October 1, 2025 • 38 mins
Chuck Zodda and Marc Fandetti discuss the US dollar losing its safehaven status as governments gobble up gold. How Nvidia's Jensen Huang became AI's global salesman. Meta launches Vibes: a new way to discover and create terrible AI videos. AI is not killing jobs, US study finds. Boeing's 737 Max replacement will be make-or-break.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
is hosted by employees of the Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. All opinions expressed are solely those of
the hosts, do not reflect the opinions of Armstrong Advisory
or anyone else. Investments can lose money. This program does
not offer any specific financial or investment advice. Please consult
your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
(00:20):
any investment decisions. Armstrong Advisory and the advertisers heard on
this program do not endorse each other or their services.
Armstrong and Money Matters Radio do not compensate each other
for referrals and are not affiliated. This is the Financial
Exchange with Chuck Zada and Mark fan Daddy, your exclusive
look at business and financial news affecting your day, your city,
(00:42):
your world. Stay informed and up to date about economic
and market trends, plus breaking business news every day. The
Financial Exchange is a proud partner of the Disabled American
Veterans Department of Massachusetts. Help us support our great American
heroes by visiting DAV five KT Boston and making a
donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck Zadath
(01:06):
and Mark Vandebbi.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Chuck Mark and sucker with you, and as we kick
things off here, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down
twenty points, was previously down about two hundred. This morning,
sp is now down four it was down about thirty,
and the Nasdaq actually down just seven points. It was
(01:32):
down about one hundred and fifty at one points, so
all in disease off their lows, but still down for
the day thus far. Tenure US Treasury is seeing its
yield moving down as well as money flows into it.
Right now, we've got the ten year US Treasury at
four point one percent. That's down three point eight basis
(01:54):
points from where it was yesterday. And so overall, not
a ton of movement in equities, but you do have
that movement in bonds, and we'll talk about why bonds
started to move around eight fifteen this morning, and just
a little bit other movements. We've got oil down fifty
three cents of barrel to sixty one point eighty four
(02:15):
on West Texas Intermediate. We've got gold up twenty three
sixty announced to thirty eight ninety six for another all
time high on gold, which by the way, has just
been absolutely ripping since mid August, up about five hundred sorry,
up about six hundred dollars in the past six weeks now,
(02:37):
and so that's about a fifteen percent gain on gold
during that time period. So just a monster move after
a summer of consolidation there. I do want to talk
about what's going on in bonds just because basically this
move in bonds happened right around eight fifteen AM when
the ADP employment data was released. Now here's the thing
(03:00):
about the ADP data. Generally no one really cares about it.
But with the federal government having been shut down since
twelve oh one am Eastern, you are not going to
get a job support this Friday if the federal government
remains shut down through that time period. So we have
to look at alternate measures of employment. Now, the reason
(03:23):
that people generally don't care that much about ADP, it's
a narrower subset of data that they tend to look at,
and it doesn't correlate month to month tremendously well with
the jobs data. It does have a really strong correlation
in the last few years, in particular with a multi
month trend. So if you look at like the three
month P and compare it to the three month trend
(03:44):
on the BLS data, they're really close. Especially this year,
they've been almost in lockstep on a rolling three month basis.
So at eight fifteen this morning, ADP came out and said, hey,
US economy lost thirty two thousand jobs for the month.
That compared to expectations of a forty to fifty thousand
job gain. Normally we'd say, okay, we'll wait until you
(04:08):
know Friday for you know, the BLS jobs report, because
that's what people pay attention to. But since we might
not get that, you start looking to try to build
a picture with alternate data sets. And you have this
number that came out that was poor, other ones that
we've seen in the labor market that are not great.
Over the last week or so. Paychecks runs a small
business Jobs index, and what we see there is that
(04:31):
for the month of September, they're reporting a point three
to one percent decline in jobs for the month in
that index. Uh and so that obviously is a shift.
The three month trend, now, by the way, has gone
from a point one to seven percent gain in July
to point zero one percent gain in August and out
negative point three to one in September, So there is
(04:53):
a declining trend that's in place there as well, So
that's something that you look at. We also have updated
day data from INDEED on job openings which continue to decline.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
There.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
The reason why this matters is the INDEED data does
correlate pretty darn strongly with the JOLTS data that the
government tends to release, not tends to that the government
releases as long as it's open, and so the INDEED
Postings index is a pretty good leading indicator of where
JOLTS is going to be. And so overall, if you
(05:24):
look at, you know, kind of the data in the aggregate.
The one piece that's not really pointing towards a worsening
in the labor market is the weekly jobless claim series.
That hasn't really shown us much of anything. It's just
kind of, hey, the labor market is in the same
spot that it's been low, higher, low, fire like that.
That's kind of the same thing there. These other data
(05:47):
series are getting worse in the last month or two,
and if they continue to it's going to be pretty
hard to ignore. If we're sitting here in November with
a similar decline compared to we've just seen.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, the challenge for the FED here is ascertaining why
the labor market is softening. The FED can influence overall
demand in the economy. They do it by printing money.
I'm oversimplifying a little bit and hitting their short term
interest rate targets. So when you hear the FED has
lowered interest rates, what really goes on buying the scenes
is they credit the New York Fed, which does the
(06:23):
buying and selling of treasuries with reserves with money. New
York Fed goes out and spreads that around the banking system.
I'm really oversimplifying, but it's an important distinction. They control
the money supply. They target shorterm interest rates that in
turn allows them to throttle up or pair demand in
the economy. So what if this labor market softening is
(06:45):
due to supply factors not demand factors. So things like
tariffs and the uncertainty associated with tariffs, things like deportation policy.
You may think all these policies are great, by the way,
I'm not. I'm not passing judgment on them. I'm saying
simply they are a form of so called supply shocks.
They reduce the economy's productive capacity. The FED really can't
(07:05):
do anything about that, so it might be overstimulating demand.
As silly, as counterintuitive as that sounds, she said, Well,
the labor market's along, the Fed's got a lower interest rates, right,
Well maybe not. Maybe the level of unemployment or the
rate of unemployment associated with stable inflation is higher than
(07:28):
it used to be because of these changes to the
labor market that are taking place. This is all interesting stuff,
at least to some of us, to talk about. We
can't really answer these questions now. We won't know for
a year or two whether the FED has done the
right thing or they overshot or undershot. But this is
why the decision is not a straightforward one and why
honest people can disagree about the right monetary stance. Also
(07:51):
why gold might be ripping. Investors might be losing confidence
in the fed's hold on or commitment to very low inflation.
That is implications for the US dollar YEP, which in
turn has implications for other currencies. And you can think
of gold as an alternative currency.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And here is the interesting thing that I do come
back to is the story that gold is telling us
is a currency related story, but it's not a US
dollar related story. And what I mean by that is
if you go and you look at gold denominated in
(08:29):
a whole bunch of different currencies. I mean you can
go out and you can look at it in yen terms,
you can go out and look at it in euro terms,
in Australian dollar terms. Like, you can go across the
board pretty much and say, hey, how is gold moving
relative to all of these currencies. And what we are
seeing is not something that is exclusive to the US
(08:52):
where gold is only appreciating in US dollar terms. You're
seeing it appreciating across the board compared to a large
number of major currencies. I pulled up the chart here.
The one that I have is only through this is
only through late August, so I don't have the most
recent move just because I haven't pulled it. But if
(09:15):
you look at the run up in gold in the
first half of the year, gold went up in Australian dollars,
in US dollars, in euros, in yen, in rupees, in yuwan,
this was across the board the move that you were seeing.
