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Host Ryan Nauman welcomes Jay Hatfield of Infrastructure Capital Advisors to discuss how Federal Reserve policy, rising Treasury yields, oil prices, and tightening financial conditions are shaping markets. Hatfield argues the Fed is overly hawkish, criticizes inflation measurement (especially shelter and PCE), and says higher rates are driving a housing recession and tightening high-yield credit. He explains his view that the 10-year yield typically trades about 100 bps above terminal Fed funds and expects only one more hike with stabilization near 5%, with oil and Strait of Hormuz dynamics key to the outlook. Despite macro risks and potential “breakage” from aggressive tigh...

Recording from the Steward Symposium, host Ryan Nauman welcomes wealth manager Alicia Fuller to discuss choosing a business structure in wealth management and why she moved from a full-service wirehouse after 40 years to a W-2 role at Steward Partners. Fuller explains she wanted more freedom to serve clients and build her brand without the operational burdens of full independence, and describes how Steward’s culture, collaboration, and support expanded what her team could do in marketing, events, reporting, and client communication. She shares how the transition was smooth for clients, improved team energy, increased referrals, and enabled relationship-building through cl...

Host Ryan Nauman welcomes Paisley Nardini, Head of Investment Strategy at Tema ETFs, to discuss how calm index-level markets are masking narrow leadership, rising dispersion, shifting rate expectations, and concentration risk in both equity and bond indexes. Nardini explains her multi-asset background and why today’s macro regime and stock-level volatility may create a more favorable backdrop for active management. They cover 2026’s “whiplash” move from expected rate cuts to hikes, subdued VIX versus spiking bond volatility, resilient earnings, and why investors often overemphasize midterms despite historically positive fourth-quarter seasonality. Nardini outlines where AI spending is expanding beyond semiconductors into inf...

Recorded at the Steward Symposium, host Ryan Nauman interviews Tim Burklow, a 33-year wealth management veteran and wealth advisor in Steward Partners’ Legacy Channel, about succession planning. Burklow explains how his team began planning for the future by developing next-gen advisors—including his two sons and a third advisor—emphasizing the time investment required. He shares why internal succession can be difficult due to capital needs and family considerations, and describes a consultant-led search that found many firms focused on money rather than fit. Burklow chose Steward Partners for its leadership access, consistent culture, and careful vetting, while still provid...

The episode explores two major secular investment themes: aging demographics in America and the continued build-out of artificial intelligence. Ryan welcomes Brock Campbell, Head of Research and Portfolio Manager at BNY Investments Newton, to discuss why senior housing—primarily through healthcare REITs—may benefit from a supply-demand mismatch as baby boomers approach age 80, potentially supporting utilization, cash flow growth, and 5–7% dividend yields, while also offering diversification and less economic sensitivity. They cover key risks such as rent payer credit quality and recency bias from COVID-era challenges, emphasizing the need for deep fundamental research. The conversation then shifts to AI invest...

Ryan Nauman interviews Shang Chou, co-founder and managing partner at Dishmi Capital, about how portfolio construction is evolving beyond traditional 60/40 and mean-variance optimization toward maximizing after-tax wealth. Shang shares his Wall Street background (PIMCO, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs), work at Simplify Asset Management, and the personal liquidity-event experience that motivated Dishmi’s focus on helping taxable investors with concentrated stock and major life events. He argues advisors leave “structural alpha” untapped by optimizing for pre-tax returns and outlines a three-dimensional framework—time, the full balance sheet (including proactive, tax-aware borrowing), and an expanded solution set—highlighting tools like tax-aware...

Host Ryan Nauman interviews Rob Battista, EVP of Advisory Solutions at Vestmark, about the evolution from traditional one-size-fits-all model portfolios to more personalized custom model investment solutions. Battista explains how models grew from manager-traded SMAs to scalable, lower-cost model delivery, fueled by greater accessibility through marketplaces and asset managers selling total portfolio solutions. He highlights key limitations of traditional models—especially inadequate customization and the tax impact of rebalancing in taxable accounts—and argues tax transition and ongoing tax overlay are now table stakes. The discussion covers how custom models can reflect advisor preferences, support multi-manager open architecture, and inco...

Ryan Nauman interviews Bill Davis, managing director and founder of Stance Capital, about whether the cap-weighted S&P 500 has become overly concentrated in mega-cap, highly correlated tech names and how index flows can exacerbate that risk; they discuss equal-weight approaches and why today’s fundamentals differ from the dot-com era, along with potential unwind catalysts tied to AI capex and data-center buildouts. Davis explains “tax alpha” and how IRS Section 351 allows eligible investors with highly appreciated, concentrated positions to contribute diversified baskets in-kind to seed an ETF and receive ETF shares without triggering immediate capital gains, outlining key eligibility constr...

