Latest / The Financial Exchange Show / Why is the bull market revving back up?
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- 0:02Speaker 1: The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
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- 0:36Exchange with Chuck Zada and Mike Armstrong, your exclusive look
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- 0:55Veterans Department of Massachusetts. Help us support our great American
- 0:59here by visiting DAV fivek dot Boston and making a
- 1:03donation today. The DAV five K Boston is presented by
- 1:07Veterans Development Corporation. This is the financial Exchange with Chuck
- 1:11Zutta and Mike Armstrong.
- 1:15Speaker 2: Chuck, Mike and Tucker kicking things off on Veterans Day.
- 1:19Here to those of you who joined us over the
- 1:21weekend at the dav five K in Boston, good time,
- 1:25fantastic time. Appreciate you all joining us. Just a great
- 1:28event that gets put on there. Yours truly ended up
- 1:31finishing twenty sixth out of about fifteen hundred runners. So
- 1:36ill doing a little bit of math. That puts me
- 1:38in the ninety eighth percentile, and that feels pretty darn good.
- 1:42If I got a gloat for myself a little bit here,
- 1:45I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry.
- 1:47Speaker 3: Do you want to announce mine so that we can
- 1:49you know? Yeah, where'd you finish the bottom twenty fifth
- 1:51percent tile or whatever it might have been.
- 1:53Speaker 2: I don't think you finished that badly. I haven't looked
- 1:55for you quite honestly. Wow, it's not too far down
- 1:58the list. You finished in one hundred and eleventh, so
- 2:02it's not bad.
- 2:02Speaker 3: I only beat you by eighty five spots top ten percentile, right, yeah,
- 2:05I beat you.
- 2:06Speaker 2: By eighty five spots. It's fine, it's no big deal.
- 2:09Speaker 3: None of us was unable to walk the next day though,
- 2:12and nearly nearly fell over from cramps right afterwards.
- 2:15Speaker 4: That was not Chuck, that was me.
- 2:17Speaker 2: No, But in any case, appreciate everyone joining us. Really
- 2:20look as much fun as it is to you know,
- 2:22actually run the race. The ultimate thing is making sure
- 2:26that we are supporting our veterans, and that's what really
- 2:29matters more than anything else. So please, again, I thank you,
- 2:34thank everyone who joined us there anyone who helped support
- 2:37the event and who supported the dav radiothon on Friday.
- 2:42Speaker 4: And I just you know, final piece on that.
- 2:44Speaker 3: I would just ask, Yeah, if you missed the show
- 2:46on Friday, or if you're not familiar with the work
- 2:50that the dav does, all I ask is that you
- 2:52familiarize yourself with it.
- 2:54Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I'd love for you to make a donation.
- 2:56Speaker 3: I'd love for you to support them in some way,
- 2:58shape or form, but at the very least, if we
- 3:00can ask you to do one thing, it's familiarize yourself
- 3:02with the work that they do nationwide, because it is
- 3:05fantastic work. And even if you can't afford to donate
- 3:08or you know, spend some of your time there, you
- 3:09can at least familiarize yourself with the work and you know,
- 3:13be an advocate and speak about the work that they
- 3:16do and.
- 3:17Speaker 2: Looking at the different divisions, I actually did win the
- 3:21men's thirty five plus division, so it feels fantastic too,
- 3:25if I may say so myself. Let's talk a little
- 3:28bit about the economic data that we are going to
- 3:30be getting this week. I know there's a ton of
- 3:32speculation surrounding what you know, President Trump will do in
- 3:38his second term in office. Quite honestly, I'm going to
- 3:41try to limit that because it seems like we can speculate,
- 3:43like every day forever about what's going to happen. And
- 3:46I think it's important to talk about things that are
- 3:48being concretely discussed by the incoming administration. But we can't
- 3:53just spend two hours being like, well, what if they
- 3:56do this? What if they like that?
- 3:57Speaker 3: We kind of did that for a few shows, and
- 3:59it's yeah, you can't do it forever.
- 4:01Speaker 2: We can't do it forever. Like ultimately, we have to
- 4:03talk about what's actually going on, and once they get
- 4:07in place, then we'll be able to talk about what
- 4:08they're doing. So it's not that we don't think there
- 4:11could be some big changes coming up. It's just that
- 4:14it's still very unclear what those exact changes will be,
- 4:16and as we get more information, we'll talk about them.
- 4:19But there is an economy that's actually happening right now,
- 4:23if that's the right term. And so a couple pieces
- 4:26of economic data that we are going to be getting
- 4:29this week. The first is going to be inflation data
- 4:31on Wednesday. CPI comes out eight thirty am Wednesday. Expectations
- 4:36right now, core inflation expected to print point three percent
- 4:39for the month headline point two. This would keep the
- 4:44core inflation unchanged at three point three percent annually. It
- 4:48would represent a slight bump up on the headline inflation
- 4:52number from two point four percent annually to two point
- 4:54six because last October printed a big fat zero for inflation.
