Robert Croke (2:51)

That's why I'm laughing, because I'm thinking about if all of you out there that have not joined the network yet are not tired of hearing us talk about all these cool investments like Xai and Apptronic and all these cool companies, now's your chance, 50% off, get into the network Black Friday sale and be part of all this cool stuff we're doing.

Austin Hankwitz (3:12)

So if you want to join us over there at the Rich Habits Network, scroll down to the description of this episode. If it's in YouTube or if in Spotify or wherever you're listening to this, click on the link to join the Rich Habits Network. You'll be prompted to join monthly, but you don't want to do that. You want to, you want that 50% discount. So you're going to join annually and that's when you will receive that 50% discount. So be sure to do that. We'll see you in there. Can't wait to have you. Now, Robert, let's dig into our first story.

Robert Croke (3:38)

Yes, our first headline is the flip flop of the Federal Reserve December Rate Cut Expectations. And to make sure we're all on the same page, the Federal Reserve is a committee in charge of setting short term interest rates on T bills. So the higher these interest rates become, the higher the interest rate you pay on your debt. Like auto loans, credit cards, personal loans, et cetera.

Austin Hankwitz (4:00)

Now Robert, as you and I'm sure everyone else listening right now remembers, the Fed raised interest rates at the fastest pace in 40 years starting back in March of 2022 because of the rampant inflation we experienced during the pandemic. Given all the money printing now that rake hiking cycle is over and we are currently in a rate cutting cycle. Now, the stock market loves it when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, which is why we've seen that steady grind higher since the summertime. However, the Fed recently surprised everyone late October when Jerome Powell said that, yeah, a December rate cut might not happen anymore. The markets, as I'm sure everyone has seen, sold off pretty heavily. And I'm sure everyone has seen since that late October timeframe, the markets have experienced a lot of volatility now, so far this week as we record this on Tuesday, November 25th, we have seen a little bit of green as the Federal Reserve is now signaling for a December rate cut and polymarket is putting the odds at an 85% chance.

Robert Croke (5:02)

And two consecutive cuts brought rates down to a range between 3.75 and 4% last month to guard against the risks of a softening job market even as inflation has run closer to 3% than the Fed's 2% goal. A third cut in December would be consistent with the plan that Powell laid out in August. Move rates closer to neutral, a level that neither stimulates or restrains economic activity. Tariff related inflation risks have lessened, while on the flip side, labor market weakness has become a greater concern. So Austin, what does this mean for you and everyone listening's money.

Austin Hankwitz (5:40)

Yeah, so this means don't fight the Fed. It's been a phrase we've been hearing from prudent investors for decades now. If the Fed is raising rates like they did in 2022, beyond defense, we saw the stock market fall, fall 28, 30, 35% depending on the index you're looking at in 2022. Right. That big bear market, I'd argue was caused by the Federal Reserve raising rates at the fastest pace in 40 years. On the flip side, if the Fed is cutting interest rates like they began to do last year, be on offense risk on assets thrive in that looser monetary environment, which is exactly what the Federal Reserve is signaling for over the coming months and quarters. So don't let the week to week, month to month volatility derail your wealth building plans. As long as the Fed is cutting interest rates, I'm bullish and that's where we're headed. So net buyer of assets over here.

Robert Croke (6:31)

Robert, I agree 100%. As we always say to everyone, following along and listening, when in doubt, zoom out. And this really illustrates that perfectly.

Austin Hankwitz (6:41)

All right, Robert, let's now jump to our next story which is Amazon investing $50 billion building these new data centers. So Amazon said it's going to invest $50 billion to expand AI and high performance computing cap for its cloud businesses. Here we are. Ready? U.S. government customers. Just the U.S. government customers. That's pretty interesting to me. Now with the investment government customers specifically across will gain access to a broad set of AI tools as well as hardware from AWS and Nvidia. Amazon said this access will help customers build their own AI systems more easily, handle large amounts of data and increase their efficiency. As if we haven't heard about Government efficiency enough so far in 2025.

