December 18, 2025 • 39 mins
Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong love to chat about feuding billionaires. Warner is making demands from Larry Ellison in Paramount's bid for a takeover. Luke Kawa (Markets Editor - Sherwood News) joins the show to discuss Micron's guidance and AI's growing appetite for memory chips, OpenAI valuation report, CoreWeave's bonds, and if the rest of the market can pick up the slack during an AI downturn. What to do if you fear you're about to laid off this holiday season. Should more be done to tackle ghost jobs? A billion-dollar question hangs over the new AI search marketing industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:42):
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a donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck
(01:05):
Zadath and Mike Armstraw.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Chuck, Mike Tucker with you here, and we've got quite
a nice ripper going on in markets today. Dal Jones
Industrial Average up four hundred and fifty points a little
bit less than one percent, the S and P five
hundred and ninety two points a little more than one
to a third percent, and the Nasdaq up. Let's see, it
looks like nasdak can poses a four hundred and thirty
(01:30):
one points one point nine percent, So you've got a
nice rally taking place today. Primary driver, in my opinion,
was Micron earnings yesterday, which is driving tech higher. But
it's supported by a better than expected uh CPI report
that came out this morning that while we don't have
month over month numbers because October did not have a release,
(01:52):
year over year came in at two point seven percent
on the headline and two point six percent on the
core number, and so that takes a little bit of
concern away from the inflation side of things, which had
previously been running close to three percent annually, and so
you've got that kind of moving things forward here pretty significantly.
(02:15):
Inequity markets bonds not seeing as strong of a response,
which is why I think this is more Micron than CPI.
Tenure Treasury is down three point one basis points to
four point one two percent, so a little bit of
movement there, but nothing huge. Dollar index a touch stronger
a point zero six percent to ninety eight oh six.
We've got gold off five eighty announced to forty three
(02:37):
sixty eight and ten cents, and crude oil up fifty
six cents a barrel to fifty six dollars and fifty cents.
The triple A national average for gas prices falling again,
down another nine tenths of a cent overnight to two
eighty nine and six tenths of a cent. A year
ago we were at three dollars and three point four cents,
(02:58):
so down about four to five five percent year over
year on gas prices. So that is what is moving
in markets today. Uh again, I am absolutely going to
love covering this Warner Brothers discovery story for as long
as it lasts. I hope it goes for the entire
(03:18):
like rest of my career because I could do this
all day.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
That's why I got so excited because it intersected with
Blue Oul Capital and AI Development. Man, what what a week.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I'm just here for the drama amongst billionaires, you know,
just like I can't relate to I just there's something
that I just enjoy. I guess about billionaires getting cranky
with each other instead of trying to just rip everyone
else off. It's it's kind of like if they're fighting
with each other, they can't.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Fight with us.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
They can't, but they can't. I know they have minions
and stuff like that. Who owns minions?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Is that a Disney property? Illumination?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Which what does that mean to a production company?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I'm guessing Paramount.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I don't know who it is. Yeah, good question.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well Universal, Universal and who owns them?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
And boy, here we go.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So in any case, Warner Brothers Discovery sending a message
to Larry Ellison, Hey, if you want to buy our company,
we aren't really sure about you trying to use your
personal you know, your family trust to back the deal
because the assumption, and I don't know, no one does,
(04:37):
is that there's a lot of oracle stock in the
family trust. And depending on the value of Oracle stock,
that guarantee might not be worth the paper it's printed on.
So Warner Brothers Discovery saying, listen, if you want us
to even consider your deal, you have to give a
personal guarantee of this bid, not just that your trust
(05:02):
may cover it, because the trust doesn't give us the
same level of comfort.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Now, the Ellison family hit back, saying that there's nearly
a quarter trillion dollars in the trust itself, don't I
don't know how to prove that out.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I don't know how much it might. We don't have
any information about this. But all I can say is,
if there is a quarter trillion dollars in the trust,
if you're trying to buy a company for eighty billion,
would it hurt you to pull eighty billion dollars out
and put it into your own name and say, okay,
I'll guarantee you.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I have no idea. This is such an opaque conversation
between billionaires that I could not even begin to relate
to it. So I don't know if if Warner Brothers
I genuinely has concerns about this. I don't know if
it's reasonable for them to assume that Ellison should sign
on the dotted line. I don't know if it's just
that they prefer the Netflix bid and they are looking
(05:55):
for additional ammunition to throw at the shareholders on this.
It's it's just a bunch of ugly questions, but it
is entertaining to sit back and and see Larry Ellison
squirm a little bit under the pressure of do I
sign on the dotted line for this thing?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, did you see yesterday what was going on at
Warner Brothers.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
No, give me more.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I'm just all here for the juice on this. I
don't know why this one has me so excited, but
it does for some reason. So yesterday was when Warner
Brothers Discovery sent this letter and said, hey, this isn't
gonna work right. So the piece that's interesting to me
is that yesterday was also when Netflix's co CEOs Greg
(06:40):
Peters and Ted Sarandas showed up with the Warner Brothers
a lot, and we're being walked around by David Zoslov,
who is the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery. I mean, like,
it's it's about as like billionaire trolley as you can get.
It's like, Okay, Zoslov is sending the letter to Larry
Ellison saying no, sorry, not interested. You need to personally
(07:03):
guarantee it, and then goes out with like a camera
crew that's taking pictures of it, you know, like there's
a reason why the Hollywood reporter had pictures of the
three of them walking around smiling.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
They're all walking. No, like this is all carefully orchestrated.
Send the letter out ted, Greg, Why don't you guys
come over, We'll get some pictures taken and send them
over to the Hollywood reporter. Maybe we'll spit in his
face while we're at it.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So the question that is out there in my opinion,
and you kind of raised it, is Warner Brothers Discovery
just outright, no, we don't want Paramount sky Dance to
buy us.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Or is this posturing? It seems like posturing, Chuck. If
you call the media and say, take pictures of us
walking around the lot with the potential buyers, it seems
a lot like posturing.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
To me, it is posturing.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
But like.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You're you're misunderstanding. This is clearly an orchestrated like thing.
But it is what they're trying to say, stop buying us.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Or give us more money.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I think it's give us more money. It's interesting and
I think it's give us more money. And I think
inviting the Netflix CEOs there was the reality threat to
shot across their bow as well, because you think so, yeah,
I do.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Ultimately, what is this about? They don't care? The CEO
of Warner Brothers does not have some extra skin in
the game other than what is the dollar value of
this deal and how rapidly can I close it? Those
are the things that matter.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I guess The question is, then, why are they not
still negotiating with Paramount?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I think this is them negotiating with Paramount. You think, yeah, interesting, Again,
you and I don't act like billionaires. I think this
is It's.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
It's true like that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Maybe there's a reason why we're not billionaires, but money.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Among other reasons, that was the main reason.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, there's others too, but it's mostly the money thing.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Like, like again, you and I, Okay, we sign a
deal with someone, we invite them into our house, Like great,
the deal's done. Billionaires, you sign a deal with someone
who invite them into your house and then you just
like completely rip it up and sign a new one.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
In theory and I with the media taking pictures, I
do think this is a possibility.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And and look, I'm sure that Sarandis and Peters understand
the world they're playing in as well, Like they didn't
get to the point where they are by being dumb
about this stuff. But I'm also just not sure that
again like that I come back to you like they're
no dummies either, agreed, you know so? And and I
also raised this question yesterday, Mike Warner Brothers Discovery. The
(10:05):
big thing about them is there has very much been
a winner's curse from Warner Brothers Discovery in the last
couple of decades, right, Like it's things have not gone
well for companies that have bought any variation of this. Yep,
you know, whether you're talking you know, aol Time Warner,
(10:27):
whether you're talking to atat like, things have generally not
gone well for the company's buying them. Does does the
loser in a bidding war for them actually you know,
stand a better chance of coming out ahead? Is an
interesting question I raised yesterday. Just take a quick break.
