Welcome back to another Market Open Live stream. So all right, we've got Black Friday Today, today's a big day for consumers and the economy. We'll see how much spending happens. Uh, based on uh, how many folks are emailing us for bundle coupon codes for The Amazing Black Friday sale 60 off on Lifetime access for the programs I'm building your wealth We think Black Friday will go quite well, but hey, who knows how the entire economy is going to do And it's a big deal because remember, consumers make up over 70 percent of our economy. So I'm curious to see hey, is this going to be a recessionary type of Black Friday or are we going to save that for next year? Kind of interesting, Uh, but also kind of scary because I think the last thing we're thinking of uh is uh oh yeah, this recession is going to last until next year. That'd be very dirty. We don't want to think about that at all. Uh, but what we do want to think about is what's going on with the stock market Stock Market futures right now sitting at Uh Dow flat 0.07 up s P .04 down NASDAQ 0.35 down. So a slightly mixed plus minus, you've got another report of like in it. It's just so exhausting at this point. Another software update for Teslas in China for like, uh, 67 000 vehicles. uh uh, for again, a software related issue regarding the battery management bit system. and then you also have a a real, finally physical recall of 13 000 vehicles for a seat belt issue which will require obviously a physical update for the seat belt issue. What's Wild though is uh, of course the mainstream media is taking the approach of up here we go: 80 000 recalls even though 67 000 of those are really just uh, an over the year update. I Think it's quite laughable how you know essentially any kind of update is called a recall when it comes to Tesla. Um, at this point it's just sort of entertaining how regularly these recalls happen. but what are you gonna do? So uh, Tesla doesn't seem to care though, because in the pre-market the thing is up 1.5 percent. Let's take a peek at some of the bigger movers here. in the early portion of Uh, the Uh Market open, we are at three percent up on Matterport. Not much movement though, not not a lot of Uh Divergence here. Uh. And then to the downside, Rockwell Automation the only thing down really two and a half percent. Otherwise, everything's kind of just in that flat radius so we'll see how things end up moving. Uh, let's take also a peek at Treasure yields and oil oils in a really interesting spot Because you've got this talk about potential price caps in Europe which could, uh, shorten Supply lead to some aggression by Vladimir Putin and uh, potentially against Europe again, and it's debated how that could potentially impact the oil. Market We don't actually know if those price caps are going to come into effect in Europe Generally, price caps lead to Uh shortages and higher prices around the world. At the same time though, you have China kind of leading leading this sort of anchor for Co Uh for oil and uh, the reason for that is uh, folks are very concerned about the explosion of covet cases in China Now that doesn't heavily seem to be in affecting the uh, the stock market in China I Think people are sort of almost numb to the idea of coveted lockdowns at this point. But but, but, but, uh, we are thinking that uh, overall consumption declines or travel declines in China could of course lead to, uh, a decline in oil consumption. You're already seeing declines in travel across the board. Uh, whether it's Subway usage, just mobility in general in China So uh, lot to consider here. Okay, next, let's also figure out what we have with treasuries. So uh, interesting. Yeah, last night treasuries were the treasury Futures were actually indicating that they're going to come down quite a bit more right now. they're actually green on the yields. Uh, specifically referring to the yields here. 3.74 We'll see. Let's go ahead and jump in here. See what CNBC has to say? Let's listen in and spend a lot this holiday season. What does that mean when they get that credit card statement come January come February Does that then make for a tougher start to 2023? Uh, Melissa I Just want to go back to some of the commentary we have gotten from retailers in the past week and a half or so. Uh, it kind of started with Macy's and we've heard others kind of follow suit. This idea that maybe some of the shopping activity started to fall off uh, at the end of last quarter or even the beginning of this quarter is the expectation that we're going to see a surge again now. Or is it really just that. Going back to the conversation we have before uh, it is more spread out and there has. she looks scared on the right today. Which one it is. In terms of the shopping Dynamic of consumers, it'll take a few weeks to know for sure. but to your point, you know there's been a number of retailers that have called out a law Macy's being one Nordstrom being another Gap being another that talked about seeing softer sales in the back half of October into early November And the question is, does that mean that consumers are tightening their belt across the board or does that mean they're just reverting back to more of the pre-pandemic holiday timeline where they're shopping for gifts closer to