In this Episode of the Secure Your Retirement Podcast, Radon and Murs discuss the latest economic update with returning guest Tom Siomades, taking a closer look at retirement and the economy during a season filled with uncertainty. From war and government shutdown concerns to inflation, interest rates, and market volatility, this conversation highlights how today’s headlines can influence a thoughtful retirement investment strategy. For anyone focused on financial planning for retirement, this episode offers perspective on balancing retirement risks with long-term confidence.

Listen in to learn about how the current market update and broader economic outlook may affect your retirement planning, your portfolio, and your peace of mind. Radon, Murs, and Tom explore the importance of retirement diversification, staying disciplined during uncertainty, and evaluating both retirement opportunities and near-term challenges. Whether you are building a retirement financial plan, reviewing your retirement checklist, or trying to plan for retirement in a changing world, this quarterly market update offers practical retirement tips to help you stay focused on what matters most and continue planning retirement with clarity.

In this episode, find out:

• Why current events are shaping the conversation around retirement and the economy, including war, inflation, and government uncertainty
• How interest rates, oil prices, and tariffs may impact the latest market update and overall economic outlook
• Why retirement diversification remains essential when navigating market volatility and long-term retirement risks
• What positive signs still exist in the economy and where potential retirement opportunities may be emerging
• How a disciplined retirement investment strategy can support retirement income, help you retire comfortably, and ultimately secure your retirement

Tweetable Quotes:

“The simple question during times like this is: am I still on track? That’s what a strong retirement financial plan is designed to answer.” — Radon Stancil

“When markets feel uncertain, it’s not the time to make emotional decisions. It’s the time to lean on your plan, your diversification, and your long-term strategy.” — Murs Tariq

Resources:

If you are in or nearing retirement and you want to gain clarity on what questions you should be asking, learn what the biggest retirement myths are, and identify what you can do to achieve peace of mind for your retirement, get started today by requesting our complimentary video course, Four Steps to Secure Your Retirement!

To access the course, simply visit POMWealth.net/podcast.

Here’s the full transcript:

Welcome 

everyone to Secure Your Retirement Podcast. Super excited today. Every time we get to have this 

particular guest on, Murs and I are like super giddy. We wake up extremely happy because we’ve got 

Tom Siomades coming on. So, thank you, Tom, for coming on and chatting with us today. Well, thanks 

for having me on. I don’t know that I deserve the accolades. It doesn’t take much to get y’all 

giddy over there, I guess. 

Just to remind everybody, if you’re new to the show or if you’ve been listening in the last year or 

whatever, we invite Tom to come in as someone who really kind of comes in from the, 

I think, the really big picture from the economic side of things, not looking at a particular stock 

or a particular individual. piece of the market, but really like looking at things from the really 

big picture. And as we sit here right now, we’re recording this the end of March. We try to get 

them in once a quarter. So, as you’re listening to this, it’s, you know, right here going into the, 

to the next, the second quarter. And it’s like, man, there’s a lot going on right now, Tom. I mean, 

when we, the last one we did was, you know, kind of saying what’s, what’s 2026 going to look like? 

And, and I don’t know that we could have said that it’s going to look like this, but. You know, 

right now, we’ve got all kinds of things. You know, there’s a war that’s going on. 

There’s a government shutdown that’s not complete yet. There is, you know, still, 

you know, scenarios where people are dealing with cost of goods and how they’re dealing with that. 

And so, I think maybe if we could just start this off, because I think it’s the biggest topic of the 

moment from an economic side of things. What I think is interesting when we talk about the war with 

Iran, it doesn’t appear that it’s rattled the markets like crazy. 

