Retirement Ready

March 1st, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Live from the wgy iHeart Studios. Welcome to Retirement Ready
with your host Dave Kopek from the Retirement Planning Group.
Every week, Dave and his team discuss the ways they
can help people make informed decisions about their retirement assets
to maintain, improve, and secure their desired quality of life.
Here's your host, Dave Copek.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello and welcome.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
My name is Nicholas Thomas, work for the Retirement Planning Group.
We're here each week to discuss both pre and post
retirement planning goals objectives, what you're looking to accomplish in
your retirement life as well as what you've accumulated thus far,
and start mapping out a game plan of turning that
into an income stream for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
So a lot to discuss today.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I want to focus a little bit more in on
the tax season. A lot of people are writing those
checks to the federal and state governments to help pay
their tax bill for the year, so I figured it'd
be a good time to, you know, bring Chris Kopeck in.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
He's been printing out a lot of ten ninety nine's.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
For our clients and analyzing, you know, what their tax
liabilities might be. And then coming up with ways to
help pay for that. We do a lot of tax
planning throughout the year, but also at the at the
filing deadline, we like to sit down with our clients
review what the liability is, where it came from, and
what we're paying this year.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
So, Chris, how have you been? Good? Busy busy. A
lot of paper coming out of the printer.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Like you said, it's tax season, so we're we're sending
out a lot of those ten ninety nine forms, you know,
getting a lot of conversations coming in with CPAs and
discussing you know, this prior year gains in the accounts,
that sort of thing, you know, planning around this taxes. So, yeah,
it's a good topic to touch on today because tis

(01:51):
the season for this kind of conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, and you know, I think Fidelity they just started
issuing ten ninety nine recently. There were a lot of
preliminary ten ninety nine that folks might have seen that indicate,
you know, what the expectation is on the account. But
then there's still a couple of fun companies that were
waiting to report earnings for the year and then once
those final you know, mutual fund companies kick those off,

(02:16):
then the final ten ninety nine will come off of
the account, and then from there you can start working
out your your tax liability. So we do a lot
of tax planning throughout the year. You know, folks retire,
they take their four to one k roll it into
a self directed I ray and then you start taking
a monthly income amount off of that account. And then typically,

(02:37):
you know, we'll withhold either you know, twelve twenty, depending
on your tax bracket and your income in retirement, will
withhold a certain percentage to account for the federal tax withholding,
and then also start looking at state.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Taxes.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
And you know, a lot of folks might know that
the first twenty thousand dollars from a qualified retirement account
each year in New York State is New York State
TEX excludible, you know, so sometimes we'll work in a
two or three percent state tax withholding on the total
distribution from January one to account for Hey, you're gonna
be going over twenty thousand at some point this year,
and you're gonna be paying maybe five or six percent

(03:13):
on that, So why don't we bring that down a
little bit for the whole year and do a three
percent withholding and try to target that state tax is
that's going to be old on, that's going to be
owed on your you know, let's say forty eight thousand
dollars a year distribution.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
So yeah, a.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Lot of planning, a lot of numbers, you know, but
that's what we signed up for.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
It is indeed, Yeah, and that's definitely an important piece.
Like Niko was saying that twenty thousand dollars exemption every
year for New York state tax is it rolls over.
So the first twenty thousand dollars off an IRA account
every year is going to be tax exempt. You know,
you're still gonna be paying federal tax off the distributions

(03:52):
from the account, but state taxes they give you that
benefit every year.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
So so iras so pre tax four oh one k's
that get rolled into a traditional or rollover I array account,
and you want to be careful with those dollars for dollar,
every penny, you know, a penny for penny you could
say that you take off that account is going to
be taxable to you as income. And then you also
have different types of accounts, right, you know, all your

(04:20):
assets probably aren't held in a you know, individual retirment account.
You might have a roth IRA, you might have a
non qualified joint account or some sort of individual account
in your name. Those are brokerage accounts, so they're not
tax sheltered. So those types of accounts are going to
act a little differently throughout the year. It's not only
what you take off of them, well, it's not what

(04:41):
you take off of them at all. It's what the
account produces, you know, as far as like Chris mentioned
capital gains. So if you have a position you bought
for ten thousand, you sell it for you know, fifteen thousand,
you're looking at five thousand dollars worth of gains within
that account.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Res ind an IRA. That's something that's tax sheltered.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
You know, there's a tax shelter around that account. But
then eventually wants you pull from the account, that's when
you're taxed on it. So with these non qualified accounts,
you want to be very careful, you want to be tactical,
and you want to make sure that you're not causing
a huge tax liability to yourself and in maybe a
year where you're in a high tax bracket. So does

(05:19):
that make sense?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
It does?

