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the stock market is hitting record highs
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job numbers are good inflation is
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falling and the Federal Reserve might be
00:00:05
cutting interest rates also um consumer
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happiness is rising according to all
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those consumer happiness um surveys
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they're moving it's ticking upward looks
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like the US economy might be able to
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avoid a recession according to a recent
00:00:16
survey of Economist not even a soft
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Landing um what do you what do you think
00:00:21
we what's going on Treasury secretary
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Janet Yellen was touting soft Landing
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weeks ago and said My Hope Is it will
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continue I guess we're continuing to
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soft land if at all
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um what is your take on all the good
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news it what strikes me is more so than
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all the good news which is exceptional
00:00:38
is the consumer dissonance or the
00:00:40
citizen dissonance and that is Americans
00:00:42
have a unique ability to credit their
00:00:45
character and their grit for the raise
00:00:47
they're getting and then blame the
00:00:49
government for inflation and so even
00:00:51
though the even though that uh wages are
00:00:53
rising fasted than inflation now there's
00:00:56
real wage increases they still blame the
00:00:58
government it's just this this Quant it
00:01:00
must be driving it's ticking up it's
00:01:01
ticking up that that Michigan survey
00:01:03
just suddenly went the other direction I
00:01:05
hope so yeah yeah but it's just very
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strange the White House doesn't get any
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credit for it yeah it's starting and I I
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hope you're right but and you know this
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goes to my win we literally have now
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granted it's not distributed equally we
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have no one could have predicted if
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someone had said America is going to
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pull off this economy they're going to
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figure out a way to have the lowest
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inflation in the G7 by the way they're
00:01:30
massively increase for all the ship
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posting and all the far right lights to
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say drill baby drill we're producing
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more energy than ever we're the largest
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energy producer in the worlded and if
00:01:40
you look at if you look at our
00:01:41
competitive advantage against China if
00:01:43
China decides to get into a hot war with
00:01:45
anyone yeah and they start S and at any
00:01:49
number of Choke points their energy
00:01:51
Supply gets gets um yeah down Russia
00:01:54
they're going to have to in they would
00:01:56
they would be in such a world of hurt
00:01:57
and we're energy independent we we we're
00:02:00
not only energy independent we produce
00:02:02
more energy than we consume which is
00:02:04
remarkable given what gluttons we are
00:02:06
yeah so it's you know it's is striking
00:02:09
that consumers don't feel better it's
00:02:10
getting it's getting better it's ticking
00:02:12
up it's absolutely ticking up I think
00:02:14
people still feel they're paying too
00:02:15
much for food or the kind of the daily
00:02:18
but although I went and got gas and I
00:02:19
was like oh this is low this is like an
00:02:22
I mean I I guess I'm one of those people
00:02:24
who doesn't think about it that much
00:02:25
compared to people who have a really
00:02:27
tighter budget but I was like wow this
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is not expensive for the first time in a
00:02:32
while and I paid attention to like the
00:02:34
four and five gas um employers added
00:02:37
26,000 jobs in December which is a
00:02:40
larger than the expected number weekly
00:02:42
jobless claims reported were the lowest
00:02:43
since September of 2022 uh there's a lot
00:02:46
of layoffs in a number of sectors but I
00:02:48
think that's people cleaning up like all
00:02:50
the stuff in Tech looks like it's around
00:02:52
assistant which AI they're getting ready
00:02:54
for AI and getting rid of stuff they
00:02:56
don't need anymore um so that seems to
00:02:58
be to be clean up right of where things
00:03:01
are going or or getting ready for
00:03:03
something else um so if you were if
00:03:06
someone uh two things if if you were
00:03:09
looking to invest right now what advice
00:03:11
would you give them and then I want to
00:03:13
ask you a quick question about the
00:03:14
housing market where would I invest yeah
00:03:18
look my my feeling is it's dangerous to
00:03:20
listen to people like me and Talking
00:03:22
Heads on podcasts uh make stock
00:03:24
recommendations and I like it because
00:03:25
it's fun and I tell young people take a
00:03:27
third of your money and put it in stock
00:03:30
because a you'll learn you learn about
00:03:32
