Speaker 1: I keep in mind that later that expected cause the
market to kind of like rally a little bit, especially
as things like bitcoin and then coupled with a maybe
more pro cryptocurrency administration. We've kind of seen that at
least old although it's not like rocketing yet. But we
need to keep in mind that that number, although it
came in lower, was still over three percent. So when
we look at what the Fed keeps telling us, they're
telling us that they want inflation to be at two
percent or less.
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Speaker 3: And welcome you are listening to and watch the Financial
Survival Network. Come your host Carrie Letts. Well, Hey, our
good friend Eddie Gifford is with us to go over
last week's CPI numbers and how they how he sees
them going ahead, as well as let's talk about the
year ahead, because we are in January. Never forget the
January effect. We had two twenty plus percent gains in
the market back to back, something that hasn't happened in
a long long time. Eddie. It's great to have you
back on and the happy New Year a little belated
since we're almost done with January, but we haven't seen
you in a bit.
Speaker 1: What of the CPI numbers, Yeah, first of all, thank
you for having me, And yeah, you know, like we
editing the last week wondering like what's going to go
on with CPI and fortunately it came in lighter than expected.
I keep in mind that lighter that expected cause the
market to kind of like rally a little bit, especially
is things like bitcoin, and then coupled with a maybe
more pro cryptocurrency administration, we've kind of seen that at
least old although it's not like rocketing yet. But we
need to keep in mind that that number, although it
came in lower, was still over three percent. So when
we look at what the Fed keeps telling us, they're
telling us that they want inflation to be at two
percent or less. And it's funny because I was just
talking to a friend yesterday and he's like, you know,
do you think it's going to come back down. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
that's that's not the goal.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Inflation doesn't come down, it slows down, and it just
continues to stack on top of each other. So we're
still a full percentage point away from getting to the target.
But even when the Fed gets to the target, that
means things are still going to be two percent more
expensive next year than they are this year. And that's
based off their definition of CPI, which a lot of
households would argue that what the numbers say, the big
picture CPI numbers say, compared to what they're actually experiencing
at how we do will are much different.
Speaker 4: So I think there's a lot of qui optimism.
Speaker 1: That seems like there's a lot of catalysts for good
change with the new administration. Of course, we need to
keep in mind that all change usually causes pain before
it causes gain. Right, So I mean I can decide
that I want to be I want to lose twenty
pounds this year as an example, right, and I'll be
healthier next year because of it. But it doesn't mean
that the first that the whole year is not going
to have trials and tribulations, and that there's not going
to be like bad things that happen or that I'm
not going to fall off course every once in a while.
So I think we need to keep in mind that
like this first year of the administration. Although I think
they're going to be pushing for a lot of positive change,
it's kind of like that first month or two of
a diet. It sucks, It comes with some pain, it
comes with some adjustments, it comes with those types of things.
So I think that we're in store for volatility. I
think that CPI numbers seem to be working to our advantage,
but inflation is running away in Japan right now, which
the bake of Japan is getting concerned, and the thought
is they may raise interest rates this week. They're having
their version of their FED meeting this week. And the
last time that we saw a rate high from Japan,
we saw a massive callback in the soccer market. This
was last year in August, and so I don't know
if there's going to be a catalyst there again, but
I do think it bears like paying attention to because
you don't unwind fifteen years of easy policy in three days.
So we are in for an interesting year for sure.
Speaker 3: So do you think we'll have a pullback though, Yeah,
well there's eleven months left. Well, we'll definitely have at
least a ten percent, but twenty percent or more, I
don't know.
Speaker 1: I think something needs to break for that to happen.
We already had one of the worst Decembers we've ever had. Yeah,
I mean, Santa Claus did not decide to show up
this year, you know, the tailing to the.
Speaker 4: Sala Claus rally.
Speaker 1: We had, like the last two days of it were positive,
but December in general was not good. So we kind
of had like an election hangover in December. And you know, everyone,
now that Trump is officially in, it seems like we're
kind of like catching up to where we were. But
there are you know, a number of things that could happen.
Speaker 4: We've talked.
Speaker 1: We've been talking to Terry, You and I've been talking
about cracks under the surface for the last year or so.
If any one of those cracks turns into a break,
doesn't matter who you are or how good of a
job you're doing. When the market starts building that acceleration
to the downside, there's it's like a freight train, like
you don't stop it and especially given that Yalen just
told us we got to take extraordinary measures because we're
right at the dead ceiling again. So there's a number
of things. I think we're definitely due for some volatility.
I think that we could easily see a ten percent pullback,
maybe in the fifteen range. And if something breaks unfortunately
see like that twenty five thirty thirty five, just because
of the leverage in the system, it can go real
fast when when something like that starts to speed up
because you just can't get out fast enough in that scenario.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we could see a snap. But you know,
it's questionable whether the economy has been in a recession
all this time, because remember a couple of years ago,
they decided to redefine the definition of a recession, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And that's something to kind of keep in mind,
is that, Well, maybe like twenty twenty two was you know,
a big version of that recession, and twenty twenty three,
twenty twenty four was kind of recovering from that recession,
and maybe now we're at a point where, hey.
Speaker 4: We can be off to the races again.
Speaker 1: So it is interesting when you change the definitions of
things because perception is reality. And if investors believe that
things are going to be good, and if people believe.
Speaker 4: That the economy is going to be good, and they
believe that.
Speaker 1: Like things are better than they were a year ago,
then the optimism will work it's way into the consumer markets,
it'll work its way into the the you know, the
stock market, and we could see things continue to go that. Obviously,
my biggest fear in general is just that we have
like these extreme elevated valuations on all these stocks. But
you know, my cycles guys say says that, well, that's
just because we've had such an advancement, like a technology
revolution all that different the industrial revolution, and stocks are
just going to run out higher multiples now.
