November 17, 2025 • 39 mins
Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong wonder if we will get the usual Santa Claus rally this year. The White House hunts for ways to lower the cost of living...they can't. Sarah Foster (Bankrate) joins the show to chat about the tale of two job markets. Disney and YouTube TV reach a deal, ending the 15-day standoff. Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO next year. Forgotten 401(k) accounts are costing Americans billions. Layoff tactics keep changing, and the blunders keep coming.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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(00:42):
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a donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck
(01:06):
Zada and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Chuck Mike Tucker with you here, and we've got stocks
volatile from minute to minute, but not behaving.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Great at the moment.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
The S and P of five hundred right now is
down nineteen points, about a third of a percent one point.
This morning, I saw it was up about twenty points,
So you've got about a half percentage point intra day swing,
and this is just kind of what we've been seeing.
Dow is currently off about a quarter percent one hundred
and fifteen points. The Nasdaq composite is down seventy two points,
(01:40):
about a third of a percent as well. So all
major indices in the red or the ruge I believe
is that's what they say, that's how they say it.
In on the French exchanges, US tenure Treasury down one
point five basis points to four point one three to
three percent, No real movement there. We've got gold off
(02:01):
twenty seven eighty an ounce to four thy sixty six
and twenty cents. Crude oil is down sixteen cents a
barrel to fifty nine ninety three a barrel in the
TRIPAA national average for gas prices is up one tenth
of a cent to three oh seven and three tenths.
A year ago, it was three oh seven and two tenths,
So I'm glad oil traders went.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Through that last year.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yahoo in any case, kind of just some continued consternation.
I gotta tell you, like something that's just like just
kind of bugging me here. Is like normally this time
of year is where you're like, not me personally because like,
my feet are too like my legs are too short
to put up on the desk and kick back and relax.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's Santa Clause time.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Normally you've got kind of this chase for year end
performance coming from managers. It's just it's it's a lower
volume time of year. There's not much excitement. You basically
don't see anything exciting on the board. The times when
you do are ones where you just have to Again,
I'm not saying anything bad will happen, but when you
start seeing like weird things happening, like hey, it's a
(03:10):
Monday with the S and P down less than half
a percent and the VIX is up, you know, even
accounting for the fact that VIX tends to move up
on Mondays because of the way the calendar works, and
you got vix up, you know, one point five, you know,
volves on it. It's just like, this is just kind
of weird stuff that you look at and you're like,
(03:30):
what are you're looking at this saying? What is this
market concerned about? And who knows?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Something?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, I could attribute it to a couple of things. One,
it could be looming signs of danger. Could also be
the result of delayed data. I think that's part of
a down. It could be result of a FED that
is maybe in part because of that shutdown, giving no
clear signal about what they are doing next. And so yeah,
(03:57):
that could be a contributing fact, but I'm not sure
I would bet on it.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I kind of figured quite honestly after we got into
November that you know, you had some volatility popping up
in October on private credit concerns, and then it just
kind of went away as we got into earnings, and
I kind of figured, Okay, like that's it for that,
And now you got these other stories about private credit
(04:25):
popping up over the weekend with investors in this blue
Owl fund having to take a twenty percent haircut pending
you know, their their final approval on it. And I'm
kind of just looking at this and like something just
kind of stinks here, and you hope it isn't anything bigger.
But it's like you don't normally see this into year end.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It's just made this comparison before. But March of.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Twenty three, when was the bank failures twenty four to
three Silicon Valley Bank, we early on we're experiencing something
interesting there, and you said, you gotta just kind of
wait and see how bad this gets. And it got
bad for a weekend. You had three banks ended up
getting shuttered and needed to find buyers. And again, part
(05:14):
because of the fed's actions, part because of just where
the real problems were, it didn't bubble over. It feels
this way similarly now with a market with a stock
market that's even richer in terms of evaluation.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
The key difference then is the there's a difference between
being illiquid and insolvent. Right, if you're a liquid you
have the money, but you just can't come up with
the ability to pay it. Yet, if you're insolvent, you
don't have the ability to like it's just it's not there,
like you just can't provide the funds. And so I
(05:49):
think that they've had some insolvencies recently. The difference here
on this is the problem that those banks faced was
just interest rates when and the valuations of the stuff
they had was just out of whack with where their
balance sheets needed to be, and you had basically a
run on the banks.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
YEP.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
In this case, the question is, hey, do companies have
the ability to pay back these private credit loans? And
we don't know the answers yet we don't. No one does.
This is the thing I keep coming back to anyone
who says this either is or is not, you know,
a big problem. They're not talking because they're the ones
that are trying, that actually own the stuff and they're
(06:29):
trying to manage through it. They're not talking now, So
I don't know what's going to happen here. I'm just
looking at the situation saying something feels weird and we're
gonna have to get to a resolution at some point.
But this blue owl thing over the weekend has me
feeling not great, just because it's giving me shades of
(06:52):
mid two thousand and seven with companies trying to shuffle
the deck chairs on these loans that weren't performing. In
that case, in the residential sector. This is companies feeling
like they're trying to shuffle the deck chairs with these
loans to these mid market companies, and it's just giving
me this feeling of de ja vous, I believe is
(07:13):
what they refer to it as.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You're just all French this morning?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Is deja vous French? Yeah it is? Yeah, Yeah, I
don't know. I don't speak French. No, you got three
words down. We four look at.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That White House hunts for ways to lower cost of living. Guys,
here's the deal. The federal government basically can't lower the
cost of living. And now you get these pieces in
the New York Times titled economists hate this idea.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
It could be the way out of the affordability crisis.
It's talking about price controls. Yeah, can we also say
that mayors also can't really fix the affordability crisis?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, Guys, Like, here's the deal is, we've kind of
gotten to this point over multiple decades, and you're not
just going to be able to fix it with any
of the tools that are available to you, because it's
not a problem that's created by those tools or the
lack thereof.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Honestly, maybe it's just been so long since we've price
fixed things and set quotas that we need to go
through that students to feel how bad it is. I mean,
like people that lived through the oil embargo and remember
sitting in giant lines at gas stations because of this
exact economic policy. Right, we basically said you can have
(08:32):
this much gasoline per week. Remember how that feels and
how it all worked. And maybe it's just been a
long while since we've done it, and we need to
go through that peak stupid period again. Because price controls,
there's a lot of things that economists will disagree on,
and you know, you'll be able to cite different economists.
(08:55):
I have not seen any mainstream economists whatsoever that debate
the result of price controls.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
They result in shortages every time, and that's.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What we are very obvious reasons, you know. So I
also think that when look when we look at the
the problems that we're facing on affordability, I mean, got like,
I don't want to keep coming back to this, but
I come back to it a lot. Ultimately, what we
(09:25):
are talking about here is the fact that incomes have
not kept up with prices in the way that people
are comfortable with. I don't know why every time we
look at this problem we look at the price piece
and not the income piece. Now, I'm not saying that
the problem is a minimum wage issue. The national minimum
(09:46):
wage is like seven dollars and twenty five cents. Still,
the estimates that I've seen are like one percent of
the people in the country right now ye are earning minimum.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wage or lower.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
So this is not Chuck being like, hey, you need
to raise them minimum wage. So let's be clear about this.
