• This week our Market Alert Video will cover the conflict between Israel and Iran, the federal reserve, retail sales, and how the market could respond to all of those variables.
• We keep getting these data points week after week, whether it’s consumer confidence, inflation, job claims, retail sales. It’s sort of a lot of nothing.
• Tariffs are similar. They’re largely a lot of nothing. There was all of this anxiety and fear and we’re still not seeing this terrible, dreadful thing that tariffs were supposed to bring about.
• Then you have the Fed coming out and saying they weren’t going to do anything. They also said, we’re in forecast mode, not look back mode.
• They forecasted in all of 2020 and 2021 saying inflation is nothing. Now they’re saying inflation actually isn’t here. But we think it could be.
• One of the favorite words in this business was “transitory,” then it lasted for five years.
• There’s been some pivoting on the approach over the years as well. They originally said they would not be in the forecasting mode anymore. What they’re going to do instead is be data dependent. As the data comes in, they’ll react to it. But now they’re back in a forecasting mode.
• They think that between now and the end of the year, they’re going to lower interest rates two more times, which seems off to me a little.
• We don’t agree with that at all. Not that we dare to disagree with the Fed but… we say be bold.
• I just don’t know where they’re getting that. Right now, based on their stance, and their policy over the last six months, I don’t know where we go from what they said today. I just don’t see two rate changes by the end of the year.
• At this point, the retail numbers came in, and they’re ok. Consumer confidence appears to be ok. So, there’s really no reason to jump ahead, even though they’re now forecasting.
• They must think the worst scenario is going to play out. Although they’re not being overly data reliant, they’re seeing enough to say we don’t expect major changes so we’re going to be able to pull rates down by 50 basis points, or half a percent. Which is a lot.
• So what does that mean for our investments? What should we be thinking here?
• It’s going to be interesting to see, but it does probably mean that the upward trend that we’re in will probably remain sticky. We’re not seeing negative catalysts. We’re not seeing major events that cause the market to recalibrate. So largely, we can look forward to earning, to typical data, the typical data and stocks continue to go up.
• One of the things people look at is how freaked out investors are. What is their level of uncertainty? A good gauge on that is helpful. And with Iran and Israel being hard to pinpoint, you can expect uncertainty to be higher than normal, which means investors will keep their money close to their vest. We might be at peak uncertainty right now and yet the market hasn’t fallen off.
• It’s hard to predict the market. But if we have arrived at a point of relative calm regarding tariffs, there’s more certainty toward them. Investors have one less thing to be overly concerned about because the impact hasn’t come close to the devastation that was predicted.
• So, when this Israel and Iran thing blows over, investors will be right back to investing with confidence. Then the question will be whether the time is right to enter the market. Are we too late? What investors naturally do is wait for a lot of good to happen. And that’s where the money goes in a confirmer.
• You know, the market needs a baseline of uncertainty. That’s ok. It’s healthy when it’s combined with a reasonable amount of certainty.
• From my perspective regarding the war, there’s 40,000 troops spread to over the Middle East that are exposed. They’re kind of defenseless if Iran sends missiles close enough to their location.
• Iran is not without leverage in this situation. If for some reason they went nuts and behaved as if they didn’t care about the repercussions, that is when the market would have to price in larger groupings of escalation, that’s when you get foreign partners involved. What does that mean for Russia and Turkey? How about China? That would be a scary scenario.
• I’m glad we have our sales strategy. We’re kind of bullish, the Fed is bullish, and everybody seems to be discounting. China could get involved but signs are really pointing to no other nations wanting to make that move. They’re just letting it play out rather than escalating matters.
• Trump is talking to Putin so there’s a good sign there. What’s funny is how Putin is the guy wanting to negotiate peace.
• I don’t see a major shake up unless we go to war with China. And even if we do, I don’t see it lasting very long. Same goes for Turkey. It could happen but It’s unlikely to last very long within the remote chance that it happens at all.
• They could shut down a route like the Strait of Hormuz. I think that would be more devastating for markets. This could have a big impact on oil which would cause a ripple effect. 20% of the oil supply goes through Hormuz.
• A similar situation happened in 1973, 74 which then led to cascading issues across global markets. If it happened, it would be like the oil embargo again.
• If 20% gets shut down, the market gets repriced
• If you look at history, say September 11th, as terrible as it was, in terms of the markets, they seem ed to forget it ever happened just one month later.
• I went back to the 40s and looked at major geopolitical or historical events You know, one month later less than half the market is up. If you go six months or twelve months, it’s over 60% of the time the market is up. So most of the time the market moves right through them. So that’s the good news.
• We just have to wait and see how all of this plays out. Everything is playing out in real time. It’s like a reality tv show in that but the repercussions are major.
• So ladies and gentlemen, despite the uncertainty and seriousness of the times we’re living in, we have a strategy that has been successful time and time again. Our business is devoted to protecting you and yours from terrible things and I’m able to sleep at night because I know we’re prepared and nimble.
• Thank you for watching this week’s Market Alert video. Make sure you like and subscribe and share it with your friends and family.
• We hope this video finds you healthy, wealthy, and wise, and we’ll talk again soon.

