Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

FinCon '24 continues from Atlanta, and the conference has a heavy emphasis on financial coaching this year, which comes through in a few of today's conversations from the annual meeting of bloggers, podcasters, content creators, coaches and more. Chuck's guests include KeyAnder Early of How Money Works , who focuses on financial literacy and teaching young adults; Bill Yount, co-host of the " Catc...

Gwen Merz Joiner, who runs the Fiery Millennials blog, says that living a radical financial life trying to amass a nestegg to quit working left her exhausted and unfulfilled, but as she loosens the purse strings today, she notes that she is in her 30s and has amassed a nest egg sufficient to get her through retirement without ever setting another dollar into her 401(k). She describes the ups and d...

For all of the complaints consumers have about inflation, George Milling-Stanley, chief gold strategist at State Street Global Advisors says that the precious metal needs "sustained high inflation" — which he defines as at least two years with inflation above 5 percent — and those conditions were not met, so gold didn't respond to rising prices. Meanwhile, gold has been rolling because it is a goo...

Jack Janasiewicz, Portfolio Strategist at Natixis Investment Managers , says the economy can keep supporting earnings growth, and as long as earnings are marching higher, it should pull the equity market up further. While warning that investors may have to adjust expectations after two big years that make an encore unlikely, Janasiewicz says that heightened volatility amid geopolitical tensions is...

Vishal Khanduja, Head of the Broad Markets Fixed Income team at Morgan Stanley , says with inflation trending downward, labor data will be what the Federal Reserve is most focused on, and as those numbers move the central bank may take a choppy path toward rate reductions. While that may keep the market on edge, Khanduja notes that corporate and consumer balance sheets are very strong right now —...

David Ellison, Portfolio Manager and Financial Services Specialist at the Hennessy Funds , says that the banking industry is coming out of "a two-to five year period of darkness," heading for "sunny days ahead," though he notes that banks do not want interest rates to fall too far but he thinks earnings can grow even if the Federal Reserve cuts rates by another 1 percent or more. Ellison also note...

Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi , says that the start of a rate-cutting cycle is a time when investors will want low-cost active management — rather than an index fund — in the fixed-income space. To that end, he picks a T. Rowe Price fund that uses a quantitative management style as his ETF of the Week, noting it can do the job for investors looking to diversify their fixed-income ho...

For about a decade, Chuck has offered the kids in his neighborhood a chance to pick cash or candy, to decide between a trade or a treat. It's part of his belief that even young kids are able to understand and make basic financial decisions, deciding if they would rather have candy or if the financial prize is worth more to them because it's different and more useful than candy. He always encourage...

Jeff Krumpelman, chief investment strategist at Mariner Wealth Advisors , expects the Standard & Poor's 500 should hit 6,000 by mid-2025, but he acknowledges that those gains might surprise him by coming early, turning 2024 potentially into a "super year," which would turn 2025 into a less-stellar environment. Either way, he expects the market to take a brief breather before a potential rebound fo...

Sheraz Mian, director of research at Zacks Investment Research , says that the cumulative effect of the Federal Reserve's rate cycle starts showing up, it will goose the economy and the stock market, and with the worst of the post-Covid struggles behind us, the "soft landing" most experts forecast is actually what we're experiencing now, and that better times — and continued strong corporate earni...

Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments , says investors will have to pay the piper for the market's last two years of out-sized gains, and she thinks the music will start playing early in 2025. While she thinks the market will avoid a big recession and/or market crash — and in fact thinks the market will rebound quickly around the mid-year mark — she thinks ear...

Nick Sargen, senior economic advisor at Fort Washington Investment Advisors , doesn't see a recession as imminent but he says a lot of the good news has already been priced into the stock market, which will lead to slower gains or sideways performance moving forward. Sargen says that market observers expecting a soft landing were thinking that situation would allow the Federal Reserve to aggressiv...

