November 20, 2025 • 39 mins
Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong discuss the delayed September jobs report that beat expectations. After the shutdown, the Labor Dept. says some data is gone for good. Would the Fed push back its meeting by a week to possibly fit in a rate cut. Nvidia's strong results show AI fears are premature. Walmart reports strong sales growth and raises outlook. What are the best grocery stores in New England?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:06):
Zatdath and Mike Armstraw.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Chuck Mike Tucker with you here today on what might
be the one and only ever Jobs Thursday. As we
we have the jobs data for the month of September.
It was released at eight thirty am Eastern and well,
it is, you know, an extra month out of date.
(01:32):
I do think it still is, you know, worth discussing,
just because it gives us a more current picture of
the labor market than the August data. What we saw
was one hundred and nineteen thousand jobs added for the month.
Despite that the unemployment rate ticked up to four point
four percent, and actually the unrounded number just a whisker
shy of being four point five percent, Say a whisker, yes,
(01:55):
the unrounded number was four point four to four. So
you were quite literally one hundredth of a percent away
from it being four or five. And so I think
it's something where it's a jobs report that has something
for everyone, depending on what your point of view is
on the economy. If you believe that, if you want
(02:17):
to believe that we're starting to see an inflection up
in job growth, this gives that to you. This also,
by the way, matches what we have seen from ADP.
Who remember, ADP is now publishing weekly four week moving
averages of what they expect job growth to be. And
(02:38):
ADP also showed an uptick in job growth towards the
middle and end of September as well. So this matches,
you know, pretty closely what we saw from ADP. Subsequently,
ADP's numbers have worsened in recent weeks, but it's a
couple different sources telling you, yeah, there might have been
something going on in September that helped job growth. The
(03:00):
other side of the story is, okay, so you had
this job growth, but the unemployment rate ticked up to
four point four percent. If you're someone who believes, hey,
the economy is weaker and the Fed should be cutting
more rapidly, that jump to four point four almost four
point five percent gives you some data in your camp
(03:22):
where you can say, yeah, maybe the Fed should be
cutting in December instead of trying to put the brakes
on it. So I think overall, you know, again, even
just in the headline numbers unemployment rate and jobs added,
you get, you know, some different pictures in terms of
what this report is saying.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You do.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I think a few things to really stress about this report.
First and foremost, the data collected sixty to seventy days ago.
It is fairly stale at this point. It is pretty
old data that we are talking about. When it comes
to this Job's report. It would have been released about
forty days ago, but again government shutdown. This data is
(03:58):
fairly stale in terms of looking at But to your point,
we saw a reversal in job creation which had been
excuse me, had been really weak throughout the summer. The
unemployment rate piece, you know, when you pair that with
a strong job creation number, does not concern me all
that much. Right If this had been twenty thousand jobs
(04:19):
created and unemployment taking up to nearly four point five percent, yeah,
you start to get a little bit concerned. With one
hundred and ten thousand jobs created an unemployment at four
point four percent, I'm not immensely concerned about it. To me,
this Job's report one because of its you know, because
of the fact that it's old. Two because of the
fact that it was not dramatically bad. I don't think
(04:42):
does much to change anybody on the federal reserves opinion
of where this labor market is and therefore what they
should be doing at that December meeting.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Seeing me FED fun futures basically have moved a little
bit today, going from a thirty percent chance of a
rate cut at the December meeting to a forty three
point eight percent champs of a rate cut at that
December meeting. So the market kind of saying the same thing, like, yeah,
maybe there's a little bit of a stronger chance, but
not much. Look, here's here's the thing. Let's actually get
(05:12):
more into what this report said and then we can
talk about the FED after. So in terms of stuff
under the hood again, let's kind of do good news
bad news. This is good news. Long term unemployment in
September dropped by one hundred and sixteen thousand people. Unequivocally
good news. Yeah, like you don't want to see people
unemployed for longer periods of time. That is good. Also
(05:35):
part time for economic reasons, basically people who are part
time because they could only find part time worker their
business was not giving them enough hours. That dropped by
one hundred and seventy thousand people. Again, unequivocally good news.
Fewer people saying that they're part time involuntarily is a
good thing. Bad news. Unemployment rate for women rose zero
(05:56):
point four percent for the month.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
It's a big jump.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I don't really know what to make of that. That
is a massive jump in one month, and we're gonna
need to see how the next couple months come out,
because you don't normally see a move like that, So
that's a little unusual on that side. Another one that's
kind of like, you know, eyebrow raising. You look at
it and you go, Asian unemployment jump by point eight percent
(06:19):
for the month. Doesn't quite like like, that's that's a
huge jump in a month. I went from three point
six to four point four percent. Yeah, so let's you
know again, I know that these smaller subsets can be noisy,
but you know, okay, you look at those and you're like, okay,
what's what's what's going on here? This is this is
a little little strange. Other things that still aren't great news.
(06:40):
Manufacturing employment fell for another month, down six thousand jobs
over the course of the month. So despite the push
to try to, you know, really revitalize American manufacturing, it's
not showing up in the jobs data here, right. Other
things that are notable in here when we look at
(07:01):
aggregate payroll growth basically the combination of how many more
people are working and how much more are they making.
It's running at four point six percent year over year.
That is fine. My general metric is as long as
it's above four in below six, you're in a pretty
good spot where growth is going to be strong enough,
but inflation is unlikely to be too high. And so
(07:23):
four point six is towards the lower end a little bit.
But it is something where again, like you look at
the trend that we have here on this series, because
again the trend is what matters, like how are we
moving directionally? And there was a little bit of a
downtick over you know, from April through August where it
went from like five and a quarter down to four
(07:44):
point five percent aggregate payroll growth. This bumps that back
up a little bit and maybe says, okay, could you
find a bottom in the you know, the mid fours,
that would be totally fine. Likes, that's good news if
you end up seeing a bottom there. But this is
one data point. So I think that aggregate payroll number
is good to see that it didn't worsen like it's
(08:06):
it's good there. Uh U. Six the underemployment rate dropped
from eight point one percent to eight percent. Again, another
good piece of data there that there are fewer people
saying that they are under employed. This largely is pulled from,
you know, people who are part time for economic reasons
(08:27):
and things like that, so you know, it includes those
people that we've already discussed, but still good news to
see and put a ratio on it so that we
can see what's going on there. So overall, I think
that the takeaway from this September report is, yes, it
is stale. There's more good than bad in this And
if we get another like as an example, if you've
(08:49):
got five more reports so that you have a six
month period that looks just like this, you probably look
at this and say, yeah, we'll take that. That's that's
it's it's not the best, you know, jobs numbers that
we've ever seen, but it puts to bed the idea
that you're seeing anything bad going on in the labor
market if you were to get more reports like this.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
So help contextualize this, because you know, when I sit
down with when I sat down with a few clients recently,
they're pointing to the Challenger Gray and Christmas data of
the most announced layoffs that we've ever seen. I keep
hearing from people that they expect the labor market to worsen. Again,
this data is stale. It is sixty days old. Now,
(09:28):
how should we contextualize this? When you continue to hear these,
you know, weakening data points about the labor market, whether
it's you know, weak seasonal hiring or layoff announcements that
we haven't seen in a decade or more. I guess,
how should we take this in the context of that
additional data.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
A couple things. First, you know, again, this is stale,
so you know that you've said that already. Second piece,
the Challenger Gray and Christmas numbers. They're the employment firm
that reports, you know, the number of announced layoffs in
any month. Remember they don't like or small companies, and
small businesses employ most of the people in the United States.
