Intro
Buck Klintworth, a technical analyst at Chase Investment Counsel, walks through a market where value has taken the leadership away from growth and explains what that pattern has meant historically. Rob Thummel of Tortoise Capital does double duty on the same show, first on closed-end energy infrastructure funds and then on energy and AI infrastructure stocks in the market call, and host Chuck Jaffe opens the hour on a Jackson Hole speech he says may be the most consequential in memory.
Guest: Buck Klintworth, senior vice president and portfolio manager at Chase Investment Counsel, part of the team that runs the Chase Growth Fund (CHASX)
Also on: Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital, who runs Tortoise Energy Infrastructure (TYG) and Tortoise AI Infrastructure (TCAI)
Host: Chuck Jaffe
Published: 28 August 2026 on Money Life with Chuck Jaffe
Episode page | 58 min
Key Takeaways
Leadership has flipped and that is the year's real story
2024 growth beat value by a ton, 2025 large-cap growth still won, this year is a reversal of 2024
"You have value stocks greatly outperforming growth stocks" — Buck Klintworth
Value leading late is usually the warning sign, and Klintworth will not call it either way yet
"value is usually the last one to fall"
He asks to be judged in six months on whether it was a top or a rotation
Anyone sitting on huge unrealized gains has exactly three choices
Sit out, sell and rotate into the new leaders, or sell and hold cash at a 4% one-year Treasury yield
The tape settles the argument, not the analysis
A company can beat earnings, beat revenue, raise guidance and still fall 15%
Rates are finally showing up in the charts now that the fear of missing out on AI has passed
Hundreds of billions spent on data centers, and any report that the payoff is late knocks the plays down
Thummel still calls energy the best setup of his three-decade career, mainly for the income
Energy income beats the S&P 500 and beats bonds, at the price of equity risk
Electricity is the new oil, and natural gas is what makes it cheap
Under a dollar a unit at times in West Texas against a European price Thummel puts many times higher
Tortoise buys one thing: undersupplied markets with growing revenue
Memory and storage today, oil in the past; margins expand and free cash flow follows
Micron and Williams are Thummel's two poster children
Williams builds the power plant behind the meter and contracts with the hyperscaler, so the retail consumer never sees the bill
Morningstar rates the same energy infrastructure strategy one star closed-end and four stars open-end
Chuck Jaffe's own explanation is that being above average is hard in a five-fund category
The lightning round was a clean sweep of five buys from five listeners
Chuck Jaffe cannot remember a Fed speech riding on this much, and reaches back to Powell in 2022 for the comparison
Chuck Jaffe on the Warsh Speech He Cannot Find a Match For
The hour opens with the market waiting on Fed chair Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole, due that morning, "at least if it goes off on schedule"
"And frankly, I'm trying to think of a speech in recent memory that maybe was this consequential, right?"
Jaffe's reference point is Powell in 2022: "Like in 2022, Jerome Powell gave a pretty blunt Jackson Hole speech that rattled investors and the S&P dropped like three and a half percent that day"
The host's own backdrop for the speech: "Now you've got bond yields at levels we haven't seen in 20 years. You got $40 trillion in national debt."
He adds that the Treasury's buybacks "really didn't work in terms of maybe holding the line as much as perhaps was expected when they were first announced"
The market is stuck in "a void of information because that's what Kevin Warsh has said he wants"
Jaffe points listeners to a MarketWatch piece quoting Jason Vaillancourt of Columbia Threadneedle, a guest on the previous day's show, who said he has never seen more divergence of opinion about what the Fed will do
Powell's 2022 speech talked about job losses and economic pain and scared the market, but a week later the market had shaken it off — "the market's going to do what the market's going to do"
The caveat Jaffe leaves hanging: after that 2022 drop, the market was correcting by the end of the month, and guests this week have been saying a correction is possible
The Navigator: Energy Is Still the Best Setup Thummel Has Seen
Jaffe opens by quoting Thummel's own line from last fall, "the best time I have ever seen in a three decade career to be investing in energy", and asks whether that still holds
Thummel has not moved off it: "I still think it's an excellent time, Chuck, to be investing in the energy sector, especially if you're investors and your clients are looking for income."
