Latest / The Financial Exchange Show / Will the US jobs market rebound?

Transcript

Will the US jobs market rebound? · 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 Mike Armstrong, your exclusive look
0:39
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 dot com and making
1:00
Speaker 1: a donation today. The DAV five K Boston is presented
1:04
Speaker 1: by Veterans Development Corporation. This is the Financial Exchange with
1:08
Speaker 1: Chuck Zatta and Mike Armstrong.
1:12
Speaker 2: Kicking off.
1:13
Speaker 3: Our two of the Financial Exchange is Chuck, Mike and
1:16
Speaker 3: Tucker with it. And stocks are look, most stocks not
1:21
Speaker 3: doing well today, but a small few are lifting the
1:24
Speaker 3: S and P five hundred. So the Dow is off
1:26
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy four points, the S and P
1:29
Speaker 3: is up five points right now. It's largely being driven
1:34
Speaker 3: by Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Google, and Meta that are
1:37
Speaker 3: all up north of one percent, between one and three percent.
1:41
Speaker 3: The vast majority of stocks though, currently down in the
1:45
Speaker 3: S and P five hundred. Right now, I'm seeing two
1:48
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty four more stocks down than up in
1:51
Speaker 3: the S and P five hundred, So again just tells
1:54
Speaker 3: you that, hey, that the broad index is not you
1:57
Speaker 3: know what's You're not seeing a broad based rally today.
1:59
Speaker 3: It's a few companies that are driving the returns. And
2:03
Speaker 3: because those companies are tech, you're seeing the Nasdaq up
2:06
Speaker 3: point eighty three percent. So tech leadership kind of taking
2:10
Speaker 3: the rains today. Even though, as we discussed in our one,
2:14
Speaker 3: the last five months that we've seen in markets, tech
2:17
Speaker 3: has actually been one of the worst performing sectors in
2:20
Speaker 3: the S and P five hundred. So we'll see if
2:21
Speaker 3: this is just a one day interruption or if it
2:24
Speaker 3: starts to kick off something new here. But overall tech
2:27
Speaker 3: doing well today, everything else kind of saying, eh, we
2:30
Speaker 3: don't we don't really enjoy this. Bonds tenure treasury is
2:33
Speaker 3: up one point seven basis points to four point two
2:35
Speaker 3: to one one percent. That tenure treasury has come down
2:39
Speaker 3: about a quarter percent over the last several weeks here,
2:43
Speaker 3: so you've got a little bit of downward momentum on
2:45
Speaker 3: that side of things. Oil West Texas Intermediate up fifty
2:49
Speaker 3: one cents a barrel to sixty eight to fifty one.
2:51
Speaker 3: We've just been chopping around that high sixties range for
2:53
Speaker 3: a while, but Mike, we got some renewed downward movement
2:58
Speaker 3: in national gas prices another four tenths of a cent
3:00
Speaker 3: downto three oh four and seven tenths, so we're still
3:04
Speaker 3: knocking on the door of that three dollars national average.
3:07
Speaker 3: Might be able to get there by the end of
3:09
Speaker 3: the year, but we've kind of had trouble getting over
3:11
Speaker 3: the finish line in recent months. And Gold to Day
3:15
Speaker 3: down fifteen dollars nounce to twenty six hundred and sixty.
3:19
Speaker 2: Six dollars even at the moments.
3:22
Speaker 4: In terms of catalysts for a you know, continued rally
3:25
Speaker 4: through year end, a Santa Claus rally, if you will.
3:27
Speaker 4: We do have the upcoming FED meeting on December eighteenth.
3:31
Speaker 4: Currently FED funds rates sitting at four and a half
3:34
Speaker 4: to four seven five according to the Chicago Mercantilics change
3:37
Speaker 4: about a two thirds likelihood that they cut another twenty
3:39
Speaker 4: five basis points at that meeting, and a few data
3:42
Speaker 4: points coming in between now and then to either justify
3:46
Speaker 4: or reverse course for Jerome Powell in terms of that meeting,
3:50
Speaker 4: the jobs report this Friday, When do we get CPI's
3:53
Speaker 4: before that December eighteenth meeting.
3:55
Speaker 3: It is, yeah, CPI is going to be a let
3:57
Speaker 3: me get you the exact date for it.
3:58
Speaker 2: It's going to be on December and so next Wednesday.
4:01
Speaker 4: So you know, it could be the catalyst, could be
4:03
Speaker 4: optimism on retail sales. We'll see what comes here, but
4:06
Speaker 4: not a lot of earnings between now and end of
4:08
Speaker 4: the year.
4:09
Speaker 3: Let's talk a little bit about the US jobs market,
4:12
Speaker 3: because this is something that we've been watching pretty closely
4:16
Speaker 3: over the last six to nine months now in terms
4:20
Speaker 3: of the slowing that we've seen in the jobs market,
4:24
Speaker 3: it still has not gotten to the point where it's
4:27
Speaker 3: causing actual, meaningful problems for the US economy. But we've
4:32
Speaker 3: remarked that, look, if this continues, it's kind of getting
4:35
Speaker 3: close to stall speed. And once the jobs market gets there, usually,
4:39
Speaker 3: you know, the US economy is already in recession at
4:42
Speaker 3: that point. But again, is there you know, more productivity
4:46
Speaker 3: growth that's happening. I don't know, is there something else
4:49
Speaker 3: that's kind of keeping the economy afloat? But the jobs
4:51
Speaker 3: market has had some concerning signs for I would say,
4:55
Speaker 3: a decent chunk of this year, but the rest of
4:57
Speaker 3: the economy is just kind of shrugged it off.
4:59
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, so we'll get that report. I'm trying to
5:03
Speaker 4: think of what's the kind of replacement pace for jobs
5:08
Speaker 4: that we need to see created to not see unemployment
5:10
Speaker 4: start increasing long term. I mean, I know about two
5:13
Speaker 4: million people turn eighteen every year, you have retirees, you
5:17
Speaker 4: have immigration, But what's that pace that we're looking for
5:21
Speaker 4: to see a at least stable job market shops the.
5:24
Speaker 3: Estimates that I've seen and again it's it's always in flux.
