September 25, 2025 • 38 mins
Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong discuss the White House going all-in on Argentina. It may not work. Intel is seeking an investment from Apple as part of its comeback bid. Amazon agrees to settle US lawsuit that it 'tricked' people into Prime. A diminished Social Security workforce, and its customers, feel the strain. Delta replaces engine units in effor to address toxic-fume surge on planes. Higher electricity prices aren't all good for utilities.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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(00:43):
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donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck Zada
(01:06):
and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Chuck, Mike and Tucker with you here, and we've got
markets continuing to sell off modestly, nothing crazy. Earlier today
we did see, yeah, the SMP approaching a one percent
down day, but markets have rallied off their lows, and
as we sit here right now, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average is down seventy five points, about a little less
(01:30):
than two tenths of a percent, SP five hundred down
thirty one points, about half a percent, and the Nasdaq
off one hundred and twenty one points, also about half
a percent. In the bond market, tenure US Treasury is
up four basis points to four point one eight. So
that's going to put more upward pressure on mortgage rates. Remember,
Mike and I talked about this last week. Just because
(01:52):
the Fed is cutting doesn't mean that mortgage rates move
in the same direction. Right now, this is very much
rhyming with what we saw in the third and fourth
quarter of last year, where the FED started a cutting
cycle and mortgage rates promptly went up almost one percent.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We're not quite there yet.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
They're up about a quarter percent from where they were
when the FED started cutting last week, but We'll continue
to monitor this.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And see where they go.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Other things happening in market stay oil down seventy eight
cents a barrel on West Texas Intermediate to sixty four
dollars and twenty one cents, a little bit of a
pullback there after oil had risen to a seven week high.
And we've got gold down six dollars announced to thirty
seven to sixty two and fifty cents.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Mike, let's do you want to hop in the plane
and head to Argentina. Let's go, okay, beef.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So Argentina is going through a little bit of a
balance of payments crisis at the moment, or at least
it's heading in that direction. Basically, the way that Argentina
works economically is not well, it's it's just it's just
like not a country that has had its act together economically,
(03:03):
which is really a shame because honestly, like it's a
fantastic country, great people, like you know, really rich history,
like a ton of you know again, like you talk about, sorry,
I'm always partial to you know, the beef and everything,
but you know, great beef and stuff like that. And
so you look at this and you say, man, it's
just it just as a country that has not been
(03:23):
able to get out of its own way economically for
quite some time now.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Well, Mark FANDETI made the point yesterday on the program
that this country one hundred some odd years ago, or
maybe a little bit more than one hundred years ago,
when when compared to the United States, if you looked
at the two of them, it was not abundantly clear
which one would be the leader of the pack economically
between these two countries. We were kind of in a
similar position, sure, and obviously for a number of different reasons.
(03:49):
Mark pointed towards you know, stronger institutions. The United States
is wound to the you know, wound up in the
place it is in in Argentina in one a lot
less desirable from a development and you know, pretty much
every economic metric you can look at for the well
being of its people.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So about a year and a half ago you had
an election in Argentina in which Javier Malay became the
president and basically came in and said, look, I'm gonna
you know, completely restructure the economy to try to save it,
and you know, embarked down a ton of different reforms
and quite Honestly, the early results were really good for
(04:25):
the first year or so.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
When we talked about.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
These reforms, Jock, it was largely around slimming the size
of government and doing a bunch of things that markets
generally like when they look at emerging markets, trying to
shore up the country's deficits and balance sheet and put
it in a place where inflation is not as big
of a problem as it has been. I think when
he took off, as we were talking, three hundred some
(04:49):
odd percent inflation year over year.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yes, and so the issue that Argentina's run into and
again like exactly why this happens on any timeline, you know,
like you kind of have to, you know, just accept
that this is, you know, when it's happening, you know,
right now. But basically, they had an election in Buenos
Aires a couple of weeks ago in which Malay's party
basically got you know, just wrecked worse than they thought
(05:12):
they were going to. Buenos Aires is never you know,
a huge center of support for him, but the numbers
were just worse than I think people were expecting. And
so shortly afterwards, because of questions about whether Malay will
you know, again be able to continue as president, you know,
in the future when he comes up for reelection. You
started to see some pressure on the Argentinian peso, which
(05:34):
as of this spring, they basically allow it to trade
in a band of between one thousand and fourteen hundred
pesos to the US dollar.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So where this goes is in order.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
For Argentina to maintain that band, what they have to
do is they have to sell dollars or sell something
else and buy pesos. You quickly run out of money
if there's basically a run on the bank trying to
defend a peg like that. And so this is why
Argentina has now basically come to the US being like, hey,
we could really use like, you know, some swap lines
(06:08):
and currency exchange like to be able to make this.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Work, help us make our currency not fall apart. And
it is what they are asking.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Us, correct, which is something that Argentina has asked a
number of times to you know, a whole bunch of
different countries because well obvious reasons. And so the place
that we're in now is earlier this week, Treasury Secretary
Scott Bessont indicated, Hey, the US Treasury is preparing a
potential rescue package for Argentina in order to try to
(06:36):
basically keep the country's balance of payments flowing the way
that it needs to effectively. The big problem that Argentina
has they don't export enough to create demand for the
Argentinian peso, and that's kind of why they end up
in this situation, you know, on a repeated basis. And
the problem is because they then have to import a
lot in in order to you know, provide the goods
(06:58):
and things and services they need for the country. Because
of that, if you have a fall in the value
of the peso, it tends to result in a lot
of inflation in Argentina because they import so much, and inflation,
as we know, is not what people like and generally
not good for the party in power. So Malay is
obviously concerned about this. So it gets to the point
now where the US is considering some type of bailout
(07:20):
package for Argentina. We don't know exactly what format it
will take, we don't know exactly what size, but this
is something that now the US government is talking about doing,
and it seems pretty likely that it's going to end
up happening. It's just a matter of working the details out. So, Chuck,
here's my big overall question. I understand to some degree
(07:43):
why now this is happening to Argentina. I understand the
path and the improvements that Malay has made. I very
much struggle to understand why the United States is involved here.
We are not a country with deep economic ties. We
do not trade a ton with Argentina, no total trades
under twenty billion dollars.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
We are Whatever we do in this case will be
an outlay of US economic resources of US dollars in
order to do this. Argentina does not have a great
track record of making good on their promises of payments,
and so you do have to sit back and ask
precisely why. And there's two justified. There's two justifications that
(08:23):
I'm able to come up with. One is being printed
all over the media, which is this is a politician
who politically seems to align fairly well with our president.
The second that isn't being reported quite as much. But
you do have to wonder would China be willing to
make this deal instead? And is there a legitimate reason
to counter Chinese influence in South America? And I am
(08:46):
much more behind that second argument than I am the
first one in terms of justification. But in either case,
you look at this and say, this is not Mexico.
This is not a country that we have deep eep
economic ties with. We don't have a lot of US
businesses setting up shopping Argentina, and so why precisely do
we think we should be involved here? I think it's
(09:06):
a very reasonable question for people to be asking, because
it's our taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
They're going to go towards the mail out.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And I think generally again, when when you're dealing with
the Argentinian economy, it's do you have anyone in your life, Mike,
that's not the most you know, financially responsible.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, if you just person, do you wan to name them?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah? It's jewels? What that was his names? You call
them jewels?
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Okay, if you give money to Jeles, you don't expect
it back. It's going to be spent on lottery tickets.
