Mr. Money Talk

This is Josh Arnold Miss Money Talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA in four one k. But you do have to give us a call at nine five two at nine two five five six oh eight. That's nine five two nine two five five six oh eight. You always get straight talk, not sugarcoated advice. Before we begin, have to give an

additional disclaimer. Of course, all investments do fluctuate in value, can lose money as well as gain to gain money. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Markets are always changing. The opinions that we share are hours Judd's and mine and hours alone for discussion purposes only. Please consult the financial advisor before making any financial decisions. Nothing on this show is investment advice.

Let's hop in there. We go a big, big, big week on Wall Street and even even in a dinah, but we'll focus more on the stuff that goes on on Wall Street rather than what's going on in a dinah. We had the the FED meeting in the middle of the middle of the week, and of course the market reacted similarly to how it has reacted in the past. Market hads moved up on the fed's announcement and then seals off

during FED Chairman J Powell's conference call. We had big earnings announcement from some of the largest players in technology, Microsoft, Google, Meta Slash also known as as Facebook. We had McDonald's. We had Coca Cola. We had occurring Doctor Pepper. We had a bank merger that was very very interesting and took took some more risk off the off the table. We had Japan coming

in with an interest rate movement announcement. We had information coming from China that still issues with their economic growth, so more stimulus in China is being provided. And then we have next week, at least for me, a big earnings week with several of my leisure related companies in Caesar's Palace, MGM, and Draft Kings reporting as well as my big two Apple and Amazon reporting on on Thursday. Just a lot of information, But to me, some of

the will say takeaways from this week. One the FED is going to did raise interest rates in other twenty five basis points. They continued saying that they're going to be flexible and data dependent. However, it's still how do you show an eye roll on the radio? How do I roll my eyes on the radio? I want to know that. I think it's just I think it's just my voice in flex Jay Jay Powell, that is absolute best to try try so hard. He's really attempting to convince people that he may raise

rates again. Well, he might raise race, he might. There's spite despite the fact that on Friday, Friday, we had the PC which is one of the curse, the Personal Consumption Index, which is considered the Fed's primary tool in evaluating UM inflation, and that was only up point two percent year over year over year, and even less month over months, and that would indicate point two times Twell, well, there's two point four percent inflation.

Um, Okay, there's still worried. The FED is still worried about too many people working and being paid too much money. And they're still worried. We have a strong we have a strong economing up. We have a strong economy. Oh, don't don't tell anybody. We had as better than expected. We had an upward revision to GDP. But all these all these judge, all these strategists are still saying that they are right on recession, and they might be, but they keep pushing out when the recessions, when

the recession is going to start. Given you know, they're looking at what the FED is doing. The money money, money is tight, The Fed is tightening money, raising interest rates at a significant clip. We've trying to bring down inflation, and the yield curve is still uh, significantly inverted.

When I had my throw stuff at the screen moment a couple of months ago, and it was on a Tuesday, we got some economic data that said FED would have to raise rates more and oil went down, and I just said, this is ridiculous, and we were talking about it, and we just said that this narrative has gone on too long. That's it. And we've been talking on this show for months now that the bookcase for stocks is that rates are five percent in two years, because what that has to mean

is that the economy is good. Yes, that's what has to mean. And what we are seeing from this earning cycle from the economic data is exactly that. Which is the curve actually the curve being the bond curve, which is there's one month, two month, three months, six months. Now I think there's a nine month T bill twelve months, two year, three year, five year, ten year, anyway that you lay it all out

out to thirty years and you make a curve. Okay, when we say it's inverted, it means rates at the front of the curve, meaning the one month, two months, all the way after two years are higher than the ten year rate. Now, normally the curve should be upward sloping because the longer you lend money out out to somebody you want to hire interest rate

because you're taking more risk because more bad things can happen over time. Inverted your curves typically meeting for sessions and we've been to fating and the strategists, as you mentioned, have been debating how is the curve going to resolve itself? And it is what it is flattening and what I would consider and you would consider it to be actually a very fullish way, which is the back end of the curve rates are rising. That's that would be a positive net.