Robert Croke (7:26)

Our investment in purpose BUIL, government AI and cloud infrastructure will fundamentally transform how federal agencies leverage supercomputing. We're giving agencies expanded access to advanced AI capabilities that will enable them to accelerate critical missions from cybersecurity to drug discovery. Amazon has been rapidly investing into their cloud computing infrastructure. CEO Andy Jassy said during their earnings call last month that Amazon added 3.8 gigawatts of data center capacity over the last 12 months alone. He also said the company will have spent $125 billion this year on capital expenditures, aka infrastructure, and guided to an even higher number for 2026. So, Austin, what does this mean for you and your money?

Austin Hankwitz (8:13)

So for our listeners here, super important to understand the picks and shovels type investing strategy. Robert and I have been talking about this for years now, right? So like during the gold rush that took place back in the 1800s, yes, there were people that got rich by mining gold. Gold with a pick and a shovel and finding and discovering. But it was more of like a gamble, right? It was anyone's luck to go and get rich mining gold. But the people who absolutely made money during the gold rush were the people selling the miners, the picks, the shovels, and the hopes and dreams, right, of actually being able to find and discover this gold. So for everyone listening, it's like, okay, how do I apply that now of this sort of picks and shovels investing strategy to what I'm learning here about Amazon? Well, Amazon is spending $125 billion this year on capital expenditures, right? So that 25 billion is leaving Amazon's income statement as an expense, but entering another company's income statement as revenue. So it's never been more important to be investing into the companies who will benefit most from the data center build out. I just saw a stat from B of a Global Research bank of America and they said that we'll be spending $900 billion a year on data centers by 2028. So think Vertiv Holdings, Eaton Corporation, Modine Manufacturing, Arista Networks, Constell, and all of the names that we've been talking about for several quarters, if not years now about being the biggest beneficiaries, right? This money is leaving Amazon's income statement and it's entering another company's income statement as revenue. What companies will get that as revenue, therefore, what shareholders will benefit from more profits in the future.

Robert Croke (9:51)

Yeah, I really like this call out because we're always talking about picks and shovels plays and all that, but we're also fighting the headlines right now because everyone is talking about this big AI bubble. Yet the largest companies, banks and hedge funds around the world are all investing in AI infrastructure. So for me, I'm still bullish. I don't believe we're anywhere near a bubble. Yes, there will be companies that will be bublish within the sector, but overall I think we are still strong moving forward, especially for US Manufacturing in the data center space. So let's get into our last point today and that is US Home prices continue to slow the S and P totality Case Shiller National Home Price Index that was definitely a mouthful, which measures home prices across the country rose 1.3% in the 12 months through September compared with a revised 1.4% rise in August. This represents the weakest annual price growth since early 2023 when the market was absorbing the initial shock of the Federal Reserve aggressive rate cutting cycle.

Austin Hankwitz (10:53)

Broad based weakness points to falling demand as mortgage rates remain near that 6 and a half percent range as of late September and as of today, Tuesday, November 25th, a 30 year mortgage rate national average according to bank rate is 6.33%. So not much better actually since late September. Now all of the 20 major cities that were surveyed in this index posted price declines before seasonal adjustments. Tampa, San Diego and Seattle posted the largest declines, with mortgage rates just stubbornly elevated in affordability. Now, at what seems to be multi decade lows, the market appears to be settling into a new equilibri of very little price growth or in some regions just an outright decline.

Robert Croke (11:41)

I saw that more than half the homes sold in 2025 through October had at least one price cut. That share is generally higher than the past couple of years and about twice what it was when home prices soared during the COVID 19 pandemic. Setting a price too high can make the sales process really drag on. And listings that sold after a price reduction typically spend about five times as many days on the market as the average for homes priced right from the start. So be careful out there. Make sure you price accordingly.

Austin Hankwitz (12:12)

That's actually crazy to think about, right? Listings that sold after a price reduction typically spent five times as many days on the market as the average for homes that were priced correctly from the start. So if you are selling your home right now, it is, and you want to get out and you're not stubborn, right? Like you're like listen, I'm ready to go. Price your your home accordingly. And some of the advice we read online was you should price it on about Homes that have sold in the last two, three, four months in your region, right in your neighborhood specifically, versus maybe something from 12, 18, 24 months ago.

