2026 09 10 Financial Issues

0:00Welcome to Financial Issues, where we help you steward faithfully by honoring God with your investments. Now listen in as we give you the practical tools and advice you need to become a biblically responsible investor. This is Financial Issues where we help you defund darkness and fund the light by investing with Biblical integrity. Great to have you today folks. A question for you all. Is the sky falling because oil prices are up? Well, we'll find out. Won't we, Mark and Sam? Good to be here with you guys. Well, oil comes from the ground. That's true. Maybe the ground is fall. I don't know the ground. Maybe the cave is on its side. I just derailed everything. Now it's so confused. Right. Gentlemen, it's great to be here with you. Mark, right, rock and roll today. It's going to be fun. I am. Let's do this. Absolutely. That's the only party on financial issues. I hope you're all going to join us. Number six 10, three six three 11 10. We'd love to have you call in and join the party. Yeah, certainly would.

1:00Hey, guys, let's read our verse of the week here real, real quickly here. Psalm 46.1 says, God is our refuge and strength, the very present, help and time of trouble. Of course, it is the one year mark of the remembrance of Charlie Kirk's assassination. I know Eric Kirk could share this verse actually. The morning that her husband was assassinated. But this is a tremendous verse for us guys to remember, especially as we think of tragedies in our own lives in our country that God is always there with us. And he's a very present help for us, particularly when things are bad. I think it's a real good reminder. I love the word very in there. He's not just a present help. It's really driving the point home, a very present help. He's right there in everything. It's a reminder for me of, you know, oftentimes the Bible describes the way that God operates as a perfect way, perfect love, you know, perfect justice, even perfect holiness. And that's what reminds me here, Sam, that God's help for us in trouble is always perfect. It's sufficient for us. It's really good stuff. Absolutely. Yeah.

2:00And you know, you brought up Charlie Kirk one year ago, assassinated. It just, I think it woke up the Christian community. Hopefully it woke up a lot of the American community realized that what we're letting into this country, the enemy within, what we're letting go on in this country just isn't right. And adults need to stand up, that people need to, that Christians need to start leading again instead of sitting back, you know. It's a sad thing. But what's even sadder is I think it's only a year ago. Can you imagine the pain the family is going through right now? Yeah. I know. But as that verse reminds us, God is a refuge and our strength. And speaking of Erica, she wrote this wonderful article in the New York Times. I don't usually encourage people to read the New York Times, but I do encourage you to go read this. I think she shared it for free on her social medias, but she said, I have seen extraordinary good born out of something unimaginably evil.

3:03I've watched people return to faith in droves, reconcile with their families and forgive old wounds because of Charlie. I know my husband is in heaven, but I ache for him to still be here. Still I can stand and say without a shadow of a doubt that God is good. And well said. And that's awesome. What do you do us a favor and pray about this? Pray for their family right now. Yeah, be glad to. Folks, why don't you join me in praying as well here? Father, we thank you so much for this day and we thank you especially for the legacy that Charlie Kirk left for all of us, the courage, the example. I know for me personally and many others like him, seeing his death happen was such a tragic thing, but it also sparked a new desire in me to be bold for the gospel. And I know so many people feel that as well. And so we pray, Lord, that you'd be there today in a personal, close, intimate way for Eric, a Kirk for her children, for everyone over at Turning Point, USA, Lord, we pray that you'd be their comfort and portion today. They remember their founder and they celebrate him.

4:05We thank you, Lord, so much that you are the God of peace and the God of hope and that we have eternal hope and eternal life waiting for us. And thank you for that great promise in the gospel in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. And on another note, is there a special reason why you're wearing that t-shirt today or are you just showing off the mouth? Oh, yes. So, well, it could be both ends. So this is one of my favorite t-shirts. This freedom t-shirt is the t-shirt that Charlie wore the day that he was assassinated and so just a way to remember him and, you know, Mark, it really, it really was true. I mean, I said that in my prayer, but I know so many people felt this way. Immediately after and continuing on, I can honestly say before Charlie's death, I had a lot more cowardice in me than I would like to admit. And after seeing that, I felt much boulder. I felt much more less afraid to speak the truth. And certainly, I would never want a tragedy to be the thing that does that, but at the same time, we see God's goodness in that so many people rose up and decided, you know what? I'm going to stand firm on the truth, even if it costs me my very life.

