Investing With Integrity - Jay Peroni

Jeff Talarico (: 00:01

Investing with Integrity podcast. My name is Jeff Talarico I am your host. Today we have a special guest. We have Jay Peroni He is the Senior Portfolio Manager for Faith Investment Services. Now he is in charge of financial planning and investment strategies throughout the firm. He has also a national radio show called Faith and Retirement, which is broadcast coast to coast on Sirius XM radio, as well as some major markets AM and FM channels. He is a certified financial planner.

with over 28 years of experience. And Jay also has a master's degree in personal financial planning. He's the author of three books on faith-based investing, and we can't wait to hear about those. And he's also been married to his high school sweetheart, Karen, and they have four children. Funny fact, Jay, my wife's name is Caryn as well. She just spells it differently. So Jay, welcome to the show. We're glad to have you today.

Jay Peroni (: 00:49

Oh wow.

Yeah, thanks for having me on Jeff. I'm excited about this podcast. I know our CEO Mike was on some time ago. I listened to that one and it was fantastic. So I'm really excited about today's show.

Jeff Talarico (: 01:04

Well, I appreciate that. Mike has become a very good friend and he did very well. I think he was on our second or third episode. But anyway, he's, he's a fantastic guy. We were glad to have him on the show. Listen, I'm going to start off with the same way I do all my, all my podcast guests. I just want to ask you, what is there about you that we might not know? Just give us something.

Jay Peroni (: 01:26

Yeah, a lot of people might not know and this might scare some people, but I'm a true crime junkie. My mind is just so investigative that I'm drawn into these forensic science shows. You know, how did people,

make someone disappear, you know, all these crazy stories that you see, and they just fascinate me. And I think if I hadn't have been a portfolio manager or money manager, I love the investigative part of it. I probably would have been a private investigator because I love fighting crime and helping, helping find, catch the killer, so to speak. So I think that really would have been my calling had it not been for the world of finance. So that's something a lot of people may not know about me. Again, true crime junkie.

Jeff Talarico (: 02:10

The question is, does your family know that about you and do they sleep well at night?

Jay Peroni (: 02:12

They do, they watch, my wife watches it with me. So she's always saying if something happens to me, they always suspect the husband.

Jeff Talarico (: 02:16

There you go.

He's always the first one. And sometimes it's true, but you know, what can I say? So let me ask you this. I mean, you've been in the business for 28 years. How did you get started? Tell us a little bit about your journey.

Jay Peroni (: 02:23

It is.

Yeah, so for me as a teenager I saw one of my heroes, one of the hardest working guys I ever knew. My grandfather, he literally worked three jobs. He came from the Great Depression and he just was a very good saver. Never made more than $30,000 a year, but he amassed this pretty good size portfolio for himself, five, $600,000. And

He just thought stocks were risk. I'm not going to take any risks. So he put it into CDs. And at the time, I don't know if you remember the eighties, but 12, 14, 15, almost 20% in CDs. So he literally limped into retirement. He got injured on the job. He's collecting social security disability, a pension, and he's making a fortune in these CDs, making more income than he ever did when he worked. Well, fast forward.

10, 15, 20 years into retirement. We know interest rates went way down. And his cost of living went way up with inflation. And then he developed dementia.

And now I saw my grandfather, his whole life savings, everything he had worked hard for was just literally wiped out in an instant. in Massachusetts, and this was in the nineties, I mean, he was paying six figures, just in nursing care. So that doesn't make a portfolio last very long when you're taking that kind of money out. So I said, this is entirely wrong. You know, how can someone that worked this hard see their whole life savings get wiped out? And that said to me, I need to find a solution.

Again, my investigative mind said, what can I do to prevent what happened to my grandfather? And that's really what led me into the financial services industry. Went to school, I started as a marketing major and then really found a passion for economics as well finance. So I double majored and then graduated, went and got my master's in financial planning. And now when I talk to clients, I really picture my grandfather. If I had met him 10, 15 years before he retirement, his total financial picture.

could have been entirely different and that's really what motivates me and brought me into the financial services industry.

Jeff Talarico (: 04:36

Yeah, it's pretty interesting that most people don't think how much interest rates can truly play into the financial picture. And there was a time you could literally live on fixed income. It was a great return. But I do remember those part of the late 80s and early 90s. Well, I was in a different profession at the time and I was in the automobile industry and you could literally the A tier client, the best rate they could get to finance a new vehicle was about eight and a half percent.

