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It's time for Yahoo Finance's market minute. Stocks lower. The S&P 500 on pace to snap a three-day rally as euphoria around trade talks wane. Well, the latest retail sales data showed consumer spending slowed in April amid tariff uncertainty. Walmart shares falling as well this morning after reporting mixed first quarter results. The retailer missing revenue estimates and withholding Q2 earnings guidance while topping Q1 earnings and US same store sales estimate.Walmart says it will raise consumer prices as it is unable to fully absorb the shock of rising costs from President Trump's tariffs, and Foot Locker shares surging on news that Dick Sporting Goods is buying the shoe retailer for $2.4 billion. The acquisition gives Dick's international exposure as the company faces a tough demand landscape in the US. Shares of Dicks are lower. TD Cow and analysts downgrading the stock, calling the deal a strategic mistake.And that is your Yahoo Finance market minute.Welcome to Wealth, everyone brought to you by Synchrony. I'm Brad Smith, and this is Yahoo Finance's guide to building your financial footprints. Our community of experts will give you the resources, tools, tips, and the tricks that you need to grow your money. And on today's show, portfolio checkup amid heightened economic uncertainty, we'll discuss how investors can defensively position for whatever comes next and getting the most out of your 401.will reveal how much one expert says you should be contributing to your retirement savings. Plus generational wealth playbook. Should you consider opening a trust to transfer your wealth, we're going to dive into that question and break it all down later on in the hour. But first, let's start things off as we always do, taking a look at some of the market action 90 minutes into the trading day and stocks, uh, lower today.The Nasdaq on contract to snap a six day winning streak and joining me now we've got Bob Dole, Crossmark Global Investments, CEO and CIO, and, and Bob, good to have you here with us. You say you're continuing to position defensively. How is that kind of defensive positioning playing out in specific names and walk us through how you're doing.

Sure, uh, S&P 500 is up 1000 points in the last uh month plus, and so we think it makes sense to be a little more defensive again. Uh, we are focused uh maniacally on cash flow, uh, therefore, what's the multiple of us.Stock to cash flow, and we want profitability, so return on equity. We combine those two things, we think that's a defensive positioning. Generally leads us to more quality companies, for example, uh, our favorite sector has been and remains financials.Uh, this sector is uh cheap relative to the market. Uh, a lot of the lending this cycle took place outside the banking system and private areas, and so we think that's gonna mean we're in pretty good shape from a balance sheet standpoint for many of the financials and the biggest beneficiary of the deregulation environment in which we find ourselves. Uh, so that that's a bit of a highlight. The kinds of names we're buying, um,I would highlight the financial services companies, Visa and Mastercard. These are not exactly cheap financials, as many of the others are, like, uh, many of the banks, but these are, these companies are machines. Um, they, uh, they crank it out, um, their, their growth in transaction volume continues to defy gravity almost, um.Uh, these companies are gaining market share, especially outside the US, so further geographic penetration, and that gives us double-digit growth. Uh, again, to repeat, I wish they were cheaper from a multiple standpoint, um, but, uh, uh, we, we think they will remain defensive stocks.If you want a more traditional financial brand, I, I take you to a Goldman Sachs as an example. Um, this company is executing, um, technology advancements, including AI, um, they're, they're watching their costs carefully, expanding into, uh, new businesses and restructuring as they go along.Uh, we think this is a good one inthat mix,

you know, it's really interesting because you're talking about in Goldman Sachs, uh, a wealth management and investment banking business, uh, and then on the other side with Visa and Mastercard talking about a little bit more of the everyday transactions that consumers might continue to make. What are you making of the the health of the consumer and where else in the.Portfolio that health of the consumer could pose a risk and then on the other side of perhaps a relief of economic uncertainty not panning out as bad as I guess we had anticipated it might on the early onset of some of the tariff announcements what we could see in that relief from consumers as well.

