2/13/25 Getting Down to Business with Sherri Horn-Bunk of Taft College Foundation

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Thursday, February 13th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement Guest: Dr. Sherri Horn-Bunk, xecutive Director, Taft College Foundation and Institutional Advancement website: www.taftcollege.edu/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me?

• 0:30Speaker 02

  Securities offered through S E F Securities, Inc., member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through S E F Investment Advisors, Inc. S E F Securities, Inc. and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  Let's get the Money Wise Show started today. It's Thursday, it's raining, and we're here. We're here for you, we're here for our listeners, we're here for our clients. Thank you for making the Money Wise Show what it is today. We are live from the padded, or excuse me, the Gerald Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway. We are on ESPN, 1230 AM, 101.1 FM, local source for all things financial, financial planning,

• 1:16Speaker 03

  trying to help all listeners become money wise, connect with our clients, whatever we can do. And you can always go back and stream all the podcasts at MoneyWiseGuys.com. Check those out and then you can listen at your leisure, at your own pace. We definitely had a little Kramer-esque back in the day when we would give the numbers. There was hoots and hollers and horns and Steven was over there, you know, pulling levers like he was on that organ, you know, with all the different whistles, depending on whether we're talking about hillbilly gold or whatever it was. But, but yeah, let's, let's get into it a little bit. We are, we're, we're money wise, we're a local financial planning firm, but we also

• 1:59Speaker 03

  try to bring this podcast to educate listeners, talk about local financial issues and obviously broad markets and even the world as well. We have entered into a new world here in 2025. We have President Donald Trump, we have a new governmental agency called Doge, making everybody wonder what's going on. Bitcoin has got even more. I guess fire behind it because he's talking about it and you even have companies like GameStop, which we have talked a lot about here on this podcast radio show for a long time. It was one of the ones, it was a meme stock back in the day that a lot of people were shorting it, which means there was a lot

• 2:40Speaker 03

  of people betting it was going to go down. So a big group of, you know, online folks all banded together and started buying it. Well, GameStop started to go up in value, which means if you're betting on it going down, what do you have to do if you don't want to lose a bunch of money? You gotta keep betting that it's going to go down. And they kept putting money on it and having it going up, up, up, up, up. And a lot of folks lost a lot of money. I think I've even heard Mr. Michael Jordan had a big chunk of his wealth go away. But GameStop now is talking about adding cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin into their ledger as a publicly traded company, which means you would be investing in GameStop, you know, and everybody I think kind of knows what GameStop is,

• 3:24Speaker 03

  is where you can go buy maybe used consoles or do they sell new stuff?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  It's a little bit of everything.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  A little everything?

• 3:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  It's where you take your two-year-old football game that's completely worthless?

• 3:35Speaker 00

  And get $6 in credit?

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Get $6 in credit and say, spend that money here and then you go spend $65 on the new one, which actually I'm not a gamer. I dabbled in it here and there, but I will say as a avid Supercross dirt bike rider, I would love to get a new console and ride the, or try out the new Supercross game that they're, they seem to be putting some money into it and I've heard it's pretty amazing. But I would actually rather just use somebody else's. So if you have one, keep me from having to buy something that's going to sit there on the desk and collect dust. So anyways, definitely not, you know, obviously sitting here talking about Bitcoin, it just has, there's a big buzz around it. I mean, people that, you know, a year ago would be like, I'd

• 4:18Speaker 03

  never touch it and this and that. You have the president talking about it. You have GameStop coming out and saying they're considering putting some of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies on their ledger, like I said, which means, you know, if obviously if you own GameStop then and GameStop went up, you would get to participate with a little bit of what Bitcoin was doing just by buying GameStop stock. GameStop is one of those.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Stocks, though, that is like so volatile. I mean, even then, it's a company. And then you talk about Bitcoin and how volatile it is. And it's not a company. It doesn't have revenue or dividends or anything under its ledger. So it's a pretty wild phenomenon to be discussing. By the way, I'm sitting here chatting away, Stephen. You didn't wake me up here. I got a wonderful host. Who are we talking to over here?

• 5:06Speaker 04

  Seth Perry. Thank you.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Mr. Seth Perry.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Oh, he is there.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  I was starting to get a little tender over here.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was wondering why he's crying. I'm like, why is Seth crying?

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Why is he reaching for the tissues so early?

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wanted to just mention in on the crypto. I consider myself, I guess, average intelligence and I've tried read multiple articles to try to understand exactly how Bitcoin works and the blockchain and all of those different things. And it's it's very difficult. And that's one thing that, that, you know, investors do need to be aware of is, is there's nothing really backing it other than itself, you know, and that's, that's why traditional stocks and equities are, are nice. You know, you can see the company, you can buy their products, you can walk into Walmart, you know, and so it's yeah, that's just something interesting. And then what, tell me about Trump coin.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Trump coin.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  I think Trump launched his own.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think he did. And I told you, I listened to a podcast the other day where it was a group of guys talking about this. And one of the interesting things about it, I don't know if I've talked to you about this, I've mentioned it to a few folks, but this guy was talking about it in the sense that if somebody starts a coin based on their name, basically, it's a way to monetize your social relevance or popularity. Right? Like, hey, I'm a, I think I'm a pretty good, I mean, and apparently I think President Trump thinks a little highly of himself. Like, you know, mattresses, hotels, you know, board games, what else has had Trump's name on it? So say what you will about that. I mean, he obviously has had success in a lot of ways, but long story short,

