Let's Talk Money

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The diagnosed, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
So you understand what happened. It's a shame.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Should never happened.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
Russia and Ukraine, US terrace EDGINUS in the Marcus.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Every day next happens here?

Speaker 5 (00:21):
Use radio one, O three, one and eight ten WGY.

Speaker 6 (00:29):
Poor air quality alerts on Jack Kellahan Fox News in
multiple states as smoke from Canadian wildfires wafts southward across the.

Speaker 7 (00:38):
US border, within five million people across the US are
at risk for severe weather this weekend. The southern plains,
the mid Atlantic, and the East Coast could see Tornado's
large hail and damaging winds. At least one person was
killed fourteen others were hurt when an ef too Tornado
tore through part of Kentucky. Meantime, wildfires in Canada are
forcing evacuums. Those flames are bringing thick smoke and poor

(01:03):
air quality to parts of the Upper Midwest and East Coast,
including Chicago, Detroit, and Washington.

Speaker 6 (01:08):
D c Spox's Chantey Painter. At least seven people were
killed dozens more injured after explosions destroyed two bridges and
derailed trains in two Russian regions. Near the Ukrainian border.
The blasts just hours apart, struck as a passenger train
to Moscow passed under a bridge and a freight train
crossed the other. Russian investigators say both of the bridges

(01:29):
were blown up and they're calling it terrorism. The attacks
come one day before US backed peace talks are set
to begin in Turkey. Ukraine has not commented, but some
Russian officials are blaming Key for trying to sabotage the negotiations.
Criticism from Europe for President Trump's plan to increase US
tariffs on imported steel.

Speaker 8 (01:48):
The European Union says it's ready to impose countermeasures to
President Trump's announcement. The tariffs on steel imports will rise
from twenty five to fifty percent. The President's as it's
necessary to further secure the steel industry in the US,
but the EU says it strongly regrets the increase, and

(02:08):
a spokesman said this decision adds further uncertainty to the
global economy and increases costs for consumers and businesses on
both sides of the Atlantic till NATO. Fox News America
is listening to Fox.

Speaker 5 (02:23):
News WGYAM Schenectady WGYFM all the is Youth Radio one, O, three,
one and eight ten.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
WGY the Capital Regions.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
Breaking news, traffic and weather station.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Live on the free iHeartRadio app WGY News on ted
Flint Albany Police say a fifty eight year old man
was struck and killed by a car early Saturday morning
on South Pearl Street. When police arrived at South Pearl
in wester Low Streets at five thirty, they found the
victim lying in the roadway with serious traumatic injuries. He
was pronounced dead at the scene. The victim's identity will

(03:00):
not be released until his family has been notified. The
driver is cooperating in the investigation. A fourteen year old
charged with starting a fire that leveled the historic Victory
Mills Factory building Saturday. Sources tell News Channel thirteen. The
fire was determined to be arson and the investigation is
still ongoing. When crews responded to Gates Avenue at around
two thirty, they found the building fully engulfed in flames.

(03:21):
It took Cruise about an hour to get the fire
under control. The building, which is on the National Register
of Historic Places, had been abandoned for about twenty five years.
The Saratoga County Sheriff's office investigating a Saturday afternoon stabbing
on Beresford Road in the town of Clifton Park. Sheriff's
deputies say one victim, a twenty year old, was taken
to Albany Medical Center and is said to be in
critical condition. The victim's identity has not been released. Saturday's

(03:44):
heavy rains knocked out power to thousands of Capitol Region residents.
According to the National Grid's power outage map, some twelve
hundred and seventy nine customers at last check remained without
power in the Capitol Region. Power has been largely restored
in Scotia. At one point National Grid there were over
fifty one hundred Capitol Region residents without power, more than
thirty three hundred of those in Scotia. Governor Holkal announced

(04:07):
Friday the completion of four major projects in the City
of Gloversville, all.

Speaker 9 (04:11):
Through funding from the city's ten million dollars Downtown Revitalization
Initiative Award. Projects include the renovation of Shine Memorial Hall,
the activation of Saint Thomas Square, enhancement of public amenities
at the Trail Station Park, and creation of Downtown Plaza.
The city is also nearing the completion of seventy five
units of mixed income housing at Glove City Lofts. Marty

(04:34):
Casper News Radio one O three, one and eight ten WGY.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I'm ted Fleda News Radio one O three one and
eight ten WGY, the Capitol Region's breaking news, traffic and
weather station.

Speaker 10 (04:48):
The WGY acting weather forecast for today a mix of
clouds and sun breezy, pooler conditions with a couple of
showers possible with the higher fifty nine. For tonight, moss
of cloudy conditions may be favorable for viewing the more
than Life with a low forty five TAMAR pleasant and
warmer with the mix of sunny cloud high seventy one
Tomar nightclear department Cotti's Guys in the area with the

(05:08):
low forty seven from the WGY Weather Center. I'm Kaitlin Lawrence.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
During the following program are not those of WGY it's staff,
management or parent company, iHeartMedia. This WGY programming time is
brought to you by the Bouchet Financial Group.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Are you working with a true fiduciary to manage your wealth?
For over thirty five years, Stephen Bouchet and Bouchet Financial
Group have been dedicated to putting clients first. As a fiduciary,
our only priority is what's best for you. Providing transparent,
fee only asset management with no hidden sales or commissions,
with offices in historic downtown Troy, Sarah Tooga Springs, Boston,

(05:49):
and South Florida. We're here to guide you through life's
financial decisions. Learn more at Bouchet dot com. That's bou
cch e y dot com. Catch Ryan Bousche's expert financial
insights every Wednesday on WGY Mornings with Dave Allen. Have
you recently come into sudden money, whether from life insurance proceeds,

