Dan Lefkovitz (5:18)

I'm curious, having been in the room where it happens, so to speak, policy making wise, are there things that you think observers, the media or the investment community misunderstand?

Mike Pyle (5:29)

I think that's a really good question because I think oftentimes there are difficulties of translation, frankly, from one world to another, from Wall street to Washington, from Washington to Silicon Valley, from Washington to the media. You know, I'd say, you know, one thing that I really work to do is highlight that for all the differences, obviously between the parties, between this administration and the last one, there are some important threads of continuity as well. And I think one place that I would highlight maybe two would be, you know, one, this idea that the United States needs to rebuild its industrial and manufacturing base for principally reasons of national security, and that we've got to take affirmative policy steps to do that. That was one of the guiding objectives of President Biden. It's one of the guiding objectives of President Trump. You know, in a similar vein, you know, I think both the Biden and the Trump administrations really see the centrality of artificial intelligence, of the AI transformation and share a belief that the United States needs to win that race and be the preeminent country on earth. When it comes to leading on AI, there's plenty of difference around the policy tools that are being used to achieve those objectives. Clearly, the Biden administration had a different approach on these questions than the Trump administration in some important respects. But I think it's important for our observers, wherever they come from, to kind of cut away some of the noise and realize that there are an important set of shared objectives here around rebuilding our industrial base, around ensuring that the United States continues to define the frontier of leadership on AI. And as a result, there's in some ways important areas of commonality that are often underappreciated. When you just kind of see the cacophony in Washington day in and day out.

Dan Lefkovitz (7:48)

Yeah, that's an encouraging thought for sure. Given your perspective, having been a policymaker now an investor, it seems like the market has in many cases shrugged off political risk, geopolitical risk. Why do you think that's been.

Mike Pyle (8:03)

So? I'd say a little bit that it depends on the market that you look at. Clearly, when you look at the US Equity market, obviously March and the start of April were very volatile, very volatile periods. Saw a significant pullback, but we've obviously seen a very substantial rally since then, and we've got US equities up on the year in some ways. I think that's at core about exactly what I was talking about a moment ago, about the importance of the AI transformation around the extent to which US Companies are leading the way and defining that. And investors around the globe, in the United States and beyond, want exposure to that theme, to that transformation. And I think that that is a large part of why you were seeing the positive equity market performance that we've seen since the lows in early April. You look to another part of financial markets. For example, look at the US Dollar. You know, there you see a somewhat different story. The dollar sold off alongside US equities in March and early April. Pretty unusual behavior. Typically, you think of risk off periods in stock markets as being positive for the dollar as investors look for that flight to quality. That's not what we saw in March and April. We saw the dollar pull back, but Interestingly, even as stocks began to find their footing and rally again, we continued to see the dollar we may June before finding it seems a more stable footing for now in July. And so I think that divergence is really interesting because on one hand, like I said, I think the equity market performance is at core really about that AI transformation Megatrend. I think in the dollar you see a more traditional set of macro forces. You see concerns around the inflation dynamic in the United States, you see concerns around the fiscal trajectory in the United States. You also changes, I think on the margin around investor behavior globally. Traditionally, the past couple of years they've been willing to take those dollar exposures on an unhedged basis when they invest in US Equities. I think investors globally are being a little more cautious about their hedge ratios today. And I think all of that adds up to, again to the point of your question, a slightly different perspective depending on the market you're looking at and in some places seeing that uncertainty and in other places considerably less.

Dan Lefkovitz (10:45)

So yeah, that's interesting. I know you've cautioned against making big investment bets based on macro trends. Why is that?

