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Consumers are choosing their favorite retailers ahead of the holidays · The Financial Exchange Show

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Veterans Development corporation. This is the financial Exchange with Chuck
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Zutta and Mike Armstrong.
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Speaker 2: Chuck, Mike and Tucker with you. And the seasonal weakness
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of September continues into Oh no, wait, the S and
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P five hundred is within half percent of an all
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time high. Still and UH is actually almost two percentage
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points above its close in September, which was almost two
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percentage points above its close in August.
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Speaker 3: But we still might go negative for the week and
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break the six week win streak.
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Speaker 2: Woo. So look, here's the thing I know that everyone's
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been fretting about. Oh, September seasonally weak, man, I don't
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know if I want to own any stocks then. And
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then beyond that, right, No, that was September, and then
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it's hey, I'm a little nervous about the upcoming election.
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I don't think you want to own stocks in October either,
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because it's gonna be volt guys, guys, guys, when everyone
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is looking at the same thing, that's not usually the
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thing that gets you. Now, it's not to say that
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you can't have volatility about you know, other stuff that
2:18
happens if, as an example, Israel over the weekend decides, hey,
2:23
you know what. Iran's nuclear facilities and oil facilities are
2:28
our target, and we're gonna hit those. Yeah, we're gonna
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wake up off, We're gonna wake up on Monday and
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have a whole bunch of problems. But that doesn't make
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your thought right of hey, September seasonally week or the
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election is going to cause problems. That is called being lucky.
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If that happened, Like if you were betting that something
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bad would happen and it was the election, and something
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else bad happens and it makes your trade work out,
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that makes you lucky, not good, Okay. Like Likewise, let's
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say that you have, you know, a hotly contested election
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where we don't know the answer of who's gonna win
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for four days or something like that, and the market
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doesn't go anywhere. In that case, you're actually good but unlucky.
3:13
And it's important to differentiate that when you're trying to
3:15
figure out what's going on in your investments. You could
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have you could be right about everything, but if the
3:21
market doesn't move the way you expect, well, that happens.
3:24
Sometimes that's just variance the market. Like you could have
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it it placed out perfectly, but the market doesn't move
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the way you expect. On the other hand, you could
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be like, I think this is I remember one of
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these cases perfectly. It was maybe nine or ten years ago,
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and I thought that it was heading into a Tesla
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earnings report, and I was like, hey, like Tesla's gonna
3:47
report bad earnings, and so it was like, hey, it's
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gonna be a bad quarter for them. What happened was
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they reported great earnings actually, and I initially got smoked
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out of it, and then later on that afternoon in
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the conference call, they announced like a massive like fifteen
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billion dollar cash raise or something, and the stock fell
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that you're not accidentally right, That doesn't make me good
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at understanding what was happening. I was lucky, not actually good,
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even though it worked out for me. And having a
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little bit of humility about that stuff is important because
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it helps you refine your process. So if you were
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one of these, hey, September seasonally, week in October is
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going to be bad because everyone's nervous because the election.
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You're wrong. You're wrong. I'm sorry, but that's like, that's
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just how it is. Yes, I know, there's still what
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four trading days in October. Again, it's it's unlikely that
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the election related jitters are going to show up just
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in those four days. Agree, So it seems unlikely. This
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is where we are right now, is with the S
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and P five hundred still within half a percentage point
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of all time highs. And I'm sorry, I'm just here
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for you know, I like Chuck coming in hot this morning.
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I'm I'm coming in hot because I like to bash
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the people who are always contrarian, because most of the
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time being contrarian doesn't work. There's like three to five
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good opportunities a year where, yes, like it pays to
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be contrarian most of the time, you go with the herd,
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and the herd is the S and P five hundred. Otherwise,
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if being contrarian always made you right, then the S
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and P five hundred would lose ten percent a year forever,
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and then you wouldn't be contrarian anymore. Then you'd be
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the norm right, and then you'd be like, no, now
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it's gonna go up, yeah, because you just have to
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be reflexively contrarian.
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Speaker 3: So what does it mean as we now head into
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how many days before the election? Fifteen eleven eleven eleven
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eleven days we're gonna be in single digits next week.
