Latest / The Curve / Investing in a Trump Era: What’s Coming Next?
Transcript
- 0:00Before we get into this episode, I just wanted to say, for anyone who is thinking, oh my
- 0:09good God, what is happening in the markets right now, how do I invest in a way that's
- 0:14not, you know, scary if we're being totally honest, everything happening in America right
- 0:19now is reasonably terrifying and what we're seeing in the markets is that they are having
- 0:25a really rough time so we're hosting a free workshop on Tuesday, this coming Tuesday for anyone
- 0:31that would like to come and just feel a little bit more confident and it comes to why and how
- 0:36you can invest in the current environment and in this particular conversation that we have
- 0:41with Zoe Wallace, who is an investing expert from Tempo, which is a guided investing app,
- 0:46she speaks so much about how we can invest in a really diversified, clever way given what's
- 0:56happening in America right now and there's some really great takeaways from her about the things
- 1:02that we can be doing to kind of mitigate risk and invest in a way that's actually going to
- 1:07hopefully grow our portfolios, our portfolios as well. So we hope that you enjoy it, there's going
- 1:13to be three of these episodes, so one this week and then one next week and week after and each
- 1:19conversation with Zoe is going to be focusing on a key thing like something that's happening in
- 1:23the market that is interesting and worth looking at and so this week we are looking at Trump
- 1:31and what's happening in America which you might be sick of hearing about but if you're investing or
- 1:36you want to grow your money through investing it's a really important conversation to be on top of
- 1:40so we hope you enjoy and here is the episode. Okay, but you're being outsmarted today, we have
- 1:48got another investing expert on the podcast. Zoe, welcome. Thank you, exciting to be here.
- 1:55We are doing an amazing partnership at the moment with Tempo, which is guided investing. So
- 2:02when you join Tempo you answer a whole lot of questions about like who you are and what your goals
- 2:08and then they're able to recommend particular funds that will suit what you're trying to achieve
- 2:14behind the amazing front end that you see is investing experts like Zoe who are helping make these
- 2:22investment decisions and recommendations and so we thought it would be cool to get the brains on
- 2:29the podcast, not the only brains we must say there is a whole team of experts but to be able to
- 2:34pull someone out and just feel like can we just chat to you and ask a few questions this very
- 2:38exciting. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. You're very welcome. I feel like
- 2:43that's quite a lot of pressure after I try. I just think when it comes to investing products
- 2:51or services or the financial space there isn't a huge amount of understanding from the everyday
- 2:56person of what those things mean and I think when someone here has guided a bestsegg they're like
- 3:01amazing because it means I'm not having to make all the decisions myself dream but you also have
- 3:08visibility on what you're doing. I think that that makes sense that then the question of well who
- 3:13is who's the face behind this or or who is the expert like it's nice to put a face to an end so I
- 3:20think that to be able to kind of hear your expert and your insights on investing will make people
- 3:25probably feel a lot more comfortable and excited about the idea of trying Tempo so I think as someone
- 3:31was your average punter let's just say average punter your average punter that sounds like I'm
- 3:37going skiing. It sounds like you're gambling. Yeah. Oh my god. Every punter is like you're punting
- 3:42the math. No you're punting punting on a horse. No punting. No you're all just thinking money
- 3:47punting in the everyday person that's not the bestseggier. Yeah yeah like you're a punter like I'm
- 3:52a punter I've like pizza all the way down the hill. It's not your punter means you're a beginner.
- 3:58No. Does it not? Right. We will go punting about. A person who places a bet. Right. Well that's
- 4:03not that's not what we're not encouraging them at all. So you've worked in investing for a long time.
