On today’s episode of Asking for a Trend, host Josh Lipton delves into market dynamics, luxury watches, and trending tickers.
Joining the show is financial educator Kyla Scanlon to discuss her new book, “In this Economy? How Money and Markets Really Work.” Scanlon’s work aims to empower individuals with a deeper understanding of the economy.
Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre analyzes the top takeaways from Wednesday’s market session, from the Dow (^DJI) and Nasdaq (^IXIC) diverging to volatility picking up in the Vix (^VIX).
Among the trending tickers featured today are C3 AI (AI) and Okta (OKTA) after both companies reported revenue beats in their latest quarterly reports. Additionally, Watches of Switzerland Group CEO Brian Duffy joins the show to delve into the growth of the luxury watch market within the US.
This post was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to asking for a trend.
I’m Josh flip in and for the next half hour we’re going to be breaking down the trends today that I move stocks tomorrow.
There is a lot to keep track of, so we’re focusing on what you need to know to get ahead of that curve.
Here are some of the trends we have been watching The comeback continues.
Abercrombie and Fitch’s knockout quarter was its strongest in history, defined broader retail industry warnings of consumers pulling back on more discretionary purchases plus jewellery and luxury watch.
Retailer watches of Switzerland is cautiously optimistic for the upcoming fiscal year and upbeat outlook amid warnings of a higher income consumer slowdown for the likes of the LV MH watches of Switzerland’s CEO joining us later to discuss and the global PC market is back.
After consecutive months of declines, Market leader Lenovo’s fourth quarter shipment signalled a return to growth for PC demand echo in a recent forecast by research from I, DC and HP saw similar strength in its commercial commercial personal systems division.
Though consumer demand fell flat in its fiscal second quarter, it appears if the consumer sentiment is improving, but the vibe session or disconnect between the economy and how the average consumer perceives it continues.
Our next guest coined that term and has made a career out of simplifying the economy for others.
Now she has a new book titled In This Economy.
How Money and Markets Really Work and Joining Us Now Is Kyla Scaling Kyla, Good to see you and Congrats on the book.
Oh, thanks for having me I. I saw somebody.
Somebody described this book K as, um so like Ray Dalio for Gen Z. I saw you like that.
Is that a fair description?
It’s It’s meant to be a toolbox for anybody that wants to understand the economy.
So simplifying economic concepts like inflation.
The labour market GDP the 60 plus illustrations.
So it’s meant to be fun.
Yeah, yeah, and a vibe session is definitely well.
Is it fun?
It’s fun.
As a term.
It’s not fun as a feeling, I suppose.
And so what strikes me, too, is that while you’re trying to educate people, you’re also trying to not bum them out too much.
I mean, it’s you know, we know we talk about this stuff long.
It’s really hard to forecast what’s gonna happen next.
It’s really hard to deal with inflation.
So how do you sort of set people up to not feel too bogged down by all of this?
I mean, I think the big thing with the discourse around the Vibe session is you have to recognise that there are structural affordability issues like there are reasons that people feel bad.
There’s a housing crisis, health care, elder care, child care, et cetera.
Um, so I try to address those, but then point out the good parts of the economy, the fact that the economy is growing.
We’re not in a recession.
Unemployment is at a low.
The stock market is up over 10% on the year, so it’s just a balance of the two.
Why do you think kylo people?
A lot of Americans feel the way they do about the economy.
I mean, you saw that recent Harris poll and it was last week.
I mean, most Americans actually think the US economy is in recession and that stocks have gone down this year.
Yeah, Yeah.
And that unemployment is at a record high.
Um, yeah.
The Harris Poll was really surprising to me because I think that the concept of the Vibe session is very much it makes sense, like, of course, like you’re gonna feel bad if their structural affordability problems.
But that was sort of a disconnect from reality, right?
And I think that is, you know, a media issue, whether that be like negativity and headlines or just maybe we’re not explaining things the right way or there’s some sort of narrative that people are following you.
You don’t think there’s enough affordability, Kyle, Is that what you mean?
I think there’s a oh, absolutely, Yeah, I know.
