Latest / The Financial Exchange Show / AI Fears Slam Software Stocks as Banking Risks Emerge
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- 1:06Speaker 1: Zada and Mike Armstraw.
- 1:09Speaker 2: Chuck, Mike ent Tucker with you here today.
- 1:12Speaker 3: And it's a pretty quiet day in markets overall, which
- 1:16Speaker 3: is nice after the last month or so.
- 1:18Speaker 2: We can chill for a little bit and I think
- 1:20Speaker 2: that'll be just fine.
- 1:22Speaker 3: The Sep five hundred's up to seven points, about a
- 1:24Speaker 3: tenth percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down a
- 1:29Speaker 3: third of a percent, about one hundred and fifty five points,
- 1:31Speaker 3: and the Nasdaq does have a nice little move up
- 1:34Speaker 3: today in the Nasdaq Composite one hundred and thirty nine
- 1:36Speaker 3: points about two thirds of a percent, and Russell two
- 1:39Speaker 3: thousand is basically flat. So again nothing conclusive, just kind
- 1:43Speaker 3: of chopping around a new different indices. I will point out, Mike,
- 1:48Speaker 3: have have you looked at what's been going on with
- 1:49Speaker 3: software stocks this week again?
- 1:51Speaker 4: Just getting clobbered.
- 1:53Speaker 3: Yes, after a brief break from getting beaten up, software
- 1:58Speaker 3: stocks are getting pummeled again. And salesforce off eleven percent
- 2:02Speaker 3: in two and off seventeen percent.
- 2:03Speaker 2: This is this week.
- 2:05Speaker 3: Service Now off eighteen, Adobe off seven, eightyp off six,
- 2:10Speaker 3: Autodesk off ten, Workday off fifteen, Paychecks off six, Data
- 2:14Speaker 3: Dog off fifteen, just absolutely brutal and on the year
- 2:18Speaker 3: to date numbers for those companies, a lot of them
- 2:21Speaker 3: down anywhere from twenty five to fifty percent now. So
- 2:26Speaker 3: software is just getting eaten by AI fears, and again
- 2:30Speaker 3: I think there might be some good reason there when
- 2:32Speaker 3: you look at house stocks get priced. We'll talk about
- 2:35Speaker 3: that in just as just a first hand example before
- 2:37Speaker 3: we move on.
- 2:38Speaker 5: I I was playing hockey last night and Jim Men's leader.
- 2:43Speaker 4: We did win three three to one. Do you have
- 2:45Speaker 4: at No? I scored no goals.
- 2:48Speaker 2: Get in a fight?
- 2:49Speaker 4: No, I didn't even have a Gordy haw hat trick.
- 2:52Speaker 2: In why'd you go?
- 2:53Speaker 5: Don either case, in the locker room, I was talking
- 2:56Speaker 5: to you guys and one of them just started a
- 2:58Speaker 5: small business. And I don't even know what he does.
- 3:02Speaker 5: I think it's somewhere something attached to medical. But in
- 3:05Speaker 5: either case, he just said, started this up. And I
- 3:10Speaker 5: just built my own payroll software. You know, obviously I
- 3:15Speaker 5: don't have a lot of people, but like just kind
- 3:17Speaker 5: of built it myself and had to tell me how
- 3:20Speaker 5: to file the right returns. And you know, at least
- 3:25Speaker 5: to start, I'm not going to use a payroll service
- 3:27Speaker 5: now that could that's horribly wrong. But the mere fact
- 3:32Speaker 5: that somebody who has he has zero tactics, you know,
- 3:35Speaker 5: technological experience or software experience I know firsthand, is just
- 3:39Speaker 5: going out and saying like, yeah, I don't know that
- 3:41Speaker 5: I need these really expensive payroll providers is absolutely fascinating
- 3:46Speaker 5: to me. And remind him because you mentioned ADP being
- 3:48Speaker 5: down today.
- 3:49Speaker 3: It's going to be wild when his payroll tax withholding
- 3:52Speaker 3: didn't go to the IRS but just some guy named Ers.
- 3:55Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's that's going to be a little awkward.
- 3:58Speaker 3: But uh, in any case, that's what's going on in
- 4:00Speaker 3: equity markets. Tenure Treasury is up eight tenths of a
- 4:03Speaker 3: basis point to four point three h one percent, so
- 4:05Speaker 3: not much movement there. Dollar Index is down point one
- 4:08Speaker 3: five percent to ninety eight forty four. Gold off eighteen
- 4:12Speaker 3: bucks an ounce to forty seven to ninety nine. Crude
- 4:14Speaker 3: oil West Text Intermediate up sixty five cents a barrel
- 4:17Speaker 3: to ninety eight fifty two, so again not too much
- 4:20Speaker 3: movement in the broad scheme of things.
- 4:23Speaker 2: I do want to talk about this piece.
- 4:24Speaker 3: This caught my eye and I'm glad Tucker put it
- 4:27Speaker 3: at the top of the hour. Here Bloomberg report Anthropic
- 4:32Speaker 3: models scare sparks Urgent Bessent Powell warning to bank CEOs,
- 4:38Speaker 3: I'm gonna read from this piece for a second. Treasury
- 4:40Speaker 3: Secretary Scott Bessant and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned
- 4:44Speaker 3: Wall Street leaders to an urgent meeting unconcerns that the
- 4:47Speaker 3: latest artificial intelligence model from Anthropic PBC will usher in
- 4:51Speaker 3: an era of greater cyber risk. Best and Powell assembled
- 4:54Speaker 3: the Group of Treasuries headquarters in Washington on Tuesday to
- 4:57Speaker 3: make sure banks are aware of possible future risks praise
- 5:00Speaker 3: by Anthropics, meethos, and potential similar models, and are taking
- 5:03Speaker 3: precautions to defend their systems, according to people familiar with
- 5:06Speaker 3: the matter, who asked not to be identified, citing the
- 5:09Speaker 3: private discussions. So, a couple thoughts on this. The first
- 5:17Speaker 3: one is, Okay, let's take this at face value. Banks
- 5:23Speaker 3: need to know if this is potentially a threat, and so, sure,
- 5:28Speaker 3: why wouldn't they have this meeting?
