##VIDEO ID:S3caxhi7bvU## we have no old business um uh moving on to new business we'll start with um the St Sterling Capital quarter report from Blake good afternoon everyone good afternoon again my apologies for last quartering snafu I promise that won't happen again I pick up a phone and call PM before I let happen again anytime soon but um yeah I I do have the pleasure of going over the the fiscal year end numbers and and guys it was a really strong finish to the year it was a phenomenal year um really but you could throw a dart at uh at pretty much any stock name in the SMP 500 or Russell 3000 um and you certainly did very very well this this particular quarter um so very happy to see that at least with our piece again you know just for the edification I know um a couple of the trustees are fairly new but um you know sort of the evolution of this plan I know we we've kind of gone into it but we we currently have about 60% of the assets but we manage essentially the uh the domestic us portfolio as well as the fixed income piece and then we've augmented that with um other asset classes sort of either outside of our purview or um that that we've kind of Diversified away from so I I'll Focus my attention on sort of the US markets and fixed income and let Larry sort of round out the other asset classes but at least in those two categories it was phenomenal um if we go over to my material over behind uh I believe it's tab two on page eight and that's yeah the blue book here the slide's titled asset allocation but it's really what I call the scorecard of all the major equity and bond um indexes and how they've performed we've got the equities there at the top of the the chart and then the bottom under the blue line under the fixed income but the Russell 3000 or the broad us Mark Benchmark very strong quarter up a little more than 6% % or 6.23 for the year to date of 9 months ended September up a little more than 205% and for the trailing one year or our fiscal year period through the end of September up over 35% so good strong performance um and really as we continue to look at the various sub sectors of the the equity Market really didn't matter where you were right um obviously we talked a lot about how large growth is kind of led the way and that that certainly can be seen they're the best performer especially over the last year you'll see the fourth row in there the Russell top 200 growth you know good strong uh quarter number about 2.8 for the year up 26 and for the one year up 44 saw a little bit of a rotation into the value style of this last last period if we go up one row you'll see the the largest value oriented companies actually were up a little more than 9% so significantly more than growth during the quarter but for the one-year period um they you can see that really it has been those handful of AI oriented names that have have done particularly well um I'll show you here in a minute our our manager's done a very good job of navigating those Waters and our large cap growth manager is one of the reasons you're going to see some really strong performance when we get to that piece of the the presentation likewise um International actually did very well too um I won't spend a lot of time there since we don't manage that piece of the portfolio but it is good to see that that piece of um the market doing well as well CU as you guys know the US is sort of let us since the since the reopening of the the the global economy after covid it really has been the US it's done significantly better but it's certainly good to see uh International participate as well and then lastly what we've been raised or focused on all year um is what what is the Fed going to do when are they going to start lowering rates we finally got that and we actually got a pleasant surprise in that we got 50 basis points um of a a rate reduction back when they met in September which was a little bit more than we thought I think most folks had 25 basis points as their best guest we've subsequently got another 25 when they met earlier this month um as we look at our crystal ball there's more than uh likely that we'll get another 25 basis points when they meet again next month but then it's but pretty much anybody's guess because we're starting to get some economic data that's sort of a little bit conflicting especially on the inflationary front inflation has proven to be a little more stubborn uh than I think the FED had anticipated the analogy I've heard used a lot it's like the the last mile of a marathon that's kind of where we're at analogous to to where we are in this particular cycle and trying to get interest in inflation down and interest rates to where we want them so again you know Mr pal has done a pretty darn good job in our opinion of of navigating the ups and downs over the last few years so we'll certainly take him at his word when he says you know don't be in a big hurry to to to to lower rates further from here and we've seen the markets and the Futures markets for the first half of next year kind of kind of signaled that as well there were a lot more rate uh decrease is sort of priced in say a month ago or even 6 weeks ago uh as opposed today where there's really only a handful and in some modest reductions expected in the first quarter of next year so we'll obviously continue to monitor that but um at least for this period when rates go down the price of our our current bonds go up and you'll see that reflected in the performance to give you an idea how the broader Market did back on page eight there that first