Episode 46: What We Learned in 2024 and What We See Ahead for 2025 (and Beyond)
Segment 1 (Show Open):
Good afternoon, everyone! Welcome in. Welcome to Coasting in Retirement! That’s. Right. BRAND NEW SHOW today for our brand new year. Long time listeners, casual listeners, new listeners, thanks for joining us today, we’re excited to have you! Josh Null here, Michelle is off this week, don’t worry, she will be back next week, in her place we welcome in one of our regular co-hosts, Mr. Jay Stubbs, the Director of the Gulf Coast for Providence Partners, which also happens to be the sponsor of this show. Jay, how are you doing? Great. And guess what? We’re like a Fox football announcing team today – we’re 3 man booth!. Joining us on the third mic is GCFA team member and producer Pedro Cardozo, the manager of our Orange Beach location. Pedro, how are you doing? We are back again in Coastal College’s recording studio, beautiful downtown Fairhope, ready to put together another great show for those of you tuning in!
Listeners: Jay and I are here today to discuss financial topics relevant to those of you in or near retirement, living your best life along our part of the gulf coast. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you today: First segment – deep dive on our topic of the day. 2nd segment - at about 25 minutes past the hour - “News Headlines of the Week”. Then at roughly 45 minutes past the hour, stick around for our 3rd segment, we call it” Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth”. We’ll see what Jay’s and Pedro’s crystal ball has to to say about a couple of financial topics. So buckle up, we’ve got a lot to get to!
Quick background on me for those new to the show. Again, my name is Josh Null, I am a fee-based financial advisor, I hold my FINRA Series 65 securities license, and I am the owner of Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, we are an independent investment management and financial planning firm with offices in Fairhope, Orange Beach, and Mobile! You can find more information on me and Gulf Coast Financial Advisors by visiting our website gulfcoastfa.com, or feel free to give us a call at 251-327-2124. If you missed that contact info, get a pen and pad ready because we will repeat our contact info several times throughout the show!
Alright, let’s get to our main topic. Today each of your hosts – me, Jay and Pedro, are going to talk about what we each learned in 2024, what we each think 2025 has in store for us, and what we hopes and dreams we intend to lean into with yet another opportunity ahead of us to intentionally shape our lives and the lives of those close to us. Do we have any regrets from this past year? Of course, and with this being an open and honest show, we’ll share some of them. Do we have concerns about the state of the world? I mean, as we record this, parts of California are literally on fire, our New Orleans family endured a terrible tragedy, there are so many things in the world to worry about. But part of my argument will be that in the history of mankind, there’s never been a better time to be alive than right now. So with that framework, Jay and Pedro, I’ll start:
For what we learned in 2024:
Business – I learned that I should have formed my own RIA a year earlier! Personal – I learned that I have to finally let go of my anger of what happened to me in 2021.
What do we think 2025 has in store for us:
Personal – I’ve got to finally take my health seriously. Quit abusing my body. It can take a lot. But I am older now and it’s time to stop abusing it.
Business – learn to delegate and allow GCFA to grow like it should
Hopes, dreams, regrets?
Josh – that I didn’t fulfill last year’s goal of getting my parent’s new home construction going on Punch Lake. But I am proud of how I was able to navigate stormy waters to form my own RIA, and how as painful as it was in the moment, the difficult periods of my life have allowed me to give impactful guidance and advice to my clients that are going thru their own difficult period, often far outside the “normal” range of typical financial advice.
Listeners, if you like to start a conversation about YOUR hopes and dreams, particularly around your retirement planning and wealth management, then give us a call at 251-327-2124, or you can reach me through my website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, you can choose to send us a direct message, or you can click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar.
Alright folks, coming up next - There’s always a lot going on in the world! Particularly the world of finance, investments and money. Every week we scour the internet for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those in or near retirement. Join us after the break to hear Jay and I discuss this week’s relevant headlines in our “News Headlines of the Week” segment. Stay tuned!
Segment 2 - News of the Week:
Josh: “Welcome back to Coasting in Retirement, your host Josh Null here! As we discussed before the break, every week we scour the internet for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those of you in or near retirement. Our job is to help you all understand how these headlines impact you, especially when it comes to your money! Note – if you want to read our referenced articles yourself, we also include the links in our show transcript, which you can find on our website gulfcoastfa.com under the podcast tab. We upload our episodes every Monday after the show airs on Sunday. With Michelle playing hooky on us this week, we’ve asked Pedro to read this week’s headlines, and Jay and I will take turns responding – you could with that Pedro? Alright then,let’s get after it with our , “News Headlines of the Week”!
1. Pedro: Alright Josh, this first headline is for you. I understand that you normally don’t like to time stamp these episodes, but for this one I’ll have to let our Sunday listeners know that we are recording this episode on Friday, January 10th, just a few days before this airs. And anyone that pays attention to the stock market knows, it’s shaping up to be an interesting day in the market. Yahoo Finance has an article titled “Stock Market Today: Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq sink as jobs reports blows past expectations”. So Josh why would the fact that the US economy added 250,000 new jobs and unemployment sank to 4.1% be bad news to the stock market?
