Latest / Winning With Winans! / Stephanie Larson, Lead Portfolio Manager at Winans Investments connects remotely with Ken Winans

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Stephanie Larson, Lead Portfolio Manager at Winans Investments connects remotely with Ken Winans · Winning With Winans!

• Speaker 1: Well guess it's another time for an episode of Winning with Winans. Let's go. And we're trying to bring you something new in the podcast format. I've been doing radio for the last 15, 20 years. And we thought, as people used to joke, I have a face for radio. Hopefully that's not true. But just like the radio shows, folks, we want to try to connect all the dots that you hear in the news through the week. And by the way, that ticker tape above me. Sorry for all the red, but you know what? In my world, it's either green or it's red. And let's talk about why it's happening and what's going on. So in the during this show, we're going to have a guest later on to talk about her views on the markets. But let's go ahead and get started with what is going on this week. Hey, it's been a roller coaster and a lot of people are doing some second guessing about the markets. Yes, the war is forefront, but There's more than that right now. We're getting, we're just wrapped up or we're getting ready to wrap up the first quarter. We're getting ready for earnings. And I know for many people in my industry, we get nervous because we look at what we have in our portfolios and we hope that the companies are largely on track. You know, there's, there's more than just the war. We have the tariffs. We have the election. We have the federal reserve. We have, you know, everything going on globally with countries and their economies. All these things are happening. So where we are right now is that we have to try to piece together what would make sense as a strategy. Okay, so let's talk about what we're looking at here. So within the stock market itself, like the old Clint Eastwood movie, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Well, there is all those. So let me first start off with US stocks themselves. Well, guess what? There's a lot of companies that did actually quite well. Of the stocks that I track with my index, 66 % of them are still in uptrends. They are above their 200-day moving average. We'll talk about that more in a moment. But they're not in the groups that people were told were going to do well this year. Those magnificent seven stocks that you heard so much about. That's not what's moving, folks. In fact, I think you're going to find when you get those reports about those big tech stocks, they're going to have lot of excuses why they're not moving. I think it's just that they moved up too far too fast last year. So what's moving this year? Well, if you bought energy stocks, you're having a good year. you bought, believe it or not, utility stocks. Yeah, the stocks that your grandparents used to tell you to always buy. They're doing well. A lot of that has to do with what's the big focus right now. Power. We're worried about where we're going to get our power for all these data centers. Nuclear power, switching to natural gas from coal. What's going on in all that? Also, you know what? Knock on wood, part of the big beautiful bill last year was talking about revitalizing the industrial base of the United States. Well, guess what? A lot of those old industrial stocks in the Midwest, those old companies, they're doing quite well this year. I'm really surprised to see how many of those stocks are doing well. A lot of them, knock on wood, happen to be in the defense sector, happen to be making components for missiles or ammunition or guns or whatever. They're all doing that. The other thing you I think that might be shocked, but you might want to start thinking about this. When we say tech, what do you mean? To me, there's two parts. There's the Magnificent Seven that I talked about before those new AI stocks, social media stocks, all that. I like old tech and old electronic. Why you use it every day. We all use it. It's just they're not real exciting companies. You don't know the name of their CEOs. But he doesn't matter. Those stocks are doing very well. Now the other thing that we should also consider is that a lot of people were told at the very beginning of this year hop into foreign markets. You've got to hurry up. So your good US stocks and go buy stocks in Europe and Asia and South America. Well, guess what? They've not done well this year. That strategy of glow. You know the reallocation into global markets hasn't worked well. Part of the reason it hasn't worked well. is because of what's happened in the commodity markets. Whether you like to admit it or not, when you buy stocks in emerging markets, you're in fact buying commodities in the second degree. You're buying cocoa and coffee in South America. You're buying gold in Africa. You're doing it automatically. And as commodities get volatile, those economies get volatile. We'll talk later in the show about real estate, but I think there might be some opportunities there. But let's talk about where the green shoots are. Where's the positives? I know you're hearing all these negatives. The dollar, the US dollar, if any of you are planning a foreign trip this year, I know that for many of you, probably the way things are in the world right now, you might want to just maybe just stay at home and just play in Vegas. But ⁓ the dollar is doing very well right now. Surprisingly good. So think about that as you are considering a reallocation of portfolio. Our guests will talk about it later with Stephanie Larson. Bonds are doing very well. US corporate bonds, US preferred shares, these old dividend and income paying type securities. They're steady for the year. So again, as you end this quarter and if you feel things have not gone well, it's a good time to take an assessment of your portfolio and decide where things are for you in your portfolio and how you want to move forward. OK. Some of the things that I think you're going to want to consider. I know you've been told by a lot of people you have to have money in crypto. You have to have money in gold and silver. And yes, there are times when those things move straight up. One of the lessons that you should have learned this quarter is that things that go up can and usually do come back down at some point in time. Crypto, I'll be the first to admit it. I've taken the certification, try to better understand it. I know that many people in my industry are counting it as an asset allocation class. And I don't mind people trying it in their portfolios and see if it works. But I guess what we have learned is anybody who rides a horse knows every