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Investing Experts Podcast Episode Summary
Episode Overview Podcast Title: Investing Experts Episode Title: This is a Stock Picker's Market Episode Description: Analysts Julia Ostian, Jack Bowman, and Kenio Fontes share their insights on investment strategies, spotlighting rare earths, precious metals, major tech companies, and portfolio allocations.
Key Participants
- Julia Ostian - Focus on tech and AI investments, emphasizing market sentiment and momentum.
- Jack Bowman - Analysis centered on macroeconomics and critical minerals; discusses the implications of government policies.
- Kenio Fontes - Long-term investment perspective with a focus on tech and retail sectors, looking for compelling investment stories.
Main Discussions
- Investment Strategies
- Julia Ostian:
- Focuses on momentum and market sentiment.
- Prefers trading rather than holding positions for long periods.
- Kenio Fontes:
- Emphasizes long-term investing (10-20 years).
- Buys when the market is pessimistic about certain stocks.
- Jack Bowman:
- Aligns investments with macroeconomic trends.
- Interested in critical minerals and rare earths due to geopolitical factors.
- Rare Earths and Precious Metals
- Importance highlighted due to dependency on China for processing these materials.
- Jack Bowman mentions companies like MP Materials and Lithium Americas benefiting from government contracts.
- Concerns about supply chain vulnerabilities related to rare earths, especially amidst US-China tensions.
- Major Tech Companies
- Amazon:
- Mixed sentiments about its future, with discussions about capex concerns and potential regulatory risks.
- Kenio Fontes is bullish, seeing long-term value despite short-term market fears.
- Julia Ostian downgraded her stance due to free cash flow concerns and rising capex.
- NVIDIA:
- Anticipation of earnings report with expectations set very high.
- Concerns that even slight underperformance might lead to negative market reactions.
- Portfolio Allocations
- Kenio Fontes: 80% long-term investments, 20% trading.
- Julia Ostian: Two portfolios—one long-term with steady stocks, the other short-term trading.
- Jack Bowman: 85% in ETFs for long-term stability, 15% in riskier trades.
- Earnings Season Takeaways
- Apple criticized for lack of innovation and heavy reliance on buybacks.
- General sentiment of caution towards tech stocks amidst rising capex.
- Kenio emphasizes the need for companies like AMD to prove themselves in the face of competition from NVIDIA.
- Macro Trends and Economic Outlook
- Jack notes the Fed's cautious stance on interest rates, with expectations for cuts not happening until mid-2024.
- Discussion about labor market trends and inflation risks.
Key Takeaways
- Stock Picker's Market: Analysts emphasize the current environment favors those who can identify undervalued stocks amidst broader market volatility.
- Tech Sector Volatility: Investors should remain cautious as earnings reports and economic indicators could shift sentiment rapidly.
- Long-Term vs. Short-Term Strategies: Each analyst has differing approaches, highlighting the importance of aligning investment strategies with personal goals and market conditions.
Conclusion The discussion reflects a diverse range of insights on investment strategies, the implications of macroeconomic factors, and the evolving landscape of major tech companies. The emphasis on stock picking suggests that individual analysis and selection will play a crucial role in navigating current market uncertainties.
Additional Resources
- For more insights, listeners are encouraged to follow the analysts on Seeking Alpha and check out their respective newsletters and channels.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOAnalyst Introductions and Investment Strategies
0:45 to 2:10
The analysts introduce themselves and share their investment strategies.
“So I am a true believer in the sentiment in moving with the market.”
Jack's Focus on Macroeconomics and Rare Earths
2:10 to 4:12
Jack discusses his macroeconomic approach and the rare earth market dynamics.
“I'm Kenio Fontes, a Brazil-based analyst, and I cover a bit of everything with a focus on tech and retail, but I'm always keeping an eye on any stock or thing that I find interesting and can offer a compelling story.”
The Importance of Rare Earths and Industry Insights
4:12 to 6:08
Discussion on the significance of rare earths and industry insights from Julia.
“The Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was gone, and everything could be solved with globalization.”
Gold Market Analysis and Investment Patience
6:08 to 7:56
Exploration of gold investments and the patience required for long-term gains.
“The ultimate winner of all of this push so far with government meddling, because the U.S.”
Tech Stocks and Market Volatility
7:56 to 8:34
Discussion on tech stocks and the impact of market volatility.
“So what's your take on gold and all this momentum style versus long term thinking?”
Amazon's Current Market Position and Concerns
8:34 to 14:00
Analysts share their views on Amazon's market position and concerns related to investments.
“and all the investors in America are like eschewing gold and refusing.”
Amazon's Workforce Transformation
14:00 to 15:30
Explore how Amazon's increasing automation may affect its workforce.
“I got nervous, so I downgraded it and I'm not buying on this dip or whatever.”
Investor Sentiments and Market Dynamics
15:30 to 18:00
Discuss the challenges investors face when adjusting their market perspectives.
“At the risk of wanting to put all of our heads under our desks in cowering fear of what's to come.”
AI's Impact on Software Companies
18:00 to 20:20
Analyzing the perceived threat of AI on traditional software businesses.
“They're scared to doubt themselves, you know, like all of those just human nature things come into play and you have to be super disciplined or naturally disciplined, And I think to see that through.”
Apple's Strategic Choices and Market Position
20:20 to 22:40
Examine Apple's focus on cash flow and its implications for the tech industry.
“Yeah, it's inflation linked, but they are growing like the low single digits.”
Show all 23 chapters
NVIDIA's Earnings Outlook
22:40 to 25:40
Insights on NVIDIA's upcoming earnings and market expectations.
“to lease Gemini to replace Siri's thoughts.”
Trends in Chip Design and Manufacturing
25:40 to 28:00
Explore the distinction between chip designers and manufacturers in the tech landscape.
“I kind of agree with Julia and I think that the outlook for the next quarter may be better than the market expect but because of these huge CAPEX.”
Market Dynamics in Chip Production
28:00 to 29:01
Discussion on the dichotomy in chip production and insights on Intel.
“But even splitting between designers and manufacturers, that we're starting to see this kind of dichotomy between software and hardware.”
AMD's Market Position and Future
29:01 to 30:38
Analyzing AMD's potential and market challenges in the chip sector.
