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Audi's US EV Workforce Transformation

Jun 13, 202336 min
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Episode description

Brian Stockton, Senior Director of Technical Services and Training at Audi, discusses the need for trained EV technicians and the automaker's Audi Education Partnership. Steven Skancke, Chief Economic Advisor at Keel Point, provides a preview of Wednesday's Fed decision. Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg News Startups Reporter Ellen Huet share the details of Ellen's Businessweek Magazine story Layoffs and AI Are Changing Tech’s Once Invincible Job Market. And we Drive to the Close with Jeff Krumpelman, Chief Investment Strategist at Mariner Wealth Advisors.
Hosts: Matt Miller and Madison Mills. Producer: Paul Brennan. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

This is Bloomberg Business Wait inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio no one else.

Speaker 2

I'm very enthusiastic about is the Audi what we called in Germany the or Quattro. So that was like the most recognizable Audi rally car from my childhood.

Speaker 3

My dad.

Speaker 2

Actually I was lucky enough that my dad was able to go over to Germany and pick up an outy five thousand back in I think the early eighties and bring it back with him on the Queen Elizabeth two. You can't do that anymore. This is personal for you, so yeah, I've been a fan of the brand. In fact, the first car I ever bought was an Audi A four. I got the two point five TDI of vant. I picked mine up as well in I feel like that was near Hartzoganaurrak, where I picked it up from the factory,

so that was really cool. I want to welcome in right now. Brian Stockton. He is the senior director of Technical Services and Training Training for Audi and he joins us on Zoom from Auburn Hills, Michigan. Brian, I have a long family history related to this brand, so I'm excited to talk to you. And I've been working on these cars for for for decades, but only on the internal combustion engines. And what we're going to talk to you about today is the training that people will need

for the EVS. You know, bringing in a whole new generation of cars. How much harder are they to work on than the gas engine cars?

Speaker 4

Yeah?

Speaker 5

Good, good, And I'm glad to hear that you're happy with outing. You've been a long time Audi brand enthusiast. Let me kind of start off with talking about our program, our AEP program, our Audi Educational Partnership program, and to your point, evs, although new to the overall market, not necessarily so new to Audi launched our first one in twenty eighteen, and today we have five current models that are out there available to.

Speaker 4

Our customer base, so it's not new for us. We had it out there for a while.

Speaker 5

But we're kind of fine tuning how we develop our workforce to work on those to kind of to get to your point about what's different about it. So we built this program called the ep AUDI Educational Partnership Program.

It's really a way to transform our technician workforce so that they can work on these high voltage vehicles along with the traditional ice engines, to be expert level certified so they can really address any customer issues for our new vehicles today and moving forward, kind of jump a little more into the program if I could.

Speaker 2

Well, Brian, what I'm wondering is how much do you need to learn to work on the evs Because with the gas engines and the diesels that AUDI has made, you know, they were complicated motors, and I mean, you know it took time, but over a decade we've we've figured out how to do it. With the evs. I feel like you need fewer people to put them together. There are a lot fewer moving parts. It just seems like it would be much easier to service them.

Speaker 4

Yeah, good points.

Speaker 5

You're right in terms of the mechanicals, the individual componentry less componentory in an.

Speaker 4

EV vehicle by a long shot. And you know, in terms of you know, some of the vehicles don't have transmissions.

Speaker 5

Some of our higher end vehicles still have transmissions that are evs like our etron GT. However, the main difference where you have less componentry, you have more complexity and the logic and the computer controlled systems, so the diagnostics, the analytics and all those things are.

Speaker 4

Much more complex.

Speaker 5

So where you ease up on the hardware, the complexity is increased with these types of vehicles.

