Christoph Gum: the Anthropic IPO as a litmus test

In conversation with Peter Heinrich, Christoph Gum, co-founder and CEO of Private Alpha, looks back on an October in which AI stocks came under heavy pressure: after the Nasdaq’s all-time high on 6 October, rising interest rates, an oil price above 100 dollars and the Iran conflict fuelled fears about financing. For the period after the US midterms, Gum points to a statistic going back to 1950: after every midterm election, the S&P 500 has gained around 15 per cent on average.

From Nvidia’s GTC developer conference in Berlin, Gum reports a spirit of optimism that has little in common with the mood on the stock market. Demand for computing power remains high, and memory makers such as SK Hynix are booked out with fixed contracts into 2028 and 2029. He therefore sees memory stocks trading 40 to 60 per cent below their highs as an opportunity for long-term investors — Private Alpha has been buying again at these levels.

Gum calls the upcoming Anthropic IPO a litmus test for the stock market: his base case is that the IPO goes ahead and calms sentiment, while a postponement would trigger another wave of correction. He considers October’s all-time highs reachable again by Christmas, driven by share buybacks and year-end inflows. In the Top 25 Equities Fund, CaesarDPT’s risk monitoring recently led to building up some cash, while the core positions in the AI blue chips remain.