Does A September Surprise Lie In Store For Stocks? | Lance Roberts

Summary

• Market Outlook: September is historically the weakest trading month, and current negative divergences in market indicators suggest potential for larger corrections.
• Investment Trends: The stock market is increasingly seen as an entertainment platform, with options trading and meme stocks gaining popularity, which could lead to volatility and speculative behavior.
• Company Focus: Nvidia's recent earnings were strong, but the market's muted reaction suggests potential overvaluation concerns, especially given its reliance on a few major clients.
• Economic Indicators: Recent data shows a mixed economic picture with GDP revisions upward but underlying weaknesses in sectors like manufacturing, suggesting a slowing economy.
• Federal Reserve: The Fed is under scrutiny with potential leadership changes and controversies, highlighting the importance of its independence amid political pressures.
• Investment Strategy: Active management and risk assessment are crucial, especially in a potentially low-return environment, emphasizing the need for diversification and strategic asset allocation.
• Personal Insights: Lance Roberts shares personal challenges, highlighting the importance of resilience and focusing on what truly matters in life, such as health and family.

Transcript

relative strength is weakening, markets are rising. So that's just and generally that typically that type of action precedes larger corrections. So Monday, September the 1st, it's a holiday. Um but September tends to be the weakest trading month of the year. So if this negative divergence is going to show up in the markets, it's likely going to show up in September. [Music] Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm Alpha Money founder and your host, Adam Tagert, welcoming you here at the end of the week for another weekly market recap featuring my good friend, the portfolio manager and Swifty, Lance Roberts. Lance, how you doing? Hey, I am all on the Taylor Swift board. I You know what? I found some amazing statistics about Taylor Swift. I had no idea. Um, you know, we talk about this social media economy that we're in now and everybody's social media driven. Taylor Swift has over 400 million followers on her social media platforms. That's more than the population of the entire United States. I was like I was like just blown away by that. Um her dress that she wore for her engagement with with Kelsey a Ralph Lauren dress. That's how much it sold out in like 15 minutes. every size that they had was sold out just after after she posted and that you know and it's interesting because you know when you talk about her Aerys tour that she did we talked about the economic impact of that and that it actually boosted GDP growth visible in the GDP yeah it was because of everybody you know renting hotel rooms and buying merchandise and traveling and airfare and all that um just it's going to be interesting to see you know how much of an economic impact we get out of this whole engagement wedding process. So, uh it's funny. I was I had this to ask you at some point in today's list if we had time. Um but, uh yeah, I mean there's been FinTit's been, you know, hot with discussion of like, so is this going to inspire a whole bunch of copycat engagements? And then everyone's like, and pretty soon after this enga, you know, marriage, there's going to be a Taylor Swift baby. And then there's is there going to be a baby boom basically caused by all these people trying to get pregnant at the same time that Taylor Swift is. So I mean a a question I was going to ask you tongue and cheek which if we have time we'll get to but is like you know could Taylor Swift rescue the slowing economy here. You know it's it's it's entirely possible unless remember Taylor Swift's been engaged before right. So um what and if you go TMZ ran this great article. Has she really Okay. You you just passed I've got two daughters. you you've now sucked up on my Taylor Swift trivia knowledge. I didn't know she was engaged before. So, yes, you know, her whole her whole life story is just failed relationship after failed relationship. But, um, you know, TMZ ran a really good article on Monday and it was all the odds, the betting odds that are going on right now with, you know, where's, you know, odds on bet are the wedding will be in Las Vegas, are the engagement, the bachelor bachelorette party will be in Las Vegas. Um, you know, where's the wedding going to be? um what's the overunder on who's the the maid of honor versus best man and you know there's just all this you know we we've turned in fact this weekend's article that I'm writing for the bull bear report Saturday's newsletter is the fact that we've now turned the stock market into a entertainment market and we're now betting on all kinds of stuff uh for instance like the Chicago Merkantil exchange which does a lot of options trading has cut a deal with FanDuel um that opens up the whole opportunity for now for options trading against potentially, you know, if you kind of extrapolate this out, maybe I could buy call or put options on whether or not Dallas makes it to the playoffs this year. Sorry, I had to laugh. Um, but you know, but you know, we're where, you know, um, you know, you get on Reddit as an example, and there's whole Reddit uh, boards that are up that are just memes about investing. um you know whether it's there's a one of the examples I'm using in the newsletter is talking about irresponsibly long Micro Strategy and it's just meme after meme after meme of people that are loading up on Micro Strategy stock on this whole bet that you know Micro Strategy is going to go to a million dollars a share or whatever the number is. Um, even Michael Sailor himself has been posting memes about himself to promote Micro Strategy stock, which I think that kind of borders into stock market manipulation, but you know, we'll see what if anybody ever says anything about it. But the the the the jux of it is and and this is the interesting thing is that we've now, you know, with through online betting, you can bet on pretty much anything. Poly Market is just got a new investor into Poly Market. It's got a huge valuation on that company and but basically on Yeah. Isn't it Don Jr.? Yeah, it is. He's actually invested on both sides of the of the of the mix right now as well. But you can bet on anything from political outcomes to, you know, Taylor Swift's wedding to, you know, what's happening, you know, with some economic piece of data. But we're just turning more and more of the stock market into this kind of this gambling type scenario. rather than investing for, you know, future returns and economic growth. We're now just turning it into an entertainment game where it's like, oh yeah, well, you know, I could play a video game on my phone or I can, you know, bet on stuff on the stock market on my phone as well. Um, you know, the the outcomes of that obviously aren't going to be good at some point, but it is a very interesting change in the dynamics of how we're, you know, looking at the markets today. Yeah, you're you're depressing me here because Yeah, I don't think this is good nor nor ends well. Uh, and it's funny because for decades, you know, those who have thought when the stock market was was irrationally valuing assets, you refer to it as the casino, right? Right. But you're talking about, you know, it truly becoming a casino, right? I mean, the stock market in theory is a way to capitalize enterprise, right? And that makes sense, right? Hey, if we want to have the economy grow, well, we have to provide a way for companies to get the capital they need to get formed and get out there and make the investments they want. When that capital just gets used to speculate on who's going to be the groomsman at, you know, some rockstars wedding, you know, what what benefit is that, right? Or the call options on the the Dallas Cowboys, right? I mean, there there's there's no economic value in that exchange at all. Well, exactly. And and also economic value creation. Yeah. Right. And and also, you know, when I'm when I'm, you know, kind of options trading or betting, you know, so to speak, um, in the markets, I'm just doing straight betting like on FanDuel or something something else. That's not really providing capital to anything that creates future economic growth. All I'm doing is just shifting capital between two players, right? That's my whole point. You lose all your capital. I get all your capital. That's it. So, if I go and the exchange takes a cut, right? Yeah. And so, if I go spend your capital in in the economy, great. But you know you're not creating jobs. You're not creating you know art research and development or anything like that where you know or you know where like an IPO as an example would bring a company to market create more jobs those those type of issues. So yeah it it has you know it it's it's not the benefactor that the market should be to overall economic prosperity. But you're creating a much more defined niche of who's participating and who's not participating. And the winners and loser than that are going to be a lot bigger. Yeah. No, agreed. To me, it's sort of the financial equivalent of, you know, digging a ditch and then filling it back in, right? Um and uh you know, and the problem is is in the process of it, if that's you know, where your investors are spending their time, they're not um developing the skills to be true investors. they're just wasting their time in this sort of mindless naval gazing uh entertainment you're talking about. And you know, unfortunately, because it's entertainment, it's going to suck in the the less experienced, the less serious, the younger for the most part, right? They get attracted to the stuff and they're probably going to get burned in time. I mean, the in the casino, the odds always favor the house, right? So, you're not teaching them how to invest and then you're going to burn a lot of them and they're they'll probably then swear off of investing going forward and then you have a lost generation of investors. So, y lots of negative consequences, but this this turned into a rant right at the beginning of the uh the video here, which we didn't mean to do. All right. Well, look, we got a lot to talk about. I'm going to jump in in just a quick second. Um just want to give a reminder to folks that the thoughtful money fall conference um is available for registration now. Still at the early bird, low early bird price. Breaking news, we just had Sven Henrik agree to sign on as faculty again this year. So, he will be giving his latest uh very deep uh thoughtful uh sorry uh technical analysis. Uh so, he'll be walking through a lot of charts that he'll be making just for this uh conference. Um so, anyways, to sign up for the conference, if you haven't already, go to thoughtfulmoney.com/conference to sign up. And if you are a premium subscriber to our Substack, make sure you look at the email that I've sent you that has the discount code that you can use to get an additional $50 off the conference. All right, Lance. Well, look, um, uh, this week again, the markets hit all-time highs. Uh, they're they're off a smidge uh, the day we're talking here. Um, but, um, you know, what what me worry, right? The old Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine, right? uh you know markets don't really seem to have a lot of worry here. Um that said we had kind of a notable development this week which was that Nvidia uh had its earnings and um you know everything was good. Um the question is is you know was it good enough? I mean I think in general it another blowout of everything but the market was nonplused we'll say. um it it it didn't jump, you know, kind of a rare down a little bit. Um and my question for you here is is um because Nvidia is such a massive driver of of this the US stock market now. In fact, I just heard that if the Nvidia was a stock exchange on its own, I think it would be like the third largest in the world at this point time market cap wise. Yeah. But, you know, are we getting to the point of of of Deacon video where it's just, you know, trees don't grow to the moon at some point? It just can't keep uh dragging animal spirits higher every time or is this just, you know, a pause in in a magnificent continued run? Well, first of all, I mean, you got to kind of put all this in perspective is like, okay, so first of all, excuse me, first of all, one of the most interesting things that came out of that is that every options player lost money on Nvidia. which was his which was very interesting. You mean like on both sides? On both sides. The the you know people that were buying calls expecting the stock to surge, they lost money. People that were buying, you know, puts for a big decline, they lost money because the stock was only down like 1% le maybe less than 1% yesterday by the close. It's down a little bit more today, but you know, this stock's had a huge run. It's up like 100% from the lows uh of April. So, you know, it's it's, you know, all the and and it was interesting because if you take a look at the earnings, the revenue growth, etc., they blew it out across the board again as usual, just, you know, great numbers. And they didn't even include uh in their in their revenue statement any of the the chips they're selling to China. They just assume that there's going to be no sales to China and they still killed it. So, you know, the only thing that that was a little bit, you know, what what got the stock was is that as we go into earnings, there's always the estimates, right? So here's the estimates we're all expecting. And then Wall Street has all these whisper numbers that are out there, which are these even higher numbers. It's like, hey, this is what we expect, but they could report this. Well, they beat all the earnings numbers that they had out there. They just didn't quite hit the whisper numbers on, you know, a couple of metrics, which, you know, is really kind of nonsense, but you saw a little bit of a sell-off in the markets yesterday. But this again, it the stock had rallied for five days going into earnings. So again, a little bit of profit taking there. Really not surprising. But yeah, no, uh, you know, the stock is very, very overbought. It's had a huge run. Um, would love to see a bit more of a correction. It's correcting right now. The stock's down about three. It's at 174 right now as we're talking. It's down about three and a half% on Friday. Um, I would love this thing to to pull back to somewhere in the, you