Bryan Jordan is a former economist that set the investment policy framework for over $100b in AUM at Nationwide. He joins today's show to talk about:
Bryan Jordan is a former economist that set the investment policy framework for over $100b in AUM at Nationwide. He joins today's show to talk about:
Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Internal Use Only podcast. I'm Dan Sullivan. I am joined today with Brian Jordan. He's a former economist and member of the portfolio management team at Nationwide Insurance, where he co-developed the firm's macro-driven framework, which was used to set the investment agenda for more than $100 billion in assets under management. Brian is also a member of the CFA Institute, the Ohio Governor's Council of Economic Advisors and Mensa, and you can find his research in Barons and Blue Chip Financial Forecasts. You can also find him as the co-founder of Cycle Framework Insights. So, brian, thanks so much for being on the show. Welcome. How are you today? My?
Bryan Jordan:pleasure. Thank you, Dan. Thank you for having me.
Dan Sullivan :How'd you like the live-in show? That's one of the first ones I've done, so I appreciate you bearing with me through that Beautiful Work. Great, your career has intertwined with the audience here, which is mostly wholesalers. So I know that you've spent time on the road with advisors and with wholesalers and I wanted to ask because you have managed money in the past and you manage that money on behalf of a general account for an insurance pool how would you say that allocating capital or managing money impacted the conversations that you had with financial advisors while you were working alongside wholesalers?
Bryan Jordan:I think the biggest thing that managing money did is gave me a sense of nuance and a sense of uncertainty and a sense of humility. The future is inherently uncertain. It's very easy to make a forecast. Anybody can make a forecast. I could say that Kansas City is going to win by two touchdowns this weekend. I could say that San Francisco is going to win by two touchdowns this weekend.
Bryan Jordan:Anybody can throw out something about the future and, of course, what happens so often is as soon as that future event happens we tend to forget those forecasts and just go on to the next one. Okay, I missed that one. Well, here's what's going to happen in March. Madness, I missed that one. Well, here's who's going to win the World Series. So you just go on to the next forecast.
Bryan Jordan:When you're managing money, you realize very, very quickly that you live in a world of uncertainty and you're trying to look at the balance of risks, not just a point forecast.
Bryan Jordan:Gdp is going to do this next year, the inflation rate is going to do this next month, the unemployment rate is going to go here or there. And then you just simply move on to the next forecast when you get to the next period. But you realize that the future is inherently uncertain and that you deal with a world of risks and you have to figure out where that balance of risks is. What has the market priced in and where are the risks relative to what the market has priced in. And so I think that really helped enable those conversations to move in a more fruitful direction. Not just this is going to happen, this is going to happen tomorrow, this is going to happen next year, this is going to happen over the next 10 years, but here's where the market is set up, here is how the market is set up and here's where the risks are relative to how the market is set up. So it enabled a more nuanced discussion, which I think was helpful for the wholesalers as well as the advisors.
Dan Sullivan :When you think about your career, investing and managing that money. Do you have any examples of some of those risks that you can recall, that were really laid out, where you would say here's the risk, here's what we are factoring in and here's how we're making this investment, or why we're making this investment? Based on that, like any specific examples that you might be able to share with the audience?
Bryan Jordan:Our framework is very much a backward looking framework and it takes the economic cycle and divides it into four phases. We have three phases that are generally risk on phases and we have one phase that's a risk off phase where the framework tells us to be more defensive. In 2019, we got that phase four signal and this was a time when the market was generally doing well and when the outlook for the future was, from most quarters, generally positive. The Fed had started cutting rates again after a very gradual rate hike cycle from 2015 to 2018. Earnings were still growing, the labor market was still in expansion, the unemployment rate was still in decline, still very, very low. Confidence was relatively high, but our signals told us that we should be in a more defensive posture and history told us that we should adopt a more defensive posture at that time. This was one of those cases and there are numerous examples along these lines where the market was pricing in one thing and our framework is telling us something very different.
Bryan Jordan:We never pounded the table and said absolutely, we're going to have a bear market tomorrow or next month or next quarter. Absolutely, we're going to have a recession tomorrow, next month or next quarter, but that the risks relative to what the market had priced in were greater. The downside risks were greater than what the market had priced in. The story was very similar for us in 2007, and the story is very similar for us today. The market is adopting a very bullish posture at the moment. Confidence is very high, the labor market is very strong. Our signals are saying, however the risks are elevated, the downside risks are elevated. So these are opportunities. We don't know for certain that a recession is coming. We don't know with 100% certainty that a bear market is coming, but we can tell that the risks are higher than what the market is priced in, and that happens regularly from cycle to cycle.
