Job market, housing market, travel scams & more: Wealth!

In this episode of Wealth!, Yahoo Finance’s Brad Smith talks to experts about travel scams, the housing market, the job market, small businesses and more, with guests including McAfee Head of Threat Research Abhishek Karnik, Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan, ZipRecruiter Chief Economist Julia Pollak, Forrester Research Retail Analyst Sucharita Kodali, Family Office Investor Rashaun Williams, Bankrate Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick, BE Group Inc. Founder Suzanne Stantley, and CNET Money Editor Dashia Milden.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here.

This post was written by Mariela Rosales.

Video Transcript

Welcome to Wealth Yahoo Finance’s personal finance focus show, helping you think about your money holistically and comprehensively.

The 11 a.m. Eastern Time Hour gives you the best resources for building your financial footprint from our hand picked community of experts.

Take a listen to what they had to say as we got the show off the ground planning on traveling this summer.

If you are, you’re probably using some online resources for booking whether that’s for your plane or your hotel or even activities and guided tours.

We like those.

But are you doing all you can to keep yourself and your money safe?

When you book a recent survey from mcafee labs shows that 34% of Americans say their trust in online booking has decreased mainly due to A I and deep faith.

So here to give us some tips on how to have a fun summer travel season while also staying vigilant.

We’ve got Abhishek Karnick, who is the mcafee head of threat Research?

Abhishek, great to have you here with us today.

Ok. What, what are some of the common pitfalls that you see as people are really just trying to get some relaxation and, and plan for summer travel, but then are also not aware of some of the vulnerabilities.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like, uh as people get up for travel this year, you know, we’re seeing one in four Americans falling victim to scams and probably more than 25 losing $1000 or more.

So, what they, what we need to be careful about when we’re booking is online is to be cautious about those too good to be true.

Uh offers, you know, which get pushed at you, either they come through text messaging or through emails.

Um The other thing that you might want to look for is impersonation website.

So when you’re booking online, you know, you want to make sure that you validate the website that you’re booking through.

There’s a lot of impersonation, impersonated websites, uh booking dot coms, you know, which are faked out photographs that might be incorrect or uh E I generated, for example.

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So you have to be cautious, uh really be skeptical about what you are booking when you’re booking, being cautious about what you’re looking at.

Ok. And so with that in mind, how are we potentially doing on this kind of year over year?

Have, have the threats increased and, and ultimately, where are people taking the correct safeguards?

So, threats will follow the people, right?

I think people are getting ready for, for travel season and therefore you can see an evolution of threats in that space to assist the threats.

You have a lot of tools nowadays, like, you know, the malware guys, the bad guys are leveraging A I and, and trying to, you know, utilize that to create automated text messages or even automated emails.

Uh In the more extreme cases, probably not related to travel.

Sometimes you’re seeing deep fakes, uh things like that.

So those are essentially what you want to be looking out for, have a heightened level of skepticism.

Uh, when you’re traveling, you want to look at the, there are two pieces to it, right?

It’s before you travel.

When you do the booking, that’s where you need to be cautious.

Which websites are you visiting?

Can you trust the, uh, can you trust the website, uh, and be cautious of phishing scams?

So don’t give away your information to people that you don’t trust.

What about?

And then, then you, you have the situation where you’re traveling where, you know, you might have impersonators, somebody faking to be a travel agent, uh, things like that or, you know, you scanning an incorrect QR code which leads you to an incorrect, uh, website, which scams you essentially.

What about when you’re midway and, and in your travels?

Do you think you’re just bopping around enjoying vacation and you might actually be a target?

How do you kind of spot the signs when you’re, uh, along the way?

Especially if you’re in a foreign country and you might not be privy in entirety to the local language.

And that’s exactly what the scammers are looking for when you’re a little lost.

You know, they might pose a good, um, they might give you a, a incredible deal on travel or you might show up to a website and real or, or show up to a hotel and realize that well, the hotel doesn’t exist or the airbnb doesn’t exist.

So you might want to use, um, you know, a lot has to do with being cautious being skep, don’t pay money upfront.

You know, try to see if you can uh use credit cards to make payments if you see things, people asking you for gift cards or asking you for Cryptocurrency payments.

I mean, those are huge red flags to start off with.

Uh so having that heightened level of skepticism, uh not believing uh you know, who’s interacting with, you don’t take their word for.

It is extremely important and having the right tools in place as well, you know, make sure you see using trusted websites, trusted applications in your phone.

Um You know, and using VPN, for example, when you’re hopping on to free Wi Wi Fi is equally important because these are the different sort of uh vantage points that scammers are utilizing to take your money away.

Great reminders there, Abhishek Karnick, who is the mcafee head of Threat research.

