Asset Bubbles and Inflation

The Federal Reserve has signaled lower short-term rates ahead, but two important macro questions have yet to be answered:

Do the asset bubbles of the post Global Financial Crisis zero-interest-rate-policy era still need to be unwound?
Has the Fed truly conquered US long-term inflation expectations or might Jerome Powell’s victory lap at Jackson Hole have been premature?

Lingering Asset Bubbles

We contend there is no permanent new plateau for large-cap growth equity valuations. In our view, the megacap tech segment presents one of the biggest downside risks to financial markets and the economy today.

Nvidia: Leading Vendor to the AI Hyperscalers

Nvidia has capitalized on its technological lead in graphics processing hardware. Its GPUs have become the dominant brute-force engine for AI training in the cloud. Nvidia’s growth and profit margins have been phenomenal, but selling high-end computer chips to AI hyperscalers is a double-edged sword. It’s great for Nvidia and its shareholders while the capital spending party is still raging, but what happens if Nvidia‘s customers are not getting a positive return on that investment? The party could be over and might even end in an economy-wide hangover. We’ll explore this idea throughout the letter.

Some of Nvidia’s customers may already be pulling in the reins as Nvidia’s recent quarter featured growth deceleration, lower positive surprises, and tempered guidance. Meanwhile, AI software is getting smarter and more efficient in burning less raw GPU power for the same computing tasks. Competition in GPUs from AMD and Intel is also heating up. In this environment, we don’t see how Nvidia can continue to deliver the high growth and margins necessary to justify its extreme valuation. Perhaps that is why billionaire investor and famed macro trader Stan Druckenmiller sold the vast majority of his Nvidia position over the last two quarters per his family office’s 13F filings.

Disclosure: Crescat may or may not hold positions at any given time in the securities referenced herein. This is not a recommendation or endorsement to buy or sell any security or other financial instrument.

Apple: Late to the AI Party

In our analysis, Apple represents another asset bubble in the IT sector at risk of unwinding. Other than the Apple Watch and Airpods, the company has not successfully introduced many new products to market. Virtual reality headsets were a flop. The self-driving car was a complete write-off. It seems that organic innovation at Apple has been lacking without the leadership of Steve Jobs. CEO Tim Cook has been adept at extending the company’s dominant smartphone franchise to become the number-one market cap company in the world, but growth has stalled. Apple’s sales declined year-over-year in five of the last seven quarters while the company has missed out almost entirely to date on the AI party. Recently, its shares have been buoyed by the hope that adding outsourced AI features to its iPhone handsets will revive growth next quarter. We do not share the same optimism. Neither does value investing sage, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, the company’s largest shareholder who sold almost half of his firm Berkshire Hathaway’s position per its latest 10-Q.

Capex Cycles Drive Booms and Busts

Unsustainable capital expenditure trends in the broad technology and communications sectors are an economic warning signal. The chart below shows how the capex cycle drove the boom and bust of the 2000 tech bubble. We inflation-adjusted the data in this chart using the Consumer Price Index to display the entire time series in today’s dollars. It reveals a comparably larger extreme capex binge in real terms in recent years compared to the 2000 Internet spending peak. We are excited about the technological advancements in AI that all this spending has produced, but capital spending trends are cyclical. It’s a basic law of economics that companies cannot spend endlessly without a clear path to getting a positive net-present-value return on that investment.

The AI Hyperscalers

The four leading capex spenders today, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta have been dubbed the hyperscalers for their massive data centers and cloud computing businesses that can scale up and down based on customer demand including demand for AI training and inference services. It is a high-capex and relatively low-profit margin competitive business. In the chart below, we show the capex spending trends and combined market caps of the four hyperscalers.

Amazon’s AWS cloud computing division is the leading cloud services hyperscaler. Alphabet and Microsoft are trying to compete directly with AWS for cloud customers and have been ramping up their spending on those businesses. All three offer AI model training and inference computing resources to their customers in the cloud. Amazon is a company that thrives on efficiency, scale, and low margins based on the philosophy and competitive drive of its chairman and founder, Jeff Bezos. “Your margin is my opportunity” is his motto. Alphabet and Microsoft meanwhile are accustomed to earning fat margins in monopoly-like search advertising and software businesses. We think Microsoft and Alphabet will have a tough time competing with Amazon for cloud services which should drive the return on capex and profitability down for all three cloud providers.

