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Oil Shock, AI Hiring Chaos & The Gen X Moment · The Financial Exchange Show

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Speaker 1: making a donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with
1:05
Speaker 1: Chuck Zada and Mike Armstrow.
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Speaker 2: Chuck, Mike and Tucker with you, and we are seeing
1:13
Speaker 2: just a lot of intra day volatility across a wide
1:17
Speaker 2: variety of asset classes.
1:20
Speaker 3: I mean, this market's been kind of all over the
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Speaker 3: place today.
1:25
Speaker 2: But as of right now, you've got the S and
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Speaker 2: P five hundred down twenty three points about a third
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Speaker 2: of a percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average down two
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Speaker 2: hundred and seventy points about zero point six percent. The
1:37
Speaker 2: NASDAK composite is down eighty seven points about point four percent.
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Speaker 2: All three of those are off the lows of the day,
1:45
Speaker 2: where at one point the S and P was down
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Speaker 2: almost one percent. Same with the DAW and NASDAK as well.
1:50
Speaker 2: Both those were down more than one percent earlier in
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Speaker 2: the day. In the bond world, tenure treasury also off
1:57
Speaker 2: its lows. At one point it was north of four
1:59
Speaker 2: point three three percent, but it's come back into four
2:01
Speaker 2: point two six three, up just six tenths of a
2:04
Speaker 2: basis point. It's not a huge move there, but the
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Speaker 2: shorter end of the yield curve is moving, with a
2:08
Speaker 2: two year treasury up eight point three basis points today,
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Speaker 2: so moving up a little bit on that front. Dollar
2:16
Speaker 2: index down point three seven percent to ninety nine fifty
2:19
Speaker 2: Gold getting bopped on the head by Bunny FUFU, down
2:24
Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty three and two hundred eighty three
2:27
Speaker 2: dollars and fifty cents an ounce to forty six twelve.
2:30
Speaker 2: Actually just fell another four dollars while I was talking.
2:32
Speaker 2: Now it's at forty six oh nine. You've got crude
2:35
Speaker 2: oil West Texas Intermediate is up about one and a
2:39
Speaker 2: quarter percent to ninety five ninety seven to fifty one
2:42
Speaker 2: trip a national averageur gas prices up another four cents
2:45
Speaker 2: overnight to three eighty eight and four tenths. Diesel now
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Speaker 2: at five oh nine and nine tenths uh SO gas
2:52
Speaker 2: price is now up about a full dollar uh since
2:55
Speaker 2: a month ago, and you've got diesel prices up about
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Speaker 2: a dollar forty in the same time span, Brent crude
3:02
Speaker 2: blowing out even further. There's a pretty big gulf developing
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Speaker 2: between the Brent pricing and the West Texas Intermediate pricing,
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Speaker 2: suggesting that traders may be starting to price in a
3:14
Speaker 2: US export ban. We'll see if that ends up being
3:17
Speaker 2: the case. To this point, I have not seen any
3:21
Speaker 2: official trial balloons floated along those lines. But you've got
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Speaker 2: Brent now at one to eleven while the West Texas
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Speaker 2: benchmark is at ninety seven. That's a pretty wide delta
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Speaker 2: between those two and we'll see how that resolves in
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Speaker 2: the coming days and weeks.
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Speaker 3: So that's what's going on in markets.
3:40
Speaker 2: JP Morgan's strategists say investors are complacent on the Iran war.
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Speaker 3: What are they saying here?
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Speaker 4: The same thing that I think lots of people are
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Speaker 4: trying to say. JP Morgan puts out these types of
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Speaker 4: warnings every once in a while, But they're saying the
3:55
Speaker 4: same thing that a lot of folks are, which is hey,
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Speaker 4: expressing some surprise that equity markets are only down about
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Speaker 4: five percent since the war broke out, given the potential
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Speaker 4: risks here. And I think I can understand both sides.
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Speaker 4: On the side of investors unwilling to sell, they've gotten
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Speaker 4: burned pretty much every time they've sold over the course
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Speaker 4: of the last five and half years, frankly even longer
4:21
Speaker 4: than that, you know, even even the COVID shutdown.
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Speaker 3: Right, it's been a while since we've had a prolonged
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Speaker 3: bear market.
4:28
Speaker 2: But you got to go back to the tech bubble,
4:32
Speaker 2: tech bubble given the financial crisis wasn't long. The actual
4:37
Speaker 2: bottoming process took four months. Yeah, the bottoming process took
4:40
Speaker 2: four months, you know.
4:42
Speaker 4: All in I think it took four and a half
4:43
Speaker 4: years from peak to get down to trough and then
4:46
Speaker 4: all the way back to peach. Sure, but yeah, it's
4:49
Speaker 4: been a very long time since a since pulling out
4:54
Speaker 4: of equities due to some sort of conflict risk has
4:59
Speaker 4: paid off for you. And so in some part I
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Speaker 4: do look at investor decisions as fairly logical given recent experience.
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Speaker 4: The question remains, will recent experience be relevant this time around?
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Speaker 3: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: And look, fundamentally, this is different from a number of
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Speaker 2: different perspectives. The first being there's an actual conflict going on,
5:19
Speaker 2: not the concern about one. The second being there are
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Speaker 2: actual supply disruptions happening, not concerns about them.
5:27
Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 2: The big concern back in twenty twenty two was, hey, like,
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Speaker 2: how much oil is gonna come offline because of the
5:33
Speaker 2: Russia Ukraine conflict? And in the end it was a
5:36
Speaker 2: very small amount that was actually disrupted.
