In a week when Alex Ovechkin broke the NHL goal-scoring record of Wayne Gretzky, we were sure to get some feedback from Leonard Raskin on his puck love but with the American market in a free-fall, the tariffs were greater than the goal.
Nestor Aparicio and Leonard Raskin discussed the current market volatility, emphasizing that investors should not panic and should maintain a diversified portfolio. Raskin highlighted that the S&P 500 is down 10-15% and the NASDAQ by 20%, but his firm’s portfolios only dipped 2% due to international diversification. He criticized the media’s fear-mongering and praised the U.S. for standing up for fair trade. They also talked about Alex Ovechkin’s record-breaking goal, his 950th, and his impact on the Capitals’ success. Nestor mentioned the Orioles’ start to the season, expressing concerns about their pitching and fielding.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
American markets, Russian goalscorers, financial advisor, market volatility, diversification, tech stocks, trade policy, tariffs, Ovechkin record, hockey season, Orioles pitching, baseball season, economic impact, investment strategy, market reaction.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Leonard Raskin
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We’ll we’ll be up late with the Orioles this week as they make their way home. On Friday, we will be at Costas in for the very first time since we lost Mr. Costas. I will have the remaining magic eight balls. I think Roz is going to hook me up with some Back to the Future scratch offs, and we’re going to be doing it all month. We’re going to be at Beaumont next week. We’re going to be up at Cooper’s North two weeks from now, on the 23rd and on the 30th, we will be Cocos pub in in laraville. This guy has joined me in various places for various crab cakes all over town. He is the resident guy still very much in on the Ovechkin hockey thing. So we’re going to talk some hockey. We got opening day. We have March Madness. We have ravens draft coming up in there. You know, it’s a great, great time of the year. Um, I don’t think it’s any question that I did not vote for the current fascist administration and sort of dismantling government. But around the world, the markets have sort of responded in tariffs and tantrums and whatever else is going on pro Russian, you know, all the things that we’ve seen the last 10 weeks. Leonard Raskin is our financial advisor around here, and he’s made cases on both sides of the fence at various points, as has his family when I get together with them at the holidays. You know, lots divide us. So I try to bring things, to bring us together, but when the market gets soaked like this, you know, people marching in the streets have at it however you want, but there’s a lot of people, including a wife, in the other room that’s lost a lot of money the last couple weeks.
Leonard Raskin 01:33
Well, let’s start with that statement. It’s a great statement. It’s the wrong statement. Nobody has lost any money, necessarily, you didn’t have any money in the first place. The people who are hurt by this, no doubt, are people that are spending their current assets, relying on these assets for lifestyle, for spend, if you’re like me, and we’ve talked about it over and over. You know, I turned 60, feels a little older than I’d like to feel. The body feels like it’s 80, the mind feels like it’s 15, but and and the body tells you you’re not. But the fact of the matter is that I have wealth in the market. There’s no doubt. And most people, every person, let me put it this way, every person at Raskin global, that we advise about their money right now has wealth in the market and nothing about what happened last week, nothing about what’s going to happen this week. Should change that strategy. Portfolios overall, your financial well being overall, should be built to take shocks. Number one, the people who lose money in this market are the people that sell in this market. If you sell your shares in what’s going on right now, in a recalibrating of the world’s trade policy right now, today, as we speak, you stand to lose significant money. We’re down 10 to 15% on the S P over 20% on the NASDAQ, which is really heavy tech stocks, if you bought into the myth that the Magnificent Seven stocks are the only stocks you should own, or that the S p5, 100 is the only portfolio you should hold. Then, right now, you are suffering massive statement pain that is, you’re looking at your account, and it’s down dramatically. I can tell you this. At Raskin global for years and years and years, we have advised clients to diversify internationally, to own large and small company equities, to own value and growth equities, and our portfolios barely went negative last Friday for the first time this year, and they’re down overall about 2% in the face of a US market that’s down right now 15 to 20% so. And if you’re in tech stocks, that Magnificent Seven has been hammered, and you’ve been hammered with it. And I’ve listened to people for the last what is that magnificent is that that’s Facebook, Facebook, Apple, meta, uh, Google, um, Tesla, Nvidia, these, these seven companies at the top of the S p5 100 that drove it through the roof and sent the average flying. And we’ve told people for years now, and I’ve listened to people come to my office and say to me, my portfolio isn’t doing as well as the S P Standard and Poor’s 500 the barometer of large stocks in the market. And I’ve said to people over and over again, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right, but there is no empirical evidence that says we should invest all our money in large US stocks. It is a losers game. It is speculating and gambling. And 50% of the gains that came into the s. P5 100 in the last couple years has been from that Magnificent Seven stocks. Most people are late to the party. They buy in at the top. They buy in when there’s hysteria on the way up. And right now they’re saying, Oh my God, what did I do? And now they’re going to feel the pain, and now they’re going to call their advisor and say, I want out. I can’t take this pain, and it might not get better in the short term, and by short term, let’s be clear. Nestor, what we’re talking about, I’m talking about advising clients on plans for their wealth for the rest of their lives. 