#400 Michael Howell: The Liquidity Cycle Has Turned, Low Quality Returns for Stocks, The Real Driver Behind Gold

About this episode

Michael Howell, CEO of CrossBorder Capital, an investment advisory firm, and author of Capital Wars, returns to explain why the global liquidity cycle peaked in late Q3/early Q4 of last year — and what that means for the rest of 2026. His core argument: money is fungible but finite, and a booming real economy is now pulling liquidity out of financial assets, which compresses P/E multiples even as earnings look fine. That puts us in what he calls the speculation phase: rising bond yields, strong commodities, pressured crypto, and low-quality equity returns where index gains mask widespread underperformance. He also pushes back hard on the popular "debasement trade" explanation for gold,…