Let's Talk Money

January 12th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I hear the Jones that moving tonight. I like the song. Zach,
you always got a good way of putting some good
music on Good morning, folks, Welcome on this Sunday, January twelfth.
I'm telling you, I don't know if today's your a
lucky day or not. But it's not one of my colleagues.
It's Steve Bouchet here live sitting in the studio with you.

(00:36):
Zach Harri is my longtime producer, and I would love
to talk to you if you have any questions, any
questions whatsoever. The phone lines are open. We had a
great show yesterday, a lot of good questions. There's never
a bad question, folks. I can promise you somebody else,
you know, we have a million listeners out there, and

(00:56):
somebody else will raise their hand and say, boy, I'm
glad she asked that question because I had that on
my mind. So if you have any questions, give us
a call. One eight hundred talk wg Y. That's one
eight hundred eight two five, five nine four nine. So
you know, we have so much to be thankful foreign life.

(01:17):
But I'm telling you, I I watch the news and
I watch what's going on in La and My heart
just aches for all of the people that have lost
loved ones, lost pets, been misplaced, hurt, lost everything they've had,

(01:38):
I mean everything, just to see it disappear in such
a in such a swift way, you know. I just
I'm gonna be making a nice donation later to do
my best. You know, I can't be out there to

(01:59):
help them physically, but if I could, I would. You know.
It's just it's just heart wrenching watching what's going on
out in La. So I guess, I guess in a way, folks,
when when we're not dealing with what La in California
is dealing with, I guess we can count our blessings.

(02:19):
I said a prayer first thing this morning for all
the people in LA, and I do. I you know,
Mother Nature is a she can be fierce at times,
and I'm not sure. Listen, who knows whether these fires
were natural or set by you know, some thug some arsionists.

(02:41):
We don't know either way. Mother nature just spreads it
and is just devastating out there. So my heart goes
out to everybody in LA and I just somehow, some way,
I hope they get a powder brain to really calm
those fires down. If you have any questions today, I

(03:02):
would love, love, love to talk to you one eight
hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eighty two five five
nine four nine. So we closed out, I talked yesterday.
We closed out twenty twenty four. You know, the Santa
Claus rally kind of fizzled as the year got you know,
came to an end. And you know, for the year,

(03:24):
the S and P was up twenty five percent, fifty
seven record closes last year five seven, fifty seven, and
we had the best two year performance since nineteen ninety
seven and nineteen ninety eight. It was just a remarkable year.
I said yesterday, there were a lot of reasons to
you know, be kind of disenchanted. How can it, you know,

(03:48):
how can it happen when you think, you know, just
think of the emotions that went into the presidential election.
We had inflation, we had geopolitical conflicts all around the world,
especially in the Middle the least in Israel and so forth.
And as I said, you know, the S and P
up you know, twenty four twenty five percent with it
is nastack up almost thirty percent, the best two year

(04:11):
period since ninety seven. Ninety eight, and you know, a
lot of a lot of the tech stocks led the way.
Thank god, that's our number one sector that we're invested in.
We're actually overweight in technology. I like technology, and believe me,
I know when they go up, they usually go up
more so than the broad stock market. And I know

(04:33):
when they go down, they go down more than the
broad stock market. And I'm okay with that. We go
to great lengths to explain to our clients and teach
them and educate them that, you know, we we we
have a growth slant on our portfolios. It's one of
the reasons our returns have been stellar. And when the

(04:53):
markets go down, you know, some of our holdings may
go down more than the market. But that's okay. The
market doesn't go down as much as it goes up
if you look. If you look, and I haven't given
this statistic out quite some time in the past forty
five years, forty five years the market was positive thirty

(05:16):
four of those forty five years. The average entry year
drop high to low, peak to trough average year in
year out is about fourteen point one percent. To be exact.
That means that the market will have swings the market
will come off, you know it's high, it'll swing down

(05:38):
fourteen percent on average, and then it goes back up.
And guess what the market's been doing this forever. It
goes back up, it recovers what it lost, and then
it goes on to make new all time highs. It's
a remarkable thing. And I spent some time yesterday saying
why investors should not be afraid of having stocks in

