When people dive into planning their financial future, one of the things they fear is the stock market. It is said that your financial investments for the future is heavily influenced on the state of the market. Currently, there has been an undeniable presence of volatility out there and that leaves a lot of room for concerns. There is no need to fret, however, if you\’re armed with the right information. Financial advisor Bob Hansen sheds light on some stock market issues. He discusses the stock market and its indicators, finding the good that is still out there amidst all this, as he guides you through the process of understanding your way through with financial education.

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Listen to the podcast here:

[smart_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/wpht-02112018\” title=\”Uh, hello? Stock Market? You There? with Bob Hansen\” ]

Uh, hello? Stock Market? You There? with Bob Hansen

I bring in Bret Elam here. How are you?

I’m doing fantastic. It\’s good to get back here and build a little bit of consistency.

We\’ve got a good show lined up for our audience. We\’re going to hit you head on with a lot of information and we have one of our partners with us as well, Bob Hansen. We’ll bring him into the conversation in just a moment. Bret, where do you want to begin with?

I thought about driving down here. I\’m double dressed in green where it\’s awesome where you get that sense of community and then just in seeing our clients, it\’s amazing that the attitude that everybody has.

The good news about that is from a business standpoint, it’s bottled all of that positive energy up and now use that either the underdog mentality or the positive vibe and the positive energy to go get it and to go take it. To take control of your retirement. I remember we talked about planning your retirement trip. We talked about that specifically on a show. David went through that in great detail and that is so important.

We probably heard so much more about all the market. You said it, Krause. Talking about the underdogs. We talked about preparation, being proactive, and needing to adapt. We have a couple of giveaways. We\’re going to do five books. We\’ve been getting incredible reviews from the book. All the book is for sale as well and all the proceeds will go to BeatCancer.org but we\’re also going to be giving away five books. We\’re going to be spending a lot of conversation talking about the market as well. We\’ve had lots of commercials and we\’re getting lots of great reviews from talking about Riskalyze. We\’re going to be digging deep with the Riskalyze too. We\’re going to give away five Riskalyze analyses as well.

The title of the book is Roadmap to Retirement: Navigating Your Way to Peace of Mind. It made it to the number two on the bestseller hit list, which was fantastic. I remember doing the show the day after that announcement was secured and we were able to promote that to the audience. You can get one of the five complimentary books by calling Thrive Financial Services at 1 (800) 516-5861. If you missed the complimentary or the free copy of Roadmap to Retirement, do buy it. All proceeds will go to a cause that is worthy. Go to a cause that is necessary and certainly go to a cause that for many people around the Delaware Valley hits them very close to home within their inner circle.

Let\’s segue a little bit into the stock market. A few emotions are going on. David, Karen and I have been receiving more phone calls than we probably have over the past five years, “Is this the time?” We\’ve seen over a 10% decline on the market erasing all the January gains and start to dip back into 2017. We talk about preparing for retirement. We\’ve got to be proactive and find out is this for me. We\’ve been on one heck of a nine-year run. Don\’t take the Ostrich Theory. Let\’s be proactive and look at our retirement and our investments that are out there.

A lot of what we\’ve seen was a lot of volatility out there. Something that we call the VIX Index. We’re going to talk about that throughout the show. It\’s talking about the calmness that has been out there for a while and that VIX indicator was sitting at, all of last year between ten and fifteen for the most part, in February the index rose to seventeen. Then earlier we saw it hit all the way to 37, which that is as big a volatility as we\’ve seen in years. We\’re watching a lot of things right now. We\’re going to dig a little bit further talking about inflation and interest rates.

There’s a big announcement coming up with what inflation looks like. That\’s a lot of what people are watching. David, Karen and I, we believe that a lot of the indicators are still good out there. You’ve got employment numbers, you’ve got all-time lows in unemployment, good job growth and you saw wage growth. We\’re seeing growth in manufacturing. Everything looks good out there but the bottom line is we may be in for some additional bumpiness in the markets. It\’s essential and if you\’re working with a financial advisor and just like we\’re fielding calls from our clients, we’ve got to listen to them.

