A Peak Back at Future Proof Citywide with Tom Lee

A Peak Back at Future Proof Citywide with Tom Lee

Fri, September 11, 2026 at 11:21 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• CL=F -2.37%
• SPY +0.85%

Fundstrat's Tom Lee took the Future Proof Citywide stage earlier this year with CNBC's Scott Wapner for a session that landed in the middle of a jittery tape that included geopolitical conflict, oil spiking, private credit cracking, and fresh doubts about AI spending. Not too far off where we find ourselves currently, but with an awful lot of volatility and shifting, uncertain outlooks between these six months. While their conversation was a snapshot in time, you can expect more of this kind of sharp, thoughtful analysis next week.

The contrarian take of the session was oil. High crude, Lee argued, is actually constructive for U.S. equities. With the U.S. as a net exporter, our economic competitors are importers, and stalled global growth pushes investors toward growth stocks, which is about 80% of the U.S. market. On AI CapEx, he pushed back on the sticker shock, claiming roughly $700 billion a year is a fraction of the $60 trillion global labor market and small change against daily moves in gold.

Lee also made the case that software had bottomed at the time, that enterprises building their own tools inherit the maintenance burden software companies exist to carry, and that private credit is genuinely bad but not a GFC repeat, with the real fix being taking private companies public rather than pushing private product into retail portfolios. On crypto, his argument shifted from a perspective of digital gold to one of plumbing whereby Wall Street tokenizes assets, and AI agents needing a settlement rail that handles fractions of a penny.

His parting advice was the oldest one in the book, dressed in new clothes: miss the 10 best days of each year and a 16% average return goes to roughly nothing. Danger and opportunity show up together. Staying invested is the perpetual drumbeat of advisors to their clients, but one that needs banging louder when markets feel much less certain.

Future Proof Festival is September 14–17 in Huntington Beach and includes four days on the boardwalk with advisors, asset managers, and fintechs building the modern wealth management industry. Find us at the ETF Oasis and don't miss the stellar agenda we've got lined up.

Permalink | © Copyright 2026 etf.com. All rights reserved