Stocks & Markets Podcast: Iran, Oil, and Volatility. How Our Pros Are Positioning Portfolios for the Rest of 2026

Stocks & Markets Podcast

In this episode of The Street Pro's Stocks & Markets podcast, Jason Meshnick hosts a special takeover in Chris Versace’s absence, welcoming longtime contributors Bob Lang, Stephen “Sarge” Guilfoyle, and Louis Llanes. 

The discussion spans updates to TheStreet Pro platform following its acquisition by TipRanks, contributor backgrounds and investing philosophies, and a wide-ranging, timely conversation on geopolitics, market volatility, and where investors may find opportunity through the rest of 2026.

Summary

Geopolitics is driving market volatility: The panel debates potential outcomes of the Iran conflict, agreeing that uncertainty remains high in the near term. While short‑term volatility and headline risk dominate, most expect some form of resolution within weeks, with markets eventually shifting focus back to rates, inflation, AI, and growth.

Positioning for 2026: Contributors emphasize resilience over prediction—favoring selective exposure to energy, semiconductors, quality equities, and alternative strategies like managed futures. Stock ideas discussed include ConocoPhillips  (COP) , Costco  (COST) , Palantir  (PLTR) , and Oracle  (ORCL) , with consensus that patience, risk management, and disciplined allocation matter more than calling an exact market bottom.

Transcript

March 31, 2026, 4:11PM

Jason Meshnick 0:07
All right. Hello and welcome to this week's The Street Pros Stocks and Markets podcast. You might notice that Chris Versace is not here today. I am Jason Meshnick and this is a podcast takeover. Chris is in the process of moving and he will be back next week and we miss him very much, but but he's never very far.
From us, I talked to him an hour ago. So I'd like to kick this off by talking about some of the changes to the Pro website. As you know, we were bought back in November by a company called Tip Ranks and so there have been some changes. The first thing that we did is we migrated to a brand new website.
A new platform. The commenting system is no longer open web. We actually have a homegrown system which is pretty good and is only going to get better because the team that we're working with, our dev team is incredibly responsive and they are hard working and they want to really.
Make Pro the best that it can be. This is just the beginning and I look forward to many new great changes for our members. So we'll be taking advantage of our new relationship and partnership with Tip Ranks. Tip Ranks also owns the Fly, which many of you are familiar with. I know Sarge when we made this.
Exchange told me that he was already a subscriber to both the fly and tip ranks. So you know that these are great quality products and so yeah, we're going to have lots of great improvements in our product mix in the future and I think this is an exciting time to be a member and it's only going to get better.
So that said, you'll probably notice that I am joined here today by three of my favorite contributors to the Street Pro. I'm going to ask each of you to quickly introduce yourself and tell us the types of information, the types of analysis that you provide to our members.
And then give us a little known fact about yourself. And I'd like to start by the person who has been with us the longest, who I believe is Bob Lang.

Bob 2:30
Thanks Jason. Great to be with with with Lou and and Sarge today. You know Sarge back a long way. I really have been with Street since 2009. So yes, almost 15 years.
Off and on a little bit here and there. So I was managing a product with Chris Versace called Trifecta back probably about 1012 years ago and then Chris and I got thrusted into managing.
Action Alerts, former Action Alerts plus portfolio in 2019 and it was a great experience. He's still doing it today and doing a math job. So what I do for the subscribers you guys, what I do is I write some articles each day on.

Jason Meshnick 3:07
It.

Bob 3:23
Technical piece on maybe a position that I'm looking at in the portfolio or outside the portfolio and I deliver that each and every day. Also help Chris writing some of the roundup on every Friday.
It's been a great, been a great run. It's been a lot of fun, a lot of turnover, a lot of changes for the company. I'm very excited about what's going on. Currently, you're a great leader and I think you're leading us to to the promised land here. One of these days, it's gonna, it's been a really super pain.
For all of us, so you asked about a fact, a little fact about us. So I will tell you that as some people know this that back in 2013 I was doing about every month, month and a half helping Jim out with.
Off the charts and he likes my presentation. So we were doing it for like I said, every month, month and a half. Back in 2013 he asked me to come up with some ideas and so I know that Jim had.
Bandied about some of these acronyms for for stocks and he still does it today. So I was looking through some of the ideas and the names that he likes. And so I, you know, I I looked at, I looked at Facebook back. I looked.
Amazon, one of my favorites. Netflix, also one of my favorites. And then Google. I know Jim really liked Google a lot. So I put together the FANG acronym back in 2013 and Jim loved it. He ran with it. It was one of the best.
Acronyms out there, very identifiable. You couldn't go almost a day without hearing some mentioned Fang. And you know, I I know, I know Jay took credit for for doing that, but some years later he.
Mentioned that he said, you know what, Bob, it was your idea, I stole it. But it's been a great, great move in talking about Fang for for so long. It was these were four stocks that you know were solid and of course you know and could have been Nvidia, right. We could have done that, but at the time.
Netflix was best. In fact, if you look at the four names, Jason, Netflix is the far and away the best performer since 2013 February. When we put the thing together, it's not even close. So you know Meta Meta is probably right there.
Behind it, and Amazon as well too, right behind it. So yeah, it's been it's been a great run. I think people have forgotten about Fang that they moved their attention to Mag 7, but you know, that was that's where it started with me.

Jason Meshnick 6:20
Yeah, I was going to say you might even say that Fang, you're coming up with Fang was magnificent as my my dad joke for the day. Sarge, let's let's move on to you because I think you've been with us since around 2015, 16, something like that.

Louis Llanes 6:24
Mm-hmm.

Bob 6:26
Thank you. Thank you.

Sarge 6:34
2016 2016 was the year I laid off Wall Street. You know, you've heard of Wall Street laying off workers, which I participated in a couple of times. But in 2016 I became fed up with Wall Street. I do. I walked away. I decided to run my own money, run my family's money.

Jason Meshnick 6:37
OK.
I.

