The Acquirers Podcast

The episode contains substantial insights about long-term market history, factor performance, bond valuation frameworks, and the East India Company case study. However, significant portions are consumed by sponsor reads, off-topic banter about family/publishing, and repetitive discussion of sentiment indicators. The density of novel claims per minute is moderate but diluted by considerable padding.

“We looked around a few years ago and you're looking at this inverted yield curve and looking at this very strange period. And we asked a very simple question which was like there's all these risky bonds. Can we simulate what would it look like if you just invested in them when the spread to T bills the risk free rate was wide or compensating you for the extra risk”

“So buying during the euphoria instead, which was say, March of 1769... if you bought then and held for a century, collected every single dividend, and you ride it out till that 1874 buyout... three and a half percent a year”

The East India Company analysis and the T-bills-based bond framework (Tyld fund) offer fresh perspectives on valuation and government intervention's impact on returns. However, much of the discussion recycled well-known frameworks (value vs. growth, momentum, diversification, yield curves), and the broader themes about long-term investing and American risk-taking culture are familiar to the target audience.

“When you're underwriting Blue sky for AI or space or whatever is next, maybe don't forget about the East India Company. You won the market. You took sovereign powers. You had an entire army. You captured this vast revenue base... but the shareholders still kind of only get what they can get, based on what the government will allow at that point”

“It was simply, hey, up to that point in time, did the 10 year, the 30 year corporate junk, emerging tips, REITs... all did it had an above average spread or below. Because if it was below, you just sit in T bills”

Meb Faber is a genuinely accomplished operator and researcher with 25+ years in quantitative investing, founded and runs Cambria Investment Management with multiple successful ETF products, and has conducted original research on historical market data. He's not a pure commentator but a practitioner with skin in the game through his fund management.

“MEB Favor cio, uh, founder, CEO, uh, of Cambria Funds”

“We launched a fund called Tyld... It has been 100% in T bills the entire time”

The episode includes concrete numbers on the East India Company (8% annual returns, 3.5% when bought at euphoria, 7.5% after crash), specific fund names (Tyld, QMom), historical dates (1709-1874, 1769 Bengal Bubble, 1784 crash), and reference to named research papers. However, many claims about current market conditions lack specifics: AI/space valuations mentioned without hard numbers, bond spreads described vaguely, and many assertions about factor performance stated without recent data.

“If buying at par at, call it £100, you hold the whole ride, collect all the dividends, and you get bought out by the state in 1874, that generated about an 8% return per year”

“you have the competing asset of fixed income, which is pretty good yield now”

The hosts ask reasonable follow-up questions (Toby on factors, JT on blue-sky valuations) but rarely press hard on unsupported claims. When Meb says private credit feels "unnecessary" and he has "nothing particularly really interesting to say," the hosts simply move on rather than challenge the evasion. The East India Company segment is monologued by JT with minimal interruption. Overall competent but lacking sharp interrogation.

“Do you think that, uh, there's been a sort of lessening, uh, in the impact of factors over the last 5, 10, 20 years?”

“looking forward, I don't know what to say about private credit. Honestly, I really don't... I don't think I have anything particularly really interesting to say about it”