Active Management Myth

SPEAKER_02 0:05

You're gone to a really great financial future. Tom and Don are talking real money.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

There's no point in you trying to do this stuff yourself. You don't know anything about managing money. You're just a bunch of people listening to a podcast. No, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, if you want to do this right, you need a professional. It's unAmerican to index. It is wrong. It is it is basically anti-capitalist, anti-American. It is a terrible thing. Active management only makes sense. It's going to make you more money in the long run. Or is it? Hi, everybody. It's talking real money time. I'm Don. Over there is Tom. And we are going after that long-standing myth that we thought was put to bed a long time ago, that active management actually adds some sort of value to your portfolio.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Trevor Burrus Yeah. I mean, because it's still something like half of the money in mutual funds and exchange traded funds is managed with traditional active management.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

I mean, it just it's it's still the fact that we have to throw in traditional active management just confuses.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Anyway, but um pretty interesting new new article from Larry Swedro's Substack. He writes something every day, by the way. It's just remarkable the amount. And I recommend Larry's work because if you want to dive into it, there's a place to dive into it. I mean, and he does this with regularity. So and in this case, he looked at a study that examined 1,260 balanced mutual funds. Now, remember, a balanced mutual fund, the idea here is there's a a trade-off between returns and risk inside the one fund, right? How much in stocks, how much in bonds.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

So you're making it generally there's 60% stocks in the right.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

He gives you some variety here. But yeah, generally it's a and I I I have from time to time told people that really don't want to do any of this. Just go on the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund. It's okay. It's relatively cheap, relatively diversified. Not as much as we'd like to see you do, but it's okay. But here's a study that looked at 1,260 balanced funds managing$1.6 trillion in assets, and not just for a couple of years. This is 1990 through 2021, 32 years of data. And they looked at a variety of funds, right? They looked at all those funds, but they also looked at them in terms of aggressive, you know, where you'd have uh 85% in equity uh growth, which they they they say are 50 to 70 percent equity, the balance being in bonds. They compared them against, guess what, Don? Low-cost index funds portfolios.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

Like the Vanguard balanced index.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Well, no, in this case, they they used the SP 500 and the Vanguard total bond. They actually had two funds. Yeah, that's a that's a worse comparison, but so and the results, this will not surprise you, but I hope it reinforces something you may probably already know. Unequivocal in Larry's words. Balanced mutual funds underperform simple index portfolios across virtually every metric. Let me say that another way. They lost big ten. It's not an insignificant number. Uh, especially, by the way, when you when you add in uh you know sharp ratios, Tino ratio, sort of the risk-adjusted returns. And index portfolios also did better protecting on the downside, which is really at the end of the day what people want when they own a balanced fund, right? They don't want to see it go down as much as the market. But let me give you a few numbers. So they they use a they use a thousand dollars investment in January 1990. So if you're in a thousand and you put it into kind of the moderate one you talked about, Don, 60% stocks, 40% bonds, right? That's kind of the traditional balance fund. In the active fund, your$1,000 grew to about$10,000 on average. Okay. That was with the active, the traditional active, right? Okay. Then the simple index portfolio. Again, we're remembering in this case it's the S P 500 fund and the total bond. Okay. Similar, 6040, your 1,000 grew to$15,000 in that period of time. I think that's 50% more. It's pretty significant.

SPEAKER_04 4:24

I know that's a big number. It's a big, big difference.

unknown 4:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

Holy cow. So the the the they I I was I was thinking that this was gonna end up being from SPIVA or something.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

