Is It Time To Dump International Stocks? (SB1647)

Summary

Summary of "Is It Time To Dump International Stocks? (SB1647)"

Podcast: The Stacking Benjamins Show
Host: Joe Saul-Sehy
Guests: OG, Paula Pant (Afford Anything), Jesse Kramer (Personal Finance for Long Term Investors)
Release Date: February 21, 2025

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Introduction to the Discussion

In episode SB1647 titled "Is It Time To Dump International Stocks?", hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG engage with financial experts Paula Pant and Jesse Kramer to dissect the recent underperformance of international stocks compared to U.S. markets. The conversation delves into the merits and drawbacks of maintaining international exposure in investment portfolios amidst evolving economic landscapes.

Performance of International Stocks

Joe Saul-Sehy kicks off the discussion by referencing a blog post by Nick Magiulli, which questions the viability of international funds given their trailing performance over the past decade. The central debate revolves around whether investors should continue holding international stocks or reallocate their investments.

Joe Saul-Sehy [12:51]: "We can't predict when the tides will turn, so why arbitrarily exclude a significant portion of the global economy?"

Paula Pant counters by emphasizing the importance of diversification, noting that international exposure historically mitigates portfolio volatility by balancing U.S.-centric market risks.

Paula Pant [09:19]: "Diversification and having a mix of assets that have low correlation with one another—there's some meat to that."

Diversification vs. Performance

OG argues that excluding international stocks is akin to ignoring other asset classes, such as small-cap stocks or commodities, that also exhibit periods of underperformance. He underscores the unpredictable nature of market cycles and the intrinsic value of a diversified portfolio.

OG [10:28]: "The benefit of diversification is you get all of the return of all of the stocks without having to guess what's going to do well."

Jesse Kramer adds that asset allocation should align with individual financial goals and risk tolerance, advocating for maintaining a balanced approach rather than reacting to short-term performance metrics.

Jesse Kramer [25:11]: "The only logical solution is to always be invested the same way all the time. Then, over your lifetime, you'll work out to have a good outcome."

Evaluating Asset Classes

The panel expands the discussion to other asset classes beyond international equities. Jesse Kramer highlights his avoidance of collectibles and private equity due to their lack of intrinsic cash flow and liquidity constraints.

Jesse Kramer [37:19]: "I don't own baseball cards in my portfolio because I don't understand the intrinsic cash flowing value that comes from owning a baseball card."

Paula Pant shares her investment strategy, which includes a barbell allocation that avoids intermediate-risk assets like bonds, focusing instead on either highly risky or entirely safe investments.

Paula Pant [50:24]: "I have a barbell allocation. I don't hold bonds. I want my money to either be highly risky or totally safe."

OG reinforces the importance of aligning investment choices with long-term financial plans, dismissing trends that suggest shifting away from diversified portfolios without substantial reasoning.

OG [46:10]: "What's the purpose of this investment in my overall portfolio?"

Key Takeaways

1. Diversification Remains Crucial: Despite recent underperformance, international stocks play a vital role in mitigating risk through diversification.
2. Asset Allocation Should Align with Goals: Investors should prioritize their financial goals and risk tolerance over short-term market fluctuations when deciding on asset classes.
3. Avoid Market Timing: Attempting to time the market by excluding entire asset classes based on recent performance can lead to missed opportunities and increased portfolio volatility.
4. Evaluate Investment Based on Intrinsic Value: Investments should be chosen based on their alignment with long-term goals and intrinsic value rather than speculative trends.

Notable Quotes

• Joe Saul-Sehy [12:51]: "Why arbitrarily exclude a third of the economy or 40% of the world economy and say I don't want to invest in that anymore."
• OG [10:28]: "You get all of the return of all of the stocks without having to guess what's going to do well."
• Jesse Kramer [25:11]: "The only logical solution is to always be invested the same way all the time."
• Paula Pant [50:24]: "I have a barbell allocation. I don't hold bonds."

Conclusion

The episode concludes with the consensus that maintaining a diversified portfolio, including international equities, is essential for long-term financial health. The panelists advocate for steadfast investment strategies aligned with personal goals rather than reactive measures to market performance. Listeners are encouraged to evaluate their asset allocations thoughtfully, ensuring that each investment serves a clear purpose in their overall financial plan.

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For more insights and detailed discussions, visit StackingBenjamins.com and follow the hosts on their social media platforms.

Transcript

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Doug]

My God, Dukes are going to corner the entire frozen orange juice market. Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and let's talk investing. International funds have trailed us returns now for years. So can we finally toss that dumpster fire in the trash? We'll ask our roundtable of top minds. Top minds I say. And of course, what do we do when we get these three around a set of mics? We ask them trivia questions to see who's going to win our year long trivia competition. And now here's a guy who thinks the only thing more volatile than the stock market is our contributors trivia answers. It's Joe Osawci.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Hey there Stackers And Happy Friday to you. And they are, Doug. They're all over the place. I'm super excited that we're here today. Speaking of all over the place, we're going to talk about investing today. We even just hit the investing button straight on in a little while. So this is going to be a lot of fun. And let's say hello to the funsters themselves, starting with the guy across the card table from me. The funster OG is here. How are you, man?

[OG]

Oh, I'm just living the dream. One cup of coffee at a time.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Cup of coffee at 8 o'clock at night is definitely a scotch. Oh, perfect.

[OG]

They cancel each other out.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's perfect.

[OG]

And like yin and yang, it's just math.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's science. It's totally science. Yes. And the woman who's fighting it out every day in Manhattan from the Afford Anything podcast, Paula Pant, joins us. How are you?

[Paula Pant]

Oh, I'm good. So I am drinking a mug of bone broth. It's.

[OG]

Hey.

[Paula Pant]

Oh, yeah, it's. You take cattle bones, roast them in the oven, and then slow cook them for 24 hours and then boom, bone broth.

[Doug]

You sound like a murderer.

[OG]

So there I was, assassinating cows, carving up their bones.

[Doug]

I am now terrified of Paula Pant.

[OG]

She's watching too many Dexter shows.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, Paula Hannibal Lecter Pant, we call her. And the guy who's, well, he's got a snowscape outside his window because he's in the frozen tundra of the great New York North. Mr. Jesse Kramer's here. How are you, man?

