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Retirement For Life
The only retirement show that won’t put you to sleep as we guide you to a comfortable and confident retirement. Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP® the passionate retirement specialist helps you navigate the complex world of retirement with a dash of fun, a heap of wisdom and plenty of real-life application. Whether you're already retired or planning for the future, the Retirement for Life Show is your passport to a secure and enjoyable retirement.
With over two decades of experience, Chris has been assisting individuals in achieving their retirement dreams, whether it's investing wisely, building wealth, or increasing retirement confidence. His expertise has earned him recognition in esteemed national media outlets such as Yahoo Finance, U.S. News and World Report, and CBS News.
Join Chris and his fellow professionals, Andrea Brannon and Emma Bean, CFA®, as they take you on a journey through essential retirement topics. We cover it all, from Retirement Planning and Investment Tips to Financial Planning, Social Security, Estate Planning, Tax Strategies, and much more. Tune in for practical insights and wisdom that will help transform your retirement goals into reality.
Retirement For Life
Elon Musk Backs Down From Bold Statement, Can San Francisco be Saved by Blue Jeans Heir, and Why Nobody Knows Where to Invest in 2025! - Ep 27
Join us as we tackle the volatile financial forecasts of 2025, promising to arm you with the knowledge you need to navigate uncertain waters. With insights from special guests Emma and Andrea, we scrutinize the potential market turbulence and debate the realism of Elon Musk's audacious plan to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Our discussion not only forecasts financial futures but also highlights the importance of preparedness in retirement planning amidst economic unpredictability.
San Francisco’s downtown crisis is unraveling, and we're here to expose the alarming exodus of retailers from Union Square. Rising crime, dwindling law enforcement, and the shocking stories shared by figures like Elon Musk illustrate a city grappling with staggering challenges. Amidst job losses and escalating homelessness, we explore San Francisco’s struggle and the bold initiatives of newly elected mayor Daniel Lurie, whose ambitious plans might just be what the city needs to turn the tide.
Our conversation unfolds into the complexities of active asset management and the challenges it poses for retirees. With a deep dive into a revealing 20-year study, we highlight the rarity of active managers outperforming market benchmarks. Emma, Andrea, and I stress the invaluable strategies of comprehensive retirement planning, emphasizing income stability, tax, and estate planning over the lure of short-term market predictions. Prepare to walk away with a robust plan for securing a confident and comfortable retirement.
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Today on Retirement for Life podcast. I told you so. Elon Musk coming back on his initial prediction. I told you so why San Francisco hopefully can come back and be saved by the blue jeans air and why the experts are wrong about where to invest in 2025. This and more on today's Retirement for Life podcast. Let's get started.
Intro:Retirement for Life, your passport to a comfortable and confident retirement. The podcast that's equal parts education and entertainment, where we break down the retirement maze with a dash of fun and a heap of wisdom from your host, Christian Sear, CPA, the passionate retirement specialist and president of Sear Financial Wealth Advisors. The independent registered investment advisor specializing in the AIM retirement system.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:So we're here today. I want to welcome back Emma to the show. Hi Emma, hi Andrea. It's been a couple weeks, I think A little bit A month. Welcome back Today is going to be a great show. I just can't wait to get to it.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:First, I want to say we had a great podcast last month, a lot of people looking at our predictions for 2025. Em and I sat here and we basically went back and forth. I'm the old guy. I'm nervous. She's the smart one. She's telling us what we know. We should really just be investing smartly. So we went back and forth about what 2025 is going to look like and at the end, she did definitely kick my butt. Can we see that, brooke? And so people like you are going to say it's different this time, but I'm telling you that, if nothing else, this is one thing I want to tell my retirees.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Next year or this year, 2025, you will see your account go up and down more. There's going to be more volatility, and that's I'm going to predict that. That's my number one prediction for 2025. You're going to see your accounts bounce up and down a lot. So, if you're the type of person. So that's what I said, all right Now. I like to tell people I was right. So yesterday the market closes. And look at this, by the way, if you are listening, thank you, but you need to be watching this show on rflshowcom, because I put a lot of work into this. Brooke puts a lot of work into this. You guys don't put any work into this.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:We just show up.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:But the graphics on this podcast really make it 10 times better. If you're listening right now and you're not. I had one of your favorite customers, I'm not going to say his name. He wished me a happy birthday the other day and he said I'm watching the football game and I am listening to your podcast. Nice, and I thought to myself so-and-so, you should be watching the podcast. If you're not watching this, go to rflshowcom and watch the podcast, because you'll see on the screen. Yesterday, the market closes and what do we have?
