Ryan Belanger, the managing principal and founder of Claro Advisors, joined Cheddar News to discuss the close of today’s trading day and the latest inflation news.

Trading Day Closes Down as Inflation Remains High

For now joining me is Ryan Belanger managing principal and founder of the Independent Financial Advisory from Claro advisors, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show, you know, definitely it feels kind of like a different mood in the stock market today and what I would say the fourth data point showing that these inflationary inflationary pressures persist that we've seen from january. What's your take? Yeah, I was, I'm right with you. Kristen on your open, I thought you were spot on. I think the Feds been aggressive, I thought they should have taken a 50 basis point hike. Last meeting wouldn't have been too much of a surprise to the market. They opted to not do that of course and then they got the blowout jobs number. So I think people are, you know, waking up that this is going to be higher rates for much longer than people had anticipated. And so the market right now is, is a little bit lost. You know, the good news is bad news and the bad news is bad news too and that's probably the direction we should be heading. But it's been very resilient to start the year. And so it leaves investors just wondering kind of what to do next. Right. So, and I think the uncertainty is good that you point out right because To be fair, this data is just for the month of January and it does come after a slowdown into Iran and follows the holidays. So maybe people had pent up Christmas cash right that they needed to spend in the market. I mean obviously as the Fed has said, will continue to follow the data, but I do want to put it in perspective. Ryan because it was in September of 2021 that the Fed said inflation was transitory. And then within four months we started embarking on the most aggressive rate rising path, catching many people off guard that we had seen in 40 years. What might that indicate as to what could be ahead? Yeah, I think it's, it's really important not to forget the history and, and uh, and you're, you're spot on for, for remembering that timeline. That's exactly right. I think looking ahead, you've got to be, um, as a buyer of bonds or a saver of money, you've got to be pleased with the current yields that we're getting. I mean we're just buying 5% treasuries for some clients today. That's a nice number. You know, savers can, can make some money in their, in their savings account and bondholders can, can earn good yields moving forward. Obviously last year was historically bad, but from a starting position now that's pretty good equities still still expensive. You know, we feel like the domestic equity markets in particular tech still relatively more much more expensive than the relative value is overseas provides a little bit more of a cushion because those markets are trading at 12 to 14 times earnings, the SNPs at 18 and and so it's not necessarily feeling like a great deal, especially with huge competition in the form of, you know, 4.5 5% Treasuries, you know that we haven't had that competition in many years, so yeah, I just wanted to, I want to dive in and talk about Treasuries because Ryan, your comments are echoing what we've heard from many people after, what was a horrible year for bonds last year. Um A lot of people have said there are opportunities and Treasuries this year. So for investors who know how to invest in stocks, what are the best ways to go about investing in Treasuries? Well, you can uh, you know, whatever platform you're buying your stocks on, maybe there's a fixed income desk or some sort of bond platform that you can buy those Treasuries. Um if you work with a financial advisor, they should be able to buy those for you, we do with our clients, um and you can buy those for 00 coupons, so you're paying, you know, 96 cents on the dollar and they appreciate up to par or you buy them with it with a coupon, you can buy them, you know, in many different increments of time. So it's, you know, it's probably something that some people have to get used to because they haven't done it in awhile, especially if they're just stock investors, it is a little bit different Alright, Ryan Belanger managing Principal and founder of Claire advisors. Ryan is great to get your, take, Thank you.