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm, I'm doing okay. I'm coming over a little cold. And since we're all sharing what we're drinking, I've got some Purell that I've been guzzling down. 90 kills 99.99 of germs.

[OG]

The third nine that gets you there.

[Jesse Kramer]

But other than that, things are good. Things are good.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Science it is.

[Jesse Kramer]

It's that 1 in 10,000 germ that I've been infected with. But we're feeling better. We're feeling a lot better.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Jesse, this show goes live on the 21st. Have you renamed your show yet? Can you tell anybody what it is?

[Jesse Kramer]

Episode 100 was published today, the day that we're talking here, the day we're recording. And this is a. You know, I might have alluded to the fact that the title change was kind of for SEO purposes. Okay. Which some, some of you listening might understand, some might not. The podcast, you're just calling it the.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Joe Selse High podcast, aren't you?

[Doug]

It's the Amazon Google Money podcast.

[Jesse Kramer]

Oh, I tell you, it's. It's Jay Kramer Investing. No, it's. It's called Personal Finance for Long Term Investors, which I know sounds super plain, but that's kind of the point. So that's what the podcast is now called. Personal Finance for Long Term Investors.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Personal Finance for Long Term Investors. Is there like a PFF lti? Could we just call PFF lti?

[Jesse Kramer]

It rolls right off the top.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

PFFLTI Show. Yes.

[Doug]

You need a master.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The man behind the pfalti podcast. Jesse Kramer's here. That's so good. Doug, what's your new podcast gonna be called?

[Doug]

I would like a Nap.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Best. Best name ever.

[Doug]

It's not, which sounds boring, but that's kind of the point.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Nap with Doug.

[Jesse Kramer]

Nap with Doug.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Perfect and creepy all rolled into one. We got a great show today. You know, international investing for over the last decade has really never been on the top of the charts when it comes to different asset classes. And so the question on everybody's mind and what inspired this discussion was a piece from the amazing Nick Magi, who was just on our show about a month ago. But Nick asked the question. Tom, it's time to finally dump international investing. We're going to ask our esteemed panel today. But before we do that, we have some sponsors that make sure that this show is free. You don't have to pay for any of this. Goodness. While you're taking out the international fund trash, you can just focus on that. We're going to hear from them right now. Say hello to them. And then we're going to talk international investments and other asset classes. What asset classes? Do our Pantle.

[Jesse Kramer]

Our Pantle, that's the name of my podcast, Los Pantolones.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

What. What asset class?

[Paula Pant]

That's when you get all of my family on a panel.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The Paula Pant. Yes. Does our panel not really pay much attention to or do they stay away from. We're going to talk about that. So let's get this started. Small business owners. State farms there with small business insurance to fit your specific needs. Whether you're starting a new venture or growing an existing one. State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options. Offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business. Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. State Farm here to help you succeed with your business. Like a good neighbor State Farm is there. Well, Stackers, this episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. At Navy Federal, our mission is to help members of the military, veterans and their families achieve their financial goals. And that's why we offer great savings and investing options like our certificates. Certificates come with sky high rates and some even have the flexibility to add money anytime during your term. Whether you're saving for a home, a new car, or your future, our options could help you get there. And certificates are just the beginning. Navy Federal also provides financial advisors to help you manage your investment portfolio, along with online tools to guide your savings plan. With our support, you'll have everything you need to take charge of your finances. So don't wait. The sooner you start building your financial future with Navy Federal Savings and investing options, the better off you could be in the long run. Sign up@navy federal.org Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission Savings products insured by NCUA Investment products are not insured, not obligations at Navy Federal and may lose value As I mentioned, the inspiration for today's piece comes to us from Nick Magiulli. It's the of Dollars and Data blog and if my computer was running quickly at all, I would read to you from the blog. But the big point here right now, Polypant, is that over the last decade, International International really has been that thing in your portfolio that makes sure that you're mediocre.

[Paula Pant]

Exactly, exactly. So Nick even talked about how he has held international funds for his entire journey as an investor and that has meant that he's had lower returns than he otherwise would have had. That being said, the premise of judging a fund based on its recent performance, even if that recent performance is a decade based on the principle of do you want these in your portfolio? I think that is something to suss out because performance even over the span of a decade can be based on some short term factors. But the the notion behind diversification and having some a mix of assets that have low correlation with one another. There's some meat to that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh gee. It's interesting because Paul is talking about using international for diversification and yet there's other asset classes that we don't care about when it comes to diversification. Is International any different than some of the other asset classes? We might talk about that. We decide not to.

[OG]

What asset classes don't you use?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, let's talk about which ones you don't use. I don't think you use commodities in your allocation.

[OG]

No, but the companies that do the commodities are certainly There. So we won't invest in gold, for example, but the company that manufactures or mines it would be a part of the portfolio. We don't invest in oil wells, but ExxonMobil or whatever would be a part of the portfolio. The benefit of diversification is, and especially when it comes to the idea of just asset class investing is you get all of the return of all of the stocks. You don't have to guess what's going to do well. I don't know why anybody would want to play that game, especially if you look at big, broad areas of the economy like us versus International. I would just anytime somebody says, well, I don't want to invest in international because it hasn't done well, I just want to put that on the next level extreme and go, well, why should we invest in anything other than the Mag 7? Those are the only ones that have gone up. Why would we invest in anything other than the S&P 500? It's like, well, because it's not always going to be this way. And I can't prove nor predict when that change might happen. But I guarantee when it does happen, it's not going to be foreshadowed. It'll be like in the rearview mirror, you'll look and go, wow, I'm sure glad I own some of Chile. They did awesome. I'm sure glad I have some emerging market or international because the US Sucks all of a sudden. For whatever reason, it's in a recession and Europe is banger. So glad I own some of that. It's no different than you would say with any other asset class. So I don't know why you would just arbitrarily throw out, you know, a third of the economy or 40% of the world economy and say, I don't want to invest in that anymore.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Jesse, as an asset class, do you look at convertible stocks?

[Jesse Kramer]

Convertible stocks like Chrysler Sebring with a roof down.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's exactly what I'm talking about.

[Doug]

Fine vehicle, Ford Mustangs.

[Jesse Kramer]

The short answer is no, Joe, not really.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So then how come I'm just going to assume that you agree with Paula and OG the international you shouldn't throw away. How come? Ostensibly you've thrown away convertibles.

