Why The Fed Says Let It Snow

DANO WEIR: It's Friday, December 12th, 2025, and you're about to go On The Markets. What happened in the stock market this week? The economy this week with Fermata Advisors, Sonoma Wealth Advisors, Fermata 401K, Fermata Tax. My name is Dano Weir. What are we looking at this week? It's Christmas.

DANO WEIR: And typically when the Fed starts the money machine back up again, you might say make it rain. But since it's winter and Christmas, we're going to say the Fed's going to say let it snow. How liquidity, i. e. Money printing, is back in action. And making its way to the S&P 500 like right now. Is it covering up an otherwise trash market? We shall see.

DANO WEIR: Speaking of, what exactly does an all-new all-time high for the market mean for S&P returns moving forward? The market is not the economy, so what could the sneaker, yes, the shoes market, be telling us about the underlying economy right now? An interesting story there. Silver hit an all-time high this week. Is that because the dollar is weakening? Let's get going.

SPEAKER 2: The stock market, the economy, your money. What's the latest and what could be next?

SPEAKER 2: Find out now with Fermata On The Markets. Straightforward financial market updates for the brands of Fermata Advisors, Sonoma Wealth Advisors, Fermata 401K and Fermata Tax. On The Markets starts now.

DANO WEIR: They are your managing principals of Fermata Advisors, Daren Blonski, Chris Sipes. We're a billion-dollar firm. And do they have their Christmas shopping done yet, Chris? That's the big question right now we need to know.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: My family watches this, so no comment. He listens to this.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You mean Stella listens to us every week, Chris? That is crazy. I don't know about Stella. Stella, you're amazing.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Hello. Although I'm sure your wives are the same way. My wife always knows everything about every single thing that's happening in this house. So I'm sure there's no possible way she doesn't know the status of my Christmas shopping or waxing.

DANO WEIR: Daren, you ready? Are you dialed? You got everything wrapped?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: No. No, definitely not. I've got like no wrapped and I've got almost all my buying done. So I'm getting there.

DANO WEIR: He's getting there.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I love being in line Christmas Eve and there's just like a bunch of other guys like looking at each other like you too?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's that nod of knowing, right?

DANO WEIR: You've got a Kohl's card too? Interesting. All right, guys.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Give card. Oh, okay.

DANO WEIR: We are talking about the return of liquidity to the market. And you might not believe this, but I've actually got some live audio from Mr. Powell Claus.

DANO WEIR: And we've even got some Christmas music to celebrate the return of the cash, guys.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Wow, this is impressive, Dan.

DANO WEIR: You like that?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I do. Is that like a new jingle on this platform or what?

DANO WEIR: I made it happen. I got all kinds of magic. We're talking about how the return of money printing, the liquidity is affecting the market, Chris. And let's dive in here on our first slide with the purchasing power of $100 right now.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, Visual Capitalist, really cool website that puts all kinds of things financial into visuals. So if you're into that. And they're showing the value of a dollar, or I guess in this case, $100, depending on which state you're in. And the one we're most familiar with, California, $100.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You feel like you have $87. Meanwhile, I guess, let's see, which would be one of the higher ones? Oklahoma at $112, Mississippi at $113. Much of the Midwest kind of at $100 or more. So it just kind of depends on where you're at. I guess Texas is kind of right at a hundred.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I just want you guys to know that I'm trying not to make a joke right now and thinking who I depend. I'm dating you, aren't I? So I'm not going to make it.

DANO WEIR: Well, now I want to know. I don't track that. What joke?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: He wants to drop an Ohio joke, I'm sure.

DANO WEIR: Oh, okay. Okay.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: He's holding it back.

