Latest / The Financial Exchange Show / The AI Boom's Biggest Risk: Will the Money Ever Add Up?

Transcript

The AI Boom's Biggest Risk: Will the Money Ever Add Up? · 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.
• 0:26
  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 Zotta 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 dav5k. boston and making a donation today. This
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: is The Financial Exchange with Chuck Zotta and Mike Armstrong.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: It is Chuck, Mike, and Ben with you, and as
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: we kick things off today, we got markets staging a
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: nice little rally, at least two out of the three
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: big U.S.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Ones.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: S & P 500, actually, no, sorry, all three. I
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: don't know why my screen hadn't refreshed on.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: One of them.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: S & P is up 73 points, about 1%, which
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: is lovely. Dow Jones is up 255 points, about 0.5%,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and the Nasdaq Composite is up 323 points, about one
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and a quarter percent. So tech staging a little bit
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: of a rebound. It tried to on Friday and it
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: did a little bit, but it wasn't really a convincing one.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: This one today looking a little bit more convincing so far,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: but hey, it's still early in the day. It's not
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: like we've seen a ton of action yet. So we'll
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: see how things hold up on that side of things.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Russell 2000 in positive territory as well.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: We've got oil markets down a little bit. West Texas crude, uh,
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: Hesitate to say down. Down $ 2 to $ 101 per barrel.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Brent crude, $ 115 a barrel. CNBC reporting that the Saudi
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: defense minister is traveling to Iran for talks on de-escalation,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: maybe contributing to those lower prices. But in any case,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: oil prices... Across the board, it's still sitting up over
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: $ 100 per barrel right now.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll go so far as to say that
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: the overall shape of the crude curve not really showing
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: us that markets are buying this. Basically, if you look
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: at the amount of backwardation that is present, backwardation, again,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: is when short-term prices are higher than long-term ones. It suggests, say,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: if you have the higher the backwardation, the more pressing
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: need there is for any commodity in the short-term relative
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: to longer-term.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Right now.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: if we just look like front month to second month,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: there's a $ 2. 14 difference there. Basically, aside from that period
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: in early September where things got nutty in all kinds
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: of different energy markets, this is the highest that we've
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: seen that front to second month backwardation otherwise. So again,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: it still is a very tight market, even though maybe
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: price is coming down a little bit on what you noted. Also,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of chatter before the weekend of hey,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: could you see like a resumption in hostilities over the weekend?
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: And that just didn't come to pass. So, OK, that
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: risk premium goes away and, you know, you get back to,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: you know, more, I won't say regular pricing, but more
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: pricified pricing.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: More technical term.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Interest rates just about flat today ahead of Wednesday's Fed announcement.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: You've got the yield on the 10-year Treasury sitting at 4.8%. nine,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: 8% and taking a look in at mortgage rates, which
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: have come down a little bit with interest rates. You're
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: still at seven and a third percent as of Friday
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: on that 30 year fixed rate mortgage, according to mortgage
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: news daily.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Gold finding a little bit of a bid today, up $ 31. 40
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: an ounce to $ 4, 039 right now. And that is what
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: is moving in markets. Busy week this week with both
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Microsoft and Amazon reporting earnings. We've also got a Fed
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: meeting on Wednesday and a bunch of supporting economic data, too.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: But....
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: All eyes this.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Morning at 9 a.m., Anthropic officially filed its S-1 for
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: its IPO. And so everyone is now talking about, hey,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: what do things look like for Anthropic?
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm trying to separate too much of my own
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: sentiment from the market sentiment, because I do think this
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: has the potential to, if it goes off and goes
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: fairly well, completely reverse any of the concerns that people
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: had for the moment about the AI trade generally. And
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: I'm just wondering, I mean, with markets up like they
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: are today, I'm not sure how much concern there really
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: is about that sentiment. But you saw Meta stock down
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: significantly last week. You saw CoreWeave now down, what is it,
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: 20% over the course of the last month, more? So
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: I think I can detect some concern there. And the
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: reason people care so much about this IPO is not
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: only that it will be one of the biggest in
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: history because it will. If it goes off, it'll be
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest in history. It is also a
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: very big indication of where investors are on this AI trade.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Are they obsessed with the concerns about the ROI and
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: the spend needed in order to make this happen? Or
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: are they still enthusiastic about everything that these things can
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: do and what it might mean for our future?