[Jesse Kramer]

Well, isn't convertible like a share class? Like you can take something and it's an asset class.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's a hybrid between stocks and bonds. Right?

[Jesse Kramer]

Stocks and bonds, right. Well, you've got a fixed income with a lotto ticket attached to it. I think that's how Buffett talks about it. You get Some sort of fixed income. Are we on the same timing here?

[OG]

Sorry, I think you answered your own question, Jesse. That's why I don't include it. It's not a thing. Convertibles, I would argue, is not an asset class. It's an amalgamation of a derivative of an asset class. It's smoke and mirrors. It's saying, well, I want this safety in exchange and I'll. And I'll pay for this safety with the hope that this turns into something, you know, also fixed income sucks. So let's go back to you.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Okay, There we go. Oh, gee. How about fixed income? Let's say. Let's say bonds as an asset class.

[OG]

I mean, we're talking about US versus international in terms of equities. You're not talking about debt. And philosophically, if we owned fixed income, I would also say you should own international fixed income also. Yes, I do think so. Because you can't predict the ebbs and flows of interest rates or US dollar versus Euros or yens or whatever any different than you can predict what's going to happen with the US stock versus an international stock. If you invested in fixed income as part of your portfolio, let's say you were a 60, 40 average investor. Right, that 40% of debt. Yeah. It should be diversified as well in big companies and small companies and, you know, highly leveraged ones and nice and secure ones and just the same way that you would do it for your equity investing.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula, what I found interesting about this piece was that Nick kind of parses between international stocks where the headquarters is international. That's one thing. Getting international exposure, you can get that by staying in the U.S. yeah, it's true.

[Paula Pant]

So the U.S. is generally many large multinational U.S. companies have footprints overseas. So if you think of Nike, Coca Cola, Google, these are all major companies that have big footprints overseas. The US Is not a huge exporter, but we do have locations everywhere. On one hand, it does give us some international exposure. On the other hand, it isn't exactly the same in that it more so poses a risk to the US Companies in terms of how they will be taxed and treated by the foreign entity in which they are located. Yes, they have exposure to that consumer market, but they're also subject to the laws and the regulations of the country in which they reside. And there's that whole set of circumstances is in many ways fundamentally different than a company launching elsewhere and then deciding to put an ancillary footprint in the.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

U.S. jesse, do you own any international positions in your portfolio?

[Jesse Kramer]

100%.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I do 100% international YOLO.

[Jesse Kramer]

No, I own in my stock allocation. I mean roughly speaking, you can think of it as being market cap weighted. Meaning like right now about 60% of the entire global stock market is US and somewhere between 60 and 70% of my stock portfolio is US. And the other call it 30 to 40% is international.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, yeah. Paula, what percentage of your portfolio is international?

[Paula Pant]

I don't know the exact percent, but I would guess probably ballpark. 15. 15 to 20 ish.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh gee, how about you?

[OG]

I think globally we're probably 20 or 25. Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Does it surprise you, Jesse, that Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, said that he doesn't own any non US stocks?

[Jesse Kramer]

Yes, it does. Only because one thing I was going to talk about today is his famous speech about the iron rule of investing, which is a reversion to the mean. And it's an amazing paper. If anyone listening hasn't read it, it's definitely worth reading John Bogle's paper on that where he just talks about it's, it's, it's filled with all this amazing data that shows that outperformance never lasts forever and that periods of outperformance are always followed by periods of underperformance. And that is the reversion to the mean. Everything comes back to average. And it goes back to what Og was saying earlier that you know, you can't always tell when. And just because something has outperformed for a long time doesn't mean it's going to start underperforming tomorrow, you know, and referring there to, you know, the S&P 500 or large cap, US stocks or whatever you want, whatever you want to say.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Why do you think he goes against that then with his, with his own money saying yeah, I mean I, I understand version of the mean, but I'm not going to own any.

[Jesse Kramer]

Sure. I mean for Jack Bogle, does it make a difference? I mean it probably doesn't make a difference at some point. You know what I mean? It's, he's a multi, he, he was before he passed away a multi billionaire. Probably doesn't matter whether he owned US stocks or not. He was going to be okay.

[OG]

It's the same thing that Markowitz said about asset allocation. He knew that the right answer was 100% equities until he invested 5050 because human nature is human nature. It's like if you ask US investors how much money is in the US the vast majority is. If you ask Danish investors how much is in Denmark, they'll say the vast majority is. If you ask UK investors how much is invested in the uk the vast majority is there's a significant home bias everywhere you go. That's uniform in almost every market and economy, which is why most people are comfortable with investing in the U.S. when you talk to U.S. investors, it's like, we're here, we know what we know. I have a certain feel about, you know, the companies that are here and, you know, for good or for bad. I think a lot of people have that bent, no matter where they are in the world, to what they know. I mean, hell, there was a whole. Who's the investor that said that? Invest in what? You know, like Peter Lynch.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Peter Lynch, Yeah.

[OG]

It's like, okay, I don't know anything about Nvidia, but I'm hella glad I got some.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And to clarify too, because he, he also said all the time that he gets misquoted on that, that people, you know, people think, okay, I use Heinz ketchup, so I'm gonna buy, you know, yeah, I'm gonna buy that. He's like, that should just, just be the top of your funnel. Like that is. That's what you start with and then whittle your way down to what an actual good investment would be. If we get all of it. It is amazing, Paula, digging into Nick's data here, that the rise of the United States over the past many, many, many years, well, 1990 to present, truly the two times where the US is kicked ass, and maybe we've been more prone to have this conversation, is when US Tech stocks are absolutely, absolutely rocking. Is the fact that we're having this conversation now and the fact that it's on everybody's mind, does that immediately make you think, talking about reversion the mean this is the wrong time to be having this conversation?

[Paula Pant]

You mean, does the conversation around should we be investing in international stocks reflect either exuberance or distrust, depending on the position that you take about the tech sector specifically.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

About tech, specifically.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, certainly right now, if you're going to use recency bias. Yeah, absolutely. You can in some ways conflate the overall US Stock market with the tech sector because there is such heavy current overlap. That being said, some of the most innovative projects that we've seen come out of other countries are also tech projects. I mean, look at Deepseek that came out of China.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Never heard of it.