DANO WEIR: Where you're from, Chris. Where you're from.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, 108, Chris, but you know, at least you have to live in Ohio. That's the trade-off.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: California It's 70 degrees out right now bro Like that's amazing I was just about to congratulate you On your restraint And then you had to go ahead and do it It's Friday.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I don't need that much discipline. Come on.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. At least when you give me Ohio jokes, you don't call it Iowa, which is usually when people reference Ohio, they say, what's it like in Iowa?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So at least you got the right state. So we got a cartoon here from Hedgeye, and they say sometimes the markets are bearish, sometimes they're bullish, but mostly they're cat-ish. They ignore us. Don't listen, are impulsive, have their own agendas, and do whatever they want, which is absolutely my experience of the markets. I don't know about you guys, but we talk about that regularly.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now that we're getting towards the end of the year, it's always fun to look back on what happened, which we did in the last episode, and how it was completely different than anybody expected. But will that stop us from trying to predict what's going to happen next year? No, of course not. Because that's what we'll do. And that's what everyone else is going to do.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And it's fun on some levels. So, you know, we don't want to skip it. So started reading a new book guys. So I'm just going to give you fair warning that I'm going to be probably very, very annoying with these stories over the next, however long it takes me to read the book. It's, it's very thick. And we'll show the book in the next slide. I guess we could just show it right now.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I actually ordered that book. So I'm going to be reading it with you. I am.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Okay. Okay. I recommended it to Clay.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We could have like book club for nerdy economics guys.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I really love it. I mean, it's a topic that I like anyway, but the way that he writes about the history, and this is Mark Higgins, for those that aren't looking at it, it's Mark Higgins, investing in us financial history.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And it's really just about the history of the United States from a financial perspective. And what I like about it is unlike a lot of biographies and such that really get like way too into the weeds of like what was going on in that person's life day to day to the point where sometimes you don't really even understand what was going on in the big picture when you're trying to read about history.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: This is more like big picture history and less about like the inner workings of someone's life if you're reading it from a biographical standpoint. So excellent book.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Been reading, just burning through it. Got the hard copy version, which I'm really enjoying. I'm not listening to this one. I'm reading it old school. But anyway, history is always comforting to me in a lot of ways because it just tells you like, hey, all this craziness that you feel like you're going through has happened before and it's happened many times and it's going to happen again in the future.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's somewhat comforting for some. Weird reason to me, but this quote from Arthur Adly, who was an economist in 1886, really rang true. And it says, what has been true of railroads has been true of other forms of permanent investment.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: First, high charges and high profits, then speculative investments in the same line. Next, an overstocked market and no profit at all. Finally, cutthroat competition and widespread insolvency. And that was, of course, describing the railroad boom, or I guess this is kind of post-railroad boom in 1886.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So he's using a little bit of a benefit of hindsight there, but referencing these other booms and busts that had happened many times before in not only US financial history, but global financial history. And, you know, I... I heard, I wish I could attribute this to where I heard it from, but I can't remember, the delineation between types of bubbles.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I thought this was really interesting. We get these technological bubbles, whether you're talking about railroads, electricity, radio, airplanes, all these different technological bubbles that we get really hyped on the narrative, the stocks. You know, or bonds or whatever financial instruments are tied to it, get, get a lot of attention.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The prices go way up and then the prices inevitably fall and there's a crash. That's one type of boom and bust, which is not quite as bad, I guess, in some ways, because society ends up benefiting, you know, the most recent one that we had was the internet bubble in 2000. We laid a lot of fiber.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We, of course, adopted the internet and that became hugely beneficial to society, even though we had a big bust in the NASDAQ at the time. Then there's the other type of bubbles and busts, which are more credit driven. So we also have one of those in 2008.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So those are more driven by you know, an old technology, if you will, quote unquote, but creative financing around that technology or, or, or whatever. So in 2008, it was of course, real estate and we got all this credit, built up in the system, terrible lending happening, and then boom, it collapsed. And that's more of like what they call a mean reversion type of boom and bust.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And those are hugely detrimental because they're more threatening to the financial system and usually the authorities have to come in and you know save the system where am i going with all this well obviously if the AI revolution it turns out to be a bubble that we all look back on in a few years it's probably more likely to be the type of bubble the first type which is a huge advancement for society a wipe out in the financial as segments of it, but not a, like a threat to the financial system type of wipeout.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Does that, does that make sense?

DANO WEIR: Man, it makes sense to me. I mean, that was, you know, kind of the fear is that are both types happening at the same time because there's a lot of credit involved in this, a lot of debt at this point. But I think as you're describing it, I don't know that, you know, Claude were to go under if anthropic were to go under, I don't know that that means that banks don't exist anymore.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Yeah, they describe a story in here from the 1830s, I think it was, or 1840s, somewhere in there, where a massive volcano erupted somewhere on Earth. I can't remember the name of the volcano. The eruption was so huge that it actually affected the weather.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It cooled the weather globally, which collapsed the agricultural production globally. Drove up prices of agricultural products. Then there was a land grab in the United States based on these higher corn prices and cotton and everything you could grow.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All the lending goes into it, right? All the banks are letting people borrow money to buy land and everything. The weather returns to normal. The crops come back. We get more supply. The prices come down and the people that borrowed all the money couldn't pay it back.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So an example of a more credit driven collapse, which I thought was, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, kind of interesting based on the change in the weather, you know, so wild. Okay.

DANO WEIR: So you're saying weather control can affect the market? Interesting. Even in 1830.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. So AAII this week, bullishness ticked up to 44.6. So, bullish bullishness is, is kind of back. We got the rate cuts that we were expecting. The market was expecting, that was pretty much a lock. Like we talked about over a few weeks, the, CNN fear and greed index is back to 48, which is neutral. That's up from 38 a week ago.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And gosh, not that long ago, where we an extreme fear, and in Bitcoin is at 29, which is still fear. Pretty much unchanged from 28 last week. And, so kind of a mixed bag on the, on the, sentiment indicators, nothing, you know, too crazy one way or the other, but I would say tilting more towards the positive side, than the negative.

DANO WEIR: Well, yeah. I mean, S and P is going back up again.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: What, what is it? Sentiment follows price, right?