- 4:59So we've got that coming out on Wednesday. Thursday, Producer
- 5:03Price Index PPI comes out, so we'll have that at
- 5:05eight thirty along with initial job as claims and continuing claims.
- 5:09And then on Friday we get retail sales data. So
- 5:12those are, you know, kind of the big pieces that
- 5:14we have to hit this week. Mike, if you're looking
- 5:17at these different reports, Which one of these is most
- 5:20important to you? If you had to pick one, well.
- 5:22Speaker 3: I guess I would go with retail sales, even though
- 5:24it's a very volatile read and you know it doesn't
- 5:28necessary necessarily give you anything and any one read of it.
- 5:31But we have a pretty good idea of what CPI
- 5:34is going to look like. I think I don't think
- 5:36it's going to surprise much of anyone. I think it's
- 5:38a more important data point than retail sales. But because
- 5:42we're not seeing prices move, I'm pretty sure I know
- 5:44where it's going to come in, whereas retail sales is
- 5:47interesting to me, and I'll be interested on the trend
- 5:49line on that over the next couple of months as well,
- 5:52to see where is sentiment shifting. You know, we see
- 5:56so much of sentiment built up in people's political views.
- 5:59Do you people getting out there and spending ahead of
- 6:02the holiday season in a way that they otherwise wouldn't have.
- 6:05Speaker 4: That that's going to be compelling to me as we
- 6:07head into next week.
- 6:08Speaker 2: And I think what is going to be if we're
- 6:12talking about the real economy, One of the things that
- 6:15is going to be interesting to me over the next
- 6:17couple of months is having talked to a couple of
- 6:20people that work in making actual products, you know, not services,
- 6:26but in the selling of goods and things like that.
- 6:29I've talked to three different people that maken and currently
- 6:33import products, and they are accelerating imports significantly ahead of
- 6:40January twenty twenty five because of questions about what a
- 6:44Trump term could look like from a tariff stand right,
- 6:48And they're not saying, hey, we're definitely going to be
- 6:50you know, struck by these, you know, because no one
- 6:52really knows what the format is going to be yet.
- 6:55But I think that one thing that we may see,
- 6:57it's not going to show up in retail sales because
- 6:58remember that's well, hey, look it may show up in
- 7:02retail sales. Another buddy who I was talking to is
- 7:06now thinking about buying again. This is all anecdotal, so
- 7:09it's it is what it is said. Look, I'm thinking
- 7:12about buying a TV in the next month or two.
- 7:14I didn't want to this year, but I'm nervous about
- 7:16you know, hey, if tariffs get implemented next year and
- 7:18I went to buy the same TV twelve months from now,
- 7:21could it be more expensive? So he's going to buy
- 7:24that TV that you know in the next two months
- 7:27now instead, what about.
- 7:29Speaker 3: The single largest I believe, the single largest contributor every
- 7:31month to retail sales because of the ticket price dollar
- 7:35car sales. I mean, hey, I think the EV tax
- 7:38credit may go away, or I think that you know,
- 7:40imported cars are going to face higher tariffs. I'm going
- 7:43to maybe buy that car now because I'm not sure
- 7:46what the EV credit would look like. I could see
- 7:48a lot of these things playing out and being pulled forward.
- 7:50Speaker 2: So I think from an economic data standpoint, I wouldn't
- 7:54be particularly surprised if you see an uptick just in
- 7:57the next couple months in goods related per and or imports.
- 8:01I think that's something that's very real, just because, hey,
- 8:04if you are nervous about higher tariffs coming through in
- 8:07the future, you might say, look, if they're not implemented yet, great,
- 8:11let's buy it now, even though you know you might
- 8:13have wanted to defer it. So I think this is
- 8:15something interesting to watch as far as the economic data
- 8:18that we get here other things, as far as the
- 8:23overall health of the job market. This was one of
- 8:26our areas of concern back really kind of July and
- 8:30August before. We got some better data recently, and I
- 8:34think the labor market is still not showing any consistent
- 8:39signs of weakness. There are places where the Jolt survey
- 8:42is showing that it's less dynamic. We're not seeing the
- 8:44same level of hiring quits and anything like that. The
- 8:50jobs data from the monthly Jobs Report is still showing
- 8:54a decline in the unemployment rate even as the number
- 8:56of jobs added has gone down, which is, yeah, a
- 9:00little confusion just because again the data has been a
- 9:02mess because of these hurricanes and things.
- 9:04Speaker 3: Right, I mean, what if we averaged in terms of
- 9:06new jobs created over the last few months, I think
- 9:10it's in the less than one hundred thousand per month range.
- 9:14Speaker 2: So I'm pulling it up right now. And so yeah,
- 9:17I mean you're yeah, you're you're looking in it's it's
- 9:22like right around one hundred. I'm just eyeballing it.