[Paula Pant]

And so what types of companies? We Talked earlier about U.S. companies that have footprints overseas. The tech sector specifically does not need to have a footprint anywhere. It is by definition digital. And so there's likely going to be a lot of tech sector innovation coming from China, not just China, but from many countries around the globe. And so I don't think international exposure gets you away from it. If anything, depending on specifically the region you invest in, it might get you deeper into it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

What do you think, Jesse, when you hear these people on TV talking about valuations and about valuations in the US and supporting, you know, you turn on CBC or Fox businesses, blah, blah, blah, valuations support where we're at today. Valuations don't support where we're at today. And this argument maybe half for, half against.

[Jesse Kramer]

Well, yeah, the argument for the listener who's unaware is just that U S stocks right now the price to earnings ratio or whatever kind of metric you want to look at, US Stocks seem overvalued, at least compared to historical standards. Or the Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted PE Cape ratio is high compared to historical standards. If you look at 10 or 20 or 30 year forward returns as a function of the Cape ratio, you'd say, oh, when you have to pay more for a stock then your future returns usually go down. And that just makes sense, right? If I had to pay $100,000 for a Honda Civic, it might not be a good investment and if I have to overpay for my stocks, but then.

[OG]

Again, but it might be cool, you.

[Jesse Kramer]

Compare that to international stocks and you'd say, well, the PE ratio or again, whatever kind of price earnings type metric you want to look at is a lot more attractive. And again, not to beat a dead horse here, but that's going back to that whole reversion to the mean idea where if you look at stock market history you'd say, well, right, PE ratios certainly have been high before and then eventually they come back down. If that's what's going to happen in our near term future, then you might not want to throw all your money in the US stock market right now. That's, that's the argument and that's a.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Hard game to play, OG because you know, the second that we start talking about reversion, the mean and the fact the last 10 years haven't been that kind to international stocks, I'm sure there's people out there thinking, well, I think what the panel's saying is this is the time to back the truck up on international stocks.

[OG]

Well, I don't know that you can say that about international stocks or US Tech stocks if it's overweighted or whatever. I Think you can say that about a bunch of different sectors? I mean, you could look at small company stocks and just say, well, heck, they're supposed to on average be better. And on average for the last eight, ten years, they've sucked. The thing about the whole concept of trying to market time is that it's impossible to be right. You could guess, honestly, today could be the day that is the high water mark for the S and P for the next 24 months. And internationals go gangbusters and you could guess right. But the reality is that there's no way to predict the future ebbs and flows of sectors, economies, countries, subsets within sectors. You just don't know. And there's plenty of people on one end of the extreme who have said like, you know what, it's 2019, freaking tech has done amazing, they're overvalued, let's get out of that, right? And then you miss the next five years of 100% return. And you know, all the benefits of that. There's no different than people saying the S and P as a whole is overweighted right now and maybe we should be an international. I don't know. And I can't honestly say that anybody knows with any degree of certainty. So the only logical outcome here, or the only logical way to handle this is to always be invested the same way all the time. And then when you have a period of time, like if you look at your portfolio in the last 12 months, you'd go, hey, my tech stocks or my S and P, large cap growth has done well relative to its expected return. I expected 10, it did 20. Like go me, that's awesome. My small cap stock did 8, I expected 13. So their only logical solution is to take a little bit of rebalancing, take a little bit of the profit from the, from the large cap growth and put it in small or from large cap and international. And every so often do that. And there's no evidence to suggest anything more frequently than once a year will be satisfactory there. And if you just do that over time, over your lifetime of investing, then you will work out to have a good outcome, have a good expected return when you start putting your own flavor in it and going, well, I don't know, I think tech's overweighted and there's just as many studies that say it's overweighted, that say, well, this is a momentum play and momentum continues like it's going to keep going. Do you want to get in the way of a moving truck? There's as many voices on either side of that, you got to tune that stuff out and just say, Nope, I do. 50% of my money's in US large cap, and I'm at 52, so I'm taking that too, and I'm putting it in the thing that went down full stop. End of discussion.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And that is exactly what I want to talk about in the second half. Guys, when it comes to different asset classes, how do you decide to tune some of them out? If you're making the argument that these asset classes work in different times, different economic conditions, why do we decide then to exclude some from our portfolio? I want to dive into that in the second half of this discussion. But at the halfway point of every Stacky Benjamin's Friday episode, we have this amazing contest between our three frequent contributors. And, man, it went from what looked like it was going to be a snoozer, Doug, to maybe a little bit of a barn burner. Now all of a sudden, after we've got wins from Paula and from Jesse. So I believe our score on weeks I was gone.

[OG]

Magically, somebody else won, but okay, parody in the league.

[Doug]

Finally.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think that the score then is OG2. Paula won, Jesse won. Wait a minute. Does Jesse actually have a point, or did you award him for the mythological?

[OG]

I think get an effort point.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think, Doug, you awarded him a point with for last week when Katherine's Internet went out. Jesse, do you have a point? I don't think you have a point.

[OG]

No.

[Jesse Kramer]

That trivia I won was the one where only two of us were guessing. But I just think it's funny that OG I mean, half of his point total is from Doc G. And he's up here on his high horse, like, barking insults around like he's really got a leg to stand on.

[Doug]

I forgot, Joe, that last week's was an unsanctioned trivia event where no scores would count. So you are correct. Jesse has a goose egg.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think Jesse, if that would have gotten through, you owed Doug 10 bucks. Are you guys putting it your trophies?

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm pointing at my bobblehead.

[OG]

You just said I don't have a leg to stand on. And I was like, I don't know. That's a pretty big leg.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah. Yo, you can lean on last year's laurels. That's fine. That is fine.

[OG]

Last several years, bro. Last several years.

[Jesse Kramer]

I've only been around a few months.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

All right, well, the flame throwing, as you guys can see, has begun. We need a trivia question, though, with the score 21 0. Could Jesse get on the map? Is OG maybe going to back it up with some Cha Ching? Is Paula going to be tied for first at the end of the week?

[OG]

How that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

How would that happen? We need a question, Doug. What do we got on tap this week?

[Doug]

Well, hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And please bow your head in silence as we remember a unit of currency gone the way of the greenback and the buffalo nickel. Yes. Let's take a moment. Remember the American penny. Okay, that's long enough. But in commemoration, it's like the quickest.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Moment of silence ever.

