John Zechner
Chairman at J. Zechner & Assoc
Member since: Jan '01 · 3952 Opinions
Rating Card
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| 4.13 | 228 30.24% | 145 19.23% | 81 10.74% | 148 19.63% | 152 20.16% | ||
| 1 Month | 4.18 | 14 7.91% | 51 28.81% | 49 27.68% | 51 28.81% | 12 6.78% | |
| 6 Months | 3.04 | 37 20.79% | 40 22.47% | 18 10.11% | 49 27.53% | 34 19.10% | |
| 12 Months | 4.39 | 57 33.33% | 25 14.62% | 9 5.26% | 29 16.96% | 51 29.82% | |
| 2 Years | 4.78 | 74 48.37% | 20 13.07% | 5 3.27% | 13 8.50% | 41 26.80% | |
| 5 Years | 4.24 | 46 61.33% | 9 12.00% | 0 0.00% | 6 8.00% | 14 18.67% |
Stock Opinions by John Zechner
Absolutely. He's getting more cautious, especially lately. There's just been too much bullishness, and he's looking at sentiment, valuation, and other things.
People are underestimating economic risks from the tariff regime. Suddenly 15% is the new level instead of 10%. Trump is feeling somewhat empowered after the Iran-Israel thing, the big budget bill, and some of these trade deals (even though it wasn't 90 deals in 90 days). Trump's going to stick to the tariff story. He likes the revenue coming in from tariffs, and they need it from a deficit basis.
The market hasn't adjusted to what the impact of tariffs is going to be. Starting to see it in some corporate earnings reports, such as GM, CNR and TXN. More importantly, we're moving from an average tariff rate of 1.5-2% to 14-15% (not sure what the number is, as it's constantly changing). This will change corporate behaviour. Companies need some type of surety going forward, some consistency as to what the environment's going to be like. Until they have that, they're not going to do capital spending or hire people to the same degree.
He has economic concerns and valuation concerns. The market's now 26x trailing earnings (pretty high historically), right back to the high. And that's for earnings that are only growing at a 5% rate.
Sentiment got really beat up into the April lows, which was a great buying opportunity. All the surveys, such as AAII and Bank of America's, are right back to lowest cash and highest bullish indicators. Valuation and sentiment alone do not create market tops, but they can accelerate the downside once you do get a move in that direction. That's what we saw in April.
We're starting to see weakness in consumer spending, housing, and employment numbers. He's increased his bond weighting. Between inflation and growth, what's the bigger risk from tariffs? He thinks it's to growth. Ultimately, Trump will get his way and rates will go lower but for the wrong reason (economic data will be slowing significantly).
So in that environment, you have to get defensive. He's taking the beta out of the portfolio. The only thing he's sticking with is tech. That sector's proven itself. AI spend will continue, as you saw with GOOG's numbers last night.
Recent move down takes it to probably 17x forward PE, not bad. People are overly worried about economic risk. Will get east-west deliveries from the Jansen mine, plus increase in energy infrastructure. Sees more risk north-south. Not having owned it in a long time, he's started picking away at it.
He'd rather buy into weakness than chase things that have been running hard.
The numbers reported this week were really good. YouTube pulled in $10B in ad revenue. Holds assets it hasn't even monetized yet. Search is at risk, and the multiple reflects that. He's watching all the AI plays to see how they monetize.
He'd pick this one, for at least a trade. Only one of the Mag 7 below the market multiple.
He'd stick with it at this point. Have now see the worst news for the telecom sector, as Freedom Mobile and immigration changes were headwinds. Selling MLSE will help. Still getting paid a nice yield of 5.2% to wait.
See his Top Picks.
It's delivered, and it's been a great acquisition story. He's not playing the insurance side as much right now. Food for thought: what's autonomous driving going to do to rates and payouts? Theoretically, it should be positive. Could be a cornerstone of the financial part of your portfolio, but he doesn't own it right now on valuation.
