Karen Finerman
Appearances
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I think Amazon is really attractive now. It hasn't traded here at this level. So I like to look at PE, assuming a balance sheet's fine, which their balance sheet is, it's, Very good. It's not as good as Alphabet, but it's very, very, very good. That's not an issue in any way at all. It's a positive.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So I think we haven't had a chance to buy a business like this, AWS, which I don't know if you saw on CNBC, Andrew Sorkin's interview with Andrew Jassy last week. And he talked about AI as the most transformative thing. They are not slowing down. their AI business. And like what they saw as the opportunity in cloud, maybe a decade ago. This is what they think the opportunity is now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
The margins in that business are gigantic. And then they have this extraordinary retail business. And so together you're trading, it's trading at about 28 times earnings. It hasn't been here probably ever in its entire history. So that's one that I've been adding to that I like.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Right. Well, for you guys, that must be all the time, every day.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I don't know. I think it's 50-50. The thing that's so unusual about this particular time is that it seems to be a self-inflicted wound, right? That I think we could get out of this fairly quickly if we had some clarity. The market hates uncertainty. So even bad news with certainty is better than vague uncertainty with no news. So it's hard to know.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Could the president just switch strategy and say, all right, we've got 15% across the board. That's it. That's the deal around the world. I think the market would rally tremendously. But I'm also not optimistic that that will happen in the short term.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
What is covering? So if I'm short Q's against a portfolio that has exposure to the max seven, I'll buy some back. So I bought some back. Often I own puts that are, I'm not looking to buy puts that start to make money right if the market goes down right from the the point that I buy them. I'm looking at it as protection if the market goes down 5% or more, that kind of move.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So what I think of is sort of insurance with a high deductible. I'm going to take some pain the first 5% down before that hedge really starts to kick in. It'll start to move, but it won't. It'll really kick in the lower it goes. And when you own those and the market's going down, you're like, oh, thank God I own these puts. That's the time to sell them.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
It's hard to do, but almost always it's the right thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I wouldn't be exploring them now for the first time. I can tell you it is a wild, wild market out there. And with zero day options, I wouldn't touch those. And those are options that expire. The same day. Right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Yeah. With probably very, very good information. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that going on. That's not luck. No. Would you want to step into that? I mean, would you follow it? Maybe. That might not be so dumb. Right? That could be like, look, I don't know what's going on, but I know that that guy does. That's... It's not an even playing field right now. It is not.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And so this isn't the time if you don't if you don't use options, this isn't the time to start trying them out. But I do. I think it's a good tool to have sort of in your, you know, your toolbox to be able to express. You can a long bet. Right. You want to know the name. But let's say there's a lot of risk. You feel like other business could be terribly damaged in a tariff war that's protracted.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Then you can buy calls instead of the stock and know, all right, here's the most I could lose. You know, with certainty, you know what they call how much you can lose. You don't know how much you can make on the upside. And, you know, really is a lot. That's great. But you know what you can lose. So certainty, again, is important.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
good thing to have yeah it's insurance you know buy it yeah insurance insurance the fire right how much how much is fire insurance now it's not even available probably right yeah right exactly so same thing with hedging lock in your protection before the chaos right chaos it's very expensive and usually doesn't work out well when you buy protection in chaos
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I can sort of, but honestly, I'm not sure. I can tell you sort of what's happening. So we're seeing normally when there is a crisis such as this, there is this, what's called a flight to quality. And money around the world goes to the United States because it is the safest, the biggest, the rule of law, all of the things that make the US market great.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And so people buy US dollars and they buy treasuries. They might buy short term, they might buy the 10 year, for example, and That's usually what happens in a crisis. That did not happen in this crisis. In fact, the reverse happened. So there was selling in treasuries. We saw the 10-year yield. When people sell the bonds, yields go up.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
