Good morning, folks. Welcome to the

sense of things for this week. We’ve

been off for a couple weeks, taking some

time individually for the both of us,

and we’re back in the game today. So,

today we’re going to talk about what I

call Groundhog Day. Another day of the

shutdown. We’re going to talk about

that. Ron’s got some good information

for us, talking a little bit about more

on the shutdown. We’ll be talking a

little bit about some other economic

facts and other market facts, especially

around bubbles today. So stay tuned.

We’ll be right back on in just one

second.

[Music]

[Music]

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Hey

Ron, how you doing bud? Good morning.

Fall is here and I love it.

I know. We actually had a fall last

week. It was like in the 50s and 40s in

the mornings, which of course it was

November before that happened. But just

saying,

hey, the Christmas stuff was out before

Halloween, man. It just

I know. Yeah. It’s like they just

totally forgot about Thanksgiving now. I

just

after they were talking about Black

Friday specials on November 1st.

Yep. Exactly.

You know what? The way these retailers

are, it’s going to be Black Friday every

day until Christmas anyway.

Honestly, I think they’re black, they

start Black Friday somewhere around

September. Now,

the way Amazon and Walmart are doing it.

They’re always doing their special days.

So,

yeah. Oh, good.

Even Amazon’s had a second Amazon day

this year. Just a few months.

One day and then 111 I think they did.

Oh, no. That’s No, they did two days in

October. Yeah, something like that.

Yeah. Where they’re having these big

days like that. So, yeah. Hey, whatever.

They’ve become a major force when it

comes to everything at this point. It

was interesting. I was talking to a

friend of mine. We were talking about

Amazon stock and they’ve had two massive

outages in their east data center in the

last couple weeks. But you look at their

stock and it’s just kept on

alltime high.

Yeah. No, it’s crazy. All right, we’re

going to kick off. You’ve got some fun

facts for us or this weekend. I don’t

think it’s funny. Sometimes there’s

always a nice gem in there every now and

then. And I thought these were good

facts, but not like unbelievable facts.

So, here we go.

1872, Susan B. Anthony cast a vote,

prompting an arrest. God forbid.

48 years for American women gain the

right to vote.

1869. I did not know this. Ruters beats

Princeton in the first college football

game. I did not think football started

back then. I could only imagine with the

uniforms. There probably were no

helmets. I could only imagine the rules

they had. It was probably like a bunch

of headless chickens running around, but

who knows?

Yeah, but the rules are based on rugby,

which had been around for a couple

hundred years at or at least a hundred

years at that point. But yeah, I mean

they had helmets, but they had faceless

helmets. So those guys, if you look at

some of those guys back in those early

days, they look pretty rough

after they’d been playing for a few.

A lot of clothes lines going on with the

arm.

Yep.

All right. 1883, Black Bart makes his

last coach stage coach Robert. What was

the clue that he left? He left a

handkerchief with a laundry mark.

Yep.

His criminals, right?

1887, Doc Holiday dies of tuberculosis.

I’m your huckleberry.

Yeah. You know what? A lot of people

love Tombstone. Tombstone’s here in

southern Arizona. I have not been there

yet. People say, “Ah, it’s a nice little

day trip. I should probably go.”

A little kitschy little town. Yeah,

exactly.

They reenact the the Okay Corral thing,

I think, at noon or something like that.

Yeah. You mean the okay backyard?

1895, German scientist Wilham Condred

Rottgun becomes first person to observe

X-rays. I was reading the article. It

was actually pretty interesting.

Obviously, I don’t think there was too

much safety involved, but he did

something where something glowed and he

was able to see bones. It was pretty

interesting, but it sounded like super

dangerous at that time, too. But all

discoveries have to happen in one way or

another.

You figure who’s her face. The

discovered X-rays. She ended up dying of

radiation sickness.

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Can’t

cover They weren’t covering the family

jewels back then.

Absolutely not. or they’re sitting there

with their face right next to it looking

at what was glowing at the time.

Let me touch it. Let me touch it.

