FidelityConnects: The dividend playbook: Strategies that pay you back

Join Ramona Persaud, Portfolio Manager, for a conversation on today’s markets and where she’s finding high-quality investment opportunities. As 2025 comes to close, Ramona will unpack her strategy heading into the new year and why the case for dividends may be stronger than before. She’ll also provide an update on Fidelity U.S. Dividend Fund and Fidelity Global Dividend Fund.

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Transcript

[00:00:07.080]

Hello, and welcome to Fidelity Connects.

[00:00:08.520]

I'm Pamela Ritchie. We've got equity markets, and all markets

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actually, pretty much red across the boards right now.

[00:00:15.400]

The market narrative has certainly shifted sharply in

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recent weeks with AI enthusiasm giving way to skepticism,

[00:00:22.360]

certainly some skepticism.

[00:00:23.720]

Adding to the uncertainty is some concern that the Federal

[00:00:26.840]

Reserve may hold off on a third rate cut next

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month. What does this changing backdrop mean

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for the evolution of defensive stocks?

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Are they still playing the exact same role in portfolios,

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for instance? How does quality, the quality bias,

[00:00:42.840]

fit into this environment at this point, especially

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as global markets take on a bit of a barbell structure, you

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could argue. We'll talk about that with our next guest.

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Joining us here today to explore some of these themes and

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discuss why the case for dividends may be stronger

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than before is portfolio manager, Ramona Persaud.

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Now, Ramona manages several Fidelity

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funds including Fidelity U.S.

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Dividend Fund and Fidelity Global Dividend Fund.

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Warm welcome to you, Ramona.

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Great to see you. How are you?

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I'm all right. Nice to see you too, Pamela.

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Great to have you join us here today.

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I'll just remind everyone joining us here today that this

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webcast features live French interpretation so do

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join us in either official language and send questions in for

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Ramona over the next little bit.

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Ramona, let's begin with the market story.

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It's a time of concern and for all of the reasons

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that we just pointed out there.

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Do you pay a lot of attention to this?

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What are you paying a lot of attention to right now?

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Your style is not really an AI type

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of setup. Tell us what you're paying attention to and always

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do pay attention to.

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Yeah, the core, thank you, Pamela, the core of my investment

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process is around the ways in which valuation

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and quality combine.

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I am trying to get the best quality business I can

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get for as reasonable a price as I can, and

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typically as low a price as I can.

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But if you get quality for a very low price there's usually

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usually a lot of controversy or apathy in that.

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I'm always paying attention to that combination

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including today.

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To expand on how you opened,

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I've thought of the market since mid last year

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actually as kind of an accordion

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where the market essentially expands and

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contracts around this element

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of glamour, and glamour is the really fast

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growing parts of the economy

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that are relatively

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unphased by the macro, and I mean relatively,

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not absolutely unphased but relative to the rest of the

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economy less subject to macro fluctuations.

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AI and for some

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time GLP-1 analogs have been considered

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centres like that.

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The market at times will concentrate

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into that sort of glamour hyper road stuff but then when

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it gets really expensive, typically,

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the market will then often have a moment like we're in

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today where it pauses, digests

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and then the accordion kind of opens up again

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and the market broadens out.

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Depending on what data points come our way

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the accordion has sort of had a kind

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of movement to it.

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It's felt that way for the last 18 months so what

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we're seeing today [audio cuts out].

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So 18 months, that's taking us back, we're going back to

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sort of summer of 2024.

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It seems like a long time ago, doesn't it, 'cause this year

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has felt rather long.

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That was sort of in the beginnings of the rate cutting cycle

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for the Fed.

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That's exactly right.

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Last year first half, and I only take us

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back so that we can really contextualize today, was

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very, very strongly glamour oriented and that's

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because we had come off of a long period of tech,

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in the era of rising interest rates and certainly glamour

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tech having a massive indigestion period.

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The market sort of got to a digestion point, if you will,

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where it could embrace glamour again and that worked

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spectacularly well in the first half.

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Then we got to a point where inflation

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essentially subsided and the market started to

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really want monetary easing, or anticipate monetary

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easing, which in the presence

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of tech and glamour tech being more

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richly valued. That was a powerful combination of

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monetary expectations changing and expensive glamour.

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The market just sort of hit glamour really hard

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and expanded back out into more economically

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sensitive areas. That was when that accordion

[00:05:04.280]

idea really took hold in my mind. Okay, we're gonna move

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between these two states or these two orientations.