(06:09):
divorce settlement, retirement, lump sum payout, even winning the lottery?
Do you know what to do next? Call in now
with your financial questions at one eight hundred Talk WGY
one eight hundred eight two five, five, nine, four nine.
Now here's WGY's financial analyst, Steven Bouche or one of

(06:30):
his expert colleagues.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
This morning, folks, my name is Martin Shields. I'm the
chief wealth Advisor at Bruchet Financial Group, and I'm going
to be your host for Let's Talk Money. I hope
you're doing well on this rather chilli spring morning here. Right,
We've had Boy, we've had our share of rain this year,
I am going to say, but certainly this spring. But

(06:59):
everything nice and green. And as we look out for
the weather for this week, it looks as though we're
going to be into real I'm going to say summer weather.
I actually even saw nineties on Wednesday, And I tell you,
I love the Winners, but when summer comes, I like
it hot, and it really can't get hot enough, so

(07:20):
I'm good with nineties. It'd be good to have some
nice weather as we go into the Belmont week here
in Saratoga. Always very exciting historic or the second year
that this is going to be going on in Saratoga Springs.
So a lot of energy up here for what should

(07:40):
be a big crowd hopefully and an exciting week. But
I hope that you're doing well. And as always, if
you have any questions, why don't you give me a
call or you can email me and I can answer
those questions for you. You can reach me on the
line at eight hundred Talk Wy. That is eight hundred

(08:01):
eight two five five nine four nine. Again that's eight
hundred eight two five five nine four nine, Or you
can email me at ask Bouchet at Bouchet dot com.
That is asked Bouche at Bouchet dot com and Bouchet
is spelled b O U d h e y dot com.

(08:25):
So any questions you may have, give me a call
or send me an email. As I always say, there's
no dumb or silly question except for the one you
don't ask, and you may be doing your fellow listener
a favor by asking that question they have as well.
So a lot to discuss today, both with the markets
and from a financial planning perspective. The markets ended up

(08:47):
this week were in positive territory in general as we
look across the major indises, with the SMP being U
just up under underd one percent for the year. And
you know, again we're still kind of in this little
bit of a holding pattern to see, uh if we
get beyond some of the uncertainty with the tariffs. But

(09:10):
you know, you talk about data, right, We're always looking
at data, whether it's corporate earnings which continue to be
pretty strong. Uh. You know, you see some elements of
the tariffs coming to place play with some of the
retailers like GAP, but in general, as you talk about
the broader market. Earnings continue to be higher than expectations,

(09:31):
and for the most part, as people forecast out for
the year, things are pretty good. Now. Some of the
the other data that's called soft data, that's more talking
about consumer sentiment, uh, that is not as strong. H
So you know, the question though, is and I have
a blog on it that I wrote about this and

(09:51):
it's on you can see it on my LinkedIn page
that basically, you know, we're talking about consumer sentiment. What
that's what people are feeling and thinking right now, But
that doesn't always translate into actions with the actual economy
or the actual spending. I can think about it with
my wife, I think, you know, like many people, she

(10:13):
sees the news, she's concerned about terrorists, what does this mean?
But it hasn't changed for spending, and she still spends
at the same level that she would otherwise spend. And
quite often there is this disconnect between what people's concerns
are over the economy or the markets and how their
actions actually play out. And in general you've seen that

(10:34):
for some period of time, and consumer spending seems to
be quite strong now. The one kind of disparency that
we see is the real strength tends to be in
the higher income earners, the higher net worth individuals, And
that kind of makes sense to the extent that if
you're in more of the lower income brackets, you've probably

(10:55):
been impacted by inflation more dramatically, whereas if the individually
their higher income, yes, food prices are up, gas prices
are up, but that does not impact their overall spending
as dramatically as somebody who makes less. Plus with those
higher income earners in general, they're going to own stocks

(11:16):
which have been up quite a bit over the last
number of years. They're going to probably own real estate
which has been up. And I've made this analogy before,
which is, if you're a lower income person, you might
be renting right either your early in your career or
whatever the situation is. You may not own a house
well over the last three or four years. Your rent

(11:38):
has gotten up quite a bit over those last three
or four years. So if you've experienced that squeeze on
a kind of a higher that's you know, for most people,
the rent is one of the largest expenses, so you
know that goes up five or ten percent anally, that
that's a real impact. Whereas higher income earners who own
their own property have seen just the opposite. The value

(12:02):
of the properties have increased quite a bit, even here
in the Cafro region, while at the same time, their
actual cost for that real estate. Over the last three
or four years, most people refinance when interest rates were
very low, their actual spending on that real estate has
gotten down. So you see this real contrast between these

(12:23):
two groups. And you know, that's the one thing that
we'll be looking at is when we talk about consumer
sentiment and then how does that flow into actual spending.
Does that at some point hit this higher income earning group.
And for right now you haven't seen that. We got
inflation data that came out this week and right now

(12:43):
is it's in the realm has actually beat expectations, so
it's you know, still it's not at the two percent
target that the set has, but it is tending to
move in that direction and that is a real positive thing.
So these of the things that we're always looking at
it and trying to get an understanding of where they

(13:05):
are and where they're going, because at the end of
the day, the most important thing from an investor perspective
when we talk about the market is what is the
cash flow for corporations as we move forward, right, so
the market's always looking forward, whether it's six months or
nine months or a year. And you know, right now
earnings are important, but what are they saying about earnings

(13:28):
in the future, And you know, really what you want
to see is those earnings contein to grow. I am
also fortunate enough today to be joined by my colleague
Ed Wilhelm. Ed is one of our investment traders and analysts.
Really smart young guy. I've joined us from Sienna right

