Is It Time To De-Risk Your Portfolio? | Ted Oakley

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**Ted Oakley** (0:58)
If you don't have at least 20 or 25% in some sort of a cash mode, we own short-term treasuries, but three, six-month treasuries, that kind of thing. If you don't have at least that much right now, I think you're taking a bigger risk because valuations are still really, really high. We're still at a high multiple S&P. And what happens in times, tough times, is they shrink the multiple and they shrink the earnings both. And that's how you get hit. And I don't think people are factoring any of that in.

**Adam Taggart** (1:37)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm Thoughtful Money Founder and your host, Adam Taggart. Very happy to welcome back to the program Ted Oakley. Ted is a founder and CEO of Oxbow Advisors, a high-net-worth advisory firm. Ted is one of the absolute true gems of the investing world. I always love getting to interview him. We've got a lot to talk about. Ted, thank you so much for joining us.

**Ted Oakley** (2:00)
Good to see you, Adam.

**Adam Taggart** (2:02)
Good to see you, Ted. And I think the audience is gonna particularly appreciate your calm, just level-headed quiescent demeanor here at a time where there's a lot of concerns swirling around Wall Street right now, right? We've got spiking oil prices from the Iran War. We've got concerns about private credit, potentially spilling over into other parts of the credit system. The stock market's basically gone nowhere for pretty much six months at this point. I don't even know where we should start. But from your perch, what are you looking at most closely these days with your team at Oxbow?

**Ted Oakley** (2:40)
Well, you know, Adam, we look at companies from the companies themselves. And we will wait till we get certain opportunities to own things. And that presents us with a few things. Rates ticked up a little bit. And so we've been able to buy a little two- and three-year paper that were better than normal. But we've really picked off some things. I mean, you have to, for us, we look at the companies as opposed to, like, the overall. If we have a certain level, we want to own something, then we'll own it. I mean, I know there's a lot going on, for sure, that's affected it. But we were in pretty good shape on all this. I think the economy, if this thing keeps on going, obviously it's going to suffer.
I mean, you've got diesel prices over $5 now, which is a big, big factor, even more so, really, than gasoline, when you think about it, for shipping. And I think we've got to run in some headwinds, no question about it. But typically, if you have quite a bit of liquidity, like we do, it actually sets you up for a period where you can own things that you might not be able to own before. And so that's the way we view it. A cheap price for us is an entry point, not necessarily a place for us to get spooked about the market.

**Adam Taggart** (4:06)
Yeah. And you have said many times in your previous appearances on this program, that your firm's best years have been coming out of bear markets, right? And so part of your strategy is keeping enough dry powder, so that if and when a bear market arrives, you can withstand it well and then have capital to deploy when valuations are really attractive. Now, we're not in a bear market yet. And while Wall Street has been a lot more volatile, and like I said, the tenor there is much more nervous now. We're still not that far from all-time highs, right? We're down like 400 S&P points from the all-time. So I guess let me ask you this.