Host Ryan Nauman interviews Brad Kreidle, founder and president of MainLine West, about navigating the large, fragmented municipal bond market and why MainLine West was created to improve transparency and efficiency by operating at a wholesale level with its own broker-dealer. Kreidle explains how higher interest rates after the ZIRP era have made municipals attractive on a taxable-equivalent basis, and how a steep municipal yield curve creates opportunities, including his firm’s “80/50” positioning concept. They discuss ways to pursue higher tax-exempt income, including leveraging high-grade municipals rather than simply moving down in credit quality, plus sectors like housing finance (multif...

Ryan Nauman discusses rapid ETF growth and key industry trends with Steve Foy, Senior Vice President of Trading at Tidal Financial Group. Foy explains Tidal’s full-stack ETF platform and ongoing support for clients, from product development and SEC filings to trading and operations. They highlight active ETFs as a major shift from traditional indexing, the surge in defined outcome/buffered and derivative income products, and increasingly concentrated thematic ETFs driven in part by AI-related market changes. The conversation addresses investor and advisor adoption of more complex derivative-based and leveraged products, emphasizing disclosures, education, and suitability. They also cover au...

Host Ryan Nauman welcomes Ethan Powell, Principal and CIO at Brookmont Capital Management, to discuss catastrophe bonds and how they help insurers transfer tail risks from natural disasters while offering investors potential income and diversification. Powell explains how fully cash-collateralized 144A cat bonds work, including triggers, attachment points, and how returns combine SOFR earned on collateral with a risk premium funded by insurer premiums. They cover why cat bonds can improve pricing transparency and scalability in an opaque insurance market, potentially supporting insurance availability in high-peril areas. The conversation addresses rising climate volatility, recent insured-loss trends, AI’s role in...

Host Ryan Nauman welcomes Matt Halloran (“Matt GPT”), Chief Evangelist at Zocks, to discuss how AI is affecting wealth management and why many advisors still underuse it due to fear, unrealistic expectations, compliance concerns, and industry noise. Halloran argues advisors are only scratching the surface with note-taking and content tools, while the bigger opportunity is integrating structured data across the tech stack to uncover client opportunities, speed service, and drive organic growth. He recommends talking with peers, ensuring secure two-way integrations, and testing platforms side by side. The conversation covers building trust through incremental adoption and social proof, how AI-d...

On the Adjusted for Risk podcast, host Ryan Nauman interviews Haren Bhakta, founder and CEO of the Inside Ownership Index, who explains how the S&P 500’s free-float weighting effectively underweights shares held by controlling insiders and can end up buying more of founder-led companies after key leaders die.

Bhakta describes manually compiling 20 years of S&P 500 proxy filings to aggregate insider-ownership data and creating a passive index that weights companies by insider ownership as a “skin in the game” approach. He argues high ownership aligns management with shareholders, supports long-term innovation, and avoids value-destroying incentives, citing owners...

Recorded live at Wealth Management EDGE, host Ryan Nauman welcomes Nate Lenz, co-founder and CEO of Concurrent, to discuss shifts in wealth management and the rise of NextGen advisors.

Lenz explains Concurrent’s platform model supporting independent wealth managers by handling middle and back office functions while preserving advisor autonomy, and highlights growth to supporting over 90 firms, plus newer RIA Capital Partners and Platform-as-a-Service offerings.

They discuss the aging advisor workforce amid rising demand for advice, AI as a productivity and entrepreneurship enabler rather than a job threat, and the increasing importance of human relationships as...

From Lake Tahoe on the Adjusted for Risk podcast, Ryan Nauman welcomes back Adam Patti, CEO of VistaShares, to discuss how innovation in ETFs is bringing sophisticated strategies to retail investors and reshaping portfolio construction. Patti shares VistaShares’ focus on building a small set of differentiated products, noting the firm launched its first ETF in December 2024 and has grown to over $2 billion in assets. They emphasize ETF benefits like transparency, low fees, tax efficiency, and intraday trading, while warning investors to “look under the hood” rather than rely on marketing. Patti outlines a durable, cycle-resistant portfolio approach built on divers...

