retire-happy-podcast

Podcast: Market Changes – What They Can Teach Us

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Roger: You have to understand that to say it\’s just gonna bounce back, that\’s more like a cheerleader than an analyst. But you have to ask yourself the likelihood of that happening. History tells us it\’s not very likely. History tells us that we probably haven\’t seen the bottom yet and we need to plan accordingly because life goes on.

Clark: You\’re listening to \”Retire Happy\” with Roger Gainer, president of Gainer Financial and Insurance Services Inc. Thanks for joining us. I\’m your host, Clark Buckner. In these uncertain times, the COVID-19 global pandemic continues and while we can\’t predict the future, we can look at major past economic market shifts like the dot-com bust in 2000 and the recession in 2008. On this important episode, you\’ll hear Roger explain those shifts, what caused them, and what our learnings can help us do in the present. Roger also walks us through how behavioral economics are playing a role in today\’s situation and how you can also perform your very own gut check to better position yourself on what may be on the horizon. All this and more coming up soon. And for more content like this, head on over to gainerfinancial.com. Enjoy the show.

Roger: We\’re seeing things in the markets, and I don\’t just mean the stock market, we\’re seeing things in the bond market, we\’re seeing things in the real estate market, we\’re seeing things in the mortgage market, and we\’re definitely seeing things in the oil market that we have never seen before. Never. So we have to adapt to the market conditions of the day. Now, depending on how long all this stuff goes forward, we could see fundamental restructuring of all things financial in this country as we come out of coronavirus. And frankly, I think that\’s what the most likely outcome is. So we have to ask ourselves, what are things likely to look like going forward?

Clark: Well, that\’s a great place to start off, I think. I believe we are in a time that you\’ve been describing and, in some ways, anticipating these last couple years here on our podcast, right? Here at \”Retire Happy,\” you\’ve been talking about based on history and what you can see and what you have seen over the last several decades, there\’s been things that are overvalued right now. When we saw last year\’s market you were saying you know things when they get like this, it\’s gonna come down but this seems sort of like this perfect storm.

Roger: It is kind of like a perfect storm, Clark. Last year, I know on a couple of occasions, at least on our podcast, we talked about how investors should take advantage of this time with these extraordinary valuations that really weren\’t sustainable. We were watching profits come down and stock setting all-time record highs and I was encouraging our listeners to take risk assets off the table and move into more conservative assets and more conservative positioning to avoid taking sharp losses. I didn\’t think it would be COVID-19 that would be the catalyst, but I was pretty sure something would be the catalyst. It was more likely to be some kind of dust-up with Russia or something in the Middle East or, you know, there\’s some very significant pockets of weakness in our economy domestically that really started to show last fall.

We actually started to enter a recession probably around November of last year when we had trouble in the treasury bond market and in the banking system. And those problems haven\’t been widely publicized, but they\’re also not hidden. The federal reserve was already investing in trillions of dollars of risk assets because those markets were cratering. So you and I have heard about the $2.2 trillion from a couple of weeks ago. We know about the package they might be passing today that\’s for another $700 billion and we\’re seeing some massive numbers, but there\’s already been massive numbers of fed intervention and treasury intervention in markets. The federal reserve is buying corporate bonds for the first time in its history. It\’s never done that before.

Clark: How do you keep track of all the firsts? It sounds like there are so many firsts and things that are happening that despite how close you\’ve monitored and watched everything, things that we\’ve never seen before, and I hope on this episode today, we can hopefully look at what we\’ve seen in the past, we can look at what\’s happening today and try to think about what makes the most sense out of all this.

Roger: Well, right. Because like we said a little bit ago, you know, your life still goes on. You still have goals and things you wanna achieve and accomplish. It\’s just a little more challenging right now, but it doesn\’t mean it\’s without opportunity. That\’s the one thing I\’ve learned over time, no matter how depressed you get and how bad things look, there\’s always opportunity. You know, there\’s never a day when 5,000 publicly-traded stocks go down. There\’s always some opportunity somewhere and money flows. So those are the things that have evolved, particularly over the last 30 years, we\’ve seen money flows go faster, right? You can move billions of dollars in nanoseconds by clicking a mouse and shifting money over the internet, right?

