Government Shut Down. Chinese Trade Tensions. This Is Fine.

DANO WEIR: It's Friday, October 10th, 2025, and you are about to go On The Markets. There's a government shutdown. There's new tensions between Trump and China. This is fine.

DANO WEIR: And of course, it's not. But it sort of feels that way. My name is Dano Weir. We'll be joined shortly by our managing principals, Daren Blonski and Chris Sipes, talking about those two very things, the government shutdown and new tensions with Trump and China that have just today Not before, but just today, finally taking their toll On The Markets and performance. We'll talk about that.

DANO WEIR: Gold hit a huge milestone this week, then kind of fell off, now bouncing back. So which countries are producing the most gold? We'll look at that. The so-called Buffett indicator. See what that says about the market at this moment. And hopefully why our diversified investors are chilling a little bit easier today as a result of all the activity on this Friday. First, let's get into the show.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The stock market. The economy.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Your money. What's the latest and what could be next?

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DANO WEIR: They are our co-hosts, our managing principals, Daren Blonski, CFP, Chris Sipes, CFP. Guys, how we living today? No big deal. Just a nice and easy Friday heading into the weekend.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah, nice and easy. If Trump would have stayed off Twitter today or whatever you call it, True Social would have been a nice and easy Friday. But hey, in fairness, the Chinese took a swipe at Trump and Trump is going to punch back. What do I mean by that?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, that's the Chinese locked down a lot of the rare earth minerals and magnets and Trump decided to, fight back as he probably should, regardless of politics, not to throw us into the political deep end here. But basically, at the end of the day, China's locking us out of some rare earth materials and Trump says, find them. We'll throw you a whole lot of tariffs.

DANO WEIR: So we gotta, we have to approach this cautiously. I am showing it on the screen right now. And some people need a trigger warning. Sorry, I should have should have shared that. What Daren's talking about is a few things going on. One, we were all prepared for our show to be about the government shutdown of which will still hit. The market was not so much reacting to it.

DANO WEIR: But then just today, we've got this news of China locking down rare earth minerals, which is then causing Trump to respond. There's also a peace deal in the Middle East. And so you've kind of got a lot of. Things that are happening outside of the finance world. And yet, Chris, it just always ends up coming back. And now we've got our reason, right?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Yeah. We got our reason. And just so everyone knows, the slide deck was put together before today started. So don't judge us because after that tweet came out, obviously, or truth, whatever you call those things, that's all the market cares about at this point.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But As we'll see, you know, the stakes, the stakes, in my opinion, are very high because of where the market is right now. And we've talked about this as ad nauseum. I'm sure people are sick of hearing about it.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But, you know, it's not like, you know, if you fall out of a building at this point, it's not like you're falling off of the first or second floor. Like we're, we're up there with valuations. And so it makes these... You know, negotiations and, and, and, and the fallout of those negotiations, even more, high, you know, the stakes are much higher.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know, I just wanted to dive back on this post, right? Cause yes, we've got valuations high. Yes. We've been talking about for months, literally months now, like, Hey, September from a seasonality standpoint, it's usually not that right? I walked down that walk of shame last week. Maybe just a week too early now, but we'll see. But I thought it was really interesting because last night.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Secretary Besant, Scott Besant said, he's the head of the treasury for those who don't know. He says that we're ready to take immediate exceptional measures to ensure market stability. And I read that tweet, Twitter post, breaking news, whatever truth, I don't care, last night. And I said to myself right before going to bed, I wonder what's about to happen.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And he must have been- That's a great tweet to read right before you go to bed.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Best of like Not that anything will happen, but let's say it did. Don't worry, we're here.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Because we all know that Trump didn't pound out this tweet truth, whatever it is, on his own, right? Somebody wrote this. He might have dictated it, but I highly doubt he wrote that on his own. Who knows? So clearly in the administration, they knew something was cooking last night after China came out and said, hey, we're not giving you any of the things you need to build your military equipment, etc.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: This has been an issue long Time coming for those who, are aware of this world. They know that the, the rare mineral earth world has been locked down by China for a very long Time.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Not a lot of people talk about it, but it's really, really important for technology to have access to these minerals. China's had a monopoly on a lot of them. They've controlled a lot of them. They've ran around the world and gathered them up and bought the rights to them.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's not that they're not there there's not a lot of them it's just very difficult to get them out of the ground and especially in the United States where we've got so many regulations and such that makes it even harder so now we're hearing China say hey we're not gonna let you have these it's also interesting on the backs of this supposed big peace deal in the Middle East which is crushing oil prices right now because now all of a sudden we're gonna have world peace in the Middle East which i'm still very rather skeptical of China comes out and says, oh, let me start a fight here.

DANO WEIR: Right. It's rather bright. So to set the scene for this week's episode is that they're in the market for many months. In fact, all of the year, people like Chris and Daren have been saying, hey, this is overvalued. Hey, here are all of the times where this is similar to, say, the dot-com bubble where price-to-earnings is ridiculous.

DANO WEIR: And like Things are oversold and you're buying a Honda Civic for like $200,000 because everybody else is buying them. You know, this is you're never going to be able to get the value out of these. They've been saying things like that, but there's just not been that shoe that's dropped. That's been the good reason for.

