• This week’s Market Alert brought encouraging news as June inflation came in lower than expected, providing another sign that inflationary pressures may be easing.
• Consumer spending remains strong, corporate earnings continue to perform well, and the broader economy continues to show resilience despite ongoing uncertainty.
• With inflation moving lower, expectations surrounding future Federal Reserve policy continue to shift, reinforcing just how quickly the economic outlook can change.
• While recent headlines have been encouraging, rising energy prices and renewed geopolitical tensions could quickly change the inflation picture in the months ahead.
• Markets are currently trading near all-time highs, reflecting investor optimism and continued confidence in the economy.
• As always, we believe it is important to celebrate the good news without becoming complacent. Strong markets do not eliminate risk, they simply change where that risk may be hiding.
• History reminds us that the most significant market downturns often begin with risks that few investors recognize until it is too late.
• Looking back at events such as the dot-com crash and the financial crisis of 2008, many warning signs only seemed obvious in hindsight.
• Today, we are carefully monitoring the rapid growth of AI and technology stocks, recognizing that extraordinary optimism can sometimes lead to excessive valuations.
• We are not predicting an imminent market correction, but we believe it is prudent to prepare for potential risks before they become headlines.
• Our investment philosophy remains unchanged: prepare for the worst while hoping for the best, rather than planning for the best and hoping the worst never happens.
• That is why our Invest and Protect strategy continues to be a cornerstone of our approach, helping safeguard your retirement from catastrophic market losses while remaining positioned for long-term growth.
• Our mission has always been to help make your money last as long as you do, so you can enjoy living your second childhood without parental supervision with greater confidence and peace of mind.
• We are also excited to announce the launch of our new monthly webinar series, beginning this month. These educational sessions will cover topics such as investment updates, Social Security strategies, travel, personal safety, and other retirement planning subjects that matter most to you.
• We encourage you to join these webinars each month and invite your friends and family to attend as well. Our goal is to continue providing timely education and practical guidance to help you make informed financial decisions.

Transcript:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly market alert video for today, which is July 16, 2026, and of course that is a Thursday. You’re looking at your calendar, and the reason why we’re producing it today, but you’ll get it on Friday, is because we got a lot of good news. It came out this morning, and we always like to share good news right when we get it. So that’s what we have on tap for you today. We have the jobs, or rather, the consumer data came out very strong.

Inflation actually went down in June. Oh my! Who knew? Right? The Fed is all about raising interest rates because inflation’s rising. But no, it’s going back down. Whoa! What’s going on? I’m telling you, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve is comical. It’s like every day there’s a different story as to what it is exactly they’re going to do, and so we’re watching them, of course, because what they do affects us. Unfortunately, you know we’re subject to whatever the Fed decides to do, and we have to adapt to that.

 So we got that markets near all-time highs, banks are making money hand over fist. So I mean, inflation’s down, consumers are spending, everything looks good, right? So what could go wrong? Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re back at war, and so the reason why inflation went down the way it did is because gas prices came down so dramatically. Well, gas prices are trending back up again, so that could erase, and that could cause you know people to reassess what the Fed’s going to do, and therefore reassess what inflation’s going to do, and therefore reassess what the stock market could do. So we have that, but you know what? We’ve heard this song before, how many times? 30 times in the last year.

So it’s like, oh my gosh! At this point, it’s kind of boring, but it is good that profits are good, consumers are spending, and inflation is relatively under control. Let’s call it. So what does that bode for us? It means it means things look good. It means the future looks bright. In fact, I should have worn my sunglasses, right? The future’s so bright, I got to wear shades.

 So you know, the thing that I always tell people is that we always have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, rather than prepare for the best and hope the worst doesn’t happen. We think that’s a backward way of looking at life and doing things, especially since you know our job is to have your money last as long as you do, and if we hope the best, the worst doesn’t happen, and plan for the best, then then you know we’re being irresponsible in my view. So basically, what could go really wrong?

