Jeff Kikel: Good morning welcome to the Cents  of things. It’s Ron and Jeff here once again,  

and we are kicking off another couple  of episodes of the Cents of things,  

talking a little bit about what’s going on  in the world, what’s going on in the economy,  

and maybe a few funny things to get us  kicked off. Ron, how you doing, brother?

Ron Lang: Good morning. So basically  we’re just going to spend the next  

two hours talking about NVIDIA. Is that right?

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And it’s comparisons  to other things in history.

Ron Lang: Yeah. All right. We’ll have  to set up a separate episode for that,  

but I think the mania is  getting a little out of control.

Jeff Kikel: I’m with you.

Jeff Kikel: I’m with you. I just,  once again I look at it and,  

now we’re down to basically the, we  were the magnificent seven. Now we’re  

down to the [00:01:00] magnificent  three at this point. And you’ve got,  

you’ve now got Nvidia Apple and Microsoft in  the 3 trillion range, which is just insane.

Ron Lang: And yeah, that’s another episode  we should do compare one of those stocks.

Ron Lang: Compared to the European market,  

the Asian market, one, one company’s  market cap is larger than all of that.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. And they were saying,  and I think I forget what the number was. It’s 35  

billion. NVIDIA is, close to eclipsing Microsoft  within 35 billion. And here’s the crazy thing. I

Ron Lang: hear some people coming out and  they’re like, Oh, you could justify that.

Ron Lang: And then everybody’s got their own  FACAC then I’m telling you, I got, I’m literally,  

I got PTSD of 97, eight, nine. Listening to  people talking about valuation of nvidia and  

not that it’s a bad company and it’s not like it’s  not making money, right? microsoft and [00:02:00]  

intel we’re making money in the mid to late  90s, but The pe and the valuations were absurd.

Ron Lang: I don’t know where nvidia’s pe is  now I know it was like 60 or 70 and then I  

hear people that are valuation people talking  about Yeah, you could make a case for it. I  

just know that two things one They don’t want  to say it’s too high or the valuation’s out  

of control because if it doubles from  here, they look like a schmuck Yeah,  

and or they’re in bed with fund companies or  other people that Have a big share of nvidia  

stock and they would basically be like,  what are you killing the golden goose for?

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, the golden goose. That’s

Ron Lang: why I don’t trust some  of these analysts coming out.

Jeff Kikel: I don’t trust most of them, quite  frankly. I think they’re, it’s a cartel and  

they just all kind of work together in collusion  a lot of times. Yeah I just I’m sorry. I don’t  

buy most of the analyst research. I don’t use  the analyst research at all in my practice.

Jeff Kikel: I do my own research because  I [00:03:00] just don’t trust anybody.

Ron Lang: I actually we talked about it.  I was originally one of the beta testers  

of a website that holds the Analysts  feet to the fire and they rate them  

based on their price targets within  a Within a calendar period of time,  

maybe i’ll share it with you Maybe i’ll  share with the audience at some point.

Ron Lang: I don’t want to make  it look like i’m advertising,  

but I will tell you It’s a damn good  Bible for for not only information,  

but following analysts that are truly worth  their salt. Sure. Yeah. And there’s not a

Jeff Kikel: whole lot of them.

Ron Lang: Yeah no. So we retired the  bad business decisions for a little bit.

Ron Lang: And so for the next, I  think four or five podcasts that  

I’m going to focus in on are just some fun  facts. And these are some interesting ones  

because I will tell you i’m a history guy  I love nostalgia And every now and then  

you come up with something. I remember  that i’m like really so here is here  

is something interesting So everybody  [00:04:00] who hasn’t seen the titanic?

Ron Lang: Actually the original necklace that was  on You know in that movie was actually worth 10  

million dollars Obviously back in the day with the  titanic people, people were like, look at this.  

I don’t know how much they, I don’t know if they  even said how much, how valuable it was back then.

Ron Lang: If you look over the next hundred  years, but I thought this was interesting.  

It’s 171 carat 171 carat Sapphire necklace.  It was a beautiful necklace and everybody  

probably thought it was a stage prop.  Yeah. I thought it was interesting.

Jeff Kikel: I didn’t realize it  was actually real. That’s nuts.

Jeff Kikel: That’s my point.

