It's episode 23 of Payne Points of Wealth and there are mounds of money creating mounds of speculation in the stock market. As we speak, there's literally $4.3 trillion sitting in cash because the government prints so much money. Not surprisingly, a lot of that money is finding its way into the stock market and creating rampant speculation. So the question is, are we in a bubble? How do you invest your money today to get a good return over the next five to 10 years? We're going to address that. 

With the pandemic starting last year did you push your financial planning to the sidelines? Fair enough. Well, it’s a new year and hopefully, you've got a new perspective on life. So we're going to talk about how to get your financial life in order and get it in gear in 2021! It's going to be another great episode. Check it out!

• Why we think bubbles are forming [1:16]

There is all this money finding its way into the market. The scariest thing about it is that it’s not going into the places we are advising, like a diversified risk-adjusted portfolio. It’s going into things like Bitcoin, SPACs, and new IPO companies with no earnings. The “sexy” stocks. These are people looking for a quick buck, not long-term investors. Stock speculation is all around us and you just don’t know when the bubble is going to burst. 

A half-trillion dollars worth of options on individual stocks traded last week alone! The highest single-day level in the history of the options market, that goes all the way back to the early ’70s. We also had the lowest amount of bearish bets, or puts, being bought in the history of the stock market. So you have the lowest level in years on people being bearish and the highest level in years of people being bullish. Conventional wisdom tells you to be bullish because everybody else is, but you may find that there is very little wisdom in conventional wisdom. Listen to the episode for more on the signs to look for!

There were a lot of rules and regulations that changed last year with the SECURE Act that we might've forgotten about once the pandemic hit. All this fantastic new tax legislation that you could use with your portfolio where all of us got a break on our required minimum distribution from retirement plans. They waived it for everybody. They also moved the required age up from 70 to 72. That's two more years of compounding and two more years of not having to take 20% of your distribution and give it to the IRS. That one piece of legislation is going to help everybody secure their retirement! There’s more to this week’s Tipping Point so be sure to listen!

Japan was one of the biggest stock markets in the world for a time in the late eighties, making up 45% of the global market capitalization. Japan only makes up 8% of that total now. It was a wild ride back in those late ’80s.

During the Trump presidency, the S&P 500 annualized 13.9% a year, which is only slightly higher than when Obama was president at 13.1% a year. So the market was almost identical under both of their tenures. Just goes to show that businesses don’t care who is in office, they are just in it to make money!

Nearly 87.5 of US GDP is generated by the private sector outside the government's direct reach. Further demand for US stocks and goods US firms produce is fully global. Almost 40% of US firm's revenue stems from outside the US. Mitigating American political influence. In a global economy, Capitol Hill doesn’t have as much influence as you’d think.

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