Hello, and welcome to our Market Alert video for today, which is March 22, 2024. I’m glad you’re with me thank you for watching. I want to especially say hi to SCWPer Nation out there that are out there, I hope you are SCWPering your little tail off. And you know what if there are a bunch of little SCWPer tails everywhere you’re being a litter bug, that’s okay, we’ll clean up after you no problem, you go out and SCWPer your tail off unencumbered. And for those of you who are not SCWPerS yet our job is to get you there. We want you to retire and enjoy your second childhood without parental supervision. That’s our job. We want your money to last as long as you do. And so that’s what we look forward to doing for you. So I’ve entitled this particular video “The First Cut Is the Deepest.” And I’m talking with regard to Jerome Powell’s announcement this week, the Federal Reserve Chairman, about when they’re going to start cutting interest rates. But more importantly, I’m harkening back to Rod Stewart, and you may remember that song, the first cut is the deepest. Okay, so I’m not Rod Stewart, I admit that. But anyway, so what he said in this meeting, this conference, and the announcement is what he’s been saying for probably the next the last two or three meetings that they’ve had, which is that they’re going to most likely reduce cut interest rates in the second half of this year, maybe three times, which means three quarter of a percent cuts, three quarters of a percent all told, this is not new. He’s been saying that for a while now. So why did the market react the way it did went way up? Well, there was a significant change in what they said. They said that if employment starts to fall, if the likelihood starts to become we’re going to have a recession, they could lower interest rates sooner rather than later. This is new, because before, as you may recall, what they were saying was, we don’t care if we have a recession or bad unemployment, that’s not the important thing, the important thing is to get inflation down. So if we have unemployment and recession, so be it. Now their talk is not so be it, now we’ll do something about it. So guess what, the knight in shining armor is back, the Federal Reserve is going to protect us just like they have all these years, they’re going to protect the economy, the unemployment numbers, they’re going to protect our investments. And if that’s the case, then guess what we should invest. And in our view, that’s what happened. Now, we’ve been saying all for before this year, even now, our Fearless Forecast was that the Fed is going to be our friend this year. And that is even more our friend than it was before. And that interest rates were going to come down in the second half of this year. So so far our Fearless Forecast seems to be coming to fruition. Now, as you guys know, we always believe that you should have a strategy to protect yourself from the unknown, the thing that comes out of nowhere, that drops the market like a stone like y2k and 2008. Those kinds of things happen, suddenly, very few people see them coming. And that’s why we think that yes, growth is important. But protecting principle is even more important. We want you to remain a SCWPer once you become one, we don’t want you to have to go back to work or have to cut back on the lifestyle that you want. We want to help protect against that to the extent that we can. So we think that our stock portfolio should do well has done so this year, so far very well. In fact, we also think that our bond portfolio in the second half of this year should do well also. So things are looking good, but we plan for the worst, we hope for the best. And we’re ready for what should come our way. Now. Please share this video with as many of your friends and family as you possibly can. We want to help as many people become SCWPerS as we can. That’s that’s our noble purpose as we see it. So thank you for giving us the privilege the honor to be your financial advisor to be your Retirement Planner. We could not be more grateful. So again, thanks for watching this video and we will talk soon.
Please note: transcript has been modified after the time of recording.
Economic indicators and stock market performance cannot be predicted. Opinions expressed regarding the economy and the stock market belong solely to Ken Moraif on behalf of Retirement Planners of America and may not accurately portray actual future performance of the economy or stock market outcomes. Opinions expressed in this video is intended to be for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used as investment advice for individuals who are not clients of Retirement Planners of America. All content provided is the opinion of Ken Moraif, CEO and Founder of RPOA Advisors, Inc. (d/b/a Retirement Planners of America ) (“Retirement Planners of America”, “RPOA”). ©Copyright 2023