The Market Is "Very Fragile" | Lance Roberts

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When you have the amount of margin debt that you have, you have the complacency that you have, you have the correlation between assets as high as they are right now, that just makes the market very fragile. And the range of returns right now run between about 8,000 on the S&P and about 5,500. So there's a lot of potential. And of course, that means that market could do anything in between those two ranges. So there's a lot of potential outcomes for next year, which means that, you know, which leaves room for plenty of unexpected events, things that nobody's counting on. Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm thoughtful Money founder and your host, Adam Teert, welcoming you here at the end of the week for another weekly market recap featuring my good friend, the Ascendant portfolio manager, Lance Roberts. Lance, how you doing, buddy? Uh it is uh it is all intents and purposes. It is uh Friday and I'm very happy for it this week. So just glad to be getting this week over with. It's been quite long. >> Full transparency, you and I uh just talked about we need to make this one a little bit shorter than normal because we both have daughters that are coming home uh for the holidays and we're both excited about that. So um well look, I picked ascendant because uh a lot of things have been rising. Um, and we'll talk in just a minute about uh kind of the the the the news the Fed dropped that really pleased the markets. Um, as of yesterday, uh, so we've recorded this on Fridays. As of yet close yesterday, S&P and the Dow closed at all-time highs. A number of other assets are in that same territory, especially silver. Um, now the markets are selling off a little bit the morning we're talking about here. So, who knows where things are going to end up uh at the end of today, but Lance, um, we do seem to be in a, uh, a state where, you know, the tide is rising. Um, and this is largely tied to um at least past couple days and I know Lance you always say we're always looking for the narrative and it doesn't necessarily match what's actually driving the markets but uh the Fed came out this week and it cut as everybody was expecting the Fed to do. But what the Fed did surprise the markets with was um uh that it's going to start basically buying $40 billion or so worth of tea bills a month. Uh so to make sure that quote there were you know ample enough reserves in the system I think the market heard QE huh is that what you said um and said this is great you we the Fed put his back uh and so uh you know markets did quite well and a lot of uh uh you know assets that uh that benefit from Fed we'll call it printing um you know like precious metals reacted very strongly as well Bitcoin you know started showing some life again so anyways Um why don't we start here? What what were your key takeaways from what the Fed announced this week? >> So let's start with what the Fed said and because they actually made a couple of interesting statements uh on Friday. By the way, I'm covering this a lot more detail in this weekend's newsletter as well. So you go by real investment advice.com and click on the bullbear report. I'm going into a little bit more detail. Um but so so first thing they said was is to your point they're going to start buying $40 billion worth of bonds. How long that's going to last? Who knows? It may be a month, it may be two months, maybe three months. It's not really a permanent fixture. Um, but the Fed does not classify that as quantitative easing. They they classify quantitative easing as the purchase of long duration bills where they're purchasing and actually purchasing is the wrong word. They're swapping 10-year durations for bank reserves. Right? So, the Fed does not print money at all. They they do not influence the money the monetary supply. What they do is they swap reserves for banks. They basically credit the reserve account. It's a digital transaction. They take the the asset, the 10-year Treasury in that case for quantitative easing and swap reserves. So that's all happens. It's an even swap of assets. Um what they classify as reserve management is when they're buying bills on the short end to make sure there's plenty of reserves in the system. So that's what they're doing now is to make sure they're providing ample reserves for the banks to operate and function. which of course we've talked about recently the repost stress etc. >> Mhm. >> I thought the more interesting thing that they discussed was really about the economics. Um they came out and said basically that the BLS report of employment is wrong. It's basically overstating jobs by about 40,000 on the upside. Uh what the Fed said is that they're seeing job growth at a negative 20,000. So that's about 60,000 job difference between what the the BLS is saying and what the Fed's saying. Yes, sir. That caught my attention too. >> Yeah. Um, now take that piece of news and then you overlay that with their economic projections which was they saw an uptick in economic growth going into next year. A downtick in inflation and a downtick and an uptick in the unemployment rate. Why that's interesting is is that's really talking about this whole data center AI buildout, right? We're going to increase activity and productivity in the economy which is going to come at the expense of jobs and incomes and of course that also leads to to lower cost goods that brings that's deflationary in nature. So that brings the cost of goods and services down. So their actual outlook for economic projections was interesting because it's really not that great for the economy. It's great for stocks because that suggests that earnings will be remain elevated, but it may not be so good if you've got a job and want to keep. >> Can I just can I just mention one thing because I I I heard all that and then reacted similarly to you, although I did hear one different thing than you and I was just checking it while you were talking. So he he talked about the unemployment rate um softening or or the jobs market softening um and they expect unemployment to rise to 4.5% by end of this year. Um but then down to 4.4% by the end of next year and 4.2% in 2027 and 2028. So I didn't take a like, oh, we're sacrificing jobs for this. I took it as the Fed saying, "Hey, we've got some of these worries and we think the BLS is is uh overstating the health of the jobs market and everything, but we still think everything's going to be sunshine and roses." >> Well, they all they always think everything's sunshine and roses, right? Um, you know, that looks past this past year. You know, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen with AI and data centers and all that in 2027, 2028. But um you know I think what is material for 2026 is seeing this uptick in the unemployment rate. At the same time you're seeing slower economic activity you know in ter in terms of you know inflationary pressures those type of things that doesn't again that that jives well for corporate earnings but I don't think it jives so well for economic prosperity. >> Yeah. Well so we we'll see. Um now I think this is going to be a really interesting year. Um, I I think this is the year where everybody's really got to figure out what side of the table they're on in terms of how they're going to place their bets. Um, inflation, you you know, the the Fed talked about how, hey, look, you know, um, uh, services have been disinflating. Um, we're seeing goods inflation, but um, we're still trying to figure out if that's like a one-off price increase from tariffs or if tariffs are going to create a sustained inflationary pressure from here. Right? So the Fed is basically saying we don't know yet. We're in wait and see. Um the I would say you know a number of the analysts that I talked to here are concerned about sort of uh you know persistence higher than desired inflation. So the sticky inflation some are some are worried about stagflation right? But then on the other side uh are the people who are saying hey look um you know uh the economy uh it looks like it could slow down but also like you I think we've talked about this a lot Lance just mathematically if you look at the inputs to CPI and again folks I'm talking about inflation is measured by CPI the official measurement uh what 40% of that's from shelter and we've been looking at the real-time data for a good long while now this year saying hey that is showing um disinflation or in some cases even deflation and and and that data that we were looking at is now catching up to the very lagged uh data sets that get input to the CPI for shelter. So, you know, almost it almost doesn't matter what happens with everything else. Shelter alone is probably going to pull CPI down materially as we go into 2026. So, you're sort of nodding as I'm saying this, but you >> No, that's right. No, that's >> you think that way too, right? Yeah. >> And and also take a look at what oil prices are doing. Oil prices are a massive input into the overall economy and what's happening with oil prices is also disinflationary. So there's a very very high correlation between the CPI readings and oil prices and with oil prices looking like they're going to slip into the high30s low 40s over the next year or so that's also going to be additional disinflationary pressure to the economy. And that that was one thing also that Jerome Pal noted correctly was that you know while tariffs are certainly a impact to inflationary pressures either on the producer side or the consumer side it's a one-time impact and you know that's important to understand is that if you know that thermos that you're drinking out of you paid $10 for it and they slap a tariff of 10 cents on it so now it's $11 and it's $11 next year because of that tariff there's no inflation and that's and that's the one thing that it's important for investors to get their heads around is that you've got to separate out what's going on at the grocery store with what h with what and how the markets operate. And this and this is again we you know when you and I talk about inflation and interest rates and economics and those type of things. I'm talking about it from the market perspective. How does that impact the markets and us making money? What happens with too many individuals is they go, "Yeah, but you haven't been to the store lately and I saw egg prices going up." Yeah, that's fine. And you know, maybe you don't agree with the CPI number, maybe it's, you know, it's it's very subject to where you live as well. Um, you may not agree with the employment numbers because of whatever your personal situation is. But set all that aside because all that matters is what the market's paying attention to. So So again, we're not making commentary based on our views on what we think inflation are doing or or anything else. We're talking about how how is the market interpreting it and how does that impact your portfolio? because that's why we're here talking is about how to make more money in the markets. >> Yeah. Okay. So, we So, to my point, we you kind of have to start to really place your bets next year, right? Are we going to have persistent inflation or are we going to have disinflation, right? The other one is really going to be on the GDP side, right? So, you know, whole host of reasons to be concerned about slower economic growth next year. You and I talk about several of them, you know, every time we get together at the end of the week here. Um but then you have others who are saying well hey look first off let's just look at GDP it's actually grown pretty decently uh here in 2025 and going into 2026 we have potentially corporate America really starting to benefit from AI right so so we might go from the academic to the the practical part of actually seeing benefits from AI in in the corporate world and the the administration would say and everybody you're going start getting, you know, tailwinds from what we've been setting in place for 2025, right? All our deregulation and pulling foreign capital into the US and tariff revenue and, you know, all that stuff. So, um, I understand that people can feel passionately about whichever way they think this can go. And I know people who think passionately on opposite ends of the spectrum here. So, this is one of those years where you're really going to have to kind of place your bets going into it, I think. >> Yeah. No, and you do. That's why I'm saying from an investment perspective, which is all that matters to me, is that, you know, pay attention to what the data is saying because again, the data is what's going to drive markets ultimately. And again, you can disagree with inflation or employment, but if the market agrees with it, that's what the markets are going to do, right? So, you're kind of fight if you're trying to fight the market, it just you you make the whole investment job harder on yourself. Mhm. And and right now, I guess because the markets, at least as of yesterday, we're at an all-time high, markets