Excess Returns Podcast: Paisley Nardini of Tema ETFs on AI Investing and S&P 500 Concentration

This episode of the Excess Returns podcast features Paisley Nardini from Tema ETFs as a guest, engaging in a dialogue with hosts Jack Forehand and Justin Carbonneau. The core topics revolve around AI investing, extreme concentration in the S&P 500 index, and how investors can build more resilient portfolios amid evolving market risks.

According to the publisher's show notes, Nardini and the hosts will explore the risks beneath a seemingly resilient stock market, including why tomorrow's AI winners may differ from today's leaders, and where she sees opportunities in power and infrastructure. The discussion also delves into private-company exposure within ETFs, the role of thematic funds alongside a passive core, and emphasizes that knowing what you own matters more than the number of holdings in your portfolio.

Specific topics listed for the episode include: what weak market breadth reveals beneath headline indexes; interest rates, midterm elections, and limits of historical patterns; prediction markets as information sources; AI earnings expectations, debt financing, and growth slowdown risks; why bonds provide income but don't reliably offset equity risk; small-cap profitability and quality screens; AI bottlenecks, photonics, power demand, and infrastructure investment; and using thematic strategies as satellite positions around a passive core.