[Doug]

Is anybody heartbroken in commemoration of this moment? Let's talk about some trivia that's about as weird as a $3 bill. The $3 coin. In what year on today's date was the $3 coin first minted in the USA? I'll be back right after I go plant a tree in memory of the penny. What will I put in those gumball machines now?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Do gumball machines still take a penny?

[Doug]

They all take, like apple pay now. Probably.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Lost in the 80s.

[OG]

Take the bading.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. This is the day, by the way, that Congress passed that they would mint a three dollar coin. What year was it? We start with the man in first place? OG$3 coin.

[OG]

I feel like I know a lot about currency and I guess maybe you're.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Current on your currency, but I have.

[OG]

Never heard this before. Is there a chance that Doug's wrong is the answer? Doug is wrong.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The answer is you're zero. Because there's no such thing.

[OG]

There is no year. Are we sure it's us and not Canada?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, good question.

[OG]

It's the U.S. so Doug's pretty confident. Okay, us all right. A $3 coin seems like something we would have done because I don't know why the hell we would have done that. Probably pre vending machines. So I'm going to say, so $1 George Washington. $2 Thomas Jefferson, $5 Lincoln. So somewhere between Jefferson and Lincoln, I'm going to say, because that's the. Is that not the order of how they go 1, 2, 5? No. No. Oh. Because then we go backwards to Hamilton.

[Jesse Kramer]

Dang it.

[OG]

And then Grant's in a different order and Jackson. Yeah, we're screwed. Doesn't Jefferson get 2? Because he's on the 2 and the 20. He's on everything that starts with 2. Who's on the 30? That would tell me. All right, I'm going to say 18. 1841.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

1841. Paula. Mm.

[Paula Pant]

I'm not used to guessing second. This is weird.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Welcome to the new territory.

[OG]

I know the new new year well.

[Paula Pant]

It would have to happen at a time when $3 was valuable enough, but not too valuable, you know, because you wouldn't want to walk around with a $3 coin being like a bunch of.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Those jangling in your pocket.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, yeah. Make you a target for robbery. Like if every $3 coin was the modern day equivalent of $100 bill and you had a pocket full of $3 coins. I mean.

[Doug]

Or are you just really happy to see me.

[Paula Pant]

Based on that? I'm going to guess a little bit more modern. I'm going to say 1910.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

1910. Jesse, you got 1840. What? OG.

[OG]

41.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

1841, 1841 and 1910. Jesse.

[Jesse Kramer]

I was thinking, you know, reconstruction, post war era, some strange things happened in like the 1870s, 1880s that were split. Oh yeah.

[OG]

Oh yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

I think I'm going to split the uprights. What was it, 41 versus 1910. What's splitting the uprights there? 1875. I'll say 1876 for good measure. Lock it in.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

1876. Locked and loaded. Well, we're all over the middle and the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, so Doug, I think we might have stumped them. What year was it? We're going to find out in just a minute. We'll be right back.

[Doug]

How high is the interest rate for the new Laurel Road High Yield Savings account?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

This high.

[Doug]

The air is really, really thin up here. The Laurel Road Very High Yield Savings Account.

[OG]

Variable annual percentage yield. APY is subject to change at any time. No minimum balance required. Fees may reduce earnings on the account. For full terms and conditions, see laurelroad.com savings Laurelroad is a brand of KeyBank member FDIC.

[F]

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[Doug]

Oracle can cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI. Minimum financial commitment and other terms apply. Offer ends March 31st. See if you're coming. Company qualifies for this Special [e-mail] Automate that's oracle.com Automate I can say to.

[Jesse Kramer]

My new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and.

[OG]

Text it to Beth and Steve.

[Paula Pant]

And it does without me lifting a.

[OG]

Finger so I can get in more squats anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3.

[Jesse Kramer]

Will that be cash or credit?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Credit.

[OG]

4 Galaxy S25 Ultra. The AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do. You get [e-mail] compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. I want to know when they stopped doing wooden nickels. Because that's what my grandpa always used to say, don't take any wooden nickels. And I was like, well, why would I? That sounds really crazy. But apparently that was a thing when my grandpa was young. So maybe that'll be your next trivia question. When do they stop making wooden nickels?

[Doug]

They stopped.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doug, you just confounded. Doug had no idea.

[OG]

Doug's got a whole bunch of them. He's like, that's how I get paid. That's how we pay Doug in wooden nickels.

[Doug]

Isn't your money supposed to float?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We shouldn't have brought that up.

[OG]

Oh, gee, my bad.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, gee. You had 1841. How you feeling now that all the, all the ballots have been cast?

[OG]

I don't think it was the 1900s. So we'll see.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, throwing some shade at Paula. Paula, you feeling good about 1910?

[Paula Pant]

I am. I have all of the upside, so you know, I've got. Got a wide section of them.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

If it was 1992, you won.

[Paula Pant]

Exactly.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You're fine. And Jesse, you've got all that room in the middle. How you feeling?

[Jesse Kramer]

Feeling okay. I do think, yeah, if, if anything, I think I might have overshot it a little bit. But we'll see where it comes out. We'll see where it shakes out.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Jesse at 1875. Paul at 1910. Oh, 76.

[OG]

Oh, 76.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, gee, 76. So 76 OG at 40. 1841. Doug, who's taking away the win today?

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm the guy who thought this show should have been called Dollars and Cents.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Cents.

[Doug]

Get it. And your penny lover, Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Ah, the penny. It's like we never really knew you. Sure, you lined the bottom of pockets, purses and wallets, but all this time it's because we thought you, you'd always be around. And now what are we gonna do at 7:11 without that? Need a penny, take a penny. Filthy little bin next to the register, huh? It's just not gonna be the same. But today we're talking about the $3 bill's weird cousin, the $3 coin. What is year on today's date? Did the USA first mint this oddball gem of a coin? The $3 coin was first minted on today's date way back in. Buckle up, OG it's your favorite part. Well, I'm not going to tell you the year, but I will say that Paula was just a scant 57 years off. Jesse was 23 years off.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh my goodness, no.

[Doug]

And it was is 12 years more recently than what OG guessed because the correct answer is 1853, making the merchant of Darkness our winner.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Gotta have a. You have something out of the applause got people like throwing stuff. Jesse, your gut was right. You overshot it.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, wish I would have thought that when I actually had a chance to guess. But that's okay.