CDs again, we're still at 14. Mortgages were at 14. So people now complaining about a six and a half or seven, you know, go back to the 90s. There's, it was a lot higher back then. So, well, that's great. Go ahead.

Jay Peroni (: 05:07

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. But I think here's the trap, Jeff, that a lot of people miss a lot of the big trap that people miss is the fact that wherever interest rates are, inflation is not far behind. So a lot of people get, fixated on, am I getting 7% 8% whatever that rate is, really, the bigger question is, what is your net rate of return when you take out inflation and taxes? What is your actual rate of return? And that's more important to me, as a planner.

than what the actual rate of return is because, you know, let's say you get 12%, right? You think, well, 12% is great. Well, what is inflation? Inflation is running at 9% plus you pay taxes. So your after tax rate of return could be in some cases negative. A lot of people don't realize that, that they think safety savings accounts, CDs, I'm safe, but really they're not because you've got to factor in inflation and taxes. And what's that real rate of return?

Jeff Talarico (: 06:10

Yeah, that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up today. So when you're meeting with your clients and you bring things like that to the table, I mean, that's just providing more value for them. And I hope that they see that value because it does make a difference. We can't just all run to safety and expect to continue with like market returns. It just doesn't work that way. But this podcast and your books are dedicated to...

faith-based investing, biblically responsible investing, whatever you want to call it. So why don't we talk real quick about how you made that transition, or have you always been this type of an investment advisor?

Jay Peroni (: 06:39

Mm-hmm.

No, I've been a Christian my entire adult life. I found Christ in my teenage years, lived down the street from a prison minister and met his son and started going to a house church, you know, of all places, a non-denominational church that literally started in a house and came to Christ and had a Christian faith my entire adult life. And you go through schooling, you know, I have my master's in financial planning. I worked for some of the best firms on Wall Street.

And there was always, maybe a page or two on socially responsible investing, but there really wasn't anything on faith based investing. And about 10 years into my career, I had a client, she knew I was a Christian. I was knew she was a Christian. And we always talked about our faith and what sermon we were listening to and, you know, what was going on at our churches. And, and she came in one day and she just looked real gung ho to get to, get to the conversation. I said,

you know what's going on and she's like Jay she's she said can I expect God really to bless what we're doing here? And I said, what do you mean? She said, well, if we're investing in things that oppose his word, things like abortion and pornography and all these things that God is totally against, can we truly expect him to bless my 401k, my IRA, all this money that I'm investing in? And I was like, Whoa, I,

I can't answer that right now. Let me get back to you. I was like a deer in headlights and I spent many nights just wrestling with that conversation that she had with me, you know, Jay, you know, can you really expect God to bless this? And he certainly can. And certainly the markets have done well, but then I started thinking, does God care about this? And I came to the conclusion that yes, he cares not only about the source,

excuse me, the amount of the profit, but also the source of it. Where we're investing does matter to God. And then I started thinking from the head part, you know, is this going to cost me something, right? Because that's the biggest question that people have when they implement faith-based or biblically or even socially responsible investing. What is it going to cost me? So as a money manager, I was skeptical. I said, okay, here's my faith, here's my money.

screened, and this was around: 2008

I was very light on financials and the portfolio actually excelled. It still was down. Of course, everything was down in '08 but it did better than my non-screened account. So I said, okay, is this just a fluke here? '09, same thing. And, and, and really through that time, God started wrestling, getting it from my mind to my heart, because that's really where the, rubber meets the road. When I started examining God, you know, the God that we serve,

the one who is in the miracle business that could turn water into wine, raise people from the dead, raise his son from the dead, all of these miracles walking on water over and over and over in the Bible. And he really spoke to me and said, Jay, do you think if I can perform these miracles that I can't make the difference up somewhere in this person's life? Do you really think that? And to me, that was really the, you know,

getting it from the mind to the heart and really just convicting me and saying, Jay, you've got to do it for your money. You got to do it for any client that wants to do this. We'll figure it out and come to find out Jeff, as I started doing more and more research, there are thousands of choices when we invest. And if we can't find good investments that are clean, that are good financial investments at the same time, shame on me as the money manager.

that I can't find those opportunities, not shame on the screening process, because there's still thousands of choices. Yeah, we may not be able to support some of these huge, huge companies that they've got, far left agendas and nothing we'd want to support anyhow. I'd rather miss out on those opportunities and find some better opportunities that line up with my faith and values. The way I always look at it, there are good, bad and ugly choices. Let's avoid the bad and ugly ones and there's enough good choices so that we can get good returns as well.

