Ep. 116: 2025 Market Preview—Fires, Inflation, and AI’s Role in the Economy

The X's and O's

In this episode of the Retirement Plan Playbook, Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk dive into what 2025 has in store for the economy, markets, and retirement planning. From navigating California’s devastating wildfires to discussing inflationary trends and the impact of AI on technology and investments, this conversation is packed with timely insights and actionable advice.

Here’s what we cover:

• The aftermath of California wildfires: Community impact and recovery challenges

• Inflation concerns, interest rates, and their effect on retirement planning

• 2025 market outlook: Why experts are optimistic despite volatility

• AI as a driver for innovation and market growth: Is it the "new internet moment"?

• Trade, tariffs, and the new administration’s impact on market trends

• Plus, we share personal health tech tips, investment strategies, and predictions for the year ahead.

If you’re looking to stay ahead in your retirement planning and understand the forces shaping this year’s economy, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse any typos or transcription errors.

Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook hosted by Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth. This podcast dives deep into investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events, equipping you with the insights needed to craft a robust retirement playbook adaptable to any political or economic climate.

Join Brent, Matthew, and Joshua as they guide you through the complexities of retirement planning. Offering expert advice. to tackle challenges and the later stages of your journey. It's time to build your optimal retirement playbook. Now let's dive into today's episode.

Brent: Welcome to the retirement plan playbook. What's up guys? Welcome back. I'm back. Josh is here this time. You guys

Josh: recorded

Brent: without me Matt said it was the best show ever.

Josh: I didn't say that. I think the last time I missed, he said you said it was the best show ever too. I

Brent: never said that.

Brent: I'm just putting words in his mouth to make him look good. Was it

Matthew: good? The show? It was bad.

Brent: What do you mean it was bad?

Matthew: I don't think it was a good show. You were good. I was poor. I'm back. That was like over a month ago. I was

Josh: sick. It's been a while. I think I had neurovirus.

Brent: Yeah,

Josh: I had that too. It wasn't fun.

Brent: I got that also over Christmas break and that was not fun

Josh: Yeah, what's crazy is my wife didn't get it

Matthew: My whole family had it was not fun.

Brent: Yeah, then you gave it to everybody else, right?

Matthew: I gave it to everybody in my family. Yeah, do you think I gave it to you? No,

Josh: okay good

Matthew: I don't blame you for anything.

Josh: I don't think I gave it to you.

Josh: Your son got it first, right?

Matthew: Yeah Yeah, yeah, I didn't you didn't give it to me. He probably picked it up at like a kids play place I don't know

Josh: where I got it though I'm not. I mean,

Brent: so it sounds like it's, it's so transmittable that

Josh: I think when you got it, you knew where you got it from, right?

Brent: Yes. Cause everybody got sick.

Josh: Yeah. I don't know where I got it from, but it wasn't fun. God. Everyone's well now I'm back.

Brent: Yeah. It seemed like over Christmas break, it seems like so many people were getting sick.

Josh: It still seems that way too. Yes. A lot of people sick.

Brent: Well, they get sick over Christmas break from all the travel and family and then they go back into the schools and it just spreads around there.

Josh: You know what I hear too? A lot of. Anyone coming back from Vegas comes back sick. Really? Yeah, like the last four people I've talked to, whether that was through the holidays or even recently, I went to Vegas. I talked to them after they come back from Vegas and they're all sick.

Brent: What is it like cold COVID flu?

Josh: Everything. But I think that it's just more so also. Like people being around people maybe more than your regular life touching, you know in the casino hotels Restaurants, right Vegas is dirty. Yeah, I haven't been in a while. I want to go soon I haven't been in a long time. We used to go all the time together.

Brent: We did

Josh: once a year

Brent: in a long time I mean, I would like to see the new Raider Stadium. I haven't seen I haven't been there since that's been built

Josh: Neither have I I heard it's really nice though

Brent: And then they're, they built, are they building the ACE stadium?

Josh: Yep. I think so. Did they break ground on that?

Matthew: Yep. They blew up, I think it was the Flamingo or the Tropicana. One of those old hotels.

Josh: I haven't even been to the T Mobile. Is it T Mobile arena? Where the Knights play? The Golden Knights. Right.

Matthew: I've

Josh: not been in there either.

Matthew: Oh, if you go in September, you could catch a football game, a hockey game. Oh wait, hockey starts in October.

Matthew: So you'd have to go in October. Well, if the A's are good, if you go in October, you can see baseball, you can see football, and then you can see hockey all in one trip. Yeah. That'd be cool.

Brent: Now, are they changing the A's logo?

Matthew: They shouldn't because they're such a classic baseball team.

Josh: Is it indoor? The new stadium?

Matthew: Yeah, I think so. Do

Brent: you think it needs, well, I guess it's hotter than here. It's hot, yeah. It's pretty hot. So, since we've been on, there's been a lot of things that have happened, right? The fires in California, the inauguration the start to the year with a lot of, you know, market movements. Well, I guess let's just start with the fire.

Brent: What happened, Matt, you live in Pasadena, so tell us a little bit about what you went through.

Matthew: Yeah, so it all happened really fast, but we live a mile from where the Eaton Canyon fire broke out and then it was quickly it quickly came down the hill because the wind gusts were so strong. The wind gusts were over a hundred miles per hour, so it was like hurricane level winds in Pasadena.

