Economic data, digital banking, jobs in space: Wealth!

Levi Strauss (LEVI) posted its second quarter results, just barely missing Wall Street sales estimates. In response, the company’s shares began to sink. Yahoo Finance spoke with CFO Harmit Singh about the company’s performance and its plans to cut costs.

According to a MarketWatch study, more than half of Americans have adopted a side hustle to supplement their primary source of income in the last year. Kapitus chief revenue officer Josh Jones joined the show to give insight into how to start a side hustle.

While AI-related investments have dominated investor portfolios in 2024, other sectors are emerging as promising opportunities. Janus Henderson Investors portfolio manager Jeremiah Buckley joined the show to shed light on these alternative investments.

New pending home sales data released Thursday revealed a disappointing trend in the housing market. The reading showed a 2.1% month-over-month decline rather than the 0.5% increase economists expected. Initial jobless claims decreased by 6,000 compared to the previous week, with 233,000 individuals filing for unemployment benefits in the week ending on June 22. This decline suggests a potentially stabilizing labor market.

According to an American Bankers Association survey, the most popular banking method is mobile smartphone apps, followed by the internet on a laptop. Nikki Katz, Bank of America head of digital, joined the show to give insight into the data and behavior of digital banking clients and to talk about what BofA customers are prioritizing in their financial journeys.

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

Video Transcript

Welcome to wealth everyone.

I’m Brad Smith.

This is Yahoo Finance’s guide to building your financial footprint.

Our community of experts is going to give you the resources, tools, tips and tricks that you need to grow your money.

And guess what on today’s show, we’re gonna be diving in examining the best moves for your portfolio, the tech sector booming many people investing.

But we’re going to hear from one portfolio manager who names two other sectors worth your time and any considerations.

And President Biden’s new student loan repayment program has hit a new roadblock just days before it was set to take effect.

We’ll tell you why and what it means for your money.

Plus has your credit score taken a hit from medical debt.

We’ve got you covered with a conversation with a financial expert who can give you the tips and tricks to rebuild your score.

All that much more coming up in today’s show.

But our top story new housing data out this morning in a big week for the sector here, we’ve got pending home sales.

Story continues

This tracks the number of housing contracts that have been signed, but the transaction is not yet complete.

It’s seen as a leading indicator of existing home sales.

Typically, it takes 1 to 2 months to a close on uh to ultimately close on a home.

And here with the numbers we’ve got Yahoo Finance’s Danny Romero here, Danny, you’ve been tracking this one.

So what do we know Brad, high home prices and elevated mortgage rates are keeping would be buyers away from the housing market?

Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that pending home sales, a leading indicator for the housing sector fell 2.1% in May from the month prior and on a yearly basis, pending actions are down 6.6%.

Now, regionally, the Midwest and the South posted a drop in contract signings in May from the month before and that could be because there’s not a lot of people relocating to those areas.

That’s a very different picture from the pandemic days.

Meanwhile the northeast and the west recorded some gains, Brad.

So Danny put these numbers into context for us.

Do they point to any recovery for the housing market?

Look, Brad industry experts expect mortgage rates to be moderately lower which will in turn boost more housing activity and stabilize home prices yet.

Now there are some signs of a of a turning point.

Data from red fin shows that the typical home is selling for less than its listing price.

And that is the first time since that’s happened since the pandemic.

The likelihood of home selling below asking price is rising because there’s more supply and less demand.

Meanwhile, mortgage rates are sitting at their lowest average in three months, but that’s still not enough for buyers to jump into this housing market.

Data from Goldman Sachs shows that about 95% of mortgage borrowers have an interest rate below the current rate and almost 80% of rates are more than 2% percentage points below market rates.

So this recovery could take a little bit longer as these mortgage rates and rates, interest rates remain elevated.

Brad.

Yeah, the red fin data that you had mentioned before saying a typical US home that’s sold during the four weeks ending June 23rd sold for three tens of percent less than its asking price.

Interesting data there.

Thanks so much for breaking it down.

Danny, appreciate it.

Well, we’re keeping a close eye on semiconductors here this morning.

The sector seeing a little bit of pressure after mis Q three earnings were overshadowed by the company’s Q four guidance falling short of A I driven growth expectations and while the A I fueled rally has pushed broader markets to new heights this year.

Let’s not forget about some of the other sectors that could enhance your portfolio here with more is Jeremiah Buckley, who is the Janice Henderson Investors, portfolio manager.

Great to have you here with us Jeremiah.

I mean there’s been so much crowding into the tech trade especially within the theme of generative A I.

But where else are you sensing some opportunities right now?

Yeah, thanks Brad.

Thanks for having me on.

I appreciate it.

Uh So there are other areas of the market that we’re excited about as well.