feeling pretty sanguin so far about next year. >> Well, you know, and market look, markets are off, as we're talking this morning, markets are down about one and a quarter% or so on the S&P, coming off an all-time high, and we're just in a big trading range right now. And this, you know, you and I talked about this before. A couple weeks ago, we started talking about, hey, first two weeks of December, you know, just expect a bunch of sloppy trading back and forth because mutual funds are distributing gains and all that type of stuff. So, you know, this kind of action we're seeing in the market is, you know, we're coming with all types of reasons. Oh, the market's down today because of Broadcom's earnings last night. No, we're just in that distribution season. And again, we just want to try to apply a rationale for why markets are doing things. Um, but we're probably going to slop around here for another week or so going into Christmas and then everybody's going to go on vacation starting late next week. Inmates are going to run the asylum and then that's when you get kind of your year year end rally when these managers start kind of building their books for year-end reporting. So seasonalitywise, we're playing right along course of of kind of normal market trends right now. >> Okay. All right. Right. Well, look, um, you know, you've got to place your bets for next year and and I know you you you're a portfolio manager, Lance, so obviously you don't just plan for one outcome. You plan for probabilities of different outcomes, right? And it's diversification plays a real big role in helping shelter against you being wrong if your primary thesis is wrong. um >> which is why which is why we made some trades this week specifically for that reason just to providing some hedges for that >> and we'll we'll get to those trades but what's interesting is um you know I know you've got some concerns about next year you know you've raised them particularly around earnings right particularly around earnings in the small cap space which I think are still projected to increase by what like 40 or 50% >> uh 59% right now >> that's is crazy. >> You got this is the irony of it, right? So, if you take a look at, you know, S&P 500 earnings, like 50% of the earnings are driven by 10 stocks. So, the other 490 stocks are are, you know, divide the the other 50% of earnings is coming from 490 stocks. Pretty credible. But you look at the Russell 2000, you've got 40% of the Russell 2000 that has negative earnings. So when you're talking about 60% earnings growth in in the Russell small cap space, which it could happen, I'm not saying it can't happen. It just seems like a very lofty, you know, kind of very lofty expectation considering that over the last three years, there was virtually no earnings growth coming out of the Russell 2000, >> right? you're talking about a real resurgence of economic activity next year to support that because small caps and midcaps are their their profits and earnings are heavily tied to economic activity. So unless you're going to get 4% economic growth next year, which nobody's really expecting right now, I'm not sure how you're going to reach those kind of more lofty expectations. Doesn't mean they're not going to make money. I'm not saying that at all. It just seems like 60% is an awful big number. >> Okay, so let me just make sure I understand this. So they're expecting 59 or 60% earnings growth from the Russell, >> right? >> From this one. Okay. But but 40% of that index has no earnings or negative earnings. So is that basically then like expecting like I don't know 150% earnings growth from the ones that are positive. >> When you start doing the math, right, that's where it starts getting really difficult to wrap your head around. But but here's a good example. I just posted this chart this morning. Let me share this with you real quick. So this is a chart of earnings growth uh this isn't this is a chart of earnings growth uh over the last five years and you know so 2022 we had slower economic growth 2023 2024 you had really good earnings uh really good economic growth in 23 24 really and you know except for the first quarter of this year it's actually been decent I mean we're talking about 3 point right now I think the Atlanta Fed saying 36 or 3.7 7% growth for Q4 uh right now. Um but in these years where you had really good economic growth, 31% and 41% of earnings in the S&P 500 came from the mag 7. The other 490 barely created any earnings. But see, this is where this is where I'm having trouble with this. The economy slowing down. So in the years that we had really strong economic growth, they the bottom 490 couldn't generate really any earnings growth. But now somehow we're expecting that in 2026 we're going to have this expansion of earnings growth even though the economy is slowing down. That's and I'm not saying look please understand I'm not saying that it can't happen or that won't happen. I'm just looking at this going how are you you know how is this going to happen if you're expecting higher unemployment slower economic growth declining inflation because inflation is part of earnings growth. It seems like you're kind of fighting headwinds here at the same time that you're expecting the MAG 7. You're expecting their earnings to basically be flat next year from where they are here, right? We did 21% growth this year. Expect 23% next year. You know, they're not going to be they're not going to be driving the earnings growth like they did previously. So when you're talking about $330 to $340 a share in earnings by the end of next year, it seems like you're really setting yourself up some for some disappointment, particularly when when valuations are like forward valuations are near 25 times earnings. You're just really starting to put a lid on what markets can generate. >> Okay. So, um it's not the first time I've heard you mention, you know, that that series of concerns there. And I know you're not calling for a bad year next year, but I know that you're you're also not calling for a gang buster year next year. And I know that you're you we've talked about the ju just statistically the odds of another strong double-digit year of returns in the markets is low just because we've already had three back-to-back years like that, which is rare in and of itself, right? Um that all that said, uh given that you had those concerns coming into this week, the fact that the Fed just announced it's going to be injecting liquidity into the system, does that make you a little bit less concerned because the Fed is kind of riding the rescue here or No, >> I would. It's not that 40 billion is is Hey, 40 billion is not that big of a number considering the size of the market. >> Yeah. But but but but half a trillion in a year is not nothing. >> It's not going for a year. It's this is going to be for a couple of months until they as soon as they get liquidity the the kind of liquidity run sorted out, maybe a month or two or three from now, then they'll probably tender that off. Now again, don't forget that they've stopped QT. So part of this bond buying is simply the roll off of maintaining their balance sheet. So if I have, you know, and this is going to be the one thing you're you'll see some headlines like this coming up in the next couple months. Sorry. And I'm curious to answer this in your answer. Is that really true or is this 40 billion on top of what they would have already been doing to keep the balance sheet fixed? >> They didn't clarify that, right? They just said they're going to buy 40 billion. So, they didn't clarify this as anticipation, but they got a couple things going on is that first of all, they're letting mortgage back securities roll off entirely. So, they're trying to get out of the mortgage back security market, right? >> So, you're so you're probably going to see some headlines coming out. You know, people going, "See, I told you the the Fed's doing QE. did 130 billion in purchases last month. Well, that was because they were doing 40 billion plus they had another 60 billion in and mortgage back securities roll off. I'm just picking numbers, right? It could be anything. >> Um, but they had, you know, 20 billion in treasuries mature, 40 billion in, you know, mortgage back securities mature. They've got to buy those. So, as they buy those, they're going to buy shorter end bills for right now to provide liquidity to the markets, but they could very quietly be also adding to long duration bonds in the background. So, as short duration bonds roll off, and I'm not saying they're going to do this, so I'm not making any statements. I'm just saying this is the one thing to kind of watch the composition of their balance sheet over the course of the next year. as these shorter bills roll off of their books, they could start buying longer duration T- bonds to replace the mortgage the mortgage back securities that are maturing. So, we need to watch the the duration makeup of their of their balance sheet as we kind of go forward to next year. And that's going to give you a little bit more clues about liquidity and support and those type of things. >> Yeah. And and don't forget, and you know, look, no, no guarantees how folks are going to react, but don't forget, too, that Pal is starting this and he's going to hand the baton pretty soon to a new Fed chair who may be happy to to take this even further, right? So, your your assumption that it may end in a couple of months, it's not really up to pal anymore. It's going to be up to Fed chair. >> It's really not. I just don't I just don't want people to run out and go, I'm going to start taking a bunch of risk because the Fed's doing QE because this really isn't QE, so to speak. And it's really not. It is different than what QE is. Um, it's certainly supportive of markets. I'm not going to deny that because when the Fed does an asset swap and this is where the term printing money comes from, even though they're not printing money, they create reserves of the banks. And then I had a a, you know, a lot of people go, well, just because they create a reserve for the bank, how does that wind up into the financial markets? Well, what the banks do with with reserves is they loan those out. But I have a couple of ways to loan those out. I can loan I can loan some money out to Adam over here to go buy a house for 30 years at 4% or I can loan that same amount of money to Citadel Securities or to hedge funds or whatever at a higher interest rate and it's a much shorter duration on the loan because those those are going to mature on a regular basis as loans get those as that leverage moves in and out. So there's a lot of money that winds up in the financial system through increases through leverage balance sheets. basically anybody that can tap the the uh the repo window that can wind up into the financial markets, money market accounts, pension funds, you know, kind of you name it. >> Yeah. So, a couple questions on that. So, uh as we talked about last week, um just because the Fed extends reserves doesn't mean the banks actually lend based on that, but they usually do. And that's sort of how it >> lend to you and me on that. >> Pardon me. >> They don't necessarily lend to you and me on that. >> Right. Right. Right. Right. Um uh but my but but but but to to how you just described that is how sort of the asset swap for for you know giving the banks increased reserves lets them then lend out more money and then more money gets in the economy. So that's sort of how the printing printing money happens here. So Lance you you've you've explained here why this isn't technically QE but the markets seem to have heard that. >> Yeah. >> Right. And um >> Pardon me. Yeah, markets want to hear what they want to hear. So, yeah, markets love the the Look, there there were three very, very doubbish things that came out of that statement. So, this is what the market liked. One, the market liked the fact QE, not QE. Again, this is going to be a topic of huge debate over the course of the next couple of months. Be tons of articles on it, both sides. Um, but that's one. Um, so markets like that, more liquidity, good for the markets. They like the fact of higher unemployment because that means more rate cuts. >> More cuts. Yeah. >> Right. And then they like the fact that the Fed basically talked about a a down tick in inflation, inflation heading towards target this year, etc. Because that's also supportive for additional rate cuts and and kind of easier monetary policy because again a slowdown in the economy. What the Fed wants to navigate is a slowdown in the economy. They don't want a recession, but they want to navigate that return to price stability. So, so all that was very accommodative for a and again that was a it was a much more dovish statement by the Fed and speech by Jerome Pal. Much more dovish than the markets were expecting. Yeah, this to me is just this is a quick little rant, but it's like the the it's almost like the doctors are cheering a patient who's getting