Welcome to Something More with Chris Boyd. Chris Boyd is a certified financial planner, practitioner, and senior vice president and financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group, one of the nation's largest registered investment advisors. We call it Something More because we'd like to talk not only about those important dollar and cents issues, but also the quality of life issues that make the money matters matter.
Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator, your partner in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and across the country. Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd. Welcome to another episode of Something More with Chris Boyd. And Jeff Perry is joining me. We are both of the AMR team of Wealth Enhancement Group and glad to have you here. Jeff, it felt like the old days today. I was coming. Oh boy, what's that? I've been collecting newspapers over the last week or so. Where'd you get them?
Well, just the Wall Street Journal, you know, I've been collecting and Barron's and stuff. And so, you know, they come in and often I read things online, but, you know, so I, but they still, I think, I forget what it was, but there was one of these things where they was like, oh, it's cheaper to get the paper than it is to just get it. Which is kind of annoying, but in any case. I think that has something to do with the advertisers. Yeah, that must be it.
So I got my stack of papers, like the radio days. And you've talked about that before. So that's why I brought that for you. But I thought we'd talk a little bit about news items this week. As we just over the last week, there's been all this accumulation of things that I thought, let's talk about a variety of these and get some perspective out of that. But before we do, after talking about, you know, oh, the radio days.
I was at home on Saturday and my mom calls and says, hey, can I stop by you around? Sure. She comes by with this beautiful, huge orchid from Verde and Mashpee Commons. And a little card that says, congratulations on your 18th anniversary of the show. So I was like, anniversary of thinking, you know, at first, but it was the radio show, now podcast that she was, I'll spare you the rest. She's gushing about how proud she is of me. Anyone who knows you and your mom knows how proud she is.
So I can envision what the rest of the card said. It's very nice. And I was not even thinking about it because you were on last weekend with Russ and I enjoyed those podcasts, but while I was out of town. So every year, I mean, being on the radio and podcasts and having that commitment to do it every week and have meaningful content. And it's something to stop and say, wow, another year. We're still doing it. Yeah, we're still doing it. So we've got 20 in our sites, right? Definitely.
You can see it ahead. Yeah. So anyway, so fun to celebrate an anniversary. We've done shows like the 10 and 5 and 15. There's been some like significance of, oh, what did we do in retrospective and so forth. But it's fun to step back and think. It's important to do it. It's an accomplishment. And, you know, you'll never know. It's like so many things in life, but you'll never know the people that you impacted and how they impacted.
Certainly, some of them became clients because, you know, that people say, you know, I heard you on the radio. I listened to your podcast, whatever it is. And so there's a direct correlation of that, you know, people benefit from it.
But there's also a lot of people who gain motivation to do something that they should, you know, whether that's to fix something like attack their debt or whether it's to start investing or whether it's to hire an advisor, you know, all take positive steps in their life and you'll never know. And it's not insignificant. I can 18 years, thousands of shows and hours, all these different guests we've had and charitable organizations along the way that hopefully that's been some of the impact.
Whenever I'm complimenting you, you shift the topic. You have that habit. I'll just start by saying, thank you. How's that? You do that every time. I think it's not just me. I think it's just your humility. When I was growing up, my mom instilled in me that it was important not to be braggadocious or to be, you know, full of yourself. So I think it's part of that upbringing. I could be a wise guy and say, did your mom teach you not to interrupt people? She did. Sorry. She disappointed me.
I'm not going to go back to it, but congratulations for the 18 years, Mr. Boyd. It is an accomplishment. Thanks. Thank you. And no, you know, the reason I started the program, yes, we wanted to get visibility for our work and recognition if people wanted to connect with us. But it was truly the motivation was to try to have impact and to influence our listeners for the better. We've tried to have a show that is constructive and respectful.
