Let's Talk Money

Take me to me close chat understand Desius funds the fire. Love's a banquet on which we feed Good morning everybody on this well wintry Sunday morning, thirty days till spring. It's February eighteenth. I can't thank you enough for getting up early and tuning in. It's a really it's a beautiful thing to know that you're on the other side of this. Mic Zach Harris, my longtime producer, and I are here. We're ready, willing and able to take

any questions you have, whatever questions pertaining to your financial future. Give us a call. I would love to give you my honest opinion, and you know you may like it. You may not like it. Your financial advisor may not like it as well, but that's okay. At least you'll have another another point of view, and that's important. The more information you have,

the better decisions you can make. So if you have any questions, any questions at all, one eight hundred Talk WGY one eight hundred eighty two, five, five, nine, four, nine, any questions whatsoever. We had a great show yesterday, five callers, five great questions. It was really it was. It was good. So get us started kick us off. And I can almost assure you there's somebody else that's tuning in listening that will be thankful that you asked the question that you asked, because it

may have been on their mind. One eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. So you know, this week, take me to the moon, right, fly me away. Lift came out with their earnings, and we don't own a whole lot of individual stocks. We have two Amazon and Apple. Those are the only two individual stocks that we owned. But I

found this really interesting. Lift. This ceo took responsibility a major error that when they released their fourth quarters earnings released they put an extra zero in it. I think went up fifty percent within you know, a couple hours, and you know, sixty percent after the report came out late on Tuesday, and holy cow, I mean this this stock was taking off and it was just you know, the CEO admitted it was just listen, his word's not mine. Look, it was a bad error, and that's on me.

He took credit for it, He took ownership of it, which he should. You know, you can't let those mistakes happen. But but if you invested because you thought that Lyft. Holy Kyle, they figured out something that Uber didn't. If you invested in that, you really you know, maybe just maybe you excuse me, I'm excuse me, maybe you lost some money because Lift took off, and then obviously it came it came back down to reality. You know, for the week, it still ended up pretty good.

But let's look here, todate Lift is up oh, about twenty seven percent. Uber is up about thirty two percent. Looks like these two companies are really flying high, and obviously investors must must like them. But I found it real that that news story was something that a lot of investors i'm guessing just didn't want to have play out. Was an error, and that's why the style took off. Now, if you sold when the stock took off, good for you. If if you said, hey, I'm going

to I'm going to cash out, good for you. You you you you did well. But if you did it so and you bought, then well maybe you're not as happy as those other investors. One eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. So the big news this week was the CPI Consumer Price Index. That's one measurement of inflation, and it listened, folks. Two years ago this June, we were at nine point one percent, and you know January's report, which came out on Tuesday, three point one

percent. So we went from nine point one all the way down to three point one. The problem is the expectations were two point nine percent. So it was a disappointment because it was a little higher than what the street was looking for, and stocks really had a b let's just call it a bad hair day on Tuesday. Stocks fell sharply all three major indexes. It was their worst performance on any CPI release day since September of twenty twenty two.

The yield on a ten year Treasury note rose to four point three to one percent, and it was just one of those days. So CPI came in. Now the good news, and you have to put it in perspective. The good news is inflation is coming down, so we're near the three percent range. A lot of what goes into this report is sheltered, basically more or less. Rent rents are still high. And I had this conversation yesterday with a friend of mine. I said, you know, I think this

is the new norm. I think that we have to get used to listen COVID hit us what four years ago, inflation almost two years ago. Restaurants, food companies especially, they had to raise their prices because of inflation. The costs of everything went out. Guess what, I don't think they're looking to lower their prices as aggressively as they raised them. I think they got

used to those higher prices. I know in the supermarket you'll notice smaller packaging, same price maybe, but smaller packaging, so you're getting less paying the same And it's just I think it's the new norm we're in restaurants. I don't think the prices are going to come down. And I said this yesterday, and this gentleman's pretty astudent finance. He says, I've never looked at it this way. I said, four years ago, we were worried about

the FED mandating that minim wage had to be a decent wage. Each state is different, but mandating it. So small businesses that were used to paying seven, eight, nine dollars, you know, wait staff, bar staff, and restaurants three four or five dollars, Well, they got used to that. Then COVID came and there were no more workers. They disappeared. Where'd they go? So they had to raise the compensation packages. They had

