Announcer: Wall Street Unplugged looks beyond the regular headlines, heard on mainstream financial media to bring you unscripted interviews and breaking commentary direct from Wall Street, right to you on main street.

Frank Curzio: What’s going on out there? I’m Frank Curzio the host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where I break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets. I was supposed to go to the Dominican Republic last week. We have, it’s not a timeshare like an ownership thing, but it’s on a weekly basis, similar to a timeshare, we actually own it. And it’s at the Hard Rock in Punta Cana and it’s all inclusive, which is good. Everything’s paid for upfront, which is awesome if you have kids, because they’re always hungry all the time.

Frank Curzio: There’s restaurants, a bunch of pools. Most of the stuff you pay upfront fee, which is really cool. We’ve been going to the DR for about, I think six years now and everything was booked. We were ready to go, including the flights, which cost me $5,300. And I booked them two months ago, $5,300 for four people, two are those kids are my two daughters. It was the cheapest I can get, my wife and two daughters and that was leaving from Jacksonville and flying to Charlotte, north, and then back down south to Dominican.

Frank Curzio: That was the cheapest flight. And there was a couple of cheaper ones, but there was eight to 12 hour layovers, which is insane. Or, I could drive and save maybe 1500 and drive seven and a half hours to Miami, but you’d have to pay for the hotel. And then, when we get back from vacation a week later, you have to drive from Miami all the way back, which is pretty insane because you have kids, you just spend the money and be like, “Okay, I don’t want to do all crazy in this.”

Frank Curzio: But that’s how much it costs, really expensive. Now, I haven’t flown internationally since COVID anywhere outside of the US. Talking what? About two years of travel around the US, we travel a lot more now. And when I looked at my passports, mine, as well as my kids, my wife’s is okay, were expired. And I had no idea. And it’s about 10 days before we’re going to leave. And I probably could’ve got my passport renewed over that timeframe. There’s different services you could use. My kids, they indeed, I think if they’re under 16, I think, I don’t know.

Frank Curzio: I just read, I forgot what it was, but they have to get brand new passports. It’s not renewing them, which is a much easier process. You don’t have to go through all these checks and craziness. They need brand new passports, and that would have took a little bit longer. I’m not sure if we could have made it. The good news is I was able to cancel everything. The Hard Rock refunded me fully, which was awesome. Delta decided, that’s what I was flying on, they gave me credits, which I was perfectly fine with canceling 10 days before. But now, my family was disappointed.

Frank Curzio: Like, “Come on, dad. We wanted to go away. We were excited, all this.” So, as the perfect dad, I tried to make it up to them. And I said, “All right, let’s go to Disney.” And they’ve gone to Disney before, so they weren’t going to be too excited, but I wanted to do something different. Do exclusive tours and everything. Again, I’m saving $5,500 just on the freaking flights. I cannot believe that’s what it cost. I have no choice. And that’s two months ago, we booked it.

Frank Curzio: Decided to go to Disney, which by the way, for some reason, probably three or four people that I know just had kids haven’t been to Disney, but I’ve just been talking to them about it. I’m like, “Can’t wait to go to Disney and take my kids.” Because they were really, really young. And now, whatever, some of them are three, four or five years old to six, seven years old, and they’re going to go to Disney and they’re like, “How is it? I heard it’s great.” I’m going to be honest with you, and this is just a quick heads up.

Frank Curzio: I’ve said this a couple of years ago when I went there, because you don’t see this on a brochure, when you book it, you see all these families and happiness. By the end of each day, you’re going to be miserable. It’s not really a vacation. It’s insane. And you’re waiting to get to the parks, especially when you go to Disney, you got to go to Disney World, Disney World. Well, when you go to Disney, you park your car and then you have to take a tram over.

Frank Curzio: Or if you stay in their properties, which is going to cost you an extra thousand to $2,000 more, you could take the ferry and then you get into the park, you wait online and you go in and it’s great. We should get in Mickey Mouse over there, kids are great, take a picture. It’s great to about noon, after that, it’s a nightmare. It’s crazy. It really is. I’m being honest with you. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the kids, it’s not that you don’t enjoy Disney, but especially, we have really young kids. They’re walking all day.

Frank Curzio: They walk about probably over five miles easily a day, so they’re exhausted and maybe you push them around a stroller or whatever, if they’re really young. They’re hungry every 45 minutes. So, they’re like, “Dad, can I have a hot dog, Can I have…” “Sure, here is a hot dog. Here’s a soda for two kids.” That’s 22 bucks, 23 bucks. Then 10 minutes later, “Dad, I’m hot. Can I get a water?” Sure. Water. It’s like 4.50 for just a small bottle of water. Like, “Can I have that cool toy ball that lightens up every time it hits the ground? Can we get that?”

Frank Curzio: Because they have all lighting toys, it gets later and stuff, and you’re like, “Sure. It’s Disney, let’s go.” That’s like 25 bucks. Whereas it’s probably two bucks on Amazon or when they’re waiting online, all lines are very, very long. Most of them are longer than 45 minutes. And you go in on these lines in 30 minutes, “I got to go to the bathroom.” I’m tired of being honest with you. It’s cool. The pictures are cool, but it’s not a vacation. And you and your wife aren’t going to enjoy. It’s not like, “We can have…” You don’t have sex or anything.

Frank Curzio: And it’s not because of your wife or you, both of you guys are exhausted. You think it’s going to be fun and it’s… Just go there knowing this because it’s going to be so much more fun for you, because if you go there just by booking it, looking at the brochure and a lot of people won’t tell you that. It’s like when they buy a really real expensive car, and it turns out to be a piece of shit, they’re like, “It’s great. It’s awesome.” They never want to tell you it’s bad because they paid a lot of money for it. But this is something that you’re going to pay a lot of money for, a lot of money for, especially now.

Frank Curzio: But man, it’s crazy. It really is when you have young kids. I’m being honest. I’m being honest with you. Again, people might say, “That’s crazy.” But listen, it’s very, very, very expensive, it’s tiring. It’s a grind. And when you leave Disney, when you leave Disney, and this is just the regular Disney Park, not talking about Epcot Center, Hollywood Studios or anything else, Animal Kingdom. When you get out of there, you’re not getting to your hotel for two hours, maybe an hour, if you’re staying on properties, but there’s still a long line and everyone’s leaving at the same time.

Frank Curzio: I don’t know what capacity is, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 people, whatever. Everyone’s leaving between seven o’clock and 9:30 or whatever. Maybe they’ll watch the fireworks and they’re all leaving and there’s a massive line for this tram. And the kid’s like, “I can’t walk, could you hold me?” And you see so many parents arguing and yelling at their kids and people fighting, it’s so great. I’ve never seen so many parents so angry at one spot before in my life, but then you take the tram to your car. Not to your car.

