Latest / The Financial Exchange Show / Is the financial health of the consumer waning?

Transcript

Is the financial health of the consumer waning? · The Financial Exchange Show

0:00
Speaker 1: The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
0:02
Speaker 1: is hosted by employees of the Armstrong Advisory Group, a
0:05
Speaker 1: registered investment advisor. All opinions expressed are solely those of
0:08
Speaker 1: the hosts. Do not reflect the opinions of Armstrong Advisory
0:11
Speaker 1: or anyone else. Investments can lose money. This program does
0:14
Speaker 1: not offer any specific financial or investment advice. Please consult
0:17
Speaker 1: your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
0:20
Speaker 1: any investment decisions. Armstrong Advisory and the advertisers heard on
0:23
Speaker 1: this program do not endorse each other or their services.
0:25
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Money Matters Radio do not compensate each other
0:28
Speaker 1: for referrals and are not affiliated. This is the Financial
0:34
Speaker 1: Exchange with Chuck Zada and Mark Fandaddy, your exclusive look
0:38
Speaker 1: at business and financial news affecting your day, your city,
0:42
Speaker 1: your world. Stay informed and up to date about economic
0:46
Speaker 1: and market trends, plus breaking business news every day. The
0:50
Speaker 1: Financial Exchange is a proud partner of the Disabled American
0:53
Speaker 1: Veterans Department of Massachusetts. Help us support our great American
0:57
Speaker 1: heroes by visiting DAV five K Boston and making a
1:01
Speaker 1: donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck Zauta
1:06
Speaker 1: and Mark Vandetti.
1:09
Speaker 2: Chuck, Mark and Tucker with you today. And as we
1:14
Speaker 2: get closer to wrapping up twenty twenty four, the stock
1:18
Speaker 2: market is saying, Yo, I don't like what's going on somewhere. Well,
1:24
Speaker 2: we don't really know what it's saying, but that was
1:27
Speaker 2: off five hundred and fifty seven points. The SMP's down
1:30
Speaker 2: seventy six, Nasdaq down two seventy. It's about a one
1:33
Speaker 2: and a quarter to one and a half percent dip
1:35
Speaker 2: we're seeing across all major US indices. It's being broadly felt,
1:39
Speaker 2: it's not just in any one particular area. As of
1:42
Speaker 2: this very moment in time, the S and P five
1:46
Speaker 2: hundred now has about fifteen securities that are up for
1:51
Speaker 2: the day, and the rest of them are you guessed
1:53
Speaker 2: it down. Actually, there are a handful that there are
1:58
Speaker 2: three that have not moved today and don't appear to
2:00
Speaker 2: have any trading volume. So I don't know what to
2:03
Speaker 2: make of that, but it's neither here nor there. In
2:05
Speaker 2: any case, you've got markets selling off on the equity
2:09
Speaker 2: side today. Bonds on the other side are seeing some inflows,
2:12
Speaker 2: with the tenure Treasury down six point eight basis points.
2:15
Speaker 2: To four point five to five one percent. Again, there's
2:19
Speaker 2: no clear catalyst for any of this. It's a lightly
2:21
Speaker 2: traded week. You get all kinds of weird year end
2:24
Speaker 2: rebalancing in this and that. I don't know if today
2:26
Speaker 2: means anything or doesn't. It just sometimes is. We've got
2:32
Speaker 2: oil today up sixty eight cents a barrel to seventy
2:35
Speaker 2: one twenty eight. Big move happening in nat gas. I
2:38
Speaker 2: don't know if you've been watching the Natty anytime recently, Mark.
2:41
Speaker 3: I didn't even know what that was. The Natty.
2:43
Speaker 2: The Natty, it's not gas dat I get, Yeah, the
2:47
Speaker 2: Natty's that's what it's called in the biz, you know.
2:51
Speaker 2: But neat gas prices up eighteen percent today. This with
2:55
Speaker 2: a cold front coming for the southeastern part of the
2:58
Speaker 2: US in about two weeks potentially. Again, the early warning
3:02
Speaker 2: forecasts are out there, and just as an example, they're
3:05
Speaker 2: showing New Orleans might get down into the twenties. So
3:10
Speaker 2: that'd be a little bit chilly down in the big
3:12
Speaker 2: easy for good old Mardi Gras.
3:14
Speaker 3: Right, Oh geez Yeap, when's Marti Gras? I thought it
3:19
Speaker 3: was March.
3:20
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was just talking. What I'm pretty sure.
3:23
Speaker 2: It's not March. It might be March.
3:24
Speaker 3: March fourth, there you go.
3:26
Speaker 2: It's March fourth, so a little early for that. But
3:28
Speaker 2: in any case, they still have stuff that happens in January,
3:31
Speaker 2: and they don't expect it to be you know, eighteen
3:34
Speaker 2: to twenty.
3:34
Speaker 3: Probably start preparing now, which is your point.
3:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, hanging you guys remember the you guys know about
3:40
Speaker 2: the lizards in Florida, right.
3:43
Speaker 3: The iguanas falling from the tree.
3:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have the iguana warnings that they have to
3:46
Speaker 2: put out when it gets too cold there because the
3:47
Speaker 2: iguanas that live in the trees just start falling out
3:50
Speaker 2: and conking people on the heads. Super Bowl's February. Knife.
3:53
Speaker 2: Where's the super Bowl this year?
3:55
Speaker 1: New Orleans?
3:55
Speaker 2: Oh it is? Yeah, Oh that's why I brought it up.
3:57
Speaker 2: It's in a dome though, I know, but still but
4:00
Speaker 2: around the dome it's outside potentially and it could be
4:03
Speaker 2: cold there. We'll see no lizards in New Orleans. Been
4:06
Speaker 2: there a few times. Not many trees downtown. It's a
4:10
Speaker 2: good time, but not not for you know, trees and stuff.
4:13
Speaker 2: So you got oil prices down, not gas prices, I'm sorry,
4:16
Speaker 2: oil priced up. Just to touch that gas up pretty significantly.
