Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Martin Pring, publisher of the InterMarket Review and chief investment strategist at Pring Turner Capital Group, says that "all measures of valuation ... are up in the stratosphere,"  which means the market is entering "a very dangerous period on a long-term basis." For now, however, Pring stressed that "trend trumps level," meaning that the valuations won't derail the market on their own, because the trend has remained to the upside. Still, he says that could happen soon, noting that the market has been climbing a big mountain during the current rally, but it is currently nearing "the death zone," where it runs out of oxygen. Ryan Kimmel, fixed income allocation strategist on the macro allocation team at DoubleLine, discusses the dilemma investors are in as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics faces challenges in producing monthly employment figures, noting that the issues are more about declining survey participation than they are any sort of politicization of the numbers. Kimmel says lower response rates force the statisticians to rely on "imputed data," which then requires bigger, more dramatic revisions, which can reduce public trust in the numbers. He notes that the key number he is watching will be initial jobless claims; he currently pegs the probability of recession at 30 to 50 percent, but says it would go significantly higher if initial jobless claim trends shift higher. Stephen Davis, closed-end fund product specialist at Nuveen, says that price returns exceeded net asset value (NAV) gains for closed-end funds in 2025, which means that discounts were narrowed. With those thinner discounts, it could be hard for that trend to continue in the new year. Still, Davis sees potential opportunities in municipal bond and senior loan funds in 2026.

Ben Cook, portfolio manager for the Hennessy Energy Transition Fund, says that the removal of Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro "will do little to change the global balance for the supply of crude oil" and says the situation is unlikely to have much price impact. He worries more about how tensions in Iran and the Middle East could impact markets if they take a turn for the worse. Cook also notes that government policies have changed investment prospects in classic energy companies compared to alternative energy developers and says he expects that trend to continue. With the stock market again flirting with record highs, Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, looks to an actively managed large-cap fund as his "ETF of the Week," saying that the T. Rowe Price U.S. Equity Research fund  can serve as an adjunct or replacement for a classic index fund in a portfolio, especially for investors hoping to gain an active edge. Chip Lupo discusses the latest credit-card debt survey from WalletHub.com, which showed that nearly 40 percent of consumers expect to have more credit-card debt at the end of the year than they have now, with roughly the same percentage of Americans feeling like they will carry credit debts for the rest of their lives. Plus, Chuck goes off the news on the request that the NCAA recently made to securities regulators to suspend "prediction markets," which are regulated differently from gambling — and are treated more like investments by law — but which have the potential to improperly influence outcomes, athletes and the investors/gamblers drawn to them.

Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bank Asset Management, says that he expects the stock market to overcome the worries and concerns that could make for volatile times, en route to a fourth-straight year of double-digit gains in 2026.  by the time the year is done. Haworth says his target for the Standard & Poor's 500 this year is 7,625, though he says he won't be surprised to see a double-digit decline somewhere along the way. Doug Fleener, author of "Start With What If: Weekly Questions to Spark Immediate Change and Growth," talks about how taking a pause to ponder change, asking a simple what-if question and then making a decision can lead to fresh thinking and life changes by getting people past the habits, fears and mindsets that limit or impact their actions. Plus Chuck discusses President Trump's proposal for capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, a move the president wants in place by next week. Chuck says that however well-intentioned the idea is — and there has been bi-partisan legislation proposed for this kind of action in the last few years — there would be consequences beyond what shows up on a monthly account statement.

Warren Pierson, co-chief investment officer at Baird Funds, says that investors should be concerned with factors like rate cuts, the independence of the Federal Reserve, sticky inflation and more, but in spite of all of those factors, "We still see good value in the bond market ... and investors don't have to take a lot of risk to get that value." He discusses how to unlock that value and much more in the Big Interview. On the stock market front, Lawrence McMillan, president of McMillan Analysis and editor of the MarketWatch Options Trader, says he is bullish about stocks right now, with most technical indicators pointing upward. McMillan does expect the market to broaden out and says volatility may increase but so long as the VIX volatility index doesn't show too much stress, he thinks the rally can continue. The Book Interview today makes a rare foray into fiction, as author Frank Hamlin discusses his novel, "Skinny Dipping at Low Tide: A Saga of Squeezed Shorts, Shattered Dreams, and Embarrassing Riches" The book, released today, is fashioned loosely on GameStop and other meme stock situations — Hamlin was working at GameStop when it became a popular meme stock — and delves into what happens on the inside of a company when its stock goes viral and the fortunes of investors seem disconnected from business operations and tied entirely to sentiment.

It's a wide-ranging day on the show, starting with "The Week That Is," where Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, says that while the latest Jobs Report showed that unemployment remained high, investors and observers should not worry as current levels represent nearly full employment, particularly at a time when people can hold jobs in new and different ways. That gives the Federal Reserve room to cut rates, Marolia says, especially if it is willing to settle for inflation running closer to 3 percent rather than pushing to get to its historical target of 2 percent. As a result, Marolia says investors have to prepare and invest for higher inflation, especially in an environment where tariffs are fueling economic growth, because no matter what happens with the tariff case in the Supreme Court or the inflation numbers ahead, prices will not be coming down. David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, digs into artificial intelligence and how it is making classic stock-picking and fund-management techniques obsolete, because he believes it eliminates much of the edge a manager can gain by trading actively. He does agree with a recent interview with David Snowball of MutualFundObserver.com who said that less is more when it comes to active management, but says that A.I. — and having the best possible A.I. — is now the big determinant of which strategies can win on Wall Street. John Yoegel, author of "Real Estate Investing in Plain English. Definitions. Examples. Uses" discusses the real estate market and the ins and outs of buying income-producing properties as an alternative to stocks, bonds and cash. And Chuck discusses the latest concerns over the Federal Reserve's independence after Fed Chair Jerome Powell pushed back on Sunday against a Justice Department's investigation into his previous congressional testimony, and discusses how the allegations could impact outcomes in ways that go well beyond rate cuts.