• This week brought some surprising headlines, including consumer sentiment hitting its lowest level in over 70 years, yet the broader economic picture remains more balanced than it may appear.
• While consumers are expressing concern, they are still actively spending, which continues to support overall economic growth.
• The economy itself is holding up well, with strong corporate profits, steady job growth, and relatively stable inflation.
• Inflation is currently around 3.3%, with much of the recent increase tied to gasoline prices rather than widespread cost pressures.
• If energy prices stabilize, inflation could ease further, which would be a positive development for both the economy and markets.
• Ongoing tensions and the oil embargo involving Iran have created some uncertainty, but the impact so far appears contained.
• The United States remains in a strong position as a leading energy producer, with the ability to quickly increase supply if needed.
• This flexibility has helped offset global disruptions in the past and may continue to support stability moving forward.
• Markets continue to focus on what matters most, company profits, and those remain strong, helping drive stock prices higher.
• Despite negative sentiment in surveys, the market has continued reaching new highs, reflecting underlying economic resilience.
• Looking ahead, we believe the second half of the year could be positive, supported by solid fundamentals and the potential for lower interest rates.
• The Federal Reserve may begin reducing rates, which has historically been supportive for market growth.
• While geopolitical risks remain, including the potential for prolonged conflict, markets typically respond based on economic impact rather than headlines alone.
• Our Investment Protect Strategy remains in place to help reduce risk and protect your portfolio if conditions change unexpectedly.
• Let us worry about all this financial noise so you can focus on enjoying your life, because we believe your retirement should be your second childhood without parental supervision.

Transcript:

Ken Moraif
Hello everyone, and welcome to our weekly market alert video for today, which is April 24 2026 as usual. I hope this video finds you healthy, wealthy and wise, all of you out there in squibber nation, I hope you are enjoying your second childhood without parental supervision. And for those of you who are not retired yet, our goal is to get you there. Our goal is to get the gray hair for you so that you don’t have to. And we have a lot to talk about today. We had some extremely like record setting bad news today this week. Now, Alex, you’re probably thinking, it’s this haircut. Oh, you thought the haircut was nice. That’s very sharp. Well, you know, I give myself a haircut, really, yeah, since covid, I decided that, you know, going to the hair salon, the hairdresser, and then they charge you, like, $75 you got to drive there, and then they talk to you the whole time. I’m like, I don’t want anybody talking to me. Just cut my hair. I want to leave. And then they want to give you, like, a scalp massage. I’m like, why am I getting a scalp massage? And then you got to drive home afterwards. It’s like a two hour beading to get your hair done. And so during covid, I taught myself, I got those clipper things, and so now I give myself a haircut. It takes like 10 minutes I’m done, and here it is. So, yeah, we entitled this. This video, I feel awful, but hopefully it’s not because of my haircut. But anyway, yeah, so I feel awful. Why I feel awful? Well, because Michigan consumer sentiment came in at the worst. Are you ready for this in 74 years? Like, literally, the worst it’s ever been since recorded time? Okay, so that’s, that’s a big deal. But then the other side of the coin is, you know, inflation came in and not too bad. And then the jobs are healthy. So what’s going on with all was it? Why is the consumer, which is an important part of our economy, not feeling so well? And then in addition, of course, we have the embargo, which is stopping oil. And I’ve got to take on that one that I haven’t heard anywhere, so you’re going to hear it here first. And so we’ll talk about that. So we’re going to have more fun than a human being should be allowed to have when talking about this financial stuff. So let’s get going. So let’s talk about that. So the Michigan consumer sentiment reading came in, and yeah, it was the worst in 74 years. People are not feeling like the economy is doing well. Now, by all metrics, the economy is doing well. You know the metrics that you look at so profits, companies are posting record profits jobs. I mean, nobody’s losing their jobs right now. And in fact, there’s there’s hiring, and people are holding on. You’ve got inflation went up a little bit. It’s at 3.3%

