Ep. 124: Big Tax Wins, Newborn Accounts, and Why the Market’s Hitting Highs
The X's and O's
Want to see the video episode? Watch us at https://youtu.be/1w4q4YOrrU4.
In this episode of the Retirement Plan Playbook, Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk break down the biggest tax updates from the newly passed legislation—including enhanced deductions, a new investment account for newborns, and how these changes impact retirees, business owners, and investors.
Plus, the team discusses how the market rebounded to all-time highs, what AI is fueling next, and why financial planning is more essential than ever.
Here’s what we cover:
The SALT deduction cap is back (and higher!)—who benefits and who gets phased out
A new $12,000 deduction for retirees—what to know before you file
Estate tax exemption locked in at $15M per person—what it means for families
Newborn "Trump Accounts"—seed money from the government, tax-deferred growth, and major flexibility
Why the market is at all-time highs despite volatility, tariffs, and war chatter
Should you rebalance now or keep buying into strength?
Plus: Travel tips, TSA pre-check wins, and a debate over Real IDs you didn’t know you needed.
Plus, the guys talk about family travel tips, educational vacations, and the value of showing kids real history vs. just poolside relaxation.
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Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse any typos or transcription errors.
Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook hosted by Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth. This podcast dives deep into investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events, equipping you with the insights needed to craft a robust retirement playbook adaptable to any political or economic climate.
Join Brent, Matthew, and Joshua as they guide you through the complexities of retirement planning. Offering expert advice. to tackle challenges and the later stages of your journey. It's time to build your optimal retirement playbook. Now let's dive into today's episode.
Brent: welcome into the Retirement Plan Playbook. I'm your host Brent Pasqua. I'm advisor at Evermont Wealth. I'm here with our certified financial planners, Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk. Guys, how you doing?
Matthew: Hello. Hello. I'm happy we're trying to video again. We haven't done a Zoom podcast like this in a long time. I think the last time we
Brent: did this, what was COVID? Yeah,
Joshua: it's been a while.
Brent: Yeah. And I thought they worked out pretty good during COVID. It is just maybe our audio wasn't as good at that time.
Matthew: Yeah.
Our audio wasn't as great, but we have these better mics now and we're editing technology's gone. I don't think there'll be much of a difference in sound quality, but fingers crossed.
Brent: So people will be able to watch this episode, is that correct? I'm hoping they will be yes. On YouTube. Okay. Well, let's jump into it.
We wanted to come on here to talk about and break down the most impactful tax. Planning provisions that came from the one big beautiful bill act that was signed in on July 4th, and we wanted to kind of go through what those major tax updates are and how they're affecting families, how they're infecting retirees and business owners and investors.
I think there's some real critical points here that we want to go through. Do you know how many pages that thing was?
Matthew: I don't, but I know that it was big and beautiful. That's what I was told.
Brent: Yep, that's a mouthful. It's not just, I think the political side of it. This bill has real financial planning implications and I think that's where we really want to inform people is like, Hey, where are some things that you can do to take advantage of some of these updates and, and law changes?
And what can you do to be prepared? Because some of this is significant, and I think the first one that is the most significant is the salt cap increase. And do one of you guys wanna kind of break us down what that is?
Matthew: Do you want me to do it, Josh?
Joshua: Yeah, sure. Whatever you'd like. I mean, it is pretty simple here, right?
Matthew: Yeah. So the SALT is the state and local tax deduction for pretty much blue states, right? The main states in impacts is California and New York, and under the. Original Trump tax cuts from 2017. The tax deduction was pretty much removed.
But now for 2025, they've added it back and raised the cap up to 20,000 and 40,000 20,000 for single, for single 40,000
Joshua: for married filing jointly. Yeah.
Matthew: How'd I do, Josh? Anything I missed?
Joshua: No, I think the first thing is, is. You know, when the limit to 10,000 was actually implemented originally for people that live in California specifically where we have like high state tax and high property taxes, it, it really kind of hurt those people.
So I think that people in those states that high have those high taxes. This is a pretty significant change. Would you agree?
Matthew: I, I think so. I'm curious to see how it's gonna impact my own tax situation because when the original bill went into effect, it truly didn't have much of an impact on me just because where I was in my life, like I didn't own a home yet.
