Investing can be simple and accessible to the average person, says financial thought leader and economist Burton Malkiel. Malkiel, author of the investment classic "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," has 50 years of research to back up his claim. In his latest edition of the book, Malkiel emphasizes that investors would be better off buying and holding a broad-based index fund rather than attempting to buy and sell individual securities or actively managed mutual funds. Malkiel's beliefs are suppo...
Feb 11, 2023•26 min•Season 19Ep. 33
Part 2 of 2 Matthew McLennan will assess the investment climate in international markets and tell us where he is finding world-class companies selling at substantial discounts to their U.S. peers. The global economic outlook for 2023 is uncertain with the World Bank cutting its growth forecast to 1.7% from 3% and stating the "global economy is perilously close to a recession". The International Monetary Fund slightly raised its growth estimate to 2.9% due to China's reopening and slowing inflati...
Feb 04, 2023•26 min•Season 19Ep. 32
Part 1 of 2 The Federal Reserve is currently facing a debate on Wall Street about how much longer it will continue to fight against inflation. The Fed's goal is to bring the inflation rate down to a long-term average of around 2%. Some investors believe that the Fed will continue to stay the course and keep fighting inflation, while others are tracking the slowdown in inflation indicators and believe that the Fed may cut rates in the second half of the year. Matthew McLennan, Co-Head of the Glob...
Jan 28, 2023•26 min•Season 19Ep. 31
The best advice investors could have received at the start of 2022 was to not fight the Federal Reserve as it embarked on its most aggressive tightening cycle in more than 40 years. By raising the federal funds rate and continuing to hike, investors who recognized the impact on bond and stock prices could have avoided a lot of pain. As we move into 2023, the best advice for investors remains the same - "Don't fight the Fed." The Federal Reserve is being clear about its intentions to continue rai...
Jan 21, 2023•26 min•Season 19Ep. 30
Charles Ellis, also known as "Charley," is a highly influential thinker in the investing world. He has been a frequent guest on WEALTHTRACK for 17 years and is considered "Wall Street's Wisest Man" by Money magazine. He has authored 20 books, with the most famous being "Winning the Loser's Game," which is now in its 8th edition. In 2022, he published "Figuring it Out: Sixty Years of Answering Investors' Most Important Questions," a collection of his most thoughtful and thought-provoking articles...
Jan 14, 2023•26 min•Season 19Ep. 29
In the past, stock investing focused on individual companies and their specific attributes, with a relatively small percentage of the population participating. However, the markets have since expanded, and market participation, particularly through retirement accounts, has increased significantly. This has led to the realization that macro factors, such as the global economy, geopolitics, and domestic politics, are important to consider in investment decisions. Jason De Sena Trennert, Co-Founder...
Jan 07, 2023•26 min•Season 19Ep. 28
The original firm that Ed Hyman co-founded - ISI Group, International Strategy and Investment, recognized from the very beginning that China would have an important role to play in the world economy. How right they were. As China allowed the private sector to flourish and opened up to foreign investment, it became the world’s second-largest economy. Under the dictatorial regime of President Xi Jinping, many of those policies have been curtailed to China’s detriment. Hyman’s view of China has cha...
Dec 30, 2022•5 min•Season 19Ep. 27
WEALTHTRACK will be focusing on the theme of "what a difference a year makes" in 2022 and 2023, as there have been major changes in the economy and markets, including an acceleration in inflation, rising interest rates, a withdrawal of monetary stimulus, and a shift from liquidity-driven speculation to risk aversion. Jason Trennert, a financial thought leader and CEO of Strategas Research Partners, a leading provider of economic, market, and policy research, and his team have become bearish on t...
Dec 17, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 25
Ed Hyman, the number one ranked economist on Wall Street for 42 years, has warned of the unintended consequences of the Federal Reserve's rapid tightening policies. Hyman, who is Vice Chairman of Evercore and leads the economic research team at its Evercore ISI division, has been monitoring the factors behind the recent nominal GDP growth, including record low-interest rates and a surge in the money supply. However, inflation has been surging, and the Fed is raising rates at a faster clip, leadi...