DANO WEIR: Exactly.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So we got the rate cut. This week, quarter percent. That puts us at 1.75% since the Fed started cutting rates back in September of 24.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There were three dissents this time, which was not very normal. I think the last time there were this many dissents on the rate cut was 2019. There were two Fed governors that said that we shouldn't change rates at all. And one that said that they should have changed it by half a percent, which was Stephen Moran, the newest one that was appointed by President Trump.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And you can see here, which is the two-year treasury rate versus the Fed funds rate in gray, that we're pretty close now. The two-year and the Fed funds are pretty close. There's no longer that big gap that we had seen earlier. And we're kind of constituting some more rate cuts.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So the market got the rate cuts and the stock market went up and interest rates went down, right? Wrong.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Interest rates back up again on the longer end. So as a reminder, the Fed only controls a very small part of the overall interest rate market and the very, very short term part of that market. And then the market, which is all of us, drive the pricing of the rates that really matter, which are the longer term rates. They go out to 30 years and in some cases in other countries even farther than that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But really kind of the most important range is about seven to 10 years because a lot of the, you know, mortgages, for instance, are kind of based loosely on that that rate. Now, this is from Michael Cantro, just showing that interest rates have been, you know, the sentiment obviously fluctuates with the. The fluctuation in interest rates as well.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And let me just read what he says here. Nothing has been debated more than the direction of 10-year yields. Aside from AI, changes in rates have been the most influential driver of equity markets, particularly outside of AI stocks.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Everybody that has made sensational calls on rates, whether they are going to spike due to deficits or they're going to collapse due to employment weakness, has been wrong. A K-shaped economy suggests high levels of rate reflexivity, and that we're likely to remain range-bound overall.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We continue to see higher rates as the most likely equity headwind. Like we saw in past years, we're likely to continue seeing periods of stronger or weaker macro data that could temporarily lift or pressure yields from time to time and pressure or lift equity breadth.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But as rates go up, you know, it's, oh, here it is, this is the market. You know, saying the government has too much debt and the time for vengeance is here. And then they turn around and go south and it's like, okay, here we go. A growth scare, recession fears, you know, unemployment's on its way, whatever.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then it reverses again. And the narrative is back to what it was before. But overall, we've been essentially range bound for several years now in this range with the 10 year, just a little over 4%. Percent. As we're talking today.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So you can see that here in the gray line, that's the Fed funds rate since they started cutting rates on September 17th of 2024 versus a rate that matters to a lot of people, which is the 30-year mortgage rate from that same time period. And you can see that even though the Fed funds rate has come down, the mortgage rates are essentially unchanged.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: In that time period while, while in the meantime, they've kind of gone up, you know, kind of in, in, in that spirit, in that span of time, but overall they're pretty much unchanged. And so the Fed, the point is the, the Fed lowering the interest rates has not had the impact that many would expect, on the overall rates markets and, and some of the rates that, that matter the most.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Is this the market saying they don't believe the rate's going to stay low?

DANO WEIR: Or is this the market saying, like, eh, are you going to drop your price? I'm not going to drop my price. You know, I mean, what would you say that this chart is telling us?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It could be a lot of things, but at the bottom line is that the Fed, the investors are not willing to take, you know, the investment at a lower interest rate. So for whatever reason, they feel the.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The need to require a higher return for the investment. So there's risk involved. Of course, there is a lack of buying from foreign countries that we've seen in the past. China used to recycle a lot of their dollars into treasuries to basically take the money that we were giving them for goods and they were turning around and putting that money in treasuries.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: They're no longer doing that and have have no longer been doing that for several years now. So there's less demand there. Same with Japan. The interest rates in Japan are going higher.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so more investors from Japan are just either investing in their own market or like we've seen in spades, a lot of these other countries are investing in gold instead of treasuries. And so treasuries are the bedrock of the global financial system, or at least they had been. And, we're seeing at least partial shifting to, to gold, which has been, you know, money for millennia.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And, so.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And here you can see the returns since the Fed started cutting rates on September 17th of 24. Gold in that bright green line has really just left stocks behind big time.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But I think recently, at least, we've seen a lot of strength in the small caps. We've got small caps hitting their all-time high. I think it was yesterday. They pulled back today. But hit an all-time high yesterday. So we've started to see some strength in the small caps.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Who knows if that'll be sustained or if it's just another blip in the small cap world because talk about range bound, that market's been range bound for many years. But this could be a rotation from the large cap growth into some of the other areas of the market. But either way, gold has just really left them behind in the dust.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And you know, that's one of those things where if you look at, is, had you known this information ahead of time? I tell you guys that stocks are sorry, that gold is up. I think it's around 30% this year, right? Somewhere in that neighborhood. You, you, you knew, you know, this information ahead of time and you think, okay, there's probably something pretty serious going on in the world.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, and. And definitely, are you thinking that stocks are having a good year? Probably not. There's not too many years where stocks and gold perform well, like they have this year and like they did last year. So that's sort of abnormal.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But nonetheless, a big part of it could be the M2 money supply. So we talked about the Fed meeting a big part of the other. The announcement within the rate cut was the fact that they were going to start repurchasing government treasuries to the tune of $40 billion a month in bills up to three years.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So they're on the short end, but they didn't call it QE. They're not calling it quantitative easing, of course, but essentially they kicked up those purchases again. So I don't know what you want to call it. The Fed is providing liquidity to the treasury market. So remember that the U. S. Government is the biggest borrower in not only the world now, but in the history of man.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And so the job of the Fed, while it has many jobs like price stability, full employment, probably the biggest job of the Fed is to keep the biggest borrower liquid. Even though that's not stated. So that's always been the case throughout history. That's probably always going to be the case.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Chris, so when nobody wants to buy a treasury, who buys the treasuries?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The Fed.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Wait, so let me get this straight. So the government creates treasuries, and then if nobody wants to buy them, they just buy them?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yes.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then what's that do to the balance sheet?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It expands the balance sheet of the Fed. And it's expanded the balance sheet of the federal government too. This gives you it bigger and bigger.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The government prints money, tries to sell it, which has been happening a lot lately. Nobody buys it. So another arm of the government buys the debt.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Technically, the Fed is not an arm of the government. But yes, the Fed is the one buying it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Okay.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Sure. Yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Whatever you say.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. And sorry, guys. I said gold was up around 30% this year. Didn't it pretty much double that? Sorry. I was a little bit off. Just a little bit off.

