Latest / The Financial Exchange Show / Can markets reverse the typical September drop?
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- 1:04by Veterans Development Corporation. This is the Financial Exchange with
- 1:08Chuck Zatta and Mike Armstrong.
- 1:14Speaker 2: Hope everyone had a great weekend. It's Chuck, Mike and
- 1:17Tucker with you here, kicking off another week on the
- 1:20Financial Exchange. And what better way to kick this week
- 1:26off than with this headline from the Wall Street Journal.
- 1:32September is another is upsided. I blew it up so
- 1:36that the headline sucks so much. September is once again
- 1:40a tough month for stocks, which we can undoubtedly know
- 1:44on September tenth, not even a third of the way
- 1:47through the entire month.
- 1:48Speaker 3: It's only September ninth. No, it's not what's today.
- 1:53Speaker 4: The ninth is the ninth, Yeah, the tenth.
- 1:57Speaker 3: I'm talking to you from the future. In any case,
- 2:01this piece, and by the way, it does because we
- 2:04only had data through the sixth.
- 2:08Speaker 2: Whatever in this piece. Here's why it's so four days.
- 2:13You can't say that the month is down when the
- 2:15month hasn't ended yet. This is just like at the
- 2:19start of this year. And yes, I do keep receipts
- 2:22because the start of this year, do you remember what
- 2:24happened in Market's Michael.
- 2:25Speaker 3: They weren't terribly great.
- 2:27Speaker 2: No, there's two days, right, it was the first three days.
- 2:30The S and P five hundred was down the first
- 2:32three days, and we got the stuff. Hey, when when
- 2:35January is bad, here's what happens to markets. Well, guess what.
- 2:39January ended up being just fine, and the first eight
- 2:43months of the year ended.
- 2:44Speaker 3: Up being just fine.
- 2:46Speaker 2: And it's not to say that the market won't fall
- 2:48apart now, because obviously it could. But we literally literally
- 2:56had one bad week in September, and we're getting the piece. Well,
- 3:00September is a bad month for stocks. It's a four
- 3:03day week.
- 3:04Speaker 3: It was a four day week, you know.
- 3:07Speaker 2: And look, don't get me wrong, last week, worst week
- 3:10in eighteen months, worst week in eighteen months, very bearish.
- 3:13Just the way everything traded where it was, Hey, we
- 3:15opened up to start the day and then puked every
- 3:18single day. Reminded me a ton of September twenty twenty one,
- 3:21which was an awful month for stocks. But you don't
- 3:25get to write this. September is once again a tough
- 3:28month for stocks. Piece on September ninth, not tenth, thank
- 3:33you very much. I mean, what are we doing here, Michael.
- 3:39Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, there's just way better ways to describe what's
- 3:43happened so far. It was a tough last week for stocks.
- 3:47They were down, like we said, four point two percent,
- 3:50and unlike I don't know, unlike a few of the
- 3:52other ones where you just rip the band aid off.
- 3:54It was like you described this slow and steady slog,
- 3:57not you know, there were big days right Friday, marks
- 4:00were off by one point seven percent I think it
- 4:02was after being.
- 4:02Speaker 2: Up twenty point after being up, you know, almost half
- 4:04a percent on the S and P five hundred to
- 4:06start right.
- 4:07Speaker 3: So it is this just volatile and annoying slot, but
- 4:09it is just way too early to call it. But
- 4:11what I do continue to find interesting, and we've talked
- 4:14about this at length, is the fact that you know,
- 4:16September is pretty notorious and almost no matter which way
- 4:20you cut the data has been pretty bad for stocks
- 4:23on average, and even taking out some of the worst
- 4:26Septembers for stocks, it's still a pretty bad month on
- 4:28average for stocks. And it's one of those that I
- 4:31was talking with macaon this morning about this. It's pretty
- 4:35tough to put your finger on why, right, the only
- 4:37compelling thing that I can possibly come up with is
- 4:40the old sell in May and go away. Psychology still
- 4:43playing a role here where everyone's back to it, kids
- 4:46going to school and things like that, And I don't
- 4:48know how true that really drives for me. But it's
- 4:51also not just an America focused thing. This occurs in
- 4:55Japanese markets and European markets in many cases. And so
- 4:59it has been it's been a bad first four days
- 5:04for September, but that just tells you nothing. And facts
- 5:08and evidence like check point to two is terrible first
- 5:11three days in January and had you written off the
- 5:14year because of it wasn't great. And also even let's
- 5:18even say that September does finish the year or finish
- 5:21the month poorly, does it tell you anything about the
- 5:24direction of stocks for the next three months? No, or
- 5:27twelve months, no or five years. No. Nothing.
