Argosy's Stewart: An 'under-housed' country is creating opportunities

Argosy's Stewart: An 'under-housed' country is creating opportunities

Andy Stewart, co-chief executive officer at Argosy Real Estate Partners [https://argosyrep.com], says that housing affordability issues that have made headlines are real and persistent, but there are some solutions over time, coming from building smaller homes, changes in interest rates and in public policies like the new affordability legislation that became law on Friday. It also means there are big opportunities in the single-family build-to-rent market and more, and those opportunities should be persistent and long-term. Stewart also talks about issues in data center construction — and whether the opportunity is moving too fast — and the continuing evolution of commercial real estate, where he sees "a generational buying opportunity" for patient, long-term investors. Vijay Marolia [https://vijaymarolia.com], chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital [https://regalpointcapital.com], says the record domestic IPO for SK Hynix last week and ASML Holdings on Wednesday, should remind investors to balance big numbers with appropriate caution, because the profit potential comes with white-hot volatility. He also looks at how financial and banking stocks could be in for a rough earnings cycle when they start reporting results this week, with their numbers reflecting how right or wrong they were in anticipating how the Federal Reserve and new chairman Kevin Warsh would respond to economic conditions. Plus, he also looks at housing affordability and how new legislation may impact the picture. David Trainer, founder and president at New Constructs [https://newconstructs.com], looks at current earnings trends and sees some ugly misses coming during the second quarter, not because companies are sandbagging earnings expectations, but because they're not as solid as the Street believes. He says a number of those stocks — and he singled out Fidelity National Information Services — are headed for trouble when the street figures things out after seeing an earnings miss.

Stack Financial's Jonson foresees a 'bear market waterfall' ahead

Zach Jonson, chief investment officer at Stack Financial Management [https://stackfinancialmanagement.com], says the stock market is building towards "one of the biggest or largest bear markets of our generation," but he says that decline will impact passive, broad-index investors the most. "We see a true long-term, 12- to 18-month, 45 to 50 downturn, and that's in the S&P; if you look at the Nasdaq, you could really see some losses that are in excess of 70 percent," Jonson said. He's worried about a "bear market waterfall" — where every decline is not met with a quick return back to new highs — that makes it emotionally difficult for investors to buy into dips, but he does say that being patient and strategic should allow investors to find pockets of opportunity amid the decline, positioning them to profit when the pendulum swings back to the upside. Axel Merk, president and chief investment officer at Merk Investments [https://merkinvestments.com], discusses Saba Capital's [https://sabacapital.com] activist campaign that recently saw him booted as portfolio manager for ASA Gold and Precious Metals Ltd. [https://asaltd.com], a closed-end fund that was up nearly 200% last year and that was at the top of its peer group since Merk took it over in 2016. Still, the activist shareholders labeled it a poor performer, and are working now to capture the fund's discount. Meanwhile, Saba has installed new leadership which Merk says has no experience running a gold fund. He filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission [https://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1230869/000121390026074304/ea0296746-px14a6g_asagold.htm] and made other efforts to save the fund [https://saveasa.com], but acknowledges that a change in status is unlikely. Merk also discusses his outlook for gold in the interview. Adam Gebler, head of wealth for the Americas at FTSE Russell [https://lseg.com/en/ftse-russell], discusses the firm's 2026 U.S. Wealth Pulse Survey [https://lseg.com/en/ftse-russell/research/2026-ftse-russell-wealth-pulse-survey], which showed that private markets — both equity and credit — are continuing to move into the mainstream with affluent investors, driven largely by financial advisers pushing for their adoption and acceptance in portfolios.

Evanston Cap's VanGelder: Complicated global picture creates intriguing opportunities

Kristen VanGelder [https://evanstoncap.com/about/team/kristen-vangelder], co-chief investment officer at Evanston Capital [https://evanstoncap.com] — a firm that manages hedge funds built out of hedge funds — says that sophisticated money managers have very different sentiments about current market conditions than Main Street investors, noting that where average investors are showing lousy sentiment numbers, sharpies are leaning into the market's increasing "dispersion" and the ability to play one thing against the next to turn volatility into profits. She says that global macro investors "have the glimmer in their eye," because the pressure of war and a complicated global inflationary picture are creating opportunities beyond what investors can fund sticking with fundamental investing domestically. Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi [https://vettafi.com], goes away from his long-running trend of focusing on actively managed ETFs and turns to a new Vanguard high-yield corporate bond index fund as his "ETF of the Week," noting that the ultra-low fees on the fund and the outperformance of the index make it something to consider now. In the Market Call, Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager for Globalt Investments [https://globalt.com], discusses his earnings-driven investment style and what to make of the volatile market reactions around perceived "sand-bagging," where companies meet profit projections but the Street doesn't think expectations were set high enough.

Calamos' Freund: 'It's very hard to be pessimistic about the broad market'

Matt Freund, co-chief investment officer at Calamos Investments [https://Calamos.com], says a resilient economy is producing "shocking numbers for a mid-cycle economy," powering through problems in a way that puts the Federal Reserve on hold, avoiding interest rate hikes this year and returning to a bias towards cutting in 2027. Freund thinks that it's "back to the future" for the Fed, with new chairman Kevin Warsh bringing the central bank to where less information and guidance makes for more policy flexibility, even if it results in some additional volatility since the policy path will be less well-defined. Freund says the chances of recession in the next year are low, but that investors have to remain cognizant that "every mountain has two sides and, at some point, the string of good years can't go on forever." Meb Faber [https://mebfaber.com], chief executive and chief investment officer at Cambria Investments [https://cambriafunds.com], returns to the show a day after his Big Interview appearance to discuss his new book, "Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market." He discusses what he expects the future to look like and why the bull market can continue almost indefinitely but why investors may not want to focus entirely on domestic investments in the future. Plus, Chuck answers a listener's question about the cheap, small-dollar life-insurance policies advertised regularly on television and whether seniors are better off going for the convenience of those policies or looking for other ways to protect their families.

Cambria's Faber: 'The bull market in diversification has begun'

Meb Faber [https://mebfaber.com], chief executive and chief investment officer at Cambria Investments [https://cambriafunds.com], says that large-cap domestic stocks have done so well that it has masked the rise of the rest of the investment ecosystem, but now that he expects recent good times to be balanced out by tougher stretches ahead for the Standard & Poor's 500, investors will want to take advantage of small-cap stocks, foreign stocks and more. That's good preparation for bear markets, and Faber makes it clear that downturns are a feature of the market, something that will come around again. Faber — who will return to Wednesday's show to discuss his new book, "Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market" — says the trend remains "all signs green" for the market currently, but he says investors should be watching for change. Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Hi Mount Research [https://himountresearch.substack.com], says that the best environment for the stock market isn't falling rates, but rather rates that aren't moving. That positions the stock market to be in a "boring" and "quiet" environment where it can keep riding technicals which Delwiche describes as being "in pretty good shape" right now, with all 11 sectors of the S&P 500 above their long-term moving averages and more stocks making new highs than are making new lows. Those patterns are creating "strength beneath the surface" that he says can power the market higher. David Miller, co-founder of Catalyst Mutual Funds [https://catalystmf.com] talks about insider buying as an indicator of corporate strength, monopoly and oligopoly positions as a way to play developing technologies and more in a wide-ranging Money Life Market Call.