Transcript:

Announcer:

This is More Knowledge, More Wealth, with your host, Gabriel Shahin. Gabriel is a certified financial planner and a registered investment advisor at Falcon Wealth Planning. This show is not intended to provide personalized investment advice through this broadcast and does not represent that the services or securities discussed, are suitable for any investor. Investors are advised not to rely on any information contained in the broadcast, in the process of making a full informed investment decision. More Knowledge, More Wealth, on AM 590 The Answer. Now here's your host, Gabriel Shahin.

Gabriel Shahin:

Good afternoon. This is Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner, and your host of More Knowledge, More Wealth here on every weekend, going over all important topics of personal finance.

My goal is to share with you the knowledge you need to increase your wealth.

Now to the listener, 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, with any personal questions you have that you want to relate this show to your specific situation.

Now, I'm principal of Falcon Wealth Planning, a registered investment advisory firm. We are an independent fee-only financial planning firm that also manages client money as well. But we cover all important topics of personal finance, guys, that goes where you are today. How retirement looks like. Talking about taxes, investments, estate planning, insurance, folks, you name it. Anything that involves the dollar sign.

If you want help and would like this show to be related to your situation, please give us a call. We help people all across the country and our headquarters is in Southern California. The Inland Empire, to be specific.

Give us a call. Our phone number is 855-963-2526 that's 855-96-FALCON like the bird. Or visit our wealth website at falconwealthplanning.com. That's falconwp.com, for short. We have some really good blogs on there, and so on, folks.

I wanted to talk to you today. There is so much going in the world right now. Obviously, the biggest topic, the thing that everybody is talking about currently is what's going on in Russia. And for good reason, guys. This is sad. It's tragic.

Now more than ever, we can relate to this due to social media. We can see, almost directly, what's going on, almost instantly, and just the effects this has on the globe.

But we also have to take into account because there is massive effect this is causing. This could be psychological, emotional, and, of course, financial. And we're seeing that on all levels.

We're seeing that from Ukraine side and even on the Russian side with new banking sanctions, where money flow going in and out is now more difficult than it was before with this whole SWIFT issue where they can no longer get in coming money.

We'll talk about a little bit later, as I do want to talk about the effect wars have. I do want to talk about the involvements of other countries, and how Russia has been preparing for this, and also just global issues, folks.

As sad as this is, this isn't the first time we've seen this movie. So I do want to go into all of that today in our very short time that we have, because this isn't the time to be rattled. This is the time to be strong, as we've seen that with leaders across the globe.

This is a time where us as investors, as humans, as individuals to take a look at the current situation and number one, don't take for granted what we have here, but more importantly, is what can you do to secure your financial situation by not overreacting? What can you do to understand more about the conflict that's going on?

So understanding that wars, invasions, attacks are sadly not a foreign item for America to understand. And even just America directly. You can look at the 50s in the Korean war. You can look at Vietnam. That lasted for a while, but our involvement during the 60s. You can go into the 80s where the Lebanon had their multi-intervention country crisis. You can go to the Gulf War in the 90s.

Guys, these were volatile periods in the stock market. People forget sometimes how rough the 90s were. It was an absolute technological boom towards the second half of the nineties after '95. But folks, this is a movie we've seen before. And America was fully involved in that one, let alone the early 2000s with the Afghan War and the Iraq with 9/11 and so on.

And that one we were directly involved. Our troops were there in war, shooting. But right now we're not.

Can it happen? Sure. Do we want it to happen? No. Will it be maybe necessary for it happen? I don't know.

But understanding and preparing yourself for this mentally, psychologically, and financially, because yes, we have seen an impact in the stock market right now, and you may continue to see an impact, but my goodness, the stock market is so confused right now. You've seen that with the market having a thousand points wings on a daily basis, it ending or starting negative and ending positive. And vice versa, starting positive and ending negative.

We have to ask ourselves three main questions, and I went over this last week, and that is, are you still going to use the internet? Are you still going to buy on Amazon? And are you still going to eat food?

I know that seems frivolous and silly to even mention those things. I'm not trying to be coy about the situation. I'm simply trying to mention that people will still live their lives. And they lived their lives during the COVID crash as well, during the COVID crisis. Money just shifted in different areas as we discussed.

So we are resilient as humans. That's just how we are. We will always find a way to survive. We have to. Not you're dead. So it's extremely important that you know that this war's going on. We're not happy about it. Nobody in the world is. I would hope even Russia's not happy about it.

