Ben Hunt
Co-Founder and CIO
Ben Hunt is the creator of Epsilon Theory and inspiration behind Second Foundation Partners, which he co-founded with Rusty Guinn in June 2018.
Epsilon Theory, Second Foundation’s principal publishing brand, is a newsletter and website that examines markets through the lenses of game theory and history. Over 100,000 professional investors and allocators across 180 countries read Epsilon Theory for its fresh perspective and novel insights into market dynamics. As Chief Investment Officer, Ben bears primary responsibility for determining the Company’s investment views and positioning of model portfolios. He is also the primary author of materials distributed through Epsilon Theory.
Ben taught political science for 10 years: at New York University from 1991 until 1997 and (with tenure) at Southern Methodist University from 1997 until 2000. He also wrote two academic books: Getting to War (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1997) and Policy and Party Competition (Routledge, 1992), which he co-authored with Michael Laver. Ben is the founder of two technology companies and the co-founder of SmartEquip, Inc., a software company for the construction equipment industry that provides intelligent schematics and parts diagrams to facilitate e-commerce in spare parts.
He began his investment career in 2003, first in venture capital and subsequently on two long/short equity hedge funds. He worked at Iridian Asset Management from 2006 until 2011 and TIG Advisors from 2012 until 2013. He joined Rusty at Salient in 2013, where he combined his background as a portfolio manager, risk manager, and entrepreneur with academic experience in game theory and econometrics to work with Salient’s own portfolio managers and its financial advisor clients to improve client outcomes.
Ben is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (1986) and earned his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 1991. He lives in the wilds of Redding, CT on Little River Farm, where he personifies the dilettante farmer that has been a stock comedic character since Cicero's day. Luckily his wife, Jennifer, and four daughters, Harper, Hannah, Haven and Halle, are always there to save the day. Ben's hobbies include comic books, Alabama football, beekeeping, and humoring Rusty in trivia "competitions".
Articles by Ben:
What happened over the weekend happened. There’s nothing to be done about it now, and I think the last thing you want to do is sell into it today. But over the days and weeks and months to come I think you absolutely want to sell into the forced deleveraging to come, whatever ‘sell into’ means to you.
Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh isn’t that important in and of itself, but is important because of where it happened – in Tehran! – and even more important because of how these events are being described in the domestic media of both Iran and Israel.
Replay of our 7/26 webinar introducing the ET Pro Dashboard – a direct window into our Radiant technology platform and its Narrative signals across equities, commodities and interest rates.
The ET Pro Dashboard is designed to quantify narratives about financial markets present in financial and political media, transcripts, and press releases, providing a unique alternative data signal for advisors, investors and allocators alike.
Recorded on July 24, this webinar explores how a long-only, long-term investor or advisor can protect a portfolio through a tail-risk market event without resorting to bespoke derivatives or actively trading basis risk. It can be done!
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a total revamp of the ET Pro website, now incorporating the ET Pro Dashboard – a direct window into our ‘Radiant’ technology platform (what I used to refer to as The Narrative Machine) and its narrative signals across equities, commodities and interest rates.
Our mediated cultural transition from sadness to generalized anger to focused anger at specific people and institutions of the Other Party is an entirely intentional effort by Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media.
This is the Great Ravine, and it’s all going to get much worse before it gets any better.
New webinar scheduled!
Lessons of a Short Seller: Navigating the Great Ravine without an ISDA
Wednesday, July 24
4:00 pm EDT
Big change in our dominant central bank and monetary policy narratives. For the first time in years, unemployment is at the top of the network mind.
Common knowledge is what everyone knows that everyone knows.
Common knowledge is why the 2024 Biden/Harris campaign has collapsed.
All that remains is the cope.
My long vol / tail risk scenarios for 2025:
1) A US election that will be close – very close in the electoral college – where both the winning side and the losing side will claim that the other guy cheated, and the winning side will unleash a tsunami of spending and tax cuts to buy political support.
2) A Phony War between Israel and Iran where both sides are actively planning an existential conflict, temporarily dormant today in the same way that the war between Germany and France was temporarily dormant in 1939 after Hitler invaded Poland.
3) A preventive war to come between China and the US, initiated over access to advanced technology and catalyzed by a technology embargo in the same way that the preventive war between Japan and the US in 1941 was initiated over access to oil and catalyzed by an oil embargo.
4) A new Great Financial Crisis stemming from the overleverage, regulatory arbitrage, self-dealing, balance sheet shenanigans, malinvestment, financialization and profound derivative basis risk that permeates the modern insurance/reinsurance sector.