Let's Talk Money

the firm. Beyond our expertise in financial planning, Sam plays a critical role in our firm marketing efforts, ensharing our website, social media, and everything we do in the public stays up to date with engaging in valuable content. Samantha, thank you for joining me this morning.

talk WGY. That's eight hundred eight two five, five nine four nine. Well, twenty twenty five marks some several significant milestones for Bouchet Financial Group. You know, this year we celebrate thirty five years of serving our clients with dedication and excellence. In addition, thirty in this year, Steve will have been hosted Let's Talk Money for an impressive thirty years,

sharing invaluable insights and advice to the listening audience. So you know, these are significant milestones, things we're proud of, and they're a testament to the firm's legacy and Steve's enduring commitment. So this will be a nice celebratory year for the firm and we appreciate you tuning in this morning to listen to Sam and I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season. It's hard to believe here we

are the first weekend in January. Already here we are twenty twenty five, but we made it through the holidays. I hope everybody had a great time. I know I certainly did, had a great time celebrating with friends and family, so I hope you did as well. And here we are the first show of twenty twenty five, and I think Sam and I agree the best show of twenty twenty five. So we're gonna retire with that trophy for

the year. So appreciate you tuning in. And again, you know, if you're listening and have a question, I guarantee another listener does, so certainly pick up the phone call us. There's no such thing as a dumb question when it comes to your money, So reach out. Uh, And again, as I mentioned before, encourage listeners to call. You can reach us eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight hundred eight

two five five nine four nine. Well, we'll start off by talking about the markets, and uh, you know, the S and P five hundred ASDAC broke out of a five session slump on Friday, posting solid gains, So it was nice to see. Uh. The S and P closed out the session of Friday with a solid one point three percent gain, and it was the best one day performance of the SMP since November sixth, which has happened

to be the day after the presidential election. So it was great to see the SMP break out of that little slump and the tech having ASDAK gained to whopping one point seven to seven percent on Friday, So a strong showing by the NASDAK as well, and the Dow rounded out the major indexes with a point eight percent increase, So great finish to the week. But despite that great week, it was still besides that great finish on Friday, it was still a losing week for all the major industries.

The Dow finished down the week at point six percent. S and P five hundred dropped almost half a percent, and similar with the NASDAK just lost right half a percent as well. So, you know, so much for this so called Santa rally. You know, we had a lot of discussion in December about the hopes of a Santa rally, which you know is a period that covers the five days ending the year and then the first two trading days of the next year. And you know, on average there's been the S and P has been up about

one point three percent during that period. You know, this year, during that period, the S and P lost another half a percent. So the Santa rally that was much talked about hoping to finish out a great year, just did not materialize. And so people say, well, what does that mean for twenty twenty five. Absolutely nothing. There is nothing that shows that there's any correlation between what happens between that very small period of time and then the next

trading year. So a lot is talked about the Santa rally, but in reality it's a nice way to finish out the year if it's positive, but it really has no impact on the year in front of us. So again wrapping up the markets, SMP down a little less than half for the week. Now if you look at not year to date, but the last year, right, so the rolling twelve months. Yeah, the S and P twenty seven

percent over that period. Now, certainly the year today number will become more important as we get more time under our belt. But I will say, you know, as investors, most of us have very long time horizons. So it's in some ways, you know, resetting the clock to zero at the January first, it seems a little odd in some ways because you know I in person, you know

particularly I have an investment horizon. It's not retirement, right, and so my horizon has many years out, and you know others may have shorter time horizons because of maybe they're investing for a certain cause, you know, could be funding a child's education, could be something else. But again, you know, we go through this routine of resetting the clock, like forgetting everything that just happened the previous twelve months.