- 9:24Speaker 3: So that's I mean, look that that were it to
- 9:27persist is problematic. It's problematic because our our labor force
- 9:33is growing. Sorry, the number of people looking for work
- 9:36on any monthly basis is growing faster than those jobs
- 9:39are getting created at a pace like this, and so
- 9:42Eventually that likely leads to a you know uptick in
- 9:46the unemployment, right, so it continues. I think there's some
- 9:48concern there.
- 9:49Speaker 2: So I think that's something that we're continuing to monitor.
- 9:52But look on a weekly basis. Aside from a couple
- 9:55of weeks of hurricane related you know, jumps in initial claims.
- 9:59Speaker 4: Yep, no layoffs, there's not much there.
- 10:02Speaker 2: In terms of increased you know, stress in the labor market.
- 10:06It's it's just not filtering through in terms of more
- 10:10people you know, on unemployment. We are seeing people are
- 10:14unemployed longer. That is something that the data is showing,
- 10:17which shows you that you have a less dynamic labor market.
- 10:20But overall, there's still a lot of questions as we
- 10:23head into the next few months about hey, where is
- 10:25the economy going from here, because it doesn't have a
- 10:28clear direction. It's it's been better the last two months,
- 10:31but we've seen these two month headfakes before, and it's
- 10:35just it's unclear if it's strong enough to you know,
- 10:37take things up, or you know, if we kind of
- 10:39soft lend, you know, bounce back and forth between things
- 10:43are fine and things are not.
- 10:44Speaker 3: I hate to blame everything on politics, but We talked
- 10:47a lot about the like decision paralysis leading up to
- 10:51the election. Yeah, do you suspect that there will be
- 10:54any sort of decision paralysis on the part of companies
- 10:57as they wait out to see what just what does
- 11:01the environment look like in twenty twenty five, in terms
- 11:04of tariffs, in terms of deportations, in terms of you know,
- 11:09all these different things that are going to be playing out.
- 11:12I certainly don't think it leads you to lay people off,
- 11:15but does it continue to kick the you know, kick
- 11:18the can down the road on big hiring decisions, big
- 11:20expansion decisions.
- 11:21Speaker 4: Things along those lines.
- 11:25Speaker 3: My problem is that not everything can be a oh,
- 11:28we just have to wait and see, Like at some
- 11:30point you robber hits the road and you have to
- 11:32make it.
- 11:32Speaker 2: And that's kind of where I was going, which is, look,
- 11:36with with any big decision, whether it's in your personal life,
- 11:40in your business world, like whatever it might be, there's
- 11:43always a reason where you can be like, hey, we
- 11:45got to hold up. Yeah, you know, ultimately, at some
- 11:49point you just got to go for it. And I
- 11:53think companies are going to try to do so in
- 11:55ways that will potentially mitigate the outcomes. Hey, frontloading a
- 11:59bunch of buying before four year end. If you're an
- 12:00importer or stuff, great, that gives you a way to
- 12:03manage it so that you can get some clarity. You
- 12:05might say, yeah, let me import you know, six months
- 12:08worth of sales in the next two and that way
- 12:11I don't have to worry about what tariffs look like
- 12:14in the first half of next year. Right, and we
- 12:16can figure out a longer term plan. But ultimately you
- 12:19still have to do something because doing nothing it's still
- 12:23a decision. It's just well, we're not doing anything, and
- 12:27that it's still a decision that you're making. Let's take
- 12:30a quick break here. When we come back, talk about
- 12:33what's going on in markets. With small caps, banks, and
- 12:36Tesla stock among the leaders last week, We'll see what
- 12:41the future looks like for those areas after this.
- 12:46Speaker 1: This is your home for the most comprehensive coverage of
- 12:49the economy and the trends on Wall Street Face. He's
- 12:52the Financial Exchange Radio Network. If you missed any of
- 12:56today's show, catch up whenever you want on our YouTube page.
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- 13:05is your home for breaking business and financial news. This
- 13:09is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
- 13:13Speaker 5: This segment of the Financial Exchange is brought to you
- 13:16in part by the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism.
- 13:19The US Virgin Islands are Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, and
- 13:21Saint John. The fall in full swing. Now's the time
- 13:25to start looking at a fabulous holiday vacation, and there's
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- 13:44book your trip. That's visit USVII dot com, Mike.
- 13:47Speaker 2: So, if we take a look at the last week
- 13:50or so of trading post election, we've got basically stocks
- 13:59across a number of different areas surging. It's hard to
- 14:01say everything because there are some areas market that actually
- 14:05haven't done well in the last week or so, I mean,
- 14:07like utility stocks. But sure, okay, you know, part of
- 14:12that's just because who is the company that had their
- 14:14application to turn back on one of the three Mile
- 14:19Island things rejected.
- 14:21Speaker 4: Oh I didn't see the rejection.