- 4:10Can you just give us a really quick overview of your career? What you studied the sorts of jobs
- 4:15that you've had and how you've landed as you know me describing this in a missing expert like how
- 4:21did you get there? Sure. So I studied economics and finance a very boring standard grade for the
- 4:28industry I would say. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. But I did actually start doing a bit of
- 4:33side on psychology and maybe we can come back to that because it's actually quite interesting. I
- 4:36think there is a huge amount of psychology when it comes to investor. I wish I'd done so. Yeah. I
- 4:40kind of wish I could say it actually but not necessarily for money just because I think it's so
- 4:44interesting. Yeah yeah. And then I started my career at the Reserve Bank so very standard economics
- 4:49path but more in the financial market space. So I actually never looked in the economics team but
- 4:53very much financial markets focus. So okay what's going on with the currency? What was going on with
- 4:57global equity markets and how that might impact New Zealand? I then went over to London for a
- 5:04couple of years to DOE thing. Decided to come back for a little bit and then ended up staying back
- 5:11but did I sense that you met someone you fell along this day? I felt like you really skimmed
- 5:16over that I'm assuming that's what that meant. Well yeah I came back for a year because I got a
- 5:20great job offer to come back to the Reserve Bank and be a portfolio manager and so came back to do
- 5:26that for a bit and see how that went and then I met my husband and the rest is Australia. Yeah
- 5:31so a lot of your job tell me if this is wrong but this is my interpretation is you are very aware
- 5:38of what's happening around the world you do a lot of research that inform investing decisions
- 5:43so you look at trends you look at what economies are doing you look at stock markets it's you really
- 5:48have like quite a full picture of what's happening when it comes to money business the world
- 5:54that that's the sort of information or lens that you make investing decisions and and recommend
- 5:58others to make particular investing decisions based on what you think from that research is that
- 6:05like the most simplified way of saying yeah I think like my my sort of particular way I come at it
- 6:10is it's from a very much top-down point of view so you think about big picture what's going on
- 6:15the global economy what's going on with Trump what's happening with New Zealand and you know
- 6:19interest rate cuts go to start helping people in the everyday lives and help you know reduce living
- 6:23costs or help people make their mortgage payments better um all of those sort of pieces and how
- 6:29that impacts what happens with investments obviously so what happens with fixed income investments
- 6:34and bonds or what happens with global equity markets I'm just going to pull out from this and say
- 6:40does that then mean let's just say interest rates are skyrocketing that then means some
- 6:46investments do well and some don't so you're you're aware so that means that you could help people
- 6:51balance their portfolios and where they put money based on where they're going to get better returns
- 6:55yeah exactly so for example take that sort of interest rate example you know when interest rates skyrocketed
- 7:00in following covert for example the New Zealand local equity market in aggregate tends to be quite
- 7:05interest rates sensitive and so when interest rate value it's you're so smart you know when you're
- 7:11like you really have to say I'm not I mean this which we're sorry no no she just means that
- 7:17the New Zealand stock market tends to do worse when interest rates are rising so the decision
- 7:21would be like let's not invest money in New Zealand let's invest money elsewhere into countries or
- 7:27sectors where that do well when interest rates are rising like banks for example do do well and
- 7:33tend to do well depending on what's driving the interest rate rise but tend to do well in a rising
- 7:39interesting environment so that's what you mean by top down yeah and then you look at the banks
- 7:44and you get okay which which one of the banks you know you're you're filtering it down going okay
- 7:48interest rates are increasing yeah so it's doing that top down approach that you were talking about
- 7:53in terms of okay which country will do well if this happens in the world okay which sectors
- 8:00within that country okay which companies in that sector so you're like filtering down and creating
- 8:06a portfolio that's going to do well from a top down you or creating fun that's going to do well yeah
- 8:12and so out of that it's probably not you know oh interest rates are going up in New Zealand we're
- 8:16going to pull all our money out in New Zealand and we're going to put in Australian banks and it's more
- 8:20just at the moment we think there's a relatively advantageous macro environment like top down
- 8:26big picture economy environment in Australia versus New Zealand for example or
- 8:32see most versus New Zealand and therefore we tilt a little bit more money that way