(05:58):
their portfolio is long as they don't have knee jerk
reactions and panic when there's volatility. When you see the
market goes down. So over forty five years, you know
that the market swings fourteen percent. That's on average, some
years more, some years less. But the market swings on

(06:21):
average fourteen percent, and the market was positive thirty four
out of forty five years. So with those statistics, should
you be worried about having stocks in your portfolio? I
don't think so. Give me stocks in my portfolio all
day long. I share with the listening audience often, I'm
an open book. One hundred percent of my investable assets

(06:45):
is invested, just like my client's. The only difference is
we have some clients that are conservative, some growth and income,
some growth and some what we call aggressive. I'm aggressive.
I have one hundred percent of my money in the
stock market, and I'm okay with that. The market goes down,
I believe it or not, folks, I don't look I
know that my investment committee has me in good holdings,

(07:08):
the same holdings that my clients are in. And I
know over the last ten years, the market was down
two out of the ten years. So in twenty eighteen
down four and a half percent. Twenty twenty two we
were down eighteen percent. That was the year with high inflation.
We were dealing with COVID. You know, we just had
a lot on our plate. So two out of ten

(07:30):
years and thirty four out of the last forty five years,
the stock market's been positive. And if you want to
just compare it to bonds, because a lot of people
think bonds are safe. If you look at bonds over
the last ten years, guess what they were down two
out of ten years as well. Twenty twenty one down
almost two percent, twenty twenty two down almost as much

(07:54):
as the broad stock market, down thirteen percent. And if
I go back ten years ago, the market it was flat.
In twenty fifteen, it was flat, in twenty eighteen, So
bond investors didn't make anything. So there's volatility in all
asset classes the key and I don't like to call
it risk, but a lot of people do. So I guess.

(08:15):
Let me call it what a lot of people call
it risk. So is there risk in stocks? I guess
so is there risk in bonds? Absolutely, the same as
in commodities like gold or real estate. There's risk in
all those classes. Let's call it volatility. There's volatility. Those
asset classes go up, those asset classes go down. You

(08:38):
have to be disciplined. You can't get scared out of
the markets. You have to have a long term horizon,
and you have to be well diversified. Now for me,
I'm well diversified. But it's all across stocks. We have growth,
we have value, we have dividend paying stocks. We have
some the Magnificent seven, Magnificent seven. I love the Magnificent seven.

(09:03):
You know, Apple, Navidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tesla. That's
what we consider the Magnificent seven. And they made up
about fifty seven percent of the SMP's market cap gain
in twenty twenty four, you know, twenty twenty three, it
made up about one hundred and eleven percent. And the

(09:25):
winners last year I said it yesterday, Planetary Technologies and
Vistra and Navidia and the losers the dogs Boeing, Intel, Nike, Walgreens,
Boots of Lines. So if you had those dogs, you
lost a lot of money. If you had some of
the magnificent seven in your portfolio, you did pretty good.

(09:45):
Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that at all.
I'm going to take a quick fifteen second break. The
phone lines are open. One eight hundred eight two five
five nine four nine. The phone lines are open, Zach,

(10:09):
and I would love to talk to you. One eight
hundred eight two five five nine four nine. You know,
I made myself a nice cup of tea this morning.
I find I found this tea out of Seattle cinnamon orange,
and you don't need to put honey or sugar or
anything in it. It's it's just a really nice tea,
a little spice to it. And I'm sitting here sipping

(10:32):
on that tea and it tastes pretty good, folks, It
tastes pretty good. So for the week, the markets were down,
and year to date the markets are down. The S
and P was down almost two percent, NASDAK one hundred,
which is QQQ. When you buy QQQ, you're buying the
one hundred largest companies in NASDACK down about two and
a quarter percent. NASDAK Composite as a whole down two

(10:56):
point three percent. Russell two thousand down three and a
half percent. That was the biggest loser. And you know,
I'd like to see that Russell two thousand turn positive
because that means that the entire stock market is taking
part in the rally, and that's really what we want. Now.
It's that Composite year to date down just just about
eight tenths of a percent, the S and P down

(11:19):
nine tenths of a percent, Russell two thousand year to
date down just shy of two percent. So we're not
getting started the way you know, we would like to.
But that's okay. We're only twelve days into the year
and a lot can happen. I'm optimistic. I talked about this.
Actually I've been talking about this for quite some time.

