Economic Update: Booming

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Investing icon John Templeton once wrote that it's dangerous to think this time is different, but it's also true that no one alive has ever before gone through the past year's market conditions. Hi, I'm Rob West. Dramatic market fluctuations and unprecedented government intervention has left many investors wondering, where are we now? Well, today I welcome investing expert Mark Biller to help answer that. Then of course, it's onto your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, where the Bible shapes our financial decisions. Well, Mark Biller, our good friend, is executive editor at Soundmind Investing and our go-to guy for making sense of market trends. Mark, welcome back to the program.

Well, good to be back with you, Rob. So making sense of today's market trends, huh? It's kind of a tall order given these market conditions, so we'll certainly do our best.

I know you will and you're the man for the job. There's no doubt about that. We don't need to go over all the plot twists of the past year. Most investors are all too familiar with them, but Mark, why don't you begin by giving us a sense of where we are right now?

Yeah, sure. So big picture, you know, it's been over a year since the COVID economic shutdown started. It's been six months now since the positive vaccine news last November that really reignited the U.S. stock market rally, and we're over three months into those vaccines being administered in size here in the U.S. now. And so what we are finding is the evidence is starting to pile up on the economic front that the recovery really is in full swing. And, you know, at SMI, we always try to steer clear of the narratives and look closely at the data. So I wrote an article earlier this month that looked just objectively at a handful of these important data points and tried to interpret what that data was saying, both about the economy and then also what that means for our investments in the months ahead.

Yeah, that sounds very good. Before we dive into the details, though, you laid some important ground rules for how investors should use this information. So why don't you take us through that?

Yeah, certainly. So there's always a temptation to hear the type of information that we're about to discuss and then feel like you've got to go apply that by making a bunch of changes to your investments. And that's really not what we're suggesting here, certainly not for most MoneyWise listeners. You know, if you've got a well thought out plan and you've got that minimum five to 10 year type time horizon that we're always talking about, you can probably leave things alone in terms of your portfolio. So if that's the case, why bother talking about this at all?

And we run into that at SMI as well. People are always wondering, why are you telling me this if I'm not supposed to change my investments based on it? And the reason is that there are always people who are either just getting started as investors or they have a lump sum that they need to invest and they're trying to figure out when to put that to work. Maybe on the other side, people that are thinking about making a significant withdrawal in the next several months. In those types of situations, it can be really helpful to think through some of these shorter term factors.

Yeah. Well, at the very least, Mark, it reminds us that we don't know what we don't know. And we should always maintain that long term perspective. Because if we're trying to call short term moves in the market, well, we're going to be hard pressed to do that.

We've got about a minute before our first break. So why don't you begin to dig into your assessment of the economy in general? Sure, I'll give you the kind of the big picture framework, then we'll hit the details on the other side of the break. So our big picture framework, since that vaccine news came out last November, has been that starting around the second quarter of this year, we were going to see some really strong economic and market data. And that was based largely on the fact that we were going to be hitting this period of really easy year over year comparisons from last year. Plus, we'd finally see the economic reopening starting. And we'd have all that massive government central bank support. So basically, this perfect storm was brewing in terms of generating eye popping economic numbers.

Very good. Well, just after the break, we'll dig into some of the details related to the economy. We'll talk about employment, we'll talk about goods manufacturing, we'll look at the service side, even consumer confidence. We'll apply all of this to your investing strategy as well. That's just around the corner with our guest today, Mark Biller of Soundmind Investing. Learn more at soundmindinvesting.org. Then onto your calls in just a bit, 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West. My guest today, Mark Biller of Soundmind Investing.

You can find more about SMI at soundmindinvesting.org. You'll also find the article that's the basis of our conversation today written by Mark Biller. It's called Economic Update Colon Booming. And I think that does in fact sum up where we're at today. The question is where we're headed.

