Peak Prosperity - Why Prudent Investors Are Shifting from Passive Investing to Active Management

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Trump’s Federal Reserve drama, China’s trade stance, gold’s surge, and the risks of a debt-laden economy are explored with Paul Kiker, while discussing the importance of actively managing wealth during volatile markets.Click Here for Peak Financial Investing

Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full We're in a seasonably positive and favorable period of time and I don't know if trunks trying to play on that to relieve some pressure for the market in the interim period but but But he sure did capitulate it seems seems, in swinging back and forth. Or maybe he's just enjoying the drama around it. I'm not so sure. The following is the audio version of a video

released at peakprosperity.com. Visit peakprosperity.com to watch the video and to find other insightful content, such as articles, discussion forums, and exclusive subscriber only content. Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of Finance University. I am your host for the day, Dr. Chris Martenson, and I'm here with Paul Kiker of Kiker Wealth Management. Hey Paul. Hi Chris. How are you?

I'm doing good. Good to see you. Well, today we're going to step right through it. I want to talk about China, a little bit about gold. There's earnings that have come out and particularly some negative earnings revisions and of course, the turmoil that comes off all of this and get your take on some things. But here's, here's the backup for this. So on April 17th, which is what six days ago now, Trump said ECB is expected to cut rates for seventh time in

too late Powell of the fed always too late and wrong. So he's beaten on him, says, you know, issued a report which said another typical complete mess, dah, dah da da. Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. So my way of the highway, Trump is clearly saying, I don't like this guy, he's got to go. And so that that's that's last week. And I got some more that sort of follow on that. But but that's how did you receive that? Well, I was kind of excited that that they might say say that the Fed needs to go and get out of the way. But he's doing like he did in 2017 and grabbing the Federal Reserve and shoving them right out in front of the American people and just berating them, because they are acting a lot

different right now than what they were last year heading into the election when inflation was high, egg prices were running higher. So I thought it was quite fascinating, quite frankly. Well, it was. And by the way, I did not expect to see this, but April 19th, two days after that came out, France warning that the president of the United States, they can't even bring themselves to say Trump would put the credibility of the dollar on the line. If he fired federal reserve chair Jerome Powell. You were reading this right, wrote gold telegraph.

I think we're out of popcorn at this point. France, France is saying if you do that, the dollar you're putting the dollar on the line. I can't ever remember France wading into a Reserve presidential politics in that way? I cannot either. What makes me wonder is what's their vested interest in making that statement at the time? I did not see that statement. That is fascinating. Well, the credibility of the dollar is already on the line. So let me be a little didactic on that point. France, we're already, yeah, we got trouble here.

And by the way, wasn't it France that called the bluff and demanded their gold and broke the gold standard from 44 to 71? I believe France was the, was the fingered agent most responsible. Yes, I believe that is correct. So I'd love to see, I'd love to have the data in front of me to see how many How much gold their central bank has been buying lately? I know Poland has been buying massive amounts But I'm not so sure they have I don't know but I don't know about France France is doing a lot of dumb stuff lately So good luck to them

I wish them the best but then on the 22nd, which would be yesterday from today at the time of this recording, it's reported Trump, well, he would like to see Powell be more active in lowering rates, right? But he softened it even further. He said, well, if he doesn't, if Powell doesn't, it's not the end. So a lot of people saw this as capitulation. Of course, this was part of yesterday's big stock explosion. Trump is capitulating.

They looked at it and here was how it came up today. Now Trump is saying he has no intention of firing Fed chair Powell. So whatever that gambit was on the 17th saying he's got to go and it backfired, it didn't work out. I don't know what they said to him, but somebody said something to Trump that made him go I'm just kidding He can stay did pal want to stay in position and call him I'm say, okay relent I'll cut rates at some point. That's a good question

Fascinating to me know this back and forth. It's in there. I mean the markets have been extremely volatile We're about to get into the end of earnings season. I think it's May 1st, Apple reports. We got the mag seven coming up over the next couple of weeks. And then as soon as we get through earnings, the buyback blackout subsides. So we're in a seasonably positive and favorable period of time. And I don't know if Trump's trying to play on that to relieve some pressure for the market in the interim period but but But he sure did capitulate it seems and swinging back and forth or maybe he's just enjoying the drama around it I'm not so sure I

Don't know it feels a little random and I think that randomness is contributing to the uncertainty Which is contributing to the volatility in the markets because the markets trying to figure out which way do we go? contributing to the volatility in the markets because the market is trying to figure out which way do we go. It's hard to say. But then on the 20th of April, so three days ago from the time of this recording, China's commerce ministry came out and said, okay, okay, China respects all parties to resolve their economic and trade differences with the United States through consultations on, and this is the important language, an equal footing.

They're firmly opposed to any striking of any deals at the expense of China. So nope, we're not your whipping boy. If such a situation arises, China will never accept it and will take countermeasures in a resolute and reciprocal manner. So that's part of the, you know, China's just saying, look, we're equals here, either come at us as equals or this ain't gonna fly. So I think that I'd heard that Scott Bessent thought that they could bum rush China, that they needed us more than we needed them.

China came out and said, call in your bluff. Here are our terms. And well, I think they won. Here's why. Did you see this yesterday, Paul? So I wake up and by the way, stock futures just going up all night long. But but but this is this is this is pretty big. So we got the Dow up over 1000 here.

But you see here at market open, just that 45 degree up into the right. Yeah, up into this moment. And then this last explosion right here. into this moment and then this last explosion right here but this is all been this where did all this come from all this stock buying where did that come from before this moment which was what oh that was at 1155 it comes across the Bloomberg wires that Bessent said that the tear of Sanoffa China is unsustainable. He expects the situation to deescalate.

But he added negotiations haven't started. But this is according to people who attended his session at an event hosted by JP Morgan chase in Washington, which wasn't open to the public or media. That's interesting that it's a closed session so nobody can hear what's going on. Not nobody. Yeah. Somebody was front running that, Paul. Yes. Well, we've seen that with Trump's tweet that occurred a couple of weeks ago, too.

Exactly. So what's the deal? Are we for the people or are we for capital? Are you trying to straddle both? Well, if, if you, those, those sort of data points, and again, this could just be collecting data points that have nothing to do with each other, but markets are getting volatile. He tries to lean on Powell, but then has to back off. You know, who would be most instrumental in getting him to back off?

