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Kathleen Fisher Discusses Diversity in Finance · Masters in Business

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, we have a special guest.
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Speaker 1: Her name is Kathleen Fisher. She is the head of
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Speaker 1: Wealth and Investment Strategies and Alliance Bernstein. Bernstein manages about
0:21
Speaker 1: five d forty billion dollars. They're they're just a giant
0:25
Speaker 1: company in twenty two countries employees. I think they have
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Speaker 1: something like two hundred analysts and a hundred and fifty
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Speaker 1: portfolio managers. Uh, they're just a behemoth, and she runs
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Speaker 1: all of her wealth and investment strategies. If you're at
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Speaker 1: all interested in asset management and what it's like working
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Speaker 1: at a giant firm, or what it's like to be
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Speaker 1: a woman at a very senior level, and really Wall
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Speaker 1: Street still is a male dominated profession. Um, this is
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Speaker 1: really an interesting conversation. Uh. There are a few people
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Speaker 1: who know this business and know the human side of
1:05
Speaker 1: it as well as Kathy. She's just tremendously knowledgeable and insightful,
1:10
Speaker 1: UM and and full of all sorts of intelligent commentary.
1:15
Speaker 1: I think, Uh, this is the sort of conversation. So
1:19
Speaker 1: if you're at all interested in asset management, wealth strategies
1:23
Speaker 1: investment portfolio strategies. Uh, this is the podcast for you,
1:28
Speaker 1: with no further ado. Here is my conversation with Alliance
1:32
Speaker 1: Bernstein's Kathleen Fisher. My guest this week is Kathleen Fisher.
1:40
Speaker 1: She is the head of Wealth and Investment Strategies at
1:44
Speaker 1: Alliance Bernstein, a firm that manages about five hundred and
1:48
Speaker 1: forty billion dollars with thirty undred employees in twenty two countries.
1:54
Speaker 1: She joined the firm as a senior portfolio manager and
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Speaker 1: member of Bernstein's private client Investment policy Group. Before joining Bernstein,
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Speaker 1: she spent fifteen years at JP Morgan, most recently as
2:07
Speaker 1: managing director, advising banks on acquisitions, divestitures, and financing techniques.
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Speaker 1: She graduated from Bates College and has an MBA from
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Speaker 1: n y U. Kathleen Fisher, Welcome to Bloomberg. Glad to
2:21
Speaker 1: be here, and I'm gonna call you Kathy instead. I
2:25
Speaker 1: know that's your everyday name. You started as an equity analyst.
2:30
Speaker 1: What attracted you to finance in the first place? You
2:33
Speaker 1: know me back up and say I started as a
2:35
Speaker 1: young economist. I started the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
2:39
Speaker 1: I was there for three years, I did monetary research
2:42
Speaker 1: as well as GDP research. It was an amazingly wonderful
2:46
Speaker 1: learning experience to do high quality research. It was very academic,
2:50
Speaker 1: but I learned the importance of getting your facts right,
2:53
Speaker 1: which today is more relevant than ever, isn't it when
2:55
Speaker 1: we have a word that's called fake news. But it
2:58
Speaker 1: was a great learning exp various about the importance of footnotes,
3:01
Speaker 1: about citing your sources. That has followed me and everything
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Speaker 1: I've done since then. UM. Having come to New York
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Speaker 1: though to do that job, I did start meeting people
3:10
Speaker 1: who were an investment banking and equity research, and long
3:13
Speaker 1: and behold, someone I met gave me an opportunity to
3:16
Speaker 1: go to Morgan Stanley to be a bank stock analyst,
3:19
Speaker 1: and that's how I get into equity research, which UM
3:23
Speaker 1: back then it was still a relatively new field, very
3:26
Speaker 1: exciting and for me very intellectually rewarding to focus on
3:31
Speaker 1: relative valuations, but to also learn that what you think
3:35
Speaker 1: is so right often takes the market much longer to
3:38
Speaker 1: agree with or perhaps never agree with. So it was
3:41
Speaker 1: a great learning experience. Any particular example stand out as
3:46
Speaker 1: this was quite quite the memorable experience. UM I was.
3:50
Speaker 1: I was covering bank stocks at a time when bank
3:52
Speaker 1: stocks were very much out of favor, and therefore no
3:57
Speaker 1: one wanted to hear a word I said for quite
3:59
Speaker 1: some time. So let's just say that and of itself
4:02
Speaker 1: was a great experience. So you spent a lot of
4:05
Speaker 1: your career at JP Morgan after Morgan Stanley, What was
4:10
Speaker 1: that experience like? What did you do for them? My
4:13
Speaker 1: timing at JP Morgan was incredibly fortuitous because I did
4:16
Speaker 1: a lot of bank m and A at a time
4:19
Speaker 1: when bank m and A was absolutely a huge trend
4:22
Speaker 1: in the late eighties, early nineties, mid nineties. So it
4:25
Speaker 1: was a very active space and tons of activity. So
4:29
Speaker 1: it was a really a wonderful experience and one that
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Speaker 1: captured both all that one does in M and A
4:36
Speaker 1: and corporate finance about valuations and the right price to
4:39
Speaker 1: pay for a deal. But also it brought in the
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Speaker 1: human side of things because with bank mergers, needless to say,
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Speaker 1: cost reduction and people reduction and um. You had to
4:50
Speaker 1: get your head around that UM. And the important thing
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Speaker 1: is in a world that makes sense over time, it
4:55
Speaker 1: did make sense for the banking industry to shrink. Those
4:58
Speaker 1: job cuts would come eventually those mergers accelerated them, but
5:02
Speaker 1: it was something that you had to stand back and say,
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Speaker 1: you know, it's going to happen over time, regardless of when.
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Speaker 1: So your tenure at JP Morgan, I believe that predated
5:12
Speaker 1: the Jamie Diamond era is very much predated. It was
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Speaker 1: pre Chase Merger. Actually, yes, so I was going to
5:18
Speaker 1: ask you how much time you spent working with Jamie,
5:20
Speaker 1: but obviously quite a long time ago, obviously not so
5:24
Speaker 1: what led you to Alliance Bernstein, although if memory serves,
5:28
Speaker 1: when you joined it was Bernstein still right now, I
5:31
Speaker 1: joined in two thousand one. The merger occurred in two thousands,
5:35
Speaker 1: so I came post the Alliance Bernstein merger. I joined
5:39
Speaker 1: Alliance Bernstein because several of my colleagues from JP Morgan
5:43
Speaker 1: had migrated to Alliance Bernstein over time, and therefore they
5:47
Speaker 1: enticed me to join the firm. And you've been there
5:50
Speaker 1: ever since, been there ever since since two thousand and one.
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Speaker 1: So your current title is Head of Wealth and Investment Strategies.
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Speaker 1: What does the head of Wealth and Investment Strategies do well?
6:00
Speaker 1: I am blessed to work with a team of thirty
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Speaker 1: five extraordinary experienced professionals who are in two separate groups.
