Let's Talk Money

In the morning, long and the sunlight hurts my and something without man and love. Oh my, good morning folks on this showy, frigid Sunday morning. Remember the days we used to say how gorgeous it was. It's not gorgeous. It's not gorgeous in New York. It's not gorgeous in Florida. It's frigid. The entire country I think is under a cold snap. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking time out of your day today to tune in. Hopefully I won't bore you. We had an amazing show yesterday,

a lot of callers. We talked about everything from how the ladder bonds and CDs to life insurance and long term care, and gave some tips on what to watch out for. I actually had a little, you know, his story about a client who had the wool pulled over his eyes by somebody selling an annuity, just talking about all the guarantees and lo and behold. It was a scam. You know. This insurance agent, because in order to sell an annuity and make that big fact commission check you have to be

an insurance agent was really lying right through his teeth. Thank god, My client called me and I'll get into that in a little bit, because last night I have another story for you. I went to a fiftieth anniversary party and ran into a gentleman who I haven't seen him quite some time, who told me I was actually shocked, and let me let me disclose right now. He is not a client. If he was a client, he would

have a retirement that was exactly what he dreamt for. But he had an advisor who did not know how to keep his feet to the fire and his nose to the grindstone, and he made some decisions that just hurt him financially. I'll get into that in a bit, but anyway, for today, thank you for tuning in and I am here. I feel like I haven't been with you since last year. As I said yesterday, what was last year? Since I was with you? I had some great, great,

great colleagues that did the show for me, Marty, John Ryan. They had some other our colleagues Nicole and Paulo and vinnieon Just Dynamics shows. I listened to every single one on the iHeart Radio app or wherever I'm listening to podcasts, because you can listen to Bouchepin Answer Group anywhere anywhere around the world, as long as you have the wide world Web. And I listened to the shows and they really do a good job, so I thank them very

much giving me time off here or there. I've been doing the Deal Show for twenty nine years, folks, twenty nine years I've been in business. January first, I celebrated thirty four years in business. So thank you, thank you, thank you. The phone numbers today one eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. One eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. If you have any questions pertaining to your

financial picture, give me a call. I promise I'll give you my honest opinion, hopefully get your pointed in the right direction. I'll give you some thoughts so that tomorrow not tomorrow, the markets are actually closed Tomorrow Tuesday, you can call your your financial advisor and ask questions, or if you're doing it on your own, hopefully I can sort it out for you so that you can make better decisions. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four

nine. So today, speaking of fifth about the fiftieth anniversary, the Rubik's cube turns fifty This year. You know, who would ever think this three by three grid would would would would be the phenomenon that it has been. The cube, you know, forty two percent market share in the brain teaser category. Sales are still growing. In twenty twenty two, global retail sales of the Rubik Cube reached almost seventy six million dollars. I know firsthand because

my wife got each my grandchildren Rubik's cubes for Christmas. All three of them got Rubik's cubes. So the Rubik's Cube is really you know and not en row Erno Rubik, He's seventy nine. He created this. Who would ever think that this would be the phenomenon that that it is? You know, it's crazy, isn't it When you think of some of the inventions along the way, whether it's the Rubik's Cube, the hula hoop. I mean, we can go on and on and on right about different things that had taken

off and really just taken the world by storm. The Rubik's Cube, Happy birthday fifty years old. So, as I said, this weekend is just I mean, if you watched the football game last night Kansas City against Miami Dolphins, I don't think the Dolphins had a chance. It was cold. It was frigid, I was I mean I put an extra blanket on watching the game. I was so cold just watching them. How about the icicles on Andy Reid's mustache. I mean it was crazy, Zach. I know

you loved football. Did you ever see anything like that? How cold that game was. There was a game back in the day with Tom Coughlin, the coach of the Giants, down at lambeau Field, and he actually got frostbite on his face. Oh you know what, I remember that. I had season tickets for the Giants back then. You're right, Zach, But man, I mean the stands, they weren't even full. I mean, and you had Taylor Swift there. I mean, usually she brings in the

fans from all over, doesn't she Usually she does. But hey, when it feels like negative twenty nine degrees, I'm watching the game from home. Well, you know Travis Kelsey, I'm sure he was just looking up at the skybox, his his his heart was warm. Noan Taylor was there. Eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Let's talk money. Let's talk money today. So I didn't get much time to recap twenty twenty three,

