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Key Factors RealEstateAF
Educational Podcast for Consumers, Mortgage & Real Estate Industry Professionals. We'll Talk About It All! Key Factors podcast, powered by https://ReviewMyMortgage.com . Your Host Mark Jones invites Industry Pros to help uncover & educate on the key factors of various topics. There’s something for everyone so let us be your guides and get educated. Subscribe & Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Facebook, Instagram, & all other podcasting platforms. Host : Mark A Jones Founder of ReviewMyMortgage.comProducing Branch MangerSr. Loan Officer. NMLS ID# 513437NMLS Consumer Access: http://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Key Factors RealEstateAF
Investing with Capital Portafolio: The Future of AI and Financial Literacy in the US
Curious about the journey from a small-town bank to the heights of Wall Street? Join us for an insightful conversation with Mauricio Sanchez, a San Antonio native and founder of Portfolio Capital Management. Mauricio shares his compelling story of transitioning from fashion aspirations to becoming a prominent figure in the finance world. Discover how a single finance course redefined his career path, eventually leading him to the high-energy finance scene of Midtown Manhattan. Together, we explore the profound influence of AI technologies on investment banking, discussing both its promising potential and challenges, shaped by generational perspectives.
Gain a deeper understanding of investment strategies tailored to life's various stages as we dive into Mauricio’s investment philosophy. From the importance of diversifying portfolios to understanding the impact of Federal Reserve policies, Mauricio provides valuable insights into making informed financial decisions. Our conversation also touches on the critical role of financial literacy, emphasizing how early education can shape future economic success. We discuss the nuanced interplay between fiscal and monetary policies, highlighting the complexities of navigating market perceptions and economic stability.
Finally, discover why real estate remains a vital investment for achieving personal and family goals. Mauricio articulates the enduring value of owning a home, not just as an asset but as a stepping stone toward fulfilling dreams. We also consider the importance of financial education in schools, advocating for a curriculum that equips young minds with the skills they need to thrive in today’s economic landscape. Whether you're an experienced investor or just starting out, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge to guide you through the evolving worlds of finance and investment.
Key Factors Podcast is Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Host: Mark Jones | Sr. Loan Officer | NMLS# 513437
If you would like to work with Mark on your next home purchase or as a partner visit iThink Mortgage.
I was just going to say that Finance when they don't know finance it's true, you know, that's where the tough part comes in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a big disconnection and also I think in the past couple of years I've got to move this closer because I feel there you go. Yeah, more echo. Oh yeah, I feel like parents maybe had there was a demand factor for you know a good amount of time, I think, george bush's era good make me want to start dressing up again. I stopped, you know, and I'm in t-shirt every day, dude. I wore this because I knew I was coming to see you. You look fantastic.
Speaker 2:Appreciate that you got that light pinks call yeah, I love it, let's see. I've got ChatGPT ready to go if we need it.
Speaker 1:Let me get rid of that. That's good. That's good.
Speaker 2:Does your company have a website?
Speaker 3:Yeah Company. Website is fortofoliocapitalcom.
Speaker 1:Got it. Yeah, we're up capitalcom Got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and welcome back to another episode of Key Factors Podcast Real Estate AF, where the AF stands for and finance, and I'm your host, mark Jones, and we are powered by ReviewMyMortgagecom, the largest index of mortgage programs in the nation, and today's topic has a lot to do with finance. Guys, I want to continue to bring you all new experts in different fields of not just real estate, but also investments and financial world. Firm Portfolio Capital Management. Portfolio Capital Management is an independent wealth and capital management firm based in San Antonio, texas, with over 12 years of combined investment and macroeconomic analysis experience. Our goal is to instill confidence in investing through how we view markets and our investment approach. As a registered investment advisor, ria and fiduciary, we are held to the highest standard when it comes to managing your money and are bound by law to act solely in the best interest of our clients.
Speaker 2:So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my guest today, mauricio Sanchez. How are you, sir? It's good, mark, I'm doing well. Man, how are Sanchez? How are you, sir? It's good, mark, I'm doing well man, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well, man, it's been a minute.
Speaker 3:It's been a minute, man. Thanks for having me, absolutely Thanks for inviting me on.
Speaker 2:Yes. So those of you that are tuning in as of right now, a little background. I started working with Maur Sanchez at Wood Forest National Bank inside the Walmarts. We were both the most good-looking, best-smelling cats you could ever find, but we were also slinging banking products before we even really knew what it was to be banking. But now that we're in our big boy skin, mauricio, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, um, where'd you grow up? Where'd you come from all that good stuff?
Speaker 3:yeah, so san antonio native um parents moved here when I was probably about a month old. I grew up in alma heights until 98. If you're from the city you would understand. The flood of 98 washed a lot of people out of the area so, my family being one, we moved to the north side, went to Clark, graduated from Clark High School and eventually moved back, went to UIW, got my bachelor's in economics there and spent a little bit of time in New York, a little bit of time in Austin, came back to town and now this is forever home. San Antonio's always been home, but we're back. Come back.
Speaker 2:Where you hang. I love it.
Speaker 3:Hang my hat man.
Speaker 2:I love it. So, that being the case, let's dive into how you got into the field that you're in today, because, I mean, it's been a while. This is basically catching up with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, it's been years for sure. So I originally started as a fashion major. Yeah, so I originally started as a fashion major. Yeah, so I started at UIW. I heard UIW had a great program in fashion merchandising. My idea was, hey, get my degree here and try to get into.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you've heard of Brian Diesel, but Renzo Russo was actually running the brand back then, a lot different from what it is today. I wouldn't want to work at Diesel today, but back then Italian founder, big part of the brand. He was actually designing everything and I was like, man, it'd be great to get a position here. So one semester in, I took a finance course because it's part of the curriculum that you take at UIW and I said, man, this stuff is really like, this is where I kind of want to take my field to. So I ended up leaving fashion merchandising and I went into their school of business and I changed my major to economics and finance. They had a dual major then and I did that. During my studies there I had a professor that had a profound movement in what I was learning and I began to trade Forex during my sophomore to senior year.
Speaker 2:Would you mind and I don't want to break up your story but uh explain to our listeners what forex is, because there's a lot of folks that understand it. There's a lot people that hear the word, throw it around and and just have no clue yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So forex today? I mean, if you, if you were to google forex today, it'd be a lot different from what it was then yeah forex today, a lot of people are just following trade pattern signals and then they're taking positions.
Speaker 3:But basically the industry of forex is foreign exchange currency. So what it is is forex is the short term for foreign exchange. Basically, it's brokerages that are pairing different currencies from different parts of the world and then from that you are able to take a position. So you're ideally betting on the appreciation or the depreciation of a currency based on, you know, economic factors, typically economic policy, so monetary policy, monetary policies?