5:27
Speaker 3: There's never anything where it's like, this is the exact
5:30
Speaker 3: number you need. You need somewhere between sixteen one hundred
5:33
Speaker 3: thousand jobs a month created in order for the unemployment
5:36
Speaker 3: rates not.
5:36
Speaker 4: Rise typically at this point, so expectations one hundred and
5:40
Speaker 4: eighty three thousand jobs created. We're continuing to just look
5:44
Speaker 4: for signs of our companies stressed to the point of
5:49
Speaker 4: laying off, and the honest answer has just been pretty
5:52
Speaker 4: persistently that's not been the case. Certainly, hiring plans have
5:56
Speaker 4: come down, there's been more pressure on margins, more pressure
5:59
Speaker 4: on expenses, and hiring managers. In many cases they've lost
6:04
Speaker 4: their jobs. But that inclination towards layoffs hasn't come. And
6:07
Speaker 4: I don't really see the catalyst for it immediately, at
6:10
Speaker 4: least when you talk about teriffs, when you talk about
6:12
Speaker 4: other actions, that's the type of thing that could spark
6:14
Speaker 4: those But we're just not seeing that right now.
6:17
Speaker 3: And that one hundred and ninety five thousand projected job
6:20
Speaker 3: growth that we are that the market's anticipating. Remember, the
6:25
Speaker 3: previous report showed only twelve thousand jobs created, largely because
6:29
Speaker 3: you had two hurricanes that came through right during the
6:32
Speaker 3: data collection period, and so we just we weren't sure
6:35
Speaker 3: what kind of data we were going to get. So
6:39
Speaker 3: part of this is kind of a makeup for that,
6:41
Speaker 3: saying yeah, we're gonna get you know, a chunk of
6:43
Speaker 3: people that are now able to respond to the survey
6:46
Speaker 3: and say that they're you know, working.
6:48
Speaker 2: And YadA YadA.
6:49
Speaker 3: But overall, if you average that couple months, you're talking
6:51
Speaker 3: about one hundred thousand jobs created on average, which gets
6:55
Speaker 3: you kind of at the top end of that stall
6:58
Speaker 3: speed that you need in order to simply not see
7:00
Speaker 3: the unemployment rate rise. In theory, again, this is all theoretical.
7:05
Speaker 3: None of it actually plays out exactly like that on
7:08
Speaker 3: a monthly or quarterly basis here, So I think this
7:12
Speaker 3: is a jobs report that we're just gonna kind of
7:15
Speaker 3: get a sense of, Hey, how much of October was
7:17
Speaker 3: due to hurricanes and how much of it was an
7:20
Speaker 3: actual slow down.
7:21
Speaker 2: I think that's what we can start to glean here.
7:23
Speaker 3: But it still is gonna be one that's skewed by that.
7:25
Speaker 3: And so just as we did on that one being
7:28
Speaker 3: weak where we said, hey, you got to look through this,
7:31
Speaker 3: I kind of look at this one and say you
7:33
Speaker 3: kind of have to look through this because this is
7:34
Speaker 3: the makeup report, and it's gonna be I said, I
7:39
Speaker 3: was saying, this is, you know, going back to September.
7:42
Speaker 3: You're gonna need to wait until January or February to
7:44
Speaker 3: get a good handle on what this job's market actually
7:46
Speaker 3: looks like. And the problem there is that the FED
7:49
Speaker 3: is potentially at a critical decision making threshold here. They've
7:53
Speaker 3: got a meeting coming up in two weeks, as you noted,
7:56
Speaker 3: They've got another one six weeks after that in January,
8:01
Speaker 3: and so hey, we need good quality data and it's
8:06
Speaker 3: just not there because these hurricanes have disrupted the data
8:10
Speaker 3: so much still over much of.
8:12
Speaker 4: The fall yet, and they've hinted at this desire to
8:14
Speaker 4: potentially pivot here and and you know, stop cutting and
8:19
Speaker 4: slow down the pace of decreases.
8:21
Speaker 2: And you're right.
8:22
Speaker 4: If you're not getting reliable data on weakness or strengthen
8:26
Speaker 4: the job market, that muddies the water a fair bitch.
8:30
Speaker 2: I will say.
8:30
Speaker 4: The one thing that has been quite consistent, Chuck, is
8:33
Speaker 4: the layoff data right when we look at jobs. Yeah,
8:36
Speaker 4: it's just been amazingly consistent. And yeah, we saw some
8:41
Speaker 4: upticks around the hurricanes, but not substantial ones, and that
8:45
Speaker 4: you know historically has been where this stuff shows up first,
8:49
Speaker 4: and there's just no signs of weakness there.
8:52
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break here.
8:53
Speaker 3: When we come back, we got trivia and then we're
8:55
Speaker 3: talking a little bit about something that the FED is
8:58
Speaker 3: going to be doing next year.
9:00
Speaker 2: We'll filly in out exactly what that is. When we return.
9:04
Speaker 1: Find daily interviews and full shows of the Financial Exchange
9:07
Speaker 1: on how are YouTube page get cut up on anything
9:10
Speaker 1: and everything you might have missed. This is the Financial
9:13
Speaker 1: Exchange Radio Network. Miss any of the show. The Financial
9:18
Speaker 1: Exchange Show podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, and iHeartRadio.
9:22
Speaker 1: Hit the subscribe button and leave us a five star review.
9:26
Speaker 1: This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
9:31
Speaker 5: Let's do a little bit of trivia here on the
9:34
Speaker 5: Financial Exchange Hope. The weekend news came out that President
9:38
Speaker 5: Biden is issuing a pardon for his son Hunter Biden.
9:41
Speaker 5: Only two presidents in history failed to issue a pardon
9:45
Speaker 5: William Henry Harrison, who died after only weeks in office,
9:49
Speaker 5: in James Garfield, who is assassinated after only five months
9:54
Speaker 5: in office. Trivia question today, which US president issued the
9:59
Speaker 5: most part during his time in the White House? Once again,
10:03
Speaker 5: which US president issued the most pardons during his time
10:08
Speaker 5: in the White House. Be the third person today to
10:12
Speaker 5: text us at six one seven three six two thirteen
10:15
Speaker 5: eighty five with the correct answer, and you win a
10:18
Speaker 5: Financial Exchange Show T shirt once again. Be the third
10:21
Speaker 5: correct response to text us at six one seven three
10:25
Speaker 5: six two thirteen eighty five to get that T shirt.