Clark: Mm-hmm.

Roger: Okay. So it\’s not like money just sits in a box. It\’s more like it\’s a river and when you disrupt the river, it flows somewhere else. The water keeps flowing. And money is kind of like the water of our economy and it flows to different places and it also leaves certain places. So, you know, when a river dries up, you have a drought, right? Those farmers go away and all that other stuff withers and dies. And it\’s really not that much different as a market. Capital gets redirected from point A to point B, then what it was in point A withers and dies, right? That\’s a drought. It doesn\’t have any water anymore. The capital left and it went somewhere else. And that\’s what makes those prices go up and down. And when nobody\’s really sure, those movements speed up and volatility picks up because nobody has conviction. Does that kind of makes sense?

Clark: Yeah. It\’s so psychological, it sounds like.

Roger: Well, it is. It absolutely is psychological. You know, I sat for years, way back in the \’80s when I started my career as a commodity trader and I traded financial commodities, you know, metals, S&P 500, treasury bonds, that sort of thing. I learned from one of my mentors that when you weren\’t charting all charts are is a graphic representation of human behavior. And we\’re people, so it doesn\’t matter if it\’s 1920, 1950, or 2020, we\’re still people. We react emotionally and we react as human beings. So when you see…well, let\’s just think about what\’s just happened, right? We were at almost 3,400 on the S&P 500 back on as recently as February 19th when we hit the all-time high. The all-time high was February 19th on the S&P 500 and we were just a hair under 3,400.

Clark: So that is all-time high.

Roger: Today, we\’re at about 2,750 and we bottomed right around 2,400 a couple of weeks ago. Okay? And so, it turns out, peak to trough, to the bottom, we lost about 37% and then we rebounded to where about 50% rebound. Now, that\’s pretty common. If you go back and look at a chart in 2007, it did the same thing, if you go back and look at a chart in 2000 and the tech bubble in that initial selloff, we came back about 50%.

Clark: So you start to think it\’s coming back, is what they saw at that time.

Roger: Right. We are optimist by nature and gee whiz, you know, I didn\’t sell because it\’s going up and I think it\’s gonna keep going up. So I don\’t wanna sell and miss out. That\’s FOMO, fear of missing out, you know? And that\’s all, you know, they\’d done on Wall Street. One of the first things they taught me was there\’s only two reasons people invest, fear and greed. Okay. That\’s just cynical Wall Street kind of attitude and so, you got to figure out if it\’s a fear time or a greed time and appeal to that. And that\’s how Wall Street gets you to invest one way or the other. So, yes, we\’re still optimistic. We buy…oh, great things to buy. Think about how you felt back in 2000, \”Wow. I can buy pets.com for only 10 bucks. It was just at $40. My God, it\’s on sale.\” And brokers were calling people up going, \”Wow, get into Juniper Networks, get into…\” and you fill in the dot-com.

Anything with an E or an I was ridiculous, what the stock values were and it was, \”Oh, God, I could buy these things. They\’re on sale.\” And I\’d buy them and what I didn\’t think about when I bought them back was what\’s gonna make it go back up? What\’s changed? And the reality was nothing had changed. The market was waking up to the fact that most of these companies had no economic value or they were being way overvalued based on their economic value. Some people call that speculation. I\’d say that that\’s probably the biggest change in the last 30 years in markets is that when I started early in my career, we were taught that the value based on profitability and what\’s the business it\’s in and how fast is the company growing, that\’s how you determine value of a stock and what it\’s worth paying for that stock. All the great historical investors, that guy who\’s most famous for this type of investing today is Warren Buffet. You\’ve probably heard of him, Berkshire Hathaway.