Emma Bean, CFA®:I mean, look at that picture. It's like green, red, green, red, up and down all day.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:This is just one day, but I'm just going to say I am right, and what we saw yesterday up, down, up, down, up down is what we're going to see all year. Yeah, okay, okay, I'm right. Let's move on to the next thing Elon Musk, my new best friend or no, my new hero. We talked a lot about him. He and Vivek Ramaswamy we've covered this a lot are going to cut $2 trillion from the budget. And I just show the first video Brooke about Iyanbos. This is what he said. This is just a great clip.
Speaker 3:All right, I've only got one question for you and then I'm getting out of here, because this is your stage.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I love this but we said at Doge how much do you think we can rip out of this wasted?
Speaker 3:$6.5 trillion Alice Biden budget. Well, I think we can do at least $2 trillion.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yeah, at least, yeah, at least two. That's pretty bold $2 trillion.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:At least that means two or more.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Yes.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, and Brooke? What have I said about this Zeros? This is not only unsustainable, some would say outright negligent, and frankly, I might agree. Now, of course, our newly elected president has hired a hit squad to cut $2 trillion out of those budgets, and I say more power to them. But sadly, this is literally not going to happen. It needs to be an act of Congress. In fact, 60% of them have to agree to cut expenses. I just don't see this amounting to too much. I am saying it's not going to happen. I want it to happen, but it's not going to happen. It's not likely.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:So I read the headline the other day in the Wall Street Journal. Now Musk is stepping back. He's on a podcast and here's what he says Do you really look at what you think will be successful? Do you think $2 trillion is a realistic number? Now that you're looking more closely at it, yeah well, he's so uncomfortable.
Speaker 3:I think we'll try for $2 trillion. I think that's like the best case outcome, but I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think, if we try for, $2 trillion, we've got a good shot at getting one, so now it's only one, maybe All right.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I'm not throwing shade on Elon Musk Again. I'm a huge fan. I think the notion is great and I support reducing the deficit because in 2025, I said it my main body of work is really I'm concerned about the federal deficit.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Yeah.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:All right, andrea, I'm going to put you in the hot seat. You are the United States president. Here is a picture of what we, as a country, spent over the last 12 months. It's approaching $7 trillion. What we took in was not even $5 trillion. There's a $2 trillion budget deficit. You, the newly elected president, we're on this list Again. You should watch this on rflshowcom, because there it is, right there. Where do you take out $2 trillion?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:You're not going to make any friends, cutting on any of those, I mean, and in fact, social security is underfunded, so how do you take money away from it?
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Emma, what would you do?
Emma Bean, CFA®:I mean, there's only so much discretionary spending you can cut. No matter what you do, you're making people mad.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Yeah, so it's a huge, huge problem. We're not going to go into today what the main point of this segment is. That, once again, brooke, I am right, oh right, I am right. I was right, Andrea say it.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:You're right and I know you like to hear you're right I would not have said that Okay.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Good luck to all those people trying to correct the federal deficit Not an easy task. No, I want to tell you a story now about the town of San Francisco, and this has nothing to do with retirement, but to me it's just absolutely fascinating. This is a great story, starts out bad. We're going to go with a guess, the numbers game, to open up the story. Brooke, play the guess the numbers sequence.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Guess the Number Game All right, andrea, we're going to have everyone at home participate here. I want everyone to. This is a number that they have to guess, hence the Guess the Number Game Right. Read what the question is, please.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:In November 2014, california voters approved Proposition 47, the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act. It sounded good, the description brought to mind images of preventative crime measures and a more equitable vision for public safety, and big names called for its passage from Attorney General Kamala Harris to San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Specifically, proposition 47 reclassified the following offenses from felonies to misdemeanors if the dollar value was below what Okay, so if it's a certain dollar amount or less, no longer is it a felony, now it's a misdemeanor. Emma, what do you think?
