Ep. 211 - Feeling Uncomfortable

 Good day. This is Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner and your host. More knowledge, more wealth here on every weekend talking about all important topics of personal finance. My job is to go over the knowledge you need to increase your wealth. Now to the listener, you can always reach out to myself or any one of my colleagues here at Faulkner Wealth Planning.

Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 963 2526. 96 Falcon, like the bird or visit our website at falconwealthplanning. com that's falconwp. com for short, or you can get this episodes or any one of our previous episodes as well through our knowledge center. You can get market commentary. You can also look at our YouTube channel and we have a lot of strategies there that can give you help.

Now, folks, I'm the president of Falcon Wealth Planning. We are fee only, non commissioned. True fiduciary folks. And we help you with all aspects of personal finance folks. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if you're retired, not retired in looking at what you want to move, talking about investments, state planning, insurance, taxes, folks, you name it, anything that involves a dollar sign, we can help.

Give us a call. We'd love to offer one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time at no cost, folks. Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 and 96 Falcon. Like the bird. We can help relate this show to your specific situation, folks. Anything that involves money, we can help with folks. We do this on a daily basis.

And a lot of commentary that we're getting on right now is talking about the stock market and just how it's going up and down and all over the place right now. And people are just getting uncomfortable. And there's a reason to. There's a couple wars going on right now. One in Ukraine and one in the Middle East.

You got people dividing here in our country not happy what's going on with whether it's speaker of the house Whether it is with our current president, whatever side you're on there's always reasons for turmoil right now And you're seeing the effect on the stock market It has had a retreat of maybe 10 to 15 percent in the past few months alone What looked like a fantastic 10 to

15 percent nasdaq was up almost 40 percent now down under 30 My point is, yes, there's a lot of concern here. And then what are you doing with your portfolios? Remember last year's concern was the safe stuff. The bonds this year's concern is more the stock market. So there's always something to be worried about, right?

And we still have more rising interest rates. We still are feeling inflation. Heck get paying up the pump cost me like 150 bucks to fill up my car. It was crazy. And I don't even have a big car here in California easily can be paying six to seven dollars a gallon So yes, there's a lot to go over. But what are you doing about it?

Are you riding this wave? Are you enjoying sitting in cash earning 5 percent because sometimes most of the time as I read in previous Shows here that when cash rates are high the stock market over performs the most I'm not trying to say past history is Guaranteed future results. I'm not saying that but what I am saying is it's easy to be content right now sitting on the sidelines Especially when your cash is actually earning something.

Heck some of you in the short term might say cash outperformed Every investment class that's out there. I'm with you. I get it But this is the time that you need to act. Warren Buffett says it perfectly when those are fearful That's when you need to be greedy And when those are greedy is when you'd be fearful and right now people are fearful.

So what are you going to do? As the Rothschild said, when there's blood on the streets, you buy. And right now this is a time of turmoil any way you look at it. Now I'm not saying try to capitalize off terminal, the turmoil here. I'm not happy for turmoil. I'm just making a simple comment is, is what are you doing differently?

I mean, you got, obviously everything around you has changed. Everything, whether it's post COVID, whether it's politics, whether it's political climate, whether it's a stock market from January to today, things have changed. What have you done? Do you understand what I'm saying? Because even if you bought large cap growth.

Was up 40%. Now it's up 25%. Shouldn't you have done something in between there? Like, do you have a strategy in place? What about bonds? Bonds were terrible last year. Down 15 plus percent, depending on how long duration you had. And they were good this year. Now it's like, eh. Big swings in the market. Have you done anything?

You know, the most simplest form is something called a rebalance. Which means you take what you made money on, bought what you lost money on. Well, you're like last year, almost everything lost. Well, you sell what you lost least amount in and buy what you lost the most in. But the point is, that's what's called strategy.

And my biggest concern is you're not having any strategy. And I see it often. It's so easy to be content and just say, You know what, things have always worked out the way I've been continually doing it. And that may be the case. But what if you can enhance your return by 3, 5, 10 plus percent annualized over long periods of time by having a strategy in place to continue to buy over time?

Now that's not a guarantee that you're going to do that much better, but I think we could agree to take a big overview of what you're looking at, what you're doing, and making sure what you're doing today is still good because what you could have been doing is investing in large tech companies, which, oh, by the way, happened in the early 2000, took 14 years for it to recap, recapture what it lost.

