TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the first new episode of 2026. In Episode 130 of Cents of Things, Jeff Kikel and Ron Lang kick off the new year with a wide-ranging discussion on early market signals, overlooked economic indicators, market valuation, and the data that doesn’t get headline coverage. Ron starts with a fast-paced “This Week in History” segment—covering everything from the Julian calendar and Ellis Island to Babe Ruth, Alaska statehood, the Euro, and the origins of hip hop. Then the conversation turns to more timely topics, including: The surprising ingredients behind popular fast food items The most profitable companies of 2025 Why today’s market is fundamentally different from the dot-com era How election cycles historically impact market performance Jeff follows with a breakdown of underreported economic indicators, including a dramatic improvement in U.S. trade deficit numbers, jobless claims trends, and what upcoming data releases could reveal as the year unfolds. The episode wraps with a forward-looking discussion on new savings accounts for children, how time value of money creates massive opportunity, and what investors should keep an eye on as 2026 begins. If you’re looking for context, clarity, and a grounded perspective to start the year, this episode delivers. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly market insights and economic commentary. 00:00 – Welcome to 2026 & Episode Overview 01:00 – New Year Traditions & Holiday Wrap-Up 02:30 – This Week in History: Calendars, Culture & Innovation 05:00 – Babe Ruth, Alaska Statehood & the Euro 07:30 – Space Shuttle Program & Cultural Shifts 09:30 – Fast Food Ingredients & “Where’s the Beef?” 12:00 – The Most Profitable Companies of 2025 14:30 – Why This Isn’t the Dot-Com Bubble 16:00 – Election Cycles & Market Performance 18:00 – CAPE Ratio & Market Valuation Debate 19:30 – Jobless Claims & Quiet Economic Data 20:30 – Trade Deficit Improvement Explained 23:00 – China Trade Exposure & Global Shifts 24:30 – New Savings Accounts for Children 26:30 – Time Value of Money & Long-Term Opportunity 27:45 – Final Thoughts & What to Watch in 2026
Welcome to 2026 & Episode Overview
COT 130 ===
Jeff Kikel: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of The Cents of Things with Ron
and Jeff. This is the first new show of 2026. A lot went on in 2025. We we got through the year,
excellent time in the markets, and now we’re looking at what’s
coming up in the future. So Ron’s got a whole bunch of great stuff on this.
Week in history. Got some great information on the markets.
I’ll be talking a little bit about a couple of economic in indicators that I’ve been following
and seeing some interesting things. And there are things that typically
don’t get covered by the by the media so that it’s not all sexy like CPI and PPI.
So stay tuned. We’ll be right back on in just a second.
Jeff Kikel:
Hi everybody. Welcome to the show, [00:01:00] Ron. How are you, my friend? Happy New Year.
New Year Traditions & Holiday Wrap-Up
Ron Lang: Yes, happy New Year to you too. So I heard some people
debating on how far in the January you’re allowed to say Happy New Year to people.
Jeff Kikel: Okay I haven’t seen you since last year, so I can say happy new.
Ron Lang: I know I, it’s not for you and me. I’ll say Happy New Year you
in July. Don’t matter to me. Yeah, I just thought it was funny, but
Jeff Kikel: yeah. I don’t know how far you can go into it, but I’m still getting Happy New Year.
Ron Lang: It’s almost like that I haven’t seen almost how far into
January until you could take down your Christmas tree?
Yes. You’ve heard that debate too. Most people take it down by New Years,
but some people will let that go sometime in the January.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah. So I’ve got people in my neighborhood that still have
their Christmas lights up and Oh yeah. It’s now the
Ron Lang: night. How mind that that’s great.
When you’re coming home.
Jeff Kikel: No, I’m sorry.
Ron Lang: Got a problem with this.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah, no, I’m sorry.
Ron Lang: So you’re, the Scrooge
Jeff Kikel: not now, comes down the 2020, the 26th. All the Christmas stuff comes down,
man, it’s been up for a month. It’s time for it
to come down after the holiday. I’m done with it at that point.
