Celebrating Women's History Month with Jess Menton and Kate Hall (Ep. 129)

In this special episode of Facts vs. Feelings, Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist, and Sonu Varghese, VP, Global Macro Strategist, welcome Jess Menton, Senior Reporter at Bloomberg News, and Kate Hall, VP, Alternative Due Diligence, at Carson Group. The conversation explores career growth, industry challenges, and what the future holds for female leaders in financial services.

Key Takeaways:

• The importance of representation: Women in leadership serve as role models, paving the way for future generations.
• Overcoming industry challenges: Jess and Kate share personal experiences navigating male-dominated spaces in finance.
• The power of mentorship: The guests discuss how building strong networks and mentorship opportunities are key to helping advance women in the industry.
• Market insights: The panel discusses economic trends, investing strategies, and the current state of the markets.
• Advice for the next generation: The group talks about how to encourage young women considering careers in finance and how the industry can better support them.

This is more than just a market discussion—it’s about leadership, resilience, and the future of finance.

Connect with Ryan: 

• LinkedIn: Ryan Detrick
• X: Ryan Detrick

Connect with Sonu: 

• LinkedIn: Sonu Varghese
• X: Sonu Varghese

Connect with Jess Menton:

• LinkedIn: Jessica Menton
• X: @JessicaMenton

Connect with Kate Hall:

• LinkedIn: Kate K. Hall

Hashtags

#FactsVsFeelings #MarketTrends #Economy #FedPolicy #StockMarket #Turkey #InterestRates #Inflation #Investing #LaborMarket