And so what that says is it's not investors looking
for a replacement for the US dollars specifically or you know,
(09:36):
a hedge against the US dollar. That's telling you, hey,
investors are kind of looking at the whole you know,
pot of fiat currencies and just being like, do youw
he wants me to eat that? We can't eat rupees,
we can't eat US dollars. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I think that's a fair assessment. It's too bad that
the dollar is not serving as the safe haven asset
that in US treasuries moreover or not.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
All those treasuries, you can make the case are getting
the bid that you would expect in a safe haven move.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
In a rel I was thinking, some people have written
about relative changes in the long end of the treasury
yield curve, and I've not thought too deeply about this,
and I don't claim to be an expert, but they've
pointed out there there, well you know whether yeah, forget
forget it the lark. I don't. I haven't thought enough
(10:28):
about it to explain it coherently, so just forget it.
It's interesting to me that this and is certainly not
coincidental that gold is Gold's allure is increasing at the
same time that debts and deficits across the developed world
show no signs of improving. And underling.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Look what everyone's doing. Yeah, the US passed a bill
middle of this year that did nothing to rain in deficits.
Europe said, hey, we're going to raise an extra five
hundred billion dollars for defense spending, and we're just gonna
figure out how to pay for it. Japan is seeing
renewed inflation for the first time in thirty five years,
(11:10):
and the boj can't figure out what to do with
it because they're like, well, if we start raising interest rates,
this is gonna make the end pretty strong, and that
has some really bad implications for US. China is raising
all kinds of debt to try to paper over other
debt that they already have that appears to be going bad.
It's not surprising that all of these currencies are getting
(11:32):
trounced in gold terms because you sit there and you
loo again and you're like, okay, no one's got any
fiscal discipline. If that's the case, why do I want
to just sit there and own the currency when I
could own a hard asset. If this is going to
be the policy for you know, the foreseeable future. Now,
if it turns, obviously you've got problems there. But otherwise
(11:55):
you kind of look at that and you're like, Yeah,
I'm not surprised that they're selling rupees to buy gold.
I'm not surprise they're selling euros to buy gold. I'm
not surprised they're selling dollars to buy gold. It makes
intuitive sense when you look at it in the context
of no one's being fiscally responsible right now.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah. I didn't get that case for gold because I
was trained traditionally like a lot of researchers are, and
gold is not generative. It's very hard to calculate its
present value. It has no cash flows to bring back
to today. You have to think about it in terms
of trust and the erosion of trust and traditional institutions
and arrangements.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
To take a quick break. When we come back, we
got a bunch of AI stories to get to and
we'll get to them right after this.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Miss any of the show. Catch up at your convenience
by visiting Financial Exchange Show dot com and clicking the
on demand icon, where you'll find all of our interviews
in full shows. This is your home for the latest
business and financial news in New England and around the country.
This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The Financial Exchange
(13:02):
is Life. On Series XM's Business Radio channel one thirty
two weekdays from eleven to noon. Get the latest business
and financial news from across the country and around the world,
and keep up to date on how it might affect
your wallet. That's the Financial Exchange weekdays from eleven to
noon on Series XM's Business Radio Channel one thirty two. Face,
He's the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
All right, sim for sure you here on the Financial
Exchange and on this day. Back in nineteen oh eight,
the Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T. The Model T,
originally priced at eight hundred and twenty five dollars, was
a huge success for the car maker. The Model T
remained in production until nineteen twenty seven. So our trivite
(13:51):
question today, what was the name of Ford's first automobile?
Once again? What was the name of Ford's first automobile?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Uh be the.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Eighth person today to text us at six one seven
three six two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer,
He'd win a Financial Exchange Show T shirt.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Once again.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
The eighth correct response to text us to the number
six one seven, three six two thirteen eighty five will
win that T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial
chainshow dot com.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
There's a piece here from the Financial Times. It's titled
how in videos Jensen Huang became AI's global salesman, and
it's a great piece actually talking about how in the
last year and a half he's basically started, you know,
traveling the world, like pushing the idea of like, hey,
it's not just about a few companies building out AI.
(14:44):
It's got to be every country needs to have its
own quote, you know, sovereign AI in order to you know,
own its intelligence data and YadA, YadA, YadA, and and
this whole thing. And look, it's two things can be true.
It's probably accurate that you don't want to have artificial
intelligence models that you're running that are in the hands
(15:05):
of other countries that might not share your worldview. But
it's also also incredibly self serving that hey, you need
to do this, and I've got the product just for you.
Both of those things can be true. The piece the
whole thing that got interesting to me though, and again
I have no idea how any of this is going
(15:25):
to end up, but I do well, I know some
of it's going to end up. And here's the part
that I do know, how it's going to end up
because it's already ending up there. I'm gonna quote this
right here, the oil rich states of the Golf for
trying to position themselves as hubs for AI and its infrastructure.
The scale is staggering. Sponsors say the UAES Stargate AI
(15:50):
data center will require five gigawatts of power, roughly the
same as the entire city of New York. So here's
the thing that's all well and good in the UAE.
If they want to build five gigawatts of data center,
they can do it. And if they want to build
(16:11):
five gigawatts of power plants to power SAT data center,
they can do it. There's no problem there. The limiting
factor in the United States is not going to be
data center build out. It's going to be power build out,
and specifically the cost of power generation, which we are
already seeing as a problem as utility companies are raising
(16:34):
costs in order to deal with all of the additional
data center demand. This is just a reminder. Last year,
data centers used about four percent of all power generation
in the United States. By twenty twenty eight, largely on
the back of this, they're expected to use up to
twelve percent we are not going to grow power generation
(16:54):
capacity fast enough to match that. And we know that,
by the way, because these plants for these data centers
have only started to come out in the last year
or two. To anyone listening who works in the electricity
business and in any part of it, you're gonna just
nod along as I say this. If you're talking about
trying to build a new power plant, whether it is
(17:16):
a new net gas plant, a new god forbid, nuclear plant,
a new solar plant, whatever it might be, the simple
ones are going to take you ten to fifteen years.
A nuclear plant. The reason I said, God forbid, it's
gonna take you thirty years to get a new nuclear
plant built in the United States. We know that because
the only nuclear plant that came online in the last
(17:37):
thirty years is in Georgia, and it took about thirty
years to actually get from start to finish. So I
think overall, when when we look at this, the problem
in the limiting factor in the United States is going
to be the ability to build power generation and transmission
(17:58):
infrastructure to cover all of the needs of these data centers.
Because we don't build power plants in the US quickly.
We build really really really really slowly, about as slowly
as you can. And I'm not saying that's good or bad.
I'm just saying that it is. It actually is bad
that we don't build power plants quickly enough. I understand
(18:19):
no one wants to live next to one of them,
but ultimately we have to build these things and we
just don't. Whether you're talking about the generation, the distribution,
transmission like, none of it. We don't really do a
good job with any of it. And it's because all
of us want to keep the stuff out of our backyard,
and instead it ends up in no one's backyard, and
electricity prices go through the roof, and that's gonna be
(18:41):
the limiting factor is the political upheaval because of this,
when electricity prices are rising ten fifteen, twenty percent a
year so Mark Zuckerberg can make AI slop videos on
his new AI slop site, Okay, great, what do I
get for that? A higher bill because someone wanted to
(19:02):
make a cat riding a unicorn through a field of
you know, flowers shaped like turnips. Wonderful? Can't wait, Zuck?
