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In the last 15 years, we have become so used to just living and dying by the Fed in the equity market. The Fed's cutting, I want to buy. The Fed's hiking, I want to sell. That's the way the market's thought about it. Now, in today's world, where global investors are not as keen to buy U.S. Treasuries as they used to be, there is a strong possibility that the Fed cuts aggressively, and yet the long end doesn't come down.
hello and welcome to the baron streetwise podcast i'm jack howe and the voice you just heard that's bahanu bowaja he's chief strategist for ubs investment bank and he's talking about the fed and no the fed didn't cut this week but bahanu thinks it will have to later this year
Bahanu has thoughts on how to invest for whatever we're calling this period that we're in now. I kind of think of it as tariff purgatory. We're waiting to see which direction things will go. Bahanu says there's reason to feel a little cautious now. We'll talk about it. Listening in is our audio producer, Alexis Moore. Hi, Alexis. Hey, Jack. Last we spoke, you were going to run a 5K. Did you run it? How did it go? I did. I ran it.
I completed it. I didn't stop running. That's good. And I got an oyster at the end. Okay. Is that something that they did at this particular race or was it just you? It's...
It's something that they did at this race. Okay. It wasn't just a stranger coming up and handing you a single oyster and saying, this is for you, my lady. Yeah, no, no, no. All right. Well, that's good. I have a confession. In our last episode, I might have said in passing, I wasn't really thinking about the numbers too carefully.
I think I suggested to folks that I was a guy who ran eight minute miles. And then I got thinking a 5k, correct me if I'm wrong, is just a smidgen over three miles. And that would mean that you're running one of those in a little over, uh, 24 minutes. And, uh,
I have done nothing of the sort at any point during my life. So I don't know. There was some Enron accounting going on, but it was not intentional. I think I might be, I don't know if I'm more of a 10 minute mile guy or something, but. Okay. That's still pretty strong. I just, I don't want to misrepresent myself.
I did write, I think in Barron's a while back about a race I ran when I was younger, where I was passed by one person whose shirt referred to his 80th birthday and another person who was wearing a giant foam dinosaur costume, just to give you an idea of what kind of pace I'm setting. And I don't know if you're out there, a four score and T-Rex, you ran a good race and you know, you got the best of me that day.
Jack, I know we're going to talk to Bahanu this episode about what to do in this moment, but you talked last week about Disney. Right. An earnings preview. Do you have any more thoughts on that? Last week was Disney question mark. So I'll give you a couple of minutes of Disney exclamation point because they had an earnings report and it sent the stock 11 percent higher in a day this past week.
I'll just say very quickly that on the one hand, I can't help being a little skeptical because just over a year ago, there was an earnings report where Disney stock jumped 11.5% in a day. Back then, the company had beat on earnings but missed on revenue. They were making more money in streaming even though subscribers were falling.
they had some announcements a new moana movie they had taken a stake in a video game company but there was an activist investor back then nelson peltz his firm wrote we saw this movie last year and we didn't like the ending and it turns out they were exactly right because the stock after that report back then it closed above 110 dollars a share but if you move forward to just before this latest report it was down to 92 dollars
So that was not the start of a big bounce back for Disney. So the question is, is this well-received earnings report any different? I actually think there are some different things about this report. I don't know if this is the one, if this is the start of the big climb back for Disney, but there are some things that I liked about this report.
Number one, there was a modest gain in streaming subscribers. Wall Street was looking for a loss there. That's important because Disney had raised prices, so it means it's not losing streaming customers even though they're paying more.
And that, of course, means revenue there is rising nicely. And we're now at the point where there's an operating profit coming from that unit. In fact, it's becoming a meaningful one. Operating profit from streaming multiplied during the quarter to $336 million from $47 million a year ago. That's starting to become real money.
Disney thinks for its current fiscal year running through September, it'll turn a streaming profit of $875 million. Why does that matter so much? Well, for one thing, anytime you can turn a loss-making division into a profit-making division, it really helps overall bottom line results. But for another thing, we know what the long-term trend is for legacy television. It's not great.
you're going to need to make that money up in streaming. And on Disney's current trajectory, its streaming profits could overtake its traditional television profits in two to three years. The most important part of Disney is the parks and experiences business. That's what makes most of the profit. And there, there was a 13% increase in domestic profits. That included the launch of a new cruise ship, but also higher spending by park visitors. That's a good sign too for consumer demand.