Speaker 4 (05:21):
My rambling, No, no, it makes sense the wroth iras
as well. You know, to touch on the iras, the
wroth's always a good spot because if you're over fifty
nine and a half and you're in that stage of
retirement where you're taking distributions, nothing coming off the wroth
IRA is going to be taxable towards you, which is good.
You know, it's an account where people can pull from

(05:42):
for vacations, you know, special occasions, or you know, just
a one off distribution just to get some income.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
That's a good bucket of money to have.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
You know, we generally like to limit the tax liability
to the iray account, you know, kind of set a
monthly income up so we know what to expect for
the year and if there's any one off type of
vacations or you know, you might need money for a
new roof or something like that, then we'll look at
the different accounts and the different classifications tax wise that

(06:12):
you have to see what makes the most sense and
not push you.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Into a higher tax bracket for the year.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
So those raw irais are a great trunk of change
to have because they're after tax, they're also growing tax free,
and they get tax free distributions at the end of
the day. So you know, the disadvantage with that is
when you contribute money to it. You know, if you're
in your higher earning years and you're contributing money to it,
you're not getting a tax deduction in those years that
you're in a higher bracket, you know. But for a

(06:39):
lot of younger folks we see all the time, you know,
whether it's their parents or a colleague, they tell them
to open up a row, start funding it. You know,
generally it makes sense, you know, ninety five percent of
the time for a younger folk, a younger individual, stop
saying folks.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Folk folk, a younger a younger folks.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
But again, the non qualified account to kind of want
to loop back to that, there are some state strategic
planning tools that you can use within those accounts. You know,
whether it's a municipal bond fund that's something that will
kick out tax free income to the individual, or utilize
ETFs on the stock side of things, so exchange traded
funds generally do not kick out capital gain distributions at

(07:21):
the end of the year. In December, Chris and I
spent a lot of time going through accounts YEP and
that's for those capital gain distributions that we see kicked
out and start coming up with plans, or if we're
able to recognize any losses in the account, we'll go
through and try to trigger those losses.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
Yeah, trying to offset some of those gains in the accounts,
you know, not create a huge tax liability for people,
you know, if they're trying to create cash off their
individual accounts. See if we can take a loss within
the account if it is possible. You know, some of
these positions people have held for years and years and
years and they've appreciated a lot. So if we can
capture a loss in the account trying offset some of

(08:01):
those gains, we'll do it, you know, if we see fit.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, and you want to know, a lot of people
might say, what if I just sell and then repurchase
it right away. You got to be careful, right, There's
a wash rule. So if you go in and sell
a position that's at a loss and then go ahead
and purchase it right back, the irs is not going
to deem that as a capital loss. At that point,
you need to wait thirty days.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Before you repurchase the position. Some folks might say, hey,
I'm going.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
To sell this position for a loss, but then I'm
going to go into a different fund that's the same
type that might not all that might not.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Also get the.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
Capital loss there because you're going to a like fund.
So you need to be careful when you're doing this.
You need to make sure you understand what you're doing
at the end of the year when you're triggering those
losses in the account to offset the gains that were
kicked out throughout the year. So a lot, a lot
to talk about when it comes to tax season. Tax
season and tax planning, just make sure you consult with

(09:01):
a financial professional. You know, if you've been getting hit
with a huge tax bill these last several years and
you want to start looking at ways to limit that
or or just have a second opinion, because maybe you've
worked with someone for a decent amount of years now
and you feel comfortable, but you know where We're always
here to be that second pair of eyes.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
So yeah, always here for you know, to run scenarios around,
you know, throw ideas out there on any type of
tax planning or benefit we can offer. You know, if
it's just a conversation, we do offer that free first
appointment consultation, you know, where we sit down and review

(09:42):
with people in the office here. You know their situation,
their financial goals and needs. So you know, you can
reach out to us at the office at five pine
eight five eight zero one nine one nine and we
can set up an appointment in review. You know, any
type of questions or concerns.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, we oftentimes ask you bring in any financial statements,
so you know the most recent monthly statement. If you
bring that in with you to the appointment with one
of our advisors here, we'll sit down and start going
through that. It gives us a good idea of what
you own.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
And you know, that's.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Where we start coming up with a game plan as
far as hey, this is your current path, this is
where we think you might want to go, and then
just start talking about the pros and cons associated with
each You know a lot of times on the show
we talk about a state planning as far as will's
healthcare proxies, power of attorneys, your vocable trust versus revocable trust,

(10:40):
what's right for you and you're a state and making
sure that you're providing a tax efficient transfer of wealth
to the next generation. But we also do a lot
on the tax planning side and investment management side. We
we custodian our client's assets at Fidelity Investments, so they're,
you know, the bear behind us here. They're able to

(11:02):
help us generate all these ten ninety nine documents that
you need for your taxes.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
They're able to help.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Analyze accounts with their Fidelity Institutional Wealth Advisor team. They
have a team of individuals that are just employed to
look at the market right. They're CFAs Certified Financial Analysts,
whereas we're more on the planning and relationship side and
understanding who you are. But these are the actual people
that are going in and you know, helping us, helping

(11:31):
us choose the best positions in the market that we
think are suitable for our clients. So but again you
can call us numbers five one eight, five eight zero
one nine one nine. Again that's five one eight, five
eight zero one nine one nine.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
You can visit us on.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
The web www dot rpg retire dot com and that's
RPG retire dot com. You can check out our ugly mugs
or you know kind of just go through and listen
to radio shows.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
But again we're here.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
We're located in Malta, New York is our general office,
but we're traveling. I've been out to Syracuse quite a
few times over the last couple of months, also having
an office in Albany, Glenn's Falls.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Oneana. Yeah, you and McCarthy just went out to Oneana.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
The Chris and Chris duo went out to Oneana.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yep, you guys go to Brooks.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
We did not really, Yeah, no barbecue. What did you
just went and left, just went, got.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
A cup of coffee, appointment and back on the road.
What a waste. I'm not letting you guys go out
there again. I know we didn't.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
I'm keeping my appointment next time it's out there.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
I was disappointed with the note Brooks. But we're heading
back out soon, so we'll make a pit stop.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
But again, we're we're here, we're local. We're in Syracuse
as well. If you're listening to the radio show out
in Syracuse, so feel free to call our office numbers
five five, eight zero nine. If you'd like to schedule
an appointment. You can speak with Jimmy Corcoran and he
will get you on our schedule. We're gonna take a break.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
We'll be back.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
David Kopek here your host of the Retirement Planning Show,
heard every Saturday from seven am until nine am right
here on WGY. We discussed topics for pre and post
retirees on investment management, acid protection, and the legacy you
wish to leave your loved ones Again, please tune in
on Saturday. We are live from seven am until nine

