Thursday May 8, 2025 - Sezzle sizzles!
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He's been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TheStreet.com, and many other places. He's the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He's president of Gundersen Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gundersen.

And welcome to the Thursday, the Thursday, May the 8th, 2025 edition of the Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And I'm here with Barry Kite, our chartered financial analyst. And the market is off to a very green start today. No help from Jerome Powell.

But it looks like the first trade deal is to be with the UK. That looked to be the low-hanging fruit from my perspective. And it looks like maybe it's done here. And the Dow is up 201 points, 41,315. The NASDAQ is up 123 points. It's at 17,861.

The small caps, Russell 2000 up 77 basis points right now. The bond market is pretty flat. I think Powell is behind the curve. We'll talk about that here in a bit. But the 10-year is at 4.30. We're not going anywhere. Crude oil is at $59.54.

Gold is down 80 basis points, but it's clear up at 3,363. And boy, I'll tell you what, Bitcoin's been on a roll. It's closing in on 100,000 again. It's up 2,399,414. So welcome to today's Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, President,

of Gundersen Capital Management. I'm here with Barry Kite.

Our chartered financial analyst. And I would just say, Barry, the news that pops off the table to me, off the screen to me right now, Bank of England cuts rates by 25 basis points. The day after our Fed stubbornly held and showed no signs of any rate cuts coming anytime soon. Just from my perspective, watching the Bank of England and, of course, the EU has their own central bank,

They've cut like six or seven times, and our guy's done nothing. I just would say that that doesn't make him look very good when the very next day the Bank of England cuts...

And of course, you know, Trump is calling Jerome Powell a fool. But I just think that, you know, I think our rates are a little bit too high. I look at the mortgage. That's where I see it really hurting the common, you know, the working man, the working person, the working woman with mortgage rates up around 7%. That's too high. They need to start coming down. But it is what it is. He did not cut yesterday.

And in addition to that, didn't he say the word stagflation, Barry? Didn't that come out of his mouth yesterday? Yeah, and I mean, they implied it in their statement. So I think the good news is at least the Fed has some room to cut whenever they finally decide to do so. It's a better situation than we were in years ago, right, where we were at, like, you know, Fed funds was at one and a half, and it was like, well, if there's a calamity, right, they don't have much room to cut.

At least they have some powder needed if needed. But I think just in terms of the stagflation piece, they have a dual mandate. You want to keep unemployment rate low around 4%, say, inflation in that 2% to 3% range,

And the problem is if those things start going in opposite direction, if you've got inflation going up and unemployment going up, right, well, cutting rates, you know, basically they don't have a tool in the toolbox. And that's in the statement where they mention that they're, you know, elevated, you know, potential elevated unemployment. And then they mentioned potentially elevated unemployment.

inflation if the tariff, and he makes the point if tariffs stay in place, right? Yeah, I know. Which we've talked about that they're not going to be fully in place, so that's the piece. I think he's wrong. But anyways, there's nothing we can do. We don't have a vote. Yeah, we're going to hear every speaker, by the way, pretty much on Friday. If you look at the list, I don't know what conference they're going to or what the deal is, but they're pretty much all speaking on Friday. I feel sorry. So you can hear everyone's perspective.

I feel sorry for the person trying to buy a home at just under 7%. And the lower end has to be down, right, to get those rates, to get those longer rates down as well. But I will say the Fed, in reality, the Fed doesn't control that long end. No, the market controls that. Okay, now, late in the day, right before the close, there was news spreading that the chip ban...

which this really impacts mostly NVIDIA, that he was going to ease up on the chip ban, and that did help the chip stocks there late in the day. I haven't seen really the clarity on that yet. The big news today, of course, and this got the futures going,

I think last night, Trump to announce trade deal. He may be doing it while we're speaking. I don't know. With the UK. I know it's coming up while we're doing the show. 10 a.m., he says. 10 a.m. ET. Well, that's right when we started. Okay. You know, that was the low-hanging fruit as far as the trade deal. In fact, when their leader, Sturmer, I think it is, was here several months ago, it sounded like they were very close to a deal already.

