[0:00]Oil prices just jumped up at the fastest rate we have seen in months causing the stock market to fall. And if you read any of the financial news articles, they say that it's because there was an attack at the U.A.E., which is why the stock market is falling. But the Federal Reserve Bank hinted at this exact thing last week. So in this video, I don't want to talk about what's going on in the middle east, rather, I want to talk about how this is going to impact your economy, your stock market and your money. So let's break this down. Last Wednesday, April 29th, The Federal Reserve Bank met and they had the most divisive meeting that we have seen since the early 1990s. Why? Because we had a number of members at the Federal Reserve Bank now disagreeing with one another. That's not a normal thing to happen at the Federal Reserve Bank. The reason why is because some people at the Federal Reserve Bank are saying that the economy needs stimulus. Other people at the Federal Reserve Bank are saying forget the economy, our dollar needs saving. And the reason why that matters is that the way that you say the dollar and the way they're stimulate the economy are two completely different and opposite methods. When the economy is struggling, which is what we're seeing happen now according to the Federal Reserve Bank, the way you stimulate the economy is by creating inflation. What do I mean? You cut interest rates and you print money. When you cut interest rates, it makes borrowing money cheaper, which generally drives up the prices of things. Think of it this way. If mortgage rates fell to 3% tomorrow, everybody won't want to buy house, you'd have more bidding wars on houses and that's going to drive housing prices up, which is how inflation happens. More dollars into the economy, the prices of things go up. On the flip side, we have more concerns about inflation. We just got a new inflation report. I'll talk about that in just a second, which shows that inflation is a lot worse than where we were a few months ago. And now because of this inflation problem, we have more members of the Federal Reserve Bank saying that we need to protect the dollar and we need to fight inflation. How by raising interest rates and by removing money from the economy. Well that's the exact opposite as what you do to help save a slow economy. And that's where we're starting to see more division and how we're going to protect the economy and protect the dollar especially because on May 15th the current chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, John Powell is going to be stepping down and he's going to be replaced by somebody else by the name of Kevin Wesh who was appointed by President Trump and we don't know exactly what is going to do. President Trump says that he's going to cut interest rates aggressively, but we're not exactly sure what he's going to do and that's where there's a lot of uncertainty and the stock market hates uncertainty. So, let's go a little bit deeper. I want to talk about inflation because if you look around, the prices of things are starting to go up because of the conflict in the Middle East. Gas prices are a whole lot more expensive, grocery prices are starting to go up. Why? Because oil prices impact the prices of everything. They impact the price of gas, they impact the price of diesel. Higher diesel prices mean higher shipping costs. Higher shipping costs means it's more expensive to transport groceries from the farm to the warehouse to Walmart or Amazon or wherever you buy groceries from. And higher oil prices mean higher fertilizer costs, which means higher agriculture costs, higher grocery costs. Well, we just got a new inflation report which said that in the first quarter of 2026, the first three months of 2026, PCE inflation, which is how the Federal Reserve Bank likes the middle inflation came in at 4.3%. To put that in perspective, in the end of 2025, it was at 2.7%. Which means yes, we have seen a big jump up in this PCE inflation, but that's not all. The reason why PCE inflation is a very interesting number is because PCE inflation takes a look at the inflation that we have in our economy, minus food costs, minus energy costs. Well, where are we seeing some of the biggest and highest inflation? Food and energy. So the Federal Reserve Bank's favorite inflation metric PCE doesn't look at food or energy costs. And it says that inflation has ramped up significantly in just the last few months. Well, if you add in the inflation on energy, which is gas and you add in the inflation on food, your groceries, you can start to see how inflation is becoming a bigger problem. By the way, all of this are things that we've been talking about in Market Briefs. Again, Market Briefs is my free newsletter for investors where every day, my team is working to break down what's happening in things like the economy, housing, stocks, crypto, and global markets into a fun, witty and easy to review newsletter. It's read by hundreds of thousands of investors every single morning, and when you sign up for Market Briefs, you're also going to get access to my Investing Masterclass for free, where I break down how you can get started as an investor and find hidden investment opportunities before they hit the headlines. I'll show you the exact framework that my firm and I use to research investment opportunities. So, if you want to watch the Investing Masterclass for free and get the Market Briefs newsletter, all you have to do is sign up, and I have that link for you down in the description below. So let's dig deeper a little bit more. Because we saw what happened in the news where there was an attack on UAE and that's what then spiked up oil prices. Well, what does that mean? As oil prices go up, that then impacts the prices of gas, that impacts the prices of diesel, and everything else. Which