Ron Lang: That’s right.
I was actually [00:02:00] in this supermarket on on New Year’s Day,
January 1st. Valentine’s stuff was already out. Oh,
Jeff Kikel: yeah.
Ron Lang: Already. I already had one bag, one bag of my Brock’s heart. So I’m good to go.
Jeff Kikel: We walked into Hobby Lobby and it was like crisp the
land that Christmas. Forgot, man. It was all spring stuff already.
So
Ron Lang: I love it. I love it. All right, you ready? Alright,
Jeff Kikel: cool man. Let’s kick us off with some fun stuff.
Ron Lang: All right, so we’re gonna go through these quick, we got a lot of things,
and then the next slide is gonna be that much more fun or scary,
depending on how you feel. In 45 BC I thought this was interesting.
This Week in History: Calendars, Culture & Innovation
The Julian Calendar takes effect for the first time on New Year’s Day,
meaning essentially it’s the calendar that we almost know today.
Jeff Kikel: Okay.
Ron Lang: 1809 Louis, oh, I spelled his name wrong. Louis Braille is
born creating braille for blind people to read.
Jeff Kikel: Nice.
Ron Lang: 18. 18. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published. If you’re a Mary Shelley or
a [00:03:00] Frankenstein fan in 1835, I had to put this one in
Jeff Kikel: it.
It could be however, it could be f Frankenstein. It. Just remember it just
Ron Lang: and every, and actually most people forget. Frankenstein
was not the name of the monster. It was the name of the doctor.
Jeff Kikel: It was the name of the doctor? Yeah.
Ron Lang: Yes.
Jeff Kikel: Okay. He’s just the monster.
Ron Lang: Yes. 1835 US debt reaches zero for the first time.
I think we just, I think we just passed 38 trillion. It is getting bad. It is getting bad.
And that’s a discussion for another time. ’cause I think I already beat that to death last year.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah.
Ron Lang: 1847 Samuel Colt. Sell his first 1847 revolvers to the
US government. His most famous one was the Col 45.
Jeff Kikel: Yes. But the one that he sold was actually a Texas original,
started by the Texas Rangers.
Ron Lang: Aha.
Jeff Kikel: So the Col you, the Col Patterson revolver was
created for the Texas Rangers. Okay. [00:04:00]
Ron Lang: 1861. This was news to me. Delaware rejects a secession from the union two weeks
after South Carolina becomes the first day to succeed. I did not know that.
Jeff Kikel: Did not know that either. Yeah.
Ron Lang: I thought it was interesting because, all right, I know ’cause if you see 1861,
this was right about when the civil war was about to begin.
Why was even Delaware contemplating that? I just,
yeah and it, and you start thinking about it. I’m like, okay. I couldn’t really,
I couldn’t tell you what side Delaware fought on in the Civil War. ’cause it’s in that kind.
It’s technically below the Mason-Dixon line, but I guess it fought on the side of the north.
It’s next to, yeah. It’s the northern Maryland and part of Pennsylvania touches. Yeah,
exactly. All right. 1863 ema Abraham Lincoln signs
the emancipation Wow. Proclamation 1892. The first immigrants arrive at Ellis Island. That’s
Babe Ruth, Alaska Statehood & the Euro
Jeff Kikel: crazy. [00:05:00]
Ron Lang: 1920, New York Yankees announced
the purchase of Babe Ruth from Red Sox and change everything.
Sorry. I know you’re a Bostonian.
Jeff Kikel: I am a Red Sox fan, and I wow.
Ron Lang: The Cur the curse was done 22 years ago. You don’t need to worry about it anymore.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah, it’s true. I was, and I was in town for it, so that was even the better
part. I happened to be traveling at that time, so it was it was an incredible time to be there.
Ron Lang: 1924, king touched Sarcophagus uncovered by Howard
Carter. Wow. I remember my parents went to Egypt and they actually had a kind of
a touring thing in the United States for that about 40 years ago. Yeah.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah. It was pretty cool.
Ron Lang: 19 42, 26 World War ii nations declare themselves a United Nations.