Sarge 6:52
So far, so good. 10 years in, we're still going. I write three articles a day for the Street Pro. I start out with basically my thoughts at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, which is market recon, which is a really my flagship article, I guess at the day.
My second article is usually a topical stock, whatever stock had great earnings or lousy earnings or where it's just in the news for one reason or another, where I try to fuse the technical with the fundamental and come up with my own hypothesis for the stock. Often it's a stock I like, but not always.
And my third article has historically been a stocks under 10 piece which which I used to run that with Chris Versace. You mentioned Chris, Chris and I started that with the as the stocks under 10 portfolio. We didn't start it, we inherited it a product called the stocks under 10 portfolio which did rather well and then it's it evolved.
Into a column as all the products at what was Real Money Pro at the time were fused into into fewer products to try to simplify things for the customers. That product, which sort of still is stocks under $10, has become what I'm calling the $10,000 portfolio.
Which I'm marketing to our readers as as not a model portfolio. I actually separated $10,000 of my own money and I am investing that $10,000 as I see fit, trying to do it in a very transparent fashion and telling the the readers what I'm going to do ahead of time so that they can act ahead of me. I go last.
So I don't fund run my own ideas and we'll see if I can make some kind of ball of wax out of 10 grand. This is aimed at the at the newer investor, at the younger investor, at the investor that just doesn't have a lot of dough right now and and we'll see if we can see if we can get these folks.
Into the game of investing, into the idea of being involved in the markets. Because a lot of them have not been. A lot of them have been disenfranchised. Let's try to franchise them.

Jason Meshnick 8:47
Awesome. I love it and I'm glad you're doing it and I'm excited to talk about ways that we can highlight it even more and really build it into into the product that it can because I think it's something that has been lacking on the Street Pro and and really is lacking.
Really is lacking for investors in general, right? This is the kind of resource that people really need. So I'm excited that you're doing it and I look forward to watching how this grows.

Bob 9:15
So, Sarge, are you going to be managing these new Trump accounts for young kids going forward? I mean, that's a lot of money that Michael Dell is is is committed to to the young kids. He just pass it all over to you. Will you be managing it?

Sarge 9:32
I'm managing 10 grand, OK, publicly. That's all I'm managing. I have nothing to do with the president right now or anything like that in all. You know, we've had. The funny thing is, you know, a lot of my readers know I went through a divorce, which was finalized about two weeks ago. So I was almost all cast for the last two weeks while the market got.

Bob 9:36
Mhm.
Fair enough.

Sarge 9:52
So yes, I gave up half of my dough, but but on the other hand, I was in cash when the market got killed. So it's kind of a a loss, win, win, loss, I don't know, but but but our portfolio is down 5% right now. I started it last week.

Jason Meshnick 10:07
OK, let's in the interest of time, let's move on to Lewis and you can introduce yourself.

Louis Llanes 10:09
And.
Well, I think I'm the new new guy on the block. So maybe I should tell you guys a little bit about myself. I have a a pretty wide, broad experience set in in the investment world. I've been doing it for 30 years plus and I've been in pretty much a lot of different parts of the street. You know, I was, I was.
I was a broker. I was a hedge fund manager. I did a bunch of quantitative analysis. I did a bunch of algorithmic programming before anybody was talking about algorithmic programming and we were still calling in orders to the futures exchange.
You know, and I started, I I managed money for a very wealthy people at a bank and I started my own registered investment advisory firm. And I I'll tell you through when when the I look at my whole experience set and I I think this is one of the reasons why people are kind of a little bit confused about me. Like what exactly does Lewis do? Like what does he know? What's what's what's his specialty?
I think my specialty really is the fact that I'm I'm really a global guy. I can see things from a lot of different perspectives. I'm a quant at heart, but I I I also love the narrative because I know the narrative drives the understanding of a thesis.
And sometimes those narratives can take take things really far. So, so when you what to expect when you read my stuff, it's going to be a little bit eclectic. Sometimes I'm going to talk about something as simple as here's some exchange traded funds that are probably going to work well if we see some change in the Strait of Hormuz.
And other times you'll hear me talk about a particular stock like a Hershey where it's like clearly undervalued and and maybe we should be taking a position in this. Or I might be talking about small cap stocks or I might even be talking about a theme like you know, hey you know these these large cap stocks are are like overdone and you'll I do have a.
A little bit of a contrarian bent, but I'm also a trend follower, so it confuses people like, what are you, a trend follower? So what I really am is I'm a trend follower when I think things are on a continuation pattern and I'm and I'm a contrarian when I think things are overdone.
And so and and I'm not and I'm not always right. So I think that does confuse some people. But to to kind of put it into a cohesive set to, you know, for for people who are reading my stuff is that it's going to be eclectic. It's not going to be focused on one different thing because that's how I operate and when I manage portfolio, I manage money.
Wealthy individuals, mostly individuals. And so my strategy is multi strategy. So I have some absolute return type strategies. I have stock sleeves that have different objectives that are quantitatively driven and then I also have a beta, you know.

Bob 12:51
Yes.

Louis Llanes 12:58
Element to the portfolio where I don't want to be fully invested all the time so I can push beta up and down. So and what that does is that builds A resilient portfolio. So overall the overarching theme is I'm looking for resilience in portfolios. I don't you know I'm a technician, I'm a CMT, I'm also a fundamental analyst and it just confuses everybody. So hopefully that that.
That puts a little bit of clarity about who I am. Um.

Jason Meshnick 13:21
I think John Bollinger would call you a rational analyst.

Louis Llanes 13:25
Yes, yes, in fact.

Jason Meshnick 13:26
And and I think, I think the three of you all fallen, fall into looking at fundamentals and technicals, a combination of them both, which is why why I I liked having the three of you together. But sorry, Louis, go continue.

Louis Llanes 13:38
No, that's that's great. Speaking of John Bollinger, the 1st paper I wrote back in the day when you got a CMT, you used to have to write a paper. The 1st paper I wrote was on volatility adjusted momentum and I used some some interesting ideas from John Bollinger's work in the past and and combined momentum with it.
And so I actually saw John John Bollinger at in New York and I mentioned it to him and he developed an indicator was similar to mine. I said, hey John, did you ever read my paper I did back in 1990? And he called, he he sent me a text back. He's like, yeah, but.

Jason Meshnick 14:09
OK.
OK.

Louis Llanes 14:13
Mine's different and it is different. They are different, but he's he's such a great guy. Anyhow, so you wanted to know a little bit of interesting things about me. Well, I'm I'm a my one fun fact, a fun fact. I just picked up. I'm a guitar collector and I today I have delivered a.