- 5:30Speaker 5: Yeah, it's the heart of our financial system. If people
- 5:32Speaker 5: lose confidence that their money is safe in banks, then
- 5:35Speaker 5: our entire system crashes down.
- 5:37Speaker 4: We've seen it happen before.
- 5:38Speaker 3: Sure, Next, why is j Powell and Scott Bessont Why
- 5:45Speaker 3: are they the messengers of this?
- 5:50Speaker 4: Can you think of any bigger bank regulators?
- 5:56Speaker 3: I guess no, not from that perspective, But like, why
- 6:02Speaker 3: are Best and Powell the ones doing this?
- 6:04Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 6:05Speaker 4: I mean like they don't know anything about anthropic.
- 6:08Speaker 5: No, neither of them know anything about it, and it
- 6:11Speaker 5: is What's an interesting question is why isn't some underling
- 6:15Speaker 5: bank regulator out there calling a meeting?
- 6:18Speaker 3: And there's two answers to me. One, why is this
- 6:22Speaker 3: not a letter? This meeting could have been an email?
- 6:25Speaker 3: I guess is the other place I'm going, Well.
- 6:27Speaker 5: I think my point would be there's one of two reasons.
- 6:30Speaker 5: One is it's some sort of publicity stunt, which for
- 6:35Speaker 5: who maybe Best, And it doesn't make sense to me
- 6:38Speaker 5: for Powell, so I don't buy that. The other answer
- 6:41Speaker 5: would be it is fundamentally that serious that you are
- 6:46Speaker 5: demanding the bank's CEO's foremost attention, which is kind of
- 6:51Speaker 5: frightening if that's if that's the reason, because I can't
- 6:53Speaker 5: really come up with a whole lot of other other
- 6:56Speaker 5: reasons for it. Right, You're making a big publicis of this.
- 7:00Speaker 5: Clearly this was printed in Bloomber. I don't think that
- 7:04Speaker 5: would have happened without uh, somebody's Okay, but aren't you
- 7:12Speaker 5: if you are getting these two in a room and
- 7:15Speaker 5: then calling every major bank CEO and by the way,
- 7:18Speaker 5: putting aside with all the whole feud between the White
- 7:20Speaker 5: House and Powell and the fact that he's on his
- 7:22Speaker 5: way out and summoning these CEOs, is that not an
- 7:26Speaker 5: acknowledgment that you think this is a genuine, real, serious
- 7:30Speaker 5: threat to the banking system.
- 7:32Speaker 3: Which then raises a whole bunch of questions if it is. Yeah,
- 7:37Speaker 3: but I want to also offer an alternative, going because
- 7:40Speaker 3: I was starting to come up with an alternative, then
- 7:42Speaker 3: I'll throw into the mix and again like I have
- 7:47Speaker 3: absolutely nothing to support this, what if this wasn't.
- 7:52Speaker 2: About AI actually Dune.
- 7:58Speaker 3: I'm just saying, like, there's there's private credit concerns that
- 8:02Speaker 3: are out there, there's other like I I just don't
- 8:06Speaker 3: know that when's the last time that the Secretary of
- 8:09Speaker 3: the Treasury was on the cutting edge for warning about
- 8:12Speaker 3: cybersecurity matters?
- 8:15Speaker 5: Never like any sense, Well, frankly, I'd be interested to
- 8:20Speaker 5: know when the last time was that the Treasury Secretary
- 8:22Speaker 5: and the sitting chair of the Federal Reserve called bank
- 8:25Speaker 5: CEOs together for anything, Like.
- 8:27Speaker 2: Doesn't it just not quite add up?
- 8:31Speaker 5: Only if the threat is as extremely serious we've had plenty.
- 8:35Speaker 5: We've had plenty of like threats to the banking sector.
- 8:38Speaker 3: Right, when's the first the next time that they are
- 8:43Speaker 3: proactive in dealing with it before it emerges will be
- 8:46Speaker 3: the first time.
- 8:48Speaker 2: You know, like they didn't.
- 8:49Speaker 3: They had nothing to say about anything related to Silicon
- 8:54Speaker 3: Valley Bank before it blew up.
- 8:55Speaker 2: It was oh, this is a problem.
- 8:57Speaker 3: Yeah, and yet now it's just, Hey, we're really nervous
- 9:01Speaker 3: about this cyber thing, so we're going to invite y'all
- 9:03Speaker 3: to a meeting before it's become a problem.
- 9:06Speaker 5: Yeah, didn't happen in O eight, didn't happen in twenty
- 9:10Speaker 5: What year was still come about, twenty twenty three, twenty
- 9:12Speaker 5: twenty three. Yeah, not a lot of crises that these
- 9:16Speaker 5: two entities get out ahead of beforehand. So maybe they
- 9:22Speaker 5: are breaking new ground on this one, or like I said,
- 9:25Speaker 5: the only real logical conclusion I come to, Yeah, maybe
- 9:29Speaker 5: they had other concerns that they wanted to share beyond that,
- 9:32Speaker 5: or this is such a dramatic threat that they are
- 9:36Speaker 5: genuinely concerned about threats to credibility of the banking system,
- 9:42Speaker 5: which what I will say if it is actually that
- 9:45Speaker 5: dramatic of a threat, because this would be a real signal,
- 9:48Speaker 5: like anthropic talking about their own model.
