Enlightenment - A Herold & Lantern Investments Podcast
Enlightenment - A Herold & Lantern Investments Podcast
Can Earnings Season Calm the Markets After a Surprising September?
October 12, 2024
Season 6 | Episode 37
Join us for a captivating exploration of today’s financial landscape with our esteemed guest, Mr. Keith Lenton, as we draw parallels between the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the modern journey through markets. As bond markets take a pause on Columbus Day, the stock exchanges remain active, setting the stage for an enlightening discourse on the U.S. deficit. Discover how September's unexpected market performance and the relatively calm October provide a backdrop for understanding the impact of rising interest rates on the national debt, with interest payments now surpassing even Medicare spending.
We also bring you insights from the renowned real estate analyst Ivy Zellman, who sheds light on the complexities of the U.S. housing market. Despite the apparent quietness in sales, Zellman reveals the true challenge is a lack of housing supply rather than demand. With mortgage rates unlikely to drop soon, learn about the potential for margin compression in homebuilding and the particular vulnerabilities in markets like Florida and Texas. This segment also highlights the earnings reports from major companies such as UnitedHealthcare, Johnson & Johnson, and Netflix, painting a comprehensive picture of the current financial climate.
In our final segment, we turn our attention to the telecommunications and bond investing sectors. Gain valuable perspectives from Barron's on T-Mobile's market strategies and their fiber connection challenges. Greg Hall from PIMCO provides a deep dive into active bond fund strategies, explaining why they might outperform stock funds due to the unique nature of the bond market. We discuss Barron's take on high-yield bonds, risk management, and highlight investment options like iShares BB Rated Corporate Bond and Van Eck Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF. This insightful discussion concludes with Barron's key considerations for anyone seeking higher income investments in today’s low-rate environment.
** For informational and educational purposes only, not intended as investment advice. Views and opinions are subject to change without notice.
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And now introducing Mr Keith Lnton.
Keith Lanton:Good morning. Today is Monday, ctober 14th, about halfway through the first month of the fourth quarter of 2024, about two and a half months to go. This year, as we've talked about before, typically September is a month that the market's most frequently down and October is the month with the most volatility. So far, september is already proven to defy the probabilities and we saw a positive surprise or a positive performance of September. Surprise to some, not to others. And then here we are in October. So far it's been relatively calm, but we've got lots of earnings to look forward to. So today is Columbus Day Bond markets closed, arrest government holiday, but equity markets stock exchanges are open for business today on Columbus Day. So, speaking of Columbus Day, we'll start out talking about Christopher Columbus, who has become a little bit more controversial than, let's say, when I was in school about 40 to 50 years ago, but today, nevertheless, credit still going to Columbus for discovering the new world, and that certainly took a lot of guts, courage, perhaps circumstance, facts that we probably won't know in its entirety, but nevertheless we are here in the United States of America, a large part to the exploration that took place in the late 1400s and 1500s. And Christopher Columbus said you can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. George Santayana said he gave the world another world. And it's hard for us to kind of like imagine that today. But just imagine you're in the world that we're in today and perhaps we discover another planet. We discover life exists somewhere else. Might be something like what took place in the late 1400s. Ira Irwin said the greatest discoveries have come from people who have looked at a standard situation and seen it differently. Ralph Waldo Emerson said every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus. And Robert F Kennedy said only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. And in the spirit of Columbus, a couple of other quotes. You can never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone. Change begins at the end of your comfort zone. And then a quote that's applicable to Columbus and Columbus Day as it is to most days of our lives the life in front of you is far more important than the life behind you. So as we get started today on this Columbus Day, as I mentioned earlier, we are right now in the beginnings of earnings season. We got a couple of earnings last week from the big banks. They generally were perceived positively. This week we really begin to see the earnings season in full color and earnest and relatively quiet on the rest of the economic front. Of course, we've got the presidential election and that is certainly going to capture the media's attention this week and the next several weeks as we roll into early November.