Christmas. You know they kind of turn out starting today going into Cyber Monday and then they feel more anticipation building going into Christmas. Perhaps you know being more in that holiday spirit or does it mean that people are just going to be buying glass this year and so I think it's going to take a few more weeks for us to really know because even if they really show up strongly in the coming days, that may just mean that they're looking for bargains and then there could be another lull and a deeper lull. Before Christmas Finally, we're going to keep an eye on some of the more distressed retailers. uh, this journal piece on Bed Bath Looking at some data that suggests they're having trouble keeping uh, inventory stock in some cases down some 40 percent as they obviously are having uh, ongoing issues with their with their suppliers Carl That's something that's really troubled. Bed Bath and Beyond They have talked about how they are working on those relationships with suppliers, but a lot of the brand names like the Dysons they do hold the power they can choose where to send those goods and they may not feel comfortable sending them to Bed Bath and Beyond if they don't feel they'll get paid, so they may instead send some of those much wanted items to a Target or a Walmart or another store instead. And that really matters in this environment where retailers have to execute and they really have to push consumers to spend. Home Goods is already a category where people had been pulling back and so having that fresh merchandise those brand names really matter and will make a difference for Bed Bath and Beyond and and will help them get through this test period or not so much. Yeah, it's actually a big deal. Home Goods Really, that's some of the these are some of the places you generally see a pullback when they're stressed apparel, people just keep wearing what they have. Uh, Home Goods Uh, you know people spending less on those on those new towels and new sheets and new mattress covers and new fake plants. You know it's wild. uh I actually have pretty fond memories of as a kid always going through Bed Bath and Beyond in the malls. uh oh, they're talking China Hold on, let's hit this for a moment. I actually really enjoyed it. actions which is, um, topping the number of infections that we saw when Shanghai went into its brutal lockdown back in April but the leadership appears to be uh, tolerating it in line with its uh, what it describes is its more precise zero covet strategy. However, unofficially, we are definitely seeing more lockdowns, quarantines, and um, and shutdowns of businesses which are much more frequent and inconsistent in the Chinese iPhone city of Zhengzhou that city is now in lockdown until Tuesday. This comes after a violent protest had erupted at the Foxconn facility there that's responsible for the 70 percent of global iPhone production, including for the models um, the iPhone 14 models. Uh, Foxconn has apologized for what it described as a technical error in worker pay which appeared to trigger the dispute at least in part. and Foxconn offers about fourteen hundred dollars for recruits that are departing. Apple has sent in staff and says that it's working with Foxconn in order to try to work out some of these employee issues. but there is a big question as to whether or not Foscon is going to be able to meet its internal goal to have that facility up and running by the end of the month. Now, the tightening coveted curbs have been sparking fears of city-wide shutdowns in Beijing as well as in Guangzhou Um in Guangzhou the big export Hub Um, that city has outright denied that there's going to be a lockdown or even what it's described as a silent period. So kind of a slowing down of the entire city. But because City officials, including in Shanghai have said that before and denied Citywide lockdowns and then of course, follow through with a city-wide lockdown. Um, people, the residents there are are quite nervous as well as over here. In fact, here in Beijing there's been a bit of a pushback to all of these inconsistent uh lockdowns and snap decisions to to core and teen people. um, in fact, communities have been organizing uh, what they've described as connected Dragon packs where they agree as a group to push back against government authorities that might want to take them away in case there's a case in their building. they say that they're going to stand by their neighbors. Still a big question as to whether or not these agreements will actually have any effect, but the idea is that residents are organizing to try to push back against government authorities by forcing them to abide by Chinese Regulations Guys, Yeah, you know. One of the things that's really quite remarkable about Uh China is that the people's Congress just occurred and the expectation was that okay after the party Congress we would have some potential relaxation now. They didn't end up really talking about Covet Zero at the party Congress But shortly thereafter, they came out and reduced some of the quarantine requirements and restrictions for dealing with covet and covet containment. Unfortunately, that's uh, that came just a couple weeks ago. uh, or a couple weeks before the surge of of covet in China. So really, quite painful. There's