“But I also had a crazy trade of like six months.”
Challenges Facing AMD: A Deep Dive
30:38 to 31:54
Exploring the short-term challenges AMD faces in increasing market share.
“And I don't know, I don't see a big threat for AMD here.”
Fed's Position on Interest Rates
31:54 to 33:24
Discussion on the Federal Reserve's current stance and economic outlook.
“I think it's a good company with good prospects too.”
Navigating a Stock Picker's Market
33:24 to 35:55
Insightful discussion on the current stock market dynamics and opportunities.
“What would you guys want to get into right now?”
Investing in Software: Road Builders vs. Toll Booths
35:55 to 38:21
Differentiating between types of software investments and their future.
“It would be difficult to explain why did we add this exact peak to our portfolio in this exact moment.”
Carnival and Market Relevance
38:21 to 41:24
Light-hearted conversation relating Carnival experiences to investment discussions.
“And the road builders, I think, are going to get killed.”
Portfolio Allocation Insights
41:24 to 42:00
Investors discuss their portfolio strategies and allocation percentages.
“portfolio, but just curious in terms of, and this is like as we're ending the conversation, you know, is it like what percent is allotted to long-term holdings?”
Investment Strategies and Portfolio Diversification
42:00 to 44:18
Learn how different investment strategies can shape portfolio management.
“I can increase a little bit, But I wouldn't feel very comfortable to have much more than that.”
Long-Term vs. Short-Term Investments
44:18 to 48:50
Explore the differences between long-term holdings and short-term trading.
“And it's actually a nice lesson to put for yourself stock prices when you buy, like targets or approximate targets for what price you would like to sell it for.”
The Value of Understanding Business Over Stocks
48:50 to 50:38
Discover insights on why understanding a business is crucial before investing.
“So your ETFs are sitting there and you're basically not looking at them?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:09Julia Ostian:Hi everybody, welcome back to Investing Experts podcast. Very, very excited to welcome back to the show Julia Ostian, Kenio Fontes, and Jack Bowman, three outstanding analysts we have. we are fortunate enough to have on Seeking Alpha. They've been on the podcast before with Rob Isbets. I'm very, very happy to have them back talking markets, talking stocks, talking whatever they want, pretty much. Everybody, welcome to the show.
0:35Jack Bowman:Hey, thanks for having us.
0:36Julia Ostian:Julia, we'll start with you. You want to introduce yourself and just remind listeners what you write about, where you write, things like that, your investment strategy. Definitely. Hey, everyone so i'm julia i started writing for seeking alpha pretty much a year ago almost and i'm mostly writing covering the tech sector and ai of course i guess everyone is interested in ai right now and i'm not an exception i covered different sectors as well but i would say probably the tech sector fascinates me the most and i get the most excited about learning how things work how companies progress how they find new innovative ways to make money and that's really interesting and my investing strategy actually is focused heavily on momentum on sentiment of the market i really believe that especially right now in this cycle momentum is really really important and ahead of nvidia earnings for example right now I really think that the company can show 60 % revenue growth and the stock can tank just because people will be nervous or just because people wanted to see more or wanted more from this company.
1:56Julia Ostian:So I am a true believer in the sentiment in moving with the market. I trade sometimes here and there. I don't always hold my positions for a long time. That's basically it. Much appreciated. Kenio, would you share with us how you invest, what you're looking at?
2:14Kenio Fontes:Of course. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me here again. I'm Kenio Fontes, a Brazil-based analyst, and I cover a bit of everything with a focus on tech and retail, but I'm always keeping an eye on any stock or thing that I find interesting and can offer a compelling story. I'm mostly looking for long-term investing, like 10, maybe 20 years from here. Of course, I do some trade when stocks get too much overvalued and mainly buy based on sentiment, like Julia said, but with a different focus. I buy when market is very pessimistic about something like Google a few years ago or Amazon right now. I think that's pretty much my investing style.
2:59Julia Ostian:Jack Bowman.
3:00Jack Bowman:Thanks. So I'm probably known as the wonkiest person on our panel. I write a lot about macro, and I do a lot of my investing strategy around macroeconomics. And so I'm making portfolio adjustments based on what the Fed is talking about, based on where GDP is going, and that's most of my trading. Though I do some stock picking here and there. I like to dabble in material stocks, like critical minerals and rare earths have been one of my focus lately. And then, of course, I have some coverage of tech stocks because everyone's got to love their tech stocks. And I'm sure that we will talk about Amazon in just a moment because that has been on all of our minds, I'm sure.
3:43Julia Ostian:Jack, I was quoting you for like a bunch of episodes about your take on Amazon and how, you know, Prime is not their moneymaker and AWS and building brand and what that means. And so, yeah, I've loved your guys' takes on Amazon. Jack, if I can get, why are you focused on rare earths? Or what led you to your choice of focus there?
4:08Jack Bowman:Yeah, so there has been, maybe the last 30 years, this kind of sense in the macro environment of like the end of history. The Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was gone, and everything could be solved with globalization. Couldn't pay a domestic worker, pay a foreign worker. Couldn't buy domestic products, buy foreign products. And we did this to the extreme in rare earths. And we woke up maybe two years ago realizing that China controls 90 % of rare earth processing. So we just can't make the amount of graphite and the amount of cobalt and other things. We just can't process it here. But we still need it.
4:44Jack Bowman:So now we're facing a world where in a trade war with China, they're weaponizing that against us. Oh, you don't want to play ball with us? You want to raise tariffs? Well, no rare earths for you. And that suddenly threw a giant wrench in our supply chains. And it's meant huge opportunity for domestic rare earth companies and Canadian rare earth companies in particular have been doing very well as we kind of reindustrialize that part of the sector that we let just kind of languish for a long, long time.
5:11Julia Ostian:I have to say I really like this industry as well and I actually rely on Jack's articles for this myself. A year ago, I have been in Indonesia and I like firsthand, I saw how China invests just loads of money in different countries to lock in those rare earths, like everything. Basically, anything they can get their hands on, they will be locking in. And I think it's a very, very important topic. And I think the U.S. will really have a shortage in a couple of years when China feels more comfortable with like telling the U.S. that, listen, guys, so now we have something that we also want from you, not only you want from us.
