The Jon Sanchez Show
6/28 - How politics affects your portfolio
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TGIF. That's all I can say. TGIF ready for a nice 4th of July holiday next week. I don't know about you, but yeah, couldn't come soon enough. That's for sure. All right. Well, where do we sit here? Where do we sit? What a night that we experienced last night with the presidential debate. Now, this is not a political show. I'm not going to sit here and analyze how I feel that Trump so overwhelmingly kicked Biden's butt last night. No, no, I'm not going to go down that path. There's you know, rather great shows that much smarter about politics than myself. But what I am going to talk to you about is something that is near and dear to all of your hearts. Combining the two P's, politics and your portfolio. You know, many of us were glued, of course, probably all of you glued to your television or hopefully right here on Newstalk 780K, which listening to the presidential debate. Again, we all have our opinions of what happened between the two candidates, whether we think their performance was good, whether we think their performance was bad. Again, that's up to each and every one of us. But as we get closer to the election, and I promised you we're going to be talking more and more about politics and your money, the closer we get. And so I thought after this debate, this would be a great time to kind of break the ice and start getting onto this subject. But as we get closer to the election, we now must ask ourselves the following question. How will politics influence my portfolio? Well, tonight we're going to discuss that. And I'm going to share with you how politics absolutely influences your portfolio, whether you find yourself, you know, heavily involved in politics, as many of you do, or some of you that go, you know what, I really don't care who wins it. You know, I don't like politicians no matter what side of the aisle they're on. It doesn't matter. And again, we're obviously we're all entitled to throw our own opinion on stuff like that. But the bottom line is, I hope that you listen closely tonight because politics do influence your portfolio. They influence the markets, they influence the economy. And of course, that's our job on this show is to help you get through troubling times. I told you was it last Friday, I think it was, if not sometime last week, be prepared for volatility as we get closer to the election. And today, we succumb to 126 point loss on the NASDAQ. Was that related to the election or to the debate? Probably not. But I'm telling you one thing. And I mean, this and all seriousness, people now, I know, because we're hearing it from our clients, people now are starting to think and strategize about how they want to allocate their monies the closer we get to the election. So again, I want to go through quite a few facts with you and really get into the details of how the politics do affect your portfolio. So sit back and relax, let me do the work and we will get to that. First, however, Q2 is in the books, second quarter of the year, it is done. But what a day we had today started off very, very strong, continue to move higher and higher. And then all of a sudden, here comes the algorithms. Things turn sideways on us, then they turn south. Wasn't all that bad of a day when it was all said and done, but a little disappointing compared to where we were, which was a high of 39,443 on the Dow. And we finished at 38,118. So pretty good pullback. When it was all said and done, that was equating to a 46 point loss for the day. NASDAQ gave up 126 points, 0.71% S&P lower by 22 points or 0.41%. The big culprit of the weakness of the Dow today was Nike. Stock fell $18.83. A 20% decline finished the day at only $75.36. The company disappointed investors with their fiscal 25 sales outlook. The previous quarter was good. The outlook terrible. And that uncertainty kind of held over into the debates, as I said earlier. Politico, of course, suggesting that Democrats are actively considering replacing President Biden on the Democratic ticket after last night's performance. I've been following this very, very closely all day. Matter of fact, if you're wondering how hard it is to replace President Biden off the ticket, well, I'm going to try to get to that. I'm going to try to squeeze that in also because I got some great information on that one. It is possible. Is it likely? Yeah, I don't think so. And Biden was very adamant today saying I'm not stepping aside. So we will see, of course, on that one. But again, I'll try to get to that information also. So Nike again, the big problem in the Dow. But you know what, the week is done, the quarter is done. Where do we sit on a year to date basis? First, let's hit the weekly numbers. For the week, the only real standout was the Russell 2000, the small caps, the little guys posted a nice gain for the week of 1.27% for the day was up 0.46%. The S&P 500 for the week, just down fractionally, eight tenths of 1%. Same with the Dow, eight tenths of a percent decline. And the NASDAQ finished the game or finished the week with a very small gain of 0.24%. But what a very strong first half of the year, as far as where the average is set. The NASDAQ year to date is now up 18.1%. The S&P 500 is higher by 14 and a half percent. Dow and Russell struggling a little bit. Dow is up to only 3.8% and year to date, the Russell 2000 only higher by 1%. On the commodity side today, we had just a fractional move down on oil prices down two tenths of a percent to 81.53 a barrel, quiet day for gold, three dollar rise to 2,339.60 an ounce. And how did we do on the 10 year treasury yield