Thoughtful Money with Adam Taggart

Well, the first-ever Thoughtful Money conference was held online this past weekend and I’m delighted to say the event was a real success. That was due primarily to the amazing line-up of speakers who presented and took live audience Q&A throughout the insight-packed 9 hour day. Lacy Hunt delivered the keynote, followed by Stephanie Pomboy, Michael Pento, Ted Oakley, Michael Lebowitz, Danielle...

For a long time now, passive capital inflows have powered equities higher, especially the Magnificent 7, as a tremendous percent of every new dollar that flows into the market goes into these 7 stocks. But some of these once-bulletproof companies are now starting to struggle. And those passive capital inflows? There are emerging signs they may be stalling, perhaps even starting to reverse. If true...

Stocks pretty much ended the week where they began. Is the raging rally that has propelled stocks higher so far this year finally running out of gas? Quite possibly thinks portfolio manager Lance Roberts. Valuations remain at extremely stretched extremes for many assets including story stocks like Nvida, speculative assets like Bitcoin...and even gold. As he has been predicting for several weeks n...

To better understand the current economic environment we find ourselves in, it helps to better understand how we ended up here. And few have as detailed an understanding as today's guest, who has been a true insider in both Washington DC and Wall Street for his extremely long & accomplished career. We're fortunate today to speak with former Congressman, economic policymaker & finan...

Since the October lows, stocks have roared back to record highs, and bonds have risen solidly as US 10yr Treasury yields have dropped from 5% to near 4% Will the bull run continue through the rest of 2024? It is an election year in America after all. Or, have the animal spirits carried assets to unsustainable prices, putting us in danger of a painful sell-off? To find out, we have to good fortune...

When today's guest was on this channel back in December, he explained that rising net liquidity was responsible for the surprisingly strong performance seen in both the economy & the financial markets in 2023. And he predicted that these net liquidity inflows would continue, leading to even higher asset prices ahead. Well, here in the final month of Q1 2024, things so far have played out a...

Well, another week, another all-time high in stocks. Valuations are now stretched to extremes only seen near a bubble top, and volatility is low...too low. The odds of a pull-back, perhaps a larger correction, are concerningly high enough to make this now a time to hedge your positions, advises portfolio manager Lance Roberts. In this video, he & I discuss how much more room to run high fliers...

The media is full of reports that the economy is in fine shape due to a "strong" and "resilient" consumer who has held up much better than expected during the recent years of high inflation and high interest rates. But has the average consumer truly shrugged all that off? Or are they in worse shape than we're being told? For a deep dive into the true state of the US consume...

As the stock market trades at all-time highs, is this a great time to continue to ride the bull rally? Or has the getting been too good for too long? Is it instead now a good time to take gains and wait for a correction? Today we'll hear answers to these questions from Chance Finucane, Chief Investment Office at Oxbow Advisors.  Oxbow Advisors is a financial advisory firm founded by Ted Oakley...

The economy is chugging along at more robust GDP growth than many expected. Inflation has moderated and unemployment remains low. Many, including Wall Street for certain, have bought into the soft landing -- or no landing at all -- narrative. We're in a Golidilocks era they tell us. Bears should stop worrying, admit they've been wrong, and join the party. So, is that truly the case? For an...

Investing great Ray Dalio said this week: "The stock market doesn't look very bubbly". But Bank of America just released a new report titled: "The S&P 500 is egregiously expensive" Who's closer to right? Portfolio manager Lance Roberts leans more towards BofA's assessment, though that doesn't mean the current mania in stocks can't run higher. But given t...

Inflation has been called the invisible tax. Economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that, through it, "Governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens" in a process that "engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." Which...

Back in 1996, Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan famously said: "How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions?" It was a prophetic question, as the stock market soon after became caught up in the mania of the DotCom bubble, reaching unprecedented levels of overvaluation followed by a prec...

Well, the average home price in America remains just about as unaffordable as it's ever been. In fact, a recent report from real estate data provider ATTOM examined the median home prices last year for roughly 575 U.S. counties and found that home prices in 99% of those areas are beyond the reach of the average income earner. And to add insult to injury, 30-year fixed mortgage rates just rose...

The S&P is at yet another record high in a week that saw the second-biggest 1-day gain in market cap in history after Nvidia (NVDA) delighted investors with blowout revenue& earnings growth. The bulls are stampeding hard now and FOMO-driven momentum chasers are back. Stocks remain solidly in short-term overbought territory. Valuation metrics of many companies like price-to-earnings & p...

One of the most frequent requests from Thoughtful Money viewers is for a discussion focused on investing for income. Well, that's what we're delivering here. Steven Bavaria, author of the book 'The Income Factory: An Investor’s Guide to Consistent Lifetime Returns' joins us to share his framework for constructing a lower-risk portfolio of income-generating assets that include: high...

After decades of moving towards increased globalization, the aftermath of the supply-chain vulnerabilities revealed by the COVID pandemic, as well as the geopolitical fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, are pushing the world order into a more fragmented state. If trade globalization has indeed peaked, what does that mean for the future of the major world economies and for asset prices?...

Inflation for January rose higher than expected. Is this a one-off blip? Or is it a sign that the remaining inflation in the system is "sticky", and going to prove harder for the Federal Reserve to get under control? Some analysis have been warning that we may be falling into the same trap as we did in the 1970s, which saw a series of rollercoaster surges and drops in inflation until Fed...

The S&P 500 is now solidly above 5,000. Stocks have shrugged off "bad" data like higher inflation numbers & disappointing retail sales -- nothing at the moment seems able to dampen Wall Street's euphoria. And little surprise, retail investors are now piling into the markets, eager not to miss the party. These are classic late-stage signs of a topping market. Portfolio manager...

Narrative drives so much of the thinking today, especially when it comes to the markets. To prevent becoming unduly influenced by it, it's important to ground ourselves in data. We should ask first: what is the data saying? And then we can judge whether the current prevailing narratives are consistent with it. So, what is the current data telling us? To find out, we're fortunate to speak t...

The officially-reported headline GDP, jobs and inflation numbers look pretty rosy right now. But how much of that is due to actual, healthy sustainable economic activity vs extraordinary government intervention? Deficit spending as a percentage of GDP is currently at heights not seen outside of major wartimes and government jobs have surged, total federal employment reached its highest level in at...

According to the official data - be it economic growth, disinflation or jobs -- things could hardly be better. But if you talk to a regular person on the street, they're likely to tell you that times aren't that great, and getting tougher. Why is the prevailing narrative so disconnected from the reality on the ground? And where are things likely to head from here? To tackle this conundrum,...

The S&P finally hit a new all-time high of 5,000 this week. So does this milestone give the market the green light to rocket higher? Or is this the right time to lock in recent gains by starting to sell? Portfolio manager Lance Roberts thinks the latter is more likely, especially as the S&P remains quite overbought here from a technical perspective. Which is why his firm is going to begin...

Markets seem pretty convinced that 2024 is experiencing, in the words of US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, a soft landing. But what if everyone is wrong? And if they are wrong, which assets are cheap right now and what will happen to the market? Steen Jacobsen, Chief Economist and Chief Investment Officer of Saxo Bank, has been pointedly asking these questions of late. And today, we're going...

A few days ago, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee released its latest policy decision, followed by a press conference by Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The Fed kept interest rates unchanged, and reiterated that it thinks it's making good progress getting inflation under control while protecting the jobs market. Soon after Powell's conference, in a live event available only to Thoughtful...