Same, then watches the ships, then go say somewhere, yeah, I like this song, Zach. Good morning everybody, and thank you for tuning in. It's January twenty eighth. Thursday is February first, Can you believe it? Boy in February is a short month, not as short as usually sometimes we get twenty eight days and every once in a while twenty nine days. This is one of those years where if you have a birthday on the twenty ninth, you really have a birthday. Before we know, spring will
be here. Fifty one days, Spring will be here. Thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for really being a loyal listener and tuning in as much as you do. Hopefully I can get you pointed in the right direction. If you have any questions, any questions whatsoever today, please the phone mines are open. Zach Harris, my longtime producer, and I are here. We're ready, willing and able to talk with you and give you
some ideas, some answer, some direction. One eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eighty two, five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine are the numbers. We had a great show yesterday some really good questions, and I really, you know, I enjoy it when the listeners call in because it's just it's nice to be able to give them my viewpoint. Believe me, there may be different viewpoints out there.
That's what makes you know. You know, opinions what they are my opinion. I try to speak from my heart as a fiduciary. I've been a fiduciary for over thirty one years, which means all I care about is what's right for my clients. That's all I care about. Nothing else matters. We don't sell investment, we have no conflicts of interest. I sleep sound at night knowing I did the right thing for my clients, and that's really what you deserve. If you're working with an advisor, you want to
make sure that advisor has your best interest at heart. So if you have any questions one eight hundred eighty two, five five, nine, four nine, give me a call. I said yesterday, how we had our state of the economy. We do a state of the Economy dinner presentation where we invite clients a couple of nights to different venues Franklin, Plaz and Troy. You know, I always say Michael Coca put Franklin Plaza, you know,
in operation, I guess maybe forty years ago, maybe even more. I think he's responsible for bringing more people across that great, big wide river, the Hudson River, from from the other side into historic downtown Troy. Franklin Plaza is a believe me, their stellar at what they do. And we had Tuesday night we had our State of the Economy there, and then on
Wednesday night I did something different. I rented out the eighteen sixty three room, which is the new clubhouse at the racetrack, and clients really enjoyed it and it was a great venue. You know, obviously if you think about racing and all the TVs are that are everywhere, same thing. For our presentation there had to be you know, I say one hundred TVs, but
if there were forty there, that's probably about right. And no matter where you were sitting, if you couldn't see all the way up to the stage, you saw you saw us on TV. And we had over over three hundred clients between Tuesday and Wednesday nights, So it was nice to have the clients come. We will have our State of the Economy presentation. I share it with the wide world web every year and it'll be up I think this week. Samantha Masion, Katie Buck in my office are working on it.
They are like the odds behind the curtain. They make things happen. And I think we'll have it up on our website this week. So next weekend you'll you'll, you'll you know, be notified of it. But go to our website during the week you'll see it right on the bottom Bouche dot com. That's b as in boy O U c h E Y. And we have a lot of other great stuff on our website. But we're proud.
We're proud of how we try our best to help educate our clients, and we share a lot of our blogs, a lot of our webinars with the listening audience. So if you go to Bouche dot com, you will see a lot of good stuff there, but our State of the Economy is a must see. It's really we do a great job. I should say my colleagues do a great job. Our presenters this year were Nicole Goebel, who
you've heard on the radio many times, CPA Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. As I like to say, we don't want our clients to need her services, but if by chance things get rocky in the world of love, Nicole can help help save a lot of money working with the attorneys and come up with a really good plan. Paulo La Pietra Certified Financial Planner and works closely with Ryan on the investment team. He's our portfolio strategist. Ryan Bouchet my son.