And each person has their side. And the goal today is not to just take sides, as I think a majority of the world is trying to support Ukraine of what's happening.

The importance of what's going on right now is how is it affecting you.

By the way, folks, if you're just joining us, you're listening to Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner, your host of More Knowledge, More Wealth here on every weekend. You can catch your episodes on Podcasts, Spotify, or just listening to it live at your local radio AM 590 The ANSWER.

So to highlight the fact, folks, is when war happens, volatility sets in and we could look at this in fear versus understanding what this really means. And what this really means is this could be an area of opportunity.

And I hate to say it like that, especially when there's so much turmoil, and I always fixate on money and that's not the case, but people have to live life. And with that, they have their investments invested, whether it's in your 401k, IRA, brokerage account, investment Roth, whatever the case is, you do have money invested. And you're seeing the volatility of what's happening.

And this is not okay, of course, because this is your life savings.

And I've had multiple people call and say, "I'm freaked out. I want to sell my investments."

And of course they wanted to do this at the worst time. And I have to remind people, they've been with us for five, 10 plus years, that we've seen this movie before and worse. We've seen worse horror movies. This is a time to stay disciplined.

Part of our job as advisors sometimes is just to manage the emotion of individuals. And I know it could be very difficult to do that when they're on social media and they're seeing the tragic things that are going on. It's sad. It's hard not to. Somebody married with kids, it's hard to see somebody put their family on a bus and go fight for their country. It's difficult. It's sad. And I can relate to that. Not that I've done that, but just the mental, emotional state that they must be in. I can relate to that with someone with kids.

And the issue, of course, is we are letting our emotions drive our financial and other professional decisions we make. And this is the biggest mistake of investing.

This is what the Nobel Prize was given in 2016 on behavioral finance, and the Nobel Prize was in finance and economics. It proves that not just on personal level, some of the emotions and mistakes that you've made, it's based on emotion, but on a financial level too.

People have natural home field biased where you'll invest in a company that's local. Just like your favorite sports team. Some people are biased on what's going on currently in the world of how they will invest. You have to stay disciplined.

Did you know Russia was less than a 1% exposure in global market capitalization? Well, less than 1%? So if you are invested, you have less than 1% exposure.

So what does that mean? What's mostly you get from Russia? Maybe not America, but the world? Gas, oil, vodka, some minerals and precious metals. Sure.

But what effect does that have? It's the indirect effect of people being more worried. Just like what's on your mind right now. What are you talking about? What are you seeing on your social media channels? That's what getting the attention.

And I don't blame it. I'm not trying to say ignore what's going on. I'm just trying to say don't let it affect your whole life in regards to your finances. Making decisions based on what you're seeing on TV should not be done.

Some of the benefits of having the internet is that you're able to go on and make trades, and make information, get everything. On the tip of your hands, you can do that instantly, which is amazing, which is great. One of the negatives is that you can go and sell all your investments in the click of a finger. You can get all the information you need very quickly. I have a love/hate relationship with the media, because yes, with technology, you can get all this information so quick.

You don't want to react to it as quickly as you receive it. You're reactive. You don't want to be reactive. You want to be proactive. And that's why sometimes I see people not having the disciplined approach to how they manage their money, and how this directly evolves around the investment portfolios people have. Number one, how they're invested, number two, what are they doing? Are they buying and holding it the whole time?

Even if you're investing in index funds, which I love index funds. You're just buying and holding it?

Folks, if you do that, you can invest in an investment like Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, or some of these other ones, where, yes, it's done great over long time, but you can do the Vanguard World Index, and hasn't done anything for maybe 10 years.

So you have to understand that volatility is your friend. I'm not trying to say war is your friend? I'm trying to say volatility is your friend. Whatever it may be. COVID for example. Well, COVID's not your friend. Of course, it's not. But volatility is your friend. You can make a lot out of money by buying on the dips.

And more importantly, being proactive is selling when things are hot, when things are high. And I just don't see people do doing that.

If you need help with this. If this is something that sounds like you, that invested properly, but is getting caught up in the emotion of everything that's going on, give us a call. We'll give you a second opinion of everything going on. We do this on a daily basis, folks. We help people all across the country. Our phone number is 855-963-2526. That's 855-96-FALCON like the bird.

