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Warner is making demands for Paramount to saying in the bidding · 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: Zadath and Mike Armstraw.
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Speaker 2: Chuck, Mike Tucker with you here, and we've got quite
1:13
Speaker 2: a nice ripper going on in markets today. Dal Jones
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Speaker 2: Industrial Average up four hundred and fifty points a little
1:19
Speaker 2: bit less than one percent, the S and P five
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Speaker 2: hundred and ninety two points a little more than one
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Speaker 2: to a third percent, and the Nasdaq up. Let's see, it
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Speaker 2: looks like nasdak can poses a four hundred and thirty
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Speaker 2: one points one point nine percent, So you've got a
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Speaker 2: nice rally taking place today. Primary driver, in my opinion,
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Speaker 2: was Micron earnings yesterday, which is driving tech higher. But
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Speaker 2: it's supported by a better than expected uh CPI report
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Speaker 2: that came out this morning that while we don't have
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Speaker 2: month over month numbers because October did not have a release,
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Speaker 2: year over year came in at two point seven percent
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Speaker 2: on the headline and two point six percent on the
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Speaker 2: core number, and so that takes a little bit of
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Speaker 2: concern away from the inflation side of things, which had
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Speaker 2: previously been running close to three percent annually, and so
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Speaker 2: you've got that kind of moving things forward here pretty significantly.
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Speaker 2: Inequity markets bonds not seeing as strong of a response,
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Speaker 2: which is why I think this is more Micron than CPI.
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Speaker 2: Tenure Treasury is down three point one basis points to
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Speaker 2: four point one two percent, so a little bit of
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Speaker 2: movement there, but nothing huge. Dollar index a touch stronger
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Speaker 2: a point zero six percent to ninety eight oh six.
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Speaker 2: We've got gold off five eighty announced to forty three
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Speaker 2: sixty eight and ten cents, and crude oil up fifty
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Speaker 2: six cents a barrel to fifty six dollars and fifty cents.
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Speaker 2: The triple A national average for gas prices falling again,
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Speaker 2: down another nine tenths of a cent overnight to two
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Speaker 2: eighty nine and six tenths of a cent. A year
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Speaker 2: ago we were at three dollars and three point four cents,
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Speaker 2: so down about four to five five percent year over
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Speaker 2: year on gas prices. So that is what is moving
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Speaker 2: in markets today. Uh again, I am absolutely going to
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Speaker 2: love covering this Warner Brothers discovery story for as long
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Speaker 2: as it lasts. I hope it goes for the entire
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Speaker 2: like rest of my career because I could do this
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Speaker 2: all day.
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Speaker 3: That's why I got so excited because it intersected with
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Speaker 3: Blue Oul Capital and AI Development. Man, what what a week.
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Speaker 2: I'm just here for the drama amongst billionaires, you know,
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Speaker 2: just like I can't relate to I just there's something
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Speaker 2: that I just enjoy. I guess about billionaires getting cranky
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Speaker 2: with each other instead of trying to just rip everyone
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Speaker 2: else off. It's it's kind of like if they're fighting
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Speaker 2: with each other, they can't.
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Speaker 4: Fight with us.
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Speaker 2: They can't, but they can't. I know they have minions
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Speaker 2: and stuff like that. Who owns minions?
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Speaker 4: Is that a Disney property? Illumination?
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Speaker 5: Which what does that mean to a production company?
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Speaker 3: I'm guessing Paramount.
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Speaker 4: I don't know who it is. Yeah, good question.
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Speaker 2: Well Universal, Universal and who owns them?
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Speaker 4: And boy, here we go.
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Speaker 2: So in any case, Warner Brothers Discovery sending a message
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Speaker 2: to Larry Ellison, Hey, if you want to buy our company,
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Speaker 2: we aren't really sure about you trying to use your
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Speaker 2: personal you know, your family trust to back the deal
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Speaker 2: because the assumption, and I don't know, no one does,
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Speaker 2: is that there's a lot of oracle stock in the
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Speaker 2: family trust. And depending on the value of Oracle stock,
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Speaker 2: that guarantee might not be worth the paper it's printed on.
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Speaker 2: So Warner Brothers Discovery saying, listen, if you want us
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Speaker 2: to even consider your deal, you have to give a
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Speaker 2: personal guarantee of this bid, not just that your trust
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Speaker 2: may cover it, because the trust doesn't give us the
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Speaker 2: same level of comfort.
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Speaker 3: Now, the Ellison family hit back, saying that there's nearly
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Speaker 3: a quarter trillion dollars in the trust itself, don't I
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Speaker 3: don't know how to prove that out.
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Speaker 2: I don't know how much it might. We don't have
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Speaker 2: any information about this. But all I can say is,
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Speaker 2: if there is a quarter trillion dollars in the trust,
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Speaker 2: if you're trying to buy a company for eighty billion,
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Speaker 2: would it hurt you to pull eighty billion dollars out
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Speaker 2: and put it into your own name and say, okay,
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Speaker 2: I'll guarantee you.
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Speaker 3: I have no idea. This is such an opaque conversation
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Speaker 3: between billionaires that I could not even begin to relate
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Speaker 3: to it. So I don't know if if Warner Brothers
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Speaker 3: I genuinely has concerns about this. I don't know if
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Speaker 3: it's reasonable for them to assume that Ellison should sign
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Speaker 3: on the dotted line. I don't know if it's just
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Speaker 3: that they prefer the Netflix bid and they are looking
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Speaker 3: for additional ammunition to throw at the shareholders on this.
