Excess Returns
@excessreturnpod • 6,483 subscribers
Where better questions lead to better decisions Eleven shows dedicated to making you a better investor YouTube: https://t.co/pbf4lZ6VcB
Videos
“If I have to see one more person say, ‘Oh my gosh, operating margins or net profit margins in the S&P 500 are so extraordinary because we’re having a productivity boom,’ I will lose my mind. We are not having a productivity boom. We are having an operating leverage boom. And that’s a very, very, very different thing, because one is sustainable and the other is cyclical.” Cameron Dawson on why record S&P 500 profit margins may be telling investors something very different than they think
Excess Returns345,021 views • 22 days ago
We told Wes Gray we might be in a bubble. His response about what we can do about it was blunt. "Great, that sucks. Thanks for telling me that. the question is can we can we use that information to actually make us better? And the fortunate answer, as you guys already know, is no. Because if you try to do any sort of model that tries to time based on valuation, they don't work. It's just the fact. It's empirical data. It says good luck." "It's just like being a great short seller. It's not about picking the stock that we all know is gonna go to zero, it's about doing it at the right time, and that's actually, it turns out to be insanely difficult." "Right now, 'cause obviously we have extremely high prices or low earnings yield, I would expect to earn low returns on my overall portfolio in the next 20, 30 years."
Excess Returns34,311 views • 11 days ago
"That number is now accumulating to impact the largest US stocks by about eighteen percent a year." "Over fifty percent of Google's profits in this last quarter alone were tied directly to the price appreciation of its investment in Anthropic. People are putting a multiple on those gains. I mean, these are one-time gains." Mike Green on the impact of passive flows vs. fundamentals on the big tech stocks.
Excess Returns177,268 views • 2 months ago
“Growth, when it’s accompanied by huge amounts of reinvestment and substandard gross margins, might not just be neutral to value, but actually be value destructive.” Aswath Damodaran joined Kai Wu on The Intangible Economy to explain why the biggest stories in markets still have to become businesses. They discuss: ☑️ His detailed valuation of SpaceX and how it compares to the current market valuation ☑️ Why total addressable market can be a trap for investors ☑️ Why AI’s unit economics may matter more than the size of the opportunity ☑️ How growth can destroy value when it requires massive reinvestment ☑️ Why AI is turning parts of big tech from asset-light businesses into infrastructure companies ☑️ Why great companies can still be bad investments at the wrong price
Excess Returns136,641 views • 2 months ago
“People that are always bearish equities is a massive one. That’s probably the biggest leak in finance. People are just too negative and too bearish all the time. And sometimes for reasons that are literally bullish equities, like inflation and deficits and things like that.” “I always asked them, ‘Why do you think that guy is so successful, like such a good trader? What do you see about him that’s different from a run-of-the-mill PM?’ And every single time, they’d say something to the effect of, ‘We have our morning meeting, and he goes through all the reasons he’s bearish. And then, at the end of the day, I look at the position report, and he is like max long.’ It’s just like that level of flexibility to just literally not care.” Brent Donnelly on why bearishness may be the biggest leak in finance, and the flexibility that separates great investors from everyone else.
Excess Returns40,046 views • 24 days ago
"I've seen 100 posts on how depreciation of AI CapEx is the big wild card. Come on, guys. If that's what you're focused on, you're missing the big picture. Depreciation for a young growth company is not even making my top 20 list of worries. Could it affect my cash flows? Yes. Is it going to affect the earnings? Absolutely. But this is not the big driver of whether AI is going to make it or not." Aswath Damodaran on why value investors need to stop looking for conspiracies.
Excess Returns57,106 views • 2 months ago
“Her portfolio has probably outperformed our fund by 500 basis points a year for almost 20 years. And you say, how's that possible? She doesn't own a single company that we don't own.” Chris Davis on how his mom outperformed him - and the investing lesson that comes from it.
Excess Returns91,510 views • 3 months ago
“The most rational trader, not the smartest trader, wins.” Brent Donnelly’s new book, Trade Outside the Box, is about what comes after you learn the traditional tools of markets: how to build an edge, manage risk and think differently from everyone else. He joins us to discuss the biggest lessons of his trading career. ✅ Why being right is not enough to make money ✅ How every investing edge eventually decays ✅ Why rationality matters more than intelligence ✅ Why success can lead to worse decision-making ✅ Why bearishness in the biggest leak in finance ✅ Why avoiding ruin comes before maximizing returns
Excess Returns18,941 views • 25 days ago
"We are likely to be in a situation where over the next twelve months, we see more supply come into the US stock market than has been the case in living memory" "We could be talking about five or six percent of aggregate US market cap coming in as supply." "If you look at the impact on the stock market, it's not when an IPO occurs, it's kind of in the twelve months afterwards" "The rule of thumb, if you looked at history, is that a one percent increase in supply is associated with a seven and a half percent worse return over the over the subsequent year." GMO Head of Asset Allocation Ben Inker on SpaceX and the other big IPOs likely coming this year.
Excess Returns32,586 views • 1 month ago
David Rosenberg and Rich Bernstein spent years together at Merrill Lynch studying bubbles, markets and the economy. We reunited them to discuss what could end the AI trade, and where they see opportunity instead. ✅ Why credit may turn before AI stocks do ✅ Whether the Fed should actually be hiking ✅ Why the rest of the economy looks much weaker than the AI boom ✅ The case for international stocks over U.S. mega-caps ✅ Why only one Mag Seven stock made Rich's global growth screen ✅ What Bob Farrell’s rules say about today’s extreme positioning
Excess Returns14,385 views • 22 days ago
"I think honestly, every professional investor I know is suffering through a period of deep depression because there is just nothing you can actually say about what is happening other than, "Here we go again." "That's become the most interesting thing in markets right now, is this basic discussion around what sort of role should we expect passive to play? How should we expect it to impact it? It's a radical change from the discussion I was having a decade ago or even five years ago, which is people refusing to admit that indices had any impact whatsoever." Mike Green on the current investing environment and the acceptance of passive's impact.
Excess Returns35,045 views • 2 months ago
"The best stock pickers in the world that he allocated to, they were right 49% of the time. Their hit rate was 49%. It's about a coin flip whether they're right or wrong on an individual investment." Even great investors are wrong almost as often as they are right. Ian Cassel on what Lee Freeman-Shor’s research showed about them.
Excess Returns28,962 views • 3 months ago
"Two companies alone account for 50% of the earnings growth in the first quarter, Micron and Nvidia. Two companies. That's it. 50% of the earnings growth. And if you roll it forward to the full year of 2026, those two companies account for a third of the entirety of the earnings growth." Cameron Dawson on the narrow nature of S&P 500 earnings growth
Excess Returns31,361 views • 4 months ago
"You can be pro-growth, like be optimistic. That's a different thing than saying, 'I think growth is gonna be higher than everybody else does.'" "I choose bonds because I could be wrong, and growth could be lower than anybody expects. In that case, bonds diversify. I choose commodities because they're pro-growth. I already own stocks, but I don't mind having something else that's pro-growth in my portfolio. I own gold because I want to be have a monetary debasement hedge." "Betting it all on growth is risky. Levering a diversified portfolio is less risky, and you can generate the same return." Andy Constan on the case for diversifying beyond stocks.
Excess Returns15,268 views • 2 months ago