That’s so to To further emphasise, I think there’s totally a good reason why people feel bad about the economy.
But there’s something outsized that’s going on that I think is leaving everybody puzzled.
Do you think it’s also partly where people are getting their information?
I mean, I know you also recently did piece about influencers, right, and that if you followed their stock recommendations, you wouldn’t.
There was a recent study that showed you wouldn’t actually do very well.
I mean, so how do people know where to get good information about what to do with their money.
Yeah, I think that’s the tough part is, you know, we’re really polarised, and there’s an incentive for media headlines to be quite negative.
If you have a negative word in a media headline, click through rate increases by 2.3%.
Um, so I. I think it is where people are getting their news.
Social media.
That incentive of the algorithm is to drive engagement and engagement oftentimes comes in.
The form of doer is so it’s quite a tricky problem when you’re trying to check vibes.
What are you checking?
What polls?
What surveys are you looking at?
Any consumer sentiment poll I look at?
I pull a lot of anecdotes from my comments section, how people are talking about things with questions that they’re asking.
That usually serves as a pretty good guide.
But I mean, the tough thing about the way that we gather sentiment is it is a poll, and that can be That’s not always the most accurate way to things, but it’s the way that we have.
So what have you been seeing recently in your comments?
Right, And and how has that changed?
Maybe over the course of the last 12 months.
Yeah.
I mean to reiterate, like we do have a structural affordability crisis.
Uh, people are very worried about housing.
They’re very worried about the cost of child care.
They’re worried about the cost of education.
They’re worried about the cost of everything.
And so I think inflation has just been a pressure cooker for so long, and people are still dealing with the impact of that.
That’s remained pretty consistent.
Totally.
Yeah.
We had election coming up.
Do you think the president sets a vibe?
Yeah, I, I totally I mean, I think that people look at that, as you know, and rightly so, as the leader of the country.
And whatever the president does say that does tend to dictate how people feel about certain things and especially the way that things are messaged and how they’re messaged.
I’m also curious to get your take sort of on a related note.
I mean, you’re a published author now, but you also disseminate your information through social media, including on tiktok.
I believe so.
Is it a problem if that, um, channel sort of goes away in terms of how you and other creators get your word out.
Uh, if tiktok goes away, I think, uh, Instagram reels will step up.
YouTube shorts will step up.
There will always be another social media platform to replace the ones that have, uh, stepped down or have been banned.
Um, but yeah.
I mean, I I think that Tik tok going away wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
Just because, um, there’s no fact checking on the platform.
And so you have a lot of creators who will post things that blatantly untrue, and there’s no consequence to that.
Right?
Are you already kind?
Kind of like, um, I don’t know, adjusting to the prospect of a possible Tik tok band.
Are you A as just a creator?
Are you putting money time effort into other platforms?
More like reels.
Instagram YouTube?
Yeah.
I I wrote a book about.
Yeah, So that’s another platform.
Um, but yeah, I mean, I think instagram reels is great.
Uh, I think YouTube shorts.
They’ve invested a lot of money, and I have a newsletter and a pod as well.
My whole, um my whole approach to content has always been to do multimedia, to write, to have audio, to have video.
Uh, So I’ve always tried to diversify even before the Tiktok ban became a conversation point Kylo, What do you think is the biggest?
Um, you know, you look at your comments a lot.
You interact with people a lot.
What’s sort of the biggest misconception that you’ve discovered that people have about the economy?
I mean, I, I think.
Overarching.
It’s that people think they’re not a part of the economy.
They think it’s something separate than them.
And that can be a little bit confusing because you are a part of this broader system.
Like if you buy a cup of coffee, that an economic transaction.
And so I think that’s one thing like people feel like it’s not important to understand the economy.
And then number two, it’s always semantics, right?
Like if inflation is going down, people will think that means that prices are going down.
But that’s not the case.
And so there are all sorts of points along the economic timeline where it’s something like that where it’s just there are moments of confusion.
It’s not anybody fault.
It just we haven’t properly explained it properly, just really quickly.
Axios this week said, like inflation doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.
It doesn’t actually mean the rate of change and now just means prices.
Yeah, Jared.
