Good morning audience. Welcome to the

sense of things and Ron and Jeff here

for another week of all kinds of

craziness in the markets on the good

side. Definitely some really good

earning and probably we’ll report on

that a little bit more next week after

we get through this final week of of

July. Uh this week what we’re going to

focus on Ron’s got a really good chart.

We’re at the end of the middle part of

the year and Ron’s going to take a look

at what uh the estimates are from all

the talking heads that are out there.

I’ve got a little bit we saw personal

consumption today, PCE, which is one of

the Fed’s things that they use. We just

heard from the Fed yesterday, no

interest rate changes. We’ll talk a

little bit about that. And we saw a

little bit of dissent in the Fed. And I

went back and looked at history to see

what the history of descent is in the

Fed. So stay tuned. We’ll be right back

in just a second.

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Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Ron,

how are you doing my friend?

Good morning. I cannot believe tomorrow

is August 1st.

It’s just scary. I just I’m looking at

what I’ve accomplished this year and I’m

like I’ve got so much left to do and

it’s going away fast.

If you think about just everything

that’s happened in the economy and the

markets, it’s like we’ve already had a

year’s worth of activity.

Yep.

Maybe two. even the markets just even

the first half year of the presidential

journey at this point the

years left to go of that

I know I’m like geez what are you going

to do for the next three and a half

years dude you’ve already renegotiated

with like 30 different nations and all

the stuff that’s happened in such a

short period of time was

China’s the big one

yeah China’s the big one and we got to

see how everything pans out

yeah and I think it’s gonna pan out

because, you know, I think they

understand now that he’s serious and

he’s I think what this morning it was

like South Korea popped in there and

he’s playing hard ball on on India uh

who’s been tariffing the crap out of us

for years. It’s literally reciprocal if

we do the 25% there. Yeah, I think it’s

interesting. It’s an interesting time to

live. It’s an interesting time to be

running money. That’s for sure.

Oh, when the when it goes up,

everybody’s happy.

Yeah. when it goes up all amazingly all

the phone calls that I get from clients

go away at that point. So it

Where do you want Where do you want to

kick off today?

Let me kick off. I have a little pop

culture for us. I was trying to come up

with something unique for today and I

actually found this interesting

today in history. So I was looking at

history channel.com.

Jimmy Hawa disappeared today in history

July 31st 1975.

So interesting interesting fact there. I

looked down to see what else. None of

this really mattered. One thing

mattered. The marquee of Lafayette

became a major general on this day here

in the country July 31st 197 or 1777.

Not much else. Just some weird little

stuff. Airplanes crashing and all that.

But Jimmy Hoffa disappeared this day.

And appar

a mob afficionado guy. I love watching

everything on the mob. So, the mobsters,

there were two possible burial places

for him. One was outside of Chicago and

they dug everything up. They never found

them. The other one, if you remember,

was supposed to be in, I think, section

104 in Giant Stadium in the concrete.

And when they flattened it and rebuilt

stadium, they didn’t find him there

either. So, who knows?

It was interesting. I watched a thing.

Can’t remember the guy who did it. It

was on Fox Nation. It was one of their

specials. And this one reporter, he’s

been on this case for years. And he’s he

made friends with a lot of the old

mobsters. So, they like guiding him

along the path. And they from what he

was able to come up he’s come up with

the most plausible thing. It was

in Detroit.

There was this one house. They actually

went to the They were able to get into

the house and there was actually blood

on the floor in the house when they did

the spray stuff. And what they were able

to summize is that he was taken from

that house to a local crematorium and he

was cremated.

I wouldn’t doubt it. I wouldn’t doubt

the last part of that. It’s the most

plausible, honestly, it was the most

plausible thing because it was something

about they had flown into Chicago and

then they drove over to Detroit for

something and then that’s when they

killed him. And so, like I said, it was

the most plausible explanation for it

and not all the weird goofy stuff like

Giant Stadium and all that. I never

believed that to begin with. And then

there was one that was like they dumped

him in a trash yard or something like

that outside of Newark or something.

Whatever it is, he’s dead.

He’s gone. Wasn’t necessarily a very

good person. Taking a look. The big

thing today, of course, the media

flipped out because oh my god, PCE is

going up. No, not necessarily. If you

actually look at the real numbers, not

the BS numbers that a lot of the media

is reporting. Here’s the deal. P PCE

month over month the consensus was.3

and between 0.1 and three it came in

at.3 so nothing

extraordinary there. The big number that

media is flipping out about is oh the

year over the year 2.7 consensus well it

came in at 2.4 and I have not seen one

single media outlet report this

correctly yet today. Every one of them’s

reporting some weird like 2.7 number and

it actually came in at 2.4. So that’s

not once again I distrust most of the

media at this point because they don’t

really do the research.