He is a CPA and a CFP, and Ryan is what we call our chief Strategy Officer. He's the big brains behind the thinking of what we do as a firm. And also our chief Investment Officer, Marty Shields who's been with me for almost twelve years. Marty's a CFP and an accredited investment fiduciary and our chief wealth advisor. And John Mlay who has been with me for almost fourteen years. John is our chief Operating Officer, chief Financial Officer
and a CPA as well. So that was our presenters, and they really they put together. They worked weeks on this, and I mean weeks to come up with the right slides, the right information. It was seamless, so you'll see it on our website this week. I'm very proud of my team, And after a couple of nights on Tuesday and Wednesday, I realized just how smart they are. That's that's my secret. That's my secret recipe. Folks surround myself by people that are smarter than I am. And boy,
what a team we have. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions, any questions whatsoever, give me a call, and I went over the slide this week. We like to remind our clients that stocks are up more than they're down. And as a fiduciary, as a wealth manager, we we get paid the same whether we have our clients one hundred percent guaranteed in CDs or treasury bonds or invested more growth oriented in stocks. The key is
knowing what kind of risk you're able to tolerate. What's the perfect mix for your your your portfolio? Is it fifty to fifty sixty forty eighty twenty one hundred percent equity? In light of full disclosure, I'm invested just like my client's. The only difference is I'm in our all equity strategy because I'm very comfortable with risk. It doesn't bother me when stocks go down. I know
stocks go down. I guarantee anybody who will listen to me. Stocks go down, But knocks have always gone up back to making all time highs. And that's what happened this week. It took a while, but we had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, every day we closed that a new record high. Friday we gave a smidgeon back, but it was really a great week the stock markets. The SMP was up just over one percent, NASDAK just shy one percent. The winner this week was Russell two thousand,
up about one point seventy five percent. Ye're to date. I no, it's only a few short weeks, but ye're to date We're up two and a half percent for the SMP, five hundred indecks, NASDAC about three percent, QQQ, which are the one hundred largest companies, and NASDAK up three point five percent. Russell two thousand down about two point four percent. We
need the Russell two thousand to catch up. That means that the breadth of this market expansion is widening, and it's not just the Magnificent seven or as I said yesterday, maybe it's now the magnificent six because Tesla is really sucking win and just you know, can't get out of its own way. Down twenty six percent year to date. You heard me right, Tesla's down twenty six percent year to date. I spent a few minutes going over the pros
and consert Tesla yesterday. You know, if you're a Tesla lover, now, you know, God, you can get in right now a whole lot cheaper than than you could over a year ago. I mean, Tesla, if you look over the last year, Tesla is really really you know, the market as a whole was up about twenty six percent last year. Tesla did not fare as well. Tesla is just about break even over over the year. The high point of Tesla was in the middle of the summer July
eighteenth. And as we sit here, Tesla is really really sucking when and paying the price. But if you own it, I don't think I would be selling it. And if you always wanted to buy it, you can get in now a whole lot cheaper now then than not. You know, you're to date, as I said, down twenty six percent. If I
look over the last two years, Tesla is down thirty five percent. Over the last two years, but it's still If you look longer term, five years, Tesla is up just over eight hundred percent, where the SMP is up about eighty four percent. So over time, Tesla's done good. But over the last two years, Tesla's really, really, really suffering. And why why is that? Well, listen, every car maker in the world is making EV vehicles. Tesla used to be the only company that you can
get an electric vehicle. And if you want an electric vehicle, I have one. They're fun to drive, they're faster than heck, and you can't hear the roar of the engine, which I think, and I say it every once in a while, it is dangerous because you don't realize just how fast you're going. But there's a lot of benefits to EV vehicles. I'm not one that feels that it should be overpowering the gas guzzlers. We found this winter, especially in places like Chicago, you know, the Tesla owners
they're just going to charge the car, they abandoned them. There was just not enough it was so cold, and even if they did charge it, the charge didn't last long. So there's a lot of cons to owning an EV vehicle. But in the perfect world, if you only want to drive it to work in back or to the store and have some fun, having
an electric vehicle as part of your stable is not a bad thing. So Tesla's really they have a lot more competition now than they've than they've ever had, so, you know, going back to stocks, let me give out the phone numbers. One eight hundred eighty two, five five nine four nine, one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Actually, Zach, let me take a quick fifteen second break. Don't go anywhere, folks. Thank you, folks, Thank you, Zach. I just wanted
to wet my whistle. You know. I sit on this orange cinnamon tea. It's from Seattle, and it's really really quite delightful, to be honest. You know, you don't have to put any sugar, no honey. It's kind of naturally sweet and it's got a little spice to it, and it's really I have it almost every morning, and then usually I go out to one of the locally owned coffee shops, or if there are none, to a Starbucks and grab a couple of joe. Thank you for tuning in
this morning. One eight eighty two, five, five, nine, four nine. So going back, you know, as a fiduciary, we're we don't. We have absolutely no reason to steer our clients in any direction other than what's the right direction for our clients. When we structure a portfolio, we're using individual treasuries with interest rates being where they are, or good fixed
income ETFs. We're using mostly ETFs exchange trade of funds. We have a couple stocks in the portfolio, Amazon and Apple individually owned for our clients that have been with us for a while, and very seldom do we use mutual funds. But most of our clients, believe it or not, are in at the very least our growth and income strategy, which is a sixty to forty plen or our growth which is eighty twenty. We have some clients that
want to have their money invested just like mine is. They trust me that much and I'm in our one hundred percent equity, but very very few clients do. We have invested conservatively where we have more bonds than stocks, and a lot of people look at the stock market as being risky. It's not risky. It's no more riskier than bonds or real estate or commodities stocks. You know, stocks have volatility, they get the most let's say headlines,
so it's right in your face. But listen, folks, we almost have three years where the bond market was down, almost three years where the bond market was down. Last year, the bond market was on track to be down, and all of a sudden November December, the fixed income arena really was turned upside down. Stocks went from being or i'm sorry, bonds went from being negative to being positive and finished the year out in a good way.
