In this Episode of the Secure Your Retirement Podcast, Radon and Murs discuss the November market update and how recent events have shaped the stock market volatility investors have experienced. From a tense government shutdown to missing economic data, rising interest rates, and uncertainty around inflation and investing, November brought no shortage of challenges. Radon and Murs break down what happened—and why staying grounded in long-term strategy is crucial when navigating volatile markets. This episode sets the stage for understanding not just what moved the markets, but how to approach managing market risk with confidence.

Listen in to learn about the ripple effects November’s disruptions had on the economy, the rapid swings in AI stocks, and what the Federal Reserve is considering as we move toward year-end. You’ll also hear how a well-structured retirement portfolio—especially one built on bucket strategy investing—can help you plan for retirement, stay calm, and retire comfortably even when volatility spikes. With long term retirement planning always top of mind, Radon and Murs share insights that promote clarity, stability, and a path to secure your retirement.

In this episode, find out:

• How the November market review was influenced by the extended government shutdown and delayed economic data.
• Why interest rates, inflation numbers, and Federal Reserve uncertainty added to stock market volatility.
• What drove turbulence in the technology sector—especially surrounding AI stocks and concerns over an AI bubble.
• How volatile markets can impact your retirement portfolio and why understanding retirement investing strategies is essential.
• The importance of a structured Bucket Strategy for managing market risk and creating predictable income in retirement.

Tweetable Quotes:

Radon Stancil: “One thing that ends up being good can lead us right back to something that causes worry—that’s why having a strategy matters, regardless of what the markets are doing.”

Murs Tariq: “Volatility is triggered by moments inside and outside the stock market, which is why a well-designed retirement plan must be built to withstand the unexpected.”

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. We are very happy and excited

to be chatting with you today. And just as a reminder,

this is a new format for us that we started here a couple months ago. The first

Monday of the month, Murs and I are going to spend a little bit of time just

talking about what happened last month in the market and maybe what are some of

those talking points. And then we’re going to, after we kind of talk a little bit

about some of the things that occurred over the month of November, we’re going to

talk just for a couple minutes about specific strategies that could help us be able

to navigate the uncertainty because I think as we look at what’s going on right now

and what’s gone through in November was really a lot of uncertainty. We had a lot

of different big-time topics that we’re going to walk through today. And I think as

we do what we do, which is trying to really help people have peace of mind,

regardless of what’s going on in the market,

there are a couple things we feel that are important. Number one is to educate,

educate you on what’s going on in the market, just because we want to know. But

then,

having to deal with as we went through November. Yeah, so I think a good one to

start with as we walked into November, we were dealing with government shutdown and

it ended up being longer shutdown than we anticipated it to be, which means a big

part of what we get from the government as far as information, some of those data

and those metrics were paid things like payroll data and CPI and PPI,

all these numbers that have become really important over the years for understanding

inflation and what the Fed is going to do and everything like that. A lot of those

data and those metrics were delayed because of the shutdown. Shut down around a

bunch of disagreements around, you know, what should we do? What shouldn’t we do?

Health care was a big topic around the Affordable Care Act and everything like that.

And so that shutdown kind of interrupted a lot of government things. The biggest one

that people talked about is the flight or being able to fly comfortably and TSA,

not having the staffing. And so, a lot of cancellations of flights, a lot of delays

of flights, especially as we head into a time full of travel for a lot of people,

cause some issues. Anytime we have issues in our economy like a shutdown that tends

to sometimes ripple into the stock market where that big key word of uncertainty

comes into play of how long is this shutdown going to last? How is it going to

affect a lot of these industries? We’re just getting back up and running from the

pandemic and supply chains. And now we’ve got another interruption on a different

side of the world in the government world. So how is this all going to impact the

markets? And so, we did see November being one of the more volatile months of the

stock market this year, not nearly.

