This transcript was automatically generated.

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 April 17th.

I’m Frank Curzio.

This is the Wall Street Unplugged podcast where I break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets.

In today’s show.

A recent pullback in stocks, is it just the beginning? Maxine Waters thinks big banks are at risk, do you believe her? And another sign our economy is not as strong as most economists think.

Let’s begin with Bitcoin, which is down 12% in the past week to 62,000 down sharply from its all time highs of 73,000, which hit about two months ago.

Ethereum.

Solana, all the big cryptocurrencies get hit.

Many of the meme stocks have gotten annihilated because they were up 5,000, 10000% in the past six months.

I’m not kidding.

It’s, it’s insane.

Just meme coins.

Coins just made up no utility features.

Garbage.

Pump and dump.

So people have been asking what’s going on with crypto? I mean it shouldn’t be happening, right? With Bitcoin happening coming, it’s coming on Saturday, which has always been a bullish event for Bitcoin in the past.

They’re thinking, well maybe it’s not anymore.

Maybe I should sell no idea why it’s going lower, especially since this asset that should be uncorrelated with the markets and the markets have been selling off for the past few weeks.

So I wanna address some of these concerns right off the start.

Starting with the Bitcoin haling.

The Bitcoin haling is event takes place as you know, every four years where the reward for Bitcoin min miners is cut in half.

So in short, this is what it means.

Every halving event makes it much more difficult to miners to mine for Bitcoin.

And when they do, they only get half the reward.

So the event reduces supply growth, it doesn’t reduce supply.

It’s 21 million coins.

It reduces supply growth.

And when you reduce supply growth and keep demand the same, she’s talking about keeping demand the same, the price automatically gonna go higher.

For example, let’s say if Elon Musk, who’s asking his shareholders if he can get the previous compensation package, which hopefully all of ’em vote yes ’cause who knows what he’s gonna do, but what a joke at the court.

I dunno, I kind of liked Andrew Sorkin, I don’t wanna say for once, but it was nice for him sticking up for capitalism of how this is ridiculous.

Said, this is what I’m gonna do.

If I do it, I’m gonna get this.

Everyone voted for it, it’s okay.

He turned Tesla into a giant and then a judge said, well we’re not gonna give you that compensation.

Holy s**t, what’s going on with this country anyway, but I’m using Tesla as an example.

So let’s say Elon Musk makes a hundred special edition Teslas every year and it’s a high demand.

He sells ’em for a million dollars each.

There’s a lot of people lined up to get these things.

Well say if Elon Musk says, you know what? I’m going to cut that supply.

I’m only gonna create 50 of these every year going forward, then the price of those are probably gonna go much, much, much higher.

And that’s happened with Bitcoin.

So at the half a coming, why is Bitcoin falling? And if you look at that as several reasons, one is there’s tons of leverage in the market in general and you have to see a lot of this leverage come out.

And when you see the whole entire crypto market come down, a lot of that ev leverage and it’s easy to get leverage and you can get leverage like a hundred to one at some, some of these places offer.

You’re gonna lose everything, be forced to sell.

And that’s fine.

You wanna get all the b******t outta the markets, outta speculators.

But the big reason why is look have, if you look at where Bitcoin was and where it is now, I mean it’s had an exceptional run higher that’s happened over the past, what, six months, three months into the Halving and it’s gotten ahead of itself.

Lemme see how much higher has it gone? Well, if you look year to date, and let’s take a look at some other asset classes, s and p 500 is up year to date.

Gold goes on fire, it’s up 16% year to date all time highs.

We hear it all the time.

Great.

I own gold.

If you listen to my Twitter account, I’m fighting back and forth ’cause people think gold’s going high ’cause it’s store value, which is the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard to own gold in my life as a store value.

Why wouldn’t you own something that’s going to pay interest? I think Warren Buffett always s***s on gold.

Why wouldn’t you own real estate as a store of interest? That, that you why own gold? Yes.

Store, you know, store value means it’s gonna hold its value.

It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to go higher, it’s just not gonna depreciate in value.

But over the past 30, 40, 50 years, 10 years, I mean this is what we’ve been here about gold store of value still.

But no gold’s going higher because of supply and demand.

There’s not a lot of supply in the market right now and there’s huge demand mostly from central bank buying.

That’s the reason why enjoy it.

I love it.

I own it.

I just hate when people are going in there and you see these legends and everybody’s saying, well it’s a store of value.

And look at the government debt, government debt doubled from 2012 to 2022 and golden s**t.

And I know it’s gone up even more.

It’s going up a trillion every four months.

