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A "prickly" Powell and Fed dissents · The Financial Exchange Show

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Speaker 1: a donation today. This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck Zada,
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Speaker 1: and Mike Armstrong.
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Speaker 2: Kicking things off today Chuck, Mike and Zucker with you,
1:19
Speaker 2: and we got markets kind of in a weird spot,
1:25
Speaker 2: to be honest. So here's what's wild. Under the surface
1:30
Speaker 2: of the last three days, including today, it's been kind
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Speaker 2: of ugly. There's been far more losers than gainers overall.
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Speaker 2: It's just the big stocks have been moving up and
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Speaker 2: so it's kind of masked this. Despite that, the S
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Speaker 2: and P five hundred in the last three days, including
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Speaker 2: what we've seen so far today is up two points.
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Speaker 2: So it's just been kind of ugly, feeling a little
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Speaker 2: turning point ish maybe just because let's be honest, this
1:57
Speaker 2: run just hasn't been stopped for the last three months.
1:59
Speaker 2: It has been a straight up rocket ship, aside from
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Speaker 2: like a few days where there were you know, one
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Speaker 2: percent two percent pullbacks at most. Right, so you'll get
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Speaker 2: today and yesterday after the bell you had Microsoft and
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Speaker 2: Meta report earnings and they knock the cover off the ball.
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Speaker 2: As it stands today right now, Meta is still up
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Speaker 2: about eleven and a half percent. Microsoft, who was up
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Speaker 2: about nine percent, now up about four and a third
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Speaker 2: as they're coming back to earth a little bit. But
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Speaker 2: Meta just again, when you're almost when you're like a
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Speaker 2: two trillion dollar company now and you're up eleven percent,
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Speaker 2: that's gonna lift into seas pretty strongly. But here's the thing.
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Speaker 2: The Doubt, which doesn't include Meta, is off fifteen points.
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Speaker 2: The S and P, which does and includes Microsoft, is
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Speaker 2: up twenty five points, less than half a percent. So
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Speaker 2: you say, okay, you get these two huge stocks, you know,
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Speaker 2: adding four hundred billion in total market cap, and you're
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Speaker 2: only up that much. The Nasdaq only up a third
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Speaker 2: of a percent, up seventy two points right now. And
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Speaker 2: you look at this and it's because in all your
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Speaker 2: major indices, or all your major exchanges and indices, you
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Speaker 2: basically have more stocks down than up. Meta is trying
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Speaker 2: to carry the day, but it's got a lot of
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Speaker 2: pull against it, even in tech, where the Semiconductor index
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Speaker 2: is off two point one percent today now, so the
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Speaker 2: like idea is barely up and video is barely up.
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Speaker 2: I'm trying to reconcile what's happening here because you have
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Speaker 2: these monster earnings reports from these companies telling you about
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Speaker 2: all their AI CAPEX and semiconductors are just getting absolutely
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Speaker 2: bopped on the head and you're just left behind right now.
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Speaker 2: So I'm trying to reconcile what's going on with that tenure.
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Speaker 2: Treasury is seeing money flowing into it, down four basis
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Speaker 2: points to four point three three six percent. We've got
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Speaker 2: gold on the move as well. Gold is down, well,
3:54
Speaker 2: it was on move now it's not. Now it's down
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Speaker 2: two dollars and ninety cents nounce, so off a tenth
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Speaker 2: of a percent. Oil is down eighty six cents barrel
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Speaker 2: to sixty nine fourteen on West Texas Intermediate, and so
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Speaker 2: it's kind of this weird day. And this is before
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Speaker 2: you even get to what happened yesterday with copper, which
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Speaker 2: fell about twenty percent on the day after the copper
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Speaker 2: tariffs were unveiled officially yesterday and excluded refined copper from those,
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Speaker 2: which no one was expecting, and so copper prices got
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Speaker 2: whacked because basically there was in the short term and
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Speaker 2: excess of flow trying to get into the US to
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Speaker 2: front round the copper tariffs, and now that you don't
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Speaker 2: need to pay them for refined copper, the flow is
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Speaker 2: reversing and basically heading back overseas. So it's kind of
4:47
Speaker 2: there's all kinds of weird stuff going on. We also
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Speaker 2: just now as we speak, got an announcement from the president.
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Speaker 2: He spoke with Claudy Scheinbaum, the president of Mexico, and
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Speaker 2: agreed to extend a ninety day tariff not paused, but
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Speaker 2: the same deal that was in place. Twenty five percent
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Speaker 2: on baseline non USMCA goods, twenty five percent on cars,
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Speaker 2: fifty percent on steel, aluminum, and copper from Mexico. So
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Speaker 2: that is where things stand on that side of things.
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Speaker 3: Still nothing concrete with either Canada or China, which are
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Speaker 3: the two other largest trade partners other than Mexicano.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Treasury Secretary Beston said this morning he thinks that
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Speaker 2: there's a deal to be had with China. Whether that
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Speaker 2: means tariff's coming down, something else happening, we don't know.
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Speaker 2: We have no indications as to what it might be.
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Speaker 2: But we've got that one is through August twelfth, so
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Speaker 2: there's about a week and almost two weeks before there's
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Speaker 2: something that needs to happen there. Let's talk a little
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Speaker 2: bit about what happened yesterday. Jay Powell and the gang
5:55
Speaker 2: got together and said, hey, we're going to decide which
5:57
Speaker 2: short term interest rates are and they kept them the
6:00
Speaker 2: same they did. There were, as expected, two descents from
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Speaker 2: Michelle Bowman and what's Waller's first name? I'm Christopher, Christopher.