Well, JP Morgan Chase, because they own most of the most of the voting shares in the Federal Reserve And they're the ones who nominated Powell in the first place. So he's kind of their boy their man and then you know, they're talking tough on China, but They had to back off on that too. I'm getting the sense Paul. There's something happening behind the scenes here that Says they're gonna have they're recalibrating something happening behind the scenes here that says they're going to have the recalibrating. It sure seems that way. Recalibrating or backstepping a lot because what was it after market closed last night? So today's the 23rd, Wednesday, 23rd.

You know, they announced that there's a scheduled meeting with Trump and Z coming up what here in the next couple of weeks. And that was what fueled futures into today. Yeah. And we closed off the highs. It's interesting. We hit some very technical levels in the market and then backed off. But the market is just looking for some good news at this point, it seems to be.

And we're in a seasonably favorable period of time. And Chris, there's what, one trillion in buybacks that have been approved and allocated, so those will be starting back up the first week of May. A trillion? A trillion of authorized buybacks crawled. That was the number that I saw. I hate stock buybacks. I hate them. No, I do too. If you're a company and you want to return money to shareholders called a dividend There's a mechanism it has the same tax treatment as capital gains But when you buy stocks you're rewarding your c-suite because they get rewarded on stock price going up So they have a circular loop on options. No, no you run the company you generate excess cash and you return it to shareholders with dividends

That's what you do Then the shareholder can say, do I want to reinvest it in the stock? Do I want to do a drip program? Do I want to take it and buy a car? Whatever. They have the choice. Stock buybacks to me are a self-dealing way

of pretending you're returning money to shareholders, but you're not. There's a lot of retirees that could use the dividends off of, if that was paid back through dividends. But what was Charlie Munger, I believe, quoted, show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. So when you look at all the C-suite, they're incentivized based on stock performance.

Well, what's one of the best ways to get, get your stock performance is reduce the shares outstanding, use the capital and rebuy that back. And that lines the pocket of the C suite and the capital, but robs the misters of the dividends that they should be receiving for investing into that company. So I agree with you. What was it prior to 1982? They were, it was illegal to buy back your stock. If I remember correctly, it was somewhere in the 80s that that changed Yeah, and then there was some other rule change was sort of said well You're gonna have to start accounting for stock options as part of executive compensation, but they kept it kind of squirreled away

They came up with more and more tricks to evade that but of course if you have a lot of options in the company In the c-suite and then you buy back authorized buy back a ton of shares your options tend to company, in the C-suite, and then you buy back, authorize buy back a ton of shares, your options tend to go up in value, so that's self-dealing. That, they should, I don't think self-dealing should be part of that equation. I just don't. You wanna give money back, it's called a dividend. Pay a dividend, or plow it back into R&D, your choice.

That's correct. And if you remove that incentive from the C-suite, one, salaries, you know, their income levels are gonna come down in relation to the average worker, but we're gonna have better products, reinvested back into research and development. They're gonna be better performance through dividends and income to all the shareholders,

and they'll move back to being a fiduciary of that company instead of getting theirs, they can set their goal and parachute through their stock options in the last 10 years of their career. Well, you mentioned that stocks came off the high. I agree with all that. This is the headline this afternoon on Yahoo again, April 23rd. So question, Paul, new bull market or dead cat bounce? They say stocks leap higher, but you know, the bigger relief rally fades. So stocks really were up, but came back a bit. Where do you land on this? Um, I see people calling for this is it new bull market, buddy.

It started by the dip. So what I'm seeing is positioning is relatively extreme. So there's a, there has been reduction in equity exposure. There's been some rebalancing across the board. So I would split the fence on that right now. I believe we're in the eye of the storm. And it's possible that we can see the markets rally for the next 30 to 60 days, just an educated guess because things are moving so fast, anything could change by the time this

comes out, right? But I believe we're in the eye in the midst of the storm, especially if Trump's backing off the rhetoric a little bit right now, and they're still continuing to negotiate, there's damage being done to the underlying economy, especially in consumer confidence. So I'm anticipating that as buybacks, or the blackout window for buybacks comes back,

which would be around the first week of May, we've got seasonality that's positive. The market tends to be positive from now to May 15th, typically around June. We shouldn't have a whole lot of news coming out. We're gonna see the major earnings over the next week. That could throw a wrench if you've got your Magnificent 7 with Tesla, NVIDIA, well, NVIDIA, Google, Meta,

all of those coming out. Apple finishing up on May the 1st. If earnings are impacted dramatically, then maybe the eye of that storm is a little smaller than what I expect it to be. But I believe that we're in a period of relative calm that may be coming up, so the market's gonna have to digest and heal.

Maybe it looks like we break out of these ranges and start to rally into May, and then we see the worst part into the fall. So I would lean towards this as a drawn out dead cat balance instead of the resumption of the bull market. Selling May and go away. Right. That's what I always heard. That was stock traders' almanac had that as a great rule

for the longest time and it worked. Selling may go away by back in November and then it stretched out to June and then it stretched out to July. So that data moves once everybody learns about it. But yeah, I mean, typically you're going to have this optimism money flow that's coming in early in the year. And then you're going to see the reality of the economic situation get into that August, September, October timeframe. Doesn't come off the tongue as easy. Do the opposite of buy in July. I like selling may go away.

That is easy. So I do think we're in the eye in the midst of the storm and that, that this is, this is ultimately a dead cat bounce and that we're going to end up lower. Because there's a lot of debate and argument between investors right now about price and earnings ratio. So is price incorrect? We've talked about this before. We're just barely, I mean, we've had a decent pullback or a correction, but we're barely off of record highs with priced earnings ratios.

So the question is, if we're moving to deglobalization in a new regime and trying to fix as best we can, the situation we find ourselves in is price correct and our earnings correct. And if those priced earnings ratios come back down to even the high levels, you know, you're approximately 20% lower on the market here. And if we go back to, to median or middle, which is, which is a fair price for the overall market, you know, that's substantially lower than we are, are right now. So, and typically when you start in that direction, you're going to overshoot to the downside. So that's the big question right now is the market's got to wrestle with this and and work out.

I do not believe that that it's worth as an investor paying these multiples for these markets under these circumstances because everything has changed at this point for now. Well, it has, you know, and we're all still sort of struggling about the overall shape of the elephant, which is de dollarization, which is, you know, the end of a multi multi decade program of reserve currency abuse and status and all that other stuff that, that has some accumulated pressures, very hard to read how those are going to play out because it's a, it's an unknowable complex equation. How's party A, B and C all going to behave under this environment?

