- 2024-03-13
- Posted by: kimsite
- Categories: Commentary, Insights, News
Click here to listen to the full interview.
CHARLES PAYNE: Well, it turns out my next guest was way ahead of the curve when he started pointing out how ridiculously expensive it is to eat fast food. In fact, his keen observation though didn’t sit too well with the mainstream media at the time, so well, he became a target. Remember this?
SCOTT MARTIN: Admittedly, you wonder how bad inflation is yesterday. Yes, I had a nice lunch at Taco Bell, cost me about $28 at Taco Bell for lunch. People need to pay for those things and they do that by getting jobs and getting in the economy and getting active and getting involved. Wait a minute.
NEIL CAVUTO: You spent $28 at Taco Bell for just yourself?
SCOTT MARTIN: For lunch? Yeah, it’s true.
SPEAKER 4: Okay, that’s a lot of chalupas. That dude said he ate $28 worth of Taco Bell. We ain’t heard from him since. Somebody check on that, man, you got what they call it, a wellness check. You got to do a wellness check like when you ain’t heard from your loved one in a while. The police got a rolled by. I better the police go by the house right now.
CHARLES PAYNE: I got to admit, that was so funny. I was cracking up with days. But since then, there have been so many other postings that have gone viral, including the Big Mac meal. Remember that one 18 bucks and then about a week or so ago, this one five guys, and listen, it wasn’t even a lot. One bacon cheeseburger, one regular soda, and a little fried folks. Not even a big fry. A little fry, $24. Joining me now, Kingsview Wealth Management, chief Investment Officer, Scott Martin. Scott, you tweeted that out. You talked about that rather in October 2022, they laughed at you. They made fun of you. Now everyone’s posting these things. You were so far ahead of the curve. You must feel vindicated.
SCOTT MARTIN: I feel vindicated. I feel better, Charles, after I digested the food I had, and you’re right, we were ahead of the score here as far as Fox Business is concerned about how we were telling the American people, telling Joe Biden, telling the administration because they didn’t know it at the time. Inflation, especially on food, was out of control. And it’s funny how nowadays, Charles, you can go almost anywhere and really have what I called a nice lunch at Taco Bell and spend 28, 35, $40 on lunch if you’re not careful because food prices are still out of control and the key takeaway are not coming down either.
CHARLES PAYNE: That was crazy, man. On GrubHub, I use GrubHub and I look, I mean just regular stuff costs so much money. But you’ve mentioned the Biden administration. So on a more serious note, this $18 Big Max finally woke everyone up, particularly the media. They tried to circle the wagons and they’ve talked about conservative commentators have started to link Big Max in Biden inflation or Biden inflation. Of course they have. I mean, talk about that, how policy, someone may say, well, how does that work? How does policy eventually affect the price of a cheeseburger?
SCOTT MARTIN: Well, let’s see. How about regulations on businesses? Oh my goodness, A state of the union operation last week or State of the Union episode or whatever you want to call that, exposition, taxes on businesses that are all going up, regulations, like I mentioned too, in the fact that supply chains are constrained. International relations are not good. So all these things that are coming down the pike or have come down the pike so far are things that go into, yes, mom and dad, that expensive Big Mac that you pay. And so the reality is, is the administration today talking about everything that they’re going to do for the consumer and everything they’re going to do against American business is killing the consumer, killing the prices on the upside of say, the Big Mac. I mean, I went to Waffle House on my way up here, Charles from Florida on the last couple of days, $24 breakfast at my favorite Waffle House in the world in Georgia. I mean, it’s out of control and it’s not going to get any better as long as this administration is in charge. By the
CHARLES PAYNE: Way, folks, is it going to be the next leg of this war on capitalism and America is on Farmers? If you think your prices are expensive, now wait till they go to War of a Farmers. Let’s switch gears though. Let’s talk about making some money. Scott, you’ve got some areas of interest. You like pharmaceuticals, industrials, consumer cyclicals, financials. So you’re moving away from all the sexy stuff here. I just want to ask you about, we’re doing a segment with Do Sal later on pharmaceuticals, and I like that you mentioned that, but consumer cyclicals, why there is it part of this conversation when having?
SCOTT MARTIN: Yes, very unlikely for me to move away from the sexy stuff, Charles, but for you, I will do that In consumer cyclicals and the industrials, the financials, the cyclical stuff just globally has been left behind and there’s been points, there’s been times that things have come out and things have lifted those boats, but then they crash again, or at least they go down. Then like you said, the sexy top, the tech and all those things, consumer discretionary have turned around as well or turned back up. So in my mind, we have to look at valuations today. The market just to me is getting a little extended. It’s getting a little euphoric. There’s some great things out there, yes, in tech, but I think for ideas today, I like things like Caterpillar on the industrial side and I still like the regional banks, my man, we’ve talked about these a lot. Fifth Third in some of those companies and say that KBE, the Regional Bank Index, Comerica is another one we’ve owned since the banking crisis of yesterday year, meaning last year. Those are areas too that I think you can find really good valuations here, reasonable prices and good upside and dividends too in those stocks too that are comparable to where the say 10 year treasury note is.
CHARLES PAYNE: Before real quick. Then when I hear someone say, I like pharmaceuticals, or I like the drug companies, essentially they say, I like Eli Lilly or Novo. Are there other areas that you like in this space of the names?
SCOTT MARTIN: There are and it’s going to sound crazy and this is one of these things, darkest, poor Dawn type of situation, but I like Merck, which is not as bad as the second one, so brace your ears, boys and girls, Bristol Myers, a company that pharmaceuticals are really starting to develop nice things here just outside of Eli Lilly as a company. So looking at Merck and Bristol Myers on, again a valuation basis, looking at cash flows, looking at balance sheets. Those are two companies that, versus Eli Lilly, which we do own and we’ve had Eli Lilly for some time for our clients. We still like some of those other names to kind of catch up to save some of the big guys in the industry.
CHARLES PAYNE: Alright, yeah, ironically, they’re a little controversial right now. They hadn’t done much except they’re like lumbering giants, but we’ll see if they can pull it off, Scott, ahead of the curve again, so I won’t ever doubt you. Thanks a lot, my man.
SCOTT MARTIN: Please don’t see you, man. All right. Alright, bye.
