Laila Pence on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia (02/02/2021)

Let’s talk a little bit about the biggest market moves today. Retail trading fever. With some of the favorite stocks losing ground. But, our next guest thinks at least GME is a reasonable business. Let’s discuss this with Pence Wealth Management President Laila Pence. Layla, always great having you with us. So, are we finding some fundamentals driving these stocks again, and what does that mean for GameStop?

Finally! We’re finally seeing fundamentals matter and I think right now you’re going to see it continue to be volatile just because there is still amazing trading out there but we think in the next couple of days, next weeks or so, things will get better for them. We will start trading based on two evaluations.

When it comes to the valuation, of course, we have seen these tech stocks rally during the pandemic. We’re now getting results from amazon. At least, they’re doing well. So, what does the new year hold for e-commerce?

We think it’s going to continue— people have gotten used to e-commerce. If they bought before now that’s a way of life. I don’t think that is going to go down at all. I think it’s going to continue to increase. It’s quicker, it’s cheaper, and online shopping is going to continue to grow. We’re very bullish on e-commerce. Of course, there’s going to be volatility in the market. That’s here to stay. E-commerce is going to continue to do well.

Do any of the regulatory concerns affect your investment portfolio? 

Regulatory concerns have been there every single year there’s some concern about something. They’ll adjust. I think it will be good to have some regulations. I think they’ll find a way to perform better. I remember with other companies when that happened, they found a way, just like our industry, I do think there’s going to be some regulations possibly because of what’s going on with GameStop and the shorting and so forth. I think in the long run, it’s a good thing for our traders and for investors specifically. I’m more interested in investors than traders.

Layla, does the leadership change at Amazon change your view of the stock and the company? 

I can’t really comment about individual companies. But, in general, I think from what they said that he’s actually going to be focusing on new products which I think is a really good thing. I think the person that is taking over is seasoned with AWS. So, I think, as a company, they’re still in good hands. Certainly, everybody knows Amazon. Everybody loves their product. And we do think as a company as opposed to the stock that the company should continue to do well, as a company.

Given the slower than expected vaccine rollout, these concerns that vaccines that are rolled out may not be sufficient to cover the new different variants that are now getting around the world. Do we still pause the cyclical-driven trade?

We think basically that by June, there’s going to be enough vaccines for everyone that wants to get vaccinated, they’ll have the opportunity to get vaccinated or they would’ve had COVID already. So, it’s a very strange period of time. We’ve waited so long we think that there’s certainly always doing research to make sure all the variants will be taken care of. We think we may have to get vaccinated every year, but we do think the first half of this year is going to be where the stimulus carries us through. One of the things that’s interesting about the stimulus package and dollars is that last stimulus they got checks. This time they’re getting debit cards. When people get debit cards they usually spend it. So we think the spending is going to carry with the stimulus package the first half of the year. The second half of the year will be carried by the pent up demand from people with having the highest savings rate right now there’s every client I’ve talked to can’t wait to get out there and spend money. We think the second half of the year is going to be carried by pent-up demand for spending.