Jason Meshnick 14:22
It's just one one fun fact, yeah.

Louis Llanes 14:33
Les Paul custom that is TV Blue, which is it's a first run of this Les Paul custom and I'm so excited about getting it because I just wrote this song that I'm about to record and I need these P90 S and it's like I can hear what I want and I found a steal for one.

Bob 14:38
Oh.

Louis Llanes 14:52
On reverb. So there you go. That's a fun fact for you.

Jason Meshnick 14:56
Congrats. That's awesome. And and Louis, you wrote a great article about a year ago, I think on on guitar collecting and lessons that that offers for investors. I will see if I can remember. I will try to link that in here somewhere because it is. It is one of my favorite articles because I love, I love analogies and I love.

Bob 14:57
I like it.

Jason Meshnick 15:15
I love thinking about markets in different ways. So yeah, all right with that.

Louis Llanes 15:20
I think it was called The Real Gem or something like that.

Jason Meshnick 15:22
The real gem. OK, I I will find it. Yeah. Because, yeah, it was a good article and it's worth. Maybe, maybe we'll even republish it as, you know, a new one. OK, so let's dig in. I'm going to start off with the elephant in the investor room, I guess.

Louis Llanes 15:24
Something like that.

Jason Meshnick 15:43
We're all talking about it, so let's just talk about it. On Monday, another one of our contributors, Peter Chair, who is very much a like like Lewis, very much a global macro guy, thinks a lot about geopolitics. I think geopolitics is really one of his specialties and that's why I read him on the Street Pro. He wrote about 3 potential outcomes.

Louis Llanes 15:50
Hmm.

Jason Meshnick 16:02
In in Iran, what they might mean for the financial markets. So the three are, first of all, outright victory in the near term. So under one week you might call this regime change. I'm really, you know, describing what Peter was talking about. These aren't my words, these are his. So he says they.
He says the the government might call this regime change because we've actually killed so many of their leaders. That's actually not going to be necessarily accurate, but it will be sellable and people will read it and understand it that way. Peter thinks that we could literally just declare that we won and move on.
And there is some talk about this right now. I think that's what the Wall Street Journal article that Sarge mentioned this morning in Market Recon talked about how what this means for the rest of the world, I don't know. But Peter thinks that this is a 40% likelihood. OK, the second scenario.
Is a true victory, an outright victory, where Iran changes dramatically. The regime is either overthrown or concedes so much that it becomes a normal, quote, normal player in the Middle East. US corporations might be able to establish outposts there, and they become, you know, very much like some of the other.
Countries that were in oil might fall in value, et cetera. He sees this as a twenty-five percent chance of happening. This would this would take significantly longer than this one week time frame in the in scenario #1. Scenario #3 is a stalemate and and this would be where.
The war continues for longer and we don't get a good deal or any sort of true victory and and there will be recession risk around the world. Prices will increase. We'll see, you know, inflation, food, fertilizer, semiconductors and other things. He sees this as a 35% outcome.
I want to ask each of you and let's just go in the same order that we started with. I know this is probably a hard question. This is not your expertise, but what do you see as the most likely outcome? And maybe it's not one of these three, maybe there's another outcome and and what asset class will provide the best risk adjusted returns for the rest of?
Rest of 2026 based on this. So let's let's start with you, Bob.

Bob 18:19
I I'll tell you it's hard to trade markets on rhetoric and political talk and and whatever the media is sending you. So if we just what I try to do is I try to really stay focused in on what the price action is doing in the market.
Price action will tell you everything you need to know about the past and what's happening now and also the future. I know Lewis talked about how he blends a maker of technical analysis and fundamental, and I think he might agree with me that.
Fundamentals often will win in the long run, along with technicals, but short run we have a lot of inefficiencies and that the technicals are extremely important, vital, probably the most important thing to look at when it comes to evaluating and analyzing movements of the markets and movement of stocks.
So that being said, you thank you. So I, I, I, I would tell you that you know whatever scenario we have there, it's gonna be, I think it's, I don't think it's 1-2 or three. I think it's gonna be some sort of hybrid of of those three. I don't know.

Louis Llanes 19:14
I agree with that totally.

Bob 19:30
Where some of the waiting is in in in each one of those, I think that where it's going to be difficult for the administration to admit they lost or failed in this mission because they started it and want to finish it with some sort of.
Emphatic victory.
Call. I don't know if that's happened already or it's going to happen, but I can tell you this, what is the market telling me? The market telling is telling me right now. I mean the the volatility index is down today, it's down 10% today and and and that is quite a large move.
However, it was elevated coming into today over 30% and you know what the rule of 16 says that we when the VIX is at 3232 or 3132, we're expecting 2% moves on a daily basis, however.
So that that would be a positive if you we see the volatility and it continue to come down, dripping down. However, oil prices still up today. So I I thought that perhaps maybe with some positive news on the war front, oil prices would be coming down. The crude oil is up near $2.00 on the WTI right now.
So almost to 105 was up for 106 last night before this Wall Street Journal article came out. So you know, I think the the jury is out right now. I think we really don't know. The smoke still has not cleared yet from this and I think we we could be faced with much more volatility here.
We've seen the volatility index trending higher over the past 6 1/2, seven weeks. It's not like we get a big spike up and right back down again. It's been trending higher, which tells me one thing. It tells me that big institutions are coming in and buying protection left and right and dumping stocks. That's all it is. That's what the market is telling me right now.
Now and until that until that changes, we're still going to be in this environment of sell the rips and maybe buy the dips.

Jason Meshnick 21:33
OK. And and as far as an asset class for the rest of 2026 based on your thoughts here?

Bob 21:38
Yeah.
I, I, I, I I mentioned this on in in in media 656 weeks ago and I know it's had a big run. It's about 50% in the past few weeks. I I still think crude oil is gonna be strong especially since.

Jason Meshnick 21:54
Mhm.

Bob 21:55
Iran still has the nuts and bolts of of releasing crude oil if they control the Strait of Hormuz. I think what we heard last night is that we're willing to concede the fact that yes, they do control the Strait of Hormuz. And if oil is going to have a tough time getting through there, look, they came out and predicted that $200 oil is coming.
And for a big supplier like this, they've been at this for years and years and years. You have to not take it with a grain of salt. You have to take their threat seriously about what they see. So I see energy prices, even though, you know, it's going to benefit our companies because we're very energy independent now, much more so than we were 1015.
And 30 years ago, but so our energy companies are going to be benefiting. But I do think that that oil and energy is where you still can see some value. I think maybe 140 to $160.00 a barrel is certainly not out of the realm of possibility. It's going to do some damage to the economy, but that's just what I think that's going to go.

