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
159 episodes
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...
Prediction Markets Are Not Investing
Betting has gone mainstream, and now it’s wearing an “investing” costume. We take a skeptical look at prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi and ask what they really are: useful information tools, entertainment, or a fast track to bad fi...
The OCIO Mindset: Stephanie Lang, CFA
When a semiconductor ETF can rip higher in a month and a mega-cap can spike 35% in a day, it’s hard to know whether you’re watching real value being created or pure market heat. We sit down with Stephanie Lang, CFA, former Chief Investment Offi...
TikTok Politics Meets Billionaire Money
New York City can look unstoppable right up until incentives flip. We sit down with Fraser Rice to take the temperature inside the “belly of the beast” near Grand Central and talk about what a tax-the-rich political wave means for the business ...
Red Carpets Do Not Fix Supply Chains
A summit can look monumental while changing almost nothing, and that gap is where investors get hurt. We take a hard look at the US China leader meeting and ask a simple question: what parts are pageantry, and what parts can actually move marke...
SpaceX As An Investment
The next wave of mega-IPOs may not be another software company. It might be SpaceX, a business that blends satellite internet, rocket launches, and defense-adjacent capabilities into one name that could be too big for investors to ignore.
Tim Cook’s Apple
Tim Cook never led like a headline magnet, and that’s exactly why we wanted to stop and take his record seriously. With news swirling around Apple’s leadership structure and succession, we zoom out and ask a practical investor question: what do...
The Last Amateur And The Investing Lessons In Golf
Most people think greatness is about raw talent. Then you meet someone who wins because they never waste a shot, never waste a moment, and never pretend the work is optional. That’s what I remember from caddying for Jay Siegel at The Country Cl...
Straightening out the Strait of Hormuz
A ceasefire headline is easy to trade. The Strait of Hormuz reality is harder: crowded sea lanes, mixed flags, sanctions workarounds, and one “accident” that can yank oil prices and risk assets in a single day. We dig into why the probability o...
Investing for Ourselves: Clem Miller
A portfolio can look “wrong” on paper and still be rational in real life. We pull back the curtain on what we actually hold, why one of us is willing to sit on a huge cash position, and how a downside-first investing philosophy changes every de...
Investing for Ourselves: Steve Davenport
“Leave it alone” sounds comforting until you’ve watched a concentrated stock position implode, or you’ve lived through a year where both stocks and bonds drop together. Clem and I sit down to walk through Steve Davenport’s portfolio mindset, an...