One of the biggest changes of the past year has been the record number of Americans who are quitting their jobs. It’s so pronounced that it has a name. It’s called “The Great Resignation.”  What The Great Resignation means for retirement planning is just one of the items on Christine Benz’ financial to-do list this year. Another major area of focus is adjusting to much higher inflation. Consumer Prices increased 7% in December versus a year ago, the fastest increase since 1982 and the third month in a row that inflation exceeded 6%.  This elevated rate of inflation presents a big planning challenge.   Benz, who is Morningstar's Director of Personal Finance, is joining us for the fourth year in a row to help us get in financial shape for a new year and will tackle these important changes among others.  WEALTHTRACK #1829 broadcast on January 14, 2022 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/rising-inflation-interest-rates-expensive-markets-call-for-reassessing-retirement-plans/ 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances: https://amzn.to/3FlPtGZ Morningstar Guide to Mutual Funds: Five-Star Strategies for Success: https://amzn.to/3fmW2i5

Part 2 of 2 Legendary value investor Bill Miller is betting big on bitcoin. The digital currency and some related crypto investments now account for half of his personal investment portfolio. In part two of our interview with Miller, he discusses his rationale for taking such an outsized position, including why he has converted from being a self-described bitcoin “observer” to a bitcoin “bull” and why he is adding to his holdings when the currency has big declines.  Since Miller is also celebrating his 40th anniversary in the investment business we delve into how much the investment landscape has changed and how his value approach has evolved over the last four decades. The conversation is not about Miller Opportunity Trust, it's about his personal portfolio.  I began the interview by asking Miller why he has gone so big on bitcoin.  WEALTHTRACK #1828 broadcast on January 07, 2022 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/investment-legend-bill-miller-has-50-of-his-personal-portfolio-in-bitcoin-related-investments/ Bookshelf:  The Intelligent Investor: https://amzn.to/3F4Dpd6 Reminiscences of a Stock Operator: https://amzn.to/3zy39O1

Great value investor Bill Miller remains the only fund manager to beat the market for 15 consecutive years. He discusses his current core holding winners and some recent promising additions to his legendary portfolio. WEALTHTRACK #1825 broadcast on December 17, 2021

Since WEALTHTRACK’s inception, it’s been an annual tradition to sit down for a rare in-depth interview with Ed Hyman, Wall Street’s number one-ranked economist for an unrivaled forty-one years. Hyman is a Wall Street legend known for his comprehensive, yet succinct daily bullet point reports on the economy covering multiple data points including his team’s proprietary company surveys covering a wide range of businesses. Last year at this time the U.S. was emerging from lockdowns, vaccines hadn’t been distributed, Covid was resurfacing, fatalities were up but the economy and markets were rebounding sharply. That was not a surprise to Hyman because of the massive amount of monetary and fiscal stimulus pouring into the economy.  As a matter of fact it was the major reason   Hyman predicted on WEALTHTRACK a year ago that 2021 would be a “blow out” year in terms of both economic and corporate earnings growth. How would he describe it in retrospect and what are his economic and market expectations for 2022? Hyman answers those questions and more. WEALTHTRACK #1824 published on December 10, 2021

Three successful women portfolio managers discuss what it takes to succeed in money management, including their best and worst decisions and crucial career advice.    WEALTHTRACK #1823 published on November 30, 2021 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/how-to-make-it-on-wall-street-advice-from-three-successful-women-portfolio-managers/

Part 1 of 2 Only 11% of U.S. portfolio managers are women. Three of them describe how they are “tearing down the pink wall” starting with their educational and job choices in part one of our two-part series. WEALTHTRACK #1822 published on November 24, 2021 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/from-education-to-job-choices-how-3-women-have-become-successful-portfolio-managers/

It's hard to keep a roaring bull market down. The S&P 500 marked its 66th record close of the year today and the NASDAQ Composite also hit a new peak. The strong performance once again raised the question: what to do with the dominant position mega-cap tech stocks have in most of our stock portfolios. It is a particular challenge for growth fund managers because that’s where the growth and performance has been for the last decade, especially the past few years.   This week’s guest, Margaret Vitrano, and her ClearBridge team saw the high concentration of big tech in their portfolios last year as high risk and a threat to the diversification they see as essential to delivering their historically strong returns with downside protection. They met that challenge by reducing some significant winning positions and actually closing out a big one last year. Understanding why she did it and how she feels about it now can help the rest of us who face similar decisions.    We’ll discuss why they made those sales and where they invested the proceeds as well as how they apply ClearBridge’s longstanding and rigorous ESG standards to their portfolios. WEALTHTRACK #1821 broadcast on November 19, 2021 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/de-risking-the-dominance-of-mega-cap-tech-stocks-with-leading-growth-manager-margaret-vitrano/

Worried about inflation, especially after October’s big consumer price number? The CPI’s 6.2% increase from a year ago was the fastest 12-month gain since 1990 and the fifth month in a row of +5% inflation.  What about rising interest rates? How about America’s economic standing in the world?    Be prepared to question many of the negative assumptions you have been hearing and listen to some other data that shines a different light on the outlook. Our guest is a highly respected economist who is no pollyanna. She is just a top economist who looks at data many others miss.   Nancy Lazar is Partner and Chief Economist of Cornerstone Macro.  Lazar and her team are challenging the assumptions that higher inflation is here to stay, that interest rates have to go higher and that emerging markets will be the driver of global growth post-pandemic.    I began our conversation with the capital spending question. In a traditionally consumer-driven economy, why is capital spending going to play such an outsized role?  WEALTHTRACK #1820 broadcast on 11-12-21 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/u-s-manufacturing-resurgence/

The demand for socially responsible investing strategies is growing and the cash flowing into them shows it. Exchange-traded funds with ESG characteristics - ESG of course stands for environmental, social, and governance - have attracted the lion's share of equity money in recent years.  In true “follow the money” form, Wall Street has taken notice. There are now many different kinds of socially responsible investment products to choose from. One you don’t hear a lot about is values and faith-based investing, a niche that has been around for decades through separately managed accounts and a few mutual funds.  This week’s guest just might change their low profile. He is a widely followed market strategist and successful investor, Robert Doll, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager at Crossmark Global Investments which he just joined this year.   Doll will fulfill two missions for us. He’ll explain what values and faith-based investing means and update us on his current assessment of the markets and recommended investment strategies.      WEALTHTRACK #1819 broadcast on November 05, 2021 More Info: http://wealthtrack.com/values-and-faith-based-investing-with-veteran-strategist-bob-doll/

There's a saying on Wall Street that the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.  And there’s a widely held financial theory called “Reversion to the Mean” that asserts that eventually asset classes will return to their long term average in terms of several factors including price, price/earnings multiples, and their performance relative to other asset classes like U.S. stocks. Reversion to the mean for emerging markets stocks has been a long time coming. This week’s guest, Michael Kass who runs Baron Emerging Markets Fund believes their time has come after a very long cycle of underperformance. Kass will make the case for an emerging markets resurgence, especially stocks in the two largest markets, China and India. WEALTHTRACK #1818 broadcast on October 29, 2021 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/new-world-order-of-market-leadership/