Let's Talk Money

Stars in your eyes, the color them, Wallli ful, Dubber Still marbry An Era from Mountain, Drop on the Sky, never really really, Hello and good morning, folks, March's thirtieth. Oh my, how did this first quarter fly by? In? A pretty good first quarter at that. It's a nice holiday week. Nice, you know, a lot to be thankful for. Happy Easter. If you don't tune in tomorrow, I'll wish you a happy Easter. I am Stephen Bouchet and I am your host this

morning, and I'm grateful to be here. Believe me, folks, I am grateful to be with you. I love doing this show, and hopefully I can help get you pointed in the right direction. I can give you some insight answers to your questions, and I guarantee you there is another listener that will be thankful you asked the question because they may be too embarrassed to call in. You know, with this microphone I can see each and every

one of you on the other side of the airwaves. Some people just don't want to, you know, you call in, So if you have some questions, give us a call. The phone lines are one eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine. That's one eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. So it's quite the holy week this week. As I said, Easter tomorrow, you know, April first on on on Monday. I mean, man, oh man, it was

a pretty good quarter. I mean, it was a great quarter with the stock market. Who would have ever thought after such a stellar year and twenty twenty three. But it's all good, folks, it's all good. I was in New York City for a couple of days. I always stop in Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Let's say a prayer for so many people, whether it's cancer, depression, illnesses of another type. There's a lot of people that

are suffering. And you hear us say often, and it's actually our tagline, help Wealth for Life, And we always say, you know, we want to help our clients prioritize their health because that's first and foremost while we manage their wealth for life. And it doesn't really matter how much money you have if you don't have your health, your health is everything. And if you're fortunate enough to have your health, and if you're even luckier to have

a loved one in your life and financially you can do things. Don't fool around, folks, because you never know when the number one or number two might be removed out of your life. And health is such a big part of it. So I stopped in the Saint Patrick's Cathedral, said my prayers and I was able to take in a mask. So I felt pretty good this week being able to do that one eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine. So you know, the stock market is God, It's pretty

good, folks. I mean we had a great, great first quarter. You know, the S and P up ten percent, NAS that Composite up nine percent, QQQ up eight and a half percent. It's been a great quarter. For the week, Russell two thousand led the charge up two point five four percent, And that's important because for mid caps and small caps to really lead the charge and take take the market to a different level, we

need so many more companies. That and the Magnificent seven, although this year it's the Magnificent five because Tesla and Apple aren't really holding their own, but the other five are really doing an amazing job. So for the week there Russell two thousand up two point five percent, SMP up point four percent, four tenths of a percent. And then we had the NANSDAC composite down three tenths of a percent and QQQ the NANSDAC one hundred down about a half a

percent. So you know, the technology sector kind of took it on the chin compared to other sectors this week. And that's okay. The number one sector, believe it or not, utilities was up almost three percent, Gold up. You know, had had a great week. Real estate had a great week, Energy, financials, healthcare, which you know I'm happy about. They were all the you know, leaders of the week. They were the secon actors that did the best this week. So it was an interesting

week. It was a short week. We had good Friday, so only four trading days. The only action you can get on the weekends, as you hear me say often, is crypto. You can trade crypto all the time, folks. And you know bitcoin, bitcoins up almost seventy percent this year. Looking at almost seventy seventy thousand, seventy one thousand, bitcoin came a long way from the doldrums of sixteen thousand. So bitcoin has made up a lot of ground, a lot of ground. It's just you know,

it's been it's been a year. It's been a year where just about everything is good. Even gold is doing well. So in your portfolios, hopefully, hopefully you have a good portfolio that's well diversified and you're doing well. The only really big sector that's down as bonds. Bonds are down almost one percent year to date as we sit here today, and you know, people have have bonds in their portfolio to kind of reduce the volatility. But boy,