Jason Meshnick 22:54
Yeah. And when you look at, when you look at the sector charts, the sector ETFs, the XLE energy ETF is just, you know, 45 degrees marching, marching upwards pretty steadily. Thanks, Bob. Sarge, let's, let's move on to you. Same, same thoughts.

Bob 23:07
Yep.

Sarge 23:12
All right. I do believe we're going to see some extreme volatility in the in the short term. I think what we have to decide, well, we don't have to decide what we have to observe and be prepared for is that we don't know where this article from the Wall Street Journal really came from. There's a very good chance that.
The president or the administration wants us to believe that yes, they might consider leaving the straight of Hormuz in Iranian hands and and put an end to this war. The the equity market's acting like that's the case. The oil market is not. I I find that very hard to believe. I think that this may be some kind of misinformation maybe.
Disinformation, maybe to get NATO to be more of a participant, maybe to to try to fool the Iranian military. I mean, speaking as a as a former Marine Corps infantryman, if I were going to attack in the next couple days in size, in force.
I would try to put the enemy at ease in the days ahead. So this, I believe that this is probably something of a ruse ahead of a large scale attack that's meant to bring an end to the war sooner. Whether that works or not, I don't know, but I know the market will react poorly to that, so.
Your opportunity may be coming in the next few days, but but right now I think, I think we should be maybe you start, maybe you want to start legging in. As I mentioned, I had been in cash. It's time to maybe start legging in, but it's not time to get aggressive. That time I believe is is still ahead of us.
So, so I do think geopolitical risk is the height, is the height of what to be concerned about for now. But I do think moving forward, this war will be over. Whether we declare victory or actually attain victory, this war will be over in a month or less.
We will go back to worrying about whether A I is going to steal our jobs and we will go back to wondering if the big beautiful bill is actually going to boost the economy. So those will be the things that we're actually worried about. So I do believe the price of oil will come down as the year progresses, probably within a few months. You know, it'll be gradual maybe at first. I do believe that.
Technology, not so much software, but but definitely semiconductor space. The right semiconductor stocks are are a place to be. Financials may or may not be a place to be depending on whether this inflation is sticky or not. Because if this inflation is not that sticky and Jerome Powell acted yesterday like like maybe it's not in his opinion, which I did not.
From him then you might want to be in financials. I mean I'm it's I I think the Fed is going to be have maybe a little more latitude moving forward. Not that they want to cut rates, but there won't be a pressure to raise rates and that might be enough for the market.
You know, at least at least for the the rest of 2026. So I I don't think I missed most of the energy ride. I was only in a few oil services stocks when when energy just took off and they didn't even do that well. So I missed this 40% pop year to date in energy, but I don't think I want to be in energy now. I think energy is either peaked or gotten close to peak.
It may go a little higher, but I I think that and it may spike when we had this attack I have in my head that may be the, you know, the granddaddy of the of the war in terms of of military aggression. But but I do think that things are going to get better as we move into the latter part of 2026 as the administration.
Understands that they have put the midterm elections at risk, so they try to slap a quick Band-Aid on that problem as far as they see it. So I I think that there's going to be an attempt to get the economy rolling, economic activity picking up, and I think that's going to include a rally in the stock market.

Jason Meshnick 26:51
I think that's a great perspective. Yeah. And and I love that the. Yeah, go ahead, Bob.

Bob 26:54
Hey, hey, hey, Jason, can I ask, can I ask Sarge something? Sarge as a as a military man yourself, if you were, if you were in a situation, maybe making decisions.

Jason Meshnick 26:59
Yep.

Bob 27:10
And you you realize that you're in this battle with a country that seems rather emotional and irrational. You've just wiped out a lot of their their, their military, their Navy, their their leaders and so forth like that. And you've got a cornered cat.
Is is you cannot assume that that they nothing's on, nothing like they can do is off the table, right? Nothing they can do is off the table. Anything is possible with with this country.
I don't know. I I really don't honestly want to think about the possibilities of what can happen, but how do you go back, Sarge, when when you've got any limitless amount of possibilities here, how can you prepare for that?

Sarge 27:59
As as an investor, I would prepare for that by prioritizing more cash, staples, things like that for the for the right now, for the immediate future. As I mentioned, I think we have a brighter day later on in the year, so I don't want to be in staples too long and I do want to be in growth stocks, you know X.
Software probably going forward, but and I don't want it. I don't think a ground war that involves the invasion of Iran is even feasible. But I do think the surgical control over key parts of the Iranian economy, such as Carga Island, such as energy infrastructure, maybe seizing their.
Water desalination plans, things like that, things that are cut off for special OPS, for amphibious infantry, for airborne, airborne infantry, for these kind of troops. I think we might very well do something like that and that would force Iran into a into a situation where they had almost no ability to negotiate.
That would also involve larger than tolerable US casualties. So I I'm a little bit negative on this right now, but you know, from a market perspective and from a military perspective, but but I do see the rationale and I do see a brighter day as long as we can wrap this war up before the end of April.

Louis Llanes 29:17
Yeah.

Bob 29:17
Yep.

Jason Meshnick 29:18
OK. Thank you. I want to move on to to Lewis before we move on to our next topic. So, Lewis, let's, yeah.

