Is Concentration Still A Thing?

DANO WEIR: It's Friday, August 29th, 2025. You're on the cusp of a holiday weekend, but what's happening in the Market? Is the Market still concentrated like it's always been, or is there perhaps some easing going on, some melting of the concentration?

DANO WEIR: My name is Dano Weir. I'll be joined shortly by our managing principals, Daren Blonski and Chris Sipes here on On The Markets. This is our Market show.

DANO WEIR: For the Fermata family of brands, including Sonoma Wealth Advisors, Fermata 401K, Fermata Tax, we are looking at potentially some changes in concentration going on, as well as changes and cracks potentially in the AI narrative, plus what changing home prices and unemployment could mean about the supposedly fine U. S.

DANO WEIR: Economy. And if the Fed makes a rate cut next month, what has history shown us that the S&P will do? On The Market starts right now.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The stock Market, the economy, your money. What's the latest and what could be next?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Find out now with Fermata On The Markets. Straightforward financial Market updates for the brands of Fermata Advisors, Sonoma Wealth Advisors, Fermata 401K, Fermata Tax, and Fermata Insurance. On The Markets starts now.

DANO WEIR: Let's get them in here. They're the managing principals of Sonoma Wealth Advisors, Ramada Advisors, Daren Blonski and Chris Sipes. Chris, what are you doing for your Labor Day weekend?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: What's the movie where it's like, maybe we'll go to Home Depot? I'm in that stage of life. I'm in that stage of life, Dan. With four small children, going out to eat is not is not a fun thing anymore. That sounds terrible. So not a whole lot planned, but that's how I like it, Dan. I'm a very simple person, you know, it doesn't take much to make me happy. So it's going to be a good weekend. How about you?

DANO WEIR: I'm going to guess that Daren has a basketball tournament that he has to attend somewhere.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Not this weekend.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Well, he's the only one of us. Over six feet tall.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So yeah, don't be jealous.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: His kids have an edge to answer your question, Chris.

DANO WEIR: I think I might go see it still in theaters, that movie F1, which is the car racing movie with Brad Pitt. It's still out there in theaters. It's cheap on a matinee. And, I just, I have great memories of my childhood of my dad taking me to movies that I was probably a little too young to go see. And I thought, you know what?

DANO WEIR: It's going to be a boys movie day on Sunday. So I think that's what I'll be doing. There you go. What we'll be doing today is talking about the Markets and our theme, concentration. Is it still a thing? So can we start there? Daren, for people who don't know, what does marketing concentration mean and what has been happening so far this decade?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's the only thing we've been talking about for the last five years, Dan. So I guess if you don't know yet, then... We have watched our old movies. I don't know, but no, I know. So, concentration, what we mean by concentration in this instance is, so if you look at, you know, in fact, Dan, I'm just going to share my screen real quick. Yep. I'm going to change up on you here a little.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And, when we look at concentration, I think I'm a, I'm a visual guy, right? So I love the visuals and, the, this is what's called. It's just a site called FinViz that it helps you see the Markets in a visual way. So when we say the Market, the Market, it can mean a lot of things, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Is it the Dow Jones? Is it the S&P 500? Is it the whole stock Market? Is it just the bond Market? So when we say On The Markets, there's many types of Markets, right? But when people think of the stock Market, generally they're referring to either the Dow Jones or the S&P 500.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: In this case, we often look at the S&P 500, which is the largest 500 US-based stocks. So what you see on the screen in front of you is a heat map for all those stocks. With the biggest stocks, meaning the largest capitalization stocks, having the biggest squares, and the smallest ones in the S&P having the smallest squares.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: GM, when I show you this map, what's the first thing you see?

DANO WEIR: NVIDIA. Nvda and Microsoft msft and Apple and a apl Amazon tesla now Chris is NVIDIA bigger than the entire financial sector or smaller.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Probably pretty close. Pretty close to even, I'd say. But NVIDIA is, to be fair, as big as some full country stock Market value. So it's huge.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Many of them. I think there's only like, don't quote me on this, but like maybe in the tens of countries, they're even bigger than it at this point.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: This is the entire oil sector right here. Now, I'm not a mathematician, Dan, but is the entire oil sector smaller? Than NVIDIA or bigger than NVIDIA?

DANO WEIR: It's smaller than NVIDIA, and it looks like it's even smaller than Meta and even smaller than Netflix, maybe.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That's interesting. This is basic materials down here. Basic materials is like your things that you build things with, right? Basic materials. So the S&P 500 is broken up into 11 different sectors.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So the energy sector, basic materials sector, utilities sector, sector real estate sector so these are all companies that do those things we're talking like exxon we're talking like chevron they are all significantly smaller than NVIDIA now.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Why is that an issue for us Chris well because so much of the expectations of the Market revolve around videos makes up around 8% of the S&P 500 right now, which is good when NVIDIA goes up because that drags, like you said, it's bigger than the whole oil sector. So if NVIDIA goes up, it doesn't really matter as much what the whole entire oil sector is doing in terms of the valuations.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now it can reverse too, because while these companies have had faster growth in terms of their earnings as well the Markets price that in, meaning that the Market expects that to continue for the very long term. And they expect kind of the best possible situation.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There's a lot of headlines about, you know, there being like a three to $4 trillion build out of AI over the next few years, which would be a significant portion of our overall GDP. So maybe that happens, but if it doesn't come out what the Market expects. Specs, that's where you start to see issues with the stock prices.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So the head of OpenAI this week, Sam Altman, said that he thinks there might be a bubble in AI.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And the whole Market had jitters because of that in the AI space.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: There's people that surmise the reason he said that is because he knows he's winning the AI race, and he wants capital to pull back on the competition. So everyone that's coming into this space that might be nervous about a bubble, if he creates the idea of a bubble, he's already secured his funding, but all these other competitors will lose their funding.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: He's playing like some 4D chess game now, which I thought was pretty interesting. So that was an interesting thing that happened this week. Secondly, NVIDIA had its earnings. And since NVIDIA had its earnings, it's had kind of a rough go of things.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Which those earnings beat expectations, right? So it's confusing because you're like, wait a second, they did better than what was expected. However, the Market didn't like it so much.

