The markets are waiting for the Federal Open Market Committee to cut rates, and some economists say it could happen at this meeting. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said concerns about tariffs and their impact on inflation forced the FOMC to hold rates while trade policy develops. Tony Welch, CIO of SignatureFD, provides his take on the meeting, Powell's press conference, and where the Fed goes from here.
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Gary Siegel (00:10):
Hi, welcome to another Bond Buyer Leaders event. I'm your host Bond Buyer Managing Editor Gary Siegel. Today we're going to discuss the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting and monetary policy. My guest is Tony Welch, CIO of SignatureFD. Tony, welcome and thank you for joining us.
Tony Welch (00:35):
Yeah, thanks for having me Gary.
Gary Siegel (00:38):
So before we get started, I'm going to tell the audience there won't be a separate Q&A session, so if you have any questions, just type them into the Q&A window now or at any point. So Tony, was there anything in the post-meeting statement or Fed Chair Jerome Powell's press conference that surprised you or grabbed your attention?
Tony Welch (01:03):
Yeah, I think it was a meeting and press conference and a decision that were boring and somewhat interesting at the same time, if that makes sense. So as far as expectations for what we would've expected going into it on the rate decision itself, on the statement on Powell's comments, none of that was surprising. And we did have the two dissenters, but that also wasn't a surprise. That was broadly expected that you'd have two dissents going into this one. But what I would say is interesting is now the Fed has two pretty clear camps. They've got a reactive camp, which is still the majority, and a proactive camp in Bowman and Waller and the reactive camp. They can point to a steady unemployment rate below their estimate of full employment and inflation. That's a little bit higher than Target, while that proactive camp is more focused on some softening that they're seeing in consumer demand and in job creation. So I think that's one of the things that was interesting to come out of this last meeting.
Gary Siegel (02:12):
Does the fact that there were two dissents add any pressure to the majority who don't want to cut rates at this moment?
Tony Welch (02:23):
No, I don't think so. I think that is a bit of a political hammer, if you will, especially if you think about Waller kind of angling to be the next chair or something like that. So I don't think it really puts pressure on the rest of the committee, but it is notable that at least now you do have two distinct views at the Fed.
Gary Siegel (02:47):
So as usual, Jerome Powell seemed non-committal at his press conference about a September rate cut. Where do you stand? You think they're going to cut rates in September too early to tell?
Tony Welch (03:01):
Yeah, I would say that the reactive camp not in a hurry to cut, they're going to get two more employment reports and two more inflation reports before that September meeting. And if we consider that the full employment rate is according to the Fed is about 4.2%, we're currently at 4.1%. I would think that if you did get a pickup in the unemployment rate to 4.3 or so by the time that meeting comes, that should be sufficient to get a cut in September. But we do have a falling labor force right now. We don't view that pickup as likely. If we had to take a side, we would favor the no cut in September side right now. But it is close. There's been notable weakness in survey data, especially about the late labor market and continuing unemployment claims do suggest that the job market's getting more difficult out there. It's more difficult to find a job, there's a little bit less job creation. So there is a case to be made that the unemployment rate could start to tick higher. But if you were to kind ask us which side do you think is the better chance right now? I would say that I would favor the no cut in September side.
Gary Siegel (04:22):
What are your expectations beyond September? Do you see two cuts this year like everyone else or what's your base?
Tony Welch (04:31):
Yeah, if they don't go in September, I think it is going to be challenging to get the two cuts this year. I still think that you'll probably end up with a cut and that's just because I do think that you could get enough softening in the labor market maybe by year end. I don't know that you get an unemployment rate up to 4.3% just in the next two months or so. But if trends continue to go as they're going right now where the labor market is loosening, maybe by the end of the year they have that evidence to at least get one cut in there.
Gary Siegel (05:07):
So the Fed has a dual mandate that they want to have maximum employment and stable prices. Right now the prices are more out of whack than the employment. Do you think the Fed is more concerned about the prices mandate or employment?
Tony Welch (05:27):
I think it's obviously a good note there, Gary, that you have had the stubborn inflation and I do think that there's battle scars of 2022. This was a fed that was broadly criticized for being late to the game in 2022 to fight inflation and they're well aware of the consecutive waves that you got in inflation in the 1960s and seventies. So I do think that they are serious about the inflation side, but I do think that they're balancing the employment side for now. And so if you have an inflation rate that is below 3% and you get that pickup in the unemployment rate, they will cut. That is our belief that they will go ahead and cut. So I do think that they're balanced between the two.