6:09
Speaker 2: That's right, not Christopher Walking, but Christopher Waller. Distant distant
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Speaker 2: cousins probably. And basically what I found interesting was not
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Speaker 2: that there were these descents, because we talked about you
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Speaker 2: know what that might mean. The interesting thing to me
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Speaker 2: was Jay Powell's press conference. Okay, because we got Prickly J,
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Speaker 2: we got we got Porcupine J. And my favorite quote
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Speaker 2: from him was he was asked by someone, Hey, you know,
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Speaker 2: inflation is low right now. Unemployment is you know, low
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Speaker 2: right now, and there's the chance that, you know, the
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Speaker 2: economy's weakening. Are you going to look through weak unemployment
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Speaker 2: in order to, you know, potentially cut rates. And he said, no,
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Speaker 2: what we're looking through right now, we're looking through high
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Speaker 2: goods inflation in order to not raise rates, like straight
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Speaker 2: up was like, no, I'm looking at the opposite now.
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Speaker 2: I think that's him just trying to make a point,
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Speaker 2: which is I'm my own dude, and I get that,
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Speaker 2: you know, and anytime someone comes in and tries to
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Speaker 2: tell you how to do your job, whether you're running
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Speaker 2: the FED or running a car wash, you're gonna be like,
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Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it, like, let me take care of this.
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Speaker 2: So it's not to say that Powell's right or wrong,
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Speaker 2: but I understand the impulse there. The next few months
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Speaker 2: are going to determine whether or not that's the right
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Speaker 2: impulse from Powell. Because here here's the thing that I
7:37
Speaker 2: think we do have to also consider. We've talked about
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Speaker 2: how we talked about in the GDP report yesterday that
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Speaker 2: real final sales to private buyers have declined for the
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Speaker 2: last three quarters, which is a good sign of kind
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Speaker 2: of underlying trend GDP. And I think the big risk
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Speaker 2: that Powell potentially is taking is that in trying to
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Speaker 2: maintain the Fed's independence, is he going too far and
8:05
Speaker 2: trying to show that he's independent and does that end
8:08
Speaker 2: up making the wrong decision. There's no evidence of that yet. Yeah,
8:12
Speaker 2: And I give Powell the benefit of the doubt because
8:14
Speaker 2: for the last two years now he's been really good
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Speaker 2: and his team has been on it.
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Speaker 3: So I do come up with a lot of reasons
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Speaker 3: why if I were J. Powell and the Federal Reserve Board,
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Speaker 3: I would want to be hawkish on rates right now.
8:26
Speaker 3: I mean one, if you lower rates right now, there's
8:30
Speaker 3: a lot of people who are going to say, you're
8:31
Speaker 3: just caving to the president, so maintaining your independence. Two,
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Speaker 3: if I had to choose, if I had to choose
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Speaker 3: a screw up right now, I personally would rather see prices.
8:45
Speaker 2: We're getting a real life trolley problem with within Mike's head.
8:48
Speaker 3: But like I do think that returning to a period
8:53
Speaker 3: of higher inflation would be more damaging no one likes
8:57
Speaker 3: to the Fed's credibility than a period of higher unemployment,
9:03
Speaker 3: because we are I just did that, I agree, And
9:06
Speaker 3: so like you can excuse a screw up to the unemployment,
9:09
Speaker 3: it's really tough to excuse a repeat of inflation. The
9:13
Speaker 3: flip side of that coin is if you do screw
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Speaker 3: that up, you do get higher unemployment and a recession
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Speaker 3: as a result of higher interest rate policy, then you
9:21
Speaker 3: just played right into President Trump's sessence. And so it
9:25
Speaker 3: is a again, which is also why I don't think.
9:27
Speaker 2: He's gonna actually fire him. Yeah, he's a very useful scapegoat.
9:33
Speaker 3: But in any case, like if I look at that,
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Speaker 3: I would say, look the Federal Reserve.
9:39
Speaker 2: For those reasons, is.
9:41
Speaker 3: Right to have a bias towards higher industry, not to
9:43
Speaker 3: mention like unemployment is low, you're having big deportations that
9:47
Speaker 3: could affect the unemployment rate. Further like, there's plenty of
9:50
Speaker 3: evidence to justify what they're doing right now. But beyond
9:54
Speaker 3: all of that, if your third goal here is to
9:58
Speaker 3: justify your independence, I don't think you move on rates,
10:03
Speaker 3: you keep them higher.
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Speaker 2: This dovetails nicely into a discussion of the PCE inflation
10:09
Speaker 2: data that we got this morning. So let's take a
10:12
Speaker 2: quick break, and when we come back, we'll do PCE
10:15
Speaker 2: and also we got more unemployment claims data we'll discuss trivia.
10:21
Speaker 2: It was good there, No I wanted to interrupt.
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Speaker 4: Right, Time for trivia here on the Financial Exchange, and
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Speaker 4: seeing that Amazon reports after the belt today, we'll do
10:43
Speaker 4: a little bit of Amazon trivia here for you. On
10:46
Speaker 4: July fifth, nineteen ninety four, Jeff Bezos founded the company
10:51
Speaker 4: now known as Amazon. Bezos initially chose a different name
10:54
Speaker 4: for his company, but changed it to Amazon before launching
10:58
Speaker 4: the online bookstores. So trivia question today, what was Amazon's
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Speaker 4: original name?
