The Federal Reserve faces mounting uncertainty, Trump’s sweeping economic policies are set to reshape markets, and the bond market remains under immense pressure—making 2025 a year of financial turbulence. In this insightful interview, Andrew Brill sits down with Jared Dillian to unpack the Fed’s 2025 outlook, the potential return of yield curve control, transformative tax reforms, and how global rebuilding efforts in Ukraine and California could drive demand for commodities. Jared also analyzes the risks of public and tech sector layoffs, stock market volatility, and offers actionable strategies to protect and grow your wealth during these uncertain times.
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Jared Dillian 0:00
There’s points in history where you you know the you have forward guidance from the Fed, and they tell you what they’re going to do over the next six to 12 months, and it’s pretty certain. And then there’s other times in history where there’s really no certainty at all, and you don’t know what monetary policy is going to look like. And that’s kind of where we are right now. You
Andrew Brill 0:23
welcome to wealthion. I’m Andrew brill. We have a new administration, and we’ll talk about the effect that will have on the economy and markets. Right now,
Andrew Brill 0:36
I’d like to welcome back Jared, dillian, to wealthion. Jared, a veteran of Wall Street, an accomplished author, a musician, a DJ, a veteran author of The Daily dirt nap, and an educator. I’m sure I left a few things out. Jared, welcome back to wealthion.
Jared Dillian 0:50
Hey, good to be back. Thanks.
Andrew Brill 0:53
Absolutely. So you’re teaching a new class now. How’s that going?
Jared Dillian 0:57
Uh, it’s not a new class. I mean, this is the third time I’ve taught this class, it’s personal finance, but, you know, we’ve had one class, it’s going, well, it’s, you know, it’s funny, because I kind of, I kind of do the good cop, bad cop thing, you know, like, I, I kind of lay down the law in The first class. And, you know, everybody’s, like, totally intimidated. And then, you know, later on in the semester, they figure out, like, I’m a big teddy bear, and it’s, you know, so, so
Andrew Brill 1:29
you’re trying to explain to kid, don’t keep your money under the mattress. You gotta, you gotta take care of yourself like our grandparents once did, yep. So Jared, I was first of all welcome to a new administration. And what are your thoughts on the economy as we sit here today? Well,
Jared Dillian 1:51
we’re recording this on Friday, January 17. We just had some incredibly strong housing data, and you’ve probably seen the last couple days that Christopher Waller, who’s one of the Fed governors his he’s agitating for several more rate cuts in 2025 and Waller is like, he’s not a political hack, like he’s he’s a real guy. He’s an honest broker. And I’m kind of wondering, like, what is he seeing that I’m not seeing? Because all the data I’m seeing is super strong, and anecdotally, the mark the economy seems to be strong. On the other side, you have Beth Hammack, who’s the new Cleveland Fed President. And you know, she’s been saying lately that, you know, inflation is still high, which it is, it’s 2.9% and there’s still inflationary pressures, and she’s, you know, agitating towards higher rates. So it’s, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. And then, of course, you know, after the inauguration, Trump takes office, and he, we all know that Trump wants the Fed to lower rates. And is this going to be a repeat of 2017 2018 where he was dumping all over Jay Powell to get him to cut rates? So I would say, you know, there’s, there’s points in history where you, you know the you have forward guidance from the Fed, and they tell you what they’re going to do over the next six to 12 months, and it’s pretty certain. And then there’s other times in history where there’s really no certainty at all, and you don’t know what monetary policy is going to look like. And that’s kind of where we are right now. So
Andrew Brill 3:37
how is it that two fed governors can take a look at it and look the Fed’s mandate was always 2% 2% 2% where 2.9% at this point. How is it that two fed governors can look at it and say, No, we have to go this way, or we have to go that way.
