Cents of Things Episode 20 === [00:00:00] Jeff Kikel: Good morning, Sense of Things audience. It’s Jeff and Ron here. We are kicking off another week. And lots of news. We’ve got some news today about the world’s deepest

hole, and we’ll be talking a little bit about what’s going on with the stock market. Again

we’ll have a little bit of an update on on the fear and greed index, and we’re going

to finish off with a an interesting trend that we’re seeing happening in the 401k space,

and we’ll just discuss that a little bit. Jeff Kikel: Ron, good morning, sir. How are you? Good morning.

Ron Lang: Mid August, never a dull moment. There’s still news, even though half of Wall Street’s on vacation. Jeff Kikel: Half of Wall Street and our president are on vacation. So yeah, everybody’s [00:01:00]

out. Congress, right? I know. Yeah. Everybody’s getting done. Yeah. Actually, the best part

about it is there’s no government working. Jeff Kikel: So actually nothing gets done and life is good.

Ron Lang: All the news programs, really entertainment tv sprinkled with news are having their field

days now because now they can talk about whatever they want because there’s nothing to counterpoint whatever they’re saying.

Jeff Kikel: That’s exactly right. And and there’s no exact or actual No, no proof of

what’s going on at all at this point, or they can create their own news, which I love always. Jeff Kikel: Cool. I wanted to kick us off today with an interesting story. I just bumbled

across this. And it, I, it was 1 of those things that you just can’t stop reading once

you start reading. Yeah. Jeff Kikel: World’s deepest hole in the ground, which I wasn’t even aware existed just actually

ceased. There has [00:02:00] been a battle going on between us and the Russians since

1957 to see who could dig towards the core of the earth. And discover scientific secrets.

And so this interesting thing, this is actually not the whole, this is the funny part is this is actually not the whole.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, but somebody put this in there. Yeah, somebody put this in the article. So people would think now this thing is actually only 9 inches across. So nine ft across. So

this is actually what it is. It’s out in the middle of nowhere out in Russia. They started

Ron Lang: most of Russia in the middle of nowhere Jeff Kikel: anyway. Jeff Kikel: Yeah, 90% of Russia is nothing in the middle of nowhere. But this is literally

in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere out there. And they started this thing is nine ft across. They started digging this thing in 1970. So the whole thing, as I read

this [00:03:00] article, and I’ll put the link to this article in because you’ll if you’re as weird as I am, you’ll actually start to do this.

Jeff Kikel: The United States actually started in 1957, digging a hole off the coast of Guadalupe

Island in Mexico, which, if you know anything about that part of the Baja Peninsula, that’s

the deepest part. Part of the ocean off the coast of Mexico. And so they started digging

this thing because they wanted to reach the the Earth’s mantle. Jeff Kikel: And in 19, I think it was 1970. Congress pulled funding for this thing, so

it stopped, but the Russians at the same time, we’re doing this and they start building this Cola project or Cola project. In the peninsula of Russia started digging this thing down.

They created this insanely big rig that they started digging this thing. Jeff Kikel: And, it literally is 9 feet across the drill head got down by by [00:04:00] 1974,

they got down to 15, 000 feet. Back in the United States there was a group Lone Star

producing company that actually dug the deepest hole in the United States in the same time period. And then this thing blew through.

Jeff Kikel: Ours in the United States was 31, 400 feet. But this guy by 1979 was at

39, 000 by 83 had reached 39, 000 feet. And then they started to slow down, but they’ve

recently gotten it as far down as 49, 000 feet and started to see the temperatures rise

massively at that point. And so they couldn’t drill anymore. Jeff Kikel: But I thought the interesting thing was 1 of the things that they dug out

of this. Was this old, this fossil, which it’s the deepest found fossil ever in history

at 49, 000 feet. So basically they drilled half the way into the earth [00:05:00] almost

to it. And drilling to inside the earth is actually farther than it takes to get to space.

Jeff Kikel: If we tried to get to the earth’s core, but yeah, 49, 000 feet. So they’re like

build 2 billion year old fossils. Ron Lang: I only have one beef with this article. Now, this is somewhat interesting. Somewhat

sad to think about the spending of government money for something like this. You think where

does this article belong? Ron Lang: A science site, something like that. Yeah. Roll all the way up to the top. Look

at the Jeff Kikel: stories of greedy finance. com. I think Ron Lang: that’s the name of the website. Yeah. But look at the source of this article

and right underneath the headline. Okay. There it is. You got to just scroll down a little bit. Ron Lang: Keep going. Maternity leave.