Clark: Yup.

Roger: And he looks at what\’s the enterprise worth based on its economic value. What we\’re seeing more and more of is things that you just can\’t justify those valuations and so, it\’s become more of a perception. It\’s more important than reality. Okay? Do I have a good story to tell? In fact, when I was a broker, every morning, there\’s a moment, they call it shout-down and every broker in the brokerage firm shuts up, usually happens just before the market opens. It\’s 6:30 and they get on speakers from the research department and they give you today\’s story. \”Here\’s the story. You\’re gonna get on the phone and you\’re gonna sell to your clients to get them to buy stuff.\” Because that\’s what we\’re appealing to is your emotion. It\’s one of the reasons why the market doesn\’t issue a lot of sell, they don\’t tell you to sell because we wanna be optimistic, right? America\’s gonna grow.

I actually had a guy that I recommended, he goes short gold at one time in 1985, he would\’ve made a fortune, by the way, if he\’d shorted it. He said, \”It\’s un-American to short. I only wanna invest in things going up.\” And now most successful traders, they just wanna make money. They don\’t care if they make it on the way up or the way down. In fact, some of the richest people on Wall Street and make money on the way down by shorting bets because as you just noticed a few weeks ago, stuff comes down way faster than it goes up. Do you ever notice that?

Clark: I\’ve never thought of it like that, but that definitely makes sense right now.

Roger: It\’s called gravity, you know? They build a building and it might take them a couple of years and then you see it on TV all the time. You know, they put those charges in and they watch and they push a button and a bunch of explosives go off and that building comes down in about 20 to 30 seconds.

Clark: It\’s interesting that that principle translates to the stock market.

Roger: Oh, it sort of translates in all kinds of markets. There\’s a fantastic book that one of the richest self-made people I ever met, he owned the brokerage firm I first worked in and I was working late one night and the guy called me in his office by 7:30 at night and he said…and we were just chatting and he went over to his bookshelf and he pulled a book out and he said, \”Roger, this book has made me more money than anything I\’ve ever seen.\” And it was called, \”Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds\” by a guy named Charles Mackay. And it was published in 1865 and it\’s truer today than it was back then. And it\’s because of this crowd mentality, when everybody gets all worked up and it\’s, \”Golly gee.\”

You know, there\’s a chapter in that book called Tulipomania. You may or may not be aware, but at one point, in Holland in the 1600s, the coin of the realm became tulip bulbs, and tulip bulbs became one of the most valuable assets anybody could own. In fact, that was the first commodity market, was the exchange of tulip bulbs. And sometimes people\’s entire net worth were tied up in two or three tulip bulbs. And then the market crashed because somebody woke up and said, \”You know, maybe tulip bulbs aren\’t that easy to exchange. Maybe it\’s not convenient to go down to the butcher and buy meat with a tulip bulb.\” And general perceptions changed. Prices start to come down, then it turned into a round.

And this pattern repeats itself over, and over, and over, and over again throughout history. We get optimistic, we get excited, then start to go south because we didn\’t see things. There\’s a whole new field, in fact, called behavioral economics and it\’s based on this crowd psychology and how we approach financial decision-making. Not only is Wall Street using it, but Washington is using it to analyze tax, codes, and different things like that.

So if you look at what we\’ve seen here recently…so let\’s kind of circle back because one of the things here that made me really think about this topic, I remember you sent me a kind of a tongue-in-cheek email here back in about March 24th, I think. I think the subject line said, \”Buy, buy, buy.\” Wanted to know, \”Okay, I got some cash. Is it time to jump into market?\” And I said, \”Well, that all depends. Are you an investor looking for a long-term investment or are you a trader looking for a trade? Because it\’s a great time for a trade, we\’ve got lots of volatility and it\’s what I would call a trader\’s market. If you\’re sitting in front of your screens all day and you\’re analyzing and you\’re looking to just pick up a little movement, price movement in a day and take a profit, with all this volatility, there\’s all kinds of opportunities to do that.