Keith Lanton:I'm going to start out talking about a topic we've talked about before. I'm going to keep emphasizing because I think it's important and that is the US deficit, the amount of debt that we rack up here in this country every year. Last week we got the CBO reporting that the figures for the deficit last year fiscal year 2024, us is on a September 30th fiscal year, so we've got those numbers now and the US deficit grew to $1.8 trillion. That's about 6.4% of GDP on a percentage of GDP basis. That's the most since 2021. And to put the deficit into perspective, I think we got to look at its components and the biggest expenditure last year was social security, at $1.5 trillion. Interest payments on the debt, which we're going to talk a little bit more about, were $950 billion and interest payments on the debt more than all of Medicare spending, at $869 billion. If you're thinking well, we racked on $1.8 trillion last year in terms of the deficit. What's the new amount that we as a country owe on our debt? And we are in debt to the tune of $35.7 trillion. Well, how did we get here? Well, we got here by spending more every year than we spent the year before.
Keith Lanton:But one of the biggest factors now that is weighing on the growing deficit is the interest on the debt and, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, the interest on the debt last year, $950 billion out of $1.8 trillion. So that means that over 50% of the US deficit now is interest on the deficit. And if you go back and just look back a couple of years and take a look at what the interest on the deficit was when interest rates were lower, last year we were at $658 billion, which means that the increase this year in the deficit, which was $1.8 trillion. Last year the deficit was $1.7 trillion, which was $1.8 trillion. Last year the deficit was $1.7 trillion, but last year the interest on the debt was $658 billion, which means that if the interest on the debt had just held steady last year, the amount that we would have overspent by, or that our deficit would have increased by, would have gone down. So we actually, if you factor out debt, we actually are doing better in terms of racking up our bills than we were previously. But now we've reached the point here where the interest is becoming such a big component that even in years when our spending is improved because the economy is good, we're still increasing the deficit.
Keith Lanton:So 2024, interest $950 billion. 2023, 658 billion. 2022, 476 billion interest costs. 2021, one of the lower years 352 billion, when interest rates were almost rock bottom. You go back to 2021, again to stick on this theme 352 billion in debt. Now we're 950 billion interest on the debt. $600 billion more in interest expense in 2024 because of higher rates than in 2021, also because of increased deficit, but most of it's because of higher rates.
Keith Lanton:If you look at what the deficit was in 2021, it was $1.4 trillion and we were spending $350 billion in interest. Now we're at $1.8 trillion. We're spending $950 billion in interest. Now we're at $1.8 trillion. We're spending $950 billion in interest. So let's do the math Interest expense up $600 billion. Deficit up $400 billion. Interest on the debt more than made up for the amount that the deficit increased. Deposit increased $400 billion. Interest up $600 billion. Without the interest increasing, we would have actually seen the deficit decrease.
Keith Lanton:And if we go back to 2019, the year before COVID the total US deficit for that year was $984 billion, which is almost equal to the amount of interest that we are spending today. So the interest on the debt today is almost equal to the entire deficit that we had pre-COVID. And this is perhaps one of the reasons that the financial markets are concerned about the amount of debt that we are accumulating because of the interest expense on the debt, one of the arguments behind perhaps the reason why we are seeing the longer interest rates continue to hold at their current levels in the low 4% range. 10 years, about a 407 bond market closed today. Perhaps the financial markets are concerned that the amount of debt that we are going to have to service both the existing amount outstanding plus what the new presidential candidates may pile on, clearly, if President Trump or President Harris is elected, neither has seriously talked about reducing that deficit. So markets increasingly becoming concerned with the amount of debt outstanding and what that may mean for the bond markets. Of course, more to come, but critically important for us to think about what it means if the amount of interest that we are paying to service our debt, what that means for our economy and what's for the forward path of interest rates. Most important, just to have the information, to keep evaluating it, because this is going to be something that is going to continue to get attention and to be educated and knowledgeable will help you make those investment decisions going forward based on what's taken place with the deficit and what the impacts are on interest rates. All right, we're going to change gears.
Keith Lanton:Take a look at what's going on specifically this morning and the financial markets. So right now we are seeing futures this morning. Modestly, let's call them mixed. This morning, dow futures down 77. S&p futures up 10. Nasdaq futures up 62.5. Perhaps weighing on the Dow futures are Boeing and Caterpillar. We'll talk about those two stocks in a minute. Pre-open gains in some mega cap names have contributed to the upside in the S&P and NASDAQ 100.
