WEALTHTRACK

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 gu...

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...

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. Consu...

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...

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

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 w...

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/

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/

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 per...

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 liste...

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 socia...

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....

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 Rese...

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 tim...

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 extraordinar...

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...

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 deb...

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 c...

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...

50 years ago, on August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon shocked the financial world by ending the convertibility of the dollar to gold, upending the monetary and currency exchange system that had been in place since 1944. This week Nick Sargen, author of Global Shocks , joins us to explain the consequences of that momentous decision which are still being felt today. WEALTHTRACK #1807 published o...

Part 1 of 2 Warren Buffett, the Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway is considered to be one of the greatest investors of all time. He has become an American icon dispensing investment wisdom and commentary over the years through his annual shareholder letters and meetings where he and his long-time business partner Charlie Munger answer questions for hours on end about a wide range of topics. An indust...

Part 2 of 2 What does history have to teach us about the current geopolitical, economic, and investment environment?  A great deal according to renowned historian Niall Ferguson.    His thesis is that applying the lessons of history to contemporary events can result in better investment outcomes.  One of the biggest, most consequential debates among economists, investors, and p...

If there is one adjective we have heard repeatedly in the last year and a half it is “unprecedented”. It has been applied to describe the amount of monetary and fiscal stimulus that’s been poured into the economy. It has been used in relation to the pandemic lockdowns and reopenings, and the record-breaking runs in stock, bonds, real estate, and commodity markets. Is there no historical precedent...

Part 2 of 2 When legendary value investor Jeremy Grantham turned 80 he made two resolutions: “to be prepared to write a cheque up to the limits of your ability”, and to “say what you think you should say to everybody”.  He is following through on both commitments. He is saying what he thinks he should say to everybody including us, to our benefit!  In the first of our two-part interview...

Part 1 od 2 We are celebrating the launch of WEALTHTRACK’s 18th season on public television this week! We feel so fortunate to serve you. When WEALTHTRACK launched in July of 2005 our mission was to help our audience and ourselves build financial security to last a lifetime through disciplined, long-term, diversified investing. We vowed to seek out the best minds in the financial business to guide...