Let's Talk Money

October 11th, 2025. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Thank you for joining Let's Talk Money on news Radio WGY.
I'm going to be your host for today's show. Paolo
La Pietra, one of the wealth advisors along with being
the portfolio strategist here at the Bouchet Financial Group, I
am a certified financial planner sitting in for the one
and only Stephen Bouchet, who is taking a very well

(00:23):
deserved break, and actually that break is in Italy. I
actually spoke to Steve this morning and he's in Sicily,
so he is certainly enjoying himself out there and again
very well deserved. But I am with two of my
very capable colleagues. I have a Vincenzo Testa here as well,

(00:43):
certified financial Planner CPA, and the ECA Vinnie.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
How we doing this morning? I'm doing very well.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
And folks, for the first time ever, we are in
the Saratoga office in our podcast room and we have
three three of us on today show.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Very special.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
We also have Edward Wilhelm, who is our portfolio trader.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Ed how we doing this morning?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Doing good sunshine, It's nice day in Saratoga.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
That it is, that is we're finally getting some fall weather.
I felt like, you know, the last month or so,
it's felt more like summer than fall. You know, eighty degrees,
which I'm not complaining about. I'm not a snow guy.
I'm not a winter guy, so I've been very happy.
But now we're starting to get the classic fall weather,
you know, the fifty five degrees, sixty degrees, and you

(01:31):
know that that leads for some fun golf. You get
the leaves turning, and then get out there and get
some good golf in.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
So that's that's all good things. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Vinnie ed and I were actually campaigning for Breast Can
breast cancer awareness this month for the real Men Wear Pink,
and we held held an event on Thursday over at
Harvey's in Saratoga. What we did was squares verse Cancer
or where we sold you know, squares for you know

(02:03):
the upcoming Thursday night game, which was Eagles Giants, which
again was an amazing game. I'm sure Vinnie didn't think
it was that amazing because he is an Eagles fan,
and Giants pulled a big upset with Jack Jackson dart
right yeah yeah, and Cam Scatabo both looking really good

(02:24):
playing some good fundamental football. But it was a great event,
we raised ten thousand dollars for the American Cancer Society,
and again that all goes towards breast cancer research and
support for you know, people going through some of the
you know, most difficult times that that they'll face in
their lives. So being able to raise that type of

(02:46):
money and have it go to an event in an
organization like American Cancer was definitely, you know, an amazing
thing to be a part of.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
And I'm sure Ed and Vinnie you feel the same way.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
So, folks, you know, what I wanted to do to
start off today's show is certainly do a market recap.
On the week, it looked like it was all sunshine
and rainbows Monday through Thursday. You know, markets were up,
pushing onto all time highs.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
You know, how high were we going to go?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
We want to make sure we have all the AI
and technology in the portfolio to continue to do well.
And then Friday came, and Friday we saw some volatility,
and you know, it's volatility that we haven't been used
to over the last you know, four or five months,
frankly since April, you know, we haven't seen any sort
of major fluctuations in the market. But around I want

(03:42):
to say ED eleven thirty was a new maybe.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah about heading into lunch. Yep. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
President Trump put out a truth social talking about how
China is now playing hardball again on some trade talk.
So we'll get into that, but let's go over the
major indices. We had the S and P five hundred
down two point four to three percent, the Dow Jones
Industrial Average down two point seven to three percent, and

(04:11):
the tech heavy NASDAK down two point five to three percent.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
We also had the Russell two.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Thousand, which is the index that we use for small caps,
that was down three point sixty nine percent. And something
that I usually don't quote on when we are doing
the show, but I think it is important, especially when
we talk about this next segment going into exactly what
this volatility created on Friday, is the Chinese Technology Index,

(04:38):
which we use the ticker c QQQ, so very similar
to QQQ that we have in the United States, which
is the one hundred largest technology companies within the Nasdaq.
C QQQ is very similar but for China, and that
was down eight point seven three percent. So again a
lot of volatility through the week. We are still, you know,

(05:01):
right off of all time highs. But again, it's been
unique because we've been used to the last you know,
three four months of just smooth sailing upward returns with
technology leading the way. So again, what what what exactly
happened on Friday to cause that? Well, President Trump again
put out that social true social tweet saying that China

(05:24):
was playing hardball on their tariff uh and trade conversations,
and specifically what China was doing was putting on some
restrictions on their rare earth dependent magnets. Now that might
seem a little foreign to everybody, but what that is
is a very special material that is used for chip manufacturing.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
And as we all can guess, you know, that's very important. Right.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
What's been powering the markets so far this year is
just the advancements in technology and the investments in technology stocks.
We've seen chip manufacturings, UH manufacturers, chick chip developers, uh,
you know, data centers, you know, everything surrounding AI doing
extremely well. So China bringing into play now that they

(06:13):
may be restricting, limiting, or you know, greatly increasing the
prices on these rare earth minerals obviously is going to
put a lot of concern on exactly how these technology
companies are going to get around that, and that was
one hundred percent shown within you know, the market prices
of all these stocks.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
We saw all.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Of the major names that you would you know, kind
of think of when you're looking at certain types of
you know, chip stocks. For instance, in the video on
Friday alone was down four point eighty five percent. ASML,
which is a large chip manufacturer in the Netherlands.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Netherlands. They actually are very unique.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's the only chip manufacturer that can create these special
design nine chips that all these chip companies need to use.
That was also down four point five to two percent.
And again, the thought process here is just how are
they going to get around these supply chain disruptions. We've
been here before, you know, we go into our time machine.