(13:18):
am as we answer your questions on retirement and the
obstacles you may face in your retirement years.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
And we are back.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
I hope everyone's having a wonderful day out there. My
name is Nicholas Dumas for those of you just tuning in,
I'm a certified financial planner with the Retirement Planning Group.
Dave Kopek, the president of the Retirement Planning Group, is
usually on this station here, but today we figured we'd
give him the day off take a breather. I think

(13:47):
his mouth was getting a little dry, you know, from
the last five months of doing radio consistently, so we
give him a break this weekend. He can take a
sip of water and relax. So maybe it's just an eliminade.
But if you want to call our office numbers five
one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine. Now
before the break, and that first segment we were talking

(14:09):
pretty consistently about tax planning. You know, some different types
of accounts you might have and some strategies, some ideas
to utilize to try to limit your tax bill each year.
And there's another strategy that is relatively new to the market,
and this has to do with those non qualified accounts.

(14:31):
So when I say non qualified, non tax sheltered. So
this is a type of account you have to be
you know, you have to be careful when it comes
to the gains or how much the positions are up
in the account. And I think Chris has a lot
of experience with this type of account and this strategy.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
So if you want to talk about it a little bit,
I think that'd be great. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
So the account that Nico's talking about is for a
you know, legacy stock position is kind of how we
refer to it. It's typically, you know, historically it was
a stock position where people would buy it, you know,
say it's a company like Apple or Microsoft, you know,
one of these companies that's appreciated hundreds and hundreds of

(15:12):
percent over the years, and your cost basis on something
like this, you know, what you bought into.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
It for is relatively low to what it's.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Grown to now. So you know, you for example, if
you have, you know, a stock within one of those
companies that's grown to five hundred thousand dollars in evaluation,
but your cost basis on this is fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Now you have.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of gains within
this one stock position. You know, how do you You're
never going to want to sell because of all the
tax liability associated with.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
This one position.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
So you know, over time, we've had a lot of
meetings with Fidelity and other companies out there. Financial institutions
have been talking about a way to do that. So's
it's through direct indexing, is the name of it. It's
a way to kind of feather out the tax liability
within a position like this. And the way they do

(16:12):
it is you own instead of buying the S and
P five hundred in like an ETF or a mutual fund,
you own the underlying positions and stocks themselves. So you
would own say five hundred individual stock positions where your
money would be invested, you know, within each of those,
and then throughout the year you're current or you're constantly

(16:36):
harvesting losses in the account. So say one of the
stock positions is down over you know, a couple month timeframe.
There's teams out there at these institutional financial companies that
you know they'll they'll specifically watch these accounts and harvest
these losses constantly throughout the year so that these large
legacy positions can get feathered out throughout the year so

(16:59):
that you can kind of take down some of that
tax liability and pay out the position over time.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
So it's a great way to start divesting out of
a position and then getting the assets more into something
that's manageable from a tax perspective. So yeah, I think
direct investing is or direct indexing is.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Something that's newer.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know, you're going to have a pretty long statement
at the end of the day because you might own
two to three however many individual stock positions. But like
Chris was saying, these professionals are going in and they're
going to be triggering losses if his positions down after
a few days while the index is still up. So
the account will be growing hopefully in size, but you're

(17:48):
realizing losses along the way to help offset the capital
gain you have in that certain stock position that's up,
you know, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in that case.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
So again it's a.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Very very you know, savvy way to try to get
out of a large capital gain. You know, a lot
of folks might not know. There's also a zero percent
capital gains tax bracket. You know, if you're a joint
filer and you keep your income under a certain level.
I believe it's around ninety five thousand dollars for a

(18:21):
joint filer and around forty five or forty six thousand
for an individual. But there's different capital gains tax brackets.
You know, a lot of folks are going to be
paying fifteen percent, you know, fifteen percent capital gains on
those long term holdings, but you also want to be
weary with short term you know, if you have some
short term capital gains, you're someone that is a much

(18:42):
more active type of trader and you're you're selling positions
more frequently, then you're gonna be paying short term capital
gains which are taxed at your ordinary income level, which,
depending on what you're showing for income, is going to
affect how much you're gonna.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Pay on that.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
So again, a lot a lot to discuss. You know,
we're just throwing ideas concepts out there. And I've had
an individual who had well over a million dollars in
home depot stock, so an individual stock position that we
were able to start diversifying over a number of years,
and you know, I think he's feeling a little bit
more comfortable now as we're creating more of a diversified

(19:18):
portfolio for him, you know, and trying to create more
income in his retirement life at this point. So again,
if you're someone that might have a very highly appreciated
stock position and you want to talk about it, you know,
you might say, hey, this is for the kids, and
that's completely fine. Eventually they're going to get a step
up and basis on that position. If you leave it

(19:41):
to them as as a tod or, they're going to
be a beneficiary on that account. They'll obtain the new
cost basis as the market value at your date of death,
and then if they were to sell it the next day,
you know, and there's no movement there, then then there'd
be no tax liability on their side of the fence.
But if you're someone that wants to access those dollars
in your lifetime and do it in a tax efficient manner.

