Jeff Kikel: Hello, Cents of things. It’s Jeff  and Ron once again with another week of fun,  

fabulous economy and markets and some fun facts to  make you laugh. So welcome to the show, my friend.

Ron Lang: Good morning. Hey, don’t  blink. 1 6th of the year is over. It’s

Jeff Kikel: March. I am just I am,  

I have a little chart behind me in my  office where I, I Pull things off of it.

Jeff Kikel: So it’s just basically a big chart,  right? I pull sticky notes off and it’s my goals  

and what I’m trying to accomplish. And  I’m looking at it and it’s my God it’s,  

there’s not much left on this for the first  quarter, which is just unbelievable. Hey, I

Ron Lang: still remember doing  our holiday show in December.

Ron Lang: I know it seems like  [00:01:00] it was yesterday,  

but boom, it’s, we’re almost. Three months out  of the year already. And and heading into the  

second part. So interesting. I know. I’m  sure you’ve got some fun facts for us.

Ron Lang: This is popular demand for the  last couple of weeks. People love our.

Ron Lang: Bad business decisions and  bad product logoing and design and  

all the other stuff. So let’s just continue to  trend here. We got a couple of new good ones,  

so maybe they should have reversed the words  on this pencil when you’re sharpening it.

Jeff Kikel: They

Ron Lang: would have just gone the  other way with it. Starting from  

the eraser side, it wouldn’t have been too bad.

Ron Lang: It would

Jeff Kikel: have been better. Yes. Wow. Yep.

Ron Lang: Another bad design. This is a platypus,  

the ugliest animal in the world. It’s a  platypus T diffuser, and this is available  

on Amazon for those of you that [00:02:00]  that want to check it out for yourself.

Jeff Kikel: Wow. Yes, just please don’t  use any kind of a reddish tea apparently,  

because it looks like he’s dying.

Ron Lang: I don’t know. I don’t think  what kind of care what color tea it’s  

not. It’s not. It’s not going to be diffusing  in any desirable way. That’s all I’m saying.

Jeff Kikel: And I’m still trying to figure  out the platypus. What I just once again,  

the ugliest animal ever. Why would  you have that as a tea diffuser?

Jeff Kikel: I have no idea. I don’t know.

Ron Lang: I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a lot of  

other bad ones to choose. I’m sure  but this is right in the mix Okay,  

so another bad design and should have fixed  the dispenser these poor minions so my whole  

point is typically the spout’s going to come out  the head. Yeah Why is it bleeding from the eyes?

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, this wow

Ron Lang: It’s on the bottom.  It says it’s a three in one a  

body. Why this is for the parents that  don’t want to take their time to pay  

their kids. [00:03:00] It’s a body  wash, a shampoo and a conditioner.

Jeff Kikel: I love this. Okay. So

Ron Lang: yes. I don’t get this design with a

Jeff Kikel: bloody minion  bleeding out of the eyes.

Jeff Kikel: Okay.

Ron Lang: Yeah. They went from cute to creepy.  What can I tell you exactly? All right. And  

who developed the mascot for this product?  That’s what I really want to know folks. It,  

I understand it’s supposed to  look like somebody’s intestine,  

but for what this product is  for, it does not look like.

Jeff Kikel: intestines. No. Looks  like a big pile of poo with eyes.

Ron Lang: Now, if there was  steam coming up from it,

Jeff Kikel: that may have been a little  bit more reflexive of what it is.

Ron Lang: And I’m sorry, the  answer is no to this product.

Jeff Kikel: Tastes like grandma.

Ron Lang: I like jams and jellies.  But no the answer is no, I don’t want

Jeff Kikel: no grandma tastes [00:04:00] and

Ron Lang: maybe you know If it  really tastes like it smells  

like grandma would be mothballs and camphor.

Ron Lang: Yeah, that’s true  My jams and jelly. I’m, sorry.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, I really don’t  need it to taste like grandma at  

all. That’s just yeah Let’s just  go with the black raspberry period

Ron Lang: exactly. All right, so moving on to some  serious stuff here. So we gotta get into some of  

The market moves the trending where things  are going And pe is something that everybody  

looks at price earnings ratio the price of the  stock or fund compared to the earnings and is  

it growing and as you can see we are definitely  at elevated levels the chart on the upper left  

goes back to let me see 1999 to 25 years And  we are definitely in stratospheric levels.

Ron Lang: I mean we’ve been saying this the last  couple of weeks We went and talked a little bit  

about you were going into some of this with some  of the trending information Yeah I think it’s  

very interesting because like we [00:05:00]  said as long as the consumer’s spending,  

Something’s got to you know for the catalyst  something’s got to break and in the lower right  

hand corner This is just now breaking it down  by sector and if we’re looking at this right  

the blue line Is bringing it to where it is  in February compared to the 25 year average.

