Ep. 114: The Stock Market, Bitcoin, and Retirement Planning
The X's and O's
In this episode of The Retirement Plan Playbook, Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth take you on a comprehensive journey through the world of financial planning, the current stock market landscape, and the evolving role of Bitcoin as an investment asset.
Key Topics Covered:
Stock Market Trends: Insights into the S&P 500’s performance and strategies for managing portfolio gains as the year wraps up.
Bitcoin’s Bull Run: A detailed discussion about Bitcoin’s historic rise, its growing institutional backing, and how it could fit into your investment strategy.
Rental Properties vs. Bonds: Why traditional rental property investments might not make sense in today’s market and how Treasury Bills offer an alternative for steady returns.
Year-End Tax and Rebalancing Strategies: Practical tips for rebalancing your portfolio, taking profits, and preparing for tax season.
Personal Insights: Fun anecdotes from the hosts, including Brent’s journey as a new “dog dad” and tips for holiday decorations.
Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting to plan for retirement, this episode is packed with valuable advice and actionable tips to help you navigate today’s complex financial landscape.
Key Quotes:
“When you see new market highs, it's not a reason to sell—it's often a reason to buy.”
“Bitcoin is evolving into a legitimate financial asset, akin to digital gold.”
“The math just isn’t adding up for rental properties in this market.”
Resources Mentioned:
Evermont Wealth Website: www.evermont.com
Complimentary Consultation: Call us at (909) 296-7977
Learn more about retirement planning at retirementplanplaybook.com
Connect With Evermont Wealth:
(909) 296-7977
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.
Matthew: . Brent, what's going on? Hey, welcome in, Matt. Josh, what's going on? Nothing, Matt. You look relaxed. I'm relaxed. You look tired. Are you tired? Oh, I'm tired.
Joshua: Is that what it is? Yeah. It's not relaxed. It's tired?
Matthew: Yeah. Why? Yeah,
Brent: after eight months of planning this out, we have finally got a dog.
Brent: Well, we've been actually thinking about getting a dog for probably like three or four years because my daughter's afraid of dogs and she loves animals, but she just doesn't know how to interact with them. And my son's always wanted a dog and my wife's never had a dog. So they really have just kind of been asking for this for a long time.
Brent: And we spent a lot of time doing research when my mom was sick. I didn't want to have to take on that responsibility. Because I'm not, Of how much time commitment there was with her. And so I knew that, you know, if her health deteriorated, this would be a good thing for the kids to have. And so we spent the last eight months working with the breeder and knowing exactly what litter we were at.
Brent: And so we got a, a multi gen double doodle and he's got like the cutest little teddy bear face and he's, he's a puppy. He's already acclimating. We picked him up. Last week from the airport we drove down to John Wayne. He got flown in dog nanny brought him down and we picked him up from the dog nanny at the airport.
Brent: And he was a little nervous at first now that I've gotten to know him, but he acclimated within a few days. And
Joshua: what's his name?
Brent: His name is Benny. Yeah. So welcome
Joshua: to the family.
Brent: Yeah. So it's super fun. It's great to see my kids have a relationship with an animal like that and like see them interacting and taking responsibility and taking care of, of him and watching them play and get his energy out.
Brent: And he's already getting created. Like he's getting used to being in the crate at night. And I think they call it crate trained, right? Yeah. Great train. I love dogs. They're so
Matthew: great. When we were kids. Your family had dogs? We did. So you, you were a dog family. Yeah. And I, I, I don't remember how you interacted with the dogs, but I'd assume you liked the dogs.
Brent: Yeah, we did. We had dogs, we had labs, and they were big, loyal dogs. And it was just a, you know, back then it was different.
Matthew: But as an adult, knowing you now as an adult, since I've, I've known you since you were so little. I can't see you as like a dog dad. So this has been really interesting to me watching you, you know, be a dog dad.
Brent: Yeah. I put off having an animal for so long because of responsibility. Like I wanted to be able to pick up and go whenever our kids or we wanted to go somewhere
Joshua: dirty.
Brent: Yeah.
Joshua: Can I say something though, to go back, I've known you guys for a long time. My favorite dog your family had was Mystique. The blind one.
Joshua: Yeah. That was, that dog was so cool. I just wanted to point that out.
Brent: Yeah. Do you, do you remember what kind of dog that was? Was it a pointer? Yeah. It was a pointer. A
Joshua: pointer. Yeah. I love that dog. Yeah. Blind pointer. Rest in peace, Mystique. I love that dog.
Matthew: This is going back, but my favorite was Roxy. Yeah.
Matthew: Right. Wasn't that the lab? Yeah. That was, that was our favorite. Yeah.
Brent: Roxy was the dog. Yeah. So I grew up having animals, but I didn't want to deprive my kids of that experience as well. And so it was pretty neat to see how they're interacting with the animal.
Matthew: I'm going to be right behind you probably five years from now.
Matthew: I could see myself having to get a dog for my family. I don't want to do it.
