Episode summary
What to Own if the Tech Boom Falters | Steven Feldman
Wealthion
· · 41 min · Hosts: Steven Feldman
Summary
Steven Feldman argues that the AI boom is showing early stress not just in tech stocks but in the financing and infrastructure built around it. He points to falling pricing power for AI adoption, cracks in the capital structure at names like CoreWeave, delayed permits on large data-center projects, and the broader rise of leverage across the supply chain as signs that the trade may be maturing into a more fragile phase.
He says the key distinction is between owning scarce assets and owning heavily levered businesses tied to those assets. In his view, electricity, copper, uranium, pipelines, farmland, and gold can benefit from inflationary and electrification trends without needing the same balance-sheet risk as operating companies. He emphasizes that if AI demand cools, the underlying need for power and physical inputs does not disappear, even if enthusiasm in the equities does.
Feldman also thinks macro forces still point toward higher fiscal stress, sticky but eventually moderating inflation, and a more important role for cash and bonds than investors have assumed. His main message is to rotate out of winners, avoid reflexive dip-buying, and build portfolios around diversification, scarcity, and less correlation to the S&P 500.
Key takeaways
- Steven Feldman says CoreWeave’s bond weakness and delayed data-center projects are canaries for growing leverage in the AI buildout.
- He argues investors should prefer scarce assets like gold, farmland, and electricity-related inputs over leveraged operators exposed to the same theme.
- Feldman expects inflation to eventually ease as energy pressure, war shocks, and China’s manufacturing surplus work through the system.
- He says Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile and Greg Abel’s real-assets background position the company for a post-AI, post-bubble environment.
- His portfolio advice is to take profits, avoid buying weak businesses on the dip, and hold some cash or bonds for flexibility.
Notable quotes
“Buying the dip is not the strategy. Finding the winners and diversifying is the strategy”
“There's a lot of malinvestment, something that we've discussed before, and now it's coming home to roost”
“Sitting on $370 billion of cash waiting for the thing to break”
“Buying the dip is not the strategy. Finding the winners and diversifying is the strategy because every once in a while there's a drawdown”
How the episode opens
Sitting on $370 billion of cash waiting for the thing to break. There's a lot of malinvestment, something that we've discussed before, and now it's coming home to roost. Buying the dip is not the strategy. Finding the winners and diversifying is the strategy.
So, Stephen, the we we've talked a lot about the fact that a lot of the bull market momentum we've seen in equities is built around the AI trade, but we seem to be seeing some signs of trouble brewing there.
Yes. Uh I think there's been a few things in the news cycle. Uh you know, number one is the uh the price of a token.
So, while adoption has been pretty good, the price that you can charge for that adoption is going down. And uh the second thing is you're seeing some cracks in the capital structure. So, there's massive borrowing.
And yeah, of course, Microsoft is going to be able to pay it back, I'm pretty sure. But, what made the news in the last couple of days is CoreWeave, a less established company with not massive cash flow to cover uh the capital needs and the debt service, and the bonds cracked, and they're trading like at 70 cents, which So, the the equity story can believe in a lot, but the bond guys, they don't have the upside. They just get a hundred, and they're saying now in order to get a hundred, I'm going to pay 70.
So, that that is the canary to me that you know, in a cap very capital-intensive business, there's a lot of malinvestment, something that we've discussed before.
Mhm. — And now it's coming home to roost. — We ask the experts closest to the real economy to make sense of it.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai capex cycle
- data centers electricity demand
- real asset commodities
- portfolio diversification
- market concentration and leverage
Companies and tickers mentioned
- OWL
- NVDA
- BRK-B
- BRK-A
- GBI
- Wealthion
- CoreWeave
- Blue Owl
- Nvidia
- Berkshire Hathaway
Watch the episode
Watch “What to Own if the Tech Boom Falters | Steven Feldman” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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