Speaker 2:what happens in the news?
Speaker 3:in many cases, yeah what happens in the Fed. So a lot of what I was doing in that Forex movement was really paying attention to what the Federal Reserve was doing. Here. The European Central Bank, the Bank of China, the Bank of England so you have all of these banks that establish monetary policy across the world. Yeah, and every time that happens you see currency pairs go haywire, volatility builds up and that gives an opportunity for Forex traders to make money.
Speaker 2:Basically speculation on that market. That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what it is, man, but that's Forex in short, wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, back to yours, because you brought up another something that I want to kind of pry onto, but not yet. Please continue, Dan, your journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so profound experience with a professor. Continue down your journey. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, profound experience with the professor. Started trading Forex between my sophomore and senior year. Um years into it I said, hey, it would be awesome to actually um, manage money, work for a firm and then try to build my name and what I'm doing. And I ended up working in private wealth. It wasn't, uh, we weren't making a market with the public, but it was more of a private office in Bernie. I was there for about three years two years.
Speaker 2:What was the office?
Speaker 3:They're private. I would disclose the name, but everyone would probably know. And then I wouldn't want to put that position out there. But long story short, I was there for a couple of years and I caught wind of a couple of different firms hiring in New York. So my ultimate dream throughout this whole journey was to actually be in New York and participate in finance at least for a year. How cool, and to see how it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. I remember visiting New York many times in the past and walking down Wall Street and just seeing all the action and people moving and moving and then all of a sudden, lunch is done and there's nobody on the streets. Where are they? They're back in their dugout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, trading Energy. There is nuts there. So, specifically downtown, I worked in Midtown. Midtown is more of the hedge fund world. Yeah, downtown is where you see all the brokerages, the market makers, where you see all the brokerages, the market makers, but we're in an office with a couple of other hedge funds in Midtown off of 55th and 6th. If you've gone recently, you've probably seen the Love Statue. So the Love Statue downtown used to be I mean not downtown, midtown used to be on 55th and 6th. We work at the building right next to it. Oh, wow, okay, wow, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, new York is is a magical place. Um, I will say that. I am one that does like going to New York in small doses. There's no way I could live there. Um, it's just too much walking, too many people, too much garbage on the streets, et cetera et cetera.
Speaker 3:It smells, it smells, man, it smells. That's. That's probably the I. You know I didn't live in the city specifically for that reason right it was like it's too much, there's too much people walking around that I don't want to interact with. And then two, it smells like it just smells. It does. Yeah, and uh, being in brooklyn was just good it, it uh, kind of puts things in perspective.
Speaker 2:Us being in texas now. Everything's spread out. We've got garbage men that come across every so often, etc. Whereas new york they throw everything onto the streets and then the garbage man comes around like once a week and picks up all their shit yep, and you and you smell it.
Speaker 3:Man, you're walking anywhere and you could you see piles. What is it like?
Speaker 2:probably like a good ton, yes, of garbage that's sitting on the corner right next to your apartment, nuts yes, it's a little bit better if you go during the winter because the the stench is not as pungent, so to speak. So when you were in this transition, kind of soul searching, but still knew what your end goal wanted to be, were you making any money at that time? I mean, what was that like?
Speaker 3:At first you don't. At first you're a coffee fetch man and this is kind of what's established my foundation on how I do my mentoring. But but ideally you're fetching coffee, you're making $300 a week. Yeah, I believe it and basically, if you don't want to tell you, well cool, get the fuck out the door.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And that really establishes the um, the precedence of what you're getting into, right, and it's really more of a respect thing than anything because you know you're crap money. Yeah, and there's no question about it. There's no way of living in new york if you're making crap money. But the idea is get your license, get on the phone and begin to sell, make a market. Sure, we're doing high yield bonds back then gotcha, so we're selling logan's roadhouse. There's a company called dex media, a few others, but we were basically pitching, we were pitching stock and we were pitching bonds. My team was ideally focused on pitching bonds but yeah, to answer your question, you're making minimum money until you get licensed. Really, how it works is you're a coffee fetcher. The leader of the company, which is we're in an office, if I could put this into perspective, this is the Wolf of Wall Street. You're in an office with 100 guys.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say it's like Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah, you're in an office with 100 guys. I was just going to say it's like Wolf of Wall Street boiler room.
Speaker 3:It's 100% boiler room. Wow, yeah, there's a story that goes behind that and we'll talk about that later. But basically you're going into an office with 100 guys. There's six girls that are each of the admins for the senior brokers, gotcha. So you go in there as a coffee fetcher, as a lunch fetcher and, uh, ideally, one of the six either like you or don't like you, and they, they did what they say. It's like they adopt you, sure? So I was adopted, fortunately, I think probably about a month into my into my thing.
Speaker 3:Some people don't get adopted yeah, that's three months man yeah, and basically when you get adopted, it's basically it was your good looks and the great smell maybe the great smell man. It was funny man, because I would. I would into like we'd leave the office or we'd get into the office.
Speaker 2:It smells really good. It smells great in our booth right now. It smells really good.
Speaker 3:We'd get into the office man and I would run into this guy. I didn't know who he was, but he would give me a hard ass. Look, every day I'd run into him in the elevator and then you just look at me and you'd be like, and I'd be like what the fuck am I doing? Like, what am I doing something wrong? So, like, a couple weeks go by, like I said, a month later, I get called down to his office and he's like hey, you're joining my team. You're not listening to anyone. I'm paying for your licenses, which is like the big woo, right, yeah, like now I'm not gonna make shit money, yeah, um, but yeah long story short, or you hope right yeah, but long story short.
Speaker 3:You. You make crap money until probably with me. I think it took me 40 days, 45 days to actually get my license.
Speaker 2:The reason why I asked that to put it in perspective for the listeners is there's a lot of realtors and lenders that watch and listen to this podcast. Yeah, and a lot of the experts that I have on here continually bring up the concept of when you're new to the business, you almost have to have the passion for working for free or very, but then when you run out all your gas, you forget how to do the basics, how to do this, how to talk to people, how to sell, basically, and in your line of work, that spectrum it's almost the same, but it's it's um, encouraged to have that in place. Not necessarily a hazing period, but hey, man, you got to earn your stripes. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it almost drives us insane to where a brand new to the business realtor or lender is all of a sudden seen as equal to somebody that's been doing it for years, and that's just not the case.
Speaker 3:Right, so you're saying your industry, people that get licensed and they go in, they're already on the level of everyone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, In perception wise.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:We know that they don't have the layers of ass whoopings that we've taken Right All the tragedies and landmines that we've stepped on throughout our career thus far. But putting a social media post out saying that I'm now a realtor is going to get you business in some way, shape or form over an experienced lender that can actually advise you, understands the different programs, the ins and outs um can see into the future of I'm looking at a credit report. That's going to be an issue. Let me raise that question now. Whereas newer to the business, they're not even going to know it's going to go through their operations team is going to be the one that goes hey, did you see this type concept?