I mean, we’ve not like had some deep sell off yet. So could you kind of give us your thoughts on 

that about maybe why the market is as resilient as it is? And then maybe what maybe some of the 

things we might need to be aware of if this thing lingers on?  I think the market’s assumption 

is, listen, markets generally are fairly optimistic. They realize that this is going to be 

asymmetric. conflict right and then the moment that trump said he wasn’t going to send troops in 

I think for the markets it was like well the Israelis and Americans are going to bomb this thing 

and you know whatever happens because you all have to understand a lot of what goes on is 

the reality of war but then there’s also the way it’s perceived right so if we and trump’s very 

capable of picking up the phone tomorrow and saying This thing is over. We’ve negotiated. You know, 

it’s all good. They’ve made promises. And I think the market sees that, and they don’t really 

consider this thing as a prolonged, protracted engagement. 

And yet at the same time, it was supposed to be over in five days. We’re three weeks into this 

thing, three weeks plus. There was a pause over the weekend where he said, hey, we’re talking to 

people. They’re saying they’re not talking to us. We’re saying we’re talking. Who knows? And at the 

end of the day, I think the market looks at that and says, listen, this can be cleaned up and 

turned around relatively quickly. Like one of the stats I saw was that if you have a policy-driven 

sell-off, like what we have now, right, which is basically our country does something, 

policies change, market doesn’t like it, versus a bear market-type economic sell-off. 

Typically, markets are back four to six months after a policy won. It’s about a year and a half for 

the other one. So, the other one seems more serious. I think the underlying stuff was fairly strong 

to start with. And this thing just sort of popped up sort of as an irritant, 

right? Now, if oil persists and being over $100 a barrel for like another month, I think the 

market’s going to wake up. But we’ve had, you know, we’ve had about, I would say, what, maybe 10% 

or so from the highs. Because we were hitting records not too long ago, right? 

And so, I think the markets aren’t, I don’t think they’re taking it, I don’t want to use the phrase 

taking it seriously. I just don’t think they think this is a thing that’s going to be long. 

And, you know, in relative terms, 

you know, four or five-week war is not a big deal to the market. It just won’t get into the longer 

protracted. you know changes in the way we the economy functions and you know people are getting 

sent overseas and who do you buy do you buy defense stocks do you know it’s like you know the other 

part that’s kind of funny is I keep thinking is we keep like shooting million-dollar missiles at 

you know five-thousand-dollar drone facilities i mean how long is that math going to work you know 

Right. So, while we’re on the topic, can we talk a little bit about the, I guess, 

the importance of the Strait of Hormuz and kind of how big of a key role that it’s playing in, 

which could lead into economic issues and the price of oil. And, you know, there’s something I 

listened to today that said this. There are some economists out there that think that this this one 

element could. jar the global economy for longer than we’re expecting it to. 

And then you have someone else that says it’s not a big deal. And then you have someone else that 

says this could take the price of oil to $200 a barrel. So can you talk a little bit broadly about 

the strait and kind of the issues there and why it’s such a big conversation right now? Right. 

So, the straits, for those that don’t have access to a map, it’s basically east of Saudi Arabia 

between Iran. And it’s a very narrow… opening, right, that comes out, 

and about 20% of the world’s oil flows through there, right, that’s manufactured in Bahrain, 

you know, the UAE, Saudi, whatever, it all has to be shipped through there efficiently. 

Now, it could be shipped through different places, but it’s a lot more expensive, you know, 

pipelines out somewhere to the Mediterranean, I don’t know, Red Sea, whatever. But at the end of 

the day, we’re not that susceptible to it, right? But the problem is that India, 

China, and those kinds of places are very, very reluctant to give up on that oil, 

right? And so, when you take approximately 20% of the world’s inventory and bottle it up in 

basically, a bathtub, because Iran sits on top of that straight, and it’s very easy for them to blow 

up a ship that’s anywhere near there. And then, listen, I run a tanker, 

an oil tanker company. I’ve got billions of dollars invested in my ship and oil. I’m not going to 

sell that thing, right, on the chance that it sinks. So that’s, it’s really not, it’s just the 

threat of it versus the reality that, you know, like you’re watching some kind of like video game 

where ships are driving by and you’re shooting torpedoes at them. That’s not how it works. It’s 

really, once the fear comes in, people are like, listen, I’m going to. get paid for my oil but i 

