The Dividend Cafe - National Video Conference Call Replay - Volatility & This Current Moment in Investing Time - Sept. 28, 2020

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

with your host David L. Bahnsen, CIO and Managing Partner of The Bahnsen Group Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Welcome to the Dividend Cafe, weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. Well, hello everyone and welcome to yet another national call in this kind of bi-weekly series, and you'll notice that I'm a man down today. Scott Gamm is not with us today as part of his Jewish holiday, and he sends his regards, and we'll look forward to rejoining at our next call. And I think that the election, the special election issue that we had done, the version of this call a couple weeks ago, was the week after Labor Day, if I remember correctly. And so there was a little bit of things that were kind of off in terms of the timing. And now we're going to have another one of those events.

So we were actually on quite a roll of every two weeks. Our next call, and Scott will rejoin us at that time, will be three weeks from today. And the reason is that two weeks from today is Monday, October the 12th. And beginning on October the 12th, through that entire week, all the way through the Friday, Dea Pernas, who is our Managing Director

in our Solutions and Analytics Group, and a senior member in our Investment Committee. And Brian Sattel, who has been a partner of the Bonson Group for a very long time and also in our Investment Committee. They will be in New York that week with me. And we are going to be doing a sort of different version of a week that we've been doing for many years in New York and that is meeting with all of our money managers and key portfolio management relationships and so on that Monday where we normally be doing the call which actually would be two o'clock eastern and we have our meeting with Voya Fixed Income right at 2 o'clock that Monday. So because we can't meet that day, we're going to make it Monday the 19th for our next call with Scott.

But then we'll use the call to recap a lot of the meetings and takeaways and thought processes that we come away with out of that week. So I think actually our next call will be really robust. And I know that whole week often is for me. I say it's a different version because of the fact that we actually will have some of the meetings that we'll end up having to do by Zoom. Everyone's got different rules and things right now, meeting in New York. So we had different plans for the week this year that all had to get changed but um for the most part uh and actually some of the meetings are coming to our office my office has been open in New York since 4th of July

and and we're rocking and rolling and up and running and actually expanding our office in New York City and um some of the managers, their offices aren't open for whatever reason. You could probably guess what I actually think about that. But regardless, we're doing the meetings. We have things to talk about. And it's going to change some of the relationships with some of the managers. Some of it, you know, we've been in touch with some of these guys almost every week since March. But there are a lot of things going on. There's some new strategies that are coming

into different sleeves of the portfolio management here at Bonson Group. So I really do look forward to that week and look forward to sharing with you more of what comes out of that. Let me share something with you today. And by the way, by way of housekeeping, please send any of your questions during the call that come up to COVID at thebonsongroup.com. And I have about 15 devices in front of me that are supposed to alert me to the ones that come in. Hopefully the folks on my team are kind of screening these things as they come. So we'll get those questions and they'll send them to me. And I do intend to get to them live here on the call. OK, but I want to give you an example of something that I talked about from our last call in

response to the big white paper I wrote about the election and my view that the politics, no matter how strongly we all feel about different things, different issues, different candidates, and the conventional acceptances, the conventional assumptions about what those impacts are to investment markets. Over the weekend, to investment markets. Over the weekend, President Trump named Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He nominated her to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court. And some people out there may be really excited about Judge Barrett. Some people may really not be and whatnot. Okay, this has nothing to do with what people think about that appointment or not but there was you know if you're on the right you

probably there's probably a lot of enthusiasm let's say that's been generated there's a lot of momentum yesterday the new york times sent out a uh a story about president trump's tax returns that's getting a whole lot of attention and a lot of people would assume it's kind of this negative story on President Trump. Well, there's two big assumptions what I just said because this morning I got an email from a person who's really a very big Trump supporter who said, after this great weekend for President Trump, is that maybe why the market's up 500 points today? And again, as I'm speaking, it's up literally exactly 500 points. And I got another email from someone who I don't think is a huge Trump, anti-Trump person, but they don't care for him. And they had said, do you think this really bad