Josh: detail what this means for potential interest rate cuts, how this puts pressure on inflation, how it stacks up on Jerome Powell’s previous pledge to slow role Fed Funds rate cuts in 2025, etc.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-sink-as-jobs-report-blows-past-expectations-143101506.html
2. Pedro: The next article is for Jay, and I believe it’s from a source you’re very familiar with, Insurance NewsNet, correct? This one is about artificial intelligence and the affect it may have on life and health insurance. It’s titled “AI in life and health: What to expect into 2025 and beyond”. This article states that artificial intelligence will result in more accurate premium pricing, faster claims processing, and better Chatbots. But it also says that insurance agents are going to have to learn to cut thru the “Chatbot clutter”, and honestly Jay, I don’t know anyone that would pick talking to a computer over talking to a human. What’s you stance on how AI is going to affect an industry that you’ve spent over 25 years in?
https://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/ai-in-life-and-health-what-to-expect-into-2025-and-beyond
3. Pedro: Back to you Josh. Well known financial newsite The Street” has a recent article simply titled “2025 Outlook on the S&P 500”. This article talks about potential impacts of inflation, government policy and corporate profits on one of the most well known market indexes, the S&P 500. Before you give your thoughts on this article, can you explain to our listeners what the S&P 500 index is, and what other indexes you pay attention to on behalf of your client’s investment portfolios?
https://www.thestreet.com/retirement-daily/your-money/stock-outlook-2025
4. Pedro: Last article of the day, and one more for Jay. To be fair, it’s actually an entire section on your website, providencepartners.org. Specifically the Resources tab on your site. I think it’s important to bring up this landing page because I know it’s been a great source of knowledge for both Josh and for me, and I believe it has a ton of client-facing resources, such as a life insurance needs calculator and an actual term life quote engine. I am assuming this term life quote engine has access to dozens of carriers, correct? Can you expand more on what our listeners find on the Resource tab of your website?
https://www.providencepartners.org/resources
Josh: Listeners, I hoped you learned something from our discussion around these recent financial headlines, these are all important pieces of information that impacts those folks in or near retirement! If you would like to continue the conversation with us, then why don’t you give us a call at 251-327-2124 to talk to me or to set up an appointment, or you can always reach out to us via our contact page on our website, gulfcoastfa.com. Don’t forget to click the blue button in the upper right corner to put a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar!
Folks, that’s it for us this week here at Coasting in Retirement! I want to give a huge thank you to my lovely co-host, Michelle Lee Melton, thank you to our show sponsor, Providence Partners, thank you to our awesome radio station FM Talk 106.5 out of Mobile, many thanks to the provider of our show music, local band Sloth Racer, huge thank to the show producer, Mr. Chaesare Gray, and as always my sincere appreciation for all of your out there that have been listening and joining us on this journey. We would love to be a part of your journey as well! Until we talk again next Sunday, have a wonderful and productive week. This has been Coasting in Retirement with Josh Null!
GCFA Disclosure:
Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, LLC ("GCFA”) is a registered investment adviser offering advisory services in the State of Alabama and in such other jurisdictions where it is registered, filed the required notices, or is otherwise excluded or exempted from such registration and/or notice filing requirements. Registration does not indicate or imply that GCFA has attained a particular level of skill or ability, nor does it constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any state securities regulator.
The Coasting in Retirement radio program serves mainly to disseminate general information including those pertaining to GCFA’s advisory services, together with access to additional investment-related information, publications, materials and links. The publication of this radio show should not be construed by any client and/or prospective client as GCFA’s solicitation to effect, or attempt to effect transactions in securities, nor should it be interpreted as GCFA providing personalized investment advice, or any type of professional advice, for compensation, wherever this program is broadcast. Any subsequent, direct communication by GCFA with a prospective client will be conducted by a representative that is either registered or qualifies for an exemption or exclusion from registration in the state where the prospective client resides.
Certain information, news stories, headlines, data, charts, graphs, figures or statistics presented on this radio program may have been obtained from third-party sources that are believed to be generally reliable but which GCFA may not have independently verified. GCFA does not and cannot guarantee the timeliness, accuracy, or reliability of any such third-party information and undertakes no obligation to update or correct any information that may become obsolete, unreliable, or inaccurate. The radio program also contains the opinions, views, and perspectives expressed by Josh Null and any other GCFA representatives which are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or perspectives of GCFA as a firm. Such personal views and opinions should not be construed as endorsements or professional advice from GCFA. GCFA makes no representation or warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information on this radio program, and disclaims any liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage incurred from using or relying on such information.
GCFA, Aptus, Providence Benefits and Providence Partners are not affiliated, nor are any of their respective representatives.