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Speaker 2: Once again?
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Speaker 4: What was Amazon's original name? Be the seventh person today
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11:30
Speaker 2: At eight thirty am this morning, we received two different
11:34
Speaker 2: pieces of data, personal consumption expenditures inflation data and jobbisclaims data.
11:42
Speaker 2: Which shall we begin with inflation? So core PC came
11:46
Speaker 2: in at point three percent for the month annually, came
11:49
Speaker 2: in at two point eight percent headline point three percent
11:54
Speaker 2: for the month two point six percent annually. Both of
11:57
Speaker 2: those represent accelerations from the prior month and the prior
12:03
Speaker 2: few months.
12:03
Speaker 3: These are the highest inflation readings we've seen for either
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Speaker 3: CPI or PCE since January February time frame.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and I think gets more at you know kind
12:14
Speaker 2: of what Jerome Powell was talking about which is, look
12:17
Speaker 2: like we've got inflation kind of creeping back up a
12:19
Speaker 2: little bit here. It's not, you know, a four alarm fire.
12:23
Speaker 2: It's probably not even a two alarm fire. But if
12:27
Speaker 2: you've got core PCE at two nine to one for
12:32
Speaker 2: the last year now, and you're sitting there saying, hey,
12:36
Speaker 2: I really don't want to three handle on that, because
12:39
Speaker 2: the only thing that's keeping headlined down is the fact
12:41
Speaker 2: that gas prices are lower than they were last year,
12:44
Speaker 2: which you can never guarantee for too long. Hey, you know, yeah,
12:48
Speaker 2: I probably don't want to be cutting rates into inflation
12:52
Speaker 2: that's been running back up the last couple months, even
12:55
Speaker 2: at a modest level.
12:57
Speaker 1: Now.
12:57
Speaker 3: To be clear, they did not have this data at
12:59
Speaker 3: the time of the meeting itself, so when they decided
13:02
Speaker 3: on interest rates, this data had not been released. By
13:04
Speaker 3: the time he was giving his press conference, it hadn't
13:07
Speaker 3: been released to the public, but it likely had been
13:09
Speaker 3: released to J. Powell, so he knew what this data
13:11
Speaker 3: was going to look like. They generally, I believe, get
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Speaker 3: it a day before the general public does. So, I
13:16
Speaker 3: think lends credit to what he was speaking of, which is, hey,
13:19
Speaker 3: we are holding in straight steady here, by kind of
13:22
Speaker 3: looking through what could be temporary price increases.
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Speaker 2: Again, I think that.
13:28
Speaker 3: Comment gets a little bit more justifiable, like you said,
13:30
Speaker 3: with this data release of maybe just temporarily but accelerating
13:36
Speaker 3: inflation right now.
13:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have to see how the next few months
13:38
Speaker 2: end up shaking out here. But ultimately, at this point,
13:42
Speaker 2: we're starting to see a very modest uptick in the
13:46
Speaker 2: inflation data. It's nothing that is crazy, it's nothing where
13:51
Speaker 2: you have to you know, be running around, you know,
13:53
Speaker 2: like we were back in twenty one and twenty two saying, hey,
13:56
Speaker 2: what the heck's the Fed doing? But you'd like to
13:58
Speaker 2: be seeing inflation hitting back down closer to two rather
14:01
Speaker 2: than you know, bouncing back up towards three. And unfortunately,
14:05
Speaker 2: we're seeing a little bit of a rebound here, and
14:06
Speaker 2: we'll just have to see how long it goes and
14:08
Speaker 2: how much higher it ends up moving. The jobles claims data,
14:12
Speaker 2: on the other hand, is nothing short of fantastic. What
14:17
Speaker 2: we saw two hundred and eighteen thousand weekly job as claims,
14:20
Speaker 2: up from two hundred and seventeen thousand last week. Both
14:23
Speaker 2: of those are not just really good numbers like in
14:27
Speaker 2: a vacuum, but they're below last year by pretty significant margins.
14:32
Speaker 2: The continuing jobless claims came in at one point four
14:35
Speaker 2: one point nine four to six million, the exact same
14:38
Speaker 2: place they were in last week, which also is not
14:43
Speaker 2: in this case, not ideal, but nowhere near the level
14:47
Speaker 2: of concern if this were you know, starting to rise
14:51
Speaker 2: closer to two million or north of that and representing
14:54
Speaker 2: closer to you know, an eight to nine percent year
14:57
Speaker 2: over year. Games So ultimately in May in early June,
15:00
Speaker 2: we said, hey, there's an uptick in continuing claims that's happening.
15:03
Speaker 2: That's a little bit concerning, and we're starting to get
15:06
Speaker 2: that same seasonal pattern on weekly claims. We'll have to
15:09
Speaker 2: see how these resolve. The weekly one we thought would
15:13
Speaker 2: resolve pretty cleanly to back to, you know, in this
15:16
Speaker 2: seasonal pattern, and it has. It's even gotten better than that.