(20:03):
And that's something that we could sit down and really
get the whiteboard out and start going over together.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah. So so again.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Our numbers five one eight, five eight zero one nine
one nine again And if you wanna call our office,
feel free to set up an appointment with one of
our advisors either you know, in the Albany area, in
the Syracuse area and the one On area.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
I heard Chris is traveling to Rochester.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Now Rochester, but yeah, if you want to sit down
and have a chat, feel free to give us a call.
So when we talk about you know, index investing in
the markets, you know, you want to make sure you
understand what you own. At the same time, it's not
all about tax planning. And that's where I think we
can kind of segue here into more of the investment

(20:49):
management piece and what is transpiring in the markets right now,
what we're seeing with a lot of individuals accounts that
have been walking in you know, what's one of the
trends that you've been seeing Chris recently.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
Yeah, So as far as what's going on with the
market right now, the benefit of you know, us and
how our business is set up is we're our own
RIA registered investment advisors, so all of our assets are
custodian debt fidelity, but we have the ability to invest

(21:23):
in you know, any of the financial companies, mutual funds,
or ETF positions. So with that, you know, we meet
with a lot of wholesalers from these companies who come
in and give us, you know, an abundance of knowledge
in market data on where the market's at, you know,
ETFs and mutual funds that our best of breed from

(21:44):
their companies, you know where where what their outlook is
and forecast is over the you know, one, two three
four year time frame, you know, within this new presidency.
So what we've been hearing from all this, all of
these sources is that expect volatility in the market within
the next year. You know, it's a new president, he's

(22:07):
changing things up. So there's a lot of things going
on right now where policies are are being put in place,
tariffs are coming back, So expect some volatility, you know,
because with change, everything is you know, gonna react differently.
So we've been hearing a lot of volatility this year.

(22:28):
But you know, in the two three four year time frames,
everything seems to be pretty bullish. You know, Trump is
very favorable to financial institutions. You know, we're looking at
certain sectors of the market as well, that being financials,
you know, energy. When he says drill, baby, drill, that
definitely gets you a looking in these areas. So it's

(22:51):
peaking interest. As far as what's going on. You know,
we're gonna keep track of these AI and technology companies
as the months go on here because that seems to
be the future and where things are going. But as
far as a you know, market outlook standpoint, we're expecting
volatility this year, you know, so being in high quality, safe,

(23:13):
you know, good balance sheet companies and investments is kind
of where where we're looking companies that are you know, established,
nothing you know, crazy and new just kind of you know,
riding the wave this year and then seeing next year,
what what these after all these policies and have been

(23:35):
in place and you know, running smoothly, hopefully that we
can see where the market's at then.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, and it's it's never a bad time to harvest
some gains as well. Right, We've had a great couple
of years in the market now, you know, looking back
twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four. The S and
P five hundred being up twenty five twenty six percent
over those last two years can actively you know, it
doesn't hurt taking some chips off the table and shifting

(24:04):
it over to something that's going to act a little
more consistently in the portfolio. But I tend to agree
with you, Chris. Every portfolio needs equity exposure and long
term growth exposure to help combat this high pace of
inflation that we have out there right. CPI came out
a couple of weeks ago now, and it's still pretty hot.

(24:25):
They're thinking rates are just going to stay higher for
longer durations of time. So it doesn't hurt shifting some
of that equity into some sort of mixed bond portfolio,
maybe a high yield corporate bond portfolio that's kicking out
seven eight percent interest in today's world, that's not a
bad investment. It could fluctuate, you know. All these investments

(24:45):
are subject to fluctuation and down swings as well, which
we advise folks on and make sure that they're aware
of the potential consequences and their portfolios and the risks
associated with investing in these securities. At the the end
of the day, we want to make sure that they
understand they might be at a different point in their
life now where they need income and they need a

(25:06):
constant paycheck coming in through the door because the work
ferry left and they're not, you know, receiving that paycheck
on a b A by weekly basis. So again we
start looking at more income products, and like I was
saying earlier, it might not be a bad idea to
harvest some gains and get it to that income side
of the portfolio, or even just hold some aside. And

(25:28):
cash money markets are still getting four to two four
point two, four point three percent out there, so it's
a it's a great day to be a bank, right
Mortgages are round seven percent right now. Why can't we
be the bank and get that seven percent as a
as a saver. So if you want to call our
office have a free consultation with one of our advisors,

(25:51):
give us a call numbers five one eight, five eight
zero one nine nine. We're gonna take another break. We'll
be back right after this, and we are back everyone.
Thanks for tuning in today. I flipped my mic around
now so you should hear me a little bit better.
Sorry for those the technical difficulty in the first half

(26:12):
hour there, but I might have been a little muffled,
and I think we figured that out. So everyone, thanks
for tuning in today. This is the Retirement Ready Slash
Planning Show, and uh we're here every week to discuss
both pre and post retirement planning for all those individuals
out there either looking to accumulate dollars and start saving

(26:33):
for their retirement or are on the back end of that,
and are you know, entering the red zone getting ready
for retirement and starting to turn their.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Four oh one k's.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Qualified retirement accounts into some sort of income stream for
the rest of their life. So again, we're here each
week and if you want to call our office the
numbers five one eight, five eight zero nine nine, if
you'd like to set some th up, we'd be more
than happy to. So again, before the break, we were
talking a little bit about the markets, and we were