DANO WEIR: Because the expectation based on the price is unattainable. It would have needed to be... So much more higher than what is even possible to have actually met the price of what's being priced in right now for that stock. Yes?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Correct. So you can see this was the earnings on the screen. So Wednesday, period ending July of 2025, the estimate was just a little above $1 per share. They reported more than that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Estimated they surprised to the tune of $694 million. Now imagine surprising anyone in life to the tune of $694 million and saying we knocked it out of the park and then the Market says that's awful, bad job. And that's kind of what the Market did because it's been three days down ever since.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: One of the things that I thought was interesting kind of underneath the hood that only two customers, and I haven't had time to try and figure out who those two customers are, were responsible for like the bulk of all the chip ordering for NVIDIA. I think like 40 something percent.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Of the ordering of chips, which is really interesting. A different anecdotal, unrelated, I spent yesterday with a fintech startup that's using AI to enhance how we do our work as financial advisors. So I was out in Utah talking with these guys yesterday, and they were just finished raising one of their rounds where they go out and get private equity money.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And one of the things they said is that there's tons of money for like the few top companies. But other than that, it's really hard to get funding for any AI solutions out there right now. So anecdotally, you have Altman saying, hey, there's this bubble.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I'm out talking to these groups that are doing AI stuff and trying to raise money in the space. And it's very difficult to do.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Not as easy as perhaps the media makes it sound, which I think is kind of interesting, right? What this is, is a case of the expectations are so priced for perfection that anything that even looks remotely weak, the stock is trading down on.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And from a technical level, you can see we just came into support here at 174. And we just traded right into this area. And you can see how important this has been on the daily chart for a while in that area. And so the question that anyone who watches the Markets.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And now we're three weeks down.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: For NVIDIA is, was that the top for NVIDIA? Is 180 it? And are we going to head down and correct for a while? And why that's problematic is because when you have NVIDIA as such a big part of the index, that drags the entire index with it unless these other stocks do really well and earnings are really strong. And that, Dan, to your question, is concentration and concentration risk in this sense.

DANO WEIR: Well, while we're looking at it, Daren, it. If money's coming out of NVIDIA, it has to, well, it doesn't have to, but it could be going somewhere. So these large, these Mag7, these NVIDIAs, Apples, Amazons are what are called large cap stocks. Opposite would be small cap stocks. So how have they done recently?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know, small cap stocks are one of Chris's favorite fortes. So Chris, how have small caps done recently?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Funny you should ask. Why don't we jump into the slides and we'll get to that topic. I think Dan's foreshadowing a bit. But first, our meme, we got a nice healthy meme going into the Labor Day weekend. And that is a quote that says, the greatest wealth is having a healthy body, a peaceful mind, and the right people in your life. So just revisiting this constant theme for us.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: In, in a lot of our clients is yes, money is, in finances are an important part of, of wealth, of course, but there's so much more to a truly, wealthy life and measuring, measuring our wealth. In, in many ways we're, we're all wealthy beyond our wildest imaginations. And so let's just, try to focus on the overall wealth and not just the, the, you know, the financial piece, which is just a part of it.

DANO WEIR: I totally agree with that. And there was a story this week, Daren, because you know when I love I know you love when I bring up football.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Dan, what would my week be without you bringing up football? I mean, we'll give it to you because it is football season. It is fantasy football season. So it's okay right now. It's just when it's not fantasy football season.

DANO WEIR: Well, I don't even play fantasy football, Daren. I just call the league. I just call the league. And it was revealed last week.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Blasphemy, man.

DANO WEIR: I think it was probably about two months ago now. What? Dude, what? Say it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You don't play fantasy football? Like, what kind of football fan are you?

DANO WEIR: I'm just there for the vibes, man. I just like the stories. Some people have soap operas. I have the NFL. And one of the layers that was revealed this week was that, I think it was two months ago now, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, his name is Jim Ursae, he died. Suddenly from cardiac arrest.

DANO WEIR: So what was revealed this week was that it was likely the result of an overdose and that he had had multiple overdoses over the past few years of hard drugs. And some of his drug use was known, but these overdoses were not known. So I'm messaging my football thread about it. We're talking about it. And I just said, man, this guy's a billionaire.

