Summary:

What’s New At Financial MD [0:01:18]
Finance Watch: Market Volatility, Tariff Buzz And Budget Cuts [0:03:34]
Is It Time To Get Out Of The Market? [0:05:16]
Have A Plan. Work The Plan. Or Fix The Plan [0:08:11]
Action Steps To Stay On Track [0:09:14]

 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board-certified ophthalmologist with a full-time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
 
But essentially the United States stock market. And so how does that affect your finances? What can you do about that? Well, what can you do about it? Nothing. How can you take advantage of it?
 
And we're back. Welcome back to the Financial MD Show. We took a year off, but we're back now. It's after tax day, April 2025. And this is a good day to come back because tax day is over. And while you love listening to this show, we've got all sorts of great stuff. You get free resources. You'll learn things. By day, we are actually a financial planning firm for doctors. And so that means, oddly enough, even though we don't do tax returns, at the beginning of the year, January to April can be very busy. And there's things down to the wire, like funding Roth IRA’s and backdoor Roth IRA’s and correcting things and getting stuff to people for taxes and all that stuff; talking through forms and 1099’s and 5498’s and 8606 -- all the things that I learned the hard way in the past several years of what these forms mean. That means that that's a very busy time. But it works out well because our last show was about a year ago, and today I'm just going to fill you in on what's been going on with Financial MD, the team you know and love, that brings young doctors good financial info.
 
What’s New At Financial MD [0:01:18]
 
So here's the deal: what's been going on at Financial MD? Well, of course, this is Jon. I'm still here. Super stoked. We're still filling in residents on how to make smart financial decisions. We're getting to hospitals, doing lectures, getting to med schools, doing all that stuff. In fact, that's actually ramped up a little bit this year. So what's been going on internally?
 
Well, our team looks a little bit different. Those of you who know Tanya, she had moved on last spring onto some other things with her family, and so we had to start looking for someone to replace her. So we moved up someone internally. That's Alex, and she's doing a fantastic job. She's actually been with us six, seven years, probably, give or take. So, if you talk to her, if you know her, say, “Hey, congrats! Happy anniversary,” whatnot. And then we brought on Lilly to the team. Lilly does a lot of our projects, a lot of reaching out to clients. Pretty much anything to keep things running smoothly and efficiently and everything. And so we're excited. Say hi to Lilly. And then in June, we brought on Blake, who is our first associate that actually helps me do what we do with financial planning and doing lectures and working with the residents. So he is very quickly getting up to speed. He's very good at working with doctors now; knows the world of making smart financial decisions and budgeting and debt and your safety net and insurance and all that stuff. So, be sure to reach out to him. He can be reached at bkane at financialmd.com. That's B-K-A-N-E -- say hi. Or just shoot us something in the Facebook groups or on anything else.
 
But those are a lot of the big things that have been happening and why it's been super busy around here and I'm finally realizing we've got to start putting shows out again. And so here we are. So, rather than just give you some boring updates about what's going on with us, but I want to because it's exciting and good news for you, because it means we have a lot of great things in the pike. Like we've talked about the Financial MD residency, which is an online course that is still happening -- almost done. A book in the works in the future. More and more Didactic Minute videos -- those are still coming out -- so check those out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. And we are doing more and more lectures, graduating resident dinners; a lot of great things are happening, and so it's just an exciting time to be at Financial MD.
 
Finance Watch: Market Volatility, Tariff Buzz And Budget Cuts [0:03:34]
 
What's new in the world of finances? Well, depending on when you're catching this, if this is an encore rerun, the economy is doing interesting things. We've had some market volatility almost entirely due to some political shaken up. So, we've got DOGE stripping out some budget in some areas. We've got other tariff things going on. A lot of it's due to tariffs and what that's going to mean for our economy, which we can't talk about that but there's plenty of shows that do that. So I'm just going to skip that because you have so many resources to just see what people are talking about with tariffs from articles and podcasts and things like that. I don't really want to duplicate that. You don't need more of that. What you need to know is what applies to you as a resident, what applies to young physicians, and how do we make our finances still healthy in the meantime.
 