Jared Dillian 3:52
I don’t know. It’s, it’s, it’s really strange, you know, especially when you consider that, you know, we just did 100 basis points of rate cuts. The last one was considered to be a close call, right in which Beth ham dissented on in, in, you know, at that meeting, she was actually a descent. So, you know, if once in the 50 basis point rate cut that kicked it off was the Fed panicking about unemployment. So I don’t, I don’t really see how you get 100 basis points or rate cuts in 2025 unless, unless Trump really leans on the Fed, which is possible. So, but
Andrew Brill 4:37
you think Jay Powell will give in to the pressure from Donald Trump, because it doesn’t seem like he’s ready to do that just yet.
Jared Dillian 4:44
No. I mean, I you know, from his language and his body language, you know when he was asked that question at the press conference, if he would resign, if, if Trump asked him to resign, and he said, he just said no, and he seemed kind of annoyed by. Question, you know, Powell is termed out. He’s not gonna be he’s not gonna be Fed chair for another four years, like he’s retiring, like he knows this. So I think he’s in a position where, you know, he can tell Trump to go pack sand. But something else, something else, yeah.
Andrew Brill 5:24
So we had a PPI that came in and the market was ho hum. CPI comes in, and it didn’t seem to move. It’s still a 2.9 and the market goes crazy. Can you explain to us why it went on a run like that.
Jared Dillian 5:41
Yeah, I can try to explain that. So first of all, I think that you know what happened was, when PPI was released, it was softer, and you got a rip in bonds that lasted a couple of minutes, and then they sold off again. I think the market really didn’t believe the PPI print, and then when it was confirmed by this the CPI print. Also keep in mind, you know, bonds have been selling off relentlessly since, like, October, September, you know, 10s are, I don’t know, 80 basis points higher. You’ve had this big bond bear market. And you know what I think is that positioning in bonds is very extended. I think there’s a lot of shorts. So, you know, I really think it was short covering when CPI came out, like, you know, people just had to cover. I still think that positioning is very short. I don’t think we’ve seen the low in bonds yet, or the high in yields, I think we have to make a little bit higher, high in yields. I say that for technical reasons, and I say that because I think you’re going to get some language out of the Trump administration in the first couple of weeks. They’re going to be talking about extending the tax cuts. They’re going to be talking about more tax cuts, they’re going to be talking about things that will expand the deficit, and I think that those are going to be scary headlines for the bond market. So I don’t, I don’t think we put in a top in yields just yet, almost, but not quite.
Andrew Brill 7:15
Thanks so much for watching our discussion here on wealthion with Jared dillian. If you would like help with your wealth efforts. Please head over to wealthion.com/free for a free portfolio review. So you think that hang on to your hat, you might be able to get bonds at a better price. And I should say, if you buy them now, you might be able to get a higher price in a few weeks, once this policies come out. Yeah, so bonds, the the rate, the rate curve, uh, has inverted back. So the the long bonds are are much higher. The 10 year is higher. The mortgage rates are higher. Jared, what are you expecting for inflation? Because right now, 2.9% tax cuts, tariffs, all of this seems inflationary, and eventually the bubble is going to pop and they’re going to have to raise rates again. Yeah. I mean, that is the conventional
Jared Dillian 8:18
wisdom that everything Trump wants to do is inflationary. And the question is, you know whether that’s priced in? You know, if you go back to the election, on election night, when it became clear that Trump was winning, the bond market sold off pretty relentlessly, and then it rallied for like two weeks. It rallied for for a couple of weeks, basically on the idea that Scott Besson was going to be treasury secretary and he was safe hands, and he was going to cut the deficit. And then Bond started selling off again. So the curve, last I checked, was about positive 40 basis points, and 12 months ago, is about negative 30 basis points. So the curve is steepened a bit in the last year, and it’s steepened a lot in the last couple of weeks. You know, the Trump steepening, which everybody has been waiting for, where short term rates come down and long term rates come up. I mean that that is the trade that should happen once Trump takes power, and people have been waiting for that for a long time. I I’m a little bit skeptical. You know, that is a very crowded trade. There’s a lot of people in the steepener and crowded trades generally don’t work, but theoretically, that is what’s supposed to happen. Do
Andrew Brill 9:42
