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: How’s it going out there? It’s February 9th. I’m Frank Curzio, host of the Wall Street Unplugged Podcast, where I break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets. So, it’s time to bring in the ever-popular, the famous, Daniel Creech, senior analyst. A lot of you guys like this format. Daniel, they are starting to like you, even getting to hear you a lot more, covering for me, getting some positive… We need some negative comments, I think, right? Too much positive stuff.

Daniel Creech: Oh, they’re out there, but thank you for all of them. Yeah. It’s great. It’s great to be here. Love it. Happy Wednesday. Wednesday’s the best day of the week.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. So, things are good. As you can tell, watching-

Daniel Creech: Real quick, let me interrupt. I’m sorry. Two things I got to talk about fun. I got to eat some crow on Facebook, we’ll get to that in just a second. The other thing is, Wednesdays are great days and the golf tournament, PGA is out in Phoenix and they’re doing the Waste Management. I got a lot of people out there at the Pro-Am and all that kind of stuff. So, the only place I’d rather be here than talking stocks, would be out there in 70 degrees watching the golfers.

Frank Curzio: Yes. And that’s your neck of the woods. You go there all the time, right?

Daniel Creech: Yeah. I did. I was there eight years in a row. And it’s just, for you non-golfers, that’s the tournament you would want to go to, because it’s like the Woodstock of golf. It’s just great. Scottsdale does a great job. So, that’s a lot of fun. This is a fun week.

Frank Curzio: Is that like the 16th hole that they have, where everybody’s surrounding it, just yelling and going crazy?

Daniel Creech: Yeah, it’s a short par three and they put stadium seating around it, and it’s just an-

Frank Curzio: They boo if you don’t make it.

Daniel Creech: Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t matter who you are. You get, if you don’t hit the green, they boo you and it’s great. They’ve tamed it a lot. They’ve tamed it down a lot. They used to have Cooler Caddie races, even before I went there, but I got the tail end of a lot of fun stuff, and it’s just a great week. So, I’ll be texting a lot of people about that starting, well, actually I already started, but yeah, it’s great.

Frank Curzio: That’s funny. That’s funny. It’s, I got a haircut yesterday, as you could tell. I haven’t got a haircut in two months and my hair was really, really long. And I got, the girl that I went to had COVID, and she’s been out for a week and a half. I’m like, “All right, enough is enough.” So, it’s somebody new and they just, they did such a bad job. I was like, “Just cut it all off.” So now, I’m looking at it on screen, and it’s really like, you can see my scalp and everything. This is pretty cool. I never really had it this short. This is nice. I’m not really like a hair person. I’m just, I really don’t care.

Frank Curzio: But it was to the point where she didn’t know what she was doing. She actually cut the top first. Usually, you do the fade first, and then you cut the top, and she started on the top. I’m like, “Oh shit, this is going to be bad.” And then I was just like, “You know what? Just cut it shorter. We’re good. Don’t worry about it.” But yeah. Be careful going to new people, even if it’s just a little bit off.

Daniel Creech: I know, I know.

Frank Curzio: Oh, it’s been a while. So anyway, lot to talk about, because one, I want to start with the reopen trade, because the reopen trade, remember with COVID, guys, and everything’s getting better? And then, we had Delta. Then, everything was getting better again, and then we had Omicron. The reopen trade is really live. You’re seeing it in a lot of stocks. A lot of these things are rebounding. Mask mandates are being lifted. This is driven by a lot of stuff. It’s not just like, “Hey, this is a trend right now. We think.” I mean, mask mandates are being lifted in California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon. They’re saying to lift it, their statewide mask mandates and school mask mandates. I think it’s Monday.

Frank Curzio: Last week, when you’re looking at COVID cases, there was 727,000. This is two weeks ago, cases reported. And the past week, it’s down to 365, and now they’re saying it’s down 62%. So, even more than that. ICU patients down. Total ICU occupancy is 79%. Remember when it was 80, 85 a day and everyone’s like, “There’s no room, there’s no ICU.” Just to let you know, in 2019 pre-COVID, the average, the US total occupancy on average was 75% for ICUs. Remember, if they don’t have people in the ICUs, then they’re wasting that equipment. But that is usually at 75%, and it got up to 85% in some places. But right now it’s 79%, which is near the average. So you’re seeing a lot of new, just they’re easing restrictions everywhere. And, even when you look internationally, where England said the vaccine pass is no longer needed to get into events, public venues.