1924, California legalizes professional

boxing after a 10-year ban. I didn’t

think that this was the most interesting

one, but the fact that they banned it

and then

who knows? And back then, boxing was

very different when they had 20 rounds

or until one guy was unconscious.

Yeah. Until you just beat your opponent

to to Yeah. with and with no real

gloves. They were basically just pieces

of leather over your knuckles to keep

your knuckles from bleeding. But

pretty much, yeah, there wasn’t very

much padding in there.

Nope.

It’s 1964. This was interesting. DC

residents cast first presidential votes

since 1800. And the reason for this, I

was reading it was Philadelphia was a

temporary center of government until

1800. Then they created DC. But from

1800 to 1964,

DC residents weren’t able to vote.

Couldn’t even vote.

I thought this is the most interesting

fact out of all of them.

Yeah, I get it that they’re they’re not

a state and all that, but they’re still

citizens of the United States.

They have electoral votes.

Yeah.

When did that start? Because if they

couldn’t vote until 1964,

the electoral system started way before

that.

Yeah. Exactly.

I don’t know. We’ll have to do some

research for the next one.

Yeah, it’s interesting. Yeah, like I

said, okay, how fair was that? You were

an American citizen, but you couldn’t

vote in your country just because of

where you live. That kind of sense.

So maybe they went outside of DC. I

don’t know, but it doesn’t make any

sense. More more research to come,

folks.

Yes.

1994, I remember watching this live.

George Foreman,

yes.

Comes the oldest heavyweight champ

beating Michael Moore. And Michael

Moore, I can tell you, he was the champ.

He looks overmatched with George would

not go down.

Nope.

Oh, and it was an ugly

fight socket guy. He just kept punching.

Yeah. And it was the ugliest fight ever

in history. But George just kept You

can’t knock the guy down.

He was tired. He was smart. Why should

he retain his title? He had twice 20

years apart

and fine. Yeah. And it made him and it

made him a cultural icon because all the

great commercials and everything else he

did. The George Foreman grill, by the

way. I think I did mention his fact. Do

you know who was offered to put their

name on that grill before George Foreman

and they and he ref and he turned it

down?

No clue.

Hulk Hogan.

Wow.

Yeah. Fun fact.

The Hulka grill.

Yes. And I forgot and I remember Hulk in

an interview saying, “Yeah, instead of

the grill, I ended up doing this like

blender or something.” Whatever it was,

it was some ridiculous

something nobody wanted. But he goes,

“Oh, one of those things.”

Of course, the Hulk Mania thing, it

would, you know, the Hulk the Hulka

grill would have had a feather bow on it

and all kinds of stuff.

Absolutely.

The 24inch pythons.

Anyway, here we go. 24-hour trading.

This was a topic that came up in the

late 90s. If you were a trader, you

loved it because if you were a junkie

for this, you wanted it all the time. I

don’t like it. I’m curious to get your

opinion because these are the two major

potential problems that I foresee. What

if you’re in a position, right? Yeah,

you could have a limit stop order in

there, but it dumps overnight or the

weekend and you don’t know about it. And

the other big thing because more so

today than 2530 years ago, it opens it

up for significant

market manipulation of people just

playing both sides and moving the bid

ask. I remember when I did trading years

ago, you could trade in the off hours.

There were no market orders. You could

put in limit orders after earnings or

something. You could see things moving

around pretty violently in the after.

And I mean it’s it’s still yeah it’s

still you have after hours trading today

and that stuff goes on because you’ll

see the you’ll see the markets move like

crazy after hours but then when the

market opens and normal trading happens

it calms it down a little bit but

they were talking about another issue

and then I want to get your thought on

it. You know what you got to settle

these things. So now you’re opening it

up like for custodians. You got to have

people working 24/7, 7 days a week

because they’ve got to do all the

administrative work. They’re not going

to just let it go on the weekend even

though it might be lighter trading. But

if they did 24-hour trading, you’ll get

people working the weekend because

people make money on volatility up and

down. They don’t make money with if it’s

flat. So they’ll get people in there and

they will manipulate the market. I think

this is bad. I remember I worked on the

floor of the stock exchange when I was

in high school during the summers and it

was the first year that they added a

half an hour because the market was open

10 to 4 for decades and then I think it

was either 84 85 they went from 9:30 to

4 which it’s been like that now for 42

years why change it

yeah once again I think today especially

and it doesn’t necessarily have to be

manipulation as much as you’ve got all

all these trading platforms today that a

lot of it is robotic trading or AI

trading at this point.