The Barish scenario is the FED we go into de procession and the FED has to cut short term rates and the long rates are correct and it is actually turning out to the opposite. So we had a good GDP print. We had just a flurry of great earnings. Again, these tech guys, and let's just call out Mark Zuckerberg and Meta because he was the poster boy on the way down, just spending like a drunken sailor. Why do we stay drunken? I don't even know what a drunken sailor is. But anyway,

you you you never you never met your great grandfather. I did not, But anyway, really just lightened on fire from a low on Meta. You know, the new Facebook I think had bottomed about ninety bucks over three hundred. It's going to take out. It's pandemic high. It's going to take it out either this year or next year. I mean they are cutting costs, raising round. I mean, everything is working for that stock. So that's tech land, then an old economy land. One of the big

bearcases. And we'll get this was the other thing that's just been fueling it, which is the left tail. Left tail risks are bad things, right tail risks are good things. One of the left tail risks in the market has been how does this banking crisis post Silicon Valley Bank resolve itself. So

that's a big, big, big deal. And we had one of the resolutions this week, which is pac West, one of the troubled banks banks training at fifty cents from the dollar a book value, A lot of terrible loans on that balance sheet did got bought by a much more pack West is about a forty five billion dollar asset bank got bought by Bank of California only

eleven billion in size. Plus they got a four hundred million dollar co invests that has the ability to be upsized by another three hundred millions, so potentially seven hundred million from two huge reputable investment firms, Warburg Pincis and center Bridge, effectively blessing the transaction. The old stock heel traded up, and now you have the seeds of private equity coming in and all these troubled banks getting

fixed, and that is a big deal. The KIRI, which is the bank Regional Bank index, has rallied sharply, has to rally sharply because that was in wors than bear market condition. Well it's worse, but from a price to book basis, they never really got cheap on average. There were a few that traded to fifty cents from the dollar book value, but the average regional banquet set in their pointy point nine times book. Now, thanks

are still a terrible place. You've got raising cost of regulatory capital and indeed the ft JED just come out later this week raising regulatory capital requirements, which is going to push more money into the shadow banks. But all in all, there's a reason we're off nineteen and a half percent year to day in the SMP five hundred. Welcome back. We'll come back and explain more of

that when we return. When we return. This is Josh Arnold, mister money talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA in four oh one K. Give us a call nine to five two nine two five five six oh eight. You'll always get straight talk, not sugar coded advice.

This is Josh Arnold, mister money Talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stock, spawns, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA in four oh one K. Don't hesitate to give us a call nine to five two nine two five five six oh eight. That's nine five two nine two five five six oh eight. Do you always get straight talk, not sugarcoaded advice. Do remember, nothing that we discussed

on the show is actual investment advice. In this for discussion purposes only. Please consult the financial advisor before making any financial decisions. Investments contain risk,

including risk of loss. Let's go, Let's go. We finished the last segment talking about some of the regional banks and how with the bank merger of Bank of California buying pack West, that some of the issues relating to regional banks seem to have been taken out of the awsome table and that has given the market some point, took off left tail risk, which is downside risk in the market. Very important things in this transaction. Number one, no

government support. That's very very interesting, very helpful. All the past deals this year of involved government aid. This had no government aid. That's number one. Number two, you had two smart investment serves come in, make an initial four hundred million dollars investment and get the right through wards to put in another three hundred million, which they're probably going to do. Number Three,

I think this is three yea all stock transaction. So if you're pack if you're a pack West shareholder, and why the board decided to do this, you're looking at raising capital in a dilutive way, potentially going under, or you can take fair value effectively because they didn't get much of a freeman and they actually got a little bit of a discount on the stock exchange ratio. Okay, but that's better. But your your shareholders get to participate in

the new security, so over time they're going to end up better. So it was a win win win, and they hope, they hope they're going to do well well. Bank of California traded up in pack West actually traded up, you know, because it's a fixed exchange ratio, they would have traded up as well. It traded up as well, so you really look

at it was just a win win win across the board. And now private equity, and it's not just private equity, this is just all financing, you can say corporate America or really the world in general, which is now that you've got the blueprint of a transaction and the market received it, well,

you're gonna get copycats. Well. That had been talked about or has been talked about numerous times in the past that on there are too many banks, and two there are too many banks, bank consolidation should be on the table. Yeah, we are in Minnesota and I will make a little aside. The United States, I think it had ten thousand banks. You're something crazy. Europe has far, far, far fewer. So when people talk

about consolidation and banking, they need to remember something. The reason why the United States has so many banks is most of them are agriculture slash farm banks Okay and City Group, JP, Morgan and whatnot are not the right institutions to bank farmers. Why you want the person banking a farmer to know the

