good morning crowd welcome to the sense

of things with Jeff and Ron here once

again for another wonderful week of

what’s going on in the world what’s

going on in the economy and what the

heck is going on in the markets right

now we are going to talk a little bit

today about spring since it’s the first

day officially of spring the spring

equinox or whatever the heck they call

it ron’s going to talk with us a little

bit about the debt clock and he’s got

some stuff on fear and greed i’m going

to talk a little bit about technical

analysis and really the way I learned it

and the way the market is setting up for

what we call a follow-through day so

stay tuned it’s an important show and

we’ll see you guys right back here in

just a second

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

hey everybody welcome to the show ron

how are you doing my friend good morning

Jeff yes chaos is constant what can you

do about it but it’s all good it’s all

good got a lot of good stuff today and

let me jump right into it here awesome

ah all right here give me one sec no

worries here we

go all right so three good ones this

week what famous soft drink was invented

in 1892

uh Dr pepper

i really thought you were going to get

this one

coca-cola okay yeah they were first i

think Dr pepper may have been second you

may have You’re probably close so yeah

all right i figured I’d throw a softball

when in there the next one I did now I

did not if I heard this it was a long

time ago what two words were combined to

create spam

oh I have really have no idea

the military i thought you would have

gotten this one it’s all Yeah we didn’t

eat spam in the military dude

all right no guess no no clue all right

spiced ham this is hilarious

yeah i honestly I cannot tell you I’ve

ever actually eaten spam once

as an adult i can’t remember it i don’t

think my mom ever made it yeah no one in

my like Crystal my wife she had it when

she was growing up because they were a

military family and I think they used to

eat the Krations or whatever but yeah I

don’t I personally can’t think of it i

was of the generation in the military

where we had MREs and we had the pork

patty which was probably the most

disgusting form of sustenance ever it

was literally akin to a brillow pad and

there was not enough water on the planet

to rehydrate it gotcha gotcha all right

and the last one is where were French

fries invented belgium my man dang i

forgot that I know my food brother but I

don’t consider spam food so I know my

food

yeah here all right so here we go i

thought this was interesting the CNN

fear and greed index almost every I

could I wasn’t going to bring up all the

gauges almost every gauge is extreme

fear except for one market volatility so

you would think if we’re extreme fear

why wouldn’t the market volatility be an

extreme fear and elevated above 25 or 30

well this kind of threw me for a little

loop because a lot of people have said

the VIX has been a broken indicator for

quite some time i don’t know but the

thing the thing that makes me laugh

because I actually commented on this the

other day when the market was up like

massive one day and then way down the

next day and I was watching the VIX on

the screen when I on our TV here and I’m

like I don’t get the math on this how

can it and if the market just is steady

upward the VIX should be flat or low if

it’s going from this range to this range

it should be higher what’s the math here

i don’t get it especially with one one

and a half% moves either way that’s

called volatility i call that volatility

that should be a higher spike in the

index i don’t get how the VIX can be

down so obviously something is broken in

their calculations

yeah and with fear brings opportunity so

with with that is the junk the junk bond

demand which were agreed because

obviously that’s getting suppressed the

yields go up so you can get some I know

how this sounds some good junk bonds at

a pretty good at a pretty good yield the

thing is yeah junk bonds are considered

what double B and below there’s some

really outstanding double B companies i

thought it was C but okay no it’s double

B okay yeah it’s double B or below so

there’s some pretty outstanding

companies that are double B and largely

they’re there because they have a lot of

debt and so they have to pay a little

bit more but I mean it’s a I always have

a decent sized sleeve of junk bonds or

high yield bond they’re high yield bonds

i hate that term junk bonds it sounds

like they’re just complete garbage it’s

No they pay their bills so the default

rates have been incredibly low on junk

bonds for years until we hit until we

hit a rough patch in the economy

true yep we just haven’t hit one and who

knows where we’re going to be at well

you hate the word junk right but the

most one of the biggest high yield ETFs

is JNK the symbol

I know I hate the term i invest in that

with client money we are invested in JNK

but I just hate the term because it’s

just it’s not really reflexive of what

it is they’re not going out and buying