But when you look at you know, if you look at the ICE shares, core US aggregate bond indecks, that's really the proxy for the bond market. Twenty twenty one, you were down two percent. Twenty twenty two, down thirteen percent. Believe it or not. We turned we were down about five percent. We turned it around. We were up almost six percent in that bond index for all of twenty twenty three. But it came all in the last couple of months. Year to date, as we sit here,
we're down just over about one point two percent. We're down. So people think bonds are safe, whether or not. There is volatile as any other asset class. The difference is people don't really got it. And if you own an individual bond, if you were fortunate enough to buy a US ten year treasury when when they were yielding you know, five percent, that means you're going to get five percent year in, year out for the next
ten years. Right now, it's up, well up. I say that because it's been in the three percent believe it or not, we went from in the late part of twenty twenty three. Win. You can buy a US ten year yielding five percent. Now as we sit here today, it's four point one four percent, and if you bought one today, you would get four point one four percent year in, year out for the next ten years. But the price of that bond will fluctuate depending on where interest rates
are. So stocks, let's bring it back to stocks. Over the last forty four years, stocks have been positive thirty three out of those forty four years, thirty three years out of forty four, stocks were up and stocks were down eleven years. Over the last forty four years, your average price shop hide to low peak to trough swing in stocks in any given year average
fourteen point two percent. On average. That means there is fourteen point two percent of volatility in the stock market year in, year out, on average over the last forty four years, going back to nineteen eighty, it's a good indicator that stocks don't just go up, and stocks can fluctuate during the year. So now that you know that, the next time you see the stock market, you know, maybe going through a little debbie downer, whether it be a day, a week, or a month, don't let it
bother you. It comes with the territory of investing. And I only say this because over time, and I like to give these numbers out you probably are tired of me advertising them. But you know, if you look over the last fifteen years, your average return in stocks was fifteen percent year in, year out, fifteen percent year in year out NASDAK your average return was
twenty one percent year in year out. Taking to consideration all those volatile times, all those headlines that were just gut wrenching, the recessions in the bear markets, we had three of them over the last fifteen years. You if you own the broad stock market, you were up fifteen percent year in year out. If you look over ninety years, you were up about ten percent
year in year out. Now, bonds over that same period, over the last fifteen years, your average return would have been about two point five percent two point five year in year out, and over the last ninety years just about five percent. So put it in perspective, stocks over time, you know, history shows outperform bonds in any other asset class. So you you accept the ups and downs, but at the end of the day, you're going to have more returns if you're able to hang in there and not have
knee jerk reactions, not panic when there's volatility. And that's the key. As I said, I'm not here pushing stocks over bonds. I love bonds right now as much as I love stocks, especially for our clients that want that that that mix of kind of softening the volatility out a little bit. One eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Give me a call if you have any questions. The other slide that we showed is and this is a nice slide.