(13:49):
out of college and it's one of those things we've
talked about how great our team is. And I've been
with a firm now coming on thirteen years, and I'll
tell you, as we've grown, the goal is really to
hire people smarter than we are. And edit is in
one of those categories. He is just saffed for his
CFA and if you know anything about that designation, it's

(14:10):
really hard. The's three exams. It really takes about two
to three years to go through those exams and he
just staffed for level one, so he hasn't found out
that he has passed yet, but we have confidence in
that editor there. All right, Well, maybe Ed is enjoining
us quite yet, but when he does, we'll have him

(14:33):
talk a little bit about the markets and some thoughts
of what he sees with the data. Well, let's go
on and let's move into some of the fund planning topics.
But before I do again for this, just joining you.
My name is Martin Shields. I'm the Chief Wealth Advisor
and I'm your host for Let's Talk Money. And if
you have any questions, you can reach me at eight

(14:55):
hundred eight two five five nine four nine eight hundred
eight two five five nine four nine, or you can
email me at ask Bouchet at bouchet dot com. That's
asked Bouche at Bouche dot com. Test. Okay, I'm going
to go. We have an email that came in. It said,

(15:18):
this is from Ray, good morning. Could you perhaps comment
on the fall great that United has taken and it
seems reasonable to think that it may someday return to
formally achieve market highs and or would be a more
prudent investment by an ETF such as XLV. Great question.
So United is the health insurance provider that they had

(15:41):
the unfortunate situation where their CEO was shot killed in
Manhattan last last year and then it came out this
year that they had some issues with their earnings, maybe
some reporting discrepancies. There was there's a probe, an sec
probe into uh their management. And you know, to to

(16:03):
this question, I do think if you're willing to if
you're willing to risk some dollars, uh, you know, because
it's sometimes with these situations you don't know how deep
it goes. But I think it could be not a
bad time to take advantage of, uh, something uncertainty that
they exist with them. Now you know, again, you've got

(16:25):
to be willing to say, hey, uh, this could be
become more problematic and I could in the price to
go down even in a more dramatic fashion, or investing
in the the ETF And that's why we like the
ETFs in general. XLV is the one that was mentioned
here in this email. And because you're basically saying, hey,

(16:46):
I think that the whole space might be taking a
bit of a hit. But you know, broadly speaking, uh,
you know, I think long term, you know, the health
insurers have a good future, and you want to have
exposure to them, but you know, not going to get
the home run that you could get if United does well.
But you don't have that broad downside risks as well.

(17:07):
I mean, let's face it, you're gonna you can have
a situation where one of these health care insurance providers
really stumbles, but they're not going to all stumble for
the foreseeable future. So I mean, again, this depends on
your appetite for risk. If you're really in a situation
where you're okay with it for a certain amount of dollars,

(17:30):
they go ahead and buy so United, you know, I
think again that space is just it's seeing a lot
of growth, and I think the big element with that
is just mismanagement. I mean real mismanagement. United had done
so well before that, but you've got to be willing
to take on that risk. But we're going to continue again.

(17:51):
If you have any questions, you can either email me
at ask Bouchet at Bouchet dot com or you can
call me at eight hundred eight two five nine four nine.
Let go on and talk about one of the topics
that you know, we see this with clients. I have
a background in corporate finance. I worked with large PUBLICA

(18:13):
traded corporations and I was a finance guide director of
finance in those companies. And in that role, really what
you're always trying to do is optimize your financial situation. Right, So,
whether you're managing costs, whether you're trying to increase revenue,
you're looking at your profit and law statement, your balance sheet,

(18:36):
you're constantly trying to optimize your financial situation. And I
remember when I came into this field about twenty years ago.
You know, I kind of had that same mindset that
you would have in a corporation. But the reality is
that it doesn't always work well. And it doesn't mean
that you don't want to make smart financial decisions and

(18:57):
kind of be aware of everything that you're doing financially.
But you have to appreciate that when the situation that
came from was a corporation, right publicly traded corporation, you
have fiduciary obligation to your shareholders in this In this environment,
we work with individuals primarily some endowments, some formn K plans,

(19:19):
but you have human emotions and human psychology, uh in
this environment, and that again, making smart decisions is important.
But the goal isn't to optimize your financial situation. Your
goal is with your financial tools, your assets, your income,

(19:39):
any money that you're borrowing that you what you want
to be able to do is maximize really your kind
of contentment or happiness with life. Uh, and let me
kind of share what that those differences are. So, you know,
one of the differences in with that is, you know,
we see this with retirees. They've been working all their life,

(20:00):
they're living at their house wherever that is, and they
always have this mindset that when they retire they need
to move for whatever reason, the house they've been living
in for the you know, all their lives is not
the right place to be. And a number of times
it's because they want to not pay higher property taxes
or they want to move out in New York State

(20:21):
and not pay any more state income tax. Right. So
we had these conversations with them, and you know what
we say is, hey, you know, if you're looking to
maybe move down South Florida because there's no taxes because
it's warmer, you want that. Great. But we also see
it where people literally they're not that concerned about let's

(20:43):
say the weather, and all their family and all their
friends are here. They literally just don't want to pay
taxes and they move down there, and then what they
realize is their whole life is up here in upstate
New York, and so they have just you know, move
you know, hundreds and thousands of miles away from their
home just to save on taxes. And I will tell

(21:08):
you that there is in general, there is nobody that
I've ever come across that wants to pay more in taxes,
never really come across them and says, no, I'm fine
paying more in taxes. Everybody wants to pay less in taxes.
That's just kind of a universal human thing. But the
fact of the matter is that, you know, we hopefully

(21:30):
we can reduce our taxes in New York State in
different ways, but it is what it is. And really
what you want to do is what's going to make
you happiest in life, to be by your your kids,
your family, your grandkids. And you know, maybe you can
go down and you know, be in Florida for six
more than six months of the year, and that way

(21:51):
you can call yourself a Florida resident. So that's that's great.
But again I see it where people literally sell their
home here, move down to Tennessee or South Carolina, some
state where there's lower or no income tax and get
down there and say, what am I doing here? I've
got no other connections. All my connections are up north.