Frank Curzio: You take the tram to an area, where you then have to take a bus to your car, and then, you have to walk to your car. And then you’ve got to drive another 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, depending on how far away you’re staying. Look, it’s great for the kids, but it’s a little nuts. The good news for us, we didn’t go to Disney. We actually went to Universal Studios, which is an option. You have Universal and Disney and all the park packages and stuff. We visited all the parks, and then, we went to Volcano Bay the next day.

Frank Curzio: Thank God because when we booked this, and it’s like a week ago, Disney recently announced at all its properties that you have to wear masks again, they mandated it. These parks, hotels, all properties, and that resulted, you could see the crowds at Universal. And that’s probably a reason a lot of people are switching their plans from Disney in those Disney parks to Universal. And it makes sense for several reasons.

Frank Curzio: One, it was 90 degrees. Wearing a mask, 90 degrees. We did that already. We did that about a year ago when we went to Disney, we said, “Okay, let’s just go. We’ll hang out. There’s not going to be a lot of people there.” And it turns out there wasn’t a lot of people there, but they closed everything except for the rides. Every ride had 45 minute lines on it, didn’t matter. You can do the virtual thing or whatever, but it was still a long time because there was no shows, there was no food stands, there was no nothing.

Frank Curzio: The only thing you could do is go there and go on the rides. And every other ride they’re wiping it down, so it wasn’t like it was operating at full capacity. Anyway, we were wearing masks then, and even my kids said that, “We don’t want to go. We don’t want to go back the next day.” Because they just couldn’t wear the mask in that heat. It’s very difficult. Disney mandating that hurt them a lot. Plus, you’re not seeing that business internationally.

Frank Curzio: Someone’s who’s been going in for a very long time, I could tell you, the international crowd is very, very large at these Disney parks, and right now, they’re not really going there. You could see it. You’re not seeing a lot of people speaking different languages or anything because the restrictions of flying back into your country. You have to take a COVID test before they come to the US, now you have to take COVID tests three, four days before to get back into your country. If you have COVID, you have to stay here another two weeks.

Frank Curzio: Do you know how expensive that is, do you know how hard it is to make plans for an extra two weeks, and that’s a pretty big risk to take. And a lot of these people put you on quarantine even when you get back in there, if you’re coming from the US for two weeks, but it’s resulting in that international crowd not coming to those Disney parks right now. If you look at the crowds, I’d say it’s mostly Floridians. I’d say about 40 to 50%, and the rest is from other states around the US and Floridians, look, we’re not wearing masks anymore. We’re not.

Frank Curzio: It’s funny when I see so many media channels right now, of course, the channels with an agenda. I think every news organization has an agenda. We all saw that, we all know that for a fact now, but they’re trying to destroy DeSantis. I didn’t even know who DeSantis was when I was here, I had no idea, but just, you see it so much now with him fighting with Biden back and forth. But even Kramer said something really stupid the other day that he’s basically killing people, whatever he said. I let him have it on Twitter.

Frank Curzio: I love Kramer, but when you’re saying stupid shit when you don’t live here, you got to get called out a little bit. And I hate when people are talking about that, when they really don’t know from someone that’s lived here. You’re just listening to your own organization, which is a hundred percent biased and again, I’d understand if you’re on that certain channel, you have the agenda, you have to support it no matter what you think, or you’re not going to be working there. I get it.

Frank Curzio: I understand, but still, when you’re saying that publicly and you don’t live here and don’t know what’s going on. And for me, living here for 10 years now, and DeSantis has done, he’s saved our economy and it wasn’t like this reckless decision and not… He’s looking at the facts, he’s looking at the numbers like everybody else, like the statistics I showed you, and I tell you all the time, but last year we opened up early and then we had spike in cases again. And he cut back. He was open 75%, and they cut back to 50 to 40%.

Frank Curzio: He wasn’t like, “F it. Let’s just keep it.” No, he was just looking at the facts. Everybody thinks he’s this reckless guy, especially if you don’t live in Florida, based on everything that they’re saying to him through the news and whatever. But more to the point, what is DeSantis doing? We, the people, us, you, me, we vote for our politicians. Why do we vote for a specific politician? Because they support the same ideas that we have, not every single idea, but most of them.

Frank Curzio: We like them and say, “Hey, this is how I live my life, and this guy’s going to run it based on whatever, the tax structure, if you’re into climate change, both on Democrats and Republicans. That’s who you vote for. And that person is supposed to speak for their constituents, that’s their job. DeSantis is listening to everyone in Florida: We don’t want to wear masks. Kids should not be mandated to be vaccinated. Give me a break. Are you kidding me? When you look at statistics, the CDC, holy cow.

Frank Curzio: The director of CDC went on TV, this is last week, 10 days ago, she went on TV and said that more kids between five and 11 die from COVID than the flu. And that’s a hundred percent false. She lied, based on her own stats on the CDC website. That’s false, but you’re mandating. You shouldn’t mandate. If people want their kids vaccinated, it’s up to their parents. You do it. If you want your kids, if they have underlying conditions, to get vaccinated, it’s fine. I’m not an anti-vaxxer or craziness on each side, but that should be up to the parents.

Frank Curzio: It shouldn’t be mandated that your kids, especially since we know for a fact that these kids are mostly immune to this. It’s insane how they’re throwing this out there. I thought the job of the politicians was, hey, listen to your constituents. It’s funny so many people from the left, they’re trying to destroy this guy’s credibility. It makes sense since these are the same people who want to totally control you and tell you exactly what to do and what you need to do, mandating in America, which is insane.

Frank Curzio: But then the fact that they’re going after this guy, and I see it all the time makes me realize that, wow, they’re really scared of him. They think he’s going to be the candidate to run for president next. Not Trump. We’ll see, but from someone living in Florida, man, this guy got it right. And he saved lives. A lot of people here have their jobs still, pretty amazing. The fact that he’s saying that he’s killing people, come on, Kramer, you got to be better than that. You got to be better than that, man. Come on.

Frank Curzio: As someone who worked under you for so many years and you pounded it in our heads, do the research, do the homework, do the homework, do the homework, man, spend 10 minutes. I understand you can’t say shit publicly because you work for somebody. I get it. But come on, man, don’t say anything then, don’t say shit that you don’t know about, especially about a state you don’t know about or whatever. And killing people, really? Come on. You got to be better than that.

Frank Curzio: Anyway, but Disney mandating masks, again, I would be very surprised if they report a good quarter, it’s Q3, I’d be very surprised. Since they’re parks, they’re going to fall away short of estimates. Broadway, you’re not really seeing that crowd, still mostly closed. Even, we wanted to go see Blue Man Group, and they ended Blue Man Group in February. We’re not going to do it anymore, in Orlando, which is surprising. Are you seeing that streaming, they’re like, “Hey, we’re going all into streaming?”

Frank Curzio: Because that was the best thing that happened to their stock price and they said, “We got a hundred million, 120 million subscribers. Holy cow.” Even though 80% of those subscribers are free. Like me, I have Disney. It’s free because have Verizon, absolutely free. I don’t see them converting these people over to pay subscribers. I’m not paying for it. No way. If they come out with great new content, I will, but I’m just not going to pay for it. My kids aren’t really interested in that stuff. A lot of stuff, they can see a YouTube and everything else.