4:19
Speaker 2: Right now, we've got gold down seventeen sixteen ounce to
4:23
Speaker 2: twenty six fourteen and thirty cents peace here. From the
4:29
Speaker 2: Financial Times, US credit card defaults jumped to highest level
4:33
Speaker 2: since twenty ten. So a lot of times you get
4:37
Speaker 2: you know, statistics like hey, mortgage delinquencies double, and then
4:41
Speaker 2: you look at it and it's like, well, yeah, they
4:43
Speaker 2: doubled from the lowest reading they've ever been, and so
4:45
Speaker 2: they're still very low. Credit Card delinquencies, on the other hand,
4:50
Speaker 2: are increasing meaningfully, both in terms of the dollar value
4:53
Speaker 2: and percentage of credit card debt outstanding. This is not
4:57
Speaker 2: entirely unexpected in a world in which you still have,
5:01
Speaker 2: you know, prices, because look, prices don't really come down generally,
5:05
Speaker 2: they move up either quickly slowly, or they kind of
5:07
Speaker 2: hold steady. So prices have moved up, you have a
5:11
Speaker 2: whole bunch of people who, you know, their income has
5:14
Speaker 2: moved up as well, but you know, maybe the stuff
5:16
Speaker 2: that they need to cover, like car insurance, has moved
5:18
Speaker 2: up more rapidly, and so people have been turning to
5:21
Speaker 2: credit cards to pay bills. And you've got a problem
5:25
Speaker 2: that has been building here I'm still not convinced that
5:29
Speaker 2: this is a huge problem in and of itself right now,
5:33
Speaker 2: just because the amount of credit card debt that's outstanding
5:36
Speaker 2: is a fraction of the size of the mortgage market
5:39
Speaker 2: as an example, So it's not going to cause a
5:41
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight style meltdown. But you do wonder, hey,
5:45
Speaker 2: how much longer can households continue to go in this direction,
5:51
Speaker 2: and beyond that, how much longer are banks going to
5:53
Speaker 2: be willing to lend them the money to do so?
5:55
Speaker 2: And what does the economy look like if you know,
5:58
Speaker 2: something breaks there.
5:59
Speaker 3: I think it is important to keep it a historical perspective,
6:01
Speaker 3: as you suggested. If you look at the dollar value
6:04
Speaker 3: of balances and you adjust it for inflation, which you
6:06
Speaker 3: always should. Looking just at large bank consumer credit card balances,
6:10
Speaker 3: the level of balances, again just the large banks, is
6:13
Speaker 3: lower than it was in twenty nineteen. The delinquency rate,
6:18
Speaker 3: which you alluded to, is quite high relative to the
6:22
Speaker 3: trough reached after COVID is you know, because you and
6:25
Speaker 3: Mike Armstrong talk a lot about this data series on
6:28
Speaker 3: the Financial Exchange, it looks elevated relative to the late
6:32
Speaker 3: twenty teens. But you have to remember that all the
6:34
Speaker 3: bad stuff was purged after the Great Recession, and there
6:37
Speaker 3: were reasonably credit worthy people who couldn't get credit for years.
6:40
Speaker 3: Relative to the twenty relative to the two thousands, the
6:44
Speaker 3: delinquency rate is actually quite low, even at the most
6:47
Speaker 3: robust stage of the two thousands expansion before the crisis. Similarly,
6:51
Speaker 3: relative to the nineteen nineties, the delinquency rate, again using
6:54
Speaker 3: just large commercial bank credit card balances, is also quite low.
6:58
Speaker 3: So it's hard to know, Chuck, is this a new
7:00
Speaker 3: development or is this a normalization that we're seeing.
7:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hey, monitor it, watch it. But sure it's
7:08
Speaker 2: probably not causing a problem on its own. It's much
7:13
Speaker 2: more Hey, if the economy slows and more people can't
7:17
Speaker 2: pay those larger balances, that's a good way to look
7:20
Speaker 2: at that. That's kind of the next This isn't going
7:24
Speaker 2: to cause a financial crisis on its own.
7:26
Speaker 3: It's sad, though, because between social media and twenty four
7:30
Speaker 3: hour finance news. Even respected commentators Mohammad al Arian today
7:36
Speaker 3: on blue Sky, which is the alternative to Twitter or
7:41
Speaker 3: x whatever it's called now, tweeted. I don't know what
7:45
Speaker 3: verb to use for when people send something on social
7:47
Speaker 3: media other than tweeted. So I just been put out there,
7:49
Speaker 3: just social posted, thank you, posted posted this headline and
7:54
Speaker 3: suggested that it boded, you know, ominous things for the economy.
7:57
Speaker 3: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but I would appreciate
7:59
Speaker 3: a bit more level headed analysis. Let's just let's not
8:03
Speaker 3: run for the hills every time a headline suggests that
8:05
Speaker 3: something might be a little bit of miss no.
8:08
Speaker 2: I still remember the headlines. I think it was in
8:12
Speaker 2: it's either late twenty twenty or maybe late late twenty
8:15
Speaker 2: twenty one. It was one of those years. It was
8:17
Speaker 2: whenever the You remember, during the pandemic they put in
8:20
Speaker 2: the mortgage four barons programs so that you couldn't be
8:23
Speaker 2: foreclosed on and things like that. Yeah, and as those
8:26
Speaker 2: were rolling off, you had, oh, you know, get your mortgage.
8:30
Speaker 2: You know, foreclosures or you know, pre foreclosure properties have
8:33
Speaker 2: jumped like one hundred and seventy percent. Then you look
8:35
Speaker 2: at the data and it's like, well, yeah, we we
8:38
Speaker 2: had no foreclosures, So of course they're going to jump
8:42
Speaker 2: from there because you didn't. You had like three of
8:46
Speaker 2: them last month across the entire country. So what are
8:48
Speaker 2: we really doing here? Yeah?
8:50
Speaker 3: And I know some of you listening are thinking, you
8:52
Speaker 3: guys always say things are great, and I know they're
8:54
Speaker 3: not great, and that's not true. We acknowledged the flaws
8:58
Speaker 3: in the aggregate statistics. They're just broad averages, but they're
9:02
Speaker 3: the best we've got. That's why, as you always say, Chuck,
9:07
Speaker 3: don't look at one data point, look at a wide variety.
