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Austin Hankwitz
1-800-contacts. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify, brought to you by Public.com by the end of today's episode, you're going to understand why trillions of dollars are shifting toward model portfolios, how institutional investors are thinking about the current macro environment, and where some of the most experienced portfolio managers in the world see opportunities across equ and fixed income. My name is Austin Hankwitz, and I'm joined by my co host, Robert Kroke. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur with lifetime revenues of over 300 million, and I'm a multimillionaire in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. As the show name might suggest, every episode we talk about rich habits as they relate to business, finance, and mindset. So, Robert, what are we talking about in today's episode?
Robert Kroke
Well, I'm excited because in today's episode we're talking about something that's quite quietly transforming the investment industry, and that is how portfolios are actually being built. Markets are evolving quickly and technology is advancing, new investment vehicles are emerging, and policy environments are shifting. And investors today have access to tools that simply didn't even exist five to ten years ago.
Austin Hankwitz
That complexity has led to a massive shift in how financial advisors and institutions manage money. Instead of manually selecting securities and building portfolios piece by piece, many advisors are turning to these model portfolios, which can be thought of as scalable institutional quality portfolio frameworks designed to combine equities, fixed income alternatives, and even private markets into one cohesive investment strategy. Now, the model portfolio industry already manages roughly $2.8 trillion. And projections show that it could grow by more than 160% in the coming years.
Robert Kroke
Now might all sound intimidating, but to help us unpack what's driving this shift and how investors should think about the current market environment, we are excited to welcome Alexandra Wilson Elizondo Global co head of Multi Asset Solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Alexandra also serves as co Chief Investment Officer of the platform and she oversees portfolio construction strategies used by institutions and advisors all around the world. So, Alexandra, welcome to the podcast. We are so, so excited to have.
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
Thank you. I'm so, so excited to be here.
Austin Hankwitz
So, one of the biggest themes right now coming out of your team is the idea that investors need what you all call a total portfolio solution. Okay, so total portfolio solution. The speed of change across the markets and policy and technology and investment vehicles has made portfolio construction more complex than ever. There's a bunch of different vehicles, bunch of different products. Now, can you explain what a total portfolio solution actually means and why this approach is becoming increasingly more important for advisors and investors today in 2026?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
Of course. Yeah. I think this is one of the most important conversations happening across wealth management right now. And it effectively boils down to, I'll say one big thing, but then break it down into two angles for you. The one big thing is that a portfolio has to be better than the sum of its parts. You used to have portfolios that were coming together from the bottoms up. You had, this is my equity piece, this is my fixed income piece. And you had a different correlation regime because, you know, prior to the last few years, you were operating with, you know, very low levels of inflation and interest rates close, close to zero. Now, the broader macro construct is that, you know, you have higher fiscal deficits, you have more political fragmentation, and then, you know, on top of it, you effectively have just this, like, multipol, more geopolitical risk. And that leads to higher levels of inflation holistically. And so that's why it's really important to have a portfolio that's looking at the totality of risks that are coming from the different elements so that you're not overlapping on something. Should you have an experience like we've had over the last couple of weeks, where you get a pretty meaningful macro shock. The, the second angle of this is you want your portfolio to be an expression of the best of the availability in the market, and that is, you know, on things like large cap equity, you want efficient vehicles on spaces where you're actually rewarded for being able to, to pick dispersion Something like small cap you want to be paying for in an active vehicle. You also want equal access to what's growing gdp, not only now, but of tomorrow. So if you think about one of the main themes in the market is economic nationalism. And so you know, things like defense, robotics, space, well, most of that is accessed in the private markets right now. So you want to be able to go across the continuum of liquidity and make sure that your portfolio has the right expression of that while equally paying attention to tax considerations when you may need liquidity, drawdown and overall risk tolerance. And so for us, that's where you have a portfolio that's better than the sum of its parts over time.