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I think the other piece that I think is worth
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: just talking about now that is characterizing this is let's
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: talk about the actual product that gets delivered from AI models.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Because we can talk about just like the general things like, oh,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: you need this much revenue and this and that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about. the actual unit economics here for a second.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So if you've never used an AI model, or if
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: you have, what you put in, I know that you
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: write them as words and you see what comes back
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: as words, but the fundamental unit that you are buying
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: is what's called a token. And a token is basically
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: anywhere from like a three to five character segment. And
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: that is the smallest unit by which these models process anything.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: In some cases, it might be a full word like
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the and a space after it. In the case of
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the word, well, theologically, the might be the part of it.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, a lodge might be the next
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: and then Ickle and then Lee and Mike. So one
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: word might have three or four tokens in it as well.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: And they could be tokens that are similar to ones
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: around them. But basically, the way this works is if
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: you are someone who is making a model, you need
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: to pay for the computing power.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: To serve those tokens, both input and output.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And so what we've been seeing over the course of
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: this year that is interesting is that the price of... Again,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: there's no clear way to tell this, but if you
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: look at the markets that exist for computing power in
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: standardized form, it appears that the price of rentals for
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the chips that are used to produce tokens have been
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: going up over the course of this year. Not going down, actually,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: but going up. Now, if you look at individual companies
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: and their offerings, that might not be the case. So
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: you might see a case where a company might be
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: offering discounts relative to what it was earlier in the year.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So it's hard to tell. But the thought that's out
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: there from some of the publicly available data is actually
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: that rental rates are going up in order to produce tokens.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: This is at the same time that token prices as
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: a whole are falling. So there are two possibilities here.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: The first is that we can get so much more
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: efficient at producing tokens that you can produce more tokens
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: per basically watt of power into a chip. And so
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: the cost can fall and that chip can become more
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: profitable over time. The second possibility is that we are
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: in a situation where, hey, those price indices haven't really
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: caught up to the falling spot prices for tokens yet.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: And this is leading these to eventually be heavily unprofitable
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: once that becomes an issue. The third possibility is that, okay,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: you can see improvements in efficiency on a per-token basis.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Prices fall, but the overall profitability doesn't really change much
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: because they offset each other, and that's where you end up.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: The whole question is.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: There are two in the next couple of years. The
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: first is what happens to the prices that people are
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: willing to pay for tokens. And the second is how
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: long does demand continue to outstrip supply? Because the only
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: way that prices actually can go up or even be maintained, remember,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: this is a commoditized business. There's not much differentiation between
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: these models. They try to convince you, but there's not actually.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I've sampled a lot of them. There's not much difference.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: If consumers of these tokens start demanding lower prices because
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: they're more readily willing to switch, does the increase in
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: volume such that you need all of this additional capacity
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: come online offset that? And that's how you can fulfill
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: this demand. Because if it doesn't, then you've got a
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: bunch of chips sitting in warehouses that are.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Never going to be profitable. And we don't know the
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: answer to this. It might work out. It might not.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: The math suggests it's going to be hard to get
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: there because you need several trillion in annual revenue to
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: make the numbers make sense. And that's way more than
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: is being spent right now, even though the heaviest users
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: in the tech space have already accounted for. You know, like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: let's let's be honest.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: If you're a research lab using these tools, you're already paying.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Billion marketing is not going to use enough tokens to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: make up the difference. It's, and again, now you're getting
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: like some of the things that were like Sam Altman
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: over the weekend is like, well, the way we have
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: to build cybersecurity from now on is you need to
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: run a frontier model to defend your business. So just, oh, well,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: it just happens to be that I sell all the
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: frontier models, so you're going to need to buy my service.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: So this is where we are now, but this is
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: going to be a big story to see what we
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: get out of it, and it's going to be interesting here.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break. When we return, let's.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Talk about the rules for AI companies.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: What should they be? Who should be writing them? We'll
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: discuss that next.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Follow us for daily video clips, market coverage, and the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: stories shaping Wall Street and the economy. This is the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Financial Exchange Media Network.
• 11:18
  Speaker 6: The Financial Exchange is a proud partner of the Disabled
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: American Veterans Department of Massachusetts, and this year's 5K is
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: officially sold out. The race will take place on Saturday,
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: November 7th at Fort Independence on Castle Island, and we
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: hope you take this opportunity to consider making a donation.
