Dan Rasmussen is the founder and CIO of Verdad Advisers, an unconventional quantitative investment boutique. In this conversation, Steve and Dan agree that private equity and credit look highly risky for the next decade. They debate the value of forecasting, where they have very different views. They similarly disagree on forecast horizons, with Dan favouring near term accuracy and Steve thinking longer term forecasts are more likely to be accurate. They also debate the persistence of growth and discuss Dan’s favourite financial metric.

Steve and Dan have different perspectives on many issueswhich leads to apparently contradictory conclusions but in reality, they don’t disagree – the issue is base rates versus marginal opportunities. Steve and Dan view markets through different lenses, which makes for an interesting discussion.

In this episode with Tom Slater of Baillie Gifford, manager of the £10bn Scottish Mortgage investment trust, we cover a lot of ground. Of course, we discuss his current thoughts on China and the Mag 7, including why he has trimmed Nvidia but still likes Meta and his thoughts on Elon Musk. Tom explainshis investing philosophy, what growth managers do differently from traditional value managers and how the firm’s culture has made Baillie Gifford such a successful manager.

Tom explains how he remains calm in the roller coaster rides of many of his stocks, with drawdowns of 60-70% common, notably Nvidia in 2022 on its way to that $3tn capitalisation; why he favours technical founders who can advantage their companies in the AI age; what Elon Musk said to him in 2013 and why that has stayed with him; the difference between investing in quoted companies and those in private markets; and why he and colleagues don’t pitch stocks to the team, which he believes gives them an important behavioural advantage.

When it comes to credit, few people have better credentials than Greg Peters, co-CIO of PGIM, with AUM of $700bn. In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the differences between investing in equities and credit, the legacy of the zero interest rate period, why PGIM uses scenario based forecasting in preference to single point estimates, why covenants have gone out of fashion and why that’s dangerous, ad much more. Listen to the end for an update on the outlook for markets in 2025.