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Speaker 2: Michael, I'm so happy.
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Speaker 3: Eleven days the election. I think you can say a
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few things pretty definitively. This is an exceedingly close race.
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And I think you can also definitively say that polling
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over the last thirty days has shifted in favor of Trump.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's the thing I can say. Yeah.
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I think it's something where nobody really knows anything because
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it's the last two elections. Can we actually talk a
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little bit about the math of polling, because I actually
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think there's some meat there in terms of trying to
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understand what's going on. I'm not talking like the math
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of like, oh, who's gonna win, but like, all right,
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Nate's silver, let's hear it. No, no, no, no, no, this
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is way simpler. Actually, Okay, here's the basic premise of
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polling and what you actually here's how you can read
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polls better. Read polls, good, Chuck, read polls, very good.
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There's a really simple statistical phenomenon where if a candidate
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polls at forty nine percent or above in a state,
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they are historically over like the last five or six cycles,
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like an eighty to ninety percent lock to win that state, okay,
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And the reason why is that ultimately, when you get
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up to that point, you don't need many of the
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late breaking undecideds to go your way in order to
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get to a point where your opponent just can't win. So,
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as an example, if you're up in a state forty
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nine forty seven, and I'm not talking just in one poll,
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I'm talking in like a polling average, because no one
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pole means anything, quite honestly, but if you're up forty
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nine forty seven, that is a way more secure lead
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than forty three forty one. They're both two point leads,
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but there's so much less that can go wrong for
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a candidate forty nine percent compared to forty one or
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forty three percent. And so rule number one about reading polls,
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If a candidate gets to forty nine percent in a
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polling average for a state, you can really start to
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slide it in that direction. It's it's it's not a
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certainty because you can still have polling errors and there's
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always a margin Nevara, but it looks increasingly common that
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you move in that direction. So taking this into account
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when we look at the last two elections that we've had,
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and theyr relevant because Donald Trump is running in his
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third straight one right now. Like that's the one constant
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that you have. Twenty sixteen, the big thing that you
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saw Hillary Clinton in most of the polls where she
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was leading. Remember in both the last two elections, Clinton
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and Biden had sizeable leads in a lot of different polling.
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The Clinton situation was one where the polling leads were
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like forty six to forty one or forty six forty two,
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and so what you ended up with was a situation
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where the polling was probably accurate in terms of what
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they were actually getting, Like there was just a huge
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undecided or unwilling to respond vote. In twenty sixteen, it
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basically all broke for Donald Trump. YEP. It was like, yeah,
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we're going that way, and that's what you ended up
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seeing in twenty twenty. The other thing that you saw
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was something very similar. You saw the late breakers all
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move forward towards Donald Trump. Like that's where all of
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the movement went. The difference was in the few states
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that ended up mattering Biden's argue. You had Biden with
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like a forty nine percent margin there, and so it
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was something where yes, Like as an example, if you
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look at Pennsylvania back in twenty twenty, whatever year it was,
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Biden was consistently pulling like forty nine forty six or
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forty nine forty seven against Trump and he ended up
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winning like forty nine six to forty nine. Like, So
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that's where it ended up playing out. It wasn't that
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the polls were wrong about where Biden was, it was just, hey,
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they underestimated Trump because late breakers went for Trump. So
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the question that you end up with in this this
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setup that you have here is, hey, when you're trying
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to figure out where the different states are going to
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be moving, you know how many you know, how many
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of them have a single candidate that is in a
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position where they don't need much to go right in
10:08
order for them to be able to carry the state.