They need to, you know, if you want to entice more people to buy those bonds, you have to pay more interest. So that worked the opposite way that we would have seen. And so when you have people from around the world, let's just use the example of Chinese sellers. I don't know how much of the selling was Chinese sellers, but they own hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds, $750 billion of bonds.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So they sell their 10-year bond. You get dollars back for the bond. They sell those dollars. So you have this effect of the bonds going down and the dollar going down, which is the opposite of what you thought would happen. In addition, there was this giant levered basis trade on that had people... Buying the 10-year, selling the 30, and they have to get out.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
That was sort of on top of it in a chaotic market. And then you had one more thing, the Japanese yen trade, which has been on for years, which is people... They take that money by dollars, by treasuries. Well, that started to unwind when China, when Japan started to raise interest rates and the yen appreciated. And then there's this question mark of, is the U.S. going to remain the reserve?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Is the U.S. dollar going to remain the reserve currency of the world? I think so. But the idea that that's even a question right now is scary. So... A lot of things going on. Plus one other thing, which is in the last year or so, there's been a move out of some U.S. equities into other countries, mostly Europe, because the valuation differential has gotten so huge that we talk about U.S.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
exceptionalism and how great this country is to do business and rule of law and all of that great capital markets, all of that. But the EU had underperformed for so many years and the U.S. markets had done well. The value proposition changed. So money started to leave the U.S. having nothing to do with tariffs. This this predates Trump's election.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Prices go up. That's sometimes confusing if you're new to it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And then the dollar goes up.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Was really weird. And one more thing to think about was that... The Trump administration's plan was, OK, if we slow the economy, then bond yields in the 10 year in particular will trade down. meaning the interest rate will be lower. So we know we have this enormous deficit that we need to fund. And one of the ways to fund that, you sell 10 years.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
You can sell much nearer in, but then you gotta keep rolling and you don't know where interest rates will be. So it wouldn't have been a terrible thing if the 10 year traded down because there were concerns about a recession and that we were able to issue tens of billions of dollars or hundreds of billions of dollars of 10 years at a low rate. And so our interest rate costs would have gone down.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
But that's not what happened. And I think that correlation breaking down is what ultimately made Trump put on the 90 day pause to cool down the things that seem to be almost breaking.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Yeah.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Your money, if you're in the U.S., buys less. So one of the things that originally the Trump administration had talked about was, well, other currencies are going to go down against the dollar because we're, you know, king of the world. And so that even if we are tariffed, that will lessen some of the blow. And that's not what happened, right? So the euro has appreciated a lot.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
The pound has appreciated. The Mexican peso is about flat from when he was elected. The Canadian dollar's down a little bit, but these big moves are not happening. So that's interesting. I don't know what exactly to make of it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Right, whatever it might be. The one thing it does help is that our goods are comparatively cheaper, right? So If you're European and wanted to buy an American-made whatever, take away the tariffs for a moment. It got a lot cheaper. It got 8% cheaper in the last, I don't know how long, from when you said it was around $1.08 or so. So things got cheaper. That makes us a little bit more attractive.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Also, it does help multinational companies when they report earnings. So let's say you're Procter & Gamble, you sell $10 billion in Europe and you convert your euros back into dollars, you get more dollars, your earnings will go up. But I always dismiss that because it works the other way sometimes. I don't really... I count FX when I think about a company's earnings power. Others do. I don't.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I know. I always have to decode all this. No, it's good. I assume people know, but no one's born knowing what FX is.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I think deregulation. I feel like that is something in their control, and that would be a benefit to many companies. So even Jamie Dimon said it on his call. Jamie Dimon, I think, is one of the greatest financial executives of the last century. Brian Moynihan also said it. He's the CEO of Bank America. He said on his call, the amount of paperwork and legal issues and rules that change and
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
