First Trust ROI Podcast
On the ROI podcast, we discuss some of the most important questions facing investment professionals today, ranging from macroeconomic views, to perspectives on the equity and fixed income markets, to insights on practice management. We aim to cut through the noise, examine the data, and provide fresh insights to investment professionals as they help their clients find better ways to invest…seeking to generate attractive returns on their investments.
First Trust ROI Podcast
Ep 35 | Richard Bernstein—What Surprises Await Investors for 2025? | ROI Podcast
Richard Bernstein provides his perspective on key investment themes to watch in the year ahead, including overlooked opportunities, potential pitfalls, and the value of seeking “maximum diversification”.
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Hi, welcome to this episode of the First Trust ROI podcast. I'm Ryan Isakainen, etf strategist at First Trust. In today's episode, I'm joined by Richard Bernstein from the firm that bears his name, richard Bernstein Advisors. Rich has been on Wall Street for over 40 years. Before coming to RBA, he was the chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch. Rich and I are going to discuss what's going on in the markets in 2024, what he expects in 2025, and some of the risks and opportunities in the equity markets. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the ROI Podcast. So, rich, thanks again for joining us on the podcast. It's been a weird year. It's like. I don't think anyone coming in to 2024 expected that we're recording this on December 4th, that the S&P 500 would be up 27%.
Richard:Yeah, crazy, did you expect that? No, not in a million years.
Ryan:Yeah, okay. So, given that I'm crazy, did you expect that? No, not in a million years, yeah, okay. So, given that I'm going to ask what you expect for next year, do you think that the market's going to continue on this hot streak or do you think we're going to have some more surprises up in the next 2025?
Richard:Well, ryan, I think the big difference now versus a year ago is the amount of risk that individual investors are ready, willing and able to take. That is a big difference. You know, there's always this notion that people are chasing performance. I think there's tons of data that shows that people are now full in chasing performance, and so you know, I think what does that mean for the market. We'll talk about that, I'm sure, but the market's probably not as safe as most individual investors believe right now, that there's probably more risk in the market than people think, which I'm sure we'll get into. My argument is this is a time for maximum diversification. I think most investors are shunning diversification because they think it's a suck on performance, and I think that's going to be the big story for 2025.
Ryan:So from one to 10, 10 is being super risk chasing, one is being super risk averse. Where do we fit on that spectrum, do you think?
Richard:I think investors right now are somewhere. I'd say nine, nine and a half Okay, so really Really up to there's lots of data that I hate to use the word unprecedented, because my joke is that we're seeing unprecedented use of the word unprecedented, but there is unprecedented risk-taking among individual investors. You have never seen this before.
Ryan:Yeah, okay. So you mentioned maximum diversification. Can you unpack that a little bit?
Richard:Yeah, I think. Look, everybody knows that the market is up a lot because of the concentration of the market. That's been the big story. I mean, honestly, we did not expect 2023's concentration to continue into 2024. Obviously, that was the reason why I think we underestimated the potential in the market was an erowness of the market, but when you have such a small number of stocks dominating the US market and, to a larger extent, dominating the global markets, it questions like are there really no opportunities in anything else? And so I think the narrowness of the market gives investors an opportunity, one to diversify, which reduces risk, but also to expand the opportunity set of the portfolio, which nobody seems to want to do outside seven or 10 stocks.
Ryan:So, from an earning standpoint, those Magnificent Seven or whatever acronym you want to apply to them have been fantastic over the last year or two 2022, they really softened a bit, but then they've come roaring back as everyone's embracing AI. What are you seeing in terms of earnings expectations going forward into next year?
Richard:Right. So what's interesting is the earnings growth of the Magnificent Seven isn't going to implode, or you can make this very dramatic story. I don't think that's the right way to approach it. It's not that the earnings are going to implode. It's more that the fundamentals are broadening. There's more companies that are starting to grow. We put out something a month or so ago that pointed out that there are now roughly a little bit more than 70 companies just in the S&P 500. Forget mid-cap, small cap, non-us 70 companies just in the S&P that are forecast to grow earnings 25% or more, and only one of the MAG-7 passed that screen. So the opportunity set is growing and I think that's the story for at least the first half of 25 is that fundamentals are probably going to be stronger than people think.
