Today, Josh and Austin discuss 19 of the most interesting news headlines from 2019, including the trade war with China, Brexit, Hong Kong protests, Trump’s impeachment inquiry, Tesla’s Cyber Truck, and more. Of course, they also add in some personal highlights from 2019 as well—hint, New Year’s diet resolutions are tough to keep up with, especially if you’re a donut-lover. Dad jokes included at no cost.
19 Noteworthy Headlines from 2019 Click To Tweet
Talking Points
1. Federal Reserve Cuts Rates 3 Times and Why They Did it [1:00]
2. Unheard-of Unemployment Rate [4:56]
3. Trade War with China: What Has Happened, Why is it Happening, and What Can We Expect? [7:36]
4. Brexit: Surprisingly Not That Surprising So Far [12:27]
5. The Rare “Unicorn IPOs” and the Ones That Were a Bust [14:04]
6. Inverted Yield Curve: What is it and Why is it Important? [20:20]
7. Boeing 737 Max Crashes, Stock Not Flying Very High [25:33]
8. Hong Kong Protests and the Response of the Chinese Government [28:38]
9. Strong US Economy in 2019 Backed by a Strong Consumer [31:15]
10. Weather Creating Huge Problems for Famers and Agriculture [33:01]
11. Global Indices at All-Time Highs, but Growth Still Slow [35:00]
12. The Trump Impeachment Inquiry, its Effect on the Stock Market, and Predictions Going Forward [37:18]
13. Josh & Austin’s Diets from 2019 and the Weight-loss Phenomenon of the Hole in Donuts [40:00]
14. Tesla’s Cyber Truck Unveilment: A Total Bust or a Genius PR Stunt? [42:34]
15. Austin’s Exercise Routines in 2019 (or Lack Thereof) [45:28]
16. The 2020 Election Democratic Candidates and Election Betting Odds [47:10]
17. Activist Shareholders’ Presence in 2019 and Implications for the Future [49:42]
18. Josh Gets His Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Certification [52:41]
19. Disney+ Makes its Debut, Receives Over 15 Million Subscribers in First Week [55:11]
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Full Transcript
Intro:
Welcome to the Invested Dads Podcast, simplifying financial topics so that you can take action and make your financial situation better, helping you to understand the current world of financial planning and investments. Here are your hosts, Josh Robb and Austin Wilson.
Austin Wilson:
All right. Hey, Hey, Hey. Welcome back to the Invested Dads Podcast episode two. We’re so excited that you chose to come back and join us here on the show. Today we’re going to be talking about our thoughts on 19 things that really surprised us or just that we thought were noteworthy and worth talking about from 2019 kind of in review.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. Austin, as we went through this list together, you and I were both kind of getting stuck on, there’s so many cool stuff here. We realized some of these actually are going to have their own episode because there’s so much to kind of dissect and talk through that this is going to be a pretty high level talk point, but we wanted to highlight some of those spots, but know that in the future we may go a little deeper into some of these topics.
[1:00] – #1: Federal Reserve Cuts Rates 3 Times and Why They Did it
Austin Wilson:
All right. Number one. The first thing that we really thought was a pretty noteworthy from 2019 was that we saw the first three Federal Reserve rate cuts since 2008. So typically what happens is the Federal Reserve can kind of control the growth of the economy by increasing interest rates or decreasing interest rates so they can make the economy grow faster by making it easier and cheaper to borrow by lowering interest rates, or they can kind of slow things down by increasing the interest rates and making borrowing more expensive and a little bit more difficult. So, what we saw was that Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, he decided three times really in the second half of the year that the economy wasn’t in such, not in terrible shape, but not in maybe a solid footing as it had been thought at the end of 2018 as they were continuing to increase interest rates.
So what he did was through the course of 325 basis point or 0.25 one quarter percent interest rate cuts brought down interest rates by a total of about 75 basis points with three quarters of a percent. And what that has done is really allowed the economy to continue to grow and to grow a little bit, maybe faster than it had been. I think something that was causing just not the speed of the growth to be so high is the fact that we really haven’t seen any inflation throughout really this whole economic cycle we’re in. And we’re continually coming in under the Federal Reserve’s inflation targets. I think that their goal through these interest rate cuts is really to kind of pick that up a little bit and get the economy growing a little bit faster. So that’s definitely a surprise.
Josh Robb:
Is that too why they would raise it? So, what would be the reason to raise rates? Because ideally wouldn’t you want them low all the time so your economy’s always producing at this top level?
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So raising rates would be if we are growing too quickly, if things are getting more expensive, really fast. So Josh, if you go to the store tomorrow and you buy a loaf of bread for a $1, that’s great and you’re going to continue to buy that loaf of bread over time. But all of a sudden if that loaf of bread becomes a $1.50, that’s a material change. That’s a huge impact to your monthly budget. And this is really calculated over a basket of goods that can be looked at all across the United States. But really if people get more money in their pockets and they’re willing to spend it very quickly and they’ll spend, spend, spend, well that spending will allow companies to increase prices and companies will be like, “Hey, these people are buying like crazy so I can increase the price and make it a little bit more money.”
And that perpetual motion continues to ratchet up prices and ratchet up prices. And when that’s not happening very quickly, that’s a sign that your consumer really, they might have good income but they’re not willing to buy it up and buy it up and we’re not seeing that price continue to rise. And some inflation’s a good thing, some inflation’s a sign of a really healthy economy and that’s something that we want to see and that we really haven’t seen. So I think, Powell’s goal here is to introduce some inflation. And also, I think his goal here is to stimulate some investment. So really with the trade war, which we’re going to be talking about in a little bit, and other things like that as well as the rest of the globe kind of having some slowdowns largely in the manufacturing side of things.
There’s a lot of uncertainty that has caused businesses to maybe withhold on some investment and with things being a little cheaper, maybe they’re going to borrow some more money to build some more infrastructure or build some buildings, built some factories and stuff like that. So definitely a surprise, new, kind of something we haven’t seen in about 10 years. So definitely a surprise that I thought was noteworthy for this year.
[4:56] – #2: Unheard-of Unemployment Rate
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And going along with that, the second one we talked about was the unemployment rate. And so along with that, we’re at record low unemployment, going back 50 years. We’re at 3.5% I think was the last number we saw come out and a three and a half percent unemployment rate, that is extreme. It’s unheard of for our economy this size to have such good employment. But what goes along with that and kind of what you’re talking about with inflation is wage growth hasn’t been increasing. So if you think about it, there’s so much availability of jobs out there, so few people are out looking for jobs. Those people that need a hire, they got to offer more. If there’s not as many people out there searching, in fact for what, 18 months now there’s been more job openings and there are people looking for jobs.
Austin Wilson:
Right. Yeah.