DANO WEIR: You own an NFL team. This is it. This is it. For many people, this would be peak, peak and it's still not enough. You know, they still have to have this other thing and gosh knows however he ended up in it. But to this quote that you have on here, Chris, that just rings true to me. It's not just about the money.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Great point. In fact, and sometimes it's, you know, you think about the person that's living their quiet life and they're, they're happy and they have more money coming in than it's going out. And, you know, they don't have as much money as, as Jim Irsay, but they're, but they're wealthy beyond what they need. And that's, that's important.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So now speaking of vibes, Market sells off today, what's going on? And, you know, who knows? Really, but part of the things could be attributed to, we got the university of Michigan's, survey of consumers and people. So it's weird because the Market is hitting all time highs and has been having a great year.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: However, people, you know, it's like the tale of two, two different worlds, right? People are expecting more unemployment, in the future. And if you look at the previous times, those shaded gray areas where that number has spiked has always been associated with a recession in the past. And so who knows what is going into these feelings of what people are seeing on the horizon.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But this matters a lot for our economy because so much of the economy runs on consumer spending, which if you think you might not have a job. In the near future. It's hard to spend and be confident with your spending, which so far that has not played through, but it's possible that that will be down the road for us.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now, the other piece of not great news was the, oh, sorry, this is consumer sentiment again, but this is showing a kind of longer term, another measurement of it. And you can see that And we've covered this in the past where we're basically as low on consumer sentiment as we were in the great financial crisis, which is really hard to believe, given that at that time, you know, the Markets were down dramatically.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: People's 401ks were cut in half at that time. And so it makes you wonder if the economy is doing so well or the Markets are doing so well. And on the surface, at least, it looks like the economy is doing well. What's going into this sentiment indicator for people?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now, we had this slide last week, but we didn't get to it because we had such a jam-packed show. But this is what actually goes into calling a recession. So we talk often about the NBER is the entity that officially calls a recession and And I'll have to admit that I kind of thought this was like a group of people that got together and just said, yep, looks like a recession to me.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's official, stamp it. It's a recession. Turns out they actually have some metrics they go by, which is comforting, you know? So if we end up do going into a recession, of course, it's going to be painted, you know, in our hyper political, contentious political environment that we're in now, it's going to be painted all kinds of ways.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But you can look on this heat map and see You know, these various measurements that go into the MBER's determination, things like real personal income, nonfarm payroll employment, household survey employment, real consumer spending.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So that's net of inflation, retail and wholesale sales, and lastly, industrial production. Now, one of the things that we've covered in the past is, hey, why wasn't 2022 a recession? We had two quarters of negative GDP growth, which that is one of the things that people look to as a recession call.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And we had all these indicators covering the economy that had dipped dramatically. We've covered those extensively in 2022. But if you look at this heat map, according to what they were looking at for the MBER. Yes, we had a little bit of red in 2022, but not like we saw in 2020 where everything was red and it was obviously a recession.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So fast forward to where we're at today, 2025, we've got some more red on those real personal incomes, less transfers. We've got some red on the retail sales side of things. We've got a lot of yellow, a little bit of green, you know, but it definitely. It seems like it's kind of turning colors a little bit there. So we'll keep an eye on this.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: This is, by the way, from the JP Morgan Guide to the Market, which is something you can look up if you're interested. They put this out quarterly to track it. I have not seen this included in the Guide to the Markets previously, but maybe it has been and just missed it. It's like, I don't know, 90 slides or something crazy. So it'll be interesting to keep an eye on that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So we've got the investor sentiment survey through AAII. Again, this week, pretty much neutral. The bearishness knocked down just a little bit. Now, if we look at the CNN fear and greed index, it's back up to 64 at greed, which is a little bit higher than it was last week at 61.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Bitcoin fear and greed at neutral we've seen a big sell-off in in Bitcoin here recently which has in the past, at least in the recent past, tended to lead risk assets. So I'm a little bit concerned about the NASDAQ, a little bit concerned about stocks at this point.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: When you see a decent sell-off in Bitcoin, maybe there's another reason for it that I'm not aware of that Daren wants to cover somewhere along the way, but a decent, who knows if it's a sign foreshadowing what's to come in the risk Markets.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now here, I have to admit, I don't exactly know what goes into the global risk love chart that they have here from Bank Of America.

DANO WEIR: What did you call me?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I'm assuming like one of their economists last name is love or something.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I don't know how they came up with this.

DANO WEIR: Let's ask AI.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But they've got a euphoria signal in a panic signal. And you can see we're firmly in euphoria in terms of positioning. This goes back to 1987. We're in the 93rd percentile, meaning that only 7% of the time has the euphoria reading been higher. And this is a global measurement apparently, so not just the S&P 500, but kind of overall risk taking in stocks.

DANO WEIR: Chris, would you like to know what Gemini says?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yes.