But again, S and P. If you look at it rolling twelve months of twenty seven percent uh Nasdaq, as I mentioned, you know, down about half a percent for the week. Uh and and but again if you look at the last twelve month period of thirty five percent and similar to the down about point six percent and up fourteen percent if you look at that year as well. Now, the Russell two thousand was actually up this week. You know, you know, we saw the small cap stocks rally around

the election. Then we saw them give a lot of that back, but we saw a nice finish. So the Russell two thousand finished up the week up one percent and up about sixteen percent for the year. So you know that's gonna be important. We'll talk about that a little bit more as we you know, talk about what's what we're looking at in twenty twenty five. This certainly

has been a year about concentration. You know, we talk about the Max seven and how much they contributed to the market's returns, and we really want to see a greater breadth to the market. We started to see some of that this year, you know, right around the election to period, but hoping for twenty twenty five we see much more broadening of the breadth of the market recovery. So but it was good to see the Russell two

thousand finish up the week positive territory. You know, in the treasuries, we saw a slight uptick in the treasuries on Friday, the ten year and did rater out four point six percent, and then you know, just a week before that, so the previous Friday finished at four point sixty one nine, which is was as Hiatt's level since May twenty nine. So certainly, you know, as we're seeing the Fed cut interest rates, we're seeing you know, the yield on the on the ten year maintain and actually increase,

So interesting phenomenal going on there. And then you know, the two year treasury again closed a little bit higher, marginally higher on Friday, closing at four point two seven nine percent, So still some great yields out there in the treasuries, and you know, I would encourage you. We'll talk again as we talk about allocation a little bit later in the show. Certainly treasury still continue to be a great place to park some of your fixed income,

getting some really solid returns with absolutely no risk. So certainly some great opportunities continue there. If you can get a you know, two year treasury almost four point three percent, or even a ten year at four to six with really risk free money, that's certainly a good way to

put some of your fixed income allocation to work. And you know, as we look at the calendar head so the markets will be a short another short week in the markets next week, you know, Thursday, markets will be closed for a day, a national day of Morning for former President Jimmy Carter. So markets will be closed on Thursday. So that'll be you know, another short trading week to continue some highlights of what we're going to see this week.

You know, we're gonna see jobs report out next week, also going to see the start of you know, fourth quarter earnings releases, which only a few earns released next we really can't get a higher gear more middle of January, but certainly we'll start to see earnings where you know that's going to be important. You know, as we talk about what we're looking at for twenty twenty five, you

know earnings are going to be key. The expectations are for earnings growth for next year, and I think we're going to see markets reward those companies that deliver solid performance and punish those at don't. So certainly, middle of January we'll start to see more earnings release also start to see you know, some of the minutes this week from the mid December FOMC meeting. You may recall the

Fed continued cutting rates. You know, they reduced rates by a quarter twenty five basis points, but they issued some cautions for twenty twenty five that they're going to have fewer rate cuts. So certainly markets did not react well to that, and we saw some sela. But we'll see we'll get to dive a little deeper to what the FOMC, what they're thinking about with Fitchairman Powell's thinking about when

those minutes are released. And you know, another interesting thing, I'm not sure it'll have a huge effect in the markets, but on Friday, you know, the Supreme Court, we'll be hearing arguments about the the highly anticipated TikTok band, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. So overall, you know, great great year twenty twenty four, it was just you know, it didn't quite enter or you know, exit the year with the strength that we wanted to see.

So but good to see things tick up on Friday. So I encourage listeners you can call, please call in with questions. You can reach Sam and I at eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. So, as we talked about market share, twenty twenty four, another solid solid year for US stocks. You know, we saw the S and P rise over twenty three percent and achieving fifty seven record closes. So it was just a solid year and you know, continuation

really of our bull market run. And you know, we can contribute that. We've had solid economic growth. We've had inflation coming down. It's not quite at the Fed's targeted two percent, but it is showing that is coming down getting under control. The FED has been cutting interest rates one hundred basis points of rate cuts in twenty twenty four.

