Veteran manager says volatile market has stress-tested 'discount-capture investing'

Rob Shaker, Portfolio Manager of Shaker Financial Services, discusses "discount-capture investing," and how the market's wild moves around tariff announcements this year made the strategy particularly sensitive to the emotional changes of investors. Shaker says the overall trend for 2025 has been a "generic narrowing" of discounts — by roughly 2 percent on equities and 1 percent on fixed income — but there was a rapid, fear-based 'generic widening' when tariff policies were announced in April and there was excessive selling. Shaker says that discount fallout was particularly big and fast, though conditions normalized quickly, rewarding his clients for staying patient and opportunistic.