Investment predictions and threats - Carol (Clark) Schleif
How are investors responding to climate risk and other long-term ESG (environmental, social, and governance) risks?
Carol Schleif: Historically, there hasn’t been a reliable way to try to get the metrics out of companies so that you could compare them across the board. That’s starting to change. There’s an awful lot out there.
Have trade wars and tariffs altered global trade?
Carol Schleif: The good part about investor memories is they’re pretty short, so they’ll just get used to the fact that trade and tariffs are an issue and we’re going to go on anyway and focus on fundamentals.
What are the implications of persistently low-interest rates, and could the U.S. see negative interest rates?
Carol Schleif: Regulation Full Disclosure was passed in like ’98 or ’99, and the number of publicly held shares peaked in ’98, and it’s down 48% from there. There are not even 5,000 companies to make up the Russell 5000, and there are more indexes than there are publicly held companies now. The private-capital funds, especially the smaller ones, can get very creative and pull in a lot of expertise to really deeply analyze different micro subsegments of business, and that’s interesting for institutional or large portfolios to be able to invest in that. But it is tough for the average individual investor to participate.
Where do you think the S&P 500 Index will finish in 2020?
Carol Schleif: I’ll say 3,330. I am more worried about trade than Jim is because I think if we throw more sand in those gears it causes corporate America to seize up because the issue that they need — regardless of who wins in November — is some clarity about what the policy is. When they’re going down to the pitch, they need to know if they’re playing soccer or football. So the sooner we get to that, the sooner we can continue this long, slow-growth environment.
This article is an extract from: Minnesota investment pros predict more growth ahead, with some threats
