Freedom Capital's Woods: Block out the noise, be patient during earnings season

Freedom Capital's Woods: Block out the noise, be patient during earnings season

Jay Woods, chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets [https://freedomcapmkts.com], says that the market has a "Janet Jackson - What Have You Done for Me Lately" attitude, which has made earnings cycles particularly volatile, and he thinks that will be amplified with the earnings on tap right now powering market moves, especially around market misses. While he believes earnings will be strong, he warns in the Market Call that "prices may not follow them," particularly as the market enters its slowest time of the year around a mid-term election cycle. Woods says that the stock market has seen a healthy rotation, but he expects a pullback before a year-end rally; in the meantime, he warns against chasing rallies. Adam Mead of Mead Capital Management [https://meadcm.com] and Watchlist Investing [https://watchlistinvesting.com] — author of "The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway" — talks about the evolution of legendary investors Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, how the company they ran is changing with Buffett's retirement and the legacy they will; have in the decades ahead. The new edition of the book was inspired after Mead saw Buffett at Berkshire's annual meeting after the nonagenarian announced his retirement. Plus, Chuck answers a listener's question about hiring a financial adviser and whether working with the brand-name firm that has renewed its nationwide advertising blitz on television would be all that it's cracked up to be. (Spoiler alert: Not exactly.)

TheoTrade's Bierman: 'Get ready for a spectacular year-end rally'

Jeffrey Bierman, chief market technician at TheoTrade [https://TheoTrade.com] — where he runs the Genesis Cog and Burn Signal platforms [https://theotrade.com/jeff-bierman-services/] — says the stock market remains "ridiculously strong," but that won't allow it to sidestep a summer slowdown and a difficult fall, before picking back up with a tremendous rally near the end of the year. He makes it clear that current conditions are not looking like a bear market or a bubble, and while the market has gotten a bit ahead of itself, he's thinking it's mostly choppy with maybe a small setback before it starts the next leg up. David Leiter, who runs The Ultimate Investor [https://theultimateinvestor.com] website, discusses his new book, "Stop Making Stupid Investments [https://theultimateinvestor.com/stop-making-stupid-investments]," and gives his take on everything from initial public offerings — and pre-IPO investments — to cryptocurrency and more, and focuses on the emotional control that helps investors avoid the key blunders that can bring a portfolio crashing down. In the Market Call, Max Wasserman, co-founder and senior portfolio manager at Miramar Capital [https://Miramarcap.com], talks about how everyone is jumping so hard into technology stocks that it's "hard to find a great company at a good price." He discusses where he is finding the right valuations for his dividend-driven investment style, and what kinds of companies fit his long-term buying perspective now.

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.