15:19
Speaker 2: So I think the weekly initial claims are really good
15:23
Speaker 2: and the continuing claims are back in line with Yeah,
15:26
Speaker 2: modest four to five percent increase over last year, but
15:29
Speaker 2: nothing to write home about. And so if anything, I
15:32
Speaker 2: think that you can point to the labor market in
15:35
Speaker 2: the last month and say it's gotten better.
15:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, this might not ring true to you know,
15:42
Speaker 3: those twenty three year olds that are listening right now,
15:44
Speaker 3: whoever recent college degree, We recognize that has gotten pretty
15:48
Speaker 3: rough out there. But yeah, from from few different perspectives.
15:54
Speaker 3: One the unemployment rate, which we'll get a new reading
15:58
Speaker 3: on tomorrow, and you know, we'll see where that goes.
16:00
Speaker 3: But that is holding low. But that can happen for
16:03
Speaker 3: a number of different reasons, right You can have people
16:05
Speaker 3: dropping out of the labor force, you can have deport
16:07
Speaker 3: any number of things could lower the unemployment rate besides hiring.
16:11
Speaker 3: This is an indication that layoffs are actually pretty reasonable
16:17
Speaker 3: right now, and so I would expect all else equal
16:22
Speaker 3: to be seeing a fairly solid jobs report tomorrow.
16:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now again, like you never know what you're gonna get.
16:29
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's something where.
16:32
Speaker 3: They're different surveys, they talk to different businesses.
16:34
Speaker 2: When's the last time that we saw a big downside surprise? Though,
16:38
Speaker 2: Like it's been a while. Yeah, that asks, I mean,
16:44
Speaker 2: I get our expectations for the unemployment right right now?
16:46
Speaker 2: Oh good, good question. So for tomorrow, we're expecting to
16:50
Speaker 2: see one hundred and ten thousand jobs created. Unapployment rate
16:53
Speaker 2: expected to rise very modestly from four to one to
16:55
Speaker 2: four two. We've been at.
16:57
Speaker 3: Four to three over the course of the last few months,
17:00
Speaker 3: as high as four to three of the course the
17:01
Speaker 3: last few months.
17:02
Speaker 2: I mean, the big thing that still is wild to
17:05
Speaker 2: me is that we have not had a negative payroll
17:09
Speaker 2: number since December of twenty twenty.
17:13
Speaker 5: Wow.
17:16
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's been a while, and you know,
17:20
Speaker 2: it's not to say that will continue forever, because every
17:22
Speaker 2: streak gets broken eventually. I mean, remember we had a
17:25
Speaker 2: monster streak that ran through the twenty tens until COVID
17:27
Speaker 2: broke it, and so I think we'll have to see,
17:31
Speaker 2: you know, kind of how things go. But ultimately, the
17:34
Speaker 2: labor force data, the new stuff has been good. I know,
17:42
Speaker 2: we got a Jolts report on Tuesday that was weaker
17:45
Speaker 2: than people were hoping for. But Dults and Jolts is
17:50
Speaker 2: also delayed by a month. It's a month backward looking,
17:53
Speaker 2: so I.
17:54
Speaker 3: Think that to be clear, this report that we get
17:57
Speaker 3: tomorrow is also backward looking, but it's more like two
17:59
Speaker 3: to three weeks backward looking.
18:00
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, sorry, JOLTS is looking back two months, not
18:03
Speaker 2: a single So the Jolts report that we just got
18:05
Speaker 2: was for June, whereas we're going to be getting the
18:07
Speaker 2: July jobs report tomorrow. I don't know why JOLTS runs
18:12
Speaker 2: two months out of date when look, if we're being
18:15
Speaker 2: completely honest, there's a really really strong correlation between the
18:19
Speaker 2: Jolt's job openings data and what Indeed shows as far
18:22
Speaker 2: as its job openings. And if you want a good
18:25
Speaker 2: idea of where JOLTS is going to be going, you
18:27
Speaker 2: can look at Indeed and generally eyeball it and it
18:30
Speaker 2: might pingpong around that number a little bit over for
18:32
Speaker 2: you know, a month or two, but the trend that
18:34
Speaker 2: you see for the Indeed Hiring index tends to match
18:39
Speaker 2: what we see in Jolts over you know, any meaningful
18:44
Speaker 2: period of time. Three to four months are longer. Taking
18:47
Speaker 2: a look at markets, as we head towards the bottom
18:49
Speaker 2: of the hour, the daw was off one hundred and
18:50
Speaker 2: twenty seven points, s andp now up seventeen, Nasdaq up
18:53
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty eight. So again, kind of this
18:57
Speaker 2: divergence that's happening out there, two thousand down half a percent. Also,
19:01
Speaker 2: just for good measure, let's take a quick break when
19:03
Speaker 2: we come back. We got the trivia answer and Wall
19:06
Speaker 2: Street Watch.
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19:34
Speaker 4: Busyweek on Wall Street continues to chug along as trader's
19:37
Speaker 4: assess a whirlwind of second quarter earnings, fresh economic data,
19:41
Speaker 4: and trade deals with tomorrow's deadline looming. Some breaking news
19:44
Speaker 4: from President Trump, who posted to social media about thirty
19:47
Speaker 4: minutes ago that the US has extended the tariff deadline
19:51
Speaker 4: for Mexico by ninety days following a phone conversation with
19:55
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19:58
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20:01
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Speaker 4: half percent lower, trading at sixty eight dollars in eighty
20:19
Speaker 4: cents a barrel. Impressive second quarter earnings from major AI players,
20:23
Speaker 4: Meta and Microsoft are helping lift the SMP and NASDAK.