5:39
Speaker 4: Remember how much higher oil and gas prices got during
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Speaker 4: the early twenty twenty or throughout twenty twenty two than
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Speaker 4: they are right now.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Michael, I tried to forget it, but yeah, gas
5:49
Speaker 2: prices we got up to the triple national average. We
5:51
Speaker 2: got up to five oh one and six tenths, so
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Speaker 2: that's another dollar twenty from where we are. The diesel
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Speaker 2: national average got up to five eighty one and six tens,
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Speaker 2: so that's about seventy cents above where we are. Based
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Speaker 2: on where the gasoline futures are looking right now in
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Speaker 2: terms of like front month and everything, we are going
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Speaker 2: to be north of four dollars a gallon by next
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Speaker 2: week at some point, so we're heading into the fours
6:17
Speaker 2: as you know, kind of the nationwide average. There's nothing
6:20
Speaker 2: to suggest right now that we are you know, heading
6:23
Speaker 2: back towards five dollars imminently, but I can tell you,
6:26
Speaker 2: like again, every day this goes on, the supply picture
6:29
Speaker 2: worsens because you have another ten million barrel deficit that
6:32
Speaker 2: you are trying to sort out on the worldwide stage.
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Speaker 4: So what's similar and what's different from now to that
6:37
Speaker 4: period of time, Like I'm just trying to compare to
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Speaker 4: extract question to the most recent it was pretty close
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Speaker 4: to a stagflation environment. It was very temporarily stagflationary. I
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Speaker 4: suppose you could say.
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Speaker 2: I would say the first the first half of twenty
6:55
Speaker 2: two was absolutely stagflationary.
6:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agreed.
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Speaker 4: I hate calling something stagflation that only the last six months,
7:02
Speaker 4: but yes, they agreed there. So I think one thing
7:05
Speaker 4: that was vastly different was the estimates of just cash
7:10
Speaker 4: and saving still, you know, working around the US economy
7:14
Speaker 4: back in twenty twenty two compared to.
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Speaker 3: Right now, they're pretty slashy.
7:18
Speaker 4: Then they're very different, and the labor market was a
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Speaker 4: fair bit different. The pace of hiring that we had
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Speaker 4: just come off of in twenty twenty one and that
7:27
Speaker 4: continued through twenty twenty two was a very different scenario
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Speaker 4: from where we are right now.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say those are those are probably the biggest
7:37
Speaker 2: differences out there. Other things, you had a strong housing
7:41
Speaker 2: market heading into twenty two twenty two, with the with
7:44
Speaker 2: interest rates moving up broke the housing market. It's like
7:47
Speaker 2: when when we talk about like, you know what really
7:50
Speaker 2: changed the affordability picture, The biggest thing was rates moving
7:53
Speaker 2: from the high twos to the high sixes. Yeah, like
7:56
Speaker 2: that that was you know, it's a forty percent increase
7:59
Speaker 2: in monthly payment if you're making a standard twenty percent
8:01
Speaker 2: down payment. Uh So there are some key differences, and
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Speaker 2: I think the big one here though, is you are
8:10
Speaker 2: the thing that no one wants to really talk about.
8:13
Speaker 2: Our price in our physical shortages of all kinds of
8:17
Speaker 2: different stuff. And it's not so much in the United States,
8:22
Speaker 2: but on a worldwide level, like you are going to
8:25
Speaker 2: have shortages of stuff if this goes on, you know,
8:29
Speaker 2: for any meaningful period longer. You're already starting to see them,
8:31
Speaker 2: you know, building up on the periphery in Southeast Asia.
8:35
Speaker 2: But Southeast Asia is going to run into all kinds
8:37
Speaker 2: of problems with energy shortages because the SPR releases are slow.
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Speaker 5: You know.
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Speaker 2: Again, the estimates that that I'm now seeing that originally
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Speaker 2: people were optimistic, Hey, maybe you can get like five
8:46
Speaker 2: million barrels a day out.
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Speaker 3: Of sprs worldwide.
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Speaker 2: The ones I'm seeing now are close to like two
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Speaker 2: and a half to three and a half million barrels.
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Speaker 2: Like so it's it's just not enough flow that you
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Speaker 2: can replace there. On top of that, Okay, you got
8:59
Speaker 2: sprs for that, you don't have a like an aluminum
9:02
Speaker 2: strategic reserve, and a ten percent of world aluminum comes
9:06
Speaker 2: through the straight of horm moves. Right, thirty percent of
9:09
Speaker 2: world of urea comes through the straight of horm moves.
9:11
Speaker 2: So Southeast Asia, Hey, you're heading, you know, right into
9:15
Speaker 2: like planting season and everything. What are your crop yields
9:18
Speaker 2: gonna look like? Are you gonna have problems putting food
9:20
Speaker 2: on the table for families?
9:22
Speaker 3: Like?
9:22
Speaker 2: These are real things that are you know, fundamental at
9:26
Speaker 2: this point. And this is before you even get to
9:28
Speaker 2: like the second order effects that influence these things. In
9:31
Speaker 2: Brazil right now, they're going through the big soybean harvest.
9:33
Speaker 2: You big soybean guy Mike all the time. Yeah, I'm
9:36
Speaker 2: not consume truckloads of it.
9:39
Speaker 3: I I'm not a tofu guy.
9:42
Speaker 2: Soy sauce comes from soybeans, right, It's not just a name,
9:45
Speaker 2: presumably one would one would expect. I'm pro soy sauce.
9:49
Speaker 2: I do enjoy it, you know, if I'm having a
9:50
Speaker 2: little you know, Chinese food.
9:51
Speaker 3: Or something, confirmed it does, so I figured.