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 50 year olds, 70 year olds, for the rest of your life. What the problem? One of the problems in our country and in the economy is we are a quarter to quarter based. Look at things. Public companies have to report their earnings every quarter. The Marketplace punishes you if your results don’t come in at the level that they hope. A little bit of government change in the way the world is structured. The market is going wild and crazy, and you know who’s losing right now? Losing are the people that are selling. Losing are the people that have borrowed money against their portfolios to grow greater portfolios and invested in risk without understanding what the potential downside is the ones that are winning right now are the people buying into this market, rebalancing their portfolios from fixed income into equities at a time when equities are down. This is what buying low feels like last point on the market, or two points. Let’s talk about this number one, the markets are only down to the place they were late. 22 early. 23 that’s two to two and a half years ago, and nobody was calling my office saying, let’s get out of the market. It’s all time high two and a half years ago. What they were saying is, is this going to go any higher? Could this go down? Should I sell because I’ve got profit, or they said I want to put more in, because this thing’s rolling, rolling, rolling. So we’ve gone straight up from there. We hit an all time high, and now we’ve retraced back down to where we were two to two and a half years ago. That is not a panic point. Number one last thing, there is never a good time to panic with your portfolio. If you think you want to sell, talk to your advisor. If, God forbid, your advisor tells you it’s time to sell, get a new advisor, run for the hills away from that person. This is not the time to panic. It’s not the time to make bad moves. It’s not the time to jump off the bridge. You don’t jump out of a perfectly good plane when there’s turbulence, you don’t jump out of your portfolio when there’s turbulence. It’s going to take a little while to run through. Tariffs are not a terrible thing if they were to be paid by the US consumer. Let’s talk about tariffs now, because that’s what’s going on markets reacting to the tariffs that Trump is putting on the countries around the world. If tariffs were a bad thing, these other countries wouldn’t be so upset with what’s going on. They’re not upset because the American consumer is going to pay more for goods. They’re upset because it’s going to wreck their their company selling into our market if people don’t buy foreign goods, that’s why they’re upset, and the media is picking right up on it and telling people in this country to be scared. Why? Because fear sells ads on the television. You are not watching information. You’re watching propaganda. It’s coming out from every which angle, every which person. And suddenly, all the people that have been experts on the Israeli Gaza war are now experts on economics and tariffs. I don’t know where these people get their degrees, but my hunches are not experts in anything. They’re paid agitators, and it’s nonsense to be out there telling people that the world is going to end. This is a massive market overreaction to a small change. For once, it’s about time that somebody stands up for the US and not for every country around the world. That’s economics 101, this is not the time to panic. It’s not the time to get out of the market. And what you’re going to see over the next few months, I think, is countries from around the world wanting to make better trade deals for America with America. We’ve been screwed for a long time, and it’s time for that to stop. Somebody has said it’s time for it to stop. Somebody got elected on it’s time for that to stop, and now somebody’s trying to make that stop, and the people that don’t like them are going to keep not liking them, and this is another reason for them to like them less, and the economics of it are. On a trade basis. Fair trade is a fabulous, wonderful thing. We want what you sell, you want what we sell. That is free trade, and that is a fabulous thing. And we haven’t had that in this country for over 20 years. We have
Nestor Aparicio 10:17
been well, we’ll see if it works. We will. I mean, about a lot of things, I didn’t agree with my
Leonard Raskin 10:24
8point, but my point is, this is not the time to panic and jump out. That’s the message to the listeners is, don’t let this be the thing that knocks you out of the market, because the smart money is buying I can tell you that absolutely positively,
Nestor Aparicio 10:40
le Raskin is here. He handles money. He handles the American dream as well as the Russian dream of
Leonard Raskin 10:46
Alex. There’s a weekend. There’s a weekend. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 10:50
you know, I went back through this because I was, like, looking at pictures of the Stanley Cup, and it’s like, it’s like, seven years ago. It’s like, trots did a whole term in the time to win another one, and then yeah, and you know, they haven’t been that kind of team, but as I look up since 2018 it’s unbelievable how many goals he scored since then, right?