It shows stocks. Now, you know, I know I'm giving you a lot of numbers, but at the with each each statistic, I give you guess, guess who's the number one performing assa class stocks. So now I'm going back to nineteen fifty and I'm looking at rolling returns, one year rolling returns, so obviously there's seventy three of them, right, one year rolling returns. Every year a new rolling return, same with five year rolling
returns, same with ten year rolling returns. Saying with twenty year rolling returns. What I mean by that is, starting in nineteen fifty, we started a new one year rolling term. You started a new five year, ten year, and twenty year rolling term. Every year it just keeps rolling. So your average return in stocks over the last seventy three years eleven point two
percent, kind of closer to the ninety year average of ten percent. Bonds five point five percent five point five percent over the last seventy three years, year in, year out, your average return and a sixty forty portfolio nine point three percent, nine point three percent. That's why I say, you know, a couple of years ago people thought the sixty forty portfolio was dead. It's not dead, folks, No no way is it dead. It's
it's it's alive and well. And as I said, I'm I'm as happy about bonds as I am about stocks, and I'm always the optimist with the stock market because the stocks are up more than they are down. So if you look over the last seventy three years, your worst year was down thirty nine percent. That happened to be two thousand and eight. So there's probably a lot of people listening that. Remember, your best year over the last seventy three years was forty seven percent, believe it or not. Your worst
year earned bonds down thirteen percent. Your best year up forty three, and that's sixty forty portfolio. Your worst sixty forty portfolio year was down twenty up thirty four. So in any given year, anything can happen. You see that, and you know that over the last seventy three years, stocks have been up eleven point two percent year in year out, bonds five point five percent, sixty forty portfolio nine point three. So I got some more thoughts
on this, but we're coming up to the news break. You were listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet and Andrew, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. Stay with me through the news. I would love to talk to you. The phone lines are open one eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. That's one eight hundred eighty two five nine. Give me a call. Let's talk on the second half of the show about anything
you want to talk about, Zach. You could be a DJ man. Great stuff. I used to play the saxophone. Did you know that, Zach, No. I didn't know that. I haven't played since eighth grade, but it's still in my repertoire. As they say, it's on my resume. I used to play the saxophone. Wendy was the last song that I remember playing, and that was a long time ago. Every once in
a while, I think, could I pick up a sack phone? And still I can feel myself wetting the read because you know, you put wood on your tongue and you get that feeling, so you got to kind of wet it. I can feel myself as I'm telling this story, Zach, wetting that read and my fingers going through the I'm gonna have to go and pick up a saxophone and see if I can do it. That'd be a pretty sweet hobby. I think you should pick it up a little bit. Man, oh man, will you be my agent. If we go places.
I mean, you know, you never know, Chicago may want me on their comeback tour. Ten percent for your producer. All right, baby, we're gonna make big bucks. Folks. If you want to make big bucks, you're listening to the right show. Because we are good at what we do. We help, We help keep our clients grounded. We educate them on what's best for them, whether it be stocks, bonds, real estate, come on of these cash. The key is knowing what's right for
you, and it's a fiduciary that that means the world to me. The phone lines are open. If you have any questions, give me a call one eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. That's one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine, any questions whatsoever. You heard the weather forecast through the news break, snow's coming. But as I said at the beginning of the show, fifty one days,
folks, fifty one days, it's spring. Thursday's February first. Psychologically, that just gets you over the hump. That's like Wednesday in the work week. I mean that is, once we hit February, you know, March is around the corner, and sometimes you get some nice sunny, bright days in March, and you know, we're into April. We're we're you know, we're we're chasing that easter bunny around, eating all that that fattening.