now and then they can buck. you're learning it, and especially with crypto, I feel like I'm watching basically a bull ride at PBR out at the Max Center during the rodeo season. It's crazy what's going on there. I think in gold and silver, ⁓ this is a tough one. I think a lot of people I'm hearing this from a lot of people. They were late coming to the party last year. They paid a little too much attention to those ads about buy gold coins, buy silver bullion, all this other stuff and didn't take the time to study it properly. I'm not saying sell it, but do understand that I think that the easy money in it is gone for now and you're going to have to wait and see how that plays out. Okay, so What should we be looking at? I want you to shake off whatever bad mistakes were made in the first quarter this year. If you have not heard from your advisor, now's a good time to talk to them, especially now that we're going into tax season. A lot of people are going to have some unpleasant surprises. I'm kind of surprised that people find out that, you know, when you when you have gold physical gold and you go and sell it, ⁓ although you're not given a 1099. You're still supposed to report it. I talked about that in the last episode of winning with winans and I think I probably depressed some people. But yes, you're not going to make money in the United States as its US citizen and not have to pay tax on these things. So just kind of keep in mind you're going to want to get together with your advisors to talk about your investment strategy and within that what's happening with your taxes. OK, also it is an election year. We're going to start hearing more and more. from the various politicians, both sides of the aisle, talking about who's at fault for what, who did what to whom, and all that other stuff. Folks, the other big mistake I've seen this year are people who have politicized their portfolios. I'll be honest with you, there's a lot of stocks that I have bought in the past that people that I know who are the CEOs of those companies that I don't agree with philosophically, politically, doesn't matter. I care about them doing their jobs. I care about them making sure those companies perform well. It shouldn't matter. But again, people will give me reasons to not buy a stock based on personal feelings. So again, I think you're at a point now where you've got to start thinking about navigating what's coming up in the markets for the rest of this year. You've got to be prepared to also dump what's not working. I hate pet stocks. I people they because they have a name or a product they use. I hate that kind of stuff. Here's the thing to remember. Love friends, love family and love your pets that bark or meow. Don't love a stock. Don't love a bond. Don't love a gold coin. Don't get into that stuff. If it's not working, not doing well, get rid of it. I don't care what it did 40 years ago. I care about what it does now. So listen, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. We're going to be back with our guest, Stephanie Larson, and we're going to cover more of these topics in just a little bit. So this is Ken Winans with Winning with Winans, podcast number two. We'll be right back. and welcome back to Winning with WineInns. I'm your host, Ken Wineins, and I gave you a lot of information in the last segment. I thought we would have my guest, Stephanie Larson, my comrade in portfolio management. She and I go through the good, the bad, and the ugly together. And Stephanie, I know that, listen, we always wanna talk during bull markets, but let's talk about this volatility. How are you today, my friend? What, you're smiling? Speaker 2: I'm doing well. How are you doing, Ken? Well, it keeps me from crying. Speaker 1: Hey, it could be worse. You could have the wrong brackets and March Madness. Speaker 2: ⁓ Actually, a couple of my brackets already busted, so I'm a little bummed about that. And my alma mater got kicked out the first round, don't Speaker 1: Well, if it makes you feel any better, it's a little sad on the strip right now. you know, all that stuff. Hey, Steph, you know, there's a lot of crosswinds right now. And I don't know if you caught my last the last segment I talked about, you know, the volatility, which again, I know is unnerved. A lot of people, you know, you and I have always been very good. And we played the game well, the first part of this year, we navigated the markets really well, certainly January being what it was. But as I look at it right now, Speaker 2: Good. Speaker 1: I think that the eyes are beginning to look towards earnings season. Now, would you agree with that or not? Speaker 2: No, I would agree. You know, when you get to this stage of the quarter, you we talked about this earlier this week, we have some new money in and we're really hesitating to invest because, you know, investing right before the earnings season is always just a it's a crap shoot. You know, you never really know who's going to miss. And right now, the tolerance with investors, if if if a company misses, I mean, they get creamed in the markets, not two, three percent. It's nine, 10, 11 percent that goes down. So. It's just really hard to invest right now. think all investors and clients, they know that it's an incredible period of volatility that we've hit. They want to see if the numbers shake out in earnings. Are the companies really holding up okay? Are cash flows strong? Is there any weakening? And really the guidance is what a lot of, at least what I'm going to be looking forward to is, okay, maybe you got through quarter. by the hair of your teeth, the skin of your teeth, but your guidance for the rest of the year really looks poor. And then I think you're going to really see either some more widespread panic selling or maybe things stabilize. mean, it feels like the index is on a base. I know it feels like it, but until you have more data and more information, you're just never going to know. So earning season is you're to get a swath of data that comes in and it's going to tell you what's happening. Speaker 1: Well, and you just mentioned the indices. I think it's also something that needs to be brought up that the S &P 500 and the Dow as of right now are not the same indices and components as they were even two years ago. And in fact, I wonder who does the stock picking because they always seem to pick things that are at the high just in the Adam right at that period of time. They're trying to make it a popularity contest. mean, do you agree with me that they're not a valid gauge anymore? Speaker 2: 100%, not even close. mean, the leadership that is in the indices, the ones that have been put in and taken out, I don't agree with at all. You