August 23rd, 2025 - Powell Finally Listened to Us!

This week's show examined the impact of recent speeches by Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, focusing on potential interest rate cuts and their effects on the markets. The discussion extended to the results of the recent earnings season and an analysis of international economic indicators. The hosts also touched on macroeconomic concerns such as tariffs, inflation, and labor market dynamics, emphasizing the potential impacts on both markets and individual financial situations. 

Transcript

Steve Van We 0:00

It's Saturday morning, it's 10 o'. Clock. This is the Van We Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van We.

Adam Van We 0:05

I'm Adam Van We.

Joey Loss 0:06

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steve Van We 0:08

Three of a kind today. We're back up to full strength and the market is being nice and the weather's perfect and we're in a really good mood. At least I speak for myself. But I've been watching the faces that I'm with here and it seems like everything's pretty well. So this should be a fun day and I hope you can all stay with us. Welcome back to the regulars. Happy that you're always with us and you know the rules. As long as you show up, we do too. And if you're new and somebody told you about it or you just happened upon it, try to stick around for a while. We talk about all kinds of fun things. I can't think of a topic in the world more people are affected by than your own personal money. And if you want to talk about your money or you want to just listen to what we say, that's fine. But if you want to change the subject, pick up the phone down 904-222-8255.

Steve Van We 1:02

We'll put you right to the head of the class. I remind people every once in a while that this is a live radio program and there is a reason it's always been a live radio program, because there's nothing more fun than spontaneity, which is pretty hard to find when they're playing playing reruns with you and with us. Just ask us anything if we don't know it, which would be kind of unlikely since there's so many brilliant minds here. Can you pull a hand back? Reaching too far back to pat us on the back Anyway, if we don't know, we'll always get it for you by the next show at the latest. And if you would like to email something in because you're a little hesitant or anything, which you don't need to be because we're really quite nice, then just send it to infocribuswealth.com

Steve Van We 1:55

and we'll get back to you for sure. Either privately or over the air or both. You never know. So without wasting any more time because sometimes I drag it out because I don't want to get to the market rep and that's usually when things are really bad. But since they are really not bad, take it over guys.

Adam Van We 2:17

It was another wild week brought to you by the Fed. One in a series of many we have this sort of standing joke around the office that anytime Powell or any other Fed chair speaks, you're going to see a big update and a big down day. You just don't know when it's going to happen. But they're usually back to back. And that's pretty much what we saw in this case as well. Powell delivered a speech at Jackson Hole that referenced the possibility of a rate cut. That's the first time he's really used that sort of language in his speech. And the market really appreciated that and it shot up on that news. Interestingly though, the CME Fed Watch tool that forecasts the possibility of rate movements based on market, it actually moved the odds of a rate cut down by 10%. So going into that speech it was somewhere around 85% and then this morning it was only 75%. I didn't think that made any sense, but that's what happened.

Steve Van We 3:17

So they don't speak English at the Fed, you know, so it takes a little consideration.

Adam Van We 3:22

Yeah, definitely. Powell also mentioned a weakening labor market and increased potential for layoffs during his speech. And he, the other thing he did say was that he doesn't expect much inflation to be caused by tariffs. So these are all things that we've been saying for quite some time. Finally he's coming around to our point of view. I guess he got my phone calls and emails.

Joey Loss 3:47

Yeah, I think he was listening to last week's episode probably.

Steve Van We 3:50

Yeah, I shot him a heads up. Go back and listen to Adam and do something intelligent.

Adam Van We 3:55

Exactly. So that was, that was good news and the market definitely liked it. It had a huge day on Friday. It was a slow start to the week though. Four straight down days. The net result for the week was kind of mixed. The Dow led the way higher gained 1.5%. S P was up just 0.3% and the Nasdaq actually fell 0.6% despite gaining 1.9 on Friday. So would have been a pretty bad week for the Nasdaq had we not seen that big boost on Friday. The Russell 2000 small cap index was up almost 4% on Friday, bringing its performance for the year up to 6%. So you can see that most of that performance came in one day. Pretty crazy. It has really, it's really been lagging the rest of the market. But earlier in this week people were, traders were buying what had been losers for the year and selling the winners. And so that that sort of benefited the Russell as well. Earnings season unofficially wrapped up with Walmart reporting on Thursday. Their report was mixed with a beat on revenue but a small miss on profit. It appeared that they are feeling the effects of tariffs and they were eating some of that cost and passing off some on the consumer as well. Overall, it was a really healthy earnings season and better than I think most people would have expected. Definitely better than what I expected. Revisions to earnings forecasts were generally positive with earnings per share forecasts up for the next 12 months up to 2.4% and sales forecasts up 1.5%. EPS forecasts are showing companies expect to grow at a 12.9% annualized rate in the next 12 months and that is up from a 10.2%

