Navigating Market Uncertainty: Tariffs, Doge Cuts, and Your Financial Future

Wes Cuprill, CFP®, unpacks the recent market turmoil caused by tariffs and government spending cuts (the “DOGE Cuts”) and what it means for your financial future. 

Learn why women planning for retirement shouldn't panic, how diversification protects you during uncertain times, and why speculation is not a strategy. 

Plus, discover how a solid financial plan brings peace of mind—no matter what the headlines say.

Transcript

>> Wes Cuprill: 0:00

Hello, I'm certified financial planner Wes Cuprill, and this is Wealthwise Women, the show that's rewriting the narrative that personal finance in investing are just for men and just for insiders. Because whether or not the rest of my industry realizes it, the future of wealth in the United States is female. And I aim to foster that future one episode, at a time. So join me every week as I attempt to add humor and entertainment to the otherwise snooze feest that is personal finance, addressing various topics along the way from the lens of how they affect women in particular. And if you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to our channel and our newsletter, the link to which you can find on the screen or. In the details below. That being said, let's get to this week's episode. Hello there and welcome back to the show. In this week's discussion, I want to talk a little bit about the news as of late. If you've been following the markets or just the news in general, you've noticed that there's been a lot of uncertainty out there and a lot of headlines that I think have spooked people from the largest institutions all the way down to just the regular investor. Specifically news around tariffs and then around the various doge cuts. Before I dive into either of those, I think again, this highlights or rather reiterates the importance of how the markets are reactive to news. We can only see what has happened. We don't know what is going to happen, happen in the future, anything that could happen. If we're trying to guess, it's just speculation and there's just been a lot of reactive up and downs. You know, oh, a tariff gets signed, the market goes down and then all of a sudden some good news comes out, markets go back up. Really, I think right now nobody really has any idea of what's going to happen. So there's a lot of skittishness and maybe even a little bit of over reaction to a lot of what is going on. I think when we look back on everything six months from now, a year from now, even five years from now, we'll have a better understanding of what happened. But I think we'll also be able to look back on this time and go, okay, I don't think it was, as big of a deal at the time. Just unfortunately in this high frequency trading world and headlines and all of that, people like to play profit and say they know what's going to happen and if this happens, then this is going to happen. The Market again, ultimately, we just don't know. And trying to time everything is a losing strategy. You know, I'll say that over and over and over again to the point of being called a broken record. But we can't try and predict what is going to happen. Sometimes you might get it right, but a lot of times you're going to get it wrong. And when you get it wrong, it can have drastic effects on your long term financial security. So what is it that you're supposed to do that? Well, first off, I do want to talk quickly about the two main items that are on everybody's mind. First, obviously being tariffs, everybody is understandably concerned about the effect that tariffs are going to have on the overall economy. Now, I don't know exactly what President Trump has in his mind with tariffs. I myself can only speculate as to what is the objective with them. And in my own personal opinion, I think they are being used as a short term bargaining strategy, or rather a way to bring all of these other countries back to the negotiation table to be able to establish better trade agreements with them. we have a huge trade deficit. We are importing a lot and not exporting as much as we should be. We're reliant on manufacturing from other countries. And I think these tariffs are a way to try and rebalance the balance of trade, if you will. I mean, if you look at what other countries tariffs are on imports from the United States, it's huge. I mean, Canada has a massive tariff on U.S. dairy motorcycles. In India, another good example, it's a huge motorcycle market. But American companies can't compete because of the tariffs that are placed on American motorcycles that are shipped over to India. So it's not just the United States using tariffs. Countries around the world place high tariffs on all the products that we make and export. I just don't think that's ever talked about until now. Regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, unfortunately, I think it's fashionable to talk about what is being done by the current administration. One side of the aisle is going to say it's really good. One side of the aisle is going to say it's really bad. Ultimately, I think right now what's happening is again, it's a short term play to bring the rest of the world back to the negotiating table to kind of reestablish a better balance of trade for the United States. Unfortunately, I do think it's resulting in some short term pain and uncertainty. I think that long term we will see good resolution to the overall situation. Now, that might just be my own optimism talking. Again. Let me go back to the fact that nobody knows exactly what's going to happen, but I do think that using tariffs as a short term play could have long term beneficial consequences for the United States economy and the United States markets. Hey there. Before we get to the rest of the episode, I wanted to take a quick second to tell you about the Wealth Wise Women newsletter. I'll be the first to admit there is no shortage of financial publications out there and there's definitely no shortage of free information and financial advice that you can find on the Internet. But in my opinion, a lot of it misses the mark. It's either incredibly