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Hey Cam, our first video together, what do you think?

It's going to be fun.

Yeah. 2024 was a wonderful year.

On a personal note, I was lucky enough to trick my best friend in to marry me before she got her

cataract surgery done and I look forward to you all meeting her.

Secondly, the families we care for just had a real good year.

We ran with four models.

The rates of return this year ran from 9% if you only had 35% in the stock market up to our most

aggressive model, which is 90% in the stock market and it achieved 17% return.

I couldn't be happier when our clients are doing great, I'm having a really good day.

It you know, This is why we do it at this stage of our life is for all of you folks and I'm so happy to see

you all doing so well.

Many of you are in our balance model could because you're retired and it's only 60% in the stock

market and even it had achieved 12% return this year.

Now your returns might vary slightly, you know, depending on if you did a bunch of withdrawals and

deposits throughout the year.

Now the stock market has been great for a couple of years, so it's tempting for investors and advisors

to get too euphoric and follow the herd and go all in and let's just buy tech stock or we'll go out and

buy one of the 20,000 types of cryptocurrencies.

You know, I was reading some great headlines the other day around that regarding the euphoria of, of

having a new president and how bullish the world is that we have a new president in case except, of

course, the people that really don't like Mr. Trump, they're not too bullish.

But yeah, most of the world is though, they know he's pretty business friendly.

So here, here's some headlines that that I was reading.

The president will lower tax and be business friendly and was elected on a platform of protectionism

and tariffs which will make the United States really strong.

Interest rates have been lower to stimulate the economy.

Reserve requirements that banks have been reduced.

So the money supply in the United States has increased by 60% to get consumers to borrow and buy

and get the economy rock and rolling margin account balances of people boring to buy.

Stocks are at record levels.

This all gives us a feeling of prosperity when it comes to the stock market.

So people have started to speculate or gamble in the investment world, real estate is also doing really

well as FOMO or the fear of missing out.

The president has also announced deportation of a million or more illegal immigrants back to Mexico.

That makes Americans believe that they're going to have more jobs, less than unemployment.

Everything like that. It sounds pretty good eh, Cam?

The math is starting to match the Cinderella economy.

U.S. economic headlines are indeed positive under the Trump presidency, at least in my world.

So the attitude of advisors in my world is let's rock'n'roll.

However, I tricked you again here.

These, these headlines, I listed above, even though they sound exactly like today, they're not from

today.

They're actually from the 1920s when Herbert Hoover was president in the roaring 20s.

And those indeed were all the things that he did.

President Hoover placed tariffs and deported 1.8 million people Back to Mexico.

At that time he called it the Great Repatriation.

Hoover's bull market was followed as you know-the Roaring 20s was incredible bull market where the

stock market quadrupled.

Unfortunately, it was followed by an 89% market crash.

The stock market stayed down for 20 years and created the Great Depression.

7000 U.S. banks failed and unemployment hit 25%.

That's quite a bit more than the three to 6% unemployment we have today.

Yeah, that's a pretty dooming gloom scenario.

Yeah, I guess you're taking the bad side of the good, bad and ugly.

I've taken the old guy-bad side.

I have to be optimistic. I'm just a little bit younger than you are.

Yeah, I've got no choice.

Well, Mr. Trump and all the investment advisors, I think, Cam, need to read their history books before

going all in, because President Trump, if he fulfills all his provinces, he's about to do exactly what

President Hoover did.

But am I predicting a stock market crash?

No, no, I'm not, because no one knows if the market's going to crash.

You can't get run over by a train you can see coming.

So no one knows what's going to happen under the Trump presidency.

It may be the best stock market in the world.

It might have a crash. You know.

What are your thoughts?

You know what, with all those stars aligning like President Hoover's, it's really hard to say.

The history does rhyme.

It doesn't always mirror itself.

But there's a lot of differences between now and 1929, obviously.

Got to look at the other side of the coin.

I'll take the good half of the good and bad ugly today.

You know, back in 1929, there was no Federal Reserve or Bank of Canada.

There's no social safety Nets like EI.

There was no old age security or Canada Pension Plan.

There certainly wasn't a Canadian Deposit Insurance Corp or the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

So there's all those backstops that are in place nowadays.

If there was a Fed Reserve back in 29, I have a hard time feeling that, that Great Depression actually

would have happened.

Yeah, that's true, right.

So, but stock markets do predict the future.

They're always leading indicators on the economy.

And AI is going to be increasing productivity, similar to the 1990s tech boom.

So there is a lot of optimism going there.

If President Trump does fall through those promises like lowering interest rates, cutting taxes,

increasing oil supply, deregulating the business world, then all of that is all catalysts for increased

corporate profits and with that, increased stock prices.

You know, I think I think he'll do that.

I really do.

Because you know what, he likes to make money.

So that's why I think he will do a lot of that stuff.