10:29
Speaker 5: See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com Mike.
10:34
Speaker 3: Next year, the Federal Reserve goes through a policy framework review,
10:40
Speaker 3: which are we going to.
10:42
Speaker 2: Cover that live?
10:43
Speaker 4: Oh we have to yeah, live reporter from wherever it
10:48
Speaker 4: is they do this, and uh, this is pretty niche,
10:51
Speaker 4: but it's honestly fairly important for those that look at
10:55
Speaker 4: mistakes that I would call mistakes from the Federal Reserve
11:00
Speaker 4: over the last few years. I know that this is
11:02
Speaker 4: fairly boring stuff, but you have to remember that in
11:06
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two, on the cusp of the highest inflation
11:10
Speaker 4: we've seen in four decades, the FED was stimulating the
11:14
Speaker 4: economy in different ways based on the framework that they
11:17
Speaker 4: had that was kind of left over from O eight,
11:19
Speaker 4: And so it does need to be examined. It needs
11:21
Speaker 4: to be looked at and mistakes that were made over
11:26
Speaker 4: the last four years hopefully get acknowledged and corrected going forward.
11:31
Speaker 3: In terms of, you know, how this actually impacts the
11:35
Speaker 3: average person out there. What changes would you expect, like
11:41
Speaker 3: an average American to see as a result of this
11:44
Speaker 3: framework review.
11:47
Speaker 2: The answer is not many. Quite long. Yeah, I struggle
11:50
Speaker 2: with that, Chuck.
11:50
Speaker 4: I mean, like, you know, can they make framework changes
11:54
Speaker 4: and policy changes that prevent the next period of high inflation?
12:00
Speaker 4: I hope so, or mitigated at least, but you know,
12:04
Speaker 4: being able to tie those policy changes to that next
12:07
Speaker 4: lack of inflation, that's pretty challenging.
12:09
Speaker 3: And some of the stuff is like really technical in here.
12:12
Speaker 3: I'll give you just a quote from this Bloomberg piece.
12:15
Speaker 3: This is from Bill Dudley, by the way, who was
12:18
Speaker 3: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York president for ten
12:22
Speaker 3: years from twenty nine to twenty eighteen. Third, the FED
12:25
Speaker 3: should change its interest rate target the Federal reserve. The
12:28
Speaker 3: federal funds rate is obsoletely tracking a market that banks
12:31
Speaker 3: mostly don't use anymore. This is complicated the central Bank's job.
12:35
Speaker 3: In twenty fifteen, for instance, it introduced an overnight reverse
12:38
Speaker 3: repo facility to keep the FED funds rate from falling
12:41
Speaker 3: below its target range.
12:43
Speaker 2: The FED should have switched to the.
12:44
Speaker 3: Interest rate on the reserves bank hold at the Central
12:46
Speaker 3: Bank a year ago, a power the FED got back
12:49
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight.
12:50
Speaker 2: Better late than never.
12:53
Speaker 3: Is not so this is not something that will impact
12:56
Speaker 3: average human beings in any way, shape or form. No,
13:01
Speaker 3: so might be a good idea, but this also gets
13:04
Speaker 3: it what I think is a core underappreciated part of
13:07
Speaker 3: the FED and what it does. It makes sure that
13:11
Speaker 3: the plumbing works, you know, like the FED, they are
13:14
Speaker 3: financial plumbers. Every day Jay Powell goes in, he walks
13:19
Speaker 3: in with his you know, with he's got his overalls
13:23
Speaker 3: on and everything, with the purple tie underneath.
13:25
Speaker 2: He goes in.
13:26
Speaker 3: He says, I got my you know, my dollar plunger
13:29
Speaker 3: here just in case I need to, you know, get
13:31
Speaker 3: any extra.
13:31
Speaker 2: Dollars out of the system.
13:32
Speaker 3: And that's what Jay does, Like I know that we
13:36
Speaker 3: talk about, Hey, they you know, try to control you know,
13:39
Speaker 3: inflation and unemployment. Ultimately, the first thing that the FED does,
13:43
Speaker 3: and where you see them make these big policy pivots,
13:46
Speaker 3: the first thing they do is make sure that the
13:48
Speaker 3: financial system actually works, and that specifically gets that making
13:52
Speaker 3: sure that credit can flow during twenty twenty, when the
13:56
Speaker 3: pandemic was kind of in full swing in March that year,
13:59
Speaker 3: one of the big these things that they did, they
14:00
Speaker 3: said they said, look, well, basically, buy any corporate bond
14:04
Speaker 3: that you need us to buy. They never actually had
14:07
Speaker 3: to use it, but it was something where just by
14:10
Speaker 3: making the offer, it allowed corporate bonds to still be
14:14
Speaker 3: sold freely and easily. There in two thousand and eight,
14:17
Speaker 3: the reason why things were getting so ugly was that
14:19
Speaker 3: lending mechanisms were seizing up, and so they were trying
14:22
Speaker 3: to say, look, we need to make sure that the
14:23
Speaker 3: financial system actually works, because no one wants to lend
14:26
Speaker 3: money to each other because they don't trust what the
14:28
Speaker 3: other person is holding and that they're still going to
14:30
Speaker 3: be there the next day. So the first thing that
14:33
Speaker 3: the prerequisite for being able to, in theory, help to
14:37
Speaker 3: keep unemployment and inflation low is making sure that the
14:40
Speaker 3: financial pumbing works. And a lot of the stuff that
14:42
Speaker 3: they talk about in these framework reviews, it's it's pumbing.