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And so this is where the meat is if you're
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trying to actually read polls like it's quite honestly, this
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is why I whenever people talk about polls in like
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August in July, they're freaking useless for eight million reasons,
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one of which is it's like, hey, who would you
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vote for for president? Forty six? Forty one? Okay? Great,
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I've got thirteen percent undecided. This is not useful in
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any way, shape or form, Like, you can't get anything
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out of that. In addition to it being like three
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or four months, It's why people over the summer are like, well,
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who do you think is gonna win? I have no
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freaking clue. It's three months away and the polls have
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half the electorate undecided. At this point, where you start
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getting polls that are you know, closer to you know,
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three four five percent undecided and candidates that are inching
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towards four nine percent in the polling averages, Hey, now
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you can actually start to get something that that matters
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as far as hey, where is this going to you know,
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actually end up? And so if you look at state
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polling averages, and again I'm not telling you that this
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is definitively going to happen, I'm saying, hey, here's what
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the math kind of says on this. Let's just go
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through the swing states. Arizona Trump's polling averages at fifty
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point nine percent gonna be kind of tough to top that. Look,
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you get to fifty, you win, Okay. Arizona looks to
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be more solidly Trump than anything else. You take a
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look at Nevada. Harris is at fifty point one. Trump's
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at forty nine to nine. This one's a true toss up,
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like when you have both there, Like those are ones
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where you are like, I have no idea what to do,
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Like that is a toss up, no clue what to
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do with it, Just throw it on the pile. Georgia,
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take a look at the polling there. Trump's at fifty
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point seven, Harris forty nine to three. Again, toss up.
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Both are over that forty nine thresh. You have absolutely
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nothing that you can do with it. North Carolina, Uh,
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you've got trumpet fifty point six, Harris forty nine four.
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Again toss up. Can't do anything with it. Useless. Pennsylvania
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you've got Trump fifty point one, Hairris forty nine nine.
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By the way, i'm looking at just five point thirty eight.
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Has their aggregation. That's what I'm usual. Okay, they're both
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at fifty percent. You can't do anything with it. Michigan
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you got Harris at fifty point four, Trump forty nine
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to six. Useless, can't do anything with it. Wisconsin you've
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got Harris fifty point three, Trump forty nine seven. Again,
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it's just ultra close, kind of useless, you know, like
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there's just not that much that you can do with
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this stuff. And so ultimately I think that you're in
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a situation. Actually, sorry, I misread that Wisconsin number. I'll
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come back to that, just because I was looking at
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the wrong place on it. You've got, yeah, they're both
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at like forty eight. So again you can't do anything
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with it. But this, this is the point that I'm
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trying to make, is when you look at the polling
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data that's out there right now, anyone that tells you, hey,
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definitively it's going in this fashion, I don't think they
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can really say that because you've got basically a mix
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of states where yeah, there's some thresholds that are over
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you know where you think it is. There's others where
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they're both kind of really competitive and basically pulling right
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near fifty percent. You can't tell anything. Like anyone who
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says definitively, I know what's going to happen, well, I
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hope that you know you you bet appropriately on it
13:37
if you really are that certain, But otherwise have a
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little bit of humility because the data right now is
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kind of it's messy, like no one knows. And that's
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the truth of where we are at the moment.
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Speaker 3: According to those same polling averages. By the way, I
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know you read them off, but Pennsylvania with the most
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electoral College votes of all the ones that you just listed,
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and is the closest of all of them, is it
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would not be terribly surprised if we did not know
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Pennsylvania for a little while.
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Speaker 2: Well we'll see again. My point is much more that like,
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look in the last week, Emerson College had Trump at
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fifty one and morning consoled at Harris at fifty. You like,
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what do I do with this? Nothing? Throw it on
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the pile and try to figure out, you know, and
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just okay, I have no clue. Like if if you
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have Poles in the same week with each candidate at
14:25
fifty in the same state, you can't do anything with that.
14:28
It's just okay, Like it's there. Let's take a quick
14:31
break when we come back, and I hope everyone now
14:34
has a greater appreciation for how to actually read polls.
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Stop paying attention to them in freaking June of the
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year before and you know, actually wait until September October
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and look for that forty nine percent number. That's the
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one that actually matters. Quick break here. When we come back,
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let's talk Should we talk bonds? Sure yeah, move to bond.
14:55
That'll be really fun. Let's talk bonds.
14:56
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16:00
Speaker 2: In the New York Times, US bond market braces for
16:02
the Trump trade of large tariffs and deficits, And basically
16:05
what it's saying is, hey, as Mike and I have
16:07
talked about prediction, markets have started to swing in favor
16:11
of Donald Trump winning the upcoming election, and likewise you've
16:16
seen long term treasury yields move up as well. And
16:18
this piece ties those two things together, basically saying, hey,
16:21
Trump win would have you know, tariffs that could potentially
16:24
be inflationary and larger deficits if you have additional tax
16:27
cuts without spending offsets. And so that's why US yields
16:31
are going up. You buy, that's what we're seeing. It
16:34
could be part of it. But here's the thing. There's
16:36
rarely one thing that is, you know, driving markets exclusively.