Right. And, but a lot of this hinges, Paul, on, on some level of political unity in the United States because, you know, Trump has said, look, I want to cut a trillion off of the budget, right? It basically the budget's up 50% since 2019, right? From four to six trillion. You think, okay, can we dial that back to five and maybe, you know, the earth doesn't freeze over. But when you look at it, like 80% of that six is now interest payments, social security,

Medicare, and defense, almost impossible to touch any one of those. So now you're trying to save a trillion out of that other 20%. And that's almost all of it. So what we just shut down parks, all the parks and every, I mean, it's just, I don't know how it gets done to be honest. Or start selling assets, right? You know, the government can start selling assets to raise capital. There's no easy way out of the situation that our politicians have put us in.

And another thing that was interesting. So, but isn't that so temporary? I'm sorry to derail there, but if I'm selling into the principle of my trust fund, I'm going to, that doesn't, that's a, that's got a glide path to terrain, right? That ends. Yes, it does. That is no way to get rich son, you know, poor people sell assets. That's right.

That's right. And that goes back to that wealth rarely goes beyond three generations because the builder of the wealth, you know, teaches the next generation, which doesn't teach the next generation and they take it for granted. And then they become foolish in their management of the assets and then poof, it's gone. So you're right.

I mean, that's not something that, that's something that we would be forced to do, not desire to do. There's no easy way out of it. Now, you're good friends with Jeffrey Tucker, right? And he penned a wonderful article that I read in the Epic Times last night. So getting through everything, he was talking about the complexity. And all I could think of was, you know, free markets are far better than these, these directed or controlled markets. And in our human arrogance, I'm summarizing kind of what I pulled out of the article to get to what was fascinating to me is, you know, there's all these

controls and these levers. We want an economy where we can pull interest rates down, the markets off, you know, we can do this, we can do that. But he explained how economics is so tough because there are so many moving parts. Everything is moving. It's a complex system. And he talked about Jenga, the game Jenga, where people will play and you pull out the block. And everybody is amazed that it was held together at this point. And nobody knows which block is gonna cause the whole house of cards to, blocks to come tumbling down. And that's a great representation of where we find ourselves in the economy right now.

I mean, we've known for quite some time that we're a house of cards, that there's so many plates that are spinning that if we drop one, are we gonna drop them all? And Trump's trying, but there's no way of knowing what this, the outcome is going to be and, and, and whether the system gets fixed in the right manner, or if it starts to come apart, gold's telling us there are enough people out there that are extremely concerned about worst case scenario that they're, they're moving into it quickly, but then I think that's where we are right now.

I mean, you pull one lever and you think that's where we are right now. I mean, you pull one lever and you assume that these other 10 are going to work, and you think they are, but in complex systems, that's hard to imagine what the outcome is going to be. So for those of you who go take a look at his article in the Epic Times, it was Jeffrey Tucker, I think it came out within the past two or three days. It's a really good article just talking about the complexity of the situation that Trump's dealing with at this point. And we hope that it works. Well, I will, I will link to that article at peak prosperity of people watch this there. And I do want to talk about the complexity and I want to talk particularly about the

political fracture, Paul, that I think is going to make any sort of progress kind of more challenging as soon as we come back from this message. Hello everyone, I'm Chris Martinson of Peak Prosperity and I want to tell you about something. So you've probably heard about the Great Reset. You know things are highly uncertain right now. There are things happening in the markets that just don't make a lot of sense. And there's an unfortunate conclusion lurking under all of that, which is that there's some people out there, I call them the raccoons of Wall Street, who have found ways legally, air quotes legally, to take your money, your

wealth, your stocks, your bonds, maybe even your house from you. This falls under the idea of something called the great taking and it's a fairly complicated topic but this is what I do and I do exceedingly well. I will find ways to understand this and communicate it to you and I'll find the other experts out there who are just the best at figuring out what you can do and how you can understand this thing. Now I hope that nothing comes with this great taking idea.

I hope that the trigger is never pulled, but it might. So to help you get there, we have the great taking webinar, a variety of experts, and we have seven strategies that we will outline and also are contained in this workbook that comes along with The Great Taking. It's there anytime you want. Once you have secured your access to The Great Taking webinar, you'll be able to download it, look at it, and view it anytime you want. And you should actually do this with people you love, other people you care about, and anybody else you think who might need to know this information.

So with that, please consider taking advantage of this amazing offer to get educated and then take action to protect your wealth because the great taking, it's a very real thing. Obviously, they wouldn't have spent so much time finagling the law and putting in this trigger if they didn't mean to pull it one day. Let's hope that they don't, but if they do, I want you to be on the right side of the line so that you're not on the great taking side of the line. Now back to our program. Welcome back everybody.

And let's talk about this part. Paul, the political fracturing bothers me quite a bit. Here we see, I don't even know how this isn't like some like jailable offense personally, but high ranking Dem Jamie Raskin threatens countries that support Trump saying, quote, when we come back to power, we're not going to look kindly on any of the countries that negotiated with Trump. So basically, I didn't realize that congressmen had it in their purview to conduct foreign policy and

threaten our allies. This is new, new level of politics for me. We could talk about that. But also, Paul, just more widely, this speaks to a level of fracture that I think means gridlock at best, maybe just turbulence at worst. I think we have to factor in this level of political dysfunction into our analysis about what's going to happen next. Yeah, that when I saw that Chris, I was I was heartbroken. I was angered. And, and I

thought of several scenarios. I mean, they're that reminds me of a football team. So imagine, imagine you got a football team, everybody's supposed to be towards the same goal. He's a politician. It doesn't matter that he's on the other side. They are required or their mission should be to do what's best for the American people and to work with the other side. Cause each side is gonna have some good ideas

when it comes together. So that reminds me of a football team that's getting ready to get into the playoffs and the tackle gets mad at the quarterback or the running back and just decides he's not going to block, right? Like here, go right through here. So that's one example that we can look at. But another thing is, I mean, you're laying out a clear threat that when we

get back in the power, if we do, we're coming with all the revenge that we can possibly come from. And I'm concerned that that's not only going to be at those that have worked against Trump with other countries, but that's going to be for the citizenry within the United States that voted for Trump. And that's a totalitarian thought. That is evil, in my opinion, that you have that thought, that you don't want what's best for the American people, because we need Trump to succeed in what he's doing.

