Speaker 1: Everybody's talking about your health, what about your finances? It's
Speaker 1: armstrong and getting extra large, because four hours simply usn't enough.
Speaker 1: This is armstrong and getty extra large. Man, if my
Speaker 1: voice sounded like that, I'd never stopped talking to Pat
Speaker 1: McClean is the co founder and senior partner at all
Speaker 1: Worth Financial. We've actually known Pat for years and years
Speaker 1: and years. So Pat, after people will worry about getting
Speaker 1: the disease or not getting the disease, I think most
Speaker 1: of our thoughts turned the immediately to our personal finances, UH, savings, etcetera.
Speaker 1: What's the heck through this whole thing? At least through now.
Speaker 1: I spend more time thinking about the financial ramifications of
Speaker 1: this than I do the health right right. So what
Speaker 1: are you hearing most from your clients right now? Uh?
Speaker 1: Kind of a stated disbelief, a little bit of shock. Um,
Speaker 1: people are focused. You know, this is different than the
Speaker 1: last recession, which was all money. This is health and
Speaker 1: money and lifestyle and social interaction all wrapped up in one. Um.
Speaker 1: But most of the clients are actually sticking with their portfolios.
Speaker 1: The vast majority. Uh. If they had a well defined
Speaker 1: and well balanced portfolio going into this that they're they're
Speaker 1: fine and they'll get through it. Um. But it's a
Speaker 1: shock to everyone, obviously. Um, it is obviously, And we're
Speaker 1: just telling people, know what you know, what you own.
Speaker 1: You better know what you own. You should have known before,
Speaker 1: but you better known now. Why why do you need
Speaker 1: to know assuming you made the right decisions before. Can
Speaker 1: you just write it out and wait for it to
Speaker 1: come back or do you think sectors are going to
Speaker 1: change that much that you need to to move it
Speaker 1: around a little Well? Uh so, at least you know,
Speaker 1: a good investment advisor knows what they own, but the
Speaker 1: people that do it themselves normally don't know what they own.
Speaker 1: So there are some sectors that will take a little
Speaker 1: bit longer to get out of this. I would think
Speaker 1: if you look at the energy and oil sector, it's
Speaker 1: going to take some time to get out of this. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, crew lines of sort of things. Entertainment's going
Speaker 1: to take some time to get out of this. High
Speaker 1: yield debt, things that were low rated bonds will struggle
Speaker 1: to get out of this, But the blue chips will
Speaker 1: do fine. And if people are taking income from their
Speaker 1: portfolio as long as they had three to five years
Speaker 1: set aside in safe assets, government bonds, corporate bonds, they'll
Speaker 1: be fine as well. Now I have two million dollars
Speaker 1: worth of radio shack bonds, How do you feel about
Speaker 1: in my future? There you go, We'll listen, stick to
Speaker 1: the radio and leave the radio shack alone. Advice. There
Speaker 1: you go. Do you do you spend much world? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the word world. That's what I was going
Speaker 1: to bring up. How much time do you spend looking
Speaker 1: at Because I was just reading a story that broke
Speaker 1: in the New York Times on the day we're taping
Speaker 1: this about how long this could impact the world financial situation.
Speaker 1: How much time do you spend looking at that? So
Speaker 1: we think a lot about that, um, and we think
Speaker 1: a lot about the recovery, right, so you're prepping for
Speaker 1: their recovery. What's different about this versus the last recession
Speaker 1: is how the Federal Reserve and the Treasure are actually
Speaker 1: and actually legislation is managing through this. So for bands
Speaker 1: on a mortgage for sixty days, they're thinking about people
Speaker 1: being displaced from their home because they can't make mortgage payments.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we're going to see um, this
Speaker 1: sort of foreclosure scenario that we saw last time. I
Speaker 1: think that they're going to bounce back. Small businesses. Oh,
Speaker 1: it breaks your heart. They're gonna struggle like no one's
Speaker 1: business it is. It's awful. My guess is of small
Speaker 1: businesses won't come back. Wowh whoa, whoa, whoa. What does
Speaker 1: that mean for unemployment? I mean I realized that's not
Speaker 1: your specific Baileywick, but that's scary. Well, so look at
Speaker 1: the unemployment. So here's another thing, right, unintended consequences. So
Speaker 1: you've got your state unemployment and then six hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a week and federal unemployment. So someone could be effectively
Speaker 1: making fifty thou dollars a year on unemployment. So the
Speaker 1: job comes back, you're a waiter or a bus boy
Speaker 1: in a restaurant um or your job is marginally pays
Speaker 1: marginally um more than the unemployment benefits. A lot of
Speaker 1: people aren't going to be racing back into the job
Speaker 1: market just because the benefits are, you know, almost as
Speaker 1: good staying out of the job market. So you look
Speaker 1: at that in the in the recovery sense, and then
Speaker 1: you look at these guys that have just you know,
Speaker 1: these restaurants, small restaurants, and I know a number of
Speaker 1: restaurant tours that they're just shaking their heads saying, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm gonna if I'm gonna come back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite Chinese places have been eating that
Speaker 1: for twenty years, is out of business already. They've done. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's rough. So I seeing some of the stuff you
Speaker 1: sent our way. We've talked a little bit about reviewing
Speaker 1: your ounce and you say evaluate your cash needs. What
Speaker 1: do you mean by that? So if you're taking distributions
Speaker 1: just to make a lot of people are living on
Speaker 1: their accounts, you need to make sure that you have
Speaker 1: three to five years in cash so that you can
Speaker 1: actually wait for the equities of the stock portion of
Speaker 1: the portfolio to recover. So the other thing you look
Speaker 1: at is that people a lot of people invest for
Speaker 1: yield or dividends on their stocks. Re expect that you'll
Speaker 1: see dividends come down significantly as corporations try to preserve
Speaker 1: their own cashhold beings. Right, So they the investment landscape
Speaker 1: is changing going forward. Fortunately, Uh, they've they've stepped in
Speaker 1: and they've actually started buying. If you can believe this, Uh,
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve Treasury has started buying corporate bonds in
Speaker 1: the secondary market in order to keep liquidity in the system.