16:41
Another thing that's happened over the last six weeks is
16:43
that the economic data has gotten better, and when economic
16:46
data gets better, you see yields go up as well.
16:48
We saw the same thing at this time last year
16:52
and so you know, last year though everyone was like, hey,
16:56
yields are going up because the US has too much
16:58
debt right now? Well, and then did we see the
17:01
stories afterwards about hey, yields are coming down because the
17:04
US doesn't have enough debt right now? Right? No, we
17:08
didn't see those stories because it wasn't convenient anymore. So,
17:12
is you know, the Trump trade driving yields? It could
17:16
be part of it. Like, I don't deny that it
17:18
could be, but to say, hey, this is what's moving markets, No,
17:23
like the economic data has been better. I can, I can.
17:28
I'm not allowed to guarantee anything basically, but I can
17:32
very strongly say that if we were in a recession
17:36
right now, like, if the economic data had gotten worse
17:38
over the last three months, regardless of who was coming
17:42
into office, the rates would be down, the tenure Treasury
17:44
would not be where it is today, it would be lower.
17:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, say this, These stories about the Trump trade are
17:49
only able to exist because the economic data has also improved.
17:53
Speaker 2: Correct.
17:53
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's really the case or not.
17:55
It can be both, yeah, it can be both contributing.
17:58
By the way, we talked a lot about polling during
17:59
the last I mean, I'll also bring up betting markets.
18:02
So I'm looking at data from predicted dot org, where
18:05
you can actually bet on elections, and according to one
18:08
of their betting markets, the chance of the Republican Party
18:13
winning the US presidential election is now at sixty percent
18:17
according to that predicted dot Org market. M you know,
18:22
like I said, I have no real reason believe that
18:24
the betting markets are any better than polling to decipher things.
18:28
And by the way, people have talked about how like
18:30
betting markets predicted Trump in twenty sixteen, They absolutely didn't.
18:33
They were strongly, strongly favoring Clinton ahead of that elect.
18:38
Speaker 2: If you watch the uh not watch but if you
18:41
look at the night of and how the odds swung
18:44
over the course of the night, like you can see
18:46
it because the early polling, the early exit polls were
18:49
coming in for Clinton. Yeah, back at like seven seven
18:52
thirty pm, and then right around eight thirty or nine PM.
18:56
I forget the exact time, I forget what the data
18:59
was that came out, and everything swung to Trump at
19:01
that point in by ten thirty it was basically always done.
19:04
It was like okay, like this has done. Everyone move on.
19:06
Call of a day. So yeah, it's kind of like
19:09
the uh you ever watch a sporting event that you
19:12
know team's destined to lose and then somehow they pull
19:14
it out at the end and they give you those
19:16
like probability charts on ESPN. It looked kind of like
19:19
one of those, and so look prediction markets. I don't
19:23
think they're indicative of anything either way, but it's just
19:27
another data point, throat on the pile. See if it
19:29
means something and nobody knows anything.
19:32
Speaker 1: Well no.
19:32
Speaker 2: In twelve days eleven Quick Break, Wall Street watches Next.