When we come back, We're joined by Luke Kawa from
(10:48):
Sherwood News. We're talking markets with Luke.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
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Speaker 2 (11:30):
All right, as promised, we are now joined by Luke
Kawa from Sherwood News here to talk a little bit
about what's going on in markets.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Louke, how you doing today?
Speaker 6 (11:41):
Doing great man? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Absolutely, let's kick things off. Obviously, Ai've been a big
focus all year, continues to be, and seems AI related
stocks getting a nice little boost from just a quite
the amazing quarter and specifically the guidance from Micron last night.
Can you talk a little bit about what we're seeing there.
Speaker 6 (12:02):
Yeah, certainly so. I think the like the the big
wigs of the the complex and particularly you know within
the memory tip say so that's you, Micron, Seagate, sand
Disk and Western Digital. The it's really I think a
matter of the guidance for Micron and also some of
the commentary from the conference call, so you had if
you even look at the low end of Micron's guidance
(12:23):
for Q two, both for revenues and for adjusted earnings
for share, both of those are materially above the highest
estimate from anyone surveyed on Wall Street. So this is
kind of like one of those just very classic, very
blowout reports. So the stocks that are most levered to
the memory theme are getting a big bid. And beyond that,
I'd say, like, that wasn't the only piece of a
(12:46):
big news we've had in the past twenty four hours,
So since Wednesday's close, I'd say some other information that
is definitely on the margin helping a lot of the smaller,
more ancillary players in the AI trade, which have come
under a tremendous amount of pressure. I'd say, send you
know about mid October. Are two other things, So Mike
Gron basically tells you, hey, AI demand way hotter than
(13:06):
supply in the near term, kind of a reaffirmation of
something that you know, hopefully we already knew. Secondarily, i
would say the open AI valuation report of you know,
raising money again at you know, potentially a seven hundred
and fifty billion valuation if sam Altman is getting more money.
Sam Altman has more money to spend on all of
(13:26):
his many suppliers. One of the biggest worries in the
market has been you know exactly that if that will
kind of come to pass. So if you're a bloom Energy,
if you're any of the neo clouds, this has been
great news for you. And then finally, the idea of
credit risk being a part of AI has been you know,
Oracle CDs has been probably the poster child for that story. However,
(13:47):
if you've looked at like Corweave's bonds, the twenty thirty
ones that were issued kind of recently, those have traded
absolutely terrible out of the gate. So it's certainly something
that has been more embedded, broadly speaking, down the stack,
or rather more up stream in the AI trade. And
if you have soft inflation, which is much softer than expected,
this is something that I think is going to you know,
(14:08):
help more speculative companies when you know your embedded risk
of defaults is a part of your stock more so
than it is a bigger stock, and your cost of
borrowing has been a bigger market concern. Well, this this
does open up the scope on the margin for the
Federal Reserve to potentially have a lower bar for cuts
than we might have thought, you know, eight days ago.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Look, I'm struck by a similarity to kind of what
we saw at the end of last year with AI companies.
Where you know, starting was it was earlier last year,
was in kind of mid to late July, they started
to lag the market where they had been leadership, you know,
prior to that. This year they kind of were leaders
up until this September October run and now they've kind
of been lagging again. And this market is you know again,
(14:49):
it's it's inched higher and you know, incrementally made new
all time highs, but not with AI in the leadership,
and we've had more volatility as a result. I guess
my question is, let's say that the AI trade does
you know, continue to chop around. Is there enough juice
in the rest of the market to pick up the
slack and run with it at this point?
Speaker 6 (15:11):
Yeah, this is this is something I've been looking at lately,
having published probably will in the near term. But so
basically I think what you're getting at is the idea
can like CAN S and P five hundred equal weight
like can the median stock outperform in the environment in
which the stock market is rising. If you go back,
you know, through I think the the advent of the
S and P five hundred equal weight. Look at year
(15:33):
over year change and both that and the S and
P five hundred about about forty percent of the time
the S and P equal weight is a leader. However,
most of that time where the S and P five
hundred equal weight is leading the market cap in an
up market, most of that is happening as you're coming
out of a recession, so that that does not describe
the case for US now currently. Based on the fact
(15:56):
that most of the AI companies do trade at what
I would call, you know, an above market multiple, they've
also been in an above market average source of earnings growth,
I would find it very difficult to see, you know,
an environment in which there is very meaningful equal weight
outperformance of the market cap index and the context of
(16:17):
the market rising for here from here, and you know,
i'd note that we only really got one day, We
only really got last Thursday as an example of a
record high before AI without AI, before we got a pullback.
So I think that does kind of show the limits
on the ability of the rest of the market to lead. However,
you know what we have been seeing in the broad
(16:39):
bounce back since the November twenty, twenty twenty first intermediate low,
it has been about pricing in a revival of global growth.
You've had XRT SO Retail equal Weight basically hitting you know,
fifty two week highs. You've had KRI the Regional Bank
ETF hitting new fifty two week highs. So it is
the idea that global growth is going to accelerate next
(16:59):
year is something that I think has become fairly well
embedded into stock prices. And you know that's something that
creates some two way risk there.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Fantastic, Luke, appreciate you joining us. Hope you have a
great end of the year. Always great to chat and uh,
we'll catch up the twenty six.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
Hey, pleasure, happy holidays. We'll catch up next year.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
All right.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
That is Luke Kawa from Sherwood News talking about what
is moving in the market.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
All right, we're going to continue our Christmas movie Trivia
here on the Financial Exchange in nineteen eighty three. Is
a Christmas story. Well, it's a holiday classic. The movie
is about Ralphie and his desire to get a Red
Rider BB gun for Christmas. So trivia question today is
not related to the gift, but to his brother. What
was the name of real Ralphie's younger brother? Once again,
(17:46):
what was the name of Ralphie's younger brother? Be the
sixth person today It texts us at six one seven
three six two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer
along with the keyword trivia, and you wint a Financial
Exchange Show T shirt. Once again, the six correct response
to textas to the number six one seven three six
(18:08):
two thirteen eighty five along with the keyword trivia, We'll
win that T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial
exchine Show dot com.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Teching.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Look at markets as we head towards the bottom of
the hour. Still a big update going on with US
equities here. We've got the Dow up four hundred and
thirteen points now, smp is up eighty seven nasdak can
posit up four hundred and seventeen points, So yeah, things
are cranking along on that front.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Still got quite a bit that we are going to
attempt to get to, including Mike. I couldn't help but
just read this headline and just be like, oh no,
they're doing it again. But the headline from the Wall
Street Journal what to do if you suspect you're about
to be laid off this holiday season.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Again?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
And have more of these conversations, Chuck, I have too.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I just think that like, the phrasing in the headline
for some reason doesn't strike me as the best. But
the actual piece I thought was much better than the headline.