- 9:50Speaker 3: We talked about this yesterday, where you know, some of
- 9:52Speaker 3: it can be kind of tooting your own horn a
- 9:53Speaker 3: little bit.
- 9:55Speaker 2: If you've convinced the US.
- 9:58Speaker 3: Treasury Secretary in the chair of the FED that there's
- 10:01Speaker 3: you know, the potential for a problem here, then again,
- 10:04Speaker 3: like that's a real signal as to where these.
- 10:07Speaker 2: New models are going.
- 10:10Speaker 3: And if the US banking sector isn't safe from these
- 10:16Speaker 3: models in terms of like what they can do, then
- 10:21Speaker 3: the logical extension is that none of our jobs are safe,
- 10:24Speaker 3: like no one's.
- 10:26Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, If that is a genuinely genuine threat, then
- 10:30Speaker 5: it might actually be time to unplug this thing.
- 10:33Speaker 3: Even I'm not even saying like unplugged, like when we
- 10:35Speaker 3: talk about, oh, like who's actually replaceable, but by AI
- 10:39Speaker 3: it's literally everyone. If it gets to that point, I
- 10:45Speaker 3: don't know any other clear way to interpret it. But
- 10:49Speaker 3: the next eighteen months are gonna be wild with this stuff.
- 10:52Speaker 3: And and part of this also remember the models that
- 10:55Speaker 3: are being rolled out now are the first ones that
- 10:58Speaker 3: have actually been developed using in Vidio's new Blackwell chips
- 11:01Speaker 3: that were rolled out last year, because it takes time
- 11:03Speaker 3: to get those into data centers and up and running.
- 11:05Speaker 2: It doesn't just happen.
- 11:07Speaker 3: Yeah, So remember, as I've been saying every even today,
- 11:11Speaker 3: the models that we're talking about, they are the worst
- 11:14Speaker 3: that you will ever see for the rest of your lives.
- 11:18Speaker 3: So there's some change happening very quickly, and I don't
- 11:22Speaker 3: know what the world's going to look like eighteen to
- 11:24Speaker 3: twenty four months from now. It could be very different
- 11:27Speaker 3: in a number of respects, depending on how this evolves
- 11:31Speaker 3: from here.
- 11:32Speaker 2: Take a quick break.
- 11:32Speaker 3: When we return, I want to talk about one more
- 11:36Speaker 3: implication of this as it relates to software stocks, just
- 11:38Speaker 3: because we touched on that briefly. And then after that
- 11:43Speaker 3: we're going to talk about insurance companies and the risks
- 11:46Speaker 3: that they've been taking recently and whether it is actually
- 11:49Speaker 3: caused for concern or just a bunch of hullabaloo.
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- 13:53Speaker 3: Mike, I want to do one more piece relating to
- 13:56Speaker 3: AI and specifically the concern on software companies. So I'm
- 14:01Speaker 3: picking out the worst performing software company out of the
- 14:04Speaker 3: S and P five hundred as of right now.
- 14:06Speaker 2: You're todate, which happens to be Workday.
- 14:08Speaker 3: It's just because they're the worst performing one and I
- 14:10Speaker 3: just thought it would be, you know, relevant then. So
- 14:12Speaker 3: here's the deal with Workday is, if you take a
- 14:15Speaker 3: look at their overall growth, revenue has been growing about
- 14:21Speaker 3: seventeen percent a year over the last five years and
- 14:26Speaker 3: EPs over that time is effectively flat, but they're they're
- 14:29Speaker 3: projecting about twenty percent EPs growth for the next fiscal year.
- 14:35Speaker 3: So here's the thing is, when we look at Workday,
- 14:38Speaker 3: they are trading at right now ten times forward earnings. Okay,
- 14:45Speaker 3: they're trading two and a half times forward sales, which
- 14:49Speaker 3: on both those you look at and you're like, man,
- 14:50Speaker 3: for a company that's growing like seventeen percent a year,
- 14:53Speaker 3: that's really cheap, isn't it. And this is where you
- 14:57Speaker 3: get into the math on hey, why is the stock
- 15:00Speaker 3: fall and fifty percent. Let's say that I am a
- 15:05Speaker 3: chief technology officer at firm X, and I've got, you know,
- 15:11Speaker 3: a thousand licenses of Workday that my HR people are using.
- 15:16Speaker 3: Given what I'm seeing in the AI space, am I
- 15:21Speaker 3: either am I adding either any new seats to that
- 15:25Speaker 3: license in the next year? Or am I adding any
- 15:29Speaker 3: additional products that I'm buying from that vendor products? No
- 15:33Speaker 3: seats maybe, And even there it's a question of you know,
- 15:37Speaker 3: do I just want to see what the landscape looks like?
- 15:39Speaker 3: Do I want to be committing to any long term
- 15:41Speaker 3: contracts because all this is changing so quickly right now,
- 15:44Speaker 3: And so here's where you end up again. I'm not
- 15:48Speaker 3: saying that this will happen, but here's where you can
- 15:50Speaker 3: end up running into problems if you're just looking at
- 15:52Speaker 3: things in terms of valuations based on next year's earnings.
- 15:57Speaker 3: If all of a sudden, Workday's revenue, which right now
- 16:00Speaker 3: is nine point five billion dollars for the last twelve months,
- 16:04Speaker 3: a year ago it was at hang on eight point
- 16:08Speaker 3: four billion.
- 16:09Speaker 2: Okay.