And, of course, you know, I mean, you're not dealing with the EU where there's a lot of countries. You're dealing just with the UK. And it sounds like there will be a full and comprehensive trade deal, which has probably already been announced. And I think it's good to get one under the belt there, you know, one of the trade deals finalized.

And you've got to expect more to come. I mean, it's one at a time. Each one's a separate entity that you've got to deal with. And supposedly, I mean, the trade deals are coming with India. Now, we heard fall, but there could be maybe a phase one of that trade deal. And, of course, that's the largest population country in the world. Israel, that would be low-hanging fruit.

I don't know why we raised the tariffs on Israel, but I'm sure they'll come to an agreement. And they continue to negotiate with South Korea. That's a big market. Japan, that's a huge market. Vietnam and other nations. And then, of course, on Saturday, you have this big meeting in Geneva tomorrow. And that's where our buddy Scott Besson from Charleston, South Carolina, will be.

talking with one of China's trade representatives. So things are happening. This seems to be the number two. I mean, his first priority was to get the border closed. His second one was probably to get a lot of the people here that are here illegally, especially the criminals, deported. That's hit a big snag. And it seems like the trade deal is number three.

And, I mean, it's been choppy. There's no question about it. Very choppy. And then taxes have been working in the background. Yeah, the budget. And Doge. I guess Doge would be number two, really, getting government spending, cutting government spending and getting it under control. I saw some snippets of an interview that Biden did.

No, no, no. This comes from Bernie Sanders. I saw an interview with Bernie Sanders last night. He says that definitely government needs to be downside and there's a lot of waste in government. But he did not approve of what Doge was doing or what Doge did.

His big problem was the cuts to Social Security. It's just the cuts to the people working there, not to the check that goes to each person. But anyways, we do have a trade deal now, it looks like, finally. Okay? And the European markets are up on that news. Now, did you see the retail sales report this morning?

We had a much better than expected retail sales report as consumers are stocking up due to tariff anxiety. Retail sales, including automobiles, gasoline, were up 0.72 seasonally adjusted according to the CNBC NRF Retail Monitor. These were much higher than the increases of 0.6 a month before the

And they're saying strong tariff-driven spending driving that big growth, especially things that come from China. And people know they come from China. So anyways, that was more proof that there was a lot of front-end loading. And I think in the earnings, I think that's showing up in our earnings, which are now expected to be 12.1% higher than

Then the same comparable quarter last year when we began the quarter, they were at 7%. Now it's 12%. I think that's a reflection of a lot of the front loading that you're seeing show up in a lot of different sectors. Okay, when we come back, I also saw a massive move to the upside in Google yesterday or Alphabet.

I really didn't know what that was about, but there's a little color on that today. And then the CrowdStrike CEO saying that the layoffs are happening because of artificial intelligence at his company. It's flattened the hiring curve. We'll be right back. ♪♪♪

Oh, we're going on. What are you feeling? Now that I've caught my love, my head is ringing.

And welcome back here to the second quarter of today's Best Docs Now show. All of a sudden, Google woke up late in the day yesterday as I was looking through charts. And then it sold off. And it has to do with Google's in court and...

They're talking about the browser. No, Apple is claiming that Google's search engine doesn't work as well as it used to. Didn't Apple say they were going to come up with their own search engine or something like that? Well, essentially they've been trying. I think right now I believe they're getting paid. I think it's $20 billion, something of that nature, from Google, I believe, is paying Apple to have Google on Google.

you know, on the phone as kind of the default search engine. So, you know, the thought is kind of what we've talked about before is, you know, they're expecting over the years to use that, you know, use Google less and less because, you know, search, straight search will be less important because it's going to be a kind of,

AI functioning throughout your phone and basically making search, I guess, irrelevant. That's the thought process. Okay. All right. So anyways, that's going on in the background. Actually, Google's down now again today. Okay. CrowdStrike CEO after the company's layoffs.

AI flattens our hiring curve. Okay, so if you read between the lines, you people that were laying off are more than likely going to be replaced with artificial intelligence. He says we're operating in a market where technology is at an inflection point with AI reshaping every industry.

Accelerating threats and evolving customer needs. There's only so much you can do, though, to replace a person. You know, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of kind of the mundane kind of work, but you still got to have in my book a lot of people-to-people interface with one another, right?

