Adam Taggart

Risk Of A 10% Market Correction Now Uncomfortably High | Lance Roberts

• Top takeaway Argues that if stablecoins succeed as the administration hopes, they become a large new buyer of Treasuries that lowers rates without expanding the money supply, deepens global reliance on the dollar, and cannot be sustainably blocked by most governments.
• Frames the Treasury's move to buy long-dated debt as 'YCC light' — an attempt to control yields — and wonders whether Fed Chair Kevin Warsh sees it as undercutting his push for a pure market signal just months into his tenure.
• Says the US consumer has been under pressure for a while and is now starting to crack, with shoppers beginning to change purchasing behavior, citing retailers like Walmart.
• Endorses buying housing into a high-rate market, noting Austin-area prices have corrected sharply (over 30% by his estimate) and desperate sellers are negotiating, while AI money keeps parts of Northern California expensive.

Portfolio manager Lance Roberts sees roughly 3% upside to Goldman's 8,000 S&P target versus about 10% downside to the 200-day average. The Treasury's new long-bond purchases are an asset swap, not QE — capping rates without expanding the money supply. An $8.5 trillion hedge-fund basis trade now holds more Treasuries than China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia combined; unwinding it could force unlimited QE. Stablecoins may become major structural Treasury buyers — Tether already holds about $135 billion — while cutting remittance costs and extending dollar dominance. Silver, gold, and Bitcoin broke out but sit extremely overbought — Roberts advises trimming to targets and hedging with cheap puts into the midterms.

The AI Trade Is Underpricing China Risk

The AI trade may be underpricing China's ability to deliver capable models at a fraction of Western compute costs. Western AI capex is hitting compute, chip, and power bottlenecks that Chinese rivals don't face in the same way. If LLMs converge to similar capabilities, AI competition will pivot from raw intelligence to price. Companies adopting cheaper foreign AI must weigh who gains long-term access to proprietary corporate data. A huge share of US market cap rests on AI capex earning attractive returns, making sector disappointment systemic.

Lacy Hunt & Brent Johnson: The US Has Entered A New Inflationary Era That Will Prove Bad For Bonds

• Top takeaway Frames the discussion around the bombshell claim that the US has entered a prolonged inflationary era that will be bad for bonds, and argues that in such an environment hard assets and precious metals historically hold their value better than paper assets
• Argues that Treasury Secretary Bessent's intervention to buy long-dated paper meddles with the price signal the Fed needs from the long end and undercuts Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's stated preference for letting markets set rates
• Critiques the Federal Reserve's stealth balance sheet expansion since mid-December, contending that growth in bank loans and deposits is amplifying inflationary pressure rather than supporting productive real-economy activity
• Warns that the current deficit and capital-demand dynamics are happening in the good times and that a recession would force stabilizers and stimulus on top, worsening capital scarcity and the inflation outlook

Lacy Hunt has pivoted from his deflation view: capital scarcity and de-globalization now make inflation the bigger long-term risk for US bonds. Net national saving has collapsed to near zero while AI, semiconductors, grid expansion, and space exploration are driving huge capital demand — pushing real rates higher. All three Fisher equation components (real rate, expected inflation, risk premium) are heading up, with rising Treasury interest expense likely to lift the risk premium. Higher rates disproportionately burden lower-income households (Hunt argues), deepening the K-shaped economy while the top two deciles capture the gains. Hunt expects hard assets and precious metals to perform well in this regime; the dollar may weaken near-term but bounce in episodes.

The Dangerous Part Of The AI Boom Is Here

• Top takeaway Adam Taggart's central thesis is that AI is real and we are still very early, but investors must separate moated hyperscalers (Microsoft, Google, Amazon) from exposed neo-clouds (CoreWeave) — long the former, wary of the latter.
• He argues AI skepticism is overdone because the income is verifiable — hyperscaler operating revenues are real, visible, and trackable today.
• He frames AI as analogous to the early internet, expecting both dot-com-style blowups (Meta as pets.com, Google as Global Crossing, Microsoft as Lucent) and 10x survivors; betting against the top hyperscalers means betting against the best capital allocators in history.
• He expects the AI infrastructure build-out phase to end within roughly the next year and a half, after which data centers shift from cost centers to revenue generators — a timeline investors should plan around.
• His actionable advice: own companies with moats and existing revenue generation, and watch operating revenues as the leading indicator that will tell you if the AI thesis has broken.