Joshua: I could always see Brent getting a dog. I don't know if I can see actually. You getting a dog, but we didn't think Matt would have kids. Yeah, that's
Matthew: true. And I'm like, he's just like completely adopt evolved into all of this.
Matthew: And I'm probably the greatest dad ever.
Joshua: So this is the second time I've heard this self proclaimed, you know, Brent might be there because he got his kids a dog, man, the dog they wanted. Puppy, they seem very happy. I'm very happy for your family.
Brent: So for those that don't, the dad of the year right here, for those that don't know, my kids are eight and 10, there'll be nine and 11 this coming year.
Brent: So we they're at a really good age to take care of a dog, not just like. Pick up after the dog, but actually like play, interact, teach it, train it, you know, get energy out, have the responsibility of a fully taken care of another little creature.
Matthew: When Josh, do you think the dog makes his office debut?
Joshua: I hope soon.
Joshua: I know he has to go like get his shots and stuff, but I hope he comes in soon. I hope he comes in often because I love dogs.
Brent: The puppies are actually supposed to come in next week.
Matthew: Oh really?
Brent: Perfect.
Matthew: I would imagine. That there's gonna be a day I come in and you're like, oh, I got the dog all day. And he's just, it almost happened today.
Matthew: He's just sitting nicely in your office with you. Yes.
Brent: It almost happened today, but the, the shot thing is we're, we have to wait for, its, its second round of vaccine, so we got like three weeks.
Matthew: So I didn't know this 'cause I'm very I, I don't know a lot about dogs, but you are more of a cat person. I don't really like animals at all.
Matthew: Okay. And I didn't realize that they were kind of like newborns where you can't like take them out and they have to get shots and you kind of got to treat them like a newborn baby. Yes.
Brent: Yeah, I'm learning all that but it sounds like it could be very dangerous for a dog to be out Where other dogs actually roam without all their vaccines and so we're keeping
Joshua: could be deadly.
Brent: Yeah, it could be deadly So we're just keeping it. I'm
Joshua: happy for you because now you have a dog dad mentor for when you get your dad your dog
Matthew: Yeah, so I didn't pay attention a lot to like Brent as he was like raising kids like the age that our kids are at
Joshua: Mm
Matthew: hmm. I kind of it kind of just like went over my head At that stage of life I was in so now though I need to pay attention to him as a dog dad because now I just know I'm going to be there in five years.
Joshua: Yeah, it might even be sooner.
Matthew: No, it won't be sooner than that.
Brent: Are you sure? Yeah, 100%. One of the things I tell everybody when we're talking about the transportation of the dog from the breeder to us a lot of people found it fascinating. But what we found out was that flight attendants on their days off.
Brent: Instead of when they're have their off days because they can fly standby, they'll work with breeders on delivering animals, all sorts of animals, but they'll get the animal from the breeder. You know, they'll fly standby, they'll get on the plane and flight to where it needs to go. And it's a great way for them to make extra income.
Brent: I thought that was pretty neat. Yeah,
Joshua: that's awesome.
Brent: That's
Joshua: really
Brent: cool.
Matthew: So, so how do you find like a breeder? Is it like a Craigslist style thing? You're on Facebook marketplace. Like how are you? How do you find that?
Brent: I actually started on AI researching like top breeders for the top for a multi gen double doodle.
Brent: And it came up with, you know, all the breeders across the country that are top ones. And then you start seeing the, like the certifications that They have to have, and requirements that they have to actually, you know, be these types of breeders. And then I narrowed it to like, ones that I liked, and then ones that were kind of in the western region.
Brent: And started following them all on social media, and then set up phone calls with them.
Matthew: So you did like a chat GPT, Yeah. And you narrowed it down and then followed their Instagrams and
Brent: stuff. And then started calling them and asking them all the questions that we had to find out. We didn't know exactly what we wanted.
Brent: We kind of knew what the look we wanted from a puppy, but we didn't know exactly what we wanted. And that's where it took, you know, that took some time to figure out.
Joshua: And it sounds like the breeder you found had a lot of like good resources for you too, right? Tons of good resources. That's
Brent: cool. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was great.
Brent: I think it was, it was a worthwhile experience and I'm glad that we did it, and it actually worked out really well. Is it cool? You're gonna
Joshua: have to post a picture of Benny on the Ever Vermont Instagram.
Brent: Yeah, I will. Maybe when he comes too. So
Joshua: the, yeah, so the listeners can see what Benny looks like.
Joshua: He, yeah. And I'm gonna have to
Brent: post on my, on my Instagram too. I've just been slacking on it. I just don't post ever. And I have to just put out those pictures.
Joshua: Yeah. People are gonna wanna see the, the new family member. Yeah. Welcome.
Matthew: So I bought a meme coin in the spring called Benji. Is it cool if I call him Benji?
Brent: Yes. Yeah.
Matthew: Just his
Brent: name is Benjamin. Yeah. His name is Benjamin. Benny.
Matthew: Benny for sure. Benji. Like, I don't know. That's kind of what I want to call him if that's cool. Yep. Yeah,
Joshua: you like calling people by their wrong names.