You don't expect it back, is the point. And it's
kind of the same thing. If you give money to Argentina,
you're making a gift, not alone. You might call it alone,
you might call it a swap line, you might call
it like whatever you want. Generally the expectation is you're
(09:57):
probably not getting that money back, so go in eyes open, understand,
you know that's that's kind of table stakes there, and
then you can, you know, kind of move on, just
take a quick break. When we come back, we got
trivia and then we're talking intel.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
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Speaker 1 (10:16):
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(10:37):
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Speaker 5 (11:00):
Sign for trivia here in the Financial Exchange and it's
another day of sitcom trivia here this week. In nineteen
ninety three, Seinfeld added Jerry Stiller to the cast as
George Castanz's father. Frank Stiller only appeared in twenty six
episodes of Seinfeld, but his impact was immense. After Seinfeld ended,
(11:21):
Stiller planned on retiring, but changed his mind after he
was offered the role of Arthur Spooner on another sitcom.
So our trivia question today is simply what sitcom? Excuse me,
which sitcom did Jerry Stiller star in after Seinfeld? I'll
repeat that because I botched it. Which sitcom did Jerry
(11:43):
Stiller start in after Seinfeld? Be the sixth person today
to text us at six one seven three six two
thirteen eighty five with the correct answer in went a
Financial Exchange Show t shirt. Once again, the six correct
response to text us to the number six seven three
six two thirteen eighty five will win that T shirt.
See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Mike, it's it's getting a little hard to keep up
with who's investing in who in the tech space.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Now, let's let's cover a.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Few of those before we move on. We have the
US government investing in Intel. We have in Nvidia investing
in one of its biggest customers, open Ai, the owner
of chat GPT what else comes to mind for you
on the investment roundabouts in the tech space right now?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Honestly, like, I don't even there's been so many of them.
It's you've got well, I'm trying to think of what
Oracle's doing. Do they have anything that they announced in
the last week or two? TikTok, Like, it's there's It's
just that there's a lot of money flowing in a
lot of different directions. But Intel apparently now is going
(12:53):
to has approached Apple reportedly about Apple investing in the
chipmate and Vidio took a stake in Intel as well,
didn't they?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yes, so the US government did, Yes, how much do
you need to be able to make even reasonably decent semiconductors?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Intel lots of money.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
So here's the thing I think they might do this Jack,
I mean again, I think my read on the Nvidia
investment was privately, I get the diversification piece, but I
looked at primarily as how can we appease the government
and make sure we're on the right track. And I
think Apple's very interested in the same thing, and they're
probably also interested in, hey, how can we diversify supply
(13:35):
chain out of China and Taiwan.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I have real questions on both of those. No, I
do too. I don't know they got to be successful.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
No on whether Apple wants to do those things, like
by investing in Intel. And I guess what I'm getting
at is Apple's already done an awful lot to try
to align itself positively with the administration.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, I'm not sure they need to do more.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Right, Like, they've done a lot in terms of commitments
they've made and things along those lines. There's a reason why,
you know, every announcement that you get about you know,
semiconductors are smartphones, or tariffs and this and that, it's basically, yes,
Apple's not going to be included in this, Chuck.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
The fact that we're reading about this right now, to me,
indicates that they are going to probably have to at
least seriously consider it. There's no way that Intel approaches
Apple without approval from the US government.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Now, well, I'm not saying that the US government wouldn't
approve it. I'm saying I don't know. Here's the thing.
Apple used to have trips that were designed by Intel
in their phones and computers. Yeah, they moved away from
that because they said we can do the design in
house better and we can find someone else to produce
the stuff better.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And by the way, they were right about that. They
were So.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I look at this and if look if if the
cost of doing business is, hey, we've got to give
you know, five billion dollars to Intel. Yes, Apple technically
can do that, but why would they actually want to? Yeah,
they don't get anything from it? Then then what is
(15:18):
in video really getting?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Right?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Like, I don't I don't know, you know, my you know,
my theory there is that that's the gateway to Nvidia
eventually buying Intel.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, and Apple doesn't want to do that. No, Apple
doesn't want to own Intel.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
If they they wanted to own Intel, they would have
done it several years ago or now you know they
before the US government invested.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
They would have been like, nope, we'll buy that, thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Would you like some breaking tech news that just came
across Bloomberg? What do you got Amazon and the FTC.
I've reached a two and a half billion dollar deal
in the prime subscription case. For those of you following along,
this was the FTC accusing Amazon of making it very
difficult to cancel prime subscriptions, and that is Again, I
(16:01):
haven't read any of the details into this other than
the headline flashing, but presumably that is the agreed upon
penalty here by the judge here in the case that
they will be paying the FTC some two and a
half billion dollars, presumably some of that would be refunded
to former or current Prime subscribers.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I'm not entirely sure, though.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I wonder if they're going to have to change their
Prime on subscription price.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
They did that in twenty twenty three or four, they
already did, They already did preemptively interesting, Okay, I guess
we could put that one to bed.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I would like to.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
We gotta hop forward to some other items in the stack,
because Tucker put like some absolute bangers in here today.
It's just it's a fantastic stack, one of the best
I've seen.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I want to first go to. This is a story
that we haven't covered at all.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I don't think did you guys know that Jaguar land
Rover basically hasn't been able to.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Make cars in six weeks.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
No, this is my first time seeing it as well,
that they got hacked and are completely shut down like
some nineteen eighty computer designed.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Hospital it's apparently like they thought right.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
That's where you see these stories is the hospital had
its record attacked and they literally came to a screeching halt,
and they're all relying on paper. But it now happened
with one of the fanciest car makers in the world.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
So they normally build a thousand cars a day.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
They've pretty much been shuttered at their factories for the
last six weeks and it's gotten to the point now
where the British government is saying that they may step
in to buy auto parts from Jaguar Land Rovers suppliers
so the auto parts suppliers don't go out of business.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I mean, this is wild, Like, how have we not
heard about this or covered this at all?
Speaker 4 (17:47):
I hear you, this is a fairly big story once
again in the auto sector. We've covered a lot about
cars today and this is not even tangentially related to
the problems that we're seeing in the US debt market
around autos. But I mean, this is a huge company
in the UK and to be brought to a complete
screeching halt over frankly something as I'm not gonna call
(18:12):
it as minute because I know that these things take
companies down all the time, but a hack is just shocking.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's pretty wild, and it speaks to the lack of
resilience at a lot of companies that run into these problems.
You remember when the Colonial pipeline got hacked a few
years back. Yeah, that took them on a couple of
weeks to get the oil flowing again. Yeah, I mean again.
People always think about these hacks as, oh, it's going.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
To take down the computer records for a company and
they're gonna have to go back, or it's going to
take down Amazon's website, or do you remember the I
feel like there were a few brokerage platforms that their
websites went down during different periods of time for denial services.
And honestly, the more impactful stuff is there are companies
that have websites obviously data in the cloud, but their
(19:01):
businesses aren't at all related to you know, doing business
with customers over the internet, who's were being brought to
a screeching halt with their physical manufacturing processes.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Or do you remember the one last year with the
auto dealer platform.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yes, the sales platform couldn't sell anything. No, it was
like dealers just couldn't sell anything. For like six weeks.
