Financial Class Superlatives
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #256
Financial Class Superlatives
Graduation season is coming to a close, but we’re still keeping the learning going with a new episode of Our 2 Cents! Today, we’re covering quick hits, the latest on SpaceX, a look at class superlatives through a financial lens, and timeless wisdom from the world’s oldest doctor. Listen in now!
- Gabriel’s Quick Hits:
- It’s close to home for SGL Financial and now one of the top places to live in the country. Do you know which Illinois village made the list?
- Want the best baked potato? Experts say these simple tricks make all the difference.
- Investing in SpaceX:
- SpaceX continues to make headlines, but can everyday investors buy in? Here’s what you need to know before pursuing this investment opportunity.
- Financial Yearbook Awards:
- If personal finance had a yearbook, who would win the top superlatives? Here’s what the Lewits think.
- The Longevity Rules of a 103-Year-Old Doctor:
- Discover the 3 rules the world’s oldest doctor swore by for a long, meaningful life.
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Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You’re listening to Our 2 Cents with the team from SGL Financial, Building Wealth for Life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial, and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to Our 2 Cents. You’ve got a great team here supporting you behind the scenes today. You’ve got Steve and Gabriel on the microphone. We are ready to rock and roll on today’s show. I’m pumping up the energy here, Steve. You’re not picking up what I’m dropping.
Steve Lewit: I’m waiting for you to finish, and then I’m going to chime in with something just fantastic.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Yeah, we we really wanted to start off today with a with a pow, you know? Like a pow.
Steve Lewit: Pow wow.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So, we’ve got a great show lined up for you. As always. Lots of different. As always. As always, but we’re really bumping up today’s energy level because it’s kind of a dreary day outside the window.
Steve Lewit: We’re going to talk about one of my favorite foods. Did you take that off? Did you take it?
Gabriel Lewit: No, no, it’s on our list. It’s on our we got it. It’s not the first thing on the list, but it’s number two on the list. Steve wants to talk baked potatoes.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: And then we’ll get to money and finance. Don’t you worry, folks. I had someone say the other day, you guys talk about some random things on the show.
Steve Lewit: We are kind of random.
Gabriel Lewit: I was like, well, it’s all about money, finances, health, well-being, life. You know, it can’t just be all money. That’d be a little boring.
Steve Lewit: And being random. Yes. Sure. Random is fun.
Gabriel Lewit: Now, here’s not random because it’s related to where we live, but it is a little, I think, feather in our cap.
Steve Lewit: This is great news.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, folks. This Illinois village, named among the top 15 best places to live in the U.S., here’s why. Now, do you know what that village who where that village is, Steve?
Steve Lewit: Well, you gave it away. You said this is where we live. Well, that didn’t work.
Gabriel Lewit: I didn’t give it away.
Steve Lewit: Okay, yeah, I do. I didn’t know.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m going to tease it some more. An Illinois village with around 43,000 residents.
Steve Lewit: Well-
Gabriel Lewit: Which Buffalo Grove, Illinois has about 43,000 residents when I drive past the sign.
Steve Lewit: I bet it’s Buffalo Grove.
Gabriel Lewit: You are correct.
Steve Lewit: I am correct.
Gabriel Lewit: It is Buffalo Grove, Illinois. The location of our home office here at SGL Financial was just recently voted one of the top 15 best places to live in the United States.
Steve Lewit: You know, and it is a great place, but I had no idea that it was, you know, I don’t know how they how do they evaluate what’s a great place to live.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s a combo. It’s a combo of housing affordability, cost of living, good education, good health care, good air quality, low environmental risks, good state economy and infrastructure, low crime rates, good weather, culture and leisure index, average commute time, job market, and more.
Steve Lewit: Wow, well, it’s pretty extensive.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, absolutely. I was thinking it was a couple points, and then I just kept reading and it was kept going.
Steve Lewit: I gotta buy a house. You have a house here. I gotta buy a house here.
Gabriel Lewit: I do have a house here, yes. Yeah, so our downtown is not great, but they’re working on it.
Steve Lewit: Well, they had this, they were trying to build a whole downtown like central thing, and that deal fell through, didn’t it?
Gabriel Lewit: No, they’re they’re building it.
Steve Lewit: Still working?
Gabriel Lewit: It’s just it’s not the it’s not the best downtown, but we do have phenomenal parks. We have great parks, good trails, good biking, I believe very low crime. We’ve got good housing prices, competitive job markets.
