fargo and blackrock leading the way on friday. analysts are expecting a better fourth quarter than last year's results, predicting the estimated earnings year-over-year from s&p 500 companies will be up 11.9%, and revenue growth also up 4.6%. maria had been bringing you all the a details on "mornings with maria," weekdays 6-9 a.m. and catch her this sunday morning on fox news, 10 a.m. eastern time live for "sunday morning futures." she'll be speaking this weekend with wisconsin senator ron johnson, florida congressman byron donalds and the federalist editor-in-chief, mollie hemingway. that'll do it for us here on fox business. thanks so much for joining us and have a great rest of your weekend. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ jack: happy new year and welcome to "barron's roundtable" where we get behind the headlines and prepare you for the week ahead. i'm jack otter. wall street seeing a volatile start to 2025, chief investment officer cameron dawson on what to expect and why mid-cap stocks are now the sweet spot of the market. and later our roundtable shares the best income investments for the next year. we begin with three things investors ought to be thinking about right now. my colleagues, ben levisohn, elizabeth o'brien and jack hough. well, ben, wonderful two years in the market, but the fourth quarter of last year we barely eked out a gain. this year started off, you know, pretty lousy returns. is this a bad omen? >> first of all, i need to say, kids, plug your ears, because i'm about to say something that may shock you, santa claus does not exist, at least for the

stock market. the last five days of the old year, first two of the new year stock market was down 0.5%. and that means that the santa claus rally didn't happen. that's actually okay because this was actually the worst santa claus period since last year. and we know that last year was a great year. so, actually, i don't think there's much to worry about with the fact that the market ended last year poorly, began on the back foot. that's probably okay. jack: the 10-year bond is solidly above 4.5%, about 4.6%. that kind of level makes stock traders nest. >> yeah, it really does -- nervous. part of it's a valuation thing. you know, our valuations for stocks come off of bonds. if you can get a bond that's yielding 4.6%, you want to know your stock is going to to go up a lot more. and it could be signaling lots of things like inflation if or something else. it's kind of scary. i'm hopeful that bond yields are kind of peaking here, that we've had this adjustment to the fed meeting where the fed was kind of hawkish, said there might be

two cuts only this year. but that's going to be okay. jack: clearly watching on friday when the jobs report comes out. >> yeah, that's the big news next week. suppose supposed to be about 160,000, but i actually think a beat would not be bad, reassure people hat economy's the still doing just fine. if there's productivity to go with job both -- can growth, hey, that would be great. jack: president biden killed the u.s. steel takeover deal. if he hadn't done it, president trump probably would have done it before 5:00 on january 20th. what's your takesome. >> it's ridiculous. this is a deal where u.s. steel is not a major player anymore. it's just fading away. everybody wanted this teal to happen, almost everybody, including many of the unionized workers at the u.s. steel plans. japan was going to be able to come in and put money into the company, turn it around. that's not going to happen now. and they did it on security grounds when we have steel mills owned by a russian steel company here. it's just ridiculous. jack: tell it like it is.

elizabeth, all this financial stuff, there's something much more momentous happened this week. the u.s. government said that beer and and bourbon are bad for us. >> indeed. sober news to start the year, alcohol con subjects and cancer are linked -- consumption. drinking contributes to about 20,000 cancer deaths a year, yet most americans are not aware of the link between drinking and cancer. even more bad news, it said that all kinds of alcohol contribute equally. you know how sometimes we rationalize, oh, wine has antioxidants. no, in this case it's healthy. >> ben's going to be drinking a case of wine by himself. not just the surgeon general, the obesity drugs make people stop eating junk food and also stop drinking and young people are drinking less. >> that's the truth. alcohol stocks fell sharply on friday, boston beer corp. is the brewer of sam adams, and anheuser-busch and constellation

brands also posted losses. you know, alcohol stocks are considered a consumer staple because demand for booze is generally thought to be inelastic, but maybe investors should rethink that characterization in light of these events. same with snack if stocks like mondelez as americans rethink what it means to be healthy. jack: at least no one is yet saying, jack, that movies are bad nurse. we've got some -- bad for us. >> the theme in 2024 was disaster averted. things looked pretty grim back if may, but there were some movies that saved the day including wicked late in the year. in 2025 the prediction is a rise in northern north american box office of 9%. that's according to researchers. you've got a lot of franchise film, avatar, mission impossible, a john wick and a captain america. if you thought 82-year-old harrison ford wouldn't return to the screen bare-chested and flexing, you'll be delighted to know there's a cgi red hulk this