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Then early this year we saw

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DeepSeek, January 27th, which again, massive indigestion

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in glamour tech.

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The market started to try to find other areas to

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go. Then we got the shock and awe of

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tariffs and other sort of new administrative

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policies which got

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the market to refocus again on glamour because it

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was a place to hide.

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Again, this accordion feature, it's almost

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like the market's making some kind of music, if you will.

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What I've done with all of that is just constantly

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think about valuation, go right back to my process which is

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where is valuation getting more extended and

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where are there some opportunities?

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Today, and this has been the case since late last year,

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for instance, there's still some opportunity in U.S.

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versus developed non-U.S.

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markets. There's still pretty good valuation spread between

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U.S. and other developed countries like the UK,

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continental Europe, Canada, if you will.

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I've been searching in those areas for incremental

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stock ideas.

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One of the other features of this year, which you've been

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doing for years and and living, you're an international

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person, you've lived in lots of different places around the

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world, you've been living the international opportunities

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of of equity investing for much of your life.

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The rest of the world, it seems in North America anyway, has

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not. They've been invested in the U.S. for the last decade

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and plus. This was a year--

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And rightfully.

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--of diversifying but this suddenly

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was the diversification into international.

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I'm sure you were there waiting with open arms, or at least

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you have a comment on that.

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What's been hard in international

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only makes sense if you're sitting in the U.S., international

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means non-U.S. so I'm gonna say U.S.

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versus non-U.S., is that valuation

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difference between U.S. versus non-U.S.

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just kept opening and opening and opening over the last,

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basically coming out of the global financial crisis.

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You have to kind of contextualize it against

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interest rates. Coming out of global financial crisis

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the response, the solve, if you will, to global financial

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crisis was massive unprecedented monetary easing

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which was done at an exceptional level in

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the U.S.

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There was a little bit more discipline, it could be argued,

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in other parts of the world.

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At the margin the money was freer, perhaps

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,in the U.S. so it just lit

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a fuse under long duration cash flow,

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cash flows way out into the future which is another way of

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saying glamour.

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In that context that stuff took off

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in the U.S. and it made the U.S.

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market just take off.

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The valuation spread between the U.S.

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and non-U.S., and certainly U.S.

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and Europe, Europe felt very stagnated because they came down

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super hard on their banks relative to the

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U.S. which showed up in monetary policy to some extent.

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The valuation spread just kept expanding and expanding and

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expanding so the problem was not knowing when the turning

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point would be, if there would be a turning point.

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The way that I measure it is in terms of standard deviation.

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At the end of last year we got to 2 1/2

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standard deviations, U.S. versus EAFE, relative

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valuation spread, which was pretty meaningful, it's still

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around 2 today, and that's the only place in the

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market where I can get valuation spread, which is a measure

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of relative controversy or relative apathy or fear.

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There's still some decent opportunities ex-U.S.

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Now, in my U.S. strategies there's only so much I can do with

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that. I don't want to go too far outside of the U.S.

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but I might end up with more multinational businesses,

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more global businesses.

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If two companies are both global multinationals I

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might choose the European listed one versus

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the U.S. listed one because there's often valuation discount

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that doesn't make sense.

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Certainly, in my global strategies where I can be all over

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the world that was definitely a signal to

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... and I was already there, frankly, to be much

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less U.S. [audio cuts out].

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It's fascinating. I mean, there was some comments, I don't

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know, this is going back a few months, but if there was a

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barbell it was this idea that you can't ignore sort

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of U.S. tech AI

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but if you need to have in your portfolio,

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for instance, a grocery store it's a lot cheaper to have a

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European grocery store than it is to pay the valuations

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for the U.S.

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equivalent because there was a lifting of all boats across the

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U.S. markets.

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It can be. The typical example was less staples.

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I mean, there were some examples in staples.

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Unilever versus P&G was one example, or not

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necessarily Nestlé versus P&G so that was interesting.

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The examples showed up a lot more in industrials,

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Siemens versus GE.

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For the longest while you could buy Siemens a whole lot

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cheaper than its U.S equivalent.

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In industrials I found a lot of examples like that, or even in

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tech, definitely in tech, where U.S.

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tech had this you know very brilliant,

[00:10:34.760]

shiny glamour umbrella that boosted valuations, some

[00:10:38.760]

of it justified, some of it maybe not, versus

[00:10:42.440]

there's just not a lot of European glamour tech.