you see Jared because the long bond is going up? Do you see people leaving the market or taking money out of the stock market, putting it into a safe place, like bonds? No,
Jared Dillian 9:54
I don’t see that at all. You know, it’s, it’s what’s interesting is that, you know. Were, you know, if you want to talk about stocks, you know, you’ve had some rotation in the market. Apple, which is the biggest stock by market cap, is down 12% from the highs, which is an enormous move. And stocks are down maybe two to 3% you know, Nvidia made new highs. There are other stocks that are making new highs. Tesla is going up. So it’s kind of interesting. I don’t think people are taking their money out of stocks at all. I think you’d have to get rates significantly higher in order to get people to de risk. I think you’d have to see like money market rates at like 6% before people, you know, start taking money out of stocks, and at four and a half percent, that’s not going to do it. So we
Andrew Brill 10:50
talked about the yield curve. And in your daily dirt nap, you talked about yield curve controls, which you didn’t think would happen for quite some time, but it’s sort of something you’re you’re pondering now, can you explain what yield curve controls would be and why they may happen sooner than you thought? Well,
Jared Dillian 11:09
so yield curve control we actually did in the 30s and 40s. And what that means is, is that the Fed will say, okay, the 10 year note, is going to trade at three and a half percent, so they cap the rate at three and a half percent, and they buy all tenure notes at three and a half percent in order to maintain that cap. And it’s incredibly inflationary, because they’re literally printing money to buy bonds at that level, and they can cap at any point across the yield curve. So back in the 30s and 40s, interest rates were much lower. They capped the 30 year bond at 2% and after yield curve control ended. After World War Two in 1946 inflation shot up to about 18% for a short period of time. So it is very inflationary. The reason I think it might happen soon is because, first of all, I think Trump knows that he can beat up the Fed in lower short term rates. But you saw what happened a couple of months ago. We lowered short term rates and long term rates went up and the curve steepened right? So the bond traded at 5% the other day. If Trump really wants to affect mortgage rates, he’s going to have to lean on the Fed to do yield curve control to her to hold long term rates down. And like I said, like, I said, like, I think this is a low probability, but I think, you know, with with the bond at 5% with mortgage rates at seven and a half, like, the likelihood of this happening, I think is going up. I think there’s maybe a 10% chance of it now, where there was a 0% chance last year. So could be interesting. Do
Andrew Brill 13:02
you think the administration looks at the housing market, the price of houses, the mortgage rates, and say, hey, look, you know, we need to stimulate this a little bit and bring housing prices down. Do you think that’s one of the reasons why he might look at the controls?
Jared Dillian 13:17
Well, you know, yield curve control would make housing prices go up, right like that. Would, you know if, if mortgage rates go from seven and a half to six or five and a half, you know, that makes houses more affordable, you know, so housing prices would go up. It definitely would not make the housing market cheaper. What it would do is make it more accessible to first time home buyers. But really, what I think we’ve seen the last couple years is sort of a supply side revolution when it comes to housing like it’s very interesting because, you know, even left wing mayors and city council chairmen and local government, people acknowledge that increased supply of houses bring housing prices down. So all the nimbyism that you saw in the 2000 10s is giving way to gimbalism, yes, in my backyard. And you know, there’s been a lot of pro growth housing policies put into place that are allowing for stuff to get built. I mean, here in Myrtle Beach, they have, they have built so much. I mean, we have a huge migration into the area, but they’ve actually built so many houses that housing prices are not going up. They’re actually going down a little bit, and it’s because of that supply they brought so much supply onto the market. So that’s happening everywhere. So that’s a good thing.
Andrew Brill 14:47
I was reading about banks and forbearance on people who can’t pay their mortgages, and how the lack of supply has a little bit to do with the banks saying, Look, you know what? We don’t. Really want to foreclose, so they’re putting people into forbearance until their situation gets a little better. Have you heard about this? And how does this affect the market? So if the banks decide at one point you know what, we are going to foreclose, sorry, we have to take your house. Couldn’t there be a glut on the housing market, and then all of a sudden, prices plummet.