But this is the first time I think that I've seen layoffs happen and the CEO to point to artificial intelligence, right? Well, and I've seen it on the coding side. I think I said yesterday I've seen where a lot of these particular, I've seen it on the kind of across the security, cybersecurity firms is that they were talking about in terms of how they were some of the first people to actually see gains from AI, right?

you know, meaning, you know, coding things faster. Yeah. And then, you know, eventually, right, some of that coding, you know, where you needed more coding power, right, you've been able to potentially likely replace with, you know, some of it with AI versus, you know, versus your traditional coder. Yeah. I guess you'll still need your relationship people, at least currently, otherwise, you know.

You know, your, I guess, relationship with a computer, I don't think we're there yet. Yeah. But on the actual coding side, you've got, you know, some potential where AI can learn and actually end up likely doing it better. I've gone to a lot of sites where they have a chat bot, right, and you enter in your question. It usually leads to nowhere.

I mean, you know, and then they switch you to a live person. They say, call this. Yeah, or eventually a human. They try to get rid of you first. So anyways, okay, it's an interesting time we live in. All right, lots of earnings, earnings, earnings. And I would say by the end of tomorrow, we'll probably be at 85% to 90% of the earnings in, and I'll have an update for you in the newsletter on Saturday, Tuesday.

I have seen a little bit of downgrading to future earnings expectations, but this quarter has come in much better than expected. And I think that the fear and all of the pricing of stocks, the down pricing during the big sell-off was overdone. I don't think that the tariffs are having that much of an effect on Wall Street yet.

Shopify slumps after profit guidance falls short of expectations. Well, Shopify obviously is a pretty good company. It's a $120 billion company headquartered in Ontario, Canada.

And it's replaced the shopping mall in many ways. It's an online shopping mall. It's a competitor to Amazon. I don't think I've ever bought anything on Shopify. I guess I've got to go out there and explore it a little bit. But they came in with their quarter. Their sales were up 27% year over year. And their earnings were up 25% year over year. Those are both good numbers.

But they've kind of been used to 50%, 45% growth in earnings. And so the stock is down 2.4%. Their profit guidance falls short of expectations. You would think a company like Shopify would be impacted.

Yeah, I mean, or their customers at a minimum, right? Because their customers, I think, could be affected. Obviously, their online marketplaces, where do they get inventory from, right? I'm sure the shops that they've set up online, everything from mom and pop places during COVID to very, very large businesses, I guess. The difference is

where do those products come from that they sell? And I'm sure, just like a lot of products out there, I'm sure they come from China or some country affected, at least currently affected in some form or fashion by terror. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, that was the big prize too for a long time. There were a lot of people competing for that online mall. There was BigCommerce.com.

There was Shopify and there were others, but Shopify definitely emerged. It's hard to be second or third fiddle when one takes command like that and to compete with them. So anyways, I mean, it's a formidable company. It's growing at 20, 25% a year. I have a problem with the valuation, number one.

And I have a problem with the chart, number two. And we did sell our Shopify. We owned it for quite a while. And it was a good performer. And we finally let go of it because of the tariff concerns and the valuation. Now, okay, steel. Cleveland Cliffs plunges after posting a quarter one loss. And, you know, this doesn't bode well for manufacturing companies.

They're going to idle six steel plants. They're going to idle their plant in Hibbing.

I think that's where Bob Dylan is from in Minnesota. They're going to idle their casting facility in Dearborn, Michigan. They're going to idle their Steelton, Pennsylvania rail facility. They're going to fully idle the Cone Chokin, Pennsylvania plate finishing facility and idle the Riverdale, Illinois compact strip mill facility facility.

So anyways, and they're also, they were deploying money for a plant in West Virginia. They're no longer going to deploy capital towards that. So anyways, that's kind of the bad news out there in the manufacturing world, that the demand for steel. Now they're mostly, I would have to say that they're very associated with the automotive industry.

And that's where the weakness seems to be right now. Okay, when we come back, quantum. A couple of quantum stocks flying today and a donut stock getting fried today. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today's Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting edge stories that I can.