Jeff Talarico (: 11:16

Yeah, I was really surprised when I started screening portfolios and individual companies. There are tons and tons of great companies that are publicly traded that I'm not talking about mutual funds. I'm talking about individual holdings that just do the right thing. And, you know, I, this year at the, at the NACFC conference in Kokomo, Indiana, Mike Huckabee was one of our speakers. And I went up and talked to Mike afterwards and he broke this whole thing down.

Jay Peroni (: 11:27

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Jeff Talarico (: 11:45

not just on the investment side, but everything we're dealing with today in our country, politically, emotionally, all this, he says, it is exactly what it's always been. It's not right versus left or good versus evil. It is just right versus wrong. You know, it's good and bad, and it's a choice that we make. So if we, as in you and I, continue to do what we do,

Jay Peroni (: 11:50

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Man, yeah.

Jeff Talarico (: 12:14

Bringing light to this, shining God through investments, it's definitely gonna make a difference in the long run. Will we see it in our lifetime? I don't know, but I do know that with my clients today, they are happier, they don't call when the markets are down, they're not concerned, they enjoy being invested in things that match their morals, their integrity, their values.

Jay Peroni (: 12:37

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't have said it better because, you know, I always think of that quote, you know, for evil to persist, you know, good men just have to do nothing. And that's really what it's about is, you know, there's a lot of evil in this world. And if we don't step up and bring light into the darkness, then darkness will continue to prevail. And really, I see it now as

not just my mission, it's a calling. You know, God's really called me to this and he woke me, you know, woke me up from a slumber, you know, as a financial advisor. We talk about wokeism. He woke me up for the, for good reason here, to help people to incorporate their faith. Yeah. To, to incorporate their faith and values into their, their financial lives, because we know where your treasure is. Your heart lies also. And for people

Jeff Talarico (: 13:15

very similar to my story.

Jay Peroni (: 13:25

You know their biggest treasures are 401k their house their investment portfolio. So if we can get them thinking about that treasure differently, what a difference we can make for the kingdom.

Jeff Talarico (: 13:35

Yeah, the one thing that has always stuck with me is what Ron Blue said is, you know, how much is enough and what are you going to do with the rest? And being able to help a client understand what that truly means, and to watch their face and the joy that they get from being able to give now, instead of after they pass away, they can see the fruits of that. And it's really quite an amazing journey to go on with your clients side by side. And it's just a beautiful thing.

Jay Peroni (: 13:42

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Talarico (: 14:03

Let's talk about your books for a minute. You want to give us an idea of what they are? And I'll put those in the show notes as well and where people can get them if they're interested.

Jay Peroni (: 14:05

Sure.

Sir, yeah, the first book I wrote was the faith-based millionaire and really the kind of the

big foundation of this was how can you have faith and money at the same time because we know uh... there's a lot of misquoting of the bible passage that uh... money is the root of all evil and no it's not the money it's the love of money so i look for uh... to criteria people that had amassed a fortune you know had well they had uh... the american dream so to speak they were living uh... you know had a very nice portfolio

That was the first requirement. But the second one was, was equally, and if not more important is did they have faith? And was the faith at the center of their lives? And many of these people, you wouldn't know they were wealthy or rich. They didn't live that way. But if you saw their portfolio and what they had saved and all of their assets, they certainly were. So I wanted to figure out, you know, what were some of the key ingredients to have that faith and have that wealth at the same time? Because I see sometimes that people are poor and have faith.

It can be just as devastating because they fall in love with money and they just want to do anything they can to get money. And that can be just as dangerous as having a ton of money and not having the faith. So I always look at the two criteria. And as I started interviewing these people and looking at, you know, what were some of your keys to success, I started seeing these common themes. And in the faith based millionaire, my first book, I wrote about 12 essential habits that can create faith based wealth because

money is actually a great thing to have. You know, it's going to help missions. It's going to help ministries. It's going to help print Bibles. You need money. It's a tool. It's a resource. So let's not sell that short. We want to have more money so that we can give more money. So I came up with that concept to have more, to give more. And that really has stuck with me through my career because by helping people to have more so they can give more, it really makes a life changing difference and it could really help build the kingdom.

