March 14, 2025 • 38 mins
Chuck Zodda and Paul Lane discuss the enormous amount of money that has been lost by the magnificent seven year-to-date. As Social Security faces an uncertain future, some question whether the program should be privatized. Carmakers are reinventing the gear shift and drivers are lost. Is 3D printing the solution to the housing mess? Paul LaMonica, Barron's, joins the show to chat about the future of Trump Media.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:21):
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(00:43):
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(01:06):
Chuck Zada and Paul Lane.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
It is the second hour of our Friday show. Here
closing out the week, we got markets rallying for the
first time, really, I mean, this is probably the first
time since the last Friday that we've had any kind
of convincing rally. Monday was a puke day, Tuesday was
a puke day. Wednesday looked like we were gonna rally
(01:31):
ended up not Thursday puke day.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Today.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thus far, through the first hour and a half of trading,
things look good. But these are volatile days. I mean,
you look at how this market has moved, Paul, and
basically every day this week we've had multiple one percent
intra day swings that have happened. And so just because
we're sitting here saying, oh, like, things look fine now,
by the time four o'clock rolls around, it wouldn't be
surprising me. The S and P five hundred right now
(01:56):
is up one point six percent. Would it really surprise
you if it closed up two point six percent or
down half a percent?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
No, like any of those are reasonable right now. And
I have no idea what the next five hours entail,
you know, and this is before we even get to
like what the next five weeks might entail. So markets
though in positive territory the Dow up five hundred and
two points, s and P up eighty eight. Before you say, oh,
it's just some small group of stocks leading the way, No,
(02:23):
there are currently three hundred and eighty eight more stocks
up in the S and P than down, so it
is a broad based rally that is taking place. Basically,
the only sector that seems to not really be participating
in it in any way, shape or form is consumer staples,
which is the only one in negative territory, and even
there down point oh two percent right now, so just
not much movement on that front. NASDAK is leading the way,
(02:47):
so reversing its larger losses relative to other markets. NASDAK
is up about two percent today. Ten year US Treasury
not too much movement, up about two point six basis
points to four point three oh two. The if you
look at what this has been doing to mortgage rates,
the national thirty or fixed rate average right now at
six point seven eight, this will push it up to
(03:07):
around six point eight, so still floating around the high sixes,
but you know, down from a little bit north of
seven over the start of the year, so interest rates
getting better by about a quarter percent in the last
month or two.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
You've got oil up forty.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
One cents a barrel to sixty six ninety six on
West Texas intermediate triple a national average. For gas prices
moving up a touch, up four tenths of a cent
to three h eight and three tenths, So again, just
not too much movement on oil prices and gas prices.
Gas price has just been hanging out between three oh
five and three point fifteen for the last two or
(03:43):
three months now. We have just not had any movement
in a meaningful direction there. And gold, after breaking through
three thousand per ounce for the first time ever earlier today,
actually get to threeenty seventeen at one point. It's up
five to fifteen ounce at twenty nine ninety six right now.
But those gold three thousand hats, if they if they
have him somewhere, pull them out, because it got there today.
(04:06):
Might not close there, but it got there. Let's talk
a little bit about what we've seen in the last
few weeks here, because the Magnificent seven has become the
Magnificent seven in the past couple of weeks. Not my
original work there, So Unfortunately I can take credit. I
like Magnificent. The other one that I've seen out there
(04:28):
is instead of MAG seven, the Bag seven because you're
holding the bag.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
That's the one I've seen. Again, not my original work,
but uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So the Nasdaq year to date, if you just look
at where it is pulling it up, and even with
this little bit, yeah, even with this little bit of
an uptick today, it's still down eight point eight percent
right now, whereas the S and P is down four
point eight and the Dow is off three. So the
Nasdaq has been you know, just punished more than any
other index. And in particular it's those mag seven stocks, Apple, Microsoft,
(05:01):
in Vidia, Apple, Amazon. You go when you take a
look at how they've all performed year to date. Microsoft
down eight point seven nine percent, in Vidia ten point
sixty seven, Apple down fifteen, Amazon down ten, Tesla down forty. Obviously,
that's been you know, kind of the leader in the
clubhouse on the way down. Google or Meta or not
(05:22):
Meta Google or Alphabet or whatever they call it these days,
down about thirteen percent year to date. The only one
that has been positive year to date is Meta, which
is somehow up two point seven percent. I don't know
how they've escaped what else has been going on in
the MAC seven space, but they are the lone bright
spot in that space with a two and a half
(05:42):
percent gain so far this year. But just you know,
significant volatility in these names. I mean I was looking
at the chart of Invidia earlier today just because I
was like, oh, like, how have you know things been going?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And obviously I know the answer is not well in video.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So just to give sense of how volatile it has
been this year in Video opened the year at a
price of one thirty five. Rallied more than ten percent
in the first week, then fell more than ten percent.
In the second week, rallied more than ten percent, again
fell more than ten percent. Rallied more than ten percent,
fell more than ten percent. It's already had four different
(06:20):
rallies of ten percent or more in each direction. It's
insane and and somehow there's a market then for the
people who are like you know what, Paul, there's not
enough volatility, and in video, I would like to find a
two x or three x levered products for it, and
someone's buying that stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Always demand. I mean, we talked about before the Magnificent
seven in General were huge contributors to the success that
the market saw in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty three.
A lot of these companies, Chuck, We've spoke about this
in the show before price to Perfection, and in Vidia
is probably the best example of this, where they were
growing revenue almost doubling it year over year in higher quarters,
(07:01):
it has slowed down their revenue growth I slowed down
kind of in quotes to about seventy eight percent or
seventy plus percent, and the trading around it is kind
of indicative of what the market was looking for, is
perfection constant, you know, tremendous outperformance on results, and that
has trickled across many of these other companies here that
were just doing tremendously over the course of the last
(07:22):
couple of years, but priced very highly in terms of
a valuation metrics, and that's why we've seen some of
the sell off here. It feels like over the course
of the first couple months.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, it's it's just been again.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You can have companies like in Video that we can say, hey,
this is a company that is a great company that
is printing money hand over fist, but is what it's
done from a stock perspective, sustainable. No, Like, obviously, it's
not gonna be up like two hundred percent every year forever.
It's gonna become bigger than You're not gonna have a
world in which Nvidia becomes the US economy. No of this,
(07:56):
and if you do, I'm not sure I want to
live in it.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Of those seven, and if you look at the list
of the names, it's really only Apple or Tesla that
you could argue that their business has slowed down a
little bit to justify some of the selfs. It seems
like the rest of them they're in the mix of
the selloff, but not because of any fundamental business reason.
We've covered the Tesla one on declining sales, and then
on the Apple front there's been some weakness in China
(08:19):
for the smartphone, the iPhone sixteen's and things like that,
but the other five not really something that is markedly
different about their business with this sell off.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
The only thing on the other ones is you could
kind of point to, hey, these are companies that have
made their bones with you know, the AI trade and
some questions about dice and you know the future of
that industry. But as you mentioned, nothing is fundamentally changed
about those businesses. To this point, it's more just hmmm,
will something change? Yeap that that's been the only thing
that you've seen on that front.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Let's take a quick break here.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
When we come back, let's see we'll do a little
bit of trivia that sounds fun, and then we'll talk
social security. Black Rocks CEO Larry Fink talking about the
program and whether or not.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It should be privatized. We'll discuss after this.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
There's only one show that follows well Street's continued volatility.
