Speaker 1: Welcome to another Chicks on the Right podcast episode where
we talked to our friend and sponsor of the show,
Zach Abraham from Bulwark Capital Management, and we are going
to talk to you today Zach and your Bora Bora
get Away Bungalow.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, twenty twenty years of marriage.
Speaker 3: Twenty years of marriage, that's yeah, that was.
Speaker 2: The price of admissions.
Speaker 4: So I feel like this it's one of those congratulations
or like the best wishes or like good jobs surviving.
Speaker 2: Like all those messages should go to my wife.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean to celebrate it's fantastic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, something for me to celebrate, for sure, something that
she's probably you know, with her, it's probably more like
an observance, right, Like it's like climbing up.
Speaker 2: A mount or she's just like, yeah, another year with
this guy, right like tennants.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I got the better I got the better
end of this deal for sure. Love it.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations and I'm sorry that we're I'm sorry that
you're doing this on vacation, but you are.
Speaker 3: You're going to do the things.
Speaker 1: Because you are an entrepreneur, and that is what entrepreneurs do.
Speaker 3: We do the things on vacation. That's for sure. That's right, Yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 4: You got Today we're.
Speaker 1: Going to talk about these tariffs that have kicked in
this week. And interestingly, you know, at the beginning of
the week, we were seeing all this doom and gloom.
The market tanked, like stocks are down, everybody's freaking out,
and then there's this sort of report I guess for
lack of a better word, from the International Monetary Fund,
who says.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be fine.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, there's.
Speaker 1: Gonna be some tariffs, but like, we're not going to
have a recession, it's going to be fine. What do
you make of their prediction?
Speaker 4: Okay, So so first of all, and I want people
I don't say this. I get we actually did a
whole show, It hit a whole show on all of
the stuff that we've gotten wrong. Right, So I am
not one of these guys that are going to sit
there all the time be like, oh, I got all right,
I got it right. The reason I point this out, though,
is that this is a much easier situation the handicap
than most people think. You know, all along, I've been
telling you guys, okay, watch Gold's probably going to go
up a lot you're going to see continued dollar weakness,
you're going to see continued economic slowdown, and all these
things have just been happening, right And the reason why
is because this situation is, like I said, it's very
easy to handicap.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 4: The longer the tariffs remain in place, the more economic
damage they will be felt. For if the tariffs remain
in place for a period of like two to three.
Speaker 2: Weeks, the economic damage will be zero, okay.
Speaker 4: And the reason for it is is that you recently
saw a report that had mixed messages in it. It
was the it was the Dallas Manufacturing Survey that came out,
and what you saw was a shockingly, was kind of
one of those economic reports where if you were a bearer,
you found something in that report that you could say, look, oh,
things aren't going well, and if you're a bull, you
could find things that were going well.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: The things that we're quote unquote going well was a
really big surge endurable, durable consumer goods. Okay, so like dishwashers, refrigerators,
things like that. Right, Well, again, that's exactly what you'd
expect to see before a tariff for people are gonna
front run these things. Right, So if they're gonna need
if we need x amount of whatever widget right from
Malaysia or whatever, and we know the tariffs are going
on in thirty days, we're gonna order as many of
those as we can prior, just in case.
Speaker 2: So it's gonna you're gonna.
Speaker 4: See this what looks like, oh wait a second, economic
activities picking up, Well, that's just people.
Speaker 2: Front running the tariffs.
Speaker 4: My point in bringing that up is if this is
something that resolves itself pretty quickly, you just go back
to business and it's no big deal.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's not like it leaves a scar. It doesn't.
Speaker 4: It also doesn't permanently increase prices, right, every it's like,
oh it's gonna start in inflation. That's not inflation, right.
That is a tariff is a one time price adjustment.
Speaker 2: Right. It doesn't keep spinning out of control.