Jared Dillian 15:19
I haven’t heard of any of that, but I can tell you that it wouldn’t take much of a downturn in the economy to cause a huge number of foreclosures, right? So one of the things we’ve seen is that the savings rate is going down, that consumer credit is going up that people, you know, and this is a largely as a result of inflation, but people are more strapped for cash. And if you saw a slight downturn in the economy and employment went from unemployment, went from like five and a half, from four and a half to like five and a half or 6% you would see a lot of foreclosures, and it would have an effect on housing prices, it would be deflationary.
Andrew Brill 16:03
So unemployment is something that the Fed looks at very, very closely, and it seems that there are some layoffs coming. And do you do you envision that unemployment does go up? And look, I know that Trump and his tariffs is going to try and create manufacturing jobs, and that happened in a short term, his last term, but I have to believe that at some point, inflation is going to tick up. They keep revising these numbers anyway, so you’re not sure who to believe at this point. Well,
Jared Dillian 16:42
I think there are going to be some job losses in the public sector. I think you’re going to see, you know, you know, 10s or hundreds of 1000s or even millions of jobs destroyed, you know, at the federal government level, and maybe even at state and local government. And that is going to have an effect on the economy. I think it’s going to have an effect on some, you know, specific geographic areas, like, I think, you know, the DC area is going to suffer in particular, which is good, but there’s and also the tech sector. A lot has been written about this, Tech has massively over hired for a whole bunch of reasons. But, you know, Google has 180,000 employees, which is insane. You know, even a company like DocuSign, like DocuSign has 3000 employees. Why the hell does DocuSign need 3000 employees, you know, so there’s a lot of blow in tech, and not just there’s really blow in all areas of the economy. And if we ever did hit a, you know, hit a speed bump, you could see layoffs happen very, very quickly, very quickly. We could go to 4% to 6% in a heartbeat. So we
Andrew Brill 18:03
talked about the price of bonds, and obviously that has something to do with the debt. And do you expect that Doge can actually cut enough out of the government? Look, you’re talking about laying off a bunch of government workers. Do you think that there’s enough there to offset some of the spending that the new administration wants to take part in? I actually
Jared Dillian 18:27
do. I think, I think there is, you know, during the pandemic years, the government expanded quite a bit, so we have a $7 trillion budget right now, $7 trillion in spending. I want to say that in 2019 it was about four and a half trillion. So it’s, I mean, it’s expanded by like 60% in five years, six years. And a lot of that, really is head count. You know, it’s funny, because, you know, Canada went through the same thing, you know, under Trudeau, like, he expanded the government bureaucracy in Canada massively. Canada, like, the number of government workers in Canada has grown just exponentially. And I’ve heard stories of people like, they don’t even have to go to work. They log on, like, once a week, they have a second job, they have two paychecks. Like that. Type of stuff is happening here as well. There’s a lot that you can cut an enormous amount of people, and you can make a you can you can take a big bite out of the deficit.
Andrew Brill 19:34
It’s funny. It’s like a two pronged sword. You’re cutting, you’re creating unemployment, but at the same time you’re you’re lowering the deficit. So does that balance things out as far as the economy goes? Um,
Jared Dillian 19:49
well, by lowering the deficit, theoretically, that’s going to make the bond market happy. So you’ll see, you’ll see rates come down, which is good for everybody. Um, it also. So you know, if, if you cut 300,000 people from the federal government, and over the course of a year or two, they find their way into the private sector, and they’re more productive, then that’s also good for everybody. So I think it’s, you know, I think it’s, I think it’s a win, win.
Andrew Brill 20:18
What do you think Scott Besant can do to help that situation? Obviously, he’s going to take over for Janet Yellen, and he’s got the task of of servicing this debt. How do you think he attacks it? We know that Janet Yellen was short term stuff, but how do you think Scott Besant attacks this? Well,
Jared Dillian 20:38
the first thing he needs to do is he needs to change the password on that computer in his office.
