Join Al Smith on this insightful episode as he navigates the complexities of the current market landscape. With volatility on the rise, Al discusses the impact of tariffs and interest rates on investments and shares how staying invested is crucial for growth. You’ll learn about the benefits of dollar-cost averaging and why long-term strategies can safeguard your financial future.
00:00:01 Introduction to Retirement Unpacked with Al Smith
00:10:30 Understanding Risk Tolerance in Investments
00:14:07 Exploring Hobbies in Retirement: Saltwater Aquariums
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Retirement Unpacked with Al Smith, owner of Golden Eagle Financial. You want a retirement plan that alleviates your fears about the future so you know your money will last. As a chartered financial consultant, Al Smith will help you find a balance between the risk and reward of the market and the safety of your retirement income. And now, here’s your host, Al Smith.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to another program of Retirement Unpacked. I want to thank you for tuning in. I’m sure there’s other things you could be doing. And I’m going to talk a little bit today about what’s going on in the market. We’re not quite halfway through the year. but we’re very close to being halfway through the year, and we have certainly seen some volatility. A little bit earlier on, there was a lot of talk about tariffs and some of the things that were going on with tariffs, and I think what’s more important is we look at the big picture, so to speak. And the most recent report I’ve received from Brookstown with where I place my investment business is the S&P index has had a 6.3% growth in the last month. And that’s the largest one since November of 2023. And if we break that down a little bit, both The Russell and the Nasdaq grew at nearly 9%. Some of the top performing types of stocks in the market were technology stocks, industrials, consumer discretionary, and so forth. The only ones that didn’t seem to do well very recently were healthcare stocks. And in toward between February and April, there was a little bit of fear about tariffs and and things of that nature. But I think we all know those of us who are listening is that the market is volatile and The way to make money in the market is to stay in there. Some people who try to time the market, that’s very difficult to do. Every now and then I’ve had a client ask me, say, well, you’re going to tell me when the market’s going to go up, right? And I have to explain, well, I don’t have a plan. crystal ball. The one thing that is certain about the market is there is uncertainty there. So I think remaining in the market regardless of volatility is the way to have your nest egg grow and also continue if you’re If you’re in your working lives and you have a longer window to retirement, continuing to make contributions into your IRA, your 401k, your personal investment account over time. And when you do that, you benefit from what’s called dollar cost averaging, which basically means you’re making your purchases when the market is up, when it’s down, and when it’s kind of fluctuating in between. and all the financial gurus have agreed that that is perhaps the best strategy over the long term to make money in the market. Now, some of the things that have been a little bit of a concern, for example, The market, as I mentioned, between February and April, it took a nosedive, but right now it’s back to within 4% of its all-time high, which occurred, I believe, about February 19th. And one of the things that… might be holding back future market growth is the Federal Reserve has paused any interest rate cuts. And basically, the economic data that we’re looking at right now have suggested that the tariffs only had a limited impact on the market. There seemed to be a big concern at one point, but tariffs they going all the way back to like the 1700s they were the primary source of revenue for the federal government we did not have income tax until 1913 prior to that tariffs were the primary source of revenue for our government and more recently certain other countries have have been taking advantage of the United States, and we had an enormous tariff imbalance, which is something that the current administration is trying to correct. And right now, there’s a 90-day tariff pause, which will take us into, I believe, July. And with China, that tariff pause is going all the way into mid-August. And I think that’s important because it’s going to keep the markets a little bit steadier, so to speak. But the reason for some of this talk and everything about tariffs is that we have been – treated unfairly by many other countries. I’ll give you an example. If you wanted to buy a Harley Davidson in the past, and you’re maybe a successful person who lives in India, instead of paying around $20,000 for a new Harley Davidson, and don’t hold me to that, I haven’t been shopping for one lately, uh might be 25 000 but you might pay 50 or 60 thousand dollars for a new harley david motorcycle harley-davidson motorcycle in india so certain countries had very very unfair tariffs