Key elements of Friedberg’s thesis have partially materialized, but the full commodity/inflation cycle he was talking about is still playing out, and performance across commodity‑linked businesses is very uneven.

1. Did the “upcoming inflationary environment with rising commodity prices” occur?

• Global inflation has eased from 2022 peaks but remains above pre‑COVID norms, with the IMF projecting global headline inflation around 4.2% in 2025, and U.S. inflation remaining above target with upside risks. This is described as persistent and more stubborn than hoped. (meetings.imf.org)
• U.S. data show renewed price pressures in 2025 (e.g., September 2025 CPI and PPI up 0.3% month‑on‑month, with producer prices driven by higher energy costs), and forecasters expect tariffs and input costs to keep inflation elevated. (reuters.com)
• Commodity prices are mixed: the Bloomberg Commodity Index is up about 15% over the last year as of November 26, 2025, indicating a broad rebound. (ycharts.com) However, the World Bank’s April and October 2025 Commodity Markets Outlooks project overall commodity prices to fall 7–12% in 2025 and further in 2026, driven mainly by a significant oil glut and weaker global growth. (worldbank.org)
• Within that aggregate, precious metals have exploded upward: gold and silver hit all‑time highs in October 2025 (gold briefly around $4,300–$4,400/oz; silver above $54/oz), driven by inflation and “currency debasement” fears. (markets.chroniclejournal.com)

Net: we do have an inflationary backdrop with high and sticky inflation and some strongly rising commodities (especially precious metals), but not a clean, broad‑based commodity bull market—energy and some bulk commodities are weak.

2. Have commodity‑linked businesses outperformed non‑commodity businesses “over that cycle”?
Evidence is mixed and depends heavily on which commodity segment you look at and what horizon you choose:

• Metals & mining equities:

  • The FTSE Global All Cap Precious Metals & Mining Index is up ~85.7% year‑to‑date in 2025 through August 29, 2025, outperforming the broad FTSE Global All Cap equity index (up ~14.75% YTD) by more than 70 percentage points. (lseg.com)
  • The MSCI World Metals & Mining Index shows a one‑year total return of ~27.9% as of November 21, 2025, well above global equity benchmarks, which are in the high‑teens to low‑20s over similar 12‑month windows (e.g., MSCI ACWI IMI ~17.3% 1‑year as of September 30, 2025). (ycharts.com)
    This is strong evidence that at least some mining/commodity‑linked stocks have substantially outperformed broad non‑commodity equities during the recent inflationary episode.

• Energy equities:

  • The S&P 500 Energy sector has a negative ~‑3.7% 1‑year total return as of November 25, 2025, badly lagging the S&P 500, which is up roughly mid‑teens percent in 2025. (ycharts.com)
  • World Bank and other analyses attribute much of this underperformance to an oil supply glut and expected further declines in energy prices through 2026. (worldbank.org)
    So energy producers—also quintessential “commodity‑linked businesses”—have not outperformed the broader market.

• Commodity trading houses:

  • Physical commodity traders (Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria, Gunvor, Glencore, etc.) enjoyed record profits in 2022–23, then saw earnings fall sharply in 2024 as volatility normalized, though profits remained historically high. (spglobal.com)
  • By 2025, reports describe trading margins as having “normalized” from boom levels, with some rebound in metals trading in particular, but not a clear, broad step‑change that would let us say they have decisively beaten non‑commodity sectors through a full new cycle. (markets.financialcontent.com)

Given this:

• Certain commodity‑linked segments (especially precious metals and some metals/miners) are dramatically outperforming broad equity indices in 2025. (lseg.com)
• Other major commodity‑linked sectors (notably energy producers) are clearly underperforming. (ycharts.com)
• The “commodity trading businesses” Friedberg mentioned have moved from exceptional boom profits to more normal—though still high—levels, not a simple, sustained step‑up versus the rest of corporate earnings. (spglobal.com)

3. Is the cycle far enough along to judge his claim “over that cycle”?

• The podcast was released October 25, 2024, so only about 13 months have passed.
• Macro forecasts from the IMF and World Bank see inflation gradually declining but still above target in some advanced economies (especially the U.S.) through at least 2026, and they project commodity prices in aggregate to decline further into 2026, not obviously completing a new, clean commodity “up cycle” yet. (worldbank.org)
• Because Friedberg’s statement is explicitly conditional and multi‑year (“over that cycle”), the relevant comparison period is the full inflation/commodity cycle he anticipated, not just the first year of it. Right now we’re mid‑stream, and forward‑looking projections are still being revised.

Conclusion:

• We can say that parts of his thesis look directionally plausible: in a period of renewed inflation worries and strong precious‑metals rallies, some commodity‑linked equities (particularly gold/silver miners and broader metals & mining indices) have massively outperformed broad global equities so far. (lseg.com)
• However, other major commodity‑linked sectors (like oil & gas producers) have underperformed, and the aggregate commodity price outlook is for declines into 2026 rather than a clear, sustained up‑cycle. (ycharts.com)
• Because the time horizon and exact definition of the “cycle” are vague, and we are only about a year past the prediction, there isn’t yet a clear, cycle‑complete data set that would definitively show that “commodity‑linked businesses” as a whole out‑ or under‑performed non‑commodity businesses across the entire episode.

For those reasons, the fairest assessment today is “inconclusive (too early)” rather than clearly right or wrong.