November 25, 2025 • 11 mins
In this episode of Financial Perspectives, host Tanya Suba-Tang sits down with Benjamin Armellini - Managing Partner at Main Street Research - for a candid look at the forces shaping today’s markets. Together, they unpack an economy landscape defined by volatile trade policy, uneven sector performance, and a labor market that looks very different depending on where you stand.
Benjamin offers a global perspective on earnings growth, highlights where investors may be overlooking meaningful opportunities outside the U.S., and explains why AI-driven sectors have widened the gap between headline indexes and the rest of the market. They also explore the disconnect between lagging economic data and real-time market behavior, the implications of shifting capital expenditure trends, and what a “Goldilocks environment” really means for long-term investors.
The conversation closes with grounded, practical guidance—why market timing continues to fail investors, how to define success beyond benchmarks, and why having a clear plan matters more than ever in a noisy, fast-moving economy.
Listeners will also hear practical guidance on why market timing continues to fail investors, how to define success beyond benchmarks, and why having a clear plan matters more than ever in an erratic economy.
Tune in for an insightful conversation that moves beyond the noise to provide actionable strategies for navigating today's complex global economy, managing risk, and making sound decisions in a period of economic uncertainty.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to FinancialPerspectives, a CFA Society San Francisco
podcast where we interview anddiscuss trends with leaders from
across the investment andfinance industry. This month, our
host, Tanya Suba Tang,Membership director with CFA Society
San Francisco, had thepleasure of speaking with Benjamin
Armelini, Managing Partner atMain Street Research. Listen in as
(00:29):
they discuss market volatilityand key strategies for long term
investment success.
Hi Benjamin. Welcome toFinancial Perspective podcast. Thanks
for joining me today.
Hi Tanya, my absolutepleasure. Thank you for hosting.
So I am very thrilled aboutthe conversation that we're going
(00:50):
to have today because it'sgoing to really talk about what's
happening in the economy, inthe market. And I'm sure our listeners
who come from variousdifferent backgrounds are probably
like me, very confused onwhat's being said in the news. But
then what we're seeing kind ofhow the market is performing. So
I am so excited to have you onour show today and kind of maybe
(01:12):
set something straight andhelp us kind of understand what's
happening.
Absolutely. Well, lookingforward to the conversation. I'm
sure a lot of the questionswe'll cover, ones that myself and
my great team here at MainStreet Research chat with clients
about a daily basis.
So top of mind and I'm sure alot of our listeners can agree. But
I'd love for you to kind ofhelp set the tone by providing us
(01:32):
with a brief overview of thecurrent administration's trade policy
and I'd love to hear yourthoughts on what you think its impact
is on today's market.
Erratic is probably a goodsingle word, but it's, it's been
a fascinating environment andmaybe evergreen is another good word
to describe it as a lot of thepolicies enacted and really that
(01:54):
continue to change in realtime by the Trump administration
have been digested andrepriced that way by financial markets.
Exactly in that manner. Ofcourse, we saw the really big tariff
tantrum in April and theoverarching piece of guidance that
we've given investors. Andsomething as investor ourselves that
(02:16):
we really focus on is wheremaybe the highest quality of earnings
growth is going to be not justhere in the United States, but also
globally, given that weoperate in a globalized economy and
these tariff policies. Right.Impact things at the global stage.
So let's shift a little. I'dlove for you to discuss the health
(02:39):
of the labor market andemployment concerns. So as I'm sure
again, our listeners areprobably aware, despite, despite
some strong headline jobnumbers before the shutdown, we've
seen significant layoffs incertain sectors. Right. Do you view
the current labor market asresilient or do you think it's a
fragile and on the brink of amajor downturn?
It's a good question. We'vebeen in a little bit of what we'd
(03:02):
refer to as maybe a datadesert with the government shutdown
in terms of actually gettingthe most recent labor statistics.
