Speaker 1:
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. Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but is limited to the dissemination of general information. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the options presented. Certified Advisory Corp is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements.
Speaker 2:
Stay tuned for On The Money, Central Florida’s most listened to financial call and show. Brought to you by Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. It’s the only show hosted exclusively by certified financial planner professionals. Monday through Friday, their CFPs provide financial planning and investment advice for a fee. But on Saturdays the advice is absolutely free and has been for more than 30 years for their WDBO listeners. If you have a financial question you want answered by real fiduciaries, the lines are wide open. Call 844-580-WDBO. That’s 844-580-WDBO and enjoy the show.
Josh:
Good morning and welcome to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580, always streaming live in your very own WDBO app. Take us with you on the go wherever you may go. As long as you got the internet, you can go ahead and listen to your favorite weekend shows offering your expert advice to your wondering questions. This of course is On The Money sitting here in studio with Joe Bert and Matt Murphy of the Certified Financial Group. We are taking your calls for planning your financial future Roth IRA, 401(k), what the interest rate spikes are meaning to you personally, how to prepare for those paradise years. Once you retire, you want to be as prepared as possible so you can enjoy it as much as possible.
And no other firm is doing what this team is doing right now. I believe they’re the only call in program of its kind offering financial advice in the area. So this is the time to call 844-580-9326 if you want to hop on board Joe, Matt Murphy answering your questions, or if you want to come on to their office there, I believe they’re doing a workshop in just about an hour.
Joe:
Yes, we are. Matt, what’s going on?
Matt:
So Gary Abely is doing one of his famous workshops here this morning in the office called Will Your Savings Last A Lifetime? And he covers a broad array of topics answering really the biggest question, which is for somebody that’s about to retire or maybe even already pulled the trigger on retiring, “Do I have enough to last for my lifetime?” And there’s a lot of things that go into that, whether it’s your investments, the structure of your income, your expenses. Obviously, we can’t predict how long we’re going to live. If we could, this whole process would be a lot easier and Joe and I probably wouldn’t have a job for that matter. But, Joe, I know that Gary’s got a couple of seats available. So for any of our listeners that are listening here this morning, stop on by the office, pop your head in here, and come get some really good information from Gary this morning.
Joe:
Gary is a certified financial planner, in addition to being a CPA, got many years experience in the business. Once again, this is absolutely free. So as Matt said, if you want to drop on by, he’s got a couple of open seats and our office is in Altamonte Springs, 1111 Douglas Avenue, 1111 Douglas Avenue, just south of 434 and just west of I4. Or you can pull us up on the internet @financialgroup.com and get a quick map. And you’re welcome to walk in the door and I’m sure he will greet you. As Matt said, he’s going to cover all the important things that Matt and I and the 14 other certified financial planners work with, with our clients’ day in and day out, providing financial planning and investment advice on a fee basis on Saturday morning. Today, Gary is going to be showing you some of the things that we do and how we can help you navigate those years.
And people say, “Why do you do this, Joe?” We do this for basically two reasons. Number one, to prevent you from becoming a financial casualty and secondly, to introduce you to what we do as a firm. This way, whether you need financial planning or investment advice now or sometime in the future, you’ll give us an opportunity to earn your business. So that’s once again kicks off at 10 o’clock. We welcome you to come by and if you get by here before 10 o’clock, you can see the couple of monkeys here behind the glass doing the radio show, but we’d be glad to wave at you as well. So come on by. And why are we here? For the people that may have never tuned into our program, and as you said there, Josh, we are the only financial call in show in Central Florida. All the other shows that I’ve listened to at least are what I would call a one-hour infomercial.
They drop a little hints here and there, but we take the calls live because this is what we do as financial planners. We don’t always have the answers right off the top of our head, but we’re here to share our experience. Collectively between Matt and I and the 14 other certified financial planners, we totaled it up. We have over 400 years of combined experience and we’re still learning every day. And that’s a benefit of as Certified Financial Group, we have a deep bench and we’re very, very proud of it. So if you have any questions regarding your personal finances, decisions that you’re trying to make regarding your IRA, 401(k), long-term healthcare, buying selling a house, buying a car, all that kind of stuff that we deal with, we are here. And the good news for you is the lines are absolutely wide open. So if you ever thought about calling, this is the time to do it because you’ll be at the front of the line and those numbers are?