And so I think that overall, like those announced layoffs,
(10:10):
it's not really worth your time to pay attention to
the Challenger Grand Christmas numbers. Quite honestly, like, there is
no serious person in the investment world that uses that
as a reliable signal, agreed, because it's not like it
It doesn't mean anything about where things are going.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
To go.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's not predictive of anything, and so it's not a
useful signal in any way, shape or form when we
look at, you know, the concern that people have it
still is this is reflected in the economic data as well,
and that it's a really low hiring environment right now.
(10:49):
And so even though we are not seeing a broad
based increase in you know, the number of in unemployment,
and look, you can even make a case that we
are seeing, you know, something in unemployment, and I'll discuss
that even though you're not seeing like a ratcheting up
in unemployment, you know, and on a non linear fashion,
(11:10):
you like, you're not seeing it moving up exponentially, it
still is really hard to get a job right now
because the Jolts data and the Indeed data tells us
that hiring is really slow. So I think that this
data is consistent with an economy that is slow to
hire but generally has been fairly slow to lay off.
(11:31):
And remember this report also pre dates some of a
large number of the layoff announcements that we have seen,
right and so it may not incorporate whether or not
there has been an uptick in the layoff rate or
the discharge rate.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I think my main conclusion, if I'm looking for one
solid piece of information here, this is a significant reversal
from the last four months of job creation. The last
four months of job creation may through August average somewhere
around twenty thousand jobs. Yep, So this is we got
over one hundred thousand, yes, five x that number. This
(12:06):
is a big reversal from that four month trend over
the summer. If you stick with it, then we do
not really have concerns over the labor market. As we
always say, don't take one data point to mean all
that much. And also recognize we're not getting another data
release on this stuff for quite some time, and the
one we do get will be incomplete.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So let's take a quick break. When we return, let's
talk a little bit about what that data release schedule
looks like and what this means for the FED.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
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Speaker 3 (13:05):
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Speaker 2 (13:35):
So yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics published their updated
release States for a whole bunch of data. Obviously, today
was the September Employment Situation Report that was originally going
to be published on October third, so that was published today.
The Producer Price Index that was scheduled for Thursday, October sixteenth,
(13:56):
that's going to come out next Tuesday. Okay, so hey,
here's like a little prize before Thanksgiving. The Producer Price Index,
which no one knows what to do with anyways, generally true,
we're gonna have that, you know, the day before, you know,
everyone's traveling for Thanksgiving and everyone's going to try to
read into like what this would have meant for September PCE,
(14:18):
which the Census Bureau produces. I think it's the Census Bureau,
and so like we're just not going to like know
what to do with ourselves on this. The September Jolts
report canceled, not happening. October Jolts Report is going to
come out on Tuesday, December ninth instead of Tuesday December second,
(14:38):
so a one week pushback there the October employment report.
So the October jobs report was supposed to be two
Fridays ago canceled, but some of the data, the establishment data,
is going to be included in the November report that
will be published on Tuesday, December sixteenth, which is two
(15:00):
weeks late, a week and a half late.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Now why this matters is that the FED meeting is
going to be on December ninth and tenth, and so
before we go any further, I do need to make
one thing very very clear, because the idiots have been
idioting over the last twenty four hours about this, and
(15:25):
specifically like I've seen all kinds of people being like, oh,
like the BLS is gonna like they they deliberately schedule
this after the FED meeting, which is kind of like okay,
so like that would not make any sense for a
whole number of reasons, namely because a that report could
(15:47):
end up being really good and so why would the
government cover up good news about the labor market other
things we've been getting, you know, other alternative data that
you know is now kind of being confirmed by what
the BLS has shown, So it's not gonna show is
anything else there. But again, the BLS is trying to
play ketchup now with a huge lift in terms of
(16:07):
trying to get this November data, which they were supposed
to be collecting for the last couple of weeks. They're
trying to get that done as quickly as possible. There's
nothing nefarious about this in any way, shape or form.
So I just I it boggles my mind when people
(16:28):
immediately are like, oh, they deliberately scheduled this after the
FED meeting in order for you know, to let the
Fed like do you know what they're they're gonna do? Well,
the only way that that you know, to let the
Fed cut It's like Okay, so that means that you
think the economic data is stronger than you know what
what otherwise would have been in the canby then, Like,
(16:48):
it just doesn't make any logical sense. So let's like,
let's get rid of the idea that the BLS is
going to be manipulating this release date to benefit the FED,
because I saw a bunch of that crap yesterday and
I just have to call it out for what it is.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah, it's silly.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
The other piece, though, that is interesting to me, yep.
And I don't know that this. I don't know if
this has ever been done before. Would the Fed ever
consider pushing their meeting back by a week so they
can have this data in hand when they make their decision.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
I don't see why you would, if you, I mean,
I get why you would, but frankly, in times where
data has come out that's changed your opinion, what do
they do? They just call an emergency meeting and change
their mind. Right, So I don't see.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The purpose, but it would be a bad So here
here's the upside in doing so. The betting market not
betting market. It's like the FED fund's futures market right
now is saying it's more likely than not that the
FED is not going to do anything. Yes, it would
be a really bad look for the FED if they
did nothing after cutting twice and then had to call
(17:56):
an emergency meeting a week later to cut. It's kind
of like, Okay, so you guys didn't know this a
week ago, And so that's why I raised the question.