14 years just to come back even. Your million dollars went to 400, 000. Your 400, 000 took 14 years to go back to a million dollars. What if you're retired? What if retirement's closer than 14 years from now? Do you get what I'm saying? You have to reanalyze what is going on. By the way, folks, if you're just joining me, you're listening to Gabriel Sheen, certified financial planner, and your host of more knowledge, more wealth here on every weekend talking about all important topics of personal finance.

And I just wanted to go over with you the simple concept of understanding your situation because also what I'm seeing out there is like these frauds that are coming out here and trying to sell you some insurance products. Saying it's an investment. Think about that in insurance. You know it's illegal to profit off insurance.

Want proof of that? Try me getting a hundred million dollar life insurance policy. You know why I'll get declined? Because my family will be happy I'm dead. You get what I'm saying? It doesn't bring them whole. It enhances their life, which is not okay. The idea with all this, of course, is what are you doing in your current portfolio?

Don't go chase, don't get fearful because that's when real the sales people come out, try to take you because they know you're not happy with the stock market right now. They want you to sell and put your money somewhere else and they're trying to sell you false sense of security. I'm here to say there is no free lunch, number one, or free dinner from those free dinner seminars are probably being offered.

And there is no easy way to be successful, right? In your professional career, in your personal career. You've had to go through some turmoil, you had to go over some fights, you have to go over some hurdles. To be successful, you have to climb that corporate ladder or go through those grown pains, starting your own business.

What makes you think wealth accumulation is not different? Why? It is exactly the same. There are these bumps in the road, these detours that sometimes are being needed to take, and volatility that happens. You have to know that is normal. This is no different because you got to think that what you're investing in, what you're hopefully investing in, are companies.

Whether it's an indice or not, right, a basket of stocks or not, the S& P 500 or not, they're companies of the 500 companies that are in there. And each company has people working for them and people running them. Why is that important? So those people are resilient. Those people's goal is to keep going up.

As long as we agree that people's goal in life is to live and to prosper. Then the stock market goes up. Who cares about times of turmoil? Every time you get in a fight, what did you do? Punch somebody in the face? Divorce somebody? Quit your job? No! Because that's not being resilient. And those who succeed are resilient.

Those overcoming adversity are the ones that win. And the stock market is no different. Don't play a fool of what's going on. Don't fall into the news. But the question remains. What are you doing differently? Folks, if you need help with understanding what you're doing, what you should be doing, And taking a look at what you've already done, folks, give us a call.

Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon, like the bird, or visit our website at falconwealthplanning. com. That's Falcon, WP. com for short, where we can put a personal assessment for you that gives you one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time, folks, at no cost. And we have offices all over.

We can meet with you in person or through Zoom, whatever the case is, doesn't matter where you are in the country, we can help. Because looking at your portfolio, you got to see, number one, how are you concentrated in two aspects? Number one, large caps, mid caps, or small caps, right? What asset class are you in?

How much do you have in U. S. versus international? Do you have any fixed income? And the other side is sector. How are you currently positioned on a sector basis? Is it all big tech? Is it defense? Consumer staples? You get what I'm saying? Healthcare, finance, so on and so forth. Are you truly diversified and what tilt in your portfolio should you have?

Cause what I see more times than not is people bought an investment and they said they did great on it. They put 10, 000 now it's worth a hundred thousand. They made 10 times their money. God bless you. But now it's such a large position in your portfolio and we are just in different times right now.

What's great. It's not always great forever. Apple is a great company until a company called Banana comes in and puts them out of business. Jeff Bezos was quoted saying his goal as CEO is to keep Amazon in business as long as possible because one day they'll be out of it. You know what's a good example of that?

General Electric. Used to be one of the biggest companies in the world and now they're a tenth of the size and sold off all their profitable divisions just to stay afloat. You understand people adapt, but are you still doing the same thing over and over? Are you still having the same holdings? Do you still have those baby stock in your portfolio that you're like, I can't sell it.

This is my baby. Well, I already lost so much. What's the point of selling it now? I get it. I've been there. The idea is. You have to adapt, you have to overcome adversity, and you have to prioritize your financial goals. You may not have to take as much risk to achieve your financial goals that you have.