DANO WEIR: And in fact, the start of this week's episode was how even a government shutdown wasn't wasn't stopping this. Well, now we are getting our answer. We are getting our reason. But the reason is playing into something that was already there in the first place. So. That's the premise for this week's episode.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. And so just to capture that vibe that we have right now, I wanted to include the famous quote from, this is Irving Fisher, who was a Yale economist back in the 20s. Now, this little clipping that we're showing here from a Time article. Was from 2014. And that's important, which I'll tell you in a second, but that's important too.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So note that. But back in 1929, at the height of the stock market, Irving Fisher, an economist, an educated individual in this area, is famous for saying stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. He said this and was quoted in the pages of The New York Times.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And now people look back and go, wow, I can't believe he said that, you know, this was right before the crash of 1929. But this is to illustrate the fact that every Time, every Time these types of stock market, you know, frenzies, manias happen, everybody goes, you know what?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Maybe this Time is different and really smart people, very educated people On The Markets say the same thing. And, you know, in general, you know, I've heard a lot this week. Don't worry, market won't go down. Trump, the administration will never let the market go down. Hey, this Time is different because AI is different.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It is a game changer. These companies are the best companies ever created. Which is true, most likely. But just be aware of the fact that people have always felt like they do now when things are going really, really well. And it's evidenced by quotes like this from Irving Fisher.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, I think we need to be careful here too, right? We're not saying that like, hey, the market's going to sell off and we're going to lose 50% of value. Anything like that, that could happen. And we can see reasons why that would happen. But it doesn't mean that this Time is that Time.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And when I dive into the charts here in a little bit, I'll show you where we're basically sitting on some key supports, right? The market sells off and we give back basically everything that we gained in September in the matter of a few hours. And We'll probably give back a little bit more on Monday based upon what I see in the current charts. But that's just part of the process of corrections, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's very possible this is just a correction. So you shouldn't be going to the moon in stress and freaking out about the markets, but just realize that, hey, we're doing a correction. We didn't get it in September. We usually get them in September. We've been running hard for a while, and this is just the excuse for the correction.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's a great point, Daren, and reminds me of going back to why I mentioned that clip was from 2014, right? Because those types of articles and sayings are always out there. So it just proves that timing these things despite valuations, it's impossible. It's impossible to Time it. Because imagine if you read that in 2014 and go, oh yeah, gosh, stocks have...

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Gone up a lot and et cetera, et cetera, even though they weren't reading where they're reading today in terms of valuations. But imagine you looked at that in 2014 and go, gosh, yeah, maybe it's too risky. I shouldn't be in it. I think it's more the takeaway from it is to be diversified. Try not to get caught up in the FOMO. This quote from Buffett, I thought was great. This is apparently a recent quote from him.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The guy's in his 90s and he's still got it. I tell you, he says, you can't stand to see your neighbor get rich knowing you're smarter. And that's when greed leads to idiotic choices. And I guess that's what I'm saying is there's a lot of that going on right now where, you know, we all know somebody that did really well on XYZ stock and the, the, the worst, the idea, the worst, the, you know, the business model.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It makes you feel terrible because you're like, that doesn't even make any sense. You know, here I've been saving diligently all these years and investing in a prudent way. And this, this idiot comes along and YOLOs into, you know, some garbage stock and gets super wealthy overnight. Like it's not supposed to work that way. Right.

DANO WEIR: I can't even say the name of the coin at work safely. It's that stupid.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yes, exactly. And That drives people crazy. And like Buffett says, that's when greed leads to idiotic choices. When that greed bubbles up inside of you like, oh, I cannot let this happen. The greed just eats us alive. So just be careful.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That's all you know what Chris i have this i have this like image for days like this for you i have this and i imagine Chris driving in his like 1950s Mercedes diesel van down the road with his arm out the window and the air blowing in the wind. And this guy in this sports car races by and Chris just looks at him and kind of nods. And then like two miles down the road, the sports cars in the ditch.

DANO WEIR: And Chris reaches over to the passenger seat, pats his stack of bonds and goes, you know what? We're good guys.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Wow. I can't wait for that AI. I can't wait for that AI video from you, Dan, later. I'm sure you're going to generate it. Yeah, it's going to be in the team's inbox by the end of the show, I'm sure.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: For those who don't know, Dan is like, he's always sending memes. And what's the, it's not memes. Gifs. Yeah, GIFs. He's like constantly sending GIFs on our inner office communication. Like you say one thing and Dan sends you five GIFs. And now that he's figured out how to use AIs to make gifts, it's like he makes all his own with our faces on them.

DANO WEIR: Yes. Yeah. I made Chris a Secret Service agent this week.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Great thing to do, boss. I like that one. I looked pretty good in that, actually. So thank you, Dan.

DANO WEIR: I told ChatGBT, pretend Chris Seip is protecting President Reagan. Go.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You did. I promise you didn't say make him 50% better looking. Cause it looked pretty good.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Maybe a hundred percent. Anyway, gold. Okay. That's the other, that's the asset that now people are starting to, you know, we're up again today in the gold price.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: A lot of people are starting to ask about it, you know, so now, now we're going to have to start, you know, talking about being prudent with gold. But gold has been in the news a lot lately. And so it's interesting to see this showing where gold production happens mostly.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know one of the things about gold that's a little different than Bitcoin is that there is new production coming on it's just not very fast right they have something called a stock to flow you know valuation for for gold and so there is more gold being added which is a different feature than you have with Bitcoin because the higher the price of gold goes the more incentive there is to find more gold, figure out ways to turn other things into gold.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, what was that thing that was used a few months ago to turn lead into gold? It was like the hedron collider or something. And I'm sure it was way, way too expensive at current prices to, to make it economic to do so. But as the price goes higher, there is, there are ways to, to add to the supply of gold, although it's very slow.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But that's what gives gold a lot of its value is the fact that it's throughout history been very difficult to add to the supply of it. And therefore, it tends to hold its value well and be has been used as a currency for millennia.

DANO WEIR: And for those who aren't able to see this slide, it is a breakdown of gold production by country in 2024. Some of the largest producers, including Russia, Australia. Mexico, Peru, Ghana. But Darren, the largest producer on this one, this chart, is China.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Not shocking.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Followed by Russia.

DANO WEIR: Followed by Russia, right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: When you don't care about human rights and you don't care about destroying your environment, it turns out you can produce more gold.

DANO WEIR: I'm just saying. Yeah. Hot take. It's a hot take. Easy. I thought we said it wasn't a political show.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, it's just facts. Go look at their pollution. Go look at their human rights records. They ain't great, right? Gold is very hard to extract out of the ground, right? And so, I mean, we, in the Sierras, there's all these mines are constantly trying to reopen that they can't reopen because all the pollution it would create and people fight it here in the United States, I guess, rightfully so.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But I don't think that. Anybody in Russia, for example, says, don't pollute my backyard to get that gold out of the ground. Or China, they just run them over. It's just reality.

