Title: Are Dividend Investors Heading Into a Perfect Storm? Corgi's Chief Investment Strategist Explains Show: Dividend Stockpile (YouTube; host Jeremy) Guest: Jeff Weniger — Chief Investment Strategist, Corgi Invest (ex-head of equities, WisdomTree) Date: 2026-09-19 (YouTube publishDate; recorded around Labor Day week) URL: https://youtu.be/-OVggnoSwzw Length: 40:36 Note: YouTube auto-caption transcript pasted by Stephen. Fillers (um/uh/you know/like tics) and stutters removed; wording otherwise verbatim. Auto-caption name garbles corrected: "Wigger"=Weniger, "Wizry"=WisdomTree, "Worsh"=Warsh, "Ormuz"=Hormuz, "Camples"/"gambles"=Campbell's, "Metronics"=Medtronic, "striker"=Stryker, "madna"=Moderna, "open AAI"=OpenAI, "Corki"=Corgi, "Silken"=Silicon, "eyeshares"=iShares, "unled/unleted"=unleaded. Speaker turns marked with ">>" as in the captions.
00:00 Hey everybody, welcome back to Dividend Stockpile. So, the question we're going to try and answer today is, are dividend investors like ourselves heading into a perfect storm or a golden opportunity? And to help answer that question, I'm joined by Jeff Weniger, chief investment strategist over at Corgi Invest.
00:16 And we're going to be breaking down the economy, interest rates, oil, the state of the consumer, and what it all means for dividend investors. So, Jeff, welcome to the channel. >> Thanks, Jeremy. My pleasure. >> Absolutely. Really appreciate you coming on. I follow you on X as well as LinkedIn and you're always posting great information about economic data, what's going on out there.
00:38 So when I had the opportunity to meet up with you, I really wanted to get your mindset and your impression on where we are in the economy, where is the consumer, all the things that we're worried about specifically as dividend investors and what we can look forward to over the next couple months in the economy as dividend investors.
00:56 So with that, can you give everyone a quick background on yourself for those who may not know? >> Sure, absolutely. I just came over to Corgi about two minutes ago. I've been at the firm for three or four weeks at this point. I had been at WisdomTree for almost 10 years before that. I was the head of equities over at that firm and that's a dividend house, right? There's a lot of dividends over there.
01:16 So I think it's pretty apt. And I came over to Corgi because we're planning on launching a ton of very low-cost ETFs. Many of them will be tracking very mainstream dividend indexes, also tracking beta indexes, various single factors and that type of thing, and it's a Chicago operator and I'm in Chicago too.
01:37 So that was a nice easy transition, didn't have to pick up the family and move. And so we are going to build this business pretty much from scratch. We have a couple hundred ETFs and by I would say the end of the year we might have another hundred or so also. So stay tuned. Exciting things. >> Absolutely.
01:53 It's really been impressive to see how Corgi Invest has grown over the last couple months and years. To your point, you have so many different ETFs. You guys are just hitting every single different thematic idea, every different area of the market. You guys are really going at it strong. So, it's really impressive to see what you guys have created and hopefully over the next couple months and year, we'll see even more things to be excited about.
02:15 So, really looking forward to see how Corgi grows over time. But for today's discussion, what I know a lot about your background is your economic thought and you're always presenting really great information. So I wanted to dig into the current market and the economy right now. So I guess from a dividend perspective, how would you describe the US economic and market environment and what are some of the big risks to look out for right now? >> Yeah.
02:42 And I think that we can take this from some of the very, very near-term concepts that are really driving the market, stuff that we've been putting out on social, the big macro charts, which I think is what I position myself for, what I'm known for is the macro concepts. And look, there's a guy out here named Kevin Warsh, right? [laughter] Whatever Kevin decides may be the single biggest determining factor for what happens in terms of dividend plays outperforming or underperforming or stocks in general and the implications of all of that with respect to, let's say,
03:14 the 10-year or the 30-year as well, and I have a little bit of a different view on some of this, and maybe people can laugh at me if they so choose, that there is a concept that you could maybe entertain whereby the bond market stops puking. I mean, that's a very technical term, puking, by the way, Jeremy.
