Thoughtful Money with Adam Taggart
Thoughtful Money with Adam Taggart

The Equity Markets Are Insane Right Now | Jan van Eck

July 12, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The equity markets are producing returns that Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck, describes as "insanity." Semiconductor stocks have doubled in the last twelve months, and memory chip companies have seen even more extreme moves. But van Eck is not panicking. He argues that the profit growth behind these price moves is equally insane — and that is the key difference from past bubbles. "You and I have never ever experienced the kind of appreciation that sectors of this market are providing and the related profit growth," he tells host Adam Taggart. The episode walks through why van Eck believes the current market is supported by fundamentals, where he sees real risk, and which long-term trends he is betting on.

The Insanity Is Real — But So Are the Profits

Van Eck opens with a blunt assessment: "There's insanity going on in the equity market." Semiconductor stocks have doubled in the last twelve months, and memory chip companies have seen even more extreme moves. The price-to-sales ratio for the S&P 500 is higher than it has been in 80 years. But van Eck argues that this time, the profit growth is keeping pace. Nvidia's profits rose 129% in the last quarter. Google's rose 80%. Meta's rose 62%. These are multi-trillion-dollar companies posting startup-level growth rates.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Equity Market "Insanity" and Profit Growth** - Jan van Eck opens by calling the equity market, especially semiconductors, insane, but notes the profit growth supporting it is equally unprecedented.
  • 2 (08:19) **Slide Deck Overview: Three Main Topics** - Jan outlines his plan: explain the equity market insanity, drill into risks for Anthropic, revisit Q2 opportunities, and run through macro forces.
  • 3 (10:42) **Valuation Charts: Price-to-Sales at All-Time Highs** - Jan shows a multi-decade price-to-sales chart, calling it "extremely unnerving" and noting the market is more expensive than any time in the last 80 years.
  • 4 (12:05) **Profit Growth Justifies the Valuations** - Despite the scary valuation charts, Jan argues the profit growth is keeping valuations within reason.
  • 5 (13:29) **Breaking Down the AI Tech Stack: Who Has a Moat?** - Jan categorizes AI companies by their position in the tech stack to assess which have durable competitive advantages.
  • 6 (19:18) **Is the Profit Growth Sustainable?** - Adam asks whether the incremental profits from AI investments are materializing fast enough to justify continued expansion.
  • 7 (24:43) **Valuation Check: Top 10 vs. History** - Jan shows a JPMorgan chart comparing the top 10 companies' valuations to their long-term average.

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Guests on this episode

Adam Taggart

Show Notes

When market uncertainty is as high as it is now, I often emphasize that the most useful people to interview are asset managers.Because they don't have the luxury of merely having an opinion on the road ahead -- they have to commit capital to their convictions, and be judged upon the results.Today we have the great fortune of having the return appearance of one of the most respected capital allocators in the business: Jan van EckJan is CEO of vanEck, an asset management firm with over $230 billion in assets under management invested across its wide family of ETFs and funds, spanning equity, bond, commodity, digital and regional asset classes.As we've done the past several quarters now, Jan and I will spend the next hour discussing his Q3 macro and market outlooks, as well as where he sees the biggest opportunities for investors right now.

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