[OG]

But you know, now it's always next week, Jesse.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's right.

[OG]

There's always next week, buddy.

[Jesse Kramer]

Thank you, Josh.

[OG]

You're welcome, bud.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Let's see if we can do better though. Jesse, in the second half of today's episode, we're going to dive into other asset classes. Let's get into this. You know, you've all three kind of said that you think that people should use international stocks. What are some asset classes, Jesse, that you don't use? Well, pick one that you don't use for your goals and why don't you use it?

[Jesse Kramer]

Sure, sure. Like at the end of the day, just because an asset class exists or just because like someone somewhere writes about something as an asset class doesn't necessarily mean that it has the economic underpinning to justify investment. The things I don't own in my portfolio, Joe, are baseball cards. I don't own baseball cards in my portfolio because I don't understand the intrinsic cash flowing value that comes from owning a baseball card.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But the asset class that you're talking about when you say baseball cards is collectibles.

[Jesse Kramer]

Sure. I mean, yes, that's fine. That is fine. Whether it's wine, art, baseball cards, or gold, I consider those all the same thing.

[OG]

Easy, cowboy.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

OG has to say into the mic that his wine is an asset class. So he can write off all that drinking.

[OG]

Contractually obligated. My banker needs my balance sheet every year, and I, I might have included that in my net worth statement.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Gotta have it. He's got to test the product mix for his investment. OG, what don't you invest in? And how did you decide not to? I love the idea, Jesse, of collectibles and the fact that I don't understand how or when they make money. Which ones do you stay away from?

[OG]

Yeah, I think, you know, broad, broad brushstroke here. With collectibles, I think artwork probably goes under that too. You know, some people find that valuable to hold on to. I have a client who's a curator at a large museum, and I was talking to him about some artwork one time that I actually I liked a lot. And I was like, hey, so some people are buying these and they're reselling them and like, this is an investment. And the best news he gave me was like, listen, you own art because you like to see it. You own it because you want it hanging on your wall. You like it in your office, you like it in your den, you like it in your living room. It looks nice to you. If someone else down the line goes, that would look nice to me, and I would like to pay you for that. That is an ancillary byproduct. Do not buy this stuff because you think it's going to turn, you're going to turn around and sell it someday. You know, obviously there's some masters out there, Van Gogh and stuff, but that's not the money I have. So asset classes that I don't presently invest in. Jesse already talked about bitcoin. I have some. I don't consider it an asset class. You know, it's a thing. But I don't, I don't necessarily consider it asset class. I don't do any outside private equity, hedge funds, that sort of thing, largely because I believe. It's not that. I don't believe that that could be a good investment. There's usually some limitations on investing in private equity. Whether it's a net worth limitation or a liquidity limitation. I say, hey, you know, you need to be able to, you know, keep this money here for a long period of time. And that makes a lot of sense, right? If you're buying into a small business or what private equity equity would be a collection of small businesses. There's not that float. There's not the buying. You know, you can't just sell part of Grandpa's print shop because OG wants To get out and get his cash out, you know what I mean? There needs to be some sort of liquidity event. So part of it's that reason, the liquidity part of it is the lockup in terms of how long you have to have it there for. And then the other piece of it is that I'm already a major investor in two businesses. I already have a lot of that. My net worth is. Is largely invested in two small, very micro companies. And I don't know that I need to add any more to that asset class. In fact, one might argue I need to add more to the big companies to offset the risk of the small one. But yeah, I'd say private equity, and for most investors that's probably the main reason is the liquidity and net worth requirements.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I want to pause on that for a second. Paula, do you own any companies besides afford anything? Any private, non public companies?

[Paula Pant]

No. No, I don't. I was asked to be an investor in one particular private company that I very, very strongly considered and that I. Not Facebook, not that one. And to this day I, I think it would have been a good investment, but I passed on it because it's also for the same reason I didn't want the liquidity lockup, particularly as a small business owner.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, sure, right. Jesse, how about you? You own any private company's piece of a company?

[Jesse Kramer]

Nope.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, because I do find that interesting because it seemed to me when I was a financial planner, I would have people that would come to me, they'd be like, hey, my cousin's starting a restaurant. And you know what, we could put that money in the s and P500 or I could put it my cousin's restaurant, which I'll probably do a lot better. I'm like, Or a lot worse. Yeah, yeah.

[OG]

If you just go back to like the how it makes sense around investing. You know, you put your money in the bank and you get nice, safe, secure 3% interest. You know, it's going to be there tomorrow. You can take it all out in the afternoon, put it back in the next morning. It's 100% guaranteed to be there. And then you look at the leap from that to the s and P500. Right. The 500 biggest companies in the world. You accept some volatility for that up to and including like minus half. Right. We've seen that in our lifetimes of that's an exposure that we're okay with in exchange for 10% a year. Like that's the average. We'll take the 10%. Every so often we lose half, but know, over time it works out. And so you go back to like the micro company, right? Your brother's restaurant or something like that. You say, well, what must be the volatility and what must be the return for me to make. For me to have this make sense? You know, if the volatility is I could lose all my money, which is, in a small company, an outcome, a higher outcome than, you know, the S and P. Then what must be the expected return? I always caution people on this when they talk about it. I say, well, what do you think you're going to get out of the deal? Like, oh, I think we can, you know, I might get 12% of my money. It's like, are you crazy? You need like 30%. You know, think about the banker who's lending money to the crappy credit rating guy and the guy with 850 credit score.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, I even think on a restaurant it's got to be even higher than 30 because it doesn't matter.

[OG]

Whatever. Yeah, yeah. It's some multiple of what you get in the S and P because. Because you're getting a zero as a. As a terminal value sometimes, you know.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I mean, what's the lifespan of a. Even a good restaurant, right? I mean, not the one that lasts forever and has been in the family for 40 years, but maybe what, three years, four years? It's going to be hot. Five years, 11.

[OG]

Madison park has been around for how many years? 10, 15, you know, 20. They're not going to be around another 20. Probably they're the best restaurant in the world.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Got to get a much, much higher return to get your money back out of it, Paula. To you. What. What don't you invest in?

[Paula Pant]

So I don't have precious metals. I don't have silver or gold.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Precious metal's not that precious to you.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, exactly.