and these are some things that we’re trying to alleviate and i think once there is a balance in tariffs i think that will help the market going forward some other things i believe That will help the market going forward is if the Fed will lower interest rates slightly. The real estate market, I am not a realtor or a real estate investor, but I do pay attention to the markets. And I’ve been told that right now it’s more of a buyer’s market. It’s not quite as easy to sell homes right now, whether it’s your own home or you’re a realtor. because of interest rates where they are. And I think that has also affected a little bit of the appreciation of real estate. I don’t think it’s gone down, but I think it’s leveled off a little bit because of the interest rate increases we’ve had. I’ve met some clients who have continued to keep their mortgage because they got their mortgage back a few years ago when interest rates were like between 2% and 3%. And this is often a topic of conversation. I know some financial experts, so to speak, say you should always pay off your mortgage in retirement. But I, on the other hand, recommend that if you have a nest egg large enough to pay off your mortgage, but your nest egg has been earning 10 or 12 percent in the market, and your mortgage is 2.38%, your mortgage interest rate, I would continue to make my mortgage payment and stay ahead about 7% or 8% on the growth of my nest egg. But that’s just me. Now, some other things to consider is the market price. operates not on what’s going on right now, but the market is basically forward-looking. And so that’s why sometimes when there’s negative information that we might hear about on the news or something like that, and yet the market grows, that’s kind of something that, gee, I’m going to scratch your head. Why is that? Well, that’s because the market is forward-conditioned and the prices, the nationalities, The Dow, the S&P, often the changes in those are not the result of current conditions, but they’re based on future expectations. And that is also true when, for example, when there’s a sharp decline in the market, there’s often a really quick rebound. And that’s because of more changes. long-term perspective in the market. And again, I’m going to talk about this until I’m pushing up daisies, and that is to make money in the market, you need to stay in the market. If you’re farther from retirement, continue to put money in on a regular basis. If you have extra money that’s not in the market and the market takes a big nosedive, I would highly recommend that that’s a good time to put additional money in the market. I know some people, when the market takes a big nosedive, they get kind of panicky and pull money out and put it in banking and so forth but if you do that after a market decline then basically you have owned that loss whereas if you remain in the market it’s going to come back and that may be quickly it may take a little longer but that is essentially the way people make money in the market is by hanging in there and by putting their money in over a long period of time which as i mentioned earlier we call dollar cost averaging and as far as what individual investments are best that’s a conversation that i always have when i work with my clients before we make any kind of selections because that involves risk tolerance and risk tolerance has not only to do with your comfort level if the market goes down now nobody’s comfortable when the market goes down But we talk about things like that because that helps us decide where are your investment dollars best placed. And after we talk about comfort level and risk tolerance and so forth, then we have a real good idea where is the best place for you to have your financial resources. Also, part of that is not just your comfort level, but when do you plan – to use these resources. If you have a really long window before you’re going to be needing these resources, that is a little different financial perspective than if you think you only have 10 or 15 years remaining in your life expectancy because you’re in your 70s or 80s or something. So these are all the things that we take into consideration before we make any specific selections of, well, which investments are best for me? What should I do? And when I work with couples, we often end up having different risk tolerance scores, so to speak. We use a numeric risk tolerance schedule for that. And it’s often different for both the husband and the wife. And if they each have a separate retirement account, we can allocate them that way if that’s what they desire. But we always have long deadlines. healthy conversations before we decide what’s the best course of action when people sit down and work with me. And if you have questions about your own retirement or about where is the best place for my financial resources or what’s the best strategy for me to grow my wealth, Contact my office and we can have a conversation about that. My number is 303-744-1128. And we’re going to talk after the break about a hobby that many people find very, very enjoyable. I met a young man who will be talking to us about saltwater aquariums.