you know dumpster diving yeah d and F

yeah there’s a lot of window in there

where Yeah they have to pay a little bit

more but they’re still actually good

companies or stable companies okay and

then I can’t show this real time but if

you ever just go to this website Yeah

and just watch it everything is changing

instantaneous

so I just wanted to bring up a couple of

things because it’s been a while since I

saw this uh number one the unfunded debt

interest so there’s a couple of things

here that I wanted to bring up first of

all this debt loan the student loan debt

I always thought this is ridiculous

because a lot of these people never even

got a degree yep they got these loans

they left for whatever reason they’re

still on the hook and a lot of these

things are at 6 to 8% on average these

loans and it’s like they’re almost never

going to pay it yeah and it’s been run

since the Obama administration it’s all

been run under the Department of

Education who they’re not designed to be

a collection

agency they’re an education department

so it’s okay it’s a mess and the payoffs

have just not happened in there and the

fact that for what four years they

didn’t have to pay on them up until what

was it like September of last year for

four years most of Biden’s

administration they didn’t have to pay

on actually yeah it was October 23 but

it doesn’t matter it was four years

because it was from 12 2020 to 2020 yeah

so it was four years but I thought this

is interesting because the chart we

showed last week I don’t think was the

most current here’s the credit card debt

reaching

1.3 trillion jesus this is carryover

debt monthto month and we’ve been

saying the ice on this pond is going to

crack at some point yeah that means look

at this eight

$8,200 in just like debt that you’re

paying an average of

21.6% in annual interest

it’s a little bit much okay and then the

new additions to this chart which I

don’t even know where they’re on here

but now they’ve got the new stuff where

at

in the upper left okay upper left yeah

yeah so you’ve got the Doge clock in

there so they’re actually you know

showing okay this is what we’re doing

from the Doge perspective to to do it

unfortunately if you actually watch this

thing in real time which if you go to us

debtclock.org everything else on the

negative side is clicking off like

literally as fast as you can imagine and

the Doge clock can only do so on that

side i got it and just couple other

things I wanted to point out the total

debt to GDP so I know they always said

there was a Buffett factor Buffett

number and I remember vividly 25 years

ago like

literally market strategist people

talking almost laughing at the Japanese

cuz they were 140 or 150% of total debt

to GDP and we’ve breached 100 two and a

half was two and a half three years ago

here we are at 133%

and not slowing down anytime soon and

other people saying it’s different this

time that we’ll wait until people stop

buying our treasuries yeah yeah and we

can’t finance this big ugly beast that’s

running on there yeah the proof will be

in the pudding when I see the federal

budget for this year and that we are put

that the federal budget is lower than it

was the previous year all I want is if

we could just see it lower than the

previous year I would see that it’s

going in the right direction i still

don’t have any faith that we’ll see that

it’s it’s amazing how no it doesn’t

matter who or what nobody seems to want

to stop this just ugly machine from

rolling no so here we are i wanted to

just bring this up

because I did a calculation so the US

population is around 340 million people

us

retirees is 60 it’s almost 18% so think

about it one out of every five almost

out of every five somebody over 65 70

that’s retired yep

and it’s tough to comprehend really what

that means because these are people

either on fixed income obviously needing

social security to a certain extent and

I deal with retirement planning all the

time and I try and tell people we want

to set up two buckets when you retire

one bucket to just generate the income

and another bucket for conservative

growth because if you ever need money a

new roof a new car a new HVAC you’re not

going to get it from social security you

got to draw it from the other bucket

because you don’t want to interrupt the

income bucket so one out of every five i

thought that was interesting yeah the

reality is they’re also the largest

generation in our country ever you know

the baby yeah the millennials I think

are the second largest generation now so

they’re getting out and working and now

they’re realizing holy crap man we’re

paying for all this but you know those

are people that are off the

theoretically they’re off the books as

far as contributing into the social

security system and all that but the

fastest growing area of new employees

is people over the age of 65

listen I talk to a lot of people and I

say there’s a big difference between you

want to retire yep i’m sorry i’m sorry

