TRANSCRIPT

hello everybody Welcome to the sense of things and another week and a week after

a inauguration so on today’s show Ron’s gonna give us a little update on our

friends the Florida men uh he’s got some great articles on that and you just have to kick off the new year uh we we

haven’t done it yet so we had to get into our floor demands for the year uh in addition to that ronon’s going to

talk about leading economic indicators one of the things that used to be a good predictor of uh sessions but has not

been for the last 24 months uh it’s been in the negative so we’ll talk a little bit about that and then I’m going to

give you an update on our last show where we talked about some Market moving events going into the inauguration now

let’s talk about the backside of that what’s been going on this week so hold on we’ll be right back on in just one

second [Music]

hey everybody welcome to the show Ron how you doing bud good morning Jeff no things are good things are good I had

the inauguration things are kicking off so now it’s just a matter of buckling up and get your popcorn ready and let’s see

how things move forward here well we and we had snowpocalypse in Texas which you know snow apocalypse for us I saw

somebody put it out on Facebook they had a like a tape you know or measuring tape

and they had it setting in the snow and it didn’t even get above the little silver thing and that was snow apocalypse we shut our whole city down

because of that so but all the markets were sold out of bread and milk well yeah bread and toilet paper get it right

that’s in Texas it’s bread and toilet paper all right well there there you go get get it on the front end and the back

end apparently I hear you well look there I mean there could be new stories that we cover all the time I mean

obviously we’ll kick it off with some fun U and then we’ll get into the Lei which um I think this this month meaning

really for the December Reading had some interesting things and and kind of what

what they’re identifying is moving forward so all right let’s let’s get it going here go ahead and

share all right here we go so I think I may have done this one

before but he drove his truck into the ocean and said U it’s I was the one that

did this one I love this guy yeah it’s it’s not his fault the truck doesn’t

surf now by the way there was no indication in the article which I did not include that he may have been

inebriated I’m not sure just saying there they’re might it so you’re saying there’s a chance I hear you and then we

have this this fella um this guy basically went into the the restroom in

a Walgreens and brought in a bunch of junk food and just ate it and he and

basically when he was arrested after he indulged in sweets and various items

inside a closed Walgreens for several hours he said I just came in here to use the

bathroom well certainly after all the junk food and all the soda he he probably needed to use the bathroom I’m

thinking so and and he was on a sugar high or he just collapsed from from an

insulin shock so definitely and then of course we always have the smartest

people you know that live among us this F was caught a video purchasing a mask

from a gas station before before walking across the street to burglarize an

unlock Bank nice I love this he was charged with burglary despite the fact

that he he only the only thing he he walked was the mask that set him back

five bucks this is great I mean people don’t people realize

that there are cameras everywhere everywhere they are so inexpensive versus the old

cctvs literally I mean you could basically put cameras all around your house for a couple hundred bucks yeah I

mean and and just people are just so ignorant stupid or just desperate who

the hell knows a combination of all I just that they got to do this it is not being smart is not a require of being a

criminal no think the guy at Walgreens there’s cameras everywhere they didn’t

see him putting all those chips and sodas and candies under his arm and going into the bathroom going into the

bathroom I mean even if the store’s closed they still got the cameras going well and I mean I every Walgreens I’ve

ever been to or any of those stores they have the monitors right up above you can see yourself on camera so you didn’t

happen to notice that you were on camera as you were buying the stupid thing crazy all right here we go let’s have

some fun so I know when we did this one of the shows last month in December that

Lei was down 34 straight months it was a record amount of months it was down and

it kind of ticked up a little bit last month in some areas and ticked down again in December and obviously with the

gray areas here are the recessionary periods and we could probably come back to this but I find what’s very

interesting is the following if you really dig into the numbers here actually I’m sorry you know

what I’m going to do I’m going to go forward one and I’ll come back so the the board already said about six seven

months ago they gave up on signaling a recession so I’m trying to figure out like why why is this group which I

believe is a nonprofit group I don’t know for sure in business because they have basically said look we have proven

data over time that when and these numbers hit there’s a good chance of a

recession within what 6 to 10 period of 6 to 10 months absolutely even though it didn’t happen in that period of time

doesn’t mean it won’t happen and I heard a couple of really good economists talking about well one of the reasons

why it didn’t happen yet meaning something didn’t break was because the government’s been giving Mor fiend to

the American citizens with all the with all the free money programs and and the

you know and everything and and obviously the government hiring people and bloating up our government so um

we’ll have to see what happens but let’s come back we drill into some of the details here I don’t know what sticks out to you this is where get tell you

you see December and then you see six months ending in December and if you

notice December the ism orders here are have just been in a just a steady

downclimb and you know I m is the manufacturing and I know you had some numbers before on PMI and ISM and that’s

the most troubling to me whether or not the new Administration things that you know like what happened Tred to do eight

years ago bring that manufacturing back this is this has been ominous so we’ll

have to see how things go for the next six months but to me that’s the one thing that stands out how about you yeah