Keith Lanton:I mentioned this week, big week for economic data, also mentioned. Today might be a little bit of a quieter day because of Columbus Day. Fixed income markets closed. In other news, china's Ministry of Finance disappointed investors with a lack of details at the press conference that they held on economic stimulus over in China. China did come out with some economic reports this morning. First off, their CPI came in at 0.0%, so no inflation in China was expected to be up four tenths of 1% and the September PPI producer price index in China was down 2.8%. So again signs there that they are seeing prices stable to declining, which is typically associated with a weaker economy.
Keith Lanton:Taking a look at Europe, most markets there trade relatively flat. I mentioned a couple of Dow components. Boeing this morning down about three points. They issued downside third quarter revenue guidance. Downside third quarter revenue guidance. They said that they are going to reduce their workforce, lay off 10% of their employees as they I guess the word would be negotiate or don't negotiate with their unions that are on strike. They also said that the 777X, which is a new plane, that they will push out the first delivery from 2025 to 2026. Caterpillar this morning down six points, about 1.5%. They were downgraded to underweight at Morgan Stanley.
Keith Lanton:Sirius XM S-I-R-I. We talked about that stock a few weeks ago. It was written up positively in Barron's. At the time we mentioned that Berkshire Hathaway, which is controlled by Warren Buffett, had been a 10% owner and this morning reports that Berkshire Hathaway bought an additional 3.5 million shares at prices ranging from about $23 to $25. It's about an additional $87 million of Sirius stock. Siriusxm Broadcom symbol AVGO up about a point and a half. Mizuho raised their price target to 220 from 190. And a downgrade this morning App Lovin symbol. App down about five points, 3.6 percent downgraded to neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Keith Lanton:Some international news CNN reporting that Hezbollah conducted a drone attack on northern Israel, striking a military base there. Initial reports that four were killed and several seriously wounded. Cnbc reporting that former US trade representative Robert Leitziker told Wall Street firms that President Trump will institute additional tariffs quickly after assuming office if he wins re-election. Financial Times saying that China conducted large military exercises near Taiwan. Keep in mind, as we are distracted in the Middle East and we are distracted at home with the election, this is a time for some of the countries that are seeking to challenge the United States to take advantage of the distraction. And here we have China conducting those large exercises near Taiwan and really not getting a lot of attention in the news media this morning and if it was a slower news cycle I think you'd be seeing that possibly getting lots of attention and Wall Street Journal and other news media outlets reporting the US will send anti-missile system to Israel and perhaps, more importantly, be sending the 100 service people that will be servicing that anti-tank, anti-missile system that we will be sending to Israel. We'll be sending those service people over there to operate it as well.
Keith Lanton:So this week we've gotarnings. Take center stage this week Earnings from UnitedHealthcare, johnson Johnson, bank of America, goldman Sachs, asml, taiwan Semi, morgan Stanley, procter Gamble, netflix and American Express, just to name a handful of the larger companies reporting earnings this week, and we mentioned earlier JP Morgan, wells Fargo, blackrock kicking off earnings last week. Moving on to Barron's, barron's had an interesting interview with a real estate pro who was offering some insights into the US housing stocks and the US housing market, which, of course, is a critical component of our economy, and she her name is Ivy Zellman. She was an analyst at Credit Suisse back in 2007, when she was very prescient and warned, on the eve of the financial crisis, that the housing market was extended well beyond the subprime mortgage space. That seems obvious today, but those of us who were engaged back then remember that lots of folks were offering all sorts of reassurances that everything in the housing market was contained. So here's an example of someone who got it right back then.
Keith Lanton:What she's saying is about today's market is that the market may be quiet and muted the housing market and we see low sales, but she says that the low sales and the low turnover is because we have not a lack of demand but a lack of supply. And she said that despite the fact that the housing turnover is low, if you're looking at the sales, she said that the market in and of itself is still very healthy. She does not expect mortgage rates to decline very significantly, which is something that could impact the demand if rates on mortgages were to decline. And the reason for that, she said, is that mortgage rates previously were being held artificially low because the Federal Reserve was buying mortgage-backed securities. Big banks were buying mortgage-backed securities and this was compressing the spread between the 10-year and the rate that people pay on their mortgages. And what she's saying is that those spreads now are widening out. So, even though we may start seeing interest rates come down, some of the other factors that affected mortgage rates to the positive, in the sense that they would push mortgage rates lower, are now going the other way and having the effect of elevating those mortgage rates. So it's not just the overall level of interest, but these other factors that were at play in the marketplace that also contributed to low interest rates on mortgages or lower interest rates than mortgages relative to interest rates, that dynamic no longer in the marketplace.
