Let's Talk Money

January 26th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks. Oh, and welcome folks. It's Sunday morning. Oh, let's

(00:13):
listen to the music for a second. My love of
stands on Golden seve So our longtime producer Zach Harris
is watching the Philadelphia Eagles game in person live. So
today I have my other big guy, Tom guys and

(00:33):
he's going to be our producer. The phone lines are open,
and if you have any questions, give us a call Tom,
and I would love to talk with you. One eight
hundred Talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine. We had a great show yesterday, a
lot of great questions. As I said to one caller,

(00:56):
he had a great question, and I said, I know
there's other listeners that were thankful that he asked that question.
So please don't think that your question isn't worth calling
in because I can almost assure you we have millions
of people listening. I'm sure there's somebody that will be
thankful that you asked the question that you asked. I

(01:17):
gave some bad news yesterday, and I'll just take a
moment too, because I know we have a lot of
listeners that just tune in on Sundays. My firm, my colleagues,
and I had a really rough week this week, sobering
week to say the least. It was just a week
from hell. To be honest, it was just not a

(01:41):
good week, a very sad week in my firm. And
as I said yesterday, you've heard me share how my
mom passed away. She was thirty one and she died,
you know, went to bed with a headache and passed
away of an anerism. Our beloved Nicole Goebel, who just
did the show a couple of weeks ago and does

(02:01):
this show often, and one of my just esteemed colleagues.
She and her family put their trust in me and
my leadership team Ryan Marty John three years ago right now,
three years ago at this time, and relocated her family
from New Jersey to you know, be near us to

(02:24):
work for our firm. And what in an edition she was,
what an asset to our firm, to our clients. She
was one of those people that just cared for everybody,
her family, us, as co workers, our clients. She just
couldn't do enough for anybody who came within her reach. Anyway,

(02:47):
last Sunday she was exercising at the y, doing all
the things to do to stay healthy and be good
and long story short, Nicole suffered an anerism and was
on life support. I happened to be in Florida and
rushed home on Wednesday to visit with her and be

(03:07):
there for her and help her husband Pete, and give
a couple of warm hugs to Riley and Max, eight
and four year old children that they have, and Nicole
left us. God took her on Wednesday afternoon. She passed
away on Wednesday afternoon, and it was just it's been
a sad, sad week. We're all kind of just, you know,

(03:32):
still numb thinking about it, and it'll be a long
time before we get over it. She was irreplaceable. But
I wanted to share with you because I know you
tune in every week and you get a chance to
listen to a lot of my colleagues who host the show.
But Nicole really she did a good job all around,

(03:54):
and I just I wanted to just take a moment
and share that that that news with with with with you.
I'm going to take a moment to clear my thoughts. Guys,
can we take a fifteen second break please?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
If you want to learn more about Bouchet Financial Group,
visit their website Bouche dot com. That's b O U
c h e y dot com. Sign up for their blog,
which is updated every week Stephenbouche dot com. Follow them
on Twitter at Bouchet Group. Like them on Facebook. The
phone lines are open eight hundred talk wg Y. That's

(04:33):
eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Here
is Stephen Bouche.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Thank you everybody for letting me kind of gather my
thoughts and thank you for letting me share that sad
news about Nicole. She'll be in our hearts forever, never, never,
and as I said, just irreplaceable. All lines are open.
I would love to talk to you. You get one

(05:04):
opportunity to retire. You can't go back and make up one.
Eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine one
eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. So
you know, there's some good things to be thankful for. One,
the days are getting longer, the days are getting a
little bit warmer, you know. You know, this week looks

(05:27):
like we're not going to have the zero degree temperatures.
It'll be like a heat wave around thirty degrees maybe
a little bit more. For the week, So that's good.
It doesn't look like a whole lot of precipitation for
the listeners in upstate New York anyway, I know that
the rest of the country has been devastated. I was so,

(05:50):
and I said this yesterday not to be political. I
don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. I'm a blank,
so it doesn't matter to me what you are, because
I'm not regie any party. But I was so. I
hid tears in my eyes when I saw President Trump
visit North Carolina and all the people that were affected
four months ago by those floods, and then fly immediately