So uh one example would be healthcare.

So we’re seeing lots of innovation and biotech as well as medical devices uh which continues to be exciting and we’re seeing uh good growth there.

Uh We’re also excited about uh areas of consumer discretionary.

So we think e-commerce continues to grow at a rapid rate.

Um But we also think that cash rich consumers are really in a good position right now.

Uh And so one of the areas that we like is travel, uh we continue to see strong recovery globally.

And so those companies that are exposed to global travel trends uh continue to be favorable for us.

And, and the last one, a more kind of value oriented uh area of the market is uh capital markets.

You know, we’ve seen a couple of years of uh weak capital market activity.

Uh We think with interest rates, stabilizing a lot of pent up demand, we’ll start to see an improvement in capital markets as well.

And so some of the investment banks are a lot of the companies that facilitate capital markets activity.

Uh We think are also attractive here.

You know, it’s interesting.

We were, we were speaking earlier today with uh Kevin Gordon of Charles Schwab, who was talking about one of those sectors that you mentioned in health care.

And I just want to zero in on that for a second because he said as of yesterday and he was talking to us, um you know about some of the areas that he sees right now as, as weak but ultimately saying only two sectors with less than half of their members are trading above the 200 day moving average consumer staples and health care.

What what does that indicate to you?

Especially as you’re looking across sectors and trying to figure out where there still is some broadening that is yet to take place.

Yeah, so the market has certainly been more aggressive and so the two sectors that you name are are certainly more defensive sectors.

And so they, they’ve trailed this as people have shifted uh capital to the higher growth sectors like technology and communications.

But we, we think that there’s uh attractive growth opportunities like I mentioned in in biotech and and me devices.

Um there’s a lot of innovation, you see companies that are growing, you know, high single digits, low double digits.

And so we think health care can be both defensive uh if we do have some volatility in the markets, but it also is offensive in that a lot of companies are innovating and driving good and attractive growth.

You, you also mentioned travel a moment ago, one of my favorite sectors to talk about here and continue to track when you look across what the difficulties are for maintaining margins right now.

And especially as many of the airlines, if we’re looking at that particular subset of the sector as well, are trying to figure out their own routes, their schedules and the ability to take on new aircraft.

How much of a concern does that kind of present as you’re evaluating the overall health of that industry?

Yeah, so uh we’re focused more on our ownership is in hotels as well as the OTAs like booking holdings.

Um We think those are better business models than the airlines, but obviously the airlines are an important aspect of making sure that we have enough supply.

Uh so people can uh fly to those hotels.

Um As far as the airlines, I think we’re seeing differentiated results between the domestic focused airlines as well as the global airlines.

Um A lot of our thesis around the travel recovery is outside the US.

Uh I think we’re back to a normal trend line in the US.

And so with the those capacity additions for the airlines, that’s led to some difficulty for those uh us focused airlines.

But if you look at the global airlines like a Delta or United, uh they’ve had better results.

Um And that, that’s a big part of our thesis is that global travel recovery, Jeremiah Buckley, who is the Janice Henderson investors, portfolio manager, Jeremiah, thanks so much for taking the time here with us today.

Thanks a lot for having me on.

Certainly.

Well, Denham may be in these days, but Levi Strauss latest earnings report out yesterday shows that the consumer still being somewhat cautious in their discretionary spending.

Our Josh Lipton has more on this and what investors are tracking on Levi’s.

That’s right, Brad.

So they, they still might like the Js, they might like the denim but investors clearly not happy with Levi’s straus earning the results today.

The company report a Q two profit that did beat Wall Street’s forecast but revenue of one 0.44 billion did just miss expectations of 1.45 billion company reaffirming its full year outlook.

Bottom line.

That was not good enough for investors who remember had piled into this name.

Expectations were running hot into this print.

The stock had surged about 40% this year through Wednesday’s close.

The company’s CFO was on Yahoo Finance this morning talking with us about the results and expressing optimism about the business as we think about the US as a marketplace.

This is the the third consecutive quarter of the US growing.

For more analysis, I caught up this morning with Steel’s Jim Duffy overall.

He says this report was strong with acceleration in the direct to consumer business.

That’s a solid foundation.

He argues that they can build on.

So what is the issue?

Jim says investors are disappointed with the wholesale business and that the company did not in fact raise its full year outlook.

But he’s arguing this stock move we’re seeing right now is an overreaction.

He rates this one a buy because it is a great band.

And he says, with opportunity for category expansion, good capacity for revenue and margin improvement and a strong balance sheet company also just raised its quarterly dividend for the first time in six quarters more broadly.

What does this report tell us about the consumer?

