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Financial Festivus 2024! · The Financial Exchange Show

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Speaker 1: a donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck
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Speaker 1: Zada and Mike Armstrong.
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Speaker 2: Kicking off hour two of the Financial Exchange. Chuck, Mike,
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Speaker 2: and Tucker.
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Speaker 3: With you, and if you didn't like Wednesday, man, this
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Speaker 3: is the day for you because we do have stocks
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Speaker 3: bouncing back strongly through the first hour and a half
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Speaker 3: of trading. We'll see how they hold up over the
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Speaker 3: course of the day, but volatility dropping pretty strongly in
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Speaker 3: the VICCO. Sometimes volatility knows first. You saw a little
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Speaker 3: bit building up earlier this week before things kicked off
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Speaker 3: on Wednesdays. So you got the Dow up five hundred
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Speaker 3: and ten points. That's fun about half of Wednesday's losses,
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Speaker 3: SMP of about sixty points, about a third of Wednesday's losses,
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Speaker 3: and the Nasdaq's up about two hundred and seven points.
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Speaker 3: It's about a quarter of Wednesday's losses.
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Speaker 4: So I must say, now that I reflect on it,
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Speaker 4: I don't know that I've ever seen a single day
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Speaker 4: sell off of three percent where I didn't get at
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Speaker 4: least a few calls from people wondering what the heck's going.
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Speaker 2: Everyone's on vacation.
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Speaker 3: You don't see it in late December, right, It's just like,
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Speaker 3: I really think that's what it is.
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Speaker 2: You just don't see it usually this time of year.
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Speaker 3: So in any case, you got US stocks broadly moving up,
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Speaker 3: and I do mean broadly. Right now, the difference between
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Speaker 3: S and P five hundred advancing and declining issues is
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Speaker 3: four hundred and fourteen stocks at the moment, which means
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Speaker 3: there's about four hundred and fifty four hundred and sixty
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Speaker 3: that are up and about forty that are down. So
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Speaker 3: it is a widely participated in rally, which those are
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Speaker 3: always the kinds that you like to see. We've got
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Speaker 3: the ten yere treasury also seeing some money moving into it,
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Speaker 3: the long bond down six point six basis points to
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Speaker 3: four point five four percent today, and we've got oil
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Speaker 3: today down twenty six cents a barrel to sixty nine
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Speaker 3: twelve on West Texas Intermediate. However, the triple A national
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Speaker 3: average gas prices on up just a little bit more
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Speaker 3: half a cent up to three h five even again
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Speaker 3: largely due to price cycling in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
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Speaker 2: At the moment. Let's take a quick look at gold.
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Speaker 3: It's up forty four to twenty announced to twenty twenty
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Speaker 3: six fifty two and thirty cents. Mike I didn't even
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Speaker 3: realize this until yesterday, but you had some Amazon workers
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Speaker 3: that have gone on strike, and specifically in four states
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Speaker 3: they are on strike.
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Speaker 2: These are members of the Teamsters union, and there's which.
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Speaker 4: Amazon does not recognize. I don't believe they've negotiated a
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Speaker 4: contract with Amazon.
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Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know the specifics quite honestly, I'm
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Speaker 2: not sure Amazon.
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Speaker 3: The interesting thing, Amazon is disputing that these are even
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Speaker 3: Amazon employees. So that is what Amazon is, and so
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Speaker 3: Amazon's like, no, these aren't our employees. Other things that
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Speaker 3: I did see, so at one of the facilities, I
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Speaker 3: don't know where it was, but you actually had police
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Speaker 3: officers setting up barricades to allow basically helping to allow
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Speaker 3: people to break the picket line, making deliveries and bringing
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Speaker 3: stuff out of the facility, which is kind of weird
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Speaker 3: to me because most police officers are members of a union,
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Speaker 3: and generally unions don't help break picket lines. It's typically
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Speaker 3: kind of frowned upon, and normally there's an awful lot
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Speaker 3: of solidarity, especially from the Teamsters, like the Teamsters if
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Speaker 3: another union, like let's say there is a hotel that
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Speaker 3: has the culinary union on strike, just as an example,
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Speaker 3: the teamsters typically won't deliver stuff to that hotel for
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Speaker 3: the kitchen because they don't want to cross the picket line, right,
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Speaker 3: and so to have it happening the other way here
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Speaker 3: is kind of weird to see.
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Speaker 2: But you've got this.
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Speaker 3: Strike going on right now. Starbucks workers also say they
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Speaker 3: are going to begin a strike in three cities in
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Speaker 3: La Chicago, and Seattle. They're saying they'll walk off this morning.
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Speaker 3: Uh and by the way, it's five hundred Starbucks stores
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Speaker 3: in those three cities, so maybe every quarter.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, unclear to me if all of those five hundred
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Speaker 4: stores will actually be shutting down the union that's the
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Speaker 4: union representing them. Yeah, the union represents baristas at more
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Speaker 4: than five hundred company owned stores.
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Speaker 2: That does not mean that.
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Speaker 4: Every burista at every of those five hundred stores actually
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Speaker 4: goes on strikes, So we will see. But if it did,
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Speaker 4: obviously that's you know, that's a pretty significant chance. That's
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Speaker 4: about five percent of total US Starbucks locations, which is,
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Speaker 4: by the way, wild five hundred stores is five percent
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Speaker 4: of total locations, but adds up based on when I
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Speaker 4: drive around.
