Interview With Troy Sharpe

December 30, 2022
What’s Chris Perras’s Stock Talk and News or Noise all about? Whether you’re retired, about to retire, or on the path of accumulating wealth, Stock Talk and News or Noise will help give you perspective on what’s happening in the Market: https://www.youtube.com/@OakHarvestStockTalk

The Interview:

Troy: Troy Sharpe, CEO of Oak Harvest Financial Group, along with Chris Perras, our Chief Investment Officer, and we want to talk to you a little bit today about the origin of the Stock Talk podcast, who it’s designed for, how you can benefit, and why you should listen.

Chris, you’ve been doing the podcast now, first in audio format for going on 4 years, about 3 and a half years now, and we recently switched it over to YouTube. Who’s the podcast meant for and has the audience at all changed over the years?

Chris Perras: Yes, thanks, Troy. The podcast was originally in audio form only, and it was meant to go out to our clients only, and our thoughts were trying to cover material that we thought our clients might be concerned about in the markets, what they were seeing on tv, what they were hearing in the news, and thinking forward about events and times that they might be concerned going forward, so it was meant for clients only. It was distributed to clients only, but it’s morphed over the last 3 and a half, 4 years.
Troy: Our job, first and foremost, is to protect people’s money, but obviously when you invest in the stock market, there’s some volatility and that’s where the financial planning comes in, the income planning, the tax planning, all those aspects, and from a firm standpoint, one of the complaints we hear consistently from new clients that come aboard is my other advisor never reached out to me. My other advisor never talked to me. Our goal with the podcast, originally, was to stay in contact with our clients to help people understand because it’s not realistic to pick up the phone and call 1000 people every single week.
Obviously, we make those calls and we talk to clients, but we felt it was a really really good idea to communicate to people on a weekly basis about what was going on in the market, why we felt things were happening, and it’s really turned into a tremendous tool for us to stay into communication, so has it changed at all as far as now? Obviously there, it’s a wider audience and it’s not just clients receiving the podcast. Is your preparation or the message, has that changed at all?
Chris: Yes, so upwards of a year ago, we started doing YouTube videos, and that’s been very successful as far as our YouTube channel and subscribers. We’ve been trying to target not only our current clients, but future clients, prospects, and anyone who has an interest in the financial markets and might want our opinion and our expertise on what we’re seeing or thinking. It’s definitely changed over time and it may change some more in the future.
Troy: How can a viewer pay attention to the Stock Talk podcast, how can they benefit from tuning in and watching every week?
Chris: Troy, we try to address issues that are relevant that we’re hearing on TV, that we’re reading in newsletters that may be causing concerns with our clients. We’re trying to put ourselves in our clients’ positions about what they’re seeing in the media. In addition, we’re trying to be anticipatory to events that we think they might have stress about in the next 3 to 6 months, whether it is elections or summer slowdowns, or economic events that we know are on the calendar but not many people are talking about yet.
Troy: One of the things that I found very beneficial for clients because we’re all about planning here, but investment planning is part of the overall process. We have the investments, we have income planning, we have tax planning, healthcare, estate planning, but people tend to get more riled up when volatility rears its ugly head like we’re going through currently in the markets.
One of the things that I found very beneficial is being able to stay in contact with our clients on a weekly basis of what you see going on, what you anticipate happening over the next few months.
It really helps people when they look at their portfolio in the context of a broader plan, and what the purpose of those equity investments are inside their portfolio towards the long-term plan.
It really helps them feel, I believe, a bit more calm when things like this take place because they know, “Hey, I can tune in, and listen to Chris’s Podcast either on one of the podcast channels on our website, or go to YouTube, and watch it directly.” What type of feedback have you received from clients and specifically with regard to your Podcast?
Chris: Yes, most everyone has been positive with regards to their comments. We’ve gotten some constructive criticisms that we’ve tried to take into consideration from other people. It’s internet media, so you get some extreme views both ways, but we’re trying to disregard the extremes, and trying to go really towards content that the vast majority of our clients and prospects would be interested in.