Great to see you.

Thanks so much for taking the time.

Thanks, Bob the number of homes for sale grew by over 35% in May compared to last year.

That’s according to realtor.com.

Now, that sounds pretty good if you’re in the market, but it’s still low compared to pre pandemic levels.

And that supply constraint is impacting costs.

Prices for single family homes rose over 7% year over year according to Fannie Mae.

And to break down how you can hack the housing market.

We’ve got Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae, chief economist here with us.

First, let’s just start broad strokes here.

How would you define the housing market that we are navigating through right now?

Supply constraint.

Uh That’s been a theme for several years.

I know it, it, it’s gotten to be kind of repeating the story but it is, it’s the story.

Uh your point on the the growth in the listed supply that puts us up to about 3.5 months normal is probably somewhere 5.5 to 6 months of existing homes.

One of the interesting things that I think reveals the stress of affordability for the next phase of uh entry level buyers is that the number of completed new homes available for sale is the highest it’s been in almost three decades.

So you have to ask the question, if the market is supply constrained, then why is the completed new homes number as high as it is?

Why is that?

Well, part of it, I think it’s because typically the entry level buyer.

The first time buyer buys an existing home, they fix it up, build a little sweat equity.

Then they use the, the cash from the sale of that home to leverage themselves up to a house that maybe has more attributes that they like.

Their family got bigger.

So they need a little bigger home and some of them turn to the new homes market.

But what’s unusual today is that very low supply of existing homes?

And what you see is the share of first time buyers who are buying new homes.

But builders have a price point to which they can build and it may be diverging from what that first time home buyer can buy.

Today.

As we’ve seen, uh interest rates go up and house prices go up both constraining affordability at today’s mortgage rate.

What does it make more sense to do for first time home buyers?

Does it make more sense to go after an existing home or does it make more sense to, to wait and, and ultimately kind of bank on a build out here?

Well, first of all, it depends on uh on what’s available.

Uh If there is a very low supply of existing homes, you may want to buy there but not find what you look for.

Second thing is what’s your financial capability and what I always give people uh as advice when they ask is now a good time to buy a house is if you have a family budget or a household budget.

So that’s, that’s the most important clause because any lender you talk to is gonna ask you things that will come out of that budget.

So if you can budget it all out, you will know how immediately to answer those questions and you’ll get a better deal at the end of the day.

So if at today’s price and the amount money that you’d have to borrow, the payment fits in your budget that you have then you buy today, you’re a homeowner.

If you’re speculating on whether interest rates are gonna fall, whether prices are gonna fall on refinancing.

Yeah, but then you’ve moved into the realm of being a speculator, some people can afford that.

A lot of entry level buyers can’t really afford that.

So you wanna take a well educated financial management approach to, to that decision because you would like to be able to sustain it.

A lot of people wanna know, what are, what are the Fannie Mae top tips for buying in this market right now?

Well, that the first one would be get your credit in shape because you’re no matter who you talk to, there’s different kinds of lenders.

Uh, all of them are gonna look first of all at what’s your, what’s your credit?

Do you have a good credit score?

Uh, do you have a good record of repaying uh, debts which will be, uh, showing up in that.

They wanna know what, what’s your risk profile?

The second thing would be shop around.

We have evidence that shows if you talk to more than one lender, you always get a better deal than if you only talk to one lender, make them compete.

They, they don’t make money if they don’t make a loan to you.

So they have an interest in satisfying you just like you have an interest in getting a good deal.

So shop around for sure.

Doug Duncan, who is the Fannie Mae, chief economist, Doug, thanks so much for taking the time here.

A pleasure.

Good to be with you.

Been a very busy week for Wall Street, new data out on jolts and AD P revealed the hot job market starting to cool a bit here.

Just today.

We also saw the number of people filing for unemployment benefits or initial jobless claims tick up to 229,000 for the week ending June 1st.

That’s an increase of 8000 from the week prior.

And with the labor market showing some signs of stagnation, we want to help viewers land the role that they want.

And here to weigh in, we’ve got Julia Pollock who is the zip recruiter, chief economist.

Great to have you here in studio with us.

Thank you very much, Brad.

Absolutely.

So, one of the huge things that we’re tracking here is of course some of the moderation in the labor market and there’s naturally the thought of what this means for the fed, how they might evaluate this.

What does that look like from the economists perspective?

So this is a labor market that is actually consistent with non inflationary growth.

The quits rate is perfectly consistent with 2% inflation, labor market tightness is returned to what it was before.

The pandemic is measured by the number of openings per job seekers.

So the labor market is no longer really a a source of major concern.

And it, it suggests that perhaps a, a rate cut may be on the cards this year.

After all.