- 16:09Speaker 3: So if workday stops growing at the rate they've been
- 16:13Speaker 3: growing at and instead just kind of plateaus here, Okay,
- 16:16Speaker 3: their earnings growth doesn't happen. Plus, their internal costs are
- 16:20Speaker 3: going to go up because you have to pay more
- 16:21Speaker 3: for you know, you give people raises and things like that,
- 16:23Speaker 3: and YadA YadA.
- 16:25Speaker 2: So now you've.
- 16:26Speaker 3: Got Okay, I'm not making the twelve dollars a share
- 16:31Speaker 3: that I thought I would next year. Now I'm making nine,
- 16:34Speaker 3: which is less than this year. And because I'm making
- 16:37Speaker 3: twenty five percent less, my multiple is not actually ten
- 16:42Speaker 3: for next year.
- 16:43Speaker 2: It's steeper than that.
- 16:45Speaker 3: And so this is before you you know, even get
- 16:48Speaker 3: into the question of hey, what about you know future
- 16:51Speaker 3: years after that, do you see similar declines? And so
- 16:54Speaker 3: this is why software is being priced this way right now.
- 16:58Speaker 3: It's not because anything's actually happened, yeah, to impact these
- 17:02Speaker 3: companies and their earnings right now. But relying on future
- 17:07Speaker 3: earnings projections when you're dealing with potentially a huge inflection
- 17:11Speaker 3: point makes things look cheaper than they may otherwise be.
- 17:14Speaker 3: So we might look back a year from now and say, hey,
- 17:18Speaker 3: all of those software you know getting eaten by AI
- 17:20Speaker 3: fears were overblown. But there's also a case where they're underblown.
- 17:25Speaker 3: Because here's the other thing that you got to remember about.
- 17:28Speaker 3: You know, companies like this, they don't have you know,
- 17:30Speaker 3: a ton of cash on their balance sheet. They don't have,
- 17:34Speaker 3: you know, a ton of room to to wiggle things
- 17:36Speaker 3: around in a lot of cases, and so you can
- 17:39Speaker 3: very quickly go from a company that is you know,
- 17:42Speaker 3: pretty profitable right now with eleven percent margins to when
- 17:45Speaker 3: that's unprofitable in hemorrhaging money quickly if things turn in
- 17:49Speaker 3: the next twenty four months. And that's the risk that
- 17:51Speaker 3: markets are trying to price in right now, even though
- 17:54Speaker 3: the actual business hasn't changed at all yet.
- 17:58Speaker 5: And based on what we are hearing from the private
- 18:00Speaker 5: credit space, don't forget that some of them are apparently
- 18:03Speaker 5: quite debt heavy too.
- 18:06Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of these big like publicly traded ones,
- 18:08Speaker 3: it's not the case, but yeah, you can certainly see
- 18:11Speaker 3: that with some of the small, mid sized firms where
- 18:14Speaker 3: that can be the case. Insures peace from the Wall
- 18:17Speaker 3: Street Journal and exclusive insurers take bigger risks than before
- 18:20Speaker 3: two thousand and eight oh nine crisis report warns what's
- 18:23Speaker 3: happening here, Michael, something.
- 18:25Speaker 5: We've talked about at length, which is that these insurers
- 18:28Speaker 5: have a ton of private credit exposure. I gotta be honest,
- 18:31Speaker 5: this is just maybe I am just the huge skeptic,
- 18:36Speaker 5: but the fact that am best is publishing it in
- 18:39Speaker 5: the Wall Street Journal makes me think that maybe it's
- 18:41Speaker 5: not as big of a problem because these credit rating
- 18:44Speaker 5: agencies have not historically had a great track record of
- 18:49Speaker 5: calling out risk in the system. But yeah, look, we've
- 18:53Speaker 5: talked about this at length. If there is a concerning
- 18:56Speaker 5: area of exposure to private credit, it is on the insurers,
- 19:00Speaker 5: and that is specifically what this what am Best is
- 19:03Speaker 5: calling out right now. I don't know how to compare
- 19:05Speaker 5: it to clearly they have a method of comparing it
- 19:07Speaker 5: to the risk they were taking prior to the subprime
- 19:10Speaker 5: mortgage Great Financial crisis. And that's the point that they
- 19:14Speaker 5: are making here. If it all falls apart, the exposures
- 19:17Speaker 5: heavier on those insurers.
- 19:19Speaker 3: Right now, let's take a quick break here. When we
- 19:22Speaker 3: come back, we got a trifecta for you. We got
- 19:26Speaker 3: the Trivia Answer, we got Wall Street Watch, and we
- 19:30Speaker 3: got a little.
- 19:31Speaker 2: Mail bag all right after.
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- 19:59Speaker 6: Exchange, markets are mixed as investors digest the March Consumer
- 20:04Speaker 6: Price Index posted earlier this morning, which showed consumer prices
- 20:07Speaker 6: climbed three point three percent year over year last month,
- 20:10Speaker 6: in line with expectations. This is the first inflation measure
- 20:15Speaker 6: since the conflict in Iran began. Right now, the Dow
- 20:19Speaker 6: is down about a third of a percent, or one
- 20:21Speaker 6: hundred and sixty one points, SMP five hundred, mostly flat,
- 20:25Speaker 6: edging higher, NASDAC up over half a percent, RUSTED two
- 20:29Speaker 6: thousand edging higher as well. My mouse just died, so
- 20:33Speaker 6: I can't do this anymore. That is fantastic. Hold on
- 20:36Speaker 6: a second. Here, got to pull up on the old
- 20:39Speaker 6: mobile device again. My mouse just stopped working. Fantastic here
- 20:45Speaker 6: it is, hold on, hold on, I got it.