But what I am saying is when you look at
the way that overall wealth and incomes have grown over
the last twenty thirty years, it's clear that we're facing
an inflection point right now where you can only pay
(10:19):
people like crap for so long before that power of
compounding starts to make it a problem in terms of
them being able to afford the things they want to afford.
By the way, I'm not saying that all the policies
that are being discussed recently are trash, right the Trump
White House, A lot of them are.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
A lot of them are.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
But the Trump White House proposed the idea of lowering
or eliminating tariffs on certain food items. Great like that
promotes free your markets, and should help with affordability. I
think that's a good idea. I'm not debating that piece.
But other things such as price fixing, rent state owned
(11:00):
grocery stores, I see a lot of problems with these. Michael,
what do you think?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What do you think about a top down five year
plan to improve the economy?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Right, Like.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
We could call it a five year plan even markets
solve these problems. Don't try and create the solutions because
we've just seen over and over how that just doesn't
work out the way you think.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Or again, like not to look to be to be fair,
I'm a hammer and I see like nails everywhere on
this More competition reduces the amount of profit and allows
for greater affordability generally through that competition, as companies have
to compete for business on price, quality and a whole
(11:48):
range of different items. Maybe, just maybe we've gotten to
the point where there's so much consolidation in so many
industries that there's not enough competition to be able to
drive that pricing the way you want. And by the way, way,
it's not just pricing that you drive competition on, it's
benefits for workers. Hey, if you have more competition, then
maybe the three. You know, one the two grocery stores
(12:09):
that operate in each region can't just agree to pay
the same amount to their workers, and maybe you actually
end up with higher wages as a result, and that
solves some of the problem. So ultimately, where I get
to is affordability is not going to be solved by
the federal, state or local government saying this is the
(12:31):
right price for something, because there is no right price
for anything. What I do think can solve is more
competition making it easier for businesses to get into business
and compete. Less regulation, yes, And I think also, by
the way, if you have less if you have more competition,
you don't need as much regulation because the competition weeds
(12:52):
out the weak companies that can't compete. Let's take a
quick break now. When we come back, we're gonna be
joined by Sarah Foster from Banquet. We're talking talking about
what's going on in the labor market that feels so broken.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
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Speaker 5 (13:41):
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Speaker 4 (13:56):
As promised.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
We're now joined by Sarah Foster from bankrit here too,
we've talked a little bit about what is going on
in the labor market.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Sarah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
Thanks for having me. I always enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So when we talk about this labor market right now,
it seems like people that are looking for jobs are
telling us, Hey, I'm having a pretty hard time finding one.
Why is that the case?
Speaker 6 (14:21):
That's right, It's a tail to job markets. That's kind
of how we've been describing it. It's a different economy
for people who are working, but a completely different environment
for those who are looking for a job. You know,
I think it's fair to say that we have seen
widespread economic uncertainty. Businesses don't really know how to plan
for the future. They're also dealing with higher production costs
(14:42):
because of tariffs. It's been a difficult time for really
companies to think about their hiring plans. And that's why
we've kind of transitioned into this point where we're calling
it that no higher but no fire labor market. Of course,
though we need data to really confirm whether that's still
the case.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Let's talk about the data side, because we know that
we have them been getting government jobs reports for the
last couple of months now. Supplemental data around that, you know,
privately released reports and things like that, are what are
we seeing In.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
General, we are seeing some red flags. There was a
pickup in layoffs, you know that Challenger Grand Christmas report
which showed that the most October job cuts in over
twenty years. That raised you know, a lot of concerns
here about whether the state of the labor market could
be transitioning from a no higher no fire to a
no higher start firing labor market. You know. Of course,
(15:32):
though many economists often point out how the Challenger data
has really showed that layoffs have picked up, you know,
post pandemic, because companies really started rebalancing their payrolls who
had over hired during those few months when the economy
was shut down. What all that's to say is whether
this is you know, the broader state of the labor market,
or whether this just reflects those big, flashy headline companies,
(15:55):
you know, Amazon ups laying off lots of workers. That's
something we can really ownly we see in the federal data,
and we of course are hopefully going to get our
first look at that the Thursday, September Jobs report is
expected to be released.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
When we look at this economy overall, one of the
things that we do see is that again we don't
have the updated you know, Q three GDP numbers because
of the government shutdown. But it seemed like GDP was
growing at a pretty good clip in Q three prior
to the shutdown, and Q two was pretty strong as well.
How do we reconcile a seemingly strong headline number for
(16:33):
the economy with this week hiring.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
It's peculiar. We kind of describe it as a jobless boom.
That's because we looked at historically when GDP is as
strong as it is, how many job at job growth
and hiring, how much that translates to you know, typically
a three point eight percent quarter over quarter growth is
correlated with two hundred and sixty four thousand jobs added
(16:58):
in a month. Of course, the added barely anything twenty
two thousand in August, which was the last month that
we have data available for. It's probably because we are
reaching this point in the economy where growth is achieved
through efficiency and cost cutting as opposed to expansion and hiring.
You know, we see companies hiring and investing, or we
(17:18):
see companies investing in intellectual property, you know, artificial intelligence
to improve their productivity as opposed to hiring more workers
and really expanding at the pace that they did coming
out of the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Very good, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.
We appreciate the time.
Speaker 6 (17:37):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
That is Sarah Foster from Bank Right, talking about the
labor market.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
All right, let's do a little bit of trivia here
on the financial exchange. And on this day in two
thousand and four, Kmart announced it is buying Sears, Roebuck
and Company for eleven billion dollars and naming the newly
merged company Seers Holdings Corporation. Twenty one years later, there
are no Kmar big box stores in the USA US
and series and big box stores are down to a
(18:03):
small handful. So our trivia question today, what year did
the Sears Holdings Corporation file for bankruptcy? Once again, what
year did the Sears Holdings Corporation file for bankruptcy? Be
the fourth person today at Texas at six one seven
three six two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer,
(18:24):
and you win a Financial Exchange Show T shirt. Once again.
The fourth correct response to Texas to the number six
one seven three six two thirteen eighty five will win
that T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Dot com Disney and Google, or rather Disney and Alphabet.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Who is the parent company of Google? Who's the parent
company of YouTube? Who's the parent company of YouTube TV?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Is Google the parent company of YouTube? Or is Alphabet
the parent company of view?
Speaker 4 (18:51):
I don't know, Mike, course, it's it's Alphabet soup.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
See what I did there?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Anyway? Anything going on? I think? There we go? Yep,
I knew it was coming.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
In any case, they finally came to an agreement so
that you can have ESPN, ABC and whatever other channels
are on Disney's networks back, and quite honestly, I didn't
miss them. And I'm someone who watches a whole lot
of sports, But I'm honestly getting to the point where
I'm wondering if I want.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
To keep a broader subscribe brought streaming package. At this point,
I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Quick break here when we come back, We've got the
Trivia Answer and Wall Street Watch.
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.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
We're proud to announce that circle K is now the
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(20:10):
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Speaker 1 (20:16):
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 (20:30):
Markets are at the moment mixed. We saw a little
blip about twenty minutes ago, but right now dipping into
negative territory as investors await in video earnings in addition
to retailer earnings from Home, Deep, Boat, Target, and Walmart.