Emma Bean, CFA®:is a reasonable number. I could see if it's less than a hundred bucks. It's no longer a felony, it's like something that's not worth our time. I'm going to guess $250.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:What do you think, Ms Brannon?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:$500.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Brooke, what's the answer?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:$950.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:$950. Okay, so this is a higher number, right? What once was a felony is no longer a felony so long as it's under, let's just say, a thousand bucks, just to make it simple.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Right Wow.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Here's an example that probably isn't realistic, but have you ever seen grand theft auto? It's a felony.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yep.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, If you steal a car in this country generally, you're now a felon.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Yeah, makes sense, not in.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:California. Now, granted, it's a crappy car.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Yeah, one that maybe won't run, but-.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:But still, how could you steal a car that's worth $950 because it probably doesn't run? But it's other stuff. It's drugs, I wrote it down. It's stolen property, it's forgery.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:It's writing bad checks, it's breaking into stores and stealing stuff, right, so you could basically write a check for $949 and you're good.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Nothing's going to happen. I mean, you're going to have a misdemeanor, no-transcript. Not only is this now a misdemeanor, I'm not going to prosecute it, I'm not going to even go after you, All right. So what starts happening is that shoplifters are now just going in and stealing stuff. And how does this happen? Like, maybe the homeless or the people who are shoplifting, maybe they're really smart. What have I stolen?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Add it up. Get the calculator out. Yep, get the price tags out.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Sweetie, can you add up all the price tags and all the stuff we're about to steal and not going to go to jail for? And the husband says to the wife they're both shoplifting together. And he goes Sweetie, we still got another hundred bucks have a purse, yeah something.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:This is literally what's happening. Yeah, and for some reason this is okay. All right, yeah, so he stops prosecuting most misdemeanors. He starts lowering crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Okay, no prison sentences, no surprise, crime goes up. Yeah, everyone knows that this is happening. So now, let's say you're a good citizen in the city of San Francisco and you see this happening. Do you pick up the phone and call the police?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:No, because the police aren't going to even show up at this point.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Right, and the police are getting phone calls and they're not even showing up because they're like nothing's going to happen to these people. Okay, this is what happened. So now the ramifications. Guess the number game.
Intro:Brooke play it. Guess the number game.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:All right. Again, I want people at home to understand the gravity of the situation. Emma, read this and let's see if people at home can get this number right?
Emma Bean, CFA®:I want you to leave the answer in the comments. No cheating, Okay. In 2019, San Francisco's famed downtown Union Square areas had 203 retailers. As of May 2023, how many retailers have shut their doors?
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Union Square, San Francisco. Have you guys ever been to San Francisco?
Emma Bean, CFA®:No.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Used to be beautiful. This is the place you'd go to shop. This is where all the retailers were. So there was how many? 203? Does it say Mm-hmm? Back in 2019? Mm-hmm, okay, fast forward, like three or four years later. That number was what? What do you guys think? How many of those 200-some retailers shut the door? Brooke, what do you think?
Emma Bean, CFA®:100.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay.
Emma Bean, CFA®:I'm going to guess half. I wouldn't stay open if people were stealing. I'll just say 50.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:What do we got?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Let's see, oh 96.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:96. Basically, half you guys are right. Half of the retailers leave, employers leaving the city. If there's no employers, what happens to the jobs?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Way down, they go away. Yeah, jobs go away.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:What happens to the homeless situation Gets?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:worse.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:More homeless right there are now these tent encampments. Okay, look at this. San Francisco's downtown exodus. Andrea, there's 22, I think here.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Is that?
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:22? Yeah, tell me the one that gives you the most heartache.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Which one are you sad to see go?
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I like Anthropologie. What is Anthropologie?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:It's just you know fun story. Yeah, a little bit of everything, Emma what are you sorry to see?
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:go here.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Crate and Barrel. I really like Crate and Barrel.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Now, Brooke, which one makes you cry?
Emma Bean, CFA®:I do love Crate and Barrel.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, so this is what's happening Again. The story is getting worse and worse and worse and worse. It has a trickle-down effect. Okay, Nobody is going to conventions anymore. Nobody is doing tourism. Tourism is down 44% since 2019.
