Speaker · Updated
Dave Nadig: latest market views
ETF.com
Summary
Dave Nadig is President and Director of Research at ETF.com, a long-time ETF industry expert who formerly served as its CEO, was a financial futurist at VettaFi, and co-authored a CFA Institute guide to exchange-traded funds.
Chorus has 13 views from Dave Nadig across 2 episodes on Excess Returns since October 14, 2026. Their latest calls: bearish on Space Exploration Technologies.
Where they stand
Their latest bullish or bearish call on each company.
- Space Exploration TechnologiesBearish ·
What they talk about most
- US stock market outlook · 2
- AI bubble & tech valuations · 1
- AI infrastructure & data centers · 1
- Intel · 1
- Space Exploration Technologies · 1
- US Treasuries & yields · 1
- AI pricing & unit economics · 1
- AI: overall outlook · 1
- Amazon.com · 1
- Asset managers, brokers & exchanges · 1
- IPOs, M&A & deal activity · 1
- US consumer · 1
The latest views
Newest first. Every quote is checked against the episode's transcript.
AI infrastructure & data centers
AI buildout increasingly funded by equity and bonds, with raised money sitting idle as data-center projects delay.
Over the last six months the AI capex boom has shifted to capital markets. Companies now do secondaries and float bonds to build data centers, which was unthinkable six months ago. That money is being raised, but the projects are being delayed, so a large pool of capital is effectively sitting idle waiting for deployment. He argues this has pulled a lot of capital out of the system, and it is a real problem today.
“we have the AI CapEx boom, which is increasingly now leaning on capital markets... That money is being raised, yet the projects are being delayed.”at 14:39
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
Global investors still treat Treasuries as the safe haven, so yields fall each time markets panic.
Higher US yields have created demand for Treasuries. He observes that yields keep falling a little each time something panics. To him this means the rest of the world still sees the Treasury market as the safety asset, so Treasuries keep drawing safe-haven flows in each selloff.
“we keep seeing... yields come down a little bit every time something panics, which to me means the rest of the world is still looking at the treasury as the safety market.”at 15:21
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
Heavy IPO and unlock supply plus top-of-K selling could leave equity demand unable to absorb supply.
Markets must absorb a large amount of equity supply from SpaceX unlocks and the next two big IPOs. At a Chicago event, CIOs said this raw capital flow issue was their top concern, more than consumer demand or the health of the core economy. He notes that each year about a third of equity demand comes from defined contribution plans, which is the baseline, and the rest determines whether the market rises or falls. He sees top-of-K allocations shifting out of hyperscalers and a rotational market where everyone derisks but stays fully invested, which is problematic when the top of the K funds spending from high equity values.
“this enormous amount of equity where all the markets are just supposed to absorb both from SpaceX unlocks and from the next two big IPOs that are coming... every year, a third of equity demand comes from monolithic defined contribution buying.”at 15:39
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
Space Exploration TechnologiesBearish
SpaceX hasn't held up and won't with lockup unlocks coming; its stock is at risk.
The wealth of about 10% of new centimillionaires in the next three months depends on whether the stock holds up. He says SpaceX has not held up and does not expect it to with unlocks coming. Unlocks add supply to a market already having to absorb the next two big IPOs. He sees the stock as a bellwether for top-of-K wealth and spending.
“It's all dependent on whether or not that stock actually holds up. And SpaceX hasn't held up, and I don't think it's going to with the unlocks coming.”at 17:00
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
IntelUncertain
Intel fell 30% on a beat; its realistic 2-3 year outlook was punished against priced-in expectations.
Intel was down more than 30% on a quarter he calls fantastic, with about 80% data center growth. He says 4-5% of the move was priced in, so the beat was not enough. From his reading of the transcripts, management was fairly realistic about its two- to three-year prospects and said it would not grow 100% a year forever. He thinks the market punished that realism, which he sees as a warning sign for other names and an enormous wealth wipeout.
“they were fairly realistic about what their two, three year prospects were. It's like, we're not gonna grow a 100% a year forever. Surprise.”at 22:26
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
Hyperscalers and AI leaders are over-earning rather than expensive; the reset has already started.
He frames the problem as over-earning, not expensive valuations. Many S&P 500 stocks, around 300, were already more than 20% below all-time highs, so the reset looks already underway. Hyperscaler earnings are at peak levels and are likely to come down, which he links to competition and margin normalisation rather than a bubble in multiples.
“The way we would frame it is over earning. They're not expensive. They're over earning. Isn't that kinda what's already happened?”at 29:29
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
Index may grind flat while hyperscalers fall 30% underneath, a seesaw market hiding large rotation.
About 300 S&P 500 stocks were already more than 20% below highs. Even on a day the Nasdaq fell 3%, around 50% of names were making new 20-day highs. He expects a seesaw market that could grind along in flat 3-4% ranges, with the index hiding large moves underneath, such as hyperscalers down about 30%, as Intel is now.
“we could grind along 3%, 4% flat markets. While under the hood, we've got, you know, hyperscalers down 30% like Intel is today.”at 29:57
Excess Returns: Chip Stocks Look Cheap. AI Spending Is Surging. So Why Is Cameron Dawson Watching for Peak Earnings? ·
Asset managers, brokers & exchanges
AI stock-picking funds have a mediocre record; any AI edge in investing gets competed away quickly.
