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Speaker 3: More retailers turning to the new technology AI that is
Speaker 3: this holiday shopping season, but balancing the efficiency that technology
Speaker 3: can bring with the trust customers place and human interactions
Speaker 3: can be tricky. Dan O'Connell is the CEO of Front
Speaker 3: and AI customer service platform Dan, welcome and thanks for
Speaker 3: joining us today. So how does Front differentiate itself from
Speaker 3: other purportedly AI dominated customer service platforms.
Speaker 4: Yeah, great question and thanks for having me today. It's
Speaker 4: a friend's really the only plot form that combines traditional email,
Speaker 4: help desk and chatbots together in a single platform to
Speaker 4: deliver exceptional AI drone customer experiences for incredible depth and
Speaker 4: breadth of customers.
Speaker 3: Okay, sounds interesting. So who are your customers and what
Speaker 3: do they pay you for the service?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so our customers today are really focused on two things. One,
Speaker 4: they want to automate low value, repetitive tasks to deliver
Speaker 4: exceptional customer experiences. And they've got high value relationships that
Speaker 4: they want to have a human touch for. And so
Speaker 4: our customers are b to B customers specifically at mid
Speaker 4: market and lower enterprise that leverage us again as a
Speaker 4: way to go and communicate and manage their relationships with
Speaker 4: our customers.
Speaker 5: All right, I'm going to just cut to the chase
Speaker 5: cuz CEOs they understand and the terminology, But what is
Speaker 5: it that you really are getting to for one of
Speaker 5: your clients in terms of the customer information and what
Speaker 5: you're doing for them.
Speaker 4: Sure, every business out there needs to manage customer relationships,
Speaker 4: and so again that can be how do we go
Speaker 4: and respond to customers over chat, or over SMS or
Speaker 4: over email. They need to understand the insights that are
Speaker 4: coming from those conversations so they can better route them,
Speaker 4: and again really focus on just these wonderful customer customer
Speaker 4: experiences across really any channel that's out there, voice, video, SMS, text,
Speaker 4: and email.
Speaker 5: Dan, I have to say, I think it's either the
Speaker 5: control rooms around here or everybody around us are like,
Speaker 5: come on, we've all had a customer experience where we're
Speaker 5: either don't get the answers or get into kind of
Speaker 5: a chatbot that doesn't ask the right questions and says, hey, are.
Speaker 6: You all done now? So how do we make it better?
Speaker 5: So that really is this about, you know, customers companies
Speaker 5: gathering information or is it really about making the customer
Speaker 5: experience easier and more productive?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's a balance. Like we're at the
Speaker 4: earlier segment. You know, we're all incredibly excited about the
Speaker 4: opportunity for AI to deliver faster responses and instinct answers.
Speaker 4: We know that every consumer out there wants to get
Speaker 4: an instant answer any question or problem they have around
Speaker 4: in order, and I think there's all so a balance
Speaker 4: of Look like we're in this holiday season, it's really emotional.
Speaker 4: If there's a shipping delay or an issue, you want
Speaker 4: to be able to go and talk to a person.
Speaker 4: And so I think the balance of finding this opportunity
Speaker 4: is incredibly important for every brand that's out there. You
Speaker 4: can't just automate away the people. You can't just automate
Speaker 4: away every task or workflow, and so I think the
Speaker 4: best businesses are going to strike that balance, and I
Speaker 4: think we're in this real time experiment right now in
Speaker 4: this holiday season given kind of the excitement around AI.
Speaker 3: So what do you use for large language models? Whose
Speaker 3: AI do you use? And you know where is all
Speaker 3: that data stored?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So in terms of we've got a multipletive partners
Speaker 4: that we leverage to provide our AI. We do some
Speaker 4: work in house. We obviously leverage open AI and Mistroll,
Speaker 4: who are large foundational large language models. I'm sure most
Speaker 4: of the audience is familiar with some of them. And
Speaker 4: one thing that's really important is we talk about this
Speaker 4: data is making sure that our customers have full control
Speaker 4: to that data. Again, and then when we talk about
Speaker 4: the customer experiences, nobody wants to be tricked out there
Speaker 4: in terms of when they're engaging with AI, and so
Speaker 4: I think this is also a fundamentally important focus for
Speaker 4: us at FRONT, which is make sure that the users
Speaker 4: have full control. Make sure that we're very clear around
Speaker 4: where there are experiences with an AI or an automated
Speaker 4: or automation and when you're actually engaging with a human.
Speaker 6: So software as a service.