I don't think they will. I guess, would you push
the meeting back by a week? Because if the FED
doesn't cut in December, to me, it's a really tough
(18:18):
putt for them to say they're gonna cut in January then,
because then it's an acknowledgment that they made a mistake
in December.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Yeah, I guess back and forth.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Has anything other than something like nine to eleven ever
caused the FED to delay a meeting, because that's the
only event in modern history I can think of that
would have potential and I don't even know if they
did but potentially have caused them to delay a meeting.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
So I can't imagine doing.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
So over a delayed data release, But stranger things have happened.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
I suppose.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The other piece on this is I gotta say, after
getting this report with the unemployment rate rise. And remember
the Fed looks at the unemployment rate. They don't look
at jobs created because they can't control the size of
the labor force. Unemployment rate has now gone from three
point four to four point four percent in the span
of about two and a half years. It's gone from
four to one a year and ago to four to
four almost four or five. Now, that's a pretty strong
(19:11):
case in my opinion, for the Fed to cut in December.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
Markets aren't buying it.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I know, I know they're not, but uh I on the.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Opposite side of that, that inflation at three percent in
markets surging again tells me no cut.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Quick break here. Wall Street Watch is next. Then we're
talking in video.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
TFFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall
Street Watch. A complete look at what's moving markets so
far today right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Work.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Well, it may be late in November, but the September
jobs report is finally here, and it came in stronger
than expected. One hundred and nineteen thousand jobs were added
in September, higher than forecasts of fifty one thousand. Wall
Street's also reacting two solid third quarter results in revenue
forecasts from AI Giant in Nvidia, in addition to earnings
(20:21):
from consumer spending Bell Weather, Walmart. Right now, the Dow
is up one point four percent cent or six hundred
and thirty nine points, SMP five hundred up one point
eight percent or one hundred and twenty points. Tech heavy
NASDAC surging nearly two and a half percent, or five
hundred and forty two points. Rusted two thousand also up
(20:42):
over two percent higher, tenyure Treasure reeled is down one
basis point a four point one one seven percent, in
crude oil up over one percent higher, trading just above
sixty dollars a barrel, and Videos jumping four percent after
the AI chip maker saw its revenue serge sixty two
per per year on year and issued stronger than expected
fourth quarter sales guidance. Other chip makers also seeing gains
(21:05):
in reaction to in Video's earnings. Chuck and Mike will
have more on in Video's earnings coming up here in
a matter of moments. AMB shares of climbing two percent
after the Commerce Department approved a deal that will allow
US companies to sell advanced chips to the Middle East. Meanwhile,
the country's biggest retailer in Walmart, posted solid quarterly results
and raised its outlook. Walmart also reported a four and
(21:28):
a half percent increase in comparable sales in the US
during the quarter, driven by consumers seeking value, Walmart rallying
six percent elsewhere. Verizon announced it will cut more than
thirteen thousand jobs and its largest single layoff as it
works to reduce costs in restructure operations. Shares are up
nearly one percent. Palo Alto Networks announced it will require
(21:51):
cloud management company Kronosphere for three point three billion dollars.
The cybersecurity company also saw better than expected quarterly result, However,
that stock is down by about two percent and shares
in Bath and body Works sinking twenty two percent after
the self care and home products retailer posted third quarter
results that underwhelmed, where it posted a drop in quarterly
(22:14):
net sales and income. The company also slashed its annual forecast.
I'm Tucker Silva, and that is Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Watch Mike, before we touch on in Vidia earnings or
we'll do more than that. We'll cover them pretty in depth,
because you know, biggest Company in the World Report's earnings.
You got to do a little bit on them. We
did also get weekly jobbles claims data. The Department of
Labor has backfilled all the data for like the six
weeks that were missed. Quite honestly, I'm not even going
to go through every week. There was nothing particularly outstanding
(22:43):
in them. The most recent week now, which is through
November twelfth, I think it is. Let me see. Hold.
On November fifteenth, the initial claims came into two hundred
and twenty thousand, a modest decrease of eight thousand from
the week before, So still nothing happening on initial claims
at the moment. Continuing claims moving up a little bit
(23:06):
to one point nine seven to four million. So continuing
claims are, you know, continuing to show about a four
to five percent gain over last year, which is not
great but not hugely problematic. If you start seeing that
number moving to like a ten percent year over year
growth rate, that's usually where it starts to, you know,
move upward quickly after that. But we're just not seeing that.
(23:27):
So the jobless claims data continuing to tell us that
despite the concerns that are out there, there's nothing there's
no meaningful shift that's happening in the labor market. It's
just a continued slowing, which look continued slowing forever is
not good. But there's no there's no like intensifying deterioration
(23:47):
that's going on. It's just a continued slowing.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, and again to your point earlier about what does
the FED do here, I'll acknowledge that I think the
FED is more likely to cut than the odds are
saying right now. But you know, if I'm in charge,
I've got jobless claims numbers that are not of concern.
I've got a job's creation number that came in better
than expected, a slightly concerning unemployment number.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
Markets at all time highs.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Look at the jobs creation number, though.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Hey, look at the unemployment rate. I get it.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
But taking all in the aggregate, I too would pause
the rate cutting that we're doing. Acknowledging for a minute
here chuck that they will look foolish if they have
to go do so, if they have to go cut
rates again in January. But yeah, we're I in charge,
I don't think I'd be cutting rates at this next meeting.
And I think once again, at this meeting, we will
get people on both sides wanting to do something different
(24:41):
than what the FED decide. Right the last meeting, we
had descents towards lower rates and assents towards no rate cuts,
which is pretty rare.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Let's talk a little bit about nvidio earnings, which, like
Mark Fandini and I were talking about this in the
run up to it, and we came to a couple inclusions. Mike.
The first is neither of us expected to see any
weakness in in video earnings yesterday, because everybody else that
buys their chips has already reported well. And also the
concern that people have out there is not that people
(25:15):
are stopping buying in vidio chips right now. It's that
companies are buying way too many of them and they
won't be able to figure out how to be profitable
after buying all of them. Sure, right, Like you don't
have a bubble when companies say no, we've got enough, Right,
you have the bubble when companies say, oh, we can't
figure out how to monetize this, and now we're going
(25:35):
to start canceling future orders. So like I personally didn't
have any thought that you were going to see any
you know signs of weakness in this because the stuff
that's been concerning markets has been Oracle borrowing a bunch
of money to go buy in Vidio chips, Meta borrowing
a bunch of money to go buy in Vidio chips. Well,
(25:56):
if that's the case, why would you be concerned about
in Video's earnings for this quarter?
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Right?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
The other thing that has been concerning to investors has
been the roundabout deals. Right, here's a bunch of money
that we are going to invest in you, and that
investment is going to be contingent upon you turning around
and buying our chips. For a while there you were
able to point to these deals and say, oh, that's
not the case. It's not exclusive. The recent deals have
(26:21):
been exactly that, Hey, here's a bunch of money from Nvidia,
and they're only going to invest it if you turn
around and go buy the chips that you can't otherwise
of Forde. So that's been another concern. But again, none
of that would hit at in Vidia's sales numbers, and
they didn't. They reported fifty seven billion dollars worth of revenue,
beating expectations once again.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And let's let's talk a little bit just about what
we're seeing here in terms of the numbers. So yeah,
you know, north of fifty seven billion in revenue. They're projecting,
you know, somewhere in the mid sixty billion in revenue
for the next quarter. And I just want to point
out that in Vidia first crossed and annual revenue in
(27:03):
Q four of twenty three. Now they're doing it quarterly,
and now they're doing it quarterly, So like, again, there's
some pretty impressive stuff that's here. The questions, as I've
laid them out, are going to be, Hey, show me
what happens to company's appetite for spending twelve to twenty
(27:23):
four months from now, once they have to finally start
having this depreciation from all this capex hitting their financial statements,
and then we'll get a sense of whether they want
to continue. Those are questions that are going to linger
like and Nvidia can't answer those questions with this report.