We may not agree with everything that he's doing, but we should all be together and trying to make sure that he accomplishes a good outcome for the American people. And obviously, that side of the Democratic Party could care less about that. They care more about maintaining their own power and standing up there with their intellectual attitudes and superiority and speaking down to us and telling us, you know, you're going to pay if you don't do what we tell you to do. That's not the American way. That's not what built this country and made us great. It's really kind of important to Paul, because this is a, this is the humans have gone off

the rails multiple times around this exact thing you're describing right now. Right. And I'm going to bet you a million dollars that representative Raskin believes in his heart of hearts that he's a good person doing the right things. Oh, yeah. He just, he's just doesn't understand like what you just said at all. Right. And that's what happens at these key breaking points where you have people who are have just such different points of view that they can't be brought together.

And then of course, it leads to the political dysfunction and it goes on far enough and it leads to these sectarian like echo chambers. if that goes on far enough you get civil war right and obviously none of these things are good because we need to we really need to pull together as a nation is just speaking for the United States anybody listening from your country particularly Europe you're also going to have to wrestle with this it's time for us to figure out how to build positively forward and I don't get that sense in this dialogue, right? Like the people who would be perfectly willing to burn it all down so they could rule over the ashes, you know, rather than let their opponents have any minor victories. Well,

and that just comes back to pride. You know, the only way that we can have the the correct path in front of us, the Bible tells us to work out your faith with fear and trembling. Well, but it also tells us we're not supposed to fear. It tells us all the time that we're not supposed to fear. That is one thing that we know, because ultimately we want to trust God's outcome in the future. But if we're taking each step with trepidation and each decision that we make with trepidation, we're focused subconsciously, mentally, we're aware in the situation, we're making the best decision that we can, and we're open to input and

the wisdom that can be received. Bible tells us wisdom screams from the street corner for those who want to hear it. But too many people are prideful. So when you get a situation like Raskin there, he's prideful. He thinks he knows the answer and and and how all Americans should live their lives and all countries should deal with instead of having the freedom to work together with some humility and say, you know what? Maybe we are in a situation that's unsustainable from a long-term standpoint we're better off to deal with it now than we are to deal with it later when the consequences are even worse. Because if we don't deal with it now with a little bit of pain,

the only way that we're going to change as a country in this trajectory is when the pain of changing is easier than the pain of staying the same. And if you continue to support capital at the expense of labor, you're right, we're going to end up in a civil war at some point in the future because when the middle class has lost everything and the pain of changing, which means the pain of uprising against people like Raskin is easier than the pain of staying the same, that's going to upend the whole country. So I don't understand the thought process to where you're going to come out and make

statements like that. What he needs to be doing is picking up the phone behind the scenes and challenging Trump and saying, okay, I disagree with this. We are gonna work for what's better. I mean, even Elon Musk came out here recently and he's like, I'm not for tariffs, right? But that's the president's decision. He didn't quit.

He's still in there trying to do his part to cut the fat out of government through Doge. That's the attitude that we need to have. And that's the reason why Elon Musk surrounds themselves with individuals that accomplish unbelievable things that these prideful corporations can't accomplish because they don't have the humility to have other input come in to challenge their positions. Sorry about that rant. I just got really pissed off about that rant. I just got really pissed off about that attitude. Oh, that's great, Paul. And I'm looking for a part here to sort of build off of that because

this is a couple really important, a lot of really important things in there. Okay. But at least part of it is making sure that we have the right point of view pushed in on something, right? And so here, I found it. So this is in a comment section that's under a piece at Peak Prosperity. We have this thing called the fat pipe, and it's fun, people seem to like it. But here's my point of view on this.

So we gotta have the right story. So this is the larger story for me behind why somebody has to do something. Raskin aside, all that. Trump, I think, and Besant, look at this. And so, two lines on here. This is a chart in billions of dollars. So, a thousand billion is a trillion.

So when we see 20,000 at the bottom of the left axis here, that's 20 trillion. And so, blue line on the top. TCMDO, it's called. It's Total Marketable debt outstanding. And so that's debt, total debt of the United States, over a hundred trillion dollars. We've got a lot of debt. That's people mostly talk about the 37 trillion, which is federal. It's part of that line.

But we got corporate debt, state debt, student debt, household debt, auto debt, debt, debt, debt. So the blue line is that the red line is our income. That's GDP. Now you don't have to be an econ whiz from Harvard to understand that you can't do that forever. Right. That was going to come to an end someday.

Right. And if you subscribe to Austrian economics, Ludwig von Mises said that when you get into a credit expansion, which is that blue line, either you voluntarily abandon it or you face a collapse of the currency system involved. Those are your outcomes when you get too far over the tips of your debt skis in that blue line. And the blue line is sort of claims on things, right? And the red line is the stuff we produced.

Well, you can't have more claims than stuff forever. Right? Again, this was going to stop. Everybody knew that. Nobody wanted to talk about it. It was the 800 pound gorilla that nobody talked about in Washington. And it got so endemic that I think there are people there who legitimately, I bet you like AOC or I could find some Republicans who probably don't believe that what I just told you is

true. Correct. That you can't expand your debts forever. That's not true. Because nothing's bad has happened. So it can't be true. All right. That's context one. So I think that Trump and the sent new that that you can look at this and you can say,

it's unsustainable. It's gonna stop. Okay, if it's going to stop, your choices now are on my terms or on some other terms like nature's terms, right? Right. As painful as it is, I think you're gonna want to do this on your own terms, you know, that's how I look at it. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And that's that's why something needs to be done. And it takes strong individuals to be able to make those decisions so that we can continue to have good times. I mean, we still have good times in America now. They're tough because inflation is eroding its purchasing power. We've left behind, there's

a large percentage of this population, of our population, our citizenry that's on very hard times because of the policies that put us in the situation that we're in now. And, and I think we're, you know, in the halls of power, people, you know, think that they're going to be shielded from this if they continue down the road. But one of two things is going to happen. We either have to deal with it now, or it's going to come apart at some point in the future, because we may not be pulling in the Inga Tower, you know, we may not be pulling a block, but if you get China to the point that

they've had enough, they might take their finger and thump one of those blocks and cause the whole thing to be coming down because at some point, you know, they're strong enough to where they're not going to be bullied. And so we're better to try to work it out now than we are later. It's going to be painful, but it's going to be catastrophic if we kick this can down the road further. Well, because eventually you just keep, you keep kicking it till of course you run out of road and then it happens. It just happens all on its own.

