PNC's Agati: 'Crazy Train' of a year can end up and lead to gains in '26

Amanda Agati, chief investment officer at PNC Asset Management Group, says that with the purple haze of fiscal policy uncertainty and tariffs having lifted, the "pace of natural advancement" doesn't have a lot of room left in 2025, but after a slower grind into the end of the year, she thinks that 2026 "is shaping up to be an acceleration type of a year." She expects broader stock market participation to help with that, though she says that breadth will extend to the 493 stocks that are in the Standard & Poor's 500 but not the Magnificent Seven, rather than to small caps. Agati also said that the international rally thus far this year is likely to slow significantly. 

David Trainer of New Constructs put "unattractive asset managers" in the Danger Zone this week, and singled out Virtus Investment Partners as a prime example, saying it wasn't just that the money manager has a suite of mostly unattractive funds, but that its results as a stock could get ugly too.

Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at BankRate.com discusses the site's back-to-school shopping survey, which surprisingly showed that fewer Americans are saying that school shopping is putting pressure on their finances this year. One reason why is that shoppers say they have changed some of the ways they shop in response to higher inflation.

 Plus, in the intro segment, Chuck discusses his experience with a warranty program — something he normally disdains and avoids — that started out looking ugly, but wound up with a happy ending.