← Excess Returns 
Excess Returns
Nothing Has a Right to Exist in Your Portfolio | What the Last 15 Years Has Taught Us
00:57:42
Loading summary
Transcript234 lines
- [00:02]
Commercial Narrator
When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and Winter Spice Flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst.
- [00:25]
Cameron Dawson
You're about to make a trade. Which u do you listen to? Is it get optioning those options.
- [00:32]
Dave Nidig
Or.
- [00:33]
Cameron Dawson
Let'S do a little research? Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart as we head into.
- [00:40]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Year end, it is a good time to both look back at 2025 and look forward to 2026. In the latest episode of Clickbaita, Matt Ziegler, Dave Nidig and Cameron Dawson talk about their lessons from this year and how they are viewing markets as we head into the next. We have included this episode in the Excess Returns feed, but but if you want to keep receiving new episodes, you can subscribe to click Beta on all major podcast platforms or our YouTube channel using the links in this episode. Description thank you for listening. We hope you enjoy the show.
- [01:02]
Cameron Dawson
The last 10 years, may I even argue 15 years, have taken the efficient frontier, the modern portfolio theory, efficient market hypothesis, and absolutely credit it.
- [01:24]
Dave Nidig
Whether you got this call right or wrong, if you flipped your entire asset allocation in and out 70% variance in six to eight months, you're a terrible fund manager.
- [01:35]
Cameron Dawson
Nothing has a right to exist in the portfolio. Nobody. Nobody has a a a manifest destiny to be part of your strategic allocation.
- [01:46]
Dave Nidig
Anybody who's trying to base their own personal asset allocation on these reports from institutions and how they're flipping in and out of asset classes. That's a crazy way to run money.
- [02:02]
Matt Ziegler
Those other podcasts there clickbait, but not this. This is Click Beta, the show where we market professionals click record the conversation that we'd have anyway to prove once and for all that all we know is that we don't know nothing. Who's with me? He's the cherry hard candy cane on your tree. Less a Garfield and more a Heathcliff, which is my way of saying he's far indoor gluttony and way more no lock kid Anarchist, according to our intentional investor interview at least. Yes, he's the snow cap on the nightcap while you spin snow caps and sign your cards with an unassuming P S Elliot. Just for the people in the know, the long lost Crutchfield sibling himself, Dave Nadic oh gosh, that was heavy.
- [02:42]
Dave Nidig
Thank you so much. You had to turn one around on.
- [02:47]
Matt Ziegler
You, you know I'm ready. And yes to the cherry hard candy, because who else is with us? She's got more bright ideas than a Times Square Christmas tree. Or an LCD sound system holiday show for that matter. You wanted to hit Jack Forehand. Well, that's why she's here with Dave and I making it almost all my friends and what's that? Rizzo the Rat just text me that Daft punk is playing Christmas carols at her house this year. I hope I'm invited. Did her mother always tell her to never eat Singing food too? Only one way to find out. Broadcasting live from next to grandma's shrine, it's Cameron Dawson.
- [03:20]
Cameron Dawson
Okay, but is there even a Times Square Christmas tree?
- [03:24]
Matt Ziegler
Oh, you know, Rockefeller.
- [03:25]
Dave Nidig
Well, there is now.
- [03:27]
Cameron Dawson
There's a Rockefeller Christmas tree. There's a Brian Park Christmas tree. There has a New York Stock Exchange.
- [03:33]
Matt Ziegler
Times Square.
- [03:34]
Cameron Dawson
Well, we can't Google it, but I don't. I've. I've never seen one.
- [03:38]
Dave Nidig
Well, we're going to put one there.
- [03:39]
Matt Ziegler
Can you tell how fast these intros come together? So, funny enough, I was actually looking for. I had this idea, and it's a funny story that this can be an offline story. I know somebody who lights one of these trees and I was trying to figure out which one it was. And I did come to that conclusion, but I definitely was down a rabbit hole looking at who are the people responsible for lighting all the trees in New York City so I could figure out which one was my buddy. So that's where we are. And these are the mistakes I'm willing to make in public. So you know the rules. We have an agreed upon topic. Nobody Googles nothing while we're live. We each have a surprise topic. Holiday theme. Bonus points will be awarded this year. But the big one. Let's dive right in. WTF 2025 kind of feels like the vibe I'm in. I got a lot wrong. I got a few things right.
- [04:26]
Dave Nidig
I know.
- [04:26]
Matt Ziegler
I'm sure you guys too. Year end reflections. Dave, what do you got?
- [04:32]
Dave Nidig
So the. I feel like in terms of calls, I should point out that I did absolutely nothing this year in terms of like moving money.
- [04:39]
Matt Ziegler
Congratulations.
- [04:40]
Dave Nidig
I. I did. I made no big bets. I think the largest bar bet I made was like a $300 option purchase with Barry Ritholtz where we took the opposite side of a trade. So nothing interesting in terms of what I actually did with my money, but I just wrote a piece about the Sell America trade. Remember like all of the summer when every headline was the Sell America trade, from the Economist to the New York Times. So what I did because I was doing my year end wrap up was I went and looked at what actually kicked off the Sell America stories. Not just the obviously Liberation Day, blah blah, blah, we all know the meat of the story, but like where the narrative virus started. And most of it was from the bank of America Fund survey, right? Which they do every single month. And they survey a bunch of global fund managers, mostly institutions, and they say, how are you positioned? And then they report that and they reported like a 38% underweight at the beginning of April. And that's when everybody on U.S. equity and the thing everybody wanted to buy was gold and non US equities. And I was like, okay, let's reconstruct the timing of that portfolio because there's a lot of crowing going on in the media about how wrong the Sell America trade was because market's up what, today? 18, 19, 20% on the year at the moment. And so it seems like another incredible year. It has been another incredible year. But when you actually build the Sell America portfolio, they've beaten that by about 4% depending on how you want to measure it. So like the actually guiding into gold and international equities was a great call, except that the most recent fund manager survey has them back to being like 18% overweight US equities. And I will say this, whether you got this call right or wrong, if you flipped your entire asset allocation in and out 70% variance in six to eight months, you're a terrible fund manager. I don't care whether you got this one right.
- [06:32]
Cameron Dawson
You know, it's interesting, I was just looking at it this morning because of, of what's going on with dollar dynamics and we've talked on this, on this conversation about how important a weaker dollar is for non US outperformance. And if you look at a relative chart between MSCI EFA or MSCI em, so IFA being international developed EMBA emerging markets, what you can see is that in both cases relative performance peaked in April. So effectively a few days after the low in April, you had relative performance of non US stocks peaking. And ever since then you've effectively given up. Depending on which index, you're looking at anywhere between a half and two thirds of the relative performance that you got between January and April. So Sell America, if you're looking at it from an a, a year long standpoint, then there still is outperformance of non US stocks. However, if you chase that and you were like, oh, April, everything's terrible with tariffs and this and that. And then you went overweight U.S. or overweight international vs. U.S. you significantly underperformed.