Adam Van We 5:39

next 12 months rate. So that's a. That's a pretty significant gain. Sales growth is forecast at 7.7% in the next year. That's up from 6.2. So good news there. Communication services had the highest earnings growth rate of any sector while tech had the highest revenue growth. The this quarter PMI readings came out this week for a variety of countries around the world and they looked pretty strong. Europe got above 50 for the first time since 2022. 50 is the level that indicates growth. Anything below 50 is your. Your economy is actually shrinking. So the Eurozone finally back in the black. India is showing off the basically off the chart strength and has been since 2020 and it came in at a just scorching hot 65.6. That is huge growth. I don't think the US has, I don't know that they've ever been at that level. That's pretty crazy.

Steve Van We 6:36

No, we couldn't handle it. India has this one thing called labor availability.

Adam Van We 6:40

They do, yes. However, the US was really strong and in the case of manufacturing, much higher than expected. The forecast was for 49.6 which would have showed slight contraction, but it came in at a 53.3, showing solid growth in services. The forecast was 54.2, but it came in much higher at 55.4. So those were really good numbers showing the economy is probably doing better than most people think. Existing home sales came in with mixed data. Sales rose 2% to over 4 million annualized, but prices fell. They are now down only 1.5% year to date. That's pretty surprising. I would have guessed a higher number than that. Inventories which had been rising are now down for a couple months in a row, mostly due to people not listing their houses or pulling listings from the market after not selling them. So really interesting dynamics in the existing home market as well.

Steve Van We 7:35

And all that is subject to change in September?

Adam Van We 7:39

No, I don't think that does what. A quarter point. I don't think it's going to change.

Steve Van We 7:41

He says he will. It's not the dynamics, not the geometrics of the market math or anything like that. It's the attitude.

Adam Van We 7:49

Maybe, I don't know. I, I don't know. It's, I mean, going from 6% to 5.75 on a mortgage, not really moving.

Steve Van We 7:57

The needle too much. It might react double that. You never know. Yeah, I just, I think there's a lot of attitude out in the market that is wait and see. Wait and see. Because he has been, well, we, the whole country has been kind of inkling this, this is going to be a cut, going to be a cut. And then every time he goes into a meeting, there's not a cut. It's very difficult for people to jump ahead in, in the face of indecision. So we'll find out soon. We'll be right back. This is the Van WE Financial Hour. Welcome back to the Van WE Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van We. Don't Joey Loss and lines are open. 904-222-8255,

Adam Van We 8:00

Maybe, you know.

Adam Van We 8:07

Yeah.

Adam Van We 8:31

I'm Adam Van We.

Steve Van We 8:38

where you can take a shot at the trivia question which, as usual, is brought to you by Paul Lloyd at First Coast Alarm. You can call Paul at 904-636-7888.

Steve Van We 8:51

Loyal listeners will remember a week or two ago when we were talking about how many publicly traded stocks are no longer publicly traded. The actual number of available shares out there has been dwindling to the point where the broader indices like the 5,000, some can't even fill up the number that they're designed to use. But that's because of mergers and acquisitions and people going private, private equity things, buyouts, all that stuff. How do you get them back on? Well, one of the major ways is initial public offerings where companies who are new, newly existing and have started to make some progress will actually go public in the initial offering and sell shares to the public. And when that happens, then the number of listed stocks goes up and up and up. And that has actually been happening this year. My question is what percentage increase has the pace of IPOs undergone this year? It's just a whole number in percent. So it's between 1 and 100 there. Kind of narrowed it down for you. All right. I want to remind again the loyal listeners of some things that we say that sometimes turn around and just prove us right. Adam was talking about Jay Powell and the Fed meeting and the comments and all that stuff. And what Powell said was for the first time in his life, I believe he is starting to understand that a price level change is not inflationary if it is due to tariffs. Because the tariffs are a one time step. And just as easily as that price level can go up, it can come down. Speaking of which, see what happened in Canada this week?

Adam Van We 10:48

No, the.

Steve Van We 10:52

I won't slander him, but the very self important liberal head of Canada rolled over completely and said scratch my belly. 25% tariffs gone just like that, that.

Adam Van We 11:08

They were imposing on our goods. Okay.

