Co-Founder and CIO
Ben Hunt is the creator of Epsilon Theory and inspiration behind Second Foundation Partners, which he co-founded with Rusty Guinn in June 2018.
Epsilon Theory, Second Foundation’s principal publishing brand, is a newsletter and website that examines markets through the lenses of game theory and history. Over 100,000 professional investors and allocators across 180 countries read Epsilon Theory for its fresh perspective and novel insights into market dynamics. As Chief Investment Officer, Ben bears primary responsibility for determining the Company’s investment views and positioning of model portfolios. He is also the primary author of materials distributed through Epsilon Theory.
Ben taught political science for 10 years: at New York University from 1991 until 1997 and (with tenure) at Southern Methodist University from 1997 until 2000. He also wrote two academic books: Getting to War (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1997) and Policy and Party Competition (Routledge, 1992), which he co-authored with Michael Laver. Ben is the founder of two technology companies and the co-founder of SmartEquip, Inc., a software company for the construction equipment industry that provides intelligent schematics and parts diagrams to facilitate e-commerce in spare parts.
He began his investment career in 2003, first in venture capital and subsequently on two long/short equity hedge funds. He worked at Iridian Asset Management from 2006 until 2011 and TIG Advisors from 2012 until 2013. He joined Rusty at Salient in 2013, where he combined his background as a portfolio manager, risk manager, and entrepreneur with academic experience in game theory and econometrics to work with Salient’s own portfolio managers and its financial advisor clients to improve client outcomes.
Ben is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (1986) and earned his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 1991. He lives in the wilds of Redding, CT on Little River Farm, where he personifies the dilettante farmer that has been a stock comedic character since Cicero's day. Luckily his wife, Jennifer, and four daughters, Harper, Hannah, Haven and Halle, are always there to save the day. Ben's hobbies include comic books, Alabama football, beekeeping, and humoring Rusty in trivia "competitions".
Articles by Ben:
It’s a big day for us here at Epsilon Theory, as we launch a new monthly narrative monitor – Security Analysis Methods.
That’s a mouthful and it sounds boring, but I promise you it’s anything but. Even more so than the Central Banks monitor, I think this is the most powerful investment application we’ve developed yet.
We’ve been assaulted by three brutal grifts in just the past week … three smacks from Bobo and his bag of oranges … each deserving of an Epsilon Theory note.
Here’s chapter 1 – the ludicrous crony capitalism of the US government giving Kodak $765 million for “pharmaceutical supply production”.
As the kids would say, I’m old enough to remember Charles Keating and Neil Bush.
I’m old enough to remember the slow-burning dumpster fire that was the S&L Crisis of the late 1980s, when politically connected bankers used their influence to enrich themselves and secure regulatory forbearance for their crappy loans.
It’s happening again.
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
The world’s principal supplier of semiconductors – the spice of OUR global empire – is now Taiwan.
Thanks a lot, Intel. Thanks a lot, Bob Swan. Thanks a lot, Jack Welch. Thanks a lot, all you Wall Street wizards of financialization.
Taiwan is now Arrakis. And we WILL fight over it.
The more I see these midday mysterious reversals in the growth/value relationship, the more I think that there is a Common Knowledge shift happening and not just a month-by-month shift in the Wall Street drum-beating for this sector or that sector.
A shift in Wall Street drum-beating is good for a trade. A shift in Common Knowledge, though … that’s a Big Deal.
Everyone is in a tizzy about day traders and Robinhood. “Ooooh, they’re going to have such a hangover when the bubble pops.”
Pffft. They’ll be fine.
The investors facing a hangover are small family offices, plied with endless offerings of fee-heavy SPVs and SPACs by multi-billion dollar asset managers.
I don’t expect everyone to be as excited about the arrival of the new ET Professional Narrative Monitors as Steve Martin was about the arrival of the new phonebooks … but it’s close! Here’s the replay for the Narrative Monitor webinar we held via conference call and screenshare for ET Pro subscribers: I’ve also attached …
Both Trump and Biden have proposed $2 trillion spending plans for next year, confirming exactly what we wrote last December. To the dollar. To the word.
We can’t always write tomorrow’s headlines today. But we do try!
I still believe this will be our finest hour.
Not of the America that was. But of the America that can be.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
Defund the police? No.
Demilitarize and Deunionize? Yes.
Here’s how we use narrative to start taking back our world from the culture-porn merchants on the left and the right.
Police reform is just the start.