you know losing money. You know, twenty eighteen was a break even year. You lost money in twenty twenty one, you lost money in twenty twenty two, you almost lost money in twenty twenty three. Thank god for the last two months because it took the red and turned it into black and year today we're down about one percent, but everything else is doing pretty good. One eight hundred eight two, five, five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two, five fifty nine forty nine are our phone numbers. If

you have any questions, give me a call. I would love to talk to you. Let's go to the phone lines where we have Mary Ellen in April Park. Hello, Mary Ellen, Hey Steve, how are you. I'm doing great, how are you good? Glad you've got that little visit down to Saint Pats very special place. Oh it is, you know. And I can't say enough about Bouchet Financial and the family. I just I'm very appreciative that I'm one of your customers. Oh, I know who this

Marianne is, Mary Ellen is. I know who you are. Yes, thank you for those comments. Oh, listen, you guys are awesome. Thank you. Is Harmony back and she is Yep, she is back after three daughters and she's doing you know, she's one of my rock stars. I know she is as as many of them. Your stuff is. See if I have a question because I've been watching bitcoins and I see these numbers, like you know, it was down in you know what, twenty nine

hunter to share and then it's skyrocketed up. It's around sixty two hundred. When I see that cap recap at the end of the week, and it, you know, it gives your arrows up and down and on Bitcoin is like going on crazy? Is it going on crazy? It's my question? Oh it is. I had a conversation last night with a gentleman because in my sandbox account I owned some bitcoin. Bitcoin was as low as sixteen thousand dollars a unit, and as we sit here, Mary Ellen, it's almost

seventy seventy one thousand dollars a unit. It's come a long way since since last summer. I mean, you know, Bitcoin has really just flown off the charts. And if you had bitcoin and you didn't get scared and sell

out, you made some money. I know in my sandbox account, I opened up a coin by coin base account and bought some bitcoin a while ago, and I watched it go down, and you know, I do what I say on the radio, Mary Ellen, I just I may believe I didn't I'll own any of it because I felt it was going to come back, and not only did it come back, came roaring back, and my big coin is almost tripled. But that's my sandbox account. We don't, as you know, being a client, we don't own it in our portfolios.

We dabbled in it early on, and then we felt that we really needed to be more disciplined in more let's say, core holdings. So we don't have any in our client's portfolios. But for any listeners that own it, they've done well. Now where will it go from here? Could you know, remember bitcoin peaked at about sixty four thousand a couple of years ago, and then you know, it dropped, as I said, all the way all the way down. So bitcoin really really took it on the chin.

The end of twenty twenty bitcoin look pretty dismal. But man, if you go back to the highs of bitcoin back at the end of twenty twenty one, you know, we were at about sixty four thousand, so we reached that sixty four thousand. Now we're at seventy thousand per bitcoin. And you know, anybody who will hung in there, they made up those losses and anybody who's bought bitcoin has made money. Should you buy bitcoin now?

If you want to dabble in in like a sandbox account, you could no. I mean I'm just reading, you know, little bits and pieces here and there, and yeah, it just struck struck me that it had moved as much as it had in the past year, especially with Breakman, you know, going through his court and sentencing and all, and I'm like, okay, I don't understand it. Yeah, well, you know, he did a bad, bad, bad thing. He was a bad boy.

He embezzled money, and I have no listening. Anybody who embezzles money from investors who put their trust and faith into UH company. Anybody who embezzles that money, those hard earned dollars, deserves to be really punished. And he got a sentence that you know this this this this bozo of a kid who thought he was just kind of playing around and played the dumb act. Well, he's going to have twenty five years. I hope he survives it in

jail, because it's not going to be pretty for him. No, no, all right, Well I was so curious, and go ahead, I'm sorry. Nope, nope, go ahead. Well my next question is how serious are people taking Trump's stock? DJ You know, Trump made a lot. He's worth over seven billion dollars. His network this week alone went from three billion to seven billion, just like that, because you know that that truth social merged in and you know it could be an emotional trade this week.