Steve Van We 11:12

Canada, for decades, most people don't know this has been ripping our faces off on tariffs going out to them. The most notable one is butter. It's been 394%

Steve Van We 11:26

wow. On butter. Now I'm going to give an unusual commendation to someone that I very, very seldom do this to. President Biden implemented a 14.7, I think it was percent tariff of lumber coming in from Canada. Everybody can play this game a little bit, but nobody talks about it until it's Trump because then it's important. Right? Well, Trump won this round with Canada. We all knew he would. Now one thing everybody should understand is that 85% of the trade between the US and Canada is covered by the USMCA. That means tariffs have nothing to do with it. These are only on those little extra items. But they played chicken with Trump and they lost. Which means prices are going down again. Which also means Canadians are going to benefit because their tariffs are going down too. Who doesn't want lower prices in, in the big world of fair and free trade? So just thought I'd bring that along.

Adam Van We 12:29

Yeah, that's a, this is an argument that we've been talking about for quite some time. Whether tariffs are inflationary or not. Inflation itself is caused by the amount of money in the system. So when there's an excess amount of money chasing a finite amount of goods, prices tend to rise. That's what causes inflation. The actual price of things going up one time. Well, that is, does cause higher prices for sure. But does it cause this ongoing inflation where, like we saw in 2020-2022

Adam Van We 13:02

where, where we were seeing 9% annualized that the government admitted. No, it is completely different than that.

Steve Van We 13:08

Yeah, that's systemic. This is transactional. And the systemic stuff was caused largely by the spending which was ironically enough stimulated at the last, the last big stimulation by the Inflation Reduction act, so called. Yeah, and that, that of course goes back to our lifetime discussion about truth and labeling in Washington.

Adam Van We 13:11

Right.

Adam Van We 13:33

That was the worst one I've ever seen by far.

Steve Van We 13:35

Yeah. And yet it's quoted all the time. Well, they did something about it. They implemented the Inflation Reduction act, and once all that money was spent, it was nine, or not even spent. It was authorized and inflation hit, I believe, 9.2.

Adam Van We 13:53

Yeah, yeah.

Steve Van We 13:54

And then started to dwindle down. Now, there's another concept that's been in the news lately, too, and it's essentially clawbacks with the. That's not the word they use. One of you probably knows it, or I'll come up with it. It means there's a lot of unspent money out there and they're canceling it, so it will never be spent. That's going through Congress, who did the first package a couple weeks ago, and now they're identifying more and more. So at any given time in D.C. there is a load of unspent, authorized money out there. It's allocated, but the projects haven't started yet, that kind of thing. Well, that's one of the things that's going on right now, and it's very important because that's going to lessen inflationary pressures with every penny that's not spent on all those stupid projects.

Adam Van We 14:39

We actually saw it here with the Emerald Trail. Yeah. There was apparently some federal money that was supposed to go into that, which is a cool project, but why on earth is it being funded by federal tax dollars? I have no idea. That's a local project.

Steve Van We 14:43

Is that what it is?

Joey Loss 14:54

And when we say some money, it was 140, 47. Some million dollars. You know, so just multiply that by the amount of municipal projects across the right country. I mean, look, I love Jacksonville. I'd love to see it. An Emerald Trail and things like that, but it doesn't really make any sense to me why the federal government is a part in that.

Adam Van We 14:58

Yeah.

Adam Van We 15:12

I don't. I don't understand that at all.

Steve Van We 15:14

No, force of habit. Some of it. Some of it is Congress. People who want to go back and lay out all the pork that they.

Adam Van We 15:22

Have, they have secured for our local economy and that.

Steve Van We 15:26

Yeah, yeah. That's system wide. It's built in. There's not much we can do about it except have the majority look at all these things and say, I don't think so.

Joey Loss 15:28

Yeah.

Adam Van We 15:34

Yeah, but that's. That's why we're running such a huge deficit and have a huge debt load. I mean, that stuff like this just never. The federal government was not intended to dole out Money for local pet projects to, to local politicians. That's not the, the way the system was designed.

Steve Van We 15:52

You know, we've had kind of an ongoing discussion here lately, too, about the whole concept of adding, you know, either paying more taxes or doing something to lower the national debt. Nobody can lower the national debt, period. Until one thing happens.

Adam Van We 16:15

You have to stop deficit spending.

Steve Van We 16:16

The budget has to be balanced. Yep. Once you balance the budget where we're taking in as much as we're spending, the next dollar you cut lowers the debt. But not until. So all these people out there constantly whining and crying about, we got to reduce the debt, we got to reduce the debt. And Trump is very guilty of this, by the way he, he uses the term all, all the time. Reducing the.

Adam Van We 16:26

Right.

Adam Van We 16:42

They all. Well, they're in, they're in the minds of America. They are interchangeable, those terms.

Steve Van We 16:47

They are nowhere near interchangeable. So I, I probably said something about this in an earlier show, but I did a little study a couple, three weeks ago where I went to the website where the. The federal government will allow you to contribute more money toward the. They say to reduce the debt. So it took me about 30 seconds to find that web page, and in that time, government debt rose something like $65 million.