weekend for President Trump and with this huge New York Times story, that now it's giving more clarity and less controversy around the election and that maybe that's why the market's reacting. So they both agreed the markets are acting up and they both assumed it was a different catalyst and not just a different catalyst, but an opposite interpretation of what took place for good or for bad for President Trump over the weekend. So in one weekend and in one big market day and keep in mind it's been a very challenging market week overall particularly in technology and the NasdaQ. But I wrote down that there is eight possible interpretations of what's going on right now, all within reasonable political calculus. One could assume President Trump had a bad weekend and that's good for markets because they're obviously thinking a Biden victory is

better for markets. One could say he had a good weekend, and that's good for markets. One could say he had a bad weekend, and that's bad for markets, so they're surprised that we're up. I got a couple of those texts and emails this morning, and one could assume he had a good weekend, and that that is bad, and so they're surprised that we're up. You follow me? bad. And so they're surprised that we're up. You follow me? The different variables that all exist,

I wouldn't be interested in arguing around any of them. People can interpret what kind of weekend President Trump had all they want. I don't particularly care what kind of a weekend he had. And I don't think that that's really what's going on in markets. But this is the point I'm making, I don't think that that's really what's going on in markets. But this is the point I'm making, that there is so much variability in interpretation of facts and interpretation of what those facts may mean. Even if we could all agree such and such went well for Biden or such and such went well for Trump or it didn't or whatever, even if we could agree, which I assure you we can't, even beyond that, there's not interpretation as to what it means or ought to mean into markets. But let's take the narrative of think that the polls are not looking particularly better for

Trump, but there's a lot of people that would just say, I'm not worried about that. My instinct, my interpretation, 2016, just doesn't matter what the polls say. And so anything good happening in markets, despite difficult polls for Trump, they would take to mean it's because the polls don't necessarily matter and so forth. I cannot emphasize enough how unknowable and unprovable and unfalsifiable any of these things are. We do not know what's going to happen in the election. are. We do not know what's going to happen in the election. The polls are not ever nearly as wrong as anybody assumes they are, unless they say things you don't like them to say. But this is a very unconventional election, 2016 at unconventional result. So we just don't know. Now, if one believed that President Trump not winning the election would be catastrophic for markets immediately. It is a little hard to reconcile the performance of markets throughout the summer and even where we are now,

because I don't think anyone could say that there's like no chance he could lose. There's, you know, some chance, right? And a lot would, many would say the betting odds would say actually greater than 50% chance, you know, by a little bit. So we know it's out there as a possibility. Markets are still moving along. Is some of that because the Senate is still, you know, kind of around 50-50? whether one wants Trump, wants Biden, thinks Trump, thinks Biden, that markets really are, as I say, taking their P's and Q's from three or four things before the election. That's my view.

If you have a contested election, and if we're going to have six days before all the votes are counted in Michigan and 10 days before they're counted in Pennsylvania and a court battle in Florida and things like that, then politics will go up to number one for how markets move around with the uncertainty of things in November. And I've acknowledged that and think there will be some volatility if indeed we go there. However, as far as outcomes and where we end up, I just am reiterating the point. It's no different than points I made two weeks ago. That market action, um, is really, I think, validating my perspective on this, which is that the, uh, direction of the economy, the, um, mode in which the speed in which we get to even more of a post-COVID reality in the economy, the success by which we reopen the remaining still shut parts of the economy,

and ongoing monetary activities at the central bank level that affect valuations and affect liquidity in capital markets, that all of those things are going to matter more than where we exactly end up for all the reasons I've already discussed. So that's my view on the election and where we stand right now. That's my view on the election and where we stand right now. If Scott were on the call today, he'd point out we really have had a very high number of these days in which we were doing our calls and had a big up day in markets. It would be nice if we could take some credit for that. We sit here today, rallying here up 500.