Hyperscalers like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon can weather an AI investment slowdown thanks to diversified businesses, while neoclouds like CoreWeave cannot. CoreWeave illustrates concentrated-customer risk: its business depends heavily on one major client, leaving little fallback if AI demand softens or that client pulls back. The AI infrastructure build-out may run its course within roughly 18 months, after which data centers must generate sustainable revenue rather than rely on capex. Lance frames AI as analogous to the dot-com era: the technology may transform the economy while many AI-dependent stocks still fail. Investors are urged to focus on companies with durable moats, real revenues, and enough existing cash generation to survive when the AI investment cycle turns.

Is The Market Breaking Out Or Breaking Bad? | New Harbor Financial

• Top takeaway Adam Taggart states that the single trend he has the most confidence in over the coming years and decades is that fiat currency will continue to lose purchasing power, potentially at an accelerating rate.
• Taggart also notes that rising bond yields do not appear to be driven primarily by inflation expectations, citing analyses showing forward inflation expectations have not meaningfully risen in months.

New Harbor partners read the broad market as breaking out: the S&P 500 has pushed past 7,000 and equal-weight indices like RSP print new highs. They interpret today's expanded Treasury buyback as stealth intervention, not QE — a yield-curve twist aimed at capping long-end yields. Gold above $4,500 and silver near $66 reflect what they call a debasement regime, with policy tools steadily eroding the dollar's purchasing power. The GDX gold miners ETF just broke out of a multi-month triangle after bullish percents washed out under 10% — a historically rare setup. TLT and other long-duration Treasuries likely have a near-term floor as buybacks ease yields, though the longer-term debt trajectory remains murky.

The Fed Is Trapped — And Gold Knows It #GLD #gold

• Top takeaway Taggart's central thesis is that the Fed has 'painted itself into a corner' between raising rates and easing, leaving gold with 'nowhere to go but higher.'
• He flags the unusual divergence of US rates rising while the dollar falls as evidence of fading global trust in US Treasuries.
• He characterizes the Fed's roughly $40B/month liquidity additions and quiet coordination with Japan to cap rates as 'yield curve control without doing yield curve control.'
• He argues true inflation is 'way higher than 4%' and that oil-induced price inflation will take roughly six months to flow through, pressuring gold further.
• He calls the current gold/silver breakout a 'real breakout' — not a dead cat bounce — backed by record sustained buying from big players unlike 2011.

Andy argues the Fed is trapped between rate hikes exposing financial vulnerabilities and rate suppression driving inflation, with gold breaking out on this thesis. The unusual combination of rising Treasury yields, rising gold, and a falling dollar signals declining global confidence in US debt, not economic strength. Strategic buyers continue accumulating gold at record pace, distinguishing this breakout from the 2011 peak and supporting a structural demand thesis. With oil-induced inflation likely to surface over six months, sophisticated traders are front-running the Fed's inability to let rates climb much further. Roughly $40 billion a month in liquidity provision and quiet yield-curve control point to the end of genuine balance-sheet normalization.

The Stock Market Has An OpenAI & Anthropic Problem

• Top takeaway Host Adam Taggart interviews Ed Zitron and asks the closing question about whether markets could fall 50% or more if the AI compute thesis breaks

Ed Zitron argues Microsoft, Google, Amazon revenue growth increasingly depends on OpenAI and Anthropic spending $200B+ on compute. Analyst estimates cited point to 76% of Microsoft's revenue growth through 2028 tied to OpenAI compute spend. UBS estimates 48% of Google Cloud revenue by 2027 could come from OpenAI and Anthropic. Slowed AI capex, Ed warns, cascades from hyperscalers through Nvidia to Taiwanese ODMs and exposed Japanese banks. Ed argues AI need not fail technologically — overbuilt capacity of roughly 10x could trigger a 50% market drawdown.

