Inside-Out Investing

Canadian hockey great and part-time philosopher P.K.

Subban once said, life is a chess match. Every decision you make has a consequence. Hi, I'm Rob West. Many of the decisions we make affect us far into the future, especially investing decisions. Today I'll talk with Mark Biller about a kind of decision-making that yields the best results. And then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, Mark Biller is back with us today. He's executive editor at Sound Mind Investing, where they've made a science out of decision-making.

Sound Mind Investing is also an underwriter of this program. And Mark, great to have you back with us. Thanks, Rob.

Good to be back with you. Mark, we often think of investing decisions as maybe good or bad, but I know you want to talk about something called inside-out decision-making. So perhaps you can begin with what exactly that means. Yeah, sure. Well, it starts out with a different way of thinking about how we make investment decisions. At SMI, we try to teach our members that they can make most of their investing decisions really with little regard for what's happening in the investment markets right now. Now, I know that that sounds maybe a little crazy in the middle of a bear market, but I'm going to lay out our case and let your listeners decide. Okay, fair enough. You have the floor, sir. Go right ahead.

Okay. Well, to start out, we're asking the question, where do investment decisions come from for most investors? And I think for most people, at least for many people, their starting point is the outside world. This is current events, what the market's doing, articles they're reading, talking heads on TV, all that kind of stuff. We can kind of sum all of those things up to say that for a lot of investors, their decisions are guided primarily by outside considerations. And then as those investors are responding to the data and the opinions that are constantly coming at them, their personal inside financial world begins to take shape, but it's taking shape based on this thinking that's outside in. So it's this outside information that's really driving their thinking and their actions. And I think that the fact that a lot of people invest this way is one reason why you see so much herd behavior in markets because everybody's reacting to the same data, the same things that are happening in the markets. Well, and naturally, when this is the case, the decision making is only as good as the outside information that's coming in, right?

Yeah, that's absolutely right, Rob. And that can be a big problem as we've seen a number of times this year. And I want to contrast that way of thinking with a different set of investors. And this is how we're trying to help our SMI members think. For this group, the starting point of their decision making is inside information. What I mean by that is the focus is on their own financial needs, their own personalized long term strategy. And so they're buying and selling decisions are just based on what's required to ensure that their financial holdings are in accordance with their long term plan. So if we contrast these two, the first group had this outside in model, whereas what we're trying to shoot for is an inside out way of thinking.

In other words, their decisions are primarily shaped by these inside considerations. And if you can start to think this way, it makes what's going on in the markets right now and what the experts are saying pretty irrelevant to your investment decision making. So in this model, Rob, the outside world of investing experts really only comes into the picture when somebody needs assistance executing decisions that are part of their long term plan. Well, that's kind of a breath of fresh air, especially in a market like this. And I assume when you talk about professional assistance, you're talking about a trusted financial advisor. Yeah, right. So that could be a certified kingdom advisor or for our SMI members, you know, using the strategies and the instructions we provide them through sound mind investing.

Yeah, very good. Well, this is a refreshing approach to making investment decisions based on your needs and your plan, not outside factors. We'll continue to unpack this just around the corner. Mark Biller with us today from Sound Mind Investing.

We're talking about the article you'll find at soundmindinvesting.org entitled Make Sure Your Investment Decision Making is Inside Out. We'll be taking your calls from Mark as well in just a bit. Stay with us on Money Wise Live. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Money Wise Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. What if you could make investing decisions with little regard for what's happening in the investment markets right now? Well, given what's going on in the markets, that would probably be a breath of fresh air. Joining us today to talk about inside out decision making is our friend Mark Biller. Mark is executive editor at soundmindinvesting.org. The article we're discussing today is entitled How You Can Make Investing Decisions Inside Out. We'd love for you to check it out. Actually, the precise title is Make Sure Your Investment Decision Making is Inside Out. You'll find it at soundmindinvesting.org.