But we sit here today rallying here up 500. I do not think that Judge Barrett is a part of that. I do not think the New York Times article is a part of that. I think, in fact, they mean nothing whatsoever to what's happening in the markets. People can decide for themselves what they think about the tax story in the paper, what they think about the Supreme Court, you know, nomination proceedings that lie in front of us. Really very relevant stories, I suppose, nationally, certainly the Supreme Court one. But market impact, I think that we're dealing with a rebound in sentiment. By the way, the tech, which has led the market drop in September, is not even what's leading it today. Tech is up today, but it's up less than the Dow and less than some of the

non-technology sectors of the market. So you just have a very broad-based kind of recovery today, maybe optimism around a vaccine, maybe encouragement when you see states like Florida reopening, when you see so many of these school reopenings that were supposedly going to lead to all kinds of problems, really, for the most part, gone very well, even where there's been cases that have broken out. I think it's something in the range of 20,000 cases from college campuses and still no medical hospitalizations or fatalities or things around any of that. I think that type of stuff gets kind of priced into markets. And then I also believe

that there is more and more talk that maybe just maybe that fourth stimulus relief bill, which is pretty much a left for dead, is still out there. Speaker Pelosi's tenor and tone and content of what she said about it over the weekend was certainly very different than what we have been accustomed to in recent weeks. And there are people I'm talking to that have been adamant a deal was never going to happen for the election and now believe one will. There's still people who do not believe it will happen if if you're me you just don't know i i talk to sources this is like the greatest frustration for me as someone who works really hard to um nurture relationships with really key inside sources on things and when i have people that i trust intimately with with things and and one of

them says it's definitely dead it's not happening and another says it's for sure happening those things really kind of confuse me but uh such is life so there we there we are possibly a forced stimulus bill um I'll make a comment a couple couple of comments on that, too. More than likely, more than likely, they're looking at somewhere in the two to two and a half trillion. So that would represent over a trillion down from what Speaker Pelosi originally said she was insisting on. And if indeed they get Republican support and the White House support, it would represent a trillion up or so from what they had said. Now, I don't think a deal was ever going to happen that didn't have a two in front of it. And I don't think that the president cares at all about it being that size.

And I've always maintained that even with some of the fiscal hawks, if there's any left in the Senate, and what Majority Leader McConnell has represented, that he can't get his Republican majority Senate on board for a deal that size. I've always said that if the president started pounding the table for it, that some of those Republican senators would end up coming around on it. And that may be where we are. But really, what kind of seems to have speaker pelosi is that they do appear to have the votes for a standalone ppp reload and um it's called a discharge petition and all they need is 20 democrats to kind of come on board with that and so that i think is really for speaker pelosi to come in and say, where do I have to be to get a deal done and retake control of the process? Because I think if they reload PPP, it would be stimulative.

It would be a victory. And yet she wouldn't have any fingerprints on it. And that would not look good for the Speaker of the House, the majority party, to kind of have something done and then not be a part of it. And so that seems to be the catalyst to them moving around here. And so let's say this deal does fall apart and they don't get the support for this bigger deal, the $2.2 to $2.4 trillion, then I think you still get a PPP reload.

And that to me is probably the lowest hanging fruit for economic relief. People have different opinions about how stimulative it is of direct payment to taxpayers. I'm not a big fan of that as a policy standpoint, but even apart from what I think of it as policy, objectively, the economics of it do not provide much of a multiplier effect. I think that when you're giving a lot of money out indiscriminately, you're inevitably giving it to folks who don't need it as much and those who won't spend it and it doesn't get the

same velocity. And the state relief issue is entirely separate. I think a lot of the states that get it are just literally going to be plugging into debt, paying off debt, and it's not really the same kind of needle moving support that we're talking about when you refer to the economic stimulus of it. The PPP side, this is, by the way, not universally true. So forgive me for what's obviously a hasty generalization. But I will say that I actually think that there's a lot of businesses that didn't need PPP the first time and they don't need it now for whatever reason their their cash flows and the performance their business the cyclicality of their industry just didn't require it and I think there are a lot of

businesses that needed it before and then then now they need it again. Like, in other words, let's take your restaurants and your hotels and certain retailers and businesses are really right in the front line of where that economic shutdown impacted. You know, there may be, and I'm sure there are, plenty of companies that needed PPP support the first time and don't necessarily need any more now. But a lot of companies that needed it before probably do need more. And that's, I think, the most targeted part of what they're looking to do and maybe what markets might be responding to to some degree is direct and targeted economic stimulus to those businesses that have been most impacted. And if I am understanding correctly what I'm hearing on a bipartisan basis for the conditions, it would be 50% of revenues still down. And yet still they've kept some degree of payroll together and things

