his own equity overweight to neutral: not a bearish call, just recognition of macro risk, offset by strong August buyback activity providing an automatic bid (24:14). The bull case is semis and hyperscalers finally rallying together rather than trading off against each other.
Semis flashed a capitulation signal in July: constituent-level and forward implied volatility on the SOX both exceeded 75 percent, which has only happened at the COVID lows and the April 2025 Liberation Day lows (30:00). Pies reads it as a bottom, not a breakdown.
Investment Focus
Pies is the week's cleanest read on positioning as a timing tool. The investment template: (1) treat hedge fund and CTA positioning as the primary oil indicator and expect an upside bias while shorts unwind, with Brent equilibrium near $80; (2) hold an energy overweight as a structural hedge, not a trade, because stock-bond correlation no longer protects the portfolio; (3) own tech into a joint semis-and-hyperscaler rally, with the July volatility spike as the marker that sentiment already washed out; (4) add healthcare as the first non-tech beneficiary of AI, on the view that the labs need public wins and drug development is where they get them (26:39); (5) watch gold's ability to hold above 4350 — Pies notes the earlier 40 percent premium to the 200-day was matched only at the 1979-80 top, and wants sustained trade above the old high before re-engaging (32:48).
EP 2 - Seven Percent Deficits and the Return of the Debasement Trade
Robin Brooks — Brookings Institution Senior Fellow
Robin Brooks, in conversation with George Noble, makes the fiscal case sitting underneath every other discussion this week. His argument is that a 7 percent deficit run during an expansion is not a policy choice but an unmoored one, that debt blowups are arriving with rising frequency, and that Japan is the clearest example of a government fighting itself. The prescription is a basket, not a single hedge.
Actionable Bullet Points
The debasement trade looks ready to resume: Brooks traces last year's precious metals rally to the Jackson Hole pivot and argues the same ingredients are back — political pressure on the Fed, loss of independence risk, and fiscal policy out of control (0:46).
Markets are capitulating on hikes: pricing has gone from two hikes for the rest of the year to nine basis points for September and roughly 23 cumulatively through December, which he still calls bonkers — leaving room to price more out, a positive for equities (3:31).
The steepening curve is the tell: long yields up and short yields down is historically a signal that markets are worried about fiscal policy and Fed credibility, and Brooks reads it as fundamentally bullish for the debasement trade (4:02).
A 7 percent deficit with no crisis is the core problem: no COVID, no recession, roughly 2 percent growth and near-record-low unemployment, and the US is still issuing at 7 percent of GDP — a pattern consistent across both administrations (7:37). Debt blowups are arriving with rising frequency, and the post-Liberation Day pattern of falling dollar plus rising yields was the classic emerging-market signature (11:55).
Japan is the Liz Truss crisis on steroids: debt to GDP over 200 percent, the Bank of Japan buying bonds daily to cap yields while the Ministry of Finance intervenes to strengthen the yen — two arms of government working against each other (17:16). His simple regression puts the 30-year JGB at 7 rather than 4 without BoJ support, and he thinks that understates it (13:30).
Investment Focus
Brooks supplies the arithmetic the rest of the edition rests on. The investment template: (1) the 10-year near 4.7 against a 10-year-forward rate just under 6 says the market is already pricing an unsustainable trajectory, resolved either by inflation or by risk premium (20:32); (2) build a basket rather than a single hedge — low-debt sovereigns alongside precious metals, since not everyone has let debt run (22:30); (3) Switzerland, Sweden and Scandinavia at roughly 30 percent debt to GDP, and Germany near 65, are the places to hide outside metals (22:01); (4) Japan's gross debt over 200 percent against net debt of 130 means the assets exist to solve this, but vested interests block the sale, so expect continued yen weakness (17:48); (5) on oil, the market proved more robust than the apocalypse forecasts as flows reshuffled, but with the war unresolved and the blockade working, Brooks calls the 80s complacent (28:50).
EP 3 - The Liquidity Cycle Has Turned and China Is Driving Gold
Michael Howell — CrossBorder Capital CEO, "Capital Wars" Author
Michael Howell explains why a strong economy is bad news for asset prices. His liquidity cycle peaked around the turn of last year, and the money now funding nominal GDP growth is being drained out of financial markets. He also pushes back on the consensus reading of gold, arguing the driver is Chinese central bank liquidity rather than Western debasement.
Actionable Bullet Points
The cycle peaked around the turn of last year: Howell dates the global liquidity peak to end Q3 or early Q4, with a lead of roughly 15 months on economies and 6 to 9 months on asset markets (2:29). Critically, this is a drop in momentum rather than in the level — and markets price off the margin (3:01).