now talk that potentially uh, 30 percent of all iPhones are being delayed because of the protests that we're seeing at not only Uh Foxconn, but also the implications of the Covet lockdowns. Uh, in China around the iPhone City area. It's quite wild though. I Remember being in Uh, in Italy Just in May and you go to the airport and if you don't have a covet test already in hand, when you go to the airport, they won't let you check in. They will you turn you out of the airport. They'll make you go to this Lake pop-up Barracks building right in front of the airport. and if you test covet positive, they press the little button and army guys with ARs come and carry you away to some covet hotel for two weeks that was in May I Mean it's insane. Uh, like that's it. Like actually that was Italy I Can only imagine uh, what you may be dealing with in China let's hop back over I've been blurring the audience um for some of those matches so that uh, the people here can't see that people outside of China are not wearing masks. We talked about that a bit last week. Eunice Um, the degree to which they were getting a window on the rest of the world and the World Cup is a big window that's remarkable that they would take steps like that. uh Eunice we'll talk more in a bit I'm sure. uh Unison Actually another interesting way of trying to force that compliance is oh if uh, if Chinese are like wait a minute the rest of the world they were in masks. Come on. That's interesting. It's not a lot of data today, but we'll get fed balance sheet and we'll watch yields dollar Index up just a touch as Futures are just south of the flat line. Don't go away. Yeah, the other thing uh China is doing right now is and and keep this in mind as well. I Guess I should say this first. the United States will probably have an official recession in 2023 and we're a big importer of of Chinese Goods Uh, and uh, you know, obviously we export some things to them, but probably more like three to four dollars. Uh, for every dollar that we uh, import wait or I'm sorry for every dollar that we export we import. so uh, we're in an actual real recession, you know? I think we had a technical recession earlier this year based on at least GDP but that could end up getting revised. uh, to where if we have, uh, one of those, be slightly positive then we don't have a recession. Technically all these revisions are so annoying. In fact, it's probably the most frustrating thing to think about when you're a stock market investor is what does it matter when we're in a recession? Because we're not going to officially know until potentially six to 12 months after the actual recession begins. So we're just blind right now in terms of a recession. but uh, new, uh, new reports out. Uh, and and these have been coming out for for a few weeks here now. Uh, many, many reports including now. Uh, Bloomberg With the Philadelphia Fed indicator saying a recession is likely within the next six to nine months, this is something that you expect as well from uh, yield curve inversions that we've been seeing is that it seems like the actual recession should be here in Q2 Q3 of 2023 and so a lot of companies are really preparing for for that. I Consumers are still spending very, uh, very strong Very well right now. Uh on. Monday we start a big trading Challenge and the Stocks and Psychology of Money Group that's gonna be fun and uh, and and talking to some of you and the course member live streams. It does seem like for many folks it's still business as usual and I wonder how that'll change? Uh, if if and when this sort of recessionary pain continues until the middle, uh, to late next year. Especially if housing gets pulled down. Uh, that's something else to remember is is that consumer spending is more affected by housing than it is by the stock market. and if the housing market does Trend down. Uh, well continue to Trend down and we start having negative year-over-year growth. How is that going to affect spending? How is that going to affect investment into people's homes? or, or potentially, uh, the the lack of people being interested in renovating their homes? I Think you're unfortunately going to see a lot of layoffs in the world of construction, for example. uh, it's um, I mean hopefully not, but we'll see what next year brings. I Think it'll be a great opportunity to start buying real estate and and just spending more on construction. but that's coming from sort of a bottom feeder mindset. Let's listen in over here. Over three million people around the globe are spending on Black Friday this morning. This is according to Shopify data, so again, that's 1.5 million. Three million people. Of course, a lot of the stores haven't opened yet, so that's going to increase. But according to Salesforce the average online sales and we're going to just keep rolling with that script over there, the Discount Room was actually 26 globally. That's actually three percent higher than last year. And it's even bigger discounts. So there's even bigger discounts here in the United States retailers. Yeah, like 60 percent. Shoppers Have waited a little longer to start buying this year versus last year because we had concerns about shortages and shipping delays. but we've got retail analysts on the ground and they're