Let's Talk Money

In. Good morning and welcome, thank you for tuning in. You're listening to Let's Talk Money here in eight ten and one oh three one WGY. I'm Ryan Bouchet and we'll be with you for the next hour. Look forward to it. Have a lot to discuss, but has always love hearing from all the listeners out there. If you do have any questions today, you want to be a part of the show, and you know, whether it's market related, retirement planning related, you name it, give me a call

one eight hundred Talk WGY. That's one eight hundred eight two five, five, nine four nine. So, like I said, I have a lot that I want to get into. We have an hour together, so hopefully that gives us enough time. Actually usually doesn't. Usually we get off on tangents and uh maybe not talk about everything I lay up out there. But if we can, let's do it. You know, we'll talk about the

markets. Obviously kind of had an up and down week this week. Market's finished a little bit mixed on Friday, but all in all, we're up for the week, so, you know, more good signs. But you know, as we're we're seeing that we're seeing some shift in some of the market dynamics. Again, we've we've seen this earlier in the year as well.

Doesn't mean that it necessarily has to continue, but I do think there's some interesting takeaways to look at and consider as we move into you know, believe it or not, we're getting close to the second half of the year. Hard to believe that we're already you know, that far into twenty twenty four. But as we're looking at market and market themes, you know, is there any shift taking place? We you know, we're seeing a ton

of shuffling. It's pretty incredible to see, actually with with some of the largest companies right whether it's Mike Navidia, Apple, who's on top one day from the next. But it just got me thinking, and it's incredible to think Apple was the first company to hit the trillion dollar mark market cap, and they did that in twenty eighteen, I think is when they passed the trillion dollar mark from market cap way to company. Now you have these three

companies all over three trillion dollars. Navidia has added about two and a half trillion in the last thirteen months alone. I mean, it's just the numbers are incredible. It's almost hard to fathom when you think back to, like I said, just Apple being the first trillion dollar company. It was only six years ago and now we have these companies all over three trillion. But we're seeing some ups and downs there and we'll talk about that, and like

I said, how it relates to kind of the shifting market dynamic. You know, what way is the economy going. We're seeing a lot of different coming out on the economy, you know, some good, some bad. Uh, you know, maybe things that we like from an inflationary standpoint, slowing down a little bit. But we're also seeing some some cooling data and the overall economy. We'll talk about that what impact that may have on the

markets, what we see moving forward. You know, we put out a letter to clients where we made some trades earlier in the week and and just

shared some of our thoughts here. I mean, I think, uh, it's nothing really to overreact to. But I do think, you know, we're again we're seeing some trends in the market that if they continue, if they're sustained, you know, I do think it changed some of the dynamics that we're dealing with, and I think we have to be aware of that and and you know when we see it, you know, we have to again just be aware and make sure that we're doing all that we can in

the portfolios to factor that in. You know, we'll talk about, you know, some some bigger market themes right as we're again we're getting towards the end of June, getting to the mid year point. You know, we're going to have our uh quarterly market webinar that we put out for for clients

and you can find it on our website as well. Usually do that, you know, the second week after the close of a quarter, so early July, so trying to get ready for that, and you know, just taking a step back and look at it, looking at some of the uh, you know, market themes that that we're interested in, right the things that we're focused in on and and some of the really you know, just interesting topics and and in themes that that are taking place. Right you know,

we'll talk about a little bit of just market nuance right now. I mean, there's just so much going on within the markets, and you know, I think sometimes we try to make we try we try to come to simple conclusions and and not just we am I mean, I'm talking about headlines. Market commentators, you know, they they make the connection of well, this is happening, so then this has to happen as a byproduct of that. And I think sometimes, you know, we try to make it too

simple and in the market's just too complex right now. There's too much nuance there, it's too much gray area to just make and come to simple conclusions with the overall portfolio. And I think, you know, we really have to sort of look through and peel back the layers of the onion to really see what's happening right now. And and we're in a different dynamic today than we ever have been, right, you know, just from a I think

a history standpoint. Right history oftentimes can you know, rhyme, but never maybe repeats, And you know, I think we have to kind of see how how dynamics of the global economy are markets, you know, even just coming out of COVID, and I know it's so long ago, right, I mean, it feels like it was yesterday in some ways, but we're four years past the start of COVID, but we're still seeing that impact.