(07:17):
We go back to the beginning at April when Trump
initially announced all of the teriffs that we're going to
be put into play.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
We saw, we saw all of the.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Oh, we got a caller coming in from NaNs We
have Dale from Nansdale. How are we doing this morning?

Speaker 4 (07:36):
Good? How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (07:38):
We're doing very well. Uh. You know, we appreciate you
calling in and ask away on whatever questions you may.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Have Well, I'm in the car, so I apologize. But
and this is a little off topic, but I'm getting
closer to retirement and I had a question around it's
particular to tack. So I don't know if you've given
a tax advice, but I figured i'd ask, then you
want to take this?

Speaker 5 (08:04):
Yeah, it's almost CPA Dale. You know, tax plan is
a huge part of what we do here at the firm.

Speaker 6 (08:09):
So yes, you the way.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
That's great, Thank you so much. So i'd say, I'm
about two years away from retirement, and when I hit retirement,
I find that I'm going to be in a lower
income tax bracket. So I was thinking, rather or not.
One of my buddies said that when he got into
retirement he started doing Roth conversions and that his CPA

(08:36):
said it made sense, and he did a financial plan
and it showed that he would save on taxes over
the lifetime over his retirement lifetime. So I was wondering,
if you think it made sense and rather or not
I should consider doing it if I'm in a lower
income tax bracket early on in retirement.

Speaker 7 (08:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (08:56):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (08:57):
So you know, over your working years you probably contributed
to a tax deferred retirement account four one K four
three B. I'm not sure where you work, Dale, but
normally that's you know what folks ordinarily do, and you
saved taxes when you made that contribution, right, it's a
tax deduction off of your income and your tax turn
annually in.

Speaker 6 (09:18):
Your working years.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
You're probably in your highest tax bracket that you will
be in, right, and uh, you know, sometimes putting you know,
putting into a WROTH is always good, but you know,
getting that tax reduction when you're in a higher tax
bracket than you are in retirement is also beneficial as well.
And you know that's really great thinking Dale that you
know your your expectation is that you'll be in a
lower tax bracket at the start of retirement. You know

(09:39):
you will need cash flow, right, so you have to
pull from your tax deferred retirement account in retirement and
then the combination of doing WROTH conversions at that point.
So a WROTH conversion obviously is taking money out of
a tax deferred retirement account, putting it into a tax
free retirement account and letting it grow tax free.

Speaker 6 (09:58):
And when you pull the money out of the I
rate's taxble.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
So you know, the combination and you know obviously requires
a comprehensive analysis, and you know, taking a look at
things like social security or potential part time income.

Speaker 6 (10:09):
I'm not really sure what your situation is, but.

Speaker 5 (10:11):
Yeah, the idea is to get the money out when
maybe you're in the ten or twelve percent tax bracket
and get it into the raw, versus doing it when
you're in the twenty four percent tax bracket. Right, that's
really the most beneficial route you could take. You for
a combination of reasons. When you hit age seventy five
for folks you know, or seventy three, the rm D

(10:32):
age what it is right now for require minium distributions.
You don't have control over how much you pull out
of your IRA. The IRS tells you, you know, you
saved you defer your taxes for this loan by making
contributions to your four one K or four or three B.
Now we want our money back, So you have to
pull out about four percent of the account balance at
the end of the prior year, right, And that gives
you no control over your tax pull income. So if

(10:54):
you have a large IRA balance, then you could potentially
be getting pushed into the highest tax brad your your
Medicare premiums uh, you know, can be relatively high based
on you know, what your income is, and again you
have no control over it. So getting money out of
the tax free retirement accounts is always a great route

(11:14):
to take in retirement when you are in a lower
tax bracket.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
That sounds great. I appreciate that advice. And that's one
thing I was worried about too, was my R and
D s. I have a pretty high four to one
K balance and you know, I know at some point
I have to start taking distributions from that account. So
I figured maybe I could manage those future R and
ds by paying some of the taxes in a lower bracket.

(11:42):
And you just confirm that. So I really appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (11:46):
No problem.

Speaker 5 (11:46):
And if you know, if you were to wanted to
work with an advisor, obviously it's a complex situation. You know,
feel free to give us a call after the show
and we'd be happy to.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Work with you.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Well, yeah, my my four one K is that fidelity
now when you know I'm gonna stop working in the
next year or so. So I was thinking whether or
not I should roll it over to an IRA or
keep it in the four oh one K. What do you.

Speaker 5 (12:10):
Think, you know, always beneficial to roll a four oh
one K over to an IRA. Reason being is the
investment choices are more broad. Right with the four to
one k's, you're limited to what the plan allows, which
is usually mutual funds, and again a very limited option
to what you can invest in. And then also you know,
having an advisor manage your retirement accounts is beneficial because

(12:31):
you know, our team meets once a week. The investment
team here will follow an editor on and Ryan Bouchet
Steve Soon heads it up. He's a chief investment officer.
They meet once a week and they're paying attention to
what's going on in the economy, what changes should be
made in the portfolio. And this is something they do
for a living, right, and most folks aren't paying that
close attention to, you know, in their investments in their

(12:52):
for one kind are kind of just letting it ride.
So always a great move to get it out into
an IRA where you have you know, pretty much you
can invest in anything you want, right and then also
the fees that are associated with the four oh one
K are pretty high. When you're not utilizing four one
K services anymore, there's really new point.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
In you paying those fees.