Jeff Talarico (: 16:08

That's awesome. How about your second book?

Jay Peroni (: 16:10

My second book was really just more of a kind of flip side on just looking at the investment aspect of it. It was called the Faith Based Investor. Those are my two major books that I wrote. Self published of course. I'm looking at working now. I've got an ebook that I've done recently on.

seven ways to incorporate your faith into your finances. It's really kind of a summation of what I've learned, you know, the last 10, 15 years and some of the key principles of investing with your faith at the center of it.

Jeff Talarico (: 16:44

Awesome. And are, I know you self-published, are they available somewhere for you to get these books?

Jay Peroni (: 16:48

Yeah, you can find them online. The first two books were written in 2008, 2010, so a little outdated here, but I'm working on some newer versions of those books to get out here in the next year or two.

Jeff Talarico (: 17:00

Awesome. That's fantastic. So let's talk about the radio show.

Jay Peroni (: 17:03

Sure, sure. Yeah, Faith in Retirement is a weekly show. We talk about biblically responsible investing as well as retirement planning from a biblical perspective. A lot of people say, you know, retirement's not biblical. And certainly you retire from something to something. That's really how I look at it. You may not be getting paid to do it, but mission work, volunteer work.

And making work optionable, your career optionable, is really what I help people do. And we use a program called Retirement Analyzer. I don't know if you use that or not, but we help our clients to really map out their financial futures. I call it a GPS. We route here's where you are today, here's where you wanna be in the future, and how do we get there? And there are gonna be road construction, there are gonna be life changes, detours along the way. How do we reroute you when your plan's off track?

And that's, that's what we help people with. And we talk about that on the show. What are some of the issues, inflation, longevity, the sequence of returns? If you have a bad year, the first year of retirement, how devastating that can be. We talk about a lot of those sorts of things, but really the foundational topic is the biblically responsible investing topic. You know, what does it mean to invest?

as a biblically responsible investor, what are some of the things you examine, what are some of the things you can control, things you can't control, those sorts of things. That's really what the show is about each week.

Jeff Talarico (: 18:27

So speaking of that, that's actually one of the questions we normally ask is, what does biblically responsible investing mean to you? And how do you incorporate that into your practice by either screening, like we've, we've already talked about a little bit, or do you get some gut feeling sometimes when you read an article about a company?

Jay Peroni (: 18:40

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Yeah, it's a combination of the two, Jeff. The first thing, you know, is the differentiation and a lot of people don't understand there's really to me three types of, you know, kind of investing when you look in this area, there's the socially responsible investing, which is a moving target, it's based on what society deems acceptable. So what was acceptable 20 years ago may not be acceptable today. And same thing, 20 years from now that the target is moving. So society is deeming what's right, what's wrong.

And that is, you know, a very changing, very slippery slope, because we've seen how our society's changed over the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years, God out of the picture and a lot more secularism and you know, all of these other things that we don't want to be involved in as Christians. The second type of investing is faith-based. You hear that term faith-based investing and it's a good term because you're, you're centering around your faith.

But the problem is what is the faith? It could be Islam. It could be Christianity. It could be, you know, I don't know, something else, you know. So there's many religions. So that faith-based aspect, you've got to look at what is the faith. And that's why I like biblically responsible, that term the best, because what is the source? It's the Bible, right? Biblically responsible. So it's the Bible. It's the Christian Bible.

Jeff Talarico (: 19:51

Absolutely.

Jay Peroni (: 20:15

So it's what is right, what is wrong in God's word, and that's not changing. So it's not a moving target. So we can center around what are some of the things that are important to us as Christians in avoiding. And the other side of it is what are some of the things that we want to support? And I hate that a lot of the talk is just about the negative screens. And certainly we know what Christians are against. You know, you can see that in the media and throughout history, what Christians are against. But

Knowing what we're for to me is just as important. And that's why I love, you know, impact investing. I love supporting companies that are doing good in our society and not just, chewing gum companies or companies that don't really make a huge difference in our society. I look for companies that are what I call proud to own companies, companies that we can be proud to own. They're making good profits. They're good companies.

And there are, like I said, thousands of those throughout the world. So I try to, with biblically responsible investing, screen out the bad and then focus on those good companies.

