This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking with Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research. It doesn’t take too long of a memory to remember the days when then-Fed Chair Janet Yellen was none too pleased about President Trump sticking his nose into monetary policy. Now that Yellen has moved to the Executive Branch (as Treasury Secretary), why does she think it’s okay to continue to opine on Jay Powell’s business, asks Bianco. Of her latest comments about ...
Jun 08, 2021•45 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Bob Iaccino, co-portfolio manager of The Stock Think Tank, and host of The Market Think Tank. Talking as oil (CL1:COM) jumps 3% to a new cycle high, a bullish Bob Iaccino says demand for crude is rising a lot faster than OPEC is willing to supply it. With the American shale boom not coming back anytime soon, the cartel knows it’s the marginal supplier, and is only going to drip out as much oil as is neces...
Jun 02, 2021•31 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Henry Blodget, co-founder and CEO of Insider, Inc., and a former top-ranked Internet stock analyst. Blodget was pitched an investment in Bitcoin (BTC-USD) all the way back in 2011 (price then was about $80 per coin). His conclusion then was that Bitcoin was the perfect asset for a speculative bubble - finite supply, complicated, hard to understand, and with price determined not by any normal valuation met...
May 25, 2021•41 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with David Lebovtiz, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. With the market coming off its worst week in three months, the inflation question is atop many investors’ minds. Lebovitz is willing to agree at least in part with the Fed that the current inflation scare is transitory - a supply/demand “mismatch” as the economy rapidly emerges from the pandemic - but he believes the wage pressures we’...
May 18, 2021•31 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking with David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer at The Bahnsen Group. Speaking shortly after the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, Bahnsen says the news speaks to the need for a robust, voluminous, highly effective, and technologized pipeline system to transport oil and gas in the U.S. He notes that the publicly traded pipeline owners are catching a bid on the Monday morning foll...
May 11, 2021•51 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research. “The risk of a larger pullback is growing even though [sentiment] indicators remain mostly neutral,” says Frederick, who has taken notice of the remarkable similarities between the post-Covid and post-financial crisis bull runs. If form holds, we’re very close to the same point in 2010 at which a 16% co...
May 04, 2021•42 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher chatting first with Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at eToro, and then with stock trader Mark Minervini, author of best-selling books Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard and Think and Trade Like a Champion, among them. Markets continue to underestimate the growth surprise in the U.S., says Laidler. Continual surprises on the upside for the economy should be good for earnings, and good for stock prices moving forwar...
Apr 27, 2021•45 min
This week’s Alpha Trader features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Jim Iurio - director at TJM Institutional Services and a CNBC contributor - making a return appearance on the podcast. It’s time to start measuring the dollar (USDOLLAR) differently, says Iurio, noting most forms of the dollar index more or less gauge the greenback vs. other flawed currencies like the yen or euro. Nobody would be talking about dollar strength, he says, if the dollar index had a significant weight...
Apr 20, 2021•25 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking asset allocation with Phil Camporeale, portfolio manager with JPMorgan Asset Management. Fed Chair Jay Powell has been “unbelievably consistent” in his dovishness amid the panic, says Camporeale, expecting no imminent policy - or even communication - changes out of the central bank despite what’s been a raft of strong economic prints of late, and what’s likely to be whopping 9% GDP growth in Q2. Wage pressure w...
Apr 13, 2021•36 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking with Peter McNally, Global Sector Lead, Industrials, Materials & Energy at Third Bridge. Speaking a few hours after the OPEC decision to gradually boost production in coming months, McNally notes oil (CL1:COM) inventories have been falling since early last fall, thus making the OPEC move a logical one. Even with the boosted production, McNally expects inventories to continue to fall through Q2. As for price...
Apr 06, 2021•34 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking current market events and the outlook going forward with Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial. Topping the news during recording was the blowup in Archegos Capital Management, and the losses possibly to be inflicted upon several of the banks that dealt with that family office. Most notable, says Kilburg, is the broader market’s ability to shrug off these hiccups and continue to move forward. If you’re...
