Jeff Kikel: Hello, Cents of things.  Welcome back to another episode of our  

weekly update of what’s going on in the  markets, what’s going on in the economy,  

and what’s going on in some funny things  in the world. Ron, how you doing, buddy?

Ron Lang: Good. Summer is  going to be in full swing in  

any moment now. Everybody’s looking forward to it.

Ron Lang: Any big plans for the summer?

Jeff Kikel: For me, not really. We’re  we’re trying to get a We’re trying to  

get together for a trip to France for our  30th anniversary this year. So everything  

is focused on that and and our businesses  are just insanely busy right now, , so I  

really can’t take time away, so it’s just  gonna be a lot of writing this summer.

Jeff Kikel: How about you?

Ron Lang: No big plans, but [00:01:00] my  

goal is to Definitely do some more outdoor  activities and when it get when it gets to  

that point get out of the heat here a  little bit Head up to the mountains,  

maybe the beach. So yeah nothing significant  or as interesting as paris but definitely more  

outdoor activities and I don’t know what it’s  like in texas But we have had some of the most  

unbelievable sunsets here in arizona Send send  pictures to all my friends all over the country.

Ron Lang: And they’re like, as much as I love a  great sunset over the horizon on the ocean, man,  

there’s something about the Arizona sunsets.  You can’t, it leaves you speechless sometimes.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. I will just  to paraphrase Robin Williams and  

good morning, Vietnam, it’s been hot and shitty.

Jeff Kikel: I hear you. I hear.  All right. What do you got

Ron Lang: for us?

Jeff Kikel: Just pick us off. Let’s take  a look at what we have in the world. So  

I wanted to start us off today with. Some,  10 useless facts. I’ve been on this useless  

facts. We’re so used to all the useful. Now we  get the useless. You’re getting useless facts.

Jeff Kikel: [00:02:00] So here we go. So starting  off number one, did you know that bananas are  

slightly radioactive? I love bananas. I did  not know that. That might explain a few things.  

It might explain why you glow in the dark, but  just saying that I thought you just had a glow  

about you, but I didn’t know this. But what  they were saying is because of the, I just, I

Ron Lang: just radiate with happiness.

Ron Lang: What can I say that’s true?

Jeff Kikel: Because of the potassium and  bananas. That’s a slightly radioactive element,  

although it’s not enough to worry  about and you shouldn’t worry about  

it. You should eat bananas ’cause  they’re good for you. 95 percent of  

the ocean is completely unexplored.  At this point. I knew it was high.

Jeff Kikel: I didn’t know it was 95%. That’s  pretty amazing. Here’s my favorite. Allo doxa  

phobia is the fear of opinions. So  I’m also calling this CNBC a phobia.

Ron Lang: Like I said, the best way to watch  CNBC Bloomberg and find Fox business is on

Jeff Kikel: mute. [00:03:00] Is on mute. Yeah,  

we keep it. I keep Fox  business on here at the office.

Jeff Kikel: And keep it on mute  the whole time. And it’s just  

fun to the only one I like is Charles  in the afternoon. I’ll listen to him.

Ron Lang: And he almost does no politics, which is

Jeff Kikel: he’s just, he focuses on the markets,  

which I absolutely love. Humans have  genes from other species in them. 145,  

I believe from viruses, fungi, bacterias,  and other single cell organisms or whatever.

Jeff Kikel: Yick. It’s good to know. I’ve

Ron Lang: had people tell me I got a lot  of fun guy in me. So what can I tell you?

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, exactly. Sloths are  extremely strong. They can lift their  

entire body weight with one arm. I have  just something for, where it’s at. Carrots  

can give you a sun kissed glow. Our former  president must be eating a lot of carrots.

Jeff Kikel: Just saying, not anything political  there. No, all that’s from his tanning bed.  

[00:04:00] That too. Or his bronzer or whatever.  But, big scary orange man. Cows have best friends.

Ron Lang: Who’s the person that gave a  scientist a grant to figure that one?

Jeff Kikel: I it’s federal government and  it’s probably at least three, 400, 000  

grant to figure out that cows have best friends.