Louis Llanes 29:25
Yeah. So I'm, I'm not a military strategist, but this is kind of maybe I can just outline how I'm thinking about this. I'm saying, OK, there's three big levers really with this particular situation. One would be.
Oil prices, right. The other would be, is this going to spread? And then the other one would be inflation. I think those are the three biggest levers in terms of overall asset class effects. And then I go back and I go, OK, well, let's look at the historical patterns. And I was thinking about like, you know, what happened in World War 2, the.
Stock market bottom before you know the war, it was clear go for you just go down the list and the the market bottoms before it's clear, right. So I think and then also the other thing that we always know is that volatility increases when people just don't know.
So what I one of the things that I like and I've been talking about ahead of this really is adding more to managed futures trend following long short stock bond commodity currency futures type strategies and those are up you know 11% one of one of my position is up 11, the other one's up about 7.
And that's working well because whenever you have this high volatility, it affects all these other asset classes and those trend followers are going to capture that. So that I I do have a meaningful allocation to that. The other thing that I'm doing in terms of.
You know how to deal with this is just to have more resilience in terms of the portfolios focusing on quality. I do have more cash as well and Treasury bills. I'm also putting some money in variable rate instruments.
If rates continue to rise, so I want to have a little bit of positioning there, but but as far as what what the outcome is, the stalemate versus other outcomes, I really it's hard for me to guess and know for sure, but if you kind of think about it in terms of game theory, it seems to me.
That the incentives are in place to make this stop sooner rather than later by many parties, right? And so I think we'll probably see some form of just claiming victory. I really do believe that's probably likely.
No one's going to get 100% of what they want. And I do think you're already starting to see the the Strait of Hormuz open up. I mean, there is, there is oil passing through there. The big overarching thing here is the big power shift between the United States.
And China, you know, all of that, I think that's the big overarching issue that we're dealing with. And that's a really, really long-term situation. But you asked the question about 2026. So in terms of 2026, I really think managed futures is a good thing. A lot of people just don't touch that. They don't know about it. They.
But that's an asset class that usually is a big winner in that and staying with quality when we have a a a boom up. I have a portfolio sleeve where I'm I'm focusing just on companies that are high quality in terms of profitability, direct profitability, but they're also starting to.
They have momentum shifts and they are trading at reasonable valuations. A lot of those companies are in the mid and small cap area. They're very highly profitable and they're also going to, they're also benefiting from the industrialization shifts that are happening, the supply chain. I mean, I'm not going to mention any names right now in terms of individual stocks, but so that.
That is is a big part of what I'm doing and that is outperforming right now. And I agree with being careful with having too much in staples because they'll they'll turn on the dime. I mean, I think today I saw the utilities were turning, turning down. So I I don't know that I'm giving you a satisfactory answer, but my my approach is to not to try to predict.
That as much, but to be resilient and to think in terms of overall ositioning where I can make it as much as possible win win for the Ortfolio.

Jason Meshnick 33:28
Well, I I want to touch on that for a second. If you could quickly give us a name, perhaps you you mentioned managed futures. Are you doing that through an ETF or are you actually with a with a professional money manager who's doing managed futures?

Louis Llanes 33:41
So I'm doing both, but I'll mentioned some of the ETFs that's very widely used. Anybody can get it. This ticker is CTA. One of them is simplified managed futures and the other is DBMFI think out of all of the players that are in there in that space, those are probably the two best.
Like blending them together because one of them is kind of a replicator. They're looking at the overall managed futures index. That's DBMF by the way, and they manage their portfolio and to track what the trend followers are doing.
And then the other one is more classical. CTA is more classical. They'll have more equity exposure long short and you put them together and you get a really nice portfolio. By the way, you can put together these portfolios of alternative strategies if you have alternative equity, alternative fixed income and then absolute return strategies.
And you can get, you know, Sharpe ratios that are very, you know, approaching 2 and and the volatility is about the same as the bond market and you're outperforming the bond market by almost 3X. And I think that that part of the portfolio, you know that's a good carve out having a lot in fixed income right now.
I don't think it makes as much sense as as having more of these alternative strategies blended together and not not trying to to do a really a timing. Just you know I look at it from the the standpoint of selecting these these strategies that can make sense, make sure they're non correlated, blend them together kind of a combination.
Of of maximum sharp and and a minimum variance type optimization and kind of a blend of that. And I know I'm using a lot of words that are kind of like jargon, but just suffice it to say, suffice it to say I'm a little bit of a quant I know.

Jason Meshnick 35:25
Yeah, I I was going to say, Louis.

Louis Llanes 35:33
Suffice it to say that what it's basically trying to do is to give you a smoother ride with a part of your money, not in fixed income and taking some of that off the table from the equity market.

Jason Meshnick 35:43
Right. Yeah. When you're when you're talking about Sharpe ratio, you're and and a lot of what you're talking about Sharpe ratio and correlations, the statistics here, you're really just talking about coming up with securities or a portfolio that has solid risk adjusted returns. So you're not necessarily looking for absolute right that that's obviously always a goal. You want to beat the market, but this is.

Louis Llanes 36:03
Yep.

Jason Meshnick 36:03
How can you do so? How can you have strong returns with the least possible volatility? Yeah.

Louis Llanes 36:09
Yeah. And and to be able to benefit from increasing volatility by using managed futures, be able to benefit for rising interest rates by having variable interest rate instruments. But you know, I'm not talking about a huge percent of the portfolio, by the way. I'm talking about 20% of the portfolio.

Bob 36:10
Hey.

Jason Meshnick 36:15
Mhm.

Louis Llanes 36:25
You know, in my personal money as well As for most like on average for most clientele and and then the other thing I didn't mention was rising dividend type stocks. Those you know those what's funny is those actually sold off harder than the market very recently, but overall year-to-date they've been.
Been doing better. You know companies that consistently rise their dividend, raise their dividends and then also have reasonable valuations in in times like this that they tend to to do better than than some of the other stocks. But I also like that I I agree with Sarge about the tech stocks and all that stuff, the sexy stuff. I am not opposed to that.
You know, I I'm definitely not opposed to that. And I mean, and I sometimes I use them as bellwethers because I found them to be the best bellwether for the market. You know, if you find, you know, Robin Hood's starting to sell off, break support, that's telling you the market's about to go down. That's exactly what happened.
But I owned it, you know, and that you see gold coming down right now for, you know, for currency related reasons and profit taking and all that. But you know, I mean I was paring back on gold as it was going up and up and up, really parabolic, keeping the position, still have the position.
So I'm not really trying to time all in and all out. I'm more of a probabilistic investor and adjust my position size and stay diversified. That works for me because one thing I learned and I'll and I'll shut up here in a second is that you know the market money just doesn't go away. It it just shifts, right. And so you got this pie and it's going from.
One asset class and one to another. And if you're if you're just only trying to pick one asset class and and you know you really have to get it just right and the more money you're managing the harder it is to do that with a smaller account, absolutely you can time the heck out of that thing and you can really that's how you make money in the market.
But I'm kind of a little bit more in the business of of getting reasonable rates of return and preserving it as well. So for those who are interested in that kind of stuff, that's kind of more my speed.