reporting back to us right now. Captivi tells us that gift cards are making a comeback today with searches Rising 427 year over year as people look for cash back and credits on their purchases. Now now for the investors that are listening, we pulled some data and looked at the performance of the S P 500 and Retail related ETFs from November 1st to New Year's Eve over the past five years because that's the typical holiday season and the average return for the S P 500 during that time frame was just over four percent. But when you compare it to the amplify online retail ETF which is the I buy, you can see that that was only up three percent. And then lastly, xrt The biggest winner of the group over here. So that's xrt because we don't have it on the screen 6.6 percent during that same time frame and some of those individual names that we are talking about would be uh, you've got. look at that franchise Group which owns Vitamin Group as well as uh Pets All right Boot Barn guest Nordstrom But what this is annoying they're like oh, credit card searches are up 400 or whatever. Dude, come on. CNBC Come on man, every holiday season, every single one credit card searches start skyrocketing like that that this let me go back to 2004.. look at this. I mean it's an uptrend. more people searching online but how is this a surprise? I Don't know. They seem very shocked and impressed by it. Yeah yeah. Oh, all right. so Med investor here says short Iwm, that's your Russell 2000 small cap. Tell us why Chop Shop says smash the like button and if you haven't watched Meet Kevin's first real estate ad, you must watch it baby face Kevin the The Meet Kevin real estate commercial. That was fun. Yeah! I Remember making that That was fun. If everyone would enforce like this, we'd be covered free. The problem would be at what cost? Uh uh. let's see. 18 month and zero percent interest balance transfer cards will be the thing next year. Yeah, you know it is interesting that a household and Consumer Debt especially, uh, you know, just household debt uh is at a very, very high level. However, debt repayments are also very, very high, which which it isn't implying any kind of real stress yet. But yeah, credit card borrowing, consumer credit is is increasing uh, you know, quite quite substantially. So it's it's gonna be interesting. Uh, here's households Consumer Credit level. Just as an example on screen here. Uh, uh, I mean we are. We are so well above where we were pre-pandemic It's it's remarkable. Uh, almost half a trillion dollars higher. Crazy. All right. How are stocks doing? 10 minutes to the Bell 10 minutes to the Bell it's pretty much the same spot. a little bit of look at that. uh um. Apple getting hit a little bit here. actually some of the retailers getting hit Etsy Apple Uh, some some soft pain here Tesla Down to about one percent up it was. It was a size two and a half percent. Uh, at some point earlier in the the morning here. so far, about a half percent. it's gonna be an interesting open I Think some. let's talk about certainty. All right, let's see here: Adobe says consumers spent a record 5.29 billion on Thanksgiving Day per Adobe analytics up 2.9 year-over-year Wow, that's actually really interesting. So Adobe tries to analyze uh, consumer spending on on Black Friday and Thanksgiving and according to Adobe, consumers spent 2.9 percent more money on Thanksgiving this year than they did last year. That's actually somewhat surprising I Think people still are in the mindset of we we, um, you know, we're life is sure we're gonna spend. You know we have some more money and some more wealth. And before the pandemic and for being cooped up for you know, one to two years depending on on your state, you know it's it's time to. It's just it's it's um, it's time to live a little. Look at this this. Black Friday looks lame. are you look at this? This is a Target here man. I Remember the good old days of Black Friday back at uh oh, what was that? uh what's that place called that has like oh BrandsMart that's it. The good old days at BrandsMart Black Friday where like there are so many people you can't even move. I mean it's probably too soon to say it's like an alley in South Korea right? Anyway, it was. it was bad. but it was also really fun. that's really old I ever feel like running in? of course then people were like trampling each other and that's bad too. Uh into Best Buys and Walmarts I Don't know but what they're showing on screen here looks looks like a party pooper kind of Black Friday I Don't know if I was if I was betting on uh Black Friday retail sales and I saw that kind of walk into Black Friday store sale I'd be like short. Oh yeah, yeah, all right let's uh. let's look at the FED term rate. Let's see what we got here. fed terminal rate. So last week we were at five 0.24 It fell to about 5.15 after the minutes came out and today back up 5.198 Almost back to a 5.2 Oh wow, wow, we got somebody here calling me Grandpa Now look at this. Okay Grandpa Next you'll be talking about how gas was two dollars and you made deals with a handshake. Well let me tell you about how gas was 97 cents when I went to Disney World when I was seven years old. Now that's also really weird because I have a son now that's seven years old. Uh and boy. I