9:10
Speaker 3: Don't take opinions from one person or even news channel.
9:14
Speaker 3: Try to take a broad sample.
9:17
Speaker 2: And the other thing. Quite honestly, most of the times,
9:20
Speaker 2: once you realize there is a problem to say, okay,
9:24
Speaker 2: Like no, I was gonna say, most of the time,
9:26
Speaker 2: when you realize there's a problem, okay, what are we
9:29
Speaker 2: gonna do to fix it? Then you solve it before
9:31
Speaker 2: it becomes too late. The ones where it does, you know,
9:34
Speaker 2: become too late, like two thousand and eight, those are
9:37
Speaker 2: the ones where like people are screaming like, hey, there's
9:39
Speaker 2: a problem, and for three years people are ignoring them,
9:41
Speaker 2: and then it became too late.
9:42
Speaker 3: It's just hard to think of examples where we did
9:44
Speaker 3: act in time to play two chatter contagion. Yeah, because
9:49
Speaker 3: we don't. We can't do the so called counterfactual as
9:52
Speaker 3: would the world have really stopped if that bug hadn't
9:56
Speaker 3: been fixed, We'll never know, but I think it's safe
9:58
Speaker 3: to assume that we did the prudence thing. Economically harder
10:02
Speaker 3: to come up with examples of us acting resolutely and swiftly.
10:06
Speaker 3: Maybe the savings and long resolution of the early nineteen
10:09
Speaker 3: nineties when we stepped in and did the law required it,
10:13
Speaker 3: but bigger hemorrhaging was avoided. Probably sure. Otherwise, sometimes things
10:17
Speaker 3: are on our doorstep and it's too late.
10:20
Speaker 2: Quick break here. When we return, we've got trivia right
10:24
Speaker 2: after this.
10:26
Speaker 1: Missed one of our shows. Catch up anytime by asking
10:29
Speaker 1: your Alexis Smart speaker to play the Financial Exchange. This
10:33
Speaker 1: is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Miss any of the show.
10:37
Speaker 1: Catch up at your convenience by visiting Financial Exchange show
10:40
Speaker 1: dot com and clicking the on demand icon, where you'll
10:43
Speaker 1: find all of our interviews in full shows. This is
10:46
Speaker 1: your home for the latest business and financial news in
10:49
Speaker 1: New England and around the country. This is the Financial
10:53
Speaker 1: Exchange Radio Network.
11:00
Speaker 4: Make surevia here on the Financial Exchange And as we
11:03
Speaker 4: all know now, yesterday Jimmy Carter passed away at the
11:06
Speaker 4: age of one hundred. Carter is the longest lived US
11:10
Speaker 4: president in history. And in case you missed it, announced
11:14
Speaker 4: around ten am this morning, equity markets will be closed
11:17
Speaker 4: on Thursday, January ninth. Just a note there, tribute question today,
11:23
Speaker 4: who is Jimmy Carter's Vice President?
11:25
Speaker 2: Once again? Who is Jimmy Carter's Vice President?
11:29
Speaker 4: Be the seventh person today it texts us at six
11:32
Speaker 4: one seven three six two thirteen eighty five with the
11:35
Speaker 4: correct answer, and you win a Financial Exchange Showed t shirt.
11:38
Speaker 2: Once again.
11:39
Speaker 4: Be the seventh correct response to text us at six
11:42
Speaker 4: one seven three six two thirteen eighty five to get
11:45
Speaker 4: that Financial Exchange Show t shirt. See complete contest rules
11:49
Speaker 4: at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
11:51
Speaker 2: I was talking to Mark about this during one of
11:54
Speaker 2: the breaks, but it's what what do you got? Sorry?
11:57
Speaker 3: I was reacking something different nights you guys, I kind
12:00
Speaker 3: of like.
12:00
Speaker 2: You really didn't want to talk about this was an
12:02
Speaker 2: audible gasp. It was like, sorry, no, it's fine, audible.
12:08
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna make sharts when you're talking going forward.
12:10
Speaker 2: Sorry, it's wild how basically until World War Two, presidents
12:15
Speaker 2: didn't live past seventy years. You go when you look
12:20
Speaker 2: at it and granted, like I'll start with FDR. Just
12:23
Speaker 2: you know, he had kind of a bad run with
12:25
Speaker 2: polio obviously, so you know, his life expectancy was scute,
12:28
Speaker 2: Like he probably outlived his life expectancy by fifty years.
12:31
Speaker 2: But he was sixty three when when he passed. Hoover
12:35
Speaker 2: kind of the exception to the rule, he was ninety okay.
12:38
Speaker 2: But other than that, then you got Coolidge who was
12:40
Speaker 2: sixty one, Harding who was fifty eight, Wilson who was
12:44
Speaker 2: sixty eight, Taft was sixty three, Teddy Roosevelt was sixty one,
12:51
Speaker 2: McKinley was fifty eight. Cleveland was sixty one. Actually no, sorry,
12:56
Speaker 2: Cleveland was seventy one. He was one of the ones
12:58
Speaker 2: that did make it past seventy. Harrison was sixty eight,
13:02
Speaker 2: Chester Allen Arthur was sixty seven, Garfield was seventy, Hayes
13:08
Speaker 2: was seventy one, Grant was sixty three. Like it was
13:14
Speaker 2: just like constant, I mean, Abraham Lincoln had one of
13:17
Speaker 2: the longest life expecting he was assassinated fifty six, and
13:20
Speaker 2: other than that, it's like it's basically all like sixty
13:23
Speaker 2: to seventy until World War Two, and then you know
13:26
Speaker 2: it's all the presidents live, not forever now, but long
13:30
Speaker 2: lives like Nixon eighty one, Ford ninety three, Carter one hundred,
13:35
Speaker 2: Reagan eighty three, George H. W. Bush ninety four, we
13:40
Speaker 2: might have passed. However, the thing I was finding interesting
13:43
Speaker 2: this morning. Until Carter passed, we had five living ex presidents.