- 20:47Speaker 2: Relax.
- 20:49Speaker 6: Taiwan Semiconductor posted another quarter of record revenue this morning,
- 20:52Speaker 6: driven by strong demand for AI chips. That stock is
- 20:57Speaker 6: climbing nearly three percent. Meanwhile, we've announced a multi year
- 21:02Speaker 6: agreement with the Anthropic two power its clawed AI models.
- 21:06Speaker 6: The deal comes one day after it announced a twenty
- 21:08Speaker 6: one billion dollar expansion of its agreement with Meta Core.
- 21:13Speaker 6: Weave shares are rallying by twelve percent. Elsewhere, shares an
- 21:17Speaker 6: optical and photonic producer Lumentum are up three percent after
- 21:22Speaker 6: the company CEO told Bloomberg that its products are booked
- 21:25Speaker 6: through twenty twenty seven amid the AI buildout in Shares
- 21:29Speaker 6: in service now are down by eight percent after the
- 21:32Speaker 6: software company was downgraded by UBS from buy to neutral.
- 21:38Speaker 6: I'm Tucker Silva and that is Wallstreet Watch. In the
- 21:41Speaker 6: previous segment, we asked you the trivia question what year
- 21:46Speaker 6: was the wreckage of the Titanic found I'll be nineteen
- 21:50Speaker 6: eighty five and Joe from Wyndham, New Hampshire is our
- 21:53Speaker 6: winner today taking on the Financial Exchange Show t shirt.
- 21:56Speaker 6: Congrats to Joe. Will you play trivia every day here
- 22:00Speaker 6: on the Financial Exchange See complete contest rules at Financial
- 22:04Speaker 6: Exchange Show dot com.
- 22:06Speaker 2: For mails, here, here's the mail then for mails. It
- 22:10Speaker 2: makes me want to wag my tail when it comes.
- 22:13Speaker 2: I want to wail.
- 22:15Speaker 1: You've got questions, We've got answers.
- 22:18Speaker 2: It's time for.
- 22:19Speaker 1: The Moneymatters Mailbag. We are tackling your calls and emails
- 22:22Speaker 1: on everything from economic policy to global markets and everything
- 22:26Speaker 1: in between. Leave us a voicemail at three three nine
- 22:29Speaker 1: three nine nine four three three three and you might
- 22:32Speaker 1: hear it on the show. You can also email your
- 22:34Speaker 1: question to TFE Show at gmail dot com. Now it's
- 22:38Speaker 1: time for the Moneymatters mail Bag.
- 22:41Speaker 6: That's right, it is time for the Moneymatters mail Bag.
- 22:46Speaker 6: Let's get to it here, boys. First question is from Chris,
- 22:52Speaker 6: who emailed the show TFE Show at gmail dot com
- 22:56Speaker 6: with his Moneymatters Mailbag question. Once again, that email address
- 23:00Speaker 6: TFE Show at gmail dot com. Chris's question, how important
- 23:06Speaker 6: is the crackspread as an indicator of possible inflation or recession?
- 23:13Speaker 3: So good question in terms of what a crackspread indicates
- 23:18Speaker 3: in first, like a crackspread is the difference in price
- 23:23Speaker 3: between a barrel of crude oil and what you are
- 23:27Speaker 3: trying to produce from a Now, each barrel of crude
- 23:29Speaker 3: doesn't just produce, you know, one type of fuel. It's
- 23:32Speaker 3: generally multiple types, but it's it's kind of a one
- 23:35Speaker 3: to one comparison. So a crackspread of you know, ten
- 23:40Speaker 3: dollars on crude relative to diesel means that diesel is
- 23:44Speaker 3: trading ten dollars higher than crude. What we have right
- 23:48Speaker 3: now are, again, you have crackspreads that look at specific products,
- 23:52Speaker 3: you have ones that look at multiple products within them.
- 23:55Speaker 3: So there's all different ones that are out there. But
- 23:57Speaker 3: basically what you've seen is that crackspreads have blown out
- 24:02Speaker 3: to the highest levels that we've seen in just about
- 24:05Speaker 3: every refined product category. And what it indicates is not
- 24:09Speaker 3: recession or inflation. It typically is inflationary because that's spread
- 24:13Speaker 3: again means that there's higher prices being paid on the
- 24:15Speaker 3: refined products. But generally what you are seeing there, it
- 24:20Speaker 3: is most indicative when you see very high crack spreads
- 24:24Speaker 3: that there is a huge premium for refined product because
- 24:28Speaker 3: there's so much demand for relative to what you can get,
- 24:32Speaker 3: and so it's an indication that there is just not
- 24:35Speaker 3: enough refined product in the system. And this is kind
- 24:38Speaker 3: of what we're seeing in terms of jet fuel and
- 24:41Speaker 3: bunker fuel and things like that, and so that is
- 24:44Speaker 3: where you're seeing the stress, is that there is just
- 24:48Speaker 3: not enough of that finished product that can come out
- 24:51Speaker 3: right now, that's one of the reasons why crackspreads can
- 24:54Speaker 3: blow out to the top side.
- 24:56Speaker 2: And that's what we're seeing today, at least to Michael.
- 25:00Speaker 5: Oh, it's shortage indicator. But no, nothing else to add there.
- 25:03Speaker 2: All right, there you go.
- 25:04Speaker 6: In our second question for the Money Matter's mail bag
- 25:08Speaker 6: is coming from Emily. She asked the question, I'm trying
- 25:11Speaker 6: to get my finances and budget in order.
- 25:14Speaker 2: What is your general.