Adam Van We 17:21

Now, that's crazy.

Steve Van We 17:22

I was a little short of making that up for those 30 seconds. So I rounded it down to zero.

Adam Van We 17:26

Yeah.

Steve Van We 17:31

You can't make a dentist. I can't make a dent. Bill Gates can't make it.

Adam Van We 17:34

No.

Adam Van We 17:36

Elon Musk couldn't make it.

Joey Loss 17:37

Yeah, No, I mean, that's a, you know, it's just a law of finance. Right. You can't outspend and then expect some other good thing to happen. And, and, you know, we've got. Every once in a while we'll have someone come in to talk to us about financial planning. And they're like, I'm interested in investing. And as we ask some questions, they're looking for some investment that's going to provide a 25% return. Their credit card balances are high. They've got 19% that, you know, there's really nothing we can do until you get rid of that stuff.

Adam Van We 18:03

Exactly.

Steve Van We 18:03

I'm, I'm saving the good stories till after the break, but I'm thinking of things that happened, as you said, in the office, things. There was one. I took a phone call 20 years ago, probably back at the old gig, and it was a very kindly elderly lady, and her question was very simple. She said, I have $1,000 and I'd like to put it somewhere where I could get about $100 a month. And I said, okay, what are you going to do in the 11th month? Because your hundred dollars is going to be gone and

Steve Van We 18:41

you can feel the wind go out of somebody. And I felt it with her and I was so sorry. There's nothing you can do about that, people. Nothing. You got to start now, which, by the way, you are. Have you seen the 401k contribution numbers lately? They're rising. America is saving money again. They were and then they weren't and now they are again. And I'm very encouraged about that because they're saving big money these days. So things like that, you got to get the cure. The cure is very simple. It's called education. And again I thank our governor for starting the ball rolling, getting personal financial education back in the schools. Many people are following suit. It will get better. That understanding will get better among the public than it is now. And some of this hopefully will make more sense to people and then it might have a chance of getting fixed. Lots more to come after a short break. Don't go anywhere. This is the Van we Financial Hour. Welcome back to the Van WE Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van We're Adam Van We. And I remind everyone again that lines are open 904-222-8255

Joey Loss 18:57

No.

Adam Van We 19:00

Yeah, good.

Joey Loss 19:49

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steve Van We 19:55

where you can take a shot at our trivia question. What has been the increase in the number of IPOs this year over last? And it is a whole percentage number greater than 1, less than 100. So anybody who wants to call in and try to make a bracket out of it, I'm sure everyone would be very pleased to have you help. I wish you could hear some of the discussions that go on in the breaks around here. We were talking about sad cases and people who inherit $100,000. So the first thing they do is quit their job. And it's not like they're 70 years old.

Steve Van We 20:33

Middle aged people, young, middle aged people, people. There's so much misconception out there. And we, we did a little quick follow up on my comment about the financial education. Everyone young, old and in between has to be taught to calculate his or her own net worth. And then they got to understand what it means and then they can understand what to do about it. So that's just something. By the way, there's a lot of

Steve Van We 21:03

kid adult stuff going on too that I've been reading about. I've got some information on It, But I don't know that I'm going to get there today. How's the economy? Let's see from Breitbart this week. US factory output surges driving strongest growth since 2022. Huh. I thought I heard that just on some, like, CNN clip or something recently, that, that manufacturing was contracting.

Adam Van We 21:32

No. Well, it was. That was the forecast. That was the PMI number I was talking about.

Steve Van We 21:36

That makes it, that makes it real for, for CNN or. Yeah, CNN. Not Ms. Wow or Ms. Now Ms. Now whatever. Anyway, it expanded in August at the fastest pace in more than three years, and it is the strongest level of this year especially. And Adam already talked about the pmi, which is the Purchasing Managers Index. They survey the. These people survey purchasing managers because the volume of what purchasing people are buying is obviously a precursor to what's going to be made in the factories and businesses everywhere. So this one, it was a little bit of inventory buildup. I'll do that, too. But I don't mind that. I don't mind that everything's not sold. Why do you build up inventories in August and September, Christmas sales coming up, if you don't build up inventories? That is a horrible sign for the economy. So things are good there. All right. Now let's go to bad journalism, shall we, from Investopedia, a site I absolutely love and use frequently. Headline. The job market is hitting the skids, data shows. Now, I have learned. I've been married to a journalist slash English major for 52 and a half years, almost 53 years now. And I have learned a lot about journalism and things like that. And one of them is that the person who writes the article does not write the headline. And very often the headline writer is a blooming idiot. Now let's see if that might be true here. The number of continuing unemployment claims rose to its highest in nearly three years, adding to recent evidence that the job market is slowing down. Layoffs remain low, indicating the economy is in a no hiring, no firing limbo. Employers are cutting back on hiring as tariffs impose new costs. Several economists said.