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Speaker 3: It's it's just a bunch of ugly questions, but it
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Speaker 3: is entertaining to sit back and and see Larry Ellison
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Speaker 3: squirm a little bit under the pressure of do I
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Speaker 3: sign on the dotted line for this thing?
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Speaker 2: Well, did you see yesterday what was going on at
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Speaker 2: Warner Brothers.
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Speaker 3: No, give me more.
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Speaker 2: I'm just all here for the juice on this. I
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Speaker 2: don't know why this one has me so excited, but
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Speaker 2: it does for some reason. So yesterday was when Warner
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Speaker 2: Brothers Discovery sent this letter and said, hey, this isn't
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Speaker 2: gonna work right. So the piece that's interesting to me
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Speaker 2: is that yesterday was also when Netflix's co CEOs Greg
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Speaker 2: Peters and Ted Sarandas showed up with the Warner Brothers
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Speaker 2: a lot, and we're being walked around by David Zoslov,
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Speaker 2: who is the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery. I mean, like,
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Speaker 2: it's it's about as like billionaire trolley as you can get.
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Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, Zoslov is sending the letter to Larry
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Speaker 2: Ellison saying no, sorry, not interested. You need to personally
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Speaker 2: guarantee it, and then goes out with like a camera
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Speaker 2: crew that's taking pictures of it, you know, like there's
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Speaker 2: a reason why the Hollywood reporter had pictures of the
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Speaker 2: three of them walking around smiling.
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Speaker 3: They're all walking. No, like this is all carefully orchestrated.
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Speaker 3: Send the letter out ted, Greg, Why don't you guys
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Speaker 3: come over, We'll get some pictures taken and send them
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Speaker 3: over to the Hollywood reporter. Maybe we'll spit in his
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Speaker 3: face while we're at it.
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Speaker 2: So the question that is out there in my opinion,
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Speaker 2: and you kind of raised it, is Warner Brothers Discovery
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Speaker 2: just outright, no, we don't want Paramount sky Dance to
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Speaker 2: buy us.
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Speaker 3: Or is this posturing? It seems like posturing, Chuck. If
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Speaker 3: you call the media and say, take pictures of us
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Speaker 3: walking around the lot with the potential buyers, it seems
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Speaker 3: a lot like posturing.
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Speaker 4: To me, it is posturing.
7:57
Speaker 6: But like.
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Speaker 2: You're you're misunderstanding. This is clearly an orchestrated like thing.
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Speaker 2: But it is what they're trying to say, stop buying us.
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Speaker 4: Or give us more money.
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Speaker 3: I think it's give us more money. It's interesting and
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Speaker 3: I think it's give us more money. And I think
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Speaker 3: inviting the Netflix CEOs there was the reality threat to
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Speaker 3: shot across their bow as well, because you think so, yeah,
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Speaker 3: I do.
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Speaker 4: Interesting.
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Speaker 3: Ultimately, what is this about? They don't care? The CEO
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Speaker 3: of Warner Brothers does not have some extra skin in
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Speaker 3: the game other than what is the dollar value of
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Speaker 3: this deal and how rapidly can I close it? Those
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Speaker 3: are the things that matter.
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Speaker 2: I guess The question is, then, why are they not
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Speaker 2: still negotiating with Paramount?
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Speaker 3: I think this is them negotiating with Paramount. You think, yeah, interesting, Again,
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Speaker 3: you and I don't act like billionaires. I think this
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Speaker 3: is It's.
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Speaker 4: It's true like that.
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Speaker 2: Maybe there's a reason why we're not billionaires, but money.
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Speaker 4: Among other reasons, that was the main reason.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's others too, but it's mostly the money thing.
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Speaker 4: I don't know.
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Speaker 2: Like, like again, you and I, Okay, we sign a
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Speaker 2: deal with someone, we invite them into our house, Like great,
9:27
Speaker 2: the deal's done. Billionaires, you sign a deal with someone
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Speaker 2: who invite them into your house and then you just
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Speaker 2: like completely rip it up and sign a new one.
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Speaker 3: In theory and I with the media taking pictures, I
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Speaker 3: do think this is a possibility.
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Speaker 2: And and look, I'm sure that Sarandis and Peters understand
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Speaker 2: the world they're playing in as well, Like they didn't
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Speaker 2: get to the point where they are by being dumb
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Speaker 2: about this stuff. But I'm also just not sure that
9:53
Speaker 2: again like that I come back to you like they're
9:55
Speaker 2: no dummies either, agreed, you know so? And and I
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Speaker 2: also raised this question yesterday, Mike Warner Brothers Discovery. The
10:05
Speaker 2: big thing about them is there has very much been
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Speaker 2: a winner's curse from Warner Brothers Discovery in the last
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Speaker 2: couple of decades, right, Like it's things have not gone
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Speaker 2: well for companies that have bought any variation of this. Yep,
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Speaker 2: you know, whether you're talking you know, aol Time Warner,
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Speaker 2: whether you're talking to atat like, things have generally not
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Speaker 2: gone well for the company's buying them. Does does the
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Speaker 2: loser in a bidding war for them actually you know,
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Speaker 2: stand a better chance of coming out ahead? Is an
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Speaker 2: interesting question I raised yesterday. Just take a quick break.