Benchmark under fixed income the Bloomberg aggregate it's kind of our intermediate Target um very strong performance on the back of that that 50 basis point cut up a little more than 5% for the quarter uh which really erased a slight deficit that we we had year to date so we're up about 4 and a half now again we've seen that sort of change a little bit too and we'll talk more about that but um that that index is probably off two two and a half% from these numbers where we sit today so to give you an idea year to date that that aggregate is probably a whole lot closer to 2% than it is that 4 and A2 that I'm showing here U but we again we we'll continue to um watch that and really watch the FED because as we sort of wind out this year and look into next year that really is again I hate to sound like a broken record but that's one of the big unknowns and variables that but we'll be watching very very closely um is how fast and and to what magnitude will the the FED have to you know lower rates or not lower rates or what kind of action we get from a monetary policy perspective I think is really going to go a long way CU otherwise on on the economic front everything's in pretty darn good shape I mean again the old ad is just careful what you wish for if the fed's cutting rates that means maybe the econom is not quite as strong as as we think it is but at least um looking at some of the earnings reports that we've gotten so far this quarter uh it's been pretty strong it's a little bit more mixed and we are starting to see it come down a little bit um as inflation has kind of come down but um again we're still pretty constructive on on on the economic situation and that should bode well for stocks so consequently that's a really long way of saying where we are right now is we're kind of real close to our targets um you know for the last 6 months we've been slightly underweight stocks you'll see that here in a minute and that probably hurt us a little bit on a relative basis relative to our benchmarks and Targets this last quarter U because again stocks did continue to do very very well did better than bonds so the fact that we were slightly underweight a little more conservative hurt us ever so slightly uh but we we're very comfortable with that this is these are pension assets we we really want to monitor the amount of risk we take as well as the return that we get for you and we're very very comfortable um you know showing the kind of numbers you're going to see here in a minute so that's a long way of saying yeah we're really kind of very close to our targets right now because there's nothing that really sticks out that says hey overweight stocks or hey we think this particular asset class is undervalued overvalued um we have some small tweaks and some small bets in the portfolio but nothing uh nothing significant and you'll see the targets are are real close to our 5248 mandate so before I talk about your performance in a little more detail any questions comments thoughts on sort of the bigger picture or what we see happening the housing market seems like an oddball in everything it it has been one of the reasons inflation has been very very sticky to to come down um rates have continued to stay pretty high we've seen that I mean the bump mortgage rates are back up over 7% you know they came down off of those 8% lows in the uh in the summer and we were thinking okay maybe we're starting to get some normalization here and then we saw them bounce right back up um it really is sort of a supply and demand issue at at this point I think a lot of the builders because of the uncertainty over the last couple years have not been building uh permits and building new uh new houses as at a rate that we saw uh previous to to the pandemic candidly um and until we do I mean there's you know just more and more folks looking to uh looking to buy houses so um it it is been one of the variables it's stuff that and wages are the two things I think that are are it's hard to to give a raise back uh so once it's there it's it's stuck right uh I guess you could at least in theory do it but um it's very very difficult to sort of work your way through that uh what we typically see is layoffs and a a full-blown recession but at least the the way the FED has sort of navigated this particular cycle um you know again back in the beginning of the year we were talking are we going to get a hard Landing or a soft Landing well as we sit here in in mid November it's pretty much no Landing I mean they've done a pretty darn good job of you know just sort of gliding us down bringing inflation under control without really uh forcing a recession so we we'll see what happens you know next year but you know there's a lot of unknowns but the the two that we're watching most closely is housing and and wages as far as um kind of getting to that 2% mandate that Mr Palace said he wants long-term inflation to be at um you could argue all day whether that's realistic or not CU even before his time 2% wasn't a real a number longer term 3% is a little closer and that's kind of where we're at today so um but we'll take at his word and say he he he's going to be stubborn and try to get back down to two but uh good luck trying to get that last mile if you will like um is there any discussion in your asset allocation group about small caps because you don't have very much allocated % of the Russell 3000 was in large caps maybe 25 and 15 in midcap and small cap respectively those numbers comeing way down I mean it's more like 64 65% in large caps 8% or you know