5:09And so that's, there's great honor in that, Mark. Especially when the truth is the truth of the gospel. It's the greatest truth we have. So it's pretty cool. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, guys, let's switch gears here. Switch gears here now to a slightly less important topic, but one, apparently, that the major news media, particularly in the economic space, is just freaking out over and it's oil. Oil is over $100 a barrel. At least Brett Crude Oil is now. I think West Texas hit her media. It's pretty close, too. But Sam, we've been seeing, you know, that this is according to mainstream media news, inflation will contain to plague our nation. The economy's going to collapse. Everyone's going to lose their homes. Everyone's going to die of starvation because oil is above $100 a barrel. We've never seen this before. We've never heard of this before. It's apocalypse. Mark, what are we missing? It's going to turn into Mad Max. We're going to run out of oil. We're all going to be riding June Buggies, Thunderdill, right? Tina Turner, the whole thing. Thank you, Mark. What do we do? What do we do? Well, you know, first of all, we have to step back and realize we're stewards. We're not the crazies of the world, but, you know, the historic stuff that goes on and

6:15everything that says we have to look at the reality of it. And I think that's really important. First let's look at it. Yeah, you know, over the last 16 years, crude has touched or exceeded $100 during approximately 482 trading sessions. That's roughly about 12% of all trading days of oil over the last 16 years or about one out of every eight. So it's not like it hasn't happened before, but it is unique and rare that it does. But I decided to dig deeper and there's more. We're comparing $100 today with $100 from 2010 to present, as though the dollar hasn't changed in value. And we all know it has. That's what inflation is all about. So once we adjust those historic oil prices for inflation, the picture changes dramatically. WTI West Texas intermediary crude has traded at the equivalent of $100 in July, $20, $26

7:22on roughly 1300 trading days, about 32% of all trading days over the last 16 years. That's one out of three days it has traded over $100 equivalent $100 mark. So that's one out of every three trading days. And yet the sky hasn't fallen. You know, suddenly $100 oil doesn't, doesn't look quite unprecedented as a headline makes it sound, right? I mean, this could be, there could be other reasons why they're talking like this. Could it be that this is an election year? Could it be affordability might be a battle cry of those who don't have anything really to stand on or to run on? Could it be them twisting things, the left twisting things and the socialist twisting things trying to make everybody feel bad about their life so that they'll change their focus? You know, yeah, I think it could be, and it could be the gaslighting and hyperboil back

8:25again for those who really don't have anything else to stand on. I, you know, but I'll leave it to you to decide. But before you do one final note, the longest continuous stretch of inflation adjusted $100 oil during this period lasted for more than four years. Did you know that's not, did you know that's am? How do we survive? How did we? From September 10th through late November 2014 from September of 2010 through late November, 2004. And what happened to the stock market while Americans were supposedly enduring this unbearable level of oil prices, the S&P 500 rose roughly 87% during that period, not including dividends, even more striking immediately before that oil streak ended, the S&P 500 was setting all time record highs. And even on November 26th, 2014, it said it closed at 2072 and by November 28th market

9:27it posted at 6 consecutive weekly gain. Apparently nobody told the stock market it was supposed to collapse when oil gets over $100. And what happened to the economy during those same four, four plus years? The economy grew every year. Unemployment fell from 9.6% to 5.8%. Roughly 10 million jobs were added. Inflation remained under control and real disposable, disposable personal income increased. There was no recession. So during more than four straight years of inflation adjusted 100 oil, GDP expanded, unemployment plunge. Millions of Americans went back to work. Times grew in the stock market, market rose about 87%. That's a pretty strange definition of an economic collapse, isn't it? That's why we look at the truth. That's why we got to go to the data. That's why we start with current information. Then we go back to the historic. We do the comparative and we realize, you know what?

10:30Historics don't work. It may cause people to want to jump out of building and it may change people under voting. But if you look at the reality, you can make better decision. 610-363-1110. We're about reality here and we're about to give us a call and let you know what you're about. Let's go. Folks, give us a call. 610-363-1110. So we have, Sam, I'm told we have actually a live audio from CNBC's headquarters when they found out about oil hitting $100 a barrel. Can you give us that audio, Sam? Yeah, I can. It was kind of shocking. It was really embarrassing. Here's what that sounded like. I'm hysterical. I'm having hysterics. I'm hysterical. I can't stop when I get like this.