Ron Lang: And we can see here that we are extended  and above and beyond the average ratio, even by  

sector. I don’t know how I don’t know how much you  use in a lot of your analysis, but it’s not my de  

facto go to, but it’s certainly up there to know  whether it’s something is cheaper, overvalued.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, I think it’s not as  everybody puts a lot of emphasis on it.

Jeff Kikel: I don’t put as much of an  emphasis on it. It’s something that’s  

in the back of my mind always. It’s,  it just, the reality of this is the  

P ratios for the things that have been  really [00:06:00] running fast are just  

off the charts. At this point, and they’re  priced for absolute perfection every time.

Jeff Kikel: And I think. What we see is, if they  come in, give you an example, NVIDIA 2 weeks ago,  

NVIDIA comes in with just blowout earnings  and, good on you. They went a long time,  

not even being known by people. If you  look at a lot of the radar that game.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, they, it was at least a  decade and a half of them sitting in that,  

below 10 to 15 range forever. And  it’s just been this last few years  

with AI that they just happen to have an  unbelievable chip. Or chips for AI and,  

of course, everybody’s scrambling  to do stuff in the world right now.

Jeff Kikel: I think it was 20 years ago. I saw a  

chart. I think in video was under  a dollar. Yeah. And it was in 2001

Jeff Kikel: somewhere. They were, they  were just another chip [00:07:00] maker.  

They were a weird. They were making stuff  that were so advanced for the time that we  

just didn’t have the computing capability  to really use what they were doing and,  

the world finally caught up to them and,  they are priced their price for perfection.

Jeff Kikel: They keep blowing the doors off  of, their estimates and everything else. And I  

honestly don’t, I honestly think they don’t even  necessarily come into it going, hey, I’m gonna,  

we’re gonna pull back a lot. They’re still putting  out. Estimates that are like off the charts, huge.

Jeff Kikel: They’re telling us that, Hey,  

we’re going to see, a 15, 20 percent raise on  a, multi trillion dollar stock at this point.

Ron Lang: But I think their stock  prices like big boy pants right now,  

and they need suspenders to keep these  things up because they haven’t grown into  

them yet. And they’re expected  to look, they’re the leader.

Ron Lang: They’re going to  be out there for a while,  

but we’ve all seen what happens with ebbs and  flows. People have been cutting [00:08:00] into,  

Amazon Walmart is now a major competitor  online. Just take a look, Google search. Now  

people are thinking of me as Google search  dominance and danger because of the AI.

Ron Lang: Come on people, please. These  are headline movements of the stock price.  

These companies aren’t going anywhere. They’re  only going to keep growing and getting better,  

but. They’re already talking with NVIDIA about  

AMD and several other companies. They,  their AI chips will catch up eventually.

Ron Lang: Oh yeah, of course they  will. Of course. Yeah. It’s just

Jeff Kikel: the nature of it. Yeah. And that’s,  it’s the nature of the beast right now. NVIDIA  

is the leader when it comes to that, what I was,  the point I was getting to is. All of these things  

that are in that kind of information technology  space are priced for absolute perfection and  

when they don’t meet or even if they meet  expectations, but they guide down for the future.

Jeff Kikel: These things get pole axed. There’s  

days where you’re seeing things down,  12 to 14 percent in a [00:09:00] day

Ron Lang: and there will be a pothole that they,  

and it steps in whether it’s profit  taking algorithm, computer models,  

just going in to say, you know what, it’s due  for a 10 percent pullback, we’ll buy it back.

Ron Lang: It’s going to happen. It’s going to  happen. A couple of other things here. We went  

through, earnings growth PE. Now we’re looking  at, sector level revenue growth and people,  

I know we talked a little bit about this  was the last week or the week before,  

I don’t know how oil a barrel of oil  is in over a hundred dollars with  

everything that’s going on in  the world and in the middle East.

Ron Lang: I don’t know, but here we go. The  revenue growth energy is the worst performing  

sector. And I think it’s either been the worst  or the top two or three worst performing sectors  

in 13 out of the last 16 or 17 years. But when  it spikes and right now we have a bit of a we  

have a glut of oil and then real estate and  communication because of the interest rate  

sensitivity so we’ll have to see but these  will flip around it will [00:10:00] happen  

but real estate has surprised me because of the  interest rate, but like you just you know just  

showed before we were going over it that  real estate, new home sales are down now.