attributes of the farmers land. That's always helpful that you want to bank, and that is that any type of on any type of loan, to at least understand your business and to end or the business cycle that you're dealing with. Yeah, so we're always going to have structurally in the United States just a lot more banks than the Europeans. But yes, consolidation, we maybe we have a few too many, but anyway, that's a that's a flight

aside. Back to the market up nineteen and a half percent year to date, the market being the SMP five hundred as opposed to the dal Jones because of dal Jones Index is only up about six percent the year to day. Well, the equal weighted SMP five hundred, Please explain, equal weights hundred is market cap weighted, so the biggest companies are a bigger share of the index. The top ten companies are more than thirty percent of the index,

so the other four nine year less than seventy percent. The equal weighted means they're all weighted exactly the same. You take one hundred divides, you know, five hundred into one hundreds or what is that point point two which one's got a point two weight? Of course they move, you know, so I don't know how often they rebalance that. But the equal weights only at nine and a half percent, ten points behind the S and P five hundred. Now, what a lot has gone on this year is tech has rallied

because it's done better. After two years, it's done a heck of a lot better. They cut costs and revenue is kind of held in there, and the rest of the market has really led. Banks, which are twenty percent of all stocks outstanding, have done terrible because of Silicon Valley Bank and all the other bank failures. That is starting to reverse, but generally most stocks had this recession question where investors were unwilling to bid them up fearful of

a recession. And what we started to reverse over the last couple of months is investors are once again buying into those quote unquote cyclical and economically exposed stocks now in order to do that, because money money is always at a premium, it would seem that the tech tech stocks or many of the technology stocks have stopped going up as money and maybe coming out of them and going into some of the other other names. I'm gonna get fancy right now. Oh

good. The study that we did around COVID, so we're trying to figure out what to buy first. We look back twenty five years at what rallies first. Tech always rallies first. The reason it rallies first is it as the best balance sheets and as the most growth and the most growth that's uncorrelated. So this is just a normal rally. And for the people debating whether this is a bear market rally or a new ball market, it feels a lot like this is a new ball market. And now we saw the lows

last October. Now it doesn't mean we can't go lower from here. Probably ken the average year we've got three to four or five percent selloffs. But the bear case, as we just talked about the bank, we lost the left tail risk with the banks, which is good. Earnings have come in better than expected for this quarter. GDP has been upwardly revised. We have

a soft inflation print, so the Fed is winning. We have the bond market doing a bullish flattener, which is a fancy way of saying, race in the back end are rising in response to better economic activity, flattening an inverted ye old curve, and you're just you're seeing just a strong economy. The Fed. I don't know if we're going to soft land it, but the Fed has seemingly beaten inflation without six million people losing their job. Well, that to me would be a huge thing. But the Fed keeps it,

still keeps banging banging out. We've got to well, he has to hire, he has to job un employment, he has to he has to job. The now Austin, wait, what has been the fuel for this? Keep in mind the death ceiling deal allows for four to five I think it's four trillion of new death spending over the next two years, two trillion a year. The government if that's significantly. Yes, we'll call it.

That's a lot of fiscal stimulus man into the market, and the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, which had absolutely nothing to do with inflation reduction, by the way, it was a map of suspending bill. It is a big part of that. So it's just we're waiting, bears are waiting and waiting for something to break this market. You look at credit, it looks

fine and all the anecdotal stuff that the faults aren't rising. They're sort of in line OMF, which is one main financial A subprime lender showed him proven credit mathematrics lending Club. Another subprime lender, near prime lender said, the problem isn't default. The problem is we've got wider credit spreads in some air pockets of credit just because there's so much supply, because banks are shedding assets.

And that's being reversed obviously. So now let me ask you as you ask you this and then we can continue on in the next next segment about this. There is a concern in i'll say in the market marketplace about consumer spending, and a lot of the consumer spending has been going to travel, we'll say travel and leisure and not to buying buying things, and the traveling

leisure stocks have done pretty well. But at the same time, there is a concern that student loan student loan moratorium is going to be ended in September, and that means that those students or former students are gonna have to start paying back their student loans. And many of those people during the moratorium took on other debt, whether it be car debt or mortgage debt or I don't

have been out on their door cards. How would that impact There's a question that student loan thing's a big question because that you're going to hit four hundreds basically four hundred dollars a month for a lot of people who can't afford four hundred dollars a month is what the theory is the offset to that. You have a really strong labor market and you have upward movements and raith sorry wages