Oh, it’s not the media. It’s the stupid

economists that are always wrong.

That’s the other part too. Yeah, it’s a

combination of, you know, when you look

at the actual BEA website, now this is

actual BEA.gov.

Here’s where those numbers fall for the

year. Here’s where we started in

January. Here’s where we are month over

month here. It’s going down. So, don’t

listen to the military or the Don’t

listen to the media. Listen to the

military. They know what they’re talking

about. But don’t listen to the media

because they obviously have an agenda

and they don’t really want to report the

real actual stuff. This is an

interesting one for me. been talking

about, oh, we’re starting to see growth

in the economy and all that. Here’s an

interesting thing. Here’s the Jolts

report and I really wanted to show this

because of course it peaked a few years

back. We saw just absolute massive

growth in job openings after the

pandemic. A lot of that is because we

were paying people to sit at home on

their butts and you couldn’t hire

anybody. But that number has gone down.

And if you’re a chartist like I am, if

you were to draw a line across here,

we’ve broken through that line of growth

in the jobs a few months back. And I

don’t know if we’re going to see that go

up. And I talked to a lot of my folks

that are recruiters and getting the

companies to commit to job openings

right now. Part of it it’s been

uncertainty. Yes, I know. But it’s been

on a pretty steady decline the number of

job openings. So there’s not new

creations, it’s just we’re kind of

consuming the open jobs that are out

there. Last but not least, I wanted to

just report on the big thing that I

heard today was, “Oh my god, we have

dissent from Fed governors and all

this.” All right, let’s look at history

once again.

Hey Jeff, make the chart a little

bigger.

Yeah, let me blow this up a little bit

because I think this is an interesting

one. It was an interesting one to me to

see this. This is actually New York

Times. The article is about as bland as

you can get, but it’s very interesting.

So, here’s the Paul Vulker, you know,

coming out of the 70s with massively

high inflation. Man, there was a ton of

descent during Vulker. I look back and

I’m like, I feel sorry for the guy a

little bit because he was basically

swimming up against

like a waterfall most of the time he was

in there. Then we had Greenspan, early

Greenspan. You know, we were coming out

of the the era of high inflation. It had

gone down significantly by the end of

the 80s.

We’re on a big bull run there since 83.

Yeah. And a really big run, a lot of

stability and a lot of dissent in the F,

you know, talking about, hey, we got to

get in interest rates down, all that

kind of stuff. Then you had the

Greenspan era where Greenspan, you know,

right around here, this was where

Greenspan started saying, hey, we’re

going to have a massive productivity

boost. And we rational exuberance in 95

irrational exuberance period and all

that. Then we roll into 2000. We got a

little bit of disscent early on and then

for the last two Fed governors prior to

Yellen, Bernani and Yellen, no descent

at all. So I look at this as all right,

that’s just are they trying to present a

united front or is it just Fed think?

Everybody’s thinking exactly the same

way. I a little bit of dissent here and

there because that means that we’ve got

a little intellectual exercise going on

instead of just rubber stamping

everything that goes through.

That’ll also I I don’t think a lot of

people and I’m going to get it a little

slightly wrong. I don’t think people

really understand how the Fed works.

It’s a committee decision, not a chair

not a chairperson position. I think

there’s 15 to 18 governors rotating only

12 vote.

Yeah.

So it rotates. I don’t think people

understand that too. But they’re all

getting data that nobody else is getting

and people on the board. It is

political. You got people on both sides.

The fact that we only get one or two

dissenters or rarely ever get denters,

that means we have the right people on

the board because they’re looking at it.

And I understand where the president is.

Well, all these other countries,

the the other countries are not our

country. They are not our market. They

are not our economy. We’re very

different. They’ve been hurting. We’ve

been flying.

Even if we lowered interest rates, I’m

not saying a quarter or half a point

would be horrible, but lowering at two

or more points and making the economy

have rocket fuel behind it.

Yeah. In the short term, but bad in the

long term.

Yeah. That’s basically what we had for,

you know, late Greenspan and all of

Bernani and Yellen was just basically

rocket fuel in the economy. And that

ended up, you combine, you had rocket

fuel and then you combine it with

several years of the government pumping

just tons of money into the economy.

You’re going to end up with inflation.