03:36 Look, why would you be a bear on stocks right now? Well, you might have a question mark on broad S&P 500 earnings. I think that's generally a valid question mark because there is some element of, in the non-dividend payers, reporting in your net income the appreciation of your OpenAI and your Anthropic stock.
03:58 I mean, you've probably talked about that. Then there's Hormuz, which we could probably get into. And then there's the bond market. And every once in a while, for those of us who have been in this for a little while, sometimes the stock market cares about the bond market and sometimes it doesn't.
04:14 And whether we like it or not, the stock market right now cares about it. >> If you think about it, I have been arguing that for the last two or three years, it didn't care. And that is a fact. That is a statement of fact that if you take it from December of 2023 till almost the present, basically to midsummer, six bond market selloffs on the long end of the curve, six notable ones, and Jeremy, what does the chart of the S&P 500 look like for the last two or three years, generally speaking? Up and to the right. >> Rallying in all six of those bond market
04:46 selloffs. And so now the question is whether or not it will continue to sell off, because when we did the market's internals, and we were just pulling this the other day, over the prior 30 sessions or something, I had stock market directionality generally 60, 65% of the time in individual sessions in the latter part of the summer directionally moving the same way as the bond market.
05:11 And this goes back, I mean, whether we want to go down this path or not, it's your show, the whole bust-up on the 60/40, the 60% equity, 40% bond portfolio back in 2022, that was the problem for portfolio construction, and we could go on for hours about portfolio construction here, and you have a very real situation where at least in the micro term the stock market cares.
05:34 So I can make the case that I think the bond market will rally. People can disagree or agree, but I have this bizarre thesis where inflation surprises to the upside and the bond market actually stays cool as a cucumber. We'll see if it comes to pass. >> All right. Yeah, definitely been a lot in the news lately about the bond interest rates and where the market is going on that side of things, as well as to your point earlier, the Fed and the interest rate decisions.
06:02 Seems like every other couple days the Polymarket is saying that they're going to raise interest rates or lower interest rates and the percentages change. So I think the market is definitely paying attention to what's happening in the interest rates and the bond market. So it's really quite different than, to your point, what it's been over the last couple years.
06:20 Do you think that the bond rate is the biggest thing going to affect the market going forward or do you think there's something else, maybe like government debt levels or the overall economy? What do you think is the most important right now? >> Yeah. And I guess right now might mean in the month of October, right? By the time November rolls around, it could be something totally different.
06:38 But yeah, look, here's the basic simple, maybe overly simple math. And that's okay. Sometimes be overly simple. I have upside economic surprise, or maybe even not surprise, just satisfactory economic activity in this country. Two, two and a half percent real GDP growth, Jeremy, I think that's in 2027.
06:59 You kind of throw your hands up and say two, two and a half on account of some of the economic data that's been coming in. I mean, the reality is we are in expansion right now on both services and manufacturing in these PMI prints. We have some heat inside some of these regional Fed manufacturing surveys. So let's say two, two and a half on real GDP to be a number that doesn't laugh us out of the room in 2027.
07:25 Throw a number on the table, Jeremy, right now for inflation next year. Something that's in the center of a bell curve. 3 point something. This is highly scientific stuff, Jeremy. 3 something. Let's go. >> 3.5. >> 2.5 on real GDP, 3.5 on inflation. That's six for nominal GDP growth. Maybe you even steady this debt to GDP ratio, because to the extent that you are inflating it away, which is what they're doing, >> then you're at 120% debt to GDP, something like that. Maybe we wake up a year from now, it's still 120. This is not
08:05 a great scenario, but it's not the doom and gloom that sometimes people are putting forth. And one of the things, you know what's pretty cool here, we're doing the dividend talk, we're going to talk dynamics of debt to GDP. I don't think most people realize this, that during COVID that was the peak in the US debt to GDP ratio and then it subsided because we ran inflation so hot. So when we printed that 9.
08:32 1, was it 9.1 on inflation back in '22? >> Mhm. >> We had that ship grounded in the canal, the supply chain. Everybody remembers this. So real-life inflation when it was 9.1 was really like 12 or 13 because it wasn't picking up the house, basically owners' equivalent rent and rent, in the CPI. >> Mhm. >> And that did a nice number.