• 6:48Speaker 03

  it would make sense then if somebody like Trump loves putting his name and his brand on things. Well, you have a Trump coin. Basically, what you're saying is if I continue to be popular and relevant, my Trump coin should go up over the next 10 years because people are going to be willing to throw a little money at it and want to participate with my relevance, basically. And if you, if you think about it, at the end of the day, that's almost what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is like this new currency, younger folks are really into it and kind of, you know, the vibe is like, oh, well, you know, we have, uh, you know, the, the dollar's not backed by anything or it's like, well, it's backed by the, you know, taxing authority of one of the most successful countries in the history of mankind. So I think that it's a large stretch to say that our fiat dollar is backed by nothing.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  I understand the sentiment and some of the concerns and obviously when we're devaluing it, people are concerned about that. So there's a lot of chatter in this realm. Um, like you said, you know, like people that don't really understand it or maybe think they understand a little bit. Uh, it's just a wild, wild time and I will say, you gotta be careful. You know, I've seen people that have taken a little bit of money and it became a lot. I've seen people that took a lot of money, it became a little. I've seen all things in between. Um, I always tell people like, the thing that breaks my heart is when I sit down with a, you know, a grandma or a grandpa who put 15 or 20 grand into it because their grandson told them about it and it drops 75% like it did at one point. And then they're freaking out. They feel like they made the biggest mistake in the world. And then what do you tell an 80-year-old? Oh, keep holding on to it. It's going to come up. Well, I don't know.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  I mean, you don't know whether or not it's going to come up because there's not a real, real way to value it. I think some of the bigger proponents of it are using certain parameters as far as if people adopt it, if more people start to use it. Um, there's a couple of countries that are kind of using it as their currency, which would make sense if you have a foreign government that can't value or keep their, their, their currency, you know, under value, you know, that's why they would use the US dollar. Obviously they're tempted to maybe try something else if the United States is devaluing its dollar at a too rapid of a rate, which you know, love it or hate it, some of the things going on right now, they're kind of trying to address some of this stuff.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Let's, let's change spending habits. Let's, let's go through, uh, the books and see where money's being spent and, uh,

• 9:05Speaker 04

  No, I disagree with you, Chris. The last time I was at the DMV, it was arguably the most efficient. You know, wonderful place and everyone was just very happy.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  You know what? I will say this. I will say this because I know you're being sarcastic, but check this out. DMV for the first time, I've, I've rode dirt bikes and had off-road vehicles and stuff for years and years and years. And I, I have multiple times felt like I'm still in the seventies. Like I'm surprised when you went in, you didn't get like the paper that has like three differently, has a yellow and then it has black at the bottom and then they give you your pink one. And then three days later, you can't even see what's on that. Like we're not far off from that. But I don't know if you guys knew this, but California DMV right now, they have a garage. And you can go into your profile online and you can put all your cars in your garage. And it, it's actually much easier to manage all your DMV.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Headaches.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Very cool.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Right? And especially for somebody, if you have like two or three dirt bikes or quads or whatever, like it's kind of a mess to try to keep track of all that stuff. So anyways, kudos to California for, for that probably cost 75 trillion dollars to add that.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  I'll actually be at the DMV in the morning. So that's, that's why it's fresh on my mind.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Again, you gotta use.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  Fresh on my mind.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to time you.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. So there you go. So markets, uh, markets are kind of reacting to some of the things going on. Like I said, you know, Elon Musk is, is stirring up waves. Some love it, some hate it. And, uh, you know, it's just an interesting time. The one thing I say, the, the, the thing that the market doesn't like is uncertainty, you know, uh, love or hate our, our, our system a year ago, it was kind of like the same thing. No matter who was in the White House to an extent. So what I do tell people right now is there could be some volatility with things going on, even if some of the things going on could ultimately really help our economy, um, and help our, uh, financial, uh, status as a country. Not knowing kind of how much things are going to be shaken up and those kinds of

• 11:11Speaker 03

  things, it creates uncertainty. So, big investors, big money managers, I don't necessarily want to put a bunch of money to work when I'm uncertain about some of the things going on. So, but for most of us, regular investors, putting money into our retirement accounts, making regular contributions to our investment strategies, I would say business as usual, right? You know, make sure you have a good mix that makes sense for your situation, focus on your goals and keep going.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, when, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of clients asking about the tariffs and that's kind of a buzzword in the news and, and, you know, just to look back in history, I know looking back in history can't always predict exactly what's going to happen, but it does bring me as an advisor and having my own money invested, it brings some comfort knowing there's always a lot of volatility around these tariffs. This isn't the first time this has happened. I think everything is kind of amplified because it's Trump. Now, he is doing some radical things, Doge, Elon Musk, but, you know, I think, you know, there might be a little too much hype and, and lord willing, things will smooth out.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  There you go. There you go. With all that being said, if you kind of want to know what's going on in the markets, S and P 500 up about 1%, it's at 6,115. NASDAQ is at 19,945. That's about a percent and a half move positive. The Dow Jones, which we love to call the dumb Dow, 30 companies, price weighted, and so it, it kind of can be skewed by just a few of the bigger stocks in that index, only 30 of them, but it is at 44,711. It's been around a long, long time. Some people love the Dow just because it's been around so long and there's parts of it, like the Caterpillar and some of those different things and they, they assume if Caterpillar's going up, earth's going to be moved, things