lose a lot of the legacy components. And then the outsized weighting of certain companies, obviously the largest companies, they dominate the market cap weighting performance of it. So it's really hard to say like, ⁓ the whole market was down for, was it? I mean, you have to kind of really break it down to the company level, to the sector level. And the thing is, is that the reason why they do it is because the indices are now, you know, sellable. mean, you look at all the ETFs that are in the market now and it's because it's a product. So they want performance to be well, which is why they keep putting these massive companies in that are on these great terrors and taking out companies that aren't performing as well. I just, don't feel it's a... fair gauge of what's going on. us as money managers, you know as well as I do, it's what we're gauged against. It's what we're compared to. And because there has to be some type of relative performance, but I don't feel it's accurate to the health. I mean, you and I look at things like the advanced decline line, and we look at how many are actually up for the day, you know, or the week or the year versus down to get a breadth sense of the market. I was the market actually doing? And I feel like until you do that, you don't really know what's happening. Speaker 1: I totally agree. It's funny, before ⁓ we started broadcasting AI, I was actually talking with some representatives from the New Texas Stock Exchange. I didn't have a chance to tell you about that. It was interesting because, no, it's kind of interesting to watch. It's history unfolding because you're having the financial centers migrating. know, your New York is not going to be New York. It's not to say it's all going to be gone, but a big chunks of it are migrating. California, certainly San Francisco, L.A. area. I think there's firms looking at moving around. But we talked about the concept of 24 7 trading. on something that would be a variant of what they would call the S &P 500 or just say broader US indices. what I said to this gentleman, I said, you know, here's my problem with this. I'm old enough to remember all of Wall Street's aw shucks, the attempts at things before. the problem that I have with this concept is that, OK, great, you're going to have benchmarks. They're going to trade 24 7 around the world. Yet these the individual components of those indices are still going to be trading NASDAQ stock market hours. So talk about something wandering all over the place that has no tether to reality. I think this this is going to be frothed with manipulation. Speaker 2: Absolutely, manipulation for sure. if you also just take a step back at it, is really the tail going to start wagging the dog? If European or Asian markets are trading the indices positively or negatively for whatever happens to be, does that eventually impact the underlining companies in the indices just because of outside pressure? I just think it's a horrible idea. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't recommend it. Speaker 1: I also have a life as you have a life. do not want to have to worry about this. I'll throw this out. Again, something that I've learned from the past. There you in the during the 1987 stock market crash when things just completely went out of control. I saw it firsthand. I remember seeing it kind of funny story. You know, if you picture the old monitors, there was a guy tapping the glass because he thought the numbers were off like it was a gauge on an airplane. He just couldn't believe the numbers were down that much in the first 30 seconds trading today. But we put in place circuit breakers. That meant that if the market traded, which is something we learned from the commodities exchanges, we have limits. You those limits, you shut things down to give a moment of pause so that the human beings or the adults in the room can decide what's going on. We're now going to a world of no circuit breakers with this 24-7 stuff. Speaker 2: Well, and take it a step further. Think about how many money management shops or quant shops or hedge funds, they trade completely based off of models. mean, some of them, definitely some of them integrate AI and things like that, but it's just model driven and in quant. And if you hurt certain levels, I mean, you and I have talked about it, you're like, watch the machines are going to start selling. And it's true and they do. I just think that's again, it's a horrible idea. Speaker 1: Well, they clearly don't care about their weekend time. Good luck with all that. Hey, Stephanie, let's get back to the markets and all in all. Okay. I really think it's a small miracle how well corporate fixed income. I'm not talking about private equity because we know that's a whole disaster right now, but I'm talking about your world of basically US corporate income based investments that relatively trade, i.e. corporate bonds and preferreds. Are you surprised they're holding up well this year? Speaker 2: No, they tend to in volatile markets. It's not that bond prices won't go down. There's a couple components and factors here that are really influencing it. mean, obviously, the spreads have gotten wider. Geopolitical risk and inflation concerns are pushing treasury ⁓ yields higher, which is making the spreads a lot wider, about 30 to basis points. ⁓ But one of the things that is interesting is that ⁓ the investment grade bonds are still getting about 4.7, 4.8 percent while high yields getting about six and a half. So income levels are actually still remaining around multi-year highs and that's keeping the demand in so that the bond market's not collapsing. I mean there's definitely some structural concerns. could be, you know, there's a lot more corporate issuance this year. I mean much lower yield for investment grade. So there's definitely a lot of supply, but the flight to quality is still true. with gold stuttering a little bit lately, especially with what's happening in Iran, ⁓ the other area that people usually go to for safety is bonds. And if the yield levels stay high, well, where else are you going to run to? It's the dirtiest clothes in the, or the cleanest clothes in the hamper, right? Is what people say. I'm not surprised that it's holding up. at all. But we're not hitting the flashing red sign of concern. I think the Fed holding rates also is just like, these aren't going to drop anytime soon because when they cut, the yields will drop a little bit as well. So for now, the market's stable, it's safe, there's plenty of supply, the yields are good, and I think people are scared a little bit, so they're just running to the bond market. yeah, I'm not surprised. Speaker 1: step the other thing to it I know you