SPEAKER 01 :
Most retirement planners start with numbers, but Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial starts with your story. At Golden Eagle, your first meeting’s not a sales pitch. It’s a simple conversation about where you’ve been, what matters to you, and where you want to go when you retire. Al listens intently, and then, using simple tools and the info you already have, he can show you how long your current plan might last if you were to retire today and not change anything. That alone can be eye-opening and expose any holes in your current strategy. It’s the foundation Al uses to help you build a plan that works for the long run to retire on your terms. No pressure, no jargon, just a clear picture of where you stand and how to make it better. Al’s been helping people retire well for decades, and he’s seen it all, the good, the bad, and the overly complicated. He’ll help you keep it simple. If you’re ready to plan your retirement with purpose, schedule a no-pressure visit with Al Smith. Go to the klzradio.com advertisers page to schedule your conversation. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC, Registered Investment Advisor, BCM, and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, as a listener, you’ve heard me talk about finding your purpose in retirement and how it’s important not only to have a large enough nest egg, but to find activities and things that you’re going to do. It could be volunteering. It could be doing things with your church and things like that. But there are some tremendous hobbies that people may not be aware of that can bring people enormous joy and fulfillment in retirement. And although My guest is a long way from retirement. He owns a business, a successful business that serves people who have saltwater aquariums, and his name is Ryan Collin. Ryan, are some of your clients who have these beautiful saltwater aquariums, are some of those folks retired?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I would say a couple of them are retired. It’s a great hobby to keep you active, and
SPEAKER 03 :
going you know it’s always something with these tanks so you’ll never get bored and i was fortunate enough to stop by your place of business there it’s right at that intersection of um platte canyon well on the other side of bowls it’s a lowell and bowls and i saw some modest size saltwater aquariums and some big ones and i probably could have spent hours in there because the the tanks and the fish and the creatures in there are really really enjoyable watching and if someone were to want to get started in a hobby of saltwater aquarium what would you what would you suggest before they dive into it for them to consider i recommend um
SPEAKER 04 :
doing some online research and maybe even looking at some YouTube videos about what fish they may want and, um, what corals they may want. And that’ll determine the size of the tank they should get. And, uh, generally we, we recommend getting the biggest tank that you can fit in your house. Uh, or in the space you want to fill because a lot of the fish that people enjoy, they require a certain tank size. So if you go smaller, you’ll be limited on what you can keep in the tank.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I can only imagine if you had a 34-inch fish in a three-foot tank, that wouldn’t work very well. What size are some of the fish that would require a larger tank, but they’re also really interesting fish? What fish would those be?
SPEAKER 04 :
So you have your classic from Nemo and Dory. So Dory is a very large fish and would require a larger tank. Nemo, on the other hand, you could fit in the smaller tank full term. There’s also the family of fish that Dory is, they’re called tangs. And tangs all require at least a four-foot tank, which is generally going to be around 100 gallons. to successfully keep those long-term.
SPEAKER 03 :
Is that the fish that was in the Disney film?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, yes, the blue one.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, the Finding Nemo?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, well, that’s something that people can certainly relate to, I would think. So a four-foot tank holds about 100 gallons, you were saying?
SPEAKER 04 :
Correct, yeah. A four-foot generally is about 90 to 100 gallons.
