Excess Returns · Friday, July 31, 2026
Ben Hunt warns that the market's heavy reliance on AI capital expenditures could lead to a systemic financial crisis if this trend falters. He attributes the current market multiples to this AI CapEx story and suggests that private equity, private credit, and alternative asset managers have heavily invested in this build-out.
“So the AI CapX story, this is what's driven multiple for this market for the last eight months.”
“It's a systemic, I.E., financial system crisis?”
“Because it's not the commercial banks this time. It's the private banks. It's private equity, private credit. The alternative asset managers. They have pushed all the chips in on the AI CapX build out.”