And, you know, at different times we've covered, you know, politics and we've talked about things totally off topic of finance, but always tried to have that kind of tone where it was about something positive, something constructive. Substantive. Yeah. Substantive. And ultimately we've, you know, really over the last five years or so, really zoomed in on trying to focus more on financial content exclusively, maybe even less than that.
But, you know, we're really focused on the financial content these days. But again, the motivation is that we want people to come away with this show and having had an experience that lifts them up, helps them in some form, helps in their financial planning and their journey, but their life journey, more importantly, not strictly their finances. And not just what's in their wallet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's about more than the stuff. Right. So in any case, thank you for your comment.
In any case, we hope people will continue to listen and share the show and benefit from it. So today we're going to talk a little bit about what's been happening in the news. And to start that off, I thought I had occasion to go to a talk, the CFA society of Boston on May 1st invited Janet Yellen as their guest for their big meeting, their 39th annual market dinner. And I had the benefit of being invited by the capital group, the capital funds sorry, capital group, American funds to attend.
And so thanks to them for the invitation. And maybe we can just talk a little bit about that, Jeff, for a minute. I shared with you some of my notes. And what I would say is interesting is first off, Janet Yellen is really kind of interesting individual in so far as first female to be a Fed secretary, Fed chair, first female treasury secretary. Right. Sort of a trendsetter in certain regards. At the same time, no shock as to her political leanings.
She has been appointed by Democrat administrations in these posts. So when her comments about what's going on to start off with referred to the idea that broad based tariffs, she used a couple of words like blowtorch and wrecking ball at times in the mix, which she wasn't really being flamethrowing, but these were comments that she happened to mention, which I'm pretty sure she knew they were going to get. Which I made note of because they were.
And she was clearly saying she was not a fan of broad based tariffs, this drastic change in policy, that there was a risk that these would drive costs higher, increase uncertainty, delay business investment because of the uncertainty, perhaps contribute to a decline in consumer spending or capital spending because of this, let's see what really transpires kind of mindset, raise the probability of a recession and the likelihood of inflation being an issue that we need to contend with.
Though maybe not prolonged, maybe that issue of it could be a one shot deal, right? It could be. TBD, right? Her comments aren't really unique. We're hearing them from a lot of credible sources, a lot of political sources, right? It's exactly right. Nothing that she said struck me as, I guess, unexpected in a sense. She's threading the needle a bit. Meaning during when President Biden was president and he opposed tariffs on China, she was talking about the benefits.
Now, there's a distinction, but I'm just... To your point, she did make that point as well, that targeted tariffs are maybe a different thing than broad based tariffs, right? That targeted tariffs, this issue with China is this question that I think everyone has frustrations relating to intellectual property theft when it comes to the lack of openness of markets. You did see in Trump 1.0, increasing tariffs on China with respect to this. In the Biden administration, they retained those tariffs.
They didn't try to change that. And enhance them in some ways. Her comments at that time, of course, I went back and read them because I remembered and just wanted to see how her position had changed. And it is different. I'm not being critical. I'm just saying she's making these comments in the context of previously supporting tariffs for many of the same underlying reasons that President Trump... I think the difference is scale, right? Absolutely. There is a difference.
Scale, broad based, but she did support... We'll just talk about China for a second. Tariffs in China to protect US manufacturing, to protect certain sectors of our business economy. Yeah. Actually, she did talk about certain sectors where there could be some really intentional targeting that would make sense.
I don't remember exactly all of them that she mentioned, but there were a few specifics when it came to AI and clean energy and certain things like that that were things that we might want to try to have the opportunity to cultivate as a industry and so forth before... But I do think the difference is this expectation of a long-term solution or a temporary fix, right? Some of these kinds of things, the perspective on it. But in any event, yeah, I follow your point.
I don't think it was... I didn't take it as hypocritical because she did, in the content of the talk, she did offer caveats to the point that you're making, I think. I didn't suggest it was. I'm just pointing out that she's not anti -tariff. She is anti this policy, this broad-based policy. The whole notion of reshaping trade, rearranging the world order when it comes to trade. I guess my pushback for her would be Trump 1.0 didn't work to achieve these goals.