The Treasury May Have Just Saved The Market From A 20% Correction

• Top takeaway The host reacts with surprise ('my socks were knocked off') to the Q3 2026 quarterly refunding announcement, which projects $739B in federal borrowing, $409B in bills, and $45B in Treasury buybacks.
• Adam Taggart argues the dovish net financing shift — from roughly 20% to 61% of total issuance in Q3 and 58% of $628B in Q4 — may be Treasury Secretary Bessent's way to bail out financial markets while giving Kevin Warsh scope to tighten monetary policy.

Treasury's bill-heavy Q3 funding plan reduces long-end yield pressure and could keep the bond market stable even as the Fed tightens. The setup may let Bessent backstop financial conditions while giving Warsh room to lift rates without triggering a 1998-style correction. If the offset holds, the guest expects risk assets to keep trending higher into year-end instead of repeating the summer '98 dip-and-rally pattern.

The Market Is Mispricing The Inevitable | Peter Tchir

• Top takeaway As host, Taggart structures the conversation around Peter Tchir's three top themes — the Fed under Kevin Warsh, the Iran war and oil outlook, and the 'ProSec' production-for-security thesis — while drawing on prior guests such as Michael Every to frame a mercantilist, de-globalizing backdrop
• He steers toward actionable investing ideas, prompting Tchir to name specific vehicles (TUA, LQD, TLT, SOXL, EPOL, GPZ) and to revisit themes from earlier Thoughtful Money interviews, including TC Energy's CEO

ProSec (production for security) assets look mispriced — most asset managers still haven't accepted the end of globalization, and governments are using their wallets more directly to support domestic production. Tchir expects Kevin Warsh's Fed to look past BLS data and skip hikes; today's inflation sources (Iran war, AI data-center buildout) won't respond to rates. 10-year US yields look range-bound at 4.5–5%; Middle East buyers are fading, and high-grade corporates like LQD compete with Treasuries for safe-haven capital. Processing and refining drive commodity returns in the ProSec era — Australia just announced its first new refinery in 60 years; the US hasn't built one in 40. Cheap Chinese compute from distilled LLMs threatens OpenAI and Anthropic's economics, putting the over-extended AI capex trade at risk.

Recent Market Breakout Running Out Of Steam? | Lance Roberts

• Top takeaway Adam argues AI investment is real but ROI is still TBD — he is not ready to call it a hoax like guest Ed Zittrain, yet warns near-term returns may fall short of expectations.
• Adam argues the current market backdrop looks healthy on breadth and retail buying, but he expects a 3-5% pullback (a 1-2% retest of breakout support) rather than the 10-15% drawdown some bears expect.
• Adam argues bearish 'fake revenue' narratives impair investor returns; he pushes listeners to follow flows and fundamentals rather than fear-driven stories.
• Adam argues capitalism works because it is a 'profit and loss economy' that produces loss signals — removing those signals, as in socialism, destroys incentives.
• Adam argues personal prosperity takes courage and risk-taking beyond break-even saving, illustrated by his parenting lesson about rewarding good behavior.

Despite a strong breadth surge and retail buying comeback, Roberts raised cash because a 2-month sideways consolidation is not yet a confirmed correction. Roberts still expects a 3-5% pullback before new highs, but compressed volatility ahead of the midterms makes risk-reward unfavorable. The portfolio rebalance trimmed Microsoft, Google, and Amazon back to target weight after earnings rallies, and swapped BlackRock for Goldman Sachs. Roberts sees the next Fed move as a cut, not a hike, citing cooling wage growth and weak retail sales, disagreeing with colleague Darius. Open question for AI bulls: trillion-dollar capex may pay off, with hyperscaler free cash flow projected to recover meaningfully in 2028 and 2029.