Huh. And now obviously without getting into it that is becoming
under fire again. So let’s just leave it there. 1950. They’re
Jeff Kikel: concerned about everything else but trying to be united.
Ron Lang: Yep. 1959, Alaska [00:06:00] admitted to
the Union. As the 49th state. What was the 50th state?
Jeff Kikel: Hawaii.
Ron Lang: That is correct. Hi Hawaii.
It was an interesting, quick, interesting note there. ‘Cause
this was during Eisenhower and they wanted to put in Alaska in there,
but Alaska was a red state and Hawaii was a blue state. And they said that no, you can’t
just add another state. So actually. They were supposed to go in at the same time.
I think they were either six months or a year apart when they became
yeah.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah, because it was 59 with with Hawaii too,
Ron Lang: yeah. And my last little edification here is look over the first 170 years,
we had 50 states. We haven’t added any in the last 65 plus to 66 years. I think that’s interesting.
Jeff Kikel: That’s probably a good thing.
Ron Lang: See if that changes in the next three years. 1969, George Steinbrenner’s
Group buys the Yankees for CBS for 10 million. Now it’s worth over 10 billion.
And the funny story about this is that CBS didn’t know, have a clue about running
a [00:07:00] baseball team. Obviously it’s much different today than it was back then.
But the funny story is it’s the only time someone ever bought one of the
four major league teams. Lost money. CBS actually lost money on that deal.
Jeff Kikel: I didn’t even know CBS owned it. That’s crazy.
Ron Lang: Oh yeah. That’s a famous story. 1972,
president Nixon, I didn’t know this, launches this space shuttle program.
Space
Jeff Kikel: shuttle program. Wow.
Ron Lang: If you just take out the Watergate thing,
there was a lot of good things he did with the EPA and car safety standards
Space Shuttle Program & Cultural Shifts
and getting rid of the gold standard. He launched the space shuttle program.
Jeff Kikel: If you have a chance to, there’s a, on the, I think it’s the World at War Channel.
They have a series on the the s. Secret Service, like the modern day Secret Service.
Ron Lang: That’s a good
Jeff Kikel: channel. And there’s a whole set. Yeah. It’s called The World at War Channel.
Ron Lang: Yeah.
Jeff Kikel: But it’s part
Ron Lang: of a MC.
Jeff Kikel: It’s freaking hilarious with when they talk about [00:08:00] him that,
the Secret Service hated him.
Yeah. They just absolutely despised him. He wasn’t
Ron Lang: likable guy.
Jeff Kikel: No, he was a terrible, he is a, just unlikable.
Ron Lang: He was a great, he was a very good politician. He just had
a lot of. Personal demons. Let’s leave it at that
Jeff Kikel: there. Let’s leave it at that. And that was exactly perfect. But yeah,
it was a really interesting seeing that kind of inside view.
Ron Lang: Here’s the other thing I thought he did was pretty good, even though a lot of
states did their own thing, signed the national speed limit law into law at 55 miles an hour,
1980. I had to put this in because I love it, but they also changed something to
make it more politically correct. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the word in there.
The Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper Delight becomes Rappers Delight. Hip hops
first top 40 hit. What’s wrong with that headline?
Jeff Kikel: Rapper. Still no idea.
Ron Lang: It wasn’t called hip hop then. It was called rap.
Jeff Kikel: Rap. Yeah, that’s true.
Ron Lang: They don’t wanna call it rap anymore because
of the negative [00:09:00] connotation. Anyway,
Jeff Kikel: so
Ron Lang: hip hop’s much better.
My own. My own. Ron Lang edification there. 1999, the Euro debuts.
Jeff Kikel: Okay,
Ron Lang: 2004. The more the Mars Explore Exploration Rover spirit. Safely lands on
the red Planet. I haven’t heard anybody debate that. That was a hoax too. Like the moon landing.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah.
Ron Lang: 2006. I remember I watched this game. Doug Flutie
makes the NFL’s first drop kick since 1941, and of course he had to do it.