08:55 It's horrible for regular jobs, but it did a nice number on the debt to GDP ratio, and that was going down for two, three years there and it's been rising again. But unbeknownst to many people, even with the debt to GDP ratio rising, it's still lower than the peak. I don't think 99 out of 100 people realize that.
09:14 >> Okay. With the talk of the interest rate staying high and possibly even staying higher, as well as the economy potentially suffering, what's the other side of it? You're saying that currently the debt to GDP is not too bad, but what if the debt continues to go up and the economy isn't as strong as some are projecting in 2027?
09:35 How would that affect the overall economy and the market? >> Well, let's think about a 10-year Treasury, for example, and that's what, four and 3/4. Let's say four and three quarters, because in any given day it moves a few basis points. And let's say that we do have this bond market selloff, back that up to five. Let's go with five.
09:56 And right now CPI is mid-3s, 3.4. We'll see if that ends up, I think it could actually surprise to the upside, at least to the exclusion of owners' equivalent rent and rent, in that circumstance where the debt to GDP ratio is gently rising, right? 120 goes to 121, 122, 123 or something like that. We're watching it.
10:18 It's not spiraling out of control. Something like that. If you're at five on a 10-year coupon, inflation's three and a half, then you're getting one and a half percent over inflation. And that, I think most people would look at it and say, well, it's not cheap and it's not expensive. That's what I might expect. So, the bond market is in a what-I-might-expect type situation.
10:41 Something else that I think is critical here, if we're talking about bond market stability and how it may pertain to this S&P 500 chilling out here at 7700, is the big spike in bond market volatility, past tense, that happened during COVID. >> Bond market volatility has been tamed. Now whether or not it ends up spiking might be something. Stock market volatility, the index is at 15, and if you think about, oh, I've got utilities,
11:13 I got REITs, whatever the case may be. What is the thing that would upset that apple cart? It's an erratic bond market where, I don't know, I have to decrease the valuation I put on any asset to the extent that there is something volatilely wiggling out there. And that's not happening in the bond market. I actually just made a little joke about it.
11:34 I mean, tomorrow morning or the morning after that, generally speaking, of course, we'll record this, put it on YouTube, and then of course [laughter] go wacky. Plus or minus three basis points on a 10-year yield, plus or minus four basis points. Kind of looks just like it did yesterday. >> It's remarkably stable. And I think people need to appreciate that a little bit.
11:52 >> Okay. Well, that's good to think about and to consider. The doom and gloom scenarios in our head might be a lot different than what reality is. So I guess with that, yields are a lot higher now than they were over the last couple years, let's just say over the last 5 years. How does that affect other investments like dividend stocks or higher yield instruments now that the 10-year's in the mid-4s? Has that changed the equation when it comes to other types of investing?
12:18 >> And I guess this almost goes down to value versus growth in the stock market. One thing I think I've learned doing this over the last couple decades is the stock market is going to care about what it cares about and we need to care about it when that occurs. And that's a long twisted way of saying sometimes classic stock market valuation, net present value of all cash flows, but really distant cash flows if you think about terminal values and these types of concepts,
12:53 sometimes the market cares about it and sometimes the market doesn't. And three or four years ago we had the situation where the market really cared about out-year cash flows, 2030, 2035 cash flows. >> Mhm. >> Right now, I feel that vibe coming into the market. Again, growth and value are back and forth all year long.
13:17 There's not really much of a differentiation in 2026 where one is clobbering the other or not. But you have this equity issuance situation going on inside the Mag 7, and we have a Mag 7 ETF. But you have this issue of, okay, I was balance-sheet rich, I being some Silicon Valley monolith, whether it's inside the Mag 7 or whether we're going to rope in Oracle into this type of equation, I was cash rich.
13:49 And then you had people like me pointing out when the Silicon Valley giants, I think Alphabet, back when it was named Google, I think it had 100 billion. Jeremy, how much was on that balance sheet in cash? Like 100. >> Yeah. >> And that was when Jay Powell went from zero up to that range of five and a quarter to five and a half.