Investors also awaiting Thursday's release of the September jobs report.
Right now, the Dow is down nearly two tenths of
(20:51):
one percent or eighty one points lower. SMP five hundred
down about a tenth of a percent or eight points.
NASDAK is off merely four points. RUSS two thousand is
down over three quarters of a percent or eighteen points lower.
Ten year treasurey reeled down one basis point at four
point one two nine percent, and crude oil is dipping
(21:12):
just below sixty dollars a barrel. Alphabet jumping by about
four percent after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it took
a stake in the Google parent company in the third
quarter and further reduced its stake in Apple Speaking of Apple,
the Financial Times reported that the tech giant is ramping
up its preparations around identifying and appointing a successor to
(21:33):
CEO Tim Cook. Apple stock is down over one and
a half percent. Meanwhile, the fifteen days standoff between Disney
and Google is over after both companies reached a deal
to return ESPN, ABC and other Disney networks to about
ten million YouTube TV customers. Disney shares are up nearly
one percent, and both Ford and Amazon announced a new
(21:54):
partnership was this morning where Ford's franchise dealers will be
able to sell certified pre owned vehicles through Amazon. The
deal comes a year after Amazon said it would allow
auto dealers to sell cars through its site starting with Hyundai.
I'm Tucker Silva and that is Wall Street Watch and
in the previous segment, we asked the trivia question what
(22:14):
year did the Sears Holdings Corporation file for bankruptcy? That
would be twenty eighteen. Bill from Dunbarton, New Hampshire is
our winner today taking home the Financial Exchange Show T shirt.
Congrats Bell. We play trivia every day here in the
Financial Exchange. See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show
dot com.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Could talk a little bit just about Tim Cook. Yeah,
you know, well briefly at least what a guest the
older to be honest, sixty five, ye and took over
Apple in not because he looks older, but just because
he's been running Apple for so long.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I would have guessedhim older.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
He's been running the company for fifteen years now. Before that,
he spent I want to say it was close to
fifteen years running operations there.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I think, yeah, ninety eight when Jobs brought Cook to Apple,
so he spent almost thirty years there. I mean basically
mid thirties through mid sixties. And I still remember after
he took over. Do you remember there was that period
for maybe like four or five years when every time
Apple would give you know, a little like ten percent
(23:19):
wobble down, people would be like, well, Cook's not really
what Jobs used to be, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Not Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And it's like, no, he's not. He's I don't want
to say better because I think two things can be true.
I think Steve Jobs was absolutely what Apple needed in
order to become what it became, simply because we saw
Apple without Steve Jobs and it couldn't go anywhere. Yeap
and I think after Jobs passed in twenty eleven, it's
pretty clear that Cook has done a fantastic job leading
(23:50):
the company through a more mature phase of its life
span as well. It's not to say that things wouldn't
have been really interesting if Jobs were still alive, but
it would be a very different company from what it
is today in my opinion.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah, today it's a mature tech operator, yeah, rather than
a exciting I can't call it an exciting innovator.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Today.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
You kind of almost wonder, how, like, like what what
would Steve Jobs be doing if Apple were you know,
like you just have those questions, like what would he
be doing if Apple were what it is today? Would
he still you know, kind of be pushing things the
way that he was, or would he have run out
of room the same way that Apple's.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Kind of weren out of room to innovator? I just
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Let's cover this piece from the Wall Street Journal forgotten
four to one K counts are costing Americans billions in
lost investment gains?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
How and why? So important thing to understand about your
four oh one case one employers oftentimes ought to enroll you,
and so unless you're looking at your paycheck, which should
but sometimes people actually genuinely don't notice that they've been
established in a four oh one K plan and that
portions of their paycheck are going into that one K plan.
(25:01):
Buried deep in the disclosures that you get about your
four h one K, it says something about what happens
if you leave that company and your balance is of
a certain dollar amount. And this is again there is
no standard across the board, but oftentimes workers with you know,
less than ten thousand or less than five thousand dollars
in those plans will have, by rule the plan terminated
(25:25):
and it'll go into either an IRA. Sometimes they'll send
you a check that has to be really small. If
it's like under one thousand dollars, that's where it happens.
But this is all nuanced and different by employer. And
the problem is if they send you a check or
turn it into an IRA. In the case of the check,
you're gonna be taxed on it and punalized on it.
(25:46):
In the case of an IRA, it's gonna sit in
cash in most cases or in all cases, and you
may miss out on future returns.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
How does someone figure out what the situation is with
them in a potential old form one.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Reach out to your former employer.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
If it's been a really long time, you may need
to reach out to abandoned property. They would turn it
into wherever you were living at the time. Because here's
where this is actually happening, especially with young people. You
know you're moving every year, they may send you a
notice to your old address.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
If you didn't set up mail forwarding.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Once that mail gets returned, then the account becomes abandoned
and restricted. If it lasts a certain period of time,
they have to turn it over. This stuff can happen,
and so I mean first step would be you can
go take a look at the state abandoned properties, but
reach out to that old employer. Figure out where this
stuff is. But most importantly, just don't let it get
(26:42):
to this point because the way it gets here is
people suddenly have five old four to one ks at
four different old employers, and that's how you lose track
of this stuff. It's not to say do X or
Y with it. It's not to say cash them all out,
it's not to say roll them all into iras. There
are benefits and drawbacks to doing that, but consolidating down
(27:04):
is really the only proven way that I've seen to
make sure it's at least able to be tracked and
monitored in a meaningful way. If you are in a
situation where you might have an old four to one
K or you have a current four to one K,
you've got iras all over the place, and you're just
trying to figure out, Hey, what's the best positioning for
(27:26):
me as I continue to save for my future. Give
the folks at Armstrong Advisory Group a call. Retirement plans
are by their very nature quite complicated. We've gone through
all the rule changes when it comes to them over
the course of the last few weeks here as we've
gotten new contribution limits. But you know, far too often
I see people, for instance, have no idea whether they
(27:46):
should be contributing to Traditional or Wroth, and then that
question of what do I do with the old ones
comes up every single day.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Again.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
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Speaker 1 (28:09):
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Speaker 2 (28:25):
Pierce the Wall Street Journal layoff tactics keep changing and
the blunders keep coming. So Amazon, as an example, they
started laying off fourteen thousand plus employees in the last month,
and some of the people they were laying off got
a text message while they were like at home getting
ready for the day saying, Hey, go check your email,
(28:46):
And then they got an email titled update regarding your
role at Amazon that said, unfortunately your role is being eliminated.
