Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I can't explain. Well, there's job.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Is the music just sock just on lunch. Okay, great,
Good morning everybody. This is Stephen Bouchet sitting here live
and as live as I can be. I can't thank
you enough, folks for tuning in as you do every weekend,
(00:44):
Saturday mornings at ten, Sunday mornings at eight. I'm here
to help you in any way that I can. And
if you have any questions, any questions whatsoever, give me
a call. Our phone numbers are one, eight hundred talk
WGY one eight hundred, eighty two, five, five, nine, four nine.
(01:05):
Before I jump into the show and talk about the
markets and so forth, I just want to bring something
that's very personal to us. And when I tell you, you'll
know what I mean. It's been a long, sobering week
for my professional family, my colleagues, my teen you know.
(01:31):
I share with you how my mom passed away at
the age of thirty one. She had an aneurysm. She
went to bed with a headache and passed away young age.
I was only ten. Well, this past week, our firms
suffered a real loss and it's affected all of us,
(01:54):
affected all of us, Like I just can't believe. It
just shows how close we all are and what we
mean to each other. Last Sunday, our esteemed colleague, Nicole Globel.
And you've heard Nicole many times on radio. For those
(02:14):
of you that are clients, you've seen and met Nicole.
You've been on our website where you can just see
what a beautiful, amazing, dynamic individual Nicole is. And last
Sunday she was doing all the right things. You hear
me talk folks often about taking care of our health.
(02:36):
You know, when we have our health, we have everything.
When you're fortunate enough to have your loved ones, boy,
you're you're pretty lucky. And if financially you can make
things happen, then you're you're really lucky. Well, your health
is what matters the most. So Nicole was exercising last
(02:56):
Sunday the why, taking care of herself, you know, fulfilling
her New Year's resolution. Long story short, Nicole felt faint,
was rushed to urgent care and her husband thanked God
Pete was able to make it there in time as
(03:19):
Nicole was in and out of consciousness. Nicole was then
taken to Albany med and an amazing health care facility
we have, and unfortunately, Nicole suffered an anerism and she
was on life support and God took her on Wednesday afternoon.
(03:45):
She passed away on Wednesday afternoon. We're still kind of numb,
my colleagues and I with it all. Nicole not only
cared for her family, Nicole cared for her colleague, me
and my team. Nicole cared for our clients. Nicole just
(04:08):
had that way about her where she cared about everybody.
She was only forty six. She has a son, eight,
a daughter, four beautiful, beautiful children, and her husband, Pete.
I actually happened to be in Florida and you know,
rushed home. I wanted to, you know, say my goodbyes
(04:29):
to Nicole and visit her and be there for Pete,
her husband, and give some warm hugs to her kids
because this this really hit all of us and we're
still in a state of shock. And I just wanted
to let everybody know because Nicole was part of the
(04:53):
listening audience. She did radio, and when she did radio,
she was amazing hosting radio. She just she's so knowledgeable.
She just was just great to listen to. And to
think that, to think that, you know, twenty twenty four,
(05:21):
as you know, was a year from hell. Just you know,
everybody in my firm, they lived twenty twenty four with me,
and you know my son and daughter working in the firm,
you know everybody. Just we were like one close knit family.
(05:46):
And Nicole was one of those friends at work that
just always made sure I was doing okay. And I
thought twenty twenty five we were going to start out
fresh and have a good year. And I guess a
(06:07):
lesson in life, folks, Life is unpredictable and we can't
take life for granted. I think if if I can
pass along any guidance about life, it's that I know
it firsthand more times than not. So I wanted to
(06:34):
just share with you because I know you tune in
your loyal I know we have a lot of clients
that are listening. Sent them all a letter explaining what happened.
So I just wanted to start to show, you know,
not to bring the tone or move down, but just
(06:55):
share with you our beautiful beloved colleague, Nicole is May
her rest in peace and may her look down her family, Pete,
her two children, Max and Riley, and on all of us, Zach,
(07:18):
I want to take just a quick break if I may.
The phone lines are open, folks on the other side
of the break, I would love to talk to you
anything that you want to talk about. One eight hundred
eighty two five five nine, four nine one eight hundred
eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Thank you, folks
(07:47):
for letting me take that break to gather my thoughts. Well,
let's you know, let's talk about money. I guess that's
the name of the show. Let's talk money. One eight
hundred eighty two, five five nine, four nine one eight
hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine of the
(08:08):
phone numbers. And if you have any questions, thoughts, comments,
give me a call. Let's talk. Let's try to get
your pointed in the right direction. You have one opportunity
to retire. You can't you can't blow that opportunity. You
can't go back and make up for all those decades
of working. When you know whatever your dream is and
(08:32):
when it comes to retirement, I think most of us
have a vision in our mind how we would like
to see retirement play out, and that costs money. You
need to be prepared. You need all those decades that
you're working be able to sock some money away because
social Security, you know, on average fifteen sixteen thousand dollars
(08:55):
a year on average, it's just not enough unless that's
all you need to live. And if you're married, maybe
on average thirty thousand dollars a year from social Security.
And if that's all you need, that's great. If you
need more than that, you need to draw from your savings.
If you don't have a pension plan, and very few
people have a defined pension plan, you you want it
(09:19):
to make sure that you're prepared, to make sure that
that that that you can have that retirement. That means
that you have to save. And you hear me say often,
if you're not saving ten to fifteen percent of your salary,
more than likely you're not saving enough. And you need
to be invested properly. You can't be afraid to be
(09:40):
invested properly. Have a well diversified portfolio. Phone lines are
open one eight hundred eight two, five five nine four
nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine.
Let's go to the phone lines where we have Elizabeth
holding on. Hello, Elizabeth, good morning, how are you, good morning?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Thank you for that lovely tribute. But I'll get right
to my question. If you have money in a roth
ira and then in a four h three B, which
would you recommend spending down first in retirement if you're
trying to get things into a trust.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's a great question. So the pros and cons. Money
in your four oh three B is taxable to you
when you take it out, Elizabeth. That means that because
you got a tax break when you put that money
in when you were working. And I'm guessing you work
for a not for profit or a school or a
hospital or something, and you know, one thank you for
(10:40):
your service. But all those years that you were putting
money away, if you invested one hundred dollars, you weren't
taxed on that one hundred dollars. So it was like
saving maybe sixty five seventy seventy five dollars because Uncle
Sam subsidized that. Now that you're looking to take money out,
you're going to be taxed on it if you're in
(11:02):
a low tax bracket. Sometimes in we need to do
more planning, but sometimes it makes sense to take money
out of that taxable account because the wroth will continue
to grow. Tax deferb just like it does in the
four h three B for you, Elizabeth. The beauty about
the WROTH is you don't have to take any R
(11:23):
and D s and when you take that money out,
it's tax free. So it's different for each and every
individual depending on one their tax bracket, their life expectancy,
and you know, their overall assets. So it's not just
a cut and dry answer, but it's something for you
to think about, and you're starting out the right way
(11:45):
by thinking about it and asking that question. But we
need to do a little bit more planning for you.
But I hopefully gave you a couple of things to
think about in a couple of things to you know,
maybe talk over with your advisor, if you have somebody
that helps you with your taxes, that would be a
good place to start. Thank you very much, Elizabeth, Thank
(12:08):
you for calling. Be healthy, have a great day. One
eight hundred eighty two, five five, nine, four nine. Let's
go back to the phone lines. We have Steve.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Hello, Steve, Good morning, Steve. Nice hearing from you this morning.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, no, I was going to say I'm sorry I
had to start out with some somber news and you know,
I just Nicole meant a lot to so many people,
and I know people that listened to the radio when
Nicole was on, you know, she got a lot of calls,
and people always made comment on just how smart she was.
(12:48):
Nicole was. She was a she was a CPA, a
certified divorce financial analyst. She was smart cookie. And I
just wanted to let everybody know that it was a
sobern week for all of us and it continues to be.
I know that one of my colleagues was supposed to
(13:12):
do the show this morning but just wasn't able to.
