June's housing slump, spot ether ETF, Domino's CEO: Wealth!

Today on Wealth!, host Alexandra Canal explores three key topics: existing home sales, the state of the consumer, and retirement planning.

Economic data takes center stage as US existing home sales decline in June. Yahoo Finance anchor Seana Smith breaks down the report, joined by Abbe Will, associate director of the remodeling futures program at Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Will provides insights on how homeowners are navigating the current housing market challenges.

Live from the New York Stock Exchange, Yahoo Finance reporter Brooke DiPalma interviews Domino's (DPZ) CEO Russell Weiner, who offers a glimpse into the current state of the consumer and its impact on the food industry.

The show concludes with a focus on retirement planning. SC&H Wealth Principal & Wealth Advisor Judy Brown joins to discuss age-specific retirement and investment planning strategies.

This post was written by Angel Smith

Video transcript

Welcome to welcome Alexander Canal in for that Smith and this is Yahoo Finance guide to building your financial footprint.

Our community of experts will give you the resources, tools, tips and tricks you need to grow your money on today.

Show spot E ETF are officially trading.

If you're interested in investing.

We'll talk about the considerations behind picking your new et and thinking about doing a little bit of ad I I on your home.

We're going to discuss spending expectations for remodeling.

Plus a wealth advisor, gives insights in the tax and investment strategies for every age demographic and a bonus today.

Don't miss our conversation with Domino Ceo Russell Weer.

Yahoo Finance is the P is heading down to the New York Stock Exchange that's coming up at 11:20 a.m. Eastern Spot E ETF making their trading debut today.

The ETF which directly invest in the Cryptocurrency the and are expected to boost sentiment across the entire crypto landscape.

Joining us now to discuss is Yahoo Finance is very own, Jennifer J.

What do investors need to know here?

Good morning, Ali.

Great to see you.

That's right spot.

Ether Exchange traded funds have begun trading for the very first time today after approval from the securities and exchange commission late last night, after the market closed nine ETF S getting that green light including gray scale Ethereum Trust the Ee Thee Fidelity Ethereum and I shares the, the you can see those tickers there on your screen.

Now, these ETF S will invest directly in Ether, the world's second largest Cryptocurrency and the Cryptocurrency used in the Ethereum network.

There are already Ether ETF s that track Ether futures contracts, but these are the first to track Ether on a spot basis, giving you exposure to the actual underlying asset that is the fund tracks the actual price of the digital asset directly rather through tangential future.

Now, many issuers are waiving expense fees charged for managing the funds for the remainder of the year to lure investors.

The approval could make either a potential staple in 401k S pension plans and Ira s and grant the Cryptocurrency mainstream acceptance.

This approval coming about six months after the SEC granted approval to some of the very same fund managers for spot Bitcoin ETF s unlike Bitcoin, which is viewed as purely a digital asset that has limited quantities.

Ethereum is a digital asset that also has broader applications.

Ethereum is a platform for building projects and creating more efficient uses for technologies like smart contracts that could be used in industries from housing to insurance either is up fractionally on today's session and up 50% year to date.

Ali Jennifer Schomer, thank you so much for joining us, spot the ETF trading to the downside after making their market debut earlier today.

But the question now becomes, should you invest here to discuss how to pick the right ETF for you is Brian Armor Passive Strategies, research director at Morning Star and editor at ETF Investor First, Brian.

This does follow the debut of spot Bitcoin et that we saw earlier this year for those new to these investment options.

What's the difference between the two?

And should you be invested in both?

Yeah.

So Bitcoin and Ethereum are, are both cryptocurrencies.

They share a lot of the same risk characteristics from an investment standpoint.

Um But obviously they're, they, they follow sort of their own market.

Um So, uh you know, investing in Bitcoin is more like tangential to uh investing in a currency.

Whereas Ether is really the, the the backbone of um the Ethereum Blockchain where there is a lot of different projects, many different um uh uh technologies coming out of there.

So they are different, there could be some validity to investing in both.

But in our research so far, um there's not a meaningful difference in the risk profile if you, if you sort of split up the allocation between both or just do one or the other.

And how much do you think the spot ETF a Bitcoin ETF that we saw earlier this year?

How will that impact the roll out of the Ether ETF and the success that we could potentially see?

Yeah, I think, well, Bitcoin ETS had a very successful, uh, run in, in to start in January and that's continued.

Um, we would expect Ethereum ETF S to follow a similar, similar blueprint.

Um And so everything is sort of, uh, built into where we expect, um, a similar style of trading, similar issuers, all the same issuers other than uh a couple that dropped off.

