Oct 21, 2026 · 1h 30m
Rising bond yields squeeze stocks and private credit
The Big Squeeze: High Bond Yields Now Becoming A Problem For Stocks | Jan van Eck
The episode connects higher Treasury yields to pressure on risk assets while testing whether AI, real assets, and India can sustain long-term investment cases.
- 1Higher yields are making private-credit returns less compelling, with stress reflecting rates, regulation, and sector-specific problems.
- 2AI demand, corporate adoption, and semiconductor investment remain powerful long-term themes despite concerns about valuations.
- 3Gold, energy, Bitcoin, and India offer contrasting opportunities and risks as investors reassess duration and real assets.
Don't miss
Jan van Eck argues that private-credit stress is being driven chiefly by higher rates, regulation, and sector-specific problems rather than a broad collapse in holdings.
The brief
Jan van Eck’s quarterly outlook begins with a market-wide pressure point: rising 10-year Treasury yields are forcing investors to reassess stocks, private credit, and other risk assets.
Van Eck argues skepticism toward Nvidia and the AI ecosystem may be premature, because training, inference, token usage, and corporate adoption could drive demand beyond current projections.
The private-markets discussion sharpens the tension: open models dominate token consumption, while frontier companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic retain revenue through pricing and enterprise switching costs.
The standout turn comes when Van Eck links higher yields to weaker private-credit appeal, while arguing that current stress reflects rates, regulation, and sector-specific issues—not an outright collapse.
He closes with a mixed long-term map: gold and energy look overlooked, Bitcoin faces rate sensitivity, and India remains attractive despite a poor recent call.
What was said on this episode
60 statements · 36 positive · 17 negative · 7 neutral
Higher 10-year yields are pressuring other portfolio assets
“the rise in interest rates, especially the 10-year. And that to me is squeezing the rest of client portfolios”
Listen at 0:06
Investors are modestly shifting portfolios toward fixed income
“we see is a slight shifting of people's portfolios towards fixed income”
Listen at 2:35
Four of VanEck’s five largest inflow funds were fixed-income funds
“4 out of the 5 top inflow funds have been fixed income funds here at VanEck”
Listen at 2:45
US government spending remains stimulative
“government spending is still high and is still at least one foot on the gas pedal”
Listen at 3:38
Monetary policy is currently neutral
“I view monetary policy as kind of neutral now”
Listen at 4:29
VanEck is structurally underweight bonds because of deficit concerns
“We are structurally underweight bonds and fixed income because of our deficit concerns”
Listen at 6:14
VanEck models recently began buying bonds
“in our models, Adam, we started buying bonds”
Listen at 6:24
VanEck is overweight technology relative to the S&P 500
“We at VanEck are actually overweight tech above that”
Listen at 7:40
Exiting the technology megatrend has imposed substantial opportunity costs
“if you listen to the naysayers or stepped out of this mega trend trade of tech, you are leaving a lot of money on the table”
Listen at 7:46
AI will significantly influence and lead financial markets
“AI is one of these megatrends that will distort and lead the financial markets”
Listen at 10:01
Holding AI training demand flat is a conservative modeling assumption
“we think training held flat is a conservative assumption”
Listen at 13:27
VanEck users’ token usage rises roughly eightfold during adoption
“your token usage goes up like 8 times”
Listen at 14:23
After initial adoption, token usage grows about 25% annually
“after that, it goes up at sort of like 25% a year”
Listen at 14:28
AI demand projections remain uncertain
“this is guessing at the future and not certain at all”
Listen at 15:02
Nvidia’s upward trend has not been broken
“Nvidia itself is lagging a little bit. But I mean, one wouldn't say that its up and to the right trend is broken by any means”
Listen at 16:32
“we think that that's a good way to play this AI trade”
Listen at 20:32
Frontier AI models retain most revenue despite open-model usage
“the majority of the revenue generation continues staying with these frontier models”
Listen at 23:16
Enterprise switching costs between AI models are high
“the switching costs for a FinTech, right, for other enterprises is quite high”
Listen at 23:51
Open-source models account for over 70% of token consumption
“the open source usage in terms of consumption of tokens has shifted up to over 70%”
Listen at 25:04
Anthropic and OpenAI retain over 70% of AI revenue share
“the revenue share from Anthropic and OpenAI is still over 70%”
Listen at 25:16
Frontier AI model pricing will decline over time
“over time, right? I think we can expect to see pricing come down to become more competitive”
Listen at 27:14
AI adoption remains in its early stages
“It's the early innings, and the entire market's clearly not using it yet”
Listen at 27:30
The open-model capability gap has remained four to six months
“it's fairly been consistent, to be honest with you, in terms of that 4 to 6 month gap”
Listen at 28:07
The number of US private companies has risen to roughly 50,000–60,000
“the number of private companies has soared to 50,000, 60,000”
Listen at 31:07
US venture companies have approximately $11 trillion in total value
“There's roughly around $11 trillion in total value today just looking at US venture companies”
Listen at 31:53
Private-market strategies are typically illiquid and require longer horizons
“these strategies typically are illiquid. And so you do need to have a longer-term time horizon”
Listen at 33:25
Technology companies now remain private roughly 12–24 years
“Those companies today are staying private for 12, 14, 15— SpaceX, right? 24 years.”