SPEAKER 03 :
wow i when i stopped by your place of business there yesterday i think one of the creatures i thought was one of the most interesting and i don’t think you’d need a large tank for him but it looked almost like a fish that was walking on the floor of the tank and when it moved around it also had had these little fins it looked like i was watching a national geographic video of some excursion and into
SPEAKER 04 :
um australia’s great barrier reef or something it was what is that what is that little creature that’s on the floor what is he called that guy is a scooter blenny and he’s in the dragonette family so there’s other dragonettes uh that are just as pretty if not prettier um called mandarins and they have a like a psychedelic red and blue pattern on them the um they kind of look like mud skippers though the one that you saw that if People are into freshwater. But, yeah, they’re great fish, and they’re utilitarian fish as well. They’ll eat coral pests and other little bugs in the tank that you don’t necessarily need or want in the tank.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that makes it ecologically tremendous. These are a lot of things that I never even thought about. I always thought, well, you buy a bunch of fish, and if you’re lucky, most of them stay alive, and you feed them out of a little box of stuff that you get from the pet store. But I guess that’s more like tropical fish rather than freshwater.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah. The saltwater world, it’s amazing because there’s so many little – creatures that come along when when you buy live rock or when you buy a coral that they’ll come out the hitchhiker and then they’ll reproduce in your tank and you’ll look you’ll be looking at your tank and not remember adding these things but you’re like where do these things come from like out of thin air it seems like but um some of them are beneficial and some of them aren’t so beneficial so it’s good to have utilitarian fish that are going to take care of those kind of things for you and um pretty much close the ecosystem um keep it a a fully functioning ecosystem.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I know you and your significant other are transplants from Miami. So I’m assuming, did you have this love for the ocean and fish long before you came to Colorado?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah. My mom has always had fish tanks at the house and she really got me into the hobby. We would go down to the beach and collect critters and try to keep them alive. 20 years ago, but now we have such a better understanding in the hobby and me myself has a better understanding of how to keep these critters alive. I never thought it would be a career, but it dragged me back and I’m glad it did.
SPEAKER 03 :
You could probably teach a college-level class in marine biology, although I don’t know that there’s much of a demand for that when you’re 1,000 miles from the ocean. But I know your knowledge of sea creatures is tremendous. Now, let’s say if somebody were to get started and things aren’t going right— You, correct me if I’m wrong, you spend a lot of times on service calls to people’s tanks to get things in balance. Is that accurate?
SPEAKER 04 :
That is, that is. Yeah, so Monday through Thursday, the store is closed because… We’re out doing service accounts and taking care of any problems people might be having with their tanks. And if you just want to enjoy the tank and not have to touch it at all, we’re here for that too. We can come weekly and maintain your tank full time. That way you can just enjoy the beauty of it and not have to deal with some of the maintenance or some of the stinkier things that come along with the fish tank.
SPEAKER 03 :
Or if you have an 85-inch flat-screen TV, you can probably, I know you can plug in what looks like a fire. I guess you could plug in what looks like a fish tank also, but I don’t think that would be quite the same. But I’ve seen those. Do any other pets end up, if people have dogs or cats, do they end up spending any time looking at the fish tanks?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, especially the cats. The cats generally enjoy looking at the fish tank. Ideally, you have a lid on the tank so they can’t get in there, but I’ve definitely seen some cats fall into the tank out of curiosity, which isn’t a big deal for either the cat or the fish, as long as the cat’s not peeing in the tank or anything like that. And dogs, it depends on the dog. They sometimes will spend time in front of it, but most dogs are more interested in what the people are doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, or other dogs or something like that. I know I had some dogs that saw a nature show of wolves fighting with each other, and the dogs went absolutely berserk barking at the television at that event and so forth. Now, when someone… gets a tank, what choices do they have to make as far as what’s going to go in the tank? I know when I stopped by your place of business there, I found the coral incredibly interesting. They looked like little fingers that were moving around as the water in the tank circulated.
SPEAKER 04 :
So for coral, coral is pretty easy when it comes to deciding what you want. It’s really about what you like. There’s not many limitations on coral. As long as you’re keeping your water chemistry where it should be, all your coral should thrive. Fish is another thing, because certain fish don’t get along with other fish. And like I was saying, size requirements on some fish will inhibit you. But we’re here to guide you through all those choices. If we know what’s in your tank already, we’ll steer you away from bad decisions.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and it’s kind of like anything else. What do they say about maintaining your car? You know, you spend a little now so you don’t spend more later. And I think for folks who have a saltwater tank that aren’t familiar with the nuances of various kinds of fish, I think what you do can help keep their fish alive longer so they’re not having to buy new fish all the time because their tank has not been maintained. Is that accurate?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and some of these fish live 10, 15, 20 years. So, yeah, you don’t want to cut their lives short because of neglect or something like that. It just wouldn’t be fair to the animal.