Brent: It's a bad habit. Yeah, because you always call the quarterback of the lions, Jeff Goff, when his name's Jared Goff.
Brent: And then on the Instagram video I did of the sports teams, I called him Jeff Goff because you kept saying Jeff Goff around. So, and then somebody commented, one of my friends commented, like it's Jared
Joshua: Goff.
Brent: Oh,
Joshua: Jeff. I apologize for all of, to all the people, Matt's mispronounced their name or called the mother. But you like to call people their wrong names too. Yeah. I like to do to be funny. I don't even know what Matt's doing to be funny.
Matthew: All right. Let's talk about something else. All right. What do you got? Let's talk about stock market.
Matthew: So the S& P,, 500 made it above 6, 000, which is above most strategist targets for the year.
Matthew: I think at the high this year is up over 26%, , but it hit 6, 000 earlier in the week and then, , it sends reverse back and now it's back to kind of the mid October levels.
Joshua: I've had a lot of clients since the election. Notice that. And I like that because I feel like not through all periods of time, you know, people aren't watching the market every day, so they don't know exactly how it's doing, but it seems like everyone is in tune with how the market has performed since the election.
Joshua: And that's good. Do you think it's because it's political to them or emotional with politics? Probably. Yeah. I mean, that's the common denominator here. Right. But you know, what I'm reminding clients of too, is that this has been a good year, regardless of the election, right? We need to look back a little further and talk about the success the market has had really over this two year period.
Joshua: Celebrate the success, I guess is what I'm saying. Yep.
Matthew: Yeah. So I think that's kind of the big question that a lot of strategists are starting to ask themselves those. Are we ahead of ourselves here? Yeah. Have we gone up a little bit too much in the last two years? Cause you know, 2023 was a really good year.
Matthew: And then this year has been a really good year. Are we setting up for a pause or, you know, some kind of market sell off. I think it's a really good question.
Brent: But anytime the market's up, we're always asking ourselves that same exact question.
Matthew: Yeah.
Brent: Did it go up too much? When's the recession going to hit again?
Brent: When's the market going to go down?
Joshua: Are earnings multiples too high? I feel like that's always the question that gets brought up. Yeah. But then here we are, you know, reaching all time new highs again. You cannot help to think that though. I mean, the markets hit new all time highs, what, 47 times this year.
Matthew: Yeah, that's usually what happens though. That's like the famous stat, right? All time high isn't a reason to sell, it's a reason to buy.
Brent: I saw somebody post Trump got elected and it was like one of those, like, see what happens when Trump gets elected markets hit all time new highs. I'm like the markets hit all time new highs 47 times.
Brent: Exactly. Yeah.
Joshua: You know what? I heard this quote. It was, it was good. That shouldn't. Actually deter investors though, or looked at negatively. We hit a new age, all time high every year. Yeah. Does that mean you're getting worse? Maybe, but you know, we can, we're trying to always get better. Was it Apollo who said that?
Joshua: You remember when you said that? Yeah. That's a good one. You hit a new all time high of age every day? Yeah, it's true. Yeah, very true.
Brent: So what do you think happens with the market? Do you think it reverses anymore? Do you think, how do we finish out this year? I mean, November and December are notoriously like very powerful and strong months.
Brent: They're some of the best months of the year. Do we finish that way? We've already had such a great year.
Matthew: Yeah, I think it'll probably continue. It seems like we're in a little sell off phase right now, giving back the post election gains which is fine. I think that's to be expected. We've had a big year.
Matthew: I would imagine we get that typical late November to early December, quote unquote, Santa Claus rally. And I would probably think that the market peaks some point in mid December this year. And then we're probably down into early next year would be my, my best guess. Two reasons for that profit taking.
Matthew: Yeah. So like if I was having, if I had a, you know, a couple of big winners in my portfolio and I wanted to take some profits off and I knew I was going to pay taxes. We'd do it in January. I would actually sell half the position. In around mid December into December so I could put it on my 24 taxes and then I would sell the other half at the very beginning of the year in 25 to put the other half of the win on my 25 taxes To to split the gain,
Brent: but I think a lot of people don't even like doing it in December They just try to push it all to January and they have the whole year to make up the taxes in another investment
Joshua: They do because the taxes aren't even due then now you're looking at 18 months from now.
Matthew: Yes Totally been knowing that you know, you have some, some room tax wise, most likely put some profits on 24 and 25 and then split your projected tax. Just
Joshua: a reminder. This isn't financial advice.
Matthew: It's not financial advice, but that's how, that's how
Brent: I would do it. Cause we were talking about selling some stock shares that we have gains in for this year.
Matthew: Actually, I already started trimming my trading portfolio week ago. And the reason was, is I just needed some
Joshua: cash. I think generally though, this is like a good reminder of don't get too excited about the new all time highs in the growth. It's also a reminder to go look at your portfolio and really kind of review it.
Joshua: Right. Cause you have had some wins. Most people, if you, especially if you're diversified, you're up this year, right. Pretty significantly. And now's the time to go review the portfolio.