Yeah, I, I think that, uh, we expect the consumer, which has already slowed some, to slow more. As you, you've been reporting, the soft data, uh, consumer surveys, business surveys have really struggled, falling off a cliff, as it were, and that's often a presaging what's gonna happen to the hard data. We've not seen much deterioration there. Our guess is there's more of that to come, as the consumer weakens, as the job market weakens some, um, you, you were commenting on the on.Walmart and what they had to say behind the numbers. Uh, so we think we're gonna see more weakness in the, in the consumer and that's therefore means the overall economy probably slows.

You know, some of the other names that you had, I believe Gilead was on that list. Why was that?

Yeah, we, we, we, uh, are underweight in health care, so struggling to find names. Gilead's a good product mix, uh, whether it's HIV or some of the other areas that they continue to explore. The stock is not all that expensive, a good cash flow characteristics, um, uh, and controversshield, which makes it a little cheaper and therefore of interest to us.

OK, and so now as we're thinking about kind of the earning season that we've moved through the bulk of and we still have one more bellwether of course in Nvidia and the AI trade that could really take some of its cues from what Nvidia has to say, it seems like Jensen Wong is still out there trying to strike deals, trying to make sure that there's more capacity that is being brought online for production.What do you make of all that and how you're kind of looking through what we may hear from Nvidia as it applies to what has driven the past two years of consecutive 20% gains in the S&P 500 in the AI trade?

Yeah, so we think Nvidia will um uh continue to produce good products, good services, good sales, so we, we like the company, we're underweight the stock again. Uh, you know, we were in the current, uh, vicinity in the 130s, uh, not that many months ago, and then it went back in the 90s, bought.Then taking that trading position and trimming it back again at these up 40% kind of levels.

I saw somebody wearing an Nvidia t-shirt on the subway, Bob, in Brooklyn, so I had to get that question and. Bob, thanks so much for taking the time. Have a good one.Now time for some of today's trending tickers. We're watching NetEase, JetBlue, and Pinterest. First up, China-based video game company NetEase Rising. After reporting better than expected first quarter results, games and related services revenue rose 12% from the prior year. Morgan Stanley calling it a clean beat. Bloomberg Intelligence expects earnings estimates to rise, but says margins at current levels don't look sustainable.Next up, JetBlue getting a downgrade to market perform from outperformat Raymond James. The firm is citing more balanced risk reward amid improving sentiment. The stock hit the firm's $5 price target, so they don't see a lot of upside. Raymond James still sees the airline as a survivor in the industry, so they don't expect liquidity and that risk even in a downturn. The analyst does name a few things though that could help the stock down the line like industry consolidation and rumored partnerships even.And finally, Pinterest getting an upgrade to outperform from Peer Perform at Wolf Research. The firm is more optimistic as they see more muted macro overhanging success in the company's core business due to features like Performance Plus and then Opportunity with third party sellers and the stock's reasonable valuation. Wolf setting a $40 a share price target, implying 22% upside from the stock's last close.You could scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finance's trending ticker's page. Coming up with fresh inflation, housing and jobs data out this morning. We're taking a look at the economy and how workers and businesses are feeling. Stay tuned.We want to break down the overall health of the US economy. We got a lot of data this morning. Wholesale prices fell unexpectedly in April compared to the month prior, showing that price pressures could be easing. Still, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that tariff uncertainty could lead to inflation volatility. Meanwhile, retail.Sales in April were just above the flat line decelerating significantly from March as consumers pull back spending. Joining me now we've got Lawrence Werther, who is the Daiwa Capital Market's chief US economist. Lawrence, great to have you here with us. So let's just start with the inflation picture. what do consumers need to know about where prices are and potentially could be heading?

Sure, Brad. Well, first off, thank you for having me today.I would say broadly speaking up until this point, the inflation data have shown ongoing deceleration. The CPI for for April, which we saw a little earlier this week, was friendlier than I had anticipated.But as you highlighted, the big question going forward is what feedback effect will tariffs have on prices. It's a lot of unknowns surrounding that right now, but I would say by and large it could cause inflation to become sticky again or maybe even pick up a bit in the back half of the year. Are

we getting a senseYeah, and so further to that end, and I'll, I'll let you finish as well. Are we getting a sense of just how much of the pricing pressures that retailers or that manufacturers are taking on, how much of that they're actually passing on to consumers?