[OG]

Other than the bling you wear.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, that's how I prefer. It's on me. It's on me at all times.

[OG]

You gotta use the drip, Paula. It's your drip.

[Paula Pant]

I don't have commodities, I don't have cattle. Other than the boat.

[OG]

Other than the ones you murder and drink because you can't keep any around because you drink them all.

[Paula Pant]

Don't drink your supply, whether it's wine or cattle.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

She had a herd. Not anymore.

[Jesse Kramer]

Just another ruminance. Is this a ruminant joke?

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, I know. I keep ruminating on this. Yeah. Don't have wheat, corn, any of any of the above.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, and how come? I mean, how did you decide not to do commodities, precious metals?

[Paula Pant]

You know, both commodities and precious metals I see as an inflation hedge. But I have a lot of real estate, which is also an inflation hedge. So I figure that's just too much inflation hedge.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But what's also interesting is, I mean, truly, and somebody said this when I was in Seattle a couple weeks ago, said, said, you know, stocks are an inflation hedge.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So it always kind of messes with me and people talk about inflation hedge. I'm like, aren't stocks inflation hedge? Yeah, that's a big one. Speaking of that, Paula, you own real estate, Jesse, do you invest at all in REITs or any real estate?

[Jesse Kramer]

Residential real estate, like my house. And in that way I've got this pretty large exposure on my balance sheet to a single housing project. Single asset class, single property, if you will. All right, so anyway, so outside of that, no other real estate exposure.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Currently no real estate.

[Jesse Kramer]

Do you think at some point you will potentially? My brother's a contractor here at Rochester and I understand the numbers, so I feel like the two of us could put our heads together and be a pretty low cost residential real estate investing team. But it's a little ways down the road if we're going to do that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think it's funny when you take a look at an investment OG, what's kind of at the top of your funnel, somebody brings you, let's say, some investment they think is a good idea, you know, work us down the funnel from the top. How do you start by going, does this fit or not?

[OG]

We've been getting a couple of these as of late and well, my funnel is usually. No, it's just like, yeah, no, I don't need it. There is no funnel. It's just.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

No, but that sounds like grandpa.

[OG]

Yeah, it sure does.

[Doug]

What's the narrow part of the funnel at the top?

[OG]

Yeah, it's not like a hat.

[Doug]

See if you can make it in, shoot it from over there, from across the room, see if you can get it in.

[OG]

I think for me, everything has to start with what's the outcome that you're looking for from your portfolio. And this is, I think, a little bit more broader based, Joe, than your exact question. But sometimes, and we talked about this with the election, there's, there's always the questions and anxiety that come with now that blank happened, what do I do with my investing? And right now the narrative is all around politics and policy changes and that sort of thing. And so we're getting some of these questions and it's like, well, did your goals change at all? If your goals haven't changed, then why would you change your portfolio? What's the point of reacting to a short term event in this big broad lens of your entire life and your family's life and your kid's life and grandkids life. This event, whatever you're talking about, is just one little drop in the bucket. So when I get pitched an investment, whether it's something personally or for our clients, I always just think like, what's the purpose of this? What does this solve that we don't already solve through other things? And a real popular one is, and Joe, you remember this from your days, a lot of non traded stuff, private real estate or whatever. And it's like, well, what does this solve? It's well, you get your real estate exposure. Like I already have that. I have equity real estate exposure. Well, this one you get a tax form in August that you get to deal with. You know, it's like that, you know.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That'S what I totally need.

[OG]

That's what I miss is I miss the, I missed the K1 that comes August 1st after I filed my taxes four months ago. So you know, it's just, I think the lens has to be as you see these things, like how does this fit in my plan as it relates to what goal am I trying to accomplish? And that's really where I would start. And then, and then from there you can work through like expected return, which is kind of the next piece of it. And going back to like the private business versus return. It's like if I'm going to invest in my brother's restaurant or ice cream place, dude, I need some cash on this thing because this is super risky because I get 10% in the biggest companies in the world, most professionally managed, the smartest people in the room, I get 10%, I get 13. If I go down a notch and go to small of the smallest companies in the world, still professionally managed, still the smartest guys in the room. And you want me to invest in your ice cream shop. I'm going to need some major cash for that to offset that volatility potential of losing all my money.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And your board of directors names better be Ben and Jerry. Yeah, right.

[OG]

Well no, you're not wrong. Right, Exactly. Like what do you know about ice cream? Ben and Jerry said, hey, we're having an opening for investors. Right? That's a different thing. You're going, okay, proven concept. They're not a small company, right. They're probably publicly traded at this point. But you get the idea you have a different expected return because of the market, but everything you have to start with your plan. Where does this fit?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Jesse, you were nodding. Anything else at the top of your funnel that you evaluate?

[Jesse Kramer]

I was really nodding because it really is that question of like how does this investment fit the individual person's overall goals? And that's why, like I know earlier I there was a little touch on bonds and we were talking about bonds and whether bonds have a place in a portfolio. And like, or I know what it was. I think it was OG you were talking about how if you were to own bonds and you would make sure that they were internationally diversified and you would own some bonds from really crappy companies, junk bonds and other bonds, really good companies or something like that. And now I thought that was interesting to me. I own bonds if I need money in a certain short term time span. And so for me, when I own bonds in a portfolio, I don't necessarily want bad quality bonds in there and I don't necessarily care if there are any international bonds in there. For me, I'm not owning bonds to get any sort of excess return. And so that reason, all I really care is that the money, you know, the principal value of the bond is there when I need it in a, in a very specific time frame. But that just goes back to this whole idea of what's the purpose of this investment in my overall portfolio.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Jesse? I love that because I kind of like, you know, in my book I talk about the growing season analogy. I truly like thinking about when am I going to need the money and then what investments historically have gotten me there most safely. It is funny how you and I have a similar approach that way more of a risk management approach to investing. Paula, anything to add about how you pick investments?

[Paula Pant]

I have a barbell allocation. I don't hold bonds. I want my money to either be highly risky or totally safe. So I tend to go for the extremes and that's not something I would recommend for everybody. It's just a personal choice.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And that is because. Because why? I mean, what's the upside to doing it that way?