Josh Robb:
And so with that going on, you think, okay, if I’m an employer and I need to hire somebody and they’re not jumping at that $12 an hour or whatever, I may have to offer $15 an hour just to get them to come in for an interview. Well, that’s part of that inflation piece, right? Because if you’re offering more, you got to charge more for your goods. So things are getting more expensive and we just haven’t been seeing that on either end. So again, going back to the Feds, they’re looking at those pieces and trying to play that game together.
Austin Wilson:
I almost wonder if… I think a lot of people were really hurt and coming out of 2008, 2009. So even if they’re making more money and stuff like that, I almost wonder if the average consumer is maybe a little bit, less willing to spend a lot of money right now just because they’re scared, and that’s something that is… They have fear of what they’ve seen and been hurt on before and they don’t want that to happen again. So maybe some people are kind of building up a little bit of a stash for a rainy day.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, we’re seeing that a lot when we look at savings and we see the average consumer is financially in a better spot than they have been for quite a while. What they did after the ’08, ’09 crisis is they focused in on paying down debt instead of going out and buying new stuff. They’re letting their car stay around for a little bit longer. They’re not buying that new house, upgrading. They’re being more frugal with their money, which is a positive thing for the average consumer, but it does slow the economy down a little bit too, because you don’t see that big push in there.
Austin Wilson:
So is it safe to say that you’re a postponing your helicopter purchase a year or two?
Josh Robb:
You got to keep out for the Craigslist ad, sometimes you get a good deal for those helicopters.
Austin Wilson:
I’ve been waiting for the hookup, so you let me know when you cross that line.
Josh Robb:
I did find a nice little drone for my son and it was at a consignment sale for $10, I think.
Austin Wilson:
The weight capacity wouldn’t fit me? It’s not dad-bod approved?
Josh Robb:
It’s pretty sweet though. It’s pretty sweet.
[7:36] – #3: Trade War with China: What Has Happened, Why is it Happening, and What Can We Expect?
Austin Wilson:
Well, next up we’d like to talk about the trade war. It’s definitely been lingering. So really this whole thing started kind of at the beginning of 2018 and it depends on what day you listen to the news. But I would say it’s a very mixed… We’re getting mixed signals on whether we’re really having any real progress or not. There’s been some delays and some tariff increases with products with China on both sides with us buying from them and then buying from us. But overall, this has been a really long dispute.
President Trump, he says he’s kind of a fan of tariffs. He’s called himself a tariff man and he likes that we’re taking in billions of dollars in tariffs. That is definitely a consideration, but I think that it’s definitely putting some unknowns into the market, into trade. Um, not just with China but around the world. And there’s rumor that the consumer is feeling a lot of this, there would be less cost to the consumer if that was not the case. Certainly because things coming in that consumers are buying are costing more because of some of these tariffs. We can’t deny though that China has had some unfair business and technology practices historically, whether that be through intellectual property theft or forced technology transfer or those kinds of things.
But this has definitely gone on a long time. And even here, as Josh and I are sitting here recording at the end of 2019 we haven’t yet gotten the final goal on phase one. So, like I said, it kind of looks… Depends on what day you look at things. But it’s definitely driving the markets. The markets are reacting to those headlines.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And I think you mentioned that the biggest push I think that makes sense is that stealing of the intellectual property, as China has been very adamant that they want to be a global leader in some of this technology stuff. And one of their ways of getting around it is stealing some of that technology from the United States and then making it their own and then undercutting and selling their products using that stolen technology.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, I mean, think about the technology giants that the United States has and the amount of growth that we’ve already had has been amazing. But China has been growing so rapidly and a lot of that is due to the technology that they’ve acquired in very shady kind of ways over the past, really 20, 30 years. So yeah, I think the… I totally understand that it’s a valuable thing for our country, really protecting its future growth and future profits, to have some sort of discussions about this. So I think that all Josh and I want for Christmas right now is a trade deal. We’ll see if we get one of those, but we’re not holding our breath for one at the end of 2019. We’ll see what things look like in 2020 going into another election there. So we do know that this just creates uncertainty and the long-term we think we’ll be fine. But this uncertainty has led to a lot of volatility over the last couple of years.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. I was at a Christmas party with some friends and their daughter who’s about six, was going around the table with a little pad of paper and pen and asking what each of us wanted for Christmas. And I looked at her and said, “A trade deal.” And she just kind of stared at me, didn’t know what was… So she wrote down trade deal and then moved on. But you could tell she had no clue. But that’s, obviously she’s six, but the ideas, I don’t think a lot of people understand kind of the reasoning for the tariffs and they’re not maybe the most efficient way of getting around to a trade deal. But that’s kind of where we’re at now and we’re in the thick of it. What was the interesting thing about this too was I was just reading an article about how with some of this new technology being cut off from China as we’re negotiating some stuff, how quick they were able to turn around and start producing some of their own chips and stuff.
That’s kind of the other piece of it too, is at what point do they not need the US or those companies anymore when they feel like they have a good enough grasp on it. And with this 5G technology too, you’re making sure that the right companies are the leaders in 5G so that privacy concerns and those types of things are not being overlooked as this new technology is rolling out.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, I think to be clear, I just want to specify, we’re talking about Huawei and the blacklist nature that they’ve been placed really for the last six to eight months, I think where yeah, there has been some top down direction from the White House to say, “Hey, this company has ties with the government and we feel like that could lead to further issues with intellectual property, with privacy just with government oversight on things on the Chinese end. And that’s something we really don’t want to be too big of a part of our economy.” So yeah, that is definitely something that can change any day, but we’re hoping it changes for the better.
[12:27] – #4: Brexit: Surprisingly Not That Surprising So Far
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And staying international Brexit, that’s the other 2019 surprise or lack thereof surprise, I guess. There’s really been no change in the Brexit deal going forward. The old prime minister there, Theresa May, she resigned and that was because she could not get a deal going and that was a big issue for her. They had their elections and went through trying to get a deal and she could not get enough votes to get those through. And so it got pushed back what? Three times trying to get this Brexit through. And so Boris Johnson came through as the newly elected prime minister and he’s from the conservative party and some referred to him kind of as the UK’s version of president Trump.
Austin Wilson:
They share a similar hairdo.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, they, they have similarities in looks and they’re also both known for being very outspoken and kind of, I wouldn’t say outside the party, because he was a mayor there I think in London for a little while. But they’re a little bit different than the norm of what you’re used to. And so he’s come up saying he’s going to have a deal with or without an agreement and so they’re going to leave the EU one way or another. And so we’ll have wait to see what that happens. But that has caused a lot of turmoil over there in the UK and abroad in general, as a lot of trade partners are not sure, how do we trade with the European Union as well as the UK after this?
Austin Wilson:
Fun fact about Boris Johnson, he was actually born in the upper East side in New York city.
Josh Robb:
Oh really?