• 12:56Speaker 03

  must be moving in the right direction. So, that kind of teaches you a little bit about the index that is the Dow Jones index. It's up about 0.7%. Even commodities are moving in a positive direction. Oil, natural gas, gold, silver, wheat, copper, everything's moving in the, they should start putting eggs over here on the commodities.

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  I talked about it with Scott Cox the other day where it's doubled. It's more than doubled. I think it was 288 a year ago and I think right now average is like over $7 for a dozen eggs.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  We had a listener asking if, uh...

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Even if eggs get back in, you know, we get back into regular count, is this going to be the normal price moving forward?

• 13:38Speaker 03

  On the eggs?

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, obviously you're hoping that it's it's some sort of bird flu or some sort of transportation issue that for a short time has has driven prices up. Um, it might also be the fact that everybody that's going into Costco right now is buying 75 cartons of them.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  Now, I've heard a rumor, again, not to stir the rumor mill.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  What are we doing here?

• 13:59Speaker 04

  But I've heard there is now, during this shortage, Mr. Gates, Mr. Bill Gates, has released the first, um, basically human-made synthetic chicken meat.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  So I might need to, I'm going to get the back office to investigate this.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  Call my team.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  We're going to do a taste party here at Money Wise?

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Potentially.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  We'll try some.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Potentially.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Look, Steven's all excited over there.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  I'm out on that one.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  We've been a lot of different tastings, but not this one.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  Just to speak on the market too, you know, looking at the, the S and P 500, the broader look at the market, the 500 largest companies trading in the U.S. What would you say, without cheating, the return over the last five years?

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Uh, 80, 89, 75.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  You're right there, man. 80.9%.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  Look at that. Why'd I change it?

• 14:52Speaker 04

  80.9%.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  There you go. 80.9. And I figured it was up there, but you kind of gave me a look like, whoa, it's like way, am I way off?

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Oh, you're good, man.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  There's no way off. Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I always, I always like to do that, by the way, too, because some people are like, do you think the market's going to go down? I'm like, well, the last five years, it's up 80%. So I'm not saying that a crash is, you know, around the corner, but it's one of those things where you have to understand why you stay disciplined, why you stay in your investment strategies. I, I also try to, I, I want to encourage people as much as possible, try to identify the parts of your account that are for growth. Cause it like, you know, sometimes we like, look at our account and we kind of like gloss over like what's what and it's like, this is my growth bucket. It's okay that it fluctuates a little bit more. And if I stick with this strategy, you're going to blink like we all do, like we all understand five years passes by, it's most likely going to be your top producer.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  I mean, seven year periods for the S and P 500 are very, very impressive. And if it's money that you're planning on not touching for seven, 10, 15 years, I'm not saying that you still can't be concerned about what's going on in the market, but you can almost kind of set it aside and then focus on your short-term goals. What do I need in the near to future? Like, maybe I'm going to invest that differently. Right now, you have some fixed rates that are more attractive because interest rates have gone up. Downside is eggs are $7, but Fed's raised up interest rates to try to slow inflation down. You're now making two, three, four, five percent in some of your cash options at the bank. So you can always kind of make disciplined decisions and kind of navigate through what's

• 16:29Speaker 03

  going on. But I far too often see people so scared of losing value in their account, sometimes not realizing maybe your account's up 60% or 50% over the last four or five years. So if it comes down 10%, it's not now that your financial plan has been blown out of the water. So trying to understand as much as possible, your time horizon, your risk level, what parts of your account are going to behave certain times, you know, certain ways. So then hopefully you can go into all market activities with peace of mind. And I'm not saying I don't, you know, freak out when I see my account go down or whatever, but it's like, you know, especially staring at it for 20 years, you kind of go, okay,

• 17:11Speaker 03

  it's doing what it's supposed to do. I don't need any of this money right now. I'm going to keep going with my strategy and it works out. So. Do we have time to take a break, mister?

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Yes, sir.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  All right, Stephen, we're going to take a break real quick. We are going to be joined today by, uh, some people don't know this. I don't know if I can claim it as my alma mater because I did not graduate from Taft College, but my college tenure did begin at beautiful Taft College.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  Lots of wonderful, wonderful hours.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  Cougars, right?