means we could be seeing inflation get even worse. We're seeing the impacts of this on the economy as well. Spirit Airlines. Well, a reason why they failed, not the only reason they had a lot of financial issues already going on, they were already facing bankruptcy, but one of the reasons was higher cost of fuel. Well, as oil prices continue to stay high, that trickle down effect in the economy continues to impact more people. Gas prices have been going up in many places around the country. Here in the Metro Detroit area, in the last week or two, gas prices went from like $3.99 a gallon to like $4.99 a gallon. This isn't the reported numbers, this is just what I see on the way into the office. So, oil prices are impacting many different parts of the economy, which means the average person has to pay more money to buy things. And the reason why that matters is because our economy runs on spending. The more money you spend, the more money somebody else makes. If you go into Chipotle and you buy everything, you buy the extra guac, you buy the extra meat, they make more money, their owners get richer. Chipotle can then open more stores and hire more people. But if you walk into Chipotle and said, I spent all my money on gas, I don't have money to buy a Chipotle ball. Well now they don't have the ability to grow and expand. In fact, they might be forced to contract, higher less people close doors. That's the concern because we've already been facing an inflation problem. Many Americans are already living paycheck to paycheck and are relying on credit cards in order to just survive. That's why we just broke a new record for credit card debt in the United States. Well now couple that with the fact that the prices of everything are going up. The inflation rate outside of energy and fuel is up significantly higher than where we were just a few months ago. So as the cost of living goes up, that means people have to pay more money for everything. Which means people have less discretionary spending money. They have less ability to contribute to the economy. Why does that matter? Because that can impact the stock market. Because the stock market is where people go to predict and put money based off of where they believe the economy is going to be in the future. And that's what you want to pay attention to. Now a lot of people here get very scared and they say that, oh, we're going to see a big recession, do not invest your money, just keep your money away from investments. But that's not the way that I want you to think about it. And I want you to think about this really the way that Wall Street does because the reality is there's opportunities in every market. There's opportunities in pain, there's opportunities in growth, there's opportunity in boom. And some of the biggest and best opportunities come from when markets go down. In 2026, we had a lot of volatility in the markets. When the attacks first started in the Middle East, when the United States first attacked Iran, we saw the stock market crash. Well, after that, some days or weeks later, the stock market was breaking brand new record highs. So when that market fell, it created a great buying opportunity for the people that came in and used that volatility to buy when stocks were cheap.
[9:16]Let's go back a little bit before that. In the early part of 2026, the United States attacked and went into Venezuela and captured the President of Venezuela. What happened then? The stock market crashed.
[9:32]Again, that downturn created a great stock market investing opportunity for the financially savvy that went in against all the negative news and bought stocks when they were on sale. But then a few days later, President Trump paused those tariffs again and markets broke brand new record highs again.
[10:09]Then came April and in April 2025 that was when President Trump announced liberation day. Do you remember that? Liberation day was this whole new wave of tariffs, not just on a few countries, but on countries around the world. That triggered the fastest stock market sell-off, not just in the United States, but globally since the pandemic. That created again a great buying opportunity. Three times in the first few months of 2025. Well, some days after liberation day, President Trump then paused the tariffs again and the stock market broke brand new record highs. So, the thing that I want you to understand is not that markets will always keep rebounding in a matter of days. But that if your goal is to be an investor, your goal is to own good investments for the long term. So if you want to own the economy or good investments for 10, 20, 30 years, what happens over the course of six months or even two years is not that relevant. And in those situations when you have a market downturn, in those situations when you have a market crash, in those situations when you have a recession, they create some of the biggest and best buying opportunities because they allow you to come in and buy good investments at a discounted price. That's why I always say, recessions create more millionaires than any other time, because they allow the financially savvy to come in and buy good investments when they're on sale. But here's the problem, and I'm telling you this from experience on YouTube. I have been investing now for a long time. 2011 was when I really started investing my money. But 2020 was the first time that I was making content on YouTube while we went through a real downturn. And during the 2020 stock market crash, I was making videos about why I was buying and why this is a good buying opportunity probably. Again, I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but based off of history, we know that market downturns generally create good opportunities. The comments that I was receiving was either A, Jaspreet, you've lost your mind, the