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Weekly Market Update Teleconference Transcript Thursday,May 28, 2015

Jim: Good afternoon everyone, today is Thursday, May 28, 2015, and this is the next edition of our weekly call, 10 minutes, to give you an opportunity to be brought current on the markets, what our top strategists think and what they and we see in developments that will help inform you and keep you up to date. Before I bring those to your attention, Bernie, what do you have going on this Thursday?

Bernie: Well outside of work I'm excited to say that I'm going to a regional finals game for my son's High School Lacrosse team tonight. It will be hot, but I'm looking forward to watching them play tonight.

Since school is almost out, the vacation season is right around the corner, I thought that I would cover some tips around Planning For Travel.

It wouldn't be prudent if I didn't talk about preparing a daily budget for your trip.

Have you ever returned from a trip happy because you spent less than you anticipated? If you're like most travelers, the answer is no. You usually return from trips feeling overextended or even guilty because you spent more money than you wanted to. If you want to avoid this, plan a daily budget before you leave on your trip. This can mean simply deciding how much you want to spend each day, or it can mean breaking down how much you want to spend on certain items on your trip. Also, if you are taking excursions on your trip you want to make sure that you understand what your tour or package covers and what it does not. In order to help with the budgeting process, you can use a guidebook as a reference or talk to a travel agent about how much you can expect to spend.

Next, you always want to also plan for the unexpected. So, who can help you if the unexpected happens while you're traveling?

If you are driving, you could look into the benefits offered by your road and travel plan, or consider joining one if you aren't already a member. This way if your car breaks down, your road and travel plan customer service representative will send a mechanic out to help you and pay the cost of towing the car, if necessary. In addition, road and travel plans usually offer other benefits, such as emergency cash, bail bonds, and trip planning/routing services. You may also be able to get a discount at certain hotels or cash refunds for booking airline, train, and hotel reservations through the road and travel plan's travel agency.

Another type of service that you may not be as familiar with is using a travel assistance company. Travel assistance companies provide a variety of services to travelers. They can refer you to a doctor or lawyer, arrange for medical evacuation, provide emergency cash, and arrange for a translator, among other services. You may have access to a travel assistance company as a service through your credit card company.

A few other quick planning safety tips planning would be to provide a friend or family member with a copy of your itinerary and to make copies of your important documents – keep a copy with you and make sure that you give a copy to a friend or family member @ home in case your wallet or id is stolen.

Finally, I'll close with the most important tip besides the budget which is to check to see if your health insurance coverage will "travel with you". There are many things to review around your health insurance whether you are traveling within or outside of the United States. Since we have a lot of folks that are on Medicare – it is important to note that if you are traveling outside of the U.S. Medicare does not provide coverage for medical treatment outside the United States, although some supplemental policies will.

For a listing of all of the specifics around Planning For Travel and looking into your medical coverage, you can go to our website next week once the conference call is approved and look under the News & Resources Tab and click on Conference Calls and you can open the full article from there.

Thank you and I'll now turn the call over to Jim.

Jim

: Thank you Bernie!

Jeffrey Saut: Jeffrey is our head strategist, making the recommendations from 30 thousand feet, so to speak, his technical work says that the market has paused and rested at a level that appears in the right spot to continue to go higher, a rest area on the highway, if I can be pedestrian-like. Jeff says that there is still life left in the upside of the stock market.

What we concurred with Jeffrey on in the past is that secular bull markets, markets that tend to move on sentiment and sometimes against rational thought processes have a choppy time getting there. It makes the ride rougher and my observation is that when things begin to smooth out—we saw this in the late 90's—then it may be time to be cautious, not necessarily in the choppy periods where one would suspect you would want to be more cautious because of the volatility.

Scott Brown: Scott is our chief economist, if Jeffrey is the pilot looking down where to land from 30,000 feet, Scott is the person who was in the flight tower that let Jeffrey take off. Scott is still impressed with the current economic expansion, now entering its 6th year. Contrary to myth, Scott says that there is no default time length for any of the economic cycles and he is quick to point out that even among the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and one of its correspondent bodies in San Francisco, there is dispersion of opinion, for example San Francisco saying that first qtr GDP in recent years has been lower and is significant. The Board of Governors say no. Therein lies the issue of what goes on in the fast lane of economics. Put two economists in the same room and three opinions emerge. The answer becomes for us a wait and see process.

Michael Gibbs: Michael is a portfolio manager who operates under the umbrella of Raymond James Financial. He does not manage a mutual fund but follows about 45 stocks that end up in two types of his portfolios. His research is extensive and all-encompassing and his thoughts this morning echoed some additional comments Jeffrey Saut added about the global story has some unsettling issues emerging, the country of Greece is creating some noise lately, the US dollar has paused its upward rise against other currencies, Chinese shares have plunged on higher investor margin requirements and Russia is massing troops by the border. On a clear day, I suppose one can see all the blemished.

Our work with your accounts: We continue to see our indicators lining up in favor of equities over other asset classes. We remain cautious with fixed income, bond and CD investments even though rates have gone lower since we spoke with you last Thursday. The Federal Reserve is playing a hide and seek game with their threat to raise interest rates, which has put everyone who would like to buy bonds sitting on their hands and not buying anything, that's the fear that any bond one would buy today would lose value when rates rise.

Those are our comments for today, once we un-mute the line, please tell us what your thoughts are.

Planning For Travel Forefield.pdf

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