SPEAKER 03 :
And this is totally unrelated to saltwater fish, but I heard in Italy they had a rule that goldfish bowls had to be square because the round bowls provided a distorted view from the goldfish’s perspective.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I could see that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I just thought that was, you know, tremendously humorous. Now, which fish are those that reproduce? Because I think what’s neat about this particular hobby, having saltwater fish, is that some of them reproduce. It’s sort of like if you bought a couple of dogs and you don’t want to become, it’s very difficult to become a breeder, but with fish, If you get the right ones, are they going to reproduce pretty regularly?
SPEAKER 04 :
So they may lay eggs, but the chances of you keeping the eggs alive and the fry alive is very slim. I would say it’s almost a whole new hobby when you get into breeding fish. It requires you to start to breed fish. Now you need to breed eggs. what they eat so which is generally like tiny little rotifers or microscopic food um and um so when you go down that road it gets a lot more complicated and i would say that’s more for the advanced hobbyist um i wouldn’t recommend it for a new person but um even in a new person’s tank the There are, like, clownfish will lay eggs. Banggai cardinals can have eggs in the aquarium. But generally, they end up as fish food for other fish or get stuck in the filter.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking, is fish will lay eggs. Since there’s other fish in there, that becomes, you know, rather than have it becoming more fish, it becomes fish food given the size of their environment and so forth. Now, do a lot of the fish behave very differently? Because I know when I was looking at them, I saw the one that was zipping along the floor of the tank, but some of the other more colorful ones, do they behave similarly or do some of the fish behave very differently than some of the others?
SPEAKER 04 :
no they they all have their own personalities and uh generally stick to certain areas of the tank and um and that’s why i was saying some fish don’t get along with others so you don’t want to load up a bunch of fish that scoot along the bottom because they’re going to end up fighting but if you have one or two down there it’s fine and same with middle of the water column top of the water column there’s going to be fish that generally stay in those areas and you don’t want to overload those areas too much or otherwise they’re going to be fighting for territory
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, are there plants that you have in the tanks also, or not?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, no plants, but, I mean, a lot of people call corals plants. The corals are basically underwater plants, but they’re more closely related to, they are actually, in fact, animals. They’re not plants.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s what I heard. They appear like plants, but they’re not.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly, yeah. They’re actually living animals, and they’re, in theory… basically a machine that will live forever as long as the environment around them stays stable. But in theory, they don’t have a lifespan. There’s people with 20-year-old coral, 40-year-old corals, and you can propagate them as well. So you can take that 40-year-old coral, take a little piece of it and grow it in another tank and continue the legacy of that coral.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Ryan, what you’ve told us about the tremendous hobby of having a saltwater aquarium, I think that’s been really interesting. Now, if somebody would want to get started in that hobby, how would they reach you? I know your store is at the intersection there of… Bowles and Lowell, which the other side of it’s Platte Canyon. And if they wanted to reach you, what’s your phone number if they wanted to reach out to you, Ryan?
SPEAKER 04 :
They can reach me at 305-903-1122. And you could also find us on Facebook or Instagram, all the social medias at FinsUpReece.
SPEAKER 03 :
FinsUp, what was the last word? fins up reef fins up reef well that is awesome well i find your hobby incredibly interesting and i hope our listeners did thank you for uh sharing some time with us god bless you hope you have a great day and keep all your clients fish alive
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Al. It means a lot. And I appreciate you having me on.
SPEAKER 03 :
Very good. Bye now. And for my listeners, thank you for listening. God bless you. Hopefully you’ll be here next week. And let’s continue to pray for peace in the Middle East. Bye now.
SPEAKER 02 :
But are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.