I totally agree I mean I you know and it’s this is you know if you remember we were looking at that I would say

starting in the fall of 2023 and rolling into most of last year if you looked at those manufacturing

indexes over and over and over again they were just always down and it was the same ones New York Richmond all the

kind of sector you know the places where okay there were some actual manufacturing going on and seeing those

things just consistently down it had to have effects on new orders and you know

I think some of it was kind of coming into the election not knowing who was going to be in charge you know was it

going to be more of the same or you know was it going to be different and really going up to the election not really I I

think even election night not really knowing what direction it was going to go yeah I think a lot of these companies

just started pulling back and saying you know what we’re just gonna hunker down it it’s going to be interesting I mean

this still rolled through December though so what’s you know are we going to see a shift now after the

inauguration you know I think the the thing that I’ve the the thing that I was reading this week I forget if it was in

the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times where they were talking about all these companies have set up like a trump

war room just so that they can understand you know they literally they’ve got people that are just reading all the executive orders and then trying

to figure out okay well how does this affect us what should we do how do we work around that so I

think probably a little bit more of the same here at least for the next several

months would be my guess yes so January I mean it’s pretty much done at this point you know you’re they’re they’re in

the middle of all that inauguration didn’t happen till the 20th so I would say January there I would say February’s

numbers are really going to be the most telling of is that righted the ship a little bit Yeah but the other thing that

kind of also stands out are the burning the the building permits private housing because even know it was slightly down

in December I mean it’s basically been flat for the last six months and I don’t

know what the administration could do about mortgage rates because they’re SL only slightly affected by the Fed rate

so and you got the 30-year fixed over 7% yeah so if they’re going to stay over 7%

even with all the the the the home builders they may be sitting on land but

they’re not going to be building spec housing with over 7% mortgage unless they’re going to do financing on their

own which we’ve talked about but even so building permit are basically flat so it’s not growing at all and we have a

housing problem yeah and that and and now have even a bigger housing problem in Southern California you know you’re

talking about and how are they even going to remotely rebuild at this point with all the regulations it’s five to 10

years yeah at least and we’re not talking you know yeah it was a lot of

really rich people but there was a lot of just Average Joe’s that had houses

that were you know built in the 40s and everything else they’re never going to be re able to rebuild that there was a

there was a lady I saw interviewed on the news the other day that she or I think it was in a news feed on my phone

or something she had a restaurant that had been there it was a former home that was built in the 1930s and it got wiped

out in Mal and she’s like I I’m never going to be able to rebuild because it’s

you know it was grandfathered in but now with the new rules she’s like I I’m never going to be able to rebuild

so but a lot of people couldn’t afford to put on the steel Roes put on the fire

retardant on pain on the side put in the double Paine glass you know that people

couldn’t afford to do that because number one uh they couldn’t afford the upgrades but number two they couldn’t

afford the move because where are they going to move to um housing is so expensive insurance is so expensive and

now think about it what insures even though they’ve been fleeing uh left and

right out of California for the last 20 years what insurers moving forward are actually going to stay in California

they can even afford to stay in California and actually from what I understood I just heard this from a couple of different sources in the last

couple of weeks that there were insurers that wanted to come in in the last five

years but they were like we can’t do it at these premiums they have to do it at y premiums and the state insurance board

said no you can’t if you want to come in you have to charge the lower premiums and they’re like it’s not worth it for

us yeah we can’t yeah we can’t manage the risk at that point all right so just a couple more oh I just wanted to go

back to this one here so this this being our last slide on this kind of how they basically called off a recession I think

the couple of things that are very interesting is the 10-year got all the way up to