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Speaker 2: When we come back, We're joined by Luke Kawa from
10:48
Speaker 2: Sherwood News. We're talking markets with Luke.
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11:30
Speaker 2: All right, as promised, we are now joined by Luke
11:33
Speaker 2: Kawa from Sherwood News here to talk a little bit
11:36
Speaker 2: about what's going on in markets.
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Speaker 4: Louke, how you doing today?
11:41
Speaker 6: Doing great man? Thanks for having me.
11:43
Speaker 2: Absolutely, let's kick things off. Obviously, Ai've been a big
11:46
Speaker 2: focus all year, continues to be, and seems AI related
11:50
Speaker 2: stocks getting a nice little boost from just a quite
11:54
Speaker 2: the amazing quarter and specifically the guidance from Micron last night.
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Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about what we're seeing there.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, certainly so. I think the like the the big
12:05
Speaker 6: wigs of the the complex and particularly you know within
12:08
Speaker 6: the memory tip say so that's you, Micron, Seagate, sand
12:12
Speaker 6: Disk and Western Digital. The it's really I think a
12:15
Speaker 6: matter of the guidance for Micron and also some of
12:18
Speaker 6: the commentary from the conference call, so you had if
12:21
Speaker 6: you even look at the low end of Micron's guidance
12:23
Speaker 6: for Q two, both for revenues and for adjusted earnings
12:27
Speaker 6: for share, both of those are materially above the highest
12:30
Speaker 6: estimate from anyone surveyed on Wall Street. So this is
12:33
Speaker 6: kind of like one of those just very classic, very
12:36
Speaker 6: blowout reports. So the stocks that are most levered to
12:39
Speaker 6: the memory theme are getting a big bid. And beyond that,
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Speaker 6: I'd say, like, that wasn't the only piece of a
12:46
Speaker 6: big news we've had in the past twenty four hours,
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Speaker 6: So since Wednesday's close, I'd say some other information that
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Speaker 6: is definitely on the margin helping a lot of the smaller,
12:55
Speaker 6: more ancillary players in the AI trade, which have come
12:57
Speaker 6: under a tremendous amount of pressure. I'd say, send you
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Speaker 6: know about mid October. Are two other things, So Mike
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Speaker 6: Gron basically tells you, hey, AI demand way hotter than
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Speaker 6: supply in the near term, kind of a reaffirmation of
13:09
Speaker 6: something that you know, hopefully we already knew. Secondarily, i
13:12
Speaker 6: would say the open AI valuation report of you know,
13:16
Speaker 6: raising money again at you know, potentially a seven hundred
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Speaker 6: and fifty billion valuation if sam Altman is getting more money.
13:24
Speaker 6: Sam Altman has more money to spend on all of
13:26
Speaker 6: his many suppliers. One of the biggest worries in the
13:28
Speaker 6: market has been you know exactly that if that will
13:32
Speaker 6: kind of come to pass. So if you're a bloom Energy,
13:35
Speaker 6: if you're any of the neo clouds, this has been
13:37
Speaker 6: great news for you. And then finally, the idea of
13:40
Speaker 6: credit risk being a part of AI has been you know,
13:43
Speaker 6: Oracle CDs has been probably the poster child for that story. However,
13:47
Speaker 6: if you've looked at like Corweave's bonds, the twenty thirty
13:50
Speaker 6: ones that were issued kind of recently, those have traded
13:52
Speaker 6: absolutely terrible out of the gate. So it's certainly something
13:55
Speaker 6: that has been more embedded, broadly speaking, down the stack,
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Speaker 6: or rather more up stream in the AI trade. And
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Speaker 6: if you have soft inflation, which is much softer than expected,
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Speaker 6: this is something that I think is going to you know,
14:08
Speaker 6: help more speculative companies when you know your embedded risk
14:11
Speaker 6: of defaults is a part of your stock more so
14:14
Speaker 6: than it is a bigger stock, and your cost of
14:16
Speaker 6: borrowing has been a bigger market concern. Well, this this
14:20
Speaker 6: does open up the scope on the margin for the
14:22
Speaker 6: Federal Reserve to potentially have a lower bar for cuts
14:25
Speaker 6: than we might have thought, you know, eight days ago.
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Speaker 2: Look, I'm struck by a similarity to kind of what
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Speaker 2: we saw at the end of last year with AI companies.
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Speaker 2: Where you know, starting was it was earlier last year,
14:35
Speaker 2: was in kind of mid to late July, they started
14:38
Speaker 2: to lag the market where they had been leadership, you know,
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Speaker 2: prior to that. This year they kind of were leaders
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Speaker 2: up until this September October run and now they've kind
14:45
Speaker 2: of been lagging again. And this market is you know again,
14:49
Speaker 2: it's it's inched higher and you know, incrementally made new
14:52
Speaker 2: all time highs, but not with AI in the leadership,
14:55
Speaker 2: and we've had more volatility as a result. I guess
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Speaker 2: my question is, let's say that the AI trade does
15:02
Speaker 2: you know, continue to chop around. Is there enough juice
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Speaker 2: in the rest of the market to pick up the
15:08
Speaker 2: slack and run with it at this point?