Ron Lang: Existing homes have been down over  the last 18 months because of interest rates  

and then 30 year rates being over 7%,  but the new home builders are at all  

time highs. So I wonder if this data is  a bit of a lag effect, your thoughts. It

Jeff Kikel: may be, I think the other  side of it, what surprises me of this.

Jeff Kikel: Is, a lot of the real estate  space. That you’re seeing here is measured  

by REITs and those REITs are typically in the  space of the the commercial space. And it’s  

interesting to me with the kind of shift away  from offices and more, either hybrid or other  

work that we’re not seeing a hit on earnings and  revenues in [00:11:00] the real estate space.

Jeff Kikel: So we’ll have to see. All  right. That’s actually shocking to me.

Ron Lang: Yeah. We’ve done this before  CNN has their fear and greed index and  

like we actually needed a chart to tell  people, but we aren’t overbought levels,  

how we can stay up here for a while. We’re at  extreme greed, but if you take a look at it.

Ron Lang: A year ago coming out of a  horrible year We were still at even  

greed then we agreed we could be extreme  greed a week ago We were extreme greed a  

month ago But the bottom chart gives you  a two year look to see where we are And  

obviously you can see when we breach that  75 level Look, we see what happens here.

Ron Lang: It pulls back. It’s just like a  regular stock chart, right 30 And 70 with  

the rsi the relative strength index you get  above 70 It’s it, you’re in an overbought  

you’re above 75 here You’re in extreme greed and  then you know get your take [00:12:00] on this,  

but we’re in either greed or extreme greed  on all these things Yeah, and at some point  

there’s always reversion to the mean, whether  it’s to the The moving average typically 50 or  

200 or it’s just going to get to the moving  average of the channel that it’s in what

Jeff Kikel: are your thoughts?

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, I don’t think any of this  surprises me. We’ve been having these discussions,  

but I just, once again, that starts to tell  me, the, these are all things that go into my,  

or my. Look of the markets and what I  see going on. And, it’s been awesome.

Jeff Kikel: I’ve loved writing this this  absolutely awesome wave coming into this year,  

but, I think we’re at a point where  we’re at earning season at this point,  

there’s no major catalyst for another,  few months down the road. You’ve got  

a couple of Fed meetings in here. Lots of  economic data, and I think there’s a lot of  

room for the downside and not really as much  room on the [00:13:00] upside at this point.

Jeff Kikel: I think, as I said last week, I  think we need to be a little bit more cautious.  

The investors business daily their chart  of the markets, you Pulled back from 100%,  

80 to 100 percent in the market or in  the stock market back to 40 to 60. I  

heed those warnings and I accordingly adjust  portfolios to that because I just think we  

got some rough times that we’re going  to see probably going into the summer.

Jeff Kikel: I heard this morning, couple of  the fed governors talking. And, once again,  

they’re hymning and hawing about it might,  

we might see a drop in interest rates a little  bit later this year, but they are standing

Ron Lang: their

Jeff Kikel: ground. Yeah, maybe the summer,  

one of them said the Atlanta  Fed guy said maybe this summer.

Jeff Kikel: Which, the Atlanta  fed guy we always laugh at,  

but they’ve actually scarily been right  on some of their weird off the walls,

Ron Lang: GDP numbers, [00:14:00]  especially. I will tell you, look,  

getting into late November, definitely  December, every schnook, including us,  

we’ll can, we’ll be considered the  two schnooks to always have their  

2024 outlook for the market right now with  the rise that we had in the first 60 days.

Ron Lang: We’re either near at and a few  have already exceeded price targets for  

the S and P 500 for 2024. And wouldn’t you  know, some of the top schnooks have already  

raised their price target on the first 60 days.  Dude, it makes no sense. What are you doing?  

Who’s even allowing this? Obviously it’s all  manipulation to say, keep putting your money  

in and keep staying invested folks, we’re  going higher, pump it up, baby, pump it up.

Ron Lang: Come on now. The funny thing  is I average investor is our sheep. I

Jeff Kikel: don’t remember. Yeah. I  honestly don’t remember what I sent  

to you. At the [00:15:00] beginning of  the year or, when we did our end of the

Ron Lang: year, maybe at the end  of each quarter, we’ll pop those

Jeff Kikel: up. Yeah. See where we’re at.

Jeff Kikel: I think I’m already well beyond  what I thought we would be for this year.

Ron Lang: I’m right at the top  end of the, of where the my,  

we’re right at. Where the top end of  my target was almost there. Wow. Yeah,  

I still think we’ll be there. Oh, yeah I  don’t think you know, I can’t see another  

10 to 15 percent move to the higher between  now and the election after the election’s  

another story But between now and the election  with everything that’s going on the discourse  

the downtrending of economic data And look I  said this last year don’t know I don’t know.