I wasn't paying a significant amount of state taxes yet. But now since, you know, it's been almost 10 years since that point, incomes have grown. I own a home now, so I'm curious to see if it's gonna help me. I think one other
Joshua: thing to be mindful of is it, it does revert back in the bill back to 10,000 in 2030, so this isn't permanent.
Brent: Right. And what this allows people to do is write off what you pay in state income taxes, property tax, and sales tax. Right. So this could be significant, especially if you're closer to that cap.
Joshua: Yeah. Which, you know. Just even thinking, like Matt said, thinking about my own property taxes, just with property taxes, it was over the previous limit, right?
So this is going to be, you know, unless we'll talk about it right now, but unless your income's over a certain level, 'cause there is phase outs here, it is going to be a benefit for a lot of Americans, especially in those high tax states.
Brent: Yeah. So go ahead. Go ahead.
Matthew: I was gonna say with them reverting to like getting rid of it Josh in 2029, and then going back to 10 K in 20 20, 20 30.
What that screams to me is hey, you better vote Republican so you could keep this benefit in 20 29, 20 30. Kind of like just what happened with the, the current tax law.
Joshua: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's important to know, I mean, this is great for clients making under 500 K of a GI. Because there is a phase out starting at 500, 500,000 to where this benefit isn't as impactful for you.
Brent: Right, which means that if you make over $500,000, you have to be very careful that you could be then phased out to not be able to get these deductions. And I think one thing that people probably from, like a planning perspective want to be very mindful of is if you're, you know, thinking about doing a Roth conversion or you're thinking about, you know, something with your RSUs, like your employee stock options or certain timings with bonuses.
You probably need to be careful to try to either push that or potentially do it in that year if you know you're gonna get phased out in the following year. I mean, there's just a lot of things for high income clients or anybo, you know, in a lot of situations, essentially for anybody that you could probably be careful of from a planning perspective.
'cause you could get phased out and lose this deduction. I mean, this is a significant deduction that could help your return. So you don't wanna make too much money, is what you're saying. You wanna plan out, I think how much money you're making, if you can at all in manage it. You know, I wouldn't go do if you make 450,000, a hundred thousand dollars Roth conversion, right?
'cause now that's going to put you over that phase out. I wouldn't go cash in a bunch of employee stocks if you're close to those thresholds. So there are things I think that can be planned around with this.
Joshua: Yeah, and I think even for like dual income households, right? You have one person making close to the threshold, might be thinking about going back to work or taking a big promotion.
And I think it just, you know, really you wanna know, right? So you need to ask more questions than just saying, I'm gonna make more income. Is this going to. Actually be worth it for me. What is those tax implications? So you're not walking into this new situation blindly and then being completely surprised that you made more income, but because of the deduction phased out, you are going to effectively pay a lot more tax.
Brent: I ask you, let me ask you this though. Could this make home ownership more attractive for high property tax areas?
Joshua: Hmm. There's a lot of variables to that question to just say blindly, like I, I think yes, it, it would be a positive for those people that do qualify for the, the cap increase and, and the deduction. But then also at the same time, you know, is it really going to make or break the decision of moving to this, you know, high tax, high property tax, state tax state.
I'm not sure.
Matthew: Well, from California standpoint. Most people are probably paying property taxes to get up and near the cap anyways on you. You know, what would essentially be a starter home to a normal family home. Very true. So, you know, buying a bigger home, let's call it, you know, in that three to $5 million range, I don't think this bill is really concerned with that person at all.
Yeah.
Joshua: So what it could do if you're running an analysis though, in my mind is like it, it could make. Looking at somewhat maybe of a a bigger home or a home that might have an increased property tax rate, an option affordability wise, with that offset compared to the year before.
Brent: And I will reiterate what Josh said, that this is a massive win for people who live in New York and California.
Joshua: It is. Mm-hmm. I agree. A hundred percent agree. And I think also, you know, one thing I will say with people who are earning more and getting closer to the phase out is it becomes more of a conversation around how I can defer more income through these years as well.
So it's like, you know, are you deferring the maximum you can, you know, are you asking your employers or other options to defer more income? While I do have this benefit but don't want to be phased out. So again, I think it just raises a lot more questions, especially as you're getting closer to that 500 K income level.
Brent: I agree. A, a win, a win for a tax change, I'll tell you that. Absolutely. All right. Let's get into the one that I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast want to know about, and that's a new additional standard deduction for taxpayers age 65 and over. And this is what they've called in their sort of like the senior citizen discount.