You know that's a great question. So I would say thus far pass through has been muted. You know, you've seen some instances where retailers have raised prices prospectively with the anticipation that costs will be higher, but you know, if you lookengages, for instance, or other PMIs where you get a sense of cost increases for the producer versus what they're transmitting along to to end consumers, that trend, that transfer has been limited thus far.

And so as we're taking a look at some of the retail sales data and and the pockets that specifically we're seeing as evidenced through some of the earnings like Walmart's that consumers are still leaning into where are you seeing strength versus some of the weakness really start to kind of rear its head in certain aisles or categories?

OK, I would say first off, by and large, the consumer is doing all right right now. The latest data that we have on the balance sheet suggests that households are relatively well capitalized, have a decent amount of liquid assets. The labor market remains solid and consumer and workers are seeing real income gains.So they haven't completely pulled back, but I think you're starting to see some caution in discretionary areas. I would note sporting goods sales in the latest retail sales report were down in excess of 2%. Sales at clothing stores were weak. Maybe you saw still a little bit of preemptive buying in areas like furniture, although that could have been price effects.So I would say you saw some front loading of big ticket items like auto sales just a month ago, but in areas where consumers could maybe postpone purchases, you're certainly seeing more caution in my view. Now that said, you know, restaurant spending, which is one service area that we saw in the retail sales report, was exceedingly strong for the 2nd consecutive month. So if nothing else, people are still going out to eat.

Look, uh, every one of us has that caviar just ready to fire off and hoping that it's benefiting some local restaurant also, Lawrence, as we're thinking through how this all correlates, of course consumers tend to feel like they are more or their dollar goes longer or they're more confident when there are better prospects for employment. What is your read through, especially as we were just flashing on the screen some of the jobless claims data and.That comparison to where the usual averages even you know pre-pandemic we were looking at this average around 200,000 even if we stay at these levels, how are you kind of reading through where the consumer might evaluate employment prospects with their overall consumption?

That's a great, a great question, Brad. I would say right now indicators from the labor market are good, as you noted, initial claims are right where they were prior to the onset of the pandemic. That was a period that Chair Powell has characterized as somewhat of a nirvana for the labor market. Supply and demand were very much in line.I would add, moreover, even though that the data are a bit lagged at this point, if you looked at the latest Joltz report available, layoffs are below where they were prior to the onset of the pandemic. You know, the other side of that coin is hiring rates are down, the quits rate is down, which signals thatPeople see less of an opportunity to, to job hop for better benefits. But I would say by and large right now, the, the, the labor market, uh, is, is, is, is performing relatively well. I do expect hiring to slow, um,You know, I think we've seen a propensity for firms to hold off on expansion plans, but that being said though, they're not firing workers yet. They don't want to get caught flat-footed like they did coming out of the pandemic, where firms were ultimately competing for scarce labor resources.

Absolutely, Mark's great to have you here with us. Thanks for diving into some of the data, the deluge of data that we've received over the course of this week.

Brad, thanks again for having me. It was a pleasure to be with you this, thismorning.

Well, if you have credit cards with high interest rates and credit card debt, a 0% APR card could help pay off that debt. Yahoo Finance reporter Madison Mills explains how a balance transfer card with a 0% annual percentage introductory rate could help you save money.

