GM95: When Consensus Gets the Cycle Wrong ft. Dario Perkins
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Alan Dunne is joined by Dario Perkins to examine why the global macro consensus may be fundamentally misreading the current cycle. The conversation moves from US fiscal stimulus and Federal Reserve credibility to the limits of the K-shaped economy narrative. Perkins challenges prevailing assumptions around AI-driven productivity, labor market weakness, and falling inflation, arguing that policy choices are pushing economies toward overheating rather than stagnation. The discussion extends to bond markets, term premia, Japan’s normalization, Europe’s fiscal pivot, and China’s rebalancing dilemma. What emerges is a picture of renewed growth, rising risks, and a cycle whose ending is now becoming visible.
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Opening remarks and context
02:25 - Global uncertainty and growth expectations
05:00 - The K-shaped economy under scrutiny
08:12 - Fiscal stimulus, tariffs, and timing effects
11:07 - Fed independence and political pressure
17:06 - The race to appoint the next Fed chair
26:35 - Productivity data and the AI narrative
35:51 - Labor market stall speed debate
39:56 - Bond markets, term premia, and inflation risk
46:03 - Japan’s normalization and demographic myths
49:46 - Europe’s fiscal pivot and growth outlook
53:28 - Defense spending as an industrial catalyst
58:13 - China’s rebalancing challenge
01:00:29 - Optimism, overheating, and how the cycle may end
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | They're basically trying to recreate what the US has had over the last 50 years, which is that |
| 0:12.0 | if you can get a vibrant defence industry, you can get, these are high quality manufacturing |
| 0:19.0 | jobs, you know, science, engineering, technology. |
| 0:22.5 | A lot of the sort of big technological breakthroughs of the last 50 years in the US have come |
| 0:26.8 | from the defence sector. I think Europe can see this as a catalyst for growth. And the countries |
| 0:32.4 | that benefit most at the moment are places like France and the UK, which don't have, you know, |
| 0:37.4 | a particularly good growth story or good sort of growth consensus. So I think this is a really |
| 0:42.1 | positive development. Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. Imagine learning |
| 0:49.6 | from their experiences, their successes, and their failures. Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, |
| 0:57.6 | the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world so you can take |
| 1:02.0 | your manager, due diligence, or investment career to the next level. Before we begin today's |
| 1:07.1 | conversation, remember to keep two things in mind. All the discussion we'll have about |
| 1:11.4 | investment performance is about the past, and past performance does not guarantee or even infer anything |
| 1:17.0 | about future performance. Also understand that there's a significant risk of financial loss |
| 1:21.6 | with all investment strategies, and you need to request and understand the specific risks |
| 1:26.3 | from the investment manager about their product before you make investment decisions. |
| 1:30.3 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Niels Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:39.3 | Welcome and welcome back to another conversation in our series of episodes that focuses on markets and investing from a global macro perspective. |
| 1:48.5 | This is a series that I not only find incredibly interesting, as well as intellectually challenging, but also very important, given where we are in the global economy and the geopolitical cycle. |
| 2:01.3 | We want to dig deep into the minds of some of the most prominent experts to help us better |
| 2:05.8 | understand what this new global macro-driven world may look like. |
| 2:10.1 | We want to explore their perspectives on a host of game-changing issues and hopefully dig out |
... |
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