But our overarching thesis isthat the labor market by and large
is resilient. Also, asinvestors, we think it's very important
to take a big step back andunderstanding any single piece of
data, particularly economicdata, that by and large is lagging
(03:26):
rather than leading. Right. Ifwe focus on how markets, which arguably
are the best mechanism ofpricing, where expectations are going
to go. If we focus, yes, ofcourse, on hard economic data, labor
data is important, but. But ifwe're really listening to a lot of
these earnings calls and herein the US having a good understanding
(03:50):
of maybe what types ofbusinesses are really struggling,
struggling as opposed to whichare thriving, that's probably a more
important consideration as aninvestor. So this year has been a
fascinating one where manypeople, at least if you're looking
at just the US economy maydescribe it as K shaped and you can
visually think about theupward sloping part of that K being
(04:14):
anything AI, artificialintelligence adjacent. And that type
of investment permeates farbeyond these large language models,
also known as LLMs, intoseveral sectors beyond just technology
and communications, which ohby the way of course are the two
leading sectors so far year todate and have represented such a
(04:37):
disproportionate amount of.And again we'll focus on US markets
S&P 500. So marketcapitalization, meaning the largest
companies in the world likeGoogle and Nvidia Meta, Amazon, et
cetera, technology andcommunications have really represented
a very disproportionate amountof returns. And so we can see this
(04:58):
very much highlighted where ifyou look at rather than a market
capitalization weighted index,you look at an equal weighted index,
massive spread in terms ofperformance, 10% if not more depending
on the day here. And the finalthought, maybe I'll add on here,
which, which is tied back toyour first question, is beyond just
the US Economy, there is abull market going on right now in
(05:22):
global investments. Andparticularly when you look at economies
like Japan, India, but alsoEurope, when we look at things like
the MSCI World Stock Index exUS so not including US investments,
that's up almost two times asmuch as the S&P 500. And that's something
a lot of domestic onlyinvestors maybe aren't paying ATT
(05:43):
something that we've reallyencouraged our, our client base and
it's the way as adiscretionary manager that we invest
to look outside the US So ourthesis is there's a bull market certainly
here in the US but but alsooutside of.
The US So what's your economicforecast? Recession, slow growth
or stagflation?
Another wonderful questionthat we really tried not to be in
(06:06):
the business of forecastingtoo far out because we might argue
that gets more intospeculation. Make an argument that
we're in this Goldilockseconomic environment right now where
we would continue to seeeconomic growth. The biggest question
mark when you really dig intothat data is around how balanced,
(06:30):
maybe in a single word. Andagain we're just going to focus on
the US right now that USeconomic growth is. If you were to
strip out the contribution ofartificial intelligence growth looks
not particularly strong. I'mnot going to go so far as to say
it looks week, but it's, it'snothing to get very excited about.
(06:51):
One of the really interestingbyproducts of artificial intelligence
and I think we've seen thiswhether it's long term charts of
certain subsectors likebiotech which have just had a terrible
past five years now hitting atleast on a technical perspective,
meaningful new highs where alot of these potential productivity
enhancements, these aren'tspecific to just technology companies
(07:14):
and you see that whether it'sin the biotech healthcare space,
this has also been prettyprevalent and newsworthy and the
industrial space and verylarge industrial names, Caterpillar,
deer, et cetera that haveshown up in headlines and I think
investors have rewarded aswell. So for us we view this as a
(07:35):
secular bull market. The againbiggest question mark moving forward
is given the tremendous amountof capital expenditure spending going
on, capex spending occurringand a lot of the largest businesses
in the world going fromcapital light businesses to now actually
going out and investing invery expensive assets and going all
(08:00):
the way down to the realestate, signing these massive contracts
for energy. And so now they'regoing into more capital intensive
business models how that allplays out over time. And that seems
to be the big thing thatinvestors and financial markets are
grappling with. But we find itto be a very, very exciting time
as investors and certainly anenvironment that we would advocate.
(08:21):
You have to use riskmanagement tools perhaps like stop
loss orders, options overlays,et cetera to help manage the great
unknown.
Well, kind of perfect segue tomy last question for you. So what
is the most critical piece ofadvice would you, in your opinion,
give to a long time investoror even importantly like everyday
Americans just trying tonavigate financial decisions and
(08:45):
what clearly is a chaotic environment?