I mean, come on.
Uh, Jared Bernstein of the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers stepped in on on Twitter about that.
And I. I think that was more just like, uh, maybe not a troll, per SE, but it was something in the bar.
Yeah, I feel like he he know exactly what inflation is, but I think it is a good point where, um because of the way that we perceive inflation.
You know, the concept of reflexivity has a little bit of a role here, where what our perception is does kind of become reality.
And so I think that’s the broader thing with inflation is it sort of becomes what we think it is.
Even if it’s not exactly that.
As confusing as that sounds, we read the book, get less confused.
Yeah, hopefully thanks so much for joining us.
Appreciate it.
This book is called in this economy how money and markets really work and it is available now.
Thanks, Julie.
Stay tuned.
More Ask her trend on the other side.
Markets closing lower after a spike in Treasury yields unsettles investors investor concerns eclipsing the A I rally in NVIDIA and here with more on the trading day takeaways is Yahoo.
Finance is very on.
Jared Blick, Jared.
Let’s run through it.
What are we starting with today?
Well, over the last 5 to 10 days, you’ve seen the Dow and the NASDAQ diverging.
So the Dow has been under a lot of pressure.
The NASDAQ was under a little pressure today, but it’s net risen and let me show you our Dow heat map over the last seven days.
This really shows you all the red and you take out some of the big guys here like Microsoft, Amazon and Walmart by sorting by performance.
And you really see, now you have McDonald’s down 8 8% over the trailing seven days.
United Health right there with it.
Three M Boeing.
The list goes on.
Uh, why is this?
It’s because we’re seeing kind of a difference in, uh, Treasury yields, and I think the entire character to in how investors are approaching the market.
So last two was kind of a seminal moment.
Or excuse me last Thursday when we had those NVIDIA earnings that were getting priced in was a seminal moment.
You saw the general market open at a high level and just sell off throughout the day.
Could not be saved by NVIDIA and NVIDIA alone.
So here’s the last seven days of price action.
Guess what tech xlk is.
Number one.
Then you have communication services, which is basically flat.
Then everything else in the red Why would tech be the only sector in the green?
I think it has to do with the safety trade.
Even though you have yields rising.
Investors are looking for safety right now for whatever reason.
Well, I think we know the reasons that is in semiconductors, because that’s basically the only thing that is outperformed over these seven days.
Now, here are some more markets.
I Look, look at you can see solar stocks.
That’s a separate story.
Uh, but the stocks is just their front and centre at the very top, just really taking off.
So when you see Jared, uh, you see, like you call unusual move And an unorthodox move is is there, You know that suggests something broader about the market to you, where we could be headed in the near term.
Yeah.
Anytime there’s something that that seems out of whack, you might call it a divergence.
Um, and here I’m looking at the 10 year T note Yield.
I was talking about seven days.
Well, guess what?
Over the last seven days, we’ve seen these yields rise, uh, in opposite direction of the Wi Fi Interactive right here.
Uh, so so this is painting a picture for me that investors are looking for safety, but for some reason, they’re building.
Bidding up these long duration tech stocks makes me scratch my head and think, Well, maybe something’s underfoot.
Maybe the market is just ready for a pause here.
And that’s what kind of what we’re seeing.
Develop, I think.
All right.
What’s the bli.
Point number two.
All right, we’re going to talk about volatility, and this is volatility in the VIX and also the move index.
So let me just show you what’s happened in the VX first, because that has to do with equities.
And that’s what we’re used to seeing.
And you can see on this year to date chart that we have just recently picked up there, so that is a yellow flag for me.
That’s an official Jared Blicker yellow flag that is an official yellow flag for Jared Blicker.
I think we have to.
We have to start working in the flags.
The hats?
Yes, it’s good.
I’m all about hats, so I’m I’m definitely done for that.
And then another.
Besides equities, you can also get bond market volatility.
Here’s the move Index, and, uh, this has also picked up a little bit recently.
This coincides with that rise and yields that I was talking about.
Here’s the tenure, uh, so typically, when you see increasing volatility not only in stocks but also in bonds, that usually means that stocks are gonna either take a hit or at least do for a breather.