agree with this. There's no such thing as a bond market their bond markets and I think that so number when you just talked about treasuries I mean we know treasuries you know yields are going back up in treasury bonds are prices are dropping ⁓ very little gets talked about foreign bonds foreign government bonds. With the dollar moving back up those of not fair well and then you know something people are really talking much about but I think again I look at what are the boomerangs that could really hit people going through the rest of this year. I think that a lot of state treasurers, county commissioners, school district folks, they're not going to enjoy the revision in ratings, muni bond ratings that are going to be coming out. I think there's going be a lot of downward revisions, which means those bond prices are going to go down. So the yields go up again and will make borrowing costs much higher for the local school district. So I think, again, it's going to it's going to take time to see how this all plays out. Hey, Steph, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and then we'll be right back because I've got some of the things I want to ask you. OK, so folks, this is winning with wine ends with Ken Wynans and Stephanie Larson. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. And welcome back to winning with one is I'm your host Ken one is for Las Vegas newest and coolest financial show with my guests Stephanie Larson, who's managing director and a portfolio manager at one is investments. Needless to say outside of my relatives. She's the next most important person in my life. She takes care of everything. So hey, Steph, so we're back. So here we are. We've had a chance to relax. Hey, let's talk about this roller coaster in commodities. It's been. And know, you and Chris and I talk every Monday and even he said here, Chris, you know, who trades commodities, he's our commodity trader. He was saying, this is the wildest thing he's seen in his career. What would you say to that? Speaker 2: He said he's literally not sleeping because all the futures do trade after hours. So he's up all night watching everything and making sure we're not getting blown through our stops or anything like that. I feel horrible for him. He's just like, he's never seen anything like this before. So it's fun. Keeps you on your toes. Speaker 1: I little bit last time we saw him that but I just said Chris just go enjoy this be like so good to the strip so it's good and a strip go gamble a little bit you be OK but let's let's talk about this real quick again I I think that what I've noticed is again people and I think that the. the financial planners and wealth managers are going to have to begin to rethink this a little bit on their asset allocation, as we like to call it. So here we come out of 2024 into 2025. All the talk was about crypto. Should crypto be in your portfolio? Should crypto be counted? Well, know you're shaking your... I know, I know. Well, and you and I have had a lot of talks with people about various cryptos. And obviously, I went ahead and bit the bullet. Speaker 2: I'm not a fan. Speaker 1: and had a class in computer science technologies when I did my certification in cryptocurrency trading. But OK, so here we are, you know, that the volatility that had been there, they said, ⁓ that's just a one off, you know, we're getting our legs with it. Well, here it comes again. We get hammered with it again. You know, Ethereum especially reminds me like I'm watching a PBR bull riding ring festival, the way this thing bounces all over the place. But OK, so you have that. Then you had everybody and their mother in love with gold. Even though you and I warned everybody, look, ⁓ it's, you know, love your friends and family and pets, but do not love gold, do not love silver. And here people got smacked pretty hard this year. Speaker 2: Yeah, Silver specifically. mean, Silver had a ⁓ classic melt up. I mean, if you look at the chart, just spikes like it's almost just like a like a finger shooting up and then it just kind of came back down to reality. ⁓ It's it's painful. And the thing is, is that when metals crash, they crash, they don't they don't do it in a boring way. They do it in a spectacular fashion. So, I mean, I'm not saying that that's what's happening. I don't think that's what you and I both think. But I definitely I mean. I do feel people are dumping gold onto the market. do feel maybe there were some margin calls that people got caught out on. I'm not really sure what's been happening, but there's definitely a meltup in the silver. Gold looked a little more traditional bowl, and now it's been struggling just, I really since Iran and what's been happening in other commodities, specifically oil. So, yeah. Speaker 1: Well, I, you know, here's my problem with with people just topic gold and silver. ⁓ look at copper. I look at platinum. I look at palladium palladium. People don't usually collect unless you have a combustion engine and you have it in your catalytic converter. It's going down to they're all going down. So I think again, you know, whether smoke, there's fire. And I think that it might be the kind of thing that people are going to have to rethink their allocations here. I just think that 2026 Although the jury is still out how it's going to play out, you know, and let's face it, a lot of it is tied to the outcome of this military conflict. You know, if it ends up becoming a quagmire, if it ends up becoming an Iraq or an Afghanistan, you know that we're going to have a very different conversation later in the year than if it is quick and efficient like Venezuela and we're off to negotiating. But I think that there you have and you also have the election. I think there's going to be a lot of talking points about. You know, should gold be part of the Federal Reserve? You know, Wyoming, there was an article I talked about in the last episode of Winning with Winans. I talked about how the state of Wyoming is stockpiling gold. You know, it's kind of like, wow, we're back to the 1800s here, guys. You're you're stockpiling. And I wonder where they're putting it. That's a whole different story. But I think there's just so many crosswinds and people can find themselves over trading. overthinking, getting too emotional. And I think again, it's an exposure issue. It is not so much ⁓ a position issue. ⁓ I don't know you agree with that, but I think that's what they think about. ⁓ Jumping ahead here a little bit. I think there's some other news that we're going to see coming out in the, and I think it's the other telltale sign of what's really happening in the economy. And we don't, haven't talked about it lately, but it's real estate. I find it