And I think, you know, sometimes we have to base some of what we're seeing today and in some of the you know, again that nuance I discussed and how it really plays into some of these changing dynamics that we're going through. We'll talk about, you know, market concentration. Right now,

we're the market is concentrated. Right I've talked about those three biggest companies in the market, but when you look at you know, whether it's the top five companies in the s and P five hundred, the top ten, you name it, we are the market is highly highly concentrated right now. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? You know, probably a little bit of both. And we'll kind of get into how we're viewing

that and how we view the impact on the markets. We can talk about valuations, where right now I would say we're a little bit on the high side from a valuation standpoint, What does that mean? And like I said earlier, just trying to avoid coming too simple conclusions. And lastly, you know, some of the other areas that we can jump into today. Colleague, my colleague Sam Macy had a great blog this week on a website. You can find that again at www dot Bouche dot com and you can find

this under our insights. You can go to the Bouchet blog, but she wrote a great blog just about unlocking the value of independent financial advisors. And

you know, we we see it every day. We're fortunate with the work that we do with clients, meeting with them, talking with them day in and day out, and you know, seeing the value we can bring to those relationships and and how much it can mean, you know, whether it's from an investment standpoint, whether it's from a planning standpoint, or more oftentimes than not, it's just from a peace of mind standpoint. Hard to put a value on that or you know, tangible value on it, but it

goes a long, long way. And we'll talk a little bit about, you know, the value we bring to our relationships, how we you know, view that and you know, in some ways, you know, you may be thinking about it from a tangible standpoint, right maybe market returns or saving on a strategy, but uh, you know, I think oftentimes some of the intangible values, the things that it's hard to put a you know, dollar amount too or a number on, goes such a long way.

And in the work that we do again with the clients that we're working with day in and day out, and it's just so important to the work we do, and you know, brings brings us a lot of joint satisfaction, but also looking at the value that it can bring to clients, I think they get a lot out of that. So we'll talk a little bit about that, and we can share some other conversations we're having with clients, whether it's again market related or some planning topics. We'll be happy to get into

that discuss with you again. Our phone lines are open. Give me a call one eight hundred talk WGY. That's one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. So, like I said, we'll discuss the markets a little bit. This week kind of a uh, you know, interesting week. We had some ups and downs. I think we're seeing a little bit I had said earlier, maybe a little bit of a market dynamic shift,

if you will, Uh, nothing major. And as I said earlier, you know, we've we've kind of seen this happen a little bit this year, you know, the if we've sin think back to kind of the first half as we you know, we only have one week left to the end of June. But you know, again, this year started off really pretty hot. We had a strong growth earlier in the year, and then we we kind of you know, kind of plateaued for a while. We kind of had some ups and downs in the market, had some brief pullbacks in

the spring. You know, the old saying goes sell them, may go away. I actually think that started a little bit earlier. In April. We kind of had a little bit of a pullback, nothing major, you know, a little bit over five percent at that point, but we were seeing some volatility in the market, and I think we saw some of the leaders cool off a little bit, right some of those tech, those growth

leaders pulling back. We saw some of the you know, maybe more defensive sectors, maybe the more you know, value type holdings start to come into favor. And then you know, over the last i don't know, five or six weeks, we've had a really nice sort of run back up, and in these growth companies, we've we've seen a lot of leadership with you

know, large growth, large cap growth, large cap tech. You know, the leaders that typically we see in in a bull market, especially over these last twenty years, tend to be the leaders as as markets go up, and they've shown that strength for quite some time, even more so since the you know, the global financial crisis of nine. You know, we bottomed out in March of nine that year, and you know, ever since, they've been on a run of really epic proportions when you take a step

back. But you know, this past week, we're seeing a little bit of a shift there. And again, could it be more short term in nature, could it be you know, a longer term trend. Hard to say, but I do think it points to kind of the value of diversification right now. And you know, that's that's been an area that over the last eighteen months especially, you know, really has kind of gone away. But for the week, we're seeing, you know, the S and P

was up about a half a percent point six percent. For the year, it's up fourteen percent. We're having a great year again. We're seeing just such a you know, continued strength and in a lot of areas in the market. The Nasdaq, which you know tends to be that leader and has been the leader this year, was flat for the week, and I think we saw it with again some of those larger names in the video had a little bit of a selloff to close the week. We talked it had taken