How much did that cost me on my electric bill?
One hundred and thirty six dollars.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Can you actually make that in the break?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I don't know how to do that though, Yeah, plug
it in. I've never done video.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Oh video, I thought you meant picture.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
No, we're talking video that you didn't hear about this,
no zucks video slop site. We'll cover that next on
the Financial Exchange.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Time now for Wall Street. Watch a complete look at
what's moving market so far today right here on the
Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Despite the government shutdown being a f underway, markets are
mostly quiet and mixed at the moment. Right now, the
Dow is up by nearly two tenths of one percent,
or eighty two points higher. SMP five hundred is edging
three points, hire Nasdaq is up merely one point. Russell
two thousand is down one tenth of one percent. A
(20:22):
ten year treasure reeled down two basis points at four
point one two seven percent, and crude oiled down three
quarters of a percent, rating just below sixty.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Two dollars a barrel.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Nike stock climbing over five percent after the athletic retailer
posted a surprise sales increased for the previous quarter, but
raised its tariff cost forecast to one and a half
billion dollars this fiscal year. Nike also warned that sales
could slide this holiday season. Meanwhile, shares in Lithium Americas
soaring twenty two percent after the Department of Energy said
(20:55):
it would take a five percent stake in both the
Canadian company and its Nava up mining project. Elsewhere As
shares surging fifteen percent after The Financial Times reported that
Blackrock owned Global Infrastructure Partners is in late stage talks
to acquire the renewable and thermal power producer. According to
(21:16):
The Wall Street Journal, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaways in talks
to buy Occidental Petroleum's petrochemical business for about ten billion dollars.
In Amazon recently announced it has expanded its private label
grocery lineup with the launch of a new brand aimed
at price conscious shoppers, with most products priced under five dollars.
(21:37):
The brand will be called Amazon Grocery. It includes more
than one thousand items. I'm Tucker, Silva, and that is
Wall Street Watch. In the previous segment, we asked the
trivia question what was the name of Ford's first automobile.
That would be the model A Leon. Dina is our
winner today, taking home a Financial Exchange Show t shirt
(21:58):
from Dennis. By the way, congrats. We play trivia every
day here in the Financial look Change. See complete contest
rules at Financial looks Changshow dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So this was about a week ago. Was on September
twenty fifth, and this is direct from the meta website
introducing Vibes, a new way to discover and create AI videos.
Today we're rolling out the next iteration of the Meta
AI app, including an early preview of vibes new feed.
(22:28):
In the Meta AI app, we can create and share
short form AI generated videos. I noticed the metaverse voices
officially bad. Oh it's because this sucks so much. No, like,
this is just a whole new way to suck. Vibes
are designed to make it easier to find creative inspiration
and experiment with Meta AIS media tools. As you browse,
(22:49):
you'll see a range of AI generated videos, like some
weird orange furry dude riding a motorcycle that I see
below here feet. It will come more personalized over time,
and if something catches your eye, you can create your
own video, remix what you see and shot it with
friends and followers with vibes. You can start from scratch
(23:09):
where with content you already have or read. It's a
video to make it your own, a new visuals, layers
and music, and it just styles to match your taste. Okay,
So it's it's a literally it's a whole AI video
feed that they don't allow for anything in it that's
not AI. And the samples they have, they've got literally
it looks like, you know the Philly fanatic, No, not
(23:34):
that one. Who's the Who's the Flyers mascot? Gritty? Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
They guy with the bulging eyes they got They got.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like a naked version of him riding a motorcycle. Okay,
it's just him wearing a tie. Then you've got a
moose jumping on a trampoline and a cat at a spa. Okay,
a lot of questions that I have. The first one
is why, Like the second is who? And by that
(24:03):
I mean who actually wants to just scroll through a
feed of AI video slop all day? And the point
that I'll make on this is artificial intelligence generative Artificial
intelligence has been around for almost three years right now
was November of twenty two when the first chat GPT
popped out. Is there a single meme that has come
(24:26):
out of an AI generated video or picture? The answer
is no, and the reason why is e. They're just
really easy to make. So it's like everyone can do
the same thing. But b AI has accidentally proven that
humans have a soul because the thing that makes a
meme a meme is being able to recognize yourself in
the picture that you're seeing. Tucker, if I show you
(24:48):
a picture of angry Jack Nicholson in a military uniform
in a courtroom, you immediately know that on that I'm
going to put You want the truth, you can't handle
the truth. You know that because we all see it.
We all have like those feelings at some point or another.
If I put up the picture from say anything, of
(25:11):
John Cusack holding the boombox over his head, we all
know exactly what I'm talking about right now and exactly
how to feel, because we all recognize ourselves in John
Cusack in one way or another. When I see a
moose jumping on a trampoline, I'm like, WTF, mate, Like
what's going on?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Like?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
What are we doing here? This is stupid. It's it's
just stupid at this point, and the fact that meta
is like trying to make AI video feeds happen, is dumb.
Now they'll go on to make billions of dollars off this,
I'm sure, so you know I'm gonna be the dummy.
(25:49):
But they didn't on you know, the whole metaverse, because again,
it was kind of the same thing. It's just like
Mark Zuckerberg, for all of his success, sometimes has trouble
recognizing what makes a human a human. And this is
one of those examples.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
You know what it comes back to for me, and
this won't surprise you. My usual rant, which is financial
conditions might be too loose. It's way too easy to raise, right.
I blame the FED. Fed's got a high I blame
the FED financial conditions, which they almost certainly target failure
and exert a lot of influence over. They're too accommodating.
(26:27):
It's way too easy to raise and waste capital. I
think the same thing when I look at the number
of shows on Netflix or other publicly traded streaming providers.
There's too much excess.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So there's that. So anyways, I saw that, and then
it was also topped off by this piece from yesterday.
Oh no, this is this morning. Meta Platform said on
Wednesday it would begin using people's interactions with its generative
AI tools to personalize content and advertising across its apps.
So what you're typing into Meta's AI assistant, you're gonna
(27:01):
get back in terms of ads. That's you know, all
all I gotta say about that. So if you thought like, oh, like,
I'm having this great conversation with this AI, Yeah, and
Mark Zuckerberg's gonna know what you're talking about too. So
there's that. Folks want to talk to you a little
bit about the seminars that Armstrong Advisory Group is gonna
(27:23):
be doing over the next couple weeks. We got two
of them lined up. The first one is a week
from tomorrow. It's at Margaritaville Resort, Cape cod on October ninth.