Mark, this is really helpful. It's probably not unlike how we make other decisions in terms of our spending, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, if your family has grown to the point where you need a minivan, then you wouldn't see an ad on TV for a sporty little convertible telling you how great those are and change your mind and buy the convertible instead. While that's a pretty common sense thing for most of us in the consumer purchasing side of our brain, somehow when it comes to investment decisions, we go a little haywire because we can kind of have an idea of what we need to do financially, but then we listen to somebody who sounds really smart on TV or read an article by someone who has a really convincing financial argument about why a certain investment is great and all of a sudden our thinking can get all squirrelly and we can kind of get let off track by the shiny object instead of what we really need for our own personal plan. So that's really what we're talking about here, Rob, is making your decisions based on your needs regardless of either what's going on in the market, what the experts are saying, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and that sounds pretty obvious, and yet it's harder said than done, at least based on how we observe people make decisions in a market like this, right?

Yeah, absolutely right. We're so influenced by what the market's been doing lately. You don't have to look back very far. Just the last several days of trading, we have huge up days followed by huge down days, and it's a lot. It's a lot for investors to process, and certainly it's very easy to get blown around all over the place by this type of volatility, which is very typical in a bear market. People haven't had to navigate a deep bear market for a long time.

The last one was in 2008. That's a lifetime ago for a lot of investors. So getting some good counsel and having some kind of sane, calm voices in your ear instead of trying to figure this out on the day-to-day based on what the market is doing is definitely recommended.

That's great. Well, I know in the article, Mark, you all provided a list of questions you can ask yourself to ensure you are being inside out in your thinking. Perhaps you can give us the first two, and then we'll take a few of the phone calls.

Yeah, sounds good. So the first one I would ask is, is my financial foundation rock solid? In other words, am I debt free?

Is my emergency savings fund adequate? And if not, then those would be good inside out reasons why a person might need to sell some stock or maybe pause contributing to their 401k plan for a little while in order to repair the cracks in their foundation. Another question to ask is, are my earlier assumptions about my lifetime earnings, my retirement goals, life expectancy, all those sorts of things, are those still on track?

We're talking about financial planning type goals here, retirement goals. And if you're in doubt on that, it's a good idea to rerun those numbers periodically. And that's another type of exercise where you might get an inside out result that would dictate that you might make some changes to your portfolio mix, either between stocks and bonds or maybe changing the rate at which you're saving, those sorts of things. So again, Rob, we're talking about these inside factors that are personal to you as opposed to, oh my gosh, look at what the market's doing. I'd better react to that. That's what we're trying to avoid.

Yeah, much better approach. All right, there's more questions that we'll move our way through as Mark stays with us until the bottom of the hour. We'll also be taking your questions for this first half of the broadcast, specifically on investments, your portfolio, the market, how you should respond in these times. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We have some lines open for you.

Let's begin in Jefferson City, Missouri. Peter, I understand you have an I bond question. Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Rob, for taking my call. My question, well, I had some real estate property and I've sold it and now I have a little money. So my question is, the best broker for my inflation bonds. I'm not an investor.

I really don't know what to do. Yeah. And what is the proceeds you're looking to put to work from this property? 40, 50. Yeah, okay.

Unfortunately, you're not going to be able to put all that to work and there's really only one place to go to get it. Mark, I know you're a fan of the I bonds. Go ahead with your thoughts. Yeah, I'm a big fan of them right now. And the reason I say right now is because they are paying a really attractive yield. I bonds are inflation protected bonds. So there's basically an inflation adjustment that's made every six months to the rate that these bonds pay. And with inflation as high as it's been, that rate is very attractive. It's over 9% right now. And even though that's going to adjust down almost certainly here in the months ahead, it still should be a pretty attractive yield, certainly much better than anything else we've seen in the bond landscape for quite a while.

So I really like I bonds. Now what Rob was alluding to there is there are some restrictions on how much you can put in those. An individual is limited to $10,000 per year unless they are putting some tax refund money to work, in which case it can be a little more. Now if you're married, if you have a spouse, then you could effectively put $20,000 in for this year and potentially as much as another $20,000 in early next year.

So there are some ways to work around these limitations, but that is something to keep in mind. And it only works for taxable accounts. Unfortunately, you can't use IRAs, 401Ks, those types of plans with I bonds. But if you have a plain old taxable savings type account, then you can put that money in through treasurydirect.gov and set up your account directly with the treasury that way. They're a great option.

Rob, do you have thoughts on that? No, that's exactly right. You do have to leave it in for a year and you can pull it out after that with a small penalty if it's less than five years. But to your question about brokers, Mark's exactly right. There really is no need to go anywhere because you can't buy them except directly from the treasury.