Dan Sullivan :And this framework was that you're applying here to some of these risks, especially like the 2019 into 2020. Those were, with the nationwide team, right in the general account there.
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely. This was the framework we used to manage the general account at nationwide and it's the framework we use now with our clients at Cycle Framework Insights.
Dan Sullivan :Yeah, and I feel like that's often lost in how maybe financial media and some of the outlooks get forecasted today, and we're going to touch on that in a little bit here. But really all the team is trying to do is use information and data points and indicators to your advantage and price in what are the upside and downside risks, right? So it's like maybe you're not here to be doom and gloom everything's changing tomorrow but percentages or what the relative to what the market is factoring in. Maybe here's where we think a portfolio should or could be positioned over short term, medium and long term horizons, and that might be different for each person depending on what factors or indicators they're considering.
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely. It's based on their risk tolerance, their time horizon and, again, it's done in a balance of risks framework. There is never any table pounding call that a recession for sure is coming, that a bear market for sure is coming, but rather that the risks of an event like that may be higher than what the market is priced in. And, alternatively, there are going to be times when the risks of a more constructive outlook, a more constructive outcome, are higher than what the market has priced in. So it's very backward looking and this is something that maybe doesn't sound so good on marketing material, because, as an economist, you always want to present an image of being forward looking. You have a crystal ball. You can see the future. We all know nobody can see the future. There is no crystal ball.
Bryan Jordan:We look backward and look at what environment we are in now, based on key economic and financial market indicators. What do these indicators tell us about the environment today? What can we say is true based on what has happened in the economy, based on what the Fed has done and what's happened in the financial markets? What can we say is true about what that means for markets going forward? The past very much dictates the future and very much dictates the balance of risks going forward. And that's where we come in. Where are the balance of risks relative to what the market is priced in?
Dan Sullivan :If we all had a crystal ball, everybody would have shorted the housing market in 2007, would have bought Bitcoin in 2009 and everyone would be filthy rich. All together, right.
Bryan Jordan:We'd all have our own island, and it's amazing that these economists who claim, or at least imply, that they have a crystal ball don't have their own island.
Dan Sullivan :So, speaking of crystal balls or maybe, in this case, shattered glass, what are some of the more egregious examples of either bad financial prediction or bad advice that you can recall from your career?
Bryan Jordan:Well. So the obvious one in my career was in the late 1990s, when the famous book Dow 36,000, was released by Hassett and Glassman, and the idea was that we were in a new world, new technologies. The Dow Jones industrial average was going to hit 36,000 by 2004. Now, of course, this prediction came just before the very deep bear market that took hold in 2000 and lasted until late in 2002. And of course, it would take more than two decades before we finally reached Dow 36,000. So that's one of the more egregious examples. But those examples abound. We see them all over the place, Even in advertisements.
Bryan Jordan:There was an ad that ran on CNBC for a long time that made the point that gold prices had more than doubled over the course of the previous few years. So therefore you should buy gold now. And it's said in big, bold letters gold prices have doubled by gold now. So somebody didn't get the memo that the idea in investing is to buy low and sell high, and not buy high and perhaps sell low. So there are examples all over the place, but perhaps Dow 36,000 is the most glaring example in my career.
Dan Sullivan :Was there ever? Was there a celebration or an announcement 20 years later when that achievement, when the Dow did pass that number? I think it was 3600?, I think there?
Bryan Jordan:I believe there was at least an acknowledgement that we finally got there. Now, of course, the economy always grows, or in most cases grows. The market in most cases goes higher, so we were going to get there eventually. Eventually we're going to get to Dow 100,000 or Dow 360,000. So perhaps I should write a book and just put out a huge number and one day it'll come true.
Dan Sullivan :Yeah yeah, you can do a financial media book. I'll write a book about how one day, the sun's going to explode and we'll all be gone, and I'll be the person that predicted that one. How about that?
Bryan Jordan:Exactly, and one day you'll be right. Yeah, one day Hopefully in the meantime, you'll sell a lot of books.