for the day? Up six basis points. This is one of the culprits to the market weakness. As soon as these interest rates started to rise after the economic data, I'll share with you, that's when we saw the market begin to head south on us a bit. So again, six basis point increase on the 10 year to finish at 4.34%. But I always like to give you the weekly numbers on Friday. For the week, interest rates on the 10 year up eight basis points. For the month of June, I thought this was interesting dealt up or dug up this little stat for you. For the month of June, the 10 year treasury yield was down 17 basis points. However, if we go back and look at the full fourth quarter, 10 year yield was up 14 basis points. So much higher than where we started, like I said, 90 days ago. But nothing too significant. Again, not a huge rise by any stretch of the imagination. Now, let's get into the issue as far as some weekly or some stats on the monthly basis. Here's how we have done. First of all, the three major averages that now the NASDAQ S&P marking their seventh positive month out of the last eight. The NASDAQ on a month to date basis rallied 6%. Think about that. 6% in one month. The S&P 500 for the month gained 3.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1%. So pretty stellar performance in the month of June. So hopefully, your brokerage statements reflect some very, very nice gains for you when you get those statements here in a couple of days. Okay. Now, let's get into the political side of things just a little bit, because I've got a lot of questions today from people saying, you know what? I mean, again, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, excuse me, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, everybody agrees, of course, that Biden's performance last night was dismal. I mean, I don't know about you. I mean, I've got a big heart, right? I don't know about you, but I actually felt bad. I felt embarrassed for the guy. I mean, he's a human being. You got to have respect for him. He's the president. I know we don't care for him, but it is what it is. I was raised that you respect your elders and leaders and things like that. But I felt bad for the guy. Was that embarrassing? I'm sure many of you felt the exact same way. But what do we need to really have happen? Because, again, this ties into our discussion tonight of politics and your portfolio. And that is, what happens now that we're hearing all the rhetoric that they want Biden off the ticket? And I know it's still not official yet until August, but we'll just going to assume that it's going to be. But they want Biden off the ticket, and then the chatter, of course, today is, well, who in the heck would replace him? And of course, you've got the likes of Gavin Newsom being thrown out there. You've got Kamala Harris throwing out there, a few other names that I'm not real real familiar with, but those are some of the most common names. And so the question now, and again, if this happens, if this happens, and I think that it will, this is just my personal opinion. I think they will find some excuse. I don't think they'll use the excuse of the poor debate, but they're going to find some other excuse, a health reason or something the Democrats will to boot Biden off the ticket and put somebody else on there. But it would be a very, very daunting task to do so. So I did a little research for you to find out how hard is it for this to happen? Well, Democrats do have ways to replace Biden, okay? But their standards would be, like I said, a very daunting task. I mean, I know no other way to say this. Now, party members who once united behind Biden are now talking amongst themselves, looking at different candidate resumes, researching the rules for a contingency plan to find a different nominee. Now, what in the world would be involved in booting Biden off and bringing somebody else in? Well, first and foremost, according to Elaine Kamarack, who's a DNC member and author of a book about the presidential nominating process, says the easiest thing to do is for Biden to take himself out of the race. Now, Biden today, again, do you believe the words coming out of his mouth? Biden said, you know, I'm not backing out. Yeah, I'm a little bit slow. I don't talk as good. I don't debate as good as I did when I was younger, but hey, I'm fine. But according to the DNC member that I just mentioned, she said, look at the answers. Yes, there are rules and procedures and the party would replace him if Biden did decide to step aside. Now, she also went on to say that pushing Biden off the ticket, you know, forcing him off of it without an obvious candidate to replace him makes the gamble even greater. And we heard a lot of that last night. I'm sure you did in the different spin room conversations and so on, so forth. If Biden, however, does not step aside, forcing him out would be a massive, massive undertaking by the Democrats. Now, listen, how the rules would work. Okay, I'm just going to start this and we'll conclude when we get back from the break. So if Biden does not step aside, here's how the rules work. Any rival would first have to collect 600 delegate signatures on a petition to place his or her name in nomination at the Democratic convention with no more than 50 signatures from any one state. Now, that's about 13% of the delegates, but with Biden controlling 99% of the pledged delegates, that would require challengers convincing Biden loyalists to flip their support. According to political strategies, he said, look at the odds are not insurmountable, but they're very high for any scenario that involves a delegate or delegate revolt. He says more often than