Meta does not compete in the cloud business but is still considered the fourth largest hyperscaler based on its massive data centers and high capex spend. Meta is building organic AI technology and applying it to its social media and advertising business. The high capital investment required to compete in the AI hyperscale business is extraordinary. The biggest portion of this spending today is going to richly priced, fast-depreciating Nvidia GPUs.

Tech Hyperscaling is Not Necessarily a New Phenomenon

For comparison to today’s hyperscalers, we want to look at the four leading capex spending companies during the late 1990s Internet boom. Our Bloomberg research confirms those to have been AT&T, SBC Communications, WorldCom, and Qwest. By looking at those companies’ capital spending and market trends at that time, we can see that when companies spend aggressively to build out an infrastructure business for exciting new-era technology, but without a feasible business plan for getting a return on that investment, it can create a boom and bust for the entire industry, sector, and economy.

What Happened to the Y2K High-End Equipment Dealers?

Nvidia is the leading vendor to today’s hyperscalers, but who were their Y2K counterparts? Based on our Bloomberg research, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, and Lucent Technologies were three of the top vendors at the time. The stacked chart below shows the combined market cap of these three companies during that period. First, they appreciated more than tenfold in the three years leading up to early 2000 while their customers binged on capital spending. Then, their combined market cap declined by almost 90% as the capex spending trend reversed.

The Capex Cycle for Mining Looks Bullish

Understanding the capex cycle can help flag bullish opportunities early in the cycle.

“Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria” – John Templeton

This quote perfectly captures the current opportunity in the mining industry, which, despite near-record gold prices, remains one of the most underappreciated sectors in the market today.

Historically, the capital expenditure cycle of resource companies has been a key indicator of where we stand in the phases of a bull or bear market for a given commodity.

Gold, silver and copper miners have suffered a prolonged period of neglect and limited capital investment and were compelled to drastically reduce their capital expenditures and exercise much greater spending discipline. As a result, they cannot supply the metal to meet growing world demand especially in the era of electrification and the energy transition.

With commodity prices now going up in this environment, the mining companies are incented to ramp up exploration and capex to build new mines. But it can take an average of 15 years to discover and build a new mine so there is likely a long bullish cycle ahead.

It’s important to note that it’s still early in the capex cycle of the gold mining industry today. As a result, the recent 13-year breakout in the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold and Silver Index may have the potential to gain significant upward momentum as more capital flows into the industry.

Historic Divergence in Long-Term Inflation Expectations

According to the recent University of Michigan Consumer Survey data, the average US consumer believes that inflation will be 6.1% over the next five to ten years. The Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) market on the other hand indicates that CPI will be only 2.1% during that time as we show in the chart below. This shows that consumers likely do not believe that government CPI statistics reflect true inflation. Such a sentiment is understandable. We think the recent historic divergence between these two time series is a measure of government mistrust. So, if the Fed is claiming victory over long-term inflation expectations based on the TIPS market alone, we believe they have a lot more work to do. Furthermore, since the Fed has just signaled a green light for interest rate cuts we expect consumers to remain skeptical that the Fed truly has inflation under control.

Commodity Equity Bull Markets Can Begin with Tech Busts

The chart below from Bank of America shows how an equity bull market in energy, materials, and financials began simultaneously with the 2000 tech and telecom bust. We think a similar rotation in favor of commodity equities is poised to unfold again today based on similar imbalances, positioning, and relative valuations to 2000. The Great Rotation, one of Crescat’s overriding investment themes and which encompasses this transition out of overvalued large cap growth and into undervalued energy and natural resource equities, started to play out through all of 2022. However, here we are again with a complete retest of the extremes.

Great Rotation Ahead

We believe the Great Rotation is still to come. August showed some new signs of life on that front as megacap tech stocks came under significant pressure early in the month and then mining stocks outperformed the Magnificent 7 Index for the full month. Based on our early estimates, all Crescat private funds had positive performance in August net of fees. We don’t know for sure yet, but it’s possible that megacap tech may have finally topped on July 10, the Magnificent 7 Index’s high to date. Nvidia shares may have already peaked on June 18, their closing high as of this publication date.

Performance

Net returns are shown below through July in a new format. Performance figures presented “Excluding SCM SP” represent the fund’s net returns calculated without the impact of the San Cristobal Mining, Inc. side pocket that was designated on July 1st, 2024. The side pocket includes a private equity asset that is not available to new investors in the funds after July 1, 2024. Excluding these assets provides a clearer view of the performance to investors coming into the funds after that date. New investors cannot participate in the SCM Side Pocket and will not share in its potential gains or losses. Investors should consider both the overall performance and the performance excluding the side pocket when evaluating the fund’s returns.