And so, Rayden, you want to talk a little bit about that and what happened since

then? Yeah, so, you know, 43 days, the government was shut down,

and some records were hit over that. And I’ll be honest with you, I remember quite

a few years ago, the market, I mean, the government shut down, and it put the

markets into turmoil. And interestingly, in this downturn or this shutdown of the

government, it really didn’t make the markets go crazy. But now you would think,

okay, the government opens back up because what we were headed toward is a scenario

where, you know, flights were starting to get delayed and actually canceled. We were

traveling. My daughter was traveling. And it’s kind of like, am I going to be able

to make it home or not make it home? And that’s kind of where we were getting and

the anxiety was starting to raise. And now all of a sudden, it’s like, okay, we’ve

got a deal. Now you would think, well, the market’s going to do great. And the

markets did do good for just a moment. And then all of a sudden, the markets

didn’t do good anymore. And it was as fast as the government opened back up. As

fast as that went, it went right back to the Fed. And it’s basically like, where

are we at on interest rates? And basically, it was like, okay, well, now,

you know, let’s go back and let’s start talking to the Fed and talking about the

Fed and saying, are you going to lower rates? Are you going to lower rates? Well,

now all of a sudden, because the market’s been shut down for so long, well, how

can the, there’s no data. There’s no real good data to say, where is the inflation

at? And that’s kind of been the problem is what does this mean now? If we don’t

have good data, how can the Fed make good decisions?

talking about the Fed and inflation. And so, it really kind of put us back in this

area of the unknown, which kind of takes us to a little bit long, a little bit of

the next point here, volatility. Right. Yeah. So, with the, with the unknown around

or the lack thereof of data, I would say, for the Fed to make good decisions,

that’s where volatility kind of creep back into the markets. There’s been, I think,

two things. One, on the technology side, we’ve seen AI have some struggles,

although the recoveries have been pretty strong, too. But your big names like Nvidia

and your apples and your Googles, and a lot of those AI -focused companies have had

some issues here in the middle to end of November. And so, this idea of an AI

bubble, that word has been thrown around quite a bit, you know, was this the

beginning of the sell -off? but then there’s been a nice recovery in AI -type stocks

over the last.

around what the U.S. Fed does and the interest rate environment, and because of the

lack of some of that information around payrolls and around unemployment, it was,

we had to wait on some decisions and thought processes. And basically, there was a

worry that would there be a December cut or not? And that spooked the markets,

because going into or prior to the shutdown, it was pretty clear that it was, it

seemed like there would be cuts in November and December as well. That’s changing.

And there is a notable friction between President Trump and Powell.

And his term, Powell’s term is almost up. And so, what does he kind of do here in

this, in the short term that he has remaining? So, cause some issues, cost some

volatility. Unemployment is up a little bit, which is making people nervous. With the

shutdown, people decided to retire earlier than expected as well.

Those are the, I think, the two big key things that happen towards the end of the

month, and that’s peaked up some of the volatility. And so December is going to be

a very interesting month. It is the last month of the year. So historically, it’s

done okay, but there are always times where we could have an issue in December,

like in a 2018 type of environment or 2015 or 2011. Those are all end -of -year

types of selloffs. So, there’s a lot of risk that we still see in the markets

right now, especially given the scenarios we’re in. So, with all that said,

I think we’ve had a couple of key themes here. How do you sum all this up for

us, Radon? Yeah, I think you just sum it up with one thing that ends up being

good leads us right back to something that gives us worry. And I think right now,

inflation is still going to be one of those things. What is the Fed going to do?

Are they going to be able to lower the rates? Oh, and by the way, this whole

thing going on, you mentioned Invidia and that we’re starting to see a lot of news

items around the fact that, you know, are we in an AI bubble? And is this

something that’s going to reflect what we saw with the tech bubble? I will tell you

on that one really quick. I don’t think we’re seeing the same thing at all as to

what we saw with the tech bubble. But do we have a correction come toward AI. That

I do think is possible. But how much longer before you get that kind of correction?