So look, there's no good way to lay someone off.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
No there though, I mean again, Amazon can do whatever
they want. I'm not saying that I want some sort
of regulation requiring you to do this. No, but at
a bare minimum, can't we all agree that if you're
firing somebody, have the human decency to put a human
in charge of it and either do a I mean
a bare.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Minimum phone call seems appropriate.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And Basically, what Amazon and even what you hear like
labor consultants say is, look, you need to do this
to as many people as at the same time as
possible so that you know rumors don't spread in this
and that. And I get that, but look, you hired
all of these people seemingly not through text message.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Actually in Amazon's case, I'm not sure, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I'm kind of of the opinion that when making hiring
and firing decisions. You know, we've complained about how gyms
let you sign up online but then make you like
come in in order to cancel your membership. I'm kind
of of the like the mirror belief for hiring and firing,
which is, look, whatever way you hired your employee, you
need to fire them the same way because it's basic
(30:04):
common human decency.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Again, I'm not a proponent of like you don't need
to let the French labor system where you basically can't
fire anyone ever. No, but just be a person about it,
like some basic human decency. If you're going to fire somebody,
do it to their face and.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You don't have like certainly you don't have to be like,
well this is so hard for me. No, it's hard
for the person you're laying off. Okay, Like, don't be
like that CEO who was like crying. It was like,
this is the toughest day of my life. It's like, dude,
you just laid off your whole team.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah, so probably worse for them, yes, but again, you
can have a short, succinct, informative conversation as an actual
person where you.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Do that and at least be human about it. Because
this is not target ad one. They had employees log
onto a zoom call and the audio glitched out for
the first five minutes, and so employees didn't know what
was happening. Oh good, and so it was kind of
like they didn't know that they had been laid off
(31:04):
in some cases. So I just think, again, there's no
good way to do it, but there are plenty of
bad ones, and companies keep finding new bad ones and
way to go Amazon, it's not great to take a
quick break when we return stack Roulette.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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Speaker 5 (31:53):
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Speaker 4 (32:29):
Mike, what do you got for me? I want to
talk about tech moguls building data centers in space. So
if you didn't think that the AI trade was quite
frothy enough, now they are talking about building AI data
centers on the Moon, and they have a bunch of
argument's going to use data centers on the moon, Mike,
(32:50):
great question. Maybe they're gonna beam the finished data back
to us via satellite unclear at this point they beat up,
But here is their main compelling argument, as far as
I could tell, Yeah, you've got you know, solar panels
could be more efficient because of a lack of an
atmosphere there and you know, constant sunlight, which okay, I'll
(33:12):
buy that for a moment. But mainly the argument seems
to be that there's no regulation for developing the Moon,
and so you know, you can't get those pesky nimbi's
talking about their complaints about a new nuclear power plant
in their backyard because nobody lives on the Moon, so
we can develop as much AI data centers as we
want there, which seems like a pretty pis poor reason
(33:34):
to develop AI data centers on the Moon.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes and no, I mean, like I'm thinking this out. Generally,
the reason why we have regulations about why you can
build what you build where is you don't want something
to be a public nuisance. You don't want it to
cause you know, pollution. Sure that prohibits people from living
there in the future and things like that, and so
on one level, I kind of understand it, like if
you turn the Moon, if you turn the Moon into
(34:00):
a radioactive wasteland, it doesn't really affect anyone.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Guess the counterpoint is doesn't have an atmosphere, so I'm
not sure where that radioactive waste would end up.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Probably on our planet, right, Like I.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Don't exactly know the physics of like how this works
with you know, alpha and beta particles and like what
stops them and what doesn't huh. And I also just think,
like again, like not to get all Jurassic Park on
you and everything, but like just because you can do
something doesn't mean you should do something right. So, you know,
I still have some second thoughts about it, but I
(34:36):
understand the concept of I like the idea that regulation
is so bad that we need to we need to go.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
To the moon on the moon.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
I mean, that does kind of feel like something my
two year old would say, Yeah, Dad, I don't like
the rules around throwing food here, so I'm gonna go
to the Moon.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, okay, it's Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Good good luck.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I want to talk about this piece from the Wall
Street Journal over the weekend. It's titled The Ultra Richer
Spending a fortune to live in Extreme Privacy. It's not
in the stack, but the cover picture is Massud and
Stephanie show j so G I don't know how to
pronounce the last name. I'm sorry. And it's them like
climbing onto a private jet with what looks to be
(35:18):
like a very expensive handbag and outfit and this and that,
and the whole piece talks about like, oh, you can
you know, go in through these you know, back doors
to these private clubs and private restaurants and this and that,
and it's all about privacy, privacy, privacy, and then again
like I don't know who these people are because this
is not what I watch. But then they just slip
in like two thirds of the way down that Stephanie
(35:40):
is the president of this real estate group that her
and her husband run and a cast member of the
Real Housewives of Miami.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Doesn't seem all that private. I don't think this is
a privacy thing. It's an exclusivity thing. And this is
I can have something that you can't that I want
to use it privately. If you wanted it privately, you
wouldn't have it published in the Wall Street Journey, right,
just just call it what it is. They you shared
your news, love the image of yourself, and you have
you know, quotes in here such as, like the conversations
(36:06):
in these places feel safer and feel deeper. Well, probably
because you don't have, you know, the other three hundred
and thirty million Americans being like, why.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Safer because there's no poor people there?
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Right, Like, just say what you want to say.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
What you're actually saying is that you don't like being
around not even poor people, just like the massive evalent,
like you don't like being around people.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Who aren't as wealthy as you.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, and I'm not saying I agree with that, but
if that's what you want to say, Like, that's fine,
but don't like coc it under guys, say it up privacy.
When you have a TV show talking about basically like
how awesome your life is and the stuff that you
do on it.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
That is so I found that just kind of comical. Yeah,
that is that is pretty solid. Uh, in the category
of other things that I don't understand. Apple is out
with a new two hundred and thirty dollars cloth iPhone
p ouch it's already sold out, uh, two hundred thirty
bucks for again, I'm just seeing the image online. What
looks an awful lot like a knitted sock.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
It looks like Nana's iPhone holder, but she made you
this for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
If you want a sock, I can just get you
shouldn't be in your.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Pocket a little satchel the honey and it's.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
Like two hundred and thirty dollars. Also, just a few
things about this one looks exceedingly easy to steal. I
think it would be better in your pocket given that
it's now like a fifteen hundred piece, fifteen hundred dollar
piece of technical I don't know. This thing looks pretty strong,
like did you see the close up of the strap? Yeah,
I mean, but again, like a quick pair of scissors
(37:40):
looks like it would do that thing in. And I
know you can say that about a handbag and everything else,
but I'm just confused as to why something as small
as a phone needs a sock like pouch to live in.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
But again, I don't understand fashion.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
And good for iPhone, for Apple for selling out of
these in twenty minutes. Yeah, they they They really did
a number on this thing. What if we actually made
a sock that could hold an iPhone?
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Again, I have lost that could fit an iPhone?
Speaker 4 (38:12):
No no, no, but like not.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Because you don't want it touching your skin in the
sock that gets sweaty and messy. What about like a
pocket on the sock? Got it for your iPhone? I mean,
sell the idea to Apple. You may be you may
be onto something, Chuck.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
I think we could we we could call it it's
a collaboration with is Miaki, which you know, I know
you're very familiar with. Or it could even have a
plug on it, Mike, it could be the eye socket
that is a triple entoned.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
In case you're not paying attention, just take a quick
break for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we have
more expensive Apple stuff, hopefully,
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(01:06):
Zada and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Chuck Mike Tucker with you here, and we've got stocks
volatile from minute to minute, but not behaving.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Great at the moment.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
The S and P of five hundred right now is
down nineteen points, about a third of a percent one point.
This morning, I saw it was up about twenty points,
So you've got about a half percentage point intra day swing,
and this is just kind of what we've been seeing.