And it was like I, I’ll never forget his celebration. Everybody laughing.
Fast Food Ingredients & “Where’s the Beef?”
Even the refs were laughing like, oh, like I can’t believe you just did that.
Jeff Kikel: You did this drop kick. I always loved on Saturday Night Live when he was around,
they were like. Doug Flutie and his sister’s Trudy and Judy Flutie.
Ron Lang: I don’t remember that.
Okay. Alright. So here,
Jeff Kikel: where’s the
Ron Lang: beef? I had to do this. Where’s the beef? So there was a, an article out, I saw it
on LinkedIn, that the mc, McDonald’s is facing a [00:10:00] lawsuit over the McRib ingredients. And
coming into question is basically identifying that if you look at the bottom of the yellow section.
Does not contain any meaningful quality of actual pork rib meat. Indeed,
none at all. Now, when I saw this, and I’ll let you comment in a second, I remember, and look,
I’m sure we could find two dozen stories, but I remembered a couple of other things.
I did a search. Taco Bell’s, mystery meat, what is actually in the beef.
And it’s a lot of like soy products that are all carbon, yay. And down here they
say it’s 88%. I actually, I remember the original story being around 40,
but they said it’s actually 35% beef. What the hell is the other? 65%. Now I will tell you,
my wife. Who started her working career as a manager for Taco Bell?
Okay, back in the day, they actually took real actual ground beef. [00:11:00] And put it in a
thing and they stirred it up and cooked it that way and everything else. The beans were all,
it was all hand cooked fresh stuff. And then they started
boiling bag things and God knows what’s in those boiling bag things.
I hear you. And then my last one was Jack in the Box. I remember this from
a few years back that they got wacka, dude. Because this wasn’t the, now I
remember the thing about the beef, but this one was about their chicken
nuggets contained soy protein concentrate, which is you lucky. Which is ed a filler.
I I don’t even, what the hell that
Jeff Kikel: is? You are lucky. It’s that I remember watching Jamie Oliver
did a series on like lunches, school lunches here in the United States.
He did this in England. He came here and did it, and he was showing. Like
the chicken nuggets that they do inside of schools here in the United States.
Basically what they do is they don’t even take the meaty part of the chicken. They
take all the [00:12:00] bones and the bits and pieces and parts and
The Most Profitable Companies of 2025
grind it up into a paste and turn it into a chicken nugget. And it was the grossest
thing I’ve ever seen. And the kids, he’s Hey, does anybody wanna try one of these?
And the kids are all like, oh yeah, I wanna try that. It looks good. Ugh.
Ron Lang: This is my fun part. It’s called a patty only The word chicken is listed and it
contains modified food starch. It just you’re just reading this, you, and it’s just like,
why would you ever go to any one of these places?
I don’t. But anyway, obviously we, we don’t have to count on them as a sponsor of our show.
Jeff Kikel: The only the only fast food I ever eat is at at Chipotle. I’m sorry,
I just can’t eat any of this other stuff. It’s. I hear you all
Ron Lang: moving on some serious stuff. I thought this was good. Okay, I probably
should have left this for next week, but these were the most profitable companies in 2025.
And here’s the interesting thing, Google Alphabet. Didn’t really do much last year. No, it’s
Jeff Kikel: terrible.
Ron Lang: September, October, [00:13:00] even though all their numbers were like,
it was the most undervalued top 10 stock in the s and p. Yep. And then of course it basically
doubled in three months. But yeah, the, the numbers that the they’re producing is disgusting.
It’s just insane. And then you could see where basically everybody else is just bunched together.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And you wonder why when people talk about the. Magnificent
seven. I’m like they’re all pretty much up there in the most profitable company, so
Ron Lang: that’s why it’s not 98 nine.com.
No, they’re actually making money. Yeah. I’m not
saying there isn’t an air pocket under their stock price, but Yeah, certainly.
Jeff Kikel: But yeah, they’re, and they’re not slowing down. The thing, if anything,
they’re accelerating as some of this AI stuff happens they’re accelerating beyond that. I.