That hasn’t been the reason for gold to go higher inflation, more inflation.

We had in 40 years during that period, we saw gold prices go down, not up and saying that Bitcoin’s gonna be correlated.

Every asset is correlated with each other.

Maybe, maybe not as much over a long period, but when you have leverage in the entire market, you’re gonna sell all assets.

So you can’t b***h about it not being levered to the market.

Just a little bit.

We are looking at that goal up 16%, right? So 16% for gold.

Nasdaq up 6% year to date.

S&P 500, 5% year to date.

And we have the Dow flat.

Bitcoin is up right now at six, 2000.

It’s a 40% year to date.

So if you have a catalyst coming and you say, wow, this asset is is just, you know, I’m gonna buy this house because they’re gonna build something, whatever, they’re gonna be build, I won’t say mall ’cause mall’s terrible now, but yeah, they’re gonna build all these housing complexes and, and and whatever, right? And you wanna own real estate because they’re, they’re building up this whole entire area and all of a sudden your home value goes from 300,000 in six months to 500,000.

It’s priced in.

So if it comes down to to 450,000, you’re gonna see a little bit of a pullback ’cause it got ahead of itself with Bitcoin up Remember it’s trading at 44,000 to start the year to 62,000.

Now what do we have? We have the normal people s******g on Bitcoin, including Peter Schiff, lots of other bears, and I get it, Schiff, great marketing’s very smart, but you have people basically telling you it’s worthless, right? Or you’re an idiot for buying Bitcoin when you traded 5,000, right? These are the same people that are telling you’re an idiot for owning Bitcoin.

But they said the same thing when it was at 5,000, 10,000, But I’m gonna tell you something and pay close attention to this because what we’re seeing right now, you’re seeing a lot of b******t out there.

Tons of newsletter promos highlighting a date this week or before the half thing.

You have to pay attention to this, you need to pay attention to this.

It’s a matter of life and death.

You’ll f and die unless you don’t do this on this date.

And if you don’t do it, or if you make this move before the halving, if you just put a thousand dollars in it, you’re gonna make a fortune.

You’re gonna be filthy rich.

But I’m seeing all these promos, all this nonsense and people in the media and all this is complete b******t.

In fact, when I see the halving coming, I’m gonna give you great advice.

Don’t do anything, just let it take place in April 20th on Saturday.

So what we’re doing, because we’re getting lots of questions and I’m hearing so much of the b******t out there after the Halving, right? This is on Tuesday, April 30th, do another free event.

We have a Crypto 2024 series that we’ve done.

This is gonna be a third installment.

So I’m gonna tell you exactly what to do ’cause we’re getting questions.

And man, I, I mean what I’m seeing out there about Bitcoin, how it’s terrible, how it’s gonna get crushed, just the back and forths, it’s insane.

All because of the halving, okay? An event that you know of that we’ve been talking about.

So a lot of that is priced in.

But during this event in Tuesday, April 30, it’s gonna be after the halving.

It’s say exactly what you need to know to make a fortune in crypto.

It’s not gonna be based on hype, it’s not gonna be based on bs.

And you’re not gonna make a fortune tomorrow or even six months or, or this is how to position yourself to be in one of the greatest asset classes that we’ll see in a generation.

Something that’s cha changing the landscape of the world.

Something that’s now a secular growing trend.

Secular long term forever, but real analysis that you’re not seeing.

And even from both sides, it’s not just the people.

What are you getting? What are you seeing on tv? You’re gonna see people talk about Bitcoin and, and, and it’s gonna go to 150,000 this year.

Kathy Woods said it’s going to a million and a half.

I don’t even know what a timeframe is.

These are real forecasts or you’re getting people saying it’s gonna crash and go to zero.

And look, this is the world we live in.

Where if you want attention, which almost everyone does these days, that’s why we have social media.

Me, me, me, me.

Look where I am.

I’m right here.

Look, oh, I’m so happy all the time.

Look, look, look, it was so funny, I took my daughter to a concert, it was a Drake concert about whatever I think I mentioned on the podcast maybe two, three months ago.

And we went there, we’re hanging out, we’re enjoying ourselves, and all of a sudden these four young girls are hanging out and they do like a live stream and they do a live stream and all four of ’em, which are like singing to the music and join yourself, they were all like going crazy.

They go, oh my God, this is the best event.

Like, they just pretended to be some someone that they’re not just to go on a live stream and whoever they were live streaming to, and if it was a FaceTime or they just to show how much fun we’re having right here, right now.

