June 25, 2025 • 47 mins
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Financial literacy isn't just about knowing investment terms—it's about transforming your relationship with money. Marcus Sturdivant, founder of ABC Squared in Charlotte, shares his journey from a loving household where money wasn't discussed to becoming a financial advisor passionate about educating others.
"We didn't grow up rich, but we didn't realize we weren't rich," Marcus explains, highlighting how his entrepreneurial spirit emerged early—selling candy from a gumball machine at five and working jobs from fourteen—but understanding investment opportunities came much later. This personal experience fuels his mission to bridge the financial literacy gap he sees in communities like his own.
The conversation reveals three critical mistakes most people make with money: not tracking where it actually goes, poor cash flow management, and not realizing help exists for people at all income levels. Marcus points out the irony of individuals spending hundreds on lottery tickets while claiming the stock market is "fixed"—a misconception that prevents meaningful wealth accumulation.
One particularly valuable insight centers around tax diversification. Many focus exclusively on pre-tax retirement accounts and cash, neglecting tax-diversified options like Roth accounts. This oversight often results in retirees facing unexpectedly large tax bills when they begin withdrawals. "Most people only see two buckets," Marcus explains, "their savings and retirement accounts. They don't have those allocated out of pre-tax."
Most intriguing is Marcus's concept of a "Carolina Portfolio"—investments focused on companies based in or with significant operations in North and South Carolina. This approach connects investors to visible growth in their communities while creating surprisingly diverse exposure across industries from banking (Bank of America, Truist) to manufacturing (Boeing, BMW), retail (Lowe's), and technology.
Whether you're just starting your financial journey or looking to refine your investment strategy, this episode offers practical wisdom for navigating today's complex markets. As Marcus advises, "Don't try to jump into fancy, complicated investment strategies or just go with the fastest thing going on the internet." Instead, understand your cash flow, learn from reliable sources, and develop strategies to remove emotion from investment decisions.
https://theabcsquared.com/about
Straight Talk for All - Nonsense for None
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Disclaimer - These podcasts are not intended as investment advice. Individuals please consult your own investment, tax and legal advisors. They provide these insights for educational purposes only.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Davenport (00:02):
Hello everyone and welcome to Skeptic's Guide
to Investing.
I'm here with my partner, clemMiller, and we've got a special
guest today, marcus Sturtevant,who is an investment advisor
here in Charlotte for a firmcalled ABC Squared.
I've met Marcus at a TitanInvestors Group meeting, and
(00:24):
Marcus and I both had the goodtaste to both be wearing Air
Jordans I was wearing green lowsand he was wearing highs and so
we were the only people in thegroup who seemed to understand
that we should be in sneakersnow and that the age of wingtips
and fancy leather shoes haspassed us by.
(00:46):
But I really enjoy talking toMarcus because I think he brings
a different perspective and Ilike the fact that you know he's
an RIA starting out, and Ithink that when we look at
people, we want to understandwhere they came from, but we
also want to understand wherethey're going.
We want to understand wherethey came from, but we also want
(01:07):
to understand where they'regoing, and I think it's
important to welcome people andcooperate because, believe me,
with these markets andeverything that's going on in
terms of our country, I thinkit's good to have some other
voices and some other inputs totry to make sense of it, and
I've always believed that youare the strength of your network
(01:28):
and if you have a strongnetwork, your ability to handle
some of these things and getgood advice and go to good
places for your clients improves.
So, marcus, will you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
how you got into the financialadvising or into this space?
Marcus Sturdivant (01:48):
Yeah, hey, first off let me say thanks to
you two skeptics, clem and Steve, for having me on.
I'm very excited to come on andjust talk a little bit.
Yeah, like you said earlier,I'm from Charlotte, so I'm a
local guy down here in NorthCarolina.
These heat waves that we'reexperiencing I'm used to them I
guess as used to them as you canget.
But I grew up down here in theSouth, grew up just, you know,
(02:11):
just, my parents got divorcedwhen I was young, so I grew up
in a single parent home but witha lot of family, so community
type environment, grew uptogether.
We grew up.
We didn't grow up rich but wedidn't realize we weren't rich.
We had gaps filling otherthings.
We were so loved, we were soinvolved one another.
We just didn't know what wedidn't have, what we didn't have
(02:32):
.
But what was missing wasfinancial literacy.
Now, those were conversationswe didn't have at the dinner
table and we had a lot ofdinners together, massive group
stands, we sit down and eat, butwe never really talked about
financial literacy.
I first got inclined tobusiness and financial literacy
in school.
I took a course in ninth grade,an intro to business class, and
(02:54):
it just kind of sparked myinterest.
As far as business goes, I'vealways been
entrepreneurial-minded.
I started selling.
I went and bought a gumballmachine when I was five.
Five and sell the candy to thekids, like my cousins.
Like, put coins in there, youget the money back from it.
So I always have my thinkingthat type of way, like I will
pull their teeth for likequarters, like when they were
really loose, just always justhad a mind and I started working
(03:16):
.
I was like 14.
So, as I said, my mom was.
She supported me.
So I've always been earningmoney, thinking about the next
day.
But when I look in those, Ishould have been investing that
money at that time.
Life will look a lot differentby now, right?
So as far as financial literacy, that's a gap I've been looking
to fill.
Right.
(03:38):
Went to school, went to college,played a little football, had a
son at a young age.
So I stopped going to school,went back into the workforce,
got your you know your standard401k target date fund I didn't
know any better invest into it,just filled out the form.
It was paper batman, so justfilled out paper form or whatnot
.
But it was a small business.
So I learned a lot workingthere as well, like small
(04:00):
business, and the people whoowned it were great.
They taught everyone.
So I went there from in highschool literally like sweeping
the floors, clean up tables toeventually being general manager
of several different locations.
So 12-ish years ago, I decidedyou know, it's time to like,
really look at what my money'sin.
You know these target datefunds, start to pay more
(04:21):
attention to what's actuallyinvested in.
Just like, really fell in lovewith the markets, just the.
You know these target datefunds, starting to pay more
attention to what it's actuallyinvested in just like, really
fell in love with the markets.
Just the way they work.
It's a little bit before DonaldTrump.
President Trump really sparkeda lot of people, I guess, into
investing, for better or forworse, however it may be, but it
definitely caught my attentionjust hearing how people are
always speaking about businessand investing, and I already had
(04:42):
a spark for it.
I already spent some time inschool.
Oh, not to mention, during thistime, I went back to school,
got my associates, got myundergrad and got my master's.
So all this time has beenbuilding, went into the
investment world under a biggerfirm.
We were focused on financialplanning, loved it.
I absolutely loved it.
Man, loved helping people.
(05:04):
I loved seeing the changes.
I love working with the folksand helping them become more
educated and what we're doing,because you have to understand
where your money's going, howyour money works eventually um,
that uh position was on site mysister-in-law, my life situation
just kind of changed fromsickness to life.
(05:25):
Life happens.
I just needed to be here moreoften.
Also, at the same time, I wasstarting to commit more time to
the Chasm Foundation in NorthCarolina, a local nonprofit
focused on financial literacy.
So, as you know, steve, youknow Clem, in the wire house
type world you have to.
There are certain things youhave to do right To make it
(05:45):
financially work for them, makeit financially work for you.
And I was at the age where itwas just like I have knowledge,
I have skills, I actually have acertain way.
I want to work with people, Iwant to work with a certain kind
of people that I want to workwith, because that's the best
way to make it work.
And yeah, so earlier this yearI launched my own firm, so
(06:09):
primarily focused on financialliteracy with clients, but
obviously we do the investment,the planning.
I like to take a look at theholistic financial planning.
So launched the abc squared andwe've been going ever since so
marcus, uh, abc squared.
Clem Miller (06:21):
Where did you get that title from that name?
Marcus Sturdivant (06:26):
Right, right, gotcha, gotcha, so all right.
So earlier the ABC Squaredactually had.
I actually launched another LLCa few years ago.
It was called the ABC kind oflike Square, because I'm like an
analytical type guy, right,that's the way my brain works.
So I just want to make sure Ihave, in the doing businesses,
(06:49):
all bases covered.
So I just want to make surethat we're checking everything
more than twice and that we haveall your bases covered.
So that's kind of where the ABCcome in and then it's square.
Sometimes you'll even see alist as the ABC square, square
(07:10):
it says the ABC square square.
Steve Davenport (07:11):
I like that, Marcus.
I mean, what I think about thisbusiness is it's full of a lot
of great people and a lot ofthose people have 10 clients, 50
clients, 100 clients, whateverthe number is, but they have a
lot of people in their livesthat they also impact besides
their clients, and to me, that'staking what you have, your
skill set, and using it for good, and ultimately, that's what
(07:33):
you know.
I think we all you know we wantour clients to be happy, we
want them to be comfortable, wewant them to be doing and saving
money for the things that areimportant to them and for every
person.
Geez, is that the three youngkids?
Is that the school I went toand I feel very proud that they
supported me and I got a degreeand they helped my life
(07:56):
immensely.
Or is it the local church?
As long as you can help peopleto see their dreams and
realities, I think that you knowthat's a great place for us to
be, and I think finances is apart of your life.
Or you know something thateverybody has to eventually deal
with.
(08:16):
I mean, when I look at you, Iwonder, like, do you have, like,
your top three mistakes thatpeople make?
And then you know, how do they,how do the, how do you see
people and say, boy, if I couldchange these three things, what
(08:36):
would you know?
What would it be?
Marcus Sturdivant (08:39):
Gotcha.
Yeah, great point, greatquestion.