(11:40):
Anybody who's listened to the show and has kind of
read between the lines, they know that I've been optimistic
on the stock market and in hindsight, and I'm not
patting myself on the back. But let me pat myself
on the back. The stock market's been very good to
investors and for the listening audience that kind of took my,

(12:03):
you know, suggestions and had a well diversified portfolio and
had money in stocks and didn't get scared out. Didn't
it panic? They did really well. As I said, the
best two years in the stock market since nineteen ninety
seven and nineteen ninety eight were the last two years.

(12:24):
Or yeah, the last two years twenty twenty three and
twenty twenty four the best in the market since ninety
seven ninety eight. That was the last time we had
two better years. That's pretty good, folks, that's pretty good.
Will there be a correction coming, Absolutely, I guarantee you. Now,
don't ask me when that correction will come, but I

(12:45):
guarantee you there will be another correction. There will be
another bear market, there will be another recession. As I said,
the stock market was up thirty four out of the
last forty five years. Stocks just don't go straight up
to the moon. They kind of make a breather, They correct,
and then they go back up, and then before you

(13:05):
know it, they're making new all time highs. If you
just take the last seventeen years since two thousand and seven,
if you just take the last seventeen years and put
it in perspective, you think of all the headlines, whether
you know, tension with countries, politically motivated, you know, the

(13:29):
cod COVID just not the you know, living daylights out
of us. We were so scared. I mean, you go
back to those days in hindsight, you wonder what to believe,
what not to believe. But COVID really really took a
lot out of us. That was just five years ago,
almost five years ago, when COVID hit the roadmap, when

(13:51):
we learned about COVID, when we realized that COVID, you know,
could could be just as destructive as so many people
said in site. You know, we got over it. We
got through it. Now, COVID is almost like the common flu.
It's you hear a lot of people that get COVID
and they're not dying. You know, some people are unhealthy,

(14:14):
so I don't want to go down that road. But
healthy people aren't dying because of COVID. It's like the
common cold, or worse yet, the flu. And sometimes people
get that. But we've had a lot going on a
lot going on over the last you know, seventeen years,
and you know, if you think about it, with everything

(14:35):
that's going on, I have statistics for the last fifteen years.
Over the last fifteen years, the average return in the
S and P five hundred index was thirteen and a
half percent year in, year out, thirteen and a half percent.
With all that's going on, if you were fortunate enough

(14:56):
to be invested in nastac I keep bringing nastac up,
it's one of our core holdings. Your average return eighteen
and a half percent year in, year out. And if
you want to be invested in bonds, your average return
according to the ICE Shares Aggregate Bond ETF, which is

(15:16):
really the proxy for bonds, that's like the SMP for stocks,
two point one nine percent. Two point one nine percent
was your average return. For those of you that are
are invested in overseas stocks, which we are not. We
don't have we don't have one foreign holding. We've made

(15:37):
a lot of good money for our clients investing in
this great country of ours. So think about it. The
S and P up up thirteen and a half percent
year in year out. The same time, horizon four point
eight nine percent for basically the developed world. And if

(15:58):
you want to look at emerging markets the same time horizon,
the S and P thirteen and a half percent year
in year out. If you were invested in emerging markets,
your average return was one point eight percent. So you know,
as I said, we have not been invested in foreign

(16:19):
investments for quite some time. Thank god. Now I can't
sit here and say we'll never get back in them.
On paper, I can give you a lot of reasons
why they look appealing, but I have no desire to
be invested in foreign stocks. I just I just gave
those statistics. And for the gold bugs out there, if

(16:40):
if if you feel that you know gold was the
place to be the same fifteen year period, your average
return five point four nine percent. So there you have it.
So our stocks a bad place to be invested. I
don't think so, not over time, not with the statistics
that I gave you. And I'm not here. Listen. I

(17:02):
get paid the same whether our clients are one hundred
percent in FDIC insured CDs, treasury bonds, gold, real estate,
or stocks. I get paid to give prudent advice to
our clients. I'm a fiduciary. All that matters is what's