(06:14):
out to LA and visit people and literally gave his
podium and mike to people to tell their stories. And
then he grilled the politicians, which only only President Trump
can do in the way that he doesn't, and they
need to be grilled. Those fires probably could have been
should have been prevented or kept under control, and just

(06:37):
you know, you think of I mean, how many almost
two hundred thousand people displaced, the homes that were lost,
the lives that were lost in both North Carolina and LA.
I mean, you're just I say this often when you
wake up and you have your health and you're able

(06:59):
to get out of bed. Folks, that's probably the most
beautiful way you can start your day, and a lot
of people can't do that. So if you're able to
do that, you really got a good start on the day.
And if you have a loved one that's with you,
your spouse, partner, then you know you're pretty fortunate and

(07:20):
financially if you can make things happen. Don't mess around.
As I said, I had a memorial service that I
needed to go to yesterday for another friend who died tragically,
and I said, you know, my job is to plan
for my client's retirement. We're always talking long term, but
I also remind my clients that they need to live

(07:41):
for today because today is a special day and sometimes
you just don't know if tomorrow's going to come, so
it's important. Our tagline is Health, Wealth for Life, and
it's truly we believe in that. We you know, obviously
want everybody to be healthy and we're going to help manage,
you know, the rest of their life financially speaking, and

(08:05):
you know, manage the wealth and get them through it.
But having your health is really a good, good, good
way to get going one eight hundred eighty two five
five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two five
fifty nine forty nine. I just got a nice text
from my my dear friend, Joseph Carr. For those of

(08:27):
you listen, I know some of you. I had a
friend of mine said, I take I go to bed
with Joe Carr every night. You know she was going
through a separation. She says, yeah, I take Joe Carr
to bed every night. Now I know Joe Carr really well.
And I said, say that again. You know Joe Carr.

(08:47):
You know at the time, you know his wife was
still with us and everything. I said, tell me that again. No, no, no,
I go to I go to bed with a bottle
of Joseph Carr wine. That gets me through the night.
And I told Joe Carr the story. And you know,
when he and I saw each other next, we took
a little selfie and I sent it to my friend.

(09:09):
I said, well, here's you could you could print this
picture and put it next to your bottle of Joe
Carr and really enjoy going to bed with Joe Carr.
But you know, here he's upbright and early, texting me
at eight o'clock. So hello Joe, if you're listening, one
eight hundred eighty two five five, nine four nine. So

(09:30):
you know, the days are getting longer, warmer, and you
know it's January twenty six. How is that possible? Just
January twenty six, and we had a good week in
the markets. The SMP was up almost one point seventy
five percent, the NASDAC Composite and QQQ one point sixty

(09:53):
five one point five five respectively. Russell two thousand up
one point four percent. A good week, and we have
a pretty good start to the year. The NASTAC is
up three point three percent, QQQ because those are the
hundred largest companies in NANSDAC up three point six percent,
SMP is up three point seven percent, and even the

(10:14):
Russell two thousand is up three point five percent. I
say that, folks, because that MidCap small cap index. You know,
it's great that the S and P does so well.
And you know we had two years where the S
and P was up twenty six percent and twenty five
percent respectively. That's that's pretty remarkable, and a lot of

(10:35):
those returns came really well. You know, we all know
the magnificent seven, right you've heard. You've heard that phrase often,
the Magnificent seven. You know, you got Apple, Amazon, Navidio, Meta,
which is Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Tesla. You know, the Magnificent
seven is really and just about all of them year

(10:59):
to date are up more than the S and P.
Apple is actually the only laggered. And if you look
over over the last year, you know, Apple underperformed the
S and P and and Microsoft, but every everything else
was up and up pretty handsomely. But the Magnificent seven

(11:20):
was responsible for a lot of the returns. You know,
artificial intelligence and I mentioned it yesterday. If you're not
playing around with AI, you need to start playing around
with it. It's the real thing, and it's pretty remarkable
what you can get out of it. You know, type
a letter, ask them to help you tweak it, look

(11:41):
for information. Uh Like Google, when you type something in
when should I take my R and D, it'll give
you a whole bunch of links. With AI, artificial intelligence,
you type the same question and it actually tells you exactly,
It gives you the answer. That's the difference between let's