and it was a good year, folks, twenty twenty three. Who would ever think that, uh, you know, artificial intelligence and the magnificent seven, oh man, the magnificent seven Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta Platforms which is Facebook, Tesla, and n Video those seven top holdings, and they are in our top holdings. Our clients own that Apple and Amazon are a number one of two holdings. You know, these these these stocks on average last year were up one hundred and eleven percent, one

hundred and eleven percent. Who would ever think that that that that that could be one hundred and eleven percent just those just those seven stocks. Now, the SMP on average was up almost almost twenty six percent. And if you look, and I bring this out because the SMP is heavily weighted with those top ten holdings. When when when when when you look at the top holdings of the SMP, it's it's you got everyone. You got Microsoft, Apple

representing seven percent each. You got Amazon representing three and a half percent, Navidia almost three and a half percent, Alphabet which is Google two percent, actually both class shares of Alphabet almost four percent, Meta two percent, Tesla almost two percent. So that's that's the that's how it plays out with the SMP. Those those top seven holdings account for so much of the SMP, and that's one of the reasons why the SMP was up as much as it

is it was. When you when you look at QQQ, you look at the top seven or the top ten holdings Apple nine percent, Microsoft almost nine percent, Amazon five percent, Navidia four percent, Meta four percent, Alphabet almost five percent, Tesla almost four percent. So you get the picture. With these weighted indo axis, those magnificent seven really played a big part in the in their returns. And if you had those magnificent seven in your portfolio last year, you did well. How can you not do well? I

mean it was crazy. And some people think that maybe these magnificent seven stocks are too expensive. Well, let me give you some you know, just

reflect on the pe ratios price to earnings ratio. Microsoft's twenty twenty four price to earnings ratio twenty eight times forward earnings only slightly above the five year average of twenty six almost twenty seven, Apple twenty six slightly above its five year average of twenty three, Meta twenty right in line with its five year average of nineteen point five Navidio twenty six, lower than its five year average of thirty six bet twenty one, but below it's five year average of twenty two.

Now, these may not be bargain price pe ratios, but they are far from the premiums paid during other frothy times in history. That comes right from the letter that I sent my clients, Ryan and I. Ryan does the the economic piece of our newsletter each quarter that we send our clients, and I do the cover letter, and that that that is exactly what I shared with clients earlier this week was you know, the Magnificent seven was the

powerhouse that was That's exactly what drove the returns for the most part. And you know it's funny. So you had the S and P of twenty six percent, and I just shared with you right that those Magnificent seven are so heavily weighted. It really you buy the QQQ, which last year was up fifty five percent. You heard it, You heard me right, fifty five percent. QQQ was up fifty five percent last year, almost double more than

double what the S and P was up. Now, when you look at the equal weight index, this is where all five hundred stocks have the same weighting of about point to four percent, So instead of you know, the Apples and Microsofts and Metas having you know, almost you know, upwards of ten percent waiting in these indexes point to four all five hundred stocks have the same And the return last year was half the S and P it was thirteen

percent last year. That's the difference of what the what the Magnificent seven did for the overall markets, for the indexes weighted Dexas and you you can't take away from it. So there you go, the Magnificent seven. You know, October, interest rates turned around. I thought we were gonna have three years in a row where interest rates were going to be you know, basically bonds with people who own bonds would lose money. And in the last two

months of twenty twenty three, interest rates turned around. I shared yesterday that the ten year treasury no peaked at five percent. Today we're sitting just under four percent, and that's a whole listen, that's a lot better than the point five to two percent three four years ago. So finally, finally,

conservative investors who are buying CDs or bonds are being rewarded. And there was an eight percent turnaround in the bond market, and bonds actually ended up almost six percent for twenty twenty three after losing one point eight in twenty twenty one, losing thirteen percent in twenty twenty two. In twenty twenty three, interest rates turned around, bonds turn around. There's an inverse relationship. When interest

rates come down, the price of the bonds go up. So when that ten year Treasury note, when it peaked at five percent and came down, you saw the value of the bonds go up, and the index made money for twenty twenty three. That was a beautiful thing. I think the sixty forty portfolio that people thought was dead in twenty twenty two, it's not dead. Who people who hung in there. And I'm not patting myself on the back, but I said this yesterday. If you listened to the show and

