Return on Reason

Max and Ben tackle listener questions in a wide-ranging Q&A covering the dollar's whipsaw through the oil shock, why a hiking BOJ still can't lift the yen, and whether crypto could ever replace the greenback. They dig into market complacency at fresh record highs, the risk that central banks misread a supply squeeze as a demand problem, the $1 trillion debt-servicing milestone and creeping fiscal dominance, and what Orbán's defeat means for European equities. Ben closes with a contrarian take on the "structurally higher oil" thesis and why obsessing over macro baskets can quietly wreck a portfolio.

Max and Ben break down four weeks of the Iran conflict and what it means for markets. They discuss how the Strait of Hormuz closure is rippling through everything from airline stocks to consumer prices, and why the ceasefire announcement hasn't changed the fundamentals. Plus: the bull case for a quick recovery—and why it probably doesn't hold up.

The S&P 500 is flat on the year. Meanwhile, European stocks just hit all-time highs — outperforming the U.S. by the widest margin in three decades. Germany's half-trillion euro spending blitz, a defense buildup not seen since the Cold War, record buybacks, and a continent quietly correcting years of policy mistakes. This week, Ben and Max dig into the boring industrial companies most investors overlook, why Wall Street's obsession with flashy growth stocks creates massive mispricings, and what the Supreme Court's tariff ruling means for European exporters.

Japan just delivered its most decisive election result in post-war history. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party won a historic supermajority, the Nikkei surged to record highs, and the so-called "Takaichi trade" kicked into gear across equities, bonds, and the yen. But what actually changed for investors — and what didn't? Max and Ben sit down to unpack the real implications: whether this mandate reduces uncertainty or amplifies fiscal risk in the world's most indebted developed economy, how the tension between Takaichi's spending ambitions and the Bank of Japan's rate normalization might resolve, and where the overlooked opportunities sit in a market that's been undervalued for decades.NOTE:During the episode at 8:31 , Bruns states that a 2024 rate hike had been reversed. This is not accurate. The Bank of Japan did not reverse a rate increase. Rather, officials calmed market volatility primarily through rhetorical guidance, emphasizing that any future rate increases would be implemented gradually. Today BOJ rates stand at .75%, significantly lower than those in set by the federal reserve and the ECB.

More than $800 billion in market value wiped from the software sector in six trading sessions. Some are calling it the Claude Crash. This week, Max is joined by Benjamin Bruns — portfolio manager at Sans Souci Investments and former analyst at LOYS AG and Deutsche Bank's DWS Group — to break down what's behind the sell-off, why it's different from the DeepSeek panic, and what it means for investors.They cover the rise of AI coding tools like Claude and Codex that are making software replicable overnight, why the Rule of 40 may have been masking fragile business models, how to tell which software companies have real moats and which are about to lose them, Bank of America's "internally inconsistent" take on the correction, the overlooked investment opportunities hiding in the AI value chain — in hardware, industrials, and energy — and why Wall Street has endless imagination for upside but almost none for risk.