All they can tell us is what we know, which
(27:43):
is that companies continue to buy these chips like crazy,
and until we hear from companies that they're going to pivot,
I think the expectation should be that companies continue to
do exactly this.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Am I wrong, No, I think that that is the
case until that narrative breaks, and we saw signs that
it might be starting to over the course of the
last few weeks. But if it does, you won't see
it show up in Video's earnings until quarters later.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And ultimately, it's it's going to depend like the long
term success of in Vidia stock, because that's what we're
talking about here. We're not talking about the company, like
the company quite honestly, like I think they're gonna be like, okay,
like they they they're you know, they're pretty smart people.
We're talking about the stock here. It's it's going to
(28:33):
depend on will their customers continue to place orders year
after year in increasing numbers for these chips. And that's
going to be determined by whether companies and individuals start
to pay up for AI in the numbers needed over
the next couple of years. Because all all the all
(28:56):
the free riders that are you know, using the free
version of Chat and Gemini, man like you, you're not
contributing anything to the continued success of.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Those platforms, no to you know, use the example that
I use the other day as well, my wife creating
a picture of our dog and cat who despise each other.
Snuggling using chat GPT is a real big money loser
for chat GPT, and that's a lot of the uh processing,
(29:29):
Like I really wonder how much it costs open Ai
to create the image that it did for my wife
the other day, which is completely useless, because that's what
is happening right now. And the question is our business
is like ours and others out there going to find
a way to monetize this stuff, and will businesses like
(29:50):
ours be willing to pay for this stuff that right
now is useful in some key areas but not fully
monetizable yet.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And stuff it's even like useful but still requires like
some work, Like as an example, I was working on
something yesterday, just trying to organize a bunch of zip
codes and ended up being like forty five hundred zip codes.
And I'm looking into this thing. I'm playing around with
it and Excel trying to like do text to columns
and this and that, and I'm like, Okay, this isn't working.
Let me see like what artificial intelligence can do with
(30:21):
these zip codes. And I said, look, I need you
to group this into these buckets, like based on geographic
regions and then I need you to like spit out
a CSV that does this so that I can like
see what I'm looking at. And a couple things like
when I actually pulled the list of zip codes, it
did a pretty darn good job of organizing them. They
(30:42):
ended up being thirty four hundred that it categorized, but
in the bucket report that it generated for me, like
how many are in each bucket, it had forty four hundred.
So I literally asked it. I'm like, what's with the
thousand record discrepancy? And it's like, well, some of these
might have been cleaned up in this that I'm like, okay,
well why'd you give me, you know, the raw? And
if you don't worry about it, it said, hey, Chuck
(31:04):
pound somebody, Yeah, I know where you're typing this from.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Chuck, don't ask questions you don't want answers to, so.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Like I in any case, I'm like, okay, this is,
you know, fine. But then I start going through and
I find two zip codes that it decided to one region,
and when I actually plug them into USPS, those zip
codes don't even exist, and so I'm kind of going, okay,
so yes, it might be like ninety five percent accurate.
(31:34):
But is that five percent a problem enough to where
I can't use it for what I want to And
I'm just not sure yet. And this, by the way,
was with the newest Gemini three version that Google's been
all bally who and you know, hub ub about the
last day or two and don't give me So I
(31:54):
tried this in chad GPT and the result was horrendous.
I just did to like give me mappings of these
regents and it put like four of them in the ocean. Yeah,
like it just was not working. So there's there's still
some work that needs to be done to convince me yes,
I should be paying for this, because if I paid
an intern who generated you know, hey, the Boston region
(32:17):
is in the middle of the Atlantic. You fired that intern.
Doesn't have a future at my company.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
If I had someone who was just making up ZIP codes,
that's probably not a great employee. Like you have to
be able to trust them. So can I pay artificial
intelligence to make those mistakes? If I wouldn't pay an
employee to make those mistakes, I don't know. Let's take
a quick break when we return Walmart earnings after this.
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Speaker 2 (34:18):
Mike. Walmart reported earnings. What do we see from them?
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Just a DPS coming out sixty two cents a share,
beating estimates, revenue beat estimates, e commerce sales grew by
double digits once again.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Stock is up big.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I think, honestly, the only thing that you can criticize
about Walmart right now is kind of similar thing you
can criticize Nvidia about, which is your stock is priced
for perfection? Can you keep getting perfection? Because I mean,
did you see anything out there from analysts that was
an area of concern? The only thing I saw was
somebody right about was how Sam's Club was a slight
(34:55):
drag on their business, whereas everything else was near perfection.
But to be clear, the pe ratio on Walmart. Now
you're talking about price to earnings of forty forty, like
that's pretty high. I mean again, I'm not an analyst
that covers consumer staples by any stretch, but.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
It's being priced for perfection. It seems as though.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I guess I look at a company like Walmart, and
the question that I ask is, look, if you are
a buyer of Walmart at this price, what would ever
make you a seller?
Speaker 5 (35:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Because like, here's the thing in our lifetimes, Michael, what
are the odds of Walmart going out of business? They're
more entrenched than a company like Sears ever once yeah,
close to zero. You know. It's like it's.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Although, yeah, I mean, we say that, but right, if
you had asked this question about Sears back in nineteen
eighty five, what would the answer have.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Been it still took thirty years for that to happen,
did Yeah? You know, and look Sears golden age, which
was still like, you know, fifty sixties, right, So it
was like, okay, if it takes fifty years to happen, right, yeah,
there's decent chance I might be dead by then.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Right, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Walmart stock continues to just defy all expectations. They're attracting
new customers. They are the go to play still for
where I find where you find discounts, and it's showing
in their earnings price. Folks, we are approaching the Thanksgiving
holiday here, I want to talk to you briefly about
the guide from Armstrong Advisory Group for the month of November.
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Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult
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Speaker 2 (37:35):
Mike, do we want to talk groceries or mass retailers
trying to predict what's going to happen for holiday shopping?
Speaker 5 (37:41):
I want to talk grocery stores.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, yeah, So we've got a The nonprofit Consumers Checkbook
went through a bunch of New England supermarkets and evaluated
them based on quality and pricing, and I don't think
that the results are particularly surprising. On the pricing side
of things, all the Market, Basket and Price Right came
(38:05):
in as best of the bunch for New England, while
Roach Brothers, Donolan's and Whole Foods came in at the
highest cost. What was interesting to me, there's a been
a thirty percent difference between those from a pricing perspective,
in you know, when you're looking at it from most
expensive to least and if you're comparing the other way,
like how much does it cost to go from you know,
(38:26):
a a market basket to a whole foods it's almost
a fifty percent jump, So like big pricing range quality
bigger ranges. Yeah, well, how does one measure you know, quality?
I guess is an interesting question, but in any case,
Roach Brothers and Trader Joe's coming in Best of the
(38:47):
Blue there and Wegmans quick Break here, hour two and
just a bit
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(01:06):
Zatdath and Mike Armstraw.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Chuck Mike Tucker with you here today on what might
be the one and only ever Jobs Thursday. As we
we have the jobs data for the month of September.