Dec 10, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 24
Money problems are a major source of conflict for couples and a leading cause of divorce. Victoria Collins, one of the country’s top financial advisors for many years, has strategies to handle it. WEALTHTRACK #1922 published on November 25, 2022 Bookshelf: Couples & Money Why Money Interferes with Love & What to Do About It https://amzn.to/3V5DJRM
Nov 26, 2022•31 min•Season 19Ep. 22
In an extended, exclusive interview newly retired Treasury bond manager Robert Kessler elaborates on his earlier warnings of the likelihood of a financial crisis and prolonged downturn in the markets.
Nov 18, 2022•18 min•Season 19Ep. 21
Part 1 of 2 The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “There is nothing permanent except change.” Charles Darwin certainly observed that in his trailblazing work on evolution more than 2000 years later. In a quote widely attributed to him, he is alleged to have commented, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptive to change.” As the markets fluctuate around us, how much should investors change? This week’s guest has his own hist...
Nov 12, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 20
Here’s our new financial reality, which we have become all too familiar with: higher inflation, higher interest rates, and higher levels of debt among consumers, corporations, and governments, which all add up to significantly higher costs of doing business, living life, and borrowing. To fight higher inflation, the Federal Reserve continues to hike short-term interest rates. This week’s guest has experienced multiple economic and market cycles during his more than 50 years of managing money and...
Nov 05, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 19
Income and quality should always matter, but it’s markets like these when those characteristics really count. Historically, since 1930, dividends have contributed about 40% of the S&P 500’s total return. Their input has varied widely from decade to decade, however. According to a recent Insights Report from the Hartford Funds , dividends played a large role in terms of their contribution to total returns. What sort of a role will dividends play now? We have a new guest on WEALTHTRACK with a ...
Oct 28, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 18
We are in the midst of a sea change in our financial lives. Here are the headlines: -Inflation is surging for the first time in years and has reached the highest level in forty years. -The Federal Reserve is embarking on the fastest and steepest tightening cycle in decades. -Value stocks are outperforming growth stocks after lagging them by record amounts for nearly a decade and a half. Is it time to make some changes to our financial plans? Our guest this week is an award-winning personal finan...
Oct 21, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 17
Part 2 of 2 When was the last time you heard an investment discussion about capital allocation and what difference it makes to investment results? It is not a widely discussed topic on Wall Street or in the financial press. First of all, what is it? According to Investopedia , “Capital allocation is the process of allocating financial resources to different areas of a business to increase efficiency and maximize profits.” These decisions are made by the management teams and boards of companies. ...
Oct 14, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 16
“What do we want to own when things are cheap?” is the question driving great investor David Giroux on a daily basis. Giroux is the Chief Investment Officer and Head of Investment Strategy for T. Rowe Price Investment Management. His reputation as a great investor has been earned as the Portfolio Manager of T. Rowe Price’s Capital Appreciation Fund, which he has run since 2006. It’s been a rough year for the markets and Capital Appreciation, although it’s down less than the market and its catego...
Oct 07, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 15
Volatility is the name of this market’s game. The Dow and S&P 500 both entered bear markets this week, although they both put up a brief fight with a robust rally on Wednesday. Yields on U.S. Treasury securities also bounced around. These stomach-churning moves are hard to ignore unless you can take a longer view. This week’s guest is focusing on bigger investment themes and identifying cheap global sectors as the market sorts things out. A year ago on WEALTHTRACK , in September of 2021, Res...
Oct 01, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 14
This episode's guest is a longtime holder of Berkshire stock and has been an avid student of Buffett’s style of value investing since meeting the legendary investor at Stanford Business School in the early 1980s. He is Tom Russo, managing member of the investment advisory firm Gardner Russo & Quinn, where he oversees the Semper Vic Partners Funds, which he launched in 1983 after hearing Buffett address his class at Stanford. The global value manager focuses on owning a small group of excepti...
Sep 23, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 13
How times have changed. It wasn’t many months ago that the entire financial world was singing the praises of inflation. The greatest fear among Wall Streeters and other financial lights was lower prices that might actually decline more and turn into that monster known as deflation. The thought conjured up nightmarish scenes of bread lines and bank runs. Ever since the global financial crisis of 2008 and especially since the Covid pandemic, central banks and governments around the world have pull...