Frank Curzio: You have France, Ireland, Netherlands, and even Australia opened up their borders, finally. And they were really over the top, crazy there. If you went on the beach, they had like helicopters come out, and just go after you. You have Italy, Switzerland also easing. Germany, Belgium, more like LA and New York City, a little bit late to the party. And, it’s going to be sad to see the Super Bowl and paying seven to $10,000 a ticket, I bet. And you’re going to see tons of people in masks. Everyone has to wear a mask. And by the way, I’m coming up with my Super Bowl prediction, which is a very big deal. Daniel, you know that it’s a very big deal. So, I’ve been doing it for a long time. And it’s usually the ultimate guarantee, because whenever I say, just do the opposite. I think out of the last 10 years, I lost eight out of 10.

Frank Curzio: So, at one of those years, because I went to the Eagles. I’m an Eagle fan that, so I said, “I got to stick with the Eagles,” and Eagles actually won. And then it was two years ago with Kansas City, but last year I lost. So, I’m going to break it down, next podcast, go over everything. Tell you exactly why, with good fundamentals, everything of why, which team should win and just do exactly the opposite. It’s as close as a guarantee, close to guaranteed.

Frank Curzio: But anyway, get it to this. You’re seeing travel restrictions easing everywhere, theaters opening up. And I think that’s great, Daniel, for airlines especially. You’re looking at travel-related stocks and you’re seeing them move. Even if you go down the line to Boeing, you go to Airbnb, the Expedias, there’s a lot to be had here where these companies are still well off their 2019 highs, and everything’s really starting to open up. And, I think that’s a layup with a lot of these companies. And again, I was early to the party on this. And, when I say early, usually means you’re wrong, but we’re down a little bit on some of these trades, and now they’ve all come back. But I think there’s tons of upside here.

Daniel Creech: The reopen trade, you’re exactly right. The thesis that we’ve been talking about is finally here, hopefully. These variants are dissipating. That’s a good thing. This is all just great news. Hopefully, the stock market reflects that and you can see higher prices as they should. We’ve talked about this a lot in the past with airlines. The big thing is business travel. Domestic travel is coming back. It’s almost, delta even reported in their latest quarterly earnings along with United, a lot of the domestic and leisure travel is coming back pretty close to pre-pandemic levels. Not quite but, give or take 20% or so. The business travel is still down about 50%, but the good news is that, that’s what’s baked right now. And as you have all these mandates and things lifted, and these restrictions lifted, that’s the number that’s really going to move the mark there.

Daniel Creech: But across the board, it’s hard not to be bullish. It’s genuinely a great bullish thing for everything to be open, and not only open, but for the fear of a lockdown to be past us now. And I genuinely think that, that’s the case. I don’t think anybody is anticipating a world leader coming out, outside of smaller, concentrated areas, coming out and saying, “Hey, we’re going back into lockdown.” That overall is extremely bullish, and it needs to be because we got plenty of headwinds, I.e. inflation to go against. But, this couldn’t come at a better time. And, that’s, it’s not a coincidence as to why they’re lifting these mandates.

Frank Curzio: Yeah, I mean, we’re done with lockdowns. Johns Hopkins, one of the earliest to cover this, someone I respect a lot, that’s not biased at all. And when we were covering it very, very early, we created something on our website, just like a tracker of trying to do states, and different things that we’re hearing in news flow. And then, Johns Hopkins just one-upped us. And this is, I think in the first week of March where they said, “Okay, we’re going to cover all of our states.” It became the standard, every place, all the states, all the countries, death rates and everything. But just when you look at the statistics, and now that we have all statistics, which we’ve known a year ago, but lockdowns are just the worst thing ever, considering the damage that COVID’s done. And now, we know who it impacts and everything.