over Microsoft and Apple earlier in the week. I think it fell below Microsoft as as the biggest company now as we ended Friday, Microsoft has a little bit of an edge there. But you know, we saw a large tech kind of you know, stay a little flat in NASAQ flat for the week, but again up seventeen percent year to date and just continues to outperform. And in the Dow, you know, this is where we saw you know, renewed strength maybe up up one and a half percent, only up four

percent year to date. We're seeing a little bit of lag there, and not that that is kind of a tough index to really take a lot of key takeaways, but I would say it's probably compared to the S and P broad market, NASDAC a little bit more growth tech oriented. The TAO certainly, you know, probably fits a little bit more value in a sense versus those other two indices. And so you're seeing a little bit of you know,

strength and those those value or defensive sectors this week. And we can kind of talk about, you know, what maybe we're seeing there or how we're seeing a shift in the market and if that is sustainable. But before then we're going to go back to the phone lines. We have John and Gilderlin John, good morning, thank you for calling in. Hi. How

you doing. I'm doing great. Thanks. My question has to do with converting a thrift savings plan the cedar I for one K plan over to a wroth ira and I'm in my I'm seventy, and I think I want to start converting the money over so that for my estate my children can have it basically tax free. It's it's a large it's a large accouncil. It can take many years. But as we get started, my question has to do with if you convert the money over to the roth ira, is there a

five year restriction on being able to access that money. I've seen different answers on you know, googling it, and I don't know the answer. Do you currently have a roth ira already established? Yes? Yes, it was established back in the nineties, Okay, okay, yes, So when so, really the the access to the wroth accounts really comes into play more so

for when it's when it's actually established. So that's typically with that five year rule that you bring up in terms of getting access to it comes into when when that account is opened, So from that that should be able to access and pull from the Wrath with the new monies as long as that WROTH account had been established for over five years. That's really what the you know, one of the critical uh steps in terms of accessing the Wroth accounts and being

able to you know, tap into it from a distribution purposes. Okay, I've seen different answers on Google, and I thought, you know, after you've been had the r IRI for five years and you're okay, but wasn't certain. So I appreciate your help. Yes, certainly, and uh, it's a good question. And I think, you know, we're seeing that strategy more and more, especially from an estate planning perspective when it comes to

Roth conversions and something I'll I'll talk a little bit more. Went, you're off the phone, John, but appreciate the call, and thanks for reaching out. All right, thank you, all right, take care again. Our phone lines are open. Talk WGY. That's one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. And to John's point, you know, in talking about converting, so you know, this is where and we've probably talked about it on on the radio in the past, but it is a big

change in terms of how beneficiaries can inherit. You know, whether it's a IRA four o k IRA roth IRA. But now you are required if if you inherit an IRA account to distribute that within ten years, and for beneficiary, that could be a big, big tax burden depending on the size of

that IRA account. Obviously, as the four oh one K plan has been in favor now for the past you know, thirty plus years or so, and we're kind of seeing this generation of retirees who are relying more on their four oh one K or IRA for retirement income versus again historically maybe we had

seen pensions. You know, these accounts are becoming bigger and bigger, and through a fifteen year you know, with some ups and downs, but you know, I would say a fifteen year bull market that we're part of today, these accounts are getting to a large, large balances. And if a beneficiary inherents you know, let's say you get a million dollar inheritance of an IRA, well, you know, if your if your beneficiary non spousal, So let's let me make that clear too, it's a non spousal beneficiary.

So if it's a you know, let's say a child is inherenting this, there's there's different rules if it's spousal, you know, these requirements to withdraw it within ten years don't come into play. But if if it's like a non spousal child that's inheriting this, you know have to distribute that in ten years. And you know, let's just say you you broke it out over those things, just really simply broke it out over those ten years. And you know, maybe you know your your child is doing well and is in

a decently high income bracket. Well, you know if they were just to pull one hundred thousand dollars a year, well, a lot of that distribution is going to be going to their own taxes. And you know, those distributions are going to hit them at ordinary income tax rates. So you going to be hit with federal tax, uh state tax, and and that can

add up really quickly. And so one of the strategies we've seen is, you know, if if the owner of the the IRA account today or four OK or a thrift savings plan like like John had spoken about, you know, if they're in a lower tax bracket, how can we plan to maybe doing some of these wroth conversions to get you know, park more of that money into a wrath allow that to build up keep while keeping the the owner

of the account you know, in a in a low tax bracket. And you know, it comes to a lot of a lot of factors come into play. Right, do you have cash on the sideline to to pay the taxes on the conversion, because you will have to pay it today, you know, but if you can pay it at a lower tax rate today, that could be favorable to your beneficiaries like your children, uh down the road.