Jim says it tells us the consumers still willing to spend when they see something they want, but they are spending more selectively right now and you can see that in the company’s numbers, Jim says with its direct to consumer numbers were strong but some wholesale part still having challenges.

Brad.

Yeah, it’s interesting what they said was doing well, successes in their core space dye business.

I, I don’t know too much about that one, but I do know a little bit more about the wide leg pants that everybody’s been kind of pushing on us right now.

It’s a trend.

It’s a theme.

Have you bought him?

No, because you know, I don’t think that’s a good look for me.

I got, I, I try the wide leg, I just look like a fire hydrant.

You know, it’s that I believe you, Josh.

You think so?

I appreciate that.

That’s nice.

All right, we’re both gonna give it a shot here.

We’ll report back here, Josh.

Thanks so much.

Everyone coming up on wealth.

The Biden administration’s new student loan relief plan has hit a roadblock.

We’ll break down what this means for you and your money.

Plus.

Are you thinking of making your side hustle into your main hustle?

One of the experts is gonna talk about all of this and the financial signs that you’re ready to take the lead.

And we’ve also got insights from digital banking customers.

We’re gonna speak with Bank of America about how their clients are increasingly using digital in their financial lives.

All that and much more coming up here on wealth.

A key Biden administration student loan relief plan has been put on hold two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri halting parts of the administration’s income driven repayment plan known as save until they rule on the cases to discuss.

We’ve got Yahoo Finance’s very own, Rick Newman here with more.

What do we know about this so far?

State of chaos?

Uh So the safe plan, uh as you mentioned is income driven repayment.

So, uh you can have your payments reduced based on uh a history of repayment and uh based on your, your level of income.

Um So I I’m not sure it’s entirely clear how this legal action is going to affect the 5 million people who are uh enrolled in this plan.

Uh um And I think it just so, first of all, it doesn’t end the litigation.

They, they, they put, they put injunctions in place pending the outcome of litigation.

Uh, and it wasn’t for the whole plan.

They didn’t give the plaintiffs everything they wanted, they gave them part of what they asked for.

So, uh, I, I’m not sure there’s a bottom line here for borrowers.

I think the best thing anybody can do is go to the government website that handles this.

It’s Student aid.gov and right there is a button uh to see if you qualify for debt relief and then sort of follow the prompts.

Uh And this is gonna, this is going to unfold over coming weeks and months.

But I think in the broader picture here, Biden himself said he has said many times he doesn’t, he doesn’t think the president whether it’s him or somebody else has the authority to do this through executive order that it requires Congress to pass a law that would put, put debt relief into place and make it a matter of law rather than policy.

And uh II, I think the White House completely expected all of these legal challenges.

Remember, the Supreme Court uh last year shot down.

Uh Biden’s overreaching his overarching debt relief plan that would have um would have canceled or reduced debt for almost all student borrowers.

So the Supreme Court canceled that uh we have now other courts canceling parts of what Biden is trying to do.

And we’re, I think this, I think we’re going to see just ongoing legal challenges here.

The Biden campaign, they had talked about this even before taking office, campaigned on it.

And now it seems like for every year during the administration, we’ve continued to see more of an effort to push student loan debt forgiveness.

How do we expect this to come up now that the campaigning is beginning all over again?

I mean, who knows?

I mean, so just to briefly go back to 2020.

So Biden was not the foremost advocate of debt relief.

I mean, we had Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren say, basically saying forgive all student debt.

Um And there’s like o well over one trillion, I mean, t trillion dollars.

We’re talking about a lot of money here.

Um And Biden said, no, I don’t think we can go that far.

He said, I, I might do some modified.

So what did Biden did try to do is really uh uh forgive up uh 10,000 for many borrowers and then up to 20,000 for some other borrowers.

That’s what the Supreme Court shot down.

I think the Biden campaign would say.

Now, as it says before, this means we need to elect Democrats.

We, we need to have a clean sweep of Democrats uh in the White House and in Congress so that we can try to pass this as a law and get this done.

But worth pointing out um we did have a clean sweep by Democrats in the first two years of Biden’s administration in 2020.

That’s right.

Uh Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during Biden’s first two years and Biden could not get student debt relief done then.

I mean, this is not, this is controversial.

I mean, whether this is a good idea.

I mean, a lot of people who say if you’re gonna commit uh and work again, lots of money here.

If you’re gonna commit $500 billion or a trillion dollars of uh government money to some kind of social aid, this is not the best way to target it better to target at uh working moms, for example, um childcare aid, um early head start, you know, early childhood education, you get more bang for the buck that way.

I mean, this act, this does actually affect, it’s, it’s uh it’s aid for higher income people relative to the whole population.