9:55
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, little sushi. Okay, yep, let me dip
9:57
Speaker 2: it in there. But here's the thing about soybeans. They're
10:00
Speaker 2: grown in the interior of Brazil. You can't just carry
10:04
Speaker 2: them from there to the ports. Like you have to
10:07
Speaker 2: put them on trucks and stuff. It's kind of you know,
10:09
Speaker 2: rough terrain. The truckers in Brazil because of what's happened
10:12
Speaker 2: with diesel prices, are basically refusing to carry the stuff
10:15
Speaker 2: from point A to point B because they're like, we
10:17
Speaker 2: can't make any money doing this. So you got all
10:20
Speaker 2: these soybeans that are just sitting there that can't get
10:22
Speaker 2: to where they need to go for export. So there's
10:24
Speaker 2: nothing that you can send out of the country right now.
10:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:27
Speaker 4: I think part of what made the early twenty twenties
10:30
Speaker 4: due to the COVID supply shutdown so problematic was the
10:33
Speaker 4: stop start nature of it and just the vast uncertainty
10:37
Speaker 4: of hey, we've never seen anything like this before. And
10:40
Speaker 4: what I keep going back to is again, if this
10:42
Speaker 4: wraps up and you've got to cease fire, that it
10:44
Speaker 4: holds within the next few weeks, you avoid a lot
10:48
Speaker 4: of the damage that we're worried about. If instead, you
10:52
Speaker 4: have a period of time for all of a good
10:54
Speaker 4: portion of twenty twenty six that's defined by start stop
10:59
Speaker 4: movements through the Strait of horn Mouz, That's where I get,
11:03
Speaker 4: you know, quite concerned about where this could all go.
11:06
Speaker 4: And does anybody listening right now have a sense of
11:09
Speaker 4: which path we're going down.
11:10
Speaker 3: I certainly don't.
11:12
Speaker 4: No, So I see a path where this is genuinely
11:16
Speaker 4: very little, very small problem for the United States, a
11:19
Speaker 4: moderate to severe problem for other parts of the world,
11:22
Speaker 4: but not something that most Americans need to get overly
11:26
Speaker 4: concerned about. But I also see a path where it
11:29
Speaker 4: is quite disruptive to everyday life, even here in the
11:32
Speaker 4: United States.
11:33
Speaker 3: And by the way, this is.
11:37
Speaker 2: I've got this confirmed by a few different reports online.
11:42
Speaker 2: The area near Israel's Hypha oil refinery appears to be
11:48
Speaker 2: putting up some big pums of smoke following a ballistic
11:51
Speaker 2: missile attack by Iran. I've got three different reports on this,
11:56
Speaker 2: so I feel comfortable saying that it does look like
11:59
Speaker 2: something happened there, but no details at this point here
12:03
Speaker 2: in terms of you know what it means in specific damage.
12:07
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break here. When we return, we've
12:10
Speaker 2: got trivia and then what do we want to talk
12:13
Speaker 2: about next week?
12:13
Speaker 4: We've got Corey Adams from Robert half Yeah showing job
12:17
Speaker 4: hiring and AI that's next year on the Financial Exchange.
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12:55
Speaker 4: Joining us now is Corey Adams from Robert Half and
12:59
Speaker 4: talking to us about out AI and slowing the hiring market.
13:04
Speaker 3: Corey, thanks for joining us, appreciate it.
13:08
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me as always so, Corey.
13:10
Speaker 4: I think when most people think about AI hiring the
13:12
Speaker 4: slowing process, slowing the hiring process rather it my mind
13:18
Speaker 4: immediately went to, oh, you know, the existing employees are
13:22
Speaker 4: taking on more work. They're trying to replace existing employees
13:25
Speaker 4: with AI tools and so they don't need as many employees.
13:29
Speaker 4: That's not what you're focusing on here. You're talking about
13:31
Speaker 4: the actual process of sorting through resumes and applications. How
13:35
Speaker 4: is AI changing that process for HR managers today?
13:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean you said it perfectly. I mean AI
13:42
Speaker 6: is reshaping how work gets done, and it's evolving the
13:45
Speaker 6: skills required in all types of different roles and positions.
13:49
Speaker 6: But on the hiring side, there's a new challenge and
13:52
Speaker 6: it's all around these AI generated resumes. So hiring managers
13:57
Speaker 6: and HR leaders are seeing a massive influx of AI
14:00
Speaker 6: generated resumes as well as applications, and these have basically
14:05
Speaker 6: been optimized to match job description. So in some cases,
14:09
Speaker 6: these AI tools are fabricating or embellishing work history and skills,
14:14
Speaker 6: and that's a problem, and it's making it harder for
14:17
Speaker 6: employers to distinguish between authentic experience as well as between
14:22
Speaker 6: between that and AI generated content. And so from our
14:25
Speaker 6: survey and from our research, two thirds of hiring managers
14:29
Speaker 6: literally said that AI generated resumes are making it much
14:33
Speaker 6: higher to harder right now.
14:34
Speaker 4: With these online job boards for the last I don't know,
14:37
Speaker 4: probably two decades being the primary source of applying for jobs,
14:41
Speaker 4: it's probably already increased the volume of applications. But do
14:44
Speaker 4: you have any data on how much you know application
14:47
Speaker 4: volumes have increased for average rules since people really started
14:51
Speaker 4: using AI for this Because I continuously hear stories about
14:55
Speaker 4: people you know, developing boughts and agents to apply for
15:00
Speaker 4: for all sorts of jobs, and it's a lot easier
15:02
Speaker 4: to do so with the help of those agents.