don’t want to blow up my tanker so it’ll just sit here and wait now as far as economists you know 

listen there’s always the doomsayers right there were the guys after 2008 2009 that said you know 

the market was going to take 10 years to recover there’s always somebody that’s going to take the 

other side of that i think the reality of it is this could be actually could be a good thing in the 

medium term if not short term for energy prices but think about it if Venezuela gets compliant they 

produce a lot of oil right and you know they got they picked up maduro they rolled him up and now 

you know maybe they’re working with the people right as well and if they can get that oil on the 

market which had not been available right and now if you can get Iran to behave and become a better 

global citizen somehow their oil could come on the market too so in reality you could have a glut 

of oil in the next couple years and oil prices could severely tank because Iran’s going to need the 

oil money to rebuild. Venezuela needs the oil money to rebuild, right? They’re not going to be, 

you know, hyping $80 a barrel of oil. They’ll sell that thing for $40, $50, whatever they can get 

for it just to get the money to build up their countries again. So, you know, there’s always two 

sides to this argument. But I think, you know, right now it’s just the fear of ships being blown up 

in that very narrow bit of water. And that’s constricting, that’s bottling up at 20% of the 

world’s oil supply. And that’s a huge impact. Yeah. So now, you know, we got that big heavy weight 

on us and, you know, looking at that and trying to figure that out. And then to compound this 

particular issue, we’re still dealing with at least a good partial government shutdown where you’re 

hearing about the TSA lines, you know, snaking out the buildings in New York. 

You hear about the fact that ICE agents now are being deployed to… 

handful or maybe I think it was 13 or 15 different airports. And there’s obviously people who don’t 

like that and are concerned about that. But I mean, where do you see that playing out? Not that 

particular section, but just the whole shutdown as itself. Like, you know, where do we see this and 

how this affects things? Well, I mean, it does affect people. People are traveling, 

right? And so, here’s the thing. to avoid a prior shutdown i think they passed something like five 

out of six bills right and the challenge here is that the one bill that wasn’t passed was funding 

for ice or I’m sorry funding, but ice and border patrol have already been funded through the 

big, beautiful bill so the people that aren’t getting paid right now are TSA people 

and I forget another agency, but they have nothing to do with immigration or customs right so this 

is a political football that’s being punted around and unfortunately now you’ve got like i was in 

the airport last Saturday i was coming back from Seattle I had there was thankfully nobody in line 

I had a long talk with one of the TSA guys and he was just showing up for work not getting paid 

tomorrow I’m going to be in uh in Charlotte and Thankfully here in Kansas City, 

it’s privately run. I don’t know that. I didn’t realize that some TSA was because San Francisco and 

KC have private whatever contractors that do it, 

so, they’re getting paid. But, you know, you go to these other places, Atlanta, four-hour delays, 

LaGuardia, three-and-a-half-hour delays. You know, it’s a challenge because it’s ticking people 

off. Like kids aren’t getting home from spring break or, you know, people are missing business 

flights. 

It’s annoying, and I don’t know how much of that had to do with the tragedy that we had on 

LaGuardia last night. I don’t know whether distractions or staffing shortages, 

who knows, right? But, I mean, it’s going to come to a head at this point. It’s the same reason the 

shutdown ended last fall, if you guys remember, right? There was the TSA that was screaming that we 

can’t handle this and we’re going to start cutting back flights and we can’t. So that’s… A drag. 

The ICE people at the airport, they have no ability or training to which I’m aware of to actually 

mitigate any of this stuff. I don’t know what they’re going to do. But, you know, that just seems 

like circus stuff that’s going on. But, yeah, it’s a challenge, right? And, 

I mean, at the end of the day, I think it’s going to have a significant impact, if anything, on the 

mood of the public more than anything else, right? Because people are going to be pissed. People 

are going to be angry and they’re going to vote in the fall. They’re going to remember something 

like this. So, I don’t know what all is going on, but it sniffs of politics on both sides, 

which I don’t like because, you know, you do you, but when it prevents me from me doing me, 

that’s a problem. So that’s kind of what it feels like. I don’t think it’s going to have a 

meaningful impact on GDP or anything like that, like the first shutdown did in the fall. 

