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Gatekeepers Share Their Biggest Fears for the Rest of the Year

Articles & Interviews | Jul 12, 2021 | David Jumper

Partner David Jumper talks shop with Amelia Garland and Haley Hanafee of Citywire USA. He shares best calls of the year so far and where storm clouds may be gathering.


‘Out of office’ doesn’t mean the same thing it once did. Thanks to the pandemic, we may never be at work anymore, but we are also never not working either. That is until the great summer vacation arrives! Before they hit the beach, three fund buyers told us about their best calls of the year so far and where they fear storms clouds are gathering.

What is at the top of your to-do list?

As our firm grows, our investment office must continue to grow with it. This means expanding our research team, developing our manager database, and more recently, enhancing our capabilities within alternative investments, including private direct investments.

Where has the sun shone for you this year?

We remain overweight stocks relative to bonds given future earnings expectations and low, though rising, long-term interest rates. Within fixed income, we own very little, if any, US Treasurys. This has led to strong relative performance within fixed income this year given their sensitivity to rising rates.

We have also had a focus on private debt and private real estate, specifically middlemarket direct lending and core commercial real estate. Both of these areas remain attractive today given that they consistently produce above-average levels of income in this yield-starved environment.

Where do you see storm clouds on the horizon?

If inflation continues to rise and central banks feel compelled to act, this should negatively impact fixed income markets. Equity markets will also be at risk as higher yields make it harder to justify current price-to-earnings multiples. This will place more emphasis on earnings growth, which may also be impacted if companies cannot offset rising input costs via increased productivity.

David Jumper

PARTNER

David is a Partner in the New York office and has over twenty years of experience providing investment advisory and wealth management services to both domestic and international high net worth individuals, family offices and institutions, including not-for-profits. David is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee and the Proxy Voting Committee. He leads the Performance Monitoring Sub-Committee.

Prior to joining Cerity Partners, David was a Managing Director in Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management’s New York office, where he was responsible for managing $1.4 billion of private client assets. He was also a board-appointed member of the Investment Advisory and Trust Investment committees, which ensured client portfolios adhered to stated objectives. Before joining Deutsche Bank in 1999, David was a municipal bond analyst at Bloomberg Financial Markets.

David earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from The College of New Jersey and is a CFA® charterholder. He is also a member of the CFA Institute and the New York Society of Security Analysts.