Kieran Goodwin is a Partner at Saba Capital, a $6 billion hedge fund manager that seeks to identify dislocations in credit and equity markets to generate convex returns in volatile times. Kieran has been one of the top credit traders on the Street for the last three decades across roles at investment banks in the '90s and early 00's, King Street, his own hedge fund, Panning Capital, and most recently, Saba that he joined in 2024.

Our conversation covers a tour of Kieran's background, including early experience with credit derivatives, growth at King Street, lifespan of Panning, downtime between stints, and re-engagement with Boaz Weinstein at Saba. We then turn to risks in the private credit market, including its rapid growth, asset-liability mismatches, pricing marks, leverage, liquidity, default risk, and the potential for reflexive problems. Kieran shares how managers should navigate the environment and how he is positioning Saba to benefit.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Thema.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Jeremy Grantham is the Co-Founder of GMO, a $100 billion Boston-based asset management firm co-founded in 1977. Over six decades in markets, Jeremy has been one of the most respected and outspoken voices on value, market bubbles, and long-term investing. He recently published The Making of a Permabear with Edward Chancellor, an account of his career and investment lessons learned along the way.

Our conversation begins with Jeremy's early lessons in frugality growing up in wartime Yorkshire and his interest in numbers and investing. We trace his career through the founding of Batterymarch and GMO, the golden period of value, painful lessons of the dot-com bubble, and the challenges since. We cover Jeremy's framework for identifying and navigating market bubbles, career risk, and the current AI investment boom, and close with his essential philanthropic work to change the trajectory of the environment alongside the investment strategy he deploys in his Foundation.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: OWL.

Throughout most of my career, the S&P 500 has been an appropriate bogey to assess manager performance. More than that, it's the most widely used benchmark in the capital markets.

But today, it doesn't represent the broad-based, diversified exposure to the U.S. economy that most participants take for granted when investing passively or measuring manager skill.

This WTT, When the Benchmark Becomes a Bet, considers the evidence, implications, and challenges posed by the current composition of the S&P 500.

Read Ted's blog here.