And so it's it's in the state planning approach that I think before the rules on the ten year distribution of I rays wasn't in as much favor because again, making a wroth conversion when you're retired, maybe you maybe you don't have, you know, the longevity to really let the growth of a wroth account take over and and you know, make the difference of what the taxes

you have to pay today are. But if you're in a good position financially, and one of your goals is your generational wealth planning, leaving a legacy for your children or or inheritance and to set them up the best way that you can, you know, paying taxes up front today can save more money down the road and you know what we say, oftentimes it's not always how much you make, but it's how much you keep and in doing the proper

tax planning, the proper tax optimization. I mean, these are these are areas and I brought it up in the show Open talking about the value of an independent financial advisor, and it's so important to the work we do. You know, one of the big planning areas that we really focus on with our clients is around that tax planning, right because yeah, you know, maybe there's there's only so much you can do when it comes to Okay, you know, you're w two income earner, you have, you know,

you're maxing out your savings, you're doing all you can. You know, maybe there's only so many strategies you can really do to maximize deductions for the current year, or take advantage of this tax credit versus that tax credit. But as time goes on and you think holistically, right about five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now, what are things that we can be doing today that hey, maybe maybe you don't see the

benefit of it this year. Maybe there isn't you know, some massive deduction you're going to get all of a sudden, but we're setting the plans in place. We're setting the foundation in place so that as time goes on and again, whether it's for yourself, for the next generation, you name it, we are doing all we can from a tax optimization standpoint that can in

time save significant amounts of money for you and your family. And so that's one of the one of the major areas, especially from a planning perspective, where you know, the team we have in place with a number of CPAs and rolled agents, we really put a really big emphasis on that tax planning because it can make a huge, huge difference as time goes on. All right, our phone lines again, our phone lines are open one eight hundred talk WGI. That's one eight hundred, eight two five, five, nine,

four nine. We are approaching the halfway point. We're going to take a short break for the news, but when we get back we can continue our talk in our discussion with regard to the markets and getting into a little bit of that shift in dynamics I was I was speaking about. We'll talk a little bit about just the market themes that that we're focused and on, you know, trying to get ready for our quarter. We webinar and where we're focused and on, and we'll talk a little bit more about again that

value we can bring as advisors. So again, thank you for tuning in. We're going to take a quick break for the news, but you're listening to Let's Talk Money here on eight ten in one oh three one w g Y And welcome back to Let's Talk Money here on eight ten in one oh three one WGY. I'm Ryan Bousse and I'm your host today. So appreciate all the listeners out there tuning in and joining us on this Sunday morning. Our phone lines are open. Give me a call one eight hundred talk WGY.

That's one eight hundred eight two five, five, nine, four nine. And so we'll get a little bit more into some of the market dynamics

we were talking about earlier. A lot going on in the markets, and you know, not there wasn't really I would say it wasn't a huge week for headlines whether you know, there was no big inflationary report, there was no you know, major labor report that came out outside of the typical uh, you know, jobless claims numbers that we can talk a little bit about from an economics standpoint, But it wasn't a huge week on the headline perspective, but it was, you know, an interesting week in terms of again

some of the nuances that we're seeing within the market right now. And as we talked about earlier, right we saw we saw the NASAC kind of flat for the week, SMP was up, the Dow was up more than more than anything else, and uh, you know, are we seeing some some shift in dynamics? And we we absolutely could be right to a certain extent. I know, we were doing at our last quarterly webinar back in April, there was some you know, interesting charts in that you know, the

major theme of the last eighteen months has been this MAG seven. Now, obviously some of the MAG seven companies are are outpacing the others, right you know, think about maybe someone who's not doing as well, like a like

a Tesla. But these these large cap growth companies are continuing to be the cattle list of this market movement forward, and you know, they're the big winners from you know, you know, maybe you can lump AI into that conversation, right Ai in the MAG seven you know, sort of one and the same to a certain extent, because these large cap growth companies and technology companies are are again the major benefactors of this push towards AI and you know,

the potential catalyst for discontinued bull market and through that they've been they've been the big winners, right, And it's it's been the big driver since the start of twenty twenty three, and they're really you know, we were starting to see a little bit more market breath, I think as we were ending twenty twenty three, but we're we're kind of seeing that come down a little bit, right and we're seeing high concentration right now in stocks, and we're

