History Tells Us This Bubble In Stocks Will Not End Well | New Harbor Financial

Summary

• Market Outlook: The podcast discusses the extreme levels of market valuations, drawing parallels to the dot-com bubble, and highlights concerns about the sustainability of current market trends.
• Investment Strategy: New Harbor Financial emphasizes a tactical approach, underweighting equities due to high valuations, while maintaining a significant position in equities to capitalize on market momentum.
• Valuation Concerns: John Husman's analysis suggests a potential negative annual return for the S&P 500 over the next 12 years, indicating a possible lost decade for passive investors.
• Sector Analysis: The discussion highlights the speculative nature of the AI sector, comparing it to the dot-com era, and questions the sustainability of current investments in AI infrastructure.
• Precious Metals: Gold and silver have reached new highs, prompting discussions on whether to let profits run or hedge against potential pullbacks, with a focus on strategic rebalancing and hedging.
• Federal Reserve Policy: The Fed's recent rate cuts are seen as a potential tailwind for markets in the short term, but there is caution about the long-term implications if the economy slows further.
• Year-End Planning: The podcast advises on tax-loss harvesting, Roth conversions, and retirement account contributions as key strategies for year-end financial planning.
• Investment Diversification: Emphasis is placed on exploring non-U.S. equities and other asset classes as alternatives to U.S. large-cap stocks, given current valuation concerns.

Transcript

I direct this comment really to those folks who are buy and hold that that you know have done very well um just holding a even a passive index fund in the S&P for for decades right um and you look back in the rearview mirror that's done great but if you look at u what history would tell us is likely to happen for a buy and hold approach uh from these levels it's not a good picture. [Music] Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm Thoughtful Money founder and your host, Adam Tagert, welcoming you back here for another monthly update with the team from New Harbor Financial. I'm joined as usual by lead partners John Lodra and Mike Preston. Hi, boys. How you doing? Hello, Adam. How are you? Great to be with you this week. Good to be here, Adam. Hello. Hey, guys. Um, so you guys join me every week, usually following one of the big interviews for the week, but um, oh, it was probably what, three or four months ago, we started doing uh, this format, which is uh, just a monthly update fully dedicated to you guys to share your uh, overall market outlook and share with the audience here what changes, if any, you're making in your portfolio structure. So, um, got a number of different topics we want to go through here today. I guess why don't we just start uh with the obvious um which is the um extreme levels of valuations that we see in this market. You and many other guests in this channel have been talking about seeing so many signs of sort of increasing maybe even rampid speculation that that really echo a lot of what we all experienced during the dot bubble. Um, uh, I had one, uh, interview guest on here recently, Chris Irons, uh, from Quote the Raven, who dis described this market as pornographically overvalued. So, um, why don't we talk about right now how how are you guys dealing with these extreme levels of valuations? And again, I know they're terrible timing indicators, but you can't ignore them for the long run. So, John, you're nodding here. Why don't we start with you? Yeah, Adam, uh we we have been talking about valuations with you for years, uh because they have been in very rare territory for literally years and and we are in the rarest of territories now. Um but I'll just reiterate what you just you just said. We have uh have um come to to realize by show and force valuations don't matter in the short term. They they never do. Uh but they matter tremendously over over kind of time frames that that that most investors should be mindful of. And I I direct this comment really to those folks who are buy and hold that that you know have done very well um just holding even a passive index fund in the S&P for for decades right um and you look back in the rearview mirror that's done great but if you look at u what history would tell us is likely to happen for a buy and hold approach uh from these levels it's not a good picture. I'll just share a couple charts. You know I'm going to give a nod to our friend John Husman. I know you've had him on several times and he has uh been pretty steadfast in his his take on the markets and uh he's actually done quite well this year despite his um uh his uh you know common refrain of obscene valuations. But let me just share he he put out a couple charts in a in his latest piece which literally just came out today. We're we're recording this on September 24th. This is his u favorite valuation metric. is favorite because it has the most stat statistically reliable amongst all the indicators you look at u you know predictive ability for the returns over the next 12 years in the S&P and this is what he calls the non-financial market cap to gross value added you can see here we are at uh literally the highest point in history higher than we were in 1929 way higher than the tech bubble way way higher than we were in ' 07 before over 60% decline in the market and here we are we're beyond the the 21 point and that doesn't matter till it matters. Uh this is what the the history tells us. This is a scatter plot showing that data series along here versus the actual not predicted or or guesswork but the actual 10 year 10-year nominal returns in the S&P including dividends. Uh if this relationship holds going forward, it would predict a you know negative nearly 6% annual return. Now, um, you know, folks would be, uh, I guess forgiven for saying, "Ah, Hasmid, he's been a perma bear." He hasn't been, but let's let's just take that at face value. Even Vanguard, even folks like the Leica of Vanguard are are are painting a pretty pretty bleak picture of of the future return scenario. And this is this is their latest asset class forecast over the this is this was put out at the end of a uh August. It's as of June 30th, but they published this at the end of August. Uh, and you can see here they've got a 10-year annualized return projection for US equities of 3.3 to 5.3. Well, at least that's positive, right? But look what they've got for cash. Uh, they've got cash right here, 3 to four. Essentially the same returns for no volatility. You know, the median volatility in their in their cash proxy is 1.1% versus 15%. So, you know, even folks like Vanguard are painting a pretty stark picture. So that's really directed at the buy and holders, but we are not buy and holders. We are tactical. Our approach is meant to to be very tactical and and mindful of the valuations. So in a nutshell, um we're under underweighted equities, but we are in equities. You know, if if for valuations alone and we were forced to be holding for the next 10 years, we say get the heck out of equities. Buy a 10-year Treasury bill and hold it for 10 years and you're likely to do much better with less less volatility than the the market. But you need not be that, you know, that passive. In fact, we're not. We're about 45% in equities. And that leads me to kind of the whole technical picture. The technical picture on balance is still quite positive and supportive of well, at the very least supportive of of not an imminent crash, but um probably marginal if not um notable highs ahead. That can change. We'll we'll we'll watch for the technical factors if they change. Um but right now that the trend and momentum is is still very much intact from those standpoints. Um the only real bearish divergence we're seeing in in the short term here is that you know some parts of the market have gotten quite overbought, meaning they've gotten stretched if you use like a rubber band analogy or inhale exhale. Very likely that we'll get in some parts of the market a decent pullback or exhale here in the near term. Um and and this is really what we think is an opportunity to trim, you know, hedge, sell call options, you know, trim some of this this remarkable strength we've had in the market. And then the only other area that you know we're seeing some kind of emerging signs of concern but nothing nothing dramatic is is the narrowing of the of the breath of the market. You know uh we've got many different indicators we look at in that regard. Bullish percents uh percentage of cohorts trading above 50 you know different moving average uh series. Uh, so for example, we we've talked about, for example, one indicator, the percentage of stocks in the S&P trading above their 50-day moving average. That has slowly started to peter out, not in any concerning way, but it's something that we have our our our minds and and eyes focused on. Um, there have been some notable underneath the surface rotations. For example, small caps and midcaps have started