Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Nate Thooft, chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management says he's not "banging the table to be significantly overweight" in the technology issues that have carried the stock market back to record high levels. He says investors should be looking at areas besides U.S. tech stocks — shifting into small-cap stocks, health-care companies, real estate investm...

Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American Financial Corp. , says the big news on Wednesday was not that the Federal Reserve started a rate-cutting cycle, but that it appears that there could be additional, aggressive rate cuts that could take an additional 1.5 percentage points off rates over the next 15 months. That rate cutting, Fleming says, reduces the risk  of a deep recession, and the...

Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com , expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rate three times before the year ends — starting with a first cut being announced today — and says the central bank will drop rates by one full percentage point by the time 2025 rolls around. He talks about how and where consumers and investors will first feel the impact of the cuts, and how to make...

Warren Pierson, co-chief investment officer at the Baird Funds , says that he expects the economy to keep chugging along, avoiding a deep recession as it enters a rate-cut cycle that initially trigger a rally but investors will not want to extend the duration of their holdings too long. Pierson notes that no matter who wins the White House in November, he expects tax hikes in order for the federal...

Joe Quinlan, head of market strategy for Merrill and Private Bank, Bank of America , says that he expects the stock market to show better breadth in 2025, with other stocks picking up slack for the Magnificent Seven stocks, which he thinks will keep growing but at much slower rates. He notes that "the U.S. economy continues to defy expectations," and as long as that continues — and he is optimisti...

Scott Martindale, chief executive officer at Sabrient Systems — which takes a quantitative approach to investments — says that some of the standard measures of inflation are skewed in ways that present an inaccurate picture of what's happening now. He discusses the "Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices" and how it, and several other measures, suggest that the Federal Reserve has plenty of room to m...

Gargi Chaudhuri, Chief Investment and Portfolio Strategist , Americas, at BlackRock , says that while she foresees a slowdown in the economy but nothing that will rise to the level of a recession. Still, as the Federal Reserve enters a rate-cutting phase during the fall — a historically volatile time for the market — she expects that investors will see heightened market movement, and that they wil...

Jonathan Treussard, founder of Treussard Capital Management says "we haven't seen this much geo-political static on the horizon in at least a generation," raising real concern about how a laundry list of global boiling points could hit home. He says those risks overhang a market that looks like it can avoid a downturn for a while with the Federal Reserve looking like it can deliver a soft landing....

Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco , says that recessions haven't been canceled, but there is no reason to expect one for at least the next year, "especially if we get the Fed to start to meaningfully ease." She thinks the Federal Reserve will start that easing process later this month with a small rate cut, largely because anything larger might spook the market. Hooper say...

David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs — who put Nvidia stock in "The Danger Zone ahead of its earnings report at the end of August, just before the stock cratered — says that the market and economic conditions are changing and lower liquidity and a slowing economy "is a recipe for a major correction in a lot of individual stocks," and that companies with misleading earnings are pa...

David Souccar, international equity portfolio manager at Vontobel Quality Growth , says that the interest-rate cutting cycle is going to help international equities, as foreign central banks follow the Federal Reserve's moves, which should help foster a softer landing worldwide.  That said, Souccar notes that if the United States starts raising tariffs radically, it will hurt the dollar, which wil...

A funny thing happened on the way to today's show. Okay, it's not so funny since it basically canceled the show so take a quick listen to find out what happened.

David Goerz of @StrategicCAPM says the current market is putting a twist on Internet Bubble days, but that stock valuations are extremely high and so are most risk factors, so investors might want to hunker down and wait at least for rate-driven volatility to pass. Joel Dickson of Vanguard Group discusses how rules changes impacting the way investors must remove money from individual retirement ac...

Michael Ball, president and lead portfolio manager at Weatherstone Capital Management , says that while the economy appears to be headed for a soft landing, that smooth ride and the first rate cuts have already been priced into the bond market, which means that bonds are not giving much cushion right now against any softness that could lead to a recession. He notes that higher quality bonds in flo...

Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts , says that money is rotating out of technology and "into pretty much every other sector," which means that participation in the current bull run is broadening out. Still, he says, there is a question of whether the upswing can continue if tech isn't participating. As a result, deKempenaer sees the market trading close to current resista...

Andrew Krei, co-chief investment officer of Crescent Grove Advisors , says that at some point next year we could see inflation tick back up, which could lead to market struggles, but right now barring "geopolitical mayhem," he sees the market as continuing to climb, and he notes that investors should be pressing their bets with equities rather than fixed income right now. Ironically, Krei discount...

Ryan Myers, portfolio manager at Causeway Capital Management -- manager of the Causeway International Small Cap fund -- says that current valuations "are on par with some historical extremes where small caps go on to outperform fairly significantly." He likes opportunities in Japan, particularly after market troubles there earlier in August made valuations even more appealing, but he also says the...

Jeff Weniger , head of equity strategy at WisdomTree Asset Management , says that while rate cuts tend to be good for the market, there is an unusual circumstance now where the cuts upend the Japanese yen carry trade. That  created the market's short-lived August drawdown, but that circumstance could resurface; while the market has moved past that problem, Weniger notes that the Fed's expected act...

Steve Rick, chief economist at TruStage , expects a unique occurrence in Federal Reserve actions between now and election date, with inflation dropping down to its target rate of 2 percent while the labor market reaches equilibrium, with the unemployment rate hitting 4.5 percent. Rick says that good news -- which will be accompanied by rate cuts from the central bank -- will push any potential rec...

Craig Johnson, senior research analyst at Piper Sandler , says that he expects the economy to avoid a hard landing, and notes that some indicators would suggest that the economy is already in recession which means it will be over by late spring 2025, which should allow the earnings to start to pick up and fuel more growth next year. Johnson notes, further, that stock markets historically tend to p...

Tim Crawmer, chief global credit strategist at Payden & Rygel , says that the rise in the  unemployment has not been driven by layoffs but rather by more people looking for work, which is a positive sign for the economy. Coupled with other good looks -- like the continued strength of the consumer pushing robust GDP expectations -- it should convince individual investors to position their portfolio...

Elliot Rosenberg, founder of Hack My Honeymoon , talks about strategies consumers can take to use miles, points and more to get free trips, accommodations and more, and while the savings is real, some of the advice -- involving opening multiple credit-card accounts to capture bonuses -- is not standard for consumers. Marci Stewart, director of client education for Schwab Workplace Financial Servic...

Michael Kelly, global head of multi-asset at PineBridge Investments , says that the stock market had priced in a soft landing before the recent, temporary spike in volatility, but that action made investors realize that the potential for a hard landing is on the rise, even with Federal Reserve rate cuts on the way. Either way, Kelly says the long-term trend for the market will be positive, but he...

Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Asset Management , says the economic data has lined up so that the economy "can cruise through this soft landing, and not land." In the Big Interview, Haworth says that recessions have been held off for longer than expected up to now, but while he could see heightened volatility for the market for the rest of the year or beyond, the glass-half...

Brij Khurana, fixed income portfolio manager at Wellington Management , says that if either political party sweeps the election in November -- winning the presidency and control of Congress and the Senate -- the result will be higher bond yields, because the market will price in greater financing of deficits, but he notes that a divided government, the market will price in a bigger fiscal contract...