Recorded on location at the Steward Symposium, Ryan Nauman welcomes Maria Condon, Chief of Staff at Steward Partners, to discuss how the firm’s culture is built, reinforced, and scaled amid rapid growth. Maria explains why the annual three-day symposium exists, what makes its energy and access to leadership unique, and how in-person connection complements content like newsletters and podcasts. She details Steward’s ownership-driven alignment and accountability, the planning required as the event has grown from about 50 partners in 2017 to nearly 500 attendees, and what success looks like through engagement and traditions like the NFL-draft-style jersey ceremony. Maria also shar...

From the “Adjusted for Risk” podcast, host Ryan Nauman interviews Wayne Penello, founder and CEO of NextGen EMP, about practical risk management for investors and advisors. Penello shares his background as a NYMEX options market maker and commodity risk consultant, emphasizing translating risk into meaningful metrics like budget outcomes and drawdowns rather than simple volatility. He argues advisors often diversify but don’t actively manage risk, and recommends using high-watermark/drawdown analysis to improve tactical entry decisions. Penello discusses why market timing fails and frames the opportunity as an allocation problem, advocating long/short strategies—especially in an ETF wrapper—...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast with guest Phil Palumbo, CEO/CIO of Palumbo Wealth Management and host of the Palumbo Pulse, to discuss aging demographics and implications for retirement planning and advisors. Palumbo describes leaving UBS to go independent for fiduciary alignment, better economics, and broader investment access, and explains his firm’s focus on helping founders prepare for and execute business exits, then manage taxes, planning, investing, and wealth transfer. He contrasts “retirement” with “make work optional,” emphasizing saving discipline, compounding, and long-term exposure to risk assets (stocks, real estate, private equity) to combat inflation an...

From Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast, Ryan Nauman interviews Jim Jessup, income strategist at Virtus ETF Solutions, about ETF innovation and today’s fixed income environment. Jessup explains Virtus’s product-development approach: focus on commercially viable ETFs where managers can add alpha rather than chasing trends, and notes some highly specific ETFs may close or the industry may consolidate. On fixed income, he says despite macro and geopolitical noise and a new Fed chair (Warsh), market conditions look relatively normal: prices near par, default rates below but moving toward historical averages, and strong demand shown by oversubscribed new issues...

Recording on location at the Steward Symposium, host Ryan Nauman welcomes Scott Danner (Chief Growth Officer) and Valerie Rivera (Chief Operating Officer) of Steward Partners to discuss growth in wealth management, where organic expansion has become harder and M&A has become a major driver. Danner shares his background building Freedom Street Partners and joining Steward in 2023, noting Steward’s growth from about $30B to over $50B in AUM largely through acquisitions. They explain why Steward frames the function as “strategic growth” rather than recruiting, emphasizing attraction, culture, and relationship over transaction. Rivera highlights advisors’ priorities beyond payout—clients, employees...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast and speaks with Eden Ovadia, co-founder and CEO of Finny AI, about why organic growth is a major challenge for financial advisors and why reliance on M&A has made firms complacent and increasingly capital-inefficient as multiples rise. Ovadia explains that referrals still drive most industry growth but are largely passive, pushing ambitious firms to adopt more proactive prospecting and marketing strategies. They discuss how AI raises the bar for standing out, making niche specialization and sharp messaging more important, and why personalization matters from the first prospect interaction in a...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast from Lake Tahoe and welcomes Zach Conway, CEO of Seeds, to discuss how evolving investor expectations are reshaping wealth management. Conway explains he founded Seeds after seeing a disconnect between advisors’ strong client discovery and the shallow, product-centered approach often used in investment management, alongside inefficient, fragmented portfolio operations. They discuss rising demands for personalization, transparency, values-based investing, and broader solution sets such as direct indexing and alternatives, plus the need to deliver these in unified, scalable UMAs. Conway argues the industry’s biggest threat is its own reputational and proces...

In this episode of Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk, host Ryan Nauman speaks with Joe DaGrosa, CEO and founder of Axxes Capital and co-author of The Financial Advisor’s Guide to Private Investments, about the growing access retail investors have to private markets and the unique risks involved. DaGrosa explains how regulations have historically limited non-qualified purchasers, why registered vehicles are changing that, and what’s driving demand for private equity and private credit, including longevity and the need for higher returns. He argues interval funds can address key drawbacks of traditional drawdown funds by improving fee alignment, transparency, and of...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast with Robert Cohen, Director of Global Developed Credit at DoubleLine, to discuss why bonds face bearish sentiment amid elevated Treasury yields and how advisors should think about fixed income today. Cohen frames the macro backdrop as “war and AI,” citing Middle East conflict-driven oil constraints that could push core CPI above 4% and keep inflation above 3%, while massive AI capex supports earnings but raises valuation and concentration risks. He explains how DoubleLine limits AI exposure in credit, argues corporate credit fundamentals remain strong with upgrades outpacing downgrades despite tight spreads, and flags...