It’s interesting and especially coming into the set up for Friday where we’ll get the monthly jobs report and and non farm payrolls from the data that we’ve seen come through so far this week.

What is that signal we could be due for in that report?

Sure.

So, you know, the data is actually mixed.

There are lots of signs that hiring is slowing, but this has been a very gradual, orderly cool down.

And I’m actually expecting that Friday’s report could be well above consensus in our marketplace on zip recruiter.

We’ve seen job posting stabilize this year and actually start ticking up again.

We’re seeing quite a lot of demand.

Ok.

So with all of this in mind, you’ve got a lot of potential job seekers, job fillers out there, people who are looking to get back into the labor force trying to figure out how they can beat the bots, how they can make sure that their resume, that cover letter that they spend so much time working on with chat G BT that it actually gets through to the hiring manager and they can get an interview.

What are some of the tips that you would have?

That the most important thing is to use a really, really simple template.

So your resume should read from top to bottom, from left to right.

No tables, no columns, nothing fancy, no fancy formatting.

Simple, keep it straight and simple, stupid.

Uh That’s tip number one, uh two.

It is a good idea to uh tailor your resume to the job, you know, don’t copy and paste the entire job posting and stick it in there in white, which some people were trying to do to game the system.

But uh definitely, uh you know, put your best foot forward and show that you’ve studied the company, you figured out what they’re all about.

Uh and, and, you know, list the most relevant skills and experience.

What about for fresh college grads?

You got a lot of people that just cross the stage.

They, they turn the tassel and now they’re trying to figure out, ok, where, where does the money reside?

Where can I get a job at this juncture?

So how can they go into the workforce even if they don’t have, you know, some of the applicable experience?

And they’re going up against a lot of other people that are just graduating too.

They are.

So, one thing to know is that it has become more competitive over the past year.

There are slightly fewer openings and there are actually more applicants per posting.

So that means you, you know, you don’t, don’t just get discouraged if you get rejected a couple of times, stay with it.

Understand, there’s a numbers game here apply to enough jobs, apply consistently to several jobs every day.

Uh, because there are new jobs being posted all the time.

Oh, you know where to look.

Well, you know, one issue is your major really matters.

Uh, the return on investment on different college majors can range from less than $50,000 to over $500,000.

And so it is important that you study what people need, the skills that employers are actually looking for if you graduate and realize suddenly, oh, boy.

Um, you know, II, I studied biology.

I want something in health care but all the jobs require something more further study in that field.

Uh, it may not be a good idea to settle for a low paying job.

Now that doesn’t use your skills and experience and to put your job search on hold and actually find, uh, more studying opportunities to get the credentials, credentials.

You need to land a good job.

We’re, we’re talking about something really large there in terms of how cost of living how some of the expenses, especially when you come straight out of college and are trying to best position yourself, finance to, to build wealth over time.

How that might also have a role in changing people’s majors that they choose even when they go into our midway through college.

Are we seeing a dramatic shift there?

So, I mean, ideally students should start their job search before they choose their course of study, right?

They should be looking at job postings often they should figure out which skills and credentials employers want and then they should tailor their studies so that they get the skills that they need and they graduate ready for the job market.

The other thing that makes a huge difference is getting internships and getting some kind of practical experience ahead of time.

Employers are a bit suspicious of the value of a college degree these days because sat scores have been doing this and high school graduation rates and college graduation rates have been doing that.

And so uh what they really want to know about is your real life work experience, get internships, get apprenticeships, freelance, do whatever you can to be in the real world, dealing with real world challenges so that you can talk about how you solve them.

These great tips, Julia Pollock, who is the zip recruiter, chief economist.

Joining us here on set all the way from the west coast.

Thanks so much.

Thank you very much Brad.

We’re getting a fresh read on the cautious consumer discount retailer dollar tree disclosed it’s exploring a potential sale or spin off of family dollar as the company struggles to counter weaker demand amid inflation.

But no matter how many deals discounts or savings initiatives, retailers roll out, sometimes it seems like they can’t do anything to change shoppers perceptions on prices.

At least that’s what our next guest says for more on the consumer and their spending habits.

I’m joined by Sucharita Kalli, who is the Forester research retail analyst, Citta.

Great to see you here with us today first.

I mean, take us into your thesis right now about where the consumer sits.

I mean, it, it was amazing to hear from the AD P chief economist just minutes ago saying that this is a battle weary consumer.

What do you make of them and how um how would you define this consumer?

Yeah, we’ve had this expression, the vibe session going on for a while where the consumer has been feeling really down about the economy for a long time pretty much.

Um since inflation has been prevalent, uh the consumer just hasn’t felt good about it.