(27:07):
talking about the equity markets, specifically with Trump coming into
administration and the volatility that we've seen over the last
several weeks now, as well as what's expected over the
next few years, you know, and hopefully we see some
consistent growth in the equity side. But as we beforementioned,
it might not be a bad idea to start capturing

(27:29):
some of those gains and getting it over to something
a little bit more consistent and try to narrow those
bands of returns, again, depending on your risk tolerance as
an investor and what you're looking to accomplish. So, Chris,
you want to talk a little bit on the bond
market and what we have been discussing in bonds.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Yeah, so the on the flip side. So the bond
market is also something that we've been keeping, you know,
a close eye on. It's something that we're pretty excited
about over here because you can get, like Nico was
saying earlier, you know, six seven eight percent returns in
some of these mutual funds as far as a yield
that these bonds are kicking off. So that's great. And

(28:14):
then if interest rates stay flat, which it seems like,
you know, we're not in an environment yet where we're
going to be cutting it seems like the Fed is
kind of pausing these interest rate meetings every time their
Powell has been pretty consistent that if the numbers in

(28:35):
the market look good, that he's not going to go
ahead and cut rates, yet he's just going to keep pausing.
So if that does happen, we can just continue to
clip the coupon on these mutual funds, which you know
are looking pretty favorable right now, bonds aren't. In the conversation,
I think it's pretty foolish to not look.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
In that direction right now.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
With like Nico was saying, how much the equity side
of the market has grown over the last couple of years.
In the conversations we're having as far as expecting volatility
over the next year, you can look at bonds with
a six seven eight percent yield on it, where if
you know the position stays flat for the entire year,
you're still gonna clip that coupon of six seven eight percent.

(29:17):
So as far as a return on that, that's that's
pretty good. But you know, the outlook on the bonds is,
you know, Trump's been pretty adamant about wanting to cut
rates and putting pressure on Powell to cut these rates.
But if that doesn't happen, you know, you're just gonna
collect that coupon. If it does, these bonds will appreciate,

(29:39):
So it's kind of a win win. You know, if
if the if the bonds stay flat and you know,
we continue to delay, you're gonna just collect whatever interest
and yield is associated with that position. Whereas if he
comes out and says, you know, we're gonna cut rates
again by you know, fifty basis points or twenty five
basis points, you're gonna see and appreciate in these bond

(30:00):
funds that correlates with that. So the bond prices themselves
will appreciate while these yields will go down. So overall,
this is a conversation that we're having a lot internally
and with clients, is that you know, look at these
bond positions that are out there, because there could be

(30:20):
double double digit returns in the bond market between the
yields and the appreciation associated with them. If you know,
we're going to get into this cutting rate environment down
the line, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
With a lot less volatility, a lot less risk associated
with you know, just your typical stock, mutual fund, or
individual positions. So you can get a lot less risk
in the bond market with you know, potentially the same
reward depending on what the market does over the next
year or two. Here. So again, bonds for those folks

(30:53):
that aren't quite sure what a bond is. You know,
there's folks out there of all different educational education levels.
When it comes to finance, A bond is just you.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Know, say you're the purchaser.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Of the bond, right you're giving one hundred thousand dollars
to receive a piece of paper, you know, a note,
and what you're gonna gets a coupon.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
And that's what Chris was talking about. The coupon.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
That's your interest rate that you get, whether it's six,
seven or eight percent. So if you've got one hundred
thousand dollars, you're gonna get a six percent coupon on that.
That works out to six thousand dollars for the year,
which would be about five it would be five hundred
dollars a month, depending on how that bond is written out.
You know, some of them are semi annual payments, so
you might get three thousand in June, three thousand in December.

(31:39):
But again you're holding that note while they hold your money,
and then at the end of the mature when the
maturity date pops up, that's when you get your money back.
You know, some bonds trade at a par so at
phase value. Some trade below so they'd be at a discount,
so you might be able to buy it for ninety
five thousand, and maybe you only get a yield of

(31:59):
three three and a half percent on that one, but
then you get one hundred grand at maturity, so you
get a little bit of a you.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Know, return there.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
But what k is trying to say with interest rates
coming down, right, if you're holding a bond that's getting
six percent yield and now the new rates in the
market for a par value bond or getting three percent,
people are gonna pay a premium for your six percent
coupon that you're getting, right, So that means the value
of your bond's gonna go up, and that was where

(32:28):
the accumulation's gonna come from. So again, bonds are born
their math problems, but we love them right now. I
think they're in a beautiful spa beautiful spot.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
So, uh, we've been talking about them quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
And you know two three years ago, back beginning of
twenty twenty two.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Wow, these years are flying.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
By beginning of twenty twenty two, that's when the Fed
started increasing rates, right, we went through eleven rate hikes
over the course of a year. And that's where we
saw all these bonds get beat up, right because the
Fed was raising rates. But now over the last you
know what's having eight months they started raising rates a
little bit, but then they stopped, and then you saw
these bond prays to start coming back a little bit.

