FidelityConnects: Beyond North America – The rise of international markets

After years of big U.S. tech leading the way, what is the case for investors shifting their focus to international markets for growth opportunities? 

Join Fidelity portfolio manager Jed Weiss for an update on international equities and how big market movers like AI and geopolitics are affecting companies in Europe and Asia.

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[00:03:53] Pamela Ritchie: Hello, and welcome to Fidelity Connects. I'm Pamela Ritchie. It's been a standout year for international markets. After years of a strong U.S. dollar we've seen a meaningful shift and global equities have responded. Our next guest says regions within Europe and Asia continue to offer attractive opportunities. Where exactly are those opportunities, and how does his experience managing both large and small mandates create a unique advantage of understanding the full market food chain, if you will? Joining us now to unpack all of these questions and more is International Growth Fund portfolio manager, Jed Weiss. Great to see you again, Jed. How are you?

[00:04:32] Jed Weiss: I'm great. Pamela, thanks so much for having me.

[00:04:34] Pamela Ritchie: We're delighted to have you live from Boston here today. We'll invite everyone to send their questions in for Jed over the next 30 minutes or so regarding this. I've been thinking a lot about what this year probably has meant for you, for your fund, for your style of investing. International growth is having its moment. What's it been like for you this year if you sort of go back through the arc of maybe 2025?

[00:04:59] Jed Weiss: Fair enough. The international markets have had a good year following a prolonged period of U.S. outperformance. I think there's a couple of reasons for that. First of all, it's important to remember that starting points matter. The starting point at the beginning of the year was a U.S. dollar that looked expensive on a purchasing power parity basis, on a global basis, coupled with international equities which looked cheap versus their own history and versus their U.S. counterparts. Almost any way you slice the data, whether it's P/E or EBIT to EBITDA or free cash flow yield or dividend yield, the message result is kind of the same. Now. I will say, yes, international markets have outperformed but those two observations remain true. The U.S. dollar still looks expensive on a purchasing power parity basis and international equities still look attractive versus their own history and versus their U.S. counterparts. Now, that's not to say that this period of outperformance will necessarily continue but I do think a lot of elements of that starting point remain.

[00:05:55] Now, in addition to that we've also seen some uniquely international themes, some for unfortunate reasons. I mean, the war in Ukraine is, of course, a horrible human tragedy but has led to an awakening on the part of a lot of European governments that European defence spending and European infrastructure spending needs to go up. Some of these markets, some of those countries, like Germany, has the balance sheet to really increase spending and is actively doing so, and being clear that they want a disproportionate amount of that spending to go towards European companies. We also have Japanese corporate governance reform, which I know we've discussed in the past but continues to gain momentum which has been a big tailwind for Japanese equities.

[00:06:38] Of course, there's other themes that we're all familiar with, things like AI. Typically, when people think about AI infrastructure they think about U.S. companies but, in fact, there is a lot of international counterparts that have equal growth, at least as good profitability and [indecipherable] valuation. It's sort of a combination of factors that has led to this period of outperformance.

[00:06:59] Pamela Ritchie: I mean, it's just fascinating. To an extent all of those factors, as you say, there's the structural story that's been going on for years in many cases. You mentioned the Japanese financial reforms, those have been in place and, as you say, gathering steam. There was this desire to diversify sort of layered on top of it that seemed, I mean, I don't know, I'm curious how you look at that. Suddenly the rest of the world was cheaper, it's always been cheaper, but mattered from a perspective of diversification. I guess, what kind of legs does that have?

[00:07:33] Jed Weiss: Look, diversification is important and I think one thing that people often forget is that over 70% of the world's stocks, not the world's market cap because the U.S. has done well in the last decade or so, but the world's stocks reside overseas. In some ways by ignoring international markets, or ex-U.S. markets, as like fighting a battle with one hand behind your back, or buying a U.S. S&P fund that only invests east of the Mississippi or some other arbitrary delineation. I think that coupled with the attractive valuation starting points and some uniquely international themes has awoken folks to the fact that international can provide some valuable diversification. Again, not to say things will continue, I don't know, but I do think that there's a lot going for it and a lot of merits towards the diversified portfolio.

[00:08:24] Pamela Ritchie: I want to ask you about Japan in just a second and also Europe but tell us a little bit about your style.  It's growth, you mentioned, and we mentioned also in the introduction to introduce you, that you take a look at large as well as sort of small and mid-cap. That must be actually quite difficult because you're swimming in a couple of different ponds there, or fishing in a couple of different ponds, how do you manage that because large-caps are a whole world unto theirselves.