Speaker 3: Your AI chatbot just brought me over to your pricing page,
Speaker 3: which thank you very much and is asking me if
Speaker 3: I have any questions, and you can get a starter
Speaker 3: pack for twenty five bucks and it goes on up
Speaker 3: to one hundred and five. But I imagine as small
Speaker 3: and medium sized enterprises mainly that you're targeting, right, because
Speaker 3: the bigger companies are doing it themselves.
Speaker 4: No, you would be surprised. And so I think every
Speaker 4: business on the planet is going through a platform shift
Speaker 4: right now around customer experience. And so we are working
Speaker 4: with some small businesses that might have five or fifteen seats,
Speaker 4: and our largest sense to or upwards of thousand seats.
Speaker 4: Some of the largest brands that are recognized. Uber Freight,
Speaker 4: for example, is a business of ours leverages us and
Speaker 4: so again, like I think what's interesting at this moment
Speaker 4: in time is everybody you're picking new platforms around customer experience.
Speaker 4: And again that's because of what AI is cap already demonstrating,
Speaker 4: and capability has real capabilities and real revenue traction. But
Speaker 4: I think also people are excited about what are the
Speaker 4: opportunities that AI can deliver in the near future.
Speaker 5: Hey, Dan, just got about thirty seconds here. You have
Speaker 5: so much data on your platform. We all care about
Speaker 5: what the US consumer is doing. In thirty second, how
Speaker 5: would you say the US consumer is doing and fairing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think what we see is I am expecting
Speaker 4: us to have one of the biggest cyber mondays in
Speaker 4: holiday seasons that we've seen. We already know that people
Speaker 4: are shifting and making more purchases online and through mobile. Again,
Speaker 4: that increase in volume obviously leads to there's going to
Speaker 4: be some increasing frustrations and breakdown, and they're going to
Speaker 4: want to have these ecceits optional customer experiences across any channel.
Speaker 4: And so again I'm expecting to sta have a pretty
Speaker 4: big holiday season here, all right.
Speaker 5: So it sounds like you're gonna be pretty busy going ahead.
Speaker 5: Hey Dan, thank you so much. Dan O'Connell. He is
Speaker 5: the CEO of up Front.
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Speaker 5: With consumer sentiment overall this month following the most since
Speaker 5: the month of April. There are questions about how holiday
Speaker 5: shopping and retailers full year earnings will be impacted. So
Speaker 5: there's a lot going on this holiday season and expectations
Speaker 5: to around it. We're joined now by Natalie Cutler. She's
Speaker 5: Video's national retail and consumer products industry leader, and she
Speaker 5: joins us on this Black Friday.
Speaker 6: Hey Natalie, great to have you here with Vonnie and myself.
Speaker 5: What are your expectations around this holiday shopping season?
Speaker 7: Well, great to be here, thank you. You know what,
Speaker 7: I think this holiday season is going to be challenging,
Speaker 7: yet I do think it's going to ultimately be okay.
Speaker 7: I think there's going to be winners and losers on
Speaker 7: the retail side, just like we would expect to see
Speaker 7: in any year. Those retailers that really understand what their
Speaker 7: consumer is looking for, whether it's value, convenience, or experience,
Speaker 7: those are the retailers that are going to be successful.
Speaker 8: Natalie.
Speaker 5: One thing that I caught my attention this week's City
Speaker 5: coming out and saying that Black Friday performance is overblown
Speaker 5: as a metric for retailers, going on to say the
Speaker 5: Thanksgiving weekend shopping event is given too much attention as
Speaker 5: the season is quote typically one or lost in the
Speaker 5: weeks leading up to Christmas, with the post Christmas week
Speaker 5: becoming more important to most retailers that city's view.
Speaker 6: Does city have a point though?
Speaker 7: So, I do think that the week'sly up to Black
Speaker 7: Fridays certainly are an indication of what will happen on
Speaker 7: Black Friday, the entire weekend, and then certainly for the
Speaker 7: rest of the Monday December. Black Friday used to be
Speaker 7: the turning point and the key day from most retailers,
Speaker 7: and we know now that it is so much more
Speaker 7: than that. It is now beginning November and even Amazon
Speaker 7: as early as October, so the holiday season has really
Speaker 7: stretched out more so than it has been in years past.
Speaker 7: So it's kind of difficult just to nail down a
Speaker 7: particular day. Having said all that, I do think at
Speaker 7: Black Friday or this entire weekend and including Cyber Monday,
Speaker 7: are still critical days for retailers because that is the
Speaker 7: day that the consumer's mindset is, oh, I have to
Speaker 7: go out there and get my shopping done.
