Latest / UBS Trending / The rally broadens | UBS Trending
Transcript
- 0:00The market rally isn't slowing down,
- 0:02but the story may be changing a bit as more sectors begin
- 0:05to participate
- 0:06and leadership expands beyond a select group of stocks.
- 0:09Where should investors be looking now?
- 0:11We're going to explore that and a whole lot more right now.
- 0:13On UBS Trending.
- 0:27Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining me.
- 0:28I'm Anthony Pastore
- 0:29and this is UBS Trending. In the studio with me today
- 0:32is Sean O'Hara, President of Pacer ETF Distributors.
- 0:36Sean, nice to have you.
- 0:36Good to good to have you in the studio with me.
- 0:38It's great to be here. I love your new studio.
- 0:39Thank you very much. Spectacular.
- 0:41Thank you so much I appreciate that. Yeah.
- 0:42The team really did a great job putting it all together.
- 0:45Let's get into it.
- 0:45Because, you know, there's
- 0:46this is a really interesting time in the markets.
- 0:48We only had a few minutes to talk beforehand,
- 0:50but we're still kind of in the middle of the geopolitical risk.
- 0:53Israel-Iran conflict with the U.S..
- 0:56It's on again off again.
- 0:57Markets are sort of digesting it on a daily basis.
- 0:59But we are seeing strong fundamentals, especially in large cap
- 1:04led by technology and, artificial intelligence.
- 1:07You know,
- 1:07the Fed is holding steady, doing watchful thinking and all this.
- 1:11Where do you stand right now
- 1:12when you're looking at the markets broadly,
- 1:14what do you see out there?
- 1:16Well, you know, the last couple of years
- 1:17we've sort of been spoiled, if you will.
- 1:19Like,
- 1:20It's been seven stocks
- 1:21that have driven all the returns in
- 1:22what are supposed to be these broad indexes,
- 1:24which are supposed to be highly diversified, but they're not,
- 1:27you know,
- 1:27I think the Mag seven takes up
- 1:29like 35 to 40% of these broad indexes.
- 1:31And so essentially they're become proxies for those seven names.
- 1:34And what we're seeing is that, you know,
- 1:36they're not the Mag seven anymore,
- 1:37that actually some of them are the Lag seven.
- 1:39And so
- 1:40but in spite of that,
- 1:41the broader markets have continued to climb.
- 1:44It's like, you know, prior to this year it'd be like,
- 1:47you know, if we had a big Thanksgiving dinner, right?
- 1:51And we were the adults, me and all the kids out there.
- 1:54And then we just ate all the food,
- 1:55and the kids would starve to death.
- 1:57That's what the broad market's the Nasdaq 100 or the S&P 500.
- 2:00The Russell became all those big stocks
- 2:02because of their market cap, and because those indexes are market
- 2:06cap weighted, took up all of the money and the inflows.
- 2:09Now we're starting to see some breakouts
- 2:11amongst some of the other areas in the market like industrials
- 2:15is a kind of a boring sector.
- 2:16But if you think about what it means to AI
- 2:19you know, you're talking about power generation.
- 2:21You're talking about the cooling systems that keep those big data
- 2:25center, those servers cool.
- 2:28And, you know, we've seen this backlog that everybody recognizes
- 2:32amongst chips.
- 2:33There's a there's chips
- 2:34in between them that make them talk to each other.
- 2:36So there's a lot of opportunity out there.
- 2:39The thing I think that's scaring most people today is how much
- 2:42the big hyperscalers are saying
- 2:44they're going to spend on this build out,
- 2:46and I believe they're going to spend it.
- 2:47So you have an opportunity today to say, well,
- 2:50do I want to be investing with the spenders
- 2:52and hope that it works out?
- 2:54Or do I want to be an investor?
- 2:55And with the savers,
- 2:56those people are going to get, let's say, $5 trillion
- 2:59worth of investment in CapEx
- 3:00and then build out this AI story, right?
- 3:02I mean, even like
- 3:03when we look at some things
- 3:04that are coming out of our chief investment office
- 3:06here, we look at some of the earnings reports,
- 3:08and a lot of these hyperscalers
- 3:09are still talking about how cloud revenue,
- 3:11they're showing cloud revenue.
- 3:12It's accelerating further on top of what you were talking about
- 3:15with CapEx spending.
- 3:16I mean, it's it's an unbelievable story.
- 3:19And like you said, there's
- 3:19so many different industries that are AI almost adjacent,
- 3:23especially industrials.
