WEALTHTRACK

Target-date funds have $3 trillion dollars in assets. Millions of Americans are enrolled in them, mostly through company 401(k) plans. They have a track record, multiple products, plenty of competition and fees are declining as a result.  In an article titled “In Praise of Target-Date Funds,” one of our favorite WEALTHTRACK guests, Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance, Christine Benz described them as “...nothing short of the biggest positive development for investors since the index fund.” That got my attention! So this week we are interviewing one of the best target-date managers in the business. He is Wyatt Lee, who is Head and Co-Manager of T. Rowe Price’s $390 billion Target Date Strategies, the largest group of actively managed target-date products in the U.S.  The firm’s Retirement Series earned a Gold analyst rating from Morningstar, one of only two in the actively managed category, for its stellar performance and high ratings for its process, people, and the parent company.  Lee begins with the basics and defines what a target-date fund does and how the product has evolved since it was first introduced in 1994. It turns out target-date funds can be an effective retirement vehicle for investors at all stages of life and that there are many options available. I learned a great deal from Lee. I hope you will too.  WEALTHTRACK #1834 broadcast on Febuary, 18, 2022 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/target-date-fund-advantages-with-t-rowe-prices-wyatt-lee-one-of-the-top-managers-in-the-business/

Yankee legend Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s deja vu all over again,” one of his many memorable expressions. That’s the way I feel this week.   The “deja vu all over again” is the theme of “Don’t fight the Fed.” The Federal Reserve's recent pivot from inflation promoter to inflation fighter puts that adage front and center in the current debate between the bulls and the bears. This week’s guest has been following that dictum during his 40-year investment career. He has been bullish since the Fed opened the monetary spigots in 2009. He is Ed Yardeni, a Ph.D. economist, long-time Fed watcher, and investment strategist who is widely followed by institutional investors.  He is also the author of several books.  The latest, In Praise of Profits! is dedicated to progressives to help them understand that “profits isn’t a four-letter word.”  Another Yardeni book is Fed Watching for Fun and Profit: a Primer for Investors, which we discussed in-depth in an earlier interview. In that book, he wrote: “To do this job well, I've learned that nothing is more important than to anticipate the actions of the Federal Reserve system’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which sets the course for monetary policy in the United States.”   Given the Fed’s change of policy from easing to tightening I asked Yardeni if he was becoming less bullish.  WEALTHTRACK Episode #1833 broadcast on February 11, 2022 More Info:https://wealthtrack.com/despite-higher-inflation-and-interest-rates-ed-yardeni-makes-the-bullish-case/ Bookshelf: Fed Watching for Fun & Profit: A Primer for Investors https://amzn.to/3BhlQ9i In Praise of Profits! https://amzn.to/3uKvDng Martin Zweig’s Winning on Wall Street https://amzn.to/3uJJvOr

We appear to be in a new investment era, one of higher inflation and higher interest rates. It is a huge change from the “great moderation,” the multi-decade stretch of low inflation and falling interest rates since the early 1980’s. With consumer prices soaring to 40-year highs the Federal Reserve has pivoted from its unusual role as inflation promoter to its traditional role of inflation fighter, which signals higher interest rates ahead. Major macro shifts like these are always turbulent. How to navigate them without damaging your portfolio or psyche is our focus this week. Our guest is well suited to tackle this challenge because of his track record of capital preservation and long-term compounding. Noted global value manager Matthew McLennan has a proven track record of building lasting wealth by investing in resilient investments, including gold. WEALTHTRACK Episode 1832 broadcast on February 04, 2022 More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/resilient-investments-including-gold-are-matt-mclennans-method-for-building-lasting-wealth/ Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson:  https://amzn.to/3rs2n2B

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/