(22:11):
So the next thing, you know, I want to you know,
kind of the way to view this is, uh, you know,
I see people beat themselves up over small mistakes, right,
and you know that financial mistakes. And all I will
tell you is, you know, we we live in a
complex world. There's a lot of financial financial decisions that

(22:32):
you have to make. You're going to make some financial mistakes.
It's going to happen whatever those situations may be. Don't
be yourself over those, right, I think, don't you know,
it's just thing when there're more pennies, you got to
be worried about the dollars. Make sure you make your
big financial decisions correctly. You know that you And again

(22:52):
that's where working with a firm like ours, you know,
we're a client's personal CFO. I was just meeting with
a client the other day and we were going through
some of his big purchases and decisions, and so you know,
this is where you know, we can offer a lot
of guidance to our clients and make sure they make
the right decisions. But on the smaller ones, stuff's gonna happen,

(23:14):
and you know, just be easy in yourself, don't overthink
it because it causes more stress than what it's worth.
The other thing, and I think this is an important
one too, is is realizing it kind of goes to
a little bit what I said, but realizing that delegating
some of these things that you do in your life,
whether it's some work around the house, whether it's you know,

(23:36):
wealth management, I mean, whatever it is, sometimes it pays
to hire an expert to have them do those things
for you and you can focus on other things in
your life. Right. You know, many of our clients, they
used to manage their own portfolios, they used to do
their own tax prep, they used to handle all their
financial decisions on their own. But what they decided is

(24:00):
that's a lot of stress, that's a lot of emotion.
You got you can spend a lot of time doing that,
and that they're better off for themselves. But also, let's
say for their spouse who maybe isn't that financial person,
and God forbid, something happens to them that they say,
you know what, I'm going to have you do this.
I'm going to pay you to do it. You know,
there's got to be that value add Always you've got

(24:21):
to be able to add more value than what it's
costing them. But to the extent that you know, in
many categories you can find an expert to do that,
it is worth it is worth it. And that's again,
if you're trying to optimize your financial situation, maybe you'd
say you do it on your own, but what sometimes
you realize is that that to remove that emotional stress

(24:45):
and also sometimes it actually optimizes your financial situation to
the extent that you know you're not making the right
decisions when you do it yourself. I'm a firm believer
of this, and this is where I've learned this in
my own own world. Is you know, if I try
to do a project in the house, you know back

(25:05):
twenty thirty years ago, I might do it and I
would make some mistakes and it didn't look as good
as it could have and maybe did lasts as long
as it could have. And you know, if I had
just outsourced it and had somebody to do it properly,
life would have been a lot easier. And also, you know,
I think you know the big one with that is

(25:30):
you know, I probably would have been done properly, but
just something to consider as you make these decisions. The
other thing I want to talk about is when you
receive that substantial wealth real quickly, right. I see this also,
you know people whether it could be from selling a business,
It could be from a lawsuit, could be from an inheritance.

(25:54):
You know, people always think, boy, if I just had money,
my life would be easier. It would be so much
better if I had money. And you know it, certainly,
in many ways people's lives can approve after a large windfall.
But that large windfall can also add a lot of stress.
Right now you're responsible for managing those assets. Now you

(26:15):
have more decisions to make as far as how you
spend that money. Now you maybe this could cause conflict
with your spouse because one of you has a different
view than the other one how that windfall should be used.
And again, this is something we see quite often where
individuals that are doing well. You know that it's not
like they were poor before, but they were not at

(26:38):
that same level wealth before that large windfall, and so
when they get it, it could be challenging. It can
be it can be quite challenging. So you know what
I would tell you is again this is where working
with a firm like ours, working with a fee only
fiduciary can really help give a guidance and really just

(26:59):
part of it is understanding what is important in your
life right once you start prioritizing what really is important,
and then that helps you make those decisions and how
you want to spend your money. And then also when
it comes to the portfolio management, having a firm like
ours take that off your plate. Now it's not your

(27:21):
responsibility as to what the change journey making, what's going
on with the headlines, that's now our firm's responsibility. And
really it takes that stress away understanding what's the tax
ramifications on all this stuff. You know, it can be
really problematic as you try to make those decisions on
your own with that large windfall. So you know, just

(27:43):
something to consider. Well, we got a few minutes before
we go break and one of the other things I
want to highlight again, these are things that we see
with our clients, so I'm sure many of you also
are experiencing this. If you have a parent that is
getting older, one of the things I would recommend is
that you get uh and I say, you know, just

(28:04):
one of them. But even if there's both parents still
alive that you don't get on joint an account joint
with them and they're tax will broke account, but you
do get on joint with them with their checking account.
And the reason for this is if it's you're on
with the joint brokerage account, you're not going to get
the full step up in cost bases when they pass

(28:27):
on the positions in that portfolio, So that is really
going to it's detrimental from a tax perspective, and when
they're living, you can't get power of attorney to assist
with that while they're living, right, So if you have
power attorney, you can help with them as they go
through and they need any help or working with their
advisor on that. But whereas if you're on their checking

(28:52):
account and you're on joint with them that way, if
they as they decline, if they need a check written,
way whatever, you can go ahead and do that. The
other thing that's important to remember is when they pass,
any power of attorney goes away. Power attorney does not
exist after somebody has passed, so you're going to want
to have some liquidity. Is the ability to write checks