you hung in there, you made money. Last year, you made a lot of money. Our returns were stellar. Our clients had a phenomenal year, and we listen, We walk them off the cliff years like twenty twenty two, when they feel the world's coming to an end. The world listen all the every stock market correction, every stock market bear market, every recession

that investors live through. For some reason, they feel that it's always going to be different, that this is the correction, bear market, or recession where the world comes to an end. The world has come to an end. If you want the world to come to an end, you have to listen to those conspiracy theory on radio shows at two three o'clock in the morning, if you want to be entertained in that like the world does not come

to an end. When we have a good old fashioned stock market correction or bear market, listen, investors make money, they lose money, they make more money, they lose money, they make even more money, they lose money. After every correction or bear market, the stock market has always gone on to make new all time highs. What you can do his panic. You can't have those knee jerk reactions. You have to hang in there.

You can't. You can't change your long term investment methodology because you're listening to your brother in law at Sunday afternoon dinners, or you're listening to bad news bears on the financial porn shows. If it gets to you, don't watch them. Do you know how many times I've sent my IT people to the homes of my clients to put parental controls on these financial shows so that they

wouldn't tune into them. I'd rather have them, you know, get into a good documentary or something rather than watching, you know, some of these bad news bears that just just want to scare investors, because the more they scare investors, the more investors are going to watch some of these shows, and a lot of them just aren't worth watching listening to. So you can't let these You can't let the headlines of the day, the the whatever's going

on, whether it be in financial news or around the world. You got to keep your eye on the ball when it comes to invest in long term stocks go up. I guarantee if stocks go down, and we you know, we we spend a lot of time educating our clients. And during a year like twenty twenty two, believe me, our our our portfolios were down, just like everybody else's portfolios were down. The difference is we take the time to educate our clients, and we don't really we don't really get scared

out of the markets. The stock market is up seventy percent of the time, it's up more than it's down. It's just the fact of life, the fact of investing one eight eighty two five five nine four nine. I'm gonna take a quick fifteen second break. Don't go anywhere. I love this jazzy music. Thanks folks by sipping on a little tea right now, and it felt good to wet night whistle. Thank you for tuning in today, taking time out of your day. I can't thank you enough. Eighty two

five five nine four nine. So I, you know, getting scared out of the markets. This is this is a good segue into the story I have about last night. So I went to a dear friend fiftieth anniversary, the celebration for friends of ours. I actually traveled to the Villages. Everybody's heard of the Villages, Well, I've never been there. The Villages is a big place, folks, a huge place, A lot going on there.

I think it's the retirement destination venue in the in the country. I can't believe how many and last night talking to some of my friend's friends and you know they went and visited with with my friends through the last several years, and most of them ended up buying there. I can't believe how many people. We have a lot of clients in the villages. So last night it was my first time at the villages, and it was it was it's

a it's a big place, a really big place. Don't don't get lost without GPS, because you you may not get yourself out of the knees. A lot of a lot of things look the same, if you know what I mean. But anyway, I saw this gentleman I haven't seen in quite some time, and he, you know, he's a dear friend of my friend, and he was a pretty good executive in the Capital Region area.

He still lives there. He traveled down to to be part of the celebration and I was talking to him and and and my heart broke for him. I said, how are you doing? Are you you know? Are are you retired? He said? Steve says, I couldn't retire for a long time. I wanted to retire. But after two thousand and eight. If everybody remembers that great recession almost you know, fifteen sixteen, seventeen years ago, because it started in October of seven ended in March of nine. The

SMP was down fifty percent. And I remember doing the radio back then, folks, Oh man, you know, I think Evangela Sysney in my office and all the communications we had with our clients holding their hands. I remember when Lehman Brothers went out of business on September fifteenth, two thousand and eight. You know, the day before they were a Triple A rated company. If you bought their bonds, you thought you were you were locked into you

know, decent yield with a good triple A rated company. And the next day they were gone, puff out of business. Talk about being scared right out of you know what. So you know, Angela, we shut down taking new clients. That's that's how I run my firm. I'll tell you right now. My clients come first. I'll always come first. It's you know, I don't need to have a thousand new clients. I need to

make sure I take care of the clients that I have. And we shut down taking new clients, and we touched our clients eleven times from September fifteenth through the end of the year. Eleven times we touched our clients. We did seminars, called them sent emails. We spent time with our clients because