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: Your gifts help provide vital services like free transportation to
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: medical appointments and safe housing for single veterans and their families.
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: Donate today at DAV5K. Boston.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: That's DAV5K. Boston.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Mike, we had a piece here from New York Times Magazine.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: What should the rules for AI companies actually be? We
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: asked the experts.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: So they basically took five people.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: That are, again, there's a New York legislator who sponsored
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: a bill on AI safety, a former Google worker, an
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: econ professor at George Mason, an open AI researcher, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: an AI safety advocacy person. And they asked, okay, what risks.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Are out there? How would you go about handling this? Blah, blah, blah.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And the actual thing is incredibly long. So we're not
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: going to read the entire thing to you. But what
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: are some of the things that you took from this
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: in terms of key ideas that they harp on?
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Well, one that just keeps coming back up is the
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: banking industry. And hey, regulate us like you do the
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: financial services space. where effectively we create our own regulatory
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: authorities and create our own rules and then have some
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: laws that govern how that is set up. And, uh,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: I think obviously a lot of legislature legislators have concerns
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: about that method of saying, yeah, you're just going to
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: regulate yourselves. That seems like it could be a recipe
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: for disaster. And in many cases in the financial services
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: industry was, um, But on the other hand, I also
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: think the general narrative is that lawmakers.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I don't think the average lawmaker is going to.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Be well enough informed to vote on a set of
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: rules that regulate AI companies. And I don't think that
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: any set of rules that get passed today will be
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: relevant tomorrow.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I think that the big things that are clear in
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: reading this piece and also just in looking at the
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: overall landscape Number one, you need some type of regulatory
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: apparatus that is going to enforce standards at AI labs.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: And I want to give an example here.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: When the OpenAI model, the agent broke out of containment
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: and hacked Hugging Face, the post-mortem on that was, oh, wow,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: if we had just been looking at our stuff, we
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: probably could have detected this. And so like, hey, maybe
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: you should be looking at your stuff and detecting hacks.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: I'll give you an example.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: If you are a publicly traded company and you have
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a data breach, you are required to inform the public
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: within a certain amount of time.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: I think it's 72 hours.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Likewise, if you are a, you know, however we want
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: to categorize Frontier Lab or whatever it is, like it
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: might not even be Frontier. If you are, you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: developing AI models and your model hacks someone else. you
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: should have to disclose that within a certain period of time.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And if your answer is, well, we can't because we
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: can't identify if it's happened within that time, then you
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be able to be allowed.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the goal of regulation.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: The goal of regulation is to protect the public from
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: things that the private sector cannot handle themselves.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: It's not to raise money. It's not to charge fees.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: It's not to do anything.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: It's to protect the public from From harm. From harm
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: in a way that the private sector cannot.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: In a way that the private sector also isn't pricing
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: or cannot price.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: To me, the best.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Way to do this, by the way, is a legal
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: requirement for insurance and make the actuaries figure it out.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: And I recognize that you cannot have the insurance industry
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: price the risk of a technology destroying humanity as we
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: know it.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: But you don't need them to price that.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: No, but they can say, okay, this is the risk.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: This is the actuarial risk of your product hacking a
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: bank and releasing a bunch of info. This is the
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: risk of your product breaching a bunch of stuff and
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: releasing a bunch of social security numbers or taking down
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: this website. And this is the financial cost of that happening.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: And so here's your insurance rate.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: And at the very least, what that does in my mind,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: slows things down a little bit, which is what some
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: of the public has been calling for. The problem with
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: this method, of course, is that China's not likely to
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: go this way.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Here's what I personally don't want to see, which is, okay,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: this is too dangerous, and it only needs to be
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: held and controlled by the U.S. government, which I think
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: is an acceptable... case for something along the lines of
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: nuclear technology. Because there's no acceptable use for me to
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: have uranium or plutonium.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Agreed.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Like, if I try to make anything with it, bad
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: things are going to happen. On the other hand, if
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I try to make something with AI... it's not a
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: guarantee that bad things are going to happen. In fact,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: there are plenty of good things that may happen. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: so I do think, I made a joke a couple
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: months ago about, hey, we need an additional constitutional amendment
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: for the right to bear weights, like the ability to
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: have your own open-weighted model, I think is actually something
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: that's important because you don't want a model that just
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: tells you whatever the U.S. government wants you to hear
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: at any particular point in time. I think that that
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: is really important, too. And so if you want to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: make a case of, hey, frontier lab development needs to
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: happen within government auspices, I can buy that. But non-frontier
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: work should not be restricted to those platforms because you
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: need to have the ability to have models that don't
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: just regurgitate whatever the U.S. government is thinking at any
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: particular point in time.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Agreed.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: And if you want the models to be designed in
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: a way that they are less likely to do the
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: really risky stuff to society, then put a financial cost
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: on that. Because today there really doesn't.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Seem to be one. Yes. Right?