11:32I can't stop. I'm hysterical. Yeah, it's really not becoming for CNBC. It's becoming my goodness. Wow. Those who don't know that, Mel Brooks is the producers. It's a great move. But I think Sam, you know, we're obviously saying that in tongue in cheek, but an accurate description to what a lot of the news headlines are making this out to be in Mark. I'm glad that you kind of, you just gave us Mark in that last segment the necessary calm pat on the back that I try to give my children when they're in hysterics. So that was the thing. Yeah, you know, and we need to do this over and over again because as you see, we saw it with the economy at the beginning of the year. Every little tick down or up or sideways, they would turn it into the world is ending. The economy is going to destroy. You know, I just saw last night, really. Right before I went to bed in article that said something about inflation. And because inflation had not really moved much over the last 30 days or whatever, they said, inflation fear is on the rise.

12:35So they had to turn it into inflation fear, not inflation itself, but inflation fear. They're doing psychological analysis, not data. Yeah. The whole idea is to make you and I believe our life sucks. Our life is terrible. Our life is is is the worst it could be. It's to make Gen Z believe that they're being taken advantage of because interest rates are six and a half percent when historical interest rates, at least for the last 50 years. If you average out interest rates year by year, it was around 6.75%. But they're being told that this is ultra high interest rates and that's why they can't buy a home. You know, it's just kind of crazy. The media 99% of the media is talking bad about everything because the Trump administration is because they hate Trump instead of just coming back and stating the facts. You know, there's enough ugliness in the world.

13:35We can say, here's some issues. Here's some issues. $2 trillion in fraud and payments going out unnecessarily from our pockets through the government to organizations and people that don't deserve this money or don't use it properly. $2 trillion a year. Why would we do that? Why would we allow that? That's enough to be hysterical about. There's so many things to be hysterical about, but not the things they're saying. They're saying those so that you'll be unhappy with your life and then you will want to look for an alternative to this to what's in now. And I always drive the reporting that people are unhappy. You tell people that they're unhappy and then you make sure they're unhappy so that you can report on that again. Right. And victimhood is something really big in society. Actually, it's a psychological thing. People want to be victims. They don't want to be responsible for their life. It's easier for somebody else and to claim yourself as a victim than it's not your fault

14:38and other people should come and help you and serve you and take care of you. Instead of personal responsibility, instead of the free enterprise system being there to lift anybody up who's willing to make the effort, you know, this country is incredible. This country is just beyond belief. When I hear people talk about unaffordability of homes, you know what? Times have always been expensive, but we've always been able to buy them. I did. I wrote something recently about the idea of buying housing. Did you know we have nine months of housing supply on hand right now? Did you know that the interest rate is below the average for the last 50 years? Did you know you can get in a house with 3% down instead of 20% down as it was for most my life? It's easier now to get in a house than ever before. Stop whining and start taking responsibility and to put things in perspective throughout most of human history. A lot of people didn't actually own their own.

15:40Right. And guess what system allowed more people to become homeowners in any other economic system? This one. Or I guess if you did own a homeowner who's a mudhug or a shack. Free enterprise has allowed more people to own their home than any other economic system. Huh. Isn't that wonderful? I think we need to embrace that people and we need to get behind it because we could lose it if we don't. The socialists are trying to brainwash. They're trying to gaslight everybody just like the Democrats did in the last couple of elections by bringing up topics that weren't real by causing hysterical. His. We need to be real about things and the way we do that is we stay calm. We look at the facts. We compare them to reality. We go before the Lord and we don't act in fear. We act in hope because we have hope in Christ. So we can stay calm and evaluate everything and continue to move forward.

16:41Staying calm does not mean not taking action. We need to take action. This is an election year show up for that election vote vote for those people who really want to be fiscally responsible, who are conservative, who want this country to go in a wonderful direction of free enterprise and honor in our God. Mark, could you repeat what you said earlier to the young people out there who have a tendency to whine that home prices are too expensive? I love that. And I think people I think that's my apologies to them because you know what? Well, yeah, but you know what? Gen Z is really getting on board. We did a special report on them. There's more applications for business from Gen Z than any other generation right now. They're embracing the free enterprise system, starting businesses in which AI and so much technology, it's it costs a fraction of a point. It's leveled the field so people could actually begin businesses, start businesses that can become very prosperous, very quickly and not have to have six different people that

