Welcome to the latest episode of Rise UP! — your go-to weekly market and economic recap, where the biggest financial stories meet expert analysis.
Hosted by two of the industry’s most accomplished voices, Rise Growth Partners’ Terri Kallsen, CFP®, and Joe Duran, CFA, alongside special guests Peter Boockvar (CIO of Bleakley Financial Group) and Andy Schwartz (Co-Founder & Principal of Bleakley Financial Group).
Join us as we dive into:
- Market Volatility Spikes: The tariff-driven turmoil is reshaping market dynamics. How should investors navigate rising uncertainty?
- End of the AI Tech Trade?: Could we be witnessing a fundamental shift away from the dominant “Magnificent Seven” stocks toward more value-driven investments?
- Crypto’s Risk Reality Check: Bitcoin’s recent slide highlights key risks investors must know. Is crypto still worth the gamble?
Don’t miss this expert breakdown — get clarity and insights to make smarter investment decisions in today’s challenging market environment.
Investment Concerns? Get a free portfolio review with Wealthion’s endorsed financial advisors at https://bit.ly/3XqlNoe
Peter Boockvar 0:03
The whole tariff situation is making volatility great again. I think there’s just a major inflection point that we’re sort of cycling in right now, and that is potentially the end of this AI tech trade. I
Terri Kallsen 0:32
welcome to rise up at wealthion. It’s our weekly show to really dedicate ourselves to helping you understand what is happening in the markets and how can we work together to uncover smart investment moves as well as financial planning, so we can help you grow and protect your wealth. I’m Terry Colson. I’m the co host along with Joe Duran, I’m a managing partner at Rise growth. Joe is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Rise growth. Partners welcome Joe. Well,
Joe Duran 1:00
thank you. I’m really happy to have you back. You know, I had to do the CO hosting duties. I’m definitely not as good as you. And look, you leave for a couple days and the market goes straight down. So hopefully your being back is going to change things a little bit, but it’s great to be back with you. Obviously, it’s been a super challenging week since our last show, I can’t believe actually there happens to be a coincidence. I wish we could tell you that we could predict these things, but we had Peter and Andy on with us, obviously talking about volatility. I think we had Scott on with us, Peter talking about volatility, how to handle it, how to think about it. So as we go through you might want to check out last week’s show, because we actually dedicated a whole segment of deep question was all about managing volatility, which would have been quite useful for this week, I guess.
Terri Kallsen 1:50
Yeah, Joe, you know, you guys did a great job. Scott, Peter and Joe. I watched it over the weekend. I was really excited to see it, and then I could think of lots of ideas to help you with your moderation. So we’ll talk if you’d like. But it is really great to have the gang back together. We’ve got Andy Schwartz with us, who is the founder of weekly Financial Group. He’s a CFP. He’s just been with us. He’s just so much information and helping our clients. And then we have Peter Bucha, who’s the CIO, the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Financial Group, and writes the book The bukvar report. So really great to have you guys here today.
Joe Duran 2:30
Great. And obviously, Terry, we want to always have the smartest people in the world coming over to talk. And so we’re really excited to talk about what’s been happening this week?
Terri Kallsen 2:41
That’s right? Well, let’s talk a little bit about the big three. If you can recall, we really want to talk about number one, the S and P. You know, as of close on Thursday, the S P was down 1.59% it’s been down five out of the last six days. Maybe now that I’m back moderating, we’ll start to see some uplift, who knows. But it’s been a really time of fits and starts. Joe, what are your thoughts on that?
Joe Duran 3:04
Hey, look, I think we’re seeing two fundamental things play out here. I think the risk of stagflation has become a real thing. And I don’t know that it’s going to stagflation for anyone who doesn’t know, is very simple. It’s the idea that your inflation is higher than anyone wants it to be. And we got some pretty not bad readings, but they were worse than expected PCE reports. So inflation is worse than your target. We have a fed that wants a 2% inflation rate. We’re offering now around 2.7 2.9 and secondly, your growth rate, your GDP growth rate, is less than you would like. So when you have higher inflation and lower growth, that leads to what’s called stagflation. Now, again, it needs to be really high inflation and really bad GDP, like negative growth, to be officially stagflation. There’s all kinds of cute things, blatation in between. It’s something in between by clearly the growth aspect of it, inflation, I think, is not a surprise to people, but what you see with a 10 year treasury is that we’re reflecting a growth rate that is not what people were hoping for, and with sanity, had talked from companies in advance, preparing for a slower earning cycle. The second big thing that I think is happening is this tariff talk is a really big thing, and just overnight, going from 10 to 20, you know, and letting us know that we are, in fact, going to put the tariffs in Mexico and Canada. Think about what that means for all the US, manufacturers, all the people who work globally, and figuring out what they meant to do in a business sense. Because we don’t have its picture permanent. We don’t know if it’s temporary. We don’t have what goods and products. So it has massive investment implications for companies, and they don’t like to invest in uncertainty. So what they’ll do is keep their powder dry and watch and then we have one very important technical issue. We’re clearly in a risk off environment and, more importantly, a run. Away from the momentum stocks it started. We talked about this last week Peter, but it’s clearly picked up steam. We see more of it every day. The conservative names, the healthcare names, the ones that you actually were recommending to people last week that they’re actually really, really being harmed. The S, P is being hit by the fact that all of these big mag sevens represent such a big amount of the S P, and like S P is doing quite well underneath of that. But unfortunately, everything’s being thrown out right now, but especially these momentum stocks. Peter, your thoughts, am I off here? Do you have different opinions about what, what’s what’s happening in the market right now?