- 8:36so it'd be like okay cool we've got 50% in Australia right now 50% in New Zealand but we can see
- 8:42everyone's there's like a mess exit us to from New Zealand to Australia at the moment
- 8:47particularly young people in terms of immigration so I thought oh actually the Australian economy is
- 8:53doing better let's put 70% of the money into Australia and only 30% in New Zealand until that
- 9:01that comes back into favour essentially and then you might switch that back to more 50-50 so it's
- 9:06kind of it's not these big swings that you see it up like oh Australia is doing well let's
- 9:11pull all our money out of New Zealand put in Australia it's like let's just increase the
- 9:16percentage allocation a little bit so that we can get a bit of return because Australia is
- 9:22going to do well that's what we think yeah okay so okay so let's just say watermelons are not
- 9:30in season if someone's continuing to try and buy watermelons and they're really expensive and
- 9:35they're not in season it probably makes sense if they bought different types of fruit for that period
- 9:39of time yeah yep you know it's that you say the idea that it might not make sense to have your
- 9:45money spending money on this right now because it's more expensive or it's not yeah it's more um
- 9:52if you saw a whole lot of people not buying a certain product you wouldn't keep
- 9:59investing in that products I feel like actually this computer so it looks like it's actually
- 10:03doing better it might do better for another couple of years let's put more money in
- 10:07best in that company that seems to be doing better and then when the other one sorts itself out
- 10:11and maybe starts getting a bit more competitive again we'll put money back into that company
- 10:16because that's going to do better so you're trying to you're not timing the market but you're
- 10:21trying to make the most of these fine conditions or like if you were a watermelon farmer yeah
- 10:29you want to plant your seeds where you think the weather conditions are the best where the climate
- 10:33is going to be favorable where you're going to have an easy customer base all of the things that
- 10:37you know kind of would help your business yeah so you want your climate to be favorable
- 10:40to start and then you've got to get your fundamentals right as a watermelon farmer
- 10:43I'm just thinking if I ejected myself from this conversation you too it would be on fire you know
- 10:48like if there wasn't someone they'd like hold on excuse me wait just by then Ian
- 10:52tempo is a brand new investing app available in New Zealand and we're so excited to be
- 10:57telling you about how it works and how you can use it so in 2023 tempo conducted a survey with
- 11:04a thousand Kiwis and they found that 27% didn't know where to start when it comes to investing
- 11:10and that's a lot of people so the great thing about tempo is that their goal is to take the
- 11:15guesswork out of investing so when you sign up they ask questions like how do you feel about
- 11:21the idea of your investments going up and down because some do more than others you tell them how
- 11:25much you want to save and they recommend a mix of their funds for you it's guided investing so
- 11:30you're getting investment advice from the experts which is very very cool and because they track
- 11:35your goal progress so they can see actually how you're going they can also recommend that you change
- 11:40your investments and the mix of how you invest it over time which is really great so if you would
- 11:45like to try tempo you can get a $10 kickstart into your account and if you would like to learn more
- 11:50about tempo you can head to the link in the podcast show notes okay could we maybe use an example
- 11:57for people who are listening and thinking okay I kind of get it but like how do tempo or how
- 12:02does Zoe make a recommendation about investments based on what's happening in the world so let's
- 12:08look at what has happened in America because Trump and like we've spoken about it a lot just about
- 12:14the way in which what we're seeing and like totally just predicting and chatting between the two of us
- 12:20as to like what we think is going to happen so could we use that as an example as a trend or
- 12:25something that's happening and then how you might advise or give direction for people when it comes
- 12:32to where their money is going based on what we're seeing I think this is a really good one because
- 12:36it's like very high level when I look at everything that's going on with Trump and America if I was
- 12:44looking at a way to invest and what's going on at the very high level but like do I think over the
- 12:51next four years where he's in power that America is going to do better or worse that would kind of
- 12:56be my standard thinking if I was and then it's like if it's going to be better than I want to invest
- 13:01in America if it's going to be worse then I'll be investing elsewhere that's quite interesting
- 13:07that's like as simple as you think and then there's all these other things in within that of like