Speaker 6 (13:10):
So yeah, always a great idea.

Speaker 5 (13:12):
So again after the show, if you want to give
us a call, Dale, we have to help you out.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, that's that sounds great because now that you mentioned
and I keep hearing about alternatives as an asset class,
and it's something that's interesting. I'm sick of these silly
target date funds in my four to one K. Yeah,
i'maint We're going to reach out to you guys, and
I appreciate.

Speaker 6 (13:32):
That, all right, absolutely, thank you, Dale. Yeah, Dale, we
certainly appreciate the call.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
And those were absolutely great questions, and we highly encourage
all the other listeners out there to call in. The
phone lines are going to be open all throughout today's show,
and that number is one eight.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Hundred Talk WGY.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Again,
that is one eight hundred eight two five nine. Now,
Roth conversions are a great point, and I just want
to stay on this for a little bit and let's
hop back into investments. But roth conversions can also come
into the investment conversation as well, right, I mean, so

(14:13):
when we think about it, there's a lot of tax
planning that goes around that, and that's the tax projections
that our tax team does here, you know, looking at
your prior your tax return, formulating exactly what your income
is this year, seeing exactly how much wiggle room you
have within your marginal tax bracket, and then using that
wiggle room to then do a Roth conversion and paying

(14:34):
that taxes with casher you have outside of your tax
deferred account. Now, obviously that is the primary reason of
doing the Roth conversion. But the other thing than A
and ED and I want to hear your thoughts on
there is is there an element of market timing within
a Roth conversion.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, certainly, I would say, you know, the blending of
the tax planning and the investment research is you know,
something we pride ourselves on here at Bouchet and you know, Vin,
this is something we've done for you know, many clients
over the last couple of years. But you know a
strategy we have found to be successful is, you know,
when we start to see market volatility, look for those

(15:09):
Wrath conversion opportunities and to do it in kind with
a you know, growth focused asset like a QQQ or
maybe a tech stock.

Speaker 5 (15:19):
Yeah, absolutely so. Actually, I'll give you a real client situation.
Back in April, when the markets took a bit of
a dip, Tech got kind of crushed, and you know,
we have a client and you know, we do really
extensive tax planning here. You know, big numbers, you know,
terrible deduction carryovers. So for this particular client, she had
her husband passed away and he had left a piece

(15:39):
of property over to a local college as in the
form of charitable deduction, and it was in the millions
of dollars. So year after year, you know, Ira says
that you can carry over that deduction if you don't
use it up for five years. So annually she has
you know, a very very large tax offer retirement account,
you know, millions of dollars. So we're doing conversions to

(16:00):
both utilize you know, that charitable deduction and also get
it over into a tax free account. So when the
market took a dip at and I took a look
at the positions. Specifically, there was Microsoft and you know
some tech ETFs that we use that kind of got crushed, right,
so they were down thirty percent thirty five percent, and
we moved them over to the WROTH about five hundred
thousand dollars worth and those have sense rebounded in a

(16:21):
big way, and it was such a benefit because you know,
in the tax deferd account they took a hit and
then moved them over to the tax free account and
they rebounded, you know, thirty five forty fifty percent, and
that's all tax free now, right. So when the market
takes a dip, that's always the best time to do
a roth conversion. Obviously, you can't time that. You never
know what you know when that's going to happen. You
know it will eventually happen, but you never know when.

(16:43):
But that is the most optimal time to do a
ross conversion.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, and again to Vinnie's point, you can't exactly know
when the market's going to pull back. If we did
have that crystal ball, uh, that would be very nice.
I would I would love to be able to utilize
that within the portfolios. But when you do see volatility,
these are the things that you need to be thinking about.
These are the things that you need to be having

(17:08):
a conversation with your advisor about because there's just so
many you know, moving parts that can be had or
seen through all this volatility. It's not just do I
have some nice defensive positions that could hold up through
the volatility that make us feel good when the market's
down twenty percent. When you have a position or two
that are a flat or maybe up a few percent,

(17:30):
that's fine, but that's not enough game planning, right, you know,
aside from thinking about doing roth conversions or your cash
management strategies. Right, So if you're in retirement, you're taking
distributions or you protected over the next two years for
those distributions, having that money carved out and set aside,
and money markets or ultra short bonds or any other

(17:51):
of maybe short term debt derivative instrument that will insulate
you from any sort of market volatility, but also make
sure that you're still earning on the cash that you
have on the sidelines. So you know, these are all
important things. And again, just wanted to appreciate Dale reaching
out and asking those questions.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Those are great questions.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
And again encourage everybody else out there listening if you
have any questions, give us a call. One eight hundred
talk WGY. That's one eight hundred eighty two five five
nine four nine. So we were discussing kind of in
the beginning of the show, talking about all the volatility
that we saw on Friday, Again, that was due to