We'd also love to get to some of your calls and questions today, 800-525-7000. Specifically in the first part of the broadcast, if you have a question related to investment strategy, maybe you're thinking about your long-term investments, maybe you're one of those that we've heard from recently that pulled out of the market last year in the midst of the pandemic. You're wondering, is this the time to go back in?

Should you make a change in your investment strategy as you head into a retirement season of life? Whatever's on your mind today, we'd love to allow Mark to take some of your questions. We'll do that in the first half hour.

Here's the number with your investing questions right now, 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you. Mark, just before the break, you were giving us an assessment of the economy in general at a high level. Dig into a bit more of the details.

Yeah, sure. So we talked about how we had this expectation of what we were going to see as the spring rolled around, and then as the March data finally did start coming in earlier this month in early April, that really shifted from being out in the future, future possibility, to a present reality. We started seeing these actual numbers starting to rip higher, and we haven't even gotten to the heart of the second quarter yet, so we're still kind of early in this process as far as what we've been expecting.

So in that article, I focused on four particular examples to kind of make this case. First was that the March non-farm employment showed an increase of over 900,000 jobs, which was up from February, February, which was already significant at a little under 400,000. Now the key here, Rob, was the expectations. Again, people have been expecting this increase, but the increase that they were expecting was 660,000, and we came in well over 900,000. So while we've still got a long way to go to get all the way back to the pre-COVID employment levels, the jobs recovery is clearly in full swing already. The second point that I focused on in the article was the March growth number for U.S. goods manufacturing, you know, the stuff that we make, it was the highest growth rate in roughly 40 years, so just a huge increase there as well.

The third one was a little more surprising. That's the services side of the economy, and that was surprisingly strong in March as well. The reason that I keep saying it was surprising is everyone expected that it would take longer for the services side of the economy to pick up again because things are still closed, but these numbers from March indicated that that services growth was already picking up fast, and again, this was, you know, highest in 25 years in terms of the growth rate there as well. And the last number that we focused on was the U.S. consumer confidence.

That was big in March versus February, and we actually just got the April print, which was up huge again, even, you know, so building from February to March and again to April. So there's clearly some pretty significant reopening optimism out there among normal people. Yeah, and I guess in many respects the question is, has all of that been priced into the market or is there still some more room to go on the upside? We'll get to that in a moment, but I think the bottom line of what I'm hearing, Mark, is that what we're seeing is the economy as a whole is looking pretty healthy, right? Yeah, and that's why I titled it booming, Rob, because, you know, these four numbers hit the most important points. Employment, goods, services, confidence, they're all flying higher, and again, importantly, they're all beating the already high expectations that people have for this period. Now, some of this is obviously a reflection of how bad the numbers that we're comparing to have been, but we're still blowing away these expectations, and this is showing there really is a legitimate economic recovery underway, and there's really no reason to think that won't continue for at least a while longer because, as I said, we're really just at the beginning of the second quarter data, and we know that these next few months are going to continue to see some pretty easy hurdles and setups when we're comparing, you know, to a year ago and a quarter ago, so we think this is going to, you know, persist through the rest of the spring into the summer, quite possibly even through the rest of the year.

Interesting. All right, we want to take some of your questions today. We'll also continue unpacking this article that Mark has written, Economic Update Booming.

You'll find it at soundmindinvesting.org. This half hour, taking your calls and questions on investment-related topics, we'd love to hear from you. What's on your mind today? 800-525-7000. Mark, let's go to the phones and take Joe's call. Joe's calling from Meridian, Mississippi. Joe, you're next on the program. Go ahead.

Okay, thank you. My retired pastor got my retirement through my denominational fund, about 300,000, and I've got it in the money market. Is that too conservative, or do I need to, over the long run, spread that out a little bit more, get more back into the stock market?