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Speaker 3: So again, you just got a couple of strikes that
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Speaker 3: are potentially kicking in this time of year, which I'm
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Speaker 3: trying to think if again, these aren't huge right now
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Speaker 3: in terms of the size and scale there, but it
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Speaker 3: is one that you look at and you say, Okay,
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Speaker 3: it's notable that this is happening here.
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Speaker 4: And timing wise for Amazon is kind of poorly timed. Well,
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Speaker 4: here's what I would say.
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Speaker 2: Though.
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Speaker 4: Most of the holiday deliveries have already been done. You
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Speaker 4: don't know people, Yeah, I guess not.
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Speaker 3: There are a lot of people that there are a
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Speaker 3: lot of people that are like, oh no, it's next week.
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Speaker 2: Can I still get it here by Tuesday? Yeah?
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Speaker 4: Maybe, I just I don't know for me personally, Like
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Speaker 4: last week in the week before, we're crazy weeks for deliveries.
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Speaker 4: There's nothing else coming at this stage. But yeah, it's
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Speaker 4: a it's a pretty big take. The piece that we
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Speaker 4: were talking about, if you missed it prior to the break,
6:40
Speaker 4: we had a piece about FedEx spinning off their separate
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Speaker 4: business and not directly related here, but part of it was, look,
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Speaker 4: delivering packages to people's homes is a really low margin business. It's,
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Speaker 4: you know, in part why Amazon pays the United States
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Speaker 4: Postal Service to do it. In a lot of cases,
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Speaker 4: and I do sort of wonder like how valuable would
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Speaker 4: it be to Amazon if I said, hey, don't deliver
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Speaker 4: it to my house, I will go pick it up
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Speaker 4: at the post office. Like would they pay me to say, yeah,
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Speaker 4: we won't ship anything directly to your house. Is that
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Speaker 4: a doable business model for some of these places to
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Speaker 4: say we don't want to do last mile delivery, it's
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Speaker 4: too onerous. But if you just go pick it up
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Speaker 4: at your local which is in your town post office,
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Speaker 4: we'll offer you a twenty percent Prime membership discount or
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Speaker 4: something along those lines.
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Speaker 3: I'm sure they could figure out the math, but yeah,
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Speaker 3: it might even be more than a twenty percent discount
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Speaker 3: on Prime.
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Speaker 4: I mean, you know, that's a significant portion of those
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Speaker 4: costs is getting that package. You know, look, if you
7:42
Speaker 4: if you are in the city of Boston or you know,
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Speaker 4: in a highly densely populated area, it's not that big
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Speaker 4: of a deal. But when you're talking about driving around
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Speaker 4: the suburbs and rural areas, it is very costly to
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Speaker 4: deliver all this stuff to your home.
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Speaker 3: I know Amazons, so they have the you can say,
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Speaker 3: let in a number of places, the lockers, there's just
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Speaker 3: in whole foods.
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Speaker 4: Are they somewhere else there over the place. I saw
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Speaker 4: one at a gas station the other day. They place
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Speaker 4: them in strategic locations. In fact, we are we are
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Speaker 4: buying something for family. We're driving out to Chicago this year,
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Speaker 4: as we do frigamly for Christmas, wish us luck, and
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Speaker 4: we are, you know, buying some gifts. And my wife's
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Speaker 4: like getting them shipped to our house. I'm like, no,
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Speaker 4: just ship them, ship them to the hotel. It's like,
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Speaker 4: I don't want to ship stuff to the hotel. And
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Speaker 4: then we just ship to an Amazon locker near the
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Speaker 4: hotel and that worked perfectly well.
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Speaker 2: This raise is an interesting thought.
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Speaker 3: I'm sure they've looked into it, because they're Amazon, and
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Speaker 3: they do look into everything.
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Speaker 4: I get for a lot of it than works. But
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Speaker 4: they throw everything at the wall and see what's And.
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Speaker 3: For all the problems about like anti trust this and that,
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Speaker 3: the one thing you can't say about Amazon from a
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Speaker 3: corporate perspective that they don't rest on their laurels and
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Speaker 3: they're not lazy. They might be, you know, unfair in
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Speaker 3: a number of areas, but they're not lazy. I wonder
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Speaker 3: if I wonder if they ever looked into opening like
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Speaker 3: their own version of a post office at any point,
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Speaker 3: and what the economics of it looked like that they
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Speaker 3: decided not to, because I'm sure they have like, hey,
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Speaker 3: what if we just opened up a micro warehouse that
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Speaker 3: instead of being you know, two million square feet, it's
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Speaker 3: probably actually I bet that most of their big ones
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Speaker 3: are probably about a million. Instead of a million square feet,
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Speaker 3: it's sixty thousand. And there's just you know, robots working
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Speaker 3: in the back. They bring your stuff up to the front.
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Speaker 4: And then it's a good question, but I don't see
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Speaker 4: why you would when the American taxpayer subsidizes your relationship
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Speaker 4: at the post office, Like, I don't know what you
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Speaker 4: prefer Amazon, Yeah, think about it this way.
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Speaker 2: If you're buying something on Amazon, shouldn't.
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Speaker 4: Be by the way, the USPS should be charging Amazon
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Speaker 4: up the wazoo to deliver their packages, but they don't.
