Speaker 1: Alright, the time is nine minutes past the hour. It's
Speaker 1: time to get to our guest, Loreeen, Gilbert, CEO at
Speaker 1: Wealthwise Financial, on this historic day. Loreen, thanks very much
Speaker 1: for joining us here. Kind of a quirky question for
Speaker 1: you first here as we get started, is it time
Speaker 1: to retire fomo from our essential lexicon in the markets? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: people have had a favorite missing out. But you know,
Speaker 1: right now, it's just wrapping up the rest of this
Speaker 1: year and understanding where we are and looking forward to
Speaker 1: next year. As far as the markets are concerned, and
Speaker 1: it's been a rough year for investors definitely, in both
Speaker 1: fixed income and inequities, and many investors, you know, really
Speaker 1: don't know what to do. But if we look forward
Speaker 1: and we look ahead, we do see some opportunities in
Speaker 1: the market. Specifically, we like a lot of things in
Speaker 1: fixed income in the shorter term and in equities where
Speaker 1: we like once again emerging markets as the dollar kind
Speaker 1: of rolls over in weekends. Yes, I'm actually larn that,
Speaker 1: you know, as your markets is a broad brush, but
Speaker 1: you know where most specifically, I mean, would it be
Speaker 1: the likes of China and the China's of this world,
Speaker 1: perhaps there's a lot of people have been gaining more
Speaker 1: faith in India. What's the deal with you? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: we're actually looking at Latin America is one area of
Speaker 1: interest as well as as well as the Pacific rim
Speaker 1: um for emerging markets. So, you know, it's been hit
Speaker 1: hard this year with the dollar being as strong as
Speaker 1: it has and and but now that we see that that,
Speaker 1: we do think the dollar is going to weekend once again.
Speaker 1: I think it's time to be looking at all of
Speaker 1: an international again. And then in the developed areas, we
Speaker 1: love Japan and the UK. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting when we watch the data in the US economy
Speaker 1: and then what we can learn about the global economy
Speaker 1: as a result. On the one hand, you had consumer
Speaker 1: confidence today um jumping to a very high level, highest
Speaker 1: we've seen in eight months. On the other hand, you
Speaker 1: know home sales existing US home sales weekend for like
Speaker 1: the tenth month, and it's a record retreat, right, so well,
Speaker 1: the interesting part about the consumer numbers were the expectations
Speaker 1: that were the first time above eighty this year. They
Speaker 1: rose to eighty two point four, which was a remarkable improvement,
Speaker 1: and that was directly a result of you know, gas
Speaker 1: prices going down, uh, inflation starting to moderate, so that
Speaker 1: the consumer is feeling a little bit better about things.
Speaker 1: But just like you said, with rates as high as
Speaker 1: they are interest rates with housing, we also saw a
Speaker 1: number of thirty two percent of homes were being purchased
Speaker 1: with all cash, So people who are mining homes are
Speaker 1: looking at ways to avoid those high interest rates. But
Speaker 1: we haven't seen the full effect of higher interest rates yet,
Speaker 1: and that will be the lag that goes into effect
Speaker 1: next year. What we heard from consumers is they're thinking
Speaker 1: about not buying the big goods that we saw in
Speaker 1: the past, but more focused on services and vacations and
Speaker 1: those kinds of things, and not really buying those big
Speaker 1: ticket items like cars and washers and dryers and things
Speaker 1: and and and and stocks and cars, washers and drivers
Speaker 1: and stocks. Not not buying you think, and is that likely? Well, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I think that the consumer has
Speaker 1: actually still been investing in the market. So did you
Speaker 1: say stocks, Yeah, it sucks, Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1: It kind of just a playful question that really basically
Speaker 1: talked about obviously markets and people buying, uh buying or
Speaker 1: selling equities. But I'm sure my colleague was shot as
Speaker 1: a question for you, I wanted to have have a
Speaker 1: think about this arena because you know, we're looking at
Speaker 1: SMP five under targets and web people were positioning themselves
Speaker 1: and analyss overall going underweight cons You miss staples. Doesn't
Speaker 1: that surprise you? If we're heading into a recession, it
Speaker 1: does a prize. It is surprising because we know everybody's
Speaker 1: talking about a recession, so the typical recession plan would
Speaker 1: be consumer staples. Right, But um, I think just right now,
Speaker 1: what we've seen, especially this year is within each sector
Speaker 1: and category, there's been a huge divergence as far as
Speaker 1: equity returns. So not writing off all of consumer staples,
Speaker 1: but looking carefully to where you're investing, and I would
Speaker 1: say that in every sector that there is, there's been
Speaker 1: this huge divergence and returns with the insectors. So it's
Speaker 1: really looking within the sectors to say where are the opportunities.