The second one Showcase super Lucks in Chestnut Hill on
October sixteenth. It's gonna be a live broadcast of the
Financial Exchange show You Got Food, And then we're gonna
be talking about the economy, markets, inflation, shut down, you
(27:47):
name it. We got all of that that we're gonna
be discussing there. So again, it's Margaritaville Resort, Cape cod
on October ninth and showcase super Lucks in Chestnut Hill
on October sixteenth. Call eight hundred three nine three four
zero zero one to reserve your spot. Space is limited
and they're starting to fill up at this point, so
again eight hundred three nine three for zero zero one
(28:12):
to reserve your spot. Or you can also sign up
at Armstrong Advisory dot com.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal or tax advice. Consult
your own financial, tax into state planning advisors before making
any investment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Taiwan pushing back on the idea of shifting more chip
production to the US. Obviously, when your economy is heavily
dependent on one particular export, you might say, yes, I'd
love to help you build more chip factories in the US,
but not at the cost of, you know, my population
being able to make a bunch of money.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
What are we gonna do?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Not entirely surprising. There also another AI adjacent story. AI
is not killing jobs fines new US study. Well, thank
goodness for that. I'm glad we got that squared away.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
It's certainly making work for researchers, it.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Is, And this was actually the interesting thing on this,
So again not to poop poo it. This was a
study from the Yale Budget Lab and the Brookings Institution,
and again like both areas that have a bunch of
really smart people working there. But I also think here's
the place where I struggle with any definitive conclusions about
(29:25):
AI helping or hurting in the workforce right now. Is
all the data that we have on it is backward looking,
and the way AI is evolving and maybe used in
the future is dramatically different from how it's been used
in the past. So I don't think what happened six
months ago can be indicative of what will be happening
six months from now. I say this despite poop pooing
you know Meta's AI video slop for the last ten minutes,
(29:47):
because that's not a jobs thing or not. That's just
something I think is dumb. But there absolutely are companies
that are using AI right now to transform how their
workers operate, and in some cases that could result in
less hiring, more hiring, or no change, and we just
need to see how it evolves. I think before we
can definitively say anything.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Nobody doubts that the changes will be dramatic. What are
probably what's probably overly optimistic is the time frame that
people are expecting these changes to be made with. Then,
if you look at past big convulsions, they haven't been
big bang type events electrification or earlier industrialization and electrification
(30:27):
in doing all they knock on, Yeah, they took time
to work their way through the economy and to show
up in the productivity and economic growth statistics. It's not
clear to me why AI would not. I'm not saying
this won't be different, but if history is your guide here,
it's going to take time for AI to work its
(30:47):
way through the real economy and influence how productively we
do things. People have been writing about AI for twenty
plus years. You can read academic papers on growth. They
all mention AI, those written in the last twenty five years,
but we've yet to see it result in a change
in the trend. I'm not saying it won't. I think
it will, but it'll probably be a gradual and that'll
(31:11):
be a good thing for those who are displaced by AI.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
AI's been writing about AI for three years.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Also, you do wonder about that, You know.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You have to just take a quick break and when
we return, we'll do a little bit of stack Roulette
with real humans, not Ai.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Here the Financial Exchange every day from eleven to noon
Non Serious XM's Business Radio Channel one thirty two. Keep
it here for the latest business and financial news and
the trends on Wall Street. The Financial Exchange is now
life on Serious XM's Business Radio Channel one thirty two.
This He's the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Find daily interviews
(31:51):
and full shows of the Financial Exchange on our YouTube page.
Subscribe to our page and get caught up on anything
and everything you might have missed. This is the Financial
Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
This segment of The Financial Exchange is brought to you
by the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism. Looking for
a getaway that's easy, warm, and unforgettable, discover the magic
of the US Virgin Islands. Saint Croix, Saint Thomas and
Saint John just a short flight from New England, with
no passport needed and no money to exchange, soak up
the sun stroll along white sand beaches and feel the
(32:35):
rhythm of the heartbeat of the islands. The USVII is
America's Caribbean paradise. Playing your fall escape now at visit
USVII dot com. That's visit USVII dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Mark what do you got for stack roulettes?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Good news? I think for the independence of the Federal Reserve.
It's not something that's on everybody's daily radar, but it
is important for stable inflation over time. So as so
have concluded anyone who's looked at this issue. The White
House wants to fire and battled Fed Governor Lisa Cook,
and they may be able to eventually, but they have
(33:10):
to make their case that she did something wrong first,
so they can't sort of summarily terminator. So the staring
Court ruled today. There was a little bit of anxiety
maybe in fixed income markets over this issue, so this
has this has to play out, and.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I believe they set oral arguments for January.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I think it was according to the Financial Times.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
So it's going to be at least a few months
before we hear anything more on that front. Boeing is
looking for a seven thirty seven replacement Gosh, and it
it seems like they just came out with the seven
thirty seven Max. But here's the thing. The seven thirty
seven Max, the reason that it had those problems with
the MCAST system was because that system was needed because
(33:54):
they changed the weight distribution and the thrust distribution in
an old plane, and so they had to build a
system to correct for that, which ended up, unfortunately resulting
in two crashes and several hundred people killed. So they
are now apparently in the early stages of developing a
new aircraft to replace the seven thirty seven Max. According
to the Wall Street Journal, don't think that you're going
(34:15):
to see this anytime soon. Typically airliner design is something
that takes anywhere from ten to fifteen years, so this
is most likely a twenty thirty five to twenty forty
takeoff that you will see for.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
This plane, god willing.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
But obviously it's something that is you know, Boeing starting
the legwork on this, and it does seem according to
the reporting, this is going to be a clean sheet
design and not just a revamp of the seven thirty seven,
So that obviously gives them a whole bunch of you know,
additional you know leeway in terms of how they design
(34:53):
it such that you don't have the problems that plague
the seven thirty seven. You know, my favorite little design
wrinkle is on the seven thirty s Evan, No what sorry,
I'm kind of like an aviation like I like this
you're thing you have like the engines on a seven
thirty seven all the time. I know me too. So
(35:13):
the engines on most airplanes, the frame surrounding them is
round because the engine is round, like, you don't have
oval shaped engines the air The engines on the seven
thirty seven, at least on the last couple generations, the
nacelle is not round. It's what's known as a hamster
pouch is the phrasing that they use for it. The
(35:36):
bottom is kind of flattened off, and the reason why,
in order to get bigger engines onto the wings, they
had to taper the bottom of the nacelle so that
it doesn't hit the ground during takeoffs and landings, and
so they had to flatten the bottom of the nacelle
out a little bit. So even though the actual part
that spins the turbine is round, the nacelle casing is not.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
They call the cylinder, the whole thing around.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, the whole thing. And so basically what you end
up with is this thing that's round for about three
quarters of it and then flattens out on the bottom.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I just thought that was a mistake.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
It's the only way they could get bigger engines onto
the plane compared to the earlier versions. And this is
like one of the limitations, is hey, because of the
landing gear and how they need to fit. They had
to be very short landing gear, and so you don't
have a ton of room for the engine. And this
is how they worked around.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I thought it was more stylish.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Might be stylish. I want to know another little engine thing.
If you look at the new ones.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Yes, please tell me, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You also see this on the seven eight seven. The
back of them are scalloped, so they have these little
curves that are cut out of them and that and
that helps reduce engine noise.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
All tuck iron with seafood.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
He's ready to go, get them a slop bowl of scallops.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
How did you How did you pick up on that?
You rarely see the plane from behind.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
This is from the side, you see it?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Oh, even from the side, it's pretty well, I guess.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Your I'm the guy who like when when my one
friend who was like, hey, like come out like in
a little boat in Boston Harbor with me, I'm like,
can we just go sit under the runways at Logan
so that we can watch Like it's I could talk
about airplanes all day, most of it'll be right. Occasionally
a pilot text in and be like, hey, you were
(37:21):
completely off base on that, but no, it's those are
two help reduce. My vision is horrible at least in
one of my eyes. Oh I didn't know that, but
you so my right eye, my vision is fantastic. My
left eye it is quite bad.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Do you have a contact then or no?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Oh, I'm right recommend that. So apparently I'm right eye
dominant enough such that, like I can see everything very clearly.
But if you ever asked me to like cover this,
I can't read that sign right there?
