AWM Insights Financial and Investment News

In this episode, Justin Dyer and Mena Hanna set the stage for an in-depth conversation with former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger W. Ferguson Jr. The duo unpacks why inflation is at the heart of investing and how the Fed’s decisions ripple through every family’s financial playbook. With global stories, personal experience, and a closer look at Roger Ferguson’s unique journey in both markets and family legacy, this episode delivers expert insight for anyone looking to build and protect generational wealth. Tune in to discover how understanding the Fed and mastering purchasing power can shape your path as a 100-year family.

Chapters
(00:00) Introducing the Fed and Upcoming Interview
(01:00) Why Inflation Drives Everything
(02:37) Preserving Purchasing Power
(04:19) Global Examples of Inflation’s Impact
(05:24) The Fed’s Dual Mandate
(07:00) Roger Ferguson’s Unique Perspective
(08:00) Building the 100-Year Family

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Creators and Guests

Host
Justin Dyer
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operating Officer at AWM Capital
Host
Mena Hanna
Senior Investment Analyst at AWM Capital

What is AWM Insights Financial and Investment News?

A bite sized discussion on timely financial news and investment topics, to help you maximize your net worth and wealth for the next generation with Justin Dyer and Mena Hanna of AWM Capital.

Justin Dyer: The simple framing here
is, why your paycheck keeps getting

bigger and bigger and bigger, but you
actually feel like you have less money.

That's the reverse of what we're
talking about, it erodes the

purchasing power of that single dollar.

Mena Hanna: And people
see that across the globe.

I am Egyptian, the Egyptian
pound has been devalued a ton.

There's been crazy inflation,
the inflation in that country and

inflation in other countries as well.

We've had recent stories about inflation
in Turkey inflation in Argentina.

That devalues the currency faster
than people can make more money,

faster than investments grow.

And what you're left with is, a
population or potentially investors,

consumers, that have less actual true
dollars to spend and to consume with.

What the Fed really is in place to do
is set the rules and set the guardrails

so that investors are protected
when it comes to purchasing power.

Justin Dyer: Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to

another episode of AWM,

Insights.

It's your host, Justin Dyer, chief
investment officer here at AWM,

joined as always, uh, by Mina Hanna,

our portfolio manager here at AWM

Capital.

And w- we're gonna continue

this,

this,

uh, uh, teeing up

hype, hype cycle, whatever
you wanna call it, you

you know,

we're

the best hype men around,
I guess you could say.

But,

uh,

of, of this, um,

interview we have coming up in,
in the not too distant future.

That interview's happening in a few days
actually, and we're gonna release it over,

uh, probably a couple different
episodes or even maybe,

uh, in an off cycle manner.

But

it's really gonna center around the Fed

and,

and

we're trying to hype that
up, not just because there's

nothing exciting around it.

It's,

uh, because it actually is pretty
f- pretty freaking important,

if, if you wanna use that term.

Um, and we've

talked a

little

bit about the history,

how and what the Fed actually does, right?

Uh, essentially they control
the money supply, which

directly has an impact on
interest rates, and they're doing

that in reaction to inflation.

Inflation's incredibly important.

Uh, we're gonna get into a little bit,

uh,

about why that, that is actually the case.

But

through these mechanisms,

everything else in the economy
kinda lives downstream.

And so

if you haven't heard
of the Fed or you kinda

don't pay attention to it because it's a,

you know, bureaucratic organization or

wonky

Justin: wonky

Justin Dyer: e- uh, board
or, or organization full

of a bunch of economists,

it's super important.

We're gonna talk about it.

We're gonna get a little bit of the,

uh, pun intended here, inside
baseball perspective on,

on the Fed.

But there's gonna be a lot more

tying

it into the 100 year family and,
and really what we do here at AWM.

So it's gonna

be a great conversation.

We're super excited about it.