Jared Dillian 20:50
I can’t even imagine what Janet yelling on to get her computer hacked, probably some Nigerian prince thing or something like that. I mean, he’s the first thing he has to really focus on is the weighted average maturity of US Treasury debt, right, which, right now, is about 70 months. Okay, so five plus years, five years, eight months, right? 10 months, the weighted average maturity of our debt is too short. I mean, this is the thing that Yellen screwed up during the pandemic, when rates were sub 1% she should have issued as much debt as humanly possible in 10s and 30s, right as much as humanly possible in extended the maturity of our debt. I mean, basically, it’s common sense, just like millions of people did during the pandemic, when mortgage rates went down to two and a half percent, they locked it in for 30 years, right? If rates go down, you want to lock them in for as long as possible. She didn’t do that. We financed the government mostly in bills and two year notes. So when rates went up, we were totally hosed, and that’s why interest expense went from 300 billion to a trillion. So Besant needs to term out the debt as quickly as possible. And if the auction size of bonds starts going from 40 or 50 billion to 90 or 100 billion, that’s going to put a lot of pressure on the long end, which gets back to the steepening that we talked about earlier. Like you, you, I mean, 2025 you could see short term rates come down, but you could see long term rates go up a lot. So,
Andrew Brill 22:37
and that creates the problem. If short term rates are down, you want to finance with those short term bonds and not the longer term. So I guess the steepening of the curve sort of plays against you at that point. It does. Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about the dollar. It has come down a little bit in your daily dirt nap, you talk about your sort of long commodities, you think that the weakening of the dollar will be very good for the for commodities. I know that, and Donald Trump makes no bones about it that he wants to weaken the dollar a little bit. Is this why you’re you’re bullish on commodities.
Jared Dillian 23:21
Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a big reason. I mean, look like it’s funny, because we all know Trump wants to get the dollar down, but he hasn’t said a word about it. Besson was, it’s crazy to me that nobody on the finance committee asked Besson his views on the dollar like that’s in a confirmation hearing. Nobody asked the incoming Treasury Secretary his opinion on the dollar. That’s nuts. So, yeah, I think, I think the Trump administration wants to get the dollar down and look like, you know, we’ve talked about commodities before. You know, commodities have been in a secular bear market for years now. I think we’re finally starting to see signs of life. And if you know, if Trump devalued the dollar by 10 or 15% commodities, the whole basket would probably go up 15 or 20% so look,
Andrew Brill 24:19
we have a lot of rebuilding to do with those commodities too. Look, Los Angeles is now pretty much there’s parts of it that have burned down to the ground. You have the Middle East that has to rebuild many different places. So you’re talking about infrastructure, steel, copper, concrete, all those things that that these places are going to need. So commodities should get a boost at some point.
Jared Dillian 24:43
Yeah, and you left out Ukraine as well.
Andrew Brill 24:45
My apologies. Yes,
Jared Dillian 24:47
I think, I think the war in Ukraine is going to end in 2025 and you’ll have to rebuild there as well. I mean, basically what you’re talking about with all the. Stuff. It’s like, the two big ones are, like, lumber and copper. I don’t really have a view on lumber. It’s, it’s, it’s not very liquid. It trades like crap. It’s, I know lumber is very cheap right now. I mean, $50 billion worth of houses burned down in California. You’re going to need some lumber. I haven’t, I haven’t even looked at lumber futures to see what they’ve done since the fire. And copper as well. But copper, you know, copper doesn’t really respond to these long term forces, like it’s really copper in the short term is really a play on China stimulus. You know, if you think China is going to do stimulus, you buy copper. If you don’t, you sell it like, that’s it kind of trades around China in the short term. So I don’t you know if you were to, like, figure out a way to do some big infrastructure play on all these areas that have been decimated. I’m not really sure what the smartest way to do it is.