you want to work or you have to work yes

and there’s a lot of people that aren’t

necessarily into golf yes they’d like

some more downtime but many of them

enjoy working a lot of them want to pull

the rip cord we all know that but

there’s a lot of people it’s like “Hey

look I’m healthy i don’t mind getting a

salary plus a lot also until you turn 65

and eligible for Medicare they need the

health insurance they need the health

insurance yeah my dad’s a great example

my dad’s 83 years old he works at Lowe’s

he doesn’t have to work at Lowe’s but

also that’s like a hobby job for him

yeah it really is and like I said he’s a

he was a quality control engineer so

what is the best gift that you can give

a quality control engineer put them in

the middle of a hardware aisle where

people are going I need your help and

yeah it’s Oh let me show you he’s like

the greatest the guy has never been in

sales ever in his life he was in a sales

manager role once and did terribly at it

but you put him in that role and he’s Oh

what are you trying to do oh you’re

going to need this tool and you’re going

to need problem solver yeah that’s what

he does he solves problems he fixes he

helps people fix stuff and I can

guarantee you it just the way he works

when any project we worked on if two

screws was good 12 screws had to have

been better at that point so if you just

look at him as an employee their their

sales and hardware are probably up

dramatically because he’s there and the

funny thing is he doesn’t have to be

there but he has that work ethic that

the baby boom generation has and it’s

like he’s there rain shine we had ice up

in the Dallas area he was the first guy

into the place on those ice days when

everybody else didn’t want to come in

and so I I honestly am looking for in my

co-working space I’m looking for a

retiree right now to run the co-working

space for us because I’m like they’re

going to be here they’re not going to

quit via text and all that stuff so

I hear you all right let me quickly

share my stuff because I actually had a

some fun facts that we’re going to share

today let me pull this up

here so spring fun fact since it’s the

first days spring can actually make you

smarter studies show that people think

faster and are more creative in the

spring because increased sunlight boosts

vitamin D which enhances brain functions

i can see that i can see it as well oh

wait a minute hang on here i’m trying to

share this thing there we go now you

should be able to see it now I will tell

you last Tuesday I I taught a an

entrepreneurship class at my local high

school on sales and I will tell you that

spring may make you smarter but spring

break makes you not very engaged in

listening about how to do sales for sure

this is cool the Masters Golf Tournament

brings in big money every April in

Augusta Georgia The Masters generates

over $150 million in revenue and sells

out years in advance even though tickets

are nearly impossible to buy unless you

win a lottery are you a big golf fan on

TV or

I endure it i’ll watch it every now and

then actually last year for the first

time in my life I went to two golf

tournaments i went to the Phoenix Open

here which was very interesting and then

two months later I was in Orlando i went

to the Arnold Palmer and I got to tell

you it was a nice experience it’s not

for because on TV it’s moving around

let’s just say you’re on the green they

play great then you’re waiting 10 15

minutes for them to come there’s nothing

to do you don’t realize until you’re at

a tournament not much is going on oh

it’s boring as I consider I consider

golf on TV like watching old people have

intercourse it’s just not very exciting

but yeah worse mentioning that but okay

yeah really the the tournaments I think

the only time I’ve really truly enjoyed

tournaments like that my mom’s boss used

to be a member of the Colonial Country

Club in Fort Worth and every year he

would play every like three years he’d

play in the proamp we would actually

follow his tusome basically so you got

to really know the golfer that they were

playing with and stuff like that or

their forsome or whatever they were

playing with so you got to interact with

the golfer and stuff like that the pro

golfers and things so he played with

like John Daly one year and Greg Norman

and I can’t think of the guy the Ian

Baker Finch which was that was the year

that Ian Baker Finch he hit the ball

into the water and he ended up taking

his pants off and walking into the water

and hitting the ball out getting it onto

the green so it was it was always fun to

do that and be but just standing there

watching people hit I can’t even stand

it when I’m playing just watching people

I know i know all right what else you

got all right we got Peeps are America’s

bestselling Easter candy

you got it okay billion Peeps love Peeps

annually oops i cannot stand them i like

the yellow they even out sell chocolate

bunnies every year just can’t believe

and this year like all the decor is like

peeps which I don’t understand all right