(12:03):
say Google and artificial intelligence. And there will be a
day when you type something in Google and it'll be
all AI artificial intelligence. It'll give you the answer. You
won't have to look through, you know, several links to
get an answer. But the Russell two thousand. It's nice

(12:23):
to see those other companies do well because that means
we're really truly in a good rally. And I'm very optimistic, folks.
I'm always optimistic when it comes to the stock market.
The stock market's up more than it's down. I can't
begin to share that statistic enough with the Over the
last forty five years, the stock market was positive thirty

(12:46):
four of the last forty five years. The average into
dre intra day high to low peak the trough swing
in the market was about fourteen percent a year. That
means in any given year over the last forty five years,
the stock market swings fourteen percent. It goes up and down,

(13:07):
up and down, up and down. And that's why you
can't get nervous when you see the stock market go
down a little bit, because that's part of you know,
that's just part of being invested in and if you're
invested properly, having a well diversified portfolio of all asset
classes go up and down. Stocks get the most publicity

(13:29):
and people are fixated on stocks. All the markets down today, Well,
you know, don't fret over it. The market is the
stock market has brought better returns than any other asset class. Bonds,
commodities like gold, real estate, cash, any other asset class,

(13:51):
none of them have performed over time as well as stocks.
But unfortunately, stocks get all the publicity. So when the
stock market goes down, oh, the bad news bears hot
right on it, because fear sells. You're tuned in, you're
fixated on watching the news. When those bad news bears

(14:13):
are telling you that the world's coming to an end.
Guess what, even you know, in recent history, the worst
stock market correction slash bear market was October two thousand
and seven through March two thousand and nine, where the
market was down fifty percent five zero, and a lot
of people thought the stock market was going to zero.

(14:36):
People thought the world was coming to an end. And
there's a lot of investors that think that even if
the market goes five to ten percent down, they think
the world's coming to an end. Guess what, the world
hasn't come to an end yet. And you know what
the funny thing is about stock market corrections. The stock
market always recovers and always goes back to make new

(14:57):
all time highs. And that's the beautiful thing about the
stock market. And that's why if you're well diversified, you
have a good, rock solid portfolio, you're taking on as
much risk as you're comfortable with. What I mean by
that is some investors like bonds in their portfolio or
alternative assets to soften the volatility of stocks. I won't

(15:21):
use the word risk, because there's risk in every asset class.
You just have to define the risk. But the volatility
gets softened by having other asset classes blended in with
your stocks. So you know, some investors, a lot of
retirees are in a sixty forty blend eighty twenty. I'm

(15:42):
one hundred percent invested in the stock market. I don't
care when the stock market goes down. Listen. If anything,
I look for cash to put in buying opportunities. When
you see volatility, don't be afraid. They're opportunities if you
look at it in the right way. And that's us
see how smart investors make money. When there's blood in

(16:03):
the street, that's when you make money. But what you
can't do is panic. You can't have knee jerk reactions.
You can't get out of the market because the market
is vilible the market. That statistic I just gave you
forty five years thirty four positive years over the last
ten years eleven if we include year to date, there

(16:23):
were only two years where the market was down. So
the market is up more than it's down. And that's
why having that well diversified portfolio being invested for the
right reasons makes sense. One eight hundred eighty two five
five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two five
fifty nine forty nine gods, let me take one more

(16:46):
quick fifteen second break. Why I take a little sip
of my tea here.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
If you want to learn more about Bouchet Financial Group,
visit their website Bouche dot com. That's bou cch e
y dot com. Sign up for their blog, which is
updated every week Stephenbouche dot com. Follow them on Twitter
at Bouchet Group, Like them on Facebook. The phone lines
are open eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight hundred eight

(17:13):
two five five nine four nine. Here is Stephen Bouchet.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Hello, folks, Thank you for staying on through the news.
Thank you for tuning in today's Sunday morning. I appreciate
it when you get up nights and early. So let
me go back to that Russell two thousand. Midcaps it's
like the maid of honor that that, you know, they
make it up to the altar, they never get married.