to to take the baton, of course, and and catch up in some ways to to large caps. There's some reason for that probably in light of um you know kind of the expected path of of interest rate uh reductions uh the midcaps small caps tend to rally on that because they're much more interest rate sensitive. Um you know that's kind of the big picture. Of course there are always pockets of of uh extreme. We talked about the valuations. you know, we we wouldn't be doing this justice to to not mention some of the the kind of stuff going on in AI world and some of the echoes of the 20 2000 tech bubble that we see kind of coming through some of the headlines, but let's pause there. We can kind of go in any of those directions. I'm sure you'd like to. Yeah. Okay. So, anyways, great intro. Um, and um, I want to get back to that Vanguard chart in just a moment, but um, I've been talking with a number of different market technicians this week. I just interviewed um, Mark Newton uh, who's um, Tom Lee's research partner there at Funstat who is like a pure technician. Uh, I also just interviewed Mike Liowitz from RAIA. and um uh you know they they both say similar things which I'm kind of hearing from you as well but I want to give you a chance to react. Um so Mark basically says look you know the he's a momentum investor. Um he thinks that there's a you know a big kind of behavioral um element to how markets trade. And so you know he says the trend is your friend as I'm sure you've heard a lot. Um he takes a little bit further. He says the trend is your friend until the end. So he says that that that's how I as an investor invest is I get on the trend and I stay in it and sure I can hedge and do stuff around it but I stay in the trend until the trend stops working right and uh this has been a very trend-ri driven market and like you John he actually thinks in the near term given his particular technical analysis he thinks that you know October November could see a 5 to 10% correction in the market he doesn't think that the larger bullish trend is over though so he thinks that'll be a buying opportunity as we head into the next year, he starts to be much more concerned about valuations, but he's hesitant about making any real calls until he's closer into the year and has has more data. Um, but I sense that that's kind of similar to what you're saying, which is look, we don't love valuations here. Um, but there's still momentum to this market. So, we still have a, you know, material position in equities. Um, but you know, right now you guys sounds like you're hedging a bit, covered calls, you mentioned a few other things, but you're probably going to stay in the market for a while until and unless you start seeing real signs of breakdown that it doesn't to me right now seem like you're seeing yet. Correct. Yeah, that's right, Adam. And if I, you know, we don't have to anticipate what that look looks like. Uh, we'll watch for it in our battery indicators. you know, we're a little less uh inclined to completely dismiss valuations as I know folks like Mark Newton tend to do that they're pure technicians. You know, at the end of the day, we're managing money for real people that have real lives and real emotions and uh you know, our job is to keep those mo emotions properly grounded uh in in both directions. Um but you know, for those folks that don't need to take risk, I mean, no system, no technical system is perfect. uh you're you're not going to get out at the top, you're not going to get in at the very bottom. So So these these, you know, errors in in any system, you know, can be tempered by just simply understanding that, you know, jumping out of the first floor window is a lot less painful than jumping out of the, you know, 30th or 100th floor, right? And that's that's valuations in an analogy. You just simply reduce some equity exposure like like we've done. Um, but if I had to kind of imagine what would likely play out in our in our de dashboard, if you will, is we'll likely see the markets continue to make highs or new highs on the indices and maybe in a sharp fashion. We don't need to see that happen. But all while that's happening, a classic topping process would we'd see breath becoming very narrow. we'd be seeing, you know, really things starting to fall apart underneath the surface, less participation, you know, um, you know, sell signals on the on increasing number of stocks, even if the indices are making new new all-time highs. That's that's kind of how the tech bubble popped in in 2000. You know, new highs, but the underneath the surface, the market was really starting to to implode. And that's that's the kind of thing we would probably like expect to see. We don't have to anticipate it, but that's that's a textbook kind of uh you know kind of outcome that we would expect in a in a major market top. Yeah. And I think it's important point for folks to know which is for you know experienced financial adviserss who have been through many market cycles. There are indicators that you look at that give you a sense as to when a trend change is more likely to happen. Right? And again nobody can predict it with exactitude but kind of like a car, right? If you're if you're driving the car too hard, um you're going to start seeing some signs, right? Maybe an engine warning light comes on, maybe smoke starts coming out from under the hood. You know, there are just indicators, you know, to look for that will make you that should make you become more defensive before the wheels fully come off this thing. Yep. And and I I'll say a refrain we often say to our clients is is real good investors get comfortable with the concept of regret. Uh a real truthful investor to themselves knows that there's there's infinite opportunities for regret. You're going to regret selling too early. You're going to regret selling too late. You're going to regret getting in too late or too early. That's going to happen. Successful investing is going to have that happen. It's it's a matter of being at peace with that and understanding that some forms of regret are better than others. Usually getting out too early is usually from a financial standpoint. Maybe not an emotional one because it sucks to be left behind when your neighbors are, you know, cheering or whatever, but it's usually the less costly uh because when things turn, not only do you sell too late, but you start to bargain with yourself that, oh, I'll just wait till we get back to near the highs and then then it never happens. So, you know, getting comfortable with the concept of leaving some money on the table is a really powerful uh uh emotional thing that every investor, whether you're professionals like we we're we're in the seat of being or you know, a self-directed investor, really get comfortable with that psychological concept of of regret and embracing regret and being at peace with it. Yeah, I love that. Um the question that's coming up in my mind is is okay, what's the regret you can live with, right? and make sure that the decisions you're making, if they turn out to go against you, are still ones that you can live with. All right. Well, I it was the prudent decision. It just went against me, but it wasn't fatal. Right. And we'll get back to this topic when we talk about gold because I think now is a it's a time for a lot of people who were sitting on really big gold gains to ask themselves um you know, do I just ride the position? Do I liquidate? Do I hedge? Do I whatever? And I think determining what what regret you can live with will be a really big part of that decision for folks. But if you can, John, pull up the um the Husman chart again, the first one, the gross uh value ad. Um and what I want to just underscore here is um you know, you mentioned, John, that your clients are real people, right? Um, and uh, you know, the older you get, right, and I know that that most of the people who watch this channel are 50 or over over 50, right? The older you get, the um, the harder it is to dig yourself out of a a big setback, right? And um, you know, on this chart here, we are at an all-time extreme, right? Now, could this get more extreme? Sure, probably will, right? But if you look back at all the other times, start of 2022, uh, right before the 2008 crisis, right before the.com bust, all those peaks, everybody was saying it's different this time. So you need to have an incredibly compelling reason uh that it is different this time not to expect some sort of um either material pullback here in your asset prices or John if you go to the next chart uh that we have a lost decade right that's essentially what this chart says right is that the the expected average return over the next 12 years nominally is going to be three and a half sorry uh is it 3 and a half% negative. Oh, sorry. Close approaching6. Yeah. Yeah. Close to negative -6, right? And that's nominal. It could be even worse with inflation. Um, so, uh, so you've got to have a super compelling argument that we're just in some permanently different world now, which of course that never held up in previous cycles when everybody else thought