Andrew Brill 26:08
So, you know, obviously we, like you said, recording this on Friday, a new administration comes in right after the weekend. What are you expecting? Obviously, tariffs are on the table. Lower taxes are on the table. Energy independence, there, lot of talk about that. What are you expecting from the new administration in the short term to make things move in the right direction? Well,
Jared Dillian 26:34
in the short term, I think they’re going to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. That’s that’s that’s going to be one of the first priorities. But I also think, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned taxes. So I want to talk about taxes. We could be completely rethinking the US tax code, completely rethinking it. You could see something like a Reagan 1986 tax reform that flattens, flattens rates and gets taxes down in, you know, with a two on it, you know, like getting into like 28% or something like that, something as close to a flat tax as humanly possible. You could see that you I mean, there’s, you know, even is some of the, some of the nut jobs on Twitter are talking about, like, abolishing income taxes. And is as crazy as that is, like, you know, Trump has actually been going around telling people that he can finance the government with tariffs and get rid of the income tax altogether, you know, so the numbers on that don’t add up, right? Like, you can’t finance the government with tariffs unless you dramatically reduce the size of government. But just the fact that people are talking about this stuff, like it’s, you know, it’s funny, if you look at a chart of tax rates going back to Woodrow Wilson in 1913 like, there used to be a lot of volatility in tax rates. We haven’t had a lot of volatility in tax rates since 1982 right like in when Jimmy Carter was president, the top rate was 70% and Reagan brought it down to 50% a couple years later, and then he lowered it to 28% and then Bush, George HW Bush, raised it to 31 and Clinton raised it to 39.6 and we’ve been around anywhere between 35 and 39.6 for the last 30 years. You know, there’s really not been a lot of volatility in tax rates. As much as people made a big deal about the tax cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 taxes hardly moved at all. I mean, it was like a 3% cut in the in the top marginal rate. You know, it was kind of a namby pamby tax cut. So, like I said, I think people are going to be totally rethinking how we collect revenue in this country. You saw that Trump was going to start this external revenue service, right? Like, not the Internal Revenue Service, but the external revenue service to collect taxes and stuff. There’s going to be some crazy ideas coming out, and some of them are going to be good and some of them are going to be bad, you know? But before we got on the call, you asked me, like, about the roller coaster, like, how are you enjoying the roller coaster? And I’m like, you haven’t, you haven’t seen anything yet. Like, the roller coaster has not even started yet. So, jeez, we’re
Andrew Brill 29:30
still climbing up that first hill right waiting for that big drop. I mean, you know, it seems like we’re on it, but I guess we’ve just sort of fastened our seat belts and get ready for the ride. But I think your point is a good one. We need to think about taxes in a very much different way, because right now I feel like I’m working for the government more than half my paycheck, the 39.6 is the federal rate you then pay local tax. Use pay state taxes, and at some point you’re, you’re ending up with less than half of what you’ve earned by working. So it’s, it’s, I think that’s a good thing, that somebody’s thinking about some reform. But last time there was a tax cut, so people had some more money in their pocket, and then Trump instituted tariffs. This time, it might work the other way around, where he’s gonna, you know, on day one, he’s gonna try and institute some tariffs, and they’re steep, but now there’s talk of maybe implementing them slowly. We know there’ll be some backlash from other countries, but the tariffs is really a tax on the American people, because they’re going to end up paying more for goods, aren’t they? Oh,
Jared Dillian 30:44
yeah, I am not a fan of, I am not a fan of tariffs at all. I’m a big free trade guy. I’m a libertarian, you know, I think the tariffs are a terrible idea. You know, it’s funny. I have a nephew, so one of one of the arguments I hear for tariffs from people is that other countries do it to us, so we should do it to them. And I’m like, Look, two wrongs. Don’t make it right. I started to say, I have a nephew, and he used to live in China, when he went to school in China. And you know, he would tell me that he would go to the grocery store in China, and he would go to the peanut butter aisle, and the Chinese peanut butter was $2 and the Skippy was $25 because of a tariff, you know. And nobody bought the Skippy like it was for sale, but nobody bought it because it was so expensive. And people look at that and they’re like, well, they’re doing it to us, so we should do it to them. And I’m like, Absolutely not, absolutely not. So
Andrew Brill 31:46
why? You know, look, I get that Donald Trump wants to create manufacturing here and get that rolling, and that’s one of the reasons why he wants to institute the tariffs. And look, he’s ticked off at every other country for sort of taking advantage of America. But it Yes, manufacturing jobs went up, but they slowly dwindled down during his administration. So what? What is the the net effect of tariffs? Anyway?
