Let's Talk Money

where every part of the relationship is transparent. We manage our clients' assets by fee only and do not sell investments. We have no conflict of interest. Learn more by visiting their website Bouchet dot com. That's bou cch ey dot com. Listen to Steve's weekly commentary on WGY Mornings with Doug Goudie every Wednesday morning at six fifty am. Tune in every Saturday at ten am and Sundays at eight am

for let's Talk money. Have you come into sudden money because of life insurance proceeds, divorce, retirement, lump sum payout or did you hit the lottery? If so, do you know what to do? Call in now with any questions pertain to your financial future. One eight hundred Talk WGY. That's one eight hundred, eight two, five, five, nine, four nine. Here is WGY's financial analyst, Steven Bouche or one of his capable colleagues.

The beauty about this show is it's on podcasts, so you can listen to it anytime you want on your favorite podcast outlet just go to Bouchet Financial Group, search for it and save it, or you know, live by getting on the iHeartRadio app. So I listened for all four months, and I'm telling you, and I tell you, I'm blessed to be surrounded by a team that I am.

I am blessed in more ways than not. They really truly make me so proud the job that they did and continue to do, and we'll continue to do going in the future. But today I wanted to come on and be with you. You know, it's been a long four months, to say the least, in many ways. You know, it's funny, for thirty years I've been on air talking to you about you know, health, Wealth for Life, and I tell you all the time that it's your health

first and foremost. That means everything. If you're lucky enough to have your health, then you're really in a good spot. If you have your loved one as part of your life, you're so fortunate. And if financially you can do things, don't mess around because you never know when number one and number two could change. And that's our tagline, you know, that's Bouchet Financial Groups Bagline Health Wealth for Life, and it's something that all twenty of my colleagues and I

believe in. As professionals, we tell clients all the time to put the priorities first, you know, we kind of kid you know, you take care of your health, will take care of your wealth, and will counsel you on what to do and so forth. Well, you know, all of that changed for me over the last four months. So you know, I used to talk about my mom dying at thirty one, my dad dying at forty nine,

and reasons why you know, you should be prepared. You should have your state matters in place, you should have the appropriate life insurance, especially if you have a family well, now I sit in front of you with a whole different outlook. H You know, my health was affected and I lost my wife halfway through my treatments. So the last four months for me have been different. God has put a lot on my shoulders, which you know, I felt he has since my mom died when I was ten,

But boy, I never expected the last four months. But today I told my colleagues that I wanted to hop on board with you. I wanted to, you know, talk with you. I want you to call in with questions because I can go on and on and on, folks, but what I'm really here for is to help get you pointed in the right direction. As I like to say every week, it may be a tough show for me, so be patient. I'm I'm, I'm. I'm going to put my best foot forward, as they say, and hopefully get

back in the saddle again. It is racing season up in Saratoga, so hopefully I'm going to get back in the saddle again. With regards to the radio show, after doing it for thirty years, it should be like riding a bike, right, I should I should remember how to do it, which I'd do. But if you have any questions, folks, any questions whatsoever. I would love to hear from you. The phone lines are open. Our longtime producer Zach is on vacation, so today we have Tom. He's the top

dog at WGY. So when you call in, Tom will take your call. The phone lines are 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 and he questions whatsoever. Give me a call and we'll talk about the markets. We'll talk about your investment

plan and anything else you want to talk about. Not only will will I be able to help you, But today I have one of my colleagues, Vincenzo o Testa, who is a CFP recently, and I'll let Benny tell you what he recently accomplished. We're very proud of Anny, but Vinnie is sitting here alongside me, and Vinnie's a pretty smart guy. Came from an amazing background at KPMG, and we were fortunate enough to get Vinnie and he

has just been an asset. So let me stop there. Vinnie, why don't you say hi to the audience and let the audience know your your latest designation, Pieuse, I'm pretty proud of you forgetting this designation.