(33:06):
So we actually seen a pretty good return in the
bond market over the last year.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
Yeah, These bond wholesalers love love calling our office. They're
jumping up and down with where you know the bond
environment's at right now. Me and Chris McCarthy just had
an appointment earlier today with a wholesaler who was talking
about the bond market again, and they just are basically
saying that, you know, since in the history of the

(33:31):
bond market itself, there's not many times that it's you know,
worth even talking about twenty twenty. He was showing us
a chart where it wasn't even worth having a conversation
because yields were so low and the dividends that were
kicking off these mutual funds and ETFs weren't even worth
putting in the portfolio because you could get so much
more bang for your buck in the equity market, whereas

(33:52):
now they're ringing the phone because you know, you can
get six, seven, eight percent. Like we were saying, just
sitting within the fun the eighties.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Again, we're going to start listening to a CDC and
led Zeppelin, right.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Is that eighties? I don't know the kids coverment.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Rates are high, that's what we're seeing in the eighties.
People are taking out mortgages at thirteen fourteen percent. Uh
here we are at seven percent and people are going crazy.
You know, rates are the highest they've been in twenty
two years, twenty three years, I think sincerely two thousands.
So again, we're in a good spot for savers, probably
a bad spot for borrowers. So those folks going to

(34:33):
the bank saying, hey, I want to buy this property
and you know, raise my family in this house, you know,
it's going to make it difficult for that family that's
trying to you know, build, because rates are so high.
It's going to cost a heck of a lot more
to take out a mortgage. That monthly payment's going to be,
you know, quite a bit higher. I don't know, if
you've messed around with those monthly payment amounts that Zillo

(34:55):
shows you when you're starting.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
To look at houses, Yeah, you would know about that.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's it's a scary thing, Chris. But but again, it's
a great spot to be a saver. It's a great
spot to have, you know, your four oh one K
that you've contributed to your whole life and built up
and accumulated. Maybe you're a risky investor and I are
becoming a little bit more risk adverse. It might be
a good time to start switching over and having those

(35:20):
conversations about those big, boring bonds.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
So, I don't know, what are your thoughts, Chris.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Ruh, Yeah, I mean I think it's just worth a conversation.
Like you were saying, if someone you know, one hundred
percent equities and where the current you know, market environment's at.
We're hitting all time highs and you know we're starting
to come down, you know, within the last week or
so here, you know, the market's kind of starting to
gonna come back down. It's worth, you know, having a conversation.

(35:48):
Let's look at the bond market. Maybe we take the
foot off the gas a little bit. If I'm one
hundred percent equities, you don't have to necessarily take it
all out, but you know, carving off maybe twenty twenty
five percent, you know, just getting into that bond market,
having a safety net where you're collecting these higher yields
off these portfolios. It's definitely not a bad idea. It's

(36:09):
worth the conversation at least.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, so if you want to have a conversation, we
can set up that initial appointment.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Again.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
We are in Syracuse. We are also in Malta, New York,
right outside of Albany. We travel, We get in the car.
We just got a new Honda CRV. We're gonna get
wrapped with retirement Planning group on the side and it's
gonna have our phone number and and Dave's big head
on the side of it. Yeah, so we'll come out

(36:39):
to you to visit and uh, you know, it's our
goal to help you.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
At the end of the day.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
We're not here, you know, I've told people a million times.
We're here to be a fiduciary advisor and acting your
best interest, you know, whether that means you know, reviewing
the investment allocation and going through you know, Hey, you're
a little too risk at this point in your life.
Let's start taking some wind out of the sales and
get you somewhere a little more safe, more consistent, versus, Hey,

(37:07):
your state plan is not a plan at all, and
we start talking about wills, healthcare proxies, power of attorneys, trusts,
just the estate planning essentials at this point, and for
every individual it's different. We don't know what direction our
conversation is going to go. A lot of those advisors
out there might have something set up for you already,

(37:29):
and they might have a pre destined path for you
right when you walk through their door. They're going to
put you into this and they know it, and they're
going to tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
But our goal is to accomplish what you're looking for
in the most efficient manner. You know, a lot of
times folks walk in and we sit down, we have

(37:50):
a conversation, and at the end of the day we
go our separate ways. You know, it might not make
sense either for them or for us to take them
as a client. A lot of folks have unrealistic expectations.
Right they come in and say, Hey, I've got this
four hundred thousand dollars retirement account. I want to take
one hundred thousand dollars a year from it. And I
wanted to be there the rest of my life. Well, client,
that's not going to happen, and it raises a very

(38:14):
you know, interesting conversation, I guess you could say. But
at the end of the day, we're not going to
you know, put fireworks in.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Front of you.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
It's not smoking mirrors, as they would say. So give
us a call five eight five eight zero nine nine.
If you want to sit down and have a chat,
you can speak to Jim Corcoran. He'll take your information
and then I'll ask you a few questions about yourself
and then he'll take your address. We'll send you out
a retirement planning questionnaire. You just go through kind of
answer that questionnaire and then you bring it to your

(38:44):
first apployment with us. Alrighty, We're going to take another break, folks,
and we'll be back right after this.