Very good. Mark, your thoughts? Yeah, it's always daunting to expose that nest egg to risk when you're in retirement, but what we generally recommend is that you do need to have some exposure to stocks, to bonds, to other risk assets, because retirement typically lasts quite a while for folks these days, and if you're looking at a decade or two decades, sometimes even longer, of making that money stretch, you know, you can't just leave that in the safest savings-type products. Most people can't afford to do that because you do have to keep pace with the relentless march of inflation, and so every year the value of those dollars is becoming a little less and a little less, and so even just to keep pace with the purchasing power of today's dollars, you need to have something that will earn some return. So the challenge is always balancing that risk and reward, but I would say, Joe, that you are wise to be thinking maybe some of that needs to go out into the markets.

Rob, your thoughts? Yeah, Joe, what are you needing right now, if anything, from this portfolio? I mean, is your expenses covered apart from these assets?

I'm pretty much out right now for the last several months. I've only been drawing 300 a month out of that. Okay, and that 300 a month is basically what you need to cover all of your bills on top of what other income sources you have, is that right?

That's correct. Okay, and what have you accumulated in this retirement fund all in? You're talking about like what's in there right now?

Yes, sir. Okay, the last time I check it every other week, try to avoid sticking too much, $303,000 the last time I looked. Okay, and do you see a change in your income in the near future? Are you moving from semi-retired to fully retired, or you know, when is that next big transition point?

Okay, well, this began an interim pastorate, so I guess it's fixing to climb back up for a little bit here. Okay, that's probably the only kind of transition I'd be looking at where I'm at live. All right, but you expect at some point you'd go fully retired, which would mean you'd be relying fully on Social Security plus any income you draw off of this portfolio, or do you have additional income sources when you're fully retired? There is one additional source before my wife passed we looked at, and when she retired we could choose in the state retirement system to have her money come just to her to come to us both, and so at her passing that comes on to me now.

I see. Okay, so between those two sources, Social Security and that retirement from your wife, would you expect that that would cover the total of your expenses each month for the most part unless something else, you know, came into the picture like larger medical expenses or long-term care or something like that? I would think so, yes. You know, that's always a shot in the dark, but at the time being, the price is the way they are now, especially if I tighten the belt in a couple of areas.

Yeah, so that's a good place to be, Mark. You know, Joe's obviously, you know, all of his expenses for the most part should be covered from Social Security and this other retirement income, so given he's got about $300,000, obviously we'd encourage him to connect with a professional either at Soundmind Investing or find a CKA there in Mississippi to come up with an investment strategy, but at a high level, what should he be thinking about in terms of the right portfolio for him? Yeah, if the expenses are covered, that is certainly the key, then you can't afford to keep that relatively conservative, so traditionally that would mean a very high percentage in bonds. Now, bonds aren't yielding a whole lot right now, but that is still a relatively safe way to hopefully maintain purchasing power, even if you're not gaining purchasing power over time, so you know, I would certainly say, you know, half to two-thirds of that portfolio probably would be appropriate to have in conservative savings and bond-like investments, and then, you know, depending on the risk tolerance and so forth, how you feel about putting some of that at higher risk in the stock market, you could look at that with a smaller portion of the portfolio. Yeah, very good.

Well, I would agree with that. I think the bottom line here, Joe, is that, you know, given that this money needs to last a long time, if the Lord tarries and you have good health, we probably need to be putting it to work, but in a very conservative fashion, so check out the folks at soundmindinvesting.org or find a CKA in your area. We're going to pause.

More to come. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live, where God's word intersects with your financial decisions. Taking your calls today, 800-525-7000. Mark Biller, executive editor of Soundmind Investing, is on with me today. Soundmindinvesting.org is where you can find the article from Mark Biller on the economy and where we're at today. We've been discussing that. A lot more detail behind our discussion today is available again, soundmindinvesting.org.

Let's head to Austin, Texas. John, you want to talk about inflation. What's your question for Mark Biller? So I'm just curious on all these future investments and different stuff that we're equating real day value right now. I mean, in the last year or even this future bill, we're talking like close to $6 trillion that have been injected into the economy, which usually causes inflation and usually increases prices and this and that, which also stifles productivity and growth and all those other things that come along with it.