uses his face in the model. i don't know about his pecs, but his face. [laughter] and the 2026, next year, that could be the first years that the box office approaches, maybe even tops its pre-pandemic glory because the list of frill. s goes on and on, lord of the rings, you name it. jack: but these are all sequels and remakes. the most original thing is that hulk turned from red to green or between to red. [laughter] is there anything new is? >> there are, but wall street doesn't talk about it because the new films don't make money. this month, january, universe universal has a -- by the way, public service announcement, they have wolfman coming out, also dogman. there's going to be grandparents that are looking to take grade school kids to the one that's a cartoon crime-fighting movie. be careful, because there's a lot of people being disemboweled in the woods. jack: tell us which one is the wrong one. >> i think it's wolfman. jack: uh-oh, his kids are this

if trouble. >> do your own research. jack: wall street rattled by a tough start to 2025. should you change your playbook? new age's cameron dawson is here nice to meet ya. my name is david. i've been a pharmacist for 44 years and i'm from flowery branch, georgia. when i have customers come in i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's safe and effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription.

♪ so tonight i'm gonna party like it's 1999 ♪ from. jack: are markets poised to party like it's 1999 in 2025 the? s&p's up more than 50% over the past two years, best run since the late '90s. but stocks are off to a shaky start for the first trading week of 2025 the, so where is the market headed if from here? joining me now, new edge wealth chief investment officer cameron dawson. cameron, good to see you again. >> thank you for having me. jack: okay, so new edge has this

thing where in all of your reports, you link it to an album, a musician or a line in a song is. one possibility is 1999, but there's another possibility too? share your outlook. >> we do think 2025 the will be one of the '80s greats. we think it's going to be prince or the talking heads. so prince, party like it's 1999, let's go crazy is the bubble scenario. where markets continue to run higher, we have another year that looks like a 20% plus up year like we've a had in the last two. the other scenario, one we actually think is far more healthy, is we play the talking heads meaning that we go on the road to nowhere and we sideways chop through the year. the reason that's more healthy is because it gives us time to grow into these elevated valuationses, gives us time to digest the fact that positioning is extended. sos it's going to be one of the two, we think, and if we get the latter, that sideways chop, it just means that you likely get some rotations, and you probably get buying opportunities with that volatility. jack: but sentiment seems kind

of frothy right now. a contrarian would say, okay, that means stocks are going to go down, but a momentum trader says, hey, it's going to do '99. you think that scenario's a little more like likely? >> we do think the sideways chop is more likely. we see the upside bubble scenario as more of a risk because what comes after a melt-up is usually a meltdown. the reason that we think the bubble is still a potential is because when you think about running high fiscal deficits and potentially running her if stimulative monetary -- more still la delaware the monetary policy, usually those two things together on top of the fact that you already have this speculative fervor that's in markets, look what's been going on with low quality, high beta, even the crypto parts of the market, those areas show you that people want to take risk. so if the fed continues to cut rates a lot, it could be like throwing lighter fluid on a fire that's already burning. jack: we've got what's called a

pro-cyclical monetary policy which is unusual if you go back in history, but instead we are throwing that the lighter fluid on -- that lighter fluid on. you made an interesting move, in the past few days you went to value instead of growth. is that a quick tactical trade, or do you think that might be the way to go for 2025? >> it is tactical in the moment, and we think it has to prove itself and sustain for more than a month or so. the reason we decided to shift slightly more into value in those tactical buckets is because we saw value underperform by such a huge degree over the month of december. and folks had been flagging that value performance was in the sixth percentile meaning it doesn't get much worse than what it had been. so we thought we were prime for some kind of snapback. for it to last more than just a few weeks, we think what we have to see is better value earnings revisions. the key reason why value has underperformed growth so relentlessly over the last two years is because value earnings have underperformedded growth earning.