Speaker 3: Not are there any new approaches when it comes to marketing.
Speaker 3: I picked up my phone a little while ago, and
Speaker 3: there are must have been about fifty emails offering me things. Obviously,
Speaker 3: these are people I've given my email to already and
Speaker 3: they think of me as a loyal customer.
Speaker 6: But for many of them, I'm not.
Speaker 7: So let's dig deeper a little bit on that whole
Speaker 7: concept of loyalty. So loyalty programs are super important, and
Speaker 7: retailers are doubling down on the loyalty programs. So in
Speaker 7: the past, probably as you did in so many others,
Speaker 7: as did I, you wanted a five percent ten percent
Speaker 7: sign on discount. Lots of consumers signed in, got their
Speaker 7: initial ten percent, and that was the end of that,
Speaker 7: and then we're all continuously getting these emails. But good
Speaker 7: retailers are doubling down on the retail on the loyalty programs,
Speaker 7: and they're offering either tier discounts by X get a
Speaker 7: discount of ten percent, by why get a discount of
Speaker 7: twenty percent. Some loyalty programs are offering exclusive promotions, they're
Speaker 7: offering those promotions early, and then they're also offering exclusive
Speaker 7: drops or exclusive products. So I do think that the
Speaker 7: old loyalty program that we've seen for many years, where
Speaker 7: you just get that initial discount, are no longer are
Speaker 7: no longer the case, and retailers are not only providing
Speaker 7: those discounts, but they're really doing is actually getting information,
Speaker 7: and they're gathering data about us as consumers, what we're buying,
Speaker 7: when we're buying it, and utilizing AI as to how
Speaker 7: they can offer us better and more targeted and personalized promotions.
Speaker 3: And I imagine they were turning some shoppers away with
Speaker 3: the volume of these emails. I want to ask you
Speaker 3: about omni channel because it used to either that was
Speaker 3: sort of in person or online somehow, but that's expanded
Speaker 3: as well now given that we can all shop through
Speaker 3: our social media ups.
Speaker 6: Should we want to, absolutely so.
Speaker 7: It used to be just as you said, used to
Speaker 7: be either in store, used to have online. Now we
Speaker 7: have mobile commerce, and we have social commerce, and retailers
Speaker 7: really need to have a very strong omnichannel to capture
Speaker 7: all of those different channels so a not to lose
Speaker 7: the consumer. You know, if you have a promotion in
Speaker 7: the store, but you don't have the promotion available online
Speaker 7: or vice versa, or in social commerce. And I think
Speaker 7: social commerce actually opens up a whole nother area of
Speaker 7: opportunity for retailers, and that's the through influencers. You know,
Speaker 7: buying through influencers is someone that you can relate to,
Speaker 7: someone in with your interest, perhaps in your age bracket,
Speaker 7: someone you can really connect to. I think influencers are
Speaker 7: certainly driving the sales and the interaction on social commerce.
Speaker 5: Hey, Natalie, just to wrap up, because you know we've
Speaker 5: talked a lot about the consumer, but you obviously work
Speaker 5: with a lot of companies and businesses that sell stuff
Speaker 5: to the consumer. Just got about thirty seconds left here
Speaker 5: or so what are they saying about the environment right now?
Speaker 5: Are they optimistic? Are they more conservative about the outlook?
Speaker 5: Just quickly if you could.
Speaker 7: I think you're really seeing a mix of all of that.
Speaker 7: Some retailers are optimistic, the ones that have a very
Speaker 7: strong front end back end in terms of how they
Speaker 7: view how they view the consumer. Whereas some retailers that
Speaker 7: are not as comfortable or do not have all their
Speaker 7: processes in place. They didn't buy the inventory at the
Speaker 7: right time or at the right price and now are
Speaker 7: Therefore we'll be offering significant discounts in Q four and beyond.
Speaker 6: All right, Natalie, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: That is Natalie Cutler from Videos Retail and Consumer Products
Speaker 3: Industry Group.
Speaker 1: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Weekdaily coming up
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Speaker 5: Keeping up with that holiday theme, holiday travel, you know,
Speaker 5: is often stressful in other place, maybe gummies and cannabis
Speaker 5: they come in handy. Some might say, Hey, this year
Speaker 5: travel maybe a little bit different, though, as many Americans
Speaker 5: made changes to their plans during or because of the
Speaker 5: US government shutdown. Even so, it is expected to be
Speaker 5: one of the busiest travel seasons in years. Let's get
Speaker 5: more on what to expect with Clint Henderson. He's travel
Speaker 5: insider managing editor of the travel media platform.