6:09
Speaker 1: One is the Wealth Strategies group, which develops the models
6:13
Speaker 1: that help our clients pre experience the likely financial outcomes
6:18
Speaker 1: of decisions they can make, whether those decisions are around
6:21
Speaker 1: wealth transfer strategies or retirement or chartable. Giving the idea
6:26
Speaker 1: that you have many variables that you can control and
6:29
Speaker 1: therefore how to think about different asset allocations different structures,
6:33
Speaker 1: we help our clients think through all those options. Are
6:36
Speaker 1: you running Monty Carlos some relations or or what are
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Speaker 1: you actually doing to to derive those variable outputs based
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Speaker 1: on different decisions. Our core model does indeed utilize the
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Speaker 1: Monte Carlo engine, but it's one that we have developed
6:48
Speaker 1: ourselves over the years because we, as a research based firm,
6:52
Speaker 1: want to make sure we are informed by history and
6:56
Speaker 1: therefore we want to take responsibility for embedding relationships that
7:00
Speaker 1: make sense over time. So it's our model, but using
7:04
Speaker 1: a lot of the important quantitative techniques that are important
7:07
Speaker 1: to getting that right. The other team is um the
7:10
Speaker 1: team the Private Clients and Policy Group, which works on
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Speaker 1: ATHID allocation advice and strategies for clients once they have
7:18
Speaker 1: made the appropriate decisions about their goals and objectives UM,
7:22
Speaker 1: and also the specific execution strategies using the different investment
7:26
Speaker 1: portfolios that we offer at our firm. So one side
7:29
Speaker 1: of the group is planning, the other side is actually
7:32
Speaker 1: asset management, and you want the portfolio to match the plants,
7:36
Speaker 1: and am I over simplying that's very good? And it's
7:38
Speaker 1: actually we're not the we're not the portfolio managers ourselves.
7:41
Speaker 1: We're making the asset allocation advice using the portfolios that
7:44
Speaker 1: are managed at the firm. So all internal. So in
7:47
Speaker 1: other words, you're creating the salad from ingredients made within.
7:52
Speaker 1: Is that too? Sexis good? Analogy good? And no no, no, no,
7:55
Speaker 1: that's that We all eat salads. That's good. Yeah, some
7:58
Speaker 1: of us less than we should, that's good. So so
8:02
Speaker 1: it's in house portfolios that are created from it's an
8:06
Speaker 1: in house asset allocation model using various funds and assets
8:12
Speaker 1: that are also managed in house. So really you do
8:16
Speaker 1: you use outside managers? So we we use we offer,
8:20
Speaker 1: we use et f s were appropriate, UM, but the
8:22
Speaker 1: bulk of our services are indeed managed in house. Let's
8:26
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about last year was kind of
8:30
Speaker 1: an unusual year. We had very high returns in the
8:34
Speaker 1: United States, even better returns overseas, especially dollar denominated, and
8:39
Speaker 1: incredibly low volatility and very very low draw douns. What
8:43
Speaker 1: do you make of the way played out? You captured
8:48
Speaker 1: all the anomalies, and no one knew going into two
8:51
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen that they would occur. So it's a
8:53
Speaker 1: great reminder that you don't know, and they've given here
8:56
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, especially the overseas returns for dollar
8:58
Speaker 1: based investors. We started the year with all the focus
9:01
Speaker 1: on the US, but the global synchronous recovery, the benefit
9:05
Speaker 1: to earnings around the world, all of these were very
9:07
Speaker 1: positive surprises that led equities to do quite well. But
9:11
Speaker 1: the fact that there was such calm around the globe
9:14
Speaker 1: despite the geopolitical issues, which the market really has absorbed
9:17
Speaker 1: very nicely. The calm made the sharp ratio for the
9:21
Speaker 1: year probably one of the highest on record. Right returns
9:24
Speaker 1: relatively unit of risk given the volatility in the market
9:27
Speaker 1: was really quite remarkable. So it was an extraordinary year.
9:30
Speaker 1: Was actually probably rad a perfect year, and that we
9:32
Speaker 1: had no months when there was a negative return on
9:35
Speaker 1: the global stock market, so um lots of record breaking
9:40
Speaker 1: events in two thousand and seventeen UM and when we
9:44
Speaker 1: look forward, we think a lot of those good things
9:46
Speaker 1: are still in place. The challenge, though, is we would
9:49
Speaker 1: also argue that a lot of the good news is
9:51
Speaker 1: already in the market already then. So one of the
9:54
Speaker 1: things I find fascinating is when you have, as you
9:58
Speaker 1: folks do, a global allocation, and do you get pushed
10:01
Speaker 1: back from clients, not in seventeen, but in a hey,
10:07
Speaker 1: U S stocks are doing great? Why are we wasting
10:09
Speaker 1: all this time with all these overseas haul things? What
10:12
Speaker 1: what sort of pushback does the diversified portfolio generate? I
10:18
Speaker 1: will say we spend a lot of time with clients
10:20
Speaker 1: reminding why you have diversification right. You never know when
10:23
Speaker 1: things will change, and therefore we remind there will always
10:27
Speaker 1: be times when you hold something that is out of
10:29
Speaker 1: favor or doing less well than you would like. And
10:31
Speaker 1: certainly holding non U S stocks ever since the financial
10:35
Speaker 1: crisis has been a drain on returns until two thousand
10:38
Speaker 1: and seventeen, But we know that over time they will
10:41
Speaker 1: trade places they do they have. Two thousand and seventeen
10:44
Speaker 1: showed that this year non U S stocks continue to
10:46
Speaker 1: outpace the U s for dollar based investors, and that
10:50
Speaker 1: is the power of diversification for long term investors. And
10:52
Speaker 1: our clients are long term investors, so they do embrace
10:56
Speaker 1: the idea that diversification will help them get the returns
10:59
Speaker 1: they spect but the amount of risks they're willing to
11:01
Speaker 1: tolerate over time. What about the general trend towards indexing.
11:06
Speaker 1: How do you You You guys are an active set of managers,
11:10
Speaker 1: although you do use e t f s, how do
11:12
Speaker 1: you see this overall trends away from active management and
11:17
Speaker 1: towards indexing playing out. Especially your client base tends to
11:21
Speaker 1: be a fairly sophisticated, high net worth group of investors. Clearly,
11:26
Speaker 1: active and passive should and can coexist. There is a
11:30
Speaker 1: role for passive, and as a research based firm, we
11:33
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge as we do that the cheapness of passive,
11:37
Speaker 1: which has come down a lot in the past forty years,
11:39
Speaker 1: means that investors Kennedy get very cheap access to all
11:43
Speaker 1: many pockets of the market they couldn't before. So for
11:46
Speaker 1: clients who have relatively short time frames who are very
11:49
Speaker 1: focused on getting market returns, there's nothing wrong with passive.
11:53
Speaker 1: But for clients who want a chance about performing over
11:57
Speaker 1: time and do have a longer time horizon where are
12:00
Speaker 1: active has time to play out, have more I think
12:03
Speaker 1: it needs more options now than they had before. In
12:05
Speaker 1: that active managers know they need to really show their value.
12:09
Speaker 1: They can't be index huggers. They need to have high
12:12
Speaker 1: conviction in their strategies and have to be able to
12:15
Speaker 1: communicate why they should play out over time. But you
12:18
Speaker 1: do need time for active strategies to work. And concentrated
12:22
Speaker 1: portfolios high conviction portfolios that look very different than the
12:25
Speaker 1: market are high active, share very little correlation with the benchmarks.