a little less 12 133% in midcap and then uh instead of being closer to 15 it's closer to 10 so conversely we don't really like the asset class until we get a little bit more clarity we like value a little bit more than growth in those particular sectors um but I think it's sort of a combination of of the two Larry you know small cap makes up a smaller allocation of our targets um and then secondly you know right now we're still comfortable uh with the amount of uncertainty that's still in play we're still comfortable being slightly overweight the quote quote safer large cap names uh and they're more visible uh earnings and there more stability in their their outlooks it might be broken out a little different too in our reports versus yours cuz what we're showing midcap equities that you've got about a 10% alloc a little over 10% allocation to midcap but only a 1.6 to small cap and I'm just wondering if there might be some small caps in that in that midcap portfolio too yeah we can take a look um I should called you on this talk about it but we talk about later but I just curious why because U we and the reason I'm asking I don't mean to interrupt your presentation but we we think that especially post election here that if tariffs go in place if tax cuts stay in place those are uh pretty good advantages for small caps and from valuation perspective small caps are pretty attractive so um you know they're very attractive relative to large caps from evaluation point that doesn't mean they've been that way for quite a while unfortunately but um so that's why I was asking we've had a little bit more Focus yeah and that sort of certainly led to to why there a smaller piece of the you know the Russell 3 I think the other thing too Larry again when we're 60% you know we've got about at least my report showing you know closer to 10 102% in midcap and 2 and 1/2% in small cap which isn't that much less than what's currently in um in the Russell 3000 okay but again when we overlay our 60% % on the entire portfolio that's when you get down still show 10.6 in midcap okay so yeah that's a yeah maybe you got some exposure you know to some other than large cap I just was the small cap just stood out to me it was very low and I don't even know what your guys Define a small cap so yeah probably you know under two billion would would be my guess if we had to throw a number on the market doubled so yeah it's probably pretty smaller but I've had a couple managers come to me and want the capitalization restriction in the investment policy raised to because the market double just let them run a little bit get up to 15 or so it used to Forever in a day as you know it was 1 to 10 right and then you're right I mean small cap is probably closer to 15 billion now but um again I I'll go back and ask a question and and see where we are Larry I don't know exactly you know um uh we meet every month and and and set that asset allocation and um again I know we're slightly overweight small value relative to The Benchmark slightly underweight small growth but pretty much in line I think with the overall waiting but I'll ask him if you know in their opinion great so it's not like yeah haven't missed anything yet some of these numbers are just maybe this quarter it would have been good to have a little bit more small cap but good number at at least from November 6th on certainly would probably would have helped I don't know October it probably hurt a little bit but sorry for Interruption no no worries I love the question and and and I'll get with you you know offline and and see exactly what our strategy is there um so any other questions comments on sort of the bigger picture before we talk about how you did okay then let's talk about what's most important and that starts on the next tab over on page 22 um again we got the cash flows for the various periods I'll just concentrate on the the second and third column there which are the quarter in the year to date um we came into the quarter at 20.3 million had just under a half a million dollars of dist net distributions 480,000 in change to be specific add the income to the capital appreciations and net out some fees and we were at just under 21 million with our piece of the portfolio or 2,927 and then sliding over for the fiscal year we go from about just under 18.2 million up to that 2.9 Million so good solid appreciation in dollar terms over the last year so uh again just Phenom it's been a phenomenal year over on the next page we kind of put some some percentages to those dollars so for the quarter you can see we were uh in the middle of the page there the trailing portfolio returns we were up about 1.6 for the month slightly behind our Blended Benchmark same is true for the quarter up almost 52% but that was again still slightly behind our Target and then for the fiscal year up over 21% while the the Blended Benchmark was closer to 232 again never like to see any underperformance relative to our benchmarks but again guys we did not come into this period thinking uh that we were going to see 35% returns out of stocks consequently we've been a little bit more conservative our managers within our allocations are a little bit more conservative so if I'm doing the math right that at 21% out of 23 and a half is 90 91% of The Upside and that's pretty uh pretty good uh from our perspective effective we certainly would like to show you more but um sort of the trade-off for that is when things go bad uh we don't want to show you 100% of the downside uh we'd love to come back and only show you 80 