• 17:38Speaker 03

  On the beautiful road. Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Cougars.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  I was looking for cougars.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Okay. All right. We're going to take a break. When we get back, we are, uh, going to talk about a few more items and then we are going to be joined, uh, regarding the, uh, by Dr. Hornbunk, who is, uh, with Taft College. So we'll be back in a second.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the Money Wise office at 661-847-1000 or email [email protected] for more information.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Welcome back. This is the Money Wise Show. I was a little long-winded. It got all fired up about all the stuff going on, but, uh, like I said, we are going to be joined here in a little bit by Dr. Sherry Hornbunk, who is the Executive Director of Taft College Foundation and Institutional Advancement. Uh, we had a couple of comments come in about our, uh, roaring kitty, which I'll explain who that is in a second.

• 18:36Speaker 04

  Please.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Because when I started talking about GameStop, he is the gentleman that kind of started the whole online discussion on this. He actually was a licensed advisor, so he got a little bit in trouble. He actually had to go and talk in front of the Senate, um, and, and kind of explain why he, why he was, uh, convincing a bunch of people to throw money at, at what appeared to be a stock that was tanking. And so it was pretty funny to watch him like talking to, you know, the Senate or the Congress or whoever he's talking to. And he's like, yeah, you know, I really thought that, you know, like, uh, used video sales was going to really take off, but it was like, they were much more just manipulating, um, kind of, kind of this, the system. But to an extent, that's a risk you take when you're short a stock. You're thinking it's going to go down. If a bunch of people think it's going to go up

• 19:20Speaker 03

  and buy, you're going to either have to fill your position or, uh, keep, keep going with, with, uh, you're going to keep betting on it, right? And, and obviously. You can lose. So he did say, is that kitty guy still getting trends online for game stock? Who you're talking about is Keith Gill, Keith Patrick Gill. He was born in 1986. He's a financial marketer and educator. I don't think he's licensed anymore. He might have just went full on. You know, kind of ran with his success that he got from posting and subreddits. The most popular one was called Wall Street Bets. Another one was called Super Stonk. So, you know, pretty wild.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  What he did, but he was the one that was kind of saying, you know, if we keep buying, you know, and this is what's going to happen. And so I don't know if he's still doing it. I imagine, I imagine everybody wants to repeat some of that because there were some folks that threw a little bit of money at that. And made a lot of money because, because of them having to close their positions or, or, or, you know, continue on betting that it's going to go down. And eventually you sell at a huge loss. And then that's when people that are doing that make a big chunk.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  So yeah, on, on kind of the same topic, but not really at all. Um, when we were talking about the Trump coin earlier. So Trump announced that on social media, January 17th. Less than two minutes after that, there was a $1,096,000 investment that was made into the coin at the, the opening sale price was 18 cents.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  And then it surged up to $75. So someone knew, someone knew, you know, but wow, it's crazy.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  We did have another message came in here, uh, said, I've played around on Robinhood, less than $250. Do I have to report that on my taxes? That's a great question. Um, it is one of those things where depending on what kind of account it is, if it's a retirement account, then typically no, unless you took money out of it. If it is what is called a non-qualified, meaning a non-retirement account, you could have to pay some taxes on it based on a few factors. Are you getting any kind of dividends or income? Cause I think as little as $10 of

• 21:34Speaker 03

  income. So like if you have some sort of bond in there and you made $11 worth of interest on your $250, you could get a 1099 DIV, it's called, and you could have to, you know, claim that on your taxes. I even read an article that said, even if you don't get a DIV, because they don't have to send it out if it's less than $10, you're still supposed to put that $8 You're supposed to claim it. Yeah, you're supposed to claim it. But I mean, this is one of those things where definitely you would want to talk to a tax professional, or if you're using some sort of software to do a little bit of research to make sure that you are doing all that. But yes, different types of accounts can create tax situations. The lower the amount, you know, it's not necessarily going

• 22:14Speaker 03

  to be some big, huge deal. But, but yeah, there is dividend income. If you bought a stock for $20 and it went all the way up to 250 and you sold that stock, well, you made 240 bucks or 230 bucks or whatever it was, that could be considered a capital gain. If you've owned it less than a year, it's going to be taxed one way. If you've owned it more than a year, it's going to be taxed a little bit less because they consider that long-term gains. You could also not owe anything on it based on your income and your financial, right? So there's just a lot that goes into it. But yeah, anytime you're messing around in a Robinhood account, some of those things, you should get a 1099 if there is something that the IRS is going to require from you. But like I

• 22:58Speaker 03

  said, even if it's under that $10 minimum or whatever it is, you could still have to put that on there, even if they don't send it out. They don't require if it's under 10 bucks for like Robinhood or your bank to send that to you. So we did have another question come in, said, what's the difference between the Dow and the S and P and the S and P? How's crypto doing so far in 2025? We'll, we'll jump on the Dow and the S and P 500 real quick. Like I said, the Dow has been around a long, long time and it was a way that, you know, like back in the day, you could imagine now we have technology and we have information at our fingertips all over the place, but somebody working in the factory somewhere might say, hey, how did the stock market do today? Well, 80 years ago, 60 years ago, They would follow thirty companies and you could just say, how did the Dow do?

