Workers Are Dropping Out: What Falling Labor Force Participation Signals for the Economy

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is InvestTalk from KPP Financial, helping investors make sense of the markets one day at a time. Here's your host, Justin Klein.

**Justin Klein** (0:16)
Good afternoon, fellow investors, and welcome back to our last edition of InvestTalk for the week, which is our Friday edition. This is August 7th, 2026
We're here to unpack whatever is happening in the markets, as well as mostly what's on your mind. There's a lot that we can talk about, but ultimately this show is about you and your furthering your education. So that's why you are vital to the show, not just on Fridays, not just on Mondays, but every single weekday. So we encourage you to give us a call at 888-99-CHART, 888-992-4278 is how you get through and ask your question on today's show. Now, in just a bit, we'll talk about today's market performance and run down the show topics for the hour. But first, let's tackle this caller question now.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:09)
Just calling the check about A's and Buster's, the ticker simbers play.
Just want to get your thoughts on it. The price has dropped pretty dramatically and want to see if this is a business that's sustainable during this financial environment. I can't wait to hear. Thank you.

**Justin Klein** (1:28)
All right. Looking at play, P-L-A-Y is the symbol. This is Dave & Buster's Entertainment. It's down a lot. Well, that's because it looks like it's on the verge of bankruptcy. This is the perfect example of the type of name that you can't look like any name. You can't look backwards. You have to look forwards.
In 2024, they made $1.46. They made $2.79 in 2022 But last year, they lost $1.40. This year, they're supposed to lose $0.86 and then lose another $20 something since next year.
I'm trying to get into my other system here. So this takes a second. But that's the issue is this is a company on the verge of bankruptcy. Whenever you see a company trading single digits, now not quite there, it's trading at about $10 per share.
But it's headed that way. It's been in a long downtrend. It was high back in 2024, was up at over $60 per share. So we're down over 80, about 85%.
When stocks do that, it's usually for a reason.
And the first thing you should look at is, when stocks are at 80, 90%, there's two reasons for it. One is they used to be way overvalued. It happens a lot in, you know, go look at the Zoom chart from 2020, 2021, and then it rolled over dramatically. So it was just drastically overvalued. It doesn't mean Zoom was going bankrupt or a bad company. It just fell a lot because it was way overvalued. Dave & Buster's is a bit different, where never the most exciting business, but people like to go out, play video games, things like that. Clearly, they overexpanded, that happens often when you try to pursue growth with a lot of capex spend. Does that remind you of anything going on right now in the AI world? And that's why people are a bit worried, is that maybe this doesn't pay off. And for Dave & Buster's, it didn't pay off. They now have about $3.5 billion in debt with a market cap of $357 million. Their free cash flow is now negative. Return on equity is negative 51%.
So this was bad management. They messed up. They grew too fast. They spent too much money. They assumed everything that happened during COVID was going to sustain itself forever. And it clearly didn't. So this is certainly a name you want to stay away from. And it looks like it is headed for bankruptcy. Then we had a great show yesterday. We looked into this question. In the AI arms race, is the US lead over China already gone? We talked about what the competitive shift means for technology investors and long-term US economic leadership. We also answered listener questions on traveler company, travelers companies TRV. If you happen to miss it, go check it out. The best way to get every show is to follow InvestTalk wherever you get your podcast. We have a lot of ground to cover over the next 45 minutes or so, and time permitting, we will get to all of it. Our main focus point today is about workers dropping out, what falling labor force participation signals for the broader economy. We're going to look at that story and much, much more including SpaceX investors.
A lot of them were able to unload some shares today. Luckily, it was up, one of those buy the rumors, sell the news type of events. But I think we'll dig deeper into the early investors in SpaceX. Then we're going to touch on how software companies are pivoting in the age of AI. That will be interesting as well. We're going to look at that number and much, much more. We have voice bank questions. One is on 529 plans and the other is on HubSpot, HUBS. We have some questions that came in earlier via the comments section on our YouTube channel. But most importantly, it will be your calls. We're going to head to a quick break. But please remember, you can call at any time and leave your question on the InvestTalk voice bank or if you're listening via our live stream on our website or maybe on AM1220 in the Bay area, you can call right now at 888-99-CHART. Hang on. We'll talk about today's market activity in the next segment.