Speaker 1: And like you said, it is somewhat confusing that people
Speaker 1: would not look to consumer staples because if we think
Speaker 1: we're going to go into recession, then yeah, yeah, Lorene,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious. We'll go ahead and finish your thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so an area that we like quite a bit would
Speaker 1: be on the industrial side. So we think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's more of a value place still versus a growth
Speaker 1: play in the market, and we do see opportunities in industrial.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think about how the economy and society
Speaker 1: look after we get through this, and I'm just wondering
Speaker 1: whether or not you've had a chance to think about this.
Speaker 1: Are we moving to yet another new kind of new normal,
Speaker 1: one with higher rates, more inflation, and workers um that
Speaker 1: have a lot more flexible hours and approach to our Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: on your question, what I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: is that when whenever we come out of a bear market,
Speaker 1: there's usually new leaders that lead us out and new
Speaker 1: leaders that continue. So many investors are going to get
Speaker 1: stuck in some of those older names that did really
Speaker 1: well in the past cycle that may not be the
Speaker 1: leaders going in this next cycle. And what I see
Speaker 1: is I think AI is finally coming of age. We've
Speaker 1: been talking about it for thirty years of how AI
Speaker 1: going to really be implemented, and it finally is the
Speaker 1: implement And like you said about workers, one of the
Speaker 1: things that companies are looking at is how can they
Speaker 1: use AI to decrease the amount of labor that they need,
Speaker 1: and with changing labor force and not as many people
Speaker 1: working and all of those things. So you think AI
Speaker 1: is of age and looking at those companies that are
Speaker 1: you need to see different companies purchasing other AI companies
Speaker 1: and implementing them into their company and then what can
Speaker 1: that do to our society to help us move forward?
Speaker 1: But what are you actually seeing that in terms of
Speaker 1: that space? Then, I mean you're u seeing real value propositions. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you look at what's uh, you know, Google's
Speaker 1: definitely outfits working on this implementing AI, at Microsoft buying
Speaker 1: open AI. And so we see these different companies that
Speaker 1: are purchasing other companies or really thinking through AI, um
Speaker 1: Rockwell automation. Looking at that all of these kinds of
Speaker 1: companies and what is that going to mean for our
Speaker 1: society and how can they be leaders going forward? And
Speaker 1: here's a little bit of a quirky question as well.
Speaker 1: A lot of these big tech companies have become almost
Speaker 1: like staples. Would you expect them to start paying dividends
Speaker 1: and higher dividends? I think dividends. We've seen many companies
Speaker 1: move towards dividends, definitely as a way to pay back investors,
Speaker 1: and and and investors right now have have been looking
Speaker 1: for that as income was lower in the fixed income space,
Speaker 1: having some kind of income from equity perspective. I think
Speaker 1: that that trend will continue. I definitely think so. I
Speaker 1: think investors are looking for income and companies I think
Speaker 1: will be looking at paying more dividends. All right, Loreen,
Speaker 1: thanks very much for joining us. Loreen Gilbert, CEO at
Speaker 1: Wealthwise Financial on the line from Laguna Beach. She probably
Speaker 1: was out on the lanai or out on the beach
Speaker 1: picking her stocks, getting ready for our interview.