Sarge 38:22
Hey Lewis, can I pick your brand a second? I just took I did like a 10 second analysis on these two CTA and DBMF. By the way, for the folks at home, DBMF yields 5 1/2%, so that might be interesting to you. But do you find, I mean, I don't know if I'm just eyeballing the chart wrong, but do you find that these funds tend?

Jason Meshnick 38:23
Great.

Sarge 38:41
To move ahead of the broader market when on trend reversals, they beat the market by about two to three days. Is that something I'm just imagining or is that something you've seen?

Louis Llanes 38:51
No, no, not at all. They're they're actually non-correlated. Sometimes they'll sometimes you'll see that it depends on the positioning of the of the managers if they're positioned in a way that you know where the trends, it depends on their trend speeds.
Sometimes if they have a shorter trend speed, they might be able to. That might be the case. It just depends. Like DBMF, for example, their trend speed is they're really not focusing on trend speed. They're looking. They're actually trying to match the overall trend speed of all the CTA managers.
Whereas CTA on the on the other hand, they have a blended really short-term trend speed, medium and and longer-term trend speed and so that gives them kind of a broader effect. They're they're not gonna their correlation, I want to say is something like to each other is something like .53 or something, even though they do the same thing.

Sarge 39:44
Do you find technical analysis works with these kinds of funds?

Louis Llanes 39:47
No.

Sarge 39:49
OK, that's I was wondering.

Louis Llanes 39:49
I really don't. The reason why is because there's not a support and resistance supply and demand issue with regard to them and they're both long and short. I mean, you could, you could. I mean, I'm sure you could do some, some something with that. They tend to be mean reverting.
And they tend to be very the asymmetric. So they tend to do nothing, do nothing, do nothing and have a big move and then do nothing, do nothing, do nothing and then have a big move. That's what trend following is because it's a volatility expansion type of a strategy.
So it's it's not a convergent trade where where where you're making money when things kind of settle down. It's more of a things are changing, trends are getting big and and you're just jumping on them. So I I wouldn't I if you were going to do something.
Technical. I think it would more be more mean reversion, not not trend following, not like traditional breakouts and things like that. But I don't know, I could be wrong.

Jason Meshnick 40:50
Lewis, would would you say, so when when I built the Fear and Greed index, one of the things that I did is I tried to use relationships between different different ETFs, right, different indexes effectively. So as you're talking about these managed futures funds and saying that they're only going to do well in certain market types, right, high volatility.
Markets, you could actually build some sort of an indicator around these, right? Like as you're thinking about what kind of market are we in, these things might be giving you a bit of a clue as to what's happening in the market and and that might you might be able to use that as an indicator for what may happen next in a more traditional asset class like stocks.

Louis Llanes 41:29
Yeah, yes. And I guess I should probably modify what I just said about technical analysis. You can't use it. I guess you can because the way, the way I picked it, buying it was that every time when the market gets lulled into the belief that the stock market's going to go up.
Forever. That's when you want to buy them. And so and that's why I bought them and I started buying them a couple years ago and you know and and as you know, I've actually managed that strategy. I know that I'm very intimately and I very intimately understand that strategy.

Sarge 42:00
Right.

Jason Meshnick 42:03
Yeah, exactly. Well, this is really interesting, but I I think I want to move on to a couple of questions that are a little bit more equities focused. So I I think we've established that everybody is kind of bearish, but maybe becoming a little bit more bullish as valuations start to become more reasonable.

Louis Llanes 42:04
Yeah.

Jason Meshnick 42:23
So I want to ask what each of you is looking for to identify a market bottom and do you think that we're going to have something that looks more like AV bottom or like an L-shaped bottom?
And and so let's just continue in in order of tenure starting with Bob, moving on to Sarge and then Lewis and feel free to interrupt each other and ask questions and and and and let's let's hear what you think, Bob.

Bob 42:48
So over the past 7-8 weeks, the the market is the stock market is making degrees of lower highs, lower lows. That is our textbook definition of the downtrend and until that stops happening until we get some.
Patterns that get built over the next few weeks. I'm not going to be convinced that we've hit a bottom yet. I know ebottles are always fun and exciting and thrilling and if you catch that bottom. And I've always preached that trying to kick tops and bottoms is a loser.
Through the game as a trader, as a momentum trader, I really, I don't care what the bottom is and what the top is. I just want to trade the middle. That's where I make the most money. That's where I make the better, the better money in trading smart. So to answer your question.
It's hard to say where we're bottom is going to be. There's a lot of support down lower than where we're at right now. I'm looking at it right now. Apparently some news came out while we were talking a bit ago, I think when Lewis started to talk.
Apparently the president of the head of Iran wants to the war to stop, but he wants guarantee. So the futures popped on that quite sharply. So guys, take a look at that. We work about 170 handles and then 140.
From the we popped up quite a bit. So you know, you know the market still is moving on news and moving on on headlines and that stops. That's going to put us in a situation where we can evaluate the markets a little bit better than we can right now, right now.
I'm much like Sarge. I'm sending a lot of cash right now because my ability to get is no better than anybody else. It's the flip of a coin right now. And unless somebody's shooting me a phone call and telling me something's going to be disclosed.

Sarge 44:49
Mhm.

Bob 44:57
In about 10 minutes. So you know, no, I don't have the red. I don't have the red phone like like Batman had. But so so I I don't, I don't have the hotline. So you know, I I think that.

Jason Meshnick 44:59
You're not on that list, Bob.

45:02
OK.

Jason Meshnick 45:08
Yeah.

Bob 45:14
I think, I think Lewis might agree with me that you know you get a nice base building period for since that low is established and then you start seeing some patterns of higher highs and higher lows and then you've got something to work with.
To go back up, sharp moves up like AV bottom are gonna turn into what's called the W pattern, hopefully, which means you come down, you make an interim high and then you come back down, test that interim low, make it come back up, make it that low and hopefully carve out the right.

Jason Meshnick 45:39
Mhm.
Right.