to be more flexible. So all of a sudden, when you're starting out, I don't care if it's Target, Walmart, Amazon, the corner pizza place, I don't care where it is. Now you're almost If you're getting anything less than twelve fourteen dollars an hour, you're you're really you know, McDonald's is paying more than that. So these companies are paying twelve fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty dollars and more an hour just to attract new hires,

new employees. Guess what, because inflation And they had to do that because the workers were nowhere to be found, and they came down. Guess what Now that inflation came down from nine point one to three point one, those wages aren't coming down either. So I said to this gentleman, it's a new norm, and the FED has to, I think, admit that maybe, maybe, just maybe, prices aren't coming back down to where they were pre COVID. I just don't see that happening. And as I said,

we'll see everything in hindsight's crystal clear. So check back with me six nine months from now, and we'll see how it played out, But I really think that a lot of these high prices are going to stay high. But I also think a lot of these jobs that are paying really now decent wages, which I'm happy for the workers. I think every worker deserves to be able to bring home a really good paycheck in order to provide for their family, put food on the table, pay for shelter, and so forth.

So I'm all in favor of that. And believe me, a lot of business owners will not like what I'm going to say. That's all right. Sometimes I don't know how to bite my tongue. Listen, if a company makes less in profit, I don't care if it's the corner pizza place or Walmart. If they make less in profit, these they're taking care of their people. They're people are the ones that are really responsible for the success of their businesses. I'm okay with that. I'm really okay with that.

And yes, some businesses going out of business. They were hanging on by a shoe string, and that's going to happen. But at least the American workers getting paid a decent wage, and if the FED gets their target in inflation rate down to two percent, I don't see these companies going to their workers and saying, hey, listen, we gave you a nice raise. We need it, yet we couldn't find workers. But now that inflation is better, we're going to reduce your compensation package. It's not happening. I

think it's the new North. We'll see one eight hundred talk w g Y one eight hundred, eight two five, five, nine four nine. Let's go to the phone line, Zach and let's let me talk to Marie. Who's on hold. Hello, Murray, Murrie, Marie, Uh, good morning. I was talking on the apologies. It's very early. Oh you it is, well, thank you for getting up early and tuning in. How are you this morning? Great? I'm calling to ask about five nine

plans. I actually thought was a good avenue to take to have money growth tax free, and also I get I put ten thousand in a year, I get the max of ten thousand off of my nearest income taxes deduction. I believe if you're married five thousand dollars per taxpayer. If you're married ten thousand dollars, you're correct, Hey, and am married, So that's great to know. Last year I did ten thousand to the five twenty nine plan.

For the twenty twenty three tax year. But my question is I actually called into a different show yesterday and I was advised that it wasn't a good thing a five twenty nine plan necessarily when it comes to scholarships, that it could be used against you. So I was going to put another ten thousand in like as soon as possible this year to let it grow, you know, more time to grow. But now I'm like nervous. So could you talk to me about five twenty nine plans and trust and whether you think they're

a good idea? So appreciate it. I think whatever show you called into, what they're referring to is if if you're child the student when they go to college, that they qualify for different financial packages. Any money that's in their name in a five twenty nine, any investment accounts, if you have a UTMA account or whatever that could be applied towards you know that that could

hurt them. So the information that you got is right now. I always say you can't let the tail wag the dog, ever when it comes to taxes, So what are the pros and cons of a five point twenty nine You pointed some Outmry one you get a five thousand if you're a New York State resident. Each state is different, so and I love the New York Plan. It's folks, if you've got a pen and paper. The website is ny saves New York abbreviated obviously nysaves dot org RG. It's a great

plan. It's an easy plan to set up. You do it yourself right online. The investments are Vanguard Investments, which we use a lot of Vanguard and our portfolios, even though our clients accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Vanguard is just a great investment tool that we use, and we use a

lot of Vanguard. Yep. And if I can interject your one hundred percent right, because it took me like literally fifteen minutes at the most to set it up and set up the banking information and then within like the next day it was already set up, yep. And it was so it was quick and efficient. So now if you're in financial you know you got some challenges financially as a family. Sometimes you can get some financial aid in different packages.