sicker, right? Hey, we want this patient to get sick. We don't want him to die, right? But, you know, he's losing blood. That's a good thing [clears throat] because, you know, they're going to give him more steroids or adrenaline or whatever, right? So, we don't want him lose all his blood, but yeah, we're super happy that he's bleeding out here, right? I mean it just it it's a weird thing that the market wants to see signs of weakness. >> But but what about all the people buying gold and buying silver and cheering and rooting for dollar debasement, loss of reserve currency, crash in the markets? I mean, you got people paraded on your show talking about these very things and you're rooting for the worst possible economic environment. Why? That's not that's not healthy for anybody. And it may be great that you own these assets, but if you don't convert them into into wealth at some point, it didn't do any good. And that's my whole point when I'm on the show with you is look, we got to maintain a balanced view about all this stuff because you're right. I mean, every it's weird that everybody's rooting for the worst things to happen only because right now it's beneficial for their assets. But again, most people aren't going to sell their assets and and profit on this stuff. And when the reversal occurs and things really do get bad, all this stuff is going to tank all at the same time. In fact, this weekend's article in the newsletter is talking about the Bureau of International, the Bank of International Settlements just came out with an article called the double bubble and uh very very interesting perspective about what happens when the downturn really occurs. It's not going to leave a lot of stability for pretty much anybody. >> Yeah. So, I'm I'm just going to correct one thing you said because I I think you're going to get a bunch of comments on it. Um, I don't think the majority of people, at least who watch this channel, who own precious metals, are buying them because they're rooting for the end of the world. I think they're worried about where the system could go. And what they're trying to do is purchase insurance, something that will keep at least part of their purchasing power in place for where it is right now, which I know you see as your goal as the as the portfolio adviser is to protect purchasing power. >> Well, yeah. Exactly. But if I was going to preserve purchasing power, I wouldn't buy gold. I'd buy stocks. Far outperforms gold over time. And >> I know you would, but some other people aren't, you know. >> Well, no, understand the reason that people buy gold. And again, look, I get all the emails from your listeners, right? It's like, "Oh, Adam had this guy on said the dollar's getting debased or, you know, the reserve currency status is going to get lost and so I'm buying gold because of this." I get all those emails from you and you know, again, you just you just posted an article talking about u you know, and I'll talk to you about this after we get off the air talking about medals uh you know, for next year, which is great. No problem about that. But the problem is is you're rooting for the worst possible outcomes because it's beneficial to your asset price right now. If let me ask you this question. If gold was tanking right now and going down 30 or 40%. Would you be buying gold on this idea that the economy was going to slow down or improve or whatever your thesis is? At the end of the day, we're all buying an asset because it's going up in price. When it goes down in price, we don't want it. >> Which should if we believe in the thesis, you know, Westerners are very bad about that. But yeah, >> exactly. And and most people's thesises fall apart eventually at one point or the other and then you they wind up on the other side. And this is why people lose money over time in the markets. It's just a function of it. But this is but this is my whole point is is we need to set all that stuff aside and understand why we're investing. What do we need to invest in to achieve that goal? And if my goal is to preserve purchasing power parody, I want to buy stocks over the long term. It wins every time. Um but it's okay. Again, there's nothing wrong like we have a portfolio. It's long gold and silver. is doing fantastic. >> Look, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying either. You you put up the charts in the past about over the long stretches of history, stocks have have beaten inflation better than any other asset. Yeah. >> Exactly. But that's the whole point is is that so when somebody says, "Oh, I'm buying gold because I want to protect against my purchasing power." Okay, you're buying the wrong asset. It's an okay asset to own. I'm not saying you shouldn't own it. It has outperformed inflation by a by a small margin over long periods. Now, I'm talking about 50, 60 years. By a small margin, it does that. Stocks have done much better. So, are you really doing yourself a favor? Or is your thesis based on some other narrative, which is why you're buying gold? See, that's the saying. I'm just You just need to separate those two things out. If my goal is to preserve ping power, I want to buy the very best asset for that, right? If I'm going to go race a Formula F1 series race, I don't want to take a Volkswagen to that race because I'm probably going to lose, right? Yeah. So, I I get I get I get the point you're making here and I think the audience is too. All I'll say is is you don't have to be all in on either. You have to be all in anything. I know you agree with that. And and again, just to put on the precious metals holder hat for a moment. You might say, "Yeah, I agree with Lance that over the long run, stocks have done a really good job staying ahead of inflation, but I've got valuation concerns right now. Buffett ratio highest it's ever been. Cape ratio is through the roof. So, I don't want to be all in stocks if I think that they could go through a really big correction. So, maybe I'll own both, >> right? But the here's the problem. Now, you own two assets. This is the Bank of International Settlements view. You own two assets that are now highly correlated. So, basically, you've got two assets in the same race and that which >> potentially and I agree that correlations have almost any everything is g have gone to one lately. >> Exactly. And that's the bank of international settlements view is that the only other times in history that this has occurred the outcomes have not been good for the holders of either class. >> Yeah. All right then. So then what should we be holding here? >> That's going to be the challenge. [clears throat] Well, I know this is going to be the huge challenge and as and look, I'm not saying that the markets are going to correct next year uh by any stretch of the imagination, but the if you take a look at from current valuations in the markets, Ford returns over the next five years are going to be close to zero. Now, it doesn't mean every year, right? That means >> and I've heard some say 10 years. >> No. Yeah. I'm [clears throat] just saying but five years and 10 years will be close to zero. They're very close to each other. >> Yep. But you know that means that somewhere in there you're going to have a negative 20% down year somewhere in there. Then the market's going to rally back and you get back to zero. So that's going to be the challenge. It's going to be the timing and where you where you invested during that declination because if all assets are highly correlated, small caps, midcaps, gold, silver, stocks, Bitcoin, they're all have a very high correlation. So when all the money is going in those assets, when it reverses, it's going to come out of all those assets at the same time, which means that maybe as we saw in 2022 is a really good example of this. Go look go look at 2022. What asset class protected you the best in 2022? >> I mean, I want to say gold. I can't remember, but gold was pretty flat. >> Gold was down. >> Not much. Not much. Not certainly not compared to stocks or bonds. Cash was your best performing asset in 2022. >> Okay. >> So, because it it protected your it protected your purse power. Everything else was pretty much negative. I mean, you you lost value in pretty much everything in 2022. So, the the point is is that you want to be in an asset class and again knowing where that asset class is, I don't know. Right. >> Yeah. And let me just flag this because I'm I'm totally in concurrence with you. This was the big focus of the interview I did with Jim Carson what a week ago. um his big thing is volatility and he would say, "Hey, hold some volatility here as insurance for this period that you're talking about." But he'd be basically said, "Look, what you got to look for are noncorrelated assets or or yeah, uncorrelated assets." >> Um and he's got a bunch. I can't really name them off the top of my head. Um but there are >> presumably they're out there. It sounds like you're saying, Lance, more more than normal, this is a year to look for non-correlation. >> Yeah. Yeah, and look and and there's been some great non-correlated staples have performed terribly this year, right? Um bonds have not per have really gone up or down. They've just been flat most of the year. They've been trading a big range. So, you know, there's some there's some assets that are non-correlated to the market that may provide a safe haven in a rotation. And again, when that but but again, the problem is is that that rotation may occur in 2026, could be 2027, could be 2028. And that's that's the problem. You don't know. And so if I said this is this is as I've said to you before is that the problem with people saying, "Oh, the markets are going to crash. So you better be out of stocks because markets are going to crash." Well, yeah, they're going to have a major mean reversion someday. We're going to be someday we're going to be down 30, 40, 50%. Almost guaranteed. Problem is, it could be five years from now or three years from now. And so between now and then, the markets could be up another 100% before you get a 50% correction and you wind up right back where you are today. >> Right. Right. >> Let me ask you a couple quick questions here just about some um some particular sectors. Um I don't think it's uncorrelated. Um but you and I have talked about oil and gas and you guys have created um a a thematic portfolio there and your simple advisor about that. Um could could that be one where maybe the correl correlation's lower because it's done poorly while the markets have done great over the past couple of years. Um but it may have sort of like a secular tailwind behind it as you go through these boom bust cycles, right? That which it might be able to power through some of the uncertainty of a generally declining market. >> Well, it it depends. So you have to say why is the why is the market declining? And we don't know this answer. Right. >> Right. If it's a financial credit crisis that's affecting the overall economy, then oil prices are probably going to drop pretty sharply because they're linked to the economy, right? >> Yep. >> If it's a if it's just a a revaluation of the market based on a realization that earnings are not going to keep pace with um you know kind of forward valuations right now where they are. So it's just basically a valuation adjustment. So that in that kind of environment, money is going to start looking for things that are undervalued. >> And if if oil prices get we we think oil prices can probably get closer to 40 before we're finished with this kind of declination uh sometime next year, maybe year after. But at that point, yes, if it's just a mean valuation reversion in the markets because of, you know, it's it's it's AI doesn't mature like everybody thinks it does. capexes slows down dramatically, whatever. If money starts to rotate towards value, yeah, I think staples and energy and real estate and utilities will probably do very well because those are typically kind of defensive riskoff rotation sectors because they have higher yields. So, people start looking for safety of capital and yield in that environment. >> Yeah. Okay. So obviously this is part of your work there uh with Michael at RA is to say okay where do we think this capital could rotate into if markets start softening. How about an industry like um cannabis? And I mentioned that only because it's all of a sudden in the headlines as of like the past 24 hours where it sounds like the administration is um can't remember the exact news but they're they're basically looking to ease regulations on the cannabis industry. So an industry like that where the the the catalyst really isn't economic, it's more regulatory, right? >> Yeah. Um so interesting you bring that up because again that we just had this announcement, this administration starting to be more favorable towards potential cannabis. Um four years ago, no I'm sorry, five years ago, I went to Canada and went to the World Money Outlooks conference. I was the keynote speaker five years ago and at that at that conference every small