Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Ed Clissold, chief US strategist at Ned Davis Research, says that economic indicators continue to look fine, but that growth is now driven by artificial-intelligence capital spending and wealth-effect spending by consumers who have benefitted from the rising market, which means that the positive trends can continue ""provided you don't get something that knocks the market on its back." Clissold worries that Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh "may have backed himself to a corner here," putting him in position to hike rates soon, although he is clear that one or two hikes, historically, doesn't derail market trends. Likewise, higher Treasury yields shouldn't disturb economic growth until they get north of 5.25%. Clissold does expect headlines about oil prices, higher bond yields and election uncertainty to hit the market in September and October but — barring something unforeseen — expects that decline to presage a year-end rally. 
John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors, returns to answer listener questions, delving into whether funds stuck with large discounts are actually a bargain if the discount is never narrowed and captured by shareholders. Scott, who also serves as chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, discusses how discounts change a fund's risk profile, providing benefits even if they remain mostly unchanged over time. He also answers questions on achieving balance in a portfolio of closed-end funds, the drawbacks and benefits of using funds that invest in closed-end funds and more.
Plus, Chuck goes off the news with Louis Hoch, chief executive officer at Usio — a payment-solutions company — to discuss the upcoming deadline in a $38 billion antitrust settlement in which Visa and Mastercard were accused of charging too much to process payments on their credit cards. The settlement in the case — which dates back more than 20 years — could have hidden costs for consumers, as it frees up merchants to add additional surcharges and to reject entire classes of cards, such as rewards cards which traditionally carry higher costs for the retailer.

Jack Janasiewicz, lead portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers, says that the market's ability to keep running depends on the "up and to the right" trend continuing, and he expects that to continue even if the slope of the line gets flatter. There's a difference, Janasiewicz says, between a slowing economy and a slow one, noting that slowing conditions can still be a good backdrop for corporate earnings — "which is really all that matters here" — rather than a slow market, which opens the door to recession. For that, his outlook is for a slower economy without a recession, even if long-term Treasury yields creep higher, as he believes the economy can withstand higher rates and higher oil prices so long as those conditions don't become extreme.
Nicholas Epley, author, "A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection" — who says he studies "mind-reading ... how we make inferences about each other's thoughts, beliefs and attitudes and mostly how we screw that up and misunderstand each other in lots of ways" — discusses America's loneliness/isolation epidemic and how people should choose to engage more often because those interactions are good for physical and mental health. He talks about a recipe for making your world friendlier, especially in times when that feels so difficult.
In the Market Call, Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments, discusses the mix of art and science he puts into evaluating stocks, using valuation metrics, earnings quality, profit margins, balance-sheet health and more for determining the best relative companies across each industry group.  He notes that the market's trends on beating earnings estimates remains a very strong broad-based trend, going beyond artificial-intelligence and tech companies to the smaller sectors.

Macro strategist Jim Welsh, publisher of the Macro Tides and Weekly Technical Review newsletter, says that the advance-decline line has been making new highs for months, which is a signal that "the odds of experiencing a significant decline is unlikely," so while he thinks there are storm clouds on the horizon that could cause a 7-10 percent market decline around mid-term elections, he thinks a secular bear market is still well off into the future. After the short-term correction, Welsh sees the market returning to higher highs, based on what he sees in the advance-decline line. Still, Welsh makes it clear that there is a long-term secular bear market ahead, but it won't arrive until investors "have a really good reason to sell;" that could still be a ways off, until something truly problematic shows up in the data. 
In the Market Call, Jay Hatfield, chief executive officer at Infrastructure Capital Advisors, talks about the importance of getting the macro right before digging into the micro on stocks. In analyzing the macro, Hatfield says conditions should be supportive for continued growth, though he worries about a "totally irrational" rate hike from the Federal Reserve — but also is concerned about the impact that a rate cut could have — could make the market and economy struggle.
Plus, after Tuesday's conversation about annuities with Stan Haithcock — better known as "Stan the Annuity Man" — Chuck answers a listener's question about whether he has an annuity for his own long-term finances

Stan Haithcock — better known as "Stan the Annuity Man" — says that while higher interest rates may make annuity products more attractive right now, the real bargain is that life-expectancy tables have not been adjusted for the advancements artificial intelligence is creating that will lengthen life expectancies. Payments in the future will be lower, Haithcock says, "but current life expectancy tables are a bargain ... and in about two or three years you will see that change." Haithcock — who has called himself "the walking middle finger of annuity truth" — notes that with 15,000 people turning 65 every day and just 9% of the population covered by pensions, "it's a demographic tidal wave of people looking for guarantees and looking to put in an income floor." He discusses the best ways to do that — buying an annuity "for what it will do, not what it might do" —  with various types of annuities, and which products and sales pitches to walk away from.
The bond market sold off last week, pushing long-term bond yields to levels unseen since 2007, at the same time copper prices went through their 10th straight week of rising prices to get close enough to record levels that a new peak is expected this week. In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, says that the numbers are real but market concerns over them are temporary. He expects the market to shake it off, meaning there are buying opportunities hidden among the headlines. Marolia also discusses an analysis released last week by the Burning Glass Institute — a labor-market think tank — showing that unemployment among workers ages 22 to 34 without a college degree has dropped to levels it has barely touched in the last two decades, which he thinks speaks to bigger trend on the value of a college education.
Plus, Cary Sinnett, director of personal financial planning for the American Institute of CPAs, discusses their recent survey showing that Americans don't just love their pets, they make personal financial decisions around them. More than 60% of American dog and cat owners have a budget for spending on their pet, but nearly 7 in 10 say that, if faced with having to cut household spending, they would be more likely to cheap out on themselves ratehr than their pets.

Veteran technical analyst Tim Knight, founder of SlopeofHope.com, says precious metals "are going to kick the socks off equities for a long while to come," noting that it might be less that they gain ground than that they hold their status while stocks go in the tank, but he says conditions are ripe for a market downturn, as early as the end of this year after midterm elections. Knight, who acknowledges that he is something of a perma-bear — says he expects the market to be "very, very supportive of all things A.I. until Anthropic is out {with its initial public offering]," at which point it will evaluate the future and whether the expected A.I. spending boom can continue. If there is a misstep at that point and the A.I. revolution slows "it would dwarf the housing crisis if, suddenly, the spigot turned off."
John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors — the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance — discusses how business-development companies are rebounding from rough times earlier this year when net asset values crumbled as the market worried about too much exposure to parts of the software industry that could be negatively impacted by continued development of artificial intelligence. Scott says that the A.I. risk for BDCs appears  overblown, since "We're still not seeing software blowing up BDCs," though he does think it may take another two quarters of data to confirm that trend. Scott also notes that BDCs have not seen "exacerbated losses," meaning the dire forecasts have yet to play out in portfolios.
In the Market Call, Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel, talks about buying "Rip van Winkle stocks" and long-term compounders and how hard they are to find in a world dominated by artificial-intelligence hyper-growth stories that could turn out to be a flash in the pan.