You may not need to invest in the way you're investing. It may be causing unnecessary taxation, unnecessary reduction of returns, and unnecessary risk. You have to analyze these things. And I want to go over with you the items that you should be doing and the things you should be taking into account.

Because what I see more times than not, is people mess up. People don't do things right and people stay the same. When you go to a high school reunion, most time, there's that little bit of people that never changed. And those are normally not the most popular, excuse me, the most successful people at those reunions.

Those who have adapted, those that adapted to the environment around them, and to do what is necessary to succeed. I'm just telling you from experience, folks. I deal with people like you all day long. And changes are necessary. If you need help with those, we want you to give us a call. If you just want to see if you need to do changes, give us a call.

If you want to take a look at what you're doing that's well and what you're doing that's not. Give us a call. That's what we're here for. Folks. Like I said, we're offering one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time at no cost. Folks. Give us a call. Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon.

Like the bird or visit our website at Falcon wealth planning. com. That's Falcon WP. com for short where you can go and learn more about us and even put in a form fill there so we can give you a buzz and set up a meeting. Folks, we're going to go on a quick break and we come back. We're going to talk more about number one, what you should be avoiding and number two, what you should be doing because this is the time where predators are out there trying to take advantage of you.

Times of duress. People get desperate. Don't be that person that falls For these tactics. We'll be right back after a few words.

 Welcome back folks. This is Gabriel Sheehan, Certified Financial Planner and your host for more knowledge, more wealth here on every weekend talking about all important topics of personal finance. And today I was just talking about your accounts. You might not be so happy with your accounts. Definitely in 2022 you weren't happy.

Find me the person that made a lot of money in 2022. It, they don't exist. Almost every single asset class lost money. Almost everyone, like literally 96 percent of all asset classes lost money. Okay. Now find me though. Now P by the way, people were happy in 2023. Why? Cause the market really started off with a boom.

It did very well, which normally happens after market drops, which to my point, don't overreact. Imagine taking all the risk, right? There's risks and rewards to investing. Why do we invest? Yeah, you could say it. To make money. Hello? You don't invest to lose, you invest to make. But what's the risk of investing?

To lose money. Well, you already lost the money. Stick around for the reward. What is wrong with you? It's like going to a movie theater, paying for your ticket, and then leaving before the movie starts. Because you didn't like one of the previews. Seriously? You know the movie's gonna be good. You know. It's the characters you want, the script that you want, and the actors you want.

So don't overreact on something that is temporary. You're not watching the movie about the preview, you're watching the movie of the movie that you know the synopsis, the plot, and the story about. You already know what the ending is. So my comment to you is focus on the eye on the prize. And avoid those people trying to take advantage of you.

The people that are trying to tell you gold. That America's going downhill. How perfect of it if I was a commission based gouger trying to take advantage of people. I'd be selling gold left and right. It's unregulated. SEC can't regulate that. They could charge you 50 percent commission, you give them 100 grand, they'll pocket 50 grand without you even knowing it, and you only have 50, 000 in gold.

And then you go to sell it later, let's say that 50, 000 goes to 100, they can take another 50 percent on the sell side. You know the only person making money is the person who sold it for you, and bought it for you. Not you. Unregulated. And how perfect of it, doesn't it feel like America right now has some turmoil?

Just internally, you have Democrats and Republicans are like so against each other. Be careful for gold. You see all this crap that's coming on TV and radio infomercials and on the internet, talking about how America's going to hell and you should have gold. Are you serious? Okay. Let's just say it goes to gold.

What are you going to do? You're going to take a piece, chip off a piece of that gold and go give it to Starbucks. Seriously, give me a break. I mean, people are so funny sometimes. I don't get it. It's like, oh, Gabriel, I heard you say it. It sounded stupid when you said it, but I swear that, that end of USA.

org seems so legitimate. Yeah, because it's designed to convince you and fool with you and play with your emotions. This is why you need a financial partner. This is why you need somebody there to slap you a little bit. So I heard wives and spouses and husbands do that. Sometimes they shake us a little bit.

Family does that too. If you're doing it alone, you shouldn't be. And you have professional or personal people around you still, you need that personal opinion because those are the professional opinion, because those professionals have seen this movie before they seen the same infomercials come out in 2020, 2018, 2008 to 2010 in the dot com bubble in the nineties and the eighties and you get where I'm saying it's been around forever.