19:41
Speaker 1: Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
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TFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
19:49
on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall
19:54
Street Watch a complete look at what's moving markets so
19:57
far today right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
20:01
Speaker 4: Traders are looking at end of VOLD, a week on
20:03
a high note after the SMP five hundred snap it's
20:06
three day losing streak yesterday. Right now, markets are in
20:10
rally mode, with the Dow up over half excuse me,
20:13
up over a third of a percent, or one hundred
20:15
and fifty nine points. SMP five hundred is up over
20:18
three quarters of a percent or fifty points, and the
20:21
Nasdaq is up nearly one and a half percent, or
20:24
two hundred and seventy two points. Russell two thousands up
20:27
nearly two thirds of a percent. Ten your Treasury yield
20:31
is flat at four point two zero percent. In crude
20:33
oil up nearly one and a half percent higher, trading
20:36
just above seventy one dollars a barrel. Tapestry shares surging
20:40
by sixteen percent after a judge blocked the fashion company
20:44
from buying Capri in an eight and a half billion
20:46
dollar deal that would have brought together brands like Michael
20:50
Core's Coach and Kate Spade. Capri stock, however, sinking by
20:55
forty eight percent. Meanwhile, Spirit Airlines announced it will cut
20:58
jobs as a scales back its flight schedule and has
21:01
agreed to sell some of its planes. As the budget
21:04
airline continues to grapple with financial pressure. Spirit has also
21:08
been exploring a bankruptcy filing. That stock up another twenty
21:11
four percent today after its twenty two percent leap, and
21:15
Biggus gan since twenty thirteen yesterday on the heels of
21:18
impressive third quarter results. Tesla shares up another two percent today.
21:23
Elsewhere A senteen shares up eleven percent after the health
21:26
insurance and managed care companies adjusted quarterly earnings and revenue
21:30
easily beat expectations, and Capital One Financial recorded higher quarterly revenue,
21:35
citing growth in its domestic card and auto businesses, as
21:39
well as stable consumer credit results. Capital One shares are
21:43
up by nine percent today. I Tucker Silva and that's
21:47
Wall Street watch, Mike.
21:48
Speaker 2: Did you know interestingly enough that Tapestry does not actually
21:53
make any tapestries and Caprice does not actually make any
21:57
caprice like the pants? Yeah? I did not, despite both
22:01
of them actually dealing in textiles, neither one of them
22:04
makes the thing they're named after. Turns out BlackBerry also
22:07
did not have anything to do with fruits, and neither
22:09
does Apple. Yeah. IBM does make international business machines, though,
22:18
and General Electric makes a wide range of things that
22:20
use electricity and some that make it, but very few
22:23
Generals have ever worked there. I'm sure there's been a couple.
22:27
I'm sure there's been a couple. Let's see, do we
22:30
want to talk about interest rates? I mean, that's fine, right,
22:35
You kind of need to choose. I think it's the key,
22:37
the key thing you choose your interest rate. Okay, let's
22:41
talk about interest rates. I don't want to talk any
22:43
more about how politics is distorting the economic data. We've
22:45
covered that quite a bit. Newsflash, people respond based on
22:49
their politics. It's been the case for a while now.
22:53
We just covered the the tapestry thing and made fun
22:57
of their names, so that was fun. So, yeah, we're
22:59
gonna talk about interest rates are going to end up, Mike,
23:02
when we'd say end up at what point in time?
23:04
Because interest rates like never end, never end. See how
23:08
I brought everything full circle. Good job.
23:10
Speaker 3: So there's been a lot written about something called our star,
23:14
which is I think an unnecessary abbreviation for us. Let's
23:19
just go with the neutral rate is what we're talking about.
23:22
So here's the hypothesis on part of economists is that
23:25
there's some magical interest rate which changes all the time,
23:30
at which the Federal Reserve is neither stimulating nor can
23:36
nor what's the opposite of restricting restricting the economy.
23:40
Speaker 2: It's like a restrictor plate on.
23:42
Speaker 3: Correct and so there is hypothetically some magical interest rate.
23:45
They don't know where it is. They always guess where
23:47
it is, and they're always attempting to find that neutral rate,
23:53
and that's where they think they want to be right now.
23:55
They don't think they want to be stimulating the economy,
23:58
nor do they think they need to be restrict in
24:00
the economy further than they already have.
24:01
Speaker 2: And so the search is on for our star. When
24:05
are they going to find it? They're not.
24:06
Speaker 3: They never know whether or not they've reached it, But
24:10
just understand that that is a theory of modern economics,
24:15
and where the Federal Reserve is trying to drive things
24:18
is towards this neutral rate of interest.
24:22
Speaker 2: And specifically it's neutral with respect to inflation. Like that's
24:26
what they focus on, and the question is where is
24:29
it If you look historically, like through the eighties and nineties,
24:32
the thought was that our star was somewhere around two percent,
24:35
so about two percent above inflation was considered neutral. In
24:41
the last decade with economic growth being slower, there were
24:43
some estimates that had it is low as like half
24:45
a percent, maybe even lower than that, and so you know,
24:48
it depends on the economy at the time. In YadA YadA.