Matthew: Yeah. And actually what I sold was I was just trying to generate cash and I sold laggards. I sold things for a loss and I sold positions that haven't been.
Matthew: So not your winners. Yeah. And I still ride in my winners. I always
Joshua: let your winners ride.
Brent: Yeah. What I thought was interesting is when we were showing clients the volatility index, as we approach the election and then approach inauguration, you see that the volatility in the market gets much higher as you approach the election.
Brent: And then once the election's over, the volatility starts to drop pretty significantly. As you approach the inauguration, the, the volatility is pretty high. It
Matthew: increases,
Brent: it increases. And then as you, as you approach the inauguration, the volatility starts to go down.
Brent: But there are some of those periods of time where, when you are waiting for the inauguration, like we are now, the volatility starts to spike again. And I think that's probably what we're sort of seeing in the market right now, at least hopefully it's short term. But we are starting to see that right now.
Brent: Yeah.
Joshua: And you're getting more clarity of like, what, what is actually going to take place going forward? Right. Cause a lot of the campaigning is, you know, that that's a lot of information, but I think that once we find out who the president is, they're starting to select their cabinet. You're kind of signing to see the theme of the presidency, especially going into January.
Joshua: I think you have a little bit more information to, to kind of develop a trading strategy than you did in September.
Brent: Do you think people should rebalance next year, early next year?
Matthew: I think they should be looking to do it now. There's no reason to hold off and be greedy. The other thing too, is we get into next year.
Matthew: It's a transitional power year. Trump's has a lot different playbook than, you know, the Biden playbook. We could already see that in what we're seeing in his, the team he's putting around himself. It's not as traditional And I actually think like if you were to pick a perfect scenario for the market It would be a nice sell off in the first quarter of next year
Joshua: Resets are healthy.
Matthew: Resets are very healthy. It
Brent: kind of sets a new normal.
Matthew: And then maybe we get some rate cuts and, you know, some positive economic news and then the market starts to take off in the second half of next year.
Joshua: Do you think that now, I mean, it's probably pretty clear that, you know, taxes. The tax cuts are going to be extended of some sort.
Joshua: Do you think now, and like you said, Brent, do people just wait to do any sort of selling? Cause that was a common strategy being talked about. If Harris was elected. With the expectation that taxes are going to go up, there's going to be a lot of selling, which would affect the market at the end of the year.
Joshua: Do you think a lot of people push that off now going forward?
Brent: Oh, absolutely. I think we could be staring at something similar to what happened in 2022, where it was literally the first trading day of the year in 2022, it was obvious people were selling profits to start the year and that continued on now, granted that whole year of 2022 from start to finish was bad, but you could see it was great in December.
Brent: In 2021. And then all of a sudden, 2022, January came first train day. Funds were getting sold. People were selling off.
Matthew: Nothing changed. Sentiment, sentiment just changed. And then we got some negative news that compounded everything. There's wars going on and then we got really bad inflation data and the fed started raising rates like crazy.
Matthew: You're right. There's nothing like really fundamentally a change in the market. It bottomed in October and we've been up ever since.
Brent: Yeah. And you, you've said multiple times that people will sell off in January. I mean, funds will take profits off the table. And all that means for the listeners is, you know, that you've held a stock for a year or two or five or however long, and you've made a lot of money in it.
Brent: Come January, you're just going to sell that position and you'll worry about paying the taxes in the following year.
Matthew: Yeah. And I think it's also important to know for everybody who is listening to the podcast we're coming up on the holidays, everybody's made a lot of money you know, if, if, if.
Matthew: Our clients have done well. I'm sure your friends have done fairly well as long as they've been invested in the market, you're going to hear about it. Thanksgiving, Christmas so and so made X, Y, Z on the stock. You know, don't let the animal spirits get ahead of you. Most likely that means we're near a Top more than anything.
Matthew: That's probably a short term top. Don't panic market goes down. Don't do anything
Joshua: What is this? Go ahead. I think also what i'm hearing you guys say because we talked about rebalancing taking profits Like for those listeners, too Like rebalancing also could mean here's your opportunity to take some of that money to go enjoy it as well.
Joshua: Right. Christmas time, things are more expensive. You had a really good two years. So if you're kind of hesitant to do so, like now should be a time that you're reviewing to do that. Now.
Matthew: It's also a great time to buy things because we're having those black Friday sales and it's all pre black Friday. Now it's like black Friday.
Brent: Here's the thing that I don't understand though, and I'm hearing it a lot from people. And that's, I'm going to go sell some of these positions that I've made a lot of money in the market, and I'm going to go put it down on a rental property. To me, that just does not make any sense. When you've seen the returns that you've seen in the market year over year over year, and then you're going to stick some money, some cash down on a property.
Brent: That's not even going to cashflow a positive return because you're gonna have a mortgage on it. You have taxes on it. You have to have taxes prepared that have to be done on it. You have to have the insurances. You're not going to be profitable liability
Joshua: protection, whether that's umbrella insurance or putting it into an entity, which costs money.