So we are going to take a quick break here,
but when we come back, we're going to discuss that
we've got the trivia answer, We've got Wall Street Watch,
and then a whole lot more as we continue through
(19:24):
the show.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio. Every day,
it's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
We're proud to announce that circle K is now the
official convenience store of the dav Department of Massachusetts.
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At circle K, Supporting those who.
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Bravely served our country isn't just a commitment, it's a
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care and recognition they deserve. If you'd like to do
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Speaker 1 (20:17):
For all you've done. Time now for Wall Street watch
a complete look at what's moving markets so far today
right here on the Financial Exchange Radio network.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Markets are rebounding and rallying on the heels of strong
earnings from Micron Technology. In addition to a better than
expect to Consumer Price Index for November. The November CPI
released earlier this morning rose at a two point seven
percent annualized rate, cooler than forecasts of three point one percent.
Right now, the Dow is up nearly nine tenths of
(20:50):
one percent, or four hundred and thirteen points higher, SMP
five hundred up one point three percent or eighty eight points,
Nasdaq is surge one point nine percent, or four hundred
and twenty eight points higher, Rusted two thousands up one
point two percent, a ten year treasure reeled is down
three basis points at four point one point one six percent,
(21:12):
and crude oil up about one percent higher, training a
fifty six dollars in forty six cents a barrel. Micron
impressed with its quarterly results where the chip maker issued
an impressive revenue forecast and raised its outlook for demand
for key products. Micron shares are rallying nearly eleven percent. Meanwhile,
Trump Media and Technology agreed to merge with fusion power
(21:33):
company TAE Technologies in an all stock deal worth over
six billion dollars. That stock Trump Media shares are actually
up by thirty two percent. Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal
reported that activist investor Elliott Investment Management has built a
stake of over one billion dollars in Lululemon. Lulu shares
a climbing nearly six percent. Shares of grocery delivery service
(21:57):
Instacar down nearly two percent, following for it that the
FTC has begun an investigation into the company's pricing practices.
Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants posted stronger than expected
quarterly results and raised its annual sales guidance. Dardenstock has
given back earlier gains. It is now only edging higher,
(22:18):
and after today's closing bell, we'll see earnings from Nike
and FedEx On Tucker Silvan. That is Wall Street Watch
and in the previous segment, we asked the trivia question
what was the name of Ralphie's younger brother in a
Christmas story?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
That would be Randy.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
Lisa from Harvard, mass is our winner today, taking home
a Financial Exchange Show T shirt. Congrats to Lisa. We
play trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange. See
complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Piece of Wall Street Journal what to do if you
suspect you're about to be laid off this holiday season,
And it has been something that people have been talking
about more and I think this piece actually does a
pretty good job of outlining some of the things to
consider if you're nervous about losing a job in the
next few weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, I mean I do agree, and many of them
aren't really personal financi related. Yes, there are plenty of
financial steps you should take too, but I think that
a big one for me is if you focus all
of your time on will this or won't this happen,
then you're going to be miserable and also not make
(23:28):
yourself a terribly good employee in the first place, right,
And so keeping the emotions in check, Yeah, trusting your
gut on things, and you know, listening and understanding what
might happen. But when it comes to layoffs, if you
are worried about this happening around the holidays or in January,
there is not much that you can do to control it.
(23:51):
And so while I can respect the trust your gut
instinct on all of this, there are just some things
that are out of your control, and this might be
one of them.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I think ultimate the idea of look, you need to
have a plan for what to do in the event
that you get laid off, and you need to have
a plan for hey, if if there either aren't layoffs
or if you're not part of them, you know, what
do you do to You know, anytime you.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Go through a layoff situation, it's.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You know, kind of unnerving because you're sitting there and
you're going, Okay, so they laid off you know, ten
percent of the company or five percent. Now what if
they do another five or ten later? Right, And so
you know, part of your planning even if you stay
there could be Okay, do I need to get my resume,
you know, in order and should I be looking for
another job now?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Anyways? Right?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, like those are you know, things that you
want to have answered, you know, in advance. So that
you're not having to react down the road. Yeah, I'm
speaking to somebody about this.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Just yesterday. They had survived two rounds of layoffs. They
were still concerned about what's next. And then the other
side of this too was you know, we're getting no raises,
no bonuses this year, and I've just been asked to
basically double my workload because there's fewer people working here.
And it's like, wow, that is a rough slap in
the face and obviously not really a time where you
(25:07):
can successfully negotiate for an increase, But that is something
to look at in the future, is Hey, you know,
if you do end up surviving these things, you are
likely to be more critically important to the organization after
the layoffs than you were before. And so it for
those survivors can make things a slight positive for their future.
(25:28):
When you are, you know, the last of the institutional
knowledge at your organization.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
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Speaker 2 (26:43):
Mike, do we want to talk about ghost job vacancies
or LinkedIn's Year in Review?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I want to talk about ghost job vacancies because this
is another one. I was speaking with a recently laid
off individual where here's what seems to be happening, as
companies are either posting jobs that they don't actually have
any intention of hiring for or leaving previously filled jobs
open because they kind of like the idea of people
just constantly submitting resumes. And the experience the person I
(27:12):
was talking to had was, you know, you talk to
some recruiters, they submit resumes, and you get the impression
that the company is just leaving open a job in
case they find the absolutely perfect, overqualified and undervalued candidate
with no real intention of hiring. And so, first things first,
I find that despicable annoying, and we should shame those
(27:35):
companies that are doing so.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
But on the other hand, do you know who's doing it?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Like, I don't know how you do, and I don't
know how you really fix the problem? Is my bigger
issue here. Sometimes it's pretty clear that hey, it's a
fake job post and you can see who the employer is.
Other times it's impossible. But there is somebody that's working
their way through Congress to try and create this Truth
and Job Advertising Accountability Act, calling for the expiration dates
(28:01):
for listings, auditible hiring records and penalties for employers who
post misleading or non existent roles. And where I concluded
when thinking about this, is anything you do to try
and fix this problem other than just publicly shaming the
companies makes it so companies want to hire less than
they currently do, and that is not a problem you
(28:23):
want to create for hirers. Like I was thinking through it, like, oh,
do you make them pay a tax to post a
job or pay attacks if a job posting is out
for too long? And all of these I mean the
conclusion that yeah, sounds great, so long as you don't
mind companies hiring fewer people and advertising fewer jobs, because
that is what is likely to happen.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
I'm just trying to think through this in terms of
why it's a problem.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
It's a problem because it's a frustration for a somebody
looking for work. That's That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I'm like, again, I'm just thinking through this. When we
think of problems that require government intervention, is there an economic.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Cost here.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Somewhat? I'm gonna go know, it's time wasted. I mean,
you can make an argument that it's false advertising.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Most of our lives are time wasted.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Yeah, I have a tough time making that connection.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
I agree, So I have a pretty high bar to
be like the government needs to intervene in this fashion.