Robert Croke (12:48)

Austin. I think that's a great call out because I feel like too many real estate agents and brokers, they go back too far in the comps and I really love that point and I hope everyone pays attention to just because markets change so quickly. And I think that three, four month window is perfect.

Austin Hankwitz (13:04)

Now. Homes that were priced correctly from day one sell more quickly and get nearly 100% of their asking price after three months. Sellers usually trim the price by 5, 6, 7% and then after a year, they normally trim the price by double digits. Think 10, 12, 15%. Now, when sellers can't stomach a big price cut like that, they tend to delist their home off the market, then relist it back later. But studies show that if you do that, you often face even deeper price cuts later on. So Robert, what does this mean for you and your money specifically? Everyone listening right now, that's like, wait a second, I thought real estate is cool. Why are you telling me real estate's not cool?

Robert Croke (13:44)

Well, we still think real estate is cool, but it is definitely tough out there right now. It is increasingly becoming more of a buyer's market as interest rates remain higher for longer. People simply can't afford the homes they want, even though the markets are so soft and you can practically name your own price. And what makes this worse is the inventory that would have been added to the markets offering us an asset class wide discount is stuck. Because who wants to sell their house with a 2.5% interest rate on the mortgage just to go buy a new one at 7.5% interest? Despite deals everywhere, it's increasingly harder to act on them because even with mortgage rates at 7%, the numbers don't shake out unless you're putting down some crazy 25 or 50% down payment or something like that. It's just tougher out there and it's really hard to make the numbers work. So make sure you understand what you're getting yourself into on all accounts.

Austin Hankwitz (14:39)

Yeah, a couple of just places where my head goes. The first one is if you're selling your home right now and you have an interest rate on your mortgage in the twos, threes or even 4% range, you could likely list it for higher than normal comps would put it at, assuming that you can do an assumable mortgage. So look into that. I know there's realtors that specifically help sellers navigate that, but Assumable mortgages are really interesting right now. And then the other thing that's also super interesting is I want to say I saw some headlines recently about like a portable mortgage, right? So like, I could take my 2 1/2% interest rate that I have on this home after I sell it, I can then take that same interest rate and go buy another home at that same interest rate. That would be awesome if everyone can then just like lock in those interest rates for a specific period of time and like take that borrowed money and move it around and do other stuff with it. I feel like a lot of these people who bought their homes, you know, let's call it in the 2010s and early 2020s when interest rates were much more reasonable. Now they're looking around saying, I don't want to take on debt at 6, 7, 8% interest, right? I can't afford that. Why would I sell my home? I'll just stick here for longer. So there's a lot of inventory. I feel like that is not moving because people don't want to sell their homes and get rid of these interest rates. So if we can unlock that inventory by allowing people to take those interest rates with them and maybe go buy something else and like, that could be a really, really interesting way to reinvigorate the housing market back in America.

Robert Croke (16:06)

It would definitely do that. If these portable mortgages get approved, I don't know that they will, but wow, can you imagine the millions of people that can just pick up and go get another house and keep that same rate. That would be incredible for the housing market. It.

Austin Hankwitz (16:19)

No kidding. Now, Robert, what we like to do before we talk about our specific rich habits. Radar call outs. I've got three. You've got three is more recently we've been giving a shout out to ETF Central. So on ETF Central you can go discover a ton of new ETFs that could fit into your well diversified portfolio. We definitely have discovered some awesome ETFs on this website. Again, that's ETF central.com and what we've been doing recently is we've been talking about the biggest movers and shakers, Robert, as it relates to ETF Central's sort of best performance and worst performance so far this week. Now what I've got on screen, if you're watching on video on YouTube or Spotify, go check out the video here. We got the best performers and the worst performers according to ETF Central. I talk about the best. Robert talks about the worst and Then we give you guys one general takeaway. So Robert, kicking us off with the third best performer for the week is niche commodities, up 6% over the last five days. Next is biotech and genomics, up nearly 7% over the last five days. And finally the best performer forming sector of ETFs according to ETF central.com over the last week. Here is life sciences, up over 8% in the last five trading days.