like that. That's who would be eligible for a second bite of the PPP Apple. I do believe it's going to happen. And I actually think right now the odds look pretty good what happened before the election. I think the odds of it happening one way or the other after the election are almost 100%. But be that as it may, that's where we are. You're welcome to make any guess you want about what might be moving markets today. I've kind of offered as many different theories, alternatives as there could be out there. Let me and I'm not I'm not seeing any questions having come in at this time. And so, again, if I do get any, I promise I will address COVID at thebonsongroup.com. But the issue I'm going to spend a little bit of our time here with this morning before I wrap us up and for you on the East Coast this afternoon, I'm in California right now, is what clients of Bonson Group will be getting a notification on here in a few days what we've called Operation Magnify.

And I've been alluding to this for weeks about the kind of reorganization of portfolio construction around some of the realities that have been revealed or caused in the COVID moment. Some of them are no more complicated than some investors got a reality check as to what their comfort level was with equity volatility during March. 36% in 31 days is pretty ahistorical, but markets dropping 20% to 30% to 40%. It does happen. And within the context of an asset allocation, one has the ability to try to set a floor as to what they're comfortable with in downside volatility. And yet maybe someone went through it and decided, OK, my floor is a little higher than I thought it was as far as comfort level.

And so around that type of objective of reducing equity beta and equity volatility and the tail risk of severe events, what that can do during those shock and awe moments. I think there's a lot of people that just feel they really want and need more of an alternative exposure in the markets. They don't want to take out of equities and leave it in a no return asset class like cash. And we've talked so much about where we are, the interest rate reality of bonds. So alternatives end up perhaps warranting a heavier exposure as a reducer of

equity beta. I think that even a larger component of what's driving Operation Magnify is both the impact to income expectations, cash flow expectations, and total return expectations created by zero interest rates. And so we want to affirm that clients at X percent in boring bonds still want X percent in boring bonds. When I will in boring bonds when i will argue that two of the three objectives or two of the three advantages to boring bonds are no longer there and i speak to their ability to provide a little yield that yields mostly gone their ability to really give a big return up when everything else is going very bad. I think that risk mitigation during a tail risk event is mostly gone. But then the third advantage is still there, which is kind of a parking lot, just a little preservation safety, but without the accompanying advantages of number one and

number two. And I expect that that might take some people who wanted 30% boring bonds down to 10% or some people to zero. I mean, all those things have to be done client by client. Beyond the reality of zero interest rates and its impact to return assumptions, its impact to income and yield, and then the reduction of equity beta, we also never again, I've said, I think the phrase boring bonds, I think I've said probably six times here in the last two or three minutes. We never again want to, for internal classification purposes, when we propose an allocation, when we act on an allocation, when we think about a portfolio, when we create an investment policy for a client,

when we do a portfolio review and look over the different sleeves, we never again want credit and boring bonds lumped together. The industry calls those two asset classes, one asset class, fixed income. I believe that the return and risk characteristics of the two asset classes are so unbelievably distinct now. And much of that was revealed during COVID. So you still got a positive carry in your yield and credit and still have it now. You don't have much yield at all in boring bonds. During the COVID moment and the liquidity crisis and the sell everything and 60-annual deviation event. Boring bonds went way up.

Credit got killed with equities. Boring bonds tend to reverse correlate from equities. Credit tends to pro-correlate with equities. I don't know what advantage it is when the return aspiration is separate of credit and boring bonds, when the day-to-day risk levels are separate, and when the tail risk are separateto-day risk levels are separate and when the tail risk are separate. The tail risk expectations are separate. Therefore, we want to look at credit

as a distinct asset class, boring bonds a distinct asset class. Maybe for high income objective investors, that will mean less boring bonds, more credit. Maybe it means exact same weightings people have now, but we're just categorizing it and noting it separately. Each investor can think about that differently and will need to. Perhaps some don't want credit because they have enough risk in the equity bucket and all they're really afraid of is tail risk, big severe event risk, and why have more of that kind of risk on the books than you already have with equities. None of these are right or wrong per se. They're just examples of these sort of questions and these processes we want to go through. So the reason why we're referring to this as Operation Magnify is it's been a major multi-month process of us magnifying the principles

of how we manage money that we already believe in. We're not replacing anything. We're building on core dividend growth as the building block of a client portfolio, providing that risk premia that we invest client capital for. It provides income. It provides growth. It provides growth of income. That's what we want to build a portfolio around.