DANO WEIR: In finance, a risk lover is an investor who is willing to take on more risk for a relatively small expected return. So basically someone who's into risk on assets.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Interesting. I don't know that that's the reason why they call it that chart, but maybe. Who knows?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Maybe we'll find out here. Soon. So now we got a bad PCE number today, core PCE.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It was higher than expected. Now, what is core PCE? Personal consumption expenditures. And the Fed famously looks at this as a leading indicator of inflation. It ticked up. And so just checking in on what The interest rate Market is expecting from the CME's FedWatch tool, so basically like the betting Markets of the futures to show us what do investors expect that the Fed is going to do at the meeting.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's still highly probable that they drop the rate by a quarter percent, even though that inflation number, the core PCE came in higher than expected and is no longer trending down. Because remember, the Fed's got the dual mandate of price stability, a. k. a. Making sure there's not too much inflation, making sure there's not deflation, which we're currently stuck at about 3% inflation, not close to their target of two.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then we've got labor stability, full employment is the other mandate of the Fed. So we already talked about people expect to lose. Jobs. They expect the job Market to get tough. So the Fed's really getting painted into a corner here. You've got inflation staying sticky.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then you've got the labor Market showing cracks.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so I definitely, if I'm Powell, I'm thinking, man, I can't get out of there fast enough. I don't know if you want to deal with what's coming for the Fed here in the next six months to a year, but... It's one of those jobs you just look at and you're like, man, who would want to do that? I don't know. Seems masochistic. But where are we in terms of the other asset classes?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Because we talk about, hey, maybe the US stock Market's a bit concentrated, buyer beware. You know, it's not a timing tool, but what's the upside there? But then you look at some of these other asset Markets. And right here, we're looking at yields on corporate bonds and the three-month treasury yield and then equity REITs, the implied cap rate, which is essentially your kind of income return on REITs.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: They call it a cap rate in the real estate world, capitalization rate. And looking at this chart from Apollo, you can see that All of these numbers are converging and they're all currently above what you're getting on the earnings yield of the S&P 500. Meaning that if you take the S&P 500, you take those earnings, let's say it's, I'm not exactly sure what it is, but let's say it's $270 for the year on the S&P.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That yield relative to the overall S&P is lower. Than what you can get on corporate bonds, REITs, and barely the three-month treasury yield, which is considered the risk-free rate. So stocks are very highly priced relative to the current income that you're getting on them. And historically, there's really not anything, at least on this chart, that only goes back to 2000 that really compares to that.

DANO WEIR: So getting back to this week's theme, Chris, is concentration still a thing? Are we seeing the MAG7 melt? Past few years, you've had seven stocks and a few others really driving the Market. We've got a Market that only is going up. We've got a real estate Market that's a, quote, disaster, right?