Austin Wilson:
Don’t know why I know that, but-
Josh Robb:
Interesting.
[14:04] – #5: The Rare “Unicorn IPOs” and the Ones That Were a Bust
Austin Wilson:
It’s just a fun fact. All right, next up number five, unicorn IPO bombs. Josh, what’s a unicorn IPO?
Josh Robb:
Oh, okay. Unicorn IPO.
Austin Wilson:
What’s a unicorn? Don’t talk about your daughter’s toys.
Josh Robb:
Yes. So unicorn IPO is a… An IPO is “initial public offering” and that is when a company goes from being private to being publicly traded. And so a unicorn IPO is for one that’s valued over $1 billion heading into that. So in other words, it’s a pretty large private company that’s going from being privately held to now being a publicly traded company. And so that’s kind of the setting point here is you don’t see a lot of those.
That’s kind of where the unicorn comes in is, they’re kind of rare. And I think the thing we see a lot of, maybe the ones that we’ll talk about a little bit is tech usually you see that because they may have some new technology that just really gets developed or grabbed onto. So they quickly grow in evaluation to the point where the owners say, “You know what, this could be more efficient if it’s publicly traded. We have more opportunity there if we’re a publicly traded company.”
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, absolutely. Think about how long it would take for Apple to move $1 billion in market cap. That can be done in a split second, right? But if we think of how long it took Apple to get its first billion dollars, that is what a unicorn is. It’s that first chunk and that takes a while. And companies that wait and stay private that long, there’s usually some special like Josh said, usually something in the technology realm. So a couple examples that just have bombed this year is Uber and Lyft.
So ride sharing, ride hailing companies, each have lost over 30% since going public. So that’s a lot. Almost a third of each of their market caps have just kind of gone to the wayside mostly because investors are having a lot of trouble digesting their financials. So their financials are they’re growing like crazy and they’re not showing a profit. In fact, they’re showing a loss and they’re consuming lots and lots and lots of cash and consuming lots of cash and showing a loss is not necessarily the way to win investors over. So investors have really been eager to get a kind of a path or a plan to get to profitability and not… There’s been really nothing concrete from either of the companies about that.
There’s been bright spots here and there and some analysts have run some projections at what it would take to get there, but no company has a very, very clear and very easy path to profitability. I think a lot of that also goes down to the fact that Uber and Lyft specifically are pretty much interchangeable. So if you live in a big city, a big Metro area, especially in the United States, it takes… There is no harm in flipping between Uber and Lyft depending on what the pricing is or whatever. So having low barriers to entry and low—you could potentially have really low retention—is something that investors aren’t so excited about either.
So those are two examples that have kind of tanked since going public earlier in the year. Also Slack, so the productivity and communication platform, kind of that rivals Microsoft Teams. Now we use Microsoft Teams here in the office and do think it’s a nice product but their rival is definitely Slack and it’s also done really poor since going public early in the year.
It actually had a nice little spike a couple of days after it went public but it’s over 40% off of that high that it had within a couple of days of going public. So there’s-
Josh Robb:
So Austin, do you think a value investor may be looking to pick up the slack? I’m just wondering.
Austin Wilson:
Hey, I think that we can all be using some slack to pick up. But as a value investor, I wouldn’t be looking at Slack, the company. Yeah, specifically speaking. Yeah, that one’s been a rough ride for sure. I think another thing to consider, Josh, is that this tough run for these unicorns really has postponed a lot of some other companies that are well known and well-respected from thinking about going public. So what’s an example of one that you may see waiting now that you know Uber and Lyft and Slack have kind of tanked this year?
Josh Robb:
That’s a good question.
Austin Wilson:
Like Airbnb is that-
Josh Robb:
Yeah, as I think through some of those, the question is what’s the benefit for going public? And a lot of times it’s that locked up value that the owners have or some of the early investors. And so they want to be able to realize that gain. And so yeah, Airbnb is what you’re mentioning. And you think some people who got early into that idea of, “What’s another way to stay somewhere besides a hotel?” and they built this technology platform that they don’t own any of the buildings, but they have this value built into this idea of the service to renting somebody else’s house that they want to capitalize on that. Before, like you mentioned, there’s not a big barrier to entry. Someone else, maybe even a big… Like Travelocity or someone like that, Priceline, someone who does a rental site says, “Hey, we could do the same thing if we get enough home owners into this platform.”
They want to realize that as quick as possible and this has slowed it down a little bit. So yeah, there’s… Airbnb is kind of sitting on the sideline watching thinking, “What will happen to our valuation if we’re not turning a profit and we can’t show those numbers, are we going to be impacted the exact same way?” and up for a lot of the ones that… those early investors, for them to go public and then see their prices dropped, that’s kind of rough for them to deal with.
Austin Wilson:
So I think what we’re going to see potentially is that a lot of these unicorns, these billion dollar plus privately held companies, now that’s a big, big private company. These big private companies are just going to wait and wait, and they probably are going to be a little bit more apprehensive to go public until they’ve got the metrics or they’ve got the regulation or they’ve got the competitive niche advantage to separate them from their competitors. So yeah, we could see companies like Airbnb wait years and they could come out public at $10 billion or 20. Who knows how big it’s going to be able to get until they feel comfortable with that, with where they’re going there. So yeah, that’s an interesting IPO environment we’ve had in 2019 and we’ll see what things look like in 2020. But yeah, it’s been a rough ride for a handful of them for sure.
[20:20] – #6: Inverted Yield Curve: What is it and Why is it Important?
Josh Robb:
Definitely. Switching gears, number six on our list. Is that where we’re at? Number six, the yield curve. So for all you people that love charts, I’m going to draw it for you on our podcast so you can see. But if you think about borrowing money, if I’m going to borrow money from you for two years and you’re going to say, “Okay, but if you’re going to hold my money for two years, I want something in return. And that’s an interest rate. I want you to pay me back interest for me not having access to my money for a while. And if it’s going to be for 10 years, I’m going to want a little more money because you’re going to have my money longer.” So that’s when we talk about a yield curve, there’s a curve to this. The longer you have my money, the more I want in compensation for it. Now an inverted yield curve… Go ahead.
Austin Wilson:
So Josh, what do you mean? As an investor, what’s the purpose of investing in a bond in a portfolio anyway?
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So a bond is a debt instrument. So again, you’re loaning money. So, if I give somebody $10,000 for their business and they’re going to use that to better their business, grow, whatever they need to use it for, they’re going to pay me back over that time. And so what’s owed to me is that loan, that borrowed money. I don’t participate in the growth of that business. I don’t have the risk of it going up or down, like the initial public offering we just talked about—that’s a stock price that can fluctuate. And so my bond tends to be more stable because it’s just that loan money and hopefully there’s a collateral to it or something it’s backed by that has some value to it. And so there’s less of a risk when you are investing in bonds and you are in stocks most likely if you are buying high quality bonds.