It was like, oh, write this down. It's like you
want me to do what? Yeah, it's it's kind of
wild this stuff. Let's take a quick break. When we
come back, we get the trivia answer, we got Wall
Street Watch, and we're talking social Security.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Time now for Wall Street Watch. A complete look at
what's moving market so far today right here on the
Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Well, seeing a little bit of a sell off here
as Wallstree reacts to a new batch of economic data
points published earlier this morning, including better than expected jobs
claims and upperly revised second quarter GDP reading and existing
home sales. Right now, the Dow is down by two
tenths of one percent or ninety seven points lower, SMP
(20:19):
five hundred down about half a percent or thirty points lower,
Nasdaq down four tenths of one percent or ninety five points,
Russell two thousands down nearly one percent lower twenty two points,
Tenure Treasure reeled up five basis points and is now
at four point one nine to nine percent, And crude
oil we're treating about half a percent today, trading at
(20:40):
sixty four dollars and sixty eight cents a barrel. Starbucks
down over one percent after the coffee chain and now
isd a one billion dollar restructuring plan that involves closing
some of its North American stores. Furthermore, about nine hundred
non retail employees will also be laid off, marking CEO
Brian nicols second round of layoffs since he took over. Meanwhile,
(21:03):
Oracle shares are slumping five percent today as worries around
the AI trade continue to pressure the stock. Separately, Rothschild
and co redburn initiative coverage of Oracle, with the CEL
rating saying the market is materially overestimating Oracle's cloud revenues.
Sticking with Tech, where Bloomberg reported that Intel has approached
(21:23):
Apple about investing in the chip maker. However, the report
notes that talks are in the early stages. Earlier this month,
we saw in Vidio said it would invest five billion
dollars in Intel. Intel stock is up nearly five percent,
while Apple shares it down over half a percent, or
excuse me, up over half a percent. Carmac sinking twenty
percent after the used car retailer saw it's quarterly results
(21:46):
come in below estimates, and Amazon will pay two and
a half billion dollars to settle FTC allegations that it
duped users into paying for prime memberships. Amazon stock is
dipping modestly on that news. I'm Tucker Silva in that
is Wall Street Watch. In the previous segment, we asked
(22:06):
you the trivia question which sitcom did Jerry Stiller start
in after Seinfeld? That would be the King of Queen's.
Jane Peabody Mass is our winner today, taking home a
Financial Exchange Show t shirt. Congrats to Jay. We play
trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange. See complete
contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Mike, we got a piece of the New York Times.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's titled a Diminished Social Security Workforce and its customers
feel the strain.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
The big thing.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
The Social Security workforce has shrunk by about twelve percent
this year due to cuts from DOZE this spring. On
top of that, you still have more and more people
that are claiming each year because you have, you know,
baby boomers retiring in large numbers, and you also have
you know, some mechanisms that are being shuttered I believe
it's in the next week or two, social Security checks
(22:58):
are going to be a thing of the past. It's
gonna be a direct posit required. And so with all
these changes, the question is, hey, can people still get
you know, decent service at a Social Security branch? And
the answer is it's it's getting harder just because there
are more people competing for fewer spots to actually get
help from someone at Social Security.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yeah, I don't find this immensely surprising. I also can't.
I also can't say though, that when I talk to
the average person that prior to the Trump administration cuts
to Social Security, that there.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Is a high degree of.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Satisfaction with the type of service they were getting from
Social Security in the first place. So I do think
it's gotten worse, But I don't know how to measure
how much worse. I guess would be my point because
the stories that are laid out in this example of
payments being stopped and appointments not being available for weeks,
I've heard that for years. I've heard that same story
for years, and so I do think it's probably gotten
(23:55):
worse just because, Yeah, when you cut twelve percent into
the staffing, it becomes problematic, but it's really difficult to
measure how much worse. I do think we do get
regular reports. The one thing that I'm sure we can
definitively point to, and I don't have the data on me.
Hold times really easy to track. I know the government
does keep an eye on it, and I think those
(24:16):
have gotten markedly worse. When you call into the Social
Security Administration, I have heard that, Yeah, the whole time
to get somebody on the phone is pretty bad, and
the way time to get an appointment has gotten a
lot worse. And you know, I don't know what you
do about that other than to beware, Hey, if I
am intending on starting social Security, or if I have
(24:40):
a complicated question surrounding social security, for instance, I've been
affected by the Social Security Fairness Act and I never
claimed before, or I've got a new disability, or you know,
any of those types of things are tricky, and you
just kind of have to be prepared to in many
cases wait weeks or months to get your case hear
(25:03):
heard in front of somebody to deal with the problem. Yeah,
that seems to be the reality of it. Right now,
folks want to talk to you again about a couple
events coming up here from the Financial Exchange and Armstrong
Advisory Group. We're gonna be doing live broadcasts of this
show this fall in October in two separate places, one
down the Cape one in the Boston area, and you
(25:25):
can come on down. You can check out part of
the show or all the show if you're around. Following that,
we're gonna be doing a free lunch. It's all it's
all free. You do need to register, but free lunch
and then a chat with the Armstrong Advisory Group about
the state of the economy, inflation, artificial intelligence, markets, where
things are right now, and how it may apply to
you and your financial situation. We love doing this program.
(25:47):
We love doing these events. They're always really fun. We
get lots of great questions from the audience, both during
the show and then after the fact. If you would
like to register, the first date is on October ninth.
The second one is gonna October sixteenth. That first one
is down at the Margaritaville Resort on Cape Cod The
second one is in Chestnut Hill at the Showcase super
Lucks on October sixteenth. You can call us at eight
(26:10):
hundred three nine three for zero zero one to register.
Or check it out on Armstrong Advisory dot com. But
you must register ahead of time for this event and
space will be limited, so please do call or check
it out online to get more details. Again October ninth
and sixteenth, Cape Cod at the Margaritaville, Chestnut Hill at
the showcase Superlucks eight hundred three nine three for zero
(26:33):
zero one or Armstrong Advisory dot com. And then one
other little thing that I kind of forgot about because
I'm not going this year, but Paul from the show
will be there. If you've never been, the station down
on the Cape does this annual listener party and it's
actually this Sunday, the twenty seventh. It's down at the
Lobster Boat on Route twenty eight in West Jarmouth and
(26:54):
there you can just show up and there will be
a bunch of bunch of hosts from XTK that are
down there for the event. So this is the first
in a few years. I haven't been able to make it,
but our college Paul will be there, so check that
out as well.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
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Speaker 2 (27:21):
Mike, I got more things I need to hop around
to again, just to make sure we get to all
these stack items that are really having exciting to me.
Wall Street Journal Exclusive Delta replacing engine units in effort
to address toxic fume surge on planes.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So here's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Every plane has something called an APU on its every
commercial jet liner does. It's called an auxiliary power unit,
and basically it's right in the tail of the aircraft
and that's the engine that's running when you get on
the plane to actually you know, keep you know, the
air conditioning going and all those systems working on the
plane before they back it up and turn on the
(27:59):
engines that on the wing. And the way that the
APU works, one of the things that it does it
generally provides what's called bleed air into the cabin because
in order to keep the cabin pressurized and keep you know,
the air conditioning and everything working, you need to get
the air from somewhere, and it comes from that APU.
So you take this hot air from the engine, you
(28:20):
basically put it through a cooler, you filter it, pump
it into the cabin, and that's how you know, you
get the air into the cabin. Apparently on a bunch
of air Bus planes, Delta has been having trouble where
that APU has been just not really putting clean air
into the cabin. I guess it's been putting pretty dirty
air in to the point where you've had, you know,
some really kinds of problems such as, you know, brain
(28:44):
injuries for crew and passengers because of you know, the
toxicity of these fumes. And I had no idea that
Delta was going through this with these planes, but it's
because they hadn't previously disclosed this program, which began three
years ago.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Is that wild?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, I mean, I'm glad I'm not a frequent flyer.