And that’s kind of what we’re seeing.
I’ll show you the Dow, which is the weakest of all the major indices.
That is off a fair amount from those highs that we saw just a few couple of weeks ago.
Final point.
Jerry, Let’s take a walk through crypto land.
Yeah, you bet.
Because I’ll tell you what something really interesting happening here.
Black rocks, IBIT.
That’s their spot.
Bitcoin ETF finally overtook grey scales G BT C in total assets.
Now, just as a reminder.
Uh, grey scale has been in operation for almost 10 years now.
Uh, but it was classified as a different kind of fund.
They converted to a spot Bitcoin ETF.
And so that leads me to this picture here.
This is grey scale assets versus iShares assets since the beginning of the year.
Basically, since the spot Bitcoin ET, which is almost the beginning of the year and you can see here from basically zero BlackRock’s offering through iShares has risen and it’s finally eclipsed Grey scale.
Uh, I should also point out that Grey scale has higher fees, so that’s a factor in there.
But the speed with which this happened, it’s only been, what, four months, uh, that we saw that we saw iShares rise to these levels.
Um, it’s much faster than anything we’ve seen in history.
So the adoption in Bitcoin through this ETF, I think this is an important, important point here.
We haven’t seen the widespread through 401k adoption that people had hoped, but we’re seeing just the raw, the sheer amount of money going into this that’s pretty much unprecedented.
And that’s what I was gonna ask.
You just is this telling me anything, suggesting me anything about Bitcoin ether?
For me?
It just paints a long term picture.
Bitcoin is here to stay.
All right, Jared, Love the takeaways.
Thank you, my friend.
Appreciate it coming up.
Could the US market ignite another boom in second hand?
Luxury watch prices?
We’re asking for a trend on the other side in the luxury watch market times are good, at least for retailer watches of Switzerland.
The company’s fiscal fourth quarter, aided by what’s been called the underdeveloped US market and joining us now for more is watches of Switzerland CEO, Brian Duffy and Yahoo Finance’s very own pro moreen.
And gentlemen, welcome both to the show.
Brian.
It is great to have you I. I thought, I want to start kind of high level and just get your sense when we look at the luxury watch market because you have such a unique insight here.
How healthy?
How strong is it right now, Brian?
It is very strong, you know, it’s it’s pretty much a Swiss category, right?
It’s all produced in that small country where you know no more than 78 million people.
So it’s very well controlled.
It’s very well, you think, long term and everything.
They do a big focus on the on quality.
They never produce enough watches.
There’s more demand than there is supply of watches.
So we have a lot of, uh, customers that are on lists waiting for the the watch of their dreams.
So it’s in.
It’s in very good shape.
You’re a lot to discuss here.
Obviously, a lot of people come and talk to me about Rolex and things like that like that.
But before we get into that, I wanna talk to you about the US market.
Uh, I believe you guys say that it is an underdeveloped market, which I think many people find surprising.
But when you think about it, it really is, isn’t it?
No, it really is the, um So we came here for the first time in 2016.
Uh, we were invited, actually by landlords here.
The landlords of the Hudson Yards.
So what we were doing in the UK, um, the folks that were running retail in the wind resort in Vegas, they invited us to so I could claim to be a great visionary about the market, but we’re actually invited to come here.
But when we came, I was surprised to find that when we analysed things, the the key thing that drove us was sales per capita in sales per capita in the UK is double what it is in the US.
It’s doubled and there’s a lesser level of affluence and so on.
But it literally is double.
And we look back in the market, looked at the history the US market really suffered from 2010, uh, and never quite recovered.
And and, uh, there there was an under investment in retail ever since then and I think we’ve proven it to be true.
We we’ve, um we now $900 million in business that we’re doing in the in the US.
We’ve only been here five or six years, and it’s far exceeded our expectations.
So I think we’ve proven the underdeveloped observation.
Yeah, you know, I notice you’re wearing a Rolex right now, and it’s handsome looking.
Watch one look this good on.
You know, we if you get close up about that, but, uh, but, you know, that’s sort of the the big 800 gorilla in the room in the US or the international luxury Watch market is Rolex.