Adam Van We 22:32

Yeah, that's true.

Steve Van We 23:47

All right, the last line on here, and go through all the junk if you want to. I don't advise that you waste your time with it. Taken together at face value, initial, initial and continuing claims indicate that firms are not laying off workers, but they aren't hiring either. If you have a job, you're okay. If you don't have a job, you're out of luck. Do you get that from that? What's the joules report nowadays 7 million.

Adam Van We 24:14

Yeah, it actually has surprisingly been climbing again after falling pretty. It was like 13 million at the peak. I think 13 or 14 went down to about 6 and I think it's somewhere in the 7 to 8 range now.

Steve Van We 24:26

Now when you have jolts job openings, labor turnover, what it means is that the headline number on jolts means how many jobs are open. They're posted, they want people they haven't been able to get them yet. Unfilled jobs. In other words, when that's rising and nothing else is falling, I don't think the job market's hitting the skids, do you guys?

Adam Van We 24:46

Well seeing one month of or one week of, of the headline

Adam Van We 24:53

recently unemployed, what is it called? The, the, the number you were first talking about? It's still below 250,000.

Steve Van We 25:01

The initial claims.

Adam Van We 25:02

Initial claims. Thank you. Yeah, it's that number has not it. It's been in that 200 to 250 range for a long time now. That's, that's a healthy job market.

Steve Van We 25:11

I think we had one week where it jumped over.

Adam Van We 25:14

I don't did it, I don't think it ever went over. I thought it like bumped up against it and then came back.

Steve Van We 25:18

I thought, I thought there was one that might go over and that immediate came down. So what, what we're talking about here is an ongoing job market. If you want one, you can get one. Why don't people want them? This is the biggest question of the last couple years we've been dealing with over and over. Why can't you get able bodied people off their butts and take a job? Well, part of the ba ba ba ba ba ba whatever. The big beauty part of that was was we're now forcing people if they want to live off the government, meaning us and they're able bodied and they have no restrictions, no young kids at home, anything like that. And there are, there's at least 6 million I'd say out there that are capable of working. If you want to get on Medicaid, if you want to stay on Medicaid, you're going to have to get a job. And you know what a job includes for some of these people? You can go back to school, you can get an apprenticeship, you can do almost anything to better your own condition. You get a part time job, you're only looking at 80 hours a month. Any of these things will qualify you for your Medicaid. Without it you're going naked. People get a job. I remember saying that to so many people that's another thing Adam and I were comparing notes on. In all of our years doing this business, we're talking about how many people whose final end advice they receive from us is get a job. Sometimes it's all in the family. I have a brother like that.

Joey Loss 27:03

Sometimes people have the resources. And getting a job is still the right move because I think one of the things a lot of retirees struggle with. I'm curious for your thoughts, but, like, the absence of responsibility creates this void that makes you feel purposeless. And so I think for a lot of these people on Medicaid, they might think like, oh, going to work, that responsibility is gonna be awful. But reality is it might give you a sense of purpose that kind of just makes you happier. You might not notice it right away, but.

Steve Van We 27:27

Yeah, yeah. Not only that, but if you're not working, you're still spending money.

Joey Loss 27:31

Yep.

Adam Van We 27:32

In fact, careful free time to spend money. If you're not working, I don't care.

Steve Van We 27:36

If you're getting your health care paid, health insurance paid from somewhere else. I don't care anything about stuff like that. What I care about is that there are people who absolutely, positively must get a job or their assets are going to dwindle. And then there'll be wards of the state. And you're talking to the state right here. Good morning, Ron.

Speaker 4 27:59

Good morning, gentlemen. Show as always.

Steve Van We 28:01

Thank you so much. What's up?

Speaker 4 28:05

Just going to take a shot at the trivia question, and I was going to honor it to picture for the New York Yankees named Whitey.

Speaker 4 28:14

He wore number 16, and my guess would be 16%.

Steve Van We 28:19

Well, you are an interesting guesser and you have helped form the bracket. You've put the floor on it because it's bigger than that.

Speaker 4 28:29

Okay, that's cool.

Steve Van We 28:30

Yes, yes, it is. We need it badly.

Adam Van We 28:32

Yeah, definitely.

Steve Van We 28:33

I appreciate it. Have fun and thanks for the call.

Speaker 4 28:36

All right, guys, great show. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.