Ron Lang: There’s still a lot of quality  things that’ll ride all this out, but,  

somebody is going to step  in a pothole here real soon.

Jeff Kikel: And I think maybe the  saving grace of it all is. That  

you haven’t seen as much participation  in the broad market. It’s really been,  

last year and a half has really been  driven by [00:16:00] the infotech.

Ron Lang: Some of the broad market has come  up, but I just saw a stat that more than  

50 percent of the Russell 3000 stocks Are still  20 percent below their all time highs. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. There’s The saving grace is  maybe it’s that we start to see a little bit more  

market breath happen and that but I think it’s not  going to happen that All of a sudden money goes  

from, the high tech guys to, Oh yeah, now we’re  going to spread it out amongst those other ones.

Jeff Kikel: I, until we see a little  bit of a pullback and people go,  

okay, we’re losing momentum on  those, the info tech stocks. Yeah

Ron Lang: no, but nobody is moving money out  of tech. And into real estate or utilities. No,  

not at all. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. It’ll  go somewhere else But there will be rotations.

Ron Lang: It’s just a matter of the  pad. They’re talking about how passive  

investing [00:17:00] is hurting a Purge with  corrections because people are in the set it  

and forget it mode For long term investors.  That’s the way you want to go. Absolutely. So  

You know look at escalator up elevator down. That  could be a pretty steep fall when we get there.

Ron Lang: We’ll have to see not wishing for it,  

but there are healthy corrections,  which we’ve talked about in the past.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. It’s just, that’s just a  normal effect. And, like we’ve said before.  

With our clients, I think they’ve gotten  used to just this kind of steady uptrend and,  

all of a sudden we have a 5 percent  pullback and everybody goes into panic mode.

Jeff Kikel: That’s just part of it. We’re going  to adjust and that’s what’s going to happen.

Ron Lang: Yeah, I know. I think  you got 1 more topic to cover.

Jeff Kikel: Yes, I do. So one of the things  that I’ve been doing a ton of experimentation  

with in really, literally every part of my  life is chat and [00:18:00] learning how to  

do prompts properly and what’s called  pre prompting and things like that.

Jeff Kikel: And so I was just. Sitting  there and I said, you know what? I want  

to talk about something on the show. And  I asked chat GPT, what, what are the most  

common questions that are asked of advisors  in general? And one of those questions,  

and I think it’s apropos for what we’ve been  discussing the massive amount of credit card debt.

Jeff Kikel: That we’ve had, seen in this  country and everything else. And I think  

around the world. And I just said, what,  how do you get out of debt? So go back to  

some simplicity. So let me share this with  you guys, and then we will go from there.

Jeff Kikel: So when I teach people about getting  out of debt, there’s really two strategies that  

can be used at that point. The first of which.  Is what’s called the [00:19:00] debt snowball.  

So where did what’s the debt snowball?  It’s taking all of your debts. Putting  

them in order of the lowest amount of debt  first, regardless of what interest rates are,  

anything like that, and putting them in the  lowest amount first to the highest amount.

Jeff Kikel: Okay, stacking them up  that way. Calculating up what your  

minimum payment is on each of those.  And then basically saying, okay,  

this is how much I can afford to pay towards  debt every month. Let’s call it 500. Any,  

so let’s say 500 and your minimum payments  were 450. So that means your net positive 50.

Jeff Kikel: That you can apply towards,  accelerating your debt pay down. So what  

you would do is you basically then say, okay,  my lowest debt, I’m going to pay the minimum  

payment plus that 50 and until that’s paid off,  I’m just going to keep [00:20:00] doing the  

same thing. Once that’s paid off, I’m going to  take what I was paying and, on that small debt,  

and I’m going to apply that to the next  one in line and you just keep doing that.

Jeff Kikel: And so the debt snowball is  designed. As a psychological tool. And so  

this is one of the reasons I like it because  investor and financial psychology says. That  

when I see success happening, I’m just going  to keep doing it. Okay. So there’s another  

strategy that’s more of the thinking, I’ll put  it this way, the thinking man’s approach to it.

Jeff Kikel: I’m going to pay off the  highest interest rate going to the  

smallest. So I’m going to stack them by  interest rate and I’m going to pay them  

off. So what I did is I’ve actually got a.  Chart or basically the book that I’ve got  

coming out here in the month of March, it’s  called the overcoming the retirement trap.

Jeff Kikel: And 1 of the chapters in there in,  in my freedom day method. [00:21:00] Is how to  

get out of debt and I shared, or I basically  created a calculator that’s free when somebody  

buys the book, they have access to it. But what  I did is I went in and I created a calculator,  

basically a debt reduction calculator  that helps you do this automatically.