Bob 45:49
Side of the base and move back up again. That's asking a lot. That's asking, you know, several things, not just V, but it's a W if those things work well too. But it's gonna take weeks and weeks and weeks. We're gonna finish the month of March, even though we're strongly today, we're gonna finish the month of March down and the MACD.
On the monthly chart is going to crossover for a a a bigative signal. So if we have another down month in April, that's going to set this market up for a for a bigger market. As much as people won't like to hear that, that's what it that's what the technicals are telling me.

Jason Meshnick 46:27
Alright, in the interest of time, let's move on to Sarge and we'll we'll try to get start wrapping this up. But yes, Sarge, let's let's hear what your thoughts are.

Sarge 46:36
All right, not much different than Bob's. If the if there are rumors that Iran is looking for a way out, that that would greatly accelerate our our finding a bottom in the stock market. In fact, if there is some kind of deal that comes up this week, the bottom's in.
As far as technical, I've I've since I've seen since early to mid February, I guess we had the initial sell off in mid in early February. But my my identification of initiation of a of a bearish trend started around late February. I've had four confirmations or reconfirmations of the trend that I've identified.
Since today's update obviously, but we would have, we would need to make a run at the 200 day simple moving average in order to feel better about the technical situation. In order to get portfolio managers involved on the daily Mac day, we need to see the 12 day.
EMA exponential moving average move above the 26 that we need that before we before we even know that we have something in hand. Maybe if if this good news holds today, you know we we might see that tomorrow and going into a holiday weekend on life volume that could accelerate any kind of recovery. So it's easy to get carried away right now and think maybe that something's happening and maybe.
It is. That's a good thing, but I would still be a little slow going into this longer weekend unless we have hard news.

Jason Meshnick 47:55
OK, sounds good. So caution, caution raids supreme right now, Lewis.

Louis Llanes 48:03
I don't have that much more to add. I mean, let's just say a classical technical view would be it's near some serious moving averages that everybody looks at. It's bounced a little bit off of that. There's role reversal support that a lot of people are looking for. You'll probably have some buyers step in there.
You know you have rising volume on on the way down. Today it looks like it's putting together something like a hammer type pattern, but those are those are only reliable. I've done a lot of testing on these hammer patterns. Those are only reliable to the extent that you have a little short-term move, you know 2-3 days.
So it doesn't mean the the trend is reversed. And then the other thing is that we have this thing where you look at the the it's called translation to the right or translation to the left. Basically what it means is when the market's moving up and down, if it's moving longer for a longer period of time up and then comes down really fast and then goes long time up.
And comes down short period of time. That means it's translated to the right. That's bullish. We're starting to see shorter, shorter periods. This is the first wave that we have that's shorter. And so that to me is a kind of an indication that it's it's not like like.
Like ripping, roaring type bull environment in my mind, especially when you put valuations on top of that. But to me, if you just have rates drop, I think that will just change everything. You know, mortgage rates have, by the way, have clicked up quite a bit and that, you know, that'll throw us into a recession if those rates go up because I mean they were at.
599 under 30 year. Now it's at six, almost 6 1/2, 6.49. I think that's enough to throw people and that happened very quickly. You know, we have to see it's really hinged on those three things that I was mentioning in my mind.
As far as I can, as far as I can see. So it's it's hard to know. That's why I don't try to time that unless I'm tactically moving into something that I want to move in longer run. So I don't know if that helps.

Jason Meshnick 50:00
OK. Yeah. Yeah. No, that that helps a lot. I I think that's a great way to think about the markets is that getting back to my question of V or L, we'll know in the fullness of time and we can't really predict we should react.
So in the with with that I'm going to ask you a prediction question each of you. I asked you just for you know for a favorite stock pick for right now and that can be long term, short term, whatever it's up to you. So Bob and again long term, short term or long.
Or short bullish bearish. What do you got?

Bob 50:40
I did mention I like energy. Conoco Phillips is one of my favorite ones. They do a lot of business in the Middle East and even in Venezuela as well too. So Conoco Phillips long for me also.
I would, I'll give you a bonus one. Costco, you know, Costco COST has been a very, very strong stock this year. I like to gravitate to strength when it comes to individual stock selection. So this is probably one of the better names.
That's performed well during the market downturn. I think the stock is back over 1000. They have a credible business model with the memberships and we're just lapped period where they.
The whole and they had their last price increase. So you know all systems go for that as long as they continue to to battle and keep you know keep product in the in the store. And every time I go in the store, I mean I don't know about you Sarge and Lewis and.
And every time I go into the store, I'm I'm it doesn't matter what time or what day it is of the week. It's always a long line to get out and it's best to get the hot dog counter, you know, it's so, you know, so I mean, I I don't absolutely. So those are my 2.

Jason Meshnick 51:56
Yeah, there really is exactly. Costco is a force these days.

Louis Llanes 52:03
Mhm.

Jason Meshnick 52:04
Yeah, great. Uh, Sarge.

Sarge 52:08
Well, my picture will come as any surprise to anyone. OK, I'm I am buying so far with my own money. I am buying so far for the $10,000 portfolio. I believe that Buddy Waters, the the threat posed by that report is probably a bit overblown.
I do believe that Anthony Noda will be vindicated because the kid's a West Point guy. He's an infantry guy. If he's if he goes down, I'm going to be hurt and I and I'm and I'm putting my own money behind that. And that was my stock of the year for 26. I got punched in the face a couple times in the first couple months.
But you know, but but I have been adding here and 2nd, it's going to be my stock. It's been my stock of the year for a couple years prior. That's going to be Palantir. Palantir has proven their worth. They now a lot of people might not like this and this may be controversial, but without Palantir, we could not have destroyed an enemy without putting boots on the ground.
All right, now, maybe a lot of folks don't like to hear that, but Palantir gives us an advantage. It gives the the Western nations, it gives the United States and Israel an advantage over their enemies. And right now there's nobody close. And when when Alex Karp says.
That they don't really have competition. They don't really have competition. Not yet. That competition will come along. But right now I think you'll see a rebound in Palantir as we move past this war, because basically every friendly to the United States nation on Earth is going to need to spend money on Palantir's technology.

Jason Meshnick 53:24
M.

Sarge 53:38
Thank you.

Jason Meshnick 53:39
All right, 22 great picks and and again for readers, you write about both of those picks a lot. I would say last year, last couple of years, Sarge, you were known as like the the.
The the the go-to guy who is not a traditional Wall Street analyst who was who was following. You were like the independent voice around Palantir and I I know that a lot of people appreciated that. So, so yeah.