(17:41):
Midcaps are kind of like that. It's an asset class
that does well often and consistently does well, but you know,
sometimes it's never the leading asset class. Large caps obviously,
you know, over over power, and sometimes small caps everyone's
in a while while. But right now when you look

(18:02):
at you know, if you look at the SMP, which
is really considered the large cap index, trading at about
twenty two times twenty twenty five earnings, a twenty year high.
If you look at you know, take the I shares
Core SMP MidCap exchange, that's trading at sixteen times, so
from a value standpoint, you're getting a lot of value

(18:25):
in there. Analysts forecast thirteen twenty five earnings for the
you know, MidCap compared to fourteen percent for the SMP.
So maybe maybe this is the year if you're looking
to make some strategic moves, some tactical moves, maybe this
is the time. If you don't have midcaps in your portfolio.

(18:48):
Now maybe the time to put some mid caps in
your portfolio. You know, you've got a lot of good
mid caps out there. They got strong balance sheets, they
weather rising rates bet than alternatives like small caps. You
got President Trump talking about tariffs. But you know, this week,
and what a week it was, right, I mean, he

(19:09):
came out of the he came out of the starting gate,
read ready to win this race. He did not waste
any time with a lot of the executive orders he
put in, and he kind of softened the tone on
the terriffs. I know, before people were worried about the
terriffs and how that was just going to kill our economy.

(19:31):
It's not going to kill our economy, folks. If anything,
and I'm one of the reasons why I'm optimistic is
I think I think you're going to see this country really, really,
really turn into the powerhouse that it truly is. I
think you're going to see this great Usa shine and

(19:54):
shine bright. I think you're going to see a lot
of deregulations. I think you're going to see I mean,
he already stripped the powers and made it easy for
people in North Carolina in La to get back, you know,
getting things done. He's sending the Army Corps in to
fix the bridges and roads. It's been four months they've
been left stranded in the hills of North Carolina, the

(20:16):
Blue Ridge Mountains here. You know, he makes one visit
and just like that, you know, he barks out orders
to get things done. And that's how he thinks. And
with his talk on the tariffs, I'm not afraid of
the terriffs. If anything, I think you'll start seeing other
countries pay their fair share. I think, if anything, I

(20:38):
think this great country of ours will be treated more fair.
And does he use tariffs as a threat. Absolutely. This
man plays chess. He doesn't play typiclarly wings or checkers.
He plays chess. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, it
doesn't matter. This president. You know, he doesn't need to

(20:58):
learn anything this time. He's already been there eight years
ago for four year stay, so he knows, he knows
how to do things differently this time. And he's not
wasting time. He's got four years to get a lot
of things done. And that's one of the reasons why
I think that the stock market. I think the stock
market has a way to go. The economy is resilient.

(21:21):
We put some people, you know, as witnessed by the
December jobs report. We had a great jobs report. And
the FED meets this week on Wednesday. Tuesday and Wednesday.
I'm guessing, although, so I'm guessing that the Fed will
leave interest rates alone. Now we had eleven interest rate

(21:42):
hikes when inflation was running out of control over the
last few years, and then since September we had three cuts.
So they meet Tuesday and Wednesday. Will they cut, will
they leave it alone, or will they hike. I'm guessing
they will leave it alone. But President Trump yesterday was
asked and he came right out and doesn't mince words.

(22:05):
He thinks they should cut, and he is going to
try his best to persuade them. Now, the FED is
supposed to be an independent agency and not supposed to
be swayed by any anybody sitting in the Oval Office.
We'll see what happens on Wednesday. So I'm guessing we

(22:26):
will see either a cut or pause, more than likely
pause because the Fed is digesting all this news. And
then on Friday we had the personal PCE number to
see where inflation is you're listening to Let's Talk Money,
brought to you by Bouchef and Andrew, where we help
our clients prioritize their help while we manage their wealth

(22:48):
for life. I truly thank you for tuning in. We're
going to take a quick break for the news, and
the phone lines are open if you want to call in.
I would love to talk to you about any question
as you have pertaining to your financial health. One eight
hundred eight two five five nine four nine. One eight
hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine any questions whatsoever.