Mar 30, 2021•34 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking with Sam Stovall and Todd Rosenbluth. Sam is chief investment strategist at CFRA, and Todd is CFRA’s head of ETF and mutual fund research. On the one-year anniversary of the bottom of the market crash, Stovall and Rosenbluth detail the numbers behind how we got to today’s near-euphoric market conditions and where we might go from here. If you don’t have a perfect market timing tool, you are better buying than y...
Mar 23, 2021•25 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking about the Fed, interest rates, inflation, Bitcoin, and more with David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. The FOMC meets this week, and while Kelly agrees with the consensus that there won’t be any policy moves, he believes the central bank - sooner, rather than later - is going to have to acknowledge that the economy has performed stronger than expected. Look for a few more “dots” to ...
Mar 16, 2021•30 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking cannabis investing with Todd Harrison, founding partner and CIO of CB1 Capital. “2021 will be remembered as the year [cannabis] emerged as a legitimate and powerful asset class,” wrote Harrison recently. The bull case for U.S. cannabis, he says, rests with the legalization wave - not just in the states, but at the federal level where the Blue Wave means a far more favorable regulatory environment. If Cannabis 1...
Mar 09, 2021•41 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. The biggest issue on many market-watchers’ attention right now is the rise in long-term interest rates, which last week sped up to a gallop. Keeping it simple, Sosnick says to pay attention to the Fed, which has tied its extraordinary accommodation to the return of a combination of full employment and inflation. In normal times, the move higher in th...
Mar 02, 2021•45 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Jon Markman, president and founder of Markman Capital, and Greg King, CEO and founder of Osprey Funds. Markman (who previously appeared on Alpha Trader in October) continues to believe the Fed ignited what’s going to be a decade-long bull run in stocks with their actions in response to the Covid crisis last year. With the Fed continuing to provide plenty of liquidity to the system, he’s targeting 92K for ...
Feb 23, 2021•52 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Jack Bouroudjian, chief economist and co-founder at UCX, and chairman of the Global Smart Commodity Group. The Fed is attempting to force-feed at least a modest level of inflation into the economy, says Bouroudjian, and so far it’s clearly been beneficial for stocks, commodities, and other assets like housing prices and cryptocurrencies. Worrying though is what if the Fed;s project doesn’t work as planned...
Feb 16, 2021•34 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking markets in general with Randy Frederick, VP of trading and derivatives at Schwab, and SPACs with Chris DeMuth, founder of Rangeley Capital, and editor of Seeking Alpha Marketplace service, Sifting the World. While Frederick believes things are looking frothy right now, he reminds that frothiness doesn’t necessarily mean a market downturn is in store, but instead that markets are vulnerable to a sizable dip. His...
Feb 09, 2021•1 hr
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking first with Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings (BRPHF), and then with Howard Lindzon, co-founder of StockTwits and general partner at Social Leverage. “This GameStop (GME) squeeze is deeper than a squeeze,” tweeted Novogratz last week. “It is a revolution that started with people not trusting central authority; it is a call for transparency and fairness. It makes my more bullish crypto bu...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Bob Iaccino, chief strategist at Path Trading Partners, and co-portfolio manager at Stock Think Tank. “Be ready for an ugly January,” goes the title of Iaccino’s latest monthly newsletter. By that he means not necessarily a down move in markets, but instead plenty of volatility. While there’s been some volatility, it’s mostly been to the upside this month, with the S&P 500 up about 4%. Over the past f...
Jan 26, 2021•32 min
If you’re looking for a tonic to the ceaseless flow of (mostly) disturbing news on any number of fronts, than this week’s Alpha Trader podcast is for you. Host Aaron Task is joined by J.C. Parets, market technician nonpareil and chief market strategist at All Star Charts (co-host Stephen Alpher is out this week) . His eye always on the price charts and never on the news flow, Parets remains bullish on stocks. To those who say the bull market needs a break, Parets would say there’s already been o...
