By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
US stock futures wavering this morning after two back-to-back days of gain sessions of gains by potential tariff relief here. Now joining us, we’ve got Omar Aguilar, Schwab Asset Management CEO and CIO. Omar, great to always get your perspective, especially at a time like this where markets are searching for direction. What, from your best calculus and and modeling, are you believing for that direction to be?
00:48 Omar Aguilar
Yes, uh good morning. Um indeed, uh I think the level of uncertainty in the market, you know, has reached its peak and it’s sort of in the process of adjusting to figure out, you know, where direction to go. I think equity markets have been volatile, will continue to be volatile. I think this is uh the the the typical framework that we see in periods where there is still a lot of decisions that could impact the direction of the market. Um you know, there will be effects especially at these moment where, you know, earnings will play a role, uh but still the macro environment and trade decisions as regarding to, you know, global trade policies will still remain the headline and you know, the overall market direction may move faster depending on where those things go. We will see days where um you know, specific companies will do better because of their earnings release and their earnings outlooks and there will be others that will obviously, you know, be more affected by the, you know, how these policies. I think investors are looking also at the fixed income market and bonds to try to get a sense of where the global economy is. It’s kind of an interesting, in periods of high volatility, usually the bond market tends to be a better barometer of the direction of the economy and then the equity market seems to be a better uh way to look at the sentiment of investors. So sentiment and in and more extrapolation comes usually from equity volatility. The direction of the global macro economy seems to be better reflected in bond prices.
03:34 Speaker A
So talk to me then about where investors can find opportunity right now in terms of finding places to hide out while the tariff uncertainty unfolds and hopefully at some point for investors gets to a place of a little bit more clarity.
04:01 Omar Aguilar
Yeah, well, you know, we continue to um um engage with our clients in in trying to understand this this period of time is clearly uncertain, it’s unprecedented. Uh we haven’t seen these uh type of situations, you know, for a long, long time and therefore there’s still a lot of questions in mind. What is actually true though is that the long-term investment objectives shouldn’t change. The risk profiles shouldn’t change. And if anything, you know, we’re trying to encourage our clients is to try to just, you know, stay close to their risk profile and try not to necessarily go beyond what they believe is probably just the core set of investments that should play in the long run. You know, I think in time horizon is probably the best way to deal with the short-term volatility and uncertainty because as I said, I don’t think the volatility and the uncertainty is going to go away anytime soon. We’re still going to have several months uh until we can actually get a good footing on where the policies will go and therefore, you know, how companies will adjust. Earnings, you know, are a big driver of what the things will go, but usually earnings tend to reflect what already happened and we expect that earnings seasons will continue to be, you know, pretty solid. However, it’s going to be important for clients and for everybody to look at what the outlooks are for the future. You know, at the moment, we still expect that earnings are still not capturing the full-blown, you know, potential for tariffs because nothing has been set and nothing has been implemented. So what we encourage our clients is to look a long term, look at their perspective, continue to derisk their portfolio and look for opportunities, particularly in areas of international. You know, for the longest time, you know, most US investors since tend to be under invested in international markets. So this is a perfect opportunity for them to rebalance those and try to just get exposure to international markets that tend to provide additional diversification.