Senior Portfolio Manager James McFarland returns for the 3/20/2020 episode of Stock Talk. James covers this week’s market action, explains the opportunity that bear markets may offer, and then shares key excerpts from a recent Oak Harvest video release. James McFarland: Hi everyone. This is James McFarland, Senior Portfolio Manager and Investment Specialist for Oak Harvest Financial Group. Welcome to the March 20th edition of, Stock Talk: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. Chris Perras will be back next week, so I’m filling in for hosting duties again this week. I’m recording this on March 20th, 2020 at 9:30 AM Central Time. The SMP currently trades at about 24.27, the SMP open Monday at 23.96, and has gone through another wild week of intense intraday volatility. At the time of recording, we’re currently up about 1.2% for the week, and I’d like to point out something else that’s easy to overlook in all this intense up and down action that’s happening day to day, along with the non-stop gloom and doom scenarios being spread by the media. In the last week, since Thursday, March 12th, the SMP has declined 2%, only 2%. That kind of thing can get very easy to overlook in what looks and feels like a much more chaotic market. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that the SMP has declined very far off its all-time highs and we have entered bear market territory. That makes it even more important not to lose sight of what the market is actually doing. Of course, it’s not just stocks. This period has been difficult for just about every class out there. The SMP is down, credit markets are down, real estate is down, oil, of course, is down, small-cap stocks are down. International markets are down. Gold is down. The US dollar cash has been almost the only thing that’s done really well over the last couple of weeks. It’s a difficult time for investors and for our communities and for society generally. From an investment perspective, is…

Chris Perras returns to talk in depth about the current market conditions, the Corona Virus, OPEC and what all this has meant for institutional players in the market. Chris Perras: Good morning. My name is Chris Perras. I’m the chief investment officer at Oak Harvest Financial Group here in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the Friday, March 13th edition or weekly Stock Talk podcast: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. First off, there is no denying that the headlines, fear, and rhetoric surrounding the Coronavirus have become the primary driver of investment performance the last several weeks. While the duration and volume of the COVID-19 virus related news is yet to be determined, we continue to counsel our clients and prospects to control what they can control. Investors should be mindful that perspective matters. In investing, time horizon always matters. The longer the holding period, the lower the volatility, and the higher one’s expected returns. At all times, we advise clients to try to remain calm and rational in their decisions. However, particularly in times of high volatility, like the ones we’ve seen for the past four weeks, we advise investors to remain poised and patient in their decision-making and to trust the investment process and their financial plan. This podcast is a hybrid for my listeners. I’m going to combine the last four weeks current events with some rarely talked about behind the scenes dynamics that we’ve been seeing play out the last four weeks. This podcast is going to be entitled Collateral Damage. When leveraged trading meets a global virus, a failed OPEC agreement, and a surprise rate cut by the federal reserve, long-term investors feel short-term pain but are given long-term opportunity. As of this recording we were sitting near 2,575 on the S&P 500. From the February 19th high of about 3,385 on the S&P 500, we have fallen about 24% from our all-time high in four weeks as volatility has spiked historically fast and markets have fallen at a speed not seen since October of 1987….

Join Senior Portfolio Manager James McFarland for an update on what’s happening in the markets, with the Corona Virus, and a discussion of fear, risk and handling market uncertainty. James McFarland: Good afternoon everyone. This is James McFarland, Senior Portfolio Manager and Investment Specialist for Oak Harvest Financial Group. Welcome to the March, 6th edition of Stock Talk: Keeping you connected to your money. Chris Perras is out of town today, so I’m privileged to be able to join you all once again. I’m recording this on March, 6th 2020, at 9:30 AM Central Time. It’s been another wild week for the stock market. The S&P opened up Monday at about 2974, underwent several days of intense up and down action. As of the time of recording, the S&P trades at about 2976, just about flat for the week, and up about 4% off the February 28th lows last week. This week, the US Federal Reserve undertook its first emergency interest rate cut since 2008, cutting interest rates by 50 basis points. By doing this, the Fed is hoping to boost public confidence, prevent financial conditions from worsening, and cushion the US economy against a global growth downturn. The US jobs report was released this morning, with 273,000 new jobs being reported in February. With this report, the six-month average rose to 231,000 jobs, the highest since the second half of 2015. Basically what this report tells us is that the US economy, particularly the US consumer is fundamentally healthy and that the economy was actually reaccelerating into this coronavirus situation. Over on the political front, Joe Biden has taken center stage as the likely Democratic nominee for president, doing very well on Super Tuesday and all but removing the Bernie Sanders risk from the market. The markets view this as a positive development since a potential Sanders presidency would not have been good for equity markets. A Biden presidency may not carry with it the same positive expectations that a second Trump term might have for many investors, but…