To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersenCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services, call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show. The Instigator Because there's something in the air

We've got to get together sooner or later. And welcome back here to the second half of today's Best Stocks Now show where we finally got a trade deal with the U.K., which is a big trading partner, so that's okay with the U.K. Now we need Mexico, Canada, the Eurozone, China, India, on and on and on.

trade deals. But hey, you know what? It's just good and of course the market likes it. And it looks like we're still awaiting the news conference. Really? Maybe they're still got one little hang up. Got to hash a couple things out. Get a stout or something. Potentially get the...

You know, get the Open Championship or the British Open right back to maybe one of Trump's courses or something. Yeah. You got to get that in the mix. Something. In the mix. Okay. Now, back to yesterday, the stock of the day for me was our old friend Oscar Health, O-S-C-R.

It was up like 30%. We used to own Oscar. Glass from the past, yeah. And I would say in the quantum world that D-Wave is definitely probably the one that has done the best and been the most consistent, although it's all over the map. It's very, very volatile.

But D-Wave actually, let me see if they reported any sales. They reported sales of $15 million, which is up 507% year over year. And they only lost 2 cents there.

And they lost 10 cents the same quarter last year. And this stock, I would call it the stock. No, we actually have the stock of the day, which we'll get to here in a bit. They're kind of duking it out right now. Which one you're talking about. Yes, but D-Wave is up 32.2% on four times normal volume.

It's a $2.6 billion company out of Palo Alto, California. Where else would you expect a quantum computing stock to be than right there in Stanford, the home of Stanford University? D-Wave is up 32.2% today. That's a good-looking chart.

I think Jensen Wang kind of put a halt to all of these stocks, but I think that a lot of them are going up in sympathy. IONQ, it's up 1.5%. ARQQ, which can really heat up, it's up 4.6%.

Rigetti RGTI is up 5.6%. But it looks like to me if you want to play a quantum stock and stick it in your back pocket, that's the one is D-Wave, which is QBTS. And it's lifting the others. Okay, this is the one. This caught my eye. Krispy Kreme. Oh, man.

It could be terminal. You know, they brought it out of – it went private, and then it came out of being private. It went public again back in 2021.

It's just not a good environment and a good world for donuts with Zep found. Yeah, I would say. With Govee out there and Healthy Choices. Krispy Kreme could be in big trouble here. They're out of Charlotte, North Carolina. You know, I was guessing as I said, I wonder where they're headquartered. I'm going to guess North Carolina. I think they do like their donuts out here a little bit better in the south than they do out in Seattle and California.

California and places like that where it's more granola oriented. Krispy Kreme is down 20% today. They halted their dividend. They pulled their guidance. Not good. Yeah, great donut, not a great stock. No, not a good profit margin in there. Okay, now the stock of the day. Let's see if this one can beat. Yes, it is beating it.

We own this in our emerging growth portfolio. I know which one you're talking about. It's not sizzle. It's sezzle. It's sizzling right now. And that sezzles it all. It is right now. I got this from one of our radio listeners quite a while ago. He told me to start watching it. It's a payments company.

That's all digital payments platform that enables merchants to offer flexible alternatives to traditional credit. I mean, this has had some fantastic growth. It's in Minnesota. Maybe we should get a hold of them when we go to Minnesota this summer.

and broadcast from their conference room or something like that. It would be kind of fun to do for a change. And a 10% short interest, just a huge. I mean, shorts are getting killed in this stock today, up 40 right now, up almost 45%.

Okay, so it is in our emerging growth portfolio because it is a small. It's only $2.5 billion with today's move. Yeah, it was $1.8 billion before today. Yeah, we bought it when it was about $1.5 billion. We paid $47.10, and it's hitting $76.45. We bought it on April the 24th.

So it's been good to us. Their sales were up 123%. I want to become a salesman for Sezzle because they've got something going on. Their earnings, I don't want to live, I don't know, I could live in Minnesota six months out of the year, nine months, eight months out of the year. There's some good fishing and backpacking and everything.

I don't know about that ice fishing. I'm going to do it one time in my life. 285%. Their earnings were up 285%. And there's big margins in those digital payments and payment companies.