5:53Julia Ostian:So, yeah, I think it's like a fascinating part of the market as well. It also sounds like shades of the AI with China and America competing and piggybacking and being exclusionary. And yeah, interesting. Any companies that you would highlight or lowlight in the rare earths just as we're getting into things?
6:14Jack Bowman:Yeah. The ultimate winner of all of this push so far with government meddling, because the U.S. government has done a lot of meddling so far in the market.
6:22Julia Ostian:No pun intended.
6:24Jack Bowman:But they're buying up stockpiles now. They're trying to pass bills so they can just preemptively buy things. They passed a floor where, so MP Materials is one of my big picks in this sector. They secured a contract with the Pentagon. The Pentagon buys these magnet components at almost double the going price on the broad market. So MPs digging up stuff at$30 a ton, they're able to sell it for$50 a ton to the open market or to the government for$100 a ton. And this has created this kind of unfair part of the market where they're able to outcompete everybody on their margins because no one has a buyer like MP does.
7:04Jack Bowman:LAC, Lithium Americas is the other big one. They also have a government contract now. And they're one of the few Western companies producing lithium, which is a huge deal in battery production, as we may know.
7:18Kenio Fontes:Can I ask a question for Jack? Do you have an opinion on gold? I wrote down an article about gold miners, I think it's a month ago, and it was very debatable because my take was, I'm an individual investor, I'm not a head fund manager, so I don't think I have to beat the S &P in the next quarter, just in the next decade or five years. So I'm not willing to bet that Barrick and all these gold miners will be selling gold for 5k in the next year, two years, three years. So I can be patient, you know. So what's your take on gold and all this momentum style versus long term thinking?
8:02Jack Bowman:Yeah, gold has been exceptional. It's been great for my portfolio because I was a gold bug before all this, but now I'm looking at it saying, you know, hey, we've run up so much. I saw a photo of a strip mall in China that had silver prices at 136 because they have a premium there. And it was like the most exuberant I had ever seen a precious metals market. And so at this point, I'm not adding to my precious metals anymore. I'm sitting and waiting, which is a weird thing for me to say because I have been banging the table for years about how much everyone needs gold and all the investors in America are like eschewing gold and refusing.
8:38Jack Bowman:I think among miners right now, there's still some opportunity because they've lagged gold. And there's that fear of like, well, what if it falls back down to 3 ,000 and now they can't sell for 5 ,000 anymore? That's a big risk. And then the other thing is that there's, I think a lot of geopolitical risk in a lot of these miners that don't do business in the US or Canada. And so it would really, I think, come down to a lot of their individual. I know B2G had a big deal with, what was it, Julie, what was that country that they were in? It was somewhere in West Africa. In Mali. In Mali. And the government kicked them out.
9:10Julia Ostian:Yeah, they had a huge problem. Anything else before we get into the tech side of things, which we've seen have some momentum after some, well, there's just volatility, right? It's just, there's just volatility afoot. and uh so i guess what would you say about we we are uh julia mentioned that nvidia earnings are coming up next week we also saw many of the biggest tech players report in recent weeks we've had some nice takeaways from earning season i guess kenyo let's start with you what's top of mind for you when you look at tech if you want to specify amazon feel free to or any other stocks But in general, how are you looking at that part of the market?
9:50Kenio Fontes:Yeah, I feel like it's a great time for stock picking. Like we are not technically in a bear market because the index fell like 5 % or 4%. But some tech stocks were beating down like punished 20%, 30%, 40 % if we are talking about Nvidia based on the all-time highs. so I feel like it's a great time to go contrarian and invest like in quality names but in a cheap price. I think Amazon is my number one priority right now. A couple quarters ago I don't feel comfortable enough to increase my position but right now I do because the sentiment about what market is feeling about Amazon is just short term.
10:35Kenio Fontes:Like CapEx of course will put some pressure on the cash flow in the next one, maybe two, maybe three years. But I think the ROI will be very, very, very good, like enhance the EPS, the compounding in the next decade. They invest in robots, AI chips. It's not only AWS capacity or an AI race. It makes sense. So I think we can benefit this market euphoria.
11:06Julia Ostian:What would you say most concerns you when you're looking at Amazon or other tech names that you like? What has you kind of worried the most?
11:15Kenio Fontes:Probably regulation. I mean, Amazon is the company like too big to fail. So I think some countries, some regions may feel like we should stop Amazon. I think this is my number one risk in the long term. Not, of course, unions and all these things like layoffs. All of this, I think, can impact in the long term, not only AWS, because I'm not concerned if they lose 1 % of market share to Azure or GCP. I think the main long-term risk is regulation and all of that, not the market share because it's a very, very wide-mode company.
11:53Julia Ostian:It sure is. I have actually just downgraded Amazon. Oh, talk to us. It had been my top pick for a long time. Yeah, I had a strong buy and I downgraded it to buy and it was like the reaction of the market of the people that read me was not probably the nicest because everyone was like, no, but you were like the one telling us that Amazon should go up. But yeah, I actually, I got pretty disappointed this time around with Amazon. people are usually concerned about the capex, right? And Amazon just presented an enormous capex. But this was not the point of why I actually decided to downgrade this stock.
12:33Julia Ostian:I really did not like the free cash flow situation of Amazon because it went down three times in the last year from Q4 2024 to Q4 2025. And it's a lot. for Amazon to cover the capex that was back then. And if we take into account that Amazon wants to increase it more than 50 % from here, I'm not sure they really understand how to cover that cost. And together with this, they fire people. And I think they want those firings and this money to cover partly the capex, which definitely should not be enough. so all of these signals i'm not i'm not sure i'm just not sure and also i compare it to the return on invested capital of amazon to other mac 7 for example and amazon stands at about 15 or 16 percent which is okay because their weighted average cost of capital is at about 10 or 11 it's it's okay this company does okay but it it doesn't do that good to invest 200 billion dollars in a year in capex in my opinion so So here, worry is actually not the CapEx itself, but where it actually goes and how the company will be able to pay for this.