You know, you guys who have known me for a while, you know that I’m a boxing fan, and my wife actually said that if she knew that I was a boxing fan, she wouldn’t have married me. She thinks that boxing is brutal, it’s barbaric, and should be illegal. And I tell her, no, there’s a lot to boxing. It’s not just people hitting each other, but she doesn’t like it anyway. But why am I bringing up boxing? Well, because if you look at when people get knocked out in a boxing match, it’s usually the punch they literally did not see coming. You know, you can watch two guys like wail on each other for 16 rounds and nothing happens. Nobody gets knocked out. Why? Because they’re expecting the punches. They’re bracing themselves for it.

The punch they don’t see is the one that knocks them out. For those who’ve been around a while, you may remember Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali when he was younger, and he knocked out Sonny Liston, and Liston never saw the punch, and that’s what happens in boxing, and in bear markets. You know, if you think back at 2008 after it was all done, you know, everybody said, “Oh my gosh, it was so obvious. Sub prime, those things. That was a house of cards. That was just a bomb waiting to go off. It was, you know, I could have told you that, yeah, but you didn’t. That’s the thing, you know. Back in the day, subprime was a small sliver of the market. It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it. And then, you know, we also had Y2K.

What happened in Y2K? Well, all the dot coms after the fact. Everybody said, yeah, those things were worthless. These companies had no profits. Their stock prices were through the roof. pets.com. was worth a you know $3 billion and it even hadn’t even sold a product yet. So, you know now we’re looking at the AI thing, and a similar dynamic is happening. I want you to imagine for a moment if suddenly everybody woke up and said the whole AI thing is a bubble, and there’s a huge sell-off right over the next six months.

The market goes way down. What will people say? Let’s say six months from now, if that was the case, I could have told you so. I mean, look at that, Nvidia. You know those. You know the. I said the stock was so incredibly overvalued. These companies, there’s no way they can sustain these prices. Their profits aren’t showing it. I mean, it’s obvious that this whole thing was a house of cards. It’s we could have told you that. Yeah, but right now everybody’s investing in it, and it’s becoming a massive part of the market.

So I’m out of breath. I just walked up a hill, and I’m at 8000 feet. The things I do for you guys-you realize the sacrifice I’m making walking up a hill with all of this stuff around me. I’m suffering right now, but anyway. So that’s why we have our invest and protect. You know, that’s we want to protect you from catastrophic losses. That’s our job. We want your money to last as long as you do. You know, we want you to go out and enjoy your scwperiness, enjoy your second childhood without parental supervision.

And the only way we can do that, in our view, is to protect you from these from catastrophic losses like that. Am I calling for a big bad bear, for a bubble in AI, am I saying all that’s going to happen? I don’t know, but I’m sure glad we prepared for it in advance, aren’t you? So I hope you are well. I hope this video found you healthy, wealthy, and wise, and I hope that you will share this with all of your friends and family and anybody else, and better yet, send people our way. Now I do want to make an announcement. We’re going to be starting what we call a webinar series, and we’re going to be doing it every third Thursday of the month. And these webinars are going to be on topics that we think will be of great interest to you, such as our quarterly investment update. We’re going to have that every third Thursday of the month in a new quarter, but we’re also going to have stuff on like discount travel, when and how to take Social Security, how to defend yourself.

You know, we had one on self defense, and I thought, you know, our clients don’t need to know about self defense. Are you kidding me? Sold out in 14 seconds. We had to do two of them. You guys want to know how to protect yourselves, and we want to help you to do that. So mark your calendar. Every third Thursday of the month, we’re going to be having our webinar series, and we’re going to be sending you invitations to that. We’d love for you to attend, and even there, bring your friends, have them watch, share it with them. They can benefit from it as well, and you’ll be doing them a favor. So again, thank you for watching. I hope this video found you healthy, wealthy, and wise. And we’ll talk soon.

Economic indicators and stock market performance cannot be predicted. Opinions expressed regarding the economy and the stock market belong solely to employees of RPOA 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 employees of RPOA Advisors, Inc. (d/b/a Retirement Planners of America ) (“Retirement Planners of America”, “RPOA”). ©Copyright 2026