Transcript

Ken Moraif
Hello everyone, and welcome to our market alert video for today, which is June 20, 2025. I hope this video finds you healthy, wealthy and wise. And for all you SCWPers out there in SCWPer nation, I hope you are enjoying your second childhood without parental supervision. That’s our job. And for those of you who are not there yet, it is our job to get you there. So hopefully all is going well. We have, what do we have to talk about? A war, maybe,

Jordan Roach
Hopefully not a war

Ken Moraif
Maybe something the federal reserve, retail sales.

Jordan Roach
It’s a quiet week.

Ken Moraif
Yeah, there’s nothing to talk about. So we’ll address those things. And so let me bring Jordan Roach, our Chief Investment Officer, into the fray. Jordan, good to see you again.

Jordan Roach
It’s good to be here as always.

Ken Moraif
Yes, always good, fun. The news basically, from a normal thing, is pretty ho hum. Retail Sales came in basically where everybody thought they would right. Nothing. Nothing.

Jordan Roach
Nothing, I mean, we keep getting these little data points week by week, whether it’s consumer confidence, there’s inflation, whether we get job claims, you get retail sales, and it’s a lot of nothing.

Ken Moraif
It’s a lot of nothing. And this is with the tariffs, right? It’s been around a while now,

Jordan Roach
Still nothing.

Ken Moraif
So we’re still not seeing this terrible, dreadful thing that tariffs were supposed to bring about. And then the Fed, of course. So that came out, and they said, We’re not gonna do anything, right?

Jordan Roach
They said we’re not in look back mode. We’re in forecast mode, effectively. And so yes,

Ken Moraif
Because they’re really good at that, by the way.

Jordan Roach
Which they said this, we’re in the forecast business, which they did all in 2020, and 2021, saying inflation is nothing,

Ken Moraif
Right.

Jordan Roach
And now they’re saying inflation actually isn’t here, but we think it could be.

Ken Moraif
I remember that word that was a favorite word, transitory, transitory, and then it lasted for five years,

Jordan Roach
Correct.

Ken Moraif
Yeah. So, you know, that’s an interesting change for them, because normally, you know, they said they’re not going to be in the forecasting mode anymore. What they’re going to do instead is be data dependent. As the data comes in, we’re going to react to that. But now they’re back in the forecasting mode, which they’ve never been that good at.

Jordan Roach
Some ways, they’re never what doing, what the way the market wants them to do it that way always.

Ken Moraif
Right

Jordan Roach
That’s okay, so,

Ken Moraif
But they did say that they still think that between now and then to the year, they’re going to lower interest rates two more times.

Jordan Roach
Which seems off to me, a little bit.

Ken Moraif
Yeah, we don’t agree with that at all.

Jordan Roach
No.

Ken Moraif
Not that we dare to disagree with the Fed.

Jordan Roach
Just be bold. That’s right, be bold. But I just, I don’t know where they’re getting that. I mean, right now, just based on their stance and all their policy in the last six months and their rhetoric, I don’t know where we go from what they said today. “Oh, but we are going to get two in by the end of the year.” Basically, yeah, I just don’t see that.