[00:08:53] Jed Weiss: I actually think there's a lot of synergies between the two. It's important to remember that the investment process and the portfolio construction approach remain the same. Multi-year structural growth stories, high barriers to entry businesses, attractive valuations based on my earnings forecast that focus on pricing power in real terms at every point in the cycle is one of the metrics I use to determine a sustainable competitive moat. The portfolio construction approach, trying to make sure that underlying stock picking is driving the fund's performance, not macro exposure which is easy to say and harder to do and do a lot of work slicing and dicing both funds along those lines. Back to the synergy point, I think there are real synergies between running of both mandates. Of course, I've been doing this in one form or another for 17, 18 years now is there's enough data that I feel I have a lot of conviction here. It's important to me that when I invest I understand the entire food chain in which I'm investing. Often the competitors, customers and suppliers of small-cap companies are divisions of large-cap companies and vice versa. I'm constantly meeting both types of companies. That's item one.

[00:09:55] Item two is, I mentioned it's a unified investment approach. Sometimes it spits out large-cap ideas, sometimes small-cap ideas. It's helpful to have dedicated vehicles for each asset class. Thirdly, it's also good for idea generation. It can work both ways. Sometimes I'll meet a large conglomerate and they'll be going through their business, not very good, mediocre, this is kind of lousy and then they'll get to some small business that's maybe only 5-10% of their revenue. It's not that material for the large-cap company but it's a division that is booming. My takeaway is, okay, I don't necessarily need to own the large-cap company but I sure shouldn't find a pure play on that small division. That's led to a number of profitable ideas.

[00:10:43] It can also work the other way. Sometimes there are themes that bubble up in small-cap land that then I find large-cap opportunities. I'm thinking pet pharma, for example. There's a number of UK, French, Japanese companies that specialize in pet pharma. The small-cap fund I had owned for years and then once large-cap pharma companies started spinning out these divisions Fidelity as a firm and me, specifically, had done a lot of work on this area so we had a real leg up and trying to analyze some of those opportunities.

[00:11:13] Pamela Ritchie: That's fascinating. This is a good moment, we're going to go around the world a bit more with you but there is a fund launch arriving, coming next week. This is a global small, mid-cap fund with a large chunk dedicated to the U.S. It's 50%, then there's 30% international small, mid-cap, which is what you're going to be managing, and then 20%  Salim Hart, the micro side of it. This will be launched next week. Tell us a bit about this fund, it's obviously global, what kind of the small cap opportunity internationally or globally is.

[00:11:49] Jed Weiss: It's an exciting fund launch and I will say everyone involved in this fund I've worked with for decades so I can say they're talented.

[00:11:56] Pamela Ritchie: I'll show you their picture, there's a slide here, their pictures are right here, we'll put this up.

[00:12:02] Jed Weiss: All of them have a lot more hair than I but very talented investors. We've worked together for decades. I think each of these asset classes are relatively inefficient and so if you're an active fund manager like we are it's a wonderful opportunity to pick stocks and to find acorns to oak trees, find companies when they're still small and watch them grow into successful large-caps, which is how you can make a lot of money. As you say, along with Patrick Drouot I'll be managing the 30% of that fund dedicated towards international small-caps. Patrick and I have known each other for almost 20 years now, work very closely together in small-caps. He's helped me with a couple of other fund mandates that I work with so a wonderful, wonderful partner.

[00:12:51] Pamela Ritchie: Thank you, and for the introduction a little bit to Patrick as well. You've been managing sort of this, it'll be a sleeve within this fund that we're talking about, this launching, but in the U.S. we're more familiar with you taking a look at the international larger cap but you've running small-cap global more available to American investors for a long time, right?

[00:13:09] Jed Weiss: That's correct. Yes, 17 years. I took over the International Small-Cap Opportunities Fund in the U.S. in very late '08. I've been running that a long time. As I mentioned, the investment approach, the portfolio construction approach is the same. The names, of course, are very different but I do think there's real synergies between running the large cap growth-oriented fund and the small-cap fund. You'll see that continue to play out in both vehicles.

[00:13:34] Pamela Ritchie: Shilpa has sort of a growth approach, you have a growth approach and your colleague, Salim, has a value approach. He's taken us through his strategy before but these will all be available as one equity fund, global small, mid-cap. That's really interesting.