You gotta say, they’re doing what they’re doing. So
Ron Lang: I think the one that will remain under the biggest scrutiny.
Berkshire Hathaway. Yeah. Now that Warren has stepped back from CEO EO role, but basically
he’s [00:14:00] gonna remain chairman, which basically means, he still has a significant say.
He’s probably just scaling back on his schedule and probably. His schedule is
what kept him alive. Now, 95 years gonna be 96 this year. Absolutely.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah. He’s been in the game and
he’s as sharp today as he was when he was in his twenties.
Ron Lang: I think he said his cognitive has slowed down a little bit.
His speech has gotten very raspy.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah, but you know what? I put his
brain up against 90% of the mutual fund managers that are out there.
Why This Isn’t the Dot-Com Bubble
Ron Lang: I hear you. It
Jeff Kikel: takes him every day.
Ron Lang: So I thought this was interesting because obviously we
have people that watches that lean one way or the other politically,
but typically your two of a presidential term is typically.
A flat to a down year. And I thought this was interesting that if you take out,
if you take a look at just all the years, meaning non midterm years,
right? 2020, like a 2025 and a 2027. Those are typically [00:15:00] the biggest years.
Election years are pretty good, but midterm years you could see is the lowest.
Performance out of all of the years. Not to say we don’t have a chance of being up, right? We did the
stats a couple of weeks ago since 1950, I think there was only 16 down years. Even though some of
that overlapped and whatever I just thought this was interesting for what people may think of.
Hey, can this keep going? We had three double digit gain years in a
row. Yeah. Okay. Just to let you know, this year does typically will have its struggles, thoughts.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah. I agree. I, and I think it’s, it probably is not now or for the next six months,
but then you start getting into the campaign season and then it becomes
all this wild gyrations or oh, does it look like the Democrats are gonna win?
And then you’ve got, all kinds of crazy stuff going on. And we went over this in
my piece of it where I’m like, I could see. A split house, house and Senate,
which probably in the long run is good [00:16:00] because then it forces them to
Election Cycles & Market Performance
actually work together. If it goes all Democrat, then it’s gonna be all investigations and blah,
blah, blah, and nothing is gonna get done that way and nothing really can be, which means the
Ron Lang: market will go up.
Jeff Kikel: Which means the market will probably go up.
’cause everybody’s okay, good. Then they’re, and
Ron Lang: nothing’s
Jeff Kikel: gonna get done. Nobody’s gonna, nobody’s gonna
regulate us. Nobody’s gonna screw with us. We’re just gonna go crazy. But yeah,
like I said I think, it’s, we’re I think we’re. Hoisted for a really good year,
though because all this stuff is starting to come into place from the tax bill from the summer.
All of it’s starting to roll in basically as of this Friday’s paycheck for most people.
There’s gonna be, they’re gonna see more money in their paycheck in most cases.
Ron Lang: Yep. Okay. My last slide, which I’ll go through quickly. We’ve done the
cape ratio a couple of times in the last year. I thought this was just interesting.
Again, history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And this is PE price,
earnings ratio adjusted [00:17:00] for inflation. And obviously you could see
the last time we were at this high, and you know this is going back. Certainly quite a
few years here. I think this is going back to the 1920, I think it’s 1920 ish or whatever.
So just look at that as a hundred years. Basically this is saying that our market is overvalued,
but if you’ve been in, if you’ve been around for a few decades, we could stay overvalued for several
years. There’s always a catalyst that brings down where we should be from that air pocket.
Jeff Kikel: The problem I have with this, and I highly, massively respect Robert Schiller,
however, this is a, it’s a market weighted, or it’s a a market weighted or market cap
weighted thing. So yes. Some of the index is wildly overvalued. If you were to strip out
the top seven to eight stocks, it’s actually wildly undervalued [00:18:00] at this point.
CAPE Ratio & Market Valuation Debate
So the top ones, they’re all up in the eighties, nineties, hundreds,
and stuff like that. The average stock on the s and p 500 is like 16 right now.