remember gasping under a dollar? That was pretty remarkable. Uh, seeing gas under a dollar and just thinking about it now it's just like oh oh gosh, gas today just sucks. All right. Let's see. so we have, you know. I I I Want to touch a little bit on this uh, Binance Crypto fund I'm I'm researching a little bit more into this about this sort of like bailout fund the CZ wants to put together and I'll tell you I don't trust the guy. They're talking about how they might be able to raise up to two billion dollars in commitments from from other industry businesses and it's like we so so have you raised the one yet the one billion I I I Don't know I uh coin list is is pulling the the withdrawals card now uh, freezing? uh or or suggesting there are technical issues affecting withdrawals I don't know I don't know, it's uh I I Don't know that we're for sure at a bottom yet in in Crypto if we had a bad CPI report here in December foreign Oh man I think that's when that's when the next shoes fall in crypto. Hey, maybe we get a positive CPI report though. and yeah, prices lift a little bit and and that pressure is taken off that that would be good I Really believe in blockchain? I Just I just don't so much in in the um speculative asset valuations so we'll see. so it was only for a few days. You're right, the 99 cent thing. that's crazy that you remember that uh, crypto won't get a bailout from from real Banks like the FED until until it's actually coming from, you know, centralized organizations? Yeah, the bailout fund is seriously sucks, Exactly. Yeah, Okay, Coinbase reporting that he already raised a billion I wonder how much of that is Just like oh, it's binance token commitments, you know? And and because that's what they do in their seifu thing too. it's just a bunch of Finance tokens. but like you know, if those drop in value, now your bailout fund, it starts becoming worthless. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah yeah. Brian Brian Nails it. How much is backed by the BNB token right? Exactly like I mean I Just say it. But if they're like hey, we got two billion dollars in treasuries ready to go? Okay, you know my girlfriend is shopping at an outlet mall and says attacked nice Now the real question is, why are you letting her go to one outlet mall instead of a real one? Uh, that's all good All right. So we are three minutes away from the Bell We generally don't get earnings on Fridays Uh, we can see if there's anything pre-market I I Didn't see anything this morning so I doubt it. Uh no no. I mean a couple teeny weeny ones, but nothing notable so nothing for earnings today. It's going to be a big focus on the consumer I would suggest or anticipate almost all day long. The uh, let's see here. headlines on Bloomberg today China's covered. Restrictions spread as daily cases top thirty thousand. Oh no, thirty thousand. I Remember when cities had more than 30 000 cases here in America Hey, But then again, you know, reportedly they've owned, they've had like less than six thousand deaths. So you know if you take the economy out of the question, a lot less dead people? uh. but are they then bored I don't know. Uh yeah. So uh. all right, let's see here. let's take a look at uh, let's look at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Why? Who are these people waving hands? You can make your way? I Don't know. they can make a trade. Maybe if they won, go to Post eight and make a market in a stock. there's a smorgasbord to be had. This is. this is a great tradition. It's really wonderful to see that's pretty cool ringing the bell on Thanksgiving Uh, very nice. Uh, interesting too given that we've just talked about some of the restrictions in China uh. We obviously have made a lot more progress in this country. whether it's about travel or going to the movies or shows or even things like this that's such a cool building. Uh, we'll actually be there on uh December 9th and uh, we want to bring as many of y'all as possible. All right, let's see, then we have one minute to go to the Bell and uh Greta Thornburg sues her native Sweden for failing on climate. Oh my gosh, oh man. Greta uh just I I Can only imagine the next lifetime of headlines we're gonna get with Greta Thornburg in it about the climate. So pissed. Yikes! Yikes. All right here we go 20 seconds to the Bell let's get ready Facebook says would be the 13th best Thanksgiving week since 1945 so the Melt up has been taken. Thanks Saeed for being here a little bit lower. uh I think it's uh JP Morgan Yesterday looking for better demand for Global Bonds in 2023 as supplies it's American Express Celebrating small business Saturday end of the NASDAQ on New York City Mayor Eric Adams also celebrating small business Saturday that's a franchise that Amex got going long ago have to compete with Black Friday yeah I I Hate to say but I never really got excited about small business American Express and that's not to like diss on small businesses. it's just to say uh you know I I don't know I mean like if I'm walking around a downtown area or whatever look I'm down to to shop and eat or whatever at small businesses but you know am I am I really going like our consumers I should say maybe broadly really going out of their way to to jump on this I I don't know I I I don't