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and I mean I think I think it's important to have someone that's experienced. I mean specifically in my world too. I'll give you an example. But, like in my world, yes, you're a hundred percent correct. I think that it's important to hire someone with experience, but that's not the only factor. You've got to hire someone that's really open to the dynamic, because our industries change, yeah, and they change on the daily.
Speaker 2:That's the only thing, that's constant.
Speaker 3:Right, right, and somebody who doesn't. So, for instance, I'll give you I was in a panel speaking in Austin about a month ago, okay, and I'm in the panel and I'm with guys that are double my age and they're talking about right now, okay, interest rates. The conversation of then was interest rates are coming down, emerging markets look attractive again, and I'm like I'm sitting there like emerging markets look attractive again. Look at all the geopolitical tension that is happening across the world. And maybe they didn't come from a world where they experienced much of that during their career, because we've been in a bull market for 16 years and ideally that's like all they see this. It's been money, right, but people like myself that have been like barely making a market in this right.
Speaker 3:I pay attention to everything. I'm paying attention to economic policy, I'm taking account geopolitical risk, and jamie diamond speaks about this a lot. Yeah, one of the biggest factors in geopolitical risk is that emerging markets are depressed based on what's happening. And so you have on this. You know, on this panel I'm sitting with probably like four other older guys and I'm like do you not see this? And sure enough, so I brought it to point. Sure enough, after the conversation, I had like 10 people come in and they're like you know, I've never thought about these things, but you are so right, it's very important to consider that. And I'm like absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2:So long story short, yeah, that's kind of how I see it. Well, I mean, it's one of those things that perspective is only yours, right, until you gain outside perspective that allows you to increase that broad, narrow-minded view that you currently have. And I believe, in order to be a great investment banker and a great leader, a great manager, especially when it comes to people's capital, you've got to be able to see it all, for sure.
Speaker 2:And know how these strings will affect this over here. Right, I can imagine that's pretty. That's a lot of stress.
Speaker 3:maybe I mean it's stress, but it's also to me, it's opportunity. That stress to me is like, hey, it's great that, yeah, I'm going through the learning and ideally, when you think about it, we're walking our. I don't know if your parents are still around, but I'm walking my parents on how to use ChatGPT and I would assume that I meet a lot of other money managers that are the same age as my parents, that are like I don't know necessarily what this means. So their perception of this technology is a lot different from myself, absolutely and ideally.
Speaker 3:I see it as a bullish thing, they see it as a bearish thing and I'm like, hey, this is ideally, if we look at how the markets are reacting to it, it's making people more productive and we have seen a run up in positions that are levered on AI technology, and to me, I look at other money managers that aren't necessarily considering this and I'm like you are missing an opportunity for your clients to really establish a portfolio that is, that is hedged against the risk of not being in a productive cycle with AI technology, sure, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So, that being said, I mean, before we get into our topics, how are you seeing AI affect you guys's industry? Because in our side of the tracks, we're seeing AI helping us bridge gaps between things that typically would take us a while to do. Done like that, between things that typically would take us a while to do. Done like that. And we're talking super simple things from I need a script to put onto social media to I need you to calculate the property taxes. If the tax rate is this, the homestead exemption is this, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:Right. So, in terms of markets and how it's affecting companies that we buy, I'm looking across every industry that you could possibly think of, Because what AI is actually doing is it's making one, it's making everyone more productive, and then two ideally, companies are reducing cost.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So when people get more productive, companies reduce cost. Bottom line for that is net income goes up. That's right, so ideally it's an opportunity. That is net income goes up, that's right, so ideally it's an opportunity. As an analyst, from the analyst perspective, we look at it as hey, this is good for companies.
Speaker 3:We need to pinpoint which companies are actually levering this technology. Two, my industry, specifically when I'm looking at reports, the way that I use AI technology is you have your annual reports, you have your quarterly reports from companies, right, and ideally this is 200 to 300 to 400-page documents that you're looking at on an annual basis, whether it's a company you're invested in or a company that you're looking at what AI allows us to do, specifically, like ChatGPT. If you have the paid model, chatgpt allows you to upload a 300-page document and ask ChatGPT give me the points of where this document is talking about, let's say, for example, decentralized finance, yes. Or where this document is talking about how annual numbers have suffered for the past two years and that allows you to build a baseline to analyze the companies faster. Absolutely, I'm no longer having to sit down on a Sunday reading a 300-page document times 36 positions that we're buying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So now I'm able to do that in a much quicker manner. Way more efficient as well, yeah, I mean I discovered that.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm one of the early adopters of ChatGPT, the paid version. We've been using it now since launch and we'll throw PDFs of guidelines that are thousands of pages, say hey, instead of me going through and hitting control F to try and determine where that is, and then now let me try and interpret it's more. So let me just ask it the question with the scenario, utilizing this guideline, this PDF guideline, give me your opinion and give me the sources in which you found it, so that I can go back to those pages to make my own conclusion for whether or not we can do this scenario.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Super, super fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And that's the important piece of it, right? Everyone thinks that, oh, let's just plug it into chat, gpt, and then it's going to give us all the answers. Ideally no. The human factor is very important, especially as fiduciaries, if we're managing money.
Speaker 3:we're doing things for our clients and we have to do it in the right way. We can't say we're a fiduciary if we're not in tune with what's actually happening. That's right. So ideally, yes. Does it help us read these reports quicker? Does it help us make better decisions? Yes, but absolutely does the factor of I'm having to contemplate After I read a report. There's a lot of contemplation that happens internally.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 3:In terms of making a position, either selling out of a position, buying more, putting a new position into a strategy. So there's a human factor to AI technology that a lot of people tend to discount.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily the pill that's going to solve everything, but it is going to make us more productive.
Speaker 2:It's going to make us work quicker, and a lot of folks would, when it was coming out, saying it's going to replace humans. I was the one saying it's not going to replace humans, but it will leave you behind if you don't utilize it 100%. Yeah, I mean, it's not going to replace you by all means, but if you're not leveraging it, using it, incorporating it into your day-to-day, if you're in business matter of fact, in any business, there's a way to utilize it to make your life streamlined, et cetera You're just going to be left behind and it's up to you to try and catch up to that. But it won't replace you, so to speak, because you're still human. You're thinking right, um, you just don't have all the answers right actually um at your fingertips, it's true.
Speaker 2:So, um, do I ask this question now? I'll I'll hold, I'll hold on to this one. Uh, do you know anything about bricks?
Speaker 3:are you talking about um?