Speaker 6

Okay, So I am going to out myself as kind of the loser idiot of this conversation because listen, I've just grown up without a lot of cars in my life. I'm a New York City girl. As of eight years ago. Before that, I was in college, I didn't have a car. So I'm just I'm not a big cars gal. But I do know that if I got one today, I would have to get an EV to be considered cool. So, Brian, you know this space incredibly well. When it comes to younger people buying evs and the increase in demand that

we're seeing for EV's in general. How much of a read through are you seeing from the overall transition into evs for the need for skilled technicians to work on those evs, Like, how direct is the correlation between the two.

Speaker 5

We started to see the correlation back in twenty nineteen We launched our first full EV in twenty eighteen, and I think just from the standpoint of new technology and the complexity and the diagnostics, we had to figure out a way to transform our workforce. So we came up with this thing called the AUDI Educational Partnership Program, which is kind of what you're kind of leaning into a little bit, if I could just take a moment and

give you a few key points on it. This program is kind of unique in many ways and the fact that it really takes and connects the school. So high schools, secondary schools that have accredited programs, we reach out to them. We give them access to all of our online training, including all the high voltage. Then we reach out we connect the students to our dealers, to our dealer network so locally. So a student that wants to proceed in this AAP program, they go to the school's online assessment.

Once they pass, then they're accepted into the program. We connect them to a dealership and then they start what we call the eighteen months.

Speaker 4

In this eighteen month program, they get put into a.

Speaker 5

Class, they stay with the same group of people for eighteen months. We travel them around the country to different AUDI dedicated training centers and they're going to class in our Audi corporate training centers for technicians not through secondary schools, and we teach them the finer points on diagnostics, all the new technologies, all those things they need to know, and we bring them up to an expert level technicians. So we do in about eighteen months, where it takes

most technicians over five years to achieve. So to your point, it takes some diagnostic thought. It takes a lot of background and a lot of basics to be able to get to that point to understand those systems and how to diagnose them.

Speaker 2

All right, So we all know, Brian, there's been a real labor shortage in the United States. I think, especially for skilled labor like this, it's got to be hard to find. So this program is a great way to kind of bring the kids up through school and into your service base. Is that part of what you're doing here, trying to recruit the smartest kids in America?

Speaker 5

That's exactly what we're doing. So we lay things out with these schools. We give them access to our content free of charge for the students. These students that rise to the top and take the test, and they become accepted it into the program, then they can start their eighteen month journey once we connect them to a dealership. So, just like you said, it's a really the best possible way to find the right people for the dealers. I

know people talk about it's difficult to find technicians. What we have found as just going to secondary schools is not enough. You've got to go into the high schools. There are some really exceptional high school programs out there, and some of these students that come out of high school with a good automotive accredited program, they are very very good.

Speaker 2

How much can kids, by the way, expect to make if they want to go for a career and mechanical service like this that they want to be working on and around cars. You know, what's a master technician to get these days?

Speaker 4

You know, it varies all over the country.

Speaker 5

If we were talking in California, you know, it wouldn't be unusual for somebody to make you know, in that one hundred thousand dollars range, But it varies very much by the dealer body and also by the location across the country.

Speaker 6

Is this a job that is safe from AI? And our final kind of forty five seconds with you here.

Speaker 5

Yeah, so very much, save from anything relevant to automated diagnosis, we need technicians that know what they're doing and how to look at what's going on with the vehicle and interact with the service consultants to get to fix it right the first time. This program, again, if I kind of lean into it just a little bit quickly, it's a dedicated training program that's just the AUDI content that

we develop for our dealers, so it's very streamlined. It's got a pretty big component of culture because they stay together for eighteen months. We really build a brand culture with these techs, so they want to do the right

thing with our customers. So it's always about customer first, and then it's also on the job training, so they're in school, they go off of these eight weeks, and then what you know, during this time that they're in the dealers, they're honing those skills, working on assessments, doing online training content.

Speaker 4

So it's really very much a win win win from all.

Speaker 5

Parts, making sure that the student is a big win from education, the dealer gets a big win, and then AUDI is a corporate team, we get a big win for the outcome for our customers.