Well, one of the first thingsthat would definitely be is
where people are actuallyspending their money.
Like people I talk to people,everyone I talk to I don't work
with.
I have friends who I talk towho I don't work with, just in
general conversation.
I don't judge people.
I don't.
They know what I do, we knowwhat to do.
But I'll see people who willspend one hundred dollars on
(09:02):
lottery tickets or playingparlay bets on online, but tell
me the stock market is fixed.
I'm just like, yeah, you know,like that's that's huge, right,
like that's a big one, right?
So just just, yeah, just goingwith that to start for more,
right, so you have that.
(09:24):
Then you have people who don'treally understand their cash
flow at all.
Right, they're getting themoney.
They're spending it before theygot it.
It's already accounted for.
They're spending it before it'seven in the bank, before
they've even earned it, right?
So cash flow, what you'reactually spending your money on.
And then people just, one ofthe other biggest mistakes is
(09:44):
people not realizing that thereis help for them with their
money, regardless of theirincome level.
There are resources that peoplecan help you become more
literate with your money.
Some are free, some cost a fee,but there are resources.
Steve Davenport (10:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think those are great ideas and
I always look at people and Ithink of them.
As you know, they have torealize they're like a small
corporation, right?
They've got their human capitaland it's going to be used in
the next 40 years for someactivity in the marketplace and
it's going to create revenue,and then that revenue becomes
(10:23):
you know where do you want toput it?
Do you want to put it to takecare of that body and take care
of that mind and make sure itfunctions well so that you
perform your best at work?
Do they want to, you know, findsome time for you know, stress
reduction and do some meditationand prayer?
I believe that we all are theseinternal like if you manage your
(10:46):
business or your life.
There's a lot of similaritiesto a small business, and I think
one of the things is goodwill,and so that's why I believe that
this whole effort to try to dogood things for other people, I
don't think of it as much as aburden as an opportunity,
(11:07):
because if I can get goodwillfrom this person, this person
and this person, and they sharea post of mine online and
they've got 30,000 followers, Icouldn't pay for that marketing
slash input in other people'slives.
And so, to me, as long asyou're enhancing like you've
(11:29):
obviously invested in yourselfhigh school, college, master's
degree I think you might be alsoworking on your CFP.
It's a sign of a good person tome that they are continually
trying to get better, and that'skind of one of the most
important aspects of being anadvisor is guess what Like when
(11:53):
we booked this call, I thoughtwe were going to talk about X.
Now, three weeks later, we'vegot bombs flying in the Middle
East and we've got questionsabout a tariff deadline coming
and we got the big beautifulbill.
The world changed.
I mean three weeks.
It's a different, you know, andI think that you know.
(12:16):
I think it's important that youknow.
You try to continually makeyourself better.
What do you think, plunk?
Clem Miller (12:23):
Well, I was just yeah, I totally agree with
everything you said.
I was going to ask Marcus.
You know, as you were talking,steve, I was going to ask Marcus
what of the people you talk toclients or people you're trying
to educate what do you think isthe typical timeframe they're
(12:44):
considering?
Is it six months, right?
Is it 25 years?
I mean, what is the typicaltimeframe that these folks are
thinking about?
Marcus Sturdivant (13:00):
That's a really that's a great question,
right?
So we have to even go like astep back further with that.
Right, we have to start withall these conversations, even
when we're doing so with Kaizen.
We'll do classes where we teachpeople financial literacy.
We outreach sources you got.
You have to start with mindset,right, so you figure out what
your mindset is with theseinvestments and then you can
(13:20):
figure out your goals.
Right, because all those goals,those timeframes, are going to
be different.
Right, if I'm sitting here andI'm talking to someone because
the clients range in ages, right, Some clients may be the same
age.
I have a household, severalhouseholds.
One may be 60.
They all may be 60, right, onehas X amount of money in the
bank on track to retire.
(13:42):
If you were just to think aboutthe other person's, the same age
and has nothing set up forretirement, right, so they're
thinking totally different.
Right, they're both thinkingfive years for retirement, but
to get there is much different.
The people who are playingparlays and lottery tickets,
(14:03):
they're not thinking past thenext bet, probably.
So it's just the wide range.
But mindset and having a timeframe, right, you have to
establish what short term whenwe talk about short term.
Ok, we're going to say six to12 months is short term.
Then we're going to talk aboutthe aggregate, you know 18 to 36
months, and then long-term,five years plus.
Clem Miller (14:26):
Do you find that a lot of the people you talk to
take the bucket approach?
You know they've got some cash,they've got some play money and
then they've got somelonger-term investment money.
Do people think that way?
Uh?
Marcus Sturdivant (14:45):
people.
People are usually shocked whenyou show them the bucket method
right, like when you show themlike the actual pre-tax versus
the tax always, I know it's nota bug, but just like the way
that the taxes are broken down,you know, because you pull it
inside the buckets that way asto how you break it out.
Few people ever have roth rightlike, yeah, I think they just
started requiring roth inside of401ks in the last few years.
(15:06):
So there are so many peoplewith all this money pre-tax.
Uh, my parents, for examplethey just retired a few years
ago.
My stepdad, we were talkingabout it.
Their investment strategy wastotally different.
Growing up it was he startedinvesting in the 80s and he just
got cds and he was ladderingwhen those interest rates were
high.
They were just running, justrunning, just running.
They worked 40 years.
He retired from the military,retired from a public job, so he
(15:29):
did those things too and putinto their investment retirement
accounts.
But it just goes to show youcan take a different approach to
it.
But these people most peoplethat I notice are getting hit
with huge tax bills when it'stime to convert because they
aren't thinking about that thirdbucket.
They only see the two bucketsreally.
They see their savings,check-ins, maybe even brokerage
accounts, and then they thinkabout their retirement accounts.
(15:51):
But they don't have thoseallocated out of pre-tax.
So once they get intoretirement yes, you want to
establish that third bucket.
You want to have it beforeretirement.
Yes, you want to have it beforeretirement.
Steve Davenport (16:01):
Yeah, I think that's a great point, marcus,
because I know personally I wasbusy helping other people with
their money and I have a wholebunch of money that's 401k or
re-tax money and I'm trying nowto address it.
But I think it's really easyfor people to say I just want to
know that I'm doing something.
(16:21):
And I felt that way I got mymatch.
I mean, the match is like isfree money important to you?
Okay, go get it.
You know what I mean.
Like to me.
It was that simple If somebodyis going to give me money, I'm
going to try to get as much ofit as I can.
And then, you know it came to.
I mean, what was my big moneyworry was college.
(16:44):
My kids, you know, were doingwell in school and I was sitting
there saying, holy shit, I hopehe doesn't get into, you know,
this school because it's 90grand now.
You know it's like we all wishthe best but we all don't really
.
I mean, when it comes down to it, in these college decisions or
family decisions, or where doyou live, what school system you
(17:07):
go to, you always think you'regoing to make the right decision
.
But guess what, there is noright decision.
There is only the path and youcan.
You're going to have obstacles,you're going to have things in
your way, but you've got toaddress whatever it comes up and
when it comes up.
And I think that if I was toask people to do one thing, it's
(17:29):
be flexible.
Be flexible, adjust, and youknow.
So we got a mailbag item that Ithought of answering, but I
thought maybe we could all tryto answer it, and it says if you
could do three things better toimprove your financial wellness
(17:50):
, what would they be?
What do you think of that,marcus?
I mean, we talked aboutmistakes, but what action would
you like people to take tomorrow, after they listen to this
podcast, to make their financiallives more whole or more
complete?
Marcus Sturdivant (18:09):
The first thing that I like people to do
is figure out exactly wheretheir money is right.
Log into that 401k.
Take a look at it, if you haveone.
Log into your brokerageageaccounts.
Figure out where your money isright.
Know what your money is.
You need to figure out wherethose lazy dollars are.
We all have them.
If we don't address them, thenfigure out your expenses.
(18:31):
Those two, I guess, can go ineither order.
Know where your money's comingin at.
Know where your money's goingout at.
So I guess that, in general,would just be cash flow right,
so back.
So back to cash flow.
People have to understand theircash flow, where your money's
going.
I want people to just learnmore.
There's so many tools andresources out there where people
can learn about financialliteracy or just how their money
(18:54):
works, how the economy works,how everything affects them, but
you have to find the rightsources for that.
This world's so full of socialmedia and TikTok and just full
of places with bad information,disinformation, misinformation,
so you have to make sure thatthe people that you are finding
information from are giving yougood, solid information.
(19:20):
Check your sources and checkthose sources.
Also, I want people to realizeand this is like against human
nature because in general,people make decisions based on
emotion.
But you have to figure out away to take emotions out of
money.
It has study where they blockedoff a part of your brain that
controlled emotions and peoplecouldn't do simple things like
(19:42):
figure out what they wanted toeat.
Emotions play into all of yourdecisions.
So you have to figure out whatyour plan is, why you're
investing and when the timescome and get bumpy and rough, as
the economy will, interestrates will go up, interest rates
will go down, tariffs droppingbombs.
But if you were to have beendropped off, you know, if you
(20:07):
went to space on April 8th andcame back today and just looked
at the markets, you wouldn'thave known all this madness
going on in between.
So you got to look past thatstuff, block out the noise and
look past that.
Steve Davenport (20:21):
So I think that's great advice.
I mean I, as I mentionedearlier, I think of human
capital as a thing to invest andkeep investing in yourself.
But I think you're.
I mean, glenn, I don't know howwe we look at being skeptical
about numbers and about firmsand about ideas, but we really
(20:42):
haven't focused as much on you.
