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Walmart (WMT) says tariffs are starting to hit, warning it will raise prices as early as this month. Alex Casswell, Wealthscript Advisors founder and CEO, joins Catalysts to share how consumers can prepare, from staying invested to making big purchases sooner.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.
While trade tensions are easing with the US and China agreeing to a 90-day pause, levies still expected to have an impact on cost. Walmart warning customers and its latest earnings report that it will begin raising prices as soon as this month as tariff pressures begin to weigh on margins. So, how can you prepare for rising prices? I want to bring in Alex Caswell. He is wealth script advisor's founder and CEO for this week's FA corner, brought to you by Invesco. Alex, great to have you on here. Tell me, this is something myself, all my friends and family, we just want to know. What is the single best way to prepare for rising prices?
You know, thank you for having me. Um, you know, for prices as they continue to increase, which they certainly will. Now we'll see what impact the tariffs will have on the increasing prices. Um, you know, staying employed, uh, making sure you have the right amount of money saved, right? kind of all the basic financial tips are going to help you uh protect yourself from the increase in inflation, right? Um, obviously having uh investments and equities, which hopefully will also increase in value as uh inflation increases, uh will all help you have that purchasing power. But, um, you know, depending on which tariffs actually stay in place and how they will be implemented and which companies will pass on those tariffs. I mean, if you are looking at, uh, looking at a bigger purchase, uh, you know, you may want to get ahead of that. Uh, we've actually seen with companies themselves, uh, having very large imports, uh, trying to get ahead of tariffs. Uh, so you as a consumer may want to get ahead and, uh, buy the thing that you've been holding in online.
Yeah, Alex, I'm giggling to myself at your advice to stay employed because, of course, we would all love that. But you know, it's not always in our control. So for our for our savings accounts then, for that emergency fund that folks are building up in case of anything drastic changing with their jobs, what's the best way to put that cash to work? Is it a high yield savings? Is it a CD?
Yeah. Exactly. I mean, what we've seen, uh, especially when we had inflation in 2021, the high yield savings accounts became so popular. Um, and they started paying out interest rates that we haven't seen before. Um, and that just made them a lot more, um, approachable and useful. Um, also, I bonds, uh, I bonds, uh, uh, became very popular in the headlines. Um, and a lot of people rushed to buy, uh, and invest in Treasury I bonds. Um, so obviously as inflation increases, if it does increase, um, there are going to be, um, opportunities, uh, for your cash to simply just make sure it mimics the inflation, right? Um, but also looking more long-term at, um, you know, investments in your portfolio, right? Usually equities stocks have some level of inflation protection to them. There will usually be some sort of a shock to them initially. Uh, but over time they sort of swallow up that inflation. So this is just all an encouragement for people to make sure that they're staying invested. They're not, you know, freaking out and panicking about potentially the inflation that has yet to show itself.
And my guest host Victoria has a question for you as well, Alex.
Hi Alex, I'm curious, obviously we don't want to panic, uh, so I like the fact that you're saying that. But when you're talking to your clients, you said about the pull forward from companies in regards to inventories. Do you see any of your clients saying they want to pull forward maybe some of the cash withdrawals or things that they may need going forward, doing that now? Are they willing to actually put a little more risk in their portfolio? Which way do they seem to be leaning or are you advising them to do?
Yeah, that's that's a great question. I mean, you know, um, this, uh, market volatility and the turbulence that we have seen, I would probably argue is unlike anything we've seen before. And the reason why it's just so politically driven, right? Um, it's almost like you can really pinpoint exactly why it's happening. And depending which side of the aisle you sit on, is going to impact how you feel about uh, markets and whether you want to stay calm, stay invested, or whether you want to get ahead of something. Um, and I certainly have had clients who have uh, expressed desire to, you know, for example, they have five to nine accounts, uh, their kid is about to go to college, they may say, hey, let me move it into cash because I don't know what that's going to look like over the next four years. Um, and I have had other clients who are, you know, looking to, uh, buy things like cars, right? Because they're worried about, you know, the tariff impact on automobiles. Uh, but overall in terms of, you know, taking risk, um, uh, I always see market volatility in these dips, um, as a good opportunity to re-evaluate what amount of risk you're taking, right? So if you know, for instance, we have clients that may have initially started their relationship and they're invested in a 60 40 portfolio, 70 30 portfolio, and we kind of know financially they can take more risk, it it may present a good opportunity to kind of slightly increase the allocation to more stock, especially at some of those bottoms.
Alex, really appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much for our FA corner brought to you by Invesco.
