Amelis Long: Welcome back to the Vault, unlocking stories that matter here at FNBO. My name is Amelis Long, and I'm so grateful to be your host today for another exciting topic.

Today we're going to dive into our Investment Outlook. Each year our wealth leaders get together and really put together an amazing document all around what you need to know about investments, what's going on in the community. And we're going to have two experts here to really help us dive into the document and give you some information that we think you need to know, looking ahead into 2026.

So, without further ado, I'm so glad to welcome two guests to the podcast today. I have Kurt Spieler, our Senior Vice President of the Investment Management, who's been with the bank 20 years, I hear.

Kurt Spieler: Correct

Amelis Long: Yeah and also approaching a really important career milestone. We'll talk about that here soon.

And also Rusty Vanneman who is our new Chief Investment Officer. Welcome both you to the podcast.

Kurt Spieler: Thank you for inviting me.

Amelis Long: Yeah

Rusty Vanneman: Great to be here. And thanks for the opportunity to talk about the market outlook.

Amelis Long: Yeah, I'm so excited to dive into it. But before we do, let's talk a little bit about why we have two guests here. We have a bit of a transition. So, first of all, congratulations, Kurt. Do you want to tell folks why we're so excited for you?

Kurt Spieler: Uh, thank you. You know, maybe at a high level, a little bit about my background. So I joined FNBO, as you mentioned, 20 years ago, to lead the Colorado investment team and then was named as the Chief Investment Officer in 2012. It's been, you know, my pleasure to enjoy, you know, I've enjoyed the experience here within FNBO. So, the people that I'll miss the most is the team that I've had the pleasure of leading, as well as the clients that I've gotten to know and work with.

I'm a planner by heart. So, 10 years ago, I decided that early retirement was in the cards. I joke that if you're Chief Investment Officer and can't retire earlier, then maybe he wasn't very good at his job. But really, our plans are just have more fun. I live in Colorado, hike, bike, golf, you know, that sort of thing. We're expecting our first grandchild here in June, so a lot of family time is on our horizon.

If you look at the transition, we were looking as a Wealth Management leadership team for three things. First of all, and Rusty checks out, you know, all of those boxes.

Amelis Long: I bet he does.

Kurt Spieler: If you look at it, we wanted someone that had similar approach to the markets, it's a complex world with a lot going on, politically, economically, within the stock market. So, somebody that had the same core investment principles.

The second thing that we would say is someone that can move us forward. So, when you hire somebody with experience, you want to look at their background and how they can drive more value and a better customer experience within Wealth Management, that would include looking at alternative investments, diversifying portfolios, exchange traded funds, or ETFs.

And the last thing is we want a leader that can really lead the investment team. We're very proud of the team within investments and someone that can mentor and help grow the talent that we have inherently. So, as I mentioned, Rusty checks off all the boxes.

Amelis Long: Yeah. Rusty, that's quite an introduction. Before I kick it over to you, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Kurt for all his years of service and everything that he's done, such a commitment to this work and really building. So, thank you. So excited for your retirement and all the great things you have to look forward to.

And Rusty. This intro. So, tell us about yourself. I hear you're a Nebraska native. You might like a podcast, kind of like me, so let's dive in.

Rusty Vanneman: Well, first of all, I have really big shoes to fill. I mean, Kurt has done an amazing job, and you can see it, you know, throughout the organization as well. Nothing needs to be fixed. You know, he didn't give me anything easy to do. So, um, it's kind of like a head football coach taking over a football team. You kind of want to take over a team that has a losing record that's not the case here. So really big shoes to fill.

In terms of background, I am from a small town in Nebraska. I claim two different small towns, but I did go to school out in the east coast in the Boston area. And then I spent my entire career in Boston until about 12 years ago, I came back to Omaha. I've been a Chief Investment Officer for about the last 20 years. So again, that's kind of using the football analogy is kind of like being the head coach responsible for the team and the performance and the messaging that comes out of it.