12:32
Speaker 1: In fact, we have servicesor benchmark agnostic equity services. Were saying,
12:36
Speaker 1: you know, you don't even think about benchmarking us. We
12:38
Speaker 1: have some concentrated portfolios stocks and when you have that
12:43
Speaker 1: conviction and the time to have at work, um, those
12:47
Speaker 1: are nice satellites to have around core portfolios. So you
12:51
Speaker 1: are a broad allocator. Let's talk a little bit about
12:54
Speaker 1: the other half of the portfolio, the fixed income portion.
12:58
Speaker 1: I have legitimately been hearing for ten years that this
13:02
Speaker 1: bond bull market is over, it's dead, it's done, and
13:06
Speaker 1: then next year I guess maybe this is the year
13:09
Speaker 1: we've seen rates start to tick up. What does that
13:12
Speaker 1: mean for fixed income? And are we really at the
13:16
Speaker 1: end of the bond bull market? You are right, We've
13:20
Speaker 1: been talking about it for a long time. I think
13:22
Speaker 1: some clients are beginning to think it's a broken record. Um.
13:25
Speaker 1: But when you think of how strong the global economy is,
13:29
Speaker 1: and although remember inflation has been the mystery here, inflation
13:33
Speaker 1: has been so low for so long. If the economy
13:36
Speaker 1: continues to be as robust as it has been, it
13:39
Speaker 1: is likely inflation will take up a bit, and even
13:41
Speaker 1: a little bit will encourage central banks to become less accommodative.
13:46
Speaker 1: We expect rates to move up gradually and modestly over time.
13:49
Speaker 1: We can't wait, though this is getting a little bit
13:52
Speaker 1: tiresome to have these have rates day as low as
13:54
Speaker 1: they have. We've already seen some signs of inflation ticking
13:58
Speaker 1: up around the world, and fairly recently. Early there are signs,
14:03
Speaker 1: and late there are some signs of small amounts of
14:08
Speaker 1: wage pressure. Is that going to continue? What? How do
14:11
Speaker 1: you look at that and integrate that into a portfolio.
14:14
Speaker 1: We do think the pockets of stress and the job
14:18
Speaker 1: market indicate that wage pressure can develop, But we were not.
14:22
Speaker 1: You know, none of us have a crystal ball on this,
14:24
Speaker 1: but we do expect that to be a source of
14:27
Speaker 1: upward pressure. So we do think that rates will be rising.
14:30
Speaker 1: But as I said, gradually, our current forecast though, is
14:32
Speaker 1: for four FED rate hikes in two thousand and eighteen,
14:36
Speaker 1: and we do think we'll start to see rates picking
14:38
Speaker 1: up a bit from here, especially as the central banks
14:41
Speaker 1: and other parts of the world fall into step as well.
14:45
Speaker 1: So I see a lot of pushback on bond funds
14:48
Speaker 1: versus individual bonds. Is that an issue you ever deal
14:52
Speaker 1: with with clients? There's there seems to be some sort
14:55
Speaker 1: of confusion around do I own individual bonds or am
14:59
Speaker 1: I better off and a fund and not have to
15:01
Speaker 1: pick individual bonds? How do you manage that in your portfolios?
15:05
Speaker 1: And what do you think of the difference. There has
15:08
Speaker 1: been enormous press over the years about problems with bond funds,
15:12
Speaker 1: which um Our clients understand are are not true. I e.
15:17
Speaker 1: Um people who hold individual bonds usually don't mark their
15:20
Speaker 1: bonds to market and therefore are not paying attention to
15:24
Speaker 1: the actual price loss they may have when rates rise.
15:28
Speaker 1: Bond funds, in contrast, especially intermediate bond funds that are
15:32
Speaker 1: intentionally diversified across the term structure are looking to take
15:37
Speaker 1: advantage of changing um yield curve shapes, are looking to
15:41
Speaker 1: take advantage of short term rates rise and you name it,
15:43
Speaker 1: so they can reinvest coupons in higher yielding bonds when
15:47
Speaker 1: rates rise. And therefore, bond funds are very flexible, especially
15:52
Speaker 1: when rates rise, to let you take advantage of the
15:55
Speaker 1: changes that occur. Uh. There's another factor which is very important.
16:00
Speaker 1: It's the bond liquidity is no longer as as broad
16:03
Speaker 1: as it was pre crisis, and therefore bond funds are
16:07
Speaker 1: much better for clients who need to pull many out
16:09
Speaker 1: of their funds as opposed to selling an individual bond
16:12
Speaker 1: at a very poor price in a less liquid market.
16:15
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about what it's like for
16:18
Speaker 1: you as a woman working in a field that's been
16:23
Speaker 1: so male dominated for so long. Have you seen any
16:26
Speaker 1: improvement of things gotten better? Are there more opportunities for
16:30
Speaker 1: women in this field? Things have definitely gotten better that
16:34
Speaker 1: It's very obvious that the industry wants women for the
16:37
Speaker 1: right reasons, i e. We want diverseit for diversity of thought.
16:41
Speaker 1: We want women, We want people of color. We want
16:44
Speaker 1: to have much more um, different kinds of input. UM.
16:48
Speaker 1: So many studies have shown how much better teams are
16:51
Speaker 1: when they are diverse, and we want to have that
16:53
Speaker 1: advantage and also our clients expected, which is which is good.
16:57
Speaker 1: I think you get, you get a lot of positive reinforcement.
17:01
Speaker 1: And I do think one of the reasons things are
17:02
Speaker 1: getting better is that companies are so much more flexible
17:05
Speaker 1: than they ever were before, and and that's good for
17:08
Speaker 1: men and women right. The fact that there is much
17:10
Speaker 1: what you can work remotely. These are all good things
17:13
Speaker 1: that encourage a fluid and adaptive workforce that benefits everyone.
17:17
Speaker 1: The pay differential between men and women is as bad
17:19
Speaker 1: as it was, is it getting better? Problem with any
17:23
Speaker 1: kind of pay measurements is that it's very hard to
17:26
Speaker 1: actually look at identical jobs. I would argue that certainly
17:29
Speaker 1: at my firm and at every firm I know, people
17:33
Speaker 1: get the same pay for identical jobs. It's really that's
17:35
Speaker 1: the challenge is actually saying each job, how you measure
17:38
Speaker 1: each job? UM. Michelle Myers of Bank America Merrill Lynch
17:43
Speaker 1: specifically cited a lack of women at the top of
17:47
Speaker 1: the industry as a challenge for women in finance. And
17:51
Speaker 1: I'm assuming she means a lack of role models, a
17:54
Speaker 1: lack of mentors. What was your experience coming up through
17:57
Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley, JP, Morgan and now alongst so let me
18:01
Speaker 1: started saying, I'm a partner at our firm, and that
18:03
Speaker 1: is wonderful, and that I and my other senior female colleagues,
18:07
Speaker 1: UM are very focused on coaching, mentoring, and sponsorship of
18:10
Speaker 1: young women. That is absolutely a dominant force. When I
18:14
Speaker 1: was younger, UM, I was kind of lucky in that
18:17
Speaker 1: I never felt the need to fit in and and
18:20
Speaker 1: and that meant that I wasn't looking as much for
18:23
Speaker 1: female role models as perhaps some people might have been
18:26
Speaker 1: back then. UM. And therefore, UM, it didn't stiny me
18:30
Speaker 1: because I always thought that if you had good ideas
18:33
Speaker 1: and were contributing, you would be rewarded. So I was
18:37
Speaker 1: very lucky that it didn't trouble me me too much.
18:39
Speaker 1: But I think it's too much into this. So you
18:41
Speaker 1: suggesting you stood out as a woman and there was
18:44
Speaker 1: an advantage to that, I can I will not go
18:46
Speaker 1: that far. UM. I will say that the UM that
18:50
Speaker 1: I think some of the frustrations that some people may
18:53
Speaker 1: have had in their careers. I didn't have UM and
18:57
Speaker 1: and was very fortunate in every firm I worked for
18:59
Speaker 1: not have had those. So what do you think is
19:03
Speaker 1: the current state of affairs in gender relations? This past
19:07
Speaker 1: year is really feels like a major turning point in
19:13
Speaker 1: the roles of genders and what is and isn't acceptable behavior?
19:18
Speaker 1: Am I overstating that? I think the fact that conversations
19:21
Speaker 1: are being held at the company level in public forms
19:24
Speaker 1: is really good, and everyone's having conversations they might not
19:27
Speaker 1: have had before, and openness leads to good results and
19:31
Speaker 1: good outcomes and much more honesty, candor and effectiveness. So
19:34
Speaker 1: I think this is indeed a good, good, good spot
19:37
Speaker 1: to be in. UM. The time will tell, but I
19:41
Speaker 1: am most focused on how exciting the brilliant young women
19:45
Speaker 1: that are coming up are doing and the impact I
19:48
Speaker 1: think they will have because there is so much more
19:51
Speaker 1: conversation about women making sure their voices are heard, about
19:55
Speaker 1: taking care and not to in any way make it
19:58
Speaker 1: make anything seem like it's male oriented, and I think
20:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good things that are happening because
20:02
Speaker 1: of that. Holding aside, what what's the right thing to do?
20:06
Speaker 1: The social issue aspect of it. When you look at
20:10
Speaker 1: the recent financing at uber, which is known as a
20:15
Speaker 1: sort of frat house bro mentality. It costs them tens
20:20
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars, both the founders, the employees, the
20:24
Speaker 1: outside investors because of that, you know, juvenile frat house approach.
20:32
Speaker 1: Have we reached a point where Corporate America has said
20:36
Speaker 1: enough is enough, This is real money and we have
20:39
Speaker 1: to get serious about it. Oh? We yet that stage yet?
20:41
Speaker 1: You know, you raised a really good point, which is
20:43
Speaker 1: that the transparency that the Internet has permitted has made
20:47
Speaker 1: it hard for companies to hide. And that's a good thing.
20:50
Speaker 1: Uh So, I do think there's a much greater awareness
20:54
Speaker 1: that good behavior is necessary, and I think that's going
20:58
Speaker 1: to be very helpful in enforcing more good behavior down
21:02
Speaker 1: the road. Let's talk a little bit about what you
21:05
Speaker 1: see as head of wealth management and investment strategies. You
21:11
Speaker 1: work with a big spectrum of investors, from individuals to
21:16
Speaker 1: institutions to everything in between. How do these different investors
21:20
Speaker 1: differ and in what ways are they the same? Well,
21:23
Speaker 1: I'm going to focus just on the private client business,
21:25
Speaker 1: and um, what's what's interesting there is that it has
21:30
Speaker 1: nothing to do with assets sized people are people, and
21:34
Speaker 1: everyone has their own personal preference for risk and return.
21:38
Speaker 1: And you could have two people exactly the same amount
21:41
Speaker 1: of money, and they could have a whole different view
21:44
Speaker 1: as whether they have enough or or they're going to
21:47
Speaker 1: run out of money, and both could be in very
21:49
Speaker 1: good places, but they each have a very different perspective.
21:52
Speaker 1: So um, we clearly focus a lot on making people
21:55
Speaker 1: understand the likely financial outcomes of all the decisions they
21:58
Speaker 1: can make, uh, and so that they have the confidence
22:01
Speaker 1: in the understanding to actually make very good judgments about
22:04
Speaker 1: long term planning. That fear of running out of money,
22:08
Speaker 1: I've heard that. I'm sure you've heard that from people
22:12
Speaker 1: who really, unless they start accumulating picassos, will never run
22:16
Speaker 1: out of money. Why is this such a significant concern
22:20
Speaker 1: from people who you would otherwise think are totally financially secure.
22:25
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with intellectual knowledge. It has
22:28
Speaker 1: everything to do with embedded psychology. And and as I've said,
22:33
Speaker 1: there's there's you don't know until the person explains you
22:36
Speaker 1: know there's something, whether it's something in their background or
22:38
Speaker 1: just their personal makeup, which makes them very conservative and
22:42
Speaker 1: fearful that terrible things could happen. That could indeed wipe
22:45
Speaker 1: out their their financial nest act. How do you respond
22:48
Speaker 1: to that? Um, it really gets to what I said
22:51
Speaker 1: before about modeling. Um, if we can show that even
22:53
Speaker 1: in very poor market conditions they will be in a
22:56
Speaker 1: good place, that is very reassure to people. So we do,
23:01
Speaker 1: indeed do our planning to the ninety percent confidence level
23:04
Speaker 1: to make sure people know that even in very poor
23:06
Speaker 1: conditions they will be fine. What about inflation? What sort
23:10
Speaker 1: of inflation assumptions do you build into those sort of plants?
23:14
Speaker 1: We let inflation is a variable. We are not saying
23:19
Speaker 1: we know we're inflation will go. We we do what
23:21
Speaker 1: we when we do forecast, we do ten thousand trials,
23:23
Speaker 1: and inflation is one of the factors that does unfold
23:27
Speaker 1: over time. It can be very high, can be very low.
23:29
Speaker 1: And remember, deflation can be as bad as inflation. But um,
23:33
Speaker 1: we want to show a range of expected outcomes for
23:36
Speaker 1: inflation as well, because you're so right, inflationary environments that
23:40
Speaker 1: are extreme can be very dangerous. Huh, that's that's that's
23:43
Speaker 1: quite interesting. So tell us about your day to day
23:46
Speaker 1: what does that look like? Are you because you work
23:50
Speaker 1: with two different groups of both planners and the asset
23:55
Speaker 1: management side. You're working with clients. What what's the Dame
24:00
Speaker 1: life of Kathleen fisherlike? Well, yes, I have. I have
24:03
Speaker 1: the incredible luxury of a lot of diversification my daily life.
24:08
Speaker 1: My team is working on long term asset allocation projects.
24:12
Speaker 1: We're working on long term planning projects. Were publishing for
24:15
Speaker 1: both our clients. We're creating communications for advisors. We're meeting
24:20
Speaker 1: with clients if our perspective can be useful to a
24:24
Speaker 1: client meeting. So we have a vast array of different
24:28
Speaker 1: things going on. Again, even time we speak in front
24:30
Speaker 1: of public forums in terms of groups. Um, So, lots
24:33
Speaker 1: of diversification. But what what's good about all of it
24:36
Speaker 1: is that we have a lot of interaction with clients
24:39
Speaker 1: and therefore can see, um what issues really matter to
24:44
Speaker 1: people and where we can be helpful and more clear
24:48
Speaker 1: in communicating. So we mentioned outliving their money. What are
24:51
Speaker 1: some of the other large concerns clients have these days? Well,
24:55
Speaker 1: we didn't talk too much about out living money, but
24:56
Speaker 1: I'm glad you raised that because that indeed, longevity risk
25:00
Speaker 1: is we always remind clients the biggest risk they have
25:02
Speaker 1: nothing in longevity risk is the biggest risk clients have.
25:07
Speaker 1: People worry about market returns, but just think that nothing
25:11
Speaker 1: in in human history has prepared people for a world
25:15
Speaker 1: where they work for forty years and then may have
25:17
Speaker 1: to live on what they say for the next thirty
25:20
Speaker 1: or forty years. Now for very wealthy people, it's a
25:22
Speaker 1: different dynamic, but still it's a very different thing when
25:26
Speaker 1: you're talking about living perhaps as long as you have worked.
25:30
Speaker 1: Right when you go back to why social security was created,
25:32
Speaker 1: people used to die a few years after they retire,
25:35
Speaker 1: So it's a very different ballot ball game. So the
25:38
Speaker 1: dynamics have changed dramatically, and it's very important how to
25:41
Speaker 1: think about, you know, money lasting for many, many decades.
25:46
Speaker 1: So we have technologies and health and healthcare changing. We
25:52
Speaker 1: have all sorts of things taking place in terms of
25:54
Speaker 1: genomics and oncology and down the road, what happens when
25:59
Speaker 1: human life spends, when a hundred is in a rarity,
26:03
Speaker 1: when that becomes run for the ordinary and we start
26:07
Speaker 1: seeing a hundred, ten hundred, twenty as not tremendous outliers.
26:11
Speaker 1: So we can eventually have a problem or we're gonna
26:14
Speaker 1: have to reconfigure how we think about our portfolios. When
26:19
Speaker 1: we turn sixty eight or seventy and not shift to
26:23
Speaker 1: that much more of a conservative portfolio, absolutely, and that's
26:26
Speaker 1: been the case for at least a decade now with
26:28
Speaker 1: with rates interest rates being so low. You know, the
26:31
Speaker 1: old the decades ago when people used to talk about
26:34
Speaker 1: switching to bonds, bond returns were in the mid single
26:36
Speaker 1: digit and of course at these levels that would be
26:38
Speaker 1: unconscionable to have a heavy bond weight if you need
26:40
Speaker 1: the money to work for decades to come. So most
26:43
Speaker 1: firms have indeed encourage clients to maintain a good equity
26:47
Speaker 1: weight when they retire. It's ever more important because of longevity.
26:51
Speaker 1: And the other thing that's important is to assume that
26:53
Speaker 1: your expenses grow with inflation over time, so you capture
26:56
Speaker 1: the risk of living for quite quite a long time.
26:59
Speaker 1: So we talked earlier about the shift from active to
27:04
Speaker 1: passive and how they could coexist, but underlying that has
27:08
Speaker 1: been the shift from price to cheap, and and we've
27:11
Speaker 1: seen what some people call the vanguard effects pressuring fees
27:15
Speaker 1: across the whole industry. What's your take on this and
27:19
Speaker 1: and what do you see happening going forward in terms
27:23
Speaker 1: of fee compression? And everything will associated with that. It's
27:29
Speaker 1: a It's a really interesting topic because I do think
27:31
Speaker 1: there's gonna much more segmentation in that UM. Getting cheap
27:35
Speaker 1: exposure is a good thing for many people, but paying
27:39
Speaker 1: fees for a broader advice model also makes sense. I
27:43
Speaker 1: think there will be an appropriate demand for transparency of
27:48
Speaker 1: fees and for clear value in what client is getting
27:52
Speaker 1: for those fees. So I think there's these are these
27:55
Speaker 1: are good trends for for clients, So transparency, value you
28:00
Speaker 1: And what was the third? I think the feasts have
28:03
Speaker 1: to be appropriate to the value offered. Yeah, that makes
28:06
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense. So you've seen some changes that
28:09
Speaker 1: have taken place in the financial industry over the past
28:13
Speaker 1: few years. What do you think is the most significant
28:16
Speaker 1: change that has occurred so far and what should we
28:19
Speaker 1: be on the lookout in the future. I would have
28:22
Speaker 1: to say speed and information. UM. I love looking at
28:26
Speaker 1: video clips from the seven market crash because you see
28:30
Speaker 1: reporters standing at the top of the New York Stock
28:32
Speaker 1: Exchange with pages giving them handwritten notes about what was
28:35
Speaker 1: happening on the floor. Nowadays, obviously we all know that
28:38
Speaker 1: everyone can get real time quotes on their phones. UM,
28:41
Speaker 1: there's a ton of information you can look at all
28:44
Speaker 1: day long. The problem is a lot of it's not
28:47
Speaker 1: very good. So information is not judgment, information is not assessment,
28:51
Speaker 1: it's not perspective. And so the challenge is is cutting
28:55
Speaker 1: through all the information to get to truly good advice. UM.
28:59
Speaker 1: So it's that that's created actually more of a challenge
29:01
Speaker 1: because the more information people have, the easier it is
29:04
Speaker 1: to react to it, as opposed to keeping their eye
29:07
Speaker 1: on the long term, which for most individuals is indeed
29:11
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. Do we suffer from information overload?
29:14
Speaker 1: Is there is there just two fire hose of not judgment,
29:19
Speaker 1: assessment or perspective, but just raw news and headlines and
29:25
Speaker 1: political volatility. What does that do to an investor's attitude
29:30
Speaker 1: and how does that affect their tendency to shoot themselves
29:33
Speaker 1: in the foot? Well, it does create those new risks, um.
29:37
Speaker 1: You know, studies have shown that back in the day,
29:39
Speaker 1: when people could only look at their accounts once a year,
29:43
Speaker 1: maybe once a quarter, they stayed long term investors. But
29:46
Speaker 1: now that they have daily information, they tend to do
29:49
Speaker 1: more things more quickly. So continually keeping the eye on
29:54
Speaker 1: the long term UM is really important. And and and
29:58
Speaker 1: I I tease about everything we're doing here today, and
30:01
Speaker 1: that because there is seven News, there's gonna be a
30:05
Speaker 1: lot of talking heads all the time telling people what
30:08
Speaker 1: to do, what to buy, what to sell. Um, and
30:10
Speaker 1: you have to stay away from taking that advice too seriously.
30:15
Speaker 1: So one of the things I noticed, since since you
30:17
Speaker 1: brought up the information flow after the election, in all
30:23
Speaker 1: investors seem to want to ask was what is Trump
30:27
Speaker 1: going to do for my portfolio? And if you remember
30:29
Speaker 1: early on, oh, this guy is gonna kill my portfolio,
30:32
Speaker 1: and then that very quickly became oh, this guy is
30:34
Speaker 1: gonna be great for my portfolio. How do you respond
30:38
Speaker 1: to questions about politics when is a perfect example, probably
30:45
Speaker 1: the most politically volatile year in my lifetime, and at
30:48
Speaker 1: the same time the lowest volatility in the markets. It
30:53
Speaker 1: is a fascinating situation, isn't it. Um. We actually looked
30:56
Speaker 1: back over time at all the geopolitical events back to
31:00
Speaker 1: World War two to show that it actually has always
31:04
Speaker 1: been the case that geopolitical events get a lot of
31:07
Speaker 1: headlines but have very little impact on the markets. Um.
31:10
Speaker 1: The only time they do is when something political works
31:13
Speaker 1: into the real economy. So for example, the Opec oil
31:17
Speaker 1: embargo in the seventies, which did affect the economy, of course,
31:20
Speaker 1: but many other things that we think of, the Cuban
31:23
Speaker 1: missile crisis, you name it, they really had very little
31:25
Speaker 1: impact on the market. And I think that as time
31:27
Speaker 1: has gone on, there's been more appreciation of that, which
31:30
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons markets have been relatively complacent
31:33
Speaker 1: through lots of scary headlines, because what matters over time,
31:37
Speaker 1: of course, is what companies are doing, uh in terms
31:41
Speaker 1: of earnings growth, in terms of um, you know, getting
31:44
Speaker 1: getting momentum for the long run, and that's what investors
31:47
Speaker 1: really have been focusing on this year. We have been
31:50
Speaker 1: speaking with Kathleen Fisher of Alliance Bernstein. If you enjoy
31:54
Speaker 1: this conversation, be sure and hang around for the podcast extras,
31:57
Speaker 1: where we keep the tape rolling and continue to guessing
32:00
Speaker 1: all things investment. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions
32:06
Speaker 1: right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net.
32:10
Speaker 1: You could follow me on Twitter at rit Halts. Check
32:12
Speaker 1: out my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com. I'm
32:16
Speaker 1: Barry Hults. You're listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
32:34
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. Kathleen, thank you so much for
32:37
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm I'm We've been looking forward to this
32:40
Speaker 1: since I saw you having a conversation. I think it
32:42
Speaker 1: was with Tom Keane, might have been uh some time ago.
32:46
Speaker 1: So Bernstein is a giant firm. I mean, you're half
32:51
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars plus, it's what almost four thousand employees?
32:55
Speaker 1: Is that about, right? So that's a substantial firm. What's
33:02
Speaker 1: it like working in a shop that large as a
33:05
Speaker 1: person who's as visible as you are for the company
33:09
Speaker 1: Bernstein Alliance Bernstein, And I'm saying Burnstein, that's a brand
33:12
Speaker 1: we surprise started, So you started after the mergery. I
33:15
Speaker 1: don't realize the merger was two thousand and the Alliance
33:18
Speaker 1: Burnstey merge was two thousand and Actually our brand now
33:21
Speaker 1: is a B which is which is great, um, nice
33:24
Speaker 1: and snappy, and it's a wonderful firm and that everyone
33:28
Speaker 1: in the firm is focused on one thing, which is
33:31
Speaker 1: providing great outcomes for our clients, because that's we only
33:34
Speaker 1: do one thing, right, We do investment, research and management.
33:37
Speaker 1: So that's a real luxury relative to being in a
33:40
Speaker 1: financial conglomerate that has tons of different unrelated businesses. You
33:45
Speaker 1: don't have to cross sell insurance or bank accounts or
33:47
Speaker 1: any of that. We focus on providing great financial returns
33:50
Speaker 1: and the appropriate risk adjusted returns for our clients, whether
33:55
Speaker 1: they be institutional, private clients, or retail channel. So it's
33:59
Speaker 1: it's a really um wonderful place to be working since
34:03
Speaker 1: everyone knows our goals and objectives and how we apply
34:06
Speaker 1: resources to achieve them. So um, I think that's a
34:10
Speaker 1: it's a great model because I do believe strongly that
34:13
Speaker 1: companies should have a core competency to exploit in a
34:16
Speaker 1: world where depth and bradth matter more than ever. So
34:20
Speaker 1: I remember Bernstein back in the nineties when constantly top
34:26
Speaker 1: ranked on Institutional Investor in terms of the research team,
34:30
Speaker 1: the individual analysts. I could pull some names out. Paul
34:34
Speaker 1: s Agawa was on telecommunications. I remember him downgrading Lucin,
34:41
Speaker 1: uh Cisco, a bunch of telecoms in and people thinking
34:45
Speaker 1: he's crazy and all those stocks then drop. So Bernstein
34:50
Speaker 1: was known for their research. Following the merger with Alliance,
34:56
Speaker 1: has the business changed all that much? I'm trying to remember,
34:59
Speaker 1: do you guys do syndication I p O as those
35:01
Speaker 1: sort of stuff or is it purely investment management and planning?
35:05
Speaker 1: It is investment management and research and our sell side
35:08
Speaker 1: Santacy Bernstein continues to win accolades in the quality of
35:12
Speaker 1: the research they provide. Now that business model is undergoing
35:17
Speaker 1: some pretty serious changes. At one point in time that
35:20
Speaker 1: was a big profit center for the big banks. Now
35:23
Speaker 1: it is the research department there in service of the
35:26
Speaker 1: rest of the asset management firm. How how is that
35:30
Speaker 1: working these days? Um? The Bernstein sell side research group is,
35:36
Speaker 1: as I said, incredibly well regarded and well positioned to
35:40
Speaker 1: gain market share in a world their pressures are indeed
35:43
Speaker 1: changing the nature of the business quite substantially. Yeah, that
35:47
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of feed compression in that space,
35:49
Speaker 1: and you mentioned the lack of liquidly on the bond side.
35:54
Speaker 1: That half of the sell side business has changed dramatically also.
35:58
Speaker 1: But you guys are fortunate that your focus is pretty
36:01
Speaker 1: single minded, and that's relatively unusual in this In this industry,
36:06
Speaker 1: I think it's a real advantage to clients to have
36:07
Speaker 1: a firm that really does know what it's doing and
36:10
Speaker 1: why it's doing it, to say the least. So let
36:13
Speaker 1: me jump to my favorite questions. These are the questions
36:16
Speaker 1: I ask all of our guests, what's the most important
36:20
Speaker 1: thing that people don't know about your background? Well, you
36:25
Speaker 1: might have gotten a sense. I'm a pretty disciplined person.
36:27
Speaker 1: I work a lot. Um I don't my young colleagues. No,
36:31
Speaker 1: I'm not on any social media social media at all,
36:36
Speaker 1: which makes me a bit of a lutite, I admit.
36:39
Speaker 1: But but the but the thing they are learning sometimes
36:42
Speaker 1: is that I read a lot about what's going on.
36:45
Speaker 1: So I'm actually much more up to date on what's
36:47
Speaker 1: trending than they would expect me to be. And the
36:50
Speaker 1: other really interesting thing for most of my younger colleagues
36:52
Speaker 1: is that I do believe that we're in a golden
36:56
Speaker 1: age of television. I do think that the Sopranos unleashed
36:58
Speaker 1: the most amazing sets of programs ever. And so when
37:03
Speaker 1: I have any free time on long holiday weekends, I
37:06
Speaker 1: do binge watch everything that I haven't seen, just like
37:09
Speaker 1: a teenager mind. Okay, so give me some names. I
37:11
Speaker 1: have my favorites. Um, tell me what what you're watching
37:15
Speaker 1: and enjoying. Well, to keep it nice and light. I
37:18
Speaker 1: did do the Crown over the holidays. One of the
37:20
Speaker 1: guys in my office loves that I can't get into
37:22
Speaker 1: it now. I think a lot of people think it's slow,
37:24
Speaker 1: but I think it's riveting because I am a bit
37:25
Speaker 1: of an anglophile. I do love House of Cards. You know,
37:29
Speaker 1: I'll probably still love it without Kevin spacey. Um. I
37:33
Speaker 1: love Oranges and New Black, so I could go on.
37:36
Speaker 1: But Oranges in New Black is a tough watch. I
37:38
Speaker 1: find that's like a little gritty. I think I think
37:41
Speaker 1: men have a harder time with it than women did. Maybe, Um,
37:44
Speaker 1: have you seen the marvelous miss Maple on em I've
37:47
Speaker 1: read about it and I know she was the young
37:51
Speaker 1: woman on on House of Cards, so I want to
37:55
Speaker 1: see that. My wife and I binge through the whole
37:57
Speaker 1: thing over the holidays, and it's really tremendous. Um, tell
38:02
Speaker 1: us about some of your early mentors. You talked about
38:04
Speaker 1: what you're doing at a b now mentoring women who
38:09
Speaker 1: were your mentors. You know. I wish I could say
38:12
Speaker 1: I had a couple of incredibly important ones. I really didn't,
38:16
Speaker 1: and I regret that because I do think it's so important.
38:18
Speaker 1: The one thing I did learn, though, is to make
38:20
Speaker 1: sure I got diverse opinions from people, because everyone has
38:25
Speaker 1: biases and everyone has UM some blind spots. So I
38:29
Speaker 1: have found it's really good to ask multiple people questions
38:33
Speaker 1: over time to get help. What investors influenced your approach
38:38
Speaker 1: to asset management? One thing I love about investing is
38:41
Speaker 1: connecting the dots UM. Everything's interconnected, Everything can have unintended consequences.
38:48
Speaker 1: When I was young and at Morgan Stanley, Barton Biggs
38:51
Speaker 1: was Martin. He's since passed away, and Barton Biggs used
38:55
Speaker 1: to take a big trip every year and write about it.
38:58
Speaker 1: And the reason and I'm highlighting that is that UM
39:02
Speaker 1: clients loved it because it reminded them of the big picture,
39:06
Speaker 1: reminded them to keep focusing on the long term and
39:09
Speaker 1: recognize all these interconnected issues as opposed to being very
39:13
Speaker 1: you know, focused on one particular stock or something that
39:15
Speaker 1: was really quite ephemeral as opposed to the longer term.
39:19
Speaker 1: So I gave him enormous credit for helping people think broadly.
39:23
Speaker 1: This is everybody's favorite question. What are some of your
39:27
Speaker 1: favorite books, be they investing or non investing related fiction, nonfiction?
39:31
Speaker 1: What are you reading? I confess I'm not reading anything now.
39:34
Speaker 1: I tend to be in a high work mode this
39:36
Speaker 1: time of the year. But I love books again that
39:39
Speaker 1: help connect the dots. A book that I read that
39:41
Speaker 1: I recommended to many people is Gotham, which is I
39:45
Speaker 1: think it's Gotham A History of New York to so
39:48
Speaker 1: I think was written maybe twenty years ago. Um, I
39:53
Speaker 1: forget the author's names, but there's a second version coming out,
39:56
Speaker 1: but it is. It is a very big book and
39:59
Speaker 1: the re and it's so wonderful is it actually goes
40:03
Speaker 1: through the first three hundred years of New York City
40:06
Speaker 1: and highlights both the all the accidental forces that made
40:10
Speaker 1: New York become what it is today. And the primary
40:13
Speaker 1: one is that the Dutch influence on New York is
40:18
Speaker 1: really what made it such a commercial center from inception.
40:21
Speaker 1: We tend to think of us, I think we tend
40:23
Speaker 1: to think about the English uh influence, but you know,
40:26
Speaker 1: the Dutch influence was really much more important to what
40:29
Speaker 1: the city became over time. Gotham A History of New
40:32
Speaker 1: York to eight Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace, Yes, and
40:36
Speaker 1: Mike Wallace now that has just created just done a
40:39
Speaker 1: second book which goes from I think to nineteen seventeen
40:45
Speaker 1: or something like that. So it's a much shorter time frame,
40:48
Speaker 1: but gets into the next next period. Greater Gotham, A
40:51
Speaker 1: History of New York City from eight to nine. By
40:55
Speaker 1: the way, I don't know any of this. Google and
40:57
Speaker 1: Amazon are my backup our drive. What else? What else
41:01
Speaker 1: have you been reading? Or let me tell you another
41:03
Speaker 1: book that I recommend to everyone, which used to be
41:05
Speaker 1: quite well known. I don't think anyone under fifty knows
41:08
Speaker 1: of it. But um, All the King's Men by Robert
41:11
Speaker 1: Penn Warren. Does that ring about with you? Yeah? Well
41:15
Speaker 1: it was, But the book is the book is much
41:17
Speaker 1: more important than the film in that UM. I think
41:21
Speaker 1: it was written in the forties, but it was written
41:23
Speaker 1: about the thirties. UM. It was a little bit based
41:26
Speaker 1: on Huey Long. But more importantly, it's about it's it's
41:30
Speaker 1: got so many themes, but it's about history. It's about
41:34
Speaker 1: how you can't you have to You have to accept
41:36
Speaker 1: and learn to accept your history but also change. UM.
41:40
Speaker 1: Unintended consequences of actions is a big theme of the book.
41:45
Speaker 1: It's it's magnificent and I it also reminds that geography
41:51
Speaker 1: and climate um are something we don't think about as
41:54
Speaker 1: much anymore. But when you read that book, about the
41:56
Speaker 1: South and the thirties. You feel the heat and the
42:00
Speaker 1: city and the dust, and you realize how that affected
42:03
Speaker 1: the way people lived in ways that we are sort
42:05
Speaker 1: of immune from today. So it's a great American novel
42:08
Speaker 1: that brings in many important social themes. I just finished
42:11
Speaker 1: How We Got to Now, and one of the six
42:15
Speaker 1: factors that led to modernity was simply air condition I
42:20
Speaker 1: would say air conditioning is the most important invention of
42:23
Speaker 1: the modern era. It's changed where people live, It's changed
42:27
Speaker 1: the computing power. We couldn't have computers that, right, It's
42:30
Speaker 1: really you don't think about that. We take it for granted,
42:33
Speaker 1: but that's a huge innovation. So we talked earlier about
42:36
Speaker 1: how things have improved for women in the industry. Generally speaking,
42:41
Speaker 1: what do you think is the most significant changes we've
42:44
Speaker 1: witnessed in finance over the past twenty five years, you know,
42:49
Speaker 1: like with UM, with most industries, I think the power
42:53
Speaker 1: of the consumer is really a big trend, right, UM.
42:58
Speaker 1: You see it on every industry. Right, sumer preferences have
43:01
Speaker 1: to be met. They have so many choices, and that's
43:03
Speaker 1: certainly true in private wealth management, right there are many
43:07
Speaker 1: different choices, and I think it's it's really good for clients,
43:11
Speaker 1: and that they are seeing a broad array of different models,
43:16
Speaker 1: and every firm is therefore going to have to figure
43:18
Speaker 1: out what's the model that works best for them and
43:20
Speaker 1: the clients they want to serve. Makes makes a lot
43:23
Speaker 1: of sense. So given that, what do you think the
43:26
Speaker 1: next shifts that we're going to see are going to be? Yeah? So, UM,
43:31
Speaker 1: you figure there's technology coming sort of from the bottom,
43:34
Speaker 1: and that the robo advisors have highlighted the opportunity to
43:39
Speaker 1: use technology to give clients quick information and let them
43:43
Speaker 1: do a little of iterative work on their own. But
43:46
Speaker 1: at the higher end, UM, you're seeing that there's actually
43:50
Speaker 1: more need for good advice than ever before. Tax code changes, UM,
43:56
Speaker 1: lots of different issues, as the investing landscape changes. All
44:00
Speaker 1: these things demand that good advice be available. Tell us
44:04
Speaker 1: about a time you failed and what you learned from
44:08
Speaker 1: the experience. You know, I think you're looking for something
44:13
Speaker 1: very idiosyncratic there, But I got to tell you the
44:17
Speaker 1: most important thing that ever happened to me was getting
44:20
Speaker 1: through two thousand and eight and nine with private clients
44:22
Speaker 1: because and the reason I know how important that was, UM,
44:25
Speaker 1: I realized I don't remember anything about that year except
44:29
Speaker 1: for work, because we basically dropped everything to make sure
44:32
Speaker 1: we could work with our clients. UM. As you know,
44:35
Speaker 1: it was a stunning time and anybody in stocks are
44:37
Speaker 1: their stocks go down? UM. Happily our clients often had
44:42
Speaker 1: high quality municipal bonds that really helped offset those losses.
44:47
Speaker 1: But it was a time when UM, the faith and
44:51
Speaker 1: the way the world worked was shaken to its core,
44:54
Speaker 1: and that affected me as well. I had to say,
44:57
Speaker 1: you know, is everything I believe to be true but
44:59
Speaker 1: in testing still true? And really had to work through
45:02
Speaker 1: that UM and and and it was a very important
45:06
Speaker 1: experience to UM to say, yes, indeed, the words the
45:09
Speaker 1: world does still work UM. But it did require UM
45:14
Speaker 1: uh that our firm and many others really focused on
45:17
Speaker 1: risk control in ways that we hadn't had to do
45:20
Speaker 1: before that. UM. So we developed some very powerful risk
45:24
Speaker 1: control tools that have been very added to our clients
45:28
Speaker 1: ever since then. It's hard to stop and realize it
45:32
Speaker 1: was only ten years ago. It feels like it's so
45:36
Speaker 1: much further away, but it's it's just a mirror ten
45:41
Speaker 1: years later that isn't that at Many people are still
45:44
Speaker 1: scarred by it. But there's a post traumatic stress disorder
45:48
Speaker 1: amongst investors who. I can't tell you how many times
45:52
Speaker 1: I speak to people, what do you mean you're in
45:55
Speaker 1: fifty percent cash? Well, i'm cash. I was a percent
46:00
Speaker 1: in cash through Really that that's some serious scarring. Well,
46:04
Speaker 1: it's like it's like we used to talk about the
46:06
Speaker 1: people the depression era mentality, right, it's the same thing,
46:09
Speaker 1: people that lost a lot of money in a eight
46:11
Speaker 1: and will never trust markets again. It takes a long
46:14
Speaker 1: time to get over that. The line I remember from
46:17
Speaker 1: many years ago is when you look at nineteen nine,
46:22
Speaker 1: you did not get back above those levels till nineteen
46:25
Speaker 1: fifty four. It was twenty five years later, and someone
46:28
Speaker 1: said you needed a whole generation of people to be born,
46:32
Speaker 1: grow up, and start working again before you even had
46:35
Speaker 1: a chance to to breach those levels. Tell us what
46:38
Speaker 1: you do to relax outside of the office. What do
46:41
Speaker 1: you do to stay either mentally or physically sharp? Sou
46:47
Speaker 1: Having been a working mother for most of my career,
46:49
Speaker 1: my children are now adults thirty one and thirty two
46:53
Speaker 1: and twenty eight, um, I always had to really focus
46:59
Speaker 1: on my job and my family and kind of let
47:01
Speaker 1: other things fall by the wayside, and that luckily worked
47:04
Speaker 1: for me. I'm also on some boards that are very
47:06
Speaker 1: important to me, but them I don't have a high
47:10
Speaker 1: need for fun, which is really good. UM. I've fun?
47:13
Speaker 1: Is is it? My family? UM? I have a wonderful
47:15
Speaker 1: husband and wonderful children and now a grandson. UM, So
47:20
Speaker 1: I spend most of my time focusing on seeing them
47:23
Speaker 1: as much as I can. UM. I do have a trainer.
47:26
Speaker 1: I have a trainer once a week who pushes me
47:29
Speaker 1: to do things that I would never do by myself,
47:31
Speaker 1: which I think is wonderful. UM. But I will tell
47:35
Speaker 1: you I don't have any dramatically interesting outside hobbies like
47:40
Speaker 1: bungee jumping or anything like that. You didn't strike me
47:43
Speaker 1: as a bungee jump It wasn't the first thing to discipline. So. UM.
47:48
Speaker 1: You mentioned you work with some younger women in the firm.
47:50
Speaker 1: If a millennial or recent college graduate came to you
47:54
Speaker 1: and said they were interested in a career in finance,
47:57
Speaker 1: what sort of advice would you give them. I would
48:01
Speaker 1: give the same advice I've been giving for decades, which
48:04
Speaker 1: is you have to love the content of what you do.
48:07
Speaker 1: You you will always be competing with people who do
48:10
Speaker 1: love that content. So if you don't, they're going to
48:12
Speaker 1: have an edge. So you have to know why you're
48:15
Speaker 1: in the field and find if you if you like finance,
48:18
Speaker 1: if you like markets, you know, find the spot that
48:20
Speaker 1: really likes your fire, because um, it is competitive, it
48:24
Speaker 1: should be, and therefore you want to love what you
48:27
Speaker 1: do and the rest will come. And our final question,
48:31
Speaker 1: what is it that you know about investing and markets
48:34
Speaker 1: today that you wish you knew thirty years ago? I
48:40
Speaker 1: think um, patients, um, and and never never ever letting
48:45
Speaker 1: yourself get swayed by the short term is something that
48:48
Speaker 1: you know when you're younger. It's hard to do sometimes. UM.
48:51
Speaker 1: I look back at some of the things I did
48:53
Speaker 1: back then, and if only I had held on to
48:55
Speaker 1: certain positions that I didn't, it would have been a
48:57
Speaker 1: whole different story. To say the very least. We have
49:01
Speaker 1: been speaking with Kathleen Fisher. She is the head of
49:04
Speaker 1: Wealth and investing Strategies at Alliance Bernstein. If you enjoy
49:10
Speaker 1: this conversation, be sure and look up an inch or
49:12
Speaker 1: down an inch on Apple, iTunes, SoundCloud, overcast, or wherever
49:18
Speaker 1: final podcasts are sold, and you could see any of
49:21
Speaker 1: the other hundred and eighty or so such conversations we've had.
49:25
Speaker 1: We enjoy your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us
49:29
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would
49:33
Speaker 1: be remiss if I did not thank the crack staff
49:36
Speaker 1: who helps me put together this conversation every week. Taylor
49:40
Speaker 1: Riggs is our booker, Michael Batnick is our head of research.
49:44
Speaker 1: Medina Parwana is our audio engineer slash producer extraordinaire. I'm
49:50
Speaker 1: Barry Rich Hults. You've been listening to Masters in Business
49:54
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I don't think it so