Dan Sullivan :I mean, it's just a sad truth.
Bryan Jordan:I was just going to say. It's a sad truth that a book with the title Dow 36,000 is going to sell a lot more copies than a book with the title. The risks are balanced to the upside over the next 10 to 20 years and we made more likely see higher stock prices than lower stock prices. That book's not going to sell many copies but it's a more honest book than Dow 36,000.
Dan Sullivan :I know, and that's the world that we are in today, where everything grabbing the attention and headlines that's translating into some of this financial media advice, where it has to be either sensationalized or maybe just captivating enough, and then you realize the things that make people successful. Investors are typically the complete opposite of that. It's like buying low, not doing much over a long period of time. That's really the opposite of how most information ends up being presented today.
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely. I mean, unfortunately. There is a get rich quick mentality among some cohorts and there is a supply of financial advice to feed into that mentality here. Do this if you want to get rich quick. I think we all know that there is no get rich quick or except in very rare circumstances, there is no get rich quick. It's about the long term. But again, the long term is not going to sell books, it's not going to attract eyeballs to websites or TV programs.
Dan Sullivan :How would you say that? Examples like the Bitcoin surge and even like the GameStop shorting situation where very, very small percentages of investors, very small percentage of the total investable market, but they are outlier examples of when high speculation actually would pay off in a short period of time, like how do you reconcile that amongst the 99.9% of other investing, which is how most people become successful? But there are these little little pockets of examples where there is that high risk speculation, big payout.
Bryan Jordan:Well, I think it's inevitable. There has to be a Bitcoin, there has to be a GameStop. The market is enormous. We have so many stocks, we have so many ETFs. Now we have so many cryptocurrencies. There is some investment.
Bryan Jordan:Even in the worst of markets, the worst of broader markets, there is always some investment that's going to do really, really well, just as in the best of times, there are some investments that are going to do very poorly. We can look at the past year or so, when the market has done quite well. There are investments that have fared very poorly over the course of the last 12 months. So there are always outliers. There are enough potential securities that some are going to do very, very well. Unfortunately, that feeds into this mentality. We see that it can happen and so, because it can happen, we're encouraged to look for the next thing that is going to happen.
Bryan Jordan:The same thing happened in the late 1990s. There were individual stocks that, for a time, performed incredibly well. We saw these amazing moves especially in the technology sector in the late 1990s and the first few months of 2000. That encouraged more investors into these speculative vehicles. For some of them, they paid off. The investments in Amazoncom, for example, which was a darling in the late 1990s. If you held on through the choppiness of the early 2000s, you performed very, very well. Google you performed very, very well, but, as we know, there were many that fell by the wayside and you didn't just perform poorly, but you may have lost everything in those vehicles. It's inevitable that we're going to have individual assets and sometimes asset classes that return outsized numbers, that give us outsized returns for a time. Sadly, those returns are simply going to encourage more speculative investments and more financial advice, encouraging investment into speculative vehicles.
Dan Sullivan :How can somebody today distinguish between what is good advice and what is bad advice? Our audience we have a combination of wholesalers. They interact with advisors. Advisors make their life and their practice on helping with financial planning and offering financial advice. How can we distinguish between what's good and bad advice today?
Bryan Jordan:no-transcript. Well, so the first part of my answer is going to seem self-serving, and maybe it is self-serving, but one aspect is to look at the experience of the person giving the advice. There is no LeBron James in the financial advice business. I mean, there's nobody who's great at this at the age of 18 or 22. There is a certain wisdom that's required. There's a certain amount of experience that's required to provide good financial advice, at least in my view.
Bryan Jordan:Look at the credentials of the person giving the advice. Do they have a CFA? Do they have a CFP? Have they been doing it for quite some time? So I think that's important. There are many, many people who are offering advice online these days. Look at where that advice is coming from. Look at the experience and the credentials that have gone into producing that advice.
Bryan Jordan:Perhaps more broadly, it's important to look at the advice itself. Is it nuanced or is it table-pounding? Is it hyperbolic? We see again so much of this and unfortunately the internet allows this abets this. There are so many pop-up ads now from certain quarters that are promoting a 90% crash in stock prices, 70% crash in home prices, 300% increase in gold prices. Whatever it may be offering the most aggressive, hyperbolic opinions and offering them with much certainty.