Jeff Kikel: In this example, I’ve just,  I’ve gone in, I’ve typed in all the  

different. Predators that I have, I put in my  balances, I put in the interest rates here,  

minimum payments, and then I effect,  effectively came in and said, all right,  

now at the bottom here, now it’s in order of  the debt snowball and doing my 600 a month,  

my minimum payments are four 45, my,  600 a month that I could afford to pay.

Jeff Kikel: Now my snowball, that extra  money I can pay is 155 a month. So that  

tells me in this sheet, basically,  that if I just stick with that,  

if I [00:22:00] just stick with the snowball  method, paying 600 a month towards debt,  

by June of 2029, I’m completely debt free. All  of these things are paid off at that point. Okay.

Jeff Kikel: Makes sense? Absolutely.  So then I said let’s go ahead and do  

the avalanche and let’s see what  the difference is. Once again,  

I say it’s the thinking man’s way of doing  it. Okay. One of the things right now is,  

credit card debt is massively high 22%. In  most cases, some cases even higher than that.

Jeff Kikel: I saw a thing for my  bank the other day and they’re like,  

Oh yeah. Why don’t you get a business  credit card with us? And I’m looking at  

the rates and it’s like from 18 percent  to 29 percent or something like that,  

which is insane. Why would I ever do that? But I  get 1 percent back or 2 percent back every month.

Jeff Kikel: Thanks. But you’re sticking me  for that. Doing it the thinking man’s way,  

same variables here. That other one was June  of 2029. This is January of [00:23:00] 2029.  

So still I would be paying things off  in 2029. The biggest difference there  

is. I’m doing this paying off the  things that have the highest rates.

Jeff Kikel: Now, what has the highest  rate of my stuff up here? 9, 000. So yes,  

it’s nice to get that off the plate. The problem  with that is, paying down 9, 000 out of 26, 000  

total is going to take a hell of a lot longer.  And from a psychological standpoint, it can  

feel like you’re pushing this, you’re pushing  the snowball back up the hill in those cases.

Jeff Kikel: So that’s what  I believe when it comes to  

debt reduction. It’s very simple. Organization and

Ron Lang: follow

Jeff Kikel: through with it too. It’s paying  attention to it. And I think a lot of people just.  

They get bills and they just keep paying them and  they’re not, they’re, not paying down their debts,  

but they’re paying an extra couple hundred  dollars towards their mortgage and all this.

Jeff Kikel: And it’s stop doing that. [00:24:00]  Get this stuff organized. It’s very simple. It’s  

very straightforward when it comes to this and  it will help you to get yourself out of debt.  

And I’m more than welcome to anybody that.  Wants a copy of this thing. I’m more than  

welcome to send you a copy of this. Just,  wherever you’re listening to this, just.

Jeff Kikel: Put a quick note in there and we’ll  connect and I’ll send you a copy of this. But,  

once again, this is, I think, important  to, to get yourself out of debt and get  

to get focused on it now, because if you  don’t, it’s just going to come back and  

stingy here. In the future because it’s  just going to get worse and worse Yeah,

Ron Lang: look we’ve talked  about credit card interest  

rates for a while carryover balances are over 1.

Ron Lang: 1 trillion the only way that  really stops is two things one people  

are out of a job Or the credit card and  the credit card companies and the bank  

stop extending more credit, but hey  They’ve got to make their quarterly

Jeff Kikel: [00:25:00] numbers and that’s it and  they’re just going to keep doing it I mean and  

they’re if you look at the financials if you  look at the big credit card companies They’re  

making a ton of money I noticed the other day that  that Capital One acquired discover the discover.

Jeff Kikel: I don’t think it’s  going to go through. Yeah,  

who knows? We’ll say, yeah, they’ve got  a good lobby and they’ll throw money at

Ron Lang: if the GOP wins,  it’ll probably go through.

Jeff Kikel: Yes. It could go the  other way too. It’s But remember,  

most of those credit card companies  are are headquartered in Delaware.

Jeff Kikel: So just saying, I

Ron Lang: understand.

Jeff Kikel: All right, folks. Thanks a lot  for joining us. Hopefully this was helpful  

for you. I’m going to continue to to work  down the list of things that that chat GPT.  

Recommended as frequently asked questions.  We’ll be sharing these on the shows and,  

what we’re trying to accomplish is  just give you a little education,  

give you a little bit of fun and keep you up to  date on what’s going on in the [00:26:00] markets.

Jeff Kikel: So thanks for joining  us. Make sure you subscribe,  

give us an upvote and we’ll see  you here the very next time.