cap they had just one one manager after the other coming up to give presentations. Every one of them was saying you need to be long cannabis stocks because they're that this is going to be the next great trade. These things are going to the moon etc. Here's a chart of steel ray going back you know about three years. [laughter] >> I know I know they just got destroyed. >> Yeah. Yeah. And here's and here's the bump today, right? See this little green thing down here? That's the bump on on this announcement today. So So again, that's just till ray is just a good example. My point >> real quick, I think one of the reasons why they did so poorly, I mean, when they I think they found logistically this was a lot harder than they all thought it was and and that the state tax revenues were didn't materialize the way they thought. But I think a big part of the assumptions was that cannabis and and forgive me I don't know much about this industry. It's a schedule one drug. I could be wrong on that designation but basically it's it's it's it's on the federal level it's still designated I think you know with the same in the same category as illegal drugs like cocaine and stuff like that. And the expectation was that the Biden administration was coming in was going to be very cannabis favorable and was going to take it off that list and therefore all of a sudden it was going to be so much more easy to transact in the space because I think right now if you're a if you're a cannabis company you you you can't you can't you can't bank um because your your revenues are being made off of this category one or schedule one drug >> and and ba a by the way that's one of the storylines of Tulsa King if you watch that on Paramount Plus with Sylvester Shalom. Great series. I highly recommend it. >> Really? I've only watched season one. Does it get better after that? >> Oh, well, wait. How far are you into season one? The whole Have you finished the season? >> I think I finished season one. >> Has I don't want to spoil it for you. Has he has he gotten in bed with the marijuana producer yet? >> Oh gosh. I know he got in bed with a woman, but I think she worked for the feds. So, >> she does. She works for the feds, but yeah. So, >> okay. So, so maybe I didn't get to the end of it. >> Okay. So when when you when you get to this point, what I'm about to say makes sense, right? But five years ago, this was also the expectation. The expectation was is that the government was going to remove the category class on it that it was going to >> and that's what I'm saying. That's why they were so high back then and it never materialized. Yeah. >> Tons of expectations and then nothing ever came from it because there's a lot of because remember it's not just the federal government. There was a lot of push back from the states. Texas is a very conservative state. They're like, "No, we're not going to legalize cannabis in Texas." Uh, Colorado did. Um, and the results have been kind of a mixed bag. Revenues >> California did and and all the smaller operators that have been in the state forever all got crushed. Yeah. and and that so so anyway, you know, the there's there's a lot of headwinds just because the the just because the government makes this announcement, you know, there's there's a lot of headwinds to actually getting that done. You still got to get this passed through Congress, through Senate, everything else. So, you know, it's it's this has been a battle that's been going on for five, six years now. And and eventually, I I mean, I can't imagine that someday it doesn't get legalized. I think I think there's becoming, you know, particularly as the older generation dies off, the younger generation comes up, they're much more lenient in their outlook about this stuff. So, I I think eventually some point it's going to become a legalized over-the-counter kind of medication. I >> I think it probably will. And look, for the record, folks, I I don't like cannabis. I'm I I I I I wish it didn't exist, but um and no judgment for those that enjoy it, but um I I I was just on Twitter there was a um chart that was just sent around showing that alcohol consumption has dropped to its lowest level in the states in the United States since I think prohibition, right? And um you know, a lot of that is just like, hey, the younger generations aren't really into it. Um but I asked and so I was like interesting. But then I asked, okay, so is that just, you know, they're they're just more health consscious or tea totalling or are they swapping their consumption of um what do you want to call these things, you know, chemical substances? And it turns out it's much more the latter. So if you include things like marijuana in there, then substance usage is actually higher than it's been overall. So yeah. >> No, I agree. And so basically you're saying you're no fun at parties. But >> did anybody wor you have any doubts about that at by this [laughter] point? >> Yeah. You look at like constellation Brands as a good example. STZ um you know they're a a big you know alcohol producer. That stock has been crushed. That stock was almost three over $300 a share in 2024. It's down to about half of that now. It's just had a huge smashing over the last year. But that's but that's just consolation. But you look at a lot of those kind of alcohol providers, you know, wine, spirits, those type of things. Those stocks have all been under tremendous pressure because of consumers really, they are starting to pull back on drinking. Um, what I think will be interesting is if you could get, you know, uh, marijuana legalized, you know, to see companies like Altria, Philip Morris, etc., you know, your traditional tobacco conducer producers moving into that space would be almost automatic. So again, I think you wind up with the same problem is that, you know, if this does get legalized, smaller producers are going to get acquired or run out of business. >> Yeah. So, [clears throat] um I'm not an expert in this, but in California, my understanding is is that's exactly it's already happened there, which is a lot of the kind of acreage uh in in California at least has been bought up by these companies. Um I I maybe they're just sitting on it until it fully gets legalized. I don't know. Maybe they've got operations there. I don't really know the details here. All I know is is that um you know there used to be a ton of small operators in California, especially up in Northern California where I used to live. They all got decimated uh because of both that, but but also too because cartels, you had all these Latin and South American cartels that were operating up in the the national wilderness there and creating tons of product and undercutting the the profitability of the small folks there. It's it's really kind of a incredible case study. Um, but but the reason why I brought all this up, Lance, was again not to be super proannabis per se, but to say in a world where you want to look for non-correlation, do you want to look for industries like cannabis, which can have its for its fortunes changed not by what's happening in the economy, but but by, you know, presidential edict, if you will, or like biotech, right? were like, "Hey, if if you all of a sudden come up with a drug that helps with cancer, it doesn't matter what the economy is doing, your company's going to do great." >> Yeah, I think you have to be But I agree with that statement, you know, but again, you've also got to think about risk. >> Absolutely. >> You know, so for instance, um here, let's let's just I'll just show you a couple of different charts here real quick because this is this is your your your thesis is very valid. Um but here's a chart of Biogen. This is now this is a monthly chart. this goes, you know, way this is 2015 back over here. Um, you know, biotech can make you a lot of money if they're hitting everything right, you know, every time. And but there's a tremendous amount of risk revolving around FDA approvals, those type of things. Biogen hasn't made you money in 15 or or sorry, 10 years. Um, it's actually been a money loser. Um, but you can spin that off and go to the grandad of Biogen, which is Amgen. It's been great. So it's going to be you know part of investing is always is not only having the right thesis but also making the right stock selection within that thesis. So you know and and again you know you can see the same thing uh remember u yeah here's madna remember the producer of the uh covid drug >> right but that's that's my point exactly right which is >> no no the first half of that it did amazing >> because of of uh irregulatory slash non-market you know reasons right I mean at that at that point we were shutting the global economy down right but Madna did fantastic >> [laughter] >> He did. >> Yeah. >> And here's here's Fizer, right? Um great during COVID has been absolutely crushed after that. So my so my point is is so so the the point that you're making and you're absolutely correct is that as investors, we want to be looking for these non-corlary assets. So when the market breaks, the market's going to search for valuations. It's going to search for dividend yield, those type of things. Fizer might actually be a very, you know, as opposed to Madna, which only basically has kind of one drug in the pipeline, >> pony. Yeah. >> You know, Fiser has a lot of drugs. The problem with Fizer is is that a lot of their kind of their historical drugs are are coming off of their patent. So, they're becoming over-thec counter. You know, if you've noticed lately, like every Tik Tok channel, every YouTube channel, every commercial on television, every other one is for like blue chew or some some some form or variation of Viagra. >> Some Viagra. Yeah. Derivative. Yeah. We're going to talk think about this in in the rant with uh Concier's medicine, but yeah, literally my doctor the other day was like, "You're in your mid-50s. Do you need any of this?" And >> no, I'm fine. >> Thankfully, I don't think so yet. But uh he was like, "Cuz it's only a buck a pill." And I was like, "Are you kidding me? Is it that cheap? >> Yeah, it is. And and that's one thing that's weighed on Fizer, right? That's impacted their their earnings. Um if you take a look at their earnings growth. So this is their sales and earnings growth at the bottom. The big problem with Fizer is they can't grow sales because of because of that very problem, right? They're getting their their product pipeline is getting eaten up by competitors. Now, at this point, now we take a look at Eli Liy as as a a countermeasure to that. Eli Lily of course just announced yesterday they have an osteoarthritic drug that's that just did very very well in trials but of course this is also the maker of semiglutides which are your your weight loss drugs and so this this stock has been doing fantastic but again you compare that with say like a Nova Nordisk um which is um doing okay what is the sorry I forgot the symbol for Nova Nordisk there it is NBO This is this is their direct competitor to Eli Liy. So I bought Novador disk makes a weight loss drug just like Eli Liy does, but Eli Liy's eating a lunch in the market. So again, it's not just making sure that you get the rotation right. So when you're looking for a valuation change of I'm going to move I'm going to buy I'm going to buy cannabis stocks and I'm going to buy biotech stocks because I think that's where money is going to go to that thesis may be very correct but you could have a very bifurcated market within that sector. So you also have to make sure your asset selection your company selection is right just as much as getting the rotation right. >> Yeah. So, so I I think this this series of charts has done a great job of reinforcing what we talk about a lot, Lance, and and a lot of other u experts that have come on the channel have come in to say as well, which is, you know, the passive playbook has worked really well, but we are highly likely entering into an environment that's not going to be as kind. you just talked about the potential lost half decade or or lost decade that lies ahead of us um in terms of the market really kind of maybe not going anywhere, you know, in the next 5 or 10 years, although of course it'll be probably very volatile. Um so if you're just sitting there passively, yeah, you're you're probably not going to make much at all. Uh lose out to inflation actually. But if you have a good active uh approach and you know you you capture your objective of trying to capture 80% of the upside but only 20% of the downside, you can actually do quite well. But you you can't just buy the market and you can't even necessarily just buy the the sector index. You're going to have to really look to to do the oldfashioned gum shoe detective work of finding the the wheat amidst all the chaff. >> Oh, you mean you'll actually have to to do some research? That's a you know just not just buy stuff because it's going up. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That's that's going to be the interesting thing you know and this is but again you know we've transformed the markets. I mean you know we've taught a whole generation that to buy stocks you just go into Robin Hood and start poking numbers and >> and you always buy in the dip and you lever up and you know >> Yeah. You know it it's pretty amazing. I did a I did a chart some analysis earlier this week talking about margin debt. >> I was just about to ask you about that. Yeah. >> Okay. Uh well, so Simon White, who I greatly respect, he writes for Bloomberg. He >> Yeah, I've interviewed him on this channel a couple times. >> Yeah, great guy. Um he wrote a great article, but he was looking at margin debt interest expense as a percentage of GDP. And I was like, okay, well that's fine. Um and it's very elevated, by the way. U margin interest debt expense, you know, how much you spending on your margin debt that you have. That's at a very high level right now compared to GDP. I said, "But yeah, but when you're looking at GDP, that's encompassing all the aspects of GDP, you know, government spending and exports and imports and business spending." I said, "Is there a better way to look at this where as me as an investor, how much am I paying in interest spent?" So, I I compared that to real DPI. And when you look at that chart, you know, the amount of money that's being spent on interest expense to to carry margin is at the highest level ever on record. and it only has these spiky peaks prior to big market corrections. So again, I'm not saying again, it's not saying the markets are going to correct and crash tomorrow, but it's just these anomalies that you get in the markets when you have all this speculation, hype, everybody's chasing every asset class higher. And then and then and look, you know, regardless of the asset class you're in, whether it's gold or silver or stocks or, you know, biotech, whatever, a lot of these things are doing fantastic and and you should be long these assets. just realize that this ride's going to end and and and as my as is always the point I'm trying to make is just don't forget to take profits, right? It's it's great that silver's going up like gang busters right now. Just don't forget to take some profits be and this is the the big the big debate that Mike and I are having and because of our all weather portfolio. Um we launched the thematic version of that all-weather portfolio in August. So in five months it's running a 25% annualized rate of return and it's abnormal that that portfolio should not be running a 25% annualized rate of return in five months. >> Yeah, that's just not it shouldn't be that way. Um but everything in there is doing great. So you know that portfolio has dividend yielding stocks, high quality dividend yielding stocks. It has um gold, silver, uranium, platinum, bunch of other precious metals in it and it's got fixed income and everything is doing great all at the same time. And [clears throat] that shouldn't be the case. There should that portfolio should have diversification in it where some assets underperforming and other assets is outperforming and it's not. And that's the concern right now with the market is that everything is doing well all at the same time and those periods never end well. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that correlation that we were talking about plus a bubble factor in there. And I just want to note just in real time >> when we got on Lance, um silver futures this morning uh hit $65 an ounce. Just crazy. Um they're they're now down to 6142. So they have dropped almost 5% in the hour that we've been chatting here. >> I posted I posted a really interesting chart this morning about silver. Let me see if I can find it real fast because because again this is the this is the conversation Mike and I were having yesterday. Tell we we we we've been so we're approaching year end right now. So part of the trades that we'll talk about in a few minutes as we did some tax lost harvesting um and did some swaps in the portfolio. But part of that conversation is revolving around you know again kind of what we're talking about here. But this was a chart I posted out this morning on on X. This is the number of time, let me make this bigger. This is the number of times that silver has reached all-time highs each year going back to 1975. All-time highs for silver are a very rare event. >> Yeah. But but that's because the inflation adjusted high back in the 80s was so gargantuan. >> Well, but even so, just the price just just nominal price. So, this is just nominal price of of silver. You know, the the the issue with silver is is that when it spikes, it has massive corrections afterwards. And so, you're looking at potentially a reversal at some point. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week. But if you take a look at this kind of left shoulder right here, very similar to what you saw in the ' 068 period, the decline, and you had this massive spike higher, and then you had the correction. So, a similar outcome of this is going to put silver back in$25 to $30. And so, that's my whole point. Don't forget to take profits because silver has a very bad habit of reversing most of its gains on inflation or nominal basis even log scale or not log scale. You you know you're going to wind up with a very similar type of outcome at some point because it's it's a speculative asset. It's it's it's there's no fundamentals, there's no dividend yield, there's no anything, right? It's just buyers and sellers moving price. So again, it's great and this is a conversation Mike and I are having. Just don't forget to take some profits along the way because it will eventually reverse. >> Yeah, I I I I I agree with that that wisdom and let me let me just chime in here as a long-term silver holder and talk to the people that are saying right now, Lance, it's different this time. Um >> they said it it may be different this time. I mean, there there are supply issues that are driving a lot of the shortages right now. Um but um you know market markets react right and uh all I can say is is we may be going through a repricing of silver. I actually kind of believe that we are. Um I am not going to sell my my physical ounces here. Um but I definitely will hedge on the paper side. Um, and as somebody who has owned silver for a long time, I have lived through uh, two of those periods where silver really ran up and then went down uh, you know, basically gave up the majority of its gains and was dead money for a long period of time. Is that going to happen from here? I don't know. Uh, but to Lance's point, uh, I know that it can happen. Uh, and therefore, I think if you are riding the silver wave and loving it, um, I I'm right there with Lance, which is don't do it without a net. you know, have have some sort of plan in case silver does repeat the pattern that Lance just showed there. Um, could it be different this time and it doesn't? Maybe it only cools off by 20% rather than 50 plus or whatever. Who knows? We'll find out together. But I just want to, you know, to Lance's point, I just want to say don't don't don't get high on the, you know, on the euphoria right now. Um, and it's kind of funny, too, because I'll I'll I'll oftentimes see people who will be so critical of people who have ridden these hyperscaler stocks, uh, you know, up on these parabolic curves and have said, "Those people are crazy and yet are doing the same thing. They're just naked long, you know, on the precious metals here, right?" >> Well, and again, it's just good portfolio management. And look, if you go to if you go to our website millinvestmentadvice.com, click on the resources tab. We have a whole series of ebooks and one of those ebooks is on investing rules and how to manage your portfolio, some some guidelines around that. Again, nobody's saying sell everything and go to cash. And this is the you know, whenever you talk about things being overextended, overbought, those type of things, immediately everybody says, "Oh, it's wrong. It's different this time and for these reasons." That's the rationalization, right? That's how we that's how we rationalize higher prices is by saying it's different this time things change and like Adam said you know if there's a supply shortage somebody's going to wind up needing supply at some point either there's going to be a point to where people holding silver wind up selling it and that creates a supply on the market or producers ramp up ramp ramp up uh mining and bring supply to market. Um you know I'm probably going to get Mike to Mike needs to rewrite his article. He wrote an article probably six, seven, eight, nine years ago about the the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver market. >> Yep. >> And you know, and and the the market met the demand, right? They did very well with it for a little while and then everybody started scraping the back off Polaroid film, selling their mom's silverware, you know, you name it. Supply will show up and that's the thing that gets the market. So again, the whole point is is is just as we are managing our portfolios, it doesn't mean sell everything. It means if you have 10% of your money in silver or gold or both, and it's now 15% of your net worth, trim it back to 10. Take that money, put it into cash. That way, if it does pull back, you've got some cash to go buy it back at a cheaper price, right? That's the whole point of managing money over time. And that's how >> Yeah. And folks have heard us talk about this a lot, so we won't keep banging the drum. But again, folks, again, this is this is why I think for a lot of people, just outsourcing all this to a professional who can do this on a regular basis for you, so you can just focus on making more money and let them do all the gardening and the clockwork and the tending and all that stuff. Um, it's a great compliment. Um, all right, Lance, let's get to your Well, if you can pull up uh the S&P, let's just do the technicals real quick, then let's get to your trades. >> My face is all bright right now. I'm getting the the glare from the from >> from the chart screen. Okay. Yeah, let's let's do that. Let's do your trades and then let's try to get the rant in here before we have to leave just because we've had a lot of people that were interested in in our tease last week of uh of the rant on um concierge medicine. >> Oh, okay. Because I totally forgot what the rant was going to be on. Okay, great. We'll do that. Um so so yeah, so here's the market. Um, we're in we're right now we're running in a very nice upward trend. Markets are down today a little bit. Still on a buy signal. We're not grossly extended in terms of relative strength. So again, the market's just kind of trading here. And what's interesting is that despite all of the rhetoric, again, you had, you know, you've had all these people very concerned about, you know, the selloff that we had in in October, November's like, "Oh my gosh, the AI trade's dead." All we've been doing is just trading in a very big trading range. Really just consolidating this run up from the April low. So we had this massive run. This was the sharpest postdraw down recovery since the pandemic. Um so you were down 20% recovered it all and just kept on going. So this is all actually very bullish for the markets in general. And this kind of consolidation action we've got going on right now is is kind of what we said. expect in the first two weeks of December this kind of, you know, back and forth kind of sideways chop action that we've got going on and then that'll set you up potentially for a rally into year end. And we'll pro, you know, we're probably going to wind up this year about where we are, give or take. I mean, we're up about 17% for the year, um, as of yesterday. So, we're, you know, we're up 16% as of today. We'll probably end up 17 18% for the year. slap on your dividend to 1.9% 1.8% um and you're at at a 20% total return year and that's kind of what shaping up to be right now. >> Yeah, that is I it is what it is. And this is why I always say don't don't fight the market. Um you know, be be practical and trade the market you have. But uh I think it would have been challenging at the start of this year for folks to say, "Oh yeah, we're gonna have another 20% up year for the market for the third year in a row." >> I was right there. Remember wrote the article talking about curb your enthusiasm. I said more volatility, lower returns. Well, we definitely had more volatility. >> Yeah, >> but you know, returns were way better than I thought we were going to have an 8 to 10% year this year. Um and here we are at at near 20. Now, you know, going into next year, I'm going to I'm already writing a couple of articles for next year. Um, in the next week or so, I'll have one out looking at val current valuations. And every year, we produce a range of outcomes based on um valuations. So, we say, okay, valuations are here. And if we have a slowdown, recession, you know, kind of margin neutral status, in other words, we don't really and create a valuation kind of