Dow is currently off about a quarter percent one hundred
and fifteen points. The Nasdaq composite is down seventy two points,
(01:40):
about a third of a percent as well. So all
major indices in the red or the ruge I believe
is that's what they say, that's how they say it.
In on the French exchanges, US tenure Treasury down one
point five basis points to four point one three to
three percent, No real movement there. We've got gold off
(02:01):
twenty seven eighty an ounce to four thy sixty six
and twenty cents. Crude oil is down sixteen cents a
barrel to fifty nine ninety three a barrel in the
TRIPAA national average for gas prices is up one tenth
of a cent to three oh seven and three tenths.
A year ago, it was three oh seven and two tenths,
So I'm glad oil traders went.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Through that last year.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yahoo in any case, kind of just some continued consternation.
I gotta tell you, like something that's just like just
kind of bugging me here. Is like normally this time
of year is where you're like, not me personally because like,
my feet are too like my legs are too short
to put up on the desk and kick back and relax.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's Santa Clause time.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Normally you've got kind of this chase for year end
performance coming from managers. It's just it's it's a lower
volume time of year. There's not much excitement. You basically
don't see anything exciting on the board. The times when
you do are ones where you just have to Again,
I'm not saying anything bad will happen, but when you
start seeing like weird things happening, like hey, it's a
(03:10):
Monday with the S and P down less than half
a percent and the VIX is up, you know, even
accounting for the fact that VIX tends to move up
on Mondays because of the way the calendar works, and
you got vix up, you know, one point five, you know,
volves on it. It's just like, this is just kind
of weird stuff that you look at and you're like,
(03:30):
what are you're looking at this saying? What is this
market concerned about? And who knows?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Something?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, I could attribute it to a couple of things. One,
it could be looming signs of danger. Could also be
the result of delayed data. I think that's part of
a down. It could be result of a FED that
is maybe in part because of that shutdown, giving no
clear signal about what they are doing next. And so yeah,
(03:57):
that could be a contributing fact, but I'm not sure
I would bet on it.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I kind of figured quite honestly after we got into
November that you know, you had some volatility popping up
in October on private credit concerns, and then it just
kind of went away as we got into earnings, and
I kind of figured, Okay, like that's it for that,
And now you got these other stories about private credit
(04:25):
popping up over the weekend with investors in this blue
Owl fund having to take a twenty percent haircut pending
you know, their their final approval on it. And I'm
kind of just looking at this and like something just
kind of stinks here, and you hope it isn't anything bigger.
But it's like you don't normally see this into year end.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It's just made this comparison before. But March of.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Twenty three, when was the bank failures twenty four to
three Silicon Valley Bank, we early on we're experiencing something
interesting there, and you said, you gotta just kind of
wait and see how bad this gets. And it got
bad for a weekend. You had three banks ended up
getting shuttered and needed to find buyers. And again, part
(05:14):
because of the fed's actions, part because of just where
the real problems were, it didn't bubble over. It feels
this way similarly now with a market with a stock
market that's even richer in terms of evaluation.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
The key difference then is the there's a difference between
being illiquid and insolvent. Right, if you're a liquid you
have the money, but you just can't come up with
the ability to pay it. Yet, if you're insolvent, you
don't have the ability to like it's just it's not there,
like you just can't provide the funds. And so I
(05:49):
think that they've had some insolvencies recently. The difference here
on this is the problem that those banks faced was
just interest rates when and the valuations of the stuff
they had was just out of whack with where their
balance sheets needed to be, and you had basically a
run on the banks.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
YEP.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
In this case, the question is, hey, do companies have
the ability to pay back these private credit loans? And
we don't know the answers yet we don't. No one does.
This is the thing I keep coming back to anyone
who says this either is or is not, you know,
a big problem. They're not talking because they're the ones
that are trying, that actually own the stuff and they're
(06:29):
trying to manage through it. They're not talking now, So
I don't know what's going to happen here. I'm just
looking at the situation saying something feels weird and we're
gonna have to get to a resolution at some point.
But this blue owl thing over the weekend has me
feeling not great, just because it's giving me shades of
(06:52):
mid two thousand and seven with companies trying to shuffle
the deck chairs on these loans that weren't performing. In
that case, in the residential sector. This is companies feeling
like they're trying to shuffle the deck chairs with these
loans to these mid market companies, and it's just giving
me this feeling of de ja vous, I believe is
(07:13):
what they refer to it as.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You're just all French this morning?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Is deja vous French? Yeah it is? Yeah, Yeah, I
don't know. I don't speak French. No, you got three
words down. We four look at.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That White House hunts for ways to lower cost of living. Guys,
here's the deal. The federal government basically can't lower the
cost of living. And now you get these pieces in
the New York Times titled economists hate this idea.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
It could be the way out of the affordability crisis.
It's talking about price controls. Yeah, can we also say
that mayors also can't really fix the affordability crisis?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, Guys, Like, here's the deal is, we've kind of
gotten to this point over multiple decades, and you're not
just going to be able to fix it with any
of the tools that are available to you, because it's
not a problem that's created by those tools or the
lack thereof.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Honestly, maybe it's just been so long since we've price
fixed things and set quotas that we need to go
through that students to feel how bad it is. I mean,
like people that lived through the oil embargo and remember
sitting in giant lines at gas stations because of this
exact economic policy. Right, we basically said you can have
(08:32):
this much gasoline per week. Remember how that feels and
how it all worked. And maybe it's just been a
long while since we've done it, and we need to
go through that peak stupid period again. Because price controls,
there's a lot of things that economists will disagree on,
and you know, you'll be able to cite different economists.
(08:55):
I have not seen any mainstream economists whatsoever that debate
the result of price controls.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
They result in shortages every time, and that's.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What we are very obvious reasons, you know. So I
also think that when look when we look at the
the problems that we're facing on affordability, I mean, got like,
I don't want to keep coming back to this, but
I come back to it a lot. Ultimately, what we
(09:25):
are talking about here is the fact that incomes have
not kept up with prices in the way that people
are comfortable with. I don't know why every time we
look at this problem we look at the price piece
and not the income piece. Now, I'm not saying that
the problem is a minimum wage issue. The national minimum
(09:46):
wage is like seven dollars and twenty five cents. Still,
the estimates that I've seen are like one percent of
the people in the country right now ye are earning minimum.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wage or lower.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
So this is not Chuck being like, hey, you need
to raise them minimum wage. So let's be clear about this.
But what I am saying is when you look at
the way that overall wealth and incomes have grown over
the last twenty thirty years, it's clear that we're facing
an inflection point right now where you can only pay
(10:19):
people like crap for so long before that power of
compounding starts to make it a problem in terms of
them being able to afford the things they want to afford.
By the way, I'm not saying that all the policies
that are being discussed recently are trash, right the Trump
White House, A lot of them are.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
A lot of them are.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
But the Trump White House proposed the idea of lowering
or eliminating tariffs on certain food items. Great like that
promotes free your markets, and should help with affordability. I
think that's a good idea. I'm not debating that piece.
