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Season 3, Episode 14: Quick Call on Fed Meeting and Economic Outlook

Published June 15, 2021

With Scott Colbert, Chief Economist, Commerce Trust Company

Scott Colbert, chief economist at Commerce Trust Company in St. Louis, rejoins the Contrarian Investor Podcast to discuss the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting and state of the economy.

This was a quick call recorded over a phone line on Tuesday, June 15.

Content Highlights:

  • The Fed meeting that concludes June 16 and the coming discussion around the rolldown of QE (0:52);
  • Colbert’s reasons for being “grossly optimistic” about the economy (3:43);
  • The biggest concern is around the length of the current expansion (5:04);
  • The prospects of asset bubbles and why the ‘dot plot’ should see an increase from four to six or seven members of the FOMC who want to see higher interest rates (7:37);
  • Where does all this leave investors? (11:06);
  • What is driving the drop in bond yields (14:41);

Not intended as investment advice.

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Season 3, Episode 13: The Rise of Retail Investors (Update)

Published June 3, 2021

With Gav Blaxberg, WOLF Financial

Updates with second YouTube video, bottom of this page.

Gav Blaxberg of WOLF Financial joins the podcast to discuss his views of the retail investors who have been pushing stocks like GameStop and more recently AMC.

Blaxberg’s research on this phenomenon predates the GameStop brouhaha. He has reasons to believe retail investors have been gaining in power and will be a growing force to reckon with when it comes to major movement, especially among small cap stocks.

Content Highlights:
(Spotify users can click on the timestamp to link to the segment in question)
  • What happened with GameStop was not an anomaly. Expect more where that came from (3:47);
  • The trend did not start with GameStop, but can be traced to the ‘Kodak movement’ (5:07);
  • Institutions still have more capital and control more of public companies’ shares. How are smaller retail investors able to move these stocks? Even small caps? (8:23);
  • The return of retail investors, which hasn’t been seen since the heady days of the dot-com doom, can be traced in large part to commission-free trades (10:37);
  • Quick segue after the guest mentions he gets 9% APR on his blockchain-linked savings account — in USD (14:25);
  • Background on the guest and how he came to start WOLF Financial (20:42);
  • Twitter remains the most actionable social media platform when it comes to moving stocks. Everything else is a distant second. Yes, even Reddit (32:30);
  • So what stocks are popular on social media right now? It’s still growth stocks. Some examples (36:34);
  • What stocks have potential but don’t do enough (or anything on social media) and could boost their popularity with retail investors if they changed this? Some examples (39:34).
More Information on the Guest

Not intended as investment advice.

Video Highlights From Our YouTube Channel

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Contrarian Calls, Revisited: AMC

Published June 2, 2021

On a very early episode of this podcast (its fourth, actually), Mark Jones of Pragmatic Capital made the bullish case for AMC’s stock.

At the time of the recording, May 2019, AMC had been in the doldrums for some time over concerns with its debt. It was trading around $15 per share after suffering for years. “I like contrarian situations,” Jones said.

Disappointing numbers at the box office were hurting the stock. But Jones considered this to be a temporary trend as the box office is cyclical in nature. “If you want to understand AMC’s success, you have to understand the dynamics of the box office.”

Citing data from BoxOfficeMojo.com, Jones anticipated better days ahead for the box office. This was partly due to the quantity and quality of movies released by major studios. Both were diminished with Disney (DIS) releasing 50% fewer movies in 2017. With more films slated for release in 2019 and 2020, it stood to reason that box office numbers would improve — and AMC’s stock with it.

His price target for AMC was “in the low $30s.”

MoreContrarian Calls, Revisited: AMC
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