If you're struggling to pay off credit card debt, 0 APR cards could help you.The card has a 0% APR annual percentage rate introductory offer. That means you don't pay interest on the balance you transfer for a set period of time. If you didn't pay any interest on that debt for more than a year, could you pay it off? The best zero APR credit card for you depends on your current balance, the length of the 0% APR intro period, balance transfer fee, and how much you can pay each month. For context, a recent study shows the average credit card debt is more than $6500 and 0% APR.Introductory periods range from about a year to 21 months. So let's do the math. Say you have a $6500 credit card balance on a 21% APR card. If you make only the minimum payments starting at $178.75 the first month, you would pay more than $10,000 in interest over more than 25 years before you can pay off your full balance. Now let's compare. Say you transfer your $6500 credit card debt to a new card that has an 18 month.introductory APR and a 3% balance transfer fee. If you pay at least $361 each month toward that credit card bill, you could pay your balance in full in 18 months without any additional interest. You would still have to add in the 3% balance transfer fee of $195 bringing your total to $6,695 on a 21% APR card, your total more than $17,000.Be aware there are ways you can get in trouble here. If you transfer a balance to a 0% APR card and keep using the old card, making only minimum payments, you can run up your debt. If you can't pay off the full balance here on the new card before the intro period ends, you will need to pay the card standard.Interest rate on the remainder and that interest rate is typically high. Using a zero APR balance transfer credit card can be a savvy financial move as long as you can commit to paying down that credit card debt. Scan the QR code for more information on the best zero APR credit cards.

Coming up, US home builder confidence falling to its lowest level since late 2023. We'll dig into what it says about your housing search during the break.We are excited to partner with Synchrony Bank, our premier sponsor for Wealth. Synchrony Bank is working with Yahoo Finance and Wealth to bring you the insights for your personal finance playbook and help you make your money work for you. Let's get a check of the markets here just about 2 hours into trade on the session, we're tracking a few things here. First, I'm just gonna go back to what we're seeing in some of the equities markets here. We were taking a look at commodities a moment ago. I'm gonna take.A quick look at the S&P 500 and there you're seeing up on the screen the 11 S&P 500 sectors. I'm looking for GSPC that's going to give us the overall look at what's transpiring here on the day and you've got a little bit of a leg higher that we're seeing intraday that's pushed us into positive territory starting here in the 11 a.m. hour here. We've been largely in negative territory throughout the trading session to this point. We're going to continue to watch all of the sector activity that is really being led right now byUtilities utilities is up by about 1.5% right now. However, pulling up the caboose, you've got to look at consumer discretionary. That's down by about 7%. More gainers than laggards right now that we're seeing. We're also checking in on some of those mega cap tech stocks where it seems like on uh equal view at least you still have more gainers than laggards right now. The trade desk right now is in the rear. That's down by about 4.5%, but Cisco.You're seeing shares there jumping right now by about 6.3%. I was trying to click into it so we could pull up the full chart there, but ultimately you're seeing the move here leading the Nasdaq. We had the outgoing CFO Scott Heron and the new CFO in studio with us earlier this morning here. Make sure you light up the Yahoo Finance platform. Go check out that interview as well. And lastly, with some of the housing and homes data that we've got that's come out here.I just want to briefly take a look at some of those home builders to see how they're doing on today's activity. Oh yeah, a lot of green right now. And for that, let's dive further into this topic. Home builder sentiment is falling to its lowest level since 2023, according to the National Association of HomeBuilders. Confidence among US builders fell 6 points in May. That's more than economists expected. Elevated interest rates, tariff concerns, and building.Material costs all weighing on sentiment. The the NHAB though they do note that 90% of responses came in prior to the announcement of the US-China tariff law. So we had to note that here to dig into the number we've got Katie Hubbard who is Walton Global EVP of Capital Markets. Kate, great to have you back here on the program with us. So just take us into your assessment based on the data that we've seen come through from NAHP.

Yes, I mean, as you mentioned, it's been a weak spring season, so the traffic for homebuilders just hasn't been there. Historically, 37% of their annual sales are coming from sales completed in February through May. And with the weak spring season, it's just, it has put a put a damper on their sentiment. However, we have, you know, we're talking daily to our clients, the public home builders, and it really is community and location specific. Some buildersThey are having to really slash prices to get the homes, to get the home counts where they want to be, to get the products to move. So they're dropping to 0% margins, which sounds alarming, but they're doing what they have to do while on the other hand, some communities are selling very well and they're in the 30% margin range. So it's definitely community specific.