20:28
Speaker 4: Meta shares up by twelve percent after the Facebook parent
20:31
Speaker 4: company beat revenue expectations driven by strength in its core
20:35
Speaker 4: at business. Meta also reported an optimistic third quarter outlook.
20:39
Speaker 4: As for Microsoft, that stock is up nearly five percent
20:42
Speaker 4: and has surpassed four trillion dollars in market value after
20:46
Speaker 4: the tech giant reported strong quarterly results driven by cloud
20:49
Speaker 4: services in AI demand. Meanwhile, CBS Health posted an earnings
20:53
Speaker 4: and revenue beat for the previous quarter, where the company
20:56
Speaker 4: cited strength in its retail pharmacy business and some improvement
21:00
Speaker 4: in its insurance unit. CBS also boosted its adjusted profit outlook,
21:04
Speaker 4: sending shares up over two percent, and after today's closing bell,
21:08
Speaker 4: we'll see more mag seven earnings from Amazon and Apple.
21:12
Speaker 4: I'm Tucker Silva and that is Wall Street Watch.
21:15
Speaker 2: We're now joined by the one and only Todd Lutsky
21:18
Speaker 2: from the law firm of Cushing and Dolan. Todd, how
21:22
Speaker 2: are you today?
21:23
Speaker 5: I am never better in you doing well?
21:26
Speaker 2: Todd. Just in general, we don't have to go in
21:28
Speaker 2: depth on exactly what they do, but if someone's trying
21:32
Speaker 2: to build an estate, planning strategy in advance to protect
21:36
Speaker 2: assets from long term care costs. What kind of tools
21:40
Speaker 2: are available and how good are they at protecting those assets.
21:43
Speaker 5: So I would say there's the great news about that
21:47
Speaker 5: is there's really not a lot of options, right, It's
21:49
Speaker 5: not like picking paint. But really the best way, and
21:52
Speaker 5: really one of the only ways to protect an advance
21:54
Speaker 5: is to use these irrevocable income only medicaid trust that
21:58
Speaker 5: we've talked about many times on the show. They really
22:02
Speaker 5: do offer the best flexibility control over the asset. Can
22:07
Speaker 5: you remember, I'm sixty five and healthy. I don't want
22:10
Speaker 5: to be, you know, given away my stuff. So you
22:13
Speaker 5: put it in a trust that you can still control
22:16
Speaker 5: and enjoy what's in there to a large degree and
22:20
Speaker 5: get that all important five year plock running to get
22:23
Speaker 5: these assets protected from the cost of long term care
22:26
Speaker 5: in the future. And so that's that's really the best
22:29
Speaker 5: way to do it. Given them away is not a
22:31
Speaker 5: great idea.
22:33
Speaker 2: Let's say that you haven't done any kind of advanced planning.
22:35
Speaker 2: How much more limited are the tools that you have
22:37
Speaker 2: if you have to conduct emergency planning.
22:40
Speaker 5: Well, they are limited, but they exist, and I think
22:44
Speaker 5: that's the most important message right, These certain assets are
22:48
Speaker 5: treated differently. Some assets are accountable last minute, some assets
22:52
Speaker 5: are not. So like a rental versus of primary residence,
22:55
Speaker 5: you know, a life insurance policy versus maybe jointly owned
22:59
Speaker 5: accounts versus you know, having the ability to shelter assets
23:05
Speaker 5: last minute and avoid the five year waiting period. And
23:07
Speaker 5: by the way, the rules are different for married people
23:09
Speaker 5: versus single people. But I think the message is don't
23:14
Speaker 5: just you know, write a check. Even if you've used
23:17
Speaker 5: a trust, there's gonna be things outside the trust that
23:20
Speaker 5: remain at risk that need to be dealt with when
23:22
Speaker 5: you're faced with nursing home care, and if you've not
23:25
Speaker 5: done a trust, there's a lot more outside the trust
23:28
Speaker 5: that need to are outside just at risk in general,
23:31
Speaker 5: that need to be dealt with. And so if you want,
23:34
Speaker 5: what you do is you get this guide that we're
23:36
Speaker 5: given away, and I think that's really the best approach.
23:39
Speaker 5: It's last minute medicaid eligibility planning, and it helps you
23:44
Speaker 5: understand what these options are for you if you're married,
23:47
Speaker 5: if you're single. It tells you about what assets are accountable,
23:51
Speaker 5: what are not. Are there certain things I can transfer
23:54
Speaker 5: now and avoid to five year waiting period depending on
23:57
Speaker 5: your situation. So I think that's really the message. As
24:01
Speaker 5: you said, Chuck, are the things that you can do, Yes,
24:04
Speaker 5: get the guide the end of the month. Learn how
24:08
Speaker 5: to do these things. Obviously we can't explain them all
24:11
Speaker 5: on the radio. The number is eight six six eight
24:14
Speaker 5: four eight five six ninety nine or Legal Exchange Show
24:18
Speaker 5: dot com. Last Minute Medicaid Eligibility Guide eight six six
24:24
Speaker 5: eight four eight five six ninety nine or Legal Exchange
24:28
Speaker 5: Show dot com.