I guess I have a few questions about this one.
This is clearly Delta's problem, but probably Airbus's fault, and
so I don't I'm not interested in who's paying for it.
I am interested in how many other airlines have the
exact same problem and haven't yet told us about it.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Two would be I really thought I had some good.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Ideas on my flight home on a Delta Airlines play
a few weeks ago. But I might have just been
ingesting toxic fumes, and so maybe they weren't as good
an idea as I thought, and I might easy to
go revisit my work.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
There.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I got another one that I want to get to
that wasn't in our stack, just because I saw the
headline on the Wall Street Journal and I had to
click on it and it was just not great, quite honestly.
The title of it is is gen z Unemployable, No
hiring managers doing here hiring manager's prize, achievement, learning and work.
Today's youth value pleasure in individuality, and it's like clockwork.
(30:00):
It's you know, someone has, you know, a bad experience
with like a twenty two year old worker, and immediately
you've got to paint the entire generation is, oh, they'll
never amount to anything. And again this has been said
about every generation that's you know, ever been twenty two,
which is every generation.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Because I'm sure that.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You know all the baby boomers who are listening now,
I bet you got called you know a bunch of
lazy stoners back in nineteen sixty nine when you were
hanging out at Woodstock.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
But ultimately you turned out pretty good.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Likewise, when Tucker and I were chowing down on avocado
toast fifteen years ago, Oh yeah, everyone called us a
bunch of lazy stoners too, and you know what, we
turned out all right as well. So gen Z, Yes,
they're twenty two, they're twenty three. They're pretty immature, because
everyone's pretty immature at that age. They're gonna make mistakes.
They don't want to work all day every day generally,
(30:51):
because when you're that age, you want to have more fun.
And like every other generation, I'm sure when we talk
about them ten fifteen years from now, they'll have learned,
you know, a whole bunch of lessons. They'll have grown up,
had kids, done this, that and everything. And I just
I get so frustrated when people just try to paint
twenty two year old as being persistently lazy, when it's
(31:13):
just like, no, you're that age and you just have
different priorities than someone who's forty fifty or sixty's and
it changes all the time.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
It's just such lazy assumptions, like there are legitimate differences
between that age demographic and older ones like I think
there might be something too the way that they were
more heavily raised on digital devices and sure fewer opportunities
to play outside with friends. Like these are things that
I think are legitimate points that can be made about
(31:40):
that generation, which makes them different from even their millennial cohorts.
But we always just return to this lazy reporting of, oh,
the next generation is all you know there. They don't
want to be in the same job for a long
period of time, they don't care about work, they have
no ethic, they don't know how printers work.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Like these are just the laziest.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Arguments for not hiring twenty two year olds that I see,
and they just get repeated every ten years.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, it's it's exhausting, It's it's just classic.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Hey, speaking of the Wall Street term before we go
to the break, I just noticed this two minutes ago
when it was published headline auto industry is flashing a
warning sign on US economy, which is something you talked
about in the first hour of the show, Chuck.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Do they listen to the show. Yes.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
If you read the article, Chuck, it literally says everything
you just said. I'm not kidding. It's on Wall Street.
It's on the front page, off front page. Yep, go
go and read it. It's literally what you said.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Published three minutes ago. It's Christopher.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
You talked about it around ten forty.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
So this was published at eleven forty three. Correct. It
talks about CarMax, which we covered, Ford, which we covered.
Trycollor first print. I'm telling you they probably do Chuck.
It would fine great.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Oh they mention they just want to site, you know, yeah, hey,
you know, yeah, you know, Hey, Chuck's out on the
Financial Exchange and all these things, and you should you
a tune in, But hey, what are you gonna do?
It's uh again, there's there's something there. I don't know what,
but we'll keep paying attention to it. Quick break here,
we got h what do we call it? Sat through it?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
That's it. We got that coming up next.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
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(33:44):
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Speaker 5 (33:54):
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Speaker 3 (34:29):
Mike, what do you got for stack Roulette?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Utility prices, Chuck?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Is what I've got?
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Wall Street journalized a piece today. Higher electricity prices aren't
all good for utilities. In fact, look, this story reminds
me of the one that we talked about a few
weeks ago, which is everyone's out there because prices are
moving very quickly and looking for somebody to blame, and
a utility company is say, you know, good, is any
scapegoat to drag out there? Power prices have been rising
(34:55):
very fast. Electricity prices in August we're thirty one percent
higher than four years earlier, bear with about nineteen percent
for prices overall. So they are considerably higher than overall
prices and just up massively.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
It's gonna get wood. It is gonna get.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Worse, and lawmakers are going to try and point the
finger at different people, and frankly, I think most of
it should be pointed back at them.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Sells.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
The reason percent the reason that power prices are up
is a fewfold One. Those same lawmakers have not allowed
them to previously raise prices enough to do all the
deferred maintenance on their infrastructure. Remember, almost all utilities in
this country are heavily regulated, and all the prices are
controlled by either elected committees or usually appointed committees. Two,
(35:42):
these same lawmakers are the ones that keep voting down
big infrastructure projects in their own areas. Sometimes that's voters,
but oftentimes it is the lawmakers themselves who cast these votes,
voting down things like nuclear, voting down things like high
the high high some thing power lines from high ten
high tension power lines from Canada. Uh, we are all
(36:05):
to blame for all of this, and our lawmakers are
also to blame, but they're kind of taking our lead
on it. And so sure, go and yell at eversource
if you want, but that's not going to change the
fact that they still need to raise prices or else
they're not profitable.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Right and if look, if you don't, here's the reason
that we have regulated utilities is because when the power
goes out, people die.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Like that is the reason why you have utilities that
are regulated to make a profit. Does that mean that
it is the you know, ideal economic setup. No, but
we've decided that generally we don't want to allow for
large power producers to be able to go out of
business because historically when that happened, really bad things happen.
(36:51):
So ultimately, yeah, you can, you know, try to be
a tough guy and be like, oh, like I'm going
to negotiate with the utilities to make sure that they're
you know, really you know, give us the best deal.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Okay, already were you.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Know, right, There's only so much that you can do
on that front, and so it's something where there is
no free lunch. And we have underinvested in electricity generation
and distribution for probably about a generation or so in
the United States, you know, I would say, the last
thirty forty years, and now we're gonna have to pay
(37:26):
for it.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
There's no way around it.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
There is no free lunch on this, and trust me,
I've looked, because I love free lunch, but there isn't
one on this. Seasonal retail hiring to fall to the
lowest level since two thousand and nine, signaling trouble for holidays.
Report says this report from the job placement from Challenger
Gray and Christmas like, I continue to have no idea
(37:50):
what to make of all the conflicting signals that we
get in the labor market. Yeh, it's just some's good,
some's bad, some's fine. Like it's in nine different directions.
It's a lot like the New England Patriots offense. They
look great for brief stretches, they look horrible for brief stretches,
but ultimately you're just kind of like they're there.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
And puke that too. That too.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
We're gonna take a quick break for the rest of
the day. Stocks remain modestly negative, and we will finish
out the week. Tomorrow, we've got some PCE of inflation data.