- [07:45]
Dave Nidig
I mean I did a lot of runs from 4 2. Like 42 was my start day the day before everything crashed. Right when we got the announcement and before everything got into the prices. And from that point forward, you're still up 1.5 over being in the US so like now the challenge here of course is what did people actually do. A lot of the talk was long gold, like the number one call in that fund manager survey in April wasn't go long international stocks. It was sell America buy gold.
- [08:15]
Cameron Dawson
Yeah, right. That was.
- [08:16]
Dave Nidig
Your Trade is up 50, 60% since then. So like that's been obviously an amazing call. But my point is that you, anybody who's trying to base their own personal asset allocation on these reports from institutions and how they're flipping in and out of asset classes, that's a crazy way to run money.
- [08:35]
Cameron Dawson
Yeah.
- [08:36]
Matt Ziegler
It's interesting especially because of the fund manager survey, the global fund manager survey that bank of America publishes that this comes out of. It's really useful as a purely collected piece of survey data. I was there a long time. I looked at this for a long time. Because it just tells you what are the things that all these guys are going to be writing about in their letters and then what does everybody know that everybody knows.
- [08:59]
Dave Nidig
Right? Exactly. It's just a vibe check.
- [09:00]
Matt Ziegler
It's, it's the, it's like instead of like the big institutions tell you what vanilla ice cream tastes. The fund manager survey tells you like all the cool kids are obsessed with rocky road, but there ain't a lot of signal there.
- [09:16]
Dave Nidig
Right.
- [09:16]
Matt Ziegler
You can see when they're all piled into this is what they're going to write about in their next quarterly letter. Not going to tell you what to do. What I think is really interesting though, looking back on this year and the gold part's really interesting. I'm curious what both of your take is on this because like gold was a rock star. It's hard to think of gold doing that again. Gold miners were. Forget it. Like that's one of those things where you look at and you go like holy crap. I don't remember the last time I saw that size of a move take place for a like the ultimate anti mag 7 trade.
- [09:46]
Dave Nidig
Right.
- [09:47]
Matt Ziegler
Is like own something in metals and miners because you're at a fraction of a percent of the broader index. Like does something like precious metals. Do you guys think about this Cameron, do you guys have allocations to this and how do you think about after a run like this? Because this is not normal.
- [10:03]
Cameron Dawson
Yeah. One of the things I think is fascinating is back in late October I had the opportunity to attend what's called the Global Arc Conference or it's the Global Absolute Return Congress. It's effectively a conference what used to be just hedge funds, absolute return hedge funds. So serving a lot of pensions and endowments, insurance companies and it's diversified over the years to include more alternatives as well as more investors like wealth. Given the fact that we are the blue ocean for allocations into alts. Right. Everybody else is fully allocated. So of course you want people like us around because we still have room in asset allocations in theory to move more towards alts. So I, I hosted a panel about diversification and how you think about diversification within portfolios and we had people who were practitioners in asset classes like reinsurance, like a very great non correlated asset that you know you're getting exposure to other things like weather events and acts of God. But we also had allocators, a lot of pensions, a lot of insurance companies. And what's fascinating is I just pulled the room and this is international allocators and only one person raised their hand that they have a strategic allocation to gold. Only one person. Now there weren't any other wealth people in the room and so wealth people and I can talk about how we, we build asset allocations in a second. But what's fascinating is that the only person that raised the, raised their hand was somebody from South America who ran a pension in South America where obviously there's been a lot more currency debasement or volatility than your Northern European pension manager or insurance manager. So what's interesting is that gold doesn't factor, has not factored into the strategic allocations of a lot of institutions because they look at it, you're like well the expected return 0, it's a non 0, it's a non yielding asset. And that when we then conceptualize how does that fit into a portfolio for, for individual investors, the way that we've talked about it is this idea of it being, and this is from you Dave, that you gave this idea and, and classified this, which is you called it a psychological commodity and that it, it gives you that sleep at night feeling of if I'm worried about dollar debasement and fiscal dominance and all of these things then it plays that role in the portfolio. So we've often used just a 5%, 5 to 10% plug for real assets. And we think of it in a spectrum where you have the, the most riskless, real, real asset inflation hedge fund would be something like a tips. The most risky would be something like a bitcoin. And gold falls further on that risky spectrum. And actually arguing that gold becomes more risky as far as a volatility, the higher it goes. Meaning that you've seen a huge run. It's been really good at digesting overbought conditions this year. Every time it's gotten wildly overbought, it's corrected with time by going sideways, not by correcting. We've been calling it Chuck Norris. Like it's like every time like you think it's down, it's just like it, it just keeps bouncing back. It doesn't even touch his 50 day moving average. It's like, you know, it's like the, like the meme Chuck Norris drove his mom home from the hospital when she had him.
- [13:38]
Dave Nidig
It's so wild to me that that has been the case because at the same time, while we have seen pullback in bitcoin and there's been this whole narrative about gold versus bitcoin and this money just moving from pot A to pot B, the flows would suggest that ETF holders have been the buyers of bitcoin. Like in this year, in 2025, more Bitcoin went into ETFs than was mined. So all of the bitcoin is going effectively into tradfi vehicles which is sort of counter to the. Well, if gold's getting toppy, would people be reallocating maybe out of gold and into bitcoin? It's. It seems like the answer is no. Everybody's putting their money into both. Even while bitcoin has kind of fallen off a cliff a little bit. Really weird. Do you guys think about crypto right alongside of bitcoin? And where do you think about things like real estate?
- [14:28]
Cameron Dawson
So it's on that spectrum that you would put, you know, I think that, that when we think about bitcoin versus gold there's the similarity of the psychology of what I'm trying to protect against some kind of currency debasement plus distrust in institutions, prudence in managing finances, whatever, put in broad statements. But the added factor, added layer onto bitcoin is liquidity being that you can have a gold rally even in a tighter liquidity environment. But it's really hard to see a bitcoin rally in a tight liquidity environ or tightening liquidity environment. I say that, but then we had this announcement from the Fed of $40 billion of T bill purchases. And you have folks like Michael Howe who's like the liquidity expert being like, yes, this is liquidity. This should benefit bitcoin. And it's still not moving. I would never pretend to understand what's going on with all the whale dynamics and all of that. So we see it as part of the spectrum, but with different factors than gold, if that makes sense.
- [15:46]
Dave Nidig
Yep, yep. And what about like something like real estate? Because one of the things that like I paid attention to this year was like WisdomTree went on a tear of like acquiring talent. One of the groups they bought was Series Farms. I know, Cam, you know, some of the folks there too, you know, Series Farms is just literally row crop farmland. Tough to stick into an etf, but pretty attractive for the wealth market for that same kind of counter correlated bucket. Are you guys playing in that space at all?