Ryan:Okay, A lot of attention has sort of shifted towards the small and mid-cap segment of the market. Do you think that the we haven't really seen the earnings improve quite as much in some of that segment of the market, although I think the expectations in the next couple of years imply that? But do you think that that's likely to occur in the underlying fundamentals of those companies?
Richard:I think that's right and there's many reasons why I would argue that small caps and mid-caps are going to be incrementally attractive to investors. You know one their relative earnings are starting to go up. Right I think by the end of this year into early next year, you'll find small and mid cap earnings growth will be a multiple of mag seven earnings growth. Certainly nobody believes that right now. You're not hearing much discussion about it, but that's what the forecasts imply, is that that would be the case.
Richard:Now, when I say forecasts imply, people go well, who would believe the forecast? Well, why would you believe the forecast of the MAG-7 any more than you believe the forecast of anything else? Are MAG-7 analysts innately smarter than other analysts? No, I mean. So it's a little selective judgment there that we trust the MAG-7 forecast and we don't trust the forecast of any other stock. But by the end of this year, early next year, small and mid caps and something I'm sure we'll get into in more detail is this whole notion of deglobalization. And the world is contracting, whether people like it or not, for whatever reason. We could argue why this is happening, but it is happening and deglobalization, we think, is going to favor more domestically-oriented stocks as opposed to stocks that are getting a lot of their growth from outside the United States.
Ryan:Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because it was something I wanted to ask you about. You've been kind of talking about this theme of deglobalization and reshoring for over a decade now.
Richard:Yeah, that's right.
Ryan:So if you were to think that in maybe a baseball analogy, what inning are we in? When it comes to that sort of trend.
Richard:So, ryan, I just want to point out and to kind of peak people's interest a little bit, that if I could give you a theme that has outperformed the S&P 500 for the last decade, the last five years, three years, one year pick whatever time period you want and had no technology stocks in it Number one, would you be interested? Number two have you ever heard of it? And the answer is probably no to most of this.
Richard:And it's all about deglobalization that's involved in that. So what inning are we in? I think we're in the very early inning still, even though it's a 10-year plus theme already. It's hard to argue that number one. People have gravitated to it, that it's getting headlines and that the valuations are stretched. None of those are true. So I think we're still in the very early innings.
Ryan:Okay, and so, when we think about the types of companies that benefit, what types of companies do you think benefit from that trend of deglobalization and reshoring of, especially reshoring of manufacturing?
Richard:Right. So our argument has been that the main beneficiaries of that of deglobalization are mid-cap and small-cap industrial companies, right, primarily those that get their sales from within the United States. So you know, if you're talking about deglobalization, your company gets sales from China. Well, that doesn't do much for you. Here. It's really you know, you want companies that primarily sell into the United States, that are from the United States. These are companies that are really the nuts and bolts of everything that's going on, even most growth stories that people are talking about, the nuts and bolts of this.
Richard:So, for instance, let's say somebody talks about data centers. Well, who provides the HVAC to keep the data centers cool? Who provides the carbon wire so that the HVAC and the data centers can actually get their electricity? All those kind of things. And the way I describe it to people is if you were to snuggle up to somebody and say, you know, whisper mag seven in their ear, they'd be like, oh, wow, this is so exciting. Snuggle up to somebody and you know just whisper the words ball bearings, yeah, and watch them move away from you very quickly, yeah, and watch them move away from you very quickly, but that's the whole story.
Richard:Is that nobody thinks there's a story in things like ball bearings or carbon wire, inland barges, hvac, all these different things?
Ryan:So it is really ripple effects in part from some of the themes that people are enthusiastic about, like artificial intelligence, because, to your point, data centers, the demand for data centers, imply all sorts of different types of companies that will benefit. Electricity is another thing that we've talked about. The demand for electricity is going to be huge.
Richard:Yeah, I think 2024 was the first time in many years we've actually seen an increase in the demand for electricity in the United States, which is pretty wild. But the problem is the US grid is like 1950s technology. So people talk about infrastructure and generally infrastructure investments revolve around either paving roads or food courts and airports and things like that silly things like that. But really real infrastructure is things like modernizing the grid, which is not difficult to do and we just have to make an effort to do it.
Ryan:Yeah, which is not difficult to do, and we just have to make an effort to do it, yeah. The other I don't want to get into. We've gone through the political season so I won't talk too much about politics, but one of the things that people are talking about is the potential for the next couple of years that will have an impact on potentially domestic manufacturing and global as well, is the potential of adding tariffs, and the incoming administrations talked a lot about that, so I just want your thoughts on what the impact will likely be maybe the likelihood that tariffs will actually be implemented and how important is it.