We've had healthy corporate earnings, and you know, certainly saw positive reaction to the November election results, and I mentioned you know, we certainly at that point saw a small cap stocks really start to rally, and that was nice to see if you look get a little breadth. And AI certainly, you know, you can't talk about twenty twenty four without talking about AI and the impact it's on

big tech stocks. And really, you know we'll talk about in a moment, big tech really you know, leading the markets. But you know, we did have we finished but still solid solid year. You know, the S and P five hundred posted its best two year performance of the twenty

first century. So the S and P jumped up twenty three point three percent after twenty after twenty twenty threes twenty four percent advanced, So you know, together that's a fifty three pointy two percent gain, which the most we've seen since ninety seven ninety eight when it rose sixty five point nine percent. So great back to back twenty

three twenty four. You know, if you've been in the markets those years invested US equities, you know you you did well and so hopefully hopefully you had your a major part of your portfolio allocate to US equities. You know, Nasdaq also you know, rallied twenty eight point six percent in twenty twenty four. It was that represents the two

year gain of eighty four point five percent. When you combine twenty four and twenty three, that's the best since twenty nineteen twenty And the Dow climbed almost thirteen percent twelve point nine percent in the past year and combined with twenty twenty three for a twenty eight point three five percent increase, and that's the best uh since nineteen

twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. So, you know, a great year for all the major US indexes, and especially you know, two years back to back, which is you know, great to see. Certainly, we this year we talked a lot about concentration in large cap growth, you know, particularly the BAG seven. You know, so you've got Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, you know, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Navidia, and Tesla, and they

certainly drove markets in twenty twenty four. And uh, you know, the Max seven accounted for you know, over fifty percent of the S and P five hundreds return. And you know, when you look at the market cap of the ten largest stocks in the S and P five hundred, they kind of for forty percent of the indexes market capitalization, which is, you know, the largest share we've seen in

over thirty years. So certainly twenty twenty four a year about concentration, concentration in the Max seven and how that has impacted the markets in such a positive way. And you know, we did start to see some some increase in small caps, which you know, we want to see that market breath really for a healthy, healthy recovery. Now as we looked ahead to twenty twenty five, I think there's gonna be a lot of focus on on small cap,

in mid cap, you know, the Max seven. You know, from an earnings growth perspective, it's hard to see the MAG seven contributing in the same fashion they have, but certainly for twenty twenty four, it was a great, great contribution there. You know, bonds certainly did not have as stellar as a year. You know, bond market we're you know,

we're really underperformed. You know, the AG performing just above one percent one point three percent for the year total return, you know, and certainly you know, the it's it's been a challenging rate environment, and so overall bond markets did not perform as expected. But you know, again is Sam's going to touch on a little bit later in the show. You know, looking, you know readdressing your portfolio and your allocation between stocks, bonds, fixed income and cash is really important.

It's something you know, you really should be doing at least every year to allocate, make sure you're invested in a way that's a appropriate based on your risk tolerance and what's happening with the economy. So overall, twenty twenty four, you know, fantastic year in the US markets, and again the question becomes, you know what's going to happen in twenty twenty five, and we'll talk about that a little bit.

You know, to have back to back twenty plus years in the S and B five hundred, you know, can that be repeated for a third year, And you know, we'll talk a little bit about that in a moment. So again, encourage listeners to call in with questions. You can reach Sam and I at eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight hundred eight to five five ninety four nine.

You know, one of the things I touched on in twenty twenty four was, you know, the FED had their final FOMC meeting in mid to late It was December seventeenth, eighteenth, and as expected, they they cut rates. They cut raised by twenty five basis points, and that I was expected, so no surprise there. But certainly, you know, they came out with caution for what we're going to see in twenty twenty five and really signaled that we may see

only two rate cuts. And I'll say, one thing we've learned with this FED is they're going to be very data driven. They're going to be looking at the data. And I will say, you know, they have a dual mandate, right, so it's not only about getting price stability through inflation, but it's also maximum sustainable employment. And it seems like the employment, you know, the unemployment rate and making sure that there's no surprises there is really getting a lot

of focus from the FED. Eral Now, I think inflation, the inflation numbers continue to show that inflation is getting under control. You know, we still have some stubborn inflation with housing, but we're so we're not quite down to the target, but we're we're getting closer and closer. So I think Fed's getting more comfortable that inflation is control.

