Afternoon podcast 9-15-26

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 (0:43)

I hate to be the guy who says, it's just September. Don't worry, September is historic for this kind of market reaction. Markets are bracing, is Fed expected to hike rates for the first time in three years? Can you just imagine how many little ketchup bottles Trump's going to throw against the wall when he finds out worse raised interest rates after basically hand picking the guy to cut interest rates?

I could be wrong. But the market really, really wants a quarter point hike to establish credibility with the Federal Reserve. Take a look at some individual stocks today. It wasn't really all that bad. Semiconductors did better today than they did yesterday. Kind of a little rotation thing going on. Micron was up fractionally. Sandisk was down fractionally. Apple was down one half a percentage point. Qualcomm was up four and a quarter percentage points. It was a very mixed market, in my opinion. You can look at some other names, like Amazon, and see they were down 2% today. AMD was up 2%. Microsoft was down 1.6%. So again, not a lot of rhyme or reason. I do think there's a rotation going on, trying to keep the S&P 500 close to 8,000, but don't break below 7,300. I don't know if that happens.

The S&P 500 was down 1.5% point today. The Dow was down 2.3% of 1%. The NASDAQ was down 3.25% of 1%. The Russell 2000 down 3.25% of 1%. But that really wasn't the story. Bitcoin down 4.2%. That was the story. Speculative assets are no bueno. Gold was down 4.107%. Crude oil was up 4%.

When you take a look at bonds and treasuries, the 10-year closed at 4.996, as close to 5 as you can get.

30 years sits at 5.3%.

Those are pretty good yields, if that's your thing. So, tomorrow we get the FOMC decision. Will it change buyers and sellers on Wall Street? It might. Oil prices were at it again today. Dang you, rascal. They were a major influence on the session. Crude oil settled almost $5 higher at $105.82 a barrel for WTI crude. Tenth gain in the last 11 sessions, leaving oil nearly $20 higher in the month of September, as the conflict with Iran continues. I read some scattered notes about how it's going in Iran and how Iran has hit some US bases in the Middle East. A little bit harder than the Trump administration wants to admit.

The 10-year yield rose four basis points today. It was playing with 5%. The utility sector was down 1.2%. Their laggards, why? Because utilities are probably the area of widows and orphans where they need to live off that dividend. So now, that company, the utility company, is facing competition with money that needs yield, with hyperscalers, bond issuance, and with the government debt bond issuance. Yikes.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about that coming up later in the show. In fact, in the next segment, consumer discretionary is down 1.8% today. Concerns about inflation squeezing consumer company profit margins. It's Polly Mexican Grill down 5.9%, Carvana down 5.6%.

Let's see how old McDonald's is doing. I talked about McDonald's probably 72 hours ago about potentially buying it, telling you that I'm not you. So most of my money is in wealth accumulation. Some of my money is in wealth management. And I look at the one year chart on McDonald's, and I see it at $252 a share. Down 1.8% today, down 4 bucks. And then I say, let's take a closer look at that chart, because that's pretty interesting to me. It's at a 52 week low.

It's at a one year low. They're still making horrible chicken nuggets. They're still making hamburgers that taste like cardboard. To me, to me, to me, to me, if you love it, good for you. It's got a 2.8%, almost 2.9% dividend yield that I think is protected. As the stock goes lower, that yield looks higher.

McDonald's faces a challenge with a lowered price target from Jefferies recently, down to $325 price target. Again, it's $250. Company is pushing a $20 billion delivery strategy and app integration while navigating inflation and execution issues.