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
The five days of housing, divorced, downsizing, diapers, diamonds and
death right and near sighted this huh.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
So there's that, So no combination of a Look. Now
that I have kids pilot's license, I don't think that's
the time to train to get a pilot's license. I
think that's the time to have already had one. Let's
take a quick break for the next twenty four hours,
but we're gonna be back tomorrow. A whole lot more
coming up, and we'll see you then
The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
is hosted by employees of the Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. All opinions expressed are solely those of
the hosts, do not reflect the opinions of Armstrong Advisory
or anyone else. Investments can lose money. This program does
not offer any specific financial or investment advice. Please consult
your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
(00:20):
any investment decisions. Armstrong Advisory and the advertisers heard on
this program do not endorse each other or their services.
Armstrong and Money Matters Radio do not compensate each other
for referrals and are not affiliated. This is the Financial
Exchange with Chuck Zada and Mark fan Daddy, your exclusive
look at business and financial news affecting your day, your city,
(00:42):
your world. Stay informed and up to date about economic
and market trends, plus breaking business news every day. The
Financial Exchange is a proud partner of the Disabled American
Veterans Department of Massachusetts. Help us support our great American
heroes by visiting DAV five KT Boston and making a
donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck Zadath
(01:06):
and Mark Vandebbi.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Chuck Mark and sucker with you, and as we kick
things off here, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down
twenty points, was previously down about two hundred. This morning,
sp is now down four it was down about thirty,
and the Nasdaq actually down just seven points. It was
(01:32):
down about one hundred and fifty at one points, so
all in disease off their lows, but still down for
the day thus far. Tenure US Treasury is seeing its
yield moving down as well as money flows into it.
Right now, we've got the ten year US Treasury at
four point one percent. That's down three point eight basis
(01:54):
points from where it was yesterday. And so overall, not
a ton of movement in equities, but you do have
that movement in bonds, and we'll talk about why bonds
started to move around eight fifteen this morning, and just
a little bit other movements. We've got oil down fifty
three cents of barrel to sixty one point eighty four
(02:15):
on West Texas Intermediate. We've got gold up twenty three
sixty announced to thirty eight ninety six for another all
time high on gold, which by the way, has just
been absolutely ripping since mid August, up about five hundred sorry,
up about six hundred dollars in the past six weeks now,
(02:37):
and so that's about a fifteen percent gain on gold
during that time period. So just a monster move after
a summer of consolidation there. I do want to talk
about what's going on in bonds just because basically this
move in bonds happened right around eight fifteen AM when
the ADP employment data was released. Now here's the thing
(03:00):
about the ADP data. Generally no one really cares about it.
But with the federal government having been shut down since
twelve oh one am Eastern, you are not going to
get a job support this Friday if the federal government
remains shut down through that time period. So we have
to look at alternate measures of employment. Now, the reason
(03:23):
that people generally don't care that much about ADP, it's
a narrower subset of data that they tend to look at,
and it doesn't correlate month to month tremendously well with
the jobs data. It does have a really strong correlation
in the last few years, in particular with a multi
month trend. So if you look at like the three
month P and compare it to the three month trend
(03:44):
on the BLS data, they're really close. Especially this year,
they've been almost in lockstep on a rolling three month basis.
So at eight fifteen this morning, ADP came out and said, hey,
US economy lost thirty two thousand jobs for the month.
That compared to expectations of a forty to fifty thousand
job gain. Normally we'd say, okay, we'll wait until you
(04:08):
know Friday for you know, the BLS jobs report, because
that's what people pay attention to. But since we might
not get that, you start looking to try to build
a picture with alternate data sets. And you have this
number that came out that was poor, other ones that
we've seen in the labor market that are not great.
Over the last week or so. Paychecks runs a small
business Jobs index, and what we see there is that
(04:31):
for the month of September, they're reporting a point three
to one percent decline in jobs for the month in
that index. Uh and so that obviously is a shift.
The three month trend, now, by the way, has gone
from a point one to seven percent gain in July
to point zero one percent gain in August and out
negative point three to one in September, So there is
(04:53):
a declining trend that's in place there as well, So
that's something that you look at. We also have updated
day data from INDEED on job openings which continue to decline.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
There.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
The reason why this matters is the INDEED data does
correlate pretty darn strongly with the JOLTS data that the
government tends to release, not tends to that the government
releases as long as it's open, and so the INDEED
Postings index is a pretty good leading indicator of where
JOLTS is going to be. And so overall, if you
(05:24):
look at, you know, kind of the data in the aggregate.
The one piece that's not really pointing towards a worsening
in the labor market is the weekly jobless claim series.
That hasn't really shown us much of anything. It's just
kind of, hey, the labor market is in the same
spot that it's been low, higher, low, fire like that.
That's kind of the same thing there. These other data
(05:47):
series are getting worse in the last month or two,
and if they continue to it's going to be pretty
hard to ignore. If we're sitting here in November with
a similar decline compared to we've just seen.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, the challenge for the FED here is ascertaining why
the labor market is softening. The FED can influence overall
demand in the economy. They do it by printing money.
I'm oversimplifying a little bit and hitting their short term
interest rate targets. So when you hear the FED has
lowered interest rates, what really goes on buying the scenes
is they credit the New York Fed, which does the
(06:23):
buying and selling of treasuries with reserves with money. New
York Fed goes out and spreads that around the banking system.
I'm really oversimplifying, but it's an important distinction. They control
the money supply. They target shorterm interest rates that in
turn allows them to throttle up or pair demand in
the economy. So what if this labor market softening is
(06:45):
due to supply factors not demand factors. So things like
tariffs and the uncertainty associated with tariffs, things like deportation policy.
You may think all these policies are great, by the way,
I'm not. I'm not passing judgment on them. I'm saying
simply they are a form of so called supply shocks.
They reduce the economy's productive capacity. The FED really can't
(07:05):
do anything about that, so it might be overstimulating demand.
As silly, as counterintuitive as that sounds, she said, Well,
the labor market's along, the Fed's got a lower interest rates, right,
Well maybe not. Maybe the level of unemployment or the
rate of unemployment associated with stable inflation is higher than
(07:28):
it used to be because of these changes to the
labor market that are taking place. This is all interesting stuff,
at least to some of us, to talk about. We
can't really answer these questions now. We won't know for
a year or two whether the FED has done the
right thing or they overshot or undershot. But this is
why the decision is not a straightforward one and why
honest people can disagree about the right monetary stance. Also
(07:51):
why gold might be ripping. Investors might be losing confidence
in the fed's hold on or commitment to very low inflation.
That is implications for the US dollar YEP, which in
turn has implications for other currencies. And you can think
of gold as an alternative currency.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And here is the interesting thing that I do come
back to is the story that gold is telling us
is a currency related story, but it's not a US
dollar related story. And what I mean by that is
if you go and you look at gold denominated in
(08:29):
a whole bunch of different currencies. I mean you can
go out and you can look at it in yen terms,
you can go out and look at it in euro terms,
in Australian dollar terms. Like, you can go across the
board pretty much and say, hey, how is gold moving
relative to all of these currencies. And what we are
seeing is not something that is exclusive to the US
(08:52):
where gold is only appreciating in US dollar terms. You're
seeing it appreciating across the board compared to a large
number of major currencies. I pulled up the chart here.
The one that I have is only through this is
only through late August, so I don't have the most
recent move just because I haven't pulled it. But if
(09:15):
you look at the run up in gold in the
first half of the year, gold went up in Australian dollars,
in US dollars, in euros, in yen, in rupees, in yuwan,
this was across the board the move that you were seeing.
