Jeff Kikel: Good morning, Cents of  things. Welcome to the Easter week,  

Passover, all the other holidays, all  rammed into one. We need to invent some  

kind of a Festivus for this time of the year  as well for the rest of us, but Ron, how you

Ron Lang: doing, buddy? Good festivus.  Yeah, that’s a weekly thing You know  

that people use festivus as an  excuse to go for a drink anytime.

Ron Lang: It’s that’s

Jeff Kikel: true Yes, and airing  of grievances on top of it, but

Ron Lang: that’s only during  select times of the year

Jeff Kikel: during it Yeah  during the true festivus time,  

but but definitely we’re airing  our grievances to everywhere here

Ron Lang: Yeah, a slow week.  So I know there’s some good  

stuff we can review where do you want to start?

Ron Lang: Let’s kick it off.

Jeff Kikel: I think the, the biggest thing  of the week [00:01:00] is of course the  

ship that the Dolly out of Singapore  that was trying to do one of these  

and it ended up doing one of these right  into the bridge pylon lost power and and  

just plowed straight on into the bridge  pylon of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Jeff Kikel: in Baltimore, thus  blocking Baltimore Harbor.

Ron Lang: It’s amazing. I like I was  telling you, I passed that bridge many  

times. I don’t think I went over it.  But the video footage is just crazy.  

There is so much room between pylons that  obviously We’ll find out what’s going on,  

but there was black smoke coming up from the  engine they tried to put down the back anchor  

to drag a little bit to slow it down And it  this thing still hit Crosshair is dead on.

Ron Lang: Right

Jeff Kikel: on. Yeah. The picture  I’ve got, it, it just hit straight on,  

took out the entire bridge and this is  not going to be something cheap. One of  

the things I [00:02:00] wanted to know is  what are some of the numbers behind it a  

little bit. So I did a little bit of research  this morning and here’s some of the numbers.

Jeff Kikel: Baltimore Harbor is the ninth  busiest port in the U S for international  

trade. So inbound. However, it is the  first for roll on roll off trade outbound.

Ron Lang: What is, what

Jeff Kikel: does that mean? I never heard  of that expression. Roll on roll off,  

it means anything that can roll,  basically. So automobiles, light trucks,  

construction and agricultural  equipment all come out of there.

Jeff Kikel: You’ve got major plants  for, of course, the automakers on  

the East Coast. You’ve got, of course  the construction manufacturers and,  

John Deere has got a big plant there  and, that, that puts stuff out of  

the East Coast as well. It’s an interesting  port because it’s not a big container port.

Jeff Kikel: It’s actually one of the smaller  container ports, which is interesting because  

it was a container ship that took this  sucker out. But it’s a big time commodity  

port. 20 percent of U. S. [00:03:00] coal  exports that or come out of there. Including,  

and then also wood, steel, aluminum, sugar,  natural gas. Are all huge exports out of there.

Jeff Kikel: The likelihood is that, some of  the all the other ports on the East coast are  

just going to have to suck it up and pull some  of this traffic in. You’ve got Norfolk Harbor,  

which is 2nd behind it for. Coal export, so it’s  most likely they’ll just run, some of these other.

Jeff Kikel: Commodity exports out of  Norfolk cause it’s not very far. Norfolk,  

maybe three to four hours by rail down  there. It’s just going to, it’s going to  

be annoying and annoyance, and it’s going to be a

Ron Lang: big disruption,

Jeff Kikel: a temporary disruption. The  automakers are already saying we can, we,  

whatever’s there we got to deal with, we can  reroute all our other stuff to the other ports.

Jeff Kikel: This is. A loss  for Baltimore, but a win for,  

Philly and [00:04:00] Norfolk and  Newark and all those other ports.

Ron Lang: I think the amazing thing is the  following, cause I looked it up. This is not,  

when they first built us, it took five  years and they were pre fabricating  

this stuff. They haven’t cleaned this  thing up and gotten it out of the water.

Ron Lang: And they haven’t even, now  they’ve got a completely engineer. A  

new bridge and they will obviously make  it more modern. Cause the other one was  

from 72 to 75 for how many years it took  to build. So you’re talking 47 years ago  

when it went live. This is not going to  be a quick, simple, easy, short term fix.

Jeff Kikel: And it was interesting to  me because typically if you have paid  

any attention, if you’ve ever  been in a major port like this,  

Almost always they have some pre  pylons. That are in the water that,  

that protect the main bridge pylons and this one  had them, but they’re just in the stupidest place.

Jeff Kikel: You would think of they’re there,  but they’re back and [00:05:00] away from where  

this is. It just, it was very easy for it to  go directly in there. I think it’s. I just hope

Ron Lang: this does not show terrorists the  blueprint for how to knock down. Yeah, no

Jeff Kikel: kidding. I think it’ll be  pretty hard to steal a big ginormous  

boat like that, but you’d be surprised my friend.