Listen at 35:28
SpaceX is valued at over one trillion dollars
“SpaceX is example, over a trillion”
Listen at 35:40
Five percent of venture managers generated roughly 90% of returns
“roughly 90% of venture returns over the past few decades has been generated by 5% of the managers”
Listen at 37:20
Less than 1% of VC managers consistently achieved over 3x returns
“the percentage is less than 1%”
Listen at 38:07
Investors should consider incorporating private markets into portfolios
“investors need to or should explore how to incorporate private markets into your overall portfolio construction”
Listen at 38:24
An unnamed AI company was valued near $25 billion before releasing its model
“they were valued at close to $25 billion, and they had not yet released their model”
Listen at 39:21
Corporate America is increasing willingness to spend on AI
“corporate America is saying, I want to spend money on AI”
Listen at 42:10
Nvidia is central to the AI hardware ecosystem
“I consider it to be the heart of the AI kind of hardware ecosystem”
Listen at 43:55
Third-quarter events did not end the AI trend
“there's nothing so systemic that happened in Q3 that would lead me to say this thing, this trend is over”
Listen at 46:10
Private-credit manager equities appeared attractive buys in Q2
“private credit managers' equities had kind of— were attractive buys in Q2”
Listen at 48:01
Private-credit yields are becoming less attractive as Treasury yields rise
“the value prop is starting to become diminished”
Listen at 49:54
Private-credit conditions are not severe enough to predict new lows
“I don't think it's so bad given the health of the economy that I would predict lower lows”
Listen at 50:02
Economic growth, rather than credit or inflation, is driving higher rates
“the rise in interest rates is not due to credit concerns. It's not due to inflation concerns, but it's due to economic growth”
Listen at 51:35
Strong economic growth increases credit demand and interest rates
“if economic growth is strong, then there's going to be more demand for credit, and that would bring interest rates higher”
Listen at 54:24
Private-market credit pressures will take time to resolve
“this will, this will take a while to work through, too”
Listen at 1:00:00
The US government deficit is a major long-term macroeconomic problem
“the big macro trend is this government deficit problem”
Listen at 1:00:21
The US budget deficit reached $2 trillion
“the budget deficit hit $2 trillion”
Listen at 1:01:18
China is purchasing about 46% of global gold production
“this year, China has been huge buyers of gold. About 46% of global gold production is being purchased by China”
Listen at 1:03:50
China’s gold purchases are twice last year’s pace
“that's double the pace of last year”
Listen at 1:04:14
Gold has a strongly bullish ten-year outlook
“I am 10-year very bullish on gold”
Listen at 1:05:51
The US shale production increase is unlikely to repeat
“US oil production has gone up 8, 9, 10 million barrels a day. And that's That's unlikely to repeat.”
Listen at 1:09:08
Global oil demand will continue increasing
“oil demand keeps going up globally”
Listen at 1:09:18
Financial advisors are substantially underweight real assets
“our industry, financial advisor industry, generally speaking, we did a study on this that's available on our website, is way underweight real assets”
Listen at 1:11:34
Bitcoin was bearish early in the year but attractive to buy in Q2
“I was bearish coming into the year. I said Q2 was a great time to buy”
Listen at 1:14:55
Gold is attractive as a long-term holding
“I like gold for the long run”
Listen at 1:15:08
Higher global interest rates make gold less attractive relative to bonds
“global interest rates are higher”
Listen at 1:16:05
India is approaching the bottom of its valuation range
“it's finally getting to the bottom of its valuation range”
Listen at 1:17:50
Adventurous investors should dollar-cost-average into India
“for adventurous investors, just dollar cost average in, and this is not a bad time to be buying”
Listen at 1:17:57
India’s economy is expected to reach Europe’s size within ten years
“It's supposed to hit the size of Europe in 10 years”
Listen at 1:18:27
India’s growth is attractive when combined with deregulation and digitization
“Economic growth in and of itself doesn't matter, right? But it's that combined with the deregulation and also the digitization of their economy that gets me excited.”
Listen at 1:19:14
VanEck is overweight technology
“we are overweight technology”
Listen at 1:23:17
VanEck is recently underweight fixed income
“We are underweight fixed income recently”
Listen at 1:23:35
VanEck structurally overweights real assets to smooth portfolio performance
“we are structurally overweight real assets because we think it smooths out your performance ride in your portfolio during different economic cycles”
Listen at 1:24:14
Two-year duration bonds appear attractive at current yields
“if you look at 2-year duration, wow, that's pretty attractive”
Listen at 1:26:03
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
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