Inflation Rates and the Fed

Key Points – Inflation Rates and the Fed

What Is the Real Root of These Inflation Rates?
Too Much Stimulus and Rising Interest Rates Is a Bad Combo
The Three Factors of a Soft Landing
Mutual Bond Funds and ETFs in a Rising Interest Rate Environment
The Importance of Knowing What You Own in Your Portfolio
21 minutes to read | 38 minutes to listen

Following a 50 basis point hike of the Fed funds rate last week, Dean Barber and Bud Kasper discuss the Federal Reserve’s challenge of combating high inflation rates and the necessary factors to achieve a soft landing.

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What Is the Real Root of These High Inflation Rates?

Dean Barber: Thanks so much to those who join us on America’s Wealth Management Show. I’m your host, Dean Barber, along with Bud Kasper. What we’re experiencing with these high inflation rates is not the Putin price hike. This is a Federal Reserve-induced and a government-induced inflationary period. There’s way too much stimulus coming off the heels of COVID-19 and a super slow reaction from the Federal Reserve on the hiking of interest rates. The Fed did an historic half-point rate hike. The day that rate hike took place, the markets were up 1,000 points. Since then, the markets are down 2,000 points from that day and the selling pressure continues.

We need to talk about what this rising interest rate environment really means. The inflation rate came in last week hotter than expected with an 8.3% annual rate in April. The day that happened, the markets were looking like they were going to open higher. And as soon as that news came out, the futures went negative. And bond yields went up again.

Sell in May and Go Away

Bud Kasper: Right. The inflation rate was 8.1%. They were hoping that it would be at that or lower than that. On that day, the futures were looking great, meaning that the market was anticipating no greater amount of inflation and perhaps less. That would signal that perhaps this thing is starting to cool off a little bit and not to be so disruptive.

But remember the old saying, “Sell in May and go away.” Basically, it says to avoid May through the summer months and everything, then get back in the market after Labor Day and get your returns from there. There’s a lot of history behind that that suggests that might be an accurate strategy. It would not be one that I would certainly adhere to.

Dean Barber: Yeah, that would not have worked in 2020 or 2021. You would’ve given up a lot of returns during those years. But I think that it’s important for us to point out that the losses in the markets this year, both the equity markets and the bond markets, especially equity markets, come off the highest point in history. We were basically at a peak at the end of last year. Those numbers are coming off the peak. You really need to go back and take a little bit of a longer-term perspective whenever you get into a volatile market situation like we have today.

Too Much Stimulus and Rising Interest Rates Is a Bad Combo for Inflation

Bud Kasper: You made an accurate statement there. You’re reading my mind. That’s a short reading, by the way, but the cause of what we’re dealing with today is quite simple. There was too much stimulus coming out of COVID and then the rising interest rates that we’re dealing with now.

When we think about COVID, it wasn’t that the motivation to do the right thing wasn’t there. It was, but $5 trillion of stimulus is unbelievable when you think about that. Now, did it work? Well yeah, it worked. But in some cases, it’s like taking a pill. At first, it starts to help you. But later, it may not do as well. That’s exactly what we’ve seen.

Turbulent Times in the Markets

Dean Barber: I’ll use this analogy of going on a flight. When we came out of COVID with all the stimulus behind it, you had this massive amount of power fueling that jet higher and higher. You get up to cruising altitude, which is where we were at the end of last year. But then, we hit a pocket of turbulence like with this market right now. You’ve seen people on the airlines when the planes start shaking around and moving up and down. People grab the arms of their seats or grab your arm, like my wife always does. She freaks out.

That’s what’s happening today. The fear index right now in the market is at the highest levels that we’ve seen it since COVID. The question that the market is asking right now and that is on a lot of people’s minds is, “Is the Fed going to raise interest rates too far and too fast?” Because the Fed was late to the game, they are now stating that they want to get that Fed funds rate to 3% or 3.5%. It looks like a soft landing might not be possible and we’re going to crash.

Can the Fed Engineer a Soft Landing?

Bud Kasper: You said the airplane analogy that was in my head as well. What we really want the Federal Reserve to do is to have a soft landing. Rather than having any more disruption to the market, they’re wanting to land this economy back on an even-keel platform so we can build on top of that.

Dean Barber: Right. That soft landing would mean that we can slow inflation rates without pushing the economy into a recession. Can that be done? That is an unknown question. Until we know the answer to that, we need to make sure that the investments that people are holding can weather this turbulence.