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At the stock by stock level that is what contributed to like

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an aggregated 2 1/2 standard deviations coming into

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this year, that still is around 2 standard deviations.

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That is a way that as a global investor

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you can just really parse apart the global market to figure

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out where the arbitrage is, essentially.

[00:11:13.280]

Hello, investors. We'll be back to the show in just a moment.

[00:11:16.320]

I wanted to share that here at Fidelity, we value your opinion.

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podcasts. Complete our listener survey by visiting fidelity.ca/survey,

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Periodic draws ending by March 30th, 2026.

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And don't forget to listen to Fidelity Connects, the Upside, and French

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DialoguesFidelity podcasts available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever

[00:11:40.520]

else you get your podcasts. Now back to today's show.

[00:11:46.920]

That's completely fascinated.

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When you take a look at what investors want right

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now, because you'll see some who have decided

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it's the time to take gains.

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Again, these are headlines which you don't follow but there's

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this thought that glamour stocks, as you call them, have gone

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too far, time to take gains.

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That said, if you have a more total return dividend strategy

[00:12:09.120]

you're still getting paid, you perhaps don't have to go and

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cash in chips in the same way.

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I wonder what your strategy means for a lot of investors

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right now who maybe have made gains elsewhere and

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are interested in a little more safety.

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Just at a very fundamental level the way that I

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approach investing is both to

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find excess return, which is what everyone wants,

[00:12:35.440]

but also to do it in a way that is very sensitive

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to the risk embedded in those returns, which typically is

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proxied by volatility, volatility in the

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returns. That matters a lot in moments

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like recently where you've had drawdowns because

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in drawdowns when volatility is potentially higher,

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often higher, investor confidence

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is shaken. That almost always comes with

[00:13:02.960]

churn that's not productive.

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Essentially, selling at the wrong time and and often buying

[00:13:08.400]

at the wrong time.

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If you dampen volatility in the return profile you dampen

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churn, you increase investor trust,

[00:13:19.440]

investor stickiness, which means that investors

[00:13:23.440]

have a much higher chance of capturing the total

[00:13:26.800]

ultimate return of the underlying

[00:13:30.080]

fund in which they're invested.

[00:13:31.920]

That's a big part of my core belief system, to

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really try to take care of the volatility profile and the

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returns as much as I can to increase investor trust,

[00:13:41.200]

to reduce churn so that I can get them as close

[00:13:44.320]

to the underlying fund's total return.

[00:13:47.280]

In moments like this where there's fear or there's

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a transition or just the accordion's opening out, however

[00:13:53.840]

you want to characterize it, where the market feels like it

[00:13:56.960]

has to shift from one thing to something else and investors

[00:13:59.680]

get really scared it can be

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really helpful to have some allocation, some proportion

[00:14:06.880]

of your strategy

[00:14:10.240]

in

[00:14:13.480]

instruments or funds that are really volatility sensitive.

[00:14:19.960]

We speak a lot about correlations because again, this is that

[00:14:22.320]

moment where you don't sort of want to see lots of things go

[00:14:24.960]

down at the same time, how do you

[00:14:28.080]

manoeuvre through that, how do you make sure that you find

[00:14:31.080]

enough places where you're investing

[00:14:34.600]

... it's not correlated too badly

[00:14:38.000]

to all the glamour stocks we're talking to.

[00:14:39.920]

It seems like everything is AI right now in terms of a play.

[00:14:45.360]

What's always been internalized in me that I now have external

[00:14:48.480]

language for is what I call anti-correlation.

[00:14:52.240]

I think it just comes out naturally of a process like this,

[00:14:54.440]

it's just I'm now putting a label on it, which is it

[00:14:57.680]

comes out of being valuation sensitive.

[00:15:00.560]

That doesn't mean buying cheap for cheap's sake.

[00:15:02.480]

Remember that I started out saying I'm trying to get the best

[00:15:04.720]

business I can for a really good price

[00:15:08.160]

so that drives a certain kind of quality and valuation

[00:15:10.880]

sensitivity. When there's a valuation sensitivity,

[00:15:15.280]

especially if you're in a market that has this momentum

[00:15:18.720]

quality to it, there's a way

[00:15:21.880]

that you end up in lower momentum names or

[00:15:25.240]

literally anti-correlated to the strong momentum

[00:15:28.520]

that's driving the market, especially

[00:15:31.640]

when the momentum factor, if you will, is just

[00:15:35.320]

getting reinforced and reinforced and reinforced in greater

[00:15:38.840]

and greater sort of performance.