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Speaker 6: Yeah, this is this is something I've been looking at lately,
15:13
Speaker 6: having published probably will in the near term. But so
15:16
Speaker 6: basically I think what you're getting at is the idea
15:19
Speaker 6: can like CAN S and P five hundred equal weight
15:21
Speaker 6: like can the median stock outperform in the environment in
15:26
Speaker 6: which the stock market is rising. If you go back,
15:29
Speaker 6: you know, through I think the the advent of the
15:31
Speaker 6: S and P five hundred equal weight. Look at year
15:33
Speaker 6: over year change and both that and the S and
15:35
Speaker 6: P five hundred about about forty percent of the time
15:39
Speaker 6: the S and P equal weight is a leader. However,
15:43
Speaker 6: most of that time where the S and P five
15:44
Speaker 6: hundred equal weight is leading the market cap in an
15:48
Speaker 6: up market, most of that is happening as you're coming
15:50
Speaker 6: out of a recession, so that that does not describe
15:53
Speaker 6: the case for US now currently. Based on the fact
15:56
Speaker 6: that most of the AI companies do trade at what
16:00
Speaker 6: I would call, you know, an above market multiple, they've
16:03
Speaker 6: also been in an above market average source of earnings growth,
16:07
Speaker 6: I would find it very difficult to see, you know,
16:10
Speaker 6: an environment in which there is very meaningful equal weight
16:13
Speaker 6: outperformance of the market cap index and the context of
16:17
Speaker 6: the market rising for here from here, and you know,
16:19
Speaker 6: i'd note that we only really got one day, We
16:22
Speaker 6: only really got last Thursday as an example of a
16:25
Speaker 6: record high before AI without AI, before we got a pullback.
16:29
Speaker 6: So I think that does kind of show the limits
16:32
Speaker 6: on the ability of the rest of the market to lead. However,
16:36
Speaker 6: you know what we have been seeing in the broad
16:39
Speaker 6: bounce back since the November twenty, twenty twenty first intermediate low,
16:43
Speaker 6: it has been about pricing in a revival of global growth.
16:46
Speaker 6: You've had XRT SO Retail equal Weight basically hitting you know,
16:50
Speaker 6: fifty two week highs. You've had KRI the Regional Bank
16:53
Speaker 6: ETF hitting new fifty two week highs. So it is
16:56
Speaker 6: the idea that global growth is going to accelerate next
16:59
Speaker 6: year is something that I think has become fairly well
17:03
Speaker 6: embedded into stock prices. And you know that's something that
17:05
Speaker 6: creates some two way risk there.
17:07
Speaker 2: Fantastic, Luke, appreciate you joining us. Hope you have a
17:09
Speaker 2: great end of the year. Always great to chat and uh,
17:12
Speaker 2: we'll catch up the twenty six.
17:14
Speaker 6: Hey, pleasure, happy holidays. We'll catch up next year.
17:17
Speaker 4: All right.
17:18
Speaker 2: That is Luke Kawa from Sherwood News talking about what
17:21
Speaker 2: is moving in the market.
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Speaker 4: Teching.
18:17
Speaker 2: Look at markets as we head towards the bottom of
18:21
Speaker 2: the hour. Still a big update going on with US
18:26
Speaker 2: equities here. We've got the Dow up four hundred and
18:29
Speaker 2: thirteen points now, smp is up eighty seven nasdak can
18:33
Speaker 2: posit up four hundred and seventeen points, So yeah, things
18:36
Speaker 2: are cranking along on that front.
18:40
Speaker 4: Uh.
18:40
Speaker 2: Still got quite a bit that we are going to
18:43
Speaker 2: attempt to get to, including Mike. I couldn't help but
18:48
Speaker 2: just read this headline and just be like, oh no,
18:50
Speaker 2: they're doing it again. But the headline from the Wall
18:53
Speaker 2: Street Journal what to do if you suspect you're about
18:55
Speaker 2: to be laid off this holiday season.
18:59
Speaker 4: Again?
18:59
Speaker 3: And have more of these conversations, Chuck, I have too.
19:03
Speaker 2: I just think that like, the phrasing in the headline
19:05
Speaker 2: for some reason doesn't strike me as the best. But
19:08
Speaker 2: the actual piece I thought was much better than the headline.
19:11
Speaker 2: So we are going to take a quick break here,
19:13
Speaker 2: but when we come back, we're going to discuss that
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Speaker 2: we've got the trivia answer, We've got Wall Street Watch,
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19:49
Speaker 7: We're proud to announce that circle K is now the
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20:17
Speaker 1: For all you've done. Time now for Wall Street watch
20:22
Speaker 1: a complete look at what's moving markets so far today
20:25
Speaker 1: right here on the Financial Exchange Radio network.
20:28
Speaker 5: Markets are rebounding and rallying on the heels of strong
20:31
Speaker 5: earnings from Micron Technology. In addition to a better than
20:34
Speaker 5: expect to Consumer Price Index for November. The November CPI
20:40
Speaker 5: released earlier this morning rose at a two point seven
20:42
Speaker 5: percent annualized rate, cooler than forecasts of three point one percent.