14:08 And I remember pointing out 100 billion and you're clipping five and a quarter; there was no coupon on it, on a T-bill. >> Mhm. >> Right. That's five billion to the bottom line annually for doing nothing, just because you're so cash rich. Well, now you have the equity raises. This is the issue in corporate debt right now,
14:29 whether or not we have this crowding out that is in the conversation right now, that corporate borrowers, because now they're issuing debt and equity, whether they're going to crowd out Treasury and end up pushing the T-note north of five. The long bond is already at five and a quarter, and suddenly there might be this question mark on out-year cash flows, because I'd have to discount those back at some rate, a risk-free rate plus some spread, on, I don't know, Oracle's 2032 earnings,
14:59 Oracle's 2033 earnings. Now, do I have the foggiest idea of the metrics of Oracle? I'm a top-down guy, right? So, I don't know whether I'm bullish or bearish on Oracle, but that could be theoretically the big issue. And I noticed it a little bit in the market's internals in the last six months or so.
15:20 Once the equity raises started being more of a thing, when that became conversational, the big tech giants got cold, and if you think about the Mag 7, that has not been a performer. So if you think about some of those concepts, I think that that's critical, and we might also be making this transition a little bit in the market to that second and third order effect of AI, and this might be very, very helpful for a dividend investor, because big pharma has historically been known as a dividend payer.
15:54 Big pharma has generally been on. Now, that was a group that was ice cold. There is this concept, I think, that, this has nothing to do with really an income play, but the Moderna breakthrough on the science a few weeks ago, where we can maybe tailor drugs specifically for you as opposed to here's a cancer drug for everyone.
16:16 That was something that was really well rewarded. And now you have the situation where healthcare is using AI and is on; energy, notorious dividend payer, is also becoming more sophisticated in finding oil and gas and that's on; and tech has some question marks. And so that could be something that's very fortuitous for a value player, dividend player.
16:39 >> Absolutely. Another one that comes to mind are these utilities and infrastructure. They're going to be able to benefit from the AI drive, but they're not directly involved in the build-out of the AI itself, to your point, that third order effect. So there's a lot of companies in that sphere that could definitely benefit, and to your point, healthcare is a really big one, as said. The utilities have really caught a bid lately because of the build-out of the energy needs
17:08 related to AI. So there's a lot going on there. So let's stick with the oil for a little bit. So obviously oil is a big part of most dividend investors' portfolios. They're known for their higher yielding opportunities, but oil seems to be pretty volatile right now. It's going up and down with everything that's going on in the Middle East, supply chain, things like that.
17:29 How can we position ourselves, or what is the current state of the oil and what should we be looking out for when it comes to the energy space and the oil space when it comes to dividend investing? >> The oil question. That's always the most brutal. I know. Well, we are going to, knock on wood, launch a bunch of products and we'll have sectors and that'll pick up the energy sector.
17:52 And I think we'll end up being at an expense ratio that will shock people. That will be our business plan in the back end of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, having a lot of these exposures at an expense ratio that will make you fall out of your chair.
18:10 And so we might be positioned for that. You could do it there at Corgi in the back end of the year. If you think about where we were, let's call it in January-ish, there was a universal bearish consensus on the oil price. And I mean universal. We had, for example, the crude oil to S&P ratio was at multi-decade lows. I'm talking turn-of-the-century type lows.
18:38 I should probably pull that chart and retweet it again. And I mean, it always goes spinning around social when we do that. And you had this view that there was this oil glut and what have you. Now, one of the things that I was pointing out in terms of getting your hands around whether the oil price is going to go up or down is we had China essentially bailing out the system for a while because it was able to drain extremely robust reserves.
19:03 To give everybody an idea, you can take the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, multiply it by three, and that was how much China had stockpiled. They had spent years doing it. And people like me and you can't get our hands on the number. I mean, right, with the SPR, we just do a Google search over here on the second screen and that's how much oil reserves the United States has.
