special reasons every year to count their blessings. that's it for us this week. be sure to follow me on twitter, facebook and instagram. i'll be back next week with more in-depth interviews right here on "the wall street journal at large." thanks for joining us, and have a happy thanksgiving. ♪ ♪ jack: welcome to "barron's roundtable" where we get behind the headlines and prepare you for the week ahead. i'm jack otter. with covid-19 vaccines coming soon, where's the market headed now? ed car denyny showers his scenario. and the later, the global economy is beginning to recover from the pandemic, an expert investment panel says it's time to look overseas. but we gun with what we think are the three most important things investors ought to be thinking about. stocks were resilient this week in the face of rising covid-19

cases. can the bulls hold on all winter? amazon shaking up the prescription drug business with the launch of amazon pharmacy e and a lot more investors will be adding tesla to their portfolio when electric vehicle company joins the s&p 500 in december. can tesla maintain its dominance? my colleagues, ben levisohn, carlton english and jack howe. so, ben, interesting market this week. the dow and the s&p were down ever so slightly, the nasdaq and small caps were up. what are traders looking at? >> well, it was interesting, it's a week that felt like it should have been a really down pretty hard. we had the treasury ending some programs that the fed has to support the economy, we had bad data the, retail sales disappointing, jobless claims, manufacturing surveys were disappointing and, of course, there's covid which continues to spread a around the country, cuff fews being imposed, new york city schools going to

remote learning. it looks really bad, except the dow finished down 0.7, the s&p down 0.8, the nasdaq was up 0.2, and the russell 2000 was up 2 president all because of the -- 2% all because of the vaccine news. pfizer and biontech released their full data, which was fantastic, and applied for an emergency use authorization. and what's interesting now is that the market isn't shooting higher when this news comes out, but it's becoming a support for the market. it's almost as if there's a vaccine put under the market that's supporting things. jack: interesting. do you think there's also an element of that bad news is good news situation that sometimes happens? do traders expect that this bad economic news and the covid news might increase the odds that we'll get stimulus from congress? >> i think that's definitely in play here. we had a little murmur of talks between schumer and mcconnell, and i think that the market

whenever with it looks around and sees that, okay, maybe things aren't going well, it does get a little bit of hope that, yeah with, stimulus might come, fiscal or even monetary stimulus. jack: let's go to carltonful really interesting news that was about the worst kept secret on wall street which is that amazon was going to go into the pharmacy business. and yet still the competitors, the cvss and the walgreens just got absolutely hammered. >> yeah. it's really interesting because this wasn't a total surprise when you consider that amazon was looking to get into this business. but the brick, the traditional brick and mortar pharmacies, they did suffer in the trading because of it. finish now, the end game is kind of interesting here. you know, how much of a dent it will put this their business because while amazon is able to offer prescriptions online, you have to realize that pharmacies have also been enhancing their offerings, you know, they offer the flu shot, serve as kind of minute clinics for people or

even if you just have a common cold and you want to talk to someone about which over the counter medication you want, you're able to do that in a pharmacy whereas yaw won't be able to do that with amazon online. jack: i think this business is almost 18 percent of the u.s. economy, and it's going to be so big, he's got to look for big game to hunt down. it's ripe for innovation, right? how many times do we have to fill out those forms at the doctor's office, stand and is wait for the prescription? so my question is, okay, he eats the pharmacies now, maybe all of health care, what does he go after next? >> he has e-commerce, he has entertainment, i think banking would be the next logical step, but we'll see. jack: absolutely. electric cars, possibly not tomorrow. maybe someday. jack, tell us about tesla. this company will go into the s&p 500 index as the largest freshman ever to enter that class. >> yeah. just in time for christmas. if you've been agonizing over whether to buy tesla, you don't

have to worry about it anymore, you're getting it whether you like it or not in your s&p 500 if you have one, and everyone has one. tesla will go in as the seventh largest company. this is what happens when a stock goes up every day and for years you say, ah, that company doesn't deserve to go into the index yet, it's a flash in the pan, ignore it, ignore it. by the time you have to add it, it's humongous. s&p might have to add it in pieces, the stock market value's $470 billion at this point. if you ask why all the excitement over tesla if you haven't been following it closely, morgan stanley had a report out recently that said if you look at gm who's been a player in electric vehicles for decades, they think by 2030 that gm might sell a million electric vehicles per year. and if it does, by that point they think it'll be eight years behind tesla in reaching that mark. everybody's behind tesla and

electric vehicles right now. jack: and last time i checked, gm had not launched any rockets which elon musk has. it's a pretty impressive companies. >> that's right. jack: coming up, ed yardeni predicts 2020 will be a very good year. he'll tell us why, that's next. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ jack: once we are all able to get a covid vaccination, pent-up demand could lead to an economic boom. that's why economic strategist ed yardeni is optimistic. i do want do you about tension between the federal reserve and the treasury department. late this past week secretary