Although you could argue that higher tariffs have not fully made their way into household budgets. So we'll see what happens there in future quarters.
And finally, Disney's big announcement. It said it's building a new theme park, an entirely new resort in Abu Dhabi. That's the capital of the United Arab Emirates. This would be theme park resort number seven for Disney worldwide. This is not something that's going to affect results right away. CEO Bob Iger told reporters that a park like this takes two years to plan and five years to build.
This Abu Dhabi announcement matters for a couple of reasons. Number one, if this were a chicken sandwich restaurant we were talking about and not a massive theme park resort, we would call it a franchise model. Disney has a partner in the UAE, it's called Morale Group, and they'll operate the park and pay royalties to Disney. But crucially, and unlike with a typical chicken sandwich franchise arrangement, Morale will also pay for the construction.
Disney's going to provide design expertise and operational oversight. In other words, Disney doesn't have to put up much money here. Its balance sheet gets off without a scratch. If there's something that happens down the road that sours things, if there's some kind of geopolitical shift, the financial risk of that for Disney is minimized. The royalties will be good money that can help pay for Disney's considerable plans for park expansions in Florida and California.
Having a resort in Abu Dhabi can also help boost demand in that region for Disney merchandise and entertainment. And if you're Abu Dhabi or the UAE, you might not mind seeing Disney get favorable terms here. You've got a big sovereign wealth fund that is investing to diversify your economy away from oil. And one of the things you're focused on building is tourism.
And what provides a more family-friendly sheen for your tourism industry than having a big Disney resort? Anyhow, so the Abu Dhabi news is far off, but I think potentially very lucrative for Disney. Makes me wonder if there are other cities around the world where Disney can do this, although I'm not coming up with any off the top of my head. Alexis, do you have any ideas?
I mean, let's see if we get to space and then I'll get back to you. Disneyland in space. So you mean more of like a, are you thinking Mars based or are we talking some sort of orbiting? Hmm.
Disney Resort. That's a great question. Don't give away too much to these guys for free, okay? I mean, I'm not into space tourism personally, but I can imagine a Mars situation would be attractive to two generations later of consumers. Okay, Disney, you're welcome. By the way, there's a simulation ride in Epcot called Mission to Mars.
It's a pretty claustrophobic ride. I think it's got like some G force or something like that. And it's located close to the Coca-Cola cool spot where you sample free sodas from around the world. So you overload on soda and then you go into mission to Mars. And then it's like, uh,
Mission to try to not hurl, basically, is what it is. So you're saying you would like to do that ride on Mars? I don't know what you'd call it because you're already there. You'd just call it Mission to Stay Where You Are. Feel free to hit the Coca-Cola cool spot because this ride's not moving. We're already here. Okay, shall we get to my conversation with Bahanu?
Yeah. Tell the people why you wanted to speak with him. Yeah. So I use the phrase tariff purgatory and that's what I, I just get the sense that, um,
The market seems very calm. It seems like this tariff news is totally behind us, even though we still do have this sort of base level of tariffs ongoing. We still do have these negotiations. We don't know how those will turn out. And the tariff level on China is quite high. We don't know what it will eventually adjust to. But if there's going to be a meaningfully higher level of tariffs on China ongoing, that's going to raise costs for American consumers significantly.
I feel like we have to think about what kind of effect that's going to have on the economy and on demand. So all I'm saying is if the stock market bounced 100% of the way back since tariff declaration day, or I still can never, liberation day, since then, are investors a little complacent?
Do they have too much confidence right now? And is there anything different we should be doing with our money to prepare for that? And that's just the kind of thing that Bahanu has been writing about and discussing. So I wanted to get in touch. Let's get to part of that conversation now.
So I've been reading with interest, of course, your reports on where we are. And it's hard for me to figure out where does that leave us as investors? Like, what should we make of this of this period? Is this the eye of the storm and we should be preparing for more bad news to come? Does that framework make sense? How do you think about it?