Whosemarket is this? Is this a buyer's market? Is this a seller's market? Where are we at in the broaderKind of map if you will, as a lot of potential home buyers were waiting for and anticipating that rates might come down further this year, but for the Fed that's looking through all of the data and saying hey we don't see any real reason to cut and that also not having the impacts on interest rates and mortgage rates either, what is that essentially kind of put onto the table for the broader home buyers' calculus?

Right, I mean, the 30 year fix today is at 6.91%, so remains quite elevated. It is a buyer's market if you're looking for a new home and especially in that entry level home, going to a publicly traded new home community, they will buy down your mortgage rate, they will give you incentives. They want to sell you a house, and in some cases they're slashing prices $100,000 so it's a good time to buy.That's the type of product you're looking for,

which of the home builders do you believe is really best positioned for this? Is it the luxury end? Is it the kind of not mass market, but certainly some of the home builders that appeal more to the first time home buyers, easier builds where and and in specific regions I suppose as well that they might have the most footprint.

Yeah, I mean, the luxury builders are dealing with people that are not really affected as much by mortgages as they're dealing with many times all cash buyers, so they're faring fairly well in good locations with good land positions. And then the the large public builders, your top builders are going to fare the best. They have the ability.to compress their margins down to absorb the cost increases from tariffs, they have the ability to bring incentives and buy down mortgage rates. It's really the small builders. If you're building less than, you know, if you're building less than 2500 homes a year, you're going to be struggling because you don't have the ability to compete on the land side.To pay the premium prices for good locations for lots that are ready to go, and you just can't buy down mortgage rates. You don't have the ability to squeeze your margins. So small builders are going to be struggling right now.

What'sthe overall tariff impact from what you're hearing from home builders right now?

Yeah, so we're hearing 2 to 4% average cost increase of the actual home um production. However, they're not passing that on to the end home buyer at this time just because the home purchaser won't absorb that. They're having to slash prices to get those unitcounts.

We know the spring home buying season has been weaker than normal. What does that set up for this summer potentially?

Yeah, I mean, they're just, they're doing what they can to keep the unit counts going, so they're going to have to continue to offer incentives which are about 7% on average across the board. Um so hoping that, you know, if inflation, if we get inflation down and get the 10 year down, that will bring the mortgage rates down, and that will certainly help stabilizing material costs.is also helping as well as we see some of the tariffs settledown.

Who's upholding the home buying market right now? Is it, is it the first time homebuyer? Is it the homebuyer that is looking for, dare I say, a second property? And I think I know the answer to this, but I need to, I need to know how you're reading through and what's showing up in your data.

It's definitely the first time homebuyer. That is who is out there, you know, purchasing homes still. The job market is good, so they're able to get a mortgage. Credit, credit is good pretty much across the board. So the first time homebuyers keeping keeping the market going. Katie,

great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us as

always. Thanks you too, Brad.

Coming up, advice for getting the most out of your 401k at every age. You've got that on the other side when wealth returns.Spring travel season is underway, and we want to give you a foolproof guide to maximizing credit card rewards to help pay for your next trip. Joining me now, an expert on this, Clint Henderson, managing editor at the Points Guide. So Clint, good to have you in your studio with us. How does one pick the best travel card for their needs?

So it's gonna really depend on what airport you're flying.From what airline you like to fly, but that's why I like to tell people just get one of the premium credit cards with a transferable currency, so Amex, Chase, Capital One, built. They all transfer to various partners. It's going to give you a lot more flexibility, and these cards have huge annual fees, but if you maximize them, you can more than make up for the cost of the annual.Fee. So in the case of American Express, $700 there's speculation it could go up even higher, but they have so many credits, travel credits that you can get Uber credits, restaurant credits, all kinds of interesting things that you can do to offset that annual fee.

What cards do you recommend for frequent travelers out there? So

I would say the American Express Platinum is my go to, uh, even though it's outrageously expensive. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a basic card, $95 a year, but it gives you a $50 hotel credit.Uh, it gives you a big sign up bonus, which is the way you really build up those miles and points. The Chase Sapphire Reserve is a higher end card that has travel credits as well, up to $300 and then the Chase, the Capital One Venture card, another one with big travel credits that you can maximize. And so these annual fees can be scary to people, but a lot of times they are worth it. And

so how many cards should the average consumer have out there?