Jeff Kikel: I know. But yeah, how many  other, big ports where there’s a, Hey,  

could we get our hands on a cargo ship  and then slam it into the bridge or  

something like that and take it out?  I think that the main thing though,  

is in most cases like that, they they’re  looking for the big loss of life.

Jeff Kikel: And this is not really a situation  where it would be, if it was rush hour.  

Absolutely. Unfortunately loss of life, the good  thing is the police department was on site and  

was able to, the ship made aid. The pilot made  aid to, the port authority, which was able to  

get the cops quickly to it’s a soft [00:06:00]  traffic, so it’s saved a ton of lives except  

for the guys that were on the bridge estimated  costs is like 15 million per day to the economy.

Jeff Kikel: When it comes to that easy. So what  what do you got in your side of the coin here?

Ron Lang: Okay. Got a couple of things. Let’s  see here. Me, you always like to start with  

something fun, silly, and dad jokey. Got  some good things. I just wanted to know,  

how are these solar panels supposed to work  when it’s located in a garage to charge an EV?

Ron Lang: But it’s solar powered, just saying,  I’m not really sure. I got to tell you,  

there’s nothing to say about this, this at all.  I have a pool. I don’t think I would be buying  

this kind of float. And my question is would  this float or absorb the water? I it’s, I’m

Jeff Kikel: thinking it’s probably more  absorbent than floating at this point.

Jeff Kikel: Wow. Yeah. Just saying. No wings

Ron Lang: though. Thank God. [00:07:00] Oh  boy. Who’s the first person that’s going to  

use the handles to open this van door? Wow. Okay.  Yeah. They, they couldn’t put that picture on the

Jeff Kikel: side of the van. Or yeah,  

cause it’s already rolling over  into the windows and all that.

Jeff Kikel: You couldn’t adjust it just  slightly. And please don’t tell me that

Ron Lang: someone wasn’t high that applied this.  Yeah Who was putting that on and went? This is a  

really good idea Yeah, I think it might have been  their last day at that job. I’m not sure obviously  

All right. I think your kid is gonna have  nightmares if they eat this spongebob chocolate.

Ron Lang: I don’t know about you Wow Okay  I never was into spongebob. I used to watch  

with the nieces and nephews. It was never  I don’t know. I never thought it was funny,  

but I don’t really think it’s funny  at all. But yeah, that’s a little

Jeff Kikel: actually.

Ron Lang: And of course we have to end with  another bad design for a playground slide.

Ron Lang: Oh God. Wow. Okay. There we go. Where’s  

little Jimmy coming out [00:08:00] of?  Oh yeah. Where is he? Jimmy he’s plugged  

up. Yeah. And where is that? The circus  maintenance person with the big shovel.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They’re  down there. Yeah. It would be perfect  

if somebody was in there cleaning up  the little ground below it, but wow.

Ron Lang: Okay. All right. On to some serious  stuff. So I thought this is interesting because  

of where our numbers were at the end  of last year. And obviously with the  

meltup we’ve had in the last three months,  where the other last day of Q1 today that,  

some have raised we’ve seen them raise  their price targets, but I think this  

is still interesting that You still have  half of the big strategist and the big  

investment houses on the bank still showing  a flat to negative year for the most part,

Jeff Kikel: which

Ron Lang: JP Morgan, that’s Kalonovic.

Ron Lang: He’s been negative for three  years, basically. So Morgan Stanley,  

Mike Wilson he’s not wrong yet, [00:09:00]  but obviously with the meltup we’ve had in  

the last 15 months or 16 months,  however you want to look at it,  

he looks bad, but this is the problem with  the public strategist puts out a target.

Ron Lang: The public thinks, Oh, it’s going  there in the next couple of weeks or months.  

Yeah no. This is a distance thing. This  is not a sprint. This is a journey. Yeah,

Jeff Kikel: I just somebody made a point  the other day I was listening to the radio  

or listen to satellite and somebody made a great  point and he’s he’s Inflation continues to go up.

Jeff Kikel: The government continues to fuel  it. We’ll talk about GDP here in a little bit.  

The government’s continuing to fuel it. And,  I think the Fed and his point was, he’s the  

Fed is very likely to. Come across with  their plan of reducing interest rates,  

a couple of interest rates, and he goes,  all that’s going to do is feel the fire  

going into 2025 of much more inflation and them  having to do more on the opposite side, Hey,

Ron Lang: they’re [00:10:00] expecting it  to tick up in the neck before the election.

Ron Lang: Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: We’re already seeing  it and a lot of aspects. And we,  

saw it with GDP. It’s consumer spending is  still cranking along and too many goods are,  

too many dollars are chasing  too few goods still at this  

point from a production standpoint. The  likelihood is we just keep melting up.