(23:13):
In the meantime, go to our website bouchet dot com.
During the news break, one eight hundred eight two five
five nine four nine, seeing a quick couple of minutes
somewhere beyond the scene, somewhere waiting for me my lover

(23:40):
stands on gold and sand.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
And watching the ships.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
I like this song. I hate that. I hate to
have Tom end it. Thanks Tom, folks, Thank you for
hanging in through the news. Thank you for tuning in today.
I can't thank you enough. I love doing the show.
I love being here with you every Saturday and Sunday,
and it was really it energizes me in more ways

(24:09):
than not. You have no idea how much I enjoy
being here and sharing my views, giving you things to
think about, get you pointed in the right direction. Confirm
if you're doing something right or maybe you know, have
you be your devil's advocate if I think you're doing
something that maybe you should do in a different way.

(24:31):
So if you have any questions, any questions whatsoever, the
phone lines are open and I would love to talk
to you. 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 talk. Let's get your pointed in the right direction.

(24:52):
So you know in this Weekend's Wall Street Journal. And
if you just get you know, the Wall Street Journal
one day a week, get the Saturday edition. It's called
the weekend Edition. Saturday Sunday. I go to Stuart's every
Saturday morning. I get my Wall Street Journal, my barons,
and I love the people at Stuart's. They're just really great, great,

(25:16):
great people. They make you feel welcome going in there.
So this, you know, Yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the Recap
of the market. It says investors are giddy about Donald
Trump's return to the White House. I feel the same
way I said on the first half of the show.
I'm optimistic. I don't think President Trump is going to

(25:38):
kill this economy. I don't see any reason to fear
a recession. I feel that the economy's pretty pretty strong.
We have corporate earnings coming in so far they're pretty good.
Corporate America continues to generate profits. Inflation is closer to
three percent than it is to two percent, the Fed's target.

(26:01):
And I said yesterday, why the FED has a two
percent target for inflation, I don't know. Over the last
ninety years, an average year in year out about three
point four to two percent. I think since nineteen fifty
somewhere around three percent. So what happened was the Fed
after that great recession, the financial collapse of October seven

(26:24):
through March of nine, the FED got used to low inflation.
Interest rates were near zero. You were getting mortgages to
three percent mortgages. We were living in a beautiful world
if you were borrowing money, and the price of milk
and bread and gas were really affordable. They weren't going up.

(26:44):
So the the economy, you know, I'm pretty optimistic. The
only thing that's really going up And I gave this
statistic out yesterday. Four dollars and fifteen cents is the
average price for a dozen of eggs in December, up

(27:05):
fourteen percent from November and up thirty seven percent for
last year. You're still paying a whole lot more money
for groceries than you ever have, and you're still paying
more money at the gas pump than you have. You know,
it was just a few years ago where these prices
were really, really, really affordable, and they they have gone up,

(27:31):
and we can't live without food and gas. You know, Listen,
gas affects you. I don't care if you're taking a
bus to work, if you're driving your car to work,
if you're car pulling with a coworker, or if you're
getting a pizza delivered to the house. Gas effects everything.
So when I hear President Trump talk about, you know,

(27:54):
opening up, what does he say, Drill, baby, drill, Well
that's good news for us as can consumers. The more oil,
the more supply, the price will come down and we
won't rely on foreign countries for our oil where they
gouge us. So there's so many reasons that I'm optimistic.

(28:15):
Now I could be proven wrong, and I'll admit if
I am wrong, you know, three six nine months from now,
I'll reflect back, and if I'm wrong, I will tell
you I'm wrong. But I'm optimistic as I sit here.
My crystal ball is. You know, I'm all in with

(28:36):
with with the economy being strong, in the stock market
continuing its rally, and I really really feel that way.
One eight hundred eighty two, five five, nine, four nine.
Let's go to the phone lines where Paul is on
hold from Connecticut. Good morning, Paul.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
The balance is I'm that situation. I'm very sorry because
I know I was your wife too.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, that was my wife last year, and I was
hoping twenty twenty five is gonna we were gonna have
a fresh start. Everybody in my office, I'm surrounded, Paul
by twenty amazing talented colleagues, and they are true professionals,
and they all were there for me last year with

(29:23):
the loss of my wife in May, and you know,
for this past week for us to lose Nicole. We're
just devastated, my colleagues and I, when I tell you,
it's a sobering feeling. And it was a long sad
week for us in the office, and you know, I