So I would say pick your favorite.the one that you fly the most, get their co-branded credit card because that gives you free bags, priority boarding, and sometimes some other perks and a big sign up bonus and then get one of the cards with the transferable currency. So don't be crazy like me and have 27 credit cards, but maybe 2 to 3 to start. And then when you get a little more advanced, if you really want to get those big points balances, you got to open multiple cards, but there's all kinds of tricks going from there.

So.Of the tricks here, what is the best way to rack up and redeem points and for free and discounted travel because that's that's what we really want. We want to travel

free, absolutely, and I think the best way to do that is to get those sign up bonuses. But if for most people I would say start with a card where you're putting all your spending that has a currency like membership rewards from American Express, the transfers to literally 18 partners. So whether that's Hyatt Hotels.Or whether that's Air France Flying Blue because that's when you really maximize it when you're using other carriers, you're finding the award that you want that business class seat to Europe and then you're transferring the currency over to to book the actualtrip.

How do you recommend somebody keep track of their points?

So I keep a spreadsheet, uh, but there is services are the Points Guy app has a way to track all your balances, really good way to keep track of it. There's other products.Out there that offer tracking services, but I just keep a simple Google sheet. It keeps it basic. I just recommended this to a friend. I said just put the cards you have, the balances, and it gives you an idea of where you'reat.

OK, so if you have a spreadsheet, I imagine you have more than 5 credit cards then

27,

27,

27

over time,

over time, and here's some other tricks around that. So not everyone's gonna be obsessive like me, but I have huge balances because of that.But if you, if you have a card, you get a big sign up bonus. Don't close the account. Downgrade it to a no annual fee if you don't want to pay the annual fee the next year. So you've got that sign up bonus. Downgrade it to a no annual fee version, then you're not paying a lot of annual fees. I am because I know I can maximize those cards, so I make sure I'm getting every single statement credit. I'm using the travel credits, you know, using those rideshare credits and the resi credits and all those things, butWant to keep track of that and make sure you're doing that.

How do you know when to put a credit card on the chopping block?

So if it's not giving you benefits, if you're not earning your annual fee back every year, then it's time to downgrade that card and not necessarily close it because that can hurt your credit score. So even though I have 27 credit card credit cards, I have excellent credit because I've kept those those accounts open. It looks like I have a lot of credit available. I have a low credit utilization.And so you're really maximizing your credit score that way. Interesting.

How do you avoid common credit card fees andpitfalls?

So the first thing I would say is don't ever carry a balance. That's tip number one, because any reward you're getting from carrying a balance is going to be outweighed by the interest you're paying. So you want to be able to pay that card off in full every month. If you can't do that, don't even get in the game, then it's not even worth it. Keep track of what credits are available on that card and just make.Sure you send a reminder to yourself once a month to use the credit. Just make sure you're getting the annual fees worth of value from that card everyyear.

All right, personal favorite question here, and I only have 30 seconds. How do you know when it's time to buy the travel insurance, when it's time to click that button when you're booking a trip to protect it and get the insurance on top of what you're alreadypaying?

Don't ever buy that travel insurance. No, most if you book your trip with one of the premium credit cards I've been hammering on.They include up to medical evacuation on that card, so you don't need additional insurance unless you're a skydiver or a deep sea diver or doing action sports. Then sometimes you'll need a supplemental coverage, but use a premium card that you know has the insurance you want on it. Medical evacuation, not all cards offer that.

None of the activities that I do count as action sports. Clint, thanks so much for taking the time.According to a Yahoo Finance Marist poll, banked households in America are not enthusiastic about the money they have saved. Only 10% say that they are completely satisfied with their savings. One of the key accounts Americans use to save for retirement is a 401k, and we want to discuss how to become more satisfied with your savings. Joining me now in studio, we've got back live in Living Colors said.Nash, Oakland Consulting Group CEO and founder of the Blackwell Summit. Cedric, great to have you back here. Thank you,

Brad. Happy to be here.