Richard:So for us, I think the biggest. There's kind of two issues here. Number one is we don't think that tariffs will be as broadly implemented as is being talked about. Why? Because we don't produce anything here in the United States anymore. My joke is, you know, is anything you're wearing right now, ryan, made in the United States? No, the answer is no, nothing. No piece of clothing you are wearing is made in the United States.
Richard:And so if you start putting tariffs on clothing, clothing prices are going to go up and there's no domestic substitution to take the place of those imported goods. So if you start raising prices, you start seeing inflation goes up. We know consumers don't like inflation. Probably not politically palatable to start having all this inflation. So you may have it on selected items. That's entirely possible. My guess is you won't have it as broadly as some people are concerned about right now. Um, but you know, is that important in terms of industries? Well, you know, depending on how they structure this and that's the big, if right and I don't think anybody actually knows certain domestic industries could be protected and that would be very good for them. Um, other industries we don't have. So then it falls entirely on the consumer and that would not be good. So I think the jury should we should remain kind of agnostic about this yet until we see what actually happens.
Ryan:Yeah, you don't think we're going to have the relaunch of the textile industry in the US.
Ryan:Something tells me we're probably not, and something also tells me we're not going to run around naked either, so we're probably going to have something in between you know, the other part of the incoming administration policies that people are talking a lot about has to do with regulation, and you know a lot of talk about the DOJ, the Department of Government Efficiency, elon Musk and Vivek and I guess, generally speaking, what's your expectation for next year and, I guess, beyond, are we going to see an era of deregulatory policies being put in?
Richard:place. So two things there. One is kind of the regulation and I think in terms of less regulation, I don't know if you'll actually have deregulation, but certainly less regulation, less regulation. I don't know if you'll actually have deregulation, but certainly less regulation. I think that's a fair bet. We can discuss whether that helps companies or doesn't help companies. I think the data is much more mixed than people think. I always point out that Singapore seems to be a pretty nice place to do business and it's the most regulated economy in the entire globe. So certain regulation will go away and that'll that'll be helpful to to many corporations and and, um, you know, I think that will be the trend and I don't think I'm saying that that's anything unique that people haven't heard before.
Richard:Um, the the government efficiency stuff. Look, you always want the government to be more efficient. I don't think there's anybody who really would campaign saying we want a less efficient government. It's easier said than done. The problem is how do you create an efficient, more efficient government without mean? It's pretty hard to do those kinds of things.
Richard:So we'll see what happens, but I think the notion that we want to try to make the government more efficient is a very noble one, and why wouldn't we want to try to do that?
Ryan:Yeah, it seems to me that regulations do tend to compound over time. Oh, absolutely, and there's really no incentive usually to end up trimming old regulations that don't really have a place Right.
Richard:And I think you know there's two kinds of regulations. There's regulations that stymie business and regulations that protect the economy Right. And we'll see what happens. Some of those you know protecting the economy is probably good, stymieing business probably not so good yeah.
Ryan:Yeah, it seems like everyone probably wants certain regulations that are helping to protect them, if want certain regulations that are helping to protect them.
Richard:If it's your industry, you want less regulation. That is no doubt about that.
Ryan:Yeah yeah, yeah, okay. Another topic I wanted to ask you about that we talked a little bit about last time was thinking about inflation and Fed policy. I think when we spoke last it was either when the Fed had just begun cutting rates, or maybe it was even before, but it certainly, as the year has progressed, it has become more and more apparent that the Fed was not going to cut as much as the market had priced in.
Ryan:So right now, as we're recording this on the 4th of December, it's something like 75% chance the Fed's going to cut this month.
Richard:What's your outlook going past that? So I think there's two ways to think about this. Number one is a lot of people discuss should the Fed be cutting rates or should they not Given that? Jay Powell is not exactly calling me up and asking me my opinion on this one.