they really they were scared. And if you were invested back then, you probably still remember how fearful those times were then all of a sudden, you know, March March eighth, of March ninth, of two thousand and nine, All of a sudden, you know, that was the bottom of the market. And I remember telling my clients we did not sell out of anything. I raised some cash back in the summer of eight and we held out

of that cash. And I remember having new clients. I remember I had a client from New York City, you know, almost a fifteen million dollar portfolio. I kept her in cash, kept her in cash till the end of February, beginning of March, and I would say to or we're being patient. It's not time yet. As long as you have this cash, we don't need to get it in. There will be a time. And all of a sudden, I remember saying on the radio show, I said,

there's more upside than downside, and now's the time to buy. And in hindsight, it was absolutely the right time to buy. But this gentleman that I spoke to last night couldn't retire. And he said, Steve, he says my advisor. I think he was as scared as I was. And I actually got out of the market at the bottom and i'd never recovered. Heart broke. Folks, My heart broke because our clients. You hear me say it often, I will wrestle a client to the ground before I

will let them shoot themselves in the foot. Financially speaking, I go overboard. I go to great lengths to make sure that clients understand that when they make those type decisions, those decisions, they can never ever go back and recover. I remember a couple of years ago telling you the story of the client that said, Hey, Steve, I can't I can't lose any more money. Let's sell out of the market now, and then I'll get back in when the market recovers. And I say, stop, does that even

make sense to you? And he thought about it? He says, oh no, no, he says, that's why I hired you. So my heart broke for this gentleman. I can assure you that it wouldn't have happened if he was my client. I wish he was my client. That's how, that's how, that's how to make sure we take care of our clients. I can't believe we're coming up to the bottom of the hour you're listening to let's talk money for aught to you by Bouchet Financial Group, where we

help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. The phone lines are open one eight eight two five five nine four nine. See you right after the news. Oh oh, I hate to interrupt this music exactly. You really got a good ear for music, and you're not as mature as I am. I remember these songs, folks. Thanks for hanging in through the news, Thanks for tuning in today. I can't thank you enough. We had a great show yesterday. A lot of calls, and

if you have any questions, give me a call. I'm here to hopefully get your pointed in the right direction. 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. Any questions whatsoever, give me a call, love to talk to you. Really get your pointed in the right direction

somehow, some way. So I shared with you. You know them, friend of a friend yesterday who couldn't retire and when when it comes to your retirement plan, what you can't do is you can't you can't let let those emotions get to you. I think and I said it yesterday. This is

what we get paid the most to do with Bouchet Financrew Group. I got nineteen professionals that I'm surrounded by. I've coached them, mentored them, I've I've taught them everything I know and they are as dynamic as you could possibly imagine them being. And I continue to coach. And I shared a story yesterday. We had a client that called me after eleven years and he said, Steve. He says, I just can't do it anymore. I know you've helped me for eleven years. You've talked me off the cliff when I

got scared, But I just need to guarantee. I'm going to go move my money to an annuity. I met. I met with this insurance company today, and you know the guarantees. Do you know that if I die and there's a market correction, that my beneficiaries, my children will get my principal back. I said, do you really want to die for that guarantee to play out? I said, you're only seventy one years old. You got ten, twenty thirty years that you could be with us. I said,

you know, don't don't let that guarantee get to you. He says, yeah, but it's better than that. He says, they told me I can take a seven percent distribution year in, year out and my children will still get my original principle. I said, you're being lied to. He says, no, Steve, I just left them. I said, this is what I want you to do. I want you to get them to put it in writing. I want you to call them back. Now.

I thought this mine was made up. This was last Friday, Thursday or Friday, and Monday morning, bright and early, I get a phone call from him. He said, Steve, you were right. He said they were lying to me. They want to put it in writing. I said, I know, I know, and I saved them. And that's what we do the most, is take the emotion out of the decision making process. Eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. It's a fiduciary.