[00:15:42.920]

If you kind of measure the valuation of momentum, which is

[00:15:46.040]

a really interesting factor-on-factor thing to do,

[00:15:49.560]

and that gets out of bounds, certainly from

[00:15:52.760]

a statistical perspective, so it would be like sort of

[00:15:54.680]

standard deviation of valuation and momentum, there's signals

[00:15:57.880]

like this that if you're valuation sensitive will push you

[00:16:00.840]

into anti-correlation.

[00:16:02.120]

To make that more concrete [audio cuts out].

[00:16:05.320]

Packaged food and spirits have gotten really cheap because

[00:16:07.960]

people taking GLP-1 analogs no longer want to

[00:16:11.720]

impulse drink and impulse eat bad stuff.

[00:16:15.000]

Pharma has gotten really cheap because of administrative

[00:16:17.480]

policy. Often the legacy

[00:16:21.480]

low growth or ex-growth parts of tech can be cheap

[00:16:24.680]

relative to the glamour stuff.

[00:16:27.560]

Naturally, a valuation sensitive process gets pushed into

[00:16:30.280]

anti-correlation and I've, on top of that, I've tried to be

[00:16:33.160]

very intentional to be anticorrelated knowing that

[00:16:36.280]

there's a ton of unintentional AI in most

[00:16:39.640]

peoples' portfolios. You would have to be [audio cuts out]

[00:16:43.080]

to get the AI out of your portfolio.

[00:16:45.080]

Knowing that there's probably more in mine than I'm

[00:16:48.360]

intending I've been trying to find either AI

[00:16:51.640]

laggards or stuff that's quote-unquote anticorrelated

[00:16:54.920]

like package food, something

[00:16:58.080]

like a tech company

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in Asia that didn't get the AI chips

[00:17:04.440]

quite right and got down to less than one times book

[00:17:07.840]

and the sort of alpha odds go up a ton when you

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go below one times book which is what I learned looking at

[00:17:13.360]

this company 15 years ago for the last 15, 20 years.

[00:17:16.560]

Things like that really help  to protect the portfolio in

[00:17:19.840]

moments when glamour gets just overextended.

[00:17:23.280]

Other things [audio

[00:17:26.480]

cuts out] undisturbed by glamour.

[00:17:30.760]

There's anti-correlated and then there's maybe undisturbed,

[00:17:32.920]

which are slightly different things.

[00:17:35.240]

If AI and GLP-1s have been the areas of glamour

[00:17:39.040]

for the last several years what are the parts of the market

[00:17:42.320]

that no one's interested in or that have more controversy in them.

[00:17:45.680]

the sort of low beta part of financials, or there've

[00:17:48.880]

been some like smid-cap European health care names

[00:17:53.040]

that no one really knows about, or certainly U.S.

[00:17:55.440]

pharma, what are some parts of the market that people

[00:17:58.560]

just don't care about and don't want to touch.

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That can tend to be protective against [audio cuts out].

[00:18:06.840]

And ultimately can propel it to go higher

[00:18:10.040]

when people are trying to shift out of

[00:18:13.400]

and shift into something else, essentially.

[00:18:15.160]

I mean, does that ...

[00:18:16.840]

you're already there in a lot of those cases.

[00:18:19.840]

It's a way to intentionally get some diversification

[00:18:23.040]

especially with my thesis,

[00:18:26.400]

if you will, having been since last year this

[00:18:30.400]

accordion feature to the market where it's essentially

[00:18:33.920]

sort of cycling in and cycling out of glamour.

[00:18:38.520]

The turning point is when you get ...

[00:18:41.480]

often the valuation of momentum just getting overextended.

[00:18:44.920]

Then the market will often just shift into something else and

[00:18:48.200]

to me, diversification has helped a lot

[00:18:51.640]

to keep the violence in my portfolios minimal.

[00:18:56.960]

GLP-1s to an extent, I mean,

[00:19:00.240]

as we understand it got a bit thrown out with the bathwater

[00:19:03.520]

because there was just ...

[00:19:04.840]

tell us about the policy side of it and then also perhaps just

[00:19:08.080]

being too overextended and glamorous for a period of time.

[00:19:11.280]

Where are they now?