Make sure you tune in and we will discuss
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(00:20):
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(01:06):
and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Chuck, Mike and Tucker with you here, and we've got
markets continuing to sell off modestly, nothing crazy. Earlier today
we did see, yeah, the SMP approaching a one percent
down day, but markets have rallied off their lows, and
as we sit here right now, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average is down seventy five points, about a little less
(01:30):
than two tenths of a percent, SP five hundred down
thirty one points, about half a percent, and the Nasdaq
off one hundred and twenty one points, also about half
a percent. In the bond market, tenure US Treasury is
up four basis points to four point one eight. So
that's going to put more upward pressure on mortgage rates. Remember,
Mike and I talked about this last week. Just because
(01:52):
the Fed is cutting doesn't mean that mortgage rates move
in the same direction. Right now, this is very much
rhyming with what we saw in the third and fourth
quarter of last year, where the FED started a cutting
cycle and mortgage rates promptly went up almost one percent.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We're not quite there yet.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
They're up about a quarter percent from where they were
when the FED started cutting last week, but We'll continue
to monitor this.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And see where they go.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Other things happening in market stay oil down seventy eight
cents a barrel on West Texas Intermediate to sixty four
dollars and twenty one cents, a little bit of a
pullback there after oil had risen to a seven week high.
And we've got gold down six dollars announced to thirty
seven to sixty two and fifty cents.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Mike, let's do you want to hop in the plane
and head to Argentina. Let's go, okay, beef.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So Argentina is going through a little bit of a
balance of payments crisis at the moment, or at least
it's heading in that direction. Basically, the way that Argentina
works economically is not well, it's it's just it's just
like not a country that has had its act together economically,
(03:03):
which is really a shame because honestly, like it's a
fantastic country, great people, like you know, really rich history,
like a ton of you know again, like you talk about, sorry,
I'm always partial to you know, the beef and everything,
but you know, great beef and stuff like that. And
so you look at this and you say, man, it's
just it just as a country that has not been
(03:23):
able to get out of its own way economically for
quite some time now.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Well, Mark FANDETI made the point yesterday on the program
that this country one hundred some odd years ago, or
maybe a little bit more than one hundred years ago,
when when compared to the United States, if you looked
at the two of them, it was not abundantly clear
which one would be the leader of the pack economically
between these two countries. We were kind of in a
similar position, sure, and obviously for a number of different reasons.
(03:49):
Mark pointed towards you know, stronger institutions. The United States
is wound to the you know, wound up in the
place it is in in Argentina in one a lot
less desirable from a development and you know, pretty much
every economic metric you can look at for the well
being of its people.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So about a year and a half ago you had
an election in Argentina in which Javier Malay became the
president and basically came in and said, look, I'm gonna
you know, completely restructure the economy to try to save it,
and you know, embarked down a ton of different reforms
and quite Honestly, the early results were really good for
(04:25):
the first year or so.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
When we talked about.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
These reforms, Jock, it was largely around slimming the size
of government and doing a bunch of things that markets
generally like when they look at emerging markets, trying to
shore up the country's deficits and balance sheet and put
it in a place where inflation is not as big
of a problem as it has been. I think when
he took off, as we were talking, three hundred some
(04:49):
odd percent inflation year over year.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yes, and so the issue that Argentina's run into and
again like exactly why this happens on any timeline, you know,
like you kind of have to, you know, just accept
that this is, you know, when it's happening, you know,
right now. But basically, they had an election in Buenos
Aires a couple of weeks ago in which Malay's party
basically got you know, just wrecked worse than they thought
(05:12):
they were going to. Buenos Aires is never you know,
a huge center of support for him, but the numbers
were just worse than I think people were expecting. And
so shortly afterwards, because of questions about whether Malay will
you know, again be able to continue as president, you know,
in the future when he comes up for reelection. You
started to see some pressure on the Argentinian peso, which
(05:34):
as of this spring, they basically allow it to trade
in a band of between one thousand and fourteen hundred
pesos to the US dollar.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So where this goes is in order.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
For Argentina to maintain that band, what they have to
do is they have to sell dollars or sell something
else and buy pesos. You quickly run out of money
if there's basically a run on the bank trying to
defend a peg like that. And so this is why
Argentina has now basically come to the US being like, hey,
we could really use like, you know, some swap lines
(06:08):
and currency exchange like to be able to make this.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Work, help us make our currency not fall apart. And
it is what they are asking.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Us, correct, which is something that Argentina has asked a
number of times to you know, a whole bunch of
different countries because well obvious reasons. And so the place
that we're in now is earlier this week, Treasury Secretary
Scott Bessont indicated, Hey, the US Treasury is preparing a
potential rescue package for Argentina in order to try to
(06:36):
basically keep the country's balance of payments flowing the way
that it needs to effectively. The big problem that Argentina
has they don't export enough to create demand for the
Argentinian peso, and that's kind of why they end up
in this situation, you know, on a repeated basis. And
the problem is because they then have to import a
lot in in order to you know, provide the goods
(06:58):
and things and services they need for the country. Because
of that, if you have a fall in the value
of the peso, it tends to result in a lot
of inflation in Argentina because they import so much, and inflation,
as we know, is not what people like and generally
not good for the party in power. So Malay is
obviously concerned about this. So it gets to the point
now where the US is considering some type of bailout
(07:20):
package for Argentina. We don't know exactly what format it
will take, we don't know exactly what size, but this
is something that now the US government is talking about doing,
and it seems pretty likely that it's going to end
up happening. It's just a matter of working the details out. So, Chuck,
here's my big overall question. I understand to some degree
(07:43):
why now this is happening to Argentina. I understand the
path and the improvements that Malay has made. I very
much struggle to understand why the United States is involved here.
We are not a country with deep economic ties. We
do not trade a ton with Argentina, no total trades
under twenty billion dollars.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
We are Whatever we do in this case will be
an outlay of US economic resources of US dollars in
order to do this. Argentina does not have a great
track record of making good on their promises of payments,
and so you do have to sit back and ask
precisely why. And there's two justified. There's two justifications that
(08:23):
I'm able to come up with. One is being printed
all over the media, which is this is a politician
who politically seems to align fairly well with our president.
The second that isn't being reported quite as much. But
you do have to wonder would China be willing to
make this deal instead? And is there a legitimate reason
to counter Chinese influence in South America? And I am
(08:46):
much more behind that second argument than I am the
first one in terms of justification. But in either case,
you look at this and say, this is not Mexico.
This is not a country that we have deep eep
economic ties with. We don't have a lot of US
businesses setting up shopping Argentina, and so why precisely do
we think we should be involved here? I think it's
(09:06):
a very reasonable question for people to be asking, because
it's our taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
They're going to go towards the mail out.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And I think generally again, when when you're dealing with
the Argentinian economy, it's do you have anyone in your life, Mike,
that's not the most you know, financially responsible.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, if you just person, do you wan to name them?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah? It's jewels? What that was his names? You call
them jewels?
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Okay, if you give money to Jeles, you don't expect
it back. It's going to be spent on lottery tickets.