16 to 17. I’m sorry. I just I don’t buy it. I think we are still. If anything,
I would like to see the market broaden out and I’ll share some stuff next week.
’cause I don’t have time to do it this week. It was something I caught off of investors
Business Daily that showed like basically over the last six months, the really. Top
performing areas and industries and you would be shocked at what was really the top 40 performing
industries. And it ain’t none of these ones that are in the tech space or the nifty seven.
Interesting. At that point, it’s really interesting. It was a lot more kind of
bread and butter companies that you would not think would be doing the best in that. So I’ll
share that with you. What do you got? Okay, let me share this real quick. We’ll just do some a little
bit of economics [00:19:00] and let me get back to the Econo Day calendar before I bring this up.
Okay. So as being the economic weenie always,
really a quiet week for economics. Really quiet year so far for economics. Not really
much. And what I always look at are these ones that have a little red star. Those
are things that supposedly would move markets. Doesn’t always mean that. I think the biggest
one today was jobless claims, which were basically in line with what was expected.
We’re we’re about 2 0 8. And the consensus was 2 0 5. So I think, from that perspective,
Jobless Claims & Quiet Economic Data
we’re in what we would’ve expected at this point. I think the one that interested me
the most, and it’s been one that I’ve been keeping my eye on for the last few weeks,
or really about the last month or so, is international trade and goods and services.
So it’s one that you don’t hear much about, people don’t talk about they might bring it
up occasionally. But [00:20:00] here was something interesting. So this is. For the month of October.
So they’re playing catch up right now. Yeah. Over, trying to get caught up. So this is October,
the last one was September, which had come in at negative 52 billion.
It was just revised with this one at negative 48.1. And so what this
number is negative means that what we’re bringing in versus what’s going out as far
as goods goods and services. Here’s the interesting thing. The consensus on this
Trade Deficit Improvement Explained
one was negative 59.1. It actually came in at negative 29.4, which is off the charts.
Amazing. And it’s interesting because I was trying to figure out okay, what does this thing
actually look like in reality? So here is. From the St. Louis Fed. I’m a big fan of their stuff,
and this is interesting to see that. If you look back to [00:21:00] 1992 and you
look at how our government has been in this kind of, oh, we’re not gonna
produce things and we’re gonna soften the dollar and everything else. And look at
how our trade deficit has gone down. And then we saw a huge drop down right at the
beginning of the Trump presidency because of the ta, the taper or the tariff tantrum.
Everybody went, oh my God, we’ve gotta order all this stuff from overseas. And then as of recent,
it’s been fighting its way back up. And then of course,
for September it was negative 52. For October, it is negative 29th. So we
are coming back massively here and it’s higher than it’s been since before 2020.
The interesting thing is we are gonna get a flurry of information over the next few day
or few weeks. And so I, I just actually ran this in grok to find out what the
schedule is for these. So January [00:22:00] 29th, we get November. Numbers February 5th,
we get December numbers, and then we get back on the normal schedule in March.
We’re always about two year or two months behind, so we’ll get back on the normal
schedule. So we’re gonna get a flurry of this information over the next few weeks, but it’s
gonna be interesting to see how that is really working in favor now. Is that because everybody
bought all the stuff that they needed earlier in the year and we’ve just been skewed that way?
Or is it really truly that we’re producing more that’s being sent overseas? That
Ron Lang: why would it have fallen so much in the beginning of the end of 24, beginning of 25?
Jeff Kikel: So this was right around this was February and April. So this is when they started
talking about the tariffs. And if you remember, a lot of a lot of ’em were talking about how.
We were, oh my God, it’s, there’s gonna be these horrible tear outs. So we doing
Ron Lang: business for two or three months.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah no, this is, this means that there was more [00:23:00] incoming than outgoing.
China Trade Exposure & Global Shifts
So remember when everybody was trying to, oh my God, it’s just gonna put the brakes on.