Yeah, I think it does make sense. I don't think the bad news is in the price as yet. I think there are further headwinds for equities. You know, with the benefit of hindsight, now let's go and look back at why the market has done well, right? So first, I think retail investors never sold, right? Their view, their strategy since 2020, and it's been a winning strategy since then, is to buy the dip.
right so if you look at etf flows into into the s p they barely came down so retail investors quite different from institutional investors remain invested in the market and they have been buying the debt price so just from a flow perspective that has helped so far the data in the us really hasn't deteriorated the q1 gdp number was dire but only because net exports were negative
domestic demand is holding up, right? So people are legitimately saying, show me the whites of the eyes and slow down and I might think about it. And in the meantime, by the way, company earnings are going just fine. So Q1 reporting season has been good. And these are some of the factors that have led the market to go higher.
I think this is the wrong way to think about things in that I think if you were forward looking, you would see that even if tariffs came down from their present level, and we're recording this on the 7th of May, just to mark where tariffs are because these things change by the hour. So it's good to timestamp this. 10% universal tariffs, 145% tariffs in China. Let's say that doesn't stay. 10% universal tariffs, and let's say Chinese tariffs go down to 60%.
Even then, the hit to particularly domestic demand, less so to GDP, but particularly domestic demand is going to be so large that the kind of earnings expectations folks have for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months, which is 11.2% valued at 20.7 times forward earnings, just seems much too optimistic. So I think
To put it quite bluntly and simply, I'd be a seller into these rallies in the equity market. And by contrast, I'd be buying bonds and dips. So just so we think through what that means for the ordinary consumer or investor, if we have 60% tariffs on China, then all of these goods that are all around us here in the U.S. become more expensive. It becomes more costly to live.
And then households feel a little bit more strained in their budgeting and they pull back in certain areas. Maybe they don't take that same vacation they usually take each year or they don't make that extra purchase. And that has a dampening effect on the economy. And that's coming even under a better tariff landscape than we have now. Is that right?
That's correct. I mean, that needn't come if tariffs completely disappear. And that's what many in the market are thinking. The tariffs are just a negotiating tool. They're completely transactional and they would be gone in the next month or two as we start negotiating with partners. I'd beg to disagree. It seems to me that there's a certain ideological component in these tariffs. And, you know, it seems to me that
decoupling with China is by design, not by accident. So I would expect that 10% universal tariffs and 50% to 60% tariffs on China remain. And if that's the case, then you're absolutely right. The discretionary spending from the US consumer, also spending from the US investor under this high level of uncertainty are both likely to come down. And I might add that the US consumer was already showing some signs of fatigue
before April 2nd, before Liberation Day, right? Because the US economy has had very strong fiscal stimulus in the last three years, very strong immigration for the most of the last three years. And both of these have contributed
to very strong consumer growth. And that was already waning before these tariffs were imposed. So yeah, you're absolutely right to say that even if these tariffs go down to 60% tariffs in China, 10% universal tariffs, that's still going to create a serious drag on both consumption and investment, one that is not priced into the markets. I can imagine that the markets are thinking that these tariffs are
unlikely to be around for long. And we should put some probability on that because none of us know exactly what Trump and his administration are thinking. There is a possibility that these tariffs completely disappear. I don't think that would be my model probability.
It's interesting that you say that, and I think we don't think about that much. I do recall some of the, for example, airline CEOs saying, well, we had a good January and we had a pretty good February, and then things started to turn a little weaker on the margins into March, and that was before the tariff announcement. So I guess there were some of these signs of economic weakening even leading into that.