Can you get the picture? Fifty one days, fifty one days for spring one, eight hundred eighty two, five, five, nine, four nine. So I just want to kind of, you know, round this out why you should think long term. So I gave you the one year ups and downs of stocks bonds in a sixty forty portfolio, your average five year rolling period going back to nineteen fifty. The worst, the worst worst. I say that because people think they're going to lose money with stocks when there's
a correction. They think the world's coming to an end. I keep reminding them, guess what, the world hasn't come to an end yet. I'm pretty sure we're going to survive this one. And guess what. This week the SMP was making record highs, all time new highs in the stock market. And you think just just twenty twenty two wasn't that long ago, folks, fourteen months go, think of how you felt you thought the world was coming to an end. So your five year worst owning stocks since nineteen fifty
and there's a lot of five year rolling periods. Remember nineteen fifty starts a five year rolling period. Nineteen fifty one a new five year rolling period. So this is a pretty good chart, one of my favorite charts. Three percent down three percent, Your worst five year rolling period down three percent for bonds, down two percent. Your best five year rolling period up twenty eight
percent for bonds up twenty three percent. Real quick ten year same thing, worst ten year rolling period down one best up nineteen for stocks over twenty years, your worst twenty year rolling period up six percent a year, year in, year out, Your best up seventeen percent a year, year in year out. So over the last seventy three years, stocks up eleven point two, bonds up five point five to sixty forty, portfolio up nine point three. That's why it's time now, timing give it time, and stocks are
up more than they're down. A well diversified portfolio is really the secret. Sauce one eight hundred and eighty two five five, nine, four nine. Give me a call if you have any questions. Let's go to the phone line. Is we have Bill on hold. Hello, Bill, good morning, how are you Steve. Every morning I get out of bed, Bill, I feel like a million dollars. I know what the feeling. We're about the same age, so I know how a feeling is. You're twenty
nine, I'm twenty nine going on thirty. Yeah. You know how many times can we turn twenty nine? Well, i's see it's the one two, Quite a few for me. Hey, what can I help you with this morning? Making over my mother in law's finances, so to speak, and she should let you do that. Yeah, she let me do that. I'm going to look at it. And she has a lot of Vanguard funds. As a couple. I'm not really too keen on I'm one your advice, one of them. I give you the I give you the symbol.
The f st X is a short term investment. Great bond, I believe Yeah. Yeah, So I look at the last three or four years and performance has not been there. So I'm just curious of what you would think you believe it or not. It's done better than the bond proxy. I give out that ice share agg which is really it's like the S and P five hundred of the bond world. That's the ICE shares Core US aggregate index. And if you look twenty twenty two, you were down thirteen percent.
That's a very good bond indicator. With your mother in laws, she was only down less than six percent. If you look in twenty twenty three, you know the bond indecks was up five point sixty five. Your your mother in law was up six point oh six. And if I go back to twenty twenty one, the bond indecks was down one point seventy seven. This was only down point four to three. So believe it or not. Your fifteen year average in this Vanguard short term investment grade is two point eight
five compared to the bond indecks being two point six' four. I'm sorry, two point four to eight, So believe it or not. This is done better when you compare to the bond bond proxy. You know, I've been saying I don't know how much money your your mother in law has, but you know that is a good time to buy some individual treasuries, and I like treasuries over CDs because you get a New York state tax break.
You don't have to pay New York state taxes. On them, and right now you can get four point eight percent buying them one year, four point four percent buying a two year, a five year, just over four percent in a ten year four point one four percent in latter some some bonds. You can do that easily. You you know, Vanguard I think will will allow you to do that. But you know what, what your what your mother in law has is a good bond proxy. It's it's just short term
investment. Great rather than treasuries or or any other type bombs. Okay, yes, I was telling with my question do that through Vanguard? They probably would let me do that. Yeah, I think they have a brokera ch arm. You know, I'm almost sure you have that availability. I know you can buy other types of bond holdings, but you know, and don't be you know, there's nothing wrong with this one that that your mother has. You know, it's a decent yield. And as I said, it's
I'll perform the bond proxy. So if it's just a part of her overall mix, it's not bad. And we like Vanguard. You know, even though our clients accounts are held at Charles Schwab. One of the reasons why we use Charles Schwab is, we have the world available to us. We can buy any investment we want, and we use a lot of Vanguard. I like Vanguard. So your mother in law, you know, it sounds like she's in a good place, but don't be afraid of that. Don't
be afraid of that holding. Now, if you compare it to stocks, it's it's nowhere near what the stock market is. I mean, you know, so last year, you know, being up six percent, the stock market was up twenty six percent. Which is why I spent the first half of the show going over the pros and cons of stocks and bonds and why investors shouldn't be afraid of stocks over time, because over time stocks has been
the best performing asset class. Well, she does have a lot of SMB five hundred through Vanguard too, so this is just perfect per one of her holdings. I got a question for is I'll give it a symbol again, VW E h X. So that's another corporate bond. But this is what we call high yield. So the investment grade, yeah, the investment grade of these bonds. You know, you're you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're reaching out there you know, the yield is almost six
percent on this holding, and it's a riskier companies. I always say, you know, I would rather own stocks rather than junk bonds, high yield bonds, and that's high yield is just a prettier word than junk bonds. People don't like to think they have junk bonds. But you're willing to take, you know, the ups and downs. This has done pretty good. In twenty twenty one, up almost four percent. Remember the bond proxy was down almost two. In twenty twenty two, this was only down nine.