Steve Lewit: You know what? Gabriel, we we’ve got great people here.
Gabriel Lewit: And phenom phenomenal businesses, phenomenal people.
Steve Lewit: You know, Newsweek ranked top in the nation businesses.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, we had to toot our own horns here a little bit.
Steve Lewit: A little bit.
Gabriel Lewit: And so yeah, so yeah, Buffalo Grove, top city in the country, top village, I guess you’d call it, which is a pretty cool award for the for the town here to achieve.
Steve Lewit: Yes, it is. And you know what the else they have here?
Gabriel Lewit: What’s that?
Steve Lewit: Great baked potatoes.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know about that.
Steve Lewit: No, they’re I have yet to find a good baked potato in Buffalo Grove.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I thought you said they had them.
Steve Lewit: Well, I was teasing.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So folks, this is right out of this is a Steve pick, okay. You know, we’ve talked how to make good eggs and spaghetti and other things on the show in the past. Steve says he wanted to talk about, you know, give you some tips here how to make a better baked potato, according to seven experts. Now, again, did you folks did you know there are experts at baking potatoes?
Steve Lewit: Well, they’re great chefs, so I would imagine they have expertise in pay. Gabriel, you love mashed potatoes. I know. Folks, for Thanksgiving, Gabriel makes three different kinds of mashed potatoes. They are fabulous. Tell them about that.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I don’t want to get off topic.
Steve Lewit: Well, just real quick.
Gabriel Lewit: I’ll tell yeah, I make a lot of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. I like mashed potatoes. Okay?
Steve Lewit: No man, you’re disappointed.
Gabriel Lewit: I want to stay on point.
Steve Lewit: Okay, okay. So, folks, my one of my favorite foods is a well-done baked potato that’s got crispy skin on the outside, and it’s just firm enough on the inside, and you can put sour cream on it, and maybe a little bacon bits, and it’s indulgent, and some of the potatoes you can buy are really, really big ones, and that could be my whole dinner.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, well, the bacon bits are key.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Broccoli and cheddar is a great addition, butter, sour cream, salt-
Steve Lewit: Butter, salt, yeah, a lot of salt. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Good stuff. I mean, loaded baked potatoes are you know, chives, right? You know, these are delicious. I’m getting getting hungry here.
Steve Lewit: Now, in the article, for years I would put my baked potatoes in aluminum, you know, in aluminum foil.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you get those at some restaurants.
Steve Lewit: And at restaurants today, you still get them in aluminum foil. And what does that article say?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, per the article, it says that’s no good.
Steve Lewit: No good.
Gabriel Lewit: I mean, although it has some great baked potatoes cooked in aluminum.
Steve Lewit: No, never.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. It says that it it steams them instead when you when you wrap them.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, because the air gets stuck in there. You don’t get that crispy skin, like mmm.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, so apparently the better advice-
Steve Lewit: We’re gonna baked potato for lunch.
Gabriel Lewit: Is rub them with a bit of oil and butter, a generous sprinkle of salt, any additional seasoning, and then bake them, bake them naked, is what it says on here.
Steve Lewit: Yep, that’s exactly that’s exactly what I do, 45 minutes, 400 and 20…
Gabriel Lewit: And then it says bake them on unwrapped potatoes on a directly on a rack for maxim airflow. Yep. And you gotta poke holes in them before baking them, stab them up to 30 times, it says. Get your aggressions out if you want. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yes. Therapy potatoes.
Gabriel Lewit: And then it says make sure you you check with the digital thermometer for optimum doneness.
Steve Lewit: I’ve never done that.
Gabriel Lewit: Now, these are the the words of prof from the professionals. Optimum doneness. Okay. At 210 degrees Fahrenheit, the potatoes are moist, crumbly, and fluffy. There you go, folks.
Steve Lewit: Man-
Gabriel Lewit: You learned it here first.
Steve Lewit: I’m gonna put my I can’t wait to stab my thermometer into my baked potato and find out if it’s optimally doneness. I think we gotta get to real money and finance here.
Steve Lewit: Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, folks. Well, hopefully we entertained you. Maybe we made you chuckle. Maybe not.
Steve Lewit: Maybe not haha.
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe you’re laughing at us instead, one of the two, but, yeah, we got to keep ourselves a little bit entertained here. Okay. Well, now let’s talk about something a little bit more coming up practical here. SpaceX IPO. We’ve touched upon this briefly on a previous show. It is bubbling up more in the news. It is about ready to launch. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Hey, what is the date? Do you know the date?