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Tell me one financial ramification of any of these companies
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: hacking Hugging Face.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Because here's the thing. They haven't been sued.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: If I as a person even accidentally hacked someone's website.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Go to jail.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I go to jail and I've got all kinds of
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: liability for any financial damages that I may cause.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: If an agent that I'm using.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Accidentally hacked someone's website, it's unclear that anything would even
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: happen to me.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And so, like, these are the questions that we need
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: to reckon with. And the problem is we need to
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: reckon with them yesterday.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: If we can reckon with them tomorrow, that's fine. It's
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: still not ideal.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: But I haven't seen any indications that we are close
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: to actually having these conversations in any manner that would
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: produce anything useful.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: Right after the Hugging Face incident, there was some optimism,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: I think, on the part of leaders in the space that, okay,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: this was an eye-opener for regulators, for AI lab developers,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: and this is going to be the moment that something happens.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: And nothing's happened. And that's now, are we four months
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: away from that? It's not an insignificant amount of time.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been like three, four months. And there's really been.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: No movement anywhere to change what's happening in these most
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: advanced labs, and that indicates to me that nothing's going
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: to happen.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Quick break here. We've got Wall Street Watch next.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Time now for Wall Street Watch. Tracking the stocks, the data,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and the headlines driving markets so far today. Right here
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: Well, we've got a fair amount of movements here in
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: the positive direction for major markets here. The Dow Jones
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: is up 180 points or just over three-tenths of a percent.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: The S & P 500 is up nine-tenths of a percent.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: while the Nasdaq is leading the way up 1.2%. Oil
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: is still retreating a little bit, down 1.5%, still above $ 101.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: Brent crude is down 0.8%, but still hovering above 1.15%.
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: Gold is up 0.65%, while silver is up 0.5%. Right now,
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: Verizon Communications is down 2.3%, despite reporting an earnings beat
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: for the third quarter. The company also hiked its full-year
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: 2026 earnings guidance. Tesla is higher by 6.3% after Barclays
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: upgraded the stock to overweight. Analysts at the bank said
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: a merger and acquisition opportunity with SpaceX, growth in the
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: company's robo-taxi business, and core business strength are making them
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: more bullish.
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: On Tesla's outlook. Moderna shares are down 0.5% as the
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: company's sell-off following the leak of results from a closely
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: followed cancer vaccine study on Thursday halted. The stock tumbled
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: more than 18% over Thursday and Friday last week. And finally,
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: Meta Platforms has jumped by just about half a percent
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: after it announced a $ 35 billion stock offering to help
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: finance its artificial intelligence build-out. Meta also plans to raise
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: $ 60 billion through an at-the-market program. I am Ben Kitchen,
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: and that was Wall Street Watch.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Let's see, Mike. Let's talk about this piece on pension funds.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I think that's a fun one to get into. We
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: don't talk about them too often these days, but this
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: one was making the rounds over the last couple days
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: I saw.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's always fun when they refer to pension funds
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: as a ticking time bomb. I think this is referring
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: to both public and private pension systems, and we.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Know that the U.S. Social Security.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: is a form of pension system that is certainly facing
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: a ticking time bomb. Last check was 2032 on that one.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: But the entire French pension system is why you're seeing
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: riots in the streets most recently. And domestic pensions, private pensions,
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: so far as I can tell, there's always a story
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: about a pension system going belly up at the private
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: level here and there. But I don't think that's the
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: top concern for Americans, at least, because quite frankly, very
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: few people are covered by them. But certainly when you
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: have the life expectancy for retirees increasing the way it
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: has over the last 75 years.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: It's going to create all sorts of problems.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: The life expectancy at age 65 for more developed countries
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: generally has increased by 50.9 percent since 1950. It's about
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: 20 additional years past 65 now.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Instead of 10. Yeah. It's a huge difference.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: So massive, massive change compared to when a lot of
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: these pension systems were either started or expanded over the
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: course of recent history. And so no big surprise, I suppose,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: that even without waste, fraud, and abuse, these things are
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: not set up to succeed. And when you see the
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: drop-off in birth rates.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: It compounds the two headed monster.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: You've got a growing pool of retirees because they're living
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: longer and a shrinking pool of workers paying into these systems.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And it's not surprising that you end up with all
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: kinds of questions about the sustainability of them.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: So, you know, speaking of sustainability, obviously, this election will
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: be the first elected officials that actually have to deal
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: with this problem because they will be serving with the
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: pension system.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: In the United States, goes bust. Been a lot of
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: campaigning about it?