Speaker 1: We've never seen that before. So it's que seventeen quantity easing,
Speaker 1: you know, five six seven. So they stepped in. They
Speaker 1: even stepped in and started buying bond exchange traded funds
Speaker 1: in order to keep liquidity in the market. We've never
Speaker 1: seen this before. But the government is much more aggressive
Speaker 1: um this time than the last time in terms of
Speaker 1: holding down UH, keeping liquidity in the marketplaces right, and
Speaker 1: when liquidity means that there's a buyer for a bond,
Speaker 1: if someone wants to sell it. Do you worry about inflation?
Speaker 1: If we keep adding trillion dollar packages to all this? Oh, inflation,
Speaker 1: No one's worried about inflation. Right now. We should worry
Speaker 1: about inflation, but no one's worried about inflation. And by
Speaker 1: the way, when this is done, if if we see
Speaker 1: less than five trillion dollars UH in in aid, I'll
Speaker 1: be surprised surprise that it's less than five trillion. My
Speaker 1: guess is at six to seven trillion dollars. They're throwing
Speaker 1: everything at this. How how long How long did it
Speaker 1: take after a nine eleven to get back to even
Speaker 1: on the debt it was. It was actually the exact numbers,
Speaker 1: I don't recall. It was relatively quick, It was relatively quick.
Speaker 1: It was I think it was somewhere around less than
Speaker 1: eighteen months. Yeah, I was thinking a year and a half.
Speaker 1: But see, you have any guests how long this one
Speaker 1: will be? Oh, so there's a big so big talk
Speaker 1: about V recovery or l recovery. Uh, it depends on
Speaker 1: how much the government throws at this in order to
Speaker 1: keep people from losing homes and businesses. Um, that is
Speaker 1: what is going to determine the recovery in this and
Speaker 1: how we interact together. I know my business will never
Speaker 1: be the same, right, My business will never be the
Speaker 1: same in terms of how we interact as co workers
Speaker 1: and associates and how we interact with our clients. So
Speaker 1: I have two D and ten employees and uh, no
Speaker 1: one comes through an office. Virtually no one comes to
Speaker 1: an office. But our interaction with our clients is primarily
Speaker 1: by zoom, meetings and phone And we're adapting to the
Speaker 1: clients are adapting to it. And you think it will
Speaker 1: just be this way no matter what, even when the
Speaker 1: pandemic is over, yes. Education. You know, I know you
Speaker 1: both have kids, Uh, your college students. My kids every
Speaker 1: every night, every day they go into a room and
Speaker 1: they take college classes. Um. It will it will change
Speaker 1: the way we deliver good products and services, so much
Speaker 1: like Amazon changed the retail environment. Uh, this will change
Speaker 1: the education and the delivery of financial services and UH
Speaker 1: non products to uh the consumer. And as we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, if it is enough of that going on,
Speaker 1: well then I there's no reason I need to live
Speaker 1: within fifteen miles of downtown if I don't have to
Speaker 1: drive downtown anymore. So real estate could change a lot,
Speaker 1: as you can live in different areas. Now your commute
Speaker 1: doesn't isn't a factor as much. This will be good
Speaker 1: for some bedroom communities most certainly. Yeah, well there will
Speaker 1: be a thousand changes, some good, some bad. I think. Hey, Pat,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about if people get furloughed
Speaker 1: or laid off for their job disappears, and and they're
Speaker 1: they're tempted, say to dip into their four oh one
Speaker 1: k what are alternatives or in general, what would you
Speaker 1: suggest that folks going through that think about so they
Speaker 1: change the rules around four oh one k s. Last
Speaker 1: week where you can withdraw a hundred thousand dollars out
Speaker 1: of your four oh one K without penalty. You still
Speaker 1: have to pay taxes on it, but you can pay
Speaker 1: the taxes over a three year period, or you can
Speaker 1: pay it back into your four oh one K over
Speaker 1: three years, which is complete change, uh in in the
Speaker 1: rules they've they've changed many things. They suspended required minimum distributions. Um,
Speaker 1: So we would caution people to if you're going to
Speaker 1: use retirement savings, do it with a plan in mind. Right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just have to because you have other needs.