Jeff Talarico (: 21:16

So you brought up the term a minute ago, impact investing. Now I had Benji on the show from Praxis, and Praxis Mutual Funds do a great job with impact investing. But if a listener today doesn't know what that is, or is unfamiliar about that, why don't you give us a little detail about what impact investing is, and how it differentiates from biblically responsible investing.

Jay Peroni (: 21:26

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I always like to give examples because I think, you know, some of the best ways to figure out what it actually is, is by looking at, you know, some examples of the type of investing because Jesus spoke in parable stories speak loud. And if you're, let's just say someone, pick a hot topic, climate change, you know, that's a big buzzword lately. And let's not debate on whether,

the climate is changing or not. But let's just say that's a passion for you and you really wanna make a difference in that world. Well, you could start to actually invest in solar power companies. You can invest in carbon reduction companies, alternative fuels. So you're putting your money into companies that can actually make a difference or an impact just as the name implies within that style of investing. So it's a little different where...

Biblically responsible is just trying to avoid and support good companies where impact is really looking at maybe even going into a, a poverty stricken community and, and setting up financial institutions there where nobody else wants to go. There's, there's ways that you can make a huge impact in a community and the world and in a different sector and an environmental cause or whatever it may be. But that impact investing is really taking your money and putting it exactly into those specific areas.

Jeff Talarico (: 22:58

That's awesome that you're able to do that with your clients because I think and it's something that we do here as well. When your client can see the success of what they're doing and how their dollars are actually impacting change, it's another one of those beautiful moments that personally I don't think other advisors in the country do. They're focused strictly on returns, making more money for their clients, building their portfolios and we have

Jay Peroni (: 23:08

Hmm.

Hmm.

Jeff Talarico (: 23:26

come to the conclusion that it all belongs to God anyway. We just want to be good stewards with it and help our clients understand their responsibility. So talking about stewardship for a minute, let's talk about stewardship investing and how that also plays a role into what we do.

Jay Peroni (: 23:29

It does.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so stewardship, you know, if you look at again, what is stewardship and it's is really the, you know, being responsible for how that money is being managed, you know, as God's stewards, we're called in two different areas that I see. The first is, is really the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, where you see three, you know, three servants, and they're each given according to their abilities. And the one that really stands out, you know, from the parable,

is the one who was scared and didn't want to see the money being lost. So they literally buried it in the ground. Right. And what were they called? They were called wicked and lazy. And this shows to me that God cares about getting a return on what's provided. It's a seed that's to be sown. So I think we have that first mandate as a steward that we have to get a good return.

on what God is providing. Otherwise it's wasted seed, right? At the end of the day, certainly you need to consume some of it for family and, you know, needs and things of that nature. And investing is another part of it, in my opinion, because you look at that parable of the talent and he wants to bless those that are returning, getting a return on what they're investing.

econd mandate, I look at Luke: 16:10

That's a huge thing because you're responsible for what that company is doing. And that's where examining each and every company is really important to me, because I want to make sure that not only are we getting a good return, like the parable of the talents, but we're also doing it in a way that is faithful. So I call them faithful returns. And that's really as a steward, we want to hear those words, right? Well done, good and faithful servant steward. Well, we, when we get to heaven,

We want to hear those words. And I think that's where this concept of stewardship, investing and really being a steward over what you're investing is really, really important.

Jeff Talarico (: 26:04

That's awesome. So let's take it one step further. Let's talk about shareholder activism. You're talking about being an owner of a company and, and for people that don't understand it, the difference between owning a stock, which gives you voting rights, and owning a share of a mutual fund, where the mutual fund company gets to do the voting. So when we have an individual holding, and we have the opportunity to either cast our vote for against or whatever might be on the agenda, but we can take it one step further, we

Jay Peroni (: 26:08

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Talarico (: 26:34

we're able to actually send letters and talk about things that are important to us. Have you done any of that with your clients? How's that work for you?

Jay Peroni (: 26:37

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there was one issue where we owned a company. They were a recreational vehicle company. I'm not going to name names, but they were a company that we owned at the time. And all of a sudden they did they out of left field just said, Hey, let's get some playboy bunnies and start having them pose on our vehicles. And, you know, right then it, it screened, you know, obviously failed our screens because they're promoting pornography and all these explicit entertainment things. So we.