And so what that says is it's not investors looking
for a replacement for the US dollars specifically or you know,
(09:36):
a hedge against the US dollar. That's telling you, hey,
investors are kind of looking at the whole you know,
pot of fiat currencies and just being like, do youw
he wants me to eat that? We can't eat rupees,
we can't eat US dollars. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I think that's a fair assessment. It's too bad that
the dollar is not serving as the safe haven asset
that in US treasuries moreover or not.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
All those treasuries, you can make the case are getting
the bid that you would expect in a safe haven move.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
In a rel I was thinking, some people have written
about relative changes in the long end of the treasury
yield curve, and I've not thought too deeply about this,
and I don't claim to be an expert, but they've
pointed out there there, well you know whether yeah, forget
forget it the lark. I don't. I haven't thought enough
(10:28):
about it to explain it coherently, so just forget it.
It's interesting to me that this and is certainly not
coincidental that gold is Gold's allure is increasing at the
same time that debts and deficits across the developed world
show no signs of improving. And underling.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Look what everyone's doing. Yeah, the US passed a bill
middle of this year that did nothing to rain in deficits.
Europe said, hey, we're going to raise an extra five
hundred billion dollars for defense spending, and we're just gonna
figure out how to pay for it. Japan is seeing
renewed inflation for the first time in thirty five years,
(11:10):
and the boj can't figure out what to do with
it because they're like, well, if we start raising interest rates,
this is gonna make the end pretty strong, and that
has some really bad implications for US. China is raising
all kinds of debt to try to paper over other
debt that they already have that appears to be going bad.
It's not surprising that all of these currencies are getting
(11:32):
trounced in gold terms because you sit there and you
loo again and you're like, okay, no one's got any
fiscal discipline. If that's the case, why do I want
to just sit there and own the currency when I
could own a hard asset. If this is going to
be the policy for you know, the foreseeable future. Now,
if it turns, obviously you've got problems there. But otherwise
(11:55):
you kind of look at that and you're like, Yeah,
I'm not surprised that they're selling rupees to buy gold.
I'm not surprise they're selling euros to buy gold. I'm
not surprised they're selling dollars to buy gold. It makes
intuitive sense when you look at it in the context
of no one's being fiscally responsible right now.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah. I didn't get that case for gold because I
was trained traditionally like a lot of researchers are, and
gold is not generative. It's very hard to calculate its
present value. It has no cash flows to bring back
to today. You have to think about it in terms
of trust and the erosion of trust and traditional institutions
and arrangements.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
To take a quick break. When we come back, we
got a bunch of AI stories to get to and
we'll get to them right after this.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Miss any of the show. Catch up at your convenience
by visiting Financial Exchange Show dot com and clicking the
on demand icon, where you'll find all of our interviews
in full shows. This is your home for the latest
business and financial news in New England and around the country.
This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The Financial Exchange
(13:02):
is Life. On Series XM's Business Radio channel one thirty
two weekdays from eleven to noon. Get the latest business
and financial news from across the country and around the world,
and keep up to date on how it might affect
your wallet. That's the Financial Exchange weekdays from eleven to
noon on Series XM's Business Radio Channel one thirty two. Face,
He's the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
All right, sim for sure you here on the Financial
Exchange and on this day. Back in nineteen oh eight,
the Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T. The Model T,
originally priced at eight hundred and twenty five dollars, was
a huge success for the car maker. The Model T
remained in production until nineteen twenty seven. So our trivite
(13:51):
question today, what was the name of Ford's first automobile?
Once again? What was the name of Ford's first automobile?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Uh be the.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Eighth person today to text us at six one seven
three six two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer,
He'd win a Financial Exchange Show T shirt.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Once again.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
The eighth correct response to text us to the number
six one seven, three six two thirteen eighty five will
win that T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial
chainshow dot com.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
There's a piece here from the Financial Times. It's titled
how in videos Jensen Huang became AI's global salesman, and
it's a great piece actually talking about how in the
last year and a half he's basically started, you know,
traveling the world, like pushing the idea of like, hey,
it's not just about a few companies building out AI.
(14:44):
It's got to be every country needs to have its
own quote, you know, sovereign AI in order to you know,
own its intelligence data and YadA, YadA, YadA, and and
this whole thing. And look, it's two things can be true.
It's probably accurate that you don't want to have artificial
intelligence models that you're running that are in the hands
(15:05):
of other countries that might not share your worldview. But
it's also also incredibly self serving that hey, you need
to do this, and I've got the product just for you.
Both of those things can be true. The piece the
whole thing that got interesting to me though, and again
I have no idea how any of this is going
(15:25):
to end up, but I do well, I know some
of it's going to end up. And here's the part
that I do know, how it's going to end up
because it's already ending up there. I'm gonna quote this
right here, the oil rich states of the Golf for
trying to position themselves as hubs for AI and its infrastructure.
The scale is staggering. Sponsors say the UAES Stargate AI
(15:50):
data center will require five gigawatts of power, roughly the
same as the entire city of New York. So here's
the thing that's all well and good in the UAE.
If they want to build five gigawatts of data center,
they can do it. And if they want to build
(16:11):
five gigawatts of power plants to power SAT data center,
they can do it. There's no problem there. The limiting
factor in the United States is not going to be
data center build out. It's going to be power build out,
and specifically the cost of power generation, which we are
already seeing as a problem as utility companies are raising
(16:34):
costs in order to deal with all of the additional
data center demand. This is just a reminder. Last year,
data centers used about four percent of all power generation
in the United States. By twenty twenty eight, largely on
the back of this, they're expected to use up to
twelve percent we are not going to grow power generation
(16:54):
capacity fast enough to match that. And we know that,
by the way, because these plants for these data centers
have only started to come out in the last year
or two. To anyone listening who works in the electricity
business and in any part of it, you're gonna just
nod along as I say this. If you're talking about
trying to build a new power plant, whether it is
(17:16):
a new net gas plant, a new god forbid, nuclear plant,
a new solar plant, whatever it might be, the simple
ones are going to take you ten to fifteen years.
A nuclear plant. The reason I said, God forbid, it's
gonna take you thirty years to get a new nuclear
plant built in the United States. We know that because
the only nuclear plant that came online in the last
(17:37):
thirty years is in Georgia, and it took about thirty
years to actually get from start to finish. So I
think overall, when when we look at this, the problem
in the limiting factor in the United States is going
to be the ability to build power generation and transmission
(17:58):
infrastructure to cover all of the needs of these data centers.
Because we don't build power plants in the US quickly.
We build really really really really slowly, about as slowly
as you can. And I'm not saying that's good or bad.
I'm just saying that it is. It actually is bad
that we don't build power plants quickly enough. I understand
(18:19):
no one wants to live next to one of them,
but ultimately we have to build these things and we
just don't. Whether you're talking about the generation, the distribution,
transmission like, none of it. We don't really do a
good job with any of it. And it's because all
of us want to keep the stuff out of our backyard,
and instead it ends up in no one's backyard, and
electricity prices go through the roof, and that's gonna be
(18:41):
the limiting factor is the political upheaval because of this,
when electricity prices are rising ten fifteen, twenty percent a
year so Mark Zuckerberg can make AI slop videos on
his new AI slop site, Okay, great, what do I
get for that? A higher bill because someone wanted to
(19:02):
make a cat riding a unicorn through a field of
you know, flowers shaped like turnips. Wonderful? Can't wait, Zuck?
How much did that cost me on my electric bill?