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Speaker 3: But Amazon knows when they're busy and stuff, which is
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Speaker 3: why you get the notification. Not the notification, but you're
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Speaker 3: going to buy something and says, hey, we'll give you
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Speaker 3: like a one dollar digital credit if you deliver on
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Speaker 3: Saturday instead of Friday. I wonder if there's something they
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Speaker 3: could do on that side where hey, if you have
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Speaker 3: it delivered to our Amazon post office, you can get
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Speaker 3: you two dollars off instead of having its shipped home. Now,
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Speaker 3: most people might not do it, but if you're cheap
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Speaker 3: and you're gonna be in that direction anyways.
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Speaker 2: Sure, why not? I wouldn't mind doing that.
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Speaker 3: It depends where it is. If it's within fifteen minutes, fine,
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Speaker 3: let's take a quick break here. When we come back,
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Speaker 3: it's time for a little festivus action. Will air our
10:34
Speaker 3: grievances from.
10:35
Speaker 2: The past year. Right after this, I got.
10:39
Speaker 5: A lot of problems with your people.
10:41
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11:15
Speaker 2: All right.
11:16
Speaker 6: Time for trivia here on the Financial Exchange A couple
11:20
Speaker 6: days left here of Christmas Trivia here on the show.
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Speaker 2: Keep this one nice and easy for you. On the
11:25
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty.
11:26
Speaker 6: Four movie Ruteoff the Red Nose Reindeer, which I watched
11:29
Speaker 6: last night, what was the name of Rudolph's elf friend?
11:34
Speaker 2: Once again?
11:35
Speaker 6: In the nineteen sixty four movie Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,
11:38
Speaker 6: what was the name of Rudolph's elf friend? Be the
11:43
Speaker 6: fifth person today to text us at six one seven
11:46
Speaker 6: three six, two thirteen eighty five with the correct answer,
11:49
Speaker 6: and you win a Financial Exchange Show t shirt. Once again,
11:52
Speaker 6: be the fifth correct response to text us at six
11:55
Speaker 6: one seven three six two thirteen eighty five with the
11:58
Speaker 6: correct answer Seek leak contest rules at Financial Exchange Show
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Speaker 6: dot com.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's do it.
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Speaker 7: You gave your family around and tell them all the
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Speaker 7: ways they have disappointed you over the year. Honda was
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Speaker 7: born a festivus for the rest of us.
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Speaker 8: Oh yees. Now it's time to air on economic grievances
12:21
Speaker 8: over the year.
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Speaker 5: I got a lot of problems. When you'll be up.
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Speaker 3: All right, it is time for the Financial Exchange Festivus.
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Speaker 3: We've extended this to two segments because it was a.
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Speaker 2: Little got a lot of reasons, and we got.
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Speaker 3: A lot of problems with you people, So Mike, I'd
12:41
Speaker 3: like you to kick things off so that I can
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Speaker 3: well myself into a suitable ladder.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, but let's start right at the beginning of twenty
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Speaker 4: twenty four, because I know this was top of your
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Speaker 4: list as well, and I have three different articles, but
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Speaker 4: I'll just start with the worst of the worst. This
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Speaker 4: was published on January fourth of this year, four days
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Speaker 4: into the new year. The subject from the Wall Street
13:05
Speaker 4: Journal stocks bad start at twenty twenty four has forecasters
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Speaker 4: on edge, and it goes on to show that workout
13:12
Speaker 4: major indices have pulled back in the first three sessions after.
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Speaker 2: Ending twenty twenty three with a bang.
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Speaker 4: The SMP down one point seven percent, it's worst start
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Speaker 4: to a year since twenty sixteen, Dow Jones off point
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Speaker 4: seven percent, NASDAK dropped a whopping three point three percent.
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Speaker 4: And the conclusion of this piece, as well as several
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Speaker 4: others that I saw, primarily from the Wall Street Journal,
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Speaker 4: by the way, where that watch out because as goes January,
13:38
Speaker 4: so goes the rest of the year.
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Speaker 2: As of today, I believe the S and P.
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Speaker 4: Five hundred is up about twenty five to twenty six
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Speaker 4: percent for the year, so.
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Speaker 2: Lessen. Don't pay attention to what happens in two days
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Speaker 2: of trading, and don't extrapolate a full year from it.
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Speaker 4: Irresponsible reporting here from the Wall Street Journal trying to
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Speaker 4: extrapolate as so goes, as goes January, so goes the year.
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Speaker 4: That may hold true, but don't try and conclude anything
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Speaker 4: about the stock market within four days at the beginning
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Speaker 4: of the year.
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Speaker 3: I got one from two days after that. Boeing has
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Speaker 3: a seven thirty seven Max with a door plug that
14:13
Speaker 3: blows out of it on an Alaska Airlines flight. This
14:16
Speaker 3: kicked off a whole investigation into what is a door
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Speaker 3: plug and how does it work? We all became experts
14:23
Speaker 3: on doorplug door plug experts very rapidly. But more importantly,
14:27
Speaker 3: it was another continued problem for Boeing and so Boeing
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Speaker 3: right at the start of the year. Man, I gotta say,
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Speaker 3: this one really nailed it, really kind of encapsulated it.
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Speaker 2: Can we uh?
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Speaker 4: I think we should give some credit to whoever was
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Speaker 4: flying that plane who managed to land it land it
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Speaker 4: in a depressurized plane without anybody being sucked out of
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Speaker 4: the out of the door. On the other hand, I
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Speaker 4: don't think we still know who failed to install the
14:53
Speaker 4: very basic door plugs on a door.