Speaker 2

Brian, thanks so much for joining us. Real pleasure talking to you, obviously. I love to talk about cars and love to talk about Audi's especially Brian Stockton, a senior director of Technical service and Training at Audi, joining us at Auburn Hills, Michigan. We've got to get Maddie into a Q four E tron soon.

Speaker 6

That sounds cool.

Speaker 1

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app, or want us live on YouTube.

Speaker 6

We are going to get to that big neg meeting tomorrow, the most important one since the last. As we like to say, the market's already pricing in at least a skip no movement in terms of rate hikes, But the big question starts to be what's going to happen at the meeting after that? So here to discuss, We've got doctor Stephen Steve Skanky with us. He's a chief economic advisor at keel Point. He's also the former US Treasury and White House National Security Council staff member, and he

joins us on Zoom from Alabama. Doctor Thank you so much for being here with us. Talk to me about your anticipation, not just for this FED meeting tomorrow, for the one after that. What do you think the Fed's longer term moves are going to look like?

Speaker 7

Well, thank you Madison's it's great to be with you, and you're absolutely right. Tomorrow they're going to be there's going to be a skip. But what we are going to see tomorrow is in their new Summary of Economic Projections.

Speaker 3

It's updated and.

Speaker 7

They're to get they're going to give us a hint of how well they think their measures are working against inflation, uh and where they see interest rates being at the end of the year and into the first half of next year. And then of course there's going to be their statement, which I think is going to be heavily on the hawkish side as part of their effort to sort of get their last whip a forward guidance in.

Speaker 3

And then we're going to wait and see what.

Speaker 7

Happens to the inflation numbers, the employment numbers for June that come out in early July.

Speaker 3

Most people expect another.

Speaker 7

Rate increase in July, and that's likely to happen unless we get a.

Speaker 3

Really big surprise.

Speaker 7

Of a rapid slowdown in inflation in June that gets picked up and they're reporting in July.

Speaker 2

Can I ask Steve about the importance of employment, the employment numbers and wages. I would just out of sheer common sense figure that if more people have jobs and if more people are getting paid more, that's going to put upward pressure on inflation, just because they can afford to buy stuff, and because the manufacturers are going to have higher costs and they're going to need to make margin.

But there's been so much research out suggesting that unemployment has no direct connection and even wages have no direct connection to inflation, that I wonder how much the FED is actually focused on those things.

Speaker 3

Well, I think they do pay attention to it.

Speaker 7

And you know what are their favorite sub indsease is non housing CPI core services, which has fall into a twelve month low four and a half percent from five point one percent, And that really is a sign that slowing wage growth is starting to show up in some of the data. So they do care about that. I mean, it's not a principal driver, but it certainly has had a big impact in that part of the data that we understand they're paid a lot of attention to.

Speaker 6

But wasn't there a little bit of a upside surprise in terms of the estimates to supercore today? Right?

Speaker 8

Yes?

Speaker 7

And what you know, there was a big surprise and used cars right again, and that was I mean that was a four point four month over a month increased and used vehicle prices, and we also had a little bit higher rate of rent and owner equivalent rent that

was like a half percent month over a month. But those those should improve and that's where that's where we're really have an idea as to what the FED can do when we see those numbers come out in the in the numbers in July, because if if used cars come back as it seems that they have in terms of pricing and and and same on rent and owner equivalent rent, which is about thirty five percent of the CPI, that'll that'll allow.

Speaker 3

The FED even not to do another increase in July.

Speaker 7

It's very much dated driven at this point, and that would that would make it possible to sort of push back on the Hawks who very much would like to increase both at this meeting as well as the July meeting.