14:46
Speaker 4: So then let's talk about the larger question that Dudley
14:50
Speaker 4: seems to be pointing here, which is your framework, Federal
14:53
Speaker 4: Reserve for quantitative easing? And the point team makes is,
14:56
Speaker 4: look through March of twenty twenty two, the Federal Reserve
15:00
Speaker 4: was purchasing trillions of dollars in assets at a time
15:03
Speaker 4: when you know, with hindsight pretty clear that we were
15:07
Speaker 4: about to reopen, people were sitting on a lot of cash,
15:10
Speaker 4: supply chains were still messed up, and we were going
15:13
Speaker 4: to be dealing with inflation. And so his point is, look,
15:15
Speaker 4: you are dealing with a framework for policy that didn't
15:19
Speaker 4: really make a lot of sense at the time. I
15:21
Speaker 4: don't know that I put that all at quantitative easing framework.
15:26
Speaker 4: It seems to me that the Federal Reserve had an
15:28
Speaker 4: entire framework for their entire policy that was hinged on
15:32
Speaker 4: the low inflation, post Great Recession framework of the past,
15:37
Speaker 4: and they failed to adapt any of that towards the
15:40
Speaker 4: realities of twenty twenty.
15:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:43
Speaker 3: Look, so you and I were both pretty critical of
15:46
Speaker 3: the Fed in the first you know, half of twenty
15:48
Speaker 3: twenty two, when inflation was on its way to nine
15:50
Speaker 3: percent and we're sitting there were like, guys, why are
15:52
Speaker 3: you hiking by a quarter percent at a time? Yeah,
15:54
Speaker 3: Like what I remember sitting here during the January meeting
15:57
Speaker 3: being like, rumpet to five guys, what are you doing? Yeah,
16:01
Speaker 3: and look, they obviously weren't gonna go you know, five
16:03
Speaker 3: percent like I wanted them to. But yeah, they finally
16:06
Speaker 3: got the message that hey, we got to start moving
16:08
Speaker 3: by you know, half and then three quarters of a
16:10
Speaker 3: percent per meeting in order to get this to where
16:12
Speaker 3: it needs to be. But I think part of this,
16:15
Speaker 3: if we look back at, you know, twenty twenty one,
16:17
Speaker 3: just as an example, I do think it's reasonable for
16:21
Speaker 3: the vast majority of twenty twenty one, for the fit
16:24
Speaker 3: you have just been like, guys, we have no idea
16:26
Speaker 3: what's going on here? Yep, everything is so disrupted. We're
16:30
Speaker 3: not gonna like just press a button if we might
16:33
Speaker 3: need to undo it a little bit later, just because
16:36
Speaker 3: things are so things are moving so quickly, and things
16:39
Speaker 3: are you know, so drastically different from anything we've ever seen. Now,
16:44
Speaker 3: by January of twenty two, when inflation was it seven
16:47
Speaker 3: and a half percent, and you're sitting there saying, well,
16:50
Speaker 3: we're gonna move by a quarter percent now, and then
16:52
Speaker 3: the one that really you know still you know, cooks
16:54
Speaker 3: my grits is the March Meeting that year rush it
17:00
Speaker 3: just invaded Ukraine.
17:01
Speaker 2: Oil prices through the roof, and Powell.
17:03
Speaker 3: Comes out and is like, we don't want to do
17:05
Speaker 3: anything that, you know, we're not sure if this is
17:07
Speaker 3: going to be inflationary or deflationary.
17:09
Speaker 2: It's like, guys, he was pretty obvious.
17:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, use the nine pound thing attached to your neck
17:15
Speaker 3: and you know, let's let's let's let's make this work
17:18
Speaker 3: a little bit.
17:18
Speaker 1: So Uh.
17:20
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's policy framework so much as
17:24
Speaker 3: Powell was just gunshy after twenty eighteen when he got
17:27
Speaker 3: spooked by the market after raising rates too far too
17:30
Speaker 3: fast and had to walk things back.
17:32
Speaker 2: And I think he was just like, I think he was.
17:34
Speaker 3: Fighting the last battle more than the policy framework was wrong.
17:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:38
Speaker 4: Well, and I think that might be the overall lesson.
17:40
Speaker 4: And I also worry that that lesson gets dragged into
17:43
Speaker 4: the next crisis that we face, whatever it might be,
17:45
Speaker 4: is you use yesterday's playbook to solve today's problems, and
17:51
Speaker 4: in so doing, what the FED did in twenty twenty
17:53
Speaker 4: two was assumed that we were still in an economy
17:57
Speaker 4: that was going to have a tough time generating any
17:59
Speaker 4: sort of real inflation that because of demographics or just
18:03
Speaker 4: our makeup, we weren't going to see that show up.
18:06
Speaker 4: And so they were more worried about the employment side
18:08
Speaker 4: of things when they should have been looking at the
18:10
Speaker 4: realities of twenty twenty. And my fear is that next
18:13
Speaker 4: time we're faced with a really bad recession with high unemployment,
18:19
Speaker 4: is the FED going to use their most recent framework of, Hey,
18:22
Speaker 4: we better not do too much because look what happened
18:24
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two.
18:26
Speaker 2: We bought bonds into.
18:27
Speaker 4: One of the highest inflationary environments that we've ever seen,
18:30
Speaker 4: and that really damaged American households. When during the next recession,
18:34
Speaker 4: who knows, that might be the exact thing that you
18:36
Speaker 4: need at the time. And so that's the framework that
18:38
Speaker 4: I hope is evaluated and more than any otherthing else,
18:42
Speaker 4: just reckoned with of hey, what were the decisions that
18:44
Speaker 4: led us to do what we did in twenty twenty two,
18:46
Speaker 4: and how do we not repeat that next time?
18:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's totally reasonable. Taking a look at
18:51
Speaker 3: markets right now, the Dow is down one hundred and
18:54
Speaker 3: eleven points, the S and P's up eleven, the NASDAK
18:57
Speaker 3: up one sixty one, so kind of mixed trading, with
19:01
Speaker 3: tech being one of the only areas that really is
19:03
Speaker 3: kind of moving higher today.
19:05
Speaker 2: Everything else just not really wanting to.
19:08
Speaker 3: Uh, everything else has had a little too much turkey,
19:10
Speaker 3: little too much stuffing.
19:12
Speaker 2: You know, it's I get it.
19:13
Speaker 3: We've all been there, but market's struggling to find any
19:16
Speaker 3: convincing direction aside from a few tech companies. Take a
19:20
Speaker 3: quick break, and when we return, we are going to
19:24
Speaker 3: have the trivia answer for you, and then a piece
19:27
Speaker 3: from Bloomberg. It's titled what Trump's next Trade war could
19:30
Speaker 3: look like? A guide.