It's it's a beautiful thing when you don't have any conflicts of interest. And I so, I've been in business thirty four years. I've been a fiduciary for thirty one years acting as a fiduciary, and that means that all we care about is what's right for our clients. Nothing else matters to me other than what's right for our clients one eight eight two five fifty nine forty nine. So you know, I haven't even talked about the markets this week. Holy moly, the s and P up almost two percent. You know,

we're just zero point three percent off the record, hive. The the NASDAC was was you know what was the NASDAK up three point two percent, and actually the NASTAC composite three point oh nine qwo QQ was up three point twenty four, three point twenty four percent. Apple. You know, listen, Apples had an Apple a day. Is not keeping this stock price from going down. The first week of the year, Apple was down six percent, gained back three percent the second week. That's one of the reasons why

NANSDAC was up three point twenty four percent. I already shared with you percents. It's the top holding that Microsoft. So when you when when when you look at the markets this week, it was it was a good week to be invested. CPI December's Consumer Price Index up too point three percent point three percent year over year three point four percent, a little bit higher than the three point one percent November, but a whole lot lower than the nine point

one percent of June twenty twenty two. And you know, when you think it through investors, will Will the Fed cut rates? Yes they will, Just like yes, the stock market goes on to make new all time highs. The Fed will cut rates. The question is when will they cut rates. The last hike they had was July last year, where they they've had several meetings since and have paused. They left interest rates alone. Their next move will be down. They meet in a couple of weeks. I don't

believe they'll do anything. They will probably leave interest rates right where they're at. There's a seventy nine eighty percent chance, believe it or not. You can bet, just like going out to Vegas and betting on a football game, you can bet on the direction of where interest rates are going. And right now, the futures, the FED futures shows an eighty percent chance of a rake cut in March. Too soon to tell. There's a lot of data that will come in and that's what the Fed is depending on, is

the data. Inflation is a moving target, folks. Is inflation up? Is inflation down? Is it steady? What's going on with inflation? The Fed looks at everything, everything, everything when it comes to inflation. So between now and in March, a lot could happen. But we will see cuts. Whether it's in March or May or over the summer, we will see cuts, and that'll be good news for the stock market. So don't let you know. The volatility year to date get you, get you down.

You know, as we sit here for the first couple weeks, the S and P is up point three percent, and as that the QQQ is up point zero four percent. So it's like kissing your grandmother, if you know what I mean. There's not much that gets you excited about the stock market yet, but heck, you know what are we fourteen days into it? Fourteen days? The next fourteenth of the month will be February. That'll

be Valentine's Day. Then we'll be kissing all day long. But listen, the the trader see a seventy nine percent chance of a cut in March. We'll get a cut at some point. I don't know if it'll be March or later in the year. The ten year treasury down three point nine four was four percent this week, And as I shared with you just a couple of months ago, was five percent. You had, you know you had. We're in the earning season. Every every three months, right we go

a calendar quarter, boom, we start earning season. We'll started again in April. We'll started it again in July and on October. But right now we're we're we're getting fourth quarter twenty twenty three earnings. The banks came out and they're really kicking things off. Believe it or not. You know the earnings they they they're making billions of dollars. But on Friday, JP Morgan Chase down point seven percent, Bank of America down one percent, Wells Fargo

down three point three. City Group you know, was the only one that rose one percent. So keep your keep your eyes open for financials. I actually in my sandbox account because the majority of my money's investages like my clients. I say this to you because I'm proud of it. Very few people can go to their advisors and say, hey, how are you invested, and get an answer that, hey, I'm invested just like you. They won't get that. Very few, very few advisors invest their personal wealth the

same as their clients. I not only invest my money the same as my clients. I'll show any client or prospective client. My portfolios my advisors. I got eight of them, you know, starting with with with Ryan, Marty, John and five others. I got eight advisors, and they all know. If a prospective client wants to come in and see my portfolio, you show it to them. I want them to see that my money is invested, just like Thursdays. And I'm proud to say my advisors follow the

same path that I follow. I guess I'm leading by example, and they know the importance of having their money invested like our clients. Otherwise, you know, why should we manage our own money differently than our clients. That's crazy. So I'm one hundred percent investment in the stock market. I don't own any bonds. That's just my comfort level. I don't care when the market goes down. It doesn't bother me. I don't look at my portfolios,

so I'm very comfortable. I could care less when there's a stock market correction. I believe me. If I looked at would I'm human, I would. I would hate to see a paper loss, but I know it's just on paper. I know the market will come back and will go on to make all time highs. Hey, I got a little bit of bitcoin

in my sandbox account. And I'm whistling Dixie right now. My wife and I laugh because every once in a while, I'll say, geez, our bitcoin is is worth you know this or that, And now all of a sudden, Bitcoin is really you know, it went from a high sixty thousand to a low of about sixteen thousand just in the last few years. And you know, this past week we touched forty five thousand, So some people

feel bitcoin can go back to one hundred thousand. Now. Don't run out and buy bitcoin because of that, because they said the same thing when bitcoin was at sixty thousand. Put it all in perspective. I guess what I'm saying is in my sandbox account. It's nice to see that one holding your mind up. But recently I did buy some financials in my sandbox account.