Jeff Kikel: His point was, and I  echo that it’s that time of the year,  

it’s that time to say what’s our exit  strategy, what do we do to protect,  

you gotta run while it’s running, but you’re going  to have to protect when you protect at that point.

Ron Lang: Absolutely and be fast  about, just a general understanding of,  

history with the market. Yeah. These are  all of the positive years and all of the  

negative years. Obviously over time there’s  always been more positive years, but I think  

it’s interesting. I gotta tell you really, I  try have always been a student of the market.

Ron Lang: We know the [00:11:00]  market crashed in 1929, but it  

didn’t hit a market bottom until 1932.  And if you take a look at the 1930s,  

we actually had a double dip recession because  we had one from essentially the end of 29 to 32,  

and then another one in 37. But if you take a  look at some of the big years 35, 33 and 35.

Ron Lang: They were up over 40%, but then you  come down here to 31, 37 32, 29. But my point  

is can you imagine the EKG? Of up and down during  that decade, instead of a nice, even crawl up.  

Holy crap. It’s Hey, we had a great year and then  you lose it all in the next year. It just crazy.

Ron Lang: You behavioral scientists would have had  a ball during that decade following investor and

Jeff Kikel: there, when you look at it,  

there was really no one year. Probably 39  was the only year I’m looking at where it  

was just Muted a little bit every year.  It was just one way or the other way.

Jeff Kikel: They

Ron Lang: just took a [00:12:00] breather.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, exactly. I think,  the war was starting in Europe and  

everybody was okay we’re going to  focus on something else, but yeah,  

it, people talk about volatility.  You have no idea what volatility is,  

the other side of the coin is there were so  few of the public involved in the stock market.

Jeff Kikel: At that time, it was  just a few very rich people who  

were trading in the stock market at  that time. So volume, they really

Ron Lang: didn’t have mutual funds. They  really didn’t, they didn’t have ETFs. It  

wasn’t electronic trading. So yeah, I’m sure  the bid ask spreads were humongous. So yeah.

Ron Lang: So over time, it’s become more mooted  with the volatility besides regular cycles. But  

it was certainly was more active versus passive  management. So absolutely. And then my last one,  

charts always tell a story as we say, and I  thought this was interesting. If you take a  

look at the ebb and flows over the market,  So if you take a look at where the average  

of the s and p 500 [00:13:00] is from the  beginning of the end of the year, this talks  

about the number of companies in the s and p  500 that beat the average of the s and p 500.

Ron Lang: And here’s the interesting part,  the orange and for the colorblind people,  

the ones that are under 50% essentially. Meaning  that this was less amount of companies in the  

s and p 500 that beat the average. Believe  it or not, that was during the booming years  

of the index and the years that you had  a lot more companies beating the index.

Ron Lang: Those were the down years of the  market. Look at last year of the last 30 years,  

we always, we’ve talked about right last  year, 75 percent of the market move. Was  

by 10 stacks. Last year was the lowest  in 30 years by the number of companies  

in the S and P 500 that beat the S and P 500  average. [00:14:00] These are all topping,  

indications, I know how it always sounds  on many of our podcasts, but folks.

Ron Lang: You can’t lie with facts. This ain’t  social media. This is real numbers. Your thoughts.

Jeff Kikel: Oh, I totally agree with  you. I, and I think it’s interesting  

on the market breadth side. It  just, even though we’re not,  

or it just still is that you’ve got a few stocks  that are leading the pack and, from looking at it  

from a wealth management perspective, I’m  not going to invest in just seven stocks.

Jeff Kikel: Just so that I can keep up with the  index. And as much as I pride myself on saying,  

Hey, over time, I want to beat that index. I’m not  

going to chase after it at this  point. You’re not going to beat

Ron Lang: the top five to 10 stocks and

Jeff Kikel: you can’t, and I’m  not going to do that. And what’s,  

what you’re seeing is, you had the nifty 10 or  the magnificent seven or whatever you call it,  

but now you’ve got four [00:15:00] now.

Jeff Kikel: Pretty much the fantastic four.  And, most of that is NVIDIA at this point,  

that’s dragging everything along.  No, I’m sorry. I’m not. And,  

when you start to look at other factors, what’s  gotten left behind. The mid caps, the small caps,  

especially have. Significantly underperformed,  but they’re incredible value right now.

Jeff Kikel: And as the money kind of moves  around I see that as being an interesting area  

in the markets, our portfolios this month are a  little bit more skewed towards the small and mids  

and less towards these big stocks because.  They’re just a phenomenal value right now.

Jeff Kikel: And I think there’s an opportunity  there where it might not be in the S& P  

500. I agree. I agree. What do you have? What  do you want to review? Let me just quickly go  

over the other slides I had. It was a super  quiet week for any kind of economic data.  

Really the only numbers this week were  the third [00:16:00] reading of the GDP.

