Medtech Stock Mystery, Treasury Downgrade, and How to Invest Now

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Recession sounds very monsterish, and it sounds daunting and negative. In some cases, it is. But a recession could simply just be a recess of growth coming off of the hypergrowth we saw during the pandemic.

Hello and welcome to the Barron Streetwise Podcast. I'm Jack Howe. The voice you just heard is Chris Heise. He's the Chief Investment Officer at Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank. And in a moment, he'll answer our questions about what to make of this year's rip-roaring stock market rally. We're also going to say a few words about this past week's shrugged-off downgrade of the US government's credit rating, and we'll attempt to solve a medtech mystery. This is a pretty good spot for like a Scooby-Doo background music thing. What do you think?

How about something non-Scooby-Doo but royalty-free?

You know what? That sounds more like Treasury music. Let's get right to the downgrade. Listening in is our audio producer, Meta. Hi, Meta.

Hi, Jack.

There was a downgrade of US debt this past Tuesday by Fitch Ratings, took the rating from AAA to AA+. And the response was, I don't know, pretty darn quiet, don't you think?

Yeah. Pretty muted.

I mean, there was a lot of political news at the same time. There was a new set of Trump indictments, and I think that took a lot of media attention. So maybe not as many people were watching this, or maybe it's that there already was a downgrade back in 2011 by S&P, so this is nothing really new for people, or the response of financial markets was fairly muted. So for whatever reason, I don't feel like there was a big response to this downgrade. Fitch wrote that it, quote, reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next 3 years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to AA and AAA-rated peers over the last 2 decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions. Now, Goldman wrote that it mainly reflects, quote, governance and medium-term fiscal challenges, but does not reflect new fiscal information. The downgrade, it wrote, should have little direct impact on financial markets as it is unlikely there are major holders of Treasury securities who would be forced to sell based on the ratings change. What it means is sometimes there are big investors that have mandates that have to hold certain stuff. And if it says that they have to hold AAA-rated US government bonds and the rating is now AA, maybe they would have to dump those bonds and maybe that would cause a negative reaction in the market. But Goldman wrote that treasuries are so important that those mandates usually just say treasuries, they don't say AAA. So it doesn't think that there's going to be a lot of selling based on this.

Jack, if you were doing a TikTok on this, what would you, how would you do it?

I know you think you're gonna stump me on this, but I happened to read this past week in the New York Times that the hot new TikTok dance of summer is called the Pine Grove Shuffle. And, uh, I think you just like, you put one leg out and you, and you put it back in. It looked a little bit like the hokey pokey to me. I, I think I'd probably do the hokey pokey. Is that a choice on TikTok?

I think it is. I love that you read about the TikTok stuff.

I don't want to make light of the seriousness of the US debt. There was a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that pointed out that back when Standard Poor's downgraded the US credit rating in 2011, but Fitch and Moody's didn't, at that time, the US debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP, as a percentage of the size of the economy, It was 65.5%. This year it's expected to be 98.2%. So in other words, the problem is about half again larger relative to the size of the economy. I think there's a path to fix the problem. I think it involves bringing down deficits and maybe getting some more economic growth and letting long-term controlled moderate inflation do some of the job of lessening the debt burden. But politics gets in the way of any sort of grown-up discussion of what to do. Even after the news of the downgrade this past week, Republicans said, well, that's Democrats and their spending. And Democrats said, well, Republicans spend too. And part of this is the fight of the debt ceiling and the fiscal cliff. They pin that on Republicans. And so people just argue their politics. In my view, none of this is related to there not actually being enough money. There's a lot of money. You just have to make a grown-up budget. You just have to prioritize. Let me give you the simplest of examples. I don't want to go on a whole editorial here myself, but take healthcare, which is a massive source of long-term fiscal concern for the US. We spend vastly more per capita relative to other developed countries. And so people ask, what should we do about that? Well, sometimes I hear people say, get rid of all these programs. Let's just have free market healthcare and that'll take care of the problem. I like a free market economy. I do. I'm a fan. I'm not sure it works with healthcare. And the reason is because when you study economics in school, you learn that when the price of a widget goes up, demand goes down in response. But that doesn't happen with healthcare if it's something that can relieve a loved one of pain or suffering. If that's the case, when the price goes up, demand stays the same. You figure out new ways to pay. And then you borrow, and then you beg, and you do whatever it takes. And that creates a sort of playing field that is very much in favor of the people doing the charging. So you need to have some sort of a system. And the developed world has been at it for a long time trying to figure out what that system should look like. And it has come up with exactly 3 answers. There is government-run healthcare. The government does everything. They own the hospitals and all of it, like they have in the UK. We have that in the US. It's called the Veterans Administration. Then there's single-payer healthcare like they have in France, one central entity that does all the paying of the bills. We have that too in the US. It's called Medicare and Medicaid. And then there's a system of mandated insurance where you have subsidies for people who would struggle to pay for it, but everybody gets insured. That's what they do in the Netherlands. We have that too in the US. It's called Obamacare. Now, if we're already doing all three of those things at the same time, you think we wouldn't still be arguing about whether we should do any of those things. You'd think that smart people would just get together in a room and say, let's study the matter scientifically and figure out what's working best around the world and what's the best fit for America's culture. And we'd make a decision to move forward and make spending vastly more efficient. But if you try to talk about that, someone in the back of the room stands up and says, you're trying to kill grandma. And someone else stands up and says socialism and people let their politics do the talking and you never get anything done. Okay. That was a rant. I know, but it was not a political rant. It was a rant about how there's too much politics in what should just be informed decision-making and planning and strategy. I guess people want to know whether the US debt is going to one day blow up their investment portfolios and their savings. And what I'm saying is it doesn't have to. The problems are fixable. If you want to root for them being fixed, I think you have to root for better politics. Was that too much?