know about that. uh the small business pushes we'll see I guess All right So what do we got here? Uh, let's look at the uh, let's start with the indices here. The first 15 minutes are always such a crisis. Uh, so we got about half percent to the downside here on the NASDAQ looks like it's trying to Trend in the green door. It's gonna be too early to tell here. Uh, lots of lots more red though. Uh, you've got Tesla in pre-market was up as much as uh two and a half percent. now turning red. It looks like a lot of the uh, the heat map as well is turning red. You can see that here we we were closer to about 80 percent green. Now we're more like 60 green. So um Bizarro Behavior always at the beginning of of uh the open NASDAQ now down 0.6 we've got. let's see here. Okay, here we go. Looks like uh Neo down 4.7 Carvana for Redfin 2-8 Apple down two percent. That's gonna drag the indices a little bit. Again, a lot of fear about Apple regarding the uh, uh, massive delays we're seeing for the iPhone Uh, we in the last live stream we were looking at uh, how long it would take to actually get an iPhone and you're sitting at somewhere around the first week of January to get an iPhone now which it makes you wonder how much is that actually going to affect the uh, potential? uh, holiday sales season for the iPhone I mean anybody who today says oh, I'm gonna, you know, get my son or daughter or whatever an iPhone can't get them I Guess you're stuck with the Google pixel. I mean I should actually try to give this thing a little bit more of a shot I barely use this thing. uh anyway. uh it. I have my reasons for having three phones. Okay, maybe one day I'll make a video on it. We'll see thumbs up for tech review videos from Meet Kevin Oh yeah, yeah. all right. So uh, what else do we have here? Let's see: BMW doubles investment to 2.1 billion dollars in Hungary uh EV plant great. A lot of battery manufacturing announcements in the United States coming as well. Uh, just uh over the last few weeks and and more expected Goldman Sachs to boost Germany presence with Munich office. Ah munchin. All right, let's see Credit Insurance claims straight sets a spike in 2023 as firms struggle see and that that I think is. the interesting part is is the potential pain we might see at companies uh going forward uh I I Don't know that that is entirely clear yet how much uh, actual credit distress we're going to see because we really just haven't seen it yet. Corner of the insurance Market is seeing claims already start to rise Oh See Now that's quite interesting as companies struggle globally with inflation and Global interest rates arise. The number of claims linked to credit Trade Credit Insurance which compensate A supplier in the event its customers stop paying are still manageable below 30 percent lower than pre-covered levels, but are expected to climb further next year. Interesting, You know you know who needs a lot of credit insurance right now is Elon Musk probably getting some Heights over there with with them not paying uh, a certain uh, certain obligations that were incurred before uh Elon Musk took over. but uh, you know on one hand it's a good way to burn a relationship. on another hand, it's it's one way to save money I don't I don't know I don't know where where the ethics on that one stand? It doesn't sound too too good. but uh, all right, let's take a listen in over here for a moment. We're gonna have to at least game out what happens if it doesn't doesn't And I think some of that is based on the fact that there is a belief that again, we're the deal to break were there to be a mutual termination for example, that you simply would not see the downside in Activision some even arguing perhaps you would actually get a A rating a bit higher. Um, that said, we've seen recent weakness from Take Two, so the peer group has not been performing particularly well, but there is a sense that sort of things have kind of calmed and in fact improved over the last 10 months at Activision during this period. Yeah, and to your point, I mean the video game industry it would seem is at risk of Hosting its first annual sales decline in at least a decade. We've had commentary from some of these video game Publishers in their recent earnings. Uh, basically suggesting that you're not going to see some big Blockbuster releases that would be expected during the holiday season in years past as well. Uh, so certainly there's a bigger broader Dynamic playing out for the video game industry. Also really noteworthy though about the Microsoft piece of this deal puzzle because that yeah, I'm gonna pull here. And and I want to say just uh, yesterday, Uh, yesterday morning I was looking at the Activision Blizzard deal before we got this news about the potential for the government stepping in, the Uh FTC stepping in and potentially rejecting the deal which is possible uh, you know, for for monopolistic concerns or or whatever. Uh, I was looking at the valuation for Activision a little bit and their EPS has collapsed so much. And even if you give them two dollars of eps, you look at the stock at 75 bucks divided by two, you're sitting at 37.5 times. Uh, earnings, which is very, very high for a company that's actually got its growth substantially decelerating. Now I know we're facing a tough 20 and 21 columns. And so the big question is, hey, you know, can Activision actually get back to a level of growth? Then the question is going to be okay. Great. How much EPS growth are we going to see? if it's 10? Now you're still selling for three or four times on a PEG ratio. It's actually somewhat expensive, so no matter how you slice it, the Activision valuation is expensive right now relative to other opportunities in the stock market. And it's likely because of of the belief that you know this deal could actually happen at somewhere around 93 bucks. You know things trading at 74 dollars right now. So uh, I think it's really being propped up, probably by an excess of 20 20? 