You don't expect it back, is the point. And it's
kind of the same thing. If you give money to Argentina,
you're making a gift, not alone. You might call it alone,
you might call it a swap line, you might call
it like whatever you want. Generally the expectation is you're
(09:57):
probably not getting that money back, so go in eyes open, understand,
you know that's that's kind of table stakes there, and
then you can, you know, kind of move on, just
take a quick break. When we come back, we got
trivia and then we're talking intel.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Miss any of the show.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
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(10:37):
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Speaker 5 (11:00):
Sign for trivia here in the Financial Exchange and it's
another day of sitcom trivia here this week. In nineteen
ninety three, Seinfeld added Jerry Stiller to the cast as
George Castanz's father. Frank Stiller only appeared in twenty six
episodes of Seinfeld, but his impact was immense. After Seinfeld ended,
(11:21):
Stiller planned on retiring, but changed his mind after he
was offered the role of Arthur Spooner on another sitcom.
So our trivia question today is simply what sitcom? Excuse me,
which sitcom did Jerry Stiller star in after Seinfeld? I'll
repeat that because I botched it. Which sitcom did Jerry
(11:43):
Stiller start in after Seinfeld? Be the sixth person today
to text us at six one seven three six two
thirteen eighty five with the correct answer in went a
Financial Exchange Show t shirt. Once again, the six correct
response to text us to the number six seven three
six two thirteen eighty five will win that T shirt.
See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Mike, it's it's getting a little hard to keep up
with who's investing in who in the tech space.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Now, let's let's cover a.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Few of those before we move on. We have the
US government investing in Intel. We have in Nvidia investing
in one of its biggest customers, open Ai, the owner
of chat GPT what else comes to mind for you
on the investment roundabouts in the tech space right now?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Honestly, like, I don't even there's been so many of them.
It's you've got well, I'm trying to think of what
Oracle's doing. Do they have anything that they announced in
the last week or two? TikTok, Like, it's there's It's
just that there's a lot of money flowing in a
lot of different directions. But Intel apparently now is going
(12:53):
to has approached Apple reportedly about Apple investing in the
chipmate and Vidio took a stake in Intel as well,
didn't they?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yes, so the US government did, Yes, how much do
you need to be able to make even reasonably decent semiconductors?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Intel lots of money.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
So here's the thing I think they might do this Jack,
I mean again, I think my read on the Nvidia
investment was privately, I get the diversification piece, but I
looked at primarily as how can we appease the government
and make sure we're on the right track. And I
think Apple's very interested in the same thing, and they're
probably also interested in, hey, how can we diversify supply
(13:35):
chain out of China and Taiwan.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I have real questions on both of those. No, I
do too. I don't know they got to be successful.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
No on whether Apple wants to do those things, like
by investing in Intel. And I guess what I'm getting
at is Apple's already done an awful lot to try
to align itself positively with the administration.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, I'm not sure they need to do more.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Right, Like, they've done a lot in terms of commitments
they've made and things along those lines. There's a reason why,
you know, every announcement that you get about you know,
semiconductors are smartphones, or tariffs and this and that, it's basically, yes,
Apple's not going to be included in this, Chuck.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
The fact that we're reading about this right now, to me,
indicates that they are going to probably have to at
least seriously consider it. There's no way that Intel approaches
Apple without approval from the US government.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Now, well, I'm not saying that the US government wouldn't
approve it. I'm saying I don't know. Here's the thing.
Apple used to have trips that were designed by Intel
in their phones and computers. Yeah, they moved away from
that because they said we can do the design in
house better and we can find someone else to produce
the stuff better.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And by the way, they were right about that. They
were So.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I look at this and if look if if the
cost of doing business is, hey, we've got to give
you know, five billion dollars to Intel. Yes, Apple technically
can do that, but why would they actually want to? Yeah,
they don't get anything from it? Then then what is
(15:18):
in video really getting?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Right?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Like, I don't I don't know, you know, my you know,
my theory there is that that's the gateway to Nvidia
eventually buying Intel.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, and Apple doesn't want to do that. No, Apple
doesn't want to own Intel.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
If they they wanted to own Intel, they would have
done it several years ago or now you know they
before the US government invested.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
They would have been like, nope, we'll buy that, thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Would you like some breaking tech news that just came
across Bloomberg? What do you got Amazon and the FTC.
I've reached a two and a half billion dollar deal
in the prime subscription case. For those of you following along,
this was the FTC accusing Amazon of making it very
difficult to cancel prime subscriptions, and that is Again, I
(16:01):
haven't read any of the details into this other than
the headline flashing, but presumably that is the agreed upon
penalty here by the judge here in the case that
they will be paying the FTC some two and a
half billion dollars, presumably some of that would be refunded
to former or current Prime subscribers.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I'm not entirely sure, though.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I wonder if they're going to have to change their
Prime on subscription price.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
They did that in twenty twenty three or four, they
already did, They already did preemptively interesting, Okay, I guess
we could put that one to bed.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I would like to.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
We gotta hop forward to some other items in the stack,
because Tucker put like some absolute bangers in here today.
It's just it's a fantastic stack, one of the best
I've seen.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I want to first go to. This is a story
that we haven't covered at all.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I don't think did you guys know that Jaguar land
Rover basically hasn't been able to.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Make cars in six weeks.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
No, this is my first time seeing it as well,
that they got hacked and are completely shut down like
some nineteen eighty computer designed.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Hospital it's apparently like they thought right.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
That's where you see these stories is the hospital had
its record attacked and they literally came to a screeching halt,
and they're all relying on paper. But it now happened
with one of the fanciest car makers in the world.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
So they normally build a thousand cars a day.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
They've pretty much been shuttered at their factories for the
last six weeks and it's gotten to the point now
where the British government is saying that they may step
in to buy auto parts from Jaguar Land Rovers suppliers
so the auto parts suppliers don't go out of business.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I mean, this is wild, Like, how have we not
heard about this or covered this at all?
Speaker 4 (17:47):
I hear you, this is a fairly big story once
again in the auto sector. We've covered a lot about
cars today and this is not even tangentially related to
the problems that we're seeing in the US debt market
around autos. But I mean, this is a huge company
in the UK and to be brought to a complete
screeching halt over frankly something as I'm not gonna call
(18:12):
it as minute because I know that these things take
companies down all the time, but a hack is just shocking.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's pretty wild, and it speaks to the lack of
resilience at a lot of companies that run into these problems.
You remember when the Colonial pipeline got hacked a few
years back. Yeah, that took them on a couple of
weeks to get the oil flowing again. Yeah, I mean again.
People always think about these hacks as, oh, it's going.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
To take down the computer records for a company and
they're gonna have to go back, or it's going to
take down Amazon's website, or do you remember the I
feel like there were a few brokerage platforms that their
websites went down during different periods of time for denial services.
And honestly, the more impactful stuff is there are companies
that have websites obviously data in the cloud, but their
(19:01):
businesses aren't at all related to you know, doing business
with customers over the internet, who's were being brought to
a screeching halt with their physical manufacturing processes.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Or do you remember the one last year with the
auto dealer platform.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yes, the sales platform couldn't sell anything. No, it was
like dealers just couldn't sell anything. For like six weeks.