Speaker 2

Steve, I wonder about the comparisons that have been made to Jerome Powell and Arthur Burns, or to Jerome Powell, and as I think he'd prefer, Paul Vulker. You were advising the White House during those regimes, right, you were advising the president during those times. Do you see parallels, because you know, a lot of people are pointing out that Jerome Powell doesn't want to let his guard down too soon the way Burns did, Otherwise inflation will come roaring back.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I think that, you know, and it's interesting to look at that as a comparison. Matt Arthur Burns was known for for believing almost in the righteousness of suffering and was as nice as guy as he was, was pretty tough on the money policy and squeezing out inflation.

I mean, he had a big job because YUS has gone off the gold standard, we let the dollar flow, we had the enter energy price and the energy embargos and the big jump in oil prices, and so he was determined that that wasn't gonna that wasn't going to ruin the economy, and ultimately he was unable to to sort of keep it out. Jerome Powell doesn't want to seem soft on inflation, but it's hard to characterize him

as a hawk. He cares very much about the employment picture and it being broadly spread among minority and disadvantage business groups. If you look back to some of the things that he said in twenty nineteen, he was joyful and sensing accomplishment in seeing a lot of those wage and employment benefits spread. He'd like to see that again. He knows that that's not the case right now, and he'd like that to happen. But he can't appear soft on inflation.

Speaker 6

Final twenty seconds here can the Fed stop hiking if we don't see an increase in jobless claims or see a change to the unemployment picture. Just about twenty seconds.

Speaker 7

If they don't see a change in jobless claims or inflation, then they can't stop hiking. We have to have at least one more in July. It would be hard to imagine that we wouldn't see movement and inflation after that, just given some of the other things that they've done.

Speaker 2

All right, see great having on the program. I really appreciate your insight and experienced. Steve Skanky there, chief economic advisor at Keel Point, And as we said, He was a US Treasury and White House National Security Council staff member before that.

Speaker 3

This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Easter on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Business app, and YouTube. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 3

I'm kicking what they're given because I'm working for them.

Speaker 2

All right, we are, We've arrived at that point in my day. I have say it's my favorite point of the show. And we talk about one story from the Business business Week mag magazine. This is going to be the forthcoming issue of BusinessWeek magazine, and we typically talk to Joel Weber, the editor in chief, as well as the author of the story. We're fortunate enough to have

Ellen Hewitt with us right now. She wrote the layoffs and AI are changing Tech's once invincible job market story, and Ellen, I thought it was a fantastic job of reporting and a little bit of a bummer, right because I had thought, as well as probably many of the kids graduating college today, that if you learn to code and you're like halfway good at it, then your set for a sweet job in Silicon Valley for like the rest of your life. And it now seems that's no longer the case.

Speaker 9

Yeah, I mean, this is kind of the big mood shift in Silicon Valley, which is the learning to code is not a guarantee of amazing, forever employment anymore. To be clear, there's still a lot of people who want to hire software engineers, especially firms that are outside of tech, like in health, healthcare, and finance. They're definitely looking for coders.

But there is this noticeable shift that people are experiencing, which is this once infinite fountain of high paying jobs where companies were just always always hiring, that's not happening anymore.

Speaker 2

One thing I saw is that there have been two hundred thousand layoffs in tech this year. You found a website that essentially aggregates all of the layoffs, but eighty thousand of those happened in January. So what I'm wondering is, are the layoffs kind of slowing down? Does it look like maybe it's not as bad as it was at the start of the year.

Speaker 9

Now, yes, that's definitely what the numbers are showing. So in our story, we have a wonderful chart. This data comes from layoffs at Fyi, which is a hilarious site, very well run by just a startup founder who started during COVID collecting layoff numbers and putting them in this wonderful data website. So you see a bit of a peak right after the start of the pandemic, and then a drop, and then it really started to pick up midl last year and peaked in January, and now it's

actually leveling out. So probably it seems like the worst is behind us, but it definitely has. You know, the repercussions of this are going to be felt for a very long time.

Speaker 3

Joel Weber.

Speaker 10

You know what I was, what I've been thinking about ever since it felt like there was this real major mood shift. Was just what that what that feels like in the valley? Ellen, And I'm curious, like being there feeling like you could do anything you wanted forever. How are from the sources you spoke with, how is that manifesting itself?