The bond proxy was down thirteen. Twenty twenty three, this was up twelve. The bond proxy was up almost six. And over the last fifteen years this averaged seven point four four percent year in year out compared to the bond proxy two point four eight percent. So you know, this is really your mother in law, you know, so far I got to meet your mother in law. She sounds like she's okay with risk. Yeah, and she got one other She has the money in a welly wealthy fund too. Yeah.
That's that's a nice balance fund, well managed. That's a steady eddy good rainy day fund. Yeah. I got to meet your mind. Listen. If your mother in law likes you, Bill, she's got to like me. Okay, I appreciate your time. Listen, Thanks for the call. Yeah, I wouldn't be afraid of any of those holdings. Say hi to your mother in law for me. Stay healthy, built one eight hundred talk w G y one, eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine
one eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. If you have any questions, any questions at all, give me a call. I would love love to talk to you any any questions at all. You know, if you're wondering how our clients are are are doing, you know we listen. I've been I've been helping clients for thirty six years. And you know Ryan has stepped in and really leading the charge on the investment side. And he has Pala La Pietra and Ed Wilhelm our trader helping him and they're really doing
a good job. Yesterday I shared you know, our top ten holdings are well rounded. You know, Apple, Microsoft, Broadcom, Amazon, Navidio, Pepsi, Meta Platforms and jen Costco and Eli Lilly. So we got a little bit of everything, and it's it's it's it's it's nice. I like that, you know, our if you look at the breakdown of overall holdings, we have megacaps. About thirty five percent of our equity holdings are
mega caps, the big boys, you know, the mammoth companies. And we get our international exposure because we're one hundred percent exclusively invested in this great country of ours. We you know, I hate to say this, but we just don't like international investments right now. If you look so, think about it. Your average return in the S and P over the last fifteen
years was fifteen percent year in year out. If you look at the rest of the world excluding the USA, seven and a half percent year in year out. So you put it in perspective, give me this great country of ours, the stocks, the companies that we have in this great country of ours all day long. I feel much more comfortable investing our client's money exclusively in the stocks of the USA than anywhere else around the world. I don't
have to worry about geopolitical risk. I don't have to worry about, you know, wars, I don't have to worry about, you know, wondering about how good the regulation is in those markets. So right now, we're exclusively in the USA, and we get exposure to international countries through the megacaps. The megacaps are doing business overseas, they're selling their goods and services overseas.
So just about thirty five percent of our equity holdings is the megacaps, thirty four percent large cap, twenty four percent mid cap, six percent small cap, and a smidgeon in what we call microcap. Those are the itsy bitsy little companies that are that are out there. So that's that's kind of the breakdown. We're well diversified where our clients are are. You know, our returns are stellar, and you know, we have a lot of our top holdings are the broad stock Market Index, not the SMP, but the
broad stock Market Index. And I say that because we use the Schwab Broad Market Index and that takes into consideration mid caps and small caps. So we're getting more than just those five hundred companies we're we're getting exposure to two more and the the we like mid camps and small cap. I always say midcamp is always like that that made of honor, that is, you know, makes it all the way up to the altar, but never gets married.
Midcaps is never number one performer out of all the asset sizes, but it's it's right there, and it's a good, good, all weather sector to be in having midcaps in your pork portfolio. And our other top holding is Nasdaq one hundred QQQ. You know, your average return in that over the last fifteen years is twenty one percent, so our clients have done well.