And as soon as they shut it off, like, you know, they just, they just went back to just, you know, singing and hanging out.

And I’m like, isn’t it weird? Isn’t it weird that we have to tell everyone how great we are? How good we’re doing all the time? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s insane.

It really is insane.

But it’s the world we live in.

I mean, if you want attention, even in the financial markets, you wanna get on lots of podcasts or in the financial media, you have to make stupid bold calls, which makes sense because if you’re wrong, what happens? Nothing.

You’re not held accountable.

Nobody gives a s**t.

They’re not gonna say, oh remember when you call this and gonna go this? No, nobody, nobody cares.

How many people said that, that Tesla was gonna have fully autonomous taxis and vehicles right now every single taxi ride sharing was going.

Remember that? That was like three, four years ago.

None of that happened.

Nobody really holds anyone accountable anymore.

Which kind of sucks.

That’s why I like doing this podcast.

’cause every week I’m here.

Do I like doing videos? Uh, it’s why I keep all of my issues on my site where you could look all the way back from when I started And you could say, Hey, you were wrong here.

You were right here.

You were wrong here.

You’re gonna see I’m right more than I’m wrong.

I wouldn’t be doing this.

But still that, that to me, that’s the way it should be.

Like this is who I am.

If you wanna listen to me, if you wanna follow me here, here I am, do it.

I’m not gonna b******t you.

It’ll get paid by anyone.

We’re independent.

But I get the media thing.

I used to do that.

I used to be on Fox Business News all the time.

I used to, I was on CNBC, I was on, you know, just the whole entire video thing quoted in, in major papers, magazines, everybody wants to say, oh you know, I was here, here, here, here, here.

Which is like everybody these days.

But if you wanna get on, make the stupidest boldest call and they’ll put you on TV no matter what.

Either that or they’re gonna put you on tv.

If you have a million followers on any platform, that could be Twitter.

That could be Instagram.

’cause they know that it’s better for their station, the more viewership they get.

But if you are wrong, if you call for Bitcoin at go into, you know, 1.5 million or if you call a crash call, like Peter Schiff does every single two, three years, I think pretty much every, every two years.

I think he updated his book and revised that book, that crash book like three or four times from the credit crisis.

Nobody cares about the calls.

Nobody cares that he’s been telling you to that that Bitcoin’s going to to zero when it was 3000, 4,017.

Nobody cares.

They still have ’em on.

It’s entertaining as hell, which does s**t for you though.

That’s not what we’re about.

I get the entertainment factor.

I really do.

I get it.

I understand that I was in that world, but it promotes you to make stupid calls because you’re not gonna be held accountable.

But if you are right, if you are right, you’re a media God.

Hey, this is a person that called the crash.

Well that person actually called a crash every single year for the last 40 years.

And he’s finally right now on their resume I call you.

Ever notice when you see some of these people who, who are bears, especially in markets like this, if it comes down, say if we come down like another 10%, they’re gonna be like they called every single major crash for the last 30 years because they called a crash every f*****g day since then.

Again, it’s just words.

I don’t give a s**t about popularity.

I don’t give a s**t about anything else other than making my listeners and making my subscribers money.

That’s what I do.

That’s what my business is about.

So I see stuff like this, I’m like, look, I tell my team, let’s hold another live event.

It’s for free.

It’s for free.

Most of you should own crypto and you should be in it.

But just to show you when we launch these things, okay, we did two others in our Crypto 2024 series.

The first was in December when I told you about Bitcoin, it was under 40,000.

I said, listen, ETF approvals are coming and it’s gonna be mentioned every place.

You’re gonna see all this demand coming to the market that we’ve never seen before from institutions.

And we’re at 62,000.

The next one was in February when I said, Hey listen, buy all coins because they significantly outperformed Bitcoin.

Bitcoin goes an 18 month period after the haling, after the haling.

Notice how Bitcoin’s been going up into the haling.

It’s going up because of the ETFs.

But after the haling 18 month period afterwards, Bitcoin averages every four years is halving occurs over 600% gains.

And I pulled up the chart yet all coins go up three to one.

They outperform Bitcoin more than three to one.

I said start getting into these things.

And we took small positions on a lot of them at the right time and they’re still a lot higher.

Still doing well because we’re in early, even though we’ve seen the pullback.

You, you wanna go to where the puck is going, not where the puck is.

And everyone’s saying, well you gotta do this.

And jumping on the bandwagon and saying, know, you gotta do this before the haling.

It’s b******t.

It’s b******t.

We all know the halving.

We all know where the next halving is taking place four years from now.

We all know it.

We all know it’s a date on the calendar.