One place to go, treasurydirect.gov. You'll set up your account there and then you'll transfer the funds in electronically from that website. Does that make sense, Peter? Yes, it does. Thank you. I tried that, but the website crashed.

There must be so many people. There are some disclaimers on there just about the volume right now, given how popular these I bonds are right now. I set up an account for myself and then did it again for my mom not too long ago.

So I would just say stay at it. You will get that to go through eventually and be ready to put in your routing number and account number to do that electronic transfer once the account's open. But treasurydirect.gov and I suspect they'll get those issues resolved. You'll be able to open that in no time. Peter, thanks for your call today, my friend. We appreciate it. Stephanie, Marty, we're coming your way. We've got some lines open. Questions for Mark Biller in this first portion of the broadcast at 800-525-7000.

We're talking about how to be an inside out decision maker when it comes to your investments, not letting the market dictate your decisions, but your own needs and goals. More with Mark Biller just around the corner. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West. This is where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to your financial decisions and choices here in this segment of the broadcast. And since the top of the program, we've been talking to our friend Mark Biller, executive editor at Soundmind Investing and underwriter of this program. We've been discussing a new article at soundmindinvesting.org entitled, Make sure your investment decision is inside out, not influenced by market forces and the volatility in the market or the latest pundit or talking head, but really your own goals and objectives, even your values.

And Mark, that comes up in one of these questions that remain. Perhaps you can share with us question number three or four related to how we can gauge whether we're thinking inside out. Yeah, sure. So another one of these questions, Rob, is, you know, is my investing strategy, my approach, does that reflect an appropriate risk tolerance, my own personal emotional tolerance for risk? And that's a really important one. And it is something that a bear market like we've been in can kind of reveal in a way that maybe a survey is lacking. You know, when the rubber hits the road, you really realize if you're taking on too much risk and you're having trouble sleeping at night or whatever. Now, one caveat that I'd throw out here is you do want to be careful making big changes to your investing plan in the middle of a bear market.

So you want to be careful with this one. But the overall idea, Rob, is that you would build a portfolio that you can ride through a bear market and not have to make big adjustments. And getting to that point may lead you to alter your strategy a little bit.

You know, at SMI, we have a few different ones. So for our members, that might mean moving a little bit from one strategy to another. I know that's a little bit different for folks who aren't, you know, using multiple strategies like that. But that's a good thing to be focused on is your own personal risk tolerance. And are you at a sleep well level of risk with your portfolio? The other one that I think you were referencing a moment ago is, are my protective boundaries still in place? And if not, what adjustments should I make? So one example of that might be that if you've got more than 10 to 15% of your portfolio in the stock of your employer, that can be a very risky thing.

Even if you think your employer is great, you know, that could be an inside out reason to make an adjustment to sell some of that employer stock and diversify that by reinvesting it in some other assets. So those are a few more of those questions. Again, getting our focus off the market and on to what do I need for my plan to succeed? Yeah, that's very helpful, Mark. All right, back to the phone. Sioux City, Iowa. Stephanie, you're next on the program. Go ahead with your question for Mark Biller.

Hi, there. So I've got about $13,000. That's pre tax money in.

I don't know if I can say where it's at or not. But it's like an annuity where I will never lose money only gain. Okay, so to me, that's very secure.

But my work does not offer me to go to this program. And so I would like to put about 15% of each paycheck into this, but then that would be post tax dollars. So that I'm mixing money. Okay, so you'd you'd like to continue to put money into an annuity on your own? Beyond what you have in there inside a retirement pre tax vehicle?

Is that right? Yes, but then the money that would have to come out of my bank account, which would be post tax money. Yeah, Mark, thoughts on this in terms of continuing to fund through the annuity? Yeah, so a few things one, you know, typically, if you're wanting to do something along these lines, Stephanie, you probably would be able to set up a separate account that would be treated, you know, differently for tax purposes, much like somebody who has an IRA, but maybe they're over their IRA limits, could set up a taxable account and continue to fund investments that way. But I would also just be a little bit careful with that one. We have not traditionally been big fans of annuities generally, because they tend to have pretty high expenses. So that that safety that you're getting, there's a good chance that you're paying a lot for those those features and for that safety. So I would just encourage you to take a really good look at the terms of the annuity. And there may be some ways that you could put together a similarly safe portfolio while paying lower fees. That's a tricky thing to get into, you know, over a conversation like this, but through a conservative mix of bond funds, perhaps, you know, you have to look at the details of that. But I would just encourage you to keep an eye on that. Rob, your thoughts?