You know, there's a lot of trump Bats out there, people that love Trump, and no matter what he says or does, they are as loyal to him as as anybody can be loyal to anybody. And I'll bet you a donarded donuts a lot of those Trumpers just barreled in on this stock and drove the stock price up. But Trump made a lot of money this week for really doing nothing, just having having the two companies merged and going public. Wow, would it be better off buying sneakers and bibles? Then?

Ah? You know what, you keep putting your money with us and let us do the shopping for you. We want you to maybe do a little golfing and you know, now that the snow was melting away, you know, hopefully we'll get you out there, you know, put put your golf shoes on and take a nice walk in the park. Let us worry about what to buy. Mary Ellen, thank you, happy happy Easter, and say hi to all your friends for me. Please take care bye bye bye bye. I love it when our clients call in. I love my

clients, folks. I'm telling you that was a nice surprise from Mary Ellen to call in. She's a great client. She and her friends. You know, a lot of her friends became clients and it's a it's just a nice group of friends and I love them all. But I'm telling you when I tell you I love my clients, I love my clients. I care for my clients. I I when When When When my clients put their money

and me and my team to manage their wealth. When I know that their trust and faith they put in us, It's something that I don't take lightly. I take it very seriously. And this is why one hundred percent of my investable assets are invested, just like Mary Allen and all of my clients. I wouldn't have it any other way except for my sandbox account. Hey, listen, guy's got to play, right. I mean, there's nothing wrong with me playing. So I have a sandbox account. One of my

clients coined that that that account when he signed on with us. He says, Oh, by the way, I have a sandbox account. I said, Chuck, what is a sandbox account? He says, oh, just an account that I play in. You know you were a kid once you played in a sandbox, didn't he? I thought about it. I said, yeah, So I opened a Sandbox account and I have some fun with my sandbox account. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.

Zach, let me take a quick fifteen second break getting jazzed up on this Saturday morning. It snows nothing, folks. Boy, what a surprise that was last week? Huh? You never expected all that snow. You know, just when you were going to do what Mary Ellen's going to do, get your golf clubs all shined up, spiffy, ready to go and hit that little white ball or take a walk in the park or hike or whatever you want to do on a nice spring day, and boom, the snow

came. And it came. Boy did it ever come. So you know, a little windy today, but the snow's disappearing and disappeared for a lot of people. And spring, it is spring. Remember I told you a couple of weeks ago it is spring. The calendar did turn out that it is spring. Hello? Am I still on Zach? Oh? Good? All right? Somebody was calling me from the radio station. Is Jim Gagly already working? Doesn't he know that I'm I'm, you know, doing live

radio with you. So somebody in the station was just trying to call. I thought I dropped the line. I didn't, folks, So I'm still here. Stephen Bouchet one eight hundred eight, two, five, five, nine, four nine are our phone numbers. If you have any questions, give me a call. I would love to talk to you. So, as I said, you know the stocks, bitcoin, gold, all record highs this week. It was a great week in a lot of ways. The SMP gained ten percent in the first quarter, its best start to the

year since twenty nineteen. I got some stats on that for you later. Let me just kind of I'll give you a little teaser. When the market is up this much in the first three months, it's for ninety four percent of the time, it's great news for the rest of the year. And I am very optimistic, very optimistic on the stock market, although I always am. This is why I guarantee, and I don't do it with tongue in cheek. I don't do it to be a smart alec. I do

it because I remind clients. I remind investors you will lose money. The key is not to sell out, not to panic, not to have any knee jerk reactions when you lose money. But I guarantee anybody who will listen to me, if you have a well diversified portfolio, stocks, bonds, and whatever, you're going to have times where you'll lose money. It comes with the territory of investing. Stocks are up more than they're down. They're

