Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Howard Steven Friedman, author of "Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life," says that society and government are wrestling with a balance and trade-off that comes with no hard-and-fast rules or math when it decides on the value of life versus the benefits of re-opening the economy. He discusses his book, the pandemic and how governments have traditionally made decisions on the value of lives....

Terri Spath, chief investment officer at the Sierra Mutual Funds, says that the stimulus actions of the Federal Reserve Bank helped to set a floor on the market, which means that the 'lows are in for the year.' That doesn't mean the market can't go down from here, but rather that she doesn't expect it to fall past the lows set in the March downturn; with that limited downside, Spath says that rema...

Tom McIntyre of McIntyre, Freedman and Flynn in Orleans, Mass. -- the first-ever Market Call guest -- returns to the show as Money Life celebrates its eighth anniversary to discuss the ways he factors news and events into investment decisions, and notes that processing the virus economy and evaluating changing corporate guidance makes for confusing times for investors. He said that with oil prices...

Sarah Ketterer, chief executive officer at Causeway Capital Management, says that the most cyclical stocks -- the ones at the 'epicenter of pain for the coronavirus -- are relatively low-risk bargains for opportunistic investors. She notes that airlines, travel companies, tourism businesses and hospitality and hotel firms -- with stocks down 40 to 60 percents and yet to have any real bounce-back f...

Zach Jonson, chief investment officer at Stack Financial management, says that investors should be looking for stocks that they can expect to recover over 18 months to two years, but despite the market's decline and potential rough times through the current economic downturn, he warned that any market troubles may not represent easy buying opportunities for investors, noting that it won't be as si...

Jim Golan, co-portfolio manager at William Blair Large-Cap Growth Fund, said that investors looking to be opportunistic now need to use a long lens and look for companies that will be in a better position than they are today, noting that the interim period -- as stocks and the market finish processing the hibernation economy and return to something more normal -- will be volatile and make it diffi...

Steven Durlauf, economics professor at the University of Chicago, says the perceived trade-offs between re-starting the economy and continuing quarantine is, in the short run, illusory. Lack of shelter-in-place, Durlauf says, creates such bad consequences for the health system -- and a re-started economy won't recover until everyone leaves home and participates fully -- that the choice between the...

FeiFei Li, head of equities at Research Affiliates says the COVID-19 outbreak was a catalyst that turned questionable market conditions worse, but that the root causes for concern are still in place. Li, however, is bullish long-term even if she sees the market as being likely to take a big leg down from current levels; she says that the bear market of February was too quick and shallow, but it le...

Andrew Beer of the iM DBi Hedge Strategy and the iM DBI Managed Futures Strategy ETFs, says that the long-lasting impacts from the global coronavirus shutdown will hit different areas, sectors, industries and countries in very different ways as recovery begins. While investors are right to be expecting trouble, Beer says that the fallout -- particularly if resources get scarce and fights for them...

Eddy Vataru, portfolio manager for the Osterweis Total Return Fund, says that the pandemic economy has put such a big wrench in the markets and life that it forces investors to rethink what makes a prudent investment now. He notes that investors have to cast a cautious eye to fixed income and be wary of chasing yields by extending bond duration. Also on the show, John Divine of US News and World R...

Ken Applegate, portfolio manager at Wasatch International Growth, says that Japan -- and particularly small-cap companies there -- will be an area that investors should see leading the way as global markets recover from the coronavirus pandemic shutdown. Applegate says that economies that were struggling before the pandemic -- including most of Europe with low or negative interest rates -- are lik...

David Goerz of Strategic Frontier Management, says that the market overshot the negative at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and that as clarity develops about re-opening the economy he expects the market to climb the wall of worry through to the end of the year. While he says the second quarter of 2020 will be 'a throw-away,' he expects the Standard and Poor's 500 to finish the year near 3,000,...

Tim Clift, chief investment strategist at Envestnet, says that even the current downturn -- as big as it has been and could grow to -- ultimately will become a blip on an investor's radar, which is why it's important to hold fast to financial plans and not make nervous moves that alter asset allocation, typically at just the wrong time. Empirically, Clift says he has not seen individual investors...

Howard Silverblatt of SP Dow Jones Indexes says that after a record first quarter for dividend payouts -- in which $127 billion in distributions were made -- income-producing stocks have seen a dramatically changed landscape as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. As precautions ramped up, 13 companies cut or suspended dividend payments that would have totaled roughly $14 billion in March. That trend...

Warren Pierson, deputy chief investment officer at the Baird Funds, said that while the worst dislocation of the viral economy is now starting to wind down, the uncertainty ahead will shape and potentially surprise the bond market, as credit downgrades, low interest rates and more play out for at least the rest of the year as a recovery struggles to to gain a foothold. Also on the show, Preston Ca...

Rusty Vanneman, chiefinvestment officer at Orion Advisor Technology, says that if your asset allocation and investment plan were appropriate prior to the global pandemic, they remain appropriate and proper today, meaning that most investors should not be changing their holdings much in the middle of current troubles, even as they look for opportunities going forward. Vanneman believes that there w...

Angus Deaton of Princeton University -- winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Economics -- discusses rising trends in 'deaths of despair' -- from suicide, overdose and addiction -- and how capitalism must change to stem the tide, but also how the health care system must change coming out of the viral economy to face new and different challenges ahead. Also on the show, Andrew Foster of Seafarer Capit...

Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management, said that while the stock market is struggling and not yet showing compelling values, he is confident that a rebound is coming globally and that the United states -- and specifically domestic large-cap growth stocks -- will lead the way for investors looking to climb out of the hole put in their portfolio by t...

Nick Niziolek, co-chief investment officer at Calamos Investments, has been watching how China, Korea and emerging markets are recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, and while he is not expecting a snap-back globally, he calls the progress and the speed of the recovery 'encouraging,' and says  he expects to see similar progress domestically as the US moves through the viral cycle. Niziolek note...

Jeff Schulze, investment strategist at ClearBridge Investments, says his company's 'Recession Risk Dashboard' shows that the economy is now fully in recession territory and that it could be the worst recession ever, but he notes that thanks to policy response, it will not become a depression. While he expects recovery to take a little longer than many expect -- just because the market will want to...

Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest, says in the Big Interview that with experts warning about how bad the next few weeks could be from the standpoint of spreading the coronavirus, it leaves investors waiting to see just how deep and how long a resulting recession will be, and what the recovery side of this picture will look like. Despite that cautious talk, Bell notes that wh...

Jim Welsh, portfolio manager at SmartPortfolios, says that in the standard bear market, there is a 'reflex rally,' which is what he feels the market has been going through for roughly the last week, but that the stock market typically can't hold that rally for long before testing new depths. That's why he believes another significant drop lies ahead --  on that could shave nearly 400 points off th...

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at the Independent Advisor Alliance, says that the economy and the stock market are poised to improve from current levels -- although he is not yet ready to call the decline a market bottom and won't try to time one -- but he warned that 'better' could be only part way back to 'normal.' He did say the market ultimately will be higher, though he said it's...

Ed Shill chief investment officer at QCI Asset Management, says in the Market Call that as the market has moved from overbought in January to dramatically oversold in March, investors should have started looking for opportunities to buy and take small steps to take money off the sidelines and start taking advantage of the bargains. Also on the show, Paula Fleming of the Better Business Bureaus tal...

Steve Friedman, senior macroeconomist at MacKay Shields, says the global fixed-income picture is such that investors are going to see rates near zero and potentially going negative in the U.S., an unprecedented move that is necessary because 'the economy is coming to a sudden stop,' forcing central bankers to maintain liquidity and income investors to diversify broadly. Before that Big Interview,...