Rachel Gearhart: Good morning, and welcome to this edition of Market Wake-Up Call. I’m Senior Managing Editor Rachel Gearhart. I’m filling in for our regular host, Steve McDonald, since he’s on the road this week. He was just on the Chairman’s Circle Cruise in the Mediterranean. So with me today is Chris Gaffney, the president of TIAA Bank World Market. Now, you are not losing your mind. Chris’s name should sound familiar. He is formerly the president of EverBank World Market, and today he is going to tell us a bit about some exciting changes to our Pillar One Advisor. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Gaffney: Thanks, Rachel. It’s certainly a pleasure to be here with you today.

Rachel Gearhart: Now, EverBank was recently acquired by TIAA Bank and the change goes into effect tomorrow, but we wanted to give Members a heads-up beforehand. Can you tell us a little bit about the transition?

Chris Gaffney: You bet, yeah. We’re very excited to be joining a great organization in TIAA. And in fact, it’s a neat time to be joining that organization because they’re enjoying their 100th year this year, so we’re celebrating the centennial of TIAA. It was formed back in 1918 by Andrew Carnegie to help teachers with their retirements and has expanded to where we now have approximately more than $1 trillion in assets under management. We serve millions of participants in the education, research, medical government and nonprofit fields – and also about 15,000 institutional clients with partners at Nuveen and TIAA Bank. So it is very exciting, and we’re looking forward to continuing to be part of this great organization.

Rachel Gearhart: So how will this affect current EverBank clients? And what about future clients?

Chris Gaffney: Sure. One of the nice things about this transition is that we really do share the core values of TIAA. EverBank and TIAA have really shared values, and that’s all about helping individuals and institutions meet their financial goals. So diversification is the key part of that overall strategy, and we’re going to continue to expand and innovate financial offerings such as our Market Safe CDs and our precious metals. So it really gives us an opportunity because we’re now part of a large organization serving more participants. And really – with deeper pockets – we’re able to reinvest into our systems and actually improve what’s already a great customer experience (and actually improve on that) and offer our innovative offerings to even more individuals.

Rachel Gearhart: Well, it sounds like a great opportunity for not only your guys but also your clients. That’s such exciting news.

Chris Gaffney: It really is and again, you know in today’s markets especially, it’s important to be diversified and have the opportunity to invest just outside of the U.S. markets.

Rachel Gearhart: Sure. Now, you have a unique perspective since you’re on the banking side of things. So one of the questions we always like to ask in a Market Wake-Up Call interview is what trends are you seeing right now and what advice are you giving to your clients?

Chris Gaffney: Yeah, well obviously we’re seeing more market volatility. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve seen some wide swings in the equity markets. You know, for several years we just saw this slow and steady grind higher through all the markets. But now we’ve seen volatility return. And as I mentioned earlier, diversification is an important way to reduce the risk of your portfolio during some volatile times. So right now, we’re looking at what we think are the late stages of the U.S. expansion. We’ve got a couple risks. Debt levels are certainly a risk to investors – the amount of debt that’s out there. We’ve got some geopolitical risks. I know Italy has recently been in the news, and we’ve got other risks with trade wars – those sorts of things.

And then on top of it all, we’ve got increasing interest rate environments. So there are some real questions out there. And again, I think diversification is the key – getting some of your money invested not only in the fixed income and the equity markets but in currencies and precious metals – and even in our MarketSafe. We’re working on a new MarketSafe product. I know many of your listeners have heard about our MarketSafes in the past. Well, we’re coming out with a strategic metals MarketSafe CD that’s going to combine gold, silver, aluminum and copper into a principal-protected CD for a three-year term. So it’s really a unique offering and one we encourage your listeners to keep an eye out for.

Rachel Gearhart: Well, we look forward to hearing more about that. So there you have it, folks. EverBank is becoming TIAA Bank. And also, volatility is back and diversification is key. Thanks so much for being a part of this today, Chris.

Chris Gaffney: You bet. Thanks for having me.

Rachel Gearhart: Yeah, best of luck with the transition. And that’s all for this edition of Market Wake-Up Call. We’ll see you again next time.

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