Jeff Kikel: And I think this is the source of [00:06:00] this picture is maternity week.

And I’m like, what the hell does this have to do with maternity week? I have no idea. Ron Lang: Listen, I’m sure some comedians could come up with a couple of good jokes

there, but all anyway, Jeff Kikel: I, it was one of those ones that you just start reading and you can’t stop.

Jeff Kikel: And of course it’s got like ginormous amounts of, Google ads all over the page. But but yeah, it’s just so funny. I’m like, Why what was the purpose for this? And why

did you keep going for almost 40, almost 50 years at this point?

Ron Lang: I don’t know, you want to talk about ad placement or whatever is a quick side note.

Ron Lang: I remember watching, because I’m a big hockey guy, watching hockey in the Olympics. Now think about it. Who is the predominant audience that is watching hockey? Period.

It’s a male audience. You would think. Yeah. About every other commercial they break, there

were commercials for feminine hygiene products.[00:07:00] Ron Lang: Now I don’t understand who the producers are, who the sponsors are, obviously you want

your product, the commercial to go out to your broadest audience, sometimes you just

can’t figure these things out. So maybe I got to reach out to maternity week for my science news for Jeff Kikel: your science news going forward.

Jeff Kikel: Apparently they, they are on this news pretty well, but yeah, like I said, the

world’s deepest hole is now stopped and. There’s just no need they’ve discovered after almost

50 years that there was no need to dig any deeper and our lives can go on. Our lives

can go on the U. S. wised up a long time ago and said why are we doing this? Jeff Kikel: This is completely stupid.

Ron Lang: All right, so let’s turn to some economic news out of every spirit of conversation with a friend of mine the other night and. Looking at, bond yields. Yeah. Specifically

the 10 year it just breached four 30 this morning. , and they were talking about [00:08:00]

if it breaches four, if it gets to 4 20, 4 25, we’re above four.

Ron Lang: Three. Yep. Now, I’m not sure. You know how talk to prospective clients and clients,

but many pre retirees and retirees that I talk to whenever they talk about how much

income can I expect from my portfolio? And we give our typical response because we can.

Look, we can get you a minimum of 5% yield annually, pretty conservatively, very low

risk, low volatility, get you 5% annually without touching principal. Ron Lang: Yeah. So think about this for a sec. I expect a rate hike in September, maybe

not November, but if it’s not September, it’ll be November. I’m looking at one more. With

the direction things are going since the July hike, we’ll probably get close to, if not

breach the 5% on the 10 year. So think about it, if somebody’s a pre retiree or retiree.

Ron Lang: And they’re like, [00:09:00] risk free, I can get 5% on my money for 10 years

and sleep like a baby at night. How much money is going to get pulled out of the equity market

and go into the 10 year note? A lot. A lot. And I’m not just talking about our clients,

prospective clients, U. S. citizens. How about China? Ron Lang: European countries Japan’s 10 year. I just saw this. It’s 0. 4%. Oh, it’s under

one. I know that I should have the stat in order for this, but aren’t these countries going to start gobbling up the 10 year at four and 0. 3 or 5% or more? So if that doesn’t

seem like a bit of a. short to medium ominous sign for the equity markets if those yields

continue to rise and people could lock in four and a half five plus percent And sleep

like a baby for 10 years Seems pretty obvious to me. Ron Lang: I [00:10:00] don’t know how you feel about that.

Jeff Kikel: It ends up being, yeah, it ends up being supply and demand too. So if we see a huge rush of, external money in, it’s, supply and demand. So the price of bonds would go

up at that point too, in a lot of cases. Or it’ll stabilize and won’t continue to go up. Jeff Kikel: But yeah, I’m looking at this with my clients at this point. Certainly you

still have to have something in there that can beat inflation because yes, if you’re,

most of the models are built on, inflation at 275 to 3%. We’re still running close to

4 and a half, 5%. Jeff Kikel: On inflation I think, yeah, I can get a riskless rate of return at 5%, but

if I’m inflating at 5% per year, it’s not really truly netting me 5%.

Ron Lang: You’re also not locking up all your money, but you may take, again, a pre retiree

or retiree may lock up 20 to 50% of their money in there and the rest of it.