mnuchin announced he would not, tend several emergency lending programs that the fed said, quote, were needed to backstop our vulnerable economy. you're a close watcher of the fed. should investors be worried about this? >> not really. i'm going to take the treasury is secretary at his word. he basically indicated that the fed hadn't used some of the funds than provided to the fed for lending out as a result of the cares act, and he wants the money reallocated. and i think it could be reallocated to those who are unemployed and extending some of the benefits. so i think that's really all there is to it. as it is, we're going to have a new treasury secretary in january, and everything could change again then. jack: sure. a lot of people are wondererring who that's going to be. but let's take to the markets. obviously, since the pfizer and moderna announcements, we've seen a nice rally. not surprisingly, some of the travel and leisure stocks, a lot

of the airlines popped, but it was actually an even broader rally. industrials did well, energy did well, and you think that's an important sign. >> it's very important because there was a lot of concern that the bull market over the past couple of years has been very narrow, just kind of focused on what i call the magnificent five, the wig five big cap -- big five big cap names that have basically swallowed up the is s&p. some people call it the s&p 5 versus the s&p 495. so it's really nice to see the 495 participate in the rally, and a broadening s&p rally is healthy x it's more sustainable than if you just have a handful of stocks leading the way with up. so i'm very encouraged by that. jack: you've even gone so far as to say you might see parallels between now and the roaring '20s, long before 1929, i should point out. can you explain that? >> well, you know, there's so much possess nhl around -- pessimism around, if you think things are bad now, imagine what

it was like at the beginning of the 1920s. before that there was a world war, world war i, then 1918 and 1919 there was a terrible pandemic, worse than this one, millions of people died, and they didn't know what to do about it. and then in the united states we had a recession in 1920. so people must have been just suicidal. i mean, talk about a bad streak of bad events. and nobody saw what was coming, which is the roaring '20s with tremendous technological revolutions like automobiles, lighting, appliances, etc. and this time around technology is solving the problem of the virus. we are probably going to have a vaccine sooner rather than later, and i think we can look forward to somewhat back to normal by the second half of next year. and this time around we don't have to guess about what technologies might be out there. we know there are lots of this many that are going to increase productivity and prosperity, in my opinion. jack: i want do you about

productivity because people may not know that gdp growth is actually a very simple formula la, work force growth plus product it growth. we know that work force growth is not going to be a big deal, so we're counting on productivity. and, you know, in this thing i can do all my christmas shopping, do most of my work, if i wasn't happily married, i could get a new wife. what can't i do on my phone, and yet that hasn't come through in huge productivity numbers. why isn't that-ing the economy? >> yeah. i guess you could probably launch missiles or manage flights with your cell phone. i think the productivity numbers are going to be better and better. they tend the run in streaks, and for the past five years or more the productivity streak has been depressing. it's actually been on 0.5% over the past five years at an annual rate, and that's all that's contributed to real gdp. so we've had to grow labor by

more than that to get gdp, but all in all, it's what 2% in real gdp. now imagine if all the technology that's out there really boosts productivity and we see productivity growing 2%, which is not a crazy kind of number. and if we have a 0.5% increase in the labor force, that's 2.5%, and it could be higher than that if the productivity numbers are better, and they could be better. jack: and if we were to get in that way, then inflation would not be a problem, which is good news. >> it's, it can't -- i mean, talk about goldilocks, you can't get a better e scenario than an economy that's driven by productivity, because productivity does, informs in -n fact, trickle down to everybody. there's a lot of controversy about that, but the data series that i've been looking at suggests that productivity is the sure way to prosperity. it always has been in the past and will be in the future. jack: i hope you are right. dr. ed yardeni, thank you so much. >> thank you. jack: coming up, as the global

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♪ ♪ jack: foreign stocks have underperformed u.s. shares for over decade, but as the global economy begins to recover9 from the pandemic, now might be a good time to look for bargains overseas. barron's asked a panel of international investors where they see opportunities, chris dire was a member of that panel, and he joins us now. chris, thanks for staying up late in london to come on the show. >> thanks for having me. jack: i want to start with a very basic question which is why invest overseas? a lot of americans are skeptical

and keeping their money within these shores over the last ten years has been a winning strategy. >> that's right. but we think we're at the very beginning of a multiyear of outperformance, and that's going to be driven by economics, politics and valuation all favor international equity now. from an economic perspective, we're at the very beginning of an economic recovery across the globe, and those environments favor value and cyclically-oriented companies, more of which you find in europe and japan then in the u.s. if you look back at the previous period of international equity versus the u.s., that was back in the 2000s. and we're seeing some strong parallels between that environment and what we see today coming off of a multiyear period of u.s. technology outperformance, that's consistent is what we saw in the late '90s. and then throughout the early 2000s we had a period of dollar weakness. but i think that's a real

