James: This country's the land of opportunity, there's just a group of people in this country who have not been afforded the opportunity yet.  

Maverick: Advancing Black Pathways has been started by JPMorgan Chase. We put together a council to really focus on three areas of concern for black people in this country.  

Soledad: Wealth,education and careers are actually intertwined. They have to be considered simultaneously. If you can solve the problem, and it is a problem, about the lack of black wealth, you can move the needle on a lot of issues in not just the black community, but in America as a whole.  

Richelieu: Part of those pillars is the Advisory Board, right, of people that come from different walks of life and that have figured out ways to break through in each of those ways, now getting together to collectively think through how to bring this breakthrough. 

Mellody: The numbers are very, very clear. For every $100 that a white American has in wealth, African-Americans have five dollars. So there are these wealth gaps that exist that ultimately lead to less economic prosperity for the black community.  

Kevin: As a person that came up with nothing, um, and there was a bunch of people just like me that didn't ask, didn't know, didn't care. I got to a point in my life where I was around people who gave information that I never knew existed. So Advancing Black Pathways is giving people understanding.  

Richelieu: We now have a well-resourced organization that is intentional, that is building pillars underneath that intention so that these intentions can be executed.  

Soledad: Calling it Black Pathways, we're very clear. This is about black people and we're going to advance the multiple pathways in which they can be successful and actually grow wealth for black people.  

KIM MORTON:

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly strengthened and accelerated many megatrends that were around even before that — from healthcare innovation to technology.

We have Anastasia Amoroso here. She’s the head of Cross Asset Thematic Strategy at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

ANASTASIA AMOROSO:

Thank you, Kim. Good to see you.

KIM MORTON:

Anastasia, what is a megatrend? And are we paying attention to them now more than ever?

ANASTASIA AMOROSO:

We definitely are paying more attention to the megatrends. And the way that I would define a megatrend, it is a durable trend that is set to change and shape and disrupt the world as we know it not only for the next couple of quarters, but for the next several years. So we're not talking about trades here, but really trends that are going to develop and take hold over the next three, five and maybe even 10 years.

And so there's three megatrends that we focused on in particular this year, which is digital transformation, healthcare innovation and sustainability. And if you think about what's taking place this year with COVID, not only have those trends been very top-of-mind for people, but they've been significantly accelerated by the COVID pandemic.

And the reason why we care about them, Kim, is because a lot of the companies and a lot of the sectors that are tied to these megatrends are able to grow their earnings, grow their revenues and generate above market/above benchmark earnings growth, and hopefully, therefore, market returns as well. We're certainly seeing that this year and we think there's more to come.

KIM MORTON:

Let's talk about healthcare. There's been a lot of disruption during the pandemic but there’s also been a lot of innovation. What are some of the new and exciting developments you're seeing?

ANASTASIA AMOROSO:

There's a lot going on in healthcare. The speed of innovation and how it's accelerating that's really the key development in healthcare. So this is happening for two reasons. First of all is our in-depth, advanced understanding of human genomics, which we've not had before.

But now, we can sequence the human DNA in less than 24 hours, and we got the genetic code of the virus, really, in a matter of weeks. So that's really the first breakthrough. The second breakthrough is the artificial intelligence and how that could be applied to the data in healthcare.

So when you combine the two — the understanding of a human body or a virus on a very genetic, molecular/cellular level — and when you combine that with the ability to compute a lot of data, what you can do is get to the breakthroughs that much faster and potentially have a lot more treatments to explore than you would have otherwise.

So this has given a runway to a lot of breakthrough technologies in healthcare that we're excited about. For example gene therapy, which is the ability not only to treat but potentially cure some of the genetic diseases. Then you got also cell therapy, which is often applied to cancer treatments and developing targeted cancer treatments that allow you to take a patient's cells, reprogram them such that when they go back into the patient's body, they can actually destroy cancer.

And then the next frontier in healthcare, which has also been spotlighted by COVID, is this notion of precision medicine. We should be developing treatments that are the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. So we believe that the future of medicine is personal.

KIM MORTON:

I love that: “The future of medicine is personal.” What about forecasts for technology? For example the push for 5G on our cellphones?

ANASTASIA AMOROSO:

Well, technology transformation, the digital transformation, has also of course been accelerated by COVID. And there's exciting trends like 5G, artificial intelligence, obviously developments in fintech. But for the last three years or so we've spent building out the 5G infrastructure, which allows us to potentially have mobile speeds that are a hundred times faster and latency that's quite a bit lower.

Well, what's the big deal about that? The big deal about it is first of all, we can download our movies faster. And that's why we're looking forward to the launch of the 5G smartphones. And we think we'll double the number of them that we buy over the next year. But the really big thing about 5G is that this is a key enabling technology that allows many other technologies to take off.

Whether it's connected cars, whether it's large-scale factory automation or augmented reality. So clients often ask, "What is the killer app for 5G?" And I think we'll see that materialize next year. And we'll see it develop into what I call “the factory of the future,” which is factory run on 5G by robots and cobots that is producing everything automatically and digitally.

KIM MORTON:

And of course a hot topic, as evidenced by the election cycle, is clean energy. What could this mean for investors?

ANASTASIA AMOROSO:

Clean energy has been the spotlight in the markets this year and it's performed really well, I think, in anticipation of what's to come around the election. This is not only about politics here, those performances. This is also about the economics of clean energy. So regardless of the election outcome, when we look at the cost of electricity produced with wind and solar versus that produced with natural gas and coal, we see those costs of electricity converge.

And in fact, over the coming year, it's likely that it'll be cheaper to build a new wind and solar electricity capacity than to run an existing coal plant. So this is a true inflection point in clean energy. And so yes, the government push towards clean energy globally is certainly helping, but also the favorable economics means that utilities are increasingly converting to renewables and clean energy. But even more important, is consumers and corporates. So if you look at the corporate commitment to renewable energy, it has grown significantly. You now have more than 242 companies worldwide that have committed to either carbon-neutral or 100% renewable targets. And that, I think, is what's ultimately going to drive this renewable energy evolution, combined with the consumer. And I think that's why some of those renewable energy companies may continue to surprise to the upside.

KIM MORTON:

Well, Anastasia, this has been great. Thanks so much for joining us today.

ANASTASIA AMOROSO:

Thank you, Kim.