Jared Dillian 32:15
Yeah, and I don’t, you know, it’s funny, like people romanticize manufacturing jobs, you know, like, these are the jobs that we want. Like, these low skilled jobs where somebody can show up and they put part A into slot B, and they do that for eight hours, and they go home and watch The Simpsons. Like, I, I don’t, I don’t necessarily think we want people in manufacturing jobs like, those are, those are tedious, stultifying jobs, right? Like, we want people in thinking jobs like we want. We basically want highly educated people that are in knowledge jobs and the manufacturing. I mean, that’s like, I like things the way they were in the 2000s I like globalization. I liked it when China was paying people $1.50 an hour to make rubber doormats, and we imported them here, and we sold them at Walmart for $4 and we didn’t have somebody in the United States, you know, making doormats like that. I and it was deflationary, like we had no inflation, you know, it was, it was the most deflationary thing in the world. So I would like to go back to that, but it’s not going to happen in, you know, tariffs in manufacturing, things within the United States is inflationary. Things are going to cost more? You know, it’s just a fact. How
Andrew Brill 33:43
do we get you into the Trump administration to be an advisor and say, Look, this is the way things have to run.
Jared Dillian 33:51
They won’t listen to me.
Andrew Brill 33:54
So what are you expecting out of the stock market in the first term, Donald Trump took the stock market from 20,000 to 30,000 obviously, it’s a lot higher. Now, what are you expecting out of the stock market?
Jared Dillian 34:06
I saw a headline today that said that the the period between the election and the inauguration that interregnum has had the this year has had the lowest return since 2009 and you also had the lowest return between Christmas and New Year’s in like 80 years, like going back to like 1937 so usually stocks go up in the period between an election and inauguration. This time, they really haven’t. And I, you know, one of the points I’ve been trying to make about this, you know, everybody thinks Trump is bullish for stocks, it’s pro growth, it’s expansionary. And look like it was also true of Reagan. When Reagan was elected in 1980 you know, people were very optimistic that Reagan would, uh. Um, you know, expand the economy and grow the economy. The first two and a half years of Reagan’s first term were a disaster for the stock market. Right now, things were different because you had Volcker that was hiking interest rates, and he caused a recession in 1982 but even still, like, you know, Reagan, you know, was supposed to sprinkle fairy dust on the economy, and things were supposed to go up into the right and they didn’t. They did later in his term, around 1983 but it took a long time. I think, I think the effects of Trump, his pro growth policies are priced in. I think they’re fully priced in, and I think the first couple of years of his term are going to be tough for the stock market. You’re
Andrew Brill 35:47
not really, you don’t you’re not bullish on the stock, Marty. You’re actually out of stocks at this point. Am I
Jared Dillian 35:54
totally out? But I sold a while. A couple of weeks ago, I sold just about everything. Yeah, what
Andrew Brill 36:02
sectors Jared, are you looking at? You think, okay, you know what? Other than commodities, because we know that you’re sort of, you know, long term commodities. What else are you looking at? You think maybe this is going to do well under Trump? Um, I
Jared Dillian 36:16
don’t know. I mean, look, I’m, actually, I’m bullish on agriculture and fertilizer. That’s not specifically a Trump play, okay? And I’m just in the early stages of doing research on that, but it’s more of a commodity play, like, you know, we’ve had a bear market, not just in, you know, metals and energy, but also in agricultural commodities that’s lasted for a few years, so I think that’s over.