Speaker 2:the additional uh currency that uh basically is about to be arabia russia.
Speaker 3:Yeah I forgot who else china china yeah, I know, I know a little bit um, but yeah, I mean we'll come back, yeah, yeah, we'll come back to that one.
Speaker 2:so, um, the the next thing that we want to discuss here and and I thought it was an an amazing topic here it says many overlook the idea of investing, and you know that you did right when you were younger I mean even as we got a little bit older the concept of it, but the power behind it and the compounding. Can you explain that to us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so ideally, when you think of investing, you know there's risk. There's always risk that is involved, whether it's risk within what asset allocation you're putting in, what companies you're buying. Companies could go bankrupt, yeah. Industries could go bust for a period of time right. If an administration comes in, there's different risk factors that exist within a portfolio Right, and when you compile a portfolio, when you build a portfolio of assets, there are measures of risk that you should probably be in tune with. How investing and compounding works is. Ideally, you have a timeline, right. So if I'm 75 years old and I know that I can't afford a down period, could you imagine if you're 75 years old and you had a 2008 and you were invested in all stocks, your portfolio would take a hit. Your life expectancy in the United States is probably like I mean, for me it's like 83 or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah for my family it's probably like 70. But so there's a position there, right In 2008, it hit and if people were over allocated into stocks and they were at a higher age bracket, then they didn't have that buffer to make up right. And we did see, we saw, I think it was like a J curve up after, I think, a year. Oh yeah, so ideally, when you think of investing, you have a timeline right. You're 75,.
Speaker 3:You have a shorter timeline than the 20 year old, and this is where I missed out right, as a 20 year old, those perspectives really didn't come into play. It wasn't until later where I was like man. If I invested when I was 20, by the time I was 30, and if I invested, let's say, $10,000 a year, you would ideally have a really nice nest egg after 10 years, because I think it's like a 10% to 12% S&P return and then you compound that over a span of time. I don't have a calculator with me, but ideally that's huge, absolutely. So there is a, there's a benefit that the younger, that the younger, that you get started investing Right, then ideally you are able to build a bigger nest egg with reduced risk.
Speaker 2:And even that, that concept that you're talking about here, it even applies if you don't have a ton to invest, right, right, I think that's what a lot of folks tend to miss or to overlook is oh, I don't have enough money to become an investor, guys, what extra do you have? Number one. And if you don't have extra, it's time to look at what you're doing every month, every day, to determine what excess are you spending on that could be utilized to leverage, to compound for your future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is true is true. I mean, even if it, even if it's a thousand dollars a year, thousand dollars a year over a span of 10 years, compounded at 10 to 12 percent every year that you're making on that is huge. Absolutely it's huge. I don't want to bore people with like with uh, with it with the uh actual calculation of that, but I mean they could do that at home and you would ideally be surprised.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, this is kind of what I would imagine you are doing a lot of today and JC if you can throw that reference up here.
Speaker 3:So tell me about portfolio. Yeah, so we have an investment philosophy and you can click on this if the viewers are watching this but we have an investment philosophy that domestic markets, basically, uh, markets within the united states, are superior. Okay, that's one kind of factor into it. Two, equities markets are superior than to any other market.
Speaker 3:Okay, so when you think of a bond portfolio, uh, when you think of a portfolio, back in the day when you and I were young, the, the status quo of a bond allocation was always like the 60-40. You had a 60% equity position, 40% bond. So that way you're kind of hedging that risk. Our investment philosophy is completely different than that and we could read the top five principles that kind of guide us right. So we believe domestic markets, equities markets, are superior to any other segments of the United States economy in terms of liquidity and long-term wealth generation. Diversification, of course, allows us to minimize unsystematic risk inherent in the equities markets. Specific sectors of the market behave differently in times of expansion and contraction. A well-positioned portfolio maintains a long-term outlook and keeps an open policy to shift in and out of positions within the sectors of the economy. And then the last one is, of course I don't know if you've heard the term don't fight the Fed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But basically Federal Reserve monetary policy affects investment securities and should be acknowledged.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of a huge factor in how we position portfolios. But these five principles are kind of the tenets that guide us on how we invest into markets.
Speaker 2:And I am actually super thrilled that your last one, which I believe is one of the most important ones, that many don't even consider. They want to give their two cents about it, but then they don't take any actions based on what just took place. Right, the Fed we know that during the pandemic, the Fed dropped the rates to zero, so there's free money, so to speak.
Speaker 3:Right, well, you also have those that may be new or could see and were scared.
Speaker 2:Fear tends to get us to not do anything, but I can tell you that the Federal Reserve and their monetary policies and what they drop and raise do affect the mortgage and real estate markets 100%. If you don't mind, could you tell us kind of how that works?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so basically we have what's called I'm not going to say quarterly, because it happens more frequently than not, but basically the Federal Reserve publishes a calendar. In that calendar they meet for two days and then the last day that they meet, the Federal Reserve chairman comes out, speaks and says hey, our FOMC, which is a committee of all the regional banks throughout the United States, they implement a policy of either holding rates, raising rates, reducing rates, based on economic data that's coming out. Typically it's jobs, unemployment rate, inflation numbers, inflationary data. So there's a list of a lot of data and we publish a lot of that on our website. But there's a list of a lot of data that the fomc looks at whenever they establish monetary policy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but everything, in short, fed funds, everything is kind of pegged in the united states. Everything is kind of pegged on fed funds. Yeah, right, the lower that fed funds is, the more liquidity is within certain aspects of certain sectors or certain, uh, places in economy. Yeah, and that allows people. So you tend to see, when rates are low, people are buying more stocks. There's a wealth effect to that. When rates are high, stock markets are a little more depressed. And then ideally, I mean, when you think about it, what is the true essence of what's happening there? Rates are high. It's harder for companies to use whatever capital or borrow capital to infuse back into their business, so that slows companies down. This is why, during an inflationary period, the Federal Reserve raised rates. Right, because they're trying to slow, they're trying to cool the economy, correct?
Speaker 2:And that's actually what is still happening to this day, and a lot of folks I get this question 10 times a day is when are rates going to come down? And my explanation and you can tell me if this is accurate or if it needs a little fine tuning is guys, if they were to drop rates down tomorrow tremendously, we would have a bigger issue on our hands. And the reason why I say that is if I look at real estate, if rates. And the reason why I say that is if I look at real estate, if rates currently sitting, let's call it 7% right now, prime rate. If they drop down to 5% tomorrow, meaning the Fed cut a whole point everybody went whoa, all right, right, what it's going to do is basically induce all the folks that are sitting on the fence waiting to buy. We're waiting for rates to drop. They're going to jump in the market. What does that do to the price of real estate? Everything shoots up through the roof. So it then would trigger even more of an inflationary period for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're not entirely wrong on that. So, ideally, housing is an aspect of the inflationary data that they're looking at. They want to slow down markets. Housing is one of them. They want to make housing a little bit cheaper because it's crazy right now, right or whatever it is. So, yes, you are correct, housing is a component of what they're establishing, setting policy to.