"Income is really attractive in the energy sector right now. It's much higher than what you can get in the S&P 500. Obviously, it's much higher than you get in bonds. You do have to take a little equity risk, but we do think it's worth it."
The world has worked out that energy matters and that "US energy is even more important because the US can provide reliable consistent energy" — exports grow from here
Investors have been underallocated to energy all the way back to 2020, and Thummel says that is changing now that energy security is on the table
The sector case rests on one thing: "it's not driven by anything other than something very simple and that's free cash flow", paid back in buybacks and dividends
The AI story is a tailwind on top of that foundation — "it's still here. It's probably getting bigger. We saw that last night with Nvidia and some of the other hyperscalers in this earning season."
Why Energy Infrastructure Does Not Trade Like an AI Stock
Jaffe asks whether AI-style volatility has bled into energy now that Thummel calls energy an AI-adjacent play
Producers whose cash flows track oil and gas prices see more earnings volatility, but the infrastructure names at the core of TYG are "very steady, very steady companies that provide consistent, stable earnings with some growth as well"
Those companies are moving into behind-the-meter power solutions, which Thummel says holds power costs down for consumers while the build-out continues
On whether trouble siting data centers threatens the story: Thummel points to Jensen Huang's five-layer cake, where "the foundation of that five-layer cake is energy. It's electricity. And that's not going to change."
The second requirement is cheap power, and that is where he says the US wins the global AI race
All of the Above, But Natural Gas Wins
Jaffe presses on whether one energy source will turn out to be the winner, given a data center operator only cares that the power arrives
"we're still on the all the above camp" — electricity demand will need everything
"Electricity demand growth is really going to grow at almost unprecedented rates"
Natural gas leads anyway, on cost, thanks to the shale revolution and the independent producers who built the supply
The price gap he cites: "You can buy natural gas at times in West Texas for under a dollar a unit which for perspective Europe is paying oh probably 20 to $25 sometimes $30 a unit for natural gas."
Electricity is one input into AI among several, so the winning input is the cheapest one, which keeps consumer costs down
One Star Closed-End, Four Stars Open-End, Same Job
Jaffe's inside-baseball question: Morningstar gives the closed-end energy infrastructure fund one star and the open-end version four, for what is functionally the same work
He supplies half the answer himself, on how thin the closed-end category is — "Being above average is pretty hard when you've got five funds in your category."
Thummel accepts the observation and says the mandates differ slightly: the open-end fund is the oldest and the purest energy infrastructure exposure, with access to what he calls some of the best pipelines in the world
TYG holds the same pipeline core but ventures into electrification infrastructure — Texas generation in ERCOT, and generators in PJM on the East Coast
The open-end fund has performed a little better depending on the period, which he thinks is what the ratings gap is picking up
The trade-off runs the other way on income: the closed-end fund pays the much higher dividend of the two
Klintworth: A Market in a Period of Change
"Well, right now, you're certainly in a period of change."
The three-year sequence: 2024, growth beat value by a ton; 2025, large-cap growth still beat value while midcap value edged ahead of growth; this year, a reversal of 2024
"You have value stocks greatly outperforming growth stocks"
When laggards start to lead, uncertainty follows: the market goes down a little or moves sideways while people wait for clarity
The things people are waiting on: midterm elections in November, tariffs placed on Canada
Inside the mega caps, only two or three lead at a time while the rest lag, then a couple of the laggards take a turn — which Klintworth frames as opportunity rather than danger
Three Things to Do With Huge Unrealized Gains
Klintworth's framing is that anyone who has held the leaders for years is stuck, because selling means realizing the gains
"You have three options." Sit out and wait for the underperformance to pass; sell and rotate into the new leaders; or sell and not reinvest at all
The third option now pays something: "Right now, if you're looking at a one-year Treasury, you can get a 4% yield after several good years of market returns. That may be attractive as you wait to see how things play out. If you look at the 10-year yield, you can get more than 4 and a half percent."
"Things have changed in the market. Things have changed in the world. As things change, you need to re-evaluate and see whether you need to change as well."
