People have been under-estimating the consumer and her ability and interest in persistent spending for decades. Occasionally, the consumer gets off-sides and gets over-leveraged and is forced to re-set the household balance sheet (housing in 07-09 and tech stock leverage in the late 90’s) but generally, consumer spending just keeps chugging along.

No matter what industry you are in, your brand matters. The more relevant the brand, the more it resonates with customers. The brands that resonate most with customers are often those that generate the most revenue, cash flow, and notoriety. In the business of advice, being the thought leader and most recognized brand has enormous implications for Advisors.

I like to monitor mutual fund, ETF flows and other data to see where positioning is and is not. For the bulk of the last 18 months, most equity markets have been consolidating. Equity sentiment got to extreme levels both in January 2018 and September 30, 2018.

Each year in June, I anxiously await BrandZ’s new Top 100 Global Brands report. It’s always a fascinating read and they continue to offer significant proof that BRANDS MATTER. We know this intuitively but the proof-factor offers some great insights into THE WHY.

Stan Druckenmiller holds one of the best, if not the best, long term track records on Wall Street. He’s thoughtful, logical, and a-political. Global trade > protectionism and nationalism. Innovators the disrupted. China opportunities in favorites like Alibaba & TenCent, and more.

Why doesn’t every firm, every analyst, and every investor focus on determining the most relevant, innovative brands? It remains a mystery and one we are happy to be focused on alone.

Overall, equities have broken the up channel formed since the Christmas Eve bottom. Now we should expect a rally back up to those broken channel lines and then we can see what’s next: Back down for a probe lower to build a better base or back into the up channel and off to new highs.

I know of no better way to describe the investment opportunities in front of consumers than to show you this quick animated white board video talking about the global consumption theme, currently >$30 trillion per year, through an investment in the most relevant, innovative brands winning our mind and wallet share.

Consumer spending is 72% of U.S. GDP, it matter a lot. Historically, stocks perform well when the economy is performing well. Stocks also perform well when companies have strong revenue growth and other operating metrics. A strong consumer is a key component of overall GDP health & direction.

This new era in Chinese shopping offers a glimpse into the likely future of retail around the world. More than $413 billion of goods will be sold through social e-commerce in China by 2022, an almost fivefold increase from $90 billion in 2017, according to researcher Frost & Sullivan.

Earnings season is well under way and I wanted to highlight the mega-cap brands that drive market cap weighted indices given they have such large weightings. Bottom line, there’s still room in the tank for these great brands, they have huge global opportunities, are serving large and growing end markets, and generate significant amounts of cash for smart reinvestment. Twitter is an outlier that seems to be getting its mojo-on!

Here’s a link to this week’s article regarding the U.S. and International brands serving consumption across Asia and China. These brands are getting it done across the world and their stocks have historically been great investments, I see no signs of that changing anytime soon.

I listened to the Disney Investor Day event yesterday and liked what I heard. Finally the stock is beginning to get re-rated, here’s the link to my comments and the investor presentation.

The business of advice is a very crowded space these days. Advisors need to add value over and above the traditional advisory metrics, they need to bring something differentiated to the table. Sophisticated clients and wealthy clients require us all to be a resource for all the things that matter in their lives - personal and business.

I spend an enormous amount of time looking at consumer trends and one theme in particular is “entertainment”. As human beings we have to work but we LOVE to play & have fun. In many cases we work so we can play. In good times and bad, FUN & ENTERTAINMENT is a large part of our daily lives as well as our daily spend.

I’ve always been a contrarian, I’m not sure why but I prefer NOT to be in the crowded boat and right now, the boat is crowded with people who do not believe in the sustainability of the U.S. economy or its equity markets. How do I know this? From looking at equity fund flows and CFTC data that shows the boat is crowded with bears and non-believers. Here’s a chart of equity flows from ML, maybe the masses are right this time but history suggests they will be wrong with such a bearish bias. I’m happy to be buying great brands with strong competitive advantages on further dips.