When I tell you that Nicole affected all of us,
she truly did, and I needed to step in as
a leader, you know, comfort all of my colleagues, comfort
Nichole's family, and I wanted to be on the show
this morning and just kind of, you know, let everybody
(13:33):
know about Nicole. So anyway, Steve, thank you for your
thank you for your comments. What can I help you
with this morning?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Okay, I have about two hunred and fifty thousand. I
want to invest into a large cap growth funds and
I know that the market is pretty much a all
time high at this point. Do you expect maybe you
know a little bit of a correction here and there.
Since it's up so high, you think that's going to
be a small, you know, lowering of the prices in
(14:05):
the future, or should I just put it all in
at once.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Absolutely, there's going to be a correction. I guarantee. My
clients laugh at me, especially new clients. They come in
and when they meet me for the first time, I
look at them in the eye, I shake their hand,
give them a hug, and then I give them my guarantee.
I said, you know, you're going to lose money, and
they kind of look at me. He said, well, listen,
(14:29):
when you get that statement and you're down in value
and you call me, you say, hey, Steve, I lost money,
and I'm going to look back at you or talk
to you on the phone and say I know, I
guarantee you that, and they kind of laugh. So it's
it's tongue in cheap. But yes, there will be a correction,
(14:50):
there will be a bear market, there will be another recession.
I guarantee all of the above. I just don't know when. Now.
Let me tell you why. I'm a little giddy, and
I'm you know, I'm always forever my investment committee laughs
because I always tell them our number one job is
to make money for our clients. I was actually in
(15:13):
Ed Wilhelm and Casey Bird. They're my portfolio traders, and
they really you know, when clients need to make a
change or want to make a change, or we make
a change in the portfolio. These guys make the magic happen.
They're the odds behind the curtain. And I tell them
you have the most important job in the firm because
(15:33):
clients engage our services to make them money. I said,
you guys need to make sure we make them money.
And they say, Steve, you're always optimistic. I said, of course,
I am. I said if you think, you know, over
the last forty four years, when you think about it,
the market's been up like thirty four of those forty
(15:53):
four years. The market over the last ten years has
been up eight out of ten years. The market, stock market.
There's a bond market, there's a real estate market, there's
a commodity market. But I'm talking the stock bunker piece.
That's what that's what most investors are afraid of. They're
afraid of stocks. When you think about it, stocks are
up more than they're down. And if you don't panic
(16:16):
and have knee jerk reactions. When that market goes down,
Guess what happens? Guess what has been happening forever. The
stock market guaranteed will go down. It may go down
five percent, ten percent, twenty percent, twenty five percent, heck
two thousand and seven through March two thousand and nine,
oh and down fifty percent five zero. Guess what It
(16:41):
always comes back. It always goes on to make new
all time highs. The key is not to get if
you're invested properly. Anybody who needs money, I always say,
over the next one two years, shouldn't have that money
invested in the stock market. And if you have time,
the market will come back to the market, it will
go back and make you all time highs. That's a secret. Now.
(17:05):
I also have mentored my colleagues and my advisors especially.
We always talk about dollar cost averaging and lump some
investing on paper. I can show you why dollar cost
averaging sounds good. Put your money in slowly in case
there's a market drop, and then you feel good about it.
(17:27):
I can make anybody listening feel good about that. But
I can also show them the statistics and if you google,
Vanguard has some great stats on this. Putting your money
in and even if there's a correction next week or
next month, forget about it. There may be the market
will come back and go back up. The key is, Steve,
(17:48):
do you have the comfort level? Will it keep you
up at night? If you put that money in, you
lump some in now and by chance the market goes
down to not tomorrow, it's closed obviously, but if the
market goes down next week or next month, will not
bother you. If it won't, then there's a lot of
statistics out there shown one sum, investing will make you
(18:12):
more money rather than waiting for the market to go down.
But if you're a nervous Nelly type, dollar cost averaging
probably makes sense. I hope that helps you. I love
large cap, but right now MidCap is the sweet spot.
There's when So what you might want to think about
doing is maybe by the like our large cap core
(18:35):
holding is the all the entire stock market. We do
the S and P, the S and P six hundred,
the S and P four hundred three, large cap, mid cap,
small cap, and when you look in time, midcaps hardly
ever are the number one performing You know, ask that
class if you break the market down from large cap,
(18:58):
MidCap small cap, but they're always right there. It's like
the maid of honor that's always makes it to the
alter but never gets married herself. And midcaps right now
are pretty good. You know, the S and P's trading
at about twenty two times twenty twenty five earnings a
twenty year high. Midcaps are about fourteen percent. So you
(19:18):
may want to think about a total stock market. We
use the Schwab broad market. You may want to think
about the Nastac beause we just love that as our
like large cap growth focused on technology almost sixty percent
of its technology. And you may want to think about
the Russell two thousand, which is a MidCap small cap,
(19:40):
and blend the three in if you're willing to invest
and see how it goes. Steve, great question. I'm sure
there was a lot of listeners that appreciate it. You
asking that, folks, there's never a question that you shouldn't asked.
I can almost assure you there's somebody listening that will
appreciate it. Eight hundred five five nine four nine. Let's
(20:02):
go back to the phone lines where we have Tony.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Hello, Tony, I just let you know and I don't
have a financial question, which I would have anyway, But
it's a beautiful tribute you did it to Nicole. God
bless her young family, and it's really a loss being
as young as you, you know, as she was. She
left me a message of a question that I did
(20:27):
call your office one time. God bless them all. So Steve,
I'll call you some other time with some other financial question.
But take care and hopefully her family will go through this.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Have a good day, Tony. Thank you for your comments.
She truly was a beautiful person and a smart person.
Oh my god, folks, when I tell you how smart
she was, she was, she was just We're all in
awe at how brilliant Nicole was. There wasn't too many
(20:59):
quiess and she couldn't answer. And you know, I relocated Nicole.
I met her three years ago, just three years ago.
She joined us three years ago April, and she put
her trust in me and my leadership team, Ryan, Marty
and John. We all met with her and we were
all impressed with her, and she said she was impressed
(21:22):
with us and she put her trust in us. I
literally I made it. I made the magic happen. I
relocated her and her family from New Jersey to you know,
upstate New York, a place that she never never could
imagine herself being in. And she's been with us three
(21:45):
short years, and in those three years, you know, everybody
she touched, she just it's just it's a touch that
lingers on forever. She will give us that gift that
goes on forever. And you know, we just did a
(22:06):
Woman in Wealth seminar with a couple colleagues TiAl and
Becker Chremonte CPA firm and Lemmerie and Greisler Claire McCrae,
one of our professional colleagues there at that law firm
and us, and we did a Woman in Wealth launch
(22:26):
and not too long ago at the Wolfrids Bruce Country Club.
And I'm telling you, she takes She just took everybody
by storm. Forty six years old. For me to be
sitting here talking about losing Nicole, I can't begin to
tell you just how devastating it is to us, my team, everybody,
(22:50):
just how devastating it is. I just can't begin to
tell you, folks. We're going to take a break for
the news you're listening to. Let's talk money brought to
you by Bouchet and Andrew Grew where we help our
clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life.
I can't thank you enough for tuning in. One eight
hundred eight two five five nine four nine. That's one
(23:13):
eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Any
questions you have, give me a call on the other
side of the news break. It'll be a short news break.
Go to our website Bouchet dot com. You'll be able
to take a look at our team and see just
how beautiful and just majestic Nicole was. I'll see you
in a couple quick minutes.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
I can explain.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Wit well this shrive me same.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Oh and just need on launchs to.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Bring Zach, that's a beautiful song for the somber day
that it is in the sobering news that I shared
with the listening audience about our are just.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Dear colleague Nicole. So thank you, Zach for for that
song that was. That was a great song to lead
into the second half of the show. Folks, Thank you
for tuning in today. Thank you for hanging in through
the news. I would love to talk to you if
you have any questions pertaining to your financial health, please
(24:42):
one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.
One eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine,
any questions whatsoever, give me a call and let's kind
of talk it out. And so I said on the
first half of the show, you get one one opportunity
to retire. You do not want to blow that opportunity.
(25:04):
So let me help you make that happen. Let's have
that quality of life and retirement that you always were
hoping for. And you need to be prepared. So I'm
here to help you, give you my honest personal opinion.
One eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine.
(25:27):
So the you know the week, listen, folks, Monday, the
markets were closed Martin Luther King Day and happened to
coincide with the presidential inauguration. And you heard me on
the first half of the show that I'm always forever
(25:47):
the optimist. And you know you've heard me say this before.
So I'm not making this as a political statement. Don't
take it this way. I'm not a Republican, I'm not
a Democrat. I truly I'm not reach in any party.
I'm not even an independent. My dear friend, Senator Joe
Bruno told me as I was sitting in his office.
(26:08):
He looks at me. He says, Steve, you know you're
a blank. And I'm looking at him. I said, Senator,
what do you mean I'm a blank? He says, you're
not registered in any party. I said, no, Senator, I'm
an independent. He says no, Steve. He says you're not
even an independent. He says, you're a blank. So that's
how I found out. And God bless Joe Bruno. Talk
(26:30):
about the king of negotiators, being able to bring both
sides together and putting on a good face and your
best foot forward. Joe Bruno had a way of doing that.
So I'm a blank. So I'm forever optimistic that the
market is up more than it's down. And I'm telling you,
we had the inauguration of President Trump on Monday, and
(26:54):
within minutes things started to happen, and folks, I'm giddy
about where this great country of ours, the United States
of America, is headed. I'm just giddy about the people
that President Trump is surrounding himself by. There's some fresh faces,
(27:18):
young blood, smart people. Things will probably look different real soon.
In Washington than they've ever looked before. That's not a
bad thing. We have nothing to lose a lot of
And it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, folks,
(27:39):
you have to just feel good about a lot of
what President Trump is doing right off the bat, not
wasting a day to get things started. I think one
of the most beautiful days of the short five days
that he's been president was yesterday going to North Carolina,
(28:03):
where so many people are still still suffering four months
after those devastating storms just made you know, western part
of North Carolina just unlivable. And he makes it a
priority to go there and give them the help they need,
(28:25):
and then immediately fly to La to do the same
with regards to the fire. And this this guy doesn't
hold backs. He calls it like he sees it. And
he called them out in California. I watched some of
the some of the snippets, and he called them out.
(28:46):
I mean, you'll see people that may have been against
President Trump all of a sudden before him because he
will be there. He will put this country first. You
think of the hundreds of billions of dollars that we
(29:10):
sent to Ukraine when we couldn't even help people right
here in North Carolina or over the last couple of weeks,
not to be able to do more for the people
that have just been uprooted in LA with the fires
and aside from all of the cities looking like they
(29:35):
were just you know, hit by a bomb, and we're
sending hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine? Are you
kidding me? He will put our country first. And I'm
optimistic that the stock market has a way to go.
And going back to one of the first callers, you know,
(29:56):
the markets that an all time high, and it was
I think the SA on Thursday closed that an all
time high. Guess what, folks the market. That happens. Often
the market will take a break, it'll go backwards, but
the market always goes on to make new all time highs.
It's a beautiful thing. I told you, I share with
(30:19):
my clients. I'm one hundred percent invested in the stock market,
and I have absolutely no problem when the market goes down,
I don't look. So we started off the week with
the Trump inauguration and they moved it inside because it
was a little bit cold in Washington, and you know,
(30:40):
you gotta love Trump. He actually asked a question. You know,
it's not a bad spot to have an inauguration. Why
full around with mother nature and the elements of the
cold weather that could happen in January. Maybe we should
have it inside every four years. So we'll see if
they have it inside every four years. Folks, we had
(31:00):
to ceasefire that began in Godsam with the first hostage
in prisoner exchanges. Thank god. Once again, you have to
take President Trump for his word. If those hostages didn't
start to be released, who knows what might have taken place.
So it looks as though the and I can only
(31:24):
imagine the terrible situation these hostages have been living in.
But they started to be released, and they were more released,
you know, this weekend. So let's hope they all get released.
Let's hope that their families get some closure. The crypto,
(31:44):
you know, bitcoins up to one hundred and five thousand
dollars for those of you that were afraid to buy
in at sixteen thousand not too long ago. Hotly moly,
you got TikTok. Looks like TikTok's going to live on AI.
Artificial intelligence. I say it often folks, if you haven't,
if you haven't been playing around with an AI app,
(32:09):
you got to start playing around with it. It's here
and it's amazing. So for the week, the dollar fell
then rebounded, markets rose after the market's being closed Monday.
For Martin Luther King, the S and P hit its
first record high of twenty twenty five on Thursday. Shares
fell a little bit on on Friday, that's okay. For
(32:31):
the week, the Dow was up two point two percent,
the S and P five hundred and NASDAC gained about
one point seven percent. Not bad, not bad, Well, we'll
take that.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
You're to date.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You have NASDAK up three point three percent. QQQ. When
you buy QQQ, you're buying one hundred largest companies in
NASDAK up three point six percent. You had the S
and P five hundred index up three point seven percent.
Russell two thousand, This is a beautiful thing to see, folks.
I talked about mid caps earlier being maybe a sweet spot.
(33:09):
Maybe maybe mid caps are set to have a good run.
We need the entire market to do well, not just
the magnificent seven. So it's nice to see the Russell
two thousand and up three point five percent, almost in
line with the S and P. Starting out. That's a
beautiful thing. I hope, I hope we continue to see
(33:31):
that because that means that that the entire stock market's
taking taking hold, and that's that's that's what we want.
Gold closed at twenty seven seventy seven. Announce you got
crude oil at seventy almost seventy five dollars a barrel.
So there you have it. The you know, we was
(33:52):
was a pretty good week companies. You know, Apple fourth
quarter iPhone sales fell in China. You know, China is
an important part of Apple. And you know, I'm an
open book. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. You
know that Apple is one of our top holdings, and
(34:13):
we're starting out. It's down eleven eleven percent for the year.
Amazon is up seven percent for the year. That's our
second largest holding, while the S and P is up
three point seven percent. You know, so you know, Apple
took it on the chin a little bit. Amazon over
the last year was up almost fifty percent and you
(34:37):
had Apple up only fifteen percent, while the S and
P was up twenty five percent for the last year.
And I'm not worried Apple's been a good holding over time,
and Apple is used to having you know, it's it's
it's periods of ups and downs. It's still a great company,
a great loyal customer base, good price, and I'm not
(35:01):
worried about Apple being one of our top holdings in
the portfolios. But it is important that the iPhone sales
fell in China. You know, President Trump presided over the
announcement of a five hundred billion that's billion with a
b Ai infrastructure venture led by open Ai, Soft Bank
(35:24):
Group and Oracle. Elon Musk, you know, you know, he's
just he's He's by Trump's side, and whether you like
Elin or not, the man's a brilliant man, folks. I've
said this often. How he gets done when he gets
done blows my mind. But he's a brilliant man. And
(35:45):
I'm not worried about Musk being close to to President Trump.
You had Maderna this week received five hundred and ninety
million dollars in federal funds to develop a bird flu vaccine.
Flicks added nineteen million subscribers in the fourth quarter. I
guess people are still watching TV. This coming week, we
(36:08):
got a lot of earnings. We're in earning season, we
got eighteen TG and Lockheed Martin, Starbucks. You know Meta,
which is Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, Caterpillar, MasterCard, Visa all announcing.
The big day is going to be Wednesday, the Federal
Open Market Committee announces its monetary policy. Probably, I won't
(36:33):
be surprised. You know, we've had three interest rate cuts
the last few months of twenty twenty four after eleven
hikes for the last few years. I won't be surprised.
With the latest data on the economy, with the latest
jobs report, it won't surprise me if the Fed leaves
(36:57):
rates unchanged. The FED funds rate on change at four
point twenty five and four zero point five percent range.
