Nick Hopwood, Thinking about retiring soon? Social Security optimization

Nick Hopwood

 

1. Peak is celebrating its ten year anniversary. I have 25 years in the biz but 10 running peak. No better time for a second opinion with your financial plan and your portfolio. Are you a DIY investor and ready for some help? Are you working with an advisor and you never hear from them? 2nd opinion time!

 

2. Thinking about retiring soon? Social Security optimization is free for all gruber listeners. check out peakwm.com/gruber for your free SS analysis

 

3. January jobs number blew away the economists forecasts with 353,000 new jobs in january. In the last year, we've added 2.9 million jobs, which is great! however, the workweek fell from 34.6 hours to 34.1 hours, which is the equivalent of losing 1.9 million jobs!!!!! So in terms of "total work" being performed, the jobs numbers are overstating growth. In addition, over half of the new jobs being created are part time, which helps explain the less hours per week. 

 

FURTHERMORE THE BLOATED GOVERNMENT HIRED 36K MORE WORKING IN JANUARY ALONE. RIDICULOUS!

 

4. The market has been hoping for a Fed rate cut as early as March. However, with the "strong" jobs numbers just released, the probability of a Fed rate cut in March is very, very, low. 

 

5. GRAVY STACK - I was at the Elite Wealth Advisor Symposium last week and met Scott Donnell, whose mission is to fight "the war on entitlement" and teach families/kids how to save, earn, and invest in a fun way. His new app is called GRAVYSTACK and available for download now but beginning feb 29 will be "freemium" This app teaches kids by creating a GIG economy in your household. Rather than paying kids an allowance which teaches them nothing, the games incentivise the kids to create value by finding work to do and get paid. Right now for young people their currency is going online and complaining. Instead, let's teach kids how to create value! I LOVE THIS. 

 

6. MARKETs. January was good for the Magnificent 7 tech stocks and that's it. The rest of the market was down and we are seeing things that make you go hmmm..... Despite the jobs numbers and rising market indexes, a lot of stuff is going down, which you wouldn't expect. For example, if the economy were re-accelerating, why would transports be going down? UPS is 35% off its highs. This is called DOW THEORY. The transports are not confirming the rise of the industrials and that is bearish