We call that the great financial crisis. We call it the great depression. Those are moments when humans kind of lost the bar of soap, you know, and just had to deal with the consequences. So, that's very, to me this is very simple. Blue line going away from the red line. And you can see way back here in 1970 when we went off the gold standard in 71, you can see way back there that the red line and blue line are almost on top of each other, meaning

if they were on a ratio, if they were directly on top of each other, the ratio is one to one. We have one unit of debt. We have one unit of GDP. I think we can imagine how we could balance that all out. And then somewhere right around here, just before 2000, it became a two to one ratio. And now we're at a three to one ratio. And I guess some would say, well, maybe it goes to four to one or five to one or 10.

Like we are a highly leveraged society and Scott percent keeps using those words. We're highly leveraged. We got a lot of leverage. That's what I think has been the tremors people have been seeing in the markets has been something about the amount of debt and leverage and all that. Okay. That's part one. Part two for me, Paul, it's very simple to do.

This next part is that if you want your red line to go up You're gonna have to use more energy That's just that's just it just look around you know Once you put your energy goggles on you you go into a city and there's a lot of economic activity happening There's Starbucks and this net But if you put on your energy goggles you see the truck pulling up to give more coffee beans to Starbucks. You see just energy, energy, energy, planes taking off, people coming, all that stuff. And that's the economy.

Well, it takes energy. And Trump has said, well, we're going to drill, baby drill. So now I've just got to draw people's attention to this. And I'm going to be doing an interview later this week with Adam Rosentrag of Garing and Rosentrag to talk this through. But to the sharp-eyed person, you might notice this is a total amount of oil coming out of the ground in the U.S. here as of the last reading is, well, huh, it's about the same as it was two years ago.

Why isn't more oil coming out of the ground, Paul? What's happening? That's a good question. That's a good question. Because if we're drill baby drilling, well, it does take some time for it to come on under that. But what in that going back to what was that 2020 right before the slowdown, that was basically the same level it was in 2020. Right? Yeah, 2023 to 2025 is about is about the same

Okay, almost two years two full years Well, this is simple the price is too low to get more out of the ground if the price went up more would come out Of the ground. Yes, so oil is gonna have to go up in price It has to or less is gonna come out of the ground and we'll have less economic activity that's that that's a That's some reality is going to have to come into this picture. What do you want? Less economic activity or higher oil price?

Those are your choices at this point. Well, and the only other way that I can think of that you could you could increase that capacity without prices going up is you're given all kinds of tax incentives to be able to drill so that you're reducing the cost to the companies and you're backing off of the regulations to reduce the cost of getting in there so the corporate profits can be up enough to pay for their employees and the effort that it goes to pull it out of the ground. And I've not seen any of those put forth at this point. Have you? No, there's not a lot that can happen at the federal level further. There's already a pretty good tax credit on the drilling itself.

There's already a depletion allowance. I guess they could up that some. But otherwise, the major cost to this thing is the steel pipe you use to make the hole in the first place, right? All of the labor costs to drill and do the fracking and all that, because this is all fracking at this stage. Then you got your state has severance taxes and then you got your royalty which belongs to the mineral rights owner.

These are all fairly fixed costs that not you can't do much about. And those are the big ones for the most part. And what about that steel for the pipes? Is that being produced in China or is that being produced in the US? A lot of it comes from China. So, so now with the tariffs, you've got an increased cost of the materials that goes in, which squeezes the profits even further with an industry that's been

demonized by the prior, the other political side for any profits that they had. You remember when they were talking about windfall profit taxes, several years ago. So, So a lot has to change. Yeah. And you've highlighted, is it there to pull out? Can we meet future demand? And you're- We'll find out when I talk with Adam later this week, but no, the answer is that for the people who are in the biz, Paul, it's a not so well- well kept secret that we're kind of we can see the end of the what's called tier one acreage. It's the good stuff.

And there's some tier two tier three acreage there, but it's it takes a much higher price of oil to justify it. And I will tell you that nearly all of the propaganda that comes out of Wall Street and goes into financial times and says, you know, break even at 50 is a lie just flat-out not true. What is the break even? I'm gonna put it at about 70 right now probably 75 kind of depends but for tier 2 tier 3 80 90 depending on the on what we're looking at. And that's, that's dramatically different than the environment we find ourselves in

right now. Yeah. Where we can't seem to sort of escape the $60 seems to be a strange attractor. So that's the situation and the new energy secretary isn't, I don't think helping to, you know, add reality to that conversation at this point for whatever reason. So this could be, this could be problematic going forward. And if I was Trump, if I could advise Trump, I would say, look, here's the reality. You might not like it.

Maybe you've heard otherwise, but this is the reality. We really need oil today. It's 70 to 90 depending on what we're going after. Because if you don't do that, that chart I showed where it's nosing over, you are going to have less coming out of the ground right when you're trying to go through midterm elections, which means prices could really get out of hand and that would be bad. That would be a blame that on you and you wouldn't want that. Oh no. And the Democratic side would love that because especially if it impacted the average individual. Now, do you think it's that there's any shenanigans behind the scenes with the

incentive to keep oil prices down to try to hit Russia's pocketbooks to bring about a pace to the Ukrainian situation? Because higher prices obviously gives them more money to spend. If it is, it's working very badly. The top performing currency against the US dollar over the past year is the Russian ruble. It's up 38% against the dollar. Because of the Biden era capital controls,

US citizens cannot invest into that currency or their markets at this point. Right, you know, freedom. or their markets at this point. Right, you know, freedom. You know, that stuff. No, so it's not, if that was the point, it's not working and also it's tending to piss off the Saudis and other allies and things.

It doesn't, you can't just, it's very hard to strategically target Russia for punishment in a low oil price regime. Everybody kind of takes it. That's how it works. Well, and that's just another, that's another indication of all of the things that have reached their point of maximum efficiency at this point. And something has to change within that system.