13:50Julia Ostian:Because with other Mach 7, for example, I'm not worried. They've got the money. So even if they overbuild the capacity, they can cover it. They can use this capacity themselves and they will be fine. But with Amazon, I don't know. I got nervous, so I downgraded it and I'm not buying on this dip or whatever. I'm not adding to my position, although I'm not selling. So you'd consider it a hold at this point? Yeah, for now I'm holding and I'm pretty happy with where I am right now. If the company continues with this, with the layoffs and with the capex increase, I might trim even, but not yet. I just want to see for a couple more quarters where it goes.
14:29Jack Bowman:The Amazon layoffs don't really surprise me because I've been watching them build an army of robots. And I mean this literally, there was this beautiful chart that ARK put out, part of their Big Ideas presentation, that was showing the amount of people at Amazon and the amount of robots at Amazon. And you can see that the amount of people is very slowly dwindling. It peaked in 2021, but the amount of robots is still hitting all-time highs. right and we're getting close to where in maybe five years there may be more robots than people
15:01Kenio Fontes:at amazon yeah they they achieved like a million robots last year so yeah yeah that's a lot and so
15:08Jack Bowman:i i'm seeing some of this of like well maybe we can just automate the entire warehouse top to bottom right maybe we don't need as many people as we thought we did that's a scary thought for for the larger economy and and the labor market yeah and what's the impact on on margin on bottom
15:24Kenio Fontes:bottom line, like triple, I don't know, double at least in the next 10 years. Yeah.
15:30Jack Bowman:Humans cost a lot of money, right? Way more than robots.
15:33Kenio Fontes:Yeah. It's a strange thing to think, but...
15:36Julia Ostian:At the risk of wanting to put all of our heads under our desks in cowering fear of what's to come. Julia, I'm interested, you mentioned that your subscribers were questioning your change in thesis on Amazon, did it surprise you as well? Was it, did you need like a quarter or two or a couple announcements in consecutive release that forced you into a slightly more bearish stance? How, and then I guess also, how do you communicate that to your subscribers in terms of a change in thesis? You know, it's actually a great question because I think people or some people, not all of them, but I think people tend to fall in love with companies.
16:26Julia Ostian:And it can sound weird, but people really get into the business. They really learn about the management. They really learn about how it goes. And they basically decide that they will stick in no matter what happens. So for me, it's not like that. And I'm very simple with letting it go. if I see that I don't like something, I change my opinion in a second. I don't need to wait. I don't need to double check it for a few more times. For example, if something drastic, if something horrible happens, right? If something that I'm not sure about, like with Amazon in this case, I could downgrade and say that I'm cautious and this is not what I was expecting and I can just wait and see for a couple of more quarters.
17:11Julia Ostian:But I think it's a big problem in general of people. they want to not to analyze what's going on they want to believe what they heard in the first place so i'm not surprised i mean i take it at what it is i just show my opinion i just explain how i view all of this market and my thought processing probably my decision making and people can just take it for whatever it is and i think to your point a lot of people's resistance, I would imagine, is just the fear of change. People do not like change. And to your point that you're easy with change and that feels like something that's not a challenge for you is probably why you're good at investing.
17:54Julia Ostian:Probably. I think that's like a big thing is that people are scared to change their mind. They're scared to doubt themselves, you know, like all of those just human nature things come into play and you have to be super disciplined or naturally disciplined, And I think to see that through. Yeah, definitely. Jack, anything else to add on the Amazon story?
18:16Jack Bowman:So I think that the one thing that kind of ties us all together is like the current issue with software. So Amazon is running up into this now as a model provider as well. Of this fear that software is being eaten by AI and that AI CapEx is going to eventually build out enough capacity to replace most software orgs with some sort of in-house solution or whatever and cause them all to drop off, right? Salesforce is down like 40 % off of its highs, you know, among others. Adobe is getting slaughtered and a couple others. ServiceNow is a big one. And I have been kind of pushing back on this in some ways of like, it's bled over into Microsoft, into Amazon.
19:03Jack Bowman:And I don't think that the fear is well-placed. I think there's a lot of AI exuberance still in the air of it can solve everything. It is an omnipresent tool that can be immensely useful forever. And I just don't think that's the case. And I think we're going to run into a wall at some point with the market of we're going to either have to produce the gains that you gotta spend money to make money. So you do have to eventually actually make money on all this spending. And then also we have to prove its usefulness. Software isn't dead if AI never becomes as useful as we think it might. And I think a lot of us are kind of putting the blinders on for that trade of like software is dead and AI is king and we can forget about it, but I don't think that's true.
19:47Kenio Fontes:Yeah, and I think we have to mention the overreaction, not only about Amazon, but about whether the money is going. like Walmart is trading at 45 times earnings or 50 times earnings. Like it's a 70 % premium related to Amazon. So I think it's just too much, you know, like market is just so with so much fear about Amazon, but so much confident about Walmart. And it's both good companies, but just too much different, you know?
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20:19Jack Bowman:Yeah, one's not covering the planet in data centers.
20:23Kenio Fontes:Yeah, it's inflation linked, but they are growing like the low single digits. So how can you trade it? Like 50 times earnings? Come on.
20:33Julia Ostian:Kenio, do you have a price target on Amazon or do you do price targets?
20:37Kenio Fontes:I don't do much about price target. It's much more based on margin of safety. So I like to buy Amazon on 200s. 220s, I think it's fine too. It can achieve an IRR of double digits in my models. But that's it. Lower the better. If I, of course, if Saturday's party booths, if I consider everything will be okay with Amazon, the lower the better.
21:04Julia Ostian:Any earning season takeaways, really from anyone, but specifically in the tech space? Kenio, I'll stick with you for a second. Anything that you took away from this recent earning season?
21:15Kenio Fontes:Yeah, about CapEx, it stands out to me. Apple is a different one. I think we all have something to comment about Apple. It's just, I think it's strange how Apple is sticking to its cash flow. Like, I need this cash flow. I need to buy back. And in the other hand, why Apple almost is showing to me like they have nothing to invest on, nothing big. They're not developing some real chips, some self-driving cars like Amazon and Alphabet is doing. They're not on a data center business. They're not on the LLM business. They're on the buyback business. So I would like to see Apple depending less on this engineering.