So for an investment standpoint, it's really hard to kind of, you know, quantify something like that and what you should really be into. Yeah. Mark, your thoughts. Yeah. You know, John, it's ironic you bring that up because the May issue of our newsletter, which just hit our website about four hours ago, the cover article of that newsletter is balancing inflation fears with market realities.

And it's a deep dive into this exact topic that you've brought up. We're clearly seeing inflation signs. They're popping up all around us. We're seeing commodities prices just ripping. It's starting to bleed through into the prices of everyday items that that we all purchase, food prices and so forth. So the big question is, is this just the reflation of the economy following this big shutdown or is this a new inflationary trend? And it is very difficult to interpret that at this point because if you'll remember back with me coming out of the great financial crisis in 2009, we had all of these same predictions about inflation. We had new policies, new quantitative easing, money printing, a lot of new debt. And there was a lot of concern that inflation was going to take off then too.

And of course it didn't. We didn't see that inflation. We don't have time to go into all of that right here, but that's what this article digs deep into. Why didn't we see that inflation and what are the factors that might be different this time? Because there are some that people are pointing to, specifically the fiscal spending side from the government that's putting money in the hands of people directly to spend. So there's a a much deeper dive available on our website, but I would just caution folks, while you do want to have some protection in case this inflation ball really does keep rolling, we feel like it is a little bit premature still in spite of the evidence and the evidence that we think is going to be really kind of coming at us in the next few months in terms of headline inflation measures. We think those are going to look really bad here in the next couple of months, but we still think that there's a strong case to be made that a lot of that may not be long lasting.

So we don't want to get too overboard on the inflation protection in our portfolios. Very good. John, we appreciate your call today.

It's a great question, one that's on a lot of folks' minds. Well, just around the corner, Mark's going to be back with us to take more of your questions. We're going to talk about this economic recovery and deal with Wendy's issue related to the auto industry. We'll also talk about how to invest retirement assets. That plus your questions at 800-525-7000.

Stay with us. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, Mark Biller along with me today, taking your calls and questions. 800-525-7000, doing our best to apply the truth of Scripture to what you're dealing with in your investments and your whole financial life. That's what we do here on MoneyWise Live each day. Hey, let me mention, if you haven't connected with one of our MoneyWise coaches, we have coaches available ready to serve you. They want to walk alongside you to help you get your spending plan set up, perhaps develop a debt repayment plan or a giving plan. They'll also teach you some of the key biblical principles related to your finances that we talk about every day on MoneyWise.

They'll teach you those along the way over a six or eight week process. The coaching is free. We'll ask you to buy a workbook, a digital workbook for a small amount of money, $25. If you can't afford it, we'll actually cover it for you. But you just head over to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org, click connect with a coach and our coaches would be delighted to work with you. We're taking your calls again.

800-525-7000. Mark, before we go back to the phones, you were describing all that you're seeing in the economy, analyzing the data, which is really strong at this point. How does all of that that you articulated really translate into the markets moving forward in your estimation?

Yeah, unfortunately, it does get harder trying to make that leap from the economy to the markets. And really the most important takeaway for all of the listeners today to get from this conversation really is that point that the economy does not equal the stock market. It's important to understand the stock market has already been pricing in the strong recovery in the economy ever since the vaccine news started coming out in November. So that's not to say that the stock market is going to roll over and crash now or anything like that, but it's important to have perspective. And that perspective is that the S&P 500 stock market index is up about 90 percent from its lows last March. It's 23 percent higher today than it was before the COVID bear market started in February of last year. So a lot of today's good news is already priced into the stock market. So I would just caution folks who are maybe thinking, wow, we're having this incredible economic data. That's really going to propel the stock market forward.

Well, we may have already had that in reverse order. We had the stock market propelled forward in anticipation of what we're now seeing today in the economic data. And, you know, if we look back to the last bear market, I'm sorry, the last big bear market back in 2008, 2009, what happened coming out of that one was we rallied very significantly. The stock market rallied very significantly for about a year. And then we hit a summertime 20 percent or so correction, which everybody freaked out about because everyone thought, oh, no, we're rolling back over into this financial crisis.