Yeah, I totally agree. I'd rather you stay outside of the annuity, especially since you already have the annuity with the pre-tax money, perhaps you balance that outside. Yes, you're taking on more risk, but you get the full upside.

As long as you have the right strategy, the right investment mix and a long time horizon, I think you'll do better over time, Stephanie. But if that gives you greater peace of mind to transfer the risk to the insurance company, certainly you can do that. And you can have both the pre and the post tax options there. Thanks for your call. Quickly to Ohio, Marty, I know you're wondering about your company's new Roth 401k.

You're just wondering if you should start redirecting new money there. Is that right? That's correct. Yep.

Yeah. Mark, how do you, just a minute left, how do you normally counsel folks in making the decision on using the traditional 401k or the Roth? Yeah, I think that the Roth is a kind of a no brainer for younger folks. I think as you approach retirement age, you want to start thinking more about what is my tax bracket right now versus what is my tax bracket going to be in retirement? And if it's higher now, then you wouldn't necessarily want to trade that for taking it out and paying at a lower rate later. I know that was a little confusing, but that's the gist of that.

Yeah. I tend to agree. You know, if time's on your side and you've got a couple of decades, I'd probably look to the Roth option.

If you're closer to retirement, you're probably going to get more bang for your buck in that deduction now, and you could stick with the traditional 401k. Marty, thanks for your call today. Mark, always great to have you with us, my friend. Thanks for stopping by.

Always my pleasure, Rob. Check out more at soundmindinvesting.org, and we'll be right back. It's great to have you with us today on Money Wise Live, where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to our financial decisions and choices. You know, as we think about applying biblical principles, it's not just so we can enrich ourselves. It's so we can understand the heart of God.

Yes, we want to improve our situation. We want to work hard. That's biblical. We want to earn resources so we can provide for our families and give generously.

That's biblical. But to what end? It's really all about our hearts and are we handling money in such a way that's drawing us to the Father, or is it becoming a stumbling block that's actually interfering in our intimacy with the Lord?

I think we need to be honest with ourselves, ask those questions and say, perhaps I'm holding on too tightly. Perhaps the money and the things that money can buy is my goal. And that's robbing me of intimacy with the Lord, rather than surrendering to him what's already his and saying, Lord, it's yours. And I want to be a faithful steward and use money to accomplish your purposes, not taking our cues from the world, but really taking our cues from Scripture. I think that's our goal here each day as we gather together to talk about these issues. We're going to turn the corner and take your calls on anything financial now. The number to call, 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open, 800-525-7000. Also coming up in our final segment today, Bob Doll stops by. Bob will share his market analysis, not on how you make the decisions like Mark was focused on, but really what's going on with the markets and the economy as he's looking out over the balance of this week and what's to come.

That's coming up just a bit later in the broadcast. All right, 800-525-7000 to Nashville we go. Hey, Dennis, you're next on the program. Go ahead, sir. Oh, hi.

How are you doing today? Thanks for taking my call. So I have a situation where I've got a little debt and I've cleared up from some bad habits and spending. And so my situation is I currently own a home. I've had it for almost five years and I have about $175,000 of equity into it if I were to sell it. And I'm about $93,000 in debt with trucks, cars, credit cards, and all that. And so my question is, should I sell my house and rent for the next 12 months till the market cools off, pay off all my debt, and I'd be able to pocket $75,000 and kind of start fresh? Or I have an option to do a HELOC and stay here and pay it down that way because the interest is just too high right now.

So I'm trying to just see what the best strategy is. Yeah. What's the breakdown of that $93,000 just in kind of big categories, credit cards and automobiles? Sure.

I've got about 47,000 credit cards, about $20,000 in IRS back pay that I owe from years ago, taxes that were not filed correctly, another 20,000 of a car loan. And that's pretty much all of it. All right. Yep. And do you have the free cash flow to actually service the debt at this point?

Yeah. It's just going to take up to two years to probably pay it down. I'm just very stressed over it and I just feel if I just were starting new and rent. But I know that's my spending habit that got me into this. So I'm not trying to, you know, jump that over again.