Speaker 3

This decision?

Speaker 9

Yeah, mood all sorts of ways. I mean, everyone knows, you know, a lot of people are just getting laid off, you know, in the way that people you know, generally you might have expected that recruiters or people who work in sales might be the first to go. This time, it's like senior engineers have worked at firms like Google

for ten or fifteen years are getting laid off. There are people who I know who just yeah, I've worked at a company for you know, worked at Facebook for ten years and are getting laid off and feeling this sense that you know, I also have a friend who considered leaving her job, but then was like, I just don't think I'm going to get another good one right now, so I'm going to stay at this job that I don't super like. It's just this this kind of feeling

that is suffusing everywhere in the industry. And then, you know, we had this wonderful conversation with this new grad Dylan, who just graduated from Cornell with a CS degree, had interned at all these great places Google, Facebook, Stripe, Figma, and had a Google offer and then it was rescinded.

And it's just this sense that this dependable thing isn't happening anymore, and you see it making people nervous, You make you see them nervous to switch jobs or just like you know, looking for jobs and not finding what they want. And there is actually a pretty sense, you know,

a pretty big sense of fear among some people. Like Dylan. Again, this new grad was talking about how some of his peers are accepting multiple job offers because they're concerned that one of them is going to get rescinded, and they have reason to believe that it might.

Speaker 10

That new grad phenomenon is the one that I find most interesting, because these were the people like you were just they were just getting swept up and money thrown at them. And especially like in Dylan's case, he had multiple internships at all the blue chip places. There's this helpless quality that it must feel like to be in that twenty something age. Ellen, And I'm curious when you

who's the most freaked out. The twenty somethings are the people who have been in the industry for a little bit and have you know, weather changed before.

Speaker 9

I mean, they're freaked out in different ways. The twenty somethings are like, wow, I really thought that I was picking the most obvious, most stable, most high paying career and now it's none of those things. Or I might

have to struggle to get a job. Meanwhile, you know, I talked to someone who's telling me stories about peers of his who are maybe in their forty or fifties, who have worked in Silicon Valley during these boom times, have gotten used to incredibly high cost of living in places like New York and San Francisco, and are now accustomed to a standard of living that may no longer

be accessible to them. Like I talked to a VC who said his friend who had been laid off was looking for a new job and his minimum salary requirement was six hundred thousand dollars, and he was just like that, you may not be able to find that anymore. And if you're used to, you know, if you have kids in private school, like you get these golden handcuffs, and those people are scared too. I think they're experiencing a shift in what they expected would be available.

Speaker 2

Well, the thing is, Ellen, if you need to charter a jet for a fishing trip in Alaska, you know that's not cheap anymore.

Speaker 10

It was never yeah, but now it's really not.

Speaker 9

I really did appreciate. You know, there's a wonderful part in the story where yeah, we kind of reminisce about what the boom times looked like in Silicon Valley in the mid twenty tens. It was out of control, right, We're talking about perks and salaries and stock grants and these kinds of things that were you know, these companies Facebook, Google,

they were just throwing money at their employees. In fact, they would often hire promising workers simply to have them kind of in their corner without a specific job for them. So again I talked to this PC who had been a product manager at Instagram in twenty fourteen when it was owned by Facebook, and he said he was hired as a product manager. He didn't have a job yet.

He was like going to be assigned to a team, but just spent three months getting trained, spending an hour every morning reading a novel over breakfast, and then having some casual meetings. And then at the end of the three months he was finally assigned a job. But he spent you know, and knew of people who had been hired just so that they wouldn't go work at a rival. And that was that sense of money that really cremated Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Speaker 6

It sounds like, sorry, Ellen, it just sounds like another one of those things that goes away, and when we don't have a zero interest rate environment, less of that kind of just getting brought on. I mean, that's at Yeah, I'm just being smart, you know what I mean. But one thing that I'm curious about too is whether these companies are sort of blaming AI to be able to fire or lay off their employees and to kind of get away with it. Yeah, did you did you find that in your reporting?