8Leonard Raskin 11:14
The only year, the only year he didn’t score 30 was the COVID season, where the season was compressed. It wasn’t a full season.
Nestor Aparicio 11:24
I mean, he scored 300 and some odd goals since, since the Stanley he wasted the Stanley Cup, which is just, you know, that’s Mind, Body center. How many people? 39 goals? Yes,
Leonard Raskin 11:37
39 he scored 42 this year, when he was hurting for a quarter, right? He’s been out. It was out for six weeks when Gretzky retired. The reason that Gretzky holds the 890 held the 894 record was because that’s where his career finished. He only scored a dozen goals in his last season, and not many the season before, he scored a ton earlier on in his career. And God bless. He’s the greatest player ever skate. I mean, he’s the greatest goal scorer, cis man ever to skate, but Ovechkin is the greatest pure goal scorer ever in a time when the game is totally different, and who knows how many he’s going to end up with, he could end this season, easily, with another five goals at 900 the most 40 goal seasons, the most 30 goal seasons, the most power play goals, obviously the most even strength goals, the most game winning goals. And yesterday, Sunday, he he became Ilya Sorokin, the goalie for the islanders, I think, became the 100 and 82nd or third goalie that he scored against, the most goalie scored against in a career. Uh, ness, I was there Friday night. I went to the game Friday night down at Capital One. It was unbelievable. I haven’t seen that place on fire. It wasn’t on fire that hot in a Stanley Cup run. It wasn’t this place from the before the puck dropped through the end of the game was lit up, and when Ovechkin scored three change minutes in place went nuts. Everybody thought he scored a second goal on the power play, when the Blackhawks defenseman inadvertently put the goal puck in his own net, right next to Ovechkin stick that if the defenseman hadn’t touched it, Ovi would have gotten it, and then the second goal late third period, that place that You could. I’m surprised roof didn’t blow off that building. It was insane when Ovechkin went over and tapped the glass with his son, and then came to center ice. I don’t know if everybody saw it, came to center ice and bowed to Gretzky, who was up in Ted’s box and and then skated the rink. It was awesome, magnificent, amazing. And I was thinking, I should go to New York. And then I was thinking they’re going to sit him. And then I was thinking he’s not going to play a lot. And he didn’t if, if you watch the game Sunday, he only played for like three minutes in the first period, and he didn’t really go all out. And then the second period, he didn’t play a lot either, until, well, the islanders took a power play, I took a penalty, and they couldn’t keep him off the power play, and Tom Wilson laid a perfect pass on his stick, and he ripped number 895, and then he did swan dive on the ice like he did into the fountain in DC after they won the stand,
Nestor Aparicio 14:44
8went to Seat Geek and watch the tickets go from $600 to like 20, like
Leonard Raskin 14:49
instant, Oh, you mean for Thursday night, yeah, yeah. Came coming up Thursday night. I was
Nestor Aparicio 14:53
watching the ticket prices. It was $700 yeah, yeah. Islanders
Leonard Raskin 14:58
went all the way up to eight. Eight, 900 bucks. The tickets for Thursday night coming at Capital One against Carolina, because everybody thought he’s going to break the record at home, were up to $6,000
8Nestor Aparicio 15:13
there were $9,000 seats at center rise. There were $4,000 seats in the court. Now sounds like and
Leonard Raskin 15:18
now there’s going to be a massive sell off, although some people will want to go to cheer him and to see how the you know the reaction at home. But nobody, well, let’s not say nobody. There are idiots out there. Who the heck’s gonna pay six grand to just go watch a game now? But by
Nestor Aparicio 15:35
the way, so I’m up on sea geek over the weekend, when he tied it on Friday, you see, like the islanders. And I was just islanders tickets. Like, the cheapest seat was, like $696 and then two nights later they played the predators, $4 Right,
Leonard Raskin 15:52
8right. They’re out of it. And they, you know, they, they’re definitely out of it. And away they go.