Austin Hankwitz
Total portfolio solution. That's really cool. I appreciate you you walking through that. Can you even maybe double click on what like a model portfolio is? I know we kind of mentioned that a little bit at the beginning here, like $2.8 trillion is invested into that. But just want to make sure as we set the table for the rest of the episode that everyone understands like the idea of total portfolio solutions. And you know, what is a model portfolio and why is so much money invested into these things?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
So when you think about the demands on advisors right now, they're paying attention to taxes, they have to understand all the things that are happening in the world. They're trying to do generational transfers of wealth. They want to manage the whole of their pract. And the most efficient way for them to do that is to say there are people who institutionally have managed money for a very long time that have very strong portfolio construction capabilities. I'm going to outsource that via a model portfolio to them and I'm going to focus on building out my practice. Now. The, the concept of model portfolio, actually it boils down something that's pretty complicated and interesting into one small concept. But there are full suite of risk profiles. You can customize them to a theme or sector you're more interested in. You can get more complicated and have separately managed accounts. So should you need to have muni access for tax considerations in your portfolio, if there's a theme that you're very interested in investing in, like AI over the last few decades, they can have an ETF or an expression of that for their particular practice. So it's not one size fits all. Hey, copy and paste. It can be very much customized to the client base. But it's a starting point, a institutional framework. And in our case at Goldman Sachs, it's the same exact portfolio construction. We've built our Entire institutional outsourced CIO business off of delivering that quality to the retail market.
Robert Kroke
Yeah. And I want to jump in and click back on this. Why are we seeing such a massive shift towards these model portfolios and what problems are they solving for advisors that traditional portfolio management doesn't?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
I think it boils down to I can outsource to somebody who has more levers to pull and more resources than I do in this space. I mean, if you even take the example of what's been happening in the market now, instead of, you know, trying to figure out the inflation risk to your portfolio, which ETF might give you the best access for that? How many barrels a day of oil supply do we have? Why didn't Trump refill the, you know, SPR last year? You can outsource all of that investment acumen to someone like Goldman Sachs so that you can focus on, you know, different parts of your practice. The markets are evolving so quickly. The backdrop is evolving very quickly. The demands are so heavy for advisors. And I think another really important additional layer to this is risk management. We're getting to that period where you really don't want 5% of your portfolio. Determine 95% of your performance. And if you have that institutional overlay and thoughtfulness in terms of, you know, factor risk even now, you know, AI has been such a wonderful thing in the market, but we've seen the other side of the AI coin, right? So what is the disruption? Who could be disrupted and how do you you not going to time the market for those things? How do you structurally build to protect yourself? And so you can even. You saw that Goldman Sachs did the acquisition of Innovator etf. You can incorporate outcome oriented like vehicles into your, your model portfolio business so that you don't have to deal with each incremental headline that you're waking up to. You know that you have a portfolio that can survive the entirety of the economic cycle.
Robert Kroke
I love this takeaway. And it's something that we pride ourselves on here at the Rich Habits podcast is always getting everyone to understand. You have to have active management and you have to have diversification. That way you can really not have to worry about having a knee jerk reaction to every headline and trying to time the market, which is impossible to do. So what a great takeaway. I really appreciate that for all of our listeners.
