December 29, 2022
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber, Dozens of people gathered in New York’s Times Square on December 28th to celebrate Good Riddance Day, an annual tradition of bidding goodbye to the unhappy memories and experiences of the past year in order to usher in a new year with a clean slate. I was with them in spirit as an investor. I just did a quick review of the performance of many of the major stock markets around the world. Most have suffered losses in the teens or higher. Some far worse. Emerging Markets as a whole declined nearly 25%, which makes it their worst annual performance since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Picking the few winners would have required a degree of clairvoyance which most mortals lack. Who knew that Turkey’s Borsa 100 would skyrocket close to 200% recently, or that Brazil, Chile, India and Singapore would each buck the negative trend and post modest advances? Frequently contrarian strategist and WEALTHTRACK guest Dave Rosenberg, who has been bearish on the markets this year, just wrote clients this morning that an equally weighted portfolio of defense, food products, utilities, health care, farm machinery and consumer staples stocks “would be up 7.5% this year – imagine achieving that without even owning an oil & gas stock (or uranium)!” Yes, there have been winners: defense and energy sectors and most commodities, but passive index investors in stocks and bonds have not fared well. I say again, good riddance! Among the many developments I am grateful for in 2022 are the outstanding guests we were able to interview; many have been WEALTHTRACK regulars over the years. Starting with our 2005 launch we established an annual tradition of sitting down for a rare in-depth interview with Ed Hyman, Wall Street’s number one ranked economist for an unrivaled forty-two years. Hyman is Vice Chairman of Evercore, a leading independent investment banking and advisory firm where he is also the Founder and Chairman of its Evercore ISI division and leads its economic research team which publishes what is considered to be must-read research by institutional investors all over the world. In his most recent appearance he told us how concerned he is about the Federal Reserve’s extreme tightening policies and their impact on the economy and the markets. It’s probably one of the most consequential annual outlook interviews he has done with us, which is why we are re-running it over this New Year’s weekend. In addition, Hyman explains why he is holding a large cash position in his personal portfolio. In his new EXTRA interview Hyman also discusses China’s changing dynamics. The original firm that he co-founded - ISI Group, International Strategy and Investment, recognized from the very beginning that China would have an important role to play in the world economy. How right they were. As China allowed the private sector to flourish and opened up to foreign investment, it became the world’s second-largest economy. Under the dictatorial regime of President Xi Jinping, many of those policies have been curtailed to China’s detriment. Hyman’s view of China has changed as well. As regular viewers know, if you miss the show on public television, you can watch it on our website over the weekend, along with our past programs and our guests’ One Investment recommendations. You can also find the WEALTHTRACK podcast on Stitcher and SoundCloud as well as iTunes and Spotify. We are so grateful for the time you have spent with us over the past year and look forward to becoming better investors and financial stewards with you under the guidance of our best in the business guests in 2023. We wish you, your families and friends a wonderful start to the new year and a healthy, profitable and productive year ahead. Best regards, Consuelo | 
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