Um There’s also a political overtone as well that um pretty much dates back almost 10 years at this point where whoever does not have their party in the White House, they tend to be very down on the economy.

So in any economy, you’re going to have 50% of people just unhappy with the current situation.

So there is that, but the irony is that retail spending is at a record high and consumers for a long time were spending at the level of inflation.

And then some only in recent months with some of the census census data on monthly retail spend has some of that uh spending not exceeded the level of inflation.

So we’re seeing that the consumer is finally probably at their saturation point with respect to spending on some of these discretionary goods in particular.

And even with spending at a record high, as you noted a moment ago, it seems like the consumer is being extremely value conscious about where they’re spending, which brands are winning out or which retailers are winning out as that decision making process is being enacted.

Well, certainly Walmart, um and that is a company that tends to do very well in any economy, but certainly in any, in one where they, the consumer confidence is particularly low.

Um You see even warehouse clubs doing well and that’s another element of this economy which is, it’s almost, it’s K it has a K type of recovery, K shaped recovery um in which there are the affluent consumers who are doing well.

And even though those consumers, like everybody are looking for value, they tend to, to, to really gravitate toward those warehouse clubs.

Um So warehouse clubs are doing pretty well in this economy, you have a lot of ecommerce players like Amazon, some of the Chinese upstarts, like t that seem to be doing particularly well right now.

So those are some of the winners.

You would think the Dollar Channel would be doing well in this kind of an economy.

And probably when you look at certain store profiles, they probably are.

Uh but at the same time, the Dollar Channel is incredibly saturated, there are more dollar stores in the United States than just about any format.

And you also have a lot of the dated dated stores that are part of that family dollar chain with Dollar Tree, of course acquired, that could be part of the reason that people are going to Wal Mart instead, Wal Mart has just spent a ton of money renovating a lot of its stores.

So it’s just a more pleasant store environment that also delivers value.

That’s really interesting, you know, especially as we’re hearing about some of the spin off intentions that Dollar Tree is talking about with family Dollar, which underneath of it, the same store sales.

I mean, a fraction of what we had seen in terms of the rise year over year for this most recent quarter.

What do you make of that strategy?

Especially as they’ve already been closing many of the unprofitable or under performing family dollar stores and kind of pivoting Dollar tree in in certain elements to getting back towards um these prime locations where it is more focused around selling for a dollar and where they can ultimately kind of retain consumer mind share there.

Yeah.

Well, typically, um, stores sales are heavily dependent on whether or not, of course, people want to shop there and every few years, whether it’s a decade, sometimes even longer stores need to be renovated because if they are not, um, they get very tired, they get dirty.

It’s, um, there, there will be things that literally haven’t been touched in that period of time that need to be cleared.

And uh when a store does not make those changes or it’s too expensive to make those changes, which it may not because you have to remember.

Um The Family Dollar Chain has been around since the sixties.

So a lot of those locations may just not be great locations anymore retail locations.

Um cha the the success of retail locations changes, geographic centers change as neighborhood are developed.

Um The uh the Dollar Tree at the Dollar Tree brand is, is much newer and um they likely are seeing better comps as a result of just having some of those better locations.

So, so certainly the renovation piece is a big part of it and it sounds like they just don’t want to invest right now in some of that renovation.

And that’s, that’s part of the reason that they’re looking to divest.

But the question then is like, well, where are you going to make, make up the difference.

Well, they did purchase um about half of the 99 cent store chain with what’s left of it there.

And that could be an interesting one because 99 cent store is actually has a pretty cult following.

Um, it exists to support essentially food deserts in a lot of the southern California and uh south southwester part of the United States.

So, um that could be some, the ways that they, they look to to have a, a different strategy situated just lastly while we have you here, we got a company that’s gonna be reporting earnings later on today in Lululemon.

That could be a barometer of to what extent high income is perhaps continuing to spend or middle income might be trading down into uh an Athleta if you will even, what are you gonna be looking out for there?

Well, Lulu’s been doing pretty well.

They’ve been growing double digits.

So I’d be surprised if we didn’t see similar numbers today.

They have been one of the retailers that’s absolutely been gaining share while the apparel industry overall has struggled.

Um And certainly even with, with, in comparison to other athletic apparel, um merchants and brands like Nike Adidas under Armour Lulu’s definitely been outperforming them.

So, um so, so, but if we do see anything soft, I do think that it suggests it could be a harbinger of consumer sentiment finally, um you know, kind of bringing down those inflation numbers probably finally to the level that the fed would like um in, in the coming months, such always a pleasure to get some of your insights and analysis.

Soita Kalli, who is the Forester research retail analyst.

Great to see you.

The NFL season may be a few months away from kick off.