19:40
Speaker 1: Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
19:44
Speaker 1: It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
19:50
Speaker 1: Text US at six one seven three, six two five
19:53
Speaker 1: with your comments and questions about today's show and let
19:56
Speaker 1: us know what you think about the stories we are covering.
19:58
Speaker 1: This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
20:05
Speaker 5: Trivia question today was which US president issued the most
20:09
Speaker 5: pardons during his time in the White House. That'll be
20:13
Speaker 5: Fdr who issued three thousand, six hundred and eighty seven
20:17
Speaker 5: pardons while in office, over one thousand more than second place,
20:21
Speaker 5: which was Harry Truman, who issued two thousand and forty four.
20:25
Speaker 5: Pardons Concetta from Bedford, mass is our winner today, taking
20:28
Speaker 5: home a Financial Exchange Show t shirt. Congrats there, and
20:33
Speaker 5: we played trivia every day here on the Financial Exchange.
20:36
Speaker 5: See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
20:40
Speaker 3: Mike, let's talk about this piece from The Bloomingberg today.
20:44
Speaker 3: It's titled what Trump's next Trade War could look like
20:47
Speaker 3: a Guide, and it basically tries to lay out, Hey,
20:50
Speaker 3: here's one potential path that this could take that we
20:52
Speaker 3: think is likely over the next year or two.
20:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, and look, I think the key piece here is
20:59
Speaker 4: unless you have a position that is going to be
21:02
Speaker 4: guiding this policy, I would be really hesitant to implement
21:05
Speaker 4: any strategy based on what you think might occur over
21:08
Speaker 4: the course of all this. But you know, a few
21:10
Speaker 4: things seem pretty likely. It seems fairly likely that tariffs
21:14
Speaker 4: on some portion of imported goods into the United States
21:17
Speaker 4: are going up, and taxes are on Americans are likely
21:22
Speaker 4: staying flat or going down.
21:23
Speaker 2: And so if you use that as a general.
21:25
Speaker 4: Framework, I think you can paint a picture for broadly
21:29
Speaker 4: what the economy looks like, but then how that plays
21:31
Speaker 4: out to company by company. I'm just unconvinced that there's
21:34
Speaker 4: a real, real, clearer strategy there.
21:36
Speaker 2: No, I do think we're continuing.
21:39
Speaker 3: Again, none of us are in the room when any
21:42
Speaker 3: of this is happening, as far as you know, nomination
21:44
Speaker 3: conversations and things like that. But I'm really, really, really,
21:50
Speaker 3: really really begging people to look at this as something
21:55
Speaker 3: that is a fundamentally different approach potentially than the first
22:01
Speaker 3: term that we saw. And there was some reporting from
22:03
Speaker 3: Axios over the weekend, it was yesterday. I'm gonna quote here,
22:08
Speaker 3: Trump has been telling friends he denied Robert Letheiser, his
22:11
Speaker 3: pro tariff Chinahawk US Trade representative in the first term,
22:15
Speaker 3: a cabinet role because he's quote too scared to go big.
22:18
Speaker 3: He's loyal but too timid to make to take big,
22:21
Speaker 3: risky swings. Trump contends, and ultimately in the US Trade
22:26
Speaker 3: representative role, he ended up nominating Jamison Greer, who is
22:31
Speaker 3: someone who's basically worked with Lightheiser for the last ten
22:33
Speaker 3: or fifteen years and has kind of learned from him.
22:36
Speaker 3: So again, kind of Apple meet Tree type situation. But
22:41
Speaker 3: I don't think you are going to get the same
22:45
Speaker 3: approach as the first term in terms of hey, here
22:48
Speaker 3: come big tax cuts and everyone's just gonna be happy
22:51
Speaker 3: and you go forward on this. This is really a
22:54
Speaker 3: different approach that has the potential to cause some pain
22:57
Speaker 3: in the US economy at first, and then you potentially
23:01
Speaker 3: have you know, the tax cuts and benefits and things
23:03
Speaker 3: like that that come after. But I think we need
23:07
Speaker 3: to be really really careful about assuming, Hey, just because
23:11
Speaker 3: you have, you know, a Republican president with Republican House
23:16
Speaker 3: and Senate, that you're gonna get the exact same thing
23:17
Speaker 3: that you saw the first time, all of the like
23:21
Speaker 3: everything that we're hearing from and again it's it's anecdotal,
23:25
Speaker 3: but everything that you're hearing about this process for picking
23:28
Speaker 3: you know, different cabinet secretaries and things like that, it's
23:32
Speaker 3: a different process than what we heard the first time.
23:34
Speaker 3: And I I, look, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right.
23:38
Speaker 3: Who knows, Like, well, no, in a year, I have
23:41
Speaker 3: no idea if I'm going to be right or not
23:43
Speaker 3: on this. But this is a different process than what
23:46
Speaker 3: was being run eight years ago.
23:48
Speaker 4: Folks want to talk to you about the brand new
23:50
Speaker 4: guide from the Armstrong Advisory Group for the month of December.
23:54
Speaker 4: It's all about a quick reference guide you can use
23:57
Speaker 4: to look at the numbers for twenty twenty five as
24:00
Speaker 4: you start to evaluate your taxes, your retirement contributions, and
24:04
Speaker 4: all of the planning details that you have going into
24:07
Speaker 4: next year. We know that tax rates are likely to change,
24:10
Speaker 4: probably starting in twenty twenty six, or at least change
24:13
Speaker 4: from where they're presumed to be starting in twenty twenty six.
24:16
Speaker 4: But that gives you a lot of opportunity to take
24:18
Speaker 4: advantage of the current tax code in its current format.
