In this episode of the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily (Sept 10, 2026), host Mike Milligan turns recent market events into practical teaching moments for financial advisors. He opens with a recap of a broad‑based market decline on Sept 9, noting that the S&P, Dow, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 all fell, and that the market’s leadership shifted from the Dow to small‑cap Russell. He uses this shift to illustrate how clients with a written financial plan can stay calm while those without may panic. Milligan then summarizes Jim Cramer’s CNBC piece on oil trading above $100 per barrel, explaining Cramer’s three‑point narrative—AI stock strength, bank resilience from rising rates, and the long‑term mean‑reversion of oil prices—and offers a framework advisors can use when clients worry about high oil. Next, he highlights Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan’s comments (on Mad Money) about continued consumer spending strength, low credit‑card delinquencies and robust business credit, stressing that advisors should stress‑test retirement‑income plans against a potential consumer slowdown despite current resilience. He revisits a prior teaching point about institutional trading volume (S&P at 123% of average, Nasdaq at 88.6%) and advises advisors to reference actual market participation in client reviews. Milligan then pauses for a 25‑year remembrance of September 10, 2001, recalling the quiet market before 9/11 and urging viewers to comment “remember” to keep the memory alive. He concludes with a concise takeaway: combine market inputs (Cramer’s narrative, Moynihan’s data, volume, leadership) into a written, one‑of‑a‑kind financial plan to earn long‑term client trust, and provides calls to action for advisors and consumers. The episode ends with standard disclosures.
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Welcome to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. I am Mike Milligan. Every weekday, I take one thing that happened in the market yesterday and turn it into a teachable moment you could use in your practices today, or in the pursuit of building your personal one-of-a-kind financial plan. If you are new here, this show exists to help financial professionals get better at explaining an individual client's get better at structuring and delivering and communicating the written financial plan to those they love and care about. My mission is to educate, coach, plan, and my motto is to never miss a moment. Today is Thursday, September 10th, 2026. Yesterday was a broad-based down day in the markets. 2 of the largest names in finance went on television and told us why they are not worried And 25 years ago tonight, the world went to sleep for the last time before an event that changed everything. Let's get to it.
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On Wednesday, September 9th, every major index was down again. The S&P 500 down 0.48%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.77%. The NASDAQ Composite down 0.64% and the Russell 2000 down 1.32%. As you'll remember from the Tuesday edition of the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily, the markets are up year to date, but the Russell yesterday led lower. That is a change of leadership in the markets from Tuesday when the Dow Jones Industrial Average led the markets lower. 2 days down in a row, 2 different leaders down. Small caps have been the year-to-date leader, as I mentioned on Tuesday's show, up almost 20% through last Friday. When your best performer starts leading the market lower, that is when a client with a written financial plan gets rebalanced calmly, and a client without a written plan up in their head gets nervous and they start making phone calls. That is the practice difference between the two. That is the individual difference between how you react.
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Jim Cramer wrote an important piece yesterday on CNBC. Oil is above $100 per barrel. Historically, that is a level that has produced bear market conversations. Cramer's take, He's not bearish. His words, quote, long-term, it really doesn't pay to be bearish, end quote. He had 3 reasons for saying that. He believes that there is strength in AI stocks. There is resilience in banks because of the upward mobility of interest rates going forward. And there is the possibility that high oil prices will eventually ease. Here's an advisor's teaching moment for you. A couple of weeks ago on this show, we profiled Jim Cramer as part of our 10 Guru arc. We told you then what his framework is. He thinks in narratives, not in models. Yesterday, he showed you the narrative. Oil at $100 does not scare him because he sees AI CapEx still holding. He sees bank credit still working, and he sees energy as a mean reverting over long horizons, meaning that it goes down. You do not have to agree with him, but when a client asks you this week, or you think out loud, should I be worried about $100 oil? You now have a framework to teach them or an answer to that question. See, that's not a prediction. That's a framework. Here are the 3 questions Cramer is asking. Here is how we ask them to your plan. And we say, follow the narrative because the market is definitely doing that.
