- 2025-03-21
- Posted by: kimsite
- Categories: Commentary, Insights, News
Click here to listen to the full interview.
CHARLES PAYNE: All right, so my next guest has been coming on for a few months now, and he’s been telling you, “Hey, avoid mega-cap tech.” And I got to tell you, if you listened to him, well, you feel pretty good right now. Let’s bring in Kingsview Wealth Management’s Chief Investment Officer, Scott Martin.
SCOTT MARTIN: What do you mean by “if you listened to him?”
CHARLES PAYNE: Well, not everybody listens to you, my man. I mean, yeah.
SCOTT MARTIN: Let’s start that now.
CHARLES PAYNE: But I think they will. They start looking at a track record. Thank you. Right. No, honestly, though, even some of the boomer times, you were giving out caution. You were giving us caution, and in hindsight, obviously, it served us pretty—
SCOTT MARTIN: Well. Great.
CHARLES PAYNE: What were you concerned about then? Was it just overvaluation?
SCOTT MARTIN: Extension of things? Hype and just hope. I mean, the fact that, Charles, you look back to what happened toward the fall with the Fed cutting rates and rates going up in the open market, the stock market going down when the Fed was easing, the election— a little bit of uncertainty there— and then a massive boost afterward, raising valuations. All this hope and hype went into those companies. We were reducing prices on our propositions because prices were nuts. And buying stuff, my friend, like you said, that was just down-and-out stuff that nobody wanted, nobody was talking about, because that was the stuff that, if we had a market like this, was going to rally back or at least toward its value better than the stuff that was being chased.
CHARLES PAYNE: Right? So I started this show talking about fundamentals because I think they’ve taken a backseat. And even the articulation of companies— like today, the names that are down— these are companies that haven’t done well. Nike hasn’t done well in a long time. I don’t know when the stock peaked, right? It peaked four years ago, maybe 1995. FedEx hasn’t done well in a long time, even when Fred Smith was still there. So there are companies out there that are getting caught up in this sort of narrative about tariffs and things like that. But if you look beyond all of that, good companies typically are good companies, and companies that are struggling just don’t turn it around overnight.
SCOTT MARTIN: Disney’s another one. Maybe Starbucks— another one that you think of. This major—
CHARLES PAYNE: Brand.
SCOTT MARTIN: —that everybody loves, goes to, they recognize it around the world. Billions of people love ’em, and they can’t get out of their own way, fundamentally speaking. Besides that suit, which is amazing, and maybe mine, which is lavender, eggplant— something like that— it’s kind of like, you have to look at fundamentals too, Charles. But you have to look at the fundamentals as they’re really getting fundamentally good, not where they’re already good. So where you catch ’em on the upswing— like we did with Nvidia over the years, we’ve done with GE, we’ve done with Costco, Eli Lilly— companies that we own in our portfolios for our clients. That was on the upswing when they were known, like Disney and some of those others, but they were still not fundamentally as strong as Disney is in those.
CHARLES PAYNE: It’s hard. They get to a point where they can’t grow anymore, and they’re kind of spinning their wheels. And the stock goes down because, to your point, you like to catch ’em this way. So then you’ve got three names to share with us. JP Morgan— this is the third time the name’s been mentioned on the show today.
SCOTT MARTIN: Sell it. Let’s get that on the sell side.
CHARLES PAYNE: So everyone likes JP Morgan. Why does everyone like JP Morgan?
SCOTT MARTIN: Because they got absolutely slaughtered in the last couple of weeks for no reason. And the banks, in theory— based on interest rates, based on the fact that I believe they’re going to be smarter about lending if we do have some sort of slowdown— I think that the consumer is fine, by the way, especially the high-end consumer, which is who the banks want to lend to anyway.
CHARLES PAYNE: And the easiest way to identify high-end consumers is what? The lavender and eggplant?
SCOTT MARTIN: Lavender, eggplant, how much money they have in their wallet. A guy that wears a suit and tie like that— maybe just a guess. JP Morgan got absolutely hammered a couple of weeks ago for no reason— because of Fed regulations, because of Fed policy. They’re going to come back. They already have.
CHARLES PAYNE: MasterCard. Are you concerned, though, that the administration— they’ve been saber-rattling because MasterCard and Visa have something of a monopolistic hold on the industry?
SCOTT MARTIN: Yeah. So what are they going to do? I mean, you’re going to invite American Express in there too? Great. There’s three of ’em. I think that’s an area too, though, Charles, you can’t really fix that. Is the government going to have a credit card? I don’t think so. MasterCard’s just the toll booth. I love them. And they’ve actually been hit as well in this downturn— about to come back strong because the consumer’s fine.
CHARLES PAYNE: Shake Shack.
SCOTT MARTIN: Shake Shack— best breakfast on the planet as far as fast food goes. That beats Wendy’s and your favorite, Taco Bell— which, we haven’t done a Taco Bell thing in a while. We will. The point is, Shake Shack— hammered again because restaurants, tariffs, inflation— consumer bad, bad, bad. Good, good, good. Breakfast, it tastes really nice, it makes you feel good. Shake Shack got down to valuations— I think, Charles, that got really attractive. It’s coming back already.
CHARLES PAYNE: So investing 101— go with your gut?
SCOTT MARTIN: Yes. And when it’s filled with Shake Shack breakfast.
CHARLES PAYNE: Yeah, my man. I’ll wait. Alright.