Speaker 4: Right. We don't come back six months later and go,
oh my god, the twenty percent tariffs became sixty Right,
that's not the way it works. So now, well, does
it to inflationary pressure and an inflationary environment? Yeah, but
it's not you know, the minute the tariffs are taken away,
it's gone, right. So I do think the IMF, shockingly
here is giving a pretty sober outlook, which is if
the tariffs, the tariffs are all about duration, right. The
longer they stay on, the more damage they cause the law.
If it's a short period of time, the damage is zero.
Speaker 2: Right. So the other thing is is that.
Speaker 4: The amount of stupid takes I'm seeing about this is
just you know, I keep seeing people the Trump administration
doesn't even know what they're doing. They don't have a plan.
They're just throwing darts at the wall, and you look
at them and go, hey, guys. Since twenty fifteen, the
guy has been saying he wants to reshore manufacturing, right, Okay,
Like to say this isn't a plan is the dumbest
thing I've heard.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: If you want to talk about the efficacy of the
plan or the merits of the plan, okay, but the
strategy is very clear, which is, hey, we are willing
to endure some economic pain to ensure a third of
our populace doesn't die poor, unaffected and addicted to opiates, right,
which I think is a pretty good cause. And I
think enduring some tariffs, you know, like and it's just
this this you know, we've talked about it before. It's
just reinjecting this idea of adult rationale, which is hey,
to get good things accomplished.
Speaker 2: There will be costs, right, there will be some costs. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's like from a personal like a personal finance perspective,
like people obviously they're gonna be people personally who are
freaking out like, oh my god, you know this and
my stocks and that, my portfolio, this and that. What
do you say to those people? Just write it out
like calm down, chill or what Like, what would you say?
Speaker 4: No, no, if you have that portfolio, if you're feeling
that right now, you have an irresponsibly constructed portfolio.
Speaker 2: Period.
Speaker 4: Our clients throw up three to five percent on the
ear doing just fine, okay, why because they don't have
a bunch of idiotic nonsense in their portfolio. Love looks
like somebody in eighth grade built it, okay, right, and
everybody's like, what's wrong with the market. Nothing. The market
is getting better by the day. Literally, the prices are
floating back to intrinsic value. Right, Like people always see
stuff like this and they go it's horror, and you go, no,
what was happening was ridiculous. Yeah, right, this you want
a marketplace where things are trading at values that are realistic,
right right, Like that's that is keen, that's.
Speaker 2: What a market is for. And you know, it's one
of those things.
Speaker 4: I think you're in a process right now where there's
a lot of people there's an old saying on Wall Street,
which is, don't confuse brains with a bull market. And
there's a lot of people out there that have been
really bathing in a bull market for a long time,
and they've confused it with brains and it's just not
And so the market actually isn't good. Like I said,
we're we're not doing anything crazy. We're evident and I
start to the year, we just don't own stupid stuff.
Speaker 2: So if you're feeling that pinch, you own a bunch
of stupid stuff. So what do you like that? That's
what I would say.
Speaker 1: I love with the tariffs, you know, with that unpredictability
where you're saying it's really about the length of time
that they last. Do you have any I mean, I
know you're I'm not asking you to get into Trump's
brain because that's probably a really scary place to be.
Speaker 2: But what what do you think?
Speaker 1: How long do you think it's going to last? Does
it just depend on how these other countries react and
whether they come to the table and say, okay, okay, okay,
we get it, we want to let's let's let's put
all this to an end, or do you think that
this is going to be a long protracted tariff run.
Speaker 2: So so here's the way that I think that this
is going to bake out. And I have zero confidence
that this is really the case.
Speaker 4: But I think that they're first of all, when anybody
comes out in opposition or with some bluster to push
back against Trump, everything they are saying is complete nonsense. Okay,
they know it, we know it. Meaning look, you can
sit there and try to act strong and stick your
chest out and all that kind of stuff. If we
don't have access to your market, it means nothing to us.
Speaker 2: If you don't have access to ours, you're in.