What I do think, Like, let's say that I ran LinkedIn,
which gotta tell you don't think that's in my wheelhouse.
But if I ran LinkedIn, if you've had a job
(29:45):
posted for one hundred and eighty days and it's still there,
I'm going to send you an automated email saying if
you do not click yes to this email, we are
going to take your job down within thirty days, or
you can put because it like just from a user
experience perspective, I don't want users getting frustrated looking through
(30:06):
my platform. Yeah, like I like that's how I would
look at it. Is from a customer experience perspective. I
don't want my users to feel like they can't use
my platform to find a job, right, So that's like
how I would operate it if I were linked in.
Maybe they do that, but it doesn't sound like they
do based on any of this stuff that we're reading here.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Or a very easy solution, you can put the date
the job was posted and the last activity by the
employer right on the post and there are plenty of
platforms that.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Also totally fine.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, job posted last activity by employer six months ago. Cool,
not gonna apply to that.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Job, right, and then like let me filter by you know,
last employer activity in the last week.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, totally. So I think there's things that you could do.
There not a problem that the government needs to be
involved in.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
No, the government needs to be involved in, like hey,
like you know, the the problems that we can't solve individuals.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Don't let thirteen year olds crawl into coal mines, like yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
National defense.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You don't want Mike and I standing at the water
trying to defend the country. It would go badly. We'd
probably end up hurting ourselves. Let's take a quick break
when we return.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
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Speaker 4 (32:12):
Mike, what you got for me?
Speaker 3 (32:13):
For stack roulette, I've got SEO, which, if you're not familiar,
stands for search engine optimization. It is what pretty much
every marketing firm for the last decade and half two
decades where are we twin Yeah, two decades or so,
has been primarily focused on is how do we get
people on the web to click through to your website,
(32:34):
complete a purchase, learn more about your company, and ultimately
become a customer. And over the course of the last
two years, it has been absolutely flipped on its head
because of AI. I asked an artificial intelligence tool that
I figured would probably have a good conflict of interest,
which is Google's Gemini, because they rely on click throughs
(32:58):
as a major source of their revenue, and so I
asked that them what are they seeing in terms of
click through rates? They mentioned that the impact on websites
show that studies are indicating organic traffic drops, with some
websites experiencing forty to seventy percent losses, meaning forty to
(33:21):
seventy percent fewer clickthroughs, especially for informational queries that people
would traditionally go and click through the website on and
it is I don't even I'm sure that some marketing
firms are claiming that they know how to combat against this,
but I honestly don't think any of them really do.
(33:41):
And it's going to be a really big shake up
in that industry that's already being affected by AI in
other ways. Right if you were a content creator, if
you traditionally major living on developing images for companies or
creating video, like, all of those things are being flipped
on their head very rapidly, and this is another big
(34:03):
hit to that entire marketing industry.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Wouldn't it be just wild if AI kills the internet?
Gosh do I hope?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
So?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Uh? Care for what you wish for?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, care for what you wish for?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
There are people that are, you know, listening to us
and watching us right now on this ye you know, like,
so I think, you know, be careful what you wish for?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But uh, I do just find it. You know.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Again, it's it's a hugely I say the word disruptive technology,
not in a good or bad way, just that it's
you know, changing, you know a lot of how we've
thought the Internet has worked for the last twenty five
thirty years, and we're.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Still early days on this thing. You know.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
It's it's still is very much early days, and I
guess I just continue to come back to, at least
on like the the individual facing side of it. It
really seems to me that it's gonna be hard for
them to monetize it without just going the AD route.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
You mean the AI generate AI tool yesselves. Yeah, you know,
it does seem that way to me.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Unless they can just make enough money off of enterprise
for that to not matter.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
But it seems unlikely because right now this is a
heavily consumer driven tool.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
It is.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
But like I think about what consumers use it for
mostly and then like ask yourself, how can you make
money on that?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
How many people are gonna pay twenty five dollars a
month so they can make longer videos?
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Not many.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
We don't even want to pay twenty five dollars a
month to watch longer videos, let alone make them.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
So I kind of struggle with the consumer facing side
of it and what the business proposition is. The business side,
I understand it. I might not like it because it
probably has negative employment, you know, impacts if it's successful,
But I get it, understand it.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Chuck to me, it is really just a question of
how do these AI tools make all of us the product?
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Right?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Like that? That's what every one of these technology forward
consumer facing products has been about, at least Internet based
products has been about for the last twenty years. Unless
you're Apple, where you're able to charge fifteen hundred dollars
per iPhone, the idea has been make the consumer your product,
like Facebook did, like Google did, And so how are
they going to do that with AI?
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And I guess it will depend on what people ask you.
I like, I think about what I use AI for,
and it's a completely different set of queries than I
use search engines for, you know, search engines. I'm very much. Hey,
I'm going here find me websites of the best restaurants.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
AI, It's explain to me the difference is between fiber
and protein. Just because when we were talking fiber last week.
I just wanted to know drop it. Give you another
example explanatory stuff, give you another like my ski boots
are now twenty five years old and quite literally are
(37:05):
starting to disintegrate.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
I was like, I was looking at different ski boots.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I'm like, hey, explain to me, like what different flex
numbers on ski boots actually mean?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
And it could do that.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Because there's no website that just does that, because no
one can make money on that as a website.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
You probably could, but no one did. Is my point.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
If you want to know where to buy the ski boots,
AI is not going to be great at that, right
is not today.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Not yet.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
AI's hope is that it becomes you know, that agentic
AI that goes out and scours prices for you and
gets you the best one. But it's it's not quite
there today. So again, it's this stuff's kind of interesting
to me as we you know, trying to navigate it there.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Taking a look at markets, Dow is still up three
hundred and sixty one points, SMP is still up eighty seven,
Nasdaq is still up four to forty seven, So still
a lot of green on the board at the moment.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
I mean, if this thing falls apart in the afternoon,
then you got some real problems. But there's no real
signs of that. I think it's shown some stability after
a couple early tests this morning, but now some additional
stability in markets here. The other thing that you got
to remember now that we're through that CPI report, look,
next week, you got a shortened week, you got a
shortened week the week after because of the New Year's
(38:19):
holiday then, and so ultimately you're running up against a
calendar that makes it really hard for volatility to show
up into your end. It's like that there's a mechanical
reason why the Santa Claus rally can happen, and it
generally it's kind of hard for it to not once
you get past some of these reports, let's take a
(38:41):
quick break for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, we
do still have existing home sales data, so we'll be
talking about that and a whole lot more on the
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heroes by visiting dav five K, Doug Bustin and making
a donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck
(01:05):
Zadath and Mike Armstraw.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Chuck, Mike Tucker with you here, and we've got quite
a nice ripper going on in markets today. Dal Jones
Industrial Average up four hundred and fifty points a little
bit less than one percent, the S and P five
hundred and ninety two points a little more than one
to a third percent, and the Nasdaq up. Let's see, it
looks like nasdak can poses a four hundred and thirty
(01:30):
one points one point nine percent, So you've got a
nice rally taking place today. Primary driver, in my opinion,
was Micron earnings yesterday, which is driving tech higher. But
it's supported by a better than expected uh CPI report
that came out this morning that while we don't have
month over month numbers because October did not have a release,
(01:52):
year over year came in at two point seven percent
on the headline and two point six percent on the
core number, and so that takes a little bit of
concern away from the inflation side of things, which had
previously been running close to three percent annually, and so
you've got that kind of moving things forward here pretty significantly.