Peter Boockvar 5:39
No, I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the whole tariff situation is making volatility great again. And you talked about the nominal fall in interest rates, we’ve only seen a modest fall in inflation expectations in the tips market. So that is sort of highlighting your stagflationary type situation in terms of being priced into the market. I think there’s just a major inflection point that we’re sort of cycling in right now, and that is potentially the end of this AI tech trade, this trade that so dominated markets since late 2022 early 2023 that sort of sucked all the oxygen out of the rest of the market, not only domestically, but internationally. So now you’re seeing the pendulum beginning to switch to other things outside of the mag seven other things outside of the high multiple stocks into more value and also internationally. You look at European markets, they’re well outperforming US markets. Also the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong well outperforming the US market. So this is a major thing, because the whole world has piled into these big cap tech stocks. So it has a lot of relevance here to the broader market. If this does continue, and then it begs the question of, does it drag down the whole market, or does it just pass the baton on to other things that can then start to lead the market if those stocks falter?
Terri Kallsen 7:10
That’s right. And just to highlight what you guys are saying, you know, Trump is now saying that he’s going to implement these tariffs on Canada as of March 4. So that’s next week already, and then he’s going to increase tariffs on China by 10% and a potential 25% tariff on the EU. And so there’s a lot going on in a tariff on copper. So you know, data release this is affecting consumer confidence. It’s been the biggest drop in the last four years, since August of 2021 and then we’ve got tax cuts. Trump’s tax cut. How will they be extended? You know, what’s going on there. And then on top of that, Andy, I really want your input on this one. Charles Schwab recently on a trader’s poll said that most traders think it is still a bull market, even though two thirds of them think that the market is overvalued. So what are you watching, Andy, and what are you telling your clients? Yeah,
Andy Schwartz 8:04
I mean, so I don’t think all assets are necessarily overvalued. Obviously, 50% of the return of the S P has been the max seven over a number of years, and those assets probably are overvalued. We’re starting to find, we see, I mean, our international value positions of 9% of the year where the S P is up but maybe one and a half actually, after today. You know, probably some little closer NASDAQ’s negative or flat. So we are starting to see the value side. Our value assets, we tend to have a little bit of a value bias. I looked at a bunch of accounts today, we’re up four and a half ish percent so far. You need on the value part of the S P, I think Joe was saying before that, if you take the mag seven out, even on the equal weight, although it isn’t up as much as Joe was saying, if you, if you took them out all together, even an equal weight, including them, you know, it’s positive. So everything isn’t super expensive. But if you’re just in an S p5, 100, and it is market cap weighted, and if these stocks continue to come down. And clearly, you know, we are in a risk off trade environment. I know we were talking before about, you know, Bitcoin, and lots of people think lots of different things about Bitcoin and what it is, and what it is and what is it, I’m not sure 100% but one thing I know it is, it is a risk on or a risk off, you know, kind of a trade. And we are in a risk off environment, and we’re seeing, you know that asset class get hurt again at the end of the day. We are in a crazy, uncertain environment, and nobody likes uncertainty. The market doesn’t like uncertainty. So one thing we advise clients to do is make sure that you know where your liquidity is coming from, at least in the near term, because in an uncertain environment, we do not want to be in a position where we’re selling equities as they’re falling, needing them to to handle liquidity needs. So that’s really important, maybe more now than it has been for the last couple of years, to make sure we know where our liquidity is coming from for the next, you know, 12 to 24,
Terri Kallsen 9:51
months. Yeah, and it, and if, if our viewers aren’t sure, that would be a great question to ask an advisor, like, let’s talk about maybe liquidity during. These times of volatility. So Peter, you know, you also sent over a really great article from The Wall Street Journal just this week. Top 10% of the wealthiest Americans are responsible for 50% of consumer spending. What’s going on with that? Well,
Peter Boockvar 10:16
it’s something that we’ve been highlighting here for weeks now is the very bifurcated consumer, where the lower to middle income consumer is still struggling with the sharp cumulative rise in inflation north of 20% while the upper income consumer has handled that much better, because it’s their their costs are much less relative to their income, and also they’re benefiting from record high stock prices and high home prices. So the article really talked about that, and that the economy is sort of being held on its shoulders by that upper income consumer, with the top 10% of income earners making up about half of all consumer spending that then ties into the stock market, because the stock market in a circular way, the direction of the stock market from here can then follow through to that upper income spend and then determine where the economy goes in the rest of the year. Because the economy outside of upper income spending is only benefiting elsewhere, in terms of benefits in AI spend and also government spending, and on the government spending side. Now there’s, of course, a lot of scrutiny on that, so if you get a pullback in government spending, you can see the fragility of the economy, while headline GDP looks at around two, two and a half percent underneath the hood, it’s a much different picture
Terri Kallsen 11:35