Speaker 4: Because of that.
Speaker 1: So we'll see, you know, it's it's never it's always
different this time until it isn't. So we're treading we're
definitely or we're definitely approaching the year like it's going
to be a good year.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: We have the way that we're positioned, you know, it's
it's a more aggressive allocation in general, but we do
have our triggers in place just in case some different
and things crack or break. Where the goal is to
ride the wave and avoid the catastrophe. That's that's that's
kind of what I always tell the clients.
Speaker 3: So he signed close to I think, two hundred executive
orders this first day. And you know what that tells me,
Like the guy's known who's going to win for months
here because this didn't just happen. I mean there's you know,
for one executive order, there's a tremendous amount of work
that goes into it. Even if they had something better
than chat GPT, they couldn't just draft these orders.
Speaker 4: And yet they weren't ready to go.
Speaker 3: So in a way, this is the most prepared administration
we've ever seen, other than somebody that just wins their
second term consecutively, just keeps the show going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when I when it comes to like the
administration itself, I think it is safe to say it's
different this time. You know, Trump learned a lot. He's
he's a very competitive person. He didn't become a successful
business owner by not being competitive and not finding ways
to win and overcome adversity. And so I mean, talk
about the adversity this guy's been through. He you know,
went through an administration where everyone was just trying to appeach
him the whole time, and then he had, you know,
an election that he did not agree with.
Speaker 4: I will just call it that. You know, he had
COVID that.
Speaker 1: He had to deal with, and then he had to
try to battle his way back through indictments and all
these different things to try to even get on the
docket ache and then he ends up winning the popular
vote and the electoral vote and with the story that
everyone wants to hear. And the one thing that I
can say about Trump's last administration is he tried to
do everything that he said he was going to. And
he still has that character where he's going to try
to implement everything that he said he was going to.
But this time he knows the rules. This time, he
knows the game. This time he has a much better
understanding of who's an enemy, who's an adversary, and who's
in his alliance. Right, he has a much better idea
of all those types of things. So if you know
the game plan ahead of time, and you're someone like
Tom Brady, you're gonna go out there when that football game.
And I think he could make the same argument for
someone like Donald Trump. He knows the game, he knows
the game plan, he knows how everything works now, and
this time he got to pick his team. You know,
last time the coaches were picking his team, and and
and and he knows better this time around. So for
all those reasons, I think that you're right, Like he's
totally you know, probably one of the most prepared ever
as well as the administration in general, and so everything
that I'm worried about, right, because you got to have
a wall of worry to make new market higher than
any ways, it's hard to think that they haven't already
thought of all those things and already have a plan
of action for that stuff. So again, like that's why
we are like, uh more aggressive and more risk on
uh for this year, and then well we always have
our tris in place just in case, right, But the
I agree with you.
Speaker 4: I think that, uh, this guy is ready.
Speaker 1: And he's ready for whatever, and he's ready for worst
case scenario like this, Like he knows that there's been
an assassination and tept on him. He knows that those
things are going to come, and he's coming out fighting anyway.
So I think it really speaks to Okay, we finally
have like that leader in the United States where you
can say like okay, like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can, I can. I can respect this guy.
Speaker 1: You know, not everyone to will agree with him, but
it's hard not to respect him for what he's done
and what he's over common where he's at now.
Speaker 4: Absolutely all right.
Speaker 3: So if there's one piece of advice to give it
investors for the calming year, what is it, Eddy.
Speaker 1: I would say, there's two pieces of advice, because we've
got to think of this and and two from two
different perspectives. Number One, Okay, stick to your plan, keep
keep buying, keep leaning into your equities, and make sure
that you have some type of exit in place to
protect you if something breaks. And on the same time,
get rid of that consumer debt. You know, like we
have a ton of people that are probably listening to
us right now, and a ton of people all over
the country where they have these like crazy credit cards
with like twenty five, twenty six, twenty nine percent interest.
You don't need to worry about investing in the stock
market if you can pay off that debt that's you're
paying twenty nine percent on. That's a guaranteed tax free
ery return a twenty nine percent on your money.
Speaker 4: So get rid of that. If you can get rid
of that.
Speaker 1: It's going to make your life a lot less stressful
and it's going to make you be willing to take
more risk on the other side with your investment.
Speaker 4: So take care of both sides.
Speaker 1: Get rid of the debt like and start building your
net worth and think like an investor. You need to
think of yourself as being successful in ten to fifteen years,
and you can't do that if assets aren't working for
you exactly.
Speaker 3: Hey, Eddie, just tell us where we find you, how
we connect with you on the web.
Speaker 1: Yeah, easiest thing to do to activewealth dot com slash
Eddie Dash Gifford, or just go to that good old
search engine called Google type and Eddie Gifford. That's Eddie
with a Y G I F f r D and
you'll be able to, you know, see my ex page
and my LinkedIn and.
Speaker 4: All that other stuff.
Speaker 1: So look forward to talking with you. If you have
any questions about anything, excellent, I've.
Speaker 3: Got a question for Eddie myself, to shoot me an
email kl at Carrie Leeds dot com. The link to
his site is in the show notes of this interview
on Financial Survival Network dot com. And if you go there,
we just asked that you sign up for your free
complimentary newsletter, like over sixty five thousand other FSN members
have over the years. Eddie appreciate you coming on and
we'll talk to you again.
Speaker 4: So yeah, thank you for having me, Kerry.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Carrie Lets. This Financial Survival Network
your solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go
to Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now
more than ever,