Excel in Retirement

Is the Stock Market Too Smooth? Ep. 120

David C. Treece Episode 120

Connect with David at hello@clientsexcel.com or call 864.641.7955.

Marty and Jess Ansen loved going on cruises so much they opted to cruise indefinitely. I came across an article that said, A retired couple have been living on back-to-back cruises for two years, and claim it's 'cheaper' than if they stayed in a nursing home in their retirement years. Hopefully you’re not feeling our inflation problem quite that much. 

I don’t know about you, but that would be too long a boat for me. Although, I’ve never gone a cruise. Do you think you could live on a cruise ship? I guess it would depend on how smooth or choppy the water was.

From the Wall Street Journal, “Markets are unusually calm—and that’s making Wall Street nervous. Stocks have been on a steady climb, with the S&P 500 up 14% nearly halfway through 2024 and closing at 29 records along the way.” The S&P 500 continues to climb up, and as of this past Monday it’s up 15.22% for the year.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome back to the Excel in Retirement podcast, where we help good people make wise financial decisions so that they may excel in retirement with confidence. Learn more at clientsexcel.com. Now to your host, David Treese.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back to episode 120 of the Excel in Retirement show. I am so excited It is hot and muggy here in Spartanburg, South Carolina, but that didn't stop me from getting outside this weekend. Went on a couple mountain bike rides over at Croft State Park. It's a huge state park here in South Carolina. They used to be a military training ground years ago, and they have miles and miles of trails, and so it was pretty muggy out there, but had a great 70-minute ride on Sunday afternoon, about two hours on Saturday, and so It is always good getting outside. I love getting outside. It is good for the soul. So Marty and Jess Anson, this couple from Australia, they loved going on cruises so much that they opted to cruise indefinitely. And so I came across this article about these folks from Australia, and they have been living on back-to-back cruises for two years. And they say it's cheaper than if they stayed in a nursing home or in a retirement community. Hopefully, you're not feeling inflation quite that much because these folks were thinking that this was a cheaper route than staying in some kind of community home or nursing home or something like that. They love the convenience of having everything structured and so forth. I don't know about you, though, but being on a boat that long, I don't think that would be for me. Although I've never gone on a cruise. I don't know if I like cruises or not, I guess. I guess it would depend on how smooth or how choppy the water was, right? If it was choppy all the time and you had to walk around like you were an astronaut walking on the moon, I don't think that would be for me, right? Something else, though, is going remarkably smooth. The stock market. From the Wall Street Journal, it says, unusually calm and that's making wall street nervous stocks have been on a steady climb with the s&p 500 up 14 nearly halfway through 2024 and closing at 29 records along the way so that article was from last week and as of this week as of earlier this week on monday the s&p had uh I had climbed for the year up to 15.22. Actually, that was as of the close last Friday, and it is... the end of June right now. And so that's a pretty good return in about six months. Interest rates are elevated and the government states inflation is cooling. Company revenues are up. Publicly traded company revenues are up. But the interesting thing about it is technology giants like Apple and Nvidia are driving much of the growth of the S&P 500. And the government's leaving the door open for lowering interest rates later this year. But who Who knows if that'll happen? We are in for quite an interesting time over the next six to nine months with the upcoming election and figuring out how that plays out. That's going to certainly affect the economy, I believe, and it could be some interesting times as the summer goes on and into the fall. Well, a couple years ago, we had Amelia in swim lessons. And I'm not sure what went wrong with that scenario, but she did not like it. And Mallory, my wife, she's pretty doggone persistent. And she insisted on Amelia trying swim lessons again this year. She wants her to be ready for the beach in a couple weeks and to be comfortable around the water. And we are looking for a house now. We looked at a house with a pool recently. And I think that that is part of what prompted her to want to to get the girls swimming as if we were to find a house with a pool, wanting them to be proficient at swimming and so forth. Ansley, our two-year-old, she loves it so far. And Amelia seems to be making strides. She has a swim instructor and this girl is so patient with her and has been good for her. And she has this boy, boy board. I have a hard time saying that word. Boy board or kick board that Amelia thought was the coolest thing since sliced cheese. And she just had to have one. Well, Amazon fatefully delivered it on Saturday and she practically pleaded with us to go to the pool to try it. It's like she didn't believe it was going to float. And And when we told her we didn't have time to go to the pool on Saturday, she wanted to know if she could try it out in the bathtub. Well, we finally made it to the pool on Sunday afternoon. And guess who didn't want to get in the pool after we got there? It didn't matter if she could have sat on top of that board that wasn't going to sink. And if she wouldn't have got a drop of water on her, she wasn't having it. She wouldn't get anywhere near the water hardly. And Mallory and I just sat there and scratched our heads trying to figure out what her deal was. That didn't really go as planned. We thought that she was going to be all about getting in the water with this board that was going to help hold her up and help her float, but she didn't want to have anything to do with it when we actually got there. And that's what we have to look out for in retirement, right? When out of the blue something happens that nobody expected. When we're still working and we're not using our retirement savings, we have the benefit of time for market losses or unplanned expenses to work themselves out. But when a lifetime of saving concludes and it's time to reap the benefits of our prudent savings, things not going as planned, they can lead to ripple effects. And if we haven't made allowances for those likely ripples, it can be devastating to us. Let's face it, unexpected things come up more frequently than we would like, right? Will you agree to that? A couple of weeks ago Mallory got a nail in the inside wall of her tire and her car is all wheel drive. So that meant that if one tire is bad, they all have to be replaced. They can't be at different tread wears on the tires. They have to be equal for the car to work properly. And there went$1,000 with little notice. That's what it costs to replace all the tires. And this example might be minor.$1,000 isn't that much in the greater scheme of things. But unintended spending in retirement like that or more costly things may hurt us as we are watching our balances go down over time. What we can do when we're getting ready for retirement to try to lessen the impact of these unexpected things coming up is ensuring we have an emergency fund of at least six months of bill paying money. So figuring out what it takes to pay our bills every month and having at least six months. If you're an extra cautious person and you really like to pad the situation, maybe leaving a year's worth of bill paying money in an accessible bank account would be helpful. Then we want to earmark a percentage of our funds for short term income. And we normally do that for the next 10 years. And all of our other funds are there to be used for long term growth. And so we invest those for long term growth. The nuance to these three types of money is going to vary from person to person, but it can be important to have these three types of money. So our emergency money, our next 10 years money, and then our long term money after that. And We call this our three roles of money process, and we color code these types of money. And I will link in the show notes to an article I've written for Kiplinger where you can learn more about this. But I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out whenever you have an opportunity and let us know what's on your mind. I hope you have a great day and check out another episode next week.

SPEAKER_00:

Investment advisory services offered through Creative One Wealth, LLC. Clients Excel, LLC, and Creative One Wealth are not affiliated companies. Licensed insurance professionals. Investing involves risk, including potential loss of principal. Any references to protection or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investments. Insurance guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying abilities of the insuring carrier. We'll be right back. Thank you for watching. The information and opinions contained herein provided by third parties have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed by clients Excel. The use of logos and or trademarks of hosting sites are the property of their respective owners and are not an endorsement by those owners of our firm or our program.