Afternoon podcast 10-13-26

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Welcome to the afternoon Rob Black Show podcast, a guaranteed human podcast, which can also be heard on AM 1220 KDOW weekdays at 5 p.m. and on 860 AM The Answer weeknights at 11 p.m. The views and opinions expressed in the program are not necessarily those of this radio station or its sponsors and should not be construed as legal tax or investment advice. You should always consult the appropriate advisor before making any financial decision, all rights reserved.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

Now, new focus on wealth, new focus on wealth, get a new focus on personal finance, wealth management, Wall Street, and the economy. Now, Rob Black.

Rob Black (0:44)

We are getting really close to the midterm elections, and I feel like the current administration, the Trump administration is trying to pull every lever and dial in any crank that it can to show how great the United States is. Some of them are failing.

SPEAKER_1 (1:00)

Some of them are working, which is a very good thing, which is a very, very good thing.

Rob Black (1:04)

I'm most concerned that our administration two years ago decided to saddle the United States with a lot of debt when we didn't need it. When I look around and trust me, I know that lower income and middle class are struggling compared to the wealthy. But Trump's one big beautiful bill helped corporations and helped the wealthy more so than it helped the middle class and the lower incomes. Thank you very much. I'm not so sure that we have, how shall we say, the credit card to pull out when we need to on future emergencies when they hit like COVID. Wrong. And we go, you know what? Our economy is shutting down. We need to send people checks to continue spending. Otherwise, they're going to have no heat. They're going to have no food. I am concerned about heating bills this fall.

Cost of electricity for most Americans is about 4% higher. Natural gas for most Americans is about 9% lower, except for California. It's about 9%. So I am concerned about some of this. So I'm going to be watching, and I'll be honest, I think the market's got a lot of, I'm going to be watching going on. I'm going to watch what happens with the economy. I'm going to watch what happens with midterm. I'm going to watch the midterm. So it's going to be over in 30 days. And when it is, we're going to say thumbs up. We now know the Democrats run Congress, or it's a split Congress, or the Republicans are making control of Congress.

And that's going to talk a lot about the economic agenda for 26th of November, November 2026, through the next election in 28

MasterCard stock is up eight days in a row. I own some MasterCard. I don't think the run is over. But what's important to note there is I also own some Visa.

My kids say, Daddy, I need their little need machines. And I say, put on your phone. And their phone has all my credit cards in it. I rarely say no. It's transaction here, transaction there, transaction here, transaction there, everywhere a transaction. And those transactions make money. Now, again, will that always be the case for Visa and MasterCard? I can't say that with a lot of certainty. I can tell you it has been for 30 plus years, and I'm going to bank on that for a little bit.

Major averages finished Tuesday's session with modest changes recovering from more pronounced intraday weakness as a late improvement in semiconductor stocks helped stabilize the broader market. The NASDAQ down 2 tenths of 1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average down 4 tenths of 1 percent. S&P 500 was flat, nearly unchanged.

I'm really okay with this market because we are hanging out closer to all-time highs and we are 10, 20 percent down. There's a lot of talk about how the average stock is down 10, 20 percent, but that the big boys are carrying the markets, and I agree with that. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 2 tenths of 1 percent, but it was down as much as 3.1 percent after the open. What happened?

I had some medical imaging that I had to do today, so my morning podcast was cut short.

But I woke up a little extra early, and I was watching the Korean stock market, and it got pooped on. It got, oh, I'm walking my dog, and there's a little daisy, and oh, no, dog, don't poop on the, oh, on the daisy. That's what happened today. South Korea is cospy, down 5.5%. So that led to us opening up our markets, going, well, what's going to happen here?