Gabriel Lewit: Did you see what I did there?
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, about ready to launch the IPO for the first time. Oh, you missed it.
Steve Lewit: Oh, I missed it! Gosh, I was waiting for a chuckle from you. Hey, a good one. Yeah. Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Now, of course, IPOs. Everybody it seems to be really, I say all over this one, right? You know, because it’s supposed to be one of the biggest IPOs in history.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Right? A lot of people know SpaceX and Elon. They’ve been in the news a lot lately for the rockets launching, and you know, there’s been just a just a lot going on here. So, how do you invest in it? Well, there’s not a lot of ways to directly get invested into the IPO. People always ask us that, right? You have to have inside tracks. But there are some ways roundabouts you can get into it. There are some funds that you can buy that have some direct SpaceX SpaceX exposure. I’m not gonna list them here on the show that crosses into some compliance things if I start giving you specific fund recommendations on the show, but you can Google them. You could call us; we can talk to you about them. You know, you could Google funds that have direct SpaceX exposure. There are some out there, and you could buy those funds before the the IPO and and in a roundabout way get a little bit of SpaceX IPO exposure.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, they’re not all SpaceX, they’re just part of the funds inside the neutral funds or ETF.
Gabriel Lewit: Now, before you do that, though, the question is is is it a good idea? Okay, I mean it seems the general vibe that I get from anybody that’s asked me about SpaceX is this vibe that they think it’s literally gonna launch to the moon the moment it’s released. In other words, it might.
Steve Lewit: It might. It might.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, it could. Some IPOs do go up. And then also some IPOs go down.
Steve Lewit: Or they go up and then they go down.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. So you know, people seem to think it’s a slam dunk way of making tons of money and they’re gonna exit right away, right, if they get in, but it it’s probably it has a lot of risk, folks, and it may or may not work out that way.
Steve Lewit: Well, you have to ask yourself why why is that so important for you?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I mean, there’s FOMO. You know, it’s exciting, right? You know, it’s it’s opportunity for a quick buck.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, so if if you can get in, get in, you know, but it’s not I wouldn’t it’s like buying a sleeve a little bit of Bitcoin or crypto. You know, it’s a play for the case.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s a play, it’s a play. Exactly. So don’t go and throw your whole retirement in here, folks. Don’t, you know, think you’re gonna instantly get a 10x, 100x return on your investment here just because of an IPO. You know, IPOs often allow insiders to exit and get some-
Steve Lewit: Real fast.
Gabriel Lewit: You know, get some money in their pockets, and you’re the one that’s exiting them because you’re buying.
Steve Lewit: Because you’re buying.
Gabriel Lewit: You know, there’s risks involved here. So, it’s just something to be cautious of. But but now you know that it’s out there, there’s some ways of accessing it. And there’s also some analysts, Morningstar being one of them, that wrote that SpaceX is significantly overvalued and that investors might be able to even buy the stock at more attractive levels, quote unquote, following the IPO.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, so in fact, if I were buying, if I were thinking of buying this, which I am not, I would wait for this thing to go up because I think it’s gonna open and soar up, and I think it’s going to then soar down. But you know, my crystal ball is as good as yours, Gabriel.
Gabriel Lewit: Indeed. Yes. Well, that’s the thing. Can you can anybody guarantee what this thing’s gonna do? No, of course not. So yeah, that’s the world of individual stocks, and you know, many IPOs have been volatile. You know, it’s not something that guarantees a quick buck.
Steve Lewit: Well, the whole IPO world is a volatile world. It’s a high risk, high roll the dice world. So, if you want to do that, go ahead. But yeah, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: The question is that is that what you want and how much do you allocate to it? Don’t put too much in there, don’t you know, just assume it’s all gonna be instant gain and profit. Just go be cautious, be smart.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Be wise.
Gabriel Lewit: Amen.
Steve Lewit: Don’t gamble.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. So, yeah, that’s our our tidbit on SpaceX here today. Now we’ll shift to some of our bigger topics for today. And, you know, as you know, we like to talk analogies when it comes to retirement planning topics and financial planning topics. And one that came to mind recently here is the class superlative. It is graduation season.
Steve Lewit: I thought that’s what you meant.
Gabriel Lewit: Recently concluded graduation season for many many of you out there that have kids or grandkids that are graduating high school.