When you say you\’re fielding calls with David and Karen on 1 (800) 516-5861, that\’s the beauty of being live and local. You have the ability to reach out and you have the ability to connect with one of the principals of Thrive Financial Services. You have the ability to share your feelings and your intimate concerns. That\’s what this program is all about. We\’re making and building a tribe or a group of followers who are starting to understand that Thrive Financial Services is here to provide great information and in-depth details and they are advocates. That\’s the most compelling thing. That\’s the biggest check mark that I can give. Are you an advocate for your client? The answer is yes.

When we sit down with people and meet us through the show, through our workshops and through introductions from our other clients, it\’s a balanced approach. We want to have a blend of so many different strategies out there. Some of them are going to buy and hold, some of them we need to be more aggressive and being more hands on. It\’s building those different buckets, of having a safe bucket or having a big cash bucket that we can rely on when the market\’s correcting itself. It\’s having some safe money on the sideline, making sure that no matter what happens we\’re not going to decline. Then we have that aggressive money that\’s out there as well.

If you\’re a couple of years away from retirement or if you\’re already there and you have not had that recent review or not had that second opinion call, call us here at Thrive or you can always visit us at ThriveFinancialServices.com. It\’s time to prepare for that next phase in your life. It\’s important to be proactive and avoid that ostrich theory. If you want to find out if it\’s time to adjust and what\’s that portfolio looks like? It looks great for the last nine and a half years, “Is it the time to make an adjustment?” Call us here at Thrive for a complimentary checkup.

[bctt tweet=\”Everything looks good out there but the bottom line is we may still be in for some additional bumpiness.\” username=\”\”]

One of the great things that Thrive Financial Services has done is they have organized a group of individuals to become partners in this process and to become partners in educating the Delaware Valley. Bob Hansen is not new to the program. He\’s been on the program. He\’s been live and local with us. I welcome Bob Hansen into the show.

I\’m really excited to be here. There was so much going on as we talked about a little bit with the market. I want to talk a little bit about what my understanding is of what makes fun, happiness and elation.

We\’ll deal with all of that. You\’ve heard Bret say many times, he talks about buckets. He always puts things into perspective of buckets. Get your free copy of the book, Roadmap to Retirement. We\’re giving out few complimentary copies to the audience. It\’s a good read, packed and loaded with a lot of information. We brought Bob Hansen just into the conversation under the headline of partners who are joining this advocacy program to deliver important information. Bob, this is not your first time with us but I\’m proud to have you here because what you do provides real service, real value and advocates on our audience’s behalf. That is super important to what the message is here with Thrive.

Talking about education and advocacy, I drive my family absolutely crazy because I use analogies for almost everything and sometimes it just gets a little wearing on them. One of the things that I try to do especially with our businesses, I try to look past what we do on the surface and look a little bit deeper into what it is that we\’re trying to do, the underlying message, what makes us feel the way we feel, what makes us happy about the things that we\’re happy about and what do we consider real success? I’m super excited about the Eagles. Everything and everybody is going crazy. They\’re going bonkers. The first time ever to win the Super Bowl.

What is it that created this mass hysteria? They even gave kids an optional day off and a free excuse day from school to be able to go to the parade. I don\’t think they\’ve ever done that for any other big event before. What is it that made this so special? I tried to look past it and look a little bit deeper and what I came up with is the underdog mentality. What is it that makes up that underdog mentality? It\’s a feeling that you\’re not the one that\’s going to win. You\’re a little downtrodden. You had to work a little harder and you had to think a little bit smarter. You had to do everything you could to succeed and to beat that other team. What is it that drives us to do that?

Success and things that are fun, things that caused elation and happiness is when your reality exceeds your preconceived notions and expectations. I think that\’s where we came up with the underdog mentality. When we first started the season with Carson Wentz, we thought, “We’re going to go all the way. We\’ve got a great season ahead of us,” and he got hurt. That just took the wind out of everybody and they got really upset. We started this preconceived notion and mentality that we might not be able to do this now, so we put it on the back burner. Then we started seeing some sparks of hope and then we saw some more and then we beat the Vikings and then we\’re in the big game and now all of a sudden, we\’ve got this hope that we can do it.