Austin Wilson:
So you’re a loner.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
You’re a loner as it being opposed to kind of what we talked about with the IPO discussion-
Josh Robb:
Not “by yourself” loaner.
Austin Wilson:
Right.
Josh Robb:
But you’re lending money-
Austin Wilson:
Well, I’m a loaner in a lot of different ways, but so you’re either an owner or a loaner.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
And with fixed income or bond type investing. Yeah. You were loaning your money in anticipation that you will get your money back plus interest.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
If you are an owner, so kind of what we’re talking about with an IPO, you own a share of the equity in the company. So if Josh Robb Corporation goes public for $1,000,000 and I own one share of Josh Robb Corporation, I own one dollar of Josh Robb Corporation, one millionth of the company, and I participate in that company’s growth or demise over time. And the anticipation with this kind of investing of the ownership is that over time that increases. That was definitely a sidebar to the discussion of the inverted yield curve.
Josh Robb:
That’s good, yeah. And when we’re talking, the yield curve in this chance too, the idea is it’s government bonds too. So there’s a backing of the government. So that’s a pretty much a guaranteed or a safe investment to look at. So, when we talk about this curve, again, the natural curve is the longer out you go, the more interest you should get back for giving the government money. An inverted yield curve is the opposite of that. Meaning the shorter I loan money, I get a higher interest rate than the longer, which is kind of counterintuitive to what you’re thinking. Which is why it’s not always a good thing. In fact, every recession has followed an inverted yield curve. They’re not always correlated, but every recession has followed after the yield curve was inverted.
Austin Wilson:
So that’s really tied to optimism, right? So if we think about a yield curve and we’re thinking about government bonds, we are saying if we’re tying up our money for 10 years, that we’re really optimistic about where our country and where the economy and where everything’s going in 10 years and we’re still… And if we loan it out for two years, we’re still optimistic, but we’re less… There’s less that can happen in that two years. So what’s happening with a yield curve that’s inverted is that we’re more scared of what is going to happen longer term or there are just more unknowns where we may know more now, so we’re less optimistic about the future than we are today.
Josh Robb:
Definitely. And that’s really the big thing, is this yield curve is more a indicator of the sentiment of people or investors. And so it’s really saying, “Man, I’m going to park my money for just a little bit because I don’t know what’s down the road.” And so we’ve since seen it go back to normal. It’s not inverted anymore, but it is one of those things where we’re keeping an eye on it. And the fact that it did invert means that there’s a chance that the economy is at least on the farther end of the scale of where it’s at. In another baseball terms, it’s in the later innings. Because, it is at the stage now where it’s not quite grown as fast as it used to. So investors are getting a little more cautious and reacting a little quicker to those changes.
Austin Wilson:
And those rate cuts that we talked about earlier, those have really helped to bring down the short end or the front end.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
So if you’re looking at a two versus 10-year yield curve, that two-year point of the yield curve has really been brought down because of the really short term interest rates being brought down.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So, the Fed adjusted overnight lending for banks. So that’s as short as you can get. And so then as that trickles outward, it affects the shorter term more than the longer term. And so they felt that impact more than anything else. Yeah.
[25:33] – #7: Boeing 737 Max Crashes, Stock Not Flying Very High
Austin Wilson:
Well, next up we’re talking about Boeing, right? You’ve all heard about Boeing and what’s going on and that’s continually changing as well. But in March, I think it was in March, they had their second 737 Max plane crash in less than a year. The other one was in the end of 2018. So this grounded the 737 Max globally, and it’s still not in use around the world today. Major US airlines aren’t really still scheduling that plane even for use until 2020, despite the company saying they’ve issued a fix, it was a software issue related to their anti-stall software.
So the second crash actually happened, the morning of a flight for my family and I back to Ohio from Phoenix on a Boeing 737. It wasn’t a Max, but it was the same day or within a day of the flight that we took back. So we were getting ready for the airport and I remember looking at the news and they were talking about this plane crash and I was like, “Oh crap, this is not cool.”
Josh Robb:
Did you not show your wife that? Don’t show that.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. I don’t know if I really mentioned that until we were in the air. But yeah, it definitely brought some safety and approval discussions to light and put a damper on what was a really high flying-
Josh Robb:
Haha, I got it.
Austin Wilson:
Stock, up earlier this year. So that was something that has grounded that plane over, around the world. And really, if you look, there’s two main plane manufacturers around the globe. It’s Airbus and Boeing. And this was Boeing’s, one of their biggest backlog of orders. This state of the art 737 that you could buy, everyone was buying a bunch of them and this has really slowed them down. But the long-term thesis that you hear about on the news is that once they get this fixed and get it all approved, people pretty much still need to buy 737s and that’s the one to buy. But I think that that plane’s forever going to be tainted because it’s had a rough ride.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, it’s going to be harder. The consumer as they may not know planes difference when they look at them, but it was in the news enough where that will stand out to them and they may make those decisions on what carriers to use based on what the airline carriers are using as planes. So it has an impact outside of Boeing too. It’s a Delta or United or whoever. What planes do they carry and is Southwest going to have planes that I want to fly on or do I pick another airline carrier?
Austin Wilson:
And that’s something that those airlines specifically, they’re definitely thinking about what retribution they can be getting for a big portion of their fleet and a big portion of their available flights being down for such a long time from Boeing. So we’ll see now as of the end of 2019, these companies are scheduling. Boeing says that by the end of the year, things could be good to go, but these airlines are not scheduling flights with the plane until next year already until 2020, which is when this will come out. So yeah, we’ll see how 2020 comes out and if they can get that up launched and ready to go and then we’ll see if the sentiment is still strong enough for them to continue to build that plane and schedule it for flights.
[28:38] – #8: Hong Kong Protests and the Response of the Chinese Government
Josh Robb:
All right. Another topic that we found kind of interesting or surprising for 2019 is the Hong Kong protests. And so there was earlier this year, they start out as a protest and the big piece of that was the Hong Kong… Their extradition bill. And that legislation was originally proposed to allow for any individuals, including foreign nationals, to be extradited over to mainland China. And that’s where they would stay in trial. That caused a lot of backlash from the Hong Kong residents. They were not fans of this. It has lot to do with the history between Hong Kong and China and kind of their independence for a while and being slowly integrated into the Chinese mainland. And so the new Chief Executive, Carrie Lam I think is how you pronounce her name, she announced that this bill would be suspended indefinitely, but if you see the news, there’s still protests going on. And part of that is they want to not see this bill suspended, but they want to see this bill eliminated, removed and gone.