Bryan Jordan:Not that this may happen. This could happen. There's a risk. This might happen, but this is going to happen. We've all seen the ads, the banner ads Wall Street Expert predicts 85% crash in 2024. And when it doesn't happen in 2024, that same firm is going to be sending out a banner ad in 12 months that says Wall Street Expert predicts 85% crash in 2025. So these certain extreme forecasts always should be taken with a major, major grain of salt. A good forecast, a good outlook, good advice is nuanced. Again, the future is uncertain. We don't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. We know the environment that we're in today. A forecast and outlook, a prediction, should be balanced along those lines. Here are the upside risks, here are the downside risks, here is what the market has priced in and here's where the balance of risk is relative to what the market has priced in. Good advice is nuanced. Bad advice, bad prediction, is hyperbolic and very, very sure of itself.
Dan Sullivan :When you were I'm curious about this when you were interacting with some of the advisors and you were making some of these risks and the forecast and factoring in various inputs for a much larger pool of long-term capital. Having that amount of money on an insurance general account makes some of the risk tolerance and time horizon a lot different than, let's say, your 65-year-old, with more to lose if there is a market drawdown and things like that. So I'm wondering how, in your shoes, were you balancing, or maybe how to CFI? That is probably a good chance for your team to explain how you're doing this. How are you factoring that in with individual advice relative to some of these major institutions that have very different considerations when it comes to how they can deploy capital and what their risk tolerance is?
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely. It's a great question, and so for some individuals they're going to be more risk loving than Midwestern Insurance Company is. But there's a great advantage in coming from that world and that, because we developed this framework at a solid Midwestern Insurance Company, it was and is a conservative way of looking at the market. It's not an attempt to capture every last basis point. It's not an attempt to capture every last percentage point in terms of the market's upside and downside, and so our signals are meant to be early. They're meant to give investors time to move from a risk on to a risk off posture or vice versa, and we acknowledge that with all of our clients. We're not trying to tell you March 29th is the day Okay, we see it coming Again, we have the crystal ball. March 29th is the day the market is going to turn. That's when you want to get out, and then, on the other side, december 11th is the day. That's when you want to put the money back back to work.
Bryan Jordan:This is a process, and we stress that we're in a risk on environment, we're in a risk off environment and as we transition between the two, we have time to adjust portfolios accordingly. And, again, it's always couched in terms of the clients, risk tolerance and time horizon. Some clients are more risk loving, some more risk averse, some have longer time horizon, some have shorter time horizon. Those are all taken into consideration, and especially for those clients that have longer time horizons, then the discussion can turn a little bit more to the structural factors rather than the cyclical factors. Okay, we can stomach a downturn, we can stomach a cyclical downturn, but what does the longterm hold? What does the next 10, 20, 30 years look like? What's priced in for the longterm and where is the balance of risks over that longterm relative to what's priced in? So those things are always taken into consideration.
Dan Sullivan :When you said before about some of the advice for people saying to make a decision by this point or by March 29th, there'll be X, y and Z market occurrence. I think it was earlier this calendar or it might have been the end of 2023. I'm going to forget the guy's name, but did you see the author of the Rich Dad, poor Dad book who tweeted out how he was like largest levels of something I don't know if it was loaned to the Linguistics or everybody put out this tweet and he was like everybody should be selling. It was either like their mortgage or something else. It was like the most ridiculous comment forecasting what was going to happen, which obviously did not happen whatsoever. But that guy has a following of investors because of this book he put out. It's just a strange world we live in now where that stuff happens.
Bryan Jordan:I think that's true, and it's unfortunately true. The loudest voices are the ones that often get the most attention. There's an old saying Truth doesn't make a noise. That's really true. Truth is nuance, truth is uncertain. Truth is in the balance, not in the certainty. But it's that certainty Sell today, buy today, do everything you can. Back up the truck today. Sell it all tomorrow. That attracts attention, unfortunately, so it encourages more of these characters to make calls like this.
Dan Sullivan :I feel like it's also so easy and in some ways, cheap, just for a lot of these. Use whatever term you want, like fin influencers, people use. Anyone can create a social media account and then issue quote unquote like finance tips. That's a lot different than, I think, true advice and assistance. So, really like in a world where there is virtually access to unlimited information, what would you say is actually that case for professional financial advice and assistance? Why will that be so much more important? On a go forward basis.