- 14:23Speaker 2: Someone did it. There was a reject It was I
- 14:25think it was Susquehannas the or something like that is
- 14:30the company that runs the plant, and the State Energy
- 14:34Commission was kind of like, no, we're not just going
- 14:37to authorize another nuclear power generator to be turned on
- 14:41because you need it for AI. That's that's not what
- 14:43we do here. So no, like we're not going to
- 14:46do this, Go build one yourself, basically is what they said.
- 14:50Speaker 3: Meta Stock, Facebook's parent company, not exactly rolling in the
- 14:53money over the last week. I think they're still up
- 14:55about two percent over the last five days. But you know,
- 14:58as you can imagine, they've butted heads a little bit
- 15:03over the years.
- 15:03Speaker 2: Yeah, so Donald Trump, what we have going on here? Well,
- 15:06not just him, remember Elon Musk, who is you know,
- 15:08in deep conversations with the Trump administration as well. So
- 15:13I think look that the message from markets last week
- 15:16was hey, in Trump term one, we saw things like
- 15:20cyclical small caps and financials do very well. That's the
- 15:25exact stuff that has rallied the most in the last
- 15:29week or so. The question is is this going to
- 15:33be the same set up here. I've made the case
- 15:36a couple times. I don't think it is, Connor said
- 15:38in Bloomberg Opinion, kind of echoes what I was talking about.
- 15:42So I guess maybe Connor listens to the show. He must.
- 15:46But look, this is a market right now that is
- 15:50reacting as if it's late twenty sixteen and it's going
- 15:53to get that twenty seventeen that came afterwards.
- 15:56Speaker 4: It may, but I.
- 15:57Speaker 2: Don't think that this is set in stone, because I
- 16:01think the playbook has to be a little bit different
- 16:03this time.
- 16:03Speaker 4: Yeah, let's run through a few of these though.
- 16:05Speaker 3: I mean, I do want to compare like we did
- 16:07before twenty sixteen to twenty twenty four. But let's run
- 16:09through a few of these sectors and just kind of, yeah,
- 16:12you run them out. I mean, the Tesla one's pretty obvious.
- 16:15Elon Musk was Elon.
- 16:16Speaker 2: Musk is a very deep relationship with Donald Trump right now. Hey,
- 16:19if he's going to be, you know, involved in some
- 16:21ways jape or form in the government, it's hard to
- 16:23see the government letting Tesla have meaningful problems. That's your thesis.
- 16:28Speaker 3: At least not yours, but the a few things that
- 16:31I'll point out to people that you know they may
- 16:33or may not be aware of, but has been asked
- 16:35of me. So I think it's important to understand Tesla
- 16:39does not own SpaceX. Elon Musk runs both companies, but
- 16:43Tesla and SpaceX in terms of the publicly trade its talks,
- 16:46Tesla has no interest as far as I know whatsoever
- 16:49in the SpaceX business. Likewise, neither of them have anything
- 16:53to do with x Elon Musk involved in all three,
- 16:55but no ownership interest across those lines whatsoever. And a
- 17:00pretty important distinction, because I have gotten that question like, well,
- 17:03can I get some SpaceX action if I buy Tesla?
- 17:05And the answer is definitively new no. But nonetheless to
- 17:08your point, yeah, I think tough to see an unfriendly
- 17:12government towards Tesla. And you know what, if tax credits
- 17:15are going away for all the other evs that are
- 17:17out there, which Tesla doesn't participate in anymore, maybe that
- 17:22you know, it helps out their business a little bit,
- 17:24right if you have I don't think you can get
- 17:26a tax credit, a federal tax credit for buying a
- 17:28new Tesla these days.
- 17:29Speaker 2: So We're still being advertised on the ESTL site. I'm
- 17:32taking a look right now just because I'm curious, and.
- 17:38Speaker 3: I thought they had used all those up, so we
- 17:40can go back to that. On financials, I think there's
- 17:43a pretty obvious trade there as well. During the first
- 17:47Trump presidency he rolled back some regulations and benefited a
- 17:52lot of large financial institutions. Will that happen again.
- 17:55Speaker 2: This Tesla calculator does include the seventy five hundred dollars
- 17:59tax credit, so.
- 18:00Speaker 4: I'm mistaken about that.
- 18:02Speaker 3: In addition, you know, kind of I'm gonna call it
- 18:06quasi financial sector as well, You've seen crypto markets responding
- 18:10positively to what.
- 18:11Speaker 4: Is very likely to be a well, very.
- 18:15Speaker 3: Different approach from their main regulator, or the attempted regulator
- 18:19of the SEC, based on you know, the the comments
- 18:23that Donald Trump has had for towards the crypto current,
- 18:26towards the crypto market in general. So there's been some
- 18:29chatter there. Small caps a little bit less obvious to me.
- 18:34I mean, I think the main story there is just, hey,
- 18:36these are not generally companies that import a whole lot
- 18:39of stuff. There's more companies that are focused on domestic
- 18:41production within the small cap area. But other than that,
- 18:45you know, you have companies with high borrowing costs and
- 18:48other headwinds against them.