(18:31):
the China US trade conversations around the precious earth metals
that China has a very, very very large dominant shareover.
I don't have the stats in front of me. I'm
going a little bit more off the top of mine,
but I want to say, and maybe Ed you could
fat fact check me on this, that China has like

(18:53):
eighty percent ownership of the world's precious rare earth metals
that are needed for a lot of the chip manufacturing.
So obviously that was going to create some volatility within
the markets. But let's talk about some planning around that
volatility specifically within your portfolio. It's important, especially as we

(19:15):
go on and we hit all time highs and continuously
hit all time highs, you know, going back to twenty
twenty two, when the S and P five hundred was down,
say twenty percent, then we rebounded extremely, extremely well through
twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, and twenty twenty five,
right double digit returns in the S and P five
hundred for the last three years. We certainly think that

(19:37):
there's going to be continued momentum throughout this year. Certainly
short term noise like this terrift situation between China and
the US. Those situations are going to be seen. You know,
we called for it and we'll be discussing for about
it in our quarterly economic update next Wednesday, Ryan and
I will be putting that on. Now, we didn't know

(19:59):
exactly that it was going and to be a precious
rare earth mineral teriff situation, but we just knew that
there was going to be pockets of volatility.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
As we push onto the all time hives.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
So how do we take advantage of that?

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right?

Speaker 2 (20:12):
And it's our job as portfolio managers to manage for risks.
So within our portfolios, we're always going to have, you know,
a nice overweight to technology. It's a main reason of
our outperformance that we see, you know, a year over year.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
But when we have that type.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Of exposure within the portfolios, we need to make sure
that we have nice defensive positions in there as well,
to not only buffer through the volatility, but.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
To also create a strategic element. Right.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
So it's our job as we see pockets of volatilities
to have defensive positions, whether it's you know, buffered ETFs
or you know, strategic sector ETFs or different types of
quality or profitability funds that hold up very well during volatility.
But that's just one element of the equation, right, So
we want to make sure we have positions and sire

(21:00):
holding up. But the other element is if we have
a position that's holding up when the market is selling
off site ten fifteen percent, that creates that strategic element
of having position that's flat and you know we could
sell and buy the overall market at a discount. Now
we do have another caller coming in. We have Mitchell

(21:22):
from Glenmont. Mitchell, how we doing this morning?

Speaker 7 (21:25):
Very good? Thank you, gentlemen. I'm going to be coming
into some decent money mid seven figures, and I'll be
doing a real estate investing. I've been doing that for
quite a while. I have set up different corporations and LLCs.

(21:49):
But I'm interested in finding out what your opinion is
about Cook island trusts for asset.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
Protectory island trust. So we don't really deal with those
that often, Mitchell, So I'm just curious, did you work
with a lawyer to kind of set those up or.

Speaker 7 (22:13):
I have not yet. No, I'm just watching some podcasts
getting information. They seem like they are pretty bulletproof, and
I'm words like that sort of scare me because I
don't really trust it. And I was wondering what opinions were.

Speaker 5 (22:32):
What's your major concern Give me your top three major concerns.
So obvious sounds like acid protection is, but what are
you most concerned about.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
I'm concerned that I have the ability to get at assets.
I'm concerned that if there is the need for a
defender that if they are put in place, how can
I trust that they will be able to be removed.

(23:03):
That's really the issue for me to make sure that
I can trust the people that I'm dealing with. I
don't know them, they're r any dealings with them, and
so you hear lots of stories about seeing negative things happening,
and I just don't want that.

Speaker 5 (23:21):
Yeah, you know again, so you know, we're not attorneys,
but you know, we work with attorneys with our clients.
You know, we have a lot of attorneys in the
areas that we refer our clients to. Normally, you know,
with rental real estate, it gets a little bit more complicated.
You know, the trusts that we normally work with are
just your standard revocable and irrevocable trust. Specifically, when it

(23:41):
comes to irrevocable trust, it's Medicaid asset protection trusts. So
our main goal for our clients is, you know, pretty
much to protect you know, them from going into probate
upon death or you know, protecting their assets getting taken
from Medicaid in the event that they're in a nursing home.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, Michell, that is a great question. We are coming
up to the half of the show. We do need
to take a quick break. We would love for you
to call back in and in the second half of
the show and let's discuss this further. But you are
listening to Let's Talk Money brought to you by the
Bouchet Financial Group, where we help our clients prioritize their
health or we manage their wealth for life. Stick with
us through the news and we'll be back momentarily.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
Hi, you were listening to Let's Talk Money brought to
you by Bouchet Financial Group. This has Vincenzo Testa Mitchell.
Are you still there, Yes, I am, Hi, Mitch, So yeah.
So Mitchell asked a question before the break about how
he invests in rental real estate and how he organized
something called a cook island trust, which is a trust
that really works to protect your assets right in the

(24:42):
event and divorce, you know, from business risks or lawsuits.
There's a lot of you know risks with you know,
rental real estate, Mitch. And you know, if an attorney
you advise you to set this up, you know you
probably put you in the right direction. But again, a
lot of what we deal with our clients, especially with
rent real estate or revocable trust and irrevocable trust, right,

(25:03):
that's a form of that. But you know, we want
to protect our client's assets for medicaid. I'm not really
sure what your situation is, Mitch, or what your net
worth is. You know, usually folks with higher net worths,
you know, deal with these cook island trusts. But you know,
are running the mill client, our average client, we're having
them set up an LLC or you know, revocable irrevocable trust.