that they were at some some brand new world. um uh or you know, you're looking here at at either a really big repricing in the market that you've got to dig out of or the market just kind of goes nowhere. I mean, really, according to John's math here, it kind of drifts downward slightly over the next decade. And I don't know how many people who are watching this who are over 50 can really afford to absorb that. Right? So, this is where what you guys do becomes really important, right? Because let's say Husman's right. Let's say that is the average return of the market over the next 12 years. Well, it's not going to be negative -6% every year, right? The some years will be up big, some years will be down big. What you want to try to be doing then there is to try to be sort of actively positioning yourself that a you are as least vulnerable to this development as possible and b that you catch as much of the upsides as you can with the least risk possible. Um, and then also have protections in place so that if there are big years of downdrafts, you're not taking it all on the chin. Exactly right, Adam. And um, you know, few few episodes ago, I shared a chart that we put together kind of illustrating the sequence of return risk. And quite simply, we looked at the actual returns from 1973 through 1997. And if you were unlucky enough to retire that now, the average return in the stock market was like 10.1% peranom over that period, right? We're talking about a 25-y year period. Uh if you were unlucky enough to retire at the beginning of 1973 and you took a you know 5% uh withdrawal from your your nest egg each year, you would have run out of money um pretty pretty um disastrously as you get later into into that period. Now if you take that same sequence of returns and just reverse it. So the the because and the reason why that first scenario didn't work out is because 73 and 74 were backtoback pretty nasty bare markets and the 70s in general were a lost decade certainly on a nominal but especially on a real inflation adjusted basis. But if you take that same sequence of returns and reversed it so you started in 1997 and went backwards still average is going to be 10.1%. But um because it didn't start with two nasty years of of declines, vastly different outcome. You would have retired with still millions in the bank, so to speak, right? And it just speaks to when you're in retirement mode and needing to spend your money, the timing of those returns is critical. It's absolutely it can make or break your situation. and and and unlike what Wall Street and the financial industry would want you to believe that it's it's always a flip of a coin. No, the coin is absolutely not weighted equally. The and it's what is what tilts the coin to the negative big negative years? Well, for starters, extreme valuations, but importantly, when those extreme valuations meet head-on with deteriorating, you know, technicals and economic backdrop, all those things, and it's only a matter of time for those things to be firmly in place to, in our opinion, uh, invite a pretty nasty, uh, couple of years at least. Great. And I just want to I just want to emphasize this point for a moment because um you know the most investors right now have gotten conditioned to the highly um distorted deformed in Stockman's words right um markets that we've had for the past 20 plus years right and so they're coming off you know a lot of really good years in them I mean really three back to back 20 uh two twodigit uh percent return years in the market now for for three years in a row. You know, two of those were over 20%. 2023, 2024. Now we're what up above for 14% or so so far this year. John S&P is up uh just shy of maybe 12 13 maybe 14% as we speak. But okay, so anyways, you know, so already 2022 is kind of becoming um you know, ancient history in their minds. And of course, the years before that were quite good because they were totally juiced by the COVID stimulus. And even though the markets were rocky for a blip in 2020, everybody has the sense that, oh, we're just going to get bailed out, right? So, you know, people have gotten to, you know, near or at retirement age, I think, with a lot of false confidence that, hey, this this trend is just going to continue. So if you look at Husman's charts, I mean, they really should be a wakeup call. Um, to say, "Hey, look, it is unlikely that this is going to continue like this." Um, uh, and even if you disagree, the odds are high enough that you should at least have a plan B. You shouldn't just be 100% in plan A continuing forever. And look, we might have this discussion in two more years, John, and the markets could have done nothing but go up between now and then. and husband's charts, you know, might be might be even scarier, right? Um, but all that means is that what's much more likely is that the correction that's going to happen at some point over that that 12-ear period that Husman's forecasting will just be even more violent and more gut-wrenching, right? So, the fact that it doesn't happen next year or the year after doesn't mean it's not going to happen in that 12-ear period. It just means when it does, uh, it's going to be a lot more violent. So, I just want to make sure that folks that are especially older uh in age are really looking at this data and saying, "Okay, look, uh, if I choose to be just sort of fully long and strong right now, I've got to be aware that in a number of ways, I'm contradicting some pretty uh, you know, pretty loud warning signals. Again, not not that the market's going to crash tomorrow, uh, but pretty warning big warning signals about the their prospects for the next decade. That's right. And and remember folks, there's much more to think about than just the US stock market. Uh I'm going to flash up that Vanguard chart again just to emphasize this point because uh there are some even in the eyes of Vanguard's uh you know team there's some opportunities here and we we agree with you from a if you're going to be passively buying holding which we we don't think is necessarily the right way either but look at their even their projections for like non- US equities far higher likely returns over the next decade and that's in part because the valuations of those stocks are much more uh gentle if you will they're not as extreme as as US stocks and we've we've actually got a full third of our equity exposure in non- US stocks uh both from a valuation standpoint but also technicals have been very strong relative strength of of non- US stocks has been incredibly strong uh and the dollar weakening dollar has been one backdrop to that but you know other areas of pockets you know that we're starting to see some of the the mid and small caps come in you know value has been written off for debt at some point that that'll take off in in a meaningful way point being is don't just think you have you know, confine yourself to large cap US stocks. There's other places to be and think about um tactical and hedged approaches, right? You don't always have to be set it and forget it long in the markets. Yeah. And of course, hedging is a specialty of you guys there at New Harbor. So, folks want to talk more about potential hedging strategies they can employ in their own portfolios, they should definitely talk to you. Uh Mike, I'm coming to you to talk about gold and silver in just a second. John, one last question here while we're talking about stocks. Um, you know, I I I mentioned that some of the speculation that we're seeing here now really does start to echo what we've seen in previous asset price bubbles, most notably.com. Um, another strong echo of the dotcom era is what we're starting to see now in the AI space where you know big companies um, you know, the companies that are building out the data centers and stuff like that like the NVIDIA um, are now starting to invest in their clients. Um, and it it it it just smells a lot like the really fishy vendor financing schemes that were happening back during uh the the.com bubble with, you know, broadband buildout and and all sorts of, you know, equipment purchases. Um, where essentially it's hard not to look at this as Nvidia saying, you know, hey, look, uh, I'm going to give you money to then use to come, you know, round trip immediately and and buy more of my product, right? boost my sales and then I can get a higher market valuation. Um where it's just really kind of funny money here. So what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, absolutely. It has a lot, you know, Nvidia just talked about 100 billion investment in open AI and by the way they're going to buy a bunch of chips for us. It it's this circular thing that um you know kind of feeds on itself. Uh again I'm going to share some some charts because I think data always helps to paint a picture. This is a chart that was put together by GQ uh GQG partners and it shows the percentage of of IBIDA earnings before interest uh taxes depreciation and amortization by these large hyperscalers as you know in capex you can see in some cases is approaching 80%. eerily reminis reminiscent of some other you know