But this fight is just, I I mean, this fight could just go on in perpetuity because uh I think uh it is a big problem for a lot of people who just cannot get out, out from under the amount of debt they have, they want some help, but it’s hard getting the help delivered.

We’ll see how it comes up on the debate stage.

Student aid.gov, follow that, you know, bookmark that and follow it if you’re a student loan borrower, if you qualify, Rick Newman.

Thanks so much.

Thanks, Brad.

Appreciate it.

And guys, if you’re looking to get a few extra bucks in your pocket, a side hustle could be a good option for you.

A market watch study found that more than half of Americans have adopted a side hustle to supplement their primary source of income in the last year.

And our next guest has some tips on how to maximize your side hustle to help benefit your financial goals.

Let’s welcome in Josh Jones Capita Chief Revenue Officer.

Great to have you here with us, Josh.

So when is it time to turn your side hustle into your main hustle?

Yeah, first off, thanks for having me.

Um but I mean, the, the easy answer to that is if your side hustle and supplementing your income completely, it’s an easy switch.

Uh Not everybody is as lucky as that uh at least to start.

But the nice thing about side hustles is it’s something that your financial life shouldn’t depend on immediately.

It’s you have your full time job.

If you’re able to carve out extra time to establish secondary source of income, it gives you the ability to test out a career that you might be interested in without taking that financial risk.

Uh So I’m a big supporter and passionate about the topic.

I myself have a side hustle, I’m a real estate investor.

Uh I’m very supportive of it and I think many people have the ability to start a side hustle, leveraging the digital economy, becoming a blogger, a remote tutoring.

Um you know, influencers have kind of run wild with the roman romanticizing the idea about becoming an entrepreneur.

I don’t want to undermine how difficult it really is.

Uh But it is worth a shot starting that side hustle and having that secondary source of income.

Yeah, we’ve got a really strong wave of very good video editors out there right now who are influencers on social media.

And at the end of the day, anybody who is kind of capitalizing on their side hustle needs to figure out how they monetize it.

What are those first steps in figuring out even how to monetize it?

If it’s not as clear cut as someone giving you a check for side work that you’re doing or if you have a W-4 I nine, whatever the case may be and you’re building it from the ground up.

Yeah, I think the first thing, the easiest thing to do is figure out what you’re good at, right?

Don’t follow your passion f follow your natural talents.

Uh So if you are great or, and, and passionate about video editing, let you know, follow through with that.

I think the next steps are really sizing the demand, right?

It’s easy to think of something that could potentially generate money.

But is there demand uh for that product or that service that you’re planning to offer offer locally or?

Digitally?

Uh I think after that, the next step really would be to understand what somebody’s willing to pay for that product or service.

And lastly is that, uh is that income that you’re able to generate from your product and service worth your time?

What, what needs to be invested uh into the business to get to a place where you’re happy with the income that you’re generating and, and naturally getting to, you know, the point of what is the growth opportunity.

Can you eventually make this your full time job or is this your, you know, toe into becoming an entrepreneur uh or is it a test into another career uh without taking that risk entirely up upfront by making that switch without seeing uh what works and what doesn’t, when can you effectively recognize that that your, your side hustle is not just enough to support your current life, but, but also may have a growth opportunity to be a bigger business as well.

Yeah, you know, I mean, with what with what I do daily, you know, we, we lend to small businesses and I see over 40,000 applications monthly uh of people looking for capital to grow their business and each one of those businesses for the most part is identified an opportunity for growth.

So I think it’s important to not only get to a level of scale that you can supplement your income but really understanding what is the path forward is it, do I have the ability to eventually hire.

Do I have the ability to expand?

And, and really, what do I ultimately want out of it?

Because a lot of times people, they, they fall in love with the idea of being a business owner, but there are plenty of sleepless nights.

I’ve done it myself.

Uh, you value your employees over yourself.

They’re the lifeblood of your business.

And those are really scary moments.

Uh, and when you’re growing your business, you really have to identify.

Ok.

It, what do I want out of this?

Is it more free time?

Is it spent to spend time with my friends and family?

Because that entrepreneurship path looks a lot different than one that is, let me maximize something, let me make it large.

Let me have an exit strategy or let me just make sure that this is a family business that II I built something that is legacy worthy and I can hand down my family.

Um So I, I think it’s really understanding your motivation.

Is it really, it will help you determine what you want to do with your side.

Hustle great tips there, Josh Jones Capita Chief Revenue Officer.

Thanks so much for taking the time.

Josh.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Certainly.

Coming up everyone a deep dive into digital banking trends.

We’ll talk to Bank of America about how clients are using digital in more areas of their financial lives.

That is after the break according to the American bankers association, the A B A as you know them in your hood, 71% of Americans Bank using apps on their mobile devices or online via a laptop or PC.