Um, I spent the last 12 years at a firm here managing, um, is responsible for a hundred million under management, at an investment team of over 40 people as well.

I have done a lot of content as well. So being a thought leader and kind of getting the word out. I have done a lot of different things, including podcasts. I've hosted over 300 myself as well.

Amelis Long: Oh my goodness. You might have maybe we should switch seats.

Rusty Vanneman: Yeah. Well no, no, you're doing a great job.

As for what really attracted me to come here, though, I'd like to mention some of the things as well.

Amelis Long: Yeah, please do.

Rusty Vanneman: So, well first of all, it's FNBO. So it's one of, if not the leading brand, in the area. The reputation is so strong for so many different reasons, including being involved in the community as well. The fact is privately owned is actually a really big deal for so many different reasons. It brings stability a lot of organization, simply do not have in the industry right now. And I think that's a really big thing. And related to that, something you hear a lot about is the great wealth transfer and how much money is going to get transferred from baby boomers down to other generations. And I think what investors are looking for - for stable organizations, FNBO checks that right off the bat, but also a firm that works with different generations in a family. So many different advisors don't really work with the other generations, and that's what FNBO does.

And then, of course, the team here is so strong. So Kurt has built and managed a team that is extremely deep. It's very credentialed and very experienced, exactly what you want to see in a premier wealth management firm in the Midwest. I'm excited to be here.

Amelis Long: We're so excited you're here.

So thank you both for that amazing intro. I think your audience is going to be really excited to hear from these two experts. So, should we dive into The Outlook where we're here to talk about?

All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about first this theme that you really use to really drive The Outlook. So, you wrote it together, but I understand that, Rusty, you really had kind of a theme that you pitched to kind of guide the conversation. Can you tell us about that?

Rusty Vanneman: So, really, the expression is stay invested, stay diversified, and stay disciplined. And I think it's a message that really resonates through all market environments. And it really works for investors and for financial advisors that work with investors. And it's really been an evolution for me to kind of come up with that simple phrase.

Early in my career, I was a portfolio manager. And I still am a player coach, so I've managed portfolios my whole career as well. But early in my career, it was all about beating the benchmark and beating your competition. And that's still an element of asset management, but really the end result for us is to make sure investors have a good experience. And investors are working with financial advisors in many cases. So the first element is stay invested and having exposure to the stock market through thick and thin, and there are reasons for it, and really, we're able to participate in global growth. It's an incredible opportunity to be able to be a part owner in the kind of the growth of the economy, and you want to stay invested for that. And we're going to talk about reasons for staying invested.

But, you know, we don't exactly know what the future is going to be like. And so we spent a lot of time looking at relationships within the marketplace, what's going on in the economy, what's going on in the markets and what it might mean moving forward. And we know the historical relationship. So we have a sense of the probabilities and the possibilities what could happen, but we don't know. So there's a humility to staying diversified. Not only that, being diversified creates a smoother ride for investors, and that clearly translates into better investor experiences.

And the last thing is easier said than done is staying disciplined, and we'll talk about some stats here on this podcast, but it's, you need to stick to your plan. And again, a lot of investors work with an advisor, and there's a reason why they're in that portfolio. It's their goals, their risk tolerance, any other unique considerations. It's an appropriate portfolio. But those portfolios are always under siege. You can just read the news and think, I need to act. Or there could be market volatility, I need to act. But really the trek to success is staying disciplined. And so that's how that sort of came about, and that is the message we're trying to get across in our Outlook.

Amelis Long: Yeah, excellent.

Kurt Spieler: And one of the interesting things is we had talked about all those three themes over the last five years in The Outlooks, and that's the consistency of our investment approach and the core principles that we utilize. So, we're definitely in sync and have utilized them at different timeframes, not all at once, within an Outlook, but we emphasizing certain areas, depending on the market environment and the questions that we're receiving from clients.

Amelis Long: Yean. So just really a great match for kind of our internal philosophy and then what Rusty was bringing to the team so it just really made sense to kind of build on that. Yeah, awesome.