economy is done for, it's going to collapse, why would you ever invest your money? Or B, wait, wait until the bottom, wait until things get even worse, wait until it completely collapses and then come in and buy when it's 80% off. Well, my response was, I have no idea when the bottom is, how long it's going to last, or what's going to happen tomorrow. So I'm just going to buy in phases on the way down, and as markets go down, I'm going to buy more aggressively as it goes lower. What I didn't expect, even though I have a whole company, Briefs Finance that specializes in financial research, I had no idea to the extent the Federal Reserve Bank was going to print money and pump up the stock market. But they did. So in 2020, we went from the fastest stock market sell-off in the history of time, outpacing the Great Depression, to then the fastest stock market boom in the history of time. Both in the same year. This is why trying to time the market doesn't work. And you don't have to listen to me, I know, I'm just a random guy on YouTube. Listen to Warren Buffett. He talks about it all the time. Don't chase stocks. Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful, and don't try to time the market. Time in the market beats timing the market. If you were trying to perfectly find the bottom, you're never going to actually hit it because nobody knows if the market is going to go down tomorrow. Nobody knows how long a downturn is going to last. Nobody knows exactly when a recession is going to hit. Nobody knows how long the markets are going to go up. Nobody knows. Everybody has a prediction. Every single person in the world has a a idea that they want to tell you what is going to happen tomorrow, but the people that are telling you what's going to happen are just flat out lying to you. They have no idea. Everybody has a guess. But instead of trying to guess and gamble, be an investor. It has been proven to win. Find the investments you want to own. This is one part. This is your research side. Whether you want to be an active investor and you want to invest in individual stocks or in industries where you believe the money is moving, or you want to be a passive investor and you just want to invest in like the S&P 500 or some other broad index. Don't matter what you want to do. You find what is you want to invest and you do that research. Then you set up a system. Maybe you're investing every week, maybe you're looking for individual opportunities, whatever. But when opportunities arise, take advantage of them. And by an opportunities arising, I mean, if markets go down, that's not the time you want to be panic selling because that's what everybody else does and if you keep doing what everybody else does, you're going to end up like the majority of people which unfortunately is not good. It's broke. There are two strategies that I follow when I invest my money to the stock market. I have an active investing strategy where I look for where the money is moving and then I invest into those specific areas. And then I have a passive investing strategy where every week money is pulled out of my checking account and automatically invested into my portfolio of ETFs. This is the ABB always be buying strategy that I follow. For this, I use a company, which is also the sponsor of this video called M1. M1 has a platform called M1 Invest that you can sign up for for free that specializes in this type of passive investing. The way it works is you build something called a pie with your ETFs that you want to invest in. So maybe you want to invest in the S&P 500. Maybe you want some dividend paying ETFs, maybe you want some international ETFs and maybe you want some high growth ETFs. So you can layer in these ETFs into your portfolio and how much of your portfolio should be allocated towards each ETF and now you set up a system. Every week, every two weeks or every four weeks, money will leave your bank account and automatically be invested into these ETFs, no matter what, as long as this is set up. So, if you want to be a passive investor and have a brokerage that specializes in this type of passive investing, M1 is a great tool. So, if you want to learn more and create a free M1 invest account, have the link to how can learn more and do that down in the description. If you notice the financial news, they tend to overhype things. When things are going up, they tend to talk about how markets will never go down about how it's an amazing opportunity, about how markets are greater than ever before. When markets are going down, they exaggerate that as well, about how is the fastest sell off, about how things are going to never recover, about how things are going to collapse about how it this this doom's day scenario. Well, things are never generally as good as the media makes a seem. They're also generally never as bad as the media makes it seem. And so what you want to do is be able to cut through the noise and find the opportunity. That's the key. And that opportunities understand what it is you want to invest in because if you know you want to invest in these stocks, these industries, these things, and then those things go on sale, which you don't want to do is get caught up in the emotion and the noise and then stop buying because you think either markets are going to collapse or you want to perfectly time things. You can buy in phases on the way down, but you have to understand the way it works because yes, there are risks in the economy. There are risks with the national debt. There are risks with geopolitics happening. There are risks with AI slowing down the economy. There are risks with inflation. That doesn't mean we're going to see a recession tomorrow or in 2026 or in 2027. Could it happen? Absolutely, but it doesn't guarantee anything. We don't know. We can't predict when a trigger will happen.
