Ben Hunt
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:
Now that Jay Powell’s semi-annual Congressional testimony has finished up, it’s time for a brief walk down Memory Lane.
As with everything else in our Washington clown show, nothing really changes. This has all happened before.
Whether it’s ITT and Hal Geneen, or Teledyne and Henry Singleton, or GE and Jeff Immelt, or Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett … at some point these companies get too big to continue growing through acquisition. There’s no more step-function P/E growth to be had on the E side of the equation. So they ALWAYS start focusing on the P side – the multiple – which is entirely a creature of Narrative.
What killing active investment management? It’s not some monster hiding behind the rabbit. No, it IS the little white bunny. It’s the Zeitgeist of capital markets transformed into a political utility, innocuous on the surface … but with killer teeth.
How do you defeat the Zeitgeist? You don’t. The smart move, in fact, is to help the killer rabbit.
But there IS another way.
Two distinct market narratives that came into sharper focus last week – Global Growth Slowdown! and Democratic Socialism!. The first was pushed by the usual market Missionaries – the WSJ and the FT and the talking heads on CNBC – and the latter was pushed by the usual political Missionaries – Trump and AOC and Bernie and the rest of the 2020 presidential crowd.
But only one of these narratives makes a long-term difference for your portfolio.
We’re all passengers in the backseat of the State-driven car, and we all suspect that our drivers might be high-functioning lunatics, and we’re all terrified about what they might do next.
But we need the eggs.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries … the pricing power found in intellectual property. It’s not as easy as it looks.
For every historical narrative there is a counter-narrative, and every time history repeats itself, the main narrative gets weaker and the counter-narrative gets stronger.
That’s a problem for Jay Powell, as the counter-narrative of Central Banker Lapdog is getting stronger.
Watching Jay Powell’s press conference today, it hit me – THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE.
Back in September, 2013 to be precise, when Ben Bernanke told us that QE was not going to roll off as expected, that “data dependent” meant “market dependent”, and the Fed was a prisoner of the White House and Wall Street.
You are here. Again.
Last Halloween the hipsters over at Salesforce.com turned their new San Francisco building into a giant Eye of Sauron. I keep waiting for someone to try this with the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building, but that would be too on-the-nose.
When an inflation regime shifts, the only question that really matters for your investments and your business model is this: do you have pricing power?
Pt. 1 of a three-fer Brief series … why the worst place to be in any services industry is on the product side.