But they're gonna be cautious, you know, certainly as we head into twenty twenty five, certainly with some of the talks about aggressive tariffs, some of the concerns about you know, what's happening in the ward in Ukraine, possible Mid East, Middle East, you know that that could have certainly impact on inflation. So the Fed's gonna be cautious and they're

gonna be very data driven. So you know, the markets reacted a little negatively because you know, FED really signaled that they're gonna expect that fewer rate cuts in twenty twenty five, so I think we're going to prepare for an environment of higher rates for longer, and you know, the market did not react well that. We saw a little bit of the market reaction at the end of

December that certainly drove part of that. But as we you know, we'll again we'll get released the minutes from that meeting this week, so we'll get a little bit more insight into what the FED is thinking about. But I think they've shown their cards. They're very they're gonna be data driven. They're gonna to really be cautious and wait to see, you know, what the jobs data what the inflation data shows before we see any really signal of any more aggressive rate cuts. So I think they

showed their cards. And so as we we wrap out the year there, I think we have a good sense of where the FED is going to be as we headed to twenty twenty five, which is they're going to be cautious and they're going to be really reducing rates at a pace which is slower than what we expected as we finished out twenty twenty four. So again I encourage listeners to reach out with questions. You can reach Sam and I at eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight

hundred eight to five five nine four nine. Well, we're gonna be heading into a break shortly, but I know Sam is going to be talking about some personal finance tips. So Sam, I know I've been doing a lot of talking in monopolizing here for a little while. I'm going to turn it over to you to start off that segment.

So I thought now would be the perfect time to talk about some personal finance tips to kick your year off right and maybe inspire you to take some steps to better position your financial future for the long term, because it is, you know, a process of small steps that can really have large payoffs over the long run. So that's really what we want to do today, talk about some financial habits that you can do and some small changes that you can make to really put yourself

in a better position. And I might have a little bit of time here, so I'll jump into the first one. So the first one is really just to focus on creating a budget. And you probably think to yourself, well, I have a budget, right, and most people you know have probably thought about hypothetically what they're spending their money on. But it's the perfect time to tackle, you know, taking some time to look at what you spent your money

on in twenty twenty four. What are your general spending habits, what was good and what you should maybe change in the new year, because it really will have a huge impact on you know, just keeping all of it under control and be realistic. Make sure that you have realistic goals for what you could actually stick to and maybe some plans for savings for paying off some things that you need to. But it's really important to nail down

those items just with yourself as an individual. Maybe it's your spouse, your family to have an understanding of you know, what's going to be your sending goals for the year twenty twenty five. So John, I will pass it back to you. It looks like we're coming up on the break here. Anything that you'd like to add before we come to that midway.

call in with questions. Sam and I are here to answer your questions. You can reach us at eight HUNDREDWGUI. That's eight hundred and eighty two five five nine, four nine. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet Financial Group, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. So thank you again for listening. Hope you stay with us through

the break and we'll be right back. Well, good morning, and thank you for staying with us through that short commercial break. I appreciate you tuning in to Let's Talk Money at eight ten WGY this morning. You have John Malay and Samantha Macy as your co host. We appreciate you tuning in. Before Sam resumes her discussion about financial planning topics, we have a caller, Kayleie from Malta. We appreciate you listening this morning and what can we do for you?

want to spend that money. So one of the things we advise our clients and our clients children and quite frankly my children I talk to as a father is start investing that money in your retirement right away. Whether you have a four to oh one K or four or three B through work or through a roth IRA or IRA, start to put some money aside. Because if you can do that before you get used to spending it,

you're going to better are off. And so I always say, there's it's never too early to start retire, you know, saving for retirement. But conversely, it's never too late, right because there's many have not been able to start when they were younger for a number of reasons, and nobody should feel bad about that. So ideally it's great to start saving as soon as you start working. But really I would just say now is the right time for anyone.