22:02Kenio Fontes:But at the same time, I think what Apple management, what Tim Cook is saying that I'm not saying. Is he saying it's all FOMO? I'm not participating on this AI race, nothing related to LLM data center, nothing. I'm sticking to my buybacks with the 3 % shareholder yield. And that's it. So I feel like it's a good discussion.
22:27Jack Bowman:Apple has this genius strategy, right? They reduced their CapEx by 20 % last year. No need to spend on data centers. Everyone else will do it for us. Then they enter this deal with Google, right? A billion dollars a year. to lease Gemini to replace Siri's thoughts. And Google's spending way more than a billion dollars a year to run Gemini. So I know that Apple's getting their money's worth, right? Spend no money, reap all the reward, pay a little bit later, pay some service charges, and it's working out for them so far. Yeah.
23:02Julia Ostian:Yeah, and also if we think about this in this way, if, for example, AI proves to be a boom and bust and bust afterwards, right? Like if we all wake up one day and realize that it was all for nothing, like metaverse, although I don't think it can be. But in general, if that happens, Apple has a very, very high chance of being the strongest stock in the market and the stock where everyone will run. And in general, if you want to diversify away from AI, you have a Mac 7 that basically has no exposure to this whatsoever. So you can look at this this way. although I don't buy Apple stock myself.
23:41Kenio Fontes:Yeah, I don't like Apple either. I mean, I like the company, but I don't like the valuation.
23:46Julia Ostian:Yeah, I really like the company. I have everything here is Apple. Like if you come to my heart, like everything, everything.
23:53Kenio Fontes:Yeah, same here. I have an iPhone, an Apple Watch, everything. But I don't like the stock.
23:59Julia Ostian:I remember reading an article in the New Yorker a bunch of years ago about a private school in New York, and the kids were like, Apple owns us. Apple owns all of us. just everybody has Apple products Julia, anything you would add to the earnings takeaway conversation from the tech space? Going into NVIDIA's earnings I think it will be really interesting the market looks nervous the market looks excited but worried at the same time which basically surprises me because I don't know, with NVIDIA I guess from what I've started, I've just broken down NVIDIA's earnings today, I wrote the preview so i have a fresh thoughts on this it really looks like doesn't matter what nvidia will do the market will not be as happy because it looks to me that the company so many time times have beaten the expectations that basically right now the expectations is that everything will be better than expected but the problem is that this phrase can stretch basically limitless right what is better than expected.
25:05Julia Ostian:Anything can be better than expected. It can be slightly better than expected. But if Nvidia will deliver instead of$65 billion,$70 billion, I'm not sure the market will be very happy because Nvidia usually beats like$3 to$4 billion. So yeah, I'm just curious to see what will happen because the market is down a couple of percentage points one day, and then everyone is excited about what the Fed will say about the rate cuts like today, for example on Wednesday and the market is flying so I don't know I'm just curious what will happen and I'm sure Nvidia by the way will post a great quarter and I think the whole year looks really good for Nvidia right now with the cup expanding most of the cup expanding will go to Nvidia one way or another so I don't know I'm just curious to see what will happen and I really think the stock can go lower on the earnings even with the bid.
25:59Kenio Fontes:I kind of agree with Julia and I think that the outlook for the next quarter may be better than the market expect but because of these huge CAPEX. So I think in the short term 2026, 2027, maybe 2030 it will be very bullish to Nvidia because even Amazon is trying to reduce this dependence on Nvidia chips. Same for Google. it's not that short term they can't just produce a new chip to their cloud business in 3 or 5 years so I think it's still bullish in the short term but the long term will be a little more of uncertainty
26:40Julia Ostian:Jack, anything to add to this part of the conversation?
26:43Jack Bowman:NVIDIA is always an interesting business to me because they have such high profit margins like 70 % on their stuff because they don't actually manufacture their own chips right as tsmc does the actual making of the chips nvidia designs them and then they sell the completed units once they've paid tsmc to actually manufacture them so this leaves them in a space where improving the product doesn't necessarily always like hurt them in in in the cost to make it because the manufacturer shares some of that cost which allows nvidia to have these times where it's like they spend all this money on on r &d right they were down last quarter a little bit because of this crazy R &D spending on this new chip that they had to produce.
27:22Jack Bowman:It takes a lot of money to get it up and running. Now we've had a quarter of it running. And I think now we're starting to see NVIDIA turn back into the cash machine. So I'm also bullish going in. I see them beating. The Rubin model chip has been doing very well in its deployment in data centers, as limited as it is from what I can hear.
27:39Julia Ostian:What else would we add to the tech part of the conversation, AI or tech adjacent or tech related? Any other insights?
27:47Jack Bowman:I think there's a consideration that investors should have in the current tech space in very much splitting hardware and software. And even among people like NVIDIA, who is, by all means, people would say, a hardware company. But even splitting between designers and manufacturers, that we're starting to see this kind of dichotomy between software and hardware. I expect us to see a continued dichotomy between producers and designers as well. I'm not as bullish on producers of chips as much as I am on designers of chips, AMD, NVIDIA, maybe not so much Intel. I just sold my Intel shares a little bit ago.
28:23Jack Bowman:Why is that? So, well, I bought them in the government dip. When the government bought up Intel, everyone says rock bottom, I bought shares. So I was up 150 % over six months. And I looked at the valuation. I looked at the fact that nothing had changed. The CEO in his earnings call kept saying, well, there's this crazy demand. There's CPU demand. And, you know, we can't fill it all because we just have so much people on our ships. And then they immediately reported like a lower than expected sales figure. I was like, oh, that's a big red flag to me. Like saying we have unlimited demand and then not being able to show me that you're meeting unlimited demand is not a good sign for me.
29:01Jack Bowman:So I left. But I also had a crazy trade of like six months. I was up tremendously in the position and I thought too much risk now on the table.
29:08Julia Ostian:Last week I talked to Tech Contrarians and we were talking about AMD and NVIDIA and there were a lot of comments about the pairing of AMD and NVIDIA going forward. Anything that y 'all would say about AMD? I really like MDI. I have this stock in my portfolio. I don't know. I'm holding. I think this market is huge. I think going forward, this market will definitely have the space for not only two players, but more players. And actually, NVIDIA's mode is not only the designing of the chips. It's mostly the ecosystem, which companies cannot simply turn away from. It's the CUDA that it has and everything.