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: None.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: I have not seen a single ad or really anything
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: about it. But interesting tag-along piece from Investopedia on account
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: balances by age. I feel like everybody loves this question.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: How often, Chuck, when you're talking with people, do you
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: get asked the question, well, how.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Do I compare? Am I on pace? And the answer
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: is always yes. That's an irrelevant question because, you know.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: You're saving for you, not for anyone else. Correct.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: But Investopedia did put this piece out and gives you
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: some benchmarks to look at. So I don't think these
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: should be goals because in many cases it's inadequate for people.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: But the first piece, you know, for folks.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: In the 20 to 29 range, only less than half
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: of them actually have at least one IRA or 401k.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: So this isn't saying they have access, but I've actually
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: taken the steps to open it and contribute dollars to one.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: That raises to just over half for folks in their 30s.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: And then the peak demo in the age of 40
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: to 60, it's over 60%. When we take a look
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: at balances by those same retirement accounts, they were able
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: to put together a median balance by age demo. And
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: the over 70 demo is the highest balance here with
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: a median balance of over $ 254, 200. Folks in their 60s
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: are the next biggest at $ 250, 000. The amazing piece here
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: is the drop-off. So median balance, if you're between 60
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: and 69 years old.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Is $ 250, 000.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: If you're between 50 and 59, it's $ 140, 000.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Doesn't that just speak to an extra decade of compounding, though?
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: It does, but I think that's the entire point here, Chuck,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: is the.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: Work that you can do, the dramatic effect that you
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: can have on somebody's future by just making a small
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: nudge in the right direction when they're in their 20s
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: or 30s compared to the laborious set of work that
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: you need to do if you're trying to compound to
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: the right amount in your 50s. it's truly remarkable, right?
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, again, you know, the average, the median account
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: balance for folks in their twenties is only 12,600. And
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: that's with the knowledge that only 40 some odd percent
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: of those people even have a retirement account. And so
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: you think through, okay, if I can just sock away
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: that extra few bucks when I'm in my twenties, how
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: big of an effect that has by the time you're
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: in your sixties. I know this is every parents and, and, and,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: you know, grandparents beat that they like to march to
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: and try and instill in people in their younger stages,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: but it is truly remarkable the effects that it can have.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: If you're at any stage of life, I can make
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: the argument that looking at this stuff, better understanding it,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: and nudging things onto the right tracks can have a
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: huge effect, but especially if you're finding yourself either ahead
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: of or behind the eight ball getting close to retirement.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: If you're behind the eight ball, like I said, it's
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: going to take a lot of disciplined work to get
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: you over the finish line. If you're ahead of the
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: eight ball, you might not know it, and it might
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: allow you to coast into retirement or at least go
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: to work with the knowledge that, hey, I'm in a
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: good spot here. If you have questions like that, if
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: you're curious about your own financial situation and how you
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: stack up, give us a ring at the Armstrong Advisory Group.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: The number is 800-393-4001.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: You can book a time for us to call you
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: back by visiting armstrongadvisory.com. But again, take that first step, 800-393-4001.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: Armstrong guide is specific financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: any investment decisions. Armstrong may contact you to offer investment
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: advisory services.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I have two quotes regarding AI that I want to
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: chat about that came out over the last couple.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Days or so.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: The first one is in this piece here that we
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: have talking about.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Citadel's, what is it there? Co-Chief Investment Officer. Pablo Salame.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Maybe Salami. I doubt it. It's not Salami.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Again, he's pretty good at his job if he's the
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Co-Chief Investment Officer of You know, he kind of knows
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: his stuff.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: He'd never lose money.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: But we often think like, hey, a rising tide lifts
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: all boats. He says, quote, the credit market is getting
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: jammed right now because it hasn't figured out a way
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: to offload those risks yet. AI's rising tide will sink
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: some boats and it's a wavy tide. So that's kind
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: of a different statement. The other one that Elon Musk