Thankfully had a profit at the time, but we would have sold it either way. We, kind of, you know, sell first, ask questions later, but through the process, you know, I really liked the company and they had great profits and great financials. So I had some clients and myself write some letters to the organization and just saying, Hey, you know, we used to own your stock. Here's why we sold it. Um, you know, we'd like to consider re-investing in your company, but here's what you need to do. And.

Took a little time and you know got together just a lot of people just really voicing concern and it had nothing really to do with their products so to speak they were just using it as an advertising type of trap so to speak and eventually over time they stopped doing that and they became clean again and They they haven't done anything like that since then so Just by having that activism and actually a voice and being able to talk to

the investor shareholder services and being able to communicate with them is huge and you can do that as an owner or a stock shareholder. You can't do that as you mentioned being a mutual fund holder because you own hundreds of companies and the fund company could do that but you can't do that as the individual mutual fund.

Jeff Talarico (: 28:28

So all of this creates challenges, not only for us as advisors, but for our clients as well, or potential clients. So what are some of the things that you think are some of the biggest hurdles for a client, potential client to understand and comprehend for them to buy into this process of biblically responsible investing?

Jay Peroni (: 28:51

Yeah, I would say the biggest challenges again, the return objective. And for me, that was my biggest challenge when I started. There weren't a lot of funds out there. And I started looking at the socially responsible investing funds. That's where I started, because that's the only thing I knew when my client was saying, Hey, Jay, how can we expect God to bless this? And I started looking at the holdings and what they were screening into the portfolio. And I was like.

I can't support these mutual funds. I mean, they're screening in what I want to screen out. So that threw that out the window. And then I started looking at some of the faith-based funds at the time. And I loved the concept. I loved what they were doing. But the returns were just very, you know, weren't good compared to the market. So as a money manager, I had been doing a lot of stock portfolio. So what I would do is kind of make my own cheat sheet. I'd go through and look at the holdings of these clean companies.

And I would just pick companies amongst those clean choices. So the average person is not going to go through that much trouble to look at all of the mutual fund holdings and then go through and do the research on all of those companies. But the bottom line is that return. That's really the biggest objective that people have when they first think about this, is it's going to cost me something. There's going to be a cost. I'm not going to be able to get the same type of returns.

that I'm used to and that's not true. I found that you can get great returns, you can actually outperform the markets using a faith based approach, not a guarantee, of course, but I'd rather leave the results up to God and do it in a way that's clean. So the first hurdle is just that return hurdle.

And the second one is having the time and resources. You know, as an advisor, I spend literally tens of thousands of dollars on not only moral screening software, but also financial screening software. And the average person may not want to do that. Spend that amount of money and have that amount of time, that passion, their working jobs and doing all these other things, trying to get the kids to soccer practice, whatever it may be. So for me, really, it's.

the return is the first objective and the second one is the time and resources. So those are the really the biggest hurdles that I've seen in not incorporating a faith based strategy. And there's even some big talk show, you know, some Christian, you know, big radio personalities that talk bad about faith based investing cause it's too complicated. They, they want it simple and keep it simple, stupid, you know, and that's really their motive. But for me, you know, God is complicated. He's simple.

when you think about it, but living out your faith is actually really complicated in this world.

Jeff Talarico (: 31:33

So personally, I think living out your faith is something very hard for a lot of people to do. And part of what we do is that. I mean, putting these portfolios together for our clients is a reflection of who we are and what we believe. When you have that client that comes in or potential client, and you show them what you do, and you know they're a believer, you may go to church with these people or...

Jay Peroni (: 31:43

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Talarico (: 32:00

They could be pastors. I mean, this is what's happened with me in fact. And they just look at you and say, no. How do you react?

Jay Peroni (: 32:09

Again, this is between them and God. I can, you know, just like if I have a, conversation about someone's faith and they're not at a place where they're ready to accept Christ, I've done my work. I've led them there. I've given them all the information and I've planted a seed. And I've had that happen with pastors. I sit down and I say, you know, here's how we can invest. Here's how we can make sure you're not supporting the very things you're preaching against in the pulpit each week. And they've said, Jay, you know.