Keith Lanton:So what she is saying is that what she expects at this point is that the trend or the change in the 10-year will largely be the trend or the change in the rate that you're going to see on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. So if you see the rates drop a quarter of a point or a half a point on the 10-year, then you could expect to see that the rates on 10-year mortgages drop by a quarter or a half a percent. And we're in the environment currently where, when we're looking at the 10-year at about 4%, well, we're looking at a mortgage rate of about 6.25%, so a spread of roughly 2.25% between the 10-year and the rate that you're going to see on 30-year mortgages, and she expects that to hold. So even if you were to be superly optimistic and think that the 10-year were to go to 3%, you'd still be looking at mortgage rates of about 5.25% on the 30-year, which is certainly a lot better than what we're seeing today, which is about 6.10% to 6.25%, but it's not back to that 3%, 3.25% we saw at the heyday of low interest rates.
Keith Lanton:Talking about housing stock companies the homebuilders specifically I thought she had an interesting insight that their margins may start to compress and that's because a lot of the houses that are getting built today she said this is Ivy Zellman are being built on land that was purchased back before the COVID epidemic, so land that was purchased in 2020, 2019, 2018. And the basis on that land for the homebuilders is very low. So when they're selling those homes, their profitability is very high because not only is the prices of homes having gone up, but one of the big components is the underlying land has become more valuable and the home building companies are able to recognize those profits when they sell those homes for the land that they bought for a lot lower prices and that is running off. So, going forward, starting in 2026, the land that they're going to be selling on their houses that they're selling in 2026, a lot of that's going to be land that they're going to be selling on their houses that they're selling in 2026, a lot of that's going to be land that was bought at higher prices, so a factor that may make earnings look a little bit less bullish than what we saw before.
Keith Lanton:One program that she said she thinks possibly could work and we have Kamala Harris and Donald Trump talking about programs to help lower housing, make homes more affordable so one of the proposals she thinks does have some merit to investigate is that Donald Trump has talked about providing federal land to developers, and this is an interesting statistic 30% of the nation's land is owned by the government. A lot of that land is in the western United States, so that land is skewed that way towards the west. And if you make the assumption that they decide to give builders land at a much lower cost basis because the federal government may sell some land or give some land to home builders, well that would enable them to provide homes at a lower cost because obviously they are getting that land at a lower cost and probably one of the prerequisites would be that they've got to pass that savings along. Just anecdotally, what are some of the strongest and weakest housing markets that she cited? Weakness is most pronounced in Florida, tampa, sarasota, naples and Orlando. That's nothing to do with the hurricanes this was pre-hurricanes, but just a weakness there even before that. She also said areas in Texas like Austin and Dallas, are weaker, as well as Phoenix Resilience in the northeast, and that's skewed to the more expensive homes rather than the starter homes. Even on the West Coast there are pockets in California on the high end that have been performing well and Las Vegas is doing better than a lot of the other southwestern markets.
Keith Lanton:Moving on to Barron's, talk about equities for a bit and then going to try and step in Brad's shoes. Talk a little bit about the fixed income market. Try and step in Brad's shoes. Talk a little bit about the fixed income market. Barron's talking about the mobile carriers, specifically T-Mobile, at&t and Verizon, saying that T-Mobile has been dominating the wireless conversation. They have used lower prices, more flexible contracts, a broad 5G rollout to win customers from AT&T and Verizon. Most recently, they say, t-mobile has been taking a lead in providing broadband to homes using its 5G connections and, as a result, t-mobile shares have returned 86% over the past three years, versus 33% for the S&P 500. Over that stretch, at&t up the same as the S&P 33%. Verizon has been flat. So you may be saying to yourself great, that's great news for T-Mobile. But Barron's saying, well, the easy gains may be coming to an end for T-Mobile While the company raised its estimate for fixed wireless subscribers recently, the pace of additions is slowing.