(29:15):
for different situations with their funeral or whatnot. Uh, And
so that's why it's important to be on the checking
account with them, uh, to be able to handle that,
you know, that's it just makes life a lot easier
if you're on with that. The other thing that's important
is with your parents. So important to start having long

(29:37):
term care discussions and what they want to be doing
well before something happens. Right that way, you know everybody's
on the same page as so what you know people
want to be doing. Uh, you know, is it in
home care? Is there a particular facility they can go
ahead and tour that facility, and and it just removes
that stress because again we see this so often where

(30:00):
these decisions are not made in advance and then once
something happens, it gets to be very problematic. So you
really want to make sure that you try to go
ahead and get that decision made. Everybody's on the same page.
It really removes an element of stress or what needs
to be done. Well, folks, we're going to go to
commercial break. We'll come back and join us. You're listening

(30:22):
to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet Financial Group.
Will we help our clients prioritize their health while we
manage their wealth for life. Come back and join us,
folks as we take your questions. Well you dark.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Now WGY News. I'm Ted Flint. All of the police
investigating a fatal car pedestrian accident happened early Saturday morning
on South Pearl Street. Please are withholding the fifty eight
year old victim's name pending notification of next of kin.
The driver is cooperating in the investigation. Investigator is say
the fire that destroyed an historic building in Saratoga County

(30:59):
was intention and lea set News Channel thirteen says a
fourteen year old is facing charges. The Victory Mills Factory
building on Gates Avenue went up in flames at around
two thirty. The Saratoga County Sheriff's Office says by the
time crews were dispatched, the building was already fully involved.
The factory building dates back to nineteen eighteen and is
listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A twenty

(31:21):
year old is reportedly in critical condition after being stabbed
a Saturday afternoon in Clifton Park. Saratoga County Sheriff's deputies
say the incident occurred on Beresford Road. The victim's name
has not been released. A Hoosick Falls man facing charges
after police say he was driving at more than two
and a half times the speed limit. Bennington police clocked
the oud E S four traveling west on Vermont Rout

(31:42):
two seventy nine in the town of Bennington at one
hundred and forty two miles an hour in a fifty
five mile an hour zone. The driver, twenty three year
old to Dylan Duran, was taken into custody without incident
transported to the Bennington Police Department for processing. He'll appear
Monday in court to answer the charges of gross negligent
operation of a motor vehicle and excessive speed. Governor Hochel
announced the completion of four major projects in the City

(32:05):
of Gloversville, all through funding from the city's ten million
dollars Downtown Revitalization Initiative Award. Projects include the renovation of
Shine Memorial Hall, the activation of Saint Thomas Square, enhancement
of public amenities at Trail Station Park, and creation of
a downtown piazza. The Pacers cruise to a one twenty five,
one to oh eight win over the Knicks in Game

(32:25):
six of the Eastern Conference Finals from Indianapolis. Pascal Siakam
thirty one points as Indie squares off against the thunder
and OKC on Thursday Ted Flint News Radio one oh three,
one and eight ten WGY, the Capitol Regions breaking news,
traffic and weather station.

Speaker 10 (32:42):
The WGY active weather forecast for today a mixing clouds
and sun. Breezy and pooler conditions with a couple of
showers possible with the high fifty nine for tonight. Most
cloudy conditions may be favorable for viewing your Morgan lights
with a low forty five tamar plezzant and warmer with
a mix of sunny clouds high seventy one to more
nightclear department COTTI skuys in the area to below forty

(33:03):
seven from the WGY Weather Center. I'm Kaitlin Lawrence.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
You only get one shot at retirement. Are you truly prepared?
There's no do over when it comes to securing your
financial future. Do you have the right plan in place?
Does your advisor have the expertise and experience to manage
your wealth? More importantly, do you trust their advice? At
Bouchet Financial Group, we bring decades of experience to the

(33:28):
table with offices in historic Downtown Troy, Sarahtoga Springs, Boston
and South Florida. Schedule a complimentary in person or virtual
consultation today where we'll assess your financial well being and
help you plan for the future. Call our client concierge
at five one eight seven two zero thirty three thirty three.
That's five one eight seven two zero thirty three thirty three,

(33:52):
or visit www dot Bouche dot com. That's bou c
h e y dot com. Stephen Bouchet has built a
team of twenty skilled professionals, including nine certified financial planners,
three CPAs, one IRS enrolled agent, one accredited investment fiduciary,

(34:13):
one certified private wealth advisor. To name some expertise you
can trust, confidence you deserve. Thanks for staying with us
through the news break. The phone lines are now open.
Call one eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred, eight
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(34:35):
financial analyst, Steven Bouche or one of his expert colleagues.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Bad folks for those of you just joining us. My
name is Martin Shields. I'm the chief Wealth Advisor at
Bouchet Finance Group, and I'm your host today for let's
talk money. As always, is great to be here with
you to answer any questions you may have regarding your
financial planning or investment management life, and I encourage you
to call in with those questions. You can reach me

(35:07):
at eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.
That's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine,
or you can email me at ask Bouchet at bouchet
dot com. That's asked Bouchet at Bouche dot com and
Bouchet is spelled b O U d h e y

(35:27):
dot com. So before we get into our discussion, just
want to invite anyone who may have an interest in
working with our firm. We're having a educational seminar this Wednesday.
It's going to be at the Francoin Plaza at Troy
and if you've never been there, it's an amazing venue.
It's an old bank right downtown Troy. It's actually on