And that's why I wish that our, you know, Raskin and some of the, and these other extreme left politicians were, would, would set down their pride and set down their ego. I don't think that they can do that, right until they have a fall and start working together roll up their sleeves and have these debates argue all day long behind scenes, but work together to do what's best for the American people. But my concern is, is, you know, as Doge has cut more out of funding through USAID, all of these perceptions that they have put

out that, oh, this is just for aid for, for certain individuals that we need to be helping. And we're coming to find out that that's circling back into their own pockets. I believe that this is just pure narcissism at this point, and then protecting their own little empires that they're trying to build at the expense of the American people because they're clearly showing us They don't care how much damage comes along to the American people as long as they get their way It's not a good look. It's not just that's just not so from a market standpoint. I think that creates

This this this table is set for a lot of what I'll euphemistically call volatility or disruptions. You know, a lot has to go right for this to come out like, like when you say we're going to realign tariffs internationally, you're saying we're going to reset the table of international global trade, which is a pretty big ambitious thing to do, right? Wish them all the best, but everything kind of has to go right for that not to be bumpy. And if you do it wrong, it gets really bumpy. And if it's really bad, you get into a trade war and then you discover that, oh, we're

actually dependent on all sorts of other nations out there. And against that, Paul, we have to talk about the backdrop. I just did this in signal hour earlier today, which people can see us out on the public side of that. Europe just seems insisting it wants to go to war. It does, doesn't it? Marco Rubio just came out of the so-called peace conference this morning in London and said, hey, if they don't figure this out in a couple days, we're just going to walk away.

And if they need help with peace, we'll talk. But otherwise we're just going to walk away and if they need help with peace, we'll talk, but otherwise we're out. Right? Which is like basically saying NATO, you're, you know, let's, you're on your own. Good luck with that. We don't advise it, but, you know, if you bite this off, it's yours to chew. I don't understand that. I don't understand that thought process at all. I mean, why are they itching for war so aggressively? Because they're out of ideas, because they have weak leadership, because they have the wrong people in power, because usual reasons.

I mean, what are they, depopulationists, that they're like, oh, if we have a war, we'll reduce the population and global warming? I mean, is it, is it that extreme or are they just that blind to their path and they're just weak and, and we'll maintain control at the expense of the populace? I can't, I can't get into their heads to assign motives. I don't know, Paul, but I will tell you, you know, Sue Lavando line came out this week and said climate change is the largest existential crisis and mentions all the things that are going to have to happen for Europeans to get on board with that. And like, lady, can you read a chart? Look at China's contributions to CO2. Like, like Europe isn't

even on the chart practically compared to can we. But that's not the point. The point is to put more regulations on their own citizens and to use climate change as a foil for that. Because if they were honest about it, they would say, we've got to do something about the biggest emitters. Right. And she before she mentioned farmers in the UK, she would mention the Davos jet set crowd. They never come up.

They never mentioned that surprise. So as farmers, you little people. You're hot showers. That's just how it is. You know, yeah, not to change subject, but bringing it back to what what the average investor should consider. Okay. I'm concerned that the retail investor is caught up in hindsight bias.

So I actively seek out other opinions. So I've been calling a lot of your buying hole brokers. I've been calling your modern portfolio theory people, your passive investors. Hey, what's on your mind? What's taking place? The consistent comment that has come back to me is, oh, this is just temporary volatility. The markets are going to go on to new highs. This is the new age.

They figured out how to pull all these levers. We don't have to worry about all the things that have happened in the past. So you've got a situation now where some of your big institutions are starting to move, your long only funds at first kind of rode through the decline, but we're starting to see some data that they're repositioning into higher quality.

Out of the more speculative Mag-7 names, there's been questions. You know, the thought has been, hey, the Magnificent 7 is quality. They're your defensive stocks now, they're bulletproof. But we're starting to see shifting into other areas. We're seeing hedge funds that have basically been kind of churning within this area,

shifting from trade to trade. But the one consistent has been that retail has been near panic buying the dip. That's different than what we've seen in the past. And my concern is if we do get this rally in this period of time where it looks like we're off to the races again, retail is not paying attention to the major changes

that are taking place under the surface. And maybe they're right, Chris, right? Maybe they're right, not paying attention to the major changes that are taking place under the surface. And maybe they're right, Chris, right? Maybe they're right, but they're speculating right now is what they're doing. And big investors and wise investors are recognizing this is a completely different environment than put us where we are. Now it's possible Trump could come out, throw in the towel, back off the tariffs, go back to worse fiscal recklessness than what the last budget has been.

And Powell's going to come out and, hey, print all of us into prosperity. Not going to happen. But maybe they do that in the markets rally. My concern is it takes time for a lot of these impacts and this sentiment to be seen in the earnings. Earnings now are what's occurred in the past. We're in a different environment. So we're not going to know until we get into third quarter earnings or second quarter earnings

as to if there is any impact and then third quarter we're really going to see. So on that point, I pulled this up. This came out. Tracy Schuchart, Schuchart, Chee girl on Twitter said, analysts are busy slashing earning estimates in the U.S. due to the risk of a severe economic slowdown, according to Morgan Stanley's Michael Wilson. The S&P 500's earnings revisions breadth or analysts estimates upgrades versus downgrades is now at levels rarely witnessed approaching downside extremes in the absence of a recession The strategist said and so this is an index level here Paul that we're looking at. This isn't actual direct earnings

But it's just sort of like the up Downgrades versus upgrades like this is really deteriorated a lot here coming into March. So The index is pretty negative right now Yeah, and that shows that what, and Tracy does good work. I love her work, gee girl. But that's what institutions are looking at. Retail doesn't pay any attention to that data. If they hear it, they're like,

oh, I've heard that before in the past and it's all gonna be okay. And that's my concern is we got this environment right now where big investors and institutions have an environment to where into these rallies, they can offload their shares onto the retail individual that I'm concerned ends up being the bag holder. If we, if, if we do have a recession later in the year and who knows whether we're going to or not, and who knows whether they're playing a game to where they've adjusted earnings down to the point that they're so low that you can drop a lot, but it's beat.

So the headline is good. I'm not so sure, but this is a completely different environment than what we've been in the past. And Trump seems to be more concerned about interest rates and even the cent more concerned about interest rates where that was not a concern in the past. They were more concerned about the market. But people remember that Trump was really obsessed with the market back in his first presidency.

That seems to have changed at this point. And if that's a completely different regime and what worked back then will not work so well this time. And there's a thing that's gone by. You wanna see regime change in the chart? This is Walgreens dividend history. That's insane. They had a very like 92 year streak of paying a dividend just came to a crashing end in

2025. Wow. And they always, always, always had it had more dividends just stair stepped it up forever and ever and ever and just boom, bam, gone. And that went from a dollar 90 a share to zero. That's amazing. Ouch. I didn't know what happened.