Yeah. So, let’s do one more. I guess the negative thing that’s happening right now and then 

we could maybe see what your thoughts are on anything positive that you see going on in the world 

today but so you know last year we had the introduction of all the tariff conversation and then 

the ups and downs of that which you know tariffs can be linked to inflationary pressures and The 

Fed kind of battling with interest rates. And we walk into this year thinking things are under 

control. Interest rates should start going down. And all of a sudden, we’re in this pause, this 

holding pattern on interest rates. And we see inflation kind of coming back up a little bit, 

whether its tariff related or just because of energy and the cost of oil right now. Is it that? 

So, the Fed has said we don’t know. And actually, it could be that it could go up again on us here, 

interest rates. What are your thoughts on all of that and kind of where we’re at and where it’s 

headed? 

Just curious. Yeah, it doesn’t feel good at this point, right? Because at the end of the day, 

you know, all the problems that Trump had with Powell, basically Powell’s going to have a pass now, 

right? Until next month, until, you know, his replacement has been named. And given all the stuff 

that’s going on right now, it would be foolhardy to cut rates, right? Because at the end of the 

day, you don’t know what’s going to happen. The tariff thing that got thrown out by the Supreme 

Court, we don’t know how that’s ultimately going to be resolved because there’s lawsuits about 

people wanting to get paid back, right? But at the same time, the administration cobbled together 

basically, the same tariff package that they had before. but it’s not durable, right? 

It’s not something that it’s going to be looked at in what, six months or something like that. So 

that’s going to come back around to haunt this. So that’s a black cloud on the horizon, right? The 

energy stuff is a drag because despite what all the experts tell you about CPI and all the things 

they calculate, like energy is huge and it’s in everything, right? It’s in, you know, your 

transportation, your manufacturing, you know, all of those things factor in when your energy bills 

go up. your cost to produce things will go up. So, the longer this goes on, 

I don’t see near-term inflation really improving, and I actually see it maybe deteriorating a 

little bit more, maybe scooching up to 4% or 5% if this energy thing continues to put a squeeze 

on people. I saw a story that American Airlines was talking about jacking up their rates by 20%. 

because of fuel already, right? So, I don’t know if you guys remember, but back in the day, 

guys remember there was a jet fuel shortage in like I don’t know what it was 2007 2008 somewhere 

around there then right about the time when they started charging people for bags right well they 

still charge people for bags and jet fuel had gone you know down the toilet right so beware of that 

because a lot of times when these when these people find a reason to raise prices whether it’s 

energy or whatever they keep them higher so that’s going to add more angst to the whole affordability 

thing because people’s wages aren’t keeping up not to the tune of like 20% or 15% or whatever 

surcharges these guys put on and whatever things they decide to do. So that’s a challenge. As far 

as rate cuts go, I mean, Powell was out there last week, and he was still saying there’s a chance 

for one this year. I don’t know how you do that unless the war ends really quick. 

Oil goes from like 100 to like 50, right? And then stuff craters and the people that were thinking 

about getting to the point of raising prices. So, ah, things aren’t that bad. 

We’re okay. Now, again, the tariffs will be another thing. It just seems like it’s just like this 

never-ending nightmare, right? It’s just kind of like, you know, a leaky faucet. Drip, 

drip, drip, drip. It just doesn’t want to stop. You guys are right. I mean, I was hoping for this thing 

was done, but the Supreme Court threw, you know, Trump a curveball, but he loves his tariffs, 

right? And so, he views that as a viable policy tool to get… nations to comply with what we’re 

wanting to do. I don’t see him abandoning that. I see him digging in and I see him fighting for 

that. So, we’ve painted a pretty grim picture, man. So, let’s talk about 

something. I was going to say, yeah, I was going to say, you know, let’s, let’s don’t continue down 

this path. Let’s talk some things that maybe we see that despite the first 15 minutes of this 

conversation that had been negative, despite all that. What do you see right now that you 

like? Well, I like earnings were good. Companies are doing really well. You know, the whole AI 

stuff is here to stay. I think a lot of people just jump, like, way out over their skis. But I 

think you’re going to start seeing companies embracing it. You’re going to start seeing companies, 

you know, using it more, you know, more productively. I like that that I’m seeing. 