No, I feel like you should rename the podcast Crosstalk, Spitfire, Smackdown, and then in all caps, the facts they don't want you to know with Jack Howe.

I don't love it, but if you're gonna do it, 3 exclamation points, please. Let's move on to our medtech mystery. JP Morgan put out a note this past Thursday titled, What's Ailing Medtech Lately? It's Not the Fundamentals. And I thought, medtech's ailing? I hadn't noticed. And Bank of America put out a note the same day titled MedTech Pain: How Much More? So I took a look at the performance of the group and, um, you know, it's not apocalyptic, but it's not great. First of all, what is medtech? These are surgical devices and implants. I'll give an example. There's a part of me that's not really me for the first time in my life, if we're not counting fillings and teeth. I had some problems over the years with back pain. It was caused by a disc in the lumbar area of my spine that was pressing on a nerve. And I had a few procedures, minor procedures for it over the years. A doctor would go in and he'd snip out a little piece of the disc that was causing trouble. And eventually the disc was kablooey, if I may use a medical term. So they did something bigger this time. It's called spinal fusion. A doctor explained he's going to go in, he's going to take out what's left of the disc, he's going to put a little titanium cage between the two vertebrae, and that cage is going to space out the vertebrae just like the disc used to. And in that cage, he's going to put some bone fragments, and eventually that bone will grow and it'll cover the whole thing and it'll fuse the two vertebrae together. Spinal fusion. I said, "Will I be able to golf after a thing like that?" He says, "Your golf game will get better because you'll slow down your swing." And I said, "It sounds like a really involved procedure. How serious is it?" And he made a golfing motion, a small swing, not a big one. He said, "It's a chip shot." I'm not sure I would call it a chip shot. It felt more like a 120-yard approach in moderate wind. But the pain is gone. It was a couple of years ago. I haven't had any more of that back pain or nerve pain. So it seems to have worked. And this little cage that was put in between my vertebrae. That's made by a company called Medtronic. And, and I guess the bone has now grown over the thing. So I'm now part Medtronic, just a little part. And Medtronic is an example of a medtech company. Medtronic doesn't just make stuff for spines. They make pacemakers. They make implantable insulin dosers, all sorts of things. And there are other medtech companies like Boston Scientific. And Stryker, they do like the artificial knees and other joints. And Intuitive Surgical, that's a company that makes surgical robots. Do not picture a robot walking into a room wearing scrubs and holding a clipboard. That's not what they do. It's like a device with arms and attachable tools that can downscale the movements of human hands so it can make movements much more precise. Okay, so when you look across the medtech group, uh, there's a medtech index that as of Thursday was down about 5% for the third quarter. Like I said, not that big of a deal. When you look at the performance year to date, the index is up, but it's underperforming the S&P 500 by more than 12 percentage points. And when you look at the individual mid to large cap names, Zimmer Biomed, Johnson Johnson, Medtronic, Baxter, Becton Dickinson, Stryker, Abbott Labs, Intuitive Surgical, Boston Scientific, Edward Life Sciences. They're almost all significantly lagging behind the stock market. BofA compares the group to a similar group that you call medical tools. That's scientific equipment like spectrometers that are used in research and drug development. And it says that a few weeks ago it had noted that medtech was trading at a 6% discount to tools and now the discount has expanded to 12%. And in answer to its own question about how much more medtech pain is coming, it says that the group has tended in the past to bottom at an 18% discount to tools. But that leaves the question of why medtech would be selling off. This is supposed to be a promising group. The population is getting older. Old people need more stuff. Put inside of them to make up for stuff that has gone wrong with their bodies, you know, joints that have worn out and so forth. And JP Morgan has a theory on this, and it relates to something we touched on several weeks back. Let me read you one sentence. It's not going to make any sense, but I'll explain in a moment. It says GLP-1 fears were already present, but following ISRG— that's Intuitive Surgical— Following ISRG calling out a slowdown in bariatric surgery due to GLP-1 use, those fears became tangible and disruptive. What does that mean? Bariatric surgery is surgery on the stomach of people who are very overweight to reduce its size and help them lose weight. Intuitive Surgical makes robots that can do that surgery, and GLP-1 is a reference to the new class of obesity drugs that we've been talking about. So Intuitive Surgical calling out a slowdown in bariatric surgery due to obesity drugs gets people thinking. Meta, when did we have Dave Ricks, the Eli Lilly CEO, on the podcast?