But other things such as price fixing, rent state owned
(11:00):
grocery stores, I see a lot of problems with these. Michael,
what do you think?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What do you think about a top down five year
plan to improve the economy?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Right, Like.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
We could call it a five year plan even markets
solve these problems. Don't try and create the solutions because
we've just seen over and over how that just doesn't
work out the way you think.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Or again, like not to look to be to be fair,
I'm a hammer and I see like nails everywhere on
this More competition reduces the amount of profit and allows
for greater affordability generally through that competition, as companies have
to compete for business on price, quality and a whole
(11:48):
range of different items. Maybe, just maybe we've gotten to
the point where there's so much consolidation in so many
industries that there's not enough competition to be able to
drive that pricing the way you want. And by the way, way,
it's not just pricing that you drive competition on, it's
benefits for workers. Hey, if you have more competition, then
maybe the three. You know, one the two grocery stores
(12:09):
that operate in each region can't just agree to pay
the same amount to their workers, and maybe you actually
end up with higher wages as a result, and that
solves some of the problem. So ultimately, where I get
to is affordability is not going to be solved by
the federal, state or local government saying this is the
(12:31):
right price for something, because there is no right price
for anything. What I do think can solve is more
competition making it easier for businesses to get into business
and compete. Less regulation, yes, And I think also, by
the way, if you have less if you have more competition,
you don't need as much regulation because the competition weeds
(12:52):
out the weak companies that can't compete. Let's take a
quick break now. When we come back, we're gonna be
joined by Sarah Foster from Banquet. We're talking talking about
what's going on in the labor market that feels so broken.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
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Speaker 5 (13:41):
This segment of the Financial Exchange is powered by circle
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Speaker 4 (13:56):
As promised.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
We're now joined by Sarah Foster from bankrit here too,
we've talked a little bit about what is going on
in the labor market.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Sarah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
Thanks for having me. I always enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So when we talk about this labor market right now,
it seems like people that are looking for jobs are
telling us, Hey, I'm having a pretty hard time finding one.
Why is that the case?
Speaker 6 (14:21):
That's right, It's a tail to job markets. That's kind
of how we've been describing it. It's a different economy
for people who are working, but a completely different environment
for those who are looking for a job. You know,
I think it's fair to say that we have seen
widespread economic uncertainty. Businesses don't really know how to plan
for the future. They're also dealing with higher production costs
(14:42):
because of tariffs. It's been a difficult time for really
companies to think about their hiring plans. And that's why
we've kind of transitioned into this point where we're calling
it that no higher but no fire labor market. Of course,
though we need data to really confirm whether that's still
the case.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Let's talk about the data side, because we know that
we have them been getting government jobs reports for the
last couple of months now. Supplemental data around that, you know,
privately released reports and things like that, are what are
we seeing In.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
General, we are seeing some red flags. There was a
pickup in layoffs, you know that Challenger Grand Christmas report
which showed that the most October job cuts in over
twenty years. That raised you know, a lot of concerns
here about whether the state of the labor market could
be transitioning from a no higher no fire to a
no higher start firing labor market. You know. Of course,
(15:32):
though many economists often point out how the Challenger data
has really showed that layoffs have picked up, you know,
post pandemic, because companies really started rebalancing their payrolls who
had over hired during those few months when the economy
was shut down. What all that's to say is whether
this is you know, the broader state of the labor market,
or whether this just reflects those big, flashy headline companies,
(15:55):
you know, Amazon ups laying off lots of workers. That's
something we can really ownly we see in the federal data,
and we of course are hopefully going to get our
first look at that the Thursday, September Jobs report is
expected to be released.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
When we look at this economy overall, one of the
things that we do see is that again we don't
have the updated you know, Q three GDP numbers because
of the government shutdown. But it seemed like GDP was
growing at a pretty good clip in Q three prior
to the shutdown, and Q two was pretty strong as well.
How do we reconcile a seemingly strong headline number for
(16:33):
the economy with this week hiring.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
It's peculiar. We kind of describe it as a jobless boom.
That's because we looked at historically when GDP is as
strong as it is, how many job at job growth
and hiring, how much that translates to you know, typically
a three point eight percent quarter over quarter growth is
correlated with two hundred and sixty four thousand jobs added
(16:58):
in a month. Of course, the added barely anything twenty
two thousand in August, which was the last month that
we have data available for. It's probably because we are
reaching this point in the economy where growth is achieved
through efficiency and cost cutting as opposed to expansion and hiring.
You know, we see companies hiring and investing, or we
(17:18):
see companies investing in intellectual property, you know, artificial intelligence
to improve their productivity as opposed to hiring more workers
and really expanding at the pace that they did coming
out of the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Very good, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.
We appreciate the time.
Speaker 6 (17:37):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
That is Sarah Foster from Bank Right, talking about the
labor market.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
All right, let's do a little bit of trivia here
on the financial exchange. And on this day in two
thousand and four, Kmart announced it is buying Sears, Roebuck
and Company for eleven billion dollars and naming the newly
merged company Seers Holdings Corporation. Twenty one years later, there
are no Kmar big box stores in the USA US
and series and big box stores are down to a
(18:03):
small handful. So our trivia question today, what year did
the Sears Holdings Corporation file for bankruptcy? Once again, what
year did the Sears Holdings Corporation file for bankruptcy? Be
the fourth person today at Texas at six one seven
three six two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer,
(18:24):
and you win a Financial Exchange Show T shirt. Once again.
The fourth correct response to Texas to the number six
one seven three six two thirteen eighty five will win
that T shirt. See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Dot com Disney and Google, or rather Disney and Alphabet.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Who is the parent company of Google? Who's the parent
company of YouTube? Who's the parent company of YouTube TV?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Is Google the parent company of YouTube? Or is Alphabet
the parent company of view?
Speaker 4 (18:51):
I don't know, Mike, course, it's it's Alphabet soup.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
See what I did there?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Anyway? Anything going on? I think? There we go? Yep,
I knew it was coming.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
In any case, they finally came to an agreement so
that you can have ESPN, ABC and whatever other channels
are on Disney's networks back, and quite honestly, I didn't
miss them. And I'm someone who watches a whole lot
of sports, But I'm honestly getting to the point where
I'm wondering if I want.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
To keep a broader subscribe brought streaming package. At this point,
I just don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Quick break here when we come back, We've got the
Trivia Answer and Wall Street Watch.
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.
Speaker 7 (19:49):
We're proud to announce that circle K is now the
official convenience store of the dav Department of Massachusetts at
circle K. Supporting those who bravely served our country isn't
just a commitment, it's a heartfelt mission. Circle K is
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If you'd like to do your part, please visit DAVMA
(20:10):
dot org. Thank you for standing with circle K and
the dav Department of Massachusetts, and thank you veterans.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
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 (20:30):
Markets are at the moment mixed. We saw a little
blip about twenty minutes ago, but right now dipping into
negative territory as investors await in video earnings in addition
to retailer earnings from Home, Deep, Boat, Target, and Walmart.
Investors also awaiting Thursday's release of the September jobs report.
Right now, the Dow is down nearly two tenths of
(20:51):
one percent or eighty one points lower. SMP five hundred
down about a tenth of a percent or eight points.
NASDAK is off merely four points. RUSS two thousand is
down over three quarters of a percent or eighteen points lower.