Austin Wilson:
And those protests have been violent and people have died and people had been sent to the hospital and there’s all kinds of stuff going on. That’s something we really haven’t seen in… It’s a pretty developed… Hong Kong is very developed, very modern. It’s something we really haven’t seen in a long time, in a developed part of the world and that’s caused a lot of issues specifically with Hong Kong being a financial capital, really of that area of the world and a lot of businesses having significant exposure over there. Another thing is that the trade negotiations we talked about kind of had a little kink put in the discussions when our government actually voted to sign a bill to support the protesters because we thought as a country that that extra extradition bill was unfair and was not right.
So when we’re already having some trade discussions and some budding of heads with China, that certainly did not help things. Hopefully we can work through that together. But yeah, I think that the way that China was kind of trying to force Hong Kong into this bill that was not right. And we did what we thought was right as a country to support Hong Kong.
Josh Robb:
And that was, I think you could see the differences between our government and China in how they approach these things and what they thought was normal practices and was apparently from our perspective a way out of line and like you said, the violence with the protesters and the fear they have and the reason why they’ve reacted the way they have is they just don’t want to see any more control that way.
[31:15] – #9: Strong US Economy in 2019 Backed by a Strong Consumer
Austin Wilson:
Number nine, our economy has been very strong actually in 2019. So if you think about the United States economy, about 70% of our gross domestic product, which is really the sum of all the goods and the services that are being exchanged in our economy. So, if you think about our economy being… Look at it that way, about 70% of that are driven by the US consumer. So that’s you and me going out to the store, buying a pair of shoes, buying things, paying your mortgage, doing all of these things—that drives 70% of our economy. So we’ve a very, very strong consumer as we talked about with the labor market earlier with wages going up, but not really causing too much inflation. But people still have… They’re still doing very, very well and they have jobs and things are good.
So that strong consumer has really helped our economy to continue to grow very strongly. Despite we’ve really had some tensions with trade. We’ve had a global economic slowdown, if you look at manufacturing and things around the world in Japan, in Europe, things like that. Even here manufacturing has been a little bit weaker, but the consumer has really driven that growth through 2019. Bloomberg estimates right now show GDP potentially coming in around 2.3% increase versus 2018 for 2019, so this is especially strong when you consider that that 2.9% we had in 2018 really had all the benefits of the sugar high of that recently passed tax reform from 2018 in there. And that those effects have kind of trickled down. We’ve seen strong growth without that this year, despite the trade tensions and some weakness abroad. So pretty good stuff, from a global or from a US GDP growth standpoint.
[33:01] – #10: Weather Creating Huge Problems for Famers and Agriculture
Josh Robb:
And then number 10 is the weather. And so here in the Midwest where we’re at, if you don’t like the weather, wait a day and it will change and you’ll get experience just about anything you can think of here in the Midwest.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. Josh wore his pink polka dot rain boots in today.
Josh Robb:
That’s right. You got to dress for the weather. And today was a pink polka dot day.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, it’s good.
Josh Robb:
Which reminds me, the saying we have is April showers bring May flowers. You know what May flowers bring?
Austin Wilson:
Please tell me you have a better answer than what I’m thinking.
Josh Robb:
It’s the pilgrims. Yeah. That’s who they bring.
Austin Wilson:
Well, Thanksgiving was just last week, so that’s not too off-base.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. But in April and early spring, we had wet weather here. That was the news, anywhere in the Midwest, anywhere where you farm, farmers were not happy. We had a long, late spring and so it was hard to get the fields planted. And so that was rough as well. And then with crops, the later you get it in, the later you want the frost to happen. That’s again, the other unknown is can you get your harvest in before you get the frost? So, it was rough for us. On top of that, China being, we already talked about the tariffs and the trade, soybeans was a big export that we have towards China. And so with the trade wars going on, that changed the demands and the prices pretty significantly. So it has been a rough year for farmers.
On top of that, when you talk about fuel and oil and ethanol and those changes in demands as there’s more electric cars going on out there. And there’s just been a lot to make farmers unhappy throughout this year. So, that was a surprise, I guess weather’s not a surprise. I think the only people really surprised are weathermen when they get it wrong, but overall I think, it’s been a rougher year than anybody would’ve anticipated.
Austin Wilson:
I do want farmers to know who are listening that I’ve done my part to support your industry and I’ve eaten more this year than ever before. So, I’m going to try and keep that up for 2020 as well.
[35:00] – #11: Global Indices at All-Time Highs, but Growth Still Slow
Next up is the fact that major US and most global or international indices are being up to or near all-time highs. That is a big surprise for me. If you look at what happened really throughout 2018 and we had our first negative year in a while and things were not fun during the fourth quarter, especially with the S&P 500 specifically being down 19.8% really down to Christmas Eve, almost that full 20%, what we would call a bear market there. And that was tough, that was rough, that did not feel good. The fact that a lot of those unknowns with the trade war, with some of the global slowdown issues outside the US, those things are still kind of here, but we’re still seeing… I mean, we’re still seeing the stock market trade, up to all-time highs and continue to rally from there.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve kind of felt that surprising. I think coming off of a year like last year, I would’ve anticipated more stagnation with those unknowns. But it seems like the people are just excited.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And that’s comes back to and we’ll get into these again as we go through some of the more fun and interesting topics throughout this year. But the idea being that’s why you invest with a plan, not based on your feelings. Because you and I are in the same boat, if you look at analysts, what they said at the beginning of this year, no one anticipated the markets being up almost 30%. And that was kind of the idea, is if you just wait for you think, “This is the year, I feel like it.” You’re going to miss out on most of the growth. And that comes back to those fundamentals is regardless of what your thoughts are, if you are consistent and you’re averaging into that market through the ups and downs, you’re going to see success in your investing, not just waiting for it to be that feeling right, feeling a good year to do that.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, keeping that long-term perspective really helps. I mean, if you look at the last couple of years with the crazy moves we’ve had, if you just don’t look at it and you just keep putting money in, in 30 years, it doesn’t matter—it’s going to be up and it’s going to be good for you. So yeah, that’s what we try and preach to clients here is just keep that long-term perspective and try and tune out a lot of this noise. Not that this noise isn’t exciting, because we’re talking about 19 really exciting things, but it’s not something to be focused on all the time.
[37:18] – #12: The Trump Impeachment Inquiry, its Effect on the Stock Market, and Predictions Going Forward
Josh Robb:
All right, next is impeachment. Barely, let’s dip our toe into this, we don’t want to get too crazy. But starting July, there was a phone call that happened with president Trump the Ukrainian new president elected, he called to congratulate him. There were things said on that call, that he was allegedly threatening to withhold the money owed, not owed, but designated for the Ukraine for aid relief. Out of that, that caused the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi to initiate an impeachment hearing. And so that’s been in the headlines since then. That was July when that call happened and here we are, end of 2019 when we’re recording this and talking through, it’s still going on. That’s caused some clouds over the market and over the economy as there’s just a lot of uncertainty. The impeachments aren’t often that they happen, it’s not like it’s never happened before, but it’s rare.