like 18D in 1998 you know 70 70 plus percent exon mobile before it fell off a cliff you know this is these are very high levels of spend and the question is is is there going to be a return on investment for this spend uh Bane and company just put out a really interesting report they they basically said you know look at all this spend what kind of revenue is going to have to be generated to support this this data center spend and cutting to the punch line is they estimated made a 800 $800 billion revenue shortfall to justify this plan spend. You know, they they they assigned some some pretty big numbers here for, you know, savings on going from premises to the cloud, uh, you know, reduced cost, you know, by for sales, marketing, customer support, uh, R&D spending, but a huge $800 billion shortfall. So, that's that is, uh, and I know folks folks like Fred Hickey have been really vocal about this. you you've had him on your program quite a bit. There's this big spend, but there's not this evidence yet that the revenue is going to be there to to create a return on investment. Um, just the other day, I think it was um Mark Zuckerberg, you know, quoted, I'm paraphrasing, but I think he said something like, "I'd rather misspend," literally, he used the word misspend, a few hundred billion dollars than to be late to the super intelligence race. Right? this is there's there's a a fair amount of ego and bravado that goes beyond a statement like that. What about how you gonna get a return on investment for that spend, never mind, you know, whether you're first or last. Yeah. So, that's a couple things going on here that are just really important to note. One, one is the the the shenanigans that may be going on here, right? that the that Nvidia Open AI is a great example, but also um you know to like like I get Zuck Zuckerberg's comment, right, which is in many ways the AI race is a winner take all race, right? You've got a bunch of companies that are competing to create the smartest AI. Once there's a clear winner, everyone's going to want to use the smartest AI, right? So there's going to be a bunch of losers here. That's one thing I don't really hear a lot of people talking about, which is a lot of the capex that is getting thrown into this space is not going to have a return on it because you're not going to be the winner, right? Um, and that's even assuming there is like a a winner who who that there is a lot of spoils for the winner uh to to walk away with. Now, I think there probably will be. It'll it'll it's probably going to be worth it enough for these guys to be competing the way they are and and making a hundred hundreds of billions of dollars sound like loose couch change. Um, but I I had retweeted out that same Bane study that you you showed there, John. And um, yeah, so folks, what what Bane did there is they basically said, look, we are looking at all the ways in which we can see money being made off of this AI spend, and our calculations are only getting us to like 1.2 trillion. Um, and if there's a 2 trillion spend, then there's this kind of missing 800 billion that we just we just right now can't see where it's going to come from. And you know, again, a lot of promise in the space, and I'm I'm not saying that AI isn't going to be super transformatory, but the longer we kind of go into it here, it is beginning to look like the guys that are making money are the guys selling the pickaxes and the shovels, but no one's finding many gold nuggets yet, right? And the expectation is that there's going to be some massive, you know, gold boulders lying out there. and maybe, but the longer it takes for us to actually see them come out of the ground, I think the more skeptical the market's going to going to be forced to get. And um that's the danger here and you were talking about breath earlier, John, right? So much of this market is being carried on the the shoulders of the market value of so few companies that if there ever happens to be a sentiment shift that like whoa we might have overcalculated the returns on AI at least you know for the next decade and we got to start putting some material haircut on that. I mean that that could have massive implications for the market. Totally agree. Totally agree Adam. All right. Okay. So changing gears here again but continuing with the golden theme. Um Mike, let's go over to you to talk about the precious metals. Um which have continued to do great. Um so I think as of like yesterday, the day before, both gold and well, gold was at a new all-time high. Silver back up in the silver futures at least back up in the mid-40s. Um, you know, I I'll let you say whatever you want to about, uh, the precious metals, but a question I'd love for you to address here is, um, uh, you know, is is this, if you're in this trade, do you just let it run or given how far and how fast it has come, you know, do you do some hedging here? At least at a minimum, one of the hardest things to do in a winning trade is to exit that trade. You know, the the old adage is, you know, you never get you never um get hurt by selling by taking a profit. That's true, but also selling too soon is psychologically different uh difficult and not necessarily the best thing to do either. So, selling in an up market's really hard. Buying is always easy. Selling is always hard. Um it's hard when you have a loss and it's sometimes even harder when you have a big up market. So, we're seeing a big up market here in gold and silver. And I can say this, I the temperature is increasing in the room, you know, in terms of sentiment. The sentiment is definitely getting more bullish. The difficult thing to really ascertain is just how far something can go. Uh we've said this before, sometimes, many times, big bull markets, particularly in sectors, will double off of a low, which is what gold miners have more than done now. and then sometimes double again when you don't think it can. So, if I were to go to a chart of GDX or something like that, and I'll share here in just a second to just kind of put some words to some of this stuff. U bringing up a chart, a weekly chart here of uh GDX. Actually, I'm going to go to a monthly chart. A monthly chart of GDX. It's been a long ride for anybody that's been in miners back going back to 2007 or 8. These teen years were really difficult, but a big base was being built and a lot of bearishness was being built here. When we we eventually broke out of this long triangle, we just took off. And really, I'd say that GDX based out and broke out from around 30 and then it doubled to 60 pretty quickly, right over a year. And here it is at 7277 on a little bit of a pullback off the high. I hate making predictions, but I don't think the top is in in GDX. And I furthermore wouldn't be completely surprised to see that double again from 60 over the next year or two, maybe to 100, 120. I can say that the the the easy money's been made. Let me go to the the daily chart. This is the daily chart of GDX. Broke out here from a base at 54, and it really hasn't even touched this 21-day moving average. The 21-day moving average is just a rule of thumb, but it's something that most bull markets respect. If I were to show you a chart just for a second of the S&P, the S&P, you can see that from the April low once it broke out, it pretty much respected that 21-day moving average all the way up. And it'll work until it doesn't. Earlier in this video, you said the trend is your friend until the end. I grew up thinking the saying was the trend is your friend until the end when it bends. So add on a little more to the end of it, but um gold mining stocks have not touched this this moving average. They I know it's ridiculous, but I think they might literally on GDX go above 100 before all this is said and done. Having said all of this, we have been trimming and rebalancing and hedging on the way up. Just a few weeks ago, we rebalanced to our model weight of 10%. that took some chips off the table. We have hedges on half of our position on a covered call out to November, which essentially takes us down a little bit um in in in terms of effective allocation. Our effective allocation is not really 10 anymore. It's more like seven if we take into uh into affect the the in the money call. So, did we leave some money on the table as of right now? Yes. But we don't know. We might come down here and touch this 21day moving average. This could have been the top. Who knows? We might just go sideways and break out higher. My guess is that we go sideways for a little while and then break out higher. The sentiment is really really rich uh in this sector and we're looking at like three standard deviations on some measures and um it's it's a logical time for a pause. Let's take a look at gold itself. Gold looks similar. It's just been really a beast on a monthly chart. Look what gold has done since it broke out at 2000. Hasn't, you know, gotten anywhere near this 21-month moving average. If I was to change this to even five or 10 period, it probably didn't even touch that. So, gold has, this was the 2000 level. It's just been non-stop and bullishness is starting to come into the sector. Silver, we were long talking about this triple top here. Particularly if I go to a weekly or a daily chart. Actually, I'll go to a weekly chart on silver. This triple top here which was you know roughly 34 or so on spot was broken back here in June and it has been non-stop ever since. A big triangle and now we're looking at even counting from here 1 2 3 4 5 6 weeks straight up. So we're at near-term targets. We're at 43 and change maybe 44 on spot silver. I wouldn't be surprised to see silver consolidate and go sideways here for a little while. So, now is a really good time, and we're talking to all of our clients about this. If you're overweight, if you're substantially more than, let's say, 15 or 20% in metals, you should be thinking about selling a little bit into this ramp and it's likely to go higher in the next year or so. Frankly, I think that silver will take out its all-time high at 50, maybe in the next 6 months, maybe sooner. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be selling some. We have a position in this ETF. We sold call options against it up at 41 to bring in a little bit of premium. We have call options on GDX. Um there's hedges you can do. A lot of people are asking us about hedging. Um we you can buy puts, but they're really expensive. So you may want to think about paying for those puts by selling call options to bring in premium. Use that money to put in a floor. That's called a caller. Put a ceiling in. use the premium to put a floor in. We'd be happy to talk with people about how to do that. But it's been a wonderful run. It's really hard to say what to do next because the temptation is to jump out of it and book your gains. But I don't really know any psychological way around that other than to sell some. You sell some and it gives you more breathing room. And and and for for the person who's saying, "Mike, why would I sell any of this?" Right? This is going to the moon. this is the big, you know, repricing because the fiat currency regime is dying and the world is finally waking up to it and this is the watershed event. Um, it may be personally I don't think so. Um, I I I think that that part of the story is still ahead of us here. Um, but um, I think definitely people are beginning to wake up to the fact that hey, it probably wise to own some gold, especially if the government's going to keep um, deficit spending at the the rate that it is. Um but you so so why why sell some or or why hedge? Um, and the answer is is well, one, your primary thesis just might be wrong, right? I mean, you should always have some sort of expectation if your plan A doesn't work out for you, right? And you, you guys at New Harbor and I have been in the market long enough to know that we've seen the hopes of of precious metals investors dashed many, many times in the past when they thought that, okay, this is it. This is really when it's all turning. Secondly, um, you might be very right in the long term. gold may still go a lot higher from here. Um uh but that doesn't mean that you have to ride every draw down along with it. Um that when it gets overextended, you can put some insurance in your portfolio so that if there is a pullback, a it it it affects you less, but then b when the pullback is over, you now have some additional dry powder to redeploy at better valuations than today, right? So, that makes sense for me long to to increase your long-term investing return here, right? You're sort of nodding as I'm saying all this stuff. Yeah. And it's just the right thing to do, Adam. And it feels better. You know what? What's the point of putting all of your money in one thing? And even if it works out, never taking anything out of that to use in your real life. Like, the point of all of this is to use it, right? So, here's a really good time to use some of it. Take a little off the table and do something. do a kitchen remodel or go on a big trip or upgrade your car, do something invest your kids, college education or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, you know, that being said, and this is why I think people who are trying to figure out what solution is might be a best fit for them is where they should really talk to a financial adviser, perhaps you guys, um, is okay, well, the easiest way to derisk, right? If you're like, wow, this was 5% of my portfolio and now it's 15% and that's too big for me. Um well, you could just sell some, right? That's the easiest thing, right? Um but you could um you know, you could buy an inverse fund. Um or um you could if you if you for somebody who who has underlying positions um particularly the physical metal, right? Like, okay, I've bought these coins over the years. I really don't want to sell them, right? Right? And I can understand the person saying, "Look, I I I'm afraid that if I sell them today and the price goes up again in the future, I'm going to a be paying a lot more to buy them back and b they might be harder to obtain in the future. So, I'm not real comfortable about selling my Okay, fine. So, you know what you could do is do something like you could buy uh an option uh say a call option on an inverse miners fund, right? something that's likely to react more if the price of gold goes down than just the metal itself. And you can lock in your your maximum loss exposure. You know, you know what it'll be if you're wrong. Um but if you are right, it provides outside outsized protection to the downside and you don't have to sell any of your underlying assets. So, there's just lots of different options that are out there and um again, I encourage if you're not well familiar with them, talk to a financial adviser that knows how to has a lot of experience hedging and they can kind of walk you through the full spectrum of options. We know options very well and everyone is has a different situation. We invite anyone that wants to talk about that to reach out to us. We'll be happy to speak with you. Can't really give advice without knowing your particular situation, but Adam, you're absolutely right. options let you buy insurance and pay a little bit of money to protect a lot of money. That's essentially it. It's like life insurance. And um there's times and places where it could make sense. We'd be happy to talk about it with anyone that wants to chat. Great. And just a reminder that you guys at New Harbor um filmed uh a tutorial on kind of the basics of of hedging with options. Um, and if you want to watch that folks after this video, you can just go to thoughtfulmoney.com/hedging. Um, but just to add on to your point there, Mike. Um, if if you, it's a little bit of semantic confusion here. There are lots of alternatives. I won't say options. There are lots of alternatives in terms of ways in which one can hedge. Options being one of them. If you have not traded options before, if you don't have a good amount of experience understanding how they work and whatnot, I highly recommend that you do not try to figure out on your own by trial and error. Highly recommend that you you first work with a financial advisory firm that understands them well, has a lot of experience with them so that they can explain them to you, recommend some strategies, maybe implement those strategies for you for a while. You can look over their shoulders until you really understand how it works and then you can take over the reigns for yourself. Um, I'd imagine you guys would agree with that. Absolutely, Adam. And like I said, we if you want to double check or second opinion, let us know. We be happy to talk. Okay. Um, one more topic for you, Mike, and then John, I'll come over to you to wrap things up. Um, so the Fed just announced that uh just announced a rate cut. So, um, it looks like we are entering um an era of of cutting. Um, you know, the Fed has strongly suggested that there's going to be more rate cuts to come. The market expects multiple more rate cuts this year and some into next year. Um, uh, I don't think this is a huge surprise, but but how does this change the game if if any from your perspective in terms of how you plan to manage capital next year? You know, does this begin to become more friendly to bonds? Uh, obviously the T bill and chill trade starts to go away. you have to figure out what to do with that capital. So, um, what what do you think are the most notable implications of the Fed returning to cutting? I I don't really think, you know, we look more at a lot of other things like technicals, big picture valuations, where we are in the cycle. Yes, I know that everyone talks about the Fed and worries about their every move, but here the Fed is starting to cut with the market at all-time high. And John started off this talk in the beginning showing you John Husman's latest work which basically predicts great worse than minus 6% returns in the S&P over the next 12 years. That's from these levels. If you were to invest passively in these levels and the Fed is cutting, you know, why are they cutting? Because the labor market's weakening a little bit and they're and they're convinced inflation's come down. Well, whatever