17:46you know, like an accountant and a lawyer and all these different things just to start the business, you know, that AI is helping people to do that. It's a wonderful thing to see. So I, you know, I'm sorry, I was a little harsh with you on it, but you know, you don't look for ways not to do the right things. Start looking for ways to do the right thing. Reduce your expectation creep that has gone on. You don't need a four bedroom house with three car garage on three acres in the most expensive area of the town you live in like your parents have and worked for for the last 35 years to get. You can start with a starter home and a starter home, maybe a three bedroom, a thousand foot house, but you know, you, you live in there for a little bit. Then you flip that and you, and you step up as your revenues, you grow into the lifestyle. I want to encourage you. I don't want to, I don't want to come down on people about it. And I'd rather just encourage you to say you have the best opportunity in the world.

18:49In fact, you know, I've heard people say we have the worst country in the world right now. And I've, I've been feeling those people have never left the United States. Well, Sam, you're going to be surprised. I agree with them. We have the worst country in the world. Sans, all others. Right. Right. But compared to Utopia, the US is really very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very friendly. What you said is so key, Mark, I love that you said that. And I hope people can be encouraged. A first hand testimonies, I think, carry some weight and Mark, I'd like to say I'm a first hand testimony. I live in a starter home right now. It's a two bedroom house. It's small, but I love it. I love it. I love being able to, you know, build into it and make that growth happen. And someday we'll have a bigger home, God willing. Absolutely. But we can afford it right now. That's what we can afford. And so we're trying to live in that way. Especially. And all those great eyes and you come popular, you know, someday Sam, you and I are going to be sitting back having a cup of coffee saying we knew him. It's amazing. We knew this guy. And my kids won't believe me. I mean, what can I do?

19:49You know, thank you guys. Just, just have to bask in the glory. No. Six, three, six, three, 11 dead. Boy, it is, it's fun to be here. You know, guys, there's a great comment in our chat here. Timothy from Michigan, we've got to read this one now, Mark. He says, invest in the energy companies and participate in their windfall from high oil prices in order to pay for your high gas prices. That's called 4D Chess Timothy. That's brilliant. Love that. It is. But here's it. Here's the other side of that Timothy is this could be just a moment. Remember that. The one of the reasons that energy companies have gone through that have been shooting up is because of the price of oil. I'm hoping that this administration really will get the situation I ran corrected and locked down very quickly. It would make sense for the politically for the midterms. It also would make sense for the long term for America. We also are seeing for the first time a new processing would, what do they call the factories

20:53that turn oil into gas and refinery refinery, new refinery going in in the US that can refine West, West Texas, intermediate. So we don't need to buy it from the world anymore. So the higher priced oil from the mid East and stuff, we won't be using it. There's all sorts of things that are coming into place. So be careful if you're chasing these energy companies, be careful because they could pull back just as quickly as they shot up. Love that market. It's good stuff. 610, 3, 6, 3, 11, 10. Hey folks, the markets yesterday, they were angsty because of all the oil stuff. The markets could have used a dose of what Mark just talked about in those first two segments. Wednesdays closing bell saw the Dow down to three quarters of a percent. Less than a half, Nasdaq down about two thirds, also 2,000 down over a full percent. This morning pre-markets also down, everything in the red. So they hopefully are listening, Mark, the investors on Wall Street, what you were saying. Mark Brian has a great question here from Missouri saying, why is the White House floating $9,000 per child tax credits? Once again, we're $40 trillion in debt.

21:54Why are they doing it, Mark? Yeah, Mark. Mark. Yeah, Mark. Why? Yeah. Well, I think it's a great question actually. You have to say, wow, we have all these trillions of dollars in debt and we're spending what, $4 trillion a year on our budget, $2 trillion over budget. I don't know. It's just ridiculous. And we're talking about, and we're talking about giving $900 child credit. Well, I don't know. Maybe it's something we need to be thinking about here. Maybe is it possible that this is an election year? Right. Is it possible that maybe making promises like this could help people get elected? Or maybe it's because they recognize the importance of a biblical family structure. And this is another way to give a tax break instead of trying to get it through Congress

22:55and get everything done that way. Also, you know, this is Trump. He might just be trolling the DIMS right now because this is not legislation. This is just something he said. Sometimes he does that, doesn't he? He just throws these things out and lets the Democrats all go crazy for a while and giggles about it. What do you say yesterday he was going to give everyone $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms? Call me when that happens. That's all I say about that. Yeah. So who knows why he did it, but I understand what you're saying. We do have a deficit we need to be serious about it. I really appreciate that, Brian. And I think our this administration is and I think we're going to see the impact of what they're doing and the things they laid in place very soon here. 610-363. If you have to leave us, go over to financialissus.org and join us there for the rest of the show. Otherwise, stay tuned. We'll be right back with more financial issues.