Well, let's dive into each of those three areas and kind of really get into it a little bit further. So, let's start with stay invested, right? So, tell us you said there's reasons for that. What are the reasons for that?

Kurt Spieler: Maybe I can start with that. Over the years, we've gotten questions like, well, I've lost money in the stock market, don't understand what's going on with that. And my answer to a certain extent is, well, then you've sold after the market went down because the stock market inherently always goes to all-time highs. We just had an all-time high in the last a couple of weeks. And so that's just part of that context is, don't sell after the market gets down. And that's kind of a key component of stay and invested.

The other part that we would say is we do spend a lot of time looking at the economy and corporate profitability because we believe fundamentals ultimately drive those stock market returns. And so the big corrections that we've seen historically, whether it's in the early 2000s, the 2009 financial crisis, is when we got into a recessionary environment. So we spent a lot of time in the outlet, kind of talking about those recessionary environments, or, in this case, we believe the economy is a little bit more resilient today, and don't forecast currently a recession.

Amelis Long: Okay, great. Rusty, what would you add to that?

Rusty Vanneman: Well, in The Outlook, we have a couple different charts, which I think are very educational and great. We have a really great perspective for investors. There's multiple lessons that can be extracted out of it. One of them, of course, is being stay invested, but we give a little historical perspective on what the market usually does, or what it has done in recent years in terms of what its gain has been, but we also show how much the market draws down. I see it draw down, it's kind of a technical term, but let's say you have $100 and it goes to $80. It's like a 20 percent drawdown. So, it's very intuitive. And there's usually every year a big drawdown in the marketplace. But over time, the market goes up. So, drawdowns are just part of the price of investing. Market volatility is just sort of the price of investing.

We have another graphic that breaks it in a way which I would imagine if many readers, if they had to take a guess on what those numbers would be, they would probably guess too low, but what is the probability of a gain in the stock market over like one year, five years and 10 years? And I think that number is higher than what people think. But then what's the probability of a big loss over a one-year time frame over a five-year time frame over a 10-year time frame? And again, I bet that number's a lot higher than people think that it is. Again, that's just the price of investing. So, you need to stay invested. Time in the market's really important.

One stat that we didn't have in The Outlook, but I think it kind of fortifies those earlier comments I just made. If you look at the typical year where the market is up, the average gain in those years is over 20 percent. Now, if you look at all the years where the market is down, the average loss is over 10 percent. So, when you, it's that time of year when everybody's doing stock market outlooks, and almost everybody says the return is going to be between five and 10 percent - that only happens about 10 percent of the time. The market again is just much more volatile than people expect. But again, because of that nice long-term slope higher, you want to stay invested.

Amelis Long: Kurt, I want to go back over to you because earlier you mentioned a little bit about the information you're taking and building into the considering, I should say, and building out The Outlook. And I know economy is a big piece of that. So, can you tell us a little bit about what you're seeing as far as looking ahead of the economy and what does that mean for our investors?

Kurt Spieler: Yeah, certainly. At a high level, the U.S. economy has been resilient, so we continue to experience economic growth here in the U.S. In fact, in the second half of the year, the economy accelerated, so better growth is compared to earlier last year.

There's been two kind of key drivers of the economic expansion. The first is high net worth consumers, continue to spend. They benefited from the last three years with strong stock market returns, housing, although hasn't done quite as well in the last year, certainly over the last three or five or 10 years, if you've owned a home, you've seen appreciation.

The second part of that growth prospect is business investment. So corporate profitability remains at very high levels, close to all-time highs. And corporations are investing in dividends, share buybacks, but also in fixed investment in particular within artificial intelligence or AI spending. And so, companies are looking to gain productivity. So, if you take a step back, the economy grows from labor market expansion. And then as well as productivity. And so, companies right now are investing in it's becoming a bigger driver. So overall, a pretty solid expansion.