(17:23):
right for our clients. But it is my job to
help educate clients to hold their hand when they get
scared or a little nervous, to make sure that they
don't shoot themselves in the foot. And it's easy. Listen,
human nature is a powerful, powerful thing, and it's easy
for investors to get scared, get spooked out of the

(17:48):
markets for this reason or that reason. The key is
to have a long term horizon and not let it
get to yet. One eight hundred eighty two five five
nine four nine one eight eighty five fifty nine forty nine.
If you have any questions, give me a call. I
talked about this a little bit yesterday. You know, every

(18:11):
January you have all of the experts out there that
give their projection of what the stock market will do.
Once again, folks, just like I don't know when the
next market correction, bear marketer recession will happen, I know
it will happen. I also don't know what the stock
market will do this year. Last year, if you look,

(18:34):
the forecast by stock analysts was that the SMP was
going to be up seven point four percent, and the
forecast by market strategist one point three percent. Loan and behold,
the SMP was up twenty five percent in twenty twenty three.
It wasn't any better. The average stock analysts predicted a

(18:58):
seventeen point five percent game for the SMP, strategists predicted
a six point two percent rise. Guess what. The SMP
was up twenty six percent. Think about that, twenty six
percent in twenty twenty three, twenty five percent in twenty
twenty four. What will it do in twenty twenty five.

(19:18):
I don't know, but I am optimistic. What I mean
by that is I feel there's more reason to be optimistic.
We have a strong economy. We just had the jobs
report on Friday, and this is an important part of
what the FED looks at. You know, jobs, jobs, jobs, Remember,

(19:39):
the consumer makes up seventy percent of our economy. Staggering right,
seventy percent of our economy is made up by the consumer.
The consumer accounts for seventy percent of what goes on
in our economy. So Friday, for the month of December

(19:59):
tw fifty six thousand jobs were added, about one hundred
thousand more than expected, and unemployment came down a little
bit to four point one percent according to the Labor Department.
That's almost full employment when you when you think about it. Now,
the jobs report was the latest sign that the US

(20:21):
labor market has recovered from you know, midyear. The US
labor market looked like it was, you know, kind of
petering out, and the Fed started cutting interest rates in
September with that big point five zero percent cut. Now
the talk is maybe the Fed will will be done,
maybe only one more cut this year. Well, once again, folks,

(20:46):
just like you can't predict the stock market for the
year ahead, who knows in hindsight everything's crystal clear. We'll
be able to look back and we'll we'll we'll know
what the stock market did. You'll also listen what the
Fed does. Remember, they go month to month. They meet
next on January twenty eight, twenty ninth. There's a good

(21:08):
chance they may not cut rates. Maybe they'll lead them alone.
Because of this job's report. We're going to get a
report on inflation this coming week, and we'll couple that
with the job's report and then some other data that
the Fed looks at. And if the Fed feels that, hey,
the economy is pretty resilient, which the economy is pretty resilient.

(21:33):
It's really resilient. And after that Job's report, stocks really
took a beating on Friday, wiped out the gains for
the year. The yield on the ten year Treasury closed
at four point seven seven percent, which is astonishing. I
said yesterday, if you need fixed income in your portfolio,

(21:57):
and I do, like US treasuries their New York State
tax free. For those of you that live in New
York State, you're not going to pay New York State
tax on the interest that you earn. And you know,
you can buy a US ten year Treasury note and
get almost five percent, almost five percent? What's wrong with that?

(22:18):
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, not in my mind anyway.
I think it's pretty I think it's pretty darn good
to get almost five percent. You know, for ten years,
you know, we went fifteen years getting hardly next to nothing.

(22:39):
We were getting really interest rates were close to zero. Hey,
folks were coming up to the bottom of the hour.
You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by
Bouchef and Andrew Group, where we help our clients prioritize
their health while we manage their wealth for life. The
phone lines are open. I would love to talk to
you on the other side of the news one eight

(23:00):
hundred Talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine one eight hundred eighty five fifty nine
forty nine. I'll see you in a couple of quick minutes. Well, folks,

(23:22):
thank you for hanging in through the news and thank
you for tuning in today. I can't thank you enough.
I hope you're getting something out of today's show. You
know I've been I said yesterday. We celebrated our thirty
fifth anniversary in business on January tewod and this is
the thirtieth year that I've been talking with you on radio.