You know, the economy is resilient. It's pretty good. And
there's you know, people were worried about the tariffs that
Trump was going to put in place, and the first
day Trump kind of softened his and he's he's like that,
(37:19):
you know, listen, he's not afraid. Listen. This guy plays chess.
He doesn't play tid lee wings, and he doesn't play checkers.
President Trump plays chess. All around the world, he plays chess,
and he's he's truly good at playing chess. So you know,
some people take his threats as as being devastating, and
(37:41):
I always say, you know the guy, the guy is
going to get what's best for this great country of ours,
and he'll play chess. And it looks as though the
tariffs won't be as bad as some people feared. And
that's a beautiful thing. So I won't be surprised to
see the FED leave in traits alone when they meet
Tuesday Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon at at around two o'clock, they'll
(38:05):
come out and inflation it's above the Fed's two percent target.
Now I've said this one hundred times over the last
few years. I think the FED is wrong for advertising
that they have a two percent target. I gave these
statistics out last week or the week before. Over the
last ninety years, inflation has averaged about three point four percent.
(38:29):
Since nineteen fifty, it's averaged just a little over three percent.
So why why is the Fed focused on a two
percent rate? Because after the Great Recession ended, after we
lived through two thousand and seven through two thousand, early
March of two thousand and nine, the market was down
(38:49):
fifty percent. People thought the world was coming to an end.
It did not come to an end. People thought stocks
were going to zero. The stock market just thrived on
to make new all time highs. But the FED got
used to low inflation rates for the fifteen years after that.
So I would rather have the FED focus on the
(39:11):
last ninety years rather than the last fifteen years. So
they they're fixated on a two percent target rate. I
don't think they're going to get two percent anytime soon,
but inflation is somewhere between two and three percent. The
Bureau of Economic Analysis, they'll release the Personal consumption Expenditure
(39:32):
Price Index PCE for December. Economists forecasts the two point
five percent year over year increase, one tenth of a
percent more than in November. And this is one of
the Feds, you know, they love to look at this,
so we'll see. And the core, when you take out
(39:52):
food and energy is expected to be two point eight percent,
So it's under three percent, it's above two percent, and
that's okay. Now let me give you one more statistic.
Four dollars and fifteen cents. Do you know what that is?
Four dollars and fifteen cents is the average price of
a dozen of large eggs in December up fourteen percent
(40:16):
from November and up thirty seven percent for the year.
So there you go. Eggs is a big part of
our diet, good source of protein and something that people
take for granted. But eggs are obviously way above two
to three percent range of inflation, and there's a lot
(40:40):
of prices that are still high that need to come down,
and hopefully, hopefully they'll come down. One eight hundred eighty
two five five nine four nine. One eight hundred eighty
five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions you have, folks,
give me a call. I would love to talk to
you anything you want to talk about, especially with regards
(41:05):
to money. One eight hundred eighty two five five nine
four nine. Any questions, any questions whatsoever. You hear me
talk recently because you know, losing my wife Sue last
May was just devastating and going through some help things
(41:25):
that I went through. Twenty twenty four was one of
those years, and starting out twenty twenty five, losing Nicole Goebeler,
our esteam colleague, just hits home again. And even though
we talk a lot about money on radio, sometimes it's
(41:47):
important for me to talk about, you know, just life
in general and life insurance and disability insurance, sometimes we
overlook it. And and this week just hit home with Nicole,
and I say this often. If you haven't you know,
(42:11):
if you haven't done any serious financial planning and you're
not saving ten to fifteen percent of your salary, you're
probably not saving a lot. And if you have a
young family and you don't have at least two million,
two million, not two hundred thousand, two million dollars of
life insurance, you probably don't have enough. And if you're
(42:35):
scratching your head saying weeah, but you know, my buddy
who's selling me this life insurance wants me to buy
a universal life or a whole life so that I
can save up money and have this money when I'm
sixty five and have it help my retirement. Folks, get
rid of that buddy, go out and have a beer
(42:55):
with he or she, but do not buy your life
insurance bump. Then you need to have at least two
million dollars worth of life insurance. If you have a
loved family, I can almost assure you you don't have enough.
And you can buy term insurance. It's cheap. Life insurance
agents make pennies on a dollar instead of dollars on
(43:17):
a dollar selling term. That's why they hate to sell
term because they don't line their pockets with easy commissions.
The commissions on permanent life insurance could be as high
as fifty percent. On term insurance, it's peanuts. And that's
why term insurance is cheap. And I hate the word cheap,
(43:38):
but everybody can afford term life insurance. And if you're
young and you have a family, especially if you have
a stay at home spouse, you need to have a
lot of life insurance. And Nicole's case, her husband, Pete
was a stay at home dad. He took care of
the kids, and Nicoal was the bread winner and she
(44:01):
was forty six and you know she's no longer the breadwinner.
And it takes life insurance that benefit to replace the
income and help out with college and you know, paying
the mortgage and putting food on the table. So just
(44:22):
I want to plant the seed. If you're listening, or
if you have children or grandchildren, you know, tell them
they need to do some detailed financial planning and take
a look at their life insurance and don't buy permanent
insurance because you need life insurance in case you pass
away now when you're young, not if you live to
(44:42):
you're sixty five seventy seventy five years old. You don't
need as much insurance than when your children are grown
and you're retired and you've saved enough money. You need
life insurance when you're younger, not older. Eight hundred eight
two five, five, nine four nine. Let's go the phone
lines where we have Josh in Troy.
Speaker 6 (45:02):
Hello, Josh, Hey, Steve, good morning, puasure to talk with you.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Good morning to you.
Speaker 6 (45:09):
How are you doing, Hey, all things considered, I'm doing okay,
you know, just kind of getting through the Northeast winter.
A quick question. So I have an in law who
is wrapping up a divorce. But anyways, they're they're retired
at sixty two, they have a pension from the State
(45:31):
of New York. They'll have their social eventually, and then
they'll have, you know, somewhere in the realm of I
don't know, to close to two hundred thousand dollars of
proceeds after the divorce. I'm wondering if this is something
that you and your team, you know, routinely see, because
the question is, is, uh, you know what to do with
(45:53):
that cash? She does she is figuring out housing does
it make sense to rent or buy or et cetera.
But she's also looking to basically use that capital in
a way to create a third reliable stream of income.
And I was just wondering if you could share any
thoughts around that.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah, so no, it's a great question, Johnson. A lot
of people go through this, you know, when splitting up
the assets. I'm just going to plant this seed, because
you know, divorce can be an ugly thing or a
beautiful thing. There's, as they say, you know, there's there's
a good reason to get divorce, and it's it's expensive
(46:32):
to get divorce, and that's because it's worth it. But
all kidding aside, when you're splitting up the assets, you
want to look at assets that are in I raise
and assets that aren't in iras because assets that are
in iras are going to be taxable. That means that
if you have one hundred thousand dollars after tax, it
(46:52):
could only be sixty five thousand dollars, whereas if you
have one hundred thousand dollars outside of retirement accounts, one
hundred thousand is one hundred thousand. So that's one thing
for them to make sure they look at Sometimes one
spouse will try to get clever and give the other
spouse the retirement accounts because they've done their homework, or
Ben advise. You know, if you have one hundred thousand
(47:15):
dollars on average, you should be able to grab about
four or five six thousand dollars a year of income
off of that. Obviously two hundred thousand dollars you know,
ten twelve thousand dollars a year of income off that
you're going to have a retirement which hopefully will be
equitable and fair, and social security which they can find out.
(47:36):
Then it comes down, Josh, to the quality of life
that your mom, your mother in law will will want
and what does she need. Doesn't make sense to buy
a house or rent. A lot of times we tell
people to rent. Hey, Josh, I got to let you go.
You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by
Bouchef and Andrew, where we help our clients prioritize their
(47:57):
health while we manage their wealth for life. Folks, thank
you for listening today. Thank you for letting me share
with you the news about Nicole. It's devastating. Go to
our website bouchet dot com, where there's so much more information.
Enjoy your weekend, and I appreciate you tuning in today.