No, this is from a couple of researchers that dug into all those funds.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Um I mean SPIVA, the SPIVA differences generally on stock funds and bond funds tend to be a little bit smaller than that. That's a big number.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Yeah. And by the way, the they say the average balance fund in the stu in the study carried in expense ratio of 0.91. I didn't get a chance to look up what the Vanguard balanced index one, although they compare, again, to the Vanguard S P 500 fund and the Vanguard bond fund, where they say you're looking at about 14 basis points, so far, far, far less. So um that is a huge difference in annual fees. But let me give you a few of Larry's takeaways, which I think are really good. Again, Larry Swedro Substack talking here about this study of using traditional active uh balance funds versus using two index funds. Um of course you have more control, right? You have lower costs, right? Uh, because the control is yours. You can decide how you want to manage all this. Um, but the the downside, Don, and this is something we've talked about many times, is will you, can you rebalance the portfolio, right? Because in this case, if you're doing one stock fund and one bond fund, stocks go up, bonds go down, whatever they were, they don't move. You're gonna have to sell stocks and buy bonds, oftentimes at a time when you just don't want to, because stocks are going up, and of course they're not going anywhere, they've gone. Um, and that's a hard thing for many people to do, right? We've seen that repeatedly. Um, so they they recommend, by the way, that they they they say that 62% of 401k plans offer inadequate investment choices. Hey, that's an understatement. And poor performers are often added to the plans if affiliated with the plan trustee. Ha ha, right? I mean, guess what? They're gonna put their own stuff in there. They also suggest that you look at target date funds. I wouldn't pay 90 basis points, 0.9, as they found here, um, for a target date fund. That is really expensive.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

Well, I went and looked while you were going through those numbers at the American Funds Balanced Fund. And I looked at their class C because that's really the only fair comparison, because Class A uh has a a front load. So if you want to just look at pure annual fees, all in, the American funds balanced fund. Is it about a 60-40, something in that area?

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Uh well, hold on. Let me imagine it's something too.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Let me pull up the portfolio. That's a very good question, but I'm pretty sure that's where it's gonna land. American Balanced Fund Class C's portfolio is oh come on, load it. Uh oh, look at that. It's uh 5842. Okay, so about 60 percent in stocks and 40 percent in bonds, roughly. Now bear in mind it's from the American funds. Now, this is a big group. They can afford to be a uh more competitive, you would think. Um they're sold through Edward Jones and lots of others. Uh probably one of the more respected, actively managed groups in America. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. Absolutely. I think that's fair to say. Yep. But remember, I'm using the C shares because the C shares are the more accurate way to do it. Because remember, they're always going to be broker sold, which means the broker is gonna get a commission. So with the C shares, the broker still gets the commission, but then you see what the total annual costs they really think they are, including the commission. I you know I'm I'm I'm I'm dragging this out as long as I can to build tension.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

You got me sitting on the edge of my seat here, man.

unknown 8:21

No.

SPEAKER_04 8:21

For a simple balanced fund.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

1.3.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Wow. That's just in today's world, uh uh insanity comes to mind, uh crazy uh out of this world. I mean, that's wow.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

That's now if we go to the class A, which has a sales load of five and three-quarter percent up front, so you almost lose six percent of your money instantly, the expense ratio is.57.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Which is still better, but still yeah, it's still pretty much.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

But people look at the five 0.57 and they forget what the commission being paid is going to do to their returns. It's gonna drag them way down.

unknown 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Do you know what the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund charges you?

SPEAKER_04 9:04

It's like eight tenths or something.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Eight one hundredths. Seven one of those. We would call basis points.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Yeah. Seven one hundredths of one percent versus one point three percent.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Which is something that doesn't get the attention it deserves because right out of the gate, you got to do better than those other guys by that much to even get the return.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

So And one of the things that that also we don't talk about enough is people say, well, if I hire an advisor, isn't that gonna cost me one percent more than the fund? Well, you're hiring sort of an advisor when you buy an American funds through a broker and you're paying one point three. I am pretty confident that none of our clients pay one point three all in, including our fee.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