Josh:
844-580-9326. 844-580-WDBO, or you can send us an open mic in the free WDBO app. Just push that record button, send it on in. I’ll put you on the air with Joe and Matt of the Certified Financial Group as if you called in yourself. They can get your expert answers to your curious questions. And again, 844-580-9326 to call in right now. And today’s topic until then, a question that’s on everyone’s mind, will AI be your next financial advisor?
Matt:
Well, there’s been a lot of discussion in the news, in the media, amongst folks in our industry for that matter, even from clients about how AI, artificial intelligence will affect and perhaps replace the work that we do as financial planners. And so I took the liberty and the risk perhaps of signing up for a free ChatGPT account. And I mentioned to Joe at a meeting that we had internally here on Thursday that I tested that by doing some research on some data that we needed for the firm here internally this week. And I was really surprised at how robust and how accurate, for that matter, the information was that I got back from the ChatGPT. So I started to explore a little bit and one of the questions that I asked the ChatGPT was, “Will artificial intelligence replace financial advisors?” So I thought what I’d start with here this morning is read a direct quote. This is direct from ChatGPT, an answer to that question.
Joe:
So let’s back up. Once again, you were on ChatGPT and you typed in this exact question, which was?
Matt:
It was, “Will artificial intelligence replace financial advisors?”
Joe:
And the reply from ChatGPT was?
Matt:
Verbatim. “It’s important to note that the human touch and expertise in understanding clients’ emotions, complex life situations, and ethical considerations remain essential in the financial advisory field. And AI should be viewed as a complimentary tool rather than a replacement for human advisors.” Does that surprise you, Joe?
Joe:
No, because we see it with our clients. The reason our clients hire us is because they have been online perhaps, or they have been talking to somebody on the other end of an 800 number. And when it comes down to it and you’re really concerned about your long-term financial security, do you call telemedicine? I mean, do you go on the internet and look at what they say about this X, Y, and Z? Or do you once again WebMD and get your advice there? That’ll give you some indication, but at the end of the day, you want to sit down with that practitioner that deals with the stuff day in and day out, gets to know you personally and the nuances that are particular to your own financial situation to guide you through it.
And once again, it’s not free. We work with our clients for a fee. But I can tell you after doing this for many, many years and going back almost 50 years from this time this firm was founded, that’s what we do and that’s why our clients value what we do. And I think that’s a distinction that we have. So it’s nice to hear that we will not be… I knew that, but it’s nice to hear ChatGPT come back and tell us what we believe.
Matt:
Well, my basic premise is if human beings were simply a series of formulas to be solved, then ChatGPT, or as you mentioned, WebMD would get the job done. But we’re not, human beings are complex. They have emotions, we have insight and perspective and so forth. And I’m sure that Joe and I could provide dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of examples where having a conversation with a client that went beyond the numbers, that just went beyond the data led to a different decision than a client might make other than just doing some research online.
Joe:
And when you stop to think about it, how we work with our clients, and I’m sure other certified financial planner practitioners around the country work the same way. When you have that relationship with a client, you know their situation, they have confided in you what their fears are, what they have to work with, what their family situation is, and you’re tracking the investment side of it to be sure we run a course, but we really don’t know what’s going on a day-to-day basis. You get the calls, I get the calls, it was great yesterday, but something has happened. Either it’s good or oftentimes it’s not so good. “My life has changed, my wife has been diagnosed with X, my kids are in trouble. Or I want to buy a house. How can I do that? Or I’m looking at doing this with my cars, what should I do? Or my father passed away and he left this mess. How do I clean it up?”
That’s what you don’t get online. Now there’s a place for getting information online. You and I use it. I know our listeners use it every day. Google wouldn’t be the multi-billion dollar company that it is without people using it. But once again, it all gets down to personal relationship and that’s what you need. It’s not just a matter of investing. Investing is easy. That’s the easy part. It’s really understanding what you are and crafting and designing something for you that’ll get you to and through those retirement years. So once again, it’s great to hear that we’re going to be in business for a while.
Matt:
Yes, we are. Do you remember, it was probably about 10 years ago, I would say, the robo-advisor thing came about and at the time, the conversations were very similar to what we’re talking about today in terms of, “Oh, well these robo-advisors are going to come about, they’re cheaper, they’re going to replace what you guys do.” And how did that sort of play out over time, Joe?