Jeff Kikel: Here’s a funny one. Hawaiian pizza  

is a Canadian invention. Not a  Hawaiian invention. Excuse me,

Ron Lang: what

Jeff Kikel: is Hawaiian pizza? Is this like with

Ron Lang: pineapple on it?

Jeff Kikel: It’s got pineapple on it and  it’s got Canadian bacon on it. This was a  

ploy for a manufacturer of. Canadian  bacon or what they call back bacon.

Jeff Kikel: It was a ploy to say, Oh,  

here’s this Hawaiian thing that people in  Hawaii love. What’d you say? It’s called back

Ron Lang: bacon,

Jeff Kikel: back bacon. Yeah. So  it’s basically the loin of a of  

a pig. That they smoke and that’s called  Canadian bacon and it’s called back bacon.

Ron Lang: All right, another useless  [00:05:00] nugget, another useless back.

Jeff Kikel: So you get a double whammy.  You’re getting a bonus one today. The  

world’s largest desert is not in Africa. It’s  actually in Antarctica. Did not know that. I,  

that was shocking to me. And last but not least,  honey never spoils. Now it does get crusty and  

gross. However, every time I have it and it  gets all crystallized, but it never spoils.

Jeff Kikel: It will last literally forever  because it has no water in it and it has a  

very high pH. So it kills off all forms of  bacteria. So if you can get past the crusty  

and grossness as it sits around for a while,  you can still eat it forever. Very interesting.

Ron Lang: Okay. Wow. Okay. Let’s  move on. How is the like button  

is just absolutely shooting  through the roof on that one.

Jeff Kikel: So how is the consumer doing?  We’ve been talking about this for weeks.  

We’ve seen earnings reports [00:06:00] coming  out over the last, month now that we’ve been  

in earnings season. One of the things  that everybody keeps saying is, yeah,  

but the consumer is still doing great.  They’re still spending a lot of money.

Jeff Kikel: However, let’s take a look here  at. The delinquency rates of credit card loans,  

boom, off the freaking charts. They’ve  been going up and actually have been  

going up really since 2022. But they’re  actually at higher rates now than they  

were pre pandemic and they are in 2011.  Wow. Yeah, they’re continuing to rise.

Jeff Kikel: Now, that said, if you  look back, into the early 2000s,  

which was not a great period. It was  a flat period for the stock market and  

everything else. They were much higher then  but they are well on their way to going up

Ron Lang: I gotta tell you the  90s really surprised me with those  

delinquencies because 94 to 2000 was a  great economy and a great time period.

Ron Lang: Why would so many people have [00:07:00]  delinquencies? Yeah, I don’t know if it was that

Jeff Kikel: I what my guess is back  then Is that credit standards were much,  

much looser back then. And so you had more people  that could get more credit cards and could get  

much higher balances. What I’m seeing now is  yes, credit cards are being issued, but they’re  

being issued at really extremely high interest  rates and they’re not giving as much credit.

Ron Lang: I don’t think a lot of people know  that because most people don’t do Credit card  

loans is that you are not Assessed interest  at the end of every month Interest, accrues  

every day. Yep on a credit card loan. Yeah, I  can’t that’s why people can’t get out of debt

Jeff Kikel: No, it’s just they  keep rolling, rolling, rolling

Ron Lang: terrible.

Jeff Kikel: Let’s look at all other  consumer loans, which this is primarily,  

most of these consumer loans are automobile loans.  And these are off the charts. They went to a point  

where they were virtually at, less than 1. 5%.  And in [00:08:00] 2022, and since that time,  

they have literally been parabolic up and another  one that’s higher than it was pre pandemic I don’t

Ron Lang: know if this includes  car loan delinquencies.

Ron Lang: Cause

Jeff Kikel: I know those, it’s consumer  loans and the largest percentage of those  

are car loans. So once again, that is  off the chart. So that’s saying that yes,  

although the consumer is still spending,  they’re starting to fall back. We saw this  

with target. This week the numbers  for target were absolutely awful.

