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 December 13th.

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.

You know, crazy times we live in just, it’s in the media lately.

Just the hate going on, just craziness.

It’s a fight for page views and clicks.

It’s the world’s about, but still.

And Presidents of Harvard, Penn, MIT I mean, you guys know the story by now.

It’s everywhere.

Coverage everywhere, not just here.

International.

Every place everyone’s calling for the heads of these presidents.

Not sure why they’re not calling for the immediate departure of the entire boards.

I mean, when I saw the testimony, the women all had the exact same response.

They’re clearly coached on, right? They asked the same question, just calling for the genocide of Jews, violate pens or MITs or Harvard’s rules of code of conduct, yes or no? And they could not answer that question.

They’ll avoid it.

But I thought Claudine Gay wa was the biggest a*****e of the three.

I mean, she was just smiling and, and, you know, patronizing a response saying again, it’s based on the context.

You know, so, so it it’s not like they misspoke.

I made a mistake.

Maybe they asked his questions two times, three times.

It was the same answer again.

They were coached on it.

Almost like a politician coach.

You can’t get a yes or no, yes or no.

They won’t answer yes or no.

That’s the playbook.

But it should be the playbook for institutions that are teaching our kids.

So Penn President Elizabeth Magill forced to resign Harvard, bought back Claudine Gay, right? No, no surprise there.

And of course, I love the New York Times.

Got New York Times a publishing article against Bill Ackman, but was very vocal on Twitter.

Just, you know, really p****d off Harvard alum calling for resignation, New York Times headline stated Bill Ackman’s campaign against years of resentment.

Bill, like, was like, I, I don’t resent anything.

I’m still donate to you guys.

So, you know, but so far they’ve lost lots of donations.

I, I, you know, look, it, it, it’s this institution, what is it? $50 billion, in, in their fund, endowment.

Uh, but they already lost a lot, a lot of money.

Uh, billion dollars.

Some people reporting billion dollars plus.

Again, that’s like a dollar to you and me.

But, you know, lots more is coming.

And I mean, you could put the fire out by just doing the right thing.

And the fact that they were like, no, and they still backed her.

Uh, it’s, I was very, very surprised.

Very, very surprised.

And how does this relate to stocks, right? It’s not just a rant, but, but we’re starting to see a big pushback for the first time in many, many years against leftist policies.

And I was thinking too, you know, I went to school.

I went to college, started at 27.

I finished at 30, was basically three years.

And I was just not into school.

Wasn’t I was a terrible student in high school.

I think I graduated four 20 out of four 60 at Chrysler King High School.

Went there for basketball.

I didn’t make the team ’cause I wasn’t good enough.

There was a lot of great people on that team, and I just wasn’t good enough.

But I really didn’t care much for school when I went to college, especially when I was older.

It was really cool.

I enjoyed it.

I loved it.

I think I finished with a 3.

8.

Uh, but there was one class where a guy gave me a d and now I, it just, I just remember this the other day, and he was very left where nobody really talked about, left it.

This is a long time ago, right? I’m 50.

And I never realized, like, wow, you know, I mean this guy, it was when Bush was president, hated Bush and hated Bush.

And I, you know, I just did a, a paper saying, you know, some of his policies are good.

It’s good for capitalism or whatever.

And, and not, not just trying to to antagonize him or, or whatever, but, you know, I answered questions.

I did everything I did that I was supposed to do to get a, in a class.

And even, you know, that I had good grades and, and he gave me a d and he didn’t like me clearly ’cause of the politics.

And he would go up there and just like, b***h about Donald Trump and this guy’s, you know, again, what they used, not Donald Trump, but, it was Bush back then, right? If he tripped on the sidewalk was Bush’s fault, everything’s his fault.

And you just, yeah, but why are you, why are you teaching this to these kids? And, and I didn’t realize, I was like, wow, you know how long this started? And, and you see it, and I, so many people have seen it for such a long time.

But now you’ve seen a big pushback.

And for the first time it gets left as policies specifically, you know, not hiring people based on that background.

Especially at, you know, showing that, that that white people, right, regardless if they’re more qualified for jobs, were just totally passed over.

I mean, pretty crazy.

I mean, it’s coming to, to a head now because hey, you know what, it’s specific.

And, and you know, we have a lot of Jewish people coming out, but this has been going on for a long time.

I mean, the 40-year-old white guy that that’s been successful, they tried to support his family.

They bust his ass.

I feel like, you know, holy cow, they were like, you are like almost like the enemy for trying to help people.

And I don’t know how that reversed and how crazy that was.

And we were called, white supremacists.

