Behind the Markets Podcast: Jeff & Liqian

Show from 9/8/23 Prof. Siegel joins Jeremy Schwartz and their colleagues Jeff and Liqian with his reaction to the softer tones of the market this week. He feels that China’s threat to remove Apple is a bit out of proportion which has affected the market. Although the market is not doing strong, he feels we aren’t anywhere near a recession. He doesn’t think the Fed should increase rates in September, nor does he think they will. He also explains how rising bond correlations affect the market. (12:42) Jeff begins by describing his take on the current job market and great moderation. He talks about what charts he thinks will cause a drop in the future job market and why. Jeremy also asks him to analyze the current housing market and the banks. He ends with his view on the equity markets and his suspicion of a looming recession. Liqian discusses how she feels about China’s move to step away from foreign owned companies and the over exaggeration of the Apple drop. She tells us what she thinks about the US/China relationship and if it will improve in the near future. She talks about her recent travels through China which allows her to give us a view of what is happening on the ground there right now. She also dives into investments moving to China, whether it’s a good idea and its rising popularity. Guests: Jeff Weniger, CFA serves as Head of Equity Strategy at WisdomTree. In his role, Weniger helps to formulate the firm’s stock market outlook by assessing macro and fundamental trends. Prior to joining WisdomTree, he was Director, Senior Strategist at BMO, where he worked in the office of the CIO from 2006 to 2017. He served on the firm’s Asset Allocation Committee and co-managed the firm’s ETF model portfolios for both the U.S. and Canada. In 2013, at the age of 32, Jeff was chosen as the youngest member of BMO’s Global Investment Forum, which collected the firm’s top global strategists to formulate the firm’s official long-term outlook for investment trends and markets. Jeff has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Florida and an MBA from Notre Dame. He has been a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of Chicago since 2006. He has appeared in various financial publications such as Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal and makes regular appearances on Canada’s Business News Network (BNN) and Wharton Business Radio. Liqian Ren, Ph.D., joined WisdomTree as Director of Modern Alpha in 2018. She leads WisdomTree’s quantitative investment capabilities and serves as a thought leader for WisdomTree’s Modern Alpha® approach. Liqian was previously at Vanguard, where she worked for 12 years, most recently as a portfolio manager in the Quantitative Equity Group managing Vanguard’s active funds and conducting research on factor strategies. Prior to joining Vanguard, she was an associate economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Liqian received her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Peking University in Beijing, her master’s in Economics from Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis, and her MBA and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Liqian co-hosts a podcast on China and Asian markets with Jeremy Schwartz, WisdomTree’s Global Head of Research, and she is a co-host on the Wharton Business Radio program Behind the Markets on SiriusXM 132. Learn more at: https://www.wisdomtree.com/investments Follow Jeff on Twitter: @JeffWeniger Follow Liqian on Twitter: @liqian_ren