13:49
Speaker 2: There's a realistic world in which, like five or sixty
13:53
Speaker 2: years from now, we might have one that's left. Because
13:58
Speaker 2: Clinton right now is seventy eight, George W. Bush seventy eight,
14:05
Speaker 2: Obama is sixty three, so he's probably still kicking around
14:12
Speaker 2: for a while. Trump is seventy eight, Biden's eighty two.
14:16
Speaker 2: If you just look at life expectancies, there's a reasonable
14:19
Speaker 2: case in the next five to six years, all of them,
14:22
Speaker 2: but Obama might not be here. Like that, that could
14:25
Speaker 2: be you could go from five to one and like
14:28
Speaker 2: a five year period.
14:29
Speaker 3: What are all those Secret Service guys gonna do. They've
14:31
Speaker 3: all got big details they do.
14:33
Speaker 2: I mean, they'll get the ployts.
14:35
Speaker 3: I know that wasn't your point, no, but I'm just thinking, no,
14:40
Speaker 3: that is a very unique skill set.
14:42
Speaker 2: Well, especially because the Secret Service, remember it's got it
14:45
Speaker 2: has two missions. One is protect like the president and dignitaries,
14:48
Speaker 2: and you know other high end you know, high like
14:52
Speaker 2: high value people in the US government. The other is,
14:56
Speaker 2: you know, the other job of the Secret Service.
14:59
Speaker 3: Oh, it's like counterfeitings.
15:02
Speaker 2: So I don't know that. You can't just get reassigned
15:06
Speaker 2: from Hey, like I was on the President's detail. Okay,
15:10
Speaker 2: look at these one hundred dollars bills and tell me
15:12
Speaker 2: if something's wrong. You want me to do what?
15:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, one day you're a stud, you carry a gun.
15:19
Speaker 3: The next day you're working with you do.
15:21
Speaker 2: I need to wear a vest like me? You don't
15:23
Speaker 2: need to wear your bulletproof vest. Here's a Patagonia one
15:26
Speaker 2: that you can put on instead. I mean, how is that?
15:30
Speaker 2: How are those the two jobs of the Secret.
15:31
Speaker 3: Service getting reassigned? That's going to be a tough conversation.
15:34
Speaker 2: Right, It's it's not like you're working at the I
15:37
Speaker 2: R S and you go from like processing returns to
15:40
Speaker 2: looking for fun you know. Okay, Like fine, Like I'm
15:43
Speaker 2: still looking at I'm looking at ten forties. That's it's fine.
15:46
Speaker 2: It's just I'm looking at him in a different way. This. Hey,
15:50
Speaker 2: you're you're out there, you know, looking for threats to
15:53
Speaker 2: the president, to Jimmy. Does this look fake. Hold it
15:57
Speaker 2: up to the light for a little bit.
15:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, Andrew Jackson to them Ustash, did he No, I
16:01
Speaker 3: think that's a counterfeit bill.
16:03
Speaker 2: Have we always had orange bills? No? No, looks a
16:08
Speaker 2: little bit small. I don't think that's a real five hundred.
16:11
Speaker 2: That's that looks like it's a monopoly one. Jim Yeah, yeah, yeah, who.
16:14
Speaker 3: Put little Richard on the fifty thousand? Now, I think
16:17
Speaker 3: that's a counterfeitch mocky. It's just got to be a
16:20
Speaker 3: real career down there. I mean, at that point you
16:22
Speaker 3: got to start to look for other work. When your
16:24
Speaker 3: manager reassigns you to inspecting quarters, I would think.
16:29
Speaker 2: Are counterfeit quarters a problem?
16:31
Speaker 3: I'm just assuming that.
16:33
Speaker 2: I'd imagine it's anything more menial.
16:35
Speaker 3: Is why I mentioned that Secret Services.
16:37
Speaker 2: Eighty three hundred employees.
16:39
Speaker 3: Oh God, don't tell musk.
16:42
Speaker 2: Interesting. So until two thousand and three, it was actually
16:45
Speaker 2: still part of DOT the Apartment of Treasury. I didn't
16:48
Speaker 2: realize that it was under there until the Oh interesting,
16:53
Speaker 2: it got moved to Department of Homeland Security after the
16:56
Speaker 2: patriotch passed.
16:57
Speaker 3: So there you go, and nobody knew or cares. I
17:02
Speaker 3: don't mean we shouldn't be talking about it. I just
17:03
Speaker 3: mean the government is so vast that probably never would
17:07
Speaker 3: have known that.
17:08
Speaker 2: But man, like, it's just it's just wild that like
17:11
Speaker 2: those are the two that's like having. That's weird. It's weird.
17:16
Speaker 2: It is. It's it's like having someone who specializes in
17:20
Speaker 2: you know, someone who works in your office. They're like,
17:21
Speaker 2: I do accounting and I write the marketing pieces. You
17:25
Speaker 2: do what? No, you you're probably not okay, fine like that,
17:30
Speaker 2: that's fine.
17:31
Speaker 3: But it's like saying you a co host a radio
17:33
Speaker 3: show once in a while and you're an analyst, what
17:35
Speaker 3: are you nuts?
17:38
Speaker 2: Well played, Mark Well? Well played?
17:40
Speaker 3: No, you have to be you have to have a
17:41
Speaker 3: bit of a split personality. I think I'm not saying
17:44
Speaker 3: I do either well, by.
17:45
Speaker 2: The way, No, I mean, listen, it's was it. Uh
17:48
Speaker 2: you know the phrase like you can be a uh
17:52
Speaker 2: the one that ends in master of.
17:53
Speaker 3: None, Oh, a jack of alter.
17:55
Speaker 2: That's the one jack of all trades, master of none.
17:58
Speaker 3: That's not a compliment.
17:59
Speaker 2: No, I never said it was.
18:02
Speaker 3: I'm in the boat with Mark Well my live year
18:04
Speaker 3: end review on air.
18:05
Speaker 2: I'm in the boat.