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Speaker 2: They installed it, they didn't inspect it, and they didn't
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Speaker 2: bolt it. Yeah, you would. I want your door to
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Speaker 2: be bolted shut. You would if you don't want it
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Speaker 2: to open, since it's not a door, it's a door plug.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, we could go on at length about Boeing. Well, no,
15:08
Speaker 4: let's actually go on and continue on Boeing for a
15:11
Speaker 4: moment here, if you don't mind. The Starliner went up,
15:15
Speaker 4: came down, drop it not with its passengers, dropped a
15:18
Speaker 4: bunch of people off in space, including a local Massachusetts
15:22
Speaker 4: native here who is getting who has already received a
15:26
Speaker 4: fair bit of fame and has an elementary school named
15:29
Speaker 4: after her, is now stuck in space and expected to
15:32
Speaker 4: be there along with her NASA colleague for a total
15:35
Speaker 4: of eight months. Because Boeing builds space ships that aren't
15:39
Speaker 4: capable of bringing people home.
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Speaker 2: It's unclear whether or not there was a door plug
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Speaker 2: on the ship.
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Speaker 4: It's pretty evident that that wasn't the problem. But yeah,
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Speaker 4: not a very good look or job done by Boeing.
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Speaker 2: Let's see you or me, Mike. You go ahead, Charlie,
15:55
Speaker 2: I've got.
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Speaker 3: Sixteen more so this from January tenth, retailers battling false returns,
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Speaker 3: getting brick filled boxes, fake receipts that people.
16:05
Speaker 2: Were writing up.
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Speaker 3: All you people that are trying to rip off retailers
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Speaker 3: by sending them fake returns, do better?
16:13
Speaker 2: Do better?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you're committing theft in doing so, Yes, you are.
16:19
Speaker 3: And not only that, you're just wasting their time. Also,
16:22
Speaker 3: if you want to buy the thing, don't pretend to
16:24
Speaker 3: return it because you didn't like it, and especially don't
16:27
Speaker 3: pretend to return it with a brick in the box.
16:30
Speaker 3: That's just a huge waste of everybody's time and you
16:33
Speaker 3: shouldn't do that.
16:34
Speaker 5: It's a festive US miracle.
16:37
Speaker 4: Would either of you happen to know anything about your
16:40
Speaker 4: hometown deli?
16:42
Speaker 1: I don't have a hometown deli.
16:44
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm talking about when I refer
16:46
Speaker 2: to hometown deli?
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Speaker 3: I know something about this. I've heard the name this year,
16:49
Speaker 3: but I forget what it was.
16:51
Speaker 2: So hometown Deli was a small deli and Paul's Bullow,
16:54
Speaker 2: New Jersey always the deli fraud. There is the deli fraud.
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Speaker 4: This actually occurred in twenty twenty three, but I do
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Speaker 4: bring it up because because a father and son finally
17:01
Speaker 4: played guilty on Thursday to orchestrating a brazen stock manipulation
17:06
Speaker 4: scheme involving the only asset of this company being a
17:10
Speaker 4: small New Jersey deli who's publicly traded parent company at
17:14
Speaker 4: one point reached one hundred million dollars in value. So
17:18
Speaker 4: shame on you for orchestrating a scam, a fraud, a
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Speaker 4: brazen stock market manipulation, and you're gonna go to jail
17:25
Speaker 4: for a little while for doing so. And shame on
17:28
Speaker 4: you for every investor who participated and bought in this
17:30
Speaker 4: without even understanding what on earth Hometown International was did
17:38
Speaker 4: or why their stock market price was increasing so dramatically.
17:42
Speaker 3: It's NFL Wildcard Weekend from this year. Three of the
17:46
Speaker 3: six games are streamed on Peacock is the only way
17:49
Speaker 3: to watch them.
17:51
Speaker 2: You have to pay to watch these.
17:53
Speaker 3: Games on a streaming service that you otherwise don't want. Like,
17:57
Speaker 3: what a short sighted move from the NFL. I'm sorry
18:01
Speaker 3: you don't put playoff games as streaming only. That's an
18:04
Speaker 3: easy way to alienate your fans and get them to
18:08
Speaker 3: not actually watch.
18:11
Speaker 2: This is Uh yeah, the NFL did it.
18:15
Speaker 4: I went to my local sports bar last week to
18:18
Speaker 4: try and go watch the Bruins game and shame on
18:22
Speaker 4: them for being here, but they did not have I
18:24
Speaker 4: think it was a necessary Hulu subscription that I needed
18:28
Speaker 4: to watch the Bruins game in my.
18:30
Speaker 2: Own local market.
18:33
Speaker 4: It's problem wasn't on nesson, wasn't on any major network.
18:37
Speaker 2: And again, I know.
18:39
Speaker 4: That everything about the sports is about the NHL for me,
18:42
Speaker 4: and so I should, you know, maybe be a little
18:43
Speaker 4: bit less narrow on this, but give me a break.
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Speaker 2: Let me watch my local sports team and tell them.
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Speaker 7: All the ways they have disappointed you over the last year.
18:54
Speaker 2: I got this one for Capital One. This is from
18:57
Speaker 2: earlier this.
18:58
Speaker 3: Year, when a bunch of people realized, hey, capital One's
19:02
Speaker 3: advertising all of these high interest accounts. I had a
19:05
Speaker 3: high interest account with Capital One, but they changed the
19:09
Speaker 3: name of the product that offers these and so you
19:11
Speaker 3: actually weren't getting the high in high interest payments.
19:15
Speaker 2: By the way, I was one of these people. I
19:19
Speaker 2: was one of them chows.