It was, uh, on June 30th.

Okay. Play, if you would please, just a little clip of him talking about what he imagines that obesity care will look like by the end of the decade.

Sure.

We're at the beginning of an era where maybe in 10 years' time we'll think about obesity management, chronic weight management, just like we do hypertension today. If you have high blood pressure, we treat it. We don't accept non-treatment. It's malpractice not to treat it, actually. Okay, let's think about this for a moment in terms of what we already have, what's coming soon, and where this is headed. We have a new class of injectable obesity drugs. They started as diabetes drugs. One has gained approval for obesity. Another one is expected to be approved later this year. And, uh, there are new ones in development. The ones we already have seem to be profoundly effective. There are people who take these drugs and they lose 50 pounds, and that's an average outcome. That's not a special case. And even more powerful drugs are coming. And they will soon, soon meaning in a matter of maybe a few years, be available in pill form, not just as injections. And it raises the question of, will insurers pay? How many people will take these drugs? Will they be able to afford them? And Dave Ricks at Eli Lilly was saying that he thinks that insurance companies are going to want to pay because when you solve for people's obesity, a host of other healthcare problems go away. It helps with their heart health. It helps with their diabetes. Relieves strain on their joints. And there are a lot of related ailments there that insurers might be able to reduce spending on if they can treat obesity. You can begin to contemplate a future where we've had this endless rise in obesity rates in the US. When's it ever going to stop? You can now start to imagine a future where it goes in the other direction. And what does that mean for companies that make money from obesity? It's a huge source of income for med tech companies. It's not just bariatric surgery. It's devices that are used for heart procedures that might be related or made worse by obesity. It's artificial knees that might not have been needed if people hadn't spent decades being overweight. It's insulin pumps that people might not need if they were able to effectively treat their diabetes and lose weight in the process. And investors are starting to think about this and they're saying, are obesity drugs a problem for the medtech group? What investors have to think about is, will there be an effect here and how soon? If it's not for many years, will that be offset by growth in other areas? JP Morgan sees a buying opportunity. It writes, our takeaway is that at current levels, we very much like The setup for medtech with forecasts broadly moving higher on sales, margins, and earnings per share. Strong innovation pipelines progressing over the next 6 to 12 months. Reasonable valuations and very strong fundamental fundamentals. Fundamental? No. And very strong underlying fundamentals. Meta, did I just say fundamental fundamentals? Yeah, you did. I meant underlying fundamentals, but let's make a note. I've got an idea for a new brand of activewear undergarments called Fundamental Fundamentals. We're going to take on Under Armour and it's going to be big. JP Morgan also writes, we see this as peak GLP-1 fears, meaning peak fears about obesity drugs cutting into medtech sales. And they call out some names. They say Boston Scientific in particular looks compelling. BSX is the ticker there. Bank of America says pretty much the same thing. It writes, we would use weakness below the average discount to add to top 2024 med tech ideas. We particularly like BSX, Boston Scientific. That stock trades at 25 times this year's projected earnings. Earnings are expected to grow by double-digit percentages for the next several years. Is it a good deal? I don't know. BofA and JP Morgan say so. So I guess medtech mystery solved for now. I'm going to keep thinking as time goes on about how those obesity drugs might affect not just the profit lines of the drug makers in a good way, but some of those of altogether different companies in a bad way. Meta, what do you think? Is this a good place for a break?