interesting that a lot of the real estate stocks are actually doing well the reads are doing okay the home builders are doing okay. This is with the fact that we're not going to see a drop in mortgage rates probably not until there's a change of the fed and yet these you know we look for for green shoots through the dry soil. I actually am kind of surprised how well real estate is doing in spite of everything. I don't know but I think that we're going to find out this running season what. demand is going to look like for housing and in fact I'm going to talk later in this episode ⁓ about what's happening in Nevada as far as lands being released for building. there are, you know, scarcity causes problems with their trying to solve that. What are your thoughts on that, Stephanie? Speaker 2: I think supply is still one of the big factors. mean, I'll speak mostly for me over here in California, but also Nevada. Supply is one of the number one reasons that we don't have affordability. It's why they've been talking about building. Well, when you build, also create jobs and you add more, you take supply away from the market. Or you take a lot of supply to the market, which allows people to get in and to go up. I do know housing went down a about 10%. I mean, it's very regional. I mean, even, you know, San Francisco to LA to Vegas, they had all very different experiences last year in the real estate market. But I do know that the crazy demand that we saw post COVID or during COVID, I know that's ⁓ slowed down quite a bit. And actually, we had a first pullback with the Fed cutting rates, which is kind of oxymoronic. You would think it would it would spur more investment. But I knew rates had gone pretty high. And I think that actually was one of the reasons why that people had slowed down on their buying or over buying or over bidding, I guess, would be a better way of saying it. It is interesting how it's held up quite as big, but part of it is a supply issue. Speaker 1: And let's face it, insurance costs. I mean, you know, look, and it's no big surprise. I look, you and I are both champions of the free market. I do think that insurance companies have the right to say that, look, we're not going to be forced to insure houses in fire zones and hurricane zones and tornado zones that we have that right. Now, again, I'm not an insurance expert nor are you, but I do believe that companies have the right to protect their shareholders and their employees. And that, look, if you're going to live in an area that's prone to flooding, or prone to hurricanes, it's safe to say that you should look at a very different insurance scenario than let's say a place like Las Vegas that literally, I mean, that's why the government drops atomic bombs here. There's nothing that happens here. We have a heat wave that comes through, but it's, I'm being facetious, but you know what I'm saying. And it's sad what happened to California with the fires last year, but again, the insurance companies do have the right to protect themselves. Speaker 2: So they're actually changing some of the business model. And I know this from ⁓ personal experience because of our of our place in Tahoe. So I know that what you do is if you have insurance, you have basic insurance for your property. ⁓ Tree falls on it. Bear breaks into your backyard or your back door actually happened in our cabin one year and things like that. know, floods, a pipe burst, you know, whatever. But then you have separate supplemental fire insurance, which I do believe, I don't want to say state provided, maybe state backed company that's doing it. I'd have to confirm that, but it is completely separate policies now. So you have your basic, which most companies will offer to you. And then you have your supplemental fire. And yeah, I don't blame the companies because I do know there were some insurance companies. I don't really want to put any of them on blast that really flirted with possibly going under because of the amount of claims that they had in LA, for example. And so you don't want to do that either because then it makes more of a monopoly in the insurance side, which means people can control rates and things like that. And it has less ⁓ suppliers to insurance, which you want to keep the market flush with suppliers. But I don't blame them, but it does make it, it is a quagmire for buyers in certain areas. They want to live in these areas and now insurance costs have pretty much doubled in the last five to 10 years in California. Speaker 1: Well, it's you know that that's a different topic on a different show be fun to bring somebody on. Hey 70 we're going to have anything else you want to add before we we in the segment and. Speaker 2: No, I just feel it's very interesting time in the market. It will definitely keep you on your toes. It is not boring at all. Speaker 1: No, and I just think again, and I'll just I'll add one point. I know you feel the same way. People should not politicize their portfolios. We have you and I both know people who do and it's cost them dearly. Don't do that. Let your politicians be politicians. Let your portfolio managers be portfolio managers. Don't mix those two worlds. Stephanie, if people want to get a hold of you, I guess the best thing to tell them is to go to the wine and investment website and they can reach out to you directly. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's always we're always available if anyone wants to reach out and have some questions or just would like some professional advice or a second opinion about what's going on with their portfolios. That's that's actually really common. get dozens of those a year. People like, I don't know if my financial advisor is doing a good job. And can you look? Absolutely. Speaker 1: And also if you're not hearing from your financial people right now, it's a good reason to get rid of them. Yeah. And by the way, the other quick thing, you should not have to overpay to have a preliminary evaluation done in your portfolio. We do it complimentary. Don't pay a bunch of money upfront. Make sure you know what you're asking for. Steph, you have a fantastic weekend. Enjoy yourself and then rest it for next week. And everybody, this is Winning with Wine Inns with Ken Wine Inns. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thanks, I appreciate it. Speaker 1: Well, welcome back to winning with wine is Las Vegas, new isn't coolest financial show. And I hope you enjoyed our talk with Stephanie Larson. Hey, look, you know, there's a lot of challenges right now that we have to look at, but hey, I want to change from talking about the markets to talking about some things that I think we, people who live in Nevada in general, and then also in Las Vegas in particular, we should be paying attention to. So last week I went to Los Angeles request of a friend of mine who has a radio show out in LA and I actually went to the Union Street Rescue Gala. That's to raise money for the homeless people of Los Angeles. Let me tell you why we're going to talk about this because and I had my cowboy hat on. I had my stats and on I never forget I'm from the West, but I was very disturbed about. what I call the O factor. And what I mean by that is when I talk to people and I say that I live in Las Vegas, you get the ⁓ and I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about there. There is an element of people, especially in Southern California. I don't want to call it arrogance, but I dare say it's hubris that they somehow think that we live here because we have to and not because we want to. But here's the thing. I think that we have to realize and just looking, just getting rid for the segment. Over the last couple of days. It's interesting when you do a search to find that in Eastern Oregon, there is a plan to break or the group of people who want to break it into two. That part of Oregon wants to become part of Idaho. The state of Washington is now going to invoke an income tax, so there's gonna be further migration out of that state. California's issues. You know, I couldn't believe it. There's those to have a governor's debate that something was canceled because of some, you know, partisan issues. You know, I look at all of our surrounding states and the issues they have and I look at what we have here. Folks, I'm going to give you a reason to smile because it clearly our portfolios didn't do that for this week. I think our future here is bright. I was literally on the phone today. With folks from the brand new Texas Stock Exchange. Now you probably have all heard the story about how firms from New York are migrating investment firms. Finance, you know all the types of financial firms are moving to Texas and moving to Florida. ⁓ That's all true. I saw it firsthand a couple weeks ago when I was back in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I saw those big campuses. But the same thing is happening in California and the same thing is going to continue to happen in California. So I'm going to punch above my weight here and I'm really tired of our state and our city being dished by people in the Western States. So let's get started. I wrote an article in Forbes last year called Las Vegas, the new Western Wall Street. Well, let me tell you what I basically talked about there. Let me tell you why you should tell your friends who have businesses in California why they should consider before going to Texas. They should think about coming here. First off location. Folks, there's a reason that Myron Lansky and Bugsy Segal decided to put the casinos here. Look at the location. You're three hours out of LA. You're the very hub, the nub of Nevada. We're near Arizona. I mean, we border five states. We're right there strategically. Perfect place, perfect place in time zones, perfect place against all these other thriving or these other metropolises. So you have that going our way. You also for people. mean, I hear this all the time. I'm sure you heard to people who they want to get out of California. They're tired of the taxes. They're tired of the fact. And I saw it firsthand by the way ⁓ Malibu just about broke my heart. I drove through there on Saturday night. Black no lights nothing. I want you all to think about that the Malibu Highway usually was full of lights. They haven't rebuilt anything folks. A year and a half later, they still haven't rebuilt any of those houses. Do you think that would happen in Las Vegas? We had a natural disaster. Heck no. Both parties would come together. We get the money. We got those houses rebuilt. So again, we bounce back very quick. But again, they're looking at all these things, looking at these massive tax increases. Their politicians are still not taking things serious. I started telling you about that charity thing I went to. I specifically remember asking somebody where were the politicians? They have 70,000 homeless people. Living in downtown LA politicians are nowhere to be found at that charity folks nowhere to be found just the people who live there. But here's my point talk about where we are ideal location. Hey guess what modern infrastructure. Look at our roads here. I mean we might joke about it a lot. I know we have the orange cones everywhere. Seems like we're always doing road work here, but my gosh we have good roads and when they're not good they get fixed pretty darn fast. I also ride a motorcycle. I care about roads. Believe me, so does everybody else out there who rides a bike. You want to feel comfortable. You're not going to run into a pothole, so we have that going our way. I mean, think of our overpasses. The fact the lighting is new. I mean, I can just go to any of the surrounding states and I'm going to include Arizona. By the way, we have better infrastructure than all of them. Hands down and both sides of the aisle care about those things. OK, hey. ⁓ I know it's kind of funny we talk about this weather. And look, I know just like you, I'm sick of hearing the jokes about the heat and I have news for those folks in California. You have heat too. Two thirds of your state is inland. Go take a and I'd much rather take our heat any day of the week because we don't have smog. But anyway, with that being said, folks, we have no disasters. There's a reason the military did atomic bomb testing here. It's safe. We don't have really don't have earthquakes. We don't have hurricanes. We don't really have tornadoes. We don't have those dust storms. call Mahars like they have in southern Arizona. We don't have any of that. We have heat. It's predictable. We know it's coming every year. But again, if you're thinking about relocating a business, that's important because guess what? Insurance costs maintain consistency when you don't have things that can destroy your house. Insurance companies are more inclined to give you more preferential treatment. Let's talk about the quality of things here from as a personal standpoint. I moved my companies here from California and I, as somebody who lived there, I was a fifth generation Californian. My family showed up there in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1840s. ⁓ I have very deep roots there. But what was California in those days and what was California that did at one time made it great was a business friendly environment. You don't have that anymore. think we, mean, a blind person can see it. It just doesn't work there anymore. Vegas on the other hand, hey, go get a