It was released at eight thirty am Eastern and well,
it is, you know, an extra month out of date.
(01:32):
I do think it still is, you know, worth discussing,
just because it gives us a more current picture of
the labor market than the August data. What we saw
was one hundred and nineteen thousand jobs added for the month.
Despite that the unemployment rate ticked up to four point
four percent, and actually the unrounded number just a whisker
shy of being four point five percent, Say a whisker, yes,
(01:55):
the unrounded number was four point four to four. So
you were quite literally one hundredth of a percent away
from it being four or five. And so I think
it's something where it's a jobs report that has something
for everyone, depending on what your point of view is
on the economy. If you believe that, if you want
(02:17):
to believe that we're starting to see an inflection up
in job growth, this gives that to you. This also,
by the way, matches what we have seen from ADP.
Who remember, ADP is now publishing weekly four week moving
averages of what they expect job growth to be. And
(02:38):
ADP also showed an uptick in job growth towards the
middle and end of September as well. So this matches,
you know, pretty closely what we saw from ADP. Subsequently,
ADP's numbers have worsened in recent weeks, but it's a
couple different sources telling you, yeah, there might have been
something going on in September that helped job growth. The
(03:00):
other side of the story is, okay, so you had
this job growth, but the unemployment rate ticked up to
four point four percent. If you're someone who believes, hey,
the economy is weaker and the Fed should be cutting
more rapidly, that jump to four point four almost four
point five percent gives you some data in your camp
(03:22):
where you can say, yeah, maybe the Fed should be
cutting in December instead of trying to put the brakes
on it. So I think overall, you know, again, even
just in the headline numbers unemployment rate and jobs added,
you get, you know, some different pictures in terms of
what this report is saying.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You do.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I think a few things to really stress about this report.
First and foremost, the data collected sixty to seventy days ago.
It is fairly stale at this point. It is pretty
old data that we are talking about. When it comes
to this Job's report. It would have been released about
forty days ago, but again government shutdown. This data is
(03:58):
fairly stale in terms of looking at But to your point,
we saw a reversal in job creation which had been
excuse me, had been really weak throughout the summer. The
unemployment rate piece, you know, when you pair that with
a strong job creation number, does not concern me all
that much. Right If this had been twenty thousand jobs
(04:19):
created and unemployment taking up to nearly four point five percent, yeah,
you start to get a little bit concerned. With one
hundred and ten thousand jobs created an unemployment at four
point four percent, I'm not immensely concerned about it. To me,
this Job's report one because of its you know, because
of the fact that it's old. Two because of the
fact that it was not dramatically bad. I don't think
(04:42):
does much to change anybody on the federal reserves opinion
of where this labor market is and therefore what they
should be doing at that December meeting.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Seeing me FED fun futures basically have moved a little
bit today, going from a thirty percent chance of a
rate cut at the December meeting to a forty three
point eight percent champs of a rate cut at that
December meeting. So the market kind of saying the same thing, like, yeah,
maybe there's a little bit of a stronger chance, but
not much. Look, here's here's the thing. Let's actually get
(05:12):
more into what this report said and then we can
talk about the FED after. So in terms of stuff
under the hood again, let's kind of do good news
bad news. This is good news. Long term unemployment in
September dropped by one hundred and sixteen thousand people. Unequivocally
good news. Yeah, like you don't want to see people
unemployed for longer periods of time. That is good. Also
(05:35):
part time for economic reasons, basically people who are part
time because they could only find part time worker their
business was not giving them enough hours. That dropped by
one hundred and seventy thousand people. Again, unequivocally good news.
Fewer people saying that they're part time involuntarily is a
good thing. Bad news. Unemployment rate for women rose zero
(05:56):
point four percent for the month.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
It's a big jump.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I don't really know what to make of that. That
is a massive jump in one month, and we're gonna
need to see how the next couple months come out,
because you don't normally see a move like that, So
that's a little unusual on that side. Another one that's
kind of like, you know, eyebrow raising. You look at
it and you go, Asian unemployment jump by point eight percent
(06:19):
for the month. Doesn't quite like like, that's that's a
huge jump in a month. I went from three point
six to four point four percent. Yeah, so let's you
know again, I know that these smaller subsets can be noisy,
but you know, okay, you look at those and you're like, okay,
what's what's what's going on here? This is this is
a little little strange. Other things that still aren't great news.
(06:40):
Manufacturing employment fell for another month, down six thousand jobs
over the course of the month. So despite the push
to try to, you know, really revitalize American manufacturing, it's
not showing up in the jobs data here, right. Other
things that are notable in here when we look at
(07:01):
aggregate payroll growth basically the combination of how many more
people are working and how much more are they making.
It's running at four point six percent year over year.
That is fine. My general metric is as long as
it's above four in below six, you're in a pretty
good spot where growth is going to be strong enough,
but inflation is unlikely to be too high. And so
(07:23):
four point six is towards the lower end a little bit.
But it is something where again, like you look at
the trend that we have here on this series, because
again the trend is what matters, like how are we
moving directionally? And there was a little bit of a
downtick over you know, from April through August where it
went from like five and a quarter down to four
(07:44):
point five percent aggregate payroll growth. This bumps that back
up a little bit and maybe says, okay, could you
find a bottom in the you know, the mid fours,
that would be totally fine. Likes, that's good news if
you end up seeing a bottom there. But this is
one data point. So I think that aggregate payroll number
is good to see that it didn't worsen like it's
(08:06):
it's good there. Uh U. Six the underemployment rate dropped
from eight point one percent to eight percent. Again, another
good piece of data there that there are fewer people
saying that they are under employed. This largely is pulled from,
you know, people who are part time for economic reasons
(08:27):
and things like that, so you know, it includes those
people that we've already discussed, but still good news to
see and put a ratio on it so that we
can see what's going on there. So overall, I think
that the takeaway from this September report is, yes, it
is stale. There's more good than bad in this And
if we get another like as an example, if you've
(08:49):
got five more reports so that you have a six
month period that looks just like this, you probably look
at this and say, yeah, we'll take that. That's that's
it's it's not the best, you know, jobs numbers that
we've ever seen, but it puts to bed the idea
that you're seeing anything bad going on in the labor
market if you were to get more reports like this.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
So help contextualize this, because you know, when I sit
down with when I sat down with a few clients recently,
they're pointing to the Challenger Gray and Christmas data of
the most announced layoffs that we've ever seen. I keep
hearing from people that they expect the labor market to worsen. Again,
this data is stale. It is sixty days old. Now,
(09:28):
how should we contextualize this? When you continue to hear these,
you know, weakening data points about the labor market, whether
it's you know, weak seasonal hiring or layoff announcements that
we haven't seen in a decade or more. I guess,
how should we take this in the context of that
additional data.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
A couple things. First, you know, again, this is stale,
so you know that you've said that already. Second piece,
the Challenger Gray and Christmas numbers. They're the employment firm
that reports, you know, the number of announced layoffs in
any month. Remember they don't like or small companies, and
small businesses employ most of the people in the United States.