Um But um you know, what, what we'd expect really here is that Ethereum is about a quarter of the, the market cap of Bitcoin um overall.

And so we'd expect similar assets, similar flows coming in.

Uh but perhaps a little bit less than Bitcoin due to the fact that it's a smaller market.

And because of the fact that, you know, Bitcoin came off, the uh came off the heels of the decade of, of trying to get spot Bitcoin ETF S approved.

And so there was a really strong uh investor interest for, for Bitcoin and there might be, you know, a little less interest for, for Ethereum at this point as, as you know, we've all all been living through the crypto mainstream uh uh adoption uh for, for the entire year to date.

And what's the benefit of selecting an Ether ETF or a Bitcoin ETF versus just buying that Cryptocurrency outright.

Yeah.

Well, the ETF allows you to, to buy inside your, your own portfolio through your same broker dealer.

Um It takes the, the custody out of your hands so that you don't have to um you know, keep a crypto key or be worried about.

Um uh uh where, where you're housing your, your cryptocurrencies.

Um So in that way, it makes it easier, there's difference in cost as well.

Their trading fees tend to be higher for cryptocurrencies um on a crypto exchange.

But at the same time, like there's no management fee where there are, there is for an ETF.

Um So the ETF does come with a little bit higher of a, of a uh ongoing charge but typically cheaper up front, which makes it uh uh more cost effective for investors.

The one thing I would say for Ethereum specifically is that um you can stake your Ethereum and, and generate some, some sort of like passive yield of 2 to 4% as of right now, um uh on, on holding Ethereum directly, the ETF S cannot do that.

The SEC has not approved that yet.

And so that is one thing that, that uh Ethereum ETF S are missing out on and the asset managers of these Ether ETF S they include familiar names like fidelity gray scale ishares.

What are the top things investors should consider when thinking about which ETF they should specifically invest in?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, first of all, invest with the asset managers, you're familiar with, um, in, in a lot of ways that makes sense.

Um, and there's a couple different ways to break out the, the, uh, Ethereum ETF S and that's, you know, number one costs, uh, almost all of them are 25 basis points or lower.

And so there's no, not a meaningful difference in the cost for, um, eight of the nine ETF S however, gray scale Ethereum Trust, uh, converted from an over the counter trust or off exchange trust.

Um And, and into an ETF today and kept it's 2.5% fee.

So that's meaningfully different.

If you are not a current holder, I would not buy that one.

The rest are, are probably safe.

You should also think about the, the trading costs associated with buying and selling.

Um You think about Big B as spreads, the ability to, to trade in and out quickly.

Um ishares for d have become the trading centers of Spot Bitcoin ETF S. Um So I would expect something similar to take place uh with Spot Ethereum as well.

And you, the, the third thing you can consider is, you know, the crypto ethos, if you're, if you're a true believer in crypto um companies like bit wise and VK and, and even Fidelity have spent more time giving back to the crypto community and building out their crypto um capabilities.

Brian Armor, Morningstar, Passive Strategies, research director and ETF investor editor.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

Yahoo Finance is out with the third volume of the Yahoo Finance chart book.

We've compiled more than 30 charts from economists and strategists across Wall Street which offers insights into trends for both the economy and the markets.

Joining us now is Yahoo finance reporter, Josh Shaper and Josh, you're highlighting one chart that's taking a closer look at election cycles and the impact that they could potentially have on your portfolio.

Yeah.

So this is a chart from Sam Ro over at ticker.

He highlighted this from Charles Schwab strategist.

And really the broad way here is the benefit of staying invested in the power of compound interest.

So what Sam is looking at here is the return of $10,000.

That should be between 1961 and 2023.

So about a 60 year time period, the return of $10,000 if you only invested under a Republican president would be $102,000.

If you only invested under a Democratic president, the return would be $500,000.

But see here, if you stayed invested the entire time and you didn't try and play the game between whether you're invested under a Republican or Democratic president, your return would be $5.1 million.

So the large takeaway here being that no matter who the president is, the long term trend in markets has been higher, perhaps because the lesson there of the power of what $10,000 can turn into in the stock market over the course of 60 years.

And another note I wanted to add on presidential elections.

This was something that came from Lerner over at Truist.

He took a look at the returns over the last three presidencies, both in the Obama administration, the Trump administration and the Biden administration.

We were looking at annualized returns for the S and P 500 somewhere in a 13 to 16% range.

That's of course, two different political parties there.

And we're covering a pretty wide period of time.

But again, the trend has been higher in markets.

So largely the advice from strategists is to not involve your politics with how you're investing.

Hey Josh, thanks for that.

And you know, the chart book was a Libra of Love for you.