neutral status or valuation expansion status. What does that mean for returns? So, I'll have that article out and the range of returns right now run between about 8,000 on the S&P and about 5,500. So, there's a lot of potential and of course that means that market could do anything in between those two ranges. So, there's a lot of potential outcomes for next year, which means that, you know, which leaves room for plenty of unexpected events, things that nobody's counting on. Everybody's very complacent right now that everything's going to be kind of the same next year as it was this year. But that's the type of environment where unexpected events occur and you have, you know, unexpected outcomes. And I think that's really going to be the theme for next year is just watching for an unexpected outcome of something. >> Okay. Um well, that'll be interesting then. So folks, that'll be our job obviously with these weekly meetings between Lance and I is to just keep our eye on what's happening in real time in the market. And if if and as unexpected developments occur, you know, we'll we'll deconstruct them in real time to determine what we think what impact they could have on the markets going forward from here. But Lance, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but do you feel again after three blockbuster years in the markets and with valuations as stretched as they are, I is the market kind of on a on a knife's edge here in the sense that just an unexpected wind from any direction could could push it over? >> Well, certainly more fragile, right? When you have the amount of margin debt that you have, you have the complacency that you have, you have the correlation between assets as high as they are right now, that just makes the market very fragile to. So remember, why do markets go up, right? It's it's all because of a thesis and everybody's betting on their thesis to be right. So I think that gold's going up for this reason. I think stocks are going up for this reason. I think that, you know, Bitcoin's going to go up for this reason. Those those are the rationale that we put behind our narratives because that's when we're betting our money. I mean, we don't go to Vegas to bet on a hand of blackjack and go, "Yeah, I think I'm going to get a pair of twos and I'm going to bet heavy on it." Right. It's just, you know, we, you know, >> unless you're Austin Powers, right? Great scene in Austin Powers. >> Exactly. Right. So, we're going to, you know, we're betting on our thesis to be right. And and when you have everybody kind of betting on the same thesis, that makes the market more subject to fragility because any disappointment will have a magnified effect on the outcome. A good example is just look at Broadcom earnings today, right? Broadcom killed it on earnings. Their earnings were fantastic. Stocks down 13% today because >> and and Oracle similar deal, right? >> Oracle's earnings were great, just not quite perfection. And that causes the big markdowns. So again, if we get an outlook next year that all of a sudden maybe earnings aren't going to be $330 a share, they're only going to be $280 a share, all of a sudden valuations at 25 times earnings are now 30. So now we've got to readjust. We got to repric the market for lower expected earnings. That's what makes the markets across all markets very vulnerable because once capital starts to flee um things get very difficult quickly because those exits to get out of the markets are very very small right now. >> Um God who was I talking to uh I don't think it was you. Uh maybe it was Jim. Uh but it was because of the leverage factor that um it it was like not only is the theater >> that was me >> it was you jammed but but now everybody's obese so yeah >> you got all Yeah. You had all these obese people in the theater trying to get out the doors. >> Yeah. So exits door is still the same size but the people trying to get out of it are now a lot bigger. Yeah. >> Exactly. >> Okay. Um All right. Well, look, uh can you walk us through the trades because it sounds like you've made some interesting trades. Yeah, that that was a politically incorrect version of the exit strategy, by the way. Um, all right. So, so yeah, so this week we did some uh tax loss selling, so we're getting into the year. Um, we had a couple of positions that, you know, have not performed. We've, you know, most of the portfolio has done fantastic this year. Um, but, you know, we we own a diversified portfolio, so Staples have been underperforming this year. So, we had a a very small loss in Proctor and Gamble. uh we took that off, replaced that with Verizon and Altria. And so the reason that we made that swap is that we're kind of building a little bit of hedge for next year into the portfolio. So first of all, Verizon and Altria have very big dividends. They pay seven and 8% respectively. So big dividend yields for these companies. U but we're building some small positions into the portfolios right now. So if we get a a riskoff rotation, rotation is likely to gravitate towards companies that have bigger dividend yields, kind of a more fundamental factor to them, trading a little bit cheaper than the rest of the markets. Um, same thing in the equity growth uh the dividend equity growth model. Um, we swapped out Kimberly Clark for uh American American Electrical Power, which was a is a utility company. Again, bigger dividend yield, good good technical chart on it right now. So, we're just kind of making some adjustments within the portfolios to be to add a little bit of a defensive sector going into next year. And then if we do see that rotation to staples and defense, then that'll provide that hedge against a rotation out of the growth factor. We've had this is this is we we talked about this in our daily market commentary over the last week is that you've had a significant outperformance of growth over value over the last five years in particular. really kind of a more unprecedented level. You're eventually going to get a reversal of that growth value trade. And so you want to have a little bit of value. It may not be next year. It could be year after that. But I think having some defense in your portfolio is going to wind up paying off for you. >> Okay. Um couple years >> unless I get paid to wait. If I'm making seven and eight% on a holding, I don't need it to do much. >> Right. Seven 8% that you're saying that's the dividend yield or that's the income you're getting. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't need it to I don't need the stock to do much. I just need it not to go down a lot. >> Right? But if we have the revenge of value and capital rotates out of uh growth into value, you could maybe get the best of both worlds, right? You get some tasty dividends plus capital price appreciation. >> Correct. Absolutely. And this is this is a point I was making earlier this week is that people get too tied up in chasing market returns and they really forget about why they're investing capital and and investing capital to and as you said earlier right the reason we invest capital is to outperform inflation over time you know [clears throat] if that you know we we as investors we need to really kind of step back and >> you know we get all excited about markets markets up 20% this year I need to make 20% but if we really step back and just go hey I need to make six% % a year, 7% a year to reach my goal. There's a lot of companies right now paying 4% dividends, three and 4% dividends. There's, you know, bonds are paying 4%. I don't have to do a whole lot of work to automatically have 4% built in my portfolio every year. And that that means I need 2% appreciation. That's not hard to generate out of a portfolio. So, we just need to get a little bit more realistic perspective about what we're doing. >> Okay. All right. Well, look, um, very well said, Lance. Another great week. Um, I think next year is going to be a I'm gonna make the prediction now. I think it's gonna be a very interesting year that's going to keep us on our toes in these weekly discussions. And I kind of look forward to that to be honest a little bit. >> Yeah. This year's boring actually. >> Pardon me. >> This year's been kind of boring. >> Well, it it it was pretty interesting in April, but then it got boring after that. Yeah. >> Um, okay. So, uh, in the time left, I'm I'm going to push some topics to next week, but I I do want to end on the rant as as I said. So, >> [clears throat] >> um, we gave a quick little nod last week to the fact that both you and I have um [snorts] joined concierge medical practices. Uh, you've done it for many more years than I. I just started it. And and yes, folks, to a certain extent, this is a little bit of a um you know, hey, this is a you know, these are two guys who have enough money to be talking about this, but but I got to say like the the cost of the concier services are really not that much. At least in my case, I pay for the year. I pay about what I pay for a single month of my health insurance. Um so it it's for for for not a lot of extra cost. Um, I get to go to a doctor um who has a a small practice of patients, so he get to know you. When I go in and talk to him, I I spend an hour with him. He's not shoeing me out of the office. Uh, he wants me to stick around and we talk about pickle ball and other stuff, right? So, it's like the opposite of what what happened to me when I went into Kaiser where they were like, "Okay, you've been in here for seven minutes. Get out." Right? Um, he learns all about my situation. uh he I can call him or text him at any time and he he gets right back to me. Um it it's it's returning a bit of the old school, you know, the doctor with the bedside manner. This guy doesn't necessarily make house calls. I I haven't asked him if he does or not. I'm sure there would be an additional fee with that. But um but it's great to get that care and just have a doctor who just sort of you know fully looks at everything that's going on in your life because generally what happens now is we go in we get you know treated for some symptom and then they they turf us out and you know they're on to the next patient. This is somebody who can really be looking at your entire health data set and saying, "Okay, what what larger picture is this telling me about your general health situation and what are things that I can tell you as the as your doctor to kind of get you from wherever you are to a to a better level or at least keep you at the level that you're at." Right? So, one of the things he did with me early on was just to say, "Okay, Adam Luck, you're new client. You're a male in your 50s. Let's talk about all the things that could kill you, right? And let's go to the ones that have the highest probability, right? That's heart disease, that's cancer, right? Let's do a whole bunch of different screenings for you on this. So, I think I mentioned last time I did a um [clears throat] uh a CT scan of my heart uh to look at all my um my arteries there. Got the results back. Uh fortunately, they were negative. No plaque at all. So, he's like, great, you know, let let's just try to focus on keeping you plaque free from here. But now we don't need to worry nearly as much uh that certain behaviors you have might trigger a heart attack because you're in pretty darn good shape there. Um I was waiting when we were talking last time, Lance, for the results of my cancer screening. Um by the way, that that uh that CT test exam cost me 125 bucks. Um so for the the knowledge and the subsequent piece of mind I got, absolutely worth paying for. Uh the cancer screening was a little bit more expensive. Um, I think it was more like $700. Um, but it screens you for something like 20 to 30 different types of of cancers. And the intent of the test, you know, it's not perfect. Um, meaning it's it they can't test for every single cancer out there. And it's better at detecting some cancers than others. But the intent there is to say, well, let's do the best we can to try to catch as many cancers as we can early on if you have them. and if so, let's get you treated while hopefully it's in early stage one versus finding it out later on when it's at a a more advanced stage. Um, got that back. Happy to say no markers for cancer. Uh, so that was wonderful. Again, just the piece of mind benefit of that alone is great. So, there's several other tests like that that we're going through right now which are basically just like, you know, the basic diagnostics and then once we have the baselines, then the conversation shifts to okay, great. How do we protect the baseline or how do we raise it? Right? So again, I'm in the midst of that, but um so far very happy with it. Um as I talk an awful lot about, and I'm sure we'll talk about my broken tooth in a bit here, Lance, but like um I I try to keep reminding people on this channel that money is important, but it is not a form of primary wealth. It is a means to wealth. What is real wealth? It's quality relationships. It's having meaning and purpose in your life, and it's having good health. And I think everybody sort of generally knows that when I say it, but you don't really appreciate it until all of a sudden you lose one of those things, right? And and having just had this sort of, you know, in the big picture scheme, relatively minor issue of of of having to have an emergency tooth extraction, you know, I was just reminded there in the moment, you know, in that that pretty gnarly three-hour procedure of like, man, this sucks and I'm going to have some, you know, I'm going to be dealing with this for at least half a year. Um uh you know anything that we can do to preserve our our our good health or you know increase our the quality of our health is way more we're going to get way more life returns out of it than just what happens with you know the numbers in our portfolio given what the stock market does over any given period. So anyways I can't recommend this enough uh for people that are willing to look into it. How how has your personal experience been with your concier? service. >> Well, you know, for me, I talked about this on the show is that, you know, it's it's great, right? So, every year I get blood tests done and the doctor looks at all my blood tests. We screen and he screens for all these different things and then he adjusts all of my he balances all of my hormones. >> It's a great point. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. They did that with me, too, where it's like, okay, here are the things you're deficient in, so hey, go get supplements in these or or change your diet to get more of this stuff. Right. It's really useful. >> Yeah, it is. And so, you know, testo, you know, as we get older, right, you know, testosterone levels fall, that has impacts on your body. Um, you know, serotonin, you have all these different kind of levels that are in your body. So, for me, because I'll work out all the time, you know, my goal is to to maintain strength and as I'm getting older now because I'm 60 and and, you know, progressing fairly quickly through my old age. Um, you know, maintaining strength in the gym, maintaining muscle mass, those type of things is important. So, you know, he looks at all these different kind of markers and then provides me a good regimen to to keep that, you know, I'm not trying to get, you know, massive. I just want to maintain what I've got. So, he he makes sure that that my all my hormonal structures are in balance to, you know, to do that. So, that's all fine and dandy, but like I said, you know, where it really where I really found the value was when my wife went to her gynecologist and said and they he did the ultrasound. She's having some pain in her abdomen and he's like, "Oh, you you've got, you know, you did the ultrasound." He's like, "I think there's some tumors there. Um, you know, I'll I'll let me send off a test and I'll get it back in two weeks and we'll figure out what they are." I'm like, "Two weeks? That's ridiculous." I picked up the phone and called my doctor. And he's like, "Have her at the doctor, you know, have her here tomorrow at this location." Had the blood test done the next day. Had the results the day after that. Found out that, you know, she had, you know, potential cancer. And then, you know, ever since then, he's been following her every step of the way as we go through this cancer treatment. He's, you know, there on on duty. Uh, pretty much if we've got any questions, we call him. He, you know, he he makes adjustments. He works with he works with our our cancer doctor. And that's where the real value was, right? The real value is, you know, it's not just the maintenance. It's when you need a doctor and you go to call your doctor, oh yeah, we can get you in in a couple of three weeks, you know, four weeks. You know, I called the doctor, you know, before this. I called the doctor once. I said, "Hey, I just want to come and get a physical checkup. Six weeks, I'll get you in." Right? That was like that was kind of a marker point where I said, "No, I'm going to go get my own doctor." Um because when you want a doctor, when you need advice, >> you want something right now. And particularly when it's a loved one, it's like, I don't want to wait. I want to know right now what's going on. What do I need to do? And that's the real benefit of having a doctor quote unquote on call. >> That's great. So, I think I've mentioned this many times. I'm from a family of doctors and they say, "Look, our our health care system is the best in the world." Um, but that doesn't mean that it's perfect. And you really have to be your advocate in the system. And especially if you are you're going in to get treated for something and it's not really working. Um there's there's honest there's kind of like a progression that they go through and every time you go in they go to the next step in the progression, right? Um so he's like you got to just keep going back and and arguing so that you can hopefully get down to whatever step it is that finally addresses what you have, right? But if you're not pushing, the system is not going to be pulling you through that process. And uh you know, a lot of people just they're not experienced with that. They're not good at it, whatever. It's just frustrating that you've got to be there the constant creaky squeaky wheel to keep going back and a lot of times Lance you're like okay yeah we can see you again so your point come in in six month six weeks or whatever right so to have like a professional advocate for you there who's got contacts and knows these people often times personally and can just say hey look drop what you're doing get my patient there tomorrow I'm concerned about X it it can be really valuable or in the case of your wife possibly invaluable >> well and that's and that's the whole point I was I was going to say this is that, you know, you may be thinking to yourself right now is like, "Wow, this sounds really expensive. I'm not sure I can really afford it." That's the way I felt about it initially. I was like, "Man, this is kind of expensive." But I will tell you at the moment where I needed that doctor and I called I called Dr. Bane and I said, "Dr. Bane, here's my problem with my wife." He says, "This is what we need to do. Let me tell you, it's going to be costly to get it done quickly. you're it's it's it's going to cost a good bit of money to do this. And I was like, I don't care, you know, I'll go take out a loan from the bank. I don't care because this is my wife. She is my world. It doesn't matter what it costs. I will figure out the money later. And and that's where again, you know, that's, you know, when when you don't have access to that, when you need it, it doesn't matter how much money you have or don't have. When you need it, that's where its value is. >> Yeah. And and again, folks, this is why I talk about why money is a means to an end. like this is why we work to build money. Yes, we want to build a a prosperous future for us, but we also want to have the reserves that when we're in a point of need or someone we love or in a point of need, you exchange the money for the solution you want, right? Um but but but to my point is um in general uh this isn't that expensive. Now, when you get into a place where the guy is doing something extraordinary for you because you have extraordinary circumstances, yes, the bill goes up, but you're if you have the means, you're happy to pay it because it means you're getting something acute treated quickly. >> Well, no, this is this is the whole thing with insurance, right? You know, there's a lot of complaints about, you know, insurance and all these type of things. And hey, I get it, right? Healthcare costs have gone up. Um, but we've done a lot of that to ourselves. You know, the Affordable Care Act was, you know, when you inserted a third party into the insurance system, it was going to drive prices higher. But there are doctors that you can go to that uh there was a I interviewed a doctor. He has a a practice out of Kansas and he has a menu and you go in and like if you need, you know, appendecttomy, whatever it is, there's a cash price for it and that cash price is substantially lower than if you go through insurance. And so, you know, one of the things that we can do to advocate for ourselves better is save up some money. Have have a have a have a cushion set aside in the bank for medical issues. Um, make sure if your company offers you an HSA, which is a health savings account, that you fully fund that every year. And like my wife, I don't have one through my business, through my company, but my wife does. We fully fund that, but we never touch it because it grows taxree. your withdrawals are taxfree. Um, your contributions are after tax, so it's tax basically all your money's tax. It's a triple tax benefit for an HSA. We'll probably actually never use that for medical reasons. I keep other I keep another pot of money over for deductibles, but that's just a great benefit. If you have available one, I I certainly encourage you to do it. But the reason that you do that is to is use a high deductible plan where maybe your maybe your deductible is $5,000, but your premiums are going to be a whole lot lower. And since you don't get sick very if you take good care of yourself, you know, if you exercise and you eat right and you do the the things you should be doing, you may not use your insurance very often, but if you're if you're paying for the the the $20 co-pay every time you get the snipples, that's costing you a lot in terms of your health care premium. So, think about moving to a high deductible plan. Save up some money on the side to meet that deductible. lower your insurance cost and then when you actually need the doctor then you use that that money you've saved up for that pot of money so you can save some money on insurance that way and lower your cost by using a high deductible plan be responsible for your own quote unquote maintenance and then shift some of that money to to like Adam's saying and seek out white glove medical care and and there's a lot of companies now that are now offering that service if you you could probably search like you know white glove concierge healthc care services near me on Google and probably find quite a few doctors close to you that offer that service at a fairly reasonable price. >> Yeah. And you know, I know an increasing number of doctors that are going concierge um kind of for their quality of life, right? I mean, they hate the way that the current system works just as much as the patients do. And uh you know, they've they've their dream getting in was to have a good doctor patient relationship and to try to be able to give people the full attention they needed and all that stuff. and the the way the modern system sort of metastasized, they just became these, you know, overprogrammed uh order takers who were on a stopwatch, you know, all right, get that patient in, get them out, right? Um, so, you know, they're actually trying to help create this new solution space, too. Um, and so to your point, Lance, um, yeah, I think if you Google, you'll probably find some people around you, and I'm going to bet over the next couple years, the supply of them is only going to increase. It also makes a lot of sense, right? So, if you're a doctor on the traditional system, in order to make money, I've got to just see do I've got to see patients all day long, right? Get them in, get them out kind of on a conveyor belt. But again, how often do you use your how often do you use your medical service? This is this is the same idea as owning a gym. So, back in my early youth, I used to build big 15,000 square foot, you know, fitness facilities, >> right? And then hope people would sign up for it and then never use it. That's the whole that's the whole game, right? I could oversell the memberships because people never come back. They they and and and this is why you can't pay cash to go in or write a check to go into a gym. You have to put it on a credit card because they'll just keep billing you, right? >> And your excuses when you get the bill, you go, "Well, you know, I'm going to get I'm going to go to the gym next month. You know, I'm going to I'm going to get back on my diet next week." >> But this is a beautiful model for doctors if they will adopt it because again, people don't go to the doctor every day. But if I can get people on a on a monthly payment, right, or an annual payment or a semiannual payment, I just I can I can sell a lot more customers, have that annuitized revenue stream coming into my business, and then I just have to manage my flow of when people actually need me. So, it's actually a much more profitable system for doctors than the current system. But, and that's why I agree with you. I think over the next few years we're going to see a large majority of doctors starting to at least offer the service because it's it's a good model. >> Yeah. Well, I I also got a lot of um emails and comments from folks since last week, Lance, uh with their own stories of going