Robert Croke (17:32)

And the third worst performing sector this week is emerging markets awakening down 6.2%, cryptocurrency down 7.1% and next generation Internet down 7.7%. So my takeaway here is cryptocurrency at number two. Being the worst performing sector is no shocker. The markets are all over the place right now. There's so much fear and geopolitical unrest, nobody really knows what's going on. I'm still bullish on crypto. I think we have a long run to go, but it is definitely no shock that this comes in at number two this week.

Austin Hankwitz (18:07)

Yeah, I think for me what's really interesting to reflect upon is, well, 2, 1, cryptocurrency being the only sector, ETF central sector here, call out, that is in the red year to date. Right. So you mentioned next gen Internet in emerging markets. Those are both double digit green year to date. But crypto is the only one that's down big this week and down big year to date. But more specifically, best performing one at life sciences. I think that's so interesting because as we kind of reflect upon this, and I'm not an expert at life sciences, but I would imagine the rise of artificial intelligence, the different types of, you know, genomic sequencing, we can use a lot of different technologies to study different, you know, medications and surgery. There's a lot of things I feel like going on right now in that, in that sector. And if I knew more about it, Robert, I feel like I'd be more like all in. But looking at the year to date performance at over 55% and it being the best performance this week despite the volatility we've had over the last five trading days, like maybe I need to learn more about some life sciences.

Robert Croke (19:08)

I think we definitely both need to do some deeper dives into life sciences and where the picks and shovels are here for 2026. But that's a great call out.

Austin Hankwitz (19:17)

All right, Robert, I'll let you kick off our rapid fire, but give everyone a quick rundown as to what we're doing first.

Robert Croke (19:22)

Yeah, I love this part of the show because it's really just kind of Austin and I's top headlines from the Dome. What are we excited about, what are we seeing and what has drawn our interest this week? So my first rapid fire today is gold prices are being sticky and as of November 25th we are still seeing gold prices rise above $4100 an ounce. I think this is great news for gold. We've seen some ups and downs and a few pullbacks recently as everyone feared for where the economy was going. We've also seen that with silver, but I'm still bullish for gold and I believe it has a long way to go, although I'm a little more bullish on silver because of the use case and I believe silver will outperform gold over the next two years. So we'll see how that plays out. Point number two for me is home prices sink in the Florida market right where I'm sitting today. And as the weather cools and heading into late fall, so does the US Housing market. But here's the key. Florida is leading the nation in metro areas, experiencing the steepest home price declines. A recent report from real estate analytics firm Totality revealed that of the 10 coolest markets in the US among the 100 largest metro areas, seven were in Florida. Cape Coral was number two at 6.9% and the second was Naples, Florida at 6.7% followed by Puna Gorda, Sebring, Florida, North Port, Florida and Brownsville, Florida which rounded out the top 10 with a 4.6% decline. I think this is pretty crazy. I'm seeing the opportunities here. But again, like we discussed earlier in the episode, you have to make sure that the numbers make sense because it is a buyer's market and you can see by these declines Florida is a great place and I think with everything happening in New York and people are migrating from California, it is going to be a really good time to buy if you can make sense of how to finance the properties. And my third rapid fire today is Klarna is launching a stablecoin on Tempo in an effort to challenge the old networks. Klarna, as we all know, is a provider that is a buy now pay later service, launching its own stablecoin on a layer one network called Tempo, according to the press release today. And this token will be called Klarna USD when it debuts next year alongside of the main net for the network being developed by payment giants like Stripe and Paradigm. With Klarna scale and Tempo's infrastructure, we can challenge old networks and make payments faster and cheaper for anyone, they said in the statement. And so they believe that this is very bullish and will put crypto in a final stage where it is finally fast, low cost and secure and built for scale. I think this is great news because it's just more integration and more adoption from the big players in the payment game and in the tokenization game. So I think this is great news for all of us crypto holders and the future of crypto and adoption.