But it wasn't that. It was just the market had come so far over that first year or so, and then it needed some time to work through and correct. And it really would not be a huge surprise if we saw something similar maybe this summer. A lot of times these things happen over the summer during the slower market months.

But I would encourage people to not necessarily think that that's the beginning of the end if we see some kind of a pullback like that. Yeah, very good. Well, helpful analysis, Mark, as we think about our investing portfolios. Let's go back to the phones.

Newcastle, Indiana. Jim, you're next on MoneyWiseLive. Go ahead, sir. Hello. Yes, sir.

Go ahead. Hey, I just been in Christian education my whole life and didn't do much retirement until two years ago. I'm 63. I've got about 30,000, 32,000, maybe an IRA, the Wellington Fund through Vanguard, the 60-40 split. I just started my wife's IRA with a little more conservative on one of their retirement things, like one of the 10-year retirements scoped out things of about maybe 5 to 7%.

Anyway, I got a house that I got about 30,000 equity and one we were renting out that I have about maybe 50,000 equity. And I just wondered what you would recommend as far as future investment, how I should do the balance on that. Yeah. And how long do you plan to continue to work just based on your plans today, Jim? Oh, I'd say another 10 to 15 years if the Lord gives me health.

Okay. So still quite a bit of time, Mark, to go. He's got a 60-40 split on his current investment portfolio, obviously adding to it.

Any thoughts? Yeah, I would say, Jim, that, you know, without knowing, you know, a lot more detail, that that sounds pretty appropriate for where you are. You know, you've got this 10-year or so runway ahead of you before retirement, and we're always, you know, pointing out that you need to have that 5 to 10-year time horizon to be invested in the stock market to ride out any downturns. It's certainly too early to give up on the growth that the stock market would provide, but at the same time, you're close enough to the end goal that you don't want to go too wild with the risk either.

You know, as we were talking about earlier with Joe, you know, the biggest issue really is going to be balancing the retirement expenses with the retirement income, and it's certainly not too early to start thinking about those details in terms of what you will have coming in through Social Security and any other income sources, what your current expenses are likely to look like in retirement, and that's where you can start to hone in on how these investments are going to supplement that other income to make sure that you're able to cover those expenses. Very good. Jim, we appreciate your call today. Mark, we're about out of time today.

Charles called from Huntley, Illinois. He wanted to ask about the deficit spending and how that's going to impact the economy over the next decade. I'd love for you to share your final thoughts today for those folks that are just concerned, and you addressed a bit of this in our inflation conversation a moment ago, but a lot of folks are just concerned about what they're seeing going on and how that might affect the economy and ultimately the markets, and at the end of the day, their 401k.

Any final remarks on that? Yeah, and I think that it's appropriate to be concerned because some of these policies are not necessarily great for the long-term economy and for individuals. Now, the one thing that I would throw out there that a lot of people miss is that if the deficit spending, and in John's question earlier, if we see this in persistent inflation, what history shows us is that real assets, including stocks, typically do not necessarily struggle in an environment of reasonably low inflation. So unless we see breakout inflation, which we truly have not seen for the past 40 plus years, even a lower but higher level of inflation is not likely to devastate your stock investments.

Now, it would be tougher on bonds for sure, but stocks, real estate, those types of things often hold up well. Very good. Well, Mark, always great to have you along with us today. Folks, if you want to learn more about Soundmind Investing, go to soundmindinvesting.org.

You can read his article, Economic Update Booming against soundmindinvesting.org. Mark, thanks for stopping by. Thank you, Rob. More of your calls just around the corner on any financial topic.

