• We identified a billing error related to platform fees after switching custodians; some clients were overcharged and will automatically receive a refund—no action is needed.
• The fee calculation was mistakenly based on monthly averages instead of the intended quarter-end method; this has been corrected going forward.
• Most client refunds will average around $300, but upholding our core value of doing the right thing matters more than the dollar amount.
• Consumer spending came in much stronger than expected, signaling continued strength in the economy and a positive outlook for the stock market.
• Inflation data showed mixed results: headline CPI increased, but core inflation—which matters more for long-term trends—actually went down.
• The Federal Reserve is under pressure to lower interest rates, especially from President Trump, but is likely holding off until September to maintain independence and monitor economic data.
• Tariffs are generally not inflationary in the long term; we explain why in detail on our podcast and encourage you to check that out.
• Our forecast for the second half of 2025 is optimistic: we expect markets to reach new all-time highs.
• One factor to watch is the upcoming $9 trillion U.S. debt auction, which could impact markets depending on how it plays out.
• We just crossed 1,000,000 total views on our podcasts and market alert videos—thank you for watching and staying informed.
• If you haven’t seen our podcast episodes yet, reach out to your retirement planner and ask for the link.
• As always, our goal is to help you enjoy your second childhood without parental supervision by focusing on both growth and protection.

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to our Market Alert video for today, which is July 18, 2025 and we have three important things to talk with you about. One is good news. You’ve got a refund. Do you? Number two is consumer spending, and the last, of course, is inflation. We got the CPI numbers this week, and we’re going to talk about what those mean to our investments and what the outlook is going forward. So before we get going, I hope this video finds you healthy, wealthy and wise. Thank you for watching, and I hope all you SCWPers are out there SCWPering Your little tails off. I hope you are enjoying your second childhood without parental supervision. And I hope that you’re not worrying about all this boring financial stuff. You’re letting us do it for you. And for those of you who are not retired yet, who are not SCWPers yet, we’re going to do everything we can to get you there when you want to how you want to, so that you too can enjoy that second childhood. So you may be wondering, why are we talking about you getting a refund? Well, what happened was that we did a an audit of our fees that we are charging, and, you know, we we switched over from SEI to Pershing the as our custodian. And when we did that, we in the audit, we discovered that the way that you are being billed for the platform fee was done incorrectly. And so in some cases, in some of, in some of for some of you, we under charged you, and for some of you, we overcharged you. And so for those that were under charged, we are it is our policy that if ever there’s an error and it’s one that we made, even though it ended up benefiting you, we don’t claw that back. We have no interest in getting that money back. So for those of you that we under charged, we’re not going to ask you to pay back any fees, because that’s just what we do. However, on the other side of the coin, those of you that we did overcharge, we are going to refund you that. So let me go over basically why this happened? The our the way that your platform fee should have been calculated is based on the quarter end method, which is the way we’ve always described it to you, which is at the end of each quarter we look at the value of the account, and that determines what the platform fee is. However, what has happened is that it was calculated based on a monthly average fee. So basically it takes the end of every month over the last three months, averages them together, and then creates the fee accordingly. And so because that created a situation for some of you that it overcharged you, we are going to refund you that we have fixed this so that it will not be the case going forward, so this won’t be an issue again. But we have a core value we call number four, which is if a client calls us about something that we should have told you, then we lost. So we wanted to get ahead of this, in case you ever noticed it, and it’s been going on for three years, so we haven’t heard from any of you, so none of you noticed it. So we’re even prouder of the fact that we caught it. We found it before you did. So before you get too excited, let me just say that it’s for most of you, it’s it’s going to be around $300 so it’s not a big deal in the scope of things, but still, it is money. I will tell you it is a big deal to us, because, you know, we if you put it out over all of our beloved clients, it comes out to several $100,000 for us in refunds that we’re going to make. And so, you know, when I was talking to our team, I said, this is an opportunity for us to show our clients and our skippers that we live up to our core values, even though they didn’t know this happened, and even though we could have never said anything and we could have kept that money, we’re not doing that. In the audit, we found that we owe you some we overcharged, and therefore we’re going to refund you that money that is a core value, and I am proud that we are able to to to do that for you. Let me see if there’s anything else on here that I should let you know the advisory fee. So your advisory fee was correctly applied, so there’s no change to that going forward or retroactively. Either do you need to do anything? No, you don’t. What you will see on your statement is a bunch of transactions. The way that they are going to do it is they’re going to charge you the normal the fee that is. Correct, they’re going to reverse that fee, and then they’re