Heck, if you\’d have bought the S&P 500 index on that day, the index was about 2,450, 2,470, somewhere in that neighborhood and today it\’s 2,736 here as we\’re just sitting here and approaching the close, near the end of April, so we had a nice bounce, right? That\’s almost a 300-point up-move off the close, but then you\’ve got to go back and say, \”Well, where did we start?\” Well, we were almost 3,400 in February. So that\’s why I said it was a good trade. But given the weakness, given the unknowns, given really all the stuff we\’d never seen before…you mentioned it earlier in our conversation, you know, yesterday, at one point, the price of oil was a negative $50 a barrel.

Clark: I saw that on the news, and what does that mean? Does that literally…

Roger: That means that if I own oil, I am willing to pay you 50 bucks a barrel to take it off my hands.

Clark: Has that ever happened?

Roger: No. Yesterday, that was unique. What happened was we ran out of places to store it because you and I, we\’re all sheltering at home today, we\’re not driving our cars. I haven\’t been out of the house here for a couple of weeks. But about two-and-a-half weeks ago, I drove by a gas station in our neighborhood and I\’d never seen a price of gas that low. There are places in the United States right now where you can get a gallon of gas for under a buck. Under a buck. Okay? It\’s because nobody\’s going anywhere. So, you know, you can\’t just turn oil wells on and off.

Clark: The ones they\’re pumping, man, that stuff is just going.

Roger: Yeah. And you got to do something with it. They\’d cost a lot of money to shut a well off and it costs, even more, to get that well to produce again. So now you got all this oil and people in the futures market who were long oil, is what it\’s called, today is the day that that contract expires and I have to take delivery of thousands of gallons of oil because that\’s what a one futures contract is. I have to take delivery of that because I bought it, right? But I can\’t put it in a swimming pool in my backyard. I can\’t hold it in my front yard. I can\’t put it in a warehouse. I got to put it in a tank somewhere so I can do something with it, refine it into gas, or chemicals or, you know, whatever I\’m gonna do with that petroleum. But there\’s no capacity. The inn is full. That\’s what happened yesterday.

Clark: Just another example of things happening today that we\’ve never seen.

Roger: We\’ve never run out of storage space. So tomorrow the price of oil will go back to $20 a barrel because we won\’t be in the near month, we\’ll now be June oil and we\’ll start quoting June. But this is a thing in the futures market that, you know, is unique to the futures markets, but we have unique things to all kinds of markets and that\’s, you know, Fed intervening in the banking system because banks wouldn\’t lend money to each other at any price. And normally, under normal circumstances, banks lend money to each other for less than 2% overnight. It\’s an overnight loan. It\’s not risky. But that\’s why the Fed had to intervene because no banks would lend money to other banks because they saw the risk in the banking system. Okay. That\’s unique to the banking system.

The Treasury bond market froze the most liquid…we advertise our treasury market as the most liquid, biggest market in the world. And the Federal Reserve had to come in with a trillion dollars about six or seven weeks ago because people didn\’t wanna buy certain chunks of treasuries. So they had to come in and buy those up to keep the liquidity going in the market. That\’s never happened before. A month ago, the Fed announced that it was buying up corporate bonds. We\’re awash in corporate bonds. Corporate bonds, how many times have we talked about corporate bonds, people looking into their mutual funds to see if they had junk bonds in there? Okay? Because they were creeping into everybody\’s portfolios and then there was this collective risk.

Well, about 30%-plus of corporate bonds that are outstanding right now or from oil companies. So if oil\’s $5 a barrel and your breakeven point is $60, are you gonna be able to pay the interest on your bonds for very long? So all this stuff is kind of interrelated, and we talked about that almost a year ago. When you go back, we\’ve got two different podcasts on bond funds, and I talked about this exact thing that\’s happening right now today. So what\’s somebody to do going forward? You know, I don\’t wanna just throw something out and say, \”Oh, you should be scared to death and don\’t sleep tonight.\” Right?