Adam Van We 28:39

Thanks, Ron.

Steve Van We 28:40

All right, bracket has been laid at the bottom. Let's see what we can do. All right, there's new numbers out. For gosh, decades, we've been saying on and off, you know, about over, sometimes over half. But I will say about half of this country doesn't have a will. And among lawyers, it's about the same percentage. Strangely enough, the ones you would think maybe would get it done, you would think the numbers are in and that half is now up to. The half that has wills is now up to one third. Oh, wait, that's not up.

Joey Loss 29:19

Is it Cobbler's Kids.

Steve Van We 29:23

People,

Steve Van We 29:25

two thirds of you are derelict with your own money. Make a will. I talked about this last week. I think the things you need to do with your kids when your kids are going off to school or something like that, the first one is to have a will. Number one reason of not having a will and the number two reason, kind of interchangeable, one of them is just not that important because I don't have enough money to bother with a will. I don't care how little money you think you have, you have to have a will. It's not all about your money. Everybody has relationships and properties and ownings of this and that and the other thing. You don't want the state you live in telling everybody what's going to happen to your assets when you die. You'd rather have your will do that, especially if you have any children. And sometimes if you're divorced or something like that and you want to make sure that an ex either gets something or doesn't get something. All it is is putting your wishes on paper so that other people don't direct your assets, however large or small, to do it in a way that you wouldn't like. Some people say, well, it's not my problem. By the time it's a problem, I'll be dead. And there is a very selfish element to that in my book. Now tell you another little quick story before we have to take the next break here in a few seconds. I have someone very near and dear to me who had an appointment to make a will for the first time in his life when he up and died suddenly. That someone was my father. And, and that turned out okay because my mother was still around. The state of Florida split it according to Florida rules, 70% her and 10 for each of the kids. And we all sent our 10% back to my mom because it was the right thing to do. And that's what the will would have said. Get one. We'll be right back. This is the Van We Financial Hour. Welcome back to the Van WE Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van.

Adam Van We 31:33

We're Madam V. And I'm Joey Law.

Steve Van We 31:36

We do have a call. Hang on just a second. Joey had a comment he wanted to make that pertain to what I was saying when we went off. So I want to sneak that in before we take your call.

Joey Loss 31:45

Yeah, so the, the will. We talked a lot about the will. Wills are tremendously important. They act like a net that catches everything in the estate that doesn't have other direction through beneficiary designations, things like that. And gives them a place to go. But one of the other important things that it does if you have kids, it establishes guardianship directions. And I would be willing to say that there's a lot of families and listeners out there who. You have some family members. You'd rather take care of your kids if something happens to you than others. This is your chance to do that instead of letting the courts decide. And then another thing, Steve mentioned college kids. When. When kids reach age 18 and they're off to college, even if in your minds, they're just kids, they're adults in the legal system, and if they have a medical emergency or something like that, you won't automatically be able to speak on their behalf, even. Even if, for whatever reason, they're unable to speak on their own behalf.

Steve Van We 32:31

That's why the durable power goes with it. Don't do one without doing them all.

Joey Loss 32:33

That's exactly right. There's one website that I want to point out. It's called Mama Bear legal Forms. And it's. Yeah. Very absurdly cheap way to just have something in place before your kids are gone at school or if they come home, you know, something to look into it. It can make it so that you can actually speak on their behalf without waiting for a court to say that you can.

Steve Van We 32:55

Yeah, I'm familiar with her. I like her a lot.

Adam Van We 32:56

Always better to use a professional if you can afford it, but not everyone.

Steve Van We 32:59

Absolutely. Yeah. Right. All right. Good morning, Ed.

Speaker 4 33:03

Good morning. How are you?

Adam Van We 33:05

Excellent.

Steve Van We 33:05

You?

Speaker 4 33:07

Good. Enjoying the show. I'm going to look up that Mama Bear site, check it out.

Steve Van We 33:14

What can we do?

Speaker 4 33:14

Want to take crack at the trivia question today?

Steve Van We 33:17

Okay, shoot.

Speaker 4 33:19

How about for those IPOs? Up 75% this year.

Steve Van We 33:25

Now you've re bracketed on the high side, so.

Speaker 4 33:28

Awesome.

Steve Van We 33:30

I'll have everybody who calls in in the next few minutes. Thank you personally.

Speaker 4 33:36

Thanks, guys. All right, Have a good one.

Adam Van We 33:37

Thanks for listening.

Steve Van We 33:41

All right. Susie, Susie, Susie.

Steve Van We 33:46

What do you guys think of Susie Orman?

Joey Loss 33:49

I know who she is.