If you didn’t believe in taking the vaccine, you, you, you, you know, you, you were, you were a murderer.

You know, a lot of this stuff’s been going on for a long time.

But you’re seeing this pushback, like the cutbacks in climate change now is spending on Ukraine to get to, in a minute, companies coming back drastically on ev spending.

You weren’t allowed to do that.

Now they are.

Is this fight against the left? That’s having a big impact on lots of industries.

Ev companies, suppliers of the EV companies, wind, solar companies pay close attention.

’cause we’re seeing a, a lot of this industry, you know, a lot of phase out of these leftist policies and nonsense spending companies were forced to adopt to BlackRock and other companies like forcing them to the ESG policies.

Now they’re getting back to their actual jobs, which is representing their shareholders.

And he said Twitter, c Elon Musk, right? Saying F you to advertisers.

Uh, I don’t care.

I’m not gonna get blackmailed.

UFC President Dana White said the same thing.

Yeah, gm, look what GM did.

Hey, we’re cut.

Even Ford.

Ford said, Hey, we’re cutting, we’re really cutting back on the lightning now.

Something we’ve been saving for a long time and saying, but look, what GM did say, not only are we just cutting back EVs vessel ’cause it doesn’t make sense, but we’ll get announced a massive buyback and look what the stock has done since then.

Same with Ford.

At least you’re, you know, you’re, you, they’re changing.

They’re like, okay, these policies don’t work.

We’re losing billions.

Sometimes tens of billions, in the case of the auto companies weren’t allowed to really say anything bad about EVs.

Now look at them saying, Hey, we’re cutting back, man.

We just, this is ridiculous.

Pricing’s not right.

Demand’s not there.

The charges are not there.

There’s a market for this, but not the big market that you promised us.

So we gotta get out of it.

They wouldn’t have said that a year ago or two years ago.

And that’s a big deal.

Puts GM on the table.

Maybe it puts Disney on the table.

I’ll talk about that a little bit later.

When you have Iger saying, Hey, you know what, we, we, we have to get back to what we’re good at, which is storytelling enough of the political stuff they’re integrating with, with, you know, every Pixar movie and all these movies that you’re integrating with.

Now, it’s hurting the Marvel franchise, which that was a guarantee.

We’re generating a billion dollars of film for those things.

But pay attention to this.

This has this changed.

It’s gonna be more profits, especially at a time where most companies are cutting back a ton.

I mean, Spotify reported record numbers and said, we’re cutting 20% of the, is it 20% I believe maybe 15, 20% of jobs.

And that’s what you’re seeing.

It’s not like, oh, this bullish that it, it’s alright, we gotta cut costs in certain areas.

And, and you’re seeing this pay attention.

It’s a big deal.

Also not show, if you just saw the recent photo, it’s in a White House of Zelensky, right? He’s making his rounds, getting, trying to start World War ii, posing with the heads of the largest defense companies, Lockheed BA Systems, north Row, Lockheed, you know, huge general dynamics.

Also Air environment was there.

The largest drone manufacturers you’re familiar with that if, if you’re a Curzio Venture Opportunities subscriber, this company started recommending, I believe it was like 2000 17, 18, 20 files a share and, and benefit tremendously.

And now, is it 1 25, 1 30 recent, one 40, pull back a little bit.

I mean, steal here.

It’s absolute steal.

They’re blowing out the numbers.

But pay close attention to this as well.

I mean, there’s so many things wrong with that picture.

I mean, it’s so effed up.

I’ll try not to get too worked up.

Especially since none of the people in that picture, the dozen or so defense executives that opposing wins, Zelensky, none of them.

None of them, none of them are hoping for peace between the Ukraine and Russia, which I think as a human being, that’s what you want.

They’re all smiling.

They’re smiling, like taking pictures with him.

He’s making this round.

I need more money.

I need more money.

When you have a guy’s saying, oh, Russia’s coming after us, and you know, they, they, they’re targeting nuclear facilities.

We need help.

This could damage the war.

It’s, it’s just like, holy cow man, this guy really wants everyone.

And, and, and you know, Europe’s gonna accommodate him as well.

I mean, this is very dangerous scenario right here.

Very dangerous.

I mean, it’s crazy.

And people getting fed up with that.

Most people believe, okay, enough of the funding.

I mean, with everything going on and all the money going to that, it could help so many other things.

I mean, how long is this going to take place? What, is there a shot of them winning? Because right now there’s nothing.

There’s nothing for peace on the table.

There’s no resolve, nothing.

Keep fighting, fighting, fighting.

Everybody.

Keep funding, funding, funding.

Funny.

