By Peter Wechsler
President & Co-Founder, Franklin Retirement Solutions
[email protected]
Time seems to be moving so fast, and so does Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure roller coaster at Universal Studios in Orlando. I can honestly say that my days of riding a roller coaster are now behind me. What a crazy experience. Jeremy was a real trooper and went on to the scarier VelociCoaster after we finished the Motorbike Adventure. Good for him!
We were in Orlando for a financial planning conference that we attend each year. The folks running the conference last weekend rented out and closed down Universal Studios for the night. With only 1,500 or 1,600 folks attending, the lines moved pretty quickly. The agent told us it’s not unusual for folks to wait three hours, or as he put it, 200 minutes, to get on a roller coaster.
The conference itself was excellent with numerous speakers sharing their outlook for the markets in 2026 and on AI and how it’s being used in the financial services industry. The keynote speaker was Dave Ramsey, a radio and TV personality who helps consumers save more money and pay off debt. And while Ramsey is a one-man band, his company employs over a thousand people helping folks become financially successful.
The best part of the annual conference is the fundraising, and this year’s attendees were asked to make donations to Folds of Honor, an organization whose mission is to provide scholarships to the spouses and children of military service members and first responders who have been killed or disabled in the line of duty. All told, the advisors donated $1,920,000, enough to fund over 400 scholarships.
2026 Outlook
As for the economic outlook this year, none of us ever knows for sure. What we know is that we’ve had three very good years in a row. Will we have a fourth? Quarterly profit reporting started this week with many more companies reporting within the next few weeks. Once more earning reports are released, we’ll have a better idea of how corporate profits are holding up, since ultimately that’s what drives the stock market.
While the markets and the upper middle class/upper class are doing just fine, the rest of the country is feeling pressure from continuing inflation and a crummy job market, especially for higher-paid and higher-educated workers looking for their next job. There are many reasons why so many of these folks are looking for work, but we’ll save that for another column.
Right now, I’m cautiously optimistic that the markets will hold up unless we experience an unexpected black-swan event. Fingers crossed for a good year. What the heck…toes too.
Do You Feel Like a Millionaire?
The net worth of a majority of our clients exceeds a million dollars, with many of those having a net worth in the two to four million dollar net range. They all tell me the same thing: they don’t feel like millionaires. UBS Global Wealth Management dubs folks who have assets ranging from $1 million to $5 million “moderate millionaires.” They say you really don’t start feeling like what a millionaire felt like in the past until you are actually worth $5 million. Something to think about over the weekend since we have no Eagles game to watch. Oh well.
Enjoy the weekend. Franklin Retirement Solutions will be closed on Monday, as will the stock market, to honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Day of Service, which encourages Americans to spend the day volunteering to improve their communities.
Peter