DANO WEIR: It's all the Market, the Market, the Market. And then that's now being magnified even further by AI, AI, AI. And now we're seeing this convergence where you've actually got a few other categories that are outperforming the S&P. So is this starting to melt.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. And not to confuse people, it's not, it's not outperforming on like a price basis. It's not like the ag is outperforming, you know, the S and P it's merely the, the yield. So, so the yield of the.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Explain why you, Chris.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So, so like on a bond, I think that's the simplest, that's the simplest example that if you, if you buy a bond for a hundred dollars, you're lending your money out for a hundred bucks. And let's say the yield is 4%. It's going to pay you a 4% interest rate.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So the coupon is going to come to you, you know, $4 a year, probably going to be split up quarterly or maybe biannually. So you're going to get $2 twice a year. That's the yield. If you own a rental house and you're receiving rent, you know, that rent less your expenses, you could consider that the yield. That you're receiving on that rental house.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so when you when it comes to stocks, we look at that as the earnings. So what are what are those stocks are, you know, earnings relative to their price. And that's your yield, sometimes called carry. Basically, what are you getting paid while you hold that position in terms of your income?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Gotcha.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Oh, let's see here. Sorry. Now we've got the S&P performance following rate cuts. So, you know, we've already started a rate cutting cycle about a year ago. Yes, it's been on pause, but they're going to, it looks like they're going to continue that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, when you're looking at, you know, investments every day, it can feel like forever, but we're actually in a rate cutting cycle. And this chart is showing what those forward returns have been in the past and then the drawdowns.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I don't know that there's a huge difference in a rate cutting environment versus an increasing rate environment in terms of how stocks have done. They've seemed to do pretty well, but they've also had the drawdowns just like they would in any normal Market.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The investment implications here, let me just read that says history suggests that rate cuts do not guarantee higher returns, but they have often been followed by positive Market performance on average. Yes. And you could say that about, you know, any average Market, cause the Market's historically gone up, you know, seven out of 10 years, roughly historically.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So, now Where might there be some other opportunities? If we look at the small caps, so the small U. S. Companies, cap means capitalization. So what's the Market saying that these companies are worth? The small companies versus the large companies, as you can see, historically, those have tended to cycle a bit.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Small caps outperforming to this extent, or sorry, small caps underperforming to this extent was during the dot-com bubble. So you see that light gray area back in 1999. Once that ended, small caps went on to outperform for many, many years. So if you had been an investor, say starting in 2001, 2002, and you, you know, Looked back from, say, 2007, you say, why would anybody buy large caps?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, small caps are where all the action is. They have all the returns. You know, the recency bias would have been towards small caps. And then, you know, that outperformance went on for many, many years with large caps outperforming, you know, here and there really until the pandemic.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then you see this massive outperformance from large caps, basically. Encapsulated in that mag seven and that concentration. So maybe that continues, but maybe not, you know, maybe the, maybe the, mean reversion starts to come back into play where we start to see small caps do better moving forward.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And I think people often forget, including advisors, that there's volatility in the Magnificent Seven. It's very easy to look at somebody or talk to a neighbor that says, yeah, I got rich off of NVIDIA. I put a few thousand bucks in it and now it's worth a million dollars and blah, blah, blah.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Great. Well, there's been several times along the way where that position went down dramatically. Anytime you're invested in a single stock, you're exposed to a lot of volatility. And we only talk about the winners, right? But even as recently as 2022 and 2025, all of the Magnificent Seven have experienced some major drawdowns.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I mean, look at Meta with down 74%. Remember the earnings call where they announced the Metaverse and the next day the stock was down like 30%. Percent. You know, so it buying and holding these is not, you know, for the faint of heart.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Especially if you're just owning a single one thinking that you're picking the winner. And when it comes to things like retirement investing, putting your capital at risk like that is very, very, very risky for staying on the path to retirement.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now, small caps, are we going through a regime change? Because really since April, which is extremely short term, I know. But really, since the tariffs were announced and we've seemed to be in this new era of tariffs, which I don't know if you guys saw right before we started the show, the appeals court said that the tariffs are illegal.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So I think that's going to be heading to the Supreme Court as a challenge. So we'll see where that shakes out. Obviously, that would be huge news if those get struck down. But since that period, small caps have been doing very, very well. So represented by the IWM ETF here, the Russell 2000, that is small cap value, small cap growth. It's a blend.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then you see the S&P 500 is kind of down there towards the bottom. You've got mid cap stocks also towards the bottom there. But international and emerging Markets doing pretty well.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: With emerging up there kind of close to small caps. So really the risk, the risk on sector, the more highly volatile sector, excuse me, has been doing better.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But that's not the whole story because when you look at the Russell 2000 over the longer term, this is going back four years to August, this day in August, four years ago. And you look, it has been a tough slog for small cap investors. Up only 3.78%, over that time period. Right.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So just because it, things look good on the upside, you know, when you're looking at things like mean reversion and, you know, potentially some, benefits from AI, right. Cause maybe it's going from the producers of the chips and, you know, the main producers of AI that we're using each day.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Down to the smaller companies, maybe that's what the Market's seeing in terms of this performance where, hey, if you can implement AI in your smaller companies and get even 10, 20% more productive, maybe the impacts of AI can help those small and medium-sized companies even more than the benefits that we've seen in the large cap companies so far. I can see that happening.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But who knows, that narrative has not taken hold yet. But you do have kind of a coiled.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, situation here with the small caps where they've really gone nowhere for going on four years now, to the point where you might, you might see some built up energy in that, in that sector. And I think you gotta be careful, something like 25% of the, small caps are not profitable, you know, so they're not making any money.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Most of those are in the bio, biotech sector according to wisdom tree so they're kind of you know lottery ticket situations where, you know, if the biotech comes through and it's, it's, they find the next Ozempic or something, cure for cancer, whatever it might be, where those, those little companies can really take off, but they can also, they have a really high failure rate as well.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But, but for those that are looking for, you know, Hey, where, where might there be some more, some more, opportunity moving forward?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Small caps may be a place to look and international as well. Everybody knows international is underperformed for a very, very long time. This is the, the Japanese Nikkei. And I think this is one showing, Hey, maybe there's some opportunity in the Nikkei, you know, Buffett's, 13 F came out and he's been adding to those Japanese brokerage firms that he owns.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so do what the big dogs are doing. But also, I think it's a tale of risk management because had you been a Japanese investor, we all suffer from something called home country bias where we feel more comfortable investing in our own country and in the companies that we know.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's natural. But had you done that in Japan in the 80s when they were set to take over the world, the Japanese stock Market reached a CAPE ratio of 100, which I think is the most expensive in history.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All the hype was around Japan. They could not be stopped, et cetera, et cetera. The narrative was there. Right. And, and then lo and behold, they went through 35 years, struggling to get back to even. So concentration, is very risky, even when it comes to just concentrating in one, in one country.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All right. So Case-Shiller Home Price Index came in this week, not looking so hot as well. I forget the exact number, but something like 39 out of the 55 metro areas were down. So, you know, more than 50% of the metro areas saw a price decrease in the Markets in the Case-Shiller Home Index, which is kind of normalizing in the housing Market.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: This from Charlie Biello showing that home price by growth by decade, and this goes back to 1891. And you see nominal, which means not taking into account inflation versus the real, which does take into account the inflation rate.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And you see, well, let me just read what Charlie says. The first half of the 2020s, with annualized home price appreciation of 4.6% above inflation is unlikely to repeat in the back half.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There's no rational justification for prices to continue to outpace inflation by such a wide margin. And when you look at the long-term returns of home prices, I think it's an anomaly of our times to really think of homes as an investment because previously they really weren't thought of that way because the returns didn't justify it either.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It basically moved with inflation. If you see that real annualized return over the long run is basically, you're barely moving with inflation. Went up a little bit in the 2010s and then in 2020 era, we've seen it even more.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But that's not normal and probably just another sign of a very unhealthy housing Market in the United States.

DANO WEIR: Chris, I'm not going to do it this year because we're already too far into the year, but next year I'm going to start keeping a tally of every time you have a chart that goes back pre-1900.

DANO WEIR: And I'm going to make a little note on there, a little scratch Mark, and we'll see if we can get to 10 or not.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yes, sir. I hope we get a lot of tally.

DANO WEIR: On there you know me and my old charts that's awesome to see every time all right Darren how do you feel about some technicals and you want to show some of the pieces that Chris has been talking about how that showed up in the charts Chris i just want to start off with egg this week because boy.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: For all those who held on to their bonds going all the way back to 2022 we're just about back into the zone where you might make that money back so to your point again, Chris, about concentration. I mean, look how long it's taken for bonds to recover.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: This is the ag, right? So this is the bond index. And it's literally, I mean, years just holding onto these guys. And every time it seems like they go up, they go back down. But, you know, we're right there. So I wonder, Dan, does this applause sound work on StreamYard?