- 3:25We have one of our transformational innovation opportunities.
- 3:28That power and energy is one of the most important aspects of the
- 3:32AI revolution, because without it,
- 3:34I mean we don't have enough electricity as it is.
- 3:35So the demand is just going to explode.
- 3:37It's not going to come from the grid, right?
- 3:39It can't because we would explode electricity prices
- 3:42almost immediately.
- 3:42It's almost number two is that we don't have the excess capacity.
- 3:45But the most important reason
- 3:47can't come from the grid is that every once in a while,
- 3:49we have a storm and the grid goes down.
- 3:50They can't have that happen.
- 3:52So I think what we see
- 3:53is that it's going to
- 3:54be coming from what we would call behind the meter on site owned,
- 3:58power generation.
- 3:59And I think the phases of that are going to start
- 4:01with natural gas and generators and,
- 4:02and eventually,
- 4:03hopefully there'll be small nukes down the road that will work
- 4:06because otherwise,
- 4:08you know,
- 4:08the communities are going to continue to push back on it
- 4:11because nobody wants to see their electricity prices skyrocket.
- 4:13Exactly.
- 4:14And have constant brownouts, especially when you get a heat wave.
- 4:16We both live in the northeast.
- 4:18It happens a couple times every summer
- 4:20where, you know, they have to reduce the capacity only to prevent
- 4:24the fact
- 4:24that we might have a brownout or a blackout, which we have seen,
- 4:27you know, in past years.
- 4:28The grid is completely overextended and will only get worse
- 4:32if we switch to the Federal Reserve for a second,
- 4:34because obviously, when you're looking at the
- 4:36the broader economic picture,
- 4:37consumer spending is still pretty resilient.
- 4:40But we have seen GDP
- 4:42come down a little bit in the most recent reading.
- 4:45Probably a lot of that.
- 4:46And according to
- 4:46even what
- 4:47we read in the Fed statement,
- 4:47was the impact of the Iran-US conflict.
- 4:50And Kevin Warsh, in his new role
- 4:53as the chair, is talking about this
- 4:54watchful thinking, holding rates steady.
- 4:56Do you think the Fed is on the right path here?
- 4:59And I mean,
- 4:59even we had three dissenters
- 5:01who wanted to raise rates this last meeting.
- 5:03Interesting to see those numbers 9 to 3. Yeah.
- 5:05Well it was it was eight the previous meeting.
- 5:08So it's coming down.
- 5:09And about 2 or 3 months ago
- 5:11the odds of a Fed increase were like 70% plus.
- 5:13Now I think it's probably under 25 or 20% based on the last one.
- 5:17So, I don't think that they're going to raise this year.
- 5:21I think that,
- 5:22you know, he's
- 5:22sort of, in my view, he's sort of plowing the ground,
- 5:25if you will.
- 5:26You created this blue
- 5:27ribbon commission
- 5:28to study how the Fed operates outside of just the governors.
- 5:31And I think, you know, it's possible that they could sort of vary
- 5:34a little bit from the quote unquote, hard 2% inflation mandate.
- 5:39And, so I don't think they're going to raise it.
- 5:41If I was a betting man,
- 5:42I probably will see a one cut before the end of the year.
- 5:45One cut. Yeah, yeah.
- 5:47Right.
- 5:47Now the view here in CIO is two cuts, but starting in January.
- 5:50So it's probably not that far off from what you're thinking.
- 5:53And obviously we're looking at seeing what is coming
- 5:55out of the fed statement.
- 5:56This time with Warsh in charge,
- 5:58was a lot shorter and smaller than what Powell has done.
- 6:00Yeah.
- 6:00So that's the new regime.
- 6:02And he's even talking about cutting out some of the meetings.
- 6:04So he's trying to put his own footprint on
- 6:07you know what these meetings look like and how they're conducted.
- 6:09Yeah.
- 6:09Well we've been
- 6:10you know, we've been sort of,
- 6:11you know, held hostage, if you will, by certain narratives.
- 6:14Right.
- 6:14It was the Fed, you know, what's the dot plot say.
- 6:17That's right.
- 6:17And then we went through this next phase,
- 6:19which is, you know, oil
- 6:21because of what's
- 6:21going on in Iran, in the strait
- 6:23that became the dominant story of oil was up,
- 6:25the market was down.
- 6:25If oil's down, the market was up.
- 6:27And that seems to be,
- 6:30sort of lessening a little bit.
- 6:31I think it's still going to be a little bit of a story.