But that doesn’t mean teams aren’t busy filling out their rosters, securing new sponsorships or even bringing in some new owners and partners.

Late last month, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank announced four new limited partners are joining his ownership group following approval from the NF L’s full ownership.

Joining me now is one of those limited partners, venture capitalist, Rashawn, Williams Rashawn.

Great to see you.

I mean, when I saw this come across, I was just like, let’s go.

Finally, it’s about time we get more people who are getting a seat at the table and representative of so many of those players who are also involved in the league’s operations on a day in day out basis.

Uh uh What, what is the significance of this?

From your perspective?

What comes next after this?

Well, Brad, first of all, it’s great to see you.

You know, I’m a huge fan been following you for years and years since visiting you on the New York Stock Exchange years ago.

Actually, during the Lyft IP O I see you have the Lyft CEO coming up later this week for earnings.

Um Look, I think Atlanta is a very special place.

And I think the Falcons hold a very special place in the community for Atlanta.

And I’m just appreciative of the opportunity that the organization that Arthur Blank gave to us.

And we’re just gonna try to be the best LP S that we can possibly be and really give back to our community.

I mean, you are no stranger to kind of having a, a line of communication with so many of the athletes, either falcons related or non falcons related as you’ve been able to kind of work with them on their own investment and wealth building strategies.

What are the considerations that they’re making now differently about how to put their wealth to work and making sure that they’re making money and they’re growing out their wealth passively or actively.

Yeah, brand, like you mentioned the last 24 years, I’ve been focused on the first generation wealthy or the quick wealthy or the underserved community in terms of teaching financial literacy, all the things that I learned on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs and as a venture capitalist the last 24 years.

And there are a few things that I’ve been teaching guys and mentoring them on the most important concept that all athletes NBA MLB or even someone that just exited a tech company or someone that just left Wall Street and has $5 million and has never done anything other than investment banking, right?

But they’re 34 years old, very similar concepts.

Number one, become the general manager of your own finances.

One thing you’ll notice that successful millionaires and billionaires do is they make their own investment decisions and they have a very qualified team around them.

They don’t have to be on the field running plays or calling plays, but they have to be the general manager making sure they reward the people doing well and they kind of reads that their portfolio when things are not going well.

That’s one thing that we don’t see.

I would say first generation or athletes entertainers do that much.

They usually hand that off to someone else who tells them, hey, trust me with your money, you just focus on that thing that you do.

The second thing that you’ll notice that is happening in this society now that wasn’t happening 20 years ago is that athletes are finally figuring out and entertainers, the wealthier you become the less you need a financial advisor.

This is something that billionaires have known for decades.

And it’s a very simple conversation.

Look at the configuration of wealth for billionaires and it’s 90 plus percent alternative investments.

Businesses.

They own real estate, they own less than 10% of their portfolios are actually in stocks and bonds.

Yes, that 10% represents $200 million but it’s still $2 billion in alternatives.

So if you want to invest and grow your wealth, like the wealthiest people in this country you have to own private businesses, you have to own real estate.

And then the last thing I’ll say is the successful investors in this industry align themselves with financial coaches.

Think of a financial coach as a person that’s putting in more money than you doing more due diligence in you and has a track record of actually making money.

That’s the thing that you see that’s happening with athletes and entertainers.

They’re aligning with V CS and private equity guys.

They’re not just getting deals from random people in the streets anymore.

They’re literally aligning themselves with the top 20 venture capital firms and getting in these deals and getting these exits.

You know, it, it’s particularly interesting.

You, you’d mentioned Lyft and us speaking back when that company was going public and I think about the number of private companies that you’ve kind of baked into your investment thesis.

What, what is maybe one of the most compelling thesis that’s out there right now or themes that’s even out there from your perspective.

Yeah, I would say industry wide, everyone’s been focused on cybersecurity, quantum protection and quantum computing and A I for the last five years.

It’s becoming uh you know, news headlines now with A I, especially because of all of the revenue growth you’re seeing uh in that space and in that industry which is driving the S AND P but in the private markets, we’ve been dealing with the A I and the quantum and the cyber for the last 5 to 7 years easily.

So that’s first and foremost, the second thing is within those industries, there’s a large disparity between profitable late stage unicorns and unprofitable companies who still need funding every year in order to continue operations.

And those companies that are not profitable are getting penalized with lower revenue multiples than the ones that are profitable because of where we are in the interest rate environment.

So there are some buying opportunities if you can buy some of these companies, knowing that we’re coming into a different cycle on the interest rate side and kind of ride that multiple expansion that a lot of investors like myself are, are taking advantage of a lot of people out there.

They say, hey, I can’t get into some of these private names and, and I have to wait for them to come public.