seeing high concentration and in the winners and how they're pushing the markets higher, you know, to a certain extent, it's been a good thing for passive investors, right if if you're you know, and I would say we're we're

we are actively passive in our investment approach. And I say that in terms of we use ETFs, which I would say are more of a passive approach to investing, but taking an active approach with that managing portfolios around ETFs and and you know actively you know, we made some trades earlier this week as as some of these dynamics are are shifting a bit and again wanting to be positioned to you know, both take advantage of the market environment and you know,

continue growth in in what we could be seeing. But you know, if if things change or sentiment shifts, you know, making sure that that we're protected on the downside as well, and so kind of looking at what's out there and what these what this in market environment is showing us and being you know a little bit proactive and versus reactive to it. But you know,

again it is an interesting dynamic we're seeing today. And you know, as much of you know, the strength of the market, right that concentration and the catalyst of AI has been a good thing. It's putting us in the territory we really haven't seen before. We're seeing just an incredible amount of concentration that you know, to levels that you know may or may not be

worrisome. And you know, I think anytime we see something we haven't seen before in the market, it leads us to simple conclusions, right, you know, very very simply. So you know, over the last thirty thirty five years, the top ten companies in the S and P five hundred, you know, on average made up about twenty one twenty two percent of the S and P five hundred. You know, that goes back to about nineteen ninety and that's essentially where where the average has been for the top ten companies.

Today that number is over thirty three percent, it's about thirty four percent. So we're, you know, we're well over the average. Where we're you know, probably more than fifty percent higher than what that typical concentration looks like. And you know again that look that could look scary right in oftentimes, you know, you have to kind of choose your approach with this.

Is that, you know, sometimes when when those numbers are starting to really creep up and rise and get high, you know, they tend to peak before a market pullback. Now, you know, I would say and argue that that's natural in terms of how markets work, in the dynamics at play, but it is, you know, something that I'm sure investors are concerned about. And not only that, but we're seeing valuations get a little bit

higher. Right talking about SMP, forward price earning ratio is closer to about twenty one times forward earnings over the next twelve months versus historical average about fifteen sixteen. So you know, markets are getting for authier, markets are getting concentrated, and what does that mean? You know, how does that affect

us moving forward? And I think you know a few things we have to think about, right, we need to be careful not to get overly greedy in scenarios like this, and sometimes that can happen when we're seeing certain segments of the market just really take off. Now, there's no way to predict

how long this run could continue for these large cap growth companies. You know, there may be a scenario where you know, they're allowed to get bigger and stay bigger for longer, because as we've seen, these companies are getting so big that you know, they're they're kind of eating up competition. Right, you get a you get a smaller cap company that maybe is in the same playing field and doing the same thing and and maybe a competitor to these

big companies. Well, these big companies have a lot of cash on hand. You know, cash isn't as cheap as it was before, uh you know, maybe eighteen months ago. But companies have a lot of these large cap companies in particular, between their earnings, their cash, their balance sheets. I mean these are these are well positioned companies, much different than when we saw in the late nineties. So we're just in a different environment right now, and you know, I think we have to take that into account

as well, that yes, it is scary. Yes, we are seeing, you know, market dynamics that we've probably never seen before from a market concentration perspective. But on the flip side, market concentration tends to be, you know, a good thing in terms of in bull markets. Now. We know markets go up and down and in all good things and at some point, but market concentration, we usually see major winners in bull markets, and it is not uncommon to see some of those elements of concentration take place.

I took a research paper, I think I kind of I blogged about it, I think in late twenty twenty three, so towards the end of last year, just about what's driven global markets over the last thirty five years. And I'm sure I've talked about it on the radio as well, because it's I think such an important factor here and something that we need to keep

perspective on. But through the years, only about one and a half percent of global stocks have accounted for all of them markets gains in the last thirty five years in that report was going back to nineteen ninety as well, And when you think about that, well, obviously, you know that leads to a concentrated market. We've also talked about, you know, through that about sixty five to seventy percent of those companies were US domiciled. I mean,

it's one of the reasons why we're such big proponents of US markets. You could talk about modern portfolio theory and the need for global diversification and diversification with small caps and large caps, but you know, until that trade comes into favor in honestly speaking, I mean, I think just that nuance of markets.