Uncertainty Is Uncomfortable

Bud and I have been through this many times during our careers. Earlier this year, we said that this is not something that is unusual or foreign to us, but it is still uncomfortable. It’s even more uncomfortable for the average investor out there. It will create opportunity, but you need to have some dry powder to get back in when the markets return to a more normal state and rebound from where they are today.

That’s what I really want to focus. What are the future rate hikes from the Fed going to mean? What’s it going to mean to the bond market and the stock market? If we get a soft landing, how’s that going to play out? How do the midterm elections play into this? There’s so much going on right now. People need to take a step back and understand what they own and how it reacts in this current environment.

Powell “Held the Line” for Too Long

I’ve been thinking about Toto’s song, Hold The Line when thinking about how we got to this situation. That must have been what Jerome Powell was listening to every night throughout 2021. Hold the line. We’re not going to raise interest rates. This is a transitory inflation, so just hold the line.

Bud Kasper: Without a doubt. We have so many issues that we’re dealing with what’s going on in the marketplace. People obviously are concerned about their savings, especially in retirement. They see that they’re spending money, they’re not getting any growth on that money because of what’s happening both in bonds and stocks. It’s a double-edged sword that’s cutting into them at this point. It would be unnatural for you not to have concern, but you really need to have a better understanding of how markets work and how markets cycle.

The Three Factors of a Soft Landing

Let’s look at three factors that will determine whether we’re going to have a soft landing.

1. The pace of the rate hikes required for central banks to assert their inflation-fighting credibility.

2. How much wage inflation expectations rise in defiance of that credibility.

3. Incidence of additional and unanticipated shocks to the supply or demand.

We’ve already experienced once of those shocks since we can’t get the supply chain fixed out. Did you know that all the ships out of Long Beach, California, which is a major place where people unload their goods, decided to tell the ships to go out of sight in the ocean to park rather than be visible from the shoreline? It was becoming an issue psychologically of the problems that we’re having in terms of that supply chain, so they ask them to do that.

Dean Barber: Oh, that’s going to fix it.

Bud Kasper: No doubt.

Mutual Bond Funds and ETFs in a Rising Interest Rate Environment

Dean Barber: All right. I want to shift gears and talk about what in the world is going on with bonds and specifically bond mutual funds and bond ETFs. Look at a target date fund, for example. Bud and I were just looking up Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2030 Fund. The target date funds are all getting murdered right now. They’re all getting murdered because they are simply an asset allocation fund that is going to remain static.

Bud Kasper: Didn’t you tell me it was -11%?

Dean Barber: Oh, -11.5%.

Bud Kasper: And the S&P 500 is -12.5%?

Dean Barber: -16%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is -11.5%.

Bud Kasper: Oh, that’s where my thoughts were.

Analyzing the Average Duration of Bonds in Bond Mutual Funds and ETFs

Dean Barber: But the point is, how’s that happening? Look at the bond aggregate right around -10.5% to -11% this year. It’s critical that we have another discussion around bond mutual funds and bond ETFs because you can look within that bond fund or that bond ETF and see the average duration of the bonds that they hold.

The math is very simple. If you have a duration of 10 and interest rates go up by 1%, your bond fund will lose 10%. If you have a duration of five and interest rates go up 1%, you’re going to lose 5% in your bond fund.

This week, I was looking at a fund that most people would recognize in the Bond Fund of America. It’s the oldest bond fund in the country. That bond fund is about -10% this year and has a duration of 6.4. Here’s the thing that you need to ask yourself. The dividend yield on that fund is 1.98%. It has a duration of 6.4. So, with the 10-year treasury yield increasing by 1.4% this year, that caused it to be -10%.

More Pain in Traditional Bonds

If you’re only going to get a 2% yield, why would you risk this in an environment where the Fed is planning on raising interest rates by 50 basis points (0.5%) throughout the course of the year to get to the Fed funds rate to 3%, 3.5%? That’s going to push the yield on the 10-year treasury up more. It’s just going to cause more pain in those traditional bond funds.

Bud Kasper: I think it’s also worth saying that there is opportunity. You could say, “This is at -10%. This might be a good time for me to lock in because the yield is higher than it was a year ago. Or if I already own it and I want to get my money back to even as quick as I can, how about dollar-cost averaging into that?”

