Monetary Matters with Jack Farley
Monetary Matters with Jack Farley

Misunderstood Stocks in Data Center Power, Cybersecurity, and Payments | Dean & Deiya Pernas

August 7, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Dean and Deiya Pernas of Pernas Research argue that the market is mispricing the fallout from open-weight AI models, the coming shift in cybersecurity threats, and the durable growth of cross-border payments. They see the current sell-off in AI-adjacent hardware and software not as a signal of a bust, but as an opportunity to buy misunderstood companies that benefit from the structural demands of the data center buildout and the next wave of cyber defense.

The Open-Weight Model: Bullish for Infrastructure, Bearish for Frontier Labs

The recent panic in the semiconductor complex, with stocks down 40-50%, stems from a fear that open-weight AI models (like China’s Kimi K2) will commoditize the frontier labs (OpenAI, Anthropic). The Pernas brothers argue this fear is misplaced. They frame the AI ecosystem in four layers: chips, cloud infrastructure, frontier models, and applications. Open-weight models, by drastically lowering the cost of inference, effectively commoditize the frontier model layer. This triggers a classic "commoditize your complements" dynamic: when one layer gets cheaper, demand for all other layers explodes.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:37) **Hyper-scaler AI Spending & Open-Weight Models** - Dean explains why the recent sell-off in semiconductors is overblown and why open-weight AI models are actually bullish for most of the AI ecosystem.
  • 2 (04:30) **Why This Is "The Best Time in History to Beat the S&P 500"** - Dea explains why active management has a structural edge right now.
  • 3 (09:55) **The Data Center Power Theme: Bring Your Own Energy** - Dean lays out the core thesis driving their energy holdings.
  • 4 (13:10) **Capstone Turbine vs. Mainstream Energy Plays** - Why they chose a tiny microturbine maker over popular names like Bloom Energy.
  • 5 (15:22) **Capstone's Growth Pathways & Valuation** - Dean explains the three demand drivers beyond just large data centers.
  • 6 (17:13) **Stabilis Solutions: The Virtual Pipeline Play** - A speculative holding providing natural gas to data centers and SpaceX.
  • 7 (19:18) **Bandwidth Theme: Smartoptics** - Dean explains the second major data center theme: inter-data-center connectivity.

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Show Notes

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In this episode of Monetary Matters, Jack Farley sits down with Deiya and Dean Pernas of Pernas Research to discuss their contrarian investment strategies and overarching market themes. The brothers delve into the massive energy demands of AI data centers, highlighting "bring your own power" solutions and infrastructure needs over traditional semiconductor plays. Additionally, Deiya explores the evolving landscape of cybersecurity and software in the age of AI, noting that while AI threatens some legacy software moats, it creates immense opportunities for exposure management platforms like Tenable and specialized marketplaces like Upwork. The conversation also unpacks the payments sector, specifically emphasizing the robust growth of cross-border money movement through fintechs like Wise and Remitly as they actively disrupt traditional correspondent banking. Throughout the interview, the Pernas brothers emphasize the importance of independent, buy-side research and the value of finding high-conviction, small-to-mid-cap stocks that the broader market may have mispriced. Recorded July 28, 2026.


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