Barron's Hall of Fame Advisor Jennifer Marcontell: Investing Strategies for Today's Market — Barrons.com

By Steve Garmhausen

It has been a roller-coaster year, with investors rattled by tariff talk in the spring but feeling frisky by August. "Now I'm getting phone calls from people who are 75 who want to buy stocks they have just now read about online," says newly inducted Barron's Hall of Fame advisor Jennifer Marcontell, who manages $1.8 billion from Mont Belvieu, Texas, outside Houston. "I'll tell them, 'You've owned that for 10 years.'"

Speaking with Barron's Advisor, Marcontell, a 25-year veteran who moved from Edward Jones to Ameriprise three years ago, reveals where she sees investment opportunities now, and why she's a long-term cryptocurrency believer. She weighs in on what's at stake for the investment industry as it looks to integrate private assets into 401(k) plans. And she explains why her biggest business challenge is on the horizon.

Where are you from and what inspired you to get into the business? I am from Texas. I got into the business after I had my son. I wanted a position where I could be a mom and focus on my family. I had met with a financial advisor with my husband, and we didn't have the experience I thought we would have as far as being focused on the goals and investing that a family would have. I determined that it would be interesting if at some point I could have a business that would help people who had families and wanted to build wealth.

When did that opportunity come to enter the business? Not long after that. I had the opportunity and started my career with Edward Jones. I was with Edward Jones for 23 years and built a practice in a community right outside of Houston focused on engineering in the oil-and-gas industry.

Edward Jones seems like it might have been the ideal firm for your goals at that time to balance career and family. It was one of the only firms that offered that opportunity at the time that I knew about. I actually read an article when I was traveling on the airplane about Edward Jones and thought, "What a great company," and started investigating it. That launched me into a career I love.

You have had a very successful career. You are now in the Barron's Hall of Fame and serve more than 500 households with a team of 16. What would you say have been two or three keys to your career success? Staying true to my focus and purpose, which was to serve families and make sure people who had worked hard would have something at the end of their life to be recognized for. A lot of our clients are multigenerational clients. They're people who've had small companies and had their children come up in those companies and then their children's children. A lot of people worked really hard and had to travel their whole careers around the world and live separately from their families as they built their careers in order to leave something behind for the next generation. I've always included everyone in the family and tried to make sure people had a purpose for what they were doing. At the time I started in the business, it was all about people just buying stocks and bonds. Trying to help people preserve and build wealth over time was a new concept.

You have a lot of credentials behind your name: Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Financial Consultant, Accredited Asset Management Specialist, Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor, Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor. How important has all that training been to your career success? It's important to show other people that you're continually learning. As I had younger people start to work with me, I wanted them to see that you keep learning, that you never know it all and always have to look for things to learn. I wanted to set an example.

Can you say a little about why you changed to Ameriprise three years ago? When I was with Edward Jones, my practice was growing at a fast rate. I had several young licensed people working with me, but the system that Edward Jones had then wasn't set up to educate, elevate, or develop my team. It was difficult to manage the assets at the size I had at Edward Jones. I know they're continuing to make changes and improve, so I'm hopeful that they're successful, but when I was there, I was under a lot of constraints.

What's on your clients' minds these days? What are they concerned about? This year has been a roller-coaster year. At the beginning people were frightened and scared; the tariff talk was nerve-racking. People were traumatized, as if it was almost the end of the world. And now I'm getting phone calls from people who are 75 who want to buy stocks they have just now read about online. They'll call and say, "I'd like to own some of this," and I'll tell them, "You've owned that for 10 years." That shows you that we manage the portfolios for people, and they're seeing the benefit, but now people are becoming aware of things that have been developing for years.

What do you see as some of the best investment opportunities today? Are big tech companies in that group? Of course, big tech companies are important to have in your portfolio. But there are other companies that support them, service and support companies that set up the energy infrastructure, that will have massive growth over time because the demand is very real. There are logistics companies figuring out how to coordinate development of these processes. There are a lot of areas that will benefit from the demand for power, knowledge, and energy.

Can you talk about how you're using AI in your business? I'm in five pilots now with Ameriprise. That's one thing they do here — they embrace technology. These pilots focus on efficiency and workforce and it's really impressive. Obviously you have to proceed with caution and have measures in place, but it's providing clear direction in what we're going to see in the next 15 years.

Can you give an example of ways that AI could be useful? Some tools for documentation and meeting notes for clients are impressive. Some tax analytics tools take a complex topic and create something that's easy to understand in a graphic format for families. You can sit down and explain the structure of their business to everyone and how it works. That's a game changer because in the past, people would get reams of paper from professionals and six months later wouldn't remember what they meant. Now tools put that in a visual format so people can understand, recall, and refocus. It changes how people relate to their assets.

Let's talk about crypto. A few years ago, crypto was viewed skeptically by advisors and was very volatile. Advisors would say that's the currency for blackmailers or kidnappers. Now it seems like the winds have changed and it's becoming more legitimate. What's your attitude toward cryptocurrency? Are you recommending it for clients, tolerating it in their portfolios? About five years ago, I told my son — who was 21 — to buy some Bitcoin. I told him this because I knew they were going to drop rates due to Covid. He later asked, "Mom, how did you know?" I said, "I'm a mom, and moms know things." I think crypto is a leveling tool for people outside the U.S. Sometimes people here with a stable monetary system can't appreciate how currencies fluctuate elsewhere. Crypto can be an open door to fair trade. There's more to it than people being kidnapped. I'm not saying I know what coin will survive, but I feel it's what we're going to be using in the future.

So you're a long-term bull on crypto. Yes.

What about the democratization of alternative investments — private equity, private credit, hedge funds? It seems inevitable that private assets will soon be available in 401(k)s. Is that a good thing? I think it's a good thing, but every good thing can be overdone.

Could you explain that more? Any investment people like can be overdone. Securities like this are very long term, and I'm not sure people will have the liquidity they think they will. That's my biggest concern: that people don't understand when they put money in, they can't get it back for a long time, or if they do, the consequences can be severe. You would hope people setting up the products to be used inside these fiduciary accounts make sure owners have liquidity windows and really understand the impact. Because otherwise it could hurt the industry long term.

You mentioned clients started the year anxious and have recently been more confident. How are you feeling now about the stock market? I feel confident that we will continue to have volatility through the end of 2025 but will continue to have positive returns through the end of the year. I think we have less upside than we did in the spring. Long term, I think things will do well as long as we keep to core principles. I do see opportunities in the small-cap space because it's been so beaten up. They will be beneficiaries of all the new technology.

How do you approach bond portfolios? Do you embrace active management or just use bonds for safety and ballast? We have to use bonds for both. Because if we get a drop in rates, it will be a real benefit, so we have to take advantage of it. I hope we get that drop, but the potential drops that we get will be moderate. If you look at the yield curve, it looks like it should in a textbook. It hasn't been that way in a long time.

What part of the yield curve are you holding bonds in? I've started to get closer to the longer end as rates have gone up. I feel that's not going to stay that way for long. Our average duration is beyond four. [If rates decrease by 1%, the bonds' collective prices would rise by about 4%.]

What would you say is your biggest business challenge right now? My biggest challenge is focusing on the future generation and making sure everyone prepares for what the future looks like. We're going to see shake-ups in the industry as technology changes and people's time demands change. I want the people who work with me to be prepared for those changes, so I spend a lot of time doing everything I can to prepare them.