One hundred and thirty six dollars.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Can you actually make that in the break?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I don't know how to do that though, Yeah, plug
it in. I've never done video.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Oh video, I thought you meant picture.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
No, we're talking video that you didn't hear about this,
no zucks video slop site. We'll cover that next on
the Financial Exchange.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Time now for Wall Street. Watch a complete look at
what's moving market so far today right here on the
Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Despite the government shutdown being a f underway, markets are
mostly quiet and mixed at the moment. Right now, the
Dow is up by nearly two tenths of one percent,
or eighty two points higher. SMP five hundred is edging
three points, hire Nasdaq is up merely one point. Russell
two thousand is down one tenth of one percent. A
(20:22):
ten year treasure reeled down two basis points at four
point one two seven percent, and crude oiled down three
quarters of a percent, rating just below sixty.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Two dollars a barrel.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Nike stock climbing over five percent after the athletic retailer
posted a surprise sales increased for the previous quarter, but
raised its tariff cost forecast to one and a half
billion dollars this fiscal year. Nike also warned that sales
could slide this holiday season. Meanwhile, shares in Lithium Americas
soaring twenty two percent after the Department of Energy said
(20:55):
it would take a five percent stake in both the
Canadian company and its Nava up mining project. Elsewhere As
shares surging fifteen percent after The Financial Times reported that
Blackrock owned Global Infrastructure Partners is in late stage talks
to acquire the renewable and thermal power producer. According to
(21:16):
The Wall Street Journal, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaways in talks
to buy Occidental Petroleum's petrochemical business for about ten billion dollars.
In Amazon recently announced it has expanded its private label
grocery lineup with the launch of a new brand aimed
at price conscious shoppers, with most products priced under five dollars.
(21:37):
The brand will be called Amazon Grocery. It includes more
than one thousand items. I'm Tucker, Silva, and that is
Wall Street Watch. In the previous segment, we asked the
trivia question what was the name of Ford's first automobile.
That would be the model A Leon. Dina is our
winner today, taking home a Financial Exchange Show t shirt
(21:58):
from Dennis. By the way, congrats. We play trivia every
day here in the Financial look Change. See complete contest
rules at Financial looks Changshow dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So this was about a week ago. Was on September
twenty fifth, and this is direct from the meta website
introducing Vibes, a new way to discover and create AI videos.
Today we're rolling out the next iteration of the Meta
AI app, including an early preview of vibes new feed.
(22:28):
In the Meta AI app, we can create and share
short form AI generated videos. I noticed the metaverse voices
officially bad. Oh it's because this sucks so much. No, like,
this is just a whole new way to suck. Vibes
are designed to make it easier to find creative inspiration
and experiment with Meta AIS media tools. As you browse,
(22:49):
you'll see a range of AI generated videos, like some
weird orange furry dude riding a motorcycle that I see
below here feet. It will come more personalized over time,
and if something catches your eye, you can create your
own video, remix what you see and shot it with
friends and followers with vibes. You can start from scratch
(23:09):
where with content you already have or read. It's a
video to make it your own, a new visuals, layers
and music, and it just styles to match your taste. Okay,
So it's it's a literally it's a whole AI video
feed that they don't allow for anything in it that's
not AI. And the samples they have, they've got literally
it looks like, you know the Philly fanatic, No, not
(23:34):
that one. Who's the Who's the Flyers mascot? Gritty? Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
They guy with the bulging eyes they got They got.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like a naked version of him riding a motorcycle. Okay,
it's just him wearing a tie. Then you've got a
moose jumping on a trampoline and a cat at a spa. Okay,
a lot of questions that I have. The first one
is why, Like the second is who? And by that
(24:03):
I mean who actually wants to just scroll through a
feed of AI video slop all day? And the point
that I'll make on this is artificial intelligence generative Artificial
intelligence has been around for almost three years right now
was November of twenty two when the first chat GPT
popped out. Is there a single meme that has come
(24:26):
out of an AI generated video or picture? The answer
is no, and the reason why is e. They're just
really easy to make. So it's like everyone can do
the same thing. But b AI has accidentally proven that
humans have a soul because the thing that makes a
meme a meme is being able to recognize yourself in
the picture that you're seeing. Tucker, if I show you
(24:48):
a picture of angry Jack Nicholson in a military uniform
in a courtroom, you immediately know that on that I'm
going to put You want the truth, you can't handle
the truth. You know that because we all see it.
We all have like those feelings at some point or another.
If I put up the picture from say anything, of
(25:11):
John Cusack holding the boombox over his head, we all
know exactly what I'm talking about right now and exactly
how to feel, because we all recognize ourselves in John
Cusack in one way or another. When I see a
moose jumping on a trampoline, I'm like, WTF, mate, Like
what's going on?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Like?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
What are we doing here? This is stupid. It's it's
just stupid at this point, and the fact that meta
is like trying to make AI video feeds happen, is dumb.
Now they'll go on to make billions of dollars off this,
I'm sure, so you know I'm gonna be the dummy.
(25:49):
But they didn't on you know, the whole metaverse, because again,
it was kind of the same thing. It's just like
Mark Zuckerberg, for all of his success, sometimes has trouble
recognizing what makes a human a human. And this is
one of those examples.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
You know what it comes back to for me, and
this won't surprise you. My usual rant, which is financial
conditions might be too loose. It's way too easy to raise, right.
I blame the FED. Fed's got a high I blame
the FED financial conditions, which they almost certainly target failure
and exert a lot of influence over. They're too accommodating.
(26:27):
It's way too easy to raise and waste capital. I
think the same thing when I look at the number
of shows on Netflix or other publicly traded streaming providers.
There's too much excess.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So there's that. So anyways, I saw that, and then
it was also topped off by this piece from yesterday.
Oh no, this is this morning. Meta Platform said on
Wednesday it would begin using people's interactions with its generative
AI tools to personalize content and advertising across its apps.
So what you're typing into Meta's AI assistant, you're gonna
(27:01):
get back in terms of ads. That's you know, all
all I gotta say about that. So if you thought like, oh, like,
I'm having this great conversation with this AI, Yeah, and
Mark Zuckerberg's gonna know what you're talking about too. So
there's that. Folks want to talk to you a little
bit about the seminars that Armstrong Advisory Group is gonna
(27:23):
be doing over the next couple weeks. We got two
of them lined up. The first one is a week
from tomorrow. It's at Margaritaville Resort, Cape cod on October ninth.