DANO WEIR: Samsonite.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I was way off.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, this is kind of an important point. So what you're saying is that. The government prints treasuries. They go to auction with them. Nobody's buying them, which has been happening recently. And then the government buys their own debt, and it just becomes this never-ending printing machine that they can't stop.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Correct.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Is that why they're buying their own debt? Because why create the debt if you don't? What's the function of buying their own debt?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Well, somebody's got to do it. And this has happened before. It usually happens after big wars where the government gets in so much debt that it can't just find a natural market for the debt. And so we come off the gold standard and then the central bank or whatever just essentially monetizes that debt, which is my belief is where we're at today.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We have so much debt. You really only have three options. You can default on it, which would be catastrophic for everyone. So they're not going to do that, I don't think. You can pay it back, which I don't think is possible, even if you taxed 100% of everything that everybody made.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I don't see how that happens at this point. Or the third option is to monetize that debt, which is what every government essentially in the history of man has done before and probably what our government is going to be doing moving forward.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So last November, when President Trump. Won and everyone was scared of how things would change. And four years before that, when Biden won and everyone didn't like Biden, was scared about how things were going to change. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what party they're on. They have to print.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And because they have to print, they have to stimulate. They cannot stop. There's only one path. And that is the path we're on until the path. Can no longer sustain. And I think if investors understand that fundamental, well, absolutely fundamental truth, because I think it is a truth at this point, it changes perspective of investment completely.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yes, there might be moments where the market is down and there might be quick snapbacks and there might be persistent moments when the market is down. But at the end of the day, The government... Republican, Democrat, in between, whatever, doesn't matter. They can't stop printing. They all have to collude at a certain point to get reelected every two to four years.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yep.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And thus we see the presses have to turn back on, even though we have the risk of inflation, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We have the whole concept of trying to reduce the amount of debt to deal with.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Functionally it doesn't it doesn't matter right doge was a nice thought but doge was never going to work it does the government can't stop knowing the change when this current administration came in is they changed who they were giving the money to yep and i think that's just important truth and that's why you see silver going up that's why you see gold going up yeah because these and this is why when i talk to clients about cash.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: As an example, it feels safe, right? Because the balances are not changing day to day, or at least you're not seeing them change. But cash is still an asset class. And it's still an investment, you are still making a choice.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And over time, no matter what these assets end up being priced in, over time, you want to own productive assets with your money because of this fact, that, that governments always spend more than they, than they can service. And, you know, over the long run, you end up losing, you end up losing buying power if you're not in productive assets.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And I'm not saying, Hey, pick the most productive asset, look at, look at what gold and silver did this year and just put all your money there. No, that's not, that's not what we're saying.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You need to be diversified in such. And of course, You don't want to have no cash. You don't want to be the type that has no emergency fund, nothing to fall back on in times of need, et cetera. But having all of your money concentrated anywhere, including cash, can be not a great strategy, a very risky strategy.

DANO WEIR: Respectfully, guys, I just watched an interview with the president of the United States, and he says we are the hottest country right now. So I don't think any of this data you're saying is accurate. This America is the hottest we were before in the previous. We were not. And now we're the hottest. So have you guys considered that or agree with the hottest country?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Come on. He keeps saying he also said today that he wants interest rates within a year to be at one percent or less.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Well, I mean, if that happens, and I think, like, Non-financial people would look at that and go, yeah, that sounds great.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And I'm telling you, if interest rates are at 1%, think what was going on in COVID.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There is a massive dislocation in the market. There is a major, major recession.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: If market rates go to 1% in one year, I don't think it's exactly what he's thinking it's going to be.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And that's a great point because it's not so much. The direction of rates up or down that matters. It's the rate in which they do it, right? Because financial markets, everything impacts everything else, right? It's this ecosystem. And if this goes up, then that goes down.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And if one part of the market moves too fast and something is important as interest rates moves too fast one way or the other, institutions don't have the time to adjust and shift. So it's all about the rate of change. The fact that...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Gold has been going up and trading like a meme stock and silver trading like a meme stock like it has that's problematic like that carries through the market in other ways and comes out in other ways it's saying something in retrospect it's going to be so obvious what it's saying to us right now we're not 100 sure but when it does finally come to light what it's why it's happening we're all going to be like duh and that's yeah it's previous.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Previous huge spikes have been pretty major changes in the monetary system. I think the 70s and the Bretton Woods type. So who knows? Maybe this time is different. I don't know. Like you said, it'll only be clear in retrospect. But small caps breaking out.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Maybe they're coming out of the doldrums. Mid-caps too. This from Bank Of America. Small cap. Earnings growth now positive and expected to eclipse large cap earnings growth in the second half of 2025 and going into 26. So large caps on this chart are the orange.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And you can see why small caps and mid caps have lagged because really starting in, you know, 22, our earnings dropped for everyone, which corresponds with that drop in M2 that we were just looking at, drop in liquidity.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Earnings dropped. Then you see large caps really were the only game in town for quite a while until recently here, starting in the first quarter of 26. You see small and medium-sized companies starting to show some earnings strength.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It would make sense if you're starting to see the green shoots there.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Over time, stocks tend to follow the earnings. Of course, there's a sentiment premium or discount in there as well. But over time, in general, stock prices tend to follow earnings. So more earnings is a good thing, usually.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Speaking of earnings, this is from Charlie Bielo at Creative Planning saying, the S&P 500'S price-to-peak earnings ratio has moved up to 26.2. Which is officially now the highest level since 2000 and over 50% above the historical median. And so this isn't just price to earnings. This is price to peak earnings.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So go back to the concept that we were talking about with the volcano hits, the weather shifts, there's a lack of supply of agricultural products. So the prices go up. That's what you call peak earnings. That's the best possible scenario in the earnings because earnings tend to go through cycles just like everything else.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And you got to be careful pricing things off of peak earnings because that's kind of like best case scenario versus pricing it off the trough earnings might be a little more realistic. So smoothing those things out over time kind of makes sense. We talked about this kind of ad nauseum, the U. S.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Large caps, as measured by the S&P 500, are pretty expensive relative to history, kind of no matter which way you cut it. Interestingly, guys, Ed Yardeni, who's I think probably been one of the most bullish newsletter people out there for a long time, heard him this week, and he's actually downgrading the MAG-7 a bit. He's now just market weight on those. He's not overweight on them.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: He, he's, you know, more bullish on international markets. I mean, I couldn't believe it was him. I thought it was like. AI that I was listening to, but, but, but that's interesting, right? You're starting to see a kind of a shift in that narrative.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Maybe we're going into the, we're coming out of the highly profitable part of that, that cycle and the narrative, and we're moving more into the competitiveness, right? We've, we've seen that recently with Google kind of leapfrogging to the front now. And so anyway, it feels like the narrative is shifting in that part of the market.