the markets and also it's kind of fun
00:03:34
and you can feel good when it goes up
00:03:35
and beat yourself up a little bit when
00:03:36
it goes down but for the most part what
00:03:38
you want to do if this Market has taught
00:03:40
us anything don't try and pick the
00:03:42
needle and the Hast stack pick the whole
00:03:44
Hast stack and buy the whole Market
00:03:46
because H stack approach go ahead it's
00:03:49
true unless unless you were a genius and
00:03:51
maybe you weren you didn't have to be a
00:03:53
genius but people talk about their wins
00:03:55
and they don't talk about their losses
00:03:57
seven stocks were responsible for 70% of
00:03:59
the gain last year and you think you're
00:04:00
smart enough to pick the seven of the
00:04:01
500 M so instead just buy the entire 500
00:04:05
and what do you know what were you up in
00:04:06
the teens last year if you do that if
00:04:09
you compound going into your Prime
00:04:11
income earning years what the market has
00:04:13
done since 2008 at 11% that means every
00:04:15
seven every seven years you're doubling
00:04:17
your money and just from an emotional
00:04:20
and mental well-being this is what you
00:04:21
want to do you want to focus all of your
00:04:24
mental physical and emotional energy on
00:04:27
your day job and you want to turn your
00:04:30
investing over to an outstanding
00:04:32
professional that is really good at what
00:04:34
they do but at the same time is really
00:04:36
inexpensive and that's called an index
00:04:38
and an ETF fund so if you could get
00:04:39
someone you're not good at building your
00:04:41
own home what if you could find someone
00:04:43
to build your home that was outstanding
00:04:45
a building homes and was really cheap
00:04:48
that's called an index or an ETF fund
00:04:50
don't buy a stock buy the market and the
00:04:53
temptation to believe that you're
00:04:54
smarter than everybody and all of these
00:04:57
the financial industrial complex which
00:04:59
will teach teach you that this old
00:05:00
looking guy or these all these Quan
00:05:02
people in phds have some sort of special
00:05:05
Insight or they're investing in ESG
00:05:08
whatever it might be whatever whatever
00:05:09
The Branding is they are ripping you off
00:05:12
yeah they are ripping you off so anyways
00:05:15
my right recommendation on where to
00:05:16
invest is just start investing in
00:05:19
investment index or ETF funds spy S&P um
00:05:22
the economy uh the housing market is
00:05:24
still kind of all over the place because
00:05:26
of the the interest rate and the 30-year
00:05:28
interest rate is it 6.6% higher than
00:05:31
before the pandemic obviously how home
00:05:33
prices are higher but that's because I'm
00:05:35
just talking to a friend of mine who's a
00:05:36
very big realtor in DC and she was
00:05:39
saying there just isn't stock people
00:05:41
it's in the middle area she goes in the
00:05:43
top area and the lesser the the cheaper
00:05:45
area it's doing okay um but it's there's
00:05:47
no stock to sell she said she didn't
00:05:50
think people were as fixated on rates as
00:05:53
they were they don't want to move
00:05:55
because of that you know and and that's
00:05:56
one of the issues is is is not having
00:05:59
enough in the market to to to move it
00:06:01
around and she was thinking it was going
00:06:03
to jump in the spring she felt like
00:06:06
people were just like ah I feel I'm I'm
00:06:08
tired of waiting kind of thing or to
00:06:09
move or to buy um but that's one area
00:06:13
that's been sort of a lagger yeah one of
00:06:15
my predictions from my 2024 deck is uh
00:06:18
that housing is going to Boom not price
00:06:20
Ian what happened last year was sort of
00:06:22
suspended that you had to suspend the
00:06:23
suspend the natural order and yet
00:06:25
housing prices went up you never see
00:06:26
that because what we unintentionally did
00:06:29
was created these unex of you know
00:06:31
unexploded devices inside a home called
00:06:33
a mortgage at 2 and a half% where no one
00:06:34
wanted to leave that life is aggregating
00:06:39
at the dam what I mean by that death
00:06:42
divorce disability people having kids
00:06:44
people needing to move for a job
00:06:46
whatever it might be all of that demand
00:06:49
is building and the moment I think
00:06:51
interest rates get kind of below
00:06:53
sixish uh the moment that people start
00:06:55
dying and more housing stock comes
00:06:57
available the moment that some of the
00:06:58
supply that's being constructed comes on
00:07:00
the line I think I think in Q4 you had
00:07:03
the lowest transaction in like decades
00:07:05
that's what she was saying yeah she said
00:07:07
it's right in the middle she said it's
00:07:08
not at the high it's not at the low you
00:07:11
know what I mean like the apartments and
00:07:13
things like that but go ahead I I I
00:07:15
think you're going to see back half of
00:07:17
this year just a ton of people I don't
00:07:19
want to say throw in the towel but go
00:07:20
okay interest rates are below uh you
00:07:23
know maybe I can pick up an a mortgage
00:07:24
with a five handle on it we've been
00:07:26
talking about moving home we just had
00:07:28
our third kid oh did you hear the house
00:07:31
down the street Mrs Robinson just died
00:07:33
there's a house I just think that all of
00:07:35
that life doesn't stop marching on yeah
00:07:39
and when you think about housing the
00:07:41
biggest component in housing are life
00:07:43
events and those have not stopped the
00:07:45
last here they're just building up so I
00:07:47
think I think the finger out of the
00:07:49
prices are are higher are higher yeah
00:07:52
but you're seeing wages go uph um you're
00:07:54
seeing interest rates come down and life
00:07:57
continues to march on I think we're
00:07:58
going to see an boom in sales volume
00:08:00
it'll be interesting to see if the
00:08:01
economy helps Biden I think people it
00:08:03
may be perfect timing for him I'll tell
00:08:05
you that we'll see we'll
00:08:10
see