So if you've been working for a number of years and you're you haven't really started to invest heavily, now's the new year. Start on a on a new foot and start to put money away. You know. Again, if you if your employer has a plan where they match, that's a great opportunity to start putting money into retirement. So definitely encourage. Really, there's no you can never start investing for retirement too early.

you don't get a tax deduction. But there but there's benefits of putting money in a wroth IRA because when you take money out, you don't pay tax on it. But there's but there's limits to there's limits to how much you can put in. But this is something you can you don't have to work with an advisor on you can you can actually, you know, using Charles Schwab or Fidelity open up and open up an account online and contribute. Cool.

of your paycheck. So appreciate that call. You know, I know Sam was just getting into going through some personal finances. You know, it's that time of year, to start of the year where it can start off, you know, really setting new plans not only for our financial life, but our health and other areas. So Sam, I appreciate you taking us through this segment.

get out of control. So trying to really focus on paying those down first. If you have debt of any kind is a top priority. No, I'm talking about debt, right, but there there aren't good types of debt as well. So if you are someone that's porched a home, of course you probably have a mortgage, especially your first home, and that's a good type of debt in general, I mean, especially if you are someone that was fortunate enough to have a mortgage with a very low interest rate from

that period of time. If you have a two three four percent interest rate, you really don't want to be paying that down quicker than by putting as your money towards every month on your payment. You would be putting those dollars to better use if you paid down other debt or invested it instead, because you could be earning more by investing those dollars. And again priority number one should be paying off high interest rate debt. So that is a really important tip for your personal finances for

this year. Another one would be having an emergency fund to have three to six months worth of expenses set aside, and you know, this really is your rainy day fund.

You need to make sure that if something did come up, whether it's you know, your dishwasher breaks down or you know, God forbid you need to have your roof replaced, you know there it can vary in the amount that you need in an emergency, but having something set aside would really help in those situations, just to make sure that you're not having to put any money, you know, on a credit card or taking out more debt to cover

that and putting yourself in a bad position. So starting to build up that emergency fund is something that would be a really good goal for you if that's something that you don't already have established. Jumping into you know, another part of financial planning and personal finance would be evaluating your saving schools. You know, what are you saving

tours in the short, mid and long term. And you know, there are various saving vehicles that you could be using, depending on the type of goal, the timeline, and how aggressive you want to be with your investments. Some great vehicles out there would be brokerage accounts, five twenty nine plans, roughs by R Rays, and of course employer retirement plans. I personally have a five to twenty nine plan for

my daughter. She is one, So we are starting to put money aside every month into a five twenty nine plan for her to say, for her college expenses, because the expenses of you know, college have just been astronomical. As things go on, it's going to continue to grease over time, so we're planning a little bit ahead with that. You know, doing that also offers a lot of flexibility. These plans are great. They have a lot of different ways that expenses would qualify as education expenses for the

future for her. And also if for some reason she doesn't use the money, even whether she gets the scholarship or she doesn't choose to attend college, and there's money left over, you know, there are ways to actually use those dollars. Still part of it could be moved to a roth Ira in her name. That is one of the newer ways that you could use those dollars. But you also could use it for legacy planning you've changed the beneficiary to different family member or maybe her future

kids as a legacy planning tool. So a great type of plan to have in place. But if you are currently working and you're thinking about retirement planning and savings, which is what Kaylee called in about, it is a great time to evaluate how you're maximizing this. It's always a good idea to contribute enough to get your employer match.

At the very least. For a lot of people this might be around three percent, So always at minimum contribute enough to get that match, otherwise you're leaving free money on the table. But a general rule of thumb is to try to save ten to fifteen percent of your salary to really put yourself on track to retire at a normal retirement age. And you know that's really going to put yourself in the best situation. So a really good goal to strive for. How you're invested also matters.

