Markets Happy Hour Podcast with Aoifinn Devitt

In this week's markets happy hour podcast we chat for the second time with Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights at Morningstar. He has considerable experience in sustainability and corporate governance, having previously led Morningstar's investment stewardship research offering. We start with the factor that inflation has been resilient, relentless and resistant - while the tide seems to have turned on projections for interest rates, with expectations now converging around a faster rate hike cycle in the US, and maybe even a jumbo hike next meeting. We ask if AI is hiding the cracks in the economy. Just now there is crack potentially in the cracks, with the corporate governance scandal engulfing Nvidia today. We ask about the concentration of key man risk and whether there are any precedents in place for this?

In this week's post election special we look at the key takeaways from the election, dig into the fallout relating to data centers, and ask whether the rotation out of tech and AI names will continue. We start, as always, with inflation, which is appropriate after a mid-term election in which voters screamed about affordability from the roof tops. We ask if policy makers will finally now act - and cite the recent forecast by the Bank of England that inflation will head towards 5% in the year ahead, much of it driven by energy prices. Energy prices - and the potential for them to drive both inflation and consumer sentiment - are again in focus as speculation rises about potential course corrections in the Middle East, while Asian stocks have taken a beating on the expectation of massive tech constraints as compute is threatened by the anti-data center lobby.

In this week’s Markets Happy Hour Podcast we have a short broadcast from Korea, where I am on an Asian trip across three countries during the half term break. We have just come from four days in Beijing, and I start the podcast with a reflection on some of the symbols of longevity that were scattered across the 600-year-old Forbidden City as well as the Summer Palace in Beijing. Symbols such as the crane – a symbol of feminine longevity, as well as the turtle and the number 9, remind us of the how venerated longevity was then – as it remains now, especially as promised by AI advances, in healthcare most notably. Inflation is one of the key factors that has persisted in markets, and we can see that expectations remain elevated. US Fed broadcasts also persist, even if what can be gleaned from them is remarkably sparse. Currently it seems that the Fed is extremely mindful of the effect of throwing “sand in the gears” of the US economy and is therefore on hold – as is the ECB, a fact barely noticed with the attention given to Christine Lagarde’s announcement that she will be standing down in the Spring. Equity markets had a lot to digest this week, with the Anthropic S1 filing and subsequent scrutiny, results from the hyperscalers, including in particular Alphabet, which attracted a lot of attention on its own due to a fall off in search revenues and signalling of massive AI spend. The division in equity markets remains apparent, as hyperscalers see rotation away, in favour of areas such as healthcare and the semi-conductor space continues to lose its outperformance relative to software. We also touch on the developments in Brazil following the surprise election outcome there and ask whether prediction markets are really of any use! It also calls into question the source of their trends and how much of an inside view it really is - and whether this inside view necessarily reflects reality.

In this week’s episode of Markets Happy Hour, host Aoifinn Devitt welcomes back Alan Dunne, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Archive Capital, for a wide-ranging look back at the year and a check-in on where markets stand today. Aoifinn and Alan revisit their January 2026 conversation to see what’s held up and what’s changed, covering geopolitical instability across Europe, the shifting AI narrative from “AI is good for stocks” to a more nuanced, risk-aware story, and why inflation has remained stubbornly high despite central bank targets. They dig into France’s bond market stress, rising borrowing costs, and elevated private debt levels, and compare that to the relative resilience seen across the rest of Europe. The conversation moves to the US, where upcoming elections, rising long-term yields, and a widening credit spread on AI infrastructure names like CoreWeave are raising fresh questions about the durability of the AI buildout. Alan and Aoifinn also cover the pressure building in US housing, the SpaceX IPO and what it signals for the IPO market heading into next year, how climate transition plans are starting to lower corporate borrowing costs, and where commodities like copper and gold fit into portfolio positioning for the year ahead. Topics covered in this episode: A look back at 2026 market predictions and what’s played out Why the AI narrative has shifted from bullish to more cautious France’s bond yield spike and Europe’s broader fiscal picture US elections, rising yields, and credit market warning signs in AI infrastructure Housing market strain under high mortgage rates The SpaceX IPO and outlook for future tech listings Climate transition plans and their effect on borrowing costs Copper, gold, and commodities positioning for 2027 🔔 Subscribe for more weekly market insight and commentary from Markets Happy Hour. #MarketsHappyHour #Moneta #FixedIncome #AIInvesting #France #BondYields #Inflation #PortfolioStrategy #Commodities #MarketOutlook #2027Outlook #CreditMarkets