It’s not a surprise just how do you position yourselves? Almost like buy a marijuana company’s like into an election.

They usually do well regardless of fundamentals and then they get annihilated.

I would wait a couple months on that trade.

But you’re gonna see more states.

Even Florida up for approval, for marijuana, for recreational use makes great headlines and usually see the trade and all the algorithms know this.

And every two years, you know, into the election years, you see marijuana really take off pretty much within a one two month period.

And the gains are exceptional.

Now you have everyone jumping on the bandwagon like they know this asset.

We’ve been covered for a very, very long time.

We know how it acts.

We know what it does.

Even the last one, the last, it’s the last series, which was in February.

And if you go back and listen to it again, they’re all available.

I said, look, Bitcoin’s likely to pull back a little bit.

It’s getting a little ahead of itself.

And it went up even further.

I think in February.

It might have been around 60 to 65,000.

I’m not too sure.

But it went all the way to 73.

If you wonder why it’s not going up even more into the halving is ’cause it, it’s up tremendously even of the assets that’s outperformed it year to date of 40% still after this 12% pullback over the past seven days.

So I don’t have these free events just to have them.

I love my time.

I love spending time with my, my kids and hanging out.

I only do these free live events when there’s something relevant to say or I see a disconnect where we, not just you, but we.

’cause I invest in a lot of this stuff, as you know, which you’re not gonna really hear out there in in our industry most, most editors don’t invest in what they’re telling you to buy.

That’s gonna go up so much.

I do.

I think it’s the way it should be.

Just like hedge funds and hedge funds eat their own cookie.

They get wrecked.

Yes, they charge ’em massive fees, but still they’re gonna get hit pretty hard.

Most of their wealth is tied into that fund.

Think about someone telling you that the stocks are up a thousand percent and they’re not gonna own.

It’s a little shady.

But if I see a disconnect on an asset industry, kind of what I’m seeing crypto right now, that’s why I hold these events.

We show to mark your calendars.

It’s gonna be Tuesday, April 30th, thinking about getting into cryptos, it’s a must listen, it’s fully live, which is fun.

I love doing live events.

So it’s not like live where, okay, I’m gonna give you a tape version.

No, this is live.

I’ll put the timestamp on the clock and everything.

And after that, just very short, you know, just kind of dig in more details.

Maybe like 10 minutes, first, 15 minutes after that part, I’m gonna answer your questions.

Do a live q and a.

I have to tell you the last two times we did this event, it lasted longer than 90 minutes.

’cause we kept getting questions.

And I’m here for you gotta tell you the last event, I think it was closing on two hours on the q and a.

And I started burning out a little bit.

You could see it in my voice.

I was getting tired.

I mean was I think 9, 9 30 or whatever time it was.

But I’m here for you.

So take advantage of it.

’cause there’s a lot of confusion, a lot of b******t, people jumping on the bandwagon of the, it just, to me, that’s crazy.

Just the misinformation that you get from these asset classes and you’re like, oh, Bitcoin’s crashing.

And look, you’re supposed to go higher into the halving.

It’s going, it went much, much higher into the halving.

It’s a 40% year to date.

Come on.

So Tuesday, April 30 7:00 PM the register.

Go to Curzio crypto.com and be sure to join us again absolutely free.

It’ll be really cool.

No b******t.

And I’ll tell you how it is and how I’m positioning myself.

There’s a lot of money to be made in this industry and the secular growing trend that everyone seems to s**t on every time it’s a slight pullback.

Those pullbacks are gonna get fewer and fewer and fewer because of these ETFs and the amount of money that’s now filtering into this, which we never had.

Coupled with cutting supply growth in half.

Remember the example I gave you real quick? I said, demand has to stay the same, demand stays the same, and you cut supply growth, price goes up, demand for crypto has not stayed the same, it’s gonna go higher and higher.

We have a lot of leverage.

We’ll get the leverage out and that’s fine.

That’s what happens when you see these major moves.

But you’re still gonna see demand from individuals, from institutions and new demand coming into this market, even from lots of countries who are reversing their decision and say, well, you know, no more Bitcoin, I’m done now that they’re no longer country by country.

They’re adopting Bitcoin fixed supply likely going higher and higher.

Okay, moving on.

Maxine Waters, Democrat, US representative from California and lifer been off since 1991.

She’s 85 years old, has her share of stupid comments like the rest of politicians.

But this one takes the cake.

So what was on CNBC yesterday? And it’s relevant.

And of course before she got going, she took time to to bear Trump, which is on every channel.