18:06
Speaker 3: We think of you as a jack of all trades.
18:09
Speaker 3: Master of very very few.
18:11
Speaker 2: Taking a look at markets as we head towards the
18:14
Speaker 2: bottom of the hour, the Dow was off four hundred
18:17
Speaker 2: and sixty eight points, the S and P is down
18:20
Speaker 2: sixty nine, NASDAK off two sixty three, So markets, you know,
18:24
Speaker 2: pairing their their losses somewhat but still comfortably in negative territory.
18:29
Speaker 2: I guess, uncomfortably in negative territory tenure. US Treasury also
18:34
Speaker 2: continuing to see lower yields today, down six point six
18:37
Speaker 2: basis points to four point five five three percent. I
18:42
Speaker 2: didn't check on gas prices this morning, actually triple a
18:45
Speaker 2: national average at three h two and six tenths. So
18:48
Speaker 2: we still just can't get through that three dollars mark nationally.
18:52
Speaker 2: It's just we're just bumping up against it at this
18:55
Speaker 2: point and can't seem to get all the way through.
18:57
Speaker 2: Oil prices continuing to rise today West X inner meeting
19:00
Speaker 2: up seventy eight cents a barrel to seventy one thirty eight.
19:05
Speaker 2: At the moment, was what was that about? Sorry? I
19:10
Speaker 2: can't say you're still looking at whatever it was, Yes,
19:13
Speaker 2: you're still I'm sorry.
19:14
Speaker 3: My inner monologue is entertaining me today, and I'm half
19:17
Speaker 3: listening to everybody else. I apologize, I know it's rude.
19:20
Speaker 2: That's fine, just burst out listen. That's a quarter more
19:22
Speaker 2: than Tucker normally listens to us. I'm just going to
19:25
Speaker 2: like prefer not. You know, let's take a quick break.
19:28
Speaker 2: When we come back, we get the trivia answer after this.
19:41
Speaker 1: Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
19:45
Speaker 1: It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
19:51
Speaker 1: Text UYS six one seven TRN six two one three
19:54
Speaker 1: eighty five with your comments and questions about today's show.
19:57
Speaker 1: This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
20:07
Speaker 4: Trivia question today was who was Jimmy Carter's vice President.
20:12
Speaker 4: I'll be Walter Mondale Winter Winter Today of the Financial
20:16
Speaker 4: Exchange Show. T shirt was Jay from Centerville, Mass Congrats
20:19
Speaker 4: to Jay, and we played trivia every day here on
20:23
Speaker 4: the Financial Exchange. See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange
20:27
Speaker 4: Show dot com.
20:29
Speaker 2: Mark. Do you want to talk about managers or artificial intelligence.
20:35
Speaker 3: Threat?
20:36
Speaker 1: Yes?
20:36
Speaker 3: Thread between the two. We could quickly hit.
20:39
Speaker 2: One and then let's talk a little bit about aid.
20:43
Speaker 2: Did you guys cover I was out the last couple
20:45
Speaker 2: of days of last week. Did you guys cover this stuff?
20:48
Speaker 2: From Sam Altman?
20:49
Speaker 4: Literally no one in this room was here on Thursday Friday.
20:52
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's good. So I don't know what we
20:56
Speaker 2: talked about last week because.
20:58
Speaker 3: I had to think about that three minutes.
21:00
Speaker 2: Did you do the show?
21:01
Speaker 3: I believe I did.
21:03
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know.
21:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you talk about right? Do you talk about it?
21:07
Speaker 3: I believe we did.
21:09
Speaker 2: Allen Iverson always So Sam Altman, we run open AI,
21:14
Speaker 2: had put out like a letter or something late last
21:16
Speaker 2: week and it was like, Hey, we're gonna need to
21:19
Speaker 2: raise way more capital than we ever thought in order
21:22
Speaker 2: to do what we want to do. This coming on
21:24
Speaker 2: the back of they had like three billion in revenue
21:27
Speaker 2: this year I think was three seven and they're losing
21:28
Speaker 2: five billion dollars or something like that. Yeah, it's starting
21:33
Speaker 2: to feel like that the whole you know, generative AI
21:36
Speaker 2: thing is really giving me self driving cars in like
21:39
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen vibes in that in twenty sixteen twenty seventeen,
21:44
Speaker 2: all we heard was Hey, like, look at all these
21:47
Speaker 2: self driving car startups right around the corner. We're gonna
21:49
Speaker 2: have this figured out in the next few years. And
21:52
Speaker 2: here we are today and there's one company that kind
21:55
Speaker 2: of does it way mo but in like limited locations
21:59
Speaker 2: and YadA, and no one else does like true driver lists,
22:03
Speaker 2: like hey, you don't have a driver in this vehicle ever. Yeah,
22:08
Speaker 2: Generative AI starting to give me that kind of vibe,
22:14
Speaker 2: and it's it's not good. It is kind of where
22:19
Speaker 2: I am. And one of the things that I saw
22:21
Speaker 2: on this, just as an example, is I've ripped on
22:28
Speaker 2: Google about this for a while. So Google gives a
22:32
Speaker 2: like an AI overview for anything that you search now,
22:36
Speaker 2: and it's just like it's generally horrible. So someone decided
22:42
Speaker 2: to put in either of you familiar with the movie
22:44
Speaker 2: in Kanto, Yes, Disney movie from a few years back. Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 2: someone googled in Kanto two and here's Google's AI overview
22:53
Speaker 2: and Kanto two A New Generation is an animated music
22:56
Speaker 2: fantasy comedy film that's a sequel to the twenty twenty
22:58
Speaker 2: one Disney movie In Conto. It's scheduled for release on
23:01
Speaker 2: August twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, which was four months ago.
23:06
Speaker 2: There was no Encanto to four months ago. Yeah, and
23:10
Speaker 2: so like it's just making crap up like that, that's
23:15
Speaker 2: not all it is. But I'm more and more convinced
23:19
Speaker 2: that yes, we've we've made something that makes organization and
23:25
Speaker 2: getting started with ideas easier, but it absolutely is nowhere
23:30
Speaker 2: near being able to just do all the work for
23:33
Speaker 2: us the way that people were talking about. And maybe
23:36
Speaker 2: it gets there, maybe it doesn't. Maybe the next generation
23:38
Speaker 2: of stuff with these AI agents can actually get there.