Doesn’t matter.

But it does matter.

’cause now we’re seeing tax policies and I’ll get to that later.

Whether it’s crypto, Elizabeth Warren, tax unrealized gains and deficits gonna control all this is interconnected.

This isn’t interconnected with air environment where we said, Hey, look at the defense companies, right? Daniel would talk about defense companies for how long.

And these guys know what they’re doing.

They want war.

They make a fortune off of it.

And they have the greatest business in the world, just like the insurance business, just like climate change.

They have a business that the government pays for it.

And the government does not give a s**t about checks and balances.

They’re gonna just pay the bill no matter what.

Just continue to pay it.

It allows tuition to go up forever because they know that, hey, let’s give all this debt to kids.

Who cares if they’re taking out $400,000 in loans to, to be a, a, a fourth grade teacher? Again, respectable job.

But you know, that person’s gonna be in debt for the rest of their life.

Who caress.

We’re still gonna raise tuition.

Why is government pays for it? They ain’t seen all this stuff intertwined.

But now you, you know, air environment, you have to pay attention to some of this no matter what size you’re on or what you believe.

Different things.

It’s amazing when a lot of the truth starts coming out on both sides and you start realizing, wow, a lot of this media and the b***h is b******t.

It’s almost like you can’t listen to it.

We’re looking at the markets here.

Stocks continue to ramp higher.

Four straight days now, unbelievable.

November.

Now having a great December could be five today based on what the Fed says at its policy meeting, which they’re gonna meet a little bit later, which I’m taping this midday.

So you’re gonna get this and they already met.

But the Feds expect to say exactly what they’ve been saying way too early to think about.

Rate cuts gonna be data dependent.

And they got good data from the PPI that came out today, which is positive by the way, by positive.

That means it was negative showing wholesale prices declining.

Could be that margins are gonna contract for companies also.

I mentioned last month when the PPI, right? You think prices coming down, that’s gonna be followed by, you know, that’s a positive.

That’s great.

If you see that trending, you go back for decades, you’re gonna see that that’s not a positive trend.

And the PPI goes lower and producer price, wholesale prices go lower.

It’s not good for the market.

You think, wow, lower prices and not necessarily, doesn’t mean that the, the retailers are gonna lower their prices.

Have they lowered prices? No, they’re still raising their prices.

You start the CPI, again, you have this negative data outta the PPI, which is positive.

And then again, I think everything’s good news for equity.

It doesn’t matter.

You have the CPI, it’s still growing at, at, at 4% in the core level.

Twice the Fed’s target unemployment rate fell at You gonna have economists that they’re tearing apart the jobs data.

Well, inconsistencies with the healthcare component and the strikes are over.

So it’s gonna be, you have all this data already you knew this, this should have been in your forecast, but all of a sudden it’s not in their forecast.

’cause CPI didn’t come in as great as they wanted, but they had all this data again already.

They should have just factored it in.

Be the way at this meeting.

Powell’s like gonna say, we’re still not thinking of lower rates anytime soon.

Data’s been encouraging, but inflation’s not falling fast enough.

And everyone in the world is gonna say, Powell’s full of s**t.

And say they’re gonna say, well, Powell’s gonna start lowering rates just like they’ve done for every, every single fed meeting since January, since January the year.

Predicting they’re gonna start seeing rate cuts in March and June and July, September, December this year.

I mean, that’s the bullish thesis of why stocks were high.

We didn’t see the cuts.

But stocks are still the same levels that they wore since April, really? April, 2022.

Think about that.

Ukraine was just invaded, started raising rates tremendously.

We’ve seen how much craziness in the markets.

I mean now we’re at 5.3%.

We’ve seen debt ceiling debates, seen a banking crisis in the middle of all that few question, the market that rebound is sharply was trading at the same levels that we’re trading in April, 2022.

Isn’t that crazy? It’d be nice to just fall asleep and not pay attention to anything.

Just wake up and be like, oh, my portfolio’s like flat.

We’re okay with all the nonsense and craziness, but now we’re looking at rate cuts.

And they’re saying, well, it’s probably gonna be Q1 2024.

Well, two weeks ago before the CPI and Jobs data was released, the Fed funds research was pricing at a hundred percent, a hundred percent guaranteed.

We’re gonna have a rate cut by May.

We’ve seen this before.

All this year after this data was released to present fell to 40% percent.

the CPI and the jobs data.

So it might be higher now after the PPI haven’t looked, which is at least this morning, but I’m not sure any of this really matters.

Does it, I mean, we cover this and if, and the Fed’s futures are saying this, and the economists are saying this and, and the economy was to grow, 2% grew 5%, right? Last quarter.