Jeff Kikel: And they haven’t really missed  a, an earnings report and a revenue report  

in a while. And this one was pretty atrocious.  So what we’ve seen is Walmart has been doing  

well. I think the higher end consumer  or that higher middle income consumer  

is starting to slide back to places where,  it’s discounted and target basically said  

we’re going to start discounting stuff  to to try and keep their consumers there,  

which is not necessarily going to be  that great of a strategy.[00:09:00]

Jeff Kikel: Now we have talked about companies.  Oh First, before we do that home mortgages. So  

this is the one area in the consumer world where  we’re not really seeing any changes. In fact,  

the the delinquency rate has gone  down over the same period, because

Ron Lang: most of those people are  locked into those low interest loans.

Ron Lang: That’s precisely, they’re not  they’re not rebuffing on the payments.

Jeff Kikel: They’re not, yeah, they’re  not moving. They’re staying where they’re  

at and staying in those really low rates,  which. I think it’s probably a good thing  

and it’s probably going to be the last area  that we start to see delinquencies go up.

Jeff Kikel: And that’s really going to be  if we start to see unemployment get bad.

Ron Lang: Yeah. And last quick thing I heard a  stag yesterday, the day before tall brothers,  

which is known as the luxury builder out of  Philadelphia, by the way. 30 percent of their,  

better than 30 to 35 percent of  their clientele, cash only buyers.

Jeff Kikel: Really interesting.  So that makes sense. They

Ron Lang: could finance, a good chunk  of the other [00:10:00] ones to to

Jeff Kikel: get into their properties.  That’s precisely correct. But yeah,  

if you’ve got cash buyers coming in, you, you  don’t, cause toll, I don’t know if they. Have  

their own internal mortgage company or anything  like that, which a lot of them are doing.

Jeff Kikel: It’s intriguing that it’s a lot of,  

cash buyers coming in. I’m assuming that’s  too. A lot of people may be downsizing,  

as people get older, they’re downsizing and  it’s Hey, I’m selling my bigger house and I  

can go in and buy a nice. New house that’s  smaller and basically pay cash for it.

Jeff Kikel: So one of the thing, what  about the companies that are out there  

though? That’s the interesting thing  because that’s going to be that other  

shoe that drops if companies are struggling.  Here’s a commercial loans for real estate.  

Now they’ve been pretty steady and  stable. They haven’t gone up much.

Jeff Kikel: They’re just now at just post Pandemic  levels as far as delinquencies on real estate  

loans, but it’s [00:11:00] still not off the  charts and it’s not parabolic there. One thing  

that I thought was interesting and I was trying  to get a handle on, okay where are we at though,  

in the case of business, cause I’ve heard  business bankruptcies are up and things like that.

Ron Lang: So

Jeff Kikel: I actually pulled this from  the American Bankruptcy Institute all  

chapters of bankruptcy and filings, which  is including, the four different types of,  

and I’m not an expert on these, but chapter 7,  11, 12, and then chapter 13, which is we give up,  

we’re done. That’s it. We’re out of business.

Jeff Kikel: Chapter 11 filings up 40  percent year over year. All bankruptcy  

filings are up 28%. Subchapter five,  small business elections or V. I don’t  

know what that is different up 60 percent  individual filings. This is for individuals  

up 28 percent year over year. So this, I,  when you start to think about the consumer,  

they’re getting squeezed by the the  credit card companies, [00:12:00] they’re  

getting squeezed on their, their car  loans, because car loans are 11, 12%.

Jeff Kikel: In a lot of cases,  especially on used vehicles. The  

only thing that’s saving them is really  low rates that we had on mortgages. And  

the thing is people aren’t going to  move, which means that inventories,  

there aren’t going to change. And the prices  of real estate is. Basically going to stay up.

Jeff Kikel: I would say for the time  being, because we just don’t have the  

inventory out there and the builders can’t  build fast enough, what’s your thoughts?

Ron Lang: This last chart perplexes me  a little bit, just because like I said,  

new homes, they can’t build them fast  enough existing homes. There’s no inventory.

Ron Lang: So it does, I guess it doesn’t surprise  me that more mortgages aren’t being done,  

especially with the 30 year fixed between  seven, seven and a half. Depending on the  

day of the week, but it’s tough to [00:13:00]  say what this, what, how to interpret this and  

what this really means other than, PE people  are not financing as many houses, period.

Ron Lang: There’s no other way to say  it. And I think the other party is

Jeff Kikel: people are like. Okay. I, I’ll if  I have to cut back or if I can’t pay something,  

I’m not going to pay the credit card companies  and I’m not going to pay my car loan, which  

is not going to help you because they’re just  going to come take your car away at that point.