Dean Barber: But I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Bud Kasper: I didn’t think it was. I’m just doing the math.

Not All Bond Mutual Funds and ETFs Are Created Equal

Dean Barber: I’m just saying that I think there’s more pain to come. Look on the flip side of this and you’ve got the zero-to five-year inflation-protected treasury ETF. It’s got a yield now of 5.36%.

Bud Kasper: It’s down 1%.

Dean Barber: With the duration of about two. If I can get 5.36% dividend yield and I’ve got a duration of two, even if interest rates go up 1% over the course of the next 12 months, I’m still going to make 3.5%.

Bud Kasper: Exactly.

Dean Barber: And not all bond mutual funds or bond ETFs are created equal. People need to understand that there are safe places to go today, but don’t just sit in the normal bond aggregate or the normal traditional bond mutual fund. If you do, the writing is on the wall of what’s going to happen.

STIP and TIP

Bud Kasper: Right. You lower your duration. Dean is referring to something called STIP, which is an ETF that invests in short maturity bonds. Dean is accurate on both numbers that he provided. Now, the other one is TIP, which is an ETF as well. It’s paying about 5.8% as opposed to the 5.32% of the STIP.

Dean Barber: But it’s got a duration of about eight.

Bud Kasper: You’re right. And it’s down around six?

Dean Barber: Seven.

Bud Kasper: Somewhere in there. I tell clients that because we own the STIP, we don’t own the TIP. I know that sounds funny, but the point that I make to that is I’d rather be in the shorter maturity because as interest rates go up, we should participate in a higher amount of interest income. We’ve seen that from the last 0.5% increase from the Federal Reserve that yield went from 4.8% to 5.3%. Well, if we’re going to have another half-point move, that suggests that this 5.3% could easily go to maybe 5.6%.

We’re Providing Education, Not Advice

Dean Barber: Again, there are safe places. When we talk about specific investments, this is Bud and I trying to educate you. This is not us giving you investment advice and telling you that this is something that you should go put your money into. We’re just saying that this is not a time when you should just be saying, “I’ve got my asset allocation model and I’m just going to buy it and hold it. And I’ll occasionally rebalance it.” That’s OK in a rising environment, but when everything is falling, that’s not OK.

Bud Kasper: Right. And let me clarify something and then I’ll quit talking about STIP. If the Fed decides on another 0.5% increase, which is what we’re anticipating, we could have a yield, meaning an interest income, at about 6.3%. At some point, the Federal Reserve is going to stop. When they do stop, that’s going to take the downward pressure away on the price per share while we still are maintaining that higher amount of cash flow coming out of that at an estimated 6.3%.

The Importance of Knowing What You Own in Your Portfolio

Dean Barber: So, there are things you can do. You need to look at it. If you’re not sure exactly what you own or what the risks are in what you own, let us do a free portfolio analysis for you. It’s very simple. You can share with us what you own and we can run that through our analytics system and let you know what the real risk is in your portfolio. It’s critical that you understand the real risk. If it’s too much, what adjustments need to be made? We can help you along those lines.

How Do This Compare to The Great Recession?

I think, Bud, the last time we really saw the uncertainty that we’re seeing today was back in 2008. At that point, we had a real financial crisis brewing due to the subprime mortgages and the lending standards that were out there today.

Bud Kasper: The Great Recession.

Dean Barber: I don’t see what we’re going through right now turning into another Great Recession.

Bud Kasper: I don’t think so.

Dean Barber: I think the economy is strong and corporate earnings are still strong. The question is, can they remain strong in the wake of this rising interest rate environment?

Bud Kasper: I agree. Just remember, corporations are in the business of making profits. That’s what’s driving those businesses and they’ll be profitable again.

Can You “Taste” This Inflation?

Dean Barber: As we continue talking about inflation, interest rates, and what those mean for your retirement, I have a couple of questions for Bud. Is it costing you more to fill up your car these days?

Bud Kasper: I can taste it.

Dean Barber: Okay, Joe.

Bud Kasper: Heck yes, it is. It’s taking me a long time to cut my lawn anymore and I need two jugs of gas just to fill that thing up. It burns up and then I replace it. So, yeah, I’m starting to feel the pain.

Dean Barber: Yep. And what about when you go to the grocery store? Is it more expensive to go grocery shopping now?

Bud Kasper: I don’t go to the grocery store.

Dean Barber: Do you use instacart stuff or what do you?