business license. You can get a business license here without a big problem. People have an entrepreneurial spirit or they work hard here. I mean, I always am amazed. I'm amazed at the number of people and what they do for a living. And the fact it's a balance of white and blue collar work. You know, I wrote an article. It was that here people don't ask where did you go to college? They asked, did you go to college? And it's not judged one way or the other. It's just more of a background thing. I think it's also safe to say we have an awful lot of really good professional organizations here, whether it's the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, a Henderson's Chamber of Commerce, the Southern Nevada Veterans Chamber of Commerce will have Lester ⁓ Limbaugh come on the show in the future to talk about veterans issues in our great Valley. But the point is we have all these supporting organizations here. And then on top of it, not to mention our politicians. You know what? Look, I am to be a Republican, but I have many friends in Nevada who are also Democrats. You know, we talk the issues folks. We talk the issues. What matters to us? And you know what? It's written in our Constitution. We're not going to have a tax here and income tax strong community. Look. I know talking about what happened at Mandalay Bay almost. It's hard to believe almost a decade ago. But you know what we came out of that experience stronger. We really did ⁓ look at how we handled COVID. We handled COVID much better than pretty much any other state in this country. We have shown the ability to bounce hard and fast. I think the other thing too. Hey. It's a work hard play hard environment. We absolutely love to play here as much as we love to work here and we enjoy our successes and all I can tell you this podcast. I mean my team of people who've helped put this all together. I know I'm the guy in front of that camera looking at right now, but there's a team of people behind us and we all have very different backgrounds, but we all work well together. I love our team. It's fantastic. But listen folks, I just want to say that as you as we take these punches from other states, especially Texas and California, Arizona. about economic development in the state. hear all these jokes about rattlesnakes and the mob and all this other stuff. I am proud of what we've accomplished as a state and as a community, and I would tell all those places. Watch out folks were coming for your jobs were coming for your companies and they're going to pick Nevada over those other states. Folks were going to take a real quick break and we'll be back to winning with one. It's I'm your host Ken Winans. And welcome back to winning with one is Las Vegas newest and coolest financial show. I'm your host Ken Winans. And yes, I am the finance guy who likes to wear cowboy hats. Hey, look, it's not just a prop. actually grew up in the country. I ride horses and I shoot guns and I enjoy whiskey. And yes, what we're going to start doing on every segment, the last segment of our show, I saw that Sean Hannity is doing on his podcast and if it's good enough for Sean, it's good enough for me. So folks, I'm a vet and I saw this for sale. Believe it or not at Smith's. It's a whiskey and Darryl, who's one of our team members here, who's also an army vet. He and I are trying to decide what caliber this thing is, whatever it is. It's one big boy, big, big, big bad, big badass boy, I guess we'll call it and we'll try it next time on the show. But or maybe later on I'll do a poor, but I don't like to drink by myself. So it's not any fun. OK. I know in the last segment I got a little hot tempered because I'm really tired of people dishing on our state and our city. I mean, we're all heard the jokes about the heat wave, but let me tell you something. They had 95 degree temperatures in LA last week, so I don't want to hear about the temperatures out here. And you know what? It is what it is, man. You know it's going to cool off this next week. Move from there, but I as we're talking about pushing back. At our surrounding states who like to take jabs at us, let me give you a couple of things to think about. So at this Gala, things that I talked about people shock of shock. According to them, we've run out of land. I don't know about you folks. I take a ride out on any of the roads around her. I see a lot of land, but of course the argument is that the Bureau of Land Management, better known as BLM, will not release any more land. Guess what? Wrong. ⁓ I have right here this next month 223 acres of land are being released by BLM for further development. Go on from there. I'm sorry that I'm reading as I'm talking here. Call it Henderson Affordable Housing May of 2026. Another 19 acres of land are being released by BLM. I believe or not oil and gas leases. I was just. telling Ben, one of our team members here on the show, I didn't know that we had oil and gas in Nevada. I guess along with being one of the richest mineral states, we're also going to get to be drill baby drill and including dig baby dig. So anyway, this nonsense that we can't continue growing simply not true. OK, so again, and this is on a very simple search. But what troubles me is why I am bringing this up. And why the people who are in charge of economic development for our state are not pointing this out to companies who might want to move here and bring their employees to be part of our great community. OK, I know you've all heard this one. We're running out of water. Crickets, yeah, I hear it all the time. I mean, my family tells me that when I folks is still living in California. Well, ⁓ guess what? We have several things going on right now. These are actual facts. I want I go back to DC every year with the Vegas Chamber of Commerce folks from our bit both from the state and the local level or there in the water districts. They talk about what's going on. So first off, let's talk about what's going on with the Colorado River water pact. OK, now many you might not know this, but when the Hoover Dam was put in there, you know there's a whole dam system that was put in place. You know, back in the 1930s and going into the 40s. That was basically to control floods along the Colorado River and to provide hydroelectric power and also provide water. Yes, it is true that we get most of our water in Las Vegas and the surrounding areas from Lake Mead. That's all true that and yes, it is true that there's we're having to renegotiate those packs with the other states. At the end of the day, look, you go out to Lake Mead. We've all seen what happened. Lake Mead's coming down. It's going to ebb and flow, but people are beginning to realize that maybe we should