Wealth in Crisis Times: How Geopolitical Tensions Will Shape Your Investments

Andrew Brill 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Wealthion and I’m your host Andrew Brill. It’s a week of anticipation despite being a shortened week on Wall Street. Because of the holiday at the end of the week, we eagerly await new economic data coming out this week, that will give us a further idea of where the economy is headed. We’ll discuss that more coming up next.

Our mission here at Wealthion is to help all of us keep and grow our money, but Wealthion and is not just a channel. It’s a conversation with our community. So please, keep the feedback coming. If there’s something you’d like us to talk about or someone you’d like to hear from, let us know. And if you could like and subscribe to the channel, we’d really appreciate it. Now let’s dive into the discussion. I’d like to welcome Ed D’Agostino of Mauldin Economics. Ed has a wealth of experience in economic analysis, mergers and acquisitions and business development. Mauldin economics is a leader in macroeconomic information with a world class research team putting together expert analysis and insights. Ed, welcome to Wealthion.

Ed D’Agostino 1:05
Hey, it’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Andrew Brill 1:07
So you guys, actually Mauldin Economics has a conference coming up. And I want to get this right. It’s a strategic investment conference. And it’s kind of titled into the storm, which seems like, you know, with today’s market that might be right on point.

Ed D’Agostino 1:21
It sure feels that way, doesn’t it? Yeah, our conferences is our 20th year of having this conference. And we’re really excited about it. It’s going to be the last week of May, into the first week of June, we split it up. It’s a virtual conference. It’s not in person. COVID changed everything right. And, and what we found is we could just reach more people by by staying virtual. And so we went from reaching several 100 investors to now many 1000s across the globe. So it’s a great event. You know, people that I know your audience likes a lot like Lacey Hunt and Dave Rosenberg come. We also have people like Howard Marks. Mario Gabelli, he’s joining us this year, for the first time really excited to hear what he has to say about valuations in this frothy market. So it should be it should be interesting. Over 50 speakers.

Andrew Brill 2:17
A bunch of those names you’ve mentioned have been on Wealthion and so it’ll, I’m sure it’s going to be a great conference and very informative for investors now. And what is your take on the economic landscape right now? There’s just so much going on whether it’s here at home, overseas geopolitical stuff, what’s your what’s your take on the whole economic I know, we could talk for hours, but the right now that the economic landscape?

Ed D’Agostino 2:42
Yeah, there’s a there’s a few sort of big themes that are that are driving the market in my, in my view, the the rise of AI, and what AI combined with this unique place that resides in the US called Silicon Valley. And the amazing things that happen in Silicon Valley with software, when you put AI and software together, and then start really deeply integrating it into into a company’s operations, you can have amazing things happen with productivity. So I think one of the big themes that we invest around is what we see as a coming productivity boom, in the United States, in particular, because of that unique landscape that we have in software. reshoring is another one, the split between China and the United States, I think that both sides want it just as bad as the other. So that’s not something that is going to slow down. I don’t see relations and trade improving. Regardless of what happens with the election. I think that is set in stone we are splitting over time. But the biggest thing that in my opinion is driving the economy at this point is geopolitics. It’s hard to invest in geopolitics until you get to a point like we’re in now where I mean, look at what’s happening with oil right now, with oil running. I think there’s a reason for that. I think it’s all geopolitically driven.

Andrew Brill 4:15
Yeah, and now we have the, you know, China coming out and saying that, at least in their government, computer computers, they don’t want any intel products, they want any AMD products. So you’re seeing that, you know, with those, those companies having really nice profits, but now China’s saying, We don’t want any of those American made products in our Chinese computer systems.

Ed D’Agostino 4:37
And it’s a really interesting point because they’re saying what it’s a strong signal on the part of the CCP, right? months ago, the CCP came out saying government officials can own an iPhone. Well, that’s a very strong signal. So if you’re in China, and you are ranked, you have a social score, that basically measures how loyal you are to to the government. What does that signal saying to you? Maybe it’s saying you should get rid of your iPhone. This it’s all part of that decoupling that I mentioned. It’s, it’s, it’s only going to get hotter.