- 18:50Speaker 2: I would say that the story there if you're trying
- 18:52to build a narrative deregulation. It's more expensive for small
- 18:56companies to comply with regulations as a percentage of their
- 18:59overall revenue than larger ones typically, So that could be
- 19:03part of the story there is. Hey, you know, regulatory
- 19:05compliance costs going down would in theory help small caps
- 19:09if you think that's going to happen, and that if
- 19:12we're looking at the possibility for greatest similarities between Trump
- 19:16term one and two, the potential for deregulation, I think
- 19:19is probably where there's the most overlap. Yep, the tax
- 19:22situation in the fiscal situation is fundamentally different, but from
- 19:26a regulatory perspective, I think there's still are you know,
- 19:29some pretty significant similarities. Let's take a quick break. Wall
- 19:32Street Watches next.
- 19:43Speaker 1: Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
- 19:45TFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
- 19:50on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time Now for Wall
- 19:55Street Watch a complete look at what's moving markets so
- 19:58far today right here on the Financial exchange radio network.
- 20:02Speaker 5: Markets are opening the weekend positive territory, as traders witnessed
- 20:06the Dow in SMP five hundred accord their strongest weeks
- 20:09in about a year in about a year last week,
- 20:11while all three major averages also notched all time closing highs.
- 20:16At the moment, the Dow is up three hundred and
- 20:18ninety two points, just under one percent, SMP five hundred
- 20:22is up about a quarter percent, and the Nasdaq edging
- 20:25five points higher. Russell two thousand is up one percent
- 20:28so far today, ten year Treasure Reel down by three
- 20:31basis points at four point three zero percent, and crew
- 20:35to Oil off nearly three percent, trading at sixty eight
- 20:38dollars in forty seven cents a barrel. Several cryptos stocks,
- 20:42including Coinbase, micro Strategy, and Robinhood are all seeing more
- 20:46gains to start the week after Bitcoin topped eighty two
- 20:49thousand dollars new all time highs. Coinbase shares are up
- 20:54sixteen percent in addition to micro Strategy also up by
- 20:57sixteen percent. In Robinhood is up by eleven percent. Meanwhile,
- 21:02after a twenty nine percent jump last week, Tesla shares
- 21:05up another seven percent today. The electric vehicle maker topped
- 21:09one trillion dollars in market valuation on Friday, as Wall
- 21:12Street is betting the company will benefit under the Trump administration.
- 21:17Elsewhere is Signa shares up by seven percent after the
- 21:20health insurance giant said it will not be pursuing a
- 21:23merger with Humana. Signa also reiterated its fiscal twenty twenty
- 21:28four and twenty twenty five guidance. And after today's closing bell,
- 21:32we'll see third quarter earnings from Live Nation tomorrow morning
- 21:35ahead of the Open Home Depot and Shopify will post
- 21:39their quarterly results. I'm Tucker Silvan. That's Wallstreet Watch.
- 21:43Speaker 2: PC here from Bloomberg Opinion that touches on what we
- 21:46were covering last segment, which is it's titled Trump inherits
- 21:49an economy at a tricky time, and what it's talking
- 21:54about here. Look, here's some key statistics that we have
- 21:57that are just differences from Trump entering into his first
- 22:02term compared to today. GDP through Q three of twenty
- 22:07sixteen was growing at one point eight percent. Today it's
- 22:10a two point seven a lot hotter. It's a lot
- 22:14hotter right now. The unemployment rate was five percent today
- 22:17it's four point one. The age twenty five to fifty four.
- 22:21What's known as prime age employment to population ratio. What
- 22:25percentage of your twenty five to fifty four year olds
- 22:28are employed, not the unemployment rate, what percentage of them
- 22:32are actually employed. Because remember, there's always someone who has
- 22:34to take care of kids, who take care of aging parents, sure,
- 22:37or who's in school.
- 22:38Speaker 4: To say whatever, any number of things.
- 22:41Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen it was seventy eight percent. Today it's
- 22:43eighty point nine, which is amongst the highest we've seen.
- 22:47Two year treasury yield in twenty sixteen point seven seven
- 22:50percent today it's three point sixty six ten your treasury.
- 22:53And again this is I'm looking at end of Q
- 22:55three just because I wanted to have kind of a
- 22:58bright line that I was looking at, because all this
- 23:00stuff is monthly or quarterly, right right tenure US treasure
- 23:03realed end of Q three in twenty sixteen one point
- 23:05six percent twenty twenty four to three point eight CPI
- 23:09then was one five today it's two four. Core CPI
- 23:11was two to two today it's three three. Annual deficit
- 23:14from the prior year twenty fifteen, the deficit was two
- 23:18point four percent of GDP last year it was six
- 23:20point one.
- 23:21Speaker 3: So let's let's try and digest a few of these
- 23:24things and what it practically means. I mean, overall, I
- 23:27think the message you're trying to send is that this
- 23:29economy today looks nothing like the twenty sixteen one. It
- 23:32looks a lot stronger, with a lot less slack in it.