And Bank of America says it’s 57 million digital clients are increasingly using digital in more areas of their financial lives.

Here to dive into the data.

We’ve had Nikki Katz who is the head of digital at Bank of America.

Nikki.

Great to see you.

Thanks so much for hopping on program with us.

Let’s talk about this, this digital banking that you at Bank of America and the broader industry are seeing right now, what are customers clearly tapping into and expecting of a digital banking experience as they are continuously leaning into technology?

Yeah.

Thanks for having me on Brad.

And increasingly what’s obvious is that digital banking is becoming more and more central to customers relationship with their own finances.

And for us, we have 57 million clients who have opted to leverage digital channels for their banking and that number is actually growing by about a million a year.

But even more interesting than that is the fact that they’re logging in more frequently.

And so the engagement numbers are far outpacing that growth.

So last year, we saw clients leveraging uh digital channels 23.4 billion times and that includes both, you know, roughly 13 billion times that they came to us to log in and their their finances as well as roughly 10.5 billion alerts that they signed up to receive from us.

And so really digital is what we’re seeing is a behavior shift where digital is becoming more and more central to our client’s relationship with their finances.

They’re using it more frequently and helping them be better connected and to your question around expectations.

I mean, I think what we’re seeing is that clients expect it to be easy, they expect it to be convenient to do their banking.

They don’t wanna have to wait, they wanna be able to self service.

And we’re seeing that uh they’re also expecting us to really partner with them in ensuring that their finances are on track.

So as an example of that, uh we have Erica, which is the industry’s most widely used uh virtual financial assistant and clients interacted with Erica over 2 billion times since we launched.

And what’s nice about that is that Erica is able to proactively give insights to our clients, things like, you know, hey, pay attention to your recurring subscription amounts or um you have a deposit that’s coming in etcetera.

Erica is A I driven.

How many more A I driven experiences do you think customers are gonna be able to feel comfortable tapping into?

Especially as they move more and continue to be more digital about their banking approaches?

Yeah, I think the customers expect a great convenient and smooth visual experience um regardless of what part of their lives they’re interacting with, but definitely in the financial space.

And so I think the way we think about it is not so much, what’s the technology that’s enabling it?

Which in this case is a I driven.

Um But really what’s the best tool for getting our customers that ease and convenience that they’re looking for?

Certainly.

And I mean, this comes back to life planning.

Financial planning is life planning at the end of the day too.

W where do you see even more of those decisions being made?

Especially as you’re considering what customers are trying to do, whether that’s budgeting or improving their credit or making a big purchase like a home or, you know, just trying to get a lavish, luxurious vacation, Eric uh or not Erica Nikki, Eric is on the mind now.

It’s easy to confuse us.

But um I, I think that’s right.

I mean, exactly what you, what you just named, we launched a product called Life Plan, which is really all about clients telling us what’s important to them in life.

And since we launched it, we’ve had 15 million uh clients set up digital life plans with us.

And it’s exactly what you said, the top five objectives that we see from our clients are uh budgeting and starting to save.

That’s literally 31% of our clients.

That’s what’s on their mind.

Uh improving their credit saving for a large purchase, buying a home travel, that’s what’s on their mind.

And then the other thing that we’re seeing just through their behavior is they want it to be easy, they want it all to be in one place.

And we’ve been on a journey to ensure that our clients can see every aspect of the relationship all in one app app, whether that’s banking or investment or retirement.

And so they’re, and they’re, they’re responding, they’re leveraging the app more, they’re using it more as a result.

And just lastly while we have you here, I only got about 30 seconds.

I mean, Zella has been massive for the entire financial industry, Zelle other peer to peer transactions platforms.

Where do you see banks and the industry leaning further into platforms like that knowing the amount of consumers that it does connect.

Yeah, I mean, again another example of customers just shifting completely into digital.

I mean to, to underscore what you just said, Zelle transactions at this point exceed the combination of both cash and checks.

So customers are using Zelle at that level is completely uh surpassed cash and checks.

And just to put a number on that last month alone, we saw exactly 100 32 million Zelle transactions totaling a record $39 billion.

So I think where it’s going to go is customers are going to continue to pick up these technologies and leverage them.

We’re going to continue to see adoption and whether that’s Zelle or Erica, uh customers are going to continue to expect things to be fast, easy, seamless, convenient and we’re going to see those numbers continue to grow and customer expectations are going to continue to evolve and change.

They’re gonna expect everything to be fast real time at easy in the way that digital made made it really fascinating.

Nikki Katz who is the head of Digital Bank Bank of America.

Thank you so much for taking the time here with us today.

We appreciate it, Nikki.

Thanks for having me, Brian.

Certainly 41% of Americans have medical debt.

That’s according to KFF.