Frank Curzio: They don’t want to watch Cinderella and Bambi for the thousand time. Some kids do, but eventually get sick of it, especially with TikTok and everything else. And what they’re competing with. Now, they’re trying to release their movies in theaters and then same time through streaming like HBO, which resulted in Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney, since that was on her contract and what it did Disney do? Of course, they handled it professionally saying, “Johansson showed…”

Frank Curzio: And I’m quoting, “…callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the global 19, from global 19 of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Horrific? Disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects, COVID… Horrific, really? And by the government’s calculations, look at the stats. Same amount of people have died over the past 12 months and over the past calendar year in 2020 as previous years. There’s no uptake in deaths in the US. Again, nobody likes stats and facts anymore, you can say whatever you want.

Frank Curzio: Hey, if Nixon was around today, they could catch him even more than they did with Watergate, and he’d be like, “I didn’t do it.” And he’d still be in office. That’s the way it is right now. You could catch a politician on video doing something and they’re like, “Nope, I didn’t do it.” And everybody ignores it. That’s the way it is now. That’s how crazy it is. When you look at stats, there’s no upticks in death in the US, because people are not dying from other things like the flu, since COVID is a form of the flu. It is.

Frank Curzio: You look, how many people get the flu every single year? This year, hardly anybody got the flu. Why? If you look at the numbers, was it 32 to 35 million? That same amount of people have COVID and not the flu. You got to shot, a flu shot well they get the COVID shot, the vaccine. And we were told once you get that vaccine, you’re fine. You’ll never need to wear a mask again. That’s coming straight from the president. Now, you got to wear masks again, and you know what? You need a booster shot. It sounds like the flu, doesn’t it? I had COVID, listen, it’s worse than the flu.

Frank Curzio: And it’s worse for some people. But when you look at statistics, it’s very comparable, but nobody wants to tell you that. They just want to tell you Delta is all over the place and you got to be careful. Even though Delta is a very mild strain, it’s more contagious, but it doesn’t kill people. Not as much. Everyone’s going crazy. Delta, wear masks, close everything in New York, mandating, all indoors. I don’t even want to go to New York anymore. It pains me to say that, pains me. That’s where I grew up for 40 years. I am not going to New York.

Frank Curzio: I’m talking about business or personal. I have no intention of going there. Are you kidding me? It’s crazy. But getting back to Disney here, I don’t think it’s a good idea to piss off one of the most respected actions on the planet with that line. Apologize and settle it, but really you’re throwing COVID out there. That’s what you’re pissed off about. She’s talking about a contract and saying you’re not supposed to be really streaming. They’re like, “You have total disregard for COVID?” No, you signed a contract. I can tell you.

Frank Curzio: Streaming is all about new content. Netflix continues to blow away the competition. No one’s even close. No one’s even close to Netflix, no one is even close. And most new content needs great actors and actresses. Most, not all of them, but most of them do, which is why Netflix, again is kicking everyone’s ass, locking in some of the biggest actors on the planet, but looking at Disney and the stock, just buy it here because every time I throw out facts and figures and stuff like that, it’s like AMC. The numbers don’t matter. Nobody really cares when it comes to earnings and sales.

Frank Curzio: I have nothing personally against Disney. I hope they kick ass. I really do. I have nothing personal against them, just that the company is on very shaky ground. Nobody really talks about it. And they’re one of the few, if not only, consumer related companies you’ll find, and these are major companies, S&P 500 that you’ll find, all S&P 500 where earnings have not returned to pre-COVID levels already, and they’re not expected to return earnings to pre COVID levels until 2023. That’s a long time. 2023. 2021, 2022. Think about that.

Frank Curzio: That’s how much money they’re spending on streaming because they’re giving it away for free and they’re not generating a billion dollars on their Marvel stuff anymore. There’s no one going to Broadway. Look at all their channels, and they’re going to be fine. They’re going to be cool, but should the stock be trading at 30 times forward earnings when you’re growing earnings much slower than the rest of the world? You decided to go all in on streaming, which we know from Netflix is a huge money losing business for decades, for them.

Frank Curzio: Decades for a good 12 to 15 years, that’s a tough business charging people. And again, you have pricing power, I guess, but, dude, does Disney really have pricing power? It’s not that pricing power when 80% of your subscribers are free. They won’t tell you that, that 80% are free. And all their ads are coming internationally, which is a much low average revenue per user. Again, they want to just show 120 million, 150 million, 200 million. That’s what they want to show, and eventually, you have that and they’re got to be forced, “Hey, we’ll make money off of those emails and those people.”

Frank Curzio: Eventually, but I don’t think it’s going to be through streaming and they’re the greatest marketing machine in the world. They’ll probably do it, but it’s going to take a while for me, paying up at 30 times forward earnings for this, are you crazy? You could buy IBM, that’s growing much, much faster, has a four and a half percent yield, generate 12 billion in cashflow, and more than 50% of their earnings comes from cloud. It’s a cloud company now and it’s trading at 13, was it 12, 13 times forward earnings?

Frank Curzio: Would you rather own? But hey, Disney is streaming, we’re okay, wait until next quarter. They’re going to announce big numbers on streaming. They’ll probably give it away for free again. Committed their intentions weren’t to give it away for free for Verizon, but they had to, because they couldn’t see a drop in that number because they know they would have saw a 30% drop in their stock prices, the only thing holding their stock price up. They said, hey, we’re going to give it to these people for a few months.

Frank Curzio: And then when I call, they said, “No, no, you have a free for life.” I said, “I have free Disney for life?” They said, “Yes, because you have Verizon. A wireless customer with unlimited data plan.” I was like, “Holy cow.” Anyway, that’s over a hundred million people. Figure 50, 70 million convert over to Disney, crazy. But moving on here, when I was at the parks and Universal, they were all jam packed. Every one of them. We did take a VIP tour. Since, again, I saved $5,000 on my flights to Dominican, I wanted to make it up. The VIP tour is unbelievable.

Frank Curzio: And it’s a personal tour where you go through the back doors of every ride. They tell you stories and the history of that, which I love storytelling. You never wait in line; you can sit in the front row of any rollercoaster. You can also ride as many times as you want. Again, it is expensive, but man, it was really, really cool and went on to Velociraptor coaster, that new coaster that they have, it goes 70 miles an hour. It’s an hour of venture. And holy cow, that was the craziest thing I went on. The craziest coaster I’ve ever been; I’ve been a lot of roller coasters. Me and my daughter went on.

Frank Curzio: We had a great time, my oldest daughter. And then when we got down my wife’s like, “You know what? I want to go. And she asked me, not my daughter, she’s like, “Could you go with me? I’m a little nervous. Could you…” She wants me to go. I’m like, “All right, cool. It was great. I’ll go.” And I went on a second time. Big, big, big mistake, big mistake. And I’m pushing 50 now. I’m almost 50 years old, almost, almost 50 years old, but I feel younger than ever. I work out a lot.

Frank Curzio: I feel great. My mind tells me I can do anything. My body pretty much disagrees with that assessment. And my stomach hurt for at least the next two, three hours. I was like, “Oh.” I felt a little queasy. I’ve been going on crazy 70 mile on roller coasters with all those twists and turns and going upside down. I don’t even know. You lose count because you’re going upside down so many times, so fast, but do it twice at 49, man. Holy cow. It’s tough. And I’m getting old. I wish I wasn’t, buddy. Hey, we had a really, really great time.

Frank Curzio: And by the end, our tour guide, who was absolutely awesome. She was great. She said that she keeps track of this, which is a great stat, that we went on probably about, almost every single ride that can go on and something twice. And she calculated how much time it would take to go on all those rides if we did it without the tour, if we waited on line and we saved 14 and a half hours. 14 and a half hours. That’s how long some of the lines were, especially for the Harry Potter stuff, and hour and a half waits.

Frank Curzio: You get through all that stuff, but that’s how long I would have waited in lines to go on all the rides that we went on? But honestly, VIP tour is not for everybody, is expensive. If you could do it, do it once, it’ll create memories for life. My kids are talking about it every single day. It really, really is cool and it’s a great experience, but again, it is expensive. But when I saved $5,500 on tickets that I had, it really impressed my family and we haven’t gone on vacation for a while. I was like, “All right, let’s splurge a little bit and be a little crazy.”

Frank Curzio: The next day, we went to Volcano Bay. I’m getting to something very important here, especially stock related. I’m going to give you about 30 ideas in a minute, it’s the reason why I’m telling you all this stuff. Volcano Bay, pretty much the greatest water park around, really, really cool, at least in the United States. And I was trying to get a cabana, and I think they had 80 cabanas, and they were booked for a week out. I was hoping someone would cancel.

Frank Curzio: And we finally had an in through our tour guide and said, “Hey, we’re looking to get a cabana and they’re like $250. And these things are really, really cool.” It’s an enclosed tent, they have a refrigerator, they have a fan overhead, they have locker, they have towels. You can order food since you have your personal service and stuff. Really, really cool. My tour guide knew someone in operations, in the operations department in Volcano Bay. Called and said, “Hey, could you help him out?”

Frank Curzio: And we finally got through, when I asked how much the cabana was, again, it was 250, six months ago, $850 for the cabana. And that doesn’t include the tickets to get into the park. Or, if you want to get fast passes or whatever, it doesn’t include any of that, $850. And they were sold out. You couldn’t get one. People were lined up to pay that price, to get a cabana. That’s more than double that you would pay for the tickets just to get into the park again, which they’re not included. If you get a cabana, that’s on top of it.

Frank Curzio: But the good news is there’s no inflation, CPI went up five point whatever percent, more than 5% last month, but core inflation because there’s food energy because people don’t eat or drive cars or use the air conditioner to heat their homes or whatever. We never do that in America. We never ever do that. That came in in line with expectations. The accountants were happy. Hey, we’re okay. CPI, 5%. Are you fucking kidding me? You’re okay. You’re supposed to be less than 2%. It’s 5%, but it’s transitory. Our favorite word.

Frank Curzio: You got nothing to worry about, it’s transitory. It’s so great. Transitory. I love that word. It’s crazy, whatever. As the Fed to basically say, “Hey, we don’t care where inflation goes and we’re going to keep rates low forever.” Which is good for stocks, especially when you’re throwing around… How do we get to a three and a half trillion-dollar infrastructure bill? Could someone tell me that? Looking five years ago, when Trump ran, a little longer than that, Trump ran against Hillary, both of them, both of them, Right?

Frank Curzio: Both sides, they campaign on a one trillion-dollar infrastructure package, which was a lot of money back then. It was only five years ago. How did we get to three and a half freaking trillion dollars like nothing? Nobody’s even, “Hey, it’s over three and a half trillion.” You see some of the shit that’s in this bill? It’s insane. It’s insane. How do we get to three and a half trillion and nobody’s even questioning that? I thought one trillion was crazy, three and a half trillion. Anyway. That’s not going to result in more inflation. Absolutely not. No way.

Frank Curzio: It’s transitory, which by the way, if you look up the definition is brief, but brief, according to the Fed it’s 24 months. That’s brief, but it’s transitory, you’re going to be okay. Don’t worry about it. Pay your 850 for your cabana. You’ll be fine. And the hotel we stayed at, booked to the point where we were checking out Saturday morning and the checkout time is 10, which is pretty early. It’s usually 11:00 most hotels, but sometimes it’s 10:00. It was 9:45, and the lady was knocking on the door. She’s like, “Hey, you got to check out by 10:00.”

Frank Curzio: She was waiting outside our door to make sure we checked out. That’s how busy they were. They said, “We need you to get out.” They were kicking us out. You look at the hotels, fees galore, everything. Doesn’t matter if you have a car, doesn’t matter. Whatever, you’re paying parking, you’re paying this, you’re paying the whole resort fee for this. Probably they were up to about 50, $60 a day. If you’re staying for six, seven days or five days, it’s a lot of money for the average family. And look, if you’re going on vacation, anytime soon, just expect to spend an extra 25 to 50%.

Frank Curzio: Food prices were jacked up everywhere we went. Everywhere. Hotel fees jacked up, merchandise jacked up. I’m not sure how families can afford a seven-day trip to Disney. That’s, what? Seven to 10 grand, at least, including flights, the park fees, you know how much it is? You buy a four-day park pass and stuff. Fine. Whatever that is. 250, three… Say, if you have three kids, it’s five people. It’s insane. The food, you’re looking at rooms. Thank God, Florida and Disney’s in driving distance for us, about two and a half hours away. I can say every single restaurant was jammed.

Frank Curzio: You couldn’t get into IHOP or Denny’s for breakfast. There was 60 to 90 minute waits. We call Pizzeria Uno at eight o’clock, see what time they’re open. They said they open till 10:00 and we would drive in there, and as we drive in there, I said, “Okay, let’s call around nine o’clock to order food and we’ll just pick it up and go to the hotel.” They answer and they said, “We’re no longer taking orders. We’re too busy.” At nine o’clock. I said, “You just told us you close at 10:00.” “We can’t. We don’t have the staff. We can’t.”

Frank Curzio: I have been going to Disney, like I said earlier for 10 years, longer than that, but living in Florida 10 years, so probably two to three times a year. Since again, it’s two and a half hours away. It’s not that far. In terms of prices, I’ve never ever seen anything like this. Never more expensive, and more importantly, people had no problem paying these higher prices. Think about that for a minute. If you ordered food and they said, “Well, there’s a $10 surcharge.” And you said, for what?” “Well it’s just a $10 surcharge. Don’t make it up.”

Frank Curzio: And most people are going to be like, “Okay, just pay it.” You know why? Because if you don’t pay it, you have to eat someplace else. And that’s going to take at least another 60 minutes from the time you leave there, especially for dinner, unless you want to go maybe to Dunkin’ Donuts or something. Maybe, then you’d probably have to wait 15 minutes where they have one or two people working there because nobody can get help. I’ve never seen it like this before. Wait till it opens up internationally. How crowded is it going to be then?

Frank Curzio: Hopefully it’d be very, very good for Disney once they get rid of masks, I think people are really getting sick of the masks, of course, we were told. “Hey, imagine you got vaccinated and you have to wear a mask?” That would really piss me off right now. Really piss me off. Anyway. I’m taking you to this whole story and personal story. Hopefully I didn’t bore you, but why I’m doing this is because you could learn a lot going on vacation, especially when it comes to investments and investment opportunities. look at the places you’re going to, are they crowded? What hotels are doing well?

Frank Curzio: Are people buying a lot of stuff? Not just the crowds. Are they holding lots of bags? What are they buying? Are there long lines at these stores, at the restaurants? Is everything more expensive compared to your last vacation? And that’s just looking at the macro view, everybody hears macro and they get bored, that’s looking at the macro view, but you can learn a lot from that. It’s a top down approach and bottoms up is like, looking for individual ideas and stuff like that, but even looking for stock ideas.

Frank Curzio: And when you’re going on vacation, are you going away, for me, I’m going to spend time with my family and stuff. I’m not taking time away, but these are the things that I’m noticing. And by noticing some of this stuff, it leads to lots of investment insights and opportunities. You’re looking at Universal to Comcast, you look at Disney, how they’re doing and looking at the hotels, Marriott, Hilton, Chapultepec, Buffalo Wild Wings, it’s Food Plate, how they do, in Delta, American Airlines, whoever you fly with, but even whoever you’re flying with, are the airports crowded, are they jammed?

Frank Curzio: How much are you paying for parking there? Parking has been jacked up tremendously in all these places, even when we parked at Volcano Bay, I think it was, what? 25, $26 or something, to park at Volcano Bay. Holy cow. Imagine getting a cabana and then tickets, it’s what? $1,500 right off the bat without ordering food. And you don’t get the food for free with the cabana. Holy shit. Just to jump into a couple of pools and go down a couple of slides, but people are paying it, they’re paying it. But how much did you pay for those airline tickets?

Frank Curzio: Or, you can go even further where you’re seeing a strong demand and pack flights. What does that mean? It means that airlines are going to have to increase their fleet. They’re going to have to buy more planes. That’s Boeing. And if that happens, there’s hundreds of companies that supply Boeing. A lot of these, when I visited again, go to that Everett Washington plan will be an amazing experience. A full assembly line for airplanes. One of the biggest buildings, if not… I think it’s the biggest plant in the world. It’s huge.

Frank Curzio: They have a fire department in there and you can’t imagine how big it is. You can look at it online. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. And you can lose your kid for like two weeks in there. That’s how big it is. It’s unbelievable. And you just see all the parts makers, how they make the planes, but look at all the supplies of Boeing. You’ve got Honeywell, GE, Spirit AeroSystem, you got Eaton, Crane, Raytheon, AK Steel, Ducommun, is one that very few people heard of. We did very well with that in a CVO newsletter a while ago. Gentex, B/E Aerospace.

Frank Curzio: You can keep going and going and going, but that’s how I look at investing. That’s how I find opportunities. Again, of course, I’m enjoying my family on vacation and it’s cool, but just noticing that’s the way I think now, that’s just how I am programmed. I analyze everything. For me, I’m always, always, always looking for opportunities and the best way to find new ideas and find them quicker than anybody else is by just opening up your eyes and noticing them, because that’s real time data, that’s real-time data.

Frank Curzio: And now we’re looking at jobs reports, consumer prices, GDP figures, all that’s lagging data. A lot of that shit gets revised, two to three times over the next three months, next two months, that’s lagging data. We know inflation was over 5% easily and CPI was going to be through the roof when it comes to saying, well, the core was perfectly in line up 0.3%, whatever it was.

Frank Curzio: But you know it, you see it because you’re paying for all this shit. You see it before everybody else, but the trends that I brought you, going to consumer electronics show speaking, not just to the CEOs, because obviously the CEO is going to tell you how great their company is. They’re not going to talk bad about their company, which is normal, but you’re talking to the employees, you’re talking to these people at booths, you’re talking to everyone about different trends.

Frank Curzio: That’s how you find the best ideas and you find them early because once you find, then you start digging and then you go to Google and you start just reading a bunch of stories and then you can talk to different people. And believe me, it’s not that hard to talk to people. People love talking about themselves, talking about their job, call them. For me with this podcast, I get to interview them, but just, that’s how you find new ideas by going away and looking at what’s working. And I could tell you, going on this trip, holy cow.

Frank Curzio: I’ve never seen it so crowded in terms of restaurants, and we’re not even seeing international travel yet. I don’t know how crowded the Disney parks were. I know that a lot of people, instead of going to Disney at the Disney parks, went to Universal, because they just don’t want to wear masks. And I get that 90-degree weather, but Universal was packed. Volcano Bay was packed. Restaurants are packed and everybody was paying for VIP services to get extra things, they were all carrying bags, they were all buying stuff.

Frank Curzio: And people have a lot, a lot of money, a lot of money, and they’re spending it, which is going to be very, very good for profits, which we’re seeing right now. And earnings are absolutely through the roof. When I taped this on our YouTube channel, I’ll bring something up right now because facts that I tell you, this is the best report ever. The facts of that report. You look at the FAX at report, it’s for free. Just go fax at earnings PDF in Google, and it comes up and this one’s a few days old, but they say 87% of 500 companies have reported positive earnings per share as a price.

Frank Curzio: That’s the highest that have ever been tracked. They’re blowing out the estimates. This isn’t because of COVID where it has an easy comparison. This is because the analysts, their estimates are too conservative, and they’re probably going to be too conservative next quarter as well because we’re seeing earnings go through the roof. The S&P 500 is trading at 21 times forward earnings. Is that expensive? Absolutely not. We know interest rates are going to stay low. It’s a political organization, no matter what size you’re on, it’s not independent.

Frank Curzio: They’re not going to raise rates going into midterm elections. No way. Are you crazy? No way. No way, it’s not going to happen. That’s why they’re using the word transitory. We have low interest rates. We got another three and a half trillion coming in infrastructure people have more money than ever. Sure, we’re talking about record debt. Well, talk about record household wealth. Talk about both sides, but man, you see it. You see people, you see neighbors buying new cars. They’re probably building extension on their houses. People have a lot of money right now because it’s being given away.

Frank Curzio: Anyone who owns assets, those assets have inflated in prices because inflation is through the roof. You could buy a used car now and make… Not a used car, but even a new car and make money off of it. You just lose, what? 10, 15 service value when you drove out, hold for a couple of months, you’ll probably get more than what you paid. It’s insane. Look at home prices, continue to go higher and higher and higher, and more importantly, which I’m showing here, look at earnings. When we look at earnings here, we’re going to see over about $210 in earnings for this year, 2021.

Frank Curzio: But with that in perspective, pre COVID, which are record earnings, it was at 180. We’re at 15% high, went from 180 to about 140 during COVID. Everybody cut back, and we saw that, and it was crazy. Now, we have earnings that are 15% higher, all-time record, we have home prices at record highs, we have household wealth. More people are rich than ever in record highs. Again, these earnings is showing GDP is bounced back. Everything. Everything is bounced back, everything. Yet, the Fed won’t take its foot off the pedal, which is fucking crazy. It’s crazy.

Frank Curzio: We’re back. We’re back. Our economy is back; our earnings are going to be blowing out estimates right now. You see from all these companies, at least for most of them. 87% reported positive surprises, by 21 times as forward earnings, that’s not expensive when you have zero interest rates, and you’re flooding the money with cash, no way. It’s a perfect environment for stocks. That’s the way it is right now. I like sharing that data with you, but a lot there, a lot of names I threw at you, but this is how you want to look at when you buy stocks and you do different things and you’re going on trips.

Frank Curzio: This is what you want to pay attention to, finding out that data, that real time stuff before anybody else and just ask a lot of questions to people. You can ask me; I can tell you how many people at frank@curzioresearch.com. “Frank, I saw this, do you think this is a trend? Do you think that…” And sometimes that turns out to be really, really big. I’m like, “Cut this shit. Really? Is that true?” And then I’ll start digging and find out different stories and everything on it and say, “Holy shit, this thing’s for real.” Again, we have this massive, massive network, guys, use it? This is a free podcast. Use it.

Frank Curzio: Send me emails at frank@curzioresearch.com. Now, I have some big news for you, really big news, I guess it’s big news. In the weeks ahead, we’re going to change the format of Wall Street Unplugged. I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m kidding. I’m here forever. I like this podcast. I like doing it, but right now, we’ve been taping anywhere from 90 minutes, a little bit over that with an interview which publishes every Wednesday and daily, I break down the markets and stuff like that.

Frank Curzio: And you look at 90 minutes and we realized even based on our numbers and the feedback, 90 minutes is a very, very long time for our audience to listen to a podcast. We get lots of downloads and it’s awesome and I appreciate it. It’s great, but we’re also seeing that the staying power is difficult because it works for Joe Rogan with a two-and-a-half-hour podcast because when you talk about mushrooms and M&A, you’re going to keep someone’s attention a lot longer.

Frank Curzio: And I love Joe Rogan. He’s great. Plus, you have celebrity guests and stuff, a really cool, crazy guests, but for finance, it’s a tough ask. So in a few weeks, we’re going to change our format and changing Wall Street Unplugged from one day, Wednesday 90-minute podcast to three separate days, 30 minute podcasts each. One of the segments is going to be the interview only, I’ll publish that on Wednesday. And those are going to be with Dan and myself breaking down top stories, giving the investment ideas, any other will include a monologue, like today’s format.

Frank Curzio: It’s a monologue and followed by a Q&A, where I would take your questions. You can email at frank@curzioresearch.com. Those questions can’t be about any current holdings in the newsletters because I reserved for Frankly Speaking, which is only available, and that comes out Friday to paid subscribers, any paid subscriber of any of our products gets the research, gets Frankly Speaking for free. But this new format, also, when it comes to answering those questions.

Frank Curzio: We’re going to have maybe Luke answering those questions, which he doesn’t know about yet. I didn’t discuss it with him, but I’m sure he’s going to be open to it because he loves that stuff, he loves video and stuff like that, as well as Genia. And I think that’s going to provide tons of added value for you and that’s how we always look at this business. How can we provide more value? Because 90 minutes is a little long. We’re going to be separating some things, today there’s no guests. I don’t have a guest. I don’t have Daniel here. It’s all me.

Frank Curzio: Sorry, it’s all me. And if you’re watching this on video, sorry, you have to watch my face all the time. That’s okay. But Daniel is on vacation seeing his family in Ohio, he’s come back next week, but you’re interested in learning more about this or interested in signing up, you can sign up if you go to www.wallstreetunpluggedpodcast.com. And what that sign up is only going to do is we’re going to let you know when the podcasts publish, we can do a couple of headlines to let you know what it’s about.

Frank Curzio: We’re going to probably have a format like this, where I’m going to get some questions in a minute and then that would be one segment. Maybe on Tuesday, Wednesday is going to be the interview and Thursday, Daniel and I will be breaking down top stories and stuff and having fun. And maybe also answering a couple of questions there, but we just want to make it more interactive. I get a lot of questions especially for Frankly Speaking.

Frank Curzio: And I used to do that podcast under the Wall Street Unplugged brand, but we separated, but just answering a lot of those questions is pretty cool, and we know that you really like that. We always get great, great emails when we take people’s questions and we answer them. When they’re like, “Frank you heard us on the radio or whatever.” It’s pretty cool, and a lot of those questions, other people are asking as well. Feel free to send in those questions. And I would say this has happened in a few weeks. We’re very early.

Frank Curzio: I just want to bring it up to you, but that’s the format, but let me know what you think, because we do have a longer podcast, a lot of people do listen, we do get tons of downloads, but just that length, we’re realizing, is a little bit long. And we’re listening to our customers and we want to provide more value for you. That’s what we do here at Curzio Research.

Frank Curzio: We think about customers first and that’s going to be the new format. Again, no guests today. No Daniel, visiting his family in Ohio. You’re stuck with me and for DSE subscribers for this podcast, we usually take a pick from every guest, well, you’re going to get to pick from me and it’s a trading opportunity. Pay close attention. That is a newsletter where we try to take four dollars a month for and most people have subscribed, usually pay the four-dollar fee forever because you get a ton of value. You’re getting the best picks from experts that I interview.

Frank Curzio: We write a one-page report and we provide a portfolio by up to a price. But for today you’re getting my trade, using my newsletters to recommend things with a time period of six to 18 months, maybe 24 months, sometimes a long-term in Curzio Research Advisory, which by the way, your Curzio Research Advisory, the newsletters coming out today, and you’re getting three new picks. I usually do one pick a month, you’re getting three new ones. That should be pretty cool.

Frank Curzio: Video happens to a little bit longer than expected because I’m analyzing three companies, three great, great companies that I want you to hold for a few years that I think easily would double your money on. And you’ll see why I provide all statistics or analysis on it. For DSE subscribers, pay attention because it’s a trading opportunity. This is going to be a trade. Something I’m very excited about, a name that I never ever, ever, almost never mentioned, at least for the last three years. Because the name is breaking out right now that I really, really like and there’s a lot of reasons for it.

Frank Curzio: At least DSE subscribers, you have something to look forward to. Let’s take a couple of questions in this new format and the first one is from Michael. And this isn’t really a question. He has some really cool comments. He goes, “Good morning. I want to really thank you for giving me extended access to the membership. I’m grateful for the offer as we transition to building a family. What your company has done for me has been astonishing. You’ve helped me be more logical, my investing that propelled me forward with building wealth for me and my family. Thank you for all you do.

Frank Curzio: Looking forward to being a member for the years to come.” Look, Michael, we have some negative emails too. Of course, and I actually like reading negative emails more than the positive ones, but for something like this, this is what it’s all about. This is why I do this. Just to make you a better investor. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with my opinions all the time. You’re not going to, even when it comes to stocks, even when it comes to sometimes politics or whatever, but the one certainty is I’m always, always, always going to put you first.

Frank Curzio: When I’m not making you money, I am freaking pissed off. And the day that I can’t do that anymore, I won’t do this job. Right now, we’re doing well. We’re doing well across the portfolios. I love to see people making money. I love to see the trips that you guys go on and all that stuff. Again, that’s everything to me, that’s really special. Thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate it. And thank you for being a subscriber.

Frank Curzio: From Ferris, Ferries says, he goes, “Hey, Frank, you were recommending gold recently in Curzio Research Advisory. What does the recent gold stock action tell you, are you rethinking your thesis? Is inflation transitory? Is gold as a monetary metal dead? Has it been replaced with Bitcoin? Ciao.” That’s Ferris. My thesis doesn’t change on gold. And you know why? Because one is, I don’t have a massive position. I’d say 10, 12% of my money, maybe 15% is in gold stocks.

Frank Curzio: And a lot of those stocks I’m up on because I’ve gotten to really great private placements years ago, and I still own shares. They’re down from their highs like everybody else. But if you’re a hundred percent invested in gold, I’d be worried. If you’re a hundred percent invested in gold, I’d be worried. And I say that because of Vancouver and a lot of my friends they’re all in gold, mining, silver, there’s a whole world out there with an S&P 500, Dow, they’re hitting new highs every single week.

Frank Curzio: A lot of great names, new names coming out, just new deals coming out you have access to, you shouldn’t limit yourself to any sector, any investment, anything. Ever. Learn about it if you don’t know. Peter Lynch says, “Well, you want to invest in what you know about.” Well, you could know about anything. It’s easy to learn about industries through Google, through anything for free. You can learn what cloud computing is, you can learn what a hybrid cloud is. You can learn the difference between those two, the companies.

Frank Curzio: You could probably do that within an hour. Within an hour. Just shut everything off, lock yourself in a room and just start reading. It’s not hard. It’s lots of the questions. You got sources like me where you can ask questions, but gold had a flash crash and I would be worried because the conditions have never been more favorable for gold as right now. You look at supply demand, it’s amazing. It hasn’t been a lot of huge fines and cut back on CapEx tremendously during five, six, seven years ago when gold was terrible and these big companies were highly leveraged.

Frank Curzio: There’s huge demand for gold right now, especially for the majors, which is going to lead to more and more acquisitions of junior miners. You had the inflation thesis, but hasn’t been replaced with Bitcoin, I don’t think it’s replaced, but I think Bitcoin has taken that luster away because one of the best things when it comes to gold is when you hit that cycle and you’re right, those names go up, not just by a hundred percent. And we’ve seen that, just recently, about what? Two years ago.

Frank Curzio: Finally, coming off their bottles every three years ago, coming off those bottles with that five, six years low. In 2012, to what? 2018, probably. You’ve seen gold surge where those gains are 3X, 5X, 7X. And those are huge gains when the cycle turns and that provided a lot of excitement for investors, but Bitcoin, if you look at our newsletter in Bitcoin, which we started in 2018, I think. Maybe in ’17, some of those gains, I’ve never seen in the stock market before, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years and we had something that was up 40X at one point, we have a ton of names up.

Frank Curzio: 10X, 12X, 15X in that portfolio. And this is even after the pullback. When you have that, you’re taking that speculum from junior miners away and going into Bitcoin and other alternative tokens or the deals are called shit coins, but we don’t have any shit coins. We have good names in our newsletter, but even stock picks around crypto and stuff like that. But it’s taken away a little bit, but I wouldn’t say it’s dead. I don’t think it’s dead. I think you guys see great names, names with good management teams that have great projects, high-grade gold.

Frank Curzio: They’re going to be bought because the balance sheets of the majors have never been stronger in the history ever since they were formed and their balance sheets are incredible. They’re making a fortune. They could reduce gold for under a thousand and look where it is, even at 1600, 1700. Huge, huge margins, huge cash flow. A lot of these big guys are paying dividends now, holy cow. Balance sheet flushed with cash, record margins and they’re trading at darn cheap valuations of majors.

Frank Curzio: Definitely keep your allocation there, but the reason why I’m not worried is because I don’t have all of my money in gold, which I guarantee you, some people listening to this right now do. I know people that have all their money in uranium, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Do I have money in uran… Yes. I have big positions in uranium, but it’s not a hundred percent of my portfolio. You got to be nuts. You could say supply demand and balance is definitely going to happen. Yeah.

Frank Curzio: We saw a lot of these stocks move up and now they’ve come down, but for me, the big tell is why our electricity companies who are in dire need of uranium, why are they not locking in prices at 30, 32, 33? Why? What are they waiting for? I would think it’s going to go to 50, 60, 70 uranium prices, but you really want to see that, those are the smartest people in a room, those are the guys who have to buy uranium in order to run their plants. It doesn’t mean uranium can’t go higher. The stock can’t go higher.

Frank Curzio: You need to allow those uranium so-called and they’re not producers, will never produce uranium probably for another 25 years and prices have to stay over a hundred, probably for a good five-year period, but who cares? Uranium prices go higher these things will go higher, but don’t be a hundred percent all in on one sector, guys. That’s crazy. That’s really crazy. And that’s why I’m not worried about gold because other things are doing well.

Frank Curzio: And yes, gold might come back and have a little bit of flash crash, came back a little bit, but I still think gold goes past 2000, the conditions are ripe, and you’ll see that. They’re going to have low interest rates, forever, negative interest rates forever, and that makes gold a very good option as well as Bitcoin. Guys, you’re allowed to own both. I own both. You can own both. Get off Twitter because Bitcoin hate gold, gold hates Bitcoin. Get off of Twitter. You can own both. Own them both. They’re both good options in a world where the government three and a half trillion is fucking coming out.

Frank Curzio: These guys are nuts. Do you think that that’s the end of it? Three and a half trillion. You think that’s the end of it? No way. Trillions and trillions are coming. That’s the new world. That’s got to be great for gold. Last question here. And this is from John. He goes, “Frank, I’m a charter member of Curzio’s newsletters. I’ve been at Curzio loyal member for over a year now, happily owning several private placements. Thank you very much. Thanks for all you do. Glad you’re in Florida. They trying to force my grandchildren to have the vaccine, even though they have had COVID.”

