In this week’s episode, Josh and Austin talk about why consumer sentiment is down, what investors should do, and so much more. They also confirm that history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it may rhyme, and why this time may be different. Listen now to find out why!
Main Talking Points
[1:01] – What’s Going on In the Stock Market
[2:46] – Why Current Situations Seem Rough for Investors
[5:39] – Is This Time Different?
[6:23] – Historical Comparisons
[9:16] – Why Is Consumer Sentiment Down?
[12:32] – Dad Joke of The Week
[13:07] – What Should Investors Do When the Market Is Down?
[14:17] – What is Austin Optimistic About?
Links & Resources
Invest With Us – The Invested Dads
Free Guide: 8 Timeless Principles of Investing
Social Media
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, a podcast where we take you on a journey to better your financial future. I am Austin Wilson, research analyst with Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.
Josh Robb:
And I’m Josh Robb, director of financial planning at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. Austin?
Austin Wilson:
Yes.
Josh Robb:
How could people help us with this podcast?
Austin Wilson:
Well, we would love it if you would subscribe if you’re not subscribed already. We drop new episodes every single Thursday on a variety of financial planning and financial literacy and market, stock, bond, ETF, mutual fund topics that you need to know. So, subscribe if you’re not subscribed on whatever platform you use and we would love it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, we’re on all of them. So, today, Josh-
[1:01] – What’s Going on In the Stock Market
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
We are going to be discussing what is going on in this crazy stock market world we’re living in today because it’s been a lot.
Josh Robb:
It’s a lot. And not just the stock market, but pretty much globally, investing has been a little bit different of an experience than we’ve had in the last couple of years.
Austin Wilson:
And we’re going to describe why.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
So, let’s just start with some facts.
Josh Robb:
Start with facts because that’s always a good thing to start with.
Austin Wilson:
I love numbers, I love facts. So, this is year-to-date, this is through-
Josh Robb:
We’ll just say midway through April.
Austin Wilson:
…mid-April.
Josh Robb:
Midway through April.
Austin Wilson:
Midway through April, the S&P 500, So, think US large cap stocks, down 17%. NASDAQ, So, think tech stocks, down 25%. Bonds, down 9.5%.
Josh Robb:
Wow.
Austin Wilson:
International stocks, developed international, down 15.7%. Emerging market stocks, down 17.4%. Bitcoin, down 35%. And cash, up 0.1%.
Josh Robb:
Oh, positive. All right.
Austin Wilson:
0.1%.
Josh Robb:
So, cash is positive, that’s where everybody should put their money, correct?
Austin Wilson:
Yes… no.
Josh Robb:
Oh.
Austin Wilson:
I’m going to flip on that real quick because if inflation is 8.3% year over year, as we just saw for the month of April, you have to really net that against your other returns to get your real returns and therefore, everything is negative, and the negative things are more negative. So, your purchasing power is lost.
Josh Robb:
Yes. And not only is your lost purchasing power, so, your cash return of +0.1% is now -0.82%. The difference though, is recovery ability. Can cash actually have that recovery ability to gain back? Probably not.
Austin Wilson:
Probably not.
Josh Robb:
But can some of these other assets? We will find out.
[2:46] – Why Current Situations Seem Rough for Investors
Austin Wilson:
We are going to find out. So, Josh, talk about a little bit, why this seems especially rough for investors now.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So, things do look rough and there’s really not many places you can go in the investment world that are positive this year. You just listed the kind of, high level.
Austin Wilson:
Almost everything. Yeah.
Josh Robb:
There’s sub sectors of some of those, maybe your floating rate bond funds are doing well because they adjust the rates as things go. But in general, this is kind of unprecedented in what’s happened. But also, it’s similar to past events.
Austin Wilson:
Yes.
Josh Robb:
Which is funny to say both of those.
Austin Wilson:
Right. It seems unprecedented in current times.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
However, looking back more historically, we do need to keep in the back of our minds that the US stock market is positive 75% of years.
Josh Robb:
75%.
Austin Wilson:
So, that means one out of every four years has actually historically been negative for stocks.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
Now, we’ve been talking off the record here that since you started investing, definitely since I’ve started investing, a lot of people investing time horizons have seen a lot less than one out of four years down.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So, if we look just past the last 20 years, the stock market, from an annual standpoint, if you just look at calendar years returns has only been negative four of the past 20 years. And so, if we go back all the way to 2002, all the way up through 2021 if you take all those years, you got 2002 as a negative year.
Austin Wilson:
Yep.
Josh Robb:
‘08 was a negative year.
Austin Wilson:
Yep.
Josh Robb:
2011 was a negative year and 2018.