Bryan Jordan:I think those two things really feed into each other. The fact that there is unlimited financial advice, unlimited financial information, today means that there's a lot of bad information, unfortunately, and that, in and of itself, creates more volatility in financial markets. We saw that with the Reddit influence when the market was running up in 2020 and 2021. And I think we're going to see it more going forward. That influence is only going to grow, for better or worse, and it does introduce another layer of volatility. I think, for structural reasons, we have moved into an era of greater volatility.
Bryan Jordan:Anyway, the Federal Reserve has done a pretty good job over time of taming the business cycle not conquering the business cycle, but taming the business cycle such that we now have longer expansions and, in general, shorter recessions, although not always, but we have longer expansions. We go for longer periods in between economic downturns. That's a good thing in general, but it also allows for bubbles to build in financial markets. It allows for financial markets to reach valuation levels that they wouldn't have or didn't in an era when expansions were generally three, four or five years in length, but now that we often see expansions of eight, nine, 10 years or longer, that potential is there, that we can see much higher prices across asset classes, see much richer asset classes. And that means when the turns do come, when we finally do fall into recession just as happened, for example, in 2001 or in 2007, when we finally get that turn, it's a big turn and it's a painful turn and it's a long, lasting turn, and those turns are tough and take a long time to recover from.
Bryan Jordan:And so there is a great case to be made for sound financial advice. Because the highs are higher structurally in recent decades, but because the highs are higher, the downturns are more painful, the downturns are deeper. And so to have good financial advice to help you manage that, to help you move through, that, I think, is increasingly valuable. Good financial advice has always been valuable. I think it's increasingly valuable given these structural changes and some of these changes in terms of the supply of financial advice itself. That by itself injects even more volatility.
Dan Sullivan :What are some of those long term structural trends that you're seeing when it comes to the actual supply and demand of financial advice in the future?
Bryan Jordan:So obviously, the drop in the barrier to entry is probably the biggest structural change, that anybody can give financial advice online now. Anybody can set up shop, anybody can put it, set up a website, anybody can set up a Twitter account and simply just start giving, doling out, financial advice. The supply is unlimited and, of course, this is true in every walk of life. The supply of travel advice is now unlimited. The supply of cooking advice is now unlimited. The supply of health advice or beauty advice is now unlimited. So that's the big structural change. I think the other change is what we hinted at earlier, in that the Fed has really changed the nature of the business cycle and so we don't spend a few years in expansion, a few years in recession, and we don't have that cleansing process every few years. The cleansing process might come once a decade.
Bryan Jordan:Now there's a case to be made that if it weren't for COVID, that expansion that began in 2009 might still be going Now I think there's a strong case on the other side that we would have had a recession in 2020 anyway, but we don't know that for sure.
Bryan Jordan:That expansion already, even when COVID hit, was an 11-year expansion. I mean, it was the longest expansion in US history when it finally came to an end in 2020, nearly an 11-year expansion, and it wasn't that long ago that we had a 10-year expansion from 91 to 01. So we have these very long cycles now and a lot of imbalances can build in the financial markets over these long cycles and that can mean that you see more time for bubbles to build. You see more interest in some of the more fringe areas of the market. But that also means that when we finally do get the downturn, it can be a painful downturn. That turn that was 10 years and coming, 12 years and coming maybe in the future, 15 years and coming. When it finally does hit, it could be very, very painful.
Dan Sullivan :Yeah, I would need some more data to probably back this one up. But people don't necessarily come to this podcast for all of the fancy stats. There's plenty of podcasts that have that. But I get the sense that some of the pockets of commercial real estate are almost in that mega downturn phase and I think there were some factors fueling from COVID. But it seems like it's a tough go right now for all those commercial assets that are not really being occupied because basically the labor force is not going back to the office and now, in what used to be your class A real estate property is now at class C prices and it's not going to necessarily change anytime soon.
Bryan Jordan:Sure, there are big structural changes like that and that also means that you don't have to live near the center of a city anymore. You don't necessarily have to be close to your job anymore. You don't have to live close to your job anymore. That has big implications for the housing market. So that's a big structural change that has a direct influence on the investing landscape.