DANO WEIR: And when it comes to gold, a couple of milestones, Darren will show this later in the charts, but gold did pass $4,000 an ounce for the first Time ever this past week, which is an all-Time high. And Darren and I actually sat down with a local gold...

DANO WEIR: Dealer for on our other podcast it's all money that episode is forthcoming but make sure you subscribe to that show so you don't miss that breakdown gold one of those really interesting assets where there's a bunch of different ways to hold it everyone is always over it there's always something newer and better and yet and yet it sticks around and it keeps showing up and as i said it hit an all-Time high this past week so very interesting to consider for your portfolio.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Interesting that it hit it I just find this so fascinating, right? I never get over this idea that gold's spiking to all-Time highs. Nobody really knows why early on in the week. And now we could be like, oh, well, that makes sense why it might have been spiking high, right? Because if some other governments might have been buying or pushing the price.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The other thing, the headline that got next to no media attention this week. The Trump administration was behind the scenes negotiating with Venezuela and the Venezuela Maduro, who's another nice actor, by the way, but whatever. I'm sarcastic in that basically offered all their gold, all their rare earth materials.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: If we didn't go start bombing them and taking them out and basically create a regime change. And the Trump administration completely walked away from the table this week on that one. So forthcoming Venezuela, maybe that's what Trump's thinking. Ha, you can keep your rare earth materials. We'll go take them from Venezuela.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Maybe that's why we're bailing out Argentina? Got to keep an ally in the region. Well, I saw that going on.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah, I mean, bailing out Argentina makes all the sense in the world, in my mind, because he was kind of one of the leaders of this no government, cut all the bureaucracy. Stuff going on.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And if they let him fail, then all of a sudden the house of cards comes down in their strategy, which they're using this government shutdown to fire even more federal workers and to replace various parts of the government structure. So. Pretty interesting, all the things going on. You're right.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I have a feeling that the sentiment indicators are going to switch up a little bit next week. This comes out on Thursdays. Look at that bullishness at 45.9, 46 almost. Bearishness was down last week. We had this CNN fear and greed sentiment indicator at neutral. Again, it was at 49 versus 54 last week, so really not much change there. Bitcoin was at 70, which is greed up a little bit from 64 greed last week.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Again, I bet that's going to change after today. But it'll be interesting to see if the sentiment in the market continues to reflect this week's, you know, news or if by, you know, the end of next week, we're talking about something totally different, which is absolutely possible, given today's, you know, political environment shifting.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So quickly this slide seems a little outdated you know we've been including this as the the the government's been shut down like what effect does that seem to have on the market and and the takeaway is really there's no there's no correlation that you can tell like it doesn't make it go up or down it just kind of is basically random based on you know historical movements now today's move Didn't have anything to do with the shutdown per se, at least I don't think, you know, they did, you know, say that they're going to be laying off a lot of the government workers, which was totally covered up by the news of the of the tariffs and the breakdown and talks with China.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So who knows what, you know, all went into that sell off if this is part of it and the government shutdown is responsible for some of it. But historically, it is not really had an impact On The Markets.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, in the past.

DANO WEIR: And for those who can't see the slide, we've got a various we've got various years of government shutdowns and the S&P performance there in 81. It was basically flat 82. It was up 1 percent. 1990, it was down 2 percent. 2013, it was up 3 percent. 2018, it was it was up 0.8 percent. So as Chris was saying, no rhyme or reason necessarily.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. And, you know, when you talk about sentiment, of course, there's ways to measure that via, you know, asking people, of course, but probably even more effective in my mind is looking at what's done well in the markets. And this is from Lizanne Saunders at Schwab showing some of the top performers this year.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We've got drones, quantum computing. But then right after that, we've got meme stocks, non-profitable tech, most short. Rolling. So short is, you know, when hedge funds sell a company and expect it to go down in value and they would make money on a, on a short and, and that that segment of the market has been doing really well.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Retail favorites, marquee momentum, high yield debt, sensitivity, Chinese sales exposure, liquid IPO baskets. I mean, High beta cyclicals, all the top performers are not what you would expect in a Time period when people are not hungry for risk.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Those are all areas where people are piling in. And then you look at what's done the worst down there at the bottom, bond proxies, consumer staples, defensive compounders.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All the stuff you'd find on the passenger seat of my old Mercedes, guys.

DANO WEIR: For those who don't know, could you define what a meme stock is?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I'm not sure I'm the best person to define that. That's like trying to define a value stock.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You ask a different person and you might get a different answer.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: In my mind, it's like... Typically a stock that like has taken on a whole nother life that like has absolutely nothing to do with the underlying business, its prospects, how it's doing the fundamentals or anything. It's all about, you know, a group of people, you know, driving up a price of a stock or driving down a price of a stock or whatever, just to like have fun with it.

DANO WEIR: Essentially like games, if anyone has. Follow what happened to GameStop a couple years ago. Yeah. Which had nothing to do with people loving a video game store.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Exactly. And I think you could even say though, now there's, there's a few where there's like a kernel of truth to it, but then it's also been just like exploded higher, like something like a Palantir, you know, like a legitimate company has legitimate sales, you know, probably a reason why people feel like it's going to do really well.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But then also it's just hockey stick tire. Cause everybody talks about it. It's a meme, you know?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We talked last week about the virtuous circle and how the concentration in the U. S. Consumer base. And this was interesting from Moody's Analytics showing while it's open, high income Americans are behind roughly half of all U. S. Consumer spending, which is up from about a third in the early 90s.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So this just going to show. You know, we, we talked about basically all that spending being concentrated and therefore it doesn't matter so much, what the, what the kind of bottom, part of the market is doing from a, from a spending standpoint or, or from a sentiment standpoint, because the wealth and the income and the spending is so concentrated that it really matters what that top percentile is doing.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: From a market's perspective. So you've got that concentration, which flows into the consumer sentiment.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We got the consumer sentiment numbers earlier this morning and the market initially sold off based on this news. The consumer sentiment is still in the tank. And you'll notice that on this chart, the gray areas are recessions, previous recessions. This Time that we're in now and then the Time in 2022 are...