• 23:41Speaker 03

  And the Dow went up or the Dow went down and it was a, it's like a scoreboard, if you will, on those thirty companies. And they were thirty pretty popular companies, like I said, Caterpillar and a few of the other ones. That people like, kind of wanted to know how those companies did because that would give them an idea of what was going on in the markets and obviously hoping that that would signal potential growth and different things for the economy. S and P is a company called Standard and Poor's. They're, uh, number crunchers, bean counters. Um, they could, like, if you were interested in buying a company outright and you say, okay, this whole entire company, you know, like, think about, uh, Elon Musk when he bought Twitter, what did he buy? Twitter? X?

• 24:23Speaker 03

  Okay, so it, I don't even know if he did number crunching because, um, he's got pretty deep wallets, I think. Uh, or pockets, but if he was to say, hey, I really want to know what Twitter is worth, he could hire Standard and Poor's to go through the books, to look at their earnings history. Um, they can do like a, um, you know, like a special thing where they're going to actually open up all kinds of information to a potential buyer. Standard and Poor's could put together a report and to say, I think this company is worth X amount of dollars. To try to give you some, some leeway on what you think you'd be willing to pay completely for that stock. And it might also be another stock that's wanting to go public. So if I built up a company over fifteen years

• 25:05Speaker 03

  and I say, I'm tired of running it, I'm gonna basically go public with my company now. Standard and Poor's can come in and look at everything and say, we think your initial price offering, your IPO, we think it should be seventy-one dollars. And when they go public, the first day, of course, initial investors are buying it up and, you know, back in banking, they even call that private banking, it's pre-offering. And then it goes public, you can now go buy it on any of your trading platforms or your advisor could buy it or a broker could buy it for you or whatever it is. And S and P can help with that process as far as what the IPO price should be.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  One interesting thing, um, the big seven, the mag seven, the magnificent seven. This is just one thing, you know, that, that it kind of concerns me, not, not even kind of, but, uh, you see S and P 500 is fought the 500 largest companies, right? These seven companies account for between 25 and 30% given on any given day, 25 and 30% of the entire S and P 500. And if you're wondering what, what is the mag seven? It sounds like a action hero team. It's not. It's a tech action hero team. It's Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, which is Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, who's real big in processor for AI technology and Tesla.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  There you go. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, there's definitely huge concentration. I will throw out the Bitcoin numbers since, uh, since you also asked about that. Bitcoin is currently sitting at 96,000 468. We started the year at nine, uh, I'm sorry, 96,000 468. Uh, we started the year at 93,000 462, which that is a 3.2% increase in value since the beginning of the year. It went up to about a hundred and $5,000, 105,403, uh, January 30th. The high of Bitcoin that it's ever hit was 109,000 and some change. I forget exactly what month that was, but very, very volatile, um, all over the place.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  And like I said, it's very difficult to, to say what you think it's going to do as far as a currency, because there could be factors that if a bunch of the large holders all in a short amount of time sold out, it could drop like it did in 2021, 2022, 75%.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  That's what you have to be willing to, to stomach is this huge roller coaster ups and downs. We've, we've been talking a lot about that. Yeah. November 2021, 61,000 and fell 75% in just about a year.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  There you go. We are going to have to take a quick break, but like I said, when we come back, we're going to have Sherry Hornbunk. Join us, Executive Director at Taft College Foundation. Uh, stick around.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  Money Wise Wealth Management is the only locally owned independent firm that uses a comprehensive wealth tax and estate approach, working closely with a highly trusted CPA and attorney. For information on how Money Wise can help you invest and plan for your future, call 661-847-1000.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Welcome back. This is the Money Wise Show. Thank you so much for joining it, making it what it is. You can always join the show, 661-396-1000. We don't have as many people calling in and chatting live anymore, but we do have some messages coming in. So if you have a question or a comment on our wonderful guests that we're excited to talk to, you can join us. So like I mentioned, Dr. Sherri Hornbunk is the Executive Director of Taft College Foundation and Institutional Advancement. And from what I, I mean, from what I hear, it was a, it was a booming foundation out in Taft, and you just got to kind of jump on board and run with it?

• 28:52Speaker 05

  Thank you, thank you. Well, not really.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Not exactly.

• 28:57Speaker 05

  But it was a booming college.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  A booming college.

• 29:00Speaker 05

  I mean, that college has been around since 1922.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, very cool history.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, and although it was just like a little leap over from the high school, because the high school sits right out the back fence of Taft College, they decided to start a junior college is what they called it back in 1922. And for years, there were maybe 12, 15 students in it. But in 1954, they said, wow, we're up to a couple hundred kids, let's build a building. And that's when they decided to really let Taft Community College take a leap, become the West Kern Community College District, and be a community college on their own. And then it just grew from there.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  That's cool. And so, so when you got involved, what did you come in to do? Or what was the thought? Or what was the, the goal behind the, the foundation?