Joe:
Well, we know it hasn’t.
Matt:
Right.
Joe:
A lot of money has been pumped into that by private equity and hedge funds and so forth. And there was a place for that that you want to turn your money over and just let it be managed. And that’s fine, but that’s a distinction. This is how I think people that are financial planners, once again, it’s just not our firm, folks. I’m not bragging about our firm, but when you’re dealing with a certified financial planner, that planner, he or she should be doing planning before they’re investing. They should understand who you are, where you are. And that’s what I always say that good investing requires good planning upfront. Unfortunately, most people just want to take your money and invest it and then hopefully it all works out. But having that relationship and understanding who you are, what you are, and what your situation is, and being able to give you advice generally on the spot when you call, because we know your situation, I think that’s worth something.
Matt:
I remember I had a client years ago that had signed up for a robo-advisor account because it was attractive, it was low cost, it seemed kind of new and fun and exciting. And I’ll never forget, he asked me, he said, “Now, who do I call when I have questions about this?” And the answer is no one, because with the robo-advisor or anything that’s purely technologically-based, you don’t have the human interaction, somebody to give you some perspective and some insight on maybe a question that you have or whatever. So I think when it really boils down to, the point that we’re trying to get across is here that technology is always going to be present. Technology can provide us with data. Technology can streamline things, technology can make things more efficient.
And at Certified Financial Group, we are constantly trying to find new ways to use technology to our benefit, which ultimately is to the benefit of our clients to make things more efficient so that we can spend more time with you, as our clients, talking about the things that are important to you. But what technology cannot do is it cannot give you that insight and perspective that only a human being and an emotional connection, for that matter, that only a human being can do.
Joe:
It’s just a tool. I mean, I remember back in the day starting in the practice and we used to charge a lot of money for a financial plan that today, if compared to what we do today, it’s light years different. And what we do today is so much less expensive than what we did many, many years ago. Because many, many years ago all we had was a calculator and a green spreadsheet. And today thanks to technology, we can really do some very, very creative planning. And we’re up against the break there, Josh. You want to take it away?
Josh:
That’s right. If you want to hop on the air with Joe Bert and Matt Murphy, pick their brains of one of the top 100 financial firms in the country, as named by the CNBC. Call 844-580-9326. 844-580-WDBO. Or you can send us an open mic. I’ll pop those questions on the air. We got one already asking about the effects of the digital dollars. So maybe we can dive into that here later on in the show. Download the free WDBO app, push the record button on the open mic feature, and go ahead and send those in. I’ll play them back live on the air. You are listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow…
Joe:
Today.
Josh:
With the Certified Financial Group. Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580, always streaming live in the WDBO app. Send in your open mics with your question or pop on the phones. Give us a call. 844-580-9326. 844-580-WDBO, joined today by Joe Bert and Matt Murphy with the Certified Financial Group. And I believe you guys wanted to finish up something you said just before we went to break.
Joe:
Matt was talking about a client experience that he had with… You want to fill that in once again, Matt, put a little texture to it?
Matt:
Well, we were talking about the robo-advisor idea and most of the big financial firms now have robo-advisor programs that they’ve set up and they’re inexpensive, they’re easy to set up. But the problem there of course is that if you have any questions or any problems, you can’t talk to anybody about it. And the business model is set up for that because it costs money to have people available to answer your questions. So in his particular case, you can’t answer any questions about it because as the advisor, you don’t even have any information about the robo-advisor program.
Joe:
Right. Well, it prompted something, popped into my mind, Matt said one of his clients had talked about the robo-advisor and came to see him and how he valued the personal relationship. I think what our listeners should know, Matt is a relatively new addition to our firm and he’s a certified financial planner and we’re proud to have him. But for those people that have been in Central Florida, even up in the villages for a number of years, may recognize the name of Matt Murphy. Matt was a, how many year veteran of Fidelity?
Matt:
12 years.
Joe:
12 year veteran of Fidelity, has come over to the independent side and we’re delighted to have him. So if you’ve been wondering whatever happened to Matt Murphy at Fidelity, he’s right here sitting right next to me this morning. We’re delighted to have him as part of our team. But irony is, even though Matt has left Fidelity, he hasn’t left Fidelity because we have the ability of what we do for our clients is to custody assets at Fidelity.
Matt:
That’s right.