It was like, oh, write this down. It's like you
want me to do what? Yeah, it's it's kind of
wild this stuff. Let's take a quick break. When we
come back, we get the trivia answer, we got Wall
Street Watch, and we're talking social Security.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Time now for Wall Street Watch. A complete look at
what's moving market so far today right here on the
Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Well, seeing a little bit of a sell off here
as Wallstree reacts to a new batch of economic data
points published earlier this morning, including better than expected jobs
claims and upperly revised second quarter GDP reading and existing
home sales. Right now, the Dow is down by two
tenths of one percent or ninety seven points lower, SMP
(20:19):
five hundred down about half a percent or thirty points lower,
Nasdaq down four tenths of one percent or ninety five points,
Russell two thousands down nearly one percent lower twenty two points,
Tenure Treasure reeled up five basis points and is now
at four point one nine to nine percent, And crude
oil we're treating about half a percent today, trading at
(20:40):
sixty four dollars and sixty eight cents a barrel. Starbucks
down over one percent after the coffee chain and now
isd a one billion dollar restructuring plan that involves closing
some of its North American stores. Furthermore, about nine hundred
non retail employees will also be laid off, marking CEO
Brian nicols second round of layoffs since he took over. Meanwhile,
(21:03):
Oracle shares are slumping five percent today as worries around
the AI trade continue to pressure the stock. Separately, Rothschild
and co redburn initiative coverage of Oracle, with the CEL
rating saying the market is materially overestimating Oracle's cloud revenues.
Sticking with Tech, where Bloomberg reported that Intel has approached
(21:23):
Apple about investing in the chip maker. However, the report
notes that talks are in the early stages. Earlier this month,
we saw in Vidio said it would invest five billion
dollars in Intel. Intel stock is up nearly five percent,
while Apple shares it down over half a percent, or
excuse me, up over half a percent. Carmac sinking twenty
percent after the used car retailer saw it's quarterly results
(21:46):
come in below estimates, and Amazon will pay two and
a half billion dollars to settle FTC allegations that it
duped users into paying for prime memberships. Amazon stock is
dipping modestly on that news. I'm Tucker Silva in that
is Wall Street Watch. In the previous segment, we asked
(22:06):
you the trivia question which sitcom did Jerry Stiller start
in after Seinfeld? That would be the King of Queen's.
Jane Peabody Mass is our winner today, taking home a
Financial Exchange Show t shirt. Congrats to Jay. We play
trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange. See complete
contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Mike, we got a piece of the New York Times.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's titled a Diminished Social Security Workforce and its customers
feel the strain.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
The big thing.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
The Social Security workforce has shrunk by about twelve percent
this year due to cuts from DOZE this spring. On
top of that, you still have more and more people
that are claiming each year because you have, you know,
baby boomers retiring in large numbers, and you also have
you know, some mechanisms that are being shuttered I believe
it's in the next week or two, social Security checks
(22:58):
are going to be a thing of the past. It's
gonna be a direct posit required. And so with all
these changes, the question is, hey, can people still get
you know, decent service at a Social Security branch? And
the answer is it's it's getting harder just because there
are more people competing for fewer spots to actually get
help from someone at Social Security.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yeah, I don't find this immensely surprising. I also can't.
I also can't say though, that when I talk to
the average person that prior to the Trump administration cuts
to Social Security, that there.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Is a high degree of.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Satisfaction with the type of service they were getting from
Social Security in the first place. So I do think
it's gotten worse, But I don't know how to measure
how much worse. I guess would be my point because
the stories that are laid out in this example of
payments being stopped and appointments not being available for weeks,
I've heard that for years. I've heard that same story
for years, and so I do think it's probably gotten
(23:55):
worse just because, Yeah, when you cut twelve percent into
the staffing, it becomes problematic, but it's really difficult to
measure how much worse. I do think we do get
regular reports. The one thing that I'm sure we can
definitively point to, and I don't have the data on me.
Hold times really easy to track. I know the government
does keep an eye on it, and I think those
(24:16):
have gotten markedly worse. When you call into the Social
Security Administration, I have heard that, Yeah, the whole time
to get somebody on the phone is pretty bad, and
the way time to get an appointment has gotten a
lot worse. And you know, I don't know what you
do about that other than to beware, Hey, if I
am intending on starting social Security, or if I have
(24:40):
a complicated question surrounding social security, for instance, I've been
affected by the Social Security Fairness Act and I never
claimed before, or I've got a new disability, or you know,
any of those types of things are tricky, and you
just kind of have to be prepared to in many
cases wait weeks or months to get your case hear
(25:03):
heard in front of somebody to deal with the problem. Yeah,
that seems to be the reality of it. Right now,
folks want to talk to you again about a couple
events coming up here from the Financial Exchange and Armstrong
Advisory Group. We're gonna be doing live broadcasts of this
show this fall in October in two separate places, one
down the Cape one in the Boston area, and you
(25:25):
can come on down. You can check out part of
the show or all the show if you're around. Following that,
we're gonna be doing a free lunch. It's all it's
all free. You do need to register, but free lunch
and then a chat with the Armstrong Advisory Group about
the state of the economy, inflation, artificial intelligence, markets, where
things are right now, and how it may apply to
you and your financial situation. We love doing this program.
(25:47):
We love doing these events. They're always really fun. We
get lots of great questions from the audience, both during
the show and then after the fact. If you would
like to register, the first date is on October ninth.
The second one is gonna October sixteenth. That first one
is down at the Margaritaville Resort on Cape Cod The
second one is in Chestnut Hill at the Showcase super
Lucks on October sixteenth. You can call us at eight
(26:10):
hundred three nine three for zero zero one to register.
Or check it out on Armstrong Advisory dot com. But
you must register ahead of time for this event and
space will be limited, so please do call or check
it out online to get more details. Again October ninth
and sixteenth, Cape Cod at the Margaritaville, Chestnut Hill at
the showcase Superlucks eight hundred three nine three for zero
(26:33):
zero one or Armstrong Advisory dot com. And then one
other little thing that I kind of forgot about because
I'm not going this year, but Paul from the show
will be there. If you've never been, the station down
on the Cape does this annual listener party and it's
actually this Sunday, the twenty seventh. It's down at the
Lobster Boat on Route twenty eight in West Jarmouth and
(26:54):
there you can just show up and there will be
a bunch of bunch of hosts from XTK that are
down there for the event. So this is the first
in a few years. I haven't been able to make it,
but our college Paul will be there, so check that
out as well.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
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, and estate planning advisors before making
any investment decisions. Armstrong, make contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Mike, I got more things I need to hop around
to again, just to make sure we get to all
these stack items that are really having exciting to me.
Wall Street Journal Exclusive Delta replacing engine units in effort
to address toxic fume surge on planes.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So here's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Every plane has something called an APU on its every
commercial jet liner does. It's called an auxiliary power unit,
and basically it's right in the tail of the aircraft
and that's the engine that's running when you get on
the plane to actually you know, keep you know, the
air conditioning going and all those systems working on the
plane before they back it up and turn on the
(27:59):
engines that on the wing. And the way that the
APU works, one of the things that it does it
generally provides what's called bleed air into the cabin because
in order to keep the cabin pressurized and keep you know,
the air conditioning and everything working, you need to get
the air from somewhere, and it comes from that APU.
So you take this hot air from the engine, you
(28:20):
basically put it through a cooler, you filter it, pump
it into the cabin, and that's how you know, you
get the air into the cabin. Apparently on a bunch
of air Bus planes, Delta has been having trouble where
that APU has been just not really putting clean air
into the cabin. I guess it's been putting pretty dirty
air in to the point where you've had, you know,
some really kinds of problems such as, you know, brain
(28:44):
injuries for crew and passengers because of you know, the
toxicity of these fumes. And I had no idea that
Delta was going through this with these planes, but it's
because they hadn't previously disclosed this program, which began three
years ago.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Is that wild?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, I mean, I'm glad I'm not a frequent flyer.
I guess I have a few questions about this one.
This is clearly Delta's problem, but probably Airbus's fault, and
so I don't I'm not interested in who's paying for it.