I mean we had 2%, We had earnings estimates was supposed to rocket higher and we saw three straight declines in, in earnings, right? Earnings recession and the earnings recession, right? Pretty much earnings have not grown since April, 2020.

I forgot to mention that earnings did not grow at all for, for April 22.

All those risks.

Now today, we’re trading at the same levels.

But again, you’re not sure if any of this matters.

It matter what the Fed does because what they’re supposed to cut for at least nine months.

Now they haven’t.

And stocks wrote higher.

Are they gonna continue to grow high? I don’t know.

I mean there’s been a disconnect, guys, right? If you saw disconnect for the first time since 2013, that the major indices went higher or they outperformed the magnificent seven socks first time that was on Friday.

That was an interesting stat.

But I don’t know if any of this matters.

Does it? I mean, I would think it does.

I mean, we have to call and say, listen, there’s no way.

If you listen to Powell and what he says, they’re not lowering your rates anytime soon.

And I think you’re gonna see the same thing.

I don’t know how you lower rates and risk making the biggest policy error, which is on paper, right? You saw it documented clearly in the eighties that, hey, you know what? We’re too quick to reverse course.

Are you really gonna like, destroy your legacy? I don’t know, because you know, what’s up in the air is we have an election year coming.

If they’re gonna cut, I don’t, you know, do you see it later in the year? So fed is at, at, at a, at a spot where you’re not too sure what they’re gonna do because they’re really trying to get that inflation.

CPI down to 2%.

You, you’re not gonna get it down to 2% or even really well below, like 2.5, 2.8, 2.7 before you announce a cut.

You have to cut before that when it’s 3%, still 50% higher, then where you want it.

So we’ll be interesting to see what the Fed does, but again, doesn’t matter.

I mean, I, I think it matters.

But if you have the government constantly flooding the market with money, where a lot of these, any, you know, finance book that you’ve read on fundamental analysis over the past 30 years, doesn’t matter anymore.

’cause you have to factor in the government that’s gonna keep spending no matter what.

A lot of craziness going on.

It’s good for stocks for now.

Still seeing that seasonal push higher, which, you know, again, we were in front of.

I wouldn’t say this is a bull market where you have most S&P 500 companies cutting their CapEx spending outside of maybe AI and also cutting costs through laying off workers.

You don’t see that in a bull market.

But they’re doing a good job keeping their earnings higher as sales aren’t growing.

And those earnings have stayed much higher than I thought for now.

But we’re still trading at 20 times forward earnings.

So you better grow the 11, spent 11% earnings that you’re, you’re expected to next year.

And you better get those rate cuts.

’cause now where we’re trading right now, it’s gonna be difficult to see the market go much higher without those two catalysts, without earnings growing and without the Fed cutting.

So let’s see what happens.

Let’s see if Powell gives any hints on what he’s doing.

I don’t know.

So interesting story.

The headlines is Netflix.

So Netflix now reporting the stats of what movies and their shows, right? That its subscribers watch the most and they’re gonna be reporting this data for the first time they’re reporting this data, but it’s gonna be tracked every six months.

I think this is a brilliant strategy.

They we’re never really this transparent.

A lot of these companies aren’t that transparent.

You don’t really know what’s going on outside of average revenue per user.

And I’m very familiar to streaming industry.

I’ve covered all these companies.

Uh, but this is gonna drum up even more interest from potential advertisers.

And advertisers may ask them for those statistics, but there might be some on the sideline in saying, wow, this film is seeing this and we have products related somehow, or, you know, it’s gonna result in, now that you’re seeing this, more advertisers are gonna be like, wow, you know what? I don’t wanna go to Netflix.

And this is a, a, a new model for them, but also this transparency is gonna force other streaming services to do the same thing.

And those that don’t comply are gonna look pretty bad.

’cause now they’re announcing what we watch report, that’s what it’s gonna be called, right? Coming out every six months.

So this is 250 million plus subscribers on their platform.

It’s gonna highlight what they’re watching every six months.

Again, what we’re, what we watch is called, and Netflix said the night agent saw 812 million viewing hours, number one.

And the mother starring Jennifer Lopez, really good movie, was his top movie the last six months.

But I thought the interesting stats came when they said 55% of viewing came from new content.

Well, 45% came from original films and license titles.

Now I stream I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time.

My wife and I, that’s what we’ve been doing for a very, very long time, right? We love Netflix.

Uh, I love Max Paramount’s, okay? And when I saw Disney plus, I wasn’t crazy about it.

’cause all the movies on there I saw already.