It took way a hell longer than I

expected it to at that point. But uh but

yeah, I mean it once again I I like a

little bit of descent. I like a little

bit of

you know a little bit of it doesn’t have

to be the Vulkar era. Literally this was

he had two or three guys on his side and

the rest of them were against him for

most of the 1980s. And it was actually a

pretty damn stable time period. We did

have a little recession in there but it

was a pretty damn stable time period

even with a lot of descent. But I don’t

like no disscent at all. Yes, it’s they

all are getting the same information and

it seems like they’re thinking that way,

but I like every so often somebody

going, you know what,

I don’t necessarily like it.

Here’s the difference. When the economy

is flying, you’re not going to get much

descent. When the economy is tanking,

you’re not going to get much descent.

It’s where you’re in the middle. What

should we do? increase decrease and then

that’s really where you should get the

the intellectual debate. But you’re

right looking at it for the last 25

years and there was only four instances

where there was some type of dis

where anybody raised their hand and went

there. I really thought there might have

been more.

Yeah, I was shocked. Well, I guess I

pulled this chart up and I’m like, wow.

I mean, once again, I don’t want to see

this because that’s just chaos, but I

don’t want to see this either. I think

it’s healthy to see maybe a little bit

of this. You looked at, okay, we were in

a recession at this time period and then

coming out of that recession, you had a

lot of these guys going, hey, it’s time.

We need to kick this in gear a little

and and reduce interest rates so we can

get the economy going again.

I like I said, this whole Fed speak,

everybody thinks the same way. All their

economists think the same way. I’m

sorry. I need a little bit of somebody

raising their hand. So you have some you

have some updates on our friends in

economy world.

So

one chart from first trust one chart

from Yahoo Finance. Let’s start with the

one on the right.

So this was December you know their

forecast only two

stayed the same never changed two. And

then you had the tariff tantrum where

all of a sudden they’re like, “Wait a

minute. Oh my god, we can’t be at 68 or

7,000 because who knows, we’ve got to

lower this thing.” And many of them

lowered at 10 to 15%.

And then all of a sudden, we had a

V-shaped recovery. This looks like our

S&P 500 market. And then all of a

sudden, now they changed it. And I

always thought it was funny with Wells

Fargo because I don’t know who the Wells

Fargo market strategist is, but they had

the 77 like they were the only one that

had an odd number. Morgan Stanley,

that’s Mike Wilson. That guy has the

most conviction. And if he’s wrong,

he’ll admit he’s wrong. But all these

other ones, give me a break. Now, what

I’m waiting for are these two here to

come up because they’re right now

almost,00

points less the S&P. The green line is

where we are right now.

6,400 and change.

This is sad and pathetic. Oppenheimer

always changes that that market

strategist John Staltz. He Stalin he

always changes. But in the end, I know

you got to have some kind of forecast to

have a measuring stick, but I don’t know

your thoughts on

No, I think it’s it’s absolutely the

most ridiculous thing. Been stays pretty

damn consistent and it’s why I listen to

him, you know? It’s like, okay, I’m

convicted to that. Morgan Stanley, they

stay convicted to it. It’s like you and

I, we do that same thing. It’s like,

okay, I’m not going to change my

forecast for the year. We give ranges. I

think that here’s the bad scenario,

here’s the realistic, and here’s the

really good scenario. And you know what?

I hope that the market outdoes my really

good scenario at that point. I think it

will this year.

I think this is interesting here. First

Trust, they those two guys, Westbury and

Bob Stein.

Yep.

They predicted a recession this year. I

heard one of them in person talk in

January and they had been like almost

like permeables the last 10 years. They

predicted a recession. They haven’t

moved off their 5200 mark. The average

is 65 which is just above where we are

right now. I think this is incredibly

interesting. Yardi was at 7,000. He came

all the way down like 6,400. He’s at 65.

He’s always pumping the the pump the

iron there. It just I don’t get it. But

I think what’s interesting is our

numbers.

Yep.

We didn’t change. And it’s funny because

my bait my bare case is where we were in

in April.

Okay.

And my top end is where we’re

approaching right now. You’re up over

7,000. You were you were like the

highest. And I’m not saying it can’t get

there. That’s another 10% move from

here. But also we are coming into the

weakest part of the year. Yeah. August,

September, Q3. Yeah, Q3 is October.

