In this episode of Last Call, Jack Forehand and Matt Zeigler look past the headlines to unpack what really moved markets this month. From the viral AI end of times scenario that sparked responses from Citadel, Fed Governor Waller, and Jeremy Siegel, to the growing stress in private credit and the rotation out of US mega cap stocks, this is a different kind of market wrap. Instead of recapping what the S and P 500 did, we explore what investors are actually doing with their money, how narratives shape positioning, and what the data says about whether this time is different.

Featuring Brent Kochuba of SpotGamma, Ben Hunt of Epsilon Theory, Rupert Mitchell of Blind Squirrel Macro, and Meb Faber of The Idea Farm, this episode dives into AI, software stocks, options flows, credit cycles, global equity markets, gold, and the power of base rates in investing.

Main topics covered:

• The viral AI bear case scenario and why a fictional narrative moved real markets

• How investors should think in probabilities, bull cases, base cases, and bear cases

• What options pricing and put call ratios reveal about real fear versus social media fear

• The state of software stocks and whether extreme bearishness may have marked a short term bottom

• Private credit stress, rising default risks, and why every credit cycle ends when lenders say no more

• An on the ground anecdote from San Francisco illustrating how refinancing risk is playing out in real time

• The rotation from US mega caps into international stocks and why fiscal spending matters for equity markets

• Gold and gold miners as potential beneficiaries of global liquidity and currency shifts

• Why base rates matter when evaluating explosive AI revenue forecasts

• Historical lessons from the Nifty Fifty, Japan’s bubble, the dot com era, and other periods when investors believed this time is different

• Portfolio construction tools including diversification, rebalancing, and trend following in bubble environments

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and the AI end of times narrative
02:16 Why investors are responding to fiction and what we can learn from it
08:00 Brent Kochuba on options flows and software stock positioning
13:00 Has extreme bearishness in software marked a bottom
19:55 Ben Hunt on private credit and the boom bust cycle
27:00 A San Francisco refinancing story and when lenders say no
33:08 Rupert Mitchell on global markets, fiscal spending, and gold
44:22 Meb Faber on base rates, bubbles, and this time is different
01:00:16 How to track AI’s real world impact in corporate data

Join Jack Forehand and Matt Zeigler for the premiere episode of Last Call, a new monthly market wrap show where we go beyond the headlines to deliver actionable investment insights — and have a little fun along the way.

Instead of focusing on index performance or short-term moves, we step back and connect the dots between macro instability, narrative shifts, options market signals, private credit risk, AI capital spending, and the changing nature of the Magnificent Seven.

Featuring conversations with Brent Kochuba from SpotGamma, Ben Hunt from Perscient, Kai Wu from Sparkline Capital, and clips from our recent interviews with Liz Ann Sonders and Aswath Damodaran, the episode blends market structure, behavioral finance, valuation discipline, and long-term investing context to help investors understand what is really driving today’s market environment — and how to think about it going forward.

Main Topics:

• Why this is not a traditional market recap and how Last Call is designed to be more useful for investors
• Instability versus uncertainty — and why today’s market feels different
• Loss of trust in institutions, policy, and global systems and its impact on markets
• What options market flows reveal about hidden market risks and sudden volatility
• How private credit has reached bubble-like conditions and why narrative risk matters
• The debate over retail and retirement account exposure to private credit
• Why valuation discipline looks different when correlations rise across asset classes
• Aswath Damodaran on trimming positions, raising cash, and the difficulty of finding uncorrelated assets
• How the Magnificent Seven are changing from asset-light to asset-heavy businesses
• AI capital expenditure, historical spending booms, and why infrastructure builders often underperform
• Whether this AI cycle is truly different from railroads, telecom, and past technology booms

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro and opening clips
01:10 — What Last Call is and why this format exists
04:30 — Instability versus uncertainty in today’s market
09:58 — Loss of trust, gold, and historical parallels
13:18 — Brent Kochuba on options flows and hidden market stress
25:17 — How options dislocations explain sudden market drops
25:40 — Ben Hunt on private credit narrative risk
28:00 — Why private credit exposure is everywhere
32:32 — Retail access versus restrictions in private credit
36:19 — What happens if the private credit bubble breaks
39:28 — Aswath Damodaran on raising cash and trimming positions
47:08 — The changing nature of the Magnificent Seven
47:42 — Kai Wu on AI capex and asset-heavy tech
50:48 — Why high capital spending often leads to underperformance
56:01 — Historical parallels from railroads to the dot-com boom