19:23 There's a Google search, but you can't get to the bottom of it with China. And so they drained. And now here in the United States, there has been, and I've been putting this forth, the speed and severity of the drain. So when the Russians got into the war with Ukraine, which is at this point 4 and a half years ago, there was about a 16-month window where at a pace of 2.
19:45 3 million barrels per week, the SPR was drained. And it was 2.3 million barrels per week for about 16 months. And you can see it all the way down from the back part of '21 and into '23. Well, now here, this conflict started on February 28th. So it's only been going on for basically half of one year. So a lot shorter time frame thus far.
20:07 But sooner or later six or seven months does turn into 8 months, 9 months, 10 months. I mean, the Houthis were threatening the Red Sea this morning. Well, now, to the extent that the SPR is being drained in the United States, it's something like 5.7 million barrels per week. >> Mhm. >> More [clears throat], almost between double and triple the speed of the prior situation.
20:34 So, sooner or later you start to run out of this stuff. Now, I've argued in terms of K-shaped economy concepts that you can withstand $5, $6 gasoline for reasons that we can go into if you want. It has to do with fuel economy and energy independence and also energy intensity in terms of our day-to-day. But nonetheless, it just seems like this is a back and forth with the Iranians, and with each passing day, we're draining more and more.
21:04 Now, the other concept here for getting overweight energy or being in energy plays is you're at something like 3% of the S&P 500 for energy. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> And I would challenge the viewer to get a gauge on the future of ESG investing, environmental, social, and governance. So about five years ago in the fund management industry, which is where I've been all these years, you couldn't go an hour without somebody talking ESG.
21:31 Whether it was the financial advisor that you were pitching funds to, whether it was the firm that you represented talking about launching ESG funds, that went totally cold. That just shriveled up and died. >> Yeah. >> And to the extent that that happened, there were three or four categories that people started almost getting a new social pass to go for.
21:54 Nuclear energy, which was persona non grata; defense contractors, I mean defense contractors, Jeremy, that was the thing for ESG players to exclude, now everybody's launching a defense contractor fund; and then oil and gas. >> Yeah. >> Oil and gas. Now, the Europeans are still, as far as I can tell, all in on ESG, but there's also this, I think, tremendous underinvestment,
22:22 whether people are bullish or bearish on the energy play. It's just they spent many, many years where their PM, their portfolio manager, the financial advisor was either accidentally or intentionally getting them out of energy. And now if they're overweight, we're at four, five percent in that sector. So there's almost a structural play of people coming back to what they used to play 15, 20 years ago.
22:48 And so I'm bullish energy. I'm bullish the energy sector. That's a nice classic value sector. And I think >> I mean, even right now, what are we talking about? Mag 7, AI, nobody talks about it, even though we have a massive conflict in the Middle East. I think it's pretty remarkable. >> Yeah. No, that's definitely true.
23:08 I know I personally held off on the oil space for that whole environmental side of it. But to your point, it's something we're still going to need and it's still something that's really going to affect the markets for a long time coming. So, we got to embrace the current technology with the hope that they'll transition over time to something a little bit more sustainable, but you can't completely exclude it at this point because it is so necessary in the global economy.
23:32 So, very interesting. It's nice to get your opinion on that and where you stand on the oil. I know that's really big in a lot of dividend portfolios. The other one that's really big in the dividend portfolios are these consumer staples, specifically consumer packaged goods.
23:48 So your PepsiCo, your Campbell Soups, things like that. What is your current opinion on the consumer defensive side, especially when it comes to this whole K-shaped economy that you were talking about earlier? And two specific companies mentioned here with PepsiCo and Campbell's. >> Okay.
24:10 I'm of the view that we have pleasant economic surprise in the next two to four quarters. >> Okay. >> So, let me give you an example, and let's tie this in with Pepsi and Campbell, which both have firm-specific concepts going on through the years at those two names.
24:32 The Atlanta wage growth tracker is like plus 3.8 year-over-year. That's actually an inflationary impulse. And as we're recording here, US CPI is 3.4. So wages are a little bit outperforming inflation, and so that might be able to do something like hold the ground, and that would actually be very favorable for consumer discretionary as opposed to these staples names.