[00:19:14.080]

I think there's less momentum in that than there has been in

[00:19:16.960]

AI. It definitely had a strong momentum

[00:19:20.160]

element to it a few years ago.

[00:19:21.800]

There

[00:19:25.120]

are different versions of these GLP-1 analogs.

[00:19:28.480]

There's more controversy in that

[00:19:31.600]

space than there was several years ago.

[00:19:33.680]

There's some decent valuations there now.

[00:19:35.520]

Eli Lilly has been the poster child

[00:19:38.800]

glamour stock but there have been some other stocks that have

[00:19:41.200]

really struggled despite having similar drugs.

[00:19:44.160]

There's more controversy now that makes it a

[00:19:47.280]

more interesting place to invest.

[00:19:49.760]

It hasn't kept up with the glamour of AI.

[00:19:52.880]

The controversy is around pricing

[00:19:56.160]

and around addressable market, whether the addressable

[00:19:59.600]

market is quite as large as we think it is.

[00:20:03.040]

There's lots of different views.

[00:20:04.720]

When you've got dispersion in views you can get some

[00:20:07.040]

dispersion in valuation.

[00:20:08.880]

What I have liked is less those companies

[00:20:12.560]

because to me it's hard to really call,

[00:20:16.800]

the range of outcomes seems wide.

[00:20:19.440]

I don't tend to be an early adopter to stuff.

[00:20:22.080]

My kids give me a really hard time about the fact that my

[00:20:24.880]

iPhone is, I don't know, four generations ago or something,

[00:20:27.760]

and I like it that way.

[00:20:30.400]

When there is new, super new cutting edge technology

[00:20:34.400]

such as that drug or AI

[00:20:38.880]

that's not my sweet spot.

[00:20:40.480]

My sweet spot is the stuff that's left.

[00:20:45.200]

Stuff that so much fear gets introduced to

[00:20:48.560]

it because of the leading edge stuff, which

[00:20:52.880]

people like Mark Schmehl are exceptional at.

[00:20:56.480]

I like the stuff that's left for dead, package

[00:20:59.760]

food, pharma, tech in Asia

[00:21:02.960]

that didn't get AI right and got left

[00:21:06.560]

behind, laggards, 'cause often there's

[00:21:10.480]

a pocket of valuation that just gives

[00:21:13.840]

you a lot of [indecipherable]  in those moments.

[00:21:17.840]

Dividends are sort of, I think, also the antithesis of the

[00:21:21.040]

accordion analogy that goes maybe

[00:21:24.480]

with glamour stocks. I mean, they tend to be pretty steady.

[00:21:26.720]

It's a bit shocking when a dividend's cut.

[00:21:28.960]

Sometimes they are but it's a big deal.

[00:21:31.160]

Yeah.

[00:21:33.920]

I guess you could argue though that your typical dividend

stock,

[00:21:35.760]

call it telcos, regulated utilities,

[00:21:38.880]

maybe health care pharma, those are

[00:21:42.080]

wrapped up in the accordion because they are anti-glamour.

[00:21:48.240]

Those are great source sources, typically, of anti-correlation.

[00:21:52.640]

To the extent you can get the valuations for those I have

[00:21:55.520]

leaned into them to try to just get me some diversification.

[00:21:59.360]

Large-cap pharma is a really good example where I can get

[00:22:03.280]

decent alpha odds from low valuation.

[00:22:05.360]

I can get great portfolio construction from

[00:22:09.520]

high free cash flow production

[00:22:12.880]

and low variability.

[00:22:14.880]

Those are measures of quality.

[00:22:16.400]

I get low valuation, high quality low beta.

[00:22:20.080]

From a portfolio construction perspective if you can stock

[00:22:22.600]

pick well that is an awesome place to be relative to the other

[00:22:25.920]

low beta high

[00:22:29.040]

dividend yield parts of the market.

[00:22:31.600]

Regulated utilities are very

[00:22:36.000]

sensitive to interest rates in a way

[00:22:39.280]

that large-cap pharma is not quite as much.

[00:22:42.080]

Staples have been really difficult so that's just

[00:22:45.360]

gotten very, very dislocated from a

[00:22:48.480]

structural fundamentals perspective.

[00:22:50.040]

I've sort of hidden out in large pharma.

[00:22:53.200]

It's not totally safe

[00:22:56.640]

because the administration has come after it but if you're

[00:22:59.440]

gonna be in cheap you have to take some kind of

[00:23:02.200]

[indecipherable].