Matthew: And we got an alert. Probably around like 630 that said, Hey, there's a fast moving wildfire in your area. You know, those little pings you get on the iPhone, like usually for amber alerts.

Josh: They're loud.

Matthew: Yeah, they're, they're loud. We got, we got one of those saying there's a fast moving wildfire in your area.

Matthew: And then, like, 25 minutes later, we got an alert, like, Hey, you gotta leave, it's time to evacuate. So we left, there's fire engines on our street, police cars just smoke blowing everywhere smoke, dirt, debris. It was pretty wild, it was crazy. And so, we packed up, we grabbed basically just a change of clothes.

Matthew: Because like when we looked out at the sky, it was orange all around us, like a, a three not three 60, but at least one 80 above like where the mountain is and like coming down, it just looked orange. So like, wow, we better, we better get out of here. And so we, we grabbed some clothes for the kids, some clothes for us a few things here and there like our safe.

Brent: Did you guys panic or did you just think about what you needed to grab or were you just kind of scatterbrained?

Matthew: I wouldn't call it panic. There's just. You know, you got to balance grabbing stuff and.

Brent: Yeah. And you got young kids, which is also another factor that you got to be mindful of if you're taking trips to the car and things like managing them or doing

Josh: all of that stuff.

Matthew: Yeah, exactly. Cause they, they pick up the stress of the situation and they also are big on routine. So, you know, it was in the evening when it happened, it was probably like six 45 or seven and you know, there should be winding down for bed. And they

Josh: weren't at that time, how long from when you got the alert to you being in your car, driving away from your house?

Matthew: Maybe like 20, 20 minutes. Okay, so not that long. Yeah, not that long.

Josh: And did you see most of your neighbors evacuating at the same time?

Matthew: Yeah. And a lot of 'em were going faster than us. Because I went through this before with the Grand Prix fire. You remember that when we, when we were, I was in high school, I think you were in college, but we

Brent: stayed at the house the whole time.

Matthew: We did stay at the house, but I was, I wasn't as panicked, I think, as other people, like even our neighbors or some people in my, my family who were feeling a lot of the stress of never going through a situation like this before. Right. But I do remember during Grand Prix, our parents, at least my parents had us pack, pack our stuff and pack the car.

Matthew: Right. Just in case we had to leave

Brent: in the Grand Prix fire for where our street was, the Grand Prix fire came basically right up to our street.

Matthew: It did.

Brent: Yeah, it did. And the winds were pretty strong.

Josh: It was. Yeah. So the scenes from Alto Dino that looked crazy. I mean, the winds and those embers flying. I haven't seen something like that.

Josh: Yeah. And especially with, you know, how tight it was. That community is up to the foothill and how much development there is because I feel like even Grand Prix and in that area It's not as developed, you know as Altadena is so to just see that those embers flying that night Visual of that Tuesday night was just insane So

Matthew: it is pretty wild and then just how it just kept burning all day through Wednesday Yeah, like burning through all of Altadena and then it kind of hit down to the border of Pasadena but yeah, the wind was so strong that we have burnt leaves still in our backyard.

Matthew: So like, you know, the, and the closest house that burned down to us was I think like a quarter mile or a half mile from the house. So like, it's just how strong that wind was blowing debris just everywhere. Yeah.

Brent: Was there a lot of houses on where that one house burned down, that burned down?

Matthew: There are five or six.

Matthew: And if you drive through kind of like our neighborhood and the neighborhood that's just to the right of ours, across across Altadena drive, there's it's like random, which houses burned down. It's, it's pretty wild. It's like if a house caught on fire, usually like two or three next to it, burned down.

Matthew: And then everything else was fine. And then there'd be like two more random houses that caught on fire. Now, how is it like up there today? So the, because of the rainstorm coming up this weekend, we're recording on a Friday, the city's been actually working, trying to get all the debris up. So they've been working extra time, really hard, trying to get all the broken trees, all the leaves picked up.

Matthew: It's like our whole neighborhood is cleaned when I got home from work last night. Which was nice because like for like the last two weeks there's been like down trees and branches everywhere and leaves still everywhere So they came in and cleaned it up. I haven't gone north yet into the actual city of Altadena.

Matthew: My brother went over this past week and he said, he said there's still a lot of National Guard up there.

Josh: Oh.

Matthew: Yeah, and then all of, they had guards in our neighborhood for the first few days after the fire, but they all left.

Brent: Once people started getting back in their homes?

Matthew: Yeah, and I think just because of our neighborhood there's only like five or six that burned down.

Matthew: You know, there's not probably a reason to station a guard there for

Brent: So where did you go and how long were you out?

Matthew: I went to my parents house. And then we went, we came back for a few hours, we spent the night at our house and we're like, yeah, it's, it's really not that great here. So then we booked a hotel and went down to Newport beach for the weekend and then we came back the Sunday after the fire started.

Brent: Were you really uncertain that the, your house would go

Matthew: down? I had no clue. I, I, I didn't think it was going to burn down. My wife though did, she stayed up all night watching the cameras. But in hindsight, I probably should have just got my family safe and then drove back to the house to like spray it down and, and, you know, try and protect it a little bit.

Matthew: Cause it seems like people who stayed and sprayed their house and protected them, they had a better chance of their house surviving.

Brent: Yeah, we would have all came down and helped you too.

Matthew: Yeah, I mean that would have been nice.

Brent: At least we know for next time if something happens again, you know, there's probably better protocols.

Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. They are offered.

Brent: You did offer.