know, the 150 area would be awesome. Uh, give you a great opportunity to add, you know, add more into the portfolio at that point. Okay. So, um you know, I I I guess just to the spirit of my question here though, Lance, is are you seeing this as like, hey, whatever. This is just a cooling off. I mean, the stock ripped 100% like you said over the past couple months. Um or is there anything here that we can look at either in its results, its guidance or just its valuations that could signify, you know, if this thing is just not going to keep outperforming um stock-wise, forget about results-wise, but stock-wise the way that it has so far that the market's just become accustomed to. Yeah. Sure. I mean, eventually, you know, their their margins are going to shrink. They didn't this time, uh which was expected, but they didn't. um you know eventually margin going to shrink eventually there's going to be another competitor you know whatever it is eventually they're going to miss on some metric what whatever that might be but that hasn't happened yet and again you take a look at the underlying fundamental growth rates that this company's generating right now um with the expectation of what's coming in terms of data center buildouts this this stock has more room to go to the upside we're we're very young in this cycle for AI development buildout It's way too early to be calling, oh, is this a this is top? And until you start see capex expenditures come down and when you're talking about, you know, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Google all spending a trillion dollars each over the next, you know, really four, three, four years going into 2030 building out data centers. You know, that's $4 trillion worth of data center buildout. That's all going to be using the racks, the chips, the GPUs, etc. from Nvidia. So, you're just way young in this cycle. Um, now if something comes along, all of a sudden everybody says, "Oh, AI was a fad." You kind of like we did with the internet in 1999. Internet's a fad. It's never going to catch on. So if if we don't need to build all these data centers, if we don't need to build out AI, if that if that becomes in fruition, absolutely, you know, Nvidia is going to be um, you know, struggling to keep valuations. But valuations are not expensive. You know, you take a look at the company Ford Ps 27. It's got a price to it's got a PEG ratio. those price to earnings growth of 1.45. So this is not an expensive company based on its trailing earnings growth. H okay. What's its price to sales these days? Uh price of sales based on Ford is about nine. Trailing is about 25 right now, but that's come down from over 100. I was going to say which are rich and mind-blowing, but but yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Because you know but but muted compared to where it's been. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's growing into its valuation, which is, you know, kind of the the the important part about that. But you take a look at Palunteer as an example, it trades at a price that sells at 225. So, you know, Yeah. All right. Um, well, you said, you know, if if somebody if something Yeah. If somebody comes along and says we don't need all this stuff, right? Um, that hasn't exactly happened yet, but we had somebody come along and say, "Wow, AI is clearly in a bubble." And that was Sam Alman. Yes. And that lasted about two seconds and then the stock ran up. So, Right. Right. Right. But I mean, notable development just in the sense and look, you know, there's a lot of speculation while he's doing that to try to maybe cool investment in the space and that'll hurt his competitors more than it'll hurt him. I mean, who knows what he said it for, but I mean, this is this this is sort of like LeBron James saying, "Yeah, maybe basketball's not that cool of a sport, folks." Right? you know, it's just it it's it's one of the the superstars in the industry, you know, basically saying, "Look, I think we're in a bubble." We we'll see what happens from that. But I I I want to I want to pivot on that bubble. So, I I just released an interview with Jim Carson. Um and I think you're familiar with him, Lance. Um but, um you know, big volatility expert, has a really interesting way at looking at the markets and the economy. um it's it's differentiated from most of the people I bring on this channel and I always really like it when somebody brings with you know is a really interesting sort of new way to view the world but um he is definitely planted the flag look we're in a bubble and I don't think you necessarily disagree with how he looks at it but he says like this is a bubble folks by like any any metric uh that we use like this is a bubble now that being said he's like you know bubbles can go a lot higher than you think so I'm not calling the top here, right, by any stretch. And and he says, you know, I still think there's he he he's big on playing volatility. He's like, I think there's, you know, good opportunity to still make money to the upside here in this market for as long as it runs. How long is it going to run? I can't tell you. Um but um he's got an interesting thesis on on how it might resolve. Before I get there, let me just ask you this. um your partner in crime there, Michael Liowitz, published a report this week, uh titled momentum strategies and physics, the mass and velocity matter. Yep. What What is the the key takeaways from that that that Michael was trying to express? So, so back to it all kind of ties into what you're talking about. Are we in a bubble? Yes, we're in a bubble. And you know, so eventually Nvidia, Palanteer, all these companies, they're going to break and there's going to be large downside swings in these stocks, 50, 60, 70%. That's not going to be uncommon. We saw this during the com bubble. The problem is is is the timing of all that. And again, kind of to your to your your to Jan's point, which is that are we in a bubble? Yes. Um where are we in the bubble? Nobody knows. But a bubble can last four, five, six, seven, eight more years. If you go back and look at 1995, we were in a bubble in the dot business in 1995, 1996, Alan Greenspan comes along and says, "Hey, we're in a bubble." You know, everything's expensive. Four more years before it finally blew up. And you lost if you if you listen to that, right? You listen to Allan Greenspan got out of the market um you know irrational exuberance uh got out of the market in 1996 you missed a huge run of wealth building capability going into the the peak of the market in 2000. So what's important and this is to Michael's point is that mass and velocity which is basically volume velocity is is volume I mean sorry mass is volume and and velocity is the price movement those two things are what what drive markets and and the problem with following momentum strategies is that momentum comes on way too late in the game. So by the time you realize that, oh, I need to be in this, you know, group of stocks because those are the hot ones right now, you've already missed a big chunk of the move because momentum measures, measures of momentum don't start recognizing a momentum play till well after it's come off the bottom. Now you'll remember a couple of like so but this is why we work differently in our shop and one of the things that you and I talked about three four weeks ago was that technology was way overbought. Health care was super underloved. Nobody wanted to own healthcare. Healthcare sucked. And we said, hey, there's a good opportunity in buying health care now because when we get a rotation out of technology, which is the momentum trade, it's going to rotate to the areas of weak, the weak pockets in the market. And healthcare is going to be one of that pickup. And since then, healthcare has done very well. It's been a very great rot. It's been a good rotation trade, a good counterbalance to some of the weakness we've seen in technology. So, we're just now starting to see healthc care start to show up in the momentum indexes. So they, you know, they're now starting to show the moment momentum trade, but you missed all that run up to this point. So you've missed a big part of that. So you know, it's important to pay attention and this is the the hard part about investing is that by the time that most retail traders see a a move in something, it's closer to the peak than not. And this is why generally, you know, investors do the worst thing ever, which is they go, "Oh, look, um, just picking an asset, right? Gold's been hot this year. I'm going to buy gold. But if you go look at the periodic table of returns, what you'll see is that whatever the hottest trade in a given year is typically lasts one, maybe two years and then it falls to the bottom of the list, right? And whatever was at the bottom of the list goes to the top. So, you know, this year it's gold. Next year gold may be the worst performer and it's going to be, you know, small cap, midcap may be the the hot performer next year. But what happens with most investors is they see what's hot, they go buy that near the peak of a momentum trade, and they get swept up in that downdraft when they should have been buying what was out of favor, looking for that to come into favor. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so my point here is is the momentum is clear to see now, right? And everybody's jumping on rightly or wrongly, probably wrongly, you know, timing wise. Um, so you on top of Michael's uh post there, which thank you for for elaborating on it, you then wrote a post this week titled um uh well basically sort of asked the question, you know, like this has been a buy the every buy a buy every dip market. So, you know, should that be the the standard operating procedure until conditions change? Right. Yeah. I'm asking you that question. Should it be? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's working. And the problem is is that we're changing the dynamic of the markets. And again, this is what we're seeing right now. We kind of talked about this earlier about this. And again, this is the subject of this weekend's bull bear report, which is this entertainment market. And retail investors have been buying every single dip in the market under this premise that either a they're going to get bailed out by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve's going to cut rates or they're going to do QT, whatever. And we've been training them this way for 15 years, right? I mean, over the last 15 years, every time there's been a a crisis of some sort, whether it was the the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, Godzilla event that shut down manufacturing in Japan, or whether it was the Brexit Eurozone crisis, or whether it was the Greek default, you know, those should have been much more significant macro events that drove markets lower. We should have had going back to 2009. We probably should have had two, three or four bare markets since 2009 that were cut short. Whether it was Silicon Valley bank crisis or whether it was, you know, um, you know, the pandemic crash, you know, every time though that something like that happened, the Fed stepped in, started doing QT, started cutting rates to zero, whatever it was to help bail those things out. Well, we've now trained investors that and this is what this is the definition of moral hazard which moral hazard is simply says that you if I told you right I say Adam we're going to fly up in this airplane and you're going to jump out of this airplane without a parachute but I guarantee you you're not going to get hurt because I'm going to give you insurance whatever that insurance is right you say okay I'll jump out of the plane and you do it and hopefully there's a big net at the bottom that catches you. Um, but what we've taught people is is that they can take on as much risk as they want because there's no negative consequence of risk- takingaking, right? There's an insurance policy sitting there to to guarantee them against the risk of loss. And that moral hazard has been getting built up in the markets now over the course of the last 15 years. And so we've now created this whole mental mindset how to invest in the market which is just simply to buy every dip. And that's going to work until at some point it doesn't. And unfortunately, you know, people are going to see the market down 20 at some point and they're going to buy that dip and the market's going to keep going down and it's going to keep going down at some point. That'll happen, right? But the problem, and again, I want to be really careful about this. I don't want anybody running off from this video saying, "Oh, Lance said the market's about to crash because we're in a bubble and and and buying the dip isn't going to work." I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is is that buy the dip strategy is going to work until at some point in the future, it doesn't and the Fed doesn't step in. It doesn't cut rates. It doesn't do QE. It doesn't do whatever it is. But that could be five years from now. That could be 10 years from now. That could be 20 years from now. Who knows? Yeah. So, let me let me ask you a question based on that. Um, so I'm sure there's a number of people who are listening to this right now, Lance, and saying like, "Yeah, Lance is right. I've been feeling this forever. This market is just this pig has got to go down at some point in time because of all the imbalances that that Lance just talked about." But to your point, it's the age-old question of timing, right? And and we just don't know. Could be tomorrow, probably quite unlikely for that. Could be 20 years from now, at which point it's kind of immaterial. at today's time frame. Right. Right. So, let me give you an analogy and then I'll I'll I'll ask the question. So, um over the over the decades, I've had people who are real worried about America's debt situation and the purchasing power of our currency and stuff like that, right? And they have they have asked me questions about like, is it safe to keep my money in a bank, right? Or I've got some gold coins. Is it safe to keep them in a bank safe deposit box or whatever? What if what if the bank shuts down and I can't get to it? right? What if there's a big bank bailin like they had in Cyprus? Right? Like it it's an understandable concern. Um it's just probably not a highly likely concern, at least not where we are in the story line here. And my general feedback to folks on that has been that, but also like we should see enough signs that something that dire is coming in advance that um it's probably not something