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the facts versus feelings podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Dietrich, and I'm joined by my co host, Sonu Varghese. Cutting through the noise in thirty minutes each week with Ryan Dietrich, chief market strategist, and Sona Vardis, VP global macro strategist, taking out the boring and helping investors focus on what really matters. A quick note before we start the show, investment advisory services offered through CWM LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Carson Partners, a vision of CWM LLC, is a nationwide partnership of advisors. Hi, everyone. Welcome to an extra special episode of Facts versus Feelings, episode one twenty nine of Facts versus Feelings. So I was out on spring break last week halfway across the world in Turkey, which is an amazing place to visit with my family, I should say, but also because there's so much of stuff happening there right now with politics and markets and things like that, the currency, the stock market and interest rates, things like that. But maybe we'll talk about that in next week's episode when Ryan's back. Ryan's on a well deserved spring break right now, hiking the canyons in Utah, I believe. He's probably sleeping as I speak. But, so, anyway, that's why he couldn't join me. But last month, on March nineteenth, we celebrated Women's History Month with an extra special facts versus feelings livestream. We had four amazing leaders in the financial industry joining Ryan and me to talk about the economy, markets, both public and private markets, portfolios, and even how to think about taxes when investing, which all of us, I think, care about here. So last week's Facts versus Feelings episode, which is episode one hundred and twenty eight, we, had Lindsey Bell, chief market strategist at Claronomics and Carson's own chief tax strategist, Debbie Taylor on. I definitely recommend that one if you haven't caught it already. This week on episode one twenty nine, we have our other two guests, Jessica Menton, senior equities reporter at Bloomberg and a good friend of the show and for Brian and myself too. She writes a lot about what's happening in markets, and part of that, look, involves talking to people across Wall Street and beyond, you know, everywhere. Right? Investors across the board to see how they're thinking about markets and positioning their portfolios. So it's a great conversation about what's happening in markets right now, especially given all the volatility we've seen and some inside baseball as to how she goes about her job, too. Then we also had our own Kate Hall, who's a teammate here at Carson Investment Research for Ryan and myself. She is also vice president here at Carson and leads our alternative due diligence. She is amazingly knowledgeable about private markets, how they work, why you should consider investing in private markets, how they diversify portfolios, and most importantly, what goes into selecting good managers on the private side, where you can't really go invest in something like the S and P five hundred with an ETF. Right? So I think you'll learn a lot from our conversation with Kate. But before I move to that, really quick note on markets as well. Obviously, we've had a lot of volatility recently, and it's not entirely surprising. Even going by history, right, late February, March tend to be a bit of a banana peel period for markets. Ryan's done some really cool work on this. We've talked about this for, you know, the last month or so, right, how this period could be tough in terms of volatility. Now the drivers and causes of these sell offs in February, March historically are always different. This time, it's tariffs. And let's be clear. Look. The tariffs that are being proposed are quite massive. It's quite significant. Right? I don't wanna minimize that. But while a lot of people are still worried about uncertainty, whether we'll get the tariffs or not, our thinking is that, look, tariffs are here, and tariffs are likely not going away. Now we have to deal with the ramifications of that. We're still in the camp that the economy will avoid a recession. For now, we're not seeing a big drop in the hard data even though the soft data, just sentiment, that's been terrible. The labor market is okay. Hiring could be stronger, but the unemployment rate is still on the lower side because layoffs are low. Despite all the headlines about layoffs and cuts, initial claims for unemployment benefits, that's not spiking. And that's why you'd see the impact of layoffs. Right? You know, that would be a leading indicator for the economy. So far, so good there. It doesn't mean things are perfect. It just means, look, we are in a slower growth environment instead of, say, three percent GDP growth that a lot of people were expecting back in January, not us. We're probably looking at something closer to one and a half, two percent for twenty twenty five right now, maybe slightly lower too, you know, given, you know, headwinds from tariffs, things like that. But there's still tax policy to come. I think, a lot of people are not talking about that just quite yet because Congress has to get their get their act together. But I think they will because there's a deadline that they have to get the tax issues sorted out before the, you know, December thirty first twenty twenty five. Q one was tough for markets. The S and P five hundred fell more than four percent. It's off about nine percent from its February nineteenth high. But the sell off wasn't that broad, and diversification, even across equities, right, that would have helped. Seven out of eleven sectors were actually in the green in the first quarter. International stocks also outperformed. Ryan's got a great blog up, on carsoninvestment dot com slash research, so take a look at that. The MSCI all cap wealth index, excluding the US, rose over four and a half percent in the first quarter. That performance differential between international markets and the US was over nine percent. That is the largest difference since the second quarter of two thousand nine. The dollar also pulled back, and that's not what you usually see if this was a massive risk off scenario. Right? If this is a big scary scenario, everything's down. That wasn't the case. And the dollar going down is also a tailwind for international stocks. Gold had a big q one. Bonds also gained because yields fell. So diversification sort of worked. And what happened in the first quarter is probably a good reminder that you don't want your portfolio concentrated in any particular area of the market, especially when there's some turbulence. Right? So I think there's a good lesson in portfolio construction right there. And you see the benefits of that, you know, in the first quarter. Look. Ryan and I are going to spend a lot more time talking about this when we are both back on our regular schedule next week. But for now, here is Jessica Minton from Bloomberg for about the first twenty five minutes, and then our conversation with Kate on private markets and everything around our Carson investment research team after that. So enjoy listening. Thank you. Jess Minton, apologies. Live from I guess you're live from Bloomberg. Right? Which room are you in there? If I've been in that room, where are you? At my desk right now. We have a lot of fancy rooms, but, I couldn't figure out how to get this to zoom in any closer. So I look a little far away, but hopefully, you could hear me so it all works out. Yeah. And and we see some Bloomberg stuff. Yeah. Well, I'm in my office in the background too. In case we didn't believe you really always. In case we didn't believe you really worked at Bloomberg, it it's really there. It's this is neat. So, Jess, we're we're excited. You know, we we've already had, conversations about the markets. We just talk about taxes, and I love, you know, what you do. You talk about markets, but also you live in the world of media. And I do a lot of media, and so do a lot of media. So I thought this would be a really fun conversation for the next twenty five minutes or so. Let's just start. You know, we live in a world of compliance. We like titles and things. What's your title over Bloomberg, and what kind of do you do all day? Because I know you do a ton, but what do you do all day? So I do have a few different roles. So I'm the deputy team leader for the US equities team, and And so that basically means I'm helping manage the coverage that comes off the US stocks desk. And then I'm also a senior reporter for the same team. So that means I'm also doing more of the enterprise, kind of big feature reporting, sort of the bigger takeaways from what's happening when you connect the dots across, the equity market, whether you're looking at, obviously, technicals. Like, I know you watch very closely, Orion, as well as positioning, derivatives, what's going on with macro, micro, and then pretty much everything in between. And then basically telling kind of these are the bigger stories of the week as well as if we would get toward the end of the quarter or annually. So it kinda just depends on the size and scope. And, obviously, there's always big moments in the market, but, clearly, we're at an a crucial inflection point right now. No. I'm curious. I see the Bloomberg terminal keyboard in front of you. Yeah. Yes. What is what was the last chart you looked at? I'm sure the Bloomberg terminal, like, it's in front of you. Okay. What was the last Right. So we are lucky as reporters. We have this g function where we can go and save a lot of our charts, and I can go and kinda quickly and update different things. I was actually just looking at the cost of hedging for the SPICE. Obviously, the ETF that tracks the S and P five hundred. And so that can tell you a lot of, like, the hedging demand, like, how