Speaker 4: A depression full stop, right Like It's just and I'm
not saying we you know, obviously, good friends don't beat
each other over the head with that fact. But whenever
you hear ahead of state coming out getting blustery, sticking,
you know, pushing back. I wouldn't even be surprised if
Trump knew they were going to to do that, and
that was a strategy, so they could, you know what
I mean, so they could negotiate privately and both don't
look like you know, uh uh uh, you know, walkovers
or pushovers to their to their constituency. So looking at
us from our angle, I think the risk is extraordinarily overstated.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it should.
Speaker 4: Be overlooked because here's the other thing is you have
a government or an economy starting to come off of
the greatest financial sugar high of all time at this
you know, at the same time, so so you could
get you know, you've got those are both kind of
depressionary or not depra I don't want to freak people out.
They both kind of have a depressive impact on the
on the overall economy.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: But but now flip over and you look at China.
Speaker 4: I anticipate China and and possibly even higher rates of
tariffs and answers back and forth by either side. I
think that that's probably going to be something that could
be in place for several years with China specifically. Now
here's the thing I don't really think that they're going
to have nearly as big of an impact as most
people think, because in an effort to get around those tariffs,
people will quit manufacturing things in China or.
Speaker 2: As many things in China.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, so I once again, if you play it out, look,
at the end of the day, whoever hads the biggest
consumer economy holds the most cards in a tearo.
Speaker 2: Four mm hmm Right, So that's us.
Speaker 4: Right, So all these people like on our side, and
it's and and you know it should have been.
Speaker 2: It should be of no surprise.
Speaker 4: And I understand they're doing it for politics, but all
of these you know, every time you hear a politician
or somebody come out and dog the tariffs, you look
at them and go, hey, guys, you're making our hand weaker, right,
just because.
Speaker 2: You may not like what he's doing.
Speaker 4: But the bottom line is we are in the best
position of any country in the world to do this,
and the quicker we get it over, the better it
is for everybody, including workers in this country. And you
getting on TV saying that it's not going to work
isn't helping, you know, All right.
Speaker 3: Let's let's build off for crying out loud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And and look, it's.
Speaker 4: The thing that is so frustrating to me, is this
woke era, right, this stupid era. People are like, oh,
well that means costs are going to go up and
the economy might slow down a little bit. And you're like, yeah,
so do you see all the people wandering around your
city looking like zombies and deprecating in your strength? That's
the cost you're currently paying, right right, Like that's so,
so I think that cost is probably a little bit
more pernicious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I yeah, I just like and it
just cracks him out. What is he doing? He doesn't
even have a plan.
Speaker 4: And I'm sitting there going, he's been talking about tariff
since twenty twelve, right, like, yeah, where have you? Man?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry you don't listen? Right, maybe his plan doesn't work, but.
Speaker 1: Anyway, well, so for all the people that you've now
freaked out, who are looking at their portfolios, going, I
think I might have some of the dumb stuff he
was talking about. How can we reach you and learn
more about Bulwark Capital Management?
Speaker 2: Yeah, super easy to find.
Speaker 4: Let's go to Bullwarkcapitalmanagement dot com or know your Risk
Radio dot com. You can just google us Bulwark Capital,
Know your Risk Radio dot com easy to find. And
we've got another we got to just did a webinar.
We have another one coming up and I want to
say in the next four or five weeks and so
we'll we'll pump that out here with you guys and
they'll get to know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it not to not to go to find awesome.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the rest of your Vacationay, all.
Speaker 2: Right, thank you, ladies. I got to go out and
do some snorkeling, so you should have to forgive me.
Thank you. We'll see what's doing. Reservices offered your Trek
Financial lc n SEC Registered Investment Advisor.
Speaker 4: The opinions expressed in this program or for general informational
purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice
or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security.
Any references to performance of security so are thought to
be materially accurate and actual performance may different.
Speaker 2: Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance doesn't
guarantee future results.
Speaker 4: Track only fourth three zero