Emma Bean, CFA®:I believe it.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Homeless epidemic ensues. We have public drug use. We now have a skyrocketing fentanyl problem and a state of emergency, the tent encampments. I'm not going to say what happens there, but a lot, a lot of bad stuff. Okay, so I'm going to go back to my buddy, elon Musk, just because I love him so much, but he tells this story, and this one story alone. What took me 10 minutes to describe san francisco? He does it in one minute. Play it.
Speaker 3:One couple I met the final stroll for leaving san francisco was there was a. They came home one night and there's dead body in front of their garage. They could can get their car and park their car because the corpse yeah, there's no street parking.
Speaker 3:They're like this is a corpse, there's a corpse in front of the garage. They don't want to move the corpse, you know, because, like you're like maybe there's. They need to, like figure out why the guy died or something. You know, they got nobody's pocket car and they feel that they shouldn't really move the dead bodies. They call 911 and so, like we've pissed a dead body outside our house and, um, they said, well, I want to go, says, well, are you in danger right now? Like, well, no, he's dead.
Speaker 3:And they're like okay, well we'll send someone tomorrow to pick up the body. Like they're learning tomorrow, so so they're like going into their house while there's a dead body in front, right in front of their house, you know and like it's like taking like 24 hours or something like that to virtually pick up the body and like how was this? We're leaving, and did they?
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Yes, they left. I would I mean so that I think that was 60 seconds or less. That encapsulates the entire story. Yeah, I would not say so. Now there's financial issues in San Francisco. They have a billion dollar deficit.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:That's crazy Billion dollars for a city.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:A city. It's not a state. It's not a country.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Yeah.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Now I'm going to put you guys on the spot again. How much do you think the budget is in San Francisco for taking care of the homeless problem which they helped create? How much do you think they're spending?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:It might be a pretty big chunk of that billion yeah.
Emma Bean, CFA®:I mean, I have no idea, Over a million.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I guess I would say $5 million, the city's spending $700 million a year in expenditures on the homelessness.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Like I said, a large chunk of their deficit is the issue they created. It's insane.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:This story began actually well before 2014, because there was already kind of a homeless issue in San Francisco and this exacerbated it. Wow, so, wow, that's what I have in my cue cards, emma. Wow. And then one day there's a guy who's lived in San Francisco most of his life. He has two daughters. He's put them to bed at night and one of the daughters says you know, why is this place so scary? Yeah, and he kind of scratches his head and he says you know, as a father.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:How do I explain the city that we live in to my two daughters? Explain the city that we live in to my two daughters? It just so happens that this man is eventually one of the biggest heirs of the Levi Strauss, the blue jean heir. His mother is Mimi Haas and she is worth approximately $1.4 billion. So he's like I think I'm going to run for mayor and this guy right here show him on the screen Brooke, he just became the mayor this month. He put $9 million of his own money into the campaign. He won and it's the first time in over a hundred years. I mean, this guy has zero government political experience. It's the first time in over a hundred years they've elected a mayor with no government experience.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yeah, because clearly it hasn't worked in the past. They need to try something new.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Right, and apparently people want something different.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:His agenda is, and I wrote down he is going to declare a fentanyl state of emergency. He is reinvigorating the depleted police force. How do you do that, by the way?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:I mean it's hard to do that in general. I mean it's not exactly like a job that pays well and people are really thankful for you.
Emma Bean, CFA®:I certainly wouldn't want to be a cop in a city with 10,000 homeless people.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I mean, right there, that's a challenge for him. And then he's pissing off all of his city hall workers. He's making them work and come back to the office and we're working from home, so what would you say to Daniel?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Good luck Daniel.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Good luck, daniel. This is a story that's interesting to me. Daniel Lurie, we wish him the best, the blue jeans there trying to save the city of San Francisco. He's got a lot of work to do. By the way, we just made a video. It has 140,000 views on it. Brooke, how many comments did we have in that video on YouTube?