It is. And probably the bestadvice we may have is to not go at
this alone. And so there's alot of great resources. Whether you
want to be a do it yourselferlike Charles Schwab has really empowered
many individual investors todo or depending on the level of wealth,
(09:06):
the complexity of wealth thatyou're dealing with, if that has
become burdensome or justsomething that maybe has grown beyond
your capabilities, there'sobviously great firms. VR is certainly
as one of those that can helpsolve the issue of how do we steward
these assets not just for ourlifetime, but for multiple generations.
(09:26):
So with that said, again, forlong term investors, maybe answer
this kind of a funny way,which is what is the worst thing
that you could do? And I thinkour opinion on that is just trying
to time markets and be in andout. We've just found a lot of of
investors, actually allinvestors who have great long term
success, they do things likefinancial planning and they really
(09:48):
define what success looks likefor them rather than maybe defining
that relative to somearbitrary benchmark like a specific
index. And then it's mucheasier to help solve for. How do
we get someone from here tothere if we have a really clear idea
of what we're trying toactually solve for? Because oftentimes
people may just say, oh, Iwant to beat know the S&P 500 of
(10:09):
the NASDAQ. And that's greatuntil it isn't and it goes down 50%
now you have to double yourmoney just to get back to. Even so,
just knowing that there's alot of resources out there, podcasts
like this wonderful one that,that you're putting on in addition
to just a plethora offinancial literature and ideally
a community of advisors whoare really excited about serving
(10:30):
future generations.
Well, thank you so much,Benjamin. I was very delighted to
kind of have this conversationwith you because it did give me a
little bit of clarity on kindof what direction we're going to
and what you know, to said youdon't, you're not in the game of
forecasting but to kind ofexpect and kind of how to navigate
through this. So thank you somuch for joining me today.
Absolutely. We're excited forwhat the next couple of months and
(10:52):
quarters bring for thismarket. So appreciate your time and
look forward to thepossibility of doing this again together.
Thank you to this month'sguest Benjamin Armelini for joining
us today and shedding light oncurrent market trends. Join us next
time for another FinancialPerspectives episode airing on the
last Tuesday of the month.Make sure to send in a message to
(11:13):
the show by emailingpodcast@cfa-sf.org. We'd love to
hear what you thought of thisepisode or any suggestions on future
topics you'd like for us tocover. Thank you for being a dedicated
listener. This podcast isproduced by CFA Society San Francisco,
(11:34):
a not for profit professionalassociation providing professional
learning and career resourcesto over 13,000 investment industry
professionals worldwide. Tolearn more about CFA Society San
Francisco, visit our websiteat cfa-sf.org or connect with us
on LinkedIn.
Welcome to FinancialPerspectives, a CFA Society San Francisco
podcast where we interview anddiscuss trends with leaders from
across the investment andfinance industry. This month, our
host, Tanya Suba Tang,Membership director with CFA Society
San Francisco, had thepleasure of speaking with Benjamin
Armelini, Managing Partner atMain Street Research. Listen in as
(00:29):
they discuss market volatilityand key strategies for long term
investment success.
Hi Benjamin. Welcome toFinancial Perspective podcast. Thanks
for joining me today.
Hi Tanya, my absolutepleasure. Thank you for hosting.
So I am very thrilled aboutthe conversation that we're going
(00:50):
to have today because it'sgoing to really talk about what's
happening in the economy, inthe market. And I'm sure our listeners
who come from variousdifferent backgrounds are probably
like me, very confused onwhat's being said in the news. But
then what we're seeing kind ofhow the market is performing. So
I am so excited to have you onour show today and kind of maybe
(01:12):
set something straight andhelp us kind of understand what's
happening.
Absolutely. Well, lookingforward to the conversation. I'm
sure a lot of the questionswe'll cover, ones that myself and
my great team here at MainStreet Research chat with clients
about a daily basis.
So top of mind and I'm sure alot of our listeners can agree. But
I'd love for you to kind ofhelp set the tone by providing us
(01:32):
with a brief overview of thecurrent administration's trade policy
and I'd love to hear yourthoughts on what you think its impact
is on today's market.