(02:15):
Inequity markets bonds not seeing as strong of a response,
which is why I think this is more Micron than CPI.
Tenure Treasury is down three point one basis points to
four point one two percent, so a little bit of
movement there, but nothing huge. Dollar index a touch stronger
a point zero six percent to ninety eight oh six.
We've got gold off five eighty announced to forty three
(02:37):
sixty eight and ten cents, and crude oil up fifty
six cents a barrel to fifty six dollars and fifty cents.
The triple A national average for gas prices falling again,
down another nine tenths of a cent overnight to two
eighty nine and six tenths of a cent. A year
ago we were at three dollars and three point four cents,
(02:58):
so down about four to five five percent year over
year on gas prices. So that is what is moving
in markets today. Uh again, I am absolutely going to
love covering this Warner Brothers discovery story for as long
as it lasts. I hope it goes for the entire
(03:18):
like rest of my career because I could do this
all day.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
That's why I got so excited because it intersected with
Blue Oul Capital and AI Development. Man, what what a week.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I'm just here for the drama amongst billionaires, you know,
just like I can't relate to I just there's something
that I just enjoy. I guess about billionaires getting cranky
with each other instead of trying to just rip everyone
else off. It's it's kind of like if they're fighting
with each other, they can't.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Fight with us.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
They can't, but they can't. I know they have minions
and stuff like that. Who owns minions?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Is that a Disney property? Illumination?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Which what does that mean to a production company?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I'm guessing Paramount.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I don't know who it is. Yeah, good question.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well Universal, Universal and who owns them?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
And boy, here we go.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So in any case, Warner Brothers Discovery sending a message
to Larry Ellison, Hey, if you want to buy our company,
we aren't really sure about you trying to use your
personal you know, your family trust to back the deal
because the assumption, and I don't know, no one does,
(04:37):
is that there's a lot of oracle stock in the
family trust. And depending on the value of Oracle stock,
that guarantee might not be worth the paper it's printed on.
So Warner Brothers Discovery saying, listen, if you want us
to even consider your deal, you have to give a
personal guarantee of this bid, not just that your trust
(05:02):
may cover it, because the trust doesn't give us the
same level of comfort.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Now, the Ellison family hit back, saying that there's nearly
a quarter trillion dollars in the trust itself, don't I
don't know how to prove that out.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I don't know how much it might. We don't have
any information about this. But all I can say is,
if there is a quarter trillion dollars in the trust,
if you're trying to buy a company for eighty billion,
would it hurt you to pull eighty billion dollars out
and put it into your own name and say, okay,
I'll guarantee you.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I have no idea. This is such an opaque conversation
between billionaires that I could not even begin to relate
to it. So I don't know if if Warner Brothers
I genuinely has concerns about this. I don't know if
it's reasonable for them to assume that Ellison should sign
on the dotted line. I don't know if it's just
that they prefer the Netflix bid and they are looking
(05:55):
for additional ammunition to throw at the shareholders on this.
It's it's just a bunch of ugly questions, but it
is entertaining to sit back and and see Larry Ellison
squirm a little bit under the pressure of do I
sign on the dotted line for this thing?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, did you see yesterday what was going on at
Warner Brothers.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
No, give me more.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I'm just all here for the juice on this. I
don't know why this one has me so excited, but
it does for some reason. So yesterday was when Warner
Brothers Discovery sent this letter and said, hey, this isn't
gonna work right. So the piece that's interesting to me
is that yesterday was also when Netflix's co CEOs Greg
(06:40):
Peters and Ted Sarandas showed up with the Warner Brothers
a lot, and we're being walked around by David Zoslov,
who is the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery. I mean, like,
it's it's about as like billionaire trolley as you can get.
It's like, Okay, Zoslov is sending the letter to Larry
Ellison saying no, sorry, not interested. You need to personally
(07:03):
guarantee it, and then goes out with like a camera
crew that's taking pictures of it, you know, like there's
a reason why the Hollywood reporter had pictures of the
three of them walking around smiling.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
They're all walking. No, like this is all carefully orchestrated.
Send the letter out ted, Greg, Why don't you guys
come over, We'll get some pictures taken and send them
over to the Hollywood reporter. Maybe we'll spit in his
face while we're at it.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So the question that is out there in my opinion,
and you kind of raised it, is Warner Brothers Discovery
just outright, no, we don't want Paramount sky Dance to
buy us.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Or is this posturing? It seems like posturing, Chuck. If
you call the media and say, take pictures of us
walking around the lot with the potential buyers, it seems
a lot like posturing.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
To me, it is posturing.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
But like.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You're you're misunderstanding. This is clearly an orchestrated like thing.
But it is what they're trying to say, stop buying us.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Or give us more money.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I think it's give us more money. It's interesting and
I think it's give us more money. And I think
inviting the Netflix CEOs there was the reality threat to
shot across their bow as well, because you think so, yeah,
I do.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Ultimately, what is this about? They don't care? The CEO
of Warner Brothers does not have some extra skin in
the game other than what is the dollar value of
this deal and how rapidly can I close it? Those
are the things that matter.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I guess The question is, then, why are they not
still negotiating with Paramount?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I think this is them negotiating with Paramount. You think, yeah, interesting, Again,
you and I don't act like billionaires. I think this
is It's.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
It's true like that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Maybe there's a reason why we're not billionaires, but money.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Among other reasons, that was the main reason.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, there's others too, but it's mostly the money thing.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Like, like again, you and I, Okay, we sign a
deal with someone, we invite them into our house, Like great,
the deal's done. Billionaires, you sign a deal with someone
who invite them into your house and then you just
like completely rip it up and sign a new one.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
In theory and I with the media taking pictures, I
do think this is a possibility.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And and look, I'm sure that Sarandis and Peters understand
the world they're playing in as well, Like they didn't
get to the point where they are by being dumb
about this stuff. But I'm also just not sure that
again like that I come back to you like they're
no dummies either, agreed, you know so? And and I
also raised this question yesterday, Mike Warner Brothers Discovery. The
(10:05):
big thing about them is there has very much been
a winner's curse from Warner Brothers Discovery in the last
couple of decades, right, Like it's things have not gone
well for companies that have bought any variation of this. Yep,
you know, whether you're talking you know, aol Time Warner,
(10:27):
whether you're talking to atat like, things have generally not
gone well for the company's buying them. Does does the
loser in a bidding war for them actually you know,
stand a better chance of coming out ahead? Is an
interesting question I raised yesterday. Just take a quick break.