4.8 and then scaled back to 4.6 has been kind of vacillating around there a lot

of people you know we always talk about the 10e being the the north star with all this I think it’s going to be very

interesting to see what happens here because I think if housing stays

stagnant I think that’s going to that could be a potential Catalyst right for

if people start losing jobs and and whatever happens with immigration we could have a housing problem yeah yeah

and I mean I think it’s interesting you know we we’ve been talking about government workers and things like that

about people being hired by the government and then you know now with with the government kind of demanding

that people get back to work in the in offices and things like that that’s going to be an interesting thing because

you know let’s say you were a federal government employee that’s employed out of Washington and you were able to work

from home so why would I live in expensive Washington I could live maybe in Western Virginia or anywhere in the

world and now I got to go back to work and I can’t you know I’d have to move at that that point I thought it was

interesting because they’re looking they’re looking very closely at this there are literally thousands of

buildings in Washington and the federal government that are basically either empty or have less than per 10 15%

occupancy occupy and they’re just basically they’re going to consolidate or sell the buildings and why not yeah

well I mean might as well use them for something because otherwise they’re just going to decline because not like the

government is going to keep up you know upkeep on these things if they have nobody in them and they’re not using them so why not I mean that’s when I

remember before Trump got elected the first time you know they bought the old post office which is a beautiful build

it’s a gorgeous building and bought the old post office and that was a s show

but you know I mean in the end why not use those buildings for something else they’re beautiful you

know it’s it’s wonderful real estate so if the government doesn’t want to use it then let somebody else do it I could see

that I honestly could see the federal government looking at well maybe we relocate because why do all these things

need to be in Washington that’s the funny part is like yeah I understand it in the early days you wanted everybody

to kind of be close to each other but why not relocate some of these agencies

to other states and spread it out across the country I think it would be smarter quite frankly no no no I agree and we’ll

have to see what happens I mean I’m not a big fan I know we’ve talked about this remote work but especially in in our

business I know it works for some not for others but we’ll have to see but on on a last uh quick topic it’ll be

interesting as we move forward here in the next couple of weeks doing some episodes on earnings the tech earnings

have actually shown to be pretty strong some Bank numbers have been pretty strong we got to see where a lot of the

other consumer companies kind of come in I think that’s where you’re going to

find out how the holidays went with the spending and maybe it may be a precursor

and a good indicator for 2025 yeah I mean I’m going to be looking for me I’m going to be looking at Walmart of course

I mean you know Walmart Target you know if we still see a decline on the target

side and we still see Walmart doing well that tells me that you know the the

consumer is still stretched at this point so you know all those numbers should be coming up in the next week or

two so I think that’s some things that we I want to keep my eyes on because that tells me where the consumer is yeah

you know if you look at the dollar stores and all that they’re just getting crushed right now their stocks are down

massively because you know I think one part of it is their margins are compressed and two you know even their

consumer which you know that’s that’s the the cheapest place you can buy stuff and if they’re struggling to even buy

there it’s not you know it’s from what I understand I don’t know if it’s 50% or not but I know it’s pretty I think it’s

over 35 or 40% of Walmart’s Revenue is the food food and groceries yeah so

Proctor and Gamble I believe has a second headquarters in Bentonville Arkansas because of the amount of

business that Walmart does with Proctor G but and I think Campbell’s and several of the other companies oh I’m sure they

do well I mean that the other problem is it’s so insanely expensive to fly into Bentonville when we were when I worked

for Fidelity and and I was supporting University of Arkansas we were required to fly into Tulsa and Drive the three

hours from Tulsa to the UA campus take a puddle jumper no no because the the

airport is so insanely expensive the flight’s in there because they know they’ve got you know all it’s all

executive people coming in to meet with Walmart I mean it was like $700 more

even flying on a little puddle jumper from Dallas to get in there so we we were required by the company to fly into

Tulsa and then drive three hours to get into here here’s my ignorance what’s the

nearest major airport Tulsa seriously okay yeah that it is the co I mean you

could fly into to Little Rock but I mean Little Rock’s like four and a half hours

from the UA campus and and not a real fun drive I mean the other one isn’t fun but but seriously not a fun drive right

let me let me share a little bit of what I was thinking about today you know so I started looking at if you remember the

slides from the last show it was Market event moving into inauguration and you

know the first thing I let off with was executive orders and this is interesting and I’ll share another screen here in a

second but so far I I think the intention is for president Trump to sign

like 225 he signed somewhere around 26 27 so

far so he’s going to be signing but quite a bit but interestingly enough and

I’ll show you this chart from the from online here the most in history of executive orders

because remember we had that little chart a week ago and we were like oh Jerry Ford Nixon and all that there was

actually a swath of time from McKinley through Franklin Roosevelt where it was

the highest amount of executive orders I thought this was more of a new thing it

actually was a it was a thing between the turn of the century 20 or 20th

century up through um Truman’s Administration it was ridiculous and off

the charts so the two don’t forget very quickly to interrupt both of those were dealing with world wars yeah of course

yeah so I mean it makes a lot of sense they were using this but I just you know I thought this was more of a an An