23:56610-363-1110. Folks, we want to give us a call here on this Thursday. Today's show is brought to you in part by our friends across roads, kids club. Can't say enough good things about them. Reachourschools.com is where you can learn more about crossroads. Again, reachourschools.com. They're in full swing. A lot of new clubs across the nation, guys. Great to see crossroads. Really doing a great job. Just awesome to see that. Mark and Sam, we're going to hear from crossroads kids club later on this month. Matt Armstrong is going to come on. And actually he's not going to talk about crossroads. He's going to talk about FISM. That's part of our year-end fiscal campaign, which is coming starting next week. So we have a great opportunity to finish our fiscal year in the black. But we need your help to do it. So you'll hear more about that in the coming days for sure. But so great to be partnered with crossroads. Reachourschools.com.

24:57Mark, how about a question here from Darrell? Darrell's asking, I have a few different retirement accounts and I'd like them consolidated into one. Is that done through a roll over IRA? So we've got several other questions after that, Mark. You want to just tackle that one first? We can wrap the other ones too. Yeah, let's find out what his questions are. So here's some more context. He says, my current employer deposits a portion of company earnings into an IRA account. And he's wondering, am I able to transfer those funds into a roll over IRA as they get deposited in there? I also have a pension and a money market account. Am I able to roll those into the IRA as well? And then lastly, when I called the electrical union about closing my district nine pension, they advised me that if I ever planned on working as an electrician in district nine again, whether union or not, I should keep it open. There's a lot of context there, Mark, for Darrell. What would you suggest to do? There is a whole lot. You're right. I understand why you're talking about Darrell. And generally, simple is, is when you simplify things, if possible, don't just simplify

26:01them for the sake of simplifying, but to make it easier to manage and do those kind of things. If all these can move into one type of thing, a roll over IRA would be a great idea for that. I would think that many of your retirement plans that you mentioned in there could be, but you want to be careful. You need to check that out first. Can these roll over? Because if it's a simple or a step, there's special things that have to happen to make sure you can roll it into there. If it's a traditional IRA or a 401k after your leave service, it's possible. Even in service transfers are possible with those. So there's a few steps you need to do. Let me think this through with you. First you need to check with each of the different types of accounts you have. Make sure they can roll over. If so, you want to do them. Trust you to trust you, roll over. The electrician, you think that concerns me. If somebody actually warned you about that and you do plan on any way to go back to work

27:05as an electrician, you may want to heed their advice. I just think that there might be something in there. I will say that the internal workings on unions and unions, pensions are a little beyond my understanding, but it sounds like they gave you maybe advice. It sounds a little, little strange, but at the same time, you might want to dig into that a little bit more before you make a decision on rolling that over. Awesome. That's a good question there, Darryl. A good problem to have too. You have a lot of different places where the money is going and so just figuring out how to manage all of it. That's good. Speaking of which, Mark, David and Darlyne are asking about a specific company tractor supply. We've talked about it before. They're 38% down in tractor supply and they're wondering should they be selling it? It is on a hold right now, Mark, for us. Yeah. It is on a hold right now, Dave, Darlyne, after stock pullback like that, I understand

28:05why you're questioning it. It's been what since the beginning of August, it has cascaded down like that. That's pretty harsh for a company that in the past saw some great growth. We saw some great returns on it. We saw a steady financial issue steel company. I would like to start with first. Let's talk about state of mind. It's hard to think about anything, but I lost half my investment in this company at this time. I just got out of the side that and pretend we don't own the stock right now. If you do that, it helps you to evaluate what you should be doing with it. It's your show. If I didn't already own it, would I buy it right now? I got to tell you, the company has hit some rough patch and the reporting really did cause them problems. I mean, comparable store sales were down earnings of weekend. The management lord, it's 2026 expectations, but I don't believe this business is broken.

