Money News Roundup: Financial Trail of the Epstein Case, Meme Stocks Are Back and Bad News for the Housing Market

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3:15All right, it is time for a roundup of the biggest stories on Wall Street and how they affect you and your wallet. First up, the resurrection, albeit briefly, of the meme stock trade. For a hot second, it felt like 2021 yet again, but with a fresh new cast of meme characters. Unlike the original meme stock run, which focused long-term attention on just a few names like GameStop and BlackBerry. Last week, the action was broader. The Wall Street Bets community zeroed in on shares of O-P-E-N, Open Door Technologies, which is kind of a random pick, but activity was scattered across several tickers.

3:52Shares of Krispy Kreme, Kohl's, and GoPro all surged. Krispy Kreme finished up the week 41 percent, Kohl's was up 32 percent, and GoPro was up 66%. And while all the companies involved are still up over the last month, they've come down pretty quickly from their highs. It's honestly too soon to tell if this meme stock revival is over just yet. But with all these meme stocks, it's just a matter of when the rally will be over, not if. In bad times, like when recession fears spike, there's usually a rotation into safety, meaning people panic sell their tech stocks and opt into buying gold and treasuries.

4:28But in hot markets, there is often a flight to risk, or dare I say, dumb money. And that's where we are right now. It is easy to keep money in a hot market. But you do need to remember where we are in the overall cycle and your specific long-term goals. Here's what I mean. The goal with investing is to buy low and sell high. But we are always, always, always tempted to do the opposite. When the stock market is down, it is human nature to panic and we want to sell all of it. But when the market is up, we feel like Warren Buffett and we just want to buy more of it. It is human nature, but it is not strategic.

5:04For most of the time that I have personally been invested in the stock market, I've bought more stocks on dips. And when the market is on a tear, I do basically nothing. If you do want to free up some cash, like you're getting close to retirement or a big purchase, like a home is coming up for you. when the market is on a tear like this, you could consider selling pieces of your winnings, taking some profits. But for me, I just keep my investments in the market because I know that even though I could take some profit from my winners, my good investments will continue to grow over time. But if you're wondering whether or not to buy into this hype, if you're a longtime listener of the show, you probably know what I'm going to say.

5:42Don't buy into the trend unless you're willing to take a big risk. Next up, let's check on the housing market. Right now, it is rough. I really keep wanting to have a better update for you, but unfortunately, it's not going to happen in this weekly roundup. Right now, the strongest part of the housing market is the homes at the highest price points. Sales of homes over a million bucks grew 14 % last year, and 29 % of those buyers paid all in cash, which is kind of cuckoo bananas, but there's a secret to how some people are doing this, which I'm going to explore in a future episode. But meanwhile, the median home price is still up 48 percent from five years ago, a.k.a.

6:21pre-pandemic. Another lingering hangover from the pandemic era is that a lot of homeowners either bought or refinanced when rates were at rock bottom. And if one of those homeowners sells, they're going to need to live somewhere. So unless they want to rent, which is a-okay, they're going to need to buy another house and deal with today's mortgage rates. So today's homeowners are understandably scared to give up a 2.75 % mortgage for today's 6-ish rate, even though 6-ish is still low by historical standards. And while the high end of the market is moving, the rest is withering. For the first time in a long time, supply at the lower end is actually increasing.

7:02It's not back to pre-pandemic levels, but inventory is up. Still, prices remain stubbornly high, and those houses are not moving. Days on market is creeping up. And here's an interesting stat. In June, 15 % of pending home sales fell through the highest percentage on record. Simply, it is a weird market right now. And some real estate professionals are even saying that they're expecting to see real estate crashes in some states like Florida and Texas. Here's why it's particularly weird. In economic theory, supply and demand is king or queen. When something is scarce, it is expensive. When something is abundant, prices fall.

7:45That is the rule. But some things defy those rules. Sometimes the reason is obvious. Diamonds, for example, actually aren't that rare. But a century of marketing has convinced us that they are and that they're loaded with emotional value. Like how important your relationship is. The data is showing us now that housing is also one of those exceptions. When people aren't selling and prices aren't falling, even as inventory ticks up, the market is defying laws of economic gravity. And as always, I'm going to say it. My hot take is that renting paired with investing in the stock market can be a better way to build wealth than simply dumping all of your savings into a house, being house poor and not investing in the stock market.

8:30Over the long term, the U.S. stock market has outpaced the U.S. housing market, not to mention it is much easier to sell a stock than it is to sell a house. So if you're stressed because you think the only way to build wealth is to buy a home, just know that you have options. Next up, the Epstein case. But not the part of the case that's in all the headlines, not the files, not the list. There's one big question that doesn't get nearly enough attention. Where did Jeffrey Epstein's money come from? Epstein is one of the most investigated men in recent history, and we still do not have a clear, consistent answer here.

9:05So let's give the case the money rehab treatment and follow the money trail as far as we can. An important part of the money trail is the now infamous Vanity Fair article by Vicki Ward. The story came out in 2003, before the first allegations had ever been seriously investigated. Ward says her original reporting on abuse allegations was cut from the final story. But what's left is still one of the creepiest profiles ever written. It opens in Epstein's foyer under the watchful gaze of his collection of glass eyeballs, seriously, which he had framed in little shadow boxes. And if that's not enough, there is a taxidermied poodle sitting on the piano.