Recorded on location at the Steward Symposium, host Ryan Nauman welcomes Jim Gold, CEO of Steward Partners, to discuss the rapid evolution of wealth management and how Steward is positioning itself to lead. Gold shares his background from Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and explains Steward’s execution-focused growth, describing “unstoppable” momentum and a culture built on respect, responsiveness, partner voice, and broad equity ownership. He outlines Steward’s differentiated M&A approach centered on “sell and stay,” multi-generational teams, and preserving advisor identity rather than forcing short contracts or major changes. Gold describes the advisor of the future a...

In this episode of Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast, host Ryan Nauman welcomes Mohan Gurupackiam, CIO at Steward Partners, to discuss how wealth management’s view of AI has shifted from curiosity and pilots to operationalization with governance and safe scaling. Mohan explains how firms are using AI as part of an advisor’s daily operating system—supporting meeting prep and automation, opportunity identification, communications, and eliminating non-value work—while noting investment research adoption remains limited due to trust. They cover key obstacles including data foundations, regulatory uncertainty, behavioral resistance and change management, legacy architecture, and talent gaps. Mohan emph...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast with Dana D’Auria, Group President of Solutions and Co-CIO at Envestnet, discussing the growing role of private markets in wealth management. D’Auria explains how Envestnet combines asset management and wealth tech, then outlines key trends: companies staying private longer, increased demand from the wealth channel, and expanded use of vehicles like interval funds, tender offers, private BDCs, and private REITs. They emphasize that “semi-liquid” vehicles can become illiquid during dislocations, and highlight major risks including illiquidity, return dispersion across managers, and valuation/marking differences versus public markets that can overst...

From Lake Tahoe, Zephyr market strategist Ryan Nauman welcomes back Lance McGray, Managing Director and Head of ETF Product at Advisors Asset Management (AAM), to compare today’s booming ETF landscape with the exploding sports card market. They discuss record ETF growth, lower barriers to entry, and how an influx of new and exotic products can create “noise” for investors—much like chasing rare pulls in hobby boxes. McGray emphasizes discipline, due diligence, and focusing on strategies with longevity, including ways to evaluate active ETFs with limited live track records through conversions or composites. The conversation also covers how marketin...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast and interviews Manju Boraiah, Head of Systematic Fixed Income and Co-Head of Custom SMAs at Allspring, a privately owned global asset manager with about $625B AUM. They discuss the evolution of systematic fixed income investing and why models require “hands on the wheel” as regimes change. Manju identifies outsourced investment management as a major trend, driven by advisors’ time constraints, customization needs, and demand for tax efficiency, fueling growth in custom SMAs, active ETFs, and third-party and custom models. They explore how advisors can add value through better goal-to-portfolio mapping, househol...

From Lake Tahoe, Zephyr’s Adjusted Risk Podcast welcomes Eric Kazatsky, Client Portfolio Manager at MacKay Municipal Managers, an $85–$86B specialist in tax-exempt and taxable municipal strategies across ETFs, mutual funds, interval funds, and limited partnerships. The conversation covers today’s macro uncertainty—sticky inflation, rate direction, yield-curve shape, geopolitics—and why munis can help portfolios through low correlation, diversification, and tax-equivalent income potential. Kazatsky discusses a defensive posture using higher coupons, where MacKay sees relative value on the muni curve (about 17–22 years), how munis follow Treasuries directionally while facing distinct domestic fundamentals, and why taxable munis exist and can offer at...

Recorded on location at the Exchange ETF Conference, Zephyr market strategist Ryan Nauman speaks with Mark Marifian, Head of Product at Tortoise Capital, about why energy belongs in portfolios and common misconceptions that it’s only about crude prices or big integrated oil companies. Marifian explains the breadth of energy sub-sectors, highlights midstream’s fee-based, repeatable cash flows, and discusses how energy infrastructure can provide income and inflation protection through contract and tariff adjustments linked to PPI. They cover how allocators may bucket energy within income, real assets, or core/satellite equity exposures, and why energy’s small S&P 500...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast with Mike Willis, CEO and co-founder of Cyber Hornet ETFs, discussing why consistently beating the market is difficult and how advisors can add value through asset allocation, discipline, and client coaching. Willis shares his background from wirehouses to launching an RIA and creating investment products to make his strategies accessible to smaller investors, including why he shifted to using the S&P 500 as a portfolio backbone after underperforming in 2013–2014. He explains Cyber Hornet’s 75/25 approach—75% S&P 500 with a 25% crypto “kicker” (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, or XRP) rebalanced monthly—to buffer volatility whi...