Clark: Yeah. Yeah. What are you hearing today from your clients?

Roger: What do you do today? So for two years, we\’ve been talking about raising cash because this day was coming and we\’ve set up a number of strategies to help people with cash. Heck, I even talked to you briefly about some of those strategies but most importantly right now is to make decisions to de-risk yourself. This little bounce-back that we got is simply a pause. It\’s an opportunity. And where the bottom is, I don\’t know, it could be somewhat lower or it could be a whole heck of a lot lower. It depends on how long the economy\’s closed up for, frankly. You know, we\’ve already seen some great names. Neiman Marcus announced they were gonna go bankrupt yesterday. Okay? One of the great retail names in our country, they\’ve run out of money.

Well, you\’re gonna be hearing this more, and more, and more, not just in the retail space. You\’re gonna see oil companies, you\’re gonna see airlines. This is all coming, okay? It\’s like when these goofballs in these different states, and I\’m sorry if I offend anybody, but these people that wanna get back to work and they\’re out demonstrating without face masks or social distancing because I can\’t handle being at home anymore. Well, I don\’t like it either, but there\’s only one way we\’re gonna get past this, and that\’s to allow it to work its way out and if we thumb our nose at it and we all go out there and congregate together and cough in each other\’s faces, it\’s not gonna go away. It\’s just not. We don\’t have a magic bullet. We\’re trying to come up with one. There\’s no vaccine. It\’s the same kind of deal here. We want it to bounce right back, that\’s why we just got this bounce.

But you got to ask yourself, what\’s gonna bring it back to where we were on February 19? What could possibly occur, because even the most optimistic people are saying that we can\’t come back, it\’s not like a switch where we turn it on and we\’re right back where we used to be? There\’s going to be a post-COVID-19 world and it will be very different than a pre-COVID-19 world. And I think we can all pretty much agree on that. You know? You\’re not gonna be sitting in a game with 50,000 fans at a football or a baseball game anytime soon. At least I\’m not. Until we have widespread testing and vaccines and stuff, I\’m not going to something like that. It\’s too risky. Well, it is the same sort of thing.

So first and foremost, let\’s get neutral. Let\’s have some cash so that we can buy these bargains when they do appear because they will appear. So what we\’ve been doing is setting up tax-advantaged accumulations that are earning, you know, more than we can earn in the bank and it\’s fully liquid. Those are cash positions. The other thing we\’re doing is we\’re setting up investments where if the market does come roaring back…because I\’m not that smart. I don\’t know that the market\’s kind of set a new low and I don\’t know if it\’s gonna rally. All I can do is help clients position themselves so that regardless of one of those two things happening, if it goes down, I don\’t want you to destroyed and if it goes up, I want you to participate. So we\’re using strategies like that and there\’s actually some very powerful strategies that are available today that let people do this.

I was talking to a new person, they were referred to me earlier today and the husband, you know, said, \”Oh, I\’ve been so scared. I just got out of the market about eight months ago and everything is sitting in cash and I was talking to a friend of mine that\’s a client of yours and he told me about…\” the strategy I just mentioned. And I said, \”Well, yeah, this is how it works.\” And then he said, \”This sounds perfect for me because I don\’t wanna miss out if the market goes up, but I\’m definitely afraid that we haven\’t seen the bottom. But I\’m sitting here earning nothing and, you know, I\’m in my 60s and I\’m happily working and employed right now. But, you know, if I wanna retire at some point, I\’m gonna need this money to retire.\”