Speaker 9

There's definitely a sense that AI is like the idea of the day, and so people are pointing to it for different reasons, one of which is, yes, there are some CEOs who over hired at the beginning of the pandemic when it looked like tech was going to have

this boom time. Now they're seeing that that boom time is not around, they're going to lay people off, and they're citing not necessarily AI taking jobs, but just the need to maybe realign the company in order to be able to focus on AI, which then means that they can cut some jobs. So it's a bit of a face saving thing. It may also be a real thing that companies are investing more energy into it. Of course, in our story we also talked about it AI and

machine learning. Specialists in software engineering are getting paid twelve percent on average more than other senior software engineers. There is genuinely a desire to hire these types of people. AI is not replacing jobs yet, but but there is this feeling that it's going to shake things up, and that that shakeup may lead to some new hiring and areas and cuts in other places.

Speaker 6

All right, Ellen, well, thank you so much, really appreciate you joining us and the story, of course, which will be featured in the forthcoming issue of BusinessWeek magazine. You can read it now on the Bloomberg terminal and at Bloomberg dot com slash BusinessWeek, m Marco.

Speaker 1

Journal.

Speaker 2

Now about you, let me drive?

Speaker 10

Oh no, no, no, no, dreg honey please, I'll do the riding gravels.

Speaker 7

Let's mate, I want to drive.

Speaker 3

It's a good question.

Speaker 8

Good time.

Speaker 1

Is the drive to the Globe dot com? Well try around, Saga don on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 6

All right, we're going to take our coverage from Miami over to Wall Street. As you know, it's big week for the economy. We've got that FED meeting tomorrow. Today, we got CPI in a little better than expected depending on how you look at it. A lot of other data this week, and market consensus seems to be building around tomorrow being a non rate hike day. But the question is is it going to be a pause, a skip, a stop, and how are markets responding to all those options?

So here to weigh in for our drive to the close is Jeff Crumpleman. He's chief investment strategist at Mariner Wealth Advisors. Jeff, great to speak with you. Let's just start on your word choice here, pause or skip.

Speaker 8

I think that it should be a pause, but you know we're not paid to make judgments here, as you know followers with the capital markets. I think it's fifty to fifty between skip and pause. I did like the CPI inflation data, and I were on the board, I

would I would say pause. I think that there's plenty of evidence that inflation is calming, and that they've done a lot of good work, and some of the lagging data like rents and some of the pressures and the services side that's been sticky, I think is showing signs green shoots of calming as well. So I'd love to see pause. I think that's what they should do, but we'll just have to see.

Speaker 2

But you know J Powell, and you know that he doesn't want to be the next Arthur Burns, right. I mean, the last thing that this FED boss wants is for the FMC to pause and then for inflation to come roaring back after after the they were behind the curve for so long, he's gonna want to be ahead of it now. So do you still think we can maintain this rally in the face of a FA that at least wants to be restrictive.

Speaker 4

Yes, I do, and I've.

Speaker 8

You know, we've been pretty steady and as my mom says, moderation and all things. And I think our team has exercised that. We've been pretty vocal about looking for a forty five hundred target on the S and P five hundred by a year in and we said, you know, we're not sure the path to that. That it could be three yards and a cloud of duster, it could be volatility significantly throughout the year because of debt ceiling, because of FED, because oh you know, we get some

funky inflation numbers from month to month. But absolutely, I think through year end we can sustain the rally. Do I think that we get a pause in the market, because they're going to come out tomorrow and you know, as they do pause, what are they going to do.

They're going to say, you know, our summary of economic projections, the SEP, the everybody talks about, oh, we're taking our target up from five point one to something a little higher, and they're going to talk hawkish, and people are talking about it being a hawkish pause. That's probably what's going to happen. And you know what, the market, it'll probably trade off a little bit on that after we've pushed these twenty twenty three highs. But I don't think for long.