Andrew Brill 5:18
Yeah. And now China could have a problem getting the machines that actually make these AI chips, because those are American made machines. So now there’s a whole, like you say, geopolitical problem around saying, No, we don’t want this or we don’t want that. And it could drive other markets. Because some of these things aren’t even made in the United States, even though they’re, they’re American companies.

Ed D’Agostino 5:42
For sure, for sure. And I think it’s going to trickle all the way down to the commodity complex, what we’re starting to see is sort of a global grab, for influence between the Americans and the Chinese to secure critical inputs to what we all need to live our lives every day, be it food aware, where our soybeans from Brazil going to go, both sides are going to be fighting for that’s just a small example, rare earth metals, copper, iron ore. And then And then any food commodity that you can think of what’s what is interesting to see is I think you’re going to see commodities that used to trade in a global marketplace and be priced globally. So there’s one price no matter where you bought it, that’s going to change as China and the US secure their own sources. And that’s going to have some really interesting impacts on the commodity complex.

Andrew Brill 6:45
Are we creating a scenario where there could be more conflict because the US could say, look into our allies, we don’t want you’re selling to China, or companies that we do, or countries that we do business with, we don’t want you selling to China. And obviously, the Chinese can do the same, which is going to create a conflict, a world conflict, in effect that will affect economies around the world.

Ed D’Agostino 7:09
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s my point. The one interesting thing from an investor’s perspective, there’s one country that I think might be able to thread the needle better than anyone else. And part of it is because of their size. But I think India, India is a really interesting place to look, because I think they’re going to be able to cater to both, they’re big enough to be able to not have to pick sides, whereas smaller countries are going to have to India, the market is expensive right now, so I would be careful. But I feel like if you have a longer horizon, time horizon for investing, and you can stomach some volatility, there’s some interesting opportunities there.

Andrew Brill 7:52
India seems to be that place that’s on the tip of everybody’s tongue where, oh, we may have missed the boat, because it’s risen so high as lately with India.

Ed D’Agostino 8:01
It has, it has Yeah, I would be cautious. I, I think you need to get strategic and how you invest in India. But like you said, there’s there is going to be more conflict globally, globally, regionally. That is going to come from this split between East and West.

Andrew Brill 8:20
But investing in the Chinese market, not necessarily, you know, trading goods and that sort of thing. But investing in the Chinese market, I’ve heard is also a decent thing to do right now. Is that correct?

Ed D’Agostino 8:33
You know, depending on you’ll get a different answer. Depending on who you ask, you asked me, I will tell you, I don’t invest in China, I feel like the risk reward ratio is just not there. There are others, the guys from golf cow, Mark yusko. Guys that have boots on the ground and feel comfortable investing in those markets. I personally don’t like to put capital to work in a country that doesn’t respect the rules that we have here in the United States for for for investor protections. You look the CCP can can tell a company CEO, you know give us all your data. Or, or you need to start selling there and stop selling here. I mean, it’s when the rules can be changed arbitrarily by a government entity that not driven by markets, but by geopolitical concerns. That’s not where I want to be. There’s better opportunities in my mind,

Andrew Brill 9:40
And not exactly free markets. So let’s let’s stay near here at home first quarter is coming to an end this week. It looks like the market is going to be about up about 10% in the first quarter up 30% Since the end of October. And where are we going with this? It’s it’s it’s going higher and higher. And we talked about into the store Jim, is there a correction coming? I let’s assume there could be a correction coming. How drastic could it be?