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Well, you know, I had kind of retired and then started raising money for the symphony here, kind of as a little bit of a favor, had a blast, found out that raising money was, was pretty cool. And then went to work for Cal State for a couple of years and raised some money. And I thought, well, that's eight minutes from my house, I think I'll stay. Raised some money and made some good friends out there. And then Willie Duncan, the president of Taft College, who I knew, said, hey, Sherri, come out and start our foundation. And I thought, wow, I love starting businesses. This is really hard to turn down. I'll go out and talk to them. I drove out there and I thought, I'm not driving to Taft every day. That's just too much.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  Got out there, met some greats like Don Zembro, Pob Hampton, Don, you know, just so many greats that had been involved with Taft College for 20, 30 years. And I left there going, man, I'm going to go to Taft College. I knew it at that time. And went out there and started from scratch, pretty much. They gave me a box. And they said, here's some files from some dentists we talked to about 20 years ago. And we started the dental hygiene program. And I looked through it and many of the dentists weren't even here anymore, or, you know, had passed away even. So I thought, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?

• 30:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mentioned earlier, I went to Taft College. So I, I, I lost my way a little bit in high school. And so I was a little concerned if I went to BC with some of the same crew, that I would fall into some, some ways that were not treating me very well. So I, I ended up talking to a few people and people were like, hey, go check out Taft. And I lived over here by Stockdale High School and it actually took me the same amount of time to drive to Taft College as it did to drive across town to BC. So a lot of people don't realize that if you're in the Northwest, it might even be a shorter drive. Of course, BC is expanding with, you know, some other campuses and stuff. But, but yeah, I loved my time at Taft College. It was a, it was a real defining moment in my life of making some changes and going in a different direction.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  And so I, I love it. I love my time out there. I met some great people. I, I wasn't loaded, didn't have a lot of money and I got to rent my books, which, you know, all my friends at BC were talking about how much expensive books were and, and they had a program where you could rent your books and give them back at the end of the year and stuff. And so it was.

• 31:55Speaker 04

  Nice campus too, right? Very.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Even, even, yeah, even when I was in college, it was 99, 2000, it was all, it was still nice and they had, they had good facilities. And, and from that point forward, it just, they just continued to make improvements.

• 32:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. We had a bond measure passed in 2004 for about 54 million and we've, we built some great things. We have a student center that. Columbo, Joe Columbo is a good friend of mine. They ended up building it for us. But you go in it and it reminds me of something like at UCLA.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Really?

• 32:27Speaker 05

  I mean, there's places to sit and hang out and there's music playing at the ASO Room. And then there's, there's hockey games and people are playing down on this end. There's a big Cougar Cafe and it is great.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 05

  We love hanging out there. The campus really looks beautiful and the quads come a long way. But yeah, I think going back to growing the foundation, it was a little scary. But something came up by my desk about a couple of weeks after I was there. It was called the Bernard Osher Challenge. And the California Community College System up at the Chancellor's Office said, this Mr. Bernard Osher, who was a big philanthropist, he, I think he did like 25 million and said, we'll give you this money and we'll invest it, but here's what all the community colleges need to do to earn some of the earnings. They have to raise this much money and build this many scholarships. So we all got a letter that said, well, I'll tell you, my letter said, you're going to get 11 scholarships and you have to raise 154 million.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  Now, this was back in 2009 and I just got there and I thought, so I thought, I can do this. And so I went back to a lot of people that I had met over the years and we did it. And to this day, we still have these scholarships. They started out giving out two, maybe $600 scholarships a year. They're now up to $1,700 twice a year. The money is rolled. It was such a great investment for the community college system. And I only got 11, but I'll tell you, some of the bigger colleges got 20 and 30. And those goes out to students every year.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 05

  So it's all about the students.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. So does, do those scholarships, a lot of them go to Taft High School students or all over?

• 34:00Speaker 05

  Actually, they are one-year or two-year students that have been at Taft College. So they're, they're students that apply that are on our campus.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 34:08Speaker 05

  So yeah, they're for our students. We do have a lot of other scholarships that we,

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 05

  You know, I have a Bob Hampton Scholarship now, my old buddy that was my president of my board for years that passed away. He grew up in Taft and he went to USC, played football. Or no, baseball, sorry. And so what we do is we give one scholarship to an incoming Taft student. And then we give one that's going off to either USC or another SC.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 05

  So that's how we started the foundation, really, with those 11 scholarships.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  That's, that's awesome. Um, so I, I do see here, uh, one of the things that you have to tell us the story about is even back in 2015, how in the world did you get Alex Trebek?

• 34:46Speaker 04

  We gotta know.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  To be the master of ceremonies. I mean, how do you, how do you pull that kind of talent?