I think that the evidence the inflation will continue to come down to FED Now it's going to be in the ninth inning after they might do something in July, but then they're really in the ninth inning, and earnings are really solid and so is the so's the economy. It's not so negative. So yeah, based upon fundamentals, valuation levels, and what I see in the technical price trends, yeah, absolutely, I think you can sustain the advance in the market through.

Speaker 4

The end of the year.

Speaker 6

All right, Well, you know what I'm going to ask you next, which is the rally a little bit too narrow? Is this just an AI boom that's going to fizzle out before the end of the year.

Speaker 8

You know, I think that that is just overdone. It is true. You can lie. We all can lie with statistics, and so people will immediately say, hey, the top eight stocks and the S and P five hundred are all of the return of the S and P five hundred this year, implying that the other four hundred and ninety two stocks plus in the S and P five hundred are really not doing well. We find that there are

broad industry groups that actually are doing well. There are a lot of stocks that are up twenty forty fifty percent. We own a lot of them, and an example in probably our most aggressive large and MidCap strategy, we're outperforming the S and P five hundred this year, and we're just kind of neutral or under own all those eight stocks. So we own a number of technology stocks and consumer discretionary stocks that are actually doing quite well and outperforming.

So I think it's misleading to think make the public think that there are eight stocks doing well and everything else is down. And I would add to that in terms of momentum. Over the last three weeks, you've seen a broadening in the market. Look at how small cats are doing in June, and small caps own a lot more in the financial and industrials area than the tech laden s and P five hundred, So the trend is getting broader. I have been disappointed.

Speaker 4

That's not to.

Speaker 8

Say that it hasn't been a little tougher because you've had these mega CAF stocks do well. But you're starting to see the broadening I think play out, and that's a good thing. I feel good about that.

Speaker 3

All right.

Speaker 2

So if you're picking, if you're picking industry groups that you like for the rest of the year, what's the top of your list or is there anything specific, any specific strategy that you think investors should deploy right now?

Speaker 8

Yeah, I think that number one. This idea of blend between growth and value is a smart thing. And you know, last year, folks were saying long duration growth stocks are dead. Well, they got hammered and they became very attractive going into

this year. So that's where we've picked up some of these stocks that I've mentioned, the Deckers, the Tesla, you know, a number of stocks within technology and consumer discretionary that have been on the cheap CrowdStrike, we tooke up at a very attractive level, and so on and so forth. So you don't abandon growth. But I also think that what's underappreciated in our economy are some of the cyclical stocks.

There is a capital spending boom that's going on, and here in Cincinnati we're going to spend three and a half billion dollars on rebuilding a bridge. And finally we're reON shoring in the United States and building manufacturing plants and construction. Employment is at all time highs despite all this talk of recession. So to only United rental to own a Bulkan materials, to own a HP in mining, I think that it's important to have a blend of both.

Speaker 6

Yeah, so real quickly in our final twenty seconds here you mentioned CrowdStrike and in phase energy, cybersecurity, and solar. There no mention of AI and either of their descriptions. Tell me why you're going for them and not more AI plays in our final twenty seconds.

Speaker 8

Well, because you know, I believe in AI, but AI benefits directly a very narrow set we own in Vidia. I could talk about in Nvidia, but you know, I think our audience needs to know more than just in Vidia. And these are stocks that have tremendous catalysts and they were absolutely obliterated in this myth that long duration is dead and we need cybersecurity. You know, do you think

cybersecurity is going away? I don't think so. And all those have the catalysts driven by the productiing cybersecurity and.

Speaker 2

Other products, jet breaching, broading it out beyond in video.

Speaker 3

It truly is a relief for us.

Speaker 2

Thanks very much, Jeff Propleman coming to.

Speaker 3

Us out of Cincinnati.

Speaker 1

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