I am interested in how many other airlines have the
exact same problem and haven't yet told us about it.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Two would be I really thought I had some good.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Ideas on my flight home on a Delta Airlines play
a few weeks ago. But I might have just been
ingesting toxic fumes, and so maybe they weren't as good
an idea as I thought, and I might easy to
go revisit my work.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
There.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I got another one that I want to get to
that wasn't in our stack, just because I saw the
headline on the Wall Street Journal and I had to
click on it and it was just not great, quite honestly.
The title of it is is gen z Unemployable, No
hiring managers doing here hiring manager's prize, achievement, learning and work.
Today's youth value pleasure in individuality, and it's like clockwork.
(30:00):
It's you know, someone has, you know, a bad experience
with like a twenty two year old worker, and immediately
you've got to paint the entire generation is, oh, they'll
never amount to anything. And again this has been said
about every generation that's you know, ever been twenty two,
which is every generation.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Because I'm sure that.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You know all the baby boomers who are listening now,
I bet you got called you know a bunch of
lazy stoners back in nineteen sixty nine when you were
hanging out at Woodstock.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
But ultimately you turned out pretty good.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Likewise, when Tucker and I were chowing down on avocado
toast fifteen years ago, Oh yeah, everyone called us a
bunch of lazy stoners too, and you know what, we
turned out all right as well. So gen Z, Yes,
they're twenty two, they're twenty three. They're pretty immature, because
everyone's pretty immature at that age. They're gonna make mistakes.
They don't want to work all day every day generally,
(30:51):
because when you're that age, you want to have more fun.
And like every other generation, I'm sure when we talk
about them ten fifteen years from now, they'll have learned,
you know, a whole bunch of lessons. They'll have grown up,
had kids, done this, that and everything. And I just
I get so frustrated when people just try to paint
twenty two year old as being persistently lazy, when it's
(31:13):
just like, no, you're that age and you just have
different priorities than someone who's forty fifty or sixty's and
it changes all the time.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
It's just such lazy assumptions, like there are legitimate differences
between that age demographic and older ones like I think
there might be something too the way that they were
more heavily raised on digital devices and sure fewer opportunities
to play outside with friends. Like these are things that
I think are legitimate points that can be made about
(31:40):
that generation, which makes them different from even their millennial cohorts.
But we always just return to this lazy reporting of, oh,
the next generation is all you know there. They don't
want to be in the same job for a long
period of time, they don't care about work, they have
no ethic, they don't know how printers work.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Like these are just the laziest.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Arguments for not hiring twenty two year olds that I see,
and they just get repeated every ten years.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, it's it's exhausting, It's it's just classic.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Hey, speaking of the Wall Street term before we go
to the break, I just noticed this two minutes ago
when it was published headline auto industry is flashing a
warning sign on US economy, which is something you talked
about in the first hour of the show, Chuck.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Do they listen to the show. Yes.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
If you read the article, Chuck, it literally says everything
you just said. I'm not kidding. It's on Wall Street.
It's on the front page, off front page. Yep, go
go and read it. It's literally what you said.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Published three minutes ago. It's Christopher.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
You talked about it around ten forty.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
So this was published at eleven forty three. Correct. It
talks about CarMax, which we covered, Ford, which we covered.
Trycollor first print. I'm telling you they probably do Chuck.
It would fine great.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Oh they mention they just want to site, you know, yeah, hey,
you know, yeah, you know, Hey, Chuck's out on the
Financial Exchange and all these things, and you should you
a tune in, But hey, what are you gonna do?
It's uh again, there's there's something there. I don't know what,
but we'll keep paying attention to it. Quick break here,
we got h what do we call it? Sat through it?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
That's it. We got that coming up next.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Here The Financial Exchange every day from eleven to noon
Non Serious XM's Business radio Channel one thirty two. Keep
it here for the latest business and financial news and
the trends on Wall Street. The Financial Exchange is now
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This He's the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Find daily interviews
(33:44):
and full shows of the Financial Exchange on our YouTube page.
Subscribe to our page and get caught up on anything
and everything you might have missed. This is the Financial
Exchange Radio.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Network segment of the Financial Exchange. The US Virgin Islands
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(34:16):
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Visit USVII dot com. That's visit USVII dot com.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Mike, what do you got for stack Roulette?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Utility prices, Chuck?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Is what I've got?
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Wall Street journalized a piece today. Higher electricity prices aren't
all good for utilities. In fact, look, this story reminds
me of the one that we talked about a few
weeks ago, which is everyone's out there because prices are
moving very quickly and looking for somebody to blame, and
a utility company is say, you know, good, is any
scapegoat to drag out there? Power prices have been rising
(34:55):
very fast. Electricity prices in August we're thirty one percent
higher than four years earlier, bear with about nineteen percent
for prices overall. So they are considerably higher than overall
prices and just up massively.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
It's gonna get wood. It is gonna get.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Worse, and lawmakers are going to try and point the
finger at different people, and frankly, I think most of
it should be pointed back at them.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Sells.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
The reason percent the reason that power prices are up
is a fewfold One. Those same lawmakers have not allowed
them to previously raise prices enough to do all the
deferred maintenance on their infrastructure. Remember, almost all utilities in
this country are heavily regulated, and all the prices are
controlled by either elected committees or usually appointed committees. Two,
(35:42):
these same lawmakers are the ones that keep voting down
big infrastructure projects in their own areas. Sometimes that's voters,
but oftentimes it is the lawmakers themselves who cast these votes,
voting down things like nuclear, voting down things like high
the high high some thing power lines from high ten
high tension power lines from Canada. Uh, we are all
(36:05):
to blame for all of this, and our lawmakers are
also to blame, but they're kind of taking our lead
on it. And so sure, go and yell at eversource
if you want, but that's not going to change the
fact that they still need to raise prices or else
they're not profitable.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Right and if look, if you don't, here's the reason
that we have regulated utilities is because when the power
goes out, people die.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Like that is the reason why you have utilities that
are regulated to make a profit. Does that mean that
it is the you know, ideal economic setup. No, but
we've decided that generally we don't want to allow for
large power producers to be able to go out of
business because historically when that happened, really bad things happen.
(36:51):
So ultimately, yeah, you can, you know, try to be
a tough guy and be like, oh, like I'm going
to negotiate with the utilities to make sure that they're
you know, really you know, give us the best deal.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Okay, already were you.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Know, right, There's only so much that you can do
on that front, and so it's something where there is
no free lunch. And we have underinvested in electricity generation
and distribution for probably about a generation or so in
the United States, you know, I would say, the last
thirty forty years, and now we're gonna have to pay
(37:26):
for it.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
There's no way around it.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
There is no free lunch on this, and trust me,
I've looked, because I love free lunch, but there isn't
one on this. Seasonal retail hiring to fall to the
lowest level since two thousand and nine, signaling trouble for holidays.
Report says this report from the job placement from Challenger
Gray and Christmas like, I continue to have no idea
(37:50):
what to make of all the conflicting signals that we
get in the labor market. Yeh, it's just some's good,
some's bad, some's fine. Like it's in nine different directions.
It's a lot like the New England Patriots offense. They
look great for brief stretches, they look horrible for brief stretches,
but ultimately you're just kind of like they're there.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
And puke that too. That too.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
We're gonna take a quick break for the rest of
the day. Stocks remain modestly negative, and we will finish
out the week. Tomorrow, we've got some PCE of inflation data.
Make sure you tune in and we will discuss
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