Ron Lang: And at the end of the movie,  she threw it into the ocean. I know. I  

don’t think that’s a spoiler alert for  anybody that’s listening. All right,  

next one. The Godfather was almost called the  Family Corleone. Okay. I thought that was,  

I did not know that. Who has the Godfather,  right? Yeah. Or at least the first two movies.

Ron Lang: The third was pretty, pretty poor.  [00:05:00] But then it was eventually changed.  

But if you think about it, the book was  called The Godfather. So why would they have  

called the Vote? Why would you? Yeah, why would  you have changed it? But yeah, thought that was  

interesting. And my last fun fact. The matrix  code, when you see the movie, and I only saw  

the first one, I fell asleep in the second one,  but the matrix code is actually sushi recipes.

Ron Lang: Okay. It’s not a code at all.  It’s a series of sushi recipes, cleverly  

disguised to create the illusion of a complex code  in the digital world of thought that I’ll be very  

blunt with you, I like to cook. I don’t follow  any recipes. I got my things that I like to do  

when I cook. And I’m thinking to myself, when  you’re making sushi, is there really a recipe?

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Is there, theoretically,  yeah, because they’re, they have,  

similar things that they put into it, but  I, nothing that you really have to follow

Ron Lang: the [00:06:00] Sriracha mayo  or, whatever. But my thing is okay,  

you take a picture of it.  That’s how you make it. Yeah.

Ron Lang: Huh? What you’re not cooking the fish.  You’re not sauteing the fish. You got rice,  

you got seaweed, you got fish, and then you got  a couple of other things. I’m thinking to myself,  

how complex are there recipes? Apparently  it’s more complex than you thought. Obviously,  

obviously if you watch the movie,  you’re not going to be able to stare  

at that code long enough to figure  out what the hell those recipes are.

Ron Lang: I,

Jeff Kikel: I couldn’t get past it. I  started watching it, and I like Keanu Reeves,  

and I like, Lawrence Fishburne, but  I just couldn’t get past the movie.

Ron Lang: The crazy thing is, and I did enjoy  the first movie, but like that movie, like many  

other similar type of movies. At some point you  just get tired of a 10 minute drawn out fight.

Ron Lang: What else is exciting with him  running through the air, 20 feet kicking  

and punching? How many times can you watch  that in a two and a half hour movie?[00:07:00]

Ron Lang: Anyway, I got a little tired of  that. Okay. On to some serious stuff. So I  

thought this was interesting every now and then  I’m able to get some interesting charts that,  

and I know we’ve been talking about this for  a while, but this is the the Chicago business  

barometer. It’s also part, you don’t  include some of their PMI information,  

but I thought this was interesting because this  isn’t going back the last 10, 20 or 30 years.

Ron Lang: This is going back over 55 years,

Jeff Kikel: 70. Yeah.

Ron Lang: Looking at all this. And we talk about  this all the time. We’re not making this up,  

right? These are actual facts and figures now.  I know we joke around quite a bit Especially  

that one time when we chastised the atlanta  fed for coming out with an outrageous gdp  

number But everybody else was half of that  amount or a negative amount and they were  

almost dead on Yeah, Look again, I don’t know  how they even [00:08:00] come up with that,  

but these are actual numbers with their charts  And I don’t know what is this telling us?

Ron Lang: We know we all know that  the computer is strong a computer the  

consumer is strong Spending money they got  jobs. It’s flowing into their 401ks They’re  

out spending money whether it’s money they  have or they don’t and it’s on credit. But

Jeff Kikel: yeah

Ron Lang: All the other economic  numbers have been trending down.

Ron Lang: And this chart is telling  you a lot. Other than in 1990,  

everything came down to this 35 ish level  telling you that a recession was pending.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah.

Ron Lang: Thoughts.

Jeff Kikel: I, once again  I think our next episode,  

I’m going to have some stuff on  this, but I totally agree with you.

Jeff Kikel: I think it is. To me is starting  to show and it’s in the cracks are widening in  

a lot of different areas, and we’ve been saying  this for a year now and I think a lot of people  

have been saying it for a year that when do  we start to see a [00:09:00] recession? And,  

you and I both have the same feeling  about this whole soft landing,  

hard landing recession, whatever  it is it’s going to happen,  

it’s going to happen and it’s starting to show  signs across multiple different areas, not just.