Speaker 2:Okay, what additionally could could I, moving forward, add to that? That would make it even more um valid? Uh, because I don't want to uh, pretend that I'm something that I'm not. Yeah, I'd rather just say, hey, you know what? Just call him out, he's you, he's got miles got you look, I think you're correct on it.
Speaker 3:I think you can add that not only does it affect housing but, like here's the scary part If and the Fed has established an interest rate reduction policy now going out of I think it was two meetings ago, right Last week, they dropped a quarter point. We're at four point five to four point seven five range right now. Before that, another 50 basis point. Correct 4.5 to 4.75 range right now. Before that, another 50 basis points. So we are in a position of where they're looking at it from a what's called like a dovish perspective. They're trying to, they're trying to drop it, but they don't want to. What happens is, like you said, if they tend to drop too hard, then and the issue of inflation uprising again. That is. That is again, that is a factor when you think about there's like an untold. I'm trying to make this easier to understand.
Speaker 3:Take your time To someone that's not finance oriented, basically when the Fed speaks. I'll just give you an example and this might make sense Alan Greenspan back in. I think it was 2001?, yeah, 2001. 2000, 2001-ish Right right Somewhere around there. Alan Greenspan there's an unspoken nature to what, and Alan Greenspan for those who don't know who it is, it's the chairman of the Federal Reserve back then, yeah.
Speaker 2:Was replaced by Jerome Powellome powell, you guys right?
Speaker 3:well, actually it was. It was bernanke, yellen and then, uh, jerome powell now. But um, basically, there's an unspoken nature to how people view the chairman of the fed, right, and it doesn't necessarily always have to be on about what they say or what they establish in policy, but maybe about what they're doing. Back then they would look at alan greenspan walking into the Federal Reserve Bank right before an FOMC meeting and they said if his pamphlet, if his notebook is fat, then he's getting in there ready to try to convince his Federal Reserve Regional Bank members that inflationary pressures are high and they probably need to reduce rates. Now, this is something that the market just began to formulate about Alan Greenspan. This wasn't like set in nature, right? It's just the markets make their own understanding about what's happening, sure, and then the markets react. This is why you hear the term. The market is pricing in a lower 30-year yield on the federal treasury.
Speaker 2:That's exactly correct and kind of to help in that regard. On the mortgage side of things, guys, when we see Jerome Powell walk out and give his announcement walk out and give his announcement we as mortgage bankers have already priced in what we anticipate him to do. So it's not like, oh, jerome Powell just lowered rates a quarter, guess what. We already anticipated that and we did it before him. And it's not necessarily a quarter for quarter either. Just want everybody to know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean, even when you, even when you look at it, interest rates have been reducing and I think, think they're still at the six point eight seven, seven, six, point eight to seven, point one three.
Speaker 2:They've just been teeter tottering Right.
Speaker 3:And that's before they started implementing a policy. So in essence, yes, you're going back to your question is you're 100 percent correct? But there is a lot of more, a lot of more information or data that sits on the back end that we can look at and basically say that if any of those pressures react negatively right to what the federal reserve is doing, what the fomc is doing, then we have a bigger issue all bets are off right, all bets are off the markets.
Speaker 3:The markets are making their own presumption or assumption about where markets are going, and then the Fed loses faith or the market loses faith in that the Fed can establish a baseline, and then we have bigger issues. Yeah, Right. The moment that the markets begin to say, hey, the Federal Reserve is out of whack. Yeah, like they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Right, that is a moment that markets we should be worried about what's happening. Yeah, when markets begin to price something like that in and and that's.
Speaker 2:That's kind of what um, I'm not going to say it scares me, but it's something that is concerning about this bricks thing that's happening um, you're seeing the 10-year uh bond go up, meaning we need more people, we need it to be more attractive for people to invest into our 10 year bonds, and typically it's outside markets that invest in those um, for the most part, but it's not necessarily affecting mortgage rates, which is totally contradictory to what we normally are used to, and it's like okay, is our value becoming weaker?
Speaker 3:Ideally, I mean think about what we've been doing fiscally right. So we have two policies that happen in the United States. We have monetary policy, which is established by the Federal Reserve, and then we have fiscal policy that is established by an administration or the legislative branch the Senate, passing laws to stimulate the economy. Yeah, two very different Right, two very different things. But ideally, what we've seen is whenever you see for example, in 2008, fiscal stimulus checks went out. Whenever was it Obama or George Bush?
Speaker 2:It was that had to have been Bush, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:What year? Yeah, I think it was that had to have been bush, wasn't it? Let's see right before, obama was one of the first ones that we what year was it?
Speaker 3:2000, let's say 2008, right when the uh 2008.
Speaker 1:Who was the president? I think that was let's find out boom. Yeah, there you go. When did obama come in?
Speaker 3:inaugurated the winning 2008 election.
Speaker 3:Okay, there you go. So. So, whenever that, when, whenever the economy was being hit by the 2000 crash in 2008, fiscal stimulus checks were written and and sent out. That's right, why? Because they were trying to stimulate the economy because it was getting, they knew, depressed. Yeah, right, the economy was going into a depression and they were like we need to do something to fix this issue before we have bread lines that, in addition to bailing out the banks and we can, that's a whole nother story in itself. But, um, that happened. Yeah, that's what's called fiscal stimulus.
Speaker 3:Okay, fiscal fiscal policy, that is that is induced into the economy. Right now, the economy's been doing great. We've had a 16-year bull run in markets, meaning that companies have been doing well, making earnings. The stock market is great and we still had fiscal policy that has been putting money into the pockets of the citizens. Money into the pockets of the citizens, yeah, when, when you write for it, you have to understand when you write fiscal policy into play, you have to understand. When you write fiscal policy into play, it's not like nobody's paying for that. Our debt goes up as a nation, absolutely Right. So US debt goes up during the cycle of that.
Speaker 2:Matter of fact, we had two episodes back to back just discussing. We had the national debt calculator up on the screen and we just dissected the shit out of it. It was like mind-blowing to see how all these figures stack up and are relatable to what we do every day and we go whoa, let's put this in perspective for you. Um, it's just nuts to to kind of bite off that. You know how they say. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Speaker 3:This is a big ass elephant it is, man it is, and I'm trying not to go too finance on it because I know you have people that are.
Speaker 2:I don't mind.
