Bill Griffeth: Well as oil prices have dipped below $60 a barrel this morning, there are those who are hoping that lower prices at the pump will result in more spending this holiday season. In fact our Market Maven is one of those today. He says as long as the pump reads less than $3 a gallon, it will be a Merry Christmas. Our Maven today is Darin Richards, Chief Investment Officer at AKT Wealth Advisors. He’s in Portland, Oregon. Darin, welcome back.

Darin Richards: Thanks Bill.

Bill Griffeth: Just think, last year this time we were panicking about $2 gasoline--today we’re celebrating it.

Darin Richards: Yeah it’s kind of ironic huh?

Bill Griffeth: But you feel that is a huge determining factor for the holiday shopping season.

Darin Richards: I think its going to help out quite a bit. And you said, $3, but I actually said $2. We’re getting close to $2 a gallon now days and I think that the mentality of that--when somebody can pull up and see the difference, its an immediate impact and I think that’s definitely going to bode well for retailers. I don’t think they’re out of the woods necessarily, but I think that’s going to help keep spending fairly modest and maybe above what some expectations are.

Bill Griffeth: How do you balance that with the slump in housing though? And the impact that will have on spending?

Darin Richards: Yeah I’m looking at the housing slump not so much from the home equities side but really from the employment side. Roughly a third of the jobs that were created in the last five years were created in housing and housing-related industries. And I get the feeling that some consumers that have jobs, are a little bit nervous about the job market and f you see the housing slump continue or decline a little bit more, I think you’re going to see the unemployment rate go up. So I think you have a little bit of a balance, where you have consumers that maybe are going to be a little bit more cautious. When you have a 4.4% unemployment rate and declining gas prices, you would expect to have a fantastic retail season. I think we’re going to have a solid retail season in absolute terms, but on a relative basis, I think its going to underachieve just by the fact that consumers are still a little bit nervous about the job market.

Bill Griffeth: We were just looking at a graphic that showed two sectors you like: the large caps, which we keep hearing a lot about from various Mavens, but international equities as well. Why now?

Darin Richards: I like international for a couple of reasons. Primarily valuation standpoint. If you look at the U.S. economy, and the risk that we’re always talking about on CNBC: manufacturing is slowing down, primarily related to automobiles, and then we have the housing market which is slowing down. These are two things that are anomalies to the U.S. market only and you’re really not seeing these overseas as being an issue. So the consumer in the United States is possibly tapped out a little bit where maybe in Europe and Asia its not the case--they’ve actually been savers more than spenders.

Bill Griffeth: So are you throwing darts overseas or are you looking more selectively?

Darin Richards: No no. In large cap land, we tend to gravitate to the European economy right now. And on the emerging market front--very diversified, we think there’s some great opportunity over in Asia. I’m still waiting to see on Japan--it has so many fits and starts that I don’t want to put too much emphasis on the Japanese economy, but the rest of Asia is doing extremely well.