Andrew Brill 36:43
Yeah, earlier in our talk, you mentioned apple and the mag seven has taken a fairly big or a sizable hit. Actually, do you find that tech is going to stay stagnant until people really figure out what AI is all about. I mean, we talked about manufacturing jobs. We can get robots to put tab a into slot B. Yeah,
Jared Dillian 37:08
well, actually, I read something interesting yesterday. So there was an interview with David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, and he said, look like we can create an s1 a prospectus for a stock offering in AI in five minutes, like, you know it, which used to take a team of 10 people two weeks to do. He says we can create 95% of it in like three minutes. And really we just have to work on the other 5% but think about that, right? Think of like, I mean, that’s that’s going to make a lot of people redundant, you know,
Andrew Brill 37:49
again, losing jobs. So Jared, I want to ask you in Are we better off at the end of 2025 than we were in 2024
Jared Dillian 38:01
um, Are we better off, sort of, like, existentially, like, I mean, I think so. I think I think we’re better off most every year look like, I do think it’s, you know, I am bearish on stocks, but I’m not bearish on stocks, because I believe things are going to get materially worse, or there’s, we’re going to have a recession, or whatever. I mean, the stock market is expensive, and, you know, I think, I think on a valuation basis, you can, you know, it should be cheaper. But, yeah, I’m, I’m excited about the incoming administration. I’m excited about what they’re going to do with taxes. I’m excited about how you know Scott Besson, who is one of the smartest financial guys you’ll ever meet, how you have this guy in charge of debt, I wish debt issuance and fixing that problem. So, yeah, I think we’re in a better spot earning
Andrew Brill 39:01
season where banks have gone bonkers. What are you expecting from the rest of earnings season? Yeah, I wish I
Jared Dillian 39:09
owned banks. I saw that there was actually. I did own Goldman Sachs and I sold it. I just like an idiot. Um, so I don’t know. I don’t really, I don’t pay a lot of attention to to earnings, like on an individual company level, you know? Yeah, I just, I honestly, don’t pay a lot of attention to it.
Andrew Brill 39:38
So what do you have coming up? What do you have? Yeah, I know you’re in the middle or beginning a new book, to write a new book. Well,
Jared Dillian 39:47
I have three books in that I’m working on, and one of them is going to be coming out this summer. It’s called rule 62 it’s a essay collection. I’m working on a book about the awesome port. Polio that’s supposed to come out in 2026 I’m about halfway done with that, and I just started a novel, which is like a dystopian fiction novel that’ll hopefully come out in 27 that’s called round zero. So I’m working on those three things, and also I have written up an options master class. So this is going to be sold through Jared dillian money. If you really don’t know anything about options and you’d like to learn about options, this is a great, great class to take. So keep an eye out for that that’s probably going to come out in March or something like that.
Andrew Brill 40:41
Not the only class you’ll have on Jared Dillon money, you have a bunch of them that people can take. So we’ll get, we’ll get the the URL to your your website up there. So if someone wants to hear more about how you teach and the things that you offer, we’ll get that up there. So Jared, thanks so much for joining me. Where can we find you? Other than Jared dillian money, I know you’ve got a Twitter account because I follow you and the daily dirt nap. Yeah,
Jared Dillian 41:07
uh, just, just Jared Gillian money. Jared billion money.com, that’s the best place to find me
Andrew Brill 41:12
and follow and subscribe to the daily dirt nap. You’ll get it in your inbox just about five days a week. I know you’re taking Monday off for the holiday. So have a have a good day off, and thanks so much for joining me, Jared. I really appreciate it. Yep, thank you. Thanks so much for watching our discussion here on wealthion with Jared dillian. If you would like help with your wealth efforts, please head over to wealthion.com/free for a free portfolio review. Before you go, please like and subscribe to the channel, and don’t forget to hit the notification bell. So you hear about new videos. Follow wealthion on social media. All the links are below in the description, and if you’re looking for more ways to achieve long term wealth, watch this video next.