(23:43):
And as you hear me say often, it never gets old.
I had energized. I love helping you. We had some
really great comments yesterday from some callers that I've been
able to help them through you know, the the things
that I talk about that that brings me great joy
the community. Listen, I can't give back enough to the community.

(24:06):
I go out of my way to try to help
those that have less, those that are underprivileged. That's near
and dear to my heart. Obviously, I also believe in
the American Cancer Society, and we have a great, great
organization right here in the Capital Region area. You know,

(24:26):
the dollars they raise stay in this area doesn't go
to a national organization. And this is in a way,
my way of giving back to the community. There's a
lot of people that listen that may not have an advisor,
may not know what direction to go in. Maybe they
have an advisor that's not a great advisor, or maybe

(24:47):
they're doing it on their own. So doing the radio
every week, week in, week out for thirty years is
my way of kind of giving back to the community
and helping the listening audience. I'll get pointed in the
right direct and if you have any questions, any questions whatsoever,
give me a call. One eight hundred eighty two five

(25:07):
five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five
fifty nine forty nine. So this name may ring a
bell for you. Don Weeks, what a man, dear friend.
I was a partner of his on radio for quite
some time. And another great name in radio's Joe Gallagher.

(25:30):
And it's heartbreaking that today will be Joe's last show.
Joe's been a really dynamic individual on the airwaves. What
a personality such talent to be able to do what
he does every weekend and entertain us as as listeners.

(25:52):
So right after this show, don't turn off the radio,
stay tuned for Joe's last show. I'm sure it's going
to be a great show. Jo and do anything other
than have it be great. So so Joe will be
on right after after this show. One eight hundred eight
two five, five, nine four nine. So before the news break,
I was going over the jobs report, two hundred and

(26:15):
fifty six thousand new jobs. Unemployment rate ticked down the
four point one percent. Friday was not a good day
in the stock market. We gave back all of the returns.
As they said, the markets are down just less than
one percent. You're to date the major index and the
average hourly earnings rose three tenths of a percent to

(26:37):
thirty five sixty nine. That's the average in line with expectations,
but a little slower than the prior month. And this
leaves you know, the Fed, you know, they feel that
that the labor market isn't is not a source of
inflationary pressure. So so far they're they're good with this. Now,

(26:57):
maybe Friday's report being that, you know, we went from
adding not as many jobs to adding two hundred and
fifty six thousand jobs for the month of December alone.
For all of twenty twenty four, we added two point
two million jobs. That's more than double the number on
that economists expected. Once again, you go back to these

(27:22):
stock analysts predicting where the stock market's going to go. Well,
economists are the same thing. I think it was Harry
Truman that says, show me an economist with one hand,
because what's an economist do? Always covers their basis. On
one hand, it's this, but on the other hand, it's
that that's what economists are trained to do. So economists

(27:46):
expected half the number of new jobs. Once again, twenty
twenty four was a dynamic year, even with all the nonsense,
all the you know, the emotions that went into the
political arena and the presidential election. And as we enter
twenty twenty five, I am very, very optimistic. I think

(28:13):
there's more reason to be optimistic folks in twenty twenty five.
I'm telling you, I think we're going to have less regulation.
I think we're going to have a trimm down government.
I think we're going to pay attention to what's important
for the people of this great country of ours, and

(28:33):
I don't see I can't guarantee this, but I don't
see a recession on the horizon. And I don't see
any reason why. As I said, you know the stock
market being down Friday because of the strong jobs report.
Why is that these investors felt that that will give
the Fed reason to not cut rates when they meet

(28:56):
later this month, and maybe they won't cut rates much
during twenty twenty five. That's why the stock market went down. Now,
I'm going to sound like an economist. So on one hand,
you got a strong jobs report right now. On the
other hand, is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not.
That means that the consumer, let me repeat myself from