15:05
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't have exact data on the increase, you know,
15:08
Speaker 6: what I will tell you is that sixty seven percent
15:11
Speaker 6: of HR leaders, because it's really here the survey was
15:14
Speaker 6: geared towards, said that it's created more work, twenty percent
15:18
Speaker 6: says creating a two plus week surplus of hiring, and
15:23
Speaker 6: sixty five percent of managers said that these surge and applications,
15:27
Speaker 6: so that's high volume has basically made it incredibly difficult
15:31
Speaker 6: to verify any of their candidate's skills. And so what's
15:35
Speaker 6: really happening, it's kind of a big red flag, is
15:37
Speaker 6: that a resume is basically being designed to mirror job
15:44
Speaker 6: hosting's almost word for word, and so they may look
15:49
Speaker 6: and see this candidate's perfect on paper, but during the
15:52
Speaker 6: interview process, those individuals sometimes struggle to explain or articulate
15:56
Speaker 6: the experience that's been listed. And so in other cases
15:59
Speaker 6: we're seeing AI generated interview responses that sound polish, but
16:03
Speaker 6: they lack concrete examples, outcomes, or rear world context. And
16:08
Speaker 6: so we can probably all agree that when candidates can't
16:11
Speaker 6: provide clear examples of their work. It raises concerns about
16:14
Speaker 6: their authenticity as well as their job readiness, and so
16:19
Speaker 6: all of this as results as expected is often leading
16:23
Speaker 6: to longer interviews, additional assessments, and ultimately significant delays in
16:27
Speaker 6: the hiring process.
16:28
Speaker 4: So I can understand the frustrations of HR managers. I
16:31
Speaker 4: also hear it from people looking for jobs though, that
16:34
Speaker 4: they feel as though an AI system is effectively reading
16:38
Speaker 4: their resume and coming to conclusions without much in the
16:41
Speaker 4: way of HR management. And frankly, from the HR's perspective,
16:44
Speaker 4: I can see the value in having an AI agent
16:47
Speaker 4: sift through resumes and try to verify experience via different means.
16:53
Speaker 4: I know we're getting to peak silliness here, but isn't
16:56
Speaker 4: it the case where many firms are utilizing HR using
16:59
Speaker 4: utilizing A to sift through probably AI generated resumes.
17:05
Speaker 6: Potentially, And it's an interesting question, But I guess what
17:09
Speaker 6: I would say is, you know, I often get asked like,
17:12
Speaker 6: does this mean that we're sort of kind of moving
17:15
Speaker 6: away from the world of the actual resume itself. You're right,
17:18
Speaker 6: organizations need to use the AI from a vetting perspective,
17:21
Speaker 6: but the problem is that on the candidate's side, the
17:24
Speaker 6: AI is creating dozens and dozens of nearly identical resumes
17:31
Speaker 6: because they're all using the same prompts and the same
17:33
Speaker 6: optimization tools. So basically, real specific examples are the one
17:38
Speaker 6: thing that you can speak to that's going to allow
17:40
Speaker 6: you to stand out. So, you know, is the resume gone?
17:43
Speaker 6: Is it dead?
17:43
Speaker 3: No?
17:44
Speaker 6: Probably not. But the reality is it's becoming where organizations
17:48
Speaker 6: are using the technology, but it's also creating problems in
17:51
Speaker 6: the other one because more and more workers are using
17:53
Speaker 6: AI right now, and so the reality is that these
17:56
Speaker 6: resumes are just not popping out to the employer the
17:59
Speaker 6: way that they used to. Maybe it's a combination of volume,
18:02
Speaker 6: maybe it's just a turn in the market, but it's
18:04
Speaker 6: just not the same as it was. And so what
18:06
Speaker 6: we're seeing right now is it's a little bit more
18:08
Speaker 6: common for companies to start sourcing for candidates using LinkedIn,
18:13
Speaker 6: their own personal network, their professional network. They could basically
18:17
Speaker 6: be looking at people who applying their jobs, or they
18:19
Speaker 6: could be working with the staffing firm, but a combination
18:23
Speaker 6: of all of these, for the most part, seems to
18:25
Speaker 6: be a move towards being a little bit more efficient
18:28
Speaker 6: and effective instead of just vetting through massive piles or
18:32
Speaker 6: resumes if, in fact, to your point, the AI is
18:35
Speaker 6: not catching them on the.
18:36
Speaker 4: Front end, Corey, fascinating stuff as always and always new
18:40
Speaker 4: thoughts on how do I stand out as a candidate
18:44
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty six with the AI slop that is
18:48
Speaker 4: taking over the job application process? Corey, thanks so much
18:51
Speaker 4: for joining us, as always appreciated. That's Corey Adams from
18:54
Speaker 4: Robert Half talking to us about the AI generated job
18:57
Speaker 4: applications slowing down the hiring process. Again, Chuck, I think
19:01
Speaker 4: pushing us back to a point that we've talked about,
19:03
Speaker 4: which is nobody's really able to trust a whole lot
19:06
Speaker 4: that they see on the Internet these days, and that
19:08
Speaker 4: apparently is drawing to the job application process too, which again,
19:13
Speaker 4: if I see one potential positive, it's that we don't
19:16
Speaker 4: trust stuff that we see on the internet as much
19:18
Speaker 4: and we have to deal with face to face human
19:20
Speaker 4: interactions again, so we'll see.
19:23
Speaker 3: Sounds great personally, like more face to face interactions.
19:26
Speaker 2: I'm all about the Internet's been great, but maybe it's
19:30
Speaker 2: time it's done.
19:32
Speaker 4: Quick Break Wall Street watching Trivia coming up next.
19:40
Speaker 7: Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio. Every day,
19:45
Speaker 7: It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network,
19:50
Speaker 7: telling out full whoa street watch, trecking the stocks.