- [16:12]
Cameron Dawson
Yeah, I think the, the, the one thing with real estate when we think about building a strategic allocation is that most of our clients have some real estate exposure already. So from a wealth perspective, there's a little bit of a difference than maybe some institutions, but a lot of institutions probably own a fair or have a fair amount of real estate.
- [16:32]
Dave Nidig
Yeah.
- [16:32]
Cameron Dawson
So what we've done, we would also put infrast in the bucket as well as part of that in quote, real asset. And obviously not all real estate is created the same. And farmland. You, sir, I remember back in 2014 when we were still in this like kind of commodity bull market, China was in this like last gasp of trying to stimulate the commodity markets and everything. You had this huge push into farmland and everybody was super excited about it. Huge push into timberland. And I'll never forget the articles of people who put their life savings into something like timberland, thinking that they would be, you know, having the, the, the, the, the, the timber that would make people's houses. And it turns out the trees that they bought were used for paper pulp. So it's like, you know, it's, I think that it all, all of this comes down quite frankly to this concept of know what you own and why you own it. You have to understand the dynamics of what you own and then the rationale for why you own it in a broader context. And that allows you to, I think, tolerate the inevitable vicissitudes and volatility of owning any asset no matter what, because you understand the purpose and the role that it plays in a portfolio. If you're just looking for like, knock the lights out kind of outperformance under every single circumstance. That's like thinking that you invented the perpetual motion machine. And as we learned with some of these in quote, treasury companies, those don't exist.
- [18:09]
Matt Ziegler
Still don't. Still don't.
- [18:10]
Cameron Dawson
Still don't. Still don't.
- [18:11]
Dave Nidig
Still don't. Free lunches turn out still to be a fad.
- [18:16]
Matt Ziegler
I think it's really interesting, and this is one of my takeaways from this year, and you're both scratching at this, which was. It feels like a year of validating what I'm going to call bespoke asset allocation decisions. But I really feel it's important to be reconnected back to what you own, especially after two gangbuster calendar years of returns here, like, in giving advice. Because to your point, Dave, like, we have, we do real estate, we do listed infrastructure. Those are part of our core allocation. But if you own a real estate empire, you have a bunch of rental properties in your asset allocation. Oh, great. We know how to carve that out. Think about what you own relative to your more liquid assets, and if we're getting beta or not there, and then having the conversation about, okay, well, you already own this. Do you need beta here? Do you need privates here? Do you need to not have an allocation at all? Because you already have too much? And how's that adding to the risk profile? Same. There's an interesting divide that's grown for people that we advise on in the last couple of years between the no gold, no crypto people, the only gold, no crypto people, the only crypto, no gold people. And you have to be able to think through all those steps.
- [19:25]
Dave Nidig
And is that because that's sort of like religious conviction at this point? Like when somebody shows up in your office and like, I'm bitcoin, no gold, or I'm gold, no bitcoin. You're just like, thank you for letting me know that you're Jewish. I will not try to convert you.
- [19:37]
Matt Ziegler
This is your psychological commodity part. And I love. I love that, like, frame that and put it on the wall. Because you have to be able to walk into these things with. It's almost the ultimate reaction to behavioral biases being like, I will fix what's.
- [19:50]
Dave Nidig
Wrong with you as an advisor. Like a big, like, I. I really appreciate that. I understand that the goal of advisors is generally not to be evangelists for their religion. Right. That's not how most people pick their advisors. And religion's, you know, probably too charged an example.
- [20:05]
Cameron Dawson
But the power of Swift tells you.
- [20:11]
Matt Ziegler
But like, but I'm sure he loves that when. Let's put that on a Christmas card for David Sweats. Sorry, Dave.
- [20:18]
Dave Nidig
Go ahead. No, I just, I'm just curious, like, do you like, you obviously have a view like individually and you may have a view as a house view, but how do you deal with it when a customer walks in, Particularly in a year like this where you got the AI boom? I mean, we had so many big narratives people could be believing in. How do you deal with that as an advisor on your side when somebody shows up and you're like, oh, this person's one of them.
- [20:46]
Commercial Narrator
Ford BlueCruise Hands Free highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive in Bluecruise enabled vehicles like the F150 Explorer and Mustang Mach E. Available feature on equipped vehicles terms apply. Does not replace safe driving. See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details.
- [21:14]
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [21:46]
Matt Ziegler
I want to hear your take on this because and I but I want to insert this before you answer. Cameron. I think part of my response to this and really feeling the importance of this in the last year has been largely driven by the AI boom and has largely been driven by the dominance of basically the Mag 7. Not just over the last like few years, but over the last 10 more and more often we sit down with somebody who's got the giant Nvidia or Microsoft or Amazon or whatever other position and it was like, well, we have to deal around this, which means you have the house view. But then you have to figure out how to fit these things together and do the right work for the client, for the plan, for the family, for all the things. That has never been more challenging and more interesting work to do than I feel like it's been recently. But it's the dovetailing of here's sound strategy, this is part of what it's coming, you're coming to us for. But we probably can't just overhaul everything either. So we have to, we have to have a system and a framework to do this intelligently. And that's, that's really curious and interesting work to me. But Cameron, how do you, how do you even deal with this?
- [22:53]
Cameron Dawson
You know, the, the last 10 years, may I even argue 15 years, have taken the efficient frontier, the modern portfolio theory, efficient market hypothesis, and absolutely dreaded it. Reddit it. Because if you had just bought the QS and not done anything else, obviously this is Hindsight Capital, which is one of my favorite articles that Bloomberg publishes every, every year. But if you had done that, sure, you know, you would have had some volatility in 2022, but for the most part, outside of effectively a 12 month period, you absolutely crushed it. And the debates that I know we're having as we think about our benchmarks even do you use ACWI or do you use S&P 500? Well, S&P 500 is a really hard benchmark because now it's so concentrated. And so if you're going to benchmark to something that's so concentrated, then owning anything but the benchmark means that you're taking massive active bets. Owning small caps is a massive active bet. So, meaning just from our, if we just look at, at the value added from having a strategic allocation in equities that is diversified between large cap growth value, mid cap, small cap international developed and em, that strategic allocation has not added any value over the last 10 years.
- [24:34]
Matt Ziegler
00 probably hurt you in many cases.
- [24:36]
Cameron Dawson
Too, and it's hurt you. And so we were, we were going through, we, we, we have a small ETF portfolio that we run and, and we have a small allocation to, to, to a small cap in it because it's diversified. And, and what we found is that if you look at it, it's just detracted value. So the question is, do you punt it?
- [24:57]
Dave Nidig
Do you, do you punt it now? Do you punt it now after not delivering?
- [25:02]
Cameron Dawson
Right, do you punt it? And, and you know, the funny thing is though, I remember having this conversation in 2020 where we were looking at emerging markets and we're saying EM is a terrible asset class. The only reason we consider it a real asset class is because it effectively had a bubble from 2000 to 2007. That's it. Like before, it wasn't an asset class but then had a great run and so now it's put in everybody's portfolios.
