Every year at this time we are delighted to welcome Wall Street’s long-reigning number one economist, Ed Hyman to share his outlook with us.  And we always pair him with a leading portfolio manager with a global investment view. For the fourth year in a row, our choice is First Eagle’s, Matthew McLennan. In the first of this two-part series on the Outlook for 2020, our focus is on the U.S. Last year Hyman correctly forecast the now record-breaking economic recovery would continue and that a recession was several years away. We’ll find out what his view is now and get McLennan’s assessment of the U.S. markets. Ed Hyman is a Wall Street legend. Vice-Chairman of Evercore, a leading independent investment banking and advisory firm, Hyman is the Founder and Chairman of its Evercore ISI division and leads its economic research team. He has been voted Wall Street’s Number One Economist for an unprecedented 39 years in Institutional Investor’s annual survey. No one else comes even close to that record. Matthew McLennan, a noted global value manager is Head of the Global Value Team at First Eagle Investment Management where he oversees more than ninety billion dollars in assets, including several funds. His flagship First Eagle Global Fund which he inherited from legendary value investor Jean-Marie Eveillard in 2008 carries Morningstar’s Five Star and Bronze Medalist Analyst ratings and has outperformed both its World Stock Index and World Allocation category since its 1979 inception. WEALTHTRACK #1625 broadcast on December 20, 2019 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/positive-2020-outlook-for-us-economy-says-wall-streets-1-economist-ed-hyman

There is a retirement crisis in this country. It is becoming more apparent as 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day. A recent Wells Fargo survey found that more than eight in ten current retirees fund their retirement primarily with Social Security, or a pension; just 5% do so from personal savings such as an IRA or 401(k). Seven in ten retirees say they would have “no idea what they would do” without Social Security. Contrast them with younger generations who expect savings to be the top source of their funding; 45% of millennials say they must rely on IRAs or 401(k)s and only 25% expect to rely on Social Security or a pension. No matter what income group you look at savings makes a huge difference. The top 10% of savers in all income groups, from the highest to the lowest consistently held 10-20 times the retirement wealth of the bottom 10% of savers. What has caused the retirement crisis and are there policy and personal solutions to fix it? Two retirement experts will join us with some answers. Teresa Ghilarducci is a Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research where she is Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) and the Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab), which researches the causes and consequences of the retirement crisis. Ghilarducci is a co-author with former WEALTHTRACK guest, Tony James of Rescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee Retirement Security for All Americans. Jamie Hopkins is Director of Retirement Research at Carson Wealth, and Finance Professor of Practice at Creighton University College of Business. Hopkins a frequent WEALTHTRACK guest is an expert on retirement income and author of Rewirement: Rewiring the Way You Think About Retirement.  WEALTHTRACK #1624 broadcast on December 13, 2019. More info at: https://wealthtrack.com/americas-do-it-yourself-system-is-failing-many-retirees-answers-from-two-retirement-experts/

Last week’s podcast with influential and outspoken economist David Rosenberg generated a tremendous amount of traffic and comment. We are running part 2 this weekend. Rosenberg had been predicting the end of both the record-breaking U.S. recovery and bull market this year. Needless-to-say it hasn’t happened, and he is the first to admit he missed this year’s impressive run in large-cap stocks as a result. However, his recommendation to own long-term Treasury bonds has paid off. Year-to-date the 30-year has delivered about a 20% return. Rosenberg who is known for seeing emerging economic patterns before most others do, sometimes a couple of years early, is sticking to his guns in forecasting that a U.S. recession is imminent and is very concerned about the damage the record-breaking load of U.S. and global debt, what he  calls “the mother of all credit bubbles on steroids” will have when it occurs.   What was intended as one session with us turned into two because he had so much evidence to share about global and domestic conditions and the state of the financial markets. Last week he made his case for recession. This week his focus extends to the markets and recession resilient investments.   As we mentioned last week, Rosenberg is launching his own macro research and strategy firm in January, Rosenberg Research and Associates. He explains why he decided to make that long-held dream a reality in our EXTRA feature on WEALTHTRACK.com. In the meantime, he remains as Chief Economist and Strategist at Toronto based wealth management firm, Gluskin Sheff. More info at: https://wealthtrack.com/slowing-economies-record-levels-of-debt-are-a-dangerous-mix/

Influential economist David Rosenberg lays out a persuasive case for the end of the record-breaking economic recovery in part one of a two-part WEALTHTRACK conversation. WEALTHTRACK # 1662 published on November 27, 2019.