The second one Showcase super Lucks in Chestnut Hill on
October sixteenth. It's gonna be a live broadcast of the
Financial Exchange show You Got Food, And then we're gonna
be talking about the economy, markets, inflation, shut down, you
(27:47):
name it. We got all of that that we're gonna
be discussing there. So again, it's Margaritaville Resort, Cape cod
on October ninth and showcase super Lucks in Chestnut Hill
on October sixteenth. Call eight hundred three nine three four
zero zero one to reserve your spot. Space is limited
and they're starting to fill up at this point, so
again eight hundred three nine three for zero zero one
(28:12):
to reserve your spot. Or you can also sign up
at Armstrong Advisory dot com.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal or tax advice. Consult
your own financial, tax into state planning advisors before making
any investment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Taiwan pushing back on the idea of shifting more chip
production to the US. Obviously, when your economy is heavily
dependent on one particular export, you might say, yes, I'd
love to help you build more chip factories in the US,
but not at the cost of, you know, my population
being able to make a bunch of money.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
What are we gonna do?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Not entirely surprising. There also another AI adjacent story. AI
is not killing jobs fines new US study. Well, thank
goodness for that. I'm glad we got that squared away.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
It's certainly making work for researchers, it.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Is, And this was actually the interesting thing on this,
So again not to poop poo it. This was a
study from the Yale Budget Lab and the Brookings Institution,
and again like both areas that have a bunch of
really smart people working there. But I also think here's
the place where I struggle with any definitive conclusions about
(29:25):
AI helping or hurting in the workforce right now. Is
all the data that we have on it is backward looking,
and the way AI is evolving and maybe used in
the future is dramatically different from how it's been used
in the past. So I don't think what happened six
months ago can be indicative of what will be happening
six months from now. I say this despite poop pooing
you know Meta's AI video slop for the last ten minutes,
(29:47):
because that's not a jobs thing or not. That's just
something I think is dumb. But there absolutely are companies
that are using AI right now to transform how their
workers operate, and in some cases that could result in
less hiring, more hiring, or no change, and we just
need to see how it evolves. I think before we
can definitively say anything.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Nobody doubts that the changes will be dramatic. What are
probably what's probably overly optimistic is the time frame that
people are expecting these changes to be made with. Then,
if you look at past big convulsions, they haven't been
big bang type events electrification or earlier industrialization and electrification
(30:27):
in doing all they knock on, Yeah, they took time
to work their way through the economy and to show
up in the productivity and economic growth statistics. It's not
clear to me why AI would not. I'm not saying
this won't be different, but if history is your guide here,
it's going to take time for AI to work its
(30:47):
way through the real economy and influence how productively we
do things. People have been writing about AI for twenty
plus years. You can read academic papers on growth. They
all mention AI, those written in the last twenty five years,
but we've yet to see it result in a change
in the trend. I'm not saying it won't. I think
it will, but it'll probably be a gradual and that'll
(31:11):
be a good thing for those who are displaced by AI.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
AI's been writing about AI for three years.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Also, you do wonder about that, You know.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You have to just take a quick break and when
we return, we'll do a little bit of stack Roulette
with real humans, not Ai.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Here the Financial Exchange every day from eleven to noon
Non Serious XM's Business Radio Channel one thirty two. Keep
it here for the latest business and financial news and
the trends on Wall Street. The Financial Exchange is now
life on Serious XM's Business Radio Channel one thirty two.
This He's the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Find daily interviews
(31:51):
and full shows of the Financial Exchange on our YouTube page.
Subscribe to our page and get caught up on anything
and everything you might have missed. This is the Financial
Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
This segment of The Financial Exchange is brought to you
by the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism. Looking for
a getaway that's easy, warm, and unforgettable, discover the magic
of the US Virgin Islands. Saint Croix, Saint Thomas and
Saint John just a short flight from New England, with
no passport needed and no money to exchange, soak up
the sun stroll along white sand beaches and feel the
(32:35):
rhythm of the heartbeat of the islands. The USVII is
America's Caribbean paradise. Playing your fall escape now at visit
USVII dot com. That's visit USVII dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Mark what do you got for stack roulettes?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Good news? I think for the independence of the Federal Reserve.
It's not something that's on everybody's daily radar, but it
is important for stable inflation over time. So as so
have concluded anyone who's looked at this issue. The White
House wants to fire and battled Fed Governor Lisa Cook,
and they may be able to eventually, but they have
(33:10):
to make their case that she did something wrong first,
so they can't sort of summarily terminator. So the staring
Court ruled today. There was a little bit of anxiety
maybe in fixed income markets over this issue, so this
has this has to play out, and.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I believe they set oral arguments for January.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I think it was according to the Financial Times.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
So it's going to be at least a few months
before we hear anything more on that front. Boeing is
looking for a seven thirty seven replacement Gosh, and it
it seems like they just came out with the seven
thirty seven Max. But here's the thing. The seven thirty
seven Max, the reason that it had those problems with
the MCAST system was because that system was needed because
(33:54):
they changed the weight distribution and the thrust distribution in
an old plane, and so they had to build a
system to correct for that, which ended up, unfortunately resulting
in two crashes and several hundred people killed. So they
are now apparently in the early stages of developing a
new aircraft to replace the seven thirty seven Max. According
to the Wall Street Journal, don't think that you're going
(34:15):
to see this anytime soon. Typically airliner design is something
that takes anywhere from ten to fifteen years, so this
is most likely a twenty thirty five to twenty forty
takeoff that you will see for.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
This plane, god willing.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
But obviously it's something that is you know, Boeing starting
the legwork on this, and it does seem according to
the reporting, this is going to be a clean sheet
design and not just a revamp of the seven thirty seven,
So that obviously gives them a whole bunch of you know,
additional you know leeway in terms of how they design
(34:53):
it such that you don't have the problems that plague
the seven thirty seven. You know, my favorite little design
wrinkle is on the seven thirty s Evan, No what sorry,
I'm kind of like an aviation like I like this
you're thing you have like the engines on a seven
thirty seven all the time. I know me too. So
(35:13):
the engines on most airplanes, the frame surrounding them is
round because the engine is round, like, you don't have
oval shaped engines the air The engines on the seven
thirty seven, at least on the last couple generations, the
nacelle is not round. It's what's known as a hamster
pouch is the phrasing that they use for it. The
(35:36):
bottom is kind of flattened off, and the reason why,
in order to get bigger engines onto the wings, they
had to taper the bottom of the nacelle so that
it doesn't hit the ground during takeoffs and landings, and
so they had to flatten the bottom of the nacelle
out a little bit. So even though the actual part
that spins the turbine is round, the nacelle casing is not.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
They call the cylinder, the whole thing around.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, the whole thing. And so basically what you end
up with is this thing that's round for about three
quarters of it and then flattens out on the bottom.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I just thought that was a mistake.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
It's the only way they could get bigger engines onto
the plane compared to the earlier versions. And this is
like one of the limitations, is hey, because of the
landing gear and how they need to fit. They had
to be very short landing gear, and so you don't
have a ton of room for the engine. And this
is how they worked around.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I thought it was more stylish.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Might be stylish. I want to know another little engine thing.
If you look at the new ones.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Yes, please tell me, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You also see this on the seven eight seven. The
back of them are scalloped, so they have these little
curves that are cut out of them and that and
that helps reduce engine noise.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
All tuck iron with seafood.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
He's ready to go, get them a slop bowl of scallops.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
How did you How did you pick up on that?
You rarely see the plane from behind.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
This is from the side, you see it?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Oh, even from the side, it's pretty well, I guess.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Your I'm the guy who like when when my one
friend who was like, hey, like come out like in
a little boat in Boston Harbor with me, I'm like,
can we just go sit under the runways at Logan
so that we can watch Like it's I could talk
about airplanes all day, most of it'll be right. Occasionally
a pilot text in and be like, hey, you were
(37:21):
completely off base on that, but no, it's those are
two help reduce. My vision is horrible at least in
one of my eyes. Oh I didn't know that, but
you so my right eye, my vision is fantastic. My
left eye it is quite bad.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Do you have a contact then or no?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Oh, I'm right recommend that. So apparently I'm right eye
dominant enough such that, like I can see everything very clearly.
But if you ever asked me to like cover this,
I can't read that sign right there?
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
The five days of housing, divorced, downsizing, diapers, diamonds and
death right and near sighted this huh.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
So there's that, So no combination of a Look. Now
that I have kids pilot's license, I don't think that's
the time to train to get a pilot's license. I
think that's the time to have already had one. Let's
take a quick break for the next twenty four hours,
but we're gonna be back tomorrow. A whole lot more
coming up, and we'll see you then
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.