Sam Stovall Joins Facts vs. Feelings

Sonu and I had the honor and privilege to be joined by Sam Stovall, the Chief Investment Strategist at CFRA on the Facts vs. Feelings podcast last week. I’ve been a fan of Sam for more than two decades and it was so much fun to talk markets, his career, and tips for investors and Advisors alike.

Some highlights:

• Sam is hilarious and I promise you won’t be able to listen to the whole interview without laughing. He uses humor because it helps people remember and helps with something that can be dry.
• He isn’t a fan of sell in May and go away, Sam has done some great research that suggests instead of getting out of stocks during the worst six months of the year, he suggests rotating into some of the more defensive areas of the stock market, which could actually do better should things turn south.
• Could there be another major debt ceiling issue, similar to 2011? The odds are we don’t default on our debt and he expects cooler heads to prevail. He noted that if pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress is likely Congress. Gotta love it!
• He isn’t looking for any cuts from the Fed this year (similar to our views). The market has risen an average of 13% after the last rate hike going out nine months and he thinks June could be the final hike.
• Some advice for Advisors is constant communication. You are trying to help them buy versus sell, to help them reach their goals. Especially during periods of volatility, you need to communicate with them, as fear is a greater motivator than greed.
• Another great point he made is the media knows that adrenaline enhances memory retention, so the media have a job to get eyeballs coming back, so they will always sensationalize the news.
• Human emotion is the one constant over time, even if times are different. This is why he still looks at history to quantify things to let investors know we’ve been here before.

There are so many more interesting takeaways in this great conversation and we thank Sam so much for joining us!

You can watch the full interview from our YouTube channel below. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your favorite podcast!