Which again, it’s, it’s a election year.

So of course you know you’re gonna see Fox bashing Biden and, and you know, CNN and everybody else, MSNBC, bashing Trump.

And you know, it’s all par for the cost.

What’s not par for the cost is making fun of Donald Trump that he has to stay in court in order to stay in court three times a week while Biden is allowed to campaign.

And this is because of the current trial, which is Stormy Daniels, which is about falsifying records, which is a misdemeanor.

So it’s already passed statute of limitations.

However, New York prosecutors are trying to make this and just turn this case into a felony.

We know why they’re doing this, right? We all know it.

Everyone, every Democrat knows it.

Every woke person knows it.

Every Republican knows why they’re doing this, right? You and how much they hate this guy, which is fine.

So you wanna put him in jail or at least limit him from campaigning and this is how you do it.

That’s a crazy world we live in.

Re regardless of what party you’re in, I’m a Republican all my life, but man, this s**t that’s going on, if this s**t happened to, to Obama, this s**t to, to Clinton, Bill Clinton, I mean, you know, we as Americans should stand up and be like, okay, this is b******t right now.

You can’t stop a guy from running.

I mean you could hate the guy, be disgusted by him, that’s fine.

But not allowing to campaign while bringing BS charges against Trump.

By the way, this is the first time in history a country it since in our country’s history where criminal charges have been brought against the foreign president and they keep bringing him and bringing him Marine.

We know why they didn’t bring him three years ago, four years to bring him.

Now they weren’t even sure if he was gonna run.

He’s gonna run.

He’s getting more poppies, getting more popular.

’cause people are realizing that this is b******t, that what’s going on.

Beat ’em at the polls.

Anyway, hard to watch.

I try to avoid this because it’s so angry because no matter what channel you’re watching, it’s forcing you to hate the other side.

And you don’t wanna hate the other side.

You really don’t.

Democrats have lots of Republican friends, or I have lots of democratic friends, but when you know, you see things like, like the safety of our children or our families are at stake in cities and stuff.

I mean, I mean, shit’s changing guys.

This is crazy.

It’s gonna impact your portfolios, especially.

It’s not gonna be the end of the world.

But man, it, it definitely, you’re gonna see lots of things happen based on this election.

Different sectors, different stocks.

Who’s lobbying the most? Who’s gonna get s**t passed? Getting back to waters the best part.

Waters, who is a ranking member of the financial services committee.

She’s supposed to be really smart, right? She should know a little about banking industry in this interview, which is yesterday she said this, the big banks, which is JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citi.

Should they need to have more capital on their balance sheets? ’cause community banks, as we saw the failures, it could lead to contagion similar to what we saw during the credit crisis where the whole entire financial system almost collapsed.

That was back in the day where you saw banks leverage 30 to one and then you put all these crazy laws and capital ratios and tier ratios making sure it’s not gonna happen again.

But she’s coming on in the same week, in the same f*****g week that those four largest banks, the four largest banks in the world, reported a combined $27 billion in profits and $110 billion in sales for the quarter.

Not for the year.

For the quarter, quarter, yeah.

They, they, they’re in big, big trouble.

They’re in huge trouble.

I think she takes the lobbying dollars and then just, you know, goes out and says, Hey, you know what? I’m gonna have to bash you guys a little bit, but don’t worry, nothing’s gonna happen.

It’s just, but our political system is insane right now.

It’s insane.

And I know sometimes this separates viewers and, and, and, and you know, people get really p****d off, back and forth.

I, I promise that, that, you know, things like this are important that you see.

I mean, look at the FTC.

They’re shooting down every single deal.

Every single deal that goes by, they’re shooting down even deals that make sense.

They’re, they’re shooting down everything.

Microsoft couldn’t take over.

Activision, are you kidding me? You know how competitive the gaming market is? Massive.

Especially when you throw in mobile games.

Really? You’re shutting that down.

They had to fight it for how long? Concede a few things in order to get that deal done.

But every deal, no matter what it is, is no, is no right off the bat.

And you have to prove it.

No way.

We’re not doing it.

That’s the answer.

Is that what our government is there for? You wanna protect, you don’t want monopolies, I get it, but come on man, I cover these industries.

You know when something’s gonna be a monopoly, when something’s not, if there’s fair competition across, they can’t take over a company.

If they raise prices then you know they’re probably gonna lose market share for someone who’s also good.

They’re charging lower prices.

But the whole system is insane.

I mean, so, so basically, and I’m, you know how much I hate the large banks.

I mean just, I hate the large banks.

Why I love crypto so much.