There are some risks, however, as the markets, you know, narrowed a little bit in terms of economic expansion. So low-income individuals are under a little bit of stress as a result of inflation. And so, there's some risk being a little bit more of a concentrated market in terms of what's driving the growth. But the U.S. continues to be resilient and show growth in economic activity.

Rusty Vanneman: And just to fortify those comments, this strong economic backdrop has flowed through corporate earnings. And as investors, you want to see that. So, earnings growth for stocks have been very impressive and above expectations, and profit margins also continue to expand. Again, we're investing to participate in growth, and we're seeing that growth.

I also want to talk about when you talk about the economy, and one side of it is looking at growth, which Kurt just talked about. But another side to look at is inflation. And inflation is a very important variable for investors because it influences your stock investments, your fixed income investments, really your entire portfolio. And it's not just important for our consumers. Again, it's really important for investors. And in different inflationary environments, your different sort of investments will behave differently. You know, if inflation is running above average and moving higher, that's a different environment, and securities and investments will behave differently.

Right now, in terms of the inflationary backdrop, kind of the short answer is that it remains higher than the Federal Reserve wants it to be. It's higher than we've seen over the last few decades. Though it's lower than it's been in recent years, and it remains somewhat sticky. And there are excellent arguments why inflation could drop, but there's also some excellent arguments why inflation can move higher as well. And when we're building resilient portfolios, we have to take that into account in the investments that we put in the portfolio.

Amelis Long: Well, there's certainly a lot of thought that goes into all the rationale between staying invested. So, let's go into our second part of our theme, diversification. Tell us a little bit about what that is and why it's important for our investors.

Kurt Spieler: Yeah, at a high level, the what I referred to is the investment spending on AI has led to a lot of appreciation in those stocks, the mega cap stocks that I think we're all familiar with -Apple, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Meta platforms. Those type of companies have been leading on the marketplace. And so, it has that influence in terms of those companies have seen strong corporate profit growth, as I mentioned, but it's been somewhat of a concentrated market with leadership from those mega cap technology numbers.

Typically, when you see concentrated markets, they can last for a long period of time, but it does increase the overall risk because you're, in essence, top-heavy with the concentration of the marketplace. Right now, the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500, which most investors use as their basic U.S. benchmark, is market cap weighted, and right now those top 10 stocks represent 41 percent of the overall market, and roughly about 33 percent of corporate profitability. And so that concentration to us is a risk. And the reason why I'm bringing that up in the context of diversified is, we think there are opportunities elsewhere. We're not saying necessarily sell those top 10 stocks, but it's an opportunity for better returns, risk reduction, you know, from a return enhancement to look in other areas of the marketplace that maybe don't have as much hype built into it.

Rusty Vanneman: And just to jump on that comment and on some of your earlier comments as well, AI, the expectation is that it's going to increase productivity throughout the economy. And so right now, really, the top companies that Kurt just mentioned have really been benefiting from all the investment in those names. But if productivity does flow through the rest of the economy, it's kind of like the internet like a couple decades ago. Their productivity came in sort of after the dot com stocks ran, but then the productivity came through, and then you saw smaller companies and midsize companies really outperformed larger companies as well. So that's an argument for diversification. And not only that, small and midsize companies are on sale right now.

But it's not just the stock market, you should diversify, but of course, there's other asset classes. Oh, I think one thing that stands out is the bond market. So, one thing that we've seen from interest rates compared to where they were several years ago is that they're higher, and they've been moving higher in recent years, if you kind of take a step back and look at that chart. So, in an absolute sense, fixed income, the bond market looks the most attractive, it's looked like in a couple decades. And you can also look at the bond market relative to the stock market. So, you can look at the yield on the stock market, the valuations on the stock market, and compared to the bond market, again, fixed income looks the most attractive in our opinions since the late 1990s. So there's an argument for a fixed income in that particular case.