[00:13:49] Jed Weiss: Patrick also has a little bit more of a value tint which I think is nice because it brings a little balance to the small-cap strategy, both in terms of bringing some portfolio construction balance but also as a wonderful vehicle. If I'm finding lots of ideas and my cash is running low I'll be investing more of that capital. As has happened this year, for example, I've had several companies get bought out and maybe I haven't been immediately able to deploy that capital, it's been wonderful to be able to say, hey, Patrick, you're finding great ideas, let me hand some of that capital to you and put it to very productive work.

[00:14:28] Pamela Ritchie: Fantastic. This is available to Canadian investors next week. It's great to have you here joining us to take us through what it will mean ultimately for investors. Let's go around the world a little bit. Japan is an area that Fidelity as a company has been very involved in the investment scene there for, I think, decades. Is that right? I mean, we're talking back to...

[00:14:46] Jed Weiss: We've had an on-the-ground presence in Japan since the 1960s. I'll tell you, that makes a big difference. There's a lot of these corporates that are sometimes hesitant to have big foreign investments within their companies but I've had several companies, including one earlier this year, come to me and say, hey, Jed, it is a badge of honour to have Fidelity on our share registry. We're happy to take your meeting, we're happy to answer your questions, let us know how we can help. That is, I assure you, not how they are responding to every investment firm. I really feel it's yet another reason why Fidelity is such a wonderful place to manage international money.

[00:15:22] Pamela Ritchie: That's fascinating. You would also have been watching how different this pivot and the policy change has been for the financial, they're calling it sort of a rejuvenation. It's much more shareholder-focused. It's been going on for some time, though, I feel like, at this point.

[00:15:39] Jed Weiss: Yeah, fair. I guess, again, starting points matter. We had a 25-year bear market coming off the 1990 peak which led, I think, to a lot fewer people looking at the market and led to a very cheap and inefficient market. I use those terms separately because there's also a lot of cheap, with cause, sort of names you don't want to play. I'm not saying go out and buy all of Japan but I do think it's a wonderful hunting ground for active investors. One question I often get, I made this observation long ago was, well, hey, what's going to be the catalyst? One initial catalyst was when we had a new prime minister 10, 15 years ago, Prime Minister Abe who brought in a new central bank head with a different central bank policy, that led to more interest. what's happened subsequent to that has been corporate governance reform in part driven by the government that has continually gained momentum over time.

[00:16:31] I think last time we spoke I highlighted that back in March I visited a leading foreign activist investor in Japan. First of all, the fact that there are leading foreign activist investors in Japan is a big deal relative to [audio cuts out]. They were talking about how actually the government is behind their efforts, they sanity check their efforts with the government, the governments behind their efforts and actually companies are listening to them faster than they ever used to be. There's also plenty of examples of companies that I meet where they've never bought back stock They've always had some reason why, you know, yes, their cash is 50 to 100% of their market cap  and they've never lost money but they still didn't want to buy back stocks. Suddenly these companies are announcing large share of purchases. Not 50 pbs, 1% but 10% plus share of purchases. You're also seeing management buyouts. Two weeks ago another company I own was bought out by the management team. Basically, people are seeing, wow, these are really cheap valuations and change is afoot.

[00:17:38] Yet another piece of change, actually, two more pieces change, one is topics reform. The index is now [audio cuts out] towards the end of next year we are going to start kicking companies out of the index that are too cheap and too small and illiquid. All of a sudden companies are saying, wow, we don't want to get kicked out of the index, what can we do? They're starting to unwind cross shareholdings, deliver capital back to shareholders in an effort to boost liquidity of their stock and boost the valuation of their stock. Of course, this past weekend we have a new prime minister coming in to Japan.

[00:18:15] Pamela Ritchie: What do you think?

[00:18:15] Jed Weiss: She's a protege of Abe who started all of this so certainly viewed as a ... we'll have to see, I don't know what will happen but certainly she is viewed as market friendly, viewed as someone who will push back on the trend towards interest rate increases, boost fiscal spending, especially in defence, some of the same teams that we've been seeing but she's likely to push them in a way that perhaps, potentially, her opponent would not have. Again, time will tell. There's the campaign trail and then there's actual governing so we'll have to wait and see. I think in general she is widely viewed as market friendly at this point.

[00:18:54] Pamela Ritchie: Do you spend time on travels going to Japan to meet some of the companies that you're invested in? You must travel a lot, or do you?