29:09Look at consider that the management has already begun shedding weaker profit centers. Remember tractor supply owns different types of store. One of them is the pet sense and they're closing 75 performing underperforming pet sense stores that the management says we're generating negative cash flows. They're opening new tractor supply stores. The one that are making the money in core rural, rural lifestyle markets. This is good movements by the management. It shows me the management. It's wake aware conscious and doing what it needs to do to get this in the right direction. I think right now my position, my, the way I look at it, if I owned it right now, which I do, I would hold it, which I am. Now does that mean I'll hold it forever, no matter what happens? No. I'd watch it for another quarter. They just, I think I mentioned last quarter that they started these corrections and these things anyway.

30:10Let's see if they take effect. Let's see if it starts affecting the numbers and the financial steel, the fundamentals on it. If somewhere in the fourth quarter, we see that things aren't turning around and maybe even management is doing some silliness. Maybe I'll just carve it as a tax loss to help offset some of the wonderful gains I've had this year. So I'd give it another quarter at least. And I think long term, it's still a good company. I just think they're going through some changes. They tried to expand too quickly into areas that they did not have the, the intelligence over like they do the tractor supply stores. Good stuff, Mark. There's a really good question from our chat. I'm going to bring up here. James from South Carolina is asking this question, how do we pray specifically for Maryland from yesterday? So folks, if you didn't listen to our show yesterday, we got a call at the end of the show from a woman named Maryland who had a niece, Mark, who was in a very difficult financial situation,

31:13had some grown children. The husband was not in the picture and was just really trying to figure out what to do with the money she had. And so Mark, how can we pray for Maryland who was the one who is not facing the crisis but is trying to help her family member who's in it? Well, I know there's, I know there's a lot of moms out there and a lot of dads. And when your children suffer, it hurts. Yeah. It's almost like losing a loved one. The pain is incredible. It physically hurts in your chest. I know, you know, when you're, when your children are going through a hard time. So we want to pray for strength for her. God strength in her. We want to pray for wisdom in her because her daughter obviously listens to her and turns to her for advice. So we want godly wisdom in her life. We want to pray for peace, not just for her, obviously, but for the whole family to realize God is in control, trusting in the Lord, deeper faith. We want to pray for all the above for them.

32:14And we want to pray that God will be glorified in all this. Absolutely. That's great stuff. James, thanks for asking that question. Absolutely. Absolutely. And James, thank you for praying for her. Thank you. This means this, this is going to mean a lot to that family. Our prayers, our prayers, the thousands of us praying for them is going to mean a lot. Absolutely. And Marilyn, I don't know if you're listening out there today. I hope you are, but just know you got an army of people who are praying for you here. That's a pretty comforting thought. And your daughter and the children have written for all of you. Yeah. Absolutely. And you have 363, 1110. Mark, here's a question from Chad. He's six years from retirement. His children will begin graduating high school soon. He's contributing to a brokerage account and preparation for that. He owns several Timothy ETFs, TPLC, SC and TPIF, several holdings from the buy list. He's just wondering, Mark, what do you recommend for the holdings? Should I contribute to a lump sum now or dollar cost average over the next six to ten years or so? I'm okay with some risk.

33:14He's 43 years old, Mark. Oh, okay. What's that? I like the fact that you're separating this money from your retirement accounts because it has a different job. You have much longer time frame as well for your retirement account. So it could be managed more aggressively, more growth oriented. With this money, it's still six to ten years. You still could be utilizing this money as a growth. Maybe gently moving from growth to growth to income over the next few years. And then get more conservative every year is what I'm saying. A little bit more conservative because as you get towards the use of this money, you want it to be more stable and not have to pull it out in a major downturn or if we go into a bear market or something happens right before that happens. So you want to get more of a protection mode, more of a defensive mode as time goes on here.

34:14Right now, yeah. I think you're doing the right thing. TPLC, TPSC, TPIF already give you a strong diversification in the equity foundation across US large mid and small caps and international stocks. You can get a little more conservative as you go by using the new free cash flow ETFs that they have out there, which use the same focus that financial steel does that we do at financial issues. We want companies that are solid that have strong free cash flows in their balance sheet. So you could start moving into there. As far as individual stocks, you can go to a buy list and find a few satellite portions that if you want to add those to it, just to do that. But you're moving down the right way. I think you're thinking straight and you're doing a good job of being a steward on this.