O suy in wages. So I just I don't think that's gonna be the straw that thanks for the camel's back, because the camera is so vertical at this point. Okay, don't get a job now. Will this impact leisure spending potentially on the margin, But I just don't think this is going to be the thing that matters. We'll see macro is really hard, macro meaning a big picture question like that. So it's something we're monitoring. I don't know. It doesn't seem scary enough to me yet, but what is scary

as We had to take a break and we will be back. This is Josh Arnold missed or money Talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stock spawns, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA and four oh one K do give us a call nine to five two nine two five five six oh eight. You always get straight talk, not

sure your coded advice. This is Josh Arnold missed money talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stock spawns, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA in four oh one K. Don't hesitate to give us a call nine five two at nine two five five six oh eight. That's nine five two nine two five five six oh eight. Always gets straight talk, not sugar coded advice. To remember that this program is

for informational purposes only. UH. Nothing should be considered investment advice. Please consult up the nacial advisor before making any decisions. All investments contained risk, including risk of loss. Let's go. Let's go still on a big, big picture, big picture question, uh, in terms of consumer behavior and spending. Uh, you know, going going forward? If if in fact there are a lot of i'll say individuals with the student loans, and you're

saying four hour every month is four hundred bucks a month. I saw a report from TransUnion that said it was only three hundred dollars a month. But either either way, that could be a significant amount of money for people who've taken on additional debt. How do you think that might resolve itself going forward? Or maybe it won't, or maybe it won't have any impact whatsoever. Men and nations act rationally once they have exhausted, exhausted all other options.

There there you go. That's that is a famous quote on international diplomacy. Four hundred dollars a month is not insurmountable in this job market, if you will will upward movements and wages. We have very tight employment, meaning there are way more yet there's way more need for labor than labor is supplied. Okay, you are gonna have to go back to work four hundred bucks a month. Hustle. I don't mean to be rude. I don't mean I must have had set had a tough set of parents, you know when you

were younger that said you had a hustle here and earned some money. I had parents that taught me the invaluable rules of life. Number one, a's mean you can do anything. Number two, money equals freedom. Number three. To get money and to be free, you must have discipline. There you go, okay, well you're very very discipline, and I know you

do take a discipline approach to Looking at at companies. Now, two of the areas that you have invested in have had a difficult time this year, one being an energy and two, we'll say in some of the small small companies, well that had formerly been special purpose acquisition companies. Well, let's talk about, like, so energy lagged a bunch this year at the start, I mean, I think at the WID, the XL that's the energy sector ETF. You can also look at the XLP, which is producers,

or the OIH, which is services companies. But we'll just talk about the XL, which is the SMP five hundred energy ETF that was down I think about eleven percent year to date at the lows now after two huge years, by the way, and I'll give you a break, sat So Ximvel's done nothing this year, absolutely nothing. Well, they weren't real good in terms of their earning earnings report that came out on Friday, right, If you have held Xonmobile for three years, your keger, your annualized growth rate is

forty four percent a year. So there's a little bit of a catch up going on, which is names after consolidate and whatnot. Where we are positioned in energy, which is offshore drillers and the boats that supply them, that is heating up in a big way. And we're talking about transition, which is take her R I G. Tidewater which is our biggest holding, and offshore which is the boats to service the rigs that to take your tv W N E which is Noble Corpuses the other one I would advise people to look

at. But we have a shift from onshore production to offshore. Off Shore has been in a bear market for eight nine years. All the big three offshore guys report next week starting Tuesday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, three in a row, Transocean Valaris than than Noble, all of the services guys have said off shore spending is going to go vertiical five hundred billion dollars of new projects, which is just that's a hu huge amount of money. Huge.

We have a massive catch up, that's where the money's going. So that's exciting. You know, tidewater which we got into last year at twenty north to sixty right now, so we're we're feeling good about energy. I'd say on the producers side, that's a much harder trade because US producers, which have worked really well, shale is kind of pieced. Okay, give me an example of a producers or sever eog Okay, guys who drill and shale. Okay, Occidental Petroleum Buffet's got a bunch of it. You can

look at that stock chart. It's done nothing for a year and a half since Ukraine and they all these facts. They had a big move from Ukraine. But shale growth is really slowing as we pivot to offshore. Most of the US producers are shale focused. And when you don't have growth, being an energy company, a tech company, in any company, without growth,

you don't have the stock that works correct. Now we do have the oil price consolidating and that has bounced from I think it dipped under seventy bucks. It's now about eighty bucks as well. Eighty is kind of the goldilocks zone where consumers can pay at the pump and the producers make a ton of money, which is great. Oil demand is increasing and that feels kind of nice. Terms of the spacks, look, my biggest position we've talked about it

