Dizzying Heights?

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.5 • 811 Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Don and Tom take listeners on a “mountaintop” look at today’s frothy markets, exploring elevated valuations, retail trading spikes, and record margin debt. They unpack what these numbers really mean, warn against trying to time the market, and reiterate the need for diversification and a long-term plan. Listener questions include a young investor’s Fidelity-heavy portfolio, a 30-something’s aggressive allocation and risk score mismatch, and a listener inquiry about “investwithroots.com,” which Don dissects as a private real-estate fund with fees and risks that outweigh its glossy promises. 0:04 Opening from the market “peak” and climbing metaphor 1:38 Market valuation discussion: P/E ratios, concentration in top 10 stocks 3:21 Surge in retail trading, meme stocks, margin debt, Robinhood sentiment 5:13 Economic uncertainty and why market timing doesn’t work 6:11 Staying with your plan and portfolio diversification 7:15 Risks of U.S. large-cap concentration in typical portfolios 8:03 The need to include small-cap, value, and international stocks 9:14 Eugene Fama’s “trading is like soap” warning and why trading destroys wealth 10:46 Practical advice: stop trying to outsmart the market, build a plan 13:22 Listener Q1: 18-year-old’s portfolio—too much large-cap, not enough international or small value 16:15 Listener Q2: 30-year-old with $100K—good diversification but needs bonds for risk profile 19:25 Listener Q3: Investwithroots.com analysis—fees, geographic risk, private REIT red flags 24:16 Why public REITs like Vanguard’s VNQ offer better diversification/liquidity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	reality radio for a really great future we're talking real money wow the view from up here
0:13.9	is amazing i don't remember being this high before don't down though. Do not look down because at these
0:25.0	dizzying heights, what comes on the other side of the peak could be scary, right?
0:32.4	We're not talking about mountain climbing here on Talking Real Money because the show's called
0:36.5	Talking Real Money. We would not talk about mountain climbing unless there was a reward because the show's called Talking Real Money.
0:41.3	We would not talk about mountain climbing unless there was a reward in it somehow.
0:46.4	Financial remuneration. That's one of those hard words, isn't it?
0:53.0	Hi, everybody. I'm Don McDonald. Clear up here on the top of the market and looking up from below.
0:54.3	But oh, he's almost here.
0:55.7	Yes, here he comes.
0:56.8	Tom Cog.
1:09.8	As a guy who did just do some mountain climbing recently. Let me tell you, it takes me a long time to get from here to the top. A long time. Did your buddies beat you up the mountain? Oh, God. It was embarrassing. One guy has one leg. He's going fast. We guys on one leg hopping up the mountain.
1:12.0	And Tom's going, I can't do this.
1:14.7	And they're like, aren't you the stairmaster guy, the referee?
1:28.0	I'm like, yeah, but this is different. It's a 6,000 feet. I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't. Nah, it didn't show myself. They neglected to build stairs into Mount Rainier. They did for part of it, but not all of it.
1:28.7	So, sadly.
1:30.1	Anyway, good time. Yeah, markets, a lot of people are starting to get a little worried about the frothy,
1:39.1	peaky, high markets we're experiencing right now.
1:43.1	And they are a bit high, aren't they?
1:46.0	They really are.
1:47.3	When you look at, for example, price to earnings ratios, they're not quite at a record, but listen to the numbers.
1:52.7	The S&P 500.
	...

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