• 34:50Speaker 05

  Oh, it's one of my all time favorites. It's such a great thing. In 2013, we had the first West Kern Petroleum Summit. And I got a hundred thousand dollar gift from Chevron for economic development. And I thought, what am I going to do? Spoke to a few people on campus and I said, you know, we don't really have enough donors. We don't have enough people that are associated with us. What can we do? And we talked about it and they were like, well, we can do a summit or we can have something out on the quad. And I said, how about like an oil summit or something? You know, I talked to a few people and I was encouraged to call it the West Kern Energy Summit. But I refused it. I said, I'm calling at the West Kern Petroleum Summit. And in 2013, it worked because we sold 25 tables in about four days.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  And all of a sudden I had people coming in and it was big and Kevin McCarthy was supporting us and, you know, ESPN called us and MS, I mean, people were flying in from all over just to see our, our speakers. So the first one went really well. So as we got to the second one, I got a phone call from my friend that worked at Chevron. And she said, did you see the article in the Huffington Post? And I said, no, don't, don't have it. Don't, don't always read it, but tell me what it is.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:55Speaker 05

  And she said, well, Alex Trebek said that, um, he, he would love to go to Taft College, especially if they had classes on petroleum engineering.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 36:07Speaker 05

  Because they asked him what he was going to do when he retired. And he said, I, I think I'd like to go to that little school out on the west side of Kern County. Well, what he said later in the article was, he drove out to Lake Nocia Mento on the weekends and he used to stop in Taft and Maricopa and eat. And he knew the policeman and he used to hang out. So he mentioned us and I thought, well, that's it. I gotta call. And, you know, I spent time in television, radio. I know a little bit. So I called Sony Pictures and I just, when they answered the phone, I said, hello, is Alex Trebek there? I didn't know what they're gonna say. They go, yeah, just a minute. And I went, what? They're transferring. A guy picks up and he goes, Trebek's office. And I'm like, uh, yeah, this is Sherri. I saw the article. I told them the whole story. We're having a petroleum summit. I saw his article in the Huffington Post. Um, would he come and be our MC?

• 36:48Speaker 05

  And he goes, he starts laughing and he goes, this is Rocky Schmidt, his publicist. And I said, okay, Rocky. So he puts the hand over the phone. He goes, hey, Alex, that Taft College wants to know if you want to come and be there. And I thought, oh, I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I don't know if I have the money, but and he goes, yeah, I'll do it if they get me there. I heard him say it. And so some friends of ours have plans, planes from Ensign, and they go, we'll fly and go get them. And so it went that quick.

• 37:14Speaker 04

  That is cool.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  And then he hung out. He did a big VIP party in our library and everybody was like blown away. Alex Trebek is here. It was such a trip.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's got to be the personality that would do such a good job as a master of ceremony and, you know, kind of that dry humor and, and, and just being able to do that. So that's, that's a really,

• 37:32Speaker 05

  No, it's true. Kennedy believes in oil, you know, he was like totally pro oil. And I'll just tell you one more thing. After the whole thing was over and we all were suffering PTSD. I mean, funny, I'm making a joke, but it was a big, big, big job there. T. Boone Pickens came in. I mean, it was a big day.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  I remember that.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  And there was an envelope on my desk and the gal that worked for me, she said, Sherri, there's an envelope from Jeopardy here. And I'm like, wow, maybe it's a thank you. I opened it up and it said, Dear Sherri, I had the best time. Loved meeting Fred Holmes, Bob Hampton. He named all these people and he said, I know you're going to start a scholarship in my name, which we do have the Alex Trebek Scholarship for an engineer. He said, I would be remiss if I didn't donate. And there was a $10,000 check in.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  Wow, fantastic.

• 38:12Speaker 05

  And he said, if you have any time and you have books on petroleum engineering, can you send it? We sent a box the size of Alaska. I mean, we just, we found all these boxes and sent them up to, he lived up there in Burbank, but great story. Love him. We went and visited him right before he passed away and all of us were in the audience at Jeopardy and he came out to the, he had a break and he says, Hey, Tav College, what's going on? And we all stood up and just started screaming. And then he, he, as we were all leaving, Rocky Schmidt said, Hey Sherri, come up here. And they called me up to the stage and, you know, he let me take a picture with him and

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Very cool.

• 38:43Speaker 05

  That was the last time I saw him.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  So you're, you're using your entrepreneurial gifts and spirit to, you know, raise money and do this. I'm curious, before you got into nonprofit, did you have, you said you were a businesswoman? So I'm just curious.

• 38:57Speaker 05

  Well, when I was 13, I started my first business. My mom used to take me door to door and I sold Christmas cards to people that I drew. And I'd say, I'll bring you 10 Christmas cards for $20 and you just write here what your name is and I'll put your name and I wrote it really nice. It was before you could print on Christmas cards. And I made so much money doing that. I bought a bike. I did all this stuff. And then I went to school and I dropped out of Fresno State because I moved to West Hollywood because I wanted to be a rock and roll star. And yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Obvious, obvious curve there.

• 39:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so I sang for Fresno City Jazz Band, Fresno State Jazz Band. I sang the whole time in Madeira. Everybody thought I was going to be a rock and roll star. Well, I never made it. But I did happen to move across the hall from Stevie Wonder's controller, Carolyn Green, who became my good friend. And I got to work for Steve for many years in Black Bull Music. I did back, backup singing. But like I told my dad, listen, I want to make some money. So I started out as a headhunter and I did very well. And a think tank down in Torrance, I was working in LA, think tank said, hey, come, come down here. And they allowed me to start a business for them. It was called Data Dimensions. And I hired a bunch of people and we sold and placed people for a living and we did very well. And they made me the president and pretty soon I was a principal and we took it public. And then