No, they don't, because the funds we use are very low expense. Um to sum this up, which is and I'm gonna give you I wouldn't do the S P 500, as you know, and the bond. I would do an a global market fund, an A V G E or DFAT, um DFAW, pardon me, um, that takes in a lot more stocks than 500, but you could still use a total bond and then rebalance between those two. But what Larry writes here at the end, I think, is really important. And this is something you've said many times, Don. So maybe he's listening. Sometimes in investing, as in life, the simplest solution is the best one.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

Uh no, actually, I I'm gonna modif if I said that most of the it's always.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Uh two index funds periodically rebalanced. That's it. For people that want to do this on their own, very reasonable approach. So I I I think that's a powerful piece. I think it's worth reading, and again, I think it's worth heeding, and you should be paying attention because I think people buy those balanced index funds, think, ah, it's great, I got it done, and then they leave it, they don't pay much attention to it moving forward.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

And one other thing we have consistently said is that if you if you would take what Larry Swedro and many other uh uh people who are academics in this field, if you take what we say and you follow it to the letter, in other words, you just simplify, even if it's so simple as just buying the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund, even that simple, you are likely to do better than you are with any of these complex strategies uh in aggregate. You'll always find the anecdotes where somebody's done better. But the uh the uh research, the data keeps showing over and over and over and over and over again that uh just doing it boring, doing it cheap wins almost all the time.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Yeah, and I mean another thing with the the traditional active is right, these are people that are picking stocks, deciding on sectors, they're they're moving money around. And while they may seem like they're really smart people, I'm holding in my hand a stock certificate from a company called Enron. There's an actual certificate. Somebody left this for me yesterday at the office.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

Wait, look, can I see that? It's really, really cool. Oh, what a nice piece of paper. Look, they engraved uh what is that?

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Uh who is that sitting in the energy guy sitting up there with oil wells and the globe behind him and it's they put some money into that thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

And sadly, he's like a rough knack.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Yeah, he's thank you. He's got the hat on. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

My granddad used to look like that. He was a roughneck on the good looking fellow.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

But the problem is here, this is 82 shares issued in 1998, which is I think we looked this up. The peak price for Enron was like 90 bucks a share, something like that.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Almost 91 dollars a share.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

No. And uh that ninety one dollars a share times eighty-two is how much? You don't have the math in front of you? I didn't do that. Shouldn't have done this. Because when we do it on the fly, we always end up with egg numbers on our face. It's bad. Let's just round it to$7,500.$7,500. So this was this little piece of paper right here was worth$20,000.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Literally, that piece of paper, you could have handed that to someone and they would have given you about$7,500 back. Yeah. Minus a commission.$7,500.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Now, Tom No, then by 2001. Yeah. It was the shares went down to 25 cents.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

Wait, okay, it still has value. So I still have to do it. It has a twenty hey, that paper still at that point was worth$20. Okay. Okay,$20. What is that paper worth now? Open your desk drawer and pull out a piece of copier paper. Just slightly more than that.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Slightly more. And by the way, I'm going to I have, as you probably already know, and I don't I can't remember where it is. It might still be in the home office. I have framed share of stock from Washington Mutual that somebody gave me, and now added my collection. I'm going to add the Enron share.

SPEAKER_04 13:59

There's a moral, by the way, in this in case you missed it. I know it was it was subtle. I I know we we're masters of subtlety. Understatement. We don't we don't overstate anything on talking robone. There's a message here about I don't know, buying individual stocks. Enron was considered one of the best companies in America.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Innovative company like three out of the last four years it existed.

SPEAKER_04 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Innovative in that they innovative their innovated their accounting system to fake numbers. But hey, and they fooled the accountants. Yep. Not just any accountant, not your neighborhood CPA. No, no, no, no, no. They fooled like Arthur Anderson, who isn't even alive anymore.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Yeah. So anyway, lesson I hope learned there. Um okay, so with that in mind, we need to take a call. We have some questions. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

Well, let's get to the first caller question, because that's that's that's what that's where we like to start things off. Then we'll get to the Tom reading them. But let's let's take a caller.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

We go to the phones, Houston, Texas, and Sean joins us. Hey, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Tom, how's it going?