800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob West. So glad to have you along with us today, taking your calls and questions on anything financial 800-525-7000. Hey, here at Month In, let me just encourage you, if you haven't yet supported MoneyWise Media and all that we do here to bring you God's wisdom for your finances and you'd prayerfully consider that, we'd certainly appreciate it. We are listener supported. Everything we do from this broadcast to our coaches, our app, all the content at moneywiselive.org and so many other resources that we're able to provide is only because of your generous support.

Would you consider being a financial partner monthly or one time? Whatever you can do, we'd certainly be grateful. MoneyWiseLive.org. Just click the donate button and that would go a long way to helping us continue to do the work that God has called us to do. Let's head back to the phones. Mark is in Chicago, Illinois. Mark, how can we help you today? Thank you for taking my call.

My wife and I really appreciate your show and the wisdom is so appreciated from a biblical worldview. My wife and I are going to be moving and it's definitely a seller's market right now and we're looking forward to selling our current home in Chicago. We're looking to relocate though to Michigan and the housing market is on fire right now and we put a bid on a home.

Unfortunately, it was not accepted. There was actually 26 other offers on the home and I'm just wondering what would your counsel be? We don't feel comfortable spending 30, 40, even $50,000 over the asking price which is what's happening now. Do you think this market is going to cool off or how would you guide us? Yeah, well it's a great question, Mark, and you know by some estimates the housing market is overvalued nationally about five and a half percent.

You might say that doesn't sound like a lot and you know it's not. I mean when we look at where housing prices have come over the last decade, clearly they're up significantly. A lot of this demand is real though. It's not a repeat of 2008-2009 where we saw folks with really loose lending practices which gave folks money to buy homes they genuinely could not afford. We also saw a lot of speculative building on the part of the home builders back in 2008-2009. There was some real flaws in our financial system related to housing and lending.

That's not here today. We've got much tighter lending standards. Really this is driven and fueled in large part by the millennials which are the largest generation reaching age 30, having kids, buying single-family homes, folks moving out of smaller apartments because of work remote policies and school at home because they want a little more space and they have the liberty to do that and just a genuine housing shortage.

By some estimates there's two million homes in terms of a deficit from what the real need and demand is today and so all of that has driven housing prices to where they are today. Now do we think that we'll continue to see the incredible skyrocketing prices? Probably not. It's going to cool off. I don't expect to crash anytime soon. Probably more like a slower release of the air in the market where we don't see the growth rates but you know there's nothing wrong with waiting to see if prices moderate but they're not likely to go down anytime soon, only slow their gains. So I think really it comes down Mark to are you prepared to buy a home? I like the idea that you're saying you're not willing to overpay.

That's a good practice. It's clearly going to make it a bit harder to buy a home because of the competition and the demand is you know giving folks the opportunity to find really strong cash offers in many cases 10, 20 or 30 percent over the true market value. I resist the temptation to chase those prices but as long as you're going in buying for a fair price with the at least 20 percent down with a payment that fits well within your budget I define that as no more than 25 percent of your take-home pay toward principal interest taxes and insurance then I think you know as long as you're planning to stay in the home for a while there's no reason not to proceed but I realize you need to make it a matter of prayer because it's there's a lot of competition out there and it can be frustrating that you'll see home after home after home that you think could be the one and you know you'll see it bought right out from under you with with stronger bids often over market value. So it's not going to be easy but I don't have any problem with you proceeding to look for a home and ask the Lord to give you the one that's the right one for you as long as you don't push to buy something outside of your budget.

Does that make sense though Mark? Yes absolutely and we followed your your principles for years now and by God's grace we're in a solid position we have zero debt our current home is completely paid off and we have over six months salary saved up and we're planning for retirement and so we just don't want to get caught up in a sort of market frenzy and I don't want to be driven by the market but driven by the Lord so. Yeah well I'm confident the Lord will honor your desire to be a faithful steward Mark I really appreciate the approach you've taken we've seen lots of bubbles in the past you know the the tulip bulb craze of the 1600s and then we had the dot com and then we had the housing bubble and so yeah we don't want to get caught up in that I wouldn't call this one of those although clearly the market is red hot and so you just have to be careful not to make an emotional purchase beyond what you should pay for reasonably but I'm confident based on what you just described you guys will make a prudent decision so thanks for checking in with us today appreciate your encouragement may the Lord bless you on to Cleveland Ohio Connie what's on your mind? Hi thank you for taking my call and thank you for your ministry I had a question I have like five CDs they're traditional IRAs and I was thinking about moving them into a guaranteed lifetime fixed annuity and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that product that type of product. Sure so the CD the proceeds from the CDs what's the total roughly?