Steve Lewit: Your brother graduated college.
Gabriel Lewit: College, right? And you know, you get your yearbook, right? You know, and everyone, well, hopefully everyone you want to signs it, right? You know, the person you like puts their phone number on it, says call me in the summer, right? Whatever you get from that, right?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. All the people you’ll never see again in your life.
Gabriel Lewit: You know, I opened up my yearbooks, my son found it on our shelf like four or five months ago, and and we were flipping through it and just looking at the pictures, which are hilarious.
Steve Lewit: I found I found my high school, it might have been junior high school, I’m not sure. But it all colored pages back then, and everybody writes things on it, right?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, well we were looking yeah, and we were looking at the superlatives page, right? You know, best dressed, funniest, most likely to be you know, career person, whatever the superlatives are, right? And then it got us thinking about finance, right? What does that have to do with money? Well, let’s let’s give some examples here, right? So, let’s say we were looking at money, and we said most underrated, most overrated, most likely to disappoint, most likely to succeed, most popular, most expensive, teacher’s pet.
Steve Lewit: Wait, these this is hard.
Gabriel Lewit: Most misunderstood.
Steve Lewit: Are you gonna help us?
Gabriel Lewit: Most improved, best all around. We can’t really say best dressed for an investment. I don’t know if that one would really apply.
Steve Lewit: On the surface, it might look good, but underneath it’s not great.
Gabriel Lewit: The funniest investment. I mean, that could there could be one there on the other hand. All right. But yeah, that’s this is the idea, right?
Steve Lewit: Alright let’s go. Let’s pick one.
Gabriel Lewit: How about most underrated, right? The the tool or investment strategy that never gets enough credit.
Steve Lewit: Asset allocation.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, you you’d go with asset allocation?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I think people talk about it, do a little bit about it, but don’t really understand it and give it enough credit.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I was I was gonna go with Roth conversion or tax plan.
Steve Lewit: Oh yeah. It’s a good one. Yeah, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: So, you want to talk about asset allocation? Why do you think it’s underrated, Steve?
Steve Lewit: Do I get a grade on this? Gabriel? Gabriel.
Gabriel Lewit: This is just a superlative. It’s just you brought it up, so we’ll give your thoughts on it.
Steve Lewit: How do you win in the stock market? That’s a question everybody wants to know. How do you win on the stock market? It’s really simple. You you put time on your side, you make it a long-term investment, and you buy a widely diversified, well-asset allocated portfolio with maybe 15-20 asset classes, let it percolate like a good baked potato, and there you go. It’s done.
Gabriel Lewit: Do you wrap foil around it?
Steve Lewit: No, no, you do not wrap anything around it. You just let it bake.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, actually, if you put if you wrap it in a Roth IRA wrapper, it’s even better.
Steve Lewit: But people always want to know how you win in the market and the most underrated. It’s not a good thing.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, people overthink it. They think they’re gonna go buy SpaceX IPOs.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, people overthink it. Yeah, and they want to buy when it’s low and sell when it’s high, and they go through all these things. It’s very simple. Build yourself a well-asset allocated portfolio, give it time to go, and and it’s you win in the market.
Gabriel Lewit: I think that’s a great I mean, this might be runner-up tax planning might be runner-up. That’s a really good one you just said with asset allocation. But what I why I was thinking tax planning is you know, you have a phrase that you say even probably more than I do, which is not what you make, it’s what you keep after taxes.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Right? And so, tax planning is so critical because it is about what you keep after taxes. And saving money on taxes, oftentimes people are thinking I gotta get better and better investment returns, which of course you want better investment returns.
Steve Lewit: But but that’s not where the wealth is. The real wealth is-
Gabriel Lewit: The real wealth is real wealth, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars of wealth can also be built via better and proper tax planning.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s a great one because you cannot see the benefit of tax planning is not apparent in the moment. Yeah. But that’s where the real wealth is.
Gabriel Lewit: So, I was thinking that was most underrated. That’d be my vote for most underrated tax.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely. But mine is better.
Gabriel Lewit: We’ll give you that one.
Steve Lewit: Okay, thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, you want to do the opposite then? Most overrated?
Steve Lewit: Oh, this is harder, right?
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, everyone talks it up, but the reality doesn’t always match what the pitch is, right? The what everybody thinks. What’s the most overrated thing you’ve you’ve you can think of when it comes to money, investing, financial planning, Steve?
Steve Lewit: Trying to time the market.