If you are young or mid career, you should be pretty aggressively invested, and by this I mean most flee in the stock market, you know, and as you approach retirement, you can become more conservative. Maybe that's more of an eighty twenty or sixty forty blend, depending on your risk tolerance. But that's you know, that's a discussion and that's something

that you navigate as you approach retirement. But early on it's very important to take advantage of the stock market in the returns it would give you over the long term. For four to one k's four h three bs and four fifty seven bees for twenty twenty five. The annual contribution limit has increased by five hundred dollars this year, so if you're someone that maxes us out, just make sure to make that slight adjustment. The ketchup for those

over fifty is still seven thousand, five hundred. However, starting this year, the Secure Act two point zero created what we're calling a sweet spot, which is a super catchup for individuals who are aged sixty to sixty three to contribute an additional election even thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. So if you are someone that is in this age range, still working and looking to contribute as much as possible

into your employer plan. This is a huge benefit for you in something that you can start taking advantage of this year now. As this is a brand new thing this year, we don't quite know all the rules that are going to go along with this, but something that we will definitely update you as we learn more about this this year. And lastly, for people like Kayley who don't have an employer plan through work, a traditional IRA or roth IRA is a great option for you if

you are looking to open a fun one. You can actually still make contributions for twenty twenty four until April fifteenth of this year, and the contribution limits for twenty twenty five are the same as last year, so the limit is seven thousand dollars for an individual and an additional one thousand dollars if you are age fifty or older.

So my last personal finance tip for you would be consider putting some cash to work if you are someone that has an emergency fund established already, but then in addition to that, has money in your checking or savings that you know you're not touching. If you leave it there, you're actually losing money to inflation. Now many people have gotten comfortable with the idea of high old savings accounts, and this has been a great tool for a lot of people as it's a very secure investment and it's

offered some great rates for some time now. But as the FED lowers interest rates over time, it might make more and more sense to invest in the stock market, because we know that the yield you're going to get from these types of accounts is going to decline now as we see the FED lower those rates. In general, these types of accounts are really great for your emergency funds, but maybe not the best place for your dollars to generate long term wealth, you know, as you're planning ahead

for the long term. So, John, now that we've talked about some personal finance tips for the year, can you share a little bit about our market outlook for twenty twenty five?

about that? And you know, when you look at the data, it's only the four time in the past one hundred years that the index has log twenty plus returns back to back, and it's mixed, you know, some positive, some negative. So no real help there. And I thought what I'd do is look back at some of the in twenty twenty three, some of the top analysts in what they were saying about twenty twenty four. So you had, you know, Mike Wilson from Morgan Stanley, who very prominent analysts projected

the SMP would hit forty five hundred. Tom Lee, who's you know, recognized her optimistic views, thought we might have the s and P five hundred hit fifty two hundred. You had a lot of other firms, you know, JP Morgan forty two hundred, Morgan Stanley forty five hundred. I could go on and on, and here we did. In twenty twenty four. We had the SMP hit six thousand at one point and close up the year just a

little below that at fifty eight eighty one. So the reality is nobody knows what the market's gonna do next year, right? I mean, we can make all these guesses, but the reality is a year is such a small period of time in the overall investment horizon, Like who would have predicted the pandemic coming on and the impact that it would have. So when we look at the outlook, it's so difficult to say, hey, here's exactly what's going to happen.

It's impossible, and you will. I'm sure you've been reading and you will continue to read projections of the S and P ranging from dramatically low to dramatically high numbers. So before I continue, we have our caller Alan from Glenville. Allen, we appreciate your tuning in this morning and what can we do for it? Well?

in the next year. And certainly we do believe the long term treasuries can provide and even the two year can provide a great place to park some of your fixed income. Know, we have several factors going on right now, right you know, we from a monetary policy, and certainly you know, the national debt is continued to bloom. The interest payments on that national debt are continuing to absorb

more and more of our of the annual budget. I mean, we spend more on interest in national debt than we do in defense right now, and and projected just to go higher. And so certainly, and let's face it, we haven't seen either party really willing to tackle this issue in a big way. So I think that is an over our arching concern, that's that's there. But you know, it has not really impacted how the economy is going

and how the FED is reacting right now. So certainly, you know, the ten year we don't see it going across five. Doesn't mean it can't, but you know where we see things going. But I will say from using as part of your fixed income, we believe that treasures are great place to park, you know, as you look at your diversified portfolio, looks at your fixed income sleeve, we believe, you know, treasuries are a great place to