Should people be jumping then at those companies when they do come public or what’s the best due diligence that they can implore once some of these businesses are finally able to make it into the equity markets.

Yeah, I I hate to say it because it’s a very risky market, but I highly recommend people just do index funds and not try to pick the winners.

It’s very difficult.

Even the people who are paid to pick the winners still get it right?

Only 30 plus percent of the time, right.

So if you are a retail investor or a part time investor.

I highly encourage you to do something like a QQQ.

If you want to capture a lot of the technology companies, it’s been averaging 18% returns the last five years.

It was up 54% last year.

Obviously, it’s more volatile.

So on the down market, it’ll, it’ll underperform versus everyone else.

But if you want to really capture a portfolio of technology companies that are public, I would highly recommend an index fund or mutual fund that represents tech.

Now, in terms of picking your spots.

Look if you can get into an IP O which literally only the top investors in the country can really get into or after it’s free trade that day, go for the biggest and the best, go for the ones that are profitable right now, you’ll get rewarded.

And if you’re feeling really adventurous, go for the ones that you think in the next few years have a path to profitability, but stick in those three industries.

Uh quantum uh cybersecurity and A I.

And I think for the foreseeable future, you’ll be fine.

The only thing that’s adventurous is my golf game rashawn.

Uh Just lastly while we do have you, you know, the show is called wealth.

I, I gotta know for people who are trying to actively build wealth.

What’s your number one piece of advice?

Uh The number one thing I would tell folks that I’ve actually never heard any financial advisors or financial gurus say anyone.

So you’re hearing it here first Brad because you’re my guy.

Is this very simple question, what’s your number?

And what I mean by that is what percentage return do you need on your investable assets for your net worth to double in the next 10 years?

And if you wanted to expand on that, what percentage return do you need on a portion of your assets to live off of passive income?

This is the problem where people who have $10 million and they retire at 35 if you’re only getting 2% returns, but they need 10 in order to grow an internet work and live off passive income, there’s a slow leak to the bottom.

So you always start from what number do I need?

Not.

What number am I getting?

What do I need?

And then you align yourself with places that you can get those returns, whether it’s stocks, real private equity, venture capital, franchises or bonds or in this case, even money markets at 5%.

So start out asking yourself what is your number?

What percentage return do you need?

Not what I’m giving.

And then you find the best team that can help you accomplish that goal.

Always a wealth of wisdom in your words of Sean Williams.

Thanks so much for joining us here on Yahoo Finance.

It’s great to see you.

Good to see you.

We got a fresh read on the labor market this morning, April job openings falling to their lowest level since February 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of hires didn’t change much.

This is all a sign that in some sectors, employers are still on boarding new workers, but the number of jobs available in aggregate are continuing a downward trend.

So what does this mean for everyday workers here with more?

We’ve got Mark Hambrick, he’s the bank rate, senior economic analyst.

Mark.

Great to have you here.

Just want to get your read through on what we saw come through in jolts this morning.

Good morning, Brad.

Great to be with you.

I think this is pretty consistent with what we expect in the context of a job market and a broader economy that are normalizing after the disruption, the volatility, the distortions associated with the pandemic.

And so you reference there, the number of job openings is the lowest since early February or early 2021.

Well, what was going on then?

It was the rush to reopen the economy in the months before that.

And so we had job openings topping 12 million which you know, it was mind blowing then it’s still mind blowing now.

But the number of job openings is still above pre panic levels, which is healthy, I think.

And uh we’ll see just how this normalization or perhaps slowing process works its way through the system as we get into the second half of the year, you know, Mar, and you laid it out.

Well, I mean, this week we’ve got a ton of data that’s coming forward on the employment situation front in totality.

Of course, jolts just being today ad p private payrolls tomorrow and then it all leads up to Friday’s big jobs report as well for the trend that we’re seeing really emerging here.

What is the fed gonna be looking forward to, to, to really shift the tenor of their conversation towards a cut?

Well, I don’t think they’re going to shift the tenure of their conversation.

The conversation remains the same attentive to their dual mandate with the major focus being inflation with prices too high and inflation uh above where they want it to be.

And of course, if we were to see a significant weakening in the job market, which we have not seen with the unemployment rate below 4% for more than two years, then let’s think about the dual mandate, stable prices, maximum employment, then they start to be a little more concerned about the maximum employment piece of that.

But for now, the focus is almost exclusively on the stable prices piece.

And you know, we have to get through, I would say several months of data for officials to be attaining greater confidence that inflation is coming down closer to their 2% target.

Certainly.

And, and all these things in mind, how important is the wage data that we’re going to get over the course of this week to that inflationary calculus that the fed is running.