that’s right. And now let’s go on to our big topic, number two. And Andy, you already mentioned it Bitcoin, right? A lot of volatility in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not having a good month at all. As of Thursday, the value was 84 to 98 and it’s down about 16% this month. So it’s been a really rough ride. Joe, what are your thoughts on Bitcoin? Well,
Joe Duran 12:03
you know, I have to say, I find it really amusing that for years, what we heard is Bitcoin as a store of value and as an alternative to gold. And we talked about this last week, gold has actually done remarkably. But while it was hitting new highs where bitcoin is acting very close correlation to Nvidia and the max seven. If you look at Tesla and Bitcoin, you’ll see that they behave remarkably similar, even though there’s there should be no link at all. And so what we’re learning now is that it’s a risk asset, and when risk appetite goes out, it goes down. And so it is not a way to protect yourself, the way gold can be again, as we said yesterday, when volatility goes high enough, or the market falls enough, then the correlation of all asset classes becomes closer. And so again, I think we’re here for I think we’re going through a healthy correction, but bitcoin is showing you it is not a place to hide when volatility is high. I also would say there’s some fundamental issues. As I mentioned, I just been to El Salvador a few weeks ago. They had stopped using Bitcoin as their official tender because it could get hacked. It isn’t secure. And Lord knows what we just learned by the North Korean stealing one and a half billion dollars overnight, redirected, most of it untraceable. And what is that going to lead the US to do, of course, increase regulation, and so we’ll end up, I think we’re going to talk a little bit about us stable coin as an alternative. I don’t think, I think the technology that powers bitcoin is really important, the blockchain. I am not sure that Bitcoin becomes the asset of choice because of situations like this, rogue nations can use it. They then traffic it. They want, they launder it. And I think you’ll find that the big governments of the world who want to tax everything will say, you know, we can’t securely have something that is so untraceable, like that, can be used for nefarious means by bad actors, and we have a great example of it. So I think it wasn’t the one and a half billion or the implic it’s more about the long term implications, but as a separate asset class, not only does it have for some fundamental issues, and by the way, I’m a believer that Bitcoin is should be a for some people, something they invest in, but it should be a speculative investment. It is not a protective asset class.
Terri Kallsen 14:29
Yeah, I like that. We’re really learning a lot more about bitcoin and how it performs in different environments. So Andy, what are some of the things that you tell your clients about how much Bitcoin they should have in their portfolio. Yeah,
Andy Schwartz 14:41
I mean, and look, Peter has been we’ve been talking about this together for a couple of years now. You know Bitcoin two, three years ago, if you would refer to Bitcoin as digital gold, and we told clients, Bitcoin is not digital gold. Bitcoin could be a lot of things, but it is not digital gold. It is not necessarily a store of value, as Joe had just mentioned, it is much more. Risk on or risk off trade. It trades like the NASDAQ, you know, it trades like the most speculative, you know, stocks. I mean to us, if you think of it in the long term, a 1% maybe 2% position as a speculative position, you know, we’re fine with because who knows? I mean, you know, but it’s not a core position for a client’s portfolio. And you’ve got to think of this long term, because maybe this thing does manifest into something, and maybe with Blockchain technology, and as as it matures and becomes more steady, maybe it does look more like a currency. I mean, I know that there’s some really smart people. Is it? Thomas Lee talks about, he thinks it’ll be in a million dollars, and, you know, within five years. I mean, he’s smarter than me, I don’t know, but we would just say that. We would be very cautious. It’s not liquid, it’s not digital gold. If you want gold, buy gold. If you don’t want gold, don’t buy gold, but don’t buy bitcoin. Think of this digital gold. So, yeah, that’s kind of our take on this.
Terri Kallsen 15:55
Yeah, that’s right. And meanwhile, we’re starting to see some fast followers, the CEO of Robin Hood, Vlad teeni, said that this week, he’s confidence that we could see a creation of a US dollar back stable coin by Congress by the end of the year. What’s the difference? And would this be a better investment than crypto currency? Peter
Peter Boockvar 16:17
Well, stable coins are, I mean, we have tether, we have others. You know, a stable coin is essentially a cryptocurrency that’s backed by treasuries or other things that maintain that sort of $1 that that someone would buy. So if I buy that stable coin for $1 the stable coin be always worth $1 and then I can use that stable coin to buy other things. Can the US government create one? Maybe? I think that what will not be created by the US government is a central bank digital currency for privacy reasons. The US populist does not want the government to be tracking everything that we do. So I think mostly the stable coins that are going to pop up are not going to be government blessed, it’ll be more private sector blessed, like tether and like others, but
Joe Duran 17:05
they are fundamentally different Terry, because they’re backed by actual dollars. So this isn’t like Bitcoin where, well, there’s limited supply, and that’s even though you they really, by the way, is unlimited supply of Bitcoin, because you can just keep taking a finite amount and cutting it into smaller pieces unlimited. So again, it’s like a stock, split stock, split stock, split with a stable coin you’re actually buying. You’re basically using the dollar to consume online. So it has all the benefits of just not not having transaction costs usually associated with it,
Peter Boockvar 17:40
yeah. Government could do, though, is, is rely on stable coins to finance the government, because these coins are buying US Treasuries.