24:51
If you look at what the Fed is projecting right now,
24:54
it's kind of looking at you know, zero point nine percent,
24:57
but there's still a wide range of disagreement about where
24:59
this could be, anywhere from like half a percent to
25:02
two and a half. So there's there's one case right
25:05
now that, hey, the Fed is still really restrictive and
25:08
we are barreling into a recession and don't know it.
25:11
There's another case that is, hey, maybe the Fed's actually
25:14
too loose right now and they need to tighten further. Like,
25:18
I'm not saying that either of these are right. There's
25:20
some think we're in goldilocks too right now. There's some
25:22
people who are like, no, like you're good already, don't
25:24
do anything.
25:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the evidence for the first argument that were
25:31
too loose, No, they were too restrictive and we're barreling
25:34
towards a reception that was first Yeah, tough to justify
25:38
at right, I mean, you know, again, you can always
25:41
make the argument the characters just.
25:43
Speaker 2: Went below one hundred for the first time in like
25:46
three years. So like, if you're looking for some evidence there,
25:48
the labor market is still dodgy, though with the sprinkle
25:52
of you know good the last couple months.
25:55
Speaker 3: I guess my mere point would be with rates having
25:58
been restrictive now for it's.
26:00
Speaker 2: About eighteen months and that's usually when they show up
26:03
is problematic, Like it's usually eighteen to twenty four months
26:07
is when it starts to bite. Yep. I'm not saying
26:09
it will or won't. I'm just saying, like there's a
26:11
case to be made that you're you're barreling towards recession.
26:14
Speaker 3: We had a scare slow barrel. We had a spare,
26:17
you know, a potential signal back in July with the
26:20
Soam rule, which we found out about in August, and
26:23
then since then it's diminished. It's it's falling apart, falling away. Yeah,
26:27
so we'll see. I think a lot of this continues
26:30
depend to depend on what consumers actually do. Right, Like
26:36
this holiday shopping season isn't to the end all be all,
26:38
but I think it will be a really interesting tell
26:41
in terms of, you know, everyone's telling us that they're stretched,
26:44
everyone's telling us that they're you know, negative feelings about
26:47
the economy. Get this election behind us, and then show
26:50
me how much people actually spend at Coals and Amazon
26:54
this this winter, and I'll be pretty interested to see.
26:57
Speaker 2: It's funny that you mentioned Coals because there's a piece
26:59
from the NBC. It's titled consumers choose their favorite retailers
27:03
ahead of the holidays, and Nike and Cole's top the list.
27:07
Speaker 3: So they Nike was not interesting to me because everybody
27:10
felt the same way about it from what perspective they
27:13
they broke this down by in addition to just hey,
27:17
what's your favorite, they also broke it down.
27:19
Speaker 2: By age group.
27:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, and pretty much every age demographic. While it varied,
27:25
you know how much they liked Nike, pretty much, everybody said,
27:29
top of the list is Nike by a lot gen Z.
27:33
But this is, by the way, this is first footwear
27:35
yeppecifically for footwear when you took a look at department stores,
27:39
though big genera generational differences here. Well, can we just
27:43
talk about some of the stuff that we did see
27:45
different in footwear, because I do think this is actually
27:47
like a little interesting. Boomers like white new balances more
27:50
than other generations.
27:52
Speaker 2: No gen X does interesting. Uh. The other thing that
27:56
was interesting is that gen Z basic has never heard
28:00
of Sketchers, whereas Sketchers were the third favorite Boomer footwear brand. Yeah,
28:08
I could see that when we look at department stores,
28:11
gen Z, Cole's, Macy's, Nordstrom were the top three than
28:15
Dillard's and Bloomingdale's, Millennials, Nordstrom, Macy's, Coles, J C. Penny,
28:19
and Dillard's. Gen X big Macy's fan those gen xers.