Erratic is probably a goodsingle word, but it's, it's been
a fascinating environment andmaybe evergreen is another good word
to describe it as a lot of thepolicies enacted and really that
(01:54):
continue to change in realtime by the Trump administration
have been digested andrepriced that way by financial markets.
Exactly in that manner. Ofcourse, we saw the really big tariff
tantrum in April and theoverarching piece of guidance that
we've given investors. Andsomething as investor ourselves that
(02:16):
we really focus on is wheremaybe the highest quality of earnings
growth is going to be not justhere in the United States, but also
globally, given that weoperate in a globalized economy and
these tariff policies. Right.Impact things at the global stage.
So let's shift a little. I'dlove for you to discuss the health
(02:39):
of the labor market andemployment concerns. So as I'm sure
again, our listeners areprobably aware, despite, despite
some strong headline jobnumbers before the shutdown, we've
seen significant layoffs incertain sectors. Right. Do you view
the current labor market asresilient or do you think it's a
fragile and on the brink of amajor downturn?
It's a good question. We'vebeen in a little bit of what we'd
(03:02):
refer to as maybe a datadesert with the government shutdown
in terms of actually gettingthe most recent labor statistics.
But our overarching thesis isthat the labor market by and large
is resilient. Also, asinvestors, we think it's very important
to take a big step back andunderstanding any single piece of
data, particularly economicdata, that by and large is lagging
(03:26):
rather than leading. Right. Ifwe focus on how markets, which arguably
are the best mechanism ofpricing, where expectations are going
to go. If we focus, yes, ofcourse, on hard economic data, labor
data is important, but. But ifwe're really listening to a lot of
these earnings calls and herein the US having a good understanding
(03:50):
of maybe what types ofbusinesses are really struggling,
struggling as opposed to whichare thriving, that's probably a more
important consideration as aninvestor. So this year has been a
fascinating one where manypeople, at least if you're looking
at just the US economy maydescribe it as K shaped and you can
visually think about theupward sloping part of that K being
(04:14):
anything AI, artificialintelligence adjacent. And that type
of investment permeates farbeyond these large language models,
also known as LLMs, intoseveral sectors beyond just technology
and communications, which ohby the way of course are the two
leading sectors so far year todate and have represented such a
(04:37):
disproportionate amount of.And again we'll focus on US markets
S&P 500. So marketcapitalization, meaning the largest
companies in the world likeGoogle and Nvidia Meta, Amazon, et
cetera, technology andcommunications have really represented
a very disproportionate amountof returns. And so we can see this
(04:58):
very much highlighted where ifyou look at rather than a market
capitalization weighted index,you look at an equal weighted index,
massive spread in terms ofperformance, 10% if not more depending
on the day here. And the finalthought, maybe I'll add on here,
which, which is tied back toyour first question, is beyond just
the US Economy, there is abull market going on right now in
(05:22):
global investments. Andparticularly when you look at economies
like Japan, India, but alsoEurope, when we look at things like
the MSCI World Stock Index exUS so not including US investments,
that's up almost two times asmuch as the S&P 500. And that's something
a lot of domestic onlyinvestors maybe aren't paying ATT
(05:43):
something that we've reallyencouraged our, our client base and
it's the way as adiscretionary manager that we invest
to look outside the US So ourthesis is there's a bull market certainly
here in the US but but alsooutside of.
The US So what's your economicforecast? Recession, slow growth
or stagflation?
Another wonderful questionthat we really tried not to be in
(06:06):
the business of forecastingtoo far out because we might argue
that gets more intospeculation. Make an argument that
we're in this Goldilockseconomic environment right now where
we would continue to seeeconomic growth. The biggest question
mark when you really dig intothat data is around how balanced,
(06:30):
maybe in a single word. Andagain we're just going to focus on
the US right now that USeconomic growth is. If you were to
strip out the contribution ofartificial intelligence growth looks
not particularly strong. I'mnot going to go so far as to say
it looks week, but it's, it'snothing to get very excited about.