I think markets change over time, and some of the reasons why we've seen strength and whether it's over time with certain small caps and dynamics that we're leading small caps to outperform, or dynamics that we're leading in national companies to outperform. You know, right now we're not seeing that. We're not seeing those dynamics at play right Higher interest rates are crushing small cap companies right now. Small cap companies are having a really, really difficult time with the cost

of capital in today's market. And you know, again we talked about some of the larger cap companies just being able to you know, eat up these these smaller companies, but there are some real, real economic factors in market dynamics at place that are really impacting small cap companies. You know, we've talked about international companies as well, where you know, yes, we've seen historically kind of an EBB and flow of US companies outperforming international and international outperforming

US companies, but you know, those dynamics can shift over time. Then you know, we just continue to believe you look at the companies that are in our US equity space and you do not see the types of companies that can compete with them. Internationally, we have really favorable market conditions, and you know, whether you agree with it or not, but even our political climate, you know, is more so driven to favor capitalistic environment and to

promote these innovative companies which we just do not see internationally. And this is where you know, again having a little bit more nuanced, not coming out with simplistic takeaways from certain market trends or certain data points. We really have to look at the the nuance and the gray airs of today's market and yes, concentration, you know, is problematic. Higher valuations, you know, feels a little scary as well. But again, think about it, tech

companies are historically priced at a higher valuation. You just expect, you you are willing to pay more for for high growth tech company because you expect future growth to be sustainable. You expect future growth to be there, and so you're willing to pay up for that growth. And now that we're seeing a little bit more of a concentrated market, now that we're seeing you know, these these technology companies make up such a bigger part of our of our markets,

well naturally that's going to lead to higher valuations. And yes, you know it's it's higher than it normally is. And yes it's it's you know, at at levels that you know, tend to get you know, investors a little feeling a little uneasy. But you know, some of these underlying

factors, some of these changes can play into that. And I think that's where we have to kind of again peel back the layers a little bit and understand, Hey, what's you know, Yes, this data points a little unnerving, Yes we may be a little concerned about that, but why is it happening. What's the underlying factors that are going into into this data point and how can we you view it into a different lens or take a little of a different stand on it to to fully understand what what's the impact on

the market kind of how is that going to affect it? And so that's how we're we're viewing a lot of these data points. Still, it doesn't mean, you know, you take one view and go all and you have to you have to have a little bit of a you know, balance to all this. But I think we have to take a step back and see how we're viewing these data points. Again, our phone lines are open one eight hundred talk w GUI. That's one eight hundred, eight two five,

five, nine, four nine. As we are approaching the end of today's show, we have, you know, about ten minutes left. I'm probably gonna I'm gonna go back and take a quick commercial break, and when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about the blog I mentioned earlier, the value we bring to our client relationships, talk a little bit about maybe some of the conversations we're having and how we think about the value adds that

we have in the relationships. That we have with our clients. So again you're listening to Let's Talk Money here in eight ten and one O three one WGY. We'll be back in thirty seconds and welcome back to Let's Talk Money here in eight ten and one O three one WGY. I am Ryan Bouchet and I am your host today. Once again, Thank you to all the listeners tuning in, and we are in the home stretch here. We got about ten minutes left. If you have any questions, love to have you

part of the show. One eight hundred talk WGY. That's one eight hundred eight five five nine four nine. So we've talked a little bit about the markets, talked a little bit about the economy. You know, we we sent a letter to clients rather this week. It just made some not the major just made some some small tactical changes to the portfolio. But you know what what we're looking at in in some of the basis for those changes is we are you know, we're starting to see a little bit of a pattern

of slowing economic data. Nothing I would say overly concerning at this point, but I think we're finally starting to see some signs of a of a slowing growth economy, but you know, to a certain extent that kind of fits into that soft landing narrative. You know, I think it's now more of a you know, is it going to be a soft landing or or would it be a hard landing. I think, you know, we're seeing more you know, soft landing in place. You know, we we talked about

it. This is a couple of weeks old, but you know, retail data, in retail spending is slowing down a little bit. We did have a good made jobs report, but we are starting to see, you know, an overall trend of maybe slowing job growth and even jobless claims this week again came back higher than than what we've been averaging in twenty twenty four. We are starting to see a little bit trend in the upward direction for for

initial jobless claims. Again, nothing worrisome, and you know, and a lot of a lot of these data points, especially on a labor side, we're still in better shape than we were pre COVID. Again, I think, you know, sometimes we're kind of seeing some sharp declines in terms of job openings and in some data as it relates to yeah, more specifically the job openings, but again we're seeing a sharp decline because we had such a

huge disruption from COVID that again it's still playing itself out. But when you step back and you look at the data there, we're still in a better shape from a labor market perspective than we were pre COVID and and to me that's a good thing. But we are starting to see a little bit of

a slowing trend. Good news is, you know, the Atlanta Fed does their mid quarter updates on what their expectations are for for GDP, and and we're still seeing you know, decently strong growth rates in in second quarter GDP. Their estimate now is still over three percent. So that's a good thing. So it's not overly concerning, but you know, we are seeing a little bit of a trend there, and so we want to be in a position to take advantage of, you know, maybe a slowing growth economy.