Rates Are Starting to Show Up in the Charts
Jaffe asks whether high interest rates becoming a drag on the capital spending boom is visible in the technicals yet
Klintworth says it is starting to show, while warning there is no clean correlation between a rate move and any one stock
When rates were near zero the stock market was the only place to get a return; when rates rose, fixed income should have pulled money out — "But then there was FOMO."
"There was the fear of missing out on the AI and data center plays."
The payoff is now the question: not billions or tens of billions but hundreds of billions spent on infrastructure by technology and industrial companies, and investors expect a return on it
"But the minute that you see reports come out where it's not paying off or not paying off as quickly as possible, you're seeing these stocks that plays on data centers, plays on AI begin to fall" — and then people pile in and drive them lower than they should go
The contrarian read on rates: "High interest rates now may be a drag on investing, but ultimately it could sort of temper expectations and really drive the market higher once expectations are tempered a little bit."
You Can't Argue With the Tape
Jaffe's setup: companies are posting numbers that in ordinary times would be stunning and the market is calling them not good enough — "the market is punishing good earnings because it was expecting better earnings"
He asks whether irrational selling makes a technician's job harder or simply hands them a buying opportunity
Klintworth says harder. A great-looking chart plus a fundamental event that should be good — "they beat revenues, they raised estimates beyond what people expected and the stock went down 15%" — looks like the perfect time to buy
"unless you have money to drive the stock price back up, you can't argue with the tape"
"It's best to wait if a stock falls to see if it begins to recover", and find out whether the fall really was irrational
"ultimately doesn't matter what you think. It matters what the stock is actually doing."
A Fourth Straight Up Year, and Whether Value Leading Is the Turn
Jaffe's frame: barring something strange this will be the fourth consecutive year of significant gains, five in a row is rare, and it is hard to see what derails a market with this much capital spending going on
Klintworth will not forecast it. His answer is to watch closely and not be afraid to make changes when something changes
A different Congress is coming one way or another, and he notes the current administration does not necessarily pay attention to what Congress does
"the only thing that I can say is market may go up, may go down" — the work is watching what actually drives the market
He expects big changes every few months, and warns against a monthly check-in that triggers big moves: "Waiting and acting at the wrong time is going to be what hurts you when it comes to these changes."
Jaffe puts the historical pattern to him: value does not usually respond like this until after the market has peaked, so is this rally the precursor to trouble or is this time different?
"value is usually the last one to fall" — but value has underperformed for years, so "The hope is that it's just a rotation and not a top."
"If we talk in 6 months, I'll be able to tell you whether or not it was a top or just a rotation."
He hedges his own hedge: "I hate saying that because that usually means that you're going to be wrong about it"
What makes it feel different is that growth is still working if you look harder — software-as-a-service names in a two-year downtrend that still carry high expected growth and fell on fears about what AI does to them
"there are still some green shoots in the growth area and that's what gives me hope that this time it may be different"
The Market Call: Undersupplied Markets With Growing Revenue
Tortoise has run the same screen for two decades: "we look for industries and companies that are operating in undersupplied markets that have growing revenue"
The mechanism is margin expansion. It worked in oil when demand outran supply, and Thummel says it is working now in memory and storage
Capacity has not been built yet, demand is rising, and margins are rising significantly — he points to Nvidia's just-reported earnings as the same setup
Rising margins plus unit growth produce cash: "we love free cash flow", in AI infrastructure and energy infrastructure alike
In energy infrastructure specifically, he wants the companies that hand that cash back as dividends
Electricity Becomes the New Oil
Thummel treats AI as the next industrial revolution, and the consequence is that "electricity is going to become the new oil"
Energy infrastructure, in his definition, is electrification infrastructure plus everything required to support it: natural gas pipelines, and the turbines that burn the gas to make power
AI infrastructure is the other half: AI is electricity plus data, and the data lives in data centers
Inside those data centers sit the things he actually buys — memory and storage, network switches, liquid cooling devices, "the enablers of AI"
The pitch is a complement, not a substitute: most investors already own mega-cap tech and own almost none of the infrastructure underneath it
Jaffe's own numbers on the funds: the AI infrastructure fund is "up over 50%, close to 60% year-to-date as we record this", with the energy fund up much less but still in double digits, and he asks whether the pairing gives an investor a "steady yeti" alongside the volatility
Thummel agrees with the framing — "if there's some glitch in the AI race then obviously energy infrastructure is probably still going to hang around"
On earnings beats being punished, he sees buying opportunities: mega-cap tech capital spending is "$750 billion, I think was the latest number. And, now we're maybe headed to $3 trillion if Jensen Huang has it right."