Ed D’Agostino 10:07
Well, look, I mean, you’ve got to be careful when you listen to forecasters or like I can say, yes, there’s definitely a correction coming. And I am going to be right. The question is when, right? So I can tell you what I’m seeing in the markets. Right now. What I’m seeing is a broadening out. I just had a conversation with my team, my macro team at Malden economics. And we were talking about how all the large indices were read today. And yet, a lot of what we track is green. And I think it’s because you’re seeing a broadening out of the market that The Magnificent Seven is down to the fabulous for now. And what you’re starting to see are things that pay dividends are getting a bid on oil energy of all types, getting a bid, consumer staples, getting a bid. There, there’s underneath the surface there looks like there’s a little bit of a rotation happening. And I think that that is for a couple of reasons. And I think part of it is what you’re what you’re seeing happened with Apple, I mean, the the hits just keep coming for Apple, and their stock prices reflecting that. And I think people are nervous, people are just getting a little nervous at some of the froth in the markets right now. And so they’re looking for some defense.

Andrew Brill 11:29
So what what are those defenses? I mean, we’re obviously, you know, the invidious of the world, just keep going up and up. And you know, a lot of the AI stocks are having a really good run, but we’ve seen, and when you talk about The Magnificent Seven, which, like you said, is dwindling down, Tesla has taken a big hit, Apple has taken a hit. Obviously, part of that problem was in China, when they talked about their earnings, they talked about China, and now they have some government problems. So you know, where can people go to protect themselves and say, You know what, I’m happy with my gains, and I want to kind of keep most of them?

Ed D’Agostino 12:07
Well, I do like oil. We favor. We went long Devon Energy not too long ago in our portfolio. And the reason why we picked Devon is because it is a domestic oil producer. Yes, there’s a strong natural gas component as well. We feel like natural gas has probably hit a bottom, production of natural gas is starting to ease so that should give a floor to the price. But more importantly, it’s a domestic oil play. There are things going on in the Red Sea right now with the Houthis attacking oil ships, oil transport ships. There’s a story that isn’t in the news, much at all, happening to the south of us, it between Venezuela and Guyana, where Venezuela recently basically announced that, that they’ve created a new state. And that new state happens to be comprised of a big portion of Guyana. And surprise surprise that that area of Guyana is one of the most oil rich regions in the world. That this is not good when it comes to stability for global energy prices. So we wanted to get exposure to domestic oil production. We’re producing more oil right now than any country in the world. And when you hear that statistic, you might think well, that’s that’s not good for energy prices, that means prices is going to come down. We’re producing it. And thank goodness we are because we need every drop we can get. Because global supply is very unstable right now. And I think it’s going to get worse. So that’s one example. We like copper. So we like we like a certain copper producer. They aren’t all equal. But we like one in particular. There’s parts of the agricultural commodity complex that we like, companies like Bungie have been running up nicely over the last month or so, you know, the, the, what’s interesting is there are boring companies out there seemingly boring, they’re not AI, they’re not TAC, and yet, quietly, there are several companies in the s&p 500 that have run up 15% or so in the last two months. I think there’s a reason for that. I think that smart money is broad and it is diversifying away from tech and broadening out and getting a little defensive.

Andrew Brill 14:47
I look you know with a lot of our viewers there in that 45 to 6570 range. A 15% return is nothing to sneeze at. When you’re you’re looking at returns. You’re saying you know if I could get 15% I’m Money? Well, that’s pretty darn good.

Ed D’Agostino 15:03
Absolutely, no, no, no argument.

Andrew Brill 15:07
So how do you know once we’re protected, and now that we’re sort of, you know, the Fed is looking for interest rates to try and stabilize maybe that last 1% has been really, really stubborn from three to 2%. And you’re hearing the Fed? Well, maybe June. And I know that. Chairman Powell said fairly soon. It obviously, not defined fairly soon could mean July, September. Where do you think you see the markets starting, or at least the interest rates starting to come down? And that relief trickled down?