- 5:31Speaker 2: Also a statistic in here the index ended lower fifty
- 5:36six percent of the time over the stretch of September,
- 5:39according to Dow Jones market data. This is talking about
- 5:41the S and P five hundred. Like, okay, so the
- 5:43S and P five hundreds down fifty six percent of
- 5:45months that it happened that September happens in so coin flip,
- 5:50it's basically a coin flip. And do you know what
- 5:52if you will get the broader distribution of S and
- 5:54P five hundred returns over one month timeframes. This is
- 5:57from data from uh Don't Quit your Day Job. The
- 6:00S and P five hundred normally over all months, not
- 6:03just September, it's up sixty percent of the time. So
- 6:08four and ten normally are negative in septembers, it's like
- 6:15five and a half out of ten.
- 6:17Speaker 3: Still significantly different, and it is interesting, but it's not
- 6:21like you normally. It's not like normally. Hey, markets are
- 6:23only down ten percent of the time, and September.
- 6:25Speaker 2: Is the only no like there's something here, But again,
- 6:29let's let's actually get through September before we say that
- 6:32this one is chalked up to the negative side of things,
- 6:36because for all we know, we could go through the
- 6:40next three weeks the exact same way that we went
- 6:44through the last three weeks of August and end up
- 6:47right back within a quarter percent of an all time high.
- 6:51We know this is possible because it's exactly what happened
- 6:54in August. And I'm not saying it will or won't happen,
- 6:58but stop writing the pieces about how bad September is
- 7:01before September is even a third of the way done.
- 7:05That's just lazy and not good. It's bad. It's bad
- 7:14now it's on the floor.
- 7:16Speaker 1: Uh.
- 7:17Speaker 3: Also, let's see, this is something.
- 7:19Speaker 2: That I think is a much more interesting conversation, which is, hey,
- 7:22you've had this this bull market going on for the
- 7:24last two years now. Remember we went into bear market
- 7:26territory in twenty twenty two, yep, and bottomed in October
- 7:31of twenty twenty two. Another interesting but kind of useless stat.
- 7:36More bull markets have started in October than any other
- 7:40month for the S and P five hundred.
- 7:44Speaker 3: I guess speaks to the bad September.
- 7:46Speaker 2: Maybe, but October again, like there have been let me
- 7:50let me pull the exact stat just because it's it's
- 7:53it's actually a really it's kind of a cool, if
- 7:56not you know, somewhat useless one because again it's like, okay,
- 7:59what do I do I actually do with this? But
- 8:02when you look at the distribution of here we go,
- 8:06h since World War Two, there have been sixty one
- 8:12rallies of ten percent or more in the S and
- 8:15P five hundred and like like where they've continued on
- 8:19before like a bear market is eventually hit or whatever
- 8:23sixty one of them. This is data from Bespoke via
- 8:28Market Tear Market Tier. I don't know one of the
- 8:32two sixty one of these of the sixty one that
- 8:35have happened since World War two nineteen have started during
- 8:38the month of October. The next closest is March, with
- 8:42ten of them.
- 8:43Speaker 3: Okay, again, I don't know what to do with any
- 8:46of that information. No, is it happening this way because
- 8:49markets are on average crappier during September and so hit
- 8:52a bottom. Is it happening this way because there's something
- 8:55unique about October, useless and really no way to take
- 8:59advantage of it either. Correct.
- 9:01Speaker 2: But you've got this piece here from CNBC. It's titled
- 9:04bull Market limps into to Your Birthday with soft economic
- 9:06landing in doubt and stock leaders failing, And this I
- 9:09think is actually a good look at where things are
- 9:12right now, which is, Hey, the economy is clearly slowing
- 9:16right now. There are some real serious recession concerns that
- 9:21are out there, even though you still have not really
- 9:23gotten enough economic data to point in either direction. And
- 9:27we're not sure how the next three to six months
- 9:30are going to play out because there are three distinct
- 9:34possibilities that you could have here. The first is recession,
- 9:38which would be not great for the economy obviously, and
- 9:41not great for stocks historically as well. But even in recessions,
- 9:45the track record for stocks is mixed. It's not just
- 9:49recession hits and everything goes down. That's modern recessions, but
- 9:54not all of them in the last fifty years. Other possibility, Hey,
- 9:58what if this was just a growth scare and now
- 10:00we kind of continue to limp back along at you know,
- 10:04one and a half percent GDP from here, and the
- 10:06economy looks an awful lot like it did in twenty fifteen,
- 10:10twenty sixteen. That's possible, like we could see that.
- 10:15Speaker 3: Yep.