When we come back, We're joined by Luke Kawa from
(10:48):
Sherwood News. We're talking markets with Luke.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
When we returned, text us six one seven, three, six,
two thirteen eighty five with your comments and questions about
today's show, and let us know what you think about
the stories we're covering. This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
The Financial Exchange is now available every day from eleven
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(11:11):
Stay informed about the latest from Wall Street, fiscal policy,
and breaking business news. Every day. The Financial Exchange is
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This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
All right, as promised, we are now joined by Luke
Kawa from Sherwood News here to talk a little bit
about what's going on in markets.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Louke, how you doing today?
Speaker 6 (11:41):
Doing great man? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Absolutely, let's kick things off. Obviously, Ai've been a big
focus all year, continues to be, and seems AI related
stocks getting a nice little boost from just a quite
the amazing quarter and specifically the guidance from Micron last night.
Can you talk a little bit about what we're seeing there.
Speaker 6 (12:02):
Yeah, certainly so. I think the like the the big
wigs of the the complex and particularly you know within
the memory tip say so that's you, Micron, Seagate, sand
Disk and Western Digital. The it's really I think a
matter of the guidance for Micron and also some of
the commentary from the conference call, so you had if
you even look at the low end of Micron's guidance
(12:23):
for Q two, both for revenues and for adjusted earnings
for share, both of those are materially above the highest
estimate from anyone surveyed on Wall Street. So this is
kind of like one of those just very classic, very
blowout reports. So the stocks that are most levered to
the memory theme are getting a big bid. And beyond that,
I'd say, like, that wasn't the only piece of a
(12:46):
big news we've had in the past twenty four hours,
So since Wednesday's close, I'd say some other information that
is definitely on the margin helping a lot of the smaller,
more ancillary players in the AI trade, which have come
under a tremendous amount of pressure. I'd say, send you
know about mid October. Are two other things, So Mike
Gron basically tells you, hey, AI demand way hotter than
(13:06):
supply in the near term, kind of a reaffirmation of
something that you know, hopefully we already knew. Secondarily, i
would say the open AI valuation report of you know,
raising money again at you know, potentially a seven hundred
and fifty billion valuation if sam Altman is getting more money.
Sam Altman has more money to spend on all of
(13:26):
his many suppliers. One of the biggest worries in the
market has been you know exactly that if that will
kind of come to pass. So if you're a bloom Energy,
if you're any of the neo clouds, this has been
great news for you. And then finally, the idea of
credit risk being a part of AI has been you know,
Oracle CDs has been probably the poster child for that story. However,
(13:47):
if you've looked at like Corweave's bonds, the twenty thirty
ones that were issued kind of recently, those have traded
absolutely terrible out of the gate. So it's certainly something
that has been more embedded, broadly speaking, down the stack,
or rather more up stream in the AI trade. And
if you have soft inflation, which is much softer than expected,
this is something that I think is going to you know,
(14:08):
help more speculative companies when you know your embedded risk
of defaults is a part of your stock more so
than it is a bigger stock, and your cost of
borrowing has been a bigger market concern. Well, this this
does open up the scope on the margin for the
Federal Reserve to potentially have a lower bar for cuts
than we might have thought, you know, eight days ago.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Look, I'm struck by a similarity to kind of what
we saw at the end of last year with AI companies.
Where you know, starting was it was earlier last year,
was in kind of mid to late July, they started
to lag the market where they had been leadership, you know,
prior to that. This year they kind of were leaders
up until this September October run and now they've kind
of been lagging again. And this market is you know again,
(14:49):
it's it's inched higher and you know, incrementally made new
all time highs, but not with AI in the leadership,
and we've had more volatility as a result. I guess
my question is, let's say that the AI trade does
you know, continue to chop around. Is there enough juice
in the rest of the market to pick up the
slack and run with it at this point?
Speaker 6 (15:11):
Yeah, this is this is something I've been looking at lately,
having published probably will in the near term. But so
basically I think what you're getting at is the idea
can like CAN S and P five hundred equal weight
like can the median stock outperform in the environment in
which the stock market is rising. If you go back,
you know, through I think the the advent of the
S and P five hundred equal weight. Look at year
(15:33):
over year change and both that and the S and
P five hundred about about forty percent of the time
the S and P equal weight is a leader. However,
most of that time where the S and P five
hundred equal weight is leading the market cap in an
up market, most of that is happening as you're coming
out of a recession, so that that does not describe
the case for US now currently. Based on the fact
(15:56):
that most of the AI companies do trade at what
I would call, you know, an above market multiple, they've
also been in an above market average source of earnings growth,
I would find it very difficult to see, you know,
an environment in which there is very meaningful equal weight
outperformance of the market cap index and the context of
(16:17):
the market rising for here from here, and you know,
i'd note that we only really got one day, We
only really got last Thursday as an example of a
record high before AI without AI, before we got a pullback.
So I think that does kind of show the limits
on the ability of the rest of the market to lead. However,
you know what we have been seeing in the broad
(16:39):
bounce back since the November twenty, twenty twenty first intermediate low,
it has been about pricing in a revival of global growth.
You've had XRT SO Retail equal Weight basically hitting you know,
fifty two week highs. You've had KRI the Regional Bank
ETF hitting new fifty two week highs. So it is
the idea that global growth is going to accelerate next
(16:59):
year is something that I think has become fairly well
embedded into stock prices. And you know that's something that
creates some two way risk there.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Fantastic, Luke, appreciate you joining us. Hope you have a
great end of the year. Always great to chat and uh,
we'll catch up the twenty six.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
Hey, pleasure, happy holidays. We'll catch up next year.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
All right.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
That is Luke Kawa from Sherwood News talking about what
is moving in the market.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
All right, we're going to continue our Christmas movie Trivia
here on the Financial Exchange in nineteen eighty three. Is
a Christmas story. Well, it's a holiday classic. The movie
is about Ralphie and his desire to get a Red
Rider BB gun for Christmas. So trivia question today is
not related to the gift, but to his brother. What
was the name of real Ralphie's younger brother? Once again,
(17:46):
what was the name of Ralphie's younger brother? Be the
sixth person today It texts us at six one seven
three six two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer
along with the keyword trivia, and you wint a Financial
Exchange Show T shirt. Once again, the six correct response
to textas to the number six one seven three six
(18:08):
two thirteen eighty five along with the keyword trivia, We'll
win that T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial
exchine Show dot com.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Teching.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Look at markets as we head towards the bottom of
the hour. Still a big update going on with US
equities here. We've got the Dow up four hundred and
thirteen points now, smp is up eighty seven nasdak can
posit up four hundred and seventeen points, So yeah, things
are cranking along on that front.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Still got quite a bit that we are going to
attempt to get to, including Mike. I couldn't help but
just read this headline and just be like, oh no,
they're doing it again. But the headline from the Wall
Street Journal what to do if you suspect you're about
to be laid off this holiday season.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Again?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
And have more of these conversations, Chuck, I have too.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I just think that like, the phrasing in the headline
for some reason doesn't strike me as the best. But
the actual piece I thought was much better than the headline.