Austin Hankwitz
So let's now talk about the macro environment. You mentioned what's been going on the last couple weeks. You talked about AI disruption. You guys describe the current backdrop as resilient, but One that rewards discipline rather than drama. And we're seeing strong consumer balance sheets, ongoing fiscal support, and massive, massive investments into areas like AI and infrastructure. So how would you characterize the current economic environment and what investors might be underestimating right now about it?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
So, you know, I'll talk about our view like before the last weekend, last few weeks events effectively, and then I'll incorporate that so you can see how the evolution, or lack of evolution, but how one needs to think about risks and big tail risks in the backdrop we're operating in. But to your point, you know, all, all signs point to reflation not just in the United States, but strong growth across the globe, in particular within Europe, the amount of spending that's coming out of Germany, the fiscal and the incremental, you know, domestic demand. In Japan, you saw, you know, pretty meaningful trends in places like Korea, who had never had attention paid to them before. And other markets that also have access to the AI theme like China doing very well as well. We still believe in, you know, a positive cyclical backdrop. That being said, there are some risks emerging and they were emerging even before, you know, what happened in Iran. Those two risks that we were paying attention to, one was the labor market, which was starting to show, you know, that it was, it was slowing, it was normalizing from what had been, you know, unprecedented levels of tightness post Covid. And then the other layer was actually what's been happening in credit, in particular in private credit and in the underwriting standards, the exposure. You know, statistics are showing anywhere from 20 to 40% of private credit is in software exposed names. Of course, not all of that's created equal. It's not hard to imagine how some of those stresses could start to build. And the main question is, are you being compensated with current valuations in the equity market or even credit spreads for what those risks are. But holistically, pretty, pretty good economic backdrop, reflationary prior to what happened in Iran. Now you bring that into the picture and the thesis starts to decay over time because higher oil prices start to be felt pretty quickly at the pump in particular. And you know, I'd even had someone say to me the other day, like, did you realize a gas went up a buck and so it's $20 more for me to fill my tank than it was a week ago. That starts to have instantaneous implications, right? Because now you change your discretionary spend. You have to be more thoughtful about that. Our view is that this should be short lived. And by that I mean we're talking about Weeks and not multiple, multiple months. But the situation is incredibly fluid. And as we saw in 22, those dynamics can lead to stagfl inflationary backdrops, which puts a lot of pressure on all asset classes, especially ones that you typically rely on to protect you. And the market had already started being pricing in, especially in the United States, more cuts from the Fed in line with strong growth, but inflation that had and you know, was on a strong trajectory to decline.
Austin Hankwitz
Obviously what's going on in Iran right now is very fluid and you know, breaking news. So we don't have to talk about that because anything we say now, who knows what's going to be in 48 hours. But let's go back to the, what you had sort of talked about before, which is just like the general Mac macro environment right now, call it Q1 for the United States. You had mentioned the reflationary and you also had mentioned the jobs. We are seeing unemployment tick up a little bit and we're seeing, perhaps we'll see inflation play some stuff that over that way. But my kind of follow up for you here is for the everyday retail investor listening right now that doesn't yet understand or maybe wants to do a better job of following the macro environment, the economy. What, what data sources, what headlines, like what specific is it ISM data, is it cpi? Like what should they be looking at on a monthly and maybe quarterly basis to kind of make sure that they're staying up to date on important headlines that are actually moving the markets and impacting their money?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
I think you've, you've hit a couple of them on the head. There's, you know, a breadth of data that one pays attention to. The thing that I will highlight is it's important not to give any one single point a lot of credence. So for example, the last labor market print in itself in isolation was a weak print. Now the prior print was actually pretty strong. And if you smooth over three months, you actually get to like a break even rate of labor, you know, job growth about 6k rather than this like major negative number that scares everybody. And so I think it's important, you know, to watch the incremental data that's coming through, but not to hang your hat on one, one specific number. If a listener wants to understand what are the main drivers the market, listening to the fomc, reading the minutes, that will get you a really strong idea of what people and central bank members are paying attention to to make and set policy. And in particular in the US there's a dual mandate for the central bank, which is to make sure that both growth and inflation are at the right place, whereas in somewhere like Europe, they don't have a dual mandate. And so understanding that there are separate drivers across different regions as well as. Really, because in the United States, you're still seeing that tension between growth and inflation mandate in the rates curve, whereas in Europe, the, you know, instantaneous move in up in gas prices and energy prices has already started to lead yield curves higher because the expectation is not now, not only will they not cut, but they're looking to hike. And so understanding that there's not just a one size fits all for the US and the global central banks is important as well.
Austin Hankwitz
That's very important. I appreciate you highlighting that. Now, before we ask Alexandra our next question, Goldman Sachs research just published something that went viral in the media. They're calling it the return of physical assets, specifically tangible assets that cannot be disrupted by artificial intelligence.
Robert Kroke
Yeah, Goldman says this one bucket from the report has outperformed capital like companies by roughly 35% since the start of 2025. At the same time, the software sector is currently down about 30% from recent highs. The report basically says the market is repricing what things are worth today based on whether they're physical or hard to replace or just digital and vulnerable to disruption.