- 25:15Speaker 6: Rule for building your emergency savings and where do you
- 25:19Speaker 6: actually keep an emergency fund.
- 25:22Speaker 4: I'll stop by tackling it.
- 25:23Speaker 5: So generally speaking, the bucket for emergency savings, we like
- 25:28Speaker 5: to see it anywhere between three and twelve months of
- 25:32Speaker 5: your you know, basic living expenses, so you know you're
- 25:37Speaker 5: starting on the budget and working through all of this,
- 25:40Speaker 5: that's kind of the threshold we build and you know,
- 25:43Speaker 5: My general rule of thumb on this is, you know,
- 25:46Speaker 5: you don't really save money for other things until you
- 25:50Speaker 5: have that emergency savings built. Now, three to twelve months
- 25:53Speaker 5: is a big spread, and so this is where it
- 25:55Speaker 5: kind of depends on specifics.
- 25:56Speaker 4: Right, If you are.
- 25:59Speaker 5: Married couple with dual income and no kids, you know,
- 26:03Speaker 5: you look at that situation you say, Okay, even if
- 26:05Speaker 5: one of us lost our jobs, we probably can pay
- 26:07Speaker 5: a lot of the basics, and so maybe we are
- 26:09Speaker 5: closer to that three months. If we are married couple,
- 26:14Speaker 5: multiple kids, one working income, that's probably closer to the
- 26:17Speaker 5: twelve months because you just have a lot more concentration
- 26:20Speaker 5: risk in terms of where that comes from. In terms
- 26:24Speaker 5: of where that emergency savings goes, it's got to be accessible,
- 26:34Speaker 5: not volatile, and predictable. So rather than saying, you know,
- 26:39Speaker 5: obviously most FDIC insurance insured products fall into that category.
- 26:44Speaker 5: So I mean that's a pretty good starting point, but
- 26:47Speaker 5: you know, there are plenty of things that people think
- 26:49Speaker 5: of as predictable and stable but aren't accessible. Right, if
- 26:52Speaker 5: I've got an annuity probably predictable and stable, but might
- 26:55Speaker 5: not be accessible in IRA. I can put a CD
- 26:59Speaker 5: in an IRA, but might not be accessible if I
- 27:03Speaker 5: am not fifty nine and a half, and so all
- 27:05Speaker 5: of that stuff comes into factory, It comes into the
- 27:08Speaker 5: equation for where does that emergency fund actually live?
- 27:11Speaker 4: And that's really important.
- 27:14Speaker 6: Ending to that, chuck Nope, all right, let's go on
- 27:18Speaker 6: to the final question for this week's Money Matters mail bag.
- 27:23Speaker 6: This one's coming from Tim. Tim asks, I don't have
- 27:27Speaker 6: a excuse me. I don't have an employer sponsored for
- 27:31Speaker 6: one K and need to start saving for retirement. What
- 27:34Speaker 6: will be the best option for someone in their mid
- 27:36Speaker 6: forties to begin saving for retirement?
- 27:40Speaker 5: This kind of stinks. I want tell your employer to
- 27:44Speaker 5: get an employer sponsor retirement plan. They're pretty cheap these days,
- 27:47Speaker 5: but highly dependent on your specifics. If you are a
- 27:50Speaker 5: w twoter employee and you don't have an employer sponsored plan,
- 27:55Speaker 5: you are extremely limited in terms of what you can do.
- 27:57Speaker 5: If you're in your forties, you can put seventy five
- 28:00Speaker 5: hundred bucks a year into a traditional or wroth iray,
- 28:05Speaker 5: so long as you don't make too much money to
- 28:08Speaker 5: qualify to be able to do one of those things,
- 28:11Speaker 5: and the thresholds depend on whether you're single or married.
- 28:15Speaker 5: Talk to a tax professional about what you're eligible to do. Now,
- 28:19Speaker 5: if we're in a different scenario and you're self employed,
- 28:22Speaker 5: or you have two jobs and one of them is
- 28:24Speaker 5: self employment, you have suddenly a whole slew of different options.
- 28:28Speaker 5: You can start what's called an individual or solo K,
- 28:30Speaker 5: which is basically.
- 28:31Speaker 4: Your own personal four oh one K plan.
- 28:33Speaker 5: You can build a STEP or a self employment pension
- 28:36Speaker 5: iray that allows you to put a whole bunch more
- 28:40Speaker 5: in terms of contributions into one of these things and
- 28:43Speaker 5: take advantage of the tax benefits. So, to make a
- 28:46Speaker 5: long story short, highly dependent on your specifics how much
- 28:49Speaker 5: you maybe a spouse, are earning to determine what sort
- 28:52Speaker 5: of stuff you're eligible to do. So it's not a
- 28:54Speaker 5: one size fits all approach, but the individual k's and
- 28:58Speaker 5: seprays for self employed people huge potential tool there that
- 29:04Speaker 5: used to be pretty expensive and come have come way
- 29:06Speaker 5: down in cost as a tool to utilize.
- 29:08Speaker 4: Check anything to add on that.
- 29:10Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you got most of it.
- 29:11Speaker 3: Again, Like make sure chat with your you know, account
- 29:15Speaker 3: and or tax provider, just so that you have an
- 29:17Speaker 3: understanding of, uh, you know, some of those tax rules
- 29:19Speaker 3: and limitations as far as contribution limits, for each one.
- 29:24Speaker 2: It is as I as you noted as well.