So let's discuss this. How can you take advantage of your 401k? A lot of people have probably been checking their 401ks over the past several weeks with some of the market volatility.

It's interesting. 401k is an incredible tool for planning for retirement.Um, however, unfortunately people are not contributing enough and it's one of those things that people constantly put on the back burner. I mean, according to studies, about 41% of people eligible to participate in 401ks are participating in them and, um, and a lot of times they, they keep deferring it so.You know, so I, I think that people need to take more advantage of it. One of the things they need to do, especially when they're first coming out of college, getting their first job, is to immediately maximize their contribution. That's the one thing that most people older said that if they start all over again they would do, especially if the company is, is, uh, contributing a match, uh, you're leaving money on the table that's something you never want to do.

And so with this in mind, how much should you contribute to your retirement savings account atevery age?

You know, I honestly believe and I wrote a book about about this topic that people should be contributing about 22 to 27% into what I call their Freedom fund. However, there are maximums based on your employer's plan that you can contribute to your 401k. And once you maximize that.Maximum in your 401k, you can always uh use an IRA account which is a tax deferred instrument. There's also, you know, after tax investments and Roth IRAs that you can put money into that are after tax. So I think there's a lot of instruments that are there. People just have to get busy starting early, contributing as much as they possibly can and not waiting until they.Earn more money in order to invest more money because 9 times out of 10 when you earn more money you have more bills and you it's harder to actually get started so that's one of the things that's why people I think are dissatisfied because they did not maximize early on.

Now this is not the only retirement account. What are some alternate uh retirement.accounts that you can really leverage in your broader savings strategy.

You know what's interesting it's and there's some, you know, for entrepreneurs like I've been an entrepreneur for the majority of my life there's several other programs that you can implement if you don't have a corporate program like a SEP like right, like a, a separate, uh.Uh, individual retirement program plus they also have a, uh, a solo 401k program. Another way that people can save for retirement if they don't have a corporate, uh, retirement program is, you know, dividend stocks by building up their capital and investing in dividend stocks. It's a great way to create income in retirement.And finally, I always think of multi-family properties is a great way to build income because of the uh the the increases allow you to stay ahead of inflation at the same time as you pay down that mortgage that income becomes real money that you can use in retirement.

What if you have fallen behind, say you've, you know, fallen out of the workforce and you've needed to tap your 401k just because of emergency funding that is necessary.Just as a bridge and then you want to make sure that you're restarting some of your savings effectively how can you go about that?

Yeah, I think that, you know, um, and that's also the same situation where people did not who did not, um, maximize their account the first time. I think that as you get increases always continue to add more money to your 401k. I mean, I always had this rule of thumb that if you as you get an increase, you have to maximize those increases because over time.Your salary has gone up 100 15 $20,000 more, but your 401k hasn't gone up. That's why I think it's important that 50% of their increase should go into their 401k and put 25% into paying down bills, and the other 25% should go in their pocket. Yeah,

and so as we're thinking about the different tiers of saving.When do you know to finally start to tap those retirementsavings?

You know, it's, I think you have to have a very, uh, very, very clear plan of how you want to retire. You have to, and that depends on if you're gonna have a pension, if you're, uh, if you're gonna be able to rely on Social Security, you know, all those things.Are a factor and I love the old 4% rule uh for retirement, uh, where you can for withdrawals out of your retire program as a standard for how you should withdraw from your 401k plan.

Cedric, great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us in studio again.

Thanks for having me, Brad.

Coming up we're talking all things trusts as part of our generational wealth playbook. stick around. You've got more wealth after the break.Thinking about how to pass down generational wealth to the next generation, a trust isn't just for the ultra wealthy. It can be a strategic way to protect your assets, dictate how they're used, and ensure that your legacy lasts. But is setting up a trust the right move for you?And your family, that's the big question here to join us now to break it all down, we've got Pam Lucia who is the Northern Trust head of Family Office Solutions, and we gotta know here just out the gate here, Pam, what are some of the benefits to opening a trust for transferring your wealth?