Jeff Kikel: This kind of gives you an  idea of where the, There’s always a

Ron Lang: new reading of the GDP number.

Jeff Kikel: I know it is. This is the third  reading of the Q4 numbers, which is the final  

numbers, at this point, it’s really not  earth shattering or market moving because.

Jeff Kikel: Everything that’s known is known,  what you look at is we’re just fluttering  

along here where we’ve been inflation, or  GDP has been going up. The third reading  

here is it was at 3. 34 percent today, which the  expectation was about 3. 2. That’s interesting.

Jeff Kikel: When I look at briefing. coms. Read  on this, and I realize this is small, but a few of  

the things in here estimate once again, briefing  dot com consensus was 3. 2 came in at 3. 4 2. 2 of  

that 3. 4 was personal consumption expenditure  growth. Increasing [00:17:00] 3. 3 versus  

3. 1. The, we keep talking about it and the  credit card debts all the way up there, but  

personal consumption, people just keep spending  money the other major money they don’t have.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And the other one  was government spending increased from  

four point or 4. 6 versus 4. 2. So that  contributed to another 0. 79 percent of  

that. So between the government and. The  government who doesn’t have any money or  

doesn’t have money to spend and they have  money, they have a printing press for it.

Jeff Kikel: That’s true. They can just keep  spending more and personal consumption. That’s  

pretty much what’s driving GDP at this point. Very  little of the other things like domestic product  

that we’re creating. Although private inventories  excuse me, the sales of gross domestic product 3.

Jeff Kikel: 9 versus 3. 5. So that had  some effect, it’s personal consumption  

and government spending right now that are  [00:18:00] leading the pack when it comes  

to GDP. So is that healthy or is it not?  I don’t really know. I, what it does do,  

I think is it is another, it’s another  contributor to inflation because anytime  

you have personal consumption going up, once  again, too many dollars chasing too few goods.

Jeff Kikel: And the government,  basically throwing gasoline on the  

fire at this point. It’s just going  to continue to push inflation up.

Ron Lang: I agree. Yeah. If it, even if it doesn’t  

necessarily push it up. Yeah. It’s  not going to bring it down. Ain’t

Jeff Kikel: going to bring it  down. Yeah. Yeah I honestly,  

I think it’s going to push it  up, but yeah, you’re right.

Jeff Kikel: It’s certainly not gonna, it’s  not with that level of. Of money coming into  

the markets or chasing after goods. It’s  going to be very difficult. For the fed to  

get that down to their 2 percent target,  unless something [00:19:00] dramatically  

changes on the personal consumption  and the government spend, I don’t know

Ron Lang: if you saw some of the fed  governors, the voting ones, at least said,  

one of them said, yeah, we might not  get any break cuts at all this year.

Ron Lang: And I hear some of these people say  they came out and a pal came out and he said,  

they’re committed to two or three.  I didn’t hear him say that. The  

fed futures rate is on the CME is  saying that they’ve been wronging  

over the last year. That’s why it’s  called futures. They didn’t better.

Ron Lang: Yeah. They’re just better right  up to say, this is going to happen. What  

did they say? Data dependent. If the numbers  remain high. Oh, why would they reduce? Yeah,  

it’s silly. I get, folks we talk  about this all the time. It’s just,  

you know what? They need something  to talk about. It’s just crazy.

Ron Lang: It’s yeah. And it’s the noise.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, it’s literally the game of the  telephone game. One idiot says it and then every  

other idiot says it fine. Yeah, some, I heard,  they, the fed governor said, no, [00:20:00] he  

did not say that, I listened to the same  exact thing you did and he was absolutely not.

Jeff Kikel: He’s committed to, they might  do 14 or 15 interest rate drops this year.

Ron Lang: No. That’s great. Like I said, we’ll  see. And. We know the political temperature  

season is going to, the temperature is going to be  rising in the next three months. So we shall see.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Kikel: I think everybody enjoy your holiday,  enjoy your family spend some time with with people  

that you love. If you don’t celebrate either.  Yeah. Even if you got people, you you save that  

for the, for the major holidays, but. If if you  have the opportunity and you don’t celebrate.

Jeff Kikel: Passover or Easter or anything like  that, then, just celebrate Festivus during the  

spring year. Why not? Why not? Thanks a lot.  Make sure that you subscribe to the channel.  

Make sure you hit that little upvote button  to let us [00:21:00] know that you exist out  

there. And we love comments. I’ve had some  spirited discussions from our last show.

Jeff Kikel: I will give you an  update on the happiest places on  

the world and why. Why I said what I  said then I wanted to spark a little  

bit of controversy. We’ll address that  next week on that controversy. People  

thinking I’m un American because because I’m  talking about other places that are happy.

Jeff Kikel: So thanks a lot. We’ll see  you guys back here the very next time.