Where now you can have a deduction to write off some of your Social security taxes. And a lot of people thought now their social security's gonna be tax free, as we talked about on the previous podcast. That's not necessarily true, but maybe you guys can get into a little bit about what this actually means.
Matthew: So funny about that. I had a listener reach out to me and say, Hey Matthew, you said on the podcast that it was a tax credit, but I got an email from the Social Security Administration saying that my social security's now tax free. Did you two know that after the bill was passed, social Security sent out an email to all participants saying that Social Security is now tax free?
Brent: No. Is that a, is that a scam?
Matthew: It's not a scam. Is it error? I don't, I don't know if it was like an error or if it was like lack of communication or not understanding the bill. Like, you know, like people weren't talking or something. But yeah, it's a, it's a deduction with the face out. So again, just, and is that, is
Brent: that just what they're like, I guess interpretation, the IRS interpretation of what it is because like, clearly a, a deduction is a lot different than income being tax free.
Matthew: No, it's, it's not from the IRS. The Social Security Administration sent it out
Joshua: and I thought that that was the whole reason why they structured it this way. It was 'cause it was too hard to restructure the IRS code. To actually making it tax free. So the kind of the compromise was offered, the deduction. I ha, I have though also experience over the last few weeks, a lot of our clients ask are telling me that Social security is now tax free.
Yeah, I'm getting, they have had, they have said that to me, not referencing that they got an email or, but just through whatever media or resources that they're listening to, reading or their neighbor don't know. It's not clear amongst all of them, but a lot of people saying that, oh, now my social security is tax free.
Which is, all right, well, let's kind of concerning.
Brent: Well, let's get to the facts though. So what changed? Tell, tell everyone the listeners what changed. What are the facts.
Matthew: , You get a deduction if you're 65 and plus and make under 150,000 if you're married or, and then under 75,000 if you're single.
Right. Is that, so basically, and it's a phase
Joshua: out, it's a phase out that ends at 1 75 and two 50. So the, the top of that phase out, you have to, if you make more than 250 K, then you would receive no deduction. Sorry, but go
Matthew: ahead. So it doesn't help high earnings at all. It doesn't help. High earning retirees.
No. Is what I'm seeing, correct. I'm looking at this data.
Brent: That's correct. And the standard deduction is what, $6,000 per taxpayer? Correct.
Joshua: Over 65.
Brent: Yeah.
Matthew: But I think it's an additional on, on top of the standard deduction, right?
Joshua: Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Matthew: So it's an additional six. So 12,000 per couple.
Brent: Yeah. I mean, that's extremely helpful.
Matthew: It is just, I, I feel like if we're looking at it from, like, how this benefits a lot of our clients, I mean, it depends on where their income's coming from and how much they're making. But you know, just with RMDs there's a potential that some of these, some of our clients and, you know, clients in general might get phased out here.
Yeah, and that's
Brent: what, that's what I wanted to talk about too, because now we could really start to coordinate retirement income streams to stay under that threshold. I mean, you could essentially delay some withdrawals. You could use Roth money, and more importantly, I would think that you're maybe using qualified charitable distributions to reduce taxable income to still meet the RMDs, but to standard the threshold.
Matthew: Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of playing strategies here. It's kind of like how, how you plan for Medicare now you gotta plan for the social security.
Joshua: And when does this expire?
Matthew: This isn't
Joshua: five
Matthew: to 2028, so yeah, that's good. That means vote Republican in 2029. Right guys? And that's what this is saying,
Joshua: that that's what that's saying. A hundred percent
Matthew: Democrats are gonna come tax your social security vote Republican. Yeah.
Joshua: All, all, all of all a part of the scheme, right?
The plan, yeah. To, to gain votes. But yeah, I think to piggyback on what you said, Brent, this is actually really creating. You know, a need to financially plan an income plan specifically if you are over 65 and want to qualify for this deduction, right? You have to be pretty specific on making sure that you are doing this.
'cause I know you guys said, you know, hire earners, it doesn't. Necessarily apply, but you know, are you creating that income? Is it permanent? Is it through a pension? Is it through distributions from your retirement plans? So. Is there a way to lower your income through these years? To take that maximum credit and in my opinion, from our clients, yes, there is strategies to do that, right?