Frank Curzio: And now, we’re seeing a lot of BS around the mask mandates as well, to the point where even liberal sites are actually questioning it, where, look, we’re all wearing masks. And, we see in some of these areas where mask wearing, and vaccines, and everything. I’m not saying the vaccines don’t work. I’m vaccinated. I believe in vaccines with people, not for kids at all, since they’re pretty much, the death tally rate is 0.008%, which is insane. But, when you’re really looking down a line in terms of masks too, that’s easing as well. Because we’ve just seen this spread like crazy, no matter where you, if you wear a mask or not. Even in places, forget about the US. In Israel, and some of the most vaccinated places, and some of the heavy restrictions of mask wearing, we’re starting to realize a lot of this stuff is BS.

Frank Curzio: And it’s great, because now we have even, not only Johns Hopkins come out, I saw someone from Harvard Medical come out. A very famous doctor, came out saying how masks don’t really work. If he did that a year ago, they would’ve fired him. And he would’ve been, he would’ve never worked again, probably. But now, you’re seeing a lot more people. Now, we’re able to actually look at the statistics and look at the data. Right? So, which is great. But anyway, whatever side you’re on, and it’s funny because Axios came out, when Axios, just to let you guys know, Axios is run by two Politico vets, which is the most liberal site in the world. But they said only 20, their latest poll from February 4th to the seventh, Daniel, it’s a poll of just 1049 people. 21% of US adults want the country to open up and get back to life as usual, with no mandates or requirements. Only 21%. That’s based on their poll, which again, it’s a liberal site. They probably polled people who are over 65, and underlying conditions, who are liberals. Right?

Frank Curzio: So, I think that’s hilarious because I think that number’s more like 75%, if I had to guess, now that we have all statistics. Either way, guys, real quick, Daniel, just to, before we get to the next topic. Should be Facebook here. Guys, airlines. Right? So, you’re looking at everything opening up. You’re seeing business travel start to pick up. We’re definitely seeing just leisure travel, definitely pick up. If you’re looking at airlines, their profits are going to hit 2019 levels soon. This year, which is remarkable because back then, pre-COVID, when you’re looking at Delta, it was $60 a share. You could say, “Okay, it’s $42 now.” But forget about that because they issued a lot of shares, right? So it’s not, you have to look at valuation. They had a $37 billion market cap back then. Now, it’s 27 billion. So, you’re looking at a 55% difference with 27 to $37 billion market cap.

Frank Curzio: United had a market cap back then of the 23 billion. Now, it’s 17 billion. So, from 17 to 20, that’s 35% upside. Even American had a $25 billion market cap pre-COVID, and now it’s 11 billion. So, that’s taking the actual share count, not just a share price, right? Which is not reflected because they issued more shares. They had to raise money. So, you’re looking at 125% upside, and think about it. Profits are going to act to normal. These guys are going to report blockbuster profits. They have pricing power. Everyone’s dying, you can see massive demand even for travel, like Daniel said, on the business front. I think the airlines are a lay up here. And also the companies like Expedia, Airbnb, even cruises. They rebounded more than airlines, but still down 30% plus from 2019. But travel’s back.

Frank Curzio: Boeing orders. They’re going to see their orders explode. They’re starting to see that right now. You’re seeing that. But I think that reopen trade, guys, you should focus on because the next year, you’re going to see profits for these companies actually skyrocket. They do have pricing power and there is demand there. That’s where people are spending their money, as they’re probably going to cut back on restaurants with prices through the roof. And you’re seeing that. Chipotle said that they beat the numbers, but inflation and had to raise prices, and you see that across the board. Not everyone’s created equal. Young brands did okay, but some other ones haven’t, so I’d be careful with restaurants here, which really bucked the trend and have done very, very well.

Daniel Creech: Yeah. Chipotle, just real quick, they just reported earnings. They had to be positive for the most part, because the stock popped, what five or 6% today? Now granted, it’s still off its highs. Yeah. I wouldn’t buy the industry. I would be very specific on restaurants in general. Just like apparel. I’ve liked Hanes brands for a while because they control a lot of their supply chain. Buckle is a stock that keeps, The Buckle or Buckle. I think of jeans when I think of that. I know they have a lot more accessories. That continues to come up on a lot of screens that I run, a lot of things that I do. And, it’s bad on me because I’ve not really dug into it, but that, that’s what I would be. I would be very specific and I wouldn’t buy the sector.

