Billionaire Investor Cliff Asness on Managing Risk, 'Buffer' ETFs and More

In this week's episode of WSJ’s Take On the Week, co-hosts Gunjan Banerji and Telis Demos talk to billionaire investor Cliff Asness, the co-founder and chief investment officer of AQR Capital Management. AQR is a global investment management firm known for quantitative investing, an approach that builds strategies based on data and research. Asness discusses one of the market's biggest trends: the explosion in popular ETFs designed to protect investors from downturns. But do they actually work? Later, Asness shares why he thinks trading on Robinhood can feel more like betting on FanDuel, why the stock market has become less rational due to social media, and whether Palantir and Tesla are on the meme stock spectrum. Then, he weighs in on companies reporting earnings every six months, market froth and the bind facing the Federal Reserve.

Added 25 Aug 2026