many and you could do it on different time frames. So you can do it a month out, two months out, three months out. But what's interesting about that, even though we saw it spike a bit, obviously, once we came off with the highs for the S and P five hundred a few weeks ago on February nineteenth and after we saw a number of the sell offs, you saw the cost of hedging climbing, but still now it's come down a little bit. So it's not nearly as much as it would have been, say, during right after the December meeting, for the Federal Reserve. That was on December eighteenth. And then, obviously, when the yen carry trade was unwinding in early August. So you're you're seeing the cost of hedging come in a bit, and a lot of that just has to do whenever I'm talking to sources like Danny Kurish over at Piper as well as other people who work in the Durham space. A lot of their clients were already degrossing and had hedges on before what happened with the correction. So that's why you're not really seeing a spike in that yet. As well as the VIX, of course, closer to twenty now, but intraday trading, earlier this month, we saw it get closer to thirty. And usually when I'm talking to people in the the derivative space, it gets more costly to put on puts or protection above that. And so sometimes thirty could be that kinda line in the sand and a bit of a ceiling there. No. Love it. You know, I just realized I'm on Bloomberg Radio in a couple hours for to close today. So it's a small small small and Tim. So Yeah. Carol and Tim. Exactly. Carol and Tim. So, shout out to them. Always enjoy there. So, you know, I love the idea. We'll talk markets too. We've got time. But I love the idea of careers. Right? I know you and I met I guess, when I met you, was it USA Today? Right? That's where you were? So, actually, I think many of your career. Was at the Wall Street Journal. Right? So I worked at Okay. National Business Times. I was covering equities, markets, macro. I pretty much always covered equities, macro, and everything in between. And then I was at the Wall Street Journal for a long time. Then I was at the USA Today, did the same role. Got it. Got it. And then you get recruited to come to Bloomberg. So it all worked out. But so we've known each other for probably at least ten years. It's it's been it's been a minute, but I always enjoy getting to talk with you and and everything you've, you've done to help kinda my career, and I love, chatting with you on market. So that's that's great. Now with Bloomberg, you you do some radio, you do some TV, you do some writing. I mean, it feels like you're everywhere, which is awesome. You know? For some of them just from a media point of view, is that normal to do everything like that? Because it feels like you're everywhere, which I'm I'm really proud of you when I see you all over the place. Well, thank you. A lot of it has to do because underneath the the Bloomberg umbrella, there are so many different platforms. So predominantly, I'm I'm a print reporter and I'm writing, but because you also have Bloomberg TV under this umbrella and this radio, it's literally on the same floor that I work on, so I can just kinda run over. You were mentioning, Carol Masser, Tim Stenovic, who you're gonna be on Bloomberg Radio, on Bloomberg Businessweek later this afternoon. There's a lot of times that if they're on vacation, they'll pull me in to fill them. Or a lot of times, like, tomorrow morning, for instance, I have a weekly hit with Tom Keene, that I'll do on Thursday mornings. And then, occasionally, I'll step in an acre with him if Paul Sweeney's gone. I I think I'm with him, with Tom Keene next Friday too. So it's it's fun because I get to they they really bring me in because they value the reporting that I'm doing and the writing and the conversations I'm having, whether it's with, hedge fund managers, people that are maybe on the retail side, portfolio managers, and then strategists, and then anything going on with derivatives and technicals. They really wanna hear about what are my conversations like, what are people how are they positioning specifically, because it kinda can help them get some insight into what's going on in the equity markets. No. One I I was looking at a recent piece that you did, maybe the last piece you did. I don't know. Unless it's a new one today. You were writing about profits, and profits are what ultimately matter to markets. Right? We're talking about, you know, market volatility and tariffs and things like that. How much is the profit outlook changing? Or and if so, by how much? And I'm just out of curiosity, how much is it being impacted by, say, tariffs? What's interesting about this, and I know that y'all cover this so closely too, and, of course, Gina Martin Adams, as Ryan knows very well too, she's on the team to association board and she heads up our sell side research at Bloomberg Intelligence. And so her team, along with Michael Casper, Wendy Song, they they monitor this very closely. So what they do on the Bloomberg Intelligence dashboard, so anyone who uses the terminal can go in, like, b I go and go to equities and see what they're looking at. But, basically, they pull in the sell side consensus estimates. And what's interesting about this despite what's been going on the last few weeks when the S and P five hundred, was briefly in a correction. Obviously, the Nasdaq one hundred is still in a correction. But you're if you look at the profit outlook for twenty twenty five as well as twenty twenty six, it's still very strong. So it's coming just slightly for this year. It's around ten percent growth compared to thirteen percent at the start of the year, but typically investors are looking further out. Right? So they're they're looking to twenty twenty six, and that's still at fourteen percent. That's unchanged, from what we would have been at at the start of the year. What's interesting is is the point we're at because we already got past fourth quarter earnings season for the most part. And at fourteen percent earnings growth year over year for that period, I mean, that was the best quarterly stretch since the final three months of twenty twenty one. Obviously, that was the time period where the world was starting to reopen, and we saw some massive profit goads when people, especially companies, were hoarding those cashboards and putting it back through buybacks and things like that. So what we were looking at more closely was earnings estimate revisions because that can give you a little bit more of a real time estimate of as far as what sell side was looking twelve months out for EPS growth. So they've been marking them down for about twenty two of the last twenty three weeks. But, of course, we still have I mean, earning season really doesn't kick off until April eleventh when JPMorgan reports as well as other banks. And a lot of things could happen between now and then as well as, you know, you have that April second reciprocal tariff deadline. And I think a lot of on the sell side strategies, they aren't they can't really move the needle a lot. And a lot of companies do this that we sold Delta, bring down some of their earnings forecast. I think a lot of companies, especially different industries, are affected in different ways, like the Mag seven, for instance. A lot of them don't have that exposure towards Canada or Mexico. It's more so when you're looking at an Asia or China specifically. But then if you're an automaker like Stellantis, you have plants in Mexico that could be more impacted. So I think a lot of these companies are really waiting toward after that deadline to figure out how to guide lower. But then you could also see the song and dance for companies move those estimates and lower the bar to more easily beat those expectations. So what if they were looking under? Right? If they were you going to use this as an opportunity for a little bit of sandbagging? Yeah. And and anyone who may have underestimated those types of impacts, a lot of, whether they're portfolio managers or other strategist, they're saying, well, if if something happens like that and companies end up needing to guide lower ahead of before they put their results out, you could easily see them do that. And then once the reports actually do come out in a couple of months, they'll then you'll see the stock higher even though you might initially see that lower. So it might not be as, I mean, in twenty eighteen, even though the height of what was going on with the trade war, there were massive buybacks because of the tax overhaul that got passed in at the end of twenty seventeen. And then, of course, there was that big sell off in the final quarter of twenty eighteen, especially that December, but it was just a very different fed and a different cycle when it came to hiking compared to what the economy was doing. And, really, you didn't see it show up in earnings growth until a year later. So you saw close to fifteen percent year over year earnings growth for the S and P five hundred in twenty eighteen. It was a little over one percent in twenty nineteen. So it this could take a multiple quarters, but then also the economy is much stronger right now than coming out of COVID than it was during that time. So that's another struggle to where you might still see earnings estimates be more robust than people would be assuming. Oh, that was great. Again, this is a live stream of facts versus feelings with Ryan and Sonu. It is Women's History Month, building community for women in finance. Again, joining by Jess Minton over at Bloomberg. So I know you and I were kicking around the idea of Wednesday being strong. I know you wanted to maybe point it out. I've I've been talking about it a lot. For whatever reason, Wednesday is wildly strong, and then the problem is the other four days. Although we had a pretty strong