In this podcast the Terrible Twins are back! No I'm not referring to the trouble that can ensue when I invite Ian Mc Knight on the podcast for a banter - I'm referring to the Terrible Twins stalking markets - interest rate hikes and AI concerns. In light of our guest this week we do spend more time than usual on the UK economy and it is a robust discussion in which we challenge some of the growth assumptions across Europe as well as China, and ask who the relative winners will be in the export/import global trade cycle as well as in US markets as they currently stand. As usual with Ian , this is a robust discussion that at times controversial, never mundane and particularly enjoyable and lively.

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we pledge to go jargon free - after I was caught out using the jargon "K shaped recovery" on BBC business news on Wednesday morning. Lesson learned! This week, which comes to you from Amsterdam (with some bad conference room lighting) we discuss the heightened inflation expectations, which are still paired with strong spending - creating a bit of a disconnect. We ask about whether that suggests the classic "K shaped recovery" is unraveling - that the lower end consumer is getting some "legs" and starting to spend more. We are unconvinced of that - given the fact that food prices remain high across the board - and could "poison" the well of future inflation. Energy too remains at high levels, so can interest rates possibly not follow inflation upwards? Digging into equity markets, earnings are growing in the S&P at 27%, undoubtedly powered by AI and we ask about how in fact these margins can possibly be expanding with rising costs and a more discerning consumer. We wonder if this is short term - have the costs been artificially suppressed and has the consumer pulled expenditure forward? The start of the AI cycle really killed the trajectories of both value stocks and small cap stocks, and there has been no repeat of the rotation and mean reversion that has typically presented in these cases. A sector that has languished in equity markets and is acutely exposed to interest rates is real estate, and from residential housing bearing the weight of 7% mortgages to commercial property caught off-guard by rising rates, there seems to be few places to hide in real estate investing today - except, perhaps, in SF houses or data centers. For investment portfolios public equities remain the buoyancy that has kept the portfolios afloat as rising bond yields have eroded fixed income return and real estate remains stagnant. While we have heard some anecdotal evidence of private equity returns and distributions slowly, behind the scenes, improving, any portfolio that is underweight public equities will lag its benchmark. Whether this matters is another question - most investors target steady state absolute returns, but it does remain to be seen if shifts will take place in these targets as equities dominate the headlines and steal an increasing share of the pie.

Welcome to the first Markets Happy Hour webinar. Host Aoifinn Devitt welcomes Will Stephenson, co-founder of Fiber Pay, to discuss why currency planning is one of the most overlooked pieces of global wealth management. In this conversation, Aoifinn and Will cover: "Currency architecture" — mapping your income, spending, and investments across the currencies tied to where you live, work, and invest How to time and execute large currency transfers, including real estate purchases abroad Strategies for managing currency risk during the gap between signing and closing on property Why FX forecasts are harder to rely on than ever — and what that means for planning How inflation and interest rate trends compare across the US, UK, Europe, and emerging markets The US dollar's role as a safe haven and what's driving demand to convert dollars into other currencies right now Why clients should plan early rather than scrambling at the last minute Whether you're buying property abroad, funding a child's education overseas, or simply holding wealth in more than one currency, this episode offers a practical look at the planning questions that matter most. 🔔 Subscribe for more from the Markets Happy Hour series. #CurrencyExchange #WealthManagement #ForeignExchange #InternationalRealEstate #MarketsHappyHour #Moneta

