Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

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StockCharts' de Kempenaer; Don't jump in front of this 'freight train' of a market Jun 22, 2026

Show notes

Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts, says the stock market right now is "technology against the world," and he expects that it will turn and correct, but he's not willing to put his portfolio on the line and move early, because it would put him in the path of a speeding "freight train." de Kempenaer says he can "hear what the bears are saying," and doesn't necessarily disagree with them, but he says he needs to see more signs of weakness -- like the market starting to favor defensive sectors even as it is rising -- to suggest that a downturn is near.

Yalena Maleyev, senior economist at KPMG Economics – a member of the Outlook Survey Committee for the National Association for Business Economics – discusses the June 2026 NABE Outlook Survey, released today, which had the economists calling for lower and slower economic growth, higher inflation and a longer time before the Federal Reserve eases interest rates. The median expectation for personal consumption expenditures (PCE), the Fed's preferred inflation measure, rose to 3.6% for the fourth quarter. Despite those worrisome economic numbers, nearly two-thirds of the economists surveyed expect that the U.S. can forestall a recession until 2028 or later.

In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses Kevin Warsh's debut as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, which included a hawkish stance, no dot plot or forecasting help, and a terse public statement. He also discusses the news that Charles Schwab Corp. is planning to enter prediction markets, which he says could speed up both public acceptance and regulatory scrutiny of prediction markets, and he gives his take on why the housing affordability problem is worse right now than it generally gets credit for.

Plus, David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, puts the State Street S&P Kensho Final Frontiers ETF in the Danger Zone, noting that while the fund gets a five-star rating from Morningstar, it is filled with stocks "that are losing money hand over fist, all going after a very trendy topic ... which is hard to quantify," a condition that he says reminds him of the Internet bubble days.

John Hancock's Miskin says IPO boom could be a sign of a bubbly market Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management, says that the current stock market has been driven to record highs on the back of strong earnings that have overpowered economic concerns, but he notes that the stock market bubble that inflated during the Internet boom of the late 1990s grew on the backs of companies with no real earnings. As a result, with IPOs like SpaceX dominating the headlines, Miskin is preaching caution, noting that these attention-grabbing stocks are coming public without profits. Miskin says that's a rising risk, but that inflation is less of a risk than it was just a few months ago, and he believes there may be pockets of downturn or slowdown, but that should push investors to diversify, rather than to overhaul a portfolio or back away from equities.

Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, looks at a free-cash flow factor fund that has a stellar track record and that will celebrate its third birthday next week for his ETF of the Week. The birthday is important because it makes the fund eligible for ratings that will signal its stellar performance even more strongly to investors.

Ken Burdon, partner in the registered fund practice at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, discusses a recent Supreme Court ruling that's a game-changer for activist investors in closed-end funds. Critics of activism have long held that professional arbitrageurs used federal courts to pressure closed-end funds into deals that benefit activists' at the expense of the long-term objectives of ordinary shareholders. Burdon says the decision doesn't stop the activists from pursuing cases but removes a key path that activists took to pursue their actions much more quickly and easily.

Interactive Broker's Sosnick: 'I can't fight the tape, but I can't embrace it either' Jun 17, 2026

Show notes

Steve Sosnick, chief market strategist at Interactive Brokers, entered the year expecting the stock market to be down in 2026, and while stocks have overcome the gravity he saw weighing it down, he thinks there is trouble on the horizon. "We've become very detached from basic fundamentals and very much focused on ... betting the longshot, that it's going to come in," Sosnick says in today's Big Interview. "Either we reach an extreme level and grow into it ... or we overshoot the target and have to correct a bit and I hope it's nothing worse than a garden-variety correction."

Catherine Yoshimoto, director of product management for the Russell U.S. Indexes at FTSE Russell, discusses the 2026 semi-annual Russell U.S. Indexes Reconstitution, which is underway now and concludes on June 26. The process — which resets the index but also defines the size it takes for a stock to be large-, small- or micro-cap is-resetting the bar for large-cap investments at roughly $5.7 billion. That's up nearly 25% from a year ago, reflecting huge gains for the Magnificent Seven stocks (up nearly 50% in size from a year ago) but also broad-based growth across market segments.

In the Market Call, Kathy Boyle, president of Chapin Hill Advisors, talks about using ETFs to play defense, leaning into precious metals and commodities and other areas to protect against downside risk that she expects will materialize when the market starts to lose its momentum.