Mike Pyle (10:53)

Yeah, so I think that the big point to make there is that the nature of the macroeconomic environment has changed quite a lot over the last handful of years. If you think about macro investing or investing on the basis of macro, for most of the post war period it was about a relatively stable policy and geopolitical foundation, on top of which sat those basic macroeconomic investing variables, growth, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy. In a world where monetary and fiscal policy were generally governed by pretty stable frameworks, I think there's a lot more play in the joints across all of those dimensions today versus even just five or ten years ago. So obviously the underlying foundation of the global trade architecture, of the global security architecture, of geopolitics and the global economy more broadly, much more uncertain today than it was five or six years ago. And with a more uncertain foundation, I think forecasting some of those macro variables around growth, inflation and policy reaction functions similarly, you have to put bigger bounds of uncertainty around that. At the same time, you've seen big mega forces like AI come into the mix and in some ways be even bigger drivers of markets today than the growth and inflation impulses have been recently. Bottom line is the traditional macro framework that we and investors got accustomed to and got accustomed to forecasting on the basis of is much different, much more uncertain, much less anchored than it was in past years. And that requires, I think, a different degree of caution and A different approach to investing than has been the case for the past three or four decades.

Dan Lefkovitz (12:58)

Okay, I wanted to follow up on AI. Obviously there's been massive corporate capex on AI and the picks and shovels. Trade is booming, as Nvidia shows. I'm curious if you, from where you sit, if AI is beginning to show up as moving the needle on productivity or in other ways.

Mike Pyle (13:17)

You know, it is, I think it is early to say we are clearly seeing AI in the GDP statistics. You know, the degree of CapEx that appears to be tied to AI and AI investment is quite historically high. And I think that that's a reflection of just how much conviction and belief around this transformation you see across the economy. I think the good news on that front is if you roll the clock back even four or six weeks ago, it looked as if really more than half of growth in the first half of the year was attributable to that AI capex impulse. I think now with the kind of most updated, the freshest revisions of the data, we see that the consumer is stronger than was understood to be the case even just four or six weeks ago. And the overall US macroeconomic picture is looking more balanced, is looking more resilient as a result of those revisions. So yes, we've got a really strong capex impulse from AI, but that's also within the context of a more broadly strong US economy. The one additional point that I would make is I think we're now going through another year of a quite strong multi year productivity period for the US economy. And I think the best estimates at this point suggest that we are in the midst of a multi year period of strong productivity before AI really is taking hold and empowering a next phase of productivity. So bottom line is I think we've got a lot of build out happening, but a lot of build out happening against the backdrop of a pretty healthy US economy, pretty resilient US economy, a pretty productive US Economy right now. And I think all of that adds up to a very strong jumping off place for this next phase of investment and productivity growth, which I think we're all going to be looking at the data very closely to see how that manifests in the quarters and years ahead.

Dan Lefkovitz (15:33)

Okay, well, turning to markets, I've seen where your team has characterized today's markets as being defined by heightened dispersion. I wonder if you can explain what you mean by that and kind of parse that.

Mike Pyle (15:45)

Sure. I mean really it's say it goes back to what we were talking about a moment ago that Some of those very traditional anchors of the global economy, of the underlying market environment, are more unstable or more uncertain than we've seen in some time, certainly than we saw in the 2010s. And what that means is that basically take a given asset class like the US Equity index, the gap between what the highest performing companies in that index return versus what the lowest, and everything in between is just, is greater, is wider than was the case even just a handful of years ago. You think about the 2010s and think about the policy environment then, very stable macroeconomic and growth environment, an environment where policymakers were really looking to compress volatility, to compress the yield curve, to push investors into greater risk. And what that meant was dispersion was very low. And the single most important variable was basically equity market beta. Today, in a world where you see less of that, that you're seeing, again, kind of use that word, more dispersion around that market return to beta between the highest performing names, the lowest performing names, and everything between what that means for investors is this is an environment where there's a lot of alpha to capture, both on the long side by identifying outperformers, and on the short side by identifying those that are going to perform less well than the average. And it's a bigger opportunity set than again, we saw during the 2010s, when there was so much compression in terms of returns around the beta, really by design, by virtue of the types of policy steps that monetary policymakers, other policymakers, felt were necessary to respond to the long tail post the global financial crisis.

Dan Lefkovitz (17:44)

Okay, interesting. Well, taking a step back, the portfolio management group that you're part of at blackrock spans both fundamental and systematic approaches. Maybe you can talk a little bit about those two approaches and kind of how they complement each other and come together.