Gabriel Lewit: I gosh, you’re on point today.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Here. We’re getting some thumbs up from the from the team here. Steve’s on point today. He drank his coffee. He’s rare, he was revved up.
Steve Lewit: Had my chocolate chip cookie. So, I’m looking forward to my baked potatoes.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I think, yeah-
Steve Lewit: It’s a great day.
Gabriel Lewit: Everybody wants to know-
Steve Lewit: It’s like the best day of my life.
Gabriel Lewit: If this is the best day of your life, you got some great days.
Steve Lewit: Just fantastic.
Gabriel Lewit: These are great days.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s great.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, but yeah, everybody believes that timing the market is this magical unicorn that you know makes you millions of dollars, right? But the reality, actually, all the data, and there’s so many studies that show this for the vast majority of people, vast majority, timing the market loses them money. Trying to time the market loses them money. Let me say that again. Loses money.
Steve Lewit: Loses the money.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, doesn’t make more money, it loses. But the allure is there.
Steve Lewit: Well, it’s emotionally satisfying if you get it right. Yeah. You know, it’s a big it’s a big high. It’s like going to a blackjack table and putting it on black or red, and your number comes up and say, wow, it’s fabulous, so I’m going to do that again.
Gabriel Lewit: But for some reason, with obviously with with gambling, a lot of people think it’s luck, but for for market timing, they believe it’s skill. They they I think a lot more people think that it’s skill with market timing, right? I just gotta get the inside track and track the charts.
Steve Lewit: Well, there’s a whole segment of the professional investment world that does charts and algorithms and predictive technology because they believe they can predict what the market’s gonna do.
Gabriel Lewit: And part of that is what I call scale. And actually, I’ll speak to that just for a moment, right? Dollars are dollars, percents are percents. I use this sometimes. So, imagine you had a a hundred grand to invest, and you were just gonna try to get a quick in and a quick out trade, right, to make one percent. How much money would you make on your hundred thousand?
Steve Lewit: One percent?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Thousand dollars.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, not very much. Well, imagine you had a block of a billion dollars at your disposal and you can move in and move out, and you made one percent. What did you just make in dollars?
Steve Lewit: A million dollars.
Gabriel Lewit: Off of a billion?
Steve Lewit: Billion? Hundred million?
Gabriel Lewit: So, ten percent would be a hundred million.
Steve Lewit: A hundred million.
Gabriel Lewit: So, one percent would be ten million dollars.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. What did I say?
Gabriel Lewit: So that’s you said one million, I think.
Steve Lewit: Oh, okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Anywhos.
Steve Lewit: I’ve never been good at math.
Gabriel Lewit: You could make ten million dollars in a day with a big block of a billion dollars of business or or ten billion dollars, right? Where you could make a thousand bucks if, and these people are making big money by moving big blocks on trades that are pretty low risk, but you’ve got to have the infrastructure, the team, the research-
Steve Lewit: The computer.
Gabriel Lewit: The capital, the computing power. I mean, yeah, these guys could lose a billion dollars and probably not even blink the big investment banks. You know, you and I aren’t gonna be in the same boat. I I think I would care if I lost a billion dollars. What about you? Would that bother you?
Steve Lewit: Well, it’s not a problem for me to lose a billion dollars. Yeah, yeah. So, it’s no, I I don’t have that problem.
Gabriel Lewit: Because you because you don’t have the billion dollars.
Steve Lewit: Exactly. Exactly. So, it’s not. And you don’t have that problem either.
Gabriel Lewit: I do not. No, no, not sitting in my bank account.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, not yet. No.
Gabriel Lewit: Not there yet. Okay. So, but yeah, I think market timing, just to hit your point there, most overrated. I like that one. I’m gonna give you a I’m gonna give you an A plus grade on on both your first two.
Steve Lewit: Two out of two.
Gabriel Lewit: So, all right. How about, how about? We’ll go with everyone likes most popular. Right? Shows up in almost every portfolio and every conversation, popular for a reason, but does it always mean that it’s best?
Steve Lewit: I’ll I’ll let you do this one.
Gabriel Lewit: You want me to pick this one?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, you do this one.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, I’m gonna go with U.S. large cap.
Steve Lewit: Oh, gosh, that’s great. That is great.
Gabriel Lewit: Most popular. That is great guaranteed.
Steve Lewit: That is great.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, gotta have U.S. large cap. S&P 500.