And in a perfect world, it could always be 100% of a client portfolio. But because it's not a perfect world, most, if not all investors don't want the equity beta, the tail risk, the volatility of 100% portfolio. So we like to diversify asset classes around that and that's where we are magnifying our belief system our principles through the boring bonds and credit um separating those out and and including them in the menu of things we're doing at the bonds and group uh providing income enhancement as an asset class as as a strategy, a solution, where we'll be actively managing different products and strategies within

that are geared only for those with a high cash flow objective that will enhance the total income of the portfolio, where we might include BDCs, where we might include preferreds, where we might include emerging markets that are of a high dividend distribution. We might include mortgage type securities, things that offer a high coupon, high risk, high volatility, not boring bonds, but they don't fit within our core dividend portfolio. Then the growth enhancement, maybe someone who has a long way to go or they need to monetize, receive cash flow from the portfolio. They can take more volatility.

They would like a little more juice or octane. And yet some of the traditional growth stocks are so expensive, so played out stories that everyone knows about. And they want to be a little bit more industrious, a little bit more intelligent, and a little bit more creative in the way we achieve growth complement in the portfolio. So we've created various growth oriented strategies in a bucket to complement the other parts of portfolio. And then of course, alternatives, whether it's liquid, whether it's a single manager, multi-strategy, a very robust, very successful part of Bonsai Group's investment solutions for quite some time has been manager selection, due diligence, access to really best of breed strategies and our ability to continue managing that process. And we've done nothing but build out over the last few months, even greater opportunities in our alternatives allocation. And then finally directs into liquids, things that might be reserved for a very small number of clients, but creating deal flow, access to private equity, direct, um, real estate and other opportunities that may

make sense for a select amount of clients. So seven different asset classes. If you weren't writing all of that down, um, don't worry because we're sending you out a deck at the end of the week and, and we have much more to say about it, but that's really kind of the essence of Operation Magnify. Those are the itches it was intending to scratch and the way in which we're going about doing that scratching. So with that said, one question has come in, and that is just what I think right now is the impact that COVID is happening within markets. And for those of you who read the covidandmarkets.com the the kind of regular communication we've been providing throughout the last six months and change now you probably are aware that I intend to make tomorrow Tuesday our very last edition of the missive and and that isn't because I believe that it covid is

still very much at the top of the list of what's impacting markets. I do not believe it is. And that's one of the reasons I feel very motivated to kind of evolve past that COVID missive. Now, let me say this. I did really enjoy doing a daily communication for you. There were days it was a brutal amount of work. I didn't think it was possible, but the whole existence of that communication added to how early I get up in the morning and added how late I'm sometimes working into the evening and certainly weekend time. So I am looking forward to maybe being able to reel some of that back in. But very candidly, the main reason is not anything to do with that because actually I'm replacing it with another daily communication that we're calling the DCToday.com.

TheDCToday.com. It will come out on Thursday. You'll have a chance to subscribe in or to unsubscribe if you don't want it. or to unsubscribe if you don't want it. But it will be a daily just sort of market recap covering some of the big events of the story of the day, the big stories that matter, economic news. I'm going to try to make it more succinct than the COVID markets offering was.

And I don't intend to just rehash all the COVID data every day. And the reason for that is I got to start practicing what I preach. I do not believe that when Alabama goes from 700 cases to 830 cases in a day that that means something bad. And I do not believe that when Florida goes from 1500 cases to 700 cases. It means something good. I believe more or less the information that we were getting and learning and studying and analyzing throughout March, April, May, June, et cetera,

I think we know that now. And there could be new developments. There could be new things that happen with a vaccine, with a medical emergency here, or really good news there. There can be news that comes out that I'm absolutely going to be fully engulfed in and presenting to you through the DC today.