accounting and obviously financial planning as well. But here at the firm, we have clients that work at public companies and receive equity compensation in the form of stock options

or restricted stock units, restricted stock awards. And what this designation does for me is it's given me a little bit more insight on the planning around exiting your stock options and equity compensation and doing it in a way that we're planning around your taxes, right, We're going to minimize taxes in that in that way, and then we're also going to mitigate your risk from a single stock risk perspective, so you know, you don't want to have

all your exit one basket. I think it's really crucial to you know, diversify, right, and that's the name of the game by default, and you know everyone knows by diversify and investments, that's one of the most important things because if things go wrong in a single company, which happens all the time, and you're exposed to that company, can create serious issues for your financial plan. So one of the designations I got just about two weeks ago, I found out I passed the test. So that's a lot

what we're doing here at the firm. And you know, Steve one of the strongest guys I know, really blessed to be working under his leadership and a leader like him.

designations that you or most of our colleagues have. To be a a wealth advisor in our firm, you have to have some kind of a designation, and we're proud of that. One eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eighty two, five five nights four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. So let me just bring you up on the week. You know, in

some ways it was a crazy week. We you know, God just just look and you know, I hate talking politics, and we're already getting questions from clients, right Vinny, about you know what happens if this person wins the election or that person wins the election. Well, I can honestly say we've done a lot of research on this, and I think Ryan actually even did a white paper at one point. You know, the markets, you may see a little bump in the road depending on what direction the

results come in at. But really the markets could care less. They really look at the fundamentals of the economy. They want to know how the economy is growing, how inflation is situated, how many jobs we have, how corporate America is generating profits. Are they earning profits like they have been, are they softening or getting better? Those are the fundamentals that the stock market really looks at. So as we

get closer to November fifth, don't fret too much. If you're really nervous, you know, pull some money out of the stock market. You could be sorry. Most elections people are sorry people that feel that they are going to lose their shirt if a certain candidate gets elected. And I'm not here to promote any candidate. But this was a crazy week politically speaking. We had President Joe Biden,

who is now not the Democratic nominee. We have Vice President Kamala Harris, She's got enough delegates for the Democratic nomination. So that was really out of left field, I guess in some ways. In other ways it wasn't out of left field. It was some people expected it, but it was still, you know, a crazy week in the political circle. So that, you know, is really how we started off the week. We had traders, you know, rethinking the Trump bet.

You know, up until this week after the the assassination attempt on former President Trump. I mean, I could politically speak and could it get any crazier? I'm not so sure it could. So traders were rethinking, geez, maybe Trump isn't shoeing like they were thinking just you know, over a week ago. So you know, all bets are off the table. It's really going to be an interesting next few months and we'll see where things play out. And we'll see on November sixth, the day after election day,

where we are. China cut interest rates, which was big news. This week. Stocks sold off on soft earnings, mostly led by AI worries. The US economy grew by two point eight percent in the second quarter, inflation ease slightly, just slightly. On Friday, the Dow was up six hundred and fifty four points, which was almost three quarters of a percent. You know, it was it was just a crazy week for the week. The SMP lost with all the good news on Friday from the market standpoint, the SMP lost

point eight three percent for the week. NANSDAK was down two point one percent for the week. You know, the markets didn't do as well for the week. The biggest winner this week, believe it or not, with small caps. And you know we say in the office all the time, right Vinny, that we like when small caps do well because that means that all the returns aren't focused just on that magnificent seven on the big tech companies, and the returns are really being spread throughout the broad market.

So when you have mid caps and small caps taking part in this, we like to see that. The number one performer this week was small cap. The SMP small Cap six hundred was up three and a half percent, the same as the Russell two thousand. And if you're buying small cap indexes for your portfolio, I would rather see you buy the SMP small Cap six hundred rather than the two thousand. It's better, better index. I think if you look historically speaking, it's outperformed the Russell two thousand.