Jeff Kikel: Okay inflation’s higher. Okay, this  is high. It’s just starting to show in a lot of  

different areas. And I, once again, I think  it’s you’ve got to be sure that you protect  

in those cases. Unfortunately, you also have to  

you can’t just sit back and go I’m  just going to I think it’s coming.

Jeff Kikel: I’m just going to stop.  Stop investing because it’ll just  

beat you down and the market will  keep running at this point. And,  

I think what you’re seeing in the market is when  it was looking like. Okay, we’re not really,  

we’re not slowing the market started to get a  little bit soft because, okay, it doesn’t look  

like the feds [00:10:00] going to lower rates and  now all of a sudden, we’ve seen some soft numbers  

and now the market’s rocketing up because  obviously the feds going to reduce rates.

Jeff Kikel: If you look at history, that  is probably not true. They’re going to  

wait and then it’s going to go there for  longer. Yeah, higher for longer. They keep  

saying it. They’re going to keep it higher for  longer. That just means that they’re probably  

going to do what they’ve always done in  history, which is to massively overshoot  

the wrong way, because they waited for way  too long to let inflation get out of hand.

Jeff Kikel: And they’re probably going to wait too  

long and it’s going to cause the  the market to go the other way.

Ron Lang: Always behind the curve,  but I think it was Warren Buffett’s,  

infamous quote, the market could stay  irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Then

Ron Lang: you

Jeff Kikel: have

Ron Lang: money. Yes, absolutely.

Jeff Kikel: Totally agree

Ron Lang: with

Jeff Kikel: him on that

Ron Lang: too. Absolutely. All right. My next  chart is taking their the Chicago business  

barometer and their ISM manufacturing. And for the  most [00:11:00] part, it’s almost stayed lockstep  

and converged. And look what happened starting  literally January 1st, 2024. It diverged. Yeah.

Ron Lang: What is this telling us now? It’s not  necessarily the divergence. It’s the depth of  

the divergence to the downside. Now, again, and I  don’t know if you know the answer to this or not.  

I do not because there, I know that different  feds have different ISM numbers. I actually  

never paid attention to the quote unquote  Chicago I accept the Chicago PMI numbers.

Ron Lang: No, we’ve been talking

Jeff Kikel: about

Ron Lang: Philly

Jeff Kikel: fed,

Jeff Kikel: New York fed,  Richmond, all that I’ve really had

Ron Lang: the New York ISM index, manufacturing  or PMI. So I thought this was interesting. And  

I’d like to maybe overlay this at some  time, if we could ever get a chart of  

all the different feds and their ISM  to see if they’re actually following

Jeff Kikel: along together or [00:12:00] 100%.

Jeff Kikel: Is it something unique to that region  around Chicago that’s having issues? But honestly,  

I don’t think so. And most of the ones we follow  have the negative, so I would say they’re probably  

along the same lines. It’s interesting to  watch how it shot up there for the end of 2023.

Jeff Kikel: And then 2024, it’s  just Freaking going straight down.

Ron Lang: For the most part, and look, this  has been for in history 50, 5 0. 0 has always  

been like the demarcation line of expansion or  contraction. And the interesting thing is, it’s  

ISM number since late 2022. Has been contracting.  The PMI had a spike in late 23, but holy crap.

Ron Lang: This is, if you just take a look at,  

at the historical numbers in the last  25 years, this is. Parabolic move to  

the upside. This is just falling down an  elevator shaft to the downside. Sure Yeah,

Jeff Kikel: Like I said the weird [00:13:00]  divergence though between pmi And ism where  

ism’s been creeping its way back up, you know  I mean in the end it’s the pmi that’s going to  

drive stuff because they’re the people  that buy things From the manufacturer.

Ron Lang: And my last one was the the  job openings and labor turnover summary,  

this kind of came right from their press release  on June 4th. And I’m not going to read all this,  

you and I have talked about this  just tad dozy and probably got  

revisions. So I highlighted the mar this  is the april and why it’s a month behind.

Ron Lang: I don’t know because it came out in  june for april don’t understand that but the march  

revisions were revised down to 133 thousand  I just find that this is just crazy Because  

down here what’s also not calculated. I didn’t  highlight it is the number of quote unquote quits

Jeff Kikel: Yeah,

Ron Lang: so there’s a difference and I  don’t know how they’re able to decipher  

and [00:14:00] differentiate The people that  

are let go the people that are hired  Versus the people that just i’m done.