29:50Julia Ostian:Basically, all of the infrastructure has been built on this. So it's not easy just to produce as, for example, for hyperscalers, the new chip and just adopt it. And that's it. And we move on from NVIDIA. It's just it's impossible. So NVIDIA will say and I think there is definitely place for AMD on this market, because as we've seen, NVIDIA sometimes hits the cycles where it simply cannot satisfy the demand that there is. And in those exact situations, I think AMD could be nice to cover for maybe smaller companies, maybe some other segments of the business, maybe not hyperscalers, but I see definitely space for AMD there.
30:30Julia Ostian:And I myself hold for a pretty long time. I bought the share of this company at a pretty cheap price. I think it went down to like$70 or$80 per share. So I'm just happy to hold it. And I don't know, I don't see a big threat for AMD here. I think this company will slowly capture the market share. Of course, it's not growing as NVIDIA does. But at the same time, I'm not sure it should be growing the same way. It doesn't have the same infrastructure and so on.
31:03Kenio Fontes:I have a few AMD too, but I have some concerns about the company, mainly in the short term. As Julia said, it's not like NVIDIA. It's not the same infrastructure, same ecosystem and all. But I think 2026 will be the year that AMD has to prove itself. It has to capture demand. It is growing, but it needs to grow more, mainly in the data center revenue. They need to increase their margins and prove, okay, we have some pricing power. Not like NVIDIA have, but we also have some pricing power. And also about SBC, the stock-based compensation is just too high. So we see it's 30 times earnings forward.
31:43Kenio Fontes:But if we consider the SBC is 40 or something near that. So I think AMD had to prove itself in 2026. I think it's a good company with good prospects too. But they have to prove this demand, the pricing power. and also that they can have this operating leverage with the SBC, growing less in revenue.
32:06Julia Ostian:Jack, anything you want to say about the FOMC minutes coming out today or macro speaking? Anything of note?
32:15Jack Bowman:So the Fed is in this really weird limbo right now. And I think the minutes are going to show us a divided Fed, one that is more divided than normal, but is still leaning toward the institutional, we should wait and see. And rate cuts take a long time to filter into the economy. So we did a couple of cuts and now we're going to sit and wait. And they're still in agreement with that philosophy, but it's changing. We're introducing more and more participants like Governor Moran, who really wants rate cuts. And every time they vote for a cut, he votes for 50 points. And every time they vote for a hole, he votes for a cut, right?
32:53Jack Bowman:And so we're seeing more people agree with him and take his stance that we should be lower than where we are now. I don't think they're going to lower until June. But a lot of it has to do with where the macro goes in terms of like unemployment. Unemployment's peaked. It was at 4.6%. Now we're down to 4.3%. But if it comes back up again, that's a threat to the economy. So the Fed will have to act sooner. I don't think we'll see anything until June. I think we're going to have to sit and wait to get any action until then.
33:24Julia Ostian:Appreciate that. What would you guys want to get into right now? What do you think is most deserving of attention these days?
33:29Jack Bowman:I think to Kenny's point earlier, and just to kind of reiterate this to people, we are in a stock picker's market. The year to date, the average stock in the S &P has outperformed the S &P, which is rare in our markets that are just MAG-7 driven. The last 17 years, that has just not been true for the most part most of the time. And that's true right now. So right now, I think there's a lot of opportunities in some of these beaten down sectors that are now getting some love. But to be cautious, because I don't think, and I still don't think, it's a full rotation forever. Like, I don't think growth is dead and value is the new driver of the market.
34:10Jack Bowman:it. But in the meantime, while the market's still figuring out this AI deal, while we're all still on the cusp about what the Fed's going to do next or whatever, there's some opportunity like chemicals have been going crazy. And like I was never an investor in Dow chemical or anything like that. But recently I've been looking at these charts saying that these look much better than in any of the time that I've ever been an investor.
34:32Julia Ostian:What are you looking at in the charts specifically? What's showing you that?
34:35Jack Bowman:So a lot of it has to do with where the volume is, is we're actually seeing some of this rotation has legs to it in a way that in previous markets, like with small caps, I was saying this like, you know, small cap stocks, a lot of it's technically driven. I can see that there's not a lot of volume increasing as the price is jumping up dramatically, which is telling me that there's other things going on behind the scenes. But some of these value stocks like LYB and Dow are the two big ones that I've been following in the chemical space that have had a lot of actual momentum behind them from real traders of actual volume of people genuinely rotating into the stocks.
35:08Kenio Fontes:Yeah, I think FOMO is an important thing to say here. I think we should avoid FOMO. Like Jack said, we have seen some rotation and us individual investors, we don't need to buy gold right now. We can just stop and buy some cheap stocks we want. I think the micro, the internal factors of companies matters a lot too. So I'm not buying tech sector or software companies i'm buying companies i like i'm buying some amazon i'm buying some uber stock i'm buying some brookfield so i i think this too just these two things matters a lot say what companies are really doing this their their prospects and avoid the fomo yeah i think that actually each of us
35:54Julia Ostian:had these moments like for example i in general i covered the tech sector but about a year ago about half a year ago i went and bought bristol myers i haven't even covered it and i never told this to anyone because it's just it isn't me right i saw the opportunity and it's like a dividend stock that i never buy pretty much for myself for the dividend and here it was also not for the dividend but still since then the stock is up nicely and i'm happy and i mean i think every each one of us has speaks like this and we've even discussed this uh with jack at one point that It would be nice to share our portfolios, but I think they get messy sometimes because we have some peaks that we are maybe not that we're not ready to share them.
36:41Julia Ostian:It would be difficult to explain why did we add this exact peak to our portfolio in this exact moment. So, yeah, but definitely looking at the sectors like this would be very interesting. And I would really like to learn more about the chemicals. if Jack can write an article about this, I would be the first reader of it.
37:03Jack Bowman:I think the one last thing I have to say about this is like among stock picking, and especially for those people who are kind of bargain hunting in software right now, which is where I'm at, of like to Kenio's point of like, I'm not buying IGV, the software ETF, too much risk for me because I don't know what's going to get disrupted or not. And I want to look at the micro level. And I think the analogy that I heard that has really stuck with me here is that there's two kinds of software companies. There's like road builders and tollboots. Road builders are these companies that produce dashboards.