So we set up a meeting with him and his wife and some other folks were there. And in the early part of the conversation, his wife said, \”I kind of wanna hold on. I don\’t wanna take a loss today. I don\’t wanna sell out of my positions because I\’m down like 12%, 15% from where I was in February and I wanna wait until it comes back. And so, I just asked, \”Well, what if it doesn\’t? How much further down are you willing to ride?\” And she said, \”Well, I just…I\’m gonna do it.\” And I said, \”Great. Then you should leave your money in the market.\” And she\’s in a pretty nice mutual fund, quality long-term fund, but still down pretty substantially. And then the more we talked, the more she said, \”Wow, okay, I really don\’t feel good about if it dropped another 20% or 30%. That would really bother me.\”

So, yeah, let\’s talk about this other strategy. So the thing I want people to understand is that there are options. There are still options. I had clients that we\’ve had so many things coming up that I\’ve been speaking to. I have a blog post that I have outlined about a client who at the very bottom of the…literally within a week of the bottom of the market in 2009 made a move to this protected strategy because he was a do-it-yourself guy and he always told me, you know, he doesn\’t need anybody helping with his investments and he came to me in February of 2009 and said, \”I can\’t stand the pain anymore.\” Of course, if you remember, we were down about 50%-plus at that point in 2009. He moved over. We sat down a year from that to review what had happened over the previous year. He said, \”I made a terrible mistake because I still…\” This guy was an engineer. \”I still track my old portfolio and it had a fantastic year between March of 2009 and March of 2010.\” And it did, portfolio was up like 20% so then he said, \”You know, I\’m sure I didn\’t do as well in this protected product that we moved everything into.\” So we looked at his statement and sure enough, he matched that performance in this new strategy.

And as I was starting to write the blog post a couple of weeks ago, I called him up and I said, \”So, you know, I wanna ask your permission if I can use your story.\” Because I sure as heck wouldn\’t want him to read that and go, \”Wait a minute. That\’s about…\” So anyway, he said, \”Sure.\” And I said, \”Well, so how are you guys doing?\” He said, \”We\’re as happy as we\’ve always been.\” I said, \”Well, how are your friends doing?\” He said,\” Oh, they\’re all freaked out. They\’re losing money and all this stuff.\” I said, \”Well, how about you?\” He said, \”You know, we\’re just happy. We\’re living our life. We\’re doing our stuff and there it is and, you know, we couldn\’t be happier.\” And I said, \”Well, are you still tracking that old portfolio?\” He says, \”Oh, yeah.\” And he goes, \”But, you know, what you did, we doubled our money in the last 11 years. We wouldn\’t have done much better than that with the other stuff. In fact, we probably wouldn\’t have done this well.\”

So I just want you to know that there are options. That option, frankly, isn\’t for everybody. But there are things out there that are still performing. We have strategies that are only down 3% to 5% year-to-date. That doesn\’t sound great except when you put it in the perspective of…and that was down 3% to 5% when the S&P 500 was down 737 so, you know, more current, that was as of the end of March.

So what I wanna encourage our listeners to do at this point in time is to do a gut check. And I have said this before, right? How\’s it feel in your stomach? Because I\’m gonna tell you, the best analyst around is your gut. We talk people out of following that instinct. If you\’re tossing and turning at night…You know, a few weeks back, well, about a month ago I had a new client and she told me that she wasn\’t sleeping. She was starting to take tranquilizers to get through the night. \”I don\’t know what to do.\” I said, \”Oh, well, you just told me what to do.\” You gotta sell, you gotta move to cash. This is bothering you. It\’s gonna affect your health. If you don\’t sleep, your health is gonna be negatively impacted.\” And it\’s just not worth that for money. You know, there\’s an old saying, too many people in our country spend their health to gain wealth and then they try to spend that wealth to get their health back and it just doesn\’t work.

Clark: That is wisdom right there. That\’s good stuff.

Roger: Yeah. So if you need some help, we always have the Thought Organizer. We also are gonna be putting together some resources for our listeners.

Clark: What\’s the Thought Organizer for someone who might be new?