Gary Siegel (06:19):
And would you be more worried about growth going forward or inflation?
Tony Welch (06:24):
So from our perspective, it's a good question. From our perspective, it's growth. Growth is our concern right now and it kind of stems from, we've never really viewed tariffs as broadly economy-wide inflationary. It's more of a target, a targeted inflation on the goods that are most impacted or most exposed to those tariffs. The reality is that money supply growth is really just normal right now. Money supply growth isn't very fast. Wages have eased quite a bit and consumer debt burdens have lifted while pandemic savings have largely been erased. So when you bring all that into the fold, consumers really can't afford to just pay higher prices on everything in the economy right now. They have to make choices. So what we see is we see rising goods inflation as likely being deflationary to the services sector in the absence of any sort of acceleration in money or wages.
(07:29):
But so inflation not a huge concern for us, but when we turn to the growth side, we look and see that consumption was pretty soft in the first half of the year. You think about something like the real final sales to domestic purchasers that's downshift each of the last two quarters and only grew to 1.2% annualized rate in the last quarter. Now that AI boom, that's helping to prop up some growth for now and all that investment in the AI story and a recession is not our base case because of things like that. But a recession's more likely the growth is more likely to come in disappointing than an acceleration in inflation. So that's really what we're focused on.
Gary Siegel (08:16):
Inflation remains above target. PCE, which was released today was 2.8%, which is almost 50% away from the 2% Fed target. Labor seems to be softening, but it's like one of a percentage away from target. Wouldn't that argue against any rate touch in the near future?
Tony Welch (08:40):
I mean it would, and that's what the gist of Powell's statements after we're really driving to is that, look, we have a pretty healthy labor market right now. Your proactive folks at the Fed want to say, well, we're projecting that the labor market isn't going to be healthy in the future, so we need to get ahead of that. But that's not the dominant thinking at the Fed. They're looking at the employment picture is fine. Again, it's under their estimate of full employment, 4.1% is under their estimate while core inflation is running, as you said, a fair amount higher than their target. So I think that is what you've seen the odds for September rate cut have come down have been priced out of the market a little bit to a little below 50%. And I think that's right because if those conditions remain the same, it does argue against a rate cut.
Gary Siegel (09:39):
So if there is no case for rate cut now, why would two governors be so adamant about cutting rates? What is their thinking do you think?
Tony Welch (09:52):
I'm going to give you three things that make sense for cutting rates, right? So if we think about the first being manufacturing the manufacturing sector is I think the Chicago PMI did surprise the upside this morning, but it's still in contraction. So manufacturing has been in a bit of a contraction for some time now. It's clear that higher rates have taken their toll on the manufacturing sector. The other is when we look at consumer expectations around the labor market, consumers are saying that jobs are getting harder to get, their continuing claims are relatively high, also insinuating that jobs are hard to get. So the job market has definitely softened. So you've got manufacturing and you've got softening and slowing in the labor market. The other that I would point you to is the housing market. You look at new home supply right now got up to, it's something like nine months available supply for new homes right now that is above a balanced market.
(10:59):
There's too much supply of new homes and that's come to fill the gap for lack of existing homes. But why that matters is because construction employment is a really good leading indicator of the economy. And if the new home builders stop building because they already have too much supply that they're having a hard time unloading, and by the way home prices have contracted the last two months, if they stop the construction boom here, then you could see that start to manifest in construction employment. And that's an indicator that we like to follow as a broad leading economic indicator. So those are three things that I think make a good case for a proactive rate cut.
Gary Siegel (11:50):
So we have a question from the audience and it seems like it's an appropriate place to ask this. So the Fed funds futures expect the Fed to consistently lower rates over the next 12 months to below 3.5%, but the market has been consistently wrong for the May, June, July and September. FOMC meetings. Well a little early to say that wrong for September. Also, the U-shaped yield curve has been a harbinger for bad things to come and has existed since the end of 2024. Something has to give, right?