Is it you talking or your Medtronic metal parts?

I overshared again, didn't I?

Yeah. Data is everywhere, but is it ready for consumption? Morningstar developed the language of global investment data so you have the right ingredients to help you shine. Morningstar, where data speaks.

Welcome back. Matter, when's the last time you took a peek at the old 401(k) account statement? The balance. Did you check recently?

That's got to be like a year ago or something.

Oh my God. You don't check?

I don't check.

No.

Oh my God. I look at that thing more often than I should, and I mentally swim around in the money like Scrooge McDuck. I mean, not that it's so much, it's not, it's, you know, it's call it more of a bath than a swim. You're selling it. Well, it's just that it's doing the stock market is doing well this year. The S&P 500 is up 18%. I feel good about that and concerned about that because maybe it's too much too soon. So I wanted to know whether it's time to laugh or cry. And who better to speak with about that financially than Chris Heise? He's the Chief Investment Officer at Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank. Is it fair matter to say that Heise is in the house? I, I'll take that as a no. Let's just hear the conversation. I feel great about how far the US stock market is up. This year and also awful because I feel like something is going to go kablooey at any moment. What should I think about that? It seems like too much too fast, or is it okay?

Yeah, I think I'll first start off by saying I think any kind of rally in the stock market, I'm going to applaud, even if it's gone a little too far too fast. I think at the end of the day, when we just look back at '22, '22's terrible performance, was trying to factor in a pretty difficult recession. And it was obviously taking its cue in particular from the credit markets, in particular the actual Treasury yield curve. And then it was looking at things like the Institute for Supply Management, all the other indicators we look at in terms of recession. And it was stock market participants were very concerned that in particular earnings were going to go down anywhere between 15% and 25%. And since that hasn't happened, And I guess the word of the day for the economy, the consumer earnings has been resiliency. Here we are and we have now surpassed that fall. Now this has to be confirmed by profits. This rally this year is factoring in, you know, pretty good growth for earnings next year. And with multiple expansion first, that's what you usually get coming out of late cycle into early cycle. It's factoring in some Fed cuts and then it's factoring in a resumption of the profit cycle, which we peg to be more second half of '24. We still think there's going to be some deterioration in earnings to start the year, but with most of the flows in the market either being short covering or a little bit of catch-up by institutional investors on the private client side, we're not seeing a ton of flows. There's some, but most clients and investors are happy with the 5% at the cash end. And I still think sentiment is— I wouldn't call it bullish, but when is the next fall in the market so I can actually put money to work? That's what we're hearing mostly.

Let me run through a couple of things that if I want to be nervous about the market, here's what I would cite. One is the fact that it seems to be this narrow group of world-beating tech stocks that are leading the market higher. Should I be concerned about the fact that the whole market isn't really participating?

You know, it's a common fear or it's a common concern every time you get an advancement that is extremely narrow, you know, whether it's 5 or the Magnificent 7 or the Fantastic 10, whatever it may be. But if you look at the data, whether it's modern time or over the last 5, 6, 7 decades, there isn't clear correlation to future returns whether it's narrow or wide breadth. There have been bear markets where it's been narrow-led before the bear market, and there have been an extended bull market. Having said all that, whenever you get narrowness and you don't start to see it widen out, and you don't see that being an attraction of pulling the rest of the group of S&P 500 companies with it, you're going to have to have that group of 7 or 10 significantly surprise their earnings because then it starts to build on things. And we've seen some of that. So to me, it's not concerning. I'd like broader participation, but there's a justification why the Magnificent Seven so far are leading the market.

What about delayed post-rate hike ouchification? Meaning maybe it takes a while after all these rate hikes before the consumer starts feeling it, and we're not there yet, but we're going to get there in, I don't know, 6 months, a year. What do you say to that?