You know, head and shoulders above the performance numbers of the Russell two thousand. So you had the small cap index up three and a half percent, SMP down point eight and NASDACK down about two two percent. The one hundred QQQ is down two point five percent. But for the year so far, year to date, you got the NASDAC up fifteen percent, QQQ is up thirteen percent, the SMP is up fourteen and a half percent, and the Russell two thousand is up about eleven and a half percent.

That's good news. For a long time, the Russell two thousand was lagging the small cap SMP. Small cap six hundred is up only eight point four percent. So I just got done saying Historically speaking, the S and P six hundred outperformed to Russell two thousand, but not so far this year. But it's it's early and you can't just measure something over you know, seven short months. So Vinnie, you know, I know you you you with with your

new designation and everything. You got a couple of things that I think is really interesting, especially for the listening audience that work for big companies out there. So I'm going to take a quick fifteen second break. On the other side of the break, Vinnie, let's talk about a couple of things that that you are very very qualified to talk about and hopefully we'll with the appetite of

the listening audience. Folks, if you have any questions, give Vinnie or Eye a call one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine, any questions whatsoever. Let us take a quick fifteen second break.

one K over to an IRA. So why don't you take a couple of minutes and kind of go over you know, what the listening auditing should be thinking about, especially with regards to rolling your four oh one K over to an IRA, which I think is the most important thing people can do when they leave a job.

if your money was in an IRA. Right. So the four one K is administered, you know, by a company and they lay out the investment choices and they're pretty broad. But when your money's in an IRA, you're able to basically purchase anything you want.

to choose from. And especially when you're working with an investment manager who is planning around your financial plan and you know knows what your goals are in retirement, you could kind of have them invest your money in a way that is going to meet your goals, right, and when it comes time for retirement, or even if you are retired, right, that's at that point what should be automatically rolling over your four to one K to an IRA.

Your investments are laid out in a way that you know when when you reach certain age and your goals will be met. The other aspect of rolling your four oh one K over to an IRA is the fact that the four oh one K has high fees because there's administrative fees, there's higher investment fees, and there's also management fees in the four oh one K. When you roll your money over to IRA, those administrative fees goes go away and you might be able to invest in

investments that have lower investment fees. So you know, we use ETFs here at the firm, our portfolio has an average expense ratio within across the board, within our ets of about point two A four to one K could potentially have, you know, expenses of point eight to one percent on the investments that they have within their four to one K plan. So if you think about that, let's just say, to make numbers easy, the four oh one K has an expense ratio of one percent. Our

portfolio has about point two percent. It's a point eight percent difference on account of a million dollars. That's eight thousand dollars a year. I mean, that's a big significance, especially over the long term when we're talking about compounding returns. That eight thousand dollars can make a significant difference in the balance of your account after extended period of time. So rolling over your four oh one K to an

IRA can save you. And especially if you're retired, you know, you're paying in ministry of fees in that four one K that you're not receiving benefits for right So you know, really advise our clients that they have outside four o one k's to roll them over to an IRA, and you know, and we manage those iras for our clients.

And that's really what you're doing between the fees, because most four on one k's are made up of mutual funds, and you'd be surprised how many for oh one k's not only have mutual funds, but also have annuities which have even higher fees. But there's also that fee, that administration fee that you're paying for, and basically that's to keep the plan in motion. And what you're doing is you're paying for all those coworkers that you left behind.

So fees are real important. And I've been you know, listen, folks, I told you I've been helping clients for thirty seven years. I've been in business for thirty four I've been a fiduciary since nineteen ninety three, back when nobody knew what a fiduciary was. And what that means in a nutshell is all we care about as a firm is what's

right for our clients. What's the best advice. I always say, we'd like to have the best portfolio we could possibly have the best diversification without taking too many risks in the lowest fees possible, and I've been using. As many pointed out, our portfolios right now are mostly ETF so we manage about one point three billion dollars. That's a lot of money, and we're not buying and selling stocks