Bud Kasper: Oh, my wife does that, so I have no real-time information to share.

Dean Barber: Well, I went for my wife and bought a few things. I was like, how in the heck did I just spend $80? Then, I started looking at the price and I’m like, wow.

Bud Kasper: Were there like five things in your basket? I bet one of them was bourbon.

Dean Barber: No, no, no, no. That’s the liquor store.

Bud Kasper: Oh OK. This market can make you want to drink a little bit, I’m afraid.

Dean Barber: Oh my gosh. In Missouri, you could buy bourbon in the grocery store. But not in Kansas. I live in Kansas. You live in Missouri. So, we have a different perspective.

Bud Kasper: You’re a little backward.

Inflation Rates Are Going Up … But the Same Can’t Be Said for Wages

Dean Barber: But my point is that things are more expensive across the board. The average American is feeling the pinch of these inflation rates. We know that wages have not increased by 8.3% over the last year, but costs have gone up by 8.3%. So, what’s that mean? Your standard of living is going to decline or it’s going to reduce the amount that you can save.

Now for people in retirement, it’s a totally different story. Yes, it’s affecting them. They’re not saving, as they’re relying on investments, Social Security, or maybe a pension to provide income. Those are not increasing at 8.3%. The thing about inflation is it needs to be properly built into your plan. You need to stress test your plan for a high inflationary environment.

What Is a Real Rate of Return?

You want to do that by coming up with a real return. The real return is the difference between what your investments make and the inflation rate. Typically, you need that real return to be 3% to 5% above the inflation rate. Let’s just say this 8% inflation rate prevails for a while and the Fed’s unsuccessful at lowering it. That would mean you’d need to get about 13% return on your investment to get a real return of 5%.

Bud Kasper: Right. I’m glad you brought that up. Dean and I’s concern is whether you understand how your money is working for you. If we go back toward the beginning of our approximately 20 years of doing America’s Wealth Management Show, we were simply saying, “Send us your portfolios and let us do a review with you.” Now, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with doing that and it’s a good exercise to go through, but that’s only the tip.

Dean Barber: Is that different than the STIP you were talking about? You were talking about TIPs and STIPs earlier.

A Comprehensive Financial Plan Is Critical

Bud Kasper: Well, yes. But my point is that a comprehensive plan needs to be created. That’s why our CFP® professionals at Modern Wealth Management are prepared. They’re experienced and can help you define the future of your money.

At this time, you should have money set aside in cash to accommodate the income that you need right now so you can effectively ignore some of the pain that’s going on. And I don’t mean that in a flippant way because we will get past this. But you’re going to be comfortable doing it if you understand exactly what the plan does and your probabilities of success not just for this year, but for many years in the future.

Harvesting Gains

Dean Barber: Bud makes a great point. I was reviewing with one of my clients here three or four weeks ago and we were talking about their portfolio, volatility in the market, and everything else. He was nervous, but I said, “Do you remember in the fourth quarter of 2021 when we pulled three years’ worth of income out of the market? That’s sitting in these very, very safe investments here. That’s where you’re going to spend your money from.”

Despite what has been happening in the market with this volatility, he wasn’t going to be forced to make an emotional decision or to sell monthly to generate income because he generated three years’ worth of income from the gains that he made in 2021 and 2020. So, he’s in good shape. He harvested that gain and set it aside for income.

Avoiding Emotional Decisions with Your Money

Bud Kasper: That’s a great point. It’s something that people really need to think about. It’s natural to get very emotional with things like this. We get emotional about it as well. When you get your statement and it’s lower than what it was in the prior month, you say, “Oh my gosh, this isn’t working the way it’s supposed to work.”

Well, remember we bank into the plan that we’re going to have events like this. As Dean said. that’s why we understand the amount of cash that we need—not just for one year, but to two or three years or more. It gives you that opportunity to live through these things. We will come back out of this. I promise that will be the case. And when we come out of this, you will have done a great job for yourself because you understood your plan and how to work it.

Dean Barber: That’s exactly it, Bud. One of the things that Bud and I have seen over the years is people with plans that have a very low inflation rate need to assume low returns as well. You want that real return on your plan to be somewhere between 3% and 5%. You can’t say you’re going to get an assumed long-term return of 10% and have inflation rate of 2%. That’s 8% above the inflation rate. While that may happen when you got really low inflationary environments, it’s not going to happen in a high inflationary environment.

