She is handpicking stocks in this bear market. Choose individual stocks. It's hard work--read the reports and listen to the calls, but it pays off. Don't buy the SPY, but would own the stocks in that ETF.
It reported last night. They have consumer and industrial businesses. They beat earnings, raised guidance, trading around 15x PE, pay a 4.7% dividend. A great company to buy now. Point is, earnings can actually go up in this environment.
If you say growth/tech stock are trading 90% below retail highs and are now worth buying, you're wrong to expect stocks like this to return to past levels. Change strategy, sectors and stocks.
Devon is up 160% in the past year. The E&P companies are pricing maybe $65-75 oil, so as long as oil stays elevated they are minting cash. Yes, ESG pressures will cap what they can produce long term. So, they're making what they can now and paying that out to shareholders. It's still not expensive.
Ardagh is a small aluminum can company, the third largest in the world. It is down 30% in the past year. Has a SPAC structure which investors hate. And yet they just announced a dividend of 10 cents/share. In 2023, they will earn 55 cents/share and will return cash to shareholders.
Has inflation peaked? Yes, but inflation could sustain at high levels of 4-6%. In this environment, valuations contract to 15x; if the market trades higher, then 10-15x. Don't fight the Fed on the way up or now. Valuations are contraction and that's painful and unbalanced. A good earnings report of nice data point will offer brief relief. Stocks above 19x PE will contract and will weigh on the market for some time. 75% of companies so far that have reported have beat. Earnings and a strong consumer will save the day. This doesn't mean it will lead to an explosive rally, but the market won't fall as much otherwise.
She likes the regional banks, because the environment is complex and uncertain, and the regionals tell you exactly what their interest rate exposure is. UMPW does well in a rising rate environment. She doesn't want to own the big banks like BAC or JPM which have so many different businesses.
Buy tech? There's a big difference between Snowflake and Palo Alto. There will be volatility, but Palo Alto's moves will be fraction compared to the high-octane tech stocks (Docusign, Zoom, Lemonade). There's a big difference between them and Meta, Apple and Intel. You have to look at valuations.
A hawkish Fed triggering a sell-off today, so sell? If you're fully invested and rely on income from your dividend stocks, you can't sell everything now. Consider your capital gains bill. If your time horizon is long, then keep holding and you'll be fine. Don't be cute by selling now just to avoid a 10% drop in the market if there's a recession.