(35:50):
the third floor. The first two floors are phenomenal and
they've been reached one to the third floor is brand new,
I mean the last number of years, but the whole
space is just fantastic. And we're doing with an attorney,
Michael Ginsburg, who's a great attorney in Troy. We'll be
discussing estate planning ideas, and my colleague Ryan Bouschet will

(36:11):
be presenting both on the markets and to discuss some
financial planning concepts that you can incorporate. And so again
this is for individuals that might have an interest in
working with our firm. You can go on to our
website at Bouche dot com and there is a link
right on the top left hand side that you can

(36:32):
go ahead and register for the event. It's this Wednesday,
Tune fourth, at five point thirty, and again I would
highly encourage you if you're interested in maybe learning more
about our firm, what it means to be a client,
and also getting some estate planning tips and ideas from
attorney Michael Ginsburg, would highly recommend that you attend. It

(36:54):
would be about our hour and a half. So again,
if you're interested in learning about working with a firm,
you go ahead onto our website and register. I'd also
encourage any of our listeners to go onto our website
and look at some of our blogs and webinars. Ryan
and one of my other colleagues, Pablo La Pietro, who's

(37:15):
one of our portfolio strategists had great webinar just this
back in May. We're on June first, so that was
last month. And every week we put out a new
blog on a topic and lots of great information out there.
So if you go onto the website brouchte dot com
you can access all that information. We're going to go

(37:39):
the back to the emails. I have an email from Priscilla.
I love that name, Priscilla Roberts. I have United Healthcare
and I'm in my seventies. What should I do about
it now? Should I sell or hold? So that's a
great question, and that's the challenge right with owning individual
stocks is always sometimes it's easier to buy, it's harder
to sell. So to give all of our listeners a favor,

(38:03):
your negative Healthcare peaked out in November or actually September
of last year at see here right around six hundred
and twenty five dollars a share. It's now training at
just over three hundred dollars a share, so it's lost

(38:24):
half its value now. To give you an idea though,
back in twenty two, this is the levels in twenty twenty.
Back just in twenty ten, it was at forty dollars
a share, right, so it's had tremendous growth, which most
companies in the healthcare insurance industry have seen the same.

(38:46):
But what I would say, Priscilla, is this one is
you know, how much do you have in it? That's
a big question. If you don't have that much, I
would probably hold. You know, if you need a cash,
you could sell it, because you probably dependent when you
bought it. You may have a pretty big gain in it.
But if it's not that larger position, I would probably

(39:07):
hold and see what happens. You know, all things considered,
you're still young, You're just in your seventies. And see
what happens. Now if it is a much larger position
and it makes up let's say, fifteen twenty percent of
your investable assets, even now, maybe that's a little bit
of a different story, right, which is, you know, if

(39:28):
it was, say it were to drop another you know,
twenty five forty percent, I don't think it's too likely.
I mean, a lot of the band news is probably
priced in. But you just never know when some of
this stuff comes out like this, and it could be
a while for it to get back to anywhere close
to where it was. I mean, that could be a
long time, but it could certainly get higher from where

(39:48):
it is. So I would say is if it's a
larger percentage of your overall investable assets up in the neighborhood,
it certainly over ten percent or fifteen or twenty percent,
then and if you bought it way back when, it
may not be a bad idea to diversify out of it.
And this really leads well into another topic I want

(40:09):
to highlight, which is the importance of always and I
mean always, uh, really looking to diversify out of concentrated
stock positions. You know this, and this is why I
always talk about it. It's less about the investment decision,
it's more about risk management, right. And you know, last
year you could see that having these healthcare companies was

(40:33):
really valuable. Right. They're great companies, they're going to they
earned a lot of money, they're probably going to continue
to do well. But if you had a position, a
single stock position that was greater than five to ten
percent of your investment assets, that is too much concentrated
risk that something happens like this, which was completely unforeseen.
H that something happens like this where the stock just plummets,

(40:57):
and uh, you know. This is what we talked to
our or executives and individuals that work at companies where
they have shares in that company. Within that situation, you
have two elements of risks. Right, your job and your
future income is tied up in that company. And if
you have stock options, if you have restrict to stocks,
if you're buying a stock through employee stock purchase plan,

(41:19):
now you have that risk as well with that company.
And if something happens, and it can always happen, I mean,
if you're better than the investor in the last twenty
five years. The one thing that you should learn is
that stuff happens to industries and to specific companies that

(41:39):
you can't see coming. And having worked in a public
and traded company, what I will tell you is that
what you're getting and the information you're getting is not
always the whole story, right. I was just always amazed
with that working for public and traded corporations. It's not
like I knew everything either, but there's just a lot

(42:01):
of things going on in public trading corporations that, for
different reasons, the general public is not aware of. And
certainly that was the case with United Health Group as well.
So if you've got a concentrated stock position, it makes
up more than you know, five or ten percent of
your overall holdings. There's a number of different things you

(42:22):
can do. You know, you can look at putting part
of that position in an exchange fund, which is basically
a way to diversify out of that position, get exposure
really to the SP five hundred using that exchange fund.
There's different stock option strategies using a collar to mitigate
some of that risk. And this is what we do
with our clients. We work with them on what these

(42:44):
options look like and also just how to do it
in a way to minimize its taxes. You know, you
really want to try to find ways, and there are ways,
especially let's say, if you have charitable interests, you can
you know, put money into a donor advice fund. You
can actually even put these highly appreciated stock into a

(43:04):
donor advice fund. That's one of the most effective ways
to be able to contribute to a charity is to
take that highly appreciated stock. We have a large gain
that you can be paying capital gains on that and
either giving it directly to the charity or if you
don't know exactly where you want to put it putting

(43:25):
into a donor advice fund where even if you're on
the standard deduction, which many people are, if you combine
many years worth of your charitable giving into one year
and then you make that contribution of that highly appreciated
stock into the donor advice fund, now you don't pay