Folks, we're going to go to a quick break. We're going to talk about investments and being disciplined during times of turmoil, because this will not be the end.

Folks, will be right back after a few words.

This is Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner, your host of More Knowledge, More Wealth that's on every weekend, covering all important topics of personal finance.

We're going over retirement planning, making sure you're prepared for retirement, social security, and strategies, real estate, taxes, avoiding them now and in the future, investments, reducing fees, commissions, and so on, insurance and estate planning.

Folks, we are offering a free financial assessment that you could take advantage of. We have offices all across Southern California, including the Inland Empire. Give us a call to take advantage. It's a $500 offer. Our phone number is 855-963-2526, that's 855-96-FALCON, like the bird, or visit our website, falconwealthplanning.com. That's falconwp.com for short.

Enjoy the show. We look forward to serving you

AM 590 The ANSWER.

Welcome back folks. This is Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner. Your host of More Knowledge, More Wealth, here on every weekend talking about all important topics of personal finance. And today we're talking about what's going on currently in current events, especially with the war going on between Russia and Ukraine.

And mostly it's just an attack it feels like, and thank God the world is there to help support, to an extent, Ukraine, whether it's financially and sanctions upon Russia.

Of course, the problem people are now recently starting to discuss is what effects could this have on America and the rest of the world, in short, a very simplified way of explaining this, with hothead Putin, and what he may be doing to potentially intimidate the rest of the world as he has mentioned now in multiple times about nuclear warfare, so on and so forth.

Yet again, folks not to discount what's going on because this is extremely important, but this isn't the first time we've seen this movie.

We've heard it multiple times through Russia before, number one. We've heard it with Middle Eastern countries, number two. And we also even had China testing this as well, threats to other countries as well. Let's not forget North Korea and a few other countries as well, but those aren't insignificant, but the point is there has been turmoil always.

And we've seen the stock market always react. Because the way the stock market works is it takes the information you have today and see what the long term ramification of that is, going forward. It's the ripple effect. And that's how the stock market is. They take information today and process what the ripple effect of that future information will be, and how it'll have future impact, I should say.

This is why it's important to consistently look at your portfolio, and consistently take profits, and consistently have certain allocations, and be proactive on your investments.

Hey, I believe in indexing the same as anybody else. Just go on the stock market, invest in the S&P 500, mid caps, small caps, international, so on and so forth. But if you just invest in these world indexes and buy and hold them forever, you're not going to get the proper returns the way you should, because you're just riding the wave. All you're doing is just collecting the dividends in the process.

By taking your gains and selling those, yes, selling your winners, and buying the losers, yes, the losers, the things not make any money and arguably losing you money. That is a diversified and disciplined way. And when you look at how it's done in the past five, 10, 50 years, that has proven to give market-like return without taking as much risk.

And it seems illogical folks, and you may feel that you do it, but the fact is I've seen extremely intelligent people recently not do it. On the contrary, they want to go off cash all of a sudden. I don't know what's going on with people, extremely intelligent people that are questioning if they should be in cash.

And more importantly, look at the performance in '21, '20 and 2019. These past three years, you should have had well over an annualized return of over 20%. And if you did not, what are you doing?

You really should be reviewing your strategy, if you're doing it right, if you're doing it wrong. More importantly, what are you missing? What are you not allocating? Hey, large cap growth has done great the past three to four years, but you have to understand, is it proper for you. And what is it going to look like going forward?

Hey, you know what else did great during that time? Same thing, large cap growth in the late nineties or in the nineties, I should say.

And then what happened in 2000? The dotcom bubble came and it took 14 years for the NASDAQ, which in essence were tech companies, 14 years to get back to where it was. Just flat for 14 years. That's part of the reason why the S&P 500 was not only flat for 10 years, but lost 10%.

Folks, it's extremely important to review what you're doing, especially something as important as your finances. And I know you're probably just having your 401k and invest it and that's fine. You're just blindly putting money in your dollar cost, averaging every paycheck you're buying in, which I like that.

But you also have to understand how you're invested and all the options that are available. Don't invest in everything. You have 10 options. Don't put 10% in each. That doesn't make sense. It's important to get a second opinion, especially when it's at no cost.

And that's why our firm is offering a free financial assessment for you to get a second opinion, to give you those recommendations. We'll give you one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time, at no cost.