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Really the only times you see sentiment this low outside of recessions or recession recoveries. I guess we got down there in maybe 2011-ish briefly, but that's also coming out of the great financial crisis. But when you ask people about consumer sentiment, it's in the tank.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And I think that's because they're asking everyone. Or a representative sample in this case of, of the, the Royal we, and they're not asking, you know, the people that are spending all the money, right. They're, they're not asking, the, those high income earners that account for half of the spending in the U S.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so therefore, you know, there's, there's kind of an air pocket beneath that. When you look at the sentiment indicators, consumer sentiment now, That's largely driven by, most likely, in my opinion, it's most likely driven by people's comfort with their job prospects, their future job prospects.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: This is from Renaissance Macro. And they say, another sign of a cooling labor market. According to the latest University Of Michigan data, consumers see a rising probability of losing their job during the next five years.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: In October. This series rose to 22.9%, the highest since March. So if people are a little worried that they're not going to have a job soon, and maybe this is economy related, maybe this is AI related, you know, everybody keeps saying, you know, all the robots are just going to take all of our jobs and, and, you know, what are we going to do then?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Well that's going to flow through to the confidence of spending you know if you're if you're questioning the source of your income, you know, it makes it hard to feel confident spending on the other side.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now the other side of that is your investments. So if you're, if you're part of that top 50%, you know, we showed that pie last week that, you know, baby boomers have roughly half of the wealth in the United States. And a lot of that is public market, wealth. And, we can see here. By total stock allocation, we're, we're pretty close to highs. Now we've been here for a while.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, we've been in the upper 60 percentage points for a while. We've only really exceeded that a few times in history, but a lot of people's wealth is driven by how well the markets have done. And we all know that the markets have done well, based on a concentrated few. And so... It's sort of turtles all the way down here where you've got concentrated wealth, concentrated income, a lot of that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Confidence in that wealth and income is tied to the markets, which is tied to a handful of companies. So that in my mind is why, you know, we go into these, these negotiations and the stakes are pretty high, right?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Because if, if you do anything to really mess with the valuation of those handful of companies that are driving, driving the market, you know, there's those top 10 companies account for, you know, very, very large part of it. The U S stock market.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And if we do anything that kind of, you know, pops that, that, that balloon, and brings down the expectations of growth in those areas, that's going to flow through to this confidence. It's going to flow through the spending, very quickly since so much of our, wealth and income is also concentrated.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: This from B of A showing the top 20% of households by income make up over two thirds of the net wealth. And so again, two out of 10 people really drive most of that household wealth in the US.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And that is tied to spending here as Bank Of America shows. They show a discretionary spending of the top. 5% minus the middle income households. And then you've got the S and P 500 overlaid on that. So spending tends to follow the fluctuations in the S and P. I mean, it's not that hard to understand.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Like, look, if you're, if you're looking at your, your statements every month and the market keeps going up and you're going to be like, Hey, yeah, I mean, let's do that. Let's do that. You know, renovation project, or let's go on that trip. Let's do those things because market's been good to us.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And the home equity is also skewed to the top percentile of earners. So not only are the public markets done really well, but also the holders of real estate are near where we haven't had this much home equity since the late 1950s. And so people are also sitting on record amounts of of home equity, that we haven't seen in a long Time.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So that wealth effect, right? That's, that's what the academics call it. The wealth effect, the wealth effect drives spending, drives the economy, drives market and, and that virtuous circle. And that flywheel has really been on autopilot for many years.

DANO WEIR: And Chris, can you go back to the home equity for, can you go back to the home equity for a second?

DANO WEIR: So we're seeing here right now, if you are a homeowner, that the U. S. Homeowners percentage equity in real estate holdings. So if you are a homeowner that you have a large percentage of equity in that home, Chris, is that a result of the fact of I'm probably not going to go pull out equity from my house because the rates are so high?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's part of it. Yes. It's also, you know, we've had abnormally high returns in the housing market over the last few years. It's people are locked into lower interest rates. I talked to somebody today with a 2.6% mortgage rate, you know, I mean, that's, that's below the, the CPI inflation. So, they knew some, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of reasons.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I think, at least anecdotally, I haven't seen anything that says people are tapping this home equity to go buy boats and go on vacations and things like that. Probably for the reason you just mentioned, Dan, because if you go get a home equity line, the rates are going to be a little bit higher. It's not like back in, you know, the early 2000s where people were really levering up their house.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so to go buy things that, you know, you got leverage on leverage on leverage.

DANO WEIR: Or to go invest or to go invest to not that I'm recommending that. But I mean, there would be a Time where you could pull out on your house at 3 percent. And we well know that the S&P is doing 10 at that Time.

DANO WEIR: And so that's just literally a free 7 percent with the risk of the loan itself. So yeah but but there's a small risk of losing your house yeah but i mean there's people who think like that right so that would be a good reason why that's another downstream effect of high rates Correct.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But as you can see here with this much equity, people are really not, they're really not tapping it per se, but I would say it's, it's psychologically a comforting thing when, when you are spending, right? So those folks that, that have those, have that equity in their homes. And don't forget, you know, I think it's one in three homes that are owned in the U. S. Are own free and clear of any mortgage at all.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So think of the cash flow. Positive nature of that situation that people have extra, you know, money to spend elsewhere in the economy because they're not paying a mortgage at all. So, so anyway, you know, a lot of that money has gone into the markets. It's continued to drive passive flows into, especially the S and P and we've got the Buffett indicator. This is from bespoke investments.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Buffett hasn't referenced this really to my knowledge since before the dot-com bubble but apparently he gave a speech back in i don't know it was like 97 or 98 i think where he was talking about this as an indicator that he references because he's famous for saying like i don't look at macro you know i don't i don't invest that way but he mentioned this in one of those those talks and of course it was in 97 or 98 so this is there's still.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Two or three years to run, to Darren's earlier point about timing, you know, the timing is really difficult, but he references this market cap of the stock market. So basically what's the total value of the stock market, as a percentage of our GDP. And, we breached that 200% range.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now, back when he referenced it as pretty high, in 2000 was when it was, I want to say like one 25, maybe one 50, and we're well above 200 at this point. So, you know, maybe, maybe everyone's right. Maybe Scott Besson's going to come figure out a way to support the market quote unquote, beyond here.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, with, with markets at all Time highs and you get down, you know, 2%. We're talking about bailing the markets out, right? I'm skeptical personally that they have that kind of control over the markets because it's so big.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You never doubt the printing press, Chris. Never doubt the printing press.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. And look at when they did the printing press in COVID, the myriad of problems that that injected into the system. Because you got to remember, risk is never destroyed it's just transformed And, so yeah, it's the whack-a-mole of sure they can print the press, put, turn on the printing press, but then that leads to massive inflation.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It leads to massive, economic, you know, inequality leads to, you know, societal fragility and tensions, which we all know we don't need any more of that than we already have at this point. So it's not, it's not.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Trade-off free well i think it becomes what is most politically you know advantageous right like does printing now to save it in the moment to get to the next election make sense or or does you know doing what's right for the long term of the dollar and its stability makes sense and i think that's why you end up with all these decisions that then just keep kicking the can until i guess at some point they won't be able to but If you look really like at history, the government, you know, we've survived a long Time kicking cans.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: They just keep changing the game.