19:21
Speaker 3: I didn't actually end up, you know, conducting any legal
19:24
Speaker 3: action or anything, but I was just a little disappointed
19:26
Speaker 3: in Capital One and remain so to this day.
19:29
Speaker 2: Quick break, here, we've got more Festivus right after.
19:32
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19:44
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21:12
Speaker 7: Back to this you gave you family around and tell
21:15
Speaker 7: him all the ways they have disappointed you over the year.
21:19
Speaker 5: I was born a festers for the rest of us.
21:22
Speaker 8: Oh yes, now it's time to air on economic grievances
21:27
Speaker 8: over the year.
21:29
Speaker 5: I got a lot of problems. When you'll keep up.
21:33
Speaker 3: All right, Sam Alton And back in February, he is
21:35
Speaker 3: the CEO of Open Ai multiple times, and he went
21:41
Speaker 3: around on a fundraising tour trying to raise money for
21:43
Speaker 3: them because he wanted five to seven trillion dollars.
21:46
Speaker 2: To do an AI build out. Don't think he got it,
21:50
Speaker 2: Did he got the zeros? Did he get the zeros
21:52
Speaker 2: wrong on that one? Don't think he ended up getting it.
21:54
Speaker 3: But uh yeah, that was a little bit ridiculous in
21:56
Speaker 3: terms of trying to raise five to seven trillion dollars
21:59
Speaker 3: to build AI stuff.
22:01
Speaker 4: May I this is actually now that I think about
22:04
Speaker 4: it my biggest one of the year. It is a
22:08
Speaker 4: perfect combination of brazen theft combined with absolute stupidity. Who
22:15
Speaker 4: remembers the Fidelity Boys Yep on your list? Yeah, so
22:19
Speaker 4: this might be the topper for me. The Fidelity Boys
22:23
Speaker 4: Z with a Z, which is why I'm Pronounty was
22:27
Speaker 4: a group on TikTok and Reddit who discovered that you
22:33
Speaker 4: can defraud Fidelity fairly easily for a short period of time.
22:36
Speaker 2: Here's how they did it.
22:37
Speaker 4: They would deposit checks from bank accounts that didn't actually
22:40
Speaker 4: have the money in it, such as an eighty thousand
22:42
Speaker 4: dollars check depositive Fidelity, and Fidelity, different than some banks,
22:48
Speaker 4: did not put holds on those checks for prolonged periods
22:51
Speaker 4: of time, and you could actually move that money out
22:53
Speaker 4: of that Fidelity investment account rather rapidly.
22:57
Speaker 2: What these Fidelity Boys.
23:00
Speaker 4: Apparently failed to recognize is that they were perpetrating check
23:03
Speaker 4: fraud and that Fidelity has your legal address, social Security number,
23:06
Speaker 4: day to birth, and usually photo ID.
23:09
Speaker 2: When you open up an account.
23:10
Speaker 3: And they posted on their TikTok accounts, and so everyone.
23:13
Speaker 4: Knew it was them, right, Yes, the quotes on here
23:19
Speaker 4: know this isn't a bank accounts, he notes, and we
23:21
Speaker 4: can make eighty K a dead ass investing bank. Now,
23:26
Speaker 4: stop playing with us, go join us or be broke.
23:30
Speaker 4: Hashtag fidelity boys.
23:32
Speaker 2: That's sometimes miracle. Uh not great.
23:37
Speaker 3: This from the Wall Street Journal the boss's new secret weapon,
23:41
Speaker 3: pumping perfume into the office. Employers are using scent to
23:44
Speaker 3: boost moods and get workers back in the office. Yeah,
23:47
Speaker 3: you just make the office smell like flowers and everyone's
23:49
Speaker 3: gonna love coming in there.
23:51
Speaker 2: How about this.
23:51
Speaker 3: If you don't want your employers employees to be happy,
23:53
Speaker 3: let them smell their own flowers at home.
23:55
Speaker 2: I don't know.
23:57
Speaker 4: Speaking of return to the office, Amazon required all of
24:01
Speaker 4: their employees to return to the office just like a
24:04
Speaker 4: month ago. A few of them quit, apparently not enough
24:07
Speaker 4: because now they do not have enough office space for
24:09
Speaker 4: their employees to return to.
24:10
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball before this season.
24:13
Speaker 3: Shows new uniform supplier, a new uniform manufacturer, Fanatics, was
24:17
Speaker 3: gonna make them for Nike.
24:18
Speaker 2: Now the uniforms turned out.
24:20
Speaker 3: To be see through, they didn't fit well, they had
24:22
Speaker 3: mismatching colors, and they ripped.
24:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an interesting spring day.
24:28
Speaker 3: It was kind of wild, you know, A lot of
24:30
Speaker 3: underwear being seen or not or not.
24:34
Speaker 4: A few different pieces from multiple different places throughout this year.
24:39
Speaker 4: One at the beginning of the year, another one. This
24:42
Speaker 4: is from Bloomberg on March eleventh. In both cases, Jamie
24:46
Speaker 4: Diamond once again warning us all about a recession not
24:49
Speaker 4: being off the table yet and it still could come.
24:52
Speaker 4: He has made the same prediction seemingly every month for
24:55
Speaker 4: the last three years, and it hasn't happened yet. So
24:58
Speaker 4: I don't know, Jamie, what I'm supposed to do with
25:00
Speaker 4: this information at this point. I haven't at least heard
25:02
Speaker 4: you say it for the last couple of months, But
25:04
Speaker 4: that might just mean that we're overdue for a doomsday
25:07
Speaker 4: prediction from Jamie Diamond.