And those outstanding balances can take a toll on credit scores to discuss medical debts, impact and how you can rebuild your credits.

We’ve got Monique White who is a self financial head of community and financial expert back here with us, Monique.

Great to see you first.

We gotta figure out number one when you do take on medical debt, what are the first steps that you can take to start to make sure that it doesn’t hit your credit score or loom over your credit score for too long, Brad?

Thanks for having me back.

Um That’s a great question.

Uh We know it’s no secret that millions of Americans are burdened with medical debt right now.

And um it’s really important to be proactive with that debt.

It’s, it’s a little bit unique than any other consumer debt.

So right now, the current policy is that a hospital has 18 months to collect that debt from you and they also cannot report any medical debt under $500.

Um So there are some steps you can take first is to review your bill, do your due diligence, make sure everything is making sense, contact that hospital, see if you can come up with some type of payment plan or good faith payment so that it does not hit your credit report.

And then also just knowing your rights, as I stated earlier, they have 18 months to try to collect that debt, they cannot report anything under $500.

Um So keeping a monitor on your credit report is extremely important.

Um So that you if you do see those inaccuracies on your credit report, you can look into disputing that what happens after the 18 months.

Yes.

So I think it’s important to address, you know, how medical debt impacts your credit report.

So if you have an unpaid medical debt, it can get into collections and that collections account can potentially damage your score up to 50 points.

It can also remain on your credit report up to seven years.

Um And though although medical debt is not weighted as heavily into your cycle score as other consumer debt, it still did that initial damage to your credit score, which just makes it a lot harder for consumers to get their finances back on track.

Yes, certainly.

And So say you have seen an impact to hit to your credit score because of medical debt.

Where can you perhaps seek some remediation from that?

Yeah, that’s a great question.

Um So there’s three things you can do just like the advice earlier, review your bill, make sure everything looks accurate.

If you need to contact your insurance company or the hospital to review your bill, you can definitely do that.

The second thing is to seek uh support for that.

There are agencies in your area like for free coaching and free counseling where a coach or counselor can sit down and, and come up with the action plan and figure out how you can manage some of this debt.

Someone is coming off of a medical emergency, they might have some residual stress from that.

So it’s really important to try to get support for that.

And the next thing is to consider adding additional trade lines to your credit report so that you can generate some type of positive payment history.

Monique White self, financial head of community and financial expert, Monique, great tips, actionable as we need them.

Thank you so much.

Thank you coming up.

Do you want to work in space or maybe just for a company that’s focused on the space industry?

Well, up next, we have an expert that can tell us all about the top jobs in space and where to find them as part of Yahoo Finance’s space race.

Week stick around 233,000 people filed for first time unemployment benefits last week, trickling down from the week prior for more on what this could mean for the labor market.

We’ve got our very own Rochelle AFO all across the labor market and the employment economy space, Rochelle, what do we know?

That’s right.

So obviously, this is just a piece of the picture, but as you mentioned, there, initial claims softened to 233,000 for the week ending June 22nd.

Now that was down 6000 from the previous week and lower than estimates of 235,000.

Now, while first time filing data, that is a better leading economic indicator, the standout data point was actually in continuing applications also called insured unemployment.

Now that actually hit the highest level since 2001 at 1.84 million.

That’s 1839 for the week ending June 15th.

Now that was actually a jump of 18,000.

So essentially this means that people are staying unemployed for longer and as weekly data can be volatile.

Keep in mind things like holidays including Juneteenth, you have schools letting out for summer, et cetera.

The closely watched four weeks moving average of new claims that tends to be a more accurate gauge.

But even that rose by 3000 last week to 236,000.

Now remember workers are also consumers who spend.

So that has a domino effect on the demand for goods and services and of course, the economy’s performance.

So we have to look at the big picture that this data is showing us.

That’s right.

So how can investors kind of use this data for their portfolio?

Well, most importantly, no knee jerk reactions we do tend to see with initial jobless claims that that can affect some of the short term market sentiment as they sort of just take that one piece.

But it is better to use sustained trends versus single data points that come out and you couple that with other economic indicators like GDP growth, consumer confidence inflation, as well as of course, what we hear from the Federal Reserve commentary as well to really get a comprehensive picture of the economy.

And of course, we’re also getting a more nuance on the big jobs number that’s coming out on July 5th.

Keep in mind if we do continue to see sustained softness in the labor market and that impacts economic growth, we’ll also likely see more inflows into defensive sectors, think utility, consumer staples and healthcare stocks.

They do tend to perform better during economic slowdowns.

And of course, investors will be watching to see how the fed reacts to this as they take this piece of the puzzle in their interest rate picture as well.

Brad Michelle.

Thank you so much teeing up this broader labor situation discussion next here.