Biden's administration was not successful to achieve these goals. I know we're just focusing on China and Trump's doing a lot more than that, and I don't support all the things he's doing. But perhaps... I'm trying not to be a defender of what he's doing, but I'm trying to say maybe there is a reason for this president or for whoever the president is to try something different because what we've done before has not worked.
Well, I'll just continue with some of the content of what else was discussed in the talk rather than going down that rabbit hole. Okay. So, additionally, the notion of trade deficits as an issue. She questioned the effectiveness of reducing trade deficits and restoring as a way to restore domestic jobs. I think some of the discussion was, are these really the jobs we want to build in the United States? Is it better to bring those jobs back in some respects?
Are the quality of the jobs the jobs we really would like to grow? That's a real important question. Yeah. We benefit by buying cheap goods overseas that we use every day, whether it be a plastic bowl, or whether it be a baseball or whatever it is. And this was her argument when she was supporting President Biden's certain sectors. The United States needs a manufacturing capability on our soil for national security, for jobs, for the future, for supply chains, as was evident in the COVID years.
So, I think she's right on in that respect. CHIPS Act, which Republicans and Democrats, something that's not political per se, is a great example of that, where the parties came together and recognized that we need computer chips, certain types of computer chips manufactured in the United States. Yeah. And I think that's a good point. There are certain industries and certain...
It may be just important that we do continue to have the viability of these businesses, and it may be in our national interest. Steel may be an example of... I think steel's one of them, yeah. You can point to certain kinds of chips, clearly, as there's certain priorities when it comes to weaponry technology that comes out of that. We don't want to have to import our defense products from an adversary. Right. Exactly.
Exactly. So, yeah, I think that's one of the things that came out of the experience of the pandemic and in the first Trump administration that there was heightened awareness around. And I think that was probably a valid realization that we need to make change, and that's part of what came out of that, I think. The other point that Jenny Yellen talked about was, what do you call her? Secretary Yellen or chair? I would say secretary is probably... You call them their highest position, right?
That they've achieved. The highest? I would think so. Yeah. So in any case... Cabinet secretary, yeah. She pointed to the notion of fiscal policy as, look, if we want to reduce our deficits, our trade deficits, as well as our own deficit in terms of the budget deficit, that this is probably where this should focus. Fiscal policy would be a big part of how to deal with that. So, yeah, you mentioned this targeted, maybe targeted support for certain types of manufacturing.
I'm trying to remember what else. Which typically has, this type of manufacturing we're talking about, typically has higher wages for the employees. So that's something that we want. Yeah. We don't want to create a million new jobs of minimum wage jobs. Right. I mean, we need minimum wage jobs, but that should not be our policy as a country to create jobs that people can't survive on.
She talked about having been involved in negotiating with other countries in her time as treasury secretary, and that a lot of nations are just a little bit, you know, just puzzled, like what to make of this. And that the way we're interacting with friend and foe, kind of lumping everybody into this one bucket of, hey, we're being screwed, you know, kind of mindset. Certainly doesn't make sense to treat every country, no matter what their posture with you, with us is the same.
And on that note, hopefully you have some good news. You know, so much news that's floated is not actually fact. So, yeah, that's a good point. But we do have a potential agreement, you know, in the news this week. Yeah, with Thursday, midday, the 8th of May. So there is a... Sounds like the beginnings of a deal with UK, huh? There is a teaser out there that's happening. And the United States representatives and Chinese representatives are meeting in Switzerland coming up, I think this weekend.
So, hopefully, there'll be something good coming out of that, something constructive. Yeah. So another question that I just, I'll get through Janet Yellen, and we'll move on to more news items. That's, those are big ones. She was asked about the dollar reserve status. You know, would that, is this something you see changing in light of all these dynamics of what's happening in the world with trade? And basically, the answer was, not for a long time. And we keep hearing that.