• 40:14Speaker 05

  we sold it to a guy in Bellevue, Washington before I was 30. So that was, that was the second business. Third business was another one, but yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Well, hey, we, let's take a break real quick. When you come back, I want to, I want to hear kind of how your, your business world and stuff ended up kind of morphing into education. And maybe we can hear a little bit more about what some of the donations go to help out there for TAF students. So stick around, we'll be right back.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Are you curious to learn more about how you can be money wise? Check out the Money Wise website at MoneyWiseGuys.com to get more info about what we do.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Welcome back. Just throw it out there that Friday show, it's not just Valentine's Day. It's going to be a great Friday Money Wise Show. Justin Leland, Dustin Weaver are going to be getting down to business with Kat Klaus, owner of March Consulting, talking about getting those kiddos to the colleges that make the most sense for them and their financial plan and their, you know, what, what campus makes sense for them. And she does a great job. So. Um, we did have a couple of comments come in. One says, oh, wow. I haven't heard Sherri in so long. What a gem to this town. We are definitely in agreement. Um, it's been a great time getting to know you and what you've been doing there with the foundation. Another one says, any clue

• 41:38Speaker 03

  on how many students are enrolled at Taft College? I graduated in 2000. I bet the campus looks much different since I've been there. And you said enrollment was around 6,000?

• 41:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, 6,000 and um, the campus does look completely different.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, you said that there was a bond measure of how much in 2004?

• 41:56Speaker 05

  I think it was 54 million, if I remember correctly, yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  So just picture the college when you were there in 2000 and 54 million dollars thrown at it. It's gonna look a little different.

• 42:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, that Student Center. I'll tell you right now, we have beautiful classrooms, spacious, wonderful equipment, first class. Everything is amazing there.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, the thing that cracked me up is, um, you know, uh, I was very involved in church, uh, coming out of high school and, and doing a few different things. And in talking to folks, how many people that either lived out there or worked out there? And so I met probably once a week or every other week, a, a, a person that I knew through my, my community that would say, hey, call me up and we'll go grab lunch. And so, cause I, I didn't have a whole large group of people out there, cause I was, you know, from Bakersfield, but it cracked me up how many times I'd be like, hey, let's go grab lunch, you know, in between these two classes. And some people were in the oil world and, and that was their careers and they would take time to go have lunch with me. I told him I met some folks and we did, uh, studying, cause I would have some breaks between classes. Uh, so like I said, all around great experience. Um, the one thing that I was gonna ask about, uh,

• 43:00Speaker 03

  you, you mentioned, or, or kind of what do some of these donations go towards? What, what can some of those things help students do?

• 43:07Speaker 05

  Well, we have many donors, which we're very fortunate. We've got a whole group of scholarships and we give out about $400,000 a year in scholarships. Some are incoming students, but the most of them are students that are there and going from their first to their second year. Some are sending them off to a university, but we try to keep them in-house. So those are different donors, people that have Gone to school there, former faculty that have set up scholarships. Just in fact, right before Christmas, I got a phone call that we'd received a grant from the Delta Dental Foundation out of Sacramento, out of San Francisco. And he said, yeah, we're going to give you an endowed scholarship. And I thought, well, maybe 10, 20,000. He goes, yeah, it's 325,000.

• 43:52Speaker 05

  I went, oh, okay. I like it. And this is an endowed, I took the 300,000, we put it in an endowment and then the 25,000 will go out for the next few years until we build a little interest on that 3,000 or 300,000 and give it out. And those are for our dental hygiene students. We have a wonderful dental hygiene program. Some of the money goes for them. We have a great engineering program. We've got, we had two people, Opal Smith and Harry Wilson, both worked in, at Chevron. And Harry Wilson went to TAF College in 1942. And then he went back in the Korean War, I believe. But neither one of them had kids. I met them when I first got there and she said, look, I've got you in my will. It was the first day I ever met her. She handed me this paper and I said, oh, and it said, we're leaving you $100,000. I thought, wow, that's great.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  But you know, I started going to lunch with them every week and they became my friends.

• 44:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 05

  Luckily for us, they left us their entire estate. So that has set up several different offerings for students and student needs. Yeah. And so the same with Stanley, Madeline Hutchison, they left us their estate and allowed us to set up the Hutchison Engineering Promise Program.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, let me take this moment just to say thank you and kudos to all donors, all givers at all levels. The big ones help a lot, obviously, but every single person that gets behind that is wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Sheri Hornbunk for what you do, Executive Director.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  You are so welcome.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, for the TAF College Foundation. So if you want to get involved, you can go to TAF College's website, search "Foundation", there's some information there. You know, I just love being part of this generous community. Thank you so much for all the folks that have got behind there, even ones that aren't even in this community. And I did get called out because I thought about being a dental hygienist and I thought it was because it was a great program. Dr. Sheri said it was probably because there was a bunch of women in the program. So I think she might've had the finger on the pulse there. Busted.

• 45:40Speaker 05

  It's a great program.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  Have a great weekend, have a great Valentine's Day. We will talk to you soon.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Securities offered through SCF Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SCF Investment Advisors, Inc. SCF Securities, Inc. and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.