37:35Jack Bowman:They're just made for humans to use as a tool, right? And then CRM is one of these, right? Salesforce is one of these companies that's considered like the biggest road builder. And then you've got tollboots are companies that provide databases and tools that are bot callable for AI to actually use in their workflow. These are not replaceable because the AI actually needs them. So even if you replace your human knowledge workers, you'll still need these tools. MongoDB is one of these. Palantir, very notably one of these. And these companies create a moat with their software that you don't if your software is just a tool for humans.
38:15Jack Bowman:And so that's how I've been thinking of splitting up stocks in the software sector of are they a road builder or a toll booth? Which one of these? And the road builders, I think, are going to get killed. I don't know how they recover if the AI narrative is correct and AI tools will replace a lot of knowledge workers. Of course, if that's wrong, then Salesforce is at the greatest sale of a century. Right.
38:38Julia Ostian:Joe Albano from TechCaché was on unbelievably like two years ago. I can't believe like 2024 was two years ago, but he was on talking about the AI tiers and like similar to what you're saying, just putting companies in different slots and understanding their part in the ecosystem. And it's developing in real time. It's not like a stagnant thing, but it is, I think, a very helpful way to look at and think about AI and how it's moving, how it's shaping up, and what the heck it's doing to all of us. Kenio, do you ever go to Carnival? I know today was the last day of Carnival. Do you ever go?
39:15Kenio Fontes:Yeah, I didn't go this year, but last year I went with my girlfriend. it's very packed here in my city so usually I just go a few hours or a few minutes just to see but it's just too packed for me
39:30Julia Ostian:When I look at pictures and videos I'm like wow that seems so overwhelming but I wonder what real locals think of it and is it like Times Square or is it like something that is magnificent to behold?
39:42Kenio Fontes:Yeah it's a huge huge party almost everybody likes it but it is overwhelming I think it's very overwhelming I think you can't see that from a picture you have to be there and be like with I don't know maybe some thousands some couple of thousands people around you and say come on how can I how can I go to the next corner it's just too difficult so it's almost claustrophobic but I bet the
40:14Julia Ostian:energy all along the way is like really quite something magnificent.
40:18Kenio Fontes:Yeah, it's insane. It's like huge, huge show. Some producers, I think it's how is his name? I think it's Calvin Harris. Went to Sao Paulo. It was a very, very, it was something. It was like millions of people, I guess. It's something already.
40:37Julia Ostian:Probably all should go at least one point in our lives. Jack and Julia, have you guys ever been? No, we actually have to schedule and go visit Kenya next year. Yeah, yeah, we should do a live event. We've made so many podcasts, so maybe we can streamline from there, from the carnival. I'm a fan of that happening.
40:55Kenio Fontes:I think everybody should experience at least one time carnival. So just to see how it is something different. I think it just doesn't happen in any other country. At least, I don't know.
41:10Julia Ostian:It seems very special and very specific to Brazil. It's like the perfect place for it. And yeah, it seems like something we should all experience at least once. To the portfolio question, I was curious, not to share like all of the stocks in your portfolio, but just curious in terms of, and this is like as we're ending the conversation, you know, is it like what percent is allotted to long-term holdings? What percent is allotted to short-term holdings? What percent are you invested in? What percent are you trading? if you would all like share that, I think it might be helpful for listeners just to get a sense of things.
41:45Julia Ostian:Kenny, I'll start with you.
41:47Kenio Fontes:Yeah, I think it's difficult to me because I just buy what I think it's good right now. So sometimes it gets a little bit messy on my portfolio, but I have some rules. I don't want to have 30 % of Amazon on my portfolio. So I have, I think it's 10 or 12. I can increase a little bit, But I wouldn't feel very comfortable to have much more than that. I think 80 % would be the long-term portfolio, not considering cash. I have a lot of cash just to buy on Zips. I think if we divide this, it would be like 50%, 60 % on equities, the rest cash and equivalents. so but mostly long term just one or two maybe some trade like Werner Bros I bought to as it was a deep value strategy and it tripled so I sold not a long term investing but it could be
42:50Julia Ostian:you know appreciate that Julia so for me it's actually also not easy to say because I have two portfolios and actually the first one I've started when I just started investing back in 2020 and this was straight ahead with my mother together we sold the apartment i am from ukraine originally so we sold that apartment in ukraine and i was like okay i want to take the part of the money like your money and my money and invest the summer and she was like well i'm not sure if that's such a good idea i've never done that before in my life so but anyway i don't know how she actually was brave enough to give me her money not only the my part my part so i started investing back then and that portfolio is actually very long term most of the stocks uh not most but i i would say a certain of the stocks i hold from 2020 and actually polentira is one of them from 2021 i yeah i bought it like five years ago yeah my average buying price is like 20 dollars per share so um yeah that's pretty nice my mom is happy by the way if you're worth wondering I love that that story ended well.
43:56Julia Ostian:That story almost never ends well. No, no, but I actually I've trimmed already so many times and I already got the money back and reinvested it. And actually BNY is in that portfolio as well. So this is basically this is the reason why I sometimes make purchases like this, because I have one portfolio that is for me playing around and buying weird stocks. and the other one is for like more serious companies and more serious stocks so there i hold i would say on average a year and maybe even more maybe even two years and i have another portfolio that i've opened not so long ago like a year ago and there i just play around and i turn around sometimes stocks in a couple of weeks even i buy and it skyrockets and i have to say i i have been lucky so far sometimes it happens that i make a peak and it just goes in the direction i said it would be so i'm just selling it immediately or trimming it and it just works for me this way although i have one lesson that i've learned just recently i've actually told on my youtube channel to trim the stock and i did not trim it myself because i forgot and this is and it went down, like seriously down.
45:18Julia Ostian:And it's actually a nice lesson to put for yourself stock prices when you buy, like targets or approximate targets for what price you would like to sell it for. If it reaches that point, maybe it's a good idea to trim that basically no matter where it goes from there. At least for me, it would be definitely helpful If I was more serious about it, I would definitely do that and make for myself a notebook where I would write a couple of words about the stock, why I'm buying it this exact moment and what I'm hoping to get and to which approximate price target I'm waiting for. Don't forget to follow your own advice.