you're just going to wake up tomorrow and the whole banking system is shut down, right? Um we'll probably see signs of stress in advance. We'll see credit spreads start to blow out. We'll see a rush to to safety. We'll see more draconian government eat it. I mean there'll just be sort of storm clouds building that if people are paying attention they'll say all right you know the risk is building maybe now I should start thinking about this right do you feel the same way with this market distortion that you're talking about in other words like we don't know when it's going to happen but we'll you as a capital manager will likely start to see signs before it happens that you still won't be able to like time it immediately you won't you won't you won't be able to get surgical and get out the day before it all happens But you'll you'll you'll see the risk factor goes from a 2% probability up to a 27% probability. You'll be like, "All right, that's enough for me to start really de-risking here now." Yeah. And and again, this is but again, you know, if you go back and view our videos over the last few years, J and I done, you know, we do this on a regular basis. You know, in October of 2022, you know, I wrote that whole article about, you know, there's, you know, likely this is the bottom of the market. It's time to start getting in and and you know, there's three reasons why. buybacks, it's earnings, these type of things. Um, you know, and then at times I'll write articles about, hey, this market's really, you know, really overbought, extended. We're going to have a 3, four, 5% correction here, and then we'll have that correction, and then we'll buy back into the markets. You know, back in in February and March, you and I were talking about, hey, markets are really extended here. We've got these indicators are telling us markets are going to have a 3 to 5% correction. um it turned out to be 20, but you know, we sold down tech stocks, you know, early and you know, we were buying them back on April the 7th. So, you know, it's just about a function of navigating markets. And this is one of the things that, you know, kind of baffles me for a lot of people is that they're like, "Oh, I can't be in the market because the market's overbought." Well, you you can be in the markets. Do you know that there's very little difference in the rate of return of buying a stock at all-time highs versus buying a stock at, you know, after a correction? because markets tend to rise over time and yeah if you hold it long enough. Yeah. Yeah. And again it's always about in investing and and we talked about this last week like you just mentioned you know worried about the purchase power of the dollar. Well yeah if you just stick your money in a bank and it's paying zero which we had for a very long time that's hurting you right because you're losing when when your money market savings accounts paying zero and you have inflation you're losing purchasing power of that dollar. So you have to invest it in something whether it's gold or stocks or whatever. And what you want to find is the best investment to grow that money over time relative to the rate of inflation. And you know, so so again, it's it's it's should you not worry about market dynamics and market statistics and should you not worry about valuations being, you know, near the second highest level on record? Yes, you should worry about those. But those are long-term indicators and those are are are you know tell us a lot about the future return of the market but tells us nothing about what's going to happen over the next one to three years. All those valu high valuations are a function of sentiment. The reason valuations are high is because everybody's bullish on the stock market and they're going up. So this is why we have to manage risk. We can't just and this is why I disagree with buy and hold. You know just sticking your money in the market and hoping for the best. That's probably not going to work out well for you. But you know, this is why we talk about active management here. Every week we talk about, hey, this sector's really overbought. This sector's really oversold. Think about taking some profits here. Think about adding some money over here. You know, sell some tech, buy some healthcare. That's worked out really great over the course of the last 3, four weeks despite, you know, what kind of what's been going on in the markets. So there's you just have to manage and navigate your way through this. And eventually, to your point, Adam, we're going to start to see credit spreads start to rise. credit market will tell us when there's a real risk of something coming. Whether, you know, it's a market event, a geopolitical event, whatever it is, if there's something out there that's going to come that's going to really impact the markets, the credit spread market will show us. Um, we're watching that closely. We're watching the technicals. The market will start to break down. You'll start to see lower highs. You'll start to see the lower lows. You'll start to see a function of these things start to build up within the in the overall marketplace. And you'll and you'll know it's like, okay, there's some clear evidence here that this market is now beginning to deteriorate. I need to raise more cash, get more defensive, buy more bonds, whatever it is, because I want to protect myself against that. Then you let that cycle go through. And then importantly, and this is, and as you and I have talked about before, Adam, the the key thing when somebody tells you, hey, the market's going to crash. We're in a bubble. The market's going to crash. Great. Tell me when it's going to crash, and then tell me when to buy back in. you know, everybody will tell you it's going to crash, but they never tell you to buy back. And so that's the other other important part of this because we saw a lot of this uh following the financial crisis. We saw people get out of the market. Problem was is they just never got back in again. And you know, we have we still today have people come in our office says, "Hey, I got out in 2008 and I'm I need to get back in now. I just can't sit in cash anymore. I've got to I've got to get my money working." It's been 15 years. You know, where have you been? Um, but that's a real life situation. So, it's important to understand is that yes, we got to navigate our way out of the market, but we also have to navigate our way back into the market. And that's going to be when it feels like the worst possible time to invest is when it's going to be time to start buying again. Okay. Um, so let me let me connect another dot here back to to JAM. Um, and again, folks, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen. We're all talking about, you know, possibilities and probabilities here. Yeah. uh which is why diversification is important too so that you know if your main thesis is wrong hopefully have a little bit of backup there. Um but Jim is uh thinking that not just for the current market dynamics and and current levels of valuation but but for his macro outlook as well. Um he he basically sees a non-dismissible potential of like a lost decade ahead in the markets. Yeah. And and I I know you could see that too and we've talked a lot about we've shown Husman's charts and stuff like that that just you know when when valuations get stretched like this essentially you're pulling future value into today right and what does that generally do? It creates a a a um returns drought uh because you have to basically work off you know everything that you pulled into the into the present from the future right? Um but he says uh that could materialize not so much in a nominal crash uh like like like the like like the reckoning of the bubble might not be so much of a nominal crash like oh we zoomed up to crazy heights and then it all lost 50 60% or whatever right it could be maybe there's some adjustment maybe it comes down 15 20%. But then it just grinds and bbops its way sideways for like the better part of a decade. And what was interesting is he went back historically in the markets and said there there I can't remember how many distinct like 1015ear periods there was of sort of like you know these these lost periods and he said uh you know if you go back and I I'm doing this from memory so folks if you're interested go watch the interview with with Jim um but over some very long time frame and it might have been for as long as we have you know stock market data um I think he said those lost periods were the majority they were like 55% or whatever of the data series, you know, and he said in the periods that weren't stuck in those lost decades, you had fantastic returns, you know, as a as a long-term investor, but he said, you know, this sort of lost decade concept, it it it it's not like a fringe idea. It's actually something that we've seen a fair amount uh over time, we've just been really blessed to to have lived through a pretty long prolonged period of of great returns in the market. So it's hard for us to imagine actually you spend about 15% of your time making new highs. You spend 85% of your time getting back to new highs. And that's what people don't understand is that you know it's like when you look at a long-term stretch of the market you go back to 1900s like look at the market over this long period of time to his point he's absolutely correct. You go from 1900 to about 1917 the market went nowhere. Um you had a you had a a mini depression uh heading into 1920. Then you had this big run to 1929. Then you went nowhere until 1945 50. Uh then you had a big run into the 60s and then you went nowhere from the 60s through the 70s and then you had your run in the 80 and then you went nowhere from 2000 to 2013. Right? So you have these very long periods where markets don't make any returns. But if you were smart enough to buy the bottoms, you did great. Right? If you if you were Warren Buffett buying the bottom of the market in 1974, you did fantastic. Just most people don't do that. They they start investing closer to highs than the bottoms. Again, we go back to 2009. How many people got out of the market in 2009 and just didn't come back, right? And and they missed all these returns. So, you know, we look at markets like, oh, we're hitting all-time highs. This is great. Yeah, we're in that 15% of the period where markets are making and manufacturing new highs, and that'll run for a while. Um you know and again when we talk and again you look at this goes back to our valuation conversation we had a little earlier valuations tell you nothing shortterm about the markets. It's all sentiment. Valuations are high right now because of investor sentiment super bullish. So we're willing to overpay for everything. But what valuations do tell us over the long term is what returns will be. And those returns can be closer to zero. Now be careful with that statement. That doesn't mean that every year is going to be a zero rate of return over a 10 or a 20-year period. It means you're going to have some boomer years. Up 10, up 15, up 20, and then you're going to be down 10, 15, 20 for a year or two, and then you're going to be up 10, 15, 20% for a year or two, three, then be down 10, 15% for a year or two. And then when you get to the end of that period, you add them all up, and guess what? You're close to zero on a buy on a buy. Now, this is important, though. You're near zero on a buy and hold basis. Right? This is why I don't like buy and hold strategies because in active management, I can take advantage of those declines, avoid those. I don't have to short them. I don't have to try to participate. I can just avoid the downturns, participate in the upturns, and create a much better rate of return for my clients over that course of that period of time where returns are zero. I can still manufacture them six or 7% annualized rates of return to help them meet their financial goals. So that's there are two points I was taking this to and that was exactly one of them which is in a lost decade it doesn't mean that you can't actually have gains over that period as an investor but it means you have to adopt a much more active strategy which as we've ranted on a lot of times in the past is exactly what we've been training people out of the past couple of decades right just buy the dip just buy the index everything goes up just buy and hold time in the market all that type of stuff right so well and that's that's but that to to your point we we I'm not going to rehash the whole point, but that was part of that article as well as buy every dip. It's that whole Michael Green passive indexing, mindless robot impact. That impact of all that passive investing in the markets is changing the market dynamics and and it's and again that's it's fueling I I just posted a chart this week. Um there's 70 million 401k plans in the country. A lot of those are invested in what they call uh target date funds, which are just these very simplistic funds that are supposed to adjust your risk tolerance as you go close to retirement. They're the worst funds you can have in your 401k plan. If you're in them, you should get out of them immediately. But what's the punch line for that just for folks watching who have them? Well, the punch line is is that they don't adjust like they're supposed to. Again, you take a look at a lot of these are supposed to be like one year to retirement and they're like 70% equities, okay? Right? They're supposed to be mostly fixed income, but so they don't do what they're supposed to do. Um, you're much better off managing your allocation. But there's all these mutual funds that are just if you don't make a choice in your 401k plan, you automatically get allocated to a dark target date weighted fund. Um, all of those are feeding into Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. Yeah, they're a huge part of the giant minus robot. Yeah, every day Nvidia gets $1.9 billion worth of new funds every single day into its stock. So, you just think about that. Every day, $1.9 billion is buying just of those funds. That doesn't include the other 500 ETFs that Nvidia is in because it's in S&P indexes, it's in the Q's, it's in every index that tracks, every index tracks, every index that tracks, you know, AI, every index that tracks, you know, technology. you know, just down the list, right? Um, so, you know, every time somebody buys one of those funds, it's just funneling money into Nvidia's stock price. So, yeah, you know, you keep asking me is like, Nvidia going to keep going up? Yeah. As long as people keep buying ETFs, it's going to keep going up. And