up about thirty years out of forty four years they're up. Your average return in stocks is about ten percent over the last ninety years, and stocks I'll perform every other asset class. The key is not to be scared, no matter what your brother in law says at the dinner table on Sunday if you invite them over, no matter what some of the bad news bears say on you know, some of the financial porn shows that you listen to. Listen, don't. Don't get sucked into the bad news. Stocks are up more

than they're down, and I'm very optimistic about the stock market. That doesn't mean I'm right. Come back in three to six months. I'll tell you if I called it or not. I know the last couple of years we hit it right on the mark. And if you've been listening and taking my suggestions, you've made some money and I'm happy for you. Eight eight, two, five, nine four nine. Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Al in Albany. Hello, Al, Hey, see how

you doing. I'm doing wonderful. How about you? Good? Good quick question. I got a lot of friends that are always talking about the stock markets at all time high. Everything is great, But if I look at my own portfolio from January twenty one, I'm up like eleven percent, which is three and a half percent of years, well below the historical average. So I was wondering what your basic portfolio is up since January. Yeah, so I mean, listen, we we we we had a bad year in

there. You know, the key is not to get scared during those bad years. This is why I try my best to just remind people don't get don't get scared in those bad years. And you know when when when you look, you know, the stock market as a whole was probably up about ten percent. QQQ was up about forty one percent. You know since January of twenty twenty one. You know that that that happens. You know, you can't you can't expect stocks to to to go up all the time.

But if you hang in there, you're you're going to be just just fine. You know. The key is to al not not get scared out of the markets when you have a year like you know, twenty twenty two. So I love the stock market right now. I say that because I just you know, I think there's there's there's room for the stock market to get let me start over again, room for the stock market to do well, and I just gave you some bad info. The S and P since January

of twenty twenty one is up thirty three percent. So if your portfolio hasn't hasn't grown by a pretty good amount since the beginning of January, you just may have some bad, bad eggs in that basket. No pun intendant tomorrow's easter, so you just may have some bad eggs in that basket. And you know, you should be having a pretty decent run since the beginning of twenty twenty one. Last year, hecked, the S and P was up twenty four percent on its own. So there's a reason why your portfolio is

not keeping up. And you know our portfolios have been stellar during that time, absolutely stellar. So you know, do you know what you have in the portfolio? Well, it's all individual stocks mostly. Well, there you go. So you hear me give this statistic out often sixty five to eighty five percent of the time. And this is why money managers, when you buy a mutual fund with an active managed stock picker in there, sixty five to eighty five percent of the time they can't keep up with the index.

Their respective indecks and for the most part, the S and P five hundred indexes is a good bell weather for people to judge their portfolios too. You know, you can have some great stocks. It's like last year, you know, healthcare was kind of flat, but Piser was down fifty percent. Now, Piser, you would think, is a great healthcare company, right, and you know, heck do you think with the little blue pill that Piser would have been up, But it wasn't. The blue pill didn't work

for Pfizer. And you know, there that's just a good example of stock picking. So you really out, if I can give you any advice, you should limit. If you're relying on your portfolio to retire and provide you, let's say, a healthy retirement income through the years, you probably shouldn't had more than let's say, twenty five percent of your overall holdings in individual stocks. You really should stick to some core holdings like QQQ and the broad

stock market index and really just let that play out. I think you'll be better served and I think your returns will look better. That's why you haven't kept up with the market, because it's almost impossible for investors to keep up with the market unless they had Navidia in their portfolio, and then not only did they keep up with the market, they went beyond the market. Hey, al, great question. Good luck to you. Stay healthy and happy

Easter. Okay, we're coming up to the bottom of the show. Folks. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchef and Andrew, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. I can't thank you enough for tuning in. On the other side of the news break, I will be here to take your questions if you have any questions, any questions whatsoever. The phone lines are open. Zach Harris, my long term producer, is ready to get you on with me.

One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. One eight hundred eight two, five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions whatsoever, give us a call during the news break. One eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. Cheers in your eyes, the color them waliful, dumber to mabbrary an eerous well. Thank you for hanging in through the news and thank you for tuning in on this Easter weekend. I can't thank you enough.

I truly appreciate it. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. One eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine are the phone numbers, Give me a call. Mary Ellen asked about Harmony. You know, we had three of our colleagues, you know, both Scott Strohecker, who's one of my irs enrolled agents, and Samantha Macy who's one of my wealth advisors as well, certified financial planner, new parents last year and Harmony. Mary Ellen asked about Harmony. She was in, you know, had

her third daughter and they're all back to work. But I'm looking at our website, Bouchet dot com, and we do blogs and every week we have something up there, and there's a lot of good, good articles and so forth, and I'm looking at you know, this was you know, Women's Month, and on March eighth was International Women's Day, and Harmony did a great blog what I want my daughters to know about managing money. Pretty pretty

good stuff. A lot of other stuff on our blog as well. One eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. So you know, a lot of record highs. We had, you know, the market's gold Bitcoin all record highs, and any weakness that that we saw on the market just lasted for a couple of days. That's you know, twenty two all time closing highs in the first

three months of twenty twenty four. Not bad. And as I said beginning at the beginning of the show, it's not just you know, the megacap tech stocks. All but one of the eleven sectors of the SMP were up. The Russell two thousand, which is really a mid cap small cap index up over four percent, and a Russell index of value stocks outperformed it's growth counterpart in the past month. That's big news, folks. That means that it's not just a handful of stocks that are driving these gains. That means

that more stocks are really taking part. I think fifty percent of the companies in the SMP have hit all time highs's that's great news. The economy continues to you know, listen, this economy is resilient, really resilient. You got recession worries, they've basically disappeared. If you've been listening to the show, I told you that over a year ago, if a big if I know, it's only two letters, but it means a lot. If we had a recession, it would be shallow, it would be short lived.

I felt that I said that, and I don't know if we even had a recession. Nobody has formally said we had a recession. I go back a couple of years ago, we had two quarters of negative GDP growth, which the old definition of recession, that would be a recession. But I felt that the FED was dead wrong and thinking that we had to go deep into a recession to bring recession or to bring inflation down. And I really

believe that. I felt that, you know, the FED had to think outside the box and kind of look at the economy that we're putting people to work. Corporate Americas are earning money, people are feeling good. And after listen, after the Doldern days four years ago of COVID, it's still like a bad dream, isn't it. If you go back and you think how we lived, the lives the poor kids that just were just devastated with with with what they had to go through. I mean, it was a time

in our life that we would like to forget. Just a bad dream. So this economy is pretty resilient. You know, anybody who thinks we're going into a recession. I don't think we're going into a recession. Corporate profits will see first quarter earnings will come out in the next you know, a couple of weeks to three weeks, you'll see that the Federal Reserve there's you know, believe me that we're not going to get the six cuts that we were looking for at the beginning of the year. But J. Powell just

confirms the fact that we're going to get three cuts this year. That's great news, folks. For the stock market, that is wonderful news. Three cuts, three interest rate cuts is great news. They lower interest rates. The Fed does that to stimulate the economy, to get the economy gone. I want to be in the stock market when that happens. I also think that the bond market should rally as well, because when interest rates get cut, obviously, you know, maybe the heyday of bond yields is behind us.

As we sit here, the ten year bond yield is about four point two percent. It was over five percent a couple times, but now it's down to four point two and who knows when they start cutting interest rates that ten year could go into the three percent range. Last week we had one of the callers. We spent a lot of time talking about ladder and CD or bond portfolios and why it made sense to go out further down the yield curve. I know you can get a you know, a three month almost

five point four percent. Why why would you buy a ten year or four point two when you can get over one hundred and ten BIPs more for a short term yield these when that short term bond matures, if you buy a three or six month, if the Fed starts cutting interest rates, more than likely the good old days of those high yields in the five percent range for short term paper less than one year maybe behind you. You may not be able to get that anymore. So you don't want to get greedy right now.

You absolutely don't want to get greedy with your fixed income portfolio. So the Fed is on track. They are going to, you know, their words, not mine, cut interest rates and they feel what did I say last week? These they had their meeting. Seventeen of the nineteen Fed governors, we're all on board for three, at least three interest rate cuts. Maybe it'll be two, maybe it'll be three. Remember, inflation is a

moving target. Every month they look at something different. We have March's payroll numbers will come out next Friday. We'll see whether or not the you know, the growth of putting people on payroll will keep up. So the Fed looks at all the reports on the economy. You know, this past week we had the PCE report that you know, showed that inflation was was was good at a healthy pace. But j Powell, Jerome Poll, the Fed Reserve chair, doesn't seem to be worried about it. So if he's not

worried about it, I'm not worried about it. And this is why I'm optimistic on the stock market. This is why last week the question came up, are we fully invested? Yes, we are. We're fully invested in our portfolios. That means if our target is sixty percent stock, forty percent bonds, alternatives and cash, that's what we have in the portfolio. And right now we have minimal cash. Every once in a while we raise cash if we feel that, you know, there's some hard times coming. We're

always listen, folks. We learned from the past, but we're always looking ahead. That's why I think one of the reasons why our portfolios perform as well as they've performed. We're always, what did Wayne Gretzky say, go where you think the putt is going, not where the puck is, And that's what we try to do. We try to, you know, look

at where the economy's headed. What we see in the little crystal ball, which is really just an ice cube, and it melts away quickly, So you know those crystal ball things, you know, the the tips that come out of the crystal ball can change, just like the FED looks that inflation is a moving target. So you know, more than half of the stocks in the SMP have fifty two week highs. You know, the magnificent seven

is not as magnificent. These Tesla and Apple were off in the first quarter, all artificial intelligence related stocks, and you know they're still doing good. Charging ahead. Nividy, you know, it makes chips that power the AI technology up eighty two percent year to date. Other semiconductor stocks advanced micro devices, applied materials, micron technology up more than twenty percent. Super micro Computer

came into the S and P this month, up two hundred percent. If you're lucky enough to own those stocks, you did well during this goldilocks economy, and it is a goldilocks economy. Not too hot, not too cold, kind of just right. One eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions, give me a call. I would love to talk to you on this

Easter weekend. Any questions whatsoever. So, you know, coming into the year, investors expected the Fed to cut its benchmark short term rates six times. Right now we're at about two to three times. And as we get into the year, as we see more report on the economy, well we'll get a better field to see what happens. As I said, we'll have S and P companies releasing their first quarter earnings beginning the middle of April,

and we'll see what happens. You know, hopefully they'll come in as healthy as they've been coming in. You know, right now, companies in the S and P are trading at about twenty one times they're projected earnings over the next twelve months, and that's that's a little bit above the five year average of nineteen This comes from fact set. I didn't make these numbers up.

So this comes from fact set and companies in the S and P. You know, since since the loads of October, they've gained believe it or not, nine trillion dollars, nine trillion dollars in that holy Moly big coin up sixty one percent year to day go in the month of March up almost eight nine percent. I mean, everybody's done well in history suggests stocks are well

positioned to keep the good times going. When the S and P adds eight percent or more in the first quarter, it finishes the rest of the year higher ninety four percent of the time, ninety four percent of the time. I am in that camp. I think the stock market's going to continue to do well. And for those of you, listen, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, whether you think we should be offering this great country of ours

two eighty year old candidates, whatever your views. People always get worried during election years. We're getting calls already from clients, Oh what if this one wins, and what if that one wins. Listen, one of them is going to win. You're either going to have a Democrat or a Republican. I don't think young Bobby Kennedy is going to to do it as an independent. But who knows. Crazier things have happened, But I do know right

now the front runners. We have two eighty year olds that are going to lead this great country of ours, and that's what the Republicans and Democrats are giving us. And then you have you know, young Robert Kennedy is the independent choice. But everybody always worries about these presidential election years, and we have white papers on it. Ryan is going to be sending some stuff out

on it. Presidential election years such as this one. You know, listen, Since nineteen fifty, folks, the S and P has risen in a presidential election year eighty three percent of the time and averaged about a seven point three percent gain in those years eighty three percent of the time. So there you have two great statistics I gave you. When the stock market's up eight percent or more in the first three months, it finishes the year out ninety

four percent of the time in a positive way. And in presidential election years, yes, don't be scared. I always say, listen the market, listen. It doesn't really care who's in office. It doesn't. And since nineteen fifty, during presidential election years, the market is up eighty three percent of the time. I'm betting my money on the stock market. What are you betting your money on? Eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine. Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Ron and Glens Falls.

Hello, Ron, Yeah, I steak. Yeah, this is my daughter with the intelligent account. Oh quick question normally, which what we've been doing is we've been waiting to fund her the IRA towards the end of the year, but we we are. There's no doubt she's going to be making more than the seven thousand that that's the limit this year. Would you suggest the putting the entire contribution into that ROOS now rather than waiting. I would. I would Actually, you know, I can give a lot of statistics.

I try to educate my advisors in the office. You know, Listen, the easy way out is to always think that the market is going to be lower down the road and dollar cost average. And I'm just not a fan of dollar cost averaging because if you look at statistics, dollar cost averaging does not work as good as putting your money in getting it to work. And with your daughter being as young as she is, I am so glad that that that she listened to you and she opened up that account. She's

probably making some good money. And with the markets being where they are, with the markets being what they are, I would I would put that money in now. To be honest, Ron, I would get that money in now. And you know, listen, if if, if, maybe this is one of those six percent years where we don't finish high. She's young enough, it'll be a blip on the radar screen. But yeah, get that money in there, get it to work. I'm optimistic and I'll let

you know in December if I was right or wrong. So don't hold it against me. Hey, Ron, good great, great questions, Thank you for calling. Okay, stay healthy, enjoy your happy Easter weekend. One eight, eight, two, five, five, nine, four nine. Let's go back to the home lines. We have Alan in Glenville. Hello, Allan, Hey Steve, good morning for us and foremost great show and happy Easter to you and your family and staff. Oh, thank you very

much, and I'll relay that to my staff. Believe me, they'll they'll be happy you said that. Thank you, Allan. A quick quick point, if you look at the history of the stock market over the last Let's take one hundred, one hundred and twenty five years, and again this is historical Daddy, you can go back and kind of analyze it. But assuming right now we have a market cap in this country of about fifty trillion and a gross domestic product of about twenty eight trillion, we're about one hundred and

seventy five percent. The historical norm is about seventy five percent to be a GDP, which kind of tells me somewhere in the next year eighteen months the market needs to fall about forty percent to get back to that historical No, I just like to get your thoughts on that, and I'll sign off. Yeah, we are, we're approaching, and thank you Allen for the phone

call. We're approaching thirty five trillion of debt in this great country of ours, and none of the bozos in Washington want to wrap their arms around it. There's nobody who really wants to say, hey, we really got to start thinking about, you know, how much money we're spending in this country

and you know, maybe spend within the limits. And there's not a Republican or Democrat that is willing to do that because more than likely they won't get re elected and all they care about for the most part is getting re elected. Really, should we have career politicians, people that have been in office for forty to fifty sixty years. No way, should we have career politicians.

That is not good. I would rather see a good business person in office, where they get in, they kind of shake things up, they run the country like a business that they run and they make a profit and they get out. That's what this country needs is more business people and not you know, the career politicians who become lawyers and just you know, to nagle this. So we're in debt thirty five trillion dollars. Allen is right. Somebody's got to wrap their arms around it and hopefully, hopefully, you

know, we can diminish the deficit. I know, COVID added to the deficit and we went further in debt because of COVID. And COVID was a scary time. Listen. I don't care what you think, I don't care who you want to blame. COVID scared the Jesus out of all of us all around the world. And four years ago we didn't know whether we were going to you know, you were afraid to take a walk outside, being all by yourself, you thought somebody driving buying a car, could you know,

give you COVID driving by it sixty miles an hour. It was a crazy time. So you know, we are in debt, Allan, We truly are in debt, and we have to get that, you know, under under wraps. And there are things that Washington can do. They just won't. They just won't. And you know, they could raise the full age of Social Security, you know, up by six months or a year. Just that move alone, it'll affect somebody in their twenties. That won't

affect anybody. And there's forties, fifties and sixties that are looking to take Social Security. Just that move alone will save so much money. You know, interest rates going up. The line item to pay these these interests due on our treasury, you know, bonds and notes and t bills is just astronomical. You know, we got spoiled for fifteen years when interest rates were near zero. Was a line item we didn't worry about in the cost of

healthcare. Just look at all of the the people that are entering this country, folks. You got tens of millions of people that guess who's paying for the healthcare we are. So there's a lot of things that Washington should do. I don't want to get political. It's not a political show. I just feel they need to do it. Great question, Alan, And you're right, thirty five trillion dollars in debt, you know, having deficits a year in year out of a trillion or more. It's catching up with us.

Actually it has caught up with us. One eight, two, five, five, nine, four nine. Let's go back to the phone mines. We have Bonnie in Boston. Mike, Hello, Bonnie, Hello, Happy Easter. Happy Easter to you. Thank you. I know we're gonna we're getting short on time here, and I just have a I think it's going to be a simple question for you, really changing the topic. But I was looking into CDs, and of course you can look at the banks

and that kind of thing, are online banking. But I'm curious about the instrument that would be offered by a place like Vanguard where all my other money is. So it's not an actual CD, and I don't really understand the difference. Could you kind of just explain. Yeah, I'm guessing you're referring to what we call their money market fund, which is probably yielding about five percent. Each company's different, but I know our clients are yielding five percent.

And Charles Wab you know it's funny we don't charge a management fee on cash and how clients are getting five percent on the cash that we have in their portfolio. And you know they're they're you know, believe it or not. They can't. They can't say they're guaranteed because it has an nav net asset value of a dollar, and every once in a while through history you

could see where that net asset value may be in question. Will they be able to keep that added dollar during some really during the dark doldroom days. For the most part, they're safe and they're conservative, and it's a good place for liquid cash, any money that you need over the next few months. Having it in that money market fun getting five percent is better than having

it under the mattress not earning anything. And we you know, for people that are looking at buying CDs or treasury notes I gave you know, I talk often, and believe me, I've been doing radio for twenty nine years. Very seldom do I talk about bonds. But over the last eighteen months I've been talking more about bonds because I feel bonds have been a good buy.

And the difference between buying a Treasury note or a T bill over a CD is you don't pay state income tax on treasury So you know when when you buy a ten year right now yielding four point two, actually you're getting a little bit more because you're not paying state tax on it. When you buy them one year yielding five percent, or you know, you're not paying state tax on it. So this is why I prefer treasuries, Bonnie, over CDs. If you're looking at ladder and a portfolio, but that money

market fund, for the most part, it's conservative. You're going to get five percent, but it's a day to day yield. You could see it shoot up, you could see it shoot down. It all depends what goes on with interest rates. When the Fed starts cutting, you'll see that drop. Bonnie, great question. Thank you for calling in. Stay healthy everybody. Thank you for tuning in today. We're coming up to the end of

the show. I'll be back here tomorrow morning eight am. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchef and Answer Group, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. I can't thank you enough for tuning in. Week in week, I'll go to our website bouchee dot com. There's some really good stuff there. In the meantime, enjoy this Saturday. Spring is here, the snow is going away. Thank you for tuning in. Bye bye