Now with that being said, and I said this at a Stay of the Economy presentation this week a year like twenty twenty two, because Nasdaq was down thirty three percent and twenty twenty two down thirty three percent, so of course that's going to drag on in our returns. The SMP was only down nineteen point four. So you can see our top two holdings. One was down just about twenty and the other was down just about thirty three percent, and
then we come roaring back in twenty twenty three. The SMP is up twenty six hold on to the seat of your pants, QQQ is up fifty five percent. So over time, our average return in QQQ is twenty one percent and the SMP just about fifteen percent, So we're committed to technology. I made the statement at Wednesday's presentation until the day I'm mentally incompetent or they dragged me out because I dropped that on the floor. We'll always have a slant
towards technology. Technology is here to stay. And I say that because in QQQ. If you look at QQQ just about you know sixty five percent is made up of technology companies. So we call it our growth slash technology holding. The top ten holdings of QQQ Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, which is really technically considered a consumers a staple company, believe it or not, Navidio,
Broadcom, Meta, Tesla, Google, Costco. Those are the top ten holdings of QQQ one eight hundred eight two, five, five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. If you have any questions, any questions whatsoever, give me a call. I would love to talk to you great, great questions yesterday. You know, I love the listening audience. Listen to the listening audience. It energizes me to come in and do the show. Knowing that there's people on the other side
of this microphone. I can see it. You may not think I can see it, but I can see it. So you know, tight up the robe and you know, stop walking around in your boxer shorts, you know, put your pajamas on. I can see it through the mic, but I do. I can't thank you enough for tuning in and making making our show really a premiere show in the financial world, and helping manage your wealth, helping point you in the right direction means a lot to me.
It energizes me more than you know. And the days that I can't be here, I have one of my colleagues that that is is you know, showing their stuff, and they do a phenomenal job. One eighty five fifty nine forty nine. So the you know, as good as the sm P
is, there's another holding. So if you're building out your own portfolio, we we include in our portfolios an equal weight to the S and P, and it's it's really a nice holding because when you look at you know, when you look at the SMP and you look at the top holdings, I mean those holdings the magnificent seven account for twenty five percent of the entire SMP. There's five hundred companies in the SMP. The top ten account for just about thirty two percent. So think about that. So in the SMP.
You have Microsoft and Apple representing seven percent each, Navidia almost four percent, Alphabet which is Google almost four percent, Amazon three and a half percent, Meta which is Facebook two percent, you get the Picture Tesla one point four percent. Those are the magnificent seven, and the magnificent seven accounted for most of the returns of the sm P last week. Most of the returns came
from from that arena. But the equal weight SMP is a factor to be you know, thought about, because equal weight strategies they take, you know, democratic view of the market, equal weight to each component. So when you reshuffle the SMP right now, instead of Microsoft and Apple being seven percent each, it's point two point two just the slice of what they are in
the marketwight market cap weighted SMP point two. So as you can see, you get a whole lot of exposure to companies that you you know, maybe overweight. And by holding QQQ or the SNP. Now you know last year the SMP was up twenty six percent, this was only up thirteen percent,
so half half almost fourteen percent, so just about half. But if you look over the last twenty years, your average return for the SMP equal weight eleven point five percent eleven point five percent over the last twenty years compared to the S and P up ten point three. So over time, these equal
weights really do well. And I only pointed out now because in my sandbox account, I've bought some you know, small caps, because I feel that the market is ready to break out and it's not just the top dogs that will be making money. The rest of the market will will take part of the rally. I believe that, and I've added small cap to my sandbox account and I and I added some healthcare and I leveraged it. So that means that I'm taking on even more risk because I took a leverage position in
healthcare for twenty twenty four. This is my play account that I'm playing with. I also own some bitcoin in and I own some individual stocks. It's my play accounts, and we're all allowed to play, aren't we. It's okay. So that's what I have in my sandbox account. And I think as this market expansion starts to broaden, and I do believe that the worst
is behind us. The FED meets this coming week, but I don't believe that they're going to do anything other than keep interest rates right where they're at The last hype they had was last summer. They had eleven hikes over the last couple of years, and they fought off inflation. Inflation went from a peak of nine point nine one to three percent range. And I think the next move that the Fed will make will be cutting interest rates. And when
that happens, I think the stock market's going to rejoice. I think the stock market's going to like it. Folks, we're coming up to the end of the show you're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchef and Andrew Group. We help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. Thank you for tuning in. Go to our website for more Booche dot com. That's b Z and boy O U C H e Y dot com and you'll see our State of the Economy presentation. Thank you
for tuning in. Stay healthy, have a great day and week.