dry or it's full of industry jargon, or it just simply isn't geared towards women. That's why I decided to start the Wealthwise Women Newsletter to provide a source of information that is geared towards women. It's easy to understand without all of the industry jargon and above all, it's what I like to call info ting. And best of all, it's free. To subscribe, simply go to mcwealthwisewomen.substack.com and enter your email. That's it. Again, that is mcwealthwisewomen m.substack.comt all right, let's get back to the episode. Now the other topic of discussion is the Doge Cuts, Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, all of that. I'm not going to get into the politics of it. Well, maybe I am. The government has never cut spending. This is like the first time that there has been a department to come in and say, okay, we need to cut all the waste that is currently happening within the U.S. government. And I don't think anybody can say that is a bad thing. Now there are cuts being made to various departments within the government and I think that's the first time we've ever seen it. Ultimately, yes, on an individual basis, I understand that that is going to have an effect on people's employments. But ultimately I think it's a way to make the government more efficient and to bring down some of the debt that the United States has. We are unfortunately reaching a tipping point when it comes to the financials of the United States. Given the massive amount of debt that we have, just the interest to be paid on that debt is more than I think we spend on defense every year. And if we aren't careful, the interest on that deck could continue to balloon and snowball to the point that it runs out of control. Now there's various ratios that we try and play where, okay, as long as debt doesn't exceed gdp, that's okay. But you know, that's, that's a tough game for the government to try and play. It is a much better strategy to try and reign in spending and then also, make it so that we're not spending on other countries. The US sends a lot of aid overseas. Maybe I am talking about my own personal beliefs here, but the idea that we're sending a bunch of EIGHTID overseas before paying ourselves, I talk about that within our own retirement strategies for people. Pay yourself first and then give to children or grandkids, charity, etc. And I certainly don't think that that's a bad strategy for the government to employ. Pay ourselves first before we pay others. But back to, you know, the DOGE cuts, I think that there's uncertainty about the effect that it's going to have on certain government administrations or certain departments within the government. Social Security is certainly one of those where there's thoughts that by cutting so many people it's going to delay benefits and whatnot. Perhaps short term this could have some disruption to the way that certain government departments operate. But I can't help but think that it was high time that efficiency was brought into these various departments and some change and just kind of forcing them to operate better than they have in the past. They should have been innovating all along and finding ways to become more efficient and perhaps cuts to their labor force is unfortunately the way that it's going to happen. So you know, both of these things, tariffs, DOGE cuts, short term pain potentially for long term benefits, we'll see. Like I said, I don't necessarily know what's going to happen, but that's my thought and how I'm reading into this whole thing that in the long term this is going to pay off. We'll find out. Again, it all comes back to read your news, don't watch it. Regardless of what channel you might frequent, stop watching it too much because unfortunately what you're going to see is the same news over and over again on an hour long loop with a different talking head each time saying the same message over and over again. And ultimately good news doesn't sell, bad news does. And the more doomsday is it is, the more eyeballs these networks can get on it. And unfortunately that just bombards our senses with negative messaging. So ultimately read it once and then say, okay, you know, that is what it is. Go Enjoy your life. Otherwise, I think it can be very easy for us to develop this pessimistic mentality because all we're seeing is all of this bad news when ultimately the sky is not actually falling at the moment. And then it also comes down to this. A well built financial plan will help you weather any of the volatility that is currently happening because of uncertainty in the markets, especially around tariffs, doge cuts. Even if you're drawing down on your portfolio, if you have a good plan in place, it can handle minor obstacles in the short term. And just another perfect example of diversification being so powerful and playing so well into a well built plan. The US equity market might be down right now, but internationals are actually up a huge amount. So you might be looking at it and saying, wow, the US Stock market's doing badly. Is my portfolio doing really badly? But you look at it and you're actually maybe even up little bit. That's because if you had a good plan in place and you were well diversified, one sector might be struggling, but another is doing well. So when there's a lot of uncertainty, you still might be up. So if you have questions about any of this, if you want to talk about, you know, my thoughts further on any of these subjects, or if you're looking for a way to begin building a plan that enables you one to handle volatility better, but also gives you a little bit more confidence and peace of mind in your own financial future, book a Time with me. That's really what we're here for. It's about helping our clients build some stronger peace of mind, build a greater sense of confidence around their financial future, around their retirement security. So schedule some time. Visitwith mc.com. i would love to sit down with you and discuss how we can help you have a better, more optimistic outlook on the future and give you a financial plan that provides you a sense of security. That being said, I'll see you next week's episode.