• We have a core value that says if you call us about something we should have told you first about, then we lost.
• This is one of those moments where we needed to reach out immediately.
• First and foremost, our prayers go out to the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters of our fallen warriors, and those that may still come.
• In our view, this was not about regime change.
• It appears there was an imminent threat to the homeland, including reports that Iran was within days of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.
• That imminent danger is what likely triggered this action.
• Now we need to filter all of this through one lens: how does this affect our economy and our investments?
• The stock market does not react to destruction or loss of life.
• The stock market reacts to one thing: how will this affect profits?
• Looking back to World War II, the average return of the market from the beginning of a war to one year later has been 7.4%, according to Bloomberg.
• During Desert Storm and the recent 12-day conflict, the market had a knee-jerk reaction but recovered shortly thereafter.
• Historically, once investors determine the economy is not materially impacted, markets stabilize.
• The bigger concern would be something like a sleeper cell attack or a “dirty bomb” on U.S. soil.
• We unfortunately have a precedent for that in 9/11.
• Even then, despite the tragic loss of life and enormous shock, the market recovered within about a month.
• So we must temper our emotions and stay analytical.
• The key question remains: does this materially damage the U.S. economy?
• The likelihood that Iran wins a war with the United States is extremely remote.
• A potential concern would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which could disrupt global oil supply.
• Oil prices have spiked, but unless there is a prolonged disruption, that spike should normalize.
• So again, we come back to the same filter: how does this affect profits and economic growth?
• If it does not, then historically markets have shown resilience.
• If it does escalate into something that harms the economy, our Invest and Protect Strategy is designed to respond.
• We are minding the store.
• We are watching developments closely.
• You do not need to panic or make emotional decisions.
• If conditions change, we will communicate immediately.
• Thank you for trusting us with your retirement.
• We will keep you posted as events unfold.

Ken Moraif
Hello everyone. As you may know, we have a core value that says that if you call us about something we should have told you first about then we lost. And if there’s ever been a moment where we needed to reach out to you and answer your questions, this is it. So that’s why we are putting together for you this special market alert video. We want to talk with you about, first of all, what is going on in terms of, well, let me put it a different way. We want to couch this from the standpoint of, how does this affect us and our investments? I know that’s pretty selfish, but that’s how we’re going to do it. So first of all, before we go any further, I want to say that our prayers go out to all the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, the sons and daughters of our fallen warriors and those that are still to come, because there will be more. The other thing that we wanted to express is our opinion that all of this was not because we want regime change. It occurs to us that it’s not worth all this activity and all this military power and expending our Patriot missiles and all that just to get rid of the Ayatollah So in our view, there was an imminent threat to the homeland, despite the fact that we obliterated their ability to create something I saw a Little bit of over a week ago, somebody saying that they were within days of having a missile, inter ballistic, intercontinental ballistic missile, that could reach the United States. So in our view, that imminent danger is what triggered all of this, and we’ll see as time develops, what happens. So the first thing that I want to do is I want to talk about the past. So we’ve had, going back to World War Two, we’ve had multiple wars, unfortunately, and the average return the market has had from the beginning, for example, in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was was attacked, from the beginning of a war to a year later, the average return of the market has been 7.4% and this is according to Bloomberg. So from that standpoint, it should give us pause. The other thing is that we here have experienced, I have experienced Desert Storm. One and two experienced the 12 day war just recently. And in those events, we also saw that the market responded to it kind of a knee jerk reaction, but soon after that, recovered. So the other thing that well, I’ll get into what is a bigger concern to us than any of these next but what we always have to look at is through the cell, through the filter of, how does this affect our economy? Because if it doesn’t affect our economy, then the stock market, unfortunately, it doesn’t care about how many people die. It doesn’t care about destruction and mayhem. It doesn’t care about any of that. All the stock market cares about is, how is this going to affect profits? So if you look back at Desert Storm one and two, it was dramatic. Oh my gosh, the market went down. But then the realization was, you know what, it’s not really going to affect our economy that much, and therefore we’re not going to react. We’re going to they reacted to it already, but we’re going to buy back, because in the long run, this is not a big deal. Same thing happened with the 12 day war just recently, when we attacked and did the same thing. We saw the market go down and recover. So we anticipate this to be very similar to that. Now, where our concern lies is if there are sleeper cells in the United States that Iran has put here and maybe, God forbid, a dirty bomb. So if something like that were to happen, we do have a precedent for it, and that is 911 911 was about as close to a sleeper cell bomb going off in our country, in fact, it was. And so what we can draw from that one also is despite the tragic loss of life and how incredibly dramatic it was and everything that happened within a month, the market had recovered from that. So we have to also temper our emotions about all of this. So the reaction is going to be, what? How does this affect our economy? If it doesn’t, then we need to remain calm. Well, we need to remain calm regardless. But if it doesn’t, then the stock market most likely will not be affected by it. So as we look at what’s going on right now, what do we what do we know from this? Well, the likelihood that Iran is going to win a war with the United States is extremely remote. The probability that they might close the Strait of Hormuz, which is where oil goes through, that’s possible. But it looks like we’ve shot down all of the places that could have gotten to the Strait of Hormuz at this point, and therefore the flow of oil should remain, and therefore the cost of oil spiked, but should come back down, unless there’s a massive disruption. So all of those things play into again, how does this affect our economy. How does this affect profits, and therefore, what will the stock market do about it? So for us, we need, we want to watch it. Our invest and protect strategy is here to protect us. If the market goes way, way down, because this does create a recession or worse in our country, our invest and protect strategy is designed to do that as well. So we wanted to get this market alert video out to you as soon as possible to tell you that we’re minding the store. We’re on it. You don’t have to worry about it. We’ll take care of business for you. And so there you have it. We’ll keep you posted as things develop and if something else happens, we’ll get a market alert video out to you as soon as that does so thank you for watching. Thank you for trusting us with your retirement, and we’ll talk soon.

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

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