That implies AI capital spending growth of "close to 20, 30, 40% I think when you do the math", which is why he calls the growth and the cash flows durable
Micron and Williams, the Two Poster Children
Micron is his AI infrastructure exemplar: "It operates in a market that's really undersupplied." Demand and revenue have risen dramatically, and the stock has already returned a lot — "it's a classic example of a stock that is enabling the advancement of AI"
Williams is the energy infrastructure exemplar, and "Williams owns the largest natural gas pipeline network basically in the US"
How behind-the-meter actually works: Williams builds the power plant, feeds it from its own pipeline network, and signs a long-term contract directly with the hyperscaler
The retail consumer is never in that contract, "which is actually an elegant solution to solve one of the big concerns that a lot of people have about data centers, which is rising electricity costs"
What makes him sell: a stock getting fully valued for the growth he sees, or a change in the environment
His worked example is ERCOT, where regulatory changes led Tortoise to sell generators earning only in Texas and buy names earning more of their cash flow in PJM on the East Coast
Quick and Dirty: Five Listener Tickers, Five Buys
Constellation Energy (CEG), for Dave in Camarillo, California — a big electric utility running one of the largest nuclear fleets in the US, positioned to grow volumes in PJM as East Coast data center demand rises. A buy
Energy Transfer (ET), for Maynard in Phoenix, Arizona — a diverse set of pipeline assets nationwide moving oil, natural gas and liquids like ethane and propane, now expanding toward Arizona's data center build-out, with the high yield the sector is known for. A buy
Evergy (EVRG), for Laura in San Antonio, Texas and Richard in Chula Vista, California — Thummel's own Kansas City utility, and, he notes, "It's also known as the utility for Travis and Taylor Swift." Data centers are arriving there, and he expects growth to go from 2 to 3% to maybe 6 to 8 or 8 to 10%, which he thinks rerates the stock
Jaffe's aside on that one: it holds up as long as you are not counting on Travis and Taylor's love to generate the power
SanDisk (SNDK), for Richard in Chula Vista — the same undersupplied memory and storage market, and one of the leaders enabling AI. A buy
EQT (EQT), for Jimmy in Midland, Texas — one of the largest natural gas producers, a low-cost provider of what Thummel calls the US competitive advantage. "Buy it outright."
"So, we finish with a clean sweep."