Mike Pyle (17:59)

Yeah, I think one of the strengths of BlackRock's platform is being able to bring both fundamental and systematic strategies together and to deliver the benefits of each to our clients. But there really are different approaches to investing. I think on the fundamental side, what I tend to think of is the deep research that goes into a fundamental investment process, company by company, security by security, to gain a really differential depth of knowledge and conviction around the ability of an individual company or security to outperform, really out over quarters, if not years. And the types of portfolios that tend to best reflect that are relatively higher concentration, relatively lower, a number of company portfolios. On the flip side, when you think about systematic investing, the word that always springs to mind to me is a word that they regularly use, namely breadth. And the idea being that what you want to identify is a diversified set of insights that tend to work on average across a really high number of names. And if you can package together a bunch of insights that each one of which on balance over time is going to generate outperformance when multiplying, applied across hundreds, if not thousands of securities, and you bring those together in a balanced, diversified portfolio, then you can be in a world where you're generating consistent, resilient alpha, but doing so through a diversification of insight, diversification of those insights across a really high number of names. And so this kind of point around relatively concentrated, deep, deeply researched portfolios versus much, to use that word, again, higher breadth portfolios with large numbers of insights across large number of names. Those are two really powerful ways of coming at the investment problem. I think that one thing we're working on here is how do you bring those things together? And I think one of the things that we think is promising, that we've spent a lot of time on is how do you bring systematic portfolio construction, portfolio optimization to a fundamental process? How do you make a fundamental process with deeply researched insights more resilient to the types of macro risks, factor risks, other risks that can buffet a portfolio otherwise and that systematic portfolios, because of their emphasis on portfolio construction can be more resilient to. So how do you get the benefits of that deep research along with the benefits of systematic portfolio construction to give a more resilient ride along the way?

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Dan Lefkovitz (21:28)

Being applied on the systematic side?

Mike Pyle (21:31)

Yeah, so I mean, I think that I would maybe take a step back and talk about how AI is being, you know, applied across blackrock.

Dan Lefkovitz (21:40)

Okay.

Mike Pyle (21:40)

And I think you see a few different applications of it. You know. One, you know, we have a very well regarded technology franchise on our fundamental equity platform. The portfolio management team out there has really designed a couple of strategies that are focused in, on generating alpha in technology names on the basis of trends in AI which companies are going to be situated to really outperform and to drive the AI transformation and generate a return on the back of that. So that's one application. It's how do we use our skills as investors, as fundamental investors to identify companies that are outperform in the AI sector. 2 To your point, I think the second way you're seeing AI impact BlackRock is exactly as you say, on the systematic side. But I think the important thing to emphasize here is this isn't a story of just a couple of quarters or even a couple of years. This is a story of four decades of innovation. Literally this is the 40 year anniversary of our systematic investing business. And really across those four decades, dating back to when it was Barclay Global investors, they have been helping to define the frontier of quantitative investing, of systematic investing across all that time. And so if I think back to when I was first at Blackrock from 2014 to 2021, I spent a lot of time with the systematic team and even then techniques of machine learning, techniques that now would be called AI, really put to work on new different data sets, unstructured data sets, and these were the tools of their trade five, six, seven, eight, nine years ago, not just since 2023. And so I think what you've seen there is an ongoing commitment to defining and redefining the innovative frontier of systematic investing, but really a long standing commitment to and a long standing usage of all of the techniques that today get called AI.

Dan Lefkovitz (23:56)

Got it.

Mike Pyle (23:56)

The third thing I'd say is BlackRock as an organization is also realizing the transformative potential of AI day in and day out, just to change and enhance and improve the way we do our work here. Again, whether that's on the investment platform, but that can be around trading execution, that can be around delivering better and more timely engagement and insights to our clients. Bottom line is whether it's fundamental investing, systematic investing or the work of this organization day in and day out across all the things we do, AI is and has been for some time changing and improving the way we do things.

Dan Lefkovitz (24:41)

Well, let's turn to the approach you're currently taking to markets and portfolio allocation. You've talked about long, short, you've talked about looking for durable sources of alpha. I'm curious, are you not expecting stocks and bonds to produce decent real returns in the coming years?