Keith Lanton:In the second quarter they added 406,000 fixed wireless users. That's down 27% from a year ago. In order to keep taking market share from traditional cable players, t-mobile is now turning toward fiber connections to the home, which is a very costly outlay to lay down that fiber, and that's something that Verizon and AT&T have a jump start on versus T-Mobile. T-mobile expects to deploy fiber to 12 to 15 million homes in the US by 2030. Verizon, with their frontier acquisition, will reach 25 million homes by 2030 versus, let's say, 15 million, and AT&T already has 8.8 million fiber customers and they already reach 28 million customers. Again, put it in perspective T-Mobile by 2030, will reach 15 million, at&t already reaches 28 million and it's on track to be able to reach 30 million customers by 2025. So AT&T's lead means more of its costly fiber outlays are in the past, while T-Mobile and, to a lesser extent, verizon are still ramping up and T-Mobile currently trading at a multiple that is significantly higher than its rivals trading at a P-E ratio of 23 versus 10 for AT&T and Verizon. Verizon's dividend is 6.3%, at&t 5.2%, t-mobile 1.7% and basically, what Barron's is ultimately surmising is that AT&T has an existing lead in fiber and currently paying 5.2%, and suggesting that, if you're looking at the big three companies here, clearly T-Mobile has been the way to go for some time. They're suggesting perhaps to consider AT&T going forward for the foreseeable future.
Keith Lanton:All right, here we are mid-October, not late October.
Keith Lanton:Lots of mutual funds and some hedge funds have October 31st year ends.
Keith Lanton:We as individuals have December 31st year ends, and what that means is that some of the institutional investors are starting to do their tax loss selling now already done some tax loss selling or a lot of tax loss selling and individuals need to start thinking about, or perhaps have already done, some tax loss selling because they're going to possibly have gains in their portfolios, either through mutual funds passing along capital gains to them or as a result of the fact that they own stocks that have appreciated that they've sold throughout the year.
Keith Lanton:Therefore, some of the companies that have been poor performers may come under pressure, may already be under pressure as a result of tax loss selling, and Barron suggests now is the time to sort of get your ducks in a row and take a look at the stocks that are being sold and may continue to be sold and experience pressure, at least through the end of this month, and to take a look at the companies that are experiencing tax loss, selling, and think which of those companies may be good stocks to purchase as a result of the fact that they are being extra pressured because they're being sold, because they've been poor performers and they came up with a list of stocks that are large cap stocks that analysts view favorably.
Keith Lanton:So they kind of culled the universe down to those stocks to consider. In the energy space they suggest taking a look at Halliburton, hal and Schlumberger. Slb Barrington speaks very positively about Schlumberger and we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. They have Halliburton's got buy ratings from 86% of analysts, schlumberger from 94% of analysts. Halliburton yields 2.2% and Schlumberger 2.5%. Their payout ratios are about 25% of net income so that's generally considered a safe level to maintain their dividends. Other companies that Barron's just taken a look at are West Pharma. West Pharmaceutical buy ratio of about 58% and Nucor, the steel company, which has a buy ratio of about 56%. Also pay out less than 20% of their earnings as dividends and in the healthcare space, perigo and in the semiconductor space, microchip, mchp, both mentioned as stocks to consider looking at Perigo dividend yield of 4.5%. Stocks to consider looking at Perigo dividend yield of 4.5%. But they do pay out about 70% of their net income as dividends, a little higher than we typically like, and Microchip paying about 2.3%, all right. So I'm going to try and fill in here on the fixed income space, talk a little bit about bonds.
Keith Lanton:Barron's talking about bonds and bond funds and saying that bond funds are different than stock funds. We've talked about how stock funds have historically significantly underperformed the index, and bond funds actually often underperform beat the index. If there's one thing fund investors know by now, it's that actively managed funds don't beat the market, but when it comes to bond, that might not be as true as you think. More than two out of three active bond funds beat comparable index funds for the 12 months ended in June. Story's even better for key bond funds that form the bedrock of many investor portfolios. Nearly three in four 75% of intermediate term core bond funds beat similar index funds. How do they do that? Why is this happening in the bond space and not in the stock space? Well, active bond funds tend to have more credit risk but shorter duration than comparable index funds, and that has allowed them to navigate the Federal Reserve's wait and see approach to rate cuts, while taking advantage of the strong economy.
Keith Lanton:There are also a number of other reasons that active bond funds might succeed where stock funds fail. There are characteristics of the fixed income market that really favor active management, said Greg Hall, pimco's head of US global wealth management. When it comes to the complexity of the bond market. Versus the stock market, the bond market is significantly more complex. Another reason is that stock indexes tend to be weighted by market values, so companies like Apple, nvidia and Microsoft make up the largest holdings in popular index funds. But bond indexes tend to be weighted by a similar but fundamentally different measure.