So we are going to take a quick break here,
but when we come back, we're going to discuss that
we've got the trivia answer, We've got Wall Street Watch,
and then a whole lot more as we continue through
(19:24):
the show.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio. Every day,
it's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
We're proud to announce that circle K is now the
official convenience store of the dav Department of Massachusetts.
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At circle K, Supporting those who.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Bravely served our country isn't just a commitment, it's a
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and thank you veterans.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
For all you've done. Time now for Wall Street watch
a complete look at what's moving markets so far today
right here on the Financial Exchange Radio network.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Markets are rebounding and rallying on the heels of strong
earnings from Micron Technology. In addition to a better than
expect to Consumer Price Index for November. The November CPI
released earlier this morning rose at a two point seven
percent annualized rate, cooler than forecasts of three point one percent.
Right now, the Dow is up nearly nine tenths of
(20:50):
one percent, or four hundred and thirteen points higher, SMP
five hundred up one point three percent or eighty eight points,
Nasdaq is surge one point nine percent, or four hundred
and twenty eight points higher, Rusted two thousands up one
point two percent, a ten year treasure reeled is down
three basis points at four point one point one six percent,
(21:12):
and crude oil up about one percent higher, training a
fifty six dollars in forty six cents a barrel. Micron
impressed with its quarterly results where the chip maker issued
an impressive revenue forecast and raised its outlook for demand
for key products. Micron shares are rallying nearly eleven percent. Meanwhile,
Trump Media and Technology agreed to merge with fusion power
(21:33):
company TAE Technologies in an all stock deal worth over
six billion dollars. That stock Trump Media shares are actually
up by thirty two percent. Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal
reported that activist investor Elliott Investment Management has built a
stake of over one billion dollars in Lululemon. Lulu shares
a climbing nearly six percent. Shares of grocery delivery service
(21:57):
Instacar down nearly two percent, following for it that the
FTC has begun an investigation into the company's pricing practices.
Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants posted stronger than expected
quarterly results and raised its annual sales guidance. Dardenstock has
given back earlier gains. It is now only edging higher,
(22:18):
and after today's closing bell, we'll see earnings from Nike
and FedEx On Tucker Silvan. That is Wall Street Watch
and in the previous segment, we asked the trivia question
what was the name of Ralphie's younger brother in a
Christmas story?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
That would be Randy.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
Lisa from Harvard, mass is our winner today, taking home
a Financial Exchange Show T shirt. Congrats to Lisa. We
play trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange. See
complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Piece of Wall Street Journal what to do if you
suspect you're about to be laid off this holiday season,
And it has been something that people have been talking
about more and I think this piece actually does a
pretty good job of outlining some of the things to
consider if you're nervous about losing a job in the
next few weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, I mean I do agree, and many of them
aren't really personal financi related. Yes, there are plenty of
financial steps you should take too, but I think that
a big one for me is if you focus all
of your time on will this or won't this happen,
then you're going to be miserable and also not make
(23:28):
yourself a terribly good employee in the first place, right,
And so keeping the emotions in check, Yeah, trusting your
gut on things, and you know, listening and understanding what
might happen. But when it comes to layoffs, if you
are worried about this happening around the holidays or in January,
there is not much that you can do to control it.
(23:51):
And so while I can respect the trust your gut
instinct on all of this, there are just some things
that are out of your control, and this might be
one of them.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I think ultimate the idea of look, you need to
have a plan for what to do in the event
that you get laid off, and you need to have
a plan for hey, if if there either aren't layoffs
or if you're not part of them, you know, what
do you do to You know, anytime you.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Go through a layoff situation, it's.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You know, kind of unnerving because you're sitting there and
you're going, Okay, so they laid off you know, ten
percent of the company or five percent. Now what if
they do another five or ten later? Right, And so
you know, part of your planning even if you stay
there could be Okay, do I need to get my resume,
you know, in order and should I be looking for
another job now?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Anyways? Right?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, like those are you know, things that you
want to have answered, you know, in advance. So that
you're not having to react down the road. Yeah, I'm
speaking to somebody about this.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Just yesterday. They had survived two rounds of layoffs. They
were still concerned about what's next. And then the other
side of this too was you know, we're getting no raises,
no bonuses this year, and I've just been asked to
basically double my workload because there's fewer people working here.
And it's like, wow, that is a rough slap in
the face and obviously not really a time where you
(25:07):
can successfully negotiate for an increase, But that is something
to look at in the future, is Hey, you know,
if you do end up surviving these things, you are
likely to be more critically important to the organization after
the layoffs than you were before. And so it for
those survivors can make things a slight positive for their future.
(25:28):
When you are, you know, the last of the institutional
knowledge at your organization.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
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(25:56):
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Speaker 2 (26:43):
Mike, do we want to talk about ghost job vacancies
or LinkedIn's Year in Review?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I want to talk about ghost job vacancies because this
is another one. I was speaking with a recently laid
off individual where here's what seems to be happening, as
companies are either posting jobs that they don't actually have
any intention of hiring for or leaving previously filled jobs
open because they kind of like the idea of people
just constantly submitting resumes. And the experience the person I
(27:12):
was talking to had was, you know, you talk to
some recruiters, they submit resumes, and you get the impression
that the company is just leaving open a job in
case they find the absolutely perfect, overqualified and undervalued candidate
with no real intention of hiring. And so, first things first,
I find that despicable annoying, and we should shame those
(27:35):
companies that are doing so.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
But on the other hand, do you know who's doing it?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Like, I don't know how you do, and I don't
know how you really fix the problem? Is my bigger
issue here. Sometimes it's pretty clear that hey, it's a
fake job post and you can see who the employer is.
Other times it's impossible. But there is somebody that's working
their way through Congress to try and create this Truth
and Job Advertising Accountability Act, calling for the expiration dates
(28:01):
for listings, auditible hiring records and penalties for employers who
post misleading or non existent roles. And where I concluded
when thinking about this, is anything you do to try
and fix this problem other than just publicly shaming the
companies makes it so companies want to hire less than
they currently do, and that is not a problem you
(28:23):
want to create for hirers. Like I was thinking through it, like, oh,
do you make them pay a tax to post a
job or pay attacks if a job posting is out
for too long? And all of these I mean the
conclusion that yeah, sounds great, so long as you don't
mind companies hiring fewer people and advertising fewer jobs, because
that is what is likely to happen.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
I'm just trying to think through this in terms of
why it's a problem.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
It's a problem because it's a frustration for a somebody
looking for work. That's That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I'm like, again, I'm just thinking through this. When we
think of problems that require government intervention, is there an economic.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Cost here.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Somewhat? I'm gonna go know, it's time wasted. I mean,
you can make an argument that it's false advertising.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Most of our lives are time wasted.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Yeah, I have a tough time making that connection.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
I agree, So I have a pretty high bar to
be like the government needs to intervene in this fashion.