You got to have some humans involved and

they can’t work 24-hour days. You can’t

have two shifts of traders working all

throughout the weekends and everything

else. It just it’s it’s a bad idea.

There’s plenty of time to trade during

market hours. There’s no need for

24-hour trading at this point.

And here’s the interesting thing. the E-

mini futures

other than from Friday night to Sunday

night, you could trade that 24 hours a

day. Absolutely. Except for those 48

hours, right? So you could trade that

all night long. So if something happens

in Europe or in Asia, you could trade in

the off hours on that. But stock

trading, I don’t know. I give it a

thumbs down. I I don’t

I do too. And like you were saying with

settlement times, it’s not trade plus

three anymore. So now you’re going to

have to settle.

It’s two plus one for the most part.

I know. That’s that’s the thing. It’s

okay. So now, okay, something happens

over Saturday. Okay, who’s going to

who’s going to make sure that

transaction happens correctly and the

market’s running in good order? No, I

think it’s a horrible idea.

I agree. So, here’s interesting. Now,

this is a week old, but here we are now,

November 6. So we are 37 days, the

longest government shutdown in history.

So what’s next? What’s the impact to the

economy? And I truly believe because we

were talking about what if this goes

into Thanksgiving.

Y

all these people that haven’t gotten

paychecks for six, seven, maybe eight

weeks.

Yeah. They’re on their disposable income

to buy presents or as much as they want.

So that means the holiday season will be

in the crapper. How is that going to

trickle through the rest of the economy?

There’s a million federal employees that

are not getting paid and even the

essential workers now have not gotten

this is their second I think it was

today is their second no paycheck at

this point. And these essential workers

are being forced to work. It’s like

we’ve got to have air traffic

controllers, we got to have TSA agents,

we’ve got to have police and law

enforcement and everything else. But

these guys are out there busting their

hump every day. And I feel the worst for

the folks that are on uh FAA, the air

traffic controllers. These guys are

already working 60 hours a week.

I just heard it this morning that

they’re reducing if they have to reduce

flights by 10% they’re overload.

Yeah, that was my piece of this. I’ll

talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, it’s just horrible. Yeah. Now, I

was too young to remember this, but look

at there were three government shutdowns

each a month apart in 77. What the hell

was Carter doing? There was five. Wait,

one, two, three, four, five. There were

six in like a two years span.

Yeah. During the 70s, I honestly don’t

remember much of that.

I think, and we talked about this, when

President Carter died, he was a

wonderful man. He was the biggest

cluster of a president.

You got to go by what is the pre was

Clint Clayton a great president because

of the stock market. Pull the internet

out. Was he still a great president?

Yeah.

He could have gotten Saddam Hussein

saying Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden.

He was also there when they relaxed the

GlassSteagall thing which ended up

creating our financial crisis 10 years

ago. I don’t want to crap all over

Clinton, although it’s easy to do. Yeah,

but

he had a great economy behind him. Look

what Carter inherited. Oil embargo was

74. He didn’t come in until 77. There

were a lot of things there with each

president, but each president blames the

last president.

Of course. Yeah. But you just look back

over Carter’s career as a president. It

was like, oh my god. And the everything

bad that you could do, he did.

He did bring Egypt and Israel together.

That is that’s about the only thing.

Yeah, honestly that was the only thing.

And I have this new source. I’ve been

looking at their stuff. It’s pretty good

called Financial Fables. Not the best

graphic, but this goes back basically 50

years of boom and bust. And I thought it

was interesting how it aligned all this

and then where we are now with AI and

everything else like we’re beyond all

these other asset bubbles that we’ve

seen in the last 50 years as I tell

people trying to compare.com

to now the bigger difference besides the

concentration of the stocks that they’re

in is they’re profitable. They’re making

money. So, are their valuations

realistic? No. But they are making money

as opposed to 25, 30 years ago where not

only were they not making money, but

they were they barely had revenue and

they had insane PE ratios.