Yeah, uh, thank you for having me. I mean, there are a lot of perks to opening a trust. I mean, for starters, uh, you could avoid a drawn out probate process, meaning that your family could have access to a home or investment upon your passing more quickly and more privately than.Uh, if it was to go through the court process, or if you have a good amount of assets, substantial amount, um, it, it could be a way to minimize the state taxes. Uh, it could be if you're in an occupation where, uh, that you may have creditors or, or lawsuits such as a physician, um, it could be a way to shield assets from creditors, give you some asset protection.And finally, if you have uh a child who has special needs, uh, there are specific trusts that are designed to minimize uh the need, uh, and gain the need to preserve governmental benefits, so lots of benefits depending on the purpose of a trust.

What are some limitations or drawbacks to opening a trust?

Yeah, so it's not as simple as just opening a bank account. You usually have to chat with an attorney, so there could be some legal fees associated with it. And depending how that trust is managed, so you may need to hire a trustee to manage it. So some, some ongoing costs around management.Uh, taxes, uh, get a little more complicated, so there's tax planning and record keeping associated with the trust. And then finally, and this is key because this is often missed, but it's not as simple as creating a trust, you actually have to fund that trust, meaning.You have to transfer investment accounts, deed homes, uh, in order to uh get that trust to work and so there's some paperwork involved.

Now not all trusts are created equal. What are some common trusts that a parent or caretaker might explore?

Sure, there's lots of different types of trust, but I'll go over some of the main ones. So, first of all, there's the revocable trust. This is, this is really common. Uh, it allows you to manage your assets as you normally would during your lifetime, but then when you become incapacitated or pass away, it provides for management that for your loved ones. Uh, and people like those cause you can make changes to them.But you could also create an irrevocable trust. Those are most commonly done for, uh, minimizing the state taxes. Uh, if you wanna set up a trust for a child, uh, there's a thing called a miner's trust. So miners trusts are set up for a child until they reach a certain age where then it's distributed to them where they can more appropriately manage it.And then there's certain purpose type of trust, such as an education trust, uh, that is set up to fund future education for beneficiaries if you want to provide that type of legacy.

Pam, we were very we were having very much a spirited conversation on what you can and can't put in trusts in our morning meeting, and one of the things that we were pondering among ourselves is what is the range of assets that can go into a trust, whether that be real estate, whether that be art or alternative assets, even investments what have you seen?

Yeah. So, um, as I said earlier, um, a trust doesn't work until you actually fund it. And any asset that you own can be transferred into a trust. Um, some requires, like I said, a home, you have to deed it into the trust. Um, if it's an irrevocable trust, there may be valuations that need to be done, so you know the value of that trust. But really, any asset can, can be transferred into a trust either during your lifetime or, or upon your death.

So for the families that we've seen take advantage of trust, how have we seen them on the other end make sure that that the trust and the assets within them are deployed properly thereafter? Who needs to come into that conversation?

Yeah, so you really need to work with a qualified attorney, um, a qualified wealth adviser, a qualified tax advisor. It really takes a multidisciplinary team.You know, um, I used to practice law and then I went to, uh, uh, be a wealth adviser and now I see how these trusts are administered and so having these different viewpoints where people can, um, give you the advice on how these actually work in practice is extremely helpful. And then of course we always say try to communicate that your plans with your loved ones so there are no surprises.

Pam, thanks so much for taking the time here with us. Really appreciate the breakdown. Absolutely,

thank you, my pleasure.

Let's do a final check of the markets as we're taking a look at the major averages here on your screen. We are mixed right now with the Dow still in positive territory. The S&P 500 now in positive territory as well. That's up by about 2% 2%, excuse me, as is the Dow by about 0.5%. The Nasdaq though still in the red.This has been interesting to watch. We're seeing a move to the upside here, so we'll see if this continues to transpire over the course of the rest of today's trading session. That is it for wealth, everyone. I'm Brad Smith. Thank you so much for watching. Guess what? You can stay tuned. Market domination comes your way at 3 p.m. Eastern time. They'll count you down to and through the market close. You don't wanna miss it.