Speaker 3:So, ideally, when the debt is going up, ideally you have other nations and this is why it goes back to the 10-year bond. Whenever you have auction, people are still buying it, but people are beginning to look at other outlets, such as what you're speaking of, the BRICS. They're speaking of other outlets in terms of what can we begin to look at outside of the US dollar. That is really the strength of something we want to be either pegged against or something we want to rely on when they see the debt goes up. That is worrisome, maybe not in the short term, but in the long run, our generation, specifically, will definitely pay for the price of that. Yeah, your kids will pay for the price of that, my nephew will pay for the price of that, and then there are generations going forward, unless we begin to ease off of the fiscal stimulus factor in terms of what these administrations have been doing Correct, correct, but, yeah, scary spot.
Speaker 2:No, it really is. I mean, I've got a couple more things that we can dig into here, and one is is this one's kind of opinionated and there's no wrong or right answer unless there's data to back it up? Because we hear oftentimes that and this may or may not even be your sector, but I want to put it out into the ether we hear a lot of times on the news, on the media, that such and such is giving tax cuts to the wealthy, and all the research and data that I find that tends to actually benefit the layman, the middle class, etc. Due to the trickle-down effect, so to speak. Why Business owner? Let's say I'm a business owner. I am, if I'm getting tax breaks, meaning I have more on my bottom line.
Speaker 2:I didn't get here by taking the money and pocketing it. I got here by reinvesting and believing in myself and continuing to bet on myself and my employees. So what does that mean? I'm going to give raises to people. We can incorporate more technology, we can incorporate some things that we couldn't before, didn't have the funds to. That's my theory on it. But I want to get your take on that, because you you've got more of the financial side to kind of back it on yeah, I, I do there.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you look at it, is there a trickle-down effect to an easier policy on corporations? I would say yes. However, there's a number of other things that you have to look at in terms of hey, are the normal citizens that maybe aren't necessarily entrepreneurs or business individuals that are owners of businesses benefiting from it? There's a lot of other factors that you would have to look at to make that decisive decision right. Sure, but do I think that there is a bullish signal, meaning that is it good for markets? Is it good for companies? Is it good for entrepreneurship? Is it good for businesses who are hiring people?
Speaker 3:Whenever you have policies that are either hands-off or easier in terms of being taxed too hard, I do think there's a benefit in that, because we look at, at the end of the day, we're looking at our P&L right and we're trying to figure out where can we profit from, where can we cut losses, and this comes down to the productivity thing. This comes down to all the factors that establish our bottom line in terms of a business right. Net income is at the bottom, that's right. What can we line in terms of a business right? Net income is at the bottom. That's right.
Speaker 3:What can we reduce in terms of cost of goods, in terms of overhead, in terms of am I going to hire the person who is actually um educated in real estate, opposed to hiring someone that's just coming into the industry, that had left left another industry and doesn't know what we've dealt with for the past 10 years, right left another industry and doesn't know what we've dealt with for the past 10 years? You look at all those things and those are the factors that I'm speaking of. But yeah, hands-off policy or easier tax incentives for a business, does it help an economy? I wouldn't combat that at all, but there are a lot of factors that exist.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's pretty dead on and accurate, because most business owners and I don't know why we do this, but in times of crunch we do tend to look at where we can cut to save instead of looking at how do we make more revenue to combat that.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Which is odd.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we look at, okay, what can we, what can we create? Um, a bigger income stream by doing what? Right, like, we look at it, but what does it take for you to look at? It takes time. It takes time where you're taking out of running your business to actually begin to strategize to work on your business, so the easiest thing to do is to cut cost. That's right. And then when you're slow and you're like, okay, you have time. Now you have an opportunity to strategize and build bigger income streams.
Speaker 2:That was a fantastic observation and I didn't even put that together, but I think you're right. As a business owner, you are correct we are constantly caught up in the day-to-day of doing business that it does take time to work on the business, so you might as well just do what's easiest and quickest. Cut some cost.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is the same policy that I look at whenever we're buying companies. Right, whenever you buy a company and you'll see, like, for instance, like the corporate raiders, like Carl Icahn, bill Ackman, whenever they buy a position into a company and they revamp the board and they hire a new CEO, why are they doing that? You got to think of it. Right, there is a strategy factor, there is a mindset factor that these companies, whatever they've been doing for a certain amount of time, probably hasn't worked for a reason, and there's no way to change the mold of how somebody has been running a company other than to get rid rid of right, that's right, um, so we see that a lot.
Speaker 3:So when you, when you, when you hear company news, um, typically if a company's has been, if a company has been depressed for like, let's say, a cycle of like four, four quarters, and you're like what's going on? And then suddenly you hear news comes out on cnbc and they're like, hey, the ceo just got ousted and you see, the stock just jump. Disney, for example, right, right. So you see those things happening and that allows a company to do better. And then us, as investors, when we buy into an opportunity like that.
Speaker 2:It gives us the opportunity to grow with that change and and that that right there almost reminds me of um. Uh, was it the big short? No, it wasn't the big short, it was um, oh gosh, what is the other one? Uh, a wolf of wall street for wall street where matthew mcconaughey says it's a fugazi why it's basically propped up on what people believe to be true, so much so that they're willing to bet their dollar right to a certain extent yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean like when you think of companies, right, like companies could be doing great I mean look at, let's just talk about warren buffett recently, warren buffett pulled all his money out of the sucker and everybody's going. What the heck's?
Speaker 3:going on what he's a lot of.
Speaker 2:It was like amazon he sold out of it, I think.
Speaker 3:Let me see if I can find that um recently like this week or last week, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:It was maybe a week ago.
Speaker 1:recently, warren Buffett liquidated his stake in many companies.
Speaker 2:How much was it and did it move the market? And that's kind of what I'm getting to is how can somebody have so much of a position in and an influence on the markets that it moves the whole markets? When they do something. It's like, oh, he's breathing again or he sneezed. What are we gonna do now?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, when you think of it, I think the sec makes everyone that's a five percent owner or above. You have to file that you are a majority owner when you just own five percent. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, right, yeah so this says, uh, and it gives us two answers because it always likes to know which one we prefer but it says Warren Buffett, Brookshire Hathaway has significantly reduced its holdings in several companies over the past year. Notably, the firm sold approximately $127 billion worth of stock in 2024. And that was super recently, including a substantial reduction in Apple's stake by nearly two-thirds, bringing it down $69.9 billion. Additionally, Brookshire sold $34.6 billion worth of stock in the third quarter, notably including significant sales of Bank of America shares. So I mean, yeah, that kind of stuff that happens.
Speaker 3:Right, I'm seeing how much he sold in amazon this happened. I'm surprised they didn't tell us what happened last week how much did warren buffett?
Speaker 1:recently sell of amazon stock stock boom. Let's see this thing's pretty smart there it is boo boo, boo, boo, boo 2023.