35:17So just remember, as you get closer time using that money, you want to get a little bit more conservative with it. There's no need to jump ship from growth at this point. Oh, you got six years. Six ten, three six three, eleven ten. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. The opinions and recommendations expressed on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of the station or any of the program sponsors. Additionally, all products or services offered by the program sponsors may not be known by the program. Give us a call now, folks. The number is six ten, three six three, eleven ten. Hey, listen, I got to remind you all of this. I apologize I haven't done so yet. We have a conference call today. Okay, so make sure that you click the save button in your mind. Make sure you write it down on your phone or whatever you if you're like Sam and you write stuff on sticky notes. Make sure you write it down on all the sticky notes you got.

36:17I got a lot of them today. He does 3 p.m. Eastern time. So that's 2 p.m. Central 1 p.m. Mountain 12 p.m. Pacific, of course. The information has been sent out the call and information, the access code that's specific to partners only. You all should have received an email at this point. It's also on our website. Like your spam folder, if you weren't able to find it or go to the website on the conference call page and make sure to join us today. Mark, I always love the chance to get to hear your wisdom and go a little deeper on these conference calls. So I hope you all join us today. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be fun. Yeah, it'll be good. It'll be informative. Absolutely. Always are. Hey Seth, I got some people in the chat. They want to know what are the free cash flow ETFs? What are the symbols for those? Yeah, so it's a TpFC and then Tpfg. So Mark, do you just want to explain real quickly the difference between those two, the Timothy Plan, free cash flow and the free cash flow growth? Yeah, the free cash flow of growth would be a little bit more leaning towards a stronger growth, a more aggressive, not, but it is an aggressive. I would say the C, the TpFC meaning free cash flow would be a little more conservative

37:26than the Tp free cash flow growth, Tpfg. So, yeah. So you have different levels of solid companies. Yeah. And just in case anyone's missed these last couple of months, that was part of a trio of roll outs that Timothy had. Tpfi is the other ETF they brought out, but Mark, that one is much more for fixed income because it is after all the Tp, the Timothy Plan fixed income ETF. ETF, right? Yeah. Yeah. Mark, it's so glad to see all of these. Yeah. Absolutely. It's so good to see that. We love the Timothy Plan. Speaking of Timothy Plan, we have a listener named Tim. That's fun. And he says, Mark answered a question recently about a company that makes stem cell research equipment. My question is, do you all oppose any stem cell research or just in the case when human embryos are used and then destroyed? If you all oppose stem cell research in BRI, can you explain why? Interesting. Yeah. Tim, I can't explain why because stem cell research, especially in the early days, what

38:31it did was it killed embryos, the beginning of life. It killed a baby at the very starting line, a being a baby. So it violates the abortion portion of our BRI screams. So that's why we screen for it. Do we screen for all stem cell research? No, absolutely not. Because the issue is specifically human embryonic stem cell research that kills the embryo. That is what we're screening for. That would include stem cell lines that have been developed recently and things like that where they had to kill the embryo. But it doesn't include other stem adults, stem cells, cord blood, placenta cells or other things like that. I think there's an induced plural potent stem cells, which I don't know a lot about, but

39:32what they do is they take adult cells and they inject things into them and it turns them into, I believe it turns them into stem cells. We wouldn't consider these activities by themselves a BRI in fraction. The line changes when a company, company intentionally conducts research using embryonic stem cells, develop products specifically for that research, test or validates products using embryonic stem cell lines or derives new embryonic stem cell lines from embryos. At that point, we believe the company has moved from incidental exposure into intentional participation in an activity that conflicts with biblical conviction that human life is worthy of protection. Yeah. It's well said, Mark. And I hope that makes sense. You know what? Because I really want you to understand, it doesn't matter where in the line that you decide to kill somebody where they're 20 years old or nine months from being born, it's

40:37still murder. Yeah. That's it, Mark. That's what it comes down to. And it is so important, Mark. We got to draw the line somewhere. But folks who listen to this show will not be surprised to hear our hard line stance on abortion and on human life beginning at that moment of conception, the miracle that happens there. But you have to draw the line somewhere, Mark, and for us, we draw it where the Bible draws it, which is that any human life is worthy of protection. And if you kill that human life, that is murder and that's a sin and that's wicked and we'll have no partner. Yeah. Let me go one step forward. Let me clarify this for Tim. Tim, we would not consider a BRI in fraction activity activities. We wouldn't consider a BRI in fraction, a dots stem cell research, cord blood stem cell research, placenta stem cell research, induced plural potent stem cell or IPSC research, or general purpose laboratory equipment that could be used in many kinds of research,