(06:51):
One of the really interestingbyproducts of artificial intelligence
and I think we've seen thiswhether it's long term charts of
certain subsectors likebiotech which have just had a terrible
past five years now hitting atleast on a technical perspective,
meaningful new highs where alot of these potential productivity
enhancements, these aren'tspecific to just technology companies
(07:14):
and you see that whether it'sin the biotech healthcare space,
this has also been prettyprevalent and newsworthy and the
industrial space and verylarge industrial names, Caterpillar,
deer, et cetera that haveshown up in headlines and I think
investors have rewarded aswell. So for us we view this as a
(07:35):
secular bull market. The againbiggest question mark moving forward
is given the tremendous amountof capital expenditure spending going
on, capex spending occurringand a lot of the largest businesses
in the world going fromcapital light businesses to now actually
going out and investing invery expensive assets and going all
(08:00):
the way down to the realestate, signing these massive contracts
for energy. And so now they'regoing into more capital intensive
business models how that allplays out over time. And that seems
to be the big thing thatinvestors and financial markets are
grappling with. But we find itto be a very, very exciting time
as investors and certainly anenvironment that we would advocate.
(08:21):
You have to use riskmanagement tools perhaps like stop
loss orders, options overlays,et cetera to help manage the great
unknown.
Well, kind of perfect segue tomy last question for you. So what
is the most critical piece ofadvice would you, in your opinion,
give to a long time investoror even importantly like everyday
Americans just trying tonavigate financial decisions and
(08:45):
what clearly is a chaotic environment?
It is. And probably the bestadvice we may have is to not go at
this alone. And so there's alot of great resources. Whether you
want to be a do it yourselferlike Charles Schwab has really empowered
many individual investors todo or depending on the level of wealth,
(09:06):
the complexity of wealth thatyou're dealing with, if that has
become burdensome or justsomething that maybe has grown beyond
your capabilities, there'sobviously great firms. VR is certainly
as one of those that can helpsolve the issue of how do we steward
these assets not just for ourlifetime, but for multiple generations.
(09:26):
So with that said, again, forlong term investors, maybe answer
this kind of a funny way,which is what is the worst thing
that you could do? And I thinkour opinion on that is just trying
to time markets and be in andout. We've just found a lot of of
investors, actually allinvestors who have great long term
success, they do things likefinancial planning and they really
(09:48):
define what success looks likefor them rather than maybe defining
that relative to somearbitrary benchmark like a specific
index. And then it's mucheasier to help solve for. How do
we get someone from here tothere if we have a really clear idea
of what we're trying toactually solve for? Because oftentimes
people may just say, oh, Iwant to beat know the S&P 500 of
(10:09):
the NASDAQ. And that's greatuntil it isn't and it goes down 50%
now you have to double yourmoney just to get back to. Even so,
just knowing that there's alot of resources out there, podcasts
like this wonderful one that,that you're putting on in addition
to just a plethora offinancial literature and ideally
a community of advisors whoare really excited about serving
(10:30):
future generations.
Well, thank you so much,Benjamin. I was very delighted to
kind of have this conversationwith you because it did give me a
little bit of clarity on kindof what direction we're going to
and what you know, to said youdon't, you're not in the game of
forecasting but to kind ofexpect and kind of how to navigate
through this. So thank you somuch for joining me today.
Absolutely. We're excited forwhat the next couple of months and
(10:52):
quarters bring for thismarket. So appreciate your time and
look forward to thepossibility of doing this again together.
Thank you to this month'sguest Benjamin Armelini for joining
us today and shedding light oncurrent market trends. Join us next
time for another FinancialPerspectives episode airing on the
last Tuesday of the month.Make sure to send in a message to
(11:13):
the show by emailingpodcast@cfa-sf.org. We'd love to
hear what you thought of thisepisode or any suggestions on future
topics you'd like for us tocover. Thank you for being a dedicated
listener. This podcast isproduced by CFA Society San Francisco,
(11:34):
a not for profit professionalassociation providing professional
learning and career resourcesto over 13,000 investment industry
professionals worldwide. Tolearn more about CFA Society San
Francisco, visit our websiteat cfa-sf.org or connect with us
on LinkedIn.
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