[Paula Pant]

As a small business owner and as somebody who directly holds rental real estate, I have a need for having a lot of short term cash on hand. And so because naturally, because my bias is towards keeping a hefty cash allocation just as as a result of all of these things in my business and in my real estate investing life that I'm exposed to because I have that hefty cash allocation. I want to put equities. I want all of my investable assets, market investments to go into equity.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Because then over short time frame, you don't have to worry about a need for money. You go ahead and give them. Give them time. Got it? I think that's a great place to leave it. I find this very interesting, this whole piece, the discussion. I. I see this discussion all the time. Should I get rid of small cap value? Should I get rid of international? Should I get rid of. And I love the three of you really going back to. I think you got to examine the why behind why you have that in your portfolio in the first place. Speaking of the first place, this is the second place for two of the three of you where you are located. We're going to find out where that primary place is and what's going on. Well, we know where the primary place is. Sometimes I just start talking and I wonder what the end of that sentence is going to look like. And sometimes it goes my way, sometimes it doesn't. So maybe we'll do that again. Let's just find out what the heck's going on where OG lives. Og, what do you got going on this weekend, man?

[OG]

Well, presently I'm skiing with Doug. He's tired of me by now, so he's skiing alone and I'm skiing alone. And it's working out really well.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You're no longer holding hands like at the beginning.

[Doug]

What he doesn't know is I'm already on a flight back.

[OG]

Doug took the rental car and said, I'll see you in Reno.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doug's sitting at the bar at the keno machine at Reno.

[OG]

Oh, God, what a great. What a great thing to spend. That's what we should do.

[Paula Pant]

Kino and Reno.

[OG]

Kino and Reno, baby. And then it's baseball season, so we are elbow deep in varsity baseball. So when not working, it's varsity baseball.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And Jesse, for you, there's only like eight more weeks of winter left on the 21st.

[Jesse Kramer]

So our baseball season here in upstate New York is. It's a spring sport, so we play from early April through about early May. And that's the school baseball season. You get five weeks to play 27 games.

[Doug]

Jesse, did you play in high school?

[Jesse Kramer]

I did, yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah, I did too. And when you were a freshman, did you get made? There were a couple of weeks where to practice. They made us as freshmen go out and shovel the field off. Did you ever have to do that?

[Jesse Kramer]

No, we didn't. But I mean, we would practice on like the high school gym floor, but on the nice days when it was still snowy and wet, but it was nice outside, you'd play in the parking lot.

[Doug]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

This is scintillating.

[OG]

Sliding and concrete sucks, I guess.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, we try not to do that. It doesn't work out well, OG if.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You'Ve never tried, that is painful. Just some painful baseball. Jesse, what's happening at the brand new under. Well, under same management but new name Personal Finance for Long term investors podcast?

[Jesse Kramer]

We're about to have an episode with Chad Carson and then another AMA coming out soon. And I think I'm going to do a deep dive on national debt. It sounds like a juicy. It's a juicy topic that I want to really sink my. My thinking into.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Wow.

[Doug]

When you figure it out.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yes, yes. So, so are you going to say if the US had an emergency fund and they didn't use the credit card so much, we'd be better off?

[Jesse Kramer]

That's probably part of it. I just, it's so. It's such an interesting thing because unlike us, the US government just gets to print more money. Except it seems like that probably has a logical end to it. So it's a deep. It's a deep dive. It's a deep dive.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But the cool thing is, Jesse, I'm sure they get to keep all the reward points from their credit card. I mean, think about all that.

[Jesse Kramer]

That's what I've heard. I've heard that the president just gets to basically fly for free.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's it. That whole jet of his is totally free. Jet that he gets with all those reward points.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah. Air Force Chase 1.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula Payette. What's happening at the Afford Anything show?

[Paula Pant]

So today is actually the final day of enrollment for our course on rental property investing.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, you gotta get in.

[Paula Pant]

Right? Exactly. Today's the deadline. So if you want to learn about how to invest in rental properties, today's your last day to sign up affordanything.com. enroll.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And you've had a bunch of successful students go through that the last few years.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah. We've surveyed our students and 48.1% of our students, our graduating alumni, have gone on to buy at least one rental property.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's fabulous. And you want to be in that percentage. Don't take any class and be in the other half.

[Paula Pant]

Exactly.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Go do it. Well, and I'm sure among the other half though, people still, you know, building maybe the fun to do it.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, exactly. Building the muscle, building the funds. We also survey our students on from the time that you enroll in the class. What is your time frame towards when you want to invest in rental properties? And it's pretty all over the map. It's a little rare, but sometimes there are a few people who say, you know, I just got a big commission or I got a bonus. Now I have too much cash sitting around and I want to deploy it. So I'd like to put it towards a down payment. Like sometimes you've got that, but you've also got a pretty big subsection of students who say, hey, I want to buy a rental property. I'll be ready in like two years, but I want to get started now. Or I'll be ready in three years. I want to get started learning now.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And that is the link again is afford anything dot com.

[Paula Pant]

Enroll, enroll, enroll.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We'll have a link in our show notes@stacking benjamin.com. all right, Doug, that's going to do it for today, man. What should we have learned on today's show?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, here's what's stacked up on our to do list for today. First, take some advice from OG when he said you should never, ever, ever own an international stock or wait, was it private equity? It was one of those, right?

[OG]

OG I said, if you're going to own something, make sure it fits in your plan, Right?

[Doug]

That's pretty much what I said.

[OG]

Same thing.

[Doug]

Second, your North Star when it comes to asset class distribution is Paula's guidance about commodities. Paula, what was that again?

[Paula Pant]

Don't drink your cattle.

[Doug]

Yeah, see, I'm nailing it today. But the big lesson, don't ask Jesse if he knows any jokes about $3 coins. Who knew this guy could just keep them coming? Oh my goodness, Jesse, that the goat? Really? I mean, and then that one about the gynecologist. You crack me up. Oh my God, you're funny. Hey, thanks to Jesse Kramer for joining us today. He may tell you a joke or two about the three dollar coin on his podcast called Personal Finance for Long Term Investors, wherever you're listening to us right now. And you know what's as exotic as a $3 coin, Paul? A Pant Afford anything podcast. That's what, believe it or not. You can also find that goodness wherever you're listening to us today. We'll also include links in our show notes to both of these gems at Stacking Benjamin. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

And before. Before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin show.