So if that happens and your child has money in their name, it could be it could go against them and I'm a big believer, and you should start when your children are like a freshman in high school, sitting down with a college coach, have them help you guide you through the process. Where should you apply? What are the chances of getting money? But Marie, what I meant by the tail not wagging the dog. You get a

little tax break if you do use that five twenty nine through. You know, for college, the growth of the money you put in is tax free as long as it's used for qualified college expenses. That's that's a beautiful thing. Let's make believe your child gets a full ride academic or sports scholarship. They get a full ride. And let's make believe you have one hundred thousand dollars that you've been saving for eighteen years in this five to twenty nine plan.

You can use that money for another child. You can use that money for yourself if you want to go to college and get that same tax advantage. Let's make believe you're not going to use the money at all for any college. Well, you can still use that money for other things in your life. The only difference is you'll pay tax on the gain. So it's really a good program. But you did get good advice that show was referring to. I believe that if your child qualifies for financial aid, the money,

any money in their name, could hurt them. Marie, great question. Any other questions the college coach you mentioned, is that something you pay for or is that something like to the high school like account No, no, no, you pay Yeah, you pay for and it's well worth it, worth it. There's there, there's a lot out there and it's you know, well well worth it that you should start at the high school because

they may have somebody that they work with. But having somebody coach you and guide you through the process of applying, where to apply, what should you expect and soon you get started, the better you're off you're going to be. Thank you very much. That's great advice. I just wrote that down and then for the five point nine plan, I'm still going to do ten thousand this year. I think, yeah, but I guess what someone if

someone said, look into a trust. So my question, my like follow up question is if I do have you know, put ten thousand dollars a year. My kids are small, so you know, when they're eighteen, I'm expecting them to have you know, seventy five to one hundred thousand each in their accounts. If that five twenty nine is part of a trust, then is that not when I apply for aid for them, does that money

not be counted as there money in a trust. That's a technical legal question and I don't have the exact answer on that, but all I can say is, Marie, if you're going to take it that far, listen, at the end of the day, somebody's going to pay tax, and you just have don't let the tail wag the dog when it comes to taxes. What you're saying is pay the tax, do the right thing. It's like

long term care insurance. I hate it when people start giving their money away so they don't have to maybe spend money on a long term care policy, or they don't want to pay their fair share, and they do things that

can come back and maybe hurt them. You got to just listen. You can put a lot of tools in place to get around the fact, but when it comes to your children's education, if you have the wherewithal to put this kind of money away, more than likely your children aren't going to qualify for financial aid because guess what, it sounds as though you and your husband are going to be in a pretty good financial situation, so correct, you know, don't don't don't lose sight of you know, doing the right thing

along the way. You never know what's going to happen. But that's financial aid is if you're down and out and you're you just can't you know, you can't afford to put money away. You don't have that luxury. You're putting money away for your children's education. Well that's where financial aid comes in. And each each college is different. Get a college coach, Marie. Thank you, stay well, enjoy this Sunday one eight hundred eighty two five

four nine. Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Dave in the car. Hello, Dave, boy and Steve, thank you as usual for your service. Greatly appreciate it. Oh, thank you for those comments. See if you kind of touched on it on with that woman. I have a question. I'm fifty eight at sixty, I win to retire, I have a pension, I'm fortunately prepared. Do you believe in long term

healthcare insurance? Absolutely? There's a sweet spot, Dave. And for instance, if you don't have a lot of money saved up, you're wasting your money to buy long term care insurance because the state's going to, you know, let you get a bed in some kind of a facility. If you, on the other end of the spectrum, have a whole lot of money and you can afford to pay one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year for long term care, it may even be more than that. I don't have

the recent figures. Well, then you don't need long term care insurance because you've got gazillions of dollars and you can afford to pay for it on your own. But then there's that sweet spot, that sweet spot where if you go into a long term care facility or you're able to stay home, but the costs are the same, they have care come in. If you're in that sweet spot and you've saved money your entire life, and all of a sudden, you one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a

year. You know, if you've got a million dollars saved up outside of your pension plans, you know, five years from now you could be broke paying for a long term care facility. So if you can afford the premium of a long term care policy. And I'm a big believer you don't need to get the Cadillac of policies, although there's some really great ones. I

work with Advisor insurance brokers and Brian Johnson and you know Bob Bandy. They help all of our clients and there's some pretty cool long term care options now. But New York State used to have a partnership and basically it pays for three years of nursing home costs, so it gets you in the door and after three years, the state will pay for it. So it protects your assets. They won't deplete your assets. And that's the sweet spot I'm talking