every day. We do have two stocks in the portfolio, Apple and Amazon, which have been just amazing, amazing holdings for our clients. Our clients have been very happy with the exposure we've had to Apple and Amazon. So we do have, you know, those two individual stocks in the portfolio, but most of our portfolios made up of ETFs. And when you look at our top ten holdings, because people say, geez, you know, I was with some buddies and you know they own this stock that stock, I said, you owe

those stocks too. Just because you own ETFs doesn't mean you don't own stocks. You own stocks within the ETF with less risk and as many points out, less costs compared to mutual funds and four O one k's you know, then he just gave the numbers point eight to one percent the average fee, and the mutual fund is one percent or more. In annuities it's two to three percent or more. There's a lot of fees out there that are hidden. And ironically today's Barns I picked it up

at Stewart's on my way. In Today's Barrens, you know, there's about an eight pag article on the one hundred best annuities richer payouts in terms, and they lead off with an interview with a woman who bought an annuity and basically she said when when she was asked to sign on, she had a heap of battling forms, she became uncomfortable with how little she understood the annuities terms.

There's a reason why these insurance companies give you so many forms a contract, just a heap of forms that they're they're they're they're hoping you don't go and read through because of the fine print. And when you look at all the fees that are in a nodies, one

reason why we are dead against the nodies. Fees matter. So, Minnie, you bring up a good point about fees and just why it's so important for you know, investors in general to look at fees and you know, if they haven't asked their their their their advisor what kind of portfolio they had, they should. Hey, folks were coming up to

the bottom of the hour. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchef and in group where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. The phone lines are open. Give us a call one eight eight, two, five, five, nine four nine. We'll see you on the other side of the news break.

High of ninety one degrees Tuesday. With your forecast, I'm Bill Treferro, and here's ready a one to three, one and eight ten WGY.

dot com that's bou Ch e y dot com. To schedule a complimentary in person or virtual consultation where we will analyze your financial wellbeing, Please call our client concierge at five one eight seven two zero thirty three thirty three. That's five one eight seven two zero thirty three thirty three.

Stephen Bouche has surrounded himself with twenty talented professionals, including seven certified financial planners, four CPAs, two IRS, enrolled agents, one accredited investment fiduciary, one certified divorce financial analyst, one certified private wealth advisor. Now this is expertise you can trust.

Thank you for staying with us through the news. The phone lines are open one eight hundred talk WGY that's one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine and without any further ado here is WGY's financial analyst, Steven Bouche or one of his capable colleagues.

and we are live. I'm sitting here with Vincenzo Testa, CPA, CFP, E c A. I mean, that's a lot of letters in the alphabet. Vinnie and I are talking and the phone lines are open one eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eight two, five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions whatsoever, folks called Vinnie and I. We'd love to

talk with you. So we're talking about four o one ks, and Vinnie eloquently pointed out the pros and cons of you know, when you leave a job, why you shouldn't leave your forumone k behind especially the fees. It may be easy to leave it behind, but folks, the fees in these foreman k's are big. And you know, before the news break, I went over the portfolios that we have.

You know, our our portfolios are rock solid. We pay attention to fees, and you know our as many pointed out, our total all end cost is point two percent point two, a whole lot less than the average mutual fund of about one percent, and annuities two to three percent. Just that savings alone has been he said, on a million dollar portfolio can save you a lot of a lot of money. Not only do you not want to leave your forumon K behind? And I do this for a living.