- [25:29]
Matt Ziegler
While a bunch of other stuff sucked. So there was a relative argument that.
- [25:34]
Cameron Dawson
Really, so it was like, ooh, diversification, like you gotta own this one thing. And then, but it doesn't really hold up on its own merit when it comes to comparing other asset classes of just buying the whole thing. So, so when we, when we, we were debating all the way back in 2020, do we just punt it from the strategic allocation and the, the, I remember the, the, the moment was if we do that, we know that's going to be the low. We just know it like. And, but, but if we had done that, it would have been the right.
- [26:03]
Matt Ziegler
Move, which is a crazy feeling. And I feel like there's a lot of those feelings right now. And it's really you.
- [26:09]
Dave Nidig
I, I gotta say, you can say this even more in spades to people who bought bitcoin early and trying to convince them that they should have been owning anything else along the way is impossible because if you bought Bitcoin in 2010 or 2015, like there is no other asset you could have owned that would have made you as rich as you are right now if you just bought and hold it in 2015. I mean, it's just been insane. And so trying to convince folks who are coming over from the defi world that, yeah, what you need is a diversified global multi asset port, multi asset class portfolio. And they laugh at you. It's understandable.
- [26:43]
Matt Ziegler
You know, it's funny though. Specific. And this is like a extreme small sample size, multiple conversations with people who have made obscene gobs of money in that space. And the place that they do come back is when they're like, it's family formation. It's the actual planning conversations. It's, we want to take some of this and like start a business. But like, how do we get from point A to point, like not B but also not Z, like point A to, you know, Q or something like that. It's like we see all these steps and we don't need, we don't understand how to like step away from this thing. But you still can't argue with the, the religion of like no data to.
- [27:25]
Cameron Dawson
Unseat this get rich is different than.
- [27:27]
Matt Ziegler
Stay rich, absolutely, all day long or what to do when you finally accept that you feel rich and you want to make another choice. Besides, it's all locked up in the, in the crypto piggy bank. And the amount of, oh, I have this in cold storage conversations that I still have with people where I'm like, your life, this has to feel crazy when you put your head on your pillow though.
- [27:50]
Dave Nidig
I've talked to number of folks who have made enormous amounts of money in crypto over the years, particularly folks who are like traders from the Finance world. And I had one of them tell me in the last couple days, it's like we were talking about wallets and cold storage versus soft storage and Schwab getting into the business and all this stuff. And he just flat out said, it's like, yeah, I spend all of my time moving money around on chain and I am 50 times more nervous for a hundred thousand dollars on chain than for a million dollars in a Schwab account. Like, I'm like, the amount of anxiety and stress around keeping significant wealth on chain, even for people who really know this and have made millions of dollars, I find that really fascinating.
- [28:35]
Matt Ziegler
So I'm saying this in like as a professional, not necessarily in client portfolio terms like Cameron, the view as you come into next year for gold crypto. These allocations hate small caps, let alone small cap value. And this is felt. We've had this conversation a lot internally in my shop too. Like, is this changing the asset allocation or changing any of the process, the decision making into next year?
- [29:00]
Cameron Dawson
Well, one of the things that we are doing is effectively saying nothing has a right to exist in the portfolio. Nobody, nobody has a, a manifest destiny to be part of your strategic allocation.
- [29:17]
Dave Nidig
Right.
- [29:19]
Cameron Dawson
Instead, everything has to stand on its own merit. Are we bullish this? Are we bearish this? And this, of course, is in a portfolio where we have the capacity to be more tactical. There are a lot of examples of where tacticalness does not serve you. Whether it's because of trading frictions, communication frictions, as well as taxes, very importantly. So if we have the capacity to be more tactical, it suggests to us then that as we're thinking about allocations, it makes sense. Like you're never going to get every call, right? So a certain degree of diversification is very important. But it also comes with the degree that you embrace that diversification has to be underwritten on its own merit. So you don't just automatically get 10% of your equity portfolio in some sub tier equity asset class. If you're going to allocate 10%, you have to have high conviction that it's the right asset class in the right move. The other thing that you and I have talked about, Dave, that has been a fascinating dynamic this year is pretty much every factor ETF has sucked. Like it's been a terrible year for smart beta factor ETFs. And you, you look at quality, for example, having its worst year on record since 1999. We look at these quality ETFs and the methodology, you go, okay, it kind of makes sense on the surface. But what happened is what that outputted. So things focusing on something like free cash flow yield, for example, which is a lot, what, you know, a lot of times what people will use as a, as an important quality metric ended up putting you in literally the worst search you could imagine from 2025. And so one of the things that we've been doing is saying, okay, you know, we are big proponents of quality in our actively managed portfolios, but we are not satisfied with how quality is being defined within a lot of these ETFs. And so we are going back through and saying how do we accomplish what we want through ETF form and the kind of stability what we want, really good downside capture, but still, you know, still relatively attractive upside capture. And so it's, it's an ongoing project. But Dave, I'm sure you, you have insights given the fact that you are, you are the guru.
- [31:58]
Matt Ziegler
I wanted to ask about this too, the quality ETF then, because this is.
- [32:01]
Dave Nidig
Yeah, I mean you're absolutely right. Most of the factory ETFs have, have absolutely snuck up the joint. Interesting. Some of the multi factor ETFs that were doing a little bit more tactical rotation did better. I think that speaks to how weird this year was.
- [32:15]
Matt Ziegler
Did they get flows? Are we seeing like, is anybody noticing that they're doing better though?
- [32:19]
Dave Nidig
Virtually no flows into any of the factor or smart beta stuff or really even to any of the sector stuff. Thematic ETFs have been on fire, but that's like AI infrastructure bets and you know, electrical generation and you know, all that stuff. Which legitimate way to think about the market, but very much a tactical headline calling kind of, kind of play there. So no, all those things suck. The only thing that's, the only thing that hasn't stunk is momentum. Right? Like, I mean we've been in a momentum market for, I don't know, since 23. It's been a while.
- [32:47]
Matt Ziegler
Two solid years of it pretty much.
- [32:49]
Cameron Dawson
Yeah. You know, Jeff DeGraff had a great stat, which I can't look up, but I, I will look up in our follow up. Effectively what he, he did is he went back through and said, okay, if you, he, he classified as, as a bubble, something that more than doubles in under two years. And so the question is what happens in year three? So if you more than double in under two years, what happens in year three? What's your probability of it going up another 20 to 50%? What's the probability of it being negative? And what he noted is that the Probability of it going up even further falls pretty significantly and then the probability of it going negative is actually rises significantly. And his argument is just know the game you're playing, right? Know the game you're playing and the starting point of what you're doing. Don't let the, don't let the recency bias sway how you approach the world.
