Wealthtrack

Target-date funds have $3 trillion dollars in assets. Millions of Americans are enrolled in them, mostly through company 401(k) plans. They have a track record, multiple products, plenty of competition and fees are declining as a result.  In an article titled “In Praise of Target-Date Funds,” one of our favorite WEALTHTRACK guests, Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance, Christine Benz described them as “...nothing short of the biggest positive development for investors since the index fund.” That got my attention! So this week we are interviewing one of the best target-date managers in the business. He is Wyatt Lee, who is Head and Co-Manager of T. Rowe Price’s $390 billion Target Date Strategies, the largest group of actively managed target-date products in the U.S.  The firm’s Retirement Series earned a Gold analyst rating from Morningstar, one of only two in the actively managed category, for its stellar performance and high ratings for its process, people, and the parent company.  Lee

Yankee legend Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s deja vu all over again,” one of his many memorable expressions. That’s the way I feel this week.   The “deja vu all over again” is the theme of “Don’t fight the Fed.” The Federal Reserve's recent pivot from inflation promoter to inflation fighter puts that adage front and center in the current debate between the bulls and the bears. This week’s guest has been following that dictum during his 40-year investment career. He has been bullish since the Fed opened the monetary spigots in 2009. He is Ed Yardeni, a Ph.D. economist, long-time Fed watcher, and investment strategist who is widely followed by institutional investors.  He is also the author of several books.  The latest, In Praise of Profits! is dedicated to progressives to help them understand that “profits isn’t a four-letter word.”  Another Yardeni book is Fed Watching for Fun and Profit: a Primer for Investors, which we discussed in-depth in an earlier interview. In that book, he wrote:

We appear to be in a new investment era, one of higher inflation and higher interest rates. It is a huge change from the “great moderation,” the multi-decade stretch of low inflation and falling interest rates since the early 1980’s. With consumer prices soaring to 40-year highs the Federal Reserve has pivoted from its unusual role as inflation promoter to its traditional role of inflation fighter, which signals higher interest rates ahead. Major macro shifts like these are always turbulent. How to navigate them without damaging your portfolio or psyche is our focus this week. Our guest is well suited to tackle this challenge because of his track record of capital preservation and long-term compounding. Noted global value manager Matthew McLennan has a proven track record of building lasting wealth by investing in resilient investments, including gold. WEALTHTRACK Episode 1832 broadcast on February 04, 2022 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/resilient-investments-including-gold-are-matt-mclennans-method-for-b

One of the biggest changes of the past year has been the record number of Americans who are quitting their jobs. It’s so pronounced that it has a name. It’s called “The Great Resignation.”  What The Great Resignation means for retirement planning is just one of the items on Christine Benz’ financial to-do list this year. Another major area of focus is adjusting to much higher inflation. Consumer Prices increased 7% in December versus a year ago, the fastest increase since 1982 and the third month in a row that inflation exceeded 6%.  This elevated rate of inflation presents a big planning challenge.   Benz, who is Morningstar's Director of Personal Finance, is joining us for the fourth year in a row to help us get in financial shape for a new year and will tackle these important changes among others.  WEALTHTRACK #1829 broadcast on January 14, 2022 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/rising-inflation-interest-rates-expensive-markets-call-for-reassessing-retirement-plans/ 30-Minute Mon

Part 2 of 2 Legendary value investor Bill Miller is betting big on bitcoin. The digital currency and some related crypto investments now account for half of his personal investment portfolio. In part two of our interview with Miller, he discusses his rationale for taking such an outsized position, including why he has converted from being a self-described bitcoin “observer” to a bitcoin “bull” and why he is adding to his holdings when the currency has big declines.  Since Miller is also celebrating his 40th anniversary in the investment business we delve into how much the investment landscape has changed and how his value approach has evolved over the last four decades. The conversation is not about Miller Opportunity Trust, it's about his personal portfolio.  I began the interview by asking Miller why he has gone so big on bitcoin.  WEALTHTRACK #1828 broadcast on January 07, 2022 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/investment-legend-bill-miller-has-50-of-his-personal-portfolio-in-bitcoin-rel

Great value investor Bill Miller remains the only fund manager to beat the market for 15 consecutive years. He discusses his current core holding winners and some recent promising additions to his legendary portfolio. WEALTHTRACK #1825 broadcast on December 17, 2021 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wealthtrack/support