And so for us to look at this and say, regardless of where you land on all the politics of the whole thing, from our perspective and from an investment standpoint, it’s definitely not helped. It’s caused a lot of focus on things that can be spun either direction and it can cause a lot of arguments. I guess you could say that one plus side is it has kept Congress from doing much else. So sometimes from a market standpoint, no news is good news from new laws or changes. But from this, it has been a rough end of the year from a political standpoint to cause uncertainty. And that’s really the biggest driver of volatility from a political standpoint is just the unknown.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. And I think the key point with that is it’s totally noteworthy and something we’re watching closely, but the stock market hasn’t necessarily reacted very strongly one way or another to these impeachment discussions. I think that that’s because regardless of if President Trump is in office or if he was removed from office due to being impeached, the fact that Mike Pence would probably continue to run things pretty much the way they are-
Josh Robb:
Yeah, you’re not going to see much change.
Austin Wilson:
Kind of leaves the market kind of indifferent. Not necessarily, I wouldn’t say indifferent, that’s probably the wrong word, but it’s not as big of a deal. They’re just kind of treating it as ho-hum. But I think that this could really be a look at some of these tactics between if you’re looking at how Trump’s reacting to things or how Pelosi’s driving things. This is how things are kind of going to look next year. So that’s kind of maybe the key takeaway we can have here is that while things haven’t really happened too drastically right now, I think that next year we’re going to just get more of this.
[40:00] – #13: Josh & Austin’s Diets from 2019 and the Weight-loss Phenomenon of the Hole in Donuts
Josh Robb:
Yeah. All right. Number 13. This is going to be a fun one. We’re just going to bring up just kind of more of a non-finance topic. Diets. Austin, did you try a new diet this last year?
Austin Wilson:
I did. I don’t remember when I started probably in the spring, which is winter-
Josh Robb:
Forever ago. Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. It was after the Christmas time. So I decided to make a change like everyone else does at the beginning of the year. And yeah, at the beginning of the year I went on the keto diet. If anyone is unfamiliar with that, you pretty much just don’t eat carbs.
Josh Robb:
You don’t eat anything fun.
Austin Wilson:
You eat a lot of fats and you eat some proteins and you pretty much eat no carbs.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
So that’s what I did for March, April, May, June.
Josh Robb:
We held off starting our podcast until he got in a better mood.
Austin Wilson:
July, August, September, October.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. That’s what-
Austin Wilson:
I think eight months. So over those eight months I dropped some weight. I did, I dropped about 22 pounds.
Josh Robb:
Through tears. Those are mostly crying weight-
Austin Wilson:
I felt pretty good. Yeah. But, since then Josh has pushed me off the edge back into-
Josh Robb:
The donut diet.
Austin Wilson:
I was going to call it off the edge into a river of donut batter.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And so the donut diet’s simple, right? There’s a hole in the middle and that means that half the calories are missing. And so you can eat as many donuts as you want because there’s a hole in the middle where all the calories fell out.
Austin Wilson:
Hey, Josh has a thing for donuts. If you want to know more about Josh’s thing for donuts, check out our website at www.theinvesteddads.com and look at the about page.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
There’s a little bit there.
Josh Robb:
And this’ll actually be a key running theme throughout a lot of my talks is-
Austin Wilson:
Donuts.
Josh Robb:
Well donuts, but also my approach to life is moderation in that through a lot of things, you can overdo good things that then become not so good for you. And you can definitely overdo bad things that become bad for you. But when we talk about finance or budgeting, you can go to the extreme end of saving where then you’re not enjoying life and foregoing enjoyable things because you’re over frugal. And so that kind of moderation is where I live on my… If you want to call it diet life. And so there’s things that I enjoy like donuts, but a box of donuts is not healthy-
Austin Wilson:
But eight donut-
Josh Robb:
But half a box or eight donuts is healthy. Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
I think we’re going to have, to have donuts next time we record this. You’re making me hungry.
Josh Robb:
You’ll just hear me chomping the whole time.
Austin Wilson:
I will say they got those crumb topped donuts back at Kroger.
Josh Robb:
I like. Those are good.
Austin Wilson:
And I’ve been really excited. I did eat a whole box, but not at one sitting. It was a couple, so it was fun.
[42:34] – #14: Tesla’s Cyber Truck Unvielment: A Total Bust or a Genius PR Stunt?
All right. Has anyone seen Tesla’s cyber truck? Josh, have you seen it?
Josh Robb:
Oh, I saw, well, I couldn’t see through the windshield very well.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, there was a little bit of an issue with that. So yeah, in November, Tesla debuted their cyber truck, which is like an alien-
Josh Robb:
Truck is a stretch.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. It’s like an alien that you can drive or something. It looks very, very strange. It’s kind of like a DeLorean, but it’s all electric. It’s a pickup truck with a ramp built in the back and supposedly has bulletproof glass, although I don’t think I would trust it after the viral video came out with one of the engineer’s throwing a steel ball at the window.
Josh Robb:
They didn’t shoot it, they just threw a ball at it.
Austin Wilson:
Not once.
Josh Robb:
So maybe it’s bulletproof but not ball proof.
Austin Wilson:
They did it twice. Why after the first failure did you insist on throwing the ball at the other window and getting the same result? Now, I’m going to come at you with a conspiracy theory.
Josh Robb:
All right.
Austin Wilson:
My conspiracy theory, and I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I would not be surprised if this was a giant PR stunt. If that breaking of the window was not a giant PR stunt to get people to generate a bunch of buzz and share it and get people to look at this crazy vehicle and get it stuck in their heads what it is. Despite the fact the glass broke when they said it wouldn’t, 250,000 people have reportedly paid their $100 refundable deposit. Now, I’m not one of them, but I think that that’s what it was for. And I want to say here on the record, on the Invested Dads Podcast-
Josh Robb:
Oh boy, here it is.
Austin Wilson:
That I recently have had a change of heart. I’m going to get a little emotional here. I’m not against electric vehicles anymore.
Josh Robb:
I’ve liked electric vehicles, I drive a jeep.
Austin Wilson:
I don’t want to drive a Prius.
Josh Robb:
Yes. I drive a jeep, so I like my SUV. I like the top off in the summer. But if I had an electric car that, especially in town, I don’t… Not long distances. I could see the benefit of it. It’s when I need it to travel, because we’re out in the Midwest again. So if I want to get any cool places, it’s a trip-
Austin Wilson:
Fast charge station on the way to Toledo, nope, not happening. Yeah, I think they’re cool. I think that they are clearly the future and the technology is getting better all the time. But I think that specifically here in the Midwest, the infrastructure is not there to be able to travel across the country in one yet.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
And while I don’t necessarily travel across the country frequently, because I have a two-year-old who doesn’t really enjoy the car for that long, I will one day and I will not be taking Tesla to do so until the range gets higher or-
Josh Robb:
Or they make those interchangeable batteries or something.