- 23:38You know, like unemployment lower, you know, GDP higher, borrowing
- 23:44costs higher. I think all of those are indicative of
- 23:46a healthier economy. But when you talk about an economy
- 23:50that has gotten here through uh, give me the numbers
- 23:54on defits as part of GDP again.
- 23:57Speaker 2: Two point four percent in twenty sixteen, six point one percent.
- 24:00Speaker 3: So you've gotten here, at least in part by juicing
- 24:05government spending over the last year. And a lot of
- 24:09the proposals that Donald Trump ran on at least were
- 24:12about doing so further. Now, not juicing government spending, but
- 24:16juicing net government spending is ultimately what we're talking about
- 24:20here through tax cuts. And it's tough to envision when
- 24:24you've already juiced things so much through deficit spending, how
- 24:28it's going to play out in well, just how it's
- 24:31going to play out, Well, they'll stop.
- 24:32Speaker 2: There are a few different things going on here. The
- 24:34first is, look, we've talked about the labor market has
- 24:37been weakening for the last.
- 24:38Speaker 4: Year, right, So the trend line is down on the
- 24:40labor market.
- 24:41Speaker 2: Correct. So we've th the unemployment's low right now it's
- 24:43been worsening.
- 24:44Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's a lot higher than it was a
- 24:46year ago.
- 24:46Speaker 2: Correct, it was three point four percent where it bottomed
- 24:48out in the summer last year, or might have even
- 24:51been three to three. So that's piece number one is
- 24:54you do have a labor market that's been slowing. On
- 24:57top of it, Let's say that you need to stimulate
- 24:59the economy or want to. You say, hey, look, I
- 25:01want this thing to be ripping again, like I want
- 25:03I want two point seven percent growth, I want three. Yeah,
- 25:07the cost of doing so is higher. What do you
- 25:09mean if you want to? Because again you think about
- 25:13how again look at look at Trump term one. Can
- 25:16we call it Trump one point oh? Because I feel
- 25:18like that's catching Sure, we got Trump one point oh
- 25:20and Trump two point oh. Okay, Trump one point oh?
- 25:23What am I gonna do? I'm gonna throw a two
- 25:26trillion dollar tax cut over ten years at the problem
- 25:29of growth. What happens, I got more growth, Like, that's
- 25:33what happened. You throw and again, remember the economy is
- 25:37bigger and there's been inflation, So two trillion dollar tax
- 25:39cut now is not the same. You might need two
- 25:42and a half three trillion to get the same impact.
- 25:45You throw a three trillion dollar tax cut at the
- 25:47economy right now, it's unclear how much more growth you
- 25:50can actually get in. And here's why, Like, I wanna,
- 25:53I want to dig into this because like this this
- 25:55is meaty, Like it's it's juicy. Here. There are two
- 26:00ways that you can grow the economy the number of
- 26:03hours worked in the aggregate and how much stuff you
- 26:07make in each of those hours. If you've got unemployment
- 26:11at four point one percent and eighty point nine percent
- 26:14of people aged twenty five to fifty four are working today,
- 26:18there's not that much more you can do in terms
- 26:21of hours worked.
- 26:23Speaker 4: Because some but not much.
- 26:25Speaker 2: There's not much there because we're pretty close to the
- 26:28peak in terms of that employment to population ratio, and
- 26:33four point one percent unemployment is pretty darn low. Like,
- 26:37there's just not that much more you can do, unless
- 26:39you're like, well, we want everyone to work in extra
- 26:43five hours a week. Great, let's see how that goes over.
- 26:45I'm not saying that anyone's proposing this, but well kind.
- 26:48Speaker 4: Of is right.
- 26:48Speaker 3: I said Donal Chop with the campaign trail sid I'm
- 26:50gonna stop taxes on overtime work. That is exact in
- 26:54sense if you want go work like doesn't force you
- 26:57to do it.
- 26:57Speaker 4: But again, there there have been some policies that have
- 27:00specifically targeted that.
- 27:02Speaker 2: So the hours worked piece is going to be a
- 27:05little bit challenging. At top of that, remember, on hours worked,
- 27:08you're also talking about potential large scale deportations. Now there
- 27:13aren't awful lot of people that are in the country
- 27:17illegally that are working yep, and so that is going
- 27:20to reduce overall hours worked in the event that it
- 27:24does end up happening. So I think when you look
- 27:27at this, the hour's work piece is one where you say, gee,
- 27:29there's gonna be some real challenges to getting faster growth here.
- 27:34Productivity is not something that you can legislate. True, you
- 27:40can develop the conditions for it, but you can't legislate
- 27:43productivity like there's no wand that you say you can
- 27:46legislate minimum wage I'm not saying you should have shown.