Austin Hankwitz (22:25)

You know Robert, that Florida housing market pullback is not surprising. I know everyone was moving to Florida during the pandemic and I don't know if they're still there or not. I had a lot of friends go to Tampa. Now they're in different places. Maybe it's Austin or Nashville or wherever else here. So interesting to see to your point that the top ten places in Florida all experience that 4.6% decline. Geez Louise. All right, now my turn to show and tell my top three headlines that I thought were interesting and I just want to share with the class here. So the first one is Apple CEO Tim Cook could be resigning soon, but take that word soon with a grain of salt. There's no real reports that Tim Cook is actually going to resign, but a lot of speculation has begun to take place and I think that's pretty interesting. So let's all remember here, Tim Cook is 65 years old, for crying out loud, let the guy go retire if he wants to. And some people have been speculating on who could replace him. Those names include John Ternus, the hardware executive who helped build the iPad, the Mac, the AirPods and the iPhone over the last 24 years at Apple, as well as Craig Federihi. I hope I'm saying that right. One of the best known executives at Apple, he's currently the head of software engineering over there. It's anyone's guess as to what's going to actually happen, but Polymark is currently giving this a 5050 chance of happening in 2026. So stay tuned. Maybe Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is replaced in the next 12 months. Speaking of CEOs, Jeff Bezos became the co CEO of Project Prometheus last week. So this company is focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of different fields, including computers and aerospace and automobiles. Very vague because to be honest with you, not a lot of people know what's going on with this company. I think it's interesting though, and here's why. They came out the gates announcing a six and a half billion dollars worth of funding, partly from Jeff Bezos himself, but this amount of funding made it one of the most well financed early stage startups in the world ever. This is the first time Jeff Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since stepping down from Amazon in 2021. So, so project Prometheus is definitely something to keep an eye on in the future. Now the last little call out here. Speaking of funding and exciting and stuff like that. Elon Musk's XAI is set to close a $15 billion funding round at a 230 billion dollar pre money valuation. Which means if you participated in the multi asset SPV that we created here for our Rich Habits podcast audience, we had, I think it was was what? Robert well over a million dollars was invested from you guys into this spv and XAI was part of that. You'd already be up like 35 on that investment, which is pretty sick. So now the question is, what are they using all the money for? According to a source close to the company, they're saying that XAI plans to use a large portion of that money to buy GPUs responsible for powering their LLMs, which like, duh, that's what everyone's doing now. Remember X, the like social media platform that Elon owns is owned by XAI after XAI was a a buyer of that company at a 33 billion dollar stock transaction. I think that took place last year, which is why GROK is like so well integrated into X right now. And additionally XAI introduced Grokipedia, an AI powered competitor to Wikipedia. No idea how that's going, but regardless, it's exciting to see that people who participated in that multi asset SPV are seeing a little bit of a markup on their investment eye on Xai in the future. 230 billion Robert what a wild valuation.

Robert Croke (26:07)

It is crazy, but what a great episode. Because when I think about gold prices hovering around all time highs, all of these cool investments we've been doing lately, it just really reminds me that if you look hard and you work hard and you put in the effort, there is always ways to make really good returns and good money, even in tumultuous volatile markets. So that is why this episode to me is really cool. Just to see all of the different headlines and opportunities and things that caught our eye this week in the news.

Austin Hankwitz (26:38)

Robert Couldn't agree more. What an awesome episode of the Rich Habits Radar. These Friday episodes become more and more exciting. Talking about the ETF sectors, talking about the radar points, talking about the different headlines impacting our money on a weekly basis. I love these episodes. I genuinely enjoy them a whole lot. I love reporting on the news and give my hot take here and there. Just appreciate it. Appreciate everyone coming back every single Friday. And don't forget Monday's episode about the Black Friday Cyber Monday deals. Listen to that if you've not yet listened to that episode. Wonderful breakdown for y' all here today on Black Friday on how to take advantage of specific deals platforms to use how to find the best deals. So go listen to Monday's episode if you haven't done that already.

Robert Croke (27:20)

Yeah, definitely. So much fun. And we appreciate each and every one of you stopping by every week, showing the love, supporting the podcast and the Rich Habits network. It means the world to us.

Austin Hankwitz (27:30)

With that being said, y' all enjoy your nice Thanksgiving weekend and we will see you on Monday.