that's the that's the problem with the market. Yep. Okay. Um, we've ranted about that a lot. I'm sure we'll rant about in the future, so I I don't want to rant. We won't get off onto it again, but I but but I think it's an important point when we're talking about this situation. We can't exclude that impact of that passive indexing because it's changed so much of how we need to think about markets when we get concerned about valuations like oh valuations are high. Yeah, I get it. But right this is this was you know Jim's point which is it's a bubble but the bubble could still go higher potentially significantly higher from here. So don't don't lay in front of that steamroller more or less. Um the other point I wanted to bring this to though was assuming that he is right, you are right and and really the scope of market history is right, right? That when valuations get this stretched, future returns are low, right? So if you're watching this video and you're 70 years old, you got to really take this into consideration, right? So, you know, in the near term, hey, there might still be a fun game to be played here. But if we indeed enter what Jem thinks could happen here, that's pretty much the rest of your active investing life lifespan, right? And so, what you got to do is is not be looking at your your statements over the past 10 years and seeing your average return and just assuming, okay, well, that's going to as long as that continues until I'm 80 or 85, we're going to be fine and hitting our targets, right? um uh especially if you're like most people just sort of taking the average passive investing approach here, right? So, you know, to your point, Lance, you you've got to be mindful that it might be tougher sledding uh once we have the reckoning to, you know, with this bubble that we're in. Um doesn't mean you still can't have um a positive track record, but but to get there, your odds are going to be better with an active approach than with what's been working up until now. Yeah. And again, you know, we go back to talking about, you know, I've I've used this example on um, you know, my my daily uh podcast, which is, you know, it's not hard to generate returns in markets regardless of what's going on. You know, if I just split a portfolio down the middle and put 50% in in 10ear treasuries that just say are yielding 4%, that's a 2% return for my portfolio right there. If I put the other 50% in just good quality fundamental dividend yielding stocks, I can build a port I've you know in fact our you know our dividend growth model that we have on Simplevisor yields about 3.7%. So let's just call it three just make because I need easy math. It's too early on a Friday morning. No, I can't have coffee right now. So no worries. I need easy math. But that's 5% right there just on the income. Well, no no you got to take 3% dividend yield split that in half. So that's one and a half plus 2% from our bonds. Right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. But that's three and a half%. So, if my goal for retirement is to only generate a 6% rate of return to meet my financial goals, you're halfway there. I've already knocked out half of it just in dividend yields and income. If the market crashes, my bonds are going to protect my principal because my bonds always mature at face value. So, I have to worry about 50% of my capital going to zero. Um, if the market continues to perform, all I've got to do is generate roughly a five or 6% rate of return out of the 50% of my equity portfolio, which isn't a stretch. If markets are going up every year, I should be generating on average five, six, 7% and just good quality stocks kind of along with economic growth and inflation. Well, there's your 6% return and you don't have much risk. That's a very low volatility beta portfolio. Let you sleep well at night. you don't have to worry about, oh my gosh, what's Nvidia gonna do? Because you don't own Nvidia in your portfolio. But the problem is is that we get distracted. We're as investors, we're all like dogs now. It's like squirrel. Um, you know, you know, we we we have this goal and I look, I I I talk to people about this all the time. They're like, "Okay, Lance, Lance, Lance, Lance, just listen to me. I'm very conservative. I just need 6% a year to meet my goal." Yes, sir. I can build that portfolio for you. super easy. Build a portfolio one one day later. Why don't we own Nvidia? Right? Why don't we own Palunteer? Why don't we own these other stocks? You know, because we get distracted by all the squirrels. We forget what our goal was. Our goal was 6% a year, but but but but you know, I could be getting more if I just do this. We got to remember we're taking on that excess risk profile to do that. And and you know, we have those stocks in our portfolio, but we counterbalance them with a lot of really boring crap. Proctor and Gamble, um, you know, Berkshire Hathaway, those type of things. Good example today is is just, you know, is, let me just take a quick look. Where's the market right now as we're talking? Market's down, um, 72 bips as we're talking right now. So, the S&P is down 72 pips as we're speaking right now, uh, in the markets. So, if I go look at just how we build out our 6040 model as a good example of this. Now, I can tell you right now, I haven't looked yet, but I'm about to look. Uh, I can tell you the portfolio will be down today because we own some of those high-flying stocks, right? But the question is because of the balance between the the fixed income and the balance that we have with kind of the boring, you know, stocks in the portfolio, we should be down less than the overall market. So, the portfolio is down 23 bips, market's down 72, a 6040 allocation is down 47 bibs. So, our benchmark is down actually 47 basis points. So our portfolio is down less than our than our benchmark by almost 50%. And down substantially less, you know, almost 70% less than than the overall market itself. But see that, you know, you look at the market, you go market's down 72 bips. Oh my gosh, what's going on? And you look at your portfolio, it's like, oh, I'm down 23 bips. Who cares? That's the important thing about understanding beta volatility. And again to your to to your your guest point, understanding volatility, volatility compression, those type of things, and how beta affects your portfolio over time is also a function of of how that beta affects your psychology and allows you whether or not you can can weather owning a portfolio over time to build to your financial goals. Okay. Um All right. Well, look, I want to I want to um you know, I think very important topic we just covered here, but I think folks get it. Let me let me go into some of the the data that we've gotten recently, Lance, because I want to talk about there's a lot happened with the Fed since you were on last Friday. Um the whole Lisa Cook saga. I mean, that's that's just one piece of it, right? Um and I've got some questions for you around that, too. Um but uh the the day we're talking the latest PCE data came out and that data you know was was in line right I mean no no surprises there um except maybe to those people who are saying look tariffs are you know going to send prices to the moon right um they it came in as expected I think it was.3% month overmonth uh PC prices 2 core was.3 both right on the screws okay Yeah. So cors Okay. Right. And right right on the screws like you said um wages were up4%. So you know basically in in just the past months past month worth of data folks but wages growing faster than costs and spending was 0.5. So you know people are still spending more than we're making. Spending more spending more than we're making. But for some reason in America that's a good thing when you're talking about the economy. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so but but real quick though, you flip that coin and again that that's all good news. And one thing that we've talked about a lot is that that that underneath the surface of all this, the economy is actually slowing down. Chicago PMI came in at 41.5. It's expected to be 46. That's down from 47. Let me interrupt you because I want you to finish your your thought here, but let me just inject one data point so you can react to it. It was my next question, which was, you know, looks like the economy u you know, we've talked about how it's slowing right here and and prices aren't running away. But we did just get a revision of the Q2 GDP number which was high when it came out and they revised it even higher. So the question to you was, is the economy maybe stronger than we thought? Probably not for the reasons you're about to say, but I wanted to get that question out there for you to react to. Sure. for sure. No, the the GDP revision at 3.3 doesn't really reflect what's been going on since the end of quarter 2. Um, so remember since the end of quarter 2, that's where we saw, you know, weaker employment. We've start we've seen a downturn in some of the economic activity. Um, so we're still kind of working on getting, you know, kind of quarter 2 data in. I kind of expect that 3.3 to get revised closer to three by the time that we get the third revision in next month. Um, so again, you know, but but again, you have to remember that was quarter two was you gota really kind of throw it out the window. You got to throw quarter one out the window too because remember quarter one was negative and that was all based on tariffs and that was all the the inventory stocking ahead of tariffs and that caused the big drag and and the import export uh factor of GDP. Then that reversed very sharply in quarter two. So we had all these imports that kind of boosted in the other direction. So throw those two things out. They don't really reflect what's going on actually in the economy. A lot of the other economic data, leading economic indicators, um u Chicago Fed National Activity Index, you um employment reports, all these other things are showing that the economy now the economy is not going into recession, right? um ISM services and manufacturing if you do that e if you weight ISM services and manufacturing um according to where we are economically which is 70 70% services 30% manufacturing we're right at the b right on the cusp of going into contraction so a lot of this data doesn't say we're in recession but it certainly suggests the economy is a not nearly as strong as what headline numbers suggest like GDP certainly not as strong as what a lot of the the you know kind the stock market suggested is um underlying weakness is definitely there and then when you take a look at corporate earnings is a good example of this outside you know of so you take a look at quarter 2 corporate earnings all the earnings growth came from the mag seven and about five major banks outside of that there was no earnings growth across every other sector so if the economy is doing well we should have seen at least seen some earnings growth out of that those other sectors of the markets and we're just not seeing that occur. So, so the underlying economy is clearly a lot weaker than than it looks like on the surface, which does foster to the point that the Fed should be cutting rates, you know, and I've I've talked about that before. Um, but it also tells you why. In fact, today's um post on our website, which is also if follow me, you can follow me on Substack Lance Roberts or go to our website realinvestmentadvice.com. I just posted a piece about energy prices and energy prices have a very very high correlation to economic growth and I really don't need to tell you what's been going on with energy prices lately. Right? And you really don't need to tell people why they're so tightly correlated because you need energy to grow the economy. If demand for energy is lower then you would expect lower economic growth. Um, okay. So, um, look, I mean, these are probably all reasons why, um, Powell gave the speech he gave at Jackson Hole last Friday, right? And, um, it was interesting. So, we talked to Lance before his speech, like an hour or two before his speech, but now we know it. And I I've remarked this a couple of times, but I'll bring it up here just to give you a chance to react to it. You know, all year up until now, Pal was the optimistic one, right? you know, at his at his press conferences where normally he just gets a whole bunch of softballs. I will say this year more journalists than I'd seen in years past did kind of dig in a bit with him like, "Hey, you keep saying that everything's great, but you know, we're we're hearing these stories about hiring freezes or we're hearing about how hard it is to get a job out there. Are you sure the labor market's doing well?" And he would say things like, you know, economy is strong, robust. I mean, he used all those languages. And when it came to the jobs market, he would say robust, but he would say, "Yeah, it is cooling, but that's we're not seeing anything we're worried about. It was a really tight labor market, so this is all normalizing. This is all more or less what we're hoping to see, right?" And it seems like on Friday, last Friday, he sort of said, "Ooh, oops." You know, we we we've been looking at the data here and it's getting worse faster than we expected. And he he called out the jobs market specifically. He also called out the housing market. I've had a number of housing analysts on this program uh this past week. Uh I won't rehash everything we went into those interviews, but they were great. And folks, if you want to watch them, go watch them after this video. Um but two really big things that end up driving consumer spending uh seem to be uh weakening enough to the point where it's finally gotten pal's attention here. Yeah, absolutely. And you know it it's and again I told you that the Fed was going to be very late to cutting rates and they are late cutting rates. It's such a tough prediction when that's basically always been the case. Right. Exactly. But you know this there was plenty of this evidence available you know and again you know Pal's Pal's problem and I wrote an article about this um about three months ago I guess and talking about how Pal was stuck. He was he was he was trapped by this whole transition this whole transitory inflation that he had gotten himself to into back in 2020 2021. It's like oh mto's you know inflation is transitory it'll go away. It did. It just took longer to go away than what he anticipated. So now he's so afraid of of you know inflation coming back now that he's been very hesitant about cutting rates probably longer than he should have been because again