Yeah.

What did he say last time he made a civilian office?

“How's your 401ks doing?”

Yeah, Yeah.

And you can bet he's shorting and longing some investments on his own.

But anyways, you didn't hear it here.

I don't have a clue what Donald Trump's doing. So.

But no, Cam's right.

Technology is a huge inflection point.

I lived through it in the 90s and saw a crash in 2000, obviously.

But it's even more staggering this time than it was in the 90s.

I think in 1900, for example, it took 150 years to double all human knowledge on the planet.

1945 it took 25 years.

In 2020, we were excited because it was taking two days only to double all human knowledge on the

planet.

Guess what it is today, 12 hours.

Every 12 hours all human knowledge on the planet is doubling.

If that's not going to have an effect over, a positive effect over corporations and corporate profit, I

don't really know what will.

The markets might be a little overheated.

We're starting to see some crazy crap recently.

For example, it's Sotheby’s’ auction the other day, on November 8th, a crypto investor, Justin Son,

paid the Italian artist Mauricio Cartland $6.2 million for a beautiful piece of art entitled The Comedian.

Now, you know, you might be going taken for a ride of your piece of art.

It's called The Comedian.

Yeah, no doubt.

And yes, it is a banana. Duct tape to a wall.

It's a $6.2 million banana.

It was reported that after he bought it, he tore it off the wall and ate it.

Did you bring your lunch?

Got a banana in there?

No Riley eats all the bananas.

I'll bring the duct tape.

So as always, we're going to have to participate the best in your plan, but prepare for the worst when

we see crap like this going on.

As always, we remain cautious so we don't damage your family or send you back to work.

If you are retired, we will not mark a time around this kind of background noise as the Federal Reserve

may continue with the soft landing.

And you would miss wonderful years.

You really would.

So we're not going to get cute and go to the sidelines, but we're prepared.

The stock market has dropped roughly every five years for 100 years, and they'll do so.

They'll continue to do so long after I'm not on this planet or you're not on this planet too.

But remember the other side of the coin is when the stock market rises, it rises 80% of the time and it

only drops 20% of the time.

And remember 80% of your investment success will be termed by not getting too euphoric in the

good times like now and gamble instead of invest.

And on the other side, not capitulating and selling at the bottom when your investments are having

bad times.

The markets has corrected every five years, we know it'll come again.

So guess what we're going to do?

We're going to take advantage of opportunities when that happens.

The third piece of good news that we want to share with you today is that, as you know, we moved to

a new fantastic home, namely National Bank.

Yes, thank you, everybody.

From all of us here at the Gustafson-Lienau Advisory Group, from the bottom of our hearts, Brad and I

can't thank you enough for moving with us.

When advisors move an institution, a financial institution, typically it takes about 12 to 16 months to

move all of the clients over.

And there's only about 50 to 70% of the clients will follow their advisors during those changes.

And we are so, so honored that effectively 100% more client families have come with us, except for

one that we're actually going to be meeting with this week here to have a have a sit down.

So thank you again for signing all of those documents and DocuSign and working through that

arduous process with us.

We know how much work it was to go through those mountains of paperwork because guess who

also had to sign all those forms too?

This guy right here.

So you broke a lot of records, and I'll show you this graph here.

We actually tracked our transition process.

Couple things about it.

First off, the title is Bee Gees because that's what National Bank had for a code name for our team.

They like to stick to a theme of rock bands or old bands I guess, and it seemed fitting that we were the

Bee Gees.

We care for about 150 families, including children as well.

So that leads to about 225 couples.

And here's the results.

90% of you gave us the verbal yes within that first week that you're going to work with us continually.

And all clients except for the one family that we're still up to meet with have completed paperwork

and their hard earned savings have all been moved over here by day 70.

So during this transition, there was some eyebrows even the President of National Bank Financial

Wealth Management called us and said we did not know that a move could be completed this fast.

Now we're still cleaning up a few items for some of you.

However, as a couple weeks ago, we're resuming normal operations and we started to meet with the

referrals, start to continue on our regular review cycle and continue with all of the regular financial

planning after this interruption.

So stay tuned.

Early next year, Brittlyn is going to be announcing the details of a big red carbon event for you and all

of your families to attend.

Brittlyn is currently interviewing some venues as we speak.

We're going to need a big place to house all everybody.

You know, I feel it's really weird when you're talking a long time like that because I'm sitting here

nodding that you're talking now.

You know how I feel.

Kind of reminds you when we're watching the Prime Minister or someone standing beside the

nodding.

So all kidding aside, there's quite a few reasons we moved.

Some of you asked, you know, why the heck did you guys go through this?

And you know, I'm moving at my age was the last thing I wanted to do.

There's many reasons we moved.

Number one, size and safety.

National Bank over here, managed $653 billion or way over half a trillion dollars.