I just want to get the best return. I don't want to think about it. And it's, it's shocking to me, but at the same time, I know there's that human element, that human aspect that I've got to make the most that I can. And there's this perception that it's going to be a lower return and they don't want it to be complicated. But at the end of the day,

it's between them and God and I'm there to lead them. I'm there to give them the information. I can present it. I can show them how it's not going to cost them anything that they can get the same type of returns. No guarantees, of course, but they have the opportunity to get the same return. And if they choose not to do that, yeah, I'm sad, but at the same time, I understand that they're not there yet. I wasn't there. It took me time. So all I can do is pray for them and continue to lead them.

maybe down the road, it may come back to them, maybe not. I don't know, but at least I've done my job in presenting it, and from there, they can decide whether they wanna move forward or not.

Jeff Talarico (: 33:37

Yeah, that has been for me personally, one of the hardest things for me to take because I came back from a kingdom advisors conference where I was convicted of not doing what I should be doing. And that's when I blew up my practice and went strictly to BRI and started screening and building portfolios that way. And all of my clients that I presented this to made the move except a pastor.

Jay Peroni (: 33:46

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Jeff Talarico (: 34:05

And it totally surprised me when this happened. And I was like, okay, what is he seeing that I'm not seeing? And it took me some time to understand what you just explained. It is between them and God. And I get that now. And I'm a bivocational pastor, so I pastor a church as well, and I can see where he's coming from to a degree. But then again, I have to look at myself and say, what does my faith say? My faith says I need to do it the way God would want it done.

Jay Peroni (: 34:33

Mm.

Jeff Talarico (: 34:34

And I do, and I screen a little bit differently than some of the other guys do. I mean, I do look at companies and I try to focus on what is their primary goal. What are they really in business for? Like Darden restaurants. You know, there's a lot of portfolios that'll screen out Darden because they sell alcohol. Well, they own Red Lobster and Olive Garden. Their main focus is restaurants. It just happens that they sell alcohol. Now again,

Jay Peroni (: 34:54

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Talarico (: 34:59

I can't get legalistic about it either. Alcohol can be very addictive to people, but it's also not against the Bible. Jesus talks about drinking and the Bible talks about it, and just not supposed to do things in excess. So I really have to screen my portfolios a little bit differently because that's what God's dealing with me. You know, I don't want to run my church that way. I can't run my practice that way. But there are other people that are strict. I mean, if that's what it says, we're out. And I get that. And again, that's dealing with them.

Jay Peroni (: 35:03

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Jeff Talarico (: 35:29

that's what they have to do. So let's change gears here for a minute and talk about what you're doing with Faith Investment Services now, because that's a relatively new thing for you too, correct? You were with Mark, right?

Jay Peroni (: 35:41

It is, yeah. Last year I joined Faith Investor Services to head up. They started with ETFs. You know, Prey is our primary ETF. It's a Christian stock investor fund, owns about 60, 65 companies that are biblically responsible. We use Evaluator software to screen and make sure that it's 100% clean. So they started out as an ETF provider.

and over the last year they've really moved into wealth and financial planning and that's really my background as a Certified Financial Planner CFP master's degree in financial planning and been working with both

advisors like yourself managing money as well as clients. So I've got that kind of hybrid background where I've actually been a money manager. I've run a couple of faith-based ETFs in the past as well. So the plans there are just to help expand the wealth management platform, to work with ordinary moms and pops and institutions all across America, help them to invest in a biblically responsible way and then get the word out about the ETFs and...

That's really my role within the firm is really the senior portfolio manager helping to shape, you know, what we're investing in and giving some consulting to the, the team that's managing PRAY as well as, helping my individual clients incorporate their faith into their financial plans.

Jeff Talarico (: 37:04

Awesome. So let's a couple more questions and then we'll call this a show. So where do you see, take out your crystal ball, where do you see the industry heading in the next five to 10 years and how big of an impact do you think what we do with BRI will play?

Jay Peroni (: 37:08

Sure.

Well, we've got a pretty bold plan. Mark Manila, who is one of our directors here at the firm, just put out a mission and I don't know if you heard it at Kingdom Advisor. It's to rescue one T a trillion dollars.