85% of the downside so um with that um the two and a half years or so since we transitioned from truus over to Sterling you can see the portfolio is really right on top of the Benchmark there at 605 and 6.17 um looking down at the the the the stock and bond returns at the bottom table it really has been the equities that didn't keep up um again nobody's I'm not complaining with a 31% return but again when the market was up closer to 35 uh we certainly um uh we'll take 31% out of the stocks um but recognize that that's a little bit less than the index U but the bond portfolio held up very well we were right on top of uh our targets for the quarter and still ahead for the uh fiscal year one year um as well as the the Inception period since we moved over to Sterling so as always guys there's a lot more detail in my report that gets into you know how did small cap growth do how did small cap value large cap this large cap that how every one of the little pieces do relative to their uh universes and Target benchmarks uh suffice it to say you know we've had some winners and some losers um the best is probably if if we slide over a couple of pages over to page I believe it's 26 this is where we get into all of the the detail of the individual pieces um but you know the primary reason um we were a little bit soft on this quarter was large cap value and the two midcap funds were a little bit below their benchmarks that was somewhat upset by that large cap growth manager that continues to do very well in his space u but again all in all it gave us that 31% return out of stocks um again moving back one page I'll finish up here is is our Target allocation um as noted earlier um I said that we're real close to our targets uh this was a snapshot at the end of September we still were slightly underweight stocks so you'll see we only had about 51.3 51.4 in stocks versus our Target of 52 as we sit here today that number is a lot closer to 53 because we rebalanced in the first week of October back to 52 and then we've had that run up that uh since the uh uh since the results of the election earlier this month it was added another percent or so so um again all in all guys just a phenomenal period uh both stocks and B months um really were up double digits over the last year um the plan was up significantly again we left maybe a little bit on the table compared to what what some of the indexes might have given us but again this portfolio is not designed to outperform in that kind of environment so we'll certainly take our uh our 31% return out of stocks and call that a darn good year so with that any questions comments thoughts seems great we get a lot of that this quarter it's hard to hard to find fault when the Market's up this over 21 your plan's up 21% and you know you got a 6040 allocation a lot of folks are pretty darn happy including actuaries and people that have to fund all of these Municipal pensions uh they're they're all in pretty good moods these days a pendulum will swing well thank you guys very much as always we appreciate your business thank you thank you for the report okay so the next item for new business is the bers bures chambers report all righty uh let's see why don't we start we can start on page three of my report I don't want to repeat a lot of what Blake covered on the overall Market just point out on the top of that page there was a big rotation in the third quarter uh from uh the growth oriented mag 7 tech stocks for the S&P 493 I guess would be the way I'd put it there was a nice rotation I think IID mentioned you know it's very hard to keep up with these benchmarks when they were so dominated and so concentrated in in just a few names so uh if it broadened out I thought you would do better it did and you got some good numbers uh the other thing that you can see on the top of that chart the very first two columns the S&P was up 5.9 small caps though that's what the Russell 2000 Index is that's small companies smaller companies were up 9.3 that's kind of way overdue in terms of them coming back as I said from valuation perspective they're very cheap but they've been cheap for quite a while so that doesn't mean they won't stay cheap but I do think there is a catalyst for them to come back a little bit more with uh with the results of the election because they did run on a platform of less regulation and progrowth and lower taxes so uh the Market's like that for the standpoint of small caps so um if if they're able to get any of that through it probably will help small businesses more so than the larger so maybe we'll see a little bit of Catalyst for them to catch up from some underperformance over the last few years uh in the quarter of the main events really one of them that didn't really get much pressed was the stimulus program that the Chinese put in in their economy and that will flow through but they put in a I think it was 1.4 1.5 trillion dollar stimulus program try and get their economy U beefed up just a little bit and uh that if they're successful there that'll we'll probably feel it here a little bit uh the other was for the longest time I think the Fed was holding off inflation was coming down but the one it wasn't where they wanted it to be and the one thing that I think was really holding them back was the labor market the labor market was still very very strong and I didn't think they wanted lower rates in that kind of an environment sure enough we started to see labor markets softening in the in the third quarter and and when that data came out they were a little more inclined