concern for investors going forward driven by the hue levels of u.s. government debt and the twin deficits of trade and fiscal in the u.s. which will both pressure the u.s. dollar. and then from a political perspective, we're seeing great confusion, and the prospect of normalization with the u.s. and china, that's more important for european and japanese companies than their u.s. counterparts. and finally, the international equity market is trading at a multidecade low relative to the u.s. in terms of valuations. jack: okay. so if we do that, there's a couple ways you can do it. you can buy individual stocks around the world, own an index with everything, can or we can hear an equity manager like you. you charge more, can you justify those fees for us? >> i think if you're talented and good at active managing, then you certainly can outweigh

the fees with the outperformance you're automobile to get -- able to get. so we think that now it's a very interesting time for act we've managers, particularly in the international market for two reasons. one, you don't have the concentration of leadership that you have in the u.s. market. you've got a lot more breadth in the international equity market which creates opportunities to outperform the benchmark and, two, volatility. we expect volatility to continue to be elevated in the future, and that creates opportunities for active managers as well. jack: what you're referring to are the facebook, amazon, apple, google -- alphabet, i should say -- and that's really what has driven the u.s. economy. and i've spoken to some professional investors who say why do i want to be overseas? this is the future. i want to buy those companies, therefore, i want to buy american. >> that's right. those are all very, very strong companies, great business

models. but i think what i like to point out is look at two of the world's best technology companies found outside of the united states, asml in the netherlands and -- [inaudible] semi conductor. the technological innovation e that they provide to all their clientses and their customers like apple, facebook, amazon, etc., empower those companies to come out in the new generation of productions. so without the technology advancements that are driven by asml, the taiwan semiconductor, you don't get the next iphone, the great innovations and progress that we've seen with cloud computing in recent years. so these companies really are the engines of growth but they're not well known because they're not consumer brands. a lot of investors in the u.s. wouldn't be familiar with them, but they really do generate the advances in technology that are so important for all consumers. and then finally, what i would just point out is look at the share price performance of those

two companies over the last five years, and they compare very, very favorably to the u.s. fang companies. so, again, diversification is a great technological leadership. jack: i do want to point out your fund not only beats global indexes, but you actually managed to beat the s&p 500 over the past two years, which is pretty interesting. real quick, i want to go to my colleagues for a lightning round of picks from the other panelists in that round table. i'll start with you, jack. >> lightning, i'll put some extra razzle-dazzle on it, jack. trip.com, that comes from kristin who's manager of the morgan stanley international opportunity portfolio. if you remember ctrip.com, they changed the name, biggest travel booker in china. they have used the pandemic to renegotiate for more favorable terms with their hotel providers and to cut costs, and this is a lot of room for growth in travel in china. jack: carlton? >> cuci bank -- cici bank in

india with, it's another one of christian's pucks. he looks at many private banks in india, pulling off the notion of their economy improving and moving away from state-owned to private e banks. jack: and, ben, a reoping may overseas. >> that's right. i'm looking at ryan air from bailey gulf order international that fund. it's an airline, and it's actually been investing during this period. it's ordered 200 planes, it's taking market share. when consumers can fly again, ryan area's going to do fantastic. jack: i believe that's a discount airline in ireland. thank you so much, chris, for joining us. thanks to the panel. up next, these guys are going to give their investment ideas for the coming week, so stay right there. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ jack: jack, as you well know, there's something called the risk-on trade when everybody's wagging their tails and getting your forking up the market, and there is no better example than butt coyne. >> it's more than -- bitcoin. >> it's more than doubled this year, recently went over $18,000. it has to get to about $20,000 to have a new price record, but it is a record value for all of the outstanding bitcoin, about $340 billion. all kinds of outland you should forecasts out there. -- outlandish forecasts. i think bitcoin could catch up with tesla in market value by christmas. i say when it happens, we we wad bitcoin to the s&p 500. i know it's against the rules, but it's 2020, jack, there are no rules. [laughter] jack: wow, that is a prediction

that would have made henry proud in 199. for those people who don't want to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon, i know we've got good ideas from karl oregon ben. carlton, sticking with those banks. >> i am. taking a look at regional bankings, i had a feature in barron's where i looked at five that are poised to grow. but another way to get diversification e is to use the spider regional banking etf. jack: ben, what are you looking at this week? >> i'm looking at the material selects spider etf, he knows that there's been a strong recovery in the manufacturing sector, it's going to continue. manufacturing needs materials, these stocks will benefit. they're up 14% so far this year, and it's going to continue. jack: jim is a barron's top rank advisor, really smart guy who also, i think, has the best lifestyle of any adviser, you can see ski mountains out his window. those are great ideas, thank you. to aide more, including

carlton's story, check out this week's edition at barron's.com. don't forget follow us on twitter at barron's online. we will see you next week on "barron's roundtable." "barron's roundtable." .......... ♪ dr. michael youssef: joyous and blessed thanksgiving to you and your loved ones. what a year we have been through, and, yet we truly have millions of things to be thankful for. we are thankful for our salvation and the mercy of god and the grace of god. i'm thankful that we're here celebrating thanksgiving. what a joy it is for me to bring you this message on moses, but before we get to that, i wanna share with you