Tech Layoffs and Earnings: What’s Next for Amazon and the Major Players?

Well, Wall Street hit new record highs this week, and we are looking at the major US stock averages trying to extend those gains on the heels of some earnings figures.

Now, despite recent volatility, the Bulls have retaken control and as markets climb, a rate cut as well as trade optimism, precious metals have pulled back from their record run, and crypto price action has been range bound much of this year, but the majors could be waking up.

Well, joining me live here in Vegas.

Mrs.

Jawski, CEO of So Planning Group.

David, great to have you here.

Thanks for waking up bright and early.

Great to be with you, Remy, here at Money 2020.

Well, here we are looking at the major US stock averages higher and extending those record runs, and of course it is bad day today.

Tomorrow they're expected to cut rates.

So tell us what's going on in the markets.

I mean, the markets look relatively stable right now, right?

So equities are up.

We had some decent earnings.

We got some big expectations coming out.

The US dollar is looking relatively stable.

We've got President Trump going to China, maybe getting a deal done here.

We just got peace in the Middle East.

So you know, there's things are looking all right, you know.

I can say that on one side of my mouth and out the other side I can say we're also flying blind right now because with a government shutdown we don't get updated CPI data, GDP data, and jobs numbers.

And when we look at things like companies like Amazon today, one of the leaders in the world, they've got their biggest jobs.

Cuts coming out right now in the history of the company.

And so that's a hometown company here for me in Seattle.

And so I think these are the things that the Fed pays attention to.

And so I'm looking at that quarter point for sure they're going to cut.

Will they get another one done by the end of the year?

I think that that's pretty much priced into the market as well.

It should be because it should happen.

But ultimately, you know, will things soften a little bit more?

Will data change?

I'm not really sure, but I think the Fed's looking towards more like quantitative easing right now versus tightening.

Well, of course we're paying attention to what comes out of the APEC summit in Asia and of course we'll continue to watch what the Fed Reserve does in the nation's capital.

But you mentioned Amazon, and this week is a big week for earnings.

So Wednesday afternoon is going to be a big day.

We do get the Fed and of course earnings out from key tech companies, in particular some of those mag 7 names, and they are announcing layoffs.

So what's going on below the surface for these companies?

AI.

Makes us more efficient, but also, you know, a lot of those tech companies are really overstaffed during a time when it was like difficult to get employees.

And so, you know, you hold on as long as you can and then ultimately you look at, hey, if we've got to cut, you know, this ultimately boosts earnings and of course that's what this whole thing's about is on a quarterly basis the earnings are showing up and they've got to have better numbers.

So the forward projections look better when you have those job cuts, although that's not.

Good for people, but ultimately AI is doing a lot more here today, so we're getting more efficiency out of the average person.

And while I have you here, I do want to ask you about precious metals because we saw a gold soar to new record highs, not just topping 4000, but 41, 42, hitting new record highs.

But now they're pulling back.

So what's going on with that precious metal?

It's called an opportunity, OK, so the rest of the world is still buying precious.

Medals at a record rate.

If you look on Twitter or any of the social feeds on nations around the world, people are standing in line right now to try to get their hands on any amount of it.

So the reality is that stuff has to be mined.

It can't just be print like we do with the US dollar.

And so the world is rapidly moving towards a gold back standard, but there's a lot of banks and a lot of challenges if we get the record highs on gold and silver, silver specifically, because we think about Navid.

Earnings, etc. etc.

You, you, you want to go small with semiconductors like this.

You've got to have silver.

It is the conductor of electricity here, so they can pull back prices, they can keep things more stable.

So there's a lot of shorts on the market, but the volume is not there.

There is not enough metals to go around for the actual appetite of the people buying it.

And finally, we are at a FinTech conference, so we're talking about blockchain, Dei, Tray, the intersection of both, but I do want to get your Take on crypto because since that liquidation event we saw October 10th, October 11th, we are seeing Bitcoin as well as Eth train fairly range bound, but plenty of financial institutions announcing their involvement in crypto, whether through funds or even through collateral.

So as we move forward and head into your end, we'll have to see what happens in terms of regulation.

But what do you make of price action?

OK, price action is kind of interesting.

I mean, You got to buckle up if you're in the blockchain crypto market, right, because we know that things are very volatile.

There's not as much volume in this market as there is in the stock market.

So we have bigger swings, but also institutions want to get in.

So they're incentivized to maybe cause volatility in the market.

And what happens is a lot of investors today have been using leverage and so they call this shaking out the weak hands.

And so when the market starts going down, those that are going to hold on for dear life, the HODLs, they're going to, they're going to hold on.

And so like myself, we're going to hold on and we're going to ride through these things.

And by the way, we should be up quite a bit.

But this is also a great opportunity to be allocating back in.

Watch what President Trump has been doing.

By the way, this guy, you know, forecasts everything basically online because he's, you know, not going to get in trouble, but he's buying.

Billions of dollars of Bitcoin right now and so it is very scarce, very rare.

This is still very real.

Don't let some moment of time dictate what you believe are going to be the real assets and the core things in the future.

Blockchain is absolutely here to stay.

Look at this place.

It is just like huge, amazing.

There's institutions now for the first time I see banks that are actually even here for the first time, and so.

This is a revolution moment and so this is like the chat GPT moment here for for blockchain, and I think that we're going to see a whole lot of adoption going forward.

Yeah, and David, we have time for one more question.

I do want to ask you about the US government shutdown because we know that it affects the economy and we're seeing this divergence Wall Street versus Main Street.

So what are your key concerns and what should viewers be paying attention to?

Key concerns here are that there's a bunch of people that are needing to work with jobs, or sorry, without pay.

And so, you know, I don't love the fact that we get to the end of our credit card and then we've got to shut down the system.

We're overspending by right now $1 trillion and so that is a big, big, big number.

We've got to manage our, our, our federal budget a lot better than this, but this is just total gridlock.

Political games that are that are happening right now, it's it's unfortunate to me that the the bills that were passed in March couldn't just be passed along and that we've got this idea that we've got to have health care for illegal immigrants that has to happen, etc. etc. and so you know this is obviously a political challenging thing.

It's it's difficult to say one thing or the other, but But ultimately I would note that the shutdown is not good for America.

It does not look well on the US dollar, and I think that it could potentially lead to, you know, more of that AA rating, even single A rating, as people look at our fiat currency.

We continue to spend, spend, spend, spend, spend without an answer in sight.

OK, David, well, we will have to leave it there, but great talking to you.

Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Appreciate you, Rey.

Thank you.