25:00 Now, discretionary is its own weird animal in that we'll see how things shake out in the coming years, is this company discretionary or is it tech, but generally you get Amazon and Tesla inside consumer discretionary. Well, I mean, what do you think, Jeremy? I kind of think Amazon's, well, it's Amazon Web Services plus the retail business, but the retail business is almost consumer staples.
25:31 >> Exactly. >> What did I just have to buy? I know what I had to buy. We had ants out at the tree out front and I needed to buy a bag of Ortho ant killer. That's a consumer staple that I purchased through a consumer staples company named Amazon. And I did that in the last 24 hours.
25:49 That's how I spent my Labor Day, by the way. [laughter] >> Yep. No, that's exactly true. I mean, we are starting to buy groceries on Amazon to get it delivered. It's everyday needs at this point. It's not discretionary in my view. >> Right. But you can buy that patio furniture on there and you can buy an automobile, and then it's all moot because you got Amazon Web Services, which is truly the future of the business and what most people forget.
26:20 So anyway, if you're in a K-shaped economy thesis whereby truly we have a real smack across the cheek of the paycheck-to-paycheck consumer, then you want to be long something like Campbell's. That is the classic money-is-tight purchase. I mean, it's the quintessential one. Now, they have a few things going on in that company specifically, and this goes back to the supply chain,
26:47 aluminum. I mean, this is the big cost of business. And then you also have, very, very, I think, front and center, and I still think it is a mega trend, marginal propensity to consume calories on account of now suddenly you're taking a GLP-1. >> And there's still very, very low penetration among the populace, the American populace but the global populace as well, in terms of uptake of GLP-1s, and I also think that there's a slow uptake of realization that, oh, this is more than just weight loss. This is going to help
27:24 my probability of getting heart disease, of becoming disabled, of having hip pain. We saw this with the Medtronics of the world. >> Mhm. >> And the Stryker, you get a Stryker kneecap replacement, that type of thing. Well, your knee doesn't have as much pressure on it and so you might not need that medical device.
27:44 And so all of this stuff is correlated. It's like, wow, we got this breakthrough. And by the way, Campbell hates it, right? I mean, Campbell doesn't actually hate it. I'm sure that they're happy that society is getting healthier, but the stock, now, so that's the concept over there. Now, with PepsiCo, okay, this has to do with the ability to feed through inflation to the end consumer.
28:11 And then there's also the GLP-1s in that equation. Because I would suspect GLP-1s as a concept remain maybe still underappreciated in the effect they can have on society. And then there's the whole concept of private label versus actually paying for Lay's potato chips, that type of thing.
28:36 They're a little bit of an offset, because I think that there is a greater ability to purchase PepsiCo products, which I think are actually expensive. It's a different concept than Campbell. I think those are a little bit of an offset. But Campbell, I would think, is going to be a big problem.
28:53 You have the aluminum price situation. We are in a commodities bull market. I think that the general public is getting healthier >> in terms of what they're willing to purchase, and I do think the GLP-1s are going to remain an overhang over that one. I'd be long consumer discretionary, frankly. >> Got it.
29:13 Well, that's a really good insight. I know that Campbell just cut their dividend a couple days ago, actually. And so >> I didn't even know. Okay. >> Yeah. They were saying obviously the downturn in business because of the economy or because of the GLP-1s. I'm not sure exactly the reason, but overall they felt like they had to cut the dividend.
29:31 So that was obviously a huge staple in a lot of dividend investors' portfolios, and they would never cut it. So that led to a lot of concern that other packaged goods companies like the Pepsis or General Mills or things like that could potentially cut the dividend over time if people continue to not eat as much of these types of packaged foods, or if they can't afford it and they go down to the store brands like you were mentioning.
29:51 So there's a lot of discussion here in the dividend community about these packaged goods companies and if they're going to be the stalwarts that we used to know them as. So, it'll be interesting to see how things move forward, but I think your commentary was really right on when it comes to certain companies within consumer packaged goods that might struggle with all these other things going on out there. So really interesting to see.
30:14 I want to go back towards the beginning of the conversation. And you said this whole thing between the growth names and value names, dividend names, how the Mag 7 is taking a little bit of a slow year this year and some of the other markets are picking up.