Terri Kallsen 17:51
Yeah, well, you know, I think our viewers are very interested in this. Just the term stable coin right now, would seem, you know, somewhat attractive to a lot of investors trying to understand how to maneuver through this marketplace. But let’s go to our big topic number three, and this is another President Trump, you know, eye catching proposal. He’s telling us about the EB five Visa Program, which is a green card for foreigners to come into
Joe Duran 18:20
gold card, gold card, I love it. The gold card, the green card,
Terri Kallsen 18:24
that’s colored gold, so, you know, can be purchased for up to $5 million and really gives a pathway to citizenship. So there’s been a lot of talk about this week, Peter, what are your thoughts on this?
Peter Boockvar 18:37
I mean, I think it’s thing. It’s a great idea to raise money and to encourage some foreigners to come over to the US. These people will be vetted. So it’s not just going to be anybody that writes a $5 million check that can do this, but it is a clever idea. Other countries have had similar programs where if you invest a certain amount of money, you can get a passport. I think the country Portugal is an example. I know Italy has implemented the program, so I guess we would just be creating our form of it at a higher price point. Stupid
Joe Duran 19:09
question. I having earned my way, the painful way, coming to college, getting the temporary green card, finding my wife, getting married, having my three kids, all of that, I believe that the other countries, it’s just a threshold of investment into the country in order to get the card. When I read this, it looks like you pay $5 million which is a, I don’t know, of a country that does it this way. Is it like the EB five, where you have to invest in the in the country, or is it really the way I think it’s been presented? You just give $5 million to the government and you get your green card. Do you know?
Peter Boockvar 19:51
I don’t think this idea was fully vetted out. I don’t think they themselves have all the details that. Right, and whether there’s follow through, I guess we’ll have to see Sure, Joe, and I think,
Andy Schwartz 20:04
though, Joe, I think you’re probably right, but I think the assumption they’re making is that people that have the means to pay $5 million to get in, yeah, they’re very wealthy. Well, they’re gonna attract entrepreneurs, and they’re gonna build businesses. And look, it’s like a lot of things these guys are talking about. You know, the the, it’s an interesting concept. I don’t know if it’s a terrible idea. The question is going to be the execution. Yeah, the execute, you know, do they really bad? Are they the right people? But at the end of the day, if you’re going to have people coming into the country, I think the one problem is going to be the the question of fairness, that you know, that the average person you know doesn’t have $5 million is that fair? And what I would say is that, you know, not fair in a if there is such a word as fair, if the world were a fair place. But you know, they’re talking about raising a trillion dollars, which seems like a pretty ridiculous number to make with the number of people they think would do this. But if they can get, you know, if they can vet people properly, and if they can raise a lot of capital and get, you know, wealthy entrepreneurs into the country, it might not be a terrible,
Joe Duran 21:07
silly question. I mean, I assume if you’re going to spend $5 million for just the right to come and work here, you must have 50 to $100 million I assume so, if you have $50 million is there any question that you can come live in the US? I mean, surely you can go buy a house, get a like I don’t know, but I know I was making minimum wage, but I gotta believe that there aren’t many people with $100 million that can’t live wherever they choose,
Andy Schwartz 21:39
right? But isn’t it? But is it interesting idea, though, that they would sure? So then you’re questioning, then the idea, are there really that many people that would
Joe Duran 21:46
pay again? I just don’t know. I mean, again, I’m just wondering what kind of person, yeah, well, you I would, I would have done whatever I could, but again, I didn’t have that kind of money. So
Andy Schwartz 21:56
you know, the best legal representation, yeah, of course, people with contacts and but again, that
Joe Duran 22:00
seems like a high threshold. That’s all, yeah, it’s one thing again, if it’s an investment in the country, it seems to me an easy decision. Well, I invest 5 million and that I get, yeah? I just again, if it’s just a check, that seems unusual, yeah.
Terri Kallsen 22:14
So I think since you came to this country, and, you know, really flourished in this country, you might want to give them some advice on how to handle the execution. I wouldn’t
Joe Duran 22:22
dare touch anything in the cup. I’m, frankly, too direct and honest problem. I
Andy Schwartz 22:29
don’t think you didn’t want to know that you exist.