Josh: That was nice of you. You didn't take me up. Yeah, that was really kind of you. I was ready to go clean up and hose down. Matt

Matthew: was gone.

Josh: Yeah, he wasn't there. Fight fires. Yeah. Yeah,

Matthew: but overall we were lucky. I, the rebuild process, I don't even know what to expect.

Matthew: I imagine it's going to take years. So we'll kind of see how that goes and how the community changes over time. But I don't, I can't see it being positive. So how

Brent: does it change? Like the environment that you're in, in the city that you're in? I mean, I know the destruction is North of you, but are the restaurants.

Brent: Lower in the Pasadena impacted because there's not the upper stuff anymore. And is it, it's just, is there a different mood that's happening within your area?

Matthew: I haven't really been out on the town yet, but I have seen some restaurants posts that they are struggling. And you know, Altadena was a pretty big community.

Matthew: I think, I don't know how many, I don't remember how many homes were lost. It was like 000. That might be both fires total. But, I mean, that's a lot of potential restaurant business, or, you know, shopping business that's, you know, evaporated now. And now

Josh: we have our season ticket, mate. His business burned down in Altenia.

Josh: It's very sad.

Matthew: It's home too. Yeah. Yeah. He lost his business and his home.

Brent: And have you heard where a lot of these people are going? Are they living with family temporarily? Are they buying houses? Are they in hotels? Like where, I mean it's been a couple weeks, but where are they settling now?

Matthew: I haven't heard much.

Matthew: I would imagine it's scattered. I mean, I guess if it was me, I'd go just go stay with my parents for the time being until I could find a place and maybe rent something more out here while my house gets rebuilt or like, I think Newsome he, he signed that I don't know what they call it here, like order in California that you can't sell right now.

Matthew: You can't take unsolicited offers on your, on your property if it burned down. I mean, I think that's good for a little bit of time. Okay. However, I think it's probably in most people's best interest to take their insurance payout and sell their lot.

Josh: I think it's situational, though, you know, it is going to take a long time.

Josh: I mean, the devastation just from the drone footage, I haven't went up there and from what you've told me, I mean, just seems awful and to wait that long, but you know, also it's about picking up your family and moving to a completely different area then, you know, that's the alternative.

Matthew: Right. Well, I mean, so you imagine, so right now they have the, I think the EPA in there.

Matthew: Testing everything and seeing how, you know, they're essentially going to remove all the debris and from all the homes that burned down,

Brent: right? Because there's other, is there like asbestos or there's

Matthew: asbestos, there's lead. I mean, these are all really old homes that burned down. They're not new. So I mean, whoa, it's not going to take three months and then they, they cleared the home.

Matthew: So that's what another. Six months at least to clear home. I don't know how the waitlist works or who gets their home cleared first. And you know, are they going to bring a bulldozer in? Is it like a crew? I don't know. I

Brent: think some of that you can look at the way that Maui did it when Lahaina burned down

Matthew: and what they do,

Brent: they created, I think a, a basically a destruction like triage area.

Brent: And they did exactly what you're saying is they had to bring in specialty equipment and specialized Organizations to go through and make sure that what they were, they were getting rid of was, you know, for those different reasons, asbestos and lead and so forth. Wow. And I think it was a very highly compensated job for people to do to remove that because of the risk that goes with it.

Brent: And I think they were using hazmat suits that they said it like it was a very formalized process. But if you go back, they opened Lahaina the road. That goes through there a year later. So, I mean, but that was a lot less dense of an area than what we're looking at now.

Josh: I don't even know if we've dealt with that many homes in that small of an area before, you know,

Brent: I think I remember in Northern California, there was that fire.

Brent: Remember that swept down the mountain and took out all those homes. I don't know how many homes that was. But there have been sort of these like, you know, rapid destruction areas through fire. But I don't, I don't know how those responses went.

Josh: Says devastating too. And we're not even talking about the other fires, right?

Josh: I mean, this is just the one fire because it's close to you. But I mean, I would imagine the same resources were still in California. It's still LA County. You know, researchers are also going to have to be spread out to the Palisade fires and all the homes lost there. Yeah. Does that delay the recovery even more?

Josh: So I would think so.

Matthew: Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I imagine it's a five to 10 year process.

Brent: I would agree. Yeah. It's going to take a long time.

Matthew: So, which goes back to my point I was making a few minutes ago, why I think a lot of people probably are going to want to sell their land, see their payout.

Brent: I think if, based on what I saw in Hawaii, I think if they're able to remove the.

Brent: The debris from lots in a, in a quicker fashion, then people can start rebuilding in a relatively quicker amount of time. But I don't know how the city is going to handle like inspections and stuff. Cause that's where I think you're going to get caught up

Matthew: and cruise. And yeah,

Brent: that's where it's going to get challenging.

Matthew: And Palisades and Eaton, I think it's what? 10, 000 homes that need to be rebuilt. Yeah. It's a lot. Can like toll brothers or KB even handle that amount of volume?

Josh: And that's the thing there's already labor shortages that we've seen that since COVID. So. You know, you might have the will, but do you actually have the way?

Brent: Yeah. And I don't think those areas are track home type places where toll brothers or someone can come in and just. You know, rebuild whole entire communities. I don't know. Maybe they can.

Matthew: No, I mean, they, they, I don't think so, but I guess it was just more of my point was, can they, could those big home builders even handle that much?