you know the tariffs are not causing inflation. There's a lot of reasons why tariffs don't cause inflation. We've written numerous articles about why tariffs don't cause inflation. Um, consumer choice is a big factor in that. Um, but you know what you're seeing going on in the housing market, what you're seeing going on with with the overall economy itself, and that's again why you're not getting inflation. Inflation is the function of supply and demand, not just prices. So, you know, supply and demand is what drives prices. That prices are the end part of that equation. Supply and demand first. So, that's why these things aren't showing up. And now they're starting to come to the realization that maybe that just might be the case. So unless you get some strong uptick in economic growth, right? Um you're, you know, the risk of him, you know, have having waited too long increases. The longer he sits out here not cutting rates, the larger that percentage chance he's going to be behind the curve and cutting rates because we get a sharper downturn economically speaking increases. Yeah. No, I I agree and I'm sorry to chuckle there when you said unless we get a really sharp upturn in economic activity. Um it well there's just nothing there to support that right now. And there is one thing but there is one thing. Yeah. Yeah. Um you know Taylor Swift, you're right. Well, okay. Two things. Two things is is Taylor Swift, right? That's one. Uh the other thing is is I'm actually about to I wrote an article previously about how artificial intelligence could solve your debt to deficit problem by creating economic growth and Nvidia just put out um some projections on data center buildout which is it's about $4 trillion over the next four years. Uh utility companies are going to have to spend a trillion dollars in infrastructure buildout over the next four years as well. So that's five trillion altogether. Um when you do infrastructure buildout that's a 3:1 multiplier on the on the low side. It's generally about four to one to five to one is what the economic multiple is in the economy. Let's just if we just use the low number five trillion that's $15 trillion worth of of economic activity over the next four years. Um you know that's going to that's going to sharply that'll that should bring your GDP run from about two two and a half% to closer to three three and a quarter percent. if that occurs. Now, those are pretty lofty estimates on spending by a handful of companies. But, you know, that's that's one thing, you know, that could change the dynamic from a a much more slower growth economy to one that's actually starting to grow again. Now, whether or not that happens, I have no clue, but I'm just saying is that, you know, two things could change that that denominator effect, which is paying attention to what's happening on that spending side. Sure. Um, so question for you there is when would you start to see the impact of that if it were to happen on that projected timeline in in theory you should start seeing it by you know middle of next year if if if these because it look it takes about a year so let's just say we all start today right I'm going to build a data center um it's going to take me about a year to buy the property put the plans together do the engineering before I before I even break dirt right it's going to take about a year so we should start seeing some incremental effects of that capex spend out for AI sometime next year if it's going to occur. Okay. Okay. And and so look, I I I think that certainly could happen. Um and I think there's actually other things that are going on based on the new administration's policies that um love them or hate them, I think a number of them, if they end up being affected in the way in which they're intended, will also boost economic growth. My point is is I just don't see any of that happening in the next six to nine months in any material way. And I do see a lot of headwinds and cracks like we've talked about. Um and we also have just hire for longer, right? I mean I I know we've all forgotten about it and nobody likes to talk about the lag effect. I've stopped talking about it because it just doesn't arrive. I was talking with Danielle D. Martina Booth earlier this week and she mentioned it like and we're beginning to see it and I was like God bless you for saying that. I know, right? But uh but but that's it's real folks. I mean higher for longer does matter. You the longer it takes the cavalry to arrive, the more gravity and erosion those those high rates have on economic activity. So yeah and I absolutely I absolutely agree with you there over the six I I think the big risk to the markets is over the next six to nine months. Yeah. Okay. So we're seeing it similarly. Um okay. So, uh, couple quick things. And look, we we could talk about this forever. So, let's keep it real quick because I want to get back to the Fed. But, uh, when talking about Nvidia, I was reading an article this morning saying that, you know, it's it it's it's such a unique, unprecedented stock in terms of how unbelievably it's doing and how much of the economy it's driving. And look, I believe AI is real and all that stuff, right? Are we is we in an AI bubble? I'm sure we are, but how big of the bubble is? I don't know, right? But when you look at Nvidia's revenues, they I mean like probably 70 75% of its revenues probably come from like four or five companies. Yeah. Right. And everybody has to spend right now because it's an existential arms race, right? You know, does Google want to be relevant for the next 20 years? Well, it's got to it's got to be really successful in AI, so it's going to spend like crazy. Same with Microsoft. Same with these other players. Um, but it it it just raises the question, right? If if even one of those clients stumbles, it's such a tremendously high percentage of Nvidia's revenue that it can make a really big disappointing difference, right? I'm just curious, how much do you think about that? A lot. Look, I mean that's, you know, that's why you pay really close attention to, you know, you know, all this stuff, particularly when you're you've got large exposures to a for people that have large exposure to single stocks. Again, Nvidia for us makes up 3% of our portfolio. I mean, it could go to zero tomorrow and it doesn't affect our portfolio that much. This is the whole point about risk management, sizing, those type of things. But yeah, we we pay a lot of attention to that. And again, but that's all going to get reflected in the price because the market will know that before they get to earnings. If you're just sitting around and you don't pay attention to Nvidia and you just wait for earnings, you're going to be in a bad spot. The the markets are going to tell you, you know, this stock, if they're if they're losing a customer, that will get out into the markets and you'll start to see the stock price decline. Markets will start pricing that in. That's why it's really important to pay attention to your technical analysis when you're breaking key support levels, when you're reversing trends. those type of things, you know, um, you know, that's what you, you know, that's where you start reducing risk, rebalancing your portfolio, doing those type of things, those gardening things that we talk about often, you know, that's the process of managing that risk because it's eventually going to happen. I mean, you know, if you just look at Nvidia stock just um, you know, it was $1450 back in November of last year. It went all the way down to $90 in April. Now it's back up to $150 again. Now it's selling off a little bit here. So, you know, again, it this stock goes through very, very big swings over time, um, and gives you tons of opportunities to buy things cheap, and that's when you want to be looking for those opportunities. Okay. All right. Back to the Fed here. Um, I think I know your answer on this, but let me just get it out there again just so everybody hears um, your latest. Uh, so, you know, it seems that the Fed is now going to cut. Uh I think the probability that an error of rate cuts lies ahead of us is pretty good at this point in time. Right. So assume the Fed does cut multiple times this year and into next year. In your estimation, are you expecting bond yields to come down commensurate with it? Or could we have a situation which some of the analysts I've interviewed on this channel even this week a few have said I think the Fed will cut but bond investors are going to be disappointed. Well, historically, when you look at when the Fed starts cutting rates, bond yields tend to rise for a little bit and that's what you should expect. So, you know, but that's already happened. The Fed's already been cutting rates. So, again, they just took a pause and so they're going to start cutting again. And so, it's Yeah, if you're looking for an immediate drop in the 10ear yield because the Fed cut rates may that may or may not happen. There's not, you know, the difference between the Fed funds rate and the 10ear rate is not that closely correlated. continue rates driven by economics and and inflation. So, what you're paying attention to there is you're looking for inflation to fall and economic growth to slow. That's coming. So, we're seeing that now. Um again, see the Chicago PMI today. You saw that in the inflation the PCE reports today as well. Um if we continue to see inflation and economic growth slow as the Fed is cutting rates, then uh 10ear yields will eventually fall, but they could they could stay where they are for right now for a while. kind of hang around this 4.2 percentage range because that's where economic growth and inflation is when you add them together. Um, however, if the Fed starts having to cut rates aggressively because now they've, you know, realized that, hey, we're on the brink of recession or whatever it is and they start cutting by 50 basis points or every meeting they're cutting and saying, hey, you know, we're going to keep cutting now because, you know, we don't know. or if something comes up where the Fed has to cut really drastically like in 2020, 10 year yields are going to drop like a rock. Okay? Now, they're not going to go back to a half a percent again. So, everybody expecting half percent yields on a 10-year Treasury and a 2% mortgage rate ain't ever going to happen again. But, you know, 10ear yields at three, you know, two and a half to three and a half% very likely at some point. Okay. All right. Um, uh All right. So, uh, let me I'm going to just put you on the spot here. I'm not going to hold you to this glance, but probabilitywise, what do you think is more likely? Um, we have sort of a a um, you know, anemic but still positively growing economy over the next year. Um or as history tends to show when the Fed starts cutting, you know, when you look back uh retroactively, it seems to be that's where the wheels came off, right? Where where generally when the Fed is has hiked, held steady at a plateau, and then get serious about cutting. You know, that's where they usually backdate the recession to, that's where you see the Fed panic cut, you know, as the economy. So, what do you think is more likely here? Well, you know, look, this this goes back to to really 2020 and and we we've been talking about this for a long time. It was like everybody was sure we're going to have a recession back in 2022, remember? And we're like, no, we're not going to have a recession here. There's too much money in the system. And so, we've been working through that whole the whole, hey, look, we get to bring up pig and a python again. Um, so, you know, we talked about that whole pig in the python of all that money. That money is still in the system, still working it through. I mean, you know, the you know, we're about to give $5 billion to Intel for a 10% stake. that that was that chipsack money that was already sent already out there and just hadn't been used yet. So, it's just that's going to happen. Um, but that all affects economic growth and it keeps that economic growth rate from slowing into recessionary territory. Also, we talked about the fact we were running at 12 13% nominal GDP. So, to get to to a recession, you got to get all the way down to zero. That just took a long time to get there. Now, we're running around 2%. So we've now we're much closer to that risk, right, of dropping into a recessionary drag at some point. So I think the odds favor that over the next period of time. I don't know when, but if we don't start to see an impact from Taylor Swift or AI spending, uh, data center spending into economic growth, I think this economic growth is going to kind of continue to decline. We're seeing, you know, stress in consumer delinquency rates. We're seeing stress in the housing market. That's, you know, that certainly weighs on people's net worth. We're seeing, we're seeing stresses in areas where consumers are really having a much tougher time spending money and that's why we're starting to see some of this other incremental pressure in the market. So, unless something changes that dynamic, I think the risk, you know, is is potentially there that we could see a recession sometime, you know, next year or beginning of 27. Okay. So, um I mean yes, the potential is there for all the reasons that we talk about every week. I'm going to put words in your mouth. You can correct him, but uh I think the answer I I you gave was the answer I expected, which is all things being equal right now, you you would bet you would think the probability is more likely that history will repeat here, right? Which is that yeah, as as the Fed starts cutting here, we're going to look back at this period. All things being equal, Taylor Swift breaks up with Travis Kelce and and uh and and AI data centers don't come to fruition, you'll have a recession. Yes. That that the the break the breakup is the black swan. Nobody's talking. Exactly. Um, so another thing here just not for nothing is um, you know, you wrote that article in October of 2022 when when everybody and honestly Lance I think even you and I to be honest like still thought a recession was more likely you know everybody thought it was going to happen. I think you wrote that piece saying folks it might not and this might be the right time but again nobody knew for sure. But I, you know, back then I remember you saying like, look, it it sure seems like we I don't know how we're going to avoid a recession, but you were very uncomfortable because you're like, absolutely everybody is on that side of the boat. And when that happens, so um now everybody's on the no