Terri Kallsen 22:33
Yeah, well, Andy, is there any upside in terms of investment opportunity in this situation? Yeah. I
Andy Schwartz 22:39
mean, look as as their volatility always creates opportunity. You know, so and again, as I said before, there are always assets that are reasonably priced or even cheaper. You know, we’ve been talking for a while now that we were if people asked us a year ago, what are we afraid of? What keeps you up at night, we would say, and I give Peter more credit, because he is my he’s my guru. But we were worried about stagflation. What we were worried about was the idea that inflation isn’t going to dissipate, as everybody hoped, as much as everybody hoped, that it would be stickier and higher, and that the growth prospects going forward might not be as good as everybody was hoping for because it was so concentrated. And if that happens, we like commodities. You know, you know, oil prices are relatively cheap historically. And I know that, you know, they’ve sold off a little bit, although maybe up a little bit today. But, you know, so we think energy commodities, we like, you know, again, international positions, we’re not necessarily interested in indexing, because we don’t want to own all of it. But there are some really inexpensive, I mean, the most hated assets. Mean, Asia, you know, hasn’t done anything for the last couple of years. You know, there’s, you know, there’s some funds that are trading at eight, nine times earnings where, you know, obviously we’re trading even now at much, much higher, you know, earnings per share ratio. So, yeah, there are some assets out there that do not look terribly expensive, you know. And I think a really well managed healthcare portfolio. I mean, we’re having a really good year. We’re up 7% on our health care portfolio year to date in the first six weeks. So we’re definitely finding some some areas of opportunity, but people, people need to be really careful, because what’s happened in the last 10 years and what’s made everybody so much money very likely will not be repeated the next 10 years, would be, our view. That’s
Terri Kallsen 24:17
right. So I hear you saying, Have a plan, understand what you’re investing in, and think about the long term. So makes sense. But now let’s move on to little bit more of our in depth topic for the day, and then we’ll get into our big three questions. But our topic today has to do with the Certified Financial Planner, obviously, near and dear to my heart. I’m on the CFP Board, Andy’s also a CFP, but it came out,
Joe Duran 24:41
we should say the chairperson elect. Yes. So you’re the queen of CFPs worldwide, which we’re honored to share the stage with you. Well,
Terri Kallsen 24:51
not exactly, but I am. I am the Chair elect, and it’s really a great organization. I’m very proud to lead that organization, but it really. Came out with a really interesting study regarding who takes the lead in a partnership or a spousal situation, on investment decisions in a household. So guys, you know, I’d love to hear from you on this one. You know, would you be surprised to hear, based on the CFP Board study, that in more than two thirds of households, like two thirds, it’s women who are actually making those investment and financial planning decisions. And then
Joe Duran 25:30
100% of households, the woman get to either scold them out for making a mistake or correct their mistakes.
Andy Schwartz 25:38
Well, I mean, that is, I am, I am a little surprised by the terms. What it would say is this, that what I’ve observed over the last 40 years of my practice that women are much, much more practical and much, much, I don’t even want to say conservative, but they are. They’re just more thoughtful about investment processes, where men tend to be much more cameras, you know, they, they, they talk to their friends, somebody’s making lots of money somewhere, and they, they just, you know, I talked to men, and they’ll, they’ll, they’ll make an investment. I’ll ask the details of what they’re doing. And, you know, they, they don’t even really, necessarily know where women are much more thoughtful I think about their investment process, so that
Joe Duran 26:17
I totally agree. And again, this is a fraud subject, because they’re all kinds of men, they’re all kinds of women, so we are generalizing her. But I will say an observation. I have seen men lie about performance, like they lie about other aspects of their life, right? Like I know which direction I’m going in, and women in general are more comfortable asking experts and using that to inform their decisions. It’s like asking for directions, like I never want to stop and ask anyone, and my wife will, after the third wrong turn, say, when Joe, are you going to stop and ask someone? So it’s a parable. Again this. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I again, we overlap a lot. But this is a really important thing. Is, what do you use, using your slow brain or your fast brain to make investment decisions? Then I think about it in the Daniel Carmen, who’s a noble low rate economist who I knew was a professor at Berkeley for a while and invented something called behavioral economics that men tend to make a lot of investment decisions with their fast brain instinct, and that is fear and greed, and women tend to make financial decisions in with their slow brain, in another words, their long term conscious choices. And honestly, the difference between success and failure as an investor is whether using fast brain or slow brain? Do you use your Twitch instinct or you’re actually thoughtfully building a plan? And so again, whether you’re male or female, if you’re making a decision instinctually rather than thoughtfully, you’re probably going to make the wrong choice.