about. If you worked hard, you built up some savings, you've got some money you want to lead to your children, grandchildren, your favorite church, synagogue, whatever it might be. That's the sweet spot. And that's where long term care insurance it's well worth the premium in case you go in. And more people need this kind of coverage through their life, especially as they mature in life than they realize. So long term care it's like having

fire insurance. What are the chances that you're going to have a fire at home? You know, probably slight, but you would never not have fire insurance on your home just in case. So what you want to do is you want to cover the big expenses. You want you know, if you can afford the first few months to get into a nursing home and then have that policy cover the big expenses, have it covered that one hundred and eighty

found dollars a year. There's different policies. If you get a good insurance broker agent, then that insurance agent will be able to guide you through what's what's best for you. But if you're in that sweet spot, yes, long term care insurance makes sense. So in summary, if you don't have any assets, you don't need it. The state's going to pay for you.

If you have a gazillion dollars saved up, you don't need it because you can afford to pay it. But if you have money you want to lead behind to children, family somehow or charity, then having that long term care makes sense. And a lot of pension plans are are protected and the income so if you're taking a required minimum distribution, that income will go against it. Hopefully that helps you. Dave, thank you for the question. Stay well, Be healthy one eight hundred eight two five five nine, four

nine, one, eight hundred two five fifty nine forty nine. If you have any questions, folks, give me a call. I'll try to give you my honest opinion, give you something different to think about, get you pointed in the right direction. It's you know, listen, you get one chance to retire. I want to make sure when you retire, you're able to retire, and you had that lifestyle that you always dreamt of. You work decades, decades, and if you reach that retirement age, let's say

it's sixty five, you always wanted to retire at sixty five. Although it's funny Dave said he retired at sixty. Yesterday we had a call or that retired at sixty. So a lot of people want to retire earlier, sooner, And why not? You work all those decades and you know, you never know when your life changes. I can tell you story after story after story where somebody works, they work a long time, they retire and then

within months they get sick and they leave us. Folks, you're 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. I can't thank you enough for tuning in. We're gonna take a quick break for the news. If you have any any questions whatsoever. The phone lines are opened. One eight hundred eight two, five, five nine four nine. One

eight hundred eight two, five five nine four nine. Me baby is to me pose chaund stand side classic song sach Folks. I do have some really capable colleagues, but you're stuck with me today. I'm Steve Bouchet and I'm your host for Let's Talk Money. And I got tongue tied. I swear I haven't had a bloody Mary yet. Believe me, I just couldn't get that phone number out. The phone lines are open. One eight hundred eighty two, five, five, nine, four nine are the real phone numbers.

And I do have a great team I'm surrounded by. If you go to our website Bouche dot com, we just put up our state of the Economy that we share with all the listening audience. Go to Bouchet dot com VIAZ and boy O U C H E Y dot com. Go to the bottom. You'll see you can look at it. We we do a white paper every week we got one there now, leaving a legacy versus gifting during

your lifetime, written by Nicole Goebel. She's one of my CPAs and our certified divorce Financial Analyst, and she's really, really, uh, just a great, great asset. She's so smart. We also have one written by Scott Strohecker, investing one on one understanding the different types of accounts. Stock is one of our enrobed irs tax agents, and right smack in the middle

is our State of the Economy twenty twenty four State of the Economy. And if you want to learn anything about our firm, anything whatsoever, it'll be worth for you to sit down for an hour and look at this presentation that we did for our clients. This presentation is amazing. I think it's the best that we did. My team worked hard for a long time on it.

You'll get a chance to meet all of our colleagues, all of the professionals that I'm surrounded by, and believe me, I have nineteen professionals soon to be twenty. We're adding another professional on and they're all solid, just solid individuals. They have the same values that I have. I'm able to coach and mentor them kind of teach them how we want our clients taken care of the state of the economy. It's good information, really good information,

good stuff. Take the time bouchet dot com and in there. You know my longest you know, Angela says, he's been with me longer than anybody. She's going into her twenty sixth year and for her twenty fifth anniversary. Listen, my wife's the only one that's been with me longer than Angela, and putting up with me for that long is a pretty good thing. So, you know, I wanted to do something special for Angela's She's always wanted to go back to Greece. She hasn't been since she was a young lady.

