Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Edward Yardeni , president and chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research , says "there's a lot of funky stuff going on in the labor market," and that reduced interest rates may not change conditions but could instead impact the market and contribute to a melt-up that helps the bull market roll on. While melt-ups do tend to be followed by a regression, Yardeni does not see the market reversin...

Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network , says that while stock market valuations look high, "they're not crazy either," because the companies are making money at levels that justify the higher prices. He says he is leaning towards value — and holding cash while waiting for buying pullbacks — and away from the biggest names, noting that the Magnificent Seven stock...

John Blank, chief investment strategist and chief economist at Zacks Investment Research , says the conditions are increasingly bringing back the spectre of a recession, with the odds of a protracted economic slowdown now standing at about 50 percent. Moreover, he doesn't believe that the widely anticipated interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve today will really do anything to alter that cou...

Adam Rozencwajg, managing partner at Goehring and Rozencwajg — a fundamental research firm that focuses on making contrarian natural resource plays — says that the rally in gold is far from over, and that "until it gets to at least the long-term average [of its value relative to the market], you are in an aggressive bull market, an aggressive accumulation phase." That average would take gold to ab...

It's a wrap on FinCon '25 from Portland, but not before what Chuck describes as the "single best day of interviews [he has] done at any FinCon that Money Life has attended." Here's the lineup:    — Paul Merriman is a long-time financial advisor, author and retirement columnist — he was writing for MarketWatch before Chuck got there in 2003 and still writes for them today — who has watched the tran...

It's the second day of interviews from FinCon '25, the annual event for financial podcasters, bloggers and content creators being held in Portland, Ore., and Chuck is chatting up fintech entrepreneurs, financial coaches, retire-early advocates and much more. Today's show includes:    — Ravi Wadan, the founder of DriveMatch.com , discusses pre-negotiated car leases and the benefits of leasing onlin...

Money Life begins the first of three days of interviews from FinCon 2025, the annual gathering of financial content creators, which this year is in Portland, Ore., and which lets Chuck showcase a wide range of subjects. Today, those subjects include:  — college savings and the changing landscape of consumers paying off college debt with Robert Farrington of TheCollegeInvestor.com .  — crushing med...

  Jillian Johnsrud , the podcaster behind " Retire Often ," and the author of a new book out this week that goes by the same title, says that a lot of people mess up their retirement lifestyle by not preparing for it with smaller retirements — lasting a month or more — during their prime working years. Not only do these smaller times allow people to recharge and rejuvenate, they become dry runs fo...

Conrad Doenges, chief investment officer at Ranger Investment Management — manager of the Ranger Small Cap and Ranger Micro Cap funds — says that smaller companies have suffered as an asset class because corporate earnings have struggled to meet growth expectations. While there is an expectation that small companies will benefit from a cut in interest rates and from deregulation policies from the...

David Giroux, chief investment officer at T. Rowe Price — named Morningstar's Outstanding Portfolio Manager for 2025 for his work at T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation — says his allocation fund is holding near its highest levels ever of bonds, specifically intermediate fixed-income, largely because he thinks stocks are overvalued and real growth will remain hard to find. Giroux — who has beaten t...

Jim Welsh, author of " Macro Tides " and the "Weekly Technical Review," says he thinks the stock market "is reaching an inflection point," saying that the next time the Standard & Poor's 500 makes new records but without support from the highs in the advance-decline line, he will take it as a sign that the stock market is about to roll over.  Welsh says that several momentum indicators suggest a s...

The Powerball jackpot that went unclaimed on Wednesday night will top $1.7 billion for its next drawing this weekend, and will mark the 13th time in less than a decade that the big prize has been north of $1 billion. Chuck talks about why jackpots have grown this large, how you might use the lottery as a personal finance tool — even if, like him, you never buy a ticket  and why the odds are never...

Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital — manager of the firm's energy infrastructure funds as well as its new AI Infrastructure ETF — says that in a three-decade career, he has never seen a better time to be looking at the energy sector, thanks to being the world's largest energy producer with opportunities to remain the global leader, but also due to the power needs created by...

 Chuck warned listeners a few weeks ago that he had been hit by a computer virus, and that they should not open a spam e-mail that was being sent from one of his accounts. But that was the beginning of his online misadventures, because he hadn't just gotten a virus, he was hacked. Thieves have stolen nearly $4,000 from an online bank account, and they did it right under his nose. He explains how i...

Dana Samuelson, president of American Gold Exchange — a former president of the Professional Numismatists Guild — sees "a meaningful rally in gold" coming once the Federal Reserve makes multiple rate cuts, but adds that turmoil over Fed leadership and concerns that government data could be compromised or less transparent would build "a better bed from gold to rise from." Samuelson said he expects...

 Jeff Clark, head of defined contribution research  at Vanguard , says the firm's latest " How America Saves " report for 2025 shows that consumers are doing a better job of setting money aside for their future, helped by rules that have made it easier for employers to help. The average total savings rate — including both worker contributions plus employer contributions — is now up to 12 percent,...

Chuck became a grandfather for the first time on Sunday and has been planning how he will help his grandson financially for years, but today he chats with financial adviser and author Chris Carosa , author of "From Cradle to Retirement," about "Child IRAs," and how he plans to create an income for the baby and then invest that money into a Roth IRA to provide decades of tax-free growth. Carosa als...

Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares , says that with inflation running above the Federal Reserve's targets — forcing both the Fed funds 10-year Treasury rates higher — there's room for the Fed to cut rates but not much room for the market to respond to it. As a result, he's saying the market has room to broaden out, with small caps likely to be helped out by upcoming Fed cuts,...

Crit Thomas, global market strategist at Touchstone Investments says the market can move higher — though with a path that is more bumpy — and the economy can avoid recession, but he also notes that the market is particularly hard to read because current conditions are dramatically different than many past situations. He cites a lot of reasons — from index concentration to fallout from the pandemic...

 Alan Gayle, president of Via Nova Investment Management , is concerned about economic sluggishness and "how the world is going to look and who is going to win" after tariff and rate changes fully play out. Coupled with a stock market where he sees equities as overpriced, that leaves Gayle wanting to be fully diversified, including a full allocation to domestic bonds but also international stocks,...

Financial journalist Allan Sloan, a seven-time winner of business journalism's highest honor, the Loeb Award, says in his latest piece for Barron's that no investment strategy works forever, and that time is now up on the Magnificent Seven stocks . Sloan notes that during the first seven months of 2025, NVidia and Microsoft accounted for more than half of the gain of the entire Standard & Poor's r...

Lawrence McDonald , creator of The Bear Traps Report , says that as "tertiary assets" like meme stocks and momentum plays have started to break down in the last week, it's a sign that volatility will pick up and that the market  is "coming into a 10 to 20 percent pullback in the next month to month and a half." McDonald says that the selloff will be part of a rotation, that the market broadly can...

Bill Stone, chief investment officer at Glenview Trust , says that there are signs that the economy is slowing, but he believes rate cuts can help the economy keep earnings growth going and can forestall any recession. "Betting against things to get better over the long run is not a very smart bet," Stone says, so he's suggesting investors don't let worries get the best of them now. Stone says tha...

Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at the Carson Group , says that he expects the stock market to go through "a 4% to 6% normal, mild pullback" in short order, a downturn that he says is likely to be good for the market, helping it get ready to benefit from positive economic news and an eventual cut in interest rates. Detrick says that he expects developed Europe to remain strong, and he believ...

Eric Stein, chief investment officer, Voya Investment Management , says that if the economy can muddle through until the Federal Reserve cuts rates, it will be positive for the stock market and the broader economy, allowing for 2026 to be another year that continues the winning streak for stocks. Stein says that he believes markets "get desensitized to similar news over time," and that the current...