19:54
Speaker 1: Theodato and the headlines driving markets So far today right
19:57
Speaker 1: here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
20:01
Speaker 5: The markets are adding to yesterday's losses as increase uncertainty
20:06
Speaker 5: swirls around energy markets and the conflict in Iran. Right now,
20:09
Speaker 5: the dows down eight tenths of a percent or three
20:12
Speaker 5: hundred and seventy three points, SMP five hundred down seven
20:15
Speaker 5: tenths of a percent to NASDAC down nearly nine tenths
20:19
Speaker 5: of one percent, RUSS two thousand now mostly flat, dipping,
20:23
Speaker 5: Tenure treasureal is up two basis points at four point
20:26
Speaker 5: two seven to seven percent, and crude oil up one
20:29
Speaker 5: percent higher today trading at ninety seven dollars a barrel.
20:33
Speaker 5: Micron Technology shares are falling four percent, despite the chip
20:37
Speaker 5: maker posted solid quarterly results where its sales nearly tripled
20:42
Speaker 5: as demand for its products outpaced supply. Meanwhile, Uber announced
20:46
Speaker 5: this morning it plans to invest up to one point
20:49
Speaker 5: two five billion dollars in evy maker Ribbean, where fifty
20:53
Speaker 5: thousand robotaxis in several countries will be deployed. Through twenty
20:57
Speaker 5: thirty one, Uber shares down by one percent, while Ribbon
21:01
Speaker 5: stock is climbing nearly three percent. Hire elsewhere five below
21:05
Speaker 5: shares jumping ten percent after the discount retailer posted higher
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Speaker 5: quarterly profit and sales as shoppers favored its low priced
21:14
Speaker 5: offerings during the holiday period. And after today's closing bell,
21:18
Speaker 5: we'll see earnings from FedEx. I'm Tucker Silva and that
21:23
Speaker 5: is Wall Street Watch and we have to do trivia
21:25
Speaker 5: here in the Financial Exchange, So let's get to it.
21:28
Speaker 5: Bruce Willis turned seventy one years old today. Willis was
21:34
Speaker 5: one of the highest grossing stars from the late eighties
21:37
Speaker 5: to the mid two thousand. So our trivia question today,
21:40
Speaker 5: what is the highest grossing film of Bruce Willis's career?
21:44
Speaker 5: Once again, what is the highest grossing film of Bruce
21:48
Speaker 5: Willis's career? Be the sixth person today to text us
21:52
Speaker 5: at six one seven three six two thirteen eighty five
21:55
Speaker 5: with the correct answer along with keyword trivia, and you
21:58
Speaker 5: win a Financial Exchange show t s once again. The
22:00
Speaker 5: sixth correct response to Texas to the number six one
22:04
Speaker 5: seven three six two thirteen eighty five with correct answer
22:07
Speaker 5: along with keyword trivia will win that T shirt. See
22:10
Speaker 5: complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
22:15
Speaker 2: One of the main gripes of gen xers is that
22:20
Speaker 2: nobody pays attention to them and everyone forgets about them.
22:23
Speaker 2: Everyone wants to focus on the baby boomers or the millennials.
22:27
Speaker 3: Are now gen z But for right now, we're gonna
22:31
Speaker 3: talk about gen x.
22:32
Speaker 2: So all you gen xers out there, no story this
22:37
Speaker 2: is this is your time to shine. It's titled gen
22:40
Speaker 2: Xers are the Kings of an Uncertain job Market.
22:43
Speaker 4: So gen xers are now sound great forty six to
22:46
Speaker 4: sixty one years old, So that is the demo we're
22:50
Speaker 4: now talking about. They're moving into the certainly the second
22:53
Speaker 4: half of their career, if not the last, the last portion.
22:58
Speaker 3: Some of them might already be retired.
22:59
Speaker 4: Yes, there's some gen xers that are now retired. And
23:04
Speaker 4: this is actually a story about how the data that
23:08
Speaker 4: we have on that generation and their current work environment
23:12
Speaker 4: is actually fairly encouraging. The employment to population ratio is
23:16
Speaker 4: at an all time high for this group. It's higher
23:21
Speaker 4: than the overall employment to population ratio for working age people.
23:25
Speaker 4: So twenty five to fifty four is that number there?
23:28
Speaker 4: But they are employed, they seem to be. Again, one
23:35
Speaker 4: of the theories as to why they're so employed is
23:36
Speaker 4: you had so many baby boomers retired during COVID that
23:40
Speaker 4: you know, there was this knowledge and expertise gap that
23:43
Speaker 4: needed to be filled and Gen xers are the best
23:46
Speaker 4: suited to do so. I think there could be other
23:48
Speaker 4: explanations too, right like, whenever we talk about why are
23:51
Speaker 4: so many people in an age demographic working, part of
23:54
Speaker 4: it's because they have no choice, and so, you know
23:57
Speaker 4: factors there. Affordability remains a huge issue. The Affordable Care
24:04
Speaker 4: Act subsidies that disappeared this year made it so that
24:08
Speaker 4: if you're retiring before sixty five, which a gen xer
24:11
Speaker 4: would be, the ability to buy health insurance is pretty
24:14
Speaker 4: tough right now. And then, you know, honestly, I talk
24:18
Speaker 4: to a lot of people in this generation that is
24:20
Speaker 4: a little bit concerned about their skill set, how AI
24:23
Speaker 4: is going to change it, and facing agism in the workplace,
24:26
Speaker 4: just like they saw, you know, their sixty plus year
24:29
Speaker 4: old coworkers face. So I think there's some of both
24:32
Speaker 4: of these things.
24:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I you know, I think that when again,
24:37
Speaker 2: it's some of these dividing lines, it's like, okay, what
24:40
Speaker 2: really separates? You know, the last baby boomers were born
24:44
Speaker 2: in sixty four, I believe, and gen X is, you know,
24:46
Speaker 2: sixty five. So some of these dividing lines, they're obviously arbitrary. Sure,
24:50
Speaker 2: but I think the interesting thing, you know, as we
24:55
Speaker 2: look at this is, given the demographic trends that you mentioned, Look,
25:00
Speaker 2: if gen X wants to work longer, I think they're
25:04
Speaker 2: gonna get the other They're gonna get.
25:05
Speaker 3: The chance to do so. Yeah.
25:07
Speaker 2: And so you know, again, I know, as you mentioned,
25:10
Speaker 2: like people are you know, concerned about the impact of
25:12
Speaker 2: AI on the workforce and this and that, and to
25:15
Speaker 2: this point, the impact is more anecdotal than anything that's
25:18
Speaker 2: showing up statistically. I think that we can you know,
25:21
Speaker 2: say that based on you know, the last few years
25:23
Speaker 2: of data now, and so you know, barring a change
25:28
Speaker 2: there where all of a sudden, the machines actually do
25:30
Speaker 2: come for our jobs and say, you know, hey, like
25:33
Speaker 2: none of you are having jobs, which I just don't
25:35
Speaker 2: think is where we're going.
25:37
Speaker 3: Uh.
25:38
Speaker 2: I think that gen xers are going to be in
25:41
Speaker 2: the catbird seat, especially because one of the again one
25:46
Speaker 2: of the trends of the prior generation, the Baby Boomers
25:49
Speaker 2: is they've been holding onto jobs longer than any generation previously.
25:52
Speaker 2: Some of that's by necessity, some of it is because
25:55
Speaker 2: Baby Boomers just can't let go of working, like we've
25:57
Speaker 2: seen plenty of those stories as well. But when they
26:00
Speaker 2: do finally stop, whether you know, by need or by want,
26:05
Speaker 2: those Gen xers are sitting there, you know again, fifteen
26:08
Speaker 2: years younger, being like, yep, we we're the experience guys
26:11
Speaker 2: now and we've been through a lot, like we've seen
26:16
Speaker 2: it all.
26:16
Speaker 4: Like some stuff, man sing some stuff.
26:19
Speaker 3: Gen X has seen some stuff. Oh yeah.
26:22
Speaker 4: If you are in this age demo, you know you are.
26:25
Speaker 4: If you're on the older end of the cohort, you
26:27
Speaker 4: are months or years away from some key retirement decisions
26:30
Speaker 4: like Social Security and Medicare.
26:32
Speaker 3: If you're on the.
26:33
Speaker 4: Younger cohort, it's within two decades, right, This is a
26:37
Speaker 4: serious planning time for you when figuring out your retirement.
26:42
Speaker 3: And like Jock.
26:43
Speaker 4: Manchine, I think that there is some positive indication about
26:47
Speaker 4: where the labor market goes for this cohort. But if
26:50
Speaker 4: you are finding yourself nervous about that next stage, nervous
26:55
Speaker 4: about you know, what might AI do to my job?
26:58
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that I don't have an as for you.
27:00
Speaker 4: Like I think a lot of the stuff like Chuck said,
27:02
Speaker 4: has been not showing up in the data yet. But
27:05
Speaker 4: could one item that I can say I think helped
27:10
Speaker 4: the clients that I've worked with in the baby boomer
27:12
Speaker 4: generation immensely is knowing that their financial strategy is prepared
27:18
Speaker 4: for whatever might come in the labor market. Hey, I've
27:21
Speaker 4: got this four oh one K, I've got this insurance plan,
27:24
Speaker 4: I've done my estate plan, and so yeah, if my
27:28
Speaker 4: manager Bob tells me that there's going to be layoff
27:30
Speaker 4: next months, layoffs next month, it's not part of my plan.
27:34
Speaker 4: But I can be confident that I can manage that
27:39
Speaker 4: loss of income for a period of time, or that
27:42
Speaker 4: I can retire earlier than I anticipated. I think nothing
27:45
Speaker 4: makes people feel better than going to work and knowing
27:49
Speaker 4: confidently that, hey, if I either can't do this job,
27:53
Speaker 4: don't want to do this job, or enforced to not
27:56
Speaker 4: do this job anymore, that my family will be fine financially. Okay,
28:01
Speaker 4: if you have questions like that and you want to
28:03
Speaker 4: start setting up your strategy for the future, I would
28:06
Speaker 4: encourage you to speak with a financial advisor, and if
28:09
Speaker 4: you'd like to talk to one of the folks at Armstrong,
28:11
Speaker 4: give us a call at eight hundred three nine three
28:13
Speaker 4: for zero zero one. An advisor can work with you
28:17
Speaker 4: to develop a custom strategy to ensure that you are
28:20
Speaker 4: in that strong position regardless of what the labor market
28:23
Speaker 4: throws at you. And that number again for your free
28:26
Speaker 4: consultations eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
28:30
Speaker 1: The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
28:32
Speaker 1: registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
28:35
Speaker 1: Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult
28:38
Speaker 1: your own financial tax into state planning advisors before making
28:41
Speaker 1: any investment decisions. Armstrong may contact you to offer investment
28:44
Speaker 1: advisory services.
28:46
Speaker 2: Mike going to hop ahead, Just a touch to the
28:48
Speaker 2: piece on Horizon Worlds. Yeah, where here's the deal world. Yeah,
28:55
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with it, you're not alone because
28:58
Speaker 2: no one went to it. It is metas virtual reality world.
29:05
Speaker 4: Oh is it that place that I could go fishing
29:07
Speaker 4: with my uncle or something like that?