going to recharge the new fee. So when you see it, you’ll see the higher fee, you’ll see it reversed, and then you’ll see the new lower fee applied. Okay, so that is how we’re it had. That’s the bookkeeping of it. So you’ll if you see a bunch of transactions there, that’s why anything else on here that I have missed. We’re going to put the transcript below this video, so if you want to read it, in case I missed something, you can see that there. So again, you know, whenever we get the opportunity to live up to our core values, we’re proud of it, and it doesn’t matter to us how much money it costs us or what the repercussions are. You know, our client benefits before we do always is a core value as well, and we just always do the right thing, regardless of how it affects us or what the consequences may be. We believe in karma, in you know, if you do the right thing over and over again, even if, in the short run, it may cost you money in the long run, we think it’s the right thing, and it comes back in ways that you cannot measure right now. And so that’s where we are. So having said all of that, let’s go to what we normally talk about in these videos, and that is the what’s happened this week. We had two big numbers that came out, one was the inflation and the other was the consumer spending. So consumer spending exceeded all expectations. Nobody expected the consumer to be spending as much as they are. So that’s a very good sign, because, you know, there’s a lot of concern that the tariffs and inflation are going to be causing the consumer to stop spending? Well, so far, that has not been the case. Our consumers are steadfast, and they are continuing to spend confidently, and that’s a very good sign going forward for the stock market, for our economy. So that’s all good. On the inflation front, it was kind of an interesting read, because there are two basic parts of inflation that everybody looks at, and one’s called the CPI, the Consumer Price Index. That’s the headline number, and the headline number was up, so inflation went up. But if you look at the core inflation number, which is kind of what’s going on at the center of inflation, then it went down. So you had two, I guess, opposite looking measures. The most important one, of course, is the core inflation, because that’s the course, the core costs for the consumer that causes them to not spend or continue spending, and core inflation actually went down. So that’s a good sign. And so now the Fed has to look at, you know, do we lower interest rates sooner rather than later? And of course, if you’ve been reading the headlines, you know that President Trump is all over them about lowering interest rates. Now, what are you waiting for? You’re slow. You guys are always behind the curve, and he’s putting a lot of pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates here as soon as possible. Our view is the Fed is going to stick to their guns, if only because they don’t want to be seen as, you know, being pushed around by the President, but also because, you know, maybe the tariffs haven’t had enough time to filter through the economy, and maybe inflation will pick up, but we think that in September, they probably will lower interest rates. Because if you’ve watched our video, which I encourage you to our podcast on tariffs, it explains why, generally speaking, tariffs are not inflationary. Printing money is inflationary, but tariffs generally are not inflationary in most cases for a variety of reasons, which we explained in some detail and have a lot of fun explaining it to you in the aforementioned podcast. So I encourage you to to watch that. In fact, we’re going to try to try to add a link here somewhere, so that you can click on it and you can and you can watch it. So overall, this video is all good news. You’re getting a refund. The inflation number, the core number, was down, which is good, and then also the consumer continues to spend, which is also good. So that being the case for the second half of this year, our forecast is that we should see the market rise and hit New all time highs. We do have a big, big thing coming up here soon, which is the auction for $9 trillion of our debt, and 1/4 of our entire debt is coming due here in the next 2, 3, 4 months, and we need to refinance it, and so we’ll see how that all goes. We think it’ll go okay. If it doesn’t, we could have a significant impact on the markets. But we give that a small probability in general, we think the tariffs will work themselves out. The deals with President Trump should work the. Sells out, and the inflationary impact of those tariffs should be muted, in our view. So overall, good news always like delivering good news. So thank you for watching this video. Please like and subscribe to it. And by the way, I want to thank you guys. I found out that we just had our 1,000,000th Yes, I did say million, 1,000,000th view of our podcasts and our market alert videos. So that’s fantastic. Thank you. And if you haven’t been watching our podcast, oh my gosh, you’re missing out. They’re great. So let your retirement planner know that you want to see those, and we’ll get you the link if you’re not already watching them. So again, thanks for watching. I hope you are all enjoying your summer so far, and we’ll talk soon.

Please note: transcript has been modified after the time of recording. 

Economic indicators and stock market performance cannot be predicted. Opinions expressed regarding the economy and the stock market belong solely to Ken Moraif on behalf of Retirement Planners of America and may not accurately portray actual future performance of the economy or stock market outcomes. Opinions expressed in this video is intended to be for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used as investment advice for individuals who are not clients of Retirement Planners of America. All content provided is the opinion of Ken Moraif, CEO and Founder of RPOA Advisors, Inc. (d/b/a Retirement Planners of America ) (“Retirement Planners of America”, “RPOA”). ©Copyright 2023