Occurrence that happened in more current times where it was like I just don’t want to deal with you know Congress and

all that I want to get my agenda going but yeah Franklin Roosevelt 307 on

average per year so I mean he was dealing with the Great Depression trying to get everything the ship wred and you

know Major World War so I mean it makes sense that he did a lot uh wooder Wilson

same thing you know 225 we really didn’t get into though the the war until you

know 20 or 1916 so we were really only at War for a couple years of that time

period so that may not be the biggest or the best excuse sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to

kind of use the executive for more power than they need let me go back here for a second whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

whoa whoa whoa trying to get out of here and I want to show this chart that I got

off of and this is off of it’s the presidential history project and it’s UC

Santa Barbara so it’s the American presidential or American president project can you see that Ron barely

okay you probably describe it okay so going back to our very first president

so this took this looks at every single president since the beginning of time

George Washington eight total orders so he did one per year his entire time in office

he was there for 7.85 years going forward you know it

wasn’t really much until we got to ulyses S Grant and you know it makes a

lot of sense out of the coming out of actually postwar yeah Civil War period

you know restoration and all that makes sense I mean he he was there for eight years and he did a lot of stuff during

that time period then it kind of fell out of favor again for a few years and then after McKinley was killed theore

Roosevelt coming in he was the first that really had the first thousand

executive orders over his eight years of presidency the most up to that time on

average per year 145 per year and then it was every president after that for the next

30 Years or 40 years yeah that’s the track record yeah Taft 724 Wilson 1803

Hardings 522 123 which I it was really surprising for coolage because coolage I

saw as more of a kind of stay out you know keep the government out of stuff

but he actually was one of the highest during that period and then of course Roosevelt 12 years in of course

3721 he holds the record for the most and he holds the record for the highest average 107 then it kind of fell out of

favor again you know it stayed in that 300 range until we got to the current

ERA and surprisingly enough our last three presidents Trump one Trump two and

Biden actually have been some of the lowest which you know it it seems like

it’s been covered more but they’ve actually been the lowest and they’ve kept the average relatively low in in

comparison over the you know when we look at the history of presidents from that point gotcha so crazy crazy crazy

we talked about IR you know Israel Hamas ceas fire and hostage is coming home it

is official the hostage is coming home I do not believe that Hamas is going to

there there’s enough crazy little factions of them in Islamic Jihad that I

just do not see them following through with this I mean you already had somebody go into a market in Tel Aviv

and stab a whole bunch of people I I just think there’s there’s not just one

group that you’re dealing with you’re dealing with a whole bunch of different factions and a lot of them do not want

to have a ceasefire so this whole 60-day period I think is going to be very

tenuous it sounds like there’s really only 30 some odd remaining hostages out

of the hundred that they right but they’ve only released like three or four I don’t understand that yeah they released three and then supposedly this

Sunday they release another three and it’s you know oh my God this this is a

bad deal yeah and and it’s like a hundred Palestinians for one hostage and

yeah I know I’m telling you ham Hamas got what they wanted out of this I what they always did you know and a lot of

these guys are ones that were I’m reading Trey in’s book now bloody Satur or bloody Saturday I think it’s called

or Black Saturday and it’s really good if if you really want to understand what went on during October 7th you really

need to read that book because he was right in the middle of all of that reporting for Fox during that time

period and he really did an excellent job of interviewing really both sides of the equation of all the people you know

from both the Palestinian View and from the Israeli View and and it’s it’s a really good book describing all that

went on and a lot of these people that they’re returning are people that were captured during that attack so they’re

basically giving away people who were murderers for getting their people back

just heard last night that Trump has threatened sanctions on Russia if they keep trying to bombard you know the the

power plants and stuff like that which you know I think that’s the only way you’re really going to get Russia to

step back a little bit is to slam them with some pretty big sanctions you know

and specifically their oil and all that because that’s where they’re making money at this point so that I think is

going to be interesting and then sanctions but then enforcing those sanctions I think that’s going to get

the parties to the table and hopefully that conflict starts to cool down a little bit uh because we are pouring

billions of dollars into it every month and I hate to say it I have no faith but yeah I I don’t I’m hopeful but no faith

yeah I I hope you know I mean the the reality is it could very well be Putin

pulls back just so he can lick his wounds a little bit and then go from there it’ll be interesting the the