Know how do we take the threeworst behaviors and try to how
do we get the three bestbehaviors out of people?
Because really, the money, itkind of comes along for the ride
Once you decide, hey, I thinkretirement's important, I need
to address it.
(21:02):
I mean, once you get thatbehavior and say, and you can
train people or help people totry to use less emotion, I mean,
what do you think are the threethings people should do better?
Plum.
Clem Miller (21:15):
Well, I think my top three, and I think there's
more than three for me, okay.
Steve Davenport (21:24):
Let's just say, people have short attention
spans, but let's pretend theyonly can think about three items
.
I mean, maybe, maybe it'shigher, but maybe it's four, but
I'll give you three to four.
Clem Miller (21:34):
So the first thing you should do is make sure you
don't have any unsecured debt,except beyond 30 days, I mean
except under 30 days.
So no unsecured debt.
So if you got unsecured debt,man, pay it down.
Right, pay it down.
(21:56):
One of the problems withunsecured debt that a lot of
people don't realize is if youmiss a payment or you're late on
a payment, that rate can zipright up really high.
So do not take or you know,unsecured debt, pay it down.
I think the second mistake thatpeople can make and this is a
(22:17):
relatively recent, last 10 years, five years kind of mistake is
to think that crypto is actuallyan investment and not a bet,
and I know that some peoplemight disagree with me on that,
but I think that things likeBitcoin are a way to lose a lot
(22:40):
of money and certainly they'rehighly volatile and, depending
on where you invest it, uhsubject to fraud and uh, you
know, being uh ripped offcriminally and so on.
So avoid crypto.
So that would be my second one.
Uh, my third one would be to bevery uh skeptical of uh, you
(23:08):
know, themes.
You know we all talk aboutthemes, but I think we need to
be sort of skeptical aboutthemes and not kind of put all
of our money into one thematicbasket.
(23:31):
Thematic basket and obviouslythe way you avoid putting all
your money in a thematic basketis to look at the underlying
numbers and to make decisionsbased more on numbers than on
themes.
So you might have a really hottheme, but everything in that
theme might be overvalued so youdon't necessarily want to do
that or highly overvalued.
(23:53):
Plus, you know high beta, soit's subject to dramatic
movement if the market goes down.
So you know you want to becareful about themes and not be
really misled by them.
And that's where, by the way,steve, you and I often poke fun
(24:13):
at or criticize CNBC and CNBC.
They try to come up with thingsto talk about and they often
talk about themes and they oftentalk about themes.
And so I think you need to bevery careful about being misled
by themes.
I'm not saying avoid stocksthat fall under themes.
(24:37):
I'm just saying don't allocatea large portion of your
investment money to themes.
Steve Davenport (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think, balance, diversification
.
I mean I think that when I lookat what Marcus is saying, what
you're saying, there is a lot ofsimilarities but there are
unique.
I think Marcus is taking alittle more behavioral.
You're thinking aboutallocation to a theme and saying
, okay, I know I should have AIexposure, but should I have 20%,
(25:07):
30%, 50%?
I think we're getting into someof the granularity that we need
to help people, which is, Ithink, yes, you should think
about.
If you are in the softwarebusiness and you are looking
every day at different databasesand you start to see certain
companies dominate, then, yeah,you might want to take a certain
(25:28):
amount and say, here's mysoftware theme, here's my.
You know, and I encouragepeople to invest in what they're
comfortable with.
Because if you invest insomething and you say, hey, we
keep using more and more ofthese databases, ultimately you
know Oracle's going to make somemoney, Right?
I think that's a helpful goingto make some money, Right?
I think that's a helpful way toget people comfortable with
(25:50):
names.
Clem Miller (25:52):
And just to be very brief, I think a lot of people,
you know, because of thesethemes, they want to be able to
talk about particular stocks totheir friends and at parties and
whatnot.
So they'll say I'm in NVIDIAand made so much money.
Well, you know, nvidia is notnecessarily the end.
All to be all, there are someissues with that.
(26:15):
So, just like people talk aboutcrypto too, yeah, I mean
everybody at a party.
Steve Davenport (26:20):
You know you own an index, you own NVIDIA, so
it's kind of I think a lot ofpeople the party talk and the
you know they're kind of signalsto me that this person you know
wants to talk about.
I'd rather talk you know what Imean to people and say have you
talked to your kids about money?
Have you talked to your niecesand nephews?
(26:42):
Like cause, I look at thepeople that we can touch in this
world.
I'm married to a woman who hasvery strong opinions and she
will tell me when she thinksthis is a good idea or a bad
idea good investment, badinvestment and she's got very
good reasons.
So I think that the fact thatwe talk about things and address
(27:05):
things, I think there's a bigshroud around money and it's
like you know, sex, politics,money are things that some
people look at as not to bediscussed because they're going
to ask uncomfortable questionsabout well, what have you done
dad, what have you done mom?
And if they, for whateverreason, haven't had a great
(27:25):
experience, you know you don'twant that next generation to
have a similar.
So I think it's interesting how,as we go forward, marcus is a
younger investment investor thanwe are.
We're not going to get into howmuch younger, but he's, and I
think it's, you know, and it'ssmart in my mind to be more
(27:46):
values focused and try to bemore personal, because I think
that this is personal finance,it's not institutional.
You're not going to have to own22% in China in order to be
balanced with the MSCI WorldIndex.
You should be invested inthings with the MSCI World Index
, you should be invested inthings.
(28:07):
And this kind of leads me toour looking at the future in
investing.
I mean, marcus, do you want totalk to me a little bit about
your Carolina idea?
Marcus Sturdivant (28:16):
I do, yeah, sure, so yeah, and this is like
early stages, just thoughts, butI think it could be a really
good thing.
I was talking to Steve about ita few months ago, a couple of
weeks ago.
I want to build a portfoliobased on companies in North and
South Carolina or withheadquarters in North and South
(28:38):
Carolina, large workforces inNorth and South Carolina.
You can literally build out abalanced portfolio with probably
30 or 40 positions just basedoff of the companies that work
in North Carolina or are basedin North Carolina and have it
pretty based in all theindustries as well.
I mean, we have, you know, weeven have, like you know, we
have trainings coming throughwith CFX type things.
We have a lot of financials.
(28:59):
Obviously, you go across theborder.
You have Boeing, bmw right downthere, we have Honeywell,
lowe's, we have just all kindsof companies right around here,
not to mention all the techstuff is right up there.
You got Microsoft offices upthere, you have Apple offices up
here.
So that would be broad.
But if you want to bring itdown just to like straight North
Carolina based companies, like,say, you have the Bank of
America, you have Ally, you havenot Ally.
(29:19):
You have Truist, you have thesebanks that are just right here.
So, yeah, pretty excited, Ithink I'm going to build that
out.
People will like investing.
Well, I think people will likeinvesting in things that they
can see, places where they work,places they can go to in their
own local home, local community.
There are a lot of small cap,mid cap companies right around
here.
(29:39):
You got companies like smurffit right across the border, so
they're just like a lot oflittle value growth
opportunities.
I guess that's the oxymoron.
But right inside opportunitiesfor growth inside value, right
inside North Carolina.
Steve Davenport (29:54):
So I think it's a great idea.
I mean, I, I look at people andsay, and they, their company,
may offer them to buy shares andthey may have a position in
something.
But it is a nice feeling to goover and say, hey, look at that,
you know.
Look at that warehouse, youknow.
Look at how many people arehere.
Look at the.
You know, every time I come,the parking lot is full.
(30:16):
I'm originally from Boston andPeter Lynch had a book about you
know, one up on Wall Street,where he talked about you should
figure out what things you'rebuying and what things you're
interested in and therefore thethings you're going to feel like
you have some knowledge.
I mean, I've started to kind oflook at.
I mean I'm a value investor andI'm looking at the gap and I'm
(30:39):
like you know, these clothes arepretty good.
This is, you know, like thereis something here.
And it's much more interestingwhen you can take a company and
you can look at their materialsand look at how they price
things and look at how they'remarketing and they're connecting
via the web or via, you know,emails and texts and say this
(31:01):
company has, you know, an upperend brand Banana Republic a
lower-end brand Old Navy.
There's somebody that youshould think about and I love
the idea that you try to combinethem for people and have
conversations about companies,because ultimately, people
believe in people, believe inpeople and ultimately, if you
(31:24):
can make it a personal you knowknowledge and experience then
you're not going to be scaredoff by.
You know if what's his nameRaging Kitty or Roaring Kitty.
If Roaring Kitty says sell, youknow your GameStop stock and you
were just in the store, youmight say, well, I don't know, I
(31:44):
kind of believe I should justhold it.
I have such a low price, it'sdone well, maybe it's going to
go through a period, but I lovethe idea of us trying to make
investing simpler and trying tomake it more relevant to
people's lives, because I thinkthat when you say to people,
just own the whole index ofpeople's lives, because I think
(32:06):
that when you say to people,just own the whole index, just
own the whole.
You know all 500 names, they'reall good for you.
And you kind of look at it andsay I don't know if I like Smith
and Wesson, I don't know if I,like you know, this drug company
, I don't know if I, like you,know.
I think that we're missing someof the human element when we
just tell people buy the index,and I think that part of the
(32:28):
human element could be astrength.
If you get people to reallyadopt your ideas and thoughts,
then I think you end up with astronger portfolio.
Marcus Sturdivant (32:41):
Yeah, and just going back on one of the
points that we made a little bitearlier, one of the things that
I wish people would not do.
So I wish people wouldn'tinvest based on their political
beliefs.