29:09
Speaker 2: Not only across the fishing mic, you could go into
29:11
Speaker 2: the metaverse and you could buy metaversical real estate man
29:16
Speaker 2: and invest in it because man, they're just gonna have
29:19
Speaker 2: so much money in the metaverse and now there's none.
29:23
Speaker 5: Business is the one where people didn't have like legs
29:26
Speaker 5: their avatars.
29:27
Speaker 2: They finally got legs time, they finally got legs. But yeah,
29:31
Speaker 2: for the first like four years they didn't have legs,
29:33
Speaker 2: and then they added legs and then they killed off
29:35
Speaker 2: the metaverse. So they're not actually killing off the full metaverse.
29:39
Speaker 2: But this was a big part of Meta's plan, which was, hey, like,
29:42
Speaker 2: here's the place where you can go hang out. And
29:44
Speaker 2: they're basically removing it from their VR platforms. They're saying
29:48
Speaker 2: it's still gonna be around on your phone, which I
29:50
Speaker 2: don't know why you'd want to just sit on your
29:52
Speaker 2: phone with, you know, an avatar.
29:54
Speaker 3: With no legs. They have legs. They have legs now,
29:59
Speaker 3: but you know it's in any case, look, resources are finite.
30:03
Speaker 4: Facebook's either got to spend money on the stupid metaverse
30:05
Speaker 4: or on developing AI data centers.
30:07
Speaker 3: And then can they change their name? Now that would
30:10
Speaker 3: be a good idea.
30:11
Speaker 2: You know, like, clearly met is not gonna happen, So
30:15
Speaker 2: what are you going to change your name? To now,
30:17
Speaker 2: Please don't make it something about AI, because here's the
30:21
Speaker 2: other thing.
30:21
Speaker 3: They're AI efforts. They don't seem like they're going well either.
30:27
Speaker 2: Like you did you see the story earlier this week
30:29
Speaker 2: about Gemini and Meta? Uh no, let me let me
30:34
Speaker 2: pull it just so that I can uh here we go.
30:37
Speaker 3: Uh. Meta DeLay's release of.
30:39
Speaker 2: New AI weighs licensing Google's Gemini after disappointing trial runs.
30:47
Speaker 2: Does this sound like a company that has anything figured
30:49
Speaker 2: out with new technology?
30:54
Speaker 3: Now?
30:54
Speaker 2: Look, they still print money because we can't stop buying
30:58
Speaker 2: water bottles on Facebook and Instant agreed, So I get
31:02
Speaker 2: it like that the company still prints money. But here's
31:08
Speaker 2: another thing just that might throw a little bit of
31:10
Speaker 2: a stick in that, uh, a little wrench in those gears.
31:14
Speaker 3: Did you see the story from yesterday?
31:15
Speaker 2: And I know I'm just like punching Meta, But that's
31:17
Speaker 2: because you always punch up in metas just bigger than
31:20
Speaker 2: all of us, like they're you know, there's some it's
31:23
Speaker 2: a big company. Here's the thing. Did you see the
31:25
Speaker 2: story that Meta is going to start paying influencers to
31:30
Speaker 2: post on Meta and not on TikTok and somewhere else.
31:35
Speaker 2: Who if you have to pay your influencers to come
31:39
Speaker 2: to your platform.
31:41
Speaker 3: You are no longer the cool platform.
31:44
Speaker 2: And even if you pay them to go there, like,
31:46
Speaker 2: is their audience gonna follow you?
31:47
Speaker 3: Are? There a lot of tweens out there.
31:49
Speaker 2: Today, which, again, like my thoughts are hey, like twelve
31:52
Speaker 2: and eleven and twelve year old should not be on
31:54
Speaker 2: social media platforms. But here's the other secret they are
31:59
Speaker 2: are are a lot of you know, twelve to eighteen
32:01
Speaker 2: year olds just itching to be like, yeah, let me
32:04
Speaker 2: go hang out on Meta where grandma and grandpa post
32:07
Speaker 2: their political memes. Like, is that really what they're looking for?
32:12
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know a lot of twins.
32:15
Speaker 2: I don't either, but I know that they don't want
32:17
Speaker 2: to hang out where their parents and grandparents are. Yeah,
32:20
Speaker 2: never have you know, Like it's if there's one thing
32:24
Speaker 2: among the generations, Yes, the the rebellion against your parents
32:28
Speaker 2: is a thing. And so if Meta is trying to
32:31
Speaker 2: force influencers onto their platform and they hope that it
32:34
Speaker 2: will get young people to go to it, I gotta
32:36
Speaker 2: tell you it's probably not gonna work. It'll just cost
32:40
Speaker 2: you more money. So again, Zuck's got plenty of it.
32:44
Speaker 2: He'll figure it out like he's gonna be fine. This
32:46
Speaker 2: is not I'm not saying like, oh this is the
32:48
Speaker 2: end of meta, Like, no, I'm not that dumb.
32:50
Speaker 3: But what I am.
32:51
Speaker 2: Saying is it's been a minute since they've had anything interesting.
32:56
Speaker 3: That's it. Just take a quick break when we come back.
32:59
Speaker 3: We got staff robot.
33:01
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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Financial Exchange Radio Network. You've got questions,
33:25
Speaker 1: We've got answers. It's time for the Money Matters Mailback.
33:29
Speaker 1: We are tackling your calls and emails on everything from
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33:36
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Speaker 1: the show. You can also email your question to TFE
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Speaker 1: Show at gmail dot com. Now it's time for the
33:48
Speaker 1: Money Matters mail Bag.
33:50
Speaker 5: All right, gentlemen, Before we get to the Money Matters
33:52
Speaker 5: mail Bag, just want to pay off trivia here question
33:55
Speaker 5: was what is the highest grossing film of Bruce Willis's career?