Speaker 6: The Points Guy.
Speaker 5: Always knows so much about what's going on and where
Speaker 5: the deals are.
Speaker 6: First of all, Clint, just look back.
Speaker 5: How much do you think or how much are you
Speaker 5: hearing that the government shutdown may have impacted holiday travel
Speaker 5: this year?
Speaker 8: Yeah? So we did a poll with you Gov at
Speaker 8: the Point Sky and we found that forty percent of
Speaker 8: those planning to travel for Thanksgiving, a Christmas were reconsidering
Speaker 8: their plans, changing their plans, or canceling their plans. So
Speaker 8: in the end, because the government shutdown ended when it did,
Speaker 8: I don't think anywhere near that number ended up canceling.
Speaker 8: I do think some people chose to drive instead, and
Speaker 8: maybe some people were scared off of traveling for the
Speaker 8: Thanksgiving holiday. That said, there's still record crowds, so it
Speaker 8: didn't really dent the numbers as much as it could have.
Speaker 8: But I definitely think the air traffic controller shortage thing
Speaker 8: got a lot of publicity. That's an ongoing problem that
Speaker 8: I think a lot of people hadn't heard about before.
Speaker 8: So you know, we did see an impact to pricing
Speaker 8: for Christmas flights. So we did an analysis with points
Speaker 8: Path and we found prices dropped around six percent year
Speaker 8: over year for Christmas, which is really unusual this time
Speaker 8: of year. Usually it's only up, up, up for Christmas.
Speaker 3: So I've noticed some great deals to some European destinations
Speaker 3: that I definitely definitely didn't notice when I was speaking
Speaker 3: with you last year, because I remember, well, give us
Speaker 3: the skinny, we're the best destinations, were the best discounts
Speaker 3: when it comes to Black Friday shopping.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so pretty much every single airline has a Black
Speaker 8: Friday sale on right now or is planning one for
Speaker 8: travel Tuesday Cyber Monday next week. It's a great time
Speaker 8: to shop for travel, especially if you have some spring
Speaker 8: break trips that you're going to plan, because that can
Speaker 8: be really expensive. But roundtrip under five hundred dollars is
Speaker 8: common this week from everyone from Singapore Airlines, air Lingis.
Speaker 8: American Airlines launched a huge sale today, so lots of
Speaker 8: good deals to Europe for example. Out there. Also, American
Speaker 8: Airlines has flights under one hundred dollars one way all
Speaker 8: over the country, including trans cons between San Francisco or
Speaker 8: LA and New York. So really good deals out there.
Speaker 8: Alaska Airlines thirty percent off, and then all the hotels
Speaker 8: are twenty five to thirty percent off today, so take
Speaker 8: a look around. We have a whole ride up at
Speaker 8: the Point Sky that I've been updating frequently, and so
Speaker 8: there's lots of good deals out there, so much so
Speaker 8: that I think travel has replaced sort of merchandise as
Speaker 8: the best deal during these Black Friday holidays. It's pretty
Speaker 8: remarkable because when I started out in this business, it
Speaker 8: was really a gimmick. Travel Tuesday was not really a thing,
Speaker 8: and now it really is.
Speaker 3: I agree, I definitely have had good luck on this
Speaker 3: particular weekend actually booking travel. Talk to us about some
Speaker 3: of the domestic and international places that people are booking most.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Europe is good, it remains hot, and it's always
Speaker 8: the case. Florida, Las Vegas is still hot. New York
Speaker 8: City crazy demand in New York City. If you've been
Speaker 8: out in the city, you know what it's like out there.
Speaker 8: I just can't believe hotel rates eight hundred to one
Speaker 8: thousand dollars a night. It's just crazy to me. But
Speaker 8: Europe is hot, and then of course Japan. The US
Speaker 8: dollar remains strong, so places like Japan are a relative
Speaker 8: bargain for Americans and that's really well where everyone wants
Speaker 8: to go. I don't know if it's Instagram that seems
Speaker 8: to be the hot spot.
Speaker 6: Really fascinating.
Speaker 5: One of the things I want to go back to, though, Clint,
Speaker 5: is in terms of deals, you talked about thirty percent
Speaker 5: off or this percentage off.