It's different, like you said.
It's different than investingon a belief like you don't want
to own guns or you don't want toown tobacco.
You might own tobacco becauseyour dad died of lung cancer.
(33:02):
Right, it might be somethingpersonal like that.
But to just like alienate halfof the companies because you're
red or blue, you're going tomiss.
That's not.
You got to get that stuff outof your mind when you're
investing.
Steve Davenport (33:19):
Yeah, cash flows and dividends make me
excited.
I'm not sure the politicalviews of the leaders necessarily
are as exciting as dividendrates and cash flows.
What do you?
Clem Miller (33:32):
think, tom, well, you know, on that point about
politics and I guess you couldsay ESG and sustainability and
all that I mean, I got a youknow not insignificant portion
in Philip Morris which has beenan outstanding stock over the
last you know period of time.
(33:53):
So that stock has done verywell for me.
And you know, on top of itthey've diversified too.
So you know you can look at itfrom that perspective as well,
diversified from tobacco to someextent.
So you know you can look at itfrom that perspective as well,
diversified from tobacco to someextent.
(34:30):
I was going to ask you beforeyou mentioned the politics, I
was going to ask you, you know,some people have a lot of stock
exposure to their own companiesvis-a-vis their bonus plans and
whatnot.
And you know, I'm reminded,I've got a person I know who
works for, has worked for yearsand years and years with
UnitedHealthcare and they justlost four years of value and
they're now over 65.
So what are they going to do,right?
I mean, how do you, how, whatdo you recommend to folks who
(34:50):
you know are highly exposed totheir own company through these
stock plans, these bonus plans?
Marcus Sturdivant (34:57):
Another great , another great question.
So whether it be so if thereare issues where they're like
vesting on schedule.
I actually had thisconversation with a client a
couple of weeks ago.
He had a lot of stock just inhis personal company and I
explained to him that, okay, soyou and your wife both work, but
let's say your wife didn't workand all your income came from
(35:21):
this company.
All your stock is in thiscompany.
It's so much risk you lose yourjob with this company.
That's stock is in this company.
It's so much risk you lose yourjob with this company.
That's your income, right, ifthe stock price goes down in
this company, that's a lot ofincome, like you said with the
Unite Health example.
So that example, these peopleyou want to sell some of these
stocks, but you want to sellthem, you know, probably at a
shorter capital gains exposure,or you want to sell them as soon
(35:44):
as you get them right.
You don't want to sit there andlet them grow and have time to
be volatile with the market andthen you can take the assets I'm
not trying to give investmentstrategy, I guess I kind of am
and then you can diversifyoutside of that by investing
other equities or just having itin cash if you want to feel
safer.
But yeah, you definitely.
You run across several risksfrom single stock exposure like
(36:07):
that.
Even in a situation whereyou're both spouses are working,
if one spouse loses that joband it's at the company with the
company stock, if that personworked at United Healthcare and
lost their job, unitedHealthcare stock went from $600
to $300, like it just did in thelast year or so.
That's really going to storeyour portfolio, especially at 65
(36:30):
.
Steve Davenport (36:33):
Yeah, I think that's great advice.
So I guess I'd like to kind ofwrap by saying what do you think
today's environment is tellingyou and what is it telling you
to buy right now?
In terms of, if you looked atit from an educational
standpoint?
We're not recommending anystocks to buy, but we're just
(36:54):
saying the things that are goingon in the market make me want
to own.
And my answer, as I'll go first, is I think dividends and good
dividend payers are going to bea way for you to insulate
yourself from some of what Ithink is going to be a volatile
time with the Fed.
I think the Fed is looking toavoid inflation, but I think
(37:18):
they're also looking to lowerrates because that will please
the political and I just thinkthat interest rates are going to
move and I don't havenecessarily a real good feeling.
Dividends there's a realdiscipline in the market where
you say, hey, I'm covering mydividend three times.
That company is pretty safewith that dividend.
(37:41):
You've got others that arepaying a 9% dividend and you
know they're not sustainablewith their cash flow.
Avoid those dividends.
But I think having some realhigh quality dividend payers
particularly in my mind in thehealthcare space, because I look
at us and I think the US stillhas.
We have a debt problem, but wealso have a health problem and
(38:05):
as we address these problems, Ithink that that space is going
to get more money and moreinterest, and I just think it's
a good place for you to hide out, still get growth and still get
a good dividend yield.
What do you think of the markettoday, marcus?
Marcus Sturdivant (38:21):
Gotcha.
So the market today is sodynamic, so fluid, like we spoke
about before.
I took the approach a couple ofmonths ago.
A few months ago, like I saidearlier, I just stopped
listening to all this stuff,pretended I went to Mars.
I stopped listening to stuffthe outside noise with
investment when I saw how themarket will move in the morning
(38:42):
on the tariff talks, then justgo right back to where it was.
Trading's different.
I'm working with peopleinvesting.
We're not really trading.
That would be a different story.
So what I'm looking to invest in, like you said, off of the
dividends, are quality companies, right, so you have quality
companies and paying a dividendis usually a sign of that.
But I want companies that have,like you said, strong balance
sheets.
Like you said, strong balancesheets, I want companies that
(39:05):
have been here for a while.
I want companies that, if theyaren't paying a high dividend or
if their stock prices kind ofstand where it is, they're at
least like returning equity toshareholders.
In other ways, they're buyingbad their stocks.
A lot of companies that pop outtheir stocks like go ahead and
buy it back.
That's fine for investingpurposes, right, because you buy
it back, you're getting itcheaper for me and when it comes
time to uh the returns, it's abeautiful thing.
(39:26):
As far as sectors that I like,like you said, we're not going
to just pick any stocks.
I love cybersecurity.
I've said that since thebeginning of the year.
Cybersecurity is like.
I feel it's like AI, jason.
As AI goes up, you have to haveas much cybersecurity to
protect.
You have people out here withthese AI fakes, with people
(39:46):
integrating systems andransomware, spyware.
All this is just attacking.
So cybersecurity and then,right now, defense as well.
So the ITA is a good defensefor me, not a recommendation,
but it's a good defense for me.
Steve Davenport (40:05):
Nice Glenn, how about you?
Clem Miller (40:09):
Well, I don't disagree with anything that
either of you just said.
I do tend to take a more quantapproach, at least to screening,
and you know the threequantitative indicators that I
tend to look at and there's sortof a fourth one too that I
(40:31):
sometimes look at.
But the three are shortinterest.
I generally want to have lowershort interest because that
tells me the sentiment is atleast okay, if not pretty good,
about a stock investor sentimentor sentiment by short sellers
(40:51):
who are trying to make a lot ofmoney on stocks that go poorly.
Secondly, I want to have lowerpeg ratios, forward peg ratios,
and you know it's always aquestion of how high you want to
go on that or allow yourself togo on that.
You know, do you allow yourselfto go to two?
Three, I mean, how high do youallow yourself to go right?
(41:12):
One is too tight.
You know which is thetraditional.
Three is I want to try tocontrol the beta of my portfolio
.
I don't want a beta that's overone.
You know I'll have a number oflower beta stocks.
I'll have some higher betastocks.
You know I don't want to have aportfolio beta that's higher
(41:33):
than one.
You know.
Preferably, you know, a littlelower than one is what I want.
And then the fourth one that Itend to look at at times,
although I found it to be, youknow, overall less a little bit
less useful, are, you know,employee ratings through
Glassdoor.
And I see Glassdoor as employeeratings of a company, as sort
(42:03):
of a quality proxy, and probablymore so than the kinds of
quality proxies a lot of peopleuse, like you know, return on
equity and so on, or lower debt.
I tend to look at employeeratings.
I think a high employee ratingGlassdoor is on a one to zero to
(42:26):
five scale over four isfantastic, over, you know, 3.5
is great, and you start gettingbelow 3.5, then I start, then I
start to worry a bit.
But even there, even there,sectors you know to some degree
determine ratings.
I mean, how high a glass doorrating can you get for, like an
(42:48):
RSG, which is a garbage company,right?
So you have to, you have to bemindful of differences among
sectors, but I do look at thatas a quality measure.
Steve Davenport (43:01):
I think that's great.
I mean, I think everybody'smade some great comments today
and I want to wrap it up andgive everybody one last chance
for any comments, comments.
My comment to be right now isthat I believe that the
volatility we're seeing in thisceasefire calming things down is
(43:22):
temporary.
I don't see these situationsmaintaining any kind of
semblance of normality.
We still have a huge problem inthe Ukraine.
Although Europe has spent a lotof money on defense, which is
good for our portfolios, I thinkEurope spending more and more
money on defense might be aself-fulfilling prophecy, right?
(43:44):
Because I think that if youlook at its enemies, its enemies
would say, well, yeah, they'regoing to start to get militarily
busy.
If I'm going to move on someone, do I wait for them to get
fully armed and attack, or do Istep in front of that?
And so I think that you know,unity is great and I think that
(44:06):
the peace in Israel and Iran, Iwould like to see it last.
But I would just say to peopleyou're the best judge of your
own portfolio and the risk youwant to take, and if you want to
take a little less risk, take alittle less risk.
I'm not saying sell everythingbut I'm saying to make sure you
look at your risks and make sureyou understand what you're
(44:27):
taking and why and how theyalign with your personal goals.
How about you, marcus?
Any last notes?
How?
Marcus Sturdivant (44:34):
they align with your personal goals.
How about you, marcus?
Any last notes?
Yeah, so one of the main thingsthat I try to do is help Main
Street meet Wall Street right,like.
So get things simplified foryou.