That’s the thing that remains to be seen. So, if we had to sum it up, volatility,

while not major is here. It’s always here, by the way. You don’t ever have a

market that doesn’t have some volatility. There are just the markets. And I think as

we look ahead and say, well, where are we looking in the next month or so. I

think we need to look at inflation. Can we get some good data that will help us

to understand that? What are people going to do on spending? I think this holiday

season is going to be looked at very, very specifically around personal spending.

What is that going to look like? Are people nervous and pulling back on their

spending? And then I think also the next big thing is, you know, mortgage data.

What are people doing? Are they buying homes? Are they applying for loans because

the interest rates are where they are? How are we going to see all this play out?

So that’s kind of where we’re headed here for December. But we don’t want to just

talk about the markets and kind of give you all that information and talk about

volatility and talk about inflation and talk about those things and not talk about a

good, sound, risk -managed investment strategy. You know, one of the things that Merce

and I talk about all the time with our clients and with those that are talking to

us as we feel that there are five critical areas that lead to a successful

retirement. The number one on that list is risk management in our investments,

meaning we don’t want to just go out there and invest in the market without a good

strategy. And I think we do a really good job of laying out what that looks like.

And we keep it super simple. This is not a complicated thing. We put a lot of

work into it. We spend a lot of hours every single month, making sure this all

runs correctly. But, MERS, could you just kind of maybe remind our listeners, and

some of these listeners are people that are not working with peace of mind, wealth

management. Many of our clients listen to this. So just remind everyone when we talk

about this idea of volatility, how do we have things, how do we teach to have

things structured so that you don’t have crazy anxiety? Right. Yeah. So, while the

theme of this year has been, you know, tariffs, inflation, government shutdown, AI

volatility, that’s really just the theme of this year. Next year could be something

completely different. Next year’s an election year. Next year could be, you know,

have issues or inflation is not figured out, or the next war that we’re going to

be a part of, or it could be anything, right? Volatility is triggered by moments

that happen inside the stock market and outside of the stock market. So, it could be

anything. So having a sound investment strategy that is there to address risk and

your concern about risk is going to be very important, not just for your ability

to sleep at night, but also your ability to maintain the cash flows that you need

to kind of live the way that you want to live. So, we do that in what we think

to be a simplistic explanation, realize that there’s a lot that goes into each one

of these categories. But the simple of it is we like three buckets. We like to

have a cash bucket, which is basically going to be your operational money, a couple

months’ worth, six months’ worth, whatever that rule of thumb is for you, that makes

you feel comfortable knowing that you’ve got the cash that you need for a certain

period of time, ready and available. And then we have money that we want in a

growth bucket, which is pretty much stock market -based types of investments or

investments that are

the general movements of the stock market. And we call that the income and safety

bucket. For a lot of people, that’s going to be in the realm of the insurance and

the fixed index annuities that we talk about. The side benefit of rates being still

high, relatively high, is that some instruments do very well in a high interest rate

environment. And these are longer term investments so we can lock in higher rates

for longer, and that’s a positive to us. The nice part about this bucket also is

that if we do walk into, say, 2026 or the end of this year, and we see a 15,

20, 30 percent sell -off, which is never off the table, our safety bucket is not

exposed to that. So, while we will lose some money in the growth side, not all of

our assets are in that growth bucket. And so that that provides the ability for

really good true risk management so that at the end of the day in a simple way of

putting it, not all of our dollars are working in the same direction at all times.

So how do we do this? You know, there’s a handful of different tools in the tool

belt. We have safe assets. We have growth assets. We blend these two together to

achieve a desired type of downside risk exposure, but also the ability to withdraw

our money without being worried about it being down and we still need to draw on

it. So that’s the buckets. Obviously, there’s nuances there. There’s things to talk

about. There’s things to be educated about in those three categories. And we’re

always happy to have those conversations with you. All right, everyone. We appreciate very much you are taking a few minutes and talking with us or letting us talk to you