And you know I shared with you how I lost my wife over the last couple, you know, months, And I can't believe when you just think about insurance policies and different things, how easy it is to forget about different things. You know, having a well thought out plan, having everything laid out is so important. With four one ks, you'd be surprised how many people forget that they worked

at this company or that company decades ago. So that's another important reason, Vinnie, why people should get out of those four all one case one eight hundred eighty two, five five, nine, four nine. Let's go to the phone lines. Where the phone lines are working. We have Paul in Connecticut.

the year. And they're claiming that the company that we used to work for together is saying you have to do the rm D from us. And I said, read the planned documents and I didn't see anything in them that suggested that he was handcuffed to do that. And then I said, look at I'll look at the I R S rules, but do you have a real clear understanding on that? Yeah, they say, because go ahead.

it's good to work with an investment advisor, right. I mean, we have our client service team that is very diligent for all of our clients that are at R and D AGE. We track it, We make sure that the clients tak We call them multiple times if you know they're not responding, to make sure they take their arm because we know how important, how crucial it can be from a you know, financial perspective for those clients.

clients we have come in that forgot. You know, they had these pension plans and they lose complete track of of these plans, and it's money that they're leaving behind they you know, consolidating into your own individual retirement account, which you have full control over, is absolutely absolutely the best thing, and especially from an investment standpoint. Anny anything else you want to talk about.

one of the issues we come with clients. Right, So it's obviously beneficial to roll over your four O one K two an IRA, right, but that might change if you're still working at and you're at R and D ah because you don't have to take your R and D if it's in the four one K when it goes to the IRA, you do. So just wanted to clarify that if you are still working, you're at R and D. Age don't have to take your R and D from your four one k yep.

a big week for the stock market. Last week was a crazy week between politics and AI and you know China cutting rates. You know the inflation report that came out yesterday that was a little softer than expected. That kind of confirms the CPI report that was a little softer than expected. In the jobs report, which was really all good news for the economy. It's almost like a

goldilocks economy right now. But this coming week, Vinny, we got more than one hundred and fifty s and p five hundred companies that are going to be announcing results. We have four of the Magnificent seven. Remember the Magnificent seven is what's been powering these returns. We have Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta Platforms, which is Facebook on Wednesday, Amazon and Apple on Thursday. That's a big day for us

because those are our top two holdings. A few you know, and Vinnie was going over the fact that we own ETFs in our portfolio, which we do mostly, and the only individual stocks we own our Apple and Amazon. But when you look at our top ten holdings, when you add up all the stocks that are in the ETFs and individually held by us, our top ten holdings are pretty well rounded for our clients. We got Apple, Microsoft, Broadcom, Amazon, Navidia, Pepsi, Meta, Am, Jen, Costco, Eli, Lilly.

As you can see, it's a pretty rounded portfolio. Those are our top ten holdings. So when clients say to me, hey, you know my buddies own you know, they were working with a stockbroker and they own all these individual stocks

and they're really making a lot of money. I said, Listen, the headline news is sixty five to eighty five percent of the time stock pickers can't outperform the indexes, which is why we have our core positions in the indexes and we complimented with tactical positions and our returns have been pretty good. So Thursday is a big day for us because we got Amazon and Apple that are reporting results. On the last Wednesday, NASDAC had its largest Monday decline

since October of twenty twenty two. It wasn't pretty being in NASDAC. On Wednesday, NASDAC was down six hundred and fifty four points. You know, when you think about how the week started out Monday, NASNAC started shot right up two hundred and eighty points, down ten on Tuesday, down six hundred and fifty four on Wednesday, down one hundred and sixty on Thursday, up one hundred and seventy six

on Friday. For the week, as I said, Nasdaq Composite was down about two percent, and you know it's it was just one of those days, but nothing to thread over. I guarantee our clients you're gonna get days and weeks and months like that, and you can't let that get to you. So this coming week from an earning standpoint,

is going to be huge. And then on Wednesday we get the Federal Market Open Committee and they'll announce what they're doing with their monetary policy, and I think they're going to do nothing, but I think the bet right now is that they'll probably cut in September, and the FED doesn't want to wait too long to cut. They don't want to miss the opportunity to cut. They need

to be ahead of the game. So to be interesting to see what FED Chair Jerome Powell says on Wednesday when he comes out, usually it's about two fifteen on Wednesday. It'll be a real important meeting, and I think there's a ninety percent the betting audience out there is betting their money that in September, the next time they meet, you'll see a rate cut. And when that happens, folks, that's good news for the stock market, which is why we're fully fully invested. And then on Friday we got