Um, but just continuing,
Mina, on the setup here,

you

know, I think the, the
biggest piece which I, I,

uh, or that we wanted

to,

to really leave people with,
I think the, the, in this last

conversation you and I are having

is,

is the power and importance of,

uh, of inflation really
at the end of the day.

Um,

arguably that's why we're all investing

in

a, in a,

simple, simple, way.

I

mean, I think people are investing 'cause
they want to-- their money to grow.

But, you

know, at its core, you invest

to-- so that your money,
the money you save,

keeps up with inflation, right?

And

just unpack that for
listeners a little bit more.

Like, why, what is, you know,
inflation in its simplest

sense, but why does it matter?

Mena Hanna: Yeah.

And it all comes back to a
term called purchasing power.

The Fed is

pretty

much responsible

for

preserving the purchasing power.

of,

of

citizens, of employees,

and

of making sure the way we really do that

is make

sure that

inflation is not rampant.

If

inflation is rampant-

If wages don't grow

kind

of along

with

inflation,

if you also potentially get
a market where inflation far

outpaces

interest rates, potentially
what people can earn in the

market with their investment
portfolios, what you're doing is

you're

diminishing, you're diminishing
your purchasing power.

That is

a

big reason why we're not
proponents of holding

a ton

of cash, because cash is

an investment that has maybe a little bit

of a return, but it doesn't
historically keep up with inflation.

So

that money that you have, you

know,

stored under your mattress, that is
losing purchasing power every single day.

And if you're not investing it,

even

though it looks the same, it's the
same dollar value in front of you,

it is-- doesn't have the
same purchasing power.

So

the

Fed is making sure, trying
to make sure to establish

a level of inflation that is,

call it not inhibitory

to purchasing power and
to people's abilities

to preserve purchasing power
over the short, intermediate,

and long

terms

Justin Dyer: Yeah … that,
uh, sup-super helpful.

I mean, the, the, the kind of simple,
simple framing here is, right, why your

your paycheck keeps getting
bigger and bigger and bigger,

but you actually feel
like you have less money.

That, That's the reverse of-

of- Yeah … what

we're talking about.

It, it

erodes the purchasing power,

going back

to your term, of that single dollar.

Mena Hanna: And

people see that kind of

across

the, across

the globe, you know.

I am, I am Egyptian.

The

Egyptian pound has been devalued a ton.

There's been crazy
inflation, the inflation in

in, that country and inflation in other

countries as well, you

know.

we've

had recent stories about inflation in

Turkey

inflation in

Argentina.

That devalues the

currency faster than
people can make more money,

faster

than investments grow.

And what you're left with is,

uh,

just a, a population

or

potentially investors,

consumers that

have,

have,

less actual true dollars to

spend and, and to consume with.

So that's to everyone's detriment.

And what the

Fed really

is is, in place to do is
set the rules and set the

guardrails so that investors are

protected when

it comes to purchasing

power.

Justin Dyer: Yeah, one hundred percent.

So,

um- Trying to

simplify or let,

let, let's just say like
bring, bring this to

a, a conclusion,

um,

that is

one of the, the

Mena Hanna: Fed's

Justin Dyer: most important
jobs: controlling money supply

to control interest rates to
control inflation and, and ideally

control

e- the employment situation
in the United States.

There's other things that the
Fed does where that's beyond the

scope of this conversation, but

those

two functions or that, let's just…

Yeah, those two functions, right?

We said dual mandate, inflation and
employment are incredibly important to

the, to the overall health of, of the
US economy and, and, uh, kind of by

extension the global economy as well.

But because of that, it's
incredibly important for

anyone's investing

Certainly everyone listening here,

uh, who's a client of AWM, anyone who's,
who's potentially investing on their own,

it is an incredibly important institution.

Do you have to understand

the,

the nitty-gritty?

No.

But it's an incredibly
institut- important institution,

um, that influences and has an impact

on

on all of our

journey, uh, towards

towards our hundred-year family.

Um, and so we're super, super excited,

um, to welcome Roger Ferguson Jr.,

uh, onto the show.