Since WEALTHTRACK’s inception, it’s been an annual tradition to sit down for a rare in-depth interview with Ed Hyman, Wall Street’s number one-ranked economist for an unrivaled forty-one years. Hyman is a Wall Street legend known for his comprehensive, yet succinct daily bullet point reports on the economy covering multiple data points including his team’s proprietary company surveys covering a wide range of businesses. Last year at this time the U.S. was emerging from lockdowns, vaccines hadn’t been distributed, Covid was resurfacing, fatalities were up but the economy and markets were rebounding sharply. That was not a surprise to Hyman because of the massive amount of monetary and fiscal stimulus pouring into the economy.  As a matter of fact it was the major reason   Hyman predicted on WEALTHTRACK a year ago that 2021 would be a “blow out” year in terms of both economic and corporate earnings growth. How would he describe it in retrospect and what are his economic and market expectations fo

Three successful women portfolio managers discuss what it takes to succeed in money management, including their best and worst decisions and crucial career advice.    WEALTHTRACK #1823 published on November 30, 2021 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/how-to-make-it-on-wall-street-advice-from-three-successful-women-portfolio-managers/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wealthtrack/support

Part 1 of 2 Only 11% of U.S. portfolio managers are women. Three of them describe how they are “tearing down the pink wall” starting with their educational and job choices in part one of our two-part series. WEALTHTRACK #1822 published on November 24, 2021 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/from-education-to-job-choices-how-3-women-have-become-successful-portfolio-managers/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wealthtrack/support

It's hard to keep a roaring bull market down. The S&P 500 marked its 66th record close of the year today and the NASDAQ Composite also hit a new peak. The strong performance once again raised the question: what to do with the dominant position mega-cap tech stocks have in most of our stock portfolios. It is a particular challenge for growth fund managers because that’s where the growth and performance has been for the last decade, especially the past few years.   This week’s guest, Margaret Vitrano, and her ClearBridge team saw the high concentration of big tech in their portfolios last year as high risk and a threat to the diversification they see as essential to delivering their historically strong returns with downside protection. They met that challenge by reducing some significant winning positions and actually closing out a big one last year. Understanding why she did it and how she feels about it now can help the rest of us who face similar decisions.    We’ll discuss why they made t

Worried about inflation, especially after October’s big consumer price number? The CPI’s 6.2% increase from a year ago was the fastest 12-month gain since 1990 and the fifth month in a row of +5% inflation.  What about rising interest rates? How about America’s economic standing in the world?    Be prepared to question many of the negative assumptions you have been hearing and listen to some other data that shines a different light on the outlook. Our guest is a highly respected economist who is no pollyanna. She is just a top economist who looks at data many others miss.   Nancy Lazar is Partner and Chief Economist of Cornerstone Macro.  Lazar and her team are challenging the assumptions that higher inflation is here to stay, that interest rates have to go higher and that emerging markets will be the driver of global growth post-pandemic.    I began our conversation with the capital spending question. In a traditionally consumer-driven economy, why is capital spending going

The demand for socially responsible investing strategies is growing and the cash flowing into them shows it. Exchange-traded funds with ESG characteristics - ESG of course stands for environmental, social, and governance - have attracted the lion's share of equity money in recent years.  In true “follow the money” form, Wall Street has taken notice. There are now many different kinds of socially responsible investment products to choose from. One you don’t hear a lot about is values and faith-based investing, a niche that has been around for decades through separately managed accounts and a few mutual funds.  This week’s guest just might change their low profile. He is a widely followed market strategist and successful investor, Robert Doll, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager at Crossmark Global Investments which he just joined this year.   Doll will fulfill two missions for us. He’ll explain what values and faith-based investing means and update us on his current assessment of the

There's a saying on Wall Street that the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.  And there’s a widely held financial theory called “Reversion to the Mean” that asserts that eventually asset classes will return to their long term average in terms of several factors including price, price/earnings multiples, and their performance relative to other asset classes like U.S. stocks. Reversion to the mean for emerging markets stocks has been a long time coming. This week’s guest, Michael Kass who runs Baron Emerging Markets Fund believes their time has come after a very long cycle of underperformance. Kass will make the case for an emerging markets resurgence, especially stocks in the two largest markets, China and India. WEALTHTRACK #1818 broadcast on October 29, 2021 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/new-world-order-of-market-leadership/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wealthtrack/support

Talk about a seismic shift! Inflation is back with a vengeance.  Higher prices are being felt throughout the economy by consumers and businesses alike.  The Consumer Price Index, the most widely followed measure of price moves at the retail level, has just experienced its biggest year-over-year increase since the early 1990s.  Are these price increases transitory as the Federal Reserve would lead us to believe or are we in a new era of higher prices not seen since the late 1970s?  This week’s guest penned an editorial in The Wall Street Journal recently asking the question: “Does the Fed Have the Will to Fight Inflation?” He is Financial Thought Leader Jason De Sena Trennert,  Co-Founder,  Chairman, CEO, and Chief Investment Strategist of Strategas Research Partners,   Trennert will address the investment and strategy implications of higher inflation.   WEALTHTRACK #1817 broadcast on October 22, 2021 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/financial-thought-leader-jason-tre