Well, there's a couple of reasons why I'd prefer you not take either of the options you laid out to me. Number one is selling the house, although, yeah, it's a hot real estate market that's cooled a bit. Nashville's kind of been at the leading edge of that kind of incredible growth we've experienced in the housing market nationally. And the market's clearly softening, although you'd still be able to get, I assume, a pretty good amount for your house versus what you paid for it. But rental prices are sky high as well right now. So you may actually go up in terms of your monthly rent payment versus your mortgage if you really look at it, depending on where you're going and how much you need to spend.

So that's kind of strike one. It's also the cost associated with selling it. You've got the 6% potentially to a realtor and then you've got the moving costs and storage and kind of all the things that come with you being in limbo for a period of time. The second thing I don't like is I don't like attaching the debt to the house if you were to stay and get a HELOC. Not only is that a variable rate that's going up with interest rates, but now you've taken unsecured debt and you've secured it to the house, at least the credit card portion and the IRS portion.

And so now you could lose your home if something is in jeopardy. And then thirdly, I like the idea given that this just came and I appreciate your honesty about, hey, this is just overspending over a long period of time that got me in this situation and I'm learning my lesson and I'm committed to making a change. But coming in with kind of a quick fix on either of these scenarios, I've just been doing this long enough and I've talked to enough people. We just had a call the other day from somebody that said, Rob, I did the hard work. It took years, but I did it and I learned my lesson in the process of saving and being disciplined and cutting back.

And there's just some muscle memory that's developed as you do that hard work over time to make sure that you don't ever get back in this situation again and you're not one of those people that call me six months later and say, well, I got the HELOC and guess what? The credit card debt's back. Now what?

You know, that kind of thing. So I think for that reason, assuming you can actually float this from cash flow and it may be challenging and you may have to cut back for a while, but I don't think that's a bad thing in terms of developing the right disciplines. I'd rather see you get on a payment plan with the IRS if you're not already on it, get into a credit counseling program with our friends at ChristianCreditCounselors.org and let them set up a payment plan that's going to get those interest rates way down and it'll probably be about three percent of the balance, I'm guessing. So about fifteen hundred a month. But they'll tell you exactly what it is, work with you on your budget and then just keep those cars current. And if you do that, you'll pay that credit card debt off 80 percent faster because of the lower rates and the fixed monthly payment. Get the IRS current and keep it current through a monthly payment plan.

And the same with the cars. And I think as you have a plan where you know how long it's going to take, you know you're making progress every month, you know you're not throwing as much away toward interest anymore because you've now got lower rates. I think that may give you some peace of mind even though it's not going to be over next week or even next year. You're on track to get this done in a reasonable period of time and you're going to come out the other end better for it and not having spent a lot of money buying and selling properties and renting when rental prices are high and securing debt to your house and all that kind of stuff. But give me your thoughts on that, Dennis.

Yeah, very cool. So I like that and I you know it's just my house. I look at the equity you know and I read Revelation. I try and I you know we're not supposed to fear because our redemption draws near. But I look at the equity of my house you know and like am I going to you know is this house going to drop like it did back you know when the housing crash? Am I going to lose all this equity?

I guess it's my in my heart okay I could cash out now and be ahead and then you know or stay here and pay off the debt in two years. But you know my house goes down another hundred thousand and so yeah you know just I mean obviously I don't know the future Dennis but I can tell you we're not in a situation like we were in 08 and 09. There's not you know a credit crisis where we were extending loans to people who shouldn't have had them.

There's not systemic problems in the banking system. This is largely driven by supply and demand. You've got the millennials that are now turning thirty and buying single-family homes because they're having kids. You've got people that are no longer working in dense areas, urban areas.

They're moving out into the suburbs and working remotely. There's a probably two to three million homes shortage in this country and people are moving to Nashville like crazy. So even though the housing market's going to soften and if we hit a recession it certainly will.

You know we don't have major problems that's going to cause a bubble to burst in my opinion in the housing market. So I think your equity is going to stay right where it is and I think you'll come out better off on the other side of this if you take the approach that I mentioned and again christiancreditcounselors.org is the folks that can help you with that. So I hope that's an encouragement to you Dennis. You just stay the course. You'll get there my friend and do me a favor.

Once you get on the other side of this call me back and let me know and celebrate together and we'll be praying for you as you go through this. Thanks for your call today. Bob Dahl joins us just around the corner. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back on MoneyWise Live.

Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on MoneyWise Live where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to your financial decisions and choices. We'll head back to the phones in just a moment here in our final segment but first, well we're joined each week by our friend Bob Dahl. He's Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments where investments and values intersect.

You can learn more and sign up for his weekly investment commentary, Dahl's Deliberations at crossmarkglobal.com. Bob, good to have you with us my friend. Good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you sir. Happy Tuesday.

Happy Tuesday. Before we dive into the markets I have a question. So you're a Chief Investment Officer.

You know you're on Fox Business periodically. You've been on Wall Street. I suspect when you walk out of church you constantly get the question, alright Bob, what stock should I buy?

And not so much the stock, it's just like, what's going to happen in these times? What's going to happen? Is the world really going to end? I said, you just came out of church. You know the world's going to end as we now know it.

What do you have to ask me for? Open your Bible. We've all read the end of the story. Alright, so to that end, what is going to happen? Maybe not in the end but, you know, the foreseeable future.

Yeah, so what have we come through? Inflation increasing, the central bank tightening and raising rates, valuations came under pressure and now we're watching the economy slow and earnings revisions being on the negative side. Yet we still need to know, are we going to have a recession, yes or no? And are we going to have credit or liquidity problems? And then the cycle will end and we'll start a whole new one and we'll have another bull market. It's happened a zillion times. Every time we're in it, it feels just like the worst thing ever but we'll get through this and God's on his throne.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that. Bob, which of those gives you the most concern? The one that piques my interest is, you said, could we have credit problems here in this country? Is that kind of an outlier that would make this perhaps more severe or could we weather even that? Yes, that would be, that's the wild card, the credit and liquidity break, as I call it, the break in the system. We saw it, if you remember, a few weeks ago in the UK where the bond market went absolutely crazy around the fiscal policy initiatives that have been walked back now, Rob, it's that sort of thing. If we have a credit problem and a financial institution, struggles with higher rates, in my view, it's more likely to come from outside the US than inside the US but we're not immune here. Rates have gone up at a faster pace than almost any time in history and when you do that, something eventually breaks. Yeah, yeah, there's no question about it. It sounds painful but when you're the biggest economy in the world for all intents and purposes, even that, we could, we have the tools in our tool belt to deal with something like that?

Yes, I could get a flat tire, I could have an accident on the highway but it's all fixable, it just takes time and it's inconvenient. Yeah, no question about it. Now Bob, I know we were talking this morning, I mean you were even surprised by the market's reaction to that abysmal CPI report, right? Yes, it was last Thursday and it was an awful number and the market didn't like it at the beginning and the futures went down and the cash market opened and it wasn't good but then as you watch the day go by, the stock market just took off on the upside. As people said, this is just enough for now. It was oversold, horrible sentiment. People said valuations have come down.

Maybe the Fed doesn't have that much farther to go to raise rates. Better news out of the UK. All that sort of ganged up and as I like to say, there were more buyers than sellers and so the market went up.

Yeah, and that's continued. We've had, with a few blips on the radar, some pretty strong numbers even today. Bob, have you been surprised that earnings have been maybe less bad than we expected?

Yes, Rob, and I would highlight the banks. Several of the banks, Bank of America in particular, the results were very promising, not just for what they reported now but the trends look much less onerous than some of us feared as this economy slowed. We've all been waiting for earnings to come down and they're coming down, don't get me wrong. For example, for the full year, consensus was over $250 per share for the S&P at the peak in July. It's now under $240 and coming down slowly, Rob, slowly. We'll see where that ends up.

Yeah, very good. Obviously, we're still watching what's going on around the rest of the world. You mentioned the UK. What else are you seeing just in terms of the outlook economically? Well, so going even further east and then coming back, China is still under the zero COVID policy, which means you and I catch a cold and they make us go to bed and everybody else too and just shuts down the economy.

The continent of Europe is facing winter and potential energy shortages and or very high prices. What's that going to look like and how much ripple will those things have on the US, which is slowing of its own accord? So the economic situation is precarious but not a disaster.