DANO WEIR: Societal fragility. I was coming to you guys for some hot stock tips. Okay. I want to know what I need to buy right now. You guys are going, I don't know if I understand all this stuff. I want to know what, which meme coin should I be buying? Come on, guys.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's not that kind of show, Dano.

DANO WEIR: It's not. And I say that as a joke. It's just like, it's all these things that end up kind of, you know, it's this confluence. The market is a confluence of so many different societal and economic and financial factors. It's very interesting.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Yeah. And it just reinforces diversification, right? You know, gold, back when, before gold took its huge run, you know, we were talking about the fact that there were outflows. Out of the ETFs.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Like literally gold's going up almost every day and people were taking money out of the ETFs and, and, and zero people I can tell you were, were saying, Hey, how about we put some gold in our portfolios three or four years ago? Nobody was asking for it. Right. And, and so, and, and, you know, S&P, had you taken your money out because the market was overvalued in 21, boy, you'd be kicking yourself now.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Because look at this Shiller PE ratio. The last Time we were here, 21, you know, and the market fell and you thought, okay, well, there it is, right? There's no way we can get to that valuation again. Boom, here we are. Now we've only exceeded this current Shiller PE ratio one other Time in the dot-com bubble. We got to 44.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We're at 40 now. And so we'll see. Nobody knows, including us, especially us. And so you can't Time these things. And that's why the logic of diversification makes so much sense. However, people don't get a burning desire to diversify.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You don't get jealous of your neighbor and go, darn it, Chris, let's diversify as fast as we can.