Ken Moraif
Yeah. And at this point the economy, as we said, you know, the retail sales numbers came in, they’re okay. Consumer confidence, all that seems to be okay. So there’s really no reason for them to jump ahead, even though they’re now forecasting. But the fact that they’re forecasting two more rate cuts before the end of this year, and if they’re forecasting that, to me, that says they think that the economy is going to go through these tariffs and go through the war that’s going on, which we’ll talk about in a minute.

Jordan Roach
They must think that, you know, the worst scenario is going to play out. They must be seeing, even though they’re not saying they’re not data reliant, they must be seeing, okay, there’s enough prints to where we don’t expect major changes, and then we’re going to go ahead and be able to pull rates down by roughly. What was it, 50 basis points, half a percent,

Ken Moraif
half a percent, which is a lot. So what does that mean to us, in terms of, you know, our investments? What? What does the Fed saying that things are okay, nothing to worry about. Retail Sales are okay. What does that say about our investments, our portfolio? What should what should we be thinking there?

Jordan Roach
It’s hard to know where we’re going to go, but it does probably mean that, you know, the uptrend that we are in will probably remain sticky. You know, we’re not seeing negative catalysts. We’re not seeing, you know, major events that would probably cause the market have to recalibrate again, so largely, hopefully we means we can look forward, back to earnings, back to typical data, the typical cycle and stocks and continue to go up.

Ken Moraif
Yeah. You know, one of the things that people look at is how, I guess, freaked out our investors, right? What’s, what’s how, how much uncertainty is, how high is that? And when uncertainty is really high, investors tend not to want to invest, right, because they don’t know what’s going to happen. So I’m going to keep my money close to my vest. People may take money off the table, and I would say right now with what’s going on in Israel, and you know, all everything. That we might be at peak uncertainty, and yet the market hasn’t fallen off.

Jordan Roach
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s right, and that’s where it’s hard to know what the market is. Markets had to look at digest so many different things, it’s hard to know what they’re using and say, This is important, this is not, but I think there is enough uncertainty which can. In to good things going forward.

Ken Moraif
Yeah, if this uncertainty is relieved,

Jordan Roach
Right.

Ken Moraif
You want the tariffs behind us, and I don’t know how soon that’ll be, but let’s assume that we have a level of certainty around the tariffs. This whole thing is going on in Israel and Iran plays itself out, let’s say, over the next two or three months. Then, once those uncertainties are gone, investors probably will plow in, right?

Jordan Roach
I would think. And then the question would be, is that, is that little bit late to be plowing is that? And that’s naturally what retail investors do, is they wait for so much good to already have happened, and that’s where the money goes in a confirmer, right? So, you know, the market needs a baseline of uncertainty. That’s okay. That’s healthy with enough, you know, reasonable certainty on top of that to kind of, everybody’s piling in institutions and retail.

Ken Moraif
So do you think we’re at peak uncertainty right now? I mean, how much more uncertain can you get?

Jordan Roach
Well, talking about what could happen. I mean, we could have uncertainty with, you know, tariffs, certainly, and maybe the war. There’s some scenarios there.

Ken Moraif
So, let’s go there. What could go wrong? You know, from my perspective, from what I understand, there’s 40,000 of our troops spread out over the Middle East,

Jordan Roach
Broader Middle East.

Ken Moraif
That are exposed. They don’t have the Iron Dome over them, you know, like Israel does. And so Iran could send missiles, and those troops are kind of defenseless, you know? I mean, we’ll shoot stuff out of the sky, but still, if they send a bunch of them, we could lose a lot of troops.

Jordan Roach
Sure.

Ken Moraif
So Iran is not without leverage in all this that’s going on. And if, for some reason, they went nuts and said, Okay, we’re just going to do that. We don’t care what the repercussions are. Not only would be tragic from the standpoint of loss of life, but the market would really take that badly.

Jordan Roach
That’s where the market would start having to price in larger, larger grouping of escalation here, and that’s where you get foreign partners then, okay, what does that mean for Russia and Turkey, and what does that mean for China and all these things? That would be a little a scary scenario.

Ken Moraif
It would be very scary. So from that standpoint, I’m glad we have our sales strategy. Even though we’re kind of bullish, Fed’s bullish, and everybody seems to be discounting all this stuff. It still is something that could happen. You know, China could get involved. I doubt it right now, it doesn’t seem like anybody’s wants to get involved. Everybody is like, letting this whole thing play out.