learn to live with the fact that maybe that's going to be its permanent state for a while. ⁓ But let me tell you what I would much rather live here than I would rather live in Arizona or in California. If I'm going to strictly look at water, let me tell you why. We have already been scored as having some of the best water conservation efforts and most modern technologies of any of the surrounding states. In fact, we actually put water back into our aquifers under our feet. We have, I forget the number here, I'll have to dig it out here in a moment. It's some massive amount of water that's literally under our feet in Las Vegas. All of Nevada is doing this. have we have a listen. We're a desert state. It's not lost on us. We all know this. I know you know that as well. It's ingrained in our thinking, but it believe it or not, according to the reports I read. Arizona does it does a worse job than even California on water conservation, which to me is hard to believe. And they have basically unregulated drilling going on into their aquifer. They've lost something like a trillion gallons of water and they're south of us. They've got big problems. So those economic development people in Arizona telling people from California they should move their versus Nevada. They should first come truthful about their water. Now some other things that are being discussed on that is that ⁓ we actually have been talking with the future of desalinization. I know that one point time I talked to somebody from Mexico who was a government representative and they've been talking about the possibly in the long term of there being a pipeline that would come up from the Sea of Cortez right up through two states in Mexico, right through Arizona, right to Nevada, and I guess we probably just dump it into Lake Mead. The point is our folks are looking at this. This is part of what we do, but this idea that we're going to that people from outside states think that we're all going to go and try to take a shower one morning or water is not going to work is complete BS. And unfortunately, that's the kind of thing that a lot of people are being told in some of these other states. OK, let's also jump into the thing about power. Let me just look here real quick. I was going to try to find that situation was amazing, so the amount of water under our feet is just unbelievable. Yeah, 2.2 point 3 million acre feet of unused Colorado River supply is underneath our feet in Las Vegas, and I bet you don't hear that very often. OK, I love this one. ⁓ Because we have the strip. The belief is that. We would not have that if it was not because of the Hoover Dam and it had been followed. Now you have to follow the logic here because again, if somebody doesn't like Nevada doesn't like Las Vegas, they're going to pick on something they like to pick on this. So the logic is that as Lake Mead comes down and Hoover Dam can no longer generate any power that we're going to go dark in Las Vegas. I hope you're laughing because I think it's beyond comical. So and what I find pretty funny about this. is if any of you have driven the I-15 lately and you go past Prim and you look at those big lighted towers of solar power that California put in place, that nine billion dollar boondoggle project that they're now going to have to eat. And by the way, rumor had it. They tried to give it to us and we said, no, thank you. We don't want that thing. But again, that again, this is the belief that people have that we're not going to have enough power. Well, guess what? both sides of the aisle in Carson City and in conjunction with the federal government, we have put in a place for modern transmission lines, very, I mean, miles of these things all over the state with a transition from natural gas to alternative green technologies when it's practical. We don't have a bunch of windmills all over the place that are not producing power. We'll put them in place if they work and they're good for what we need. The point is We're folks were looking ahead. We're looking ahead and we're doing really good at doing it, but this is happening now. In fact, take think about Las Vegas. Think about the newer parts of Las Vegas. Think about how we have our power lines here. They're not over our houses there. They're actually they they blend into the environment. They really it's nice. I'm proud to call myself a new found Nevada. I'm proud to call myself a vegan. We're doing a lot of things right here folks. By the way, I know I have to sound like I'm running for public office right now. I'm not. I'm just here to I'm tired of us being dished and we deserve to be treated with respect and that our state is probably going to run the show one day to be perfectly frank. And by the way, think about this last point. We don't have a state income tax and we still have all these things working. Thank you, California. Maybe you might want to ask your politicians that why you guys have the highest taxes in the land and your roads are as bad as they are. I feel like I'm in an Armour Humvee on a dirt road somewhere. Anyway, enough sarcasm folks. Sorry I got off the beaten path, but I had to be said because I'm tired of hearing this nonsense. So listen. If you miss this. Podcast you can go on our website winning with wine ins or just go back and look at YouTube and Spotify for past episodes. is episode number two. If you would like to hear me on the radio, I'm available on 840 AM on the dial every Saturday, 2 PM. Those are also recorded shows. I also write for Forbes. I'm going to be doing some new articles. In fact, what I just talked about here, I'm going to put into a Forbes article in that in the not distant future. You can see that in Forbes.com all my books. If you're interested in if I can actually write a book, go find them on Amazon.com and then by chance if you would like to be a guest on winning with wine and please contact. our show, our team will get back in touch with you. We'd love to have various people from different points of view come on the show, hear what you all have to say. And you know what? What can I say? Let's go enjoy this week. Be thankful where we live. God bless this great country and God bless our state and our city. This is Ken Winans with Winning with Winans. We'll see you next week. Take care now. Boy, that time went fast. I hope you had as much fun as I did during this segment of Winning with Winans. Make sure and tune in next week for another round of guests and interesting topics. And if you missed this, make sure and check us out on Spotify, YouTube, or go to our website, WinningWithWinans.com, where there's a lot more information for you to follow. So good luck this next week. Look forward to seeing you then. Take care.