to lower rates and obviously they did by 50 basis points instead of 25 so when they did really all rates came down short-term longterm intermediate came down some the fed really only controls the short term but it did Drive Long intermediate and longterm down in the short run that's turned around though and come back up cuz the 10year treasury went I think it got as low as about 3.6 it's now back up to about 4.4 80 basis points you know a little less than 1% not a lot but on an absolute basis but percentage wise it's a pretty high jump back up and now if you go to the yield curve in the yield curve you know is looking at 3mon yields all the way out to 30 y 30-year yields it's pretty flat flat it's almost all in the anywhere from 43 to 46 uh in the government market so it's actually higher in the 30-day I think that's about 46 maybe 47 in the very very short end it goes down a little bit to the 2year and then it's pretty flat all the way out at about you know anywhere from 43 to 45 something like that so very flat yield curve um I'd say it's 50/50 now based on some of the inflation data that's come out recently 50/50 whether they lower rates another quarter B you know quarter percent this year uh they I feel like they kind of back themselves into a corner to do it because they sort of LED you to believe they're going to but the data then comes out with the CPI and the uh pce some of these numbers that are coming in are a little higher I think a little hotter than they expected so they may hold off we'll see but either way you know you're well Diversified either way it's not I don't think it's going to really hit kill the uh kill the equity markets the one the Big Black Swan out there in the equity markets right now in my opinion is what Russia is going to do in Ukraine uh they they kind of tick Putin off here and he's launching some um you know different bigger missiles and he's uh CH you probably saw in the news he changed his uh rules for launching nukes and that sort of thing so you know we just got to pray we don't see a nuclear attack anywhere but it it seems like it's getting more likely every day so that happens you never know what the markets will do then I think all bets are off um the next page is on page four and I report is kind of some of the same data Blake covered also but just a different format but because we did see rates drop during the quarter you got a nice bounce in bonds because remember if the rates come down the market value of your current Holdings go up in the bond portfolio so you had Bond returns over 5% just for the quarter so since that time given some back as Blake pointed out so cuz rates have ticked back up a little bit but um all in all was just it was hard not to make money in the last quarter everything was kind of up so we we like those quarters kind of nice to have this was your fiscal year end so um It's always important there um to make sure there's no policy violations now performance under performance of certain categories is not a policy violation the only things I've highlighted on page six out of the policy is be the last three if any of those were out of compliance we'd have to change them we didn't identify any policy issues during the quarter you usually do not have any and and we didn't see any this time either so that's good especially good fiscal year end when you got a lot of special reporting to do and all so uh your asset allocation is on page six bro or page eight excuse me broken down a little bit different than the way Blake does his it includes the asset classes International convertibles real estate and um and some of the cash there so I I'm not going to recommend any rebalancing right now I think you're you're very well Diversified some of those that look like they're way underweighted like large cap value and large cap growth you're really not underweighted that much if you look at midcap or large cap core which has both in it growth and value so it's just the way they've structured their portfolio it kind of comes out a little different so uh the equities are pretty much in line you're overweighted in midcap but underweighted in small cap so if you kind of add them together you're just slightly overweighted in the mid and small so we kind of like that uh allocation right now for the reasons I mentioned before um since the election so um your returns total portfolio returns jump to page 11 and uh as Blake pointed out about 60% of the portfolio is is under uh Sterling's discretion uh the rest is UN well it's all under your discretion ultimately but they have discretion of 60% of the portfolio the other 40 are are asset classes that they either don't have don't don't manage internally or you know that we've recommended for whatever reason to go outside of of the Sterling or the old truest U setup so um so just look at the quarter for a minute the quarter up 6.1% that's not annualized that's an actual quarter return little below the target but still a very good quarter you see value was if the reason we underperformed was the value portion underperforming that Benchmark we haven't said that in a long time uh it's usually the growth portion that was struggling to keep up with benchmarks sometimes but you can see just slight underperformance there um and go down the page it was interesting that b basically all these asset classes for the quarter and for the fiscal year did very well but typically the more Diversified you were the more it hurt you not helped you for the year and I'll point that out by showing you the one-year number was 21.4 