WEALTHTRACK – Details, episodes & analysis

As a portfolio manager, Susan Byrne was called one of the world’s greatest investors when she was running the Westwood Funds. Still active, she shares her views on current market conditions and advice for investors.

WEALTHTRACK episode 2145, Broadcast on May 9, 2025

Global financial thought leader John Lipsky explains how new US tariff policies are upending world trade and affecting the global financial system, economy and growth.

Acclaimed portfolio manager David Giroux discusses what he has learned about investing—what works and what doesn’t—while running his five-star, gold-rated T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Fund since 2006.

WEALTHTRACK episode 2129, broadcast on January 17, 2025

This episode's guest is a longtime holder of Berkshire stock and has been an avid student of Buffett’s style of value investing since meeting the legendary investor at Stanford Business School in the early 1980s. He is Tom Russo, managing member of the investment advisory firm Gardner Russo & Quinn, where he oversees the Semper Vic Partners Funds, which he launched in 1983 after hearing Buffett address his class at Stanford.

The global value manager focuses on owning a small group of exceptionally well-managed, well-known brand name firms, many family-owned, with dominant, almost unassailable positions in their mostly consumer-oriented businesses, and then holding them pretty much forever. Berkshire Hathaway has consistently been one of his largest positions. In this weekend’s interview, we will learn how Buffett’s talk in graduate school made such a huge impression on him.

WEALTHTRACK #1913 broadcast on September 23, 2022

More Info: https://wealthtrack.com/how-a-concentrated-portfolio-of-global-brand-name-companies-is-faring-in-this-challenging-market/

Part 1 on portfolio concentration: https://wealthtrack.com/how-a-concentrated-portfolio-of-global-brand-name-companies-is-faring-in-this-challenging-market/

The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States: https://www.churchillscholarship.org/

Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger:

https://amzn.to/3UxRatE

How times have changed. It wasn’t many months ago that the entire financial world was singing the praises of inflation. The greatest fear among Wall Streeters and other financial lights was lower prices that might actually decline more and turn into that monster known as deflation. The thought conjured up nightmarish scenes of bread lines and bank runs.

Ever since the global financial crisis of 2008 and especially since the Covid pandemic, central banks and governments around the world have pulled out all stops to prevent such an occurrence. And guess what? It finally worked. After declining since the early 1980s, inflation has roared back to life, recently hitting 40-year highs.

But no one is celebrating. In fact, now central banks around the world have declared war on inflation, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is leading the charge. The Fed has dramatically raised the federal funds rate several times this year, with more action to come.

This week’s guest has long been an avowed enemy of inflation and an outspoken critic of the Fed’s inflation-boosting policies. How is he feeling now? He is financial thought leader James Grant, the Founder, and Editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. Grant is also the author of 9 books. Several are financial histories, including the prize-winning The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself.

Grant will discuss the Fed’s about-face on inflation, the battle it faces to bring it under control, the implications for financial markets, and two investment ideas for this new investment era.

WEALTHTRACK #1912 broadcast on September 16, 2022

More info: https://wealthtrack.com/inflations-damage-financial-consequences-investment-strategies-with-historian-james-grant/

In his WealthTrack interview and a recent issue of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer Jim Grant highlighted the small-cap equity fund Palm Valley Capital Fund (PVCMX) which holds mainly cash “awaiting the return of valuations at which an unbending, unconventional, uncompromising, value-seeking investor can put other people’s money to work”. Grant also recommended reading the firm’s quarterly letters to shareholders, “some of the best and wittiest financial-markets commentary on the web.”  Here is a link to the firm’s most recent missive. https://www.palmvalleycapital.com/fundletter

Bookshelf:

The Trouble With Prosperity: The Loss of Fear, the Rise of Speculation, and the Risk to American Savings: https://amzn.to/3ds0azQ

Money of the Mind: Borrowing and Lending in America from the Civil War to Michael Milken: https://amzn.to/3qGuSIK

The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash that Cured Itself: https://amzn.to/3RQixO9

The bond world changed dramatically in 2022.  From several years of historically low to negative interest rates, as far as the eye could see, the horizon is now filled with rising rates across the globe. It’s a welcome change for yield starved investors and fixed income managers who have been coping with a record breaking yield drought. 

One of them is this weekend’s guest who recently reopened his fund to new investors because of the “improved opportunity set.” He is Tom Atteberry, now Senior Advisor to FPA New Income Fund having just retired, as planned, from his portfolio manager duties in July of this year.  He had been Portfolio Manager of the fund since 2004. 

Atteberry will discuss why they have reopened the fund and where they are investing now. He will also share his current preference for asset-backed bonds over Treasuries and corporates. 

WEALTHTRACK #1911 broadcast on September 09, 2022

More info: https://wealthtrack.com/the-new-investment-opportunities-being-discovered-by-award-winning-fpa-new-income-fund/

Global bond manager Jack McIntyre says central banks around the world are determined to stamp out inflation. Their success will determine the direction of markets and economies. He explains how he is investing for several outcomes.

WEALTHTRACK #1910 broadcast on September 02, 2022

More info: https://wealthtrack.com/why-inflation-is-now-key-to-investing-with-brandywine-globals-jack-mcintyre/

Bookshelf: Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, https://amzn.to/3CWQho7

We are joined by ClearBridge’s Investment Strategist Jeff Schulze. He will explain why he now believes that there is a 55% chance of a downturn, why a recession is not inevitable but what conditions could push it one way or the other. He will also discuss market implications and strategy.

WEALTHTRACK #1908 published on August 20, 2022

More info: https://wealthtrack.com/a-widely-followed-investment-strategists-indicators-now-signaling-heightened-recession-risk/

A special WEALTHTRACK podcast with influential economist and Fed watcher turned professor Paul McCulley. McCulley is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Business School and a very much in-demand speaker in financial circles because of his deep understanding of Fed policy, honed at bond giant PIMCO, where for many years he was Senior Partner, author of the influential Global Central Bank Focus and manager of its huge short-term trading desk. In this week’s podcast, McCulley shares his thoughts on where we are in the Fed’s tightening cycle, economy, and markets.

WEALTHTRACK 1907 published on August 14, 2022

More info: https://wealthtrack.com/influential-economist-and-fed-watcher-paul-mcculley-on-fed-policy-recession-prospects-and-the-markets/

Global value investor Tom Russo says today’s investment environment is the most challenging of his 40-year career. He explains why his core companies are up to the challenge.

WEALTHTRACK episode 1906 broadcast on August 05, 2022

More info: https://wealthtrack.com/how-a-concentrated-portfolio-of-global-brand-name-companies-is-faring-in-this-challenging-market/