September 2023
Chris and Mike also discuss the Investor Symposium and the topics they are excited to listen to, like Battle of the Spouses, Current Me vs. Future Me, and Possibilities & Pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence. Furthermore, Chris will be talking with private lenders like Keystone and Whitehawk to give clients insights into their strategies.
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Watch previous episodes of THE FINANCIAL COMMUTE here:
Ep. 52 From Mortgages to Market Trends: A Deep Dive Into Real Estate
Ep. 51 Investing with Patience: Real Estate in a Changing Market
Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us for another episode of THE FINANCIAL COMMUTE. It's not just any episode, it's actually the one year anniversary. So I brought Mike Rudow, Wealth Advisor here at Morton Wealth, back in. You are our first guest to celebrate one year.
Yeah, it's super exciting. And congratulations. One year of a successful podcast with attentive listeners. An incredible run. I'm just speaking for myself. I've had a lot of fun watching both the podcast develop because it's been a big difference from our first episode when we sat down and this was new to you and I, especially new to me.
And then just watching you develop and grow as you've done these podcasts before. So it's a journey so far.
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Mike. As I reflect back, I mean, the real purpose of this was to help give our clients and our team members, you know, a faster response or reaction to kind of what's going on in the world or how maybe how it affects clients. You know, what's going on has affect you. What can you do about it?
Often times when there's a banking crisis, you know, people get worried as they should. And I think as a company, we need to share our response or our reaction to things like that. So it's been a great platform to be able to do that.
Yeah, absolutely. I think we do a really good job as a company of communicating with our clients, you know, what's going on in the economy, whether it's quarterly newsletters or pushing out video content of advisors, but it's still sometimes outdated by the time our clients get it. So doing something weekly and exposing our clients to, you know, answers to the headlines in the media and hopefully, you know, providing them with some peace of mind with the content I'm creating.
I think you've done a great job with that.
Well, I appreciate that. And, you know, I was just on a call before this podcast with them. One of the managers from Keystone, Keystone's one of the private investments that we have that does equipment lease financing and a couple other different types of lending strategies. And it was fascinating to hear from them about this new environment with higher rates.
Some of the things that they're doing differently on the traditional types of loans that they've done, but also a whole new vertical, whole new subset of lending that has become popular for them today that did not exist in the last seven years for them. So, you know, without us being able to have conversations with those managers and then a platform like this to be able to share information like that, it would be very difficult for clients to dig through all of the details on those quarterly letters and get update.
Yeah, absolutely. It's a lot of information and it might not feel like it to us because we're in it day to day. We need to remember, you know, our clients and even other employees in our firm don't have the same exposure to the content that we do. And don't have the time to put into it that, you know, we get to read and do the analysis on these investments and what's going on in the financial world.
So one of the one of the biggest surprises from my standpoint from doing this for the last year is the number of clients or people that have reached out to other advisors and said, hey, you know, I got your perspective, you know, on that because I watch the podcast or this is really helpful, or if it doesn't pertain to me, I don't watch that one, but I do go and read all the synopsis is it seems like we have, you know, a large number of our clients and prospects and centers of influencers that we network with.
It seems like it's been a good platform for them to get.
Yeah, I am not to say I was surprised, but I was surprised that when I was a guest for the couple of times that I had been, I've gotten tremendous feedback from clients and coaches where they said, Hey, I watched the podcast on China or and I thought that was really good information. And it's actually given me, you know, an easier line of communication to continue to drive those relationships.
And I think people are longing for decoded information. Right. I think there's so much out there that you could read and buy into headlines and get emotional, which then could turn or lead to emotional decisions. Right. Which is what we're trying to prevent. Right. We want to have the right strategy, the right mindset, and then therefore, the better investor.
And if your mind sets off, because you're so emotional with everything that's going on in the headlines, it's really hard to stick to a strategy. So I think that we're doing a great job. And I think one of the things that we have coming up, which is going to be incredible for people to also get information, is our investor symposium.
Yeah, October 12th, Westlake Village in. We're going to have our investor symposium. It's going to be a really awesome day. We're going to have, you know, appetizers, food, drinks and a full day of events, almost two rooms broken out. One that's more investment topic related, and the other room is going to be more financial planning topics. And so 20-30 minute sessions.
So 20 minute conversations broke out every 30 minutes. And in both of those rooms, a lot of different topics being covered. You're doing a topic on...
A couple of topics I'm doing one on AI and one on business tax strategy and also the business tax strategy, not to discount tax strategies for non business owners. There's just not a lot you can do, right? With non business owners. You can, you know, contribute as much as the maximum to your retirement plans. You could maybe.
Have health savings account.
Are some things that you can do but as far as detailed strategy there's a lot more that a business owner can do to really reduce that tax bill. And we want to go over some of those strategies, whether it's small business, soccer or, you know, other avenues that they can take.
R&D tax credits.
There's a ton. And so we want to kind of decode that for any business owners that are there any clients that are there that are curious and then with the artificial intelligence, it's just been a a huge thing in the media, right? We see the the dispersion in the market with all of the the companies that can utilize AI having huge gains this year and then other sectors like utilities and energy and materials all being flat to down.
Yeah, right. And it leaves a lot of questions for people where what is the next 6 to 12 months look like. Right. And I think being able to not only identify, you know, how we're going to utilize AI and what the pitfalls of AI could be, but also just provide some some clarity and hopefully still be some guide for people who are worried about, you know, the implementation of AI and maybe jobs being lost because of it and what happens.