Steve Lewit: Home run. Yeah, look, every portfolio we see that’s a homemade or do-it-yourself portfolio is 98% U.S. large cap. That’s what it is.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I mean, maybe a little less, but pretty close.
Steve Lewit: And that’s pretty. It looks good. And the results have been great over the past few years.
Gabriel Lewit: Even 15 years.
Steve Lewit: 15 years.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: And everyone says, I’m I’m a genius.
Gabriel Lewit: Can’t go wrong.
Steve Lewit: I’m a genius. I look in the mirror and it’s like I’m dressed for show.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s all you need is U.S. large cap.
Steve Lewit: U.S. large cap. U.S. large cap, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I mean, it’s not a bad I mean, let’s put it out there, it’s not a bad fund. It’s not a bad asset class. But is it the end all be all?
Steve Lewit: But that’s not how you win long term.
Gabriel Lewit: Right. It it it shouldn’t I mean, a good portfolio isn’t just an S&P 500 fund. For a lot of reasons that are a little beyond scope of what we’ll get to here. But yeah, I would say that is that is definitely most popular.
Steve Lewit: Well, before the war started with that we are in, international was outperforming U.S. And that whole thing turned from the last 15 years towards international, which it did in in 2000 to 2010. International outperformed the U.S., and people holding U.S. large cap really made no money.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Had two huge losses.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, let’s do one or let’s do one or two more of these here, okay? Because I don’t want to take the whole show on this, right? How about most improved?
Steve Lewit: Most improved.
Gabriel Lewit: Most improved.
Steve Lewit: Oh, I’ve I’ve got you go, you do that. I have one.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Believe it or not, it’s kind of this this no-no word for a lot of people. I’m gonna go with with an annuity.
Steve Lewit: I said exactly the same thing. I was gonna say it, and you said it.
Gabriel Lewit: You know, you’re sympathetic.
Steve Lewit: This is really amazing.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Annuities, you know, people hear these words annuity, right? Variable annuity, fixed annuity, annuity. We’re a team. And they get we’re a great team. They just get this, they jump back to this world where all they’ve heard from stuff that they Googled or in the past, right, or mom or dad is oh terrible, high fees, can’t get your money, lose your money, all goes away. You know, they just are just all this negative stuff that 98% of it isn’t true these days.
Steve Lewit: That is that is correct.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, and they’re very misunderstood. Now, are they perfect for everybody? Absolutely not. Do they have a place in a portfolio for some people? Yeah, and not for others, of course, right? If you’re 25, 30, 40 years old, you you probably don’t need annuities. If you’re 50, maybe. If you’re it’s simply annuity 65, 70, it could be a very good fit in your portfolio.
Steve Lewit: It’s a product class that may work for you or may not work for it. But you know, years and years and years ago, annuities were not a great investment. And and that has carried into today by the people who rather have your money in the stock market saying annuities are really not do not never buy an annuity. And yet that world, since we’ve been dealing with that world, Gabriel, because we are holistic and we look at everything, and we’ve been dealing with that world for 20 years. And I’ll tell you folks, that mar the annuity market is really an interesting market. It there are so many new things in there, and liquidity plays and inheritance plays and long-term care plays. It’s just an amazing market.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah, very much change. We won’t get into the weeds of that today, but there’s versions now that have no fees or liquid or accessible, high growth, you know, safety, income. I mean, they serve a purpose, but you know, they they definitely are misunderstood. So, I would say most improved category goes there.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, we’re gonna do one last one.
Steve Lewit: One last one.
Gabriel Lewit: One last one.
Steve Lewit: One last one.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. This one’s going to be most reliable. Most reliable. Who can you depend on most? What can you depend on most? And no, I’m not gonna say it’s your financial advisor that I’m not going that route. I’m not leading into that.
Steve Lewit: I was you took the words.
Gabriel Lewit: I I have one in my head, and I wanted to see what your thoughts were for most reliable.
Steve Lewit: The most reliable.
Gabriel Lewit: Doesn’t have to yeah. What are you what are you thinking?
Steve Lewit: Well, I’m thinking I’m going through products like is it bank products, like CDs?
Gabriel Lewit: I wasn’t thinking an investment on this.
Steve Lewit: Okay. Yeah, I got that. That’s and I couldn’t come up with the most reliable that way. So I am I’m struggling here.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m gonna go out over them. So, your your if you have a well-designed financial plan.
Steve Lewit: Perfect.