(29:20):
the first half of the show, makes up seventy percent
of the US economy. Seven zero seventy percent of the
economy is made up by the consumer. So if we
have more consumers working, and believe me, and this is
a touchy subject, a lot of those workers, I'm telling you,

(29:42):
if you, if you really dig down deep, a lot
of those workers were some of the immigrants that came
into this country, whether it be legally or illegally. Because
there's a lot of jobs out there that you just
can't get a lot of people to want to do.
Just look at who's moment your lawn. Look at you know,

(30:02):
who's who's washing the dishes and and and the restaurants.
Just look at some of these jobs that you can't
get a lot of people to do. But boy, you
get people from other countries, they're just willing to work.
And a lot of them send their money back to
the families they left wherever they came from, and you know,

(30:26):
they they they you know, for the good for the
good ones. There's there's there's, you know a lot of
reason of why. You know, they're they're they're good for
the economy. But seventy percent of the US economy is
made up by the consumer. So what's wrong with us
adding more jobs? What's wrong with more people going to work?

(30:48):
What's wrong with people they're finally you know, it wasn't
too long ago. I think the average hourly wage was
twenty five dollars. Now it's thirty five dollars. You can't
you can't take a job about a McDonald's or Amazon
or Target or Walmart and get paid less than fourteen
fifteen dollars an hour. That's a whole lot more than

(31:10):
seven eight, nine ten dollars an hour just a few
years ago. What's wrong with that? And yes, it's hurting
some businesses, and I get that, but I'm also okay
with that because why should the owners of some businesses
rake it in make a whole bunch of money. Why
the people who make those businesses successful, the people that

(31:33):
are the sweat, blood, sweat and tears of the organization
are they can't put food on the table for their family,
especially with inflation and the price of food, the price
of gas, it's all up. Your heating bills are up.
So even though inflation has come down from nine point
one percent where it was just a couple of years ago,

(31:56):
there's still a lot of things necessities that we need
in our life that are expensive, and there's a lot
of people that just can't make ends meet. So the
consumer is important. That jobs report was a healthy jobs report.
To me, it's optimistic. Actually, maybe Friday was a good

(32:16):
buying opportunity. I don't know. Next weekend, I'll be able
to look back on this coming week and tell you, you know,
we had a shortened week this past week because the
markets were closed on Thursday for President Jimmy Carter's funeral.
So the stock markets were closed down. But you know,
I'm not worried about the stock market. And when the

(32:39):
stock market corrects itself again, listen, if you think the
world's coming to an end, if you think the stock
market's going to zero, it's not. You may lose a
little bit of money on paper, and as long as
you don't sell, you'll be fine. Before you know it,
that little bit of money you've lost on paper will
be a little bit more money because the market will

(33:00):
recover and go on to make new all time highs.
One eighty five, five nine, four nine. Any questions, give
me a call, folks, any questions whatsoever. I would love
to talk to you. One eight eighty five fifty nine
forty nine. So this week, you know, we we began

(33:21):
with data out of China. We basically China manufacturing data.
The wand their currency kind of fell, you know, basically,
their stock market took it on the chin. US stocks
powered by Chips edged up a little bit, then they
sold off as treasure yields rose. On Friday's jobs report

(33:44):
in the services data, the reports that came out, we
had the devastating fires in Los Angeles that just don't
look like they're they're they're they're going to stop, and
God help us, please let let them stop. Let them
stop creating the havoc, just decimating, just decimating those communities

(34:07):
and people losing everything, everything, just losing everything. As I said,
you had the market closed on Thursday, and then that
jobs report on Friday, two hundred and fifty six thousand
new jobs, one hundred thousand more than expected. And you know,
for the week, the S and P down about one

(34:28):
point nine percent, nasdack down about two point three percent.
And this coming week we got earning season. It's that
time of the year again, four times a year, every quarter.
So we're going to get a lot of the financial companies,
banks and brokerages announcing results on Wednesday. Beginning on Wednesday,

(34:48):
Black Rocks, City Group, Goldman, Sachs, JP, Morgan Wells Fargo.
On Thursday, you got Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, a
Bell Weather of where earnings are all. So on Wednesday,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the Consumer Price
Index for December. Economists right now forecasting a two point