Adam Van We 33:50

Yeah. Generally positive. I mean, she usually gives pretty sound advice. It's. It's. It's much like Dave Ramsey. It's very generalized because she's speaking to a much wider audience than we do, but generally good.

Steve Van We 34:03

She has been doing it for 45 years, made an awful lot of money, and now I am pretty sure that she's losing her mind.

Adam Van We 34:13

Why do you say that?

Steve Van We 34:14

I say that because of this article in my left hand that says Suze Ormond says it's time to be conservative with your Retirement portfolio. Is there anything wrong with that headline? No. Sounds okay, doesn't it? Talking to people in her age group. By the way, for point of reference, she's one year younger than I am. That's all.

Adam Van We 34:34

Okay.

Joey Loss 34:35

I have a problem with it, but I'm a financial.

Steve Van We 34:37

Well, yeah, yeah, that's a generalization. That only applies to old people. All right, so here's some broad parts of her interview. Armand recommends withdrawing no more than 3% from an investment portfolio during the first year of retirement.

Adam Van We 34:40

Yeah.

Steve Van We 34:56

Comments?

Adam Van We 34:58

Well, I would like to hear the reasoning behind.

Steve Van We 35:01

Yeah. Oh, there wasn't any. Okay, well, here it is. You don't know what the markets are going to do.

Adam Van We 35:07

Yeah, that is true. But if you've done proper financial planning, that doesn't matter.

Joey Loss 35:12

Any rule of thumb about withdrawals is literally based on the fact that you don't know what's going to happen. Choosing three is as arbitrary as any other number.

Adam Van We 35:17

Right.

Adam Van We 35:20

Exactly.

Steve Van We 35:20

All right, part two of that quote, explanation.

Steve Van We 35:24

If the tariffs stay in place, we're going to have rampant inflation.

Adam Van We 35:29

Oh, gee. So, okay, now I, now I really disagree with this because A, she's speculating about macroeconomic events that she has. Well, nobody has any idea of how what's actually going to happen. And B, she's timing, she's essentially timing the market. So I really don't like any of this.

Steve Van We 35:47

Now I'm with you so far. She has her own YouTube channel. Yes. She's. She made her living basically because she is a star of television. She's been gorgeous since she was a kid. She's very media friendly, great personality, on and on and on.

Joey Loss 36:07

All the reasons we're on the radio.

Steve Van We 36:09

Exactly. If we all look like her, we'd have a TV program. But that's another. Now this one, if I were doing an interview and I were in a position like her and we are basically, we do financial advice. I would never admit this one thing. My portfolio was up a whopping $1 million in a single day last week. Okay, does that sound like someone who has a net worth of about 20 million, roughly which she claims to.

Adam Van We 36:46

No, it's significant. There's no way that your portfolio was up a million in a day.

Steve Van We 36:50

Does it sound like someone who is becoming conservative with their portfolio?

Adam Van We 36:55

No, that's. I mean, that sounds like you've got 100 million invested.

Joey Loss 36:59

If that's a conservative portfolio, that is. Yeah, that is a lot of numbers.

Steve Van We 37:05

Yeah. She says concerning the value of a financial advisor, she's had one, the same one for more than 25 years and she says a great financial advisor is worth their weight in gold. I agree. But did you just not say that your portfolio was up a million dollars one day last week? I want the name of your. Your financial advisor.

Adam Van We 37:30

Well I mean that's certainly a possibility but on a conservative portfolio my guess is you had to have a hundred million dollars to get a million dollar update. On a conservative portfolio.

Steve Van We 37:40

Yeah. Yeah. It's just. Yeah, that didn't get me. How about this one? She has $10 million in short term treasuries.

Steve Van We 37:53

I, I'm jealous.

Adam Van We 37:55

Yeah, that sounds great.

Joey Loss 37:58

She's just saying this stuff like to anybody.

Steve Van We 38:00

Yeah.

Steve Van We 38:02

You don't, you don't say these things.

Joey Loss 38:06

If you're the everyman advisor. Don't.

Steve Van We 38:08

Exactly.

Adam Van We 38:09

You certainly don't have a 20 million dollar portfolio with 10 million in short term treasuries either. Unless you're super fearful about what's about to happen.

Steve Van We 38:19

Yeah, I don't like the things that are happening. It's not just President Trump

Steve Van We 38:26

and his policies though. A lot of it is Trump

Steve Van We 38:31

seem to know where she's coming down, don't we?

Adam Van We 38:33

Yeah. I never would have picked her for a. For a left person.

Steve Van We 38:38

I would have said perhaps apolitical.

Adam Van We 38:40

Yeah. To slightly right. But that's, that's kind of interesting.