Like, don't try to jump intofancy, complicated investment
strategies or just go with thefastest thing going on the
internet.
I like to give people a littleperspective when they're trying
(44:56):
new things and kind of thinkabout even with, like, the
crypto, people are going to buywhat they want to buy.
Sometimes They'll have a littleportion outside there.
If you got to satisfy thatniche, satisfy that itch, spend
no more than you would spend ona nice dinner for two or maybe
going out to a professionalsporting event.
(45:16):
Don't go all in on any like uh,clem said thematic issue.
Clem Miller (45:24):
So just think before you invest that's great,
well any final notes no, I thinkwe covered a lot of territory
today.
Marcus and Steve, I think thishas been a great podcast.
Steve Davenport (45:38):
All right, thanks everybody, and please
keep listening to us.
We've got Rich Weiss, who isgoing to join us for a podcast
also today, and we are trying tobring you what you need, so
text us, like us, share us, andwe look forward to trying to
help you going forward.
(45:59):
So, everybody, have a good dayand stay out of the heat and
have another glass of ArnoldPalmer's.
Be good Bye.
Hello everyone and welcome to Skeptic's Guide
to Investing.
I'm here with my partner, clemMiller, and we've got a special
guest today, marcus Sturtevant,who is an investment advisor
here in Charlotte for a firmcalled ABC Squared.
I've met Marcus at a TitanInvestors Group meeting, and
(00:24):
Marcus and I both had the goodtaste to both be wearing Air
Jordans I was wearing green lowsand he was wearing highs and so
we were the only people in thegroup who seemed to understand
that we should be in sneakersnow and that the age of wingtips
and fancy leather shoes haspassed us by.
(00:46):
But I really enjoy talking toMarcus because I think he brings
a different perspective and Ilike the fact that you know he's
an RIA starting out, and Ithink that when we look at
people, we want to understandwhere they came from, but we
also want to understand wherethey're going.
We want to understand wherethey came from, but we also want
(01:07):
to understand where they'regoing, and I think it's
important to welcome people andcooperate because, believe me,
with these markets andeverything that's going on in
terms of our country, I thinkit's good to have some other
voices and some other inputs totry to make sense of it, and
I've always believed that youare the strength of your network
(01:28):
and if you have a strongnetwork, your ability to handle
some of these things and getgood advice and go to good
places for your clients improves.
So, marcus, will you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
how you got into the financialadvising or into this space?
Marcus Sturdivant (01:48):
Yeah, hey, first off let me say thanks to
you two skeptics, clem and Steve, for having me on.
I'm very excited to come on andjust talk a little bit.
Yeah, like you said earlier,I'm from Charlotte, so I'm a
local guy down here in NorthCarolina.
These heat waves that we'reexperiencing I'm used to them I
guess as used to them as you canget.
But I grew up down here in theSouth, grew up just, you know,
(02:11):
just, my parents got divorcedwhen I was young, so I grew up
in a single parent home but witha lot of family, so community
type environment, grew uptogether.
We grew up.
We didn't grow up rich but wedidn't realize we weren't rich.
We had gaps filling otherthings.
We were so loved, we were soinvolved one another.
We just didn't know what wedidn't have, what we didn't have
(02:32):
.
But what was missing wasfinancial literacy.
Now, those were conversationswe didn't have at the dinner
table and we had a lot ofdinners together, massive group
stands, we sit down and eat, butwe never really talked about
financial literacy.
I first got inclined tobusiness and financial literacy
in school.
I took a course in ninth grade,an intro to business class, and
(02:54):
it just kind of sparked myinterest.
As far as business goes, I'vealways been
entrepreneurial-minded.
I started selling.
I went and bought a gumballmachine when I was five.
Five and sell the candy to thekids, like my cousins.
Like, put coins in there, youget the money back from it.
So I always have my thinkingthat type of way, like I will
pull their teeth for likequarters, like when they were
really loose, just always justhad a mind and I started working
(03:16):
.
I was like 14.
So, as I said, my mom was.
She supported me.
So I've always been earningmoney, thinking about the next
day.
But when I look in those, Ishould have been investing that
money at that time.
Life will look a lot differentby now, right?
So as far as financial literacy, that's a gap I've been looking
to fill.
Right.
(03:38):
Went to school, went to college,played a little football, had a
son at a young age.
So I stopped going to school,went back into the workforce,
got your you know your standard401k target date fund I didn't
know any better invest into it,just filled out the form.
It was paper batman, so justfilled out paper form or whatnot
.
But it was a small business.
So I learned a lot workingthere as well, like small
(04:00):
business, and the people whoowned it were great.
They taught everyone.
So I went there from in highschool literally like sweeping
the floors, clean up tables toeventually being general manager
of several different locations.
So 12-ish years ago, I decidedyou know, it's time to like,
really look at what my money'sin.
You know these target datefunds, start to pay more
(04:21):
attention to what's actuallyinvested in.
Just like, really fell in lovewith the markets, just the.
You know these target datefunds, starting to pay more
attention to what it's actuallyinvested in just like, really
fell in love with the markets.
Just the way they work.
It's a little bit before DonaldTrump.
President Trump really sparkeda lot of people, I guess, into
investing, for better or forworse, however it may be, but it
definitely caught my attentionjust hearing how people are
always speaking about businessand investing, and I already had
(04:42):
a spark for it.
I already spent some time inschool.
Oh, not to mention, during thistime, I went back to school,
got my associates, got myundergrad and got my master's.
So all this time has beenbuilding, went into the
investment world under a biggerfirm.
We were focused on financialplanning, loved it.
I absolutely loved it.
Man, loved helping people.
(05:04):
I loved seeing the changes.
I love working with the folksand helping them become more
educated and what we're doing,because you have to understand
where your money's going, howyour money works eventually um,
that uh position was on site mysister-in-law, my life situation
just kind of changed fromsickness to life.
(05:25):
Life happens.
I just needed to be here moreoften.
Also, at the same time, I wasstarting to commit more time to
the Chasm Foundation in NorthCarolina, a local nonprofit
focused on financial literacy.
So, as you know, steve, youknow Clem, in the wire house
type world you have to.
There are certain things youhave to do right To make it
(05:45):
financially work for them, makeit financially work for you.
And I was at the age where itwas just like I have knowledge,
I have skills, I actually have acertain way.
I want to work with people, Iwant to work with a certain kind
of people that I want to workwith, because that's the best
way to make it work.
And yeah, so earlier this yearI launched my own firm, so
(06:09):
primarily focused on financialliteracy with clients, but
obviously we do the investment,the planning.
I like to take a look at theholistic financial planning.
So launched the abc squared andwe've been going ever since so
marcus, uh, abc squared.
Clem Miller (06:21):
Where did you get that title from that name?
Marcus Sturdivant (06:26):
Right, right, gotcha, gotcha, so all right.
So earlier the ABC Squaredactually had.
I actually launched another LLCa few years ago.
It was called the ABC kind oflike Square, because I'm like an
analytical type guy, right,that's the way my brain works.
So I just want to make sure Ihave, in the doing businesses,
(06:49):
all bases covered.
So I just want to make surethat we're checking everything
more than twice and that we haveall your bases covered.
So that's kind of where the ABCcome in and then it's square.
Sometimes you'll even see alist as the ABC square, square
(07:10):
it says the ABC square square.
Steve Davenport (07:11):
I like that, Marcus.
I mean, what I think about thisbusiness is it's full of a lot
of great people and a lot ofthose people have 10 clients, 50
clients, 100 clients, whateverthe number is, but they have a
lot of people in their livesthat they also impact besides
their clients, and to me, that'staking what you have, your
skill set, and using it for good, and ultimately, that's what
(07:33):
you know.
I think we all you know we wantour clients to be happy, we
want them to be comfortable, wewant them to be doing and saving
money for the things that areimportant to them and for every
person.
Geez, is that the three youngkids?
Is that the school I went toand I feel very proud that they
supported me and I got a degreeand they helped my life
(07:56):
immensely.
Or is it the local church?
As long as you can help peopleto see their dreams and
realities, I think that you knowthat's a great place for us to
be, and I think finances is apart of your life.
Or you know something thateverybody has to eventually deal
with.
(08:16):
I mean, when I look at you, Iwonder, like, do you have, like,
your top three mistakes thatpeople make?
And then you know, how do they,how do the, how do you see
people and say, boy, if I couldchange these three things, what
(08:36):
would you know?
What would it be?
Marcus Sturdivant (08:39):
Gotcha.
Yeah, great point, greatquestion.
Well, one of the first thingsthat would definitely be is
where people are actuallyspending their money.
Like people I talk to people,everyone I talk to I don't work
with.
I have friends who I talk towho I don't work with, just in
general conversation.
I don't judge people.
I don't.
They know what I do, we knowwhat to do.
But I'll see people who willspend one hundred dollars on
(09:02):
lottery tickets or playingparlay bets on online, but tell
me the stock market is fixed.
I'm just like, yeah, you know,like that's that's huge, right,
like that's a big one, right?
So just just, yeah, just goingwith that to start for more,
right, so you have that.
(09:24):
Then you have people who don'treally understand their cash
flow at all.
Right, they're getting themoney.
They're spending it before theygot it.
It's already accounted for.
They're spending it before it'seven in the bank, before
they've even earned it, right?
So cash flow, what you'reactually spending your money on.
And then people just, one ofthe other biggest mistakes is
(09:44):
people not realizing that thereis help for them with their
money, regardless of theirincome level.
There are resources that peoplecan help you become more
literate with your money.
Some are free, some cost a fee,but there are resources.