Yeah. Like you said, with taking it from Roth brokerage, whatever it may be, to kind of lower that income that's being stated to, to make sure you're getting this full deduction. 'cause $12,000 deduction for married couples, a lot of money.
Absolutely. And could, and could this, with a combination of the salt increase and the senior deduction, could this help people make the decision of retiring?
Right, because it is creating, you know, it's closing the income gap if you are qualifying for a lot of these deductions, right? Right. You're not gonna pay as much tax. So does that get you closer to retirement if you haven't already in your over 65?
Brent: It's just keeping more money in your pocket now. Right.
Especially in California, you get, you take the salt and you take this one. I mean, these are two outstanding wins for somebody who's retired, living in California or living in New York.
Joshua: Yeah, living in high, high tax states. Absolutely. Yep.
Brent: All right, let's get on to the next one. Let's talk a little bit about the estate tax exemptions that were made.
Permanent, which I think is something that probably doesn't affect as many people, but it is something that is impactful and this is the amount that you can give away during your life or at death without paying federal, state or gift tax on. They've now made it permanent that, I think it's 13.61 or did they move that to 15 million?
15,000,015. Okay, so that's locked in. Now. Per, per person, $15 million can be passed on from your estate to let's call it you, you know, after death or during your life to your kids or family or whoever. And that's indexed for inflation. So that essentially means that. You can pass on more money to your kids or to your families without estate tax.
That is a significant change. I think when I started in the business of working with clients and doing financial planning, that was during the Bush administration. I believe you can go back and fact check that at certain points. It was like a million back then that you were able to pass on. And here we are, you know, two decades later and it's now 15 million that you could pass on.
Matthew: It's really 30 if it's husband and wife too, right? Correct. Yep. Because per person. Yep. So I, I think this is important for that number, that 30 million, 'cause one question we always get from a lot of our clients is you know, how much money am I allowed to give my children? And then we have to you know, explain how estate taxes work.
But with this nice round, $30 million number. Most people don't have net worth exceeding that, right? Like typically, like I think we see in, in the state of California, you know, the average person who who we're helping is somewhere between, let's call it 2 million up to 10 million, right? Mm-hmm.
Essentially, this means you could give away all of that wealth during your life or after your life tax free, and that's a big win.
Joshua: I looked it up 2007. The estate tax threshold was 2 million. It wasn't portable and the top estate tax rate was 45%. A lot different than what's going on today.
Brent: Brent, how long have you been in the industry, man?
Yeah, a long time. The question I always get that I think it pertains a lot to people that listen to this podcast is a lot of people will ask like, you know, if I inherit money from my mom or my dad or my parents' estate, how much taxes am I gonna pay?
This isn't talking probably really about that, unless there are estate over $30 million. When a parent passes away, if they have a retirement count, like an IRA, you have your own set of rules that when you inherit it, you'll pay taxes on that most likely. I mean, there's a lot of variables to that, but let's just say you'll pay taxes on it, but their house will have a step up in basis and you may not pay taxes on that.
Again, there's other stipulations and variables there It, this isn't talking about that. This is essentially talking about somebody whose net worth is over $30 million, and when you do, they do pass on. Anything above $30 million is going to be highly taxable, and so there are tools that high net worth people will utilize to try to reduce their estate.
Tax exemptions or what they're gonna have to their exclusion and what they're gonna have to pay in taxes. But this is really talking about making it so somebody that has more money, like 15 million per person can pass on more money without this massive tax bill that would hit. But you know, there's a lot of, you know, people that have over 30 million, there's a lot of people that are in the billion dollars.
This really probably doesn't help them all that much 'cause it's not really moving the needle for extremely high net worth people.
Joshua: No, it, it's not. But I think that, you know what I see too, and especially for the client base that you were talking about. It alleviates some of that worry. 'cause there is a lot of misinformation around taxes and estates, so it makes it kind of easier on the planning for those people to not be so worried about paying estate tax.
And with that simple explanation that you just gave, Brent, I think a lot of people can take a deep breath. Even if you thought you were getting close to that and say that, you know, I can gift I'm, I'm not gonna be worrying about that specific type of tax.