Ron Lang: Yeah. Okay. They could be a conservative risk if they want to get yield and [00:11:00] still grow it. But you’re right. Asset prices would go up. Yield prices would come down,

but. Wouldn’t that be the same for all the T-bills that are under one year that are all

yielding better than 5 2 5 3? Yeah. They, the yields just continue to go up. Ron Lang: People are piling in. Yeah. To the short term T-bills. But the yields are still

going up, which means the asset prices are coming down, even though people are buying

them. Yeah. So the logic, I understand your logic, but if the yields continue to go up,

they’re, people are going to shift their money. Ron Lang: From equities to bonds. There’s just no, there’s no other rhyme or reason

to it. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And we’ve talked about this before the bond guys are typically the smartest guys in the room. They’re the boring, the most boring guys in the room, but they’re

typically the smartest guys in the room with it’s smart money over time. Jeff Kikel: And I agree, I think it’s, I think the weird part about this time has been the

bond [00:12:00] market has been counteracting a lot of what the fed is doing and a lot of what the government is doing at this point. Almost buoying this stuff up. You would start

to see, or you would theorize that you’d start to see interest rates going down.

Jeff Kikel: But the government hasn’t proven itself to be responsible with money at this point. So I think it’s causing those yields to just continue to go up. I’m just wondering,

had we not had all this money rush in there, Where would the yields be at this point? Would they be, will we be in 1980 all over again?

Ron Lang: I don’t know, Jeff Kikel: we had so much less, we had so much less government intervention in the markets

back in the early 1980s. That’s why we saw rates just go through the roof Ron Lang: for better and for worse, but I know what you’re saying. If you really think

about it, even with the direction of where the yields are going we’re paying again, if

you look at the, our national budget, we’re spending over a trillion dollars a year in

interest payments Jeff Kikel: and it’s going to get Ron Lang: worse. Ron Lang: It’s not going back into our [00:13:00] economy. It’s not helping infrastructure It’s

not helping, important government programs. It’s not Upgrading you to your military This

is just interest payments. Yeah, Jeff Kikel: and it’s going to get to the point where it’s almost Especially if you don’t

grow your economy and I mean we’re really slowing down on growing the economy at this point.

Jeff Kikel: You don’t grow your economy, you’re not gonna get yourself out of that situation. No. Yeah, it’s, I mean it’s interesting the 10 to two, I was looking at the spread. It’s

come back pretty significantly. Ron Lang: On the two to 10 it was well in the in the 60 basis point range. I didn’t

see where it was Jeff Kikel: today. Jeff Kikel: Yeah, it’s 69 basis points right now. Is that two to 10 year spread? It’s come

back. Ron Lang: Yeah, it was 70 something yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. I so it should be interesting.

It looks like a little over 60, but But it’s very interesting just to see where how all

this pans out like I said, the next 60 to 90 days you’re gonna have to make a lot of popcorn because It’s going to get interesting.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And like I said, I [00:14:00] think, it’s I still personally think we’re

going to see a bit of a rally by the end of the year, but I think 2024 is going to be a pretty hefty slog at this point with all the credit

Ron Lang: tightening. It’s got to, it’s got to slow down the economy somewhere. People may say no recession. Ron Lang: I did the whole recession thing. You and I have spoken about this Yeah, I think

it’s a bs thing. Anyway, by the way, they judge it I don’t agree or hurt it people have less money in their pocket Because of what they’re paying for gas and food and yeah and

everything else out there. So all that being said so even if we don’t officially go into

a recession, which I still think we will, it doesn’t matter if the market pulls back 10, 15, 20% in the next six to nine months, and officially GDP, we’re not in a recession.

It doesn’t mean that our economy wasn’t hurting. And by the time we’re, and by the time we’re already in a recession, we’ve already felt it, it’s always a laggard number two, as a

matter of fact, I know I had sent you an article and it had [00:15:00] 30 charts that kind of really described the economy.

Ron Lang: So I cherry picked, I whittled it down to three. I think this would be good

conversation. Because with this one here, I thought about the the savings rate and we’ve

talked about how credit card debt just you know breached you know a very high number

where it’s never been in history before, one trillion dollars Now we take and then the

savings rate was dipping down to the near an all time low more recently savings rates

have taken a significant rebound and the disposable personal income is another thing that a lot

of economists like to look at because obviously with inflation it’s shrinking The disposable

income so now the people have a little bit more disposable income. Ron Lang: They’re doing this smart thing They’re actually saving so if they’re saving that

means they’re not spending which Jeff Kikel: is yeah, which is shocking for this country Ron Lang: And another big one. I know that we had talked about this [00:16:00] prior

was the you know the rental market there isn’t a lot of inventory. Ron Lang: So a lot of the landlords have been raising rents on the on the tenants, whether

they’re existing tenants or not. I heard from people their kids or whatever, we’re paying 20% year over year increases on rents. Yep. So I thought this was very interesting that

new tenant repeat rent essentially collapsed from almost 9% down to two.