And I'm sending she and her husband first class to Greece, and I'm so excited. They're going in May. And it's just my way of thanking Angela for all those years because she really heads up our service team, and my clients know they're in good hands with the team that we have, but especially Angela and her team, the service team. So Angela is twenty five

years in going to Greece. Her husband actually just retired. For those of you that golf, he he was the superintendent at Schonnectedy Municipal Golf Course, and they just really gave him a really nice tribute last week, and they they basically named the day after him. Mike Saysney he's been the superintendent there and he stepped down on December thirty first. He's been there a long time. And the conditions as connected IMMUNI are pretty good. So both Angel and

Mike are great people. Anyway, if you great questions, give me a call. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine any questions, any questions whatsoever. So CPI three point one percent, a whole lower than nine point one almost two years ago, not quite as low as the two percent goal which I shared with you. I think we're in a new norm. I think the Fed has to just accept the fact that a lot of prices aren't coming down.

You know, if you look the Labor Department's measure of overall consumer prices up almost twenty percent this January from four years earlier. So think about that, the beginning of COVID prices on average up twenty percent. Now, if you go back four years ago, the four years before that nine percent, so ten percent more that's inflation. Inflation is still there things like you know, sugar up ten percent year over year, not four years ago. Year over

year, it's actually come down from the peak. Coffees still up eight percent. So here we have CPI and annual number of three point one, but you got sugar up ten percent. And believe me, folks, we consume more sugar than we realize, and we shouldn't. If you're having a soda, just just google how much sugar is in a can of soda. You're going to be floored. So we got sugar up ten percent, coffee up

eight percent, gold another commodity, up six percent. You know, silver is down three percent, oil is down five percent, Copper is down seven percent. Heating oil is down eight percent. So these are good news. Natural gas down fifteen percent, weat down twenty one percent, although food prices are still high. Corn down thirty four percent. That's inflation. So if you think about, you know, everything that that that's been going on,

the overall inflation number is three point one over the last year. But some things are up, some things are down. I really don't think when you go out to dinner or shop in a grocery store. I don't think those prices are gonna come down much more than where they're at. Now. You're stuck. You know. I'm going to celebrate a big anniversary with my wife, and every once in a while she tells me I'm stuck, and in a humorous way, but but I really think we're stuck with these high prices.

One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Marie on hold. Hello, Marie, can you talk to me about target retirement funds? Your opinion on them, especially as the DAN cards. Yeah, absolutely, I I don't like them, first and foremost,

retire target date retirement funds. Each investment company has a target date retirement fund, and basically what they do is they put together a schmortgage board of stocks, bonds, other type things, and the close to the target date means the more conservative that fund will probably be. There's really no benchmark to measure against it, so you have to do your your homework. You know, if I look at at the Vanguard Target twenty fifty fund, now that means

you're going to retire, you know, twenty six years from now. That's a long time. Well, this fund has you know, ten percent bonds and ninety percent stock. But out of the ninety percent stock, thirty five percent is international stocks. And you know that sounds good, but you have to be committed to investing overseas. Now, we don't invest overseas. We one hundred percent of our money for clients is invested right here in this great country of ours, the good old USA. We are we earns. Our

returns have been stellar. We can get everything we want out of out of the United States. The investments that we we we invest for our clients. We don't need those international investments. I gave this statistic yesterday that if you look at the SMP over the last fifteen years, the SMP was up year in year out, about fifteen percent a year, year in year out. If you look at the international everything but the USA seven percent, so half

the foreign countries half. Now, there's times here and there when international countries do well, and on paper, I can, I can, I can. I could be like that that eskimos or that salesperson selling ice to an eskimo, I can show you why you should be invested overseas, evaluations and everything, but it's real. Just we don't we feel we can. I'm more comfortable investing right here in the United States. So we're exclusive of all

foreign countries. We don't have any international investments in our portfolios whatsoever. Ryan my son, who really heads up the investment team, now I'm kind of you know, he helps me, but he's really making a lot of the decisions. He just sent a nice He sends newts letters out to our clients every Friday, maybe every other Friday at least, and just sent another nice one out the summary of the week and so forth. And our returns are

pretty good. So with the target day funds, every target day fund you buy is going to have international investments, so you have to want to be invested overseas. And as you get closer to that target, each investment company can change that mix of let's say stocks to buy as they wish. And I would just prefer a lifestyle fund. If you buy a growth lifestyle fund, let's make believe it's eighty twenty, it will be eighty twenty till you

sell out of it. It will always be eighty twenty. I like that better than a target date fund, where the changes are being made within it. And a lot of people own target date funds, especially in pension plans for O one case and so forth, because they're easy. It takes the thinking out of the equation for investors, especially investors who may not be sophisticated.