(35:10):
nine percent year over year increase in the CPI two
tenths of a percentage point more than in November. We'll
see how that comes in the core, which does not
include food and energy. Why we want to look at
the core, I don't know. Because everybody needs food and energy.
That's expected to rise three point three percent, which kind

(35:32):
of confirms what I said a few moments ago. People
that are going to you know, Stewarts or Market thirty two,
or getting gas or paying their heating bills, they are
paying more than they have been in quite some time.
Even though they're paying a little bit less, just a
little teeny weeny bit less than they were over the

(35:54):
last couple of years, they're still paying more than they
were a few years ago. So we'll see. So somewhere
inflation will probably be closer to three percent than two percent.
The target for the FED is two percent. That's where
the FED would like to be closer to two percent
than three percent. And then on Thursday, we're going to

(36:16):
have the Census Bureau will report retail and food service
sales for December. The estimate is six tenths of a
percent month over month. We had a seven tens of
a increase in November, excluding autos. Retail sales are seen
rising about a half a percent three tenths of a

(36:36):
percentage point more than previously reported. So we'll see what happens.
So it's kind of a big week with the earning
start this earning season beginning and the report on inflation,
so we'll see where we go from there. I'm going
to take a quick fifteen second break. Give me a

(36:58):
call if you have any question. Don't let me do
all the talking. One eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine. One eight hundred eight two five fifty
nine forty nine. Here I am. I'm back. Thank you.

(37:26):
I just wanted to kind of wet my whistle, take
a little sip of tea. I thank you for for
tuning in. One eight hundred eight two five five nine
four nine. Any questions that you have, give me a call.
I would love, love, love to talk to you. So
I got another statistic for you. I'm full of statistics today.

(37:49):
So I told you thirty four out of the last
forty five years, the stock market has been positive. Now
that's a pretty good indicator that stocks are up more
than they are down. The average swing average y're in
year out fourteen point one percent. That means the market

(38:11):
goes from high to low, peak to trop it slides
fourteen percent, then it recovers. That's average year in, year out.
That's average. So I gave you, you know, the average return
of the S and P over the last fifteen years
is you know, thirteen and a half percent. Let's go

(38:32):
back to nineteen seventy, so almost fifty five years' worth
of data, the average return in the SMP was eleven percent.
So there you have it over the last fifteen years,
thirteen and a half percent over the last you know,
almost fifty four years, almost eleven percent. And a lot

(38:53):
of things happen, folks, A lot of things happen over
over last fifty four years. I mean, I'm looking at
a chart. I need another hour to go over all
the things that have happened. If you invested ten thousand
dollars in nineteen seventy, you know at that ten thousand

(39:14):
dollars right now would be worth a lot of money,
like a lot of money, you know, ten thousand dollars.
It just grows astronomically. Now, for those of you that
are afraid of stocks, and as I said earlier in
the show, I'm not here to push stocks over bonds

(39:36):
over gold over real estate. I'm not, but I liked to.
I gave this statistic yesterday and I'm going to give
it one more time today, because over time, people get
afraid of stocks. So let me go back to nineteen fifty.
So what's that seventy four years worth of data? As
I said, I'm full of data today. Your best return

(39:58):
in any one given year over those seventy four years
and stocks was fifty two percent. Your best return in
bonds was thirty three percent. If you had a sixty
forty portfolio thirty four percent, best best return in any
one given year. Your worst year in stocks minus thirty

(40:21):
seven percent, bonds minus thirteen percent. So for those of
you that don't think that bonds can lose money, believe
it or not, that just happened two years ago. You know,
the bond market was was was down, and a lot
of people think that bonds don't go down, but you
know the stock market, you know, bonds go down. In

(40:44):
twenty twenty two, they were down thirteen percent, almost as
much as stocks. And if you had a sixty forty portfolio,
your worst worst year was down twenty percent. So you
know that stocks and bonds and golden real estate go
up and down, up and down, up and down, and
over time, stocks has been really your best performer. So