So I looked around, best comment I could find was Phil back said, can't imagine why after all it's such a joy to go shopping there and stand around 10 minutes waiting for someone to unlock a toothbrush I'm trying to buy He's got a point he has a point And and people that are pissed off to serve you when you walk in the door, too Yeah, yeah. Well, there's there's a exactly they're not they don't have the Chick-fil-A attitude there is a You and I have talked about there's local markets and real estate are starting to also nose over but it's local not yet nationwide

But there's also this Kobase letter reporting that large US bankruptcies jumped 49 year-over-year in Q1 2025 to 188, highest quarterly count. This is a quarterly count since 2010. Even during the onset of the 2020 pandemic, the number of filings was lower at 150. So this too is what I think large institutions are looking at, not retail. Correct? Correct.

Correct. They're seeing the risk. Now, credit spreads are relatively muted right now. So that's true. But they are rising. And that has been surprising to me because looking at credit spreads, they're nowhere near the 2019, the 2008. So but they are rising, but they've not responded to that number of bankruptcies yet. But yeah, institutions and big professional investors are paying very close attention.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's obvious signs of trouble and deterioration and maybe the storm clouds part and all this was just a tariff kerfuffle, but I think the damage has already been done. That's my model. I think that the dollar is sort of a wounded animal that's been shot, but it hasn't fallen over yet but it could wander around for a while but I got to take both sides on this so

finance a lot who I like and follow. It says Japan is about to intervene in the currency market they're gonna have to devalue the yen because here you can see the yen getting stronger it gets stronger as it goes down here so it's good they think they're gonna have to devalue it'll get to some painful point. It's devalue. I mean, sorry, it's it's strengthening but they're gonna have to devalue it and go back this way and The reason is getting stronger is because the yen carry trade is unwinding. So people who borrowed yen Sold those bought dollars with the proceeds and went off and wandered around did fun things with dollars For instance, they have to then reverse that process, sell the dollars and

buy yen, which makes the yen get stronger. And that strengthening is no bueno for the Bank of Japan. So, so what he says is when they do this, when Japan does this, dollars going to skyrocket, it'll reengage the yen carry trade pumping US markets for the next five months skyrocket higher, not skyrocket to a higher price, but higher on this chart. That's what he's saying. So that's one model. Japan intervenes, devalue the currency, the animal spirits get unleashed.

Somebody says, woo, and that pumps the markets for the next five months. Now I can, I can agree with that. That is certainly a plausible theory. It is. It is. But yeah, and just let me get the other side of it. Because some think the exact opposite. So just Dario says, imagine you're standing on top of a tall building and all of a sudden the floor underneath your feet disappears. What about to happen to many hyperinflated stocks that got where they are, thanks to wild hedge funds, manipulation fueled by the yen carry trade leverage, and he thinks that that it's just going to keep strengthening in the bank of Japan can't do anything. And it's going to be the opposite.

So there you have it. Finance a lot. Yen's getting weaker. Animal spirits, Dario. No, Yen's going to continue strengthening disaster. Well, with trading money, I play one side of those others in just area has been been pretty dang accurate here over the past three to four months. But so and even longer than that.

But there is another option. You just kind of stand back. You keep your capital cautious. You pay attention to, you know, you lower your risk a little bit in the portfolio, you consider the long-term ramifications because you get this wrong and things come apart in just areas right. That's majorly impactful for somebody that's right on the edge of retirement or in retirement. So you know, it's better not to speculate on how the outcomes are going to become, but stay in a position where you can invest from a long-term standpoint.

There's a lot of speculation going on. Well, isn't it kind of crazy that we sort of have to begin to guess what's going to happen with this carry trade? And, you know, it's like, I just want the like, you're a company, you make a good product, you get extra cash cash you pay a dividend That's investing this can all work out now. We have to speculate everything's a speculation now Yeah, what is Japan gonna do? You know, I don't know You know and that's just the sign of the end of a system with the

financialization of the system instead of instead of the manufacturing capacity of the system and the production capacity of the system. So that's just where we find ourselves in today's society and most people don't know any better. And they, you know, if you're a hedge fund, you've got to find that trade and speculate to be able to make money and compete and survive. But I get the sense that this whole world of just financial gobbledygook is coming to an end of that.

You know, that's what Scott Bissett said they want to do. Like, like, come on, let's dial back the capital, which is the financialization part of this story. And let's get back to labor. I don't have anything wrong with capital itself. So often they use the word interchangeably, Paul. Capital means finance. No, no.

People who speculate with money to make money who are part of the financialization game, which is that's what financialization is. That's when you use money to make money. That's it. That's all you make is different from capital where you are taking saved accumulated capital and applying it to the next speculative risky sort of an endeavor, which involves property plant and equipment and all the usual stuff, right. And risk that's different to me.

Right. So, so I think when he's saying capital, he really means financialization. He's talking about all his buddies over there and hedge fund world, you know, George Soros, for instance, compared to labor and capital. So I just want to make that distinction because I'm not anti-capital in this story, but I am, I do think we've gone way too far in financialization and too much speculation and all that. I just wanna get back to investing.

I like investing. Agreed, agreed. And I'm guilty because I've thrown capital just for simplicity of understanding versus labor. But you're right, there is good capital. And then there's bad capital, financialization. So I do like the idea of term. You know, so, so I'm glad that you clarified that for the listeners and, and even brought that to my attention because I've been, I've been saying capital versus labor and,

and there is a distinction. Yeah. What, one of the big surprises for me this past month or so has been the number of people who've called me up shocked that the best performing asset for the past since the millennium started is gold and all over a lot of different timeframes. And can we just talk about it real quick? Because I said we were going to talk about gold. Paul, this move in gold has no precedent. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime. And I've been watching gold like a hawk. This is different, right?

Different. It is. It is. And it's amazing how strong it is. And just the institution is the massive number. Now retail seems to have been jumping on here recently. If you look at GLD and some of the ETF inflows, but I'm still amazed at the amount of capital that's gone into bullion and physical possession and taking delivery. I can't find anything in the charts.

I can see price action very similar in the 1970s, but I can't find anything in the charts anywhere close to where this is now. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about this very quickly then. And I know we were closing up on our time here, but while you're pulling that up, I'll share a story. So I had a review with a client I've worked with

for a long time here recently. And I had recommended that they allocate some gold quite some time ago. Well, they forgot about it. And I asked them, I said, hey, you still have that gold, right? They had set it aside and they made the comment like, how are things going?