But that sounded like it. There was talk about crypto. And that's also been in the news a little bit lately with regard to some issues with the Trump administration, or not administration, Trump family, having some ties to crypto and so forth. We'll come back and talk about that at some point. But just generally, she was asked, you know, about, you know, this sort of change in tone on the regulatory environment with respect to crypto.
And she said she remained skeptical about crypto as something appealing generally for people because of the lack of transparency, the volatility, and this weak regulatory setting where there's, you know, weak protections for the consumer. She was also asked about private credit, which Brian talks about from time to time as a possible worry point.
And she actually said, although, you know, private credit has certain attractive benefits, so she'll start off positive about it, but then said, again, it lacks transparency and that there's some, she said there's less systemic risk than feared, maybe. I shouldn't say it that way, but that was the way I interpret it. Though there are risks there, you know, there are risks there. Certainly are. And lack of transparency is one thing. And I think a lot of people think it's less volatile.
And it's less volatile because it's not marked up every 10 seconds. Yeah, exactly. People don't see what the market would, or a buyer would value it at because it's not. Less liquid, less accessible. But does that cause people to have a fire sale, you know, on other assets? Does it create the potential for volatility or disruption in other asset classes when people do have needs, you know, because anyway. Yep. All right.
So you talked about trade a little bit with the notion of the, I think it sounds like some potential developments. I had gone through these newspapers that I waved around to you earlier, and I had topics on all kinds of subject matter. And trade and tariffs is one of them. So one of the headlines was China feeling the trade war. The idea that their economy is also feeling this. It's not just the impact that we're going to feel. Well, that's the whole plan.
That's the leverage that President Trump thinks he has. I'm just going to rifle through a few of these that were related to trade. Go ahead. And then you decide if any we want to talk about. OK? OK. So the China thing we just hit on. Trade deficits balloon as companies stockpile. Countries worldwide are attempting to deepen their trade ties to offset pain from US, so other countries amongst themselves. Some manufacturers in the US see uptick in orders from companies looking to avoid tariffs.
I guess that's related to what I said earlier. Retailers may be keeping prices steady for the moment, but unstable and worn to expect shortages. Wall Street Journal reporting that of trade deal framework with UK, which you just talked about. And then kind of unrelated to all of those, but happened in the last week was the Canadian elections. And we had the visit from the Canadian Prime Minister. Carney, is it? Not for sale. Not ever. It didn't seem like a...
It doesn't seem like Canada's close to a deal. Well, it sounded like they're happy to talk. Happy to talk. But they're not intending to... To me, it seemed like they had... Yeah, don't want to get bullied. And that's if I was Canada, I think that would be my posture as well. You're not going to come in and kiss the ring and say, how much can we pay you?
So one of the things that struck me in this is that notion of activity in the front, the surge of activity that may be happening, which is when... One of the other things that happened this week was the GDP numbers. That was the economy in a different section of topics here. But this kind of overlaps with that. The fact that we might be importing more stuff, trying to get ahead of the tariffs, right? Well, if I owned a company that was importing products, I would be doing that. Right.
So the fact that we're doing some of that, and then the idea that this might impact availability of goods. Initially, there's a surge. Brian was talking to us about the idea that he bought some stuff because he's thinking there might be shortages. And he's like, well, I'm going to need these things anyway. I might as well get them.
It seems to me we might see a flurry of these kind of things where incidentally, the accelerated imports could create a circumstance where we have a two quarterly negative GDPs because the import of stuff works against the GDP. But in any case, these seem like themes that are going on where we might see the appearance of a surge of economic activity. Because people are at consumption, trying to get ahead of this. Retail sales, all that stuff.