Recorded at the Exchange ETF Conference in Las Vegas, host Ryan Nauman welcomes Sal Esposito, Head of ETFs at Zacks Investment Management, to discuss why market leadership driven by mega-cap tech and AI is shifting back toward fundamentals. Esposito explains Zacks’ disciplined process focused on earnings, analyst estimate revisions, and balance sheets, calling 2026 a “prove it” year for AI as investors look under the hood for real results. They cover how Zacks applies its Zacks Indicator model across products, why active management can add value in small/mid caps and international equities, and how geopolitical uncertainty and interest-rate expectations can af...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk Podcast with guest Edison Byzyka, Chief Investment Officer of Credent Wealth Management, a $4.5B fee-only RIA headquartered in northeast Indiana. They discuss today’s macro uncertainty (Iran conflict, oil, inflation) while emphasizing skepticism and reliance on data such as economic surprise indices, forward inflation expectations, labor resilience, and high-yield spreads that don’t signal major distress. Byzyka explains how Credent defines risk primarily as drawdowns rather than benchmark-relative volatility, aiming for positive risk-adjusted returns over three-year cycles including tax and accounting alpha. He highlights key current risks: difficulty monetizing AI-related capex and lo...

From Lake Tahoe on Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk Podcast, host Ryan welcomes back Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium ETFs, to discuss row crop investing and how corn, soybeans, wheat, and sugar can impact portfolios. Gilbertie explains how energy and fertilizer costs—especially amid Middle East conflict and potential LNG disruptions—affect crop economics and planting decisions, and why grains often trade near cost of production with historically limited downside at breakeven levels (corn around $4, trading near $4.40). He outlines the “golden grain cycle” (breakeven, disruption-driven spike, then replanting and normalization), notes steady long-term global demand, and describes grains’ diversification benefits, ci...

On location at the Exchange at 2026 ETF conference, host Ryan Nauman welcomes Ed Lopez, Head of Product Management at VanEck and host of the Trends with Benefits podcast, to discuss emerging markets after strong 2025 performance. Lopez explains how diversification benefited investors in 2025 as emerging market equities rose over 30% and emerging market debt returned around 17%, but notes recent risk-off sentiment tied to the Iran conflict and a move back into the U.S. dollar. He outlines longer-term reasons to be constructive on emerging markets, including central bank diversification away from the dollar since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, comparatively stronger fi...

From Lake Tahoe, Zephyr market strategist Ryan Nauman welcomes Paul Baiocchi, Head of Fund Strategy at SS&C ALPS Advisors, to discuss why commodities have returned to focus amid strong gold and silver performance in 2025 and the Iran conflict’s impact on markets. They explore what recent geopolitical and even weather-driven disruptions reveal about fragile global supply/demand, how energy and other constrained inputs (fertilizer, aluminum, helium, copper) can provide diversification—including periods of negative correlation to the S&P 500—and why many portfolios lack exposure given low energy/materials weights. Paul argues secular forces like AI-driven data center buildo...

Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk Podcast from Lake Tahoe and interviews David Chan, Head of Investor Relations at Homestead Capital, an institutional manager focused on U.S. farmland and agricultural investments. Chan explains Homestead’s origins, its farmland equity approach and newer credit strategy lending to farmers, and key themes shaping farmland: income durability, inflation linkage, land scarcity, active management potential, and a flight to quality driven by water security—highlighting California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and resulting value bifurcation. They break down farmland returns into income (lease or operating) and appreciation, distinguish permanent crops (e.g., al...

During this clip of Ryan Nauman's conversation with DoubleLine's Deputy CIO Jeffrey Sherman, the two discuss the new Fed chair pick Kevin Warsh, Fed independence, the tension between inflation and employment.

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Host Ryan Nauman speaks with Kara Pagliuca, board member of Women in ETFs and senior director of global strategic partnerships at S&P Dow Jones Indices, about the evolving demographics of the investment management and ETF industry. Pagliuca shares her career path, WE’s mission to connect, support, and inspire professionals across the ETF ecosystem, and how the organization promotes mentorship, leadership, speaking opportunities, and broader representation in media and conference panels. They discuss progress in women reaching executive roles, the importance of intentional hiring and promotion, and how confidence, early education, visible role models, and sponsors can help wo...