Jeff Kikel: But, we’re not seeing that  rise in home mortgage delinquencies,  

which. I think it’s interesting. It’s intriguing  to say, it’s been on this steady decline since  

2008. It’s starting to level off and I wonder  when that’s going to start going that direction,  

but I could pretty much tell you it ain’t  going to happen until people start until  

more and more job losses happen until we start  seeing, the the employment numbers go down.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, but you could only go so

Ron Lang: low here.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, exactly. And I don’t see  it going down any farther. I think you’re  

just going to have a kind [00:14:00] of a  steady stable rate. If you look at that,  

this is back to where it’s always been was in  that, high 2 percent or mid 2 percent range.

Jeff Kikel: It’s getting back to where it  was pre 2008. And that mess that we had,  

it was amazing to me, how long what was  surprising to me is like how long it took to,  

for that to write itself back to where it  was. It was a good, solid, 12 year period.

Ron Lang: Probably if you look at a hundred years,  

this is the blip in history  where it got that high.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I  think it’s the last thing you do is not  

pay your mortgage because you got to  have someplace to live. You’re willing  

to give up your cars. You’re willing  to file for bankruptcy or whatever,  

but you’re not willing to give up your  house. You’ve got to have shelter someplace.

Jeff Kikel: So that’s the last thing to go. And I  guess the best part of this is it’s gotten back to  

where it was. Which is a good thing and hopefully  it doesn’t rise much more until, like I said,  

until people lose their jobs, [00:15:00] it’s  probably not going to rise much more. I know, but

Ron Lang: don’t forget to also during that  period of time of 2009, 10, 11 and 12 people  

couldn’t get, you had to go to delinquency  because they couldn’t sell their house.

Ron Lang: upside down. Nobody wanted housing  market and then t it really didn’t turn aro  

definitely 14. So it took that out and for people  t For it to basically turn the other way for them.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And especially  areas like Phoenix where you’re at,  

that was a bloodbath for years. People, real  estate investor, friends of mine are like,  

yeah, we made a ton of money, but it wasn’t  until, it wasn’t until 2014 that they really  

started making money because that market  was depressed for four or five years.

Jeff Kikel: It’s hilarious to hear all  these people move into Las Vegas. Now  

that place was a ghost town for  almost 10 years. They had built.

Ron Lang: That’s the difference. The three  [00:16:00] major states areas that got hit  

the hardest in the fight in the housing  crisis was Arizona. Number one, and then  

it was Vegas and Miami, I believe was two,  three, or however you want it to look at that.

Ron Lang: Yeah. The reason why was because  it was desirable. But Waltham was desirable  

back then. And they overbuilt. It’s  not that it’s no longer desirable.  

It’s just a matter of you got to wait  for the market to work its way out.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah,  

it’s amazing. It’s interesting.  Still nice. You got great sunsets.

Jeff Kikel: As you said, the last show we have  great sunsets here occasionally, but it’s once  

again, it’s hot and what here and we’re going  into the summer with lots of. Lots of humidity.

Ron Lang: Hey, better by you.  That’s all I could say. I

Jeff Kikel: know. Yeah, I chose  to be here. You chose to be there.

Jeff Kikel: Folks, thank you for joining us.  I hope this was educational for you. I hope  

it helps you to figure out your strategy as we  roll forward. If you look back to the last show,  

Ron had some great stuff on there about,  where the market is right now, as far as  

relative strength [00:17:00] and things like that.

Jeff Kikel: These are the things you need to  start thinking about in your. Personal trading  

strategy as to how you’re going to respond. If we  do see a pullback here in the markets what, what’s  

your strategy going to be? You always have to be  thinking of that next step when it comes to it.

Jeff Kikel: And that’s why we do these shows for  you. So thanks for joining us. Make sure you hit  

that subscribe button because we do more than  just one show a week a lot of times And we may  

or may not announce that so make sure that you’re  subscribed to the channel As well as hit that up  

Vote button if you liked what you hear Give us a  comment if you want to hear something more or if  

you have some questions So thanks a lot and we  will see you guys back here the very next time