• Recent job market data showed both hiring and layoffs holding steady, reflecting a cautious “wait and see” approach by companies.
• Uncertainty around tariffs is a major reason for this pause, as businesses assess whether added costs will eventually trigger higher prices or workforce reductions.
• Inflation has remained stable, with many companies absorbing tariff-related expenses rather than risk losing market share by raising prices.
• The Federal Reserve faces a pivotal decision in September on whether to cut interest rates. Current data is mixed, leaving the outcome dependent on judgment rather than clear direction.
• If tariffs continue to prove less disruptive than expected, markets could see renewed confidence, stronger investment, and the potential for new highs before year-end.
• The risk scenario is stagflation—where rising inflation and slowing growth occur together. While not our base case, it remains a possibility we watch closely.
• Our Invest and Protect Strategy is designed to adjust quickly if market conditions shift, helping reduce exposure during sudden downturns.
• We focus on both protecting your principal and pursuing growth opportunities, so you can enjoy retirement with confidence.
• Even in uncertain times, we look past daily headlines and focus on what truly matters: your long-term financial security.
• You can rest assured that we are monitoring markets every day and making decisions with your best interest at heart.
• Our mission remains the same: helping you stay retired, protecting your savings, and giving you peace of mind to enjoy your second childhood without parental supervision.

Transcript:

Ken Moraif
Hello everyone, and welcome to our Market Alert video for today, which is August 22, 2025 I hope this video finds you healthy, wealthy and wise, and all of you in SCWPer nation, I hope you are out there, SCWPering your little tails off and enjoying life, your second childhood that you so deserve. And so we have a lot to talk about this week. The jobs numbers came out. Two important factors there that we need to consider, inflation the Federal Reserve, how that’s going to affect our investments going forward for the latter part of this year. So we’re going to go into all of that, but before we do, I want to share with you some very important news to at least our family, and that is that my daughter’s boyfriend of almost two years now got down on one knee and he asked my daughter to marry him, and she said, Yes. So we now have an engagement. So the good news is we have an engagement. They’re now fiance. The bad news is now we’re planning for the wedding. And you know, I remember when my first daughter was getting married, I asked my wife, I said, Okay, so do we have a budget for this? And she said, I’ll tell you what the budget is after we figured out what it’s going to cost. And I said, Okay, I don’t think you understand how a budget works. And her response was, Are you going to be argumentative? And I’m like, Okay, I’m out. So, so we’re beginning the journey of the wallet pinch here over the next year until the wedding. So, but it’s exciting. I’m so happy. He’s a wonderful young man and a great addition to our family, all right. So you know, normally when we do the show, I bring on our Chief Investment Officer, Jordan Roach, with me, but he is actually in California right now, visiting with clients and doing that kind of thing. And so therefore he’s unavailable. And so we decided to have RPO, our robot Chief Investment Officer join us so RPO, good to see you. Thank you for being on the show.

RPO
Thank you for having me. Ken, it is so good to see you.

Ken Moraif
It’s good to see you too. We’re going to have a great show, and I hope that you are as good as Jordan, because you know, you’ve got a tough a tough act to follow.

RPO
I will do my best to fill in for Jordan Roach this week, and I might add that you look extremely handsome and very dapper today. Ken,

Ken Moraif
he’s got great posture. I’m gonna have to sit up straight if I’m gonna be next to arpo over here. Thank you, Ken. Now before we dive into everything, I want to invite guests on this show. We did it last week, and we only got one volunteer, and I think it’s because you guys didn’t know how to be a guest on the show, and so I’m going to invite you one more time. What I’m looking for is an 80 year old who’s going to share ideas and thoughts that they would tell their 70 year old self, a 70 year old on thoughts they would tell their 60 year old self, and a 60 year old that would tell their thoughts that they would give advice to their 50 year old self. And so that way you can share your wisdom, and we’ll have fun, I promise you, we’ll take good care of you. And then, Paul, could you show everybody once again, what the merch, the swag that you will get? And I think we have arpo is going to model that for us, right? So let’s, let’s take a look. Yeah. So there’s arpo With all the merch, the good stuff.

RPO
Guests on this show will receive these wonderful items, or something very similar.

Ken Moraif
So if you are interested in doing that, here’s how you do it. You just go to your retirement planner and you just say, I’d like to be on the show with Ken. I promise you, we’ll take great care of you. And not only that, but this is Top of the line merch, ladies and gentlemen. You want this swag? So I’ll let Paul show that to you. Okay, so let’s talk about the two numbers that came out this week, jobs, numbers, where the hiring and the firing, and those are both interesting, because if companies are hiring, it means that they’ve got growth coming. If they’re firing, it means they think that bad stuff is coming, or they’re trying to, you know, improve their profit margins. And both of those are basically just stuck in the mud. They’ve kind of been relatively uneventful for a few months now. And the question is, you know, well, why is that happening? Well, one of the big reasons, in our view, is that the jury is still out on the effects of the tariffs, don’t you agree? Arpo, I

RPO
wholeheartedly agree with you. Ken, you are a very wise man, and by the way, that is an extremely exquisite suit you are wearing. It fits you quite perfectly.