That's the concern that should be at the top of the list. It's, you know, this long and variable lag that ultimately starts to bite. And I think we should be watching the credit markets first. So in other words, credit spreads and not just high yield or the lower levels of high yield. We should be looking at investment grade, the funding markets itself, bank spreads as well. And that should give us a very good sign as to whether or not we're going to have a growth recession. I.e., soft landing, or if we're going to have something harder. If it's harder, it's going to pick up in the credit markets. And then ultimately, you know, corporate earnings will underperform. You know, our base case is we're having rolling recessions that are working through the parts of the economy that were overbuilt because of the pandemic and the distortions of the pandemic period. We call it when two oceans collide. You're leaving an old regime, you're going into a new regime. You get all these crosscurrents, but this time around, the distortions were so large, fiscal and monetary, that the big question mark is, are we just getting rolling recessions and not one normal one that we typically would have had if we didn't have the pandemic?

Is there anything that I should buy to make myself safer or to take advantage of opportunities right now? And let's say that my starting point point is the plainest of plain vanilla portfolios. Let's say I'm a 60/40 guy and my 60 is an S&P 500 fund and my 40 is like an aggregate bond index. What, what am I missing out on right now?

Jack, what you're describing is our base case, which is be diversified, number one, across and within asset classes. We had that going into this year. We felt as though that 60/40 was going to come back. And we know— we think the mathematics, number one, it's hard to say 60/40 is technically ever dead because what 60/40 implies is you're going through asset allocation based upon goals and objectives. Like, that is just smart investing. But right now in this particular cycle, heading into the cresting of short-term interest rates, whether it's in September or it's already happened, that's It's a great debate. We want to still stay diverse, but also stay higher quality because we just don't know whether or not there is a growth recession, soft landing, or something worse. So that's number one. Be diverse, stay high quality, look for sectors that would give you better cash flow, sectors that have cash on hand. And then if you have a lot of cash as an investor today because you like the 5% short-term yields or so, begin to think about the aggregate bond index, be more diversified in bonds. We know that coming out of Fed hiking cycles over the next 2, 3-plus year period, the aggregate index has far outpaced cash on average. So we want to be diversified. Don't be too short at the cash end of the curve right now. And August has typically been a month where you've seen some of the poorest returns. On a calendar basis, but even more so coming off of such a big June and July. So we expect a little bit of an exhale here, not a big move. Think about allocating to higher quality areas of the market. That's in the short term, Jack. Finally, real quick, longer term, if you are underweight small caps because of the terrible performance that has been absolute and relative, and if you are underweight emerging markets because of China's bumpy opening, begin to consider increasing exposures to those two areas if you have at least a 2, 3, 4, 5-year-plus time horizon, because those are the areas that we see benefiting the most from the big developments, macro, that we see unfolding in the coming years.

What is the best way to buy new exposure to emerging markets? Is it okay to just buy an index fund, or should I be buying individual country funds? Is active management better? Which particular countries? How should I go about it?

Yeah, I'm going to say on the one hand and on the other hand, Jack, because if you want to keep costs low, you know, looking at index funds, obviously that makes sense. Be wary though, that that has significant high, you know, some cases of 60% exposure to China. There are other index funds that back out China, ex-China, but usually the rule of thumb when you're talking about more volatile areas with, excuse the industry jargon here, on high information ratios, you want to look towards active management because they have the ability down to the stock level to allocate to bigger themes, back out certain countries that they don't want, and ultimately express an overweight in the areas that are going to be bigger receivers of capital. So I would tilt more towards active management in emerging markets and small cap. But if you want to keep costs significantly low, particularly in small caps, it's okay to have small cap core.

A moment ago you mentioned stock market sectors with a lot of cash flow. Which particular sectors of the market look attractive now?

The US market? Well, certainly technology, the higher quality end of things. I'm not going to call the so-called Magnificent Seven or some of the big mega caps like true defensives, but they are being perceived as defensives. Great balance sheets, high cash on hand, don't need to tap the debt markets, have some pricing power, and now have this renewed enthusiasm for generative AI. That's an area that remains high quality and good cash flow. Certain parts of the industrial sector that has been left for dead over the last decade plus where they've been starved for capital, areas of automation, areas of electrical equipment, engineering, and construction. There are more modern-based utilities out there with great cash flow. Just have to be careful with the debt structure that they have. Certain parts of healthcare, more in the medical technology arenas.