- 10:16Speaker 2: Third possibility, Hey, we have a rebound just like we
- 10:19did in Q four of last year, and you get
- 10:22back up to like high twos in GDP growth and
- 10:25the economy starts cranking again. Seems a little bit more
- 10:29unlikely than last year, given what we're seeing with the
- 10:32overall you know, tenor of the economic data, but it's
- 10:35also possible because we literally saw it a year ago.
- 10:38Speaker 3: And by the way, there's evidence to support any and
- 10:41all of those arguments.
- 10:42Speaker 2: I don't know that there's that much out there right
- 10:44now that the last one is not as much.
- 10:46Speaker 3: There's nothing I'm.
- 10:46Speaker 2: Seeing right now that's like, hey, the economy is recelerating, right,
- 10:49but there is some data out there that is like, hey,
- 10:53the economy could just be entering a slow patch as
- 10:56opposed to a recession.
- 10:59Speaker 3: Again, you know, you have seen an uptick in unemployment,
- 11:02but it leveled out last month. You haven't seen an
- 11:05uptick in layoffs. You haven't seen a massive drop off
- 11:10and setting like lots of different items here point to
- 11:13one direction or another, and maybe a back leverage being
- 11:18another one. So you know, you've got Janet yelling out there,
- 11:20for instance, touting all the ones that look like a
- 11:23soft landing. You've got many others tighting the ones that
- 11:25look like a recession. And honestly, I don't think anybody
- 11:30actually knows where we're going.
- 11:31Speaker 2: No, No, take a quick break here. When we come back,
- 11:35talk a little bit about what we're seeing from the
- 11:38bond market as a result of this economic slowness.
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- 12:07Speaker 4: The Financial Exchange is a proud partner of the Disabled
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- 12:43Veterans Development Corporation Micha.
- 12:45Speaker 2: Let's talk about this piece from Bloomberg and specifically, bonds
- 12:50in general have had a nice little run recently. Ten
- 12:53year treasury if you take a look at where it
- 12:55has gone since really late April was it about four
- 12:59point seven percent. Today it's at three point seven and change.
- 13:02And so you've seen long term yields come down about
- 13:05a full percentage point over the last four months here.
- 13:09And the question that this Bloomberg piece is trying to
- 13:12answer is, look, what's the path forward for bond specifically
- 13:16kind of longer term bonds. And the answer that they
- 13:19come up with is, well, it's gonna be determined by
- 13:21how fast the.
- 13:22Speaker 3: Fed cuts rates. Is that a viable argument. It's tough
- 13:28to envision a scenario where bonds make a ton of
- 13:30money otherwise. But yeah, if rates come down, typically bonds
- 13:37go up and may continue to rally. I'll remind folks who,
- 13:42you know, haven't been studying the bond market, like most
- 13:46people don't. It's not exactly something that they talk about
- 13:48on CNBC and Bloomberg every day. But we are still
- 13:51in the United States, you know, in terms of the
- 13:54overall price level of the whole bond market, the index
- 13:57of the tracks it, I think we're still a good
- 13:58fifteen percent off of the all time highs that were
- 14:01reached back in twenty twenty. And that's because rates moved
- 14:03up substantially. You've been paid your interest as time goes
- 14:06on here, So maybe you've broken even or come close
- 14:09to doing so at this stage. But that's I mean,
- 14:14how else would we get to a point where bonds
- 14:16are making a tremendous amount of money. No rates would
- 14:20need to come down, which probably isn't something to wish for,
- 14:25right If rates come down dramatically over the next year
- 14:29or two, there's really only one reason that that happens recession.
- 14:33By the way, you don't see rates, at least in
- 14:37my perspective, coming down from where we are now five
- 14:40and a half percent on the Fed funds rate down
- 14:42to like one unless we have a pretty dire period
- 14:47of unemployment.
- 14:48Speaker 2: So interestingly, when you take a look at cutting cycles
- 14:52and what happens to the long end of the curve,
- 14:56there aren't really great facts and evidence supporting that cutting
- 15:00cycles meaningfully sure move the long end once the Fed
- 15:05starts cutting. And the reason why is, hey, once the
- 15:07Fed starts cutting, we're kind of usually in a situation
- 15:10like we are today, which is everyone has front run
- 15:13it for the last few months, and so there might
- 15:17be some wiggle room, but there's no clear directional trend.
- 15:21Two yields once you end up seeing a recession actually
- 15:25occur and a cutting cycle occur. Just as an example,
- 15:30I'm just pulling it up right now, just so that
- 15:31I can get the get all of the.
- 15:36Speaker 3: The numbers on this.
- 15:37Speaker 2: But I just want to have everything in front of
- 15:41me right now, and unfortunately I don't well, I.
- 15:43Speaker 3: Mean to speak to this more. Particularly, the FED has
- 15:46not moved rates at all over the last twelve months.