It's 34,000. Okay and this is money that you don't expect to need anytime soon? No I have a cash a liquid cash fund and then I have 401k and I'm thinking I'm going to need to either retire at 62 or 65 and I'm thinking that I'll work with my planner on the 401k money to create some income gap between the social security and my 401k. I see yeah very good you know I'm not a big fan of the guaranteed income fixed annuity they tend to be expensive they're illiquid in terms of you lose your flexibility on how you can use that money but they do accomplish one significant thing that's attractive to a lot of folks in that you're transferring the risk from yourself in terms of investing it on your own or with a professional at you're transferring the risk to the insurance company and they're assuming that risk in exchange for the you know fees and commissions that you're going to pay and you know their ability to go invest that money and then give you a guaranteed amount that's obviously lower than their expectation of what they can earn. So I think the key is does this fit well within your overall financial plan and does it give you a little bit more peace of mind to know that there's kind of a guarantee there a floor if you will so it can't go down even if you're giving up some of the flexibility to access the funds and potential return over the long run in terms of your ability to earn perhaps a bit more if you'd be willing to assume the risk. So tell me about that does that give you peace of mind if you were to have this as a part of your portfolio? Yeah right now in my 401k I have it that 70% is protected because I knew like five years ago that the potential of having to retire early was there and I just didn't want to I don't have a lot of money and so I didn't want to lose a lot of money it was just too risky to see it going down all the time and knowing that I was going to need to access those funds so 70% of my 401k is just sitting there in a money market unfortunately I'm looking at doing something a little bit different on that but 30% I have in investments in my 401k. Okay you know I think you'd benefit Connie from a really an overall look at this whether that's with your current planner or somebody else I'd probably get a couple of additional opinions on how you could look at the total of your financial life your 401k how that should be invested look at your health the timing on your retirement and also this 34,000 and just see if there's another solution that doesn't involve you sitting in money market or paying the fees that would come with an insurance contract like an annuity so I think I'd connect with a certified kingdom advisor there in Cleveland there's some great ones interview perhaps two or three get some other ideas on what you should be looking at as you prepare for this next season of life with regard to your investment strategy you can find a cka there in Cleveland at moneywiselive.org and if you have any questions after you do that give us a call back but I think that's going to be a great next step for you and we appreciate your call today.

Albany Oregon Richard we have just a minute left go ahead. Oh yes I've got an offer I just got an offer for a current rate of 3.125 well I'm sorry the current rate is 4.5 percent they want to lower the interest rate on our mortgage to 3.125 percent. Okay how much do you owe on the mortgage Richard? 68,000 dollars. Okay and what is your remaining years on this? The remaining well we refinanced in 2012. Okay so you're nine years in you've got 21 years left and what would this new mortgage be? How many years? I don't see that on the paperwork but I'm assuming it's a 30-year book. Okay yeah I'd look at a new 20-year I wouldn't go another 30 years and I'd be looking for a rate under three percent I'd also be looking to make sure you're going to stay in the home and that you're not paying more than one to two percent in closing costs.

Bankrate.com could be a great resource for you to get a couple more quotes. If you have any questions after that give us a call back Richard. Folks thanks for being along with us today we covered a lot of ground. Hey let me say thanks to my team Amy Rios, Deb Solomon, Jim Henry. We're so glad you've been here with us. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media come back and join us tomorrow. May the Lord bless you. Bye-bye.