Richard:I don't think what I think they should do becomes relevant. I think we all have to discount that. As investors, we have to try to figure out what is the Fed going to do and how do we build a portfolio around that. And look, I will be honest, I don't understand why the Fed wants to ease so aggressively. Financial conditions are very easy right now. You see that in credit spreads being remarkably tight. You see that in things like private debt having no trouble raising capital. You see that in something like Bitcoin, where speculative capital is running rampant. So there's major bank balance sheets are in great shape. We know that. So where is the stress in the financial system that's stymieing the economy in one form or another? It doesn't exist. So I don't quite understand why the Fed is so intent on cutting rates. That being said, they're going to cut rates right, and we could argue about how much, but I think the important point that comes out of this is that I think investors should be If you think of the world as an over-under bet, take the over on nominal growth.
Richard:That nominal growth, real growth plus inflation, nominal growth will be stronger than investors think right now. The Fed is. Gdp is tracking right now at roughly 3% growth. Corporate profits are accelerating and the Fed's cutting rates? That doesn't make for a weaker economy. So let's take the Fed's cutting rates. That doesn't make for a weaker economy. So let's take the over on nominal GDP Now. Maybe it's more inflation, maybe it's more growth. I'm not telling you. I'm smart enough to figure that out to the decimal point but I think you want to take the over on growth, at least for the first half of the year.
Ryan:The other, I think, surprising thing about rates. Since the Fed has begun cutting, we've seen the longer end of the yield curve move higher and it's come back a little bit. But was that a surprise to you? Well?
Richard:it wasn't really, because we didn't think the Fed should be cutting in the first place. If the Fed cuts rates and we're heading into recession, the whole curve shifts down, and that's not what happened, as you point out. And so what it says is the Fed is cutting rates into a reasonable nominal growth economy that's likely to get stronger, and if people want to try to envision what the 10-year will do in 2025, just say what do you think nominal GDP growth is going to be? And you have a pretty good forecast of what the 10-year is going to do.
Richard:It doesn't track decimal point to decimal point, but the trends are pretty close and so if you think nominal growth is going to be 5% to make up a number you should expect the 10-year to roughly be around 5%. If you think it's going to be 4%, then it tells you. But it's pretty hard right now to figure out how nominal growth would be below 4 to get you a 10-year that's low. Without something like quantitative easing or something like that where the Fed is buying up all these treasuries unlikely to happen the 10-year is probably going to be a bit higher than people think as well.
Ryan:Yeah, the federal spending and the budget have been deficit spending for the last, really since COVID, and sometimes I wonder, if rates do stay higher, what does that mean for some of the financing of the treasury debt?
Richard:So there's an interesting. There's kind of an interesting weird thing that we have to kind of consider here and that is that a little more inflation helps pay down the debt. Right, because government revenues go up because of inflation. A lot of people call that bracket creep and things like that, where tax revenues corporate and personal tax revenues start going up and sales taxes go up on the local level and things like that, and so you see, the government revenues start to go up and at the same time debt is fixed, start to go up and at the same time debt is fixed right, so it becomes easier to pay off the debt.
Richard:A lot of people derogatorily call that inflating away the debt. Right, and that can happen. What people don't realize is that throughout the 60s into the 70s we inflated away our debt. If you look at debt to GDP, it looks very low back then. One of the reasons it was so low was that nominal GDP was so high because of inflation, and so, yeah, rates may go up. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're cooked Now if rates go up and the economy stalls.
Richard:that's a whole different story because then tax revenues don't go up because nobody's buying things, nobody's got jobs, there's no incomes, everything else. So we have to watch that in terms of what it means for higher rates. But higher rates themselves don't necessarily signal some kind of death and destruction for the federal government.
Ryan:Okay, okay, so high-level portfolio positioning for heading into next year. You mentioned maximum diversification, but how should investors think about positioning portfolios? Maybe unpack that a little bit more.
Richard:So in our portfolios they are really primed for what I just said, that we're taking the over on nominal growth right Again, nominal growth being real plus inflation, keeping in mind that profits growth is all nominal. Right, there's no real profits growth, it's nominal. So we're taking the over on profits growth. We're taking the over on GDP nominal GDP. And so, historically, that would say you want to emphasize cyclical stocks, right, keeping in mind the cycle is determined by cyclicals Sounds silly, but people forget it. And so you know. Our portfolios are structured so that we're overweight things like energy. We are definitely overweight industrials, for some of the reasons we talked about before. We are overweight mid-caps and small caps. We have a small overweight in financials because of the yield curve steepens. That's going to help the financial sector and even outside the United States you're seeing some of this happen. So we have a pretty decent weight in emerging markets, ex-china, not so much developed world, but most of our non-US exposure is in EMX China. Okay.