has been Pagaia ticker PGY, which is a lending enablement company. It's the best way I can describe it. It software AI that helps people make loans to consumers, auto and whatnot. This stocks all the spacks they come at ten bucks. This thing fell to fifty cents and a lot of spacks by the way of fallen and we've we've sort of picked up the wreckage. Open Door was another one that people we weren't involved with, just to give people reference. One from twenty five to one. Huge moves. Now open Door

has gone from one to four and a half. Pagaya has gone from fifty cents to two fifty. So a lot of these that have been left forget. If you will have rallied a lot. A lot of these stocks seem to me to be very very speculative, A lot of them are A lot

of them aren't going to be around in a couple of years. And you know what we try to do is find the ones where you have good balance sheets, well funded, not a lot of leverage, business models that make sense that they I'm not gonna say baby out with the bathwater, but you get the idea. It's a huge dislocation. And some of these things were mispriced. And this is a little bit Buffet esque from the early Buffet days where he's trying to buy cigar butt companies that are just a little cheap.

So we shall see, but that stuff has really started to rally. A lot of the COVID IPO class as well, has started a rally after bottoming. We had two big ones have been Teldoc, which Teledoc I think hit three hundred during COVID fell all the way to twelve and now back mid twenties, up Start, another lending company hit almost four hundred, fell to eleven and it's now back to sixty five. Huge moves in these things. So with a lot of these unseasoned acquis they are not suitable for most people.

Please be careful, but we have we have certainly done well with Pagaya up over one hundred percent in i'll call it five weeks in that thing, which is you know, always nice to have a big winner like that. A lot of these names that are going to start reporting next week, in the week after so next week or I say, this coming week is the last week of quote unquote real companies reporting, and then once you get to the second week of August, like August August ten, now you're getting an the

plankton that I don't mean the plankton. I mean you still have all the retailers still have to report. Those are plankton. Nobody invests in retail. Retail yet serious retail is big. There are a lot of people who participate in retail and one retail to do do very very well. I just don't think retail is what people what it used to be. It's non indicative of anything so much. Guys are omni channel. What we've always hated about retail

stocks is they have no volatility most days of the years. Then four days of the year when they report earnings, they can go up or down. Twenty five percent. The hedge fund guys always seem to have the number that you don't. And what's craziest. After working at a few hedge funds, I talked to a few of the big consumer portfolio managers and they would tell me crazy stuff like this is an earning season that even if I had the number, if you told me the number, I'd only be right sixty percent

of the time on what the stocks going to do. So when you know that's the pros, they invest millions of dollars to figure out, you know, in a legal way. Some obviously crossed the line, but facts that move that much on earnings every earnings are very hard to own. Wrong term, So I think they're trading vehicles and they're not for everybody. If you miss the early part of the show. Let's do the quick recap before we take a break. The FED is near the end. They've defeated inflation largely.

We're now rooting as a firm for higher rates. Why are we rooting for higher rates because it means that the economy is doing good and the market has shifted from higher rates being bad to higher rates being good. Corporate earnings have come in better than expected. We've got a lot of companies blow the lights out, and we recently had a bank merger with pacweston Bank of California, which is a harbinger of the final resolution of the Silicon Valley banking crisis.

With all of that markets up nineteen and a half percent, that's the SMP five hundred. We are still bullish and we will be back. This is Josh Arnold missed or money Talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA in four oh one K, give me a call and give us a call nine five two nine two five five six oh eight. That's nine five two and nine two five five six oh eight. You'll always get

straight talk, not your coded advice. This is Josh Arnold, Mister money talk with Judd Arnold here to answer your questions on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, how you should position your investment dollars including your IRA and four oh one K. Don't hesitate to give us a call at nine five two nine two five five six o eight. That's nine five two nine two five five six oh eight. You always get straight talk, not sur coded advice.