- 15:49Correct me if I'm wrong. Twelve months.
- 15:53Speaker 2: Yeah, the last hike was the spring of last year. Okay,
- 15:55so they haven't moved rates in twelve months. In October
- 15:58of twenty twenty three, you had rates pressing up on
- 16:00the ten year treasury. There we go up at five percent.
- 16:03You're now sitting at under three seven five.
- 16:06Speaker 3: The Fed has done nothing on rates that has been
- 16:09in a move that has entirely been dictated by investors
- 16:12piling into those bonds and driving rates lower on the
- 16:15anticipation of trouble to come.
- 16:17Speaker 2: So there have been seven real recessions since since the
- 16:21nineteen sixties. I don't include twenty twenty because it was
- 16:24sure it lasted for like a week and a half
- 16:26uh sixty nine. The ten year treasury at the outside
- 16:30of that was at seven point eight eight percent. When
- 16:32it concluded, it was at seven point thirty three slight
- 16:35moved down by about a half percent. UH the seventy
- 16:39three seventy four recession tenures started at six seven to one.
- 16:42When the recession ended, it was at seven four to six.
- 16:46Moved up by one percent. Get high inflation environment UH
- 16:50seventy nine, seventy nine SLAST eighty tenures started at ten
- 16:54point three to three percent. By the time it concluded,
- 16:56it was a ten point h nine no real movement.
- 16:59UH eighty one ten years started at fourteen point six seven.
- 17:03It finished at eleven point seven to three, so meaningful
- 17:08downward move there, but that.
- 17:09Speaker 3: Was also his inflation peaked.
- 17:11Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety tenure started at eight three six, It finished
- 17:16at eight oh two. Moved down a few tenths of
- 17:19a percent. Two thousand, two thousand and one ten years
- 17:23started at four nine three. It finished at four seven eight.
- 17:29No and again in the middle. It might wiggle, but
- 17:32I'm just saying start to finish on a recession. The
- 17:36Great Financial Crisis tenures started at four to oh four.
- 17:40It finished at three four seven, down half a percent.
- 17:44So the tenure has already come down one percent in
- 17:46the last four months.
- 17:48Speaker 3: What's the likelihood that it crazy? Wait, where's the juice
- 17:50from here?
- 17:51Speaker 2: Is the question that you have to ask, And the
- 17:53answer is, Look, the cutting is going to have to
- 17:56be steeper than we than is currently projected, So you're
- 17:59gonna have have deep cuts that then probably also need
- 18:02to stay down for longer. You wouldn't expect to see
- 18:06if you have a fast recovery, Well, the ten year
- 18:09is going to recover with it in terms of yield,
- 18:11not in terms of price where you see the selloff.
- 18:14So yeah, there's a chance that you end up seeing
- 18:17further downward movement in the tenure. I fully acknowledged possible.
- 18:21But you also have to remember that just because the
- 18:23Fed starts cutting interest rates, it doesn't mean that anything
- 18:26actually happens to the long end of the curve, and
- 18:28a lot of that is typically front run by people
- 18:31who know that, hey, when cutting happens, all rates tend.
- 18:34Speaker 3: To move a little bit. Yeah, I'd be interested too
- 18:35in the intra recession moves. You remember eight It sticks
- 18:39in your mind, right, and the period oh eight where
- 18:42sticks in the back of my mind for me at least,
- 18:45is everybody thought the financial world was coming to ruin
- 18:49and piled into ten year treasuries at one point. Yes,
- 18:52and they probably, you know, by the time we got
- 18:54out of that recession, Yeah, they probably bounce back a
- 18:57little bit on anticipation and reality checking that oh yeah,
- 19:00the federal government is going to step in here and
- 19:02support things.
- 19:03Speaker 2: Yeah, the tenure gout is low, as to to two
- 19:05before bouncing back to three five before the end of
- 19:07that recession. But again, things like things had to look
- 19:12really dire.
- 19:13Speaker 3: For that to happen, Right, You have to ask yourself, like,
- 19:15are we heading for a moment in time where people
- 19:17start to question the viability of the entire US banking system? Again?
- 19:22I hope not, because that would be a really tough day.
- 19:26I wouldn't enjoy it. Let's take a quick break here.
- 19:29Speaker 2: When we come back, we got Wall Street Watch, and
- 19:31now let's talk China after this.
- 19:41Speaker 1: Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
- 19:44TFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
- 19:48on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall
- 19:54Street Watch, a complete look at what's moving markets so
- 19:57far today right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
- 20:01Speaker 4: Well after a tough week where a trader saw the
- 20:03S and P five hundred cent four point three percent.