you can see that growth and value 20 41.1 for growth large cap growth grow and 24.8 for large cap value and you kind of average that out you know you're in the 30% plus range well and that's what large cap core you see 36% well midcap did 24 any I'd take that any year sign off on it in a heartbeat but that was below what the large caps did so that diversification you could say hurt you small caps 20.7 again I'd sign off on that right now for the next fiscal year but that was below the others and even convertibles 15.8 convertibles are a conservative asset class they're usually going to give you somewhere I would say usually between 6 and 8% per year they had a great year but you know kind of pulled you down relative to large caps uh infrastructures defensive play infrastructure are companies that will benefit from infrastructure spending on airports utilities um you know toll roads uh those kinds of things and typically they pay a little higher dividend and are a little more defensive well well they were only up 26.7% for the year so you know crazy year Crazy Good Year real estate your real estate is even up you had the reats instead of direct real estate direct real estate was negative for the quarter your reats were positive because they are stocks and that that kind of lifted them up a little bit and then bonds up 12% for the fiscal year so I think the the real takeaway from this page is you had a 21% plus fisal year uh we'll take those your actuary is going to love that you know that they spread that out over a period of time I think it's four years here maybe five I can't remember if we have 5 year or four year smoothing here might be five anyway they spread that gain out just like they spread the losses out but it's a great year and uh we we' love to see that number all the funds are listed on page 13 I think Blake covered most of those because they're in his portfolio but had some international funds that uh were up 25% as I said the infrastructure was up pretty strong so you've got a very Diversified portfolio that I think uh has served you well and continues to serve you well I'll kind of wrap up maybe on page 17 you know things got crazy at Co is about I think what this chart tells me uh when you look at the fiscal year these are your fiscal year end returns dating all the way back to 2005 so we just completed the 2024 fiscal year end you can see you know I won't say steady but reasonably steady up until 2021 you're up 21.7 then you're down 18 then you're up 11 now we're up 21 um I think we're still seeing effects of covid in some cases uh supply chain issues maybe uh inflation certainly was I think spurred by Co and um or maybe the coming out of covid is a better way to put that and um you know I just hope in the next I don't know maybe it's this Administration next term whatever that we see a little bit more stability in markets as much as I love the 21% return you know I don't want to see a minus 21 next year and um you know with puton sitting over there with his fireworks ready to go I'm I'm concerned that could happen but you know I think the odds of that are low fortunately but um either way that's why we stay Diversified and try to protect the portfolio as Blake pointed out you know our our job really is to help you get to the Assumption rate that the actuary is using which is it seven or S and a half seven and a half seven and a half try to long-term make that return annualized and do so with as little risk as possible and that's uh you know that's how you've been structured and you've weathered a couple pretty bad storms pretty good so I think we're we're in good shape so I don't know why I feel like I was gloom and doom but the reality is you had a great fiscal year and I want you to walk out of here thinking that smiling because you did have a good fiscal year I just there's a lot of things out there on the horizon that have me a little nervous right now not not the least of us is valuations in the stock market right now period they're high they're very high and if rates start to tick back up significantly that's going to be a real uh dead weight on stocks but I don't anticipate that happening but um but it could any questions disagreements I have a question yeah the what's in Sterling and what's in you is that combined total or is that two separate Sterling's report Sterling's numbers are Incorporated in my numbers okay that's what I thought that's what I thought my numbers are the total Port total you add them to together okay mine are the total portfolio like you see the market I should have covered that but like on page seven the market value is 34,200 th000 right so we're back up over 34 million cuz I thought one of you said one time and I could be wrong if this ever got to 40 it would supposedly be funded in perpetuity that would probably be in the actuary might have said something about that um maybe the somebody the actuary kind of works in those kind that kind of language um I mean things can change of course but that's I remember somebody said that I thought that has to do with your funded ratios and they they have that kind of data you know that tells everything you know and they have all these assumptions they make right the ACT assum turnover pay raises I don't know disabilities I think they put a lot of assumptions in there and one of those assumptions one of the major ones is the earnings that the plan is going to make each year yeah and that earnings rate as as Pam said I think it's s and a half it's EI almost every plan I work with somewhere between seven and 7 3/4 