28:24
It's been you know, rough twenty years for them, with
28:26
you know, Macy's closing stores left and right, then Coles,
28:29
J C. Penny, Dillards, Nordstrom, and boomers love them some
28:32
coals the most popular by far there J C. Penny, Macy's, Nordstrom,
28:36
and Belk again Belk fan. I don't know what that is,
28:39
but Belk is based out of North Carolina. I believe
28:42
they used to sponsor a college bowl game called the
28:44
Belk Bowl. It's the only reason I know them. I
28:47
can't maybe naming a bowl game after your.
28:49
Speaker 3: I can't think of much else that boomers and gen
28:51
Z prioritize as their top anything.
28:55
Speaker 2: What do you mean so?
28:56
Speaker 3: I mean gen Z and Boomers were the only age
28:59
group that put calls above every other department store. And
29:04
I don't really think of much else that boomers and
29:06
gen Z have in common other than a lot of
29:11
them are their grandparents. A lot of them are there
29:14
what gen Z's grandparents are boomers?
29:18
Speaker 2: But Boomers parents. Aren't gen Z. You said a lot
29:22
of them are their grandparents. A lot of gen Z's
29:25
grandparents are boomers. Okay, yeah that's all he said. No,
29:28
you said a lot of them are their grandparents. And
29:30
I'm like, that didn't.
29:31
Speaker 1: Make any sense.
29:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was. I was a little confunded. Ah yeah,
29:35
just again interesting to me.
29:37
Speaker 3: I don't really shop at any department stores on a
29:40
regular basis, But next time I'm walking around, I'm gonna
29:43
look and see, like, count out the people.
29:44
Speaker 2: Are they all boomers and gen zs. Honestly, I don't
29:48
do any of my.
29:50
Speaker 3: Finished in April.
29:51
Speaker 2: Even when I do. The absolute last place I am
29:55
going is the mall. If I have to go somewhere
29:59
in person, find the furthest place from them all, and
30:02
that's where I go. There's not much to buy in
30:05
the woods. Yeah, let's take a quick break here. When
30:08
we come back, we'll talk about data privacy and data safety.
30:12
I think this is a big one to talk about,
30:15
and so we'll touch on this, and then also ten
30:19
MBTA employees placed on leave. We'll tell you why.
30:23
Speaker 1: Find daily interviews and full shows of the financial Exchange
30:26
on how are YouTube page get cut up? On anything
30:29
and everything you might have missed. This is the Financial
30:32
Exchange Radio Network. Text does six one seven, twenty six
30:37
to two one three eight five with your comments and
30:39
questions about today's show. This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
30:50
Speaker 2: All right, there's a piece of the Boston Globe today.
30:52
It's titled Don't Assume You're Safe. Data breaches spike in
30:55
Massachusetts following national trend. So yeah, this is, you know,
30:58
a big national thing that's been going on here, and
31:02
in terms of what we are seeing, it's just basically, look,
31:07
your data is everywhere someone has your data. I've personally
31:14
actually been dealing with an identity theft thing for the
31:17
last I don't know three months or so. Where I've
31:20
formed did that take. They've tried to open up five
31:23
or six different credit cards in my name. Fortunately I
31:27
have at this point, I have my credit frozen. I've
31:32
got a fraud alert set up there, and I'm in
31:34
the process of filing a police report as well. So
31:37
it's you know, again, fortunately I haven't been out any
31:41
money because I've kept everything locked down, and so I highly,
31:45
highly highly recommend keeping your credit frozen at the three
31:49
major credit bureaus if you are a human. It's completely
31:55
free to do. You can take them on and off.
31:56
If you need to apply for credit like a car
31:58
lower something like that, you can unfreeze it for a day.
32:02
It's very easy and very functional now. But this is
32:05
something that's impacting a ton of people. There are stories
32:08
of you know, people that you know open up their
32:10
bank accounts and this one woman saw a nine hundred
32:13
and ninety dollars charge for a livestock feeding machine. She's
32:16
a nurse and so that was kind of interesting. So
32:21
I think other big things. Look read through your monthly
32:25
statements on a regular basis. Yeah, check your credit report
32:28
once a year. You are legally entitled to a free
32:31
credit report at least once a year from all three
32:34
of the major bureaus. And the sooner that you can
32:37
catch this stuff, the less likely it is that it
32:40
ends up becoming a problem, because it's quite honestly, it's
32:43
going to happen to everyone, and you just need to
32:45
be vigilant about it. My approach to this is that.