Steve Davenport (10:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think those are great ideas and
I always look at people and Ithink of them.
As you know, they have torealize they're like a small
corporation, right?
They've got their human capitaland it's going to be used in
the next 40 years for someactivity in the marketplace and
it's going to create revenue,and then that revenue becomes
(10:23):
you know where do you want toput it?
Do you want to put it to takecare of that body and take care
of that mind and make sure itfunctions well so that you
perform your best at work?
Do they want to, you know, findsome time for you know, stress
reduction and do some meditationand prayer?
I believe that we all are theseinternal like if you manage your
(10:46):
business or your life.
There's a lot of similaritiesto a small business, and I think
one of the things is goodwill,and so that's why I believe that
this whole effort to try to dogood things for other people, I
don't think of it as much as aburden as an opportunity,
(11:07):
because if I can get goodwillfrom this person, this person
and this person, and they sharea post of mine online and
they've got 30,000 followers, Icouldn't pay for that marketing
slash input in other people'slives.
And so, to me, as long asyou're enhancing like you've
(11:29):
obviously invested in yourselfhigh school, college, master's
degree I think you might be alsoworking on your CFP.
It's a sign of a good person tome that they are continually
trying to get better, and that'skind of one of the most
important aspects of being anadvisor is guess what Like when
(11:53):
we booked this call, I thoughtwe were going to talk about X.
Now, three weeks later, we'vegot bombs flying in the Middle
East and we've got questionsabout a tariff deadline coming
and we got the big beautifulbill.
The world changed.
I mean three weeks.
It's a different, you know, andI think that you know.
(12:16):
I think it's important that youknow.
You try to continually makeyourself better.
What do you think, plunk?
Clem Miller (12:23):
Well, I was just yeah, I totally agree with
everything you said.
I was going to ask Marcus.
You know, as you were talking,steve, I was going to ask Marcus
what of the people you talk toclients or people you're trying
to educate what do you think isthe typical timeframe they're
(12:44):
considering?
Is it six months, right?
Is it 25 years?
I mean, what is the typicaltimeframe that these folks are
thinking about?
Marcus Sturdivant (13:00):
That's a really that's a great question,
right?
So we have to even go like astep back further with that.
Right, we have to start withall these conversations, even
when we're doing so with Kaizen.
We'll do classes where we teachpeople financial literacy.
We outreach sources you got.
You have to start with mindset,right, so you figure out what
your mindset is with theseinvestments and then you can
(13:20):
figure out your goals.
Right, because all those goals,those timeframes, are going to
be different.
Right, if I'm sitting here andI'm talking to someone because
the clients range in ages, right, Some clients may be the same
age.
I have a household, severalhouseholds.
One may be 60.
They all may be 60, right, onehas X amount of money in the
bank on track to retire.
(13:42):
If you were just to think aboutthe other person's, the same age
and has nothing set up forretirement, right, so they're
thinking totally different.
Right, they're both thinkingfive years for retirement, but
to get there is much different.
The people who are playingparlays and lottery tickets,
(14:03):
they're not thinking past thenext bet, probably.
So it's just the wide range.
But mindset and having a timeframe, right, you have to
establish what short term whenwe talk about short term.
Ok, we're going to say six to12 months is short term.
Then we're going to talk aboutthe aggregate, you know 18 to 36
months, and then long-term,five years plus.
Clem Miller (14:26):
Do you find that a lot of the people you talk to
take the bucket approach?
You know they've got some cash,they've got some play money and
then they've got somelonger-term investment money.
Do people think that way?
Uh?
Marcus Sturdivant (14:45):
people.
People are usually shocked whenyou show them the bucket method
right, like when you show themlike the actual pre-tax versus
the tax always, I know it's nota bug, but just like the way
that the taxes are broken down,you know, because you pull it
inside the buckets that way asto how you break it out.
Few people ever have roth rightlike, yeah, I think they just
started requiring roth inside of401ks in the last few years.
(15:06):
So there are so many peoplewith all this money pre-tax.
Uh, my parents, for examplethey just retired a few years
ago.
My stepdad, we were talkingabout it.
Their investment strategy wastotally different.
Growing up it was he startedinvesting in the 80s and he just
got cds and he was ladderingwhen those interest rates were
high.
They were just running, justrunning, just running.
They worked 40 years.
He retired from the military,retired from a public job, so he
(15:29):
did those things too and putinto their investment retirement
accounts.
But it just goes to show youcan take a different approach to
it.
But these people most peoplethat I notice are getting hit
with huge tax bills when it'stime to convert because they
aren't thinking about that thirdbucket.
They only see the two bucketsreally.
They see their savings,check-ins, maybe even brokerage
accounts, and then they thinkabout their retirement accounts.
(15:51):
But they don't have thoseallocated out of pre-tax.
So once they get intoretirement yes, you want to
establish that third bucket.
You want to have it beforeretirement.
Yes, you want to have it beforeretirement.
Steve Davenport (16:01):
Yeah, I think that's a great point, marcus,
because I know personally I wasbusy helping other people with
their money and I have a wholebunch of money that's 401k or
re-tax money and I'm trying nowto address it.
But I think it's really easyfor people to say I just want to
know that I'm doing something.
(16:21):
And I felt that way I got mymatch.
I mean, the match is like isfree money important to you?
Okay, go get it.
You know what I mean.
Like to me.
It was that simple If somebodyis going to give me money, I'm
going to try to get as much ofit as I can.
And then, you know it came to.
I mean, what was my big moneyworry was college.
(16:44):
My kids, you know, were doingwell in school and I was sitting
there saying, holy shit, I hopehe doesn't get into, you know,
this school because it's 90grand now.
You know it's like we all wishthe best but we all don't really
.
I mean, when it comes down to it, in these college decisions or
family decisions, or where doyou live, what school system you
(17:07):
go to, you always think you'regoing to make the right decision
.
But guess what, there is noright decision.
There is only the path and youcan.
You're going to have obstacles,you're going to have things in
your way, but you've got toaddress whatever it comes up and
when it comes up.
And I think that if I was toask people to do one thing, it's
(17:29):
be flexible.
Be flexible, adjust, and youknow.
So we got a mailbag item that Ithought of answering, but I
thought maybe we could all tryto answer it, and it says if you
could do three things better toimprove your financial wellness
(17:50):
, what would they be?
What do you think of that,marcus?
I mean, we talked aboutmistakes, but what action would
you like people to take tomorrow, after they listen to this
podcast, to make their financiallives more whole or more
complete?
Marcus Sturdivant (18:09):
The first thing that I like people to do
is figure out exactly wheretheir money is right.
Log into that 401k.
Take a look at it, if you haveone.
Log into your brokerageageaccounts.
Figure out where your money isright.
Know what your money is.
You need to figure out wherethose lazy dollars are.
We all have them.
If we don't address them, thenfigure out your expenses.
(18:31):
Those two, I guess, can go ineither order.
Know where your money's comingin at.
Know where your money's goingout at.
So I guess that, in general,would just be cash flow right,
so back.
So back to cash flow.
People have to understand theircash flow, where your money's
going.
I want people to just learnmore.
There's so many tools andresources out there where people
can learn about financialliteracy or just how their money
(18:54):
works, how the economy works,how everything affects them, but
you have to find the rightsources for that.
This world's so full of socialmedia and TikTok and just full
of places with bad information,disinformation, misinformation,
so you have to make sure thatthe people that you are finding
information from are giving yougood, solid information.
(19:20):
Check your sources and checkthose sources.
Also, I want people to realizeand this is like against human
nature because in general,people make decisions based on
emotion.
But you have to figure out away to take emotions out of
money.
It has study where they blockedoff a part of your brain that
controlled emotions and peoplecouldn't do simple things like
(19:42):
figure out what they wanted toeat.
Emotions play into all of yourdecisions.
So you have to figure out whatyour plan is, why you're
investing and when the timescome and get bumpy and rough, as
the economy will, interestrates will go up, interest rates
will go down, tariffs droppingbombs.
But if you were to have beendropped off, you know, if you
(20:07):
went to space on April 8th andcame back today and just looked
at the markets, you wouldn'thave known all this madness
going on in between.
So you got to look past thatstuff, block out the noise and
look past that.
Steve Davenport (20:21):
So I think that's great advice.
I mean I, as I mentionedearlier, I think of human
capital as a thing to invest andkeep investing in yourself.
But I think you're.
I mean, glenn, I don't know howwe we look at being skeptical
about numbers and about firmsand about ideas, but we really
(20:42):
haven't focused as much on you.
Know how do we take the threeworst behaviors and try to how
do we get the three bestbehaviors out of people?
Because really, the money, itkind of comes along for the ride
Once you decide, hey, I thinkretirement's important, I need
to address it.
(21:02):
I mean, once you get thatbehavior and say, and you can
train people or help people totry to use less emotion, I mean,
what do you think are the threethings people should do better?
Plum.
Clem Miller (21:15):
Well, I think my top three, and I think there's
more than three for me, okay.
Steve Davenport (21:24):
Let's just say, people have short attention
spans, but let's pretend theyonly can think about three items
.
I mean, maybe, maybe it'shigher, but maybe it's four, but
I'll give you three to four.
Clem Miller (21:34):
So the first thing you should do is make sure you
don't have any unsecured debt,except beyond 30 days, I mean
except under 30 days.
So no unsecured debt.
So if you got unsecured debt,man, pay it down.
Right, pay it down.
(21:56):
One of the problems withunsecured debt that a lot of
people don't realize is if youmiss a payment or you're late on
a payment, that rate can zipright up really high.