Austin Wilson:
Absolutely. That’s not a lot.
Josh Robb:
Now, you say, “What about COVID? The market dropped 34%, but guess what? That was positive, positive that year, actually a really good year.
Austin Wilson:
Yes, it was.
Josh Robb:
So, roughly just in those timeframes you got four years of negative returns. One, which was pretty bad. 08, 09. We always referenced that. 09 was actually a positive year calendar wise. The beginning of was a little rough and the end of 2007 was rough, the whole timeframe. But the one calendar year that was negative, it was down pretty good… 38% or something like that. But in general, we’ve had a pretty smooth ride the last 20 years.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah.
Josh Robb:
Relatively speaking. The last negative year we had was 2018. Like I said, that was down 6%.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. That was the taper tantrum.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
So, we actually had a decent year going into December.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. I think November was when we really saw it tail. And from there to the end of the year, it dropped 18%. So, we were positive there by what, 12%. And then we lost.
Austin Wilson:
It was ugly.
Josh Robb:
It was rough. But the crazy thing was early part of 2019, it was positive again. It exactly had a swing the other direction. So, those young investors, there’s been little downside really since 2008.
Austin Wilson:
Oh yeah.
Josh Robb:
Just two years in that time frame.
Austin Wilson:
Mm-hmm.
Josh Robb:
Neither of those double digits.
Austin Wilson:
Absolutely. So, yeah, really what this does is it leads to us getting this false sense maybe of “Yes it’s bad” but this is unusual what we’re experiencing right now when it’s really not that abnormal to have a negative year.
Josh Robb:
Right.
Austin Wilson:
So, that makes it feel worse probably than it actually is.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
[5:39] – Is This Time Different
Austin Wilson:
So, the question is Josh-
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
Is this time different?
Josh Robb:
Is this time different? Yes. The answer is yes. This time is different.
Austin Wilson:
Of course it is.
Josh Robb:
Every day is different than the last day.
Austin Wilson:
Every day is different, but there are a lot of similar events to past events.
Josh Robb:
So, we always like to say history does not repeat itself. Yep. But it rhymes.
Austin Wilson:
It sure does.
Josh Robb:
And so, that means that we can see some similarities to past events when we’re looking at things going on today.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah.
Josh Robb:
This is not the first time we’ve had wars and geopolitical risk going on and uncertainty. This is not the first time we’ve had supply chain issues.
Austin Wilson:
Mm-hmm.
Josh Robb:
This is not the first time we’ve had high inflation.
Austin Wilson:
Or oil prices.
Josh Robb:
Not the first time we’ve had oil issues.
Austin Wilson:
Mm-hmm.
Josh Robb:
The 70’s marked high inflation and oil shortages.
Austin Wilson:
Yep.
[6:23] – Historical Comparisons
Josh Robb:
And so, there are things we can look back on historically. Yes, this time is different. Yes, there are different circumstances and different things going on. But to the positive end, this time is different. We have technology and we’ve had advancements since the last time. So, Austin, again, you’re my stat guy.
Austin Wilson:
Number guy.
Josh Robb:
You love the numbers. Give me some historical stuff that we can compare to.
Austin Wilson:
So, if we think about a drawdown, what a drawdown is? A drawdown is really any sizeable movement from a… We’re going to use an all time or recent high. So, a drawdown would be a drop from that. So, on average, since 1946, there has been an 11% drawdown in the stock market on average every single year. Now that means some have been less and some have been more, but on average 11%. And if you move that up to since 1980, that’s actually about 14%.
Josh Robb:
Okay.
Austin Wilson:
So, an 11-14% drawdown, at least once per year is completely normal. So, I guess another thing that is happening this year that makes things a little bit different is that we have midterms.
Josh Robb:
Yes. And it’s also, similar because that happens every four years. Yep.
Austin Wilson:
So, we have midterms, but that means, yeah. One out of every four years is going to be a midterm year. So, three out of every four years is not going to be a midterm year.
Josh Robb:
Mm-hmm.
Austin Wilson:
Those ratios seem similar to the ones we just talked about.
Josh Robb:
Not every midterm year’s down year.
Austin Wilson:
No. Exactly. But the performance of the stock market has been remarkably different in midterm years and non-midterm years. So, since 1946, the average drawdown in a midterm year, that’s 17%. So, that’s actually – that’s over the same time period. That’s 6% worse per midterm year than we saw over other years.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
So, 17% drawdown since 1946, average drawdown of midterm years, average performance for the stock market, as a whole, on average is 9% for all years going back to 1946, and 10% for non-midterm years. But if you just look at the midterm years, there’s one out of every four, it’s only 5%.