Speaker 6 (25:25):
Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Not really.

Speaker 7 (25:31):
The viability of the cooking Island trust is one question. Uh,
there's a lot of marketing out there and you don't
know what to believe. As well as I am currently
doing things through a four oh one K and that
would that would be a ross self directed four o
one K, Yeah, and I would I would get the

(25:53):
property into the four oh one K and that's pretty
secure by itself. So one of the questions again would
be do I even need further asset protection?

Speaker 5 (26:05):
Yeah, so you can't transfer your four oh one k
into a trust, So that's off the bat, that's one
of the major issues there. But as far as rental
real estate goes, I mean to me, I'm I'm not
going to give you legal advice amount an attorney, but
you know, like I said, the LLC provides protection.

Speaker 6 (26:21):
It's a separate entity.

Speaker 5 (26:22):
If you get sued, your personal assets are not liable.
And as far as the revocable trust and aerobal trust
remains the same, So I mean, it might be a
little I don't Again, I don't know what your situation is.
I don't know what your net worth is, how much
property you own, or if you're married, or you know,
what have you. But those entities provide you know, enough
protection as is.

Speaker 7 (26:44):
Well, I'm going to be doing quite a lot of investing.
I would, I would say at least one property a month,
and in moving from residential probably into commercial. I'm not
sure what hype and all that, but it really doesn't matter.
I'm looking at investing and doing a lot of it.

(27:07):
I put properties into LLCs, but the reality is that
if you gets sued, all of those assets are at risk.
So I'm looking at series LLCs. Can you make any
comment about which state has a more secure series LLC
and that laws have been impredicated in that state and

(27:30):
so they are settled.

Speaker 6 (27:32):
Yeah. Again, I'm not an attorney.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
I'm not knowledgeable on state you know, state laws when
it comes to LLCs besides New York. So I really
can't guide you in the right direction on that. But
what I can tell you is, you know, I'm a
CPA and a CFP, so what I specialize is tax
planning and financial planning, right, so you'll have a ton
of experience with tax.

Speaker 6 (27:54):
On rental real estate.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Right.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
I worked at a big four accounting firm KPMG, so
that's really mine expertise. Again, I'm not an attorney, so
I don't want to give you any legal advice, and
I don't you know, I'm gonna be honest with you,
I don't know every states.

Speaker 7 (28:07):
Is there a way that is there a way that
you can say how I can find competent legal uh,
personnel absolutely.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
You know, we were for our clients to uh some
partners of ours what we call COIs. So you know,
if you ever wanted to work with us, Mitchell, you
definitely give us a call and we could meet with you.
Like I said, we have a lot of expertise on
the tax end with real estate. I think it would
be beneficial for you. It sounds like you have a
pretty complex situation, and you know what we do for
our clients is kind of bring the whole picture together.

(28:37):
You know, we have the tax planning and financial planning
and investment management in house, and then you know, we
work with attorneys, we work with you know, medicare professionals,
and we have these referrals that we send to our clients.
So if you ever wanted to kind of feel less out,
you know, we definitely have a conversation.

Speaker 7 (28:53):
Well that sounds good. You are local, we.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
Are, Yeah, that's right, we're in Sarah talka right on
Broadway and in Troll.

Speaker 7 (29:01):
What is the cost for an initial consultation or are
you one of those firms that gives a free shot
in the beginning.

Speaker 5 (29:08):
Yeah, no, there's no cost for an initial consultation. There's
no hidden fees with us. We don't sell anything. We
don't sell life insurance, we don't sell annuities. All our
cost is to our clients is our AUM fee, which
is one percent annually under two million, and then the
AUM fee starts to become tiered past two million, so
if you have five million, it's a bit less than
one percent.

Speaker 7 (29:30):
Okay, very good, Thank you so very much, guys.

Speaker 6 (29:33):
Thanks for calling in Mitch, thanks for the challenging questions.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
And that was Mitchell from Glenmont again asking very very
good questions and you know, Vine, appreciate you taking that one.
I myself not familiar with that style of trust, you know,
anything offshore.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Sometimes it just you.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Know, there feels like there's specific situations well you know
for it and as Mitchell was kind of outlying, you
know it just it needs to be reviewed thoroughly and
certainly with an attorney and just you know, really our
job too is just to product manage that right, just
outline exactly and outline everything that potentially could be a

(30:15):
risk out there and is that being covered by that
style of the trust. So a lot of due diligence
need to be put in play. There, and you know, again, Mitchell,
we look forward to hopefully you calling in at some
point next week and sitting down and going through that
in much more detail. So folks, again, the phone lines
are going to be open. We have about, I would say,
roughly twenty more minutes of today's show. That number is

(30:36):
one eight hundred WG. Why that's one eight hundred eight
two five, five, nine four nine. Now, Vinni's gotten some
tax questions. I've been talking about the markets and exactly
what's been going on this week, and we have ed
sitting over here and really hasn't gotten any love yet.
So let's rope you into the today's conversation. And you know,
again we were talking about rod conversions, market timing on that,