And this one is having a good day. We'll call it the stock of the day. Yeah, I mean, taking just a little bit of every transaction, I mean, there's certainly money to be had in that business, right? I mean, it's wild. Yeah. Now, we do have one that's disappointing today, okay? I am fair and balanced. Let's see. It's one of the...

It's one of the computer software security stocks that is down a little bit here today. I'm trying to think of the name here. Where's the news? But in the meantime, let's look at Flutter. Flutter reported, okay, Flutter, we just had the Kentucky Derby. Flutter owns Betfair. They own a lot of different entities. Flutter's down 1.6%, but their earnings, their sales were up 8%.

Their earnings were up 49%. They're based in Ireland. I mean, that's where the Irish sweepstakes, the Irish Derby, most of your great turf horses and thoroughbred racing come from Ireland.

They're going to make $12.69 in earnings next year. That's the estimate. So we own Flutter. I like it. Fortinet. Fortinet was the one you're thinking of. Yeah, Fortinet. F-T-N-T. It's down 9.9%. That's a choppy business. That's a very competitive business. There's a lot of competition. There's a lot of players in the computer software security sector.

which is threat management, etc. 40 net sales were up 14, earnings up 35, but the stock down 9.8%.

I'll tell you, a stock making a move today is Palantir. I saw that. Up 6%. It would be a pretty strong move technically if it can get back to what it looks like above this. To its high. Yeah, which is going to be around 124, 125. If it can make it through that, then technically, there was that article that we referred to yesterday with the head and shoulders.

Of course, if it goes this way, right, it kind of almost completely bucks that trend. Yes, and I would say it's definitely, for me, it's the momentum stock of the year, and it's the one I called back when I was at the NASDAQ meeting

the first few weeks of the year. I said Palantir is my number one pick for this year and I think it's done pretty well since the beginning of the year. It started the year out at about $80 a share.

And it's been as high as 125. But it has to take out that old high of 125. But we'll see. Okay, then we have Dutch Brothers, which we also have in our emerging growth portfolio. It's having a nice day. We don't have enough drive-thru coffee shops. We need another one. But Dutch Brothers is doing it right, and they have huge growth plans.

They target 2,029 shops by 2029. They have a sharp CEO, Christine Barone. She highlighted the company's strong Q1 performance.

I mean, it's been phenomenal growth. Their earnings were up 56%, doing better than Krispy Kreme, that's for sure. Well, and better than Starbucks. I mean, look at Starbucks, their competitor. I mean, Starbucks has had a rough go. Right now, Dutch Brothers has 982, and they're targeting 2,029 by 2029 in four years, which

They're out of the coffee capital of the world, Grants Pass, Oregon. Up there in the northwest where, I guess, to stay warm, you know, that's where Starbucks is headquartered in Seattle. We'll be right back. ♪♪♪

And welcome back here to the final segment of today's Best Stocks Now show. Let's see, we have a few others here. We mentioned Sezzle. Okay, Talon Energy. Of course, Trump is pro-nuke.

And it seems like the world is pro-nuke right now. Well, not the whole world, but it seems like the need for more energy, especially as it relates to AI and these NVIDIA chips and these data centers. And it seems like nuclear offers the best answer, but it's going to take time. Talon is definitely a player there.

We own a little Talon. I bought it in the value portfolio because it was trading at about 15 times forward earnings. They own and operate infrastructure in the Mid-Atlantic, Montana, and New England, and they're headquartered in Houston, Texas, which all sounds pretty weird, but that's kind of the way it is.

utilities and energy works these days talon came in they actually had a loss but they obviously announced some good news because the stock is up that's pretty good chart on talon t-l-n not your typical utility that pays a dividend in fact it doesn't pay any dividend at all

But if you're putting together a nuclear portfolio or if, you know, you own an ETF, there are a couple of nuke ETFs. They're doing a lot better. I mean, they sold off really hard during the tariff sell-off. And they're coming back pretty strong. I mean, between Talon and Constellation Energy and Vistra,

And even the little one, the Oklo nanonuclear, they've all come storming back. And, of course, Trump said he's going to grease the skids to get new nuclear going, you know, to ease the regulations on the permitting processes and all of this and that to try to speed things up. Okay, an old favorite, Applovin'.

is up 13.4%. We let Applovin go. How many times did I sell half of that stock just to bring it down? At one time, it was 20% of our emerging growth portfolio. One of the biggest winners was

It goes definitely, I've got to create a wall of fame with a little trophy with the name inscribed on it. I mean, over the years, 25 years,

I could probably put easily 25 huge winners that we have found over the years. Going back, I mean, the early days of iOmega. Shopify was one that you mentioned just a little bit ago. Shopify did fantastic. Teladoc did very well. And luckily, we sold it in the 200s.

