Capital is Being Redistributed

+ Scott Rubner, Matthew Ball, Raj Chetty, U.S. Wine, Aswath Damodaran & More

Author

The Idea Farm
March 01, 2026

“Gold does not rise; the dollar falls.”

— Murray Rothbard

Research

Scott Rubner shares an update on the market after 31 trading sessions into the year. He says the index may appear relatively stable – but the magnitude of sector and factor reallocation beneath the surface has been anything but.

Long-run stock returns look extraordinary, yet few investors became rich. This explains why dividend reinvestment assumptions overstate historical equity returns, reframing the equity risk premium as “the return nobody got.”

Following a strong and volatile start for commodities in 2026, Goldman Sachs analyzes how sustained investor diversification into hard assets would affect commodity prices. Goldman sees greater price upside from the hard assets rotation for precious metals and copper than for oil and natural gas because of 1. market size, 2. supply response, and 3. storage.

By nearly every measure, 2025 was a strong year for startup fundraising, capping a multi-year recovery from the market reset of 2022 with capital, valuations, and deal terms all trending in founders' favor.

Conglomerates have historically suffered from a “diversification discount” wherein the whole of the company is worth between 13% and 15% less than the sum of its parts. In a break with past patterns, modern conglomerates Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft average a 70% “diversification premium.” “ This article explains why investors are now paying a historic premium and why that confidence deserves closer scrutiny.

As of February 9, 2026.

Bonus Content

Matthew Ball’s annual report covers the state of the gaming industry, why gaming is losing the attention war, and the five areas of revenue growth for 2026. Link

Jefferies published an update on the global secondary market, which broke volume records in 2025 ($240 billion). Link

The 2025 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments has data based on 657 colleges managing just under $944 billion in endowment assets. It reports a 10-year average annual return of 7.7% in fiscal year 2025. Link

Silicon Valley Bank's published their 26th annual report on the State of the U.S. Wine Industry, which it says is stabilizing after revenue declined by 2% in 2025. Link

Morningstar explains why investors shouldn’t ignore global small-cap stocks, and why quality is important when investing in small-caps. Link

Vanguard gives a look at what allocators are buying and selling. Link

Podcasts

2/17/2026 - 59 minutes

Morfit explains ValueAct’s “quiet” but highly engaged activism, the firm’s current core theme: “everything digitizes, everything organizes, everything automates,” and their recent position in BlackRock.

2/16/2026 - 65 minutes

Jain explains first principles of multi-strategy investing, his ambitious launch at $6b of AUM, the many tradeoffs that create the different cultures and complexions of multi-manager hedge funds, & more.

1/29/2026 - 28 minutes

Planet Money explores Raj Chetty’s latest paper, which looks at whether low-economic-mobility neighborhoods can be transformed into high-mobility areas by analyzing the HOPE VI program, which invested $17 billion to revitalize 262 distressed public housing developments.

What Else Is Happening 

2/27/2026 - 58 minutes

Aswath Damodaran breaks down AI capex risks, valuation and moats, and how overconfidence and debt financed spending can spill beyond Big Tech.