Memory Is A Bubble, But Nvidia Protected – Jan Van Eck On Semis Surge
5/27/202654 min
Are we in an AI bubble, or are capital markets correctly funding the largest infrastructure build-out in human history?
In this episode of The Master Investor Podcast, Wilfred Frost sits down with Jan van Eck, CEO and owner of global asset management giant VanEck. Managing over $225 billion in assets, Jan has spent his career looking past daily market noise to focus on what he calls "10-year macro" trends. Today, he pulls back the curtain on the massive structural shifts that will define the global economy through 2036.
Wilfred and Jan dive deep into the staggering performance of VanEck’s flagship Semiconductor ETF (SMH) – which has surged to $65 billion in AUM on a jaw-dropping 29% annualized return since inception in 2011. Jan explains why the construction of the ETF is different from some rivals, allowing the likes of Nvidia to rise to up to 20% of the fund, and why he thinks Nvidia holds a generational moat protecting it, but issues a stark, timely warning for investors chasing the recent "bubblicious" frenzy in memory stocks.
Beyond technology, Jan sounds the alarm on massive government deficit spending in the US, UK, and Japan, detailing why a breakdown in bond market confidence could leave investors with nowhere to hide. He lays out the high-conviction case for why gold is re-emerging as the world's number one global currency; why India is his number one long term country pick; explains the explosive, bipartisan policy shift that sent VanEck’s nuclear and uranium fund from $20 million to $4.7 billion AUM; and breaks down the upcoming multi-billion dollar SpaceX IPO.
Recorded on 26th May 2026.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJan Van Eck· Guest0:00
Well, what I would say within the AI ecosystem, Wilfred, there are, uh, bubbles, to use a word they probably don't like that much, right? I do think that the memory-specific pocket is a moment in time. You know, one hates to, to call a top when something goes like this, but I personally, um, am, am wary about the, the memory stocks because in the medium or long term, they don't have quite the competitive moat I believe that, uh, NVIDIA does. I think we're in what we call a crypto winter, and I don't think it's coming back. Like, I, I just don't think a lot of those projects, um, and softwares will be at all interesting or alive in five or 10 years from now. So the, the concept of blockchain and stablecoins are definitely there, and Bitcoin is there, but a lot of other parts of the ecosystem are just, to me, going away. It's such a big company, um, SpaceX, that it-- we're glad as ETF sponsors to have it in the public markets. As you said, the amount of money here is absolutely staggering, right? [laughs] It's just staggering. You're talking about cumulatively hundreds of billions of dollars. It's just the waves of liquidity that are gonna be sloshing through the economy, I, I think will, uh, you know, they'll be positive short term for economic growth, and I think they will be absorbed.
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