and are so arcane in some ways, and also just, I don't know, whimsical, but that they have to comply with cost banks so much money. So if deregulation happens in many businesses, but let's choose banking because they are particularly regulated, then that will free up more money for making additional loans. It will make the banks more profitable, which makes them healthier.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And Jamie Dimon gave the example of if we could get rid of some of that regulation, we could make mortgages cheaper up to about 70 basis points cheaper, which matters a lot if you're a homeowner and you can get a mortgage 70 basis points. So lower than what you have now. That would be a very good thing. And that's something that's in their control. So we may see that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Not too much deregulation, though.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
We don't want to go through 2008. Right. So things, you know, it's a pendulum, right? We always go from one excess past what probably is the right amount to the other that is the wrong amount is too much. So there's a lot of room to come back and still have guardrails that we need. Absolutely.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Right. And we thought there would be a lot of mergers and investment banking activity. Not happening. One thing that is happening is the amount of trading revenue. So if you're the Goldman Sachs desk or JP Morgan's desk, the amount of volume we're doing trading is extraordinary, right? We've had several of the highest volume days ever just in the last two weeks. So they'll make money on that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
They'll make sort of extra money. But I don't want to pay a big multiple of earnings on what I think is extra short-term money that isn't going to be, a long-term trend of giant trading day, you know, commissions. I'm not, but in the short, very short term, it helps.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
The financials started off really well and then really got hurt in this tariff, whatever you want to call it. I don't know. Do you have a word for it? Fuck, we can bleep it out.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Okay. That is the proper word for it, I think. Yeah. So... Hullabaloo? Hullabaloo. Kerfuffle. Kerfuffle.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Who doesn't love a kerfuffle? Perfect. Just because Jamie Dimon used the word kerfuffle.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Yeah. But he's extraordinarily good at his business. But normally when you see... Turmoil in the financial markets, banks, because they are levered, don't generally trade well. So Citibank didn't trade well. I mean, JP Morgan said it was a 280, went to 210. That's an enormous move. Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs. I mean, all of them. So they all kind of moved together.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
There wasn't really a huge standout of one that... Morgan Stanley is a little bit of a different business model. They were down 30% too. So they all kind of got hit. Citi, I think Citi is a really interesting situation because It's super cheap. And you're in the hopefully near the last third or so of a multi-year effort by Jane Fraser. And I love that a woman is the CEO there. I love that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And she has really remade that bank, clarified the lines of business and really gone after expenses. So some of the city's earnings and improvement is in her control and she's doing it. And that's been a really good thing to see. Just on this last earnings call, we started to really see it. And she feels it'll continue to happen in 2025 and 2026. So I love that earnings call.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And all of them also say, though, we don't know what the economy is going to bring. We don't know how people's You know, are we going to have more credit issues? Likely, right? Credit card non-performing, you know, people who are unable to pay back their credit card, that ratio will go up and that's going to cost the banks money. But they're not seeing it yet. I believe they will.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
They believe they will. Delinquencies, yeah. Yes, delinquencies. But Citigroup has this other thing, which is within their own control, which is what I like a lot about it. And J.P. Morgan has the most extraordinary leadership. But, you know, Jamie B. Dinah will leave one day.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Yes. But I don't think that'll happen. So these big banks and I forget who are I think there's eight of them. There's a JP Morgan, the Citibank, Wells Fargo, names like that. The government will not let them fail. They are called SIFI banks, strategically important financial institutions, which basically means we cannot let them fail. Otherwise, the apocalypse is the financial apocalypse is here.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So as a result of getting that sort of protection that they also have a lot of this regulation that we talked about. But I really do believe the regulation has gone too far and they're way, way, way less levered than they were going into the financial crisis. The business, as I said, the guardrails are there and they're working. Yeah, we need a Goldilocks situation. Right, exactly.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