not, these are pretty fervent Biden supporters. All right. Now, when we come back from the break, we'll continue to find out what happens Biden decides to stay on there or if the DNC decides to boot him out. You can be shocked at how this whole process works. I found it very fascinating. I hope you do too. We'll continue that discussion when we come back. Let's turn it over to Kristin Snow in the right now, traffic center. Hey, Kristin. Welcome back to the John Sanchez Show on News Talk 780K, which happy Friday to all of you, 45 point decline on the Dow. So how we wrapped up today, a 126 loss on the NASDAQ and a give up of 22 on the S&P 500 politics and your portfolios on our discussion is tonight. First of all, we're talking about, of course, the big chatter, the debate yesterday and really what everything everyone is talking about today, which is Biden needs to go, right? If you are a Democrat, do you want Biden to go? Within his circle, they're saying, Oh, no, he's just fine. And he did a little rally today and said, Of course, I'm fine. I just had an off night. But the reality is, I think there's a very good likelihood that someone could, you know, the DNC could get rid of him and bring somebody in. So I want to kind of share with you what happens because think about this, folks, this could have a major impact again on your portfolio. Right now, as Republicans, we're feeling very confident after the debate last night. Now, if someone came in, i.e. Kamala Harris or somebody, maybe a Gavin Newsom people that the Democrats really like, hey, that could change the whole gamut. And again, everything we're going to talk about tonight, as far as tax policies, etc. All that could change. So it's important that you understand that this is a probability, one of many that we're going to be dealing with between now and November. So once again, we're talking about if Biden, you know, pulls himself off pretty easy, but if he doesn't, major problems. Now, we were talking a minute ago before we went to break about the delegate side of things. So, the convention delegates, again, on the Democratic side, very, very loyal, as you would imagine, but they do have room to change their mind. So here's something that's interesting I found out. Unlike Republican delegates, who, of course, are legally bound to cast their votes for a particular candidate, Democratic rules say that only that pledged delegates shall, quote, in good conscience, reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. So still in that kind of moves, most politicians, of course, would not even come close to attempting success unless guaranteed, be political suicide. As that author said, she goes, look, this is something that a lot of people, this is not, excuse me, this is not something a lot of people could pull off. Meaning, let's just say Gavin Newsom, right? If he decides that, hey, you know, I'm the guy, you know, boot Biden off and it fails. He's basically politically done. Now, let's talk about an open convention. Now, we'll move to change the ticket, whether Biden agrees to go willfully, or if again, he is pushed out by the party, would bring a convention free for all that we have not seen in literally decades. And what they call an open or brokered convention, no candidate comes into the roll call vote without, or excuse me, with enough delegates to be guaranteed the nomination. Voting could last any number of rounds until a candidate wins. But such a convention would also put so-called super delegates into the spotlight. Now, those delegates, which are leaders and elected officials who get through the convention by virtue of their position, have been stripped of some powers in the recent years and the party worried that their influence in the process was undemocratic. But if a nomination goes into a second ballot, those automatic delegates, whose numbers more than 700, by the way, could sway the convention. Now, another wildcard that we should all be considering is if the party is free to change the rules, if any, or at any time, excuse me, if at any time, before the nomination, which again, is going to be in December, if any time before the nomination, potentially lowering or raising the bar for a Biden challenger. Now, the most obvious error parent, as I mentioned earlier, and I think most of you would agree, would be Vice President Kamala Harris, but Democrats don't have to pick Biden's running mate. Some of the most discussed alternatives include Newsome, as I said, and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, some say, you know, wait a minute, they're all backing Biden. They're not going to, again, commit political suicide to, you know, put their name on there. Now, again, the nomination vote, don't forget, put this on your calendar. Schedule for August the 21st. But the DNC has raised the possibility of a virtual roll call before August 7th to accommodate any early ballot deadlines. Now, what about the 11th hour ditch effort here? So if Biden steps aside after the convention, which I think would be very strange, the decision on how to replace him would be up to a smaller group, the more than 400 members of the DNC. By party rules, the DNC chairman could or excuse me, would consult with Democratic congressional leaders and governors and make a recommendation. Now, it's been a while since this has happened, by the way, Democrats last used this process in 1972 to replace Thomas Eagleton, who was the VP nominee forced off the ballot after acknowledging that he had received electroshock therapy for depression. That was interesting. But a late switch could also present Democrats with another problem, ballot deadlines. Listen closely. Some