- 20:06Markets today are beginning the week in positive territory, with
- 20:09a key inflation reading on deck this coming Wednesday. Right now,
- 20:13the Dow is up by about one percent, or three
- 20:15hundred and eighty one points, SMP five hundred is up
- 20:19three quarters of a percent or thirty nine points, and
- 20:21the Nasdaq is up by two thirds of a percent.
- 20:24Russell two thousand is up by about one percent as well.
- 20:27Ten year treasure Reeled is flat at three points seven
- 20:30to one percent, and crude oil up over half a percent,
- 20:33trading just above sixty eight dollars a barrel. Boeing up
- 20:38by four percent after the aircraft maker reached a deal
- 20:41over the weekend with a union that represents its factory workers,
- 20:44avoiding a potentially costly strike. The deal includes twenty five
- 20:48percent wage increases over four years for the union that
- 20:51represents more than thirty thousand workers in Boeing's factories. Meanwhile,
- 20:55Planter Technologies and Dell Technologies will join the S and
- 20:59P five hundred index this month, sending shares in both
- 21:02companies up twelve percent and about five percent, respectively. Polanta
- 21:06will replace American Airlines and Dell will replace Etsy in
- 21:11the index. Elsewhere, Merk down by about one and a
- 21:14half percent after competitors Summit Therapeutics announce phase three trial
- 21:18results for a lung cancer drug. Some It said that
- 21:21its product achieved quote a clinically meaningful benefit compared to
- 21:25Merk's ki Truda. Summitch shares are I don't have them
- 21:30in front of me right now. I will pull them
- 21:31up momentarily. According to the Financial Times, Apple will use
- 21:35Armholding's AI chip technology in the iPhone sixteen. Shares in
- 21:42Armor up by four percent. And speaking of Apple, the
- 21:46tech giant will hold their product event later this afternoon
- 21:50at one o'clock where the company will unveil a new
- 21:53generation of iPhones and will promote its new AI feature,
- 21:57Apple Intelligence as a main selling point. By the way,
- 22:02Apple stock is down by one percent, its Summit is
- 22:06up by sixty five percent. On that news I mentioned earlier,
- 22:09I'm Tucker Silva and that's Wall Street watch.
- 22:12Speaker 2: China's troubles are hitting home for US companies. That is
- 22:17the premise of a piece in Barrens over the weekend.
- 22:20And what it's talking about is that for kind of
- 22:24the last thirty years. Since the early nineteen nineties, there
- 22:27have been two major ways that US companies have made
- 22:32China part of their operations. In some cases, it is
- 22:35using it as a factory for producing products that are
- 22:40exported back to the United States think board games, socks,
- 22:44things along those lines.
- 22:45Speaker 3: iPhones.
- 22:46Speaker 2: That was gonna be my Well, there's another case I
- 22:48was going with there because the other reason is, hey,
- 22:52you want access to China's billion plus people and being
- 22:55able to sell into that market. And some companies like
- 22:58Apple combine them and sure do both. Hey we're first
- 23:00gonna make phones over there, We're gonna sell them here,
- 23:02and then we're gonna tap that market afterwards. What we're
- 23:06seeing right now is that the Chinese economy is stagnant.
- 23:13Speaker 3: I think is the stagnant are shrinking shrinkingly stagnant? The
- 23:19answer is, we don't know, but it's certainly not growing,
- 23:22and it's certainly not growing as robustly as it did
- 23:24for the last thirty years.
- 23:25Speaker 2: The premise of investing in China before, when you wanted
- 23:28to sell into that market was, hey, there are a
- 23:31billion people here.
- 23:33Speaker 3: Many of them are not.
- 23:36Speaker 2: You know, living in cities or with access to modern
- 23:39technology and watch what happens as the society modernizes and
- 23:43people become spenders instead of savers. And that was the
- 23:46whole premise of the last thirty years. And by the way,
- 23:49American companies made a boatload of money on that premise.
- 23:52It was a very successful one for them to operate it.
- 23:54There's always a trade off. But yeah, you have to
- 23:57deal with an authoritarian regime that controls what you say,
- 24:01do act in so.
- 24:02Speaker 3: On and so forth. And should you be successful, the
- 24:05said authoritarian regime is going to do everything in its
- 24:07power to try and build a homegrown company to compete
- 24:11directly with you.
- 24:11Speaker 2: Yes, what we're seeing now is that the growth story
- 24:17in China doesn't exist anymore. It's not that it's damaged,
- 24:21it's gone quite honestly. The population may or may not
- 24:26be shrinking from year to year, the workforce is on
- 24:31the verge of shrinking from year to year. And spending
- 24:36from Chinese households has kind of gone in the toilet
- 24:41since the pandemic broke out. And so if you are
- 24:46an American company that is trying to sell into China
- 24:50right now.