DANO WEIR: Interestingly though, Chris, You're this slide saying essentially, hey, be careful pricing off of peak earnings.

DANO WEIR: But conversely, similar idea, forward returns off of a new all time high from the S&P 500 are actually maybe not what you expect.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Going back to you can't predict the markets. Right. Lesson number 1000. Are you ready to have your mind blown? This is from Peter Malouk at Creative Planning said. Are you ready to have your mind blown? Since 1989, money invested when the market is at all-time highs has actually outperformed money invested on any given day.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And he shows the one year, the three year, and the five year. Now, we've been in a bull market for stocks since the early 80s, so it's a little bit of maybe favorable timing there in terms of the charts, but nonetheless, a pretty long period of time. And, you know...

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Markets tend to tend to trend and they tend to cluster. And so, in the past, like you see here with this chart since 1989, investing at all times highs has not been a bad, bad move.

DANO WEIR: So what this chart is saying is that let's say today was an all-time high and I had $10,000. If I put that in today at the all-time high, like bing, ding, it's an all-time high, put in my 10 grand over a three-year span, for example.

DANO WEIR: That money's going to make 44% versus if I think, oh, I need to wait for an all-time low and I hit an all-time low and put the 10,000 in, this is saying, you know, it's only going to do 39%. So the all-time high investment actually outperforms a low investment.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The only thing I would shift there is it will to it has, which doesn't mean anything because that's history. And we all know that, you know, you, you, you don't know, but that's what's happened in the past, it's actually been a smart move. And there's a lot of other studies that show the kind of classic question is, if I get a big lump sum of money, do I invest it all at once or do I dollar cast average in over time?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And one that comes to mind is Nick Maggiuli from Ritholtz, and he's shown over most time periods, you're better off to put that money in all at once. Now just like anything in investing there's never one that you can say like All the time, this works better. Of course, there's exceptions to that, but in general, it has been a better move to invest at lump sum, and this is kind of along the same vein.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All right, so more good news. This is from Jeff Weniger, and I think this is kind of good news for those small and medium-sized companies, given that they do most of the employment in the U. S. I'll just read what Jeff says from Wisdom Tree. He says, I have another chart that shows the U. S. Labor market improving.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey saw a rise in the number of firms who plan to increase employment versus decrease employment. Over the last six months, the rate of change exceeds 96% of all periods since 1985. Maybe the AI productivity is helping these small and medium-sized companies more even than it's helping the big companies that are kind of providing that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's interesting going back to the railroad conversation. Something like 70% of people in the U. S. Worked in agriculture prior to the railroads connecting the rest of the country. And by the time we had The railroad system pretty well built out in the late 1800s. That number had dropped to closer to 40%. So did those jobs disappear in agriculture? Yeah, but they went other places.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And the AI expert that we were listening to at the investment conference had a great point. Something like, nobody knew what a yoga instructor was 30 years ago, right? Here we are. So there's going to be these other jobs that are going to come up as a result. Yes, there are going to be jobs lost. There's also going to be new jobs created that nobody ever thought of before based on this.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All right. So forecasts, we're in forecast season. And these are some of the highlights of the S&P forecast for 2026. We've got Bank Of America on the low end at 3%.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We've got Deutsche Bank on the other side at 16%, plus 16%, sorry.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So essentially all over the board. You got JP Morgan right at nine, playing it safe.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yardeni at 12. We were just talking about him.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: All over the board, right? And so Wall Street can kind of cover the bases and say, yeah, we were right.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I think Ben Carlson has a great take on this. He's like, honestly, you should be guessing like 25% plus or 15% negative. Your chances of being right are actually way better if you go at the extremes of the gain or loss than if you're right here in the middle. Because usually the market hardly ever falls right within its kind of normal average. It's usually way better or way worse.