- [33:48]
Dave Nidig
Then how do you think about 2026 not to, not to hold everybody's feet to the fire. But, you know, you look back on the last, since the last time we had a down year, which is three years ago, like, it's been straight up. I mean, yeah, we had a little bit of a hiccup, but it's real hard to get that upset about, like the minor hiccup we had in fall or April when it lasts for like.
- [34:07]
Matt Ziegler
The April one was a solid rotational hiccup, I feel like.
- [34:10]
Dave Nidig
But it was also a week long.
- [34:11]
Matt Ziegler
Oh, it was very, very short. But we saw some big declines. Yes, we're seeing that rotation. Yeah, yeah, we're seeing some of that rotation. And now, now too. But like, we've seen, like, I don't know, Nvidia.
- [34:22]
Dave Nidig
But my point is when we, when we sit here and we put up the client sheets for next year and we talk to them about how things went, we're going to look back on the last two years and say, wow, okay, that was a pretty, I mean, it's a pretty outlier two years in the S&P 500. If you put the last two years together, it is not a normal window of time. People made a lot of money. Does that change your positioning going forward when you look back and see that bigger return? Because your point, Cameron, you said like, you know, you got to sort of put the blinders on and look forward based on where reality is right now. Are you positive or negative on the market going into next year?
- [35:00]
Cameron Dawson
So defiantly neutral.
- [35:06]
Matt Ziegler
Defiant and neutral.
- [35:08]
Dave Nidig
Defiant, neutral.
- [35:09]
Matt Ziegler
Next week, anything could happen.
- [35:11]
Dave Nidig
And I stand by that.
- [35:14]
Matt Ziegler
Yes, we applaud your confidence.
- [35:16]
Cameron Dawson
So, you know, when I think about what we were expecting for 2025, we always publish the second week of January. The idea being we, we just want to know what consensus is and call it cheating or call it smart like that. That is what it is. Like, I, I, we're not, it's not like we're going to be making a bunch of trades in the first two weeks of the year anyway. And so why not understand where consensus shakes out instead of trying to be the first one out of the gate? So, and we call it the price is right rules. So when we, when we got to the, to the second week of January, read everybody's outlooks, the conclusion was, is that everybody's bullish. Everybody is so bullish on America. Everybody's so bullish on policy tailwinds. We thought people were underestimating the, the degree of uncertainty that was going to come out of Washington. We thought that equities would either have two paths. They'd either be in a wide choppy range with lots of volatility because the starting point was high valuations and pretty high earnings expectation. And we also thought you'd see a wide choppy range within yields. They wouldn't trend. You would just be going back and forth between ooh, bad inflation yields higher or ooh, bad growth yields lower. And you just kind of chop around. It's interesting how much of that is similar today. Meaning that I think you can make a very good argument for a higher volatility year. Of course, we got that at the start of 2025 and then, you know, all bets were off. And I think the reason why all bets were off is because people got really, really underweight the market over the course of March and into early April and have been just getting dragged kicking and screaming back into the market. And so you just get every dip being bought and bought and bought because people got into the first percentile, institutions got into the first percentile in April. So it's like you just had this wall of money that could come back in. So it's a bit of a, it's a challenge into next year where we're thinking like, gosh, it sounds so similar.
- [37:19]
Dave Nidig
Same.
- [37:20]
Cameron Dawson
Yeah, it sounds similar. But does it make it more right now that we're a year into it, that things are even more extreme? Valuations are more extreme, concentrations are more extreme. And I think the biggest question that we're having is that do you get some kind of blow off top where the things that have been strong continue to be strong and get to this, like just completely unsustainable extreme, or do you get a mean reversion into something that looks like your diversified portfolio finally works? One last point to your, to your point, Matt. You are seeing some rotations in the market and it feels like the rotations you usually get in January and February.
- [38:01]
Matt Ziegler
Yes, very strongly.
- [38:02]
Cameron Dawson
Right.
- [38:03]
Matt Ziegler
The late January, early February rotation feels like it's been going on since Thanksgiving or whatever.
- [38:08]
Cameron Dawson
And usually that doesn't happen, but usually you don't get such a strong September and October. And I wonder if we just Happen to like, like you know, back to the Future get to 88 and bump him. Jumped forward a couple of months and we had our Santa rally in September, October and now November. December is. We're getting our January, February rotation. Ronald Reagan, the actor also a bye bye.
- [38:41]
Matt Ziegler
I'm with you on that and I'm.
- [38:43]
Cameron Dawson
Sure with you just one question. The 88 and bump him. I don't know if that's a reference from the movie or just the ride at Universal which closed and was replaced by the San Francisco's ride. Okay, good. I know it's in the Universal ride.
- [38:55]
Dave Nidig
I've not been on the ride.
- [38:56]
Matt Ziegler
I was trying to place that if it's in the movie in my head and I'm like I think so 88 and bump him is in the.
- [39:01]
Cameron Dawson
You gotta get to 88 miles per hour and bump him. Yes, bump him. I believe it's just in the ride.
- [39:06]
Dave Nidig
Really? How do I know it then? Maybe it's weird.
- [39:09]
Matt Ziegler
I don't. Yeah. I don't know.
- [39:11]
Dave Nidig
Never been to universal.
- [39:12]
Matt Ziegler
All right, McFly hallucination. I'm with you on the. I feel like the, the right thing to do because. And you've said this before Cameron and I'm with you on this one too until you have like earnings rolling over in some meaningful way you're not going to have a sustained bear market. And that became still is like the biggest thing to watch where earnings. Where are projections? What are we feeling? Ed Yardani came on and said he thinks that the earnings are going to start rolling over for Mag7 and some of those. He thinks that quality comes back because of that. But to us that mostly just means more volume means just you have to have a proactive rebalancing strategy again and say to your point, everything has to earn its right to be here. Nothing is guaranteed to be in this portfolio. So if it's here, we have a reason why. We have a reason to think this as an upside bias. But that means when this gets shaken up, unless we have some totally dramatic throw out the playbook type scenario going on pressure rebalance like it's another year of pressing rebalance and going another way.
- [40:09]
Dave Nidig
It'S probably going up. Buy the dips.
- [40:11]
Matt Ziegler
Buy the dips.
- [40:11]
Cameron Dawson
Rebalance we've been calling it sure up the 60 right of. Of maybe if you think about it like as an octopus. Right. So when, when you're in a risk on environment you want your octopus arms as unfurled and taking advantage of all the different opportunities everywhere and that this might be the year that you want to be the octopus arms starting to come in a little bit. Meaning that understand where your leverage is. And we've been citing the stat that FINRA margin loans have grown 40% in the last six months. So you don't be overextended when it comes to leverage, but also don't be overextended when it comes to one theme again, the know what you own and why you own it. The stock isn't going up because it's a genius. The stock is going up because it has the momentum factor. Because you're a genius. Sorry.
- [41:02]
Dave Nidig
Right.
