But the normal obstacles don't seem to be stopping the stock market.

No.

And I think that's because there's, I think, a general consensus that these companies are going to continue to spend.

Nothing is going to stop them.

They're going to spend every dollar they have, whether it's from cash flow or whether it's from secondaries or bond offerings.

The only thing that might stop it, of course, is politics.

And that's, you know, that's that's your bailiwick.

I got to

[coughs]

... which is, um, I think unless you're gonna put my...

This is my own personal opinion.

I have no expertise here.

But I think u- unless you're gonna put boots on the ground, it's very, very difficult to use some sort of, as they say, kinetic, um, you know, uh, ver- kinetic, um, approach and have it be successful.

So this may i- indeed help in that regard to get what we want in the United States, which is, uh, a, a non-nuclear Iran.

It might have a better chance of doing it.

So what does this mean if it becomes this long, dragged out trade war as some are saying it might?

Right.

You have the war and the oil prices, then you have this debate over hyperscalers and whether they're spending too much or too little on, on CapEx.

Um, and so those are the th- And the Fed, of course, which is the other big...

War is, is really the big issue.

So all those things together.

So i- it, in some ways, it looks like it's hard for the market to make forward progress.

By the same token, the, what's driven the market so far this year, just in the last, Chris and I were talking about this on the way over here, the last 72 hours, people are saying it's, uh, a boulevard of green lights for, for the hyperscalers now because it doesn't look like demand for AI is, is slowing anytime soon.

Right.

A couple trillion in stimulus have something to do with it?

Well, per- you know, the person in charge gets, uh, gets the blame, and the fact also is that the Fed's balance sheet has gone, uh, went to $9.5 trillion [laughs] during COVID.

Now it's $6.5 trillion, but I think one of the things Warsh is focusing on, um, is that the Fed should not be an active player in the game.

It should not have a jersey on.

It sh- if, it has a jersey on, it should be a referee's jersey, jersey.

And I think since QE started in 2008, 2009, an enormous amount of negative consequences have accrued to that, not the least of which is it's massively regressive.

It, it's great for rich people that have private equity portfolios and, and venture capital.

target.Jason, what's your point of view on the, the hike versus cut versus hold?

Do you wanna go into that a little bit more for us?

I think one of the issues for inflation as well is that there, uh, is really no end, uh, in terms of capital spending on artificial intelligence, and so that's creating some inflation in the system.

The question really is will the benefits of all the spending, the productivity that we're, um, supposed to get out of it, happens before the inflation really shows up? And that I don't know.

Uh, but it is a little bit of a foot race, uh, between, uh, between productivity and inflation right now.

It's hard to see the timing being perfect on that because the inflationary pressures are already here.

It also brings up the idea of inflation versus affordability.

Inflation, uh, as it's stated from the government, uh, is really just the change, uh, in inflation from month to month, you know, .2, .3, that type of thing.

Do you see that trend continuing?

How do you put that in context of kind of just the conversation you're having with

clients? Yeah, no, it's a good question.

Three big things we're talking about with clients, obviously the war, private credit, and the sustainability of the infrastructure spend on artificial intelligence.

And the way we're looking at it is, as we discussed, we think private credit's going to stick around for a while.

I don't think it's, we don't think it's systemic.

We think the war is a big deal.

The longer it lasts, you know, people forget we've had a 50% increase in the price of oil and three, it's only two weeks.

What are you telling your clients here? Is it the diversification story? Is it the courage to be in the market? Is it all of above?

Jason Trennert on private equity and private credit.

I think the problem with the private assets, of course, is the opacity, which, which also tends to be the attraction for a lot of pensions, endowments, and foundations, uh, because it seems less volatile, although it's, it's not.

Um, but based on experience, I would say that, um, there's probably gonna be more problems a-and that's only because Wall Street is great at, um, finding ways, very creative ways to extend credit to marginal, [chuckles] marginal players.

And it usually works out worse than people thought.

WTO, trade with

China.

Yeah, a free trade with China, a country that's fixing its currency.

And of course, that was great for China.

big businesses, but it wasn't great for the average guy.

But not for regular people.

I'm for free trade, but again, if you're fixing your currency, it's not free trade.

the stock market do in the next 30 minutes?

W- tell- explain to the audience what that means.

Well, it means, uh, simply that President Trump wants lower rates.

He's c- obviously beat up Jay Powell pretty good, uh, on that.

Um, I, I don't think that's been helpful for the financial markets.