relationship whatever you want to call it with with North Korea and Kim Jong-un

that that Trump has with Kim Jong-un sometimes of you know can he put

pressure on him to pull back his soldiers at that point another thing that we had you know the big talk was

drill baby drill well I think it’s not only going to be drill baby drill but nuke baby nuke you know with that

introduction and we’ll talk about that in a second the introduction of $500 billion do investment from soft see if

that happens a I think it will I mean they’re they’re already building this stuff in Texas I mean this there’s a a

big I know but they know how Trump likes big numbers so yeah well I mean it’s initial is 100 100 billion but I mean

hundred billion dollars that’s not too bad and at least if we can start to get

our heads around Ai and get ahead of the world and at and be the the you know the

the leader in AI you know I think it’ll happen and like I said they’re putting their

money where their mouth is here in Texas now the problem is these type of data centers and things like that require

massive amounts of power and yes we’ve got lots of natural gas uh yes we’ve got

lots of coal we can drill baby drill and get you know the oil prices down but

we’re going to need something else and you know I mean the rest of the world is nuclear you know if you look at Europe

which is very green and everything else they have massive amounts of nuke plants

in Europe um and it was funny because a few years ago they decided to start shutting those down because you know

they were concerned about all this and then with the the Putin situation they fired those nuke plants back up because

they you know they they need to do that and also takes 10 years I think to build a new one even with all the technology

and everything else so it’s not like the power is you know snap your fingers and

you could you know you’re going to be there going to take time yeah it’s going to take time and I think a big part of that is you know the the good part is

there we’ve gone so far from the The Three Mile Island type plants that were

very inefficient you know even here in Texas our largest plant kamanche Peak

you know I mean it was built like in 81 I think is when it went online 81 82 so

that was the last plant that I’m aware of that’s been built here in the country so technology has moved so far ahead at

this point and they can build them a lot smaller and a lot safer now with better

technology than they ever could before so I I see that as the future whether

you know environmentalists like that or not I just see it as the future at this point so you know I think those are the

things that I’m looking at after the inauguration that are having some major effects you know of course interest

rates are still going to be hanging out there and that’s not something that’s going to get fixed overnight a lot of

that you know we were talking about those 10-year interest rates a lot of those are driven by the market and I I

think the market is still uncertain about well are you know is Trump gonna have any tariffs is that going to happen

he already talked about kind of backing off of that a little bit this week so I

I think the Market’s going to have to the the bond Market’s going to have to kind of get their hands around this or

their you know the understand or get their heads around this a little bit I hear you well like I said uh a lot of

the Trump stuff will have to see how it pans out and yeah the Israeli Russian thing I I’m hopeful but I don’t have a

lot of faith yeah I do you know I I hope we we get back to a world where we don’t have a whole bunch of major conflicts I

mean I I the the good part is I I think you know in the F first few hours when

the he was being interviewed by the Press while he was signing some stuff you know they they brought up Israel and

and he I mean he was very blunt and said that’s their conflict it’s not ours so they need to resolve it themselves you

know we we’re there to support them as an ally but you know I I I hope that we

don’t you know have to put soldiers on the ground or anything like that we still don’t know what’s going to happen

with Syria because that’s a whole crazy mess now too you know but I think the

biggest part is most likely I would see sanctions on like Iran and things like

that which will stop the money flow going out of there into some of those crazy places that you know people are

launching Rockets out of so hopefully that will you know calm things down a little bit in the Middle East it’s never

God we don’t need an Iron Dome yeah I know I know I that you know that I was reading in in Black Saturday and you

know just the the a level of that and and the fact that every child is taught

if you hear a rocket just dive to the ground you know I that’s just not that’s

not a life I would imagine living like that yeah or or you know having your neighborhood bomb shelter I I really

don’t want to have to live in a place where I have to have a neighborhood bomb shelter I gotcha well when Texas when

Texas succeeds from the union then you could start building your shelters no they don’t want us to succeed or they

don’t want us to seced at this point so yeah we’re we’re not going anywhere anytime

soon I hear you okay well cool man thanks a lot for putting your stuff together on and folks we are here for

you so make sure you subscribe to the channel make sure that you are watching every episode because we’re going to be

on this we’re going to be watching this stuff cor you know as we go in here certainly with Ron’s talk about the Lei

today we certainly need to see probably starting in February what those numbers

are going to look like and keep your eyes on uh the the the earnings reports

coming out because I think it’s going to be an interesting you know kind of finger in the wind to see what where the

the winds are going at this point so thanks a lot and we’ll see you guys back here the very next time