Markets Happy Hour Podcast - July 8, 2026 with special guest Jens Backes in person in Barcelona

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - July 8, 2026 with special guest Jens Backes in person in Barcelona

**NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE AND DOES NOT CONTAIN INVESTMENT RECOMMENDATIONS" This week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast is a little bit different . . while we still bring you a market overview together with an outstanding guest, this time we are exploring how good some of the AI models are at picking stocks, building portfolios and deciphering equity market narratives. Guest Content Disclosure: This presentation was prepared by Jens Backes, an independent guest speaker, and reflects Jens Backes' opinions as of the presentation date. Moneta has not independently verified the information presented. For educational discussion purposes only. Not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Jens Backes is a former McKinsey consultant with an expertise in telecoms, based in Barcelona, where we recorded this episode. Since October of last year he has challenged 3 models plus his own Alphabot JB to pick 10 stocks to generate the best total return over 5 years. The results are intriguing. From Open AI's portfolio which has gone all in on every aspect of the AI value chain, to Claude which prefers to own tolls and not the road (whatever that means) each model has gone in its own unique direction and not all have beaten the index. We discuss what we can learn from these models in terms of persistence of market narratives and the unexpected winners that can come from such a highly concentrated portfolio. All examples are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to represent all investment decisions or results achieved for client accounts. Client results will vary based on account objectives, restrictions, timing, fees, and market conditions.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast July 2, 2026: Tight Lips; Stopped Ships

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we are joined by special guest Roy Kuo, CIO of Galilei Investment Office, and we dive in to a sweeping discussion across global markets. Our conversation starts with a mixed inflation number, whereby consumer prices are driving the sustained inflationary level more than the energy prices, although as one of our charts shows, gasoline prices remain far stickier and less responsive to geopolitical news around the Strait of Hormuz. While jobs numbers continue to be a little sideways, the most recent employment number reflecting a small fall off in employment numbers, but when taken alongside the previous months positive numbers the effect is expected to be marginal. Mortgage rates remain high, which will put pressure on the lower end consumer, although Roy did not expect interest rates to place a stay on economic activity. Moving to equity markets we have just closed the strongest quarters for the Nasdaq and the S&P since 2020, while in contrast Microsoft has seen its worst month since 2020, and gold has seen its worst quarter in 13 years. We turn to the conversation around the frontier models and their relative role compared to the suppliers of compute as well as the proprietary layers, and reference a somewhat memorable recent CNBC appearance of Alex Karp of Palantir who has "said the quiet part out loud" when it comes to the tense relationship between the providers of the frontier models and the companies using them and supplying their data. We finish with another reflection on Alan Greenspan, as Roy's views on his legacy have changed over the years, as he notes. He believes that the damaging effects of the moral hazard created by the Greenspan put are continuing to be felt and that it is leading to a far more risk seeking type of market behaviour.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - June 25, 2028 - Breaking the Mold

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we celebrate the life and times of Alan Greenspan, who died this week at the age of 100. His rich and multi-layered career in which he worked in multiple Presidential administrations and had a close to 19 year tenure as the 18th Chair of the Federal Reserve. The rich phenomena and quotes attributed to him deserve some analysis because of what they teach us about the fabric of markets and the tendency (or not) for patterns to repeat. The first thing to note is the collection of quotes attributed to him, which are in the slides for your viewing pleasure. He clearly relished and practiced the art of deliberate ambiguity in central bank commentary, and coined some pivotal terms, such as “irrational exuberance”. He presided over a relatively stable era, between recessions, in which the triple mandate of low unemployment, low inflation and a low 10 year yield were largely delivered, although there was a challenging “conundrum” towards the end of his tenure when the 10 year yield remained stable despite a steady bout of consecutive rate hikes (17 at one stage). He also gave rise to the Greenspan put, which may have reinforced the concept of “moral hazard” in markets – after 1998 traders believed that Greenspan would step in with monetary easing to steady the stock market. This has been hard to shake and as we saw subsequently in 2008 and during Covid institutions around the world remain ready willing and able to step in most times. The other Greenspan phenomenon was the calling of “irrational exuberance” in markets (pre LTCM in 1997) many years before markets finally cracked in 2000. This is a salutary reminder that markets can be irrational for far longer than one might think. Moving to today’s price action, the oil price has fallen to its pre-war levels, taking some of the sting out of inflation concerns and leading to a fall in the Euro as the pressure on European inflation fell. This echoes a similarly low print in the UK recently, where core inflation had actually fallen into line with the US. The expected rises in Apple device prices came to pass, reflecting a tightened supply of components and upwards pressure on prices. Bonds remained strangely sanguine, both in the UK where a change where the Prime Minister resigned on Monday and the heir apparent looked to be more to the left. The demand for SpaceX bonds was buoyant, particularly as a juicy yield had materialized and the 10 year yield fell in the US as the dollar jumped. There remains divergence in the jobs data alongside other economic indicators although the stock market has continued to sour on some of the Mag 7 stocks – now being referred to as the “Lag Seven). Another interesting data point this week has been the Korean stock market, which I refer to as potentially the “Korea in the Coalmine” as the heightened tech sensitivity in that market led to a steep sell-off by close to 10% earlier in the week. Other notable developments of the week were gold falling to an 8 month low (again reflecting the reversal of the debasement trade) and the fall in Bitcoin to below $60,000.

Markets Happy Hour Podcast - June 18, 2026 - To The Moon

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we are joined by two-time guest Christian Abuide, who first appeared on this podcast in April 4, 2026. We start with a comparison of today's market conditions to April 4, 2026, which is quite interesting, given how starkly the narrative has changed with respect to the economic outlook, the outlook for rates and the concerns around geopolitics. This makes us ponder whether we do get distracted by what Kevin Warsh has described as the "echoes of history" expecting historical patterns to repeat, instead of today's nuanced circumstances to play out. We discuss the inflation pattern around the world, in which in the UK core has unexpectedly slipped below that of the US. The energy and food variable may well now start to be less pressing as the Strait of Hormuz opens, but this has not deterred the ECB from its recent rate hike. Meanwhile "poker face" Kevin Warsh gave nothing away at his first press conference and this has stacked the odds of a rate hike before the end of the year. The technical factors in markets continue to affect the performance of SpaceX and other shares, while gold similarly is in decline while the dollar remains supported.

Salon with Prof Alison Taylor of NYU: Corporate Power and Responsibility -

Alison Taylor is a clinical professor in the Business and Society Program at NYU Stern School of Business. She teaches ethics, sustainability, and leadership courses to undergraduate, MBA and EMBA students. She holds senior advisor roles at KKR and Unilever, is an Ethical Systems collaborator and a Senior Advisor at Enlighten. She is also LinkedIn Top Voice, a member of the FT Moral Money advisory board and the author of the successful “Higher Ground” substack. We gathered together a salon of industry participants in London to debate some of the recent topics that Alison has broached, including in particular: The Shift in workplace culture, whereby Alison argues that "Your whole self was never the point". She makes the point that leaders now more often focus on the workflow and replacement of the workflow with new production functions. This raise the question: What is the economy for? And the erosion of trust? If we do not trust people, will we trust AI? We ask if we are in a Zero Trust economy? Or a depleted trust economy? The integration of AI into our workplaces and customer experiences is having an effect on how we behave and who we trust. We ask what are the broader/long-term implications of a zero-trust economy. Moving to the question of whether good governance is still in effect - we ask whether too much complexity – e.g. AI models, quantum computing, is eroding corporate governance. Our salon saw considerable discussion around the pace of change and adoption of AI, what is being lost or threatened in this process, as well as the challenges presented to employees.