In short: The core of the hedge, and the mechanism is stated precisely. "Since 2021 I added a feature to the fund… I reduce the number of shorts I have. So we're still short but then I have puts instead. So when a market has a big rally up we increase our put exposure, mostly S&P 500… and when the market goes down then we sell some of our puts. So we buy on strength and we sell on weakness just to help us lower our risk and our net exposure to the market." Asked directly: "yeah, we short S&P as I mentioned. We do puts on the S&P." The net effect on the book: equities are net long, "but the overlay options, puts, takes us well below zero on a net basis. But I have very low cost, because if we're wrong on the options it's a very small cost every month. But if we're right, and faster the market goes down, better it is for options, then potentially we could make a lot of money." The macro trigger is semis dragging the index: "because they're so important also in the S&P 500 they might take the whole stock market down with that." His summary of the posture: "we're definitely ready if something really bad happens quick. We're definitely protected."
This is the single most useful idea in the interview, and it is about portfolio construction rather than any stock. A put option is a contract that pays out if an index falls below an agreed level before an agreed date; you pay a small premium for it whether or not it pays out, the way you pay an insurance premium. Tardif's fund owns more shares than it has sold short — it is "net long" — and then buys enough S&P 500 puts on top that, if markets fall, the whole book is effectively positioned below zero net exposure.
The reason he switched to this in 2021 is that shorting individual companies became painful and unpredictable: a short position's losses are unlimited if the stock keeps rising, and the last few years punished anyone doing it. A put has the opposite shape. The most you can lose is the premium — "a very small cost every month" — while the payoff grows non-linearly the faster and further the market falls. That asymmetry is why he can afford to stay hedged permanently rather than trying to time the top.
The discipline around it is what makes it work: he buys more puts after markets rally (when protection is cheap and least wanted) and sells them into declines (when it is expensive and everyone wants it). That is the reverse of what fear and greed prompt, and it also produces cash exactly when he wants to buy stocks. Asked whether this is a rainy-day position, his answer is the episode's title: "we're definitely ready if something really bad happens quick. We're definitely protected."
27:48You are sort of net long and you carry a little bit of a short book. Is that the right way to think about it? — Equities are net long. Most of the net long comes from gold and oil. But the overlay options, puts, takes us well below zero on a net basis. But I have very low cost, because if we're wrong on the options it's a very small cost every month. But if we're right, and faster the market goes down, better it is for options, then potentially we could make a lot of money. — All right. So kind of a
In short: The "growth asset" benchmark — returned +275% over the decade (three straight double-digit years, an AI boom, crossing 7,000), yet gold's +400% beat it by 125 percentage points. The safe haven out-ran the growth asset.
The S&P 500 is the headline US stock index — the thing everyone calls the "growth" investment. Over the past decade it did great, up about 275%. But Prins's point is that gold, the asset your advisor tells you to keep to a small slice of your portfolio, did even better — up about 400%. In other words, the "safe and boring" choice quietly beat the exciting growth choice by a wide margin.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.