20:48
Speaker 5: Right now, the Dow is up nearly nine tenths of
20:50
Speaker 5: one percent, or four hundred and thirteen points higher, SMP
20:54
Speaker 5: five hundred up one point three percent or eighty eight points,
20:58
Speaker 5: Nasdaq is surge one point nine percent, or four hundred
21:02
Speaker 5: and twenty eight points higher, Rusted two thousands up one
21:05
Speaker 5: point two percent, a ten year treasure reeled is down
21:08
Speaker 5: three basis points at four point one point one six percent,
21:12
Speaker 5: and crude oil up about one percent higher, training a
21:15
Speaker 5: fifty six dollars in forty six cents a barrel. Micron
21:18
Speaker 5: impressed with its quarterly results where the chip maker issued
21:21
Speaker 5: an impressive revenue forecast and raised its outlook for demand
21:25
Speaker 5: for key products. Micron shares are rallying nearly eleven percent. Meanwhile,
21:30
Speaker 5: Trump Media and Technology agreed to merge with fusion power
21:33
Speaker 5: company TAE Technologies in an all stock deal worth over
21:38
Speaker 5: six billion dollars. That stock Trump Media shares are actually
21:42
Speaker 5: up by thirty two percent. Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal
21:45
Speaker 5: reported that activist investor Elliott Investment Management has built a
21:49
Speaker 5: stake of over one billion dollars in Lululemon. Lulu shares
21:52
Speaker 5: a climbing nearly six percent. Shares of grocery delivery service
21:57
Speaker 5: Instacar down nearly two percent, following for it that the
22:00
Speaker 5: FTC has begun an investigation into the company's pricing practices.
22:06
Speaker 5: Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants posted stronger than expected
22:10
Speaker 5: quarterly results and raised its annual sales guidance. Dardenstock has
22:14
Speaker 5: given back earlier gains. It is now only edging higher,
22:18
Speaker 5: and after today's closing bell, we'll see earnings from Nike
22:21
Speaker 5: and FedEx On Tucker Silvan. That is Wall Street Watch
22:24
Speaker 5: and in the previous segment, we asked the trivia question
22:27
Speaker 5: what was the name of Ralphie's younger brother in a
22:31
Speaker 5: Christmas story?
22:32
Speaker 4: That would be Randy.
22:34
Speaker 5: Lisa from Harvard, mass is our winner today, taking home
22:36
Speaker 5: a Financial Exchange Show T shirt. Congrats to Lisa. We
22:40
Speaker 5: play trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange. See
22:43
Speaker 5: complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
22:47
Speaker 2: Piece of Wall Street Journal what to do if you
22:49
Speaker 2: suspect you're about to be laid off this holiday season,
22:53
Speaker 2: And it has been something that people have been talking
22:55
Speaker 2: about more and I think this piece actually does a
22:57
Speaker 2: pretty good job of outlining some of the things to
23:02
Speaker 2: consider if you're nervous about losing a job in the
23:04
Speaker 2: next few weeks.
23:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I do agree, and many of them
23:11
Speaker 3: aren't really personal financi related. Yes, there are plenty of
23:14
Speaker 3: financial steps you should take too, but I think that
23:17
Speaker 3: a big one for me is if you focus all
23:21
Speaker 3: of your time on will this or won't this happen,
23:25
Speaker 3: then you're going to be miserable and also not make
23:28
Speaker 3: yourself a terribly good employee in the first place, right,
23:31
Speaker 3: And so keeping the emotions in check, Yeah, trusting your
23:34
Speaker 3: gut on things, and you know, listening and understanding what
23:38
Speaker 3: might happen. But when it comes to layoffs, if you
23:43
Speaker 3: are worried about this happening around the holidays or in January,
23:47
Speaker 3: there is not much that you can do to control it.
23:51
Speaker 3: And so while I can respect the trust your gut
23:53
Speaker 3: instinct on all of this, there are just some things
23:56
Speaker 3: that are out of your control, and this might be
23:58
Speaker 3: one of them.
23:59
Speaker 2: I think ultimate the idea of look, you need to
24:01
Speaker 2: have a plan for what to do in the event
24:04
Speaker 2: that you get laid off, and you need to have
24:07
Speaker 2: a plan for hey, if if there either aren't layoffs
24:10
Speaker 2: or if you're not part of them, you know, what
24:12
Speaker 2: do you do to You know, anytime you.
24:14
Speaker 4: Go through a layoff situation, it's.
24:17
Speaker 2: You know, kind of unnerving because you're sitting there and
24:19
Speaker 2: you're going, Okay, so they laid off you know, ten
24:21
Speaker 2: percent of the company or five percent. Now what if
24:23
Speaker 2: they do another five or ten later? Right, And so
24:26
Speaker 2: you know, part of your planning even if you stay
24:29
Speaker 2: there could be Okay, do I need to get my resume,
24:33
Speaker 2: you know, in order and should I be looking for
24:35
Speaker 2: another job now?
24:36
Speaker 4: Anyways? Right?
24:37
Speaker 2: You know, like those are you know, things that you
24:39
Speaker 2: want to have answered, you know, in advance. So that
24:42
Speaker 2: you're not having to react down the road. Yeah, I'm
24:44
Speaker 2: speaking to somebody about this.
24:45
Speaker 3: Just yesterday. They had survived two rounds of layoffs. They
24:48
Speaker 3: were still concerned about what's next. And then the other
24:51
Speaker 3: side of this too was you know, we're getting no raises,
24:54
Speaker 3: no bonuses this year, and I've just been asked to
24:57
Speaker 3: basically double my workload because there's fewer people working here.