Performance data represents past performance, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Performance data is subject to revision following each monthly reconciliation and/or annual audit. Individual performance may be lower or higher than the performance data presented. The currency used to express performance is U.S. dollars. Before January 1, 2003, the results reflect accounts managed at a predecessor firm. See additional performance disclosures below.

We encourage you to reach out to any of us listed below if you would like to learn more about how our vehicles might fit with your individual needs and objectives.

Download PDF Version

Sincerely,

Kevin C. Smith, CFA

Founding Member & Chief Investment Officer

Tavi Costa

Member & Macro Strategist

Quinton T. Hennigh, PhD

Member & Geologic and Technical Director

For more information including how to invest, please contact:

Marek Iwahashi

Head of Investor Relations

miwahashi@crescat.net

(720) 323-2995

Linda Carleu Smith, CPA

Co-Founding Member & Chief Operating Officer

lsmith@crescat.net

(303) 228-7371

Important Disclosures

The purpose of this letter is to provide access to analyses prepared by Crescat Portfolio Management LLC (“CPM”) with respect to certain companies (“Issuers”) in which CPM and certain of the Funds and accounts it manages are shareholders. The letters enable CPM to share macro themes and newsworthy geologic updates, good and bad, across our Issuers as they arise. The letters represent the opinions of CPM, as an exploration industry advocate, on the overall geologic progress of our activist strategy in creating new economic metal deposits in viable mining jurisdictions around the world. Each Issuer discussed has been selected solely for this purpose and has not been selected on the basis of performance or any performance-related criteria. The securities discussed herein do not represent an entire portfolio and in the aggregate may only represent a small percentage of a strategies holdings. The Issuers discussed may or may not be held in such portfolios at any given time. The Issuers discussed do not represent all of the investments purchased or sold by Funds managed by CPM. It should not be assumed that any or all of these investments were or will be profitable.

Projected results and statements contained in this letter that are not historical facts are based on current expectations and involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results. While investing in the mining industry is inherently risk, CPM believes that under a professionally managed portfolio approach with the guidance of Quinton Hennigh, PhD, CPM’s full-time Geologic and Technical Director, and our proprietary exploration and mining model, we will be able to generate long-term capital appreciation.

These opinions are current opinions as of the date appearing in the relevant material and are subject to change without notice. The information contained in the letters is based on publicly available information with respect to the Issuers as of the date of such white papers and has not been updated since such date.

This letter is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The information provided in this letter is not intended as investment advice or recommendation to buy or sell any type of investment, or as an opinion on, or a suggestion of, the merits of any particular investment strategy.

This letter is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, a marketing or solicitation vehicle for CPM or its Funds. The information herein does not provide a complete presentation of the investment strategies or portfolio holdings of the Funds and should not be relied upon for purposes of making an investment or divestment decision with respect to the Funds. Those who are considering an investment in the Funds should carefully review the relevant Fund’s offering memorandum and the information concerning CPM, including its SEC Form ADV Brochure which is available at: www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.

This presentation should not be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice. It does not have regard to the specific investment objective, financial situation, suitability, or the particular need of any specific person who may receive this presentation and should not be taken as advice on the merits of any investment decision. The views expressed in this presentation represent the opinions of CPM and are based on publicly available information with respect to the Issuer. CPM recognizes that there may be confidential information in the possession of the Issuer that could lead the Issuer to disagree with CPM’s conclusions.

CPM currently beneficially owns, and/or has an economic interest in, shares of the Issuers discussed in these letters. Therefore, CPM’s clients, principals and employees may stand to realize significant gains or losses if the price of the companies’ securities move. After the publication or posting of any video, CPM, its principals and employees will continue transacting in the securities discussed, and may be long, short or neutral at any time thereafter regardless of their initial position or recommendation. While certain individuals affiliated with CPM are current or former directors of certain of the Issuers referred to herein, none of the information contained in this presentation or otherwise provided to you is derived from non-public information of such publicly traded companies. CPM has not sought or obtained consent from any third party to use any statements or information indicated herein that have been obtained or derived from statements made or published by such third parties.

The estimates, projections, pro forma information and potential impact of CPM’s analyses set forth herein are based on assumptions that CPM believes to be reasonable as of the date of this presentation, but there can be no assurance or guarantee (i) that any of the proposed actions set forth in this presentation will be completed, (ii) that actual results or performance of the Issuer will not differ, and such differences may be material or (iii) that any of the assumptions provided in this presentation are accurate.