Friday and Monday recently. Why in the world you talk to a lot of smart people. Not that I'm one of them because I I really don't know why, but why in the world is Wednesday why in the world is Wednesday so strong this year? You know, it's funny because I saw you y'all had put out kind of this annual outlook that you were looking at for key charts, but this chart wasn't in there. This was something else I noticed, that I had covered in recent years because it was the opposite. So sometimes you see things change whenever the markets are more volatile. But what I thought was interesting because last year, you typically saw the dip by Mondays and Fridays, and now it's the opposite. It's on Wednesdays to your point, and a lot of that has to do with a lot of traders didn't wanna go long into the weekend. So whether it was tariff related news out of Washington or, say, deep seek that we saw, toward the end of January. So you had kind of a multiplier of different events that were going on to where you're starting to see that just happen more so on Wednesdays, maybe even Tuesdays sometimes as well or Thursdays. And you're even seeing it more stark when it comes to more of the retail traders, because I know a lot of people like to use that as contrary indicators if you're looking at what are hedge funds doing, institutions versus what retail is doing. And you're still seeing strong buying in in retail right now, whereas hedge funds were the ones that were dumping coming into this year, and especially stocks like Tesla. A lot of retail traders are still going in and buying that on the dips. I was you know, Ryan does so much of great work on seasonality. And my pet theory I I don't even know if this is true. For season why seasonality exists, a lot of it, you know, I started my career in the options market, so there's a little bit of bias there, options modeling, volatility modeling, basically. And my pet theory with seasonality is a lot of it has to do with options, even things like never shorting dull markets or the strong seasonality from, say, November to January because of all the holidays and option time needing to catch up with calendar time. I won't get into any more details beyond that. Right? But I'm curious. I I know you look at this stuff. And how much do the options market drive activity or movements in the overall market like the S and P five hundred, for example? I think it can be crucial, especially with positioning and where we're at the calendar. I know that Ryan watches very closely the presidential cycle and, typically, the quarter that we're now coming off of the election year. You do tend to see some weakness just because you do see tend to see historical, especially the last two months of a year once there's certainty about who's coming into office and as well as what gridlock or not gridlock will look like in congress. And so you're you you saw a similar dynamic over the last especially since the US election in November. But specifically, when it comes to the option space, we'll have triple witching this Friday. Of course, it's been one of those things the last few years where sometimes people are making a big deal out of it. But then right. It's triple witching. So when you look at the, expiration when it comes to specific single stocks, indexes, as well as ETFs, but sometimes you don't really see a lot of movement on the headline surface for an index. It's more micro and specific stocks related as well as companies that'll be, added to the S and P five hundred before trading next Monday. So DoorDash is one of those as well as Williams Sunua. So you'll see a few things like that, but then also sometimes people will point to triple witching, but then when it doesn't end up being a big event, it's it's usually a reason if there is a lot of volatility. But then if there's not, people will say, well, that wasn't anything. But something specifically I would say toward the end of every quarter is the JPMorgan collar trade. So the ticker symbol on that is j h e q x for those on the terminal or where else they wanna look at. And the reason I bring that up is because basically, JPMorgan has this basket of stocks in the S and P five hundred with options on the index, and it also resets and hedges once a quarter. So it'll be March thirty first. That'll be a Monday this year. So the closer we Everybody knows when that is. Right? Right. Exactly. And the reason I bring it up is because there is typically strike prices that are at the call level, which is we've been paying more attention to over the last few quarters just because of the nonstop rally the last two years in the S and P five hundred, but then there's a put price. And I was I did a story about this last week because fifty five sixty five was the put level for this particular trade when you're looking at the collar trade for JPMorgan. And usually during intraday a few times last week, like Monday and Tuesday, for instance, you'd see the S and P five hundred briefly break below that then trade back above. And the reason is the closer it is to those levels, like, say, if you are basically trying to you have to stay neutral as, like, an options dealer, you might be forced to have to step in and then start buying. Whereas, like, if you get too far below that price on the S and P five hundred, like, we would have seen maybe on Thursday or the middle of last last week, then you see kind of the S and P exacerbated lower, closer to fifty five hundred, but there's not a ton of puts below the fifty five hundred level. So it's almost like it kinda served as a a floor in a way, but those levels might be more crucial the closer we get to March thirty first. But that's something that's come up, because, of course, I know Brian watches the technicals very closely as well. But from the option side of it, there's also other levels there too that options dealers are watching pretty closely. So that fifty five sixty five level has been important. Explains why round numbers tend to be important too, which always seems weird. Like, why should a round number be important? But that's where some of these strike prices are for the options market. And just to clarify, this is for compliance reasons. Any of the tickers just mentioned or any of us mentioned, this is not a recommendation to buy or sell or any of the stuff. So More educational. Educational. Right. So so I love the media aspect of this because I that's why I wanna pick your brain a little bit. Working in the media like you have for for most of your career, I I assume, who are some mentors and maybe some on camera personality at Bloomberg? It's just kinda funny off the camera if you feel like sharing something. Just some some some some some stories here on who you learned from over the years. Yeah. I've been lucky that I've had a lot of good mentors over the years. I think specifically during my time at Bloomberg, because I since I cover technicals pretty closely, I go to a lot of the CMT Association events that Ryan frequents as well. And so I feel like Gina Martin Adams has always been a really good resource. So I feel like because she's a CFA as well as CMT, she's very good and probably one of the best to do it when you start threading together what's happening on both sides as far as her team and what they're watching. And then also on the media side, I would have to say Carol Masler, Tim Stenovic, as well as Alex Steele, and a number of others on the media side who've anytime I have any questions. And, of course, you get a freaking Tom Keene, right, who's been here for decades and any any and then Paul Sweeney as well. So anytime I've been able to anchor with them, cohost anything, they're always very they wanna hear about what I'm reporting on, but then they've done this for decades, so I'm always able to pick their brain and get any advice. So I always feel like, especially Tom Keene in the mornings, he's it's funny because before we'll anchor together, he always tells me, you know, it just let's just have fun. So he obviously values, and he wants people to be sharp with the market knowledge, but he also wants people, and especially the audience, to have a good time and really take something a well way and learn something from what we're talking about. Tom Tom's obviously a legend. I think my first one of my first, like, live interviews was with Pim Fox probably twenty years ago. Pim's Pim's not at Bloomberg anymore. Right? Or is he? Or or no? No. He went over to Fox, and I think he might still be there. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but he was he was a big fixture here at Bloomberg for a long time. We were going up to floor six and being so nervous and worried. Not worried, but just nervous. And then, like, I'm literally on TV yesterday, and I wear this Saint Patrick's Day hat on TV. It's like I'm almost too relaxed now. You know? It's, a fine a fine line there. So go ahead. Yeah. Go go ahead, Sonu. Jump in. No. No. It's like it it'd be like to have fun. Oh, yeah. We look up on The market's a serious business. I mean, you know, at some point, you try to tell yourself, don't you take yourself too seriously here or you get Right. But actually, I'm looking at my screens, and I see green on the screen, which is nice and pleasant to see after the battle of volatility we've had. And, are people let's talk sentiment. Sentiment's been actually, sentiment's shifted, you know, up and down a lot. Right? Right now, I think it's generally negative. But are people you talk to, are they buying the dip here? It so retail traders tend to still be doing it, maybe not as aggressively as they were at the start of the year, but what because we've talked about the AAAII survey so much in the past, and I know that y'all watch this very closely, especially the bull bear spread number of weeks now. It's been an excessive negative territory, negative territory, especially even beyond if you were looking at the date since twenty twenty two, if you pull it back even further. It's, kind of astounding. It's almost like at level since two thousand nine, which both of those in twenty twenty two and two thousand nine kinda cohost up corresponded with Lowe's in the S and P five hundred, but also something beyond that. I always look at the fund manager survey from Bank of America that comes out in the middle of each month. So what was interesting to me and we we got a sense of this yesterday. So Michael Hartnett from Bank of America puts this out, and he's one of their chief strategist there. So investors were cutting their holdings of US equities by the most on record. And then also the cash levels, they had the biggest jump in cash allocation since March of twenty twenty. So, obviously, during the height of COVID, and a lot of times, those can be more contrary indicators. You saw cash levels around highs, say, back when the S and P five hundred was making its lows for the bull market or the bear market rather in the fall of twenty twenty two before the bull run over the last two years began. So we're starting to see different signals where they're reaching extremes, but a lot of either technicians or people in the option space, and I'm sure y'all can weigh in as well as far as certain signals stacking up. But, like, it's almost like the conditions made sense to see a bounce back, but they're not necessarily seeing all of the signals just yet. But I would point out that Goldman Sachs, they they get CTA data. So, basically, these are commodity trader traders that, trading advisors. So, basically, they look at the underlying markets and they look at the momentum. And, basically, Brian Garrett, who's over at Goldman Sachs, was telling some of his clients that, basically, the selling was so far advanced that the shift would be more focused to the upside, but you'd have to see a bigger day there. So that's that's a corner of the market that I'm one I'm keeping an eye on to see whether or not they end up stepping up their buying just because we saw such a start drawdown in the S and P. Well, I'll say this. I'm a huge fan of Ed Yardeni. Right? Also, Tom Lee for that matter. I remember Tom Lee in March of, well, two years ago, March of twenty three got pretty defensive. Right? There's always always bullish Tom Lee, and he he he wasn't necessarily then. And Yardeni just cut his forecast, and then Trump put his caput. I'm thinking to myself, wow. The bowl some of the biggest bowls are kinda sitting. I'm not so sure. Maybe that's the flush out. You know? That's kinda that's one as anecdotal, I get it, but that's something that's caught my attention. You know, we are doing this before the Fed. And, you know, this this people listen to it live, obviously, live. People listen to it exactly one week from now, so let's just put a big asterisk on there. We don't know what the Fed's going to do, but you obviously follow the Fed closely. How have you how have you thought the Fed's been doing? What's your take on the Fed and how what you heard from people out there? Well, basically so I covered, obviously, Powell during, president Trump's first term as well during that trade war and what was going on with the tax overhaul. I would say specifically for more today, the when it comes to those dot plots since their quarterly, the median projection at during the December, because it's the last time we got the dot plots was around three nine for the end of this year. So, obviously, they're looking to see how that potentially could adjust whether or not growth forecast move lower and the inflation forecast move higher. But a lot of my sources are thinking that how could come back and hedge that saying, hey. If this is adjusted somehow, this could be adjusted again depending on how the economy moves. But then beyond even just the rate cutting picture, they're looking at what they're scoring to signal about the balance sheet because that's always a big story that goes on in the background that sometimes people might overlook here, and that was something in twenty eighteen. Especially the end of twenty eighteen, they were pairing back the balance sheet, and then they ended up stopping, just because of what was going on with the liquidity in the markets and the sell off. So that's something my sources are watching to hear. What exactly is Powell going to say more about that balance sheet runoff in addition to rate cuts? Do you think they move in a little bit of a and I wanna be careful here because when I say the word in a stagflationary direction direction as opposed to predicting stagflation by moving their growth expectations lower and their inflation expectations higher. I think that that would be a lot of people may take that when you first get the dots right at two o'clock, but I think that's why a lot of it hinges at two thirty, What he ends up saying about his rhetoric because I think he will use that as a way to explain how they're viewing where the economy is at at this point, but then, of course, he always stays pretty tight lipped and and basically emphasizes how the Fed's going to be data dependent. And I would point out to you because I know Ryan was talking about when you're looking at more on the sell side research and what the perma bulls are doing versus the perma bears. I mean, Eddie Ardeni, of course, he brought down that target from for this year from seven thousand to sixty four hundred. Right. But even I talked to Jeremy Siegel, who's a well known, buy the dip kinda stock bull. And, I mean, he would still argue for buying the dip, but I talked to him a few weeks ago before we were in a correction, and he was already kind of calling for a ten percent correction as well. So that's rare that you would hear somebody like himself say that too. Just speaking for our models, I mean but you you'd mentioned, like, managers at degrowth maybe even before this. We've done the same thing on our side. Not necessarily we kept our equity overweight, but we moved into more, like, low volatility stocks. We reduced some high beta stuff in the portfolio. So but I was curious about, you know, how what you're hearing from all these different parts of the market and market actors and investors. It doesn't seem like the signals are clear whether you wanna be more bearish or whether you wanna be much more bullish. Right? Either way, it's just like all the signals really haven't lined up on either side. They haven't. What's interesting since the S and P made that more recent low on March thirteenth, you're seeing the more riskier corners of the market taking off. So, like, nonprofitable tech up nearly eight percent since then, the Russell two thousand at more than three percent in that span. Most short stocks also up close to four percent. And then obviously in that span, the S and P five hundred is only up around close to two percent. So but it would make sense because those were the more beaten down names. So if you zoom out and see how much they got pummeled, you're starting to see that more risk on in the near term. Whether or not that holds after a pal speaks remains to be seen, so we'll have to wait and see if the more riskier corners pick up even more so or not after he speaks. Well, That was great. What do you have going on this afternoon with the pal stuff? You on TV, on radio, writing? What all what all what what do you need to help the industry be? Writing. Right. Usually usually, you don't see me on fed days on, radio or TV because I'm typing away. So then I'll be doing all that, and then, I'll figure out I will be on the Tom King tomorrow morning at either eight fifty or nine fifty. It remains to be seen depending on how the lineup's gonna work Got it. With the show, but I'll be busy, typing today. Well, that's great. We've got, like, about a minute and a half to go here. I know you've got a hard schedule. We do as well. Jess, we're honored that you took some time to, speak with us here at this special livestream to honor women's history month. I called you Jeff to start it, obviously. Sorry. I still feel bad. But, you know, like, going out, let's have a fun one. You're on air a lot, and you've heard rumors or you've seen people on air. What's, like, one of the biggest mistakes maybe you've made on air? This you know, not the end of the world, but you call someone Jeff and the name is Jess. Have you done anything like that? We put your foot in your mouth? Because trust me, we have a podcast. We do a hundred and twenty seven of these. I do it every week, so I'm not judging. Any any funny story here on air? Oh, man. And I'm trying to think of a more recent one on, on Bloomberg or not. Luckily, I'm not at Bloomberg yet. I'm trying to think of some stuff I did when I was younger, but I think everyone does it. Right? Like, it's it's more of, like, just how you move on. Mhmm. You you make any sort of blunder. So I feel like it's the recovery matters a lot more because even the best of the best. Right? Like, I see them sometimes stumble just because they've been on air for a long time. So I think you just gotta keep going in. So don't worry. I don't take offense for being called a Jeff. So a lot of people call me Jen on accident. It happens. And whoever Jeff Minton is, I'm sure there's one out there. Hello. How are you doing, Jeff Minton? Connect. There we go. Well well, Jess Minson over at Bloomberg, thank you so much for joining us. I think we've hit the end of our twenty five minutes here. This was awesome. Thank you for everything you do in our industry and all the amazing work. I always love reading your name and seeing seeing you all over the place. It's, makes me feel good to see that good things happen to good people, and just keep doing your thing. And if the Carson team can help, we're here for you. So with all of