Bloomberg LIVE Host: Takeovers have spurred a rally in Hewitt stocks today, sending the DOW towards its first gains in 7 days. Here with a close look is Darin Richards, Chief Investment Officer at AKT Wealth Advisors, joining us from Portland, Oregon. Good to have you will us Darin.

Darin Richards: Thank you.

Bloomberg LIVE Host: M&A deals picking a pace there for Seasons Hotels, Hose Pharmaceuticals, OSI Partners, just to name a few. Why are we seeing more takeovers? Is this just more money moving around or an indication of strong corporate earnings?

Darin Richards: I think you’re seeing strong corporate earnings driving a lot of it but what I’m feeling is maybe that equities are fairly valued and you’re seeing some of the private money come in and buy these companies and take them private. So you’re seeing private money come into the public markets.

Bloomberg LIVE Host: Equities are fairly valued as the midterm elections happen today in the U.S. and the key here is who’s going to end up controlling Congress. How do you think investors will react either to a Democratic win or a Republican majority?

Darin Richards: I don’t think you’re going to see much reaction from investors and the stock market standpoint. I think most of it’s been priced in. It looks like the Republicans will hold the Senate and the Democrats will take the House and you’ll have a split Congress. And gridlock is essentially the situation where you have that split Congress. It’s generally been good for investors from the standpoint of not much happens. And when things do happen, there’s a lot of clarity and a lot of foreshadowing for what’s going to happen so that generally bodes well for the investors.

Bloomberg LIVE Host: It bodes well for investors in what sense? Which industries are likely to benefit from this?

Darin Richards: I think the overall market will do fine and you may look at some areas like healthcare which could have potentially been dragged down if the Democrats took full control of Congress--some areas like that. And I think you’ll see healthcare ready to rebound a little bit. I don’t know if there are any specific areas that I can highlight that I think are going to do better but I don’t think that anything’s going to get dragged down by what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Bloomberg LIVE Host: And outside the U.S.: you’re overweight international stocks as well as emerging markets. Why the preference over risk for a haven market such as Hewitt equities?

Darin Richards: We like what’s going on internationally. We like the valuation standpoint--particularly what’s going on over in Europe--you’re seeing solid growth over there. And really if you look at it, the U.S. is kind of in a “soft landing” mode where it looks like Europe may be--the ECB is actually tightening rates over there so you have some things going on. It looks like they’re a little bit earlier on in their recovery stage where we’re kind of at the latter stages in the United States. So I think that bodes well for earnings growth in the future across Europe and we really like what’s going on in the emerging markets--basically diversified. On a global basis, we see a lot of growth coming from emerging markets. I think the old days where emerging markets were viewed as extremely risky is kind of falling by the wayside and people are realizing that maybe they’re not as risky as they have been in the past.

Bloomberg LIVE Host: And you specifically like global REITS I gather. What is the attraction in the real estate investment trusts in Asia?

Darin Richards: Well the real estate investment trusts in the United States, I think, are approaching a period where maybe they’re a little overvalued, so from a diversification standpoint, I think adding some international to your domestic REITS is a good way to go. And you’re seeing the REITS structure being adopted across the globe in ever-increasing numbers and I think that’s going to really improve some yields and it could potentially push up the value of some of these real estate operating companies that are not REITS at this point in time.

Bloomberg LIVE Host: Thank you so much for joining us Darin. Darin Richards, Chief Investment Officer at Wealth Advisors in Portland, Oregon.