So do not take or you know,unsecured debt, pay it down.
I think the second mistake thatpeople can make and this is a
(22:17):
relatively recent, last 10 years, five years kind of mistake is
to think that crypto is actuallyan investment and not a bet,
and I know that some peoplemight disagree with me on that,
but I think that things likeBitcoin are a way to lose a lot
(22:40):
of money and certainly they'rehighly volatile and, depending
on where you invest it, uhsubject to fraud and uh, you
know, being uh ripped offcriminally and so on.
So avoid crypto.
So that would be my second one.
Uh, my third one would be to bevery uh skeptical of uh, you
(23:08):
know, themes.
You know we all talk aboutthemes, but I think we need to
be sort of skeptical aboutthemes and not kind of put all
of our money into one thematicbasket.
(23:31):
Thematic basket and obviouslythe way you avoid putting all
your money in a thematic basketis to look at the underlying
numbers and to make decisionsbased more on numbers than on
themes.
So you might have a really hottheme, but everything in that
theme might be overvalued so youdon't necessarily want to do
that or highly overvalued.
(23:53):
Plus, you know high beta, soit's subject to dramatic
movement if the market goes down.
So you know you want to becareful about themes and not be
really misled by them.
And that's where, by the way,steve, you and I often poke fun
(24:13):
at or criticize CNBC and CNBC.
They try to come up with thingsto talk about and they often
talk about themes and they oftentalk about themes.
And so I think you need to bevery careful about being misled
by themes.
I'm not saying avoid stocksthat fall under themes.
(24:37):
I'm just saying don't allocatea large portion of your
investment money to themes.
Steve Davenport (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think, balance, diversification
.
I mean I think that when I lookat what Marcus is saying, what
you're saying, there is a lot ofsimilarities but there are
unique.
I think Marcus is taking alittle more behavioral.
You're thinking aboutallocation to a theme and saying
, okay, I know I should have AIexposure, but should I have 20%,
(25:07):
30%, 50%?
I think we're getting into someof the granularity that we need
to help people, which is, Ithink, yes, you should think
about.
If you are in the softwarebusiness and you are looking
every day at different databasesand you start to see certain
companies dominate, then, yeah,you might want to take a certain
(25:28):
amount and say, here's mysoftware theme, here's my.
You know, and I encouragepeople to invest in what they're
comfortable with.
Because if you invest insomething and you say, hey, we
keep using more and more ofthese databases, ultimately you
know Oracle's going to make somemoney, Right?
I think that's a helpful goingto make some money, Right?
I think that's a helpful way toget people comfortable with
(25:50):
names.
Clem Miller (25:52):
And just to be very brief, I think a lot of people,
you know, because of thesethemes, they want to be able to
talk about particular stocks totheir friends and at parties and
whatnot.
So they'll say I'm in NVIDIAand made so much money.
Well, you know, nvidia is notnecessarily the end.
All to be all, there are someissues with that.
(26:15):
So, just like people talk aboutcrypto too, yeah, I mean
everybody at a party.
Steve Davenport (26:20):
You know you own an index, you own NVIDIA, so
it's kind of I think a lot ofpeople the party talk and the
you know they're kind of signalsto me that this person you know
wants to talk about.
I'd rather talk you know what Imean to people and say have you
talked to your kids about money?
Have you talked to your niecesand nephews?
(26:42):
Like cause, I look at thepeople that we can touch in this
world.
I'm married to a woman who hasvery strong opinions and she
will tell me when she thinksthis is a good idea or a bad
idea good investment, badinvestment and she's got very
good reasons.
So I think that the fact thatwe talk about things and address
(27:05):
things, I think there's a bigshroud around money and it's
like you know, sex, politics,money are things that some
people look at as not to bediscussed because they're going
to ask uncomfortable questionsabout well, what have you done
dad, what have you done mom?
And if they, for whateverreason, haven't had a great
(27:25):
experience, you know you don'twant that next generation to
have a similar.
So I think it's interesting how,as we go forward, marcus is a
younger investment investor thanwe are.
We're not going to get into howmuch younger, but he's, and I
think it's, you know, and it'ssmart in my mind to be more
(27:46):
values focused and try to bemore personal, because I think
that this is personal finance,it's not institutional.
You're not going to have to own22% in China in order to be
balanced with the MSCI WorldIndex.
You should be invested inthings with the MSCI World Index
, you should be invested inthings.
(28:07):
And this kind of leads me toour looking at the future in
investing.
I mean, marcus, do you want totalk to me a little bit about
your Carolina idea?
Marcus Sturdivant (28:16):
I do, yeah, sure, so yeah, and this is like
early stages, just thoughts, butI think it could be a really
good thing.
I was talking to Steve about ita few months ago, a couple of
weeks ago.
I want to build a portfoliobased on companies in North and
South Carolina or withheadquarters in North and South
(28:38):
Carolina, large workforces inNorth and South Carolina.
You can literally build out abalanced portfolio with probably
30 or 40 positions just basedoff of the companies that work
in North Carolina or are basedin North Carolina and have it
pretty based in all theindustries as well.
I mean, we have, you know, weeven have, like you know, we
have trainings coming throughwith CFX type things.
We have a lot of financials.
(28:59):
Obviously, you go across theborder.
You have Boeing, bmw right downthere, we have Honeywell,
lowe's, we have just all kindsof companies right around here,
not to mention all the techstuff is right up there.
You got Microsoft offices upthere, you have Apple offices up
here.
So that would be broad.
But if you want to bring itdown just to like straight North
Carolina based companies, like,say, you have the Bank of
America, you have Ally, you havenot Ally.
(29:19):
You have Truist, you have thesebanks that are just right here.
So, yeah, pretty excited, Ithink I'm going to build that
out.
People will like investing.
Well, I think people will likeinvesting in things that they
can see, places where they work,places they can go to in their
own local home, local community.
There are a lot of small cap,mid cap companies right around
here.
(29:39):
You got companies like smurffit right across the border, so
they're just like a lot oflittle value growth
opportunities.
I guess that's the oxymoron.
But right inside opportunitiesfor growth inside value, right
inside North Carolina.
Steve Davenport (29:54):
So I think it's a great idea.
I mean, I, I look at people andsay, and they, their company,
may offer them to buy shares andthey may have a position in
something.
But it is a nice feeling to goover and say, hey, look at that,
you know.
Look at that warehouse, youknow.
Look at how many people arehere.
Look at the.
You know, every time I come,the parking lot is full.
(30:16):
I'm originally from Boston andPeter Lynch had a book about you
know, one up on Wall Street,where he talked about you should
figure out what things you'rebuying and what things you're
interested in and therefore thethings you're going to feel like
you have some knowledge.
I mean, I've started to kind oflook at.
I mean I'm a value investor andI'm looking at the gap and I'm
(30:39):
like you know, these clothes arepretty good.
This is, you know, like thereis something here.
And it's much more interestingwhen you can take a company and
you can look at their materialsand look at how they price
things and look at how they'remarketing and they're connecting
via the web or via, you know,emails and texts and say this
(31:01):
company has, you know, an upperend brand Banana Republic a
lower-end brand Old Navy.
There's somebody that youshould think about and I love
the idea that you try to combinethem for people and have
conversations about companies,because ultimately, people
believe in people, believe inpeople and ultimately, if you
(31:24):
can make it a personal you knowknowledge and experience then
you're not going to be scaredoff by.
You know if what's his nameRaging Kitty or Roaring Kitty.
If Roaring Kitty says sell, youknow your GameStop stock and you
were just in the store, youmight say, well, I don't know, I
(31:44):
kind of believe I should justhold it.
I have such a low price, it'sdone well, maybe it's going to
go through a period, but I lovethe idea of us trying to make
investing simpler and trying tomake it more relevant to
people's lives, because I thinkthat when you say to people,
just own the whole index ofpeople's lives, because I think
(32:06):
that when you say to people,just own the whole index, just
own the whole.
You know all 500 names, they'reall good for you.
And you kind of look at it andsay I don't know if I like Smith
and Wesson, I don't know if I,like you know, this drug company
, I don't know if I, like you,know.
I think that we're missing someof the human element when we
just tell people buy the index,and I think that part of the
(32:28):
human element could be astrength.
If you get people to reallyadopt your ideas and thoughts,
then I think you end up with astronger portfolio.
Marcus Sturdivant (32:41):
Yeah, and just going back on one of the
points that we made a little bitearlier, one of the things that
I wish people would not do.
So I wish people wouldn'tinvest based on their political
beliefs.
It's different, like you said.
It's different than investingon a belief like you don't want
to own guns or you don't want toown tobacco.
You might own tobacco becauseyour dad died of lung cancer.
(33:02):
Right, it might be somethingpersonal like that.
But to just like alienate halfof the companies because you're
red or blue, you're going tomiss.
That's not.
You got to get that stuff outof your mind when you're
investing.
Steve Davenport (33:19):
Yeah, cash flows and dividends make me
excited.
I'm not sure the politicalviews of the leaders necessarily
are as exciting as dividendrates and cash flows.
What do you?
Clem Miller (33:32):
think, tom, well, you know, on that point about
politics and I guess you couldsay ESG and sustainability and
all that I mean, I got a youknow not insignificant portion
in Philip Morris which has beenan outstanding stock over the
last you know period of time.
(33:53):
So that stock has done verywell for me.
And you know, on top of itthey've diversified too.
So you know you can look at itfrom that perspective as well,
diversified from tobacco to someextent.
So you know you can look at itfrom that perspective as well,
diversified from tobacco to someextent.