Josh Robb:
Wow.
Austin Wilson:
So, that’s a lot worse.
Josh Robb:
It is.
Austin Wilson:
That’s like half a non-midterm year versus midterm year.
Josh Robb:
It is actually half. Yes.
Austin Wilson:
And if we go down to a bear market, So, thus far as we’re sitting here recording this in mid-April, the S&P 500 got within a couple percent but never crossed into official closing bear market territory. The last time that happened was during COVID. The average bear market or 20% drawdown, we’ve had 12 since 1946 on a closing basis. There’s different ways to look at it, but everyone looks at it a little bit differently. We’re talking, closing.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
The average has actually been about 30% and takes more than two years to recover.
Josh Robb:
Okay. Now when you said 12. Some people will say 14 because you round some, I think 2011 didn’t officially hit bear market 18 -19%?
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. 2018, didn’t either.
Josh Robb:
But either way in general, 30% drawdown is the average takes about two years of recover from that. Yep. Now we hit a bear market in 2020 and we had recovered before the end of the year.
Austin Wilson:
Right.
Josh Robb:
It took us a couple months to recover from that.
Austin Wilson:
Yes.
[9:16] – Why Is Consumer Sentiment Down?
Josh Robb:
So, averages are averages… Good to know. All right. So, Austin.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah.
Josh Robb:
Things are crazy. We just talked about that. Markets are down. On top of the markets being down what else is going on? I mean, I’ve seen some reports… consumers are not feeling good about.
Austin Wilson:
No, they’re not. So, then in fact, most consumers are actually feeling worse than they were in the middle of the Covid lockdowns in 2020, worst actually since the coming out of the global financial crisis.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
Which is pretty bad on a consumer competence level. And why is that is the question of the year?
Josh Robb:
Well, first this has tracked a couple different ways.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah.
Josh Robb:
But they, it really is done by surveys.
Austin Wilson:
Correct.
Josh Robb:
And there’s quite a few that have been around for a while that you can use kind of a good reference point.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. The most common one is the University of Michigan Sentiment Index.
Josh Robb:
Yes. And so, they just ask people and they consistently do the same and they look for different income brackets, different groups of people.
Austin Wilson:
Yep.
Josh Robb:
So, they get a pretty good feel for the general consumer.
Austin Wilson:
So, why are people feeling unconfident, I guess. And one reason is that inflation, it’s really high. We just said 8.3%, which is actually lower than it was in 8.5 in March. But the highest inflation levels we’ve seen in 40 years. So, food, energy, goods, services, everything across the board is costing more and that’s coming directly out of their budget because while wages have gone up, wages are not going up as much as inflation is.
Josh Robb:
Right.
Austin Wilson:
So, we would say that you would’ve a negative real earnings then because your budget is costing you more than your earning in increase goes.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
So, not good that usually leads to poor sentiment.
Josh Robb:
Mm-hmm.
Austin Wilson:
Another thing is that lower income people, they typically are having a bigger impact to this inflation as food and energy have bigger pieces of their overall budget. So, they’re spending more as a proportion of their income on groceries and energy or fuel or gas or whatever that would be than people who earn more money. So, that’s even worse on sentiments.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So, the average consumer spends about 12% of food and energy on their budget, but we look at the lower income that’s over 20% – of their budget. So, yeah, you’re right. They feel that more with that inflation.
Austin Wilson:
Absolutely. Another thing is that rates are going up.
Josh Robb:
Mm-hmm.
Austin Wilson:
So, we’ve seen interest rates go up across the board.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
But a lot of the short end of the interest rate moves have been because of the federal reserve moving interest rates up to slow down inflation and then all really interest rates from there have moved up as well. It just on the same phase there. It is an inflation metric at that point. So, what that is also, causing is higher mortgage rates. So, I remember that about a year ago, the mortgage rate on the fixed 30-year mortgage on average was 3 or so, percent- 3, 5? Pretty good. Pretty realistic.
Josh Robb:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
Now that’s already 5.5%.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
And that has moved very sharply since the beginning of the year. So, mortgages are costing more, home prices are up 20% year over year.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
So, that part of inflation metrics is definitely crimping people as well. So, those parts of inflation are keeping consumer sentiment down, but then you have to layer on things like geopolitical issues like Russia invades Ukraine and that’s not good.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
That’s put pressure on food and energy markets around the world, further exacerbating the supply chain issues and the inflation issues that we’re having. So, here we are, all this together leads to a consumer that isn’t necessarily feeling the most confident.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
[12:32] – Dad Joke of The Week
Austin Wilson:
So, Josh-
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
Dad joke of the week.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
This is the first one that popped up on r/dadjokes when I got into Reddit.
