Omar Aguilar, chief executive and chief investment officer at Schwab Asset Management, says current levels of inflation and interest rate could put an end to the bull market over the next few quarters, but he doesn't think the bull market will suffer a bubble-like ending. Aguilar does have valuation concerns and thinks some repricing of future profitability around artificial intelligence is necessary, but he suggests it will be more of a pause and an adjustment than a roadblock.
Aguilar was one of the headliners at the Schwab IMPACT Conference held in Boston last week, and today represents the last of the interviews Chuck conducted at the event. Those conversations include:
-- Tom Lydon, founder of ETF Trends and chief executive officer at Global Trends Investments -- who used to be a Money Life regular and who has made over 600 appearances on the show -- discussing evolutions in the ETF business.
-- Brian Smith, head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management's Wealth Education Center, talking about how high portfolio concentration risk is right now, because so few stocks make up such a large part of the big indexes, but then are also driving returns in many other parts of an ordinary investor's seemingly diversified portfolio.
-- Reed Fraasa, founder of Highland Financial Advisors, covers the importance of having a financial plan you can be comfortable with and whether high net worth clients – the people at the top of the K-shaped economy – are out of sorts like the rest of us when it comes to how they feel about living in times sticky inflation and rising interest rates.
-- Tom Haught, chairman and chief executive officer at Sequoia Financial Group, which has been aggressively buying independent firms since 2023. He speaks about the concept of adviser independence and what difference it makes for clients if they get an adviser who is a sole practitioner, the head of a small shop, affiliated with a larger firm or comes from one of the national wire house brands.