Nadig says the early hype that AI would produce black-box funds that beat markets has not happened. Everyone now has the same tools (summarising prospectuses and 10-Ks), so any edge is short-lived, as with high-frequency trading and basic machine learning in trade sizing. He cites the two AI-driven funds he knows, AIQ from Amplify and the PICTAE products. Their record is mediocre: they sometimes pull ahead, but regular stock pickers and indexers beat them in other windows. He calls it mostly a failed experiment, though he expects real AI alpha to eventually sit inside a Jim Simons-style hedge fund that is only revealed later.
“the record's pretty meh. Like, they have windows where they're pulling it out a little bit, but they also have windows where regular old stock pickers and indexers are beating the crap out of them.”at 5:08
Excess Returns: AI Productivity Is Real. 83% of Stocks Are 10% Off Highs. Why Does Barry Ritholtz Like Bonds Again? ·
Massive AI and tech IPO supply will absorb capital, starving other businesses and accelerating concentration.
Nadig says the bigger worry is the volume of massive IPOs the market must absorb, all of them big AI and tech companies, with no new mid-sized listings coming. The market has to absorb trillions of dollars of market cap, and that valuation becomes collateral that gets borrowed against and anchors large indexes. He thinks this accelerates concentration at the large-cap tech and AI end. Other businesses, which will not show 100% forward growth, will lose capital. He calls this a K-shaped capital markets problem that mirrors the K-shaped income problem, and says it is more of a concern than the breadth point about narrow participation.
“The bigger issue to me is the volume of massive IPOs this market is supposed to absorb, all of which are on that one side.”at 10:13
Excess Returns: AI Productivity Is Real. 83% of Stocks Are 10% Off Highs. Why Does Barry Ritholtz Like Bonds Again? ·
Recent inference efficiency breakthroughs are orders of magnitude better and deflationary for AI costs.
Nadig argues the market underestimates efficiency gains in AI. He points to a model drop a couple of weeks earlier, which he names as Jev, a new way of thinking about AI inference that is orders of magnitude more efficient. It was not a patented invention, just a different approach. He expects more such shifts and calls them all deflationary. That is the efficiency-versus-capex angle in the bubble debate: cheaper inference can make large build-outs look over-provisioned.
“We had [Jev], which is a whole new way of thinking about AI inference, drop a couple weeks ago, which is literally orders of magnitude more efficient.”at 14:19
Excess Returns: AI Productivity Is Real. 83% of Stocks Are 10% Off Highs. Why Does Barry Ritholtz Like Bonds Again? ·
Most people have not grasped how much AI can now do; they still treat chatbots as glorified Google.
Nadig sees a gap between how people think about AI and what it can do. Many users, particularly those on their phones, assume ChatGPT just got a little better over time, and do not realize they can ask for much bigger tasks. His example is a baseball scorecard he generated with Claude from a repo and an MLB feed, which drew requests from Reddit users who then built their own designs. The gap is not between smart and dumb users but an imagination gap about what the tools can do now.
“But I feel like there is this huge gap in AI right now, not so much between, like, I'm the smart person who's using AI, and I'm the dumb person who's just asking you for recipes, but between, like, this imagination gap.”at 33:31
Excess Returns: AI Productivity Is Real. 83% of Stocks Are 10% Off Highs. Why Does Barry Ritholtz Like Bonds Again? ·
Companies keep choosing price over volume because high-value consumers drive most spending.
Nadig cites WisdomTree's Sam Ryan, who has argued since the pandemic-era inflation that companies choose price over volume, and says nobody has cut prices since. His explanation is structural: the economy increasingly depends on fewer high-value consumers, so goods must be priced higher on lower volumes. He sees this across packaged goods, retail and the wider economy, and links it to shrinkflation and the cost pressure felt by ordinary shoppers.
“Nobody's dropped prices. Everybody's still choosing price over volume because we're in an economy where fewer and fewer high value consumers... are responsible for more and more economic activity, which means things have to be pricier at lower volumes.”at 43:07
Excess Returns: AI Productivity Is Real. 83% of Stocks Are 10% Off Highs. Why Does Barry Ritholtz Like Bonds Again? ·
Amazon.comUncertain
Amazon is blocking AI shopping agents to keep control of the customer relationship and data.
Nadig points to Amazon's statement that it does not want agents scraping its site or buying for shoppers. He reads this as protecting the customer experience but mainly as a play for power in an AI arms race, where consumers are unarmed. He argues that platforms with data and shopping relationships will seek to capture more of the value from AI tools, rather than make life easier for individual consumers. This is a view on strategy, not a price call.
“Amazon has already come out and say they do not want agents scraping Amazon for anything. We don't want agents buying your shit on Amazon.”at 44:49
Excess Returns: AI Productivity Is Real. 83% of Stocks Are 10% Off Highs. Why Does Barry Ritholtz Like Bonds Again? ·
Shows
- Excess Returns · 2 episodes
Ask your AI what Dave Nadig thinks
Chorus gives Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants every view Dave Nadig has shared on the shows it covers, next to everyone else's. Ask where they stand, what changed, and who disagrees.
Chorus reports what speakers said. It isn't investment advice.