Tony Welch (12:29):
So it's a good question. I do think that from a yield curve perspective, we do have to discount the shape of the yield curve a little bit. It's one of those indicators that it should be a part of a mosaic approach to what we're doing. If the other economic indicators or strong, I wouldn't overweight the yield curve. However, I would reiterate that we have seen some softening in some of the other indicators that we have been focused on, not to recessionary levels, but there has been some softening. One other thing I'll say is in June it does look like economic activity picked back up. So we have to look and see if that continues. Now as far as the market being wrong, this has been a cycle where I've been telling folks that you need to trust the Fed more than the markets. They have put out good forward guidance.
(13:29):
They have followed their forward guidance and as you noted, the market has been quite off for their expectations of fed policy. And I think a lot of that stems from the market has just expected the economy to weaken a lot more and faster than it actually has. It's been a lot more resilient, a lot more robust, and I think it's possible that people are underestimating the impacts of this AI investment boom that we're seeing here as well in propping things up. You definitely see it in the stocks, in the earnings reactions and stuff like that where you're getting Microsoft Facebook just crushing their earnings, whereas some interest rate sensitive more economically sensitive places are struggling a little bit more. But I do think you have to trust the Fed, who the Fed is saying, we're not in a huge hurry right now. If the data changes, we will change. And that's what you have to anchor to rather than the market based expectations.
Gary Siegel (14:30):
Well, in fairness, the fed's projections in the SEP have changed too. They've gone down.
Tony Welch (14:39):
Yep, absolutely. It's
Gary Siegel (14:40):
Not easy. Not easy to predict the future.
Tony Welch (14:44):
Well that's the Yogi Berra is right? Prediction is hard, especially about the future.
Gary Siegel (14:50):
Exactly. So there have been some trade deals recently, even though the deadline was August 1st for imposing tariffs on a bunch of nations, our trade fears declining now that deals have been made and as that warranted,
Tony Welch (15:12):
The short answer is yes, trade fears are declining, and the next short answer is yes, it's also warranted. Now the little bit longer of the answer is that look, as we went into liberation day markets, literally they were pricing in catastrophe markets were pricing in the worst of the worst case scenarios when all those reciprocal tariff rates were released and they were just massive. I mean it was a huge shock to the system. But now that we're starting to get a much better sense of where the final tariff rate is going to land, which is going to be 10 to 15% on most countries, we do have to remember that's the highest level of tariffs since World War II. There are going to be repercussions for that, but we have gotten a great deal more certainty about what it's going to be and if there's one thing that I've learned is that corporate executives are really good at dealing with the hand they're dealt once they know what that hand is. So I do think that the trade deals have removed some uncertainty and I do think it is warranted. So
Gary Siegel (16:23):
What is your read at this point on how tariffs will impact inflation and will be long-term or short-term?
Tony Welch (16:32):
Yeah, I think that the last inflation reading gave us a really good insight into what we can expect for tariffs impact on inflation. It becomes, it's kind of a bimodal inflation regime where tariffs will bring goods. So goods inflated for the first time in a couple years. I think in the last CPI report goods were up year over year. They've been a constant source of deflationary pressures over since inflation peaked. Now you've got goods prices have moved back up into a positive year over year trend, but at the same time you're seeing softening in housing prices, you're seeing softening in service prices. So like I said, the consumers just stretched right now, Gary, they cannot handle economy wide inflation. So we think that inflation is going to stick in this range of probably two five to 3% and tariffs themselves aren't going to push the inflation rate higher, the overall inflation, it's just the basket of goods that are more expensive is going to change.
Gary Siegel (17:40):
So Tony, any concern about stagflation?
Tony Welch (17:45):
I mean I cringe a little bit when you say that word, right? We all think about how damaging stagflation is to asset markets, to bond markets, to equity markets. It's really the worst case scenario for investors is high inflation with wheat growth. I would say that we are concerned about a potential miniature bout of what I would call a stagflation light. Nothing that resembles the 1970s or even 2022, but you could see inflation drift while you're waiting for shelter to work its way down the pipeline. You could see inflation drift above 3% for a period of time and you could see growth flatline and end up with relatively low levels of growth. So a bit higher than target inflation, lower than expected growth. That's maybe a cocktail for a stagflation light, but that's a near term concern. Longer term again, and you're hearing me reference the AI investment and the tech investment because it is very important longer term, that investment cycle that we're getting into new tech and AI that should see productivity rise and that should help to boost growth and keep inflation benign, which is the opposite of stagflation.
Gary Siegel (19:12):
Any concern about the level of US debt and the fact that it continues to rise and how does that impact the fixed rate fixed income markets?