Austin Hankwitz
They call the winners heavy assets with Low Obsolescence, or H.A.L.O. as an acronym there. And we were reading this Goldman report ahead of this interview with, with Goldman Sachs, and we're thinking, like, who should be in this report? Blue chip art. Because with blue chip art, there's a scarce supply for artists like Picasso and Basquiat while software valuations begin to fall. A klimt painting in 1907 just sold for $236 million in November. That's crazy. Obviously that's an outlier, we admit that. But still the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction, ever. So. So that's pretty low obsolescence if you ask me.
Robert Kroke
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Austin Hankwitz
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Robert Kroke
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Austin Hankwitz
let's now jump back to our interview with Alexandra.
Robert Kroke
Given the macro backdrop, your team has emphasized quality over junk when it comes to risk assets. You've also talked about the importance of diversification as traditional correlations between assets begin to shift. How should investors think about owning risk intelligently in an environment where inflation, variability, geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions are still a factor?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
I think you're just starting with life. It's important to not chase momentum in, in certain periods. I mean we saw space like non profitable tech last year from I would say like beginning of 25 to October was up 67% and then within the next month it was down 22%. Okay, so if you were like the last guy in, you only experienced the 22% down. You know, that's what could be perceived as like good growth to have in your portfolio. But it's actually just disguised as like you know, taking bets on names that you may not understand. They may not have good balance sheets. They're not, they're not producing cash flow X, Y, Z. You know, especially when the tide comes and goes out. Anybody who's over levered and doesn't have a good business model, they're going to be extraordinarily vulnerable. So you know, we're very focused on owning good names, good sectors, things you can believe in. Physical assets diversifying not just in the US market but across other markets where valuations were more compelling, where you could see the earnings breadth story really starting to expand. And so I would say that that's the first starting point. The other to the point on portfolio construction and diversification is we saw a tremendous rally in US Fixed income markets over the last effectively like the last month or so. It's quickly starting to reprice wider with higher yields. Just as there's expectation that you know, we're going to see more spot inflation coming through from what's happening with the energy market and that happened basically overnight. Those moves in the market are really quick. So you don't want to be caught off sides. You want to make sure you own the risk that you can tolerate. And in particular for, you know, people who are in the later stages of accumulation of wealth, inflation can be, you know, very detrimental to the portfolio, to the personal portfolio, the ability to spend and keep up with purchasing power, if you will. And so having a diversified set of allocations that can enable you to withstand some of these markets or shocks as they come through is really important.
Austin Hankwitz
Very much is. And I appreciate you calling that out. I guess that's just a interesting quick follow up. As you think about fixed income, I would argue that in 2022 we saw, you know, normally fixed income is sort of this like flight to safety. But then like we also experienced a weird sell off in the equity markets and the bond markets. Like I'm assuming you guys think this, which is like fixed income still has a place in a portfolio despite what used to be a good trade off of risk. Right. Fixed income still deserves to be in portfolios.
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
Yeah, I think especially now that you're getting compensated for what is the known inflation risk. We do think that the central bank will look through most of the short term stress that could come from higher levels of inflation. So they'll read through that. And we do think it gives you the ballast for that left tail. And so we talked about, it's not just, you know, what's happening in Iran right now, it's also, you know, what's happening in credit, what's happening in labor markets. Those are the types of things that would make fixed income a really valuable asset. In your total portfolio you can diversify across your fixed income set. And so you can be invested in emerging market debt, which does well in certain environments, inflationary protection. So we're not saying, you know, just buy US Treasuries for your portfolio. Be thoughtful across diversifying there as well.