- [41:02]
Cameron Dawson
Stock is going up because there's momentum factor. And so I think avoiding that self attribution bias probably will be one of your biggest friends in 2026. I know that geniuses. You two are geniuses.
- [41:16]
Matt Ziegler
Three geniuses. I think we got to break into some extra special surprise topics. Anybody want to go first?
- [41:22]
Dave Nidig
Oh, I got one. Because I want to hear. I actually have a question for you. I'm going to go first, but then I want your answers. I want your favorite weird holiday tradition that's not one of the normal holiday traditions. And I'll go first. In our household, every year, everybody who's at Christmas morning, whatever it is, like usually it's just the family, but sometimes we get add ons or everybody gets a box the night before for Christmas Eve and the box has in it pajamas. Since the kids, like 20 something years now, the box just has a set of pajamas. And my wife started doing this when the kids were literally newts. And as soon as they were old enough to realize that the thing that they got the night before Christmas was always pajamas, which was like when they were three or four, they would be like, it's not pajamas, is it? And so ever since it has been not pajamas. So every Christmas they get their not pajamas backs box and every year it has pajamas in it. And now it's just a game where they're like, oh, I'm so glad it's not going to be pajamas this year. And every year it's pajamas. And it's my favorite stupid, unimportant family tradition. Except this year it's actually not pajamas, which I'm really excited about.
- [42:29]
Cameron Dawson
The first year ever.
- [42:30]
Dave Nidig
Yeah, we're doing, we're doing robes. They're all adults now. They don't need pants.
- [42:35]
Matt Ziegler
So that was my next question. How do you adjust this for.
- [42:38]
Dave Nidig
Okay, yes, like so you like, I don't throw a lot of clothes away. I don't need 10 sets of pajamas in My drawer.
- [42:45]
Cameron Dawson
Maybe you do for yourself.
- [42:47]
Dave Nidig
If you come to my house, I will make sure that you get the actual. Not pajamas. So anyway, you must have your own weird holiday traditions.
- [42:55]
Matt Ziegler
What do you. I'm still, I'm wrestling with this one because I think my Christmases have been reset multiple times in the last few years and it's like a whole new era is slowly forming. I'm stewing on this one more second. Cameron.
- [43:08]
Cameron Dawson
I, I have two. I have two. The first one is my dad. Every year for Christmas, since I can remember, has been making a cocktail that we, we have now as we're adults, that we, that we drink on on Christmas morning. And it's called a ramisgen fizz. But his ramisgen fizz is not at all what I think any other Ramos Gin fizzes. And it's, it's frozen lemonade and rose water and gin and an egg white. And it, it's this like blender concoction. But you're literally drinking like gin and lemonade with egg whites at 9 in the morning.
- [43:49]
Matt Ziegler
In the morning.
- [43:50]
Cameron Dawson
And this is like, this is before any children show up. And like, you know, the fire's going and this is Florida.
- [43:58]
Dave Nidig
That's commitment.
- [43:59]
Cameron Dawson
And it's so much commitment. And then like, like by 10am you kind of have this shake, right? Like you're like the anxiety is setting in. And this gets to. My second favorite Christmas tradition is that for whatever reason, the family has always given gifts from our dead animals. So instead of saying that the gift is from mom or dad, what, what it will say is like this gift that my dad is giving my mom is from Squeeper, a cat that died 50 years ago.
- [44:34]
Matt Ziegler
Just amazingly dark.
- [44:36]
Dave Nidig
Oh my God. It's like a little pet cemetery.
- [44:38]
Matt Ziegler
Have you done this since you were a kid?
- [44:39]
Cameron Dawson
Ever since I was a kid. So I've been, I've been, I've been getting Christmas gifts from dead animals since I was a child. And so now it's like every time you write it, like I am, I'm going to wrap my grandmother's Christmas gift and it will be from her favorite cat, Rocky. And like who's been dead for five years. And yeah.
- [45:02]
Dave Nidig
Do you write thank you notes? It's like, that's worse.
- [45:06]
Matt Ziegler
So you get all dead animals ginned.
- [45:11]
Cameron Dawson
Up and then you get gifts from dead animals and it maybe it is like kind of like a seance and it makes it feel like they're there. I don't, and I don't know how this tradition started, but like, we, like, my. My parents had, you know, had cats from 50 years ago, and. And they're still giving gifts.
- [45:29]
Dave Nidig
Amazing. Amazing.
- [45:31]
Matt Ziegler
I mean, that's incredible.
- [45:34]
Dave Nidig
I can't.
- [45:35]
Matt Ziegler
I can't even begin to touch this. Damn. I mean, we got proper ginned up. So my. My. My gram is still with us. My pop up, who's not. They have the version of the.
- [45:47]
Dave Nidig
What did you say?
- [45:47]
Matt Ziegler
The gin fizzy. Whatever it's called.
- [45:49]
Cameron Dawson
Famous gin fizz.
- [45:50]
Matt Ziegler
Okay. So their version, they have their. Their eggnog, and it's like proprietary eggnog that they supposedly tested through multiple batches and iterations, which if you ask any of my mom or her siblings, they're like, oh, they would get proper, like, annihilated maintenance, because you're sampling as you go to get, like, the thing. But literally the list, which I'm sworn I've been able to look at, I do not possess a copy of. I think on her passing, I inherit a copy of the list of, like, the sacred family eggnog. But I'm pretty sure the entire secret is just like, you get completely blitzed when you. And it's one of those things.
- [46:27]
Dave Nidig
75% bourbon. That's what it works.
- [46:30]
Matt Ziegler
Oh, no. Like, 64 alcoholic beverages are mixed inside of this. It's. It's intense. And it's one of those things that if anyone else is ever around, like, my wife, like, one of, like, the first Christmases. And it's like, oh, we're gonna have a little eggnog. And it's like, I need to, like. This is a surgeon general's warning before you take that sip. It's going to be delicious. But I will be carrying you home.
- [46:53]
Dave Nidig
You might want to sit down.
- [46:55]
Matt Ziegler
Yeah. I'll be carrying you at home at 10am if you're not careful with this. Oh, God.
- [47:00]
Cameron Dawson
We used to always do. We would go to the. To the nativity show that they would do on Christmas Eve at the. At the local Methodist church. And it was really fun because, like, it wasn't serious because there's. There's like 40 Josephs and, you know, and 20 Marys, like, with babies. And then of course, you have the barn animals and the. The. It would just be like leftover Halloween costumes. So invariably there'd be like a dragon and an alligator, like, sitting in the barn. It was great. And the tradition became. Is that we would have martinis before going.
- [47:37]
Matt Ziegler
So that's. I like your family.
- [47:41]
Dave Nidig
The Florida Christmas scene is, like, heavily alcohol.
- [47:44]
Matt Ziegler
This is crazy.
- [47:45]
Cameron Dawson
Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yeah.