Matthew: Did they even handle that? If they

Brent: were tasked to, I don't think so. I don't know though. So are you going to make any changes? Are you staying put? Are you going to move? Are you comfortable where you are with what's going on?

Matthew: I'm going to stay here for now. I think there are some negatives to being in LA County.

Matthew: And I, I keep seeing it, I've seen it now. I've lived there for, in L. A. County, either West Hollywood or Pasadena since 2011. I think there's some, some negatives that come with living in a city and living in, inside the county, the L. A. County line that I, I'm not super thrilled with. But for now, I'm staying put.

Josh: Well, it'll be interesting. It's still very new. I mean, the fires aren't even out yet. Yeah. A hundred percent. Story to be monitored.

Brent: So one of the questions I've been getting for the most part throughout the start of this year is just what we're forecasting and looking at in the market and also the economy.

Brent: And obviously there's been a lot of changes since the year started, you know, one being the fires and, and there's a lot of impact obviously going on with the new administration. What is your thought on what happens this year?

Matthew: The market, the economy. What are we thinking? Want the market take?

Brent: Yeah, well let's start with the economy first.

Matthew: So I think the economy is in an interesting spot. Expectations for growth are really high. Because of the Trump administration. And his deregulation agenda. However, there are some cracks starting to appear in like the labor market and then we are seeing Information that inflation is starting to pick up again wage

Josh: growth is slowing Yeah, so there's a lot of little little factors that are underneath the The surface starting to peek their head out.

Matthew: But overall, I think the economy should remain strong. If we look back to 2020, that's when this new economic expansion started and on average, economic expansions last about 60 months and we're 51 months into this current economic expansion. So, I mean, we have, you know, that time I sat at about at least two more years of.

Matthew: The economy doing well, if we look at historical data,

Brent: but I think the big concern is inflation, right? Because a lot of the things that they did last year didn't seem to help as much as I thought it would. And now we're kind of in a, in a period where there's some rising inflation again.

Matthew: Yeah. And certain pockets of the economy there, I know rents are tanking, so that should help inflation a lot.

Matthew: But look, I, I think the inflation problem is quite simple. It's the boomers have all the wealth and interest rates are high. So they're earning, you know, a lot of money on their, on their fixed investments right now. And then their kids, which is the millennial generation, is at peak earning years. So they're, and also peak spending years.

Josh: Feeling a lot of demand.

Matthew: Yep. So there's a lot of demand in the economy right now. And that's going to continue, like, the, the millennial generation, you know, is now hitting you know, their, their late 30s, early 40s. And that's going to continue for, what, another 10 years?

Brent: So what do we think the Feds are going to do to kind of offset some of the things that are going on right now?

Matthew: Well the new president, Mr. Trump, has been, he said the other day he wants interest rates a lot lower. And he's right about that. It would help the economy and certainly help the housing market if interest rates are lower. However, I think the Fed is kind of stuck in a hard place because, you know, inflation is not really going down.

Matthew: But it could be this weird scenario where cutting rates helps inflation come down. Because then people are forced to invest elsewhere, like cash accounts, T bills, those investments aren't as attractive when rates come lower.

Josh: Yeah. Cause you had a record breaking money market flows with the rates up again.

Josh: Well, yeah. I mean, when they're paying 4%, like, yeah, that's good interest. Go seek risk, risk assets. Cause the fixed assets aren't going to be there anymore.

Matthew: And if anything, it'll just take away the interest payment in a way that they get, you know, I've seen people with, you know, interest payments stamped and set, you know, 20, 25, 000 annually.

Josh: Yeah. I think you could see the other side of that though. Trump kind of forces his hand, Hey, lower interest rates, but it also feels inflation. And that leads to the recession everyone was expecting over the last two years.

Brent: And I don't think he wants that to happen. Obviously.

Josh: Obviously he doesn't want that to happen, but I can see that happening if, you know, and the other side of what Matt's saying.

Matthew: I mean, that could, that could be possible. I think the biggest risk to the Trump administration is the fact that they create a government recession where, you know, they cut a bunch of government jobs, they cut back spending, and then that kind of creates a recession where it's not truly like a real white collar recession.

Matthew: Like, you know I shouldn't say white collar, that's the wrong, wrong term, where it's not really like a impacting too many private businesses. You know, like your Netflix, your your Disney's, your Google's, your Evermont Wells, those kinds of companies. It's more impacting, you know, people who work in the government sector a

Josh: little bit more focused.

Matthew: Yeah recession Yeah, exactly

Brent: and it seems like he wants to do that though He wants to cut those jobs and it seems like it needs to happen though

Matthew: Yeah, it probably needs to happen because government spending is out of control. We all know that

Josh: I don't think the answer is raising taxes

Matthew: No, he's going to cut.

Matthew: He wants to cut taxes, but

Josh: the answer to decrease the deficit isn't raising taxes.

Matthew: No, no. I mean, if anything, what he was saying is he wants to abolish income taxes, which I mean, sign me up for that, right?

Josh: Sign us all up for that.

Brent: Do you think that there's you know, some of the tax rules were supposed to sunset or finish at the end of this year?

Brent: We think those just get extended now.

Josh: Yes. Yeah. In some form. I also think he just makes it easier. I mean, he's talked about it as well, about making this tax code easier. I think that's something that I would hope for in this next kind of re up for federal income tax going forward.

Matthew: Yeah, I agree with Josh easier.

Matthew: I, and then the big one that would drive the economy and stock market growth is if they lower corporate taxes again. Which I actually imagine he'll easily be able to lower corporate taxes. I'm not sure if he'll be able to lower personal income taxes that much, but corporate taxes. Yeah, I could see that again.

Matthew: Another nice haircut

Brent: because corporate earnings can start to slow. If you see continuous higher interest rates and higher inflation,

Josh: correct. Especially from the small mid cap companies as well. Yeah. And

Matthew: that's where we kind of need some growth. But if you cut corporate taxes, you could keep the profit machine rolling.

Brent: And it'd be good because earnings have kind of slowed. Yeah. I think the biggest and most sensitive topic that everybody's talking about is tariffs also is obviously that is a generating source, but I've had multiple people reach out that are looking to either buy their cars right now in this first part of the year, or.

Brent: parts, things that they want to do projects wise before material costs gets more expensive or a car gets more expensive based on these tariffs.

Matthew: I don't have much to add on the tariffs. I'm not a tariff, I'm not an expert on it. It's something that we don't see used all the time. I pretty much think it's going to be interesting to watch it.

Matthew: That said, it seems he seems to be picking less and less on China and it seems to be like the expectation of a lot of people, especially when you look at what's going on with tick tock and how he let tick tock I think stay open for another 90 days. Is that within, you know, these first few months here, he's going to have a big trade deal done with China.

Matthew: And I think that matters more than anything else on the tariff side.

Josh: And it depends on the tariffs. I think there's a lot to be seen. Right? We don't know yet everything that's going to be actually implemented and at what amounts and what are the consequences. I do imagine there's going to be some sort of consequence.

Josh: I think there is, rightfully so, some worry from the American people. But it also depends on again, what type of tariff, right? Again, I'm not a tariff expert either, but from my understanding, broad tariffs are worse than kind of more focused tariffs. So I think, you know, I can't comment completely yet but it's something to be monitored.

Brent: And did he put tariffs on last his last term? Yeah, absolutely. But, but things changed for like, it was only for like a couple of years, right?

Josh: I don't know how long it was, but he did use the tariff strategy in the last you know, time he was in office. So it's not something different than, than this administration.

Josh: He,

Matthew: he uses it as a negotiating tactic. Because he used it last time and then he got the big trade deal done, I think, with Mexico and Canada, right? And now he's pressuring them again for another deal.

Brent: So we'll see. So how does this all impact market volatility and do you think the market goes into recession this year?

Brent: Could it be early this year? Could it be late this year? Or is it next year? Or is it just upward trend in the market?

Matthew: Do you mean like the market dropping?

Brent: Yeah, can the market, do we think the market's going down or do you think it's going up?

Matthew: The signs seem to point to the market going higher in 2025.

Matthew: The data suggests we're moving higher.

Josh: I think the first half we're going to see that like we did in January already. So more volatility is like things adjust, but I agree with Matt. I think that from what we see, you know, market market projected to go higher in 2025.

Brent: That's what I would think too, you know, if you look at like past history on presidential years, like the first year they're in office, you see a lot of volatility in that first quarter.

Brent: So I would anticipate we still see that volatility.

Matthew: I think the tariffs could bring some volatility. But I, I imagine it would be short-lived. You know, just really like headline based and especially 'cause the way Trump uses it, where he uses it as a negotiation tactic, which means he's gonna blurt it out during a press conference and then we probably won't hear about it for a month or two.

Brent: And I think, I, I think the cool part about this year is ai, the continuous advancements of ai and. Where a lot of these companies are starting to drive their new technology.

Matthew: That's why you can't be bearish, Brent. Yeah. That's why AI is driving the market. It's, it's driving it higher. We're in the 90s moment.

Matthew: You guys remember when you were kids and your parents started to get the, the internet? And then, you know, you got your first computer in the house.

Josh: Did you have AOL or Earthlink?

Matthew: I think we had Earthlink. But I had AOL for Dial up. Yeah.

Brent: For it to dial up. It does feel like that moment, though, or that time period, because Is the last like 20 years, we really haven't had a lot of like huge technological advancements.

Brent: We've had like progressive advancements, but we haven't had this like next big step. And this feels like it now.

Matthew: Yeah, actually there's a famous venture capitalist who's on podcasts the other day. And he said the last 10 years, the best advancement Silicon Valley gave us were AirPods and meta reels. He said outside of that, there hasn't been Instagram reels.

Matthew: Yeah. I mean, I think you could say

Brent: Tesla has, you know, was a big in the last 10 years.

Matthew: What he says is Elon Musk is the only one who's been innovating in Silicon Valley.

Josh: Yeah. Well, AirPods are a good one though, dude. I see everyone with AirPods from kids to the boomer generation So that was a good one But that being said I think what I'm excited about AI is that people don't realize it's still very very new, right?

Josh: Like not everyone's used it. I have a question everyone. I meet like are you using AI anyone? I even my family I asked him like are you using chatbeat? I just want to know I'm curious and Half of the people I ask are like, I don't really understand it. I don't really use it yet And I know they can benefit from it and you're seeing, you know, a lot of these companies aren't even public.

Josh: So I'm excited about the next couple of years because again, I feel like it's still brand new and there is still a lot of opportunity in that sector.

Brent: But you know what it is though, is once they use it, once they're hooked, because once you see the capabilities and features of it, then they're like, okay, I'm going to keep using it.

Brent: You just keep going back for more.

Matthew: Yeah, it's, it's the most amazing technology I've ever seen in my life.

Brent: And it's all around us though. It's not just chat. It's like, you know, there's advancements happening all over the place.

Matthew: Yeah. It's going to be a wild, like five to 10 years.

Brent: Have you used the AI features on your phone when texting, like where you can have it, like, you know, recreate your text or rewrite your texts?

Josh: On Apple? Yeah. No, not yet. Apple's AI features are so bad. I've been frustrated with

Brent: Apple's AI features so far. I, I, I used it, well, I accidentally clicked it once, and it completely jumbled my text, and I was like, that's completely

Josh: It's not good yet. That's my take one cool thing though that I did try and I don't know if you've tried this on your Apple phone on your Photos, there's a button to create like memory books or like a memory real I think I saw from your photo.

Josh: So what was cool was For my son's birthday. We took him to Disneyland had a pictures and I was just curious. So I typed into the Apple AI I said create me a video real Of the highlights of our Disneyland trip on X day from Disneyland and California adventure and it added music and it created, and I know they already did those memory things, but it was cool to prompt it with a, what I wanted, not just what they're creating, and it did it pretty well.

Josh: That's awesome. So that was pretty cool. I don't know if you've tried that. I haven't, I'm down on

Brent: Apple. I was just going to say that. You are down. At first you were down on Apple products. Now you're down on Apple stock.

Matthew: I'm just down on Apple. I just, they haven't innovated anything in a number of years. I mean, from a stock standpoint, it's expensive.

Matthew: They're not growing.

Brent: We said AirPods, right?

Matthew: They're getting left behind in AI. They ditched the car. Yeah, that was probably a smart move because I mean, they definitely lost the

Josh: Tesla. I think what I can see their opportunity though is like more in the home with their speakers Like somewhere somewhere around that.

Matthew: Yeah, I mean and then they're saying well, maybe apple will buy sonos It's like, yeah, that's great. That's going to move the needle. That's exciting.

Josh: That's not going to move the needle, but I think that's a good space because Sonos has been tanking.

Brent: But you could be down on Apple, but they just keep pushing out their new product, which might not change that much, but you're going to need a new iPhone.

Josh: You're going to

Brent: come back and get your new iPhone this year. I know the rotation. And you

Josh: already got one, did you get your last laptop?

Matthew: My laptop still works great. Apple computers are still fantastic, I think. I think the phones are garbage now.

Josh: Compared to?

Matthew: Where they were five, ten years ago. Lack

Josh: of innovation.

Josh: So you just think they're not keeping up to where they should be today.

Matthew: It's, yeah, it's not only like lack of innovation. Like the software's clunky. It doesn't work well anymore.

Brent: So are you going to go to like green text message?

Matthew: No, I'm not doing green text message. Let me tell you Apple's biggest problem with AI from my understanding is in order to run true AI on the phone, they need to make the phones a lot faster and put a lot more memory on them.

Matthew: And that's going to make the phones a lot more expensive.

Matthew: And right now they can't do it. So they're going to keep losing in AI until they do that.

Josh: Yeah, or they just come out with the AI specific phone that's 500 more than their top model.

Matthew: Hopefully they do that because I think that would you pay for that? Oh, absolutely. We know you would .

Josh: Yeah. When's the last time you bought an Apple tv?

Matthew: Probably two years ago.

Josh: Mm-hmm . You stick to your word though. You didn't get an Apple watch. You got a, you got a regular watch? I got a regular watch. I got an Apple watch.

Matthew: I just, I, I like, I like them. They look cool, but like, I don't know. I just, I don't,

Josh: I

Matthew: don't need a watch. I don't

Josh: need an Apple watch on my wrist.

Josh: I'll go back. I agree with you. The Apple watch I got, I haven't got an Apple watch since like generation two, I think, and it lasted me a very long time. It broke. I got one for Christmas. It isn't really much any different than my version two. It's just a little bit faster, a little bit nicer features, but I still like it.

Josh: Like I put it on, I like it. It's functioning. It does what I want it to do. I like it. But it isn't that much different than my version two. Yeah.

Matthew: Yeah. I don't know. I'm just, I think Apple's in trouble. Is

Brent: there room for them to grow, though?

Josh: Yes. But why haven't you have that much cash and you're that large of a company?

Josh: Like Matt said, I mean, he had one good suggestion. It's innovation. It's something different. Maybe Tim Cook's not the guy anymore. Ooh, that would be a big shakeup,

Brent: huh? But I mean, we know jobs was an innovator. What if they bought or a ring?

Matthew: I think they just developed their own before they buy a company. I'm just

Josh: thinking of other ways they could like health. Like I said, more home products. So

Brent: what is the opportunity for investors this year? Is it to stay bullish and onward with stocks and equities and leaving the allocations kind of comfortable the way they are?

Brent: Or is it time to rebalance and scale back? And I know everybody's different. But are people, should they be optimistic for this year? Or should they be a little bit more bearish?

Matthew: There's not a single sign. To be bearish right now, if you're coming, if you're trying to be bearish, you're, you're bearish because the market went up over 25 percent two years in a row.

Matthew: That's a good reason. That's the only reason you're bearish.

Josh: That's a, that's a fine reason though.

Matthew: It's an okay reason, but there's not, there's no signs. Let me give you this

Josh: example though. You're up over 50 percent of the last two years and you can go lock in 5%. Sure. Do

Matthew: that.

Josh: So it's situational.

Matthew: Yes.

Josh: Because for some people that might be a good option,

Matthew: right?