On this edition of Stock Talk, CIO Chris Perras addresses the recent Corona Virus driven market correction. Chris provides much needed perspective on what’s happening in the markets. Chris Perras: Good morning. My name is Chris Perras. I’m the Chief Investment officer here at Oak Harvest Financial Group in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the February 28th edition of our weekly Stock Talk podcast: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. This podcast is an update on first-quarter stock markets in the recent COVID-19 virus and dupes market correction that has happened over eight trading days. As of this recording, we are sitting near 2,980 on the S&P 500 down about 7% year to date, and about 12% from the all-time closing high of 3,385 made only a little over a week ago on February 19th. This rapid decline comes on the back of eight days of dramatic selling and increased volatility due to heightened concerns of the spread of the COVID-19 virus and its effect on global growth supply chains and consumer consumption. The stock market sell-off has been 100% indiscriminate with regards to sector strategy or the health of companies’ financials. We have a situation where the financial statistics and the health data are both being ignored by financial markets as they focus squarely on the virus. The disease is showing a 97% to 98% survival rate, with those stats driven largely by a much higher chance of critical issues caused an already vulnerable, already sick individuals who have been affected with pre-existing conditions of heart disease and other serious conditions. Listeners, trying to predict the final outcome of events like this is nearly impossible, as is market timing events like this. The speed of the decline has been historically rapid and is one of the many reasons why we, at Oak Harvest, do not believe in market timing strategies that promise to get you out of the market and then get you back in. In this podcast, we try to provide some historic data on prior events while we…

Join CIO Chris Perras for the 2/21/2020 edition of Stock Talk: Keeping You Connected to Your Money! Chris: Good morning. My name is Chris Perras. I’m Chief Investment Officer here at Oak Harvest Financial Group in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the February 21st edition of our weekly Stock Talk podcast: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. As of this recording, we are sitting near 3,340 on the S&P 500 up approximately 3.5% year to date. This podcast is a shameless copy of a fantastic piece that was recently penned by our friends and business associates at Dimensional Fund Advisors in Austin. His piece was titled, “A Tale of Two Decades — Lessons for Long-term Investors”. The first decade of the 21st century- 2000 through 2010- and the second one that recently ended- 2010 through 2019- have reinforced for investors, a timeless market lesson. What’s that lesson? That lesson is, returns can vary sharply from one period to another. Listeners, here we go. I invited our Oak Harvest clients to log in to our web portal to see the accompanying slides and data behind my comments that are coming up. For US large-cap stocks, January 2000 through early 2010 was a lost decade. Anyone who has invested in large-cap stocks only would have been horribly disappointed for someone who is broadly diversified across other asset classes. The annualized return of the S&P 500 for the 10 years, between 2000 and January of 2010 was about -1% per year. That’s pretty depressing. Moreover, had you been invested in only today’s love affair, which is US large-cap growth stocks, you would have been subjected to a decade of an annual return of close to -4%. Ugh. That’s -4% per year. Ugh. Ugh. However, people who are invested globally beyond US large-cap stocks into such things as the large-cap value, you have small-cap stocks, where international and emerging markets had good success. How do I define good success? During the decade of 2000 through 2010, US value stocks were up about 3% per year….

On the Valentine’s Day edition of Stock Talk, Chris Perras takes a break from his usual market commentary and takes a look at how well-intentioned policies can have serious financial consequences.

CIO Chris Perras covers recent market action and discusses several factors we believe could be positive for both the economy and the broader markets. Chris Perras: Good morning. My name is Chris Perras. I’m Chief Investment Officer at Oak Harvest Financial Group in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the February 7th, 2020 edition of our weekly Stock Talk podcast: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. This morning, we are sitting back near 3340 on the S&P 500 close to a new all-time high. Man, wow, that was quick. We went from Sunday night pre-Super Bowl financial news network proclamations of, “It could be a game-changer to new all-time highs in less than four days.” With that in mind, I want to dedicate this podcast to stocks, the economy, and our president. I’m going to title this one with one word. Charlie Sheen made this word famous or it’s probably safe to say infamous in his rambling, incoherent, yet embarrassingly entertaining interview almost exactly nine years ago today. What’s that term? Anyone? Anyone? That term is winning. Here’s a quick recap of what happened the last two weeks in the market in the investment world. With the market sitting at new all-time highs and looking for an excuse to sell-off, the world was hit with the coronavirus outbreak emanating out of the middle of China. The S&P 500 subsequently dropped about three and a quarter percent from its peak to last Friday’s closing low at 3225. That decline was in line with the market’s normal first-quarter downturn during the second year of a Federal Reserve easing cycle. We previewed this risk many months ago and again a few weeks before the sell-off in our market outlook for the first half of 2020. These podcasts can be found on our website, just google Oak Harvests 2020 market outlook. Regardless of the reason, so far, it’s a normal first quarter. Just last Friday during our weekly Stop Talk podcast titled Pandemics and Pullbacks, I want to quote myself, “The current sell-off is likely one…