Nestor Aparicio 15:58
Raskin is here. He is. Raskin global. We are going through economics as well as Russian ice history and Canadian ice history and American ice history, anything you got on, on the baseball thing, we’ve been covering the markets and covered all this. Gotten off to a good start. You know, I’ll say the
Leonard Raskin 16:15
same thing about the Orioles that I said about the market. Don’t panic. It’s never a good time to panic. Do we need some pitching? Yes, yes. We need some pitching. Do we need Cedric Mullins in center field? Yes. We need somebody who can catch the ball in center field. They’ve been kicking it around a little bit. Gunner Henderson’s back, right? Yeah. Jackson holidays off to a wicked start. Rushman is doing all right, was it? It’s cows are hurt, and he chose to go to dive, chose to dive into first base and break his thumb or whatever he did instead of running through first base. I like listening to Ben McDonald on the on the broadcast. Ben said a very interesting thing when this happened. I love the quote. He said, If it was faster to dive, Usain Bolt would dive through the wire on the on the 100 meter run. It’s not faster to dive into first base. Where do these guys get this idea that you should dive into first base. It’s the only base you have permission to run past and still be safe. Run through first base. They taught us that in Little League, Nestor, nobody slid into first base that I can ever remember in little league. And sure enough, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 17:37
there was a Pete Rose thing when we were kids, a little bit of, you know the Yeah, but it was always notes in him diving in the second base,
8Leonard Raskin 17:43
second Yeah, second base. You can’t pass third. But
Nestor Aparicio 17:48
he went home. He threw his shoulder at Ray Fauci. So even he did the four right, but not first base. So I was out with, run with, through first base. I was out with Brian COVID, that two weeks ago, our resident Major League Baseball player and and, you know, he’s making fun of himself. I don’t know why. It was opening day. Actually, we weren’t being ransom, who I think is coming out to cost us this week. And he said I made a lot of right turns. In other words, like in baseball, you run back out, back to the duck, made some left turns to dude, you know so little NASCAR out there. Come on, what it is baseball season, it is we’re a little hurt. We’re a little
Leonard Raskin 18:27
hurt. Yeah, we’re locked and we are pitching is, is hurt. My
Nestor Aparicio 18:32
8feelings are hurt. Dear. Katie Griggs is going to hear about that this week too. So,
Leonard Raskin 18:36
okay, well, with regards to the Orioles, same as the market, things will work itself out. We are short, short term into the season. Let’s not jump off bridges. Jump out of perfectly good airplanes. My barometer is this, the boy is coming home from Ireland for for spring, for the holidays, for Eastern Passover, and if the weather is sufficient, because I feel like sitting out there in the cold, but if the weather
Nestor Aparicio 19:06
is sufficient, Mr. Rubenstein bobblehead, next week, are you gonna I don’t
Leonard Raskin 19:10
know what day that is. What day is. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know either. No, I hadn’t looked at the giveaways. Anything you say about that? Did you know he was gonna be a guy? Bobblehead, I did not but he got the right turn you as he has the right why not? Look Wes Moore is the one that needs a bobble head. He bobbles all over the place. But anyway, that’s another story for another day. In the meantime, the boy is home, if the weather is reasonable, we will be at the warehouse. We will be watching the Orioles. The boy has told me he’s actually he’s paying attention to the O’s in Ireland, and he wants to go to a game when he’s home. And they’re home a couple nights next week when he’s in town. I
8Nestor Aparicio 19:52
just need them to be over 500 soon, sooner than Yeah, sure.
Leonard Raskin 19:55
Well, we got a few games in the desert, right? Desert,
Nestor Aparicio 19:59
and then. Blue Jays come in and then the Guardians come in. Yeah. The bobblehead thing he’s doing is one of the Reds games. I think it’s next Saturday.
Leonard Raskin 20:07
8So we’re going to be playing against, I wasn’t offered one. We’re going to be playing against Corbin burns, right?
Nestor Aparicio 20:14
No, Burns is already pitched. You missed burn. That’s good chance to see birds. You could have gone down to DC watching. I’m talking
Leonard Raskin 20:23
about the birds seeing burns. We the good. I don’t want to, I don’t want to see burns. I’m talking about the hitters having to hit face them. That’s good. We don’t. That’s good that we don’t. So we got a chance out there. And look, a lot of teams are hurt. The only team right now, I think that’s not hurt is, well, the Dodgers and the Padres are are whooping it up. They are crushing it. The Yankees are doing okay with those balloon bats.
Nestor Aparicio 20:47
Dude. The Braves have been a mess to start the season. So there’s been, there’s been some down try then that’s right, much. There’s a whole bunch of places where they don’t have much going on. There’s still hope here. I’m still
8Leonard Raskin 20:58
we’re in the first we’re in the first inning. We’re in the first inning. Come
Nestor Aparicio 21:02
on. But I am concerned about the pitching. I’ll say that I’m concerned about the market, I’m concerned about the leadership of this country. I’m concerned about all sorts of things. But I’m not concerned about Alex Ovechkin anymore, because he got his record 95 they’re on their
Leonard Raskin 21:17
record. That was absolutely untouchable. Look, we are. How fortunate are we? Nestor, let’s face it, we got to see 2131 got to see Cal Ripken, not just break that record, but obliterate it. What? 20 6:32am I right? 2632 is now the magic number. Never be touched, never. Where’s the next guy?