recession camp. Exactly. That that's what I'm bringing up here. So in talking to Stephanie Pomboy this week, she talked about how, you know, everybody was expecting recession. So she went and and played around with Google search on how many people are searching for a recession right now. You know it has totally cratered uh since you know past couple years that had spiked earlier this year like during you know um liberation day and all that stuff. Everybody was freaking out about a recession but now that's all gone. And she was trying to like text you see compare it to other things that had fallen out of the the public view. Um, so she compared it versus um searches for Kla Harris and she's like actually there's a lot fewer searches for recession than there are for Kla Harris right now. Even Kla Harris's searches have cratered since you know the presidential race. So I mean right now to your point I mean very few people are on the recession side of the boat here which kind of in some ways from from your logic makes it more likely to happen right. It's it's a contrarian thing right? If if nobody's expecting it allows something to occur, right? So, as always, and that's why, you know, as a and I am a contrarian investor, I'm always trying to bet on the other side of of something. Um, but yeah, so I feel much better about a call when I'm kind of sitting in the outside. Yep. When everybody agrees with me, I'm like, "Okay, I'm probably wrong." Okay, we I'm looking at time here. We We got a lot of wood to chop and not a ton of time to do it in. Um, let's finish up on the Fed here. So, a lot of drama at the Fed. So, obviously there's been a lot of drama about is Trump gonna replace Pal, whatnot, and who's gonna who's going to be the replacement? And I think right now everyone's sort of figured, okay, Trump's probably not going to Trump's probably not going to remove Pal before Pal's tenure is up. But there's been a lot of renewed speculation on um they are expanding the the field of candidates to to replace uh Pal now. Uh but basically, you know, everyone is assuming, okay, there's going to be a Trump friendly uh Fed chair being put in office next year. Now, we just had um Steven Marin uh come in and replace Cougler on the FOMC, right? Um and that was sort of a bonus surprise for Trump, right? Oh, okay. Now I I can stack the board with another person who, you know, is going to vote my way. And then now there's the drama around um Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who was also a voting member of the FOMC. Um I've got some questions for you around this, but first, anything specific about Cook you want to talk about before I I I drive this? No, I I don't think so. I mean, there there were some new developments today, but we'll probably tie into everything else. So, go ahead. Okay. So, you know, there's there's um you know, there's a there's an increasing chorus that's saying there's a coup going on at the Fed right now that Trump is is, you know, stacking it, trying to stack it with a majority of folks that he can control, right? And you know, look, I mean, palace tenure was going to end. So that that not something Trump, you know, is had any real say in um the the Cougler Marin thing was just kind of serendipity, I think. Um but there are people that are saying, "Okay, but you know, so soon after that and now they're trying to push out um Cook, right?" And I I I had a really interesting um debate on on on X yesterday. um wasn't really trying to, but it but curious what you think here. So, um he here's the here's the question that I have or here here's what makes me uncomfortable. Um is Trump trying to engineer a coup at the Fed? I don't know. I'm sure Trump being Trump wants people there on the Fed that that you know we'll follow his lead. He's he's just the kind of guy. Wouldn't but wouldn't any president want that? Yeah. I mean, so wouldn't any president Right. Yeah. So if JD Vance or if Joe Biden was still president and and these opportunities were coming up, wouldn't he were favorable to him? If Biden Biden put Lisa at Lisa Cook in there for you. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, yeah, that I don't think I don't think anybody's engineering anything. I think there's some fortunate events that are occurring that are allowing him to, you know, appoint people he likes. He likes. Okay. So a couple things falling out of that. So, the Lisa Cook thing, um, here here's the discomfort I have with it, right? So, first let me say if she is proven to have engaged in criminal wrongdoing, absolutely should be replaced, right? No problem with that at all. Yeah. I'm worried or I'm not super comfortable with the president himself interceding here to say, you know, I've I've heard some stuff. It makes me uncomfortable. I want you off, right? This this this constitutes for a cause. Um I feel like, wait a minute, we we've we we've had, you know, examples at the Fed before where Fed governors were involved in stuff that didn't smell right and there was a there was a policing process at the Fed that eventually showed these guys the door, right? Like like should isn't J. Pal, the boss, Jerome Pal, the boss of the Fed, and should shouldn't we let shouldn't we let this either run its course or um should the president wait to get involved until there is like a legal verdict on this because the fact that there in fact it's still it's still all you know um speculated right now or or not proven, it does look a little politicized for the president himself to get in here and and say you're fired. Yeah. Well, no. And and again, he's Trump has already come out and said he will wait for whatever the court decides, right? So he's already said that he'll whatever legal process now, unfortunately, but but he has sent her a letter saying you're gone and then she's that was first. Then he said he said that was first then he said I'll wait until the court decides cuz that and pal should be over the charge of this. Bill Py from um Fanny May just sent a criminal referral today on Lisa Cook because there's now a third home that she claimed as an investment property when she disclosed it with the Fed, but claimed as a second home when she filed for a mortgage. So, there's all this and the DOJ has now pretty much intervened as well. DOJ's pretty much following this course as well, which I think is fine. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is all legal process, right? And and that that's the process we should follow. But but two things that you know do do kind of arise here is that you know yes we should wait for whatever you know process to occur. She she needs her day in court. Right. Right. Whether she's right or whether she's wrong. She says it was just a clerical error. Um the evidence kind of does the the evidence that's presented so far doesn't really kind of look like it was just a clerical error, but that's not for me to judge. That's for a jury to judge. And I smell the same things you smell. So don't exactly right. But you know I I do from a standpoint you know there you know when you're in these kind of positions I guess is is that you know JPAL should be looking at this and going look you know if this is true you know got to let you go. we're going to put you on, but you should be on leave of absence right now until this is done, right? And then you have a temporary replacement or you have a voting member or whatever, take her spot, whatever. She gets a proxy vote, whatever. But, you know, again, I think you've just got to follow some type of legal process. And I think Pal should be, you know, the one the one to determine, to your point, he is the boss of the Fed. He's the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. So he should be the one making that decision about what you know the Federal Reserve is a very prestigious position that the whole market looks to. So there shouldn't be any hint of impropriety at the Fed because I mean they're in control of monetary policy. So I think Pal should be taking this more seriously than it than it kind of looks like he is right now particularly with this latest criminal referral and particularly with comments from the DOJ that that you know in their process right now. But that's just my opinion. agree with me or not, you know, that's just my opinion. No, no, I think we see we look at this seriously and here's why this is important to me, right? Which is I'm not a huge fan of the Federal Reserve as I think anybody listening to this channel knows, right? But I think if you were going to have a central bank, which we do right now, right, that central bank should be independent, right? And I know there's, you know, a lot of people that don't think it is and whatever, and I I hear you all on that, right? But but to the extent you have one, it should be as independent as possible. And if it shouldn't then the bank then the major bank shouldn't have a shareholder. Well, okay. That that's that's independent of the banking system. I agree. But but but it it should you should it should not be politicized, right? It should be as a-political as possible, right? And if the the what what concerns me here about this is if the president can basically you know come in and just remove you know pretty much at will anybody uh on the Fed board that it can as he can um then um you know for for for any suspicion that he may have right then the Fed has no independence. It just at that point it just becomes a proxy for the White House. So why even have a Fed board at that point? Well, no. Well, to to two things, you know, two things. First of all, he can't remove people. He has to the only people the president can remove somebody from the Fed board is for cause, right? So, it has to but it has to be proven. No. Right. But that's what I'm saying for the by the president writing that letter basically saying you're wait but but you're missing the bigger point. You're saying the the Federal Reserve Board is already politicized because the president appoints the members. So if you want an independent Federal Reserve, which would be fantastic, it should be an elected by the people board, right? So that when we vote for the president, we vote for the board members for the Federal Reserve, right? Or or we vote for the chair and the chair there should be, right? There should be absolutely no linkage between the Federal Reserve Board and the major banks. The major bank should not be getting a dividend from the Federal Reserve every every month, quarter, whenever it's paid out. There should be no ownership by the major banks of the Federal Reserve, which there is. So, you know, if you want, you know, you you're kind of talking out two sides of your mouth. No, no, no. I'm not I'm not because when the president appoints it, when a president appoints anything, it's already politicized. Okay. But you're talking about what we should have. I'm talking about what we have, right? So, we have But the president appoints the people to the board. He appoints No, no, no, no. The president the as I understand it, the president appoints the chair, right? Oh, and and I guess he can appoint people to the board, but but but then they have their tenure there, right? They only can be removed for cause. For cause that has that needs to have proven through court that they've committed this act, right? And and there's a pretty high standard for cause right here. So that's the independence which is like look, unless I do something, you know, illegal, I'm here and if you don't like my decision, President, tough noogies. I got four years left on my tenure, whatever, right? That's and that's the way it should be. Did did now is your argument that Trump overstepped his bounds by saying that letter? Yes. Yes. And that's my Yeah. And that's my point. And I think it's dangerous. Uh and look, I don't love the Fed, so I hate to be in this position of like defending the Fed here, but it's it's dangerous if it sends a signal to the world that the Fed decisions that a the market looked right through it. They said, "Well, he can't remove her without cause, so the letters doesn't mean anything." You know, he took an action because he's hotheaded. that's the way he operates. I mean, he's just like, I'm going to run. I'm running this business. This is how we're going to react. You know, we're going to react. But again, the Fed, the market saw right through it. If the market thought that, you know, Trump was politicizing the board, etc., then the market was sold off a whole lot more on that whole issue. But, okay, it didn't it didn't even it didn't even flex. I I hope you're right. Let we can move off this because I think we largely see everything more or less the same here. I I just think I think I I think it was a bad bungle uh on on the president's part to do that. Absolutely. It was. But again, this is, you know, Trump's Trump's first term. You know, I'm no fan of his tweeting because in his first term, he was like constantly bungling himself by all just the off-the- cuff tweets he was sending out. But that's just his personality, right? Well, and here here's the other thing that that concerns me about this too, which is um so let's say Pal decides to do what you think he should do, Lance, right? Which is all right, you know, Lisa Cook, until we know what's really happened here, you're on administrative leave, you're not voting here anymore, right? Yep. To the extent this was a political maneuver by the president, he kind of got what he wanted. He got her vote off the board, right? And well, right now right now pal hasn't done anything. She's still on the board. No, I know. Pal hasn't done if this if this happens, right? So my again what I what I just worry about sort of the especially the president coming to put his his finger on things like this is if it sets the president that like oh this this person's not voting the way that I like. Let's drum up whatever we can on them. Oh, you know what? On a tax, you know, in their taxes back in 1987, you know, they made a mistake. It just it creates this incentive for political witch hunt to try to drive the outcome you want by by pushing out your political enemies. So kind of like what the last administration did for the presidential election which I thought was terrible. Right. I mean look I mean this this that's the danger you get into here is what I'm saying. This is No, you're absolutely right. And that's the whole the whole factor you're driving down to is that I think is the much bigger factor is that we have now weaponized the legal system to go after opponent. Right, left or in the middle, doesn't matter. We have now weaponized the legal system to go after people and to to to you know pass bills that allow for the statute of limitations to be extended well beyond what they were ever done to make legal in runs around things to you know try to get a certain outcome. That's got if if you want to fix the problem you're talking about with the Fed, you got to fix the problem across the board. That stuff can't happen. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, and it is happening and we could do a whole rant about that, but again, that that's I'm glad I remembered to mention that because to me that is a a big part of the the danger of what's going on right now with this. Absolutely. Oh, that that and for the outcome of a lot of things, I think that is one of the bigger kind of demically swords that's sitting out there is that we've moved into this environment of of of actions that we should not be doing across the board. Okay, got you there. I got to move on because we're running out of time here. I'm skipping over a whole bunch of interesting topics, but we'll get to them hopefully next week. Um, real quick and just give me the 30 seconds on this. you wrote a piece um recently saying that uh or you did a video uh this week uh on gold acting as a liquidity source for stocks. Y um I just want to note on the day that we're talking um stocks getting hit a little bit. Gold is is gold futures are above 3500 an ounce. They they spiked in response to the um the PCE numbers here. Um anything what's the punchline on this gold as a liquidity for stocks point? No, no, no. What? So yeah, you got to go watch the video. What I was talking about was is that if you look at, you know, kind of markets in general, there's there's this non-corlary, you know, kind of asset go that trade that's going on right now. So you you take a look at, for example, gold had been really flat and a big trade just been running in a big trading range now for about the last 3 months. While while gold while stocks have been rising, you know, we've, you know, gold really hasn't gone much anywhere. It's just trading up and down. It's not it's not getting having a big sell-off, but it's also not rising. Um, and so it's just simply showing the the change of asset flows within markets. You know, there was when stocks were going down, money was hiding in gold because of worries about tariffs, etc. And then as stocks are rising, people are going, "Okay, I have money in gold. I've got big profits here. I'll take it there and I'm going to buy stocks now because they're going up." Stocks are down today, so gold is up. So money's just rotating back and forth between these liquidity sources. and you know whether it's gold or bitcoin or or other asset classes we're just seeing money but it uh when you're starting to talk about beta performance etc um looking at relative asset classes and so you're kind of looking at this goes back to about talking about money flows right so where you're looking at money flows going is just kind of tracking where the money is hiding and where it's not hiding and that was the point of the video okay all right um and folks if you want to go deeper into that next week we can I'm sorry to have to rush here uh all right two last things. We forgot to put up the S&P chart last week and show folks just where we are on the TA. Do you mind if we do that real quickly here, Lance? Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we'll do that and then um we'll we'll have you run through your latest trades. Yeah. So, hold on. This is not the uh that's Nvidia real quick. Hold on. So, yeah. So, here's the S&P. So, two things have been going on. Actually, kind of a um good sign, bad sign type thing. Uh first of all, we've got a a really kind of significant negative divergence going on. So this is momentum at the top. This is MACD. Um at the bottom is relative strength. We've got a pretty big we've got this rising market within within this trend channel that's really been running ever since uh kind of really kind of midmay. And we're just kind of hugging along that 20-day moving average that's been doing well, holding good support. Um but we have this negative divergence building between relative strength and momentum. That's typically not a really good sign for markets. Typically, this just gen will generate into a bigger correction. In fact, if you kind of just look at momentum back over here, we had the same negative divergence in the markets back here. Uh it's kind of the same negative divergence uh in relative strength, you know, back over here as well. And then eventually, sorry, just to make sure we're following you, we're actually seeing consistency in momentum and relative strength. They're diverging from the trajectory of the market. Right. Right. Right. So the relative strength is weakening, markets are rising. Yeah. So that's just and generally that typically that type of action precedes larger corrections. Now we're about to move into So we're just finished. Today's the last trading day of the month of September if I'm right. Right. Uh August. August. Sorry, August. So Monday, September the 1st. It's a holiday. Um but September tends to be the weakest trading month of the year. So if this negative divergence is going to show up in the markets, it's likely going to show up in September. So something just at least worth paying attention to. The good news is is that money flows had been really weak for the past few weeks while the market was still rising. We had a big spike in money flows over the last several days. Um Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in particular, we had a big flow of money back into market. So that's why markets were kind of ticking up ahead of Nvidia's earnings. So but overall market's still in this very bullish trend. There's absolutely nothing going wrong with the markets at this moment. Again, just kind of pay attention to this relative uh this divergence and relative strength and momentum. It just suggests some internal weakness, but it it's not necessarily something that says, "Oh, the markets are going to sell off next week." It just suggests that we're entering into a seasonally weak month of the year, September. Uh returns tend to be negative for the month of September, but again, August tends to be weak, too, and we just put in a 3% month. So, you know, again, statistics are statistics or averages. doesn't mean it has to be the case, but it's at least enough of a warning sign here that suggests, you know, go into your portfolio, do a little bit of rebalancing risk, raise a little bit of cash, maybe nothing drastic, but, you know, take some profits and your winners, trim off your losers, you know, those type of things. Um, I'm writing an article uh coming up talking about Steve Cohen. Uh Steve Cohen is one is a hedge fund manager that read 021 and I'm leading off the article talking about risk management with a quote from him. It says like you know I look at my very best trader and he's right about 55% of the time which means 45% of the time he's wrong. On average his traders are right about 50% of the time. 45 to 50% of the time. So 50 to 55% of the time they're losing money. So, how is it that that 021 that hedge fund makes so much money for their clients if they're losing 50 to 55% of the time? It's because they limit those losses. So, again, go into your portfolio, things that aren't working, trim those out of your portfolio. You can always come back to them later. Things that are working really well, you know, trim those back to target weights, take a little bit of profits, rebalance your risk a bit. Look to buy some of those old boring stocks and stick them in your portfolio. that'll help navigate, you know, any type of downside draw as we were talking about earlier um in the port in the markets because if we're going to get a downside correction, it's going to be in tech. It's going to be in discretionary. That's where the hits are going to come. Communications because Google, uh that's where the hit will come and money will rotate. Again, talk about liquidity sources. Um money will rotate back into defensive areas. So, it'll go into defensive stocks, dividend yielding, strong fundamentals. It'll go into gold. It'll go into um you know go into bonds. That's where it'll hide out until that corrective process works. Then those assets will become liquidity sources to buy back into the high beta momentum trade. Okay. All right. And speaking of trades, what uh trades, if any, did you guys make at RA over the past week? None this week. We're again, you know, we we monitor performance of the portfolio relative to the markets. And again, as I as I just discussed earlier, you know, markets are down, you know, 75 80 bips. We're down about 27 bips. We're in good shape right now. So, you know, I um portfolio's been doing really well this year. Um gains are good. Um you know, we're well ahead of our target rates for this year. So, again, there's just not a lot for us to do right now, but we're we're monitoring it very closely. Okay. You're kind of in the don't screw it up. Yeah. Pretty much, right? It's like this like everything's working good. Don't mess with it. All right. Well, look, in uh the remaining minutes we have here, um I want to squeeze in a quick rant and then wrap things up. Um speaking of rants, Lance, um last week's discussion uh really did seem to resonate with a lot of folks uh emotionally and and and you know, primarily. Yeah, I wanted to say something about that. Go ahead. Okay. Well, I'll let you say it, but I I'll just preface this by saying kind of famously you generally don't uh listen to the you don't read the comments uh on these YouTube videos. I hope you broke that rule last week. I didn't because there there's a lot of love and support from you uh from this crowd and uh you know all I want to say is is um you know uh what you and your family are going through. You aren't alone. You obviously have my full uh support as you know had some conversations off camera but this community's really got your back too. No and I was gonna that's what I wanted to say about it is I I I was overwhelmed by the number of emails that I got from people. I didn't read the comments. I don't read comments on videos just because of the haters out there. I just I just don't need the mental anguish. So, I I I did hear though from other people that there were a ton of very positive, supportive comments. And I do appreciate all the support uh the prayers that I received. You know, a lot of people thought this has something to do with my kids. No, my kids are perfectly fine. They're healthy. They're doing fantastic. Um my wife had major surgery last week. Um, unfortunately, she was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer. So, we are dealing with that as best we can right now, but your support, your prayers, and everything else that Joel sent to us was I shared with my wife, and they're they're greatly needed, and we appreciated it very much. Yeah. All right, my friend. Um, I I didn't know that you were going to share the details there. Um, now that it's out in the world, um, folks, you get a sense of what Lance Lance is going through. Uh, it's not minor. Um, but, um, you know, Lance, you never know. We got a we we got a big, uh, a big audience here. Um, we may have some people that have some, uh, some things they might be able to to to to share that may be helpful, whether it's just having gone through similar, you know, strategies for going through similar tough times like this, or we might have some cancer specialists out there as well. even though I know you've got the best in the world uh working on her right now. Um so anyways folks um you know understandably uh Lance may not be uh as available as as or as incredibly dependable as he normally is for this channel given his responsibilities. And so um I have told him which I'm sure you're all on board me with which is that uh we'll take as much of him as we can get that works for him and whenever he's got to not be here that is absolutely okay. uh his cohort, Michael Liowitz, is sort of on call to step in whenever needed. And Lance, if there are times where Michael can't do it, don't worry. We'll figure out how to soldier on. Um have that be not even a not even the last of your worries. Have it not even be a worry on your list. Um but just obviously focus on the things you need to focus on. Yeah. But no, my my my plan is is and look this goes to our whole conversation we had last week is that you know this is this is you know for me this is a very for my wife and our whole family it's a it's a very challenging time right now. um you know but this goes back to our conversation last week is this is the point where you have a choice and you can just quit or you can say and this is and this is why I love my wife so very much is you know after we got the news it was devastating um lots of tears lots of crying sorry um sorry buddy you know but you know she looked at me and she says you know we're going to fight she you know you have a choice you don't have to fight. You can just take the consequence and go or you can go through this horrible thing called chemotherapy and you know fight. And she she just looked at me and she says, "No, we're going to fight because you know we have too much that we have left to do." And so that's the choice we make. This is you know you know this is those points in time where you know if you're running a business or you're you know dealing with you know financial troubles in your life or any of these type of things and again you know you know a lot of people you know when we talk about things like you know buying a house or saving or you know trying to grow wealth in the markets and it's so unfair because of this that or the other thing and you know I I'll make these comments about well you know this is just where you have to kind of buckle up and strap down and and get to work. And I get a lot, and this is why I don't read the comments, right? Because I get a lot of these hate comments like, "Oh, you're just an old boomer. You don't know anything. You know, you don't understand what it's like today." I do understand what it's like today because, you know, I've lived through these things. I've lived in my I've lived out of my truck, you know, starting a business. I've done, you know, I' I've had these hurdles in my life. And I'm not just telling you these things just for the sake of telling you these things. I'm hoping that you'll take something from it and say, "Look, I can do this, too. You can you can get to whatever goal you want, but you have this choice that you