Keith Lanton:The total value of an issuer is outstanding debt, and if the amount of debt outstanding is your measure, that's not necessarily bullish. The fact that you've piled on lots of debt doesn't mean that you, as an investor, should be buying that debt. As a matter of fact, you might say to yourself I don't want to own the company that's the most indebted. I want to look at credits that are better. So weaker companies may have billions in debt outstanding and stronger companies may have significantly less debt outstanding. So therefore, the fact that we've got a bond index that's made up of the amount of debt you have outstanding is kind of counterintuitive to what would be necessarily the best bonds to purchase.
Keith Lanton:Bond indexing comes with some practical problems as well. While most companies offer just a single class of stock, there is a plethora of bonds with different terms and maturities. There are about 55,000 different stocks, and we're talking about preferred stocks, common stocks, warrants, different ways you can buy stocks, but there are 6.2 million bonds outstanding with different maturities, different coupons, different risk structures. They could be senior debt, they could be subordinated debt, they could be convertible debt, they could be junior debt. So there's a lot more complexity to the bond market, which favors not necessarily just following an index.
Keith Lanton:Speaking about a specific category of the bond market, barron spoke in their retirement column about high yield, also known as junk bonds. Owning junk in your retirement portfolio, they surmise, not as crazy as it sounds, retirees may be reaching for yield as rates notch lower on money market funds and other safe accounts. High yield or junk bonds offer attractive income. They say it's not a bad idea, but don't overdo it. Junk bonds currently yield 7.2%. That's more than double the 3.4% of the broader US bond market, comprised mostly of treasuries, which obviously have a whole different credit profile.
Keith Lanton:The bonds are called junk because they're rated below investment grade by credit rating firms due to higher risk of default or downgrades. Companies that issue them usually have problems like high debt levels relative to income. By some measures, there isn't much value in the junk universe, and that measure might be the spread to treasuries, which is about 3.5% to 3.8%. But the bull case is that the economy is healthy. Many pros are calling for the Fed to deliver a soft landing and therefore one of the biggest risks in the high-yield slash junk space is that you will get defaults. If the economy is able to avoid or skirt a recession well, you'll probably experience less defaults in the high-yield or junk market. So currently investors aren't observing the kinds of excesses that preceded prior crashes, things like the leverage that contributed to the telecom bust of the early 2000s.
Keith Lanton:One way to reduce some risk if you're buying high-yield bonds or junk bonds is to stick with the higher rated arena of the junk universe, which would be rated BB by S&P or BA by Moody's. They have a default rate of about 1% versus 4% for the overall high yield market. Etfs that you might consider in that space are the iShares BB rated corporate bond symbol HYBB, hotel, yankee Boy Boy and bond blocks double B rated US dollar high yield corporate bond, which is symbol XBB. Also an ETF we talked about last week, the VanEck Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF the symbol is ANGL holds bonds issued by companies that were initially rated in investment grade grade but have fallen into junk territory. Angl has returned 6% on average per year over the past decade, versus 3.1% for the high-yield market.
Keith Lanton:Of course, past performance no guarantee of future performance. Currently yields 6.3%. When we talked about it a couple of maybe it was two weeks ago. Now that I think about it it was yielding about 6.45%. So has appreciated in price, so the yield has dropped a little bit. So when it comes to investing in high-yield bonds, it's not so much about picking winners as it is about avoiding losers. Finally, I'll mention one other option that Barron mentions in this article, and that is the BlackRock Flexible Income ETF. The symbol is B-I-N-C. Boy Ida Nancy Charles. This invests in a range of fixed income securities, not just high yield but including high yield. It's up 5.6% this year. Yields 5.7%, which is a gain that is outperforming the overall bond market, at least so far year to date. That's everything I've got.
Alan Eppers:Thank you for listening to Mr Keith Lanton. This podcast is available on most platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Pandora. For more information, please visit our website at www. heraldlantern. com.
Sophie Cohen:Opinions expressed herein are subject to change and not necessarily the opinion of the firm. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The information presented herein is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide personal investment advice. It is important that you consider your tolerance for risk and investment goals when making investment decisions. Investing in securities does involve risk and the potential of losing money. The material does not constitute research, investment advice or trade recommendations.