Frank Curzio: No, I hear you. I hear you. So, let’s turn to Facebook. Facebook had a massive, massive decline. We’re both high in it. I know that you talked about it a lot, too and you wanted to bring it up, that they’re stock really collapsed, 25% in a day. I never thought I’d see something like that would have come. 250 billion plus market cap, and it went down, and since then it’s been going down pretty steadily. TikTok’s definitely a threat.

Frank Curzio: And, maybe they’re moving into the metaverse more, because the operating system changes that they have, with privacy issues, when Apple is really starting to hit them where advertisers are. They can’t see the data. And if they can’t really see the data that they used to see, they’re pulling back, and they’re going to Google, and that’s why you saw Google’s numbers explode. Right? Which is the competitor of Facebook. So, there’s just a massive reset. I mean, everyone’s on the wrong side of the fence here. You saw all these analysts, even JP Morgan came out, downgraded, lowered their target from 385 to 284, a hundred dollars. Dan, I want to get your thoughts about it, because you want to talk about this today.

Daniel Creech: Yeah, because it, now I look terrible. I was taking victory laps, because I’ve been right up until the other earnings report, and my big thesis here, just to recap longer term listeners and also newer subscribers and listeners. My big thing here is the political side of it. Anytime you hear, and this still stands, and I’m not completely ignoring this to not say I’m wrong, because I am wrong. Yet, if you see the headlines surrounding about breaking them up, monopolies, and or the government sensors, that’s why I, and that’s still the same. I don’t have any change in feelings on Microsoft, Google, Amazon for that matter, Apple, and Facebook. However, I will say this, the thing I overlooked, and this was the mistake I made. I was focusing on that. I knew they were going to go against tough comparisons, because 2021 was huge for them. Or excuse me, comparing to 2020 is huge for them, because the pull forward, lockdowns, and all that kind of stuff.

Daniel Creech: I just overlooked, and didn’t give the credit to what Apple was doing. This just shows you the cards in the hand that Apple holds, because with their tracking system and the iOS upgrades and privacy and things, that’s a huge deal. So, what’s aggravating? Well, aggravating was, is that I was right until you’re wrong. Because the market, I thought the selloff was overdone. I didn’t think the numbers were that bad. It’s still growing double digits as a massive, massive company. It’s still trading below the market, but that doesn’t matter. It was up over 30% at one point. And now, it just… And I know this because I have two people that reached out to me that bought it when I started talking about it, and all the profits they were up went down, and now they’re down 5%. So, I would sell it and cut it for a loss, based on what I was going at. I still think it’s, nothing else has changed other than the crazy volatility, but that’s the way the market deals with it, so.

Frank Curzio: Yeah, I mean, the one big change I see here is TikTok. TikTok is a threat, and there’s only a certain amount of time you could look. You have your phone, right, in your hand for, and Facebook controlled most of that time, in terms of social media platforms and every other app, right? Whatever it was, 20, 25 minutes sometimes. I don’t know what the numbers are on the updated statistics, but now TikTok is taking that away. Right? So, you’re going to cut back on something, whatever, on Instagram or whatever it is. And that’s what you’re seeing, with TikTok just gets it right. My daughter the other day was, made a new recipe, and I asked her where she got it from. She’s like, “TikTok.” My other daughter did something that was really cool. And she’s like, “No, that was on TikTok.”

Frank Curzio: I mean, it is an amazing, it’s what social media should be. It’s an educational platform. It’s an entertainment platform. It’s fun. Yeah, you’re going to get crazy trolls, and comments, and stuff like that, which is okay, but just if you don’t like something, you scroll right through it, at 20 seconds, 10 seconds, whatever the videos are. And, it’s exciting. We’re on TikTok. We’re doing very well on TikTok, gaining a lot of traction because, again, now everyone I think is really saying, “Holy shit, TikTok’s for real,” in terms of the bigger companies. But, I just see an opportunity there, and Facebook did mention them a ton of times.