Joe:
So it’s not like you’ve left Fidelity, but you now come over here so you can be totally independent of what the corporate mantra might be and do what you want to do when you want to do it for your clients. Not that you couldn’t do that at Fidelity, but there are some benefits to being totally independent. So not only do we custody at Fidelity, we custody at TD Ameritrade soon to be Charles Schwab. So I think our listeners need to know that if you come to us for investment management, your money doesn’t live with Certified Financial Group. If we disappear tomorrow and a big sinkhole opens up, you can never find us again. Your money lives at either Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, or Schwab and them as the custodians. And the nice thing about our situation is we can pick and choose from the very best investments of what we feel will work on your behalf because we don’t have any house products.
Matt:
That’s right.
Joe:
So that’s my commercial for this morning. I see we got a call there Josh.
Josh:
That’s right. Let’s go ahead and talk to Jim calling from Orlando. We got about one minute left. Go ahead Jim, you’re on the air.
Joe:
Hey Jim, what’s up? Good morning.
Speaker 6:
Hi. I was just wondering what you see as the future for real estate investment trust.
Joe:
Well, it’s a function of what that REIT, the real estate investment trust might be invested in. They run the gamut from multifamily housing to industrial to even cell towers, office buildings, and so on and so forth. So it’s a function of how deep they might be in any particular segment. If they’re diversified based, unless you’re really into something in a sector, you want a REIT that has some diversification to it. And right now some of the REITs are under pressure because of what’s going on in the office space. Right, Matt?
Matt:
And also the interest rate environment. I mean I think REITs, to the extent that we have, let’s say a soft landing rather than a recession and the interest rate situation and the economy stabilizes, I think those would both obviously be beneficial for REITs.
Joe:
Right. And REITs research should be a part of a portfolio depending on the management, who they are. If you’re reinvesting your dividends, as the good news is, when the price goes down, you’re buying more shares. So when things turn around, you get kind of a turbo chart situation. As with anything, you shouldn’t put all your money in one particular sector, but it could and should be a part of a diversified portfolio. So I see we’re up against some break there, Josh. I hear the music.
Josh:
You got it. Thank you so much, Joe Bert and Matt Murphy with the Certified Financial Group on the air, live answering your questions this beautiful morning. 844-580-9326 is the number to call. 844-580-WDBO or feel free to send in your very own open mic. We’ll play that back for the guys on the air so you can still get that sweet suite expert advice of the team at Certified Financial Group. You are listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow…
Joe:
Today.
Josh:
With the Certified Financial Group.
Speaker 2:
Welcome back to On The Money, Central Florida’s most listened to financial call and show. Brought to you by Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. It’s the only show hosted exclusively by certified financial planner professionals. Monday through Friday, their CFPs provide financial planning and investment advice for a fee. But on Saturdays, the advice is absolutely free and has been for more than 30 years for their WDBO listeners. If you have a financial question you want answered by real fiduciaries, the lines are wide open. Call 844-580-WDBO, that’s 844-580-WDBO and enjoy the rest of the show.
Josh:
Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580, always streaming live in the WDBO app. I’m sitting here on the air, we’re just floating on the clouds, just yelling down to the people below with their financial questions. I’m joined by Joe Bert, the Oracle of Orlando, Matt Murphy, and standing by off the air taking your questions. If you’re listening to the show and say, “You know what, I like these guys, but I got too much specific personal information to talk about on the radio.” They plan for that. So feel free to pick up the phone and dial 407-869-9800. 407-869-9800. Charles Curry is standing by live taking your calls off the air if you want to go that route, say you’ve been listening and or maybe a question pops into your head as the show comes to an end.
It’s always good to have that number written down. I’ll say it again for you. 407-869-9800. 407-869-9800. If you do want to talk to Matt or Joe right now, the number to call into WDBO is 844-580-9326. 844-580-WDBO. And something you might be thinking is if you pick up that phone and you dial, that’s a few minutes of precious time, you might miss a couple of explanations, a couple of answers that you’re dialing in, talking to me, going through the process of not hearing the show, but I want you to know that the second you get put on hold, you get to hear the radio station in your very own phone. You kind of join a little behind the scenes part of the show that not everyone gets to see. But if you call in, you can kind of join the fun, join the fun, ask your questions, get your answers, and be a part of this show. 844-580-9326.