Josh Robb:
Love it.
Austin Wilson:
R/dad jokes.
Austin Wilson:
This is hilarious. Yeah. Actually made me LOL (Laugh Out Loud).
Josh Robb:
LOL.
Austin Wilson:
So, what is heavier? A ton of steel or a ton of feathers?
Josh Robb:
Well, I know from those joke they weigh the same.
Austin Wilson:
I know that you know the logical answer.
Josh Robb:
Yes. But that’s probably not right.
Austin Wilson:
It’s not. It’s the feathers because you also have to carry the burden of what you did to all those poor birds.
Josh Robb:
Oh, that’s true. That would be, yeah. Mentally, it is probably a lot heavier.
Austin Wilson:
So, that is the dad joke of the week, but Josh-
[13:07] – What Should Investors Do When the Market Is Down?
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
We kind of left on a little bit of a somber note. So, let’s talk about the consumers feeling bad, markets are down. What should an investor do?
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So, as a financial advisor you got to always think back to the long term, right? As an advisor, I’m always coaching people that the short-term movement of the stock market is not as important as having those long-term goals.
Austin Wilson:
Yep.
Josh Robb:
So, review your goals, make sure your timeframes are still correct. Do you need to make any slight adjustments to that along the way? Look at your holdings. Not because your panic selling or anything-
Austin Wilson:
Oh yeah.
Josh Robb:
Is there opportunities?
Austin Wilson:
Mm-hmm.
Josh Robb:
So, if you have taxable accounts, is there tax loss harvesting, things you could do to reduce your taxes at the end of the year?
Austin Wilson:
But this is not an opportunity to sell things when they’re down.
Josh Robb:
Nope.
Austin Wilson:
This is not necessarily that.
Josh Robb:
Something different.
Austin Wilson:
Exactly.
Josh Robb:
And then look at your investments. Is there a new opportunity? Was there something that was too expensive that, because everything that’s happened is now in a price that you think is worth buying it.
Austin Wilson:
There are a lot of companies out there that are down 50 plus percent.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
So, that’s attractive.
Josh Robb:
That’s it! So, as an advisor, it’s always long term. Know the why and that will help you get through these volatile timeframes.
Austin Wilson:
Absolutely.
[14:17] – What is Austin Optimistic About?
Josh Robb:
All right. So, there’s a lot to be concerned about.
Austin Wilson:
True.
Josh Robb:
I kind of gave you the long term from a financial planning standpoint.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah. That was really high level.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. But what do you think from just standpoint from looking around you look closer at the economy of the market than I do. What are some things you are optimistic about?
Austin Wilson:
Well, it sounds counterintuitive… Yes. But consumers are really bearish.
Josh Robb:
Yep. Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
They’re not optimistic.
Josh Robb:
Losses have been a long time.
Austin Wilson:
Investors are really bearish.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
Investors are the bearish they’ve been in some time and that sounds awful. Right?
Josh Robb:
It sounds bad.
Austin Wilson:
But actually, on a contrarian indicator, meaning it goes against what you would think logically, meaning that when people get this not optimistic about the stock market, it actually means that they’re desperate. And they’ve gotten down to that level where they’re just sad about it.
Josh Robb:
Yeah.
Austin Wilson:
And it leads to really good returns from her going forward. Historically speaking, it’s not a guarantee, but historically speaking, when investors are this bearish, it is a good thing for stocks in the next 6, 12 months, or beyond.
Josh Robb:
You explain that, it makes a lot of sense. Because when I hear the word contrarian, I think of a place to store fish.
Austin Wilson:
Contrarian?
Josh Robb:
But I think that’s aquarium. So, I always mix those two up. I don’t know why, but good to know. That means opposite of the what you would think.
Austin Wilson:
Opposite of what you would think. Another indicator that leaves me a little bullish right now is that nearly this is also, contrarian, but nearly half of NASDAQs, I think more tech-oriented stocks are down 50% from all time highs. So, this is, again, it sounds bad, but this means that that part of the market, the technology driven more growth-oriented part of the market, a lot of the, what I would call froth evaluations has been kind of sold off. So, they’re trading back down to more reasonable priced earnings ratios or whatever, which is really good and healthy for the market.
Another thing that I’m looking at is corporate earnings and they continue to be pretty strong. And a lot of what this, is corporations are able to, first of all, they’re getting inflation on their costs. Sometimes even higher than they were able to pass along, but they’re at least able to pass along price increases, which from a consumer standpoint, isn’t the most fun. But from a stock market standpoint, they’re still able to do that. Earnings are coming through as expected and really strong. So, that’s bullish.
