Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, says the economy is strong and "not looking at a recession here," but  that hot economy benefits cyclical stocks rather than the Magnificent Seven stocks, and that limits just how much the market can gain ground. With technology "set for a down year," the other areas of the markt can't generate enough gains — even in a robust economy — to make 2026 positive. He also notes the market has been running in a "three year on, one year off" cycle, and he thinks that will impact tech companies this year." Torres still expects rate cuts and thinks any downturn will be relatively short lived and not too deep, but enough for where investors should adjust their expectations.
John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors, sizes up the prospects for the first new IPO the closed-end fund industry has seen in several years, and from a surprising source. Robinhood markets, the investment platform, will launch next week Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a concentrated portfolio of private companies. Scott, who also serves as chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, discusses the role private equities can play in a portfolio, as well as the challenges investors face in sizing up a fund with a net asset value entirely based on the "value" of illiquid shares that don't trade in public markets.
Billy Hensley, president of the National Endowment for Financial Education discusses the group's recent poll on how American adults view their financial well-being, which found that seven of eight respondents were feeling some form of financial stress as they entered the year, with more than three-quarters of all respondents having suffered a financial setback in 2025.

Greg Daco, chief economist at EY, says the economy has been dealing with historic and conflicting economic shocks, but if it can continue the current capital investment cycle and see the productivity gains promised by artificial intelligence, it should be able to remain resilient in pushing past wobbles and weakness. Daco, who currently serves as the president of the National Association for Business Economics, discusses his concerns that growing polarization between different consumers and businesses are increasing the fragility of what he calls "the A pillars of economic growth" — affluent consumers, A.I. investment and asset-price appreciation economic growth — and how that creates "pockets of risk" that could change the cycle. 
Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, leans into signs that the stock market has been broadening to make an equal-weight fund his ETF of the Week, noting that the balanced construction creates a very different take on the market than the traditional index fund covering the same ground.
Mike Bailey, director of research at FBB Capital Partners, brings his "beat and replace" methodology back to the Market Call, discussing how secular change in industries and economies creates the upgrading opportunities he looks for.

Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for the Carson Group, says that February and March could be "banana peel months" for the stock market to slip on, but he's not expecting a significant downturn and he says the underpinnings for the stock market will keep the bull market running through at least the end of the year. Detrick noted that the market has sent some mixed messages — with about 20% of stocks making 52-week highs while 6% made 52-week lows just last week — but he says that a strong economy with a dovish Federal Reserve can overcome geopolitical concerns, creating an environment where investors should be "overweight equities, but diversified around the globe."
Dan Doonan, executive director for the National Institute on Retirement Savings, discusses their latest report, "Retirement in America: An Analysis of Retirement Preparedness Among Working-Age Americans," which has made headlines for suggesting that the average working American has less than $1,000 saved for retirement. Doonan is quick to back away from that number — because it includes the many Americans who have nothing saved and who aren't working to change that — but notes that while retirement balances are much higher for people who put in the effort, there remains a savings crisis in America.
 Gil Baumgarten, founder and chief executive officer at Segment Wealth Management, brings his dividend-and-income focused approach to stock picking back to the Money Life Market Call.

David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, says the intensity of competition in the artificial-intelligence business is setting up a path for big winners and losers, and he says that it's nearly time "to see a lot of the companies in the AI race fall out." Trainer cits cash flows turning negative, and says that accounting tricks have hidden much of the problem by allowing companies to keep some debts off of balance sheets. When focusing on what he calls the real debt level of the companies, Trainer says "the cash flow for these companies is highly negative and it cannot be sustained." Further, Trainer notes that with so much money committed to the development of A.I., there is no guarantee that the companies that get in trouble will find a market waiting to take them over once the financial troubles hit.
In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses how last week's software sell-off isn't changing his take on how "Software will eat the world," but it is a symptom of how the speed of development is amping up investor concerns about the A.I. revolution. He also discusses how and why the "Sell America" sentiment has been building, and why the Dow Jones Industrial Average — and not the Nasdaq Composite or the Standard & Poor's 500 — is leading the way for market gains early this year.
David Bach, author, "The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich," celebrates the revised, 20th anniversary edition of the book and the countless people it has helped by getting them started small towards long-term lifelong savings and living goals. Bach — who last appeared on Money Life a decade ago with the 10th-anniversary edition of the book — discusses how time and technology have changed, but how they also have helped savers reach their goals more easily.

Ted Oakley, founder and managing partner at Oxbow Advisors, says that he expects the market to be setting new highs but to challenge some serious lows, hurt by high valuations, current economic conditions and the election cycle. "This will not be a real strong year for the market, and if you make money, you will have to know where to invest and when to invest," Oakley says. He notes that he is more invested internationally in the last 18 months than he has been in years, due largely to lower valuations abroad, and he is also keeping some powder dry expecting better opportunities when the market gets shaken through patches of volatility.
Chris Oberbeck, chairman and chief executive officer at Saratoga Investment Corp., says that  increases in default rates are more of a return to normal than a sign of trouble for business-development companies or the economy. Between a bankruptcy and fraud case like First Brands and softness in the software business, Oberbeck thinks that recent activity is more a hangover coming from a time of particularly low defaults, rather than a sign of something bad building up.
In the Market Call, Simon Lack, managing partner of SL Advisors — which oversees the American Energy Independence Index — talks about energy and energy infrastructure stocks, as well as how current events in Venezuela are likely to affect oil stocks and energy markets.