33:58
Speaker 5: That would be The Sixth Sense and Tyler from Broomfield,
34:01
Speaker 5: Colorado is our winner today listening in on Serious x M.
34:06
Speaker 5: He's taking on the Financial Exchange Show t shirt and
34:08
Speaker 5: we play trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange.
34:11
Speaker 5: See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
34:14
Speaker 5: Now onto the mail bag here, boys, uh so, our
34:19
Speaker 5: first question is gonna come from Derek on the Cape
34:23
Speaker 5: asking you boys the question what are your personal favorite
34:29
Speaker 5: financial slash investing books to educate yourself more about markets?
34:36
Speaker 3: Hmmm? Who?
34:38
Speaker 5: And they at the top of the old noggin there.
34:40
Speaker 2: I have a list that I actually have somewhere on
34:44
Speaker 2: you know, let's see. I mean again, there's there's a
34:49
Speaker 2: million of these. I think again, I I personally find
34:56
Speaker 2: trading books to be more interesting than investing ones.
35:01
Speaker 3: Depends where you're starting from, right if it really depends
35:04
Speaker 3: on what you're well.
35:06
Speaker 2: My point is I don't have like a lot of
35:07
Speaker 2: investing books like on my list, so like I'm I
35:11
Speaker 2: can't make something up.
35:13
Speaker 4: Bogel's book would be on my list of like common
35:15
Speaker 4: Investing Common Sense Investing by Bogel.
35:18
Speaker 3: I think, isn't it? No, No, what's that?
35:23
Speaker 5: I've never read it, but I've always heard like the
35:24
Speaker 5: Intelligent Investor. Isn't that one of the like staples?
35:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep.
35:30
Speaker 2: On the trading side, uh, this guy by the name
35:32
Speaker 2: of Brent Donnelly who's a four x trader, who has
35:34
Speaker 2: a book out called Alpha Trader that I always found interesting. Uh,
35:38
Speaker 2: goes into like a lot of risk management and discussion
35:41
Speaker 2: like that. There's another guy, Simon Ree, who has a
35:43
Speaker 2: book The Tao of Trading, that I found to be
35:47
Speaker 2: really interesting as well. But there's millions of them. I
35:51
Speaker 2: mean again, there's ultimately the thing about markets. There are
35:54
Speaker 2: millions of different games that you can play. What you
35:56
Speaker 2: need to figure out is what you're comfortable with from
35:58
Speaker 2: a risk perspective, what kind of trading and or investing
36:04
Speaker 2: you enjoy doing, and where you can possibly find an edge.
36:07
Speaker 2: And the big thing that I'll say in anything is
36:10
Speaker 2: if you can't accurately describe what your edge is in
36:13
Speaker 2: thirty seconds, then you don't have one.
36:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.
36:17
Speaker 4: But yeah, the two books that I read prior to
36:20
Speaker 4: starting in this industry where the intelligent investor and Jack
36:23
Speaker 4: Bogel's common sense investing personally.
36:26
Speaker 5: Okay, we're kind of short on time here, but I'll
36:29
Speaker 5: give you one more quick one, Hidi im Portsmith New Hampshire.
36:32
Speaker 5: In general, what are your top checklist items you personally
36:35
Speaker 5: go through before buying a stock? In just in general?
36:41
Speaker 3: That's what Chuck so I.
36:43
Speaker 2: Mean again, so from a personal perspective, don't buy any
36:48
Speaker 2: I don't buy any individual stocks at this point because
36:51
Speaker 2: I realized that there were people that were way smarter
36:53
Speaker 2: than me and who spent way more time on it.
36:58
Speaker 2: So I'd be lying if I said like, hey, here's
37:00
Speaker 2: exactly what I do. I know that that's like not
37:03
Speaker 2: the answer that you know you want to hear, obviously,
37:05
Speaker 2: But again I realized that's not my game, and so
37:10
Speaker 2: it's not something where I have any quantifiable edge, and
37:13
Speaker 2: so I wasn't, you know, comfortable saying hey, here's what.
37:15
Speaker 3: I need to do before buying a stock.
37:17
Speaker 2: I never got to that point with it, and so
37:20
Speaker 2: it's just something where in my personal process I made
37:24
Speaker 2: the evaluation that that was not a game I wanted
37:27
Speaker 2: to play because I thought it would cost me more
37:29
Speaker 2: money than it would end.
37:30
Speaker 4: Up making me I have a family member who is
37:34
Speaker 4: a financial advisor in Texas and his the financial advisor's
37:39
Speaker 4: brother was giving out stocks to every newborn kid in
37:43
Speaker 4: the family, like you're born, we're gonna put a stock
37:47
Speaker 4: in the kid's name, and he's just gonna hold it.
37:48
Speaker 4: And the financial advisor, his brother got so upset with him.
37:51
Speaker 4: He's like, you are creating a bunch of addicts to
37:53
Speaker 4: something that these kids are never going to know anything about.
37:56
Speaker 3: Don't do it anymore.
37:57
Speaker 4: So it genuinely among some. Even the idea of using
38:04
Speaker 4: individual stocks is taboo to some. So yeah, it's a
38:08
Speaker 4: surprising information for some.
38:10
Speaker 3: There.
38:10
Speaker 2: We are done for the day, but we will be
38:12
Speaker 2: back tomorrow to finish up the week. DAVEZ off four
38:15
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty six points, SMPS off thirty nine, Nasdaq
38:17
Speaker 2: one sixty two in the red. We'll see, I thinks,
38:20
Speaker 2: finish up today and we'll get ready for a finish
38:22
Speaker 2: to the week tomorrow