23:42
Speaker 2: But man, I gotta tell you, I am not trusting
23:46
Speaker 2: anything to an AI agent based on what I have
23:49
Speaker 2: seen AI actually do to this point. It's not that
23:52
Speaker 2: it's awful, it's just, hey, it might give you like
23:56
Speaker 2: ninety percent accuracy and then just makes them crap up
23:59
Speaker 2: a lot the way and you're like, Nope, can't use that.
24:01
Speaker 2: Got to get rid of it.
24:03
Speaker 3: There are certain tasks that it might do well. A
24:05
Speaker 3: study that was done by a group led by a
24:09
Speaker 3: graduates to a graduate a PhD candidate in econ at
24:12
Speaker 3: MIT recently concluded that using AI, and I'll just be
24:17
Speaker 3: very generic here because I don't understand exactly what form
24:21
Speaker 3: of the application he used, but it allowed the researchers
24:25
Speaker 3: in certain fields to quickly home in on successful combinations
24:30
Speaker 3: of chemicals that yield the desired compounds. It experiments a
24:33
Speaker 3: lot faster than humans could, and it experimented in logical directions.
24:37
Speaker 3: But to think that it's going to permanently boost economic growth,
24:42
Speaker 3: which is what some of the more optimistic proponents seem
24:45
Speaker 3: to be promising or at least suggesting, is at odds
24:51
Speaker 3: with the historical record. If you look at the boost
24:54
Speaker 3: in productivity and thus growth that the Internet provided, it
24:56
Speaker 3: only lasted several years. It petered out, we went back
25:00
Speaker 3: a trend. Ditto with things like electricity and other really
25:03
Speaker 3: more life changing innovations frankly than the internet. Airplane for example,
25:08
Speaker 3: or I was thinking the indoor toilet, or I mean,
25:11
Speaker 3: really we're talking simple stuff central heating, that air conditioning in.
25:15
Speaker 2: Florida, a dibiotics. There you go. There are lots of examples.
25:19
Speaker 2: Miracle won't die from a basic wound anymore. You know.
25:23
Speaker 3: The effect of these things on the trend in growth
25:27
Speaker 3: is really is really imperceptible. It's just a nice constant,
25:30
Speaker 3: upward sloping series. So I think you have to take
25:34
Speaker 3: these pronouncements with a huge grain of salt. My only
25:37
Speaker 3: question is are these guys deliberately misleading us or do
25:39
Speaker 3: they believe their own bs?
25:41
Speaker 2: Probably a little bit of both both, Probably a little bit.
25:43
Speaker 3: I don't like to be a great entrepreneur, Edison, you
25:46
Speaker 3: kind of have to delude yourself. Edison's electrocuting elephants, and
25:51
Speaker 3: he did that to prove he was trying to prove
25:54
Speaker 3: that d C was or that AC was more. Was
25:57
Speaker 3: he DC or a C? I always forget Was he
25:58
Speaker 3: a proponent of DC?
25:59
Speaker 2: And he was around then he didn't like the band? Yeah,
26:05
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
26:05
Speaker 3: They're all promoters. They're all Carnival Barkers to a degree,
26:09
Speaker 3: and at some point they don't know when to stop
26:10
Speaker 3: believing their own hype. Sure, so it's not Altman is
26:14
Speaker 3: not conning us. He's just too optimistic or was too optimistic.
26:19
Speaker 3: So the future is always five years away, like proponents
26:22
Speaker 3: of nuclear fission fusion? Are we combining or splitting fusions?
26:27
Speaker 2: There together? This fission?
26:29
Speaker 3: Sorry, thank you, vision We've done as you could take
26:31
Speaker 3: the number of time. My advice on anything related to
26:33
Speaker 3: physics is this show proves. But you know these guys
26:35
Speaker 3: are all part con Man, part visionary Musk. Is the
26:39
Speaker 3: same way with Roboco.
26:40
Speaker 2: Against you kind of have to delude yourself, definitely. Can
26:44
Speaker 2: you back it up with the deliveries of the product
26:47
Speaker 2: as well? And when you can't then like it becomes
26:51
Speaker 2: a parent Okay, Like, yeah, there's an issue here, folks.
26:54
Speaker 2: We are just two days away from twenty twenty five
26:59
Speaker 2: and the Armstrong and Avisory Group has a guide that
27:02
Speaker 2: has been available this month, but we're getting pretty down
27:04
Speaker 2: near the end of it. So if you want the
27:07
Speaker 2: guide titled the Key Numbers for twenty twenty five, Last Chance,
27:12
Speaker 2: this is it. This is how you get it called
27:14
Speaker 2: eight hundred three nine three for zero zero one. You
27:18
Speaker 2: can also go to Armstrong Advisory dot com and request
27:21
Speaker 2: the guide there. What does it talk about? Hey? How
27:24
Speaker 2: are tax brackets being updated? What's your Social Security cost
27:27
Speaker 2: of living adjustment, medicare premiums? What's happening to them? Retirement
27:32
Speaker 2: account contribution limits? All these numbers and more included in
27:36
Speaker 2: the Key Numbers for twenty twenty five guide. Remember, once
27:39
Speaker 2: we hit January one can't get it anymore. So how
27:43
Speaker 2: do you request it? Eight hundred three nine three for
27:48
Speaker 2: zero zero one. That is the number to call. You
27:50
Speaker 2: can also go to Armstrong Advisory dot com and request
27:55
Speaker 2: it there. Again, it's the key Numbers for twenty twenty
27:58
Speaker 2: five and you can request it by calling eight hundred
28:00
Speaker 2: three nine three four zero zero one.
28:04
Speaker 1: The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
28:06
Speaker 1: registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
28:09
Speaker 1: Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult
28:12
Speaker 1: your own financial, tax into state planning advisors before making
28:15
Speaker 1: any investment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to offer investment
28:18
Speaker 1: advisory services.