now or actually 6 and 3/4 and 7 and 3/4 probably now so you know that's what we focus on obviously is getting you those returns as as as stable as stably is that a word as stably as we can um and uh yeah he would be the person to probably say a comment like that now you say that that I do remember I think that's where it came from We're get you know we're working there that's for sure um I think we had we we were over 30 we had cupcakes or whatever drop down then we went up again so we had another round of snacks so I guess maybe at 35 million I'll bring in some cookies or something yeah celebrate the plan the that's great idea yeah after today oh yeah actually probably are pretty close5 we probably are as we said here today we got yeah we got a there's a lot to go before the quarter is over but yeah um and the numbers coming out are so conflicting you know like Nvidia released their earnings last night their earnings were fantastic and they grew them by 97% from last year but their previous previous year it was 200% so they said so they got knocked down a little bit but then it was back up last I looked I don't know where it is where it is now I didn't see it today I did see it traed off on the number though but uh when I say conf I was thinking yesterday Walmart came out great earnings things are really hopping there Target came out lost 30% of their value yesterday because they they missed their target so far now you think Target and Walmart and what the Target CEO is saying that number one they went after they they were anticipating that strike the uh the dock strike would last longer so they build up their inventories rather substantially so they're sitting on a bunch of inventory they're also saying that the Shopper today's Shopper is being much more um I don't know Frugal and that he's admitting that a lot of his customers have now jumped over to Walmart for slightly lower prices I've heard Walmart is redesigning things at their stores to make them I don't know what the right word is uh I tell you what they've done better better quality supposedly I agree on their and I think they've kind of upped their game giving people what people want Target is not call T had this like cach it was above Walmart not anymore stuff at Walmart is every buity home goods and the clothing and that kind of stuff so they're getting a lot more you know 100,000 plus incomes are Shing yeah that's the news that was out yesterday the big take the big takeaway was uh people with average incomes over 100,000 or over were shopping at Walmart a lot higher percentage we shopping at the other other number that came out yesterday I don't if this William they killed it so it's not everywhere Walmart andam that's what I saying it's conflicting does make sense when I say there's conflicting information out there the other thing though that Walmart's done really well and and their management is fantastic is their e-commerce CU everybody thought that Amazon was going to put them out of business because they weren't doing you know doing online business that's changed and they are one of the bigger online shippers now groceries and everything else they Distribution Center so they that's right all the infrastructure in place and that has really kept them in the game really kept them in the game so thank you yeah it's a great company my question remember when they started well not started but like 20 years ago was all they were made in USA theme W well do you know what I heard the CEO that I would have thought that they that I still thought my impression was that probably 7 80% of their merchandise is made in China right yeah the CEO was on I happened to hear him yesterday on Fox Business News Channel and he said that it was uh they're down to less than 20% of their goods are are made overseas 80% of the goods they sell are actually made in the USA take away groceries I don't believe it he he said including that it's impossible groceries if you remove groceries there's no way 20% swear he said he said 8 I believe he heard it but that's well I don't know for sure maybe I missed that part if they sold it out but he said 80% everything you pick up on the Shelf is Asian 80% he said yesterday was was us that they are they have transformed that over the last several years intentionally yeah uh they don't want to be relying on that's good so yeah going by way he said I assume he can't say that on you know if he's he was a CFO not the CEO CFO he said something like that and it wasn't true he's he's in the ringer with the SEC yeah but I might have missed the part you know whether somebody said ex groceries or something like that possibly missed that targets groceries are killing them nobody uses it I that's an opinion sorry yeah they right anyway good year so hopefully we'll get another off to a good start for your 2025 fiscal year as we sit here today so okay can't go up forever but we'll take it while well it does right okay so we do have the informational item not sure who it's in the it's in the packet it's a um sug susin brazwell Herrera legislative 24 it's pretty much saying that um it's could signed off that we won't do any human trafficking affidavit and it was all sent off back to uh sugar it's just informational that it was completed yeah and the next quarterly meeting is February 20th 2025 and and any more comments suggestions anything be the we will definitely let you know for sure um I was telling everybody as soon as I find out I'll let you know right about when we should be moving or so they say all right so meetings adjourned e