Yeah, it’s historically just I like I

said, a lot of things for me, for my

bull case, and I still go at my bull

case is going to be I think we’re going

to get there quite frankly from here

because there’s a lot of stuff that’s

rolling into the the whole piece and

that tax. Once again, I’ve covered the

tax thing multiple times. If you follow

me on LinkedIn, I’ve done multiple

articles on the different aspects of the

tax bill. There is so much from a tax

perspective that is going to make

profitability of companies be off the

charts amazing this year. And it’s not

necessarily because they did that much

more business. It’s just the tax rules

that they can leverage are

extraordinarily favorable and it rolls

back to January 20th. Right now, there

are some things that are retroactive for

this year. Most of them go into effect

for next year, but remember, year two

of a presidential cycle is usually a

down year. Historically, if you look at

it, it’s usually around flat, but down

for year two of a presidential cycle.

So, if we’re running up, is this

anticipation and enthusiasm pulled

forward and we pull back next year?

Maybe. We’ll have to see. But I got to

tell you, if we hit the 7,000 mark this

year, I cannot

I can’t believe we’re going to be at 75

or 100 or 7,700 next year, the end of

next year. We’ve got to be able to level

out, digest, and move forward.

Yeah. Like I said, I don’t know. Yes,

historically we tend to see that in the

second year. This is a whole different

animal. It’s like I don’t care if you’re

a Trump fan or not. This is a whole

different animal as far as the speed of

movement uh within this and and so many

interesting things I think that are are

happening. It is very likely that within

the next two years we are going to have

the mo we’re going to go from the

absolute worst basically air control

system to the most innovative air

control system. How does that affect

everything? It’s just so many different

things that are going on from all these

different angles that I hope it all

works out. I hope it doesn’t burn out

somewhere in there that I it’s just the

speed of action is just beyond anything

I could have ever imagined. Here here’s

the crazy here’s I think we should

probably end on this. Look, the top 10

stocks in the S&P

have got not only the revenue

Yep.

but the profits to justify the majority

of their stock price and their PE. That

didn’t happen in the dot era.

Yeah.

Go to the next 40. So you’re looking at

now the top 50. Many of them are showing

profits and are they as healthy as the

top 10? No. No. So my point is how

topheavy are we?

It is become more broad-based but I I

don’t know how these profits can be

sustainable and this is where we were

talked in the beginning of all this how

tariffs may impact some of this

especially when it comes to consumer

goods, energy, so on and so forth.

Yeah. The thing is we’re a massive

energy producer now and we’re going to

be exporting a lot of that. I and I’ll

leave it at this. The one thing I the

one thing I look back at Greenspan that

he did extraordinarily well is he

understood how the internet was going to

have an effect on everything. You know,

prior to what 1998,

I did I had an assistant or a basically

a secretary.

And pretty much after that, I never

really had one forever because I did all

the stuff that my assistant used to. I

did my bookings and all that kind of

stuff. I think we’re in a new era. Quite

frankly, AI, the reason those top 10 are

so amazingly profitable is they have

spent a lot of money on AI.

The rest of the world, the rest of

industries are just playing around with

it on the edges. And I think integrating

a lot of that into medicine. I was just

listening to a guy on the news on the

way in who was who’s really big into

this and he’s like what what you don’t

understand is most of what AI people

think of it is are the large language

models the chat GPTs and stuff like that

like what you don’t understand is behind

the scenes it’s the data analysis that

can happen inside of the medical

industry

but they’ve been trying AI in medicine

for decades.

Yeah. But it’s starting to come in. And

when that does come in, he was like, you

we’re able to now

build treatment plans for people. It’s

not been effective for like brain

cancers. And he’s like, we’re actually

now starting to be able to build

treatment plans specifically designed

for patients that are working beyond the

traditional blast you with chemo, blast

you with with radiation. It’s like some

of this stuff is now working because

these these models these data models in

that in that world can work. You know, I

think as the rest of the world starts to

implement AI, yes, it’s going to have

some effect on jobs, but I think it’s

also going to take out some of the need

for some of the repetitive tasks and get

people actually utilizing it from a

standpoint of a tool to make their jobs

better. And it’s going to take some

retraining to do that.

I think we’re in a different world. I I

can very well see us being having a

really good year next year

as a result. And I think we’re I think I

I hope we’ll hit my number for the rest

of the year because we’ll all have made

money and life will be good.

Until then,

till then, I don’t think the model I

don’t think the economist model of oh,

tariffs are bad or this is bad really

works anymore. And we know they’re wrong

more than they’re right in these cases.

Well, we’ll see. I think some will

definitely get affected negatively and

others will be moderate. We’ll see.

Y

All right, man. Thanks folks for joining

us. Make sure you subscribe to the

channel. Hopefully you enjoy these. And

I don’t want to get political, but

sometimes we have to talk about it. Have

a little bit of disscent. So, have a

good day and we’ll see you guys back

here the next week.