All-Time Highs, Soft Retail Sales, And A Plan For Risk

The stock market can feel like a summer heatwave when indexes push toward all-time highs and everyone starts talking targets. We sit down for Friday Live and pressure-test what’s actually driving the rally, what could break it, and how we think about taking risk off the table without trying to be perfect market timers. Along the way, we share a few laughs, including David’s birthday milestone, but we keep the focus on practical decisions investors can use right now. We dig into the economic data that markets trade every day: CPI, core inflation, and PPI, plus what those prints suggest for the Federal Reserve’s next moves. With the next major checkpoints like Jackson Hole and upcoming CPI, core PCE, and jobs reports, we explain why patience matters and why geopolitics can quickly change the story through crude oil prices and inflation expectations. We also call out the week’s weak retail sales reading and why retail earnings may give a clearer view of the consumer. Then we connect the numbers to real-world investing: today’s earnings strength, what’s behind outsized growth, and how modern advisory platforms help us be more tactical than the old mutual-fund-only days. We talk about why we sometimes build cash beyond normal levels to reduce drawdowns, why we never go fully to cash, and how we try to keep clients focused when headlines get loud. We close by zooming out to purpose and retirement planning: what you do with free time, how structure and relationships shape happiness, and why money should support an “abundant life,” not control it. If this helps you think more clearly about your portfolio and your next season of life, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave us a review.