But there is sort of an asterisk on fixed income because a fixed income has a lot of different sectors. It's just not the interest rate of what the treasury market's doing. But a really important component of the bond market are corporate bonds, for example, and corporate bonds have a higher yield than treasury bonds because they have a greater chance of what's called credit risk, but a higher chance of defaulting, and that's called the credit spread, the yield differential. And you can look at sort of the history and where it is right now and credit spreads right now are very tight, which means they're expensive. Now, we've already talked about the economy, looks very resilient, and so it seems like corporate bonds are safe, but it's something we're thinking about in terms of diversifying portfolios.

And that leads us to another thing that we're talking about a lot. And these are alternative investments. And alternatives is a really big bucket can mean a lot of different things, but it just basically means different asset classes and strategies that are different than the stock market you see on TV or the Treasury Bond market. And first of all, alternatives are being braced by institutions and by high-net-worth investors and that the trend continues to move higher. And there are reasons for it. And first of all, strategically, when I say strategically, that means like a long-term reason to own it. So you're not really thinking about current market conditions. Strategically, since alternatives act differently, they diversify a portfolio, and it goes back to that earlier comment, you're reducing volatility in the portfolio, it's a smoother ride and that translates in a better investor experience. There's a reason why they're increasing. But then there's the tactical reason. And when investment people say tactical, that really means related to the current market environment. And we've talked about, well, the stock market is expensive in terms of valuations, credit spreads are tight, and so those are reasons, and inflation may move higher. So those are all reasons, tactically, to consider alternative investments, which has been a big topic for asset allocation committee. And we talk about an outlook.

Kurt Spieler: One thing to add that we haven't discussed yet that both of us in our investment careers has used behavioral finance, you know, as part of that in some of the things that you see investors do is, you know, what we already talked about sell out of the stock market after the markets goes down, use emotions or biases that they've had investor experiences in terms of making decisions. There's also this 'follow the herd' type mentality. Oh, you're missing out on the AI trades, so we need more of that. And so we're taking as professional investors as a step back and saying, what are the opportunities set, where is stuff maybe a little bit overhyped, or what are the opportunities that we see, and those are the tactical allocation decisions that Rusty is referring to, is saying, okay, look beyond what's been working great, because it may last for a little while longer, but at some point, there'll be other parts of the market, taking leadership. Could be fixed income, could be alternatives, there's other areas. And for us, in terms of risk management and how we construct portfolios. Diversification is really the theme. So, if you look at stay invested, stay diversified, stay discipline, this year after quite a few strong years, now, in the stock market as well as bond market returns were very positive last year, it's really stay diversified and, you know, take the emotions and biases out of investing.

Amelis Long: Yeah, that's great advice. Rusty, are you going to add something?

Rusty Vanneman: Well I was. I was just thinking of something else on the state diversified, why it's so important. And again, we've talked about the plan that many investors have with their financial advisors. So those appropriate, those portfolios should be appropriately allocated at this point. But if you take a step back and look at the entire industry right now and look how all the assets are allocated, right now, American investors have the most allocated to the stock market that they've ever had. And that's really interesting, and their allocation, the fixed income, the bond market, is near the lowest levels they ever have been as well. And so that's really interesting to us. And that means like in terms of the stay invested state diversified principles. It's almost like there should be more emphasis on diversification right now. That maybe many investors have too much in the stock market. Now, it's an individual situation. That's why you work with an advisor to know what's appropriate, but I'm guessing that many investors are overallocated to the stock market right now and underallocated to diversifying asset classes, like fixed income and alternatives.

Amelis Long: Yeah. Certainly a big section in The Outlook that folks can take a look at. Yeah, and reach out to their advisors.

Let's dive into the final part of the theme. So, discipline. Rusty, when you started talking about it, this is probably one of the hardest things to do. I think discipline across a lot of things is the hardest thing to do, right? New Year, new New Year's resolutions here so I think this can be maybe some top of someone's list is really thinking about how to stay disciplined when it comes to their investment portfolio. Tell us about the theme, why it's so important to really put some energy into it.