(30:59):
but I feel we covered that pretty efficiently. The other
thing I like to talk about, and I know this
is something that you spearhead here at the firm, is
our direct indexing and really, honestly, a lot of the
success that we've been having here and how we've been
having that success. So without stealing your thunder here, let's
let's hear some more about this.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, thanks, Paula. You know something I'm always happy to
talk about. You know, I was on the show last
Sunday with John Malay, you know, mentioned I was going
down to a conference. You know, I spent the earlier
parts of this week down in Austin, beautiful area, but
that was you know, for our direct indexing partnership, So
you know, reviewing a lot of the great stuff they've
got going on right now and some also exciting things

(31:40):
coming down the pipeline for them. But just you know,
broad overview, what is direct indexing and why can it
be so beneficial? I think the most important way to
think about it is, you know, if you understand when
ETF for a mutual fund is it's a it's a
basket of stocks. And that's great because we love diversification.
So you knows, you access you know, either a whole

(32:01):
market or an index, but at the end of the day,
it's a it's a basket of stocks. Now, one of
the downsides of that is is you know, when you
do see volatility, you have to look at the entire
index as a line item in your account. Now, whereas
if you were to own you know, just say a
handful of individual stocks, when you see that volatility, you

(32:23):
know some of them might be up and some of
them might be down. That's why diversification could be helpful,
you know, smooth out those returns. But you know, you
can't take advantage of of selling those securities for the
tax benefit. You know, if you're you know, taking a
loss in your account and you're replacing it with a
light kind of security, you're not losing any market exposure.
You can still keep that long term time horizon in mind,

(32:44):
but you are picking up those losses to you know,
offset gains either elsewhere in your financial plan or you know,
specifically in that account unless you do some rebalancing from
a tax standpoint. Now where direct indexing really kicks off
is what it does is instead of own inn etf
you know, we'll just say the S and P five hundred,
instead of owning that just entire basket, what it does

(33:07):
is it's going to own you know, essentially a couple
hundred stocks in the account, and it's going to mirror
the performance of the S and P five hundred. But
now when we see volatility, you know, even a on
a smaller scale, right where the sn P five hundred
you know, could be up on a day, half of
those stocks could be down. You know, especially with the
concentration we've seen in MAG seven. You know, those have
been able to carry intoices you know where text positive

(33:29):
and the rest of the market is down on a day,
you can't take advantage of that volatility. Direct indexing lets
you do that by you know, taking that basket away.
You still own all the stocks. You get the diversification,
but when you see volatility, you know, it's an automated
software and it goes in and it'll sell that stock
at a loss and replace it with a similar security.

(33:50):
You know, if you're if Microsoft's down one day and
you're selling Microsoft, it's going to replace it by buying
something like Apple for example. So you're not losing any
market exposure, but you're able to kind of juice up
those returns by crowing more losses.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, and again the amount of benefit that you get
from that, right, especially with the year like this year,
SMP five hundreds up north of fourteen percent, I think,
even with the volatility. So if you're just holding SPY
all throughout the year, you're up fourteen percent. There's no
tax loss harvesting opportunities, but you have the direct indexing

(34:23):
software and your curtail your portfolios taken on more beta,
making sure that you see those you know, fluctuations within
the portfolio to take advantage of the tax loss harvesting.
Now you have all those returns and a piggy bank
of losses to either offset this year or you know, carryover,
you know, for future years on any sort of capital
gains that you'll be taking. So again, highly highly tax efficient,

(34:47):
something that we call tax alpha. And again we've had
a lot of success so far with our clients and
ed can you kind of talk about how we also
utilize it for clients that you know, bring over some
large single stocks.

Speaker 6 (34:59):
Yeah, you're reading my mind.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
So I would say from a planning perspective, that's where
we see, you know, the most use. You know, a
lot of people have made a lot of money in
stocks like an Apple for example. Eventually that apple has
grown to be such a large part of your portfolio,
and it's it's deeply embedded with gains. When it's in
a taxable count, that can be tough to plan around,

(35:22):
especially when you're in retirement. You know, you may need
that money, but you can't afford to take a huge
tax bill of I just outright selling it. So it's
you know, how do you diversify around that position, maybe
start to unwind it and do it in a tax
efficient manner. That's where direct indexing comes in, because what
it's going to do is it's going to kind of
complete your portfolio around that apple. So you know, you're

(35:43):
still going to try and track as closely as you
can to S and P five hundred, you know, or
any other index for example, but you're going to diversify
around that position specifically and then use those losses to
slowly unwind it over time.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
So it's just a really.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Efficient way to add diversification, especially to an existing portfolio
of you know, a few embedded gain positions.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah, no, And again that's important, you know, especially
with all the winners that we've seen over the last
fifteen years or so. I mean that there's certainly kind
of a lot of individual stock positions that we've seen
clients spring over that you know, we need to do
some risk mitigation around, and you know, the things that
we have the ability to do within our direct indexing

(36:28):
platform and the things that are coming down the pipe.
You know, I truly believe that just like when people
talk about you know, technology and AI and all the future,
I really do feel like direct indexing will only continue
to have a larger and larger footprint, not only within
our portfolios, but in the investment world altogether. So again, folks,
we got about fifteen minutes, you know, left within today's show.