Mike Pyle (24:57)

I would zero in on the bond side of that question. I think there, and this is consistent with what we've been saying for some time and I think consistent with what we've been seeing in markets around the steepening of global and US yield curves, that the next period of years is not likely to be one where long dated government bonds are the reliable source of diversification and income that they have been, and in particular that they were during the 2000 and tens and for much of the 40 years prior. That's important. Investors over that time came to rely on the negative stock bond correlation, came to rely on the diversification benefits of holding long dated government bonds as a portfolio diversifier, but also as a source of income. And I think increasingly again, over that kind of the horizon of the next decade, we think on the fixed income side, there are better ways of generating income than through long dated government bonds. Better ways of generating income through high yield, through securitized assets, frankly, through emerging market debt exposures in some cases. And at the same time, we need to source diversification from other places. And here we think that more market neutral strategies, hedge funds, are really able to step into that breach and offer potential diversification benefits that traditionally you would have looked to longer dated government bonds to provide.

Dan Lefkovitz (26:39)

Yeah, I wanted to follow up on the hedge fund point. I know your team put something out recently called more room for hedge funds. Can you break that down a little bit and why you think that the time is right for alternative strategies?

Mike Pyle (26:49)

Sure. It really goes back to what we've been talking about throughout this conversation. This is a historically uncertain environment from the perspective of the traditional macro anchors, the traditional macro drivers of risk and return in the economy and in markets. We think that that means two things. One, you can't ignore the macro, and you've got to go about managing the macro in order to generate alpha and talk about how hedge fund strategies in particular can do that. And one way is exactly what we were talking about on the systematic side, dialing down macro risk, dialing down factor risk, getting to a truly market neutral, factor neutral setting, and really leaning on uncorrelated sources of return that are diversified across a full basket of insights that are diversified across a high number of names, both on the long side and the short side, to produce health outcomes that are uncorrelated to broader macro and market factors. So one way of going about managing macro in this new uncertain environment is just to try to take the macro out of it altogether. The other is to embrace macro as a source of alpha as a source of return. But I think there it really requires identifying managers that both can use traditional techniques where they're still warranted, but also navigate a much different macro environment exactly of the type that we've been talking about. So the important point is you can't ignore macro either you gotta not ignore it by getting it out of your investment process. You have to not ignore it by embracing it. But regardless, hedge funds, through having a really flexible toolkit, the ability to go long, the ability to go short, the ability to really look across a very wide investment opportunity set, provide the flexibility that allows you to do either of those things however you choose to invest in this environment. But again, the important thing is you got to be macro aware. You should take one of these two approaches and hedge funds provide a way of doing either of those things well and flexibly, given the toolkit they have.

Dan Lefkovitz (29:13)

Okay, well, I know you've mentioned BlackRock's global equity market neutral strategy, which is long short. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that approach.

Mike Pyle (29:22)

Yeah, sure. I mean this is run by our systematic team, again an effort in a long, short way to really provide a diversified set of alpha exposures that don't have exposure to the broad market. And again as a way of, of identifying alpha, as a way of identifying alpha that can be diversifying for an investor at the level of their portfolio can replace some of the traditional types of fixed income exposures that have historically given that diversification while also generating attractive returns overall. That's the promise of the product. We think that's what it's been delivering. And we think it makes sense in the context of a portfolio where there's again just kind of less reliable diversification from traditional fixed income allocations.

Dan Lefkovitz (30:20)

And I wanted to zero in on the global aspect of that strategy. Obviously global equity investing has paid off this year, but going back 10, 15 years, the US market has really been the place to be. I'm kind of curious what you're thinking in terms of allocations to international equities.

Mike Pyle (30:37)

Yeah, so it here I would say this is one of these points where market neutrality actually really matters a lot. So yes, 100% right. At some level, the trade of the last, not just couple of years, that last 15 years has been to be overweight the United States versus the rest of the world. But that's different than saying that there isn't alpha in other markets elsewhere in the world when you're going long and going short on a market neutral way. So investors aren't exposed to the beta of the rest of the world, but what they're able to gain access to is health insights that are able to make accurate forecasts about companies that are going to outperform companies that are going to underperform and generate return from the difference between those two things. And importantly to the Point I was making earlier, having a bigger investment opportunity set, being able to reach across global markets, just not US Markets, expands the reach of the strategies that the systematic team has developed over time and expanded the number of alpha opportunities that are available to generate return for clients, again in this market neutral way. So 100%. Right. The U.S. has outperformed. We can talk about the outlook for that looking ahead. But this strategy is benefiting by being neutral to the market, but capitalizing on the expanded number of opportunities that come from being invested globally, not just in.