So we'll dive a little bit into that today, but there's been a lot that's happening. We got a new president -- new “old” president -- since our last show came out. And, meanwhile, things are still plugging along. There seems to be a doctor shortage -- what? Obviously, that's been going on a long time. It's more of a Medicare issue. So we've been hearing a lot of that from our clients as well. But the market's gone up and down. At one point, I don't know where it's at today, but when I looked at it in March, as we were kind of pulling our head up from getting ready for taxes and doing all that stuff, market had dipped about somewhere between 9 and 10 percent from its high. And you could call that a correction. Technically, a correction is 10 percent below market high, which, again, market high is always one of those things that that's the high. Is that normal? Is that what it's supposed to be? I don't think so. I think we can all assume that when the stock market -- by that, I'm going to refer to the S&P 500 for our terms. Most of you guys will know what that means. If you don't, ChatGPT it -- but essentially, the United States stock market.
 
Is It Time To Get Out Of The Market? [0:05:16]
 
And so, how does that affect your finances? What can you do about that? Well, what can you do about it? Nothing. How can you take advantage of it? We get this question from old and young physicians alike: what do I do when the market has volatility like this? Is it time to get out of the market for a little bit? And I seriously get this question. And I seriously understand. And I know I do this every day. And so it's easier for me to look at and say, “Well, duh, obviously,” whatever I think long term. But I know how tempting it is to give into the hype, read the news, get out of the market and say, “I'll get back in when it gets better.” But you have to ask yourself this question, “What is better?” How do you know you're going to get into the market at the right time? Do not let your emotions make your investment decisions because that is what's happening. If we look at the stats, 1 in every 5 years is a down market. So if this is a down market year, which the year is obviously not over, it wasn't last year. Last year was an upmarket; market went up. Your investments probably went up. Could this be a down market this year? Sure. Are we due? Sure. That's 1 in 5 years. What you have to look at that and I don't care where you're at in your investing career, whether you're a med student or resident or whether you're already a retired physician listening to this, which, kudos to you, for listening to a podcast. But when you see a down market, if you are properly diversified, whether we've set up your portfolio or somebody else, you need to look at that as things are on sale. And if the market is already down and you asked this question, it's already too late to get out. You better stay in for the ride, because if you get out now, you fall off and you're dead. Meaning, you've locked in your losses.
 
If you say, “Well, I'm going to move all my investments to cash,” you can do that, but I can guarantee you with nearly 100 percent certainty, you will not get back in at the right time. You just don't. To do it, you'd have to predict the future. You might get lucky, but to get lucky every time? Certainly not. And here's what the stats say. If you're a get-out-when-it's-down-and-get-back-in-when-it-starts-going-up type of investor, you will lose. Now will you gain some long term? Probably. You'll have some, but you will not be as far ahead had you just stuck it out, rode the market, and understood. I don't know how things will be okay; I just know that they will be okay. Because if we look at history, these things happen. Every time we say it's different -- this time is different, this time is different, this time is different -- this time it's not different. And if somebody says this time is different, they don't know. They're telling you the sky is falling.
 
But listen, that happened in 2008 with the recession. It came back. That happened in 2022 when bonds and stocks both went down. This is unprecedented. This time is different. It came back. This happened in 2000 and 2001. They called it a dot-com bubble. A lot of tech stocks were overvalued. Everybody was excited about getting into tech and internet was blowing up, etcetera. There's a bad year… a bad couple of years. But it came back. This happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This happened during the Iran crisis. This happened during inflation. This happened when energy crisis in the ‘70s. This happened during World War II and the Great Depression. Like all these things, they came back, and so you need to listen to me.
 