Thanks so much.

Well, lots of kids grow up wanting to be astronauts, but while very few people actually get to strap into a rocket and fly off to space.

A lot of people work in the industry that makes it all happen.

So how do you find the right job for you in the space sector?

Joining me now, we’ve got Tom Kelly who was the CE of Ivona, which is a staffing agency for the space industry.

Tom, great to have you here with us today.

A lot of people wanna go to space or at least be space touching somehow in some fashion or another.

What are some of the top ways and roles that are starting to open up in this industry?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

First of all, thanks a lot for, for having me on the show.

Thanks a lot for doing the Space Week as well.

I think it’s important to, to really push out the message that the space industry is open for everybody.

Um There is a bit of a narrative at the moment that it’s all about the tourism and that’s actually a very small part of the industry.

Um It’s, it is extremely broad.

So I think that, you know, the first, the first key message is that the space industry is open for everybody.

Um We’ve placed roles in everything that you could ever imagine from admin through marketing up to sales CEO S and the industry is welcoming of people with skill sets from outside.

Um But I think, you know, what 11 really, really, really important thing to, to mention as well is that space is very unique in its culture.

Um I think it’s derived from the fact that um most people think it’s just rockets.

Um In fact, it is a lot more than that.

But once you actually start to understand the sector, you realize that and I believe to do with the fact that most of it are working on technology and it doesn’t actually exist on earth.

It people are humble, people are approachable.

People just want to do really, really well and really push things forward for humanity.

So the culture is fully, fully, fully, um you know, it’s, there’s nothing else like it.

Um as referenced on the slide there, you know, engineering is obviously a huge part of it.

These are, these are kind of normal skill sets that you would find.

So um electrical engineering, systems, engineering, embedded software, um mechanical design, you can see there the kind of the kind of depth of uh the seniority.

Um but most of the positions are engineering and these are the sorts of salaries that you can expect um if you to come and work in the space industry.

So again, forget there’s kind of slow moving industry purely about the government.

Um you know, probably a lower salary, this is new space VC, private equity backed sexy companies that are looking to do incredible things.

Um Some of the companies that we’ve been to see are just, are just just insane.

So as you can see there, the salaries are pretty much consistent with the tech sector.

Um space is now, in fact, deep tech, um it used to just be hardware and now it’s really, really, really evolved.

Um in terms of like the key locations for the um in the US, it’s overwhelmingly West Coast.

Uh If you look across the investment into companies over the last four years, which incidentally really did peak in uh 2020.

Um It slowed down a little bit.

Um In 2022 I think investors started to realize that they need to have a return on this very interesting tech and now it’s found, but it’s, it is predominantly West coast.

Um Colorado is the second um both those locations are traditional aerospace areas, but interestingly with about 8% of the investment is Florida.

They have the rocket launches census.

So with that in mind, Tom, sorry, I just want to jump in here.

I mean, where are we seeing the most space jobs?

You mentioned some of the locations and come to mind naturally for a lot of viewers because those are bases where there have been a lot of government operations previously.

There are a lot of new private operations that are coming online too.

And so where are you seeing the most of the positions in that kind of public versus private jousting, especially when there is overlap in some of those contracts for the industry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The there’s definitely been a shift.

Um There’s been a shift from the primes.

So when we say primes going refer to NASA, to Lockheed, to Boeing, et cetera, um all bidding on the same work as other much smaller companies.

But now the government are actually interested in providing these pieces of work to much smaller companies.

We which which is fantastic because it pushes the innovation, it changes the way in which these companies look to work on uh longer term pieces of work.

Um What we see is predominantly the contracts are are going to the VC backed uh or businesses at the moment.

Um The poor growth areas that we’ve seen over the last few years has definitely been in Earth observation.

So what, what we mean by that is effectively businesses who are are using space technology to monitor Earth and then make actionable decisions off the back of that.

So I live in Florida.

Um hurricane season is upon us.

We wouldn’t look into those without all the technology from space.

Um But space is is all around us.

Um It’s absolutely everywhere.

Um The flat out will soon be a smart desk.

You won’t be able to do that without the technology from space, the cell phones soon will be able to have perfect phone signals everywhere.

Not sure we spent much time in the UK, but that’s incredibly useful.

I, I can imagine that that would save a lot of people.

Some, uh some, some pain, some agony of losing that reception.

For sure.

Tom, we, we gotta leave things there on the day.

We’re running short on time here in the show.

Would love to have you back though and continue this conversation.

Very important one, for sure.

Absolutely.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks so much, Tom, Tom Kelly, who is the Ivona Ceo.

Everyone.

We’ve got much more wealth after the break.

Stick, stick around.

You’re watching Yahoo Finance.