DANO WEIR: At the start of the football season and preseason, everyone does their preseason power rankings, and they're always wrong because you never know what's going to happen, and that's the same thing right there.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, yep. We got our normal email update from Dimensional Fund Advisors, and here they show over the last four years, I guess. The best prediction and forecasters versus the worst prediction. And what I, the reason I included this was because at the bottom there, you see the average difference is 20%.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So, I mean, it's, it's, you know, not even the spectrum is so large. It's not, it's not super helpful, but it's fun.

DANO WEIR: Like I said, it's still fun to talk about who's going to win the Superbowl next year, even though there's next to no chance you're going to guess the right the answer right well i mean i know the answer but anyways Darren what do we got this week on the charts let let me have some candlesticks it's Christmas candlesticks are good for Christmas indeed should we check in with Santa again Wow.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Just wow, Dano.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know, a couple things before I get, let's go ahead and drop into the dollar. We're going to start with dollar charts today and talk about DXY, which is looking at the US dollar in juxtaposition to some of the other currencies around the world. And so it's all about relative performance and there's impacts to the dollar being strong and there's impacts to the dollar being weak.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: A couple of things, though, that I was talking about, and I think Chris, or thinking about why you were talking, Chris, is your point about, you know, 50 years ago, no one knew about the yoga instructor, right? Yoga instructor, because, you know, things have changed over the past 50 years.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And I was talking to a buddy of mine earlier, and we were talking about how the future is bright for those who are prepared to adapt. And there will be lots of new jobs. Created by AI will probably go through an S-curve adoption first, where we'll have some type of implosion, some type of bubble. And then I think get ready, it's really going to change all of our lives drastically.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But I do think there's going to be this period of time where there's an implosion and some of the AI companies will go by the wayside and everyone will say it's dead forever. And then it won't be. I mean, i. e. This show right now is all WWW. Remember back in 2001 when everyone said, oh, the internet's just a fad, it's over.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then it imploded and then it changed all of our lives drastically. So I think we're on that type of adoption curve with AI. And it is bright for those who are willing to adapt. It is not bright for those who are going to remain stuck in their way and thinking that it's the 1980s.

DANO WEIR: Which, by the way, Darren, is something you've said for like 18 months. Like you've been saying that from the very beginning about AI.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yep, that is true. I have. I don't know when it's coming. Esker, Esker, Esker, Esker. Here we go.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And I think at some point people really have to ask, how does ChatGBT actually make money, right? How does it actually work financially? Can you just literally throw billions and billions? I mean, Sam Altman is literally flying around the world. Trying to roll up a billion after a billion after a billion, meet with anyone he can to build the data centers and to keep driving compute.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But at some point, you have to be able to pay that back. It has to be a viable business model. And I think at some point, there'll be some kind of linchpin that gets pulled and people will be like, yeah, maybe not. And there's some type of... Big up. And then it changes our worlds in a big, big way.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Interesting, too, speaking of changing worlds, I just caught this headline on the corner of my eye. And while it might seem not important, I think it's really important. And here's why. So there's a headline that Pope Leo came out, whether you're Catholic or not.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Pope Leo came out and is calling on all the intelligence agencies around the world to respect privacy. Because now the Catholic Church and the intelligence communities, I guess, have penetrated the Vatican walls.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And that is like the ultimate sign that all of our sense of privacy is gone. And that our intelligence agencies have everything there is to be had about any one of us. When the last to fall is the Pope of the Catholic Church asking, pleading with the intelligence agencies. From a moralistic standpoint, to allow people to have privacy.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, good riddance to all of our privacy.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And when you think about what are the impacts of that, how does that interact with AI, I think there's really some interesting things. Chris and I were talking maybe six months ago, and we were talking about wealth and the various...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Clients we've met with over the years and we were talking about different types of wealth and i said you know what a new kind of wealth is it's privacy like it's legitimate privacy is an actual type of wealth now because it's it's not the it's a it you can't take it for granted anymore and then i saw this headline in Florida where there's the there's more billionaires in this one community where it's like a community literally built for billionaires to move and live in.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: There's also one in North Carolina too where it's just all about privacy and the billionaire class can hang out in these enclaves that protects their privacy and they can have a life where they can at least have some normalcy. But anyway, I think that's just really interesting. It's an aside because I think it all interacts but the AI and the...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Fundamental changes happening in our society and things shifting in all of our worlds because of what's going on. But speaking of shifting, you've got the US dollar and we are on a down slope. It looked like it was going to recover and then nope, we're going to roll over right here. So when the dollar goes down, what does that mean?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That means the value of the US dollar is going down. To Chris's point earlier, if you're sitting on a ton of cash, you're... Purchasing power, especially if you live in California, is 87 cents on the dollar and decreasing. That's why you're seeing gold rally, silver rally, international stocks rally, because that dollar is going down.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's good for companies that are doing exports. It's bad for us who are buying non-US goods. It makes non-US goods more expensive for us. But it also being that we're in beautiful Sonoma, one thing I have noticed in recent years or so of how few tourists there are coming through Sonoma versus what's normal. Tourists?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Tourists, yep. And they're still there, but not in the droves that they once were. So the dollar going down could be exceptionally good for the wine business here in the US because it would give our wineries some relief Given that in the United States, the general population literally is drinking less than it was than in prohibition, just because it's fallen out of favor.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So anyway, it's good for those trying to export into other countries. Not so good for us trying to buy stuff coming into our country. It shifts things. Why is the dollar going down? Well, we talked about the Fed is cutting rates and the market thinks. The Fed is cutting rates. They're injecting liquidity.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The point of this entire show today is about liquidity, and that is the one million pound gorilla in the room when it comes to the market. If the Fed is injecting liquidity into the markets, well, then you are going to have a very difficult time trying to sell me on the idea that the markets are headed into abysmal death spiral.