How important are dividends for a long-term stock investor? I mean, they used to be everything, right? Now people tend to think of them as, well, it's nice to have. I mean, if you want to send me some cash, that's fine. But not as many people go out looking for them in particular. How important would you say they are for an investor today?

I think it's still very important. It's one of the ways to increase shareholder value in addition to stock buybacks, which is probably not going to be as big as it has been in terms of stock buybacks. So there'll probably be more money moved towards increasing dividends, dividend growth in particular, not necessarily high dividend yield. But I'd put it at the top, at least 1 or 2, as it relates to high free cash flow growth in terms of a characteristic of a company to own. I would also say this though, with higher bond yields in this regime, I mentioned before that we're leaving one regime of low inflation, low growth, low volatility, low yields, going to another above average. When you do that, you know, there's competition now. The bond market is giving competition to a stock that would have given you a yield of, say, 3, 4% before, which was very attractive relative to a zero handle on cash and something a little bit higher than that on credit. Now you've got a bigger competitive nature to the asset class spectrum. So dividend growth will be more important.

Do I need to buy a commodities fund, or can I just say, hey, I've got big companies and they own some commodities, or they control some commodities, and there are some miners in there and so forth?

Yeah.

So on the commodity side, Jack, it's difficult to do. The commodity funds, many of which are financial commodities— so the financial market of commodities is sizably bigger than the physical side of commodities, and you have to be careful with the futures roll. Not to get too technical here, but in the futures roll, as you go into new months, the financial futures of commodities could be a drag on that portfolio. So our first preference is looking at the energy sector. If one investor wants to invest in one commodity that has been starved for capital, we all know it. Yes, it has taken a backseat this year for obvious reasons. Worries over a recession, etc. But as we come out with low supplies and still increasing demand, there should be a natural bid to oil prices, helping even those companies that are transitioning from brown to green or just still in the traditional hydrocarbon area. So energy sector is still at the top of the list, or at least 1 or 2 for us. And then if you take a look about base metals, if one believes that we're going to need a new electrical grid system, a new infrastructure, new ports, new ships, and a whole new data warehouse theme. As generative AI continues to become more commercialized and applied, you're going to need more copper, you're going to need more base metals. And that is an area to look for from a commodity investment perspective.

I just wonder if you see any mistakes, if there's a particular mistake that you see investors out there making. That they should be aware of, something that too many people are doing that we should avoid right now?

It's almost like being stoic and just like sitting on your hands. And, you know, investing is about investing over time, not at a point in time. And many of the questions we're getting right now is, are your classic questions: when is the market going to go through its next small downturn so I can put cash to work? Number 2, do you think we've gone too far too fast? When is the recession going to come is number 3. And fourth, when is the yield curve going to normalize itself again? All these questions are normal and all these questions make perfect sense. But investing over time ameliorates the concern of those questions. And that's why the longer your time horizon, the lower probability of loss, the more diversified you are, the less volatility of overall portfolio returns. You put those two concepts together. I think it's important not to just marry yourself to the short end of the curve right now. Have a plan, be ready. And begin to put money to work in a full portfolio approach starting here in August, which we expect to be a little bit of an exhale. Finally, one thing I think it's important to know is recession sounds very monsterish and it sounds daunting and negative. In some cases it is, but a recession could simply just be a recess of growth coming off of the hypergrowth we saw during the pandemic. And the classic definition of a recession typically has somewhere around a 20% or more fall in earnings. Does not appear like we're going to go through that big of a fall in earnings this time around. Companies have figured out a way through the pandemic to maintain margins during very difficult times. It is our expectations that margins will come down, but not come down as they typically do in so-called normal recessions.

Thank you, Chris, and thank you everyone for listening. Metta Lutzoff is our producer. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. It says here YouTube. Is this podcast on YouTube?

We're on YouTube.

Subscribe. I mean, but YouTube is, you look at things. You're just listening to this. What are you doing? You're looking at what you're listening to? There's not me. Is the camera on right now?

What's going on? No, no, this is a little still photo.

It's mainly for listening. A photo of me? Yeah.

How's my hair?

Great. If you listen on Apple, you can write us a review. I think you write a review on YouTube. You know what? Don't. I've seen some of the comments on YouTube.

Maybe it'll be better after the name change.

Maybe. See you next week.

Data is everywhere, but is it ready for consumption? Morningstar developed the language of global investment data so you have the right ingredients to help you shine. Morningstar, where data speaks.