Stable history equals a stable future.

The bank's 165 years old and, and the independent wealth division where we work, where we reside is

122 years old.

And no, I wasn't there when the doors came.

I promise.

The most important thing which I got in writing, you know, I'm too old to be told what to do.

So the most important thing that I wanted writing was autonomy.

So we're free.

We know for sure we are free to operate independently from the bank.

We do not have to use their investments.

We can use the 60 any of the 68,000 investments out there that we want and continue to run the

business the way we want to and the way we've always ran it in an ethical client centric man.

Well that was so, so very important.

We know without all of you that we don't have jobs.

Therefore, the ability to continue white glove services paramount.

It was paramount in our decision to move.

National Bank will be a good partner in that goal.

I did, I did quite a lengthy due diligence on that for the last several years

Now National Bank is ranked #1 every year in the JD Powers Client Service survey.

And this was very important to me.

This, this graph as well as many other things, safety.

You know, all the banks and, and financial institutions I interviewed, they all had cyber walls like any

other business.

What's unique is National Bank has also employed hackers to play defense against other hackers to

give that extra level of safety to your money.

And, and that sure made me feel really, really safe.

Yeah.

And coming over here, the entire team did follow us except for one person.

So we need to search across Canada, find somebody to fill those shoes and we're very grateful that

we've found someone with even more experience actually to run our paperwork processing and the

compliance desk.

So last month, Tracy Spence, you may see some emails coming in from her already has moved from

Toronto to take over our vacant desk here on the team.

A little bit about her.

She has 30 years’ experience in this role.

She's been a past winner of the highest performance award with one of her past employers.

She's worked at several banks and including National Bank in the past and fits in and shares with the

team the love of the clients and the higher purpose of caring for families.

Most importantly, she does laugh at Brad's dad jokes as well, too.

That's a must to try and fit in here.

Good timing.

Yeah.

So we have yet to get some new head shots done up.

So we'll be bringing Tracy in here shortly so you can get a a quick look at her and and put a face to

the name.

“Hi, I'm Tracy.

I'm very excited to meet all of you.”

But presently, the team in no particular order.

Many of you know Brittlyn already, she's our operations manager and really the circus leader.

We've got Jeremy who's our experienced plan writer with years of planning experience and he even

worked at banks before, lending experience as well too.

Augustine's our support member for anything administrative wise when it comes to your accounts and

now Tracy here as well, obviously joining in too.

So big team to be able to continue that white glove service approach.

I want to close also and back up what Cam said.

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

I'm personally humbled that you all followed us.

It, it's a heck of a compliment.

Thank you so, so much.

I also want to thank the team, though obviously they work side by side with Cam and I on many

weekends and well into the evening during this process till I started to lose my voice.

They made fun of me because I had a bag of throat lozenges behind my desk during the transition,

but they backed me up through all of that.

I'm also very proud of a man who's like a son to me, which is, which is Cam right here.

He stepped up and took possession of the administrative part of the practice through this move and

freed me up to work on the business, making it a Better Business instead of getting buried in the

business and the paperwork and admin minutia of the practice.

And I'd like I've, I've told some of you and I happy to announce to all of you that I've changed the

name of our business from Gustafson Associates to Gustafson-Lienau Advisory Group.

I guess that stands for GLAG

I Google GLAG, there's nothing bad.

We're OK.

We're not going to get sued.

I'm glad that it doesn't mean anything shifty or anything.

I sure hope not.

I didn't think about that.

Also, our legal department is putting the finishing touches on a succession contract as we speak to

ensure if I fall ill or croak on you, that Cam will take you and your family over the finish line for the rest

of your entire life.

And that sounds like a small thing, but it gives me a giant amount of comfort.

I was in a car accident on the highway the Callaway park in 19…

Sorry, 2021. See, that's why I need a successor.

I forget what century it is, and that's probably the post-concussion.

Yeah, so.

But it was in 2021 during COVID and I'm sitting on the side of the highway in the ditch waiting for an

ambulance and thinking “what about my family? What about the clients? What about the practice?”

And it gave me a lot of comfort to know that if Cam was here and it would be all OK if anything bad

happened to me after that accident.

So it means a lot to me to have an honorable partner like Cam.

Thank you to him for your continued mentorship.

It's seven years now on the team and I, I couldn't be more grateful and happier for working with you

and everything I've learned and, and getting to know all of you as well too.

Like our clients, it's feels like one giant family and something that we love to do on a day in and day

out.

And that's the reason why we come to work every day.

So from all of us at the Gustafson-Lienau Advisory Group, we want to say thank you very much and

wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

“Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone.”

National Bank Financial - Wealth Management (NBFWM) is a division of National Bank Financial Inc. (NBF), as well as a trademark owned by National Bank of Canada (NBC) that is used under license by NBF. NBF is a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF), and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NBC, a public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: NA).