Brent: So anything else that we wanna talk about with the estate tax exemptions or we want to keep going? No, no, I think you covered it well, Brent. Okay. So let's talk about the new Trump accounts for newborns. Matt, why don't you get into that for us? I'm super
Matthew: excited to talk about this. So the new Trump accounts are every child born between 2025 and 2028 is gonna get a new account with a thousand dollars.
It's gonna, it's like a seed. Think of it. At birth kind of kind of similar to how, like we get a social security number, I believe how it, it's gonna work. They're gonna have a, a signed account with a thousand dollars. The government's gonna put it in there, and then the I believe the parents claim it and.
Then you can make annual contributions. The contribution limit is $5,000. You get some tax deferred growth. There are a few negatives though on that. It's tax deferred while I use it, but then when you pull it out, you're paying capital gains tax. And you could use it for college first home, or this is my favorite part of this account.
Or you could use it to start a business or purchase a business, which I think that's I love. That's really cool. Me too. Love that. So fun fact, after our last podcast, our last podcast did really, really well. I don't know if you guys know that, but I had a reporter reach out to us, and because both of you're outta the office, I did an interview with him about these Trump accounts.
He didn't wanna meet with me. You were outta the office dealing the first, so he, he asked for either one of us, and Brent was on an airplane, and you were unfortunately outta the office. So I, I did the interview and I, I thought it went pretty well.
Joshua: Good job. I saw that and I think we even posted about that.
So, great job. But yeah, I think it's gonna be a topic that a lot of people have already asked us about. I love more investment account options, whether that's for individuals or children especially. I think the big. The business, being able to use it to start a business is absolutely great. And I think it's kind of like that middle ground between a 5 29 and an utma, right?
It has some flexibility with some added features, but it's not specifically focused to education. And then it's not just a free for all where you can use it or for whatever you want. And the nice thousand dollars seed, like we've already talked about, is gonna be a nice kind of bonus for that. So I think this is something that parents, grandparents should be considering.
It is another kind of menu option for children, which I love.
Brent: So do you somebody who was born outside of 2025 or 2028, they can't go in set up one of these accounts right now, correct? No, they don't get it. So the window for opening or doing one of these accounts is just basically, you were born in 2025 and as of right now through 2028, but this isn't an account that just anybody can go and open for their grandchild or somebody that was born a couple years ago.
Matthew: That's correct. I, I think it'll get extended for that reason and hopefully built upon. I think there's some massive pros to these, and I think there's some massive cons to these. If I was to look at ultra high net worth individuals or kinda that high net worth mil American, let's say they have, like, they're not gonna outlive their retirement savings.
I do see these being used as pr pretty good wealth transfer vehicles in conjunction with the 529. I think there's some main benefits. And then I think a lot of families probably aren't gonna use 'em at all, and they're just gonna have that a thousand dollars stuck in there. One thing I was talking to the reporter about on the, on the call we did, and he said I'm the only person he interviewed that brought this up, is I said, we have to see what the investment mix looks like.
Of course. Like what are the fees gonna be on the index funds, et cetera. And like, how, how is this money ultimately gonna get invested? Is it gonna morph like a 401k? Or is it gonna be kinda like how five 20 nines are, where, you know, some of 'em have really, really high fee funds and they're not that good.
Joshua: Yeah. And who's the actual. What is gonna be the process for managing it custodian? Is it gonna be difficult? And why I'm concerned about that is because that can also deter people from taking something That's a good idea. And kind of also turning it into like, they're gonna look at it as a chore and just don't do it right.
And it's just gonna stay there for a thousand dollars forever and not gonna be used to its full capability.
Matthew: So when I really like this to start
Brent: opening these accounts
Matthew: when their child's born, it, I think it automatically happens. Yep. It's, it's not like something you're not gonna, you're not gonna contact me or you, or. Any advisor to open these accounts for you. It's not like a 5 29 or it's a, it's a government sponsored account.
Joshua: It's not like a state sponsored custodian. Yeah. So having
Brent: people put this money into it though, if they automatically to put the thousand dollars in, like how somebody add to it, they get like a signed in account number of some sort and then they're gonna be able to contribute to it.
Joshua: I think, like Matt said, like social security.
You're born, you get a social security number, you have an account. Yeah. Probably pretty similar. I think all of those details are yet to be, I haven't seen too much information on that part of it yet.
Matthew: Yeah. Truthfully, Brent, we don't know that part yet. I would imagine there's gonna be a lot of misinformation coming up on these accounts over the next six months.