All content posted on CPM’s letters including graphics, logos, articles, and other materials, is the property of CPM or others and is protected by copyright and other laws. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners, who may or may not be affiliated with CPM. Nothing contained on CPM’s website or social media networks should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any content or trademark displayed on any site without the written permission of CPM or such other third party that may own the content or trademark displayed on any site.

Performance

1 – Net returns reflect the performance of an investor who invested from inception and is eligible to participate in new issues and side pocket investments. Net returns reflect the reinvestment of dividends and earnings and the deduction of all expenses and fees (including the highest management fee and incentive allocation charged, where applicable). An actual client’s results may vary due to the timing of capital transactions, high watermarks, and performance.

2 – Performance figures presented Excluding SCM SP represent the fund’s net returns calculated without the impact of the San Cristobal Mining, Inc. side pocket that was designated on July 1st, 2024. The side pocket includes a private equity asset that is not available to new investors in the funds after July 1, 2024. Excluding these assets provides a clearer view of the performance to investors coming into the funds after that date. New investors cannot participate in the SCM Side Pocket and will not share in its potential gains or losses. Investors should consider both the overall performance and the performance excluding the side pocket when evaluating the fund’s returns.

3 – The SMA composites include all accounts that are managed according to CPM’s precious metals or large cap SMA strategy over which it has full discretion. Investment results shown are for taxable and tax-exempt accounts. Any possible tax liabilities incurred by the taxable accounts are not reflected in net performance. Performance results are time weighted and reflect the deduction of advisory fees, brokerage commissions, and other expenses that a client would have paid, and includes the reinvestment of dividends and other earnings.

Risks of Investment Securities: Diversity in holdings is an important aspect of risk management, and CPM works to maintain a variety of themes and equity types to capitalize on trends and abate risk. CPM invests in a wide range of securities depending on its strategies, as described above, including but not limited to long equities, short equities, mutual funds, ETFs, commodities, commodity futures contracts, currency futures contracts, fixed income futures contracts, private placements, precious metals, and options on equities, bonds and futures contracts. The investment portfolios advised or sub-advised by CPM are not guaranteed by any agency or program of the U.S. or any foreign government or by any other person or entity. The types of securities CPM buys and sells for clients could lose money over any timeframe. CPM’s investment strategies are intended primarily for long-term investors who hold their investments for substantial periods of time. Prospective clients and investors should consider their investment goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance before investing in CPM’s strategies and should not rely on CPM’s strategies as a complete investment program for all of their investable assets. Of note, in cases where CPM pursues an activist investment strategy by way of control or ownership, there may be additional restrictions on resale including, for example, volume limitations on shares sold. When CPM’s private investment funds or SMA strategies invest in the precious metals mining industry, there are particular risks related to changes in the price of gold, silver and platinum group metals. In addition, changing inflation expectations, currency fluctuations, speculation, and industrial, government and global consumer demand; disruptions in the supply chain; rising product and regulatory compliance costs; adverse effects from government and environmental regulation; world events and economic conditions; market, economic and political risks of the countries where precious metals companies are located or do business; thin capitalization and limited product lines, markets, financial resources or personnel; and the possible illiquidity of certain of the securities; each may adversely affect companies engaged in precious metals mining related businesses. Depending on market conditions, precious metals mining companies may dramatically outperform or underperform more traditional equity investments. In addition, as many of CPM’s positions in the precious metals mining industry are made through offshore private placements in reliance on exemption from SEC registration, there may be U.S. and foreign resale restrictions applicable to such securities, including but not limited to, minimum holding periods, which can result in discounts being applied to the valuation of such securities. In addition, the fair value of CPM’s positions in private placements cannot always be determined using readily observable inputs such as market prices, and therefore may require the use of unobservable inputs which can pose unique valuation risks. Furthermore, CPM’s private investment funds and SMA strategies may invest in stocks of companies with smaller market capitalizations. Small- and medium-capitalization companies may be of a less seasoned nature or have securities that may be traded in the over-the-counter market. These “secondary” securities often involve significantly greater risks than the securities of larger, better-known companies. In addition to being subject to the general market risk that stock prices may decline over short or even extended periods, such companies may not be well-known to the investing public, may not have significant institutional ownership and may have cyclical, static or only moderate growth prospects. Additionally, stocks of such companies may be more volatile in price and have lower trading volumes than larger capitalized companies, which results in greater sensitivity of the market price to individual transactions. CPM has broad discretion to alter any of the SMA or private investment fund’s investment strategies without prior approval by, or notice to, CPM clients or fund investors, provided such changes are not material.