Bryan Jordan:And, of course, there are many like that that are in various varying degrees of train right now the aging of the population, the fertility crisis, which continues to worsen across much of the world. What does that mean for where we take risks going forward and where we find growth going forward in a world where potential economic growth, structural economic growth in much of the world is slowing, when do we find that growth? I think there's a case be made that many investors will go further out the risk reward spectrum when growth in many developed countries again continues to structurally slow. So there are some longstanding changes, long term structural changes. They're going to have big, big impacts on the investing world in the years to come.
Dan Sullivan :Some of the ones you mentioned, with the not needing to be near the city, which impacts the residential real estate. I feel like, for someone who's kind of like my age and I experienced that, so that was the first large trend that I've actually seen play out in my day to day and in how my peers and people around my age have made decisions. So this is interesting. I'd like to ask you this question Of all of the larger scale structural changes that you're seeing purely from the investment standpoint, are there any that you're observing or experiencing in your day to day that you kind of, just when you think about it, you're like here's on paper all these structural changes. We could always talk about that but you're actually seeing this day to day, whether it's maybe the aging population or some of this residential real estate and how that impacts. Are there any that you're seeing in your life more than others?
Bryan Jordan:Well, the real estate market is an obvious one. What's happening there is an obvious one because we're seeing it in prices, and so you know I've been a home shopper from time to time over the last few years and have seen some amazing moves in some markets that I've been following. Some markets have gone up very, very slowly, but some have skyrocketed in just the last few years, and it's a direct consequence of the ability to work remotely and the diminished need to be tied to a job location. The other thing that's tied somewhat to that, that, I think, is an important structural change, and perhaps a sustainable structural change. This is the structural tightness in the labor market. So it's an often reported statistic, but even after some slowdown in the last couple of years, it's still true. There are more job openings today, still more job openings today than there are unemployed people in the US, or at least officially classified unemployed people in the US. Job growth has slowed over the last year, so job openings have come down. Typically in this environment, you would have expected layoffs to pick up, layoff announcements and actual layoffs to pick up, unemployment claims to pick up. We haven't seen that, and in fact a few weeks ago we got close to our lowest level of unemployment claims since the 1960s, when, of course, the labor market was quite a bit smaller than it is today. So the labor market is structurally tight. We've moved into an era of structural tightness in the labor market and I think that's probably influencing risk taking to a significant degree.
Bryan Jordan:The YOLO dynamic of the past few years. Part of that is fueled by the fact that there is a backstop, or at least I think for many people. They feel a backstop. They feel confident that if it doesn't work out, I can just simply fall back and find a job because there are so many jobs, jobs are so readily available and I don't have to worry about a job not being there If my investment in this cryptocurrency doesn't work out or this venture that I'm trying doesn't work out, whatever it may be, I think it bets a greater risk taking, and we've seen that over the last few years in financial markets.
Bryan Jordan:So yet I mean to answer your question directly. I see these structural changes in home prices in different markets. I mean you can see down the road there will be some pullback. I mean we'll see the headlines that say the recovery of the cities. There will be some move back into offices, maybe very slowly over time, but I think we both know, and everybody listening to this podcast knows, we're not going to go back to 2019. That world is gone and probably gone forever, yeah.
Dan Sullivan :Maybe the buildings themselves get repurposed or they're kind of more of like a mixed-use facility versus pure commercial. But yeah, that'll definitely change. Here in Boston they just opened up one of the newer office buildings which obviously was Construction Post, COVID. I think the first two floors are like dining. It's like a mix and match of popular restaurants, so it's kind of like a food court of things, and I think there's one floor residential, then another one of commercial. So it's like all these mixed-use properties now which hopefully will have the high occupancy rates and get tenants.
Bryan Jordan:Sure, I mean, there's still a case to be made for the cities and I think one of many other structural changes over the last few years is the move towards services and away from good spending. That ebbs and flows, but we've seen it really move sharply over the past couple of years and you see that evidenced in tickets for sporting events, tickets for concerts. Those have skyrocketed over the last few years. So there's still something to be said for the energy of the city, for the amenities available in the city. If you like going to sporting events, if you like going to the theater, you like going to concerts, those opportunities are available in big ways still in the city, much more so than in the suburbs. So there's still a case to be made and again, you can see down the road that there will be a trend back into cities. We're just not going to be working there like we were before.
Dan Sullivan :Yep, 100%. I agree on that. You also gave me a great idea before with your comments that we should start the internal use-only podcast, the YOLO indicator of young individuals with speculative risks and how they play out over time. Absolutely.