[00:19:02] Jed Weiss: Fair enough. I was there last [indecipherable] and actually I'm going to be there in another five or six weeks now. I'm in the process of setting up those trips. Typically, it's not just me. I'll loop in either other fund managers based in Boston. Of course, we have a strong team based in Tokyo. We have some folks coming in from Hong Kong and our London office to join me. There's going to be a lot of us actually that week. We're going to host some meetings within our Tokyo office of companies who can come in and then there's going to be lot more where I'll go visit the management teams wherever they might be, Tokyo beyond. I spend quite a bit of time on the road. That trip will not just involve Tokyo, it'll involve London and Stockholm as well. As my dad likes to point out, I'm in desperate need of a nap but this is how you find great opportunities, going out and getting to know these businesses.

[00:19:53] Pamela Ritchie: That's so interesting. Let's talk about Europe a little bit. It's been extraordinary for all the reasons you mentioned at the top of this conversation. The fiscal train is rolling and it's moving quickly. It's going to spend, it's going to spend on defence. A lot of European countries, as you say, realizing that defence spending just simply has to go up, and it will and it's planned. We kind of know the broad outline of it. Has it been a bit overdone? Doesn't mean it won't continue as a theme and spending in the fiscal direction of things but just in terms of valuations has the European trade been, I don't know, overdone? What do you think?

[00:20:30] Jed Weiss: Pamela, you make a great point, which is one needs to disaggregate the macro from the micro. Sometimes they're the same but sometimes they are not. You're absolutely right, when it comes to European defence spending that continues to be a strong theme. Actually, a lot of that spending is certainly in front of us but there was a period certainly earlier in the year, and to some extent still now, where that was increasingly getting reflected in valuations of a lot these defence stocks. It's an area that's added a lot of value for the fund. It's an area that I'm still involved in a number of defence stocks but it's not necessarily an area ... it's not like I've been incrementally adding here just because some of those stocks have been very strong.

[00:21:07] Now, on the infrastructure side there are some opportunities where the market's been a little bit slower to pick up the scent. I've found more incredible opportunities in places like European [indecipherable], etc. Yes, it remains a theme. To give you an example of what I mean by that difference between macro and micro, the UK is a market where the macro isn't real hot. Inflation's a little higher than you'd want, political stability is not fabulous there either and yet there's a lot of wonderful global franchises that have significantly derated post-Brexit, back seven years ago now. Wow, time flies. A lot of capital has fled the UK and a lot of these great franchise businesses where their business may have nothing to do with the UK are trading in much cheaper valuations than they did historically.

[00:22:04] In the last 12, 18 months I've found that my growth fund, which has never before been overweight the UK in the 18 years since I've run it, has been overweight the UK. One of those companies got bought out because actually what you'll start to see is others wake up, either trade buyers, and actually in this case it was private equity that took one of these significant holdings out at a big premium, or you'll have companies relisting, making the same observation I do which is, wow, our business has nothing to do with the UK, we happen to be listed in the UK, no one cares about our stock, if we just pick up and move to the U.S. we'll get a higher multiple. You've seen quite a few companies over the last couple of years start to do that. One way or another the market ferrets out this opportunity. It's still a happy hunting ground as far as I'm concerned and that's why this will be my second or third trip to the UK in the last twelve months.

[00:23:00] Pamela Ritchie: It's interesting, when they get relisted, and we've heard about that, as you say, relisted somewhere else, often New York, does that, I mean, do you see the future of trading in London as a financial capital, they're going to kind of get on that and therefore there's room for that to lift. I mean, is that the opportunity, partly? It's been a little bit, the index itself has been a bit left for debt.

[00:23:27] Jed Weiss: Yes. I do think the market, it's a little like we talked about in Japan. You can have an early observation of, wow, this is a cheap and inefficient market, what will be the catalyst? They are resolved either by companies coming in and buying them, relistings or, as you say, maybe UK incentives to help tax rates or regulatory or whatever it might be to help companies stay and improve their businesses. Exactly what combination of these factors will occur, I don't know but I don't think that this period of inefficiency will last forever. In fact, we're already starting to see that change.

[00:24:10] It's not just a quantitative, I've given you kind of a quantitative perspective on the devaluation that we've seen but qualitatively too. When I go to the UK, companies are happy to take multi-hour train rides with their senior leadership team to see us in our London office or when I do ... and I often go out to see them as well and when I do ... most memorably in my last trip I remember I showed up to the elevator and the entire senior leadership team was there waiting for me to greet me off the elevator. I assure you that is not the kind of treatment I would have received 5 or 10 years ago. Companies are [audio cuts out] interested in the UK market.