Austin Wilson:
See, Josh has this great idea.
Josh Robb:
I have a theory.
Austin Wilson:
And it could be a thing. So maybe stay tuned for a future episode about electric cars. It’s coming.
[45:28] – #15: Austin’s Exercise Routines in 2019 (or Lack Thereof)
So next up, Josh, 2018. So look back a year, had a pretty different exercise routine than 2019 did.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, Austin was-
Austin Wilson:
I was a trim, slim, lean mean man. I ran a lot and it culminated at the Columbus half marathon where I finished.
Josh Robb:
That’s right. You’re crazy.
Austin Wilson:
I finished, my wife finished. Your wife finished.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
And Josh ate breakfast.
Josh Robb:
I had a great breakfast while they were running a half marathon.
Austin Wilson:
It was cold too. So, that was probably a good choice. 2019 has been a different story.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So Austin has… I don’t want to say retired your shoes but have-
Austin Wilson:
I hung them up for a while.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. I mean, they go on the feet for the walks around the neighborhood.
Austin Wilson:
That’s right.
Josh Robb:
You’re still active. It’s not that you haven’t, you’ve adjusted your activity level.
Austin Wilson:
I have a two-year-old. My activity is a little different.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. But then I’ve been talked into races. Now, I don’t think you’re ever going to see me do a half marathon or anything like that. But my wife likes to run and so she signs me up for 5Ks, which I guess my training approach shouldn’t be adjusted when I show up for the race to run, having not done anything prior to that.
Austin Wilson:
Did you carbo load?
Josh Robb:
I do nothing besides-
Austin Wilson:
If you eat a donut beforehand, that’ll give you the energy.
Josh Robb:
Look at the map to get there. It’s rough. But we’d done that and you get stuff for running, which I don’t know.
Austin Wilson:
Swag.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, but it’s… The last one I did was a hot chocolate race. So they gave you hot chocolate, which is great except for when you can’t have dairy products.
Austin Wilson:
See, that should’ve been in your dietary discussion.
Josh Robb:
It’s rough.
Austin Wilson:
It’s okay. Well, we’ll see what 2020 has, but right now 2019 was a low exercise year and I’ve never felt better.
[47:10] – #16: The 2020 Election Democratic Candidates and Election Betting Odds
Josh Robb:
There you go. Speaking of 2020. And as we look forward, a surprise for 2019 was the 2020 election, which sounds weird to say, but 2019 is when a number of Democratic candidates started announcing their desire to run for the nomination. As we look back on 2019, it was kind of a repeat of what the Republicans went through when they were running through the last election and there was a lot of Republicans out there vying for that one nomination for their party.
And so we saw the same thing here, with the Democratic party and there was a big divergence early on between, I would say centrist to far the left when you look at the democratic party. What you saw there was the idea that what was getting popularity within their party was those little more left approach to running the country. And so as that momentum took on, a lot of the candidates had started heading that direction or more joined into the race with that mindset. And so we’ve seen kind of a divergence between two different groups. So you have the more centrist, which would be like Joe Biden, the Vice President, Joe Biden, and then more recently Bloomberg, who is a billionaire, which seemed a little weird jumping in after they’d been kind of harping against billionaires for a while.
Austin Wilson:
Elizabeth Warren and him are going to have a real good discussion, I have a feeling.
Josh Robb:
That’ll be fun. And then you’ve got Elizabeth Warren a little more left and obviously Bernie Sanders who ran at the last election as a Democrat but also had been more on the socialist—he’s kind of, I think the only self-described socialist from that standpoint. So all those that were talking about 2019, I think that was a big surprise of the number of candidates. But also, no one’s really run away with it. It’s relatively close. And so one thing that I did want to point out is if you want to check out, there’s a cool website out there. It’s the election betting odds and that is a website where they take a different approach to looking at the probability or the outcome of an election where instead of polling people and asking their opinion, they say, “Hey, put real money down and tell me who thinks going to win.”
When you put money on the table, people are more likely to choose the outcome they think is most likely rather than who they want to win. And so it’s just a website that’s pretty neat for us to follow. Just keep an eye on, see what’s going on there. You can check it out online.
[49:42] – #17: Activist Shareholders’ Presence in 2019 and Implications for the Future
Austin Wilson:
Three more. All right number 17. Let’s talk about activist shareholders. They’ve really made their presence known on Wall Street in 2019. Now what that typically looks like is that a hedge fund or another sort of private pooled investment vehicle like that typically acquires enough shares in a publicly traded company to really have some leverage and to try and force change. And we’ve seen that through a couple of notable companies through AT&T and Marathon Petroleum Corporation where an activist shareholder called Elliot Management, which is a hedge fund, really said, “Hey, I have all these X percent of shares and I think you should do X, Y, Z because me and all my buddies who I have over here represent a good chunk of your company and we want you to do that.”
And surprisingly enough, or not surprisingly enough, because they had the shares both AT&T and Marathon issued very shareholder favorable changes that were kind of directed from Elliot out of that and came as a result of that. So that was interesting, and I think that that’s something we’re probably going to see more of going forward.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And I think part of that too is, obviously you have these large, either they’re private equity group or somebody who’s controlling this piece. But what we have seen more of along this route too is as the average investor is looking through, not just on what do I own to help grow my wealth? But also what does this company do? We’ve seen more involvement from investors in more of a demand by shareholders to have, if they care more about climate change or whatever this shareholder is, they’re pushing those. And the nice thing about the way our structure is here in the United States is any shareholder has the right to submit those types of things to have be reviewed.
Now it may not pass, but they have that right. They’re a shareholder just like everybody else. And so that’s the cool thing, is as you do get investing your own money, you can say, “Man, I can have an impact on this company. Something I’m passionate about” I can say, “Hey, have you thought about this and could you do or improve this process based on something I believe in?”
So, that is the cool side. Now some of these take it to the extreme and it’s more short-term oriented or self-centered on, “Hey look, I can boost the stock price and then get out and make some money.” So there’s a downside to it as well. But the positive side is you can impact a large company based on your beliefs and if enough of you believe the same thing, you can make a change.
Austin Wilson:
I think that could be another topic for another day too. But the focus on not only shareholder returns but stakeholder returns is something that, when we look at the election, we look at all of these things that’s getting a lot… It’s picking up a lot of speed, the discussion on the stakeholder returns. So whether that’s the employees or the towns that the companies are in or shareholders themselves, how the company impacts all involved and all related to that company. I think that’s something we’re going to see become a bigger portion of the discussion going forward.
[52:41] – #18: Josh Gets His Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Certification
Hey, Josh, guess what? What’s up? Tell me what a CFP is.