This week’s Markets Happy Hour podcast comes to you from a secret garden in New York City, as I wrap up a full day of interviews and two media appearances – Bloomberg and Fox News. It is therefore quite abbreviated this week, as we get ready for our Live Markets Happy Hour Webinar with a special feature on currency architecture next week. This week we talk about the “Economy that Never Sleeps” from the “City that Never Sleeps. The inflation pressure from energy seems to be confusing the read that the Fed is trying to take from inflation, and as the ripple effect of last week’s interest rate hike are felt through markets, the reaction remains subdued – until now. It remains to be seen whether mortgage rates at 7% proves to be a critical milestone in terms of its deterrent effect on homebuilding, home sales and general consumer wellbeing Markets continue to narrow and the market cap weighted indices are diverging from equal weighted again. Tech earnings remain strong, but non-tech earnings are also cutting in a very decent showing. Meanwhile geopolitics are continuing to be unpredictable but not in a ways that are unsettling markets while AI battle lines continue to be drawn.

In this week's Markets Happy Hour Podcast we were delighted to be joined by Helen Thomas, founder of BlondeMoney (in 2016) to bring together the worlds of political and financial risk. She is deeply versed in UK and global politics. We start with the big news of the week - which, despite the title of the podcast being D-Day for Doomers, is now yesterday’s rate hike by the Fed. While small (25 bps) the hike felt momentous because of the shift of the direction, the reality that inflation is not falling and the fact that the new Chair Kevin Warsh clearly went against the direction of travel that President Trump would have wanted. This shores up the Fed’s independence as an institution. On the other hand it is actually not that significant at all if we look back to the history of bond yields. Helen turns her gaze on the political landscape across Europe and how it is evolving, sharing insights on the forces that have driven some of the current fractures. We speak about what the EU Commission President has said we need to do in terms of “urgently reimagining” our partnerships, and the recent overtures by Canada to become a member of the EU is just one example of how the Middle Powers may start to forge their own – alternative – path

In this week’s Markets Happy Hour Podcast we are joined by HSBC Asset Management Global Investment Strategist and “market storyteller” Joe Little. A legendary force on Linked IN, we were delighted to feature his insights here for 30 minutes. We start with picking apart the prevailing narratives and counternarratives that continue to course through markets driven on the one hand by last week’s positive employment number in the US and ask whether these stats can be relied upon as much as ever. Narratives differ of course, with the rise of populist politics in the Germany framed as a reaction to a perceived “dark place”. We ask whether the resilience in markets – whether to the oil price, geopolitics or tariff newschatter – is due to a fundamental lower reliance on these things – a diversification of causal factors or a combination of an outsized The bond market has been getting a lot of attention as a “showdown” seems to be ongoing between Scott Bessent who has suggested that he “is the house” and can persist with the current bond market intervention. The bond market currently seems unconvinced by this suggestion and bond yield continue to gap out in global markets – most notable in the UK. Equity markets have been a bit choppier over the past few week or so and the strain of higher oil prices as well as the bond market movements have continued to introduce some uncertainty. The traditional relationship with higher bond yields would be that as bond yields rise, the equity market premium has to adjust in order to compensate for the higher risk run in equities. We turn as the last section of the podcast to Emerging Markets, which have been buoyed by strong sentiment, strong currencies and relative attractiveness of their bond yields as the dollar comes under pressure. Joe discusses the reasons for the higher bond yield and how this relates to the dollar outlook, and suggests that it is coherent. He further cites the evolution of many emerging market institutions from their crisis fighting mode into a newer state that is instilling confidence and trust – due to measures like raising rates to avert hyperinflation or maintaining independence and an even keel amid geopolitical uncertainty. This all underscores the case for diversification of portfolios, and careful rebalancing.