There’s a real reluctance to commit to big discretionary purchases as more Americans are piling on credit card debt.

And our next guest is looking to make purchases more affordable by allowing sellers to trade in an item that they own to reduce the cost of a new purchase right at checkout.

Joining me now to weigh in on the launch is Bastian Lehman who is Tip Top founder and Ceo Bastian.

Great to have you here with us.

All right, first, just how would this work in practice?

What goes into the verification process and kind of understanding what type of value someone would get for what they’re trading in in order to put that value towards a future purchase.

Good morning.

And thanks for having me.

Um Let me, let me dive right in.

You just mentioned it, Tip Top.

Is this incredibly exciting product that we’re launching today.

It’s, it’s a new way to pay for things, maybe a new way to pay for things.

Since the credit card, what we do is we allow you to trade in things you no longer need when you like to buy something new right at the checkout.

And that, that is, uh really what is the key messaging piece here?

Um If you’re at the checkout, right?

When you want to buy something, we allow you to offset the cost of that new product by trading something in and the whole process takes a couple of seconds.

What’s this limited to?

I mean, can I trade in old shoes in order to get some new ones?

Like where are you finding some traction right now?

Early on?

Well, uh your old shoes may probably be better off at the goodwill.

Um But I’ll tell you what the average US household has around $2500 worth of goods that can be traded in and that we match with our catalog.

There’s around 50,000 products and growing that we have in our catalog and that accounts to around $280 billion worth of goods in us households.

So I think about it as a bank account that American customers don’t know they have and we give them access to it.

What is the strategy here for tip top?

How does tip top see its revenue model, its profit model even going forward.

We, we, we want to offer this incredible superpower um to the customers and we won’t charge them.

We charge a modest fee to the merchants that participate and that integrate tip top on the checkout.

And ultimately, we hope that there is enough margin in the products that we are purchasing from customers and that we’re ultimately going to resell.

Certainly thi this is a tough capital, uh tough capital environment, how well funded is tip top.

Uh and, and how do you kind of look across the entire landscape and say where you’re going to deploy this capital to make sure that you can get to that next growth phase as well.

We’re, we’re a very small team.

We’re only around 14 people, uh very engineering heavy and we’re focusing right now exclusively on the customer experience.

We, we want to get something out there and we believe we did get something out there that customers love and that customers love to use.

Um you know, when you launch a company and when you run a start up, you, your biggest job really is to test a bunch of hypotheses in, in, in really fast order.

So we’re extremely excited about getting the product into customers hands and hopefully, it means that we now have to shift our focus to scaling.

Now, a few of us have built Postmates before.

Um and we had to scale in a market that was totally foreign to us extremely fast.

So we feel well equipped for the scaling challenge ahead.

Ok.

So you mentioned it, you are also one of the co founders of Postmates.

You sold your business to Uber a few years back.

Look, I mean, I think we can call you a serial entrepreneur or serial founder at this point and you’ve seen success at doing it, other owners out there.

If they’re looking to sell, what should they know about how to scale up their business and how to make it appealing for a large buyer like an Uber potentially to make sure that it still has a go forward strategy too.

II, I don’t know if I know too much about a strategy to get someone to buy your business mostly because we never intended to sell Postmates.

Um So it’s probably a good idea to just focus on building a lasting company.

And, and, and what happens is that potential buyers will ultimately notice that and you, you, you can get um extra credit for building something that ultimately becomes inevitable and, and, and someone has to buy your business.

I think that’s always a very strong position to be in but, but building something was the intent of selling it.

Um I wouldn’t know much about it.

We, I mean, were you, were you proud, was that a proud moment when you were able to see something that you build up, have such value that a large company wanted to continue to make it uh make it successful under their own umbrella.

Uh uh Postmates as a brand is still around and I’m very proud of that.

And I’m also very proud that the majority of all the team members uh from Postmates found a way into the Uber organization.

Many of them are now in leading roles within Uber, uh especially on the engineering side.

And I think that speaks a lot to the quality of engineers and product uh uh designers and product managers that we had at Postmates.

So I’m, I’m, I’m very proud of that.

Bastian Lehman, who is the founder of Postmates and of course, the founder and CEO over at Tiptop would love to check back in in the future on the tip top business.

Thanks so much, Bastian.

Thank you for having me.

Certainly, let’s do a final check of the markets here as we’re taking a look at the major averages.

We are mixed right now, the dow in positive territory.

However, we’ve got a little slippage on the dow or excuse me, on the S and P 500 the NASDAQ in negative territory.

The dow is green.

No, that’s it for wealth.

I’m Brad Smith.

Thanks so much for watching.

Market domination starts 3 p.m. with Julie Hyman and Josh Slip.