reason they're doing it, they're they're doing it. And we often show this uh this Fed watch, the CME Fedatch tool. And let me just share it up to the screen. We can get an an idea of what the market thinks. Take a look at this CME Fedatch tool. All you have to do is Google CME Fedatch. It'll tell you that our current target rate is 4 to 4 and a/4%. And there's a 94% chance that we might drop another quarter point at the next meeting. If you ever want to know when the next meeting is, you can just go to this chart and look at the top 29th of October. So the market's expecting another quarter point. If you click on probabilities, the market thinks we're going from the current four to four and a quarter or at the end of the month 3.75 to 4 down to these levels. The blue the blue boxes is the most probable. So if you go out to the ne end of next year, you know, the market's thinking 3 to three and a quarter. That's a full one point below. That's four quarter point rate cuts between now and the end of next year. That's a lot. And in my opinion, that's a bit of a tailwind for the market. At least right now. Eventually, the Fed cutting is not going to be a positive. We believe the Fed cutting, maybe Fed cutting in panic fashion even is going to be seen as a negative, but right now the market thinks it's relatively a positive. Um, this should be supportive of the market, at least in the near term. should be supportive of bonds at least in the near term and it and it has been mun munis have taken a pretty big bounce even treasuries have bounced a little bit in the last couple weeks. So if you go out to the end of 2027 you see that the market's pretty much pinned at a onepoint further rate cut between now and the end of 27. We think that this is going to with the Fed's going to cut more and there's a little bit of guesswork involved here but we think the market's going to top and then drop and the Fed's going to panic and drop rates even more. So, we think it's optimistic to think we're going to be at 3 to three and a quarter in a year. I wouldn't be surprised to see us go all the way back down here, two to two and a quarter. And if that happens and there's there's rate cuts that are more than the market expects, well, that's going to be really good for bonds, long-term high quality bonds, ETFs like TLT. I don't necessarily think that's going to be positive for the stock market by then because we think a realization phase will will kick in. So, you know, in this business, there's some guesswork always involved. I we can say right now the market's been nothing but up, probably gooseed a little bit more by the fact that the Fed started cutting. Um, but we will probably see more cuts than the market predicts. The market predicts another 1% in the next year and we think it's going to be more. So, all right, that's our outlook. So, John, I'll come to you here and you can add on to anything that Mike's saying here real quick. Mike, to your point, um, history shows that when the Fed has hiked rates, then plateaued, and then starts cutting rates, that's pretty much almost every single time that's happened in the past 50 plus years. Um, a recession retroactively, that's where the recession started when they look at at things retroactively, right? And what happens is the Fed starts cutting and then it starts panic cutting uh on the way down because it realized that it was too tight for too long and the economy is is slowing and perhaps you know entering recession. So again something would have to be different this time for the Fed just to make four rate cuts over the next you know 6 months and and be done or what eight months and be done. So um not saying it's not going to happen. I'm just saying it would buck the historical trend here. So if you if you are agreeing with the market right now, you you've got to have a pretty compelling reason to do so. So hey John, anything you want to add to this before we get to the final topic? Well, I'll just comment on the the last Fed meeting and and some of the, you know, head scratchers, frankly. Um there was a pretty wide, you know, kind of view view of the members of the Fed board as to what the path ahead w should be. so wide that one member and we we I think we know with certainty was Steven Moran um you know actually uh suggested we should have five more quarterpoint cuts before the end of the year way you know way off in his own island if you will but there was actually another uh party of the of the the board that thought we should raise raise rates so you're starting to see a uh dissension amongst the ranks and um you know so there's this clear um struggle um with the recent labor weakness, but yet the inflation numbers haven't, you know, there's there's been no declaring victory on inflation. In fact, if anybody's being truthful, we've we've stalled out right around 3%. Now, the Fed hasn't been uh, you know, uh, candid enough to say, "Hey, we're giving up our 2% target and sticking with three." But that's what the market is is kind of starting to think they're they're behaving like, like, "Hey, we're going to just loosen the reins on inflation in order to save the job market." And that could really invite a really tricky situation like the 70s the stagflation areas too. I we don't want to anticipate that. But there's been a little bit of a steepening of the bond curve uh since last week's cut. Um but generally speaking, long-term bond rates have been behaving pretty well in in recent months. You know, we have a still underweight position there, but we're not seeing the bond market throw any kind of hizzy fits right now. That's something to be watching for, right? They're they're not. Now, that being said, the tenure is still over four, and the administration would love to see it lower than that. Um, no, you don't you don't you don't get it lower by cutting short-term rates and and uh, you know, the market decides on that. Exactly. We may get it lower because the economy crashes, but you know, the Fed cutting short-term rates isn't going to lower longer term rates. So, um, to to to that point you made in there. So I just was talking to Michael Ibowitz u two hours ago before we hopped on here and um he made a compelling argument which is um I mean one the economy is slowing right so to your point there John a slowing economy will bring bond yields down uh at some point um but from a CPI standpoint and and CPI not not inflation in general but CPI specifically and how it's calculated shelter makes up by far the biggest percentage of CPI out of all the inputs. It's like 40%. And you know what Michael is saying is is not only is that shelter data in there really lagging, um, but it's also sending the wrong signal right now that it it's so lagging that the the shelter component is still rising on a month-to-month basis when we know from a lot of real time indicators that um rents and other things are beginning to come down, right? So um just mathematically you know the his expectations are is that that 40% shelter component is going to turn is going to start coming down and that's going to be pulling the rest of the CPI down with it. Um and because bond yields are a function of inflation expectations, if CPI, the primary um measurement for inflation, does start coming down just from that alone, um that should should also keep bond yields under control and maybe actually bring them down as well. Yeah, that's um that's certainly a possibility. You know, there's there's a lot of confusion though when it comes to interest rates and recessions and inflation. Uh, in fact, I'm going to pull up uh Husman's latest piece again because he had a great chart in here that I didn't share earlier, but this this looks at uh interest rates on the 10-year Treasury bond uh from within recession. So, this is months into the recession. You know, many people have this iron hat ironclad belief that recession means interest rates, you know, tank because worries about growth and things like that when in fact um they don't. In fact, sometimes they they continue to rise, but it's it's many months into the recession before uh typically you'll see uh interest rates start to come off. So, there are some and sorry to interrupt, but just to be super clear, let's say bond yields uh because an interest rate is something that can be set by policy. Bond yields bond yields. Yeah, this is this is 10-year Treasury bonds. So, yeah, this is the market, not not policy makers. This is the market. And it's a pretty wide-held belief that recession means long-term bond yields come down. That's not what history says. Uh, in fact, often times he's basically saying like it doesn't really do much. No, it says it doesn't do much. And and actually, if anything, it's delayed. So, you know, we've been guilty of making that that conclusion as well that, you know, uh, bond yields will crash when when recession comes. It's not quite that easy, especially if you have a Fed that is, you know, starting to goose the short end to to attend to labor weakness. Um, that could very well cause a steepening of the curve. That's what we saw in the 70s. Go look at the recessions