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Going very, very well. How can we help you today on talking real money?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So I'm calling because uh I wanted to see about uh the potential option for my wife and I to pay off a 10-year HELOC that we've got right now. Um it's an additional loan we have uh in addition to our 30-year mortgage. So uh we were able to get a really good interest rate on our 30-year mortgage that we took out in 2021, got a 3.25% interest rate on that. Um, but we did pull out HELOC last year to help us with some pretty big um home renovations, and we got about a 7.125 interest rate on that. Um and combined, if you look at the the monthly payments on each of those uh mortgages, it's about$2,800 a month. Um so we're in pretty good financial standing in terms of our retirement and our our savings and our investments. Um but we do have a a brokerage account that's got about$90,000 in it, and we were wondering if it makes sense to potentially cash that out when that becomes sufficient enough to pay off the rest of this HELOC loan, which um I said to be paid off in nine years, but um and it's got about a hundred thousand dollar balance on it. Um but didn't know if it made more sense to pay that off as soon as possible using those brokerage funds to free up some cash flow, or is it best to maybe leave that brokerage in you know the way it is now and just continue to chip away at the 10-year HELOC and pay it off, you know, according to the the amortization table.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Yeah, you know, this is comes up a lot, um, especially for people a little older than you, but generally about their mortgage period. In other words, right, a lot of people want to get into retirement and be mortgage free, which you know I don't think that's a requirement, certainly. Uh some comes down to the interest rate, which is what concerns me here when you bring up the HELOC. The fact that the HELOC is at 7.1% interest. That's a number that is above the 5%. I usually say if debt is 5% or above, I really want to pay it off. It's over the long haul, it's hard for most investors to make more than 7% a year. Sounds easy because the market provides 10%, but there's a lot of other factors there that sort of keep people from doing that. So in this case, yeah, I'd probably I want to make sure I have my emergency fund in place. Sounds like you've done that. I want to make sure I'm saving for retirement, sounds like you've done that. And none of this sounds like it's sort of outpacing your regular income. But because it's$100,000, it's 7.1%. I probably would try to chunk that down as quickly as I can because that's a little more expensive money than I like to see you sort of churning on that interest.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

So you suggest maybe just making additional payments on it month to month and try to save save some interest that way versus maybe depleting the brokerage account altogether at once.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Yeah, but if the brokerage account is not your emergency account, I probably would deplete it. In other words, because you're saving outside of that in your, you know, your IRAs, that kind of thing for retirement, which is still a ways off, I probably would be inclined to take whatever cash I can get my hands on, if that's in the brokerage account, and use those securities to pay off something that has an interest rate of 7.1%.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. Yeah, and I figured that's, you know, obviously that's the mathematical answer, but uh, I just want to give a little more context around the brokerage account and the intent behind it was also to be somewhat of a bridge account if I decided to step away from from my breadwinning corporate job and maybe uh take a sabbatical, or if I stepped away and maybe had some kind of new endeavor that may be a little bit more risky and less secure and uncertain than than what I'm doing today um before retirement age, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:09

Yeah. Um that's reasonable. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be binary, right? You could take some of it and pay down that$100,000 line quickly and then have a plan for the next two or three years ahead of the tenure and still have a certain amount set aside for something else that may be ahead.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Right. Right. Yeah, and uh and I am fortunate um that the company I work for still offers a pension. So I've I've gotten a pension on on top of this these other things. So I guess um, you know, I had to really factor that into my retirement planning, but um I guess how do you guys typically look at that?