24:22
Speaker 4: How much can you take as a standard deduction off
24:25
Speaker 4: of your taxes, how much is going to be in
24:28
Speaker 4: an earned income tax credit? What where do you fall
24:31
Speaker 4: in terms of the overall brackets, and how do those
24:33
Speaker 4: brackets worth work? How much will your so security be
24:36
Speaker 4: taxed in twenty twenty five. If you could use a
24:39
Speaker 4: quick guy that you can pull out throughout next year
24:41
Speaker 4: to take a look and make sure you understand how
24:45
Speaker 4: the numbers are going to work for you, please give
24:48
Speaker 4: the Armstrong Advisory Group a call at eight hundred three
24:51
Speaker 4: nine three four zero zero one. Again, the name of
24:54
Speaker 4: the guide is Key Numbers for twenty twenty five. You
24:57
Speaker 4: can get a copy of it by calling us eight
24:59
Speaker 4: hundred ze nine to three four zero zero one.
25:02
Speaker 1: The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
25:05
Speaker 1: registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
25:07
Speaker 1: Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult
25:10
Speaker 1: your own financial tax into state planning advisors before making
25:13
Speaker 1: any investment decisions. Armstrong may contact you to offer investment
25:16
Speaker 1: advisory services.
25:18
Speaker 3: Mike, do you want to talk about portfolios, social security
25:21
Speaker 3: or financial scams?
25:23
Speaker 2: Let's go to the financial scams.
25:24
Speaker 4: I was thinking about talking about this earlier when we
25:26
Speaker 4: were referring to credit cards, and it was actually following
25:30
Speaker 4: on an interesting conversation I had over the over the
25:33
Speaker 4: Thanksgiving holiday, because when you get with family, I was
25:38
Speaker 4: dealing with a lot of my older family members and
25:40
Speaker 4: we were talking about check scams, and a lot of
25:42
Speaker 4: them just weren't aware that check scams are very much
25:46
Speaker 4: on the rise. And you know, back in vogue, if
25:49
Speaker 4: you will, people just intercepting checks and then using frankly
25:54
Speaker 4: much better technology these days to be able to scan
25:56
Speaker 4: them in and rewrite those checks and get them deposited
26:00
Speaker 4: and other financial institutions. And fortunately with check fraud, you
26:04
Speaker 4: know your bank is generally required to deal with that.
26:08
Speaker 4: That that's a fraud rather than a scam if somebody
26:10
Speaker 4: intercepts your check and goes and rewrites it elsewhere.
26:13
Speaker 2: But it's still a massive hassle.
26:15
Speaker 4: It's a massive hassle for those that you're trying to pay,
26:17
Speaker 4: it's a massive hassle for you.
26:19
Speaker 2: You likely have to.
26:20
Speaker 4: Change bank accounts and all sorts of issues that you
26:22
Speaker 4: have to deal with. But so I was talking to
26:25
Speaker 4: family members about services like Zel, and then I had
26:27
Speaker 4: a family members shoot me an article on the you know,
26:29
Speaker 4: the number of Zell scams, and that was an interesting
26:32
Speaker 4: piece there because you know, yeah, the risk of check
26:35
Speaker 4: fraud is out there and it's problematic and annoying. But
26:39
Speaker 4: the rise of scams and people becoming convinced that they
26:43
Speaker 4: should send money to a fraudster, that's what's been growing
26:48
Speaker 4: tremendously over the last several years. And you are seeing
26:51
Speaker 4: it on platforms like Zel that are generally considered more
26:54
Speaker 4: secure than writing a check.
26:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the key.
26:57
Speaker 3: Distinction there is a fraud is something that someone purpose
27:00
Speaker 3: traits generally without your knowledge. Yeah, they you know, they
27:04
Speaker 3: steal your credit card number and try to buy a
27:06
Speaker 3: bunch of stuff and okay, that gets refunded scams, on
27:09
Speaker 3: the other hand, are when generally this is the definition
27:12
Speaker 3: from who is this?
27:14
Speaker 2: This is just I guess in the US law code.
27:17
Speaker 3: Scams, on the other hand, are, hey, you got convinced
27:21
Speaker 3: to send money to someone that there is no protection
27:26
Speaker 3: that's afforded to people in that case in just about
27:29
Speaker 3: all circumstances, because you are making the choice. And the
27:33
Speaker 3: point that this Bloomberg piece makes is, look, if you
27:36
Speaker 3: get convinced by someone on the street to give them
27:38
Speaker 3: ten dollars, you don't go to the bank and be like, hey,
27:39
Speaker 3: I need by ten dollars back.
27:41
Speaker 2: I was scammed. No, that was a U decision.
27:44
Speaker 3: It still doesn't make it easy when you're now talking about,
27:47
Speaker 3: you know, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of
27:49
Speaker 3: dollars in different types of scams. But this is a
27:52
Speaker 3: growing problem because it's gotten really easy for scammers to
27:58
Speaker 3: be able to, you know, just send send either emails
28:02
Speaker 3: or texts or phone calls to just a wide net
28:05
Speaker 3: of people with the idea that hey, if I send
28:09
Speaker 3: this to ten thousand people nine and ninety nine are
28:12
Speaker 3: going to ignore it or like send me you know
28:14
Speaker 3: a text message being like screw off, like go away.
28:17
Speaker 3: But if one person gets hooked by this man, I
28:21
Speaker 3: could make thousands of dollars.
28:22
Speaker 2: That's what the scammer's thinking.
28:24
Speaker 3: And especially with the prevalence now of artificial intelligence, you've
28:28
Speaker 3: got even newer tools to you know, potentially impersonate loved
28:32
Speaker 3: ones and impersonate someone working at a financial institution. It
28:36
Speaker 3: gets harder and harder for the average person to try
28:39
Speaker 3: to weave their way through all this.
28:41
Speaker 4: Well, and fifty years ago, it would have been next
28:43
Speaker 4: to impossible for somebody to pull this off from.
28:45
Speaker 2: A foreign country, right, Like we'd be able.
28:48
Speaker 4: To prosecute this in decades past when we found it
28:52
Speaker 4: because the guy was operating two states over and was
28:55
Speaker 4: running a mail fraud. And and you catch that person
28:58
Speaker 4: and put them in prison. Today when somebody is operating
29:02
Speaker 4: from Russia or from the state, like, how are you
29:07
Speaker 4: going to you know, xt rate that person and charge them.
29:11
Speaker 2: You're not.