Joshua: Yes, this is an extra tax return.
Brent: Interest rates are high right now. So your payment's going to be high. It sounds like a lot of work. It's to me. It doesn't make sense. And I just don't understand. I guess. The logic that people have when they say, okay, let's go sell something that's made 20 percent to go buy something when they don't know what the cashflow from that new investment is going to be.
Matthew: The math doesn't math on California rentals right now. No, it doesn't. Your cap rate on California rentals is below the rate you could get on treasury bills. So it's below 4%. I have a lot of clients who are rentals. We all do. I haven't seen a client with a a good cap rate on a rental property in the state of California in years.
Matthew: So the math ain't math and on rental property.
Joshua: And one of the reasons why, and I totally agree with you, I see the same thing. I haven't seen any. Cap rates, I think even above 5 percent in the last like two months, but I think also because you have had had in California, especially such good appreciation that the income is not matching the new value.
Joshua: Right? Right. And the rent's not keeping up with that new value. So what that tells me also is like, should a lot more people be looking at selling those rentals? I think now might be a good time to do that.
Matthew: Yeah. I have clients. They're like, Oh, I'm collecting two grand a month on this, this rental home.
Matthew: I have a rental. 900, 000. You look it up. It's like Zillow value. 950. I'm like, sell
Joshua: that thing. I think so. To your point, Brent, I think it's actually the opposite. Maybe not necessarily looking at buying more rentals or buying a rental, but maybe even should be looking at that. Potentially selling that rental.
Brent: Well, and that's what we're doing. I mean, I've managed three rentals for the last five years, two of them, which were paid for, and one of them was not in with all three rents coming in. It's still barely cashflow positive. And there's a lot of factors with rental properties. I mean, if somebody comes out of a rental property, there's expenses.
Brent: I mean, there's the property taxes. There's just the expenses that people don't account for when they're naturally looking at what really they're making on a rental property. And to me, like after watching it for five years, I just don't yes. That you can make money on the equity of the property. So housing prices go up, even if you're flat on cashflow, I mean, you can make some money, but you're also bending on property values going up.
Brent: And we know historically property values don't go up at a higher rate than anything close to the market.
Joshua: it's just recency bias though, because you know, lately last 25 years, 20 years, you've seen such good appreciation. So we're, we're, we're not actually looking at the bigger picture of historic value.
Joshua: We're just looking at what's happened more recently with housing prices and the value. And I think people get kind of stuck on that, but a
Brent: lot of the growth that's in properties right now really happened when COVID began.
Joshua: Yeah. Yeah. It hasn't not much since then.
Matthew: They haven't gone up since 21. And I think it was important what you're talking about.
Matthew: So what you're saying is I think it's you and your family, you guys have some rental properties, right? That you've managed over the years and you guys are actually in the process of liquidating that portfolio down. Correct? Correct. Correct. We are liquidating all three properties. And what you're seeing is the math ain't mathing.
Brent: The math is not mathing. Yeah. And it hasn't for five years and I watched it. And we had every data entry for every income and every expense. Everything that was managed within those three properties, I looked at the bottom line on and I watched those numbers closely. And to me, I'm staring at it, like how this doesn't make any sense.
Matthew: And you're not a real estate person, a real estate agent. You know, you don't really dabble in the real estate market too much. You're an investment advisor and you're looking at what you're making. In the market compared to what you've made on these rentals. And you're like, well, these rentals are not even keeping up with the market or what I could earn on cash.
Brent: Yeah, but not only that, I've watched so many clients rental properties and I've, we've have conversations on what the rent is and then what the expenses are and some of the details within the property. I don't know. I just, I don't see where the numbers actually make sense.
Joshua: I'll add one thing just like behaviorally too.
Joshua: Most of the time when we talk to our clients about rentals, it's in a, like a negative conversation. The task of owning the rentals. It's an issue, the tenants, the maintenance, the rent collection, the property management company. Like it's not like a happy conversation. It's like, this is a big chore.
Brent: And you know, the ones that, that aren't like that though, or people that have had a rental property for, you know, 20 or 30 years, and they've had the same renter in there for 20 years.
Brent: And it's just. You know, it's a well oiled machine. They know what's coming in. They know what expenses are, they know what they're going to make from the rental. They don't really raise the rent on the person, which obviously impacts cash flow. Those types of things I see where people are like, it's great.
Brent: I just have it. It comes in. But then you think about, okay, well, if you sold the property, you netted that out. You suck that money in a bond and you just collected the income from the bond. You're actually going to make more than what you're making from the property. And you don't have to deal with any liabilities of a renter being in your property.
Matthew: If I had a rental property worth a million dollars, I'd want it to be generating at least six to 7, 000. I mean, excuse me, at least 60 to 70, 000 of annual income for me in my actual pocket for it to be worth the entire, my time and as an investment. And I haven't seen that's very rare.
Joshua: Because it doesn't exist.
