How to Navigate the New Investment Paradigm | Lawrence McDonald

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Government, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 450 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lawrence McDonald, the founder of The Bear Traps Report and the author of a recently published book about the risks and investment opportunities present in today's radically reshaped economy titled "How to Listen When Markets Speak."

In today's conversation, Demetri and Lawrence discuss how social media and the gamification of investing have amplified behavioral biases and fueled the AI boom, as well as the growth of crypto and other "tertiary" assets.

They then zoom out to examine how the macro environment has changed since the Covid 19 pandemic, and how the government's response to both the GFC and covid crisis have sent investors scrambling for new frameworks to help them understand government's role in the economy and how to position themselves and their client's portfolios for a radically new world—one that you will not learn about in financial text books or most macroeconomics courses.

Kofinas and McDonald also explore the "dark side of passive investing," the extreme concentration risk present in a handful of AI-linked mega-caps, the risk to markets of more capricious government trade policies, and why Lawrence McDonald believes that one of the most underappreciated opportunity sets in AI lies not at the intersection of semiconductors and AI companies, but in the physical energy and delivery infrastructure needed to power them.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
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Episode Recorded on 11/17/2025

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up, everybody? My name is Dmitra Gaffinus, and you're listening to Hidden Forces,
0:06.2	a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens, to challenge consensus
0:12.9	narratives, and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.
0:18.8	My guest on this episode of Hidden Forces is Lawrence McDonald,
0:22.2	the founder of the Bear Traps Report, and the author of a recently published book
0:26.6	about the risks and investment opportunities present in today's radically reshaped economy,
0:31.6	titled How to Listen When Markets Speak. In today's conversation, Larry and I discuss
0:37.1	how social media and the gamification
0:39.3	of investing have amplified behavioral biases and added fuel to the AI boom, crypto, and
0:46.3	other tertiary corners of the market.
0:48.3	We then zoom out to examine how the macro environment itself has changed since the COVID-19
0:53.3	pandemic and how the government's response to both the has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the
0:54.9	government's response to both the GFC and the COVID crisis have sent investors scrambling
1:00.0	for new frameworks to help them understand the role played by government in the economy,
1:04.5	and how to position themselves and their clients' portfolios for a radically different world
1:09.3	than the one that we learned about in our financial
1:11.2	textbooks and macroeconomics courses. We also explore the dark side of passive investing,
1:17.5	the extreme concentration in a handful of AI-linked mega-caps, the risk to markets of more
1:22.9	capricious government trade policies, and why Larry believes that one of the most underappreciated opportunity
1:28.1	sets in AI lies not at the intersection of semiconductors and the AI companies themselves, but in the
1:34.0	physical energy and delivery infrastructure needed to power them. If you want access to our
1:39.8	premium feed, which provides you with subscriber-only content, as well as transcripts and
	...

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