[00:24:46] Pamela Ritchie: That's really, really interesting and as you say, quite different. You know what is also quite different? We're 20 minutes into a discussion and we haven't said AI once so we have to get into that. It's obviously an enormous ... it is the story for the United States, to what extent is it the story for the companies that you're investing in around the world? There's a couple of different ways of looking at it. It's the companies deploying it internally and then there's actually those suppliers, be it power or anything else. How do you look at AI opportunities?

[00:25:17] Jed Weiss: A hundred per cent. I think AI is very much a global story but is viewed by many investors as a U.S. only story. Therein lies the opportunity because you can buy a lot of great franchise businesses much cheaper than their U.S. counterparts. That goes across the board. If I think about AI infrastructure and you think about semiconductors, for example, what's the first name that pops up? Nvidia, everyone thinks Nvidia, and for good reason. Nvidia is a great business, I'm not throwing stones at the investment case by any means. But I will point out, where does Nvidia manufacture its chips, and for that matter, where do all AI GPU and AI ASIC companies manufacture their chips? Well, it's TSMC. Where does TSMC buy its leading edge semiconductor capital equipment? Often it's oligopolistic Japanese or European semi-conductor capital equipment providers. Where do they buy their components? Often it's another series of European and Japanese players. A lot of these companies are benefiting from the same growth and profitability characteristics that you'll see in their U.S. counterparts but trade at a fraction of the price.

[00:26:24] It's also true in power, power generation. Gas turbines, a lot of people think of Chiahui Vernova for good reason but you've got to remember Mitsubishi Heavy, Siemens Energy, these are also companies that provide the same products. Again, not making any forward-looking statements on whether those stocks are buys or sells, just observing that these businesses often do similar things but may trade at different multiples. Electrical components, a lot of the key players supplying U.S. data centres are actually big European players trading at discounts to their U.S. peers.

[00:26:55] Another interesting area, in addition to what you said which is companies lowering their costs and that's absolutely the case. I've had a number of executives tell me that 30% of their coding is now happening with AI on its way to 70+% over the next couple of years. That is absolutely true. But you also have a number of companies that are leveraging AI to improve their own businesses from a [indecipherable] perspective, to improve the customer experience and in many cases charging the customer for these revenue opportunities in one form or another. A number of those are international. You think about the company that owns LexisNexis, rolling out LexisNexis AI to leverage AI capabilities on legal databases. You think about Tencent, actually, in China, able to leverage AI to the same kind of ad targeting improvement that Meta does here. That is an area where there are shifting sands beneath our feet. Companies, in some cases, that you thought were AI winners 6 to 12 months ago maybe aren't today, or the history is yet to be seen.

[00:28:01] I think of Wolters Kluwer which has the UpToDate franchise. UpToDate is a product where doctors, if they have a patient with a special medical condition can log in and find out what do experts in the field have to say, what do they recommend. It's been a great product for a lot of years. Probably 12 months ago it was viewed they'll layer in AI to improve that product, and they probably will, but along have come other AI native companies like Open Access which can provide somewhat similar functionality but with a totally different business model, not charging the customer, that have gained a lot of share.

[00:28:35] History has yet to be written. It's unclear, will Wolters be a winner or a loser? I feel blessed to work for a place like Fidelity with a wonderful broad franchise that can answer those questions in real time. We have coverage across different sectors, we have a business itself that is in a lot of different areas so we can tap into a lot of internal resources in addition to talking [audio cuts out] public and private within the food chain to try to answer some of these questions. I do think AI is a very exciting area, certainly in the U.S. but also very much internationally. From a valuation perspective that's underappreciated.

[00:29:12] Pamela Ritchie: That is fascinating, and you're sticking close to that theme, as you say, sort of across the way you invest. Is there something to come back to the macro on just the interest rate story? I'm not sure if it's your favourite part of what you want to talk about but it just seems that when you're looking at a lowering interest rate environment across the globe, that's good for small and mid-cap, that's just sort of the way it is, that's the way you learn it. To what extent does that come in to the way you're look at companies at this point?