I don\’t know if we truly expected that we would. That was Tom Brady and the greatest quarterback ever and the team that\’s been dominant for so many years. Five Super Bowl wins, that\’s David and Goliath. I think that because we didn\’t expect to win, that it helped elevate exponentially our happiness when we finally did. That\’s where education in what we do is really important because it gets rid of your preconceived notions and your expectations. It lets you go into things as an educated consumer, knowing what\’s going on.

Do you find that to be true when you have one-on-one and intimate conversations with your clients? Is that one of the bullet points?

There are so many preconceived notions about our industry in general, whether it\’s financial planning, whether it\’s mortgaged, it\’s anything. People are always a little bit leery and they tend to be more cautious than they need to be. They\’re not always as trusting as they need to be and what I found is that once you\’re educated and you learn about something, it helps you understand it better. Everything that we do is about teaching people about what\’s right, what\’s wrong, what could be, what might be, what might not be, and then trying to help them decide what\’s best for me.

What\’s best for the people that we\’re working with and overcoming their expectations that might have been, “I can never go through retirement comfortably and financially set. I don\’t have enough cash available, that will never happen for me.” Then we\’re able to sit with them and say, “Do you realize that you can access a lot more cash than you thought you had available?” That\’s one of the buckets that Bret\’s going to talk about is that cash bucket. That\’s one of the things that we help. We\’ve got a program that helps people get into that available funds that they didn\’t realize they had and that they might\’ve thought never would exist. Help them tap into it and use it to make their retirement a little bit more comfortable than they originally thought.

 

Would you say that the resistance to using the cash that\’s in that bucket comes simply from the fact of not knowing or not understanding? I don\’t say that with disrespect. I put myself in the same circle but believed that to be true. When you don\’t know what you don\’t know.

That\’s what fear is. Fear of the unknown, that\’s what everybody\’s most afraid of. Unless you\’re educated and you know the answers to something, you\’re going to be fearful of it and you\’re going to be cautious. That is one of the things that we try to overcome and what Bret and David do with Thrive, they do live and local workshops.

The complimentary workshop that will explain, will walk people through, will provide answers to questions that they have and of course there\’s no expectation other than an open mind and leave with an education and information.

That\’s what we\’re all about. It\’s live and local. It advocates for education. Come and learn about where that $7 trillion is coming from and how you can get that piece of it that\’s yours. People are probably hearing this number and thinking, “There\’s no way I can tap into any of that money.” The truth of the matter is you absolutely can.

Bob Hansen joining us here, one of our advocates, one of the partners on this program assembled in partnership with Bret, David and Karen from Thrive Financial Services. We encourage people to take advantage of an opportunity that when you can get information, when you have the ability to learn, you\’re in a much better position moving forward. That\’s the underlying premise of this entire program.

When we put this show together and thought about who would be great to join this group and building this tribe and it\’s working with Martin Law Firm, Del-Val Insurance and Bob from Rever Mortgage. Everyone has that educational and that advocacy heart where if you just simply do it right by people, people do it right by you. It\’s building upon that education. I don\’t know what I don\’t know and I\’m not afraid to ask and we all create that environment of people that are willing to learn to make sure that they\’re making the right decisions. Education is power. Just getting out in front of that information and working with people that are looking out for you.

Thanks to Bob Hansen for coming in.

We\’re going to be talking about that taxes and retirement topic again. We\’re going to conclude on that looking at the D-block. We’ve got a great question of the week in the D-block. I’m looking forward to chatting about.

Let\’s jump into Riskalyze. Let\’s get into it. You talked about it up at the top of the show. We never really defined it but let\’s get into it right now. Let\’s spend this next segment on Riskalyze, Bret.

