Week Ending 09_26_2025 Stock Market Recap

Welcome to the new season and NO we don’t mean autumn! What season? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT! 

Episode Transcript

(00:34):
Hello and welcome to
this week's edition of the Big Money Report. I'm your host,
David Boothe, President and Chief Investment Officer at BIG Investment
Services. That's B-I-G, Boothe Investment Group.
We're a full-service financial advisory based out of Dover, Delaware, serving clients
all across America. And you can read all about us at abigplan.com. That's

(00:57):
www.abigplan.com. I
like to put the show together once a week just to give you a recap of the week behind and
a peek at the week and weeks to come. Trying to keep
you up to speed with you and your money. And we're glad you're with us today. It
is Friday, September 26th, 2025, and welcome
to the new season. That's right. No, no, not autumn.

(01:19):
No, not Halloween. No, no, not
earning season. We're two weeks away from that. Good guess. Now, welcome
to government shutdown season, ladies and gentlemen. It is that time of year where
the government likes to shut down because they're completely erratic
and irrational and crazy over there in D.C. So that's
the big threat right now. Government's gonna shut down next week if they can't get their act together.

(01:41):
I say let it shut down for six months, see if we can do without it for a
while. I know, I'm being facetious. We want people to get paid. We
got a lot of clients that work for the government. But my point being, this happens so
much anymore that the market doesn't even seem to really care. It kind
of gets old. It looks really silly and stupid. But I've
got some good news for you. If they iron things out between now
and say next Wednesday, even if they shut down for a couple of

(02:04):
days, they can iron things out here pretty quickly. We won't have
to worry about this again until November. No,
no, no, no. I mean, like six weeks from now, November. Yeah, that's right.
Why this big kerfuffle over a temporary bridge to
get us from point A to point B when the heavy lifting still has to
be done? I don't know. But that's what's going on. Just

(02:24):
noise for the market. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. There's other bigger things
and other bigger fish to fry when it comes to Mr. Market. So what's going on
this week? What happened? Markets pushed lower. No surprise. We
talked about it last week. I said, look, I think we're going to have a delayed reaction on
the sell the news event. The markets pushed higher, higher, higher
heading into the Fed rate cut last week. I

(02:45):
expected that could shape up to be a sell the news thing. Once we
got that cut, the market would likely go down. It didn't right away.
It kind of pushed higher for a couple of days, but that changed this week.
I think some of that's because the Fed's out there reiterating what I heard very clearly
from Fed Chair Jay Powell last week, and that is... We're not so
confident on what lies ahead when it comes to policy. It's

(03:06):
going to be very data dependent because we are in a sticky situation.
I mean, Powell pretty much said he's between a rock and a hard place last week, and
the Fed folks are out there talking to the media, seem to reiterate that
this week, and the market's starting to maybe wake up to that to some extent.
And why are they between a rock and a hard place? Because the data continues
to be pretty strong on some level. So look, this week, if

(03:27):
you look at some of the economic data, You had housing starts much
higher than expected. You had GDP, initial read from the Atlanta
Fed, 3.9% growth, 3.9%, almost
4% GDP growth. Now, some folks say you can attribute that to some of these trade
things that have been going on, the whipsaw back and forth on tariffs, but
nonetheless, it's a high number. And then the concerning part

(03:51):
The number one inflation metric that the Fed watches, the number one
number, the PCE number, the Personal Consumer Expenditure
Report, out today, year-over-year number, 2.9%. Now,
the Fed wants to be at 2%, okay? Can we round up a
tenth? We're at 3%. We are not at 2%, we are at 3%. And
the Fed is very concerned that missteps could lead to a

(04:15):
resurgence in inflation. And you do not want to let that
genie out of the bottle. So there's a lot of competing narratives
here for the Fed. The market is, I think, over
its skis with pricing in not just the next two cuts this
year, but then three more next year. I think that's pretty aggressive. If we're going to get all
these cuts between now and the end of next year, I think we're in a recession. I

(04:35):
mean, there's really no reason to cut to that extent and
there's something bad going on. So the market's going to have to kind of
work all of that out. And maybe we started seeing that this week with things pushing
a little bit lower. When you look at the sectors, kind of mixed around the
board, most things were pretty weak this week, except for semiconductors
and utilities. You can thank all the AI talk for that.