Speaker 2:Uh holdings by an additional. Okay, let's see here the firm reduced its holdings by an additional 551 000 shares, a 5.2 decrease. So they, they, that'll move them.
Speaker 3:That'll move a market. Yeah, and five point two decrease.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the position was before, but yeah that's going to move some stuff Right, and people are going to go. Well, what's going on Right, right, um, yeah, there's this. This stuff fascinates the hell out of me because we can't see it, we can't touch it, but technically you can if you do the research. Yeah, does that sound about right?
Speaker 3:yeah, you're saying you can't touch. What company specifically?
Speaker 2:I mean you can't necessarily touch the um, the bandwagon that you're jumping on, it it's. It's like the concept of the dream. Can you touch the dream? No, you can't, but you believe it to be true, so therefore you're going to act upon it. You can't actually, matter of fact, you don't actually make money until you cash it out.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:So it's like, yeah, I've made so much money in the stock, okay, and tomorrow it falls out of the bottom and that's gone. So did you really make money, or you're just seeing these numbers on a screen moving?
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, I mean, that's the important piece of like diversification. I know a lot of people specifically younger, younger generations right now are big in the day trading thing yeah, and it comes down to to me, day trading, because I used to do it a lot. Yeah, I learned that that is a zero-sum game. You're gonna have good days, you're gonna have bad days. But if you look at it, whether you're a year out, whether you're two years out, you're probably gonna be at zero, or you're probably gonna be at negative yeah, you're what do they call it?
Speaker 2:you're better off doing that cost basis like every week putting x amount uh.
Speaker 3:What is it? Uh average cost?
Speaker 2:there you go.
Speaker 3:Average cost uh purchasing dollar cost averaging there you go but yeah, ideally, that's the important factor of diversification buying into, you know, not just one or two or three or different positions that you like, but buying into, at least, let's say, 15 to 20 positions that you like. But buying into, at least, let's say, 15 to 20 positions that you like, having a portfolio allocated and then sitting back and if you believe in those companies, then then you should ideally have no problem with the the tops and the bottoms of that stock moving up over a span of a couple of years. Peaks and valleys, yeah, peaks and valleys.
Speaker 2:So, jc, what time are we at 56 minutes?
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:This time for our last topic, because you mentioned the younger generation doing day trading and things of that nature. Um, and I I'd like to know your thoughts on, because obviously you're big on finance, you're big on financial literacy, you're big on financial education. I myself am, as much as I possibly can be, from a mortgage real estate perspective. You get to see a different world than I do, but I believe that this day and age, our younger generation, because we have so quick access to data, we have a lack of attention span. I mean it's like the max is eight seconds these days. You've got teachers that are overwhelmingly underpaid, in addition to maybe overworked, maybe not overworked, but I don't believe we are setting up our younger generation for success. In addition to maybe overworked, maybe not overworked, but I don't believe we are setting up our younger generation for success.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree with you on that. Yeah, tell me your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:I think I mean for one. I think it comes down to parents also. Parents have to and I'm not a parent yet, but just seeing across the board, because I tend I meant I I love to mentor younger minds and I like to to get into their heads to see what are they experiencing that either gives them hope or or dwindles hope.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, that's our future, Right, right.
Speaker 3:So I spent a lot of time, you know, talking to kids, talking to younger generations, whether they're in high school, um or college, but really trying to understand. Okay, where are you guys positioned in terms of mindset? For one, I think it comes down to parents. I think parents have to set the precedent that the world isn't easy, and if your kid is graduating high school and is going into the real world thinking that life is how it was whenever they're living under your household, thinking that life is how it was whenever they're living under your household, then they're going to walk into a rude awakening, so one. I think parents have to do a better job of setting the expectation for kids or younger minds to walk into that field, because it's a scary place to be, regardless whether you've been molded or not. But could you imagine not having the correct understanding of what you're walking into? Right?
Speaker 2:I mean, and just to break this conversation up just briefly, I want to just ask this thing, one more thing that may put this into more of a perspective of what we're discussing. Yeah, how? No, what percentage of Americans invest in the stock market? I think we're going to be thoroughly surprised. Okay, approximately 62% of the US adults. Wow, it's breaking it down.
Speaker 3:Let's look at the lower income. There you go.
Speaker 2:That's what I was trying to get to. Yeah, that's right, 25's. Look at the lower income. There you go. That's what I was trying to get to. Yeah, it's right, 25, only in the lower income. Now, what do they consider lower income?
Speaker 1:I'll just ask it what do you consider lower income house olds, let's see lower 52 000.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's most of americans, yeah, you know, um, and only so. Here it even breaks it down by demographics, right, um, we're gonna only focus on that lower income, which that, for san antonio, is average income. To be honest, yeah, uh, only 25% of folks actually invest in the stock market, and I would go as far as to say that most, if not all, are simply doing it with their 401k and not actually individually picking stocks, managing their portfolio or have a manager of their portfolio. Right, and this says, in the lower stock ownership by race, believe it or not, more black people own stocks than Hispanics.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe that.
Speaker 2:Let's see here no college education. 33% of non-college educated people own stock.
Speaker 3:In comparison to what some college fits. That's a big variance, right there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely what? Some college? That's a big variance right there. Absolutely, uh, post-grad. So it's like something about the college that gets you to see the light and go.
Speaker 3:Maybe I should start investing and I, and I, and I think it's because I think high schools, high schools and maybe generations or schools before the middle school, we'll say middle school also um, I think they fail to teach how necessarily the economy is actually working great.
Speaker 2:Can you elaborate?
Speaker 3:right. So when you, when you go in, and I have a nephew and he's taking a finance something, but he's like it's an electorate, I might drop it and I'm like you're absolutely not gonna drop it, I'm like why would you do that right?
Speaker 3:I'm like, I'm like you're telling me this. I was like, no, you're not, you're not dropping it, man. So when you think of what they're teaching in schools and and I would have to look at the curriculum of every different district he's in Northside, but I would have to look at the curriculum and say, okay, but from what I've positioned and from what I've seen is that schools are not necessarily teaching these younger minds how the economy works, not even just finance, basic knowledge of how the economy works right, what makes the economy run the way that it does? Right? Why do companies? Why are companies in the in the business of making a profit? What do they? What do they do? What, what, what good do they do for the world?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that kids are failing to understand that in the in the most basic form. Yeah, right, they think that, oh, just because, um, a company is running that, oh, they're going to provide a job, and it's like, no, in certain periods they're not hiring. Right, and why aren't they hiring? Well, they're not hiring because there's no money in their, in their balance sheet, or there's no money that is in foresight of their pipeline.
Speaker 2:That's right and so a lot of insolvency right. They're still running Right.