DANO WEIR: And Chris, for our... Listeners, maybe they're new to our show, or maybe they're considering becoming a client. There's a lot of, I've encountered different opinions of what diversification is. Some people think if they're just in different stocks, that that's diversified. So in general, can you give a general 10,000 foot view of what diversification is?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, that's, that's true. So So diversification can be intra-asset class, like you just mentioned. Instead of just owning one stock, you own multiple stocks. Or even better, you own a fund that owns hundreds of stocks.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then you've got diversification within countries. So a lot of people say, I don't want to invest any outside of the U. S. I only trust the U. S. So they concentrate their investments in the U. S. Or you could diversify your stocks. Globally with different countries. You can diversify in size, small, medium, and large companies.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so I'm of the flavor that on that spectrum, the more the better. So it's, in my opinion, better to be in a basket of stocks than in one stock. I've seen many times people get blown up when they're in one stock. And so I'm not a fan of that. Of that strategy as a robust, you know, retirement strategy, especially.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So, but then you also, if you want to take it a step further, you can diversify amongst asset classes. So that's when you get into stocks, bonds, commodities, precious metals, commodity producers, alternatives. There's all different kinds of... Sources of expected return out there.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And they all have their own correlations to the stock market or not. And the more diversified you are in that direction on days like today, it can really pad massive sell-offs because what's bad for something like stocks happen to be good for something like gold today, as an example, and bonds, which we'll see soon.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So there's different levels of it, different thoughts on how people like to diversify.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so that's a good point, Dan, that you really got to define what kind of diversification you're looking for.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So if there's ever a sign that goes, that tells us we've been going on for too long, it's when Trump updates his tariff announcements on True Social while we're filming. And so Trump just... Said that they're going to, starting November 1st, they're going to increase the tariffs by 100% on China.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So China's got about 132% tariff on it or 125% tariff on us right now. I think about that, that's going to bring our tariffs in some cases, you know, could be significantly higher than that, but just slightly higher than what China already tariffs us for.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I think that kind of interesting, right the media doesn't play that up that much that like China's got about 125% tariff on all our stuff. And now we're just a little bit higher than they are once they slam on these a hundred percent tariffs in November.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, like you're talking about, like we were talking about before we started recording though, like how many times does this have to happen before the market goes? Yeah. Right. I'll believe it when I see it. Right. We've, we've had, we've had this so many times, the, the Trump grenade, you know, and. Throws it out there and then as as the Time goes on it gets walked back changed totally different.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then the market goes, Oh, actually that was nothing. You know, it was just a blank, right. Or, or whatever. Maybe this Time is different, but it feels a little like the boy who cried wolf after a while where it's like, okay, I mean, how many times is the market going to have these massive sell-offs before, before something actually happens that the market expects? I don't know. It's just case in point, right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Case in point, Chris, like, so that post came out And, you know, the post that came out earlier is like, we're going to slam all these tariffs on China. And then now it's 100% and maybe some export controls what came out and we're already seeing price improvement on Bitcoin. Bitcoin's only, you know, front end of the tip of the risk.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And it's still open, right? It trades, it's around the clock, but it closes its daily candle at five o'clock. And we're seeing, you know, basically we were down as low as 113 and now we're at 114, almost 115. Change. We're seeing the market already say, well, the grenade got thrown, but it wasn't that bad after all.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. I just have to believe that, look, we already talked about how tied the economy is to the market. If we know that, they know that. And they know that if they get that flywheel going in the wrong direction quickly enough, and that virtuous cycle turns into a venomous cycle.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That could really be a trouble for them politically. So I, I just, I think it's probably a, just a negotiating tactic tactic. And, I'm in the camp of, I'll believe it when I see it.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: They usually come out and they say, yeah, there's going to be all these tariffs except for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, all, all of these are going to get an exception. And, and, so. I think it's the initial freak out that probably is not going to hold.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But we'll see.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What's interesting too, though, the other point that was just made is that they're blocking all countries from mineral earth. So it was almost like China took a swipe at everybody. At least that's how Trump is phrasing it. And America is just sticking up for the world now.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I thought that was a kindness of our hearts, right?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now. Darren, you have Bitcoin as your indicator and I have the two-year treasury.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Is the two-year treasury still trading right now? It's not.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: No, but I would posit that if you want to see if there is going to be panic in the markets, if people are really starting to worry, you keep an eye on the two-year treasury. And if it starts dropping, the rate that is.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: If the rate starts dropping on the two-year treasury, that's when I'm going to say, okay, maybe this Time is, maybe, maybe the game of chicken is going to escalate and, and, you know, but right now, at least as of yesterday, you know, that two-year treasury is pretty much flat. We can see the treasury versus the, the Fed funds rate.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And when I say panic look at that drop back in the spring of 23 That was the banking crisis. That was when the banks started to explode before the Fed came in and threw a blanket on it and was able to put that out. But prior to COVID, this dropped off. Basically, prior to every major recession in the past, this two-year treasury has reacted.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And that's a function of people flooding into safety short term. U. S. Treasuries tend to be where everybody floods into liquid. People expect they'll get their money back. And so if you see this start to drop quickly, that that is one sign that I that I would look at and go, oh, I don't know, this could be this could be the real deal.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Still got you guys or was that so profound that you're. You're absorbing i mean i'm good we're good so we got we've also got our three month 10 year treasury spread the inverted yield curve we've been inverted for years now and we've actually been in this range of just barely basically flat between the three and 10 year for a year now and so just looking at this historically and i was like how What?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: How normal is that? And, It's not very normal to be inverted for that long and then to be flat for this long on that yield curve. So the differentiation between the short-term rates and the long-term rates.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: In the past, it's always indicated a recession when we got that inversion. This Time, we didn't get that recession, at least not officially called by the MBER.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So the interest rate market is fairly in a holding pattern at this point. And even though the Fed's been dropping interest rates on the Fed funds rate, when we look at interest rates on the 10-year treasury and then the 30-year mortgage rate, the 30-year mortgage being in dark blue here, those rates have gone up since that September 17th rate drop.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so, so again, just because the Fed lowers rates doesn't necessarily mean that the longer term rates, which are set by the market have to go down. And so, we'll see, we'll see what ends up happening there. It's been really, you know, a short period of Time, but so far, that's where we're at.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Last thing from the B of a, global research. It looks like maybe the slide got cut off at the top there, but it says Exhibit 2, small cap earnings growth now positive, expected to eclipse large cap earnings growth in the second half of 2025 and 2026. So we've been seeing strength in the small caps. That was up until today.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And that's going to be tied to the expectation of earnings and hopefully tied to the realization of earnings. In the small and mid caps. And you can see, you know, really there for several years, we only had the earnings accruing to the large caps.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And that is looking to change, at least according to Bank Of America. So be on the lookout for some opportunities there, given that there's some decent fundamental, you know, valuations in that area, if you know where luck.

DANO WEIR: So for Chris, just so we're clear, so for someone working with advisor, maybe one of our clients, if that's intriguing to them, contact your advisor and ask about some mid and small cap opportunities.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, I think it's more just to say, hey, look, it's not all it's not all grim, you know. Yes, there are some very expensive parts of the market. There are some areas that, you know, are memes. That's not what we do here. And.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There are areas to look at that have some opportunities. And so that's where we're looking to. And it takes patience, right? We've talked about how long small caps have struggled, mid caps have struggled, value has struggled, quality has struggled.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But everything goes in cycles with the markets. And by the Time... By the Time it's recognized, by the Time, you know, people are talking about small caps, like they're talking about gold right now, it's usually the runs already happened, you know? So.

DANO WEIR: Ain't no cycles. No cycles, Chris. This Time is different. I know that you've got those old cycles. Used to do cycles. We're not doing cycles and we're off cycles. Okay.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We're in a permanently high plateau, right?

DANO WEIR: And to the right, except for today.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The permanently high plateau.