On the 1/31/2020 edition of Stock Talk, CIO Chris Perras discusses the Corona Virus, recent market action, and our view on why the recent market decline is a potential buying opportunity. Chris Perras: Good morning. My name is Chris Perras. I’m Chief Investment Officer with Oak Harvest Financial Group in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the January 31st edition of our weekly Stock Talk podcast: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. This morning, we are sitting back near 3,250 on the S&P 500. That’s close to a flat year today. If you watched the financial news networks late this week and early last week, you’ve been treated to two extremes. First, the financial elite was flying on private planes and partying in Davos, Switzerland, while telling the rest of us that cash is trash, and warning the rest of us as well of the perils of climate change and how we must reduce our carbon footprint. I suggest that the first step in reducing one’s carbon footprint should be a 100% to 200% carbon tax on fuel used in private jets. Later in the week, emerged the stories of the second coming of the great plague to be caused by the coronavirus and emanating out of China. While I do not want to make light of the loss of life due to this breakout such as these, I must again point out that between 10,000 and 60,000 Americans die every flu season. That’s on a population of about 325 million. This virus emanated from a rare, exotic, and illegal seafood market in a city in central China named Wuhan. Even though many people had warned that something like this could occur, this wild meat market was allowed to continue to operate. Now, most of China is on extended lockdown for what was a very bad last supper for some adventurer’s diner. Past pandemics have created enormous investment opportunities for investors over the next 3 to 12 months, and we feel that this will follow a similar pattern. This shut down in…

CIO Chris Perras discusses what a normal January actually looks like in the markets, covers our view of “rotation nation,” and discusses the latest crisis de jour — on the 1/24/2020 edition of Stock Talk! Chris Perras: My name is Chris Perras. I’m chief investment officer here at Oak Harvest Financial Group in Houston, Texas, and welcome to the January 24th edition of our weekly Stock Talk podcast: Keeping You Connected to Your Money. This morning, we are sitting near an all-time high in the S&P 500 around 3,325. This week’s podcast is debunking the now constant financial press calls that we are in witnessing unprecedented and historic stock market action, that we are in dangerous times that are, dare I say, bubblicious. Contrary to those calls that have been constant and loud since early 2019, we are experiencing a very normal January within this bull market cycle when the Federal Reserve is on hold or easing rates. The title of this week’s podcast is More Normalcy, Check the Stats. Throughout 2019 while other advisors and strategists were almost all parroting the exact same height and safety and played defense meme, the team at Oak Harvest was doing the opposite. The team here was upping client allocations to offense-oriented, economically sensitive stock sectors such as financials, technology, and industrials. Why? Because we saw 2019 as a very normal year in this bull market cycle. We continue to see 2020 playing out in a very normal fashion, and to this extent, I want to debunk the nonstop financial press opinion disguised as news that this January is behaving in an abnormal fashion. The statistics, pure and simple, show exactly the opposite. This is a very normal January. For clients of Oak Harvest, please log on to our client portal to see the table that I’m about to reference. During the time period 1950 through 2016, in years that the S&P 500 had a positive return in January which happened to be 60% of the years, the average monthly January return, and…

On the 1/17/2020 edition of Stock Talk, CIO Chris Perras discusses the company’s recent views on the market and portfolio construction, and our expectations for another period of “rotation nation.” Speaker 1: Good morning. My name is Chris Perras. I’m Chief Investment Officer here at Houston, Texas with Oak Harvest Financial Group. Welcome to the January 17th edition of our weekly Stock Talk Podcast: Keeping You Connected to your Money. We are sitting at another new all-time high this morning on the S&P 500 at around 3320. Team at Oak Harvest live-streamed our first half 2020 outlook just last weekend. If you want to listen to our first half of 2020 outlook, just Google Oak Harvest 2020 Outlook. Once again, this week’s podcast, I’ve titled it, “Yes, listeners, it’s that time again. It’s rotation nation, defensive time to lead again. Goodbye old friend, it’s been a great ride.” The team at Oak Harvest prides itself on being flexible. We tailor portfolios to our client’s individual needs. We are adaptive in our approach and we are willing to use whatever investment tools best enable us to most cost-effectively meet our client’s financial goals and objectives. We put our client’s interests first. To this end, over the past two years in many client portfolios, we have diversified the number of tools we are using for clients to include relatively lower-cost mutual funds as well as ETFs and more single stocks where it is appropriate. For many growth-oriented portfolios, this has meant the addition of new technology-focused single stocks and ETFs. Throughout the summer of 2019, while other advisors and strategists were almost all parroting the exact same, “Let’s go ahead and heighten safety and play defensive,” meme, the team at Oak Harvest was doing the opposite. The investment team was [unintelligible 00:01:51] client allocations to offense-oriented, economically-sensitive stock sectors such as financials, technology, and industrials. However, very recently, we have made a decision to reduce our exposure to smaller capitalization earlier-stage technology investments. The investment team chose to reduce this exposure based…