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:
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.
Police reform is just the start.
A sideways moment is when your life becomes a probabilistic exercise, where you are at the mercy of one of two merciless social institutions: hospitals or the police.
My life went sideways a week ago, and here’s what I learned about pain and privilege.
The Fed completes its transformation of the credit market into a political utility, the EU tops the US in economic growth prospects for the first time in living memory, and Americans are losing faith in “America”.
We all know someone who is in urgent-but-not-emergency need of some medical procedure that can’t be scheduled while Covid-19 is storming the hospital ramparts.
I’m one of them.
What’s happening with the Bureau of Labor Statistics with recent employment data reports is an intentional, political carelessness that supports status quo cartoons of control.
It’s not a Democrat thing and it’s not a Republican thing.
It’s a power thing.
Since June 4th 1989, the Chinese government has tried to erase any record of the Tiananmen Square massacre from history.
Can a Tiananmen Square massacre happen in the United States? I doubt it.
Can a Tiananmen Square rewriting of history happen in the United States? Absolutely. It already is.
Our leaders have botched the Covid-19 war, and we are defenseless against a now endemic disease.
15,000 to 20,000 Americans officially sick. 500 to 1,000 Americans officially dead.
Every day.
The free world does not easily survive a globally endemic Covid-19.
A narrative backlash is developing against RIAs and other asset managers that took PPP money.
Fair or not, this narrative is pure red meat for anti-Wall Street sentiment, particularly in an election season and particularly as the stock market goes up even as the real economy suffers.