Joshua: Yeah, it's, it's very, very rare, but I think, you know, like you said, they're successful cases. Absolutely. I think what I'm hearing us talk about too, is now's a good time to go review that situation, right? To see what those numbers actually are, see what those cap rates are. And does it make more sense to maybe look at a different strategy?
Joshua: Yeah, I agree.
Matthew: Cause if you have a million dollars, you could put it in a bond and make 50 grand a year. Yep. So why would you own a rental property? If you can't, you can't do that. Right. Yeah. What's
Brent: happening with crypto and Bitcoin because I know you're just like ramped up to talk about it.
Matthew: I'm fired up
Brent: for people that haven't followed the show for all that long.
Brent: During COVID Matt was a big crypto guy. He was big on what were those like pictures that they used to send
Joshua: the pictures, NFTs, NFTs.
Brent: He, he bought a constitution NFT. I think he bought the yellow monkey. Didn't you? So you were all into NFTs and cryptos and then you got real quiet, a digital horse, you bought a digital horse.
Brent: You got real quiet for like three years.
Matthew: Somebody has to be the crypto advisor at the firm. I'll take it. I'm the crypto guy. I get hopped up. Do
Joshua: we have to have a crypto guy?
Matthew: Yeah, we need, we need one. Here's the thing. I talked about this earlier in the spring when the Bitcoin ETF got announced, I said, Bitcoin, it was going to hit a hundred thousand.
Matthew: As soon as Trump was elected, Bitcoin broke through its prior resistance at around 80, 000. It's since hit 90. And my only question to you guys is will it hit a hundred before or after Thanksgiving?
Joshua: I hope before I own, I own Bitcoin,
Matthew: I would imagine Bitcoin hits a hundred thousand, like right around Thanksgiving.
Matthew: And it's like the talking point at Thanksgiving, like, Remember in 2017 when we talked about that Bitcoin and it was at 5, 000 and everybody was looking at the guy who owned crypto What's its historical
Joshua: to all time high? Is it already at all time highs now? It's at all time highs. What was the previous all time high?
Joshua: 70, 000, 70, 000. So it broke through and now it's headed towards a hundred. Yeah.
Matthew: And what's interesting too, about this cycle cycle and crypto that we have coming up, cause we're at the start of a new bull phase is the institutions are behind it now.
Joshua: Yeah, it's not yeah, I saw black rock bought how many bitcoins over the last 12 months.
Matthew: Yeah a ton It's not nerdy people sitting in their basements The real players are starting to get behind it. Yeah, there's not millions There's now, you know, the the billion dollar institutions are coming in so after the election Bernstein which is a large financial company, I think they manage over 800 million They put a research note out that said, the analyst said, don't fight this.
Matthew: Welcome to the new crypto bull market. Buy everything you can. Wow. I mean, that's a bold take,
Joshua: man. I mean, I don't know if I'm that pulled up on crypto. You know, that fired me up. Matt's in his office, smiling, stomping his feet. Yeah. So
Matthew: I'm excited. I, I think, you know, the start of the new crypto bull market and You know, it's, it's going to be fun to watch.
Joshua: So what I hear you say to you again. It's not too late.
Matthew: It, no, it's not too late. And the biggest change too, with coming up is, you know, as advisors, we are able to help our clients if they want to allocate some money to crypto with, you know, the new ETFs out there it is possible now.
Brent: It's a really good option, but a lot of people bought in when it was at a very high point two or three years ago.
Brent: And I have a lot of clients that are just sitting on that. There that said, you know, if it comes back to where it was or a little bit above where I bought it, I'm selling it. Is that going to happen? Cause I feel like a lot of people are going to sell once they kind of get their money back.
Matthew: No. That's what you say, like, you know, then the animal spirits take over.
Brent: Yeah. Cause then it starts ripping and
Matthew: you're like, I'm not selling it now. Exactly. Like you've seen it with the stock market. So as soon as stocks get back to what I had in 08, I'm going to sell everything. People didn't sell in 2011.
Joshua: If you though, relate it to this election. This new administration is talking about using Bitcoin as some reserve.
Joshua: So that's a really positive use case for, for Bitcoin and the projection of its price.
Brent: So where does this sit with the other cryptos though? Is Bitcoin just going to be the household name or in the arrest are going to go away or are they going to keep kind of just evolving?
Matthew: I think that where we are is it's Bitcoin and everything else.
Matthew: Bitcoin is, is becoming the legitimate financial player. It's essentially digital gold. It's a store of value. It's another financial asset that you could add to a portfolio to help diversify it. That's what Bitcoin is. Everything else is kind of garbage and play money.
Joshua: And you're gambling somewhat.
Matthew: Yeah, but I, I think where Bitcoin is, it's now a legitimate financial asset. And if you want to diversify a portfolio or you want to put extra juice in a portfolio. Extra risk, you know five to twenty percent of a portfolio and bitcoin could work just like people allocate to gold Or people allocate to commodities or to bonds or to stocks
Joshua: and investors are always looking for alternatives So now it's not a bad one.