Matt:
Hey, Josh, can I just add something to that real quick? So there’s also three ways that you can watch or listen to our show after it’s over with. Number one, we have a podcast, On The Money podcast that the shows get recorded every single week. So in your app store or actually on an iPhone, it’s right on the homepage there, just search up On The Money. We also post the live streams on LinkedIn and Facebook. So if you want to actually see us in action and see the whole show, you can always go onto our pages on LinkedIn and Facebook and you can find the live stream recorded show of each radio show every Saturday.
Joe:
So you had mentioned Charles Curry taking calls off the air and coincidentally Charles Curry has an upcoming workshop. Matt?
Matt:
He does. So on Wednesday, July the 19th, Charles will be covering Savvy Cybersecurity. Charles has done this one many times. It’s always well attended and popular as you might imagine, because all of us need to take great care in protecting our data and our information. We’ve all heard horror stories about when you don’t do that, what can happen. So 10 threats every person in business faces and how to protect yourself now. So again, that’s from Charles Curry. He’s got a lot of experience in presenting that particular topic. That’s Wednesday, July the 19th here in our learning center. If you haven’t come to our learning center before, it’s beautiful. We’ve got a workshop going on there this morning, Gary’s putting on, and that’s going to be from 6:30 to 7:30 again on Wednesday, July the 19th.
You can get more information about that workshop and all the other workshops that we conduct on our website @financialgroup.com and go to the workshops tab. You can both get the list of all the workshops that are upcoming. You can also sign up to attend the workshops on that page. And just another reminder too, Gary, as I mentioned here, in about 15, 20 minutes is going to be putting on his workshop. Will Your Savings Last a Lifetime? We’ve got a couple of extra seats available for that. So if you’re in the area, pop on in. Joe and I just went in the back there and saw the beautiful spread that he’s got.
Joe:
Gary does it up. I’m going to tell you,
Matt:
He really does. If the attendees don’t take that stuff, I’m going to take it, some nice pastries, but the information will be even better than the food. And just a quick plug for Gary while we’re on the subject. I’ll say like Joe mentioned before in the last segment, I’ve been here for about a year and Gary’s one of those guys that he’s a CFP, he’s a CPA, but he’s just very measured and anytime that I have a question that I need some advice on, he’s one of the people that I go to for a second opinion or just to set me right on things. So that type of mentality, tying it back to AI, you don’t get that through a computer. And so that type of mentality lends itself really well to the work that we do. So really encourage you, if you can, come by to those workshops that we have. If you can stop by Gary’s this morning or Charles again on Wednesday, July the 19th from 6:30 to 7:30. Sign up on our website financialgroup.com, go to the workshops tab, and reserve your seat.
Joe:
Well, I hope to see you there and I guess we had something come in there, Josh.
Josh:
That’s right. We got a text question from a listener that this comes to us from Manny in Oviedo and Manny wants to know if he takes money out of his 401(k), does he get penalized even if he pays it back?
Joe:
It depends.
Matt:
So there’s two ways I suppose really fundamentally that you could take money out of your 401(k). The first way would be just a straight distribution. And so if you take a distribution, meaning you’re just taking money out of the 401(k), if you’re under the age of 59 and a half, then yes you’re going to pay a 10% penalty and the tax regardless of whether you put it back in or not. There are some exceptions to that. A lot of plans will allow between the ages of 55 and 59 with some other factors being present that you could take that money out without being penalized. But generally speaking, it’s good to just think that, “Yes, I’m going to be penalized in tax if I take that money out prior to 59 and a half.”
Now the other way that you could do this, if your plan allows for loans, you can take a loan from your 401(k) and provided that you pay that loan back typically through payroll deduction, you’ll pay it back into your own account. So you’re kind of paying yourself back with interest and in that situation you’re not penalized. However, I don’t know what you think Joe, but I would normally say that that’s kind of a last resort tool to use the loan in a 401(k).
Joe:
Right.
Matt:
So if you need it, do it, but if you don’t need it, see if you can find another place to get that money.
Joe:
Right. And the challenge is if you take the loan on the 401(k) and then you don’t pay it back, you change jobs and now you can no longer pay it back through payroll deduction because you no longer have payroll with that company, that amount will come due with penalty and taxes. So you want to be careful. A lot of people use their 401(k) for emergency kind situations. You need to know that the money is there, but it is not designed to be a savings account. But one thing that we’ve been doing for our clients, for those clients that have money outside of 401(k)s that need money, they need to buy a house, put a down payment on a house, or whatever that situation might be. You can use your assets as collateral. And I’m not talking about a margin account, I’m talking about pledging those assets as collateral and set up a line of credit so you can borrow against those assets and in some cases it works out very, very well.
