The Weekly Wrap (week ending Sep 18, recorded Thursday night Sep 17) — stance reflects how each name was framed in this episode (not a price rating). Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What was said | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KBWP | Invesco KBW Property & Casualty Insurance ETF | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | His suggested diversifier for a subscriber asking how to get away from AI exposure without leaving equities: "within financials the property and casualty subsector is uncorrelated to AI and to the economy" — one of "three" ETFs he names. Same answer as Aug 28, now given as an explicit suggestion. | 20:26 |
| LVHD | Franklin U.S. Low Volatility High Dividend Index ETF | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Suggested as a low-volatility diversifier away from AI: "there are ETFs that have low volatility stocks that would provide subdiversification. Here are three. One, the LVHD." Offered to hedge a portfolio where "so much of it is correlated to AI." | 20:49 |
| SPLV | Invesco S&P 500 Low Volatility ETF | QT · SA · STK | Positive | The second of his "three" suggested low-volatility ETFs for diversifying away from AI exposure without abandoning equities. | 20:49 |
| EFX | Equifax | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Cited as evidence, not a stance — FHFA's Pulte "also criticized the credit bureaus for price gouging," and "Equifax and TransUnion are down 25% and 15%" YTD. "Equifax is down more than TransUnion" because it "has a bigger percentage of its profits from mortgage scoring." No position stated. | 5:39 |
| TRU | TransUnion | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Cited as evidence, not a stance — the bureau least hurt by Pulte's campaign: down 15% YTD vs Equifax's 25%, because it gets a smaller share of profits from mortgage scoring. No position stated. | 5:39 |
| MTG | MGIC Investment | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Named only as a target — "Bill Pulte is not done. He is now going after the mortgage insurance sector. Companies like MGIC, Essent, and Radian," arguing the industry should be "much more proconsumer" and tell borrowers when the insurance is no longer needed. "We shall see how this evolves." No position. | 6:34 |
| ESNT | Essent Group | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Named only as a target — one of the three mortgage insurers FHFA's Pulte is now "going after" after FICO and the bureaus. "We shall see how this evolves." No position. | 6:34 |
| RDN | Radian Group | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Named only as a target — the third mortgage insurer in Pulte's new campaign for a "much more proconsumer" industry. "We shall see how this evolves." No position. | 6:34 |
| ORCL | Oracle | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Cited as evidence, not a stance — the proof the labs cannot slow down: "They both have hundreds of billions of commitments to hyperscalers. OpenAI alone represents 300 billion of Oracle's 600 billion plus backlog. If they were to slow down, they could not fulfill those commitments." | 14:50 |
| NVDA | NVIDIA | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Used as the worked example rather than a pick — how to hedge big tech gains without paying tax: "Let's say I own a 100 shares of Nvidia and I've owned it for years… Instead, I could short 50 or 100 shares of Nvidia. That's called shorting against the box… I can wait until I think things will get better and then I can undo the short." A hypothetical, not a disclosed trade. | 21:20 |
| VantageScore | VantageScore (bureau-owned, private) | — | Neutral | The mechanism of his FICO short: Pulte's pilot let 21 lenders use it, then opened it to "all lenders," and "the most recent data indicates that Vantage Score had a 10% market share of new mortgage loans securitized and I expect that percentage will go much higher." | 6:09 |
| CRCL | Circle Internet Group | QT · SA · STK · FA | Negative | The rally was a bet on legislation: the expected passage of the Clarity Act "explains, I believe, the rally in cryptocurrencies and in the stock price of Circle, the stable coin company." This week "senators blocked the bill… This is a major blow for the crypto industry and it is unclear where the industry goes from here." Consistent with his Sep 14 "Circle doesn't make any sense to me." | 7:25 |
| FICO | Fair Isaac | QT · SA · STK · FA | Negative | "I remain short FICO and think that its monopoly in mortgage scoring is going to break." Thesis restated: "the company got greedy and raised prices 1,600%… over the past 5 years" and "abused that monopoly"; the FHFA head "agrees with me" and opened VantageScore to all lenders. Stock down 43% YTD; VantageScore already 10% of new securitized mortgages and heading "much higher." | 4:42 |
| Anthropic | Anthropic (private) | — | Negative | Dario Amodei's call to "slow down" is "false on its face": "Anthropic is going to go public this year… maybe in a month or two. It can't slow down. What would it say to investors on the road show?" The labs see "a price war coming," with no pricing moats, so they are fomenting hysteria to win regulation "that will foster an AI duopoly." "It's unclear to me how to keep a shell game going in an IPO process that requires transparency." | 15:17 |
| OpenAI | OpenAI (private) | — | Negative | Sam Altman agreeing the industry should slow down is part of the same "shell game": OpenAI "alone represents 300 billion of Oracle's 600 billion plus backlog," so it cannot slow down and still meet its commitments. "Business is potentially slowing because token maxing is ending and open weight models keep taking market share," while data-center and capital costs rise. "AI won't cause extinction, but these two CEOs are creating massive damage." | 16:06 |
A jargon-free summary of the view on each name — what it is and why he frames it that way. (Plain-language companion to the table above; renders on each ticker's consolidated page.)