DANO WEIR: Can I give an example that might work for liquidity and how injecting liquidity actually decreases the value of the dollar.

SPEAKER 8: Sure.

DANO WEIR: Shampoo bottle, almost empty. There's just a little bit of actual shampoo in there. So what do you do? You dump some water in there and you mix it up and now it's full again. But is it really full of shampoo or is it just sort of watered down? Yes or no?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, I would say that makes sense.

DANO WEIR: So just if you're trying to figure out how your cash keeps getting devalued, it's because they keep filling. They haven't filled it up with any shampoo yet. Just more water.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's the worst when that happens with hand soap and you go to like spray the hand soap and instead of going into your hand, it just like sprays all over you. So it's like.

DANO WEIR: Are my hands even clean right now?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. I'm not sure it's actually helpful to get that last little bit or you just end up wasting it and ruining your clothes. But anyway.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Whoever thought we would cover hand soap on this show, but yeah, we do it all folks. All right. So you guys want the good news, the bad news first.

DANO WEIR: Good news.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The good news is, would you believe this? So remember back in April, and I remember in my mom's house, I was sitting there with a family friend and a family friend of mine looked at me very concerned and said to me, Darren, what do you think all this tariff stuff is going to do to the US economy? Are we going to be okay? And our investment's going to be okay. Now, mind you, it's like a Sunday afternoon.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I'm sitting around the house or sitting around my mom's house. It's enjoying my time. And the last thing I want to do on a Sunday afternoon is talk to people about the market and how the market's doing. But nonetheless, that seems to be the topic of affiliation when I'm around. And would you believe it if I told you that since the bottom in April of the tariff panic, the stock market, the S&P market, S&P 500, is up 42%.

DANO WEIR: And I think Chris...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I think that Chris applause thing somewhere.

DANO WEIR: I have it somewhere. I recall Chris saying on our bear market playbook, he said, if you have the, I don't even know if I want to say it. If you have, let's say the guts to buy right now, if you can, you know, history has shown that you may be getting your flowers later in the year. And as of this year, he's right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: 42% folks. That's incredible. Right? So just, let's just take this moment, especially for Chris's dad and my mom who watched the show on a regular and realize that next time we get one of those buying opportunities, treat it different, right? That was a huge buying opportunity.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Okay. Now for the bad news, you ready for the bad news, Dino?