All right. And then finally, Bob, it looks like the Republicans will likely have the House, at least based on where things are trending today. What does that mean just from the political situation as it relates to our economy? So I think part of the long list of reasons the market rallied last Thursday, horrible day Friday and then a strong recovery yesterday and today is the probability of the Republicans week has gone up. The trends having moved in the Democrat direction, circa Labor Day, are moving back in the Republican direction. I think it's highly likely, call it 90, 95 percent, Republicans take over the House. The Senate is more questionable. I'm kind of 60, 40 that Republicans win.

There are a few states that are very, very close. We'll see. I think what the market is looking at is will the probability of tax increases that the Biden administration would like to put in, will that probability go to zero? And if the Republicans sweep, it will.

And market would like that. Yeah, interesting. All right, Bob, so many factors to think about and look at each day. I'm glad you're the one in that seat, my friend. We appreciate you weighing in each week. Hey, God bless you.

We'll talk to you next week. Thank you, sir. All right. Bob Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments.

You can learn more at crossmarkglobal.com. All right. Here in our final moments of the broadcast today, back to the phones. Waiting patiently is Agnes in Plainfield, Illinois.

Agnes, how can I help you? Yeah, I have some money I got from insurance after the death of my husband. And then I went to Treasury Direct, as I said, of wasting the money.

Let me invest it in Iborn. So I opened the account. I went there. I filled out the application, everything. And then I submitted it. They asked for which account I will use, savings or checking, I click checking.

And then it's submitted. Then they said they will send me an email with the information how to access the account and everything. Up to now, I did not get anything. I did not get an account number. I sent an email to them yesterday that I didn't receive anything yet. And I didn't get any response. I called for no response. Yeah.

Well, I'm so sorry to hear that, Agnes. I know that is frustrating. This may sound like a simple fix, and I don't pretend that it is. But make sure you check your junk or your spam mail just to make sure it didn't get inadvertently filed there automatically. But here's the reality is their systems are really taxed right now just because so many people are opening these accounts. You'll see warnings about that on their website. When you call them, you're going to get disclaimers about that.

It is challenging. So I would just stay at it. Keep checking. Again, check those spam or junk folders to make sure it's not there. Try to log back in and see if you can get into your account that way. You would have set up a username and password to be able to securely log into your account at treasurydirect.gov.

It may be that you could get your account number there and then go ahead and link your checking and savings account. Maybe just start that process over in case something kind of in the plumbing of the back end of their systems just didn't go through. And then as a last resort, and the reason I say that is it's going to be challenging to get through because we've heard reports that it's just long waits. Maybe you call off hours or on the weekend. But if you have to, calling or emailing as you've done is a last resort. But I would try to see if you can just go back into the account and reset it. Maybe start the process over using the existing account you set up.

I'm not suggesting you set up another account, but log into the one you set up and see if you can reconnect those accounts. Maybe that email will come this time around. Be patient. It will happen.

And they just have a lot of volume right now and it's creating some challenges. But keep us posted on that, Agnes, and I hope you can get that to go through. Thanks for your call today. To Racine, Wisconsin, Christopher, go right ahead. Oh, hey, how you doing?

This is Christopher. I'm calling because my $40,000 in debt right now, me and my wife, and just trying to see how we can get out of it. Yeah, is that credit card debt or some other type of debt, Christopher? It's not credit card debt. It's like some other kind of debt. I got into a car accident and then also just with her medical bills back-to-back. So those two things together tied into it is making it. Yeah. I understand the medical bill debt, but what is the other debt?

Is it a signature loan from your bank or what? No, it's medical. Oh, it's all medical. Okay.

Well, here's the thing. The good news is this is the best kind of debt, if you will, in terms of their willingness to work with you. Also, if you have any delinquencies on these, I'm not suggesting you do that intentionally, but if you have any delinquencies, even if it's reported to the credit bureau that you're late or in collections, once you pay it off by law, and this is a new thing, those have to be removed from your credit report once you get it paid in full. So I would reach out to your creditors, not run from them, get a copy of your credit report, call them, get an accurate listing of exactly what you owe, go back to your budget, try to cut back on your spending and free up as much margin as you can, and then let's see if you can negotiate payment plans that fit within what you have available to service that debt. And once you get that in writing and get an agreement, then you stay focused on that. Make sure you limit your spending so you can carry that through until it's paid off. You can do this, but make sure you're working with your creditors in the process. Thanks for your call today.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Thank you to Robert, Amy, Clara, and Dan, my amazing team supporting me today. Thank you for being along with us as well. God bless you. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.