Transcript:

Caroline WoodsStock market is shifting fast and not every opportunity is obvious. Joining us now to go through her top picks is Rebecca Walser, CEO of Walser Wealth Management. Rebecca, great to have you.

Rebecca WalserThank you for having me here.

Caroline WoodsAll right. So you have five names for us. Let’s go one by one. Your first is Pool Corp a solid 2026 so far but well off its highs. Why are you bullish on swimming pools.

Rebecca WalserWell a couple of reasons. So first of all this is a really robust company. The way they structure their deals is not just the pool infrastructure. So they actually do a lot of maintenance. And so business to business maintenance. So what we’re looking at is in 2023, for example, 62% of their revenue came from just pool maintenance. With Trump coming out and saying we don’t want institutional buying of neighborhoods and homes.

We know that this is going to be retail based. And we really do see long term runway for this company. And so that’s really what we’re looking at is what can we get invested in. That’s going to be a long term play that is robust, not just depending on new home builds and new new new construction.

Caroline WoodsBut is it a housing recovery play at the same time, then?

Rebecca WalserI don’t think so. I think it’s just more robust with the maintenance. Goldman has a strong buy rating on it and it’s really got a great price earnings ratio. So we feel like this has a long term runway. It’s 50% off of its all time high even though because it’s been rooted down because of the housing market. So we feel like it’s a good it’s a good discount.

Caroline WoodsRight now but doesn’t require the housing market.

Rebecca WalserActually it doesn’t. That’s the point. Because of the maintenance, it does not require new construction to really come on line.

Caroline WoodsOkay. Your next pick your next pick is Occidental Petroleum. A Warren Buffett pick is absolutely oxy at this point in the cycle. What’s the catalysts there?

Rebecca WalserSo obviously the Middle East tension, Iran, all of these things Venezuela I think the Venezuela play really has different really made energy and crude robust buy at this point. We’re looking at a two year runway, at least for energy to really take off. And really with Occidental Petroleum, it’s not just crude. They’re also in middle market operations. They’re in gas and they’re actually in chemicals as well.

So we feel like with where it’s at and with the two year runway for energy, this is a good play.

Caroline WoodsBut oil is trading around $64 right now. So given that do you expect it to stay there or does it need to be around there for you to remain bullish on oxy? Where does it need to go?

Rebecca WalserI feel like for the two years we’re going to see a creep to the upside. I’m not suggesting that we get back to $100 a barrel or anything like that. Don’t we don’t need to see that because it’s heavily discounted. Right now. So I think what we’re going to see, incremental growth, but we don’t even need massive growth for this company at this level because of their middle, mixed operations.

Caroline WoodsNext step into it, a beaten down software name, something like 40%. Yeah. Year to date. Is this a tax time call? What is this?

Rebecca WalserSo Intuit is, Ben oversold as 50% off of his all time high. And I can understand the software sell off and people are really El-Erian saying, oh my gosh, AI is going to take over everything. And to it is it reminds me of visa on the financial services side. They are really partnering, like with a strategic partnership with OpenAI to bring an AI component into their mix, into it has a suite of products.

People don’t even probably realize it’s Credit Karma, it’s QuickBooks, and it’s TurboTax beyond other things. So we feel like they are strategically positioned for the end consumer and with their partnership with AI, recognizing that we have to bring our software into the AI world. And so we feel like 50% off. It’s a good discount. It’s a good buy.

Caroline WoodsOkay. Your highest conviction buy is Duke Energy. Why is it a buy at current levels.

Rebecca WalserDuke is really interesting. So what they did is they gave us four guidance and said, you know, we’re expecting 1.5 more gigabyte gigawatts of power need of just from one data center. And there’s nine more coming online that they’re involved in and they’re actually positioning. So we like Duke Energy for that reason. They are a strategic company that has really, forecast the need and the growth.

They have the most integrated CapEx spending for all US regulated energy in the entire sector. So we feel that Duke is the best positioned to capitalize on all of the AI data centers and the growth that is coming from the AI side. And that’s why we picked Duke, okay?

Caroline WoodsAnd finally, MicroStrategy.

Rebecca WalserYes.

Caroline WoodsThis one’s a sell. And I have to say, this was a bit surprising to me from you because I know that you’re bullish on crypto. Yeah, but not bullish on strategy I should say.

