RiskReversal Pod

Dan Nathan hosts CNBC’s Morgan Brennan on the RiskReversal Podcast to discuss her path from music and anthropology to Forbes during the 2009 crisis and then CNBC, and how breaking news—an on-pad SpaceX explosion in 2016 and later Trump’s defense-focused tweets—pulled her into covering space and defense tech. They explore NASA’s Artemis program and its refocus on beating China to the moon, arguing public-private partnerships, new contracting models, and rocket reusability have dramatically improved economics, enabling smaller firms to execute NASA missions at a fraction of past costs. The conversation covers how space and defense investing is shaped by demand signals, milestone-driven public comps, venture and private-equity capital, and a potential SpaceX IPO where Starlink’s recurring revenue is central, alongside Starship’s promise. They also discuss deconsolidation, dual-use tech, autonomous systems, changing Pentagon dealmaking, and the growing intersection of industrial policy, national security, supply chains, and resources.

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Dan Nathan hosts Joe Armao, fund manager of the Galaxy FinTech Fund, who recounts his path from Blackstone through the financial crisis to long/short investing at Senator, where he pushed into fintech and digital assets. They discuss a shift from recent market tailwinds to a more mixed macro backdrop, consumer resilience despite energy shock concerns, and a rotation-driven, choppier “stock picker’s market.” Armao outlines risks in private credit and gating, expects pockets of pain rather than systemic crisis, and emphasizes active balance-sheet work. On crypto, he describes Galaxy’s “great convergence” thesis: prices may lag even as blockchain infrastructure adoption accelerates via stablecoins, tokenization, and 24/7 rails for payments and trading. He explains DeFi concepts, Uniswap governance tokens, Hyperliquid’s revenue-driven token buybacks and leveraged perps, and why tokenizing blue-chip equities could expand global distribution and enable always-on markets. Armao argues AI and blockchain are now mission-critical to fintech investing and create dispersion suited to long/short strategies.
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Guy Adami and Dan Nathan break down a market that looks calm on the surface but is flashing serious warning signs underneath. The real pressure point isn't the stock market — it's the bond market, where rising yields and an incoming Fed chair are setting up a test few are prepared for.

The duo cover the stagflation setup quietly taking shape, the silent destruction in mega-cap tech (Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta), and why weakness in financials — with nearly $2 trillion in private credit exposure — may be the most underappreciated risk in the market right now.

As Pete Townshend once said: "No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned." Guy and Dan think a lot of people are about to find out what that means.

Show Notes

An Invisible Bottleneck: A Helium Shortage Threatens the Chip Industry (NYT)

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Dan Nathan and Dan Greenhaus discuss heightened Middle East war risk and how it’s driving market moves, with the S&P 500 down near recent lows, yields near multi-month highs, the dollar firming, and crude in the mid-$90s, while stressing how difficult it is to “trade geopolitics.” Greenhaus argues markets may be underpricing escalation risk but notes the U.S. is less oil-intensive, so higher gasoline hurts sentiment more than GDP, with tax-bill refunds partly offsetting pump prices and a lasting geopolitical premium likely keeping oil above prior lows. They debate recession calls, citing payment networks’ commentary that consumer health remains solid, and discuss why headline inflation may rise while core inflation moves little, making Fed hikes unlikely as long-term inflation expectations stay anchored. They also address tight credit spreads, AI-driven capex concentration, tech valuation compression, layoffs, and private credit concerns, arguing losses are not yet systemic and gates are disclosed, while advising caution and sometimes doing nothing amid exogenous uncertainty.

Show Notes

Debt Service Payments Rising (The Daily Spark)

Private credit is looking shakier (Axios)

Checkout Rosenberg Research

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Dan Nathan and Jeff Richards (Managing Partner at Notable Capital) discuss shifting AI narratives and market crosscurrents, focusing on OpenAI, Anthropic (which Notable backs), xAI, Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot. Richards argues Claude/Cowork’s breakout and rapid model improvement are forcing every software company to ask whether its product improves as models improve, while public-market uncertainty has pressured SaaS valuations even as enterprise AI demand accelerates. He says net-new IT spend is increasingly flowing to private AI companies with consumption-based pricing, while incumbents face the Innovator’s Dilemma and pricing cannibalization. They also cover cloud infrastructure demand, opaque private-company financials, IPO considerations, and how volatility and redemption dynamics in private credit are weighing on alt managers like Apollo, KKR, and Blackstone, though Richards expects any issues to be relatively contained.

Articles Mentioned

OpenAI to double workforce as business push intensifies (FT)

xAI Sends Engineers to Client Sites to Win Business from OpenAI (Bloomberg)

Microsoft Copilot Is Confronting Its Identity Crisis (Bloomberg)

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