And so I think that overall, like those announced layoffs,
(10:10):
it's not really worth your time to pay attention to
the Challenger Grand Christmas numbers. Quite honestly, like, there is
no serious person in the investment world that uses that
as a reliable signal, agreed, because it's not like it
It doesn't mean anything about where things are going.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
To go.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's not predictive of anything, and so it's not a
useful signal in any way, shape or form when we
look at, you know, the concern that people have it
still is this is reflected in the economic data as well,
and that it's a really low hiring environment right now.
(10:49):
And so even though we are not seeing a broad
based increase in you know, the number of in unemployment,
and look, you can even make a case that we
are seeing, you know, something in unemployment, and I'll discuss
that even though you're not seeing like a ratcheting up
in unemployment, you know, and on a non linear fashion,
(11:10):
you like, you're not seeing it moving up exponentially, it
still is really hard to get a job right now
because the Jolts data and the Indeed data tells us
that hiring is really slow. So I think that this
data is consistent with an economy that is slow to
hire but generally has been fairly slow to lay off.
(11:31):
And remember this report also pre dates some of a
large number of the layoff announcements that we have seen,
right and so it may not incorporate whether or not
there has been an uptick in the layoff rate or
the discharge rate.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I think my main conclusion, if I'm looking for one
solid piece of information here, this is a significant reversal
from the last four months of job creation. The last
four months of job creation may through August average somewhere
around twenty thousand jobs. Yep, So this is we got
over one hundred thousand, yes, five x that number. This
(12:06):
is a big reversal from that four month trend over
the summer. If you stick with it, then we do
not really have concerns over the labor market. As we
always say, don't take one data point to mean all
that much. And also recognize we're not getting another data
release on this stuff for quite some time, and the
one we do get will be incomplete.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So let's take a quick break. When we return, let's
talk a little bit about what that data release schedule
looks like and what this means for the FED.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Right after this, this is your home for the most
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Speaker 3 (13:05):
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Speaker 2 (13:35):
So yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics published their updated
release States for a whole bunch of data. Obviously, today
was the September Employment Situation Report that was originally going
to be published on October third, so that was published today.
The Producer Price Index that was scheduled for Thursday, October sixteenth,
(13:56):
that's going to come out next Tuesday. Okay, so hey,
here's like a little prize before Thanksgiving. The Producer Price Index,
which no one knows what to do with anyways, generally true,
we're gonna have that, you know, the day before, you know,
everyone's traveling for Thanksgiving and everyone's going to try to
read into like what this would have meant for September PCE,
(14:18):
which the Census Bureau produces. I think it's the Census Bureau,
and so like we're just not going to like know
what to do with ourselves on this. The September Jolts
report canceled, not happening. October Jolts Report is going to
come out on Tuesday, December ninth instead of Tuesday December second,
(14:38):
so a one week pushback there the October employment report.
So the October jobs report was supposed to be two
Fridays ago canceled, but some of the data, the establishment data,
is going to be included in the November report that
will be published on Tuesday, December sixteenth, which is two
(15:00):
weeks late, a week and a half late.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Now why this matters is that the FED meeting is
going to be on December ninth and tenth, and so
before we go any further, I do need to make
one thing very very clear, because the idiots have been
idioting over the last twenty four hours about this, and
(15:25):
specifically like I've seen all kinds of people being like, oh,
like the BLS is gonna like they they deliberately schedule
this after the FED meeting, which is kind of like okay,
so like that would not make any sense for a
whole number of reasons, namely because a that report could
(15:47):
end up being really good and so why would the
government cover up good news about the labor market other
things we've been getting, you know, other alternative data that
you know is now kind of being confirmed by what
the BLS has shown, So it's not gonna show is
anything else there. But again, the BLS is trying to
play ketchup now with a huge lift in terms of
(16:07):
trying to get this November data, which they were supposed
to be collecting for the last couple of weeks. They're
trying to get that done as quickly as possible. There's
nothing nefarious about this in any way, shape or form.
So I just I it boggles my mind when people
(16:28):
immediately are like, oh, they deliberately scheduled this after the
FED meeting in order for you know, to let the
Fed like do you know what they're they're gonna do? Well,
the only way that that you know, to let the
Fed cut It's like Okay, so that means that you
think the economic data is stronger than you know what
what otherwise would have been in the canby then, Like,
(16:48):
it just doesn't make any logical sense. So let's like,
let's get rid of the idea that the BLS is
going to be manipulating this release date to benefit the FED,
because I saw a bunch of that crap yesterday and
I just have to call it out for what it is.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah, it's silly.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
The other piece, though, that is interesting to me, yep.
And I don't know that this. I don't know if
this has ever been done before. Would the Fed ever
consider pushing their meeting back by a week so they
can have this data in hand when they make their decision.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
I don't see why you would, if you, I mean,
I get why you would, but frankly, in times where
data has come out that's changed your opinion, what do
they do? They just call an emergency meeting and change
their mind. Right, So I don't see.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The purpose, but it would be a bad So here
here's the upside in doing so. The betting market not
betting market. It's like the FED fund's futures market right
now is saying it's more likely than not that the
FED is not going to do anything. Yes, it would
be a really bad look for the FED if they
did nothing after cutting twice and then had to call
(17:56):
an emergency meeting a week later to cut. It's kind
of like, Okay, so you guys didn't know this a
week ago, And so that's why I raised the question.
I don't think they will. I guess, would you push
the meeting back by a week? Because if the FED
doesn't cut in December, to me, it's a really tough
(18:18):
putt for them to say they're gonna cut in January then,
because then it's an acknowledgment that they made a mistake
in December.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Yeah, I guess back and forth.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Has anything other than something like nine to eleven ever
caused the FED to delay a meeting, because that's the
only event in modern history I can think of that
would have potential and I don't even know if they
did but potentially have caused them to delay a meeting.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
So I can't imagine doing.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
So over a delayed data release, But stranger things have happened.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
I suppose.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The other piece on this is I gotta say, after
getting this report with the unemployment rate rise. And remember
the Fed looks at the unemployment rate. They don't look
at jobs created because they can't control the size of
the labor force. Unemployment rate has now gone from three
point four to four point four percent in the span
of about two and a half years. It's gone from
four to one a year and ago to four to
four almost four or five. Now, that's a pretty strong
(19:11):
case in my opinion, for the Fed to cut in December.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
Markets aren't buying it.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I know, I know they're not, but uh I on the.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Opposite side of that, that inflation at three percent in
markets surging again tells me no cut.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Quick break here. Wall Street Watch is next. Then we're
talking in video.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
TFFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall
Street Watch. A complete look at what's moving markets so
far today right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Work.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Well, it may be late in November, but the September
jobs report is finally here, and it came in stronger
than expected. One hundred and nineteen thousand jobs were added
in September, higher than forecasts of fifty one thousand. Wall
Street's also reacting two solid third quarter results in revenue
forecasts from AI Giant in Nvidia, in addition to earnings
(20:21):
from consumer spending Bell Weather, Walmart. Right now, the Dow
is up one point four percent cent or six hundred
and thirty nine points, SMP five hundred up one point
eight percent or one hundred and twenty points. Tech heavy
NASDAC surging nearly two and a half percent, or five
hundred and forty two points. Rusted two thousand also up
(20:42):
over two percent higher, tenyure Treasure reeled is down one
basis point a four point one one seven percent, in
crude oil up over one percent higher, trading just above
sixty dollars a barrel, and Videos jumping four percent after
the AI chip maker saw its revenue serge sixty two
per per year on year and issued stronger than expected
fourth quarter sales guidance. Other chip makers also seeing gains
(21:05):
in reaction to in Video's earnings. Chuck and Mike will
have more on in Video's earnings coming up here in
a matter of moments. AMB shares of climbing two percent
after the Commerce Department approved a deal that will allow
US companies to sell advanced chips to the Middle East. Meanwhile,
the country's biggest retailer in Walmart, posted solid quarterly results
and raised its outlook. Walmart also reported a four and
(21:28):
a half percent increase in comparable sales in the US
during the quarter, driven by consumers seeking value, Walmart rallying
six percent elsewhere. Verizon announced it will cut more than
thirteen thousand jobs and its largest single layoff as it
works to reduce costs in restructure operations. Shares are up
nearly one percent. Palo Alto Networks announced it will require
(21:51):
cloud management company Kronosphere for three point three billion dollars.