30:30 One big representation of that is the SCHD ETF. Obviously, I know it's a competitor, but they're having a really good year. They're having a really strong year, and it's 100 dividend [clears throat] paying companies. >> Do you think in general the market is looking more favorably on these value types of names over the growth names? And is that a longer-term trend or just a temporary blip? >> Yeah, and look, Schwab runs a great business and we just don't want you to buy the Schwab dividend.
30:52 [laughter] When we launch the dividend mandate, coming over to Corgi, we'll compete on expense ratio against Schwab. Look, I mean, dividends are back on. And then the corollary concept with dividends is buybacks. >> Mhm. >> We're at the point now in 2026 where I don't even think you could talk about dividends without talking about buybacks, because they tend to go hand in hand.
31:17 There are more buybacks than dividends in US corporate America these days. And those two crossed over five, six, seven years ago. And this goes to one of the concepts that I think, there's been a lot of periods of time, if you look inside the bowels of the stock market this year, where it was buybackers.
31:38 This is a highly technical term, buybackers. Buybackers and diluters. >> Mhm. >> And we haven't had too much of an issue with dilution in this country in a while. I mean, the notorious window of time of shareholder dilution is 1998 to 2000, right? Issue more IPOs, everything, issue more equity, we'll take it, we'll gobble it up, until we will no longer gobble it up. And so I think that that's also part of the concept, and that could almost be thematic in 2027: are you reducing share count? If you are, and if the market decides to
32:16 have some sort of upset stomach, it will be those who are increasing share count. That would be the problem children. We've seen that a few times. I was referencing Oracle earlier. Oracle was having a tough go of it there for a spell. And I think that that's going to theoretically be one of those barbells in the coming months.
32:39 This goes also back to a lot of the Ken French studies, where you can pull this data over at Dartmouth back to 1963. And this is absolutely critical. I think this resonates with a dividend type investor. I associate that investor with prudence. I associate that investor with pretty solid knowledge of market history, right? So, for example, if I'm on a call and we're talking about the future of AI, it's tough to get a critical mass of that audience to hearken back to the Nifty Fifty, to the '73-'74 crash, these types of things. And I
33:17 think this is what creates that Graham and Dodd type investor, looking at 40, 50, 60 year windows of time. And so I'll do that right now. And you look at this Ken French data and you look at companies that are diluting shareholders in an economic expansion, the '68-'70 miserable stock market,
33:40 I mean, nobody remembers that one, the 1973-74 crash, certainly do, many other windows of time, definitely the global financial crisis. You get a market that's down. A lot of these companies that came into it, if you're issuing equity capital in an economic expansion, don't ask me what's going to happen to you in a recession.
34:01 I think we all know the answer. >> Those are the companies that go down 80, 90%. >> Yeah. So, in scouring right now for a prudent dividend payer, creating your own basket, what have you, take a look at that share count, see an active buyback program. It's generally paying its dividends, if you will, in the bearish tape, >> and that's when you most need the psych of having stuff holding up so that you're not selling lows and selling bottoms.
34:30 >> Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I had a recent guest on that was talking about the whole buyback thing, and there's so many companies who are advertising they do all these buybacks, but then their equity compensation is just reversing the effect of the buybacks and they're actually issuing more shares than they're actually buying back.
34:47 So, it's definitely something to keep a watch on, and your little history lesson there of what happens when they're issuing more equity than they're buying back is a good warning for people to look out for. All right. So, as we're starting to wrap [clears throat] up, one last thing I want to ask is, as a dividend investor, if we look forward, say, five years from now, are there certain areas or certain things about dividend paying companies that we will regret not doing today? For instance, is it oil? Is it consumer discretionary?
35:15 What sectors do you think dividend investors should be looking forward to over the next 5 years? >> Well, this is one of those, you mentioned two, oil and consumer discretionary. I have a bizarre take on this where I have the oil price going up but I also like consumer discretionary. What? Wait, what did he say? He likes the oil price but he also likes discretionary.