(04:55):
We'll talk more about that in a moment. And energy, having a bit of a
resurgence this week, up 3.9%. Looks like crude oil
found a bit of a bottom and is pushing higher. Not sure how well that's going
to perform over the next six to 12 months based off some of the technicals. But
maybe in the short run, we'll see a little bit of a push higher there for oil stocks. And
then on top of that, we've got gold and silver, and they just continue to

(05:16):
be super strong. I think the world is really looking at gold
and silver as the safe haven. We had bond auctions this week, and
they didn't go that great. They just did not go very well. But gold was
up 2.2% this week, silver up 7.2%. And
our gold mining company, Ken Ross, continues to push higher. It's like 160% up
year to date. We trimmed it a couple of weeks ago, but it continues to push higher. Go

(05:37):
ahead, double again, Ken Ross. We'll trim you some more. Keep going, buddy. Keep going.
So what else is going on? What other things are happening in the markets? What's
pushing things around? Some trade confusion. Yeah, you think
the tariffs thing is finally resolved, right? We've got everything kind of
ironed out. The next big thing is the Supreme Court weighing in on
whether or not it's legal, but you think it's resolved. And then we get more

(05:57):
announcements from the Trump administration today, 100% tariff on
branded pharmaceuticals that are being imported. I
mentioned that to you a couple of months ago. We were prepared for that. Maybe it
wasn't quite two months, maybe six weeks ago. We had some extra pharma
that we trimmed back on a little bit in preparation for this. So 100% tariff
on imported pharma unless they are going to manufacture it

(06:19):
in the United States. And I get what they're trying to do there. It's a
bit of a security risk if you depend on China for your diabetes medication. I
understand. And then today there were additional tariffs
put in place for heavy trucks, heavy trucks, and
they signaled more to come in regards to
robotics and maybe industrial machinery as we're starting to take a look

(06:39):
at those things. We've got these big tariffs we've put on all these
nations. And then on top of that, we've got these little industries that
we're carving out and adding more. Now, if the trade deals
that are in place have already locked in or
carved out these industries for exceptions, then
these new tariffs won't apply. But if these countries did not carve

(07:00):
out exceptions for these areas, then there's going to be tariffs on
top of tariffs. One thing I'm a little concerned about is
the administration's motives. You know, listen. As long
as you're trying to even out the playing field for America, you're trying
to benefit American companies, use these things for leverage to
try to get things leveled out as far as trade is concerned, that's

(07:20):
one thing. But if the main thing starts to become revenue
generation, Watch out, okay? Because history
shows that that does not end well. Tariffs
for revenue's sake and revenue's sake alone just do not
go well. So we've got to be careful that we don't overdo it and
just shoot past this thing and be too aggressive on the tariff front. But

(07:42):
right now, that's shaking things up a little bit. So I'll be watching that
pretty closely. And then maybe the other big thing that's really moving markets
more than anything right now has been AI spending. I
was up at the New York Stock Exchange this week and
invited to a group of folks, just some different panels, discussions on the
markets today, where we're headed, how things look, et cetera. Great group of

(08:03):
folks. I mean, I got to talk to some amazing people. Joshua from
Lux Capital, Paul Isaac, Cameron Dawson, Mike Green, David
Einhorn, this dude from Greenlight Capital. He's just a beast. He is
like the Warren Buffett of our day. Brilliant guy. Great
conversations across the board. I will say this, you know, history doesn't
necessarily repeat itself, but it often rhymes. And everyone's kind of

(08:23):
has their eyes on what's going on right now with this AI spending.
The whole AI trade is looking really frothy. It's
starting to become very reminiscent of the tech bubble back
in the nineties. So then the question becomes, are
we at 1995? Or are we
at 1999? Because if you're at 1995, there's a

(08:45):
heck of a lot more money to be made. If you're at 1999, watch
out. And it's kind of unclear. We're seeing some of
the frothy signs of things that should make you concerned. Some
of these dollar amounts are being spent into infrastructure on
technology that's not even being monetized as of yet. The profit's not
even there yet. Look, there's one company that was out there touting they're going to

(09:07):
spend a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars on data centers. And
guess what? Guess what the revenue was this year? $10 billion. Well, how
are you going to spend a trillion dollars when you only made $10 billion gross? How are you
going to do that, right? We're seeing all this money being dumped in
from one company to another. Vendor financing is what we call that. We
saw a lot of that during the tech bubble. So you got Nvidia, the chip company,

(09:29):
dumping money into their Clients, right?
Putting money, investing money into their clients' companies with
the expectation that those clients are going to take that money and come back to
Nvidia and buy their chips. It's like circular money, just passing money
from one person to the next, back and forth, back and forth. I
write you a check and then you give me cash and then I write you check back

(09:50):
again. It's like a circular motion here and we're
seeing a lot of that kind of stuff and it's concerning. You've got Facebook,
which we own. We've got it in our models. It's done us well. We bought it for
150 bucks back in 2022. It's
$742 a day. It's done very well for us. But they're doing some things that are
a little like, hmm, that's reminiscent of the late 90s. They're using

(10:11):
special interest companies to buy up these companies related
to AI and stay under the radar of the federal government. Just
keep them out of the crosshairs for being accused of being a monopoly. Well,
one of the companies that was notorious for doing that was a company called Enron back
in the day. I think there's a big difference here. Facebook's got the capital to do
it, Enron didn't. But my point being, there's a lot of crazy things

(10:33):
happening. SPACs, special acquisition companies are coming to the market, IPOs
like crazy, overvaluations, the private market. I
mean, valuations are like just skyrocketing in the
private market, private capital. I heard today one
company, valuation a year ago is a billion, today it's 30 billion.
They don't even have a product yet. They don't even have our products yet.