Is Japan Really Dumping U.S. Treasuries? Here’s The REAL Reason Why Yields Keep Rising

• Top takeaway As host, Taggart frames the discussion around whether the factors pushing Treasury yields higher — supply crowding out and Japan's actions — are transitory
• He steers the conversation toward technical questions about how Japan is actually intervening in the yen market

Japan can defend the yen by pledging Treasuries as repo collateral to obtain dollars, avoiding direct Treasury selling pressure. Rising yields likely reflect a bond supply-demand imbalance from heavy government debt issuance plus hyperscaler AI-driven corporate borrowing. Long-term yields are pushed by both inflation expectations and a term premium; current levels look stretched versus the inflation anchor. Real yields near 3% on 30-year TIPS offer an attractive return alternative when CAPE-implied equity returns sit flat to negative. Once oil volatility settles, yields may revert toward their fundamental inflation-expectations anchor rather than stay elevated.

Will You Maximize Your Social Security Income? Or Choose Poorly? | Julia Lembcke

• Top takeaway The host argues that delaying Social Security to age 67 — or 70 for the higher earner — delivers an 8-10% contractual annual bump from the program that is hard to match in the market.
• The host argues that when money is tight, family or friends should consider subsidizing a parent through the bridge years until 67 so the parent can claim a larger check and take pressure off the rest of the family.
• The host argues that for high-net-worth retirees, delaying Social Security preserves bracket space for Roth conversions and gain harvesting, so the right claiming age depends on the broader tax plan.
• The host pushes back on the 'wait until 70' reflex, arguing that both spouses rarely need to delay that long — typically only the higher earner benefits from waiting to 70.

Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system funded by 12.4% payroll taxes — your money doesn't sit in a personal account. Delaying benefits from 62 to 70 boosts payouts by 8% per year, but most claimants still file early out of impatience. The higher-earning spouse should generally delay longest, because survivors only collect the larger of two checks. Trust fund reserves may be depleted by 2033 — without congressional action, benefits could be cut roughly 23%. Up to 85% of Social Security becomes taxable once 'provisional income' (AGI plus half your benefits) crosses IRS thresholds.

The AI Earnings Illusion: Is AI’s Explosive Growth Built On ‘Fake Revenue’?

• Top takeaway As host, he frames the central question of whether AI's explosive earnings growth is built on 'fake revenue' from mark-to-market accounting.

Mark-to-market gains on private AI stakes may be inflating reported earnings for hyperscalers like Amazon and Alphabet. Amazon's roughly $30 billion quarterly earnings included about $16 billion in paper gains from its Anthropic position. Massive AI capex will spread across future depreciation, potentially making hyperscaler valuations look far more expensive. Hyperscaler free cash flow is turning negative as debt issuance rises and borrowing costs climb on overinvestment concerns. S&P 500 first-quarter earnings growth near 20% may mask underlying growth closer to 8% after mark-to-market effects.

Are Gold & Silver Breaking Out? | Andy Schectman

• Top takeaway Adam argues this gold and silver breakout is unusual because it is happening concurrently with higher oil prices and after a blow-off top, which he says points to more structural support than past rallies.
• He frames the move around a falling wedge technical pattern breaking to the upside and uses it as the starting point to ask whether the year-long deflationary trend has actually reversed.
• Adam lays out the scenario that an AI bubble unwind could redirect twice-burned capital toward precious metals as investors look for safer stores of value.
• He pushes the discussion toward practical retail concerns, including premiums, dollar cost averaging, and storage options through Brinks via Andy's firm.

Gold broke out of a falling wedge capping its slide; Andy pairs that technical trigger with sustained central-bank and sovereign accumulation as the structural floor. Physical premiums collapsed under January's margin-hike 'perfect storm' and are now normalizing; Andy expects them to march higher as the next price leg up drives rush buying. Andy argues the Fed's quiet yield-curve control and persistent treasury issuance are eroding reserve-currency trust — exactly the macro backdrop that pulls capital into gold. For retail buyers, Andy recommends dollar-cost-averaging physical purchases, using dealers who hedge, and storing in fully insured segregated vaults rather than safe-deposit boxes. Price discovery is migrating east to Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong with same-day yuan and dollar settlement, complicating the West's long-running paper-gold suppression thesis.