I mean, we were just talking a few minutes ago about ago about the email social Security sent out about social security being tax free. So I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of miscommunication. Well, a lot of talk about private
Joshua: equity being, being available in 4 0 1 Ks. It's just gonna be private equity options in these MAGA accounts.
Matthew: Yeah, I, I, I saw that. Yeah. But o overall it's good. Hopefully, hopefully they continue the program.
Brent: Yeah. I think the one thing that I would say about that is the same thing that I said the last time we were on the show is. Just a great opportunity for people who. You know, would never be able to save a thousand dollars for their kid to be able to put that money away, or have that money be put away for them to give them some kind of headstart in the future where they can cash that out.
I mean, I think there's a lot of worse ways that the government spends money. And I think this does give some foundational pieces to them. And you already have an account opened up and maybe now when they get a birthday check for their kid, they're not just gonna go throw it in a savings account, maybe they'll throw it over to this account and it has some growth on it.
And you know there are gonna be people who take advantage of it this and benefit from it. And I think this will be really helpful for them.
Joshua: I agree. Well said.
Brent: Yeah, well said. Alright, let's talk about the market. 'cause the market is at all time highs and this was unthought of when we were sitting, you know, having this conversation back in early April and the market was just tanking.
And then here we are back to all time highs. The s and p and the Nasdaq hit new records in July and companies are having strong corporate earnings. We're seeing this kind of expansion in AI and in tech. And there's now this, you know, updates on the new tax policy, which has been extremely helpful, and the 10 year treasury yields stable at four point a quarter percent.
I mean, what's your guys' thought on all time highs and how should people be responding, whether it's in their portfolio, in their retirement accounts, or 4 0 1 Ks or IRAs? How should people be thinking about this?
Joshua: I think my first thoughts keep, just keep buying. I'll go, I'll go quick.
Matthew: Yeah, I agree with Josh.
I think what most people do is they see all time highs and they, and they say like, Hey, I wanna pull my money out and I'm gonna wait for the market to crash and I'm gonna get back in. That's just not a proven strategy at all. In fact, actually, you wanna buy Josh's a hundred percent correct. When the market's making new highs.
That's what the data says. Data says buy stocks when the market makes new all time highs. And so right now, this is a market that that is going higher until it proves it's not. So I, I mean, I'm, I'm excited. We talked about this back in, in February that we thought this is gonna be a pretty good market. We had the tariff hiccup in April, but yeah, all systems go right now.
Brent: We, we talk a lot about, with clients, about the timing to rebalance and at times when a client's portfolio gets too high in stocker bonds, we will trim some of the winners. The winners, and will buy underweight sectors. And do you think that this is a time to potentially rebalance or do you just kind of stay the course and not take any chips off the table at this point?
Matthew: I think it's client specific. It's the reason why you wanna hire an advisor. 'cause they'll walk you through your own portfolio and give you personalized set of recommendations. You know, in general it's just gonna matter, you know, how many stocks, how much stocks you have compared to like, what, what your plan says you need, right?
At the end of the day, that's what drives a rebalanced decision. So just making it more personalized for, for the client.
Joshua: I agree, and I think that's where an advisor helps on just the behavioral side, right? Do where do you feel comfortable? Because I also don't think, you know it should be the only thing you're thinking about or a decision to rebalance shouldn't be keeping you up at night.
But it also should be continuously discussed. 'cause today isn't the only day you should be asking yourself if you should be rebalancing. You should have been asking yourself that even a month ago or two months ago, or at the beginning of the year, right? Because we've been breaking new highs, you know, to start the year.
And then now again. So if you're not asking yourself that question all the time, you're not doing your portfolio good service. And you should be.
Brent: I, I feel like anytime we hit all time new highs, we get a lot of that sediment from people that they, they sit on either the sideline with cash or they, they want to prolong buying.
They don't wanna buy because the market has hit new highs. And then, you know, sometimes when the market's low, they, they're afraid to even get in then. But like you're saying, Matt, like right now could actually be a very good time to buy, even though the market has hit highs.
Matthew: Yeah, so we talk about AI a lot on the podcast, and one of the researchers at Goldman Sachs put a note out over the weekend and he was saying the next wave of this AI bull market hasn't even started, and it has really nothing to do with ai.