Nestor Aparicio 21:44
8Oh, nobody will get 6000
Leonard Raskin 21:48
Yeah, now and so you got to vetch get took 26 years to break Gretzky and who’s closest in the NHL today, guys that are 35 that are 300 goals behind, that are never scoring at a pace that he’s scoring at, and he ain’t done the big question, I think, for the caps, is, well, of course, it’s the playoffs and winning the cup is a big question. But the question is, does Alex come back next year? If he comes back next year, he could end with 950
Nestor Aparicio 22:25
I mean, my God, well, he’s got to want to play, and I don’t know what that means. Whether you get I don’t know whether he does or doesn’t get eliminated in game seven in the Stanley Cup. That’s right, goes diving in the fountain again. That’s right. Who knows? It really is an amazing thing with hockey, and I go through this every year as the one guy around in the city who talk cocky, who knows hockey, right? I’m the only guy in the history of the city to know well, lock and four. I’ll give him a badge on that now radio. But I mean, nobody’s been through it more than me. It’s unbelievable to think that if they were to win a Stanley Cup, that this guy would do this for another 10 weeks, right, like him and all the rest of them. What it takes? Oh, it’s it’s rolling from here forward. Forget where you were from. Baseball is a sprint, and it happens real quick, and there’s three and outs. And football, even over the balance of the season, happens quick on three weekends. The hockey thing does not come easy. It’s a whole different it’s a whole different joint. You got going on here? Yeah,
Leonard Raskin 23:26
you gotta and Logan Thompson is out right now, their number one goalie. He was raging hot. He’s out. But this is, this, is it? This is the
8Nestor Aparicio 23:38
felt like chasing the record was the thing everybody was focused on. Now, that goes away
Leonard Raskin 23:43
the same time. Yes, they were, but at the same time. But being focused on it, they’re winning, dude,
Nestor Aparicio 23:47
it’s been seven years and all these other guys have won a Stanley Cup. Right? Wilson, right? Carl Carlson, right. Wilson, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, so they, they listen. It’s like, Lamar here, right where Mars pissed off that he’s lost these gains. Ronnie Stanley’s been added longer, Marlin, Humphreys, they were back with Flacco, right? Tucker, if he survives this. And that’s a whole other you know, that’s door number three for Bucha and har ball and all those guys. But absolutely, you know, it does feel like it’s been a while for the caps, and it feels fresh again, to your point that everybody’s playing
Leonard Raskin 24:23
8great. They got it. They brought in some great talent around Ovi that’s what he wanted. He said, I’ll stay. I’m going to play, but you can’t rebuild. We got to try to win. And they did kudos to the GM, kudos to Ted for signing these guys. And they brought in players that that are hungry and that want to play, and that are winners, and they’re winning. A lot of the young guys came up through Hershey that were Winner, winner, winners in Hershey. How about Ryan Leonard? How about the week that kid had he was playing in college? Bu or BC? I can’t think of which one I. Was eliminated from the NCAA hockey tournament. Uh, signed his deal with the caps. He was drafted a few years ago, signed his entry deal with the caps. 900 grand come play for the caps comes in. Uh, his first game and second game he plays. Third game he plays no. Second game, sorry. Second game he’s sitting in the penalty box next to Ovi. Third game he plays. He scores his first goal. Friday night. Ovi scores two to tie Gretzky’s record, and who congratulates the kid on his first ever NHL goal in the locker room Wayne Gretzky and Gary Batman. I mean, my goodness. And this Friday coming, high likelihood, high likelihood, for those that don’t know, he is the front runner to win the Hobie Baker Award, which is the Heisman Trophy for hockey in college. So this kid’s got quite the couple weeks on his ledger.
Nestor Aparicio 26:05
Well, he’s going to need some energy, because they got playoff running them. Leonard, I got man, I will see you at the ballpark. Get the boy back here for the holidays. This weekend, we got Masters going on this weekend. I hope you get some springtime weather. You know, with all this, get all the cold weather out while winters are on the Westfield winter, Luke and I are up late watching all things Arizona Diamondbacks. Luke’s also monitoring the liar’s lunch next week on tax day as well. We will be at Costas on Friday during the Maryland crab cake tour as well. Big week ahead. A lot of Orio baseball ahead, and we’re still doing it around here. I’m Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. I.