28:19
Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about Netflix and the
28:22
Speaker 2: Christmas Day NFL game?
28:23
Speaker 1: Sure?
28:25
Speaker 2: I got a bone to pick with them, Tuck, did
28:29
Speaker 2: you watch these games?
28:30
Speaker 1: So?
28:30
Speaker 4: The first one I had on in the background, I'm
28:33
Speaker 4: talking about the Chiefs and Steelers game headed on the background,
28:37
Speaker 4: the night game. I literally did not watch a single
28:40
Speaker 4: second of.
28:41
Speaker 2: It from your background watching problems, good things.
28:45
Speaker 4: So I didn't have any issues whatsoever. I know that
28:50
Speaker 4: my dad had some issues trying to pull it up,
28:52
Speaker 4: and I went on Twitter to see if there were
28:54
Speaker 4: any issues, and you saw stuff here and there, but
28:57
Speaker 4: it was nothing to the effect that we saw when
29:00
Speaker 4: not Amazon debut on Thursday Night Football a couple of
29:02
Speaker 4: years ago. But overall it seemed like it was a success.
29:07
Speaker 2: No, seems like it. So Netflix, Uh, they put out
29:11
Speaker 2: a statement like late later late on Christmas, I think
29:14
Speaker 2: was at four PM or something. They said that over
29:17
Speaker 2: two hundred countries tuned in at some point during Chief Steelers,
29:21
Speaker 2: which sounds you know, impressant, impressant, impressive. It should be wow,
29:29
Speaker 2: that's a good one. Impressive. It was impressants. You're right, Chuck,
29:33
Speaker 2: it was very impressant. So they put out, okay, like, yeah,
29:38
Speaker 2: we've we've you know, got two hundred countries that you
29:40
Speaker 2: know watch this. Yeah, there are one hundred and ninety
29:45
Speaker 2: three countries in the world and a couple others that
29:50
Speaker 2: are like city states kind of, So what are we
29:55
Speaker 2: really talking about in terms of, hey, there are one
29:58
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety five reckon countries and Netflix is saying
30:01
Speaker 2: that two hundred countries stream this. Are you just making
30:06
Speaker 2: crap up? Probably because that's what it seems like now.
30:10
Speaker 2: I mean that Night Game, by the way, was awful
30:12
Speaker 2: to be thirty one to two, to be fair in
30:16
Speaker 2: the The International Olympic Committee does say that there are more,
30:21
Speaker 2: but it's again you're getting like micro countries. And by
30:24
Speaker 2: the way, Netflix doesn't actually stream into every country right now,
30:29
Speaker 2: they don't have contracts for distribution in all of them.
30:32
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of feeling a little bit. I'm wondering
30:38
Speaker 2: how much I'm being hoodwinked by Netflix in terms of
30:42
Speaker 2: how popular things are that they're disclosing. I I I
30:49
Speaker 2: don't know that I trust their data that they're telling us,
30:52
Speaker 2: because they told us that more countries watched Netflix than
30:59
Speaker 2: have Netflix contract contracts, and that then there aren't that
31:03
Speaker 2: many countries. There aren't that many something up. So I'm
31:09
Speaker 2: that left a bad taste in my mouth. The game.
31:11
Speaker 2: I watched the first one a little bit kind of
31:13
Speaker 2: in the background. Presentation seem fine in everything.
31:16
Speaker 3: Streaming quality is as I hear better than say Amazons.
31:21
Speaker 2: Yes, seemed absolutely fine. But I'm just trying to figure
31:27
Speaker 2: out what exactly is going on here in terms of
31:32
Speaker 2: you know what, what are these two hundred countries that
31:36
Speaker 2: it was streamed in, because that seems kind of like,
31:39
Speaker 2: you know a lot of countries, and man, I'd like
31:42
Speaker 2: the full list of them from Netflix, at least with
31:45
Speaker 2: some of the data to back it up. Now, because
31:47
Speaker 2: you make a claim like that kind of got to
31:50
Speaker 2: back it up.
31:51
Speaker 3: New Canada.
31:53
Speaker 2: Is that it is that officially recognized?
31:57
Speaker 1: I don't know.
31:57
Speaker 2: I don't either. I don't know that the.
31:59
Speaker 3: Unit is going Trump wants to buy Canada and Newfoundland
32:02
Speaker 3: and Greenland.
32:04
Speaker 2: Excuse me, I mean, look, if if the Canadians actually
32:06
Speaker 2: say like, but that would be that would be a contraction,
32:09
Speaker 2: that would be a merger.
32:10
Speaker 3: I know, I'm chuck.
32:12
Speaker 2: You don't have answer. Gets who gets added to the
32:14
Speaker 2: S and P five hundred if the US buys Canada?
32:18
Speaker 2: Actually really interesting question there. What do you do with
32:22
Speaker 2: market indices if a country buys another one? Actually not
32:26
Speaker 2: a really interesting question because it's not gonna.
32:28
Speaker 3: Think they just get absorbed. Yeah, the Canadian I don't
32:31
Speaker 3: think we'd even notice it. I don't know what the
32:34
Speaker 3: total market cap of Canadian domiciled companies is if ours
32:37
Speaker 3: is about sixty or so trillion. Maybe it's five, maybe
32:41
Speaker 3: it's three trillion.
32:42
Speaker 2: A lot of banks, a lot of energy companies.
32:43
Speaker 3: It's like one day's good performance for our market in churches.
32:46
Speaker 3: In terms of market cap, it's one in video, right,
32:50
Speaker 3: it's like a half an in video.
32:53
Speaker 2: I gotta I gotta look at this. I gotta see
32:55
Speaker 2: what it is. So Canada's market cap.
32:58
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say five trillion, four trillion.
33:00
Speaker 2: It's it's three and a half. Canada's market cap is
33:02
Speaker 2: basically one in video.
33:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, right dropping the bucket. We wouldn't even notice it
33:06
Speaker 3: if we absorbed it.