DANO WEIR: Where is that?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Let's try it.

DANO WEIR: Oh, I've never even seen this before.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: There's all kinds of sounds in here now, man. Our, our, our show is about to get just.

DANO WEIR: Oh no.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Terrible.

DANO WEIR: Oh no. We use it. We use a streaming platform and I've never scrolled down on this part of the platform that he just showed me. And I.

DANO WEIR: Bad news. Okay. Okay.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: All right. We'll get back to it. Seriously, though. So for those who helped bond over all this time, congrats, because it's now finally coming back. And right now we're looking, you can see this double top here, this long-term double top is the weekly chart. And we traded right back into that neckline and we are sitting right there.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We got rejected slightly, but I'm looking at that saying, Hey, that's pretty bullish on the Market for the bond Market. That is. Which tells you rates are probably going down if bonds are headed up. So if we look at our 10-year, and we talked about this last week, how it's kind of winding up and it looks like it's going to break down again.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What I'm watching really for the bond Market on the weekly chart, though, is this long-term support line. I want to see a breakthrough there. And then I'm in the camp of, hey, I think rates are headed down. Still a lot of support at 3.6. But if I'm looking at this chart now, I think probably is it. Probabilities are in favor that we start seeing this range on the 10 year.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And that will be, I guess, good for people who want to buy houses. But typically, you know, when rates start going down initially, it's not necessarily a great thing. Silver breaking out all time high, 40 or actually not all time high. It's been, let's see, that was 2011 since or 2011 since last time we saw 40 on the charts.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So a little bit of a silver squeeze going on gold also having a nice breakout we talked last week about this this descending triangle happening and that there's a breakout in motion and this week it broke out gold going higher why because they're talking about lowering rates while inflation's still high right so people are buying gold perhaps as a hedge perhaps because people feel like geopolitically things are not safe in this world i think it's really interesting and become more true.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Really depending on how people believe politically, how they feel things are going on out there. I have seen that certainly talking with clients stronger than I can remember ever hearing it. Whereas if they tend to be one way, they tend to be more on the liberal spectrum. They tend to be the world's not doing good. Things are really bad.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then the conservative, they tend to be more, hey, things are great. And I always advocate for the middle, right? Just because I think when it comes to investing, you have to leave the politics at home. They don't really help. So ag looking good, interest rates looking down, gold looking up, silver looking up. What's that say for the S&P 500? The S&P 500 literally did nothing this week.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You can see here, this is what we call a doji candle. And the bigger candlestick part here versus the Wix, you can see it Basically went up slightly this week, but slightly, but stayed inside this hammer candle. The fact that we got a hammer candle and a doji candle, I'll bet you, I'm going to put probabilities on the side that we get a red candle next week.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So that's coming up. Interesting, the court ruled that Trump's tariffs were illegal. So I think we have a Supreme Court showdown coming here pretty soon on that. And then it'll be interesting to see how that impacts the Market. But generally, I would say you still got green and you can see over here, here's a doji candle inside of another candle and we got a lot of green after that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: There's definitely some... People who are calling for higher highs headed our way. But we've been talking about on this channel for a while that it's the last week of August, Labor Day, and here comes September, folks. So it wouldn't be too shocking to see a little bit of a correction here.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What would we be looking for in a correction? When would we be concerned it's something more than just a correction, right? So you're certainly going to have a stop at 6,300. And then I think this area is really the support, this long-term support line.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So depending on how long it takes to get there, I could see down in this range here being where we see the Market trade into something like it moves down into that area, find support that moves back up. And you can see how important this area has been all along. Why is it so important to look at the technicals? Because I think what we're likely to see in September is the world's going to end.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Something's going to come out in the news and everyone's going to freak out. And really, it's just a correction in the Market. So try not to pay attention to the news when it comes to your portfolio. Try not to pay attention to your politics when it comes to your portfolio, because neither will help you make good investment decisions.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Chris, to your point, front end of the tip, you opened up the can of worms and said, Darren's going to be talking about Bitcoin. So sure enough, I am. And I actually think Bitcoin is in a pretty precarious spot at the moment. So I think... If we lose this spot in Bitcoin, I think we'll revisit 100. You can see how important this area was right here, the very top wick of this candle back in December of last year.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And we traded right in and magically right now that's where we're at. Again, it's only four o'clock West Coast time, so the Market isn't closed till it's five. But interesting support in this area. We did not hold support like we did last week. It traded in there, traded back up, and then support failed.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So the front end of the risk curve is playing perfectly into my thesis and my seasonality expectation that the stock Market will be seeing a correction in September. The fact that gold's up, bonds are up, rates are down, Bitcoin going down, I think... Probabilities are on the side that we're going to see a correction in the S&P here over the next month. Love to be wrong, but I don't think I will be on this one. We'll see.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: RSP, which is the Equally Weighted Index, nothing to speak of per se here. We closed it out at an all-time high last week. And this is the Equally Weighted Index. What that looks like for people who are not familiar with it is this is the Cap Weighted Index, where it gives NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google more credit and smaller companies less credit.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: When you're looking at the RSP, you're actually making all those boxes the same size. And we generally want to watch this.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And if we're seeing a rotation that you referred to earlier in the show, Dan, a rotation where money's rotating out of NVIDIA and perhaps going into Nexon or other stocks, you'll start seeing RSP continue to work its way up while the main index might be stalling out. And that's a sign that there's a rotation. So when we look at that comparison of SPY to RSP.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: This ratio would be telling us that. And so you can see this kind of breakout we had in this ratio last week or last couple of weeks. It broke out, meaning it got more concentrated than it's ever been. It broke out, came back in, and now we're kind of getting ready to visit support here in this ratio.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So what does that mean? It means that we talked about earlier that that concentration might be coming out of the Market a little bit. What we can hope for, though, is the rotation. What we don't want is for everyone just to sell NVIDIA and everything else in their portfolio because then that becomes problematic.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What we would hope for is that people sell NVIDIA, Microsoft, those type of stocks. It's not a recommendation. And then it goes into other stocks. That keeps the Market going. What we don't want is everyone to take their money and go home because if that happens, then you get a Market collapse and you get a significant correction.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: When we look at oil, Oil can be a sign that industrial production is slowing. We're getting this bleed and we haven't been able to hold above this support line right here, which is pretty important since 2022. We saw this weakness in earlier part of the year and then it shot back up and now we have weakness again.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That could be a sign that the consumer is not buying as much gas. There's not as much demand out there. Could be on the chart a sign of weakness. So if you've got gold going up, you got silver going up, you got bonds looking good, you got rates going down, you've got oil looking weak.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You've got the front end of the tip of risk, Bitcoin, selling off significantly and looking precarious. That starts to build a narrative for you where you say, hey, overall, we're seeing the weakness that, guess what? We've been expecting to see going into September. So for everyone who says, oh, no, no, this is just September correction. We've been expecting it. It's very seasonal. There is a seasonality to the Market.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And this juncture all we're trying to see is that seasonality set in when we look at our mags so these are the mag seven stocks you can see they moved up so this is index an etf that just tracks the mags Microsoft Apple Google Amazon etc you can see it traded up and it has been stalling out three weeks in a row which is a sign of what we call distribution right so every time the the every time the sellers sell the buyers are gobbling it up but not me.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: In any kind of meaningful way. So the sellers are slowly unloading their inventory is the way to think about it. And there's buyers that are buying, but they're not rushing to the Market to buy. And that's what a distribution chart looks like. You kind of get this flat line looking thing. Interestingly, you could argue though that you've got this kind of ugly triple top forming in the mags.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Which would not be good. And then you could put a trend line on the neckline. So if I was watching these really closely, I would be looking right along that trend line for my read. So I'd say things are probably okay unless we lose this spot on the mags. So call it 60. We trade below that on a weekly average, then I'd be concerned about, okay, party might be over. Maybe the bubble is here. It's popping.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Now, let's talk about the S-curve of adoption. What is the S-curve of adoption? Okay, we saw this happen during the dot-com era, right? If we go back in the dot-com era, and we go all the way back, let's go to monthly. We go all the way back here. This was the bubble of the dot-com era right here. And this was when everything was www. And then it wasn't. And all these. Big tech internet companies crashed.