(43:47):
taxes on that gain, and now you're gaining the deduction
because you've made a larger contribution to the donor Advice
fund to actually be able to deduct it from your income.
The donor advise fun is you know, you can go
to Vanguard, you go to Chuab. Fidelity is simply a
fund where you either put assets like highly appreciated stock

(44:09):
or you can put cash in there, and then from
that fund you can get it invested and have grow
over time. And then if you want to, you can
make donations from that fund into five oho one c
three qualified charities. They have to be five oh one
c three charities. The fund will confirm that they are

(44:30):
before a donation goes out. So you know, that's a
great way to put money in there, have it grow
and then use it for charitable giving. Our family has one,
and what's great is when we kind of do things
as a family. I've been on the board of the
Ron McDonald House for nine years, actually rolling off in June.

(44:53):
That was two years' chair as well, and it's been
a great run with them. It's an amazing charity. My
family is just appreciated so much. We'll go down and
volunteer at the house and make either dinner or breakfast
for families. But we've also made some charitable contributions from
that fund to the charity and it's a great way

(45:14):
to get our kids involved with that discussion about what
other charities they might want to have an interest in.
And oh, by the way, the dollars that we put
into this donor Advice fund will continue to grow over time,
so you know, it can be passed down to future
generations and so it helps instill within those future generations
this idea of giving at you know, helping others who

(45:36):
need help. So what really encourage that And the nice
thing about it is you are not required to make
a distribution from it at any point. So now that's
the goal of the fund, so you know, if you
have to have charitable interest in order to do this.
But it's not like a foundation which is another option
for very wealthy families to be able to set up

(45:58):
to make donations to different individuals or charities. With a foundation,
it's much more complex. You have to make a five
percent distribution every year. There's a lot of tax filing
that needs to go on with this. There's governance rules
that need to go out with a foundation. Now, one

(46:19):
of the nice things with a foundation, unlike a donor
advice fund, with a foundation, you can make donor you
can make gifts to individuals and non five oh one
C three organizations. Right, you're really your own charity at
that point, so you're not limited to contributing to a
five H one C three. So let's say you know

(46:39):
you have a real interest in helping particular families out
well from your foundation, you can go ahead and help
those families out and give this to them directly, whereas
with a donor advice fund, you those funds cannot go
directly to individuals. They have to go first to a
qualified five one C three. So again, making these contributions

(47:03):
with these concentrated stock positions can be a great option.
There are other strategies to diversify out of those concentrated
stock positions and minimize your risk and would highly recommend
that if you're either currently in that situation or if
you're working for a company where you're you may be
in that situation UH to work with if you only

(47:24):
advisor to put it plan in place, UH to both
manage the investment side of that equation, but as important
the risk side of that equation. Well, folks, we're going
to move on to some new topics, but before we do,
if you have any questions again, you can My name
is Martin Shields. I'm the chief Wealth Advisor at Bruchet

(47:44):
Finance Group, and you can reach me at eight hundred
eight two five five nine four nine. That's eight hundred
eight two five five nine four nine, or you can
email me at ask Bouchet at Bouchet dot com. That's
asked Bocha at Bouchet dot com. So let's move on
to a different topic. Get this question quite a bit.

(48:07):
Do you need to have a trust? From a state
planning perspective, and you know, back let's say fifteen years ago,
for most people, have you had any sizeable amounts of
assets because of estate taxes which were the exclusion amount
was so much lower. Now for a married couple under
the current rules. Now it's going to change in twenty

(48:28):
twenty six unless things are passed here in Congress. But
on the current rules is around twenty six million dollars
and that amount is transferable. And all I mean by
that is, let's say one spouse has twenty two million
dollars in their name, the other spouse only has four
million dollars. That exclusion amount, which is thirteen million dollars

(48:50):
per person, covers the full couple. Right, it's not individual.
Whereas what's important for all you New York State listeners.
New York State inherent is tax is only and the
exclusion amount is only applicable to each person. So that's
why it's so important in New York State to make
sure that your assets are titled properly so that you

(49:13):
can take advantage of that exclusion amount. And if not,
let's say, you know, one had ten million the only
one had two million dollars, then that would be problematic
because that person that has ten million dollars is probably
going to hit with New York State inheritance tax. But
from a federal perspective, that's not the case. That amount

(49:34):
can move back and forth. So back in the day
when that exclusion amount was so much smaller than what
you have almost all the time. Is what's called a
bypass trust. And what that would do is it would
allow one person to take advantage of the exclusion amount
and keep it available for another person the other house.

(50:00):
So quite often you'd have these bypass trusts that exists
from a state planned perspective. These days, because of the
much higher estate state tax amount the exclusion amount. From
a federal perspective, that's not really needed anymore. So I'd
say there's really two main reasons why you want to
have a trust. One is if you're doing medicaid planning, right,

(50:22):
which is what you're really you're trying to set up
your overall assets that if you need long term care,
you could qualify for Medicaid through the state. And so
what you're really doing is you're putting your assets in
that trust a house taxle assets. You cannot put retirement
assets in, whether it be a WROTH or an I

(50:45):
array into a medicaid trust, so you're putting taxile assets
in that trust. You're having somebody else be the trustee
the ownership of that and that way that they're not
being considered and you're more likely to be able to
get Medicaid for long term care. Now there's a whole
nother discussion whether or not that's the right move for

(51:07):
many people. There's a lot of nuances to that. But
that's one situation where a trust would actually make sense.
The other situation is if you have a child or
a grandchild with special needs and you want to make
sure that that there's rules with how those assets are used,
and maybe you want to have a situation where they're