Jordan Roach
I think that’s right.

Ken Moraif
Yeah.

Jordan Roach
I mean, Trump is talking to Putin so, you know, the lease on that side, that is probably good. We have dialog there. If there is something, I don’t know what that means, but there is something.

Ken Moraif
Putin. Putin. The funniest thing about Putin is he wants to be the guy that’s going to negotiate peace.

Jordan Roach
Yes of course, yeah, which is a good bit. That’s right, but I don’t know if we’ll get surprises from Russian side at least during this time.

Ken Moraif
Okay, so, but all of those things that, you know, I think would probably, unless we get into a war with China or Russia, even with Russia, I don’t know that that would last very long, but I think with China, that could be a big that’s or Turkey, but I don’t but those have a very low probability,

Jordan Roach
Very Low.

Ken Moraif
I would say they don’t want to get involved. So what could happen the troops is really a risk, you know, because these are religious people, and this is a religious war for them.

Jordan Roach
Yep

Ken Moraif
And religious fanatics do fanatical things, so that’s possible. The other thing that maybe not as fanatic, but that they could do, is they could shut down the Strait of Hormuz

Jordan Roach
And in some ways, I think that would be more devastating for markets,

Ken Moraif
For the markets, right.

Jordan Roach
Yeah. I mean, they lock, if they lock up Hormuz, and they basically, you know, they have their major supplier to the market for oil prices, right? With 20%

Ken Moraif
20% of the global oil supply goes through Hormuz.

Jordan Roach
So that’s a problem, and that that was a similar scenario, different, but we had in ’73, ’74 which then led to a wide range of cascading issues across global markets. Yeah. So that would be a problem.

Ken Moraif
This could be like the oil embargo again, if that happened, right? That shut down 20% of the world support.

Jordan Roach
Yes, everything else gets repriced, right? Because all of our products and goods and services are derived either from, you know, stuff that we have to mine, or from oil products.

Ken Moraif
So that probably would be the one from front, you know, unfortunately, the one about the troops, as tragic and horrible as that would be.

Jordan Roach
Yep.

Ken Moraif
The market would probably take that in stride. I mean, you’d look at September 11 as terrible as that was, you know, it was a month later, and it was like the market forgot about it,

Jordan Roach
That’s right.

Ken Moraif
So that one would pass, but Hormuz being shut down, oil supply being shut down, that could be a problem.

Jordan Roach
That could be a problem. Now, you know, I say, and I went back to the early 40s and looked at major geopolitical or historical events. There’s been probably 30, 35, of them on average. You know, one month later, it’s less half percent of the time the market’s up. If you go 6 months or 12 months later, it’s over 60% of the time the market’s up at post big geopolitical events. So most of the time, these things do tend to get priced through the market moves past them, and we and they get settled so that that’s the good news. And all this is it’s probably with probabilities we probably move past all this.

Ken Moraif
Whew, we’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out. You know, the thing about Donald Trump is like he’s a reality show, but of major consequence in real time.

Jordan Roach
Yes.

Ken Moraif
You know, it’s like everything is just happening in real time. And it’s, you know, in kind of a perverse way, more interesting to watch all of that than it is to actually watch like a reality show. You know, it’s terrible, but I’m glued to the TV, you know, I want to know what’s going on and what is this, and it’s like a chess match and all this. But the repercussions, human life and economic consequences are major. So ladies and gentlemen, you know, this is why I sleep at night. You know, because we have our sell strategy. We don’t think these things can have are going to happen, but they could, they have a more than zero chance. And if they do, then we have a strategy to protect you in the event that that would happen. And since my life, our business, everything we do, is devoted to protecting you from terrible things. I’m able to sleep at night knowing that we have our strategy, and I hope you are too. So we always say we want you to have peace of mind, and hopefully, despite everything that’s going on, you do. So I hope this video, this market alert video, found you healthy, wealthy and wise. I hope all you SCWPers go out there and SCWPer your tails off and let us worry about all this stuff for you so that you don’t have to and make sure you like and subscribe. Share this with your friends and family, 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