international and uh I I it's something I can't speak to from experience. Uh but it just makes sense that um obviously lots of other countries don't have the the bureaucracy we have here. Um, I've known people, you know, who live abroad, countries like Thailand or whatnot, where they're like, "Oh, yeah." It's like a cafeteria menu. I mean, you just go in and say, "I want that. I want that. I want that." And it's a cash price and it's, you know what you're getting, right? When you go in, and the prices are ridiculously small fractions of what it would cost you here in the States. Uh, now you as a patient have to determine your level of risk tolerance of, you know, what would happen if you had a botched procedure in a country like this. And, you know, there there's that risk, but, you know, it just makes sense over time. A lot of a lot of doctors in these countries are coming to the US to get educated. Uh they learn our western way of doing it and then they go back to their home countries and practice there. Uh and then of course they train other uh uh providers in their home country. And so over time it makes sense that the quality of healthcare in a lot of these countries is getting better. And so you know you might want to look at they call it medical tourism. I don't know if that's really a great way to refer to it, but you know, there may be a number of procedures where maybe you you may want to jump a border and and get it done for cheaper elsewhere. Um, >> yeah. Well, again, but you have to factor in airfare at hotels and all that. >> You do. I mean, but that's that's how inexpensive some of these things are. the people are like, you can go, you know, get your procedure and have a wonderful vacation and come back, you know, after two weeks with a tan h and still have it be a lot cheaper than what it would have been here and maybe even get it faster. Right? So, again, I can't speak firsthand about all that stuff, but it's it's obviously another option to look into. >> Um, all right. The other thing I want to talk about real quickly on the health part is um I did a fiveday fast recently. We talked about on this channel. I've just had a couple of people say, "Hey, can you just tell me a little bit more about that?" And um I'll tell you some real quick things. And Lance, I I don't know if you fasted or not, but you can chime in any way you like on this. Um so, real quick, the human body is actually meant to fast. Um and this just makes sense. Back in caveman days, you didn't you didn't bring down an elk every day, right? there were there were long stretches of time, especially in the winter, where food wasn't super plentiful, and your body had to go into sort of a self-preservation mode until you got, you know, the next influx of calories. Um, so the body is actually designed to to kind of go through this this self-preservation fasted state. And we don't do that in in modern day, at least in in most western countries, just because food, fortunately, and is so plentiful. Um so we don't give our body the chance to kind of recharge the way that the fasting process is designed to do that. Uh so anyways that's that's why fasting if done well you know correctly is beneficial. Now to be super clear about the fast that I did. It was a 5-day fast. It it I'm using a program called Prolon which is very scientifically based. It is what's called a fast mimicking diet. So first off it wasn't that I didn't eat anything for 5 days. um you actually get food on every day. Um but it is low amounts of food. Think like thin soups and stuff like that. Um and then some supplements and stuff to kind of help your metabolism. So what they want to do is they want to get you as quickly as they can into ketosis, which you should be in by the end of day two. Um once you get into ketosis, the hunger pains really pretty much go away. Um so by day three, you're in ketosis. uh that's where your your metabolic pathway is now burning fat for fuel versus burning um glycogen um or or sugars. So um once you're in ketosis then what they're they're trying to do is kickstart what's called autophagy which is when your body is not bringing in sufficient food um your your metabolic processes still need to run and they need fuel for that. So what they the body does is it starts looking for damaged or old cells and it starts breaking them down in their base components to then use to power your metabolism. And so think of it as sort of like a spring cleaning for your body where it's getting rid of the scesscent and the injured cells and and hopefully eventually replacing them with better cells. So it they try to keep you in autophagy for 3 days. Uh and by the end of that that's the end of day five. then you're done with a fast and you're supposed to sort of, you know, ease ease your way back into eating regular solid food again. Um, so anyways, uh, I find it I do it about once a year. I probably should do a little bit more often than that, but I actually find it really um, a beneficial health-wise. Um, obviously you lose a lot of weight during it. Um, it's I wouldn't necessarily say this is a is a great weight loss program because a lot of that weight you'll put back on once you start eating again, but it is a good way to kickstart yourself uh if you want to start losing some pounds. This gives you a little nudge. Um, but I I do, you know, generally feel great afterwards. While I'm doing it, I feel pretty fine. I still do my workouts, you know, maybe at like 75% intensity, but it's not like I'm, you know, without energy and just lying on the couch, you know, for 5 days. Uh, so it's it's a very manageable process. Honestly, Lance, I'll tell you the hardest thing about it is I tell you, they they give you, you know, a little bit of food every day. By far the most calories they give you are these packets of green olives. And I hate olives. And now I know how much I hate olives because, you know, you you're you want to eat all the food that that they that they give you, right? And um you know, you Oh, okay. Today's big thing is olives, right? I I no matter how hungry I get, I still can't choke those things down. So, [laughter] >> I like olives, so that would be okay with me. So, >> yeah. So, if you like olives, this thing's for you. And sadly, they don't have like an olive replacement. They they say, "Yeah, if you don't like the olives, sorry, just, you know, maybe pour a little olive oil in your soup, but other than that, don't supplement with anything else." So, that's the toughest thing about the the thing or do you just skip them? >> Pardon me. >> You choke down the olives or you skip >> Oh, no, no, I skip them. I mean, I and look, I eat just about everything on this planet, which goes to tell you how much I hate olives that, uh, even when I'm, you know, basically starving myself, I still can't choke those things down. Um, so anyways, uh, this system is called Prolon. And if you want to learn about it, um, you can go to thoughtfulmoney.com/fast, which will take you to prolon. It'll tell you all about the uh the science and everything behind this, but that link I just gave you uh will give you the opportunity to get 25% off of Prolon's fasting program if you decide that's something that you want to do. So hopefully everybody I answer all the questions that you had around the fasting. If I didn't, ask them in the comments section and I'll try to respond to them. But Lance, have you done anything like this in your training? >> Yeah. Yeah. No, we I fasting was when I was training hard in particular, fasting was a regular thing, but I still fast. >> Did you have to make weight? Is that part of why you did it? >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. There was always that week before where it's the garbage bag on a bike or a treadmill, food, no water, right? >> And garbage bag, just for folks that don't know, it's because you'd work out with that on and it was designed to get you to sweat a lot, right? >> Yeah. No. Yeah. We just used to when they'd untie the bottom of the garbage bag, be like a gallon of water come out. >> Yeah. >> But yeah, but no, even now I I fast on a pretty regular basis. I I don't I literally don't eat I don't eat every day until about 11:00 a.m. Um I don't eat breakfast. I eat from I eat at 11. I have dinner around 5 and I don't eat again till the next day at 11. So I'm fasting between 12 and 16 hours every day. So but I do the intermittent fasting on a daily basis. >> That's and it's just a really it's a function of habit now more than anything else way I'm kind of wired. But then, yeah, about once or twice a year, I'll do a three or four or five day fast. >> All right. Okay. Well, look, um, folks, if you think that the uh the if you find that the the best investment you can make to your health, both physical and mental, is to continue to watch Lance Roberts on this channel week in and week out. 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. Lance, um, can you remind people about the date of RA's upcoming conference? >> Yep. And by the way, you need to let me know what days you're coming because I have to reserve your room for you. So book, >> I'll do that right after here, but I'll be there for the whole thing. So I'll I'll be there the Friday night before. >> But yeah, so it's January the 17th is the actual conference. If you go to our website, realadvice.com, um we have a link right at the top of the page that will take you to the to the registering uh page for that. And um again, so we have kind of two things going on. So the the actual day of the conference is January 17th. It's a Saturday, but the night before Friday, we're going to have a dinner and so we've got another ticket that you can come and just it's going to be heavy our derves kind of a mix and mingle uh environment. Uh all the speakers will be there, Adam, myself, um Daniel Kang, Brian Dunlap from Black Rockck, uh Ed Slot, um who will also be there as well. we'll all be there and kind of hang out, mix, mingle, talk, you know, visit about whatever you want to visit about. They'll have a conference the next day. Um, so but yeah, if you go to the website realtorvice.com, just click on the link. It tops register now. We're already we've already sold about half the tickets, so they are selling out pretty quickly. So I encourage you if you're going to come, um, let us know and we can help you. We have a block of room set aside so we can help. If you'll email us, I can get you in touch with Michelle at my office. She can help you arrange a room. Um, but yeah, tickets are selling pretty quick. So, if you want to if you want to come, we'd love to have you, but I would get kind of moving on it now. >> Okay, great. And you probably already said this, but this is in downtown Houston, right? >> Right. Yeah. So, yeah, this is a live event in Houston. Uh, and very limited seating. We've only got about 120 130 seats altogether. So, >> Okay. And and there's no like live stream to this. So, if you want to participate, you got to be there in person, right? >> Yeah. This this will not be streamed, recorded, or broadcast afterward uh due to basically we have NDAs with a couple of the speakers. >> Yeah. Well, and that that's one of the great things about these live conferences is not only getting to spend time with a lot of like-minded people and great experts. Um, but oftentimes, you know, we have conversations that are at a depth that that sometimes can't be had on camera because a lot of the participants are prevented from talking publicly about some of the stuff. >> Yeah. Um, all right folks. Well, look, if you would like to get some uh help from a professional financial advisor, perhaps even Lance himself and the team there at IIA for uh managing your wealth through next year, which if I took good notes, Lance says uh uh could have uh you know, some big unexpected events in it. Uh while at the same time, we're entering it with a very fragile market. Um, so if you'd like to get some help uh from one of those adviserss, one of the advisors that thoughtful money endorses, the firms you see with me on this channel every week, just fill out the very short form at thoughtfulmoney.com and the firms will be in touch with you uh right after you fill out that form to to have a conversation with you. Um, also too, I just want to remind people um, uh, of the special offer that uh, Andy Sheckchman and his firm Miles Franklin are offering to Thoughtful Money followers right now, which is the ability to buy junk silver at $1 below spot price. So, if you haven't taken advantage of that offer yet, uh, but would like to, just go to thoughtfulmoney.com/bygold, fill out the very short form there, and you'll be connected with Andy and his team to fulfill that for you. Um, all right, Lance, as usual, it's been another great week. Uh, have a lot of fun with your daughter, uh, tonight and this weekend. I'm looking forward so much doing the same thing with mine in just a couple hours. >> Absolutely. Thank you. See youall next week. >> All right, everybody else, thanks so much for watching.