[00:23:06.400]

In pharma, okay, fascinating. Would you say

[00:23:09.680]

the policy risk is settling down a little bit, there's a bit

[00:23:12.480]

more clarity there?

[00:23:17.040]

I think the word is still shock and awe.

[00:23:20.160]

I think it's like Whac-a-Mole, what

[00:23:26.800]

target are we going to

[00:23:31.600]

socialize next.

[00:23:32.960]

Socialize is the wrong word especially when talking about

[00:23:36.560]

this topic. I don't mean socialize like shared

[00:23:39.680]

costs, I mean what target are we going to

[00:23:42.880]

advertise next, what target are we going to

[00:23:46.240]

put the focus on next?

[00:23:47.920]

For a time it was health care

[00:23:51.680]

and drug pricing, and it may be again, but

[00:23:55.120]

it keeps moving around.

[00:23:58.320]

In so doing you get a ton of volatility.

[00:24:00.880]

You get some valuation [audio cuts out] and, frankly, the

[00:24:03.440]

market is a very sophisticated, complex,

[00:24:07.040]

highly intelligent system so the market

[00:24:10.640]

gets inured pretty quickly.

[00:24:13.520]

What I wait for is you get that initial few shocks of

[00:24:16.640]

volatility, the companies keep

[00:24:19.760]

adapting to the challenges and then

[00:24:22.880]

eventually the shock, the impact of the shock is lessened

[00:24:25.920]

because the market's more inured and that's when your eight

[00:24:28.880]

times earnings gets really rewarded.

[00:24:31.960]

Your strategy is something that you've honed and crafted and

[00:24:35.320]

talked about where it's come from and your approach, sometimes

[00:24:39.240]

that works well with some of your colleagues who have a

[00:24:42.200]

slightly different approach.

[00:24:43.720]

Tell us about that because it is, again, an interesting

[00:24:47.160]

moment where there are those who say we don't want to catch a

[00:24:49.720]

falling knife, we want to, you know, get out or get in but you

[00:24:52.680]

you don't want to miss some of the gains, I guess, for some

[00:24:55.320]

people that are going on in some of these glamour stocks.

[00:24:57.640]

How do you work with other portfolio managers

[00:25:01.080]

to learn from them but also potentially to kind of

[00:25:04.200]

pair up different styles together?

[00:25:08.480]

I'll step way back and say I think one of our

[00:25:12.160]

most maybe nuanced or least

[00:25:15.600]

tangible strengths the way that

[00:25:18.720]

we approach people and talent

[00:25:22.720]

is autonomy.

[00:25:24.960]

We have this way at Fidelity of just giving people

[00:25:28.080]

incredible levels, scary levels of responsibility almost, and

[00:25:33.320]

it comes with therefore so much trust.

[00:25:36.360]

There's this incredibly high trust that's conveyed

[00:25:39.800]

when you're given an assignment.

[00:25:43.440]

You hire bright, really motivated, hungry people

[00:25:46.640]

and you put that together with trust, it tends to work in your

[00:25:49.600]

favour. What that means is

[00:25:52.800]

I feel a deep sense of trust in being

[00:25:55.920]

able to pursue my goals, my

[00:25:59.360]

investment mandate in a way that's authentic to who I am as an

[00:26:02.480]

investor. The way I approach dividend investing is

[00:26:06.000]

not only am I looking for dividends I'm looking for really

[00:26:09.200]

good valuations and great companies.

[00:26:11.840]

If I can get some good dividends out of that that's a really

[00:26:14.080]

beautiful trifecta.

[00:26:15.520]

Other people, according to who they are, might approach

[00:26:18.800]

dividend investing where they really focus

[00:26:22.080]

on the dividends and not any other [audio cuts out].

[00:26:24.320]

I love about Fidelity is we are put

[00:26:27.520]

in a position of pursuing the mandate according to our

[00:26:31.200]

intrinsic strengths.

[00:26:33.280]

In so doing with the right management, if you will, and the

[00:26:35.920]

right guardrails we're able to

[00:26:39.040]

build this diverse ecosystem of

[00:26:42.160]

investment styles and outcomes that

[00:26:45.360]

works, I believe works really well for the end investor.

[00:26:48.120]

That's kind of like an overview question.

[00:26:50.160]

How I work with the other portfolio managers is the

[00:26:53.440]

three people in the offices that way, they

[00:26:56.640]

all have dividend mandates.

[00:26:58.080]

We all do them extremely differently.