So earlier you mentioned that you would be a seller now. What does that mean? I mean, you don't mean just sort of wholesale, you know, bailing out of stocks and going to cash or something like that, right? What kind of selling do you mean? So I do think that in the near term, the stock market can come under pressure, right? So the next three to six months, as earnings expectations are revised lower, as perhaps valuations are also revised lower, it's not possible.
unthinkable that we revisit the 5,000 mark on the S&P. And through this period, we would be looking to be in defensive stocks. We'd be looking to be in consumer staples. We'd be looking to be in REITs. We'd be looking to be in utilities. And we take a fairly cautious stance on most of the cyclical companies, including retail, including some parts of tech. This is not a long-term call, but over the tactical horizon, over the next three months, we would be quite cautious. By contrast, the weakness that we have seen in the bond market
We think that should be faded. As you pointed out, inflation is likely to go higher as a result of these tariffs. But we think the Fed is likely to look through that. And the Fed is not likely to hike through that higher inflation. The Fed would be much more worried about the medium-term impact on growth, which is going to be dampening, right? The effect on growth is going to be negative. So the Fed is likely to stand pat and then eventually cut very aggressively, right? What does eventually mean?
possibly late Q3, September meeting or in Q4, it's likely to begin a cutting cycle again or restart the cutting cycle that I think is going to be quite aggressive because they would be quite worried about growth if these tariffs or even lower tariffs stay in place. So as a result of that, I would argue that
the bond market, particularly what's technically called the belly of the curve. I hope this is not getting too far into the weeds, but basically the five-year sector to the seven-year sector of the yield curve, I think is very attractive today. So defensive stocks and bonds. So really playing defense over the next three to four months. This reminds me of...
An unrelated analysis from, I think, from the CBO, you know, the budget, the Congressional Budget Office in the U.S., where they looked long term at the debt and they said, and these are my words, not theirs. They said, well, the debt is, you know, kind of spiraling a little out of control here over the long term.
But we also think that that'll have a dampening effect on the economy. So we don't think that bond yields are going to get out of control. We think they'll stay about the same. And I was left thinking, you know, I don't know, is that supposed to be good news or a silver lining? But it sounds kind of similar to what you're saying here. We're going to have some ramping up inflation. But on the tail end of that, we're going to have maybe, you know, some weak patch forecasts.
for the economy and you think that these buying into these yields here is
is safer than you would otherwise think if you were heading into higher inflation. That's a very important point. So let's just explore this for just the next few seconds. I do think here and now bonds make sense because as we're recalling this, the US 10-year yield is close to 4.4%. I think it can trade at 375 to 4 in that sort of range. So the 10-year yield is likely to come lower, which in simple terms mean that the bond price goes up. However,
Going back to your point about CBOs worry about US public debt, which is very pertinent, it is likely that you don't see a much further rally in bonds. It is likely that you don't see yields declining much further. And is that neutral, good or bad? I would argue that as an equity investor, I should be worried about this. In the last 15 years, we have become so used to just living and dying by the Fed.
in the equity market. The Fed's cutting, I want to buy. The Fed's hiking, I want to sell. That's the way the market's thought about it. That Pavlovian response from the market really to Fed's actions has been driven by a world of quantitative easing, where the Fed cuts, the 10-year collapses in terms of yield. So the 10-year yield collapses, credit spreads crunch tighter, equity markets zoom higher in terms of valuation. Now, in today's world,
which is not a QE world where global investors are not as keen to buy US treasuries as they used to be, there is a strong possibility that the Fed cuts aggressively and yet the long end doesn't come down. Why does it matter? Because for the equity market, the long end, so the seven-year rate, 10-year rate, 30-year rate, not the overnight rate, is the cost of equity.
So what we're saying is that even if the Fed cuts, the cost of equity is unlikely to come down aggressively, which is new, right? We haven't seen that in the last 20 to 30 years. And I think the equity market has to grapple with that reality moving forward. Thank you, Bahanu. That's a good place for a break. We'll be back in a moment with more of my conversation with Bahanu at UBS. Data is everywhere. When orchestrated properly, it sings. At Morningstar, we analyze and enrich data.
making it actionable and powerful for you. Morningstar, where data speaks.
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Welcome back. Let's get back into my conversation with Bhanu Boweja, Chief Strategist for UBS Investment Bank.
I think this sounds related to one of my least favorite phrases when people talk about the Fed put. Well, there's a Fed put out there where some people say the Trump put and everybody's got a put now. And the idea is that don't worry if things get bad enough, these different powerful policymakers will use their puts to, you know, to to save the stock market. And that is kind of related to what.
