Economist DiMartino Booth hears 'echoes of Enron' in market's trends

Danielle DiMartino Booth, chief executive and chief strategist at QI Research, says the stock market "is shooting off warning signals" indicative of a market top, and she fears that news around inflated artificial-intelligence earnings and "echoes of Enron" in expansive use of off-balance sheet financing to pay for expansion could be what leads to a recession or something worse. DiMartino Booth says that valuations are more stretched than they were during the Enron era, and she says that "earnings quality" is what investors should be questioning. "I think right now is the best time to have a very close relationship with your financial advisor," DiMartino Booth says, "and have them guiding you not just to indexes, but to specific areas that we know will benefit regardless of what's to come with the AI trade.

Mark Hamrick, chief economic analyst at The Hamrick Brief, goes Off the News on Tuesday's pending home sales numbers, which he says made it clear that "This is a pretty grim time for the housing market," but that the trouble goes beyond buyers and sellers because housing is a key economic sector that is already in the deep freeze before winter, a seasonally bad time, even arrives. He also discusses how the housing numbers are doubling up on the lock-in effect for many long-time and/or older homeowners who have a low-rate mortgage — so that trading houses means getting a new, more-expensive loan — and who now would be looking potentially at a diminished sale price on their property; if they're even less willing to move now, it slows the sector further.

Plus, Chuck has for over a decade offered the trick-or-treaters in his neighborhood a chance to pick cash or candy, and to trade candy with him in hopes of getting a bigger treat. He's got a wild new twist this year and he discusses what he is doing, how you can adapt it to your own circumstances and neighborhood — even one that gets few trick-or-treaters — and how even something as simple as a cash-or-candy choice can teach basic financial decision-making.