Bye bye
I can't explain. Well, there's job.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Is the music just sock just on lunch. Okay, great,
Good morning everybody. This is Stephen Bouchet sitting here live
and as live as I can be. I can't thank
you enough, folks for tuning in as you do every weekend,
(00:44):
Saturday mornings at ten, Sunday mornings at eight. I'm here
to help you in any way that I can. And
if you have any questions, any questions whatsoever, give me
a call. Our phone numbers are one, eight hundred talk
WGY one eight hundred, eighty two, five, five, nine, four nine.
(01:05):
Before I jump into the show and talk about the
markets and so forth, I just want to bring something
that's very personal to us. And when I tell you, you'll
know what I mean. It's been a long, sobering week
for my professional family, my colleagues, my teen you know.
(01:31):
I share with you how my mom passed away at
the age of thirty one. She had an aneurysm. She
went to bed with a headache and passed away young age.
I was only ten. Well, this past week, our firms
suffered a real loss and it's affected all of us,
(01:54):
affected all of us, Like I just can't believe. It
just shows how close we all are and what we
mean to each other. Last Sunday, our esteemed colleague, Nicole Globel.
And you've heard Nicole many times on radio. For those
(02:14):
of you that are clients, you've seen and met Nicole.
You've been on our website where you can just see
what a beautiful, amazing, dynamic individual Nicole is. And last
Sunday she was doing all the right things. You hear
me talk folks often about taking care of our health.
(02:36):
You know, when we have our health, we have everything.
When you're fortunate enough to have your loved ones, boy,
you're you're pretty lucky. And if financially you can make
things happen, then you're you're really lucky. Well, your health
is what matters the most. So Nicole was exercising last
(02:56):
Sunday the why, taking care of herself, you know, fulfilling
her New Year's resolution. Long story short, Nicole felt faint,
was rushed to urgent care and her husband thanked God
Pete was able to make it there in time as
(03:19):
Nicole was in and out of consciousness. Nicole was then
taken to Albany med and an amazing health care facility
we have, and unfortunately, Nicole suffered an anerism and she
was on life support and God took her on Wednesday afternoon.
(03:45):
She passed away on Wednesday afternoon. We're still kind of numb,
my colleagues and I with it all. Nicole not only
cared for her family, Nicole cared for her colleague, me
and my team. Nicole cared for our clients. Nicole just
(04:08):
had that way about her where she cared about everybody.
She was only forty six. She has a son, eight,
a daughter, four beautiful, beautiful children, and her husband, Pete.
I actually happened to be in Florida and you know,
rushed home. I wanted to, you know, say my goodbyes
(04:29):
to Nicole and visit her and be there for Pete,
her husband, and give some warm hugs to her kids
because this this really hit all of us and we're
still in a state of shock. And I just wanted
to let everybody know because Nicole was part of the
(04:53):
listening audience. She did radio, and when she did radio,
she was amazing hosting radio. She just she's so knowledgeable.
She just was just great to listen to. And to
think that, to think that, you know, twenty twenty four,
(05:21):
as you know, was a year from hell. Just you know,
everybody in my firm, they lived twenty twenty four with me,
and you know my son and daughter working in the firm,
you know everybody. Just we were like one close knit family.
(05:46):
And Nicole was one of those friends at work that
just always made sure I was doing okay. And I
thought twenty twenty five we were going to start out
fresh and have a good year. And I guess a
(06:07):
lesson in life, folks, Life is unpredictable and we can't
take life for granted. I think if if I can
pass along any guidance about life, it's that I know
it firsthand more times than not. So I wanted to
(06:34):
just share with you because I know you tune in
your loyal I know we have a lot of clients
that are listening. Sent them all a letter explaining what happened.
So I just wanted to start to show, you know,
not to bring the tone or move down, but just
(06:55):
share with you our beautiful beloved colleague, Nicole is May
her rest in peace and may her look down her family, Pete,
her two children, Max and Riley, and on all of us, Zach,
(07:18):
I want to take just a quick break if I may.
The phone lines are open, folks on the other side
of the break, I would love to talk to you
anything that you want to talk about. One eight hundred
eighty two five five nine, four nine one eight hundred
eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Thank you, folks
(07:47):
for letting me take that break to gather my thoughts. Well,
let's you know, let's talk about money. I guess that's
the name of the show. Let's talk money. One eight
hundred eighty two, five five nine, four nine one eight
hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine of the
(08:08):
phone numbers. And if you have any questions, thoughts, comments,
give me a call. Let's talk. Let's try to get
your pointed in the right direction. You have one opportunity
to retire. You can't you can't blow that opportunity. You
can't go back and make up for all those decades
of working. When you know whatever your dream is and
(08:32):
when it comes to retirement, I think most of us
have a vision in our mind how we would like
to see retirement play out, and that costs money. You
need to be prepared. You need all those decades that
you're working be able to sock some money away because
social Security, you know, on average fifteen sixteen thousand dollars
(08:55):
a year on average, it's just not enough unless that's
all you need to live. And if you're married, maybe
on average thirty thousand dollars a year from social Security.
And if that's all you need, that's great. If you
need more than that, you need to draw from your savings.
If you don't have a pension plan, and very few
people have a defined pension plan, you you want it
(09:19):
to make sure that you're prepared, to make sure that
that that that you can have that retirement. That means
that you have to save. And you hear me say often,
if you're not saving ten to fifteen percent of your salary,
more than likely you're not saving enough. And you need
to be invested properly. You can't be afraid to be
(09:40):
invested properly. Have a well diversified portfolio. Phone lines are
open one eight hundred eight two, five five nine four
nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine.
Let's go to the phone lines where we have Elizabeth
holding on. Hello, Elizabeth, good morning, how are you, good morning?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Thank you for that lovely tribute. But I'll get right
to my question. If you have money in a roth
ira and then in a four h three B, which
would you recommend spending down first in retirement if you're
trying to get things into a trust.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's a great question. So the pros and cons. Money
in your four oh three B is taxable to you
when you take it out, Elizabeth. That means that because
you got a tax break when you put that money
in when you were working. And I'm guessing you work
for a not for profit or a school or a
hospital or something, and you know, one thank you for
(10:40):
your service. But all those years that you were putting
money away, if you invested one hundred dollars, you weren't
taxed on that one hundred dollars. So it was like
saving maybe sixty five seventy seventy five dollars because Uncle
Sam subsidized that. Now that you're looking to take money out,
you're going to be taxed on it if you're in
(11:02):
a low tax bracket. Sometimes in we need to do
more planning, but sometimes it makes sense to take money
out of that taxable account because the wroth will continue
to grow. Tax deferb just like it does in the
four h three B for you, Elizabeth. The beauty about
the WROTH is you don't have to take any R
(11:23):
and D s and when you take that money out,
it's tax free. So it's different for each and every
individual depending on one their tax bracket, their life expectancy,
and you know, their overall assets. So it's not just
a cut and dry answer, but it's something for you
to think about, and you're starting out the right way
(11:45):
by thinking about it and asking that question. But we
need to do a little bit more planning for you.
But I hopefully gave you a couple of things to
think about in a couple of things to you know,
maybe talk over with your advisor, if you have somebody
that helps you with your taxes, that would be a
good place to start. Thank you very much, Elizabeth, Thank
(12:08):
you for calling. Be healthy, have a great day. One
eight hundred eighty two, five five, nine, four nine. Let's
go back to the phone lines. We have Steve.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Hello, Steve, Good morning, Steve. Nice hearing from you this morning.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, no, I was going to say I'm sorry I
had to start out with some somber news and you know,
I just Nicole meant a lot to so many people,
and I know people that listened to the radio when
Nicole was on, you know, she got a lot of calls,
and people always made comment on just how smart she was.
(12:48):
Nicole was. She was a she was a CPA, a
certified divorce financial analyst. She was smart cookie. And I
just wanted to let everybody know that it was a
sobern week for all of us and it continues to be.
I know that one of my colleagues was supposed to
(13:12):
do the show this morning but just wasn't able to.