But I would still prefer a lifestyle fund. A lifestyle fund if you can accept risk and you want to be in a let's say growth and income portfolio. You buy a sixty forty lifestyle fund, you're sixty forty t you get out of it. The other problem I had with target date funds, people think, well, jeez, I'm going to retire in the year twenty

fifty, so that's perfect for me. The problem is, through all of those years, while they're working and they're young, and they're in their fifties and early sixties, maybe as they approach that twenty fifty that target that they plan on retiring, they're still young. If you retire at sixty five, we're looking at a good twenty to twenty five years you're going to be with us. That's long term. So here you have because retirement plants are the

meat and potatoes of one's financial assets. Usually their houses is one of their bigger assets, but their pension plans hopefully make the house look dwarf. They really need to have a lot of money saved up in their pension plan. So if you have that pension plan with mostly bonds and you're retiring at age sixty or sixty two or sixty five, you still got twenty five thirty years

And here you are. Most of your assets are conservative. Listen. Most of our retirees are in our growth and income strategy sixty forty, and we have a lot of retirees that are eighty twenty growth. And they always say to me, Steve, well two things, how are you invested? Because they know I'm one hundred percent of my money's invested, just like Thursdays, I said, Listen, I'm good with risk. I don't expect anybody to take my lead, and I'm not a good dancer. But when it comes

to investing, I'm one hundred percent invested in the stock market. I'm very comfortable with it. When the market goes down, I don't look, why would I want to and get you know, have all those emotions come in that I'm down five, ten percent, fifteen percent, twenty percent. Why would I want to do that to myself? So I know that stocks go up, but I guarantee anybody who will listen to me, stocks go down, stocks always come back to go on and make new all time highs,

just like they're doing this year. In the short six weeks that were into twenty twenty four, stocks have recovered from twenty twenty two and they are going back to make new all time highs. So Marie, that's that's my take on target date funds. I would rather see investors choose a lifestyle when they retire at sixty or sixty five. If they want to change a growth lifestyle to a growth and income take a little less risk. They can do that.

But the target date funds, you have no control. One eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions whatsoever, folks, give me a call. There was a good story in Barons this weekend, one of the great publications. I always say, if you you know, if you don't have time all week long to buy the financial news, just buy two papers. On on Saturday morning, I go to Stuart's. I get all my pa at Stuart's.

I get my Barons on my Wall Street Journal. Stuart's is a great place to take family, great partners, great community. They give back so much. Do you know that most of the employees at Stuart's are partners of Stuart's. It's really a great concept that Gary Dake has, dad and the family have done. So I pick up The Barons and I pick up the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal is pretty good, and that's you know, you can read it.

There's some good stories there, and it's not all just finance. There's other stories in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. Once a month they have a nice magazine in there. But anyway, there was an article this weekend in The Barons and basically it says, and it's funny because I just talked about it, right, we only invest in the United States. Well, I'm going to give you a different slant. This is going to maybe

have you think maybe you shouldn't invest internationally. We don't have any intentions of doing it. So I have clients listening. You're not going to wake up tomorrow, Ryan or tomorrow. The stock markets are closed President's Day on Tuesday. Ryan is not putting us in international investments. I can assure you that one eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Give me a question, a call if you

have questions. In the meantime, I'll give you a couple of statistics. So the S and P over the last year. You know, we're up just just about thirty percent. And you know that compares to the European stock six hundred eight percent gain, the Canadian composite six percent gain, United Kingdom FITSI one hundred down one percent, China's Shanghai composite lost ten percent. You get the picture. This great country of ours dwarf to all those countries that

