John Zechner
Chairman at J. Zechner & Assoc
Member since: Jan '01 · 3922 Opinions
Rating Card
| All | 
Rating
| 
Big Win
| 
Win
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Neutral
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Loss
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Big Loss
|  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.89 | 223 28.55% | 151 19.33% | 87 11.14% | 157 20.10% | 163 20.87% | ||
| 1 Month | 4.22 | 14 7.57% | 53 28.65% | 52 28.11% | 52 28.11% | 14 7.57% | |
| 6 Months | 3.06 | 37 20.11% | 41 22.28% | 18 9.78% | 51 27.72% | 37 20.11% | |
| 12 Months | 3.12 | 55 31.61% | 25 14.37% | 9 5.17% | 33 18.97% | 52 29.89% | |
| 2 Years | 4.79 | 73 46.20% | 21 13.29% | 7 4.43% | 14 8.86% | 43 27.22% | |
| 5 Years | 4.24 | 44 55.00% | 11 13.75% | 1 1.25% | 7 8.75% | 17 21.25% |
Stock Opinions by John Zechner
He's probably less bullish than most.
Stocks are at all-time highs, so valuation is an issue. Most of the move in the last year has been a valuation increase, rather than an earnings increase. He'd rather see earnings support. He's a bit concerned about earnings growth going forward. Double-digit earnings expectations are built in for next year, seems somewhat aggressive to him. Ex-
technology, earnings growth has probably only been about 2-3% overall.
Another things that people are being presumptive on is interest rates and how much support they'll provide for the market. Expectations for cuts have come down. Policy is maybe not as tight as the market is anticipating. He'd probably say now that the neutral rate is higher at 3.4-3.5%, which means a shorter and slower path for the Fed to get there.
Inflation is really getting sticky. Core is in the 2.5-3% range. And given some of the potential policies we're hearing from the new administration, and massive fiscal spending, inflation is more likely to flatten out or start to increase again.
There's a real bifurcated US economy out there, and you can see that with the retailers. The low-end consumer is having difficulty because inflation, especially food inflation, has been a bigger problem for them. The higher-end consumer has done well -- values of their homes and investments have gone higher, and $$ in the bank is now getting 4%.
Sentiment is very bullishly high, so that's a problem. What's most important to him is the positioning. The average investor has a standard balanced portfolio of 60/40 -- with 30% Canada, 30% US, and 40% bonds. If you haven't done anything in the past year or two, you're way out of line with that and you should be looking at some selling. He doesn't see that happening.
The average equity holding right now in the US is over 70%. It's gone higher, but people haven't taken their profits, and it would make sense to do so. People should be rebalancing periodically. Now is the time to shift things around.
He's been lightening up in areas like bond proxies. If he's less bullish on interest rates, utilities and some of those that have done well may not do as well going forward. Financials and consumer stocks have done well this year, but for him there's a positive feedback loop feeding this. Consumer's bullish and spending a lot, and banks are doing well, in large part because the stock market's going up.
There are a lot of headwinds, and everyone seems bullish. They're positioned too aggressively, and that's a time to be more cautious. He's been through enough bear markets in his life to say that it's a time to lessen your risk profile. At least rebalance, don't be more aggressive than you typically are.
Not buying in this range. Likes the story for the longer term. Reminds him so much of AMZN 5-7 years ago, with sales still growing and profitability starting to increase. Now a lot of the earnings are flowing to the bottom line.
Last quarter shows that earnings growth is accelerating. Valuation at 10x revenue not as excessive as it's been. Strong momentum. Still a dominant player in an area of the industry where there's still not a lot of competition.
Taking some profit in the past 2 days as a short-term call coming into earnings. Bank valuations are at high end of traditional range. Yet to see fruition from Bank of the West acquisition. Dividend's safe. Valuation is fine.
Concerned about earnings growth going forward. Canadian economy has issues. US expansion may be more limited for a while.
Don't listen to him, listen to Warren Buffett. Warren's been selling pretty aggressively. It's been fantastic, but there are cheaper alternatives in the group with more growth potential. Still over 30x PE. iPhone is a mature business. Move out of the position, or reduce your weight a bit.
AI will benefit other mega-caps more. Despite litigation, he can get GOOG for under 20x PE, and it has better growth and ancillary assets. Same with META. See his Top Picks.
Cheaper name in the Mag 7 group with good growth potential. Will benefit from AI. Despite litigation, he can get it for under 20x PE, and it has better growth and ancillary assets than, say, AAPL. We went through this same DOJ scrutiny 20 years ago with MSFT. In the end, it won't add up to too much. In the big scheme of things, any fine will be insignificant.
Own it, put it away, ignore all the noise. One of the great growth stocks, will continue to be. YouTube is reaping rewards from previous investment. Waymo has over 22M hours of self-driving compared to TSLA's zero. Hasn't even tried to monetize the Android system, which runs 60% of cell phones.
Don't trade out, despite the bad headlines.
Great run, but he's taken money out. Trepidation about maintaining margins and the growth of Blackwell and data centres. So far, other competitors have not caught up. Concerned about semis in general; SMH ETF has not recovered from July peak the way the rest of tech has. NVDA is 25% of the SMH.
Product offerings in different industries helps them. Out of total $50B sales, $12B is from AI -- great, but they need to pick up the pace a bit. Concerned about semis in general; SMH ETF has not recovered from July peak the way the rest of tech has.
AI infrastructure chips may escape semiconductor cyclicality, but AVGO is not yet a dominant player in this area.
Concerned about semis in general. SMH ETF is down over 12% since July peak, and hasn't recovered the way the rest of tech has. The cycle's rolling over. Semis are the cyclical portion of technology. They do well when demand is exceeding supply, but then supply catches up and prices crash. Margins then come under pressure and growth slows down, so earnings expectations have to come down.
They go through those cycles, and that will never change. Thinks we're near the end of the cycle where demand exceeds supply, except for maybe a few of the AI infrastructure chips.