get some really some risk free reward. And so I still believe it's a you know, a great place to be diversifying, you know, stocks. We still are very bullish on US equities. But again, you know, we don't really have time today that you know, one of the sayings we were going to talk about is really about your you know, allocating your portfolio and your fixed income part. You know, we believe bonds there should be a significant

part of that. Treasuries certainly provides some great opportunities as well as alternatives. So al we appreciate that question. And as you mentioned, we don't have a crystal ball, and nobody has a crystal ball. I was going through a little bit of a segment there, you know, talking about some of you know, the top analysts, what they were in late twenty twenty three, what we're looking for twenty

twenty four, and nobody saw what happened. And so as we look out it next year, what we do know in a year, there's a lot of randomness that can happen, right, you know, we do know, you know, certainly with the war in Ukraine, there's certainly possibility if that escalated or

turned in a bad way, that could impact things. Also tensions in the Middle East, and those things are hard, you know, really hard to plan for, right and but we are planners by nature, and so I think more than anything, as we look at the markets again, we still the fundamentals are very strong. The economy is strong, you know, we're seeing inflation come into control, We're seeing the wage numbers. Although unemployment is uptacked a little bit,

it's still in very good territory. So economic fact, you know, numbers all look strong. Yeah, we might be in an environment where rates are higher for longer, but overall the economic state just set well and corporate earnings have been there. You know that the expectations are for the SP five hundred about a fifteen percent increase in corporate earnings this year. So if we see that, certainly that will help the

US equity market continue another strong year. Now, I will say, you know, as we talked about, you know, twenty twenty four was certainly a year about concentration. We had a lot of concentration uh in high high tech growth, you know the MAG seven, and you know twenty twenty five we're hoping to see a broadening of that performance and

we really need to you know that. You know, just when you when you look at the MAG seven and look at earnings, it's hard to come up with a scenario where they can repeat that kind of earnings growth and continue to drive you know, markets through earnings growth. And when you look at also, you know, pricing, you know, the pricing is you know, we look at Ford pe ratios.

They're high, you know, on the S and P five hundred, they're above twenty two percent, you know, on the tech, high growth tech, they're above thirty percent, so they have gotten pricey. So it's it's hard to see that we're gonna have valuation increase just by pe expansion, right, It's going to have to be by by earnings. And so certainly the stage is set for small and mid cap stocks to start to contribute more and see the growth

in those areas. So I will say, is, if I'm having conversations with clients, you know, we're not seeing any major changes to our portfolios for next year. Our core holdings are still We're still solid. You know, we are looking at sectors that we think will perform well under you know, the current economic and regulatory environment. You know, we certainly see financial services as an area where they have done well last half of the year, and we

see they're going to continue to do well. But in terms of you know, major overhauls, we're just big believers. You know, that high tech is still going to be there. We are, you know, hoping to see a broadening of

that recovery, so small and MidCap as well. And then I think it's about being in the markets, right is you know, we do know in any year we're going to see an average draw down right from from the top of the market to the bottom of fourteen percent, and so we shouldn't be surprised if we see that

uh in twenty twenty five. And again, I think where investors tend to get hurt is when they overreact, right and all of a sudden, you know, they they read too much, they see too many of the headlines, and they start to get concerned and then you know, start making major changes to their portfolio, which we certainly do not believe. Twenty twenty five is a year to do that. We believe stay invested, you look at your risk tolerance,

and it just as necessary. But certainly we don't see any major systemic issues in the US equity market at all. We're still very polish. Well, we are coming close to the end of the show, and we want to thank you for tuning in with sam Andi. We hope you enjoyed the show. I know that we certainly did. I hope you enjoy the rest of this weekend. Hope you have an amazing week ahead. Also, be sure to tune

in tomorrow to another great show at eight am. Check out our website Bouchet dot com for great content and information on a variety of investment topics. You have been listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet Financier Group, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed the show.