Our commercials on Riskalyze have been airing all over the station and we\’ve been getting lots of requests with regards to Riskalyze. We thought we\’d maybe dig a little bit deeper in that given all the movement and volatility that’s going on out there in the market. We\’re starting to see some dramatic movement. It\’s all over the commercials, that six stomachs feeling with all this movement in the market and I know people\’s Agita levels are being reached because of all these calls that we\’re starting to receive. Something that we say in the office quite a bit is let\’s talk about a game and let\’s say you\’ve won that game. You could retire and quit playing the game because you\’ve already won it or you can continue playing that game where you can still win. What comes back into the equation is the chance that you could lose.

We\’re talking about one of the seven sins here. We\’re trying to get it out of the vocabulary. It’s something we sit down with our clients and we\’re passionate about. That\’s where this Riskalyze tool comes in. It\’s trying to get rid of greed. Many times, especially in 2016 and 2017, two incredible back-to-back years and people were getting on the sideline getting a little bit more conservative and all of a sudden, my money\’s not growing as much as what the stock market\’s doing each and every day.

[bctt tweet=\”You have the ability to share your feelings and intimate concerns.\” username=\”\”]

That\’s how important Riskalyze is for us now because a lot of our clients aren\’t calling us because we measured that Agita level right. We had that right balance of mix of building stocks, bonds, ETFs, writs, annuities, just putting a combination of having a blended strategy together. That\’s what Riskalyze does. We send you a questionnaire and you answer a couple quick questions and then we get your statements and we enter your holdings. We don\’t need account numbers, we don\’t need Social Security numbers, we just need to measure what\’s your Agita level is. We take all your different holdings.

Then the biggest thing that we look for out there is that divergence. There are so many times that people are conservative. They might have a score. Riskalyze tells us our risk level in numbers against algorithm based somewhere between one and 100. One, I want to have that money in the mattress. I think the market\’s going grow forever. This past couple of weeks put us back in reality but a lot of times we see people in that mix. Typically, we see people entering retirement a couple of years before somewhere into the high twenties to the mid-40s but yet we see portfolios out there that measure in the 60s and 70s.

It\’s times like these that we have to make that common all-time risk for people who don\’t have what you have. If we can simply not lose, we\’ve won the game. We\’re creatures of habit. If I\’ve worked for the past 10, 20, 30, maybe 40 years where I\’ve just had my blinders on, I put my money away into my 401(k), my IRA and that money just grows. I\’ve never had to touch it because I\’ve had that paycheck. I need to rely on figuring out where that paycheck\’s coming from and that\’s that bucket of money.

It\’s really starting to change our mindset and that\’s what Riskalyze helps us to find. One of the important steps that we go through in Riskalyze is the stress test analysis. We\’re saying, “Let\’s go back and look at the best bull markets that are out there and let\’s go out there and look at some of the bear markets that we\’ve experienced.” Going back to 2008, 2009 and then 2001, 2002 and everybody remembers 1987, nine and a half years. The largest bull market in the United States’ history is starting to maybe end that nine-and-a-half-year run.

We\’re watching things pretty carefully. We\’re talking about words like the VIX, we\’ll jump into that in a moment. Thinking about it, starting to change that mindset, I\’ve already won the game or if I simply don\’t lose. Don\’t put the money in the mattress but sitting down and figuring out the diversification that’s appropriate for me especially as I\’m entering into this next phase of my life where that paycheck\’s going to stop. Now I\’m relying on social security, maybe a pension, but understanding the importance of that IRA bucket.

That\’s where the advocacy part of the equation comes in. Bret, it\’s the advocacy part of the equation that for me hits home. That\’s what makes sense and when you\’re working with somebody who is in your foxhole and who is an advocate for what the next vision is going to be or not, that\’s important.

 

David, Karen and I, we sit there and it\’s what we pride ourselves on and believe if you do good by people, people do good by you. We have people coming on board with us and we\’re going too deep into the solutions on exactly what we\’re going to go into, but they understand the process and the knowledge because we put things into layman\’s terms. Having that teacher\’s heart, education and advocacy against sitting down kneecap-to-kneecap and saying, “If this happens, this is a big deal, but we can fill that hole if we just simply go from here to here,” and people understand.