How was that business been for you guys?
Because I know what’s happening in the CPO market.
That new market is a big road driver for you.
How is that CPO market going for you guys?
And also the new market, too?
Yeah, well, Rolex is half of our business, Uh, is the best brand in the world.
It’s an amazing brand.
You might know it’s a charitable foundation so that there’s no financial interest in the ownership.
And all of the money that’s made is reinvested and obsession with, uh, with quality and innovation, so, so indestructible products.
It’s a wonderful brand, very cautious, very long term, very conservative.
Consequently, there always demand is, uh, is never going to be satisfied for what comes from Rolex.
So it’s great.
We’d love to have a lot more product than we get.
It’s the it’s the biggest thing that we do is to try and negotiate, as you know, as much as we can through our investments in Rolex but wonderful brand and clearly the cornerstone of our of our of our business and our group, uh, CPO has been fantastic.
Somebody else that exceeded our expectation.
So CPO is Rolex now, Um uh, certifying and authenticating second hand products and only doing that for authorised retail.
Um, the secondary market before was and still is an unauthorised market that the consumer needs to be very careful and be and beware.
So now you can buy, um, a Rolex.
Uh, that’s that otherwise would be in, you know, a long waiting time for it.
You can buy it immediately.
You’re buying at market price, but you’re buying it guaranteed and authenticated by Rolex.
So we’ve been we and others have been rolling out the programme UK and US, and it’s just way ahead of what we expected.
Again.
Consumers love the product and getting access to a product.
This is discontinued.
The fact you can’t get it.
But I could maybe help you out after the show.
The breaking news right now, let me get you this.
I’m just curious.
Who is your average customer?
Like, Who’s the demo?
Is it men, Women young, old And has that been, you know, evolving in any way.
It has been changing it’s still male oriented, so you’d say it’s probably around 60 65% male often said.
It’s really the only item of jewellery that that all men you know would be wearing it.
And it is an item of jewellery.
It’s something that you you show off with pride about your accomplishments in life or whatever it might be.
So it’s still around 65% men.
But increasing women also a convergence of gender when it comes to product selection.
So women buying bigger case sizes and very often products now are more commonly becoming unisex.
The other big change in it, contrary to what people might expect is young people.
There was a view of young people are all using their phones, are all using a smart watches and so on.
But the young people really love a younger audience, particularly here in America.
They really love, and they love the got a lot of emotion associated with them when you bought it, what you bought it for, if you inherited it, whatever it might be, products that last forever very good for the environment.
They get recycled and again certified pre owned is very good in that sense.
These are products that will be in circulation forever.
Um, so our young audiences are really coming into the count to quite quite, Uh, obviously, Brian, it was great to have you on the show today.
Let’s talk afterward.
Price.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
All right, let’s take a look at what’s trending after hours wrap things up here.
Shares of C three a I a are soaring after beating fourth quarter earnings estimates on the top and bottom lines.
Revenue grew 20% year over year to 86.6 million for the core company also boosted stronger than expected revenue forecast for 2025.
They’re now expecting between 373 195 million CEO of C three A I Tom sel will join the morning brief tomorrow around 9 a.m. to break down those numbers.
Also, check in on Octa.
Those shares are down slightly here after reporting a beat on the top and bottom line in the first quarter.
CEO Todd Mckennon knowing the company can used to benefit from the operating efficiency actions taken along the past several quarters, uh, to also lifting its full year fiscal 25 adjusted earnings per share forecast now looking for 235 to 240 per share, be sure to tune in tomorrow during market domination.
We’re gonna get the chance to speak with CO Tom McKinnon on the recent results and shares of American Eagle Outfitters, sinking after revenue for the first quarter came in below estimate, store revenue rose 4% while digital revenue increased 12%.
American Eagle said it’s continued to expect full year operating income in the range of 445 465 million, reflecting revenue growth of up to 2% to 4%.
It’s missing expectations.
That’s a wrap on today’s asking for a trend.
Be sure to come back tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.
For all the latest market moving stories affecting your wallet, have a great night