Ryan:Are there any specific areas? I mean India or Southeast Asia. Yeah, it's pretty mixed. I mean India or Southeast Asia, or yeah, it's pretty mixed.
Richard:I mean, you're actually you know there's some positive things, believe it or not. I mean people can't believe this stuff is going on because it becomes so US centric. But you know, even places like Brazil, there's been some positive things going on. The stock markets are dirt cheap. They performed miserably in 2024. So there's some real opportunities in places like that. Certainly Taiwan, although that's obviously risky from a political point of view, but you've got stocks there that are very important to the technology sector. Korea some of the best auto companies in the world are in Korea. I always love how everybody's gaga about electric vehicles and nobody talks about Korean companies, which are actually the leaders in electric vehicles and things like that.
Richard:So there's opportunities around the world that people just don't even consider anymore, which is really kind of interesting.
Ryan:So you're overweight those areas Is it safe to say that you're underweight? Some of the Mag7, then technology we are underweight.
Richard:Depending on our portfolios, we range from equal weight to underweight the Mag7. But technology is a slight underweight in our portfolios. We're overweight tech excluding the Mag7. So, if you think, about our story about mid caps and small caps, the broadening of the market. That kind of makes sense, even within the tech sector.
Ryan:Okay, so that said a lot of times we hear, and I even I don't know if guilty is the right word, but I talk a lot about making analogies between the hype cycle related to AI and what happened with the internet in the early 2000s.
Richard:Do you think that's a fair comparison?
Richard:I think it's a very fair comparison and I think it's a fair comparison to virtually any new technology that you've seen through time. You can think about the railroads and the bubbles that revolved around the railroads way back when. I think investors have a very tough time differentiating between an economic story and an investment story. Tough time differentiating between an economic story and an investment story. They're not the same. The economic story relating to AI Will AI change the economy? Of course it will. Who would argue otherwise? Right, I mean, of course it's going to change the economy. But let's remember, the internet changed the economy. The automobile changed the economy. The railroads changed the economy. My personal favorite, the light bulb changed the economy, right. Massive productivity enhancing technology, because it turned the economy to a 24-hour economy. Right, you can't have a graveyard shift in the dark, right? So this is not the first time we're seeing technology change. So when you hear people say this is an unprecedented period of technological innovation, again that word unprecedented bothers me, but it's just not true. I mean, we had many periods where you've had huge productivity enhancing technologies. Okay, that's the economic story. What's the investment story?
Richard:So one of the rules that we live by at RBA is we try, when we think long-term, about long-term secular themes. We try to think like the one banker in a town with a thousand borrowers. So think about that one banker in the town with a thousand borrowers. He or she is going to mint it. Right, there's no competition. They're going to set the interest rate on every loan. It's going to be like loan sharking, right, it's going to be fantastic returns. Turn it around Thousand banks, one borrower. That borrower is going to make out like a bandit because the banks are going to compete for the only loan in town, effectively driving down the interest rates, so the borrower is going to get free money. Moral of the story long-term secular returns are always, always a function of the supply and demand of capital, and so it's hard to argue that AI is starved for capital. And that's the whole point. And that's why I think longer term returns are going to be disappointing for people.
Ryan:Yeah, I can't help listening to your scarcity of capital analogy. Think of the energy sector Traditional energy versus green energy or whatever renewable energy. It seems like that's been the story.
Richard:So, ryan, let me give you a fact that I'm sure most of the viewers of this, or listeners, are completely unaware of, and that is that the United States may be a net exporter of energy, but we are not energy independent. Why are we not energy independent? Because the United States does not have refineries that can refine shale oil. Virtually all shale oil is for export, so people don't realize this right, and so we get about 60% of our oil from Canada Interesting point relative to tariffs, by the way we get about 60% of our oil from Canada. We are not energy independent. So there's a massive need to your point about capital starvation, there is a massive need for the modernization of US energy infrastructure.
Richard:I mean it's just if you think about, why does everybody understand the issues related to national security and semiconductors, but they don't understand the risk to the United States of energy or virtually anything right? Or we're dependent on the rest of the world for everything. How come nobody seems to understand that either? So I think there's huge investment opportunities here that are much more exciting than AI from an investment point of view. Right, maybe the? You know, as I said, nobody's going to cuddle up to you if you whisper ball bearings but, you'll probably get a better investment return.