You can check out all the charts on Yahoo finance.com.

All three major averages trading in the green.

A little more than 90 minutes into the trading day.

Investors are tracking a slew of big tech earnings as we've seen a recent pull back in some of those larger cap names.

And we have seen a rotation for many into small caps with the Russell 2000 continuing its upward trend today up more than 10% in the last month.

Joining me now in studio is to ha great capital chairman and managing member, Tom.

Thank you for being here.

We do know your bullish on the small cap trade, this market rotation.

So what's fueling that positive sentiment for you?

Well, there's a lot of skepticism still in this rotation.

Everyone thinks it's gonna be a fake out again, but I'm gonna tell you why the, the dreaded words this time, it's different.

There's actually a fundamental underpinning in why the Un Magnificent 493 have legs for the second half and why we believe the Magnificent Seven are actually gonna start to underperform a little bit relative to the 493.

And the, and the number one underpinning is earnings composition.

And so we started out at the year the first quarter.

Magnificent 7 50% earnings growth, the Un Magnificent 493 negative 1%.

So they should have underperformed right?

Well, now that that is shifting and by Q four, you're gonna have 19% earnings growth in the Un Magnificent 493 and 17% earnings growth in the Magnificent seven.

So decelerating earnings growth for the Magnificent Seven accelerating earnings growth for the Un Magnificent 493.

So what areas of the small cap trade do you think are undervalued at this point?

In other words, should you just be buying the index or should you be a little more selective in your approach?

Uh You can certainly buy the index like IWM.

Uh We have an auto parts maker called Cooper Standard which we like.

There's a huge amount of operating leverage you're looking at real businesses and, and what you're gonna find in the small cap world is a lot of cyclical businesses when you see the fed cut, which is the second underpinning for this violent rotation.

Uh There are a few groups that, that outperform.

Number one is small caps, they outperform by 11% over large caps within the 12 months after the first fed cut.

Uh cyclicals.

So you have a lot of cyclicals within small caps.

International stocks start to outperform because the dollar weakens on, on the fed cuts and re start to outperform.

So those are the kind of the four areas.

And then if you look at institutional positioning with the four most crowded trades, you have what you have short China stocks, which is international, you have short uh small cap stocks, you have long magnificent seven.

So when everyone is crowded to one side of the boat, it makes sense to start to ease into the other opportunities in the market.

So quite a few trades that will benefit from that easing cycle.

Are you in the camp that we're going to start seeing cuts in September?

You think possibly July.

Uh the market is telling us, you know, 95 to 98% chance of the first cut in September, uh which would imply a second cut in December.

If they do it that early, Alexandra, I think they may be able to get away with just two or three cuts if they wait too long due to political considerations or other, I think you're seeing a deterioration enough in employment and in inflation, if they wait too long, it's going to cost them too many cuts.

So I think they kind of know this from history.

The market is assuming that they know this from history.

And if they go in September, I think we're in good stead for sure.

And that'll be something a lot of investors will be keeping an eye on.

But you also are bullish on two names in particular Disney and GXO Logistics, two very different companies.

But I wanna start with Disney.

This is a company that I cover closely.

Where do you see the pricing going for this?

And why are you bullish?

Yeah.

So this is really out of favor right now.

Uh We break it up some of the parts uh evaluation.

So, so basically you have the, the parks and the consumer uh products and experiences that business alone will do 10 billion of EBI.

OK?

Which implies $80 a share, the stocks trading around 90 $95 right now.

So you're effectively getting zero value for Disney plus zero value for ESPN uh zero value for the theatrical releases.

So uh if you look at their streaming business relative to Netflix, Netflix per se, Netflix got 277 million subscribers.

Uh Disney Plus has 100 53 million subscribers.

In the case of Netflix, you're being ascribed $277 billion.

In the case of Disney, you're being ascribed $0.

So we think that business is gonna do 15 billion of ebit over time, which implies that the stock can double over the next 3 to 5 years.

And why do we feel confident is because value act, the activist investor is now involved and they turned around Spotify, which you saw the earnings this morning, they're really good with subscription businesses.

They turned around sales force and they turned around the New York Times.

And if you can turn around the New York Times, you can certainly turn around Disney.

So we're excited about that opportunity bullish on Disney and then Gxo a more cyclical name.

But you think the timing is right timing, great.

So you had a huge amount of pull forward all products during COVID, everyone was buying everything from home.

Then it was the revenge travel and, and uh services became the forefront.

Now we're moving into a more balanced environment.

They do uh outsource supply chain, logistics, reverse logistics.

And this is a Brad Jacobs company and, and everything he touches tends to turn to gold, whether it was United Rentals.