Frank Curzio: But I will say this, there’s a huge reset in earnings. We’re at $225 on Facebook. That reset was like $19 to $15 for 2023, which is next year. So based on that, even at $15 with the move lower, you’re looking at Facebook trading at 15 times forward earnings, which is an absolute joke to me. I mean, it’s insane, but sales expected to grow into double digits. I think that reset is a little bit aggressive. I think it’s setting up to easily beat, starting next quarter. I think they threw in the kitchen sink, and like I said right afterwards, when the stock fell, and I think I did in my monologue or whatever it was, I said, “Look, it just,” it might have been even in Frankly Speaking. Yeah, I like Facebook. But wait, because when you see this, it’s just, you’re going to see more and more funds. It’s a big allocation for funds. You’re going to see more people selling out of it. There’s just a bad taste in people’s mouths, they’re being like, “All right, I’m out of here.”

Frank Curzio: And then, I think what comments at an ultimate low here with Facebook, because this is an amazing company, it’s a great company. People are still going to advertise on it like crazy. They do have pricing power, but you did see that shift over to Google, which just goes to show you how Google’s able to get so much more shit, right, than Facebook. And, it’s nice where Apple was able, is the middle man, and just able to restrict that. And advertisers was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s go nuts.” And, again, they have their budget where they’re going to spend it. And a lot of that budget came out of Facebook and went to Google. And is it true, where to the point where they think this model is maybe broken, Facebook, and that’s why you’re going all in on Meta, right? On the Metaverse, right?

Frank Curzio: So, that’s what brings into question, but I still think it’s a great buy here. I will say one last thing here, Daniel. Guys, when Daniel wanted to talk about Facebook personally, he’s like, “I gave everybody the stock.” He’s been talking about it for a year, so I got to give him credit there. And he said, “Listen, I got to talk about this, because I got this wrong.” And I’m proud of that because when you look at our industry, marketing 101 is, you’re always right. It’s kind of like politics, right? You never, ever, ever admit that you’re wrong ever, ever. But the truth is, everybody’s wrong in this industry, right? If you look at Buffet, you look at Ackman, you look at Eikon. I mean, a lot of them got wrecked on positions throughout their career.

Frank Curzio: It’s… You have to be right more times than you’re wrong. But coming on this podcast and what I love about it, and why it’s different, I think that’s why we have lots of engagement and more and more downloads, record downloads, is we’re here to learn, right? So, you’re always learning. I’m always learning. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. You’re still learning. I’m still learning. I’m learning about just crypto, Metaverse, different trends all the time. It’s always ever changing, ever changing, and even being wrong, that’s your opportunity to learn what you did wrong. And that’s how you become a better investor, right? So, you want to limit your downside on those mistakes, but I really appreciate, Danny, you coming on and you actually saying, “Hey, you know what? We need to talk about Facebook, because we were pretty high on that.” You were pretty high on that. And, the stock came down. It just shows good character, man, so.

Daniel Creech: Oh, well that’s nice of you. Yeah. This is frustrating from an emotional standpoint in the investing world as well, because you’re right. It works until it doesn’t, and you’re right. I was bullish on that name for a good while, because of what we just talked about. But what’s odd and what’s aggravating is that, this is worse. This feels worse than if I would’ve just said, “Hey, let’s buy this stock here,” and it drops 25% from there. That’s bad enough. When it goes up, and then you give that back, and then a small loss, that’s terrible. That’s just, that’s even worse. So yeah, it’s just, it’s a good lesson overall on how to manage emotions, things of that nature. Now, granted as it run up, if you bought it and then it tanked. But yeah, it’s just, yep. It’s a good lesson.

Frank Curzio: Nah, it’s a good lesson, Dan. But, also too, look, this one caught a lot of people. A lot of people are on the wrong side of this. I mean, there was, I think out of 50 something, 52, three analysts, around there, I think, I counted the numbers. Think it was like 42, 43 had buys. There was one sell on it. That was it, just one sell out of all analysts. Zuckerberg was saying like, “This is impacting us. This is impacting us. The new changes are impacting us.” He’s been saying it for three quarters, but they’ve been still putting up numbers. And when you saw this, like all of a sudden it really, really impacted them, I just think it caught a lot of people by surprise. And it’s funny, because nine months ago, six months ago, you’re talking about the Metaverse and we’re like, “Wow, these guys are going all in.”