SPEAKER_03 19:51

I mean, I've kind of gone on the conservative side of pretending that it doesn't exist, but yeah, no, I mean when you get down to a little closer to retirement, then obviously it becomes a huge part of sort of the retirement income part. But in terms of the investing side, I don't include it in as some people might like, well, that then I should consider that a bond. Because here's why. Because then the fall of 2008 comes along again, right? Or the spring of 2020, where stocks really fall fast and your portfolio goes down by 30% in a short period of time, which it which it did in COVID, did in 2008, et cetera. That's the part where I really think you need to think about how aggressive you want the portfolio design to be, because having a pension at that time doesn't really matter. It's going to be seeing those balances go down, it's going to be dealing with that on a regular daily basis, and it's going to be dealing with the pain, the emotional pain that comes with those declines. So I would take probably the risk quiz, which is available at talkingrealmoney.com. I would think hard about, you know, do I need to have a little at least a little bit of fixed income in there to sort of balance things out for before the next bear market comes along? But I would not consider the bond, uh, the uh the pension as part of the overall portfolio, no.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, that's what that's what I would do today. So that sounds pretty much in line. But uh yeah, appreciate the the advice. I think I've got something to work with here.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

Well, thank you for uh for being part of the program. Thank you for listening and thank you for reaching out to us. Hope we get to chat again.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Absolutely. Thanks for everything you guys do with the podcast. It's great.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

There's that kind of question. And then if you go to Talking Real Money and you click on the ask a question button and you type in a question, some of them end up in Tom's grubby little hands right there and get read to you. So Tom's gonna read us a question.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

It is. Uh I am. I am. What do you might Shelton Washington Ron writes us? I have several CDs. I'm assuming he's referring to certificates of deposit, not the musical recording device. I have no more CDs.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

I got rid of it.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

I still have CDs and you know I still play 'em.

unknown 22:04

No.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

In fact, I was just thinking about what I'm going to play later today. Um I have several CDs, says Ron, but not making much. Should I buy gold or silver? That is what come on. That's not a real question. That's a real question. Really?

SPEAKER_04 22:19

To replace C D should I buy gold or silver? That's what he says. Okay. Making a lot of money. If you're smart about your CDs, you should be making on average with a C D ladder about four percent per year. Which isn't nothing. It's not much, but remember there a C D ladder should be right at 100% safe if you're under the city.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

But gold's up what 50% in the last year? Some ridiculous number.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

Hallelujah for those who got in before.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah, right. But the problem is they're all like Ron getting in now.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

Yeah. If if I d did Ron say how old he was? Did not. Okay. No. If Ron was born, you know, like he's a baby boomer like us. Yeah. Then hopefully he'll remember that back in the 70s and early 80s, the same thing happened to gold. It ran up from about$35 an ounce to$800 an ounce, Ron. Don't you wish you'd gone gotten in back then when it was at$800 and just ridden it from there until today's$5,000 something, whatever it is. Tiny little problem there in the middle. From 1980 to 2000? Talking about your CD's not making money? How would you like to how would you have enjoyed losing money for 20 years straight? That's the flip side of gold or silver. They are speculative and they can plummet.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

And they're only worth what the next person says. There's no in value, there's no dividends, there's no interest, there's no growth. Well, maybe can you grow gold? I haven't tried it.

SPEAKER_04 24:07

No, I I no, we've we've done that test. We put them in the garden, we watered it. It didn't tarnish like it didn't tarnish like the iron we put in the garden. But between the iron and the gold, the net increase was uh zero.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

So if you're old enough to remember 1980 and think about that, and then old enough to remember 2000 and all those years in between, which actually I I can remember a lot of those years because there were a lot of things that happened.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

Vaguely, some of them I don't remember as well as others.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

That's a long time to wait to make money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

So and so the right now, could it be that right now this is 1980 again? Could it be? Right. Yes. Is it? I don't know. But could it be? Do you want to buy at the top and wait 20 years for it to come back? Oh wait, it was more like twenty-three years for it to come back.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

I don't know how we've got the twenty-three we'll find out. I don't know. Um it's a long time from now. Uh so thank you. Great question. Uh when you said do you remember, I thought you were gonna say, Do you remember the Alamo?