I bought some healthcare. I actually leveraged healthcare, and I bought some small cap all areas that did poorly in twenty twenty three, and I'm hoping that that is the market breadth widens as we get away from those magnificent seven driving returns. It was nice to see will weight Index up thirteen percent for most of the year. That equal weight index last year was sucking when it really

wasn't doing anything. And what that means is that the rest of the market outside of the top holdings of the S and P. You know, the top ten holdings account for about thirty one percent of the S and P. With NASDAK the top ten holdings account for about forty five percent. So those top holdings, it's important for the rest of the market to start doing well. And we saw that. We're seeing that now. Dividends are a good place to be. So I added some small cap, I leveraged healthcare and

some financials to my portfolio. And you know, healthcare stocks, folks, could could break out to new highs. You know. You all we need is a macro economic and sector specific things to play out. The healthcare sector the spider sp dr you know when you buy that. And I don't recommend you go out and buy individual companies, although if I were to buy any individual healthcare companies, that would probably be United Health in the life. But

I can buy XLV a healthcare sector. If you look at all the healthcare companies in the S and P five hundred index, you can buy them all in one night's package, wrapped up XLV and United Health represents ten percent of it. Eli Lilly almost ten percent, Johnson and Johnson seven and a half percent, Mert five and a half percent, Thermo Fisher Scientific four percent. Add the four and a half percent, or I'm sorry, five and a half percent, add it four percent. Piser three percent. Now, Piser

is a good healthcare company too. Right, last year, healthcare was kind of flat. If you look at the XLV last year, I'll just pull it up. It was it was kind of flat. I'll tell you exactly what it did. It was up two percent, So that's kind of flat. Pfizer was down fifty percent. And this is why I say, unless you've got a strong stomach and you're willing to lose money, don't go out and buy individual stocks. I don't care how how smart the financial advisor sounds

when they're talking about individual stocks. Very seldom can investors make money buying individual stocks. And that's a great example. So the SMP was up twenty six percent last year, healthcare was up two percent, and Piser was down fifteen percent. There you have it, There you have it. I mean, that's a great reason of why, no matter how great the company is,

you can't do that. But healthcare companies when you got when you can buy an et and they own parts of United Health, signa am gin you know this is this is the way to buy healthcare. And when you look at the healthcare ETF trading at about one hundred and forty dollars, its record high as one hundred and forty two dollars. That was a year ago that it hit one hundred and forty two dollars. So we'll see what happens. You know, obviously the economy is weakening a little bit and healthcare is a good

defensive play. It could be a good place for you to go. I know we have it in our portfolios. I know right now, Ryan, who heads up my investment team, is looking at making some changes in the portfolio and healthcare. As I said, I bought it in my sandbox account and I leveraged it. That means I'm really taking a big bet on healthcare. And I'm okay with that, folks, I am okay with that.

You know, it's my sandbox account. Your sandbox account is where you want to have some fun, take some chances, do something outside of the core portfolio. I'm gonna take a quick fifteen second break 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, give me a call. Thank you, folks for letting me take a quick break. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. If you have any questions, give me a

call. So another sector that you know. Sometimes, my dear friend Johnny Mack I used to go to his house often and he his grandma lived with him. We call their Graham, and she baked like there was no tomorrow. She was one of the best bakers ever. I and I just found out Graham's no longer with us. But I just found out that that Johnny's son in law, Chris Haws, his grandmother listens the show religiously. He texted me yesterday to say, Hey, Steve, I just want you to

know my grandmother. I had dinner with her the other night. She says she listens to your show religiously. So Chris Hausi's grandma, thank you for listening. Thanks for being a loyal, loyal listener. But Johnny Max's grandmother, Graham would say to us, you have it good or you have it bad, and that's good. And energy this is right out of barons? Why bad is good? Energy stocks right now are out of favor. Fund