And the purchase of materials and goods to get ahead of it. And then subsequently, the other side of that is, well, I already bought that stuff. So maybe I have an economic slowdown. Reversion to the mean, right? Yeah. So that's a concern. I think at this point, that could be a possibility. Yeah. And I think the numbers that everyone looks at, especially the Fed, who's thinking about interest rates. That was in the news. Maybe we'll hit it, maybe we won't.
But all this data is being, I won't say manipulated, but it isn't consistent because of the things that are happening. That's disruptive, maybe, as a consequence of this. So net exports, when it came to the GDP, was negative, right? Notably negative. When you look at the line on the graph, that's what drove us into, I'd say, a negative GDP last week. Was it last week? Whenever that was announced on the GDP. Minus, yeah. You want to talk about the Fed? Let's do it now.
Sure. The Fed met this week for one of their regular meetings, and to no one's surprise, did nothing. Yeah. And Chairman Powell had all the same question over and over again, which he's not going to answer. You know, when, how much? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. When are you going to lower? I mean, it's assuming it's lower. What are you looking at? We're looking at the data. I mean, it's the same. There's no surprises there. And unlike most Fed meetings, the market did not go down when he was speaking.
It went down when he was going to speak. And then he started speaking and ended up to be a decent day on Wednesday. So I kind of, it's a big, it's as expected in my view. I don't know if you saw something that... No, I agree. I think there was nothing, there was really nothing unexpected at all. But basically he said the risks of inflation and unemployment both rose. Yeah. That was my takeaway. But that being said, his perspective was there's room to wait to see how things evolve.
I think even in the midst of that meeting, there was, I forget what the president posted out on social media, but he pointed to something about tariffs. And that was anecdotal to the whole reality of it. There's no point in them doing anything because it remains to be seen what's really going to happen. I think it's a general, the right decision. And I think it's great advice for most things when you don't know what to do, you do nothing.
You just kind of keep thinking, keep watching the data or keep analyzing your problem if it's something personal. In this case, I think it's just, there's so many variables of how it could turn out. And conflicting variables. And so one of the tasks as we talk about all the time, one of the primary obligations of the Fed is full employment. And we had employment weekly data, we get every week, the unemployment claims and the continuing claims.
And the number of claims this week was below, I think 15,000 below expectations this morning. So a good number, continuing claims, it's been for a long time, right around 1.9 million people. It went slightly under that, was slightly over last week, slightly under this week. So there's no like crack in the employment data. And the last, actually the data was pretty good last week when they did the jobs numbers, 177,000 jobs. New jobs. Yeah, new jobs.
Yeah. The headline on the journal was hiring bucks trade turmoil, economic clouds loom. So they put this sort of, to the point right now, it's not been a problem, but there's still anxiety out there. It's a nice day, but there's clouds over there. Whether they come, we don't know. Yeah. Exactly. We did see, these are a couple other things from headlines I'll share, and you can see if any of these you wanna talk about.
OPEC, oil prices, they are gonna increase their production and oil prices did fall. Trade deficit balloons as companies stockpile. We talked about that already. Stock investors stay bullish despite recession forecast. Cloud boosts Microsoft's earnings. Cloud, the- Earnings have been, I mean, so earnings generally we're looking back before Liberation Day. And they had strong growth. There were a couple of these that were notable headlines. Generally, they've been okay or good in many cases.
Yeah. One related item. As you've been saying, data, backward data, right now still looks good. But I think there's a lot of concerns about will they materialize? That's this unknown. It is. It's tough to give up the weight that data backwards, of course, gives us and we, people usually rely on it heavier, more heavily. But with the changes, and we don't really have a sustained period of data since Liberation Day and what that means.
So it seems to mean, I'm trying to say the first quarter data seems to mean a lot less than it might typically. First quarter earnings seem to mean, could mean a lot less because the market is a forward-looking indicator. And if it gets, if this starts to get some cracks in that data, I think that's when the story changes. And how companies respond to this? One thing in the news this week, I think it's very related about how companies are going to respond to the situation, the tariff situation.