You had the medical device maker that came along and disrupted the entire diabetes industry. You had Gilead Sciences. Dexcom, yeah, that was Dexcom and Insulet. You had Gilead, which came along with a pill that prevented you from having a liver transplant. Imagine the doctor saying, here's your choice. We can wait for someone to die in a liver transplant, or you can take this pill and

That was a game changer. Green Mountain Coffee, believe it or not, with their K-Cups was a game changer. Remember Invisalign, wasn't that one? Invisalign was a game changer. They disrupted the entire...

That was a Stanford guy who had no knowledge, really, of dentistry. He wasn't in dental school. And what's the robot surgeon one? Yeah, what's the robot surgeon one? Well, you had several of those over the years. Intuitive Surgical. That's the one, yeah. So, I mean, there's been a lot of stocks that we nailed. A lot of them came crashing down after we sold them.

You know, sometimes there's... They're not buy and hold forever. No, sometimes there's a lot of hype built behind them, and they get on a roll, and that momentum's going and going and going and going. And now you look at Teladoc today. Teladoc has come crashing back down to earth. It's a $7 stock.

Zoom. It was 300 at one time, Teladoc. All right, so we have Apple of indefinitely is one of the biggest winners we found. We do not currently own. We own the bond. Yeah, we do own a bond, Apple of the bond. We own the bond.

Which is nice, yeah. Okay, well, and they're going to make $10 per share next year. Most companies would die to make $10 per share, but it's a bit expensive, and so we don't own it. Okay, LNG. Time to raise that credit rating, right? Yeah, I mean, I think we just had, actually, Netflix just rose their credit rating. We own Netflix bond. That's been a good bond for us over the years.

Chenier Energy in the news, LNG, it's down 1.1%. I mean, that is energy that's here now, liquid natural gas. Another bond we own. We own LNG. Those are just kind of in the background for people that say, you know what, if I could just make 5%, 6% a year, I'm happy.

with very little volatility. That's why we created that bond portfolio. ConocoPhillips in the news, it's up 2.4% today is all. And then our friend over at Burger King, Restaurant Brands, Patrick Doyle, they reported today that they're coming along. Their sales were up 26% year over year.

You've got to grow the sales. That's number one. And eventually the earnings will come along with it. The earnings are up 3%. I've noticed they've been shuttering a lot of...

I don't think the Popeyes franchise is doing very well for them. And see, that was a growth engine for a while, wasn't it? Yeah. I think their growth engine seems to be Firehouse Subs. That's where I'm seeing a lot of Firehouse Subs pop up. That's right. And then, of course, Tim Hortons is still doing well, more of a Canadian brand.

But that stock was up, and now it's dropped a little bit. Anheuser-Busch seems to have their groove back again after their big debacle. It went down to $32 a share. Now it's back to $66. Strong performers from Michelob Ultra.

Cutwater and Neutral, N-U-T-R. And then the fertilizer stock, Nutrien, N-T-R. This is our last one. No, that stinks. That one stinks down 4.4%. Okay, we're out of time. That schedule is filling up very quickly in Cleveland. We're less than two weeks away from that trip to Warrensville, Ohio.

At the Marriott, the workshop Tuesday night at 7 p.m., and then the appointments Tuesday and Wednesday, call Edie at 855-611-BEST to get four-week trial to the Everything Bagel, which has everything on it, the newsletter, the trades, everything. Go to GundersenCapital.com. Have a great day, everybody.

This show is not a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Bill Gunderson or clients of Gunderson Capital Management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Gunderson Capital Management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm. All accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is a member of SIPC and FINRA.