Ron Lang: Do you see anywhere else? In the last 18 20 years on this particular chart

where you had such a precipitous drop even during the financial crisis It dipped off

slowly. Yeah So I thought this was pretty interesting And I thought this was my favorite

chart and I actually when I saw this I didn’t understand it And I had to look up some things what this is actually a combination of the gdp And the and the G.

Ron Lang: D. I. The [00:17:00] domestic index and every time it has had a precipitous drop

or reached below the 0% a recession has followed. And I remember seeing this chart a long time

ago. And looking at some other things and you know what, I don’t even know how to even

create this chart to be honest with you, got to find it. Ron Lang: But I think this, I think these are all telltale telling factors about the

consumer spending, consumer saving, because if they’re saving, they’re not spending. But

the other thing too, is even though the GDP had a bit of a bump up from last quarter, if people aren’t spending or spending is going.

Ron Lang: down. Again, they’re not far. They can’t afford to borrow to keep buying houses

that they once were. They’re not buying cars and cars are at a 20 to 30% year over year

increase over the last three years. You tell me what you what you think is gonna happen. Jeff Kikel: I think the only thing that’s booing this up is we [00:18:00] still have

Good employment, as long as we have good employment, people are making do, but, I, one of the things

we were going to cover last week and I, I wanted to push it to this week. Jeff Kikel: There was an article that came out on CNN business last week. About it was

actually reported from Bank of America, which actually Bank of America owns Merrill Lynch,

which is the 2nd tier. I would say of 401k providers. Out there and there was what they

called an alarming rate. Of change in the amount of hardship withdrawals. Jeff Kikel: From 401ks. And you and I both know, there’s 401k loans, which you can go

get a 401k loan for anything. You can use that to go buy a TV, a TV, you can use it

to just go blow money at a. Whatever you want to blow money on, and you have to pay that

back out of your paycheck. A hardship withdrawal, you have to have something really dramatic

[00:19:00] happen to you. Jeff Kikel: That’s a criteria. Yeah. And it’s typically. Things like you’ve got a lot of

medical debt or you’re losing your home or something along those lines. And the only

thing I can say at this point, because I don’t think there’s a dramatic increase overnight

in. Healthcare related issues. That usually stays pretty steady. Jeff Kikel: The only thing I can attribute some of this to, and I actually went and did

a little bit of research on this and found an article from fidelity or, an article about fidelity investments, which is the largest 401k, custodian in the world and they were

reporting very similar numbers. Jeff Kikel: The only thing I can attribute that to is housing and the cost of housing

and people getting into trouble there, they’ve maxed their credit cards out, they’ve done whatever loans they could do. And now they’re down to the point of, I’m going to lose my

house. I’m going to be foreclosed on. Jeff Kikel: I need to do a withdrawal from my [00:20:00] 401k or Ron Lang: medical. That’s another big thing. Another big reason why, again, there’s a reason

why it’s called quote unquote hardship. Yeah, yeah, you’re right alone. You could use for

anything, but many plans I know several of our plans don’t offer the ability to take

loans but we obviously always put in a provision in there for people to be able to offer hardship

loans because If they need the money And there’s a hardship. Ron Lang: You don’t want to deny an employee from being able to take that money for those

costs So you’re right if there’s a spike there plus remember We were talking about this about

a month and a half ago about a spike in small business bankruptcies And I saw a couple stats

a couple of weeks ago that hasn’t slowed Yeah, now I haven’t heard any personal things because you and I both have a lot of clients that also are business owners, too I haven’t really

heard anything from them about their businesses suffering obviously even being close or teetering on the verge of bankruptcy but The all these undercurrents, not happy about I know you

and I are a bit of an echo chamber at this point [00:21:00] Of what we see here. Ron Lang: Yeah look nobody’s going to predict the exact date time or even really month that

a recession is going to happen we better off going to the casino and picking black or red to put our money on but But you know what? Like I said, even if we don’t You know officially

have a recession two consecutive quarters of negative growth It doesn’t mean that the

under underpinnings of credit and things like that aren’t gonna make people hurt and like

I said with the yields going up You’re going to see a shift of money going from the equity market to the bond market

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And I think that’s true. And, once again, one of our things that we

cover here on a somewhat regular basis, when it reports every month just this morning at

9. 00 AM, as we were getting on the air, we saw the report from the leading economic indicators.