Value investor Davis on how investing is changing in the age of A.I. Jun 16, 2026

Show notes

Chris Davis, chairman and portfolio manager at Davis Advisors discusses how every technological revolution — dating back to the days of the printing press but extending to the artificial-intelligence boom bow — goes through the cycle of "Amara's Law," in which the effects of a technology are overestimated in the short run but underestimated over the long term. As a result, Davis says investors are putting too much into the hype phase around AI, without looking at the long-term picture. Davis, in The Big Interview, echoes his recent paper on "Investing in the A.I. Age," which suggests that companies will fall into five categories: "emerging winners, enablers, users, insulated businesses and the walking dead," and talks about how investors can navigate the changing market and avoid the pitfalls of the latest technological evolution.

Davis is not the only value manager discussing the current market on today's show. In the Market Call, John Dorfman — a long-time classic value manager and the chairman of Dorfman Value Investments — gives his take on how current conditions have created some changes to the investment processes that have defined his career, noting that they are subtle but substantive in delivering better returns than many investors expect the value style to deliver in a growth-dominated market.

In today's "Talking Technicals" segment, Matt Fox, president of Ithaca Wealth Management, says that the stock market is poised for more gains and new highs, and that investors should "hold on and ride the trend higher for sure." Fox discusses technical measures based around long-term trends, and he sees the Standard & Poor's 500 suprassing 10,000 and the Nasdaq 100 45,000 in "around two years." While he does see garden-variety corrections occuring in that time frame, Fox set S&P 7,000 as a key support level, noting it is possible there's a setback that low, even as the overall trend is upward.

Man Group's Hooper: A priced-for-perfection market is poised for trouble Jun 15, 2026

Show notes

Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist for Man Group, says the market is entering a "greater discernment phase," where companies have been priced for massive growth and "incredibly high standards," setting up potential disappointment as investors become more picky while the AI revolution plays out. Hooper says this is a natural progression, one that investors saw during the Internet boom, as it started to fade. "I don't consider it a bubble," Hooper says, "but I do think that there is a timer that's ticking. Many investors are expecting to see monetization sooner rather than later; we don't know how much time they will give some of these companies." Hooper says the market's strong start to this year has lowered her expectations for the rest of the year, making her more pessimistic, raising the possibility of a technical recession — two quarters of negative GDP growth — as the economy works through its issues.

In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, says that the record-breaking initial-public offering of SpaceX didn't change his mind about owning the stock, and in fact raised more issues about whether the hype around the company's "total addressable market" is real. He also discussed whether 2026 — with Anthropic and OpenAI also set for huge stock launches — is the "Year of the IPO," warning it may be more a time when venture capitalists are cashing out. Plus, he examines an alarming statistic about planned capital expenditures as a percentage of incoming revenues for the hyperscalers, a level currently set so high it's reminiscent of the end of the Internet boom.

Kyle Guske, investment analyst at New Constructs, revisits Cava Group, which was first in The Danger Zone before its IPO in June of 2023. The stock is up about 100% since last November, but Guske says that just raises the potential for it to crater, again (it lost half of its value late last year), which is why it's back in the Danger Zone now.

Northwestern Mutual's Schutte: 'We're in economic cycle overtime' Jun 12, 2026

Show notes

Brent Schutte, chief investment officer at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co., says that the current economic cycle is in "overtime," a point where the stock market gets narrow. As the cycle ends, however, he expects the market to broaden out, which could carry it higher, just driven by small-cap stocks and other industries. As a result, he says investors should stick to their plans and not let their portfolios get too focused on what has worked lately. "This is where, if you are an individual investor, your job is to get from Point A to Point B to Point C in your life. The way that you do that is that you don't concentrate, which can win magnificently and lose magnificently, and if you lose magnificently, you're not going to get back on track."

In the "Talking Technicals" interview, Thomas Samuelson, chief investment officer at Vineyard Global Advisors, says the technical underpinnings of the market are solid — though he also took notice of the narrow bands of strength — and sufficient to avoid deterioration into a bear market while the market focuses on the earnings story. "We're pushing $400 a share for earnings next year for the [Standard & Poor's] 500," Samuelson said. "If it trades at 23 times (earnings), you could get up to 9,000. That's 24% higher from here."

John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors, says that index discounts in municipal bonds and taxable bonds are wide compared to their three-year history, which is creating good opportunities for investors to find closed-end funds trading at wide discounts but supported by improving fundamentals. Scott, who also is chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, uses his firm's "trifecta analysis" to select four funds as exemplars of the opportunities available to income investors now.

Glenview's Stone: 'Earnings are the fuel that sends stocks higher' Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

Bill Stone, chief investment officer at Glenview Trust, says that the stock market "continues to price in that the Iran conflict is going to be over [soon]," which has kept the focus on blockbuster earnings numbers, which have been so strong that they have overcome virtually all economic and stock market concerns. He expects that earnings trend to continue, powering the market through some summer doldrums to where it finishes the year on a positive note. "Stocks don't go up short-term always with earnings but, long-term, earnings are the fuel that sends stocks higher," Stone says; with the earnings trend in place, he says long-term investors should be less concerned about worrisome headlines about inflation, war and more.

Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, looks at the Procure Space ETF (ticker: UFO) as his "ETF of the Week," noting how the fund has been a rocket ship this year, and that it will be worth watching as the SpaceX IPO launches this week and markets adjust to having that big-name stock joining the space-race sector.

In the Market Call, Hank Smith, head of investment strategy at The Haverford Trust Co., discusses the benefits of companies that pay growing dividends and that have an A-rated balance sheet.

Crossmark's Fernandez: Market needs a pause, but can regroup by year end Jun 10, 2026

Show notes

Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments, says that she is expecting the market to suffer some late summer doldrums as seasonal economic impacts end and mid-term elections put their traditional damper on enthusiasm, but that there will be some support for the market near year's end, making for "a positive year, but nothing like we've seen in the last two years." She acknowledges that makes her forecast a bit more sour than many observers, but says she thinks the market is showing signs of rotating and broadening out, and that change will slow down stock gains. Also contributing to that will be continued economic uncertainty; Fernandez does not expect a recession, but noted that stagflation could be hard to avoid if inflation gets higher and stickier and the War in Iran continues past the end of this month.

In the Market Call, Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services — which publishes "The Best Dividend and Income Investments" newsletter — discusses the firm's analytical system, called Quadrix, for sizing up a wide range of factors, and notes that a lot of the stocks that have been leading the way have fundamentals that should allow them to keep going strong from here, regardless of the broad economic storm clouds that are making many investors nervous.

Plus, Chuck answers a question from a listener who thinks his strategy of trying to make his baby grandson a millionaire in 65 years is "just showing off," because "Really, how much will a million dollars be worth then?"

Bridgeway's Pozharny: AI infrastructure boom 'will make builders poor and users rich' Jun 09, 2026

Show notes

Jacob Pozharny, portfolio manager for the Bridgeway Global Opportunities Fund a market-neutral fund that looks at global macro factors — says that every infrastructure boom in history has led to massive capital expenditures, to the point of over-capacity, then demand destruction and a cycle that leaves users better off but hurts the companies that get caught in the mix. He cites railroads, telecommunications dot-com companies and more as examples and he says that "boring industries " will be the users of AI and the long-term winners, which will benefit small-cap and emerging-market names.

Dryden Pence, chief investment officer at Pence Capital Management, says in the Market Call that he looks for "chokepoints of new technologies," places where consumption is creating demand imbalances that working to the long-term benefit of many of the market's biggest names

Matt Zajechowski discusses research published by Lemon Law Experts, which looked at over a million National Highway Traffic Safety Administration consumer complaints filed in the last decade and found six of the 10 worst-rated vehicles overall have been discontinued, but remain widely available on used lots. He says higher car prices are forcing more lower-income consumers to consider cars that the public dislikes.

NDR's Kalish says solid fundamentals will keep overpowering global econ worries Jun 08, 2026

Show notes

Joe Kalish, chief global macro strategist at Ned Davis Research, says 2026 has had surprising narratives but unsurprisingly solid results, and he expects that to continue, without significant recession risk or big trouble ahead. Kalish discusses often overlooked economic numbers, like a financing gap where demands to fund capital expenditures outstrip available capital and the level of real gross value added for non-financial corporations (essentially, GDP for things other than financial companies), to explain how and why this economy looks healthier than the worrywarts think it is. He does outline his concerns, but thinks the economy can overpower most or all of them in fairly short order.

David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs, says that the new wave of huge initial public offerings like SpaceX and Anthropic puts index-fund investors in The Danger Zone, noting that indexes are considering changing rules to quickly accommodate the new stocks, which creates artificial demand that will further drive the prices of the stocks up. That creates potential for index investors to effectively be overpaying to get into the IPOs, and also leaves them vulnerable if the stocks fall off after the initial excitement. While the rules changes are up in the air, Trainer says the pressure to change rules and include fresh IPOs changes the landscape for the future.

In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses the market's message to Broadcom, which exceeded earnings expectations but failed to raise future guidance on AI-driven revenues; he says the market is punishing "sandbagging," a practice of understating expectations so that they are easy to beat, but he says the big price drop created a buying opportunity for investors. He also discussed the heightened volatility around the positive jobs report, which he says is based on the fear of a hike in interest rates that he says long-term investors should not be too worried about. Plus, he examines Bitcoin, which has lost about one-quarter of its value in less than two months, which he says is testing traders faith, but which isn't making him nervous as a long-term buy-and-holder.

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