- 13:11different sectors different companies like obviously the tariffs and inflation everything's going
- 13:17to be impacting you know there's going to be nuances beneath that but like that's kind of my
- 13:22high level thinking and there will be reverberations around the world because a lot of US companies
- 13:26are global that but to try and come back to how we're explaining before of like a top down it's
- 13:34like do you think something's going to be better or worse therefore you're in best more or less the
- 13:40other element I'd add is that you know we we went and looked back through political cycles and
- 13:45you know doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat actually the answer over history is not
- 13:50really so right-leaning policies left-leaning policies actually what problem is a bigger
- 13:56driver of what happens with financial markets with equities with stock prices is where you're at
- 14:02in your economic cycle and by that I mean you know actually the US economy is really solid at the
- 14:06moment they've got an unemployment rate of 4% that's really low consumers are still looking really
- 14:11healthy and spending lots of money all of those things are a big tailwind and so that macro economic
- 14:18environments helpful so that gives you a good starting point but then you've got Trump probably
- 14:24adding quite a bit of volatility based on what we've seen in terms of market reactions movement
- 14:28up and down yeah exactly so just sort of you know people trading on headlines and sort of shock
- 14:35and or announcements on X that have come out and we saw that yeah not that longer and he was like
- 14:40we're going to put on tariffs yeah oh no we're not oh yes we are it's like oh my goodness it's you
- 14:46know that he does he's he's not you to put on politician headlines he's shoot from the hip see how
- 14:52this reacts oh this wasn't what I expected okay all reversed that whereas he's probably
- 14:57being fun doing all right he's probably looking at the markets they can suckers they pulled their money
- 15:02out thinking that was going to happen and then it goes off and they're like I knew I could like
- 15:06he would betray the Shibuya one day he's probably trading on true yeah he's probably like no surely
- 15:12that's about Trump coin yeah yeah yeah hot Trump coin he's got his own he's got some cryptocurrency
- 15:16cryptocurrency so he started his own crypto and then was like U.S. is going to be the crypto capital
- 15:21the world and then it just took off and they bought 60 yeah there's some I mean he's money clever
- 15:27yeah gotta give him credit for that but there's yeah like and he's got one eye coin as well there's
- 15:31what Melania Melania this is Melania coin yeah I feel like we're living in like the Sims game or
- 15:37like it feels too ridiculous to be really money out of money yeah so then let's just
- 15:41zoom out for his exo let's say so this is all happening you've got the on one side the idea that
- 15:47whoever's empowered doesn't actually impact the in isolation the stock market but then you layer
- 15:53on Trump and his like all over the show decision making what is your view on what's happening or
- 15:59what's going to happen across the next four years yeah so look if you take a step back as an investor
- 16:04hopefully if you're investing in shares for example then your time price and as a minimum of
- 16:09five to seven years right so theoretically you also want to be looking through a lot of this noise
- 16:15so you know if you invested in your portfolio today and there was some U.S. you had a nice
- 16:20diversified portfolio you could almost or you should almost close that down and not look it up for you
- 16:25gone holiday go to the desert island yeah and a lot of that volatility those ups and downs will
- 16:30kind of work themselves out over time when you think about that long term investing horizon that's
- 16:35really what you want to focus on so coming back to so your fundamentals of making sure you've got
- 16:40you're not just you know all in U.S. stocks for example you should have some other international
- 16:44shares and some new them and shares and Australian shares and your portfolio so also just
- 16:48depending on how much risky you want to take so how prepared you are to sort of experience some of
- 16:54those ups and downs might mean that you're not invested just in stocks is that you might look at
- 16:58some other assets as well it's like what you said before about america being a really strong
- 17:02position with unemployment being really low and all of that it's like yes but you still
- 17:07want to be diversified because there's always things that we can't see around the corner so
- 17:13you don't want to put a hundred percent of your portfolio into america for the next five seven
- 17:18years it's like you need to pull your money out and is that what you mean or are you just
- 17:23I just mean in general you just diversifying in general because it's like you never know what's
- 17:28going to happen but I think diversify in long term and taking that long term five year plus horizon
- 17:34is to the key things that you can do when we're in a volatile environment which we're going to