I've not paid any attention. I've seen the headlines, but we've not looked at our accounts. So we're kind of doing the review. And they were blown away at the price of gold and they allocated to it substantially lower, but had no clue that had been an investment that had provided a really good hedge for them.

And that's kind of the average person out there. They're just not aware of what's going on with gold prices. I bet I could go to 100 people in town that I live in. I'd be the only one who was really clued into gold right now. It's just not a thing. It's just not, you know, for in most people's awareness. So, so this is what we see today. You know, gold has been getting hammered pretty hard here, and it's down $117 today. And okay, that happens down to $3,300, which a month ago you would have said it's at $3,300. That's crazy talk, but it had just floated with $3,500 in the overnight the other day. There's something going on here.

And Paul, the reason I can't make sense of it is that silver is the redheaded stepchild in this story. It always if gold gets beaten for 3% silver is taking a 7% shellacking guarantee. Oh silver was up 2% today. The hell was what I was looking at SIVR was up three and a half percent today. What? Yes. What?

Again, I've been watching these markets for a long time. That is unusual. What just happened right there. I was actually shocked because I watched gold most of the day and they ended up having to I ended up operating under a plan to average into silver for a client. I looked at it and I'm like, is my feed right? Like, it never crossed my mind that silver would be up. So I went ahead and purchased today because today was the planned purchase day. But I'm like, you know, excited about purchasing because gold's down. I'm assuming silver is going to be down three to five percent. I was like, what? That's an interesting signal. It's a signal and it's a very interesting signal.

Yeah. It says to me for what it's worth, free advice. I think it just says that this rinsing out of gold is gonna be short-lived and it will carry on doing whatever it's been doing. Well, yeah. What's interesting is I like averaging in the gold towards the last week of the month because Last couple of months it hasn't worked

but typically it takes a pretty hard hit at the end of the month and This might seems to be back to that normal pattern to where we're last month last week of the month Maybe a good opportunity to average in not a recommendation Just talking strategy that I tend to operate for people that it's appropriate for Well, you know, I'll have to wait for the dust to settle. The comics data we get is usually a week old. It's delayed. We'll peer into it.

It's like looking at entrails around a campfire because, you know, I wish we had better data. But at any rate, we'll figure out open interest will have done something and movements of this and that. But to me, Paul, the seminal events were were besides the absolute muscular move of this and the near lack of retail participation worse retail was actually selling into this for most of it I think they've just started to turn the other direction a little bit okay but this had to have been big money whales elephants right this was

sovereigns that this wasn't you and me right wasn't mom and pop right this was This was big money moving in and I don't see anything to blunt that thesis at present Still looks like that's what's happening to me It looks like it to me too And I did see the marketeer posted something that yesterday was one of the largest outflows of gold ETS that we've seen in quite some time or today yesterday and today So so that does tell us that retail selling and the only calls that I got in relation to gold today were should I sell some.

And I had three or four calls on that today. They were riding that train, but as soon as we get a little bit of a correction, the thought is should we get out of it? And I'm like, well, hey, educated guests, we've got to consolidate or we may pull back in the short run, but my thesis from a long-term standpoint has not changed at this point. So I would recommend you'd still continue

to hold your positions. Yeah, I'm just a holder on this stuff. It's worked well for 25 years. That's the one thing that doesn't concern me, Chris, is when the news gets out there that it's the, you know, the number one performing asset, we continue to see the chasing in the background. That's when I start, start wondering, okay, you're with my head right now. But, and it may be a little ahead of itself here in the short run, especially if we're in the eye of the storm and we get a little bit of a calm. bit of a calm, but for those who do not have exposure to it and it's appropriate and they talk to their advisor or do the research themselves, it may afford an opportunity to be able to accumulate over a period of time at a little bit better prices without feeling that fear

of missing out the short run as it moves. Yep. All right. Well, great. Paul, any final words here today? No. The only final, well, yes, the only final words that I would give is, is for those who have been rattled a little bit in your passive investing or your modern portfolio theory, you know, set it on

the shelf and forget it by this recent volatility. Consider looking at your overall picture, stress test your situation so that you know, Hey, what if we didn't have a 50 or 60 percent market decline? What will that do to my retirement plan? You need to know your situation and if that's something that scared you here in the short run and you would be tempted to sell out at prices lower, look up and consider. Use this period, which may be a calm in the eye of the storm, to lower your risk a little bit, beef your emergency funds up to 12 to 24 months, lock in five years worth of income if you're in retirement.

There are all kinds of scenarios that you can operate under. But I encourage people, this is not a time to speculate. This is a time to take very careful steps with your money and your finances, because if you don't get this right, and that one block gets thumped out or pulled out that causes everything to come apart and we go back to historical low side of valuations you're talking 50 to 60 percent decline from here I'm not saying that's gonna happen I am saying it's possible so take this period of time to examine your situation

understand what can keep you from being successful. Cause the worst thing that can happen is to run out of money before you run out of life. I mean, the minimum level of success in retirement is the only check that bounces is to the funeral home. I'm not saying that success, but that's the minimum level of success. Funeral home directors hate me when I say that,

but I don't blame them. But that's the minimum level. And I run into a lot of people and I've stress test a lot of scenarios of people that feel like they're bulletproof and they're not. And it's eye opening when they see that stress test. So take this opportunity to reassess your situation and make sure that you're on a path

that's appropriate for your circumstances. Indeed, and if you wanna do that, please go to peakfinancialinvesting.com. Fill out a very simple form, somebody from Paul's team. We'll get back to you then. 48 hours schedule a free consultation appointment to go through that, because you should. You should know what the situation is and have a plan. And that's the service on offer here. And it's a wonderful service too. Everybody needs a plan right now.

Yes. And there's no charge, right? I mean, this is a service that we offer. I have to know your situation before I can give you recommendations. I had somebody ask me yesterday, Chris, they're like, how long have you been doing these plans? And I said, since about 2004. They're like, does it become monotonous?

Do you ever get bored? And I'm like, no, every person's situation is so different and so unique. I feel like I'm opening a gift, really opening a gift for the first time because each person's situation is different and their cash flows are different. Their asset levels are different.

Life expectancies are different. So I enjoy doing these. Even all the guys on the team, it never gets boring because I believe it is the most important analysis that you can make by developing the foundation and managing your money and your retirement plan. Well, again, peakfinancialinvesting.com, get the process started.

Paul, have a great weekend. Thank you, Chris. And we'll see you next week. See you next week.