PODCAST: “Hot Discussions: Car Brands, Market Data, and Surprising Consumer Trends” | Cents of Things” – Episode 72

hello sense of things it’s Jeff and Ron

once again and we are here for another

episode of your favorite

internet Finance slf fun show so today

Ron’s got some stuff for us he’s got a

few fun Financial facts for us and he’s

going to go into a little bit more of

some Market data that he’s been doing

some research on so I will leave it at

that and surprise you as we come out so

hang in there we’ll be right back in a

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

second hey everybody welcome back to the

sense of things and I have Ron here with

me Ron how you doing brother good

morning sorry I hit share too quickly

there by boo must have been sensitivity

it was heat sensitivity it was the

either that or the end the day jitters

that’s it we usually start off earlier

than we did today interesting for us

it’s it’s a little bit later in the day

and we’re both babbling a little bit so

what do we have man you got some fun

facts for US ah it’s always some fun

things visualcapitalist.com has always

got some great stuff about domestically

globally they have some pop culture

stuff but a lot of it surrounds business

economic lot of money oriented stuff

hence visual capitalist I thought this

was interesting America’s favorite car

brands broken down by kind of generation

Boomer you and I Gen X Millennial and

gen Z and I I thought this was just

interesting I had Honda when I was

younger I had an Acura when I was

younger I never had a Chevy or a Ford

but I thought it was interesting that

Honda is now the number one ownership

rid for Jen Z huh that’s actually that’s

interesting it it’s interesting it

surprises me with the Millennials that

that Chevy is so high Chevy and Ford are

so high for them I would have expected

them to be driving the rice burners um

you got a Mustang so you got a Ford no I

do not anymore I’ve got a I’ve got a

Camaro oh excuse me Bo we are a we’re a

three brand house so we’ve got a Dodge

we’ve got so we’ve got a Dodge

Challenger I’ve got a F-150 and a Camaro

gotcha gotcha in fact little fun little

work in there I have never ever in my

life owned anything but the big three

understood

okay gr Paul was a GM guy for 40 years

so I have I am a big believer in in

americanmade although Toyota trucks are

made like right south of us so I’d call

them American mid all day long I know

even though the profits are going back

to Japan I know but they’re Texas made

so they’re much better than the ones

coming from Japan so I am not a beer guy

I’m a vodka tequila guy and I’m a vodka

tequila snob I don’t buy any vodka

tequila That is owned or endorsed by a

celebity they’re rich enough I want the

good stuff and I’m not paying them I’m

not a beer guy I don’t mind a cold beer

I’m not an IPA guy but I gotta tell you

China is the number one consumer

yeah beer yeah I saw this I I had to

bring it up

becauseas is a big beer State I know

Tequila too I don’t know if you’re a

beer guy or not I can’t remember but

this really shocked me yeah really not I

I’m more of a wi I thought Germany would

be bigger yeah you think yeah China is

just a way bigger country too but yeah

it’s that’s really surprising drink tea

yeah well apparently

to and also Germany too they like their

beer warm which I could never do that

it’s seller cold so it’s not really cold

but it’s not really warm and the British

are like they they could just set it out

on the counter for hours and be happy

and

GH I hear you so that’s beer and the

last one I thought this was pretty good

so this is the purchasing power of $100

in every state and I thought it was

interesting because my state now Arizona

is par on the so you get a $100 worth of

$100 but if you go to California you go

to New York you’re not getting your

money’s worth and I thought was

interesting was H Washington State yeah

you only get really get 90 cents of a

dollar in in Washington I thought that

was interesting you’re your home state

psylvia it is an expensive State yeah

your home state of of Pennsylvania too

104 hired n in Texas yeah you’re getting

bang for the buck and even in Texas

you’re getting a little bang for the

buck but look at the flyover states

you’re getting big bang for the buck in

the Dakotas and in Kentucky and Oklahoma

and Montana you’re getting big bang for

your buck up there no because there’s

nothing else to do that’s why not nice

it’s just all right we always talk about

like in

22023 the top 10 stocks in the S&P made

up 70% of the move and if you just

looked at the eal weighted 500 the

market was only Up 3 to 5% plus or minus

right looking at the weightings and

these are fairly recent weightings you

could see how much some of this has

changed but even look at those top five

y at the end of the day you’re still

looking at almost

25% of 500 stocks is is the top five

stocks it’s still too much it’s still

too much and I find this to be

interesting because in the last two

month we’ve had a little bit of a

rejigger here as far as the waiting

because of the pullback the the S&P 500

has a very interesting double top

formation so with the September Swoon

and possibly October I think these

numbers will be weighted a little bit

differently I don’t know how often you

look at this I honestly I don’t you you

usually bring it up and I finally take a

chance or take a look at it we use a a

technical approach to virtually

everything we do I it’s funny we’ve held

Nvidia for pretty close to it’s very

rare for us to hold more than a month on

any one individual stock and we had held

Nvidia for almost seven eight months and

the model actually dumped it out at the

beginning of this month which it’s

actually kind of good yeah you had a had

a nice return after the Octo after the

August 5th Swoon and my last slide is

the change in the EP yes and earnings

and as we know at the end of the day the

mother’s milk of the market for

fundamentals is earning EPs and I

thought this was interesting if you’re

comparing the two as far as

Q3 versus uh current year

2025 at the difference between where

money has shifted in the last year from

Information Technology all the way down

to energy and yeah I don’t know if

you’ve seen if you’ve been following oil

because I never this part of my Mantra

my investment Mantra we never recommend