Uh If you invested a million dollars with him, then you made 47 million over a number of years.

If you invested in XPO Logistics, if you invested a million, you made 31 million.

So we think they, they're expected to nearly double IBI A by 2027 which would imply the stock can go up materially from here.

But I think when they get to that level of IBI A because the growth rate is higher, they're going to get multiple expansion on top of it.

So I think there's a lot of upside, they really operate kind of in a duopoly in a fragmented business with DH L and they're better, they're stronger and we're gonna get rewarded for that.

All right, two names to, to keep in mind moving forward.

Tom Hayes.

Great Hill, capital chairman and managing member.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks Alexandra.

I appreciate it.

Coming up.

Consumer appetite for pizza isn't slowing down our very own.

Brooke Dipalma will speak with Domino's Ceo Russell Weiner at the New York Stock Exchange.

That's next.

Welcome back to Yahoo Finance.

I'm BBA joining you live from the New York Stock Exchange alongside Domino's Ceo Russell Wiener Russell.

I'd like to kick things off with the state of the US.

Consumer are Americans having trouble paying for pizza these days, not for Domino's pizza, but I think what you, what we're seeing in the broader restaurant segment is consumers are saying, hey, you know what folks you've taken a little bit too much price.

Um And so that's why you're seeing a lot of the deals that you're seeing.

The, the beauty with us is we took prices when we needed to a couple of years ago, but then we stopped and so we continue to be in value.

And so now what's happening is customers want value.

They're getting a little part.

Ok, hey, maybe you can get this item a little bit cheaper at Domino's everything you can get for 699 you can get, you know, pizza pasta, chicken desserts.

And so the fact that our value is not whip lashing people like it's always been here where it can be counted on and you can, you can get what you want has been really important.

That's why order counts for us.

We're positive and carry out delivery and against every income segment this past quarter.

And, you know, in this sort of environment, people tend to think that families go for pizza.

Are we seeing that right now?

Uh, well, families always go for families, go for pizza, but specifically in times like this, you know, there's no better way to, to, to feed a family than, than, than pizza.

But, you know, we, we, we found ourselves during good times and bad now as, as, as we continue to grow as a brand, we, you know, we're pretty steady state through, through different economic times.

And you said you took prices when you did consumer confidence is trending lower.

Do you think you'll have to cut prices?

No, I mean, we, we, we actually purposely didn't take price after that.

And actually when we look at our value scores.

One of the reasons we drove order counts, other folks are losing orders is because we stayed in value.

People still want to eat out.

You just got to give a reason, you know, Russell here in the US, the presidential election is on.

Everyone's mind come November.

Should the White House switch from Democratic to Republican?

What does that mean for the growth trajectory for dominoes and opportunities for franchisee owners?

Well, what I'd like to talk about is, um, we're not about the Democratic Party or the Republican party.

We're about the pizza party, right?

So we'll stay out of politics.

But what I can say is, you know, no matter what, um, no matter who's in the White House, no matter who's in Congress, you know, we're as, as long as the cards are dealt and everyone's dealt the same deck, right?

As long as our competition and us, we've got the same parameters.

I think we win, we win.

We, we have scale from a purchasing standpoint and we got a, you know, a half a billion dollar advertising budget.

And so as long as long as the sides, as long as the deck is a fair deck, I think we win no matter who's in the White House.

Are you switching around a dollars, given the election?

No, no.

We, we have our plans for the year.

We're sticking to it.

Ad buys tend to be a little regional for the elections.

And we do national advertising.

I want to hit on those higher wages.

In California, you did have to raise prices from that.

What are you hearing from franchisees?

You know, we did hear from one mcdonald's franchise owner that they had to close because of higher costs.

What are you hearing?

Well, you know, we did the same type of analysis we do and when we come up with our national pricing, which is to say, OK, here are the input costs are about to come up, right?

Still though, how can we manage maximize top line and bottom line?

Because you know, we're still in the business of feeding customers, right?

And so we want to be able to do that too.

So it's still early.

What I can tell you is things have gone as we've expected.

So we, for example, we haven't had closures, we haven't had to lay off our drivers like some of our competition has, but it's a long haul.

And in the short term, you're definitely gonna lose orders when you increase prices.

And you know, our job is to feed customers.

So I gotta get to that New York style pizza.

You were in the commercial.

Why did you feel that it was important for you to be the face of this introduction?

You are a New Yorker yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I tell the team, I have a face for radio.

I have no idea why they, they put me in it.

But actually the, the reason why we try to be, um, you know, from the heart of Domino's Pizza and, and this is my favorite pizza.