states, including battlegrounds, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, allow ballots to be mailed out as early as two months before election day, meaning Biden's name would continue to appear even if he is not a candidate. One advantage of the electoral college system is that those votes would still count. The author said, look, we really don't vote for president. We vote for electors to president, she said. It's the same electors, no matter who's at the top of the ballot. So the bottom line is anything is possible. We will see, of course, we will hear. I think some decisions probably going to be made sooner rather than later, whether they're going to say, okay, he had a bad night, let him continue on and keep our fingers crossed or get the guy the heck out of here. And let's bring in somebody else because we're, you know, we as the Democrats are going to be a kind of, yeah, give me a bad taste of mouth, use that analogy. With the Democrats, we're a sinking ship. And so I think, again, it's going to be very important here in the next, I would say within the next month to see what's going to happen. But the bottom line is it all comes down to money, as we all know, you know, it costs a couple billion dollars to run for the president's spot. And of course, many, many very rich, a lot of Silicon Valley Democrats, et cetera, are saying, you know what, I'm withholding my donation dollars. I don't feel right doing this. I don't think it's the right, right thing to do at this particular time. And so if those donors speak, then the DNC has to listen. That's the bottom line. The Democrats have to listen because again, it all comes down to dollars and cents. Again, as I said at the beginning of the show, my personal opinion. And you know, it's funny, I was mentioning this to my wife the last night after the debate. And I said, you know, I remember not long after Biden got elected, I had a, it was a couple clients actually. So they must have been reading the same spot. We were sitting down and, you know, talking politics and their portfolio, etc, kind of go hand in hand. And they said, look at my prediction is that Biden will not end up serving his full term that they will find some way that Kamala Harris will step in there. Well, let your imagination wonder, what if something like that happened between now and the election, where again, some for some reason, Biden says, you know what, I'm out of here as president, she steps in, she starts running the country, God help us. And then of course, she goes on to get the delegates and so on and so forth and goes against Trump. Again, crazier things have happened than our political lives. So it's something, of course, that we need to pay very, very close attention to, but it all eventually can come back and affect your portfolio. So when we come back, we're going to talk about politics in your portfolio, policy changes, government spending and fiscal policy, monetary policy, geopolitical events. You heard a lot of this last night on the, on the debate. So we're going to come back and touch on this and see most importantly, how it affects you and your money. In the meantime, let's turn it over to Kristin Snow. She's in the right now, traffic center, news, weather, how you doing, Kristin? Welcome back to the John Sanchez show on his talk, 780 KOH, a 46 are, excuse me, 45 point decline on the Dow today. A 126 loss on the NASDAQ and a give up of 22 on the S&P's. All right, we're talking politics and your portfolio. How can politics influence your portfolio for the good or for the bad? So I've outlined a number of different specific areas, and then I want to go into detail about them. The first area I want to talk about is policy changes. Now, again, a lot of the things I'm going to go through tonight, you heard last night out of both Trump and out of Biden, okay? First one, of course, is under policy changes, tax policies, right? Something near and dear to everybody's heart. Now, we all know, of course, and this was brought up last night, as I said, that we have the Trump tax cuts going to sunset at the end of next year. Makes a big difference for everybody, but of course, Biden comes out and says, hey, I'm not raising taxes on anybody. If you make less than 400,000, yeah, right? But then again, anybody that makes more than that, are you corporations? By gosh, you're going to pay the fair share and we're going to raise your taxes and so on and so forth. Again, the democratic thought process is so bizarre to me because if I was a CEO sitting out there and I was deciding who I'm going to vote for as a US citizen, but also who am I going to vote for, you know, for my shareholders and my corporation and my profitability, why in the world would I vote for a guy who says, I am going to raise your taxes, Mr. CEO. It makes no sense to me. And again, we heard this when he campaigned the first time in bizarre, just absolutely bizarre. But let's talk tax policies, okay? So under any administration, of course, we have to know what the tax policies are. Why? Because this number one, a new administration or an existing one can change the tax rates. They can change the tax incentives. They can change the deductions. All of these, of course, affect corporate profits. Personally, of course, change of the tax rates and incentives and deductions. That has an impact on you personally, your personal disposable income. And of course, your investment strategies, right? If taxes are extremely high, hey, you may want to look at something like tax-free municipal bonds or more tax-deferred type of investments or insurance type products to defer or get tax-free income off of. There's a number of different things. We