25. Something like that because of the potential for that deal happening. Uh, Warren Buffett Recently trimmed his stake a little bit in Activision he's been. uh, he's a bit. he's been in this one. uh, playing the Arbitrage But uh, he actually just recently trimmed his position a little bit in that. And so that opens up this sort of idea of okay, well, maybe maybe this isn't actually going to happen. What? What does Buffett know that we'd like to know? You know, who knows. But Neo down about 4.6 indices still red seems like really dragged down by Apple at the moment. Uh, Apple down over two percent and NASDAQ down about half a percent. Though it does look like trying to get a few green shoots here. Uh, let's see, and uh, the stock market close. Uh, will actually happen a little bit early today, which is always kind of interesting. When they do that. it'll be three hours early today. Which means the stock market's really only open for about three and a half hours. Kind of lame because that sort of means we'll have a market closing live stream at like, a weird time. Uh, that means we'll be doing that at 10 A.M California Time man, weird shares to help to bolster the balance sheet of Credit Suisse But the question that we've continued to we've had and when I say wait I'm reflecting what I'm hearing from many people in the marketplace is simply whether it's going to be enough because as I've reported on Wednesday that outflow of assets, particularly from wealth management where it was centered was surprising. um to even Executives I Believe it's CS In terms of the fact the the numbers which were about 85 billion overall out um, remember, uh, as much as ten six percent at wealth Management uh and the fact that it didn't stop and so what appeared to be you know, an offering that was going to actually be used in part to add to Capital help initiatives that we're going to be underway retention packages may now only be enough to sort of keep the invent the um, the rating agencies happy to maintain an investment grade rating, but not enough to do those other things. What that means is we expect that there might be more behind it Carl and that would obviously be even more dilution for a company that has about a nine billion dollar market value right now. Wow, As we pointed out at credit, Suites has got some big problems. Uh, it's um, interesting to see five-year Break Even Inflation rates take up slightly today a 2.41 on Wednesday we were sitting at 2.39 uh, terminal Fed Funds rate still sitting 5.1979 and let's see what else we have. It seems like a little bit of a relaxing morning so far. Let's see here: High Inflation To tap down gift giving? That's it. That's it. No gifts, no gifts this year. Inflation's too high, you know I'm actually so bad at dealing with gifts I have a deal with Lauren that I never do gifts. Uh, that is like she does everything I I can't do gifts for other people can't I can't remember all the birthdays I can't remember the holidays I can't remember uh, you know all the crazy times we got to do gifts. It's just you. You do it. She's like, that's fine. She likes doing gifts so we have a deal. uh I I just I can't handle it. It's so stressful it's like oh crap so-and-so's got a birthday and then you're like ah damn like, what are they like I gotta go find something I gotta order it and it's I'm bad. Oh gosh, the stress no oh I hate it I can't handle it So I try to get things out of my life. Uh uh. us retailers are bracing for a slower than normal Black Friday As sagging consumer sentiment erodes Americans demand for material Goods This is a report by Bloomberg here. after adjusting for inflation, sales are likely to Fall by 1.2 percent. That's okay, that's with adjusting for inflation. Okay, so that's actually interesting because Adobe did say that sales were up 2.9 percent year over year, but they didn't say real spending was up 2.9 year-over-year Uh, uh, on Thanksgiving So that could actually indicate about a five percent fall there. But they're suggesting here in Bloomberg that on Black Friday we might see. Actually, for the entire season, we might see sales Fall 1.2 first declined since 2009. A lot of nuance to be gained from companies building up inventory and of course, uh, red flags coming from Nordstrom and Kohl's uh, flagging, uh, weaker consumer demand into October and November. You see that at a lot of companies. By the way, many companies even like short-term vacation rental companies are like we expect or are starting to see more pain going into uh October and November uh that we had seen in in actually Q3 