The one constant in life is change, even for great investors. Earlier this year The Motley Fool Co-Founder, David Gardner announced that he was changing his focus. As he told fellow “Fools” as the global online investing community members jokingly refer to themselves:  “....where you place your focus in life matters, and now I am choosing to shift my focus from the stock market and invest time in other endeavors. After nearly 30 years focused on publicly picking stocks, this wasn’t a decision I took lightly.” It wasn't a decision The Motley Fool team, members, followers and at least one member of the financial press, namely me, took lightly either, which is why I wanted to talk to David.   The good news is Gardner is not totally leaving the fold. He is Chairman of The Motley Fool Foundation, devoted to bringing “financial freedom to all.” He remains Co-Chairman of The Motley Fool with fellow Fool Co-Founder and younger brother Tom, a very successful investor in his own right, who has also been manag

It can take a long time for a bubble to burst. Four years ago, in 2017, Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a highly regarded financial newsletter, wrote an article about the now infamous China Evergrande group. Back then, it was anything but a familiar name except in China and among some institutional investors. The article was titled “Ever Higher” as Grant published a chart showing the extraordinary rise in China Evergrande's stock price on the Hong Kong exchange that spring. Fast forward to 2021, and indeed, Evergrande, once the world’s most valuable property stock, has become famous as the world’s most heavily indebted property company. With an estimated $300 billion in debt, it also could become Asia's largest bankruptcy as China's government seems less and less likely to come to the rescue. Why should the U.S. investors care? What if any significance does it have outside of China? That is where financial thought leader, journalist/sleuth, and historian James Grant comes in. Grant is the Founder and Editor o

Large-cap U.S growth stocks, particularly tech stocks, have been the overwhelming winners of the last decade. They now dominate the market. The top ten S&P 500 stocks, including the FAANGs, account for more than 25% of the index’s total market value, a concentration that worries some market watchers because it is reminiscent of other market tops such as the dot-com bubble when internet stocks made up over 30% of the S&P and the credit bubble when banking stocks reached more than 20%. With the exception of short-lived spurts value stocks, small-cap stocks and international stocks have badly lagged. This week’s guest believes the days of this concentrated outperformance by large-cap growth stocks are numbered and suggests some underloved and under-owned alternatives. He is financial thought leader, innovator, and investor Robert Arnott, Chairman of the Board of Research Affiliates, which he founded in 2002 as a self-described “research-intensive asset management firm that focuses on innovative products.

One of the biggest challenges for investors since the global financial crisis has been finding income. Despite more than ten years of continuous predictions that yields on U.S. Treasuries and other developed country bonds couldn’t possibly go any lower, they have. This week’s guest can help us. She is Kristin Ceva, Senior Portfolio Manager, directing Payden & Rygel’s nearly $14bn emerging debt strategies. She is also a member of the firm’s Investment Policy Committee. The independent global investment advisor oversees $145.5bn in assets, largely in fixed income for institutional clients but has a broad lineup of mutual funds as well. It is also an active participant in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)  investing which we will discuss. Ceva has managed its Payden Emerging Markets Bond Fund since 1998. Emerging market (EM) debt is a large, diverse, and evolving investing universe which is sorely underrepresented in most individual portfolios. I’ll begin the interview by asking Ceva to bring

In this era of indexing the investors who research and buy individual companies are becoming a rarity - some would say a throwback - to another era.   The most obvious example is Warren Buffett, the nonagenarian Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway who is widely considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest American investor in recent memory.  Buffett is famous for buying quality companies for the long term, in his words “forever”. He is less well known for his emphasis on seeking “high quality shareholders”, stock owners who stick around for the long-term, whom he has succeeded in attracting to Berkshire Hathaway.  This is part two of our interview with Lawrence Cunningham a Professor of Law at George Washington University who is also a driving force behind the university’s “Quality Shareholders Initiative”, intended to research and report on “high quality shareholders”, as they are dubbed by Buffett - traditional investors that study individual companies, acquire substantial stakes in o

In this week's WEALTHTRACK podcast, an interview with leading financial journalist Jason Zweig.  Since 2008 Zweig has written the widely read "The Intelligent Investor" column for The Wall Street Journal.  That, of course, is the name of the investment classic written by Benjamin Graham, considered to be the father of value investing.  Zweig has an intimate knowledge of the thinking of Graham because he edited the last revised edition of The Intelligent Investor with a forward written by Warren Buffett who calls it "by far the best book on investing ever written". Zweig explains the enormous impact Benjamin Graham had on investing and why we should listen to him now.   WEALTHTRACK #1808 published on August 22, 2021 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wealthtrack/support