An ETF is a fund that trades like a single stock but holds a basket of companies. This one holds property and casualty insurers, the companies that insure homes, cars and businesses. Eisman's point is that their profits depend on insurance pricing, not on artificial intelligence or on how fast the economy grows.
So for someone whose portfolio is full of AI-linked stocks, this is one way to own something that moves for different reasons. He offers it as a suggestion for spreading risk, not as a call that insurers will beat the market.
This fund buys dividend-paying U.S. stocks whose prices tend to swing less than the market. Eisman suggests it because so much of today's market (tech, utilities, industrials, big banks) rises and falls with the AI boom. Quieter, dividend-paying companies are less tied to that one theme, so holding some reduces how much a single story can hurt you.
This fund holds the S&P 500 companies whose share prices have been the least jumpy. Eisman names it with LVHD and KBWP as a way to stay invested in stocks while leaning less on AI, since steadier companies tend to be in businesses the AI trade does not drive.
FICO makes the credit score nearly every U.S. mortgage lender has used. Because lenders had to use it, FICO could raise its price again and again, by about 1,600% over five years by Eisman's count. He calls that abusing a monopoly.
Now the regulator of the big mortgage buyers (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) has let every lender use a cheaper rival score, VantageScore, and is publicly attacking FICO. VantageScore already covers about 10% of new mortgages that get bundled and sold to investors, and Eisman expects that share to keep rising. FICO's stock is down 43% this year. He is betting it falls further (he is "short") because he thinks its monopoly is ending.
Circle issues a "stablecoin," a digital token meant to always be worth one dollar. Its stock rose along with the rest of crypto on hopes that Congress would pass the Clarity Act, a law setting clear rules for digital assets.
This week the Senate blocked the bill. Eisman calls that a major blow and says it's unclear where the industry goes next. His point is that much of Circle's rally was a bet on a law that has now stalled.
Anthropic, the private company behind the Claude AI models, is expected to sell shares to the public soon, perhaps within a month or two, Eisman says. Its CEO has been warning that AI is dangerous and the industry should slow down. Eisman thinks that makes no sense coming from a company about to pitch fast growth to new investors, and one that has promised to buy huge amounts of computing power.
His explanation: AI models are becoming interchangeable, and cheaper free ("open-weight") models keep winning customers, so the big labs face a price war. Scary headlines could lead to government rules that only the biggest labs can afford to follow, which would protect them from competition. He doubts that approach can survive a public listing, which forces a company to disclose its real numbers.
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has promised to spend enormous sums on computing, including about $300 billion of Oracle's roughly $600 billion of signed future contracts. A company with commitments like that cannot really slow down, Eisman argues, so when its CEO agrees the industry should slow down for safety, he doesn't believe it.
He thinks the real problem is that business is getting harder. The rush of companies buying as much AI usage as possible ("token maxing") is ending, cheaper open models are taking customers, and building data centers and borrowing money are both getting more expensive. Talking up doomsday invites regulation that could shield OpenAI and Anthropic from rivals. He says the fear it has stirred up is already hurting, with local fights over data centers.
Summary derived from the public YouTube video (transcript in transcript.txt) for personal study. Viewer questions read on air are attributed as viewer questions; the Granola and Webroot sponsor reads are not analysed. Not investment advice. © The Real Eisman Playbook / Steve Eisman for source material.