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: had yesterday.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, same exact message.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: He was replying to a message on X from Chamath.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: And said he was asked talking about like, oh, like,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: you know, hyperscalers have like all these problems, but the
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: neoclouds are a real issue because they just are disorganized
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: in a mess. And Elon says, yes, pretty much. As
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: of the past few weeks, debt markets have almost entirely
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: shut off access to any money for companies that don't
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers. He then
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: says something about SpaceX, which I'll get to in a second.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: That means that 200-plus neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Guppy-level death and consolidation. Some will make it through, but
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: not many. So, first of all, Elon is absolutely talking
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: his own book because he's ruthless on this stuff.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Again, he IPO'd in the.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Spring to basically front-run Anthropic and OpenAI to try to
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: make it so they couldn't because he saw what was
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: coming in terms of this capital crunch.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: He would love to see the death of a bunch
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: of competition and probably would love to scoop up the
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: data centers on the cheap if they did go dead.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So, like, he's talking his own book. So, you have
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: to understand that, yes, there are definitely, we've talked about this,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: there's going to be a whole bunch of companies in
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: this that end up missing. being profitable it doesn't mean
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the technology doesn't work it doesn't mean the sector as
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: a whole ends up being unprofitable but yeah you always
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: get companies that are chasing the latest and greatest thing
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: and some of them work and some of them don't
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: like not everyone like makes it through Elon's talking like
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: they're going to, and granted, they did just secure a
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: $ 40 billion debt offering with Apollo in order to finance chips.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: But the question that is still out there is, where's
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the money going to come from to finance all of this?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: And then does it pay off at the end?
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: And we don't know.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: But guys, I'm telling you, the next 18 months are
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: going to answer these questions. Because either there's going to
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: be enough revenue growth that continues... to support building $ 4
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: trillion in data centers in the next three years?
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Or there won't be. It's binary.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: It's not something where you're like, well, we can... No,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: it's either there or it's not. So the next 18
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: months is going to tell us an awful lot about this.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: We're at the.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I want to call it the beginning of the end
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: because that presumes that it's going to go badly. But
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: we're at the beginning of the sorting out process now.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the end might not be the right word. No,
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: it's the sorting out.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: We're at the beginning of the end of the beginning.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Got it. That's where we are. That cleared it up
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: for me. Let's take a quick break and we'll get
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: to the middle of the end of the show next.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Wall Street, the economy, and the business stories making headlines.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Find it all on the Financial Exchange YouTube channel with
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: live shows, video highlights, and shorts. Watch at youtube.com slash
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the Financial Exchange. This is the Financial Exchange Media Network.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Watch the Financial Exchange live every day on YouTube with
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: market moves, breaking business news and analysis throughout the show.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Join the live chat and be part of the conversation.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: This is the Financial Exchange Media Network.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Mike, what do you got for Stack Roulette?
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about everybody feeling like they're getting
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: a raw deal when they go shopping these days. And
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: we've talked about this phenomenon quite a bit on the program.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: And plenty of different outlets do either test out different
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: pricing or specify you get different pricing because of.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Who you are. Uh, Lindsay Owens, uh, is, uh, works
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: for the, I.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: Think it's the ground truth project or something along those
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: lines and, and, um, has done a bunch of studies
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: on this. She also just published a book and, um,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: she's looked at this in a few different ways.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: And I think where we're most sensitive.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: To it is probably the grocery store, uh, in, in
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: terms of price gouging, um, Walmart or these other places.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: It's also probably the least likely place for it to happen. Um,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: they don't have the real... One, price gouging is actually
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: illegal in a lot of places. But remember what price
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: gouging is. Price gouging is not marking up a handbag.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: It is changing the price of a necessity good, usually
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: varies by state law, but usually because of some sort
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: of crisis that brings upon a shortage.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And so that's illegal. Whereas....