(36:53):
Would love to hear any questions that you have, So
if you have any questions on your mind, please call in.
That's one a hundred talk WGY. That's twenty one hundred
eight two five, five, nine, four nine. We also have
some events coming up very soon. There's actually two events
that I just wanted to quickly highlight. The first we
have is her Legacy Navigating Life's Transitions. This is a

(37:18):
woman in wealth seminar that Harmony Wagner, who is a
Certified Financial Planner and a CPWA, which is a very
unique and high end designation that deals with extremely high
net worth individuals. She is a wealth advisor here at
the firm. She is spearheading this along with Claire McCrae,

(37:38):
who is a very prominent lawyer in the area, and
Leah Henderson who is a CPA in the area as well,
So those three will be spearheading this. It is a
seminar that's going on Wednesday, October twenty second.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
And that's happening at the Duo at the Dunes.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
I am not familiar with that, but I do love
the name of that spot, and that's at two fifty
seven Washington AB in Albany. There's no cost to attend
the event, you know. The registration will be from about
eleven thirty to noon, with the lunch in the presentation
happening from twelve to one thirty. So if that is
something that you're interested in or know somebody that would

(38:21):
be interested in attending, again, reach out to the firm.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
We also do, I believe.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Vinny Ed do you guys know if we have a
link on the website.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I think we do. If we do, we do, Okay,
so we do have a link on the website.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Also if you want to sign up through there and
then we have another event and I'm giving it to
you pretty early, you know, so you could be proactive
on that. But we have another planning with purpose taking
control of your wealth in uncertain times and again on
certain times may think about Friday's volatility, you know, and
other you know, kind of geopolitical events and market fluctuations.

(38:56):
I think this is again going to be another very
very timely seminar and this is being spearheaded by Ryan Bouchet,
who was also a Certified Financial Planner and a CPA
and the chief investment officer here at Bouchet Financial Group.
He is doing this with Jim Lebrue, who is another
very prominent lawyer in the area. And that is happening

(39:17):
on Wednesday, November twelfth, and that's at the Hotel Brookmere
in here in Saratoga. They actually just did recently did
a renovation, I want to say, about six months ago
or a year ago, and I actually went over there
maybe a month ago and it looks amazing. So really
looking forward to that event. And that's going to start

(39:37):
again at five point thirty pm on Wednesday, November twelfth.
So if you're interested in that, you know, again, reach out,
give us a call. I believe that is also on
our website if you have any questions, you know, that's
something that would be more than happy to answer. So
folks were coming up towards the end of today's show

(39:59):
and love you know, if anybody has any sort of
last minute questions that they want us to answer before
we end, we would love that.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
But other than that, gentlemen, What's what's on top of mind? Uh,
let's talk macro?

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Okay, yeah, well, I mean where do we want to
go with some macro here? I mean, the first and
foremost thing that I want to, you know, kind of
talk about is with labor market.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
I don't know if you have anything else on.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Top of mind, but you know, with our quarterly Economic
update that is coming out next Wednesday. That is the
webinar that Ryan and I do every every quarter, I
usually cover the economic update, which is more of the
macro landscape, as Ed's pointing out, and two of my
favorite things to always highlight is going to be labor

(40:45):
and the consumer. And that's important because without a strong
labor market, you don't have a strong consumer, and without
a strong consumer, you don't have a strong economy. Because me,
Finny Ed, everybody that's listening, the US consumer makes up
seventy percent of the US's GDP. So if we're not

(41:05):
out there spending money and we're not financially viable, then
the economy is not going to do well. And we
have seen some elements of concern on labor right, so
one of the first times we've seen that job openings
is now less than the amount of people that are
out there looking for jobs. So showing some very very
high tightness within the labor market. And if we start

(41:29):
to see some material slow down in labor, you know,
that could be challenging. And we're supposed to see our
first glimpse of that two weeks ago on Friday with
the labor report coming out. You know, we always talk
about the job's report. We were supposed to get September's
jobs report, but the government's been shut down and with
the government shut down, we do not get that data.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
So first time in history we've ever had a government shutdown.
It's prevented data point from coming out.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Is that a fact? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (41:58):
I did not know the last twenty eighteen It was
last shutdown where we're supposed to get a non farm
payroll specifically, and they still ended up releasing it.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
So yeah, this was the first one.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
And actually in preparation for the show, you know, you know,
looking at what upcoming data is coming out. We were
supposed to get CPI inflation data this week that has
also now been postponed. I want to stay until the
end of the month, now, wow wow, Yeah, And I
mean that's important. I mean, because we're going to have
another FED decision at the end of this month.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
You know, the Fed's been cutting rates. What the market
right now, what's the FED fund futures market looking at?
Is another just one twenty five basis points?

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Are we still so?

Speaker 3 (42:39):
I know, prior to them moving CPI, which which again
can affect these things when you think about how data
dependent the FED is not getting a couple of data
points certainly kind of ties their hands behind their back.