DANO WEIR: Can you go even tighter on that, Darren, so we can really see how dramatically in that timeframe, in that world it went down? Because it doesn't look so bad when you see it at scale like that, but at the time it was a massive crash.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah, I mean, you can see like this time going down, it was 50% of the Market gone.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So that's pretty significant. And what's even more significant is if, you happen to invest right here at the top, you didn't make your money back. Let's see how long it took you to make your money back. All right. So if you invested that time and to make your money back, it took 2,436 days.

DANO WEIR: And then shortly thereafter, it was 2008.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah, exactly. So just when you made your money back. Six months later, you lost it again. So if you invested your money right here and you just plowed it all in just the stock Market, you literally lost money more or less or weren't making any money for 4,000 days.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So 4,000 days if you invested at the top of the dot-com bubble.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's depressing. I feel like, Dan, you need that.

DANO WEIR: Sound effect it's like want want want dude you guys have got me thinking now we're getting prices right sounds we're getting all gotta be in there yeah oh here's here's a sound effect it's it's called a punch so if you invested your money in.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: 2001 this is what you felt like so i guess it sounds yes which which okay that's depressing but that's that's also why As boring as it sounds, you're always preaching the diversification, right? And having some of those small caps that haven't gone anywhere for four years and having some international that, you know, you're like, well, why don't we just do the thing that's been working, right?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But that's what diversification helps with is to avoid those types of lost decades, those types of huge, huge drawdowns because they're not for everybody. And in fact, a lot of people that say, Hey, I can handle that kind of risk when it, when it comes, there's always a narrative tied to it.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's, you know, this time is different and the world really is ending this time and it freaks people out. And so, you know, I think in general, we want to be probably erring on the side of caution for the most part, for most people.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Because of that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, so what's interesting is, is we do a lot of work with like assessing risk and comfort with volatility with clients. And I mean, literally when you look at this chart, it's not shocking why people just feel like the stock Market's going to go up because literally it's basically been going up with a few momentary corrections for, well, 5,000 days. So I mean, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And Then when we say to them, like, hey, you need to diversify and being too risky, like it is going to come home to roost at some point. Unless the government just keeps printing money to infinity and beyond. But then eventually the, you know, the all wheels come off the bus at this point if they just keep printing like this. So something has to give at some point, I think.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Well, yeah. And in Japan. Printed money till the cows came home and it didn't save their equity Market. So I think it's a false sense of security for people to, to just bet that the Fed is going to figure out a way to keep the stock Market elevated forever. Because they've tried that in Japan and we just, we saw that chart, you know?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, it's, it's a good point. And so we always tell clients and we generally feel like that. 90% of clients can tolerate about a 10% dip before they get pretty anxious about their portfolio. And the bigger the portfolio, the bigger that swing is, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: If you've got a million dollar portfolio or a $10 million portfolio and you swing 10%, right? You're swinging by a million bucks. That's a big move. And especially people who inherit money, we tend to see that emotional response even more exaggerated because there's this scarcity piece that kicks in.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And with a Market that's gone up like it has, like, okay, wow, not shocking if the Market goes down. So then we say, okay, well, we showed you other cases in history where the Market's gone down 50%. So where would that be? Well, let's see, that's 30% down. And that would take us back to, well, basically, let's call it COVID.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: If we were to lose 50% right here.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We would go straight back to the COVID days, which I honestly, if the S&P went down 50% at this point, would not shock me. I'm not saying it will, not saying it won't, but it wouldn't be shocking. And there's plenty of precedents.