Tony Welch (19:22):
I mean I think as a US citizen, I'm concerned about the debt level, probably many of the listeners right now. But from a market impact perspective, I'm not really concerned about the debt level itself more so what I'm concerned about is what is the policy responses that that debt level creates? And you start to see it with the Doge initiative trying to shrink the size of the public sector in hopes that it recycles to the private sector. But it is unclear if the private sector is going to pick up that level of slack or not. I know that the common narrative here is that because of the debt levels, the bond vigilantes, right? They're going to rear their ugly heads and they're going to put upward pressure on interest rates. But the alternate scenario is that if the public sector is becoming smaller and there's some trade off time between the public and private sector to pick up the slack, then economic growth could grind to a halt.
(20:28):
And that actually puts downward pressure on interest rates, not upward pressure on interest rates. And another thing that I do think about a lot is who's going to keep buying our growing debt load? So as we're kind of changing the trade dynamics here, remember we do run a huge trade deficit, but that manifests itself in a big financial account surplus. So what happens is when people export goods to us and we pay them in US dollars, they got to put those dollars somewhere and they turn around and they buy US financial assets, which that has kept a lid on interest rates. It's helped to keep our valuations higher in the stock market. So that level of demand, and I'm kind of wondering, well who's going to pick up the slack on that piece? So the who is going to buy the debt as we rebalance the economy? I think that's something to keep an eye on. And for now it does look like we have enough of a retirement force coming through that does have demand for US treasuries especially at rates north of 4%. So for now you do have that demand, but that's an ongoing question that we would monitor.
Gary Siegel (21:48):
So we have a question from the audience about rate cuts and I think this is a good place to ask that question. So if there are no rate cuts in 2025, should 2026 be somewhat of an interest rate? Cuts rate?
Tony Welch (22:05):
That only depends if growth really falls off a cliff. And the one thing that I want to remind people, I know mortgage rates are relatively high, they're not high relative to history. I mean I always think it's an interesting phenomenon that we anchor to the 3% mortgage rate that we probably will never see again. But rates in our view are pretty fair right now where savers are able to save and get a decent rate of return and it's not crippling from an economic perspective. I understand that the housing market has had a little bit more pressure. So I want to remind people that as an investor you shouldn't necessarily root for rate cuts. Rate cuts tend to happen when the economy is faltering as kind of an emergency policy tool. And we've found that actually equity markets tend to struggle in many of the rate cutting cycles because what's driving the rate cutting. So I think that that's something to expect, but it is possible that 2026, if the economy is humming along, you start to get some of the more stimulative effects from the O-B-B-B-A. That 2026 can be a decent economic year and the need for rate cuts may not be there.
Gary Siegel (23:28):
When I bought my first house, the interest rate was 10% on the mortgage and that was standard back then.
Tony Welch (23:35):
There you go. I mean I was 6.5% and I thought I was getting a deal.
Gary Siegel (23:44):
So there's no actual way to determine the neutral rate. Where do you think most of the Fed estimates the neutral rate is
Tony Welch (23:57):
3%. I think they're looking at the neutral rate is about 3%.
Gary Siegel (24:04):
Okay. So they're a little bit above that. And if they want to get down to the neutral rate, they have some work to do.
Tony Welch (24:17):
They do, yes, about a hundred basis points of cuts to get close to what they see as the neutral rate. And I think that's probably, I haven't seen the latest futures, but that's probably what the market is expecting is about a hundred basis points of cuts to get back down there. So they would have some work to do. But again, that's predicated on these trends of unemployment going higher, inflation coming lower
Gary Siegel (24:47):
Because again, the neutral rate can move higher or lower depending on data.
Tony Welch (24:55):
Absolutely, absolutely. It's kind of this fictitious academic exercise. What the neutral rate is,
Gary Siegel (25:04):
Tony, the Fed has made 2% inflation, its target. How serious are they about hitting that target If they got down to two point half percent, would that be enough?
Tony Welch (25:16):
No, I don't think so. I think they're pretty dead serious about this and a lot of that, again, remember it's the scars of 2022 is there, and remember Gary, they used to target an average of 2% and the longer we're sitting above 2%, the harder it is to get back to that average. You actually have to undershoot inflation for some time to get back to the average right now. So I do think that they're serious about it. Now I don't know who the next fed chair is going to end up being. It looks like it's going to happen probably next spring, but they may kind of change the mindset of the inflation target. We'll see how that goes. But for now, this current fed I think is very serious about getting all the way back to two.