- 29:28Speaker 3: It's ridiculous that there isn't just a standard amount that
- 29:32Speaker 3: everyone can put into a retirement account of their choosing
- 29:35Speaker 3: preposterous in any given year. Like I understand that, you know,
- 29:39Speaker 3: there's some pretty powerful lobbying that gets done in order
- 29:42Speaker 3: to maintain things the way they are, but there's no
- 29:45Speaker 3: reason why the amount someone can put into an IRA
- 29:49Speaker 3: should be a third of what you can put into
- 29:50Speaker 3: a four oh one. K completely agreed, So uh yeah,
- 29:55Speaker 3: nothing else to add aside from that. But again, if
- 29:59Speaker 3: if you've got ma bad questions for if you want
- 30:01Speaker 3: to get into one next week's again, we've been getting
- 30:04Speaker 3: you know, emails and texts on these ones. But you
- 30:07Speaker 3: can also call in for the mail bag three three
- 30:10Speaker 3: nine three nine nine four three three three, or the
- 30:14Speaker 3: way I like to say it, double trace single new
- 30:19Speaker 3: single trace, double newve single quatro triple new Eve.
- 30:23Speaker 6: You can also email the show TFE show at gmail
- 30:27Speaker 6: dot com.
- 30:29Speaker 5: So let's say, I'm pretty sure you did that wrong
- 30:30Speaker 5: in Spanish, but what do you mean?
- 30:33Speaker 2: What did I do wrong?
- 30:35Speaker 4: Let's not confuse the situation anymore.
- 30:37Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that at all.
- 30:41Speaker 3: I think I got it right, but we'll we'll play
- 30:44Speaker 3: it back during the break and see what happened.
- 30:46Speaker 2: Let's take a quick.
- 30:47Speaker 3: Break now, and when we come back, paul A Monica
- 30:49Speaker 3: from Barons joins.
- 30:51Speaker 1: Us, miss any of the show. The Financial Exchange Show
- 30:54Speaker 1: podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. Hit the
- 30:58Speaker 1: subscribe button and leave us a five star review. This
- 31:02Speaker 1: is the Financial Exchange radio network from FED Decisions to
- 31:06Speaker 1: Market Moves. Watch the Financial Exchange live on x face.
- 31:10Speaker 1: He's the Financial Exchange Ladies and gentlemen the weekend.
- 31:16Speaker 7: As promised, the one and Only Mister Paul Lamonica joins
- 31:26Speaker 7: us now and Paul, how you doing.
- 31:31Speaker 8: I'm good, are you guys?
- 31:32Speaker 2: We're great?
- 31:33Speaker 3: And it sounds like the owner of some of these
- 31:35Speaker 3: stocks are probably doing great as well. You got a
- 31:37Speaker 3: piece here how to trade a stock that's just doubled.
- 31:41Speaker 3: That sounds like a nice problem for someone to have.
- 31:44Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly. If you've invested in companies like sand Disk,
- 31:49Speaker 8: Western Digital, Micron. These are all companies that have gone
- 31:53Speaker 8: up precipitously in a very short period of time. But
- 31:59Speaker 8: you know, if more money comes more problems, so to speak.
- 32:03Speaker 8: And I think yes, I know, I know, I date
- 32:06Speaker 8: myself there. I think one of the issues that it
- 32:10Speaker 8: was raised in this interesting report by Renaissance Macro Research Renmack,
- 32:15Speaker 8: is that if you have a stock that has gone
- 32:18Speaker 8: up so dramatically, and they looked at companies that have
- 32:21Speaker 8: done that going back more than forty years, it may
- 32:26Speaker 8: not be that big of a shock, but you know,
- 32:28Speaker 8: what goes up must come down, so a lot of
- 32:31Speaker 8: these companies do then tend to underperform over the next
- 32:35Speaker 8: three years after a quick double. And I think what
- 32:38Speaker 8: they warnant investors to be worried about is when it
- 32:41Speaker 8: happens with smaller companies that are far more volatile than
- 32:45Speaker 8: with large companies in the SP five hundred. Perhaps so,
- 32:48Speaker 8: if you're if you own a small stock that has
- 32:52Speaker 8: gone up really rapidly, probably not the worst idea in
- 32:56Speaker 8: the world to take some money off the table before
- 33:00Speaker 8: there's potentially a very steep drop. The good news is
- 33:03Speaker 8: that with larger companies the pullback tends to be a
- 33:07Speaker 8: lot more gradual as opposed to sudden, so you've got
- 33:10Speaker 8: some time. If you're looking at companies like sand Disk,
- 33:14Speaker 8: Western Digital, these these large companies in the SP five hundred.
- 33:17Speaker 3: Well, and a lot of these these big ones that
- 33:20Speaker 3: have gone you know, parabolic top side right now, the
- 33:23Speaker 3: ones that you've mentioned, they also happen to operate in
- 33:27Speaker 3: the computer hardware space, mostly in the memory area, and
- 33:31Speaker 3: that tends to be just a hugely cyclical business with
- 33:35Speaker 3: these massive boom bust cycles that we've seen for the
- 33:39Speaker 3: last thirty years as well.
- 33:40Speaker 8: Oh, definitely, without a question. I mean, you know, a
- 33:43Speaker 8: lot of these companies have been you know, hit by
- 33:48Speaker 8: worries about pricing and pricing declines so much so, I
- 33:53Speaker 8: mean things have changed obviously a lot because of AI.
- 33:56Speaker 8: But I remember my prior's writing a story about many
- 34:03Speaker 8: of these companies and joke that they were kind of
- 34:06Speaker 8: like the airlines of tech in that there were always
- 34:09Speaker 8: these huge price wars that would hurt margins. But obviously
- 34:13Speaker 8: I'm dating myself again because the airline industry isn't as
- 34:17Speaker 8: subject to those precipitous price declines. You know, that's a
- 34:21Speaker 8: much more stable business now as well.