Terri Kallsen 27:52
Yeah, I agree, Joe. And you know what the study found, and what we’ve talked a lot about on the show, is that women are very interested in long term retirement planning, right? So they want to, because women are going to live longer than men. You know, the facts are the facts. So they need to have a longer retirement plan. They also are the ones that are working on the emergency savings account. So they really believe in that concept of liquidity that we’ve talked about at least six months. And then the last category is caring for others, right, be it elder care, caring for their families, making sure they’ve got a plan to not only make sure they’re okay, but their families are okay. And those would, you know, follow along. And women really do want to work with a fiduciary. They have expressed that. And fiduciary, we mean a CFP or a fiduciary, meaning we’re doing it for the very best interest of the client, not just what’s suitable, but what’s in the very best interest. And so all of those do tick and tie to many of the things that we’ve talked about. Now. They don’t necessarily need a male fiduciary or a female fiduciary, but they want a fiduciary, and that’s what’s important. But another really interesting fact that I’d love to get your guys input is that newly married couples are keeping their financial accounts separate, believing that combining them could lead to more marital conflict. Well, I’ve been married for 31 years, and you know, I do see some truth in certainly in some of this, we had much more fights when we were younger than than we do now. But you know, what are your thoughts on combining accounts or keeping them separate? You know, Andy, I’d love to hear your thoughts
Andy Schwartz 29:28
Well, I mean, so I was married when I was 22 years old. I’ve never had anything but joint accounts. But I think, though that younger people today are less optimistic about the outcomes of marriages, it might be part and look, there could be some practical reality to it. Amanda, what are the statistics? 50% you know, marriages fail. Yeah, so it probably depends a little bit on the circumstances you come from. If you come from a family where mom and dad are married long term, maybe you’re a little bit more comfortable sharing. But no, but I do notice with my younger clients, a lot of these clients have. Accounts, which, you know, that’s fine. I don’t have the, you know, I don’t judge them for it, but I, my observation always is that maybe, maybe they know something that I don’t know, and maybe they just think it’ll be easier to exit to keep things separate. But it is, does seem to be the trend, though. It does seem to be the trend, you
Terri Kallsen 30:15
know, it’s so interesting. Andy, because I just read this, and then I read another article about newly married couples, and they have, they have separate financial accounts, but they track each other on GPS, so they know exactly when they’re at the group. They know where, you know when and where they’re sleeping if they’re traveling to another like trust issues. Terry, yeah, so maybe next session, we’ll have a special on, you know, marriages. Who knows? Yeah, but, but thank you guys. I really do appreciate your input on that, but now let’s go to our viewers questions. So as you know, we have questions from our viewers. So our very first one is from Donna from San Antonio, Texas, who is asking, retirement is a priority for her and her husband, but they don’t want it at the cost of living life. And she’s asking, can she do both, can she enjoy life, and can she actually have really lucrative or at least an appropriate retirement plan? Andy, you want to start with that. So
Andy Schwartz 31:10
you know what we used to, what we’ve been talking to clients about for years, is set aside the amount of money, set aside a certain amount of money to save and then spend the rest. So if you can decide up front with the appropriate amount of money to save to accomplish your long term retirement goal, then you can freely and happily spend everything else. And so to me, I think that it’s the answer. It kind of depends on how much money they make. You can’t spend all the money be as happy as you want to do, everything you want to do, and be able to save for retirement unless you make a lot of money. But what I will say, though, is is sort of financially freeing and emotionally freeing is just figure out what that number is. Is it 10% of your income? Is it 5% your income to get the outcome you want and then spend the rest enjoy it? You know, to have no stress. Don’t worry about whether it’s, it’s something that’s silly and frivolous, or whether it’s something that’s necessary. And I think that that’s how I would approach that.
Joe Duran 32:01
You know, Terry, I wrote, I wrote a book on this specific subject called the money code, and we did a lot of work on this. And there are a couple of things everyone should know are true for absolutely every human being. Number one is you will never be able to have everything that you want, so there will be trade offs, like, just know that no matter how wealthy you are, there’s always another boat, there’s always another house, or there’s always the neighbors. Like, there will never be, because in America especially, how much is the perfect amount? A little bit more than I got. That’s true of almost everything that is common of everybody in this country. So I would suggest, first of all, know that there will be trade offs. This next big idea that was really true is how you make those trade offs determine your entirety of your financial life. You know Al Bucha, who had the expression, life is the sum of your choices. If you don’t have a really deliberate way of making those trade offs, because having an advisor, their number one value is helping you make good choices of everything else. It’s not outperforming the s, p, it’s not getting better after tax returns, believe it or not, if you have the right advisor, the right fiduciary, their primary job is to help you make better financial choices, and those are usually life choices, because money is tied to everything. So understanding that how I make choices, am I deliberate? Do I think about the long term implications whether I’m saving enough or spending enough? And then the third is that you have a deliberate action plan. You have discipline once you’ve made that decision, that you actually stick to it. And again, I hear all this stuff. Stop spending on Starbucks, and you’ll get rich. That’s just garbage. The truth is, life is short. You might get cancer tomorrow. None of it will matter. So there is a function, and what you’ll see is a lot of people have their biases. Are I do this all for security. They spend all their time trying to protect their money and no time enjoying it, and then they have a heart attack and the kids have no problem spending at all, which would be a great topic of conversation for Andy and the team. But honestly, yes, it matters. Yes, you should do both, and yes you should depending on your income, depending on your goals, because you have other choices in how much you spend or save. You also have how long you work. You also have how big a safety net you want to leave behind, and all of these things interact, and that’s what a great financial plan does, by the way. That’s why you work with people like Andy and people great advisors who will actually tell you these are the trade offs you can make.
Terri Kallsen 34:34
Yeah, you talk about those trade offs show, and there’s always trade offs, but you always want a little more, a little more, a little more, but there’s no correlation to that little more beyond, you know, maybe $100,000 to happiness, right? So you want the money, but you also need some peace and happiness. And I know all financial planner can help people make that, that balance decision. So let’s go to on to our second question, which is Judy, do. From Miami, and she’s saying that while she and her partner have similar financial goals, they have different thoughts on how to achieve them. And she’s wondering, how can they reach their goals without constantly arguing? Andy, I feel like we’re doing a little marriage counseling here, but help us out.
