Announcer:
4 Your Money is brought to you by NelsonCorp Wealth Management.

Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
It’s now time for 4 Your Money. We’re joined by James Nelson, Financial Planner at NelsonCorp Wealth Management. Welcome back, James.

James Nelson:
Thanks, Brandy.

Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
So while interest rates have been a focal point for financial professionals lately, they aren’t the only ones with growing interest in the topic. Share some of your insights on that.

James Nelson:
Yeah, well, when we’re on the TV or radio talking about interest rates, we usually talk about it in a broad sense, but that doesn’t always translate into concrete ideas for the average investor. We like to pay attention to what the general public is thinking. And one way that we can do that is we can look at Google Trends, and that’s what this first chart shows us here. And it shows us what the public web searches are for the term interest rates over the last 20 years. And if you look at that blue line, it’s been pretty consistent up until the last two years, we’ve seen a nice bump in that search. So what that’s showing is that there’s a level of interest that we haven’t had in years past.

Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
So what is this telling you about what is important to the average investor out there?

James Nelson:
If you drill down and look at the data and look at those searches more specifically, we walk away with two conclusions. The first one is that you’ve got investors that have been searching interest rates, looking for a higher yield on say, money markets, CDs, those type of fixed interest bearing investments. And then on the flip side, you’ve got those same folks, again, Googling interest rates, looking at mortgage rates, and they’re looking at where can I get the best deal on a mortgage rate. So what that tells us is the typical person is interested in this and it’s the higher interest rate environment has definitely impacted people a little bit differently.

Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
All right, James, as always, thanks for joining us.

James Nelson:
Thanks, Brandy.

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