24:29
Speaker 2: Mister Lutsky, thanks so much for joining us.
24:32
Speaker 5: Thank you always a pleasure.
24:34
Speaker 1: The proceeding was paid for and the views expressed are
24:36
Speaker 1: solely those of Cushing and Dolan. Cushing and Dolan and
24:38
Speaker 1: or Armstrong Advisory may contact you offering legal or investment services.
24:41
Speaker 1: Cushing and Armstrong did not endorse each other and are
24:43
Speaker 1: not affiliated and well.
24:44
Speaker 4: On the previous segment, we asked you the trivia question
24:47
Speaker 4: what was Amazon's original name? That would be Cadabra. Amazon,
24:51
Speaker 4: originally named Cadabra, was founded in the converted garage of
24:55
Speaker 4: Bezos's house for symbolic reasons, and was renamed to Amazon
25:00
Speaker 4: in November of nineteen ninety four. John from Wonsack at
25:04
Speaker 4: Rhode Island is our winner today taking on a Financial
25:06
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25:09
Speaker 4: trivia every day here in the Financial Exchange See complete
25:12
Speaker 4: contest rules at Financial Exchange Show dot com.
25:16
Speaker 2: Mike could talk a little bit about Ford. We didn't
25:19
Speaker 2: get to cover their earnings yesterday, but I wanted to
25:23
Speaker 2: just because another company kind of giving us an indication
25:26
Speaker 2: of hey, we're, you know, doing okay ish, but we're
25:30
Speaker 2: feeling some pain because we're gonna have to pay two
25:32
Speaker 2: billion dollars in tariffs this year.
25:34
Speaker 3: I'm way over simplifying this, but what happened in the
25:38
Speaker 3: most recent quarter was that Ford was unable to make
25:40
Speaker 3: any money due to tariffs. Yes, they lost thirty six
25:44
Speaker 3: million dollars and had eight hundred million dollars in Sorry,
25:49
Speaker 3: what was the tariff impact for the quarter? Eight hundred
25:52
Speaker 3: million dollars during the second quarter. Yeah, you would have
25:54
Speaker 3: made over seven hundred million dollars, but you paid tariffs.
25:57
Speaker 3: That was the answer from Ford, and it's a pretty
26:00
Speaker 3: discouraging answer.
26:01
Speaker 2: Well, and obviously, look, Ford's going to do what it
26:03
Speaker 2: can to try to figure out how to source materials.
26:05
Speaker 2: It's more cheaply in this and that for.
26:07
Speaker 3: Those that aren't going to at math eight hundred million,
26:09
Speaker 3: if that were to hit every quarter, it would be
26:11
Speaker 3: a lot more than two billion dollars.
26:12
Speaker 2: Correct. So they do think they're going to get better
26:14
Speaker 2: at this and you know, sourcing, whether it's more domestic
26:17
Speaker 2: alternatives or finding ways to cut other costs and things
26:20
Speaker 2: like that, that they're going to, you know, see an improvement,
26:23
Speaker 2: but it's going to be something that they have to
26:25
Speaker 2: deal with, and it echoes what we heard from GM
26:29
Speaker 2: earlier this month as well.
26:31
Speaker 3: The state of play here is immensely complex for these companies. Obviously,
26:36
Speaker 3: they're going to do what they can to manufacture more
26:39
Speaker 3: in the United States.
26:40
Speaker 2: But if you're you don't just chew up overnight, is it,
26:44
Speaker 2: Jim Farley?
26:45
Speaker 3: If you're Jim Farley, how willing are you to spend
26:49
Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars in spooling up manufacturing in
26:51
Speaker 3: the United States when you just had another suspension of
26:54
Speaker 3: tariffs on Mexico, or at least a continuation of the
26:58
Speaker 3: existing deal on Mexico. You don't know how that's going
27:01
Speaker 3: to play out. At the same time, it is now
27:06
Speaker 3: a lower tariff barrier to import a car that is
27:09
Speaker 3: fully manufactured in Germany into the United States than it
27:12
Speaker 3: would be to manufacture one in Mexico and send it
27:15
Speaker 3: to the United st or South Korea or Japan. Right
27:18
Speaker 3: several big auto manufacturing hubs where it is now cheaper
27:22
Speaker 3: for those foreign automakers to sell their product into the US.
27:28
Speaker 3: Cheaper is not the right word here, but a lower
27:30
Speaker 3: tariff barrier than it is for Ford to do so overseas.
27:35
Speaker 3: Now again not a one to one comparison, because certainly
27:38
Speaker 3: for It is not manufacturing most of their vehicles fully
27:41
Speaker 3: in Mexico.
27:42
Speaker 2: It's this part that part.
27:43
Speaker 3: But that's the state of play right now, and I
27:47
Speaker 3: can understand why those CEOs are concerned about how they're
27:50
Speaker 3: going to compete.
27:51
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break here. When we come back,
27:55
Speaker 2: we'll do a little bit of stack Rulette.
27:57
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28:45
Speaker 2: A couple of things I want to get to in
28:47
Speaker 2: stack Roulette. Here piece from the BBC. Starbucks ditches pick
28:53
Speaker 2: up only stores, as they quote, lackwarm. So these are
28:57
Speaker 2: the ones where you stars. You don't drink coffee. It's fine.
29:01
Speaker 2: I know how to pick stuff up from a store.