- 24:52Speaker 3: You have the pros that you used to list.
- 24:54Speaker 2: Hey, that the growth rate of you know, the overall
- 24:56economies fast that we can sell into this, and there's
- 24:58a lot of growth potential w all these people. Well
- 25:02if you don't have that, but you have to deal
- 25:04with an authoritarian regime that's going to favor homegrown companies
- 25:08that may or may not copy your products. Eventually, you
- 25:12kind of sit there and you're like, what am I
- 25:14doing here?
- 25:15Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a difference here. It is still,
- 25:19by any stretch, a massively interesting market to try and
- 25:24sell to, because, plain and simple, there's billions of people.
- 25:28And you know, I've heard this spoken about on Shark Tank,
- 25:32like being able to say that, oh, if I just
- 25:34sold my product to one percent of Chinese consumers is
- 25:36the worst possible sales point you could make, because yeah, horrible,
- 25:39no means of doing so. But it is still a
- 25:43market that I think many companies will be attracted to.
- 25:46The problem is more for those who have been doing
- 25:49business in China for decades and are now needing to
- 25:53really revise their expectations for what the hell happens next
- 25:57you speak to Marriott, Starbucks, General Mode, any of these
- 26:00companies who have kind of jumped in hook line and
- 26:04Sinker and I think there are some that are going
- 26:08to be doing you know, better than others in this space.
- 26:10But you know, auto industry would be you know, the
- 26:14one that I would point towards where General Motors, I
- 26:16don't know what future you have in selling cars in China.
- 26:21They can make them significantly cheaper and quite honestly these
- 26:25days they're making them better.
- 26:29Speaker 2: That's reserve judgment there, fair companies have been around for
- 26:33a year. Let's see how the cars hold up for
- 26:35a couple of years before we say they're.
- 26:36Speaker 3: Making them better. So like we will see where all
- 26:40that lands. But you know, what is the case for
- 26:44someone in China picking a General Motors vehicle over a
- 26:48domestic manufactured one. It's tough to see other than maybe
- 26:51like a Cadillac. There there are certain areas that, you know,
- 26:55because there are billions of people and some of them
- 26:57are quite wealthy, that there could be some traction to
- 27:00driving some of these luxury brands. But and same goes
- 27:03for Starbucks and same goes for Marriott. But that wasn't
- 27:06the story of those companies. The story of those companies
- 27:08was look how fast this sales growth is going to
- 27:11happen here? And that story is dead.
- 27:14Speaker 2: Speaking of Starbucks, they've got a new CEO, Brian Nickel
- 27:19is taking he's doing a ceremonial first sip of coffee
- 27:23this morning as he reports to work.
- 27:29Speaker 3: Honest, I keep forgetting that he's commuting.
- 27:32Speaker 2: He's commuting on a corporate jet to Starbucks Seattle offices.
- 27:37I think he's gonna be there. It sounds like a
- 27:38couple of weeks out of each month. So where is
- 27:41the ceremonial cup then? Because I don't know about Brian,
- 27:44but if I don't have my cup of coffee within
- 27:46the first hour of waking, then I hope it's not
- 27:49gonna be very pleasant to be around. I hope it's
- 27:51not on the plane because a there can be some
- 27:52turbulence and you could spill a little, but be your taste,
- 27:56Bud's totally changed when you're at that surtitude. It doesn't
- 27:59taste the same, which what they have to see an
- 28:00airplane food differently, And if you ever try it at
- 28:04ground level, it's even worse than it is thirty thousand
- 28:07feet in the air.
- 28:09Speaker 3: I digress.
- 28:10Speaker 2: Indeed, Brian Nickel, I think this is going to be
- 28:13a really interesting case here because it's kind of in
- 28:19one sense, it's right up his alley because he went
- 28:21to Chipotle when Chipotle was having all kinds of problems
- 28:24with their brand and image and not getting people horribly
- 28:27sick for meeting burritos, and he made us forget about
- 28:31that and instead complain about the high cost of guac
- 28:34while making the company really successful. Might I add, yep,
- 28:38he now goes to a company in Starbucks that doesn't have,
- 28:41you know, the same kind of issues because there aren't
- 28:44like a ton of people throwing up from drinking Starbucks.
- 28:47There just aren't a ton of people on the margins
- 28:51that are going there. That the sales is kind of plateaued,
- 28:55and internally the culture seems a little bit broken because
- 29:00you've had there have been all these problems with their
- 29:02mobile platform, from hey, we can't get enough mobile orders too,
- 29:06Hey we got two hundred mobile orders that are due
- 29:08at the same time and we can't possibly produce all
- 29:10these and people are just waiting around getting angry in
- 29:12our stores.
