Return on Reason

Benjamin Bruns and Max Reynolds
  • 3.0 (2)
  • Investing

A hedge fund portfolio manager and his co-host break down the week's biggest market stories: what happened, why it matters, and what most people get wrong. Benjamin Bruns, portfolio manager at SansSouci Investments, joins co-host Max Reynolds for institutional-grade analysis in plain English—macro trends, geopolitical risk, and the trades that follow. New episodes weekly.

Episodes

  1. Jun 17

    Are IPOs Rigged Against You? SpaceX, AI Giants & the Case for Value

    SpaceX just pulled off one of the largest IPOs in history, and OpenAI and Anthropic are rumored to be next. But should any of it tempt you? Max sits down with Ben to unpack what's really happening behind the headlines: why banks deliberately underprice offerings to engineer a first-day "pop," how retail investors often end up as exit liquidity for founders and early backers, and why an advanced private market has quietly changed what going public is even for. They also dig into the bigger risk hiding in plain sight — index concentration. If a handful of trillion-dollar, profitless companies come to dominate the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, what does that mean for the millions of people who think they're "diversified"? Along the way: Benjamin Graham's not-so-flattering acronyms for IPOs, why shorting a bubble can ruin you even when you're right, and how to beat FOMO and find the diamond in the rough instead of paying full price for the diamond. Not financial advice. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and guests. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.

    27 min

  2. Jun 4

    The Berkshire Owner's Manual: What Private Investors Should Steal from the Professionals

    What actually translates from professional money management to your own brokerage account? In this episode of Return on Reason, Max sits down again with Ben to work through key passages from Berkshire Hathaway's famous owner's manual and test which principles hold up for the individual investor. The conversation covers a lot of ground: why Buffett's "corporate form, partnership attitude" structure let him compound through panics without redemptions, and whether that ownership mindset still matters when you only hold a fraction of a percent. Ben makes the case that thinking like a business owner rather than a trader is exactly what builds a good temperament—the ability to hold quality through volatility instead of selling into fear. Along the way, they dig into how to actually evaluate management: why capital allocation is the rarest skill (and why buying back stock at high prices is a red flag), why honesty on earnings calls matters more than a clean quarter, and how to smell trouble in the accounting—non-GAAP reconciliations, EBITDA creep, and excessive stock-based comp hiding in the cash flow statement. This episode discusses general investing concepts and is not personalized financial advice.

    26 min

  3. May 15

    The Liquidity Explanation: Why Markets Keep Hitting Highs in a World on Fire

    The S&P just closed at 7,398. The NASDAQ's forward PE is back at levels last seen at the dot-com peak and the 2021 frenzy. Warren Buffett is sitting on $373 billion in cash. Ray Dalio says we're 80% of the way into bubble territory. Meanwhile, the US is at war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted for months, and the IEA is calling it the largest supply shock in oil market history. So why do equities — the asset class most exposed to all of it — keep printing new highs? The answer you'll hear everywhere is "liquidity." Cash on the sidelines. So much money in the system. But what does that actually mean? When people say money "flowed into" the market, where do they think it went? Does cash enter the market in aggregate, or does ownership just change hands at a higher price? And can liquidity alone justify permanently higher valuations — or is that just the story we tell ourselves at the top of every cycle? Max sits down with Ben to pressure-test the explanation everyone's relying on.

    30 min

  4. Apr 21 ·  Bonus

    Rapid-Fire Q&A Episode One: Safe Havens, Supply Shocks, and Stock Picking in a K-Shaped Economy

    Max and Ben tackle listener questions in a wide-ranging Q&A covering the dollar's whipsaw through the oil shock, why a hiking BOJ still can't lift the yen, and whether crypto could ever replace the greenback. They dig into market complacency at fresh record highs, the risk that central banks misread a supply squeeze as a demand problem, the $1 trillion debt-servicing milestone and creeping fiscal dominance, and what Orbán's defeat means for European equities. Ben closes with a contrarian take on the "structurally higher oil" thesis and why obsessing over macro baskets can quietly wreck a portfolio.

    15 min

  5. Apr 10

    Iran Conflict: A Four-Week Market Assessment

    Max and Ben break down four weeks of the Iran conflict and what it means for markets. They discuss how the Strait of Hormuz closure is rippling through everything from airline stocks to consumer prices, and why the ceasefire announcement hasn't changed the fundamentals. Plus: the bull case for a quick recovery—and why it probably doesn't hold up.

    16 min

  6. Feb 26

    The Case for Europe: Mispricings, Policy Shifts, and Where the Capital Is Flowing

    The S&P 500 is flat on the year. Meanwhile, European stocks just hit all-time highs — outperforming the U.S. by the widest margin in three decades. Germany's half-trillion euro spending blitz, a defense buildup not seen since the Cold War, record buybacks, and a continent quietly correcting years of policy mistakes. This week, Ben and Max dig into the boring industrial companies most investors overlook, why Wall Street's obsession with flashy growth stocks creates massive mispricings, and what the Supreme Court's tariff ruling means for European exporters.

    28 min

  7. Feb 16

    Japan's Mandate: The Takaichi Trade

    Japan just delivered its most decisive election result in post-war history. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party won a historic supermajority, the Nikkei surged to record highs, and the so-called "Takaichi trade" kicked into gear across equities, bonds, and the yen. But what actually changed for investors — and what didn't? Max and Ben sit down to unpack the real implications: whether this mandate reduces uncertainty or amplifies fiscal risk in the world's most indebted developed economy, how the tension between Takaichi's spending ambitions and the Bank of Japan's rate normalization might resolve, and where the overlooked opportunities sit in a market that's been undervalued for decades. NOTE: During the episode at 8:31 , Bruns states that a 2024 rate hike had been reversed. This is not accurate. The Bank of Japan did not reverse a rate increase. Rather, officials calmed market volatility primarily through rhetorical guidance, emphasizing that any future rate increases would be implemented gradually. Today BOJ rates stand at .75%, significantly lower than those in set by the federal reserve and the ECB.

    25 min

  8. Feb 9

    The Software Correction

    More than $800 billion in market value wiped from the software sector in six trading sessions. Some are calling it the Claude Crash. This week, Max is joined by Benjamin Bruns — portfolio manager at Sans Souci Investments and former analyst at LOYS AG and Deutsche Bank's DWS Group — to break down what's behind the sell-off, why it's different from the DeepSeek panic, and what it means for investors. They cover the rise of AI coding tools like Claude and Codex that are making software replicable overnight, why the Rule of 40 may have been masking fragile business models, how to tell which software companies have real moats and which are about to lose them, Bank of America's "internally inconsistent" take on the correction, the overlooked investment opportunities hiding in the AI value chain — in hardware, industrials, and energy — and why Wall Street has endless imagination for upside but almost none for risk.

    30 min
  • 8 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

3
out of 5
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About

A hedge fund portfolio manager and his co-host break down the week's biggest market stories: what happened, why it matters, and what most people get wrong. Benjamin Bruns, portfolio manager at SansSouci Investments, joins co-host Max Reynolds for institutional-grade analysis in plain English—macro trends, geopolitical risk, and the trades that follow. New episodes weekly.

Information

  • Creator
    Benjamin Bruns and Max Reynolds
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    8
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Benjamin Bruns and Max Reynolds
  • Show Website
    Return on Reason