DANO WEIR: Hit me.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: All right. So we had a breakout this week, which was the good news. So we're looking at the daily chart on the S&P 500. These candlesticks, let me just get rid of the 42% and let's come back to now. These candlesticks represent one day in the market. It's a movement of the market in a one day period, up or down.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: If it's red, it means during that period of time it went down. And if it's green, it meant during that period of time it went up. And we had this trend line from this all-time high back here in...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: October 29th and then we started breaking out above it and then we actually closed above that on the spy this week 12 10 12 11 and smack down and we have a failed breakdown so the market collapsed out under that and now we have a breakdown so does that mean it's over is the game over no but it is concerning that we have this resistance here now. And then we have failed to break out of this trend line.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So that's the bad news. The bad news is we didn't achieve an all, we did achieve an all time high this week and we very quickly lost it. This take a look at this on the hourly chart. So this is a same period of time, but each one of these candlesticks represents one hour in the market. And you can see this week we went up and we traded up, up, up, and then smack down right here.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: On Friday, we got pummeled pretty good today at 6.30 a. m. And lost that breakout, which is interesting if you look at our chart pattern, double top. We double topped that thing, and there was our neckline, which happened to be that trend line. We fell below it, tested this as resistance. Now we're well below it into support, hanging out at 681.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I don't think it's all bad, but I do think on a short term, we're probably due for a narrow correction. I think we'll probably go visit this blue line here. 676 looks like to be in the market. There's also a gap on the chart here. When you have a gap on the chart, markets like to go down in, trade to that level, and then pick back up and find support.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I do think we'll have some probably correction based upon what this is saying next week, unless we get some kind of odd thing going on. Now there is one correlation to the DXY, which is a dollar, which we just talked about. Usually when the DXY and the dollar is going down, the value of dollars going down, that is good for oil. Oil does well, but it's not right now. The correlation is broken.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Could be a couple of different things, but one very clear. Is item is that there's an oversupply, in the world, which is interesting. I don't know if you caught the headline this week, but us special forces coast guard and department of Homeland security jumped on a Venezuela and oil boat that has been shuttling oil between Venezuela, Iran, and Russia for the last umpteen years.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And whatever happened geopolitically, the United States felt like it had the ability now. To jump on that ship and take it. And we did that in the Gulf Of America this week, which I think is pretty interesting. Like that's an interesting signal, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: When we go back to important economic signals, you look at when the U S, confiscated the Russian dollars and what that did for global governments to chase gold instead of keeping their reserves in the That was a tectonic shift. Economically for the world when that moment happened.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Everything awful that's happened with the Ukraine War, the most important thing economic that's happened with the Ukraine War is the fact that the US government confiscated Russia's dollars and threatened and has been threatening to literally take the Russian dollars and say, we're going to give them to Ukraine to buy guns to shoot at you.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And when US decided to play cop with the dollar, then a lot of other countries. Stood upright and said, we're going to move our allegiance somewhere else here. We've got to get our assets into gold, in other forms of preserving value, because if we don't play how the U S wants us to play, then we're in trouble.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That is not a comment or anything political about what the Russians have done is right or Ukraine or whatever. It's just, that's the fact just as I think it will prove in future days. Just as important as it was that. The U. S. Decided to jump on a Venezuelan ship this week and take it over. Well, there's a glut of oil, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You have dollar going down. Oil should be going up. Why is oil not going up? Well, you have a glut of oil out there. With the glut of oil that is out there, the U. S. Has the room geopolitically to go raid oil boats and take them over. If there wasn't a glut of supply, they wouldn't have the room to do that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It would— make too many people mad economically. And the powers that be and the powers that push the president in one direction or another would say, hey, let's hold off on that one. But because of the oversupply happening in oil, that could be coming from multiple reasons.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: A calming, I think most importantly, the Syrian, in the Middle East, how things have just calmed down completely in the Middle East. Yes, there's still simmering stuff going on. But very clearly, the new Syrian president is a CIA op. When you have him being paraded through Washington, D. C., that's the sign that the U. S. Is controlling things.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And this guy used to be a terrorist, by the way. But anyway, so because the Middle East has calmed down so much, it's actually giving cover for Ukraine to take on some of the boats like we've seen in the Baltics. And also... For us now to take on the Venezuelan ship.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So you can't tell me these boats haven't been moving right past our shores for the last five years, but there might not have been the political coverage because the oil markets were tighter, but because there's so much supply right now, they get that. So I think that's important geopolitically to tell you what's going on. But I also think it's a sign of the times.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The jobs data coming out is weak, which is also pushing the dollar down because unemployment came in higher than expected at 236. That higher unemployment is giving the Fed the ability to push rates down. It's also showing a weakening economy. And that isn't great.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It falls right in line with the narrative that Trump wants, which, hey, I want to get interest rates down to 1%. Well, guess what, buddy? You might just get it. And that would be really bad news for all of us if interest rates went to 1% in the next year. Sounds great. I sure would like a 1% mortgage. I don't know about you, Dan and Chris, but...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It comes with a whole host of other issues. So, you know, when it comes to economics, it's all about rate. In which things go one direction or the other. So it's directional in what we're looking for here. Unemployment coming in soft, showing us that just perhaps things are not economically as wonderful as we're being told they are in the media.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So, all right. So we talked about oil. We talked about dollar. We talked about SPY making an all-time high this week. I've got to hit gold this week. I mean, you just can't get away from what's going on in the gold markets. It's been ripping and getting a part of that DXY.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Any chart you want to look at gold, I can pretty much sing you a bullish song about. And gold looks really strong. That doesn't look great for us economically, like I talked about earlier in the show. In retrospect, having gold trade like a meme stock is going to be insanely obviously a bad deal.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But nonetheless, it's going and it's running. And so is silver. Silver just ripping this week, taking on all-time new highs.

DANO WEIR: Wow.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So people are obviously flooding to safety. They're flooding to hard commodities like silver, like gold, because the dollar, the value of the dollar is going down. If you're sitting on wads of cash in your bank account, it's not a good time for your dollar.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Taking a look at ag, ag is what tracks the bond market. And when we look at the bond market, we have now almost fully recovered from the 2022 dip in the bond market. So really good. I mean, think about this. Stock market's up. Really did have a great year. Bond market had a great year. Gold had a great year. Silver had a great year. International had a great year. It's been a great year in the markets.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And I think we just have to take a minute. Take a deep breath and realize next time we get a tariff panic, not to panic because you just don't know how things turn out. And it's most, most likely not what you think it is. And I say that to myself. I say that to Chris. I say that to Dan. It's everyone involved is very hard to speculate and know where things are headed.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: All right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, we could talk about Bitcoin. Bitcoin looking precarious. It I feel like I have to talk about it because it gets brought up so much. But we're still hitting this trend line. We're still technically in a long-term uptrend. If we lose this trend line, then I might feel differently.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But right now, we're printing, at least this month, a doji candle, which can end up being a bottom. And I think when we look at this on a shorter time period, you're starting to see this kind of bottom formation pattern. And if you actually overlay the gold chart on top of this, there's some similarities here. So be careful. Don't count it out.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And let's take a quick peek at 10-year treasury.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So we're still trading on this long-term trend line. Haven't lost it yet. We're going to need to lose that line. If anyone wants 1% mortgages, again, it's all about how fast we go down. Not that we go down or up. It's how fast we go in whatever direction we go that matters. And I think we'll close it there. Have a wonderful weekend, everybody. Enjoy the very warm weather in California if you're above the smog. Or fog lines.

DANO WEIR: However you want to say it. Thank you so much for checking out our show. I bothered to load this Christmas song all the way in the system, so I'm going to play it as I let you know that we are Sonoma Wealth Advisors, private wealth brand of our parent company, which is still us, but we're also with tax services, Ramada Tax, and 401k services, Ramada 401k.

DANO WEIR: If you want to learn more about Sonoma Wealth, check out sonomowealth.com. Wherever you found this show, whether it's on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, subscribe, follow us. You will not miss future episodes, and it's a way to help our show. We thank you so much for checking it out, and we will see you next week.

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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.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: This content was produced by Fermata Advisors, LLC, DBA Sonoma Wealth Advisors, DBA Fermata 401K, DBA Fermata Tax, 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 expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. 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.