Avoid those things. Same with insurance products and people going to free dinner seminars. Listen, go for the free dinner. I have nothing against a free dinner. But my God, their job is to make you feel warm and fuzzy. And make you feel important and successful. And then they'll sell you. And take advantage of you.

Because they're lying to you on how things work. Guaranteed income? Great. But the IRS says when you put your money into annuity, you're a loser. Not like a loser in life, just a loser in the investment. You lost 50 percent of that money. That 50 percent is going to the annuity company. Like, seriously? Think about that for a second.

The IRS deems it where you're going to lose. Half of it. Is that something you want to do? It's almost like a rhetorical question. I don't expect an answer, but people buy annuities because they believe the person that's selling it to them. It's sad. I don't, I mean, I don't blame you when somebody tells me something, I expect it to be right as well.

Right. We're honest people. We assume when somebody tells you something, gives you their word. They're honest too. Folks, welcome to the financial services industry. That's not always the case. By the way, folks, if you're just joining me, you're listening to Gabriel Shane, certified financial planner, and your host of more knowledge, more wealth here on every weekend, talking about all important topics of personal finance.

And I'm here to tell you to avoid these insurance salespeople trying to sell you annuities and insurance products, especially these index universal lives. Sounds great till it's not. Find me somebody who's had a 20 years. Oh, I can't. It's so new because it's so great. Give me a break. It's garbage. Stock market.

You know why all the mega wealthy has their money in the stock markets? Over real estate and everything else? Because there's over 100 years of data to support it. I don't like the idea of this mumbo jumbo nonsense. Trying to take advantage of you. What's my recommendation to you? Stick in the stock market.

I'm not saying buy Apple, buy Tesla, buy Amazon, buy Google, buy Facebook. I'm not saying any of that. I said the stock market, which, oh, by the way, contains all those companies. And don't just get large companies, but medium companies, but small companies, international companies, emerging markets, developed markets.

You get what I'm saying? You see what you're doing? You're avoiding sectors, by the way, because all each asset class has a sector. I'm just suggesting that this could be a fantastic strategy for you to be globally diversified. And more importantly, you have to figure out how much is in each category. You know, the stock market has about 77 percent exposure just in large companies.

Is that what you should do? Well, it depends on your situation depends on your risk tolerance. Spent on how much you need for a rate of return. I know what you're saying. I want 10. I want 20 I want 30 you could be bill gates and assuming bill gates spends 1 million a year. Let's just say that's a lot of money right, that's like 85, 000 a month, you know what I mean?

That's a lot of money and he has let's say 100 billion dollars He will never outlive his money. His money could be earning zero point Zero percent, right? Because if he lives for a hundred years at a million dollars, that's only a hundred million. And oh, by the way, he has a hundred billion. You get what I'm saying, right?

But because of the respect of money, because you want to keep up with inflation, so on and so forth, and you want to help people, whether it's your kids, your heirs, or charity, or just other people, you can put it to work. But do you have to go for a 10 to 20 percent rate of return? No, but there are methods that you can invest in, such as globally diversified portfolios, which you can get a controlled risk and return environment.

Folks, I'm not making this up. This is what pension funds do, corporations, foundations, endowments. If it's good enough for trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars, shouldn't it be good for you or not? I mean, their job, thinking of a pension, they have to pay out CalPERS and CalSTRS five to 10 billion a month.

They can't afford a lot of ups and downs and volatility. That's how you need to be thinking of your money as a quasi pension. Folks, this is why we're offering a free financial assessment. Give us a call. We'll offer you one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time at no cost. We'll help relate the show to your specific situation.

Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon. Like the bird. We can help answer the questions that you have and make sure you are not being attacked for people trying to take advantage of you. Financially attacked. Financially taken advantage of. Sad folks. That was a fast show. I want to thank you for tuning in with me this weekend.

You can always reach out to myself or any one of our colleagues here at Falcon Wealth Planning. Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon, like the bird or visit our website at falconwealthplanning. com. That's falconwp. com. For short, where you can get this episode or any one of our previous episodes as well, where you can go to our knowledge center and where you can get find market commentary and strategies through our YouTube channel.

And feel free to get these episodes on Spotify and podcasts as well. Folks, that was a fast, fast show. If you have any questions, don't always forget to go to radio at falconwp. com where you can send questions that you have that I will read on air. Folks have a fantastic weekend. Have a great week and God bless.