Frank Curzio: Was that the switch where you saw, “Wow, TikTok’s really taking market share. We’re seeing a big change in this.” That’s where it brings up in the question of, “Is this why you’re changing your business model?” Is it, it’s a little bit broken, in terms of the amount of revenue you’re going to be generate through advertising. But this was not an easy one to see. You never really see a company this size decline by that amount. One of the biggest companies in the world, which is insane, in one day. That just goes to show you, the algorithms and crazy stuff like that. But I think, I do think it’s overdone and, again, I own it personally. It’s not in our newsletters, and I’m probably going to buy more here because… And I owned it, but I was up probably like 25, 30%. Now, I’m probably flat on it, but I’m probably going to buy more here at these levels, now that I think a lot of the selling is out.

Frank Curzio: But yeah, let’s move on, because there was something interesting that I wanted to talk to you about, which was Canopy. Canopy Growth is one of the largest, if not the largest marijuana company. And they reported, and I’m not too sure what the stock is doing right now, it might be up. I’m not too sure. So let me see. They beat estimates. So, let me see, Canopy. I’m trying to bring it up.

Daniel Creech: And we haven’t talked about pot stocks in a long time.

Frank Curzio: In a very long time. So, it’s up 10% today. It’s like $8, 8.50. So, it’s up 10%. So, they say they beat estimates, right? But the estimates were lowered. And I want to look at a year stocks. This thing was $56 and it’s nine, right? So they reported, but they said, and forget about they beat the numbers, right? Those are the analyst estimates. But when you look like apples to apples, sales fell 8% year over year. I didn’t understand that. I mean, they’re blaming low supply, not being able to keep up with demand, but I don’t… I mean, the amount of companies that they acquired is just insane to me, right? So, I don’t know, but it just surprised me. This is supposed to be a secular growing trend. More and more people maybe are using marijuana, which I think is a good thing.

Frank Curzio: It’s much, much better if you’re going to drink alcohol or whatever. I think everyone is, especially in today’s world, is angry and pissed, and that’s going to relax you and make you happy. And that’s cool. And I don’t, whatever your advice is, whatever your advice is, I’m not going to judge, ever. The last person to judge, ever. And maybe, most people staying at home have much less time to smoke now, that they’re being, they took away that little punch bowl, and now you got to go back to work actually. But I was surprised at that. I don’t know if you were surprised at that. And, I’m going to get into more analysis here, but I wanted get your thoughts on that.

Daniel Creech: I didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t. I saw the headline where they missed, and reported another loss. Honestly, I haven’t looked at this. I viewed… I haven’t dug into this, so I want to hear your data that you’re about to share, just to give everybody a little backroom baseball. This is cool, because I didn’t know this had caught your eye that much, until just a few minutes ago. We’ll see if you can convince me here. I’ve always looked at these as trades, never an investment. I couldn’t buy, other than IIPR, and I don’t even know where that stocks trading. But that’s a REIT, and they were doing a lot of roll-ups, and doing, in fact, do you have something you can… Do IIPR.

Frank Curzio: Let see if I can bring that up.

Daniel Creech: Where’s that stock at?

Frank Curzio: IIPR.

Daniel Creech: Anyway, they’re a marijuana based company, but what they do is, they do the land side and the growing rooms, and I believe they’re a REIT. I haven’t looked at it in a good while.

Frank Curzio: Yeah, it is a REIT. Innovative Industrial Property.

Daniel Creech: Where’s the share price? Is it still, is it a couple hundred bucks or is it really sold off?

Frank Curzio: It’s almost 200. It’s was high 288, low 160, and they could bring that up. Guys, if you watch YouTube, we tape everything on YouTube. So, we’re able to bring up charts and figures, and this is building up a more following, but we do everything, is that we do in videos. Not that you want to see my ugly face and Daniel’s pretty face all the time, but it is pretty cool, because we’re able to bring up charts, and figures, and just look at and share some of the data, and the research that we’re using. But this thing really peaked, really in late 2021, we’re looking at. So not, a few months ago in the market top.

Daniel Creech: Yeah, that makes sense.

Frank Curzio: Which, it is one of the ones that got destroyed.

Daniel Creech: I didn’t realize it went that high, but I say all this, and I’ll let you go into the data here. But, that was the only one, last time I kind of did a deep dive into that, that I would buy and hold, because these others are just so… Listen, I get the political side of it, raising money and things like that. And I believe that it will bring in some tax revenue and things, but you’re not going to take over the market of, “The black market,” or the what are they, what’s their favorite word they like to say? I can’t think of, other than black market. Anyway, you’re just not going to… People, that if you’re into smoking or whatever, you’re not going to go and do that, because it’s being overlooked now. So, that’s the big headwind in my opinion for that industry. But these are great tradable vehicles, especially around election time.

Frank Curzio: Yes. Around election time… And, that’s one of the things, you said, “Try to convince you.” And, I will try to convince you right now, because they are, they really are tradable. And it’s almost like cyclical, going into whenever more and more states are going to approve this. And when you look at the data, and because you heard me talk about marijuana stocks before, and I told you, try to avoid them as much as you can. Again, some of them went high, but a lot of them have crashed completely. The reason is, because the barriers of entry to this industry are zero. Anyone could create their own supply. They can grow their own supply. It’s not difficult to do. So, anyone who wants to do this could do this. It’s not like you have big restrictions and only certain companies could do it.

Frank Curzio: It’s not like you can get into wireless and suddenly start buying Spectrum for like five billion, right? So, you can’t do it, right? So, there’s a big advantage there. So, that’s why Canopy, and a lot of these other companies, they’re roll-ups. So, they’re buying all these smaller companies, using their shares, so that they’re diluting their shares, but their market cap’s going higher, which isn’t good for shareholders. It’s good for the insiders that are going to sell the company one day. So, Canopy saw their stock fall, but I will say this. There’s 18 states right now that approved marijuana for recreational use. Okay. And every time we kind of run into an election, whether it’s midterms or whatever, this is on a docket for a lot of states. There’s 25 states that are voting to make marijuana legal recreationally in 2022. This year, 25 states.

Frank Curzio: These things are really, have come down tremendously. I think, as a trade, going in and buying them here, maybe you see a little bit of fluctuation to May, June, but that period from June leading up to… Don’t wait until November, because once the news is out, these things are probably going to come down. I think these things could really explode higher. And I haven’t said that about them, but you just say, 25% of those states. Say we get whatever, six, seven, 10, 12, who knows? All I know is every single state is in a ton of trouble. They need to find ways to generate money. That’s why you’re seeing, Miami, New York City using crypto. We talked about that in Crypto Intelligence newsletter of how to play that. You’re going to see more companies. It just, approving gambling. I mean NFL and those guys, they used to be against gambling all. Now, they’re promoting it every place. It’s all over every stadium because they can make money off of it.

Frank Curzio: States need to make money. This is an easy way to do it. This is something that everybody who’s going to do it, is going to do it anyway. You get marijuana in five minutes from wherever you live, if you know. It’s not that difficult, just go to any bar. You can get it within 10, 15 minutes. We all know that. Why wouldn’t you just, if you’re a state, you need the money. Why not regulate it? At least, you know that you’re guaranteed to get really, really good stuff. It might be a little more expensive and they’ll tax it. But, I think it’s a good opportunity for these names.

Frank Curzio: I was just surprised to see Canopy sales fell 8%, year-over-year, and they did blame that we didn’t have enough supply. I don’t know about that. I was just, weird. I just thought this is a massive secular trend and more and more people are smoking. But now, with these states, and pools and stuff like that, that’s going to be a pretty big deal. And I think you can see a lot of these names. You’re going to see positive news for these guys, and they’ve got their head handed to them, right? I mean, these things have gotten murdered.