[00:29:41] Jed Weiss: Totally. And I will say, you're right from a portfolio construction standpoint, I don't want the direction of interest rates to be the key driver of the fund. I do take measures there. That's not to say that I don't have any views on the subject. We did go through a period of high inflation, high interest rates. Inflation is coming down, interest rates have been rolling over. That's true in the U.S., it's also true globally. It's also correct to say that historically falling interest rates has been good for international markets in general and small-caps even more so. It's led to micro level opportunities. There's a number of great franchises that are tied to markets like the housing sector in various countries. In some cases, actually, there are international businesses that are even tied to the U.S. housing sector. That can be a global observation. Housing has been hit not just in the U.S. but in a number of places in Europe and elsewhere in the world. There's been a cyclical downturn there. In some cases, very cheap valuations. I think as rates roll over, presumably that will be a tailwind to overall housing activity and thus benefit some of these great franchises on the cheap. Again, I'm not here to make big prognostication as to whether rates are going up or down from here relative to what the market is expecting but it is fair to say that inflation has been decelerating, interest rates have been coming down and if that continues that should be a tailwind in the ways that I just mentioned.

[00:31:16] Pamela Ritchie: From the macro to perhaps the super micro, just to kind of give us a flavour of the way you invest, the way you're researching some of these firms, do you have, as we kind of close out here, a story that you can tell us, whether you're very much visiting the company that you're investing in, ultimately. If you're on the road you're probably right there.

[00:31:39] Jed Weiss: Visiting companies, going on the factory floor, etc., is wonderful because you get to meet several layers of management, often three layers below senior management. While you're visiting the factory you can tangibly see how are they running things. You may see equipment on the side that may answer questions you have about unrelated businesses. I guess to give something specific, in some ways my favourite example is literally kicking the tires. I was visiting a major tire producer in one of the most important countries and I had heard from others in the food chain, some of the competitors, some of their customers saying that they had way too much inventory. When I got to that moment, I was meeting the head of the country, the country manager, I said, hey, I'm seeing on the financial statements but I'm also hearing anecdotally that there's too much inventory specific to your country and your country is a major driver of the overall company. Is this true? Said, no, don't worry, that may have been true six, nine months ago, we've solved the inventory problem, nothing to see here, we should be fine. So okay, interesting.

[00:32:42] I'm driving back from the meeting back into town. As it happened, we were passing a tire distributor for their products. I asked the taxi driver, hey, can we just stop here for a minute? We stopped here, I didn't have a translator with me so the taxi drivers served as my translator. The distributor offered to show me around and looking around. Then he was showing me the back room. I walked into this room and I've never seen so many tires in my life, floor to ceiling tires all over the place. I said, is this normal, you can barely move back here. No, normally we just have a quarter of this amount of tires but the last two months they've been sending us nothing but tires. We asked them to stop but they won't do it. I have to store all these tires. My conclusion was, yes, indeed, what I'm hearing in the industry is correct, there is an inventory problem. Lo and behold within three to six months they had to publicly come out and restate their numbers [audio cuts out] excess inventory.

[00:33:49] Pamela Ritchie: That is a great story and I guess you wouldn't want to kick the tires because they'd all collapse in on you in that situation.

[00:33:53] Jed Weiss: That's right, be careful.

[00:33:56] Pamela Ritchie: Move very gently in there. That's a great story. We'll leave it on that. Jed Weiss, it's great to see you. Thank you for bringing how you invest to us, the new fund launch that's ahead and, ultimately, the international story for investors here across this country.

[00:34:10] Jed Weiss: Thanks so much for having me, Pamela. Good to see you.

[00:34:11] Pamela Ritchie: Good to see you as well. That's Jed Weiss joining us live from Boston today. Coming up tomorrow, first at 10:30 Eastern French language webcast, host Charles Danis, he'll be sitting down with Antoine Guilmain. He is partner and co-lead of the National Cybersecurity and Data Protection Group at Gowlings, it's a law firm, for a detailed discussion on a range of data protection, cybersecurity issues that ultimately might help you provide more value and better protect for how your clients interact with their clients.

[00:34:40] Then at 10:30 Eastern, host Lauren Gardy, she's chatting with Bobby Barnes, Head of Quantitative Index Solutions, for a look at where we are in today's business cycle, ultimately, and therefore the factors that he favours within the particular cycle.

[00:34:55] On Friday we'll be airing a replay of our conversation with Peter Drake. Peter is a former vice president of retirement and economic research at Fidelity and he'll be talking about the transition into retirement himself, and the lessons, ultimately, that he learned about how the investment story goes from there.

[00:35:12] We'll also be off air next Monday, wishing everyone, of course, Happy Thanksgiving, but join us on Tuesday, we'll be sitting down with Fidelity Director of Alternatives, Rory Poole, and alternative strategist, Brendan Sims. This is an informative discussion of the state of alts investing in today's markets, and Fidelity's latest product release, the Fidelity Multi-Alt Equity Fund. We'll dig into that in detail with them. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you soon. I'm Pamela Ritchie. 

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