Uncertainty Abounds

Bud Kasper: There is simply no way to know how quickly the U.S. inflation rate will start to settle down. We don’t know when the Federal Reserve policy will finally take hold and hopefully put us back into a soft landing. What is the combined effect of these two factors going to have on the economy this quarter, next quarter, and so on?

If we are fortunate and the Federal Reserve can get us into soft landing by the time we get to the fourth quarter of this year, then I think we’ll start to see recoveries coming back in the equity markets. Businesses want to make money and hire people. They want to get to the business of business.

Could We Still Finish the Year in Positive Territory?

Dean Barber: Bud and I said in February when the markets were starting to gyrate all over the place and were already in negative territory that there was a high probability that the markets would finish the year in positive territory. I still think that’s possible. But at the same time, there is going to be more volatility in the near term. That volatility could very well be to the downside.

Bud Kasper: Yeah. There are a lot of ways to look at whether an economy is recovering. Remember, we have approximately 10.5 million jobs and 5.5 million people to fill those jobs. So, what does that mean? There’s demand there. Whenever I drive from my house over to Modern Wealth Management’s Lenexa office as opposed to mine in Lee’s Summit, I can see the traffic is starting to increase significantly. That tells me that more people aren’t working from home anymore and that people are getting back in the workforce.

This Too Shall Pass

Dean Barber: The job market is super strong right now. And there are bright spots of the economy. However, the markets are fearful of a hard landing and the Fed’s inability to achieve a soft landing. That’s what’s causing all this volatility. There’s a lot to it. You can protect yourself during these periods. You just need to know what you’re doing and that’s where we can come in and help you. Hold your head up. Bud says it’s going to be fine. This too shall pass.

Bud Kasper: It will.

Some Positive Points within the Economy

Dean Barber: I want to dive a little deeper on some of these good points that are happening in the economy. We’ve got super low unemployment. The labor participation rate has begun to come down a little bit. When you look at the labor force participation rate, that’s the number of people that are actively employed or seeking a job. That number is still far below what it was pre-pandemic level.

I think there are a lot of people that maybe got out of work and then they decided to try having one spouse stay at home or something like that. But anybody that wants a job right now shouldn’t have any trouble going out and finding a job. Like Bud, 10.5 million jobs and 5.5 million people to fill them.

The Future of 30-Year Mortgage Rates

That’s a good thing. Corporate profits are still good. Technology continues to advance us in ways that we could have never imagined 20 years ago. There are strong things that are happening. The housing market remains strong. We’ve talked a little bit about the projected 30-year mortgage rate getting as high as 6.75% by the end of this year. That’ll cool the housing market a little bit.

Bud Kasper: A little bit, but we still have scarcity of homes for the number of buyers that are out there. That’ll keep prices relatively high. They won’t as big as last year, but still strong.

Dean Barber: That’s part of the whole process here. Eventually if interest rates go up too much, people won’t be able to sell the home for as much as what they could have a year ago because people can’t …

Bud Kasper: Afford it.

Dean Barber: Not all people are cash buyers like you, Bud.

Is a Bear Market in the Bond Market on the Horizon?

Bud Kasper: All right. We’ve had 19 bear markets in the last 140 years. A bear market is defined as a drop of 20% for many prior high. We don’t have that in the Dow Jones Industrial Average or S&P 500, but we do have it in the Nasdaq.

Dean Barber: And in the Russell 2000. The small cap stocks. We are experiencing a bear market in the Nasdaq and a bear market in the Russell 2000. My fear is that we could experience a bear market in the bond market for the first time in 40 years.

Bud Kasper: That would be incredible, but what we’re experiencing is incredible. If you’re currently in a bond investment like bond mutual funds, ETFs, etc., they have not been your friend this year. And I don’t mean a direct bond where you own the bond and the maturity and the locked in rate. I’m talking about mutual funds, ETFs, etc. If you’re still exposed to those, you better think about what that may look like in the future or you may want to look at some strategies with a financial professional.

Dean Barber: Yeah. I don’t think people understood the risk of their fixed income investments, their bond investments. Every once in a while, we will have a client who wants to own individual municipal bonds in the state in which they live so they can get tax-exempt income at the federal level and state level. There was a point mid last year when I went on a search for some municipal bonds and the prices were out of control.