The cybersecurity company also saw better than expected quarterly result, However,
that stock is down by about two percent and shares
in Bath and body Works sinking twenty two percent after
the self care and home products retailer posted third quarter
results that underwhelmed, where it posted a drop in quarterly
(22:14):
net sales and income. The company also slashed its annual forecast.
I'm Tucker Silva, and that is Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Watch Mike, before we touch on in Vidia earnings or
we'll do more than that. We'll cover them pretty in depth,
because you know, biggest Company in the World Report's earnings.
You got to do a little bit on them. We
did also get weekly jobbles claims data. The Department of
Labor has backfilled all the data for like the six
weeks that were missed. Quite honestly, I'm not even going
to go through every week. There was nothing particularly outstanding
(22:43):
in them. The most recent week now, which is through
November twelfth, I think it is. Let me see. Hold.
On November fifteenth, the initial claims came into two hundred
and twenty thousand, a modest decrease of eight thousand from
the week before, So still nothing happening on initial claims
at the moment. Continuing claims moving up a little bit
(23:06):
to one point nine seven to four million. So continuing
claims are, you know, continuing to show about a four
to five percent gain over last year, which is not
great but not hugely problematic. If you start seeing that
number moving to like a ten percent year over year
growth rate, that's usually where it starts to, you know,
move upward quickly after that. But we're just not seeing that.
(23:27):
So the jobless claims data continuing to tell us that
despite the concerns that are out there, there's nothing there's
no meaningful shift that's happening in the labor market. It's
just a continued slowing, which look continued slowing forever is
not good. But there's no there's no like intensifying deterioration
(23:47):
that's going on. It's just a continued slowing.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, and again to your point earlier about what does
the FED do here, I'll acknowledge that I think the
FED is more likely to cut than the odds are
saying right now. But you know, if I'm in charge,
I've got jobless claims numbers that are not of concern.
I've got a job's creation number that came in better
than expected, a slightly concerning unemployment number.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
Markets at all time highs.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Look at the jobs creation number, though.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Hey, look at the unemployment rate. I get it.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
But taking all in the aggregate, I too would pause
the rate cutting that we're doing. Acknowledging for a minute
here chuck that they will look foolish if they have
to go do so, if they have to go cut
rates again in January. But yeah, we're I in charge,
I don't think I'd be cutting rates at this next meeting.
And I think once again, at this meeting, we will
get people on both sides wanting to do something different
(24:41):
than what the FED decide. Right the last meeting, we
had descents towards lower rates and assents towards no rate cuts,
which is pretty rare.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Let's talk a little bit about nvidio earnings, which, like
Mark Fandini and I were talking about this in the
run up to it, and we came to a couple inclusions. Mike.
The first is neither of us expected to see any
weakness in in video earnings yesterday, because everybody else that
buys their chips has already reported well. And also the
concern that people have out there is not that people
(25:15):
are stopping buying in vidio chips right now. It's that
companies are buying way too many of them and they
won't be able to figure out how to be profitable
after buying all of them. Sure, right, Like you don't
have a bubble when companies say no, we've got enough, Right,
you have the bubble when companies say, oh, we can't
figure out how to monetize this, and now we're going
(25:35):
to start canceling future orders. So like I personally didn't
have any thought that you were going to see any
you know signs of weakness in this because the stuff
that's been concerning markets has been Oracle borrowing a bunch
of money to go buy in Vidio chips, Meta borrowing
a bunch of money to go buy in Vidio chips. Well,
(25:56):
if that's the case, why would you be concerned about
in Video's earnings for this quarter?
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Right?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
The other thing that has been concerning to investors has
been the roundabout deals. Right, here's a bunch of money
that we are going to invest in you, and that
investment is going to be contingent upon you turning around
and buying our chips. For a while there you were
able to point to these deals and say, oh, that's
not the case. It's not exclusive. The recent deals have
(26:21):
been exactly that, Hey, here's a bunch of money from Nvidia,
and they're only going to invest it if you turn
around and go buy the chips that you can't otherwise
of Forde. So that's been another concern. But again, none
of that would hit at in Vidia's sales numbers, and
they didn't. They reported fifty seven billion dollars worth of revenue,
beating expectations once again.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And let's let's talk a little bit just about what
we're seeing here in terms of the numbers. So yeah,
you know, north of fifty seven billion in revenue. They're projecting,
you know, somewhere in the mid sixty billion in revenue
for the next quarter. And I just want to point
out that in Vidia first crossed and annual revenue in
(27:03):
Q four of twenty three. Now they're doing it quarterly,
and now they're doing it quarterly, So like, again, there's
some pretty impressive stuff that's here. The questions, as I've
laid them out, are going to be, Hey, show me
what happens to company's appetite for spending twelve to twenty
(27:23):
four months from now, once they have to finally start
having this depreciation from all this capex hitting their financial statements,
and then we'll get a sense of whether they want
to continue. Those are questions that are going to linger
like and Nvidia can't answer those questions with this report.
All they can tell us is what we know, which
(27:43):
is that companies continue to buy these chips like crazy,
and until we hear from companies that they're going to pivot,
I think the expectation should be that companies continue to
do exactly this.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Am I wrong, No, I think that that is the
case until that narrative breaks, and we saw signs that
it might be starting to over the course of the
last few weeks. But if it does, you won't see
it show up in Video's earnings until quarters later.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And ultimately, it's it's going to depend like the long
term success of in Vidia stock, because that's what we're
talking about here. We're not talking about the company, like
the company quite honestly, like I think they're gonna be like, okay,
like they they they're you know, they're pretty smart people.