You mentioned at the top of this conversation about how investors are of the belief that like, hey, we got to buy the dip or we got to stay put because it always comes back. Do you think that investors have maybe gotten...
too complacent because it has been a long time. We've had some big severe drops, but it has come right back. The market comes roaring right back quickly. And these different policy responses have worked. Do you think that has made investors too complacent?
I think it has. I think investors are complacent and their complacency is driven by simple extrapolation. They're extrapolating the same macro environment that we have been in over the last 20 to 30 years, which has been effectively the great moderation where you've had strong growth and low inflation. They're extrapolating that. I think that's a mistake because we are not in peak globalization anymore.
The great moderation, which is strong growth, low inflation, is really the offspring of globalization. If globalization is being compromised, which it is, then it's hard to see how the growth and inflation mix remains as market friendly as it has been. That's the long-term structural point. The cyclical point is that the markets have become used to, as you rightly said, a fiscal put, so a Trump put, or the Fed put, or a monetary policy put.
you don't have the room for aggressive policy responses anymore. Fiscal policy is already at very loose levels. What you're looking for, if you're looking for much higher growth impulse from fiscal policy, is for fiscal policy not to remain loose, but to incrementally get looser. That's hard. Given where public debt is, that's really, really difficult. So I don't think we're going to see much fiscal policy love in terms of growth.
That leaves us with monetary policy. If my analysis is correct, that despite the Fed cutting, you're not going to see the long end come in in a big way because there's just so much supply of US Treasuries coming through as a result of these large fiscal deficits, if that's correct, but the long end doesn't come down,
then the impact of the Fed put is really going to be dampened by the long end not coming down. So I do think investors are wrong to extrapolate. Strong companies, good earnings, absolutely right. But that still could make for single-digit returns rather than mid-double-digit returns. And before we get to those single-digit upsides,
I think we really have to contend with the reality of tariffs and the impact that they would have on earnings and valuations. So there's a good chance that the market comes down before it rises. So I started this conversation by being a little worried that everyone wasn't more worried.
And now I feel like you've got me properly worried, which I think is progress. So now I need for you to solve all of my problems about investing. You did mention earlier about there could be a weak patch coming for the stock market. You might want to do some selling. You might want to hold some defensive stocks like staples and utilities and things like that. So that is certainly helpful.
I'm wondering what else, particularly for the long-term investor. I guess my two questions are, do you think that there's still an opportunity to earn decent returns over the next, let's call it, you know, decade? Can you still earn decent returns on savings? And how differently should I be allocated? If in the past I've been the...
the stereotypical 60/40 investor with 60% in my S&P 500 fund and 40% in my cheap bond index, what should I be doing different now? That's about 11 different questions, I realize. You could take them in any order. - All right, so I'll start with the 60/40 question first.
In the next three months, so in the very near term, I would, instead of being 60-40, probably be 40-60. So a higher rate for bond market rather than the equity market. And in the longer term, I think the 60-40 portfolio will serve you well. I still think that that
combination of bonds diversifying in a portfolio, gold potentially added to that portfolio as the best proxy of dollar downside. I think the sort of a balanced portfolio between bonds, equities, and a little bit of precious metals, probably around 3% to 4% rate for precious metals, I think will work quite well because you need to diversify a little bit away from the dollar, but you don't want to reach out for the riskiest part of the FX spectrum in emerging markets. I
I will say, however, and I really don't want to mince my words here, over the medium term to the long term, the kind of returns that we have seen in the previous 10 to 15 years, we are unlikely to see in the next 10 to 15. We are still likely to see decent returns. And I would argue the US economy will continue to see, US markets will continue to see stronger returns than the rest of the world, because one of the
The major megatrends of the last 20 to 30 years is this move away from investing in stuff, such as bricks and mortar and buildings and so on, away from that to investing in intellectual property, investing in tech. The US is at front and center of that. The US is at front and center of AI. I just think
the kind of returns you have seen in the last 10 to 15 years are much too high. You will see reasonable returns in equities, in bonds, but I'm not thinking by double digits. So I think we need to bring down our expectations a little bit, quite simply because most policy is juiced out and globalization has peaked. So I would argue the US market still remains healthy
but not mid double digits healthy, probably mid single digits healthy. This is an important point about overseas markets from the perspective of a U.S. investor, because
Every, you know, every few years or so, we see a report, hey, the U.S. market has done very well relative to the rest of the world, but now it's reached the peak. Surely this can't continue. Surely it's time that we have to buy Europe, we have to buy Japan, and anyhow, they look cheaper than the U.S., and you're not as loaded up in tech. But you're saying that's not necessarily the case. You think that our tech-loaded market here in the U.S. can continue to outperform for longer?