- [47:48]
Matt Ziegler
All right. Yeah, this is good. And you know, outside of. We're like, Love, actually. Fantastic Christmas movie where they have in the. The weird. I also went to a lot of those Christmas Eve, like, Methodist church things where you have 40 Josephs and you're okay.
- [48:04]
Dave Nidig
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [48:05]
Matt Ziegler
The lobster, the octopus in there. I'm like, sure. Makes sense. You gotta have the kid who's doing that.
- [48:10]
Dave Nidig
Totally. All right.
- [48:11]
Matt Ziegler
I like where this is going. Cameron, you want to go next or I got something too.
- [48:15]
Cameron Dawson
Oh, you go first.
- [48:16]
Matt Ziegler
Okay. So this is my. My way more base one than the weird. Weird thing. I'm curious, like, favorite Christmas movie. What's the fallback holiday? Comfort. I want the comfort movie. I want the one that's like, I might watch this twice, if not three times.
- [48:32]
Dave Nidig
Home Alone.
- [48:34]
Matt Ziegler
Amazing.
- [48:35]
Cameron Dawson
That gives me too much anxiety.
- [48:37]
Matt Ziegler
Really?
- [48:38]
Cameron Dawson
I can't watch it.
- [48:39]
Matt Ziegler
What were you left behind at many Christmases? No, what's the anxiety? People breaking into your house.
- [48:46]
Cameron Dawson
That. That. Yeah.
- [48:48]
Dave Nidig
And the people getting hurt. Like, I get that. But like, with the kids, they laughed. It's so freaking hard for me. Like, if it was just my wife and I, we watch Love, actually every night while we wrap presents before we go to bed. And the kids are in bed. Right. So, like, we'd always watch Love actually. You know, one o' clock in the morning on Christmas Day. That's awesome. Now you're sitting on the couch with your back hurting, trying to wrap presents.
- [49:09]
Matt Ziegler
Good.
- [49:09]
Dave Nidig
Time for it.
- [49:10]
Cameron Dawson
I've never been a big Christmas person.
- [49:13]
Dave Nidig
Well.
- [49:14]
Matt Ziegler
Cause you're so drunk.
- [49:16]
Dave Nidig
Based on the story from your.
- [49:19]
Cameron Dawson
No, it became more of a thing as, like, we turned it into a drinking holiday. And so then it became really fun.
- [49:25]
Matt Ziegler
From a family of subclinical alcoholics and subclinical. Many clinical. Actually, I can relate to this, but still.
- [49:34]
Cameron Dawson
But one of my favorite things to do at any dinner party or. No, I'm answering my question. You're. I'm answering your question. You're supposed to be on Christmas Christmas movies. Well, I do love them up at Christmas Carol. And so I am writing a piece this week themed around the Muppet Christmas Carol because I think it. It may or may not be the greatest Christmas movie of all time.
- [49:54]
Dave Nidig
It's certainly the best version of the Christmas Carol ever.
- [49:57]
Cameron Dawson
Yes.
- [49:58]
Matt Ziegler
Without heavily agreed on that.
- [49:59]
Dave Nidig
Yes.
- [50:00]
Cameron Dawson
Yes, I do love. And I can't believe I'm admitting this in public, I do love the Hallmark Christmas movies, but not the Netflix knockoff of Hallmark Christmas movies, but like the OG Hallmark Christmas movies where, you know, a Burly firefighter rescues a kitten.
- [50:21]
Dave Nidig
And there's a Connecticut. Yeah, yeah.
- [50:24]
Cameron Dawson
And there's a cookie baking contest. But the world is ending because we run out of sprinkles. If I'm baking Christmas cookies, that's what I want on. Because there's no conflict. There's nothing that gives me anxiety. I know how it ends. It's perfect. But I hate the Netflix knockoffs.
- [50:42]
Dave Nidig
That's fair. That's fair. All right.
- [50:44]
Matt Ziegler
Accidentally autoplayed for us, I don't know, a year or two ago. And we were like traumatized by 10 minutes in. We're like, what just came on and why is this happening? And I was like, how is this a fascination people have? I'm throwing mine in. By far the favorite in my household since growing up. It's just like a long standing family tradition is white Christmas. The original Gimme Bing Crosby and Danny K and Vera Ellen and Rosemary Clooney.
- [51:09]
Dave Nidig
It's great dancers, great singing, great songs. Yeah.
- [51:12]
Matt Ziegler
The dancing, you can't beat it. The songs, you can't beat it. And it's just, I have, I have probably watched that, seen that, listened to that every single year of my life since the year I was born.
- [51:24]
Dave Nidig
That's awesome.
- [51:25]
Matt Ziegler
And it's the. To me that's the. When I'm finally in, it's Christmas season. I have to watch that at least. Usually at least like twice, if not three times. And it's put it on in the background. Everything is okay in the world. As I watch that super bizarre, interesting love story unfolds. Love it. What do you got, Cameron? Give us something.
- [51:44]
Cameron Dawson
If it's not Christmas, what is the favorite holiday?
- [51:47]
Matt Ziegler
Oh, I like this clip.
- [51:50]
Cameron Dawson
I like Easter for me, I like Easter because there's no pressure and it's just make a big meal and like all of the colors are pastels and pretty. There's hope and optimism. The days are getting longer and there's bunny rabbits. And we have a great. My dad and I have a great Easter tradition where he hides eggs for me. And so he used to hide them and forget where he hid them. And so it became a thing where like we couldn't find the eggs.
- [52:22]
Matt Ziegler
So what he started in these eggs.
- [52:24]
Cameron Dawson
Like little piece of money, like little, you know, like dollar money candies. And so one year instead, or actually it's happened a few years, he decided to do a scavenger hunt. And the thing is, my dad's brain works in a, in a very specific way, as does mine. And my. I would read the clue and the Clue was completely unfollowable. And then I'd sit there for a second. My mom would. Would be in the background being good. That makes no sense. I go, I know exactly what that is. And run to the next one.
- [52:54]
Matt Ziegler
We had this psychoanalyze him.
- [52:56]
Cameron Dawson
You're like, great esp.
- [52:57]
Matt Ziegler
Get in his head.
- [52:58]
Cameron Dawson
And then one last. One last Easter story is. There was the year that my nephews were doing the Easter egg hunt. And we have a cat that had never hunted before, never caught a bunny, but just decided. Decided that the right time to kill a bunny and leave it on the. On the, like in the front area was on Easter morning. And my dad is filming and you hear my nephew's blood curdling scream. Hey, girl. The Easter bunny. And it was such comedic gold. It was beautiful. So there's my. That's my. My Christmas alternative.
- [53:35]
Matt Ziegler
Not just that. Does this cat give Christmas presents now from beyond the grave?
- [53:39]
Cameron Dawson
Oh, yeah, he's dead now. Yeah, he's dead now. So he's. He. He's having a big bunny.
- [53:43]
Dave Nidig
The bunny doesn't get present. Bunny never had it.