Josh Robb:
Good.
Austin Wilson:
Job market obviously continues to remain great maybe to the point of too good. 3.6% unemployment, pretty much where we were pre COVID levels. There are twice as many jobs almost as there are people unemployed at this point and that’s causing a lot of heat in the labor market in terms of costs, but in general the job market: pretty strong.
Austin Wilson:
And another one that we already mentioned is that inflation may have peaked. So, in April it came in at 8.3%, March was 8.5%. We may be in the point where that has started to slow down in terms of a year over year increase. And obviously the federal reserve is still reacting to that, but it is cooling off and that’s something we’re excited about. Not necessarily, for the short term’s going to be choppy because you could have a month where it’s a little bit more or a little bit less, but the trend is what matters here and that’s what we’re watching. So, there are reasons to be optimistic right now, especially if you’re a long-term investor. If you’re a long-term investor, you should be looking at what is going on as an opportunity.
Josh Robb:
Yes. Speaking of that, So, if you are an investor who’s been worried about this volatility, you open up your account and you’re like, “Man, it’s lower than the last time it looked. And every time it feels that way all year long. Something to keep in mind is that if you’re adding to your portfolio, which is if you have a 401k and you’re having your contributions taken a paycheck, or you have set up an automatic contribution every month or twice a month or whatever into your Roth IRA, wherever it’s going, keep this in mind that downturns are the best thing to happen to anybody adding new money and consistently.
Austin Wilson:
All right.
Josh Robb:
Yeah. So, let me give you an example. All right. Easy numbers for me. If you’re adding a hundred dollars a month into your account, doesn’t matter what it is and you’re buying an investment. It doesn’t matter what it is. And it costs $10 to buy that investment per share whatever that is. It doesn’t matter. So, I could buy 10 shares. 10 times 10 is a hundred. I can do that math. It works. So, let’s say you mentioned that NASDAQ is down 50%. So, let’s say whatever you were investing is alSo, down 50%. So, now it’s $5 per share for whatever that investment is.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah.
Josh Robb:
I still got my hundred dollars. I’m adding every month.
Austin Wilson:
Yep.
Josh Robb:
Now, I can buy 20 shares with that hundred dollars.
Austin Wilson:
That’s a deal.
Josh Robb:
Because again, they’re half the cost. So, most people would look at that. “Say, man, look at my value, went down by 50%.”
Austin Wilson:
But look at the shares you bought.
Josh Robb:
But if you’re adding new money, you’re saying I’m buying twice as many shares with the same dollars. And if, and when the market recovers this hypothetical investment, let’s say it does as well. Then it goes back up and continues to rise over the long time like stocks historically have done. You have more shares participating in that growth.
Austin Wilson:
Right.
Josh Robb:
There’s a cool term for that. It’s called dollar-cost averaging, meaning you’re averaging in over a set period of time as the price moves around. It’s a great way to invest. It actually mutes your downside. It gives you a better long term average because of what that does over the long run.
Austin Wilson:
I mean, it’s just the same principle. If you’re going to the store with your hundred dollars of grocery budget and there’s a sale, maybe you’ll buy a little extra of… You could spend the same a hundred dollars and get more food.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
Take it home, put it in your freezer.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
And then you’re better off when prices go up or whatever.
Josh Robb:
Yep.
Austin Wilson:
So, there you go.
Josh Robb:
Yep. So, just keep that in mind that the best time to be adding money is now. And that’s because if you have time ahead, compounding is huge. We’ve talked about that one’s the greatest things in the world.
Austin Wilson:
Mm-hmm.
Josh Robb:
And so, give your money time to compound.
Austin Wilson:
Absolutely. Well hopefully this episode gave you a little bit of comfort as to what’s going on. I mean, Josh and I want you guys to know that we are in the markets feeling this with you, because it’s not fun for us either. You know, there’s a lot of uncertainty going on. Our accounts are down. Like everyone else’s are, but we understand and hopefully can illustrate to you some reasons why we think it’s going to be okay.
Josh Robb:
Yes.
Austin Wilson:
We think it’s going to be okay. And we think you should be able to sleep at night. So, thank you for listening. If you like this episode, share it with friends, share it with family. Maybe your friends are your family. Maybe your family is your friends. I don’t know. Share it with them. Maybe they’ll get a kick out of it too. But maybe you have someone who’s asking, “Oh man, should I sell everything? Everything’s just keeps going down. I’m stressed out.” And hopefully this can give them some encouragement there. We again also, would love it if you would subscribe and leave us review on whatever platform you’re listening on. Until next Thursday. Have a great week. Talk to you later.
Josh Robb:
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 guest 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 forecast 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.