’cause it disrupts this industry.

That’s a boys club.

But to pass laws, just to pass laws, to pass regulation, just to pass regulation when no facts are reason.

You can’t tell me the banks aren’t well capitalized.

You can’t tell me that you worry about contagion.

for the quarter combined for these banks.

What do you think it’s gonna be? With interest rates staying high, that debt interest income, it’s gonna remain this high.

They’re gonna be incredibly strong and these a******s are giving you no interest.

Still on, on savings and checkings accounts.

Are you kidding me? Barely, barely, barely.

I mean, what is it? Point one to maybe 0.3, How much have rates gone up? Relatively Zero.

We can get risk free.

Well over 5% for one year, one year, one month treasuries, I mean, holy cow.

But to say they need new laws and and contagion all of a sudden and you’re on TV like the same week they just reported, it’s just the same couple, couple days that they reported.

Are you kidding me? We’re not just talking about at someone, you know, a politician, which again, many of them know very little about business, they’re all lawyers, I get it.

But again, she is a ranking member of the financial services committee.

Should she know this anyway, large cap banks.

As long as rates are high, that n interim margin is going to be.

I mean they warned, they said, look, you know, we could get hurt six months ago, three months ago.

It’s probably gonna come down.

I don’t think it’s coming down.

Rates are going much, much higher now.

We know they’re gonna be higher for longer.

Which brings us to the last part here.

And this is a company I reported last night, JB Hunt bomb MCC quarter.

So a few mentions on CNBC in little coverage.

Here’s why you should care.

JB Hunt is one of the largest North American trucking transportation companies that makes them an economic bellwether.

$17 billion mark cap.

These guys are huge.

Their job is to take care of the last mile.

Everything that’s shipped here goes into their trucks, their trucks, logistics and everything.

Sends it to their destination to customers.

It saw a 35% drop in earnings from weaker volume and lower pricing.

Not from weather, not because of Baltimore Bridge collapse.

Not because there’s more days this quarter in a month compared to last time or more weeks this year.

None of that s**t.

Weaker volume, lower pricing.

So JB Hunt is the first transportation company to report earnings this season.

Very early in the earnings season.

Most transportation ETFs have been on fire.

Monster monster runs especially since November.

And they’re just shades off their all time highs.

These things haven’t come down like the rest of the market.

So if you are along UPS, which I know sold off a little bit, FedEx has come back, you are along railroads and based on this report you may wanna hedge your position a little bit.

’cause expectations are very, very high.

And how do you do that? Well maybe you, you take a position, say if you have $10,000 allocated to this sector, maybe you just buy inverse ETF for and you hedge 10%, 15% this way.

It’s not gonna hurt you if some of these companies report during earnings season.

’cause maybe the outlook looks okay, you know, going forward.

But they might get hit a little bit.

Just temporary weakness.

But the weakness in volumes and weakness in prices tells you that volumes is goods coming into the country.

Pricing is, we’re not able to command those high prices.

So you know, you’ve seen that demand fall, which, which tells you that maybe the economy’s not as strong as everyone’s saying.

It’s one company.

I’m not saying it’s the whole industry, but it’s the first company I report.

And these guys I filed for a long time and they’re big.

They’re a big, big, big trucker.

One of the biggest in North America.

And this is the third quarter in a row that they’ve been saying this third quarter in a row and the stock has moved up higher.

Why? Because management said not this quarter, this reported two quarters ago in last quarter.

They said, Hey, you know what? We’re gonna expect business to get better.

Why? Why do you think they’re expecting business to get better? Because interest rates are supposed to come down the whole entire world, everyone on the planet, everyone had interest rates coming sharply lower in 2024.

Now one person said, you know what? We are not cutting rates in 2024.

No one had that forecast as of February.

As of February is in the quarter.

So expected rates to come down, it could result in more demand.

It’s easy to get loans, people are gonna spend a little bit more, they’re gonna have more money in their pockets because the debt payments aren’t that much.

Now this changes the whole landscape.

’cause as you keep rates higher for longer, I covered this, that’s more, it hurts you over the long term.

It’s not gonna hurt you the first month, second month, third month.

Okay, well you know, I have excess amount of capital of say, you know, just say five grand every month.

I’m saying it could be a thousand, it could be 500 bucks.

But now interest rates are higher for my debt.

Payments are higher inflation, you know, so now it’s like 3000.

I’m like, okay, I’m all right.

But now 3000, 3003, every month that goes by now you’re like, holy s**t, this is really hurting me now.

Rates are gonna stay higher for longer.