Dominic Ceci, chief investment officer at Johnson Financial Group , says that investors can't expect the stock market — after 20-plus percent gains in 2023 and this year — to roll along at that pace indefinitely, noting that record highs have stocks trading well above their normal range relative to earnings. If earnings normalize and growth slows a little bit, the economy can stay strong while the...

Matt Fox, president of Ithaca Wealth Management , says that while it is always bullish to have the stock market in record-high range, the 20-plus percent gains of 2023 and again this year are setting up a long period of digestion/sideways movement that may last for much of 2025. He sees the stock market with room to keep running for now, noting that he thinks the market can gain about 7 percent fr...

Tocqueville's Petrides: John Petrides, portfolio manager for Tocqueville Asset Management , says that while the market has gotten to all-time highs riding large-cap growth stocks for roughly seven years, there are undercurrents changing beneath the surface that will make diversification pay off in 2025. He notes that the market can go through a soft landing scenario while changing market leadershi...

Paul Gruenwald, chief economist at S&P Global Ratings , discusses his 2024 fourth-quarter economic outlook , which suggests that the recent rally can continue especially as the economy transitions into what he expects will be its first soft landing in more than three decades. Gruenwald says the economy has been "super-resilient," and he expects that to continue unless the strong labor market falte...

Market strategist Lawrence McDonald , creator of The Bear Traps Report , says that conditions have changed to where investors will need "an entirely different portfolio ... and an entirely different investment philosophy" than you used in the last decade to be profitable in the next 10 years. He expects a rotation from growth stocks to value stocks, and says that industrials, materials and oil and...

Brett Ewing, chief market strategist at First Franklin Financial Services , says that the rally he expected for small-cap stocks when he last appeared on the show in January, finally arrived in the third quarter and the stock market is now rotating towards smaller companies, industrials and real estate investment trusts. Ewing says that he expects the stock market to have a "decent correction" nea...

Nicholas Brooks, head of economic and investment research at ICG , a global alternative asset manager, says "There's nothing out there that rings major alarm bells" signalling a big recession ahead. But while he expects a soft landing, he is watching what is driving inflation, noting that while headline inflation is down, services inflation remains high and wage growth has stayed strong, factors t...

Nick Elfner, co-head of research at Breckinridge Capital Advisors , says that investment-grade corporate bonds are well positioned to be the strong fixed-income play now that the Federal Reserve has started cutting interest rates. Financial counselor Kristine Stevenson , author of "How to Avoid Trouble With the IRS," chats about how so many tax and financial issues are caused by a lack of the most...

Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar Inc. , returns to the show — earlier this week she discussed her book " How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement " — to talk about how inflation, rate cuts and other current events are impacting retirement planning and asset allocation decisions. She notes that after two great year...

Phillip Wool, head of research at Rayliant Global Advisors , makes a strong case for investing in emerging markets — as well as for sticking with investments in China despite geopolitical risk there — noting that valuations are particularly compelling compared to a domestic stock market that is flirting with record highs. While Wool does not expect the U.S. economy to go through a hard landing, he...

Kevin Mahn, president and chief investment officer at Hennion & Walsh , expects continued bouts of volatility for the market for the rest of the year, spurred by uncertainty around the election and the Federal Reserve's moves, but he noted that when the central bank historically has cut rates when the stock market is near all-time highs, the market moved sharply up in the following 12 months. As a...

Amar Reganti, fixed income strategist at the Hartford Funds , says that the Federal Reserve normally starts cutting rates only when something has gone wrong, but there doesn't seem to be any portion of the U.S. economy that is so over-leveraged that it craters as/when a rate-hike cycle ends. If nothing surfaces, Reganti says this may be the generational anomaly where the central bank actually achi...

Longtime personal finance journalist Jonathan Clements — the editor at Humble Dollar , and former columnist at the Wall Street Journal — discusses how his outlook and feelings about money have mostly been reinforced since he was diagnosed in May with terminal lung cancer, and how he his focusing his time, money and energy now to make the most of his time and help his family make the most of his li...