(10:54):
Now, that's not on the market. It's not public. It's a private company. But
my point is this bubbly type of activity is
really starting to spread. So there's a lot of talk about that this week. And
one thing I'll say, I'm happy to hear so many folks feeling the
way that I'm feeling. that this market can push higher,
no doubt about it, but there's a lot of things to look at that are uncomfortable

(11:16):
right now. A lot of things to make you feel uncomfortable, from valuations
to cracks that you see in the economy, to the bifurcation we see
in the economy, right? People that make a lot of money are spending really aggressively.
Those in the lower end of the economy are really struggling right now. I
think the wealth effect, the fact that the market has been pushed higher, has
been helping make that happen because the wealthier folks

(11:37):
have more money in the market, market goes up, they've got more money to spend. If
that narrative changes, watch out because the lower end of the economy is
not doing well. They're just not. And that's a concern. So a lot of these folks
I talk to are sharing the same feelings that, listen, the market looks like
it wants to go higher. But it certainly is uncomfortable and
there's a lot to be concerned about in there. And that's why I like what we're doing with

(11:57):
the models right now. I mentioned last week, we've really shifted to trying
to move the models to all weather investing. So
if this market wants to push higher, if it wants to get frothy, if it wants to
be irrational, Fine, go ahead. We'll make money on
it. Maybe not as much as we would if we were all in, so to speak,
but we're going to make plenty of money. On the other hand, if a tie changes

(12:19):
without people really noticing it, I think we're going to be okay. One
of the things that was said on Thursday that I was like, yeah, well, that's
not the way we're going to do this. One of the things that was said was, look, keep dancing
as long as the music's playing, right? As long as the music's playing, keep dancing. Here's
the problem I've got with that. Wall Street never seems to know when the music stops,
okay? Wall Street thinks that when the music stops, they're just switching

(12:41):
records. For those of you that know anything about spinning vinyl, right? You got
to take one record off, put another one on, unless you're running two turntables at
the same time, I guess. But my point being, Wall Street sometimes doesn't know
that the music has stopped. They think there's just a pause in the action and they stay on
the dance floor for too long. And if you ever watch It's a Wonderful Life, the
dance floor opens up and everyone falls into the swimming pool. We're not going to
let that happen here. We don't want that to happen here. So we are trying

(13:03):
to kind of get ahead of this a little bit with our diversification, with
some buffers. We could be a couple years early, no doubt
about it. We could be in 1995, but we've got plenty of exposure to
take advantage of it if it goes higher, but we've got plenty of protection if
things do turn and go the other way. I had
some great conversations with the folks that manage our managed futures strategy

(13:24):
that we have in the portfolios right now. Paisley Nardini and Charlie McGraw,
fantastic, super sharp. I pushed back on them on a couple of things.
They pushed back on me. Great conversation. I like what they're doing there and
I like their approach and how they are focused on execution
really and stay in very, very disciplined with what they're doing. So
we've got the stuff in place that this market does get squirrely or protected,

(13:46):
but a lot of folks are kind of thinking the same thing I'm thinking. The market can
push higher. And I think again, you just have to be a little bit
more mindful at this stage in the game, in my opinion. Now there's a couple of
folks out there. I think we're just getting started. You know, that's great. Maybe we
are, but I would rather err to the side of caution at this stage than
to be too aggressive and get burned. So that's what we are doing. So

(14:06):
I like how things look for all you folks that have added money in recent
weeks. We've been sitting on it. We haven't really been aggressively putting it in. We've
added money to bonds. We've added money to the areas of the models that
were underperforming, maybe out of favor on any given time here
over the last month. But as we get a little bit more weakness in
the broader market, we'll be getting that capital put back to work. I

(14:27):
do think we could see this market push a little bit lower here between now and moving
into October. That wouldn't surprise me in the least. So we want to make
sure that we are prepared to take advantage of that. So, that's what I've got
for you this week. So between now and next few minutes, you're thinking about your future, your long-term goals, all
the things you want to do with you and your money. Retire a
little early, take that big trip, pay for college or a wedding. Hey,

(14:48):
you know what your goals are. Don't just think about it. Think big. Think B-I-G. And
Thank you for listening to this week's edition of The Big Money Report with
your host, David Boothe, President and Financial Advisor at
BIG Investment Services. For more information on BIG and
how you can access their planning and investment management services, visit

(15:09):
them at abigplan.com. That's abigplan.com. Or
call them toll free at 866-946-PLAN. That's 866-946-7526. The
foregoing content reflects the opinions of David Boothe and Boothe Investment Group,
Inc. and is subject to change at any time without notice. There is no

(15:29):
guarantee that the statements, opinions, or forecasts provided herein will
prove to be correct. Content provided herein is for informational purposes only
and should not be used or construed as investment advice or a recommendation regarding
the purchase or sale of any security. All investing involves risk, including the
potential for loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any investment plan or