Ron Lang: I’m quitting.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah,

Ron Lang: I don’t know and here’s the other one  the total separations This is my other point the  

total separations were revised by 130 000. So  what the hell is the difference between? quits  

Separations fire. I don’t know. All I know is it  keeps getting revised the wrong way. Whether it’s  

the quits and the revisions are quits and the  separations to the upside and then the other stuff

Jeff Kikel: goes down.

Jeff Kikel: And yeah, and I, in our next show,  I’ve actually got a chart on this that I’ll go  

over to look at the consistency of it. And the  jolts number hit a high point up around 11. 11,  

000, 000 12, 000, 000 right after the pandemic,  and it’s been on a continual downward spike,  

which, meant, okay, part of that was  people getting back into the workforce.

Jeff Kikel: And, of course, reducing those  open positions, [00:15:00] but. I think  

what’s happening now from my perspective on the  jolts number is, those jobs are starting to get  

pulled back, companies are looking at. Okay. We  don’t want to fire people right now, but we’re  

just going to pull back the job openings, where  there’s not as many job openings at this point.

Ron Lang: Yeah, and actually one quick thing I  wanted to bring up here and I didn’t highlight  

it I meant to bring it up was we talked  about this a couple of times that when  

the employment number and actually we’ll know  tomorrow the unemployment for may and You know  

the interesting thing we always talk about  if you look into the details of the numbers  

not just the headline But the details that half  to two thirds of the new hires were government  

jobs Yeah, I thought this was interesting  in april Federal government jobs went down.

Ron Lang: 8000.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting.  It was medical, medical and governmental jobs,  

which I mean, I would argue the  point that a lot of those I would  

still [00:16:00] categorize a lot of those  medical jobs as, Government jobs in some way,  

shape, or form, at that point, but  yeah, those, it was really dramatic.

Jeff Kikel: And I think we, we covered that in a  couple episodes ago when that number came out of,  

this was just like a really weird aberration  where, we had seen this huge growth in  

government and all of a sudden there was  a massive pullback in government hiring.

Ron Lang: The whole point is they  keep hiring, but here they let go.

Ron Lang: So are these people that  retired are these people that decided  

to go into the private sector again We  don’t know the reasons behind all this  

and unfortunately You know financial  media economists. I mean Are looking  

at the headline number because that’s the  number they’re plugging into their models.

Ron Lang: Yeah Again, I don’t know what they’re  

doing with all these other details as  far as How the sausage is made. But

Jeff Kikel: and if we look at, although  it’s sometimes not the best indicator of it,  

if you look at ADP unemployment this  week, it was a pretty big of a shock. I  

know I’m just looking at [00:17:00] briefing.

Jeff Kikel: com. The forecast was 165, 000 jobs  and it came in at one 52 on the ADP. So it’s  

interesting, but I just, what I’ve seen from the  federal numbers is it’s they’re budgie at the,  

when they come out as a headline and then they  revise them back, you, you’ve got to really pay  

attention to what they’re doing, back three, four  months, because they’re constantly revising them.

Jeff Kikel: And those things have  been going down pretty dramatically  

on the revision. Don’t know. I just, if you look  at the jolts number, you look at that and we’ll,  

like I said, in the next episode, we’ll cover  this a little bit more in detail. I just see  

that slowing and that’s just, that’s the last  kind of do that I see to fall potentially.

Jeff Kikel: So make sure you stay tuned for the  

next episode. Where we actually  get into this a little bit more.

Ron Lang: Never a dull moment  and there’s always something  

to chat about. So absolutely. The good thing is

Jeff Kikel: there’s always news and plenty of  

stuff for us to talk [00:18:00] about.  Folks, thank you for joining us.

Jeff Kikel: Once again, we do these shows  for you. Make sure that you take the time  

to subscribe to the channel and make sure that  you take the time to give us a little upvote.  

Let us know that you’re around. We’ve  gotten a lot of those lately and it’s  

been nice to know that you’re out there  and that you’re liking what we’re doing.

Jeff Kikel: So thanks a lot and we’ll  see you back here the very next time.