What fun to be in person on the awesome sets at CNBC. Tyler and Kelly wanted my take on how trade or position MSFT, LULU, and SCHW.
My take was pretty simple. MSFT has a great opportunity with AI by bolting on what they call Copilot to Office products. I'm just unsure how investors are going to feel about the losses at first.
LULU is just a great company that has the unusual skill of appealing to my teenage daughter, yet it doesn't freak her out that her dad also wears the stuff to the gym. What other clothing brand can do that? The valuation is high, so some caution here.
Then SCHW, who for full disclosure is our primary custodian at my firm, has been hit hard with the duration challenges from rate hikes at their banking arm. This will pass over time, and now that the merger with TD Ameritrade is over, I expect the net new assets that were negative recently will flip to positive.
So, all good firms, but buying individual stocks is difficult, riskier than a simple tax efficient index fund, and should be looked at the dessert, not the main dish. And yes, there is nothing wrong (and a lot of things right) by just keeping things simple and sticking to basic index funds with an appropriate allocation. And if you must dabble, start slow.