The US economy is in fairly good shape. Labour looks good, though there's lingering inflation with the tariff impact yet to hit. Longer term, he's construction. AI will be deflationary in the long run, and the tariffs will be temporary. Valuations: markets are fully valued, though could rise on organic growth or greater expectations of future growth. He expected volatility this year, though not as deep as last April. Last quarter, the market didn't hold CEOs' feet to the fire when they said that they don't know what's happening because of tariffs, so they pulled guidance; normally, that hurts stock prices, but not last quarter. This time, investors want to know guidance. Last quarter was good, and he hopes this will be.

Hugely profitable and trades at a reasonable 40x PE. Is fueled by the rise in cryptos.

Editor's Note: The Global Equities Description is focused on Small Caps which Greg considers to have a market cap between $500 million and $5 billion, The dispersion between between small and large caps is getting larger with some large caps reaching the trillion dollar mark and NVIDIA now having a market cap of $4 trillion.
He calls this year's volatile market ideal hunting grounds and doesn't necessarily see volatility as risk. He likes volatility and pessimism. and doesn't see pessimism in large caps. Some of the small caps don't have analyst coverage. Equities that they buy have between 0 and 6/7 analysts covering them.
He looks for a long term management track record of success. Companies should be cash generative and operate business that you can understand. He doesn't like debt.

Investing 101: Have the correct investment expectations

Risks widely vary across investment markets and products. Be wary of implied rates of return that sound too good to be true, because they probably are, at best, very high risk or, at worst, complete scams. Many investors get attracted to high yields: some derivative products have current yields of 15 per cent or more. But past and current returns are not the same as future returns.

A realistic long-term return for stock investors might be in the eight-per-cent range. For a bond investor, five per cent or so. Don’t chase returns. Don’t envy someone bragging about 20-per-cent returns — they are not you, and they might be taking on huge risks.

But if things do work out for you as an investor, don’t get greedy. If one of your stocks has soared, that’s great, but it likely now represents a big portion of your net worth. As such, any future disappointment in that stock is going to be far more painful. In addition to maintaining realistic expectations, we would also maintain portfolio balance and discipline — always.
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Tweaking Investment Exposure

He often gets questions about whether it's a good time to invest now, and it's usually new money coming off the sidelines. Right now, the US equity market's at all-time highs. One of the ways you can be a bit more conservative at times, or aggressive at times, is by looking at different ways to get exposure to the US large-cap area. And you can do that by using factors.

He brought along a chart of 5 different ETFs as ways to play:  SPHB, SPLV, SPHQ, SDY, and SPY. 

SPY -- low-cost MER, broad S&P 500 exposure.

SPHB -- S&P, high beta. Rebalanced a couple of times a year into the higher-volatility names. Typically exposed to ~20% of the index.

SPLV -- S&P, low volatility. About 20% of the index, typically higher yield. In the long run, similar returns to the broader market.

SPHQ -- his favourite factor. High quality. In the long run, uses filters to give you 20 names of the highest-quality companies in the S&P. Good balance sheets, less sensitive to the economic cycle. Some dividends, some growth. High-performing names. If you can handle the ride, this is the one to buy and hold.

SDY -- a way to play the S&P with a dividend basket.

Reality is that depending on what kind of investor you are, there's a different solution for everyone. Right now, with markets at all-time highs, he's not comfortable telling people to take $$ out of the bank and put it in the market. If you did right now, he'd say to go low volatility or high dividends. Because...look at his next chart.

The next chart shows that, during volatile periods over the years, when it's bad (as it was during Covid or 2015-2016) the low volatility and higher dividend options give you a better experience. They keep you invested, with more yield and less downside. But after a correction (typically about 13%), you want to pivot and shift into high-beta names for more growth, the broad S&P, or high-quality names. But do this when markets are cheap, not when they're expensive.

Learn which tools work in which environment, but there's an ETF for just about every person out there. Always stay fully invested for the long run, as it's really the best thing people can do. But tweak your exposure, so if we go through an adverse period, it's a little bit less bad. We can't time markets perfectly.