And you know, I think still finding that that right balance today. You know, we've had we've had such a a great run in those highly concentrate stock positions, right and you know, maybe diversification hasn't been a huge help this year, you know, especially last year where the mag seven really really took off, but you go back a year before that in diversification was a

huge help. You know, as great as these mags seven companies have been over the last eighteen months, almost all of them were down over fifty percent, some were down more than seventy in twenty twenty two. And that's where you know, reminding yourself, hey, in this type of environment, Yes things are good right now, Yes we're in a good upward trajectory, but

let's we can't get greedy in this environment. We cannot get overly greedy in a in a run up in the markets, because that's where it can really hurt the most if things change in things reverse course, and usually you need

a catalyst for that. Usually there's there's something that will trigger that, and we're not seeing it right now, but you need to have some form of balance to make sure that you know, it's it's it's making money, and it's it's keeping your wealth, it's protecting that wealth, it's making sure it's

there for how you need it, what you need it for. You know, whether it's it's retirement now, retirement down the road, but you know, making sure you're properly invested to take advantage of these market dynamics, not overreact, take advantage of it where you can, but also being well rooted, well grounded, well disciplined to get through it. And I think, you know, think when we think about that, you know, going back to I had mentioned it earlier Sam Macy's blog that she wrote this week.

It was a great one about unlocking the value of independent financial advisors. And you know, Vanguard does a study and I think it's really interesting, and I think it's hard to fully quantify it, but you know, they've they've done a you know, decent job of putting numbers to it in terms of

how advisors add value to their relationships. And you know, they found that working with the financial advisor could add you know, anywhere in the range of you know, three percent of net returns per year to a client's portfolio. And you know, we don't view that as just from a portfolio management standpoint. You know, we view that from more of a you know, planning

perspective and you know, asset protection or making good decisions. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we we have conversations with clients or prospective

clients. You know. One of the big I think worries that are out there now and it's rightfully so, I understand it is right with the upcoming election, and I've shared this anecdote with you before, but you know, at the start of twenty twenty three, you know, the biggest concern on our client's minds when we we held our state of the Economy presentation was the election in twenty twenty four. I mean, it was twenty months away and still it was top of mind for most investors. And I'm sure even more

so now as we're approaching the upcoming elections. We're not that far away from it, you know, only about four months away, and I'm sure the headlines are going to start heating up. I'm sure people are going to be concerned about, you know, the volatility that that could bring. You know, we've always taken the standpoint that historically elections really matter very little from an

ongoing market perspective. You can see some short term volatility, there's no doubt about it, but from a long term perspective, it generally has very small impacts. But you know, going back to how we add value, I mean, you know, sometimes folks want to get super defensive because they don't

agree with the policies of of you know, current administration. They want to you know, be really defensive because they just don't think the economy can grow if it's a you know, Democrat or if it's a Republican, and they take the opposite stand in their own political views, and you can really find yourself making bad decisions that can really impact I mean, you know, even just take coming out of twenty twenty two, right, we had a really

bad year in twenty twenty two. The markets were down over twenty percent. We had a pretty big sell off. And if you get out of the markets and you miss a quick recovery, I cannot tell you how much of an impact that can have over time. And some folks, I mean, we've met with folks over the years, even in the last three to five years where they were still you know, very very conservative in the portfolio because of the global financial crisis and they just haven't found a reason to want to

get invested going back ten years in some cases. And when you see the bull market that we've had and there's been concerns each and every year, it can really really affect people's decisions on coming in and out of the market and can have a really, really huge impact. And so like I said, some of those numbers are tangible, some of them intangible, but great value to working with an advisor. So I've lost track of time. We are

right at the end of the show. I appreciate everyone listening in and tuning in. Thank you so much, Have a great rest of your weekend and take care