29:12
Speaker 4: And so you know, there are probably smart solutions to
29:16
Speaker 4: this problem, and others that I considered to be quite dumb.
29:18
Speaker 4: The Senate Subcommittee report in July, for instance, called for
29:20
Speaker 4: a new requirement on banks to reimburse customers who can
29:23
Speaker 4: show they were tricked into authorizing payments to criminals.
29:27
Speaker 2: I don't love that idea.
29:30
Speaker 4: So all of a sudden, banks are now covering all
29:32
Speaker 4: these additional costs of people getting scammed out of money.
29:36
Speaker 4: What does that do well? It drives up costs for everyone, right.
29:39
Speaker 4: A bank isn't just going to say yeah, we'll eat that. No,
29:42
Speaker 4: they are going to end up having to charge a
29:44
Speaker 4: lot more for those losses that they incur, like they
29:47
Speaker 4: do on credit cards. They might beef up security measures
29:51
Speaker 4: too to prevent it from happening, but I don't know
29:54
Speaker 4: that that's the right solution either.
29:56
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break here. When we come back,
29:57
Speaker 2: it's time for stack Roulette.
30:00
Speaker 1: Miss any of the show, catch up at your convenience
30:02
Speaker 1: by visiting Financial Exchange show dot com and clicking the
30:06
Speaker 1: on demand icon, where you'll find all of our interviews
30:08
Speaker 1: and full shows. This is your home for the latest
30:12
Speaker 1: business and financial news in New England and around the country.
30:15
Speaker 1: This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Find daily interviews
30:20
Speaker 1: and full shows of the Financial Exchange on our YouTube page.
30:23
Speaker 1: Like us on YouTube and get caught up on anything
30:26
Speaker 1: and everything you might have missed. This is the Financial
30:29
Speaker 1: Exchange Radio Network.
30:35
Speaker 5: This segment of the Financial Exchange is brought to you
30:38
Speaker 5: in part by the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism.
30:41
Speaker 5: The US Virgin Islands are Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, and
30:44
Speaker 5: Saint John. With winter on the horizon, now's the time
30:47
Speaker 5: to start looking at a fabulous holiday vacation, and there's
30:50
Speaker 5: no better place than the US Virgin Islands. Enjoy perfect weather,
30:54
Speaker 5: world class dining, incredible beaches, and a vibrant nightlife. No
30:58
Speaker 5: passport is needed, and there's no more need to exchange.
31:01
Speaker 5: Take your next vacation in America's Caribbean paradise the United
31:04
Speaker 5: States Virgin Islands. Go to visit USBI dot com to
31:08
Speaker 5: book your trip. That's visit USBI dot com.
31:12
Speaker 2: Mike, what do you got for me for stack Roulette?
31:14
Speaker 4: I want to talk about America's favorite fast food restaurant,
31:17
Speaker 4: McDonald's and the piece from Bloomberg Inflation tug of war Here,
31:23
Speaker 4: I guess question for both you and Tucker McDonald's place
31:28
Speaker 4: in the fast food space. What are the words that
31:30
Speaker 4: come to mind for you immediately? For me, it's fast, cheap.
31:36
Speaker 3: I was thinking Big Mac, but that was different from
31:38
Speaker 3: we were in a different spot there.
31:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, descriptions, consistent, consistent, Yeah, at.
31:44
Speaker 2: Every single place, it's going to be the exact same
31:46
Speaker 2: go to Yeah.
31:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean initially my thinking was, hey, McDonald's
31:52
Speaker 4: is to fast food what Walmart is to retail. Pretty reliable,
31:56
Speaker 4: know what you're going to get, and lowest prices out there.
31:58
Speaker 4: And my concern for mcdonnald's, as this piece kind of
32:01
Speaker 4: points out, is that I think they might be losing
32:03
Speaker 4: part of that. They are still amazingly consistent, I would say,
32:06
Speaker 4: more consistent than you get out of a Walmart, because
32:08
Speaker 4: from place to place you can have different inventories, you
32:10
Speaker 4: can have different helpfulness in terms of the workers.
32:13
Speaker 2: McDonald's you don't really have to worry about that.
32:14
Speaker 4: But you know, due to the receipt debacle over the
32:17
Speaker 4: last couple of years, right you remember, Yeah, the people
32:19
Speaker 4: posting like thirty dollars receipts for Big Max and and
32:24
Speaker 4: fries and a coke like because they do not control pricing,
32:29
Speaker 4: because they have the franchise model, I think McDonald's has
32:32
Speaker 4: started to lose a little bit of that lowest cost
32:35
Speaker 4: out there for food reputation that they've so thoroughly built
32:40
Speaker 4: and maintained over the last few decades, and I think
32:44
Speaker 4: they're fighting for that back a little bit right now,
32:46
Speaker 4: and I'm not sure they'll be able to completely regain it.
32:48
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, who do you think occupies
32:51
Speaker 2: that high ground? Then? I don't know that anybody else does.
32:56
Speaker 4: I just think that they are more now on par
32:59
Speaker 4: if I think of low cost fast food. I don't
33:03
Speaker 4: know that I differentiate anymore between a Wendy's at Burger
33:05
Speaker 4: King and a McDonald's.
33:06
Speaker 2: And if not, then that might be a real problem
33:08
Speaker 2: for them. Yeah, I could see that being the case.
33:11
Speaker 3: I wonder how much of it is just kind of
33:13
Speaker 3: ingrained in like the culture though, right, Like you look
33:16
Speaker 3: for the arches, you know, Yeah, it's it's almost a reflex.
33:19
Speaker 2: It's like going to Google to search for something, you know, right,
33:22
Speaker 2: But you.
33:23
Speaker 4: Know, I mean, like this is still an amazing like
33:25
Speaker 4: what food companies have forty six percent operating margins, that's
33:28
Speaker 4: what McDonald's dealing with. They're up from forty three percent
33:32
Speaker 4: back in twenty nineteen. They have clearly weathered the inflation
33:35
Speaker 4: storm reasonably well. My question, though, is what comes in
33:39
Speaker 4: the future if you've started to lose that that brand
33:42
Speaker 4: dominance which you know, that'd be a big bar to
33:45
Speaker 4: get over for the for me to be convinced that
33:47
Speaker 4: they have, But yeah, is that a possibility in the future.