the jobs report. You know, the forecast is about one hundred and seventy seven thousand, an increase for nonfarm payrolls. We had two hundred and six in June, and the unemployment rate is about four point one percent. So it's a big week coming up, and it'll be a big week in the stock market to see how the stock market reacts to everything that's going on. But if you're if you're a good investor, I'm not even going to

say a long term investor. If you're a good investor, you cannot let these headlines make you crazy and have you make irrational moves and decisions of getting in and out of your investments. As I like to say, volatility should be your best friend. And when you see volatility, take advantage of it. Maybe take some money out of some dogs, put it into some areas that got beat up that you like better. But don't try to time the market. Market timing does does not work. One eight

eighty two, five, five, nine, four nine. Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Paul back on hold.

a nonpracticing CPA. But I listened to a guy named Michael Green who was interviewed by a guy named Adam Tagger on a webinar or of some sort, and he made a point that I've been following and thinking through since maybe a decade or longer regarding passive indexing, notwithstanding the fact that you end up, you know, with fees and so forth on active managers, what you said is correct because it's hard to grind out nine point one when you're charging fees of one point three, let alone,

if you go to a money manager like you and you're buying mutual funds and all of a sudden it's another forty or fifty or whatever basis points. I get that, But his point was the money flows of older people coming out older to be defined right sixty fifty eight, I don't know versus passive indexing is creating a tidal

wave of buying equities that have no relevance. Like David Einhortez stated too, I'm not going to use the word pe alone, but cash flows, balance sheets, income statements, price to earnings, and I kind of agree with him, But

he said, when this stops, we don't know. But right now, all the ratios of money coming in from the average person in a four to oh one k nowithstanding ETFs and you know, spiders and whatever is going to indexing, and nobody's really looking at what they're buying, and the forced buy is occurring, creating situations where companies are grossly overvalued and they're not doing the Warren Buffett thing I wanted you to comment on that, I get off. And

the last thing is regarding multi year guaranteed annuities. I'm a proponent and I stack them because I'm sixty six and I don't I'm not going to pay fees and surrender charges. I don't care that I'm paying two percent or two and a half spread over four years. I don't care. And I'm grinding six to six and a half on a couple because I don't need to take a lot of risk with a chunk of my money. And I know that the bond market I buy my

own treasuries can throw off five right now. But to your point, if the FED cuts, it changes, and I don't need to buy corporates, and I'm not looking for capital appreciation, I'm looking for compounding. So there is a place for multi year guaranteed annuities. I think in portfolios. You can comment on it now, or I'll just stand up, you know, with your whatever you want to do.

in a very bad, bad, bad way. They use the word guarantee a lot, and when, especially during times of volatility, when investors hear the word guarantee, it's comforting to them, you know, it's it's like going home having a good home cooked meal. They just feel that that guarantee word is important to them, and they don't realize the money that they're leaving on the table. The fees that they're

paying within annudies are just astronomical. And you're paying, you know, most nudies, especially when you add all the bells and whistles, you're paying three percent internal fees, internal fees that you're paying inside these annuities, and you have to ask yourself if you're paying them to three percent and them being the insurance company. So anybody who who offers you an annuity is not a fiduciary because they're selling an insurance

product and making a six percent commission on that. To me, you can't call yourself a fiduciary. And I've had debates with some insurance professionals that tell me they are fiduciaries, and I say, you're not a fiduciary. If you're selling an annuity making a six percent commission, you are not a fiduciary. There's just no way you can make me believe that you're a fiduciary, that you have your investor's best interests at heart, because you're selling this investment that

you're making a boatload of money on. So for those of you that reason he bought an annuity, go back to the salesperson that sold it to you and asked him or her, you know, if they disclosed the commission that they made. I'll bet you a dollar to donuts that they did not tell you how much money they made. But they're making a lot of money. Most people buy these annuities thinking they're no load investments with no fees, no commissions, because they're all in the back end of it.