People have that plan for investment but so many times we talked about you got to have a plan not only in investments and everybody normally has that plan, but it has work in harmony with that plan for income distribution. It\’s got to work well with that tax efficiencies, we talk about that all the time. Healthcare, that\’s a big deal not only for every day-to-day living but what happens if one of us gets sick and need some healthcare or long-term care and needs later down the road. Then how does it factor in with legacy? That\’s what we do is we sit down with people that want to come in and continue that education, whether they hear about it here on the radio, whether they come to our workshops and I said, “I don\’t have all these answers.”

I may have this investment plan but I need to find out how all these different puzzle pieces are going to fit together. We\’re independent registered investment advisors specializing in financial and retirement planning design just for you. We meet with a lot of people who have that plan in investments. If you\’ve never sat down with anyone that has shown you the importance of having all those plans, there are five plans not only the investments but taxes, retirement, distribution, legacy and healthcare. The importance of making sure that all those plans work in harmony, it\’s time to give us a call here at Thrive.

I do remember one of the very first shows that we did. I vividly remember David stating emphatically, “If you meet with me and at the end of our conversation, that\’s it. That\’s okay.” I think that in itself speaks volumes.

When we sit down with people and people see that we go through that process. It\’s like, no one\’s helped me with this before. We\’re not always a perfect fit for everybody and the feeling could go both ways. We do meet a lot of people through this process that we love and educated in it. It\’s all about communication. Communication is the biggest word that we throw out there back and forth with our clients where it\’s your job to simply tell us, “I need money,” and it\’s our job to tell you where you\’re going to go get it. It\’s all about keeping that open communication, education, advocacy because our clients get educated and they understand. If I take the money out of the wrong bucket, I just messed up my taxes, where if I don\’t have $3 million and I\’m retiring on and I want every single dollar to be spent efficiently as possible, that\’s what it\’s all about.

[bctt tweet=\”Education is power.\” username=\”\”]

Bob Hansen is joining me in the studio for our final segment.

I hope I brought the Riskalyze and the market reports as good as David does. It\’s hard to fill in for his shoes. He does it well. I’m normally that Social Security tax guy.

That’s tough to do. David delivers the goods on that. I\’ve got to tell you that. Everybody has their own lane and that\’s David\’s lane.

That’s David’s lane for sure but there’s volatility in the market so we have to definitely talk about it.

We bring Bob Hansen back into the conversation here to join us. We promote it when you were on in our B-block, our second segment. We throw the question out there, $7 trillion, how much is mine? Your workshop is going to be an intimate affair. It\’s going to be up close and personal. It\’s going to be you on with a group of people all sharing the same goal set in a setting that\’s going to allow people to feel very comfortable in terms of asking questions.

I find that drawing analogies help people understand things a little bit better. I might overdo it somewhat. Just an idea about what we\’re going to be covering in the workshop, I\’m going to draw an analogy for a second. My son plays baseball and this past offseason, he\’s been working on his swing. When you look at a baseball player\’s swing and when he\’s up to the bat, it\’s a fluid single motion where he\’s trying to put the best part of the bat on the ball and hit it to the place that they want to hit it.

That\’s not just one movement. It\’s broken down into parts and those parts are broken down so that you can understand each piece of it. If there\’s a breakdown along the way, you can understand what part is broken down so you can work on it. You take the one single thing and you break it down into parts. That\’s what we\’re going to do on our workshop. We\’re going to take this program and we\’re going to break it down. We\’re going to look at first some of the myths and the things that people don\’t understand about it.

There are actually five of them that we\’re going to cover. We\’re going to talk about things that are misconceptions and then we\’re going to talk about the realities. Misconception versus the reality so that people can understand it better. Once they understand it, then we\’re going to go really deep into the program so that they can have a full understanding about what it is we\’re trying to do and how we\’re going to tap into that $7 trillion and find out how much is theirs.

Then we\’re going to talk about some real pros and cons of the program and try to figure out if it\’s for you or not. It might be, it might not be, and then at the end what we\’re going to do is we\’re going to take some actual instances of the people sitting there in the room and we\’re going to use their numbers and figure out exactly how much of that $7 trillion is theirs in their specific situation.