Ryan:That is a great place to kind of land the conversation. No one's going to cuddle up to you with ball bearings. I have one more question for you, though. I try to end the podcast episodes with a recommendation from my guests on what they're reading, what they've read recently Any book recommendations on the Rich Bernstein reading list?
Richard:That's an interesting one. I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but I'm a big kind of spy, espionage kind of fan oh excellent and I'm reading a book right now.
Richard:Of course I cannot remember the title. It's about 1960s, about the FBI and a black woman as an FBI agent and how she ended up as an FBI agent and what she was going through in the 1960s, which is obviously a very turbulent time, because everybody says, you know, oh, this is an unprecedented time for turbulence in the United States. Go read about the 1960s for a second. You'll see some pretty good turbulence in our history and it's just an interesting dichotomy of FBI and civil rights. It's like just too many things wrapped into one book and it's just an interesting dichotomy of FBI and civil rights. It's like just too many things wrapped into one book and it's kind of interesting. But of course I can't remember the name of it, so it doesn't make any difference.
Ryan:All right, hold on. The book you refer to is American Spy. We looked it up. Yes, exactly, that is it. That is it. That is the book.
Richard:It is a very interesting read about all these things kind of bumping heads, the FBI, civil rights, 1960s, all these different things. It's kind of interesting, not only from the point of view of, if you like, espionage it's kind of cool, but it's also kind of cool relative to history. If you're a little bit of a history buff, a little bit of an espionage buff, it's a pretty good combination.
Ryan:I will have to check that out. One more question for you, and again this is something I've asked a few other people and got some interesting answers. So as long as I got you on the spot here, okay, you've been on Wall Street for 40 years. You've been in this industry. You've been very successful in it. Let's say your path went in a different direction. What else would you have done had you not gone into the investment industry?
Richard:Interesting. Well, given that I'm 5'8", my desire to be a New York Knick died very early, but that was what I had hoped to be when I was like 14 or something.
Ryan:Spud Webb he's a Spud Webb.
Richard:Yeah, and I had like zero vertical leap. I was going nowhere. I was going absolutely nowhere. But when I graduated college this is a very I actually tell our interns you know our college interns and when I speak to college students about careers and things like that, I always say do not try to plan out your life, because there's going to be lots of twists and turns. Things are going to change. The way the world is today will not be the way the world is 15 years, 20 years. You want to be flexible enough to understand those changes. For me, that change occurred six months into my career. So when I graduated college I wanted to be a labor economist. Okay, and why People say labor economist? You got to think. Late 70s, early 80s, labor unions were very powerful in the United States.
Richard:And every corporation had a labor relations department. It was literally a growth industry. Right Today, who would think labor relations is a growth industry? That was 1979, 1980 growth industry. And so I actually landed a job in a very prestigious economic consulting firm, in their labor economics group, and it was kind of cool work and we were doing very interesting things. Well, I graduated in May of 1980. In November of 1980, as everybody knows, ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the presidential race and we were consultants. I worked for a consulting firm, consultants billed by the hour, Not exaggerating. Tuesday is election day, wednesday morning 50% of our business went away.
Richard:Okay, I was not the sharp attack in the box, but it was very clear to me this was no longer a growth industry. Okay, and one of my friends I was a pretty good computer programmer One of my friends ended up going to a sub of Chase Bank that had the largest set of economic and financial databases in the world and he said to me there was a job opening. He said you have to come here, you're going to love this stuff. And I said Wall Street. What do I want to come to Wall Street for? I don't want to work on Wall Street. And he actually said to me in this famous quote between the two of us the starting salary is twice what you're making right now. I said, okay, I'll go for the interview, and my biggest client turned out to be the Merrill Lynch Investment Strategy Group. Wow, and that's how I got to Wall Street. And so you know I don't. It's a good story about trying to be flexible, about trying to adjust. I'm not going to tell you. I thought this out at the time.
Richard:It was more luck and stupidity of just saying, oh wow, that's kind of an interesting salary. I'll take that, not thinking about anything else, but I think it's a good lesson for younger people to keep in the back of their heads about the need to be flexible throughout your career.
Ryan:That's very interesting, thank you. Thank you for your insights. Once again, thanks for coming on the podcast, absolutely Thanks for the invitation. Yeah, Hopefully we can do it again Not too far down the road. Love to and thanks to all of you for joining us on this episode of the First Trust ROI podcast. We'll see you next time.