25:09
Speaker 5: I got a lot of problems with your people.
25:11
Speaker 2: April seventeenth.
25:14
Speaker 3: They love their fourteen point nine to five million Hampton's house.
25:18
Speaker 2: The problem their dog hates it.
25:21
Speaker 3: Brian Graviel and Daniel Doko has built their dream dream
25:24
Speaker 3: home in sag Harbor, but are now selling it because
25:26
Speaker 3: their golden Duelal Rufus, gets Poudy when he's there.
25:29
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so sorry that Rufus gets Poudy.
25:32
Speaker 3: In the fourteen point nine to five million dollar home
25:35
Speaker 3: that you built in sag Harbor.
25:37
Speaker 4: How slow of a news day was this? That someone
25:41
Speaker 4: where did where was this rich?
25:42
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal?
25:43
Speaker 4: That's someone at the Wall Street Journal said, you know what,
25:47
Speaker 4: I need to interview these multi millionaires and their fifteen
25:51
Speaker 4: million dollar home and dog problems.
25:53
Speaker 3: Hey listen, They just said they went a little indulgent
25:56
Speaker 3: on some of the interior finishes. And the windows were
25:58
Speaker 3: made in Charleston, South Carolina by a company specializing.
26:01
Speaker 2: In historic windows. Who is this for? What's a historic window?
26:04
Speaker 2: Who is this written for?
26:06
Speaker 3: What is a historic window? How do you make historic windows?
26:09
Speaker 3: Don't you have don't they have to already have been?
26:11
Speaker 4: Like there a historic I am somewhat flabbergasted by that
26:17
Speaker 4: entire things miracle. I will bring one up for presidential
26:23
Speaker 4: candidate Kamala Harris saying that she was going to fix
26:27
Speaker 4: grocery prices by banning gouging, which pretty much every economist
26:33
Speaker 4: immediately came out and said, isn't happening, And this is
26:37
Speaker 4: a terrible idea and probably contributed to somewhat to her
26:42
Speaker 4: campaign failure.
26:43
Speaker 3: David Busters to allow for betting on arcade games. Helly,
26:47
Speaker 3: that's right, you can watch your friends or not even
26:49
Speaker 3: your friends play and bet on who's gonna win ski ball.
26:52
Speaker 2: Was this implemented Probably not in mass Choo, don't know if.
26:55
Speaker 3: It's been put into place yet, but they did say
26:57
Speaker 3: that they were going to do this so you can
27:00
Speaker 3: digitally place bets on other people playing arcade games.
27:04
Speaker 6: Nothing could go wrong with anything more fun if it
27:06
Speaker 6: wasn't your friends that you were betting on, you know,
27:08
Speaker 6: I think that would be make a lot more sense.
27:10
Speaker 2: Hey, why those eight year olds up at the ski
27:12
Speaker 2: ball and see you win?
27:13
Speaker 4: That's where it gets dark, is like, all right, which
27:15
Speaker 4: one of these nine year olds looks like they're really
27:17
Speaker 4: going to be able to dominate hungry hungry hippos.
27:19
Speaker 2: Kind of a problem. Let's see in July. No.
27:23
Speaker 3: In May, high end fitness chain Equinox lost a forty
27:27
Speaker 3: thousand dollars per year fitness.
27:29
Speaker 2: Program called loss Oh launched.
27:32
Speaker 3: It's called Optimized by Equinox, and it includes personal training,
27:36
Speaker 3: nutrition plans, and it's supposed to help you live longer.
27:39
Speaker 2: Oh, forty thousand dollars a year. I mean it better delivery.
27:46
Speaker 4: Macy's had to disclose just last month that one of
27:49
Speaker 4: their employees made a multi million dollar accounting screw up
27:54
Speaker 4: and then intentionally hid a bunch of costs from their
27:57
Speaker 4: public disclosures for years. Digging into this, you know, at
28:01
Speaker 4: first we figured that this person's compensation was in some
28:05
Speaker 4: way tied to the good results.
28:07
Speaker 2: As it turned out, they were just bad at their job.
28:09
Speaker 4: They were just bad at their job, screwed something up,
28:12
Speaker 4: and then rather than reporting it and disclosing it and
28:15
Speaker 4: fixing it, kept going buried it for three years and
28:19
Speaker 4: Macy's didn't discover it for three years.
28:21
Speaker 5: I got a lot of problems with your people.
28:24
Speaker 3: Let's see, in California, a man dressed as a bear
28:28
Speaker 3: tried to defront insurance company that.
28:31
Speaker 2: Might take the place of Fidelity Boys.
28:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, so good boy. A guy dressed up as a
28:35
Speaker 3: bear and used h little holding to try to shred
28:43
Speaker 3: a car.
28:44
Speaker 2: I forgot about that one, chuck.
28:45
Speaker 3: The California Department of Insurance was like, no, this probably
28:49
Speaker 3: isn't a real bear, and it was caught on video
28:51
Speaker 3: multiple times.
28:52
Speaker 2: That is a human and the back door to the car.
28:56
Speaker 2: Bears don't do.
28:57
Speaker 3: That, and so and so instead tem Razion aer rat
29:02
Speaker 3: Cherkinian Vahe Mercadian and Alifa Zuckerman all face charges of
29:08
Speaker 3: insurance fraud and conspiracy.
29:13
Speaker 2: What else you got for us?