Rebecca WalserYeah. No not my go to strategy. You know it’s 77% off of its all time high I believe in micro silver I believe in Bitcoin. I believe in blockchain. However, when you look at the two and ten year, yields and we look at two year for guidance on that, we’re seeing that Bitcoin could probably possibly pull back to 49,000 simply because of the fundamentals that are happening with yields and transitions from where we are to current, you know, to, really the blockchain.

And so for that reason, we do feel that Bitcoin all the way into mid 2027 is going to be on a rotation to the downside. We don’t see any events right now that are coming up. Of course we could be wrong. It could be some geopolitical event that makes people go back to what they call digital gold, and that would be a BTC play.

But at this time, with where we’re seeing the yield curves and the geopolitical risk and all of the financing of the global central banks, we feel that Bitcoin could potentially come to the downside all the way until mid of 2027. And that’s why because it’s off 77% of its all time high. We don’t see a recovery for a while.

Caroline WoodsSo you sell a strategy. Do you sell Bitcoin then at 67 69,000 here assuming that it’s going to go lower.

Rebecca WalserI mean it’s a it’s a it’s a certainly an opportunity. I mean if you’re a long term Bitcoin believer then you should just hold as a long term asset and not worry about the volatility. But if you wanted to make price movement gyrations profits then I would say for sure we’re seeing it going down potentially through mid 2027.

And if you’re not wanting to see that happen to your portfolio positions, you could probably take some profits exit out. Or maybe you’re not taking profits, maybe you’re taking a little bit of a loss, but it’s going to be less than potentially the loss could be all the way to mid 2027 okay.

Caroline WoodsAnd you mentioned the Digital Gold’s piece of Bitcoin has this year proven that it’s not digital gold based on the fact that gold and Bitcoin have very different performances.

Rebecca WalserThat is a 100%. Yes. I mean I hate when people say action. I can’t believe I even said it, but I hate when people actually say refer to it as digital gold because that leaves the investor with the impression that this is this is, you know, as good as gold, only digital. And it’s just not let’s just be honest.

We do not have a risk case yet. Proof of concept of what Bitcoin will actually do during an actual major recession. We really have 2022 as a barometer. That’s really it. And and so I feel like until we have a true recession and we see how Bitcoin performs from start to finish through it, we don’t have a proof of concept of how this is going to perform as a risk or an asset during recessionary times.

It’s I think, really. Two currently the problem with Bitcoin is it’s still such new technology and people still don’t understand the blockchain. They don’t understand what it is. And for that reason, people get scared and say, oh my gosh, it’s coming down, it’s coming down, it’s coming down. People like me out. You’re saying, oh, based on forward looking guidance and the current ten year yields and what is going on with central banks.

We see it actually coming down. And and they don’t understand it. They get scared and they sell out of it. So until we have the ability to say this is how it performs during this recession from start to finish, and it really has proven its worth and salt, then we’re going to have to still considered spectrum. The other thing is that we don’t really have full clarity on the regulatory environment.

Not only do we have the genius act, that’s great as the stablecoin that that’s great. But if you look at the Clarity Act that the House of Representatives passed, I got held up by the Senate because the banking lobby came in and said, hey, we don’t we want to put our banking framework around, cryptocurrency, for example. We don’t want, issuers to be able to, to give benefits for holding stablecoin.

And so because the regulatory framework is not 100% set and clear, because we know the banking lobby is going to try to come in and create their framework around, you know, old technology framing new technology, which is never going to work. The banks have to stop that right away and figure out how they can capitalize on it themselves and be a purveyor of it themselves for a positive benefit.

If they can’t do that, they’re going to get left behind. That’s why I go back back to visa and say what they have done, the inroads that they have made to be able to do payment processing on the blockchain, that is the gold standard for me, and that’s what all financials need to do to be able to actually continue to to see their worth it.

You cannot legislate your worst creative destruction of capitalism means that there’s a better way, and you’re the old way, and you got to get with the program.

Caroline WoodsOkay, so finally, is visa a top pick as well?

Rebecca WalserI love visa.

Caroline WoodsYes, I will leave it there. Rebecca Walser always appreciate it. Thank you so much for those five picks. That’s Rebecca Walser, CEO of Walser Wealth Management.