AI Stocks Dropped. Did Your Retirement Income?

Blog · The Tom Dupree Show, November 7 Financial Hour · Nov 7, 2026

When the market has a rough week, most folks do the same thing. They pull up their account balance. That’s natural. It’s your money, and you want to know where it stands.

But if you’re retired, or close to it, there’s a second number that matters just as much. Most people never go looking for it. It’s the cash your investments actually paid you.

Those two numbers can move together. Sometimes they don’t. Knowing which one moved, and why, can keep you from making a decision you’ll regret.

That came up near the end of the November 7 Financial Hour of The Tom Dupree Show. Tom Dupree, Mike Johnson, James Dupree and Michael Dawahare spent a good part of the hour on a rough stretch for artificial intelligence stocks. After all that talk about prices, Mike brought it back to what matters most for somebody living on a portfolio: “the cornerstone of our portfolio is income.”

That’s what this article is about. If you want the whole hour, including Tom’s thoughts on the election, his faith and the music that opened the show, it’s in the companion podcast post along with the full transcript.

Key Takeaways

• Your account value and your income are two different numbers. In retirement, you need to watch both.

• A falling price doesn’t automatically mean your income fell. But it can be a warning that something in the business has changed.

• A great technology and a great investment aren’t the same thing. The company still has to be the real deal, bought at a sensible price.

• A lot of short-term selling comes from traders playing a different game. Their timeline is a day or a quarter. Yours may be 20 or 30 years.

• Dividends can be cut, and principal can fall. Income investing doesn’t remove risk. It helps to know what you own and why you own it.

Two Numbers on Your Statement

Here’s the simplest way to think about it.

Your account value is what the market says your investments are worth today. Sell everything this afternoon, and that’s roughly what you’d get.

Your income is something else. It’s the dividends and interest that land in your account. That’s the money that can help pay the light bill without you having to sell a thing.

When you own a stock, you own a piece of a business. The SEC’s investor education site says people buy stocks for two main reasons: hoping the price goes up, and collecting dividends when a company returns part of its profits to shareholders. The price is just the market’s opinion of that business on a given day. And opinions change fast.

That was Mike’s point on the show. Almost everything the team had talked about that hour came down to price: what a stock did today, what it did yesterday. Then he reminded listeners that we build our portfolios around the income, not the daily price.

Now, don’t hear more than that. We didn’t say price is meaningless. We called it half of the total return picture. If you have to sell shares to cover a withdrawal, you’re selling at today’s price. If you need a big chunk of money for something, price matters. And sometimes a falling price is the market telling you trouble is coming before the company does.

So don’t ignore the price. Look at both numbers and ask what each one is telling you.

Believing in AI Isn’t the Same as Owning the Right Company

A lot of people own AI stocks right now, whether they know it or not. Some bought them on purpose. Others own them through an index fund, where some of the biggest holdings are tied up in AI. Look at how most people are invested today, and a big share of their money is sitting in the same sectors that have been going through these downturns.

If you own an index fund, that’s worth a minute of your time. Do you know how much of it rides on the same handful of companies?

James, who follows technology for our team, talked about how fast the mood can swing. As he described it, a chip company had just reported strong earnings and its stock went up. Then the broader tech market turned lower soon after. His read is that talk in Washington about regulating AI can weigh on the whole industry, even when the news from one company is good.

That’s the lesson underneath it. You can believe AI is going to change the world. You might be right. And you can still lose money by owning the wrong company, or by paying too much for the right one. Even a company that turns out to be a great long-term investment can take you through some rough stretches first. You have to live through the ups and downs to get to the long term. That’s why knowing what you on and why is so important.

Tom didn’t make that sound easy. Yes, a stock can fall a long way and come back. But as he put it, “it better be the real deal or else it’s going down 100% at some point.”

That’s the whole thing right there. A stock that’s fallen hard isn’t a bargain just because it’s cheaper. It might be a good company on sale. It might be a company that was never going to earn what people hoped. The only way to tell the difference is to do the work on the business itself: what it sells, what it earns, what it owes, and whether it has a history of sharing its profits with the people who own it. That’s what our in-house research follows. There’s no easy way to do it. It requires diligence.

So if you’re retired and you own a stock mainly because you believe in where the technology is headed, ask yourself an honest question. Is this paying me anything now, or am I counting on the price going up later? Either can be fine. But if next year’s spending money depends on it, you need to know which kind you’ve got.

Letting Air Out of the Balloon

When stocks drop hard, people start throwing around the word “bubble.” There’s a different way to look at it.

Compare it to the years before the 2008 financial crisis. Back then hardly anybody was asking hard questions about who could pay back their loans. People borrowed more than their houses were worth. The market just trusted the rating agencies. Nobody was looking closely.

This time, we see the market asking those hard questions, especially about the debt some companies have taken on to build out AI. That’s healthy. A market that’s scrutinizing debt is letting air out of the balloon a little at a time. That’s a lot different from a bubble that pops all at once.

That’s our take not a prediction of what comes next. But it points right back to you. Can this business keep paying? Can it pay what it owes? Those are the same questions an income investor ought to ask about every company in the portfolio.

Who’s Doing the Selling?

Here’s something that helps put a wild week in perspective. A lot of the people buying and selling on any given day aren’t investing the way you are. Not even close.

Michael walked through a few of them on the show. Inside some big hedge funds, small trading teams use a lot of borrowed money. Some traders use options that are bought and sold on the very day they expire. They’re called ODTE, short for “zero days to expiration.” Michael called that about as speculative as it gets. It’s essentially a bet on what happens in a single day.

Here’s how that works in plain English. Every option contract has an expiration date. A ODTE trade is opened on that last day, so the trader has only hours for the stock or index to move their way. If it doesn’t, the option can end the day worth little or nothing, and the buyer loses what they paid for it. FINRA, the brokerage industry’s regulator, explains this in its guide to zero days to expiration options trading. It warns that this kind of trading can be risky, and even more so for someone who sells options without owning the underlying shares.

Michael’s bigger point was about time. Many of these traders are judged and paid every quarter or every year. In his view, they aren’t long-term investors. They aren’t even medium-term investors. And when someone using borrowed money has to sell, they sell what they have to, at whatever the price is. That can push prices around in a hurry, whether or not anything changed in the business behind the stock.

Your retirement account has a different job. It may have to help pay your bills for 20 or 30 years. So when you watch the market lurch around in a single afternoon, ask yourself: Did something actually change about the business I own? Or did a lot of people with very short timelines just need to sell? Sometimes it’s both. Telling them apart takes research, not a guess.

Michael also sees this kind of market creating real opportunities for a patient investor. A lower price can open the door to adding to a good company or buying a new one. But a lower price alone isn’t a reason to buy. The company still has to be worth owning, the position still has to be the right size, and it still has to fit what you need your money to do.

The Crowd Isn’t Always Right

Tom opened his part of the hour talking about the election, not the stock market. But what he said carries over to investing, and it comes from someone who’s watched a lot of crowds over 48 years in this business.

He told the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem. The crowd threw palm fronds in his path and wanted to make him king. Within days, that same crowd was ready to crucify him. Tom called it the mob. In his view, going along with the crowd doesn’t let anybody off the hook. Each of us is still accountable for what we back.

Then he said something that takes humility after this many years. He’s been on the winning side before and turned out to be wrong. Winning, by itself, doesn’t prove anybody was right.

Tom was talking about politics and faith there. But you can see the same pattern in the stock market. When everybody’s buying the same few companies and prices keep climbing, it feels like being right. Then the crowd turns, and it can turn fast. A stock that went up isn’t proof it was a good investment. A stock that went down isn’t proof it was a bad one. The proof is in the business, and in whether it keeps doing the job you own it for.

Tom didn’t pretend politics doesn’t matter, either. He said plainly that the election will affect the investment business and that our team will have to make adjustments. But politics changes, and our basic work doesn’t. So we stick with what we do.

That’s a sensible way for a retiree to handle it, too. Don’t tear up a long-term plan over one election, one headline or one bad week. But don’t pretend those things can never touch a company’s costs, its customers or its ability to pay you.

Dividends Can Be Cut

This part’s too important to soften. Dividends aren’t promised. Nothing in investing is. Dividends have tended to be a lot steadier than stock prices. But steadier isn’t the same as certain.

History backs up the first half of that. Over many decades, dividends have tended to hold up better than stock prices in down markets, according to an analysis of long-run S&P 500 dividend data. That’s history, not a promise about the next downturn.

The second half matters just as much. A company that runs into trouble can cut its dividend or stop paying it altogether, even after decades of payments. The share price can fall at the same time. And plenty of stocks don’t pay a dividend at all. Investor.gov notes that growth stocks rarely pay dividends, and that stock prices can go down as well as up. You can lose money.

So an income approach doesn’t make risk go away. What it does is give you a clearer picture. If the income your investments pay, plus the cash you’ve already set aside, covers what you need to spend, a down week doesn’t force you to sell anything to pay your bills. If it doesn’t, the price you’d have to sell at matters a great deal. And if one of your companies cuts its dividend, that’s a real signal. It deserves a real look, not a shrug.

Be careful with a big, juicy yield, too. A very high yield can mean a solid company the market has beaten down for no good reason. It can also mean the market expects the dividend to be cut. The number alone won’t tell you which.

And watch how much of your income depends on a few companies or one industry. Owning a handful of different names doesn’t help much if they all rise and fall on the same story.

What to Look at in Your Own Account

Here’s where it gets practical. The next time the market has a week like this one, before you call anybody or sell anything, sit down with your statement and ask a few plain questions.

What actually came in? How much did your investments pay you in dividends and interest over the last year? Where did it come from? Is it spread across a lot of different businesses, or does most of it come from a few?

How are you covering your spending? If your withdrawals are bigger than what your investments pay you, the difference has to come from somewhere: cash you’ve set aside, another source of money, or selling some of what you own. None of those is automatically wrong. Plenty of good plans use them. But you ought to know which one is happening. Cash set aside gets used up. And when you sell to pay bills, the price matters, the taxes matter, and you end up owning less of whatever was paying you income. (For the tax side, talk with your tax advisor about your own situation.)

What do you own for growth? If those holdings had a bad stretch, how long could you go without needing to sell them? Do you know why each one is in your account?

You hear it at the end of every segment of the show: if you don’t know what you own, you need to. That’s the first problem to fix.

None of this tells you what to do with a particular stock. A general article can’t do that, and neither can a radio show. Those answers depend on your whole picture: your other savings, your spending, your taxes, your health and how long your money needs to last. That takes a conversation about your own account.

Why We’re Set Up the Way We Are

Tom explained how Dupree Financial Group is built. It ties right back to everything above.

Our goal is to invest your money to produce good long-term returns, with dividends paying you along the way. We’re a fee-only fiduciary, and we don’t earn commissions on products we recommend. Our fee is a percentage of the assets we manage. That keeps us on the same side of the table as you.

It doesn’t make every conflict disappear, and it doesn’t make results certain. But it does mean we don’t get paid more for trading more.

Tom also talked about reporting. Our clients meet with the team regularly and get a performance report on their own account, so they’re not left guessing about how they’re doing. Nobody should be left in the dark.

You can read more about how our team works, including our in-house research, on our About Us page. Our goal isn’t to guess what AI stocks will do next week. It’s to make sure you understand what your portfolio is supposed to do for you, what it’s paying you, and what could change that.

Frequently Asked Questions

If AI stocks fall, does my retirement income automatically go down?

Not automatically. A lower stock price and the cash you receive are two different things. But payments can change, and selling shares to cover spending leaves you owning less, which can shrink your future income. Look at what your investments actually paid you, what you need to spend, and whether a falling price is signaling trouble in the business.

If I invest for dividends, can I stop worrying about my account value?

No. Your account value still matters, especially if you sell investments to cover withdrawals or need a large sum. Dividends can be cut or stopped, and principal can fall. Watch both numbers, the price and the cash you actually receive, so you understand what really changed in your portfolio.

Should I buy an AI stock because its price dropped?

A lower price alone isn’t a reason to buy. A company that falls hard still has to be the real deal. Look at the business, its earnings, its debt and how it fits your plan. This article doesn’t recommend buying or selling any particular security. That depends on your own situation.

What are 0DTE options, and do I need to understand them?

0DTE stands for “zero days to expiration”: options traded on the day they expire, often as a bet on a single day’s move. They can end the day worthless. FINRA notes this kind of trading can be risky. You don’t need to use them. It just helps to know that some sharp market swings come from people with very short timelines.

What should I bring to a portfolio review?

Bring your recent statements and a rough idea of what you spend each month and what your investments need to cover. Then ask: What pays me income now? What could interrupt it? Why is each holding in my account? Those are questions only a conversation about your own portfolio can answer.

Know What You Own

When the market gets loud, come back to a few plain questions. What do I own? Why do I own it? What is it actually paying me, and what could change that?

If you’d like help answering those for your own portfolio, call us at 859-233-0400 or visit dupreefinancial.com. We’ll sit down, look at your portfolio together and give you a straight answer. And if you want to hear the whole conversation, including Tom’s take on the election and the music that kicked off the show, the full November 7 Financial Hour and its transcript are in the companion podcast post.

About The Tom Dupree Show

The Tom Dupree Show is hosted by Tom Dupree, founder of Dupree Financial Group and a 48-year veteran of the investment business. It airs Saturdays on NewsRadio 630 WLAP and covers the money questions that matter most to people in or near retirement, in plain English.

Dupree Financial Group is an independent, fee-only fiduciary Registered Investment Advisor in Lexington, Kentucky. We don’t earn commissions on products we recommend, and we’re structured to minimize conflicts of interest. Where we make your money work for you. Past episodes are in the podcast archive at dupreefinancial.com.

Schedule a Complimentary Portfolio Review

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Call: 859-233-0400 | Visit: dupreefinancial.com

The information presented in this article is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy, and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. Dupree Financial Group is a registered investment advisor, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information presented in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any references to securities or market performance are general in nature. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

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