in the 70s. Uh, you know, 10 year yields spiked higher. They didn't they didn't drop because we were in a stagflationary environment. It it was a a really nasty stew and hope we don't get there again. But the you know, a lot of the things that are going on could very well spell that outcome again. Um, you know, Adam, I wanted to talk briefly again about the the gold. You know, we're bullish. We still are bullish gold and precious metals, but we're as Mike, you know, pointed out very clearly, you know, we think it's a good time to to trim some profits there. Um, you know, gold is, if you actually look at gold, it's it's more than it's been more than three standard deviations above its 50-day moving average for more than 3 weeks now. It's only happened five times in history going back to, I think, 1976. And from those small points in history over the next three months, uh, four times out of five, gold has traded lower. It's not a forecast, but it's just to say that expect even if we see much higher gold prices ahead, pretty good likelihood we see a pullback here. So, it's a great time to pull back and and trim profits, hedge, and then, you know, to the point about, you know, uh, you need a huge position. I want to share this chart because, you know, Mike and I were in our youth in the 70s. we weren't trading markets but we've gone back to study uh history and this is what gold did in the 70s. Uh this is on a nominal basis and then on an inflationadjusted basis spiked here and this is where the term gold bug was invented. people became so convicted in gold, so wetted that they wouldn't buy anything or ever sell gold. And it's not until now that gold is finally finally after what's that uh 50 years uh reached the inflation adjusted peaks that we saw in the 70s. So it's it's a lesson that you know to never be totally totally in on everything with the with the mindset of you should never sell. That's that's when we see people have that whether it's about tech stocks or gold or anything bitcoin it's usually a uh disaster waiting to happen. Now I will say that we have a much different situation here today. Uh lower you know rates on the decline on the short end inflation still pretty tame. Quite different situation here. We we saw the Fed come in and jack rates short-term rates to I think 20% at one point 15 20%. Vastly different situation. So there's a very good chance that that gold goes way higher here because of the backdrop that we have much higher debt, you know, really easy stimulus still even though we we've been higher in rates uh for the last couple years. But uh just just having a a 20% position or something like that should, you know, if gold goes to the the heights that the real believers think it could, that'll be plenty for most people in terms of what they need to get done in their life. Okay. And that is a great chart. Um, and again, I think we're all on the gold train here, but that chart said differently is it it took almost 50 years for the people that bought in the late '7s, 1980, uh, to have a a real return on that investment. That's right. Yeah. So, they they bought it when I was, you know, in elementary school, and only today have they finally gotten a positive real return on it. So, you got to be real careful about the conditions under which you buy. Um, all right. Um, well, as we wrap up, John, um, I I just want to give you guys a chance to talk about, um, it's crazy. We're getting there, but it is September, and so we are, uh, about to enter the the last quarter of the year. Um, and so I want to give people as much advanced, um, ability to start their year-end planning. um what are some things that people should be thinking of right now in terms of uh steps that they they should prioritize taking before the end of the calendar year? Yeah, absolutely. So, as much as we get down here and talk about markets and this and that, Mike and I are both certified financial planners. Our team is very skilled and versed in covering a wide range of financial planning topics with our clients. You know, when you start to think about year end, you start to think about tax related maneuvers. Uh look, we talked about um the importance of of taking some gains, trimming profits, especially as the stock market has ascended and areas like precious metals have uh rocketed higher. Well, it's great opportunity to look for losses in your portfolio to harvest. If you harvest losses on investments that haven't done so well, um many people are underwater with energy stocks, for example, or other things. You know, harvest those losses. use those lo losses to offset the gains you want to you know book and make it a a tax neutral event or at least takes some of the sting out of the capital gains that you might otherwise have to realize. Also think about um you know funding retirement accounts, IAS, Roth IAS, big thing we oftentimes talk with our clients about are are Roth conversions. No matter your income level, you know, even though, you know, phase outs for certain income levels, you know, prohibit your ability to to uh contribute fresh money to a Roth IRA, which is a tax-free vehicle. You pay tax before going into the vehicle. It grows taxree forever. Uh and and um you know, you can do elective conversions of traditional IRA assets. You know, pay some taxes at at current rates, especially if you're in a lower income tax bracket, either permanently or temporarily. Maybe you're in between jobs. um smartly harvest uh do some tactical conversions there to get money out of a an IRA, keep your income tax bracket below a certain level, get it into a Roth and uh you know, hopefully see many years of tax-free forward progress there. Um for business owners, there's there's uh often times things you can do uh to supercharge your savings. You know, Adam, we've we've talked and you've mentioned some some bit on your program. You know, for some businesses, it may make real sense to um look beyond kind of the traditional kind of 401k or simple IRA type retirement plans and look at things like uh defined benefit or cash balance plans. These are kind of the old-fashioned, you know, uh defined benefit plans. Um, these can these can allow a business uh a tightly held business to to put away sometimes up to a few hundred thousand dollars of of money uh pre-tax. Uh it's you know every every situation is different depending on the census of the company, but there are some really smart moves that folks can be taken that you know this time of year you really should be thinking about those. All right. Um great things um to put on people's radars. Let me ask you a question about each one of them. um on the tax lost harvest thing um for the person who says all right look let's say an energy stock right I'm holding energy stock X and um I I I really like its its prospects it's done terrible for me this year sitting on a big loss um so I'd like to I'd like to get the loss but I I still want to have exposure to this space um now there's a a wash rule you have to be careful about right where you you I think you have to wait 30 or 31 days um before selling an asset and then buying the exact same asset in the future or else the SEC just says look that you you basically held it all the way through. We call that a wash sale, right? You you don't get the benefits of of tax loss harveing. Um so you could obviously just wait the 31 days and then buy that same stock back. But let's say in the interim you still wanted exposure to the that same investment, you know, sector. how how near how close can you get? So, in other words, you could probably buy in this energy example, let's say I owned Exon Mobile, I sell it. I could I could buy an energy ETF, right? And and hold that for the next month until I perhaps decide to to take those proceeds again and and buy Exon Mobile again with it. That's fine, right, John? Yeah, it is. It's that First of all, I'm gonna make a blanket statement. We're not offering tax advice. We're not tax advisor, you know. So, you know, cover your you know what statement there. Uh but yeah, you could so long as it's not a substantially identical security. Um the you know, if you if you bought if you bought one S&P index fund, sold it, and bought a different one under different uh you know, the IRS would probably say that's substantially the same security even though it's a different issuer. You know, that that triggers the wash sale. But if you if you had Exxon Mobile and sold it and bought like XLE, an ETF that that holds a broad basket of stocks, I think the single largest holding of which is Exxon Mobile. You know, you still get access to the the sector, but you can you can harvest that loss if you have a loss. For example, um year to date, Exon Mobile's up, but maybe you bought it, you know, some some years ago. You know, over the last year, XM Mobile's down 1.4% it looks like, just by quick. I just pulled I just pulled an brand out. Point point being, yes, so long as the replacement security isn't substantially identical in the eyes of the IRS, you should be able to and not being a tax expert, but what if you bought another big oil producer? Yeah, not