Do corporations need a new purpose? Does the free enterprise capitalist system need a major overhaul or a tune-up? We have two guests with strong views on the topic. Ken Langone is Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Invented Associates. He is Co-Founder of the Home Depot where he was Lead Director and a member of the executive committee of its board from its founding in 1978 until 2008. He is a noted philanthropist and the author of I Love Capitalism!: An American Story. He is joined By David Gardner, the Co-Founder, and Co-Chairman of The Motley Fool, a global online investing service launched with his brother Tom in 1993. Motley Fool’s purpose is to make the world smarter, happier and richer by helping individuals become better investors. WEALTHTRACK #1621 broadcast on November 22, 2019. More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/is-corporate-americas-focus-on-profits-the-problem-with-capitalism-two-entrepreneurs-respond/

As the Dow and S&P 500 hit new records this week, there is much to contemplate and for the markets to digest in the final weeks of 2019. Time to consult Jason Trennert of Strategas Research Partners, a financial thought leader who has the scope to put it all together and tell us what it means. WEALTHTRACK #1620 broadcast on November 15, 2019. More info: https://wealthtrack.com/recession-bear-market-risks-with-financial-thought-leader-jason-trennert/

We are always on the lookout for the exceptional on WEALTHTRACK.  It’s not easy to find among actively managed mutual fund managers. Only 23% of actively managed funds in all major categories, including stocks, bonds, and real estate outperformed their passive index fund rivals over the last ten years. And only about 8% of U.S. large-cap funds outperformed passive, the smallest margin among all active fund categories winners.  No wonder that active U.S. stock funds are experiencing substantial outflows and passive stock funds are gaining assets. In a historic shift, passive assets in U.S. equity funds recently surpassed those in actively managed ones for the first time ever. This week’s guests are bucking all of those trends. They are active managers in primarily large-cap U.S. stocks. They have been beating the market and peers by substantial margins over the last decade and they are attracting more assets. Joining us for a rare interview is Chuck Akre and John Neff of Akre Capital Management WEALTHTRACK #1619 broadcast on November 08, 2019. More info: https://wealthtrack.com/finding-compounding-machines-with-the-great-investor-chuck-akre-his-gen-x-co-manager-john-neff/

Socially responsible investing has taken off and interest in it is accelerating.  As we’ve reported before on WEALTHTRACK, U.S assets invested in companies screened for ESG, or their environmental, social and governance policies grew 38% from 2016-2018 by more than $3 trillion to $12 trillion dollars.  According to U.S. SIF, or the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, which tracks these funds, that $12 trillion represents 26% or one in four dollars of the $46.6 trillion of U.S. assets under professional management. This week’s guest is a leader in the relatively recent field of fixed income ESG investing, as well as the new area of impact investing in public fixed income markets, where bond proceeds are directed to a specific project or goal and the results are measurable. He is Stephen Liberatore, lead portfolio manager at TIAA Investments for responsible investment fixed income mandates that incorporate ESG criteria. Liberatore will discuss what he looks for as a socially responsible bond investor in a field that has traditionally been dominated by equity investors. WEALTHTRACK #1618 broadcast on November 1, 2019 Learn more: https://wealthtrack.com/bonds-with-social-impact-with-five-star-fund-manager-stephen-liberatore/

If you were to follow legendary investor Sir John Templeton’s advice to buy where there is maximum pessimism it might lead you to energy stocks. The energy sector has lagged the S&P 500 since 2016 and has been one of the worst if not the worst-performing industry sectors over the last year. The fossil fuel industry has been hit with an almost perfect storm of headwinds and instability among major petroleum producers outside of the U.S. The ongoing trade wars between the U.S. and China have also started to take their toll on global economic growth, increasing the downward pressure on demand for fuel. What’s the outlook for traditional energy producers? Are they still viable investments or are they on their way to being phased out? Joining us to discuss the role fossil fuels continue to play in energy production and the state of the oil and gas industry, in particular, is Tom Petrie, a financial thought leader in the sector and chairman of Petrie Partners a leading investment banking and consulting boutique to the oil and gas industry. Petrie is the author of Following Oil: Four Decades of Cycle-Testing Experiences and What They Foretell about U.S. Energy Independence.  WEALTHTRACK #1617 broadcast on October 25, 2019 More info: https://wealthtrack.com/political-economic-pressures-on-oil-gas-stocks-industry-veteran-tom-petries-reality-check/

The economy and markets are facing multiple headwinds. But the cumulative real growth of the economy, that’s excluding inflation, is far below other post World War II recoveries. That growth is now being challenged on several fronts - enough to derail the U.S. economy and the record-breaking bull market in large-cap stocks? In a slow-growth world, growth commands a premium. Large-cap growth stocks, particularly the largest U.S. ones known as mega-caps have dominated market performance, revenues, and earnings over the last decade with a few short-lived challenges from value stocks. Will they continue to do so? This week’s guest is a newcomer to WEALTHTRACK, but not to the investment business. She is Margaret Vitrano, Co-Portfolio Manager of the high performing ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Fund Vitrano and her Co-Portfolio Manager Peter Bourbeau also oversee ClearBridge’s All Cap Growth Strategies along with Large Cap Growth which adds up to nearly $50 billion under management. Of particular interest is the team's “three-bucket” approach strategy to large-cap growth which Vitrano believes has protected their portfolios in down markets. She will also discuss their treatment of the FAANGs in their portfolios and why they are currently overweighting Facebook. WEALTHTRACK # 1615 broadcast on October 11, 2019. More Info and Hersh Cohen “Dividend Compounders List” are available at: https://wealthtrack.com/growth-stocks-with-downside-protection/