🎙️ CHRIS MACINTOSH ON STATE OF THE MARKETS

Nearly two hours of big ideas, contrarian insights, and more than a few uncomfortable truths.

Chris recently sat down with Tim Price and Paul Rodriguez on their State of the Markets podcast to unpack today’s chaos — from sovereign debt issues to the madness of passive investing — and why surviving (and thriving) in markets often comes down to doing the exact opposite of what feels comfortable.

Here are a few highlights from the conversation:

• The 4 components of chaos: the end of a monetary/credit cycle, rising domestic strife, friction between global powers (both rising and incumbent), and disruptive technology that explain why the world feels so unsteady right now.
• Why the best investors are often dead (yes, really).
• The “clinically insane” case for countercyclical assets: A deep dive into opportunities like private equity in Argentina and why doing what is logical (but unpopular) often offers the greatest asymmetry.
• Logic vs the crowd: leaning into what looks unsexy or risky, but actually makes sense.
• The boring and unsexy — but vital — role of portfolio allocation: it matters just as much (if not more) than finding the next 10-bagger. Most investors obsess over individual stock picks but ignore how those pieces fit together… and what that means for their overall risk profile.
• Timing is overrated. Getting the trajectory right is what carries you through.
• The forgotten art of doing nothing in investing, and why grinding harder often leads to worse results.
• What would actually make Chris buy Nvidia. One sentence that sums up his entire investment philosophy.
• The groupthink trap: why today’s markets resemble the most ridiculous moments of the COVID era… and how being surrounded by consensus is making large-cap stocks riskier than their small-cap peers.

Catch the full conversation on Youtube here.

⏱️ WHY WE DON’T PLAY THE CLOCK

We got a question on our recent Insider webinar about using options for asymmetric payoffs, and we thought we’d also share our thoughts with you.

We certainly understand the appeal of options. At their best, they feel like a lottery ticket with far better odds: small upfront cost with a huge potential upside.

But the catch is that options also strap a ticking clock to your trades. You can be completely right about the thesis and still lose everything because the market was slow to catch on.

We’d rather own deep-value stocks with the same kind of asymmetry… but without the expiry date. That way, your challenge is merely staying the course. The risk isn’t running out of time — it’s running out of patience.

Take Greek stocks a few years back…

Priced at single-digit P/Es, they looked almost terminal. The reality? They just demanded the one thing investors find hardest: patience. Remember, after the PIIGS crisis, the Greek market went nowhere for years… and most investors simply threw in the towel (and that’s exactly when the payoff potential is often the highest).

Sure, we’ll occasionally flag an options trade in the Insider Newsletter when the setup is so obvious you’d be stupid to ignore it (usually with years of time to play out).

But as a general rule, we’d rather own the asset outright and let market forces do the heavy lifting for us. That’s why we buy equities trading at generational lows… and wait. Eventually, the market tends to wake up (usually when everyone else has stopped paying attention).

Options are for traders racing against time. We prefer letting time work for us.

 AI’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

The following headline about AI sending power prices through the roof caught our eyes…

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that AI isn’t just a tech story. It’s really an energy story… and that’s without even peering down the road, where the numbers start to get even more “interesting.”

OpenAI is planning to boost their electricity use by 125x over the next eight years to a mind‑boggling 250 gigawatts.

To put that into perspective, that would make just one AI company more power-hungry than all of India.

For further context, a typical nuclear power plant produces about 1 gigawatt. So, we’re effectively talking about adding 250 nuclear plants — each requiring at least a decade to bring online (and that’s assuming no greenies drag things out for another decade over the nesting rights of spotted owls).

Nuckin’ futs!

And that’s just OpenAI. Layer in what the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are gobbling up in data‑center capacity, and you don’t exactly need a crystal ball to see where this is going.

Now, all the cocktail‑party chatter is about the shiny side of AI. But the real bottleneck is energy (the AI models churning out deepfake videos of Trump arm‑wrestling Putin don’t run on unicorn farts).

And here’s the irony…

While all the oxygen gets sucked up by shiny AI narratives and trillion‑dollar chipmakers, the energy companies making this boom possible are priced as if the world will never need another watt of energy.

🤠 NAVIGATING WHAT’S NEXT: BIG IDEAS & TEXAS BBQ

Speaking of smack‑in‑the‑face opportunities where AI collides with energy…

In a few weeks, Chris and his partner‑in‑crime Andrew are hosting something a little different with the Mavericks Project.

Not another stuffy conference in a hotel ballroom where rubber chicken gets served between a parade of pitches, but more like a war room for investors who get that the world’s gone sideways — with popular stocks stretched into fantasy land, global sovereign debt ballooning past $338 trillion, and anti‑establishment assets like gold and Bitcoin telling us that maybe, just maybe, things are a bit wobbly out there.

From November 4–7 in Dallas, we’ll go deep into what matters right now: asymmetric opportunities, hard assets, smart strategies, and a room full of sharp people who see through the noise (including Chris and Brad with their no‑nonsense perspectives). And yes, some Texas BBQ to keep things civilized.

This isn’t for the folks clutching their 60/40 portfolios and hoping it’ll all blow over. It’s for those who would rather adapt early than react late — investors ready to move decisively, build wealth, and position for the world as it is, not as they wish it were.

Seats are capped, and time is running out (in more ways than one). If you understand what’s coming and want to stay ahead, join us in Dallas. More details are right here.

🤣 WEEKLY HUMOUR

Second-order effects aren’t just in markets. Change your face, and suddenly even your passport isn’t buying the new narrative.

Have a great weekend!