Going back to that Baron's article today, and the first paragraph talks about this woman who says I got a heaping pile of papers that I had to sign. Well, there's a reason why there's a lot of stuff buried in that insurance contract. And Paul, if you had a well diversified portfolio, you can get the same six percent and have more control over your money. I can promise you that the key is disciplined. With an annuity, you

can't go in and get your money back. If you have your own portfolio, you can kind of haphazardly hurt yourself. So you have to be disciplined. And if you have a well thought out portfolio, I'll show anybody that will take the time to sit with me why a well thought out portfolio will be so much better for them than an annuity. And I wouldn't be buying an annuity just for the word guarantee. Remember, guarantee is two things. One, the insurance company is guaranteeing and so you have to

hope the insurance company stays in business. And we're lucky. As much as New York State is crazy with all the regulations, the one thing that New York State does well is regulate the insurance industry. And we have one of the toughest states in the country for insurance companies to do business. So buying an annuity in New York State is a lot different than buying an annuity in other states. That's the only good thing about being in

New York and buying an annuity. But the guarantee come to guaranteed payout and everything you know there, you have to ask yourself if let's make believe the stock market average is ten percent a year, and if they're guaranteeing you and bonds average five percent a year and those those are ninety year almost one hundred year historical averages, and an insurance companies guaranteeing you six seven eight percent,

how is that happening? They obviously are taking some risk, correct because you know right now, you know the yield on a ten year Treasury note is you know, under five percent four point two percent. So if they're guaranteeing you six percent and guaranteed money from the government is four point two percent, how are they doing that? They're taking on risk, which means you're taking on risk and you're paying a fee to take on that risk. So why don't you just have a well thought out portfolio?

That's all the insurance company is doing. They're playing around with stocks and options and puts and calls, and that's how they're getting you more than Listen, the most guaranteed paper in the world is the ten year US Treasury note. So if that's yielding four point two percent, folks, and you're getting more than four point two percent, then you're you're you're taking on risk. I'm such a I wish people were better informed with annuities. I'm just not for it. Now.

You know, Paul makes a good point. It makes him feel comfortable. So if he buys it knowing all of those fees and he feels comfortable because he doesn't have to do anythinking, then at the end of the day, that's all that matters. And that's that's good for Paul. You know, Paul's able to sleep at night. Piece he's got an insurance company guaranteeing him a certain amount of income. But do your homework before you just go out and

buy an annuity. Absolutely. Now, with regards to the index funds and Vinny jumping anytime, you know, indexes are made up in different ways. You know, just over a couple of years ago, and ironically this was in today's Wall Street Journal. So either Paul got up early and went to Stewards like I did, and got the papers. But in the heard on the Street section, there's an article called the Surprise and index Funds, and it's a pretty good article on the makeup of a newdies and passive investing.

And you know, a little over two years ago, millions of investors owned a stake in NLG and Biosciences, a money losing drug development folks. The guy who who was the CEO of this company was a native of Turkey. He was a murderer and he was a complete fraud.

But because the market value got to at least two hundred and forty million, indexes like the Russell two thousand had to put it in the portfolio, and the share price shot up to seven dollars a share, more than double where it was before it had to be put in there, and it just obviously was not a good investment and people were owning stuff. So when you look at the Russell two thousand compared to the SMP small

cap six hundred, they're made up differently. And going back to nineteen ninety four, you know, the the profitability of the SMP small cap six hundred was up more than seven hundred percent more than the Russell two thousand. That's all I have to say. Paul brings up a good point. You need to know what you own. Hey, 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, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we

manage their wealth for life. We're going to back on tomorrow morning at eight Pinny, Why don't you help me say goodbye to the listening audiens because you brought a lot of good information today and I appreciate you being on the show to help me get through this first show that I've been on in four months.