And so if you have money in your 401(k), I want to get that out or I got to cash in my investments and maybe pay the taxes on that and then use that money to do whatever I want to do. Depending on the circumstances, we have the ability to set you up a situation with Goldman Sachs and it’s online and it’s a pretty slick operation. They wire the money to your account and they set you up on a regular payment. You can pay interest only if you want or you can pay it out over a period of time. So your assets have to qualify. And then generally their stocks, bonds or mutual funds or ETFs, something is liquid and they’ll give you a good percentage of whatever that is and it’s your money. It’s pretty straightforward. I’ve used it in the past and it’s great.
Matt:
I just want to throw this out there. A lot of times over the years I hear clients use the term 401(k) and IRA interchangeably and I think that stems from, you put money into your 401(k) for 30 years and you build up your account there and then you leave your company, you roll it to an IRA. And so in your mind, a lot of times you’re just thinking, “Well, that’s still my 401(k).” So just to clarify for Manny in his question here, there are different rules surrounding taking money out of 401(k)s than there are with IRAs. So Manny, if you have any further questions on that, give us a call. Either give Charles a call right now and again his number’s 407-869-9800, he can take your question off-air, discuss your situation, or give us a call here in the office on Monday. Again, that number is 407-869-9800, but Manny, we appreciate the text question.
Joe:
And I see we got some more coming in there. Josh, what do you have?
Josh:
That’s right. This was an open mic coming to us. So if you want to and sending your question audibly, the open mic is available for you in the free WDBO app. Push the record button, ask away, and I’ll play it back for these experts live on the air or if you want to hop on the phones, 844-580-9326. The open mic is coming at you now.
Speaker 7:
Hello, my name is Paul and my question is, I understand the government in instituting a digital dollar and I was wondering if you could talk about that at all, how it’s going to affect us, what it’s going to do. Any information that you have about it would be great. Thank you.
Joe:
Sure. First of all, I know that that’s floating around out there on the internet and some of the more popular talk shows and it’s a way to get clicks on whatever it is they’re selling. It is not in the works. There is something going on right now with the transfers between banks, digitizing things to make the situation more fluid, if you will, more timely. But there is nothing afoot where they’re going to take your dollars and confiscate them and give you some kind of digital currency in exchange. Now that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen sometime in the future, and Matt and I were talking about this on the break because we saw the question come in and in order for that to happen, Congress is going to have to do it. Now that doesn’t mean that Congress can’t do it, but I would suspect that whether you’re democrat, republican, or independent, you would let your elected officials know that this is one thing that you will not tolerate.
And believe me, they are very open or very sensitive, if you will, to that kind of thing. So I would not lose any sleep over that, but certainly it’s out there and it certainly within today’s digitized world, it’s something for people to talk about and to perhaps get you to buy gold. That’s the other thing. It’s often tied into, “Buy something because this’ll protect you from that.” You got to look beyond it what it is they’re offering. So that’s my personal opinion. You have any comment on that, Matt?
Matt:
Well, just isn’t it funny too, those gold ads always run when gold’s at all time highs.
Joe:
Right. Time to buy.
Matt:
Buy high and then sell low, I guess. I think it’s just any technological innovation in the sense that, I mean kind of like we’re talking about with AI, same kind of thing where there’s a lot of good, a lot of efficiency, make a lot of people’s lives easier in doing that. But the other side of that is that most technology also has the threat of invading people’s privacy. So I would say in this country anyways, we have a good track record of doing a good job of balancing those two. I mean, Joe, I think it sounds like you got a good finger on the pulse of where that actually is and it’s not on the horizon of happening now, but there’s two sides to that coin always I guess that digital coin.
Joe:
It’s not to say it can’t happen, it’s not to say it won’t happen, but it’s nothing that I’m losing sleep over. It’s not on my top 100 list of things to worry about. But thanks for the inquiry, Paul. You never know what’s out there. We hope we clear that up for you.