because remember, October November are actually not Q3 So we're hearing sneak peeks for Q4 and the Q3 earnings calls which which ends with September Okay, according to Uh Bloomberg here as well, half of Gen Z customers who participate said they will uh, who participate in some surveys that they'll be shopping online this season during Black Friday and Cyber Monday more than they did last year. Ooh Gen Z going online gotta buy those products from Tick Tock Yeah Man, they should be buying the courses on building your wealth and get off The Tick Tock Okay, you could be on Tick Tock It's fine, but but behind buying the stuff on there. what was it the other day? Lauren bought something off of Instagram You know, like why'd you buy that and she's like it's fine like you know, it's not like imagine like it was legitimately curious. like why she's like oh, I saw it on Instagram I'm like we don't need that yeah I know I just I saw Instagram and it was cool. Usually I don't buy stuff off the ad so she says and I'm like they're all mad the ads are starting to work. Uh, it's the start of a bad trend. Anyway, Hot Wheels and PAW Patrol are top sellers. Boy, my kids have not liked Paw Patrol in years. They did like it a lot for a while though. Well, I missed the PAW Patrol days because Chase was always on the case. The list includes some perennial favorites such as Air Fryers, Smart Speakers, and Apple iPads. The Nintendo Switch is a top selling gaming console. while brisk selling toys in brisk selling include Hot Wheels and PAW Patrol among other categories. Kitchenware sales are up 155 from October for which is a relief for retails. Well, I mean of course sales are up from October it's it's Friday month. Um, all right, do you hear about those strikes at Amazon By the way, Uh, well. it'll be interesting to see if we have any disruptions with. uh Amazon yeah Activision Blizzard down three and a half percent after reports of the potential FTC lawsuit. Talked about that a little bit. uh more than half of the 1000 respondents to a RetailMeNot holiday Trend survey said they are coping with Sky High inflation this year by purchasing fewer gifts. There's the gifts argument. Yikes. Would Airbnb be seasonable? seasonal though? Uh, you know, at least from what I'm potentially. but what? I'm hearing from just anecdotes which are stories from people in the industry. it's slower than usual, so it's It's a relatively strong slowdown. You can always give a gift card. Problem solved. Yeah, I know. but then you get that like oh, is that as personalized? you know, is that feel a little last minute-ish I Personally think gift cards also kind of suck I'd rather want cold hard cash, but then that also feels like a little cold. see gift cards. On average 10 percent of gift cards are like the money on gift cards is never used. That's because maybe like there's a buck left on it and you kind of lose it. Uh, like gift cards are brilliant things a thing for businesses to sell because ten percent of them never get used. So people spend 100 bucks on a gift card. On average, the company's gonna pocket ten dollars in immediately from that gift card sale in pure freaking profit, baby. Uh, it's it's gift cards are like, really brilliant for the industry. really bad for consumers because they don't use it all so they don't actually get the full value. This is where cold heart cash is better. Uh, but but again, you know that then it feels a little more cold. It's kind of interesting if I had to pick Google or Amazon which would I invest in. Okay, that's actually a good question and yeah, so um I I'm very concerned. We talked about this in the course member live stream a few days ago. I'm very concerned about fulfillment I think fulfillment is a race to the bottom. A very expensive race to the bottom Shopify Target Walmart Amazon all competing for faster, better uh, shipment and fulfillment I think it's extremely expensive and I think it's exponentially more expensive the faster you try to do it. Going from two day to one day to to same day to drone shipments to, you know, uh, hey, we'll drive and go pick it up in the store for you. it's it's um, a very difficult business. You do have an AWS slowdown as well, which is a little bit concerning. You do have similar concerns over at Google for that. Uh, but I'd probably be a little bit more inclined to have if I had to pick out of those two Google exposure right now. Uh then Amazon exposure though I do think they're both phenomenal companies, so yeah, there you have it all right folks. Thank you for being here. Enjoy your Black Friday Good luck out there! Let's do a quick look at the sticks one more time. Remember it is Black Friday and you can take that 60 off coupon code to the bank on Lifetime access for the programs on building your wealth Activation Blizzard Now down four percent NASDAQ down point six percent Tesla down about one point and two percent giving back some of that 7.8 rally we had. uh on uh on Wednesday Facebook down about a third of a one percent the tattoo Chef up 4.3 and Neo down 4.3 Roku down one, seven seven Apple's still sitting at negative two percent. There You have it folks. Thanks for being here. We'll see you the next one. Uh, we'll actually see you at the early Market close goodbye, thank you.