- 27:49I'm just saying you can. You can't be like, hey,
- 27:52worker making one car every two days, make one every
- 27:56one point nine days. It doesn't work like that. And
- 28:00so I think if we're talking about a like how
- 28:03do you get more growth, it's gonna be tough. But
- 28:05the other part is it's gonna cost more. You borrow
- 28:08three trillion dollars today, Okay, again, who knows exactly where
- 28:13interest rates are going to be. But if you borrow
- 28:17three trillion dollars today at a rate, call it an
- 28:19average of four percent, you're talking about one hundred and
- 28:23twenty billion dollars that you are paying an interest annually
- 28:27on that. Once you've completed it, you go back eight
- 28:31years ago and you say, hey, I'm gonna run larger
- 28:34deficits in order to grow the economy. That same three trillion,
- 28:38which by the way, it wasn't three trillion, it was
- 28:39only two because inflation two trillion. You say, okay, we're
- 28:44gonna borrow two trillion dollars and we need to pay
- 28:49I don't know call it, let's just call it two percent,
- 28:51just to make the math easy. Even though the rates
- 28:53were lower that's forty billion dollars a year in interest.
- 28:57So you're talking about the cost of this same scale
- 29:00of program today from a tax cup perspective, is triple
- 29:04what it was eight years ago.
- 29:05Speaker 3: I'll make a different case on the borrowing piece. Let's
- 29:09approach it from the perspective, which I think is the
- 29:11wrong one to have that in the short term, government
- 29:14deficits don't matter, So let's approach it from there.
- 29:17Speaker 2: Toss it out for now.
- 29:19Speaker 3: Let's say you are optimistic and you are a business
- 29:21owner or an individual that wants to Hey, I'm getting
- 29:24Trump task cuts, or my taxes aren't going up in
- 29:26twenty twenty six like I thought they were. Sure, I
- 29:28want to expand my business, or I want to buy
- 29:30a new home, I want to go to participate in
- 29:33this great new economy. It's twice as expensive to borrow
- 29:36that money to do so.
- 29:37Speaker 2: Correct.
- 29:38Speaker 3: To get a mortgage today compared to twenty sixteen is well,
- 29:41probably more than twice as expensive. Right, what was the
- 29:43average mortgage rate in twenty sixteen, I don't even know. Probably, yeah,
- 29:47probably about double, yeah, three and a half to four,
- 29:49so yeah, double. There I go talk about expanding your business,
- 29:53You're looking at borrowing costs that are twice as expensive.
- 29:55And so yes, this applies to government spending, and I
- 29:58think that one's going to be front and center for us,
- 30:00but it permeates through every area of the economy because
- 30:04by and large our economies predicated on debt.
- 30:08Speaker 2: So if you have here Trump two point zero saying hey,
- 30:11this is what we're going to do, the timing and
- 30:15order of these different things really starts to matter so
- 30:18that you can get the impact and the effect that
- 30:21you want. How exactly it plays out, because there there's
- 30:24a case to be made, Hey, if you do these
- 30:26things in order X instead of all at once on
- 30:31you know, January, what's the date of the inauguration this year,
- 30:33January twentieth, twentieth. If you do this in order X
- 30:37instead of all at once on January twentieth, which again
- 30:40some of the stuff you need to legislate you can't
- 30:42do on January twentieth. It's something where the effects are
- 30:46vastly different. And so I think we just need to
- 30:49keep an open mind as far as how this may
- 30:52play out, because it.
- 30:54Speaker 4: Could be short term pain for long term game.
- 30:56Speaker 2: It could be like that, there are a lot of
- 30:58different paths here, and I think we need to just
- 31:02see how this plays out from an economic perspective to say, okay,
- 31:07how I don't think any of us have any idea
- 31:11exactly what is going to happen at the moment. We
- 31:15got to have a little bit of humility. It's kind
- 31:17of where I'm landing to take a quick break here.
- 31:19When we come back.
- 31:21Speaker 4: I want to talk about the least watched and arguably
- 31:24one of the most interesting FED meetings that we had
- 31:27all year that took place on Thursday.
- 31:29Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's something the more I've thought about this
- 31:31over the last few days talking about Juicy Mike, there's
- 31:37some jews here. We're talking FED.
- 31:39Speaker 1: When we return, text us at six one seven three,
- 31:43six two one eight five with your comments and questions
- 31:46about today's show and let us know what you think
- 31:48about the stories we are covering. This is the Financial
- 31:51Exchange Radio Network. Miss any of the show. Catch up
- 31:55at your convenience by visiting Financial Exchange Show dot com
- 31:58and clicking the on demand where you'll find all of
- 32:01our interviews in full shows. This is your home for
- 32:04the latest business and financial news in New England and
- 32:07around the country. This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
- 32:17Speaker 2: So last Thursday, we had a FED meeting and no
- 32:20one covered it. It's entirely true, it was covered, but
- 32:25no one paid attention to the coverage because it was
- 32:28just like everything was focused on what's happening now after
- 32:32the election.
- 32:32Speaker 3: There are several states that hadn't reported in their presidential results.