as advisors, we have to watch this very closely. What may be working right now, may not work under a new administration or an existing, you know, if Biden gets reelected, his administration, if he decides to change things. Second policy change, infecting your portfolio. Regulatory policies, again, brought up a lot last night. New regulations, deregulations in industries like finance, healthcare, energy, all of these can affect companies, companies cost, and of course, company profits. Therefore, their net bottom line, the earnings per share, which drives the stock price could be dramatically affected. Trade policies, another big area that can be affected by politics. You heard this again last night. Tariffs, trade agreements, sanctions, all of these can impact international trade. That affects the companies that rely upon the global markets, which, remember, about 80% of the S&P 500 companies make the majority of their profits, not here in the U.S., but they make them abroad. Let's get into our next area, government spending and fiscal policy, okay? Infrastructure projects, right? Biden has just pushed and we've started to see around our country massive amounts of money being spent on infrastructure projects. Would Trump continue that? Who knows? But of course, what does an infrastructure project do? It increases government spending, i.e., there goes our debt. debt ceiling, and our deficit, I should say. So, increased government spending on infrastructure. Of course, it has benefits. How about areas like construction, areas like materials, areas like engineering? We've seen some very good job strength in those three areas that I just mentioned because of the infrastructure, money that's being spent. And again, we've just started to tip the iceberg on some of these projects. So, that's probably a continue to be a good area if Biden gets reelected, and of course, if Trump decides to continue doing that. Next area, under government spending and fiscal policy, subsidies and grants. Well, of course, government has support for certain industries. First one that comes to my mind is the semiconductor industry, right? We learned a lot during COVID that we were lying upon the rest of the world to produce semiconductors, which are needed in so many different aspects of our lives from our houses to our computers, everywhere, of course, vehicles, you name it. So, what did Biden decide to do? Still don't know the truth. If they're grants, if they're loans, whatever it is, but he gave a tremendous amount of money to the semiconductor industry to build semiconductor plants here in the US. So, that would be one area, of course, that you'd want to look at, right? They're getting a whole bunch of money, so maybe their earnings are going to grow based upon that. But they like certain areas, renewable energy, technology, so on and so forth. So, again, depending upon which candidate is going to win, take a look and see what their plan is as far as government support for certain industries. Budget deficits is another area, of course, large government deficits might lead to higher interest rates, i.e. what we have right now, inflation concerns, i.e. what we have right now, and then, of course, the end result is the impact on the bond market and interest rate sensitive sectors like banking and lending and so on, so forth. For those of you not up to speed, of course, here, we are sitting with a $37 trillion deficit. That's just increasing day by day because of all the radical spending by both sides, by both sides. I'm not going to just pick on the Democrats by both sides. Third area affected by politics when it comes to your money, monetary policy. Well, again, I'm going to come back to the interest rate area. The central bank policies on interest rates influence the borrowing costs, how much money you and I are going to spend on credit cards and vehicles and mortgages and so on and so forth. That ultimately has an impact on investment returns. So, even though the Fed is supposed to be apolitical, again, it's anybody's guess whether they are or not. There's arguments to be made on both sides. That's why today, by the way, I should mention this. Let me see if I can dig up the stat real fast. I've got so many stats that have happened to me today. I can't find it right now. The probability increased a couple percent today of the September interest rate increase. So, we're up in the 63, 64 percent probability, something like that, right in the lower 60 percent range. Well, that bumped up a little bit today because we had the Fed's favorite measure of inflation, the PCE, or better known as personal consumption expenditure. That report was released this morning and it was really unchanged from the previous month, standing at about 2.6 percent. So, of course, interest rates, central bank policies, people may say, or they are saying, hey, you know what, don't count on the September rate cut, where again, there's north of a 60 percent probability. Don't count on that because if the Fed does do that, they're going to be viewed as impacting the, for the positive, the Democrats. Fed says, we don't really care. You guys can say what you want. We're going to be data dependent. We're going to either leave rates alone or cut them, or who knows, maybe even increase them based upon incoming data. So, everybody has their opinion on that one. But interest rates, of course, and monetary policy are very important to your portfolio. How about, here's something in a term I haven't had to use in a long time. QE, remember that term? Quantitative easing and QT, quantitative tightening. Central bank actions, of course, to increase or decrease the monetary supply, that