Fisher Investments’ Bill Glaser on AI Layoffs, Prediction Markets, UAE’s OPEC Exit and More

In this interview, Fisher Investments' Bill Glaser covers four key market and economic themes. On AI and employment, Glaser frames AI as analogous to prior Industrial Revolutions, acknowledging short-term job losses while arguing that long-term job creation will outpace destruction. He emphasizes that AI will drive down prices, stimulate demand, and generate entirely new categories of jobs that weren't imaginable even 24 months ago, though he acknowledges the transition will require workers to adapt their skill sets.

On prediction markets, Glaser describes Fisher's approach as treating them primarily as sentiment indicators while also flagging them as a source of systemic risk. He draws a historical parallel to credit default swaps during the 2008 financial crisis, warning that new financial innovations can be exploited through unintended mechanisms — such as 'bear raids' — by bad actors, and urges careful scrutiny of perverse incentives embedded in these markets.

Regarding the UAE's departure from OPEC, Glaser views it as a long-term bullish signal for global energy supply. He notes that the UAE's economy has diversified significantly since OPEC's founding in the 1960s, with energy now representing only about a quarter of GDP. With Abu Dhabi having invested heavily in capacity expansion — targeting 5 million barrels per day versus a current 3 million — Glaser argues the UAE has little incentive to remain constrained by OPEC production limits.

Finally, on US tariffs, Glaser argues the topic has lost its market-moving power because investors have grown accustomed to incremental changes. He references four scenarios Fisher outlined in April of the prior year — Congressional/court pushback, trade deals, retaliation, and increased global trade — and highlights that the least anticipated outcome, an acceleration of global trade outside the US, has in fact materialized. He concludes that tariffs are largely 'yesterday's news' in terms of lasting market impact.