Kurt Spieler: It's kind of interesting because I receive a lot of questions, how should I be invested? What should be my asset allocation? By that, we mean how much is allocated to stocks, bonds, alternatives, cash, could be real estate from that. And that's really a personal decision. There's no right answer. I work with clients that are in their 90's that are almost entirely within equities, which is a high return higher risk asset class. The reason is, they're not living off the income, they're investing for future generations, you know, from that.

We also work with clients that are ultra conservative. Maybe they're using the money from a distribution standpoint. So that decision is based on what's your return expectations, the risk tolerance, the distribution needs. So, it's all a lot of personal questions. And that's really the setting the asset allocation plan. In our opinion, that plan can change over time, if warrant circumstance, for example, as I approach retirement, I've tweaked my portfolio, but you're actually investing for not just your retirement date, it's, you know, throughout your entire life. And so you make those changes based on, you know, changes in life and what you're doing there, not so much in terms of changing asset allocation from market volatility. So don't make those decisions, you know, at the wrong time. So, I think the part of it is setting that plan. That's the discipline.

But then the harder part is adhering to that plan. So, something happens, you know, political geopolitical risk, et cetera, and everyone thinks, well, it's time to sell and go to cash. And , it's really the second part that maybe is more difficult for a lot of people in terms of staying disciplined and adhering to that plan as, you know, investment and markets change.

Rusty Vanneman: Something about discipline, particularly this time of year, is just the idea of something called rebalancing. And it's an important part of an investment discipline. And for many people, it's probably like eating their vegetables. You know, they don't want to really want to rebalance because what rebalancing is, is you basically sell those securities that have, well, those asset classes that have done well and you will buy some that have underperformed. And the reason why you do that is bring risk back to those appropriate levels. And again, you see it often in January for a lot of taxable reasons. So it's a very popular time of year to do it. But rebalancing is a key component of an investment discipline. And over time, it has historically added value to portfolios as well. So that's another part of the discipline that we definitely preach in our Outlook.

Kurt Spieler: 100 percent agree.

Amelis Long: So just do it. Stay disciplined, right? Yeah, stick with your plan. So. Well, let's talk a little bit. I know one of the sections in The Outlook is the FAQs. And, it's just a really easy way to kind of get a grasp of what's going on. So, let's talk about the FAQs. What are those key questions that you're either always getting or often getting, that would be important for our audience to kind of get a preview on?

Kurt Spieler: I would say the number one question we're receiving now is, are we in a bubble in terms of AI stocks? So, we've kind of referred to the market leadership, the concentration, in the marketplace. The short answer is no. But there's elements of the late 1990s and the internet and the bubble that occurred during that timeframe.

So probably maybe to start with the differences. The companies that are doing quite well are hugely profitable. These are the most profitable companies in the world. So, a lot of the internet type bubbles related to startup companies that were getting financing, whether it was equity or fixed income financing. So, these companies have the profits and cash flow to invest. And right now, they're usually invested. I think there's a risk, as we pointed out, that do they get the productivity enhancement, that's kind of built into those prices.

I would say the other difference, is the valuations, although very expensive, which we've talked about. Which, you know, historically, high valuations, it's a poor market timing indicator. They can stay high and elevated for long periods of time, longer than what we would think. But the valuations, although high, they're not at bubble type levels in our opinion. And so for us, it's more diversifying, maybe a little bit away from those companies, but we don't see the same environment overall, as we did in the 1999, 2000 era.

Amelis Long: Rusty, what key questions are you?

Rusty Vanneman: Well, I think Kurt took the question. And of course, I agree, and some of the things we need to look at are productivity in the economy, which is still strong. And also profit margins from company, which are also still strong. So, you know, the trend is your friend. So, it seems like there are some bubble-like behavior from AI, but we don't think it's really a bubble at this point.