(51:28):
not actually going to have ownership of those assets. Maybe
you have a corporate trustee on that. In that case,
it could make sense to have a trust. The other
thing is you know if you have a son or
daughter that you really just don't trust them with spending
your assets, And that could be a lot that could

(51:49):
be in a lot of situations. But if you have
a son or daughter where you really want to put
controls is that how they can access those assets. The
trust really that's where you spelt those rules, right, Whereas
if the moneys were just to go into approkeach account
for them, there's no rules. They could spend it all
in a year, and I've seen it happen. So if

(52:12):
you're really concerned about that. You can have a trust
that dictates when and how those assets could go out. Now,
you could have a corporate trustee, which basically means, you know,
you put somebody who acts as the trustee on that
and really limits how those funds can go out, or
you can just have the rules state in the trust

(52:33):
how they're going to be handled. And like a firm
like ours, we work both in the capacity of trust
where there is no corporate trustee, but there's rules to
how those accounts can be utilized and taken out. We
also work with other firms where they act whether it's
Charles Schwab or other firms where they act as the

(52:53):
trustee and we act as the wealth management manager on that.
But beyond that, these days, it's not that needed to
have a trust. You're going to you know, pay two
three four thousand dollars to have that trust set up,
and you know, with in most accounts, you could put

(53:15):
it what's called a tod a transfer on death, and
that basically means that you know, you can have a
joint account where you know your spouse gets it if
you pass, or vice versa if they passed, and then
you could put transfer on death where it goes to
your kids. And you know I talked about this before,
that's better than putting your kids on is joint. Put

(53:37):
them on as tod you can put it on a
bank account, you can put it on a broken account,
and then everything else from there. You're really talking about
having them as beneficiaries. So you know, if it's an IRA,
whether it's a ROSS or traditional, if it's a life
insurance policy, you put whoever is the beneficiary is going
to receive those assets. And with an IRA, whether it

(53:59):
be a WROTH or traditional, you can put contingent beneficiaries,
so you have individuals that we get those if the
primary beneficiary is not alive. So having contingent beneficiaries is
very important as well. One thing I want to highlights
ahead this question, what is the New York state tax

(54:21):
exemption amount? And that amount is seven point one six million,
so just under seven point two million, And so again
in New York State, you got to make sure that
you have your assets titled properly that if you're over
let's say, you know, up over that seven million dollars
in total for your estate, that you're going to get

(54:44):
it both be able to utilize both spouses be able
to utilize the full amount of that seven point one
six million. So for example, as I mentioned, if you
had let's say fourteen million in assets, the one spouse
had eleven million dollars, the other spouse had three million dollars. Uh,
you got a problem because although you're under that fourteen

(55:04):
million dollar amount because you don't have it title properly,
and unlike federal estate tax exclusion amounts where it's really
for the household in New York State, it's per person. Uh,
the one person would be over that amount, and they
in their estate if they were to pass with assets
titled that way, Uh, they would be taxed with those assets.

(55:24):
And again that amount is seven point one six million.
Let's go on and talk about a different topic. But
before we do again, if you have any questions, you
can reach me in eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine. That's eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine, or you can email me at ask
Bouchet at Bouchet dot com and that spelled b O

(55:48):
U d h E Y. One of the questions I
get is, you know, how do I go about looking
for an advisor and you know, there are a number
of different things questions you can ask. One of my colleagues,
Sam Macy, wrote a blog about it, which is available
on our website. You know, again, the main things you're

(56:08):
looking for are you know, how is the ownership of
You know that if it's a firm or you know,
a larger n C, what woes that look like? You know,
because I'll tell you our firm is independently owned and
it's locally owned, and so our decisions from an ownership
perspective and with our clients is what's in the best

(56:31):
interests of our clients. That's it. It's a real simple
equation where a fee only fiduciary. We don't get tomp
safe for anything beyond the are assets and our management fee,
or we could do a set fee for the year,
and you know, a client can evaluate what is the
value that they're getting from us based on what we're

(56:52):
able to do for them and the fee. There's no
we're not getting commissions for selling anything. There's no what's
called Twelvey one fees or of TA fees or any
of these other fees that can exist in different situations.
So that transparency is very important, right so you know,
you really want to feel only fiduciary. You want to
understand how they're owned, you want understand how they make

(57:13):
investment decisions, you know all these things. You know, what's
the type of communication you're going to get with them,
what type of planning are you going to get from them?
But that's really important, uh, to understand that. And you know,
as I mentioned, I used to work for a publicly
traded corporation. It's really important that you understand that with

(57:34):
a publicly traded corporation, the CEO has a fiduciary responsibility
not to if it's a wealth management corporation, not to
their clients. Their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders and
that and that's where it can be problematic. And now
there are many good advisors that work for publicly traded corporations,
but you have to appreciate that. Uh, that's that where

(57:57):
you talk about fiduciary standards, it's you know, that's where
the fiduciary responsibility is is to the shareholders, not necessarily
to the clients. Where you know, with independent firm like ours,
we're feelingly fiduciary, it is to our clients. That's where
the fiduciary responsibility holds. So that's really important that you
understand that you have those questions and that you kind

(58:20):
of go through that to really understand what it means
to work with that advisor. Well, folks, we've been If
you started for an hour, hopefully you gained a lot.
As always, I always appreciate being here and answer your questions.
You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by
the Bouchet Financial Group, where we help our clients prioritize
their health while we manage their wealth for life. Folks,

(58:43):
take care of yourself and take care of each other.
Have a great bellmout week.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Please remember that different types of investments involve varying degrees
of risk. There could be no assurance that the future
performance of any specific investment, or any non investment related
content made reference to directly or indirectly on this show
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