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A bonus story from yesterday is Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan sat down with Cramer on the show Mad Money. His message was consistent with what he told Squawk Box in July and August. His bank's data shows the consumer remains resilient. Spending was up roughly 4% year over year in August, up 5% to the prior quarter. Credit is at multi-year best levels. Credit card delinquencies are low and business credit is strong. We have been telling you all summer that the 2 forward-looking data streams that matter most right now are consumer spending and AI CapEx spending. Moynihan, the CEO of one of the biggest banks in the United States, just gave you the freshest read on stream one, the consumer spending, from the bank that sees more American card transactions than almost anyone else. The lesson for your practice and for your financial plan is not, quote, the consumer is fine, so go buy stocks. The lesson is your retirement income clients need to be pressure tested against the scenario where the consumer softens, because a resilient consumer is the current data. A weakening consumer is the one that risk in every— is one of the biggest risks in every one retirement plan. A written plan has already modeled a downturn in economic uncertainty caused by the consumer spending less. A verbal understanding does not. That is vapor. And we want to put your thoughts on paper. Bring the morning interview into your own reviews. Say it to your clients, something like, the CEO of Bank of America told CNBC yesterday the consumer looks strong right now, Our plan is built to work whether that stays true or it changes. And here's the section on our plan that stresses that. That is a client that keeps you for 20 years type of conversation.
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Just a quick callback to Tuesday's teach. We said institutional volume returned the S&P at 123% of average, and the NASDAQ was only 88.6% of average. After 2 days down, that thesis holds. Traders are back full-time. Volume has returned. This is not August anymore, folks. For your practice, that means every client review from here through the year-end should reference actual participation, meaning that people are rotating in the market. It's not just headline anymore. It's active participation in the market.
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Monday, September 10th, 2001, 25 years ago. It was a quiet Monday on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9,605. For reference, the Dow was currently at 52,380. The tape had been weak all summer. Nobody was excited that Monday. It was a normal end to a normal trading day. Nobody in the country knew that the market they closed at 4 o'clock on that Monday would not open again until September 17th. 6 trading sessions lost. And when it did reopen, the Dow fell 7.13% in a single day. We'll walk through the reopen next week, but there's a moment from that night that I want you to know about. At 7:29 PM Eastern on September 10th, an article was posted on the Wall Street Journal It ran in the print paper the following morning. In the hours before the dawn of September 11th, that Wall Street Journal was being loaded onto trucks and delivered to doorsteps across America, in New York City, to all 5 boroughs. Nobody who wrote it, edited it, printed it, or delivered it knew what the world was about to look like. I cannot tell you what I did On September 10th, 2001, I know it was a Monday. I probably went to work. I may have had dinner at Piccadilly, a cafeteria that my son Zach really liked. We may have had Chick-fil-A. I have no idea. I probably watched something on TV. It seems to me, if I remember, that Survivor.
Survivor.
was big during that time. It was an ordinary day, but I can tell you every detail of September 11th from 9:30 in the morning through the rest of the day, 25 years later. And I bet you can too. Today, in the comment section on YouTube, where you're listening to this, this, I want you to do me a favor. Simply comment the word remember. And if you feel so inclined, tag somebody you know. America needs to talk about this event. The healing is still real. We do not talk about it enough. We say the words never forget, but let's actually do it because there's a generation who can't remember what we felt that day. And by golly, I want to make sure they never have to.
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Financial pros, here's your takeaway for today. We're not chasing returns. We're building the one-of-a-kind financial plan or version of the plan that fits your clients. Cramer's framework, Moynihan's data, the tape's volume, and the year-to-date leadership are inputs. The written plan is the output. Every input this week reinforces the same lesson. The professional who translates the inputs into a written financial plan is the professional who earns the trust of the client for the long run. If you want to sharpen the way you teach these ideas to clients, join us at theoakcollective.com. If you as a consumer want a financial professional who will do what I'm talking about on the one-of-a-kind financial show daily, text the word ideas to 600-700 right there on your mobile phone. I'm Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planner. Educate, coach, plan. Never miss a moment. Who knows what's coming tomorrow? Remember, this program is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. Mike Milligan is a certified financial planning professional. All market data referenced is from publicly available sources as of the trading day noted on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The One of a Kind Financial Plan is a registered trademark of Mike Milligan, LLC. Consult your own licensed professional before making financial decisions based on any information discussed on this program.
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