Austin Hankwitz
That's awesome. I appreciate that breakdown. Let's flip from the opposite of fixed income and talk about equities. So one of the biggest narratives over the last couple of years, I mean we saw chat GPT come out I think at the end of November 2022. And then it was all things mag 7. Handful of large technology companies just drove the markets in 23, 24 and 25. But recently if you look at the S&P 500 equal weight index, it has outperformed the S&P 500 index year to date by about 3 or 4 points. We're seeing earnings bre expand across broader markets, not just domestically, but you mentioned also internationally. Do you see this broadening continuing in 2026 and what might that mean for investors who've been very concentrated in the mag 7?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
I do see that expanding. We equally think that, you know, the bar for the Mag 7 is very high. If you even look at some of the single names and their earnings reports recently they've had, you know, 93%. You know, these astronomical numbers of year on year growth, the earnings that beat expectations, then they're down 10%. Right. So there's other dynamics. There's been a lot of money that's been in the market equally there. We also have the pipeline of ipo, so private names that are going to come to market, especially in the tech or IT services space, people are going to need to sell to make room for those new names. So you know, you really need to be thoughtful about not over concentrating your portfolio in a single name and you know, being more diversified across the opportunity set. And thematically that's very much so in line with, with how we're investing our portfolios and seeing things.
Austin Hankwitz
I think that makes a ton of sense. I mean, you just kind of look at the mag cycle, you know, you mentioned these sort of momentum names, these unprofitable high beta stocks that were so fun and Sexy all of 2025. But then, you know, they, they sort of had these climax tops in, in October of 2025 and it's kind of just been a weird pullback since. And now you're also seeing to this whole conversation some weakness in the mag 7. It's kind of a lack of leadership right now in the markets is at least kind of what I've obs. And as you kind of reflect upon what has been performing well year to date, you're seeing energy, you're seeing staples, you're seeing utilities, materials, things that are like very boring. Not to put you on the spot, but do you have any perspective on that?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
It's so funny you call them boring. Yeah, I think there's a tremendous demand for as you think about even the AI build, how much energy is required for that. The scarcity of everything, in particular some of these commodities or assets. You start to see people understand that this is the second derivative of the AI trade and it's been undervalued and so you know, been large beneficiaries from that. In addition to the military action in Iran. Right. So that's why energy is the top performing sector. You've also seen banks perform pretty well. I mean, there has been some pullback here, but there's a lot of regulatory changes. Bank balance sheets are opening up. They're able to deploy their capital and be more efficient with that. A lot of them are also beneficiaries of volatility and volatile markets. And so you can, you can, you know, play that theme, if you will, by investing in some of those sectors. But again, you need to be paying attention to what exactly you're investing in and what, who did they lend to and are those good qualities? Right, because we're starting to see some of the, the headlines bubble up as it relates to that.
Robert Kroke
Another interesting dynamic that's happening right now within equities is the growing dispersion between the winners and the losers, especially as companies begin to navigate the real impacts of AI. And some companies can see massive productivity gains, while others could see their business models disrupted quickly, as we've seen. So how does this kind of uncertainty influence the way you think about portfolio construction and sector allocation with everything being the way it is right now in the markets?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
Yeah, it's again, it's an emphasis on active management in particular in some of those areas. Because if you think, let's talk about software, okay, this is like the, the monkey in the room, the girl in the room, whatever we want to call it. There's going to be software that actually does incredibly well. Think about like defense, defense, like cyber protection type software, other software. By the way, companies not just going to turn off its use instantaneously and like switch over to AI. And so people start to reprice it as though it's going like obsolete tomorrow. But it, you know, it very well might not be. And so you have to be able to price what that risk is in our minds. The, the question will be, do you have the right balance sheet, the right management team? Are you able to navigate changing your business model, adapting your business model, given this massive technology that is coming to fruition and really starting to show success points. And you need an active manager to help you with a lot of that. They spend all day, you know, talking to the management team and looking under the hood and understanding what the different layers of the backdrop for the company are. On top of that, I, I think it's, you know, really being able to, on the institutional side, we have so many levers in terms of accessing dispersion, using more quantitative strategies in the portfolio to be able to play this whole winners and losers theme and that you, it's not going to Be rising tide for everyone. We deliver that same institutional quality work on the quantitative side out to retail as well. And so it's about having a mix of fundamental quantitative active passive management in your portfolio so that you're not exposed to just one single factor of AI that could be risky.