Well, of course, as you were beginning to ask that question, I was going to say, well, it’s incredibly important to the workers and even the employers who have to consider whether to provide those pay raises.

But let’s sort of hearken back to the fact that first of all, wage gains have been moderating as with the strength of the job market overall.

And the fed does not believe that wage gains have been a primary cause of the inflation.

We have seen.

We all, I would say, I want to say we all know, but I’m not sure everybody believes that that the source of inflation has principally been the supply chain disruptions.

And then of course, adding literally insult and injury and injury to the whole situation was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine thinking about how that disrupted prices in a globally connected economy.

But I, you know, ultimately these things are all normalizing.

I think what of course is still the real problem at hand is that prices remain elevated.

And so even we could, even though we talk perhaps until the would be cows come home about the level of inflation coming down.

People are agitated and financially pressured by the reality that prices are still high and the Fed really can’t do too much about the latter.

You know, it, it’s interesting mark higher for longer rates is what we’ve continued to hear and have to really wrap our minds around.

How, how much longer are we talking with that in mind?

I mean, we’ve heard some economists change their projections for this year from what we were talking about coming into the start of the year.

It sounded like five or six rate cuts down to one or two, maybe even none.

Yeah.

Uh, obviously, you know, I think I’d be foolish to try to get over my skis on making a prediction about what inflation is going to look like.

456 months from now.

But, you know, I do think the consensus is probably about as close as you can get to right right now where, you know, maybe you get something on the order of one or two rate cuts by the end of the year, but we have a long way to go before we get there.

But I think higher for longer has more relevant meaning to perhaps our viewers and essentially all the stakeholders in the economy.

And I’m going to focus primarily on consumers for this and that and who are ultimately borrowers and savers as well.

And that is that higher for longer can also mean that we’ll not get back to the extremely low levels of interest rates that we saw not only immediately after the global financial crisis, but during the worst economic parts of the uh pandemic.

And Chairman Powell has said that that’s his expectation as well.

And so what does that mean?

And just as much as those times were in a sense, historically distorted, perhaps normalization means that we have higher rates than what we had seen during those crises and really for the balance of the 20 tens.

And so that means that, you know, perhaps we shouldn’t expect mortgage rates at 3% and just barely above, we should expect uh borrowing rates to be as low as they were more broadly.

But also we may see uh better yields on savings than what we saw during those low interest rate years.

When essentially the unintended consequences of that low interest rate policy was that savers were the unintended casualties of that mark.

Always great perspective.

And inside Mark Hamrick bank rates, senior economic analyst.

Great to see you, Mark.

Thank you, Brad.

Great to be with you.

Over 99% of businesses in the US are small businesses according to the small business administration and there’s been a boom in small business applications, over 17 million applications in fact were filed since 2021 according to the Biden administration.

Our next guest was at the White House last week to discuss priorities and research services for small business owners to break it all down for us.

Suzanne Stanley, who is the be Group Inc founder and CEO is here with us.

Thanks so much for taking the time fresh from your visit to the White House.

You gotta walk us into what’s being discussed, what’s being prioritized for small business owners and uh potential entrepreneurs out there looking to start their own small business.

Good morning.

Well, the visit to the White House was extremely enlightening.

Uh The Biden administration has so many programs that they have put in place for the small business.

As you mentioned in the last three years, over 17 million individuals have said I want to start a small business and those businesses if successful will add a lot of jobs and a lot of revenue to our economy.

And so we talked about the Small Business administration and all of the programs that they have in place for the small business.

We certainly know that this department has been around for many, many years, but the programs that they have available for small business have have grown significantly.

There’s been more money invested over $10 billion has been invested just to help small business with their capitalization and start up and technical assistance.

Uh We also discussed the minority Business Development agency and the fact that it has been made a permanent organization within the Department of Commerce and that they are there to assist small businesses to gain this fortitude and the stamina as well as the insights and expertise to run a business.

Sounds like a wide ranging conversation was had.

Uh I wanna know as you’re kind of engaging with small business owners in your own work, how do you navigate some of the mistakes the pitfalls that you see, small businesses frequently make and how can aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners navigate that themselves.

You know, the most important aspect of starting a business is really understanding the industry that that business owner is operating in many people.

Like those 17 million that we talked about have decided they want to start a business.

But have they really done the research, have they really conducted an analysis of the industry and the segment in which they operate in order to really have a good understanding of what they are stepping into running a business is not like running a household.

There are so many variables that have to be managed.

So many variables that have to be adjusted, you have to understand employment and staffing and health care and health insurance and payroll.

So these businesses really need to undertake a full understanding of what they’re getting into.

And that’s why these agencies that the federal government has in place.

Are there to assist these small businesses I talked about within the Small Business Administration?