Dan Lefkovitz (32:11)

The U.S. okay, well, I'll take you up on your offer to share the outlook. A lot of folks are wondering if this is the time to increase their allocations to international.

Mike Pyle (32:21)

Yeah, so what I would say is, and this goes back again to what we were talking about earlier, the principal driver of the US Equity market since its lows in April, just as it has been for the last couple of years, a strong performance really, is that those exposures that are giving you access to the theme around AI transformation, the megatrend around AI transformation. And importantly, again, and this goes to the point around a more uncertain, a more unstable macro environment. You know, in some ways we think diversification is obviously no less important than it ever has been. But getting diversification not just across geographies, but also megatrends like the AI transformation is vital for building portfolios that are going to generate the outcomes that investors want. So what does that mean, bottom line? That means bottom line that continuing to be exposed to the US Equity market because the US equity market is providing the exposure to this underlying theme of AI transformation that really no other equity market globally can do, still needs to be a core part of portfolios. But again, whether you're looking at geographic diversification or thematic diversification, being sure you're being thoughtful about just how much of the US you want, just how much AI you want is a really important question as well. And building balance around that is going to be the right way of thinking about building a portfolio that can generate return but also resilience.

Dan Lefkovitz (34:10)

What about currency diversification? You mentioned the dollar weakening earlier in our conversation. Do you think it's important for investors to diversify their currency exposure?

Mike Pyle (34:18)

I think that this is a particularly important point for global investors and a conversation that I regularly have when I'm abroad, whether that's in Europe or Canada or Asia. A number of investors globally allowed their hedge ratios to move considerably lower over the past couple of years as the US has outperformed. And so increasingly they were taking US Equity Exposure, exposure to US assets generally on an unhedged basis. And this year that's been a difficult spot to be, even as the equity market, the S and P is up a little more than 13%, the dollar is down a little more than 10. And so the experience this year for a Europe based investor, for example, of those US exposures, you know, hasn't been the most favorable one. And so I think what it's causing investors to do is to say, you know, not is this the end of the dollar, not am I going to bail on the dollar? But do I want to move away perhaps from the extended degree of unhedged exposures I had to the US back towards something that looks more historically normal in terms of that hedging ratio, that balance between having US exposure but hedging out some of the currency.

Dan Lefkovitz (35:47)

Got it, got it. Well, you mentioned alternative strategies, hedge fund like strategies. Private market investing sometimes gets thrown into that bucket as well. Private equity and private credit. And this is obviously a huge trend, the convergence of public and private. BlackRock's been active in this space. I'm curious if that's part of your toolkit as well.

Mike Pyle (36:05)

Yeah, I mean, I think I would distinguish of course between market neutral, uncorrelated strategies, whether they're hedge funds or liquid alternatives like GEM in versus the question of how should investors managing their total portfolios think about their asset allocation and the balance of assets in their portfolios to generate the right mix of return diversification and as a result, risk. And there, you know, I think, and we heard this from Larry in his 2025 chairman's letter, you know, private assets do have an important role to play. And so whereas traditionally you might have thought of the typical portfolio being a 60 40, today, as Larry talked about, the right way to think about it is maybe it's 50% public equities, maybe it's 30% bonds, maybe it's 20% alternatives, most particularly private market assets like infrastructure, private credit, real estate and the like. And I think one of the reasons why we're seeing that trend is, you know, that this is allowing investors to have exposures that match their liabilities, whether they're retirement liabilities for a pension or other asset owner against the long dated nature of the returns and the income that private market investment can generate. And so again to us, as capital markets evolve, as the global economy evolves, so too does the total portfolio have to evolve. And I think that this point kind of reflects those changes. And I think Larry's letter is kind of really getting to the nub of what it means to build balanced portfolios in today's moment.