29:14
Speaker 3: Also in November, the same day, Mark Zuckerberg released a
29:17
Speaker 3: cover of Get Low with T Pain. Oh paid T
29:20
Speaker 3: Pain a bunch of money to go and record the
29:23
Speaker 3: song that he met his wife during or that was playing.
29:27
Speaker 2: While he bet his wife. Yeah, yeah, which I cannot
29:29
Speaker 2: play on the air. Uh yeah, I look.
29:32
Speaker 4: That is as far as billionaire crazy eccentric things to do,
29:36
Speaker 4: it's up there, but not the craziest, but probably the
29:39
Speaker 4: craziest for twenty twenty four.
29:40
Speaker 2: Well, no, the.
29:40
Speaker 3: Craziest part wasn't that he recorded it. It's that he
29:43
Speaker 3: put it on Spotify so everyone could listen to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
29:46
Speaker 3: you're right, you know, like, oh yeah, I want to
29:49
Speaker 3: make a version with T Pain with you know, for
29:51
Speaker 3: my wife for our anniversary, not put it on Spotify
29:53
Speaker 3: so everyone can hear how I do?
29:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's weird. Thus concludes twenty twenty four is economic grievances.
30:06
Speaker 3: I want everyone listening to know that despite those grievances,
30:09
Speaker 3: it has been an absolute fantastic year sharing all of
30:11
Speaker 3: this with you, and so we couldn't do it without
30:14
Speaker 3: you listening.
30:14
Speaker 2: Thank you again.
30:15
Speaker 3: Honestly, we don't really get to say it often. We
30:18
Speaker 3: probably should say it more, but thank you so much
30:20
Speaker 3: for listening, because that's the whole point, is not just
30:23
Speaker 3: to be talking into the abyss.
30:24
Speaker 2: And we appreciate all of you.
30:25
Speaker 3: Who we get to keep company in your cars or
30:28
Speaker 3: on the job or just listening around your house, whatever
30:30
Speaker 3: it is. You are not someone that we have problems with.
30:34
Speaker 2: You complete us.
30:35
Speaker 3: You people we like so spread the word. In any case,
30:39
Speaker 3: appreciate y'all joining us all year. We do have Paul
30:43
Speaker 3: A Monica joining us from Barons right after this break.
30:45
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30:49
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31:08
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Financial Exchange Radio Network, Ladies.
31:12
Speaker 8: And gentlemen the weekend.
31:27
Speaker 3: As promised, we're now joined by Paul and Monica from Barons.
31:30
Speaker 3: We're talking a little bit of CVS with Paul. Paul,
31:33
Speaker 3: how are you doing today.
31:35
Speaker 9: I'm good. Thanks, how you guys doing.
31:36
Speaker 3: We are fantastic, Paul. CVS has had a tough.
31:42
Speaker 2: Run for quite a while. Now, what's the future look
31:46
Speaker 2: like for them?
31:47
Speaker 3: Given the myriad problems they are facing, whether it is
31:52
Speaker 3: acquisitions that haven't worked out, staffing, problems with their pharmacists,
31:57
Speaker 3: the overall business modelinggue, What's what's the future look like
32:00
Speaker 3: for them?
32:01
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's challenging, to put it mildly. The stock is
32:06
Speaker 9: down about forty five percent this year, and I think
32:10
Speaker 9: there are, you know, legitimate questions about what the company
32:15
Speaker 9: should look like going forward. I mean, there have been
32:19
Speaker 9: some calls for a breakup, you know, given that CBS,
32:24
Speaker 9: in addition to the drugstore business, also owns the pharmacy
32:28
Speaker 9: benefit manager hair Mark, and that's a business set's come
32:32
Speaker 9: under fire lately United Health, which owns Optum, and Signa,
32:38
Speaker 9: which owns express Scripts. There have been some calls in
32:40
Speaker 9: Washington to have that business, the kind of middleman that
32:43
Speaker 9: negotiates price rebates with big drug companies to be broken up.
32:50
Speaker 9: And then also CBS owns Etna, so it has its tentacles,
32:54
Speaker 9: if you will, and pretty much every part of the
32:57
Speaker 9: pharmacy drug health insuran or in business. And I think
33:01
Speaker 9: that's why some people have wondered if CBS would be
33:05
Speaker 9: a cleaner story, if you will, if they broke up.
33:08
Speaker 9: But even if they broke up, I mean, we know,
33:10
Speaker 9: the retail environment's challenging. A lot of people getting their
33:13
Speaker 9: prescriptions now from from Walmart and Target as well as Amazon,
33:17
Speaker 9: and yeah, that's a big reason why Walgreens has also
33:19
Speaker 9: struggled this year.
33:21
Speaker 2: Is it possible for a large national drug store chain
33:26
Speaker 2: to exist on its own at this point.
33:30
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a great question because there really aren't many left.
33:34
Speaker 9: If Walgreens does go private, which you know, not not
33:38
Speaker 9: saying they will, but there has been chatter about that
33:41
Speaker 9: CVS would be the last publicly traded, you know, drug
33:45
Speaker 9: store company. I mean, there's been so much consolidation over
33:49
Speaker 9: the past couple of years, and we saw how Wrighty
33:52
Speaker 9: you know, I floated, you know, in the past decade
33:56
Speaker 9: as well. I think it is increasingly challenge and jing
34:00
Speaker 9: because in addition to you know, mom and pop pharmacies
34:03
Speaker 9: that exist all across the country, again, it's Walmart and
34:07
Speaker 9: Target and Amazon where people are increasingly one stop shopping,
34:13
Speaker 9: you know, And I think that's been a problem for
34:16
Speaker 9: CBS as well. So, I mean, it's a cleaner story
34:19
Speaker 9: if it's just a retailer as opposed to having the
34:22
Speaker 9: PBM business, which is under the you know, political crosshairs.