I heavily recommend taking advantage of this, especially with the war going on. There are some funds out there that has a very large concentration in Russia, and you want to make sure that you are properly allocated and protected.

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 falconwp.com, for short.

Folks, we can help put this together for you, answer some of your questions, and have it reviewed.

By the way, folks, if you're just joining us, you're listening to Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner, your host of More Knowledge, More Wealth here on every weekend, talking about all important topics of personal finance.

So we have talked about the war that's currently going on and the effect, indirect and direct effect. We've talking about the investments and how you should do it.

In really looking at it from a global issue and why is it affecting global US and international markets so much. International makes sense, but remember Russia's only 1% exposure.

Well, what it's doing is currently taking the information that's out there and processing it. For example, could Putin send bombings or nuclear war on his neighboring countries in Eastern Europe or even Western world? Yes, he could. And it's a lot harder to stop versus America that probably has 15 minutes to an hour of time to react if something were to have been launched. We have many bases in between here in Russia. One of the reasons we have Hawaii. We many exposure to the world. America's mentality is control the air and control the water. And America's always had that mentality. That's why we have the strong Navy and Air Force. And we have very powerful forces there. That's why we have the allies that we have, is to have troops around the world at moment's notice.

But understanding the ramifications of what can happen is, well now you have people in the reserves that are being called, that's out of their jobs. They have to take a leave from their job. Rightfully so. and the employers have to work around that. Maybe hire somebody else, train somebody else. These people could be extremely hardworking, important individuals to run a property or a company, excuse me.

So these situations could be vital of indirect ways that people can be affected.

Somebody who sells vodka at a liquor store may have to pull it from their shelves, or not able to buy anymore. This also could be another indirect effect. How much? I don't know. Oil prices are going up because now other allies or members of NATO are not purchasing from Russia. They have to purchase from other sources. So now those other sources have it. Demand goes up, supply drops. What do they do with their price? They increase it. So other people are being affected by this as well.

There are lots of direct and indirect ways that this is being affected on the global economy.

Now we could argue that Putin knew about this. He's been stockpiling gold for a while. That's why his currency has been getting destroyed because of all the sanctions.

I'm not trying to say it doesn't hurt. Of course, it hurts. The billionaires of Russia have lost billions, upon billions, upon billions. 30 to 45% of their wealth, if not more, especially some of the oil tycoons over there, versus here in America where could be a five to 10% loss depending on the individuals holdings. And that not just billionaires, everybody, because mostly everybody nowadays is invested in the stock market.

Some people say, "Well, that's why I want to invest in real estate." Yeah, but you have interests rates going up. You're seeing some stability now in real estate prices, you're seeing rentals stay on the market a little longer where before you would have 10 to 15 applications. You're seeing the applicants are suffering from financial devastation where now they have bankruptcy. Your applicants are not as strong as they used to be.

So you are seeing some indirect things that are happening and there is no safe haven.

The prices of real estate continue to rise. The average home in America now is half a million dollars. That's pretty hard for a first time home buyer. You have to know where diversification plays in your overall situation. And it matters with you. What you're doing. How you're positioned. How much you make. What's your tax bracket in? What's your feeling of risk? These are all important attributes of what you should do.

And we're here to help. There's a reason we're offering a free financial assessment where we can relate this show to your specific situation.

Most firms charge $500 or more for this. We're offering it to you at no cost. I'd recommend taking advantage of it. Folks, we help people all across the country with our headquarters here in Southern California.

Give us a call to take advantage of this, folks. You have nothing to lose. 855-963-2526. That's 855-96-FALCON, like the bird, where we can help put a customized plan for you to make sure you're doing all the right things. Because if we can consistently and continually see volatility of what's going on in the world, you're going to get impacted. And don't ride the wave.

A diversified portfolio almost doubled during that 2000 and 2009 period because there was proactiveness, because there was diversification, and now more than ever, people don't have a diversified portfolio. They have these big tech companies, which are great until they're not.

Folks, that was a fast, fast show. I want to thank you for tuning in with me this weekend.

You can always reach out to myself or end one of our colleagues here at Falcon Wealth Planning. Our phone number is 855-963-2526. That's 855-96-FALCON, like the bird.

Our goal is to give you the confidence you to have a financial successful situation in retirement and through your working career. Our goal to give you the knowledge you need to increase your wealth.

We want to thank you for listening. We want you to have a great week, and God bless.