- 29:13Speaker 3: And then what was the other what's the number of
- 29:16combinations that you can possibly order on the Starbucks app.
- 29:19It's it's some crazy number. And so they have a
- 29:24little bit of a logistics problem. They clearly have a
- 29:26growth and demand problem. They have a bit of a
- 29:28labor problem and there and okay, another problem. You've had
- 29:34four CEOs in five years, So yes, you have a
- 29:37leadership problem too, and so.
- 29:39Speaker 2: And also every time that Howard Schultz has left the company,
- 29:41they've performed horribly, right, And so.
- 29:44Speaker 4: I'll add a menu innovation as well.
- 29:47Speaker 3: To that menu innovation.
- 29:49Speaker 4: Yeah, like the olive oil coffee drink, Like what oliato?
- 29:54Remember that one?
- 29:54Speaker 3: I do? I tried it?
- 29:57Speaker 4: Yeah, have you had it again?
- 29:58Speaker 3: No? Okay?
- 30:00Speaker 4: And the food is just really hasn't changed much at all.
- 30:04Speaker 3: The food at all those places isn't good. What are
- 30:07all those places?
- 30:08Speaker 2: Any place that is coffee focused?
- 30:10Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean dunks isn't good, like.
- 30:12Speaker 4: The McDonald's dunks.
- 30:14Speaker 2: But none of them is great. Like, yeah, you know,
- 30:17you're kind of underwhelmed by it.
- 30:19Speaker 3: Got a one hundred people and south the accents saying
- 30:23you better hold your tongue chuck insulting dunkin donuts here, and.
- 30:27Speaker 2: How many people are gonna be like yeah, I'll die
- 30:29on the hill of the dunk and bagel Like, yeah,
- 30:31I hear you.
- 30:32Speaker 3: So they face a lot of challenges Interestingly, what I
- 30:36keep hearing about are the logistics problems, the labor problems.
- 30:39I hear nothing about what is a massive one, which
- 30:42is China. Like, there's no I can see how they're
- 30:47prepping to address some of the labor issues, some of
- 30:50the logistics issues. Maybe they're going to slim down their
- 30:52menu and say you can't do this, or if you
- 30:54do it, it's gonna have a search charge like that.
- 30:56They think they're coming up with ways in the background
- 30:59to deal with some of the problems that we're hearing about.
- 31:02But quite honestly, nobody's talking about the fact that they
- 31:04have a massive presence in China that's being undercut by
- 31:10Luck and Coffee, as well as being undercut by a
- 31:15consumer that just doesn't have the money to spend on
- 31:17their product.
- 31:18Speaker 2: Completely forgot about Luck and Coffee.
- 31:21Speaker 3: Have we figured out off a bunch of investors figured
- 31:23out if they stopped frauding kept limping along. Well, that's
- 31:27the important part to understand about any company doing business
- 31:30in China is no, you have no idea.
- 31:32Speaker 2: We don't know like we we didn't, we don't know now.
- 31:36So it's hard to say. The other piece on Starbucks
- 31:40and maybe This is just my perception. I'm not a
- 31:42coffee drinker, so I don't know how it like how
- 31:46it all plays out. It feels like when they were,
- 31:48you know, coming up in the nineties and early two thousands,
- 31:52they had this positioning as this this premium brand, and
- 31:55they still have the pricing as the premium brand today.
- 31:58But doesn't it feel like I don't know if it's
- 32:01just me, but doesn't it feel like some of these
- 32:04struggles and how like the service has kind of gone
- 32:07downhill because of the mobile app. Doesn't it almost feel
- 32:11like they're not delivering on the premium ness that they
- 32:15need to or am I just making that up?
- 32:17Speaker 3: And I'm not a coffee drink no start what I'm
- 32:19talking about.
- 32:20Speaker 4: I think absolutely fair.
- 32:21Speaker 3: What is it that's deteriorated the brand? I mean, certainly
- 32:23there's more competition out there from from many other more
- 32:26local startups that are doing this. There's no national chain
- 32:30that I think competes with them, and it's more that
- 32:33out premium Starbucks. So I don't think that's an issue.
- 32:35Speaker 2: But I mean, you carry the Starbucks cup as a
- 32:38status symbol.
- 32:41Speaker 3: Is it still that? Is it still that? I'm not
- 32:45sure that it's so Apple. I think of it as
- 32:47a status symbol in that way. I'm not sure that
- 32:49I think about Starbucks in the same way I think
- 32:51it was, though I think it contributed.
- 32:54Speaker 4: It definitely was a few years ago, and now it's
- 32:57just like Starbucks and Donks are the same thing pretty much.
- 33:00I just go to Dunks because it's cheaper.