- 17:40have for the next four years but I I guess my question is like I'm not planning on
- 17:47not investing for the long term like I'm still going to continue to invest in the stock market
- 17:51in the US I'm going to invest in other places I think there's a really important point but like
- 17:56for people that are just curious to see like what's going to happen in the next four years
- 18:00like I just want to know what your thoughts are because you've done a lot of research it's
- 18:03I'm not going to be making investment decisions to try and like make a quick win in six months time
- 18:08but like I just would love to know what you think about what we're going to say because you're
- 18:13you're in investment knowledge and your research is is so like focused on these types of things
- 18:19I'm just keen to hear what you think yeah for sure so when Trump came in and there was sort of
- 18:24four key things he he basically campaigned on so one was tariffs other was immigration he's been
- 18:30really quick out of the sort of blocks on implementing those so you know he's very quickly come down
- 18:36on border control you know so what you've seen in the US over the last couple years is a huge inflow
- 18:41and migrants crossing the border into the US and to be honest that's been actually quite helpful
- 18:46for the US economy because some of those what happened to us post-COVID we had a real shortage
- 18:50of workers so to the US and those immigrants helped meet some of that demand and alleviate some of
- 18:56those shortages of people to fill jobs and there was really strong demand for those people
- 19:01so he's cracked down on that he's cracked down on Ontario so kind of coming quite quickly now
- 19:05but the other two key pieces he campaigned on so one was deregulation so just less red tape
- 19:11that's something we've been talking about in New Zealand as well so just fraying up companies to
- 19:16have a bit more autonomy less hoops to jump through perhaps from a legal perspective
- 19:21tends to make business go faster and more efficiently which I find quite counterintuitive
- 19:25considering his implementing tariffs you know let the whole deregulation is just like let's just
- 19:30let things flow and let them market free market yeah let's make things work and just like yeah no
- 19:35red tape no hoops to jump through yet he's now slapping on tariffs to be like we want everything
- 19:45that it can be to be produced in America yeah it's like but what if there's a country
- 19:49whether they can do it better and quicker and get the whole point of freedom and then what was
- 19:53the fourth one the fourth one is taxes so he's promised to extend personal tax cuts that are
- 19:59in place at the moment which would you to roll off he's also promised to cut the corporate tax
- 20:04in 2021 seemed to fifth day which is quite a quite a low corporate tax right that's almost as
- 20:08low as you can go basically and so what do you think all of those things how do you think they will
- 20:12impact what we'll see in the stock market and business success and hard to say an aggregate depends
- 20:18on the company is probably the cheat's answer but look I think you've seen two of them which are
- 20:23quite punitive so the two things he's done tend to be punitive sorry um pretty harsh in terms of
- 20:30the implication yes yep so the tariffs are likely to be inflationary so what it means is that
- 20:36when a foreign company sends it good to the US because US wants it the company who's imported that
- 20:44has to pay a premium when it lands in the port in the US has to pay their tariff
- 20:48they're 10% or 25% whatever Trump ends up deciding that cost at that point the business has a
- 20:55choice right do I wear that cost myself and just take it out of my profits or do I pass it onto
- 21:00the end consumer and if you're running a business and you've suddenly seen your cost of them
- 21:05like your cost of goods that you're going to sell go up 25% what you're probably going to do if you
- 21:10can possibly get away with it as I pass it on to the end consumer so for the average America and
- 21:16what it'll mean is that the cost of imports goes up and there's lots of things that the US imports
- 21:21so cars has been a key one in the spotlight things that come from Mexico examples avocado,
- 21:26tequila, beer you know all the fun stuff yeah it will stir it from Canada yeah and so the cost
- 21:35of those for the US consumer goes up which isn't great when that's you know you and me if we're
- 21:40sitting in the America sorry then the cost of average shop would probably start going up or
- 21:46feel a bit best well off that's not a great feeling so it pushes up what we call inflation
- 21:51but it also means that you're going to have probably a little bit less disposable income you might
- 21:55not be feeling quite so positive about how things are going in the economy and it tends to damp
- 22:00and economic growth and how much activity there is so this was what we spoke about in the care of
- 22:05weekly about impacting corporate profits so overall it's estimated about two to three percent