Benchmarks

HFRX GLOBAL HEDGE FUND INDEX. The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index represents a broad universe of hedge funds with the capability to trade a range of asset classes and investment strategies across the global securities markets. The index is weighted based on the distribution of assets in the global hedge fund industry. It is a tradeable index of actual hedge funds. It is a suitable benchmark for the Crescat Global Macro private fund which has also traded in multiple asset classes and applied a multi-disciplinary investment process since inception.

HFRX EQUITY HEDGE INDEX. The HFRX Equity Hedge Index represents an investable index of hedge funds that trade both long and short in global equity securities. Managers of funds in the index employ a wide variety of investment processes. They may be broadly diversified or narrowly focused on specific sectors and can range broadly in terms of levels of net exposure, leverage employed, holding periods, concentrations of market capitalizations and valuation ranges of typical portfolios. It is a suitable benchmark for the Crescat Long/Short private fund, which has also been predominantly composed of long and short global equities since inception.

PHILADELPHIA STOCK EXCHANGE GOLD AND SILVER INDEX. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold and Silver Index is the longest running index of global precious metals mining stocks. It is a diversified, capitalization-weighted index of the leading companies involved in gold and silver mining. It is a suitable benchmark for the Crescat Precious Metals private fund and the Crescat Precious Metals SMA strategy, which have also been predominately composed of precious metals mining companies involved in gold and silver mining since inception.

S&P 500 INDEX. The S&P 500 Index is perhaps the most followed stock market index. It is considered representative of the U.S. stock market at large. It is a market cap-weighted index of the 500 largest and most liquid companies listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges. While the companies are U.S. based, most of them have broad global operations. Therefore, the index is representative of the broad global economy. It is a suitable benchmark for the Crescat Global Macro and Crescat Long/Short private funds, and the Large Cap and Precious Metals SMA strategies, which have also traded extensively in large, highly liquid global equities through U.S.-listed securities, and in companies Crescat believes are on track to achieve that status. The S&P 500 Index is also used as a supplemental benchmark for the Crescat Precious Metals private fund and Precious Metals SMA strategy because one of the long-term goals of the precious metals strategy is low correlation to the S&P 500.

References to indices, benchmarks or other measures of relative market performance over a specified period of time are provided for your information only. Reference to an index does not imply that the fund or separately managed account will achieve returns, volatility or other results similar to that index. The composition of an index may not reflect the manner in which a portfolio is constructed in relation to expected or achieved returns, portfolio guidelines, restrictions, sectors, correlations, concentrations, volatility or tracking.

Separately Managed Account (SMA) disclosures: The Crescat Large Cap Composite and Crescat Precious Metals Composite include all accounts that are managed according to those respective strategies over which the manager has full discretion. SMA composite performance results are time-weighted net of all investment management fees and trading costs including commissions and non-recoverable withholding taxes. Investment management fees are described in CPM’s Form ADV 2A. The manager for the Crescat Large Cap strategy invests predominantly in equities of the top 1,000 U.S. listed stocks weighted by market capitalization. The manager for the Crescat Precious Metals strategy invests predominantly in a global all-cap universe of precious metals mining stocks.

Hedge Fund disclosures: Only accredited investors and qualified clients will be admitted as limited partners to a CPM hedge fund. For natural persons, investors must meet SEC requirements including minimum annual income or net worth thresholds. CPM’s hedge funds are being offered in reliance on an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933 and are not required to comply with specific disclosure requirements that apply to registration under the Securities Act. The SEC has not passed upon the merits of or given its approval to CPM’s hedge funds, the terms of the offering, or the accuracy or completeness of any offering materials. A registration statement has not been filed for any CPM hedge fund with the SEC. Limited partner interests in the CPM hedge funds are subject to legal restrictions on transfer and resale. Investors should not assume they will be able to resell their securities. Investing in securities involves risk. Investors should be able to bear the loss of their investment. Investments in CPM’s hedge funds are not subject to the protections of the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Investors may obtain the most current performance data, private offering memoranda for CPM’s hedge funds, and information on CPM’s SMA strategies, including Form ADV Part 2 and 3, by contacting Linda Smith at (303) 271-9997 or by sending a request via email to lsmith@crescat.net. See the private offering memorandum for each CPM hedge fund for complete information and risk factors.