Now I have to change my spending patterns because I was spending as if I had $5,000 and extra income to do what I want and buy whatever discretionary, whatever you want, go on trips.

And now that’s cut by 40%.

Now you start changing your habits.

Things you buy looking for sales, we’re all doing it.

I’m doing it.

I mean, I hate went to a bowling alley, Bolero, my wife’s getting it back by the way.

She used to be a fantastic bowler and just been getting back into it, going bowling with her.

And by the way, she, she, you know, just getting it back, she was throwing a couple gutter balls and stuff like that, just getting her spin back and stuff.

And now she’s back.

So we went like six, seven times and, and she was a 200 plus bowler as a girl.

So everybody wanted on her team.

And I joined a bowling team for when I first met her.

I didn’t know bowling leagues, what, nine months.

I mean it’s worst in baseball.

I was like, holy s**t.

Nine months think God shouldn’t tell me that.

’cause I wouldn’t have joined nine months.

Nine months bowling.

And I sucked it.

And all the guys were freaking great because she was playing, you know, in great leagues.

She was awesome.

I looked like an idiot.

I’m like trying to play.

I got my own ball.

I think I got up to like a 1 75 average maybe.

But like two, 200 games, she was consistently like 180, 1 90 over 200.

She’s got it back anyway, but didn’t mean to get sidetracked there.

But Bolero got food and everything for kids.

Each soda was $5.

Fountain soda, $5.

That p****s me off.

$5 a fountain soda.

Are you kidding me? You know? So you know, people are adjusting their habits and that’s what happens when you keep interest rates higher for long.

Why am I bringing this up? Why is this a big deal? We are gonna see companies report, it’s gonna get crazy busy over the next few weeks.

I’m sure last quarter was okay and it was good.

But every management team was expecting rates to come down this year.

That’s what their forecasting, they saw better times ahead.

So this earnings season, the numbers are probably going to be solid for the quarter, but it’s the guidance that’s gonna worry me.

Because if you’re looking at higher interest rates, again, definitely starting to impact sectors and individual stocks, especially housing.

You see housing.

Housing was getting, I mean from the real estate agents I spoke to, I just sold my house the last two, three months in Florida were booming.

People sold more houses, real estate agents and that than they did all of last year.

It was booming.

Rates were like coming down.

People expect their rates to do better and come down even further.

They’re just gradually coming down a little bit.

Now look what mortgage rates are shooting back up during prime season.

Maybe you still see Florida.

You know, again, it’s just such a migration out of s****y cities to Florida and Texas.

I get it in places that are dangerous, you’re still seeing that.

But think that’s not gonna impact housing.

It is, it should have impacted housing already.

The home builders are great.

There’s not a lot of supply in the market.

They’re smart making their own loans and you know, providing incentives where new home prices are actually lower than existing home prices, which is amazing.

That never happens.

And yeah, square footage is a little different, but usually the average new home price is, is gonna be much more expensive than a house that’s been there for.

But now, you know, taking while for, for homes on the market to come down, it’s gonna impact lots of sectors and lots of companies.

And remember, please remember if you’ve been listen to this podcast, the only thing that matters when a company’s reports is guidance.

Not the earnings per share that happened three months ago.

Good.

You could re, if you had a report, a dollar in earnings and you report two 50 in earnings, you’d be like, holy s**t, this is great.

If you say your guidance is gonna be like 60 cents next quarter and you lower your guidance for the, again, I’m saying that you know that two 50 won’t filter in, I’m using an exaggerated example.

But if you report very strong earnings and that’s earnings from the last three months basically, but your guidance is weak, that’s when stocks get annihilated.

They trade on the guidance, not on the actual numbers.

Numbers are good, but if the guidance is weak, that’s stocks gonna come down.

’cause it’s telling you in the future we’re seeing slower growth.

How could these companies in February, when the whole world was pricing in lower interest rates, six rate cuts in January.

Remember Powell went on TV in December and did a 180 and said, Hey, we’re done.

He pivoted.

He pivoted the biggest mistakes.

What is that telling you? This is why it’s so important to listen to what the Fed says and s like, okay now we’re going to maybe start hiring again.

Now we can get a little more aggressive.

We know rates are coming down, we’re gonna probably see more demand.

Well three months later, no, you gotta be crazy as a CEO to offer better guidance than you did last quarter because of the uncertainty coming forward.

And that’s what you know, Israel are rare.

Now you’ve seen oil prices high, which affects all these transportation companies.

Oil prices are surge.

So you have inflation coming back into the market and demand going lower.

How is a CEO could you really, really get super aggressive? What you guidance? You’re crazy too.