Um, you know, it's, it's much more foldable than our, our tradition.

It's more like New York, more like the pizza I grew up with.

And so they said, you know, what better person to do that than, than you.

And so, yeah, it's, it's doing well so far.

Despite the uh ugly actor, it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's doing really, really well.

It's an incr it's bringing in incremental people because it's a different type of pizza.

You have Domino Ceo Russell Weiner, thank you so much for joining us.

Stay tuned for much more on Yahoo Finance.

We have breaking news from meta ceo Mark Zuckerberg just announcing a new open source A I platform in a video posted on Instagram.

Let's watch today.

We're upgrading meta A I with our newest model, Llama 3.1 which will also be the first open source model at the frontier.

And among the most advanced out there, it's a really big improvement, smarter supports more languages, better reasoning, just better overall, our very own tech editor Dan Halley has more details.

Dan, ultimately, why should consumers care about this new platform?

Well, so this is uh Llama 3.1.

Uh It's their open source model.

And the, the reason why people care is because this is gonna be powering meta services going forward.

So there's, there's two kind of schools of thought when it comes to A I software in general.

But A I uh in particular at this moment, it's open source and closed source.

And so open source is where anybody can get access to the underlying software that powers these kinds of A I models.

So uh if you're a researcher developer, uh you know, someone who wants to mess with some technology, you can get access to the underlying uh capabilities that power uh Llama 3.1 closed software closed uh source A I models are like uh open A is offerings uh like uh Google's Gemini, you can't get access to the underlying software.

You can't fuss with the mess around with them.

They do offer some of that, but the flagship models aren't that level.

So really what we're seeing is, is Zuckerberg come out and say, look, all of these companies should go open source.

Uh It'll be more efficient and it'll be more uh transparent and safer in the future because the amount of researchers that can get access to the software will just start plugging in uh to it and kind of ensuring that that safety is there.

And we've seen it before uh with stuff like Linux, it's a uh one of the, the operating systems that powers, you know, everything around that you can think of.

Uh And that's open source and it's been uh developed in such a way because uh it was open source to begin with.

And so, you know, this is also kind of uh informed by Zuckerberg's fight with Apple as well.

And he specifically calls that out in his blog post, basically saying, uh you know, more or less I hate Apple right now.

They don't let me do what I want with my app.

Uh Open source is the way to go.

Apple's closed, go open and that's essentially what's going on here.

So that's, it's one of the, the issues.

But I think, you know, overall this is gonna be a, a kind of fight that we see um throughout the industry and what it comes to, to individual users, it's going to matter because, you know, if we get models that are open or closed, uh it'll mean whether or not we have to uh ultimately pay potentially to use models.

Uh If they're open source, we may not have to pay as much if they're closed source, we may have to pay uh uh more for them.

Uh And just the general quality of our products.

If you're a closed source person who believes that that's the way to go.

Uh Then you'll be offering closed source and we'll be using closed source technology like I said, similar to Apple.

If you're open source, uh then we'll be seeing more open source technology similar to Android.

And so, you know, that's kind of the, the general idea.

Uh I think going on here and uh just to reemphasize Zuckerberg, uh uh really going after Apple on that one point.

But it'll be interesting to see with, with this kind of fight with open A I Google and the like, yeah, all the company is really getting into A I and it's interesting too because we have a guest later on in the show about how A I is actually creating worker burnout at this point and not creating those efficiencies, but clearly it's not going away any time soon.

So we'll see what happens.

Dan Halley.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Sales of previously owned homes fell for 1/4 straight month in June as a median sales price reached a second straight all time high here t to the numbers and what they mean we have Yahoo Finance is Morning Brief and Catalyst, co anchor Shana Smith and shot that we saw you exist in home sales in the month of June dropped one of the slowest pace since 2010.

So still very ugly out there.

Yeah, let's put this all in perspective here for the viewers.

So again, existing home sales, these are previously owned homes that those sales falling 5.4 percent in the month of June.

Putting that e even further into perspective here for the viewers.

That's the biggest drop that we've seen going back to December.

And when you take a look at this on a regional basis.

Taking a look at the map of the US.

You can see that decline in all four regions.

You've got the West dropping just about 2.6%.

The northeast declining about 2%.

The biggest drop though is what we saw in the Midwest where existing homes, there are falling 8% going on to take a look as to why we are seeing some of the uh cause here or I guess the shortage here in homes is really pushing the price of homes higher.

When you take a look at the median existing home sales price that was up another 4% this quarter or this month, the second month in a row of another record high and just below 427,000.

When it takes a look at who is buying these homes.