Ten year treasurey reeled down one basis point at four
point one two nine percent, and crude oil is dipping
(21:12):
just below sixty dollars a barrel. Alphabet jumping by about
four percent after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it took
a stake in the Google parent company in the third
quarter and further reduced its stake in Apple Speaking of Apple,
the Financial Times reported that the tech giant is ramping
up its preparations around identifying and appointing a successor to
(21:33):
CEO Tim Cook. Apple stock is down over one and
a half percent. Meanwhile, the fifteen days standoff between Disney
and Google is over after both companies reached a deal
to return ESPN, ABC and other Disney networks to about
ten million YouTube TV customers. Disney shares are up nearly
one percent, and both Ford and Amazon announced a new
(21:54):
partnership was this morning where Ford's franchise dealers will be
able to sell certified pre owned vehicles through Amazon. The
deal comes a year after Amazon said it would allow
auto dealers to sell cars through its site starting with Hyundai.
I'm Tucker Silva and that is Wall Street Watch and
in the previous segment, we asked the trivia question what
(22:14):
year did the Sears Holdings Corporation file for bankruptcy? That
would be twenty eighteen. Bill from Dunbarton, New Hampshire is
our winner today taking home the Financial Exchange Show T shirt.
Congrats Bell. We play trivia every day here in the
Financial Exchange. See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show
dot com.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Could talk a little bit just about Tim Cook. Yeah,
you know, well briefly at least what a guest the
older to be honest, sixty five, ye and took over
Apple in not because he looks older, but just because
he's been running Apple for so long.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I would have guessedhim older.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
He's been running the company for fifteen years now. Before that,
he spent I want to say it was close to
fifteen years running operations there.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I think, yeah, ninety eight when Jobs brought Cook to Apple,
so he spent almost thirty years there. I mean basically
mid thirties through mid sixties. And I still remember after
he took over. Do you remember there was that period
for maybe like four or five years when every time
Apple would give you know, a little like ten percent
(23:19):
wobble down, people would be like, well, Cook's not really
what Jobs used to be, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Not Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And it's like, no, he's not. He's I don't want
to say better because I think two things can be true.
I think Steve Jobs was absolutely what Apple needed in
order to become what it became, simply because we saw
Apple without Steve Jobs and it couldn't go anywhere. Yeap
and I think after Jobs passed in twenty eleven, it's
pretty clear that Cook has done a fantastic job leading
(23:50):
the company through a more mature phase of its life
span as well. It's not to say that things wouldn't
have been really interesting if Jobs were still alive, but
it would be a very different company from what it
is today in my opinion.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah, today it's a mature tech operator, yeah, rather than
a exciting I can't call it an exciting innovator.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Today.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
You kind of almost wonder, how, like, like what what
would Steve Jobs be doing if Apple were you know,
like you just have those questions, like what would he
be doing if Apple were what it is today? Would
he still you know, kind of be pushing things the
way that he was, or would he have run out
of room the same way that Apple's.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Kind of weren out of room to innovator? I just
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Let's cover this piece from the Wall Street Journal forgotten
four to one K counts are costing Americans billions in
lost investment gains?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
How and why? So important thing to understand about your
four oh one case one employers oftentimes ought to enroll you,
and so unless you're looking at your paycheck, which should
but sometimes people actually genuinely don't notice that they've been
established in a four oh one K plan and that
portions of their paycheck are going into that one K plan.
(25:01):
Buried deep in the disclosures that you get about your
four h one K, it says something about what happens
if you leave that company and your balance is of
a certain dollar amount. And this is again there is
no standard across the board, but oftentimes workers with you know,
less than ten thousand or less than five thousand dollars
in those plans will have, by rule the plan terminated
(25:25):
and it'll go into either an IRA. Sometimes they'll send
you a check that has to be really small. If
it's like under one thousand dollars, that's where it happens.
But this is all nuanced and different by employer. And
the problem is if they send you a check or
turn it into an IRA. In the case of the check,
you're gonna be taxed on it and punalized on it.
(25:46):
In the case of an IRA, it's gonna sit in
cash in most cases or in all cases, and you
may miss out on future returns.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
How does someone figure out what the situation is with
them in a potential old form one.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Reach out to your former employer.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
If it's been a really long time, you may need
to reach out to abandoned property. They would turn it
into wherever you were living at the time. Because here's
where this is actually happening, especially with young people. You
know you're moving every year, they may send you a
notice to your old address.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
If you didn't set up mail forwarding.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Once that mail gets returned, then the account becomes abandoned
and restricted. If it lasts a certain period of time,
they have to turn it over. This stuff can happen,
and so I mean first step would be you can
go take a look at the state abandoned properties, but
reach out to that old employer. Figure out where this
stuff is. But most importantly, just don't let it get
(26:42):
to this point because the way it gets here is
people suddenly have five old four to one ks at
four different old employers, and that's how you lose track
of this stuff. It's not to say do X or
Y with it. It's not to say cash them all out,
it's not to say roll them all into iras. There
are benefits and drawbacks to doing that, but consolidating down
(27:04):
is really the only proven way that I've seen to
make sure it's at least able to be tracked and
monitored in a meaningful way. If you are in a
situation where you might have an old four to one
K or you have a current four to one K,
you've got iras all over the place, and you're just
trying to figure out, Hey, what's the best positioning for
(27:26):
me as I continue to save for my future. Give
the folks at Armstrong Advisory Group a call. Retirement plans
are by their very nature quite complicated. We've gone through
all the rule changes when it comes to them over
the course of the last few weeks here as we've
gotten new contribution limits. But you know, far too often
I see people, for instance, have no idea whether they
(27:46):
should be contributing to Traditional or Wroth, and then that
question of what do I do with the old ones
comes up every single day.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Again.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
The Armstrong Advisory Group offers free consultations for you the
numbers eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
You can book a time for us to call you
back at Armstrong Advisory dot com. But once again that
number eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal or tax advice. Consult
your own financial tax into state planning advisors before making
any investment decisions. Armstrong may contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Pierce the Wall Street Journal layoff tactics keep changing and
the blunders keep coming. So Amazon, as an example, they
started laying off fourteen thousand plus employees in the last month,
and some of the people they were laying off got
a text message while they were like at home getting
ready for the day saying, Hey, go check your email,
(28:46):
And then they got an email titled update regarding your
role at Amazon that said, unfortunately your role is being eliminated.