Sarge 53:57
It.

Bob 54:07
He was the he was the Palantir whisperer.

Jason Meshnick 54:10
The Palantir whisperer. Exactly. All right, let's let's move on to Lewis.

Bob 54:12
OK.

Louis Llanes 54:15
Oh, well, you guys took a couple of my picks, so I'm a little bummed out. It's OK. I do like the energy, by the way. I have a right now I own VLO, Valero, Chevron and EQTI wrote. I wrote, I think I only wrote about Valero.
But I I like that that particular basket of stocks and I also like Palantir. Just a little quick story. I actually have owned a lot of Palantir in portfolios and I actually had this client call in and had to talk to me. So got through to the US.
It's like, I I need you to sell this Palantir. I don't want to own Palantir. It was all political. It's like, well, you know, it's like, do you want me to just like make you money or do you want to be political? I don't know. Anyway, so that that does happen in my world. You guys don't have to deal with that as much as I do. But I'm going to throw out something a little bit controversial. I like Oracle.
I think Oracle is beaten up. I think that company will revive and I'm this is longer term. I think that you could start building a position. I have clients that work there and I, you know, I know, I know that the the way they time things.
I think, I think, I really think the SAS thing is a little bit overblown. Yes, there is a, you know, we're able to code things faster. There's, you know, a lot of firms are building, building things on their own. That is a real reality. But there's also this, this huge switching cost a lot of the larger firms have.
But I think you'll, I think you're Bob, you're talking about building a base. You look at Oracle, it's come down, it's probably trying to build that base and I think you can accumulate it as volume shrinks and people just forget about it.

Jason Meshnick 55:55
Awesome. I love it.

Bob 55:55
So, hey, hey, Jason. Oh, go ahead.

Sarge 55:55
Luis, can I ask you about Oracle?

Louis Llanes 55:58
Yes, Sir.

Sarge 55:59
You can and I I kind of like that name too, but I I'm stopped by the balance sheet. The the remaining performance obligation is enormous. Yet the deferred revenue on the balance sheet just isn't there. Do you do you see that? Do you? Does that cross your mind? Did you think about it?

Louis Llanes 56:15
I I do think about it. I think that they're going to work through it. It's a little bit hard to know exactly. I I've been tracking Oracle for a long time and I'm amazed at how adaptive that company is.

Bob 56:31
Yeah.

Louis Llanes 56:31
And there's there's certain things that that can happen that will. I'm I'm not an expert in that particular part of the accounting by the way, so you probably know more about it than I do. So I'm I'm looking at it from a more of a longer-term perspective from the way the chart is acting.
As well as what the company is actually doing. And I know that I don't know, but I suspect that what they're doing is going to be able to manage cash flow correctly in a way where they're not going to go to 0. But I think that what you're talking about is one of the worries that is weighing on the stock.
And you know what? But what I would like to see, by the way, with Oracle is a catalyst, a technical catalyst, you know, to to prove that I'm right. So I can't tell you how many times I've sold a stock or I or a stock looked cheap, but it was super expensive and then a stock was expensive or had problems and then it bottomed out. You know that.
So I just don't know the timing of it, but I think if you were to say, OK, what's Oracle going to be trading out at in like two to three years, I think it's going to be higher and that's kind of my time frame with some of my money. So it's not a trade.

Sarge 57:36
OK.

Bob 57:38
So, so Lois, let me ask you a technical question on Oracle here. So you you you probably remember back September of last year when they reported their earnings, they they gave some sort of five year forecast of revenue which.
Ridiculous, right? Nobody, nobody does that. But Oracle decided to do that. Safra Cats came out with a with a huge forecast of huge revenue coming from A I and the stock just, I mean, it went up 80% in about, you know, a.
Want to say 80% in about a few weeks, right? At the time before they reported that the stock was around 2:30 roughly. Now it's 138, but you look at the 200 moving average, it's only 2:20, so.
I think you're right. I think probably the fair value for the price of the stock when it comes to it on a technical basis is probably closer to the 200 moving average than it is where it is right now, right? Because if you look at that, if we, if we.
Stock moves just back up to the 200 moving average. I mean that's about it probably at a 70% return from error. I mean I think that you know that's probably where most people believe the stock is would be fairly valued. So I can, I can, I can see what you're what you're doing if you're taking a long term perspective.
I really think you're gonna be right. I think it's a good, it's good call.

Louis Llanes 59:05
Oh, thanks. You know, there was a technician. There was been several technicians that I've met. Old timers, Ralph Acompora Shaw. What's his first name? Alan Shaw. Alan was like, you know, get your ruler out. I wish I could show you the screen. You just get your ruler out.

Jason Meshnick 59:16
Alan.

Louis Llanes 59:22
And you look at that trend line, it's like, OK, still downtrend, but we could have a little bit, you know, we did have two bottoms, little bottoms there that show potentially that it's slowing, slowing down. But it'll be a while before the fundamentals turn, turn around. But one thing I do know is that the companies.
That are contracted with Oracle are so entrenched with their software, it's like virtually impossible for them to just unload Oracle's products. Will they charge less for it in the future? Will they have lower margins potentially, but they're also adapting extremely rapid rapidly right now. They're really trying to do some things.

Bob 59:40
Of.

Louis Llanes 59:59
And I've seen them do it several times, so we'll see, see what happens.

Jason Meshnick 1:00:04
Well, guys, I think we should wrap it up here. And I'm actually, I I hate to do it because I'm enjoying this Oracle conversation. And I I wonder if there's some format here that we should be thinking about where we pick an individual stock and and we we discuss some of the positives and negatives around it. But we'll have to think about that down the road for now, I just want to.
to say thank you to all of you and to our listeners and our members and and everybody for for supporting us and and for enjoying the conversation. I know I did and I look forward to more. And Chris Versace will be back next week.
So with that, I'm going to say thank you very much.

Louis Llanes 1:00:44
Thank you. I always learn something listening to you guys, so thanks for having me involved.

Bob 1:00:47
Thanks, Jason.

1:00:49
Rock on.

Jason Meshnick 1:00:49
Yeah, thank you. Here, let me stop this recording. How do I do that?

Louis Llanes 1:00:52
We'll see you.