Austin Hankwitz
Well, on the subject of AI, we saw Jack Dorsey from Block lay off like 40% of his workforce. I think was a week or two ago. We're seeing headlines of Amazon this, Dow that like all these companies are because of AI. We're like, what's your perspective on that? I mean, do you have a thesis that yes, AI is going to disrupt these specific markets or maybe this is just a little too overblown?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
I think that there's two sides to the coin. You know, on one hand, when you see the news come out for a company like Block and then instantaneously you got a massive move in the stock, other corporates are watching that, right? And so you could see follow on behaviors to say, hey, this is a good way for me to get my stock price up. And you are seeing that were a lot of productivity come to the market. But equally there was also we were operating in such a tight labor environment that psychologically a lot of management teams and executive offices they had gone from we need to hoard labor because we don't know how we're going to get the next marginal person to now. We don't, we don't need to be as, you know, constrained. We can be really thoughtful about do we have the right people in the right seat and the right quantity of people to handle, handle what will be the forward of our business. And so I think it's a little bit of both. It's something to, to definitely pay attention to. The unemployment rate is a key figure that we're, we're watching as, as is the Fed obviously. But yeah, let, let's see if we see some follow on behaviors from some of the announcements we've seen.
Austin Hankwitz
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Robert Kroke
And this is paid for by Public Investing and the full disclosures in the podcast description.
Austin Hankwitz
All right, let's jump to our final question with Alexandra from Goldman Sachs. Alexandra, this has been an incredible conversation. Is there any final thoughts you'd like to leave our investors with as they continue to navigate the markets for 2026 and beyond?
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
Yeah, well, it's been really nice to be with you guys. Hopefully I've been to impart a little bit of knowledge on the model portfolio business, the growth of, of the segment that's really important to us. Additionally, I would say, you know, the market is going to be volatile this year and released holding the course, being thoughtful about how you allocate against quality over junk in the portfolios. But equally, you know, sometimes you're given an opportunity because you can be a liquidity provider in extreme times of stress when, when stuff, you know, reprices very quickly. And so you don't want to make sure that you have the thoughtful construction, you have some liquidity, especially since you're getting, you know, paid in yield right now to do that and you're not chasing every incremental headline.
Austin Hankwitz
Incredible advice. Thank you so much again for joining us. I am so thrilled and cannot wait to have you back.
Alexandra Wilson Elizondo
Thank you. It'd be my pleasure, Robert.
Austin Hankwitz
One of my favorite things that we're able to do with the Rich Habits podcast is, is open up our network, our Rolodex, our professional network, and say, hey, you are awesome. You should come on the show. And that's what we have done with this episode with Alexandra. She knocked it out of the park talking about macro environment, the economy, what people should be looking at. Talked about reflation, talked about what's going on in Iran right now a little bit. She talked about AI disruption, she talked about stocks and leadership and how that's moving and what's going on in Europe. Europe. Like, I get so thrilled. Like I learn things with our interviews. It's not like, oh, Austin And Robert, we know everything and we're just gonna. No, I learned, like I just learned right now alongside everyone listening what Goldman Sachs thinks about some of this stuff. It's incredible. And so I'm just so grateful to be in a position where we can have these awesome, awesome people on the show. Cannot wait to have her back. And I just, I'm just so thrilled. Robert.
Robert Kroke
Yeah, it was an incredible episode. The biggest takeaway for me was don't chase momentum. I love that statement she made and so many other great points. But it is such an honor that we get to have the best of the best from all these massive companies like Goldman Sachs and sharing their insights with our audience to really, we learn from it as well along the way, but also just sharing where the money is going, what they think about the market. So what an incredible episode. I really enjoyed it and I hope everyone does as well.