Ken Moraif
but you know what? If you un if you unveiled, if you unwrap the onion, what you’ll see there is that it’s mostly gasoline. And you know, hopefully the war in Iran will resolve itself. At some point, those prices should come down. So inflation is probably not as bad as people think because of that number only. So you know, it’s kind of like a mixed bag of stuff, but the consumer, who is 70% of our economy, is like, not really feeling it right now, but the other side of it, which is really weird, is they’re still spending so I don’t know, these consumer sentiment readings sometimes belie what you know you have to look at, Not what I say, but what I do. So the consumer is feeling awful, but they’re still spending. So that’s good for the economy. We still have the oil overhang. And you know, the thing that I look at, when we looked at is that, yeah, we’re stifling Iran’s oil from getting out. But if you look at the other Arab countries, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and those guys, their economies are doing fine. Saudi Arabia is forecasting a 4% growth in their economy. United Arab aramids is looking at a 5% so they’re still growing. They seem to be not really hurt by all this stuff that’s going on. So it’s really focused in on Iran, but the flow is significantly reduced because of the embargo. But there’s a side thing that I don’t know maybe President Trump is playing this and that is that the oil that is being sold by the United States has spiked up dramatically. And the thing about the United States, that’s really cool, is that we are the fastest in terms of the ability to ramp it up. You know, we can go from zero to 100 faster than any country in the world when it comes to getting oil out. Door and, you know, to people who want to buy it, and look at what happened. For example, when Russia took all the energy away from Europe, Europe hardly missed a beat. Why? Because they turned to the US, and they’re getting all their gas, they’re getting all their oil to get it. They’re buying it basically from us now, and hardly missed a beat. So we are really, really good at spot filling, if you will. The Arab countries are kind of the steady Eddy stuff, but the United States is, like, really good. That could actually change. If this embargo goes for a long time. People need oil. They need energy. They’re not going to, like, you know, all starve to death and, you know, see their economy going to the shambles. So what they’re going to do is start buying it from the United States. And who knows, maybe that’s the secret ulterior motive that President Trump has in his head. It’s hard to figure out that that guy’s head, I’ll tell you. But every day the market’s up. It’s down, but we have new all time highs. So the market is looking at all this stuff and saying, Yeah, you know what? Big deal, consumer sentiment, we don’t care oil prices high, we don’t care jobs. We don’t care nothing. We’re just looking at profits. And as we’ve always told you, what drives the prices of stocks is profits. If profits are good, stocks are rising. If profits are bad, stocks are falling. That’s what you need to keep your eye on. And so far, you know, we’ve seen reports from all the different companies, and they’ve been they’ve been making money, and their stock prices have been rising. So overall, you know, if you kind of take all of that as a package for the US economy, anyway, things are actually not looking bad, you know, like I said, this embargo probably helps our oil producers here in the United States. I mean, it does. And then we are not dependent on anybody for our energy, so we’re not harmed by any of this. Jobs are good inflation. So all of that bodes well for the second half of this year. So I’m really looking forward to meeting our fearless forecast for this year. You know, we kind of thought with the war and everything else that, oh my gosh, we would see a big drop, and it wouldn’t happen. But now it’s looking like it’s becoming more and more real. And you know, we had a record back for a while there where we were 11 out of 12 years in a row, we predicted the Dow like, boom. And so, as I always say, if you don’t listen to our fearless forecast, you are doomed. You do it at your own peril. So anyway, yeah, things are looking good second half of this year. Most likely if, if this Now, the thing about the the war in Iran is that maybe we are underestimating in terms of our negotiations and all of this stuff is the staying power of the Iranians. You know, I grew up in Libya, so I kind of have a little bit of an insight into how, you know, Arabs in those countries think, and if they’re, if they’re really

Ken Moraif
vested in something, you know, they have, they’re very passionate people. And if you go to Iran, where these people are not just passionate, but it’s like the religious calling to do what they’re doing, they’re more they have a strong martyr mentality. So, you know, we can squeeze our economy, and we can do all kinds of stuff to them and to them, they’re martyrs. So they’re staying power with this thing, maybe longer than what the administration is actually thinking. And so, yeah, we’re going to put them in a Great Depression. But do they care? They want to put pressure on Trump, because the midterms are coming up, and if the global economy is tanking and it’s his fault, then you know, he might lose the midterms. So this is, it’s kind of an interesting chess game, but the whole thing, if you wrap it all up, our view is that the second half of this year is going to be a good one. The Fed probably will lower interest rates, and that’ll cause the market to go up some more. So we see new all time highs coming our way as we go along. Now, always, always, always, we have our invest, invest and protect process ready, because anything can happen, and if it does, we want to make sure we are protecting you your retirement from catastrophic losses. That’s our job. We want your money to last as long as you do, and the only way we see to do that is to make sure that you don’t have catastrophic losses along the way, and hopefully you’ll be retired for 20 or 30 years. And catastrophic losses could happen between now and then. So we want to protect you from that. So that’s our take. You know, as Baba Gump said it’s all I have to say about that. So thank you for joining us. I hope you are well, and I hope your family is doing great, and you guys are enjoying yourselves, and we’ll talk soon.

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

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