You may meet that guidance, that’s fine, but right now pays to be conservative.

But three months ago they weren’t that conservative, they were optimistic.

So this earnings season’s gonna be interesting.

You wanna own so many of these stocks that have, near their, their, their all time highs of 52-week highs.

Maybe they pull down 5%, 7%, 8% along with the market in the past couple weeks.

But again, this isn’t just a market coming down to come down and hey, well high it’s coming down because inflation’s coming back into this market and now we’re gonna see rates higher for longer, which is a big deal.

It’s a massive, massive deal.

Everyone expecting lower rates in 20 23, 2, 3 rate cuts in 2023, then a bunch of rate cuts supposed to go down to 2%, 1%, one point a half percent rates.

Those are the forecast for 2024.

Now they’re all above three point a half percent.

And who knows if we will get to three point a half percent this year? I don’t think so.

No way.

How many cuts do you think we’re gonna have? Three.

That puts us at four point a half.

Much, much, much, much higher than anyone anticipated.

And yes, an election year and yes, you’re gonna see more government spending than we’ve ever seen.

Like, you know, we’re gonna do everything we can to, to, you know, make sure students don’t have to pay off their student loan debt to get, get votes and all this s**t.

And all this money’s gonna get thrown.

I get it.

It’s gonna keep us inflated for a little while.

But man, what happens at 2025? But the, the the biggest catalyst, 90% of the catalyst that you see from bulls for It is ’cause we’re gonna see lower interest rates and you gotta take that off the table.

So it’s gonna be interesting to see what these companies report, but be careful it’s gonna be volatile.

Now protect yourself.

You could buy inverse ETFs.

They’re not the perfect vehicle, but for the average investor, it’s good buying puts, again, it’s you lose the money you put in.

But the way they’re priced even you could be right after stock comes down 10%, you might not make money off.

It’s not the easiest market which we learned.

Moneyflow Trader.

But going into this, try to have a little bit of protection.

Try to lower your exposure because you wanna be prepared.

And if stocks come down and say if you sold a little bit, it gives you the opportunity to buy it back again.

You gotta be in for the long term and you say, okay, next two, three years is gonna be great, but be smart.

You wanna be in this market forever.

You don’t wanna get wiped out when you see a pullback, which we could easily see a 20% pullback and still be up significantly on these markets since COVID, we’ve been going straight up, what was it like? I forgot how many weeks? What was it? 10, 11 weeks in a row.

Whatever it was in a row that we were up.

That never, ever happens.

Of course we’re gonna pull back eventually we have to.

The expectations are too high.

That’s where AI comes in, especially with logistics at a company like JB Hunt.

How important it’s, they have their own logistics company but probably not doing that good ’cause other logistic companies are on fire right now because they’re gonna provide those services to help these guys lower their costs, increase productivity, increase margins, which is a necessity, especially when you see a slowdown in the economy.

But prepare for earnings season.

It’s gonna be crazy.

I’m interesting to see what the guidance’s gonna be for many of these companies.

But man, it is gonna be volatile.

It is gonna be nuts.

Now that the forecast has changed just recently over the past 60 days, the forecast have just changed from lots of rate cuts to maybe no rate cuts.

And I know management teams were not prepared for that.

They weren’t basing their outlook on that.

They would keep rates not just the same, but actually possibly if it was an election year, they can go higher, may see more tightening depending on how much inflation comes into this market.

Let’s see, crazy times.

Dan and I are gonna be coming many of these companies in the coming weeks.

Wall Street Unplugged Premium, which will lead to seven new trades in our Dollar Stock Club portfolio, which is part of the Wall Street Unplugged Premium membership.

So guys, again, mark Calendars Tuesday, April 30 7:00 PM hosting our next live installment of Crypto 2024.

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Show you exactly how to position yourself in this very volatile market, but incredible secular growing market.

It’s gonna be around forever and you wanna be in it ’cause there’s so many great technologies.

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See, massive demand come in.

Gonna reduce supply growth in half.

There’s a lot of catalyst.

Doesn’t mean Bitcoin goes from 30,000 to 300,000 tomorrow.

Like I said, it’s gonna go to a hundred thousand.

I believe it’s gonna a hundred thousand.

I don’t know when I’ve said that for the last nine months, it’s going higher.

I don’t know when it’s gonna go a hundred thousand, but I know I believe it is.

It could be 18 months, it could be two years.

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So guys, that’s it for me.

Thank you so much for listening.

As always, I appreciate the support.

I’ll see you guys soon.

Take care.

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