oil to clients anything that’s oil

related Chevron Exxon all that good

stuff we don’t recommend any of that uh

because it’s two Peg to oil oil is like

sitting in the 60s now what happened to

the shortage in in in in in Europe the

last couple of winners I didn’t hear

that we were producing any more oil and

I heard OPEC wanted to cut oil so why is

the price going down look I always said

oil is one of the most manipulated

markets in the world it should be

interesting to find out when this whole

thing shakes out why but if you just

take a look at some of the other things

here money’s money has been constantly

coming out of Industrials real estate

has fluctuated a little bit but the

energy thing is a little bit disturbing

because typically Energy prices go down

when economies are slowing down like I

said there’s all these little tiny thing

that these what aren’t necessarily

things that you typically would relate

together but yeah I totally agree with

you that and I didn’t realize the amount

of it because once again we don’t really

use energy stocks at all in in any of

our portfolios so I don’t really follow

it or or really care quite frankly

besides when I stop and fill my truck up

or something but and the most boring

sector for decades over decades has been

utilities and it’s basically been one of

the hottest sectors in the last year and

people are attributing that to all the

AI and the data centers yeah and the

interesting one that I hadn’t been

watching and and I it snuck up on me was

real estate real estate took off and it

was like July through August I just

happened to we had a I think one of our

podcasts and I just happened you you had

brought up like a chart similar like

this and I I was like I wonder how real

estate’s doing with the potential of

interest rates going down and it was up

in like 16% in July um you know the real

estate index which is just insane that

much movement but it is it does

typically do better when rates go down

but I don’t know what’s going on because

everything I hear in the corporate real

estate side is not real good now like

you said with data centers and things

like that there’s just tons of money

flying around there not only that but

mortgage rates have come down and they

they’ll come down bet more in the next

year as in as as the Fed rate goes down

but in the end really what it comes down

to is I guess the the ones that are

doing really well are the new home

builders which those are the luxury

homes or whatever you want to call

people that have the money they may not

be financing yeah that’s true yeah or or

they Builder financing I think that’s

been the big thing when I talked to a

lot of my friends in the real estate

business the build the Builder

have been able to do extremely well

because all right we’ll come down on the

interest ratees but you’re going to pay

a little bit more for the price of the

house so they can it around it’s

like going and buying a car and and

financing it what do you want to

actually pay per month okay I don’t I

want to know what I’m paying for the car

I don’t care what you know the monthly

payment is I want to know what I’m

paying for the car it’s like it’s self

insurance so yeah they’ve got to do that

if they want the business which is

totally understandable but uh it’s

interesting so I want to go back to

something real quick and we can wrap up

with this yeah in my presentations to

perspective clients they want to talk

about a lot of different things like I’m

sure they do with you and I tell them

there are three things we do not

recommend we don’t get involved in and

we don’t invest in I’ll bring it up

since we don’t one of them is energy

yeah and I’m not saying you can’t make

money in gas related or natural gas

related companies it’s just that the oil

Market is and natural gas market are

there some the most manipulated markets

that at the end of the day it doesn’t

matter how solid the company is if

they’re not making their revenue on

they’re not making their margins on oil

they’re not going to do it so energy is

one of them the other two very quickly

and I want to know about you we don’t

get involved in anything crypto related

and anything precious metal Gold Silver

Platinum we don’t do any because can you

tell me how much gold silver and oil is

in the ground and can you tell me how

much has been drilled and and mined yeah

so I don’t get involved in any of those

things that I can’t understand and I

don’t want to hear about supply and

demand but it’s about

fundamentals and when it comes to

crypto Gold Silver and oil it’s not

fundamentals it’s something else it’s

not yeah the only thing we do in the

gold space is I run a I run an income

Strate an option income strategy

utilizing the GLD that’s the only thing

I really do with gold because the price

of it has not really done much it’s been

better over the last I would say 20

years than it had been prior to that I I

did see a statistic once that from like

1920 up until I want to say it was like

1980 or

1995 the price of gold had not gone up

faster than a man’s suit during that

time period it has gone up more over the

the last let’s say 20 years because

we’ve had a lot of weird volatility and

recessions and things like that I don’t

like investing in anything where I can’t

really get any kind of a dividend from

it or some kind of income and like I

said we do that one income strategy that

might be five to 7% of a client’s

portfolio it generates a nice little

chunk of change but it could change but

we do it on a weekly basis so it’s

easier to manage the risk but yeah pure

gold I’m just I have one client that has

some gold in his portfolio just because

he wanted it and he told me what he

wanted so other than that I oh Gold’s

going to go up next year yeah based on

what yeah oil’s gonna go up the demand’s

gonna be there Europe’s gonna be in a

shortage that was two winners ago didn’t

happen no yeah I don’t get it I I

honestly don’t get it I said any

commodity yeah any kind of commodity I

just am not a fan of in most cases cool

good stuff man folks we shows for you so

if you are interested in more of this if

you’re interested in us talking about

some of these strategies we talk about

let us know put it in the comments make

sure you subscribe to the channel and we

will see you guys back here the very

next time