Josh Robb:
CFP. Yeah, so Austin’s bringing that up. I passed my CFP exam earlier this year. Do I have to put a trademark every time I say?
Austin Wilson:
I don’t think when you say it.
Josh Robb:
All right, good. But the idea was Certified Financial Planner, and that is a designation that you can get. You have to go through an education requirement and then pass an exam. And the whole focus of a CFP is that that it’s that planning piece, Certified Financial Planner. You are educated and trained and adapt in the ability to help do the full financial picture. So we’re talking about investing, we’re talking through some of the stock stuff. But a full financial plan entails all the different aspects of your life. And so that’s something that I’m a big fan of. I love the planning process, I love helping people set up the plan, set those goals, and then finding the way to get there. And so you know that CFP has that built into it.
There’s also a fiduciary piece to that as well, fiduciary being a huge word. It’s also one of those buzz words we saw this year. When we talk about 2019, the department of labor was coming out with some new laws and we’ve been looking through some new ways of helping our industry be better at this. But a fiduciary, long story short, is someone who always has the client’s best interest in mind and gives the best advice for them, not what’s best for the advisor, not what’s best for the company, but what’s best for them. And so I know being a CFP, that’s a standard that we have to hold and one that I think makes a lot of sense. If I’m going to be giving advice, it better be the best advice for them, not what’s best for me. And if you look at outside the finance industry, that’s what you would expect. Right? If I go to the auto mechanic, I hope he acts in the same way when he’s giving advice on my car. I hope it’s what’s best for me and my vehicle and that’s kind of the standard we’d like to see.
Austin Wilson:
So Josh, how could a listener find a fiduciary to work with?
Josh Robb:
Yeah, there’s a lot of ways. The CFP website, and you can just Google it, but the whole purpose there is they have a find my advisor and there’s a search on there. There’s NAPFA, which an organization for financial planners that are fee only and so on there as well they have a tool to search for your area. You kind of put in your zip code and find a CFP professional there. You have to be a CFP to be a NAPFA. So, that’s a good way to start, I think if you’re looking for that kind of fee only financial planner.
[55:11] – #19: Disney+ Makes its Debut, Receives Over 15 Million Subscribers in First Week
Austin Wilson:
Last one, number 19 to infinity and beyond.
Josh Robb:
Oh boy. One of my favorite companies from the standpoint of having four kids at home, Disney is if I don’t hear something Disney at home every day, something weird is going on.
Austin Wilson:
Let it go, let it go.
Josh Robb:
Disney announced that they had their Disney Plus coming out, which is their streaming service. So think like Netflix or Hulu has their streaming service and you have Amazon has their video service. Disney Plus said, “Hey, we got all these archived-” Or vault. I think they always put things in a vault. I don’t know, the vault, wherever that is. But they had all this special, unique criteria that they said, “No one else has Disney Princesses like we do. No one else has Marvel superheroes. No one else has Star Wars. Instead of loaning those out to other streaming services, why don’t we have a streaming service?” So they came out with one and launched… They had 15 million subscribers that first week. I was one of them.
Austin Wilson:
I was going to say if this is any indication, there’s two people here in my office-
Josh Robb:
Yeah, I’m one of 15 million.
Austin Wilson:
And there’s two people who are Disney Plus subscribers as of right now.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. The whole concept for them though being is they’d like to control their products and so it gives them a little more control on how it’s distributed and how they’re able to add onto it with specials and all that fun stuff. So they’ve just rolled that out. They also… Disney owns ESPN and ABC, so there’s some add-ons you can do along that route and part of Hulu as well, they are partial owners in Hulu.
Austin Wilson:
They have full control of Hulu.
Josh Robb:
That’s right. They did.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah.
Josh Robb:
They’re part of that merger.
Austin Wilson:
So that’s pretty exciting. So there’s a lot going on for Disney. That stock is up over 30% this year. So that’s something, just a company that we’ve been really excited about for a long time. But having small children ourselves, we can definitely see the value of that brand and of that name. So yeah, that’s an exciting new service. It’s just done really, really, really well. So I think that yeah, that’s an exciting story going forward, but it’s constantly changing too and that landscape’s changing and yeah, there’s a couple of big players, but Disney jumped into the big boy shoes pretty quick there.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And they had a couple early issues on, but overall I would say for launching a new platform like that, it’s been pretty smooth for the most part. All right. What’s coming up, Austin? What do we got?
Austin Wilson:
Well, here we come. We’re finishing up the 19 things that we noticed in 2019 that we thought you guys should know about. But here in the next couple episodes we are going to discuss financial goal-setting in a new year. So we’re just starting 2020 here.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, new year’s resolutions.
Austin Wilson:
That’s going to be a really exciting one. And Josh as the financial planning guru of Northwest Ohio is going to help us out in understanding how we can just prepare ourselves for a new year there. And then kind of follow this episode up. We’re going to look at 20 things that we’re watching that are going to happen in 2020 or that we think could have an impact on how 2020 unfolds.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. And also don’t forget you’re listening to us. Don’t forget to leave us a review on Apple podcasts. If you want, we’re doing a giveaway-
Austin Wilson:
Swag.
Josh Robb:
That’s right. If you write a review, screenshot that review and then email it to us at hello at theinvesteddads dot com. The first 25 people to do that are going to get a free official, The Invested Dad’s T-shirt.
Austin Wilson:
One of 25.
Josh Robb:
That’s right.
Austin Wilson:
That’s pretty awesome.
Josh Robb:
I mean, it’s limited edition.
Austin Wilson:
Once you email us, we’ll follow up with you and we’ll send you the details on where to send your swag as well as get sizes and all that stuff worked out.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. It’s going to be excited. Obviously we’re on a lot of different streaming platforms, but if you can do that on that Apple podcast, leave us a review. Shoot us over a screenshot. That would be great.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is we would just love you to subscribe and continue to listen to us. We’re going to bring you a lot of content every single week and we want you to be here and hopefully we can provide some value so that you can change your future.
Josh Robb:
That’s right.
Austin Wilson:
So thanks for joining us today and we’ll talk soon.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, talk to you later.
Austin Wilson:
Bye.
Outro:
Thank you for listening to the Invested Dads Podcast. This episode has ended, but your journey towards a better financial future doesn’t have to. Head over to the investeddads.com to access all the links and resources mentioned in today’s show. If you enjoyed this episode and we had a positive impact on your life, leave us a review. Click subscribe and don’t miss the next episode.
Josh Robb and Austin Wilson work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. All opinions expressed by Josh, Austin, or any podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that the statements, opinions or forecasts provided herein will prove to be correct. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment. Any investor who attempts to mimic the performance of an index would incur fees and expenses which would reduce returns. Securities investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principal. There is no assurance that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.