Gary Siegel (26:09):
We have another question from our audience about the neutral rate. Do you view the neutral rate as being higher than in the past for an extended period going forward? Or were historical rates too low?
Tony Welch (26:23):
I think that again, the neutral rate is a moving target. So following the global financial crisis, the neutral rate would've been much lower than when you have a normal healthy functioning economy with kind of a bit of a investment boom going on, which is what we have today. We've got something similar to your internet boom that we had in the nineties where the neutral rate was likely higher than following the global financial crisis. So now we're starting to normalize back to an economy that is not an emergency type economy. So I do think that the neutral rate today is higher than it would've been in those, call it 10 to 15 years post GFC. The other piece that probably moves the neutral rate higher, Gary, is the government's willingness to inject fiscal stimulus into the equation. And we've seen it from both sides of the aisle now that they're far more willing to use fiscal policy tools to support the economy. And with that being said, I would suspect that that should also push up the neutral rate.
Gary Siegel (27:40):
We touched on this a bit already, but is the yield curve still worth watching for clues about future sessions?
Tony Welch (27:48):
I do think it is going to remain in our toolkit, that's for sure. But most indicators, it's obviously not a silver bullet. I think we can say some of these yield curve messages in the past we were able to say, well, it wasn't wrong, it was just early. I think now we can safely say that the yield curve did miss this one. So the initial inversion did miss this one, but that doesn't mean it's not a useful indicator in the future. You just take it as part of a mosaic in this cycle. The yield curve was speaking, but other indicators were speaking louder and those were mainly around consumption. So the consumer indicators that had been very strong, we need to watch. Those are beginning to ease right now. Not recessionary like I was saying, but something to watch. So again, on the yield curve, I don't think you just throw it out. It is a good piece of data, but you need to take it in conjunction with what else is going on in the economy.
Gary Siegel (28:58):
Very fair. So other than being fodder for questions raised at the press conference, what is the impact of the poor relationship between Chair Powell and President Trump and has it cooled off their recent meeting?
Tony Welch (29:15):
Is there a poor relationship between those two? Gary, I don't know if I've noticed. I would've said if you asked me this question yesterday ahead of the fed meeting, I would've said yes. I think a little tension came out of the room and Powell did his best in the presser to try to talk about how that visit was welcomed and an honor and positive and what kind of thing. But if you go look at the true social posts following the decision, I think some of the rhetoric was ramped up even higher from there. So I'm not sure it has cooled. I think we need to and we need to remember. So what's kind of the impact of this, right? Well, the fed's independent but not as independent as we might believe, right? They're appointed by the president, they have to take fiscal policy into consideration for what they're doing.
(30:15):
So it's not a fully independent nature. It's not even unorthodox for a president to criticize the Fed. The way in which it's doing is what has been done has been what's more unorthodox. So maybe I'd call the Fed independent with an asterisk on it in terms of the Fed's dependence and independence. But I do worry a little bit, Gary, I do worry a little bit about the continued degradation of just US institutions in general, just from an investing perspective. So not necessarily a positive development here for investor confidence and could have longer tentacles and impacts than even President Trump's term here in office. But for now, there hasn't been much in the way of a negative impact given that the administration, it's kind of using the Fed as more of a scapegoat. I think if growth were to falter,
Gary Siegel (31:21):
Well, not to get political, but unfortunately it seems like a lot of our politicians haven't been adults for a very long time and they don't get along and they refuse to work together, which is a shame indeed. So what do you see as the biggest risks to the economy going forward?
Tony Welch (31:47):
The most likely downside scenario that we can see is that consumer service spending just kind of dries up, given that you've got easing wages, you've got a declining labor force with the immigration policy and a potential boost to those goods prices. And that makes it harder for people to spend money on the services side, which is so much of the economy. And I don't think we can understate the role here that the wealth effect has had on spending. So this is something that I talked to folks about that is I think it's a real risk is if you were to get some sort of bear market in stocks and the housing market and lower interest rates, we need to remember that stocks and housing prices are at or near all time highs and bonds are currently kicking off decent income for savers and retirees. If that picture starts to change, then that wealth effect starts to erode and you could see savings rates go higher and growth and really kind of kick off kind of a nasty cycle here where a decrease in asset values leads to less spending, which leads to less profitability and more of a decrease in asset values.