What I do think, Like, let's say that I ran LinkedIn,
which gotta tell you don't think that's in my wheelhouse.
But if I ran LinkedIn, if you've had a job
(29:45):
posted for one hundred and eighty days and it's still there,
I'm going to send you an automated email saying if
you do not click yes to this email, we are
going to take your job down within thirty days, or
you can put because it like just from a user
experience perspective, I don't want users getting frustrated looking through
(30:06):
my platform. Yeah, like I like that's how I would
look at it. Is from a customer experience perspective. I
don't want my users to feel like they can't use
my platform to find a job, right, So that's like
how I would operate it if I were linked in.
Maybe they do that, but it doesn't sound like they
do based on any of this stuff that we're reading here.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Or a very easy solution, you can put the date
the job was posted and the last activity by the
employer right on the post and there are plenty of
platforms that.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Also totally fine.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, job posted last activity by employer six months ago. Cool,
not gonna apply to that.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Job, right, and then like let me filter by you know,
last employer activity in the last week.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, totally. So I think there's things that you could do.
There not a problem that the government needs to be
involved in.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
No, the government needs to be involved in, like hey,
like you know, the the problems that we can't solve individuals.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Don't let thirteen year olds crawl into coal mines, like yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
National defense.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You don't want Mike and I standing at the water
trying to defend the country. It would go badly. We'd
probably end up hurting ourselves. Let's take a quick break
when we return.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Stack Roulettes 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
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(31:41):
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Speaker 5 (31:57):
This segment of the Financial Exchange is powered by circle
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circle K. Thank you veterans for all you've done.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Mike, what you got for me?
Speaker 3 (32:13):
For stack roulette, I've got SEO, which, if you're not familiar,
stands for search engine optimization. It is what pretty much
every marketing firm for the last decade and half two
decades where are we twin Yeah, two decades or so,
has been primarily focused on is how do we get
people on the web to click through to your website,
(32:34):
complete a purchase, learn more about your company, and ultimately
become a customer. And over the course of the last
two years, it has been absolutely flipped on its head
because of AI. I asked an artificial intelligence tool that
I figured would probably have a good conflict of interest,
which is Google's Gemini, because they rely on click throughs
(32:58):
as a major source of their revenue, and so I
asked that them what are they seeing in terms of
click through rates? They mentioned that the impact on websites
show that studies are indicating organic traffic drops, with some
websites experiencing forty to seventy percent losses, meaning forty to
(33:21):
seventy percent fewer clickthroughs, especially for informational queries that people
would traditionally go and click through the website on and
it is I don't even I'm sure that some marketing
firms are claiming that they know how to combat against this,
but I honestly don't think any of them really do.
(33:41):
And it's going to be a really big shake up
in that industry that's already being affected by AI in
other ways. Right if you were a content creator, if
you traditionally major living on developing images for companies or
creating video, like, all of those things are being flipped
on their head very rapidly, and this is another big
(34:03):
hit to that entire marketing industry.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Wouldn't it be just wild if AI kills the internet?
Gosh do I hope?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
So?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Uh? Care for what you wish for?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, care for what you wish for?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
There are people that are, you know, listening to us
and watching us right now on this ye you know, like,
so I think, you know, be careful what you wish for?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But uh, I do just find it. You know.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Again, it's it's a hugely I say the word disruptive technology,
not in a good or bad way, just that it's
you know, changing, you know a lot of how we've
thought the Internet has worked for the last twenty five
thirty years, and we're.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Still early days on this thing. You know.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
It's it's still is very much early days, and I
guess I just continue to come back to, at least
on like the the individual facing side of it. It
really seems to me that it's gonna be hard for
them to monetize it without just going the AD route.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
You mean the AI generate AI tool yesselves. Yeah, you know,
it does seem that way to me.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Unless they can just make enough money off of enterprise
for that to not matter.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
But it seems unlikely because right now this is a
heavily consumer driven tool.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
It is.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
But like I think about what consumers use it for
mostly and then like ask yourself, how can you make
money on that?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
How many people are gonna pay twenty five dollars a
month so they can make longer videos?
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Not many.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
We don't even want to pay twenty five dollars a
month to watch longer videos, let alone make them.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
So I kind of struggle with the consumer facing side
of it and what the business proposition is. The business side,
I understand it. I might not like it because it
probably has negative employment, you know, impacts if it's successful,
But I get it, understand it.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Chuck to me, it is really just a question of
how do these AI tools make all of us the product?
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Right?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Like that? That's what every one of these technology forward
consumer facing products has been about, at least Internet based
products has been about for the last twenty years. Unless
you're Apple, where you're able to charge fifteen hundred dollars
per iPhone, the idea has been make the consumer your product,
like Facebook did, like Google did, And so how are
they going to do that with AI?
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And I guess it will depend on what people ask you.
I like, I think about what I use AI for,
and it's a completely different set of queries than I
use search engines for, you know, search engines. I'm very much. Hey,
I'm going here find me websites of the best restaurants.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
AI, It's explain to me the difference is between fiber
and protein. Just because when we were talking fiber last week.
I just wanted to know drop it. Give you another
example explanatory stuff, give you another like my ski boots
are now twenty five years old and quite literally are
(37:05):
starting to disintegrate.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
I was like, I was looking at different ski boots.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I'm like, hey, explain to me, like what different flex
numbers on ski boots actually mean?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
And it could do that.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Because there's no website that just does that, because no
one can make money on that as a website.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
You probably could, but no one did. Is my point.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
If you want to know where to buy the ski boots,
AI is not going to be great at that, right
is not today.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Not yet.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
AI's hope is that it becomes you know, that agentic
AI that goes out and scours prices for you and
gets you the best one. But it's it's not quite
there today. So again, it's this stuff's kind of interesting
to me as we you know, trying to navigate it there.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Taking a look at markets, Dow is still up three
hundred and sixty one points, SMP is still up eighty seven,
Nasdaq is still up four to forty seven, So still
a lot of green on the board at the moment.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
I mean, if this thing falls apart in the afternoon,
then you got some real problems. But there's no real
signs of that. I think it's shown some stability after
a couple early tests this morning, but now some additional
stability in markets here. The other thing that you got
to remember now that we're through that CPI report, look,
next week, you got a shortened week, you got a
shortened week the week after because of the New Year's
(38:19):
holiday then, and so ultimately you're running up against a
calendar that makes it really hard for volatility to show
up into your end. It's like that there's a mechanical
reason why the Santa Claus rally can happen, and it
generally it's kind of hard for it to not once
you get past some of these reports, let's take a
(38:41):
quick break for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, we
do still have existing home sales data, so we'll be
talking about that and a whole lot more on the
financial exchange
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