If we look at the investment landscape, there's literally trillions and trillions of dollars being invested each day. And I see over the next five years that a lot of people, a lot of institutions, even some of the big institutions that were rejecting faith-based or biblically responsible investing are now embracing it. Some of the, you know, it was kind of crazy to me, some of these firms that they literally are going door to door knocking, that's the best time to be having these conversations.

and they did not have any biblically responsible or very little exposure to that. And they're now embracing it and starting to say, hey, we missed the boat on this. We want to be the leader now in BRI. So you're seeing these firms really take a really a 180. You know, they started in one direction. I actually, when I started this career, I was working for a big publicly traded company. I'm not going to name names, but they essentially said, you know, we can.

do all these presentations and all these marketing materials for the gay community, but we won't allow you to do church. You know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna fly here. So I was like, how can you have one, you know, it's, if you're going to do it for one group, you should do it for all groups. That's really how you should be doing it. And now they're really coming that way. They're starting to say, okay, we see that there's

opportunity. And at the end of the day, it's all about money, right? If there's money there, they'll eventually allow you to do it. And that's what I think these firms are probably starting to see is that faith based or biblically responsible investing has started to reach a tipping point. And these institutions are now that used to reject it are now embracing it. So I think over the next five to 10 years, we're going to see this really skyrocket, you know, the elections have brought

More polarizing out where people want to support candidates that line up with their faith and values They're seeing it now with their money as well. So it's really carrying over into other areas of people's lives

Jeff Talarico (: 39:37

That's encouraging to hear that you feel that way, because that's how I feel as well. I have seen major differences in the last seven to 10 years already, and just can't wait to see what the future holds with that. Alright, so last question is kind of a tough one. If there were three people dead or alive that you could have a conversation with, who would they be and why, and you cannot use the obvious one, Jesus. No, we talk to him every day, don't we?

Jay Peroni (: 40:00

Can't use Jesus who? Man, you took one of yeah, we do. We talked to him every day. This is one that may not be popular, but I love, I love great leaders and whether they're Christian or not Christian, you know, I love leadership and to me, I love the game of football and I grew up in New England. So for me, it would be Tom Brady, just because, you know, it's very rare to see a quarterback actually get better in the NFL.

than they did in college and this guy just constantly worked on what was what is my weakness and he would work on that work on it work on it get better at it the next year what is one of my weak at work on it work on it work on it and he got better at the NFL level than he ever did at the college level and a lot of it was his leadership his dedication to detail he just studied the game so I'd love to pick his brain that would be a person that I'd love to meet another one may not be popular some people love or hate him

is Stephen Furtick. I just love his stories. He's just a great storyteller. He's someone that shares his faith. He's very passionate about it. I'd love to just pick his brain. He's got a great marketing brain. Another one that I love storytelling is Donald Miller, Blue Light Jazz, just a great person, great stories. Those are three people that I think would...

make a great lunch or just if you're putting together an event and you want to pick some brains those would be three great people that you can learn a ton from just about how they approach their profession, how they approach the world, how they tell stories, how they communicate and motivate people. Those are three people that I think would be top of their game in different areas.

Jeff Talarico (: 41:46

All right, so is there anything that I have failed to ask you that you are just dying to get out?

Jay Peroni (: 41:50

I'm trying to think of something that you failed to ask me. I know one of your questions, and I think this is one that, you know, you might ask and biblically responsible, but what are some of the sectors and industries, you know, that you, you know, that you that are hard to cover. And one that I'm always finding a challenge in this, this changed right about four or five years ago. I can't remember when the S and P made the change from they took.

Jeff Talarico (: 42:06

There you go.

Jay Peroni (: 42:20

telecom and they made communications and they took some of the companies like Disney and so forth. And they put this new communications category. And I don't know about you, Jeff, but I have a huge challenge trying to find communication companies that are biblically responsible. You've got maybe five choices. So exaggerating, but it seems like that because you know, obviously the communication companies like cable companies, social media,

movie companies, newspapers, we know where they all stand. And it's very difficult to find clean options within that sector or industry. How do you approach it? Do you avoid it altogether or what do you do in that sector?

Jeff Talarico (: 43:02

Those are the sectors that I leave up to my mutual fund companies.

Jay Peroni (: 43:05

There you go.

Jeff Talarico (: 43:05

Jay, thank you so much for being on the show today. We have thoroughly enjoyed it. We'd love to have you back sometime if that's something you're interested in doing. But thanks for being on the show. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Jay Peroni, again, the portfolio manager for Faith Investor Services. Jay, thanks again for being on the show. And we'll talk to you soon.

Jay Peroni (: 43:11

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I love doing these. Yeah, thanks, Jeff.

Sounds good. Thanks, Jeff.