I'm a big fan of the president, but, uh, some of the actions versus Jay Powell are not, not market-friendly, uh, we'll put it that way.

But President Trump wants lower rates.

Uh, there's no two ways about it.

Why is the bond market so vitally important for President Trump, and why is Warsh, although President Trump and Warsh have differences of view on monetary policy, why is Warsh probably, for capital markets, the smartest pick at this time?

Explain to the audience what that means.

Well, it means simply that President Trump wants lower rates.

He's obviously beat up J-PAL pretty good on that.

I don't think that's been helpful for the financial markets.

I'm a big fan of the president, but some of the actions versus J-PAL are not market friendly.

I'll put it that way.

But President Trump wants lower rates.

Why is the bond market so vitally important for President Trump? And why is Warsh, although President Trump and Warsh have differences of view on monetary policy, why is Warsh probably for capital markets the smartest pick at this time? Yeah,

[laughs]

... as opposed to hard assets.

So I, you know, I'm a big believer, uh, in that obviously.

But I do think there are times when gold comes in handy, and I think this is one of those times, because I, I- there- the US has absolutely, in my opinion, there's no chance of the US losing its, its, uh, reserve currency status.

Uh, so put that aside.

I do think, though, because of a variety of reasons, one is just, uh, the accumulation of debt in the United States and other, other fiat currencies, um, that people wanna hedge against paper, against debt, uh, with a hard asset, uh, like, like gold.

So I think that's one reason.

W- why are central banks buying gold now at record rates when they're in charge of the fiat currency, sir?

Go ahead, sir.

Yeah, no, trust me, I've built my entire career out of paper, out of financial assets, as opposed to hard assets.

So, I'm a big believer in that, obviously.

But I do think there are times when gold comes in handy and I think this is one of those times because the US has absolutely, in my opinion, there's no chance of the US losing its reserve currency status.

Put that aside.

I do think though, because of a variety of reasons, one is just the accumulation of debt in the United States and other fiat currencies that people want to hedge against paper, against debt.

with a hard asset like like gold.

Why are central banks buying gold now at record rates when they're in charge of the fiat currency, sir?

What, what's your sense of the financial markets' response to the big beautiful bill, and where Jason Trennert thinks we are in the summer of, uh, '25?

Well, in terms of the one big beautiful bill, I mean, I, it's, it's probably a little larger than I would like, uh, but I know that's kind of the way the sausage is made.

But there are provisions in the bill, (clears throat) particularly full expensing of research and development, uh, of capital, expenditures, uh, of factory building, that I think are extremely exciting and will lead to, uh, productivity, which is, in my opinion, the only way the US is going...

The US has to grow its way out of its debt.

I- it's, it's not gonna be able to cut spending its way out of its debt.

It's not go- not going to be a- be able to raise taxes enough, as, as Margaret Thatcher said, you know, "Sooner or later, you run out of other people's money." We- we're right at that, uh, right at that precipice here in New York.

So th- so in my opinion, the US has to grow itself out, and it, and my opinion, that one big beautiful bill, uh, gives, uh, a lot of incentives for businesses not to do financial engineering, but to actually invest in capital and, and in their own, uh, their own businesses.

... and plus the job he's doing and President Trump continuing to hammer him every day?

of course but a 20 down move as you said whether it's the power names you know somebody that you don't get opportunities like that a lot the flip side is those who say that this is the dot-com moment where we thought we needed this massive build out for communications back in the 90s then all of a sudden kind of the the multiples start to slow and they shift and then you think well all of a sudden you know these stock valuations aren't justified so is that the risk for anyone who's thinking about getting in now that it turns out there was, you know, X trillion of market cap for a company, okay, that's still going to do fine, but it's just not going to be as big as we thought it was.

Yeah, it's possible.

I mean, you know, these folks are, you know, no one's perfect, but there are a lot of smart people here.

Meta made an announcement last week that they're going to be spending $60 to $65 billion on artificial intelligence.

And I also think there's a certain element of you get what you pay for.

And so this idea that a new AI model that costs a fraction of the price that's coming out of a Chinese hedge fund is going to completely disrupt the AI economy universe right now seems, again, I'm somewhat skeptical of that, but knowing that as we started the show, the thing about technology investing is that you're always subject to the fact that there's always a new widget, there's always new innovation that can wear away competitive advantages quickly.

But I'm not sure this is the one, but again, I'm going to be keeping an open mind.

What are you telling clients to expect in terms of tariffs on Mexico and Canada? And why has the president been kind of quiet on China?