So look, there's no good way to lay someone off.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
No there though, I mean again, Amazon can do whatever
they want. I'm not saying that I want some sort
of regulation requiring you to do this. No, but at
a bare minimum, can't we all agree that if you're
firing somebody, have the human decency to put a human
in charge of it and either do a I mean
a bare.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Minimum phone call seems appropriate.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And Basically, what Amazon and even what you hear like
labor consultants say is, look, you need to do this
to as many people as at the same time as
possible so that you know rumors don't spread in this
and that. And I get that, but look, you hired
all of these people seemingly not through text message.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Actually in Amazon's case, I'm not sure, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I'm kind of of the opinion that when making hiring
and firing decisions. You know, we've complained about how gyms
let you sign up online but then make you like
come in in order to cancel your membership. I'm kind
of of the like the mirror belief for hiring and firing,
which is, look, whatever way you hired your employee, you
need to fire them the same way because it's basic
(30:04):
common human decency.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Again, I'm not a proponent of like you don't need
to let the French labor system where you basically can't
fire anyone ever. No, but just be a person about it,
like some basic human decency. If you're going to fire somebody,
do it to their face and.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You don't have like certainly you don't have to be like,
well this is so hard for me. No, it's hard
for the person you're laying off. Okay, Like, don't be
like that CEO who was like crying. It was like,
this is the toughest day of my life. It's like, dude,
you just laid off your whole team.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah, so probably worse for them, yes, but again, you
can have a short, succinct, informative conversation as an actual
person where you.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Do that and at least be human about it. Because
this is not target ad one. They had employees log
onto a zoom call and the audio glitched out for
the first five minutes, and so employees didn't know what
was happening. Oh good, and so it was kind of
like they didn't know that they had been laid off
(31:04):
in some cases. So I just think, again, there's no
good way to do it, but there are plenty of
bad ones, and companies keep finding new bad ones and
way to go Amazon, it's not great to take a
quick break when we return stack Roulette.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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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(31:42):
streams live on YouTube. Subscribe to our page and stay
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Face He's the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
This year's DAV five k was another incredible success, with
over fifteen hundred runners and walkers, all supporting the disc
Disabled American Veterans Department of Massachusetts. The race results and
photo galleries are available to see and if you didn't
have a chance to participate, but would still like to
support our great American heroes, visit DAV fivek dot Boston.
(32:14):
Your gifts help fund free rides to medical appointments for
veterans and the nation's first dav leadhousing initiative providing homes
for single veterans and veteran families. Go to dav fivek
dot Boston and make your donation today. That's Dave five
k dot Boston.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Mike, what do you got for me? I want to
talk about tech moguls building data centers in space. So
if you didn't think that the AI trade was quite
frothy enough, now they are talking about building AI data
centers on the Moon, and they have a bunch of
argument's going to use data centers on the moon, Mike,
(32:50):
great question. Maybe they're gonna beam the finished data back
to us via satellite unclear at this point they beat up,
But here is their main compelling argument, as far as
I could tell, Yeah, you've got you know, solar panels
could be more efficient because of a lack of an
atmosphere there and you know, constant sunlight, which okay, I'll
(33:12):
buy that for a moment. But mainly the argument seems
to be that there's no regulation for developing the Moon,
and so you know, you can't get those pesky nimbi's
talking about their complaints about a new nuclear power plant
in their backyard because nobody lives on the Moon, so
we can develop as much AI data centers as we
want there, which seems like a pretty pis poor reason
(33:34):
to develop AI data centers on the Moon.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes and no, I mean, like I'm thinking this out. Generally,
the reason why we have regulations about why you can
build what you build where is you don't want something
to be a public nuisance. You don't want it to
cause you know, pollution. Sure that prohibits people from living
there in the future and things like that, and so
on one level, I kind of understand it, like if
you turn the Moon, if you turn the Moon into
(34:00):
a radioactive wasteland, it doesn't really affect anyone.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Guess the counterpoint is doesn't have an atmosphere, so I'm
not sure where that radioactive waste would end up.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Probably on our planet, right, Like I.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Don't exactly know the physics of like how this works
with you know, alpha and beta particles and like what
stops them and what doesn't huh. And I also just think,
like again, like not to get all Jurassic Park on
you and everything, but like just because you can do
something doesn't mean you should do something right. So, you know,
I still have some second thoughts about it, but I
(34:36):
understand the concept of I like the idea that regulation
is so bad that we need to we need to go.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
To the moon on the moon.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
I mean, that does kind of feel like something my
two year old would say, Yeah, Dad, I don't like
the rules around throwing food here, so I'm gonna go
to the Moon.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, okay, it's Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Good good luck.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I want to talk about this piece from the Wall
Street Journal over the weekend. It's titled The Ultra Richer
Spending a fortune to live in Extreme Privacy. It's not
in the stack, but the cover picture is Massud and
Stephanie show j so G I don't know how to
pronounce the last name. I'm sorry. And it's them like
climbing onto a private jet with what looks to be
(35:18):
like a very expensive handbag and outfit and this and that,
and the whole piece talks about like, oh, you can
you know, go in through these you know, back doors
to these private clubs and private restaurants and this and that,
and it's all about privacy, privacy, privacy, and then again
like I don't know who these people are because this
is not what I watch. But then they just slip
in like two thirds of the way down that Stephanie
(35:40):
is the president of this real estate group that her
and her husband run and a cast member of the
Real Housewives of Miami.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Doesn't seem all that private. I don't think this is
a privacy thing. It's an exclusivity thing. And this is
I can have something that you can't that I want
to use it privately. If you wanted it privately, you
wouldn't have it published in the Wall Street Journey, right,
just just call it what it is. They you shared
your news, love the image of yourself, and you have
you know, quotes in here such as, like the conversations
(36:06):
in these places feel safer and feel deeper. Well, probably
because you don't have, you know, the other three hundred
and thirty million Americans being like, why.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Safer because there's no poor people there?
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Right, Like, just say what you want to say.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
What you're actually saying is that you don't like being
around not even poor people, just like the massive evalent,
like you don't like being around people.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Who aren't as wealthy as you.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, and I'm not saying I agree with that, but
if that's what you want to say, Like, that's fine,
but don't like coc it under guys, say it up privacy.
When you have a TV show talking about basically like
how awesome your life is and the stuff that you
do on it.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
That is so I found that just kind of comical. Yeah,
that is that is pretty solid. Uh, in the category
of other things that I don't understand. Apple is out
with a new two hundred and thirty dollars cloth iPhone
p ouch it's already sold out, uh, two hundred thirty
bucks for again, I'm just seeing the image online. What
looks an awful lot like a knitted sock.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
It looks like Nana's iPhone holder, but she made you
this for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
If you want a sock, I can just get you
shouldn't be in your.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Pocket a little satchel the honey and it's.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
Like two hundred and thirty dollars. Also, just a few
things about this one looks exceedingly easy to steal. I
think it would be better in your pocket given that
it's now like a fifteen hundred piece, fifteen hundred dollar
piece of technical I don't know. This thing looks pretty strong,
like did you see the close up of the strap? Yeah,
I mean, but again, like a quick pair of scissors
(37:40):
looks like it would do that thing in. And I
know you can say that about a handbag and everything else,
but I'm just confused as to why something as small
as a phone needs a sock like pouch to live in.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
But again, I don't understand fashion.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
And good for iPhone, for Apple for selling out of
these in twenty minutes. Yeah, they they They really did
a number on this thing. What if we actually made
a sock that could hold an iPhone?
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Again, I have lost that could fit an iPhone?
Speaker 4 (38:12):
No no, no, but like not.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Because you don't want it touching your skin in the
sock that gets sweaty and messy. What about like a
pocket on the sock? Got it for your iPhone? I mean,
sell the idea to Apple. You may be you may
be onto something, Chuck.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
I think we could we we could call it it's
a collaboration with is Miaki, which you know, I know
you're very familiar with. Or it could even have a
plug on it, Mike, it could be the eye socket
that is a triple entoned.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
In case you're not paying attention, just take a quick
break for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we have
more expensive Apple stuff, hopefully,
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