DANO WEIR: That's right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: All right. You guys ready to see all the government data that's come out this week? Because there's a whole lot of it this week that just came out. Oh, just kidding. None of it came out.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So yeah, rough week for government data coming out and knowing what's going on from economic information. There's just not a lot, a lot of Fed speaking this week, but not a lot to report there. And that's because a lot of things are shut down because the government, shutdown. And it doesn't seem like right now there's much chance of opening up for a while.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I'm going to go to the Bitcoin chart today. I mean, why not? Right? So we're talking Bitcoin. It's the only market that's still open. And because we've had all this news just pouring out on a Friday and continuing to pour out.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So like I mentioned earlier, Trump has now come out and said, they're going to put a hundred percent tariffs on China starting November 1st, added on top of the current tariffs, which actually just puts us in most cases, a little bit above what they're already tariffing our goods. That's not a defense of Trump. That's not a defense, a criticism of Trump, but just a fact statement.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But the reason I'm looking at the Bitcoin chart here to close out the show for the day is because Bitcoin is still open, right? So the candlestick, which you're looking at this big red candlestick here, this is on the daily chart. It's going to close here at five o'clock. So we got three hours to see if we get any price improvement. Trump came out earlier today and said, man.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You guys can take away the rare earth minerals here we go we're going to slam lots of tariffs on you at first it looked like the market was saying okay great you know 100 it's not too bad and we got some price improvement but that is certainly shifted and it looks like we're going down to the bottom end of this candle here and continuing to see price get to a bad spot from where it was earlier so you can see this being kind of the support level right here in this range at say 111 it looks like we're losing that at the moment but certainly 109 on the Bitcoin chart is where i would look to see a lot of support step in what do i mean by support that means that buyers would likely step in at these places if price got down here and use the opportunity to improve their positions in that particular asset so right now kind of im 109 is the is where we start seeing some Subtitles by the Amara. Org community support step in.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We'll see how that takes out into the end of the day and through the weekend. Let's go to the S&P 500. The S&P 500 is the largest US-based stocks, right? So what happened today? This happened today. And you can see basically in one day, we literally gave back all of September. Well, not all of, let's say September.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So September was right about here. So So we still have a little bit to go to get back all those steps. September. Not shocking, right? I took the walk of shame last week for saying we'd have some type of correction likely in September. It didn't happen. The seasonality of September didn't show up, but I guess it's going to show up a week late.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That's what it's doing. So now the market has the excuse to go down and it closed right down here at 652 on the S&P 500. Some might ask, what is the S&P 500? Well, this is the S&P 500. This is the largest 500 US-based stocks in cap weighting. What does cap weighting mean?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The bigger stocks get more credit on the index. They do better. The index does better. The little ones have less of an effect. Just to give you a sense of what we're looking at, this is NVIDIA. This big red box here, that's NVIDIA. And it's significantly larger than just about everything else in the market, except for maybe Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But NVIDIA is bigger than the whole utility sector. There's 11 sectors in the S&P 500. It's larger than the energy sector, the whole energy sector, not to mention larger than the entire banking sector, which includes all our credit services.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So pretty, pretty extreme when we come to, being, I guess, over-concentrated, right? Like every portfolio we look at as a firm tends to be over-concentrated these days. And anyone who is diversified, well, they've had a suffering last couple of years. But I can tell you on days like today, it feels real good to be diversified.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So what are we looking at for potential support levels, right? Whenever the market sells off like this, we say, okay, well, there's going to be some areas where buyers say, I think I'll step in and buy that. I like that price. So we already saw support right in the close of the day. The fact that it closed right on the bottom, though, it didn't get bought up really quick, tells you that there weren't a lot of algos.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: There weren't a lot of traders saying, yeah, I'll take that going into the weekend. The fact that Trump posted, I'm going to throw a bunch of tariffs on it and then wait until the market closed to tell us what tariff he's going to throw on it. People were not willing to buy that into the close. So there's definitely support in this area though, in this zone. And we saw that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So we'll see what happens Monday, but given how low it closed, unless some kind of thing comes out over the weekend with Trump and, and she making up and kissing or whatever, then, I don't think we'll see too much improvement. So what am I looking at for long-term kind of where I could see a correction, say this gets into a bigger correction, this red line here has been important resistance line to the market.

DANO WEIR: We've got that on screen too, Darren. Can you get it on the screen?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Oh, I'm sorry. I was already sorry. So here we go. So here's what I'm looking at. So this is this long-term resistance line. And you can see the market traded up into here, got rejected. That was in 2022. It came up into here, got rejected. We saw the tariff panic back in March, and then it shot up and broke above that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Has not broke above that. So what I would expect to see because of how quickly we broke above, we got a nice little test here, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a stronger test of this range at some point. I was thinking back to the first Trump administration. Chris remembers this well, because going into the new year, we were.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Tax harvest loss. We're harvesting tax losses going into the end of the year. And I sure hope it's not that again, but I think probabilities are higher that what happens is we get a correction and then we round up into the end of the year. But that's what you see right now.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I'm kind of targeting, let's call it 630 on the S&P support, somewhere in that range. You could also see this zone here as support. So maybe a little bit further to go for a correction. If we test and hold this long-term trend line right here, that looks really good for the market. If we lose that, that becomes pretty problematic.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I could also see a test of this all-Time high here from back in February, and then we got that correction went up, but we never came really back in and tested that area. So I can see the market trading down into here. And then resuming higher. As long as it generally on a mid to long-term basis holds above this area, then we probably have a pretty good chance that things keep moving.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: If we lose that, it gets a little more dicey from a probability standpoint. Let's look at the 10-year. 10-year getting into this area that we've been watching for a while, which is this trend line here is support. And we're coming into there. You're seeing consolidation happen. So it looks like we're either going to get a breakup or breakdown.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I think probabilities are on the side we're going to break down given what oil is doing with peace in the Middle East this week or supposed peace. I mean, I feel like it feels very scripted at this point. So who knows? But we did break down on the oil chart and go below $60 a barrel on WTI crude today. And I think that's significant.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: If gas going down can be a good thing because it can help us all out the gas pump, but it can also be a bad thing, meaning the economy is actually slowing. Given that we're not seeing any of these government numbers showing up, it's kind of hard to tell what's happening.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And so then you have to go look for other sources and oil could be indicating that we do have an economic slowdown. I've been talking a lot about the AI jobs being taken. And this kind of slowly and then all at once feeling of jobs not getting, people aren't getting hired because AI is replacing jobs, right? At call centers, at these administrative jobs.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I think you're just definitely starting to see some of that come through. Be interesting as the government data comes out, more and more we'll be able to see that or not. Let's talk about gold because gold. I mean, gold looks like a meme stock. We've been making a joke about this for a few weeks now. This is an insane move in gold.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, literally in a matter of weeks since, call it August 20th, we've gone from $3,300 an ounce to closing at $4,017 an ounce today. That's a massive, you got to go a long way to find anything close to that kind of move in gold.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Well, to temper that just slightly. Our, our good friend, Zach reminds us that gold's the most stretched on a monthly RSI ever. The R the relative strength indicator, meaning like, you know, how are people buying this with both hands? Right. Right. And, a lot of times you see that frenzy, you know, towards tops. Right. So you gotta be careful with chasing this. Right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, I think you always have to be.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Careful with chasing anything in life but yeah this thing is just going straight and up good point i i think i was looking at some research earlier this week that every Time that gold's done something like this historically and i think this is take this point or this fact for what it is because i think it's really hard to argue we had good data back in the day but they're saying any Time in history when gold is doing what it's doing right now that the the reserve currency which is the U. S dollar was on its way out and that you're seeing countries and big family offices the one percent just piling money into gold and that could be why the price is going up because they're trying to get a seat at the table for the next fiat currency to be produced or Bitcoin or whatever it is gold saying something it'll be obvious in hindsight.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But gold's saying something. I also think what's interesting, if you go back to the Bretton Woods Accord in 1971, look what's happened to gold since then. Once they pulled us fully off the gold-dollar connection, gold just shot through the roof historically and has been an incredible investment through those periods of Time.

