Money Life with Chuck Jaffe Chuck Jaffe

Brad Lamensdorf, strategist at the Lamensdorf Market-Timing Report and manager of the Ranger Equity Bear ETF, says there's "a lot of stock in a lot of weak hands," which tends to lead to a serious correction, and he says the market is due for a 15 to 25 percent pullback. Further, he notes that bear market corrections tend to "be more significant" in a high-rate market like the one being faced today; Lamensdorf notes that while the market is near record highs and has gone up sharply this year, so too has his bear-market fund, highlighting just how thin the bullish sentiment and market breadth are. Lamensdorf says that investing in the Magnificent Seven stocks has been great stock picking in a market that has not favored stock pickers, highlighting that this "is a great long-short stock-picking environment right now." Dave Lamb, head of closed-end funds at Nuveen, says there is a "much more aggressive form of activism today than what we saw years ago," driven mostly by discount-arbitrage opportunities rather than any evaluation of a fund's management. He discusses what fund sponsors, including Nuveen, are doing to make closed-end funds more attractive to the public, but less appealing to activist shareholders. Plus Daniel Dusina, chief investment officer at Blue Chip Partners in Michigan, discusses "underappreciated quality stocks" in the Market Call.

Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com, discusses a just-released survey which shows that Americans are getting fed up with being asked to leave a tip at everything from a self-service checkout counter to a pick-your-own strawberry farm. The survey showed that nearly 3 in 5 American adults have at least one negative view of tipping, with a surprising number being upset enough that they have stopped tipping even at sit-down restaurants. Bruce Kahn, lead portfolio manager at Shelton Sustainable Equity Fund discusses how ESG investing has moved past simple screening techniques, but for all the good of sustainability it still boils down to valuations. Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, goes small-cap with his ETF of the Week, and Chuck answers a question from a listener who wants to know if the long-time favorite investment of her father is something she should hold onto now that she has inherited it.
 

Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab, says that the Federal Reserve should be cutting rates now rather than waiting, so the central bank will be deserving of the blame if we get a recession in 2025. Jones worries that central bankers have become "too spooked by inflation," and says they should be less cautious and more forward-looking, and that kind of action could be reflected in one or two rate cuts before the end of the year. Historian William Hogeland discusses his new book, "The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money and Power in the American Founding," and brings modern context to Alexander Hamilton by noting whether either major political party -- as well as the wildly popular Broadway play -- actually reflect the historical measure of the man. Plus, Andrew Guillette, vice president of global insights at Broadridge Financial Solutions, discusses the firm's massive research study into the investing habits of 40 million U.S. retail individual investors, with the trends showing that individual stocks have become increasingly popular while traditional mutual funds have permanently fallen out of favor.

Alan McKnight, chief investment officer at Regions Asset Management, sees storm clouds on the horizon for the market and the economy, but his outlook remains benign, suggesting that a well-diversified portfolio will withstand heightened volatility for the remainder over the year. He says we have experienced a muted, rolling downturn and doesn't see a full-blown recession happening. By comparison, Avi Gilburt, founder of the Elliott Wave Trader, entered the year calling for the market to reach record highs no later than the second quarter — which it has — but then to turn into the start of a full-blown bear market that will last years and bring the Standard & Poor's 500 down by well over 50 percent. Gilburt says that the market remains on track for that. In the middle of that kind of disagreement, it's hard for investors to know what to do, and Andy Reed, head of investor behavior research at Vanguard, discusses research into certain biases that are leading most investors to make mistakes that result in diminished gains and missed opportunities.

Joe Boyle, Fixed Income Investment Strategist for the Hartford Funds, says that the re-set in fixed-income after rates popped up in 2022 and 2023 have made it unimportant to bond investors whether the Federal Reserve cuts rates any time soon, because the yields should remain strong. That said, Boyle said he was looking further out the yield curve — especially is it looks likely to normalize after two years of being inverted — because adding longer, high-quality bonds will pay off when the rate environment changes. Kyle Guske, investment analyst at New Constructs, put EventBrite — a stock that had been in the Danger Zone right after it went public in 2018 — back into the Danger Zone now, Jaime Dunaway-Seale discusses a Clever Real Estate survey showing that nearly half of all recent homebuyers say they feel over their head financially having made the purchase, and Martin Leclerc, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Barrack Yard Advisors, talks stocks in the Market Call.

Jeffrey Hirsch, editor-in-chief of the Stock Traders’ Almanac — chief investment officer at Hirsch Holdings — says that calendar effects and seasonal sell signals may be indicating that it's time to "sell in May and go away," but he says long-term investors have plenty of reason to remain bullish enough thanks to election effects and more that investors "have no need to go away," so long as they can put up with the market's increased chop over the summer. Hirsch noted that the election effects suggest that the market will benefit from having a second-term president — regardless of who wins in November — but that there tends to be weakness in the first two years of any lame-duck president, which means he may take a more cautionary stance once the election passes in November. John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors — chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance — talks about the good and bad in recent industry trends that have fund sponsors taking steps to keep a lid on discounts and to reduce a fund's potential attractiveness to activist investors, as well as the trend towards managed payouts and how investors should size up distributions that might be connected more to marketing materials than to what a fund actually can deliver.  In the Market Call, Tom Plumb, president and chief investment officer at the Plumb Funds, covers growth stocks with disruptive technologies and business plans.