- 33:03Speaker 3: See, I'm not sure I land there. I think there's
- 33:05plenty I'm not one of them, but I think there's
- 33:07plenty of people that will tell you, no, the coffee
- 33:09at Dunks does not even come close to competing with Starbucks.
- 33:12And I'll go to Starbucks all day. And then there's
- 33:14others that say, like myself, that no, for what I'm ordering,
- 33:17there's no difference and I don't care. So I think
- 33:21they still have that, but I think it has been undercut.
- 33:23And I'm not sure what has led to that undercutting,
- 33:25other than just existing and expanding this much. Let's take
- 33:28a quick break here.
- 33:29Speaker 2: When we come back, we'll give a little bit more
- 33:31detail on Boeing reaching a deal with their union workers.
- 33:35Speaker 3: Right after this.
- 33:37Speaker 1: Business and financial news affecting the markets and your wallet.
- 33:41We've got it all straight from Wall Street right here
- 33:44on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The Financial Exchange streams
- 33:48live on YouTube. Like our page and stay up to
- 33:52date on breaking business news all morning long. This is
- 33:55the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
- 34:07Speaker 3: All right.
- 34:08Speaker 2: So, Boeing over the weekend yesterday actually reached a tentative
- 34:13deal for a new contract with their unionized workers. Remember,
- 34:17not all Boeing workers are unionized workers. It's part of
- 34:21the reason why they have their South Carolina facility which
- 34:24explicitly does not require unionization and does not have a
- 34:27union to the best of my knowledge, even and.
- 34:30Speaker 3: What the proposal looks like.
- 34:32Speaker 2: It's a four year contract and it would have a
- 34:35twenty five percent cumulative rais during that time, So it
- 34:40works out to about a six percent bump in salaries
- 34:43each year of the four year contract, and that is
- 34:46lower than the forty percent bump that the union had
- 34:49been looking for. But I think that was a negotiating tactic.
- 34:53They didn't think they were actually going to get forty
- 34:55percent over four years. And there are also a few
- 34:58improvements to healthcare and retire benefits, and a promise that
- 35:02the company will build their next commercial airplane in their
- 35:06Seattle and Portland locations, not in South Carolina.
- 35:10Speaker 3: Which is interesting but not actually binding because they're not
- 35:14going to have a new airplane by the end of
- 35:16twenty twenty eight.
- 35:16Speaker 2: Correct, it won't be coming up during this contract.
- 35:18Speaker 3: But it's symbolic of something and seems like a verbal
- 35:20commitment to that. You know, if they backtrack on it
- 35:25wouldn't be a great look. This might be the first
- 35:27piece of good news that I can think about for
- 35:29Boeing in quite some time.
- 35:30Speaker 2: At least they're not going to have a labor issue. Yeah,
- 35:32and they have costs you know, that are kind of
- 35:34set in stone now.
- 35:35Speaker 3: They do have to vote on this, by the way,
- 35:37this is not voted in correct.
- 35:39Speaker 2: The piece that is interesting to me this is a
- 35:42big bump in pay at a time where wage growth
- 35:46is slowing. So I can see this is a pretty
- 35:48big win for the union given where we are in
- 35:50the business cycle right now.
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- 36:58Speaker 2: Amazon wants your palm and TA wants your face. That's
- 37:01the headline from the Wall Street Journal. The question that
- 37:04I raised then is who's getting my belly button? But
- 37:07in any I don know, right, Yeah, real problem in
- 37:10any case. This is talking about the proliferation of biometrics
- 37:14into security procedures for a whole host of different things,
- 37:20anything from going through you're checking at the airport to
- 37:24paying for your groceries at Amazon. And how is that
- 37:27information going to be safeguarded? How are we going to
- 37:30make sure that no one you know, has the scan
- 37:33of your iris or your palm or something like that
- 37:35to be able to do whatever it is you're supposed
- 37:38to do. And in a world where hey, ultimately it
- 37:41might be a huge pain, but you could change your
- 37:43Social Security number, you can't change your palm.
- 37:47Speaker 3: Yeah, I won't see any reason to give Amazon my palm. Like,
- 37:51so you can save me that extra six seconds it
- 37:54takes me to take my phone out and tap it
- 37:56on your device. I'm good TSA taking my face. They
- 38:00already have it. That's kind of my point is, like,
- 38:03you know, I'm on every camera in the airport. Have
- 38:05you heard of a driver's license? Watch out, folks. I
- 38:08mean I might be more willing to do that one
- 38:11if they offer me some benefit to it. I suppose
- 38:14maybe a donut. Actually, they require a picture of my
- 38:16face when I get into your TSA. This is already
- 38:18done quick break here.
- 38:20Speaker 2: Hour two coming up in a bit