Ep. 110: Future-Proofing Your Wealth: Inside the Biggest Financial Trends
The X's and O's
Join the team from Evermont Wealth as they take you behind the scenes of the Future Proof Conference, the largest gathering of financial advisors and FinTech leaders. Hosted by seasoned financial planners Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk, this episode delivers key insights on the latest advancements in AI, wealth management technologies, and strategies for staying ahead in a rapidly changing world.
If you’re a professional looking to enhance your financial strategies, or simply curious about the future of wealth management, this episode is packed with practical advice, personal stories, and expert analysis. Tune in to hear what the top minds in the industry are saying about the future of finance, and learn how these innovations can transform your financial future.
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00:00 - Introduction: Hosts Brent, Matthew, and Joshua introduce the episode and discuss the Future Proof Conference.
01:30 - Overview of the Future Proof Conference: Importance of the event and its focus on cutting-edge FinTech.
02:30 - The Conference Experience: The beachside location and ease of attending close to home.
03:30 - Major Themes: AI advancements, new technologies, and tools for financial advisors.
05:00 - Networking and Learning from Vendors: Value of in-person meetings with vendors and its impact on client services.
06:00 - Notable Speakers: Insights from key industry figures like Jeffrey Gundlach and Dan Ives.
08:30 - The Role of Technology and AI: AI's role in wealth management over the next 2-3 years.
10:00 - Recap of Key Speakers: Takeaways from prominent speakers and their contrasting views.
12:00 - CNBC Moment: Brent shares a personal story of being on CNBC during the live broadcast.
14:00 - Financial Markets & Federal Reserve: Discussion on interest rate cuts and their impact.
16:30 - Real Estate and Bond Markets: The impact of rate cuts on real estate and bond markets.
22:00 - Apple Event Recap: Reflections on Apple's latest iPhone and AI features.
29:00 - Purchasing an iPhone: Best practices for buying a new iPhone.
33:00 - Annuities: Pros, cons, and how annuities are often mis-sold.
39:00 - Final Thoughts on Annuities: Appropriate uses for annuities and warnings on aggressive sales tactics.
42:00 - Recommendations of the Week: Joshua recommends upgrading to the new iPhone; Brent suggests adding electrolytes for hydration.
45:00 - Conclusion: Hosts thank the listeners and offer complimentary consultations.
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Transcript
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: All right, so future proof conference, that's a conference that you guys have wanted to go to for what, how many years have you wanted to go to this?
Matthew: I think it is like 2021 or 2022 and they announced it. What is the third? This is the third year. So it would have been 2022.
Matthew: So right when I heard about it in 22, I really wanted to go to the conference. I think Josh did too.
Brent: I did. And then we almost went last year, right? But we kind of were looking at it too late. And then this year we weren't planning ahead either. The date came up, we bought tickets at the last minute and we went and personally I went cause I knew how much you guys wanted to go.
Brent: But I actually felt like I, I had a great time. Like the conference was incredible. Well, I'm glad that you wanted to
Joshua: So
Matthew: the future proof, is it the largest conference for financial advisors? It is. It's the largest
Brent: wealth management conference that's out there. And it's, it's a festival. It's a festival and it's showcase cutting edge FinTech that just has all the top vendors that are out there.
Brent: Top content creators.
Joshua: And it's at the beach, right? We're hanging out in Huntington Beach. I think they say boardwalk, but it's really just in front of the Hyatt in Huntington Beach, which is a parking lot.
Matthew: It was kind of cool though, to be like, actually like steps from the
Brent: sand. What was really cool is that we were able to go to such a big conference without having to fly anywhere.
Matthew: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Cause it's driving distance. So we drove home a few days. Yeah.
Joshua: Yeah. That made it nice, especially for the young family.
Brent: What did you find that was most interesting about the conference at being your first time?
Matthew: Well, there was a ton of vendors there, which I think you mentioned, and I didn't realize it was going to be like that.
Matthew: So, you know, almost every company who's either selling a fund. A piece of software or some kind of service to financial advisors. Was there. So like all the large asset managers, dimensional fund advisors, black rock, a cool picture of me in front of the black rock tent, by the way, Vanguard all the heavy hitters were there
Joshua: BNY,
Matthew: yeah, being why, you know, who wasn't there though, as Charles Schwab, which was kind of interesting.
Matthew: Fidelity was there. And then also all the different technology that advisors could use to, you know, help their clients, like better help their clients and provide better service. It was really cool to see all that. I didn't realize what we were walking into.
Brent: What I thought was most interesting I had a couple feelings as I was there was number one I thought we're doing a very good job as a firm Keeping up with new advancements with new technology knowing what the new things are that are coming out there That's both from seeing the vendors there And then in addition to that talking to a lot of advisors and seeing what they've implemented in their practice and what they haven't I feel like we've been on the cutting edge.
Brent: It's been very important to us to continue to be on the cutting edge. But I also thought what was interesting is that we were able to see what is to come and what are some ways that we can continue to advance in the short term. And then what to be thinking about sort of in the next two to three years, because it seems like with AI advancements in this new technology, that's just all around us.
Brent: We're going to be able to do even so much more.
Joshua: Yeah, I get, I agree. I think that speaking with other advisors, like you also said, just kind of in summary, Of seeing the technology partners that were there, you know, our company should be very proud of where we're at. And I think that there is obviously still a lot of room to go, especially with AI advancements, like you had said.
Joshua: And it was just nice because I feel like a lot of relationships now, especially with our partners to make our business better is through a phone call or it's through kind of a virtual. Zoom meeting, and instead we're actually face to face with these people talking to them, giving, you know, they're interested in our feedback.
Joshua: They're interested in what we have to say. And it kind of makes that relationship better, which in my opinion, then makes our business better for us and our clients.
Matthew: Yeah, that's what I think of when I think of my recap of future proof is, wow, how great is it going to be for the clients of investment advisors who were there over the next five years?
Matthew: I agree. And that includes our clients, right? Cause we're there, but I mean. There's so much exciting new software coming from the tax planning standpoint to the estate management portion, which is something, is something a lot of our clients are lacking on. Like how many times do we get a new client who doesn't have like a trust done or you know, they have, they're like, Oh, I did it 10 years ago and threw it in a drawer and haven't updated it.
Matthew: And there's all these services that are coming for advisors to be able to help clients with that.
Brent: So to put a sort of landscape on how the conference was laid out, there was four stages. And each of those stages had speakings going on throughout the entire day. And a lot of the speakings that were going on at each one of the stages were of people that are really substantial in our industry.
Brent: There are people that are very influential or people that are very good at what they do or, or have had a ton of success, whether it's big firms, small firms, but they, they have speakings that are going on and you just elect what speakings that you're going to go to. But in addition to that, Every morning you had an advisor round table where you're meeting with eight to 10 advisors talking about a topic that is relevant to everybody at the table.
Brent: And you're, you're brainstorming on what's working for some people and what's not and how people are leveraging technology. And then the other thing that I thought was great was you schedule one on one meetings with either vendors or other people. Where you have a, a 15 minute one on one meeting where you're finding out also what they're doing.
Brent: And then in addition to that, it was probably over a hundred plus vendors that are out there that were there and they're all set up to do demos or have long discussions with you about what they're actually doing. And so I know that vendor stuff happens at a lot of conferences, but I think the overall structure, being outside, being able to move around, having also a schedule of things that you're going to be doing the entire time.
Brent: I mean, we've spent. Three and a half days there and we were busy the entire time.
Matthew: I was dead tired by the time the conference
Joshua: was over on Wednesday. Future Proof did a really good job of facilitating introductions and networking opportunities. Like it, you know, you, we, you weren't sitting in a big conference listening to a speaker talk all day, right?
Joshua: It was very interactive. They facilitated those round talks that you were just talking about where we got to meet. Kind of forced you to network, even if that's not your cup of tea. I got
Brent: a
Joshua: sunburn.
Matthew: Did you guys get sunburned?
Joshua: I
Matthew: did. I did too.
Brent: But I thought Matt, what was very helpful there though, too, is, you know, we saw the fruits of how much hard work that you put into the firm, just being aware of what new technologies are out there.
Brent: And I felt like as a firm, like we're up to date, we're not behind where we're very forward thinking we're up to date and we're beyond up to date. And so I thought that was great being there to see that. Thanks, man.
Matthew: We got to give credit to Joshua too. He's always big on the advisor technology. Yeah. You guys have done
Joshua: a great job and thanks for the shout out map, but you do, you do kind of lead there.
Joshua: So I agree. Great job. Thanks guys. You guys want to buy more? More software?
Matthew: Yeah,
Brent: I think we're buying a lot of software. Because there's
Matthew: like two or three that I'm really excited about. There,
Brent: there's a few that we're all very excited about and I think it's going to help with client experience. It's going to help with just what we're able to accomplish and do with the client and the client service offering, so.
Joshua: Also, one other thing, it was interesting about the food because the food was provided, but for lunch and kind of throughout the whole day, they only had food trucks. Did you guys like that?
Matthew: For me, yeah, I like food trucks and I liked how you could just walk up and sample you know, a small bite. It wasn't like you're getting a big meal.
Joshua: Yeah.
Matthew: So that was cool though. By like day two, I was kind of like, oh, I've ate food truck food for, you know, the last five meals. So I'm ready for something different.
Joshua: I was sad for you. That day you
Matthew: wanted a burger and we waited
Joshua: like two days to get a burger.
Matthew: Yeah. So I don't eat avocado and the burger truck had the longest line.
Matthew: They only had one burger and it was a burger with avocado on it. So I get up to the front of the line. I'm all excited to get my burger. And the lady's like, it has avocado on it. I was very, I had the very disappointed. This is awful. So now I'm out.
Brent: Matt didn't even say anything there. He just turned around and walked away.
Brent: I was so disappointed. But in the week leading up to the conference, I kept telling my wife and my kids that CNBC was going to be hosting live from the event and they were going to be doing some of their segments from there. So when we got there, I scoped out where CNBC was going to be out and it's on the big lawn, like overlooking the conference.
Brent: And so my son kept telling me, daddy, you have to get on TV. Daddy, you have to get on TV. So once in the morning when they were shooting, I turned on my phone on, on YouTube TV so I can get the recording. And I walked behind the segment so that I can get, get on TV. And then when we were done, we snapshoted the, the, the recording so that we were able to actually be on TV and show my kid.
Brent: And my son was just so stoked that I was on TV.
Joshua: We have actually have a, we uploaded a clip of that segment on CNBC on our Instagram. So if you're interested in seeing us in the background of CNBC, it's on our Instagram now.
Brent: And he, my son, the only thing he says, dad, why didn't you smile and throw up a peace sign?
Matthew: So we saw a lot of people speak who also go on CNBC at the conference. I think the two biggest names we saw were Jeff Conlonock and, and who runs double line and Dan Ives. I don't even know where Dan Ives works at, but he's the big AI stock guy. Which one was your guys favorite? What'd you take away from their speakings?
Joshua: Gunlock was very interesting just because he is very grumpy.
Brent: He's always been there. Yeah. He's
Joshua: grumpy, but I mean, he, you can, he's doom and gloom. He's very smart. So taking a lot from, from his conversation. I think those, the two people you had mentioned were definitely opposite sides that like. One's happy and bright, the other one's dark and gloomy.
Joshua: So I think it's just very, very different. I took a lot from both of them. But you know who I actually love, and I love hearing him speak, is Josh Brown though. And he's one of the heads that kind of leads the Future Proof Conference and everything. Anytime he talks, I always enjoy listening to him.
Matthew: Yeah. Josh Brown's great. Good personality. What about you? Happy for his success. Gunlock. He, I mean, he's always bearish. He's always bearish. So, you know, shocker. He thinks there's going to be a big recession.
Brent: Yeah. But he's, he, his speakings are gravitating. They're interesting. They're fun to listen to because he's very insightful.
Brent: But after listening to him for so many years, I mean, he's been saying the same thing for how many years? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. No, totally.
Joshua: Still has good takes. Matt, who is your favorite?
Matthew: I like Dan Ives he did a good job you know, listing out why AI isn't in like this bubble and why it's going to continue.
Matthew: And, you know, he went through his, you know, favorite five to 10 AI stocks. And I thought that was pretty interesting. I don't know if we want to mention all the names on here, but
Joshua: I can't compliance.
Matthew: You know, it's quite a few of the, the leading companies in the NASDAQ today that he thinks we're going to continue to do good over the next, you know, year.
Matthew: Five to 10 years as we enter this new paradigm for technology.
Joshua: I have a favorite podcast, animal spirits.
Matthew: Yeah, you love them.
Joshua: And I got to meet one of the hosts and we got to listen to a live recording and I kind of geeked out, got a little star struck.
Matthew: Well, I saw him in the bathroom and then I came back to what, to the speech you and Ira, and I was like, Hey, I saw so and so he's, he's right over there hanging out.
Matthew: I did,
Joshua: I wanted to meet him. He gave me some good time. Talk to him for like almost 10 minutes.
Brent: Yeah, that's awesome. It's good. As we are finishing the conference, we found out that the feds were lowering the interest rate by half a percent. And what were your guys kind of thoughts to that? I think, you know, they're kind of debating between a quarter percent and a half percent.
Brent: Everyone's kind of, that was the big topic while we were there, where the feds can lower rates too. And then we found out it's a half. My thought was,
Joshua: is if you listened to our last podcast, I was right.
Matthew: I was wrong. I thought it was going to be 25 and it was 50. So that's a pretty big shocker. So yeah, I didn't really think they had it in them and you know, data's mixed if 50 was good or not.
Matthew: Sometimes, you know, big cut like that usually isn't usually a good sign.
Brent: So when we look at what they're going to do the next time they meet, are there, is there projections that they're going to lower it again?
Matthew: Yeah, I think they're going to lower it the next few meetings. Is what's being projected, but probably not at 50 again.
Matthew: If they do 50 again, that'd be a really bad sign.
Joshua: I agree. 25 over the next few meetings, but they keep saying we're going to, you know, review the data. Yeah. So they're keeping it very
Matthew: open. I mean, have you guys looked at mortgage rates recently? Has it lowered borrowing costs a lot in the, over the last like week or so?
Matthew: I
Joshua: wouldn't say a lot, but you're already seeing the movement. Yeah. So that's good. Below six. Okay. I don't know if it is below six now. Where,
Brent: What's this, what's going to happen to the real estate market? Do you think things start moving a little quicker? Do you think houses start hitting the market? I think inventory goes up now.
Matthew: I don't know. Possibly. But also, I mean, the real estate market seems pretty stuck right now. Is it 90 days, Josh, to sell a home? It's longer than that. I think the average is almost five months now. So five months to sell a home? I mean, I don't really see them dropping, you know, borrowing costs by 50 basis points having that big of an impact.
Joshua: And the 30 year fix right now is 6.
Matthew: 2
Joshua: at the time of recording.
Matthew: Okay, so it's getting closer to Well, you're seeing
Joshua: 15 year below six now. Yeah, I mean, that's still pretty high. It's still high, but it's getting better. It is. Yeah, we saw clients locking in rates at almost 8 percent refi time.
Brent: I haven't heard of Goldman lowering their interest rate on their savings account.
Brent: Do you guys know when that's coming?
Matthew: Yeah, they already predid it. I think they lowered it this summer. But I would imagine now that's 50 basis points. I'll lower it again, but there they are actually aren't the highest in the industry at all No, they're not They they never got that high that cycle and the reason is that they're not that high This cycle as they were in the previous cycle was that they don't want money anymore So the reason why banks will offer good interest rate is because they want your money They they want to hold your money flows exactly and now Goldman's winding that business down You So I don't really care if they get your money.
Matthew: Cause it's
Joshua: two sided. They need to increase capital reserves so they can lend more. The Goldsman's kind of exiting that, exiting that business. The
Matthew: lending business. Yeah, exactly. Consumer facing business. They don't, they don't want to be a consumer bank. They want to go back to their old school ways of being an investment bank.
Brent: Yeah. Why, why are, why did they transition so hard? Towards being a, of a facing bank to now be an investment, going back to being an investment bank.
Matthew: I don't know. That's a good question. I'd say it's probably like a leadership decision and they saw it didn't work out and you know, would you rather, I think from their end, they'd rather help multi millionaires and billionaires and not, you know, the average man on the street,
Joshua: not serve the massive fluent.
Joshua: Yeah.
Brent: And they weren't doing it all that well from like a structural standpoint. I mean, they had, they had a good system. They had. The basics figured out, but there was, as we've seen working with clients with them, there has been some of these glitches of things that they cannot do, which caused a lot of challenges to people.
Brent: For example, you couldn't put a savings account in the name of a trust. That's a problem. There were these things that they were struggling with.
Matthew: So now that rates have dropped, are we pouring one out for bond ladders? Is that trade over? That was a big bond ladder guy for like a year and a half. You're a big bond letter guy for a year.
Matthew: It was only a year. I thought I started in 2022. Oh, it was 20 years, three months. I don't know. Let's go back to the tapes. Let's call it a year and a half. You're a big bond letter guy. A
Brent: huge, I love bond. I mean, I don't know how attractive a 4 percent 12th month bond is going to be now.
Matthew: Well, it's funny though, because I went back and checked and we actually started the bond ladders just right around 4 percent last time, and we were super excited back then.
Matthew: Just rates got up to five and a half percent. So it's just, you know, being down to four and now you're less excited, I guess.
Brent: Yeah. It's amazing how that kind of works, right? When rates were so low for so long and then we were able to get a 4 percent bond and we're really excited about it, but then there are points in time, how high do they get?
Brent: Five, six,
Matthew: five, six, five and a half, five, seven.
Joshua: But if you look at bond rates before rates started going up and I were to tell you, you could lock in a 4 percent bond ladder, you'd take it. Oh, you would take it. So, I mean if you're asking me the question is bond are bound bond ladders still an option for certain clients?
Joshua: Absolutely
Matthew: Yeah, I think they're perfect for certain clients as well. I think they definitely still work here I think anything around three percent is really good. Like if you could get three percent on your money and it's your cash reserve pile like how you should be using a bond ladder for I think that's that's a home run
Brent: So what's going to happen to the stock market?
Brent: And since they lowered rates, because we know in the short term, there's generally a positive response to rates being lowered. But now what happens long term, do you think there's going to be a recession? I personally think that it wasn't categorized as a recession, but it pretty much felt like we were in a recession.
Brent: From the beginning of, of 2022 till almost the end of 23.
Matthew: Well, cause that dictates your stock market question, right? So if you think there's going to be a recession or there's going to be some kind of crisis and the stock market's going to go down with the rate cuts, and we're going to need more and more rate cuts.
Matthew: But if you think they landed the plane, then we're probably in the clear and stocks are going to take off from here.
Brent: I mean, do you feel like we almost already went through the recession?
Matthew: Yeah. I mean, 2022 is really nasty. But you know, it just wasn't
Joshua: widespread though.
Matthew: Well, what do you mean?
Joshua: Like when you say nasty, like, yeah, sure.
Joshua: From like a market's perspective, but from a economic data perspective, like it wasn't that nasty.
Matthew: Well, that's because people had excess money in their pocket.
Joshua: Sure. But that, that also doesn't mean that it, you know, it was that bad then there's layoffs
Brent: were happening quickly. There's pent up that bad though.
Brent: I mean, unemployment was still below what in the technology. And yeah, but we're finding out now that's
Joshua: You know, my first comment was it wasn't widespread, not like the big recessions that we've seen where you're seeing multiple industries being hit with huge layoffs. Sure, we had it maybe a little bit in the tech and sprinkled in, but people had a lot of excess reserves.
Joshua: You know, the kind of sentiment was still pretty positive. With consumer spending and the economic later labor data. So was it that bad?
Matthew: Well, speaking on the jobs front that you made a comment on what we've seen happen over the last few months to a year is all the jobs data is getting revised and it was actually much worse than originally reported.
Matthew: But what's, what is much worse? Hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost when they were reported as being positive.
Joshua: So do, but do you feel like that took it from a situation of not being in a recession to being in a recession? My thought first is I didn't feel, yes, people's wallet and kind of free cashflow got tightened up through this period, but I didn't know a bunch of people who lost their
Brent: jobs.
Brent: See, I did. I saw people starting to lose their jobs. And now what I'm hearing a lot of. Is that a lot of companies aren't hiring right now because they want to wait till after the election and they want to see What happens in the economy for the next several months to probably wait till next year But
Joshua: is
Brent: them not
Joshua: hiring a reflection of what was happening in the past or a fear of what's going to happen in the future
Brent: I think it's probably what happened in the past is Slowly starting to catch up.
Brent: I think over time it has
Joshua: Yeah.
Matthew: I think it's just been slow moving. The we're at a point right now in history where, you know, our lives are basically controlled by seven or eight companies that dominate the stock market. They dominate employment. You know who I'm talking about? Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon Amazon guys literally at my door every day, sometimes twice a day.
Matthew: You guys do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I need to put a stop to that. These companies, they employ, you know, hundreds of thousands of people and you know, they impact the data. And in 2022 they did really bad and laid off, you know, 5 percent of their workforce, 10%. So it made things worse. Last year they were covered and this year they're doing pretty good.
Brent: So what do you think happens next year in the economy with this interest rate going down? You know, we don't know if there's a recession or not. I mean, we could be going into a bull market, right? Tell me who the president is and I'll tell you what's going to happen. I don't think anybody knows the answer to that.
Brent: Yeah.
Joshua: Tell me. Look into the crystal ball. You know what I think though, you know with rates coming down it probably doesn't affect the bigger companies as much as it's going to affect the mid and small cap companies. So if you're making the case for like the bull market, lower rates means maybe some more opportunity for a Kind of broader growing market than all of the growth just coming from the mag seven or these large tech companies Which could be really good for investors because we haven't seen returns from that mid and call small cap sector that have been great You know over the last couple years, yeah, small caps have been the big winner right this year Yeah, and you know, that's what the expectations of rates continuing to come down So maybe we can see that momentum continue next year
Matthew: Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew: And to follow up on your question, Brent, I actually think there's a lot of it on the real estate market going into next year 2025. I think there's a lot of pressure on the housing industry. And it doesn't mean like it's going to collapse like 2008. But if homes don't start moving with these lower interest rates, like, then you know it's going to have to happen, right?
Matthew: You have to get price cuts. If people really want to sell their home, that's what happens. And you know, when, when people's houses drop, they get really emotional for some reason, when they see it drop on paper.
Brent: Right. And when prices start to drop in the real estate market, it could happen pretty quickly.
Brent: Yeah, it starts snowballing
Matthew: and it doesn't have to be like a way. It could be like, you know, 1990, I'm sure a lot of our clients and listeners remember in 1990s SNL crisis you know, homes, homes dropped for a while. I remember that because that's when we moved to the neighborhood where I met you. A lot
Brent: of big discussions at future proof about a capital gains tax.
Brent: And we talked about that on the last podcast about people saying Matt was over here saying that they're going to, you know, do this capital gains tax, where they're going to start. It's realizing all of your gains on everything you own and they're going to start taxing it, but big, big discussions with advisors, that's not going to happen.
Matthew: Well, maybe it's not going to happen, but still the fact is she's proposing it, which is not a good sign. I think
Joshua: it was gunlock. He said, what are you, you're going to tax me on the spoon I purchased three years ago and it's appreciated in value. Where does it stop? Yeah. Everything, every hit that
Brent: the animal that you own.
Joshua: Yeah,
Brent: so you guys are saying I'm right.
Matthew: That's what this is. We're not saying you're right. You guys are absolutely saying I'm right.
Brent: So, do you think bond yields potentially just hold right now where they're at? Until they lower rates or what's going to happen until they start lowering rates a little bit more.
Matthew: I think they're normalized. I think the bond market's priced in a lot of what the Fed's going to do. So we're even seeing some rates, you know, as low as 3%. So I, I think over time it'll normalize if you stuck with bond funds, there's been a pretty good return over the last 12 to 18 months in bond funds.
Matthew: I know people are waiting for the bond bear market to, you know, It's over ended about six months ago. Bonds are doing pretty well again from our price standpoint.
Brent: Yeah. And that was a long stretch, right? That was like three years. Stretch three over three years. Nasty,
Matthew: nasty.
Brent: Okay. So Apple had also. Just came out with their iPhone 16 and they released their new technology at their, their conference.
Brent: That was just that they just had, what are your thoughts on the conference and their new technology? Did you watch the event on online?
Matthew: I did. I watched the event.
Brent: I watched part of it as much as I could catch, but I was in between meetings and I caught some of it.
Joshua: I was watching, it's actually the first one I've watched, I think in two years, but I was watching because I need a new iPhone. One of the reasons I need a new iPhone is because they don't make a case for my iPhone anymore.
Joshua: My case is broken. But that's just a personal story. My thoughts on the conference. The biggest takeaway is like why I was watching. Also was integrating AI into these iPhones. And that's not even going to be released. I think what, until December.
Matthew: Yeah, if you're buying this iPhone to get the AI features, you're going to be severely disappointed.
Joshua: But I think it's cool that that's now being added. That was my kind of biggest takeaway is I'm, I'm here for those advancements.
Matthew: Yeah, I like technology advancements. I just think Apple is getting a little bit boring. I think, you know, they basically have released the same iPhone five years in a row.
Matthew: They put a faster processor in there. And it, they changed the color way and, you know, it kind of is what it is. If you need a new iPhone, like you do, Josh, go out and buy a new iPhone, but this definitely isn't Steve jobs, Apple anymore, and it's really not that exciting, not knocking your socks off at every conference anymore.
Brent: Yeah, but how much further can they go with it? You could basically do anything and everything you want from your phone.
Joshua: Exactly. Let's see what that's. What's so cool about technology is because if you watched it and the capabilities of adding AI to these iPhones, it is going to take a step forward. It isn't going to just be the same.
Brent: I agree. And that's what I thought when I watched the parts of the conference, I was able to catch. To me, it was old technology meeting new technology. And they're now just starting this new, we're starting a new era of technology. Totally.
Matthew: I'm going to just be, you know, keep playing the devil's advocate here.
Matthew: You guys are way too excited about this. You know why he's not excited.
Joshua: Cause he's not getting one. Yes. Last year, new iPhone was awesome. I got one. So next year when he gets a new iPhone, he's going to
Matthew: love it. Like literally the iPhone you guys are buying in the iPhone I bought last year, the same exact iPhone.
Matthew: Here's why
Brent: I got a new iPhone this year. My battery lasts about half a quarter of the day with as much as I use it. And like, I cannot be charging my phone throughout the day three times to get back to full battery.
Joshua: No, that's awful. Do you keep your iPhone though? Charged? Like do you keep it plugged in, charged on your
Brent: desk or like when you're at home?
Brent: I plug mine in at night. I charge it at night and it charges throughout the night. Okay. But throughout the day it's not on the charger. No. I wonder why your battery died so fast. I think my battery dies because they know I'm going to buy one every two years and I'm at the two year mark. The
Joshua: real technical thing behind that though is that the software keeps getting updated so it uses more energy to run the newer softwares than your iPhone can actually handle.
Joshua: I mean, I'm not like a engineer, but I think that's the idea. That's why the AI is not going
Matthew: to work on the iPhone.
Brent: That's why they keep advancing the technology so fast. So your battery dies and you have to buy a new iPhone. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Matthew: All right. Well, I have a question for both of you. So since it sounds like you're both buying or have already bought the new iPhone, how do you do it?
Matthew: Because that's, that's something we talked about before on the podcast. The listeners loved hearing it. There's a million different ways to actually purchase an iPhone and get one in your pocket. How are you, how are you buying your sprint? There's
Brent: a million different ways. How are these ways? Cause I only know one way.
Matthew: What's that pay
Brent: cash? No, you go onto Apple, you find the phone that you want. Okay. I would say just if as much as anybody's going to use your phone, your phone goes with you everywhere, might as well just buy the expensive one. It's not that much more expensive for this year. It's called the 16 pro max.
Brent: And you go on Apple, you click about six buttons on Apple. You pick your color, you make it very easy. You add insurance on it because if you break it, it's not worth it. Like I cracked my screen once by dropping it. And if I didn't have insurance, it was like 400 to fix the glass on there. At Apple, which I don't, I don't really want to take my, my nice 1, 500 iPhone to a shop.
Joshua: That's almost like more than half of what you're actually paying for the phone. If you trade in your previous phone. Correct. It's crazy.
Matthew: So, so is he disconnected? Purchasing the iPhone? Are you talking
Joshua: about, are you talking about the financing options? So yeah, because most
Matthew: people don't buy an iPhone now.
Matthew: Okay. Yeah.
Joshua: So, so the process is the same. A few clicks, like Brent said, very simple. If you already have an iPhone. Go to the Apple store app. I mean, they're, they're even prompting you to buy a new iPhone. That that's really, that's a simple part deciding how to buy it though is another conversation, which is they now Apple has two financing options.
Joshua: One is through their credit card and one's through actually citizens, one bank, which is like they call their Apple financing. So if you don't want to open up a credit card with them, then you can do the Apple one financing. And then they also have financing options through the carriers.
Matthew: That's what most people do is they go to the carriers.
Matthew: They go to T Mobile, they go to AT& T. They do. But now you
Joshua: have like, kind of, you lose flexibility if you're doing it through the carrier, I think like Verizon's actually signing up for like, they're spreading out your payments and now you're tied into them for three years. So you're kind of making a another commitment to that carrier through that contract.
Joshua: So if you're doing it through Apple. And they're financing. You have the flexibility to say, Hey, I don't want to be at Verizon anymore. I can go over to one of the other providers. I haven't done that. I've stayed with Verizon the whole time, but I like knowing that I'm not signing also this contract with the actual cell phone provider.
Matthew: Yeah. Cause I think most people still make the mistake of, and this is why I want to talk about this, of actually going to their phone carrier to purchase the iPhone because they quote unquote get it for free.
Brent: Yeah. They get offered them all these deals. I don't know. I remember doing this a decade ago or.
Brent: 15 years ago where you'd go into the, the carrier store and they'd be selling you on all these gimmicks stuff and all this junk. And I felt like I was being sold something. I was, I'd never do that again.
Joshua: Yeah. So if you do this and if you do that, free iPad
Brent: and
Joshua: if you buy two and add a line,
Matthew: right. So I think, so that's what I wanted to get across is.
Matthew: The best way to do it is to buy it from apple. com. You don't need to go to your carrier. You pay for cash or you can finance it.
Brent: Yeah. It's just like anything else you get what you pay for, right? You go in the carrier, you're not getting anything for free. You're getting locked into something that you're going to pay for more for over a long period of time.
Brent: When I go to Apple and then I, I'm trading my name, I have a 500 value on my current phone. There's nothing wrong with, I'll trade that in and the phone cost me less than a thousand dollars. You just said the battery doesn't work. And they don't know that.
Joshua: I know that. Also, if you go through the carrier. It provides like service trouble.
Joshua: Who do I go to just like get service on my phone? Do I go to Verizon? Do I go to Apple? Are they sending you back and forth to each other? I've had even had clients tell us like, I don't know where to go to get my phone fixed. Cause I bought it through Amazon or not Amazon Verizon and Apple won't
Brent: help me.
Brent: Yeah. And one of the questions when you train your phone, isn't how long does your battery last? It's like, does your screen, is your screen cracked? And is your. Your, your phone in good condition.
Matthew: Yeah. Cause
Brent: they'll just replace the batteries. Yeah.
Matthew: All right. Let's talk about something that always fires Brent up annuities.
Matthew: Why are we talking about annuities? Why? Yeah. You don't want to talk about annuities? I mean,
Brent: what do we want to know about annuities?
Matthew: Well, so buffer annuities, here's why I think we should be talking about annuities. Is a lot of people clients, perspective clients, right? It's annuity selling season rates are still pretty attractive.
Matthew: So they could lock in a good rate on an annuity. We're at the election. So we're at peak fear right now, right? Red blue doesn't matter. Both sides are scared, right? They're scared of Trump gets in there, scared of Paris gets in. So there's fear. So now, you know, two selling points, good rates. And then there's also, you know, Fed's cutting rates, recession's coming, and stock market's going to crash.
Matthew: It's prime annuity selling season. Are these a good idea? Should people be purchasing annuities?
Brent: You should never purchase an annuity from somebody that does these pitches at a dinner seminar. Because all they're trying to do is sell you an annuity. That's going to pay them a commission that they're going to make a lot of money on and that you're not going to make very good interest rate on, you know, what I didn't hear a lot about at future proof where you have all your top tech companies, you have all your advanced companies, you have all the top leaders in the industry of top advisors all over the country there.
Brent: Annuities annuities was not as a discussion there.
Joshua: That's a really good point There was not much talk at all about annuities
Brent: the the annuity scheme has Kind of unfolded itself over the last two decades and I get the purpose of annuities When you need an investment structure that's going to be tax deferred And you have unrealized gains in another annuity.
Brent: You can get an annuity that has no compensation to the advisor and is not going to lock you in a long contract. That is the only time that you should be using an annuity is for taxable purposes. Now, granted, some of the structure of nudity are, are people like, right? They get pitched the upside of the market without any downside risk, but a lot of that's also gimmick.
Brent: Remember you're getting locked into a contract where they're controlling your returns. Controlling your returns, meaning they're controlling the rates, the caps that you're, how much you can make. And if they say that in the beginning of the contract, you can make X, well, guess what? If you're locked into a long term contract, those rates are going to come down.
Brent: And yes, it is annuity season right now because the feds had the rates were great and you're locked in. You got into a contract, let's say three years ago. And guess what happens when the feds are lowering rates. Your contract rates are going to start creeping down.
Matthew: So who, who should be using annuities for me personally, I like to use them with clients who are extremely just fearful of taking any risk at all.
Matthew: Right. They don't even want to deal with the little volatility you get from bonds. They want a little bit better rate of return on, on cash and. You know, they're okay with locking their money in. That's when I would use it. But what about you guys?
Brent: But it's the potential that they could potentially make a little bit more.
Brent: Because the market has to respond in a way that they have to, it has to be going up. And then you're assuming that their cap rate is higher than the rate of bonds or the rate of what they could be making somewhere else. And you're, and then you, if you average that over two to three years, you have to assume that the market's up for two to three years to think that you're above that average.
Brent: So if you, if you line itemed out. What an annuity did in terms of performance versus a yield on a bond for three years. Are you actually that much higher?
Matthew: I think just the key here is the no downside, right? There's the no downside protection risk. And that's how they get, that's how they get sold.
Joshua: What you're kind of saying then.
Joshua: You don't have any appetite for risk and you can't afford to take a risk. Exactly. Then, then you're like, Hey, I might be considering an annuity. I think one option with an annuity isn't actually even a fixed annuity. It's a variable annuity. And if you're lump summing a pension out of, you know, that, that could be a really good place for an annuity, you know, cause you can add some, they have some writers on there for death benefits.
Joshua: So not getting into recommendations, but you're asking me. You know with our clients when is there a situation where we could explore an annuity option? It's that situation.
Brent: There are so many situations Where they do and can make sense but again you're having to talk about a very small margin of the type of annuities that will fit that structure where Most people get sold these annuities that aren't going to actually solve their problem.
Brent: It's just going to make it worse
Joshua: So and what we're talking about of placing them for a specific need is not the way they're sold, correct?
Matthew: Yeah, so you're saying it could work. There's a place for it in a financial plan for a specific set of people But we also don't want to throw our whole portfolio at this.
Brent: Right. And I heard dinner seminars are coming back right now.
Matthew: Who told you that?
Brent: I've had that to you. I heard many clients are getting these mailers in the mill right now.
Matthew: Really? I
Brent: heard they're coming through orange County mining companies popping off. Where's
Matthew: orange County mining company. Brandy. No, it's a.
Brent: Yeah. It's, it's in orange. Yeah. It's like Pomona
Joshua: Valley.
Brent: You're, you're more familiar with Poona Valley. Oh yeah. I know Pomona Valley money. Yeah. But I
Joshua: heard that they're packed.
Brent: Yeah. The, the places are starting to fill up. People are getting them again like every other week or every week really? For different seminars.
Brent: And Fleming too. Yes. Nice restaurants.
Matthew: See, you wanna know why we're talking about annuities? We're talking about annuities. 'cause it's, it's hot. Yeah, it's hot. Again,
Brent: I want, I want the listeners to also remember to put on a two night seminar. Is probably going to cost the advisor probably. And today's rates, you've got to go to today's rates.
Brent: Cause we're all paying these prices. It's at least, it's at least probably 12, 000 to put on double two nights. That's a lot of money for the two nights. They're generally on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They feed you a free meal and they're trying to get you to come in and meet with them. And they're going to sell you an annuity because the only way they can make back the 12, 000.
Brent: And I'd probably say that range is 12 to 15.
Matthew: Yeah. I was going to say, so they need to make 15 to 20, 000 in commission sales that night to make to make
Brent: well
Matthew: more than
Brent: that. Right. And the average commission, I think on annuity right now is anywhere from six to 8%. Depending on the quality of the annuity, higher, higher quality, less commission, best quality, no commission they, they have to sell somewhere in that 200, 000 annuity range every seminar.
Brent: So the, they have to at least get one client from that seminar that they're going to sell 200, 000 annuity debt. Two to just to break even. Wow. Nudity
Matthew: people are living better than real estate agents. They weren't during COVID.
Matthew: Any final
Brent: thoughts
Matthew: on
Brent: annuities? Work with a fee only advisor who really cares about your planning and more about the structure of helping you accomplish your goals, not just throwing a product in your face that's going to make them a lot of money. I've seen how annuities work for over a decade. I worked so closely with them.
Brent: They're not good structured investments for people.
Matthew: Yeah, I think it's safe to say annuities are pretty cringy
Brent: But again, let me let me also say that there are some very very good annuities out there That can help people in their situation, but they have to be the right ones and there's not a lot of those right ones
Matthew: I
Joshua: agree
Matthew: well, son, do you guys have anything to recommend?
Joshua: I'm going to recommend getting a new iPhone if yours is broken or your case is broken. That's a, I was in the market. I pulled the trigger. I know you said, you know, I think you're going to buy one or you already did. I did. That's my recommends. I actually haven't got the phone yet, so I'll give my review when I get the phone so I can prove you wrong that it's.
Matthew: I'm sure it's going to be better than mine, but marginally better. Is it really worth it? We'll see.
Joshua: We'll, we'll give the listeners what they want. Okay. But that would be my recommends. You know, you're, you have your phone. You've made this comment a lot, Brent. You have your phone, you use it for so many things.
Joshua: It's always with you. You know, I wanted to get some, some new tech in my pocket. Are you going to take down a new watch? I think so. I haven't made that decision yet, though. My watch broke.
Matthew: See, I do like iPhones. I can't make fun of iPhones that much, but I stopped wearing my watch, and it's been the greatest decision of my life.
Matthew: I'm very anti Apple watch. I don't think You sound very anti Apple.
Joshua: Yeah, you've gotten really negative on Apple. Should I sell the stock? Yes, if that's the way you feel. Are you, are you
Brent: gonna go to like a Samsung? Oh, no, I'm not a Samsung guy. I heard they're bringing back Razors. You're gonna be the green text message person?
Brent: No, I'm not
Matthew: going
Brent: to be the text
Matthew: message
Brent: bubble.
Matthew: No, I'm an Apple guy. I'm just saying, I don't like ultra. You were just telling me how cool they're cool, but I'm not going to buy one. They just don't have an ultra. It's the, it's the, the big watch for,
Brent: for like extreme sports. Oh, you're totally that guy.
Brent: You need that for all your outdoors, outdoorsmanship stuff that you do.
Joshua: So in the next 12 months then, cause already past this lack. It's like iPhone cycle. He's going to get a new phone and an Apple watch ultra. And you're
Brent: probably training towards needing a new laptop, right? You had your laptop for a minute.
Joshua: No,
Brent: my laptop is working good until the battery stops working.
Joshua: That's true. Wait. So to go back on that though, you said you stopped wearing the Apple watch, it's changed your life out. I don't get annoying messages on my wrist all the day. So you just get
Brent: them on your phone.
Joshua: You know, you can customize your notifications to your watch, right?
Joshua: Yeah. So then what's the point of it? It's just a digital watch then. You don't want to get any updates. You don't want to get text messages from like your family. I'll just look at my phone.
Brent: Okay. You're, you're trending towards Samsung. No, I think I'm just getting older, grumpy. I'm going to recommend, you know what I've been doing every morning?
Brent: I got really badly dehydrated over the summer. Are you doing electrolytes? I am. Oh, that's a good one. Because over the summer, I started having some like pain, and I wasn't figuring, I couldn't figure out why, and then I had some blood work done, and my blood was apparently dry, and I was out coaching baseball for so much this summer that like I wasn't taking the right amount of water intake because I don't regularly drink water.
Brent: And so I had a, basically it took me over a week to get like rehydrated, to make all that, those symptoms go away. And so now I've been waking up every morning and with my morning workout, I have a hydration packet with my water. I used the FlavCity hydration packet, which I like. Matt says it's a little clumpy.
Brent: I think it's great. It's clumpy. It's a lot of hydration. It's a lot of hydration product. You gotta mix it up. It's obvious. But I put creatine in it also, and I feel like I'm pretty, I start my morning off feeling pretty darn good. You're
Matthew: slamming creatine now?
Brent: Yeah, I have been for the last about eight weeks.
Brent: Why didn't we talk about this? I don't know. You remember I gave you creatine and you were trying to do creatine gummies in the office. Yeah. He was trying to give me creatine and they upset my stomach. I'm not taking this stuff. What brand of creatine are you taking? It's, I think it's called brain power.
Brent: It's a, it's Dr. Amens. I use Momentous. I throw it in my protein shake every morning. I can put in the show notes, but it's Dr. Amens brand. But the, the hydration I use is a FlavCity. You just need to drink more water, man.
Joshua: I care about your wellness. Like, I mean, thanks for the recommendation. Cause I think adding electrolytes is probably like a consensus now that that's good for you.
Joshua: You got to keep just drinking a lot of water as well. I do. That's not like substituting for you not drinking water the rest of the day. I
Brent: mean, it's the middle of afternoon. I still got my morning coffee and that's all I've been drinking all morning besides my hydration. Okay. When we get out of this podcast, you need a chug of water.
Brent: Yeah, I'll drink some water.
Matthew: All right. Well, let me tell you guys what I did this past weekend. Wife and I went out to dinner. We went to a restaurant I've always wanted to try. So I'll just talk about it. You know, we'll say
Brent: set you back the cost of an iPhone.
Matthew: It was expensive. So we went to camp camp or it's C A M P H O R.
Matthew: It's a French restaurant in the arts district in downtown LA Michelin star restaurant. I've always wanted to try it. You know, who gave it a good review is Rick locks.
Joshua: Oh, I like Rick Locks, he's an Instagram food blogger.
Matthew: I think he gave it a Locks level 8. 9.
Joshua: Oh, that's pretty high.
Matthew: Yeah, it's really high.
Matthew: So we went to this French restaurant fine dining experience. It was really nice. Great meal, very pricey. Let me tell you, the inflation's definitely hit fine dining. Did you come away
Brent: full?
Matthew: I was pretty full. We picked up in and out on the way home. We had soul. We had a whole fish, we had some steak a couple appetizers.
Matthew: Was it busy? It was pretty busy. Yeah, but I mean, it's a small restaurant. Did you bring a bottle of wine or did you
Brent: buy a bottle of wine?
Matthew: No, we bought a bottle.
Joshua: Do you have a cocktail? I had a cocktail. Old fashioned?
Matthew: They didn't have an old fashioned, but I had their, their, their, their take on old fashioned.
Matthew: The French don't serve whiskey? No, they did. It was, it was a, it wasn't called an old fashioned, but it was like the, The bartender's version of an old fashioned.
Joshua: So what was the best thing you had?
Matthew: So they had a deconstructed French onion soup, which was really good. Oh, I'd like that. I love French onion soup.
Matthew: So imagine the toast with the onions under it and the cheese broiled on top.
Joshua: You know, who does one like that is Union on yell right here in Claremont.
Matthew: Oh, do they?
Joshua: Yeah. I'm sure that, you know, your fine dining experience probably backfired. They came with the,
Matthew: they came with like the, it was more of a gravy.
Matthew: It wasn't like a soupy. Yeah. And then they came with like some onion gravy basically. And, or stock and poured it on top and then you got to dig in.
Joshua: That's
Matthew: good. It was good. Joey, you go back. Ah, probably if I'm not paying. So you will.
Brent: As advisors, we love helping people, and that's why we put on this show. If you would like the show notes, please go to retirement plan, playbook. com. If you'd like a complimentary consultation with any of us, you can pick your favorite podcaster on here to meet with and go to evermont.
Brent: com or you can call the office at 909 296 7977. We'll have a complimentary consultation, phone call with you and just discuss your situation. But as always, thank you for listening.
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