- 34:24Speaker 3: One of the other things just that investors do need
- 34:26Speaker 3: to be aware of in dealing with this, and probably
- 34:29Speaker 3: worth a conversation with a tax professional when these things
- 34:32Speaker 3: have gone up this much.
- 34:33Speaker 2: In a short period of time.
- 34:34Speaker 3: You also have to be you know, cognizant of potential
- 34:37Speaker 3: cap gains taxes, especially short term capital gains taxes, and
- 34:40Speaker 3: how that can impact your tax situation. So that goes
- 34:43Speaker 3: into you know, the conversation as well.
- 34:46Speaker 8: Exactly, and I think it's yet another reason why if
- 34:49Speaker 8: you want to take some money off the table, if
- 34:52Speaker 8: you're looking at a stock that's doubled, that probably makes
- 34:55Speaker 8: more sense as opposed to say liquidating the entire position
- 35:00Speaker 8: ash in on a game, because there is going to
- 35:02Speaker 8: be that tax hit as well. And the other thing
- 35:04Speaker 8: I warn you know that the the Renmac analysts point out,
- 35:09Speaker 8: don't necessarily think that a stock that has gone up
- 35:12Speaker 8: this quickly is now suddenly a great short bet, because
- 35:16Speaker 8: stocks with momentum can have momentum for a fair amount
- 35:21Speaker 8: of time and it's hard to know when the tide
- 35:23Speaker 8: will turn. You know, just look at you know, the
- 35:26Speaker 8: game Stop Meme stock craze. Obviously many of those stocks
- 35:30Speaker 8: were overvalued, but you know, if you tried to short them,
- 35:34Speaker 8: you know, unless you did it precisely the right time,
- 35:37Speaker 8: you got squeezed.
- 35:39Speaker 3: Very good, Paul, appreciate you joining us today. Thank you
- 35:42Speaker 3: so much for the time, and I hope you have
- 35:45Speaker 3: a lovely Masters weekend this weekend.
- 35:48Speaker 8: Thank you very much, hope you do as well.
- 35:50Speaker 3: That is Paul Lamonica from Baron's talking about stocks that
- 35:55Speaker 3: have gone on some nice little runs in the last
- 36:00Speaker 3: last year or so. Mike, what else we got that
- 36:02Speaker 3: we haven't covered yet today?
- 36:04Speaker 5: A victim of the housing market that I had not
- 36:07Speaker 5: quite considered. America's furniture stores are struggling to survive during
- 36:11Speaker 5: the housing f not the housing frozen market, the frozen
- 36:14Speaker 5: housing market.
- 36:15Speaker 4: That we've been experiencing.
- 36:17Speaker 5: A Western sorry an act in Massachusetts Furniture Warehouse had
- 36:21Speaker 5: to liquidate recently because of a lack of activity, and
- 36:24Speaker 5: just not a consideration I had really thought of. We know,
- 36:27Speaker 5: the hardware stores have seen sales drop off since the
- 36:30Speaker 5: early twenty twenties, and furniture sales too. You do a
- 36:36Speaker 5: lot more purchases when you are buying that new home.
- 36:40Speaker 5: And while we might be seeing some volume up tick
- 36:42Speaker 5: in other parts of the country, around here, it is
- 36:44Speaker 5: just not happening, and so especially those smaller furniture stores
- 36:49Speaker 5: that do not have the reserves of say a Jordan's
- 36:51Speaker 5: Furniture or a what is it? Cardi's based out of
- 36:54Speaker 5: Rhode Island, but a big furniture provider.
- 36:57Speaker 4: Pretty tough to survive an environment like this.
- 37:00Speaker 2: Either of you gonna be watching the Artemis re entry
- 37:03Speaker 2: this evening? No, are you kidding?
- 37:06Speaker 4: I might now. Yeah, it's gonna be happening.
- 37:08Speaker 3: Between seven thirty and eight pm Eastern somewhere in that ballpark.
- 37:13Speaker 3: Uh so the uh it's gonna take you know, some time,
- 37:17Speaker 3: just because the atmosphere is big. It's a big man,
- 37:20Speaker 3: it's a big atmosphere. And uh so, yeah, I guess
- 37:23Speaker 3: Tucker's ever sing I've seemed bigger?
- 37:27Speaker 2: Yeah, not a big deal.
- 37:29Speaker 3: Yeah, you ever been to Jupiter. That's a big atmosphere.
- 37:31Speaker 3: This one unimpressive? Uh so yeah, look again, I think
- 37:36Speaker 3: this is this is cool. I mean again, these are
- 37:37Speaker 3: people that have gone as far away from Earth, farther
- 37:40Speaker 3: away from Earth than anyone else ever has. Yeah, and
- 37:43Speaker 3: now they're coming back. It's gonna be five thousand degrees
- 37:46Speaker 3: on the outside of the spaceship Tucker.
- 37:49Speaker 5: Tucker remains unimpressed. Apparently, who you got in the Master's talk?
- 37:54Speaker 6: Gotta go Xander man, you think Yeah, I think he's
- 37:58Speaker 6: gonna make a nice little move today. Everything's fast out there,
- 38:01Speaker 6: everything's fast out there today. The greens are quick. Yes, yes,
- 38:05Speaker 6: greens are quick. Don't be surprised if Jordan speed makes
- 38:08Speaker 6: him run at it too.
- 38:10Speaker 3: Now let's get him in a spaceship. See how he
- 38:12Speaker 3: likes that five thousand degrees. We're done for the day,
- 38:16Speaker 3: done for the week, and I hope you all have
- 38:18Speaker 3: a great weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday.