Nvidia Earnings, Amazon's Robotaxi, & Jerome's Rate Cuts

0:00When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. abercrombie kids knows how to make outfitting easy mix and match sets are their ultimate outfit hack for fall their sweatshirts and sweatpants are super cozy and they always have the cutest colors and patterns shop fall's easiest outfit at abercrombie kids in the app online and in stores

0:58Zeta.com presents the Rich Habits Radar, a new Friday episode of the Rich Habits podcast, where every Friday morning, we're coming at you with the biggest headlines impacting you and your money. My name is Austin Hankwitz. I'm joined by my co-host, Robert Croak. And as you can tell, I've got a cold right now. So I hope I don't sound too nasally. My head's a brick, But we're getting through it. That's what we're excited about here with the Rich Habits podcast and the Rich Habits Radar. The three things sitting on top of our Rich Habits Radar this week include NVIDIA's quarterly earnings results, Jerome Powell's remarks last week at Jackson Hole, the new tariffs on cheap Chinese goods, and be sure to stick around to the end to learn more about how Amazon is entering the robo-taxi race for the very first time.

1:44So, Robert, let's now dig into our first story. Yes, our first story is NVIDIA's quarterly earnings report. That's been top of mind for everyone. And NVIDIA's earnings results delivered upon expectations with continued growth in the company's data center business, despite ongoing challenges from U.S. export restrictions on sales to China. Revenue reached a record$46.7 billion, beating Wall Street's expectations of$46 billion. Profits increased 6 % quarter over quarter and 56 % year over year. The data center segment, which accounts for the bulk of NVIDIA's revenue, grew by 56 % year over year, but just narrowly missed those Wall Street estimates, contributing to that modest dip we saw in NVIDIA's stock price.

2:32And during the earnings call, CEO Jensen Wong emphasized the immense AI opportunity ahead, highlighting the ramp up of the Blackwell platform and the shift towards agentic and reasoning AI models that demand exponentially more compute power. Some big key takeaways from the earnings call included continued global demand for this AI infrastructure, major advancements in robotics and sovereign AI, as well as a cautious outlook on China sales due to licensing requirements. A major highlight was the 17 percent sequential growth in the Blackwell data center revenue with full scale production now underway across partners like CoreWeave.

3:14Jensen Wong called Blackwell the platform at the center of the AI race, delivering three to five times better AI throughput than its predecessor, Hopper, in power-limited environments. Wong projected a$3 to$4 trillion AI infrastructure opportunity over the next five years, driven by hyperscaler CapEx doubling to$600 billion a year. Robert, let me hold$600 billion real quick. Let me just see that. Let me hold$600 billion. All right, so Wang also mentioned on the call that China represents a$50 billion market opportunity, but restrictions have closed it to U.S. firms. He advocated for open collaboration, noting half of global AI researchers are in China, but that U.S.

3:59platforms must remain preferred for these open source AI models. The board also approved an additional$60 billion share buyback program. What does this all mean for investors? Well, we believe NVIDIA's earnings results continue to solidify our long-term thesis on AI, its importance for the future, and we remain bullish for the long term. As we always say, the show goes on. We don't have knee-jerk reactions, and we just really love the AI sector, the data center sector, and think we are going to be here for the long term, and it's going to continue to grow and go up and to the right. A big takeaway for me is the positive relationship and how well Jensen Wang and his C-suite executives have navigated the U.S.

4:46export restrictions to China and how they're able to figure out those geopolitical conflicts and just sort of sidestep some of the restrictions there. So it's really exciting to see that. I'm glad they're doing that. And I'm sure it makes shareholders just as happy as well. Yeah, we'll get to see. I think, like you said, they've done a tremendous job navigating all of this tariffs and everything that's been going on. And now we'll see how they handle the next kind of hurdle with the Trump administration potentially wanting to take a stake in NVIDIA like they're doing with Intel. So it'll be interesting to see how that moves forward because NVIDIA is definitely in the driver's seat.

5:22And I don't know that Jensen's going to want to tolerate that, but we'll see what happens next. Speaking of up next, our next story is Jerome Powell's speech in Jackson Hole. So Jerome Powell delivered an important speech last Friday at the Jackson Hole Symposium, signaling a subtle yet very meaningful policy shift. Jerome Powell acknowledged growing downside risk to employment, specifically citing the big drop in job growth, down to just 35 ,000 new jobs a month in 2025, compared to the 168 ,000 new jobs a month we experienced in 2024, and a very slow labor force uptick tied to that decreased immigration we've seen year to date.

6:01Now, while inflation remains somewhat elevated, Jerome Powell framed much of the tariff-related pressure on inflation as transitory, as if we've heard that one before, suggesting it might represent a one-time jump rather than sustained inflationary momentum. And Powell left the door open for a possible rate cut as early as September, not entirely committing but suggesting that the shifting balance of labor market weakness and inflation risks could make a justified cut. He also emphasized the Fed's commitment to data-dependent policymaking and reaffirmed its independence from political pressures.

6:35Powell's remarks were interpreted as dovish, and the markets responded accordingly. A potential interest rate cut lowers borrowing costs, and the cheaper it is to borrow money, the easier it is to spend money. We all know that. More money spent equals more corporate profits, and the markets immediately priced those profits into stock prices last Friday. The speech also set the tone for some renewed liquidity, encouraging investors to move back into equities despite the mounting economic stress that we've seen year to date, as well as this chatter of an AI bubble. Since 2021, the Federal Reserve has been laser focused on the inflation side of this equation.

7:13As a quick reminder, the Fed has to focus on a dual mandate, keeping inflation low while simultaneously keeping unemployment low. For the last four years, they've been focused on inflation. This was evidenced by their action of hiking interest rates at the fastest pace in over 40 years. But now the Fed is instead focused on optimizing for that low unemployment, which is essentially confirming that rate cuts are coming. Year to date, 461 ,000 jobs have been revised down. So literally we thought we were going to have all these jobs, half a million jobs essentially just didn't happen this year, which in my opinion is a valid reason to flip-flop on this dual mandate, right?

7:51Instead of focusing on inflation, which largely has come down over the last three years, to now focusing on ensuring that the unemployment rate does not continue to tick higher. I'm also of the belief that inflation is going to rebound higher because of these rate cuts. This is terrible news for lower and middle class Americans, as inflation is essentially an additional tax on those individuals. For the upper class and wealthy, which is the majority of the asset owners in this country, this can be a very good thing. When the Fed cuts rates within 2 % of all-time highs, which is where we're at right now, the S &P 500 loves it.

8:26In 20 of the last 20 times this has happened, the S &P 500 has responded positively with an average return of over 13.9 % over the following 12 months. and asset owners are about to be handsomely rewarded. Additionally, the relief in home prices Americans are waiting for likely won't come. Mortgage rates will drop, allowing homebuyers the opportunity to enjoy lower interest rates, but they won't drop in a dramatic fashion. The Fed will likely cut by 25 basis points at a time compared to the 300 basis points that President Trump wants. The result will instead be interest rates on mortgages at about 5%, with a higher demand as more homebuyers now have inflated assets to use to pay for their down payments with a still very limited housing supply.

9:13As a reminder, gold is up 105 % and Bitcoin is up 450 % over the last three years. The markets know higher inflation is here to stay, which means only those who own assets will beat inflation over the coming years. And on top of this, Jerome Powell is out of a job in eight months. And I assume Trump will appoint someone who's going to continue this interest rate cutting cycle, as he's been very vocal about cutting interest rates. So, Robert, what does this mean for investors listening to this episode right now? Well, we've been saying it for a very long time. Be a net buyer of assets. The markets will continue to experience its normal ups and downs.

9:48But Jerome Powell made it crystal clear he's now laser focused on the unemployment rate and ensuring Americans stay gainfully employed. By ignoring, maybe not entirely, the rising inflation our country is facing, inflation will likely accelerate. Do you remember what the stock market did when inflation accelerated dramatically during 2020 and 2021? It skyrocketed, as did the values of homes, businesses, and other risk assets. I have a hunch we'll experience continued momentum in the markets over the coming quarters as the Fed cuts rates, leaving non-asset owners in the dust. So the biggest takeaway for me is own assets, buy assets, build your future, and stop worrying about being a consumer and buying depreciating assets.

10:36It has never been more important to have a plan to be dollar cost averaging and to be investing in your Roth IRA, your bridge account, your 401k. However you can get money invested and working for you, it has never been more important to do so. Inflation is at 3 % right now. We could see it re-accelerate to three and a half, four, maybe more than that, hopefully not. But if that's the case, it's like you want to be able, the cash you have sitting in your checking account then loses value purchasing power by three, four, five percent every single year. You have to have it invested so it can grow more than the inflation, offsetting that, allowing your purchasing power to grow over time as well.

11:17So Robert, let's now jump into our final story here. In a major shift in U.S. trade policy, President Donald Trump has eliminated the de minimis exemption for low value imports from China and Hong Kong. This longstanding rule, part of the Tariff Act of 1930, previously allowed packages valued at$800 or less per person per day to enter the United States duty free, making it a key enabler for cheap e-commerce shipments. As of today, August 29th, 2025, the exemption has been extended to end for all countries, but the focus here is on China, which accounted for about 60 % of all de minimis shipments in 2024.

11:59Over 4 million packages daily valued at billions annually. Wow, 4 million packages a day. That's crazy. So the de minimis exemption was originally designed to reduce administrative costs for small imports, but it exploded in use after Congress raised this threshold from 200 to 800 in 2016. Chinese e-commerce giants like Xi 'an, Timu and AliExpress heavily rely on it to ship affordable clothing, gadgets and household items directly to U.S. consumers, often undercutting domestic retailers. And critics, including bipartisan lawmakers, argued it created an unfair advantage for Chinese sellers, flooded the market with low quality or forced labor goods, and allowed smugglers to bypass inspections.

12:46CBP seized over 21 ,000 pounds of fentanyl last year alone, enough to kill billions. Wow. So what you're saying is that these people will smuggle in on these random, if it's a pair of shoes or something, they'll smuggle drugs. Wow, that's crazy. So here's what you can expect. Expect to see 10 to 50 % price hikes on these cheap Chinese imports, especially fast fashion, toys, and electronics from sites like Shein and Timu. And TikTok shop. A lot of TikTok shop comes from China. Now, these platforms have shifted to US based fulfillment or raised prices to minimize the impact. Sticker shock is already hitting shoppers.

13:24So if you're someone who's trying to, you know, get your Christmas presents early, It's a little too late here. It's already gone into effect. Robert, you know Chinese shipments very well as Silly Bands was made in China. And you understand the imports and exports and all that stuff here. What's some big takeaways? Yeah, we could spend hours talking about this. But let's go back a little bit. And when you think back to Alibaba when it first became huge in the United States, it was a great resource because they were enabling small retailers, people that had Etsy shops, people that had consumer brands to be able to successfully source and manufacture goods in China that would normally come from China anyway.

14:05But the problem was China got greedy. Over the years, we've seen AliExpress, which was a spinoff of Alibaba. And we've seen all these other sites like Shein and Timu and all of them that were using all of these tariff advantages to be able to pummel U.S. companies and U.S. manufacturers. So they really did cross the line. So in essence, these tariffs now mark the end of an era for ultra cheap Chinese goods, forcing everyone to rethink global e-commerce. And while aimed at fairness and security, they could raise everyday costs for Americans and reshape shopping habits. But again, I believe it's going to be very helpful long term to level the playing field for small U.S.

14:51manufacturers, which there are tens and tens of thousands of them that have e-commerce stores and different types, Etsy stores, etc., Shopify stores, to be able to give them a fighting chance to be able to compete. because there's never going to be a situation where U.S. labor and U.S. manufacturing can compete on a cost basis one to one against China. So I think this tariff shift long term is going to benefit everyone by bringing more manufacturing back to the United States and not allowing China to just pummel all of us U.S. manufacturers and our brands that are associated with our companies.

15:30Robert, let's now jump to our rapid fire stories. I've got three that I found this week. You've got three as well. Robert, I'll kick us off. My first story has to do with the Russell 2000. As you guys know, these are 2000 of the small cap names, right? So these are companies below a billion or two in market cap, and they could be profitable. Sometimes they're biotech, but they're smaller in nature. But these Russell 2000 names have seen some momentum recently, especially when related to their large cap counterparts, because the Federal Reserve is hinting at those interest rate cuts. Remember, with lower interest rates, these companies can borrow more for less, refinance existing debt, which means more money hits their bottom line.

16:10I firmly believe the Russell 2000, as defined as the IWM ETF, will hit$300 a share, assuming we see rate cuts very soon. The second story I want to bring is the Q2 GDP growth revision. So as you guys know, GDP for Q2 came in at 3.1%. Well, not anymore. They just revised it higher, 3.3%. Unbelievable. This came in from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis yesterday. Now compare this to the half a percent decline that we experienced in Q1 earlier this year. What caused the revision to go up was more consumer spending than originally thought and less government spending, which is pretty interesting.

16:51Now the last story on my rapid fire list here is lumber prices. Lumber is on the brink of a bear market. So lumber futures saw a surge driven by tariffs and optimism over lower interest rates recently, which pushed prices to the highest level in more than three years. But that enthusiasm soon faded away. Recent housing data dramatically disappointed expectations. Builders are scaling back now due to higher input costs, weaker demand and looming affordability challenges. The price of lumber is now 20 % off their recent all-time highs, putting the price of lumber in a bear market. So, Robert, if you want to go build a house or do something cool with lumber, it now just costs you 20 % less.

17:32Yeah, there you go. And always keep an eye on this if you are a builder and you're someone developing because your lumber package could go up or down by tens of thousands of dollars from when you want to order to when you actually order. I learned this the hard way one time. So make sure you're always considering all of these facts when you're building these bigger projects. So let's get into my rapid fire. I'm going to start out with Intel. I know I've been talking about it a lot, but Chief Financial Officer David Zinser said his company has just received$5.7 billion on the U.S. government's 10 % investment.

18:09We talked about it recently that SoftBank also invested, I think it was$2.5 billion, plus the U.S. government's been getting involved. And I think this is all really great news for Intel moving forward. and the$5.7 billion came from a part of Intel's shares of the U.S. Chips and Science Act funding. And under this agreement, the U.S. is buying 433.3 million shares at$20.47 each. Intel had already received$2.2 billion in grants from the Chips Act at an earlier date. Another$3.2 billion will stem from the Secure Enclave Program through the U.S. Department of Defense, elevating the total investment to Intel at$11.1 billion.

18:54I've been talking about it. I think everyone needs to keep an eye on Intel. They are a U.S. darling that's been really, really suppressed for a long time. They kind of missed the boat in the first wave of AI. And I think moving forward, they're going to be one of these up-and-comers in edge AI. There's a lot of opportunity there as well. And my second take today in rapid fire is the continued tokenization of real world assets. Everyone's talking about it. And I think the trend of bringing traditional assets on chain is going to continue to gain momentum. Analysts suggested this institutional adoption could fuel a price bounce for assets like Aave, which are positioning themselves as key players in the institutional DeFi space.

19:39We all know I've been talking about DeFi for a long time. There's a lot of great projects, so please don't sleep on DeFi. There's so much out there. There's Aave, there's Ando Finance Pendle. There's just a lot of great projects. And my last rapid-fire take today is Amazon announces they are entering the robo-taxi race. And this one was new to me. Zoox plans to continue to focus on scaling from pilot testing to full commercial deployment of its purpose-built robo-taxis. I didn't even know Amazon was getting in the robo-taxi game. And this company is launching its first ride-hailing service for the public in Las Vegas later this year.

20:20Meanwhile, the company's state-of-the-art facility in Hayward, California, is being designed to eventually produce up to 10 ,000 robo-taxis per year. Zoox is also conducting extensive on-street testing, not only in Las Vegas, but in San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle, Austin, Miami, and Los Angeles, preparing those metro areas for future expansion. So I'm excited to see this. You know we've been talking about robo-taxis and humanoid robotics and self-driving. for a very long time. And we want to make sure all of you are educated on where all the picks and shovels plays, who are the major players, and how can you capitalize off of these secular growth trends.

21:02So we'll keep an eye on Zoox, which is owned by Amazon. Yeah, so Amazon purchased Zoox for a billion dollars in 2020. It was founded in 2014 by a guy named Tim Clay and Jesse Livingston. So good for them. They're now billionaires, but shout out Amazon for entering the robo-taxi race. All right, Robert, let's now jump to our Q &A section of the episode. Remember, if you have a question for us to answer on these Friday episodes, and that question has to do with being a small business owner, earning more money, anything to do with entrepreneurship, side hustle, anything like that, we're here to answer your questions.

21:40So our first question comes from Jessica. Jessica says, Hey Austin and Robert, I love your podcast and I'm so excited about these Friday episodes. I own multiple small businesses, and these episodes have been so helpful. I have a question regarding solo 401ks and traditional 401ks for small business owners. Austin, you mentioned that you love the solo 401k and that Cary.com is a great platform for it. I was looking into the platform and I realized that I don't qualify for a solo 401k. I own four main businesses. Two of them I co-own with my husband. Two of them I own 100 % myself. among the businesses I own 100 % myself, I also have full-time employees that do not include my spouse.

22:19Because I have employees that are not my spouse, I do not qualify for the solo 401k. I'm more than happy to set up a traditional 401k account for that business so that I can match the contributions for my employees. However, the process seems to be complicated with annual form filing and testing requirements. Is there a platform out there like carry.com but for traditional 401ks? My other question is, I believe my husband would qualify for a solo 401k. Since he does not own any companies that have an employee, would he be able to contribute to a solo 401k for the both of us? This is a really good question, Jessica.

22:50Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Shout out to you for being a successful small business owner. Four businesses is crazy. We're super, super excited for you. So are there platforms that allow you to set up a 401k for your employees? The only one that I've heard good things about, yes, there's tons of them, but the only one I've heard good things about is Betterment. B-E-T-T-E-R-M-E-N-T.com, Betterment. They offer 401k services for small business owners. Go check them out. But yes, your husband absolutely qualifies for a solo 401k since he does not own any companies with employees. He can contribute to a solo 401k for himself, but he cannot contribute on your behalf since you are not his employee.

23:32The contribution limit for solo 401ks is generally up to 20 % of the net self-employment income, But if you do a Roth solo 401k, you can actually jack that up to about$69 ,000 this year in 2025. Robert, what did you do for 401k stuff when running businesses? If it was bars, restaurants, anything, how did you navigate offering a 401k to your employees? Yeah, we just never did it. It was one of those things where, you know, back then, let's go back 20 years, 25 years ago, there just wasn't all of the great programs to make it easy and affordable for business owners. Now it's different where we can offer, you know, bonus structures.

24:13We can offer equity on performance. We can offer 401ks. 401ks. But because a lot of my small businesses have 10 or less employees, we really don't get caught up in having to offer 401ks and all of these retirement plans to people. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We pay well. We do give bonus structures. So that does help. But we just don't have a lot of experience in the small business world of offering these because a lot of our businesses like restaurants and things like that, people just aren't there for long periods of time. So 401ks just don't really come into play very often.

24:52So our next question comes from Robert S. Robert says, Dear Robert Nostin, I really appreciate the Q &A portion of your podcast. I have a dilemma that you all could have some really good insight on. I entered into the private lending business, and I recently did a deal with a contractor. Original terms of the deal was a 15 % return on a hard money loan to complete a single family residence. I wouldn't have considered the deal if the property and the land were not owned outright with no liens against the property. I had an attorney draft up an agreement including loan documents, draw schedule, and default terms.

25:25After the initial draw payment of$50 ,000, we ran a title check on the property and liens were owed on the property. As first lien holder with the property as collateral, I ended the deal. I gave him three months to pay back the principal balance plus late fees and attorney fees. He since filed chapter 13 on the property and was able to stop me from foreclosing and collecting on the debt. Chapter 13 is restructuring, so he had to pay back the courts, attorneys, taxes, and IRS debt before starting payments on the first lien holder. I've noticed he's actually still investing in the property in hopes to mortgage the property, but in the meantime, I haven't been paid on the debt due because of the Chapter 13 process.

26:01If he has the cash to pay back debts and has abused the bankruptcy system to pay back his creditors, what options do I have to prove that he has the cash and is not paying back to his debtors. Also, the property has$800 ,000 of equity in it. Thanks for your help. Let me know what I can do. Robert, this is all you, my friend. Yeah, this is a really tough situation and you definitely need to get a strong real estate lawyer that understands, you know, is he in fraudulent conveyance territory, which I believe he is. This has happened to me many times where they cry wolf and say, sorry, I don't have the money, in which they are then in breach of their contractual agreement and their legal agreements with the courts.

26:41So I would get an attorney involved, check fraudulent conveyance. I would, because you probably still have the right, if you do have the first lien that was in place prior to the bankruptcy to get the information as far as where he's at on the project, what is the value, how much equity, proposed equity is in the project since it's not finished. And then I would have this attorney figure out how can you enforce your first lien rights because I don't know what state this is in and I don't know how chapter 13 works in that state to if it deletes your first lien rights through the chapter 13 or if you immediately keep your first lien once the courts are over and they get their money, which is what I believe the situation you'll be in.