SPEAKER_04 25:11

I was getting kind of nervous there for a minute because Well, you kind of you were just born then. So you know it's only like people telling you about it in the in the in San Yacinto there. I always hope I'm on the right side.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Sam Houston. All right, James writes us from Chandler, Arizona. Hi, Don and Tom. I love the podcast. Thank you for that. I'm still in the accumulation fa phase stage, pardon me. I'm starting to think about my future withdrawal strategy. Sorry, I obliterated your question, but you get the point. I have a quick question regarding the 4% rule, which refers to taking out four percent I'm this is my add-on, taking out four percent of your portfolio a year and not having it run out in the year. And adjusting it for inflation. Adjusting it for inflation. We've done this. And by the way, I think by the time you you hear this, the retirement should now be up online, should be able to go look at the videos where we talk about this. But uh, if I am paying my wealth manager 1% annually, can I plan on spending 4% in addition to their fee? Or does the 4% guideline typically include the management fee? Thank you for the helpful money advice. Best regards, James.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

It's generally most of the time when you do these studies, these Monte Carlo studies that that show that the 4% rule worked most of the time. Most of the time. They are based on expect or past net returns after expenses. Because remember, let's say you're paying an advisor 1% per year, and the advisor is a good one who does very low cost funds, your total expenses are 1.25 per year. Well, that's comparable to an active mutual fund, as we mentioned earlier. The the American balanced fund is one point three. So if you're gonna if it's gonna work with a balanced mutual fund at 1.3, then yeah, it's gonna work with an advisor at 1.25 total. And the other thing to remember and this is not factored into the to the math, because you can't really factor it into the math because it's a nebulous number. But Vanguard has redone this study over and over again called their advisor alpha study. And their study finds that if you get a true fiduciary advisor, that one percent fee you pay has the potential and has proven in their studies to add up to three percent more than what you're paying every year to your returns. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, every year. Because of it. Because of it keeping you from doing dumb stuff, basically.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Aaron Powell That's part of it. Fund selection, rebalancing, tax management, kind of all the things that a good advisor should be doing in addition to building that great portfolio. So wealth, wealth five. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

A good advisor is worth the one, and we we we, for our clients, uh recommend withdrawal rates based on their situation with us. And that's you know the 1.2 or 1.2 something percent uh total in fees that they pay. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

I hate to be rude, but I gotta run because I gotta get on eBay to see what I can get for this Enron stock certificate. So because I think there's a lot of potential. You know, now now you've all of America wants to know running to their computer to find out what is Tom going to be able to retire now thanks to his recently By the way, the guy who gave that to me, I gotta call him because he may not amend it to be a permanent uh gift.

SPEAKER_04 28:27

Dude, maybe not, because uh an Enron stock certificate uh actually has a pretty high value. Uh-oh. It's much higher than WorldCom. Oh, yeah, they're they're expensive. Uh-oh. How much? Uh the lowest price one I can find is$225. Wow. Okay. So better take care of this. Yeah. How about Washington Mutual? I'll have one of those. Oh, well, let's see.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

I bet no one even remembers what Washington Mutual was except you. One little part of Seattle, and you can remember that. Well, it was the largest trust bank in the world.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

Okay, nobody knows the difference. So Yeah, that's a good point. But I like saying that because uh there are wait, uh Washington there are none for sale. So I think I've struck gold here, Don. But I'm looking and I just wow, how come there's no certificates for sale?

SPEAKER_03 29:19

I thought Kerry Killinger might be selling them out of his basement or something. So that's where he printed them or something. No, nope, not here. Sorry, Kerry. All right. Well, I'm gonna now I'm gonna I I I definitely before I frame this, I'm gonna have to reach out to the party that gave it to me and say, is it is it mine to keep?

SPEAKER_04 29:37

200 bucks is 200 bucks. Yeah. I I was just surprised it's still wow. It's that's it's worth more than when it was publicly trained. How did they say worth more dead than alive or whatever it is?