Yes, it can, but perhaps the degree of outperform would not be as strong as it has been in the last 10, 15 years. The reason I think it can still outperform, well, in the next three months, as I said, the US market is likely to come lower, so on the tactical horizon, it can underperform. Over the structural horizon, as I said, what informs my view is quite simply this idea that the
the largest mega trend, which is still in place, globalization was a mega trend, no longer in place, is stalling, perhaps fading away. But the largest mega trend, which is still in place, is the shift in the nature of investment from bricks and mortar to intellectual property, and the US is front and center of that. As that happens,
the markets are going to be represented more and more by companies in tech, in healthcare. And these are the kind of sectors that the U.S. is overweight on. And as a result of that, I really don't see the case for a secular underperformance of the U.S. Markets correct quickly. U.S.'s valuation is still very high. I referenced that early in the conversation. At the time of speaking, it's at 20.7 times forward earnings. But
In three to four months, these numbers could be sitting at 18 times or 17 times. And then the valuation premium of the US looks much more manageable relative to the rest of the world. So within the context of lower returns overall, I still think that on the secular horizon, US equities can outperform.
Last question I have for you. If we're going to enter a world of lower returns, let's call it the next decade. And I don't, by the way, I don't quite know how much lower. So if stocks have returned 10% a year, maybe is it...
7% nominally and if you're a 60-40 investor and you've come to expect a blended return of 7%, are we talking about 4 or 5 before subtracting for inflation or do you have any thoughts on that? And then also,
I hear from time to time people saying, well, now's the right time for this. Like, for example, now the time is right for value stocks because they're particularly cheap and they're well suited to this kind of, you know, environment where demand might take a hit or something like that.
Are there opportunities? Whenever somebody says, well, you're going to get lower returns for a long time, you're always trying to find a way around it. I want to figure out how to get back to the returns I'm used to. Can you make some of those moves to get the higher returns, or is it futile doing that? No, I mean, look, I think we'll have to correct
Correct. And the honest answer is that we will have to think much more about alpha, which is individual companies, than we think about beta, which is passive investing. Because passive investing comes when monetary policy is lifting all boats. It comes when a lower discount rate or Fed love is lifting all boats. So you just buy the S&P ETF and you're off.
There are great gains to be made, I think, if we did make the company calls right, if we make the sector calls right. And from a long-term perspective, the sector calls really do reside in tech. And that's why they reside in tech, they reside potentially in banks, they reside in healthcare. And that's why from a long-term perspective, we would be overweight, those sectors, even if in the
in the next three months, we are playing defense and not loading up on those sectors. Even industrials in the US, which are becoming more and more AI influenced, still do well over the medium term. You asked me the question about what kind of returns are we talking about in nominal terms and in real terms? The kind of returns I'm talking about are 5% to 7% in nominal terms, which in real terms will equate to something like 3% to 4% returns, because I do think inflation, after rising to potentially even 4% this year,
because the tariffs will revert back to normal. I do believe in an independent and credible Fed. I do think inflation will come back towards 2%. So I think the nominal returns of 5% to 7% will mean real returns of roughly 3%, 4%, 5%. Okay, well, that's not so bad. I was going to retire at 150 years old. I'll just work to 160. That's all. That'll make up for it.
Thank you, Bahanu, and thank all of you for listening. If you have a question that you'd like played and answered on the podcast, you can send it in. It could be part of a future episode. Just use the voice memo app and send it to jack.how. That's H-O-U-G-H at barons.com. Alexis Moore is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple, you can write us a review. See you next week. Data is everywhere, but is it ready for consumption?
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