32:50
Speaker 3: I and nobody out there is too smart to fall
32:53
victim to this stuff, like it is that sophisticated that heck,
32:58
you've had stories about people like at the FBI falling
33:01
victim to these same things. Research this type of stuff,
33:03
so assume that you're not too smart to fall victim
33:06
to it, and really take care of especially older family
33:12
members who are not as familiar with the You know
33:15
how to use computers, how to use mobile devices, because
33:19
these scams have evolved from you know, spam everybody's email
33:24
looking for donations to the Nigerian prince too. I have
33:27
built a full social profile of you. I know where
33:31
you bank, I know your Social Security number, I know
33:32
your date of birth, I know your routing number, your
33:34
bank account number, and they can pretty easily pretend to
33:40
be a vendor that you use frequently.
33:44
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34:48
Speaker 2: The MBTA has announced a that they have put ten
34:53
employees on leave. This in the middle of a criminal
34:58
investigation at their cabot Art facility in South Boston. The
35:03
MBTA is not given any additional information as to what
35:07
they are being investigated for. Philip Eng, who's the director
35:12
of the MBTA, this is basically all he said on it.
35:15
He says it appears they were doing something that they
35:17
should not have been doing on NBA property or MBTA time.
35:20
Speaker 3: Well, the Globe reports that there are allegations they were
35:24
working on private vehicles during work hours.
35:27
Speaker 2: Again, I think it's unclear, like what that means, Like
35:31
what does that mean exactly? I mean there's a million
35:35
different things that that could I don't think it was like, hey,
35:40
you came in and did an oil change on your car.
35:42
Speaker 3: No, I would imagine it is more.
35:46
Speaker 2: I don't want to speculate on it. We don't really know.
35:50
I mean, working on private vehicles could mean any one
35:52
of a billion different things. But the MBTA did say
35:56
that there is you know, the quote potential of criminalize activity.
36:03
Speaker 3: I first read this story as discouraging quite honestly.
36:07
Speaker 2: No, you want to have this stuff caught.
36:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're going to have a clean up occurring
36:11
at the MBTA of what's been described by many as years,
36:17
if not decades, of mismanagement and lack of any sort
36:23
of discipline or accountability, then yeah, these types of stories, unfortunately,
36:27
are going to come to light every once in a while.
36:31
You know, not a criminal story, but you remember the
36:33
one from a few years ago where there was the
36:37
I forget the exact role, but a supervisor at the MBTA,
36:41
you know, Boston globe bit done. An investigation found that
36:43
he was basically living in was it Hawaii for an
36:47
extended period of time and doing a lot of the
36:49
inspections remotely or you know, something along those lines. So
36:53
those types of stories are going to come to light,
36:55
and so long as they are not occurring every other day,
36:59
that I'm going to take as they signal of improvement.
37:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:01
Speaker 2: Look, you've got to be hands on with this stuff
37:04
in terms of trying to root it out, and sometimes
37:07
that means that you're going to get headlines like this,
37:11
But it's better than the alternative, which is no headlines,
37:13
but the problem continues. Yeah, you know, it's Yeah, I
37:17
believe they say that sunlight is the best disinfectant, which
37:20
is actually not true. They're really strong chemicals that can
37:26
disinfect more strongly. They might have more side effects as well,
37:30
but even sunlight can have its side effects too. Yeah,
37:32
you get too much of that, not so good, you
37:34
get burned out, so good. So anyways, this we don't
37:38
really know any more data about, not data, We don't
37:40
know any more information about what's going on with this.
37:44
I would imagine that if it becomes an actual you know,
37:47
criminal indictment or something I'm sure we'll all know about it,
37:50
you know, whenever that is. But at this point, the
37:53
MBTA placing ten people on leave during a potential criminal investigation.
38:00
Oh we know. Let's take a quick break here. We
38:03
do have a whole lot more to get to in
38:06
our number two, including more information on Boeing. We got
38:11
some McDonald's E Coli updates for you, and a whole
38:16
lot more. I mean, it's gonna be a great hour,
38:18
so stick around.