know, you have to just go, hey, I get what it is, and I'm going to get over this. I'm going to figure my way out of this problem, whatever it is, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get there, whether it's, you know, you've got to cut spending or save more money or whatever it is. But you got to make those sacrifices to get there. And and you know any success that you want in life is completely achievable. And this is why I get so mad when people talk about you know capitalism sucks. You know we need the socialist system because you know I'm a beneficiary of capitalism and I and I understand how capitalism works and I know how to take advantage of it because I've been doing it my whole life. Um and you can do it too. There's no secret to it. You just have to be willing to take the hard knocks and get up and and keep going and and keep moving forward. And sometimes it just seems like you just can't go forward. It it's just it just seems like it's just an insurmountable obstacle and I just I there's no way I'm going to get over this. But you know, it's it's just it's like that old saying like how do you eat an elephant? You know, one bite at a time. And this is why we talked about boxes last week is just this this big problem is so insurmountable. I can't get over it. I'm just done. Right? But if you can take that and break it down into the pieces you can solve right now and the pieces you can't and put the pieces that you can't up on a shelf right now. We'll get to those later. But start solving the problems you can today. You can get to whatever goal it is. I can't buy a house. It's too it's unaffordable. Okay. Well, what could I do to get there? Well, I need to save a down payment. So, let's work on that first. I can do that, right? I need to save 50 bucks a month into my savings account or 50 bucks a week, whatever the number is. Start small. work on those little boxes you can solve today and then as things start to mature, other boxes will come off that shelf that you can start solving now because hey, I've got my down payment saved up. So now what do I need to do? I need better credit. Got to go fix my credit. How do I fix my credit? Right? So but again, as those unsurmountable problems find solutions, you'll get to your goal. It may take it won't be today and it won't be tomorrow. It might be five years from now, but you can get to whatever goal you want. So, uh, I mean, I agree with everything you're saying, Lance. I I hate the fact that you're having to teach us in real time, you know, how to do this that that you I hate the reason they're making you the model. I know. I prefer not to be, trust me. And you know, I mean, on this channel, I I bring it back more often than probably most people want to reminding people what real wealth is, right? And I generally distill it to, you know, the important relationships in our lives, living with purpose, and then health, right? Um cuz those are the things that really matter. You know, I try to remind people money is a means. And even though that's what we talk about 98% of the time, Lance, you know, um it is a catalyst towards uh that can help be helpful with those things. But, you know, when you are faced with the type of adversity that you are and your family are right now, it's it's an immediate reminder of what really matters, right? Um, and so, um, yeah, it's it's a that's a valuable point. I would trade everything right now. Right. Right. and uh and and fortunately, you know, you've done a good job of saving. So, you can you can use, you know, cash in on the the financial wealth that you've built to help, you know, give your wife the best treatment that that she has that she can get. And and uh you know, she's very lucky to have you. I mean, you're ridiculously lucky to have her. I mean, let's let's not let's not mince mince works on that one. But um I mean one you're you're a good provider and obviously you've worked hard to to to build wealth to be able to you know get her the the best uh care and whatever. But to your point, you know, right now uh you all have to make your choice. Sounds like she's made hers. Um but it's the is this going to break me or am I going to fight? Right. And I'm I'm just here to remind you, Lance, that you know you freaking MMA fighter. I mean you are a fighter by your nature. It's in your DNA. She's very lucky to have a partner like you with your constitution. And so just like uh in Forest Gump, right, where they they they just like, you know, unleashed his his natural power, right? The run forest run, right? I mean, right now is your fight, Lance, fight moment in time. Yeah. And like I said, it's it's you know, then I told you this a little bit, but you know, when we were just getting on on the show this morning, is that it it really refocuses what your goals are in life. Um because like we we had all these plans for certain things that have now all changed and you know, all the things that we were working for and saving for and we were going to do this that and the other thing is like all that's just completely out of the window now. It's like it's now it's just it doesn't none of that even matters anymore. It's just, you know, whatever it takes to give her as long a healthy life as she can and for us to just be together as long as we can because it's, you know, it's it's the one thing that that we all take for granted is time. Yep. And we all think that we're going to have plenty of time. It's like, you know, when you're having, you know, tough time with your spouse or whatever, it's like, I just not going to talk to her, whatever. you know, we're just gonna, you know, just live in separate bedrooms or whatever. And, you know, you don't realize how and unfortunately it takes something like this to make you refocus on what's important. Realize that you're just burning precious time when you do stuff like that. Yeah. And and you know, really think about, you know, it's really made me re-evaluate. Look, I like I said, I I love my wife more than anything else on earth. she on earth she's like, you know, she's everything to me and I do everything in the world I can for her, but you know, when this happened, it just made me take on a completely new aspect of how important she was to me. Um, and you know, it's it it's sad that it takes something like this to really make you realize just how important that significant other is in your life. And I hope that if anybody takes anything away from this today is that you just take a second to really appreciate your spouse for who they are. And because you hear this all the time, but you're not guaranteed tomorrow. And that's true. And unfortunately, it takes something like this to really make you realize it. And I don't wish risk that on anybody. So, you know, take take away from today, go do something for your spouse and just tell them thank you. Well, look that that you know my wife's been away. She's coming home in about an hour. I'm going to give her a really big hug when she come extra big hug when she comes in the door. Honoring you and your wife here, Lance. I hope everybody else does the same uh in their life. Um look buddy. So again, um heartbroken for you and your family that you guys are going through this. Um I I do take confidence hopefully it's proven over time that you were in the best of hands with the care that you're getting there. I don't think I'm letting any anything proprietary out of the bag. If you live in Houston, MD Anderson is there. It is the best cancer treatment center in the world. We are very No, we are very very lucky. Um, we have with with because MD Anderson and literally the hospital is like a mile from our house. So, and we have an we have an excellent doctor. She is absolutely awesome. Um, the amount of care and support that they provide to their patients is mindboggling. I mean, the number of people that are at my wife's disposal, they call her, they're constantly checking on her. She has all kinds of resources to access. Um, you know, I one of the things when we were going through the surgery process is I'm always fascinated by business, right? And from the moment that you walk into MD Anderson Surgical Center, it's a organized process. I mean, there is somebody there constantly making sure you're informed, making sure they that the person is in the right place, double-checking everything. You meet with every single doctor. You talk to every single nurse and and and practitioner that's there. And it's such an and and there's like 50 people coming in at one time and they're just, you know, just funneling these people off. Everybody's getting taken care of. It's such a welloiled machine. I'm like, I need to figure out how to run my business like this because it's phenomenal how well and of course they've been doing it for decades, but it's absolutely phenomenal, you know, how how controlled that entire environment is, but the level of service and support that they give you is just absolutely amazing. All right. Well, that's really encouraging. Yeah, very lucky. Um, so, you know, in conclusion here, Lance, um, because I know you got to go because you you've got some commitments you got to get We have an appointment we have to go to go to. Okay. Um but um I hope you feel the love from this community. I mean I I hope you feel the love for me, brother. Um we got you. You know, fight for her. Let us know how we can fight for you. Um and um you know, nothing but everybody's best hope and support and prayers from here. And you know, you'll keep us updated as as as you are able to and make sense. But most importantly, um, please have your time here going forward be what you can spare and what's healthy for you, but not a minute more. Well, no. I mean, look, I I I'm going to be here um unless there is an appointment or something. So, just, you know, she's about to start chemo. Um, she'll go through six months of basically about, no, sorry, about four months of of chemo. Um, hopefully after that things will all smooth out a lot. But, you know, but no, my intention is to continue to be here. I'm continuing to run my business, continuing to do what I need to do. Um, you know, just unless an appointment or something that I need to be there for interrupts it, then Michael Leezitz has already said he'll fill in, but no, my plan is to be here every Friday and, you know, we'll keep moving forward. Okay. Well, look, um, so head of rant for today, obviously not going to get to it. Just tell me what the topic is so I get ready for next week. This was much more important. uh man topic was um uh there was an you know sort of an uplifting part of the end of it but how uh you and I and I'm sure many viewers here know we know the people that are having like the tail end successes in life right the guy that you're talking to who you kind of thought was like you and then you found out that like oh he bought Bitcoin back in 2016 right or oh my god this guy's small little business he just got bought for $50 million right it um it it's hard to kind of get your soul crushed in the moment when you realize um but there's an inspirational part of that. But but again, this is absolutely nothing worth talking about after what we just talked about here. And no, no, we'll definitely save it for next week because uh actually I just text my son uh he's in college at&m studying computer engineering and this um this kid at&m just sold his AI he he built an AI uh program and he just sold it for $40 million. hadn't even graduated college yet. Yeah, you're kidding. Okay. So, so I text my son. I'm like, "What are you doing?" The absolute last thing you wanted to hear at that moment. So, that's exactly what I want to talk about in that rant. And in general, buddy, if you ever, you know, look, I can dial up the rants going forward, too, if you just want to have a nice distraction to be able to, you know, direct your attention towards something else. Um, perfect. All right. Look. Well, folks, um, if if you feel one of the best ways to start using your time, uh, for the things that really matter is to continue watching Lance Roberts on this program going forward um, every week from here or as often as we can get them. Please let them know that by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it. Uh don't forget again that um the um early bird price discount is still available for Thoughtful Money's upcoming fall online conference on Saturday Mar uh Saturday, October 18th. Don't worry if you can't watch live. Everybody who registers is going to get a replay video of the full event. Uh as a reminder, Sven Henrik just signed on. The faculty is amazing at this point and only getting better. I just had another big name commit last night which I'm going to share I'm going to save to share until next week. Um, but to go get your tickets, uh, run do not walk to go to thoughtfulmoney.com/conference where you can buy your ticket there still at that lowest discount price. And if you are a premium subscriber to our Substack, you'll get an additional $50 off of that um that discount price. Boy, there was another announcement I had to make, Lance, about um YouTube membership videos, which folks I I I'll just talk about next week. Um, I won't mention them here. I just plan to see that you're going to hear something from me about that coming up. Uh and then last obviously you know if you uh would like to get some professional financial help in figuring out how to uh navigate the financial markets that we have today and and may have tomorrow given a lot of the macro issues that Lance and I talked about. Um recommend that most of the people watching this video get that help from a good professional financial adviser. If you've got a good one who's doing that for you already, great. Don't mess with success. But if you'd like um a second opinion or if you don't have one of those adviserss um and would like to talk to one of the financial adviserss that Thoughtful Money endorses, these are the firms you see with me on this channel week after week. Maybe you'd like to talk to Lance and his team there at RAA specifically to set up one of those consultations. I just fill out the very short form at thoughtfulmoney.com. Lance buddy, uh I'm going to let you go. Um, thanks for just everything and and uh who you are as a person and give your wife a big hug from me today and give her my best as well. Um, and uh I usually let you have the last word. Anything else you want to say or should we just let you head off into the sunset here? Uh, no, we're all good and uh we'll see you next week. All right, good luck, buddy. Everybody else, thanks so much for watching.