springtime is allergy season for 50

million Americans i don’t know if you’ve

got that out not so bad i have allergies

but not so bad out here yeah I will tell

you Austin is the wonderful world of

allergies so out of the $3 billion

that’s spent per year on allergy

medications at least 1.5 is spent in the

Austin area because I live in the town

of Cedar Park uh

which it’s nothing but cedar and

mountain laurel trees okay and the last

one spring was once considered the new

year before the Gregorian calendar many

cultures including the Persians and

Romans celebrated New Year’s Day in

spring since it symbolized renewal and

growth i’ve never understood why the new

year started in the middle of winter but

yes this makes more sense quite frankly

from their perspective okay and the

Persians still celebrate their festival

of now in March so pretty cool

interesting all right last but not least

I wanted to just cover I mean I’ve had a

lot of conversations with clients

certainly with the markets going a

little crazy we are I think officially

at the bottom down here we were 10% off

of the all-time high that’s part of what

I have addressed with clients is yes the

market’s down it’s down about 4% for the

year but we’re down 10% off the all-time

high ever at that point what has been

setting up here this week i grew up

where I learned technical analysis and

investing was through the investors

business daily and one of the things

that Bill O’Neal always talked about

when it came to market direction is

what’s called a follow-through day and

we are setting up for a follow-th

through day here we’ve set up twice this

week for it and what a follow-through

day is a day where the we’re above the

previous day on a candlestick and then

we go up another so we had that and then

the third day if it’s up is what’s

called a follow-through day meaning that

the market tends to follow through and

start to move upwards the higher lows

too yeah so we almost were there and

then we bounced back the other day and

then yesterday we were up and today

we’re setting up for this i don’t want

to jinx it but it’s actually looking

like things have bottomed out and are

settling a little bit now there’s a

multitude of things that can affect the

market everything from what’s going on

over in Palestine and Israel to what’s

going on with everything in Ukraine and

Russia is that all resolving itself plus

the tariff stuff april 2nd is going to

be the day where we start to talk about

reciprocal tariffs and everything it’s

interesting that one of the most under

reportported things that I’ve seen on

the tariff front is that with the threat

of higher tariffs to Europe they have

actually caved and are willing to deal

and come bring their 10% tariffs down to

our 2 and 12% tariffs on cars which in

the end it’s not really much because we

don’t really export all cars to Europe

primarily because the tariffs were so

high but two we build big massive cars

that don’t fit on European streets but

it’s interesting to see how that’s

balancing out and how this whole trade

negotiations and everything are

happening so a lot of things could

happen but both the S&P and the NASDAQ

are setting up for that follow-through

day which that’s something I’m going to

be paying extreme attention to because

we we pulled back a ton of risk on our

portfolios now I’ve got to really figure

out when that time is to start shifting

back into the markets a little bit more

it’s going to get rocky and probably

trade sideways for a few more months

yeah which you know even if it trades

sideways I’m fine with that you can

still make money in a sideway market

because of individual securities and

stuff like that but the perpetual

downward motion it’s just not a fun

market to invest in because there’s

really just nothing you can do in those

cases and that the animal spirits are

just working against you at that point

cool

i ag I agree like I said I think this is

going to continue right through Q2 and

and then from there again I keep

investing at these levels what’s the big

deal as long as there’s no major

geopolitical event will be higher by the

end of the year most probably absolutely

like I said I think everything’s setting

up we’ll get tax policy later in the

year hopefully some of this these cuts

will get codified by the Congress and we

actually take money away from the

machine for a change instead of feeding

more money into the machine and once

again I the proof will be in the pudding

with with the budget if one time in my

lifetime I actually see that the federal

budget decreases

um we’ll then I’ll call it a win but

until I see that I just It happened 30

years ago we’ll see what happens yeah it

happened 30 years ago and it hadn’t

happened since so regardless of Democrat

or Republican they always seem to find

ways to spend more monies

i agree i agree all right my friend

thanks folks for joining us we will see

you guys back here next week make sure

you subscribe to the channel and we will

see you back here the very next time