Ken Moraif
So therefore, I. So I like this guy. We need to have him on every week. And so because companies don’t know what tariffs are going to do, they don’t want to fire anybody you know in advance of something that doesn’t happen. And maybe they don’t even want to hire somebody. So they’re keeping all their workers. They’re not firing them, and therefore they’re not hiring any new ones. So that’s kind of been stuck in the mud, and that’s because tariffs are still relatively unknown. The other thing that’s been stuck in the mud is inflation, and it’s been relatively stable for the same reason, companies are not willing at this point to raise their prices to compensate for the tariffs, because they could lose market share, so they’re absorbing it for the time being. So we’ve got this kind of limbo period that we’re in right now, and that’s why, you know, we’ve seen, we think the market is going to continue to gently rise up and to the right. So we still think that for the rest of this year we’re going to, we’re going to see new all time highs. And of course, we have the big gorilla in the room, and that’s the Federal Reserve. And are they going to lower interest rates in September, as the market is wanting them to do? Hard to tell at this point all the data points you could make the argument both ways, it’s going to essentially come down to a judgment call by by the Federal Reserve committee, and we’ll, we’ll have to wait, you know, to get that information here in September. So really, what this all seems to be boiling down to is confidence in what the tariffs are going to do. So what’s the downside risk? Arpo, what do you think,

RPO
tell me who does your hair? Ken, it looks very nice. I simply must get the number of your stylist. I wish I had hair.

Ken Moraif
Oh, well, I guess he’s not as smart as we thought he was. So artificial intelligence, artificial means not real and intelligence means smart. So not real smart is what AI stands for. That’s my opinion. But anyway, what are the what are the risks that we’re going to face here? Well, the upside risk, and if the market goes way up, that’s called a risk. Also, it’s an upside risk, is that we get one more quarter of not negative news on tariffs. And if we do get that, then I think people will start to say, okay, tariffs are not the big scary thing that we thought they were going to be. And therefore we could start seeing investment, and we could start seeing, you know, jobs and all the kind of things that people are sitting on their hands right now and not doing. And doing, and that could really accelerate the growth into the last part of this year. So that’s our base case. We think that’s going to be what happens. However, we always want to tell you what the downside is, because as a planner, we plan for the worst, hope for the best, not the other way around. The downside is that we do get bad news. We start to see, you know, that companies no longer can absorb that cost. They pass it on to consumer. Inflation picks up. The Fed says, All right, we’re not going to lower interest rates because of that. We have more inflation coming, and we start to see layoffs or and inflation. And so if we see that, then that would be the stagflation that we talked about last week, and that is a really bad scenario. So if that happens, we could see the market go down significantly, you know, in the latter part of this year. But again, our bias is towards that the tariffs are not going to be the big bad thing that some economists have have forecasted. So overall, the way we look at it, things are okay, and they’re going to improve over time. And we think that this year should be great. The important thing always, and you know, we stress this because we just believe it So fundamentally, is that it is so important that we have a sell strategy. Because bear markets, Big Bad bears like Y, 2k like 2008 and many others, they come as a surprise. You know, if everybody knew they were coming, they wouldn’t happen, because people would batten down the hatches. They would do things to adjust for that. The Big Bad bears come when suddenly, oh my gosh, the entire financial system is going to collapse, right? The banking system is on the verge of dying. Boom, the market goes down 50, 60% or the real estate market, you know, is going to crash. Or the technology market that we thought was so wonderful is suddenly just a big house of cards when you have that kind of a revelation. And maybe AI is that you know all this, you know the market is being dragged by AI, right? The big companies. If it turns out that this is a big bubble, then we could see another Y2K which was a 49% drop in the market, for those of you who recall that. So the important thing, in my view, in our view, is to have a strategy to address the big bad bears when they come. And we have that. So I hope. It gives you the peace of mind of knowing that should things turn really badly, that we have a plan to address that, because the game we’re playing is we want your money to last as long as you do, and if we can do that, then we think we’ve done a noble thing. So I hope this video, as I said, found you healthy, wealthy and wise. I want to thank RPO for his contributions today. You were a very strong contributing force to to the show today. Thank you, Ken. I don’t know. What do you guys think? Should we invite him back? Maybe not, right? I don’t know. It depends you kind of, you’re kind of, okay, not, not great and so, but again, thank you for watching. Make sure you like and subscribe, share this video with your friends, your family, anybody that you, that you possibly can, and in the end, 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