Toyota said this morning or yesterday that they are not raising prices on the cars that are imported and have subject to the tariff for the, they didn't give it a time period that I saw, but they're not doing it. They are absorbing the price, which means profits on Toyota. The company will be down, but so each company is going to do something. Will there be a preponderance in one way or the other? I think it's too early to tell.
Well, I think that was a headline I had earlier as well that I mentioned that there are certain, I think it was retailers they were talking about, but in that instance, but in any case, for a time, you can see this willingness to try to absorb some of this to say, will this get resolved rather than raising prices? Yeah, and slowing their supply chain and laying off employees and whatever they would have to do to. But whether that will be sustainable is a different question. Well, probably not.
Yeah. But that just goes back to the uncertainty. The word of the quarter, I guess, is uncertainty because no one really knows how this is going to play out. One of the things that I noticed when it came to corporate trends, company news, like you said, there are a lot of good earnings and things like that. But we've seen a lot of this notion of suspending outlook. Guidance. Guidance, withdrawing guidance. Yep. I think that's indicative of something.
And what I mean by that is, if I don't even know how to tell you what to expect my profitability and so forth is going to look like, how am I going to make decisions about how I want to move forward as a company? And I think that this gives reason to think that the economy is likely to slow. That aside from the higher costs and all the pricing considerations of tariffs working their way into this, there's the uncertainty of, is this going to get resolved? Is it going to be worse?
Is it going to have very high costs? What's going to happen where kind of thing? Companies are in a position where they're a little bit mystified as to whether or not or what exactly is going to happen. And that leaves them in a position where, like you said, when you don't know, maybe you do nothing. And that strikes me as a slowing effect on the economy. And similarly, as a consumer, we might be in a similar kind of face at some point. I don't know that we're there today.
But as you say, I hear there's more layoffs. We've been hearing certain layoffs getting creeping into the headlines as well. Gee, maybe I'll tighten my belt. Maybe I'll pause before I make that purchase, et cetera. And back to data, we have seen some initial data respecting travel and tourism. Airlines specifically are indicating that their bookings are below expectations or below normal, whatever they're using for whatever their booking period is.
And that's something that consumers' uncertainty, there it is again, leads you to do nothing, or should perhaps, and vacations and travel, whether it's corporate or leisure, are something that is very, it's like kind of first on the forefront. Let's not plan that now, right? Yeah, I mean, didn't we see big layoffs from one of the casino companies because they were expecting tourism to decline when it comes to, I saw UPS. Anecdotally, you see some announcing that some of these layoffs.
It doesn't mean that this is, as you said, it's not in the data right now, but you kind of get the sense of, hey, there's some things happening. There's something, and I think a lot of that is tied to uncertainty. I think from what I've heard discussed is that notion that a lot of companies, because it's been hard to get good talent, are reluctant to let go of good, you know, their workforce.
So that may be something that, you know, in a different moment in time, a lot of times companies are quick to let go of, to try to keep their profitability and so forth. Today, I don't think that's as much the case. Yeah, I would agree with that. Coming before this Liberation Day, you know, in the years prior, the number one thing that we heard from business owners that we talk about that their number, their biggest challenge was finding quality employees.
Yeah. So that's fresh on their mind and if they have good staff, if they have, you know, adequate staff to what they, if they're in a good place now, I can see them, like Toyota, I can see the decision being made no matter what their outlook is, which is probably back to the reason that they are suspending guidance, but saying for now, we're just going to keep things the way they are. But that could change. I think that's what it all boils down to.
There was an interesting article in Barron's last week where they were consulting money pros and getting their views on markets, which is worth, you know, absolutely nothing, but still kind of, you know, it's quick discussion. Describe your own outlook for the US equities of the next 12 months. 32% bearish, 26% bullish, 42% neutral. Good time to buy. Are your clients bullish, bearish or neutral? 56% bearish. 7% bullish.