Josh:
Thank you so much, Paul. Open mic, always available for you in the free WDBO app. If you want to hop on one more segment, coming up with Joe Bert and Matt Murphy with the certified Financial Group, the number to call live on the air is 844-580-9326. 844-580-WDBO. If you want to have a question answered off the air, maybe it’s a little bit personal, you don’t want to divulge too much information, but you want to pick the brains of these experts with certified financial group. Charles Curry is standing by at 407-869-9800 and that is an off-air service for you. 407-869-9800. You are listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow…
Joe:
Today.
Josh:
With the Certified Financial Group. Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580, always streaming live in the WDBO app. If a question popped into your head in that last break and you’re like, “Oh no, I don’t have time to call in.” Well, good news, you do have time to call in, but they’ll be taking their questions off the air following the show. Charles Curry is standing by at 407-869-9800. 407-869-9800. Joe, Matt, what do you say, we answer one of these email questions that we receive here?
Joe:
Let’s do it.
Josh:
All right, this one comes to us. What is the yield curve and is it true that it can be a predictor of recessions?
Matt:
Well, the yield curve, Josh, refers to the relationship between short-term interest rates, medium term interest rates, or intermediate term rate, and long-term interest rates. So a normal yield curve would mean that short-term interest rates are lower than long-term interest rates.
Joe:
Let’s stop there. So just like a CD, the longer you commit your money, theoretically the higher rate of return you should get on your money. Works the same thing with, you talked about government bonds.
Matt:
And the basic premise being you ought to be compensated for tying your money up for a longer time by having a higher rate of interest. And so what we’ve got right now is what’s called an inverted yield curve, which means that interest rates on the short end are higher than interest rates are on the longer end. And historically speaking, that has been an indication that we are heading into a recession. Now, if economics are not a perfect science like that, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going into a recession and there’s a lot of mixed signals out there, but oftentimes in the past that indicates that yes, indeed we are headed into a recession. So Joe, what are your thoughts on that?
Joe:
We’ve obviously seen it in the past that that is an indicator of it, but the yield curve has been inverted for some time and still no recession. So it’s not always a predictor. And I think what really makes it different this time is we’ve come out of the pandemic and it’s really changed the financial economic environment, if you will, that we’ve ever experienced in forever. And so I think we’re living in a different world and this is where the navigation comes in and trying to figure it all out. But there’s no question that diversification and quality in the long run wins the game. So you don’t want to time the market and try to figure out is a recession going to be here today? We’ve had some folks walk in the last couple weeks talking about they’ve come to us from other advisors that put them in this, what we call this recession portfolio and they’ve gotten their butts kicked frankly because they’ve gone way down and the market’s been up and they’re going backwards and want to know, frankly, some of them didn’t understand what they got, what they had.
So you don’t want to time the market. You want to have quality and diversification in the long run. That works. You want to wrap up the show, I guess, Josh, and Matt’s here too with talking about Score My Funds, which is an opportunity for our listeners to get a quality assessment on the investments, mutual funds, or ETFs that you might be holding individually in your IRA or 401(k). And we will run a score for you like we do for all of our clients on a regular basis, showing you the quality of what you had, measuring it on 11 distinct criteria. This comes from the Center for Fiduciary Studies. We’ll be glad to do this for you absolutely free and if you want to follow up, we’ll offer that to you as well. But this study comes to you absolutely free and we’ll send that to you and you can do that by going to scoremyfunds.com, scoremyfunds.com.
There’s a pull down menu, if you don’t know the ticker that you need, there’s a pull down menu that will show the fund name. You can plug it in and we’ll send that to you absolutely free. And I’d see we’re close up against the clock here just to remind our listeners that Charles Curry is taking calls off the air at 407-869-9800. 407-869-9800 or 1800 execute as if you’re executing a financial plan. So he’d be glad to take your calls as well. Matt, as always, it’s been a pleasure being with you. You’re great on the air and once again, Matt Murphy, the name is probably familiar to some folks here in Central Florida. Matt was a 12-year veteran with Fidelity Investments. He’s come over to the independent side working with us and we’re glad to have him. So we’d like to see you in the office as well. Our website is financialgroup.com. That’s financialgroup.com. You can learn all about Matt and me and the 14 other certified financial planners here that provides financial planning and investment advice for a fee.
Josh:
Thank you so much, Joe Bert, Matt Murphy, for delivering the valuable information you guys do every single weekend. You’ve just listened to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow…
Joe:
Today.
Josh:
With the Certified Financial Group.