Bryan Jordan:And you know I mean it's happening like clockwork. So every there was the old line from Paul Simon every generation sends a hero up the pop charts. Every generation also blows a bubble in the financial market. So we had the bubble of the 1920s. We had a sort of bubble in the 1960s with the Nifty 50. We had the bubble in technology stocks in the 1990s. We're due here in the 2020s and it seems like we're getting it. And it's this new generation, the YOLO generation, that's spending time or at least some of them are spending time, or we're spending time on Wall Street bets, spending time on Robinhood trading, cryptocurrencies, trading, meme stocks, and this doesn't get washed out until there is a deep, deep and extended turn in the markets themselves.
Bryan Jordan:Some of us remember the buy the dip mentality in the 1990s. There was some big volatility in the 1990s. We had a near bear market. In 1998, after the emerging markets crisis, we had a correction in 1999. We had a correction in 1997. And it was a buy the dip mentality. Those corrections, those deep corrections, were not enough to change the mentality, and what we had in 2022, I don't think is nearly enough a mild bear market in 2022, not nearly enough to wash this out. So I think there is some big upside risk in markets over the next five years or so because you have this mentality and there is nothing yet to push back against this mentality, to stop this mentality, this YOLO mentality that developed a few years ago.
Dan Sullivan :Thank you, Well, this has all been fantastic perspective on some of the structural factors that are out there and what it means, or the impacts of some of these forecasts. So, brian, I certainly appreciate this. I got a couple more questions for you that I want to make a part of our closing segment and then we'll send you off here to the rest of your Friday. Sure, all right. So I did want to ask this because you've spent a significant amount of time working in partnership with the wholesalers out there, so probably facing off with advisors, having good conversations with advisors traveling. Can you recall any memorable experiences that either maybe an advisor like pushed back or was just kind of like totally off their rocker, or maybe any just like wacky circumstances that happened in a meeting from all of that time as you partnered with your wholesalers out there? Because I think the wholesalers love the stories, so I'd like to see if you got any that you recall of fond memories while you have been on the road or traveling together.
Bryan Jordan:Well, yeah. So I mean, there are many, many stories, many, many great trips with so many great wholesalers, all night drives through Tennessee, all night drives through Kentucky. But the most memorable story maybe I don't recall it so fondly, but with some distance, of course, I recall it fondly now. So I went to Omaha once to meet a wholesaler and before the meetings he called me and said look, we're going to be meeting in a number of different places, so why don't you just stay with me instead of getting a hotel? I said, fine, that makes a lot of sense. So he picked me up at the airport and we drove to his house and I knew something was amiss immediately, because he was going at least 90 miles an hour, weaving in and out of traffic while looking at me directly the entire time.
Bryan Jordan:Oh no, he was making great eye contact during our conversation. We were just kind of getting to know you. But he was weaving in and out of traffic at a very high rate of speed and wasn't looking at the road at all, maybe glancing at it every now and now and again, but his eyes were focused on me so I was a little shaken. So I got to his house near downtown Omaha and I got out of the car and he said wait here. So I was already a little shaken up and I was already questioning my decision to stay at his house after this harrowing drive from the airport. And so after a minute I see him coming out of the garage with an angry look on his face and a shotgun in his hand.
Bryan Jordan:Now we're in the middle of, or very close to, downtown Omaha and I see this guy coming at me who I already think may be crazy, and he's got a gun in his hand. So I dive like behind the car. You know I thought, oh my god, this guy called me here to kill me. Then I hear a couple of shots and hear a few birds flying away and I hear him grumble while he's damn pigeons. The only way I can get rid of them is to shoot them. So I breathe a big sigh of relief and walk into the house and after a few hours was able to compose myself. So that was one of the more memorable trips I've had with the whole sailing community.
Dan Sullivan :I have so many questions on this. So first, no heads up to you. Did he give you a heads up that he was going to go blast some pigeons with a shotgun? And then I guess. Second, I guess that doesn't make up for the speed chase between the airport and the house, unless he was rushing it back to the pigeons.
Bryan Jordan:No, no, not at all. So there was no warning whatsoever. He simply said wait here, and then went back into the house and the next thing I knew he was walking towards me with a very angry look on his face and a shotgun. So no warning whatsoever. It was for at least a few seconds. I had my life flashing before my eyes and, to answer your second question, it at least helped me to forget the harrowing car ride from the airport to his house.