(41:10):
starting in nineteen fifty, you think of nineteen fifty starts
a new five year rolling period, a new ten year
rolling period, a new twenty year rolling period. So think
of how many So nineteen fifty one, another new rolling period,
nineteen fifty two to another new rolling period. There's a
lot of rolling periods, right, So let me give you

(41:31):
just a little bit more data. Since nineteen fifty, your
best five year rolling period in stocks was twenty nine
percent year in, year out average. Your best five year
return in bonds eighteen percent, and if you have a
sixty forty portfolio, a lot of people have that growth

(41:51):
and income portfolio twenty percent. If you look over ten years,
your best was twenty percent in stocks, fourteen percent in bonds,
sixteen percent for a sixty forty portfolio. And last but
not least, over twenty years, your best twenty year rolling period.
And most investors are long term investors, your best twenty

(42:15):
year rolling period eighteen percent year in year out for stocks,
eleven percent for bonds, and for that growth and income
portfolio fifteen percent, So there's nothing wrong with the growth
in income portfolio. If you had one hundred thousand dollars
invested in stocks over twenty years, that one hundred thousand

(42:35):
would be worth almost nine hundred thousand dollars with that
average return of eleven point six percent. You're in investment
in bonds. If you put that same one hundred thousand
dollars in bonds, two hundred and seventy six thousand dollars.
So now you see why one hundred percent of my
money's in stocks, because over time I've made more money

(43:00):
in stocks than I have in bonds. Having one hundred
thousand dollars invested in either stocks or bonds, would I
rather have nine hundred thousand or two hundred and seventy
six thousand, Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure
that out. I'd rather have nine hundred thousand. But I
don't expect everybody to have that kind of aggressiveness in

(43:21):
their portfolios. So if you had one hundred thousand dollars
invested in a sixty forty A growth and income portfolio
over the last twenty years, that one hundred thousand dollars
would be worth six hundred thousand dollars today. There you
have it. That's why, that's why you really shouldn't be
afraid to have a well diversified portfolio, be invested for

(43:46):
the right reasons. You know, don't get crazy. I have
a sandbox account where I play with stocks and I
play with bitcoin, and you know, I have some fun.
We were all kids once, we all aid in the sandbox.
There's nothing wrong with having a little bit of fun.
You know, a lot of people have a sandbox account.

(44:08):
But you want to make sure that your core investments
what you need to retire on. You get one, one
opportunity to retire. You can't go back and make up
for that opportunity. If you work decades and you're not
prepared for retirement. Now you have to hope you're healthy
enough to work. You have to hope there's somebody willing
to hire you. And how much money are you going

(44:30):
to make being a mature senior citizen, so you get
one opportunity to retire. You hear me say this often.
If you're not saving ten to fifteen percent of your
paycheck into a retirement plan, somehow, some way, more than likely,

(44:52):
you're not saving enough. If you haven't had any complex
retirement analysis done to see just how much you need.
We all have that dream of retiring and having a lifestyle.
That lifestyle is different for everybody. But if you're not prepared,

(45:12):
you can't go back and make up for working forty
fifty sixty years. You just can't go back and make
up for that. Which is why you need to have
your money working hard for you so you can work
hard for it. We got a quick caller, Tim and Katskill. Tim,
how are you this morning?

Speaker 2 (45:31):
I'm doing wonderful.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
It's it's nice to talk to you. I've been listening
to you for a while. Just a little bit, I
got I got a question about retirement. Now, when you retire,
chance for your four oh one complete four oh one
k into your company.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yep, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you go, Tim, because
we're coming up to the end of the show. But yes,
when you retire, you should take your foreman k, roll
it over into an I ray. There's nothing better to
do than do that. Don't leave your money in that
foreman k because you're paying high fees for all of
your colleagues. That are still working. You don't want to
do that. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to

(46:20):
you by Bouchet Financial Group, where we help our clients
prioritize their health while we manage their life, while we
manage their wealth for life folks. Joe Gallagher his last show.
Stay tuned, don't go anywhere, keep the radio going. Joe Gallagher,

(46:40):
What a man, what a friend. He's been on the
airwaves a long time, entertaining us folks. Thanks for tuning
in today, Have a great Sunday, See you next weekend.