Andy Schwartz 35:16
Well, I guess the first thing I would if I were helping them is try to understand what the differences are, you know, because that’s the place to start. But I have no idea, Terry, if I don’t know what the context is, yeah, I’ll
Joe Duran 35:30
just share Terry this. We did some great behavioral economics. Money does one of three things, and we as human beings have a bias toward if you think of it like three buckets all that money can do, no matter what it is, is help you do things that bring you happiness, help to protect you and help you to take care of the things you care about. So if you think about those three areas that that’s every human thinks about, we all have a bias towards filling one of those buckets. So in a moment of stress, somebody in that relationship, and I’ll give you my example of me and my wife. My bias is toward protecting because I grew up in Zimbabwe with nothing. My wife’s bias is to enjoy life and take care of everyone around us. So she fills the other two buckets. We’ve been married for 32 years. Every fight’s the same fight she wants to host every party she wants to pay for everyone. And I’ll be like, hold on a minute. I’m not buying myself a new pair of shoes because I’m like, want to be prudent. And so that conflict understanding which of your biases you’re leaning on and a good, good advisor, again, will understand we need to fill all three buckets. We all want to do the things that make us happy. We all want to protect ourselves from about our bad outcomes, and we all want to take care of the people we love, the causes we love. So that delicate balance, almost certainly, I think that should be able to answer the question by knowing which bias am I leaning to, and which bias does my husband or spouse, assuming it’s a husband, lean to as well, so you can end up finding the right mix.
Andy Schwartz 37:03
And I think great. And I think Terry, I was in my conversation just a little while ago with a couple and they were sort of, she likes to travel and spend money, and he seems more conservative. I think having both, though, is a good thing, you know, because, you know, it’s not, it’s not a good thing to be too much of a saver and to be too security minded, but it’s not a good thing to be a spendthrift either. So what you try to do is sort of recognize the guys. It’s good that you guys aren’t necessarily the same exact page, but we have to figure out is a good combination or a good mix of both. So I would say that it’s probably fine that they don’t 100% agree. They just have to create a balance and so, so that’s not a bad thing.
Terri Kallsen 37:39
Well, I think that’s what’s great about what Joe’s saying too, is these behavioral economics or behavioral finance. It’s kind of a big word, but all it really is is just, you know, what’s your relationship with money, and how do you make decisions? And oftentimes, the two partners come from different views, right? A lot of our money habits are formed when we’re children, and so it’s bringing those together in a conversation with your advisor so you can get a path forward and achieve both sets of goals. So we have one more question, and this is Tara in Seattle, and she’s saying she’s about to get married. So her finance wants her fiance not finance. Her fiance wants her to merge her bank account, but he’s a spender, so you’ve been in these scenarios before. Well, she’s a saver and she’s worried about doing it. What would you advise her to do? Andy, well, I
Andy Schwartz 38:28
would say, Look, if she’s concerned about that, she should probably stick to her guns, because if she doesn’t, it’s probably just going to create unnecessary conflict in an early marriage. So that would if that were my daughter, but first, I would say, congratulations on getting married, and good luck, but yeah, but I would say, if one of my girls approached me with that, I would say, Look, if you if that’s something that you’re concerned about, you know you communication is fine, but I would say, stick to your guns, and that’ll be one less thing that will create conflict, hopefully, in their early marriage. And then maybe, maybe she’s misjudged it, and if he proves to be a responsible financial partner, then maybe they can merge accounts earlier. What you can’t do is merge accounts, get the money spent and get the money back. That I know you can’t do.
Joe Duran 39:09
And Terry, honestly, the problem is, in California, even if your accounts are separate, if you’re married, you’re liable anyway, so there’s really no benefit.
Speaker 1 39:16
I think she’s worried about him spending the money. Joe, well, she’ll spend he
Joe Duran 39:21
can get credit cards. He can use the credit cards, and should be liable for those credit cards. So the reality is, I would take the time to just say, how are we going to think about our budget? Like, just have a grown up, we’re married now. How are we going to talk about financial choices beyond, let’s say, $100 whatever the right number is. So by the way, I will say there was a report, I think it was in the Journal of Consumer Research that actually said that people who have joint accounts actually are happier and actually do better retirement planning, not that she should joint accounts with her, but she should at least be aware the difference of. Because he can’t access the account doesn’t mean he can’t spend money and that she wouldn’t be responsible for it anyway.