Ron Lang: Yeah. Came out today for a podcast. Ron Lang: Yeah. Jeff Kikel: It’s awesome. It was perfect timing on this. I think. The interesting thing has

been that we’ve seen GDP [00:22:00] tail upward. A little bit, and we’ve seen a little bit

of a turn on the leading economic indicators, but they are still dramatically down below

that 0 line. Anything that you say that, okay it’s getting better. Jeff Kikel: It’s looking better. It’s still really deep into that would happen. You see

this happen quite often with the, back in 08, in 07, it started to tail off. And then

it finally dipped and, that indicated a recession there doesn’t always have to go negative on

the GDP side. Jeff Kikel: But typically when you see a pronounced. Drop down and leading economic indicators

for a period of time. It does indicate a recession. And, like I said, I think it’s in here someplace.

I just don’t know when it’s going to happen, but it’s in here someplace that we’re likely to see a recession coming up.

Jeff Kikel: How does that affect the stock market? The stock market tends to lead ahead. So that might mean that, we squeak our way through the [00:23:00] end of this year, but

I have a pretty pronounced feeling that 2024 is not going to be. One of the greatest

Ron Lang: years out there. Two quick things about this. Ron Lang: So the gdp is a n You know a one economic factor. Yeah, right and actually

if you talk to a lot of economists It’s an antiquated formula that they use which is why when they the gdp report comes out Yes, they focus on the large number, but they break

it up into key components Because yeah, they’re cherry picking but they’re picking it out

But the lei is a combination of many different factors actually just scroll up for a second

I just did right here just with the gdp. Ron Lang: Let’s get scroll up, to the main chart again Because I just want to mention

something about the gdp Yeah, like I realize this only goes back 23 years, but when gdp

went negative, right? Think about what happened in those two things It wasn’t like a normal

garden variety recession.[00:24:00] Ron Lang: Those are crisis events. Yeah, which is why the gdp went negative so the gdp doesn’t

always have to go negative to be Jeff Kikel: in a recession and actually Yeah, rarely does it go completely negative? It

went negative in 08 because we literally the whole financial system blew up overnight Yeah,

you look at the 01. Jeff Kikel: This is you know, september 11th and all that stuff it didn’t GDP didn’t go

negative. It just hit the line and then bounced off But lei a lot of that Ron Lang: was the dot com blow up too before we also 9 11 Yeah, so we were already on a

downslide and you would think after 9 11 following the dot bust you would have thought we would

have gone negative. Ron Lang: Yeah, but obviously you can see For what a year and a half to two years gdp

was negative for multiple quarters anyway, so again, it’s not necessarily about gdp being

minus, you know being negative It’s just negative quarters by the way, the economic the economists

[00:25:00] do it But even like I said, it had to go into the negatives in a crisis situation.

Ron Lang: So the LEI, in my opinion, is just a more comprehensive indicator because of

all the different factors it takes. Jeff Kikel: Here’s the, here’s basically the components, it’s, there’s financial components

and non financial, everything from the leading credit index, S& P index stock prices,

interest rate spreads. Jeff Kikel: The it shows you that the non financials, it’s ISM index of new orders,

building permits, average weekly hour. It’s a very comprehensive look at what’s going on in the economy.

Ron Lang: I thought one of the other interesting things I’ve heard some pretty, the people, some of the analysts that I follow, take a look at the third one down in financial components,

interest rate spread, 10 year T bonds, less fed rates. Ron Lang: This is talking about the risk free reward of going into T bond, T bill, 10 year

T bonds versus where the fed [00:26:00] rate is. Obviously, if the fed rate goes up. The

10 year is going to go up too, but the spread on that is almost the full basis point.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And that’s over six months. The, yeah, the July one, once again, and it’s

been the same thing. Jeff Kikel: I think the first two non financial components, the customer expectation is of

business conditions and the ISM index of new orders. Interestingly enough, customer expects

or consumer expectations. That’s everything from business owners to consumers. And then

you’ve got index of new orders. Those are side by side with each other, not just in the chart, but also side by side.

Jeff Kikel: If. If, the consumer and business owners are starting to look at, I’m not so

comfortable. Those business owners that are suppliers and manufacturers, they’re going

to start seeing their orders pulled back. And, I think that’s been confirmed. At this point yeah,

Ron Lang: I think we might need to do a deeper dive [00:27:00] into this next week. Jeff Kikel: Yeah, like I said, the only thing that’s even remotely close to positive is,

is building permits for private housing. And that’s just because we’re so under built at this point.