Explaining Bond Maturity

To provide some background, every bond is issued and matures at $100. That’s called par value. When interest rates were super low a year ago, the bonds were trading at a value above par. We couldn’t find anything in the municipal market under about $116. In other words, a 16% premium to par value. That means if you hold that bond to maturity, you’re guaranteed to lose 16%. You need to have a high enough interest rate on that bond to eke out a positive return, depending upon the length to maturity.

Now, bonds can trade at a discount as well. If interest rates continue to go up and there are new bonds issued at higher rates that somebody else can purchase, your bond that you purchased at $116 could trade at $90. it could trade at $80. The reality and the problem with a bond mutual fund is that you don’t know what the underlying bonds were bought at. You don’t know what they’re priced at today.

You don’t know how much potential compression in price you have on those individual bonds in that fund. Like we talked about earlier, you need to look at the duration of the fund. That’s the best way that you’re going to gauge it. If the interest rates move up 1%, how much would you anticipate to lose in that bond mutual fund?

The Current Double-Edged Sword of Stocks and Bonds

Bud Kasper: Exactly. As you were explaining that, duration was the word that came to my mind as well because that needs to be understood. In the overall concept associated with fixed income today, it’s a very difficult market to be in. That’s where we get the double-edged sword because we have negativity coming out of bonds and stocks. It’s important to know how you’re allocated, and more importantly, how much cash you have inside your plan to take you through these events.

What’s Next from the Federal Reserve?

Dean and I are hopeful that we could see an end of this even as soon as by the end of the year. We have another probably two half point moves from the Fed Reserve. We should get one in June and then another one and maybe that’s it. If not, maybe it’s a quarter-point hike. Maybe they’ll do a third half-point raise. Dean is shaking his head. What are your thoughts, Dean?

Dean Barber: I think they’re going to do four more half-point hikes this year. They’ll do four more to reach 2.75% by the end of the year.

Bud Kasper: That’s very radical if that were to happen, especially if we start to see recoveries coming out of stocks.

Dean Barber: Yeah. If the economy does start to slow, then maybe they don’t have to go that fast, but these inflation rates are not showing any signs of abating.

Bud Kasper: Abating at this point, yeah.

Dean Barber: No, it’s not.

Bud Kasper: Yeah. I agree. I was watching television the other day and our president was on there. He said he could taste the inflation. My taster must be broken because I’m not getting that same flavor.

Dean Barber: Oh, I’m not sure that he even knows what he’s paying for anything. I’m sure he hasn’t been to the grocery store to buy a steak lately.

The Federal Reserve’s Tight Rope Walk Continues

Bud Kasper: There is lot of pressure on the Federal Reserve too.

Dean Barber: There is. They’re walking a tight rope. The Fed got behind the eight ball and they let inflation rates get more out of control than what they should have. This is reminiscent of the late ’70s, early ’80s.

I can’t remember which one of the Fed presidents said it last week, but he said, “We will control this. We will not let this become a late ’70s, early ’80s type of a scenario where we wound up with hot inflation and a stagnating economy.” That was called stagflation.

Bud Kasper: I was talking to a guy the other day and he goes, “Do you know one of the reasons I listen to your show?” I go, “No. Why?” He goes, “Because you guys are old enough that you’ve lived through some of this.” I go, “Well, I qualify for that. Dean does too.”

Dean Barber: You’re right. We’ve seen it all. Bud and I entered the business after the high inflationary period of the late ’70s, early ’80s, but we were students of that.

Bud Kasper: Absolutely. You need to learn from the experience and know what to expect.

Dean Barber: There aren’t very many people that are still in our industry that were in it back in the late ’70s. They’d have to be super old by now. Even older than you.

Bud Kasper: Oh, that old. My God.

Safety Is Key While Dealing with These High Inflation Rates

Dean Barber: Well, one thing is for sure. These high inflation rates aren’t going anywhere right away. We could put some wagers on who’s going to win the bet on how much the Fed is going to hike rates between now and the end of the year. More importantly, what we really need to do is make sure that your portfolios are in the position where they need to be. You can get that process started by scheduling a 20-minute “ask anything” session or a complimentary consultation with one of our CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals here. Safety is going to be the key here for the next couple of months.

That’s all for this episode of America’s Wealth Management Show. We certainly appreciate you joining us. I’m, Dean Barber, along with Bud Kasper. Everybody stay healthy, stay safe. We’ll be back with you next week same time, same place.

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