Troy: If you do have any questions, now, of course, we can’t create a video about all of them, but if you do have something specific that you feel would benefit many, many people from hearing Chris discuss, you’re comfortable having those comments come in, and then making a video on topic about it, right?
Chris: Yes, for sure. We have actually three touchpoints on a weekly basis with our clients between the YouTube video, we do News or Noise, we do the weekly Stock Talk Podcast, and then we do a Weekend Update on a Monday. We have three touchpoints, and that’s about as many as we can have. Any topic, we might be able to squeeze into any of those three formats.
Troy: How do you come up with content?
Chris: I listen to the TV at all the different TV channels. I read newsletters just like our clients do. We get a lot of research still from sell-side analysts, so I’m just reading constantly and viewing stuff constantly. Most of the time, I’m flipping between Fox News, CNBC, the other financial news networks, and Bloomberg, and trying to listen to what they’re saying and anticipate what our clients might be feeling and thinking.
Troy: Do you find that the various networks the talking points are similar or do you often see a kind of a divergent opinion from the pundits out there? I think a lot of that probably leads to confusion on behalf of the consumer because you are getting bombarded with all of this different information, and for someone who doesn’t have the technical expertise or the financial background or education, it’s hard to really decipher what’s what when it comes to economics and finances, then you have corporate earnings, and economic policy, and government legislation, and it’s a whirlwind of data and information, and that really creates that paralysis by analysis almost, or paralysis by just overload of information. Do you see varying viewpoints across the networks or is it a lot of the same talking points that everyone’s just really espousing from the hilltops?
Chris: It tends to be the same topics, but as we all know that the channels have become increasingly polarized with regards to political opinion. You turn on one channel and they’ll have a conservative view. You turn on another channel, they’ll have a progressive view. The hardest thing is to filter everything and realize that 99% of what they are talking about on any of these channels, it’s not news. It’s not information.
It’s opinion. It’s noise. It’s there to engage you and actually get you emotional to stay on that channel and watch because they’re getting paid by advertising dollars. They’re not getting paid to manage your money, to navigate your financial plan. Their goal is to keep your eyes on their media, whether it’s a TV, or a newsletter, or a radio station as long as possible.
Troy: How I really view how the Stock Talk podcast, and obviously it’s in YouTube form, so not just a podcast, the News or Noise segments, everything that you do, what I believe it’s evolved into is really helping consumers, our clients, prospective clients, and those we’ll never ever talk to understand an objective analysis of what is going on out there so they can hopefully put that noise to the side and really identify in layman’s terms– Well, you do try to do a good job with layman’s terms. What does it mean for you, what does it mean for your portfolio, for your retirement? Is this important? Is this not important? I think that’s what, I think, a lot of the value of the podcast and the videos that you do, I think that’s where it lies.
Chris: We’re trying to filter out the noise and focus on the data that is meaningful to your portfolio, and that doesn’t mean we don’t care about the emotional side of your life but the investment team cares about the financial side of your life and cares about the portfolio. That doesn’t have a political view. It’s about data and it’s about where the economy’s going and our company’s doing better or worse than expected, and can they compound your money at a good rate of return?
Troy: Yes, and you look at these networks and all of them, obviously, they have that political bent to them, but the stock market doesn’t care about the political opinions of people. The stock market cares about corporate profits. Are they growing to discount mechanisms for future cash flows for the various companies within the marketplace? That’s why I think you do a great job, is really kind of helping the viewer or the listener to discern what is important versus what is not.
Ultimately, hopefully, bring some common sense into the frame so people can have a little bit more objective analysis. The goal is to help everyone sleep a little bit better at night in this crazy, crazy world that we live in. Make sure you tune in Fridays at 9:30 AM central for Chris’s Stock Talk podcast. Wednesdays at 3:00 PM Central for the News or Noise segment, which is a fabulous news segment that you’ve been doing over the past several months.
Make sure to subscribe to the channel. Hit that little bell icon so you’ll be notified when Chris releases these videos for you and you can be more connected to your money, a more informed investor, and help cut through that clutter that so much we know is out there.
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