Roger: Oh, thought organizer. Sure. That\’s a download on our website at www.gainerfinancial.com. And if you scroll to the bottom of the first page, there\’s \”Request a copy of the Thought Organizer.\” The Thought Organizer is a series of questions that helps you to get in touch with where you\’re at, how you feel, and what you\’re trying to accomplish. And if you have a spouse, it\’s a great way if you each fill one of those out and compare your notes to see where you\’re each coming from so you can find that common ground and de-stress yourself. You know, we\’re all living inside right now and the stress level is up for most people.

There\’s a few people out there who are, you know, falling back in love and, you know, they never saw their spouse or their kids and now I\’m getting to spend quality time with my family, but I\’m reading about, you know, therapists are busier than they\’ve ever been. There\’s a lot of stress out there. So see how you feel in your gut and if this stuff is driving you crazy, then at least think about moving to cash. Now, you\’ve got to check with your fear of missing out, your FOMO. But most people, you know, feel worse losing money than they do feel good about winning money. It\’s that old athlete thing. If you talk to…I don\’t know if you watched the Michael Jordan…

Clark: I\’ve heard about it. It\’s pretty popular right now.

Roger: It\’s fantastic. I watched the first two chapters and one of the things Michael says is, \”It hurts more to lose than it feels good to win.\” And so, most great athletes are motivated by not losing. Lebron James says the same thing. Joe Montana said the same thing. Most of the great athletes, it\’s the pain of losing hurts worse than the joy of winning. So if that\’s the case for you, then you gotta come up with another strategy. You got to come up with something that works that doesn\’t churn your gut because it\’s not worth a heart attack or an ulcer to stay the course, right?

Clark: Right.

Roger: So that Thought Organizer is gonna help you just…And if you filled one out years ago for you folks that have filled one out, do it again. It\’s kind of interesting. Do it every few years and see how you\’ve evolved, how you\’ve changed.

Clark: Yes.

Roger: You know, how am I reacting? Things are pretty extreme right now. How are you reacting? Because it\’s like the weather, right? Our weather is much more extreme than it\’s ever been. At least in my lifetime where we\’re seeing more flooding, more drought, more heat, more cold, more extremes. Okay? And it\’s the same with markets, you know, whether it\’s real estate or gold or, you know, we\’re gonna see a shortage of meat here pretty soon because of COVID-19. They\’re closing meatpacking plants. And this is gonna be bad for farmers and it\’s gonna be bad for the consumers because there\’s not gonna be poultry and beef and pork in the stores pretty soon because they\’re closing all these packing plants. I mean, it\’s a very volatile time and you need to take care of yourself.

That\’s what I would encourage people, stay safe, stay well, and this is all gonna work itself out. We\’re still strong, we\’ve still got opportunity, and as long as you have your health, everything else will work its way out. But if anybody that\’s listening needs some help, when you\’re on that website, there\’s a Contact Us button on the top on the right, feel free to give us a call. What we\’ve been offering is anybody that\’s listening to this, if you just got something that\’s bugging you or you just need some reassurance or you\’re just not sure, we\’re giving a 15-minute consultation at no cost to anybody that needs it. So you can call the office at 415-331-9030 or check in with us in the website and we\’re happy that to help you at least get pointed in the right direction.

Clark: Wonderful. Roger, thank you for taking the time again, as always. I think this has been one of my favorite conversations we\’ve had. And I think the timeliness and how important this is right now, I\’m glad that…you know, personally, I\’m glad I get access to hearing this directly from you. And I know so many of the folks that you serve are gonna appreciate this as well. So thank you for taking the time.

Roger: My pleasure.

Clark: Roger L. Gainer, RICP, ChFC, California insurance license number 0754849 is licensed to sell insurance and annuity products in California, Illinois, Arizona, and Nevada. Roger L. Gainer is an investment advisor representative, providing advisory services through HFIS, Inc. a registered investment advisor. Gainer Financial and Insurance Services, Inc. is not owned by or affiliated with HFIS, Inc. and operates independently.


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