Austin Hankwitz
Yeah, my big takeaway away. That's a good call out. What's what, what are our takeaways, Robert? My big takeaway from that, I like the don't chase momentum. I also like how she agreed that the broadening of the market right now is going to be a theme for 2026. Right. We talked about international, we talked about small caps and things like that. I think it was 26 market predictions, episode energy. Absolutely. But it's like you look at the RSP ETF, which is the equal weight S&P 500 ETF, it's up 2 and a half, 3% year to date, which again, what is equal weight? What does that mean? 500 names inside of the S&P 500. Normally those 500 names are market cap weighted. And for the last like, I don't know, two years, three years, the top 10 names have made up 40% of the entire index. Right. So if you go put $1,000 in Voo, you're essentially putting 400 of that into just 10 stocks and the other 600 into the 490 stocks. Right. It's like that's how concentrated S and P has been. But what we're seeing now is, you know, a lot of that leadership is starting to kind of disperse. We're not seeing the Mag 7, the Magnificent 7, these big names, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Tesla, you know, things like that. Apple, we're seeing them begin to kind of falter a little bit, move to the wayside. And a lot of the capital now flowing into this broadening of the S and P into energy, into consumer defensive, so staples. Right. Into materials and utilities and things of that Nature and I agree with her. I think that's going to be a continued theme in 2026. And if you're inside the Rich Habits Network, we've been talking about this for the last probably six or eight weeks now, which is our personal strategy and theme for 2026. Like yeah, we shared our market predictions and we're optimistic that we'll see like maybe single digit, you know, growth in the S and P but like capital preservation especially as we are, you know, navigating a midterm election year. If you kind of reflect upon the S and P, these seasonality on these midterm election years, you see that there's a lot of weakness in the first half, even the first three quarters of the year. And the main excitement comes in Q4. Perhaps that's what we're seeing right now in the S and P. The S P is closing in on its 200 day moving average as is the NASDAQ. I mean things are not in durable all time highs anymore as we see energy and staples and materials and utilities. These different sectors of the S P outperform compared to technology is flexible, flat financials are down. Right. Things like that. So it's, it's really cool. That's my big takeaway is, you know, she agrees that the broadening is going to continue and it was so concentrated with these let's call it Top 10 Top 20 Tech Names that now we're going to see more broadening not just across different sectors of the market, but likely into international and different markets around the world, not just domestic.
Robert Kroke
That's a great takeaway and it really reinforces what we've been talking about for months is getting people to understand the importance of active management, rebalancing and making sure you're diversified because things are moving away and broadening out of the Mag 7 and into other sectors and, and more companies. So I really like the takeaway and that was a great breakdown. Austin.
Austin Hankwitz
Hey, great reminder. If you like the deep dives in the markets, we give them every Tuesday night Inside of the Rich Habits Network. We had about 250 people join us in our, our live stream earlier last week week and it's, it's awesome. So we do breakdowns like this inside the Rich Habits Network all the time. Link in the show notes below or just type in Rich Habits Network on Google. Something else that you should go check out and link in the show notes below is Wall Street Favorites.com it is an incredible tool to figure out what Wall street thinks about your own portfolio. We'll leave it at that. Go check it out and link in the show notes below. And everybody, if you learned something from this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend. Be sure to vote in the Spotify poll below and leave us a comment on sp. We get back to every single comment, every single time. We love the interaction you all give us everywhere, all over the Internet. And we're super, super grateful. This has been an awesome episode. Again, major shout out to Goldman Sachs for allowing us to interview Alexandra and we can't wait to see you guys on Thursday.
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Date: March 16, 2026
Hosts: Austin Hankwitz & Robert Croak
Guest: Alexandra Wilson Elizondo, Global Co-Head of Multi Asset Solutions, Goldman Sachs Asset Management
In this episode, Austin and Robert are joined by Alexandra Wilson Elizondo from Goldman Sachs Asset Management for an expert breakdown of today’s evolving portfolio construction landscape. The conversation dives deep into the rise of model portfolios, current macroeconomic challenges, the role of diversification, and actionable strategies for retail investors coping with a world marked by inflation, geopolitical tension, and technological disruption—especially from AI.
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For ongoing discussions and practical investing insights, Austin and Robert invite you to engage with the Rich Habits Network.