Speaker 6 (42:49):
We were looking.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
At, you know, three cuts throughout the end of the year,
you know, estimated twenty five bps each. It's a quarter
basis point for each one. Now it'll be interesting see
where we go with the pushback of the CPI.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yeah, so we're supposed to get a Wednesday now it's
later this month. Yeah, it's correct, And I'm sure that's
going to be a moving target, right, I mean, they're
pushing it to the end of this month in anticipation
that they're going to get resolution before then get the
government back into d C, so that could even be
pushed out even further.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
You know, I.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Remember having the conversations kind of more at the beginning
of this month. You know, around how the markets We're
going to digest that right, because what does that create
when we don't have the government in DC and we're
not getting the data, Well, that creates uncertainty, and it
seems like for the most part markets have shrugged that off.
A lot of that has done with the momentum, you know,

(43:45):
it's been behind technology.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
You know, some of the newer terms.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
That we've been hearing over the last few weeks circular deals.
That has been a very very large theme. So circular
deals is referring to all the deals that are been
happening specifically within technology and more specifically within ai. You know,
the way that it was working is, you know, I

(44:09):
think what kind of kick this all off was open
Ai did one hundred billion dollar deal with Oracle, you
know for futures contracts of building out data warehouses for
all the computing power that open Ai needed, which then
Oracle turns around and then does one hundred billion dollar
deal with the Video to then have the chips to
power these data centers that are needed for all the

(44:33):
computing that open ai is doing for then the Video
to invest one hundred billion dollars in open Ai. So
if you think about this it's just one massive circle
that's been going around.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Now. Can that be problematic? Yeah, certainly.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
I mean there can be some similarities. When we talked
to you know, late nineties, early two thousands dot com bubbles,
there were similar situations, but one of the most massive
differences here and you know, speaking with Marty Shields at
length about this last week, who was our chief wealth advisor,
you know, because you know, he was an investment advisor

(45:08):
through the dot com bubble as you know, of course,
as Steve was as well, and you know, one of
the major fundamental differences was just you know, through the
dot com bubble, there's so many of these companies that
just weren't profitable. It was just this massive gold rush,
you know, towards Hey, how do we get into some
element of dot com, you know, the Internet where in

(45:29):
this AI arms race dramatically different. I mean, these companies
are making billions of billions of billions of dollars and
that is all on you know, their balance sheets. This
is not you know, made up, This is not you
know a fougaizy as I'm sure Bening will give me
a little smirk as I say that.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
He ends up shaking his head on it.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
But you know the thing is is, like again, these
are real earnings to be had. Now, these circular deals
can be a little bit concerning because like again, you know,
it's just one hundred billion dollars that is funneling through
you know, five different styles of companies and a lot
of this is being traded off of, you know, the
projected earnings that they have within the next five years.
But what cannot be ignored is the momentum that is

(46:10):
behind it.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Now, when we.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
See the momentum that is behind it, it's our job
to then, you know, again insulate around the volatility from
what we can see and what we did see on
Friday and what we could.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
See you know, next week.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
All the volatility that we saw on Friday absolutely right ed.
What's your thoughts you think we could see some more
volatility going in the next week or you think the
market shrug it off.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
I think we could see some continued volatility certainly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So you know it's about you know, not only did
we game plan for this, So if we have clients
that are taking distributions, like I was talking about earlier
on today's show, let's make sure that we have that
cash management strategy set in place for that, so two
years worth of those distributions set aside and either money markets,
short term bonds, any sort of short term debt derivatives,

(46:56):
whatever the case may be. The other thing is, you
know what type of style factors are we looking for?
So you know, ed when you think about where we're
at in the markets, so say, potentially we're starting to
see some beginning signs of maybe maybe again asterisks on
both sides of maybe some weakness in labor, maybe some

(47:17):
weakness and consumer but and with interest rates coming down,
but also very very robust capital expenditures that are happening
in AI right All these companies are spending and spending money.
You know, President Trump has definitely been very adamant on
the quote unquote on shoring making all of these you know,
technology companies pump money into infrastructure development within the United

(47:37):
States that generates economic activity.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
So when you think.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
About all of that, when when we're thinking about some thematics,
and we're going to have to have you speed this
up a little bit because I did just get the
one minute thirty second warning, so we still have some time.
But what are some style factors that you're thinking about.
Right now, we've given all the you know, micro and
macro backdrop.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah, I mean one certainly love a sort of bar well, right,
your large cap tech, your growth, but then also you know,
high quality companies showing profitabilities, you know, outside of large
cap tech for some diversification.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
You know, those are some.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Areas, you know, infrastructure and energy, specially electricity or clean
alternatives like nuclear. You know, I think those are all
areas to look for. It's definitely worth doing a little
bit of research and maybe putting some overweights.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Are we in I mean, would you say we're not
in an energy crisis now, but if we're going to
be funding all the infrastructure development within AI, I mean,
where's that energy going.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
To come from? Yeah, certainly.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
I mean forecast show there is not enough electricity to
meet demand over the next few years. So you know
that's where one exciting area is is certainly nuclear. I
wish we had another fifteen minutes to go over it, but.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Yeah, and do you know what, We're going to probably
have to carry that into another show because we are
coming up to the end of today's show. I want
to appreciate everybody that tuned in. You are listening to
Let's Talk Money, brought to you by the Bouchet Financial Group,
where we help our clients prioritize their health, but we
may manage their wealth for life. Thank you and have
an amazing rest of your weekend.