Please please remember usual caveats apply past performances no guarantee of future results. Markets are always changing, All investments can fluctuate in value. This show is for informational purposes only. All opinions are Judds and mine alone. Any investments discussed may not be suitable for you. Please consult an advisor before you make an investment. But again, should you need any help, don't hesitate to call

us nine two, nine to five, five, six oh eight. Again, this has been a very very big, big week week on Wall Street that the S and P continued it's move up interest rates. I'll say the interest rate curve is starting to stabilize as the long end of the curve is coming up to meet the short end of the curve. The Federal Reserve did raise short term interest rates in other twenty five bases points and said they could raise them raise short term rates again, but they are going to continue to

be data dependent and be flexible. My sense has more FED governors come out and talk over the coming weeks and months until the next FED meeting, which will be the end of September. FED speakers will continue to emphasize the higher

for longer. There's still more work to do in dealing with inflation. That said, it seems to me that market participants are moving away from looking just at the FED to looking at while I say, more on a micro level, and looking at what companies are doing and how companies have been responding to this the current market market and the current economy. The economy seems to be

a lot better than most strategists, most people in government had anticipated. The economy seems to be fairly resilient, and that has been shown pretty much in individual companies earnings reports that have been been coming out, and more companies have

been beating estimates. Whether those estimates have been reduced coost or not is you know, has been another another story, because estimates for companies earnings and companies sales have been coming down since last year, and many strategists who make predictions about the direction of the market up or down had seen earnings estimates coming down the economy slowing, and they had been predicting that the SMP five hundred would

be quote more in the three thousand range rather than close to a recent high in the forty five hundred forty five hundred range. There have been a few more bullish analysts who have will say, speculated that the S and P five hundred is going to finish the year closer to forty eight hundred than we'll say the bearish analysts who are looking for the S ANDP to finish the year at thirty thirty seven hundred or thirty eight hundred. So there's a pretty still a

pretty big bet. More strategists than not that I have listened to or read are still saying to underweight stocks and overweight bonds and or fixed income. And when they talk about overweight or underweight, they're typically talking about an acid allocation model of keeping sixty percent of your portfolio in stocks and forty end of your

portfolio in bonds. Last year, that sixty forty portfolio was under under underwhelming as it finished in you know, double digit uh double digit negative negative territory. And if I were to just be just take a look at long term bonds measured by the Long Term Bonds Index UH market symbol TLT, that was down a third as much as and it was down as much as the nadsdeck in index. So as bonds, which are seen by most strategists most advisors

as providing an an offset against the volatility of stocks. Last year, with interest rates rise very quickly, that offset wasn't there. And many of these strategists are still recommending overweight bonds because there are the belief that if you do have a recession or an economic slowdown, the FED is going to drop interest rates and drop interest rates quickly, and that would push up bond prices and

push down yields. Well. While I have been wrong before in my assessment of interest rates, is I'm on record believing the interest rates we're going to go up a lot sooner than they did at this point. I would look and take the Fed's word that interest rates on the short term because that's what the FED can set are going to stay higher longer than anticipated. So, okay, if you want a four and a half percent or five percent short term yield on your investments, that is safe. Okay, parking money in

short term government bonds may make sense. Me, I'll say me. We typically keep up to and our asset allocation model typically keep up to thirty percent of our funds in cash, both for safety and for opportunity. And I say up to, so sometimes you know, the cash portfolio was a lot lower and the stock portfolio because we are more growth stock investors, Judd focusing more on small and mid sized companies, me focusing more on larger capitalization growth

companies. Have found over time that that has gotten the best the best results over time. So we're going to stick with that. The big thing that I can leave you with this week as stocks. Uh, stocks still doing well. Uh, And I believe and that's broadly speaking, but even specifically, any company that has has mentioned artificial intelligence has seen their stock get a

lift. And it does not matter whether it's been a Google or a Meta or even Microsoft, though Microsoft stock dropped significantly this week after their their earnings. Earnings from wort On you more fears on computer sales, personal computer sales slowing down, and Microsoft did make a comment on Friday that artificial intelligence could be slowed if they're having issues getting getting specialized chips. But McDonald's talked about

artificial intelligence. Huh, there's a food company talking about artificial the use of artificial intelligence. I saw a transportation company doing doing the same. So just pay attention to how artificial intelligence going to be used. But a beneficiary for artificial intelligence is still right now. Chip companies and the two leaders in that, Nvidia and Advanced micro devices, are going to be at a forefront.

Both of these stops are trading at very high levels price to earnings and price to sales, but that is where the market right now seems to be pointing next week. As I said, I'm going to be waiting for Apple and and Amazon's earnings next Thursday. Going to be interesting. In the meantime, we're here to help call us nine five two nine two five five six o eight. Josh Arnold Investment Consultant is a registered investment advisor located in a state

of Minnesota. All securities discussed are for informational purposes only. Investing contains risks, including risk of loss. Consult your investment professional before making any decisions about your investment portfolio.