so in order to see sal earnings do better, we -- value earnings, we think you need to see a weaker dollar, higher energy prices, you need to see cyclical activity the hold up. and those are big show-me stories. jack: higher energy prices, there seems to be a lot of supply. that seems unlikely or no? >> well, that has been the message from the oil market over the last two years. one of the things we don't think we can underappreciate is just how powerful falling oil prices has been not just for the u.s. consumer, but the overall u.s. economy. it's been terrible for energy stocks. they've continued to get their earnings estimates get cut. but the fact that on a year-over-year basis energy prices have been consistently down over the last two years has been a boon for consumers. this is why we think household consumption forecasts for 2024 the started the year at 1.3% and ended the year at 2.7%. huge upside surprise for the consumer. question for '25 if oil prices

comove up, could that make the consumer pull back. jack: another tactical or perhaps long-term question for you, you like the middle of the market. mid-cap stocks as opposed to small and large caps which have done so well. whoo eye's that -- why's that? >> we've been fairing them over small caps -- favor. they tend to be higher quality companies that have less debt on their balance sheet which means they're less sensitive to high interest rates. and and one of the things about a small caps to remember is that 40% of the russell 2000 is unprofitable even in this strong nominal growth environment that we've been in -- jonof them can't even make debt payments. >> well, exactly. they're zombie companies. so the risk that you have with the russell 2000 is that you've seen a huge rally on the hopes and dreams that you're going to see lower interest rates. if interest rates stay higher for longer, that's a big problem for small cap companies. jack: we'll have you back to find out what they're actually doing. thank you so much, cameron. next up, andrew berry joins

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xfinity. made for gaming. rewards members, get early access to an ea sports fc25 kit. visit xfinity.com/rewards. jack: baer ron's is out with its annual playbook. dividends may seem stodgy in a mag 7 world, but there are places to look beyond stocks and and bonds. it's the cover story the week, and it was the written by our very own andrew berry. he joins the panel now. thanks for coming, ann true. >> happy to be here -- andrew. jack: we've all been loving the capital gains, but those can't go on forever. so where do you find regular payouts? >> basically, this the past year was a pretty good year for dividend investors although it was tough to top the s&p 500 with a return of around 25%.

utilities nearly matched it and pipeline companies beat the s&p. in the bond market, you got high single-digit returns in areas like convertibles, but treasuries had megayields. jack: -- negative if yields. jack: often stocks and yields move in opposite directions. overseas, you're finding some nice yields. >> international stocks have badly underperformed the s&p 500 for the past year, the past ten years. you're getting dividend yields of 3-6. the u.k. is a pretty good area to look right now, and if you like etfs, there's a schwab ticker, shcy, which is about 6. jack: and some tax advantages for americans. >> exactly. jack: in the u.s. if you want to stay domestic, where do you look? health care's not been doing well. >> it's been weak relative to the market. i think the drug area is a pretty good area to look for yield, stocks like merck and johnson and johnson is yielding

over 3%. pfizer is now yielding over 6%, very much out of favor. utilities still look pretty good, 3-4% dividend yields and a tailwind from the a.i.-related electricity demands. >> you mentioned pipeline companies. master limited partnership. they had a big year. what do the yields look like now, and is there any upside left? >> big gains last year, a.i. plays, particularly the natural gas pipeline companies like kinder morgan -- >> because you need all that power to run the data center, and there's only so many retired nuke plants you can refire, right? >> exactly. you've got a demand for lng, so it's a good environment for transporting natural gas. i mean, right now you're getting 4-6% yield withs on them. you probably could be talking about a 10-ish percent total return on pipelines this year which would be good but not nearly as good as last year. >> what about municipal bonds? i know those are popular with retirees and affluent people in general for the tax breaks. >> they're okay, not great with right now.