35:38 Yes, in that if you think about prior oil spikes, I mean $147 in the summer of 2008 on WTI, that type of thing, we can withstand these things better. I've argued many times on fuel economy. So, I think the example that I was using is the modern-day, what the heck is that car? Well, I'll just go with the Honda Odyssey instead.
36:01 I was thinking of the Dodge Town and Country or one of those things. The Honda Odyssey has tremendously better fuel economy than even an econo car of the Iranian revolution, 1979, which is akin essentially to the fuel economy of the stuff that was on the road during the '73 oil embargo.
36:21 And then also you have a ton of people driving hybrids and electrics as well. And so energy intensity in this country, in society, has diminished so much that when I did the math on late-model sedans, and I'm just taking the unleaded gasoline price as if oil isn't affecting everything in our society, but if the viewer will just humor me and we'll talk unleaded gas only, in order to have the 2008 energy shock, because it's forgotten that we were crashing the stock market in the back part of '07 and into '08,
36:55 but the energy price kept going because it's classic late cycle. And the most acute pain on the unleaded gasoline situation was in June or July of '08. When you do that math, the car you're driving back in '08 relative to the car you're driving today, the miles driven and what have you, it comes out to about $9.
37:17 5 a gallon, what that was back then in inflation-adjusted terms. >> So we see things like $4, $5. As painful as that is, and as much as we want to respect that pain, we probably need to get to $6 or $7 before you start to really notice it pinching the paycheck-to-paycheck consumer and what have you. So, I think we're going to be okay with consumer discretionary for that reason and for the reasons that I pointed out earlier, probably okay on the oil price and energy stocks because I think we're going higher there.
37:46 >> Okay. Well, thank you. I really appreciate that, and I appreciate all your insights on the economy and different sectors to look out for and to like, and so it's really nice to get the opinion of someone who works in this world every single day and gets what's going on out there the best that someone can.
38:02 It really helps the retail investor get a good mindset on what areas to look for, how to be approaching the economy, how to be approaching which dividend stocks you hold or what you're looking forward to. Before we end, I want to give you a few minutes to plug some of your work, where people can find you, as well as a little bit more about Corgi.
38:20 >> Sure. Oh, absolutely. Well, you can find most of my macro work on the thing we used to call Twitter and on LinkedIn. And one of the things I'm very proud of is I don't post crap all up on social. There's the macro chart, there's the comment. One day later or so, there's another macro chart with the comment.
38:38 There's not all this extra stuff with me talking about last night's baseball game and that type of thing. I don't think anybody cares what my view is on last night's baseball game, right? So, that's where you could find most of the stuff. We're going to build out the Corgi website so we can show some of the macro concepts on there.
38:59 The plan, the intention is by the end of the year to basically have a low-cost, low, and when I say low expense ratio, man, I'm talking like Vanguard. [clears throat] >> And people, oh yeah, it's low. I'm talking like Vanguard expense ratios. We're going to come after Vanguard. Whether we will succeed [laughter] is its own question, but we're launching every line item in the classic pie chart that somebody could conceptualize.
39:25 Oh, there's large growth. Yeah, we're going to have that. Mid value, we're going to have that. The United Kingdom, we're going to have that, assuming all the launches come to fruition, and we're going to battle the big players. So that's what I would expect we could get. I would call this business a success by 2028 or '29.
39:43 If somebody says, "Oh, I want a China fund. What's the iShares China fund?" Which is what I think a lot of people do. That we would succeed if they said, "I bet you Corgi's got a China fund. I bet you it's cheaper than iShares." Corgi China. Oh, there it is. That would be success for the business.
40:02 So, we'll see if we can pull it off. >> Yeah. Excellent. I mean, you guys have done really great work so far. It's very impressive, your ETF suite so far, and the way you're talking, you can only imagine what it's going to look like a year from now. So, I really appreciate that. Really appreciate your time, Jeff, talking about all these things related to the economy and dividend investing.
40:19 Really appreciate it, and hopefully we'll be able to talk again real soon. >> All right, thanks Jeremy. Appreciate it. >> Thanks for watching. While you're here, check out this next video to learn more about dividends, income investing, and option selling. And while you're here, make sure you subscribe, click the like button. It really does help.