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- Buyback Bonanza
Buyback Bonanza
+ Burton Malkiel, Owen Lamont, Jason Zweig, Jordan Brand, Erik Prince & More
The Idea Farm
August 10, 2025
“The definition of a partner is someone who shares your level of risk.”
Research
Are today’s expensive AI stocks the next market leaders – or just another bubble waiting to burst? Man Group tries to answer the question, highlighting that over 20% of weight in the MSCI World has an EV/sales ratio greater than 10.
Source: Man Numeric using MSCI World data as of 30 June 2025.
GSAM believes the next economic cycle will be characterized by higher inflation, elevated interest rates and heightened macroeconomic volatility. Given that, and the US equity market's dominance faces challenges, they explores active investment opportunities in developed markets outside, along with opportunities in multi-asset income strategies and liquid alternatives.
2025 has been a difficult environment for trend following, and the recent drawdown is currently the second deepest drawdown for the strategy since 2000. Kathryn Kaminski analyzes other Managed Futures drawdown and recovery periods and shares common themes from those periods.
Robeco - Multi-Asset Market Outlook (13 pages)
Robeco’s theme of the month is the rise in share buybacks, which they believe are set to become even more popular. They highlight the positive momentum for rising share buybacks in Japan and Europe.
Source: Robeco. As of July 7, 2025.
Johnson Financial Group - The US Dollar and Why International Stocks are Outperforming YTD (7 pages)
For years, many investors have wondered, “Why do I own any international stocks when US equities have performed so much better?” But with year-to-date performance of foreign stocks in the double digits versus the low single digits for US equities, a new question has emerged: “Why are international stocks doing so much better than US equities?”
Allspring explains why they believe that there is currently an opportunity for investors to diversify into emerging markets given the first signs of an exceptional decade beginning to appear. They even go so far as to say that this is the decade in which many of the so-called emerging market countries will fully emerge.
Bonus Content
Burton Malkien says that David Swensen’s ‘Yale model’ is running out of room to run. Link
Owen Lamont explains does a plush troll doll tells us about today's financial markets. Link
Blackstone shared a mid-year update on megatrends - AI infrastructure, power, life sciences, the rise of secondaries, the real estate recovery and more. Link
Deutsche Bank shared some charts that “make you go WOW!” Link
Jason Zweig explains how index-fund investing turned into an extreme sport. Link
Apollo published reports on the US dollar, the impact of immigration restrictions and deportations, and Stablecoins.
Podcasts
 6/16/2025 - 136 minutes | Prince and Bethel have an in depth conversation about the situation between China and Taiwan, and the implications for the rest of the world. |
 7/15/2025 - 59 minutes | Gray shares his views on leadership, building Blackstone, and his outlook on the evolving landscape of investing and innovation |
 7/23/2025 - 34 minutes | Klarman discusses how his philosophy fits into the current market environment, and how his approach to leading Baupost has evolved during his career. |
What Else Is Happening
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