SKEPTIC’S GUIDE TO INVESTING
Straight Talk for All, Nonsense for None
About - Our podcast looks to help improve investing IQ. We share 15-30 minutes on finance, market and investment ideas. We bring experience and empathy to the complex process of financial wellness. Every journey is unique, so we look for ways our insights can help listeners. Also, we want to have fun😎
Your Hosts - Meet Steve Davenport, CFA and Clem Miller, CFA as they discus the latest in news, markets and investments. They each bring over 25 years in the investment industry to their discussions. Steve brings a domestic stock and quantitative emphasis, Clem has a more fundamental and international perspective. They hope to bring experience, honesty and humility to these podcasts. There are a lot of acronyms and financial terms which confuse more than they help. There are many entertainers versus analysts promoting get rich quick ideas. Let’s cut through the nonsense with straight talk!
Disclaimer - These podcasts are not intended as investment advice. Individuals please consult your own investment, tax and legal advisors. They provide these insights for educational purposes only.
Episodes
171 episodes
Red Carpets And Real Deals
A summit can feel like a market event, but that doesn’t mean it’s an investing opportunity. We take a skeptical look at the upcoming Xi Trump meeting and ask the uncomfortable question: are we getting a deeper US China relationship, or just bet...
The Wealth Elevator Method For Real Estate Cash Flow
You can save for years, do everything “right,” and still feel stuck because your money never creates real momentum. We sit down with Lane Kawaoka, a real estate investor and founder behind a private equity platform with over $2B in assets, to u...
Apple’s Next Act
A new CEO at Apple is never just a leadership story, it’s an investing story. We talk through what it could mean now that Tim Cook is retired and Apple hands the reins to John Ternus, a longtime product development leader. If you’ve felt the iP...
The Great White North Is Not A Bear
Tariffs make great sound bites, but they get messy fast when your “target” is your closest trading partner. We dig into the sudden surge of U.S. hostility toward Canada and ask the question that matters for business owners, investors, and anyon...
Walker Cup At Lahinch: The Amateur Golf Standard
The Walker Cup has a way of making golf feel urgent again. Put the best amateurs in the world on a true links course like Lahinch, add wind off the Atlantic, and suddenly every choice matters: club selection, shot shape, patience, and how you h...
Trump Accounts Explained
A new savings idea for kids can be both smart and messy at the same time. We dig into the so-called Trump accounts, a proposal aimed at children born between January 2025 and December 31, 2028, and why the core concept is hard to argue with: ge...
Venezuela Oil Deal Reality Check
“One fifth of Venezuela’s oil” is the kind of line that makes people stop scrolling, but it also hides the most important investing question we can ask: are we talking about reserves in the ground or production that can actually flow to market?...
Sector Bets Without Going All In
The fastest way to blow up a portfolio is simple: get overly confident and shove a giant percentage into one “sure thing” sector. We take a calmer route and talk through how we actually weight industries when the market feels stretched, rates f...
Can The Treasury Really Lower Long Rates
You keep hearing that someone in Washington wants lower interest rates. The real question is whether they can actually deliver them where it counts: the 10-year, 20-year, and 30-year Treasury yields that feed into mortgage rates and broader fin...
SpaceX Stock Whiplash And What Could Move It Next
SpaceX as a public stock looks like the future, right up until you try to price it. We open with the hard reality of volatility: a run from the IPO around the mid-100s to roughly 250, then a slide back near the low-100s. That swing forces a gro...
What If Real Shortage Is Political Will
Oil doesn’t move on headlines, it moves on incentives, constraints, and timelines. We walk through the latest US-Iran-Israel-Gulf dynamics and translate the geopolitics into practical investing questions: what does Strait of Hormuz risk really ...
What If AI Growth Is Just Debt In Disguise
A $500 billion AI funding headline can sound like destiny, but we’re more interested in the mechanics and the weak links. Steve Davenport and Clem Miller trace the AI investment chain from money-losing model builders to the very real world of d...
Iran And Oman May Redraw Maritime Rules
A 21-mile-wide passage can move the world’s energy markets, and the Strait of Hormuz is the clearest proof. We sit down to unpack why this chokepoint keeps returning to the center of global geopolitics, oil shipping risk, and investor anxiety a...
Michigan’s Tight Senate Primary
A Senate primary in Michigan comes down to fewer than 10,000 votes and suddenly the whole midterm map feels more fragile and more interesting. We sit down to make sense of what Al Sayed’s narrow win on the Democratic side could mean in a workin...
Houthis Expand Shipping Chaos and Saudis Turn Nuclear
Oil markets do not just run on supply and demand, they run on geography. When a single chokepoint turns into a pressure valve, investors feel it fast through crude prices, inflation prints, and sudden risk-off moves. We sit down with Clem Mille...
Tariffs Never Die
Tariffs are back again, and the part that should grab your attention is not the headline rate. It’s the way the justification keeps changing. We walk through how the administration appears determined to land on a broad 10% tariff, then sends tr...
SK Hynix Vs Micron
Micron has become the default “AI memory” ticker for many US investors, but we’ve been asking a different question: what happens when a Korean heavyweight like SK Hynix becomes easier to buy through a US-traded ADR, and why has it often traded ...
Insider Ownership Beats Chasing Last Year’s Earnings
OWN Explainer Video:https://youtu.be/MSD8Msi7qcYThe S&P 500 is supposed to be “the market,” but what if its biggest blind spot is the people actually running the co...
The Four AI Gates Investors Need To Watch
AI is sucking up the oxygen in markets, but the real question for investors is simpler and tougher: what has to go right for trillions in spending to turn into durable profits? We sit down with Steve Gattuso, CIO at Courier Capital and longtime...
Is Cash A Safety Net Or A Silent Drag
Cash is the one asset everybody thinks they understand and it’s also the one most people never size on purpose. We sit down as skeptics and ask a simple question with expensive consequences: how much cash should you hold in a portfolio, and whe...
When Peace Talks Sound Like War
“We’re getting close to peace” is one of the most dangerous sentences in politics, especially when the next headline is about more missiles, more strikes, and more promises to hit harder. We take a hard look at how the word peace gets used toda...
The Memo Of Misunderstanding
“The Strait is open” is a comforting headline, but we don’t think it’s an investing thesis. We dig into the new US-Iran memorandum that’s being sold as a breakthrough and explain why the fine print, the missing signatures, and the political inc...
SpaceX After The IPO
SpaceX’s IPO didn’t just light up the charts, it raised a harder question: are you buying a business, or buying belief. We look at the spike after the debut, the slide back toward the offering price, and why that pattern can lure long-term inve...
How War Inflation And Voter Anger Could Flip Congress
The midterms are not just a politics story. They are a pocketbook story, and the loudest message might be the giant number on the gas station sign. We connect the affordability squeeze to the Iran war and explain why even a real ceasefire may n...