[18:29]So instead of trying to predict when something will happen, instead of trying to be a gambler in the stock market, be a long-term investor. Know what it is that you want to invest in. If you see a buying opportunity, take advantage of it and cut through the noise. That's one of the things I teach in investing Master Class, which is why if you haven't signed up for it yet, please have the link to it down in the description, it's free. Learn how to find opportunities. But the thing here is there's more concerns happening at the Federal Reserve Bank. And that was the original point of this video. I got a little bit sidetracked because I get kind of very emotional when I see how people blindly throw their money to the wrong places and then they say they want to be investor and they become traders. But what the Federal Reserve Bank is doing is we're seeing the biggest descent in the Federal Reserve Bank, which means we have more and more people at the Federal Reserve Bank now not on the same page with everybody else. That's not a normal thing to happen. Again, the last time we saw a descent this big was back in the early 1990s, 1992. Why does that matter? Because now we're seeing more people at the Federal Reserve Bank saying we need to raise interest rates as a way to protect against inflation and to protect the dollar. We're also saying more people saying we need to cut interest rates to stimulate the economy. Well, you can't cut interest rates and raise interest rates at the same time. And the reason why this is creating even more uncertainty today is because we are just days away from our current chairman, Jerome Powell, stepping down. He's still going to be a part of the Federal Reserve Bank for the time being, but stepping down as the chairman and then being replaced by Kevin Warsh, who is a new President Trump appointee. And so we don't know how that is going to change the decisions at the Federal Reserve Bank. Are we going to see more money printing? Are we going to see lower interest rates or are we going to see higher interest rates and money reduction or a combination of the two? Now, we have an idea, and I've made videos talking about what Kevin Warsh has said, what President Trump has said. But if history is any indication of the future, sometimes politicians say things and do something else. I mean, inflation was supposed to be transitory in 2020. When the dollar was taken off of the gold standard in 1971, it was transitory. Here we are 55 years later, and we're still temporarily off of the gold standard. So, what actually matters is actions, not people's words. And that's where Wall Street has a little bit of stress and anxiety because they don't know what's going to happen. Maybe everything's going to be fine. Maybe we're going to see more volatility. But the thing that you want to pay attention to, because we can't predict what's happening with the Federal Reserve Bank. You do want to watch it, but the thing you really want to watch and understand is how long the conflict in the Middle East lasts. Because the longer the conflict in the Middle East lasts, the higher oil prices will go, and the worse inflation will get. I know that's not good news. I don't like to just give bad news, but that's the reality, that if there's higher oil, the cost of living will go up. The cost of gas will go up. Higher inflation generally benefits investors. And so what that means for you is number one, get your money in order because we don't know how long the conflict is going to last in the Middle East. If it goes on for longer, expect higher cost of things for longer, and maybe even more expensive things. Then be in position to capitalize on investment opportunities, meaning have money to invest because geopolitical conflicts create volatility in the markets. Volatility in the markets means markets go down and they go up. When markets go down, know what it is you want to invest in, use it as an opportunity to buy for the long term. We don't know if we're going to enter a recession. We don't know if we're going to enter a market crash. We don't know if markets are going to boom in 2026. Everybody has an opinion, but that doesn't matter. What you want to do, know what you want to invest in, know your strategy, and have the ability to capitalize on opportunities when they come in a way. So, lots of changes happening. The Federal Reserve Bank is now starting to get more divisive. We're going to see a lot of changes come May 15th, once the chairman at the Federal Reserve Bank actually does change. We'll be keeping you posted on Market Briefs and this YouTube channel. But what we know is I've started to see more division at the Federal Reserve Bank. The question will be, will Kevin Warsh create more division or more unity and in what direction will the unity be? Will it be towards more inflation or will it be towards saving the dollar? We'll see what ultimately happens and with that, I will see you on YouTube tomorrow.
[24:26]On May 15th, 2026, the Federal Reserve Bank is going to reset, and most people are not going to hear about it until they feel it in their wallet. What's happening on May 15th? The Chairman at the Federal Reserve Bank is going to change and he has a new plan on how to shrink the debt crisis here in the United States. The only problem is, you cannot fix the problem without the problem.