First time home buyers, we know that this is so critical here to look into it just how much they are accounting for the total of homes sold.

And you can see first time home buyers accounted for less than a third of the existing homes that were sold.

Why does this matter?

Well, economists and strategists, they really say that this number needs to get to around 40% in order to signal a robust housing market.

So here we are at 29%.

Well below what that needs to be.

We flip over to the all cash offers when you talk about the fact that median home sale price is at another record high.

It's even harder for these first home buyers to compete within this housing market because 28% of the home sold, it was to all cash buyers.

So we get a huge disadvantage for first time home buyers who are trying to get into this market.

Now, exactly what this may signal.

If you're looking for any sort of good news within this rather weak report, you can take a look at those inventory numbers.

They did tick up just a bit.

So maybe what that could ultimately mean here up just about 3.1%.

What that could ultimately mean is maybe we are trending in the right direction.

So as the 30 year fixed mortgage rate as that continues to fall or has fallen here over the last several weeks, that coupled with this rise in inventory could maybe signal signal a more bullish housing market ahead here for home buyers.

But again, as it stands right now via mortgage rates where they are so many of these existing homeowners, those that already are in homes are staying within the homes because many of them are locked in with rates under 5% which is much lower than today's current rate.

Ali I like that.

You ended on a bit of a positive note there, Shana though, an important check into the housing market.

Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks.

Well, people don't seem to be buying homes.

They also aren't really fixing them up.

Remodeling activity has been in decline since 2022.

That's according to a new report from the joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, but it is expected to pick up next year here with more on.

This is Abby.

Well, from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Abby, thank you for joining us.

Look, remodeling spending still expected to be negative but should improve according to your estimates.

Does this mean we're exiting this quote unquote, remodeling recession?

Yeah, and great to be with you today, Ellie.

And I think that's exactly what we're seeing, right, that, you know, we've been facing some pretty challenging headwinds, uh, for remodeling over the last couple of years, you know, the high costs of labor and materials, um, that, that pretty severe weakness that we've seen in home sales that we just heard about is continuing today.

You know, with those high house prices, the high mortgage rates, you know, a lot of remodeling tends to happen around the time of the sale.

Um, but, you know, our latest projections for, for homeowner improvements and maintenance repairs, it, it certainly indicates that the current downturn in spending should bottom out, um, by the end of this year and that spending levels are, are expected to start to kind of tick back up, uh, through the first half of 2025.

And, you know, a lot of those headwinds that I, that I just mentioned they might continue to, to challenge remodeling moving forward.

But, you know, the fact of the matter is we have a lot of current homeowners who are holding, uh, significant levels of equity in their homes today.

They're, they're largely stuck in place with those ultra low mortgage rates.

Like we just heard, um, you know, moving is not a great option.

It's maybe not even a possibility.

And so I think a lot of homeowners are planning for longer term occupancy and they're, they're really making their current homes like fit their wants and needs, you know, possibly for, for many years to come.

So, when do you expect the home improvement market to fully rebound and fully recover?

That is a great question that I don't know that I have a good answer for yet.

You know, we, we forecast out just, just a year, right.

And so we're still projecting that over this coming year into the, the middle of 2025 that the market will still be, uh, a little bit lower than what we saw in terms of spending over this last year right down about, uh, just a half of a percent.

So we can maybe call that like zero, right.

The, the, the market might be level this year compared to the last year.

Um, and so that wouldn't be a, a recovery, right?

That wouldn't be a full recovery and certainly not, um, not near the, the kind of peak levels that we saw uh during the, the kind of first couple of years of the pandemic, but we wouldn't expect to get back to, to those levels anytime soon anyway.

So, you know, we, we can't say that we're seeing uh a full recovery in this coming year, but, you know, second half of 2025 moving into 2026 you know, I think we'll be looking for, for a real full recovery.

So what do you think will be the catalyst to that eventual recovery?

Is it all tied to interest rates?

What the fed does and how that could reinvigorate the housing market or, or are there other things at play?

I, I think there's a lot of play just because of the variety of home improvements and, and, and repair activity that is being done.

You know, whether it's more of the, the need to do home improvement projects, you know, replacing more home components, your, your systems and equipment, you know, your roofing, siding, windows, doors, H vac all of that type of activity, especially with our old and aging housing stock.

You know, that's a big part of spending today.

We expect that to be to continue to be a big part of spending.

But, you know, with any uptick in spending that we're, we're projecting, that certainly suggests that owners will be doing a lot more uh discretionary projects over this coming year.