34:26
Speaker 9: But it's it's it's hard to see what the solution
34:31
Speaker 9: is going to be. And I think that's one of
34:32
Speaker 9: the reasons why CBS had, you know, a management shake
34:35
Speaker 9: up earlier this year as well, with you know, Karen Lynch,
34:38
Speaker 9: you know, stepping down as CEO.
34:40
Speaker 3: There, Paul, How did this all end up in this
34:42
Speaker 3: place for CVS? Because I remember you look back, you know,
34:45
Speaker 3: five six years ago, and there were there was so
34:48
Speaker 3: much optimism about Hey, they're you know, buying a health
34:53
Speaker 3: you know, a health insurer in order to try to
34:55
Speaker 3: integrate care more. And they're going to try to be,
34:58
Speaker 3: you know, becoming more of a healthcare center with doctor's
35:01
Speaker 3: offices and things like that co located in their stores.
35:05
Speaker 2: How did how did it go so wrong? How did
35:08
Speaker 2: those bets end up working out so badly?
35:11
Speaker 9: Yeah? I mean I think in some respects the minute
35:14
Speaker 9: clinic aspect of CVS, that probably hasn't been the problem.
35:19
Speaker 9: I think for a lot of consumers there is that
35:22
Speaker 9: convenience factor of being able to go to a drug
35:25
Speaker 9: store when you're picking up prescriptions and also get things
35:29
Speaker 9: like a COVID shot, a flu shot, you know, what
35:33
Speaker 9: have you without having to set up a doctor's appointment.
35:36
Speaker 9: The issue is just it's controversial for CVS to be
35:40
Speaker 9: owning the middleman that negotiates the drug prices, and then
35:45
Speaker 9: it also owns an insurer as well. So that's the
35:49
Speaker 9: reason why you know, you have a bipartisan push. It's
35:53
Speaker 9: not just Democrats or Republicans, it's both sides of the aisle.
35:57
Speaker 9: This is one area in Washington where there might be
36:00
Speaker 9: agreement to try and break up these giant healthcare companies,
36:04
Speaker 9: you know, and that's that's something that could impact United
36:07
Speaker 9: Health and Signa as well.
36:09
Speaker 3: Very good, Paul, appreciate you joining us. If I don't
36:11
Speaker 3: talk to you before, then have a great Christmas and
36:15
Speaker 3: New Year's But thanks for joining us all year.
36:17
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
36:18
Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you very much, appreciate it. Look forward to
36:21
Speaker 9: you being all with you guys in twenty twenty five.
36:23
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that is Paul Amonica from Barons talking about CVS
36:29
Speaker 3: have any.
36:30
Speaker 2: Other economic grievances. Four We're spent.
36:34
Speaker 8: But that's over.
36:36
Speaker 3: My slate is clean, and I'm ready for twenty twenty five.
36:41
Speaker 4: Piece of good news reporting here that Americans are well,
36:45
Speaker 4: while we know this unusually likely to die young compared
36:48
Speaker 4: with citizens of other development that's good news. No, the
36:50
Speaker 4: good news is that it's getting a little better. In May,
36:53
Speaker 4: the US government reported that drug overdose deaths fell three percent.
36:58
Speaker 4: Obesity is down. KNITSA reported that traffic fatalities continue to
37:03
Speaker 4: decline after a huge rise in twenty twenty and twenty
37:05
Speaker 4: twenty one, and generally speaking, we're getting slightly healthier. And
37:13
Speaker 4: then finally the FBI confirmed double digit decline in the
37:16
Speaker 4: national murder rate. I can point to a few of
37:19
Speaker 4: these things as you know why that might be happening.
37:23
Speaker 4: The obesity rate, I think can obviously be identified as
37:25
Speaker 4: the new drug treatments that are out there, but the
37:28
Speaker 4: other ones are just a bit confounding to me. I
37:30
Speaker 4: don't know why we're getting in fewer fatal car accidents
37:33
Speaker 4: or other things, but you have to take all of
37:35
Speaker 4: that as some good news.
37:36
Speaker 2: There has been some research.
37:38
Speaker 3: Done on the golp one drugs that they have shown
37:42
Speaker 3: some promise with addiction, and so maybe there is a
37:44
Speaker 3: tie in there between some of the drug related deaths
37:48
Speaker 3: and maybe smarter cars are preventing accidents. I don't see
37:51
Speaker 3: a lot of evidence of that yet, but my Carl
37:53
Speaker 3: stops before I re earund somebody.
37:56
Speaker 2: That's good. Yeah, that's good.
37:57
Speaker 3: Taking a look at markets, May Adrian major move to
38:00
Speaker 3: the upside Downs up seven forty five, now s and
38:03
Speaker 3: P up ninety seven, NASDA C up three twenty eight,
38:06
Speaker 3: so a nice little bounce back Friday thus far before
38:10
Speaker 3: a shortened holiday week of trading.
38:13
Speaker 2: Hope you all have a great weekend. We're back at
38:15
Speaker 2: it on Monday. We will see you then on the
38:18
Speaker 2: Financial Exchange