Speaker 6: What about for people who use miles.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm not seeing as many mileage deals though they
Speaker 8: are out there. I think you just have to be
Speaker 8: really flexible and you have to be nimble with booking
Speaker 8: mileage deals right now. You know, last year that's what
Speaker 8: we were seeing more was mileage deals. This year it
Speaker 8: seems to be cash deals. So very interesting trend to watch.
Speaker 8: I use tools like seats Dot arrow to find cheap
Speaker 8: business class flights and you know, there's explanation of all
Speaker 8: this stuff at the points guy. But you have to
Speaker 8: be a little You have to be a little tricky
Speaker 8: these days to get a really pine.
Speaker 3: That is so true.
Speaker 1: Hey, listen.
Speaker 5: The other thing I want to ask you about is
Speaker 5: cruise lines because I've seen a lot of commercials for
Speaker 5: the cruise companies and they do seem to be saying
Speaker 5: sign up now and a big percentage off. How much
Speaker 5: of that is kind of amping up to bring in consumers.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's really interesting. The cruise industry was the last
Speaker 8: to recover coming out of COVID, and we saw some
Speaker 8: extraordinary deals. I just have not seen a lot of
Speaker 8: deals in the cruise space these days. So if you
Speaker 8: see something and now that looks really good, jump on it.
Speaker 8: Because cruises are selling out. It's remarkable to come back
Speaker 8: in the cruise industry. I haven't not seen a ton
Speaker 8: of deals. I'm sure there's a few out there, but yeah,
Speaker 8: if you see something on sale, grab it.
Speaker 3: Klint just remind us, he said, seats dot arrow and
Speaker 3: are there other websites that we should know about because
Speaker 3: I feel like these websites change all the time.
Speaker 8: Yeah they do. We've got a guide to all the
Speaker 8: best travel tools at the Points Guide, but seats dot
Speaker 8: arrow is good, Points Bath points dot point dot me
Speaker 8: is another good one. Uh, There's there's all kinds of
Speaker 8: really fun tools out there where you can you can
Speaker 8: beat the airlines at their own game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or at least, you know, spend spend an hour
Speaker 3: or two and have fun dreaming. Clint Henderson, thank you
Speaker 3: so much. Always wonderful to speak with you and actually
Speaker 3: can be very profitable to speak with you as well.
Speaker 3: So thanks again. That's Clint Henderson, who is managing editor
Speaker 3: at The Points Guy, and do check out the Points
Speaker 3: Guy website as well.
Speaker 6: For all of those deals.
Speaker 1: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Businessweekdaily coming up after this.
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Speaker 3: You know, look at the market today, Carol, we have
Speaker 3: to point out that in this last trading day of November,
Speaker 3: we've actually turned positive on the month with the S
Speaker 3: ANDB five hundred. We're finishing the session of more than
Speaker 3: half a percent and we only needed to make up
Speaker 3: point four percent. So my math tells me that we
Speaker 3: are in the green, having dropped four point seven percent
Speaker 3: earlier on this month, really really rocky month than I was.
Speaker 8: Like.
Speaker 3: One hundred is up eight tenths of one percent to
Speaker 3: continue this nice Thanksgiving rally.
Speaker 6: The Dow up six tenths of percent.
Speaker 3: Not much movement for the dollar, equity in disease, as
Speaker 3: I say, higher equity markets closed. The bond market has
Speaker 3: another hour to go, but not seeing too much movement
Speaker 3: there either. The ten year yield just above for one
Speaker 3: right now, the two year yield just below four fifty
Speaker 3: and a little bit of addition to oil, so we're
Speaker 3: about fifty nine to forty seven for WTI Brent crude.
Speaker 3: Really no change at sixty three thirty seven, but plenty
Speaker 3: of interesting moves today in the SMB five hundred, Carol
Speaker 3: Energy was the best sector.
Speaker 5: Yeah, really fascinating to see that at performance today. If
Speaker 5: you're thinking about what performed best in the month of November,
Speaker 5: folks healthcare at the top of the back, it is
Speaker 5: up about eight and a quarter percent. All right, let's
Speaker 5: get more on the market trade for you. Let's bring
Speaker 5: in someone who want which is it day in and
Speaker 5: day out for us here at Bloomberg. She's the Blueberg
Speaker 5: Markets correspondent, Norm Melnda. She joins us right here, Noura,
Speaker 5: where shall we begin here? What kind of caught your attention?
Speaker 5: First of all, for today in what was certainly a
Speaker 5: light volume day.