a problem. If you sold Exxon and bought Chevron, no problem whatsoever. Okay. Okay. So, all right. So, no, know that selling doesn't mean you have to be out of the game for 30 days uh to to be able to avoid the wash sale risk. um you can find kind of a near instrument that passes the the smell test and you can hang out in that. Yeah. And here's the here's the thing. Losses, as much as losses stink, no one wants to invest to to see a loss, but it's a wasting asset. when you have a loss, you know, the best time to harvest it is when it's at its biggest, especially if you can get replacement exposure that is in the spirit um accomplishing the same goal but with a with a substantially different holding, you know, um you know, the Exxon for Chevron or Exxon for the broad market, you know, oil ETF. Um when the losses aren't their biggest, they're their most valuable from a tax loss standpoint. Okay. Um All right. So, that was my question on that one. on the IAS. Totally recommend everybody should be filling those out, especially if you qualify for a Roth or people in your life qualify for a Wroth. That's not necessarily a calendar year deadline, John. Is it? It's really a tax year deadline, right? I mean, you want to do it by the end of the calendar year if you can just to get it off your plate. But you do have until you file your taxes, right? Or the April 15th tax deadline or whenever you file your taxes, whichever comes first, right? Which whichever's later. the your your tax deadline plus extension is the is the deadline to do the IRA contributions. Okay. And again, we're not tax folks, but if you file an extension, that does actually extend the time in which you could put money into your Roth. That's right. Now, Roth conversions, you have to be done before the calendar year is done. Okay, that's good to know. That's important to know. Okay. And then last, um so I totally echo your your um thoughts there about um the defined benefit plans and cash benefit plans, pension plans. Um, and you're you're correct. Um, I actually put one in place for for my business this year, and it comes with a ton of advantages. Um, uh, I mean, it's not for everybody. There are some things that you you have to keep in mind. Um, but it from what it allows you to put into tax deferred, um, accounts is oftentimes multiples more than what you could do as a regular individual. So, um, I've been I've been meaning to ask this audience, so I'll do it now. um uh if this is something that you would like to learn more about and I would say this is this is really good for people who are um self-employed um you you're either a soloreneur like I am or you've got a very small business um this becomes really compelling um it becomes more of a challenge the more employees you have um but uh if this is something you'd like to hear more about or learn more about um I'd be happy to do a webinar um off cycle here we'll just do it you know some night when people can make it. And um I I'll have some experts on that kind of sort of explain how these plans work. And then John and Mike, if you guys are free, um you're welcome to to participate in that because you work with a company to set up these plans, but then the plans actually need to be managed. Um and uh I wouldn't recommend that most people self-manage them. I think you want, you know, firm that's got experience managing funds like this to do it for you. And that's something that firms like yours do. Right, John? That is right. And one one one reason this is way way beyond the time we have allowed for but uh some of these cash balance plans it's really important not to over get get too high of a return because the whole actuary math here goes into solving for a targeted benefit and by design some of these things are are built with very modest return needs and if you over over return in in the investments it's actually a bad thing. So, it's a perfect situation for someone that, for example, is nervous about the stock market and they're, you know, uh, for good reason, wanting to get into real safe things. It could solve both of those things, supercharging your savings, but also doing so in a way that can be very safely invested. All right, so folks, if if you're interested in learning more about this, let me know in the comments section below. If demand's high enough, I'll do one of these free webinars. Um, in the interim, if you've got questions for it, um, reach out to, you know, your financial adviser or one of the financial adviserss that appear on this channel like John and Mike, uh, and they can handle most questions. I'm sure that you'll ask them about these things. Um, with that being said, gentlemen, another great monthly update. Thanks so much. Um, as we wrap up here, Mike, I'll just let you has sort of the last word. Um, anything we didn't talk about that you think's uh material to give folks here in sort of your concluding comments? Uh, not much, Adam. I guess this a number of people we've talked to recently that are that are reaching out to us and want to talk have highly appreciated stock positions as no surprise after this monster rally we've seen. Uh, just the other day, the S&P touched 6666 and actually went about 20 points higher and then reversed below there. And a number of people out there on the street were saying, "Well, geez, I wonder if this is the top because the bottom was 666 back in 2009." Who knows? My guess is it's probably not the top. But it doesn't take much imagination to see why anyone that's bought during this period of time, particularly if it was closer to the 2009 2010 range, going to have huge gains. The S&P's gone up 10x over that period. And so a lot of people don't want to don't want to pay the taxes. So, we're talking with lots of people right now about putting hedges on uh by using options and and doing things called costless callers, selling call options at a price above the current price of the stock, using the proceeds from that option sale to buy puts. We can put a floor and a ceiling in that stock and get you into 2026 and 2027 even depending upon the stock or the index, maybe even 2028. in the example that I was just talking about was somebody that was in the S&P. And so that can be done. It can be done legally to defer taxes and maybe give you a little more upside if the market continues. So don't hold appreciated stock forever. Yes, it's true. It gets a forgiveness in tax when you die, but we don't want you rooting for a bad outcome. So reach out to us and we can help you get there with options. So, all right. Thank you. And that's a great segue to look folks, if you'd like to get some help from a professional financial adviser who understands all the risks that uh you we've tal we talk about here in this channel in general, but certainly that Mike and John and I have talked about here today. Um then feel free to reach out to one of the financial adviserss endorsed by Thoughtful Money. To do that, just fill out the very short form at thoughtfulmoney.com and uh the firms will reach out to you right away to schedule a consultation. These consultations are totally free. There's no commitment to work with these firms. It's just a service they offer to be as helpful to as many people as possible. Um, and don't forget folks too that the thoughtful money online fall conference is coming up uh pretty quickly now, just a couple of weeks away. It's going to be Saturday, October 18th. Don't worry if you can't watch live. Everybody who registers will get sent replay videos of the entire event, all the presentations, all the live Q&A. So, uh, to secure your ticket, uh, go to thoughtfulmoney.com/conference and, uh, and and really go now if you can because the, um, the low early bird price discount, that's the lowest price we're offering, it's going to expire soon. I want to make sure as many people as possible get that. And if you're a premium subscriber to our Substack, look for the, excuse me, the code I've sent you. That'll allow you to get an additional $50 off of the price. So, it's $50 off of that lowest early bird price that I mentioned. Uh, and then lastly, uh, if you want to show Mike and John how much you enjoy these monthly updates they come and do for us, please let them know by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it. As a matter of fact, if you haven't yet clicked uh the subscribe button, please do it because we are getting real close now to 150,000 subscribers on this channel. Uh, channel is just a little bit over a year and a half old. Getting to 150,000 is a really big milestone and I think we're only a couple hundred away as of the time of this recording. Would love your help in getting over that 150,000 benchmark. Um, and John and Mike, I hope you guys take some pride in that number because you have definitely been big contributors and helping us get to it. Uh, and uh, I will look forward to seeing you guys next week. Adam, great job getting your channel up there. You've done great work and we're just thrilled to be an invited guest now and then. Appreciate the uh, the time with you. Oh, thanks guys and everybody else. Thanks so much for watching.