Where Thummel's Picks Sit Against Recent Guests
Jaffe closes by checking the two poster children against what other guests have said on the show
Micron has been on the show plenty: Jay Woods of Freedom Capital Markets was buying it on July 15, David Miller of the Catalyst Funds eight days before that, Dryden Pence of Pence Wealth Management on June 9, and Matt Stucky of Northwestern Mutual on May 1
James Abate of the Centre Funds was trimming it on April 10, and Jaffe is careful to say trimming is about pricing and taking profits, not getting out
VJ Marolia of Regal Point Capital has said on multiple dates that he loves the stock
The surprise was Williams: "I was surprised that Williams, WMB, the other stock that Rob mentioned as a poster child, was not discussed on this show in the last six months"
On SanDisk the record is split: Jay Woods was buying it on July 15, but Dave Sekera of Morningstar had it on April 15 as a two-star and a sell
Jaffe flags that he did not re-check the current Morningstar rating before the segment and that it could now be a four-star buy, which he says is exactly why a listener should know a guest's methodology and check back on it
Next Week's Lineup, Bow Ties and Dolly Parton
Jaffe's ranking of holidays by how hard they are to book around: Labor Day first, July 4 second, Memorial Day third, with Christmas and New Year's the easy ones despite what everyone assumes
Booked for the holiday week: Jeff Weniger, chief investment strategist at Corgi Invest and formerly of WisdomTree; Chris Zaccarelli of Northlight Asset Management; John Petrides of Tocqueville Asset Management, making his market call debut; Luke Lango of InvestorPlace; Francisco Bido of Emerald Asset Management; Greg Halter of Carnegie Investment Counsel on technicals; and Slope of Hope founder Tim Knight, debuting
It is National Bow Tie Day, and Jaffe's dogs are headed to the groomer, where one of them comes back wearing a bow tie he seems happy to keep on
It is also National Thoughtful Day, the day after Thoughtful Thursday, which Jaffe points out is not an especially thoughtful piece of scheduling, and Forgive Your Foe Friday, which he suggests was what Thursday should have been for
On Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day he makes a personal aside: his golden retriever Frio, Frip before him, and the cats — nothing but fond memories, and anything that keeps them alive is a good thing
National Power Rangers Day dates to 1993 and honors the "original teenagers with attitude," a claim Jaffe disputes on behalf of the Woodstock generation
On Radio Commercial Day he makes a disclosure: the show does not pick all of its ads and is not responsible for all of them, and he asks listeners to tell him if they hear something advertised that would concern them about what the show does
Crackers Over the Keyboard Day exists, and Jaffe is a pretzels man who says he has done it but pretty much never does
Also National Cherry Turnover Day and National Red Wine Day, and thanks to producer Rob Floyd
The Money Life quote of the day, from Dolly Parton: "I always count my blessings more than I count my money. I don't work for money. Never did."
Jaffe signs off with the line he always uses — "the best thing you could do for your money is not worry too much about it"
Klintworth's bottom line is that leadership has already changed hands, that nobody yet knows whether that is a rotation or the top, and that the losing move is to wait and then act at the wrong moment.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Chase Growth Fund, CHASX (The fund Klintworth helps run at Chase Investment Counsel, and the seat the technical read comes from)
Tortoise Energy Infrastructure, TYG (Thummel's closed-end fund: a core of natural gas pipelines plus electrification infrastructure in ERCOT and PJM, and the higher-dividend version of the strategy)
Tortoise's open-end energy infrastructure fund (The oldest and purest energy infrastructure mandate at the firm, with a slightly better record depending on the period, which Thummel thinks explains the ratings gap)
Tortoise AI Infrastructure, TCAI (The newer fund holding the "enablers of AI" — memory, storage, network switches, liquid cooling — pitched as a complement to portfolios already heavy in mega-cap tech)
Micron, MU (Thummel's AI infrastructure poster child, on an undersupplied memory market; Jaffe notes six other guests have discussed it on the show this year)
Williams, WMB (Thummel's energy infrastructure poster child, owner of the largest US natural gas pipeline network and a builder of behind-the-meter power plants for hyperscalers)
Nvidia (Reported the night before, and cited by Thummel as both the AI tailwind and a live example of an undersupplied market with expanding margins)
Constellation Energy, CEG (One of the largest US nuclear fleets, positioned for PJM data center demand — a lightning-round buy)
Energy Transfer, ET (Diverse nationwide pipeline assets expanding toward Arizona data centers, with a high yield — a lightning-round buy)
Evergy, EVRG (Kansas City utility transforming as data centers arrive, with growth Thummel expects to accelerate — a lightning-round buy)
SanDisk, SNDK (A leader in the undersupplied memory and storage market — a lightning-round buy, though Jaffe notes Morningstar rated it a two-star sell in April)
EQT (A low-cost natural gas producer in what Thummel calls the US competitive advantage — "Buy it outright")
Morningstar (Rates the same energy infrastructure strategy one star in closed-end form and four in open-end, and the source of the SanDisk rating Jaffe cites)
ERCOT and PJM (The Texas and East Coast power markets; a regulatory change in ERCOT pushed Tortoise out of Texas-only generators and into PJM-weighted names)
One-year and 10-year Treasurys (Klintworth's alternative for anyone selling out of the old leaders and not reinvesting)
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