Speaker 9: Certainly light volume. But what I've been hearing from a
Speaker 9: lot of analysts is the fact that actually in holiday
Speaker 9: shortened weeks, we do tend to see a lot of outperformance.
Speaker 9: That we're just looking at how the week ended. The
Speaker 9: S and P five hundred saw its best week since May.
Speaker 9: And of course, as we're looking at a lot of
Speaker 9: the monthly scopes here, but I was hearing an expectation
Speaker 9: for us to see a bid in the energy sector,
Speaker 9: especially if we're continuing to see a lot of focus
Speaker 9: on the geopolitical tensions in Ukraine Russia that development there.
Speaker 9: So I was talking to some sources over at Integrity
Speaker 9: Asset Management who did expect that to see some some
Speaker 9: boosts today. So it's interesting that that was the best
Speaker 9: performing sector on the day today, Carol.
Speaker 3: And then of course for the retailer is Nora. We
Speaker 3: had a double Jamie of a week because we had
Speaker 3: a lot of earnings out, some of them were very
Speaker 3: amenable to the retailer's stock let's say ANF included.
Speaker 1: And then consumer discretion.
Speaker 3: We're doing quite well today too as the group up
Speaker 3: point nine percent. How important is the holiday season for
Speaker 3: these retailers to keep their stock prices where they are
Speaker 3: into the year end.
Speaker 9: Well, certainly a deluge of earnings that we've really been
Speaker 9: seeing from retailers, and it's really painting a mixed picture,
Speaker 9: but we are still seeing to be underscored during this
Speaker 9: time period. Is the consumer is really strapped right now?
Speaker 9: We've been talking a lot about this K shaped economy
Speaker 9: where essentially we are seeing the upper class continuing to
Speaker 9: be resilient, still spending money, but we are seeing the
Speaker 9: lower income consumer really being a lot pickier during this
Speaker 9: time period, looking for spending more on necessities instead of
Speaker 9: splurging during this time period. So, while we did hear
Speaker 9: the National Retail Federation saying that they expect this to
Speaker 9: be a record year, in terms of the traction that
Speaker 9: we're seeing on Black Friday, which is Black Friday today,
Speaker 9: through the five day stretch through Cyber Monday, we still
Speaker 9: are seeing a resilient but cautious consumer. And as we
Speaker 9: think about what that means for stock prices for the
Speaker 9: retail space, if you look at consumer discretionary Index of
Speaker 9: the S and P five hundred, it's up only about
Speaker 9: four percent, so clearlyagging the double digit games that we
Speaker 9: are seeing from the broader market in the S and
Speaker 9: P five hundred, and the majority of the holiday sales
Speaker 9: account for about twenty percent of the sales more broadly
Speaker 9: for the retail space between November and December. So this
Speaker 9: is a very critical time period in terms of seeing
Speaker 9: how this develops and how much consumer appetite we can
Speaker 9: see during this time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you talk about neurocritical periods. I mean hard to
Speaker 5: believe that we've only got one month left here in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five. It's been quite a year, a lot
Speaker 5: of volatility, to say the least, I'm looking at an
Speaker 5: S ANDP that's up almost seventeen percent, a Nasdaq one
Speaker 5: hundred that's up twenty one percent, and Russell small caps
Speaker 5: up about twelve percent.
Speaker 6: So you know, what are traders focusing.
Speaker 5: On at this point with only another month to go
Speaker 5: until we wrap up the year.
Speaker 9: Just about a month to go to wrap up the year,
Speaker 9: and you are seeing traders, of course, trying to really
Speaker 9: just settle their books as we're heading into year end.
Speaker 9: Of course, the focus still remains on the Federal Reserve
Speaker 9: and what they're going to do next, especially with us
Speaker 9: seeing a lot of the stocks levitating off of this
Speaker 9: idea of a potential FED rate cut ahead, and we
Speaker 9: are really just seeing a lot of people just grappling
Speaker 9: with how we can really end the year on a
Speaker 9: positive note and see what are the opportunities in the
Speaker 9: market right now given the fact that tariff have still
Speaker 9: remained a concern through this entire year, We've been seeing
Speaker 9: geopolitical tension still remaining and focus. So you are really
Speaker 9: seeing the traders right now just trying to figure out
Speaker 9: what sectors and spaces make the most sense in terms
Speaker 9: of just having a defensive position.
Speaker 3: I love that Nora sucks levitating what an idea, but
Speaker 3: they are though on indices too, Nora, Melinda, always a pleasure.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for joining us this Black Friday.
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