DANO WEIR: Chris, I don't know if you followed this or not. I'm sure you know this, but as I mentioned previously, Darren and I did a whole episode of our other podcast, It's All Money on Gold, and that'll be out in the next couple of weeks.

DANO WEIR: But in researching that, we learned that you were actually, during World War II, you were not allowed to own gold as a part of the Great Depression, not just World War II, but as a part of the Great Depression. And then in 74, they finally, in 71, they put, they took us off the gold standard because we didn't have enough gold to back the amount of cash we wanted to print.

DANO WEIR: And then Gerald Ford allowed for private gold ownership again in 74. And so, Darren, what I'm, I just, that was all interesting to me. I did not know that, that you couldn't own gold. I'm sure people did.

DANO WEIR: Darren, I think what the lesson here is less about chasing this peak. If you're an investor right now, maybe you don't own any gold. Maybe less about this price. I don't know if this price is the price you want to buy at or not.

DANO WEIR: But more that I think the lesson here is in a day when I just watched a video, guys, that somebody generated of Mr. Rogers and Tupac. And that was it looked real. It was generated. And I watched it on a digital device like we are literally in the future. And look at the price of gold. So I think that the lesson here is this is probably not going anywhere.

DANO WEIR: So I know there's a stigma around gold, especially when it comes to the 1-800 infomercials you would see at midnight back when we used to watch cable TV. But this to me says, if you're looking to conceptualize this asset, it's going nowhere.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, in a day and age when everything can be faked. I also saw another video. I don't know why this popped up, but somebody took Mr. Rogers and gave him an assault rifle. And it looked real. Is that the same video?

DANO WEIR: I know, but I mean, I, I'm just, the one I watched was like that. I mean, it just looks, it looks a hundred percent real and it's just like, this is crazy.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And you can't believe anything. And so there's something about the physicality of gold, right? Yeah. I can hold this thing. It's real. I can taste it. I can touch it. It's like, it's something. And you know, I, I think that's what's going on, on some level for sure. Let's talk about bonds for our buddy, Chris, because we know how much Chris loves bonds and.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I don't know how I got labeled as the guy who loves bonds.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We should make you the new bond King.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Thank God. Thank God I'm married and don't have to worry about ever finding a partner again, because even if my own wife knew I was the guy who loves bonds. Holy cow.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I can just eat on a dating app. Chris, you could be like, I love bonds.

DANO WEIR: You just, he's in the Mercedes, the sun setting. It's all working out. It reaches over onto the passenger seat and he just, he's got a huge two foot stack of bonds.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Sorry, Chris.

DANO WEIR: Sorry. I love you, man. I love you. I got it. I now have to make that. I have to use that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The video's coming.

DANO WEIR: Yeah. I got to, I got to use the Mr. Rogers machine and make a, you and Mr. Rogers and some bonds.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I only feel like we think we're funny, but that's okay. It's financial humor here in this show. Anyway, bonds are doing pretty well. And it's feeling pretty good to own them at this point, especially with a day like today and getting some diversification in your portfolio. That's a pretty good thing when you're looking like an Ethereum that is down 17% right now today. 17%!

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That's a pretty serious decline for sure. So the market's definitely still selling off. We're now Bitcoin going back to where we started the show. We're now... Going to head on down to 110 per Bitcoin and find support at the 109 like I was talking about. Looks like we're about to come into zone for that. So anyway, diversification wins the day in the long term, it appears again.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And all it takes is a nasty little tweet or truth or quote or thing or post. I don't know what you call them anymore from Mr. Trump himself and the whole market falls apart. So that's all it takes. So. Great, great lesson today on why we stay diversified, why we don't try to, over think that we can buy technology and that's going to go on forever and do great forever. And my NVIDIA stock will just go to the moon.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I think we'll close it with that. I think we belabored the points today and thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week.

DANO WEIR: I'm going to say that one more Time though, Darren, cause I'm going to be, I'm not just going to be labor and I'm going to de-labor it. I'm going to see labor at whatever we're calling it.

DANO WEIR: Those those days in March and those days in June when your neighbor was getting x y and z off of in insert name of crypto insert name of tech stock and you sat there and you looked at your retirement portfolio and you go why is Chris have me in this why am i not like joe next door and it is for days like today because if you've worked your entire life for your retirement Now at 57 or 65 is not the Time, depending on your risk tolerance, to start chasing trends, you know, at least from our viewpoint.

DANO WEIR: That's the whole point of diversification is for days like today. Right, Chris?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Correct.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: By the Time you need a friend, it's too late to make one.

DANO WEIR: So sleeping easy, resting easy. That's what we try to aim for. So we are. Sonoma Wealth Advisors, part of the Fermata Advisors family of brands. This is On The Markets. If you're new to our firm, you can learn more about us at SonomaWealth. Com. If you're one of our clients, thank you so much for checking out the show. We really appreciate it.

DANO WEIR: We appreciate the support. If you're looking to support the show, make sure you subscribe wherever you found us, whether it's Apple Podcasts and Spotify or YouTube or on our website, SonomaWealth. Com. Subscribe and you won't miss future episodes. Thank you again. And we will catch you. Hopefully with a better narrative next week. Thanks, guys.

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CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Fermata Advisors LLC is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempt from registration requirements. This content was produced by Fermata Advisors, LLC, DBA Sonoma Wealth Advisors, DBA Fermata 401K, DBA Fermata Tax.

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.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk. And unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Information Express does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Viewers and listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment advisor to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.