We need a Goldilocks situation. But when I try to think about, okay, what would I buy? I always think, okay, if I owned none of anything, What would I go out and start buying today? So I would buy Citigroup. I would buy some JP Morgan. I would buy some Meta. I think the earnings power there is extraordinary. The stock now is about at a market multiple.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And if you back out the cash, it's at a lower than market multiple. So meaning the stock market trades at some multiple of the collective earnings of all the companies in, let's say, the S&P 500. So you have X amount of earnings times 20. That's the multiple that's currently on the market. And that moves with interest rates. So that's where it is right now. 20 times earnings.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So Meta to me is an extraordinary business that is not a run of the mill S&P company. It is an extraordinary money machine. It has some headwinds for sure, but the underlying business is extraordinary. It's not really subject to tariffs. If I own none of that, I'd be buying that. I'd be buying Amazon if I own none of that. So it's scary. It feels better sort of to buy it at Amazon at 220.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
But it isn't. It's better at 170-whatever, two, three, if I check up right now, 170-222. Okay. So those kind of names I would start with. Also, just in a time of turmoil, you want to be in a company that doesn't have a debt problem. And none of these kind of companies have debt problems. So that's important.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I do. I do. I do need a nap. So here's really the tip that I would have is... For almost everyone, your gut is not your friend. Your gut tells you to do the wrong thing almost all the time. So if you're terrified and you don't want to buy anything, it's probably not a bad time to buy. And if you feel great and you want to own more and you want to borrow money to buy more,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Your gut's telling you the wrong thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So true.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
How am I doing? I mean, it's exhausting. I have to say it's exhausting and you know, you just never know what you're going to find. And this idea of there could be monumental news at any moment. is it's tiring.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Well, I'm on, you know, I'm on the computer all day long and just. At any moment, it could be something really market moving. So you have to sort of be in this high level of, you know. High alert. High alert, exactly. So has your investing strategy changed since Liberation Day? Liberation Day? No, it hasn't. It hasn't worked. I can tell you that. You know, I'm always long.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I have various hedges on, but always, always net long, very net long. And that's been the strategy for years and years. And You know, it's painful when you are long going into the pandemic or going into the great financial crisis or whatever it might be. But the idea of sort of being able to market time, so know when to sell, know when to get back in, and then understand.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
have that gap be wider than whatever taxes you might pay, to me is just a strategy that is too difficult. So I don't try to do it. But what I do try to do, one of my favorite quotes, which I always come to is, buy when there's blood on the streets, even if it is your own. And I can tell you recently, there's been a lot of my own. So I look at the VIX.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I don't know how closely you follow the VIX, but it's sort of in no man's land now. It was up in the 50s. So I'd be a buyer when it's terrifying. It's not low enough now. It's in limbo at, I don't know, 30 where it is right now. So I'm not really doing much, just being exhausted.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So the VIX is really, it is a measurement of how likely the volatility is in the market at more than 1% on any given day, but it's really become known to be the sort of fear-greed index. So when the VIX is really low, and the kind of lowest I've ever seen it drag along for a long time is low double digits, so, you know, 11 or 12. And then in periods of high uncertainty.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So the highest I've ever seen it is during the pandemic, during the really, really dark, dark days of the pandemic, as high as about 80 intraday, maybe. So... Now the VIX has gone from mid-teens to as high as 56. I guess it was Tuesday morning. Was that when the bottom was sort of the... I can't even remember all the days. So it hit somewhere in the mid-50s. And I like when the VIX is super high.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I like when things start trading down integers at a time because that just tells me someone just wants to get out regardless of price. And if I own that, that's not fun. But if I can buy more at a price where I'm buying from someone who says, I don't care what price I'm selling it. I just need to get out. That's ultimately been a good thing to do in the past. Historically been a good thing to do.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Exactly. You know, we shop. We love to get things on sale. We do not want our stocks on sale. That feels bad.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So, well, you know, I have a lot of meta, very big position. So that, you know, that that's been a, a very difficult one. I have Netflix as well, sort of hanging in the best. Amazon, which I have, I like a lot. I like how they're positioned, particularly in tough times like this. But the stock's down, I don't know where it is today, 172 or 173, I don't know the moment, but it's down considerably.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And I still believe in the AI story. I still believe in AWS. And then they have this remarkable retailing business, gigantic retailing business. So that hasn't been fun. The banks, JP Morgan, my biggest bank position, went to 280, probably shouldn't have been at 280, and then went down to about 210. So that's a fair amount of pain. Citigroup.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I could go, I don't know how long this podcast is, but I could go on and on for a while of things that haven't worked.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Well, Dell certainly is most in the crosshairs of all of them. The tariff wars, you know, it was somewhat of a reprieve. I don't know that it's a permanent reprieve of China. We'll see. But the combination of the concern about AI and data center growth, that's obviously right in Dell's wheelhouse. And then