Josh: This isn't financial advice, but that could be,

Matthew: but in general, for all the listeners, there's not a reason to, to sell stocks today. We haven't seen it.

Josh: I agree.

Brent: Do you think that this administration can bring down the government, the debt?

Matthew: Ah, maybe. It's going to be painful, but yes, maybe. And that could be a reason to sell stocks, if they really do it. Yeah, absolutely. That's not good. Bringing down the government debt isn't going to be good for people. It's going to be very painful.

Brent: Do you think people realize that though?

Matthew: No.

Brent: Why not?

Matthew: Because it's a complex system. So to bring down government debt, just think of all the government contractors. How many people do we know that rely on government contractor jobs?

Josh: Tons.

Matthew: Cut all that out. You know, cut the military spending. That's painful.

Josh: It's very painful. It'll cut spending our governments over you've seen over the last. 20 years have just adapted to all spending. It's not like a one party or the other. Yeah, both parties like to spend money So you'd have to cut spending. I think Trump though has gonna try to tackle this through more growth though, right?

Josh: Right, so, you know, I think from an American point of view like that's kind of In my opinion, more of what we've been built on, like having that capitalistic mentality, promote more growth to try to battle the debt instead of saying we're going to raise taxes. Cause we already know the actuaries have run it.

Josh: Even if you rent increased taxes, that's not making a dent in the debt, right?

Matthew: Right. Yeah. So the play is pro growth agenda, maybe cut expenses, pause spending to cut expenses a little bit and just try and grow our way out of the debt crisis. Yeah. I like it. Cause I

Brent: think a lot of the concerns that we had going into this year, pretty much the same concerns we had the last several years, right?

Brent: It's like. Geopolitical risk. It's the debt expanding, like there's just the same kind of risks that are going on

Josh: inflation, interest rates. It's the same, it's the same thing.

Brent: I don't think that there's like this whole new concern that's going on.

Josh: No, it just, if you have a concern over a new party, really the

Brent: only one that's a concern is what's going to happen with trade and tariffs.

Brent: I mean, that's like the biggest thing because there's a new president, different agenda, but I think a lot of the other concerns are just kind of coming in from last year and, you know, hopefully that there is a lot of positives on this year.

Matthew: And that's not a concern. Trade and tariffs. I'm going to be honest with you guys.

Matthew: It's not a concern. That's a, we're going to make a concern for a news headline. A concern is in 2023 when all those banks were going.

Josh: That wasn't that big of a concern either, but I know, I know you did, you did get a little nervous, didn't he? Oh, he was nervous. He was nervous.

Brent: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah. It was absolutely nervous. I was a focus and looking back at it though, you shouldn't have been as nervous.

Matthew: Yeah. Well,

Josh: I

Matthew: like to get nervous.

Josh: I know.

Brent: I think the interest rates still have to get under control a bit, like for young people to buy homes right now, or people even to move your it's, it's gridlocking real estate because a lot of people still have those low interest rates.

Brent: I mean, all three of us have low interest rates on our mortgages. And even if we wanted to move, it's not wise for us to move right now. You have to have a pretty darn good reason to move. If you're going to go from a, you know, 3 percent mortgage interest rate to a seven or a six,

Josh: just hurting supply. I feel like I feel, I feel for the younger generation, just getting started to try to save right now with higher inflation, cost of living, just expensive, trying to buy a home, trying to start a family.

Josh: If you haven't already acquired some sort of asset or been saving, it's really, really tough out there.

Brent: Yeah, so I think for this year, I mean, there's optimism, right? And I think it's hopefully a bullish year. And you know, like you're saying, Matt, there's no warning signs right now to signal that we should scale back or be overly concerned.

Brent: But, you know, quickly things can change, but I think right now it's pretty steady.

Matthew: If those signs emerge, you know, we'll take the steps at that point. But right now, those signs are saying, you know, all systems go. There's a boom going on. And, you know, this, to me, This would be like selling technology stocks, you know, getting out of the market in like 1996, 97, 98, 99, and 2000 were all huge years

Brent: before we kind of wrap this thing up.

Brent: One of the things I keep getting a lot of questions on also is when are these AI companies going to IPO? A lot of them are private right now. You know, is Starlink an IPO is a SpaceX an IPO. Like what's the status of these AI companies going public?

Matthew: I don't know. Maybe it happens this year. Maybe it happens next year.

Matthew: We'll see the, the biggest problem I think over the last four years was the, the IPO window, as they say, closed in at the end of 2021. So no companies came public in 2022 or 2023, really, or 2024. So we'll see if it, if it reopens this year, if not this year, probably next year. But my guess is once one comes, they all come and then that'll start to be a reason for concern.

Josh: I agree.

Matthew: It's when all those companies start coming public. All, you know, the Starlinks, the Open AIs Anthropic, all these hot AI companies we hear about. You know, investors don't have access to when they start coming public, you know, that's probably time to start worrying a little bit.

Josh: And not all of them are going to be uber successful, right?

Josh: Fire beware.

Matthew: All

Brent: right. Let's jump into everyone recommends you have something for us.

Matthew: I don't have anything to recommend.

Brent: What do you mean? You have it on your hand. What are you talking about? I don't want to talk about our ring. We've already brought up the or ring and I'm sure people are wondering what it is and your clients already called you out for wearing it.

Brent: So, let's just get ahead of it. That's wearing a ring on both hands. It has a ring on both hands.