Speaker 1: But if you're gonna do it, do it with a
Speaker 1: plan in mind. Am I going to pay it back?
Speaker 1: If I'm not going to pay it back, how am
Speaker 1: I gonna pay taxes? Well, your plan might be I
Speaker 1: don't want to get booted out of my apartment this month,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, So then you don't really have
Speaker 1: a choice. Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm glad to hear that
Speaker 1: there's been that adaptive an approach by the federal government.
Speaker 1: Normally it takes years or generations of howling to get
Speaker 1: some of these rules changed. But do you personally have
Speaker 1: like a gold bar buried in your backyard or anything
Speaker 1: like that. He's not gonna tell you. I just wondered.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if you have a real this is
Speaker 1: a podcast, real ship hit the fans, sort of like
Speaker 1: super backup at a zombie apocalypse sort of thing where
Speaker 1: there's like gold bars in the garage and coffee can
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Well, if you've got to get
Speaker 1: gold bars, they're not going to help you. You need
Speaker 1: guns and ammunition. You need a stockpile of food and water,
Speaker 1: because your gold is useless. If if you don't have
Speaker 1: those other things, if I'm gonna come and take it
Speaker 1: from you. But you know what, my son keeps saying,
Speaker 1: plant food, because that's what kills zombies. He keeps telling
Speaker 1: me that over over again. Really, yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I guess that kill zombies. Listen, I've got a whole
Speaker 1: stock of a miracle grow here, so you should be saying,
Speaker 1: so hey, listen, go ahead. Before we go, let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about what this is going to change in state
Speaker 1: governments in terms of pensions. Yes, please, because these you know,
Speaker 1: many states, many municipalities are their pensions were underfunded to
Speaker 1: begin with. I am hoping that the backside of this
Speaker 1: that it really forces state government municipalities to actually do
Speaker 1: some pension reform because they were underfunded going into this
Speaker 1: um and they assume breaks a return that many of
Speaker 1: these pension funds actually expect. You know, by the way,
Speaker 1: if you ask them how UM they determine their internal
Speaker 1: rate of return, that their their goal is not what
Speaker 1: they return, but what the goal is. They just make
Speaker 1: it up vote on it um. So we're hoping on
Speaker 1: the back side of this we actually see some pension
Speaker 1: reform warm because we've yield this low and the stock
Speaker 1: market where it's at today, there's no way that these
Speaker 1: pensions are going to make it through three, five, ten
Speaker 1: years from now. There's not a chance in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not to get too political about this, Pat, but
Speaker 1: we both know that a lot of those fanciful, just
Speaker 1: utterly fictional plans and formulas for the pensions. They're designed
Speaker 1: to do one thing, to get union members to vote
Speaker 1: a certain way. And the union members were lied to
Speaker 1: everybody as much as the general populace, the taxpayers were
Speaker 1: in that this stuff is unsustainable. But maybe that's a
Speaker 1: discussion for another day. And hey, listen, Pat, as this
Speaker 1: thing evolves, and lord knows how long it's gonna last.
Speaker 1: I hope we can keep in touch. Yeah, and listen.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna plug since this is a podcast. Plug our
Speaker 1: podcast if you go to All word financial dot com.
Speaker 1: We do UM a weekly radio show that's on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and we do Right now, we've been doing covid uh
Speaker 1: market updates of what you should be thinking about in
Speaker 1: your own portfolio. One question just popped into my head.
Speaker 1: What's the stupidest thing somebody could do right now? Like
Speaker 1: you think, like the people that are reacting out of emotion,
Speaker 1: fair and stuff like that, What's a really stupid thing
Speaker 1: they should not do? Uh? So, probably go a percent
Speaker 1: to cash in their portfolio. Um. Going a hundred percent
Speaker 1: to cash is a dangerous, dangerous thing because this too
Speaker 1: shall pass and it will recover. I remember in the
Speaker 1: last recession, I had clients saying I want to go
Speaker 1: to cash, and I was buying on the same day
Speaker 1: in my portfolios. UM, in my own personal portfolios. UM.
Speaker 1: So the worst thing you could do is go to cash.
Speaker 1: If you're worried about it, you can move down risk. UM.
Speaker 1: If you're excited about the opportunities, you can move up risk.
Speaker 1: But you shouldn't make a wholesale move to cash because
Speaker 1: well balanced portfolio normally has some bonds or some fixed
Speaker 1: incomes in it. Good Pat McClain. Always interesting, Pat, and
Speaker 1: always a pleasure. Thanks, let's talk again soon. You got it.
Speaker 1: Extra large