29:04
Speaker 2: So this is actually something where my initial reaction was, well,
29:10
Speaker 2: that sounds dumb. But my second reaction, about five seconds
29:14
Speaker 2: later was you know what, maybe there's something to this. Okay?
29:19
Speaker 2: And what I mean by this? So Brian Nicol came
29:20
Speaker 2: over from Chipotle. What was it about a year and
29:22
Speaker 2: a half ago? Now sounds right. I could be wrong
29:25
Speaker 2: anywhere from twelve to twenty four months ago. And Starbucks. Again,
29:30
Speaker 2: I'm not a coffee drinker, but I occasionally wander into
29:33
Speaker 2: their stores because I'm lost. And what I have noticed
29:37
Speaker 2: in general is there's usually a huge line of people
29:40
Speaker 2: waiting for something. Yep, the wait seems to be pretty long.
29:44
Speaker 2: There's not a ton of places to sit in a
29:46
Speaker 2: lot of these stores, and the overall vibe has just
29:48
Speaker 2: gotten kind of industrial. Like everything else today, it's you
29:52
Speaker 2: know again, its transactional.
29:54
Speaker 3: It's just well, yeah, And the reason this is the
29:58
Speaker 3: case is because most people are not going up to
30:00
Speaker 3: the counter to order their drinks. I do it when
30:03
Speaker 3: I've got my kids in tow We'll go up to
30:05
Speaker 3: the counter to buy our stuff. But otherwise I'm ordering
30:07
Speaker 3: on my phone.
30:08
Speaker 2: And what do you do?
30:10
Speaker 3: You line up near the pickup counter and you're right,
30:13
Speaker 3: there is usually a pack of half decaffeinated human zulves
30:19
Speaker 3: waiting to pick up their drinks there, and it's not
30:20
Speaker 3: the friendliest place. My question is does closing these fix
30:24
Speaker 3: that or make it worse?
30:26
Speaker 2: Well, I think that he's probably going to do something
30:28
Speaker 2: to the stores that have seating to try to make
30:31
Speaker 2: them more welcome. He's one of these, he says, Look,
30:34
Speaker 2: the vibe is wrong, and we've gotten away from why
30:37
Speaker 2: people wanted to come into our stores to begin with,
30:39
Speaker 2: which was not just Hey, I'm popping in to get
30:42
Speaker 2: something and leave immediately. Yeah.
30:43
Speaker 3: I was to sit there on your typewriter as a
30:45
Speaker 3: hipster in Brooklyn and typewriter. Yes, they didn't even need
30:51
Speaker 3: a Wi Fi password.
30:52
Speaker 2: People do that. Yeah, people do that.
30:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:55
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about one hundred years ago. This
30:58
Speaker 2: was like three years ago. This, like the vibe and
31:01
Speaker 2: the style of a brand does matter, and the vibe
31:05
Speaker 2: is just wrong or it has been wrong at Starbucks.
31:09
Speaker 2: And I think this is part of this. Now. Is
31:12
Speaker 2: this going to help fix everything? No? But I do
31:17
Speaker 2: think this makes some sense.
31:20
Speaker 3: I love it that they're which part do you love
31:23
Speaker 3: that they're they'reting.
31:25
Speaker 4: Their mistake and they're going away from this. Tucker's got
31:28
Speaker 4: going back to their roots. Go back to your roots
31:30
Speaker 4: and be a coffee shop again where people meet up
31:32
Speaker 4: and hang out. And I'd be like, oh, who's my coffee? Oh,
31:37
Speaker 4: let me sort through a twenty counter that's my dude.
31:42
Speaker 2: It's just gross.
31:43
Speaker 3: I'm just not convinced that people want to sit down
31:45
Speaker 3: and talk to others in twenty twenty five over a coffee.
31:48
Speaker 2: Well, fine, you can snapchat each other over a coffee.
31:50
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm wrong, and you know, you know what you know,
31:53
Speaker 3: if you relocate and redesign the store so that there's
31:56
Speaker 3: now seating in front of the pickup area, maybe that
31:59
Speaker 3: does spark different field of the store.
32:01
Speaker 2: I don't know, but.
32:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, to me, the problem with all of this is
32:09
Speaker 3: they've recognized there is some sort of problem. I don't
32:14
Speaker 3: know that I've concretely heard from anyone what the problem
32:18
Speaker 3: seems to be and how we fix it.
32:19
Speaker 2: I mean, the vibes seem to be vibes, you're so.
32:23
Speaker 3: I have noticed that they are trying to push their
32:25
Speaker 3: people to be much cheerier and engage in conversation with
32:27
Speaker 3: their customers. I think there's been some menu problems where
32:33
Speaker 3: there's just too much stuff on the board and too
32:35
Speaker 3: many custom customizations, so they've been trying to fix that.
32:39
Speaker 3: We'll we'll have to see. Investors, by the way, were
32:42
Speaker 3: initially pretty excited about the turnaround story when Brian Nickel
32:47
Speaker 3: talked to investors earlier this week on their earnings call.
32:50
Speaker 3: It's since given all that up, so it stocks down
32:53
Speaker 3: a good to something percent today and looks like it
32:58
Speaker 3: needs a coffee back to where it was prior to
33:00
Speaker 3: the earnings call, and actually lower than it was prior
33:03
Speaker 3: to the earnings call.
33:04
Speaker 2: I have one more story that I'd like to cover hit.