Matthew: I got an Oura ring over the holidays to track my health because I'm getting older and I want to be healthy. Got it. And what does the Oura ring do? It does everything iWatch can do from a tracking standpoint.

Matthew: But a few extra things like body temperature heart rate variability. It basically you just wear it all day and it is it like a woop man? Very similar. Yeah, they're competitors. Got it So which one's better? I've worn both. I think the aura rings a little bit better It's it's easier to wear. It's less intrusive That's cool.

Matthew: I like it. It has good tips For instance last night it told me I most likely drink alcohol worked out or ate a heavy meal right before bed Did you do either of those? I did. I ate a heavy meal right before bed. So it picked that up and told me my sleep quality wasn't that great. So like, now I'm learning, hey, you probably shouldn't eat a heavy meal within a few hours before bed.

Matthew: Did you have a

Josh: steak?

Matthew: No, I just got home late because I was here at the office. So you ate a lot. It's not that I ate a lot. I just think it was You ate too close to bed. I ate too close to bed. Exactly.

Josh: Got

Matthew: it. And I felt it too. I felt full still when I was going to

Josh: bed. We'll put a reminder. We'll ask you how you liked wearing it in like three months and then maybe like six months.

Josh: You think he's wearing it in six months? Because he wore the Wootband for a while. I think he'll wear it Once we hit summer, I think he won't wear it. Is this subscription? You have to pay for it monthly? You

Matthew: have to pay for it monthly, yeah.

Brent: I'm glad you're focusing on your health, man. That is good. It's good because any data you can pull from that is probably pretty helpful.

Matthew: Well, I've already learned a lot. And it also tells me like what time I should be going to bed. Which normally I go to bed at like 10, 10. 30 but actually what the ring says is like I should be going to bed at like 9, 9. 15 based on the time I wake up. Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do.

Josh: I think the Apple Watch says that now.

Josh: Watch this clunky guys.

Matthew: Like you

Josh: go, I just, I can't see myself wearing like my wedding ring and then another ring. I just, that's just me. Well, and he's

Brent: wearing a silver ring and a gold ring. Oh, you can

Matthew: mix

Brent: metals. Oh, can you though?

Matthew: Yeah. The gold. I saw the gold. What kind of belt do you wear then? It wasn't cool, but yeah, enough about me.

Matthew: Why don't you guys talk about some recommendations trying to make fun of me?

Brent: Well, we, we've been watching you with this or ring and it's been pretty interesting because every day we get a daily update on your health, which is pretty fun. And we get the comments that other, that your clients are making to you about wearing two rings.

Brent: So, I mean, it's, it has been a good talking point. It is.

Josh: It is.

Brent: I

Josh: agree. I've given my recommends my Apple watch. I got a new one.

Brent: I like it. I got a new one too. I had mine for four years. How long do you have yours for? Long time. I think mine was like gen two, three. I think I had it for like five or six years.

Brent: Yeah. Mine felt like a brick on my wrist.

Josh: Yeah.

Brent: This one's nice. It's thin. It's light. It's much better.

Matthew: So you guys are the only people keeping Apple in business right now.

Brent: I think it takes more than us, but, and when I went there, I mean, well, I haven't stepped foot in a store, but when I've walked past the store, it seems still pretty crowded.

Josh: Well, when I went to get mine, the one I wanted was sold out. So I mean, I just don't know if that's a production issue or if that's a demand issue, but I wasn't easy to get the one I wanted.

Brent: I have a recommend. I bought a product off of Apple. It's called with things. It was a thermo, a thermostat thermometer.

Brent: So like you download the app and it will track the temperature. Like if your kids are sick. So my daughter wasn't feeling good. I pulled out the new thermometer works way better than all the other thermometers that I've ever had. And so now it was tracking throughout the day. Like what were all the readings that she had throughout the day?

Brent: And we can kind of see what we needed to do to. either bring our temperature down just through Tylenol or Motrin. And but my other thermometer was so unreliable. How does it work? It's just, it's like an inch off or a centimeter off the head, the forehead, and you just go across the top of the forehead.

Brent: It's like a gun, like a, yep. And it will just pull the reading off it. And it was completely accurate. So we knew when she was elevated versus when she wasn't, because before we're trying to do the ear with the old thermometer and you'll get a different reading from one ear to the other. Very, very consistent.

Brent: Accurate. That's cool.

Matthew: It's

Brent: a health tech company.

Matthew: Yes. They make scales and other pressure machines.

Brent: Yeah, that's cool. And they sell it on Apple. I'm not sure what the relationship, I know Apple sells products on their website that aren't Apple, but, but that's how I was able to find it.

Matthew: Yeah,

Brent: that's cool. So that is my recommend.

Brent: If you are sick of bath thermometers, just go spend a little extra money on it. I think it was like a hundred, a hundred bucks or 129, something like that. Like completely outrageous, completely out. It was 99 bucks. So a hundred bucks for

Matthew: it's cool. You could track the data. So then you, even if your kids are really sick, you could show the doctor.

Matthew: Yeah, that's really cool.

Brent: All right. So as advisors, we love helping people and that's why we do it. If you have questions on retirement, transitioning to retirement, preparing for retirement, or just purely enjoying your retirement and wanting to know how to utilize your financial plan and your money to maximize and strategize around everything within your plan so that you can have a peaceful retirement.

Brent: We're always here for a phone call. Please reach out to us if you have any questions. If not, thank you for listening.

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