Steve Van We 38:43

A lot of jobs will be eliminated because of AI. Even programmers will be eliminated.

Adam Van We 38:49

This one really gets me because this is, this has been the thing. Every time a new technology comes out this is what they say and what happens. It ends up creating more jobs.

Steve Van We 39:00

Productivity is being replaced by robots.

Adam Van We 39:03

That this is. This has been a thing since the what the 70s probably.

Steve Van We 39:07

I said as it has been for 150 years. That was my comment in the margin. Yeah. Let's do you save more and spend less. Get out of debt and be really careful with income streams because with tariffs in place you're going to have rampant inflation. That. That's a non sequitur. Just crazy. Maybe they'll come a day you don't have health care. Medicare doesn't pay the things they pay for now.

Adam Van We 39:34

And it's amazing how much more press that statement is getting in the last eight months than it did for the previous four years when all of that was like there are debt and deficit were exploding.

Steve Van We 39:48

Yeah.

Adam Van We 39:49

I don't understand.

Steve Van We 39:51

I have millions of dollars in stocks and about 20 million or so in a portfolio of 40 to 50 dividend paying stocks and I have quite a few million in private equity.

Steve Van We 40:06

One of the people you know. Plus the 10 million in treasuries. Oh, and she kept her half million in I bonds too.

Adam Van We 40:08

Yeah.

Joey Loss 40:13

Wait. In her defense, I think you can actually live a decent life on 3% of all this.

Adam Van We 40:21

That's fair.

Joey Loss 40:22

I think her advice makes a lot of sense through her own eyes.

Steve Van We 40:24

She owns. Yes.

Adam Van We 40:25

First you save 100 million. Then you take 3% of it and you have a nice healthy salary.

Steve Van We 40:30

Yeah, yeah. She owns a. An oceanfront condo down in South Florida that she self insures. Do you think she can handle it? Yeah. But my advice wouldn't be to self insure for most people.

Adam Van We 40:38

Probably. Yeah.

Joey Loss 40:44

This reminds me of those memes where it's like how I built a $100 million wealth estate or something. And it's like step one, build a business. Step two, inherit $100 million. Step three.

Adam Van We 40:53

Exactly.

Steve Van We 40:55

Let's see. The. I'm hoping that Palantir and Long Q, whatever that is, go down and I can buy more. I won't sell them. So she's a stock picker too.

Adam Van We 41:07

Yeah.

Steve Van We 41:09

Let's see. Don't tell me that financial advisors don't get afraid as well. Of course they do. Well, every blind pig finds a little acorn once in a while, huh? Of course we do.

Adam Van We 41:21

Yeah, of course. We talk about it openly on this show all the time.

Joey Loss 41:22

We.

Adam Van We 41:27

Sometimes there are reasons to be fearful. But that doesn't mean you should change your entire financial plan based on a fear that you have.

Steve Van We 41:34

Yep. Yeah. They have sold their private island.

Adam Van We 41:38

Who has? Oh, okay.

Steve Van We 41:39

Susie and her wife. They have sold their private island and they're now going to travel around on a rather large boat and look at the rest of the world and try to find a place they would like to live.

Joey Loss 41:52

Okay, well, they won't be so oppressed. I get it.

Adam Van We 41:53

Yeah, that's right.

Steve Van We 41:55

Susie. You lost touch and you've certainly lost me.

Adam Van We 41:59

That's incredible. I. I never would have thought any of that would come out of her mouth.

Steve Van We 42:05

One of her earliest books was one of the earliest ones I ever read when I was getting started business and I loved it. It was excellent. But man, she has gone fruity.

Joey Loss 42:14

Can we have a quick obituary for something that I hold dear?

Steve Van We 42:17

One second. Yeah. 35% increase in IPOs this year. I just hope. 35% of something. I want that something to be big enough that this is significant. So it means we get a lot of them. Take it away.

Joey Loss 42:32

Sure. I think the cracker barrel was let its read its final rights this week and I feel very strongly about this. This is a place that has food that tastes amazing when you're in the right environment. And now that they've changed the logo, gotten rid of the old man in the barrel, and they're going to modernize the interior beers, I'm going to actually taste what the food tastes like, and I'm very upset about that. I don't think it's going to be as good as I think it is.

Adam Van We 42:40

Yeah.

Adam Van We 42:57

No, probably not.

Steve Van We 42:58

Absolutely.

Joey Loss 42:59

Stockholders agree it dropped 15% and then recovered the negative seven. Just on the logo.

Steve Van We 43:04

Yeah. Which is something like $94 million overnight loss of wealth. There's no. No accountant for some things. People. As easy as it sometimes seems, it's always complicated. See you next week. Thanks for listening. This is the van we Financial.