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Aside from that business, there's also the PC business, and that has sort of slowed, but also the PC business really is affected a lot by tariffs. So that's been the most painful one. But Alibaba having an amazing year. That's been having an amazing year. Yeah. I feel like there was sort of not regime change because the regime is exactly the same, but a change in policy.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And that doesn't have tariff issues, right? They do very little business in the United States. And they have a huge business. They have a huge cloud business. They have, I mean, they're in so many different things, logistics, and they really are a conglomerate. They have an extraordinary amount of cash. And it's not expensive. So but it's subject to who knows? Who knows?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I did buy some more Alibaba Friday, I think Thursday, Friday. I think that even in the situation that we're in, that China really feels that they need to support their economy. And that that will that will benefit Alibaba. So I have added.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
I own some FXI. I own K-Web. So some ETFs. But that's the only individual stock that I own.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Right. So that doesn't affect Alibaba as much. So Timu and Xi'an, that's really affecting them. And I think we're also going to see Meta is sort of a collateral damage there as well. Not this Super Bowl, but the one before that. It seemed like every other ad was Timu, Xi'an. So we're going to see a meaningful contraction there. And those are big advertisers.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So I think that's part of what's weighing down meta. I mean, you've got a lot of things, but that you've got the lawsuit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And so now I did not know that. Where do you live in the Palisades? Where do you live?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Well, the de minimis is eight hundred dollars. That's what a shipment, anything below $800. So I actually don't know if you aggregate for more than $800. Maybe there's a way around it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Well, it's interesting to the extent that any of that is about luxury high end goods. If I were Louis Vuitton and that were one of my suppliers, I would be very, very unhappy. So unhappy that I might look for another supplier. So if that is part of their game plan, I think that part is going to end up being very problematic.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
But for other things, I know these manufacturers are just carpet-bobbing TikTok. Every 40 seconds, yeah.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
No, I actually was a little surprised that American Express was good because I would have thought the correlation between the LVMH consumer and American Express was high and that Louis Vuitton in the U.S. was amiss. In Asia, it was a disaster, but it was a miss, meaning, well, they were expecting for, it was about four percentage points low on same-store sales, or comps, rather.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And so that's a miss, and I would have thought AXP would, that customer would overlap directly, and that wasn't the case.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
That's not been a good one for me, but I look at LVMH versus Kering, for example. So you have two conglomerates, each has extraordinary brands. Kering has really struggled with Gucci. And that is the main driver of their business. And it's just been a disaster for a couple of years. So, I mean, we're talking about like revenues down 20. Revenues. That's enormous.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And so to me, that would fall in the, oh, we might have a material change here in that a couple of things. Something happened about two years ago that I really didn't like and made me sell my stock in Caring, which was the CEO, who's married to Salma Hayek, the actress, bought CAA, took control of Creative Artists Agency. And I hate acquisitions like that that are a huge distraction.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
And it sort of really shows sort of taking your eye off the ball. And coincidentally, that was when this sort of all the pent-up demand and spend from the pandemic was starting to wane. And so for all of the luxury houses, that was sort of weighing on them. But caring is, you know, pretty levered. And so that distraction, I thought, was really not a good sign.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
So one thing about Bernard Arnault, he is all in. He is engaged all the time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Why the Dollar is Slipping and Navigating What’s Actually Moving Markets with Karen Finerman
Yeah. And so I don't know if I don't know why you bought it. I don't know. I assume she's represented that, I guess. So I really didn't like that. And I thought, all right, if I'm going to have exposure in that area, I'd rather have LVMH.