can have a major impact on the liquidity of the markets, right? We saw what the Fed did during COVID, et cetera, as far as quantitative easing, quantitative tightening, so on so forth. So, that is something, again, that has a lot to do with politics. Another area that I think does not garner enough attention or concern, but it should. I don't know about you, but I heard a whole bunch of political, or I should say, a whole bunch of remarks from political leaders, diplomats, and so on and so forth around the world today, laughing at the debate last night. So, geopolitics, that has an impact on your portfolio. So, uncertainty around the elections can lead to market volatility. Outcomes can change expectations about future policies. You got the geopolitical tensions, the conflicts, the words, the diplomatic issues that can affect the global markets. That, of course, turns around and affects commodity prices, has an impact on currency and overall investor sentiment, right? So, depending upon who's sitting in the White House, that has a major impact. And also the global trade relations. As you heard a lot last night, Trump, of course, saying how energy independent we were when he was in office, and how things have changed, and how the world has no respect for Biden, and so on and so forth, that has a lot to do with trade relations. He mentioned a lot about the tariffs, how he wants to increase or bring in a 10% tariff against the Chinese. Remember, to be honest with you, when he brought that up, I'm like, "Oh, that's right. I forgot we already have these tariffs against China," and all those other tariffs that he implemented, which I didn't agree with against Europe and some of our allies. But like you said last night, he'll go, "Look, even Biden didn't get rid of the 10% tariff against China because we're making a whole bunch of money here in the US because of that." So, will Trump start implementing tariffs? Again, even back to our allies like Europe, etc. Who knows? But once again, that has a major impact on trade relations and what they do to us, you know, remember the retaliation, kind of the tit-for-tat that we dealt with when Trump implemented all of the tariffs? What happened? We found ourselves, you know, not only did we increase tariffs on them, they also increased tariffs on us. So, who really ended up winning on the whole thing? You know, probably nobody. But the global trade relations, very, very important to obviously various multinational sectors and the global supply chains, etc. Next area that politics infect your portfolio, how about market sentiment, i.e. the confidence, the investor confidence. Political stability or instability has a major impact on the markets, right? It's all about investor confidence or their lack of. Positive sentiment can lead to higher market valuations, higher stock market. Negative sentiment can lead to that nasty two words that I hate saying, sell-offs. Of course, a market sentiment also has to do with risk on, risk on. So, the risk appetite. Political events can shift the risk appetite for investors. I'll never forget, I was standing there doing a seminar at, I think we were at the Atlantis, the day that President Trump, excuse me, the morning after President Trump won the election in November. And I'll tell you, I had this glow about me and I know, you know, all the people in my audience did also. There was an air of confidence in the air that day. Everybody was like, "Oh my God, this is just a major relief." And just from the monetary standpoint, right, forgetting about that we were Republicans, everybody was just giddy about it and you could feel the energy like I said. That creates a risk appetite, right? People wanted Trump in the office at that point. So again, investors become very optimistic about things. That influences the allocation between riskier assets. So, you could see people start to shift out of safe havens like bonds and other safe haven assets, gold, et cetera, and start moving into the riskier assets, meaning the stock market. All right, we come back. We'll talk about sector-specific impacts of politics. Let's wrap it up with Kristen Snow in the Right Now Traffic Center. Hey, Kristen. Welcome back to the John Sanchez Show on News Talk 780K, which thanks again for joining me this Friday evening. I do appreciate it. Hey, speaking of appreciation, standing on the crew at SNW Attractor, do appreciate each and every one of you. They've been part of our community for north of 20 years. They're a dealer that's been around for a long time and will continue to be around for a long time to take care of you, their valuable customer. A piece of equipment is going to last for years upon years. You need a dealer that will help you service it and buy the different implements that you're going to need as your project exchange. They do it all at SNW Attractor, plus let's not forget 0% financing for 84 months. It's all there. All you got to do is stop by and talk to Stan and the crew, located at 4880 East Nile Lane in Carson City. They're online at SNW Attractor.com, and of course, they're phone number 882-1225 or 882-1225. Well, if you missed any of our shows this week or at any time, I want to give you a quick reminder, go to your favorite podcasting distributor and download the John Sanchez show. Our most downloadable player, of course, is on iTunes. That's where most of you listen, but I just want to say something also. Our numbers are really, really starting to move up nicely, and I want to thank all of you. Our downloads are up over 100% over the last 30 days. Our impressions are moving through the rough up over 93% in the last 30 days. I want to thank all of you, but it's