33:07
Speaker 2: This one really caught my eye from Bloomberg This is
33:10
Speaker 2: all over now. I don't know who had it originally.
33:13
Speaker 2: China summons in video over EH twenty chip security after
33:17
Speaker 2: days after US talks, and I had kind of a
33:21
Speaker 2: really interesting thought go through my head. What if, after
33:26
Speaker 2: all the hullabaloo of hey, we're gonna, you know, make
33:31
Speaker 2: these chips available to China because Jensen really wants to
33:34
Speaker 2: sell into China and it's a huge market for them,
33:38
Speaker 2: what if China just goes, eh, we're good, not interested.
33:46
Speaker 3: Seems unlikely to me. It just doesn't seem like there
33:49
Speaker 3: is a warning shot, though it is. Yeah, it's it's
33:52
Speaker 3: a warning shot that's, hey, we're not sure we can
33:55
Speaker 3: trust in videos chips.
33:57
Speaker 2: I don't think it's that No, do you think China
34:01
Speaker 2: knows that there's tracking stuff in in Vidia's chips? Okay,
34:06
Speaker 2: this is a warning shot based on the trade negotiations
34:10
Speaker 2: that are going on right now, which is another thing
34:13
Speaker 2: of Hey, previously we said no more rare earths unless
34:19
Speaker 2: you get these tariffs down to an acceptable place. YEP,
34:22
Speaker 2: the engine that's driving the US economy right now is semiconductor,
34:27
Speaker 2: specifically in VideA. You got to do more on that
34:31
Speaker 2: deal otherwise we're not buying the chips. That's what it
34:34
Speaker 2: feels like to me and could be. And we've seen
34:37
Speaker 2: this before with China. By the way, in February, the
34:41
Speaker 2: whole deep seak thing was right before all of this
34:46
Speaker 2: kind of kicked off. Was not an accident. Yeah, So
34:51
Speaker 2: I I think there's some meat on that bone, because
34:55
Speaker 2: this is what China does with all international companies whenever
34:58
Speaker 2: they have, you know, something that trying to resolve elsewhere. Oh,
35:02
Speaker 2: we're going to start a probe of you know, these
35:05
Speaker 2: companies until we get what we want. And it's usually
35:08
Speaker 2: not just what the probe is about.
35:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to talk about autonomous trucks, and I
35:14
Speaker 3: have a question for both of you, which is, does
35:17
Speaker 3: it seem like we're talking about autonomous driving in twenty
35:20
Speaker 3: twenty five a lot more than we have anytime in
35:21
Speaker 3: the last several years.
35:22
Speaker 2: Yes, probably any time since twenty eighteen or nineteen.
35:26
Speaker 3: Tesla's announcing their new expansion and their promises into Was
35:30
Speaker 3: it Austin that they're testing this out or is it Dallas.
35:33
Speaker 2: Austin, and recently they announced they're expanding into San Francisco,
35:36
Speaker 2: but still a very small number of vehicles.
35:38
Speaker 3: So apparently this has been going on for a while,
35:40
Speaker 3: but Aurora Innovation says that their driverless systems are now
35:45
Speaker 3: able to allow them to use long haul trucking drivers.
35:49
Speaker 3: Between Dallas and Houston, they've been hauling driving those highways
35:52
Speaker 3: at night. The next step that they are going to
35:55
Speaker 3: attempt is from San where was it was it? New
36:00
Speaker 3: Mexico and Texas, which is typically a sixteen hour sorry
36:06
Speaker 3: between Phoenix and Fort Worth. Get the story straight. Typically
36:09
Speaker 3: a sixteen hour trip requires two drivers to complete it
36:13
Speaker 3: if you're going to do it NonStop. They're saying, hey,
36:15
Speaker 3: we're going to be attempting to do this via autonomous
36:18
Speaker 3: truck driving. On the surface, like the self driving technology
36:23
Speaker 3: that's out there, you can see how it would be
36:24
Speaker 3: quite conducive to truck driving because of the number of
36:28
Speaker 3: miles of highway driving. I do get a little bit
36:30
Speaker 3: curious about how they handle everything else that goes along
36:34
Speaker 3: with truck driving, like navigating to the warehouse and navigating
36:39
Speaker 3: those other streets. But you know, honestly, Waimo's able to
36:43
Speaker 3: do it fairly well on all sorts of city streets.
36:46
Speaker 3: If you have an autonomous truck that can do a
36:48
Speaker 3: good portion of this, you can see what the push
36:52
Speaker 3: would be from shippers of all sorts to cut out
36:55
Speaker 3: that driver.
36:58
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people that make their living
36:59
Speaker 2: in truck a ton. If this becomes a real thing, problems.
37:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, it won't be immediate, and you won't have you know,
37:12
Speaker 3: it's not gonna be unimmediate either.
37:15
Speaker 2: You know, if the technology starts proving itself out. We're
37:20
Speaker 2: not talking about like three decades. We're talking about like
37:23
Speaker 2: five years. I don't know.
37:28
Speaker 5: I don't know.
37:29
Speaker 2: I've been saying that a lot lately. We're gonna take
37:31
Speaker 2: a quick break. We got the jobs report tomorrow. Actually
37:35
Speaker 2: gonna be an almost twenty four hour break, but we'll
37:37
Speaker 2: see you then. And Mike doesn't know