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Alex Altmann

Things Alex Says on Podcasts

“People always ask me, what gets retail to sell? I'm like, lose your job. Or when your neighbor loses their job.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends “It's about the fact that AI financing does have limitations. It may not apply today to hyperscalers who still are cash volcanoes, but it is certainly applying to levered plays on forward compute.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends “Next year, 2027, consensus S&P earnings, 75% of that is expected to come from semiconductors and hyperscalers.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends “The capex number can't go any higher, 1.2 trillion for next year, 1.4 for the year after. Maybe it moves by 100 billion here and there, but we're kind of at terminal point now. I just don't see where the revenue is going to come from. S&P top line, $17 trillion. It's about $5.5 trillion of profits. And we're going to say, all of a sudden, we're going to magic a trillion dollars.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends

Where to Find Them

Alex Altmann has been a guest on The Compound and Friends .

Recently: “The Bulls Are Trapped with Alex Altmann” on The Compound and Friends (October 2026).

What They Said

“People always ask me, what gets retail to sell? I'm like, lose your job. Or when your neighbor loses their job.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends

Altmann argued retail investors have outperformed institutions this cycle because they have more holding power and no committee to answer to. Only a margin call or job loss forces them out, he says.

The Compound and Friends · 2026-10-30 Permalink → Listen →
The Compound and Friends Around 16:52 into the episode
Alex Altmann

Right. And the only thing that will basically cause them to stop out is either their brokerage account basically margin calls them or they lose their job. That's it.

Josh Brown

Yeah.

Alex Altmann

Right. It really is all about. People always ask me, oh, what gets retail to sell? I'm like, lose your job. Or when your neighbor loses their job.

Michael Batnick

So there's been times where retail has dumped stocks. Like, obviously. Is that a buying opportunity or not necessarily?

Alex Altmann

It depends on the starting point and how long it's been going on for. So what if I told you, we've got data on retail back to around about 1995, like good quality data. Is that

Michael Batnick

relevant still in today's world?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“It's about the fact that AI financing does have limitations. It may not apply today to hyperscalers who still are cash volcanoes, but it is certainly applying to levered plays on forward compute.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends

After a chart showing that a higher cost of capital usually means less issuance, Altmann argues the AI buildout is behaving as if that rule doesn't apply, and that widening data center bond spreads and neocloud stress are the market pushing back.

The Compound and Friends · 2026-10-30 Permalink → Listen →
The Compound and Friends Around 44:46 into the episode
Alex Altmann

Good question. So effectively, this chart is telling you that, you know, corporate finance and Econ 101 holds true over a very long period of time. And this goes back to, I think, 1995, if I'm not mistaken.

Michael Batnick

Meaning higher cost of capital, less issuance. Correct. Kind of makes sense.

Alex Altmann

But apparently, we've decided, and this is like the AI narrative. AI can ignore that. Right. And the chart before the IG chart of data centers debt is telling you you can't ignore it because spreads are widening. And they're going to continue widening to the point where it's effectively going to either tear. Or break the market. And we're seeing cracks already. That's what Core Weave is about. That's what NeoClouds more holistically about. It's about the fact that actually AI financing does have limitations. It may not apply today to hyperscalers who still are cash volcanoes, but it is certainly applying to levered sort of plays on forward compute. Well,

Josh Brown

so the market efficiently is, I guess, like the way to think, the way I would think about this is it's rationality in the market. Yes. It got to Core Weave before it got to Alphabet, which is the way it should work. Okay. Give me 13, guys. You're saying equities are also finally catching up to the…

Alex Altmann

Yeah, sure. So look, obviously, what we try to do as a team is try to take relatively complex concepts in the market that may or be produced by other parts of the bank or by us and present them in ways that kind of make sense, right? And so equity markets are amazingly efficient below the surface…

Michael Batnick

is intuitive. If you need to borrow money, money is expensive. You're in much bigger trouble than the companies that have a stronger balance sheet.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Next year, 2027, consensus S&P earnings, 75% of that is expected to come from semiconductors and hyperscalers.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends

Josh Brown had said about two-thirds of economic growth is coming from AI-related capex. Altmann answered with the stat he finds wildest, showing how concentrated index earnings expectations are in the AI complex.

The Compound and Friends · 2026-10-30 Permalink → Listen →
The Compound and Friends Around 38:57 into the episode
Alex Altmann

You want to know Wildstat?

Josh Brown

Yeah.

Alex Altmann

So next year, next year, 2027, consensus SP earnings, 75% of that is expected to come from semiconductors and hyperscalers. Great.

Michael Batnick

Love it.

Alex Altmann

Right.

Josh Brown

God, let's hope there's not a financing problem that extends into next year.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“The capex number can't go any higher, 1.2 trillion for next year, 1.4 for the year after. Maybe it moves by 100 billion here and there, but we're kind of at terminal point now. I just don't see where the revenue is going to come from. S&P top line, $17 trillion. It's about $5.5 trillion of profits. And we're going to say, all of a sudden, we're going to magic a trillion dollars.” — Alex Altmann, The Compound and Friends

Altmann, who runs tactical equity strategy at Barclays, had just said AI needs about a trillion dollars of revenue by the end of 2028 to pay for the data center build-out. Here he explains why he turned cautious on the AI trade.

The Compound and Friends · 2026-10-30 Permalink → Listen →
The Compound and Friends Around 57:41 into the episode
Alex Altmann

And right now, our run rate for then is going to be somewhere around about 400, right?

Josh Brown

Okay.

Alex Altmann

It's just we're not there. We need to plug that gap. And so, you know, we went out to Asia. We really just went to the lion's den, spoke to a bunch of investors out there and were like, hey, this is our whole roadmap. This is basically where the capex is. The capex number can't go any higher, 1.2 trillion for next year, 1.4 for the year after. Like maybe it moves by 100 billion here and there, but we're kind of at terminal point now. I just don't see where the revenue is going to come from. SP top line, $17 trillion. It's about $5.5 trillion of profits. And we will say, all of a sudden, we're going to magic a trillion dollars. The cumulative revenue of Apple and Microsoft, two of the most successful tech companies in history since 1990 to today, right, has been $9.8 trillion inflation adjusted, right? Not even $10 trillion. Meanwhile, SpaceX are telling you that their TAM's 30, right? So the TAM of the universe. In fairness,

Josh Brown

their TAM is every dollar ever spent on human capital

Alex Altmann

in the universe. Ever again. Not just on Earth. So it's the GDP of America. Have to

Josh Brown

adjust for Pluto, Neptune.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.