When I tell you that Nicole affected all of us,
she truly did, and I needed to step in as
a leader, you know, comfort all of my colleagues, comfort
Nichole's family, and I wanted to be on the show
this morning and just kind of, you know, let everybody
(13:33):
know about Nicole. So anyway, Steve, thank you for your
thank you for your comments. What can I help you
with this morning?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Okay, I have about two hunred and fifty thousand. I
want to invest into a large cap growth funds and
I know that the market is pretty much a all
time high at this point. Do you expect maybe you
know a little bit of a correction here and there.
Since it's up so high, you think that's going to
be a small, you know, lowering of the prices in
(14:05):
the future, or should I just put it all in
at once.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Absolutely, there's going to be a correction. I guarantee. My
clients laugh at me, especially new clients. They come in
and when they meet me for the first time, I
look at them in the eye, I shake their hand,
give them a hug, and then I give them my guarantee.
I said, you know, you're going to lose money, and
they kind of look at me. He said, well, listen,
(14:29):
when you get that statement and you're down in value
and you call me, you say, hey, Steve, I lost money,
and I'm going to look back at you or talk
to you on the phone and say I know, I
guarantee you that, and they kind of laugh. So it's
it's tongue in cheap. But yes, there will be a correction,
(14:50):
there will be a bear market, there will be another recession.
I guarantee all of the above. I just don't know when. Now.
Let me tell you why. I'm a little giddy, and
I'm you know, I'm always forever my investment committee laughs
because I always tell them our number one job is
to make money for our clients. I was actually in
(15:13):
Ed Wilhelm and Casey Bird. They're my portfolio traders, and
they really you know, when clients need to make a
change or want to make a change, or we make
a change in the portfolio. These guys make the magic happen.
They're the odds behind the curtain. And I tell them
you have the most important job in the firm because
(15:33):
clients engage our services to make them money. I said,
you guys need to make sure we make them money.
And they say, Steve, you're always optimistic. I said, of course,
I am. I said if you think, you know, over
the last forty four years, when you think about it,
the market's been up like thirty four of those forty
(15:53):
four years. The market over the last ten years has
been up eight out of ten years. The market, stock market.
There's a bond market, there's a real estate market, there's
a commodity market. But I'm talking the stock bunker piece.
That's what that's what most investors are afraid of. They're
afraid of stocks. When you think about it, stocks are
up more than they're down. And if you don't panic
(16:16):
and have knee jerk reactions. When that market goes down,
Guess what happens? Guess what has been happening forever. The
stock market guaranteed will go down. It may go down
five percent, ten percent, twenty percent, twenty five percent, heck
two thousand and seven through March two thousand and nine,
oh and down fifty percent five zero. Guess what It
(16:41):
always comes back. It always goes on to make new
all time highs. The key is not to get if
you're invested properly. Anybody who needs money, I always say,
over the next one two years, shouldn't have that money
invested in the stock market. And if you have time,
the market will come back to the market, it will
go back and make you all time highs. That's a secret. Now.
(17:05):
I also have mentored my colleagues and my advisors especially.
We always talk about dollar cost averaging and lump some
investing on paper. I can show you why dollar cost
averaging sounds good. Put your money in slowly in case
there's a market drop, and then you feel good about it.
(17:27):
I can make anybody listening feel good about that. But
I can also show them the statistics and if you google,
Vanguard has some great stats on this. Putting your money
in and even if there's a correction next week or
next month, forget about it. There may be the market
will come back and go back up. The key is, Steve,
(17:48):
do you have the comfort level? Will it keep you
up at night? If you put that money in, you
lump some in now and by chance the market goes
down to not tomorrow, it's closed obviously, but if the
market goes down next week or next month, will not
bother you. If it won't, then there's a lot of
statistics out there shown one sum, investing will make you
(18:12):
more money rather than waiting for the market to go down.
But if you're a nervous Nelly type, dollar cost averaging
probably makes sense. I hope that helps you. I love
large cap, but right now MidCap is the sweet spot.
There's when So what you might want to think about
doing is maybe by the like our large cap core
(18:35):
holding is the all the entire stock market. We do
the S and P, the S and P six hundred,
the S and P four hundred three, large cap, mid cap,
small cap, and when you look in time, midcaps hardly
ever are the number one performing You know, ask that
class if you break the market down from large cap,
(18:58):
MidCap small cap, but they're always right there. It's like
the maid of honor that's always makes it to the
alter but never gets married herself. And midcaps right now
are pretty good. You know, the S and P's trading
at about twenty two times twenty twenty five earnings a
twenty year high. Midcaps are about fourteen percent. So you
(19:18):
may want to think about a total stock market. We
use the Schwab broad market. You may want to think
about the Nastac beause we just love that as our
like large cap growth focused on technology almost sixty percent
of its technology. And you may want to think about
the Russell two thousand, which is a MidCap small cap,
(19:40):
and blend the three in if you're willing to invest
and see how it goes. Steve, great question. I'm sure
there was a lot of listeners that appreciate it. You
asking that, folks, there's never a question that you shouldn't asked.
I can almost assure you there's somebody listening that will
appreciate it. Eight hundred five five nine four nine. Let's
(20:02):
go back to the phone lines where we have Tony.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Hello, Tony, I just let you know and I don't
have a financial question, which I would have anyway, But
it's a beautiful tribute you did it to Nicole. God
bless her young family, and it's really a loss being
as young as you, you know, as she was. She
left me a message of a question that I did
(20:27):
call your office one time. God bless them all. So Steve,
I'll call you some other time with some other financial question.
But take care and hopefully her family will go through this.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Have a good day, Tony. Thank you for your comments.
She truly was a beautiful person and a smart person.
Oh my god, folks, when I tell you how smart
she was, she was, she was just We're all in
awe at how brilliant Nicole was. There wasn't too many
(20:59):
quiess and she couldn't answer. And you know, I relocated Nicole.
I met her three years ago, just three years ago.
She joined us three years ago April, and she put
her trust in me and my leadership team, Ryan, Marty
and John. We all met with her and we were
all impressed with her, and she said she was impressed
(21:22):
with us and she put her trust in us. I
literally I made it. I made the magic happen. I
relocated her and her family from New Jersey to you know,
upstate New York, a place that she never never could
imagine herself being in. And she's been with us three
(21:45):
short years, and in those three years, you know, everybody
she touched, she just it's just it's a touch that
lingers on forever. She will give us that gift that
goes on forever. And you know, we just did a
(22:06):
Woman in Wealth seminar with a couple colleagues TiAl and
Becker Chremonte CPA firm and Lemmerie and Greisler Claire McCrae,
one of our professional colleagues there at that law firm
and us, and we did a Woman in Wealth launch
(22:26):
and not too long ago at the Wolfrids Bruce Country Club.
And I'm telling you, she takes She just took everybody
by storm. Forty six years old. For me to be
sitting here talking about losing Nicole, I can't begin to
tell you just how devastating it is to us, my team, everybody,
(22:50):
just how devastating it is. I just can't begin to
tell you, folks. We're going to take a break for
the news you're listening to. Let's talk money brought to
you by Bouchet and Andrew Grew where we help our
clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life.
I can't thank you enough for tuning in. One eight
hundred eight two five five nine four nine. That's one
(23:13):
eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Any
questions you have, give me a call on the other
side of the news break. It'll be a short news break.
Go to our website Bouchet dot com. You'll be able
to take a look at our team and see just
how beautiful and just majestic Nicole was. I'll see you
in a couple quick minutes.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
I can explain.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Wit well this shrive me same.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Oh and just need on launchs to.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Bring Zach, that's a beautiful song for the somber day
that it is in the sobering news that I shared
with the listening audience about our are just.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Dear colleague Nicole. So thank you, Zach for for that
song that was. That was a great song to lead
into the second half of the show. Folks, Thank you
for tuning in today. Thank you for hanging in through
the news. I would love to talk to you if
you have any questions pertaining to your financial health, please
(24:42):
one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.
One eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine,
any questions whatsoever, give me a call and let's kind
of talk it out. And so I said on the
first half of the show, you get one one opportunity
to retire. You do not want to blow that opportunity.
(25:04):
So let me help you make that happen. Let's have
that quality of life and retirement that you always were
hoping for. And you need to be prepared. So I'm
here to help you, give you my honest personal opinion.
One eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine.
(25:27):
So the you know the week, listen, folks, Monday, the
markets were closed Martin Luther King Day and happened to
coincide with the presidential inauguration. And you heard me on
the first half of the show that I'm always forever
(25:47):
the optimist. And you know you've heard me say this before.
So I'm not making this as a political statement. Don't
take it this way. I'm not a Republican, I'm not
a Democrat. I truly I'm not reach in any party.
I'm not even an independent. My dear friend, Senator Joe
Bruno told me as I was sitting in his office.
(26:08):
He looks at me. He says, Steve, you know you're
a blank. And I'm looking at him. I said, Senator,
what do you mean I'm a blank? He says, you're
not registered in any party. I said, no, Senator, I'm
an independent. He says no, Steve. He says you're not
even an independent. He says, you're a blank. So that's
how I found out. And God bless Joe Bruno. Talk
(26:30):
about the king of negotiators, being able to bring both
sides together and putting on a good face and your
best foot forward. Joe Bruno had a way of doing that.
So I'm a blank. So I'm forever optimistic that the
market is up more than it's down. And I'm telling you,
we had the inauguration of President Trump on Monday, and
(26:54):
within minutes things started to happen, and folks, I'm giddy
about where this great country of ours, the United States
of America, is headed. I'm just giddy about the people
that President Trump is surrounding himself by. There's some fresh faces,
(27:18):
young blood, smart people. Things will probably look different real soon.
In Washington than they've ever looked before. That's not a
bad thing. We have nothing to lose a lot of
And it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, folks,
(27:39):
you have to just feel good about a lot of
what President Trump is doing right off the bat, not
wasting a day to get things started. I think one
of the most beautiful days of the short five days
that he's been president was yesterday going to North Carolina,
(28:03):
where so many people are still still suffering four months
after those devastating storms just made you know, western part
of North Carolina just unlivable. And he makes it a
priority to go there and give them the help they need,
(28:25):
and then immediately fly to La to do the same
with regards to the fire. And this this guy doesn't
hold backs. He calls it like he sees it. And
he called them out in California. I watched some of
the some of the snippets, and he called them out.
(28:46):
I mean, you'll see people that may have been against
President Trump all of a sudden before him because he
will be there. He will put this country first. You
think of the hundreds of billions of dollars that we
(29:10):
sent to Ukraine when we couldn't even help people right
here in North Carolina or over the last couple of weeks,
not to be able to do more for the people
that have just been uprooted in LA with the fires
and aside from all of the cities looking like they
(29:35):
were just you know, hit by a bomb, and we're
sending hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine? Are you
kidding me? He will put our country first. And I'm
optimistic that the stock market has a way to go.
And going back to one of the first callers, you know,
(29:56):
the markets that an all time high, and it was
I think the SA on Thursday closed that an all
time high. Guess what, folks the market. That happens. Often
the market will take a break, it'll go backwards, but
the market always goes on to make new all time highs.
It's a beautiful thing. I told you, I share with
(30:19):
my clients. I'm one hundred percent invested in the stock market,
and I have absolutely no problem when the market goes down,
I don't look. So we started off the week with
the Trump inauguration and they moved it inside because it
was a little bit cold in Washington, and you know,
(30:40):
you gotta love Trump. He actually asked a question. You know,
it's not a bad spot to have an inauguration. Why
full around with mother nature and the elements of the
cold weather that could happen in January. Maybe we should
have it inside every four years. So we'll see if
they have it inside every four years. Folks, we had
(31:00):
to ceasefire that began in Godsam with the first hostage
in prisoner exchanges. Thank god. Once again, you have to
take President Trump for his word. If those hostages didn't
start to be released, who knows what might have taken place.
So it looks as though the and I can only
(31:24):
imagine the terrible situation these hostages have been living in.
But they started to be released, and they were more released,
you know, this weekend. So let's hope they all get released.
Let's hope that their families get some closure. The crypto,
(31:44):
you know, bitcoins up to one hundred and five thousand
dollars for those of you that were afraid to buy
in at sixteen thousand not too long ago. Hotly moly,
you got TikTok. Looks like TikTok's going to live on AI.
Artificial intelligence. I say it often folks, if you haven't,
if you haven't been playing around with an AI app,
(32:09):
you got to start playing around with it. It's here
and it's amazing. So for the week, the dollar fell
then rebounded, markets rose after the market's being closed Monday.
For Martin Luther King, the S and P hit its
first record high of twenty twenty five on Thursday. Shares
fell a little bit on on Friday, that's okay. For
(32:31):
the week, the Dow was up two point two percent,
the S and P five hundred and NASDAC gained about
one point seven percent. Not bad, not bad, Well, we'll
take that.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
You're to date.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You have NASDAK up three point three percent. QQQ. When
you buy QQQ, you're buying one hundred largest companies in
NASDAK up three point six percent. You had the S
and P five hundred index up three point seven percent.
Russell two thousand, This is a beautiful thing to see, folks.
I talked about mid caps earlier being maybe a sweet spot.
(33:09):
Maybe maybe mid caps are set to have a good run.
We need the entire market to do well, not just
the magnificent seven. So it's nice to see the Russell
two thousand and up three point five percent, almost in
line with the S and P. Starting out. That's a
beautiful thing. I hope, I hope we continue to see
(33:31):
that because that means that that the entire stock market's
taking taking hold, and that's that's that's what we want.
Gold closed at twenty seven seventy seven. Announce you got
crude oil at seventy almost seventy five dollars a barrel.
So there you have it. The you know, we was
(33:52):
was a pretty good week companies. You know, Apple fourth
quarter iPhone sales fell in China. You know, China is
an important part of Apple. And you know, I'm an
open book. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. You
know that Apple is one of our top holdings, and
(34:13):
we're starting out. It's down eleven eleven percent for the year.
Amazon is up seven percent for the year. That's our
second largest holding, while the S and P is up
three point seven percent. You know, so you know, Apple
took it on the chin a little bit. Amazon over
the last year was up almost fifty percent and you
(34:37):
had Apple up only fifteen percent, while the S and
P was up twenty five percent for the last year.
And I'm not worried Apple's been a good holding over time,
and Apple is used to having you know, it's it's
it's periods of ups and downs. It's still a great company,
a great loyal customer base, good price, and I'm not
(35:01):
worried about Apple being one of our top holdings in
the portfolios. But it is important that the iPhone sales
fell in China. You know, President Trump presided over the
announcement of a five hundred billion that's billion with a
b Ai infrastructure venture led by open Ai, Soft Bank
(35:24):
Group and Oracle. Elon Musk, you know, you know, he's
just he's He's by Trump's side, and whether you like
Elin or not, the man's a brilliant man, folks. I've
said this often. How he gets done when he gets
done blows my mind. But he's a brilliant man. And
(35:45):
I'm not worried about Musk being close to to President Trump.
You had Maderna this week received five hundred and ninety
million dollars in federal funds to develop a bird flu vaccine.
Flicks added nineteen million subscribers in the fourth quarter. I
guess people are still watching TV. This coming week, we
(36:08):
got a lot of earnings. We're in earning season, we
got eighteen TG and Lockheed Martin, Starbucks. You know Meta,
which is Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, Caterpillar, MasterCard, Visa all announcing.
The big day is going to be Wednesday, the Federal
Open Market Committee announces its monetary policy. Probably, I won't
(36:33):
be surprised. You know, we've had three interest rate cuts
the last few months of twenty twenty four after eleven
hikes for the last few years. I won't be surprised.
With the latest data on the economy, with the latest
jobs report, it won't surprise me if the Fed leaves
(36:57):
rates unchanged. The FED funds rate on change at four
point twenty five and four zero point five percent range.