33:51
Speaker 3: Well, And the other risk that McDonald's has too is remember,
33:55
Speaker 3: as you noted, most McDonald's stores are franchise owned and
33:59
Speaker 3: operate in the Yeah, at least in the US, they're
34:01
Speaker 3: not owned by McDonald's Corporate. There's been a lot of
34:05
Speaker 3: pushback on some of the things that McDonald's corporate has
34:07
Speaker 3: been basically making stores do over the last few years
34:11
Speaker 3: in order to you know, retain the franchise basically investments
34:16
Speaker 3: that they have to make in you know, the local
34:18
Speaker 3: plant pricing that they have to go through. And so
34:21
Speaker 3: the other place that I think is interesting to watch
34:23
Speaker 3: on this is at some point the franchisees might just
34:26
Speaker 3: get fed up with and be like, guys, like, what
34:28
Speaker 3: are we doing here? You know, it hasn't been an
34:30
Speaker 3: issue to this point, and McDonald's is big enough and
34:34
Speaker 3: smart enough to like they know where their bread's buttered.
34:36
Speaker 3: Sure they're not dumb, but they've got to pay attention
34:40
Speaker 3: to this because franchisees are the backbone of that company
34:44
Speaker 3: in the US, and they got to be careful with
34:46
Speaker 3: how far they push them.
34:47
Speaker 4: I think in certain cases there, yeah, but I certainly
34:50
Speaker 4: don't think reversing course on that franchise model is the
34:52
Speaker 4: right right prescription either. Go take a look at Starbucks
34:55
Speaker 4: and how they've been faring over the last few years,
34:57
Speaker 4: and clearly there are potential pitfalls to any of the
35:00
Speaker 4: models of fast food restaurants. Since you know, if you're
35:03
Speaker 4: not familiar, Starbucks has no franchises. They are all corporate
35:06
Speaker 4: owned and run and operated. To my knowledge, Mark, I
35:10
Speaker 4: mean not Mark, Mike.
35:11
Speaker 3: If if I had to ask you to name one
35:14
Speaker 3: of the biggest corporate frauds of all time, what's the
35:18
Speaker 3: first name that comes to mind for you?
35:19
Speaker 2: Ron? Perfect? It was totally unrehearsed. I'm glad that we were.
35:23
Speaker 2: You read there.
35:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Enron today, or at least someone purporting to
35:29
Speaker 3: be Enron Watch a Twitter account at Enron and.
35:34
Speaker 2: Hold on, is there an Enron employee left?
35:38
Speaker 3: I don't know what actually happened to the corporate I've
35:40
Speaker 3: been digging on this between breaks, trying to figure out
35:42
Speaker 3: what's actually going on here.
35:44
Speaker 2: But there's now a new Twitter account.
35:46
Speaker 3: At Enron, and it posted something two hours ago and
35:51
Speaker 3: it just says we're back, can we talk? And it's
35:53
Speaker 3: this little one minute you know montage and everything.
35:56
Speaker 1: Uh.
35:56
Speaker 3: And then after that they they did put something up
35:58
Speaker 3: and said this is the final tweet and the threat
36:00
Speaker 3: any impersonators of Enron below with a sort of scam
36:02
Speaker 3: don't click any links.
36:03
Speaker 2: Stay safe.
36:05
Speaker 3: So again I'm trying to figure out what's actually going
36:08
Speaker 3: on here. But it also teased potentially a crypto token,
36:13
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to just reconcile one of the greatest
36:17
Speaker 3: corporate frauds and scams of all time with Enron and
36:21
Speaker 3: the financial dis engineering they did or mis engineering they
36:26
Speaker 3: did back in the late nineties and early two thousands,
36:29
Speaker 3: with the fact that they may now have a crypto
36:33
Speaker 3: platform to potentially work from in the future. And again
36:39
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out if this is an actual
36:41
Speaker 3: thing or not. I still don't know if it's real Enron,
36:45
Speaker 3: and no one seems to know what's going on here,
36:49
Speaker 3: but it is, you know, kind of going around today.
36:53
Speaker 3: But this is one that I just want to follow
36:56
Speaker 3: to see where it goes, because it's one of two things.
36:59
Speaker 3: Either a this is someone pretending to be Enron and
37:01
Speaker 3: it's a giant scam, in which case, like, who's gonna
37:04
Speaker 3: end up falling for this in the crypto world? And
37:06
Speaker 3: there is no recourse when you fall for a scam
37:08
Speaker 3: in the crypto world. Or is actual Enron trying to
37:13
Speaker 3: relaunch with like crypto backing or something like that?
37:17
Speaker 4: And good God, can you think of a worse name
37:20
Speaker 4: to attach to a worst industry?
37:21
Speaker 3: Well, the question that I have if this is real,
37:24
Speaker 3: why would you even bring the name back? What are
37:26
Speaker 3: you trying to do? Which I mean trying. It's a scam,
37:29
Speaker 3: but it's getting some buzz today. So I'm trying to
37:32
Speaker 3: figure out what's happening here, and I can't put it
37:34
Speaker 3: together right now.
37:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I can't really figure out who even owns
37:38
Speaker 4: the Enron name and logo at this point. It's that
37:42
Speaker 4: defunct and it does appear the last company to be
37:46
Speaker 4: sold out of the Enron series of businesses was back
37:49
Speaker 4: in two thousand and six, so long dead is the
37:53
Speaker 4: answer here.
37:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm I'm trying to figure out what's going
37:57
Speaker 3: on here. There's a pretty decent chance and this is
37:59
Speaker 3: an actual scam, but uh, it's again, this is the
38:03
Speaker 3: world that we live in now, where you can't even
38:05
Speaker 3: tell if the company is really back or not immediately,
38:07
Speaker 3: and they just come out with a Twitter post on it.
38:10
Speaker 2: It's a strange place.
38:12
Speaker 3: Take a look at markets as we had towards the
38:13
Speaker 3: top of the hour, the dows off one, twenty three
38:15
Speaker 3: s Andp's up twelve, Nasdaq up one.
38:18
Speaker 2: We're done for the day. You'll see you tomorrow.