Ed D’Agostino 15:49
Yeah, I think the Fed is, is in a bit of a jam. If you look at the inflation numbers, it’s hard to make the case for why they should cut at all. But But Powell seems to be focused on making a cut. One of the ways that I stayed out of trouble in my personal portfolio, when the Fed started raising rates, is I just took them at their word. I started listening to what they said they were going to do, because once they started raising rates, they did what they said they would do. So at the beginning of this year, the market was pricing and six rate cuts for 2024. And it just made no sense to me. No one on the Fed was saying that Powell certainly wasn’t saying that. And the data wasn’t indicating that it was merited. So I couldn’t understand the the exuberance of the markets and pricing in six cuts. Now we’re down to two maybe three. I do think that the Fed is going to cut I hate to play the I think game when it comes to the Fed because the reality is none of us on CNBC, Bloomberg wealthy on my Pog where none of us actually know. So it’s important to keep that in mind. But he’s saying he wants to cut I think he will I don’t know how long that cut will last? That’s the real question. Inflation is remaining sticky. And some of the geopolitical issues that we’ve talked about so far, I think are going to put pressure on inflation.

Andrew Brill 17:27
Certain things, obviously, jobs is one of those numbers that they look at. And that’s that’s, you know, unemployment has been low. Although you’re listening to all these layoffs. You’re wondering, When are all these layoffs going to actually hit the jobless market? There, some don’t seem to be like I heard a number 1.4 jobs for everybody that’s looking, that’s not a lot of jobs that are out there. But yet people are still spending money. And my question is because you’re hearing all these reports about credit card debt, and people not being able to pay their mortgages on time and stuff like that. Are we actually borrowing this money against plastic to spend it?

Ed D’Agostino 18:08
Yeah, that’s a that’s a really good question. So coming out of COVID, people aren’t going to want to hear this because this is actually where I kind of take a different view. I think the statistics might be leading people to think it’s worse, the situation is worse than it actually is. Right? So coming out of COVID, credit card debt got paid down to negative, negligible levels, right. So default rates were incredibly low. debt as a percentage of disposable income, personal disposable income incredibly low. So now we’re hearing about default rates rising, we’re hearing about a household debt levels as a percentage of their income rising and rising pretty quickly. And that is true. But that is one data point. And this is where you just have to be so careful with data points, I would argue that the data points are basically returning to more of a normal level, stimulus money has been burned up, and now people are starting to use their credit cards again, and interest rates are higher. So those folks that do not eat, they’re not able to pay it off. And you know, at the end of the month, it’s that much harder. So I’m not saying that there isn’t an issue. But I would be careful to fall into that narrative trap of saying that, that that we’ve got a credit crisis on our hands. So far. So far, the data leads me to believe that we’re just returning to more of a normal baseline.

Andrew Brill 19:53
So don’t Don’t believe everything you hear in the news cycle. It just seems that we went from such a very low level and now we’re getting back to normal. It’s almost like the, you know, mortgage rates were, look, we were at a very low level for so long. And, you know, I remember, you know, when when rates were much, much higher, they were almost normal now. So people don’t understand the note Gen Z doesn’t understand the normal.

Ed D’Agostino 20:20
Sure, yeah, I’m in Gen Z has only recently for the first time in their lives experienced being able to earn money on a savings account, right. So, so there’s a lot to ship. And I don’t want to minimize the pain that some people are feeling. Because it’s, it’s real, if you’re not able to make your credit card payments, and you’re falling behind, well, that that is your reality. And it’s perhaps through no fault of your own that you got in that situation. Or if you had to buy a house in the last six months, because you just needed to buy a house, you’re paying a really high price and a really high mortgage rate, like you’re getting a double whammy. So So I’m not saying that there isn’t pain associated with some of these, these trends. At the individual level, that pain is real. But on the aggregate, it’s still historically not too bad.

Andrew Brill 21:10
Yeah, I think that there’s, there’s a lot of people that are are suffering, and a lot of people that are, you know, just finding themselves like, okay, you know, what I can get by but are, are more and more people. And I’ve had people reach out to me through comments on some of our videos that when we talk about the unemployment rate low, a lot of people are telling me it’s well, because people are working two and three jobs to make make ends meet. Is could that be the possibility that people are working more jobs? And that’s why there’s fewer jobs?

Ed D’Agostino 21:41
Sure. It certainly could be I think there’s also a bit of a skills mismatch, that when you get this low in the unemployment rate, there’s going to be a mismatch that’s really hard to solve for. I mean, if you are a programmer, and there’s 10, plumbing jobs opening, that doesn’t, you know, that doesn’t do much good for either side, right. And I, you know, my hot water heater died last weekend. And just as an anecdote, right? And so I called them the three plumbers that I that I’m friends with, and said, Hey, can you help me out? No, we’re swamped, we literally can’t get to your house for a week. So I had to call just like just had to be a normal person and call a plumbing company. And I mean, I felt like I had a terrorist on the other end of the line the the quotes that I was getting. So so it’s really, really hard to fill a lot of trades positions right now. And yet, we’re hearing about all these tech layoffs. It goes to, you know, a square peg round hole, they just don’t go together.

Andrew Brill 22:49
Right. So it seems that there are jobs, they’re just not the right people to fill them is what you’re telling us.

Ed D’Agostino 22:59
That is that is at least part of the the the issue that we’re seeing. And the Fed is going to be watching unemployment, that unemployment rate really closely. I mean, in February, the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. From 3.7. You know, you put a four handle on that number, and it gets people’s attention, you can bet that if we break four and a half those cuts are probably going to be coming, regardless of what’s happening with inflation.

Andrew Brill 23:27
And is it possible that some things don’t, they’re not equal, they don’t have equal weight, like you just said, the unemployment rate could start to creep up while inflation doesn’t really come down. Consumer prices don’t come down. I mean, right now, we’re paying a ton of money for food, and other things that, you know, basic necessities that we need. Is it possible that things are not equal and not weighted the same?

Ed D’Agostino 23:52
Well, it’s an election year. And the Fed says that they don’t take politics into account. And I am friendly with some people who’ve worked within the Fed. And they say that for the most part, that is true. But it’s it’s hard to ignore that. It’s hard to ignore that it’s, you know, why are they talking about potentially three cuts this year, with inflation numbers where they are and unemployment still staying so low? What what’s what’s driving the push for a cut? If it’s not political? I don’t have an answer for that. But it does make me raise an eyebrow.

Andrew Brill 24:31
So let’s talk about the the debt for a little while. And I know that, you know, they just passed a $1.2 trillion spending package, which is more like adding $4 trillion to our debt, which is already $34 trillion dollars. And we already talked about credit card debt. The country has a little bit of a credit card debt problem. And they keep selling bonds at a at a rate where, you know, eventually that Bill He’s gonna come due. And we’re going to be suffering quite a bit.

Ed D’Agostino 25:04
Yeah It’s I’ve had a conversation on my podcast with Louie Gob about, at what point does that matter? We had a little mini bond crisis several months ago. And we were, we were questioning is this it is this When, when when when debt starts to matter, and I think it was a reminder, or it should have been a reminder to Washington DC that at some point it will matter. Doesn’t seem to yet. And here’s the frustrating, frustrating thing is if there is a geopolitical crisis, bigger than what we’re already experiencing, you typically see a flight to quality, which means global investors are going to, they’re going to flock to major US stocks and US bonds. That’s just how it goes. So foreigners are still buying. So we we haven’t we haven’t had that crisis yet. I am very concerned about it. Some stats, and I happen to have this on my screen, because I was just talking to my team about this in 2019. Okay. Fed, let’s see $4.45 trillion. So four and a half trillion dollars is what the government spent. Okay, they brought in three and a half trillion dollars. So So $1 trillion shortfall. Now, in 2023. That shortfall is just a hair under 2 trillion. And our our deficit has gone from four and a half percent of GDP to 6.1% of GDP. I prefer to look at the hard numbers, you know, and in just four years, we’ve gone from a trillion dollar shortfall to almost $2 trillion. Like, it’s hard to even conceptualize what a trillion dollars is. And we’re just, we’re just racking it up. I think at some point, it is going to matter. And I fear that when it does matter. It’s going to be really, really bad.

Andrew Brill 27:14
How do we pay down debt? I know as a person, we spend less I know, as a country, we’d have to spend a little bit less, but we’re in help mode. We’re helping. No, we’re not helping because the government says we can’t help that much. But we’re going to end up helping Ukraine. We’re going to help Israel and we’re going to help other countries that are that are in need. But at what point do we say, You know what, we can’t spend as much we need to bring this down for the health of our own country?

Ed D’Agostino 27:45
Yeah, nobody, nobody likes to if I I probably shouldn’t even try to answer that question. Because your comments are gonna blow up with this guy’s a moron. But how many how do you address that? Right? You spend less, and you raise more money, which means we pay more in taxes. Mess. It’s like, it’s really simple, right? It’s just really painful and politically unacceptable. But we have to spend less, we have to we’ve added $2 trillion to our expenditures every year, on an annual basis since COVID. Why? I mean, it’s like there’s an unlimited supply of cash. And it’s and I’m sure if you’re in DC, that’s what it feels like, you know, because you don’t get penalized for it. But at some point, we’re going to get penalized. The other the other issue, I’ve had conversations with David Haye from gaff Cal about this. I know David’s been on wealthy on at least once. You know, David was pretty frank saying, Look, my generation in large part holds the purse strings, but the reality is, something’s going to need to get done about loopholes. Everyone’s going to need to pay a fair share. And, but but if you’re the person who’s benefiting from the loophole, you don’t want to hear that. So the the solution is really hard. And I everyone prefers the spend less to the, to the opposite end of the fix. And I get that.

Andrew Brill 29:17
I know that, you know, I’ve played in my head many, many times how to fix the tax system is exactly what you’re talking about. And, you know, nobody wants to hear that, especially with Tax Day coming up next month. And nobody wants to hear you know, oh my god, I have to pay more but there’s people who have to pay their fair share, and that’s not happening so it’s I know the tax burden has to rest look, we’re all Americans. We all live in this country. We all benefit from everything that we have the protection and and the whole gamut. We should all pay our fair share. So I always go through those scenarios in my head. And and look if that were the case, if you look at the GDP This country if everybody paid their fair share, we could bring down the debt.

Ed D’Agostino 30:05
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Andrew Brill 30:08
And not not. And it wouldn’t be, it would take probably 1015 years. But we can get that almost down to zero.

Ed D’Agostino 30:16
We’ve done it before. Yeah. And again, rich Gingrich, Clinton era, we did it. Yep. So in his pocket, and your point, I think is really important, because it’s the if the world sees the trend going in the right direction, even if it’s a 20 year term, timeframe, that will calm the nerves of global bond investors.

Andrew Brill 30:41
Yeah, so we’re selling bonds, and there’s other countries buying our bonds, because they say, Hey, look, you know, what, the US is good for the money, and they know they’re good for the money, and we’re gonna get, we’re gonna get a, at this point where rates are a little bit higher than we’d like them to be, they’re gonna get a really good return on their investment. Right? So how do we, you know, I don’t want to put you on the spot and say, how do we fix all of this? But how nervous as your average investor? How nervous should I be that, you know, I’ve got all this money tied up in the market? You know, do I just buy gold and say, hey, look, you know, I should just, you know, put my money in gold, something that’s tangible and not worry about it. But how do I protect myself? I know that we said, diversify. And is there a point where the other 490 Plus stocks in the s&p catch up to the fabulous for now or not? I would not catch up, but the you know, they start to do a little bit better?

Ed D’Agostino 31:45
Sure. Sure. Well, I do think that will happen. You know, valuations are high. I think that, and this is just my personal opinion, and it’s what I’m doing. I do have a fairly high weight towards cash. You can you can make, you know, 5%. without too much difficulty right now, I like to stay liquid. And the reason why I’m overweight cash right now, is because I feel like there’s going to be better buying opportunities down the road. So I don’t know if this is an answer to how to protect yourself. But one thing that if you’re an active investor that you should do is have a crash plan have have a list of stocks that you want to buy, if they go on sale, if we do have the the correction that most people seem to think is around the corner, be ready for it, don’t get taken surprised by it, be ready for it, be ready to invest in it. So you have to have the cash on hand to be able to do that.

Andrew Brill 32:51
So the strategic investment conference, tell us about it. Once again, it’s if you said it’s coming up the end of May.

Ed D’Agostino 32:59
It’s coming end of April. And then the first week of May, I’ll give you the exact dates April 22, through May 1, and it’s five days Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Monday and Wednesday of the following week. It’s virtual. We have a platform where viewers can ask questions in real time. And then myself or John Malden, as moderators will be posting those questions or posing those questions to our guests. And then we have, we have what we call a happy hour in the evening where people can come in and just chat about whatever they whatever struck them as either agreeable or disagreeable. We tried to bring viewpoints from all sides of the spectrum so that we can help people stay informed and come to their own conclusions. And then, you know, there are some of us that have our own opinions. So we’ll share those as well.

Andrew Brill 33:53
And it’s into the storm. And, you know, with this geopolitical situation that we’re in, and, and you know, this stock market just keeps going up, there could be a a financial storm, if you will, and you guys will tell us how to weather that storm, I would assume.

Ed D’Agostino 34:08
Yeah, well, you can feel it zulauf, I think explains it best. And he’s always one of our most popular guests, where he talks about how, for the last decade or so, investing has been fairly easy, right? Buy the s&p 500. Don’t look at it, your account will be fine. He believes and I agree with him that That era is coming to an end. And you’re going to need to be more of a of a stock picker. And you’re going to need to be more strategic, you’re going to need to be willing to get in and out to avoid the troughs and the downside of what he believes and I believe are going to be a much more volatile decade coming.

Andrew Brill 34:55
So I heard from somebody who said we’re not stock pickers we should be stuck out analysts, right there’s a way to look at stocks and say, you know, or analyze them and say, You know what, let’s look at the fundamentals here and make sure that we’re, we’re betting on a good stock, right? It’s not so much. It’s like, okay, you know what, a guy gave me a tip, I’m gonna go bet on that stock. It’s Look, do your research, do your homework.

Ed D’Agostino 35:19
Absolutely, absolutely. And even if you if you were, if you were a customer of a company like ours, or the hundreds of others that are out there, I mean, you’re going to have lots of ideas presented to you. It really, really should do your own homework, do your own due diligence before you put your hard earned capital to work in somebody else’s idea. Make sure you understand it and know it. That’s why we go top down to start, we think about the themes that are driving the market. And then we look for the best companies to express those themes. There’s lots of ways to do it. That’s the way that just makes the most sense to me, and helps me understand why am I in this stock.

Andrew Brill 35:59
And thanks so much for joining me. Where can people find you on social media? I know you have a podcast so give it all to us. Let everybody know where they can find you.

Ed D’Agostino 36:07
Yeah, so on YouTube, the podcast is under Malden economics, and it’s called global macro update. But if you just go to the Malden economics YouTube channel, you’ll see my face made for radio there. I’m on. I’m on Twitter. I’m on LinkedIn. It’s Ed D’Agostino. I really appreciate the time and being with you today.

Andrew Brill 36:27
Well, thank you for your insights. Hopefully everybody understands that look, no matter what the market is up down deal, geopolitical situation, you can still be safe.

Ed D’Agostino 36:38
Absolutely.

Andrew Brill 36:39
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