25:02
Speaker 3: And it's like, wow, that is a rough slap in
25:05
Speaker 3: the face and obviously not really a time where you
25:07
Speaker 3: can successfully negotiate for an increase, But that is something
25:13
Speaker 3: to look at in the future, is Hey, you know,
25:14
Speaker 3: if you do end up surviving these things, you are
25:16
Speaker 3: likely to be more critically important to the organization after
25:19
Speaker 3: the layoffs than you were before. And so it for
25:24
Speaker 3: those survivors can make things a slight positive for their future.
25:28
Speaker 3: When you are, you know, the last of the institutional
25:31
Speaker 3: knowledge at your organization.
25:34
Speaker 5: When the holidays roll in, the cold settles over New England,
25:37
Speaker 5: find your escape in the US Virgin Islands. Trade the
25:41
Speaker 5: freezing tempts and gray skies for warm sun, turquoise water
25:44
Speaker 5: and that easy island energy you can feel the second
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25:52
Speaker 5: with the Krucian Christmas Festival, a celebration over a century old.
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25:59
Speaker 5: fill with the sites and flavors of real Caribbean culture.
26:03
Speaker 5: It's the holiday season with the tropical beat. From there,
26:06
Speaker 5: explore Saint Thomas with its duty free shopping in the
26:09
Speaker 5: legendary views at Megan's Bay, or slow down on Saint John,
26:13
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26:16
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26:20
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26:23
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26:26
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26:38
Speaker 5: dot com and book your trip today. That's visit USVII
26:42
Speaker 5: dot com.
26:43
Speaker 2: Mike, do we want to talk about ghost job vacancies
26:46
Speaker 2: or LinkedIn's Year in Review?
26:48
Speaker 3: I want to talk about ghost job vacancies because this
26:51
Speaker 3: is another one. I was speaking with a recently laid
26:53
Speaker 3: off individual where here's what seems to be happening, as
26:57
Speaker 3: companies are either posting jobs that they don't actually have
27:00
Speaker 3: any intention of hiring for or leaving previously filled jobs
27:04
Speaker 3: open because they kind of like the idea of people
27:07
Speaker 3: just constantly submitting resumes. And the experience the person I
27:12
Speaker 3: was talking to had was, you know, you talk to
27:14
Speaker 3: some recruiters, they submit resumes, and you get the impression
27:18
Speaker 3: that the company is just leaving open a job in
27:21
Speaker 3: case they find the absolutely perfect, overqualified and undervalued candidate
27:26
Speaker 3: with no real intention of hiring. And so, first things first,
27:30
Speaker 3: I find that despicable annoying, and we should shame those
27:35
Speaker 3: companies that are doing so.
27:37
Speaker 4: But on the other hand, do you know who's doing it?
27:39
Speaker 3: Like, I don't know how you do, and I don't
27:42
Speaker 3: know how you really fix the problem? Is my bigger
27:44
Speaker 3: issue here. Sometimes it's pretty clear that hey, it's a
27:48
Speaker 3: fake job post and you can see who the employer is.
27:51
Speaker 3: Other times it's impossible. But there is somebody that's working
27:55
Speaker 3: their way through Congress to try and create this Truth
27:57
Speaker 3: and Job Advertising Accountability Act, calling for the expiration dates
28:01
Speaker 3: for listings, auditible hiring records and penalties for employers who
28:05
Speaker 3: post misleading or non existent roles. And where I concluded
28:10
Speaker 3: when thinking about this, is anything you do to try
28:13
Speaker 3: and fix this problem other than just publicly shaming the
28:16
Speaker 3: companies makes it so companies want to hire less than
28:20
Speaker 3: they currently do, and that is not a problem you
28:23
Speaker 3: want to create for hirers. Like I was thinking through it, like, oh,
28:27
Speaker 3: do you make them pay a tax to post a
28:30
Speaker 3: job or pay attacks if a job posting is out
28:32
Speaker 3: for too long? And all of these I mean the
28:34
Speaker 3: conclusion that yeah, sounds great, so long as you don't
28:37
Speaker 3: mind companies hiring fewer people and advertising fewer jobs, because
28:41
Speaker 3: that is what is likely to happen.
28:43
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to think through this in terms of
28:48
Speaker 4: why it's a problem.
28:50
Speaker 3: It's a problem because it's a frustration for a somebody
28:54
Speaker 3: looking for work. That's That's really what it comes down to.
29:00
Speaker 2: I'm like, again, I'm just thinking through this. When we
29:03
Speaker 2: think of problems that require government intervention, is there an economic.
29:11
Speaker 4: Cost here.
29:14
Speaker 3: Somewhat? I'm gonna go know, it's time wasted. I mean,
29:18
Speaker 3: you can make an argument that it's false advertising.
29:20
Speaker 4: Most of our lives are time wasted.
29:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a tough time making that connection.
29:24
Speaker 2: I agree, So I have a pretty high bar to
29:28
Speaker 2: be like the government needs to intervene in this fashion.
29:33
Speaker 2: What I do think, Like, let's say that I ran LinkedIn,
29:37
Speaker 2: which gotta tell you don't think that's in my wheelhouse.
29:41
Speaker 2: But if I ran LinkedIn, if you've had a job
29:45
Speaker 2: posted for one hundred and eighty days and it's still there,
29:51
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you an automated email saying if
29:53
Speaker 2: you do not click yes to this email, we are
29:57
Speaker 2: going to take your job down within thirty days, or
29:59
Speaker 2: you can put because it like just from a user
30:02
Speaker 2: experience perspective, I don't want users getting frustrated looking through
30:06
Speaker 2: my platform. Yeah, like I like that's how I would
30:08
Speaker 2: look at it. Is from a customer experience perspective. I
30:11
Speaker 2: don't want my users to feel like they can't use
30:13
Speaker 2: my platform to find a job, right, So that's like
30:16
Speaker 2: how I would operate it if I were linked in.