I think, you know, at the end of the day, the economy’s… like you’re not seeing a lot of people 

getting fired you’re not seeing the mass layoffs you’re not seeing the bankruptcies people’s homes 

are getting foreclosed on all those things are still fairly solid is if we could just stop with all 

the headline stuff right stops like grabbing dictators or blowing up countries or you know waving 

tariffs around and just let the economy get a breather because I think fundamentally, we’re fairly 

in we’re in decent shape we’re strong it’s just We need about three or four months of just 

regulated, like turn the treadmill down to a walking pace so we’re not just flying down the damn 

thing, right? That’s what I think, you know, can be very positive. Because remember, we were sold 

on that whole thing that, oh, this was going to be the golden age. There wasn’t going to be 

regulation. People are going to get big fat tax refunds. And, well, you know, 

I’m tired of watching things get blown up and people being let around in orange jumpsuits. 

I want to. I want to be living some of that golden age. So, I think there’s a lot of positive there. 

I mean, rates were coming down before. What’s interesting, I don’t know if you guys noticed this, 

but yields did not come down when the whole oil thing went up. 

And I think that’s one of the quirks. When a market sells off, yields generally go down because 

people run to safety and there’s a demand for bonds. What’s interesting is yields went up because 

that’s one of the peculiarities of an energy. uh type sell-off where people are freaked out that 

you know they sell their stocks and then they sell their bonds too which is kind of crazy but so 

that was that’s one of those things where diversification doesn’t work very well but i think like I 

said I think the economy is fairly solid still companies are having really good earnings and we’re 

not seeing the telltale sign of anything bad you know but if but the look but it’s kind of one 

of those things the longer you keep Bad things keep happening at some point in time. 

The fallout, people just throw in the towel and they just get, they mentally check out. And then 

when they start checking out, then you start seeing bad things happen in the economy. Right. So, 

and I agree, we’ve got a lot of distractions that are keeping, it’s hard to really focus on just 

the things that make us operate smoothly as a country. Because we’ve got so much else going on. 

But so, to the listeners, Tom, what do you say to them if they’re saying, you know, I’m worried 

about my financial plan. I’m worried about my investment strategy. Am I diversified enough? All 

those different types of things. And in moments of turmoil like we are now or we were during the 

pandemic. So, what do you say to that listener? to help ease their mind a little bit. Yeah, these 

are probably the most testing times to be an investor. And I would say these are probably the most 

important times when you leverage the relationship that they should have with you guys as their 

advisors. You guys, you plan, right? And that’s the important thing, 

right? Supposedly you plan for these types of things. Now, I don’t know the specifics of how you 

guys go about it, but typically you have money you need right now for the next, whatever it is, six 

months to a year. intermediate money you know home run money that you want to put out so I would 

say in the meantime if you’re if you’re functioning fine you know you’re not getting to that 

point where you’re running out of your near-term money your lifestyle isn’t really being impacted 

I mean it may be in some respects because you’re paying more for gas or you may be paying a little 

bit more from an inflationary standpoint but you know your lifestyle is what it is I’d be concerned 

if that was changing but as far as just throwing in the towel and saying, you know, why I hate 

stocks, because, you know, the stuff I don’t the stuff I don’t need now and don’t probably need for 

another 10 or 15 years. Why sell it? Because, you know, my argument is, do you think the market’s 

going to be down three years from now, five years from now, 15 years from now? It’s not. So the 

problem is that people think very near term when it comes to this stuff. They don’t really, they 

forget their plan. And that’s why it’s important that you guys remind them and that they need to 

remember, like the first thing they need to do is don’t make a snap decision in this case. 