Gabriel Lewit: Is your most re guess when’s most reliable.
Steve Lewit: Folks, the man is a genius. No, that’s really true. That is what sets that is the core engine to financial security and peace of mind.
Gabriel Lewit: The goal is to build a plan that you can rely upon.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: And have a picture of the future that is I mean, imagine let me say the opposite. You had a plan in a picture of the future that was completely unreliable and unpredictable and unhelpful. How would that be any benefit to you whatsoever?
Steve Lewit: We’re gonna worry about it. I’m gonna worry about it all the time.
Gabriel Lewit: So, yes, the goal is to have a financial plan that is reliable, predictable, dependable, gives you a game plan of where you are, where you’re headed, just like a GPS navigation does in your car.
Steve Lewit: You left one very important word out.
Gabriel Lewit: What’s that?
Steve Lewit: Written financial plan.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yes, it’s something on paper used to be.
Steve Lewit: Because a lot of people have financial plans in their heads. Yeah, I’m gonna do this or do this. Yeah, I got it all planned out. No, you don’t.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So that would be my my vote for most reliable. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Nice, nice.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, wow, that took a little longer than I thought.
Steve Lewit: I actually enjoyed that. We I hope everybody else enjoyed it.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know if we have enough time to do our next core topic.
Steve Lewit: What was it?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, where’s there is the most popular retirement video of the year, okay, that we were gonna talk about. We might we might want to do that one next time.
Steve Lewit: Oh, let’s do it.
Gabriel Lewit: No, it’s it’s not a it’s not a four-minute topic.
Steve Lewit: It’s not a four-minute topic.
Gabriel Lewit: No, so we we might run out of time here. What could we do? Okay, well, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna I’m gonna pivot.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: We’re gonna do one more superlative. And then we’re gonna end with a with a heartwarming story.
Steve Lewit: Okay. All right.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s what we’ll do. Okay. Last superlative then. Hmm.
Steve Lewit: Let’s go with hope you have the story because I don’t-
Gabriel Lewit: It’s a short story.
Steve Lewit: All right. Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: How about teachers’? Okay, I’ll let you pick the last one. We could do we could do best all around, we could do most misunderstood, teacher’s pet, or most expensive.
Steve Lewit: Teacher’s pet.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Or most likely to disappoint.
Steve Lewit: Oh, most likely to disappoint.
Gabriel Lewit: There’s a lot of superlatives we can pick.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: You get to pick the one you want to do. Most likely teacher’s pet.
Steve Lewit: Because I have no idea what that is.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, you don’t know what a teacher’s pet is?
Steve Lewit: I know what a teacher’s pet is, but I have no I have no clue what I would pick in the financial world as the teacher’s pet. I’m it’s like-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, okay, so the teacher in this case is probably the advisor, and the teacher’s pet in real life is the the teacher’s favorite for whatever reason, right?
Steve Lewit: So oh, so okay, I got it. So, these are these are the teacher’s pet is the stock market.
Gabriel Lewit: For most advisors.
Steve Lewit: For most advisors, that’s they that is their number one go-to.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Steve Lewit: It’s the kid that always raises their hand and you pick on that kid, and they always think they have the right answer, and you just love that kid, and that kid gets invited everywhere and included and thinks and you just that’s the apple of your eye.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, I would say that the stock market is a great answer to that one. I mean, it is a critical, essential part of just about every client’s portfolio. It is sometimes misunderstood, right? You know, it but it does generally its goal is to make you money if you if you treat it right.
Steve Lewit: And it’s it’s the conversation everywhere you go. I mean, you you know, you don’t go to a party and say, hey, did you get a high interest CD last year?
Gabriel Lewit: Not as common.
Steve Lewit: Not as common, you know.
Gabriel Lewit: Hey, well, guys, I got something really exciting to tell you. I made 3.1% APY this year on my CD.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it doesn’t happen.
Gabriel Lewit: What did you guys get? 2.9 or 3%?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I’m so proud of myself. You know, it everywhere you go, what people talk about, what’s on the news, everywhere it’s the stock market, stock market, stock market.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, it is the favorite.
Steve Lewit: And that’s not the only play out of the yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, it isn’t, but I mean there are other students in the class. Yeah. But it is the teacher’s favorite for sure, the advisor’s favorite. Okay. Well, that was fun. Hopefully you enjoyed that with us, folks. If you if you have comments or anything you’d like to share, or you want to share any superlatives you won in your high school careers, let us know. It’d be just be fun just to kick that around for a little bit. Okay. To end on a on a nice story here, all right. We have a lady that is 103 years old, who is the world’s oldest doctor. And she wanted to share, and we want to then share with you, her three rules for a long, happy life and just how simple they are that she tells to all of her patients.