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Changing dynamically the price of a handbag or a concert
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: ticket for people that you think are wealthier is not.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: And a few examples that she gave in an interview
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: that I listened to recently, she was looking at hotel
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: pricing data from I think it was Hotels.com or Expedia
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: and found that people that were searching from an IP
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: address in the San Francisco greater area paid a much
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: higher price than other people in less wealthy areas of
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: the country. So clearly some of those online marketplaces are
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: looking at where the web traffic is coming from and
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: changing it up. She also took a look at a
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: bunch of people putting grocery orders for pickup through Instacart.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Wildly different prices depending on the person for that. Instacart
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: apparently responded that this was just A-B testing. Like, hey,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: we want to see how this goes. But nonetheless, it existed.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: And then another one. that I think everyone's complained about
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: concert tickets. She had a bunch of people test out, hey,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: everybody try and go buy tickets to this concert on
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: this date in this row of this stadium. And all
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: the ticket prices were the exact same. The processing fees
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: charged by the ticket provider were wildly different based on.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: The- And I segment by the price versus the fee.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: I'll see different fees even when I'm looking at them.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: And so I think the point that she makes is
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: many companies, Uber is a great example of this, are
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: getting very good at figuring out what is the maximum
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: price you are.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Going to be willing to pay as a consumer.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: And then in Uber's case, what is the minimum price
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: that a driver is going to be willing to take
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: on that side of their business?
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Because they really do price.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: customize both the labor and the cost of the product.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about fast food.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: Can I do that? Yeah, we always like to talk
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: about fast food as we close in on noon.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: The nine fast food chains customers think will disappear soon.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: So some of these I'm surprised haven't. Long John Silver's,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know who the market is for this.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: I went online.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: In my fraternity, I think we were Asked to, forced
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: to go spend something like $ 200 at Long John Silver's.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Not that hard today, given where the prices are. And
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: this is what I found in my research. There isn't
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: one around our main location in the Boston area.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Which is not surprising. I would imagine not. There's no
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Red Lobsters either. But I found one in Fresno. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Similar demo to the greater Boston area.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: I found one in Fresno.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: The cheapest meal that they have there is, and this
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: is for pickup, like not delivery or anything, is $ 16.
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: 29.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: That is not cheap. Okay.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Who's the person that is saying, you know what, and
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: by the way, that's a grilled salmon and shrimp platter,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: which I don't think there's much of a market for
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: at all. If you're talking about like actual fried seafood,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, what they're known for, the cheapest
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: one's $ 16. 99, so $ 17. 00. I'm just not sure who's the
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: person who wakes up in the morning.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: And is like... Get me down a Long John's.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I need to go to Long John Silver's for $ 17.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I could make a case like, sure, if it were,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: you know... Again, I know we talk about how McDonald's
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: has gotten more expensive. Yeah, if you've got a $ 10 option, okay,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: I can understand that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: I can get you there.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Even if you go to just a two-piece combo, which
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: is now you're getting smaller, you still have $ 13.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, so we can agree there. I don't know what
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: Long John Silver is doing existing in 2026. They got
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Quiznos on the list. Quiznos already went bankrupt once.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: They're still around. Burger King is actually bouncing back, so
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know how that's on the list.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: Crumble, I've never been inside. I don't know. I've tried
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: one of their cookies before. They're delicious. I find them forgettable.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: They're fine, but I'm not much of a complicated cookie person.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: I like my cookies simple. Chocolate chip.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Sugar.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Oatmeal. Oatmeal raisin.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Not like, hey, it's a cookie with a cupcake on top.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: That's too much for me.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Wendy's. They are going through some trouble. Has been fading
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: into irrelevance recently. I can't imagine them disappearing, though. Steak
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: and Shake. Probably the operator of the best Twitter handle
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: in history. Oh, yeah. Hasn't turned them around. Hasn't really
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: done anything for the business. Crystal. What is Crystal? Never
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: heard of them. Never heard of it. K-R-Y-S-T-A-L? Let us know.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know where in the country they operate, but
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: they must be somewhere.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: KFC. I'd be really surprised if KFC went anywhere. Pizza Hut.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Gotta be honest.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Been to two Pizza Huts in the last year just
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: to sample the goods. Dramatically different from one to the next.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Not a consistent restaurant experience.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Would not go again. Quick break here for the rest
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: of the day. We'll see you tomorrow on the Financial Exchange.