managers had less exposure to energy heading into this year than since. You know, really, you got to go back almost three four years before before money managers were off on energy and you got you know, energy prices slipping a little bit. You know, if you look at at oil right now, the barrel of oil is seventy two dollars. The fifty two week high was ninety four dollars. The fifty two week low was sixty six dollars. So we're closer to the lower end of the price of oil than the higher end,

and we'll see what happens. You know, this past Monday, Saudi Arabia cut it's selling price for oil, sending crude down about four percent to at the time seventy five dollars a barrel. Natural gas prices fell too, dropping about four and a half percent. The energy sector spd R Energy. The If you're thinking about buying energy once again, same same same way of thinking about healthcare. You want to think about energy, you can buy XL

all the energy companies in the S and P five hundred indecks. Now Here it's different. The top ten holdings account for seventy six percent of this. So when you buy x L E, you're buying Exon Chevron, Conicco, Phillips, EOG Resources, Schlumberg A, Marathon, Phillip, sixty six, Roots, sixty six, Baby Pioneer, Natural Resources, Valero, Williams Companies. You get the picture. You're buying Those top ten holdings account for seventy

six percent. Exon accounts for twenty three percent. All by itself, you can get a dividend yield of almost four percent buying XL so you know you had your exon Chevron down three and two percent, respectively. So it's it's not always bad for stocks when they're out of favor. And once again I bought I did not buy any energy in my sandbox accountanies. I already own energy and I'm leveraged energy, so I don't need any more energy molo.

Maybe I should go actually on Tuesday, I may rethink that. But investors who bought energy stocks in December of twenty two, the last time they were out of favor, I tell you for the calendar year twenty twenty one, up fifty three percent. The last time energy was this out of favor, Think about that, up fifty six percent, and that's what or up fifty three percent. That's what investing is all about. Sometimes when sectors get out

of favor, they don't always come back. Just because energy was out of favor last year doesn't mean that they'll be back in favor this year, just like health care. Health Care was out of favor last year, there's no promise that it'll be back in favor this year. But I took a chance. In my sandbox account, I added it. I got a client who she loves her sandbox account, and I called her. I said, hey, I just want to let you know what I've bought my sandbox accountant.

She loved the idea. She and I both both also love Apple, and believe me, there's there's there's there's some handwriting on a wall where maybe we shouldn't be as enthralled with Apple as we are. But I've seen Apple go through good times and bad times before, and Apple always comes back to really really surprise me. So I'm not giving up on Apple. I like Apple and I like Amazon it's our top two holdings in our portfolios. Sometimes clients say, you know, I wish I owned stocks. You know, my

my friend owns these stocks and he or she is doing well. I said, you do own stocks. The only difference is most of them are wrapped up in ETF portfolios. So when you you know, when you own QQQ, and our clients own a lot of QQQ, you know your top holding in QQQ is Apple at nine percent, Microsoft at almost nine per Amazon five percent. You own stocks, They're just not outright, although we do.

The only two individual stocks that we own in our portfolios are Amazon and Apple, and we haven't bought them for newer clients because the prices were high last year. I think Amazon was up what's seventy five percent? Apple was up fifty some percent, So we didn't buy them, but we we you know, sometimes those out of favor sectors they come back. Everything comes full cycle

when it comes to investing. So if you're looking to to you know, for opportunities, those those are the places that I that I put some of my personal money in my sandbox account and I'm hoping that that I round out the because I got a lot of technology. Our clients own a lot of technology. It's our number one second, and I own a lot of technology. You've heard me say this for years. I've been doing the radio show for twenty nine years. I think I've been saying this for just as long

that we can't live without technology. Technology has taken over the world. It's taken over our personal life. If you think I'm kidding you, just think about everything you do with technology. You could be listening to this show on you know, through an iPad or tablet or your iPhone. Technology isn't going away. And I just you know, I don't think we'll ever be underweight technology, not as long as I'm alive anyway, and I'm mentally competent.

Folks, We're coming up to the end of the show. I can't thank you enough. 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 thank you for tuning in as I do every Saturday at ten am and Sunday mornings at eight am, and I can't thank you enough. If you want to go to our website, Booche dot com that's biz and boy o U C h e y dot com. You'll get more

information in the meantime. Have a good Sunday, stay healthy, See you next weekend.