Jeremy Hobson: The stock market is where we’re going to begin now with Josh Brown, of Fusion Analytics. He joins us live from New York as he does every Wednesday. Good morning Josh.

Josh Brown: Good Morning.

Hobson: So first of all, what is going on here? It’s hard to even say the numbers there but what is going on with this stock market? We’ve got problems: Europe, housing — what else?

Brown: Let me tell you a dirty little secret: we always have problems. I think what you’re seeing right now is an acceptance of the fact that the problems are all very well known. No one is thrilled about the fact that they exist, however, the market is telling you that we can get through these problems someway, somehow.

Some people will take losses, some people will not, and at the end of the day, there’ll be new problems tomorrow, there will be new problems five years from now. So I think that’s a discounting mechanism taking place right before your eyes as we rip through the 2011 highs.

Hobson: All right Josh, you handle personal finance. What are you supposed to do if you’re near retirement, maybe you got out of the stock market when the markets crashed a few years ago and what are you supposed to do now?

Brown: You know, one of the problems with the way people think about retirement is, there’s a lot of emphasis toward getting to age, 65 or 70, or whatever the case might be, but not a lot of thought about: what if I live to 92, like 25 percent of people are doing?

So I think just because you’re retired, it doesn’t mean you can just live off treasury income. Clearly, you’re going to end up eating into principle and not make it. So stocks at this point in time, in this era, are always going to be part of the mix. The good news is, stocks are heading in the right direction for people that are close to retirement and it’s really not the end of the world to add a little risk to the portfolio to make sure that you can make it the whole way.

Hobson: Josh Brown, of Fusion Analytics, thanks a lot.

Brown: Thank you.