Joshua: Does it enter the 401k
Matthew: market? I think there'd have to be a mutual fund right for it to enter that because you can't do etfs and 401ks I believe I mean, that's one of the takes I like the ETF ideas because I put it in my IRA so I could get tax deferred growth on it. So hopefully eventually it does.
Matthew: If it does, that's just another new market, right?
Joshua: I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I like it because it is like, like you're talking about it is an alternative. And can someone in their 401k right now by a. You know a gold index with all of their 401k money. Yeah, can they do that? Oh, no, I don't think so So then I to answer your question if i'm thinking about this then no Or at least not for a long time because they haven't even added that for any other alternatives I don't think it passes the kind of fiduciary duty of the 401k to do that just because then you're able You can't limit someone from putting their whole 401k into that alternative
Brent: and I don't think the boomer generation by a whole embraces it You Because they don't understand it.
Brent: And I get that sentiment a lot from clients. I think that's probably that holds back maybe some of its opportunity because they do have so much of the money, but it's when that money gets passed down to their kids. That's when probably. That money gets diversified into that bucket.
Matthew: Brent, you just laid out why people are so excited for crypto.
Matthew: That's the bull case, man. You need to go buy some more crypto because you just nailed it.
Brent: Yeah. I'm going to wait 10 years for all that to start happening.
Matthew: It's already happening.
Brent: Hey, we had a home run on a good stock this last couple of months.
Matthew: We did did lots of lots of home runs in the stock market this year.
Matthew: Okay. Let's let's transition off bitcoin. Did you all see the rumor that they're thinking about take getting rid of the ev tax credit in the trump administration?
Joshua: I did
Matthew: this is important. I wanted to mention it because if you're looking to buy an electric vehicle Now is the absolute time to do it.
Matthew: We're at the end of the year, so there's usually good discounts on cars. But if the EV tax credit goes away you're going to want to lock that in for this
Joshua: 7,
Matthew: 500. Yeah. Are you going to go get one?
Joshua: I don't know. I'm thinking about it. I would, is that going to push you over to go get one? It might wait a few more weeks.
Joshua: So
Matthew: should we explain? It is
Joshua: a rumor, right? It's it's not a foregone conclusion that the tax credits going away, but isn't Elon working with Trump So why would they do something that would hurt Trump? He's come out and said it's not gonna hurt him as much as it's gonna hurt the rest of the car makers in the US
Matthew: I don't think he really likes that tax credit from my understanding.
Brent: Why would that be?
Matthew: I don't think people buy Tesla's for tax credit I think if you're going to buy a Tesla, you don't care about the tax credit too much. Did
Joshua: it promote you to buy a Tesla?
Matthew: No. What promoted me to buy a Tesla is I had one on one for a long time and I needed a new car and I'd held off for a long time.
Matthew: And they're like 20 grand cheaper than when I bought it.
Joshua: And I think that that's why he keeps trying to drive the price down though, with the expectation that that might not even go away and he doesn't need it to sell his cars.
Matthew: Yeah. But for listeners, the way a tax credit works is, you know, you earn income.
Matthew: So say it's a hundred grand and then you owe maybe in total 10, 000 in federal tax tax credit subtracts off that 10, 000.
Joshua: Yeah. It's dollar for dollar.
Matthew: So it's, it's one of the hugest perks you can have. So if you are thinking about buying an EV, you know, there's next two months of the year might be the time to do it.
Joshua: What's cool is we have a new tool. That we use here at Evermont. Well, that'll actually tell you income wise if you qualify for the tax credit both for new and used cars That's pretty cool. It is cool.
Matthew: So if someone's interested in that they should reach out. Yes. Yeah, that'd be cool holiday decorations you guys decorate for christmas yet?
Matthew: I'm not but it will be by the end of this weekend. Wow What about you
Brent: josh?
Joshua: No, we took down all of our Halloween stuff down. It was just so sad. Cause he loves Halloween. So sad, man. We had, did he understand Jack Skellington on our deck with zero next to him and a bunch of Halloween stuff, decorations on the outside.
Joshua: So now every time we pull into the driveway, he's like, where's Jack? We have to tell him again, like, sorry, Halloween's over. Does he
Brent: grasp that concept yet or not yet?
Joshua: Yeah, he's kind of getting like, we're, we've been reading him now, Christmas books take like, so now he's kind of transitioning to like being interested in Christmas and then a lot of people are already decorating.
Joshua: Right. So like yesterday we took him to the library and drove past the houses, they had Christmas lights up. We're like, look at the Christmas lights. I think that's getting them excited. But I'm probably going into your, your world where I'm going to be decorating for Christmas sooner. Just because he needs that next excitement.
Joshua: Yes.
Matthew: Yeah, I have a, I got my lights up. So our lights went up last week. Hopefully we decorate for Christmas this week to get the tree up you know, start getting the holiday spirit going. It's funny. Cause I, when I was a kid, we used to do it after Thanksgiving, but I think our generation is more like, Hey, as soon as it's November 1st, let's throw the Christmas stuff up.
