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The latest market (^GSPC, ^IXIC, ^DJI) sell-off on Monday has stirred further uncertainty, but the focus should remain on long-term financial goals.
Pence Capital Management CIO Dryden Pence joins Market Domination hosts Josh Lipton and Julie Hyman to provide insight into the current market landscape.
"As I say many times, I'm more interested in bottom lines than I am in headlines, and while they can create volatility, they don't always create wealth," Pence says. He emphasizes that despite concerns about tariffs and geopolitical events, earnings growth remains strong.
“If you think about it, earnings are still good. 75% of the companies are beating earnings. It looks like there’s only been a minor revision in what the earnings for the S&P 500 are for the entire year," Pence explains.
Pence also points out that the US economy is largely driven by the service sector: “Four out of five jobs in the United States are really service related. Two thirds of the economy really doesn’t have much to do with international trade.”
one of latest market moves. Let's welcome in Dryden Pence. Pence Capital Management CIO. Dryden always good to see you and have you on the show. So listen, we're just talking there. We got a lot of headlines today, Dryden. I got I got geopolitical headlines. I got new fresh tariff threat headlines. What are you making of it all? What are you telling your clients?
Well, the first thing I try to tell people is is that we're more interested in bottom lines and we are headlines. Because as you all just talked about, you know, the headline can change from morning to night and move the market. But what we're really trying to look for is long term, you know, earnings growth, long-term delivery of of profitability for for clients and wealth creation. So as I say many times, I'm more interested in bottom lines and I am in headlines. And while they can create volatility, they don't always create wealth. And that's what we really want to try to focus on.
Dryden, I guess the problem now is the headlines are affecting the bottom lines or they're starting to, right? Because now we've heard from everything from Walmart to the airlines now to Verizon talking about a softening consumer. Now, whether that softening consumer is because of they're watching the news or because there's underlying stuff going on in the economy, regardless, we are seeing more companies warn because of some of these concerns. So then so what do you do with that, I guess?
Sure. Well part of this is is you almost call it the tariff tantrum. People are worried about tariffs, it creates uncertainty, and then you have companies and CFOs they really don't know what the long-term prognosis is going to be. And I think that level of uncertainty does work its way into companies' own projections. But I mean if you think about it, earnings are still good. 75% of the companies are beating earnings. It looks like that there's only been a minor revision and what their earnings for the S&P 500 are for the entire year. So I think that that there's sometimes this concern, at least to us, seems a bit overblown. Uh but it is beginning to affect people. But we I think it's very important to remember that while you worry about the tariff talk, you worry about all these things, four out of five jobs in the United States are really service related. Uh two-thirds of the economy really doesn't have any have much to do with international trades. And so it's not a one-to-one relationship between the tariffs and how it ends up with the individual consumer or individual prices. So we probably are at risk of overreacting at a time like this. And I think that that's an important thing for everybody to remember. And besides that, this is now these conversations begin to be a catalyst for something that's a normal occurrence. The S&P 500 goes down around 10% every 13 months or so. Well, now we're at month 17, so we were due for a significant pullback. And the and we've had it, right? So now we've had this correction, you're seeing this little bounce off of this. This is kind of the normal battle rhythm of the markets. This one's different though because as we were concentrated on the Magnificent 7 coming up, we're somewhat concentrated on the Magnificent 7 going down. If you look at the equal weight or the 493, we've talked about this before, they're they're doing reasonably well in this environment. Obviously, you know, today's a little different because you're the bounce is led by who's been hurt the most. But if you look at so far this year, if you look at the the the S&P 500, the equal weight is flat or very close to flat, whereas the cap weighted is down 45% or is now down almost 10%. So you're seeing this better performance in the 493, a lot of this was leverage to the mag 7. And I think it's a matter of waiting for this to balance out.
So P
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This post was written by Josh Lynch