DANO WEIR: Just look at the difference between a 50% drop and that little drop we had in April, which was emotionally widespread panic. For that tariff drop in April. Now, basically quintuple that, and you would get what a 50 would feel like. I can't even, I don't know that we have enough phones to make enough phone calls, Darren.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. Well, funny enough, we started filming this show during this drop right here, right? And what's interesting is we've tracked viewership over time. Literally, this is when Chris and I started filming this because during COVID, it was like every day the phones were just blowing up.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I'm like, okay, well, at least let's just educate people every day. And then if they have other questions specific to their portfolio, then that will help us with the call volume. And you can see it's just been straight up since then.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And that's been difficult for investors who had a more diversified portfolio when you're just watching these Markets rip. Up. And we're like, yeah, you should own bonds. And they're like, like, that's not fun. Bonds are making me money. And yeah, I wish we had mechanisms where you could just time like how much to be in SPY and how much to be in bonds.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But at the end of the day, there's not a really clear, statistically significant way to do that. There's a lot of people who do it for a time, but not a lot of people who've done it consistently over time. So I think it's a good time to look at your portfolio and to ask yourself, am I okay with this type of volatility? And in the event of that volatility, what would I do with my portfolio? Would I keep it and own it?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Would I invest more or would I sell? Because if your answer is the third one, you need to figure out how to create less volatility in that portfolio. Because it wouldn't be shocking to see this kind of correction. And right now, there's just an enormous amount of recency bias going on out there. And the recency bias is quite simply. The Market just goes up and up and up and up. Who knows how long for.

DANO WEIR: Can I give you an analogy, Darren, to close out the show? So I had a friend of mine who turned 40 this week, and he was kind of tripping on that. And I turned 40 last year, and so we were talking about it. Excuse me. And I said, you know how I try to think about it? I try to think about, well, if I told you you could wake up tomorrow and be 30. You would freak out and say, absolutely.

DANO WEIR: Give me that in a heartbeat. You know all the things you do different. I'd say, today is that day for you, for 50-year-old you. You woke up in your 40 today, and now you have all this in front of you. Your 50-year-old you would kill to be where you are right now. And the same thing I think is true with your portfolio, which is that if in a month it dropped 50%, not saying that's going to happen.

DANO WEIR: You would kill to be back where you are today to reassess and go, wow, is this really where I want to be? Today is that day for you as an investor. Every day is to just say, how do I feel about this? And this is why you work with an advisor because they can, there's someone who's trained you, you can bounce it off of.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, the trick is really to identify, you know, there's two main, main kind of emotions driving most investors. And really you're ping ponging. Between fear and greed. And every investor experiences those emotions differently and with different intensities, right? And so as an investor, it's super important to understand, is it greed driving me here? Is it fear driving me here?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Because just for the same token, you can be too aggressive in your portfolio. You can be too fearful with your portfolio, right? And the idea is that you want to find a nice balance. And so the idea is to pick an allocation that regardless of the Market volatility, you'd be okay just sticking with that allocation and not changing it because that's the worst thing you can do is adjust it when things are not going well.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I say all that going into September. We're wrapping it up for August. It's August 29th, 2025. Who knows if September will be down? Who knows if half of October will be going down, but it would not be shocking given how much it's gone up and the seasonality we're about to experience.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Likely. All right, well, we're going to wrap it up.

DANO WEIR: Thank you so much for checking out On The Markets. We are Sonoma Wealth Advisors, part of the Fermata family of brands, which includes Fermata 401K services, Fermata Tax services, planning and services. You can learn more about us. Why don't you start at our website? SonomaWealth. Com is the best place to start. If you are a client, thank you so much for checking out our show.

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CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Fermata On The Markets features human hosts, editors, and voiceover talent. Music by Dr. Delight on Soundstripe, voiceover by Joan Alloway Nash. Thank you for listening to the very end. We appreciate diligent viewers and listeners. Fermata Advisors LLC is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC.

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CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The opinions expressed by Fermata Advisors, LLC on this show are their own. Information presented on this program is believed to be factual and up to date. But we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but are limited to the dissemination of general information. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the options presented. Information presented is for educational purposes only.

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