Have A Plan. Work The Plan. Or Fix The Plan [0:08:11]
 
Stay the course. Make a plan. Stay with the plan. If your investments are not invested according to a plan, then you're already off track. Fix that. Don't stand here looking at me saying, “Well, I got into a bunch of stocks that I thought were a good idea. I've got some Snapchat and I've got some Tesla and I've got some…” Okay, then you're doing it wrong already. I'm sorry, but unless you're in a properly diversified portfolio that's geared towards growth, you're not doing it right. And you won't be ahead because you're trying to be a day trader and a stock picker and you're a doctor. Don't be that guy. Now I hate to be hard on you, but somebody needs to hear this. And if it's not you, then it's your buddy sitting next to you and you need to have him listen to this.
 
So I want to use this opportunity to say -- and I've said it in our Didactic Minute videos so watch those, but I'm going to say in a podcast, in case you don't hear us anywhere else -- stay the course. Have a plan. Work the plan. If you don't have a plan, reach out to us, okay? It's not expensive. You can check out our website to see what it looks like to use our financial planning. We call it a financial health assessment. That part's free. At least take us up on that. We'll give you some quick advice and tell you where you think you're maybe off course and what you're doing well, and get started on that.
 
Action Steps To Stay On Track [0:09:14]
 
So, as we're wrapping up today, I want to give you a couple of quick action items. Number one, as always, start doing a Roth IRA if you haven't yet. If you're in practice and you're making too much, do a backdoor Roth. We can talk about that. But stay the course, okay? We can send you all sorts of resources on maybe what a good typical portfolio would be -- well-diversified mutual funds or ETFs, low cost things. There's certain factors that we can look for that, you know, long term we're going to do great. But have a plan. Stay the course. Don't get out just because things get volatile, okay?
 
So, check out our other resources. Look at the Didactic Minute videos on TikTok, Instagram. Follow that. Make sure you're subscribing to this podcast. Share it with somebody. If you think this information is good and somebody can learn from this, share it with them. We've got all sorts of resources. Join the Financial MD community. That's information just for doctors to chat, get some advice, put some messages in there. We're posting stuff all the time of the resources we put out. So, make sure you're doing that and shoot us a message if you want to chat. We'd love to hear from you.
 
So, that was our return episode on the Financial MD Show. We're so excited to hear more from you. Talk to us and we'll see you on the next show.
 
Thanks for joining us for another Financial MD Show. Be sure to head over to financialmd.com to get more in-depth resources on financial tips for physicians and don’t forget to join the Financial MD community group on Facebook, where physicians at all stages of their career gather to share tips and get ideas on achieving true financial success. We’ll see you next time.
 
The Financial MD Show is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to invest. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Be sure to seek financial, legal, or tax professionals when making any financial decisions. Before investing, you should make sure that any investment strategy or investment meets your individual investment needs, goals, and objectives. Financial MD makes no claims or guarantees to individual investment performance. All investing involves the risk of loss as well as the potential for gain.
 
 
Resources and Links:

Department of Government Efficiency – https://doge.gov/
Trump’s tariffs: What they mean for the economy and your wallet – https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/taxes/article/what-is-a-tariff-194059448.html
Market Correction: What Does It Mean? – https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/market-correction-what-does-it-mean
What to focus on during a down market – https://howlandcapital.com/insights/what-to-focus-on-during-a-down-market/#:~:text=A%20bear%20market%E2%80%94or%20down,the%20state%20of%20the%20market.
Roth IRAs – https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/roth-iras
Backdoor Roth IRA: Advantages and Tax Implications Explained – https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/backdoor-roth-ira.asp
Financial MD Email Address – [email protected]
Financial MD Website – https://www.financialmd.co/
Financial MD YouTube page – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6qEAQxK8L8JM7joy3wvdkA
Financial MD Facebook community – https://www.facebook.com/FinancialMD/
Financial MD TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@financialmd
Financial MD Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/financial.md/
Financial MD Twitter – https://twitter.com/financialmd2
Financial MD LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-md/?viewAsMember=true
Financial MD App – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/financialmd/id1507757039
Financial MD Apple Podcast –

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-financialmd-show/id1548024586
 
 

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