Speaker 3:And then you have a kid that's hoping. You know, he's getting out of high school and he sees his company that he wants to work for, just go under. And then he's like, ok, now I'm lost. Right, all of those perceptions could be eased into the reality of how our world works, right, if schools would just teach how the economy truly functions.
Speaker 2:And a lot of folks would say well, they're too young to even understand that Bullshit. I say make it fun.
Speaker 1:Make it fun.
Speaker 2:I was having a conversation and this was several months back with another loan officer in Idaho Falls Shout out, deborah Criddle. She had a genius idea. She said why don't? In elementary we start off with having the kids come in and they pick from a hat or something with a bunch of different professions. Boom, you pick it out and fireman, okay, great.
Speaker 2:So for this month or this year, this quarter, whatever the time period is, you're going to get a paycheck based on that career field and you've got to have a budget and you're going to pay rent or you're going to pay mortgage and you're going to pay auto and your light bill, et cetera, et cetera. And it doesn't have to be that elaborate, but just getting them to understand the concept of money management and seeing oh wow, this is how my parents allow me to go to school. The clothes that I wear, the food that I buy, that kind of stuff and that kind of makes it fun and also enlightening for the kid, because by the end of the semester, what have you? And they go man, I'm out of money. Chances are I don't need to be a fireman or a teacher or this or that. I need to go and take some risks into this other profession. Then you've obviously got professions that are commission only, entrepreneurs, things of that nature.
Speaker 2:But what I do think is a practice like that would get the young minds to start thinking the way that would lead them to open the doors or at least be intrigued by what does that mean?
Speaker 2:What does if I do this, what are the repercussions of it mean? What does if I do this, what are the repercussions of it? Um, that then kind of opens the door or leads it into them asking their parents more questions, because what I've found is, more times than not, parents want to shield their kids from any type of downfalls that that are taking place within the family, so they they shield them from it. Then, when that kid grows up and has their first windfall, they don't know what the hell to do, right, and they think it's the end of the world, kind of like what we're seeing right now, where participation medals seem to be the buffer for getting a good solid ass whooping type concept. Yep, getting a good solid ass whooping type concept? I don't know. I firmly believe that there needs to be something implemented within younger generations elementary, middle school that I know that I didn't receive.
Speaker 1:I received it from my parents straight up.
Speaker 2:They were very transparent. I'm appreciative of it At the time. I'm like God man. Why do I need to learn this stuff? But fast forward. Many other peers had no freaking clue what I'm talking about, right?
Speaker 3:And the reality is that some families have it harder than others and there's no doubt about that, but it's very, to me at least, it's very important to and you could start lower doses, like you said, lower doses in elementary school. By middle school, kids are already feeling the pressure if they have siblings, and it's harder for mom and dad to pay for one soccer league and other Johnny's soccer league isn't available because there's no money in the bank right now. Kids begin to feel the pressures of that in middle school, in middle school, and so it's important to talk about the economic factors, in my opinion, of why is it harder for you, why can you play soccer this season and your brother can't, yeah, or why can your brother not play this season and you can, right, and then you form a gratitude for that and you form more discipline in terms of, hey, there's an opportunity that I have on the table right now and I can't take this for granted.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:Right. So there's a lot of I think, a lot of benefits to smaller doses and as you get older, speaking of the realities of what's happening, and by the time you're in high school, hey, it's full-blown picture, right? For instance, we graduated 07, or I graduated 07 from high school right before the crash, and then the crash happened. Luckily, I was going into the field of finance where I learned a lot of those things, but I couldn't imagine not studying finance during that time where I'm just watching like markets are going haywire they're speaking about we're about to have bread lines If the it's the end of the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah dude.
Speaker 3:I mean, all these things aren't happening. Like man, I'm lucky that I was in finance classes during those periods, because if not, I would have been like you know stressing out. That's right, because I wasn't prepared for that during high school.
Speaker 2:And they say that anxiety is an all time high and depression is an all time high. It's like, well, I can see why we're shielding the next generation from real life. Yeah, um, that's just, I don't know. We can go on and on about these topics, but uh, mauricio, I think this was a great discussion. I think the folks listening got a ton out of it. I know I did. I want to thank you for for enlightening me and educating me on all the things that you did within this hour period. Is there anything that you would like to close us off with?
Speaker 3:No, just thanks for having me on, Mark. I appreciate it. It's always good catching up. If anybody has any questions, they could find my contact on my website, portsoffoliocapitalcom.
Speaker 2:And tell us exactly what you do real quick as we close this out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, Basically a position Talk right there.
Speaker 3:If you Basically basically a position, if you have a great there, if you have long term capital, anything that's exceeding three years, when you think, when you think about money, anything that's exceeding three years, should not be sitting in a bank account because you have inflationary pressure that lowers the value of the dollar, and so ideally it should be diversified within an asset class, whether that's stocks, bonds. Depending on your age, depending on your risk factors, you invest that money and then you watch that money as you get older. Basically, my firm is in charge of managing that capital. So we're a long-term capital manager. We're lawfully abided to act in a fiduciary capacity.
Speaker 3:So know that if you're investing money with us, we're doing what is in your best interest before anything. We're not here to sell you anything. We're not here to put you in an insurance program. We're basically diversifying whatever investments you have to make sure that you are aligned with your risk tolerance and for the betterment of your future and it's not our future, it's not anyone else's other than the clients, and that's basically what we do for our clients. That's not anyone else's other than the clients and that's basically what we do for our um, our clients.
Speaker 2:That's bad-ass, um, ladies and gentlemen out there listening, if you made it this far in the discussion, um, I'm hoping that you gained all the knowledge and education in this short period of time that I just did. Um, if anything, it gives you a little bit more to think about and to consider when you get your paycheck. You as a realtor, you as a lender, we know that if you don't wake up tomorrow, start to sell real estate, there's no residual in our line of work, so you've got to continue to put money in places that will breed and fruit down the road, and that is a great way to put it. Real estate is another compounding investment. Why? Because there are year over year equity growths. Typically, san Antonio is about five to six percent. In the last several years it's been way higher, but definitely something.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily look at real estate as an investment. I look at it as, um, honestly, one of the biggest investments. Why? Because you got to live somewhere, guys, um, and it's pretty cool to be able to take and tap into that uh, home that you just paid into, to go and complete your dreams, to pay for college, to help your family to get to the next level of whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish in this life. I want to thank you again for joining me. Likewise, mike Mark, I appreciate it and like I, said, guys, we will only bring experts to you.
Speaker 2:We will continue to bring experts to you in the field in which we're kind of going through at the moment. Hope you guys are getting something out of this. Make sure to like, subscribe, share with a friend. You never know who could need some of this info. But until the next one, we will catch you later and we out.
Speaker 3:Nice dude.