SPEAKER_03 29:50

It's worth more dead than alive. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 29:52

So Oh, these are fascinating. Look at all these old like a 1946 global.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Did you ever have any of these when you had your map business or any of this stuff?

SPEAKER_04 30:00

No, I never the railroad certificates or here's a certificate from Tucker.

unknown 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

Oh, I thought it was my dog. No, the car company. Remember them? Great movie with Harrison Ford.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Yeah, I think it's fifties, yeah. Right. Maybe forties. Maybe late forties.

SPEAKER_04 30:18

Well I'm looking at what else is out here. The Northern Railroad. Oh, it's always the railroad stocks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

I had a bunch of those at one point out of the way. Don't remember them, but Northern Railroad.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

Flagstaff View. Oh, this is the deal. I can get a Flagstaff Brewing Stock Certificate for$3.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

And trade it in for half a pint or something, or what?

SPEAKER_04 30:42

Well, thanks for being a part of our little get together where we we we try to just talk about money, but we never can. We somehow always manage very often to some bizarre direction. And you maybe that's one of the things that makes it a good listen is that you just don't know where we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

Next week, stay tuned for Well, I don't know. What we're doing. We don't know.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

See, we have no idea. Exactly. Because we don't plan that far in advance. Trevor Burrus, Jr. In life or in the podcast. Exactly. So uh oh look at this. A Donald J. Trump Media stock certificate. Trump media.$149.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

No offense to the president, but I'll be right back. It's got his picture on it. I'll take the Enron one.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

So no rough neck on that one, just Donald. That's very this is kind of I'm I'm enjoying this now. Now you got a new hobby. Oh wow, I want that one. J. Paul Getty's uh signature on mission development company stock. How much is that one?$145. Well you do have a big birthday coming up. Maybe you could ask me. Studebaker Packard Corporation.$150. Oh, I'm just having more fun than I can stand. Montgomery Ward. Oh, come on.$26 for Montgomery Ward. You used to work for Sears. My mom used to work for Ward. She was the personnel manager for Was she a ward of reward?

SPEAKER_03 32:04

In that case?

SPEAKER_04 32:05

Was she what? A ward of Ward?

unknown 32:07

Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Got you. All right. Send your questions in at talkingrealmoney.com.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

If you want help, ask us to. Maybe we need your help. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

If you're a psychiatrist or a licensed psychologist, call us for and help us, please.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

There's a lifetime commitment right there. So good luck.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Go to talkingrealmoney.com again. Why? Because, well, if you do, you'll be joining us as we are talking real money.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

The opinions that we'd express on this podcast were current on the date recorded. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends that are based on current market conditions constitute our judgment and are subject to change without notice, including any forward-looking estimates or statements which are based on certain expectations and assumptions. Although information and opinions given have been obtained from or based on sources believed to be reliable, no warranty or representation is made as to their correctness, completeness, or accuracy. Information presented on the podcast is not personalized investment advice from Offello Wealth. The views and strategies described may not be suitable for everyone. This podcast does not identify all the risks, direct or indirect, or other considerations which might be material to you when entering any financial transaction. We hope you realize that the information provided on TalkingRail Money is for informational, educational, and hopefully enjoyable purposes only. The podcast is not trying to get you to buy or sell any financial products or securities. Instead, the program is provided as a public service by Apello Wealth, a fee-only registered investment advisor. See Apello Wealth's ADB part 2 and on our website for information regarding Appello's fees and services. Apollo Capital, LLC D B A Apello Wealth, is an investment advisory firm registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Firm only transact business in the states where it is properly registered, or excluded or exempt from registration. Registration with the SEC or any state securities authority is not implied by a certain level of skill or training. Apello does not provide tax or legal advice, and nothing either stated or implied here should be inferred as providing such advice. Thanks for listening, and please visit talkingrealmoney.com for more information and important disclosure related to performance of any specific index or fund quoted in this podcast. And the lawyers get richer.