How Smart Investors Close Out 2025!

How Smart Investors Close Out 2025!

Dec 23, 2025

As we close the books on 2025, the entire WWM crew comes together for a fast-paced, insightful, and occasionally hilarious year-end market recap. From strong equity returns and surprise leadership from international markets to the continued dominance of AI, this episode breaks down what actually mattered and what investors may be underestimating heading into 2026.

There’s also a reflective pause in this conversation because the end of the year isn’t just about numbers. It’s about perspective. After navigating uncertainty, policy shifts, rate debates, and emotional market swings, this episode acknowledges what many investors are feeling right now: gratitude for resilience, relief after volatility, and cautious optimism for what’s ahead. It’s a moment to step back, take stock of progress, and remember why planning matters beyond performance.

We unpack:

  • How U.S. markets finished the year (and whether a Santa Claus rally still has legs)

  • Why international and emerging markets quietly stole the spotlight

  • The real story behind rate cuts, inflation data, and why lower rates aren’t guaranteed

  • Gold, commodities, and what fear, geopolitics, and central banks have to do with it

  • Key tax and planning takeaways after a year of uncertainty—and what moves still matter before the calendar flips

Plus, practical year-end reminders around Roth conversions, charitable giving, retirement contributions, and why early-January market volatility wouldn’t be surprising.

Thoughtful, candid, and grounded in real-world planning this is the kind of conversation worth ending the year with.

Recorded 12/23/2025

Schedule A FREE Call

Disclosure:

WWM Financial is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor

The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry and how we may be able to assist. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results. As always please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. Tax considerations presented may not be appropriate every individual circumstance. A tax professional should be consulted before making any decisions about your tax liability. wwmfinancial.com | 760.692.5190

Investing in the Tech Era

Investing in the Tech Era

Jul 15, 2021


Click on the image above to watch the podcast.

In this episode: Steve Wolff discusses how excided he is about the investing opportunities in this techno-digital revolution.

Full transcription below:

Steve Wolff:
Hello everyone, this is Steve Wolff with another edition of Steve’s Stock Stories. I’m here with my
cohort, producer and friend Joscelin Magaña.

Joscelin Magaña:
How’s it going everybody?

Steve Wolff:
This is one of my favorite topics. I am so happy to be alive at this point in time, because we are going
through a technological digital revolution. This must be what it felt like to be in the industrial revolution,
when you went from the horse and buggy to cars. Of course, eventually putting men on the moon. But I
mean, all the things that happened in that time are happening now only they’re happening digitally.

Joscelin Magaña:
I feel the same first feeling when I saw the world change in a dramatic way where I was so excited. Two things that I remember surfacing, the mobile phone and the internet.

Steve Wolff:
Oh, yeah.

Joscelin Magaña:
Remember when the movie The Saint came out? That little phone was amazing. He had video on there, he got text messages. I thought, “Oh my gosh, if that could ever possibly happen.” Then we have way better phones than that now, you just throw that little toy away. Right? The other big thing that I saw was the internet. When I was in college, we were just using email at the time. There were these things called websites. I remember thinking, “Wow, we’re going to be able to buy stuff on the internet
someday.” I remember telling somebody, “Hey, this is going to be an amazing space because we’re just
going to be buying stuff on the internet.” And they’re like, “Who’s going to buy stuff on the internet?
You just go to the store. Why the hell are you going to-?” Okay. One technological advanced before this, which kind of wasn’t, but everybody thought was crazy, was when everybody started buying bottled water; but that’s a whole other subject.

Steve Wolff:
Well you talk about phones. I remember watching the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas and he
had a mobile phone, but it was probably, I don’t know, 12 inches.

Joscelin Magaña:
Oh, yeah. They were big.

Steve Wolff:
They were huge.

Joscelin Magaña:
They were big, like a shoe box.

Steve Wolff:
Right, they were big. You could make a phone call on there today, my goodness, you could do just about everything. You can turn on your car, you can-

Joscelin Magaña:
You can turn on your sprinklers in your house, you can see your front door. It’s amazing.

Steve Wolff:
What they have in that little phone is way more powerful than what IBM first came up with when they had that first computer that took up, I don’t know, three rooms or something. With vacuum tubes and whatever, it’s just incredible.

Joscelin Magaña:
I guess where I’m going with this is that I’m as excited now as I was when mobile phones were becoming more accessible and the whole mobile phone revolution and the internet. I remember my first job we didn’t even have computers on our desks…

Click here to read the full transcription.