- 22:12overall impacts and again it's so sick to specific in companies this specific but I can never say
- 22:18that word I don't know if it's so funny because as soon as you say that word it's like it's just
- 22:23I like can't cause a share what to say sorry it does depend on which company in which sector
- 22:29but overall yeah about two to three percent of an impact on corporate profits so but so then what
- 22:37do we say so happen you know like because that's I understand that from a consumer standpoint that
- 22:42makes total sense but how does that then in turn come back to what we see from business success
- 22:47well so I guess the other question as we know or not Trump does manage to get his tax custard
- 22:52because if Trump can deliver those corporate tax cuts that takes their effective tax rate from
- 22:5621 to 15 and that's a big boost because that's more money that those businesses get to keep
- 23:00on their bottom line so they might have to charge more to customers a really cost has gone up
- 23:06so they kind of net net that's but because their corporate taxes it means they're
- 23:10actually because their corporate taxes are down they probably net net will have a
- 23:16increase in profit I mean it's it's not up late yeah depending on where they yeah where they
- 23:21learn so what I'm hearing here what depends it depends yeah no no what I'm hearing fine
- 23:27doesn't see yeah life will be more expensive for the average American probably pretty route like
- 23:33that's quite likely secondly there is a chance actually that businesses in the US particularly
- 23:40maybe aren't worse off and also third part that is if really who's in power doesn't have an
- 23:47enormous impact on the stock market long term these are chance that the stock market's not going
- 23:52to take a giant nose dive like a lot of people are probably thinking or feeling or worrying about
- 23:57is that kind of like a fair enough summary yeah and if you hold the S&P 500 ETF or a diversified
- 24:05fund or portfolio there's going to be some that do well out of this there's going to be some that
- 24:09aren't but that's almost your best bet rather than trying to pick the ones that do and wait
- 24:13the ones that don't because we know that Trump's just so shoots from the hip so you might be like
- 24:19yes I fix the ones that are going to do well in this environment and then tomorrow you wake up
- 24:22and he's announced that I don't know I can come into America ever again you've already seen that as
- 24:27well yeah some of the kind of favorable Trump trades that were in fashion you know even as recently
- 24:32as November yeah aren't the ones that necessarily are doing as well and similar to what we saw
- 24:38during his first presidency was some you know the initial kind of opportunities around winners didn't
- 24:44end up necessarily being the ones that actually did that well for broader economic reasons or
- 24:49more than cyclical reasons so then taking from that then from an investment standpoint if his
- 24:54people are listening trying to figure out where they want to put their money the best and safest
- 24:59option really is to be like as diversified as possible and to not be thinking about those quick
- 25:04ones like oh I think because Tesla and Elon Musk and Trump are in bed together and they're blah blah
- 25:10it's like yeah you don't necessarily know what's going to happen you're much better to be going broad
- 25:16is that kind of the overarching take where yeah trading on fiscal policy and I'm saying trading
- 25:20not investing here you know short term it can be really dangerous right and particularly with
- 25:25someone as volatile as Trump because you might back or you know back your winners that look like winners
- 25:30week one don't look like winners week four okay I feel like that's a really insightful good tag in
- 25:39the next check-in that we do the next week can we focus on another trend I'd love to go
- 25:45in debt for the trend but then also answer some questions so if you're listening to this and you're
- 25:49thinking perfect I don't want to actually ask Victoria my question I want to ask Zoe then
- 25:57send us a message either comment on this podcast with anything that you want her to answer send us
- 26:02a DM whatever works for you if you're in the in the investing club you can comment in there
- 26:07and we will collate those and come back and we'll do another I think a themed conversation is
- 26:12quite cool and then we can take some listener questions sounds correct I'm like watch out for it
- 26:22thank you so much for joining us Zoe thank you thank you so much for joining us for our
- 26:28tempo temperature checks really need to brainstorm creatively and not choose names for segments
- 26:34that are very difficult to pronounce but these are essentially conversations to help you understand
- 26:39what's going on in the market and really hone in on a specific topic so we hope that you've enjoyed it
- 26:44next week we're coming back with another one and until then if you've got any questions or comments
- 26:48please do write them below on this podcast episode wherever you're listening to your podcasts