[00:26:59.760]

There's one person who is not nearly as valuation sensitive as

[00:27:02.880]

I am. He is all about excess return.

[00:27:07.600]

He will just have a very different style from me and

[00:27:10.800]

have very successful outcomes.

[00:27:13.600]

The person in the office next to me is much, much, much more

[00:27:16.240]

valuation sensitive so he will go for extremely

[00:27:19.360]

low valuations and also be successful.

[00:27:23.800]

I tend to like complexity so I'll take a bunch of

[00:27:27.640]

factors and combine them and, essentially, I'm constantly

[00:27:29.800]

trying to optimize factors. My optimization is around quality,

[00:27:33.320]

value and dividends at a

[00:27:36.680]

first level. Then at a second level

[00:27:40.600]

it's around the volatility embedded

[00:27:43.720]

in that return stream, downside protection, up

[00:27:46.840]

and down capture.

[00:27:48.200]

I just love taking ton of variables and putting them together

[00:27:50.920]

and seeing what I do. We all do it differently and we all end

[00:27:53.960]

up having really successful outcomes because the guardrails

[00:27:56.680]

are very well protected.

[00:27:58.200]

I love being able to learn from them because I think we help

[00:28:01.080]

to inform each other's styles and processes.

[00:28:04.480]

What would you say if people that are joining you here today

[00:28:07.520]

to sort of look out to what is your horizon?

[00:28:10.960]

I know it's a bit of a broad question but for those

[00:28:14.080]

that might want to look a little past, say, the next month

[00:28:17.360]

or two what would you say your horizon

[00:28:20.480]

is?

[00:28:24.320]

Concretely, it is probably three to five

[00:28:27.520]

years and my turnover would show that.

[00:28:30.240]

Turnover in my funds is fairly low.

[00:28:34.240]

I like to think of companies through a market

[00:28:37.520]

cycle and I like to think of the returns in my funds

[00:28:40.640]

through a market cycle. The alpha that I produce in my

[00:28:43.360]

strategies is not linear.

[00:28:45.120]

It has a lumpy quality to it because the style of my funds

[00:28:48.560]

are fairly ...

[00:28:50.320]

they're not linear, they're fairly specific.

[00:28:52.400]

My funds are conservative, alpha driven and also

[00:28:55.520]

downside protection driven, which means that later in an

[00:28:58.240]

economic cycle there's plenty of alpha in a strategy like

[00:29:01.280]

this. Through a recession  lots and lots of alpha early cycle

[00:29:04.560]

can be harder.

[00:29:05.520]

Then mid to late, stockpicking really shines so I can pick up a lot of alpha

[00:29:10.440]

during mid to late, and then into late and recession again so

[00:29:13.560]

over the course of a market cycle I should be able to produce,

[00:29:16.000]

this is the way that I think of what's possible, an

[00:29:21.080]

alpha profile that is again, not linear,

[00:29:24.680]

has a certain shape to it but is beneficial

[00:29:28.200]

to the end investor, especially on a risk-adjusted basis.

[00:29:33.320]

When I think about time horizon I'm really looking

[00:29:36.600]

market cycle to market cycle which can be 3, 5

[00:29:40.120]

but in my mind too I want really strong 10-year returns,

[00:29:44.840]

10+-year returns for my end investors.

[00:29:48.040]

Ramona Persaud, it's such a pleasure to speak with you and to

[00:29:50.280]

hear your calm voice and deep thinking

[00:29:53.640]

in these markets right now 'cause it's easy to kind of

[00:29:56.840]

flit around and you're a real anchor there.

[00:29:58.840]

Thank you for joining us.

[00:30:00.520]

My pleasure. Thanks, Pamela.

[00:30:03.200]

Thanks for watching or listening to the Fidelity Connects

[00:30:07.120]

podcast. Now if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to Fidelity

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And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a review or a five-star

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We'll end today's show with a short disclaimer.

[00:30:40.080]

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,

[00:30:43.920]

and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or

[00:30:47.840]

its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not

[00:30:51.840]

be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.

[00:30:54.400]

It is not an offer to sell or buy.

[00:30:56.720]

Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities

[00:31:01.040]

cited. Read a fund's prospectus before investing, funds are not guaranteed.

[00:31:05.840]

Their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated.

[00:31:09.400]

Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated

[00:31:11.840]

with fund investments.

[00:31:14.000]

Thanks again. We'll see you next time.

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