The summer doldrums are supposedly a time of quiet markets and thin trading, but the latest episode of DH Unplugged, hosted by Andrew Horowitz and John C. Dvorak, paints a different picture. Titled 'The Doldrums,' the episode arrives on August 18, 2026, and tackles a news flow that refuses to slow down. The co-hosts argue that every headline is being amplified as investors grapple with whether all-time highs are sustainable or a setup for a reversal.
Among the market-moving stories discussed, Michael Burry's warning of a possible 1987-style drop stands out, as he shorts Palantir, Nvidia, and Tesla via options. Horowitz and Dvorak also delve into Nvidia's preliminary agreements with Apollo, BlackRock, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to mobilize $500 billion for AI infrastructure. Etsy's decision to cut 220 jobs (roughly 12% of staff) while authorizing a $2 billion buyback, Chipotle's salmonella outbreak tied to jalapenos, Sweetgreen's Taylor Farms disaster, and Eli Lilly's blockbuster quarterly sales for Mounjaro ($9.94B) and Zepbound ($4.93B) are also on the docket.
The show's signature blend of skepticism and humor runs throughout. On the endless parade of bearish forecasts, Horowitz observes: 'Markets live much more in the all-time high range than in the all-time lows. In fact, very difficult, if not impossible, for the markets to hit an all-time low.' Dvorak counters with a lens on Jensen Huang's strategy at Nvidia, noting, 'it's more important to be depended on than to be profitable,' and warning that a Nvidia unwind could combine 1999 enthusiasm with 2007 financialization at far greater magnitude.
The deeper dive lands on Nvidia's move to make compute an investable asset class. Horowitz and Dvorak explain how hyperscaler depreciation schedules collide with Nvidia's accelerating product cycle, and why collateralizing compute (rather than the underlying silicon) is Jensen Huang's answer to nervous financiers. Elsewhere, they unpack Berkshire Hathaway's first net-buyer quarter in 14 quarters under Greg Abel, a new 15% tariff on polysilicon solar imports, drone tariffs benefiting Unusual Machines (UMAC), Donald Trump Jr.'s stake in that name, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's Trump-flavored superlatives, and the still-unrecovered 18-karat gold toilet ripped from Blenheim Palace.
As the episode makes clear, the market's ability to climb even as warning signs flash is a testament to its resilience—or its denial. With Nvidia's audacious financing scheme and Burry's bearish bets, the hosts argue that the current environment is anything but dull. Investors would do well to heed the lessons of history, even as the market marches to new highs.
