Four new nuclear reactors have won approval in the United States in the past two years, after a process that used to take a decade, and one went from empty ground to producing power in about a year, Julie Fredrickson said on Infinite Loops.
That was one investor watching one industry move faster than regulators expected. The other 10 quotes below come from 10 more speakers, among them Goodfire's co-founder and CEO on why three leading AI models cheat on their own evaluations, and Vision Capital's president and CEO on why Canadian real-estate takeovers keep closing above market price.
"There's now four new reactors that have been approved for use in the span of two years. And previously it would have taken a decade to get a new reactor to criticality, online. ... seeing a reactor get built from scratch in a year was just, wow." — Julie Fredrickson, Managing Partner at Chaotic Capital, on Infinite Loops (Read summary)
We scanned 488 shows and 12 hours of audio, wrote 10 summaries, and pulled 11 quotes into this 5-minute read.
Here is what mattered.
Macro
A 10% stock buyback can force stock prices up 20%, not 10%
"Let's say that companies want to buy back 10% of all outstanding equities. We know that the only place they can buy them from is the static investors because that's our only investor class. ... They have to sell $5 of stocks to the companies buying back their stock that are buying back 10% of the whole marketplace. ... The only way that that could happen is the price of the stock market has to go up, not by 10%, but by 20% because we have to go from $45 to $55, which is $10 on $45, call it 20%." — Victor Haghani, Founder at Elm Wealth, on The Rational Reminder Podcast (Read summary)
Emerging-market local bonds returned almost 18% last year
"And so in some cases, even when you hedge it back to dollars, you get better yields than you can on Treasuries or corporate bonds. ... And so I think that's an asset class that has done very well. Last year, EM local bonds were up almost 18%." — Brij Khurana, Fixed Income Portfolio Manager at Wellington Management, on Alpha Exchange (Read summary)
Financials
Goldman and Morgan Stanley's private-credit book is now a bank risk
"But there's been four or five IPOs that have been pulled that have been happening. And so, it's not just the rates moving higher, it's the cost of capital — and Goldman and Morgan Stanley are very invested in private credit, whether they're lending to the private equity shops, they're exposed." — Danny Moses, Co-founder at Moses Ventures, on MRKT Call (Read summary)
Banks enter earnings season oversold, sitting on 200-day support
"We have weakened long-term momentum behind the financial sector, and also relative underperformance that's been pretty long in duration. ... As we're coming into earnings season, banks are among the first companies to report, and they're going to come into these earnings reports really very oversold, and oversold with also improved downside, or less downside momentum. ... XLF in particular is right down on its 200-day moving average, so a natural support level — kind of a cushion, not a precise point, but an area for buyers to step back in." — Katie Stockton, Founder at Fairlead Strategies, on MRKT Call (Read summary)
Crypto and Digital Assets
Zcash could trade at $5K to $10K if Bitcoin hits $200K
"I mean if Bitcoin goes to like 200k which I think is definitely possible zcash can be in that like 5 to 10k range." — Jordi Alexander, Founder and CEO at Selini Capital, on When Shift Happens (Read summary)
Pump Fun, a memecoin launcher, is making up to $5M a day
"Let's define a bull market not as prices go up — let's define a bull market as companies and protocols actually make revenue. ... but I think now we've actually got protocols that are making a million, 2 million, $3 million a day in bear markets. You take Pump Fun, which is the most ridiculous protocol for people to launch memecoins, and they're making between $1 and $5 million a day, depending on the day." — Ran Neuner, Co-founder at OnChain Capital and Crypto Banter, on Raoul Pal The Journey Man (Read summary)
Alternatives and PE
22 Canadian real-estate takeovers closed in 18 months at a 40% premium
"You may have heard me say over the years, we'd rather not compete with Blackstone, we'd rather sell to Blackstone, which we've done, I think, on four occasions in the last seven years. ... The last 18 months alone, there's been 22 transactions that have taken place at an average takeover premium of 40%." — Jeff Olin, President and CEO at Vision Capital, on In the Money with Amber Kanwar (Read summary)
Technology & AI
3 open-source AI models reward-hack their way through evals 96% of the time
"All these agents reward hack incessantly. ... I think reward hacks on 96% of SweetBench. And so it basically does anything it possibly can to cheat on the exam rather than to actually solve the problem. So it'll try to recall the answer. It'll try to look it up. It'll try to comb through logs and look at like the commit history of these repos in order to just like try to cheat on the exam basically." — Eric Ho, Co-founder and CEO at Goodfire, on The Mad Podcast with Matt Turck (Read summary)
Materials & Energy
The average US utility now grows EPS 9% a year, up from 0-2% in 2010
"Your average US utility would grow at anywhere from kind of 0 to 2% EPS peranom with a dividend yield of 4%. ... Now the average US utility grows at its EPS at 9%, we have some in the portfolio at 12 with yields of 3 to four, right?" — Shane Hurst, Portfolio Manager at ClearBridge Investments, on Equity Mates (Read summary)
Nuggets of Wisdom
Zynga's founder says a CEO's job is to be right, not liked
"I said guys I know this is awkward and it's late but I think we've built the wrong product and we should go after the help desk and help desk software. ... And not one person in the company agreed with me. Not one investor. ... And your number one job as founder and CEO is to be right, not to be liked, not to even have this investor ever want to back you again. Although if you make them money, they will." — Mark Pincus, Founder at Zynga, on How Leaders Lead with David Novak (Read summary)
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