Really look at, ask the question. The simple question is a super simple question. Am I still on 

track, right? And if you guys are saying no as objective people, because the client’s going to come 

in, they’re going to be emotionally motivated, right? They’re seeing the news. They’re seeing bombs 

drop. They’re seeing, you know, the craziness. And they’re consuming that stuff, and there isn’t 

anybody to say, well, hold up, have a different perspective on this. We’ve always had these crazy 

events occur, yet look at what the market’s done over time, right? Nobody’s saying that, 

yeah, but to them, except for you guys. So, I think, to me, the first thing you should do is, 

A, first of all, you should never make decisions during a crisis. You should never make decisions 

when you’re stressed out. and you should always get input before you make a decision. 

I mean, I know those are kind of simple things when you stop and think about it, but you guys, you 

know, like myself, we’re dispassionate when it comes to this stuff. Somebody comes in to me, you 

know, I can be dispassionate about how they look at their situation. It’s very personal to them 

when they see their account drop $100,000, right? But it doesn’t mean their plan is flawed. 

It just means the market isn’t working in their favor, but hopefully their plan… will keep them 

out of making a silly mistake. You know, if you’re 100% invested in the S&P 500, 

yeah, I would tell you should probably diversify. somewhat right but you but you know people 

have annuities first of all you know that’s another big one that people always forget they have an 

annuity that is very stable that doesn’t change so when you see the market go down 10 you say oh my 

god my portfolio is down 10 no it’s not if half of your money is in an annuity guess what you only 

lost five percent and if you don’t need that money because it’s out 10 years from now you really 

haven’t lost anything because it’s still on paper So that’s what I would tell people. It’s like the 

time when you feel like you need to act is really the time when you need to stop the thing, take a 

deep breath and be glad you have an advisor who’s willing to sit down and talk you through it. 

And again, if the plan is not working and it’s flawed, you guys will be the first to tell. 

Right. But don’t just think that everything’s been fine until now, until I watch, you know, 

that half hour of Fox or CNN. All of a sudden, oh, my God. I got to run and hide. 

I got to go dig a bunker somewhere. I think people just, we have a, 

I guess, predisposition as human beings to do something, 

right? Remember our parents? Don’t just sit there, right, and do something, right? Parents just 

tell us that all the time, right? Well, that’s not the case with stocks or your portfolios. 

You did do something when you planned, but not the time when you’re… stressed so you know I know 

that may seem like non-economic advice, but it seems like the most wise choice for people to 

to that because I think if you could calm yourself, you’ll  find yourself making different 

decisions yeah that’s exactly what we uh that’s what we share with our with our clients uh all the 

time so we really appreciate you uh um reiterating uh the message that we carry so we appreciate it 

well Tom, we appreciate your insights like we do every single quarter, so we appreciate you coming 

on and chatting with us today and sharing your thoughts, and we hope that you are able to make it 

to Charlotte tomorrow. Well, make it to Charlotte. It’s getting back. It’s going to be the problem. 

I don’t know what’s going on there, but you know, the thing is, they’ll tell you it’s a three-hour 

delay, and you show up, and it’s like 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah. You can’t just stay home. 

I’m not going to the airport. But yeah, listen, hopefully next quarter will be a lot better and 

hopefully things will be, you know, looking a little bit less, you know, kind of frightful than 

they are right now. So, I’m hopeful that, you know, these things don’t last long. It always seems 

like, you know, it always seems like, you know, like when you can’t sleep at 2 o’clock in the 

morning and everything is going to come. It’s four hours. Either way, you slice it. 

The sun’s going to come up. We’ll be fine. I just think that this is one of those times where you 

just don’t relent and give in to stress and don’t relent and give in to fear. I think it will be 

okay. Yeah. Well, hey, thanks a lot, Tom. We appreciate it. Have a good day. All right, you guys 

take care.