not enough. I want more. I want hundreds of thousands of downloads. Please take a listen to the show. If you miss anything, it's so simple to do. Again, just go to iTunes, go to Spotify, Google, wherever you want, and download the John Sanchez show and take a listen to what we covered. We try to give you all the best information we can each and every day, and you know, weekends are a great time. Our downloads really go through the roof on the weekends when you have a little bit of time, which I understand what that's like. So again, thanks to all of you. Please tell all your friends around the country and around the world. We have listeners literally around the world, and so again, we appreciate any support that you give us on the podcasting side of things, of course. All right, politics and your portfolio. Now, let's get into one area that all of you can relate to sector specific impacts of politics. What do I mean by that? Well, let's talk about one area, of course, that we always get a lot of phone calls on when we see missiles flying in the Middle East or wherever in the world, and that is defense and security. So increased government spending on defense, that can boost companies in the defense sector, your Lockheed Martin, your Boeing, your Northrop Grumans, those type of things. So if you get a president that has a big defense budget, i.e. Trump, then of course, many people will start to clamor towards the defense sector and say, look, there's going to be a bunch of money spent by the government. That's one area I want to be. What about the healthcare side of things? Oh my goodness, we've seen so many movements there, both for the good and the bad over the years, as the president and Congress either impact negatively or positively the healthcare area. So of course, we have changes in healthcare policies that can affect areas like pharmaceutical companies. I guess we can say even the insurers, of course, the healthcare providers, those all can really get some massive movements for the good or the bad, depending upon what the politicians are doing. And of course, energy, right? This is one of the real specific areas. We know Trump is pro oil, we know Biden is not. And so again, depending upon the outcome of the election, you can have policies on climate change, renewable energy, fossil fuels, all of these, of course, can impact energy companies for the good or the bad. Back to the international side of things. And this is where it gets a little bit detailed. So I'm going to go real light with you because it's Friday night and I'm tired and I know you are the currency side of things, the exchange rates, right? We know, of course, as Jason alludes to how the currency affects things like gold and many other precious metals, commodities, I mean, you name it, currencies have an impact on so many aspects of your portfolio. Well, the exchange rates, right? Political decisions affect a country's economy that can lead to a currency fluctuations, a weak dollar, a strong dollar that impacts international investments, import exports, et cetera. And of course, foreign investments, right? We need foreign investments, no matter what anybody says, we need foreign money coming into this country, both in the equity market and in the stock market. But political stability or instability, of course, can change foreign investment policies in either attract or deter foreign investors. And again, let your imagination wonder on that one. So to kind of conclude all this, again, we'll be doing many more shows as the we get closer to the election. Let's talk about the most important thing to me, which is you in your portfolio. So how do we mitigate our political risk as I like to call it, right? We obviously, none of us know what the final outcome of the election is going to be. We don't know what's going to happen between now and November. So many unknowns, but those are things you can't control. We like to control things that we can control. So what are those? So I put together four things for you. The first thing to mitigate political risk to your portfolio is this. We harp on this over and over again. You know the term, diversify your portfolio, diversify it across different geographies, different sectors internationally, domestically, correlated assets, non-correlated assets, diversify that as the key. No matter what happens, a diversified portfolio should do much better for you than when that's solely concentrated. And again, depending upon the outcome of the election, I know it's not like a broken record. Yeah, you may be time to shift everything overseas, as far as your money is concerned. But in the meantime, we're still the best dirty shirt in the laundry as the saying goes. And so diversification is a great way. Second way, we mitigate political risk, stay informed as we're doing right now. Stay informed about the political developments, the impacts on your portfolio. Third, consider investments in sectors less sensitive to political changes. And finally, use financial instruments, what we call defensive ones, things like which we can't really get into options and other ways to hedge your portfolio against political risk. That's what the big boys and girls on Wall Street do. And you can do the same thing with the right financial advisor. And we hope we are blessed and fortunate enough to be that for you. God bless all of you. Have a great week. And we'll see you on Monday on the John Sanchez Show, Newstalk 780KH. America. We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At Grand Canyon University, we believe in equal opportunity. And the American Dream starts with purpose. 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