Emma Bean, CFA®:I think it was close to 400.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, people are just saying all sorts of stuff, and it got me thinking. When we started this podcast, my dream was to have 15 people. After every podcast, go to this website, retirementforlifecom. Scroll down to where it says in very big letters please send me your questions. And I just imagine Brooke and I going through like 15 voicemails every week and having trouble deciding which great question to answer on this podcast. Well, guess what? Nobody's going there. I even stopped talking about it. But you guys have good questions. You're watching this, you're listening to this. Please, all you have to do is click a button and talk into your phone. You don't have to dial anything, you just click a button. Brooke, is that right? What else do you have to do?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Nothing, just click it.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Please ask me a question because I want to play your question. You can pretend your name is Jimmy. If your name is not Jimmy, you can do whatever you want. Send me a question and we'll answer. Wouldn't that be fun that would be fun.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Yeah, All right. All right, we're going to finish up today by talking about something important. We did do that podcast last two weeks ago about predictions for 2025. What we came away about saying what we're going to do is stay the course. We heard from many experts. The average expert says 2025 market's going to go up. What do you remember?
Emma Bean, CFA®:10%.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Yeah, as of right now, it's slightly up, but it has been, as we said earlier, volatile. Yep, definitely so. The point is we don't know what's going to happen and we went through all these predictions of experts. But the funny thing was we had this game. Where I'm conservative, I'm older, I think we should be saving our money and protecting our money, and Emma is the smarter one and she's let's just play it Probably right about, and she's probably going to get a point for this, but go ahead so interest rates are going down.
Emma Bean, CFA®:They may not be going down as quick as we thought you know a year ago, but they're going down. The Fed is cutting rates slowly but surely. And what happens when you cut rates? I mean companies can borrow at cheaper rates.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I mean everything goes up.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Companies can borrow at cheaper rates, they grow faster.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:And not only that bonds are also very well aligned so you can earn you know, over 5% on bonds right now and with rates going down bond prices are going up, so there's just too many good things that you know interest rates going down helps us out quite a bit so, in summary, all right. So basically, mo1, and and the point of it was, let's be smart about this, let's do what we know is the right thing to do, which is let's not try and guess, because and I'm going to go to the guess the number game one more time brooke, play the guess the number boom guess the number game.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:This is 20 years of data. These are people getting paid a lot of money, the so-called experts. These are the ones on Wall Street that are active managers, and we're going to show you how trying to outguess the market doesn't work. First, what is an active asset manager? It's just someone who's trying to outguess the market doesn't work. First, what is an active asset manager?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:It's just someone who's trying to make adjustments and try to do better than the market.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yeah, outperform the market year after year.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, and how many of them in the last 20 years? What percent, have outperformed the market?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Very few. I'm going to guess maybe 15%. What?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:do you think, yeah, I would say 10% or less.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Brooke show us.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Ooh 3% 3% of active managers over the last 20 years have beat the benchmark, and this is what we know. Now I want to show you guys something. This is called the Barron's Roundtable. I'm an old guy. I've been reading Barron's for over 30 years and they had the round table. This is the height of experts giving their opinion. This is probably the most respected periodical in the entire finance slash investing industry. I want to show you guys this. One year ago, the experts come to the round table and they say hey, I'm super smart, this is what you should invest in in 2024. Now, how much did the market go up in 2024?
Emma Bean, CFA®:25%.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, 25%. This just absolutely proves my point. This is their pick. Show me their picture. I want to see their picture first. These people right here I don't know who they are. They're smart people, okay, smart enough to be on the best publication in the finance industry. What's their picks? Who's the first person? Todd, okay, and I'm not trying to pick on people here. So Todd makes six expert picks. How many of them beat the market?
Emma Bean, CFA®:He had a couple good ones too.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I would say one and a half. The next person picks four awesome stocks for 2024. How many of them beat the market?
Emma Bean, CFA®:They're all losers.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Two of them lost money. The next person one, two, three, four, five. He made six stock picks. Oh, that's a girl. She made six stock picks. How many of them beat the market?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Zero Zero.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Wait. One, two, three, four, five. She had six expert picks and five of them lost money when the stock market went up 25%. This is a storied person who is smart enough and wise enough to be on Barron's roundtable. Keep going, keep going. This person made how many picks? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, none of them Not one of them was even 10%. Next person this person made six picks.
Emma Bean, CFA®:They had some good ones.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:They had, they had. I'll give them even three. Okay, so far, that's the best person. Henry got maybe 50% of his picks right and 50% of his picks wrong. These are the experts. Keep going One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine picks. How many of them beat?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:the mark. Only one. Two are good, one beat it.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:He had one for eight. Yeah, next person, four picks.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Another one good one.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:He's one for five, one of his great picks lost 41%.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:I was going to say so. The one that did well didn't even offset. The one that did well.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Keep going, Brooke. Oh, okay, they had one, two, four five, six, seven eight, nine. This guy made 10 picks. Out of his 10 picks, how many beat the market?