Speaker 5 (38:51):
David Kopek here your host of the Retirement Planning Show,
heard every Saturday from seven am until nine am right
here on WGY. We discussed topics for pre and post
retirees on investment management, asset protection, and the legacy you
wish to leave your loved ones again, Please tune in
on Saturday. We are live from seven am until nine

(39:11):
am as, we answer your questions on retirement and the
obstacles you may face in your retirement years.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
And we are back everyone. Thanks for doing it in today.
My name is Nicholas Dumas, certified financial Planner and professional
plan consultant with the Retirement Planning Group. We are here
each week to discuss your needs, to discuss to educate
you on pre and post retirement planning. And alongside me
is Christopher Kopac.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Today.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
He is a financial analyst with the firm and he's
going through and getting getting his licenses currently so he eventually,
will you know, become a full forced advisor here down
the line.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yep, you excited, very sick of studying.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
I was always chomping at the bit to get out
of Siena and then start my career. Oh yeah, but
now any day I would go back and just spend
another semester.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Oh yeah. I mean, you never know.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
How good you got it until you don't have it anymore.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
That's typical with life.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
But I was like, I can't wait, I can't wait
to get all my certificates.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
And yeah, I got hit with COVID year my junior
senior year of college. So I think that kind of
put a damper on things.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
But oh yeah, the COVID years.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
So I couldn't wait to get out. Then I got
out and I was like, man, I wish I could
go back, and you have to stay at a hotel
for my roommate. Yeah, he got like someone in within
your friend group and then they kind of track you
down who you were hanging out with, and they isolate Yeah.
Oh yeah, we got isolated. I had to break them
out of the Desmond in all day.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
That's not a bad place to get isolated. Well, you
can't leave your room, Oh he couldn't.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
Yeah, we had to go through all hoops to just
get him out of that room. He was supposed to
sit in that room. And they drop food off at
your door for two weeks.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
It's a shame I can't believe. Even for like high
schoolers too.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, you know, having your junior and senior year kind
of taking away from you.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Oh yeah, like COVID weird times, I could imagine.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
But that's the world we're living in. So but again,
we're the retirement planning group. We get sidetracked, as you
can see, but at the end of the day, uh,
we are here to to help you and try to
help educate you and teach you a thing or two
about retirement and planning for you know your retirement date
and what you should be looking at, and you know,

(41:29):
if anything concerns you or if you have any questions,
just feel free to reach out.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
So we've been talking a lot about tax so tax
planning we've been talking about on the show. We've been
talking about investment management a little bit. Uh the stock market,
the bond market, and in this segment, I kind of
want to talk about how they're intertwined within portfolios here, right,
So you've got some stock investments, you have some bond investments,
you have some you know, money market investments for liquidity, and.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
How do all those work together?

Speaker 3 (42:01):
And a lot of times we discuss the buckets of
money approach, and I think, Chris, i'd like you to
describe that because my mouth I needed a sip of water.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
All right, So the buckets of money approach is there's
three buckets. You know, it's fairly simple. How the setup is.
Bucket one being the cash, So that's all the money
that you're gonna have set aside for income distribution within
your retirement. So that is you know, your safety net

(42:37):
of assets that's typically in a money market fund, getting
whatever the current interest rate is right now, I think
it's around four percent. And Bucket two is the income
generating assets, whether that's the utilization of ETF and mutual
fund positions in the account that are kicking off dividends

(42:58):
into bucket one. So that is filling bucket one, you know,
month to month. We tend to like investments that kickoff
dividends on a monthly basis because a lot of our
clients take monthly distributions off of their account. So anything
that's kicking off like a monthly dividend filling up bucket

(43:18):
one is that second bucket. And then the third bucket
is growth oriented. That's going to be your equity sleeve.
So that's different for everybody. You know, based on your
risk tolerance, this bucket will be different as far as
how much money is allocated towards it. But that third
bucket is the equity bucket. It's geared towards growth, you know,
capital appreciation and how you know aggressive you want to

(43:41):
get in the account, like I said, is determined on
your risk tolerance questionnaire that we have everybody fill out
in office here.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
But yeah, if you.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Want, you know, more in bucket two than bucket three,
you know, it's just a difference of adding more money
into those ETFs and mutual funds that are geared more
towards dividends and versus the positions that are more geared
towards capital appreciation and long term growth.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
So the buckets of money approach is a concept to
solve your income needs without liquidating principle, right, So not
selling out of stocks to get you income. You know,
there are years where hey, maybe we harvest some of
the gains and kick it into that bucket number one,
the money market fund, to provide income to you. But

(44:30):
most of the time we want that bucket number two,
the fixed income and yield enhancer bucket, to continue to
replenish bucket number one as you're taking income off of it.
So theoretically, we'd like to design a portfolio that's solving
your income needs without having to sell any of the
internal positions. We're just capturing the yields, the dividends, and

(44:50):
the interest off the positions that you hold within the
account and kicking those off to you. So, like Chris said,
you know, you got your three buckets number one in
a money market and it's still getting interest, right, So
it might be earning four percent four point one percent
right now, depending on which fund you're in, and we
might keep six to seven months worth a worth six

(45:13):
to seven months worth of distributions in that money market.
So if you're something that's going to take three thousand
a month, you know, you're looking at eighteen to twenty
one thousand dollars right six to seven months, you'd want
to keep in that money market fund. And then if
the rest of your portfolio, let's say you have you know,
three hundred thousand dollars in bucket number two at a

(45:37):
six seven percent interest rate. Hey, that's getting eighteen thousand
dollars right of interest. So that would be yearly. So
maybe it's not going to solve the complete income you're taking,
but so you might need to increase that bucket. And
I look at this, I'm designing it while we're going
through it.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
If you did show portfolio designed.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
So if you're going to be taking three thousand a
month thirty six thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
A year, you would need about.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Six hundred thousand dollars at a six percent right I'd
be thirty six thousand, so six hundred grand and bucket
number two would be kicking off the thirty six thousand
that you're taking on an annual basis that maybe you
have one hundred and fifty two hundred thousand dollars in stocks.
You know, this is what we constantly go through as
we're designing these portfolios and adjusting. You know, but that