Frank Curzio: He goes on a little bit more. I don’t want to mention too much here, but he’s talking about the research. I will say that he is in this industry very, very big in this industry. It pisses him off more than anything, but I won’t get to that point of it because I want to keep that just in case but John goes on and says, “I asked this question once before and never got an answer. Here’s the story, I bought Walgreens years ago.” WAL, I that’s Walgreens. Right? It’s WAL. I actually have to look at that now. Hold on, CNBC, da, da, da, da, go here. But he says he bought WAL, because I don’t remember it being that low.

Frank Curzio: Was it? Okay. Western Alliance Bancorp. Wow. Western Alliance Bancorp. Why did I think that it was… Okay. Western Alliance Bancorp, WAL is the symbol and I never heard of this name, but he goes, “I bought it years ago, for average of 625 a share.” I know it wasn’t Walgreens, sorry. “A few years ago it started paying a dollar dividend and a 16% return. The stock was over a hundred in May.” By the way, it’s over a hundred right now, too.

Frank Curzio: “I finally sold some, but I wonder if that is such a good idea giving up such a great return. I’m sure this sounds like a silly dilemma. How do you manage this? Is there a point where you’d rather have the capital gain, especially with the talk of making a gain ordinary income? I know there is no hard and fast rule, but would like your thoughts.” John, that’s a pretty good problem to have. I can tell you that, for a stock 650. This Western Alliance Bancorp. Good for you. I don’t want to give tax advice. I can tell you paying taxes is a good thing.

Frank Curzio: It means you made money, and I’ve made the mistake where if I had a stock that was up a lot over eight months or nine months, and I waited 12 months. A lot of times I’d seen that stock go down and it would have been better for me to sell it. And if you’re close to that period, it’s different. But with the new tax structure, we haven’t… My understanding is from the infrastructure package is that the Republicans bought into this because it pushed off those higher capital gains tax and higher taxes that were expected.

Frank Curzio: That’s what we’re seeing. Again, it’s starts to go to the house and who knows whether it passes. It could have trouble, but as of right now. If we do see those capital gains tax get extended from whatever, 20 to 31%, whatever they get extended to, it might be a good idea if you’re looking to sell, but it is a good dilemma to have, your right, you say it sounds like a silly dilemma, but listen, I wouldn’t even focus on that.

Frank Curzio: I think you have to focus on the stock if it still fits your thesis, if you still like it, continue to hold it or at least sell off a portion of your position where you could hold this and you’re not even worried if it goes down 30% anymore. Maybe you sell, say if you have a hundred grand in the stock now, or 50 grand in the stock, whatever. Let’s use a round number as a hundred grand. If you sell 75 grand, you still… That’s what I did at one of my positions in HIVE TECHNOLOGIES, HIVE Blockchain. I got out of it and made great money on a private placement that was in, and then I think I sold off 80% of it.

Frank Curzio: And I’m pretty sure I got 25, 350 it was $6, but I was under the lockup and I couldn’t sell it quick enough. And I was in very, very, very early in a very good price. I made a lot of money on it and I kept 20% of that. And that thing fell to the pennies. And now it’s back up, went up tremendously, but I didn’t really care because I made my money on the stock already, because a lot of it has to do with your mind, John, psychology and how you feel. If you’re selling off a portion of this, I don’t know how you would do it for tax reasons, tax purposes. Again, that’s up to you.

Frank Curzio: For me, I really don’t make an investment decision in terms of selling my stocks or buying stocks or things like that, looking at taxes all the time, unless it’s very close to, again, there’s a big difference between short term capital gains and long-term capital gains. If I’m 10, 11 months, I might need another month or two to sell something. But not to the point where… For me, it’s about the thesis. If you think this thing can go to 150, 120, 130, continue to hold it, if not, then you can sell your position.

Frank Curzio: Remember, Western Alliance doesn’t give a shit about you, John. They don’t care about you. The stock doesn’t care about you. I know you have personal ties to it, you made a fortune on it, but if you’re thinking of selling, which is your choice, I would sell a portion of it. And I think that solves the problem in your question. Hopefully that answers your question, but, John, great job on that. WAL, man, Western Alliance Bancorp. Awesome, awesome. Awesome. Guys, that’s going to be the new format for one of the podcasts.

Frank Curzio: Let me know what you think and then we’re going to do the interview by itself and really, really cool interview. That’s going to be every Wednesday. We’re not going to do this until a few weeks. It might take more than a month because a lot of logistical concerns, there’s a lot of downloading, uploading all this stuff. This is the format, but I want to hear from you because we always want to do it in our customer’s best interests. Feel free to email at frank@curzioresearch.com. And once this does happen and we start separating the podcast, we’re going to be emailing that out.

Frank Curzio: If you want to get on that list this way you get notified. Every time the podcast comes out, a lot of people know that. Just go to wsupodcast.com. You can go to that website and sign up. Again, it’s not about sending thousands of emails, we’re just letting you know when the podcast is because we get that question sometimes. And since we do it only once a day, it’s not that bad, but even for Frankly Speaking, but you’ll know every podcast. Not only that, it’s going to come to you with the headline, with the podcast about, and some show notes and stuff like that.

Frank Curzio: It might not interest you or might interest you something you want to listen to, but that’s how you get all that stuff, so we can email that to you. Feel free to sign up for that and let me know. I’d love to hear feedback at frank@curzioresearch.com. Woof, whole podcast by myself today, by myself, man. I’m tired. I’m very, very tired. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate all your support. If you’re a Curzio Equity Owners holder, we’re doing lots of stuff to increase liquidity. I’ve been working my ass off behind the scenes.

Frank Curzio: The security token industry is really starting to take off right now. We’re right in the middle of this massive, massive trend, very exciting stuff. It’s a way to get equity in our company, participate, just like you would in a stock. We’re going to have a board of directors, we’re going to have voting shares and stuff like that. We’re going to do everything by the book and make this almost exactly like a stock because that’s where I see this industry going. And when it does, it’s going to open up doors, so many opportunities to so many people and getting in the ground for our businesses that are growing.

Frank Curzio: That’s the point not buying Robinhood at a $40 billion valuation, although it did have a nice run-up and believe me, I’m happy about that. I went off on Robinhood. I went off because I think they’re killing just individual investors, the retail investors. It’s nice to see that that Wall Street Unplugged crowd got behind it and really pushed it higher like we do with AMC and stuff like that, because Wall Street’s really making a killing here. Anyway, I want to say, thank you so much for listening. Lots of great news coming down the pipeline.

Frank Curzio: And I was going to say, I’ll see you in seven days, I actually am going to have to change that because Wall Street Unplugged won’t be every seven days when we change the format. I don’t know. I’ll think about something else to say. We’ll see. Anyway, for now, I’ll see you guys in seven days. Take care.

Announcer: Wall Street Unplugged is produced by Curzio Research, one of the most respected financial media companies in the industry. The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its hosts and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money and your responsibility.