We're talking about the stock here. It's it's going to
(28:33):
depend on will their customers continue to place orders year
after year in increasing numbers for these chips. And that's
going to be determined by whether companies and individuals start
to pay up for AI in the numbers needed over
the next couple of years. Because all all the all
(28:56):
the free riders that are you know, using the free
version of Chat and Gemini, man like you, you're not
contributing anything to the continued success of.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Those platforms, no to you know, use the example that
I use the other day as well, my wife creating
a picture of our dog and cat who despise each other.
Snuggling using chat GPT is a real big money loser
for chat GPT, and that's a lot of the uh processing,
(29:29):
Like I really wonder how much it costs open Ai
to create the image that it did for my wife
the other day, which is completely useless, because that's what
is happening right now. And the question is our business
is like ours and others out there going to find
a way to monetize this stuff, and will businesses like
(29:50):
ours be willing to pay for this stuff that right
now is useful in some key areas but not fully
monetizable yet.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And stuff it's even like useful but still requires like
some work, Like as an example, I was working on
something yesterday, just trying to organize a bunch of zip
codes and ended up being like forty five hundred zip codes.
And I'm looking into this thing. I'm playing around with
it and Excel trying to like do text to columns
and this and that, and I'm like, Okay, this isn't working.
Let me see like what artificial intelligence can do with
(30:21):
these zip codes. And I said, look, I need you
to group this into these buckets, like based on geographic
regions and then I need you to like spit out
a CSV that does this so that I can like
see what I'm looking at. And a couple things like
when I actually pulled the list of zip codes, it
did a pretty darn good job of organizing them. They
(30:42):
ended up being thirty four hundred that it categorized, but
in the bucket report that it generated for me, like
how many are in each bucket, it had forty four hundred.
So I literally asked it. I'm like, what's with the
thousand record discrepancy? And it's like, well, some of these
might have been cleaned up in this that I'm like, okay,
well why'd you give me, you know, the raw? And
if you don't worry about it, it said, hey, Chuck
(31:04):
pound somebody, Yeah, I know where you're typing this from.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Chuck, don't ask questions you don't want answers to, so.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Like I in any case, I'm like, okay, this is,
you know, fine. But then I start going through and
I find two zip codes that it decided to one region,
and when I actually plug them into USPS, those zip
codes don't even exist, and so I'm kind of going, okay,
so yes, it might be like ninety five percent accurate.
(31:34):
But is that five percent a problem enough to where
I can't use it for what I want to And
I'm just not sure yet. And this, by the way,
was with the newest Gemini three version that Google's been
all bally who and you know, hub ub about the
last day or two and don't give me So I
(31:54):
tried this in chad GPT and the result was horrendous.
I just did to like give me mappings of these
regents and it put like four of them in the ocean. Yeah,
like it just was not working. So there's there's still
some work that needs to be done to convince me yes,
I should be paying for this, because if I paid
an intern who generated you know, hey, the Boston region
(32:17):
is in the middle of the Atlantic. You fired that intern.
Doesn't have a future at my company.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
If I had someone who was just making up ZIP codes,
that's probably not a great employee. Like you have to
be able to trust them. So can I pay artificial
intelligence to make those mistakes? If I wouldn't pay an
employee to make those mistakes, I don't know. Let's take
a quick break when we return Walmart earnings after this.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
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Speaker 6 (32:57):
We're proud to announce that circle K is now how
the official convenience store of the dav Department of Massachusetts
at circle K. Supporting those who bravely served our country
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If you'd like to do your part, please visit DAVMA
(33:19):
dot org. Thank you for standing with circle K and
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Speaker 3 (33:44):
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Speaker 2 (34:18):
Mike. Walmart reported earnings. What do we see from them?
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Just a DPS coming out sixty two cents a share,
beating estimates, revenue beat estimates, e commerce sales grew by
double digits once again.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Stock is up big.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I think, honestly, the only thing that you can criticize
about Walmart right now is kind of similar thing you
can criticize Nvidia about, which is your stock is priced
for perfection? Can you keep getting perfection? Because I mean,
did you see anything out there from analysts that was
an area of concern? The only thing I saw was
somebody right about was how Sam's Club was a slight
(34:55):
drag on their business, whereas everything else was near perfection.
But to be clear, the pe ratio on Walmart. Now
you're talking about price to earnings of forty forty, like
that's pretty high. I mean again, I'm not an analyst
that covers consumer staples by any stretch, but.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
It's being priced for perfection. It seems as though.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I guess I look at a company like Walmart, and
the question that I ask is, look, if you are
a buyer of Walmart at this price, what would ever
make you a seller?
Speaker 5 (35:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Because like, here's the thing in our lifetimes, Michael, what
are the odds of Walmart going out of business? They're
more entrenched than a company like Sears ever once yeah,
close to zero. You know. It's like it's.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Although, yeah, I mean, we say that, but right, if
you had asked this question about Sears back in nineteen
eighty five, what would the answer have.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Been it still took thirty years for that to happen,
did Yeah? You know, and look Sears golden age, which
was still like, you know, fifty sixties, right, So it
was like, okay, if it takes fifty years to happen, right, yeah,
there's decent chance I might be dead by then.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Right, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Walmart stock continues to just defy all expectations. They're attracting
new customers. They are the go to play still for
where I find where you find discounts, and it's showing
in their earnings price. Folks, we are approaching the Thanksgiving
holiday here, I want to talk to you briefly about
the guide from Armstrong Advisory Group for the month of November.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
It's all about owning.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Real estate in retirement and the decision making process about
where to own, whether to own versus to rent, where
to make your residency, and the factors to consider as
you age in your home. We have this conversation with
clients all the time, all about that conversation around downsizing
and how much to expect and maintenance costs for your home.
(36:51):
If you are facing down that retirement scenario and trying
to sort this through, maybe it's a second home in
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(37:13):
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Speaker 1 (37:18):
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 may contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Mike, do we want to talk groceries or mass retailers
trying to predict what's going to happen for holiday shopping?
Speaker 5 (37:41):
I want to talk grocery stores.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, yeah, So we've got a The nonprofit Consumers Checkbook
went through a bunch of New England supermarkets and evaluated
them based on quality and pricing, and I don't think
that the results are particularly surprising. On the pricing side
of things, all the Market, Basket and Price Right came
(38:05):
in as best of the bunch for New England, while
Roach Brothers, Donolan's and Whole Foods came in at the
highest cost. What was interesting to me, there's a been
a thirty percent difference between those from a pricing perspective,
in you know, when you're looking at it from most
expensive to least and if you're comparing the other way,
like how much does it cost to go from you know,
(38:26):
a a market basket to a whole foods it's almost
a fifty percent jump, So like big pricing range quality
bigger ranges. Yeah, well, how does one measure you know, quality?
I guess is an interesting question, but in any case,
Roach Brothers and Trader Joe's coming in Best of the
(38:47):
Blue there and Wegmans quick Break here, hour two and
just a bit
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