Yahoo Finance

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite holding on to gains here, fractional as they may be, we're higher across the board. You've got everything this week. You've got earnings, economic data and an election. Investors, they've got a busy week ahead and to discuss the best plays for your portfolio, we're joined by Liz Miller, who is the Summit Place Financial Advisors founder and president. Great to have you here with us. So, first and foremost, I mean, we're here in the midst of earning season, but we're also going to get a slew of economic data this week. Which and how do you think investors should be prioritizing what's going to be released over the course of the next few trading sessions?

So, I think the economic data is the focus. You know, we're all living at a very precarious time going into this election. So, of course that seems to dominate our thinking. But when we're talking about investors choices, we say, we're kind of at the end of this earnings season, which has looked fine. We're seeing that companies did okay over the summer, and they're giving us some outlooks into the new year. It's all going to be about the economics because what we really want to know is, will the Fed be continuing to lower rates into the end of the year and what does that pace look like? That is so going to define our economic future.

Yeah, it's so interesting, especially thinking about this this economic data and balancing that with the earning season as you were just so aptly doing here, and I'm taking a look at a note that hit my inbox from UBS, looking at the outlook for profit growth and saying that it really remains healthy driven by resilience economic growth, a boost from further fed rate cuts and continued growth in AI spending. But I want to zero in on that boost from further fed rate cuts. What is your anticipation as to how that will kind of permeate throughout the market as well?

Well, what's funny is on the way up, it certainly didn't strangle activity the way everyone feared. You know, the markets really reacted that 5% interest rates were going to just strangle consumer activity, and that didn't happen. But we did see struggles in some big areas. We certainly have seen housing struggle, and as rates come down, construction and housing spending are such a huge driver in our economy. If you think about it from the daily construction worker, to the washing machine you buy, to the new roof you that goes on, when construction and home sales pick up, it permeates every part of our economy and it trickles down to consumer spending too. So, it's a huge driver and we need those declining rates to get that moving again.

With that in mind, what are some of your top plays right now that you're putting into action as we're here in the fourth quarter of 2024? And then investors, perhaps sharpening their pencils or at least inking their pens, feather pens as they may be for 2025.

Right. Well, I think one of the easy buys right now is Equity Residential, ticker EQR. It's the largest REIT in our market. It is in the S&P 500 and it's the largest residential REIT. It has a really nice yield right now, over three and a half percent at a time when rates may be coming down. And as home sales, home activity picks up, this is going to be a continued beneficiary of that. So, I think this is an easy buy for a two to three year hold right now.

With that in mind, I mean, for investors that are trying to figure out their portfolio positioning, what are some of those top themes, even outside of residential and and the housing market that you see really transpiring over the next three years if investors looking at that time horizon specifically, as you were mentioning a moment ago.

Well, I think, you know, we're all talking about big tech, and so I'm not going to talk big tech, but it is core. You know, we used to think technology was not a stable investment. It was not the investment when economic cycles were moving around. But we have found that technology, particularly large technology, is a very stable holding. So, we do hold those big names and we encourage everyone who has them to keep them. But one of the things we're turning to that's been sort of on the outs is health care. We think that you will see as this economy kind of hits its slow growth stage, that investors will be rewarded to be exposing themselves more to the health care sector than they did in the past.

Yeah, really interesting. We actually had the Philips CEO on during Morning Brief here today on Yahoo Finance. Liz, thanks so much for taking the time here with us. Liz Miller, who's the Summit Place Financial Advisors founder and president. Appreciate it.

Thanks.