Dan Sullivan :And all lost in all of this, the fact that you're just going to now be staying at this individual's house for the next couple of nights. You're like, wow, what a great introduction to the beginning of this trip for us.
Bryan Jordan:Exactly so, as you can imagine, I didn't get much sleep those few nights. He was a very nice guy. He left a copy of the Economist and a roll of Mentos on my pillow the first night, so he made me feel very much at home after scaring the daylights out of me in the first few moments.
Dan Sullivan :We've officially documented a funny story where there's been a blending of traveling economics, economists, wholesalers and firearms. So that is wild, but thank you for sharing that.
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely, and we live to tell the tale.
Dan Sullivan :That's right, all right. So my last question here Merriam had given me a heads up that you are a sports fanatic, with some stats and just errors of different teams and different sports, and I know you've made some sports references today. Are there? Do you have any one specific sports stat or sports moment throughout the history of sports that stands out to you amongst the rest, as far as just an incredible, either like negative information or like statistic that maybe goes overlooked?
Bryan Jordan:Oh, wow. So that's a great question. Well, you know, I'm a Steelers fan and so much of my as some of my friends know, so much of my sports trivia revolves around the Steelers or the Pirates or the Penguins. But much has been made, of course, of Mike Tomlin's streak. He just finished his 17th season as head coach of the Steelers and he has never had a losing record and, of course, not even Bill Belichick can say that it's an amazing streak. But maybe one thing that's overlooked in that streak is that since he became head coach in 2007, he's coached almost 300 games with the Steelers and the NFL. He has only coached one game. He has only gone into one game over those 17 seasons, almost 300 games, only coached one game where he went into the game eliminated from playoff contention. So the Steelers haven't always made the playoffs, of course, but they've always been in the mix up until the last week, other than one year in one game. Pretty amazing statistic.
Dan Sullivan :Yeah, that is Wow, and especially as a fan. Right Like when all you want as a fan is hope that you can get into the playoffs, right Like, no matter what I mean. Obviously you have different expectations depending on how your team is doing. Some groups are demanding a Super Bowl, but like collectively as a fan base, to have that hope that the ball is in our hands, we can control our destiny. And the fact that there was only one game where they were mathematically eliminated from playoffs over 17 seasons I don't know if I've heard that one before that's pretty spectacular.
Bryan Jordan:Exactly, it's nice, we're always in it. I mean, we had a guy named Duck Hodges playing quarterback a few years ago and he's somehow rang an eight and eight season out of this guy. So a lot of Steeler fans are calling for Tomlin to step down, calling for his firing. I think we can do a whole lot worse. I'm glad he's our coach.
Dan Sullivan :He's been a fixture, at least for like when I've been following the NFL. He's just been one of those like staple coaches, like whenever he stops, that'll be like a generational coach gone. So nothing, I'm a Steeler's fan, nor do I have any skin in the game, but it's one of those familiar faces on the NFL coaching ranks that I always like to see, year in and year out.
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely so. A standard that makes you feel connected to the past. You know, I mean the Steelers have had three coaches since 1969. So it is they've been the model of continuity and, yeah, for some of us that's great to see.
Dan Sullivan :Are there any others that stand out, or should you close it on that? I feel like that was a great one.
Bryan Jordan:That's a good one. That heading into the Super Bowl, that's a good one to close it on.
Dan Sullivan :Absolutely yeah. This episode will probably launch shortly after the Super Bowl too, so we'll make sure we get that out.
Bryan Jordan:Absolutely Sounds good.
Dan Sullivan :Okay, terrific. Well, brian, thank you so much for joining. This was a pleasure. It's fun to be able to speak to someone who's got such a great understanding and background of some of the structural factors that impact investors. So thank you for bringing this to a level that's going to make sense for individual investors and then for those of us that work in the industry that get access to some of the information about forecasts and about some of these macro backdrops. It's great for us to blend these two together. So thank you for spending time with us today.
Bryan Jordan:Great Thank you, Dan. It's my pleasure.
Dan Sullivan :Thanks for listening. Find us on Instagram at internal use only podcast or email us at internal use only podcast at gmailcom. Fans of Canvas coffee events are generally focal continued.