As a contrary indicator, that's my flippant comment, which was not advice to anyone specifically, but my flippant comment was typically when it's bearish sentiment, it ends up to be a good time to think about adding to your equity exposure. Not guaranteed, of course. Possibility. Yeah. Is the US stock market overvalued, undervalued, or fairly valued at current levels? 58% overvalued, 38% fairly valued, 4 % undervalued. Again, perceptions, right?
A lot of that comes back to what happens with profitability and tariffs and all this that factors into that equation. Will stocks suffer a bear market, a decline of 20% from the highs sometime in 2025? Well, we did. I think we were technically 19% on the S&P. Okay. But you could argue we already did. 65% say yes. I think a better question, and maybe it's there, but are we going back to the lows of that or are we somewhere else? That would be a better question. Do you want to answer it?
I could answer it in my humble opinion. I don't think we're going back to those lows, but I think we have a trading range here for a while until these issues are resolved. And that trading range, I don't think will go back down below 5,000 on the S&P. But there's a lot of things I don't know. If the trade negotiations, tariff negotiations fell apart at the same time that unemployment had a crack and we were getting bad signs from the consumer, all those things are possible.
Those aren't like crazy predictions that would never happen. We could, but if we're somewhere in the middle there, if things are progressing, if employment holds steady and the consumer stands up, I think we're probably in this trading range somewhere between 5,300 and 5,800 for a while until there's a clearer indication. You didn't ask, but I'll chime in as well. I'm going to cheat by saying, I don't know, of course.
But to your comment, I think what we're trying to do as a design for our clientele in the way we're positioning our discretionary managed portfolios is err on the side of caution. So we're a little underweight. We're a little defensive in our positioning, but we're trying to take advantage of certain industries that we think are opportunistic that may do well. And so although we're a little underweight, we're trying to be in a position where we can keep in place good returns.
And of course, I think as some of this news around tariffs offers greater clarity, we'll be in a position to react to that, respond to that. But it goes back to that point. Generally, you want to, as we talked about, have liquidity. In other instances, you want to have a bucketed approach and you want to have an allocation that retains your tolerance of your temperament so that you're staying the course over time. Don't try to overly think through some of this stuff. I've got some cue with it.
Yeah, drastic decisions, as you've said many times, are usually the wrong decision. Yeah, when you're making those decisions in the heat of the moment. Last couple of things on this particular one was probably the most interesting two here left of the things that we didn't touch on was is the stock market's tariff-related sell -off a buying opportunity? 60% say yes, 40% say no. What odds do you put on a recession stemming from trade policy?
So the bulk is you'd expect this looks like a bell curve. Okay, so 40% probability of recession, 25 % of the respondents said. 60% of recession, 27% of the respondents said. 80% probability of recession, 25% of the respondents said. Sure does, yeah. We started off the show celebrating your 18th year of being on the air. If you could leave people today with like one, we talked a lot about a lot.
And I think the thing that makes our clients or investors or people in the public nervous is that uncertainty. And you have lived through and guided people through a number of different periods of uncertainty, all with a different trigger, but all having that feeling like, what do I do? If you could kind of leave people with a thoughtful comment on. Okay, yeah, good question. I'll just mention we didn't get to a whole bunch of things with ranging from geopolitical tensions that are happening.
Right. Air traffic control issues. And even the papal conclave has started. All like individual podcasts by themselves. Yeah, all fun stuff. Well, maybe not all fun stuff. You know what I mean? No. Your point is a great one. I appreciate the question. The circumstances of what happens is new. It's different each time. But how to respond to it is probably not new. It's not necessarily the same for every investor.
If you are a younger person with many years to invest, don't use this as an occasion to change anything that you're doing in terms of like saying, oh, maybe it's a crazy time. Maybe I'll stop buying. I'll stop adding to my 401k. Definitely don't do that. If you haven't been investing in your 401k, do it now. Get started. Get going. You've got a long horizon. And we know that there will be volatility along the way.