This is the speculation regime, not the bull regime: choppier tape, higher volatility, lower-quality returns, with fund managers posting down years even as indices rise (3:25). The playbook that follows is weak bonds, pressured crypto and strong commodities (4:23).
A strong real economy is the problem, not the cure: money is being pulled out of financial assets to fund nominal GDP growth, with the Atlanta Fed nowcast near 6 percent real (11:28). Over a two-to-five year horizon the multiple matters more than the earnings, and rising cost of capital compresses it (7:17).
Gold is a China story, not a debasement story: Howell explicitly dispels the debasement framing for the recent move and points to People's Bank liquidity injections as the driver (19:51). Chinese retail cannot buy crypto, so gold is the sanctioned hedge, and Shanghai has overtaken COMEX and London as the marginal price setter (22:36).
Treasury QE is the hidden mechanism: funding the deficit at the front end means banks and credit providers absorb it, which is monetization in another guise (29:13). Meanwhile Treasury buybacks are being scaled up specifically to cap bond volatility, because government collateral underpins the whole credit system (37:38).
Investment Focus
Howell offers the most mechanical account of why returns get worse from here. The investment template: (1) expect a range-bound Wall Street this year — limited upside, real downside risk — and stay selective rather than indexed (39:13); (2) avoid bonds, since nominal GDP running 7 to 8 percent is incompatible with a 4.7 percent 10-year and the beach ball only stays underwater so long (28:04); (3) buy gold and silver on weakness as monetary inflation hedges, with yuan gold having bottomed near 27,000 as the PBOC resumed injections (25:25); (4) watch commodity markets as the early warning on how long the boom sustains, because commodities dip before the economy peaks (40:03); (5) watch the silver-gold ratio — expansion signals momentum returning to the precious metals complex (41:03).
EP 4 - Concentration, the Rate That Breaks Equities, and an Alpha Market
Jason Trennert & Chris Verrone — Strategas Founder; Strategas Market Strategist
Jason Trennert and Chris Verrone join Steve Eisman on The Real Eisman Playbook to take stock of a tumultuous year. Trennert's concern is concentration; Verrone's counterpoint is that market internals improved even while the leading stocks fell 30 to 50 percent. Both land on the same open question: what rate of interest finally pulls money out of equities, and why it sits higher than almost anyone expects.
Actionable Bullet Points
Concentration is the thing that makes Trennert nervous: the top ten holdings are about 39 percent of the index, tech alone about 36 percent, and over 50 percent once tech-adjacent names are added (2:53). Eisman's framing of the leveraged blowup is the same trade long and short at four times leverage (4:13).
Internals improved while the leaders corrected: Verrone notes 75 percent of the S&P above its 200-day now versus roughly 50 percent at the June 2 high, even as semis and hyperscalers fell 30 to 50 percent (5:57). His conclusion: no interest rate has yet been found that pulls money out of equities (6:19).
The breaking rate is higher than 4.5 percent: Verrone points to Japan in 1989 with JGBs going four to eight as the Nikkei melted up, and Nasdaq in 1999 with US 10s going four to seven (6:51). The 10-year range over the 400 days since inauguration is the narrowest ever recorded at 85 basis points (42:44).
The new Fed regime is the old Fed regime: no policy statements before 1994 and no post-meeting press conferences until 2019, and Trennert agrees with removing what he calls too big a free pass for markets used to being spoon-fed (9:50).
Hyperscaler cash flow is the number to watch: Meta at $785 million for the quarter, Microsoft the best at roughly $19 billion but down about 25 percent year over year, Amazon negative over twelve months (18:37). Meta grew revenue 28 percent against 55 percent expense growth, with depreciation stepping from $4 billion to $6 billion and heading higher (28:34).
Investment Focus
Strategas gives the most grounded read on what the tape is actually doing. The investment template: (1) 2026 has been about the E rather than the P/E, with the multiple down two to three turns — an alpha market where stock picking and active management matter more than passive (11:29); (2) treat the concentration risk as real but do not short tech into it, since demand still exceeds supply even if shareholder returns are uncertain; (3) note the roughly 70 percent of hyperscaler AI revenue coming from two private labs — the single largest dependency in the ecosystem (24:26); (4) banks remain leadership globally into a steepening curve and a deregulation cycle, with double-B spreads at new cycle lows (32:13); (5) prefer Japan to Europe on the same energy sensitivity, since Europe's new highs are narrow and its autos and luxury sit in multi-year bear markets, while healthcare leads the defensives and staples are only now bottoming (37:13).