Another question we get is on some diversifying asset classes, such as gold and other precious metals, which had a phenomenal year last year and also cryptocurrencies as well. And again, we're asked to allocators, and we love diversifying asset classes, and gold kind of is part of a larger category called real assets. And real assets can be a hedge versus inflation. It can be a hedge versus geopolitical risk. It could be hedge versus expensive markets as well. Gold's also had an incredible run. And a lot of times when you see prices sort of go parabolic, it is, for a long-term investor, it's probably not an optimal time to step into it. Again, for long term investors. But there is consideration for the asset class, and we are strongly considering increasing exposure to real assets, a more broader exposure.

Cryptocurrency is also very popular. And it is either love them or hate them, it seems like, but we'll talk about it from an asset allocation standpoint. And some of the characteristics we look for in investment and something that diversifies. So first of all, does it have a unique return stream? So answer terms, is it correlated to stocks and bonds? And that correlation is getting a little more attractive. It's, um, it's still sometimes risk on. Uh, but, It's probably getting a little better, so probably a little more attractive. But the other component is just how volatile it is on a standalone basis. And first of all, a very volatile asset class could make sense for a portfolio. But in this case, we still think volatility is still extremely high. So it's something we're looking at. And for those, we don't have an in portfolios at this point, it's come up in conversations. I think for investors who are considering it. They should talk to their advisor what would be an appropriate level. But it's something we're looking at and the risk characteristics are improving.

Amelis Long: Thank you both. Before we close, let's talk about key takeaways. So, if you guys were to summarize The Outlook or maybe your favorite pieces or the things that you really reflect on, were really impactful in The Outlook report, what are those takeaways for our audience today?

Kurt Spieler: I'll switch up and allow you to go first.

Rusty Vanneman: All right, great. Well, I think the theme of my comments have been staying diversified. And I just think in this environment, investors should really consider about diversifying their portfolios. Again, not only does the typical investor have more exposure to the stock market, but also U.S. large cap tech stocks. And these are great companies. But again, it just, you know, every individual investor is different. But I do think that diversification is as important as ever, particularly in this environment, not just the market environment, but also the economic environment.

Amelis Long: Kurt?

Kurt Spieler: Oh, you stole the best answer, I think.

Rusty Vanneman: There we go.

Kurt Spieler: You know, I think it's a very similar approach. And so why we talk about, as an investment team, valuations is the price that you pay for the asset does impact your future return. Maybe not, as we mentioned, in the short term, valuations can say, elevated. But over the next 10 years, unless you get huge productivity gains, huge corporate earning gains. Then it's not likely. So, this is the time, you know, really the theme is to stay disciplined, stay diversified within the portfolios.

We're just getting less questions about staying invested because clients are opening up their annual statement and they're seeing such positive appreciation, no matter the asset allocation, but that's not, you know, always the timeframe. And so there'll be bumps in the road going forward, and that's why that diversification theme, having some fixed income exposure, if it's appropriate for you as a personal investor, having the alternative, diversifying type assets. So that's the key takeaway is it's time to look at what you own because volatility can be good. And it has been good for the last couple years, but then it can also lead to different risk parts of the portfolio that were maybe unintended, that investors didn't realize it. So, kind of staying diversified that portfolio, rebalancing theme. I'm taking them advantage of market volatility as compared to um, you know, not taking advantage of the opportunities that are out there.

Amelis Long: Well, thank you both so much for taking the time to chat with me about The Outlook. Congratulations again, Kurt. We're so excited for you. Welcome again, Rusty. Glad you're here.

We will have the link to The Outlook in our show notes, so you'll be able to take a look for yourself, review all the different themes as well as the FAQs.

This is a great time for those that are listening and watching to talk to your financial advisor. Maybe you heard something from Rusty and Kurt that really piqued your interest or made you curious about what's going on in your portfolio. So, it's a great time to take this information, take The Outlook, and have a great conversation as you plan, and really stay disciplined throughout 2026.

We'll see you next time on The Vault.

Be sure to subscribe and follow our podcast for more exciting stories from FNBO.

Thank you so much.