But ultimately, people are benefited from the creation of wealth by owning stocks, owning the market, owning stocks and bonds. And different assets and so forth. We work with retirees primarily. And I hear from not exclusively, but frequently. Cape Cod, there's lots of retirees. And I hear from people often saying, well, I'm now this age. How long do I really have? And although that's a valid consideration, it's not the only consideration.
Because for most people, a lot of their wealth is going to outlive them. Not everyone, of course. So I would start by saying, have a financial plan. Review your liquidity. Do you have sufficient resources that are stable and steady, unimpacted by market fluctuations, so that over the next few years, whether it's the next few years or some future next few years, volatility happens. And we know that happens.
And there's times when it's nice to have a reserve that you can draw from if it's needed, when it's needed. If you don't want to be selling things at a bad time. So make sure you have the liquidity you need. We generally guide people about that. Come and see us if you need some help on thinking through how much is the right amount and where to keep it. Because it's less about the rate of return. It's more about the access and stability.
But in any event, but then your tolerance for risk can change over time. But you don't want to make drastic changes. We refer to that Vanguard study all the time about behavioral finance, behavioral coaching. We want to have an allocation that is befitting your needs and your tolerances. And there are times when we might make modest adjustments to that, but we want to stay the course despite volatility.
Now, we've had the benefit in recent years where when markets go down frequently within a couple of years, you're back in the plus. And that doesn't always happen, I understand. And that's why we want to plan in a way that's deliberate with the liquidity and graduated risk. But I think it's prudent to say, which I think is where you were going with this, Jeff, is stay the course. Don't make rash decisions. Speak to your financial advisor.
Get some input around, do you have the right structure today? If it's not something that's proactively managed, that might be something to investigate, getting something that's not just static and only adjusted by your phone call to say, hey, should we be doing something? You want to be dealing with a manager that's going to be forward thinking, forward looking. Did you have anything you wanted to add to that? No, I think that was perfectly said.
And I hope our listeners take heed that we all have emotions and we all want to react to things. We all think if we make a move, it might be the right move at the right time. But history tells us and data tells us and that Vanguard tells us that those decisions that are emotionally based out of fear or greed, either one, are usually the wrong decisions. And most of the time, when you're working with a trusted financial advisor who has the experience, that's why you hire them.
So stick to your plan. Ask questions, certainly. Think about your risk tolerance. But most of the times you're better off, sir, by sticking to your plan and listening to your advisor. Excellent.
If you need help in working with someone who can look at your portfolio and your financial plan, help you glean insight as to where the risks are, whether your structure makes sense for your stage of life and your cash flow demands and various things that you might have concerns about, don't hesitate to reach out. We offer a complimentary consultation. Perhaps we can be a resource to you as well as the many clients we serve now.
So in any case, it's a no obligation, you know, kind of a conversation. Happy to be a resource. Jeff, thanks. Thank you. Good conversation. Happy 18th anniversary. Thanks, thanks. And we hope our listeners are enjoying it as well. And we'll keep on with us as we go forward, hopefully gleaning useful insights as you think about your portfolio and your financial planning. Until next time, everybody keeps striving for something more. Thank you for listening to Something More with Chris Boyd.
Call us for help, whether it's for financial planning or portfolio management, insurance concerns, or those quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Whatever's on your mind, visit us at somethingmorewithchrisboyd .com or call us toll free at 866 -771-8901 or send us your questions to amr-info at wealthenhancement.com.
You're listening to Something More with Chris Boyd, Financial Talk Show, Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services and Jay Christopher Boyd provide investment advice on an individual basis to clients only. Proper advice depends on a complete analysis of all facts and circumstances. The information given on this program is general financial comments and cannot be relied upon as pertaining to your specific situation.
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