- 32:36We knew the results of the election at that point,
- 32:37but we didn't know a lot of things yet, and
- 32:40so not a lot of attention paid to the Federal
- 32:42Reserve me.
- 32:43Speaker 2: And I think there's some real meet here in terms of, hey,
- 32:50what is the relationship going to be between Donald Trump
- 32:56and Jerome Powell going forward? And the answer, in my opinion,
- 33:03is not good.
- 33:04Speaker 4: Okay, facts are in evidence.
- 33:07Speaker 2: So here's where I'm going with this. Jay Powell was
- 33:09appointed by Donald Trump during his first term in office,
- 33:13and they had a relationship that was I think somewhat
- 33:19contentious without being problematic.
- 33:22Speaker 3: It wasn't outright hostile, but it was just somewhat contentious.
- 33:25And there's, you know, a quoted comment from Donald Trump
- 33:28like I guess I'm stuck with you, or you know,
- 33:29some some sort of comment like that when he was
- 33:31given advice by his staff.
- 33:34Speaker 2: So last week j Powell was asked, hey, if asked
- 33:37to step down by the president, would you And it
- 33:40was like, hey, this has been floated by the campaign.
- 33:42Speaker 4: Would you step down?
- 33:44Speaker 2: Powell, who usually answers in a Shakespearean monologue, says no,
- 33:52and then asked again, says no, and then asked a
- 33:56follow up question five minutes later, says not permitted under
- 34:00the law, and then repeats it not permitted under the
- 34:05law when asked to clarify what he said.
- 34:09Speaker 3: So there's probably a lot of questions out there from
- 34:11people like, what's going on here, Why is Jerome Powell
- 34:14bringing this stuff up?
- 34:15Speaker 4: Is it contentious?
- 34:17Speaker 3: First off, Jewell's not jape. Pell didn't bring it up.
- 34:19These were questions. They were hired him by the press.
- 34:22So he was asked these questions, and he clearly just
- 34:25wanted to give a short response and move on and
- 34:29not address it. I also genuinely don't believe that he
- 34:34has some you know, hatred or distrust of Donald Trump.
- 34:39I do think what he is very passionate about is
- 34:41the Federal Reserve's independence. He is a big historian, a
- 34:47big proponent of what the Federal Reserve has done, you know,
- 34:50admires a lot of the past Federal Reserve decisions, and
- 34:54I think is willing to fight tooth and nail to
- 34:58ensure that the Federal Reserve may maintains its independence in
- 35:01future years. And that's what you are seeing here.
- 35:04Speaker 2: Where this is going. In my opinion is Donald Trump
- 35:10would whether in office or out of office, loves a
- 35:14foil to go against.
- 35:18Speaker 1: This.
- 35:18Speaker 2: Is it for the next year, because Palace term is
- 35:20up in early twenty twenty six.
- 35:22Speaker 1: It is.
- 35:22Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you want my opinion, j Powell, I
- 35:29don't know that he had any other choice but to
- 35:31answer the way that he did on Thursday. But I
- 35:35think that if there is anything that goes wrong in
- 35:39the next year, Palell's getting blamed for it. My economy
- 35:44is not doing great. Why Jay Powell's got interest rates
- 35:47too high? Hey, you know the inflation's coming back. Why
- 35:51Powell's got interest rates too low? Like that that is
- 35:55going to be the message. And Powell didn't have a choice,
- 35:58but like this is he had to answer the question,
- 36:00and he did. This is what it is. But I
- 36:02can see how the relationship is shaking up, shaping up here.
- 36:06And I don't know that contentious but non problematic is
- 36:10the way it's going to play out over the remaining
- 36:12one year of Powell's term. When Trump is in office.
- 36:14Speaker 5: Isn't it time for you to fall naturally in rhythm
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- 37:14Speaker 2: Cabinet secretaries obviously play an important role in determining what
- 37:17policy is going to look like. The one that we're
- 37:20most concerned with here on this show is obviously the
- 37:23Treasury secretary.
- 37:24Speaker 4: The ones that have to do with the money.
- 37:26Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, we don't really you know, well in any case, Yes,
- 37:32the betting favorite right now out there is Scott Bessant,
- 37:37who is a money manager. But other names that are
- 37:40being bandied about, John Paulson, who is a hedge fund operator,
- 37:45Howard Lutnick who runs cant Fitzgerald, Glenn Younkin who's the
- 37:48current governor of Virginia but formerly spent I think fifteen
- 37:52or twenty years at Carlisle Group. But Bessant is the
- 37:55one who is being talked about most heavily right now.
- 38:00Speaker 1: Uh.
- 38:00Speaker 2: And so it seems most likely in the next week
- 38:03or two we'll get some clarity on some of these
- 38:06early big nominations that we'll probably have for cabinet secretary positions.
- 38:12So that's more stuff. That's what's going on. Right now,
- 38:15let's take a quick break. We got an hour two
- 38:17coming up in just a little bit.