 have grown recently, right? Especially after last month's CPI report, the PPI report, they've come in hotter than expected. Our next guest is watching everything ahead of what sectors could have some opportunity for investors with the reflation trade. Is that still alive? Melissa Armo, founder, owner of the stock swooshes with us. Great to chat with you. We're watching the Fed watching inflation, right? Even President Biden today came out and said he thought it was transitory. Now, he's not the Fed head. Let's be clear. He's no Jay Powell, right? Jay Powell makes this decision. What are your thoughts? Do you think that the Fed's response to the current inflation levels will continue and stay steady? I think right now it's a wait and see because when you're having inflation, the Biden administration wants to raise taxes. That's not the best course of action in my opinion. So they're trying to stimulate the economy and continue people to be able to spend. That's why they had the long-term unemployment benefits for the people that were out of work. They had the child tax care credits where they're giving people now approximately $300 a month depending on their qualifications for the number of children. It's one 300 per child. But I will say this, that if this does extend into 2022 and this is not temporary inflation, then we have a problem. And I really think the idea of increasing taxes with the administration is trying to do with this new spending bill is bad timing. So I think Jay Powell is waiting to see what exactly the administration does with the tax hikes. And he's also waiting to see if we have another shutdown. Nobody knows if that's going to happen. And I think the market got spooked today because the cases have gone up in the United States and there's a possibility that the administration could shut us down again. And I think that would be extremely problematic for the economy. You can't continue to pay people not to work. We can't close down forever. There will never be no COVID cases ever, ever again. I hate to say that it's terrible. But the fact is we can't shut our economy down again. I don't even know what the market would look like if we did that. And I will say there's a 50-50 chance that that could happen in the next six months. And that would be very, very dramatic for this market. I don't think today is it. I don't think today is it at all. I think we're going to rally back from this. But if that would happen in the next six months, nobody's going to know before it happens. If it happens, it would be devastating to this market, devastating the economy. And then Chairman Powell, I don't know what he'll do to try to fix things. You can't continue to keep pumping money into the system forever and ever and ever. What happens is then you go to the store and instead of it costing $3 for a dozen eggs, it costs $13 for a dozen of eggs. Everybody's money when they keep giving free money isn't worth as much. It makes sense what you're saying in the 50-50. Wow. I hope that shutdown is not as likely as that. I'm hoping 10% to 90%. No. That being said, tell me about investor strategy, right? You can gauge which sectors may or may not yield returns. Some people may want to dip their toe into energy today as it sells off. Maybe some who've said, I wouldn't touch it. I have no interest in energy. I like banks or I like financials. I'm sorry, or I like technology. What sectors do you see that could have some opportunities for the long term? Well, depending on how much money people have to invest, I think some of those sectors that have just sold off, sold off, sold off like the cruise lines, like the airlines, really if we're done with the shutdowns, if we are, people want to get out. You're starting to see some of those tick up now. In the last couple of months, it's the summer, people are going on vacation. I say focus on maybe buying some of those names that could turn around if we do not shut down. Coming into 2022, people will be flying, taking more vacations, the cruise lines are not back up and going. If they ever get back up to full speed and again, we don't have a shutdown, you're going to see some nice rallies in something like RCL or even CCL that have just fallen, fallen, fallen. I do like Chevron for the oil stocks. That is still strong. I had to sell off, but it's still holding very, very well. Even in the sell-off today, a stock like that has held up pretty well. Again, gold. I like gold. You can continue to buy, look at GLD. Some of these things that people normally trade, for example, Apple or Facebook, their earnings are coming up in the next two weeks. I don't want to get any of those positions in a drop-off like today until after you see how those earnings act. Some of the earnings are going to turn out to be... So is that right? Wait, let me clarify that for folks. So you would say to wait until after earnings to get in on some of your favorite names. I know you have names like Delta, Royal Caribbean, Chevron, which you mentioned, GLD. When would you say to get into some of these names? I would wait until after earnings. We're in earnings season. It started last week. This is the fifth of it. We've had the bank earnings are ready. And guess what? Some of them didn't perform as well as they thought. Some of them ended up being up on the earnings initially in the morning and then falling. And then, of course, we had the drop-off today. Even though people have been liking the financials, I was surprised at rally that they had at the beginning of the year. I'm not as bullish as some people on some of those charts. And yes, they've made new highs. Yes, they continued to rally. It seems like they're going forever. But I got to tell you, sometime it's all going to come like this. And that could also hurt the market of the supply because the financials are part of the S&P because eventually some of people are going to default on some of these mortgages. I mean, at the end of the day, not everybody is going to continue to be able to pay, pay, pay if we don't get the economy back up full throttle. And again, they've extended the unemployment benefits. What if they stop and then people can pay their mortgages? You've had a lot of these landlords that have mortgages, commercial property mortgages in some of the buildings. And some of them have gotten support, but it's not going to last forever. And gold that has run up, you still like this? I do like that. I do like that. And I think people are going to look to some of those more solid, solid things. Oil is one of them. Commodities, so people are going to look to things that are solid. If in fact the economy has a shakeup again, which again would be unfortunately another shutdown. Today, Delta and Royal Caribbean, I mean, basically airlines and cruise lines all pulled back because there's worries about the Delta variant. Talking about Delta airlines and Delta variants, the Delta variant has pressured the travel stocks and we saw 2.2 plus million people in the TSA on Sunday. So the people have not gotten the message that be careful because they're ready to travel. So you think a pullback might be an opportunity too, right? Well, exactly. And those things tend to report later, later in the summer. So you're not going to see some of those cruise lines earnings and the airlines earnings till later in the summer point. And again, if we would have a shutdown, I don't think it's coming in the next week, although anything can happen. It might be between sometime between now and the end of the year. But if we stay open is what I'm saying, you're going to continue to see everybody want to get out. People have been penned up for a year. That's why you saw all these number of people that have been out and traveling, whether they're concerned about it or not. I think many of the airlines are still requiring masks to try to help with the protection and people have been vaccinated. So people are feeling like, hey, they can get out. Why not all the whole country has been vaccinated? A lot of people have gotten vaccinated. Yeah, they really have. I mean, that's basically more and more getting vaccinated. Melissa Armo. Thank you founder owner of Stockswoosh. Thank you.