Jan 19, 2021•35 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with LPL Financial’s Ryan Detrick and Eddy Elfenbein, editor of the Crossing Wall Street blog and portfolio manager of the AdvisorShares Focused Equity ETF (CWS). Before getting into the outlook, Detrick (who was bullish on stocks at the March bottom) puts last year’s remarkable rally in perspective: The reversal from down more than 30% to up in the teens is unprecedented. While some may be tempted to view thi...
Jan 12, 2021•42 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Cody Willard, hedge fund manager and editor of Trading With Cody. “Please be selective with your trades,” Willard recently wrote, calling the current action a “bubble-blowing, bull market, blow-off top phase.” He takes note of recent massive moves in what are otherwise penny stocks, as well as the SPAC IPO frenzy. Those words don’t come easy to Willard, who has been mostly bullish for about a decade, but ...
Jan 05, 2021•38 min
This week's Alpha Trader podcast features host Aaron Task going it alone as he first reviews the holiday news you may have missed - President Trump signing the latest coronavirus relief bill and Beijing's offensive against Alibaba (BABA) - and then moves on a discussion of what some of our 2020 guests had to say, and how that might help us divine 2021. Big thanks are in order for all of our guests this year - there's not a single one in the group that we wouldn't love to get their insights from ...
Dec 29, 2020•13 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher chatting with Jim Iuorio, director at TJM Institutional Services and a CNBC contributor. Jim was previously on the show five weeks prior to the election suggesting investors get ready to hit the buy button on stocks (and sell button on volatility) the day after November 3. It was a pretty fair call, and after a bodacious November into mid-December rally, Iurio wouldn’t be surprised to see the averages take a breather h...
Dec 22, 2020•29 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Jack Schwager about the latest book in his Market Wizards series, Unknown Market Wizards - The Best Traders You’ve Never Heard Of. Prior to the chat with Schwager, the hosts discuss some of the busy news flow as we begin the last full trading week of a long 2020. Among the subjects: The beginning of vaccine distribution in the U.S. as Covid-19 cases (and shutdowns) shoot higher, the continued lack of any ...
Dec 15, 2020•43 min
This week’s Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher first talking with Blu Putnam, chief economist at CME Group, and then with Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest. The strength of this wave of the coronavirus has surprised Putnam, who says the economic recovery will now take longer than he expected when he last appeared on Alpha Trader back in August. He also takes note of the uneven nature of the recovery and says traditional central bank stimulus ...
Dec 08, 2020•40 min
This week's Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking with Brian Portnoy, the founder of Shaping Wealth, and co-editor with Josh Brown of the new book, How I Invest My Money. Prior to speaking with Portnoy, the hosts discuss an historic month for equity markets - the S&P posting its best November ever, the Dow posting its best month since 1987, and the Russell 2000 outperforming them both. They remind that while the headlines about growing Covid-19 cases, hosp...
Dec 01, 2020•39 min
This week's Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking Bitcoin (BTC-USD) with Dan Held, an old hand in cryptocurrency, who is currently growth head at crypto exchange, Krakenfx. Held has been in Bitcoin since it was $10, so what does he think about this year's run that has taken its value north of $18K, and how does it differ from the crypto's other major bull markets? Institutional acceptance of Bitcoin is the key, says Held, noting not just hedge fund legends lik...
Nov 24, 2020•41 min
This week's Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Eddy Elfenbein, portfolio manager of the AdvisorShares Focused Equity ETF (CWS), and editor of the must-read Crossing Wall Street blog. His Buy List of 25 stocks - it only gets changed once per year on January 1 - has a 14-year compounded gain of 309.6% vs. the S&P 500's 247.1%. One of the key questions before the court is whether - after all these years of underperformance - value is finally having i...
Nov 17, 2020•38 min