- 6:34And now we have the CapEx is the big driver.
- 6:37And can they continue to spend all this money,
- 6:40and ultimately turn a profit or make a profit on it?
- 6:43But at the end of the day, what really drives markets
- 6:46more than anything besides sentiment is earnings.
- 6:50And the earnings growth story is a phenomenal story.
- 6:54I was 26 last quarter
- 6:55that people are saying it could be up 46, 45% this quarter.
- 6:59And I think what's driving
- 7:01that is the early adoption of some of these AI,
- 7:06agents and using AI in businesses.
- 7:08We are, I think, beginning, a productivity boom.
- 7:13Right.
- 7:14And so I think that will help the markets overall.
- 7:17So earnings
- 7:18growth and productivity growth combined
- 7:20with a relatively stable economy.
- 7:23And you know, let's say an uncommitted Fed
- 7:24just leave things where they are right.
- 7:26You know I think that's a pretty good backdrop,
- 7:27which is a perfect way
- 7:28for me to ask you the next and final question of the episode,
- 7:31which is talking about opportunities.
- 7:32And so,
- 7:33you know, if you are somebody
- 7:34who's kind of overextended on the large cap side,
- 7:36do you want to continue to put money into there,
- 7:38you know, without going into specific names or funds,
- 7:40where do you think the best?
- 7:42Because, you know, here we think, yes, it's a nice diversified
- 7:46growth equities,
- 7:47quality fixed income, some commodities exposure.
- 7:50What are your thoughts telling you I think perhaps small caps
- 7:54a little bit.
- 7:54You know, waiting in the wings if you will.
- 7:57If you like, I'd like to, you know,
- 7:58just pick any small cap fund that
- 7:59it's like 35% the last 12 months.
- 8:01And I don't think people really notice that.
- 8:03But we're entering in one of these cycles
- 8:05that perhaps that could be a winner.
- 8:07We've seen flows into international and global.
- 8:09You know, it's so, you know, that's like, you know, every,
- 8:13every time you three putt
- 8:14or every time you invest internationally, 1 in 2 things happen.
- 8:17You're usually embarrassed about it,
- 8:19but you're pretty sure you're going to do it again.
- 8:21And so we keep pushing money International, but perhaps this time
- 8:23it's not going to be losing the football
- 8:25where we get ready to kick it and they swipe the football.
- 8:28So we've seen some flows there just based on valuations.
- 8:30And so I think what
- 8:32what has been
- 8:32the healthiest thing has been the discussion about
- 8:35what do I do about my overconcentration.
- 8:38I can't have a diversified portfolio with seven
- 8:40names, owning 40% of the weight.
- 8:42And when like the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
- 8:47So that's been great, right?
- 8:49Until earlier this year when we started to see some of the cracks
- 8:52and some of the questions
- 8:54about whether that CapEx will actually materialize into earnings
- 8:57down the road, it's sort of forced us to go back and think about,
- 9:01okay, now I really do need to create a diversified portfolio,
- 9:05and you can't get it by by owning the Nasdaq and the S&P
- 9:08because it's basically pretty much the same thing. Right.
- 9:11So where do I go if I'm going to diversify.
- 9:13And so different cap weighting schemes we think makes sense.
- 9:16Or down the cap stock into small cap.
- 9:18And then go back to what our traditional value
- 9:22allocations would be to international and global.
- 9:24Excellent, Sean. Thank you very much. Please come back.
- 9:26Great conversation.
- 9:27There's always enough going on that
- 9:28we can talk about pretty much anything at any time. We sure can.
- 9:31Great.
- 9:31Sean O'Hara from Pacer ETF Distributors.
- 9:34Thank you Sean. Thank you.
- 9:34And thank you for joining us, everyone.
- 9:36There's a lot more information
- 9:37from Pacer and best partners that we have at UBS.
- 9:40At our website ubs.com/views.
- 9:43Plus you can follow us on social media.
- 9:45We're on LinkedIn and Facebook.
- 9:46Plus the studio has its own
- 9:48dedicated Instagram
- 9:49channel at @UBStrending
- 9:50lots of content there that you won't find anywhere else.
- 9:52And as always,
- 9:53if you have any questions
- 9:54about what Sean
- 9:54and I spoke about today, please continue this conversation
- 9:57with your financial advisor.
- 9:58Until next time, I'm Anthony Pastore.
- 10:00We wish you a great rest of your day,
- 10:02and remember to keep your eyes on what's trending.
- 10:03We'll see you soon, everybody. Thanks.