But I don't believe that what I'm doing right now at Covert and Markets is what we originally intended. I think that there's a lot of reiteration of facts and figures that are totally accurate that take me a great deal of work to analyze and prepare the curation of facts and figures that are totally accurate that take me a great deal of work to analyze and prepare. The curation of it, I'm proud of. I think we've done a very good job with it, and I've gotten really wonderful feedback from all of you, and I appreciate that. But I think it's time to move past it. I think it's time for our society to move past this, for everyone to take whatever precautions they need to protect the safety of themselves, their loved ones within their own comfort level. I think policy needs to be highly

targeted around those most vulnerable and that the bias has to be towards economic reopening. And I will argue that both on existential lines and economic lines. I think that it is for the best mental health and energy of our society to be reopened and as normalized as possible. And I also believe that to be the case, obviously, for the economy and for transactions and for activity and for the therefore the financial well-being of many people. And the many people in this case are candidly almost all, almost all in the bottom decile of income and wealth. The negative impact from the COVID moment has been highly disproportionately shared at the lower deciles. And to the extent there are people that are really, really comfortable just keeping things shut down longer, they're mostly in a much more comfortable financial position.

None of this has anything to do with how one wants to or needs to or ought to personally feel about where we are and what they ought to do and will do medically. I'm not my only opinion here is what the market's saying and doing. You know, the comfort levels, the risk rewards, risk reward tradeoffs that I wrote about earlier in the summer. You know, those things are what they are. wrote about earlier in the summer. You know, those things are what they are. And when I advocate for a kind of trade-off mentality, I'm not advocating for how someone does the trade-off. I'm arguing for them constructing a trade-off. What I'm not very fond of is pretending that there is any solution that doesn't involve some degree of risk, doesn't involve a sort of cost benefits analysis. doesn't involve some degree of risk, doesn't involve a sort of cost benefits analysis.

And I think that that was one of the dividend cafes I wrote this summer that I was most proud of, trying to capture a reminder of a sort of life truism and a philosophical tenet that does have an awful lot of relevance in the investing world that I think plays very much here into the COVID moment. And that is the reality of trade-offs, the necessity of trade-offs. And so here we are. So by way of trade-off in our own business, I think it was time to move past the COVID markets missive. You will have your last one tomorrow, Tuesday. And the reasoning for that is essentially everything I've been saying. Now just trying to really apply what we're believing about the moment. Markets can have a lot of things that move them in the days, weeks, quarters, months, and years ahead.

And I am obsessed with where the zero interest rate policy fits into that, what the national debt, what the role of the central bank in the United States economy, this process I call Japanification. I am obsessed with corporate earnings and I want to be really focused on all of those things. And I think that at this point, the daily rehashing of some of the COVID data and whatnot, it's a lot of research on my part. I think it was time to move past that. A couple questions and we'll wrap it up here. One is wanting to know if the lower for longer interest rate environment with high debt, low growth economy. Will dividend stocks still provide dividend growth at the level we've seen the past 10 years or so? And I think it's possible they'll provide more dividend growth. I think it will be company by company.

But companies in a day and age in which we are dealing with people desperate for income and facing the realities of low yield, companies will have a tremendous incentive competitively to offer a growing dividend versus competitors or other investment options in the marketplace. However, I believe we spoke about this at our last call. We also are in an environment where stock buybacks are very much under attack politically and under attack from both Republicans and Democrats. So I think it's entirely possible that the growth of dividend has very little to do with the nominal interest rate. The level of the dividend has a lot to do with the level of the nominal interest rate,

but the growth of the dividend has to do with the growth of free cash flow. And therefore, if I'm right that we can still find and identify and select and then monitor great dividend growing companies in our portfolio manager and at the Bonson Group, I expect to achieve that same level of dividend growth. The only caveat is that certainly that absolute level of dividends that one enters into right now, if one wins the lottery tomorrow and comes in with all cash and gets a really attractive dividend growth portfolio, the kind we built at the Bonson Group, their dividend yield is going to be hundreds of basis points lower than it would have been in a higher interest rate environment 10, 20, 30, especially 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. That part's already baked in. But what the question here has to do with is the growth of those dividends.