Uh There are several departments and I just want to enumerate some of those you have the small business development centers which are around the country there to assist small businesses and understanding what the industry looks like that they operate in.

You also have the score business mentors, those business mentors are there to provide advice.

Those small businesses can ask questions and receive answers.

They become the guidepost for those businesses as they begin to make the decision to launch their businesses.

You have the veterans business uh outreach program.

Of course, veterans have a number of services available to them that are not necessarily available to all small businesses.

And then you have the women’s business development centers.

So no matter where a small business operates in this country, they can access those particular agencies and get assistance and support.

One of the uh viral sayings of a few years past was where the money reside.

And a lot of small business owners wanna know where is the potential free money that they can get in order to make sure that they are putting that capital to work for their small business.

Well, you know, free is an interesting term and most of the um businesses access to capital programs reside within the Small Business Administration, as I mentioned already.

And the Minority Business Development Agency, the Biden administration invested $10 million.10 billion dollars to support small businesses and empower them to gain access to this capital that you just mentioned, which is critically important because without capital, a business can operate.

One of the issues with small businesses.

Is this again?

So many of them may be experts in a specific area, but they’re not experts in running a business.

And so consequently, they need to have the tools in place to operate their business.

Inflation continues.

To hit Americans wallets and they’re certainly feeling the burn here.

According to a recent CNET money survey, 188 million adults in the US have had to postpone purchases or significant financial goals due to sticky inflation and higher prices here to break down the, we’ve got Deja Milden who is the C NET money editor.

Great to see you.

Thanks so much for joining us, help us walk through some of these results.

Was there anything that jumped out on a at you in terms of what people are willing to or need to push back in terms of purchases right now?

Yeah, good morning.

I think the one thing that’s the biggest takeaway right now is that the biggest sticker shock is groceries.

That’s 77% according to our survey.

And then it’s followed by another essential gas, which is at 54%.

So it’s clear that what we’re seeing is that people are surprised by what they’re having to pay for essentials and they don’t really have what it takes right now to put more to those longer term goals that we just talked about, right, the vacations, the homes, the cars we even saw according to our survey that people are having to tap into credit cards, buy, now, pay later their savings.

So it’s really clear that we’re having to take a closer look at our budget and more importantly what that means for our money now.

And in the near future.

Yeah, Deja, we get all of these different readings about the consumer.

I mean, we got consumer confidence last week and we were discussing even with the conference board, um, the chief economist Dana Peterson hopped on with us to really discuss what their view of the consumer is right now.

And we’ve seen this moderate over the past about 18 months or so going from the consumer.

Hey, it’s resilient or, or we are, I mean, we are the consumer uh to all the way to this juncture where you’re hearing companies like Walmart, uh talking about the consumer being relatively consistent or relatively stable, that’s a far cry from resilient or, or saying that there is all out strength.

So how do you define and how are you in this data seeing the consumer and, and what is that definition of them?

From your perspective?

What we’re seeing right now is that consumers are really having to think about essentials um for that, for them that may look like still visiting Walmart and Target, but really being mindful before they hit that checkout line, right?

So what we’re seeing also is that a lot of those companies and retailers are able to slash prices right now, they’re cutting back on, let’s say a lot of those essential slashing prices a bit and it can work in our favor.

That being said, we’re reaching a point where we’re having to boil down what it really means for our budget, those savings that we’re seeing can really help us to save a little bit more on groceries.

Like we just talked about saving on gas a little bit more.

So it makes it a little bit tougher to really see the consumer really having to plan for long term when right now a good portion of America is just trying to get by.

Yeah, certainly.

And one of the huge things that we’re also trying to get our heads around is where they’re going towards as they’re trying to get by.

Has this changed where they’re shopping?

I’d say for many of Americans, we’re looking at what it means for when it comes to comparison shopping.

So yeah, that comes down to going to different stores, choosing different brands even considering wholesale clubs.

We talked to our expert review board and we are seeing that people are shopping their pantry first before even visiting the store.

So that can look really different depending on the consumer.

But more importantly, the bigger picture takeaway there is that we’re doing anything we can at this point to save money to cut those costs down.

It was interesting too.

And just lastly while we have you, you laid out the impact on each generation as well.

And some of the findings from this uh what was the main take away there?

Millennials and Gen Z millennials are not planning right now, the majority of millennials are not planning to handle those long term goals and purchases right now, the homes, the vacations, the cars and even more.

So they’re having to tap into savings.

1/4 of millennials are having to do it that in order to cover the essentials.

So right now it goes back to, hey, right now might not be the time to buy that home even though prices and, and interest rates may look favorable depending on the consumer.

Right now, Essentials are the biggest key in making sure that everyday life is taken care of.