(46:28):
kind of just gives you the the wavelength that we're
on to try to solve that income that you're taking.
So again, we're looking at high interest bearing bonds, we're
looking at high dividend kicking stocks, and like Chris said, ETFs.
You know, we use a lot of exchange exchange traded
funds in today's world because not only in non qualified

(46:48):
accounts they don't trigger tax liabilities at the end of
the year, but also you're able to get a little
more sector specific plays with some of these ETFs at
a lower cost. So but again, every individual is different,
you know, every portfolio is unique to the individual and
what they're looking to accomplish and the interest rate that

(47:09):
we needed to target to try to solve their income needs.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Yeah, and as far as the diversification of the funds themselves.
You know, there's diversifying between the equity and the bond market,
like we've been touching on the entirety of this show.
But it's also diversifying within your own sector of the
market as well. So that being said, it's like within
the equity market, like Nico just touched on, there's a

(47:35):
lot of different sectors within the equity market itself. You know,
you got large cap growth funds, large cap value, large
cap blend funds, So there's different areas within the own
sector itself that you want to be diversified, and you
don't want a lot of overlap within the account. You know,
that's something that we try and look at as well.

(47:56):
If you have four large cap growth funds doing the
same thing, investing in pretty much the same way, in
the same stock positions, there's probably one or two of
those that are doing outperforming or doing better than the others,
that it's better to have your money allocated towards those
and maybe go somewhere else with some other you know,
the other funds in say a value play or a

(48:18):
sector play, you know, with market trends, like I said earlier,
you know, we're looking at energy financials with the current administration,
So being diversified within the equity and bond markets itself
is also something to look out for. You know, you
know the bond market that would be being diversified within
the bond market would be you know, separating between corporate.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Bonds or.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Municipal bonds. You know, there's different there's different area media.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yep, we don't do a lot of work with Treasury
inflation protected security so TIPS funds, inflationary bonds. We've generally
not had great experiences with those. They're supposed to react
during times of inflation, but we've consistently seen them react negatively,
so we tend to stay away from that sector of bonds.

(49:08):
But no, Chris is right, right, just like you want
diversification in the stockside of your portfolio, you want it
on the bond side, right. You don't want a bunch
of junk bonds. You want a lot of investment grade
quality bonds and a lot of corporates. You're able to
get good yields with pretty good credit quality. So you know,

(49:29):
make sure you know what your own. At the end
of the day, you want to know what's in your
portfolio and how it's going to react to different market swings.
So again we're here to help build those portfolios for you.
We utilize the software program that risk Aalize, which is
now Nitrogen YEP, and we're able to go in and

(49:50):
view your portfolio and compared to how the market did
in like two thousand and eight, if we had that
type of correction, what would your folio do in that situation,
or if we had interest rate hikes, interest rate decreases,
how it's going to react to that. You can run
what are called Monty Carlos simulations and they run thousands

(50:11):
of different scenarios to kind of view how your portfolio
would would stand up against the general market. So again,
if you want us to start looking at your four
oh one K, your IRA, your roth IRA, your non
qualified account, if you have annuities that an advisor puts
you in and you're not sure of the purpose of those,
we can sit down and we can review that with you.

(50:31):
Numbers five one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine,
and that's five one eight, five eight zero one nine
one nine. We'd love to compete for your business, so
feel free to give us a call.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
We've got a.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Number of office locations and we're not afraid to travel.
We've been out to Syracuse quite a few times over
the last few weeks. We've got our main office in Malta,
New York, right outside of Albany.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
And then uh, you know, we've also got an office
down Oneana.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
So give us a call five one eight five eight
zero one nine one nine, or check us out in
the web www dot rpg retire dot com. Typically, that
first phone call, you're gonna speak to an individual in
our office by the name of Jim Corkoran. He'll tell
you a couple of pickleball stories. But then I'll take
some information from you and uh and uh and get

(51:15):
your address. And then from there we send out a
questionnaire booklet and then you try to fill that out
to the best of your ability. You know, it'll go
through ask about bank accounts, It'll ask about, you know,
social Security estimates or if you're already receiving Social Security,
what those amounts are.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
We'll ask about.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Pension dollars, what you did for work, if you were married,
if you're divorced, if you have a home with your
mortgages if it's paid off, and then any IRA for
one k you know, non qualified accounts, trusts.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
It just goes through and kind of, you know, helps you.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Get the information together that we're going to try to
you know, obtain from you in the appointment so that
we can be that fiduciary advisor for you. So again,
we need to know everything that's going on before we
can recommend anything. So numbers five one eight, five eight,
zero one nine one nine. Unfortunately run to the end
of the show here everyone, Thanks for tuning in this week.
We'll be back again next time.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Thank you for listening to Retirement Ready, hosted by Dave Kopek.
If you would like to talk with Dave or someone
at the Retirement Planning Group called five one eight, five
eight zero one nine one nine. That's five one eight,
five eight zero one nine one nine during business hours,
or visit RPG retire dot com. The Retirement Planning Group
has five convenient offices located in Albany, Malta, Glens Falls, Pontiata,

(52:36):
and Syracuse. Tune in again next week at noon for
Retirement Planning Strategies with David Kopek, or Saturdays at seven
am for the Retirement Planning Show.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
The information or services discussed on this show is for
informational purposes only, and is not intended to be personal
financial advice. The investments and services offered by US may
not be suitable for all investors.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
If you have any doubts as to the merits of
an investment, you should seek advice from TENN and Financial
Advisor