And I don't believe the growth of the dividends is affected by the dynamics we're talking about. If anything, I think it can be affected positively i hope that answers your question john um someone wants to know what i think about the the stimulus potentially coming to airlines and and whether or not there's a logic there and then if i expect to see saved jobs from it and and so forth and and yeah i mean there's definitely a lot of controversy around it. The question here is implying some criticism of it. And I don't necessarily disagree.

However, I will say this is a great example of where what I think is totally irrelevant. There is no question that there is both on the Republican and Democrat side an extremely high aspiration to create another bailout for the airlines. The heavy controversy around TARP and the things that took place with the financials in 2008 was largely because of the fact that the Wall Street banks were a part of what had gone wrong. And I think that there is almost no pushback around additional support to the airline companies because no one believes the airline companies caused COVID or did anything wrong. Now, to my earlier point about stock buyback, some say, okay, but they had been buying back stock during the good times and now the taxpayers are coming in first of all most of the money so far has been in the form of debt not equity and there are a lot of restrictions for the airlines that come around and a couple of the big airlines didn't take it for that reason so um is there a bigger multiplier effect if they did

more with other industries you know you i mean could definitely argue that, but the ability to have airplanes moving through the skies and allowing a resumption of both business travel and leisure travel is a huge policy objective. And I'm quite confident that it's going to happen one way or the other, even if it ends up being after the election. So this is a good example of where I think it's important that our view of policy be based on what is not necessarily what we want to be. For me, it's kind of relevant. I don't really touch that sector. It is very cyclical. It's both economically cyclical, commodity price cyclical. They're notorious dividend growers than dividend cutters. So it's kind of outside the realm of what we look at anyways.

But I do appreciate the question, Robert, and hope that answer is helpful. Well, let's see here. I did see one more. No, no, that was the same one. So, OK, with that said, market's still up over 500 and I've been talking for 45 straight minutes, so I haven't done anything yet to mess up the rally we'll try to finish off the third quarter here in the next couple days and then we really look forward by the way for clients of ours please do make sure that we get you a copy of our quarterly investment deck we did one at the beginning of the year from

the fourth quarter last year. Was so proud of it. In April, there was no way we could create one from Q1 because we were living in the madness of the moment. And we did one for Q2. And yet by the time we completed it and some internal things, it was unfortunately a good four weeks into the new quarter and it was a little antiquated. We intend to turn it around with our normal quick schedule. You think I work quickly and so forth, and I do, but everyone at the Bonsai Group does. Our communications department, our design department, our production, the analyst and research folks, and Julian and his team that are doing a lot of this stuff, they're working very rapidly as well. So there's some, the takeaway is there for clients,

that quarterly deck that will be available as we go into the fourth quarter, recapping everything from Q3, our Operation Magnify update for clients that will be available later this week. And we're very excited about this kind of process and rethinking and where we're going. And what else?

Then get ready for the DCtoday.com, which is for everyone, clients and non-clients alike, our inaugural edition this coming Thursday, October the 1st. With that said, thank you, as always, for being a part of the call. Reach out with any questions, any time. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Erica and I'll look forward to being back a part of this call with you all and with our friend Scott Gamm on Monday, October the 19th. Thank you. General market commentary does not constitute investment advice. The Bonson Group and Hightower shall not in any way be liable for claims and make no expressed or implied representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of the data and other information, or for statements or errors contained in or omissions from the obtained data and information referenced herein. The data and information are provided as of the date referenced. Such data and information are subject to change without notice.

are provided as of the date referenced. Such data and information are subject to change without notice. This document was created for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed are solely those of the Bonson Group and do not represent those of Hightower Advisors LLC or any of its affiliates. Hightower Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. This material was not intended or written to be used or presented to any entity as tax advice or tax information. Tax laws vary based on the client's individual circumstances and can change at any time without notice. Thank you.