You know, the kitchen bathroom models, the room editions and uh in terms of, you know, the impact of, of the economy, just a stronger economy, a more optimistic economy, you know, of interest rates when, when interest rates come down, I think that will be a big boost for spending, but in particular for those kind of upper end discretionary projects, um that kind of rely more on on financing Abby will from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you.

Coming up is Artificial Intelligence actually leading to employee burnout, we'll discuss next.

Businesses have been investing heavily in artificial intelligence hoping among other things to increase productivity into their employee work flow.

But how is that working out so far?

Well, according to a new survey from the upwork Research Institute, over three quarters of employees polled feel as though A I is actually increase their workload.

For more on the study.

We welcome in Kelly Monahan up work Research institute managing director Kelly, like we just laid out the majority of respondents in your studies say that artificial intelligence has actually decreased productivity levels.

What's driving that?

It's a great question.

Our study did find this surprising finding.

96% of global C suite leaders think A I should be driving productivity in the workforce.

Yet, as your stat just showed, 77% of employees are saying it is actually adding to the workload and even more alarming 44% say they don't even know how to achieve the productivity gains.

And so what's causing this is we need to work redesign.

Today.

We really don't have a technology problem.

We have an outdated thinking around the way we organize work and talent.

And our research paints a picture that helps guide a playbook for leaders looking to actually capitalize and drive productivity in an environment with most people today, quite frankly, feel burned out.

So I I would think maybe part of this is because A I models are not fully trained, the technology is not up to snuff if once those A I models are trained, is there an expectation that that could increase that productivity?

And if so when could workers expect some of that relief?

Yeah, see we've seen this before.

It's what researchers call the productivity paradox.

Technology increases exponentially, but the investment in skilling and retraining falls behind.

And so what happens is we have this undervalued technology where people are trying to have their productivity gains, but they're working in a system that doesn't allow them to do so.

And so I think the real problem is going to happen is when leaders embrace outside talent, bring in freelancers and consultants and experts to help guide them and free up some of the productivity burden, the workforce is feeling and really begin to ask the question, what is productivity today and how we measure that another side that stood out to me is that 81% of sweet C suite leaders have said that they are increasing demands on employees.

What are those demands?

Is it longer work hours?

Is it simply more work?

And, and why is this happening now?

Because the labor market is pretty strong?

Yeah, it's one of those things that I think a lot of people are confused about because to your point, labor market is strong.

But the reality is if we take a step back the last 3 to 4 years for the average worker has been rough, we're coming out of a pandemic.

There's been this whole debate about return to office hybrid working arrangements.

Many people are working differently.

Today, we have a I now on the scene with many leaders asking the workforce to work differently and quite frankly, they're demanding more in terms of their skilling and learning and asking them to work in different ways.

All of this is compounding and adding up to an environment where the workforce is quite frankly feeling burned out and needing another solution beyond just the technology.

And this is probably not that surprising here considering these increased demands.

But one in three employees say they will likely quit their jobs in the next six months.

What's driving this negative sentiment and the desire to quit?

Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing is a lot of pent up burnout as the labor market continues to be strong, we will continue to see people vote with their feet to go into environments where they're able to have strong human plus machine collaborations.

And I think the reality is people are looking to stay ahead of this technology curve.

We see the headlines every day.

I think people are fearful.

And so they're looking for their, in their leadership to help support them and really begin to understand how to get ahead of this technology and making sure that I'm gonna have a job in the next several years and they can do that again by making sure that we're measuring productivity and using this tool in a way that's encouraging innovation, creativity, even more human work.

And by leveraging outside experts who can really come in and help alleviate this burden.

What would be your advice to employees that are currently struggling with some of that burnout?

Yeah, that's a great question first.

I see you and I hear you, I get it.

I am a researcher and we obviously work in numbers, but the reality is many of us are struggling in the workplace today.

And so if you're struggling today and you've been asked to do more with less, I encourage you upskill and learn this new tool, generative A I, especially when you use as a learning coaching mechanism, not just efficiency play can be a game changer for the workforce.

And once you've used it and you begin to understand how it can, the way you do work it's gonna be hard to go back.

And so number one, upskill and learn, number two, go seek advice and help from people who are experts.

Our data continues to find that freelancers are leaving the pack here.

They're at the bleeding edge of this new technology.

And so get go get help and support, learn how to have uh new conversations, learn how to use this technology and really have an outside in perspective because you're not alone on this.

And there's a lot of experts out there who are ready to help Kelly Monahan upwork Research Institute managing director.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for having me right after the break.

We're discussing how you should be investing in your future at every stage of life.

Stick with us.

29% of Gen Z did not contribute to their retirement in 2022 and 2023 according to bank rate but not contributing might not be that bad at different life stages.