- [53:45]
Cameron Dawson
Didn't name the bunny. We didn't name the money. But this guy.
- [53:47]
Matt Ziegler
The rabbit has died. The rabbit has risen. The rabbit will gift again.
- [53:53]
Dave Nidig
Oh, my gosh. So Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite generic other holiday of the year, but mostly just because it's. It's food and it's people. And, you know, I think that that's just great. My actual sort of favorite religious celebration is Tenebrae, which is three days before Easter, and it celebrates when the sealing of Jesus's tomb. And in the Episcopal tradition, you do an overnight vigil where you read just like a thousand psalms, very monotone. It's a very monastic tradition. And then in the middle of the service, which is generally in the middle of the night, the service closes by everything being dark and a giant noise being made. Traditionally, you take the church Bible and you go to the top of the loft and you drop it so that it goes wham. It makes this in that big echo. And then everybody walks out in the echo. Nobody talks. And that's just really cool. So it's a very mystic Christian tradition that it's like I'm all about. I've also done this. There's a version in Buddhism called the Fort for the Buddha's birthday, which is somewhat similar without the big giant noise at the end.
- [55:00]
Cameron Dawson
Abercrombie kids is bringing the cheer all holiday season and the gifts too. No matter how long their wish list is. There's always room for just one more.
- [55:09]
Commercial Narrator
Whether it's a new winter coat, an.
- [55:10]
Cameron Dawson
Extra pair of jeans, or cozy matching sweatsets. Get gifting with looks they've been waiting for all year.
- [55:16]
Commercial Narrator
Shop Abercrombie kids in the app online and in stores. Experience a membership that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum. Get 2 times Membership Rewards points per dollar on eligible purchases in key business categories, as well as on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more on up to $2 million in eligible purchases per calendar year. American Express Business Platinum there's nothing like it. Terms apply. Learn more@americanexpress.com Business Platinum.
- [56:00]
Matt Ziegler
The Walking out in silence is pretty awesome. I'm with you on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving's my favorite in the sense that it's just, it's gathering with no.
- [56:10]
Dave Nidig
There'S.
- [56:10]
Matt Ziegler
Just nothing attached to it.
- [56:11]
Dave Nidig
Nobody owns it.
- [56:13]
Matt Ziegler
Nobody owns it. Nobody. I love the like the rotating locations. We've done it in the family at different people's houses and different experiences and people might own the holiday for like a stretch, but it comes with all like the goofy stuff like grandma forever forgetting the onions in the microwave and then that becoming a holiday tradition unto itself that you have to forget something and bringing it out at an inopportune time so we can all laugh about it and remember her. I love Thanksgiving for that on the holiday one. And you made me think of this. One of my favorite Christmas related traditions that I just, I still think about all the time is we would do in the weird Methodist Presbyterian hybrid church I had because two churches down the street each other got wiped out in a flood and then decided to rebuild even though none of their governmental hierarchies matched. They built this Frankenstein church together and that was the church that I grew up in, which Frankenstein. All sorts.
- [57:08]
Dave Nidig
Perfect.
- [57:09]
Matt Ziegler
It's a Franken church. We would do the candles. Did you guys do the candles like in the, the Christmas Eve mat? Oh yeah, yeah.
- [57:17]
Cameron Dawson
That's how we found out my sister was a pyro because she burned down.
- [57:21]
Matt Ziegler
On midnight, did the church.
- [57:22]
Cameron Dawson
She's like staring at the dress, at the, at the candle flame with this, just this wonder and desire in her eyes.
- [57:28]
Dave Nidig
I remember my, my daughter sitting there with the candle, turning it sideways and just letting the wax drip in her hand. And I was like, oh, you're going to be a goth girl. You're totally goth girl.
- [57:39]
Matt Ziegler
This is the way you, this is the way you find out.
- [57:41]
Dave Nidig
Yep.
- [57:41]
Matt Ziegler
I, I learned a lesson from my, I don't think he was, it was around the time I was in sixth grade and it was like my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Sobasinski, no longer with us, and it was like I got to like, the back pew. Like, I was in charge of like, lighting the candles at the end of the pews for a bunch of people. And then you pass them down because that's the whole passing of the light metaphor is like the big part of it. And I like, maybe I started with airline or whatever, and there's Mr. Sobasinski at the end of the end of the thing, and he just like, holds up his candle to light it and I kind of like, do I tip? Like, what's. Like, what are you doing here? Just holding this up at me and I go to tip. And of course, the wax now is like coming off. And he's like, what are you doing, kid? He like, crashly. And he pulls it up and he's like, ah, we're gonna get this right for the rest of your, like, walk down this aisle. And there was something about the way he corrected me on that that was actually both firm and also kind of like gentle and educational. And it was all like. He made me do that. And then he was like, okay, now you're going to help my wife. He would bring his wife. His wife was not well. I don't know if it was dementia or what it was, but it was like he still brought her to everything. And it was really sweet and touching. And I remember just thinking, like, all right, something like that. I want to be something like that when I grow up and make people feel that way. It's a great brand. All right, guys, it's the end of the year. It's been an absolute ball. Dave, you've got that piece out on sell America.
- [59:03]
Dave Nidig
Yeah. ETF.com sell America or you can find it on Twitter or LinkedIn or any of those places.
- [59:08]
Matt Ziegler
Bug Dave in all the places. Cameron, what about you? When's the Christmas carol muppet piece?
- [59:13]
Cameron Dawson
Oh, this will come out. It'll be Saturday today or Saturday the 20th.
- [59:18]
Matt Ziegler
So yes, Saturday the 20th. Make sure this comes out probably on, say, the website.
- [59:23]
Cameron Dawson
New Edge, newedge wealth.com.
- [59:25]
Matt Ziegler
Perfect. All right, guys, thanks. I hope there's 10 any good.
- [59:31]
Dave Nidig
Check out all of Matt Ziegler's stuff and cultish creative and all of the various offshoots of that perseant. Panoptica.
- [59:38]
Matt Ziegler
Yeah, check out all that stuff. Panoptica.com culturescreative.com I've got lots of things going on. You guys are the best. I want to wish you both. Happy Holidays.
- [59:46]
Dave Nidig
Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas.
- [59:49]
Matt Ziegler
All right, you're watching Excess Returns, like Click subscribe all those things below and we are out.
- [59:53]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Thank you for tuning in to this episode. If you found this discussion interesting and valuable, please subscribe on your favorite audio platform or on YouTube. You can also follow all the podcasts in the Excess returns network@excessreturnspod.com if you have any feedback or questions, you can contact us@excessreturnspodmail.com no information on this podcast.
- [60:13]
Matt Ziegler
Should be be construed as investment advice.
- [60:16]
Commercial Narrator
Securities discussed in the podcast may be.
- [60:18]
Matt Ziegler
Holdings of the firms of the hosts or their clients.