Brent: Yeah. I mean, my lights are up at. The house, we scheduled the light people to put the lights up. The lights are up here at the office. We have our trees up at the office, trees up at the office. We got Christmas decorations at the office. I just have to do the, my house this weekend.
Joshua: Yeah, we got to get some of it up.
Joshua: We are hosting Thanksgiving. So it can't be like too Christmassy. I feel like like, yeah, just because like you walk in and it's all Santa Claus and Christmas, but it's Thanksgiving, but I think we do need to get some stuff up for my son. There's still a holiday season. Like
Brent: Thanksgiving is part of the Christmas season
Joshua: too.
Joshua: Yeah. I saw this really cool idea of getting like, for my son, he likes cars and monster trucks and you get like a small Christmas tree and then you string like Hot Wheels. To make him like a hot wheel tree. That's cool. I'm going to do that for him. That's super cool. That's cool. That's cool.
Matthew: All right. You guys got anything else left?
Matthew: You want to talk about today?
Joshua: I think we're good recommends you guys got recommends. I was just going to give one recommends and you actually already said it. Like if you're waiting, you're like, Oh, I'm going to wait until like that week, like I see so many companies that are like our black Friday sales here.
Matthew: Yeah. So I actually took advantage of that. I I, you know, I've been on my fitness journey this year and I
Matthew: and I, I talked about the adjustable dumbbells. Right. Huh. And then I bought a pre Black Friday cell the first time I've seen it since I've been on my fitness journey. I bought like a power rack that was 10 percent off. Mm hmm. So I'm really excited for that.
Brent: Are you gonna start like pumping iron or what?
Brent: Like what's gonna be your workout routine?
Matthew: Yeah, I've been trying to lift weights. I've been trying to do one or two days a week. I want to get to three days a week next year. That'd be my goal.
Joshua: So when you like bench press, do you have to have a spotter?
Matthew: No, but hopefully I get there to where I'm lifting heavy enough again to have a spotter.
Matthew: Yeah. All right. There comes the, the power rack comes with spotter arms on it for safety. So like if you have to drop the, drop the bar, you don't, you can't get it back up the bar. It's supposed to catch it.
Joshua: To be honest with you, man, I'm really excited for you. You have been talking about this rack. For probably six months and I like there hasn't been a week that has not gone by that You haven't mentioned the rack.
Joshua: Are you getting the racks of like just from a like a friend to friend? I'm, really excited that you're finally getting your
Matthew: rack set up. Yeah. Well, congratulations. Thank you We could thank a couple lucky stock picks and pre black friday sales brent. What's going on with you?
Brent: Oh, wait, one one more question.
Brent: What what brand did you buy? I bought rep fitness
Matthew: instagram company
Brent: or
Matthew: No, they're one of the competitors to Rogue Fitness. Rogue Fitness is really, oh yeah. I've seen Rogue Fitness. So they're Rep Fitness and Rogue Fitness are two competitors. Two top
Brent: two. Top one I was gonna give, Mont recommends a service that I've been utilizing for, like my wife and I have been using, using for like the last couple years.
Brent: We get we have a, a service that comes around and cleans our trash cans. Like every month they come around, you leave your trash cans out the day after trash day, they come around, they power wash all your trash cans, blow them all out. Everything gets watered down and then you put your trash cans away.
Matthew: There's a machine, right? Yeah. That picks it up on and washes them.
Joshua: Yep. I'm interested in this service. My trash cans need a cleaning and I don't really want to clean them. If you don't mind me asking, how much is the service? That's a good question.
Brent: I don't know, but I know that whatever it is, it's a lot less than what it would cost me to have to want to do it myself.
Brent: So
Joshua: I I've seen some like ads and it doesn't seem like it's that expensive because obviously it's like what a. 10 minute job. Yep. But yeah, my trash cans now need some cleaning for sure.
Matthew: On social media. I follow a lot of the start your own business people and that business you're talking about is, is supposedly one of the top businesses for like individuals to go start where, you know, they could make a nice six figure salary and be their own boss.
Joshua: Like power washing, window washing, that kind of stuff. Power
Matthew: washing, trash cans. I guess you, the car, the truck you could buy isn't that, that you need. Isn't that expensive.
Joshua: And I would imagine you could probably just buy a kind of add on to a truck.
Matthew: Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's a truck with an add on and then you, So if you have a truck, you don't need a truck, you just need the add on.
Matthew: Neighborhood marketing, right? Flyers? You roll around and offer it free for the first time.
Brent: I mean, it's super gross to have dirty trash cans, like Oh, mine are silky. I mean, I like that they come clean them out and Yeah, they're, they're going to get dirty again. Yeah, totally. How often do you do it? I think it's like once a month they come out.
Brent: That's good service. Yeah. All right. Well as advisors, we love helping people. We love working with people on planning for retirement, transitioning into retirement, and then enjoying retirement. If you would like a complimentary consultation with any one of us. Please give us a call at the office. You can go to evermont.
Brent: com to find out more information and you can also get our show notes at retirement plan, playbook. com. But as always, thank you for listening.
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