30:20
Speaker 2: Maybe they do that, but it doesn't sound like they
30:22
Speaker 2: do based on any of this stuff that we're reading here.
30:25
Speaker 3: Or a very easy solution, you can put the date
30:27
Speaker 3: the job was posted and the last activity by the
30:30
Speaker 3: employer right on the post and there are plenty of
30:33
Speaker 3: platforms that.
30:33
Speaker 4: Also totally fine.
30:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, job posted last activity by employer six months ago. Cool,
30:39
Speaker 3: not gonna apply to that.
30:40
Speaker 2: Job, right, and then like let me filter by you know,
30:43
Speaker 2: last employer activity in the last week.
30:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. So I think there's things that you could do.
30:49
Speaker 3: There not a problem that the government needs to be
30:51
Speaker 3: involved in.
30:51
Speaker 2: No, the government needs to be involved in, like hey,
30:55
Speaker 2: like you know, the the problems that we can't solve individuals.
31:00
Speaker 3: Don't let thirteen year olds crawl into coal mines, like yeah.
31:04
Speaker 4: National defense.
31:05
Speaker 2: You don't want Mike and I standing at the water
31:08
Speaker 2: trying to defend the country. It would go badly. We'd
31:12
Speaker 2: probably end up hurting ourselves. Let's take a quick break
31:16
Speaker 2: when we return.
31:17
Speaker 1: Stack Roulettes here The Financial Exchange every day from eleven
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31:57
Speaker 5: This segment of the Financial Exchange is powered by circle
32:00
Speaker 5: K Convenience Stores. Circle K is now the official convenience
32:03
Speaker 5: store of the dav Department of Massachusetts. On behalf of
32:07
Speaker 5: circle K. Thank you veterans for all you've done.
32:12
Speaker 4: Mike, what you got for me?
32:13
Speaker 3: For stack roulette, I've got SEO, which, if you're not familiar,
32:16
Speaker 3: stands for search engine optimization. It is what pretty much
32:21
Speaker 3: every marketing firm for the last decade and half two
32:25
Speaker 3: decades where are we twin Yeah, two decades or so,
32:28
Speaker 3: has been primarily focused on is how do we get
32:32
Speaker 3: people on the web to click through to your website,
32:34
Speaker 3: complete a purchase, learn more about your company, and ultimately
32:40
Speaker 3: become a customer. And over the course of the last
32:43
Speaker 3: two years, it has been absolutely flipped on its head
32:46
Speaker 3: because of AI. I asked an artificial intelligence tool that
32:50
Speaker 3: I figured would probably have a good conflict of interest,
32:52
Speaker 3: which is Google's Gemini, because they rely on click throughs
32:58
Speaker 3: as a major source of their revenue, and so I
33:01
Speaker 3: asked that them what are they seeing in terms of
33:04
Speaker 3: click through rates? They mentioned that the impact on websites
33:09
Speaker 3: show that studies are indicating organic traffic drops, with some
33:15
Speaker 3: websites experiencing forty to seventy percent losses, meaning forty to
33:21
Speaker 3: seventy percent fewer clickthroughs, especially for informational queries that people
33:26
Speaker 3: would traditionally go and click through the website on and
33:30
Speaker 3: it is I don't even I'm sure that some marketing
33:34
Speaker 3: firms are claiming that they know how to combat against this,
33:38
Speaker 3: but I honestly don't think any of them really do.
33:41
Speaker 3: And it's going to be a really big shake up
33:44
Speaker 3: in that industry that's already being affected by AI in
33:47
Speaker 3: other ways. Right if you were a content creator, if
33:50
Speaker 3: you traditionally major living on developing images for companies or
33:56
Speaker 3: creating video, like, all of those things are being flipped
33:59
Speaker 3: on their head very rapidly, and this is another big
34:03
Speaker 3: hit to that entire marketing industry.
34:06
Speaker 4: Wouldn't it be just wild if AI kills the internet?
34:09
Speaker 4: Gosh do I hope?
34:10
Speaker 1: So?
34:11
Speaker 4: Uh? Care for what you wish for?
34:13
Speaker 3: Yeah?
34:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, care for what you wish for?
34:14
Speaker 2: There are people that are, you know, listening to us
34:17
Speaker 2: and watching us right now on this ye you know, like,
34:19
Speaker 2: so I think, you know, be careful what you wish for?
34:23
Speaker 4: But uh, I do just find it. You know.
34:25
Speaker 2: Again, it's it's a hugely I say the word disruptive technology,
34:30
Speaker 2: not in a good or bad way, just that it's
34:31
Speaker 2: you know, changing, you know a lot of how we've
34:34
Speaker 2: thought the Internet has worked for the last twenty five
34:37
Speaker 2: thirty years, and we're.
34:39
Speaker 4: Still early days on this thing. You know.
34:42
Speaker 2: It's it's still is very much early days, and I
34:47
Speaker 2: guess I just continue to come back to, at least
34:49
Speaker 2: on like the the individual facing side of it. It
34:54
Speaker 2: really seems to me that it's gonna be hard for
34:56
Speaker 2: them to monetize it without just going the AD route.