Is A.I. A Massive Lie? | Ed Zitron

• Top takeaway Adam Taggart frames the AI trade as the central driver of the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100, noting AI-linked stocks now account for roughly 45% of the S&P and nearly 70% of the NASDAQ 100.
• He argues that if the AI capex narrative fails, the resulting correction could reach 50% or more, given current price-to-sales ratios in the teens for many of the names involved.
• Taggart draws a parallel to the COVID-era loss of trust in authority, suggesting the post-AI bust fallout could include a deeper credibility crisis for financial media and analysts.
• He positions the interview as responding to heavy audience demand, signaling that retail investors are increasingly anxious about an AI bubble.

Ed Zitron frames the AI boom as a speculative bubble — roughly 70%+ of hyperscaler AI revenue is tied to OpenAI and Anthropic's circular compute spending. He argues LLMs are fundamentally probabilistic and can't reliably catch their own errors, so trillion-dollar productivity gains won't materialize. A reckoning could cut AI-exposed names 50%+ with cascading damage to venture capital, private credit, and Japanese lenders exposed to OpenAI bets. The dot-com analogy misleads: AI data centers are unfinished assets needing continuous capital, not already-paid 1990s-style fiber. Job-displacement claims are overstated; AI mostly erodes work that was already being automated, like transcription and contract roles.

Fed To Drop Market By 20%? | Darius Dale

• Top takeaway Taggart frames the discussion as whether the bond market will force the Kevin Warsh Fed to switch from balance sheet shrinkage to the print playbook, ahead of the September and October FOMC meetings.
• He points out that, as of the day of recording (2026-08-05), the market hit yet another all-time high despite Darius Dale's macro storm clouds, signaling the market has not yet gotten the memo.
• Taggart cites polling showing 68% of women think AI is advancing too fast and 48% of 18-29 year-olds expect a negative societal impact, framing AI backlash as a potential catalyst for younger voters in upcoming elections.
• He argues that rotation out of the once-leading MAG7 into healthcare, regional banks, energy, and real estate is a healthy sign of broadening market participation rather than a narrowing blow-off top.
• Taggart urges viewers to use the late-summer window before Labor Day to evaluate financial goals, including Roth conversions and IRMAA-aware tax planning before year-end.

Darius Dale sees a 15-20% 1998-style stock correction as likely, with the Fed tightening this fall to appease the bond market before easing in 2027. He argues the Fed should use balance-sheet tightening over rate hikes, targeting the long end without crashing rate-sensitive sectors of the economy. Hyperscaler borrowing and slowing global savings growth now compete for capital, pushing the market-implied neutral rate higher by 50 to 75 bps. The Paradigm C run-it-hot regime appears to be peaking in 2026, though 42 Macro's macro weather model still signals a net-positive outlook for risk assets. New Harbor partners flag August as the smart window for Roth conversion planning before IRMAA Medicare surcharges hit later in the year.

False Breakout? Or Is A Wave Of New Market Highs Ahead? | Michael Lebowitz

• Top takeaway Reads the July payrolls report as a '5 sigma' surprise disappointment of roughly -23k jobs and argues this makes a Fed hike less likely, noting September meeting hike odds have already fallen from 80-85% to about 40%.
• Highlights a sharp precious-metals rally — silver up more than 4% on at least two mornings and gold up about $170 an ounce on one recent morning — as evidence that the historical real-rate sensitivity is back in the driver's seat for gold.
• Calls the S&P's move above its Bollinger Bands a possible 'false breakout' similar to the late-June downside fakeout, with the 200-day moving average on SPY around 710 sitting roughly 7-8% below spot as last-ditch support.
• Uses the collapse of the heavily-leveraged 'Situational Awareness Fund' to argue 'leverage kills' and that 'the market knows more than you,' urging investors to stick to fundamentals when price action looks hard to explain.