Anything from overseas. So all these companies were ordering,
things from overseas quickly. To do that. And then it got back to normal as we rolled
into April and it’s been just chugging along pretty good ever since. So it’s, like I said,
it’s an intriguing number to me because we’re getting back up into a range we haven’t seen and
since the 2009 period of time at this point of trade deficit, which is awesome because
it means our companies are making lots more money and we’re not having to import as much.
Ron Lang: Okay.
Jeff Kikel: I, and the other one is the China thing, which I think is interesting ’cause
everybody talks about, oh my God, if we don’t deal with China, it’s just gonna be horrible. In 19,
I think it was 20 or 2005, we imported 30% of our goods and services from China. [00:24:00] Today,
that’s less than 9%. When everybody talks about, oh, we have to worry so much about China,
it’s not nearly as big of a, an importer, or them exporting goods to us as it used to be.
Not anywhere near the percentage wise.
Ron Lang: Yeah. I, like I said, we’ll, it’s gonna take a while to
see how all this shakes out. Yeah. Certainly get your popcorn ready.
Jeff Kikel: Oh yeah. Like I said, I think a lot of the international,
the tariff rules and everything are in place, so we shouldn’t see a lot of shocks around that.
New Savings Accounts for Children
So it like I said, it’s gonna be interesting to see. Does that trend continue or does it go back
down? But it was just a really big number quickly that we see. And then we will see two more within,
a period of about four weeks to see if Okay. Is that a continual trend in the right direction?
Hopefully,
Ron Lang: yeah. Alright. Like I said, until all the data comes in and we see how some
of these things are still being negotiated, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten. [00:25:00] Real
information about what is signed, what’s not signed. And if they are signed,
what does that mean? Yeah. As far as what are we receiving how much better is it than what it was,
with everything that keeps happening every day and every week, all this stuff that
was on the front page is now on page eight. And it’s frustrating because it’s tough to
keep track of it, but I think that’s also the intention too, without going down that road.
Jeff Kikel: Absolutely. And then the last thing
I just wanted to share is I’ve got a little bit of information today.
I shared with Ron. I had a client asking about the Trump accounts for kids. That one,
one, I think it’s a horrible name for the thing,
but whatever the Trump accounts for kids the. Savings accounts basically that are being set
up under the one beau big beautiful bill act that people will be able to save into.
The details I was able to find out is any kids born after January 20th, 2026 [00:26:00] will get
a thousand dollars into their accounts. So when parent now, how that mechanism works.
I have no idea. Parents will also be able to contribute $5,000 into those per year
for their kiddos. Now as far as where these are gonna be set up, how they’re gonna be invested.
No news yet at this point. There is a an article done by the White House office of
the economic advisors. That. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes page for the show. That
Time Value of Money & Long-Term Opportunity
actually goes over this a little bit more in detail or as much detail as we have right now,
and shows what this could actually be for your kids, especially if you’ve got young kids.
It’s a really intriguing way to give them a massive start in life. Free money. Free
money. It’s not free money, but I think it’s money that. Up to this point, you haven’t really had a
vehicle besides five 20 nines to save this into. So it, I think it’ll be intriguing to see what
people do with these and how they put their kids in an [00:27:00] interesting situation.
The client I did this for, we already had taken care of. The college part,
but I’m like, man, if we just put a little bit more money in,
your kid gets outta school with no college debt and upwards of $300,000 to start their
life. That’s one heck of a way to go. It’s just time value of money over time.
Ron Lang: I agree.
Jeff Kikel: Beautiful.
Ron Lang: At the minimum it’s gonna double every 10 to 12 years.
Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. And you got a lot of those in between in between that
time period. And if you get regular market returns, it’s every seven years it’s gonna
double. Alright folks, thank you for joining us. We do these shows for you.
Welcome to the new year. Welcome to another 12 months of watching the rest of Wall Street
change their numbers up and down with what goes on in the markets. But we shall stick
Final Thoughts & What to Watch in 2026
to our numbers and we’ll see where we are in December again. So thanks a lot. Thanks
for joining us. Make sure you subscribe to the show, show and check out the show notes page.
Thanks, and [00:28:00] we’ll have a good, or see you next time.