It has to do with companies coming out and saying that their profit margins have expanded because they implemented AI systems in their business. We've only been in the investment phase where what's been going up is like Nvidia and the, the companies that are helping to build lay the AI pipes, so to say, right?
The groundwork. We're not even in the phase yet of this AI bull market where companies come out and say, our business is so much better today because we implemented this AI software and our advertising revenue increased, or our profitability increased we sold more product, et cetera, et cetera.
Brent: Yeah. And I, I guess, you know, do you see that continuing on for the next several years?
Matthew: I, I don't think we've ever seen a technological innovation that hasn't led to a stock market bubble. Most people in technology say AI is gonna be greater than the internet. It's the most likely, the greatest technology that we've ever all ever seen in our life.
So I don't see how we don't end up in a massive stock, stock market bubble. And if that's the case, that means stocks have to go a lot higher from here, but that also means that they're probably gonna eventually fall pretty bad.
Joshua: Yeah. But you know, again, my first comment was just keep buying. You wanna buy the runup and you wanna buy the bubble if that were to burst, right?
So. You could potentially, and I know you said several years, but you know you have a continue, you break new all-time highs and you have a continuous runup over the next three years. You don't wanna miss the next three years. You don't wanna miss the next two years. You even put it even shorter timeframe.
You don't wanna miss the next year of return. So not getting into the, or allowing new all-time highs to. Kind of give you some paralysis from investing, in my opinion is probably of, of course, if you have affordability and the capability to do so. But I think also someone's best friend through this period is dollar cost averaging, which a lot of people are doing through their 4 0 1 Ks already.
So you are buying and you know, again, I wouldn't hold back though from continuing your dollar cost averaging strategy to alleviate some of that short-term potential risk just for the potential forecast of a bubble. Like Matt's saying, three or four or five or six years from now. Right, right. Makes
Brent: total sense.
Well, it's a good time to be invest in the market, I'll tell you that. And I think a lot of us would have taken where we're at right now in this result, anytime of day with where we were sitting in April, and that seemed unlikely that this was gonna happen. I mean, a lot, the discussion was that this could possibly last through 2025 and into 2026, and we weren't even talking about being at this point.
By, you know, July and here we are. So I'm glad we're having this conversation right now versus the conversation about us being down, you know, 10, 15% in the market. It was a very quick turnaround and it's very nice that we're at this pace right now versus, you know, being at the other one that we were at.
Matthew: I agree, Brent, fastest turnaround ever. If you know what it feels a lot like to me. This market reminds me so much of that 2020 market.
Brent: Yeah, I, that's, I mean, that's the only thing I can think about is just, you know, same thing during COVID when the market just hit, it was just like this sort of v but that one I think was a little bit worse.
I could be wrong.
Matthew: It was, it was down worse than, it took a little bit longer to recover. Yeah. A little different of a V shape. Yeah. This, this one was still down, you know, 20% and then the recovery has been a lot faster.
Joshua: Yeah. COVID 34%. Right. So yeah, a lot more significant. Took go a little longer, but both extremely quick.
Right.
Brent: All right, so let's get into the recommends. You guys got any recommends for us?
I know it's been a while.
Joshua: Yeah. I I have a quick recommendation. I mean, I don't know if you've started to watch this show, but stick, is it sticks or stick.
On is it Apple tv?
Matthew: I've seen some of it, yeah.
Joshua: Yeah, it's pretty good. I had just, I had watched a couple episodes with the, go ahead. I was gonna say, how many deep are you? I think I'm like three. It's about an old like golfer who is like, well, having like a midlife event and kind of fizzled outta golf.
'cause I don't wanna give too much away, but if you like golf and you like Ted Lasso, it's like, it reminds me of, and I know people have said this, but kind of like a golf Ted Lasso type of show. Kind of funny. It's good so far.
Matthew: See, I think I did five episodes,
Joshua: Uhhuh.
Matthew: I just kind of fizzled out on it.
I haven't been like, let me put that show back on.
Joshua: Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, it caught me, so we'll see. Me too. Maybe. Maybe I won't even make it to five. Five. What about you, Brent? You gotta recommends first.
Brent: I do, I've been traveling a little bit this summer. One of the things I recommend, I know it's been a super long time, as many, many podcasts to go, but by traveling we still, we had to renew our pre TSA check.