Steve Lewit: She’s working. Yeah. Well, or she’s dead. Let me see.
Gabriel Lewit: I think she’s passed away. Yeah, they yeah, passed Oh, yeah. I think he passed away.
Steve Lewit: Oh, he passed away. Yeah. At 103. And we talked about somebody that was a hundred and five.
Gabriel Lewit: Four, I think. The the lobster lady.
Steve Lewit: The lobster lady, yes.
Gabriel Lewit: A while back, okay. Yeah, who was Ginny Oliver was the lobster lady. Oh, no, was a hundred and five, yeah. Her simple no nonsense nonsense tips were ignoring age limits, keeping busy, and embracing a pragmatic attitude, just to put that a little bit in perspective.
Steve Lewit: And eating a lot of lobster, I would imagine.
Gabriel Lewit: Lots of lobster.
Steve Lewit: Lots of iodine, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, and so this one here, Howard Tucker, he passed away after he wrote the the essay we’re referencing here. He was 103 years old. Family gave permission to publish this, okay. And this was the advice he gave to to everybody. He was actually the oldest doctor named by the Guinness World Book of Records.
Steve Lewit: Really? Wow.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay. He says he doesn’t believe there is one magic answer. Good genes and good luck certainly can give you a head start. But he thinks there’s a couple principles that matter a great deal. Okay. So, without further ado, number one, non-negotiable for a long and meaningful life. Okay, keep your mind engaged.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s right right from the doctor’s orders here, okay?
Steve Lewit: And that’s very commonly known, but a lot of people disengage.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, tell all the patients mind is like any other muscle in the body. If you don’t use it, it weakens. His work kept him thinking, learning, and solving interesting problems. And then after even he retired, he kept going through medical legal review and learning how to use social media is what he said at 103 years old.
Steve Lewit: Very nice. Wow.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay. number two, his straight from the doctor’s mouth, don’t carry hatred. Okay. He says, when people ask me about my longevity, most want to know about a secret diet or exercise. But he says, I think your outlook on life matters. Okay. So, he says he’s experienced disappointment, loss, and unfairness, but he doesn’t want to carry all that around with him, right? Anger and resentment take energy, it takes a physical toll, does harm to the body.
Steve Lewit: It does, yeah. So, there’s a lot of proof about it.
Gabriel Lewit: Let it all go poof into the ether.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, he’s two for two.
Gabriel Lewit: He says anger can raise your blood pressure, stress hormones, increase your risk for heart disease, and mental energy. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Stay away.
Gabriel Lewit: But don’t become bitter and angry. It’s healthy to move on.
Steve Lewit: Don’t be one of those people.
Gabriel Lewit: And then last but not least, he says, enjoy everything in moderation. He says, I enjoy a martini, I enjoy a good steak. We eat well, we have balance, plenty of salad, veggies, moderation, he says, is what makes enjoyment possible over the long run.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, so he’s not like saying I can’t eat this and I won’t eat that. He’s not putting all these rules on the floor.
Gabriel Lewit: You can eat a French fry. You can have a French fry if you want. Just maybe one, but you can have one.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, your assistant bought me a bag of French fries yesterday. It was great.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, there you got it, folks. Eat lobster, be happy, and live in moderation.
Steve Lewit: Look, guys out there, the the fastest growing population in America, people over 100 years old. Make sure you follow this guy’s rules, and I’ll meet you there.
Gabriel Lewit: Amen. Amen. All right, folks. If you have any questions, you can call us anytime, 847-499-3330, or go to SGLfinancial.com. And you can also go to our website, click contact us, and if you have questions on financial planning, we can help you with your retirement planning, do a complimentary retirement review of second opinion. That’s what we are here for. please reach out to us anytime. You can also email us info at sglfinancial.com.
Steve Lewit: Good job today, Gabriel.
Gabriel Lewit: Have a wonderful rest of your day, weekend, weekend. We’ll talk to you on the next show. Stay well, everybody. Bye-bye.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at 847-499-3330. Or visit us on the web at SGLfinancial.com. And be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
Disclosure: Investment Advisory Services are offered through SGL Financial LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Adviser. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.