[bctt tweet=\”Fear of the unknown is what everybody’s most afraid of, unless you get yourself educated.\” username=\”\”]

Bret, you always talk about buckets. I personally love buckets. I know you do because you referenced them often buckets. In this particular case, buckets of money, buckets of education, buckets of topic, all those different things when they\’re categorized and assembled in buckets, you can understand how to react and how to put a game plan in place.

We\’re going to talk about that 401(k) bucket, but talking about the market wrapping up again. A big inflation number is being announced again. We believe that\’s probably the key to what\’s going to happen next. Every time we\’ve seen the market hit four-year highs on the bond market, which is around 2.85%, we\’ve seen investors panic. We\’re watching that relationship every time the interest rates are going up. Now, with some of the slide, what looked like three increases coming into 2018 might be down to two. It was pretty easy to make profits when rates were at all-time lows. We\’re watching as rates are starting to continue in moving up. Are we going to need to continue to increase rates to chase inflation or is inflation going to be held in check?

It’s a big deal. It\’s a big number that we\’re watching here. Question for the week, I had a great one. We meet a lot of people that have 401(k)s and have company stock inside that 401(k). This is not for everybody, but we go through taxes so much. A great way to talk about the market and taxation at the same time is that when you have an opportunity, when you are at retirement, typically if I have a 401(k), I roll it over into my IRA, which is typically what happens. In certain circumstances, and this was part of going through that second review, making sure all five of my plans are working in harmony and understanding that tax clarity report that we talk about quite a bit. There\’s the possibility where I\’m going to take what\’s in my 401k not in company stock and I have to roll that into an IRA.

 

There\’s an opportunity with company stock, you can actually take that distribution and not roll it into an IRA. When you have money that comes out of an IRA, it\’s taxed as ordinary income. If we have money that comes out in the company stock, we actually have the capacity to pay long-term capital gains. During our workshops, we talk about the differences in our different buckets and how that money\’s being taxed but that can become a big deal. A lot of times when we sit down and going through that tax clarity report and understand why a long-term capital gain may benefit me a lot more than having money come out tax-free for my IRA.

If that is you, if you have a big position of company stock in your 401k, you do not necessarily want to roll that into an IRA. You might want to keep and move that money a little bit differently, dramatic savings and taxes that can be accomplished, making sure that everything works as efficient as possible. We\’re independent registered investment advisors. If you have that investment management plan, we\’re talking about tax clarity now.

On behalf of David and Karen Bezare, Bret Elam and of course, Bob Hansen, one of our special partners, we thank everybody for tuning in.

Important Links:

• BeatCancer.org
• Roadmap to Retirement: Navigating Your Way to Peace of Mind
• Bob Hansen
• Martin Law Firm
• Del-Val Insurance
• Rever Mortgage
• Riskalyze

About Bob Hansen

My Name is Bob Hansen. For over 30 years I have been working in the world of Real Estate Finance. I have always worked to promote and educate current and prospective Homeowners about the lesser known yet extremely powerful Programs available to them.

About 5 years ago, I decided to devote my time exclusively to educating homeowners and prospective homeowners about the many advantages of the very misunderstood Reverse Mortgage. I truly feel it is one of the Best programs available today to any homeowner age 62 or older.

My business and purpose are clear and simple.  I am on a mission to provide anyone interested in learning about Reverse mortgages the opportunity to learn in a comfortable and stress-free manner from a person that puts learning and Education First.

I do not SELL mortgages, I am not a Salesperson. I will not tell you what to do.

Instead, I will help guide and assist you in your pursuit of knowledge and information. I am an Educator First!

I will personally meet with you. Together, we will work to obtain a clear understanding about the many benefits of the Reverse Mortgage program. I will help you understand the Pros and Cons of the program.

Once you have obtained a clear understanding about the program. I will then ask you to make the decision as to whether you feel a Reverse Mortgage is the right choice for you.