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Good News Is Bad News

Hello, and welcome to our Market Alert video for today, which is October 6, 2023. I hope this video is finding you healthy, wealthy, and wise. I hope all you SCWPerS are out there enjoying that second childhood without parental supervision. And for those of you who are aspiring SCWPerS, our job is to get you there. And it’s so much fun to do that and to help you to accomplish all your goals. We’d like to do that for you. And so I hope all of this is happening for you. I have a lot to talk with you about we got some numbers on jobs, they came in hot. So we’re going to talk about what that means. But before I do that, I want to kind of share with you my oldest daughter gave us our first grandson Nathaniel, our only grandson. And so she and her husband went on vacation to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. And so we had Nathaniel for a week. And I have kind of named that, we taming the bucking bronco. He’s a two year old. So we went out when one afternoon to go have a meal at a restaurant. And he was having one of those two year old temper tantrums. And so I picked him up and I took him outside and I put him down the restaurant had a glass door. I put him outside and I said alright, you’re gonna stay here until you’re done having your temper tantrum, and then you can come back inside. So I left him there I went inside and watching him through the glass. And he he’s headstrong. So it took him a while before he finally calmed down. And then I went outside and I got him and I said, Alright, let’s hold his hand. Let’s go back to the table and let’s join Gigi his grandmother. And so we went back and no sooner do we get to the table when he started up again. So it’s like okay, then we’re gonna go back, picked him up, took him out, took three iterations of that to finally tamed the bucking bronco. So, you know, it reminded me of what it was like when our daughters were that age. And we had to do that with them. So but I’ll tell you overall, it’s wonderful. And I highly recommend a grandchild even though you have those moments. It’s interesting though, as a grandparent, they’re more amusing than they were when you were a parent, you know, when a child is acting up in a restaurant, when you’re a parent, you’re like, Oh, my God, everybody thinks of a horrible parent, when you’re a grandparent, you’re like, it’s a kid, they do that.
Anyway, let’s talk about this week, we got jobs numbers, they came in hot, which kind of plays into the narrative that the Federal Reserve is going to have to raise interest rates one more time this year, nothing new to us, we’ve been telling you, we think that would be the case. And so that brought some turbulence with it, of course, people are concerned that the Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates too high, cause a really bad recession, and then the stock market’s going to crash 30%. So you know, it tickled that nerve, when you get the jobs numbers coming in as hot as they did. So, in our view, the turbulence that we’re seeing is going to pass, we said we’d have a correction, 5% to 10%. It’s a little over 7% right now. So the correction that we thought would happen is actually here, and has been with us, we think it’ll be here for another two or three weeks, it’s possible the market could go down another 3% between now and then. But we think it’ll rally into the end of the year. So we’ll get a Santa Claus ally, as they call it. And the end of the year should be higher than where we are today, in our view.
So where we are right now is that we are still invested in our stock portfolios. And the reason why is because of what I just said, we think that the Fed will probably come to the end of the interest rate rise cycle, we think that inflation will start to ease markedly into the end of the first quarter of next year. So April-ish. And if that’s the case, then we see a bull market coming behind that or because of that. So that’s why we’re still invested in our stocks, even though there’s a turbulence that we’re experiencing right now, which isn’t pleasant, and we get it. The other side of the coin is our bonds. And boy, the news of that the jobs numbers and all the stuff the Feds been saying and all that, they have been taking it on the chin, and I thought I’d share with you. I’m going to share my screen with you here for just a second. This is what I use as a proxy for the bond market. It’s the BNY Mellon bond aggregate ETF and this goes back to April when we got out of bonds. And you can see, you know, right here, how much down it went into November of last year. Had a rally into the beginning of this year and into March and May. And it was because people thought at the time that inflation was under control the Fed won the battle they’re gonna start lowering interest rates later on this year. And so you know, bond prices went up on the on the thought that interest rates we’re going to fall. But as we said, No, that ain’t going to be the case, kids, the Fed is not going to be lowering interest rates at the end of 2023. And sure enough, that’s been the case. And so you can see how much down we’ve had since then. So our decision to be out of bonds, we believe to be one that we’re glad we made for you. And it was the right decision. And so we don’t think we’re gonna go back into our bond portfolios, probably until April of next year, as I said, because that’s when we think that it’ll be clear that inflation is starting to abate and the Feds job is starting to be done. So overall, things are playing out the way we said they would, corrections are no fun, but they’re common. They come every year, almost, we’ve had, we’ve had one almost every year going back the last 50 years. So they’re unpleasant, very scary, but they pass and we think this one will, too.
So, thank you for watching this video. And as I said, I hope it finds you in good spirits. Thank you for letting us worry about all this stuff for you. That’s our job, your job is to go play or work hard to get to become a SCWPer, and then go play. And so I hope that that’s all that is happening for you. Please recommend us to your friends. Oh, you know, I got a couple of things I want to tell you about. One is that for many years, you guys have been asking us if we could do your tax returns for you. And we’ve begun a new offering. And we think that we can do it for you at a very attractive price, probably one that’s less than what you’re paying, save you some money. Also coordinate it so that it’s in one place where we can see it, you can see it. And that way, you know, it’s all organized and part of your retirement plan. So if you’re interested in that, talk to your retirement planner. And then we also have an alternative investment that we’ve built for the purposes of cash that you may have. So if you have a savings account, emergency fund that kind of money sitting at the bank, and you’re not happy with the interest rate that you’re getting, talk to your retirement planner, because we have a, I think, very attractive alternative for you to consider. Okay, so we have those two things for you.
Please recommend us to your friends, your family, we want to help as many people as we can. And we also want to, as I said true, we’ll treat them right and we’ll do the best we can for them. And if we can’t, that’s fine too. Either way that we will treat them well. So thanks for watching this video and we will talk soon!

Please note: transcript has been modified after the time of recording. 

Economic indicators and stock market performance cannot be predicted. Opinions expressed regarding the economy and the stock market belong solely to Ken Moraif on behalf of Retirement Planners of America and may not accurately portray actual future performance of the economy or stock market outcomes. Opinions expressed in this video is intended to be for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used as investment advice for individuals who are not clients of Retirement Planners of America. All content provided is the opinion of Ken Moraif, CEO and Founder of MMWKM Advisors LLC (d/b/a Retirement Planners of America). ©Copyright 2023