Ron Lang: But, there’s been a housing slump in the last year, even though the new home

builders have been flying in the 1st, 6 to 7 months of this year, they’re all the stocks

have done very well. Ron Lang: But again, with building permits. Look, eventually was going to have to take

a bump up because we’re never going to stop building. Yeah, Jeff Kikel: well, and they had pulled back pretty much from the pandemic through, last

year, they had really pulled back. And of course, they were selling like hotcakes. Jeff Kikel: But then last year, when interest rates really went up, building stopped. I

think, 1 of the things I heard this morning was, yeah, all this. These companies are flying now because. They’re actually going in and doing things like taking some of their profits

and buying down rates on Mortgage loans and everything else [00:28:00] so people are out there trying to buy new homes Versus existing homes because of that.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Ron Lang: You know what until next week? Let’s see how the lei gets digested today and tomorrow

we’re almost at the end of earning season and getting towards labor day. So that I know

out here in Arizona and I believe in Texas too kids have already started to go back to school so towards, you know in the next couple weeks, it’s going to get slower in the markets

Which means we’ll probably see more volatility. Ron Lang: So Yeah, Jeff Kikel: typically I mean that you got the northeast that are finishing up their

vacations at this point I think we’ll get into september. We’re only two weeks out at this point get into september hopefully for you and I it won’t be 5, 000 degrees until

November this year. And we get on to, we get on to some cooler weather. Jeff Kikel: We had 1 little spike down the other yesterday and I walked outside and it

was 75 degrees and it felt like, oh, my God, I need to put, put jeans on instead of shorts.

Today’s jacket out. Yeah, [00:29:00] just get a little light, a little light jacket. Yeah, it was fine. And then this morning, it’s 85 degrees when I got up.

Jeff Kikel: So much for that idea. But yeah, I think a lot of interesting stuff going on.

I think this is I think there’s going to be a lot for us to talk about over the next few months. As we get in, of course, we’re swinging into presidential and election season pretty

much starts up in September. Jeff Kikel: A lot of what’s going on, there’s going to be a lot of talk out there and. It

always gets interesting in a presidential election year. So I did next year is going to be a lot to talk about there as well. And I think we for everybody that’s out there

listening. Do I think that we’re at the end of the, the end of the game? Jeff Kikel: I personally think we’ve still got a little bit of a short run, but I think

we’re, it’s coming to reckoning with a lot of this stuff and that piece on that piece

that I, that I talked about on. Hardship withdrawals. That’s just the beginnings. I think of something

that Ron Lang: [00:30:00] That’s just a quick note and planning a seed for our next couple of podcasts.

Ron Lang: Fitch came out earlier this week, talking about there probably will be downgrades

of some of the major banks. Yeah. And they’re in the ratings not the small regional banks,

the big banks. Yeah. How was that going to take effect too? And Jeff Kikel: that, when you think about, we’re talking about interest rates.

Jeff Kikel: And, even if rates are if rates are going up, all the, those portfolios that

banks have, they’re having to mark those to market and the prices are much less. And so

it, it puts a big effect on the banks. Ron Lang: Like I said, we’ll have to see how things pan out here again.

Ron Lang: It’s slow news, August, but, maybe that’s the time they want to announce some of these major things before September. We’ll say, yeah,

Jeff Kikel: we’ll say Congress gets back into off or gets back into. Messing things on,

they get back into the office starting after Labor Day. So we’ll see what goes on there. Jeff Kikel: Folks, [00:31:00] we do these every week for your or for you and you only

want to help you understand what’s going on in our views and what we’re seeing out in the markets and how we determine that. Certainly we would love a little bit of feedback on

your side. So if you want to let us know you exist, hit that little up like button on YouTube.

Jeff Kikel: Thank you. That’s the little thumbs up button. And let us know you’re out there. In addition to that, if you haven’t already subscribe to the channel so that you make

sure you see all these coming out. I will be putting another video up today as well

as this one. If you missed a show that we did 2 weeks ago, we talked a little bit about

Roth IRAs and that’s going to be a component of the show coming up is we’re going to talk about some of these financial planning, concepts and things like that going forward.

Jeff Kikel: So make sure you subscribe because we’ll be pulling those out. If you miss a show, you’ll be seeing some of those pieces of the shows later on as well. [00:32:00]

So thanks all Ron, thank you, my friend. Till next week. Yes. And we’ll see you guys when

we get back here the very next time.