Again, it's gonna probably
be a mu- much longer form,

um, type structure than we're used to.

But

why,

why we're excited about that is not only

because

he had a front row seat, he was,

uh, vice chairman of the
Federal Reserve from…

I wanna make sure I get
my dates right here.

From, uh, ninety-- 1999 to 2006,
he, he was a voting member of the,

f- uh,

Federal Open Market Committee,
which we've talked about.

Um, Harvard BA,

JD, and PhD in economics there.

So,

uh, great, great bonafides there.

Um, he was also the CI-- CEO,
excuse me, of TIA, which is a

fairly large financial institu-
tution here in the United States,

and almost tripled their assets.

We're gonna get a little bit
more into the background.

Um, but

those

are just, let's call it the technical,

um, aspects of, uh, of why we're
really excited to welcome Roger onto to

the podcast here.

But I

mean, it m- maybe

tease out a little bit, let's,
like, like we've talked about,

let's wet, wet everyone's whistle
around the hundred-year family side

of

things.

Mena Hanna: Yeah.

So the Fed, I would say
independently, is so responsible for,

call

it those

initial inputs that do influence
the hundred-year family.

What inflation looks like,
purchasing power, these are all

independently

things that

influence the hundred-year family.

And Roger is

intimately aware

and, and

dealt with them for a pretty,
pretty expansive period of time

and,

and a pretty interesting
period of time as well.

You

know,

the dot-com bubble, he was on the
Federal Reserve for the dot-com bubble.

He was

also

there for nine eleven.

People know it's an extremely long

time ago,

but that was a pretty

turbulent time and, and
just markets in general.

So

the work he did on that point on,
on just the input side is huge.

And then independently as a human, you

know,

he's established his hundred-year family.

You

know,

Roger Ferguson III.

He's Roger Ferguson II.

We work with Roger Ferguson III,
who is an outstanding human.

Um, and his, his

daughter Caroline, who I haven't met.

But Roger

Junior has set up his 100-year family,

all while having an
extremely successful career,

which

is

kind of what we want all
of our clients to do.

So I think it's also a chance, you

know, to talk all

of the nerdy stuff that me and
you like to talk, but also to

dive into

the 100-year family from
someone who has been

extremely successful professionally

and,

and also

extremely prof- successful when it
comes to establishing something as

difficult as the 100-year family.

I would

argue, you know, being the vice chairman
of the Federal Reserve is awesome.

Managing

a

trillion dollars is also awesome.

Establishing and preserving that

100-year family, I would say
is, is a bigger accomplishment

in general and, and probably harder to do.

It is extremely

hard to do

Justin Dyer: that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, that's a great place to

end, and, and we will do so there.

Um, so, uh, if you can't tell,
hopefully, you guys are all excited

as we are, um, about, about this
upcoming conversation we're gonna have.

It's gonna be a great combination of
both the technical, the nerdy stuff

like Mina just, uh, alluded to, right?

We, we will, we'll do our best
to educate and in- and inform

because it is important, right?

That's what we've been doing
over the last few episodes.

Hey, this is something that, that matters.

We pay attention to, um, the market,
if you will, market participant,

institutional investors are,
are, are taking a fine-tooth comb

to all of the words the Federal Reserve
says, and Roger is gonna be able to

give us a, a little bit of, that,
again, that inside baseball take.

Um, there's been some pretty
interesting changes, at least

from our perspective there.

But in addition to it, why it matters to

the

young investor, the
young athlete, the young

CEO, the

young

founder, whichever role
you're in, but also

lessons learned, the life history

conversation around his own journey in
executing on his hundred-year family is

gonna be super, super relevant, certainly
to how, how we think about managing wealth

and serving you all, uh, our clients.

So super excited about it.

Uh, stay tuned.

L- Be on the lookout for

various

communications, releases,

and,

and whatnot from, uh, the AWM

family here

around this conversation and, uh…

But until then, own your wealth,
make an impact, and always

be a pro.

Thanks for listening.