I just told you about. The only one who topped us was Tokyo's nie K. Get ready for the statistic. Tokyo's n K two twenty five topp the SMP over the last year, Bank of Japan held its target interest rate below zero, and the yen lost ground against the US dollar. The index is still two percent. Are you ready for this? Still below two percent, below it's high of thirty four years ago when I went in business January first of nineteen ninety that's the last time that the Japan the Tokyo stock market

hit a high. It still hasn't reached that high. This is why I love this great country of ours. So they've had some problems obviously, you know, the Bank of Japan's keeping interest rates low, still two percent below the high of thirty four years ago. The outperformance in our country has a lot of experts arguing that the end of the American exceptionalism is near. That's

their word, not mine. The SMP, after all, we right now trade about twenty one times expected earnings in twenty twenty four versus twenty times for the knee K thirteen for Europe, eleven for UK. So you know, we're if you measure valuations by pe ratios, we're a little bit more expensive. The SMP is. You know, thirty seven percent of the SMP is full of technology, and I'm okay with that. You hear me say it often, and I make sure my office knows this, My investment team knows

this. We will be overweight technology probably forever. So if you look at the S and P five one hundred index and you look at technology. You know, technology is really it makes up a big part of the SMP. You know, if you add up technology, services and electronic technology, you're at about thirty seven percent. Just as this is saying, the SMP has thirty seven percent of their holdings in technology. Nieck K has twenty eight percent

in tech. The top sector in the europe Being Stocks six hundred is financials believe it or not, nineteen percent. So financials in the SMP is twelve percent. So think about that. The top sector in the European index is financials at nineteen percent, healthcare at fourteen percent, industrials at thirteen percent. So for US it's thirty seven percent technology finances number two at twelve percent. Healthcare is less than ten percent, Industrials is even less than than that.

The Fitzy one hundred is similar, so the UK index seventeen percent waiting in financial six percent in tech. So you get the picture. Listen, technology we use it more and more and more. Technology is really will be using technology in our life more and more of it. Every single day. I use the word Google. I'm gonna google something, right, That's that's a common phrase, except you're going to see more. People say, oh, I got to look at my artificial intelligence act and get my answer. That's

the future Google. You know, as we know it may may really diminish as we know it. Artificial intelligence is here to stay and it's big. So artificial intelligence is here. And those companies that make up artificial intelligence, especially in the video, Microsoft and so many others, if you have a well diversified portfolio, they're considered the Magnificent seven. Although Tesla, they say, is getting dropped from the Magnificent sevent because it's been such a dog.

So maybe we'll have the Magnificent six. But if you look at our portfolios, you know our top ten holdings Apple, Microsoft, Broadcom, Amazon, n Video, PEPSI Meta, which is Facebook, Amgen, Costco, Eli, Lilly. So we are pretty well diversified obviously. Because so I always have clients say, why don't you buy individual stocks eve I like all those

companies. I said, we don't need to buy individual stocks. You have them in your portfolio because we buy exchange trade of funds predominantly for our clients. As I said, we have two individual stocks, Apple and Amazon, but for the most part, we invest our client's assets in ETFs. Those ETFs own all these companies. So our portfolio right now is about five percent Apple, five percent Microsoft, and two percent and less for all the other

holdings. We have a very big overweight in technology, and we you know, we're comfortable with that. Most of our portfolio. The megacaps represent thirty five percent, large cap represents thirty four percent, mid cap twenty three, small cap six microcap which are the itsy bitsy tiny little companies two percent, So we have good representation there and we really pay attention to our portfolios. I can't begin to tell you how much we pay attention to our portfolios.

So you don't need to own these individual stocks in order to have representation. If you have a well diversified portfolio spread out of different ETFs and you build your portfolio, if you're doing it on your own, or if you're working with with with an advisor and they have invested in mutual funds, just ask for a sit down with the advisor the have the advisor break it out for

you. You know, I know at our portfolio trader and our firm, he does all kinds of reports for our clients and we can give them top holding sector exposure. We can give them just about any any information they want, so have your advisor do that for you. If they have your mutual funds, ask them to compare the mutual funds they have invested in to the benchmark for the most part. If you want to look at stocks, use the S and P five hundred, not the Dow. You don't hear me

talk about the Dow watch bees. I like the S and P five hundred, so have them use the S and P. But get some information. And if they have your annuities, really have them explain the fees to you. Folks for coming up to the end of the show. I can't thank you enough for tuning in today. Go to our website Bouchet dot com b as in boy O U C h E Y dot com. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet Financier Group, where we really,

you know, help our clients prioritize their health. Folks, have a good day. Bye bye.