People might wanna save for their future a little bit differently here to discuss retirement and investment strategies for all ages.

We have Judy Brown Scnh Wealth, Principal and wealth advisor, Scnh Wealth is a consulting and financial services firm, Judy.

Thank you for joining us.

You say account diversification is key, especially when it comes to those pre retirees.

So how can you be diversified when, when you're thinking about retirement?

Absolutely.

And uh pre retirees are usually in their highest earning years So we're looking for opportunities for them to do some uh tax planning and tax savings, which is important since they're in such a high tax bracket.

But we also want to prepare them for retirement and account diversification is giving them a lot of different levers to pull when they get to retirement for income.

So that we can also manage their tax brackets in retirement.

So that involves not only contributing to an Ira or traditional or a 401k, but we like to try to be able to maybe do some raw conversions if possible.

Um, or start saving in a brokerage account or an HS A.

So there's just a lot of different buckets than that you can leverage later on.

And it's not just those Preti we also have young adult, young adults, younger folks, we have those that are retired.

How do those investment strategies change as you work across the various age groups?

Yes.

So when we have young, um, 20 something that are coming to us, it's actually a very exciting time.

They have a lot going on.

It's more complex than what you might think.

Um, they're usually graduated, maybe they have some student loan debt, they're taking their first job.

They're not really familiar with what, uh 401k is or how to get a match.

Sometimes they're in a low tax bracket.

So a Roth might be contribute to the 401k to get a match and then switch to the Roth if they don't have a Roth 401k option.

So a lot of planning can go into that mostly at that age.

It's about educating and helping to, um, instill habits, helping these young people instill habits so that they can set themselves up for the long term with financial success for retirees.

It's interesting in that once.

Hopefully we've done a lot of planning to get them there.

And, um, now we're looking at, it almost becomes age based.

There's a lot of age milestones that we see for retirees.

Um For instance, a lot of people think of social security at 62 but don't because they're still working or they wanna get a higher uh full retirement uh amount from their Social security.

Um But then when they hit 65 they have Medicare, um which is uh not all premiums are the same in Medicare.

They're driven by a modified adjusted gross income.

So again, we're integrating the, the tax and the investment piece there.

And then later on, um we're looking at um required minimum distributions which can start at 73 or 75.

So what this does from uh a financial planning and tax advice perspective, it gives us a lot of um time to really map out a lifetime uh tax efficient strategy, not just one year, but it could be delaying social security till 70 makes sense so that we can do Roth conversions in those couple of years.

So that when they get to 73 or 75.

They don't have a huge taxable event, start with very high required minimum distributions.

Yeah, it is interesting how those strategies change the older you get even for those younger folks as well.

So, what's the biggest mistake that you often see when it comes to early retirement planning, too early for people retiring early or, or even when they're starting that process of, of, of, you know, planning for their retirement and investing.

Yeah, I think a lot of times people don't believe they need the financial planning or even most of the integrated tax advice and financial planning until they, even until they have a significant amount of assets or they have a complex tax return.

And as I mentioned, there's always, there's always something even for a young person that we generally can tweak or find or advise on or do differently that's just going to, especially over a long period of time is gonna make significant differences in, in them being able to meet their financial goals.

So I guess I would say that's probably the biggest mistake is kind of putting your head in the sand and, uh, it's hard, it's hard for people to, to look at it.

And, uh, but as soon as you put a goal out there and you start working with someone and working on it, it, it's amazing how you can get there more um, easily and, and it's a more pleasant experience.

We have an election coming up in November.

We've already seen a lot of surprises so far.

Should you change your investment strategies or your retirement strategies savings plans?

In order to protect yourself from that potential volatility, we are very much long term focused.

So we believe in uh the individual should or the clients should put together their plans, their goals and then we build around that.

There's always going to be volatility with this election, the next election.

Um with, you know, anything that happens, we see the volatility and those are people that are out there trying to time the market with your retirement and your those goals.

You really don't wanna time the market instead, you wanna be focused on.

What is your, do you have the proper asset allocation based on your specific goals?

Do you have your investments um broken up kind of between short term, intermediate and long term so that it's a proper risk profile for you?

And um you know, the timing of when you're gonna basically need the income, whatever it is that you want that income for.

And when we wanna be sure to align your um investment strategy with that corn.

Thanks to keep in mind, Judy Brown Scnh Wealth Principal and Wealth Advisor.

Thank you so much for joining us in studio.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

That's it for.

Well, Alexander can now, thank you so much for watching and stay tuned for market domination with Julie High and Josh Lift in coming up at 3 p.m. Eastern.

You won't want to miss it.