Sep 16, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 12
The bond world changed dramatically in 2022. From several years of historically low to negative interest rates, as far as the eye could see, the horizon is now filled with rising rates across the globe. It’s a welcome change for yield starved investors and fixed income managers who have been coping with a record breaking yield drought. One of them is this weekend’s guest who recently reopened his fund to new investors because of the “improved opportunity set.” He is Tom Atteberry, now Senior Adv...
Sep 09, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 11
Global bond manager Jack McIntyre says central banks around the world are determined to stamp out inflation. Their success will determine the direction of markets and economies. He explains how he is investing for several outcomes. WEALTHTRACK #1910 broadcast on September 02, 2022 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/why-inflation-is-now-key-to-investing-with-brandywine-globals-jack-mcintyre/ Bookshelf: Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, https://amzn...
Sep 04, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 10
We are joined by ClearBridge’s Investment Strategist Jeff Schulze. He will explain why he now believes that there is a 55% chance of a downturn, why a recession is not inevitable but what conditions could push it one way or the other. He will also discuss market implications and strategy. WEALTHTRACK #1908 published on August 20, 2022 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/a-widely-followed-investment-strategists-indicators-now-signaling-heightened-recession-risk/
Aug 22, 2022•24 min•Season 19Ep. 8
A special WEALTHTRACK podcast with influential economist and Fed watcher turned professor Paul McCulley. McCulley is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Business School and a very much in-demand speaker in financial circles because of his deep understanding of Fed policy, honed at bond giant PIMCO, where for many years he was Senior Partner, author of the influential Global Central Bank Focus and manager of its huge short-term trading desk. In this week’s podcast, McCulley shares his thoughts on ...
Aug 14, 2022•27 min•Season 19Ep. 7
Global value investor Tom Russo says today’s investment environment is the most challenging of his 40-year career. He explains why his core companies are up to the challenge. WEALTHTRACK episode 1906 broadcast on August 05, 2022 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/how-a-concentrated-portfolio-of-global-brand-name-companies-is-faring-in-this-challenging-market/
Aug 05, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 6
Making money by losing less is how legendary small-cap value manager Charlie Dreifus has succeeded for over 50 years of investing. It's even more important now as he expects more economic and market pain ahead. WEALTHTRACK 1905 broadcast on July 29, 2022 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/making-money-by-losing-less-in-this-bear-market-with-legendary-value-manager-charlie-dreifus/
Jul 29, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 5
Soon-to-be retirees and retirees are the most vulnerable in this new era of higher inflation, interest rates, volatile markets, and possible recession. What kinds of adjustments should they be making in their financial plans, investments, and even lifestyles? That demographic is one of the specialties of this week’s guest, an award-winning financial planner. He is Mark Cortazzo, Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor with the Wealth Enhancement Group, an independent financial planning firm....
Jul 22, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 4
Looking around the world, one of the most under-owned asset classes after years of underperformance is emerging markets. And one of the least understood and appreciated at this particular time is Asia, especially China. Once a darling of investors, it has lost favor for geopolitical, political, and business reasons. So what better time to delve into Asia than now? On this week’s program, we will be joined by Robert Horrocks, Ph.D. and Chief Investment Officer of Matthews Asia , one of the first ...
Jul 15, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 3
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it turns out the difference between a growth and value stock is too, with price as a key determinant. Some of the darlings of last year and much of the prior decade have recently been rebalanced from growth to value by a major index provider. Such is the power of a bear market! This week’s WEALTHTRACK guest is a well-known value manager known for her global and international investing. We’ll be joined by Sarah Ketterer, Chief Executive Officer of Causewa...
Jul 08, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 2
Ouch! The S&P 500 ended the first half of the year with its worst performance since 1970, down more than 20%, cementing its bear market status. And the recession drumbeat is getting louder. This morning, leading Wall Street economist, Nancy Lazar told clients “a recession is coming sooner than you think” PiperlSandler’s Global Chief Economist blames “sticky inflation”, “very aggressive Fed tightening, and a “severe corporate profit recession” for her forecast of a mild recession with the eco...
Jul 02, 2022•26 min•Season 19Ep. 1