(29:45):
did my best to try to comfort each and every
one of my colleagues and be there for them. And
you know, I'm still numbed from last year. But you
know we're going to miss Nicole. So Paul, I guess
it's a long way of saying thank you for your comments.
It means a lot to me.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
So let's say we'll talk about Sinanci. You know, we
have to keep going, I guess. But many years ago,
a very sharp guy from heart Fruit suggests that I
buy inflation indexed savings bonds with a base rate of
three four in three six. And I didn't understand the
technical aspect of inflation at that time. It didn't study finance.
So in respect to inflation, you just prove my theory

(30:29):
or belief that they're jaw bowing and about getting to two,
but they'll never get there. So I've held these bonds
in their New York state, you know, and Connecticut state
tax free. And it's not it's a conservative bond investment.
It's yielding compounded five to six percent over the long

(30:49):
haul since i've owned them. But my point is more
that you're right inflation is not going to get to two.
It takes too much to get it to two. So
in the cat's already you know where the horse is
already out of the barn, as they say with Carson's run, right.
Do you think I tend to agree with at all?

Speaker 1 (31:12):
That point? I had a horse yesterday raised that aqueduct
paid seventy six dollars superpower.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I'm going to check the charts. I don't bet New
York thinking. I bet I had a big day yesterday.
But the second point that I'm going to get off
is I listened for hours. It's more of a hobby
to get away from the horses than debting. Honestly, I
have enough resources. I'm not worried about my strategy at

(31:47):
this point. I'm too old for that. And I listened
about liquidity ETFs. I listened to Jonathan Clement's being interviewed.
He's gone through hell with Barry red Holts. And my
conclusion is when you got into this business, it was
by a stock. Then it became buy a mutual fund.
And I work very high profile relationships at Marriott Corporation

(32:11):
with the profit sharing function and his best friends with
a guy who ran the mutual fund relationships. But with
the profit sharing committee and after studying listening, everything's today
about liquidity, money flows and buying indexes. So where is
the point? And I know you have two big holdings

(32:33):
where the active manager is going to systematically be housted out,
like David I and Horne has stated, to the point
where it's everybody's buying an ETF and the whole stock
market is driven by liquidity, you know, CTA trading and
money flows. You can kind of get what I'm saying there,

(32:54):
I'm sure and co that's about it.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, absolutely, So you know I talk talk about this
often and I have every statistic under the stunt I
think we lost. Paul. Thank you first of all, Paul,
thank you for your comments and thank you for tuning in.
But I give this statistic out often. So you know
my firm, I manage one hundred or I'm sorry, one

(33:20):
point five billion dollars on behalf of my clients, and
believe me, folks, I take it very seriously. That's why
I grow my team. We have twenty professionals overseeing and
working with our clients, and every one of my colleagues
is as professional as they come. I have a team
second and none but one point five billion. We only

(33:43):
have two individual stocks, Amazon and Apple, and I like
both of those stocks. I think there are two great companies.
I don't get nervous. I know Amazon is doing really
well this year, and I know Apple isn't doing as
well as the market, but that does and concern me.
They're great companies. And we've seen the ebbs and flows

(34:05):
of Apple, especially where you know, goes up goes down.
You know, the latest news is the phone sales that
China are off about eighteen percent. And China is very
important to Apple. They sell a lot of product there
and you know they're slowly not relying on China as much.

(34:25):
So with all of that being said, we have one
point five billion dollars. It's all managed in exchange traded funds.
If you look at active stock and you can go
use artificial intelligence, don't even use Google, use artificial intelligence
and just put in active manager. You know, because there's

(34:48):
active management whether you have a stock mutual fund or stockbroker,
or a bond mutual fund or uh, you know, commodity.
You know, but let's talk stocks. Sixty five to eighty
five percent of the time it's a pretty staggering statistic.
Sixty five to eighty five percent of the time that

(35:11):
stock picker can't cannot outperform their respective index. So listen,
I became So I've been you know, January second was
thirty five years. I've been in business. I've been doing
radio with you folks for thirty years. It doesn't seem possible,
does it. But I've been a fiduciary since nineteen ninety three.