Dan Lefkovitz (37:56)

Okay, okay. An older asset, gold has done really well this year. I'm wondering if you think gold has a place in investor portfolios. Is this something you use?

Mike Pyle (38:07)

So I will say I, I am not myself an expert on gold, but I would make a couple of observations. You know, one, obviously it's, it's hard to ignore the run up we've seen, you know, not just year to date, but over the past couple of years. To me, what it highlights is there is desire, there is hunger to identify uncorrelated assets that can provide diversification in portfolios. To me, I think the types of things we've been talking about, whether that's a hedge fund and market neutral strategies, whether that's more traditional private market exposures like private credit, like infrastructure, those to me feel like responding to a similar demand for diversification for alternative sources of return, but doing so in a way that to me at least feels more tractable and forecastable within that total portfolio setting. Not least, I would note that again, private assets like private credit, like infrastructure, these are assets that are generating income year by year, whereas of course, gold is not a yielding asset. And so I think as investors are looking for diversification, but also looking for sources of income, to me, that just kind of coheres a little more cleanly than gold. But again, the run up we've seen is hard to ignore. And moreover, the demand that that reflects for diversification and alternative sources of return is also hard to ignore.

Dan Lefkovitz (39:52)

Okay, well, you mentioned earlier some of your discussions with clients and contrast between clients in different geographies. I'm just kind of curious if you could talk generally about your interactions with clients and what's top of mind for them.

Mike Pyle (40:06)

I mean, I think the conversation that we're having right now is what's top of mind for clients the world over, whether that's in the United States or Europe or Asia, whether that's talking to wealth clients, whether that's talking to sovereign wealth funds or big public pensions. You know, the basic conversation that we're having here is exactly what's front of mind for them as well. You know, how to think about the macro environment that feels more uncertain, more unstable than it has in some time, how to think about diversification, how to think about asset allocation at the level of the total portfolio, how to think about strategies that are going to harness mega forces and megatrends that maybe the new types of portfolio anchors in a world where geographies are and traditional macro are less confident sources of diversification return. How to think about strategies that can generate alpha and replace some of those long dated government bonds as a source of resilience. Those are the conversations that the clients, in my experience, have been interested to have this year. And, and as ever, we, I think around here learn as much or more from our clients as we do. You know, looking internally though, there's plenty to learn there as well. And, you know, it's just something that I, you know, really take a great deal of pleasure in because you always learn how to think harder about the problems that clients face and the portfolios they're looking to build when you're actually listening to them, listening to their needs, listening to their concerns, listening to what's front of mind. But I think this conversation has actually reflected a lot of that.

Dan Lefkovitz (41:53)

I'm curious maybe the final question, because we're running short on time, but does that sort of feedback loop with clients and the behavioral sort of challenges that they face, does that shape the way that you manage portfolios?

Mike Pyle (42:05)

So I'd say two things. I would say one, it absolutely shapes the investment conversation that we have at blackrock. I mean, I think one of the privileges of sitting at blackrock is the privilege of getting to engage with all the clients that I just described, you know, the best, most sophisticated asset owners and investors in the world and being able to hear from them, digest what they have to say and really think hard about what that means for what we're seeing in markets on the basis of our own tools, you know, that we think allows us to deliver better results for them. And of course, you know, our ears are always open for, again, the types of problems that our clients are facing, their needs in terms of solving those problems. And that's, you know, a really important source of insight when we think about how to innovate, how to build new products can be, you know, responsive to the needs that clients are grappling with. That's great.

Dan Lefkovitz (43:12)

Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us us in Longview. This has really been fascinating.

Mike Pyle (43:16)

I'm so appreciative for you having me, and I will hope we can continue the conversation some other time.

Dan Lefkovitz (43:22)

Absolutely. Thank you for joining us on the Longview. If you could please take a moment to subscribe to and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. George Cassidy is our engineer for the podcast and Cary Greshik produces the show Notes each week. Finally, we'd love to get your feedback if you have a comment or a guest idea. Please email us@thelongvieworningstar.com until next time. Thanks for joining us.

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