35:00
Speaker 3: You mean the AI generate AI tool yesselves. Yeah, you know,
35:05
Speaker 3: it does seem that way to me.
35:07
Speaker 2: Unless they can just make enough money off of enterprise
35:10
Speaker 2: for that to not matter.
35:11
Speaker 3: But it seems unlikely because right now this is a
35:14
Speaker 3: heavily consumer driven tool.
35:16
Speaker 4: It is.
35:17
Speaker 2: But like I think about what consumers use it for
35:20
Speaker 2: mostly and then like ask yourself, how can you make
35:23
Speaker 2: money on that?
35:24
Speaker 3: Yeah?
35:26
Speaker 2: How many people are gonna pay twenty five dollars a
35:28
Speaker 2: month so they can make longer videos?
35:30
Speaker 4: Not many.
35:32
Speaker 2: We don't even want to pay twenty five dollars a
35:33
Speaker 2: month to watch longer videos, let alone make them.
35:37
Speaker 3: You know.
35:37
Speaker 2: So I kind of struggle with the consumer facing side
35:41
Speaker 2: of it and what the business proposition is. The business side,
35:45
Speaker 2: I understand it. I might not like it because it
35:49
Speaker 2: probably has negative employment, you know, impacts if it's successful,
35:53
Speaker 2: But I get it, understand it.
35:56
Speaker 3: Chuck to me, it is really just a question of
35:58
Speaker 3: how do these AI tools make all of us the product?
36:02
Speaker 4: Right?
36:02
Speaker 3: Like that? That's what every one of these technology forward
36:05
Speaker 3: consumer facing products has been about, at least Internet based
36:08
Speaker 3: products has been about for the last twenty years. Unless
36:11
Speaker 3: you're Apple, where you're able to charge fifteen hundred dollars
36:14
Speaker 3: per iPhone, the idea has been make the consumer your product,
36:19
Speaker 3: like Facebook did, like Google did, And so how are
36:22
Speaker 3: they going to do that with AI?
36:24
Speaker 4: Yeah?
36:24
Speaker 2: And I guess it will depend on what people ask you.
36:26
Speaker 2: I like, I think about what I use AI for,
36:31
Speaker 2: and it's a completely different set of queries than I
36:34
Speaker 2: use search engines for, you know, search engines. I'm very much. Hey,
36:40
Speaker 2: I'm going here find me websites of the best restaurants.
36:43
Speaker 4: Yep.
36:44
Speaker 2: AI, It's explain to me the difference is between fiber
36:48
Speaker 2: and protein. Just because when we were talking fiber last week.
36:52
Speaker 2: I just wanted to know drop it. Give you another
36:58
Speaker 2: example explanatory stuff, give you another like my ski boots
37:02
Speaker 2: are now twenty five years old and quite literally are
37:05
Speaker 2: starting to disintegrate.
37:07
Speaker 4: I was like, I was looking at different ski boots.
37:09
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, explain to me, like what different flex
37:12
Speaker 2: numbers on ski boots actually mean?
37:14
Speaker 4: And it could do that.
37:15
Speaker 2: Because there's no website that just does that, because no
37:17
Speaker 2: one can make money on that as a website.
37:20
Speaker 4: You probably could, but no one did. Is my point.
37:22
Speaker 3: If you want to know where to buy the ski boots,
37:25
Speaker 3: AI is not going to be great at that, right
37:28
Speaker 3: is not today.
37:29
Speaker 4: Not yet.
37:29
Speaker 2: AI's hope is that it becomes you know, that agentic
37:32
Speaker 2: AI that goes out and scours prices for you and
37:34
Speaker 2: gets you the best one. But it's it's not quite
37:37
Speaker 2: there today. So again, it's this stuff's kind of interesting
37:42
Speaker 2: to me as we you know, trying to navigate it there.
37:44
Speaker 3: Uh.
37:44
Speaker 2: Taking a look at markets, Dow is still up three
37:46
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty one points, SMP is still up eighty seven,
37:48
Speaker 2: Nasdaq is still up four to forty seven, So still
37:50
Speaker 2: a lot of green on the board at the moment.
37:54
Speaker 1: Uh.
37:55
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
37:57
Speaker 2: I mean, if this thing falls apart in the afternoon,
37:58
Speaker 2: then you got some real problems. But there's no real
38:01
Speaker 2: signs of that. I think it's shown some stability after
38:04
Speaker 2: a couple early tests this morning, but now some additional
38:07
Speaker 2: stability in markets here. The other thing that you got
38:11
Speaker 2: to remember now that we're through that CPI report, look,
38:14
Speaker 2: next week, you got a shortened week, you got a
38:16
Speaker 2: shortened week the week after because of the New Year's
38:19
Speaker 2: holiday then, and so ultimately you're running up against a
38:24
Speaker 2: calendar that makes it really hard for volatility to show
38:27
Speaker 2: up into your end. It's like that there's a mechanical
38:30
Speaker 2: reason why the Santa Claus rally can happen, and it
38:35
Speaker 2: generally it's kind of hard for it to not once
38:38
Speaker 2: you get past some of these reports, let's take a
38:41
Speaker 2: quick break for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, we
38:43
Speaker 2: do still have existing home sales data, so we'll be
38:45
Speaker 2: talking about that and a whole lot more on the
38:48
Speaker 2: financial exchange