that, thank you, Jess. Last but certainly not least, Kate Hall is a great, great commercial there with, Kelsey. Thanks, thanks, Tory and the team for putting that together. I do wanna also say as we're winding down, thank you to Tory, our producer, for making sure we stay on task as well. So did I just talk. We never pay attention to what's going on. We just talk. You know? A little lot of hard work that goes into all of this, and it's not lost on us. So thank you. So Kate Hall on our team is here. Kate, you know my favorite people in finance. I ship with us. You know, you you you know, we like around here. Give us your title, Kate, and a little bit about what you do to help the Carson community. Sure. So I'm Kate Hall. By the way, thank you for having me, Jay. This is a great honor to be on the show. So I'm the vice president of alternative due diligence for the firm, and my main role is to, you know, build I've built the platform of options for our advisors across, you know, the various flavors of, private investments, maybe some alternatives at some point. We'll get into that in a bit. Mhmm. But I do all of the kind of hiring decisions, bring them to the committee for vote. We did one this morning. And and I do all the ongoing analysis to make sure that the, opportunities that we have on the platform are performing as we as we hope they would and and that things are, you know, on the up and up. I put like I would say Kate's popular because people reach out to me because they see me out there. Say, hey. You wanna do something with Alts? I don't know. Go talk to Kate. I don't have an opinion here. I don't even know what you're talking about. So, you know, that let's start there, Kate. When someone hears the word alts, I'm not saying it means something different to everybody. But when you hear alts, what does it mean to you, and how do you describe that kinda to somebody who honestly listened to this podcast? We haven't really talked about alts all that often, at least the specific ones we're going to today. So what does that mean? And I'll piggyback on that, though, while the ads are like, what do we what do you think people hear when they hear the word alts, and what do you think they should hear if they Great. All great questions. Autism at this point is a very generic term, and I'll get into why. But I think that And all for all senators, by the way. So Yeah. I think that, you know, folks who are not necessarily educated on the space think scary. They think long term capital. They think I'm gonna lose all my money. They think illiquidity, lack of transparency, all these kinds of things. And, when I think about alternatives, I think about, anything other than stocks and bonds, things that provide portfolio opportunities that provide portfolios with different sources of return. And so in in that in that capacity, I really focus on the private side of alternatives, which is private credit, private real estate, and private equity. Alternatives also encompass things like, hedge funds and, you know, different types of, trading strategies and merger arb and long short equity and things like that, which are also considered alternatives. And then even things like commodities, managed futures, etcetera, those are alternatives as well because they provide a different source of return in client portfolios. But what I really think about when I hear the word alternatives and and private, investments are fun due diligence projects. Nobody likes a fun complex due diligence project like I do. It's a great way to, utilize a process that I developed a long time ago and, you know, put some new inputs into it and and and hopefully come up with a good answer. No. I think that's great. You made a nice distinction there, I think, between alternatives and private. Right? Like, usually, when you think alternatives, like, gold can be an alternative. And and like Sure. Brian and I, we manage Carson Housing Models along with Barry and Grant, and you have gold in the portfolios, and that's a public, you know, publicly available ETF. Right? I will mention. Whereas, alternatives, technically, when I think about it, I think of stuff that doesn't zig or zag. You don't know what direction they're going to do what what they're going to do depending on what stocks and bonds do. Like, not that we can completely predict what that you know, what that is, but, you know, they're non correlated assets. But a lot of your focus is on the private side of it, right, where there may be additional opportunities to diversify portfolios be be both from the side of returns but also risk. Right? Oh, definitely. So in terms of diversification from, those three big buckets, if you think about private equity, you're getting return sources from things that may happen like, the company being sold, which is is or or going public, which at this point is is not happening as much because the the IPO market is is somewhat closed. On within private credit, you're getting return streams from, typically, floating rate loans. So that's, you know, a different source of return relative to traditional fixed income. And then with, real estate, you're it's sort of a hybrid of both income from, you know, rents that are charged and capital appreciation of the underlying assets, whatever that may be, multifamily, industrial, data centers, what have you. Right. And on private equity side, I mean, I I think generally when things private equity is a very large umbrella there. Yes. There's different things under it. Like, maybe just to like, again, none of this is simple, but if you can simplify, like, what's the difference, just say, between venture and private equity? So venture is a sub asset class of private equity. It's the earliest stage. It's right ahead of, like, giving, you know, friends and fools who give money to early stage venture. Right? That that that that the type of the the types of venture that we're in are sort of the later stage that are about to, you know, move into the the the earlier stages of private equity. So so, yeah, they are they are the same. Some other just or they're one and the same. Some other distinctions that you might make is, you know, there are private equity investments that are in, you know, long lock, vehicles where you put your money in for ten years, and you're not gonna see you may not see any distribution during that period. You you you're probably gonna see depressed returns at the beginning as the manager moves through the j curve cycle, and and and typically very large minimums and, you know, suitability is for clients who have at least five million in investable assets. This is this is compared to, we're seeing a proliferation of, semiliquid investments and, clients can can invest in, across all of the privates. And in those strategies, you have a a semi liquid situation where you, you know, you could the potential is to take out five percent every quarter. But those strategies, I call them private equity light because they're typically invested in things like secondary. So you're it it's not like going into, the type of fund that I just described with, you know, a long block. You're getting into there there it's basically a great opportunity at this point because you can get into private equity investments that need the their LPs and GPs that need liquidity. And, you know, with the IPO market basically shut and now with the new administration making things a little more difficult, this is a great way to get exposure to the asset class, at potentially a discount. The discounts are slim. But but it's what's really great to see is that the the returns that you're getting out of the secondaries are really generated by rolling up your sleeves and generating growth and cash flow, capital appreciation versus just getting a return that feels kinda like, did I really get this just because of a secondary markup? Right. So that was that's interesting. I mean, this is I'm learning a lot. Just listen here. This is great. What are some of the risks, though? Like, I've always heard and, again, this is, you know, what I've heard. Sometimes you want your money back. You can't get your money back as soon. Liquidity can be a risk. What what are some of the risks when we talk about privates? So a lot of people focus on illiquidity, and there's a blessing and a curse with that. K. The curse is that with clients who may not be prepared for having their money locked up, it's scary. Right? You may have an unexpected event come up and you need the cash, which you're probably not gonna get. The the blessing is that, that managers have time to execute their strategy. They have confidence that they're gonna have capital in their strategy to to, you know, do what they need to do. And so, you know, from that standpoint, illiquidity is a good thing. It's also a good thing if you are in a fund where you have a mindset that is longer term and you are comfortable with the strategy. And let's say, we saw this happen a couple years ago with one of the real estate funds that I won't mention, and there were a bunch of, redemptions all at the same time. Mhmm. If you're not ready to exit that strategy and, your neighbor is ready to exit that strategy, your your investment may be adversely affected by folks who wanna get out for whatever reason. And so you wanna be invested with people with a like mindset to, you know, keep their capital invested for the long term, not get scared because of, you know, one reason or another and want to want to redeem. So safe to say this is probably isn't for everyone then. Do you kinda mention like minded people? Is this for everyone you think? I think it's so, I think, clearly, there are suitable suitability issues or requirements to get into alternatives. So that's sort of the low bar. I think if you have a long term, you know, medium to long term mindset for how you want to