So I'm excited about, I think in a number of ways it can help our our job become a little bit easier in terms of, you know, research and looking over things and maybe even just getting sort of a gut check. I've heard some people use it to, you know, create songs or jokes.
Poems, which I haven't done.
But once the technology kind of gets up to speed and you're able to run analysis based off of current laws and rules, that stuff like pre 2020, I think it can be very valuable in the world of investing and financial decision making. It's just not that clear and we don't do a good enough job as a society of educating people on what is money, how to best leverage it, having conversations around.
In fact, you know, the budget conversation is typically a conversation that would lead to arguments or divorce potentially. Right. And so with the rise of AI, it could help all of us communicate a little bit better.
Absolutely. And I think when you when you look at it from that standpoint, it can it can create custom learning paths in any environment, whether it's education, whether it's health care. You can, you know, take a kid who's struggling in math and have them answer a set of equations, and I can identify where their strengths and weaknesses are, develop a customize plan for that child moving forward and be able to track it and continue to customize it so that it's not on the teacher to have customized plans for every, you know, student in there.
This is just not scalable, which.
Right, right. It's not. Absolutely. But the teacher still important because the teacher needs to be able to corral that share and be able to make sure that every student has access to that. And then those who have questions, that doesn't take away the importance and the teacher just makes the teachers time better utilized. Yeah, right. And it's the same, you know, for financial services.
Right?
Without a doubt. I know some of the other sessions that are going on, Stacy and Priscilla are doing one on Current Me vs. Future Me. Yeah, right. I mean, how do we help a whole generation of people make the right decisions that they need to make today for their future, but also be able to enjoy life a little bit.
Yeah, And there's I mean, when you look down the list of of the topics that we have and I've been asked this question multiple times, like what are you most excited about? I'm like, I'm excited about all of it. Like, every single one of those sessions will have a takeaway that will get people, first of all, thinking about something that they weren't thinking about when they walked into it, but also hopefully give them some sort of peace of mind and some respect and some avenue of their financial world.
So we'll look from an investment standpoint. I'm not sure that there's very many companies that go that approach investing the way that we do to actively go outside of traditional stocks and bonds to find ways for people to invest that build in more consistent returns, better protections in terms of risk, and really help diversify our portfolio because for the longest time people would say, Oh, you just have some stocks and bonds, you're properly diversified.
You know, we felt like since the financial crisis, the correlation between stocks and bonds just gotten closer and closer. It's very hard to be properly diversified by just owning those two assets. And so just the extent to which we go about trying to find investments to help diversify, generate cash flow and manage risk a little bit better is unprecedented.
And then you look at the list of the lineup we're going to have you know, Whitehawk and Keystone in some of our private lenders come in. We're going to talk about AI, budgeting, the battle of the spouses fight. Right.
So this year that's I'm super excited about that. Not just I mean look at every single one of these topics plays a role in the households of our school. Right. And I think even with the one that you just mentioned, like having a clear line of communication with your spouse or partner about how you should be saving, how you should be spending, what the future goals are, what the current goals are.
A lot of those topics are hard to talk about and they create stress in relationships. Right. And so just even being able to provide a platform where people can see different ways they can communicate and that might just lead to the conversation at home. Hey, honey, we've been stressed about, you know, these things. Why don't we try this?
Why don't we try a different way of communicating? We set some symbols. I mean, if it makes an impact on one client that comes in, like, that's awesome. And I don't think there's a lot of other firms that are looking to accomplish that, you know, not firms like ours.
So it's challenging. I mean, you've got to help provide the platform than the education and then have the conversation. And, you know, that's part of what we're doing here today with the Investor symposium on October 12th. There's a lot going on in the investment world today with, you know, stocks up about 18% for the year.
Bonds, you know, struggling a little bit with rising interest rates. There's all this news about a potential recession coming up. And, you know, real estate is going to crash because office is dead. There are so many concerns and headlines. I think we've had, you know, four or five crises just this year alone with the bank crisis and the government shutdown and the debt ceiling debacle or the downgrade of the U.S. credit.
Long story short, October 12th, you're going to be able to hear directly from the managers that help oversee the investments of your strategy to help find out what they're doing in this environment, How they're protecting you and what they're going to do going forward. But beyond that, there's a number of financial planning topics that.
Are going to be able to help to. And I'm super excited, too, to watch the ones that you're leading.
Yeah, I've got Whitehawk and Keystone, both managers really like somewhat of a rocky environment to be able to invest. I mean, look, recessions are bad for people. Nobody's rooting for a recession. But both of those strategies tend to do pretty well in sort of a rocky environment. They're not really needed when the sun is out and the roses are blooming because, you know, access to money is easy and everything feels good.
So both of those managers are.
Going to do a good job. Well, luckily, we're not going to be in an environment like that for a while, so.
Well, Mike, thanks so much for joining us today. As we reflect back on a year and as we look going forward, this content is for our clients. And so if they've got ideas, please reach out to your Morton Wealth advisor. Give some ideas to them for some episodes that you'd like to have. And, you know, thank you for your trust and we look forward to you joining us on October 12th.
Yeah, and you know, in a year from now, we're sitting down and doing the third year anniversary and we're a little bit fatter. I think it'll be fun to look back on what year two brought, but thanks for this. Thanks, Mike.
Disclosure: Information presented herein is for discussion and illustrative purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the speakers are as of the date of the recording and are subject to change. These views are not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, and should not be relied on as financial, tax or legal advice. You should consult with your financial, legal, and tax professionals before implementing any transactions and/or strategies concerning your finances.