Daniel Creech: Yeah. Most of them are trading closer to 52-week lows than even the midpoint, between 52-week lows and 52-week highs. So yeah, when hey, this is the time you want to buy for a tradable event. You got yourself a few months before the really headlines start talking about the midterms. Because they’re not until, that’s what you meant right, in November? That’s when these 25 states. Yeah. So, the market’s forward looking, you’re going to get some positive headlines. I do like that. I like that as a trade though. I still wouldn’t buy and hold any of those just yet, unless your outlook is like a hundred years and then you can never be wrong. One of those types of deals.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. One of those, one of those, but I want to just see something, because of net loss now, before I go here. Let me just see, I’m just looking at this. So, net revenue decline, 8%. Net… So, just global cannabis, just for cannabis, net revenue decreased 20%. So, they made it up on vapes and other businesses, and edibles and stuff like that. And now they’re selling what, Martha Stewart’s CBD? Good for her. That is the best thing ever happened to her. She went to jail, and then I think everyone, I think it brought her down to everyone’s level like, “Hey, this person’s real. She’s really cool. She makes mistakes.” And now she’s more famous than ever. And she’s fun. She’s just hilarious. Even on all the roasts and stuff like that. So, the net loss was only 115 million Canadian, compared to 829 million in Q3 for 2021.

Frank Curzio: So that’s, wow, that’s big. So, you’re seeing that at least they’re becoming more profitable, finding ways. So, that’s a good thing for this industry. It’s not just like, “We’re rolling up. We’re going to report losses. Sales are going to go higher because we’re rolling up, and just buying, buying companies.” Now, you’re seeing it translating to earnings, which is a really good deal. But I don’t know. So, cool topics to cover. Right? So, a couple of trades there too, where it’s marijuana, or reopen trades and things like that, and Facebook. But guys, let me know what you thought about this podcast, right? Frank@urzioresearch.com. Daniel, your email?

Daniel Creech: Daniel@curzioresearch.com.

Frank Curzio: All right, Dan, thanks so much for joining. I appreciate it.

Daniel Creech: All right. Cheers. Everybody have a great week.

Frank Curzio: Thanks man. And guys, getting lots of questions. Monday was a very, very big day for our company. We launched our Curzio Equity Owner’s token, and getting a lot of questions of, “How do I buy it,” or even if you own it and you owned it on the other exchange, now it’s transferred through Computershare, who’s a transfer agent, one of the largest transfer agents in the world. And now, they might be trading on tZERO. But in order to trade this token, either way, buying and selling, you have to go to tZERO, and you could sign up for an account there for free. We’re not promoting it, but that’s really the only way you could trade it. But that gives you an equity stake in our company. And now it’s up to us, right? Up to me, with the pressure on myself. Daniel’s laughing. Go ahead, Daniel, got something to say about that?

Daniel Creech: Oh no. I thought you were going to turn to me, I was like, “Yeah, it is on you.”

Frank Curzio: It’s all on me. But to really grow this company, and that could be through acquisitions or whatever, and using our stock and stuff, but yeah, really exciting times. A lot of people are interested in learning more about it, but you can through our website, curzioequityowners.com, or go to curzioresearch.com. But, in order to trade that, you’d have to sign up for account at tZERO, which takes less than 24 hours to do with turnaround. And then, you could do that. So again, that information you could find through our website, through tZERO. And again, we don’t get paid by tZERO. It’s just, that’s the exchange that we’re on. Just like some utility tokens are limited to Gemini, or maybe a Coinbase, or usually Coinbase. Now they’re trading on other exchanges, but some of them are limited to certain places. We’re limited to tZERO for now.

Frank Curzio: Howard at Gemini just launched a platform, that they’re going to start building security tokens. I think Coinbase base, they took, bought those licenses in 2018. They’re going to start. You’re going to see this industry completely open up. And as they do, that might offer us a chance to trade on numerous places. Just like you’ll see, I don’t want to bring up Dogecoin, but you see how Dogecoin is everywhere. Right? So, and that’s going to bring low liquidity, which is the last piece to this. Liquidity. And then it’s up to us to really put up the numbers, just like any business would do, right, because it’s an equity stake. We have to put up the numbers, show growth, and show that we’re doing the right thing, go in the right spaces, which is a lot of fun.

Frank Curzio: So again, all that’s due to you guys, I really, really appreciate it. Questions, comments, again, frank@curzioresearch.com. Really exciting times. Really appreciate all the support, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow with a great interview, and my Super Bowl prediction. So, be sure to stay tuned. 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 host and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money and your responsibility.