allocate your portfolio and you are well educated by your adviser about what you're buying, these are great you know, they're nice diversifiers for, a public market portfolio that's gonna have more gyrations in your I call it the statement reading experience. You're gonna have a little bit easier time, with a lot of, you know, private market stuff on a on a shorter term basis, and we can get into the, valuation. Valuation is another risk. You know? You you need to really understand how your positions are being marked. Like, on a public, you know, if you invested in public equity markets or ETFs, whatever, you know, you can look at the screen and see what the valuation of. What what is the net asset value? What's the price? Right? Private markets, you can't see that. That's what you mean. Right? Right. Well, so with the semi liquid strategies, you know, you're you can see, you know, more timely valuation marks than with if you're in a, you know, a a lock up LP kind of structure. But I'd like I think we're seeing this year I mean, obviously, the markets have been very volatile, and having having some diversification in your portfolio clearly has helped returns. Yeah. But but private markets are not the end all and be all. Like, portfolio, there is a place for public and private, diversification and and and roles that, the the client should have exposure to. At the margin, do you think it improves? I say this very cautiously. Improves investor behavior because, you know, if you're getting assuming everyone's on the on the same page with respect to who's investing in a particular alternative fund or vehicle, whatever it is. But, you know, it's a long term investments and when Ryan and I are always talking to advisors, clients, even like, yes. Your investments tend to be long term. Don't act based on, you know, what markets are doing today or tomorrow. And I think about, like, private markets, you don't see it. So maybe the like, I don't know. I'd love to get your perspective. Does that make you, at the margin, a better investor? Because, you know, it's long term. You already accepted it. You're not gonna pull your money out maybe because you cannot pull your money out. Right. I mean, that's kind of also part of the the blessing of illiquidity. You can't make those knee jerk reactions. Right? And so, like, if you know that like, even if you put yourself into a ten year lock with maybe a two or three or five year extension, like, you know like, you, like, you may be allocating that capital for your heirs. Okay? So you don't care about the the interim volatility, or it may be an investor who has run his own his or, his or her own business. And they understand, you know, like, they're not interested in the public market, you know, gyrations and reporting and such. Like, they they've they've done this themselves, so they're comfortable with, lockups. Right. And a large part of what you do is education. And like you mentioned, advisors have to educate their clients, but I feel like, you know, a lot of advisors are not familiar with alternatives. Yep. And but you are. Like, some of us on the team learn a lot from you as well. And speaking for myself, you know, every time I talk to you, how big is that education piece and, you know, what do you and because of you, Carson bring to the table in terms of educating our advisers about So, the education process is every day just like it is on the public side. Like, I've been doing this for a long time, and and I think this is a great, like, piece of advice for folks who are getting into the business today is to continue that education process. It's not and even for advisors, it's not just, you know, allocating to a strategy or two and kinda walking away from it. You really need to, be you need to stay in touch with what's going on so that you can educate yourself and your clients because you will get questions. I mean, all investments have bumps along the road. Right? Sure. And so, like, keeping up with, education, there are all kinds of, resources for that. We have the content hub at Carson, where I post all kinds of, things about the individual strategies and markets and, you know, kind of what everything from what are our alternatives to how to prepare for a meeting, discussing alternatives, things like that. LinkedIn is actually a really great tool. There are a lot of, folks that you can follow with good information. I do it myself. The big the big managers, Blackstone has one of the best education programs I've seen that advisors can go through their modules and, you know, really learn the basics if if they're new to the space. So you mentioned some managers. I think it seems to me like a good a decent part of your day can be talking to managers. Right? That everybody reaches out and says, we've got the best thing ever. I hear it all time. Sony hears it all time. You almost have to have a hopefully, I can say it's like a BS detector because you've done this for a long time. Yeah. How do you know which manager means it? How do you know which manager maybe there's an issue there? I mean, of course, the Bernie Madoff example, you know, it was a big scam the whole time. How can you kinda read through that, Kate? And what what are some clues you've learned that people aren't maybe telling you the truth sometimes? I've been doing this a long time, and, like, my that meter in my head is very sharp. How's it how are we doing the last twenty minutes in your head? We doing okay? You're doing okay. You're doing okay. Okay. Good. Good. I'll say, alright. That's that's good. You feel better. Alright. So, that's a great segue into preparing for meetings. I mean, I go through I go through stacks of paper to prepare for, like especially on the private side and even in on the head in the hedge fund world. A lot of times you get an hour to speak with these folks. And so you gotta be really prepared and you have to figure a lot of time. Right? Well, it's it's kinda yeah. I mean, you can always have follow-up questions and such, but you like, I I spend a lot of time, putting agendas together. What are the key questions both before managers are hired and afterwards that need to be addressed? Because, like, the days of sitting in a manager's office all day long are are gone way gone. But in terms of, like, I get emails all day long with potential new investments, and you can like, I at this point, in the semi liquid space, I really prefer the big guys because they have, really talented people. The transparency is better, and, you know, you also want trustworthy people. And, like, I just know when I hear something that sounds ridiculous or or, like, the what I really don't like is the really hard and fast sales pitch. People who talk really fast. Like, no. Not so much. Like, I don't like, I I know what you're trying to say, but just tell me in English and tell me, like, you know, slowly. You don't wanna run a foul of Kate calls, process that way. Yeah. I don't. In my in my prior life, I was called, a bulldog because I I one of my other favorite things about this business is coming up with really good questions. And I I've been on calls with you, and I will attest to that. So And that's my my second piece of advice for the young folks. Never go to a meeting thinking I'll wing it. I'll just get through the minute. Mhmm. You always like, I over, over, over I probably over prepare too much, but the overprep that I do always ends up being a trick in my back pocket for a call, you know, the next day or the next week or what have you. So it is you always want to make sure that you've got your your your facts straight, and you've gone through all the diligence stuff that you need to to do and come up with really good questions that, are not just, like, check the box kind of things, but, like, really trying to, you know, connect the dots and what you're hearing from a manager. So being over prepared is not the worst weakness. I think it reminds me of the Michael Scott in the office. What's your biggest weakness? I care too much. I try too hard. It means too much to me. You know, something like that. You know, we've got a couple minutes. It's amazing how fast this goes. I do wanna talk a little about your career and kinda Carson and kinda weave some of this together. You've kinda started hitting at it. You know, what are some ways that you see getting work with financial advisers every day and talk to really smart managers that Carson's kinda opening the door, for female female advisors, you know, females in the in the industry. And what are some reasons that you like working at Carson as a female as well? Take that however you want, but I think it's, something I think a lot of listeners wanna hear. Sure. I mean, I've been in a man's world, I think, since I was born. I've been doing this, my whole life. And I I really quickly became comfortable with, talking to men significantly older than I am at or at the time older than me, because I was prepared. And once I opened my mouth, they were like, okay. You're allowed in my office. Or or, you know, having a, a voice, not just a seat, but a voice at the table. At Carson, one of my first experiences was a dinner meeting on the sixth floor with, the crowd of of executives up there and an outside manager. I was the only female, and it was a blast. But because they, like, welcomed me as one you know, I was just one of the people at the table, and I spoke and they listened, and it was great. I think at Carson, it's very welcoming. I don't have I mean, maybe it's because of my background, but I don't I don't even think about, men versus women. I think about we're all in this together. Yep. And we have a mission to serve our advisers and serve our clients so that they reach their financial goals and dreams and and what have you. And so, you know, for me, it's just been a great opportunity. That's