33:07
Speaker 2: It's wild. Maybe Term's got a point, we'd notice it.
33:11
Speaker 3: We would, you think, three trillions still in the composition
33:14
Speaker 3: of the index. I wonder if they have any how
33:15
Speaker 3: many companies they have that would even make it into
33:17
Speaker 3: the S and P five hundred.
33:18
Speaker 2: I know it's been a couple dozen. I'm twenty five
33:20
Speaker 2: to thirty.
33:20
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, something like that.
33:22
Speaker 2: I don't want to pooh pooh on like I don't.
33:24
Speaker 2: I don't find it.
33:25
Speaker 3: I'm not I have nothing to do with our prowess.
33:27
Speaker 3: I'm just making an observation that we could easily absorb
33:30
Speaker 3: them if that's what the president elect decides to do.
33:34
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be constructive. Chuck, you got to play
33:36
Speaker 3: ball with this regime. Would you don't you want to
33:38
Speaker 3: be on the outs? I don't want to be on
33:40
Speaker 3: the outs. I don't even know sueing everybody.
33:43
Speaker 2: I don't even know if I am the president we're
33:45
Speaker 2: playing ball, How do I know if I'm on the outs?
33:48
Speaker 1: Oh?
33:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know you're gonna get served with. Okay, papers, let's.
33:52
Speaker 2: Take a quick break here. When we come back let's
33:55
Speaker 2: do a little bit of stack roulette.
33:57
Speaker 1: The Financial Exchange Show podcast drops every day on Apple, Spotify,
34:01
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Hit that subscribe button and leave us a
34:04
Speaker 1: five star review. You're listening to the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
34:10
Speaker 4: This segment of The Financial Exchange is brought to you
34:13
Speaker 4: in part by the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism.
34:16
Speaker 4: The US Virgin Islands are Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, and
34:18
Speaker 4: Saint John. With winter here, now is the time to
34:21
Speaker 4: start looking at a fabulous holiday vacation. And there's no
34:24
Speaker 4: better place than the US Virgin Islands. Enjoy perfect weather,
34:27
Speaker 4: world class dining, incredible beaches, and a vibrant nightlife. No
34:31
Speaker 4: passport is needed, and there's no money to exchange. Take
34:34
Speaker 4: your next vacation in America's Caribbean paradise the United States
34:38
Speaker 4: Virgin Islands. Go to visit USVII dot com to book
34:41
Speaker 4: your trip. That's visit USVII dot com.
34:45
Speaker 1: Marke.
34:45
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about nocturism, since we uh
34:49
Speaker 2: teased it. So nocturism is the idea that people next year.
34:54
Speaker 2: Apparently the hot thing is to be traveling to do
34:59
Speaker 2: stuff at night where you're going so stargazing and looking
35:05
Speaker 2: at the Northern lights and stuff like that. Your thoughts, well,
35:11
Speaker 2: I like, not much of an astronomer, I guess no,
35:13
Speaker 2: I own.
35:14
Speaker 3: Like astronomy binoculars. I find it interesting from time to
35:17
Speaker 3: time to look at celestial objects or whatever gets my attention.
35:23
Speaker 3: But you know, the universe hasn't changed much in my lifetime,
35:27
Speaker 3: so after a while it gets old. I guess to
35:29
Speaker 3: experience the northern lights continuously a very high quality, not
35:34
Speaker 3: the little fleeting experience we had here about a month
35:36
Speaker 3: and a half ago, which were cool. Look, I mean,
35:39
Speaker 3: if somebody likes it, chuck, it can be a niche.
35:43
Speaker 2: Sure, it's a I do wonder how much of this
35:47
Speaker 2: stuff is because of social media and being able to
35:51
Speaker 2: like post the cool pictures and stuff. I just I
35:56
Speaker 2: look no further than what's the place in New Hampshire
35:59
Speaker 2: with like the real scenic lake that now has a
36:01
Speaker 2: line like three hours long every fall day in order
36:04
Speaker 2: to come up to it and take the picture of
36:05
Speaker 2: the lake because everyone wants it on Instagram, and it
36:09
Speaker 2: kind of ends up ruining the whole like vibe and everything.
36:13
Speaker 2: And so that's the stuff that kind of bothers. Me
36:15
Speaker 2: is when it gets like over like overrun by people
36:20
Speaker 2: who don't even really want to experience, Like, yes, that's
36:24
Speaker 2: the one. People don't even want to experience, like the
36:26
Speaker 2: culture of the area. They're just like, oh, I just
36:28
Speaker 2: want the picture for Instagram. It's like, well, there's a
36:31
Speaker 2: line of people there, okay, God, yeah, when you die,
36:34
Speaker 2: like you're gonna get to the Pearly Gates, they're gonna
36:37
Speaker 2: be like, well, your Instagram was great, so you qualify,
36:41
Speaker 2: but you left a little bit on the table with
36:43
Speaker 2: your MySpace and your TikTok was awful, so sorry, you're
36:47
Speaker 2: going to the bad place. Like what, Yeah, it's not
36:51
Speaker 2: actually what they say there, but in any case, I
36:55
Speaker 2: guess it. I just wonder how much of this is
36:59
Speaker 2: out of actual curiosity to see these things, and how
37:02
Speaker 2: much of it is because you want.
37:04
Speaker 3: That's actually kind of pathetic, you know, it's kind of sad.
37:08
Speaker 3: Not that I have anything better to do, but that's
37:10
Speaker 3: that's a special I'm.
37:12
Speaker 2: I'm not a para. I'm the least cool hip person
37:16
Speaker 2: out there, but I don't know. I I have my interests,
37:20
Speaker 2: but they're my I don't try to like broadcast, please
37:24
Speaker 2: else you're doing it for you. Well, listen, Mark, as
37:28
Speaker 2: I heard one one day. You know, back in the day,
37:31
Speaker 2: we all got to serve somebody, all right, we all
37:35
Speaker 2: got to serve somebody. We're done for the day. We
37:38
Speaker 2: will catch you tomorrow on the Financial Exchange.