Keep it here all morning long on the Financial Exchange
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Speaker 5 (09:31):
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Time for trivia here on the Financial Exchange. In today's
Michael Kaine's ninety second birthday. The legendary actor retired back
(10:23):
in twenty twenty three after seven decades gracing the silver screen.
So trivia question today, how many Academy Awards did Michael
Caine win? Once again? How many Academy Awards did Michael
Caine win? Be the fourth person today to text us
at six one seven three six two thirteen eighty five
(10:45):
with the correct answer, and you win a brand new
Financial Exchange Show T shirt.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Once again.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
The fourth correct response to text us at six one
seven three six two thirteen eighty five, we'll get that
new T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial shaneeshow
dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
All right, Paul, So we got a piece here in
CMBC and it's talking about at the Blackrock Retirement Summit,
which sounds just like a happening happen in place.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
CEO Larry Fink said, I'll read his quote.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The problem is right now, we have a plan called
social security that doesn't grow with the economy. And really
what he's getting at is, hey, the demographics have left
it such that you don't have enough people paying into
the system in order to support the benefits that are
promised in the system. And again it's saying, look like
there's no individual Social Security account. The people paying in
(11:39):
today help to fund the people that are taking money
out today. And so the question is, you know, what
do you do in order to fix this. We've talked about,
you know, some of the different options out there. It
appears that I think is talking about, Hey, do you
want to privatize this? Obviously, it is a huge conflict
of interest for Larry Fink to say this, because being
the world's biggest investment manager, you better believe he's like, yes,
(12:02):
I would love to have some of the trillions of
dollars that go into this program to be able to invest.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yeah, interesting concept here, I mean, like you said, all
sorts of conflict and interest on the investment side. Obviously,
the argument that you could return more strongly, you could
beat the treasury bills that are tied to social security.
Of course, that that's an obvious one there, But that
comes with a tremendous amount of investment risk for poor
(12:33):
performance returns and for a system that's already unfunded. To
take it private and then have someone else manage it
and have it be subject to the whims of the market,
that certainly is concerning, and also to me, it's just
there's a lot of challenges and obstacles I feel like
with that shift. You know, I don't know about the
(12:55):
idea of an individual accounts perhaps like treating it more
like a foreign Okay, it's not something I thought about extensively.
What do you think, Chuck on this idea?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So my view on social security is it's meant to
be if you look at what it's like, how it's framed.
The problem with retirement in the United States is, hey,
if you get to retirement age and you have nothing
saved for you, then you have a whole bunch of
sixty five to eighty year olds that are running around
(13:26):
that have no money, and like that it's a huge
risk to the overall, like to society, like it's bad
to have a bunch of destitute people of any age,
but especially those who you know really are unable to
work in a lot of cases because of their age.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We all get to a.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Point where our body and or our mind prevents us
from being able to work. And so the fundamental principle
of social security is, hey, here's the backstop, so that
if you've worked over the course of your career, you
have something to live on in retirement. And it strikes
(14:04):
me obviously, look, there are different risks that are out
there regardless of what the investment is. We talk about
this a lot in the financial industry, where every investment
has risk. Like even if you say, well, I've got
my money in a bank account, Well, didn't twenty twenty
two teach you that there's inflation risk. You know, Oh,
well that's okay, I'll put my money in bonds because
you know they earn more than just sitting in a
(14:26):
checking account. Well didn't twenty twenty two teach you about
interest rate risk? Of course, every investment has some kind
of risk that's attached to it. And so the question
with Social Security is, hey, if I'm trying to build
the backstop that people can depend on for you know,
that emergency, not even emergency, but just something to provide
income on a regular basis in retirement, what do I
(14:51):
buy in that program in order for people to you know,
be able to be comfortable there. And based on again
kind of how it works, you're generally talking about buying
bonds because like again, if you have fixed liabilities in
the future and you're you know, saying, Okay, how is
this going to be invested for you know, liabilities that
(15:13):
occur at a time in the future, it's yeah, you
can use bonds and if as long as you hold
the maturity, the interest rate risk of what they're worth
in the.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Interim is not a problem.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So like the framework there makes sense, and yeah, look
there's a it's not even a question. It's a certainty
that Social Security is not maximizing the return that's put
into it. Yes, like that, that's not it's not even
a question like, yes, the program could absolutely earn more
(15:44):
if it were invested differently, The question is do you
want to then take the risk that hey, if something
unexpected occurs that you either a can't make your payments
that you've promised then or like that aren't really promised,
or hey, those payments are reduced, or because people would
(16:04):
lose trust in the system, do you borrow a whole
bunch of money then in order to you know, fun
benefits that you know are out there. So I look,
I'm pretty conservative on what I want to do with
Social Security and that I don't love the idea of
upping the risk to try to get better returns in
a program that's designed to backstop American's financial retirement. If
(16:27):
you want to take risk, there's plenty of ways to
whether you're talking four one K, whether you're talking for
three b IRA set byra like, depending on each individual situation.
There's plenty of ways to save money above and beyond
Social Security. But Social Security to me is about backstopping
the American retiree such that they're not destitute in retirement,
(16:51):
and that means taking a more conservative investment approach than
you otherwise would, because that's what the program's designed to do. Now,
like Fink does say, and like, I don't even know
if this is fake. Someone in here is like, hey,
there's kind of like a failure of imagination with social Security.
If you want to be like, hey, you can pay
(17:12):
if you want, like an optional like additional half percent
tax that goes into something more aggressive, you know, for
a personal Social Security account. Oh okay, Like sure, like
if we want to really get creative with it or something, yeah,
Like there's ways that you can, you know, do that.
But I'm just not sure that changing like the base
(17:34):
program makes sense because it takes away the actual safety
net piece of what is you know, I think the
core function of the program. In my opinion, your mileage
may vary like that. There's people who have all different
opinions on this. I don't think any of them are
inherently wrong, because the one thing that we do know
is that the program asn't exists today is not sustainable.
So there have to be changes that are made, and
(17:56):
we can all have different opinions on the right way
to do this. But I don't love the idea of
just being like, well, it's up the amount of risk
that you can take because returns are you likely to
be better?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Well, what if they're not, Like, then then what do
you do?
Speaker 4 (18:08):
So many more potential conflicts that can come from that
on a bunch of different levels.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're right, yeah, yeah, So that's that's kind of where
I end up landing on it again, that there's no
good or perfect answer on this. So if you're listening
and you're like, oh, chuck, that's nice, but that's dumb,
Like okay, Like I get it, Like you don't have
to agree with me, but I think there are different
approaches that are gonna need to be talked about, and
ultimately we're gonna have to make some decisions on this
like that. Here's the thing. Even doing nothing is still
(18:36):
making a decision. It's just doing nothing is kind of
a bad decision. But we're we we gotta do something
on this puppy because there is a ticking cock that's
now down to you know, seven to nine years depending
on the projections that you look at, and seven to
nine years goes pretty quickly. I mean seven years ago
was twenty eighteen. Yep, doesn't that feel like yesterday?
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Then the longer you wait, the worse the changes are
gonna be. A there're more packful negatively that they're gonna be.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, exactly. So I don't know we got to talk
about it. We got to get different ideas out there.
This one not my favorite, but hey, like you, you're
gonna have to figure out how to deal with the
thing and get all the ideas on the table.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
And let's let's figure this puppy out. Uh.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Taking a look at markets as we head towards the
bottom of the hour, the Dow is up five hundred
and forty one points, the S and P's up ninety three,
NASDAG is up three hundred and sixty two, So continued
green on the board, Which kind of feels good heading.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Into the weekend, doesn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I think so let's take a quick break when we
come back. We got the trivia answer right after this.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
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Speaker 5 (20:08):
Trivia question today was how many Academy Awards did Michael
Caine win?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
That will be two.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
He won his first Academy Award in nineteen eighty seven
for his role in Hannah and her Sisters. He won
his second Academy Award in two thousand for his role
in The Cider House Rules. Tom from West Springfield, Mass
is our winner today, taking home a new Financial Exchange
Show t shirt. Congrats to Tom there, and we play
(20:36):
trivia every day here on the Financial Exchange ce. Complete
contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Paul, what do you got? What do you want to
get to here?
Speaker 4 (20:46):
I want to talk a little bit about gearshifters, Chuck.
Carmakers are doing all sorts of fancy updates to gear
shifters around the autumn manufacturing space, and.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
What kinds of things are they doing.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
The one reason I bring this up is my mother
in law has a real She has a much nicer
car than I do, a BMW SUV of some sort,
and over the summer I had to move her car
and I got into it and the gearshifter. All of
us are very accustomed to just pulling it down from
park to drive or reverse to get it to go
(21:19):
in the direction that you want to go, But this
particular one, the parking setting had a button attached to it.
And then it was also counterintuitive where you didn't have
you couldn't go straight down to get it into.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Reverse, where you had to go off to the center.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
In the center. It was held in the center, but
you couldn't, like your typical center one usually just go
straight down. You had to sort of jiggle it down
a little bit, not a complete straight shot. And I
was flummoxed also by the parking button that they had
in the middle there too, And it just seems like
this is getting more and more complex across a bunch
of different cars out there. In particular, the Genesis, which
(21:56):
is the Hyundai motor sort of luxury brand e E suv,
has a knob now that they've put in the middle
of an ORB. They call it where they call it
the crystal sphere, the crystal sphere. There's a four minute
video out there explaining how the ORB works, where you
have to rotate it one hundred and eighty degrees in
(22:17):
order to get it to these certain different settings that
we're all accustomed to. There's others out there that Tesla
has a touchscreen functionality where you can press tiny buttons
to switch the gears, and I know that it's always
our natural reflex to push back against change. And I'm
sure once you get accustomed to these changes, it's smooth sailings.
(22:39):
But it makes it a lot harder to switch between
cars when they're changing up what has been such a
simple way to start up cars for Who's.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
The person who's out there who's like, hey, i'd really
like to see you change how we you know, shift
automatic vehicles?
Speaker 4 (22:58):
They are arguments here, even Genesis in particular. It's to
enhance safety and to create an emotional connection with the driver.
What does that even mean? The ORB? You have an
emotional connection to it. I love my ORB. It's the
best way to shift gears around.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I have an emotional connection to the ORB.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Positive or negative one?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well, pretty negative, pretty negative me too. It's it's just
something where I look at this and I'm like, guys,
the problems that I want you to how much money
did you pour into the development of this? And I'm
not saying that like that dollar that went there would
have made some huge difference, But when I think about
what I want from a vehicle, it's like, hey, figure
(23:41):
out ways to get me better gas mileage, figure out
ways that I can fit more stuff in there, make
the interior more comfortable.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Not here's a different way.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I mean, here's the other thing about this, like the
reason why it's completely ludicrous, Like it's just a complete
waste of time, Paul. In a typical drive, there are
three times that you shift. There's one to back up
when you're pulling out of the spot that you're in.
There's two when you shift into drive in order to
go where you're going, and there's three when you shift
(24:13):
it to park when you arrive at your destination. It
literally regardless of how long you're driving. Now granted, look
I get it. You could make like a three point
turn and now you've got you know, six different you
know shifts that you need to make. But still the
point remains there are this is something that affects ten
seconds of your drive, no matter how far you are going.
(24:35):
Why is any company investing in this?
Speaker 4 (24:37):
I'm with you, It's frustrating. It's very frustrating.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
You know, invest in a better transmission? Actually, sure, like
why not? Like I'd love to see like transmission improvements.
That sounds lovely, But I touched this twice in the ride.
You know that this is like, well, we're gonna get
rid of your window buttons, and instead all you have
to do is drag your fingers down the.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Windows to open them.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
No, I don't want that, Like, just wave your hand
down and it'll do it.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Nothing will go you know.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
You have you have to say you know, the word
down in three different languages and the windows will go down.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Well, no, I don't want to do that. Just let
me push the button.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
What if I just want to open a tiny crack,
Just you.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Say down in two different languages and it goes down
a little bit.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So I don't know, Like I'm just I'm kinda like
I don't know about this.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
This seems like a solution in search of.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
A problem to me. And I'm not buying it. Uh
what I am buying not actually buying, but what I
what I do? Like, Paul, did.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Did you read this piece on these three D printed homes?
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I perused it. Yes, So these actually look kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So it's in a town called Georgetown, Texas, which is
a little bit outside of Austin, and Lenar, who's the
second second biggest home builder in the country, Uh, decided, Hey,
we're gonna do like a test run of one hundred
three D printed homes. They worked with a company called Icon,
who's a big three D printing company. And the big
(26:12):
thing about these three D printers is remember three D
printing is basically layering material over and over, so there's
no sharp corners, They're all rounded edges. But I gotta
say these things look pretty cool actually, And the big
selling point on this is even in the Austin market,
which is now pretty highly priced, given how many people
moved down there, they were able to get two bedroom
(26:33):
units down there under four hundred thousand dollars. And they
say that because of what they learned here, they're going
to do another development of two hundred homes that because
of the scale and how they were able to adapt
these processes, they think they're going to be able to
build these even more cheaply for larger three and four
bedroom homes in the future.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
The other piece that they mentioned here is that utility
bills for those people who were in this three D
printed home from a year ago, their electric bill was
twenty six bucks last month. The concrete really retains temperature
and heat and better than her standard colonial that she
had previously, and it feels like she's saying, this is
Holly Fekens here, someone who's lived in the home for
(27:11):
about a year. It's safer than any other house that
she's built in. There has been some feedback here saying
that it's better wind resistance for hurricanes and fire resistance
as well. So if you can have something that is better,
particularly for some of the areas in the country that
we talk about that have been really impacted by natural disasters,
and affordable too. I mean that's the real home run piece.
(27:32):
Chuck is trying to get some more affordable housing options
out there. That four hundred thousand dollars price point is fantastic.
The home market is really looking for innovation, so if
this could be more wid spread. I know we're only
talking about a couple hundred homes here, but it's exciting
developments from an area that needs innovation.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, I think it's cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And again, who knows, you know, this is the first,
you know, test of these. I'm sure that as they
get more experienced and prove they have more freedom to
do things a little bit differently in this and that,
And I don't know, I just think it's kind of
cool to see someone trying to do something different in
the housing market, where high costs and slow production times
are you know, a big thing. Hey, is this a
(28:13):
way that you can potentially reduce costs meaningfully and end up,
you know, building more rapidly when it's all said and done.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I think that's kind of.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Cool, very neat, very neat. Indeed, here what else you
got for me? Intel has hired a new CEO. They're
going to be tapping Lip Boutan, which is a former
executive from Cadence Systems. And what the issues that Intel
has run into over the course of the last geez
(28:43):
probably decade or so, is they've just failed to make
moves on a lot of the major innovations in the
technology space. They recently were trying to focus and pivot
to becoming more of a foundry company. So basically the
company that would manufacture chips that's dominated largely by Taiwan
Semiconductor out of out of Taiwan, and Samsung does a
(29:04):
bit of it as well. Now tapping on this new CEO,
they've had, I believe chuck four or five CEOs over
the course of the last five or six years. Here,
it's a company that's just been a tremendous amount of
turmoil and really needs a clear vision on what they're
gonna be doing going forward, just because they've been rumored
(29:24):
about this idea of perhaps a breakup of Intel to
sort of split up the divisions here. But this is
really make or break time for Intel. Their stock has
been punished over the course of the last couple of years,
and they've had Pat Gelsinger, They've had numerous other CEOs
try and come in and turn things around. It it
just hasn't happened.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, it's just been a tough run for them. Let's
take a quick break here. When we come back, we're
gonna be joined by the one and only Paul Lamonica
from Barons.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Right after this fine daily interviews and full shows of
the Financial Exchange and how.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Are you too?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Page like us on YouTube and get caught up on
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to the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Ladies and gentlemen. The Weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yes promised from now joined by the one and only
Paul Monica from Barons.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Paul, how are you today, good?
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Thanks, how you guys doing.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
We're doing great.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
We're gonna talk to you a little bit about Trump
Media and Technology Group, and Yeah, what's interesting here is
that this was one that in the run up to
the election, I think it was, you know, kind of
being used almost as a proxy for Donald Trump's chances
of becoming president, and clearly saw a significant run up
shortly after the election. But since then it's basically been
(31:03):
on a slide, absent you know, a small bounce that
it saw in December. What's what are we seeing here
from the company right now in terms of just how
the shares have been moving.
Speaker 6 (31:14):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, the stock, as you mentioned,
got a big run up in the anticipation of the election,
and I think part of it was that, you know,
you had seen reports that there were retail investors who
supported the president that were buying DJT shares as a
(31:34):
means of showing some support financially as well. And you know,
the stock really had a very sharp run up into
the election. But since then, along with the rest of
the market, it's been you know, mostly downhill. And I
think that you know, retail investors are maybe not as
(31:57):
enamored with DJT as a Trump trade. Uh, you know,
he's already won the election. Uh and uh. For institutional investors,
there's not a lot to like about the stock other
than the fact that it's in some prominent indexes, the
Russell one thousand, Russell three thousand, So you have some
index ETFs that have bought the shares, But it's you know, difficult,
(32:21):
I think for an actively run manager to buy a
stock that you know, the company continues to lose money,
revenue is very small. Yes, they are making some expansion
moves into fintech and hope to launch some ETFs of
their own. Obviously big on crypto, you know, just as
(32:41):
the president has a suddenly become So I think there
are things there that, you know, potentially make Trump Media
Technology a viable company down the road. But we're definitely
not there yet.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
In terms of it, like analyst coverage and things like that.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Are no one covers it?
Speaker 3 (33:02):
What are the experts? No one covers it.
Speaker 6 (33:04):
It's been a year since the SPAC deal closed and
you still don't have any analysts covering it. It's hard
to speculate why that's the case. I mean maybe because
this wasn't a traditional IPO, so you didn't have the
usual kind of laundry list of major banks that have
relationships built in ahead of the stock making its you know, debut,
(33:29):
you know. But also, I mean it's certainly possible that politically,
you may have companies that are wary of either being
accused of currying favor by having you know, positive coverage
on a company like DJT or the flip side. They
don't want to get penalized if someone havn't forbid puts
(33:51):
out like a celerating on the stock.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You mentioned that they have a couple of things that
are brewing in the fintech space. Is there any timeline
for the release of those products or is that still
up in the air.
Speaker 6 (34:06):
Yeah, it's still up in the air. I mean, they
have the truth dot five financial services brand. They are
planning to launch some ETFs and separately managed accounts tied
to themes that kind of align with Trump politically. So
there's a made in America potential fund, a US energy
(34:28):
independence one, and one tied to bitcoin and crypto. So,
you know, I think that you know, the company is
wisely you know, looking to expand in areas where the
you know, Trump supporters clearly probably believe in those themes
from an investing standpoint as well. But again, this is
(34:51):
the company that revenue in twenty twenty four was just
a little bit more than emillion, and that's not a misprint.
That's not billion, it's million. And uh, you know they
lost about four hundred million dollars last year, you know
(35:12):
as well. So this is a company that's trying to grow,
but it's incredibly small. This is not, by any means
a social media giant like Meta or you know, Musk's
X and you know, I think Elon Musk that is
a potential concern as well for the stock, namely that
(35:32):
you know, you had truth Social, which is owned by
you know, the Trump Media Technology Group. There was a
point in time where you felt that truth Social was
the place you had to be to hear from Trump.
But now that he's no longer a candidate, he's the president,
you know, where we're not lacking for commentary from him.
And because of the quote unquote bromance now with Elon Musk,
(35:57):
he's back on X as well, So you don't have
that scarcity value hid the truth social and Trump media
the way you used to because of you know, Trump
not being on when it was known as Twitter anymore,
leading up a couple of years, you know, after the
last election.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Very good, Paul, appreciate you joining us today today. Thank
you so much for the time, and I hope you
have a great weekend.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
Thanks Sam, you Chuck. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That is Paul Lamonica talking about Trump media and technology
and the tick around. That is d J T Paul.
Anything else, this is other Paul Paul Lane. We're inundated
with Paul's right now.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Anything else catching your eye today?
Speaker 4 (36:41):
I was just gonna throw a quick stack stack roulette
story at you. Yes, Hasbro wants to get more adults
to play with toys. And my question to you, because
we both have young kids, are there any toys of
your kids that you find yourself sort of having a
little bit of an attachment to that it takes it
back to your younger days. Because I have one Legos.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I could build Legos all day with that.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Yeah, the Legos is big right now.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Magnetiles is That's That's what I find myself really locked
in on.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
I got one a lot, I got one. You guys
do Marble Run. No, look, look that up. You'll recognize.
Is that what the pipes and like you raise the
marble lins, like you connect them. You can make your
own different marble track and everything. Oh yeah, I could
do that by myself.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
No, no problem.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
All the magnetiles. I find myself a little too locked
in sometimes on building them. I have to realize who
who's really in charge there. But ultimately their focus is
not any of those items, but Hasbro wants to build
out more spending for Star Wars action figures. Legos was
one of them, But sixty percent of Hasbro's revenue come
from people who are thirteen and over, So the more
you know.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, I'm looking at Marble Run right now, Tuck, I
see what you get.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Yeah, that's right up your alley, Chuck.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
I'm just gonna say that.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I feel like this means I should get into like
like sewage management or something like.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
That's the only way you can make or you know.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
You can make your own soup tubes with that.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Oh yeah, this yet I am. The soup tubes are back, baby,
and they're back big.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Say you test them out now, you know, taking a look.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
At markets DAWs up six hundred and five now, So
how's that for a reversal. The S and P's up
one oh two and the NASDAG up three ninety eight.
Thus far, a lot of green on the board as
we close out the week. Have a fantastic weekend. We're
back at it Monday. We got retail sales data and
a FED meeting next week, and a.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Bunch of housing stuff too.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
We'll have all of it here on the Financial Exchange.
The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
is hosted by employees of the Armstrong Advisory Group, a
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the hosts. Do not reflect the opinions of Armstrong Advisory
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(00:21):
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(01:06):
Chuck Zada and Paul Lane.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
It is the second hour of our Friday show. Here
closing out the week, we got markets rallying for the
first time, really, I mean, this is probably the first
time since the last Friday that we've had any kind
of convincing rally. Monday was a puke day, Tuesday was
a puke day. Wednesday looked like we were gonna rally
(01:31):
ended up not Thursday puke day.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Today.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thus far, through the first hour and a half of trading,
things look good. But these are volatile days. I mean,
you look at how this market has moved, Paul, and
basically every day this week we've had multiple one percent
intra day swings that have happened. And so just because
we're sitting here saying, oh, like, things look fine now,
by the time four o'clock rolls around, it wouldn't be
surprising me. The S and P five hundred right now
(01:56):
is up one point six percent. Would it really surprise
you if it closed up two point six percent or
down half a percent?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
No, like any of those are reasonable right now. And
I have no idea what the next five hours entail,
you know, and this is before we even get to
like what the next five weeks might entail. So markets
though in positive territory the Dow up five hundred and
two points, s and P up eighty eight. Before you say, oh,
it's just some small group of stocks leading the way, No,
(02:23):
there are currently three hundred and eighty eight more stocks
up in the S and P than down, so it
is a broad based rally that is taking place. Basically,
the only sector that seems to not really be participating
in it in any way, shape or form is consumer staples,
which is the only one in negative territory, and even
there down point oh two percent right now, so just
not much movement on that front. NASDAK is leading the way,
(02:47):
so reversing its larger losses relative to other markets. NASDAK
is up about two percent today. Ten year US Treasury
not too much movement, up about two point six basis
points to four point three oh two. The if you
look at what this has been doing to mortgage rates,
the national thirty or fixed rate average right now at
six point seven eight, this will push it up to
(03:07):
around six point eight, so still floating around the high sixes,
but you know, down from a little bit north of
seven over the start of the year, so interest rates
getting better by about a quarter percent in the last
month or two.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
You've got oil up forty.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
One cents a barrel to sixty six ninety six on
West Texas intermediate triple a national average. For gas prices
moving up a touch, up four tenths of a cent
to three h eight and three tenths, So again, just
not too much movement on oil prices and gas prices.
Gas price has just been hanging out between three oh
five and three point fifteen for the last two or
(03:43):
three months now. We have just not had any movement
in a meaningful direction there. And gold, after breaking through
three thousand per ounce for the first time ever earlier today,
actually get to threeenty seventeen at one point. It's up
five to fifteen ounce at twenty nine ninety six right now.
But those gold three thousand hats, if they if they
have him somewhere, pull them out, because it got there today.
(04:06):
Might not close there, but it got there. Let's talk
a little bit about what we've seen in the last
few weeks here, because the Magnificent seven has become the
Magnificent seven in the past couple of weeks. Not my
original work there, So Unfortunately I can take credit. I
like Magnificent. The other one that I've seen out there
(04:28):
is instead of MAG seven, the Bag seven because you're
holding the bag.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
That's the one I've seen. Again, not my original work,
but uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So the Nasdaq year to date, if you just look
at where it is pulling it up, and even with
this little bit, yeah, even with this little bit of
an uptick today, it's still down eight point eight percent
right now, whereas the S and P is down four
point eight and the Dow is off three. So the
Nasdaq has been you know, just punished more than any
other index. And in particular it's those mag seven stocks, Apple, Microsoft,
(05:01):
in Vidia, Apple, Amazon. You go when you take a
look at how they've all performed year to date. Microsoft
down eight point seven nine percent, in Vidia ten point
sixty seven, Apple down fifteen, Amazon down ten, Tesla down forty. Obviously,
that's been you know, kind of the leader in the
clubhouse on the way down. Google or Meta or not
(05:22):
Meta Google or Alphabet or whatever they call it these days,
down about thirteen percent year to date. The only one
that has been positive year to date is Meta, which
is somehow up two point seven percent. I don't know
how they've escaped what else has been going on in
the MAC seven space, but they are the lone bright
spot in that space with a two and a half
(05:42):
percent gain so far this year. But just you know,
significant volatility in these names. I mean I was looking
at the chart of Invidia earlier today just because I
was like, oh, like, how have you know things been going?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And obviously I know the answer is not well in video.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So just to give sense of how volatile it has
been this year in Video opened the year at a
price of one thirty five. Rallied more than ten percent
in the first week, then fell more than ten percent.
In the second week, rallied more than ten percent, again
fell more than ten percent. Rallied more than ten percent,
fell more than ten percent. It's already had four different
(06:20):
rallies of ten percent or more in each direction. It's
insane and and somehow there's a market then for the
people who are like you know what, Paul, there's not
enough volatility, and in video, I would like to find a
two x or three x levered products for it, and
someone's buying that stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Always demand. I mean, we talked about before the Magnificent
seven in General were huge contributors to the success that
the market saw in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty three.
A lot of these companies, Chuck, We've spoke about this
in the show before price to Perfection, and in Vidia
is probably the best example of this, where they were
growing revenue almost doubling it year over year in higher quarters,
(07:01):
it has slowed down their revenue growth I slowed down
kind of in quotes to about seventy eight percent or
seventy plus percent, and the trading around it is kind
of indicative of what the market was looking for, is
perfection constant, you know, tremendous outperformance on results, and that
has trickled across many of these other companies here that
were just doing tremendously over the course of the last
(07:22):
couple of years, but priced very highly in terms of
a valuation metrics, and that's why we've seen some of
the sell off here. It feels like over the course
of the first couple months.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, it's it's just been again.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You can have companies like in Video that we can say, hey,
this is a company that is a great company that
is printing money hand over fist, but is what it's
done from a stock perspective, sustainable. No, Like, obviously, it's
not gonna be up like two hundred percent every year forever.
It's gonna become bigger than You're not gonna have a
world in which Nvidia becomes the US economy. No of this,
(07:56):
and if you do, I'm not sure I want to
live in it.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Of those seven, and if you look at the list
of the names, it's really only Apple or Tesla that
you could argue that their business has slowed down a
little bit to justify some of the selfs. It seems
like the rest of them they're in the mix of
the selloff, but not because of any fundamental business reason.
We've covered the Tesla one on declining sales, and then
on the Apple front there's been some weakness in China
(08:19):
for the smartphone, the iPhone sixteen's and things like that,
but the other five not really something that is markedly
different about their business with this sell off.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
The only thing on the other ones is you could
kind of point to, hey, these are companies that have
made their bones with you know, the AI trade and
some questions about dice and you know the future of
that industry. But as you mentioned, nothing is fundamentally changed
about those businesses. To this point, it's more just hmmm,
will something change? Yeap that that's been the only thing
that you've seen on that front.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Let's take a quick break here.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
When we come back, let's see we'll do a little
bit of trivia that sounds fun, and then we'll talk
social security. Black Rocks CEO Larry Fink talking about the
program and whether or not.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It should be privatized. We'll discuss after this.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
There's only one show that follows well Street's continued volatility.
Keep it here all morning long on the Financial Exchange
Radio Network. The Financial Exchange streams live on YouTube. Like
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news All morning loan. This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
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This segment of the Financial Exchange is brought to you
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Time for trivia here on the Financial Exchange. In today's
Michael Kaine's ninety second birthday. The legendary actor retired back
(10:23):
in twenty twenty three after seven decades gracing the silver screen.
So trivia question today, how many Academy Awards did Michael
Caine win? Once again? How many Academy Awards did Michael
Caine win? Be the fourth person today to text us
at six one seven three six two thirteen eighty five
(10:45):
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Speaker 3 (10:49):
Once again.
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Speaker 2 (11:01):
All right, Paul, So we got a piece here in
CMBC and it's talking about at the Blackrock Retirement Summit,
which sounds just like a happening happen in place.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
CEO Larry Fink said, I'll read his quote.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The problem is right now, we have a plan called
social security that doesn't grow with the economy. And really
what he's getting at is, hey, the demographics have left
it such that you don't have enough people paying into
the system in order to support the benefits that are
promised in the system. And again it's saying, look like
there's no individual Social Security account. The people paying in
(11:39):
today help to fund the people that are taking money
out today. And so the question is, you know, what
do you do in order to fix this. We've talked about,
you know, some of the different options out there. It
appears that I think is talking about, Hey, do you
want to privatize this? Obviously, it is a huge conflict
of interest for Larry Fink to say this, because being
the world's biggest investment manager, you better believe he's like, yes,
(12:02):
I would love to have some of the trillions of
dollars that go into this program to be able to invest.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yeah, interesting concept here, I mean, like you said, all
sorts of conflict and interest on the investment side. Obviously,
the argument that you could return more strongly, you could
beat the treasury bills that are tied to social security.
Of course, that that's an obvious one there, But that
comes with a tremendous amount of investment risk for poor
(12:33):
performance returns and for a system that's already unfunded. To
take it private and then have someone else manage it
and have it be subject to the whims of the market,
that certainly is concerning, and also to me, it's just
there's a lot of challenges and obstacles I feel like
with that shift. You know, I don't know about the
(12:55):
idea of an individual accounts perhaps like treating it more
like a foreign Okay, it's not something I thought about extensively.
What do you think, Chuck on this idea?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So my view on social security is it's meant to
be if you look at what it's like, how it's framed.
The problem with retirement in the United States is, hey,
if you get to retirement age and you have nothing
saved for you, then you have a whole bunch of
sixty five to eighty year olds that are running around
(13:26):
that have no money, and like that it's a huge
risk to the overall, like to society, like it's bad
to have a bunch of destitute people of any age,
but especially those who you know really are unable to
work in a lot of cases because of their age.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We all get to a.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Point where our body and or our mind prevents us
from being able to work. And so the fundamental principle
of social security is, hey, here's the backstop, so that
if you've worked over the course of your career, you
have something to live on in retirement. And it strikes
(14:04):
me obviously, look, there are different risks that are out
there regardless of what the investment is. We talk about
this a lot in the financial industry, where every investment
has risk. Like even if you say, well, I've got
my money in a bank account, Well, didn't twenty twenty
two teach you that there's inflation risk. You know, Oh,
well that's okay, I'll put my money in bonds because
you know they earn more than just sitting in a
(14:26):
checking account. Well didn't twenty twenty two teach you about
interest rate risk? Of course, every investment has some kind
of risk that's attached to it. And so the question
with Social Security is, hey, if I'm trying to build
the backstop that people can depend on for you know,
that emergency, not even emergency, but just something to provide
income on a regular basis in retirement, what do I
(14:51):
buy in that program in order for people to you know,
be able to be comfortable there. And based on again
kind of how it works, you're generally talking about buying
bonds because like again, if you have fixed liabilities in
the future and you're you know, saying, Okay, how is
this going to be invested for you know, liabilities that
(15:13):
occur at a time in the future, it's yeah, you
can use bonds and if as long as you hold
the maturity, the interest rate risk of what they're worth
in the.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Interim is not a problem.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So like the framework there makes sense, and yeah, look
there's a it's not even a question. It's a certainty
that Social Security is not maximizing the return that's put
into it. Yes, like that, that's not it's not even
a question like, yes, the program could absolutely earn more
(15:44):
if it were invested differently, The question is do you
want to then take the risk that hey, if something
unexpected occurs that you either a can't make your payments
that you've promised then or like that aren't really promised,
or hey, those payments are reduced, or because people would
(16:04):
lose trust in the system, do you borrow a whole
bunch of money then in order to you know, fun
benefits that you know are out there. So I look,
I'm pretty conservative on what I want to do with
Social Security and that I don't love the idea of
upping the risk to try to get better returns in
a program that's designed to backstop American's financial retirement. If
(16:27):
you want to take risk, there's plenty of ways to
whether you're talking four one K, whether you're talking for
three b IRA set byra like, depending on each individual situation.
There's plenty of ways to save money above and beyond
Social Security. But Social Security to me is about backstopping
the American retiree such that they're not destitute in retirement,
(16:51):
and that means taking a more conservative investment approach than
you otherwise would, because that's what the program's designed to do. Now,
like Fink does say, and like, I don't even know
if this is fake. Someone in here is like, hey,
there's kind of like a failure of imagination with social Security.
If you want to be like, hey, you can pay
(17:12):
if you want, like an optional like additional half percent
tax that goes into something more aggressive, you know, for
a personal Social Security account. Oh okay, Like sure, like
if we want to really get creative with it or something, yeah,
Like there's ways that you can, you know, do that.
But I'm just not sure that changing like the base
(17:34):
program makes sense because it takes away the actual safety
net piece of what is you know, I think the
core function of the program. In my opinion, your mileage
may vary like that. There's people who have all different
opinions on this. I don't think any of them are
inherently wrong, because the one thing that we do know
is that the program asn't exists today is not sustainable.
So there have to be changes that are made, and
(17:56):
we can all have different opinions on the right way
to do this. But I don't love the idea of
just being like, well, it's up the amount of risk
that you can take because returns are you likely to
be better?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Well, what if they're not, Like, then then what do
you do?
Speaker 4 (18:08):
So many more potential conflicts that can come from that
on a bunch of different levels.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're right, yeah, yeah, So that's that's kind of where
I end up landing on it again, that there's no
good or perfect answer on this. So if you're listening
and you're like, oh, chuck, that's nice, but that's dumb,
Like okay, Like I get it, Like you don't have
to agree with me, but I think there are different
approaches that are gonna need to be talked about, and
ultimately we're gonna have to make some decisions on this
like that. Here's the thing. Even doing nothing is still
(18:36):
making a decision. It's just doing nothing is kind of
a bad decision. But we're we we gotta do something
on this puppy because there is a ticking cock that's
now down to you know, seven to nine years depending
on the projections that you look at, and seven to
nine years goes pretty quickly. I mean seven years ago
was twenty eighteen. Yep, doesn't that feel like yesterday?
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Then the longer you wait, the worse the changes are
gonna be. A there're more packful negatively that they're gonna be.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, exactly. So I don't know we got to talk
about it. We got to get different ideas out there.
This one not my favorite, but hey, like you, you're
gonna have to figure out how to deal with the
thing and get all the ideas on the table.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
And let's let's figure this puppy out. Uh.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Taking a look at markets as we head towards the
bottom of the hour, the Dow is up five hundred
and forty one points, the S and P's up ninety three,
NASDAG is up three hundred and sixty two, So continued
green on the board, Which kind of feels good heading.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Into the weekend, doesn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I think so let's take a quick break when we
come back. We got the trivia answer right after this.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Text us six one, seven, three, six two thirteen eighty
five with your comments and questions about today's show and
let us know what you think about the stories we
are covering. This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network, All right.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
Trivia question today was how many Academy Awards did Michael
Caine win?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
That will be two.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
He won his first Academy Award in nineteen eighty seven
for his role in Hannah and her Sisters. He won
his second Academy Award in two thousand for his role
in The Cider House Rules. Tom from West Springfield, Mass
is our winner today, taking home a new Financial Exchange
Show t shirt. Congrats to Tom there, and we play
(20:36):
trivia every day here on the Financial Exchange ce. Complete
contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Paul, what do you got? What do you want to
get to here?
Speaker 4 (20:46):
I want to talk a little bit about gearshifters, Chuck.
Carmakers are doing all sorts of fancy updates to gear
shifters around the autumn manufacturing space, and.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
What kinds of things are they doing.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
The one reason I bring this up is my mother
in law has a real She has a much nicer
car than I do, a BMW SUV of some sort,
and over the summer I had to move her car
and I got into it and the gearshifter. All of
us are very accustomed to just pulling it down from
park to drive or reverse to get it to go
(21:19):
in the direction that you want to go, But this
particular one, the parking setting had a button attached to it.
And then it was also counterintuitive where you didn't have
you couldn't go straight down to get it into.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Reverse, where you had to go off to the center.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
In the center. It was held in the center, but
you couldn't, like your typical center one usually just go
straight down. You had to sort of jiggle it down
a little bit, not a complete straight shot. And I
was flummoxed also by the parking button that they had
in the middle there too, And it just seems like
this is getting more and more complex across a bunch
of different cars out there. In particular, the Genesis, which
(21:56):
is the Hyundai motor sort of luxury brand e E suv,
has a knob now that they've put in the middle
of an ORB. They call it where they call it
the crystal sphere, the crystal sphere. There's a four minute
video out there explaining how the ORB works, where you
have to rotate it one hundred and eighty degrees in
(22:17):
order to get it to these certain different settings that
we're all accustomed to. There's others out there that Tesla
has a touchscreen functionality where you can press tiny buttons
to switch the gears, and I know that it's always
our natural reflex to push back against change. And I'm
sure once you get accustomed to these changes, it's smooth sailings.
(22:39):
But it makes it a lot harder to switch between
cars when they're changing up what has been such a
simple way to start up cars for Who's.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
The person who's out there who's like, hey, i'd really
like to see you change how we you know, shift
automatic vehicles?
Speaker 4 (22:58):
They are arguments here, even Genesis in particular. It's to
enhance safety and to create an emotional connection with the driver.
What does that even mean? The ORB? You have an
emotional connection to it. I love my ORB. It's the
best way to shift gears around.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I have an emotional connection to the ORB.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Positive or negative one?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well, pretty negative, pretty negative me too. It's it's just
something where I look at this and I'm like, guys,
the problems that I want you to how much money
did you pour into the development of this? And I'm
not saying that like that dollar that went there would
have made some huge difference, But when I think about
what I want from a vehicle, it's like, hey, figure
(23:41):
out ways to get me better gas mileage, figure out
ways that I can fit more stuff in there, make
the interior more comfortable.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Not here's a different way.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I mean, here's the other thing about this, like the
reason why it's completely ludicrous, Like it's just a complete
waste of time, Paul. In a typical drive, there are
three times that you shift. There's one to back up
when you're pulling out of the spot that you're in.
There's two when you shift into drive in order to
go where you're going, and there's three when you shift
(24:13):
it to park when you arrive at your destination. It
literally regardless of how long you're driving. Now granted, look
I get it. You could make like a three point
turn and now you've got you know, six different you
know shifts that you need to make. But still the
point remains there are this is something that affects ten
seconds of your drive, no matter how far you are going.
(24:35):
Why is any company investing in this?
Speaker 4 (24:37):
I'm with you, It's frustrating. It's very frustrating.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
You know, invest in a better transmission? Actually, sure, like
why not? Like I'd love to see like transmission improvements.
That sounds lovely, But I touched this twice in the ride.
You know that this is like, well, we're gonna get
rid of your window buttons, and instead all you have
to do is drag your fingers down the.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Windows to open them.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
No, I don't want that, Like, just wave your hand
down and it'll do it.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Nothing will go you know.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
You have you have to say you know, the word
down in three different languages and the windows will go down.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Well, no, I don't want to do that. Just let
me push the button.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
What if I just want to open a tiny crack,
Just you.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Say down in two different languages and it goes down
a little bit.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So I don't know, Like I'm just I'm kinda like
I don't know about this.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
This seems like a solution in search of.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
A problem to me. And I'm not buying it. Uh
what I am buying not actually buying, but what I
what I do? Like, Paul, did.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Did you read this piece on these three D printed homes?
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I perused it. Yes, So these actually look kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So it's in a town called Georgetown, Texas, which is
a little bit outside of Austin, and Lenar, who's the
second second biggest home builder in the country, Uh, decided, Hey,
we're gonna do like a test run of one hundred
three D printed homes. They worked with a company called Icon,
who's a big three D printing company. And the big
(26:12):
thing about these three D printers is remember three D
printing is basically layering material over and over, so there's
no sharp corners, They're all rounded edges. But I gotta
say these things look pretty cool actually, And the big
selling point on this is even in the Austin market,
which is now pretty highly priced, given how many people
moved down there, they were able to get two bedroom
(26:33):
units down there under four hundred thousand dollars. And they
say that because of what they learned here, they're going
to do another development of two hundred homes that because
of the scale and how they were able to adapt
these processes, they think they're going to be able to
build these even more cheaply for larger three and four
bedroom homes in the future.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
The other piece that they mentioned here is that utility
bills for those people who were in this three D
printed home from a year ago, their electric bill was
twenty six bucks last month. The concrete really retains temperature
and heat and better than her standard colonial that she
had previously, and it feels like she's saying, this is
Holly Fekens here, someone who's lived in the home for
(27:11):
about a year. It's safer than any other house that
she's built in. There has been some feedback here saying
that it's better wind resistance for hurricanes and fire resistance
as well. So if you can have something that is better,
particularly for some of the areas in the country that
we talk about that have been really impacted by natural disasters,
and affordable too. I mean that's the real home run piece.
(27:32):
Chuck is trying to get some more affordable housing options
out there. That four hundred thousand dollars price point is fantastic.
The home market is really looking for innovation, so if
this could be more wid spread. I know we're only
talking about a couple hundred homes here, but it's exciting
developments from an area that needs innovation.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, I think it's cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And again, who knows, you know, this is the first,
you know, test of these. I'm sure that as they
get more experienced and prove they have more freedom to
do things a little bit differently in this and that,
And I don't know, I just think it's kind of
cool to see someone trying to do something different in
the housing market, where high costs and slow production times
are you know, a big thing. Hey, is this a
(28:13):
way that you can potentially reduce costs meaningfully and end up,
you know, building more rapidly when it's all said and done.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I think that's kind of.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Cool, very neat, very neat. Indeed, here what else you
got for me? Intel has hired a new CEO. They're
going to be tapping Lip Boutan, which is a former
executive from Cadence Systems. And what the issues that Intel
has run into over the course of the last geez
(28:43):
probably decade or so, is they've just failed to make
moves on a lot of the major innovations in the
technology space. They recently were trying to focus and pivot
to becoming more of a foundry company. So basically the
company that would manufacture chips that's dominated largely by Taiwan
Semiconductor out of out of Taiwan, and Samsung does a
(29:04):
bit of it as well. Now tapping on this new CEO,
they've had, I believe chuck four or five CEOs over
the course of the last five or six years. Here,
it's a company that's just been a tremendous amount of
turmoil and really needs a clear vision on what they're
gonna be doing going forward, just because they've been rumored
(29:24):
about this idea of perhaps a breakup of Intel to
sort of split up the divisions here. But this is
really make or break time for Intel. Their stock has
been punished over the course of the last couple of years,
and they've had Pat Gelsinger, They've had numerous other CEOs
try and come in and turn things around. It it
just hasn't happened.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, it's just been a tough run for them. Let's
take a quick break here. When we come back, we're
gonna be joined by the one and only Paul Lamonica
from Barons.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Right after this fine daily interviews and full shows of
the Financial Exchange and how.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Are you too?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Page like us on YouTube and get caught up on
anything and everything you might have missed. This is the
Financial Exchange Radio Network. The Financial Exchange Show podcast drops
every day on Apple, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. Hit that subscribe
button then leave us a five star review. You're listening
to the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Ladies and gentlemen. The Weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yes promised from now joined by the one and only
Paul Monica from Barons.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Paul, how are you today, good?
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Thanks, how you guys doing.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
We're doing great.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
We're gonna talk to you a little bit about Trump
Media and Technology Group, and Yeah, what's interesting here is
that this was one that in the run up to
the election, I think it was, you know, kind of
being used almost as a proxy for Donald Trump's chances
of becoming president, and clearly saw a significant run up
shortly after the election. But since then it's basically been
(31:03):
on a slide, absent you know, a small bounce that
it saw in December. What's what are we seeing here
from the company right now in terms of just how
the shares have been moving.
Speaker 6 (31:14):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, the stock, as you mentioned,
got a big run up in the anticipation of the election,
and I think part of it was that, you know,
you had seen reports that there were retail investors who
supported the president that were buying DJT shares as a
(31:34):
means of showing some support financially as well. And you know,
the stock really had a very sharp run up into
the election. But since then, along with the rest of
the market, it's been you know, mostly downhill. And I
think that you know, retail investors are maybe not as
(31:57):
enamored with DJT as a Trump trade. Uh, you know,
he's already won the election. Uh and uh. For institutional investors,
there's not a lot to like about the stock other
than the fact that it's in some prominent indexes, the
Russell one thousand, Russell three thousand, So you have some
index ETFs that have bought the shares, But it's you know, difficult,
(32:21):
I think for an actively run manager to buy a
stock that you know, the company continues to lose money,
revenue is very small. Yes, they are making some expansion
moves into fintech and hope to launch some ETFs of
their own. Obviously big on crypto, you know, just as
(32:41):
the president has a suddenly become So I think there
are things there that, you know, potentially make Trump Media
Technology a viable company down the road. But we're definitely
not there yet.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
In terms of it, like analyst coverage and things like that.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Are no one covers it?
Speaker 3 (33:02):
What are the experts? No one covers it.
Speaker 6 (33:04):
It's been a year since the SPAC deal closed and
you still don't have any analysts covering it. It's hard
to speculate why that's the case. I mean maybe because
this wasn't a traditional IPO, so you didn't have the
usual kind of laundry list of major banks that have
relationships built in ahead of the stock making its you know, debut,
(33:29):
you know. But also, I mean it's certainly possible that politically,
you may have companies that are wary of either being
accused of currying favor by having you know, positive coverage
on a company like DJT or the flip side. They
don't want to get penalized if someone havn't forbid puts
(33:51):
out like a celerating on the stock.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You mentioned that they have a couple of things that
are brewing in the fintech space. Is there any timeline
for the release of those products or is that still
up in the air.
Speaker 6 (34:06):
Yeah, it's still up in the air. I mean, they
have the truth dot five financial services brand. They are
planning to launch some ETFs and separately managed accounts tied
to themes that kind of align with Trump politically. So
there's a made in America potential fund, a US energy
(34:28):
independence one, and one tied to bitcoin and crypto. So,
you know, I think that you know, the company is
wisely you know, looking to expand in areas where the
you know, Trump supporters clearly probably believe in those themes
from an investing standpoint as well. But again, this is
(34:51):
the company that revenue in twenty twenty four was just
a little bit more than emillion, and that's not a misprint.
That's not billion, it's million. And uh, you know they
lost about four hundred million dollars last year, you know
(35:12):
as well. So this is a company that's trying to grow,
but it's incredibly small. This is not, by any means
a social media giant like Meta or you know, Musk's
X and you know, I think Elon Musk that is
a potential concern as well for the stock, namely that
(35:32):
you know, you had truth Social, which is owned by
you know, the Trump Media Technology Group. There was a
point in time where you felt that truth Social was
the place you had to be to hear from Trump.
But now that he's no longer a candidate, he's the president,
you know, where we're not lacking for commentary from him.
And because of the quote unquote bromance now with Elon Musk,
(35:57):
he's back on X as well, So you don't have
that scarcity value hid the truth social and Trump media
the way you used to because of you know, Trump
not being on when it was known as Twitter anymore,
leading up a couple of years, you know, after the
last election.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Very good, Paul, appreciate you joining us today today. Thank
you so much for the time, and I hope you
have a great weekend.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
Thanks Sam, you Chuck. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That is Paul Lamonica talking about Trump media and technology
and the tick around. That is d J T Paul.
Anything else, this is other Paul Paul Lane. We're inundated
with Paul's right now.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Anything else catching your eye today?
Speaker 4 (36:41):
I was just gonna throw a quick stack stack roulette
story at you. Yes, Hasbro wants to get more adults
to play with toys. And my question to you, because
we both have young kids, are there any toys of
your kids that you find yourself sort of having a
little bit of an attachment to that it takes it
back to your younger days. Because I have one Legos.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I could build Legos all day with that.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Yeah, the Legos is big right now.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Magnetiles is That's That's what I find myself really locked
in on.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
I got one a lot, I got one. You guys
do Marble Run. No, look, look that up. You'll recognize.
Is that what the pipes and like you raise the
marble lins, like you connect them. You can make your
own different marble track and everything. Oh yeah, I could
do that by myself.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
No, no problem.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
All the magnetiles. I find myself a little too locked
in sometimes on building them. I have to realize who
who's really in charge there. But ultimately their focus is
not any of those items, but Hasbro wants to build
out more spending for Star Wars action figures. Legos was
one of them, But sixty percent of Hasbro's revenue come
from people who are thirteen and over, So the more
you know.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, I'm looking at Marble Run right now, Tuck, I
see what you get.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Yeah, that's right up your alley, Chuck.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
I'm just gonna say that.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I feel like this means I should get into like
like sewage management or something like.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
That's the only way you can make or you know.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
You can make your own soup tubes with that.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Oh yeah, this yet I am. The soup tubes are back, baby,
and they're back big.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Say you test them out now, you know, taking a look.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
At markets DAWs up six hundred and five now, So
how's that for a reversal. The S and P's up
one oh two and the NASDAG up three ninety eight.
Thus far, a lot of green on the board as
we close out the week. Have a fantastic weekend. We're
back at it Monday. We got retail sales data and
a FED meeting next week, and a.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Bunch of housing stuff too.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
We'll have all of it here on the Financial Exchange.
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