9:50And there are multiple mentions of how often Epstein's rich friends talked about how much their kids liked Epstein. So in hindsight, this profile is 100 % sinister, but it's also a complete biography from before the internet got a hold of him. It dives into Epstein's background, including how he actually got his start. Epstein, a college dropout, was teaching math at an elite New York prep school. While he was there, he tutored the son of Bear Stearns' CEO and befriended the CEO's daughter. The CEO liked Epstein enough that when Epstein was fired from teaching, he got him a job at Bear Stearns.

10:26Remember, the story was published in 2003, five years before the dramatic collapse of Bear Stearns and the subsequent financial crisis. That was Epstein's first brush with high finance and with controversy. He ultimately left Bear Stearns under a cloud that has never been fully cleared up. Stories about his departure vary depending on who's telling them and whether or not they're under oath. Epstein said he left after disciplinary action was taken against him by Bear Stearns' executive committee. He claimed that he was punished for loaning money to his childhood friend to purchase stock. He said he didn't know that that was against the rules.

11:01At the same time Epstein left, there was a big insider trading investigation happening there, and some journalists have suggested that Epstein was involved in that. But regardless of the reason, that chapter ended. Side note, somewhere during this period, Epstein also ran a scam making fake first-class airline tickets for his friends. Next, he landed at Tower Financial, a company that turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme. Epstein was there early and instrumental in setting up the initial deals. Around this time, he was also running a side business helping scam victims recover lost funds until he pivoted from asset recovery to asset management and tax advice.

11:40And while Epstein certainly had a business, the biggest question mark has always been whether it was legit or just a smokescreen for something much darker. Once Epstein started managing money, the bulk of his income came from just two billionaire clients, retail magnate Les Wexner and Apollo Global Management founder Leon Black. Wexner, by the way, was the CEO of L Brands, a collection of companies that at the time would have included Victoria's Secret. Over nearly two decades, Wexner and Black paid Epstein an estimated$370 million in combined fees for financial services and advice. Black, for example, paid Epstein$170 million between 2012 and 2017 without a formal written contract for most of it.

12:28Black later claimed that the advice saved him billions, which is odd considering Black already had an army of elite advisors in his office, where any employee could have told him that tax attorneys cost far less than$170 million. Of course, this payment was revealed during an investigation into Black's scheme to avoid paying over a billion dollars in federal taxes. And just to be clear here, people do pay their financial advisors fees. And when you're a billionaire, even small fees amount to a big payday. If a billion dollars is managed with a 1 % management fee, that's 10 million bucks right there in just fees.

13:05But the U.S. Senate Finance Committee called the payments abnormal, pointing to a lack of transparency around what exactly Epstein did to earn it. That's what we know about his work. We also know that he invested$40 million with Peter Thiel's venture capital firm. But that's about it. That pattern, big money, little accountability, ran through Epstein's entire financial empire. Through two firms based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Epstein also exploited a powerful tax incentive program that slashed his corporate tax bill by 90 percent and helped him save an estimated 300 million bucks over two decades.

13:44His firms, Financial Trust and later Southern Trust, were granted these tax breaks for allegedly bringing jobs and investment to the islands. But after his death, the Virgin Islands government alleged that Epstein fraudulently obtained those benefits to bankroll his sex trafficking operation and clawed back$80 million in a settlement with his estate in 2022. Even outside Wexner and Black, Epstein had a Rolodex packed with billionaires, political leaders, and elite institutions. The hedge fund Highbridge Capital paid Epstein$15 million for a lucrative introduction to JPMorgan Chase. But aside from a few high-profile transactions, most of those client relationships remain shrouded in secrecy.

14:27At the time of his death in 2019, Epstein's estimated net worth was around$600 million. In 2003, he owned a nine-story Manhattan townhouse gifted to him by Wexner, an$18 million ranch in New Mexico, a$6.8 million home in Palm Beach, a private island, a fleet of planes. And these were 2003 prices. So the wealth was not fake. It is still around, by the way. As of March 31st, his estate still held$131 million in assets, and that's after paying out the victim's fund. Investigators have now uncovered more than 4 ,700 transactions totaling$1.9 billion flowing through Epstein's accounts at four major banks, and many of those transactions have not been made public, which leaves a lot of Epstein's finances in the dark.

15:17Six years after his death, the DOJ hasn't published a report on where all that money came from or what exactly it funded. And in a letter to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon wrote, quote, I am convinced that the DOJ ignored evidence found in the U.S. Treasury Department's Epstein file, a binder that contains extensive details on the mountains of cash Epstein received from prominent businessmen that Epstein used to finance his criminal network. Epstein clearly had access to enormous financing to operate his sex trafficking network, and the details on how he got the cash to pay for it are sitting in a Treasury Department filing cabinet, end quote.

16:00Again, the money here was real. We just don't know where it came from. And even the parts we do know don't totally make sense. Let's just hope that someday we get a little more clarity on how Jeffrey Epstein ended up with so much money and why nobody seems able to explain it. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. If you're planning on buying a home in the next year or so, get your mortgage pre-approval locked in now before rates start to move again. Even if you're not ready to pull the trigger immediately, having a pre-approval in hand lets you lock in today's rate, often for 60 to 90 days, and gives you leverage if you need to move quickly.

16:40Bonus, if rates drop during the lock period, most lenders will let you float down to the lower rate. But if they stay up, you are protected. This can save you thousands of dollars over the life of the loan and help you stay competitive in a market where 15 % of the deals are already falling through.

17:02Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.