41:37median stem cell research, meaning, you know, gauze or scalples or things like that that can be used for anything that aren't specifically designed or marketed for human embryonic stem cell research. That's great stuff. Tim, it's a great question and we're grateful that you asked and Mark, I'm thankful for your answer there as well. It was good clarification because I saw a couple people asking that question. Yeah. That's good. Well, that's good. See, that's why I love people calling in. That's why I love people writing in because when you ask questions, there's probably hundreds if not thousands other people who have the same question. And because you, you stepped up, you've helped a lot of people understand why we do what we do. Why is stewards? We do what we do. Yep. Exactly right. 6, 10, 3, 6, 3, 11, 10. Folks, if you want to give us a car, you have to do it right now before you wait until tomorrow. We'll be, we'll be a focus Friday and we'll have, of course, over time as well afterwards. So hope that you'll join us for that tomorrow.

42:39But right now, Mark, we got a question from Tony. He's 74. He says, a brokerage firm that I work with has stated that they are of the option of the opinion that FP23 is below investment grade and if they're for classified it as a restricted buy, please advise your thoughts on this. I haven't bought any preferred stocks before, but I want to start now and I need more information before moving forward. What should Tony think about, Mark, with this restricted buy? Well, you're, you're brokerage firms concern is reasonable. It is BBB rated. So I, that is one step below investment grade. So yeah, it is. But being, being a higher credit risk referred doesn't make it a bad investment. Let me explain you, we look at when it, when it originally came out, it was a good investment. It was investment grade. The company behind it now, there's no rating on this preferred at this time.

43:42There hasn't been since they came out since the original that I could find, but the rating for the company behind it has slipped. So that's important. But that doesn't automatically make it a bad investment. Would this be the first preferred I would buy if I never bought preferred before? No, I'd stay a little bit more conservative to those that are investment grades. But this does have a little more risk in it. If it can, if it does degenerate, if the company behind it does degenerate, it would have some, it could have some problems. But we don't think it's there. We think there's enough, there's enough balance sheet and, and, and information on the income statement that this is covered and this is done well. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not concerned with it, but I understand the restriction. Now with that restrict you from buying it there, probably not. It depends on if they put in a category where you have to be a high net worth and if you're

44:43not, you might not be able to buy it. Or if they just want you to sign off on it saying I understand the risk of a lower investment grade or non investment grade preferred preferred and then you will be able, you probably be able to buy it. So I'm not exactly sure, I'm not sure where you're at and I don't want to really, I think, I think it's something you can look into to find if they'll allow you to do it. We wouldn't have it on the by list if we didn't think it was stable enough to maintain. Hey, Mark, you had mentioned that this one could be a slightly riskier preferred. How do we tell which preferred or a little riskier than the other ones? Well, of course, we look at the financial issue, steel behind it, the company behind it, we look at the coverage, the income coverage. Do they have the coverage of the dividend? If they don't then the common stock, if they're doing dividends there, if they default on there, you know, if it's a, if it's cumulative like this one, then you'll, you'll still

45:45get your dividends, even if the preferred or even if the common doesn't. And if you don't before the common ever gets their dividend, you'll get paid back for the dividends that you that were missed. So that gets it a little strength. But you want to look at their income statement, you want to watch their, make sure that they have the dividend covered well. And usually some free cash flow, usually the, the revenues look at their balance sheet, look at their income statement and go down and you can see, is it negative, is it positive? Do they have the cash to cover it? And if they are able to do that, oftentimes even a BBB will show that it's well covered. Yeah, at least at this time. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, so there's a lot to look at with that. But again, if it concerns you at all, don't do it. There's other preferred on the financial issues by cell and hold lists that are in the partner's hub.

46:46You can go into the partner's hubs, sort by preferred and find the right one that fits your, your world that makes you happy and helps you sleep better at night. I really appreciate that you, that Tony, you want to invest in biblical integrity and you want to be smart about the way you do it. God bless you for loving God. God bless you for investing with biblical integrity. Yeah, look forward to seeing you tomorrow. God bless everyone. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then...