Andy Schwartz 40:05
I bet they stay married longer, too. Joe, yeah,
Terri Kallsen 40:06
yeah. You know, Joe, you brought up a really good comment, though, in the state of California, which is a community property state, you know, everything is ultimately shared as a result of marriage or a seven year partnership or beyond. So our viewers, as they’re making these decisions, know what state you’re in and know what your actual laws are, and if you’ve talked to an advisor, they can help you understand where the community property states are and what that means for you, not just in the short term, but for the long term. All right, let’s move on to our big three stories for next week. And every week seems to be bringing in more and more stories, but we’re really looking this week about the PCA that comes out tomorrow, which is a top indicator the Fed uses to measure inflation. Peter, what do you think the prediction is, and how do you think it’s going to impact markets? Well,
Peter Boockvar 40:57
the PCE usually comes out a few weeks after CPI, ppi, and because of that, it rarely deviates much from expectations, but because the Fed has said to us that they prefer that gage rather than CPI, of course, the market’s going to focus on it, so I don’t expect any real difference relative to expectations. More yields have already come down. I still think the Fed is going to be in a sort of, sort of a difficult box here, with juggling all the different macro factors that are taking place, particularly tariffs, I think more relevant for the market is going to be next week’s payroll number. Because if there’s something that’s going to get the Fed to cut interest rates, again, it’s going to be a rise in the unemployment rate, less so than, you know, a 10th lower on the inflation number. So that’s the key. And earning season’s over. So the focus is going to be on the data next week, and whether these tariffs on March 4 are going to get implemented or not. Yeah,
Terri Kallsen 41:54
the jobs report is due next Friday, so we’ll definitely be talking about that. But if we continue to see this volatility, and clients are really getting nervous about their portfolios. Andy, what do you recommend?
Andy Schwartz 42:06
Well, again, make sure you line up your liquidity. We can’t time the market and even look, do we think there’s a 10% correction out there? I mean, we’ve already seen some of that 10% correction in certain space, in certain places, in certain individual stocks, for short, more than that, but I would say that there’s clearly a broader 10% or more correction out there. But that’s normal anyway. And so again, I don’t think people should I just something. People should be overly reactionary or try to time this market. I think they’re gonna
Joe Duran 42:34
they should be, in the history of the market, a five to 10% decline every 18 normal exactly 15. Percent decline every two and a half to three years. We haven’t had that for a very just be ready for it exactly, and make sure that you’re allocated right, you’re rebalanced so that you’re going to be fine writing it out. And if you have to have a great advisor who just helps to hold your hand, yeah. And I think
Andy Schwartz 42:59
Terry the one thing to think about, if someone just got their bonus, or somebody just, you know, walked, you know, came into a lot of liquidity, a lot of cash. Just be thoughtful about how you’re investing that today, you know, you might dollar cost average, you know, put some in now, you know, weigh yourself in. Set some targets. You know, that’s all but, but the idea of coming out of the market, I mean, look, there could be tax implications to come out. The thing too is, you know, coming out of the market today, you might look really smart for 30 days, 60 days, but you might look really foolish a year from now, and so, because there is no signal to know when to come back. So yeah, we do not want to try to time the market. I think, you know, patience, but, but you can be thoughtful about how you allocate fresh cash. I think that might be something for people to
Terri Kallsen 43:39
think about. Yeah, I think you’re right. If you do have some liquidity, you want to do it, maybe in small doses, and see what happens, versus everything. You guys. Another really, just interesting story coming out next week is, you know, a lot of activists are out there talking about the DEI changes, and the companies who have now dropped dei or taken it out of their annual reports. And you know, some of these stores, like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Nestle, they’re reporting. And you know, they’re, they’re, they’re moving against Dei, some activists are saying, Okay, we’re not going to purchase from you for a day, and we’re going to watch what happens, to really show that consumer power. Peter, is that a good strategy? Or what are you thinking?
Peter Boockvar 44:22
There is always, there will always be some issue that somebody wants to protest against. And this is obviously a high profile one. I think companies want to hire the best people that they can find. They want to have the best business that they can run, and I think that’s going to be their focus. And whatever color they are, whatever gender they are, companies are now focusing on finding the best people to carry out a particular job, and we should
Joe Duran 44:47
just highlight it is now illegal to use quotas preferential that is why it’s given cover to a lot of companies that maybe didn’t want to do it anyway. Perhaps. Perhaps. But regardless, as a former partner Goldman, who was there, when we implemented a lot of these strategies, it’s removed that, and it’s made it really a merit based, because you have to legally make it merit based. And so again, it’s not leaving any choice. It’s not like these, these boycotts, or whatever they’re going to do can be implemented because it’s actually now not legal to have any kind of vetting or race or any other filter.
Terri Kallsen 45:29
That’s right. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing these big, long show today. Terry, I know, I know it must be me if anyone’s still watching, but hopefully the power of gab back, but I found the conversation really interesting, and I’m looking forward to hearing your guys’ view next week, but I want to thank all of our viewers for joining us again. We want your questions. We want your input. We want your feedback, what’s working, what’s not, but most importantly, we want you to achieve your financial goals, and we believe advisors out there, like at Bleakley Financial Group, Andy and Peter and so on. They can really help you think through some of these. So if you’re interested, go to wealthion backspace free. We’ll offer you a free portfolio review so we can get some of these questions answered and make sure you’re feeling peace of mind for the rest of this year and beyond. So I want to thank Peter Andy, Joe, thank you so much for you,
Joe Duran 46:23
Terry, thank you guys be well. You