inside 10-year maturities, i would say the longer-term muni is looking more attractive. you can get 4% yields on high quality long-term municipal bonds, and if you want to take more risk, you can get 5, 6 and even higher risk. >> andrew, i know you're a big fan of mortgage-backed securities, but why would i want to invest in a bond that's backed by my home loan payment? >> you're getting almost 6% yields on mortgage secures. fannie mae and ginnie mae are very high quality, almost, i mean, risk-free right now in terms of the credit risk. and it's one of the few areas where you have relatively atrack ative spreads versus -- attractive spreads. you're getting about a 1.25 point advantage over u.s. treasuries. >> and what about real estate investment trusts in. >> real estate investment has had a poor year relative to the market in 2024 because treasury yields rose, but i think that could be one of the better areas for 2025. you're talking about a 4%

dividend yield with, vnq -- >> that's a snooze, 4% is a snooze. we're talking about income. why would we buy reiths when you could buy treasuries? what's the appeal? >> the advantage of reits, you get growth and you could have mid single-digit growth in alternatives and -- earnings and rents. that's the appeal right now. and including like mid america is an apartment company as well as the warehouse companies which were in favor now. >> how's cash looking? has it lost its luster around after a fabulous run? what are money markets done? >> i think cash is a good asset class, 4 plus yields on money market if funds. treasury yields are particularly attractive, you get a tax benefit right now and etfs like ticker bil or sg with or v which offer good access. >> i like those t-bills so much, and that's all i really want,

t-bills and stocks and nothing in between. >> that's the warren buffett approach to investing, about $300 billion in cash and $300 billion in stocks and almost no bonds. i think bonds have a place given that yields are not terrible. you get 4-7% yields and if the economy does weaken in 2025, bonds might ballast. jack: i'm going to go with mbs also, that is an important point, andrew, the spreads are nice there which they're not in junk bonds. thanks, guy guys. ben and elizabeth have a pair of investment ideas, and jack names the new most complicated company in the market. stay right there. ♪ (vo) explore the world the viking way from the quiet comfort of elegant small ships with no children and no casinos. we actually have reinvented ocean voyages, designing all-inclusive experiences for the thinking person. viking - voted world's best

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all the buzz around bitcoin isn't just talk anymore crypto has gone mainstream. at itrustcapital, you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies 24/7 with the tax benefits of an ira. that's right, with an itrustcapital ira, you can defer taxes until retirement or choose a roth ira for tax-free withdrawals later. setting up an account is quick and easy it only takes minutes. open your account today at itrustcapital.com. the new era of crypto is here. jack: jack, in a column this week you point out that comcast is quite a cheap stock, but no

one wants to buy it. new call it the most complicated company in the market. >> i think so. it's taken the title from ge. the parts of the business that are supposed to be doing poorly don't look that bad, and the parts that are supposed to be doing well look weak. i talked earlier about movies? comcast has wicked, they're doing quite well with movies. tv/streaming, that's supposeed to be a struggle, comcast is spring off most of its cable networks and peacock increased paid subscribers by 29, losses there are narrowing, so that's in good shape. theme park attendance, that's down, but comcast has this new park opening next year in may, it's called epic universe. people are calling it the biggest theme park opening in the u.s. many if more than a quarter century, so that looks -- jack: how does somebody find new real estate in orlando? did they full in a marsh or something? [laughter] what's the matter with cable? >> that's the problem. we all know that consumers are cutting pay tv. cable companies don't really

care because a lot of consumers say give me broadband only, and that has good margins. now the cell phone companies are all in on that business, they're spending oodleses of money the spread fiber optic, broadband are taking market share. they forecasted modest declines in broadband subscriptions. the stock tanked 10%, so that's really the most pressing problem. jack: corning is doing well. bob, better stock ideas, what's yours, elizabeth? >> domino's pizza is ready to deliver. it lacked the market last year but that's due to economic factors, particularly abroad. because international sales account for about half of the company's revenue, and the strong dollar also hurt some international, you know, stores. but those trends seem to be reversing. in the u.s. it's paired with doordash and uber eats which will allow it to gain new customer, and i hear it pairs well with non-alcoholic beer. jack: ben?

>> microsoft over the last 12 months all these stocks have gained 31% or more except microsoft gained about 14%. it's only cheaper, the only time it's been cheaper is during the bear market of 2022 and during the selloff during covid. it's really a concern about too much spending on a.i., but if the company can show that spending is starting to pay off a, it could bounce back here. it's been such a laggard that it's -- and it's the actually sitting at a support level that if things start to go right, i think there's a lot of upside. jack: thank you, guys. that read more, check out this week's edition of barron's.com. follow us at bare with ron's online. and that's all for us. we'll see you next week on "barron's roundtable". ♪