Real rates are reasserting themselves as the dominant driver of gold prices after a stretch when the historical link weakened, says Lebowitz. He expects the S&P to retest the breakout before either resuming the uptrend or sliding back into the trading range. Lebowitz argues bond yields will drift lower once oil volatility fades, with real yields near 3% anchoring the floor. The collapse of the levered Situational Awareness fund illustrates how quickly a momentum-driven, leveraged book can blow up.

Is The Bond Market About To Pop Every Bubble (Equities, Credit, & Real Estate)?

• Top takeaway Taggart opens by asking whether a deflationary depression is likely in the next six months to two years, framing the timeline as a function of fiscal and monetary policy choices.

Michael Pento argues shrinking the Fed's balance sheet — not rate hikes — is what bursts today's credit, equity, and real estate bubbles. US equities sit at 230% of GDP, S&P 500 price-to-sales 70% above average, and NYSE margin debt at $1.5T — all record highs. For the first time in history, record-sized bubbles in equities, credit, and real estate are forming concurrently — and they're interconnected. Pento argues the bond market, not the Fed, may be the one to pop the bubble — yields already at their highest since 2007. Pento says to size positions around what policymakers actually do, not long-term forecasts — he varies gold exposure from zero to 20%.

The Fed Is Facing An Impossible Problem | Judy Shelton & Thomas Hoenig

• Top takeaway He argues the Warsh Fed faces mounting pressures outside its direct control — oil-driven inflation, foreign Treasury holders like Japan and China selling US debt, and AI-related credit crowding out government bonds — and frames 2026 as the year in which the Fed's limits are being exposed.
• He presses both guests on whether a fiat system can ever be self-disciplined without a hard monetary governor such as gold or a balanced-budget rule, given Congress's incentives to keep spending.
• He highlights the widening wealth gap under years of asset inflation and warns that continued Fed-enabled asset-price gains risk pushing more Americans toward socialist policy responses.
• He dubs Judy's gold-backed long-dated Treasury proposal "Shelton bonds" and pushes for a public audit of US gold reserves as a confidence-building step for the dollar.

Kevin Warsh inherits a Fed pressed to monetize $2T/year in new debt while China and Japan trim Treasury holdings, pushing yields higher. Shelton and Hoenig sketch three debt-trap escape routes: monetize, accept Volcker-style pain, or revive post-WWII fiscal restraint — each politically brutal. The Shelton bond idea — gold-convertible Treasuries — remains shelved; Shelton pitches it as a way to inject market discipline without rate hikes. Hoenig argues the Fed's interest-on-reserves regime is misaligned: rate hikes reward banks while strangling small businesses that need to expand supply. Both guests warn Fed-enabled asset inflation has widened the wealth gap, fueling socialism's appeal — framing inflation control as social policy.

Stephanie Pomboy: Rising Bond Yields Are EVERYONE'S Problem

• Top takeaway Adam argues a better path exists — letting malinvestment clear and bad debts default through a couple of rough years — though he doubts policymakers will choose it.
• He relays Fred Hickey's adjusted-earnings math that puts hyperscaler P/E ratios nearer 65 than the headline teens-to-low-20s once one-time Anthropic gains and the coming depreciation wave are counted.
• He frames July 2026 as a warning tape: the worst July for the NASDAQ in 25 years, the biggest July bond-yield spike since 2005, and the largest July oil-price spike in over 30 years.
• He pushes back on pure pessimism, telling viewers the informed active investor has agency and can still do well by positioning for these trends.

Higher-for-longer rates look structural: record Treasury supply, resurgent corporate borrowing, and Bank of Japan selling all pressure long-end yields regardless of the Fed. Pomboy argues hyperscaler earnings flatter to deceive: mark-to-market gains (paper profits on unsold stakes) and coming depreciation inflate reported profits. Buybacks have stopped and companies are net stock issuers, while private credit demand now rivals federal borrowing — a capital supply test for markets. Pomboy sees a ~$4 trillion pension shortfall and likely bailouts that would expand the Fed balance sheet and flood the system with new dollars. She expects commodities, energy, and copper to outperform financial assets as deglobalization and inflation siphon liquidity toward hard assets with fixed supply.