You know, the economy is resilient. It's pretty good. And
there's you know, people were worried about the tariffs that
Trump was going to put in place, and the first
day Trump kind of softened his and he's he's like that,
(37:19):
you know, listen, he's not afraid. Listen. This guy plays chess.
He doesn't play tid lee wings, and he doesn't play checkers.
President Trump plays chess. All around the world, he plays chess,
and he's he's truly good at playing chess. So you know,
some people take his threats as as being devastating, and
(37:41):
I always say, you know the guy, the guy is
going to get what's best for this great country of ours,
and he'll play chess. And it looks as though the
tariffs won't be as bad as some people feared. And
that's a beautiful thing. So I won't be surprised to
see the FED leave in traits alone when they meet
Tuesday Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon at at around two o'clock, they'll
(38:05):
come out and inflation it's above the Fed's two percent target.
Now I've said this one hundred times over the last
few years. I think the FED is wrong for advertising
that they have a two percent target. I gave these
statistics out last week or the week before. Over the
last ninety years, inflation has averaged about three point four percent.
(38:29):
Since nineteen fifty, it's averaged just a little over three percent.
So why why is the Fed focused on a two
percent rate? Because after the Great Recession ended, after we
lived through two thousand and seven through two thousand, early
March of two thousand and nine, the market was down
(38:49):
fifty percent. People thought the world was coming to an end.
It did not come to an end. People thought stocks
were going to zero. The stock market just thrived on
to make new all time highs. But the FED got
used to low inflation rates for the fifteen years after that.
So I would rather have the FED focus on the
(39:11):
last ninety years rather than the last fifteen years. So
they they're fixated on a two percent target rate. I
don't think they're going to get two percent anytime soon,
but inflation is somewhere between two and three percent. The
Bureau of Economic Analysis, they'll release the Personal consumption Expenditure
(39:32):
Price Index PCE for December. Economists forecasts the two point
five percent year over year increase, one tenth of a
percent more than in November. And this is one of
the Feds, you know, they love to look at this,
so we'll see. And the core, when you take out
(39:52):
food and energy is expected to be two point eight percent,
So it's under three percent, it's above two percent, and
that's okay. Now let me give you one more statistic.
Four dollars and fifteen cents. Do you know what that is?
Four dollars and fifteen cents is the average price of
a dozen of large eggs in December up fourteen percent
(40:16):
from November and up thirty seven percent for the year.
So there you go. Eggs is a big part of
our diet, good source of protein and something that people
take for granted. But eggs are obviously way above two
to three percent range of inflation, and there's a lot
(40:40):
of prices that are still high that need to come down,
and hopefully, hopefully they'll come down. One eight hundred eighty
two five five nine four nine. One eight hundred eighty
five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions you have, folks,
give me a call. I would love to talk to
you anything you want to talk about, especially with regards
(41:05):
to money. One eight hundred eighty two five five nine
four nine. Any questions, any questions whatsoever. You hear me
talk recently because you know, losing my wife Sue last
May was just devastating and going through some help things
(41:25):
that I went through. Twenty twenty four was one of
those years, and starting out twenty twenty five, losing Nicole Goebeler,
our esteam colleague, just hits home again. And even though
we talk a lot about money on radio, sometimes it's
(41:47):
important for me to talk about, you know, just life
in general and life insurance and disability insurance, sometimes we
overlook it. And and this week just hit home with Nicole,
and I say this often. If you haven't you know,
(42:11):
if you haven't done any serious financial planning and you're
not saving ten to fifteen percent of your salary, you're
probably not saving a lot. And if you have a
young family and you don't have at least two million,
two million, not two hundred thousand, two million dollars of
life insurance, you probably don't have enough. And if you're
(42:35):
scratching your head saying weeah, but you know, my buddy
who's selling me this life insurance wants me to buy
a universal life or a whole life so that I
can save up money and have this money when I'm
sixty five and have it help my retirement. Folks, get
rid of that buddy, go out and have a beer
(42:55):
with he or she, but do not buy your life
insurance bump. Then you need to have at least two
million dollars worth of life insurance. If you have a
loved family, I can almost assure you you don't have enough.
And you can buy term insurance. It's cheap. Life insurance
agents make pennies on a dollar instead of dollars on
(43:17):
a dollar selling term. That's why they hate to sell
term because they don't line their pockets with easy commissions.
The commissions on permanent life insurance could be as high
as fifty percent. On term insurance, it's peanuts. And that's
why term insurance is cheap. And I hate the word cheap,
(43:38):
but everybody can afford term life insurance. And if you're
young and you have a family, especially if you have
a stay at home spouse, you need to have a
lot of life insurance. And Nicole's case, her husband, Pete
was a stay at home dad. He took care of
the kids, and Nicoal was the bread winner and she
(44:01):
was forty six and you know she's no longer the breadwinner.
And it takes life insurance that benefit to replace the
income and help out with college and you know, paying
the mortgage and putting food on the table. So just
(44:22):
I want to plant the seed. If you're listening, or
if you have children or grandchildren, you know, tell them
they need to do some detailed financial planning and take
a look at their life insurance and don't buy permanent
insurance because you need life insurance in case you pass
away now when you're young, not if you live to
(44:42):
you're sixty five seventy seventy five years old. You don't
need as much insurance than when your children are grown
and you're retired and you've saved enough money. You need
life insurance when you're younger, not older. Eight hundred eight
two five, five, nine four nine. Let's go the phone
lines where we have Josh in Troy.
Speaker 6 (45:02):
Hello, Josh, Hey, Steve, good morning, puasure to talk with you.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Good morning to you.
Speaker 6 (45:09):
How are you doing, Hey, all things considered, I'm doing okay,
you know, just kind of getting through the Northeast winter.
A quick question. So I have an in law who
is wrapping up a divorce. But anyways, they're they're retired
at sixty two, they have a pension from the State
(45:31):
of New York. They'll have their social eventually, and then
they'll have, you know, somewhere in the realm of I
don't know, to close to two hundred thousand dollars of
proceeds after the divorce. I'm wondering if this is something
that you and your team, you know, routinely see, because
the question is, is, uh, you know what to do with
(45:53):
that cash? She does she is figuring out housing does
it make sense to rent or buy or et cetera.
But she's also looking to basically use that capital in
a way to create a third reliable stream of income.
And I was just wondering if you could share any
thoughts around that.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah, so no, it's a great question, Johnson. A lot
of people go through this, you know, when splitting up
the assets. I'm just going to plant this seed, because
you know, divorce can be an ugly thing or a
beautiful thing. There's, as they say, you know, there's there's
a good reason to get divorce, and it's it's expensive
(46:32):
to get divorce, and that's because it's worth it. But
all kidding aside, when you're splitting up the assets, you
want to look at assets that are in I raise
and assets that aren't in iras because assets that are
in iras are going to be taxable. That means that
if you have one hundred thousand dollars after tax, it
(46:52):
could only be sixty five thousand dollars, whereas if you
have one hundred thousand dollars outside of retirement accounts, one
hundred thousand is one hundred thousand. So that's one thing
for them to make sure they look at Sometimes one
spouse will try to get clever and give the other
spouse the retirement accounts because they've done their homework, or
Ben advise. You know, if you have one hundred thousand
(47:15):
dollars on average, you should be able to grab about
four or five six thousand dollars a year of income
off of that. Obviously two hundred thousand dollars you know,
ten twelve thousand dollars a year of income off that
you're going to have a retirement which hopefully will be
equitable and fair, and social security which they can find out.
(47:36):
Then it comes down, Josh, to the quality of life
that your mom, your mother in law will will want
and what does she need. Doesn't make sense to buy
a house or rent. A lot of times we tell
people to rent. Hey, Josh, I got to let you go.
You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by
Bouchef and Andrew, where we help our clients prioritize their
(47:57):
health while we manage their wealth for life. Folks, thank
you for listening today. Thank you for letting me share
with you the news about Nicole. It's devastating. Go to
our website bouchet dot com, where there's so much more information.
Enjoy your weekend, and I appreciate you tuning in today.
Bye bye
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.