awesome. Love it. On that topic of, like, the process, right, and and, you know, everything you bring to the table, like, on the public side, a lot of the stuff we do is, obviously, on the public side. Like, let's say I want exposure to the S and P five hundred, easy enough. Right? Or to the market, I can go buy an SPY ETF. Right? SPY and ETF. Not a recommendation, by the way. Right? But on the public on the private side, it's harder. Right? Like, you know, oh, I want private equity, but you can't just go get private equity. Right? You have to pick and choose and select. And I feel like the most important thing it's important even on the other side too. It's people. Right? You you meant really about transparency and trustworthiness. Yeah. The two t's, but people. I I feel like Oh, that's smart. Important thing, and that's what your ultimately, your BS detector is, you know, detecting. So, like, so on the BS detector, like, if if you go into a a manager meeting and they're struggling, like, their their performance is is is done and all, and they can't really explain to you or won't explain to you why they're having trouble and what they're doing to to correct you know, to change you know, like, tweak their process or, like, make it better, like, learn from the mistake and admit that the mistake happened. That's a problem. And Is it a problem when, like, sometimes performance may be too good to be true as well? And Yes. And, like, it it, like, perform like, digging through performance and really figuring out how it was generated and asking, questions like that, you really you find out who the like, what the manager's makeup really is, which is what I spend a lot of time trying to understand what makes people tick. So yeah. Yeah. No. It seems like the people part is so important. Right? I think this is and I I mean, this is a, you know, commercial for our team too. I think one one thing we do well, obviously, Ryan and I always talk about markets and, you know, the calls we got, we make and things like that. Right? But, across our team, I I feel like we have so many of us have done due diligence for such a long time. And one thing that comes out of that, including when you and I talk, right, we talk often enough. And you're telling me about the last meeting you had, and that teaches us, you know, like, what good managers do and what bad bad managers do and how to you know, everyone makes mistakes, but you don't wanna make big mistakes. No. Exactly. If you do due diligence, you see so much of this happening. And I feel like at the end of the day, it makes us a better investment team all around because of that aspect of it. Yeah. I mean, all managers comment. But Yeah. All managers make mistakes. You just wanna see that they admit up to them, learn from them, and, you know, move on down the road. That's well said, Sono. You know, our team, we're fifteen, sixteen strong, and we've got a lot of, strengths. Of course, there's always some weaknesses, but I think, you know, we don't look at it like, oh, this is your job or my job. Our job as a team is to get the job done, make sure our Carson partners are happy, and at the end of the day, keep their clients happy as well. And it's, it's challenging at times. That's just because the market's challenging, but we always have a lot of fun doing it. You know, one thing I was thinking here, like, Warren Buffett. Okay? If you talk most people listen to this facts versus feelings podcast, Warren Buffett. Oh, yeah. He's a stocks guy. He's an icon. Who's like an icon in the private side of things that maybe we've heard of, but I didn't quite realize they're they're big in your world, Kate? Well, like, the the the the big guys at Blackstone or the big guys at a pot like, you know, the big shops are the ones Mhmm. You know, the guys at a pot, blew out. The the ones that you see in the news are, you know, kind of people that I mean, definitely, Blackstone, you know, is sort of a leader in in in the private market space. And so I to me, like, they have been really, successful in scoping out trends in in in investments that they can capitalize on. And that that's a really special skill set that not a lot of people have. And they also have, you know, obviously, massive resources to execute on what they do. But, you know, people like people like them are, you know, who I definitely pay attention to. We've got a couple more minutes left with Kate Hall on our team. This is the Women's History Month special livestream of facts versus feelings, building community for women in finance. Sonu, we've been doing this for almost two hours. Honest to goodness, it's going really, really fast. I guess one more from you, one more one more from you, one more from me, and then Kate's off the hot seat. I'll I'll pick up on exactly what you just said about, like, the big players. Right? Is I mean, with this stuff, yes, all everyone's always looking for. I want this niche thing that nobody's found yet and things like that. But because of what we talked about, transparency, trust, education, all these things being as important as it is to, you know, a space that you're generally most people are not familiar with, is bigger better? Definitely in the private credit space. I think one of the roots out there today, I didn't talk about earlier, is you're seeing a lot of new entrants come into the space who are, not crossing their t's and dotting their i's as they should on the underwriting. Right. They we will see who's swimming naked at some point. And There's a Warren Buffett quote. There we go. And, and the big guys who I prefer to be with who have the resources and expertise and balance sheet will be the the players who can scoop up, you know, deals at pennies on the dollar that the guys who don't really know what they're doing are doing today. And so that's one thing that we're I mean, it's it's a it's a blessing and a curse. It worries me about all of the new guys getting in and gals getting into private credit. Stick with the big guys there. Guys and gals. Yeah. And gals. I'm sorry. I'm used to being in a guy's world. No. No. You said I thought you said it, and that's why I was just picking up on that. This this this was great. This is again Kate Hall on the Carson investment research team. I mean, this is hopefully another example of all the different things that our investment research team does. They kinda see Sona and I out there and different people, but there's people really smart people like Kate that have done this for a while that know their stuff to continue to help our Carson partners at the end of the day grow and grow faster than the industry average is what we're trying to do, and that's what we've been doing for a long time. Kate, we've got, like, I don't know, ninety seconds or so. So I'll just kinda give you a real nice lob. You can take it however you want. Let's say there's a little girl listening out there. She wants to get into finance, and she wants to, kinda do something that you're doing. What you already gave some advice, working hard, being overprepared. What's some other advice you can give for somebody out there who wants to get into the finance world, maybe kinda from the, female point of view? So, honestly, I majored in English and Spanish, so I did not have a finance background. I like tacos. I could say taco. Yeah. But I think it's really helped me because my my, strength I mean, I can do the quantitative stuff, to a point not quite like Sonu, but qualitative stuff is what can really get you in trouble with with, hedge funds and, you know, private investments. And so that's kind of where my strength is. I would say, you know, focusing on that kind of stuff. Obviously, the education, finding a mentor as Kelsey talked about on the on the commercial. And guess what? If once you get through being or having a mentor, be a mentor. I love mentoring a person or two on our teams. I love, like, like, sharing what I know. And then the the last piece of advice I would say is always raise the bar. Don't stay stagnant in your work product. Always try and do it better, bigger maybe not necessarily bigger, but, like, always, you know, figure out ways to, improve and, you know, put out the best product you can each time you work on something. Oh, that was You do that every day. So I try I try really hard. Oh, that that was awesome. If you're listening to live stream, please don't log off yet. But if you're listening to the weekly podcast of facts versus feelings, this was awesome. This this entire recent two weeks that we've just done and shared some of these, these women's history month podcasts that we've done live stream. This is amazing. Kate, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. I know our Carson partners appreciate it, and their clients appreciate it. I mean, they don't realize it, but the work that you do really does help move the needle to make our team truly my we bought we're biased, but the best investor research team that's out there. So with all that, this is we're gonna sign off on, the live stream. Get one more guest coming if you listen to the live stream. But thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. We're gonna bring on special guest right now. Thanks, Kate. Appreciate it. Information provided on facts versus feelings for Sonovar Geese and Ryan Dietrich are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. The statements and opinions of show guests may not be reflective of CWM LLC or its affiliates. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested indirectly. Investing involves risk, risk, including possible loss of principle. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. To determine what may be appropriate for you, consult with your attorney, accountant, financial or tax advisor prior to investing. Guess on facts versus feelings are not affiliated with CWM LLC.