Emma Bean, CFA®:Two really good ones.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:He was 20% right.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yeah.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:This guy had five picks. He was one for five, 20% right. This guy had five picks, two out of five.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yeah, I'll go with two Keep going.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Now here's a smart person. Oh, merrill, okay he only made two picks and he was two for two.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yep two.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Do you see what I'm talking about here? Mm-hmm, okay, so it really interested me. Two days ago it was actually the weekend when this story right here comes out on Wall Street Journal it grabbed my eye what the experts here's more experts and they're telling you what to invest in in 2025. There was 10 of them and each one of them gave only like one or two picks. And again it goes back to the concept of let's talk about what we're doing Retirement planning. Tell me some of the things that are in the AIM retirement system plan that have nothing to do with investments.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Well, just trying to make sure that we're maximizing the chance of retirement success.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Maximize chance of retirement success. Income stability Income stability Make sure your income's going to be there, regardless of what happens to the stock market. Tax planning Taxes, social Security Estate planning. Estate planning, all these things they're like. Just think of like bedrock. Have you ever seen like years, brooke, years and years of bedrock? There's different layers. Okay, what you do is, once you have those things right in a retirement plan and it's stable, then you take the rest of the money that's still available and you layer it over the top and it is your investments.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Your investments are a small part of your retirement. We don't know what's going to happen to the investments. We don't know what's going to happen to the investments this year. We don't know what's going to happen this month, but we have a very good idea of what's going to happen over the next 30 years. So, for this reason, we don't make huge adjustments, because we've seen some clients get emotional, get scared and their portfolio now is underperformed by $100,000 because they got out of the stock market a year ago. So I'm fascinated when the Wall Street Journal puts out an article like this and says hey, here's what the smart people say to put your money, brooke, show us what they said. Remember 10 people, andrea. What have we got here? What's their opinions? Where should we put our money this year, in 2025?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:Top one is stocks in general, then large growth, MAG7, value stocks, mid-cap stocks, small caps, real estate and bonds.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, a little bit of everything.
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:A little bit of everything, yeah.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:Okay, so if you put these 10 experts together, what do you have there, emma? What is that?
Emma Bean, CFA®:That looks very similar to our portfolio.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:It's exactly the portfolio we have. It's a diversified portfolio and basically, this is a point again that nobody knows what they're talking about. You can ask any expert you want to. Andrea, you've been doing this for 13 years now. Somebody comes into our office and they say hey guys, we got an extra $100,000. What's the smart thing to do with this money? What do you say?
Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:I mean, I like to say, just put it in your portfolio, put it in your portfolio. However, they usually want a specific answer.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:I've got an extra $100,000 that's sitting in my bank account I want to put to work. But where's the smart place to put this right now? And they want like a smart answer.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Yeah, they don't want a diversified portfolio, they want something else.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:But the Hard answer is just put it in your normal investment account, which goes along with all the other layers of your plan, with your Social Security, with your Roth conversion, with your income stability, with your estate plan, all this stuff, and it just fits in perfectly. Your plan, if done right, shouldn't matter what happens to the stock market in 2025.
Outro:Yeah, shouldn't matter.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:So okay, We've said enough. Brooke, if you had to guess how long was this podcast today, Just give me a number 28 minutes, oh gosh. What do you guys think? This is a fun game. Guess the number.
Emma Bean, CFA®:I'll say 29 minutes.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:What would you say? 30. See, that's my weakness, because I think we've been talking for like 10 minutes.
Emma Bean, CFA®:Oh boy Okay.
Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:So repeat your number again 28, 29, 30. I'm going to say 25. We'll only know once Brooke edits the video and don't edit it to be 28 minutes, just so you can be right, I won't. That's all for Retirement for Life today. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you in two weeks for the next episode. Guys, thanks a lot, it was a fun episode. Yeah, take care.
Outro:Investment advisory services provided by Sear Financial Inc. Sec-registered investment advisor. All content on this podcast is for information purposes only and should not be considered investment, legal or tax advice. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources and no representations are made by our firm as to another party's informational accuracy or completeness.