And I'll tell you guys, I, I, I don't understand why people don't do pre TSA check because. It saves so much time when you look at the difference in lines when you go to the airport with people that have the pre TSA and people that don't. My brother forgot to add his to his ticket, and it took him probably 45 minutes to an hour longer to get through.
The, the security line versus everybody else. It's such a simple process to get pre TSA and I'll make one other thing. I don't, I don't, Matt, you know this, and Josh, you probably know this also, but and I think we've talked about this, but you need a real ID now to travel on an airplane domestically.
Mm-hmm. And if you don't have a real ID in California, and I don't know, is that a federal thing or is that just state of California?
Matthew: So, so it's, it's federal. But you, you don't need a real id. You could just use a passport.
Brent: Correct. You need one of the two. Yeah. But I was just wondering how many people don't either have their passport or a real ID that go to go get on an airplane and don't have those.
There's a lot of people. It was a big,
Joshua: it's a big deal when the deadline hit. It was a big deal. You saw it in a lot of media outlets too. I think trying to get ahead of it. Kind of warning people dates to get emergency appointments because you're. Thought was right. There are a lot of people that don't have a passport and a real id.
Brent: I don't have a real id. I don't know if you guys have it. Like I tried to do it one time. It required me to grab a bunch of documents and take 'em to DMV. I don't, I didn't have time for that. I still don't have time for that, but I've obviously at some point gotta make time to go do that. I just traveled with my passport id but that, that I'm sure is still impacting people who are going to travel.
Matthew: I don't have a real ID either. And I got stopped when I was in Hawaii this year.
Brent: Did you have your passport?
Matthew: I did, but I gave them my ID card to see what would happen, and they wouldn't let me fly unless I had my passport. Wow. The other thing though, on the ts TSA pre-check is all these forms are Id are stupid.
When you go through TSA pre-check, they're, the government's scanning your face. They don't even look at your documents anymore. Right. They just scan your face.
Brent: Yeah. And they take your picture now.
Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's on that machine, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's probably hooked up to Palantir. It's just probably one of the reasons why Palantir stocks gone from like $7 a share to $150 a share.
So like having a real idea, having a passport. I don't know, man. I, I feel like it's such a outdated piece of government technology.
Brent: Yeah. But I'll tell you this, as you've already experienced, if you don't have your real ID or your passport, they're not letting you on an airplane. I agree, but, but personally, but you guys don't have a,
Joshua: I have a passport and a real id, so I guess I'm in the minority of this, so I'm glad I got all my stuff.
You guys need to go, you're the wise
Brent: one. You guys,
Joshua: you guys need to get your stuff in line.
Brent: But did you do that before you went to the D, had to go to the DMV to do it or did you physically have to go to the dmv? 'cause it wasn't there a time where you could do that one? No.
Joshua: Here's the truth. I needed to renew my id.
And it was like, do you wanna renew it to a regular ID or real id? And I did the real id, so I was kind of forced to do it. That was cool. It wasn't proactive.
Brent: Yeah. Now from my understanding, when I tried to do it online, I have to go into the DMV with documents. I had to go in. Same here. Oh, you did? Oh wow.
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So yeah if you're gonna be traveling anytime soon, I highly recommend making sure you have all those things done. 'cause it's going to make travel day a lot less challenging and a lot less stressful. 'cause it just gets you through the line a lot quicker. Especially if you're in hot areas or areas that are humid and then they have outside.
Checks like Hawaii does. Probably pretty nice to have that already taken care of, but so that would be my recommend if you're traveling, those are good things to get checked off. All right, let's close it out. So as advisors, Matthew, Joshua, myself, we truly love helping people. That's why we do it. We love building financial plans and retirement plans.
We love helping people transition from saving money and working hard to not no longer collecting a paycheck and being able to live off of the hard money that they've been able to save and work for, and then also enjoy it. And so if you would like any of our information, you can go to ever vermont.com.
You can also get our show notes@retirementplanplaybook.com. You can find us online also, and if you'd like a consultation with any of us, you can go online@eververmont.com and schedule a consultation with any of us. We'll set up a 30 minute phone call and just have a general chat with you, and then if you want to have a second consultation after that, we'll talk about what that would entail.
But as, as advisors, again, we love helping people and we'd love to for you to reach out. We'll talk to you soon.
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