46:02Julia Ostian:Jack, what would you share?
46:04Jack Bowman:So I'm a little systematic. 85 % of my portfolio lives in this like 10 ETF mesh that I've created. That's all just long term stuff. It's all broad basket. You know, I trade by asset class and not by individual names just to avoid the complexities of having to add micro back into it. Then about 15 % of my portfolio is risk on. I am worried about micro. I'm buying individual stocks. I'm taking positions in weird ETFs like SETM, which is the critical materials ETF that only invests in like copper, lithium and cobalt miners and things like that. So that's something that I would never recommend anyone to just sit around and hold if they didn't have any conviction in it.
46:47Jack Bowman:So I keep about 15 % for like, this is my conviction. This is stuff that I know about. This is stuff that I am actively trading often. Like that portion is where I bought and sold my Intel shares from and where I hold most of my individual stock positions. And then I don't hold any stock to the long term. I'm not a believer that in my timeline, because I'm not going to retire probably for another 25, 30 years, maybe longer than that. I don't know if I could ever pick a stock for that amount of time. I just, the micro changes too, too much in that amount of time for me personally. So I keep all of that in long-term ETF holdings instead.
47:30Julia Ostian:And ETFs across market sectors?
47:33Jack Bowman:Yeah. So I invest across stocks, both domestic, developed and emerging markets. I invest across asset classes. So I've got some precious metals in there. I've got some bonds in there. Notably, I'm very bullish on the long-term prospects of the 10-year treasury. So I have an ETF called RFIX, which is a call option on the 10-year. So it's like super leveraged and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody who doesn't have lots of convictions, but that's like a way that I can get good exposure to the 10-year treasury and things like that. So I try and hold across assets. The one thing I don't mess with is currencies.
48:13Jack Bowman:I have no currency exposure currently, just the dollar.
48:16Julia Ostian:because it's not something that you it's not one of your areas of focus so it's not something that
48:22Jack Bowman:you understand deeply would you say that yeah i spent a couple days at some point reading through like bank of japan uh like their version of the fomc and it was so dense uh and so full of like japanese financial jargon and it was so complex i was like i have there's no chance that i stand to get on to the same level I am with like dollar assets as I am with like yen assets or euro assets. And so I've just tried to avoid everything I have is like hedged to the dollar or has minimal currency exposure.
48:55Julia Ostian:So your ETFs are sitting there and you're basically not looking at them?
48:59Jack Bowman:Yeah, I let them do their thing. And I try to rebalance every so often. It's like usually every quarter or sometimes less than that if there's not a lot of action.
49:08Julia Ostian:And what's your longest term holding stock wise?
49:11Jack Bowman:My longest holding stock is Chipotle, which I bought 10 years ago. When I was a starter investor, I had never really done anything. And I got this advice, which I think today, as someone who writes about investments, it's like horrible advice. But someone said, go buy stocks in companies that you like. And at the time, I was really into picking up a Chipotle burrito on my way home from work. So I bought a bunch of Chipotle stock. I've done very well on that position since then. But that's just what happens when you hold stuff for 10 years. But today, I would never advise anyone to own Chipotle stock.
49:50Jack Bowman:But it's still sitting there in my portfolio. I can't make myself get rid of it.
49:53Julia Ostian:Do you think it's bad advice because there's a difference between the company and the stock?
49:56Jack Bowman:Yes. It's bad advice because it ignores valuations and it ignores what makes financial markets tick and just focuses on, is it a business that you enjoy? Oh, there's businesses that I enjoy that went out of business. There's businesses that I enjoy that flopped. You know, but I get the point. It's a Warren Buffett quote, right? Where he's like, I only buy businesses that have made me happy for 50 years or 25 years or whatever it is. And that's why he bought Dairy Queen.
50:22Kenio Fontes:I think a better quote would be, I think it's Peter Lynch. Like buy business, you understand. No, you like it, but at least you understand. I think it's better. Yeah.
50:31Julia Ostian:Yeah, I'm going to leave everybody with the final word and where everybody can find your insight, your analysis, perhaps your YouTube videos. Jack, we'll start with you since we just finished with you. Happy for you to share that with our audience.
50:45Jack Bowman:Yeah, I run a so I don't upload much to YouTube, but I run a newsletter every week called The Macro Obsession. So if you Google my name and The Macro Obsession or just The Macro Obsession, you will find it. I publish every Sunday. It's like a roundup of trends and other ideas in finance that I have every week. Kenio?
51:02Kenio Fontes:Yeah, most of my work is on Seeking Alpha. So just follow me on Seeking Alpha and you'll see every stock I talked about here, Uber, NVIDIA, Amazon, everything you'll find on Seeking Alpha in my profile.
51:16Julia Ostian:As for me, besides, of course, of my Seeking Alpha, you can contact me on LinkedIn. I sometimes chat there with followers from Seeking Alpha. They ask me questions and I usually answer it, although I never give advice, but I can share my opinion about whatever if it interests you. And I run the Market Monarchies YouTube channel. So you can find my videos there as well. Although I would say that on Seeking Alpha, I write like more frequently and there you can definitely find a wide range of companies and YouTube is like only some pics that YouTube audience likes. Appreciate it very much. Julia Ostian, Kenny Ofontes, Jack Bowman.
52:01Julia Ostian:Really, really happy to have you back on the podcast. And for followers or those that want to ask questions, feel free to leave us a comment. We hope to have all three back on at least once a quarter. So look forward to that. Thanks, everybody, for your time and deep dives. Thank you so much. Thank you.
52:21Kenio Fontes:Just a reminder, anything you hear on this podcast should not be considered investment advice. This is for entertainment purposes only, and you should seek advice from a licensed professional before investing. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a rating or review on your favorite
52:35Jack Bowman:podcasting app, and we'll see you soon with a new episode.
From the publisher
Show Notes:
Nvidia Q4: Why Even A Record 'Beat' Could Sink The Stock
The Mag 7 Hit A Critical Level
Not A Bear Market Yet, But It's Already A Stock Picker's Dream
High Conviction Ideas With Next Gen Investors
Episode transcripts
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