(33:10):
So that I think is a risk that is a little bit under appreciated is just purely the risk of a bear market major assets that people hold.
Gary Siegel (33:22):
So what would be the key takeaways for people investing in bonds or in the financial world? From our conversation,
Tony Welch (33:31):
I'll try to keep this, there's a lot to unpack and what's going on, but I think let's keep it very, very simple, is for now, yields should broadly stick in their very tight range that they've been in low to mid 4% in the 10 year until something changes, until we get a better chance that the rate cutting cycle is going to pick up steam or something like that. Now, one thing that I would note is interestingly enough, there's been seven cases historically where the Fed has paused their cutting cycle for at least six months, and in all seven of those cases, interest rates fell in the couple months leading up to the resumption of the rate cutting cycle and they fell actually fairly substantially in some of those cases as well. So I would expect that to be the trajectory as yields to move a little bit lower as we get closer to that next bed rate cut, whether it's in September, I'm going to take the under on that one or not, but that's what we would expect for rates.
(34:41):
Now in terms of bond investing, I think you need to consider that the economy still looks okay. It may not be spectacular, but it's still okay. And so defaults are probably going to remain pretty benign right now, and you're getting a pretty decent coupon on some spread product here. Whether you're talking about corporate bonds or securitized debt, floating rate bonds, anything that has a little bit of economic sensitivity, you are picking up a spread to the treasuries, and as long as the economy is not hurling towards a recession, we still think that you can pick up that extra coupon in the fixed income market. So that's kind of the implications that we see on the most basic summary basis.
Gary Siegel (35:31):
We have another question from our audience. What advice would you give someone who's five years away from retirement?
Tony Welch (35:42):
Well, to give really good advice, I'd have to know a lot more than being five years out of retirement, but I would start to consider locking in some duration, especially if you're intent, especially if we want to be more conservative in the early years of retirement. So we all know that sequence of return risks, like if you experience a major asset correction early on in your retirement, it is very detrimental to you hitting the finish line. You can take a bear market when you're 80 years old, that's fine. You've gotten past the difficult sequence of return periods, but say you're retiring at 65 and you get a bare market in your assets right at the age of 65, that makes life really challenging. So going out or coming in on the risk curve, adding a little bit of duration while you've got rates that are fairly attractive from a duration perspective, I think that makes some sense here, especially because the next move from the Fed is more likely to be a resumption of the cutting cycle than the lifting cycle. So you're probably getting a sniff at higher rates right now than you're going to in the upcoming couple years.
Gary Siegel (37:01):
What questions are you getting from clients, Tony? What are they worried about?
Tony Welch (37:07):
If you would've asked me this a little bit earlier in the year, I would've said the tariff policy, the uncertainty, the liberation day stuff, that's what they were worried about. But we have to remember that sentiment generally follows asset prices and the stock market at in all time high and bonds are kicking off a pretty good income portfolios have done well this year. Most balanced portfolios are up double digits now on the year. So a lot of the questions and concerns have kind of started to drift away just because one, you've gotten trade deals announced and two, their assets have done well. So the sentiment is definitely shifting from that concern over protecting my assets to actually, I'm starting to get some sniffs of the fear of missing out on the AI trade, even on digital assets and stuff like that. So when you start to get that FOMO starting to come in, that's when true investment professionals are thinking about what could go wrong when the sentiment is starting to shift to a more optimistic perspective.
(38:19):
So I would say that clients have gotten more comfortable and when clients get more comfortable, that's when I start to get a little more concerned. And I don't think there's a huge issue right now, but we do have to remember, equity market valuations are pretty high right now. So there's a lot that's baked into there. A lot has to go right for those things to be justified. So it wouldn't take a lot to go wrong to create some sort of a sell off here. So I've actually not heard a lot of concerns here over the summer, so good question. A lot more concerns earlier in the year.
Gary Siegel (38:59):
Anything that we didn't cover that you'd like to talk about?
Tony Welch (39:03):
I mean, other than all the bad luck that the Atlanta Braves have had this year from an injury perspective, Gary, we can talk about that offline, but no, I think we covered a lot of great ground.
Gary Siegel (39:15):
Very good. I'd like to thank you, Tony. My guest was Tony Welch, CIO of SignatureFD, and I'd like to thank everyone who tuned in today. Thank you for joining us. This concludes our Leaders event.