(35:33):
Before then, I used to sell mutual funds and annuities
and make commission. And I loved what I did, I
didn't like how I got paid. So I looked for
what I felt was a more ethical way for me
to work with clients, and I became a fiduciary. I'm
an SEC registered investment advisor. We don't earn one penny

(35:55):
of commission. We really don't have any conflict of interest
because we get paid the same whether we have clients
and FDIC insured CDs, treasuries or stocks or something in between.
And I learned way back then that you know, you
buy a mutual fund, you're buying a money manager who's

(36:17):
buying and selling stocks, and the key is to measure
them up against the index. And for stocks he's really
probably unless it's a MidCap or small cap, you really
should be measuring them up against the S and P
five hundred or the total stock market. We use the
Broad Stock Market etf by Schwab for a couple of reasons.

(36:39):
I used to use Vanguard, but believe it or not,
the internal management fees of Schwab is point zero three
percent less than Vanguard, and that means a lot to me.
Every penny I can save my clients is a penny
in their pocket, not in Vanguard's pocket, or t row
Prices pocket or anybody's pocket. So Schwab had the best
least let's say expensive internal management fees, and we use

(37:05):
the Broad Stock Market Index, and our other core holding
is Nasdaq one hundred. We own as much Nasdaq one
hundred as we do the broad stock market indecks. But
you should be measuring your stockbroker or your stock mutual
fund to the SMP. And if you see over time
that they're not outperforming the S and P, then why

(37:27):
mess around. The average internal management fees of a mutual
fund is about one percent if you have annuities. If
you were suckered into buying an annuity and a variable annuity.
The internal management fees are closer to three percent. It's staggering.
So you know, our Schwab Broad Stock Market Index is

(37:49):
point zero three percent and our returns are pretty stellar.
And to kind of confirm what Paul said, we you know,
very few active managers out there do a good job,
and we used to use them. I used to use them.
I've had guys like Ron Barron on my show and others.

(38:12):
But you know, I finally, you know, Ryan kind of
heads up our investment committee now and we have our
core positions and then we will underweight overweight different sectors.
You know, like right now we're overweight technology. We've been
overweight technology, folks for twenty years. And you know, I

(38:35):
always say, if you go back to the turn of
the century, the year two thousand and if you were
to buy Apple or Microsoft, well, if you owned Apple
you did really well. If you own Microsoft, you didn't
do us well. Two phenomenal technology companies. So you could
buy XLK, which is the technology sector spighter, and you
know the top ten holdings. You know, you got Apple,

(38:58):
which represents fifteen percent of that ETF. Navidia represents almost
fourteen percent, Microsoft almost thirteen percent, Broadcom almost six percent, Salesforce, Oracle, Cisco,
Accenture Service now IDM round out the top ten. But
you get my point. So just with the first top

(39:20):
three names, Apple, Navidia, and Microsoft, you know you you
got almost forty percent of your ETF in those three stocks.
You don't need to go out and buy those stocks individually.
If you buy AATF like that, these you're going to
get such representation. Then you round it out with other
names that normally wouldn't be in your portortfolio. So we, Paul,

(39:45):
we do like ETFs. We manage a lot of money. Obviously,
we have discretion. So our clients really they put their
trust and faith in us to manage their portfolio because
they know we don't have any conflict. They know one
on percent of my money and my advisor's money or
invested just like they are. We eat our own cooking.

(40:08):
I couldn't imagine, and I'm a foodie inviting you over
Paul for dinner tonight and cooking you something different than me.
I have my money invested just like I have my
client's money invested. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Not many wealth advisors can say that. So let's round
it up by saying, folks, if you if you're working

(40:28):
with a wealth advisor, or if you're doing it on
your own buying mutual funds or whatever, take a moment
in the near future and have your wealth advisor he
or she, or if you're doing it on your own,
measure it against the S and P See how you're doing,
see how they're doing. See if it's worth it. As

(40:49):
I said, there's there's I think very very few managers
can consistently outperform the market by buying and selling stocks.
Long winded answer, Well, but it was a great question.
One eight hundred eighty two, five five nine four nine
one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine

(41:09):
any questions whatsoever. So, as I said, I'm I agree
with the Wall Street Journal. I'm a little giddy about
where we're at right now, and that the stock market
I think has room to grow. For the week, the
SMP up one point seven percent. Its first record close
of twenty twenty five was on Thursday. The heat You know,

(41:31):
the best opening five trading days of any presidency since
nineteen eighty five, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Just
think about that statistic. You know, how many people once again,
it doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat or Republican. A
lot of people felt Ronald Reagan was really truly a
dynamic president. And this is the first time, the first

(41:56):
coming out of the starting gate for trading, that the
stock market is as is up as much. It hasn't
been up this much since nineteen eighty five when Ronald
Reagan was sworn in. That's that's a that's a beautiful statistic.
Nasdaq added one point seven percent for the week. You know,

(42:18):
you had, you know, the Shanghai composite that hang saying
stocks Europe six hundred, you know, basically the Vanguard Total
World Stock Exchange Traded Fund, which tracks a basket of
stocks around the world. That's up nine days in a row. Now,
I'm not here advocating, as you know, I say often

(42:38):
we don't own any none, whatsoever international holdings. We don't
have any any foreign holdings in our portfolios. We are
invested exclusively in this great country of ours. Our returns.
I can find some really great, great investments in this

(42:59):
great country hours and over time. You know, listen, if
you look over the last fifteen years, your average return
for the S and P five hundred indecks year in,
year out, even with all the bad news and the
headlines and everything, is about fourteen fifteen percent a year. Now,

(43:21):
if you look at the Major Developed Index IFA EA
f E, if you look at that over the last
fifteen years, your average return is five point sixty nine
percent compared to almost fifteen percent for the S and
P five hundred indecks. And if you look at just

(43:44):
emerging markets, your average return two point sixty nine percent
over the same fifteen year period. And there's a lot
of reason where people could have been scared and gotten
out of the market over the last fifteen years. And
the think that ye're in year out, your average return
and the SMP was almost fifteen percent if you take

(44:05):
and I have to throw Nastac in there because it's
our number one holding with the broad stock market index
nineteen twenty percent a year compared to five percent for
international investments or almost three percent for emerging markets. I'm
not sold on moving into international investments, and I really

(44:29):
strongly suggest to my investment committee that I don't care
how good the valuations look. I don't care what they
think about it being a good place to be invested.
And there may be a month or a year here
or there where international investments will perform the US stock market,

(44:50):
but consistently, just with those statistics I just gave you,
give me, give me the good old USA all day long,
I can find a lot of good investments in this
great country of ours, and especially now, as I said,
when we start deregulating how hard it is for businesses
and municipalities to get things done. I think, I really

(45:14):
think the country's going to flourish. I think there's a
lot of reason to be optimistic, which is why I'm
bullish on the stock market. I could be proven wrong, folks,
something could come out of left field, but I'm pretty
sure the Russia Ukraine conflict will be settled soon, or
I'm hopeful. I'm hoping, God bless the hostages that were

(45:38):
taken out of Israel almost a year and four months ago.
I'm hoping, I'm hoping that those hostages get returned, each
and every single one of them, and I'm hopeful in
my heart that they get returned in a healthy way.
But nobody will know, only the hostages will know. But

(46:03):
that conflict. Is that that conflict. You can't blame Israel
for decimating Homis. It's they're just the evil people. It's
an evil organization, it's a terrorist organization. And you know,
I'm hopeful that that gets resolved. In a lot of

(46:24):
attentions around the world, I think we're going to see
disappear and that's going to be more good news for investors,
especially stock market investors. I truly truly believe that, folks. Well,
that's kind of why I'm a little giddy to use
that word. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to

(46:44):
you by Bouchef and Andrew, where we help our clients
prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life.
I can't thank you enough for tuning in every weekend
and especially getting up early on a Sunday morning. Folks.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to what
I had to say. And if you want to learn
more about our firm, go to our website Bouchet dot com,

(47:07):
Biaz and boy O U C h eu y. We
got a lot of good stuff there. Thank you for
letting me share the sad news about Nicole Goebel in
my office. As I said, we are just devastated. I
hope you enjoy your Sunday and let's hope we have
a good week in the stock markets. Goodbye for now, folks,