Money Life with Chuck Jaffe

Crit Thomas, global market strategist at Touchstone Investments, acknowledges that he is giving potentially controversial advice in suggesting that with interest rates still rising investors might look to buy longer-duration bonds, but he thinks that rates will peak soon and that investors who stay completely focused on short-term bonds will find themselves with significant re-investment risk -- the chance that they will be looking at lesser returns when bonds mature -- in a year or two. While he is not going way up the maturity scale, Thomas is looking to position both fixed-income and equity portfolios for a recovering and changed market and economy in the next two years. Also on the show, Chuck discusses the relative success -- or lack thereof -- that active managers have had in beating their passive benchmarks this year with Tim Edwards, managing director of index investment strategy, S&P Dow Jones Indices, discusses the rising percentage of Americans with long-term credit-card debt -- at just the wrong time to have it -- with Ted Rossman of CreditCards.com, and these strange times we are living through call for some "Weird Financial News" with stories about Elon Musk, donkey penises and more.

Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares, says that the dividend aristocrats have grown their payouts beyond even the current levels of inflation, which makes them — along with companies that benefit from rising rate environments- the sweet spot for tilting a portfolio now. In The Big Interview, he also discusses how to tilt a fixed income portfolio for today's challenging conditions. Also on the show, Ken Tumin, founder and editor at DepositAccounts.com, talks about what rising interest rates have already done to consumers and savers and says that the next, upcoming rate hike is not going to reward savers looking for a safe place to keep pace with inflation. And in the Market Call, Brad Lamensdorf of the The Lamensdorf Market Timing Report and chief executive officer at Active Alts, discusses the need to be selective about shorting stocks, because the ebbing tide right now is not taking all companies out with it.

Thomas Samuelson, chief investment officer at Vineyard Global Advisors in Denver says that last week's inflation news and other current conditions have increased the potential for recession, and he notes that the historical decline for a bear market with a recession is 35 percent, which will have the market testing June lows and likely going deeper, potentially dropping the Standard & Poor's 500 to the 3,000 to 3,200 range. In The Danger Zone, David Trainer of New Constructs singles out Affirm Holdings, a buy now, pay later shop that has seen its stock price fall from roughly $175 to under $25 in the last year as a zombie stock with real potential to go to zero. And we revisit a recent conversation with billionaire David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group, one of the world's most successful investors and philanthropists.

Brent Schutte, chief investment officer at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co., says that history shows that when inflation has peaked, the stock market has bottomed, and he believes inflation peaked in June, which along with other conditions means that the bottom is in. Still, he notes that the market will be "discomfortable" as the economy moves back and forth from inflation to recession. He does believe that a mild recession is still coming, but that things will look and feel a lot better when these conditions pass more completely. His take on the market bottoming draws some agreement from Leo Leydon, president of Financial Focus Advisory Services, who examines the market's technicals and says that there is the potential for the market to set a bottom and start a climb from here, though he believes the market will likely be sideways and volatile through the end of the year. Also on the show, Kyle Brown, president and chief investment officer at Trinity Capital, explains how double-digit yields are possible -- and relatively safe and stable -- in a rising-rate environment, and talks about how the economic slowdown is impacting the high-growth, venture-backed, early-stage companies that his business-development company finances, and Chuck talks about final expense insurance and why he keeps being pitched this product by cold callers.

Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Capital Management, says that he believes current inflation-rate statistics are over-stating the problem, caused in part by backward-looking data mixed with the human nature of forward-looking investors. He expects a step-back in inflation measures, though it may be 2023 before that happens. Meanwhile, Ablin says that the market's reaction to Tuesday's Consumer Price Index news was overdone, but he expects the market to trend lower and while he's still investing in equities, he's keeping some money on the sidelines waiting for conditions to improve. And speaking of the sidelines, Ablin talks about how some of that money was moved into gold, which did not function as expected as a hedge against inflation, but which he expects to improve in that role heading into 2023. Also on the show, Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management discusses the "Ethereum merge," and how it represents a significant change and upgrade in certain key cryptocurrency technologies, and what other cryptos will have to do in order to keep pace. Tom Lydon, vice chairman of VettaFi, makes a utilities fund his ETF of the Week and Chuck answers a listener's questions about refinancing and buying homes during a rapidly changing interest rate and housing market.

Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, says economic risks right now are "skewed to the upside," noting that gas prices could reverse course in the fall; with the market showing Tuesday that it can't handle service prices rising even as oil prices fall, Torres says that the picture could get ugly if gas prices rise and other prices keep going up too, increasing the need for the Federal Reserve to act and the likelihood of a recession next year. Also on the show, author Gary Weiss discusses his latest book, "Retail Gangster: The Inside Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie," Greg McBride, Bankrate.com's chief financial analyst, covers bank fees -- one of the few areas where prices are mostly coming down right now -- and Kevin Rendino, portfolio manager/chief executive officer for 180 Degree Capital, discusses "value turnaround investing" in the Market Call.

Carly Garner, senior commodity strategist at DeCarley Trading says that "despite all the scary fundamental stories and headlines we read," the cache of money that investors have now will be put to work in stocks to bonds, creating enough momentum to overcome the emotion and volatility she expects for the market in the next year. She also believes that gold and silver -- which have heretofore been ineffectual hedges for inflation -- could be sleeper sectors poised to wake up, especially if the dollar is -- as she expects -- at or near its high for this cycle. The Book Interview features the return of David Rubenstein to the show; the co-founder of The Carlyle Group has a new book out today. "How to Invest: Masters in the Craft" covers expertise from a wide range of investment gurus, and Rubenstein discusses who he wishes he could have added to the list, why he included cryptocurrency in the book despite having mixed emotions on it, and why he didn't just write a book filled with his own investment insights, and more. And in The Big Interview, Matt Peron, director of research at Janus Henderson Investors, discusses how dividend payouts reached a high as the stock market was reaching its first-half lows and what that means for the market and for income-producing stocks moving forward.

Money Life wraps up its interviews fro FinCon 2022 in Orlando with eight different talks today, finishing with Joe Saul-Sehy of the Stacking Benjamins podcast, who notes that in his years attending the meeting of bloggers, podcasters and content creators he has seen a change in the Financial Independence, Retire Early crowd, where many people enjoy the concepts and are practicing elements of the discipline without going to extremes. Also sitting down with Chuck at FinCon for today's show: options trader Jason Brown of The Brown Report, Anthony Weaver of the About That Wallet podcast, financial educator Rachel Murphy on raising money-confident children, Ashley Patrick of Budgets Made Easy on how inflation has impacted the budget-making process, financial planner Walter Russell, James Gaudino of the10minutetrader.com, and FIRE practitioners Allison Tom and Dylin Redling of Retireby45.com.

Cheryl Pate, senior portfolio manager for the Angel Oak Financial Strategies Income Term Trust, says that community banks stand out as a part of the financial sector that is poised to benefit into 2023, as banks will likely see the bulk of continuing rate hikes fall directly to the bottom line. Still, she favors bonds to stocks in the sector. When that interview for The NAVigator is finished, the action moves to FinCon22 in Orlando, where Chuck interviews Robert Farrington of The College Investor, financial educator Stacy Mastrolia -- "Prof Stacy" -- Lee Huffman of We Travel There, Asma Alsalmeh of the Latte Money podcast, and financial coach Kim Hunter-Borst.

Chuck heads to Orlando for FinCon '22, the annual conference of content creators, financial coaches, educators and more, and he samples some of the expertise speaking with Doug Nordman of MilitaryFinancialIntelligence.com about whether veterans have been treated any differently by the market in this downturn, Monica Scudieri of GrabYourSlice.com, Jason Parker of RetirementBudgetCalculator.com, and Emily Guy Birken, who recently started YourOneGoodThing.com. Plus, Tom Lydon goes nuclear with his "ETF of the Week."