(34:30):
I was going to ask you beforeyou mentioned the politics, I
was going to ask you, you know,some people have a lot of stock
exposure to their own companiesvis-a-vis their bonus plans and
whatnot.
And you know, I'm reminded,I've got a person I know who
works for, has worked for yearsand years and years with
UnitedHealthcare and they justlost four years of value and
they're now over 65.
So what are they going to do,right?
I mean, how do you, how, whatdo you recommend to folks who
(34:50):
you know are highly exposed totheir own company through these
stock plans, these bonus plans?
Marcus Sturdivant (34:57):
Another great , another great question.
So whether it be so if thereare issues where they're like
vesting on schedule.
I actually had thisconversation with a client a
couple of weeks ago.
He had a lot of stock just inhis personal company and I
explained to him that, okay, soyou and your wife both work, but
let's say your wife didn't workand all your income came from
(35:21):
this company.
All your stock is in thiscompany.
It's so much risk you lose yourjob with this company.
That's stock is in this company.
It's so much risk you lose yourjob with this company.
That's your income, right, ifthe stock price goes down in
this company, that's a lot ofincome, like you said with the
Unite Health example.
So that example, these peopleyou want to sell some of these
stocks, but you want to sellthem, you know, probably at a
shorter capital gains exposure,or you want to sell them as soon
(35:44):
as you get them right.
You don't want to sit there andlet them grow and have time to
be volatile with the market andthen you can take the assets I'm
not trying to give investmentstrategy, I guess I kind of am
and then you can diversifyoutside of that by investing
other equities or just having itin cash if you want to feel
safer.
But yeah, you definitely.
You run across several risksfrom single stock exposure like
(36:07):
that.
Even in a situation whereyou're both spouses are working,
if one spouse loses that joband it's at the company with the
company stock, if that personworked at United Healthcare and
lost their job, unitedHealthcare stock went from $600
to $300, like it just did in thelast year or so.
That's really going to storeyour portfolio, especially at 65
(36:30):
.
Steve Davenport (36:33):
Yeah, I think that's great advice.
So I guess I'd like to kind ofwrap by saying what do you think
today's environment is tellingyou and what is it telling you
to buy right now?
In terms of, if you looked atit from an educational
standpoint?
We're not recommending anystocks to buy, but we're just
(36:54):
saying the things that are goingon in the market make me want
to own.
And my answer, as I'll go first, is I think dividends and good
dividend payers are going to bea way for you to insulate
yourself from some of what Ithink is going to be a volatile
time with the Fed.
I think the Fed is looking toavoid inflation, but I think
(37:18):
they're also looking to lowerrates because that will please
the political and I just thinkthat interest rates are going to
move and I don't havenecessarily a real good feeling.
Dividends there's a realdiscipline in the market where
you say, hey, I'm covering mydividend three times.
That company is pretty safewith that dividend.
(37:41):
You've got others that arepaying a 9% dividend and you
know they're not sustainablewith their cash flow.
Avoid those dividends.
But I think having some realhigh quality dividend payers
particularly in my mind in thehealthcare space, because I look
at us and I think the US stillhas.
We have a debt problem, but wealso have a health problem and
(38:05):
as we address these problems, Ithink that that space is going
to get more money and moreinterest, and I just think it's
a good place for you to hide out, still get growth and still get
a good dividend yield.
What do you think of the markettoday, marcus?
Marcus Sturdivant (38:21):
Gotcha.
So the market today is sodynamic, so fluid, like we spoke
about before.
I took the approach a couple ofmonths ago.
A few months ago, like I saidearlier, I just stopped
listening to all this stuff,pretended I went to Mars.
I stopped listening to stuffthe outside noise with
investment when I saw how themarket will move in the morning
(38:42):
on the tariff talks, then justgo right back to where it was.
Trading's different.
I'm working with peopleinvesting.
We're not really trading.
That would be a different story.
So what I'm looking to invest in, like you said, off of the
dividends, are quality companies, right, so you have quality
companies and paying a dividendis usually a sign of that.
But I want companies that have,like you said, strong balance
sheets.
Like you said, strong balancesheets, I want companies that
(39:05):
have been here for a while.
I want companies that, if theyaren't paying a high dividend or
if their stock prices kind ofstand where it is, they're at
least like returning equity toshareholders.
In other ways, they're buyingbad their stocks.
A lot of companies that pop outtheir stocks like go ahead and
buy it back.
That's fine for investingpurposes, right, because you buy
it back, you're getting itcheaper for me and when it comes
time to uh the returns, it's abeautiful thing.
(39:26):
As far as sectors that I like,like you said, we're not going
to just pick any stocks.
I love cybersecurity.
I've said that since thebeginning of the year.
Cybersecurity is like.
I feel it's like AI, jason.
As AI goes up, you have to haveas much cybersecurity to
protect.
You have people out here withthese AI fakes, with people
(39:46):
integrating systems andransomware, spyware.
All this is just attacking.
So cybersecurity and then,right now, defense as well.
So the ITA is a good defensefor me, not a recommendation,
but it's a good defense for me.
Steve Davenport (40:05):
Nice Glenn, how about you?
Clem Miller (40:09):
Well, I don't disagree with anything that
either of you just said.
I do tend to take a more quantapproach, at least to screening,
and you know the threequantitative indicators that I
tend to look at and there's sortof a fourth one too that I
(40:31):
sometimes look at.
But the three are shortinterest.
I generally want to have lowershort interest because that
tells me the sentiment is atleast okay, if not pretty good,
about a stock investor sentimentor sentiment by short sellers
(40:51):
who are trying to make a lot ofmoney on stocks that go poorly.
Secondly, I want to have lowerpeg ratios, forward peg ratios,
and you know it's always aquestion of how high you want to
go on that or allow yourself togo on that.
You know, do you allow yourselfto go to two?
Three, I mean, how high do youallow yourself to go right?
(41:12):
One is too tight.
You know which is thetraditional.
Three is I want to try tocontrol the beta of my portfolio
.
I don't want a beta that's overone.
You know I'll have a number oflower beta stocks.
I'll have some higher betastocks.
You know I don't want to have aportfolio beta that's higher
(41:33):
than one.
You know.
Preferably, you know, a littlelower than one is what I want.
And then the fourth one that Itend to look at at times,
although I found it to be, youknow, overall less a little bit
less useful, are, you know,employee ratings through
Glassdoor.
And I see Glassdoor as employeeratings of a company, as sort
(42:03):
of a quality proxy, and probablymore so than the kinds of
quality proxies a lot of peopleuse, like you know, return on
equity and so on, or lower debt.
I tend to look at employeeratings.
I think a high employee ratingGlassdoor is on a one to zero to
(42:26):
five scale over four isfantastic, over, you know, 3.5
is great, and you start gettingbelow 3.5, then I start, then I
start to worry a bit.
But even there, even there,sectors you know to some degree
determine ratings.
I mean, how high a glass doorrating can you get for, like an
(42:48):
RSG, which is a garbage company,right?
So you have to, you have to bemindful of differences among
sectors, but I do look at thatas a quality measure.
Steve Davenport (43:01):
I think that's great.
I mean, I think everybody'smade some great comments today
and I want to wrap it up andgive everybody one last chance
for any comments, comments.
My comment to be right now isthat I believe that the
volatility we're seeing in thisceasefire calming things down is
(43:22):
temporary.
I don't see these situationsmaintaining any kind of
semblance of normality.
We still have a huge problem inthe Ukraine.
Although Europe has spent a lotof money on defense, which is
good for our portfolios, I thinkEurope spending more and more
money on defense might be aself-fulfilling prophecy, right?
(43:44):
Because I think that if youlook at its enemies, its enemies
would say, well, yeah, they'regoing to start to get militarily
busy.
If I'm going to move on someone, do I wait for them to get
fully armed and attack, or do Istep in front of that?
And so I think that you know,unity is great and I think that
(44:06):
the peace in Israel and Iran, Iwould like to see it last.
But I would just say to peopleyou're the best judge of your
own portfolio and the risk youwant to take, and if you want to
take a little less risk, take alittle less risk.
I'm not saying sell everythingbut I'm saying to make sure you
look at your risks and make sureyou understand what you're
(44:27):
taking and why and how theyalign with your personal goals.
How about you, marcus?
Any last notes?
How?
Marcus Sturdivant (44:34):
they align with your personal goals.
How about you, marcus?
Any last notes?
Yeah, so one of the main thingsthat I try to do is help Main
Street meet Wall Street right,like.
So get things simplified foryou.
Like, don't try to jump intofancy, complicated investment
strategies or just go with thefastest thing going on the
internet.
I like to give people a littleperspective when they're trying
(44:56):
new things and kind of thinkabout even with, like, the
crypto, people are going to buywhat they want to buy.
Sometimes They'll have a littleportion outside there.
If you got to satisfy thatniche, satisfy that itch, spend
no more than you would spend ona nice dinner for two or maybe
going out to a professionalsporting event.
(45:16):
Don't go all in on any like uh,clem said thematic issue.
Clem Miller (45:24):
So just think before you invest that's great,
well any final notes no, I thinkwe covered a lot of territory
today.
Marcus and Steve, I think thishas been a great podcast.
Steve Davenport (45:38):
All right, thanks everybody, and please
keep listening to us.
We've got Rich Weiss, who isgoing to join us for a podcast
also today, and we are trying tobring you what you need, so
text us, like us, share us, andwe look forward to trying to
help you going forward.
(45:59):
So, everybody, have a good dayand stay out of the heat and
have another glass of ArnoldPalmer's.
Be good Bye.
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