Yeah.

Well, it was

I like the correlation here.

I do like the correlation. I having

lived through the tech bubble and the

nightmare that was I think the biggest

concern I have at this point and with

the model that I run it typically right

now is running a lot of those higher

tech names and stuff like that and we’re

making money but I I’ve been in the

process of saying okay what if this

isn’t what’s the game plan what if this

isn’t and I think the thing that

concerns me the most right now is the

financial engineering that I’m seeing

going on with the some of these AI

companies that I’m loaning money to this

customer of mine and they’re buying my

stuff and it’s okay that that financial

engineering always seems to come it’ll

come back to roost at some point. So I

think it’s it’s something that you’ve

got to be concerned about. I know I am

at this point. But the other piece of

the pie is these are still profitable

companies and you can’t poo poo that.

And

not only that too, but the

concentration, they’re all doing

business with each other.

Yeah. Yeah.

And like I said, that’s what my point

was. They’re loaning money. Yeah. You’re

loaning money to your competitor or to

your client so that they can buy your

stuff. And it’s just or investing in

that company so that they have assets to

buy your stuff. and it just it’s a

little weird and I know at some point

that’s going to come back to roost, but

I just honestly I don’t know where the

peak and the downside comes in. I think

we’ll have a lot of volatility leading

up to that. We saw a little bit of it

this week with with the quick pullback

that we saw in the market, but then the

next day we’re back and running again.

So, it’s it’s just something we’re just

going to have to pay attention to. The

other piece of that is these big

companies like this are a massive

component of the S&P 500 of the all the

other piece there.

I agree. I agree. We’ll have to see

where all these things go, but I can’t

tell you if this is 98 going to be 99 or

this is 99 and next year is 2000.

Whatever it is, we’ve got to be one of

those two. But we’re riding the wave

until then.

Yep. Absolutely. All right, let’s

quickly finish up with with my stuff

here real quick. I think we’ve covered

this at adnauseium, but FAA announced

that they’re reducing flights 10% as of

today. I was watching an interview with

the or transportation secretary Duffy

who said, you know what, they were he

was asked the question, what happens if

the shutdown stops and you get back your

guys getting paid again? and he’s saying

it can take weeks to a month, which

rolls into the holiday holiday season,

to cover all this stuff. What’s being

affected most? We’re dealing with SNAP

benefit issues. I know the court system

said you got to keep paying it, but the

government’s going, “Yeah, but we don’t

have any money to pay it.” Besides $9

billion that is in an emergency fund,

which the SNAP benefits will rip through

that in less than a month at this point.

Travel’s being affected. Essential

workers are now on their second paycheck

being gone. Government contractors are

not getting paid and they may never get

paid in this case unless they’ve got

contracts, no new SBA loans and no

economic data to see how this is

affecting the economy.

One little green shoot that information

that we do have. The ADP report came out

this week and just crushed what had been

expected. 25,000 was expected. came in

at 42,000. So this is private sector

payrolls, which is actually a good thing

because a lot of our e employment data

over the last four four or four and a

half years was skewed massively by

government hiring and that’s really

stopped. So we’re actually getting a

handle on what the real economy is and

real what real employment’s looking and

that’s a good thing. Next Fed meeting

will be in December. They just cut rates

here this month or last month and a

potential there is no one for November.

So another potential one they weren’t

going to really commit to it. So that

have the government data to really

Yeah. They don’t have anything to work

off of. And I honestly think that it’s

going to be ugly once we start getting

that information back

which will only help them make the case

for lower interest rates.

Yeah. hopefully. So great folks, as

always, we do these shows for you. We’re

reporting once again. Feels like

Groundhog Day with some of this stuff

this last month and a half, but we’ll be

here and we’ll be talking about what’s

affecting it going forward. Make sure

you subscribe to the channel and make

sure that you have give us an upote if

you can so that we we can keep getting

this out to more folks that are out

there. So, thanks a lot and we will see

you guys back here the very next time.