And I think people who didn’t understand streaming were like, wow, they have this massive library.

It’s great.

It’s not about your library streaming is 100% about new content.

If you don’t have new content, people are not gonna stay.

And that’s why you’re gonna see tens of millions of people dropping off that Disney platform.

Tens of millions.

Because not only were they getting this service almost for free, but when you look at it, it it’s, you’re looking at a service that people weren’t too crazy about.

Again, given at a very, very low price.

But now what’s going to happen now you’re gonna throw ads all over it and raise the price.

That’s why it’s kind of dangerous.

But also it’s why many industry leaders when it comes to new content, original contents, why they’re getting into sports.

I mean, Apple, Amazon Max, which is Time Warner, Netflix, they’re broadcasting sports Now, Netflix is just starting I to Tennis.

Nadal, they gonna have a, an an event.

They had a, I think a, a NASCAR event or Formula One event recently.

Netflix.

That’s why Disney’s trying to sell SPN and nobody wants to, to buy it or partner with them because it’s, it’s a service that, that it’s a middleman service where why am I gonna go to ESPN when I can go directly to N-F-L, N-B-A, N-H-L, M-L-B and sign my own deal with them? What do I need ESPN to partner with for? And yes, they have certain rights, but they’re trying to get rid of a lot of that stuff, right? I think there’s a big negative for Disney.

And I don’t think shares are terribly expensive based on some of parts, which is why you’ve seen some value managers come into it.

And I get it.

But if you’re buying Disney, remember it, it’s a cost cutting story.

It’s not a growth story because the, the best content doesn’t come on their platform doesn’t come into Disney Plus platform.

It comes out in the movies.

So what’s gonna make you go there and actually watch it? And you, they just, they’re not spending enough, they’re spending less on new content.

So, so it puts ’em at a huge competitive disadvantage to the biggest players in the industry.

And that’s fine.

That’s okay if you’re like, Hey, I’m starting a streaming platform like Apple.

Like that’s not that core business or anything, but Disney’s going all in.

This is their growth model.

This is what they’re telling everyone how they’re gonna grow the business, their cutting costs.

They reinstated the, some of the dividend and small dividend, which I think is crazy with their expenses.

And, and, you know, you gotta pay for Hulu.

You’re buying the rest of Hulu.

And, and I think, I just thought it was crazy as Iger was saying, oh, well we have to see, we did a lot of thinking behind this if we’re gonna purchase it or, you know, you know, look for another, I don’t know if it was someone else to buy, there’s nobody else.

No one’s gonna buy for that price.

Was it 8 billion for the rest of it? That’s not growing to the subscriber base anymore.

And Hulu’s, based on what Hulu is, based on live tv, which YouTube’s on fire right now.

I mean, you have several services out there now.

Not just Sling, but it’s services that, that, that provide live tv.

There’s so many competitors, you know, so you, you, you, you attaching it to the Disney bundle, it should for me, get outta that growth model.

Look what GM did.

Listen, all right, we’re done with EVs for a while.

Okay, we’re gonna take that money, that 10, 20, 30 whatever billion dollars and we’re buying back our stock.

Look what happens to the stock.

But that’s Disney’s growth model.

I I just don’t get it.

I mean, I like what Iger is saying, and, and, and you know, we have to go back to storytelling and things like that and again, on a summer parts basis, I see.

But I mean, I would rather buy Google.

I’d rather buy Apple.

I’d rather buy so many other companies that have a massive growth model.

So many businesses that are working, you could still get the media part of the business, but you don’t have this streaming platform that’s at a huge competitive disadvantage to the rest of the industry that you’re saying, that’s my growth model.

That’s what we’re going in.

When you can’t compete with the big guys, you just think it’s crazy.

So good job by Netflix separating themselves again, Hey, here’s the data.

Let’s see what everybody else reports with their data.

Let’s see how many people are watching their shows because they have the most new content.

And when you have the most new content, spending 30 billion plus like Max as well, spending 30 billion plus, and you have the other companies and the other competitors spending a lot less, that’s a figure that’s very smart to show of how much demand they’re seeing, how many hours review it.

That’s huge.

That mean, that’s taking control of the advertising industry.

That’s becoming the, the Facebook, basically the Meta of streaming when it comes to advertising.

Good for them.

I think it’s huge.

Now, turning to a new story, not that new.

Uh, I think it’s the biggest story of the week by far is a little, a little bit Warren.

I mean, last week, right? I started last week when she was questioning Jimmy Diamond, Daniel, I talked about the podcast, Jimmy Diamond’s, like, Hey, if I was running the government, I, I just, you know, get rid of crypto, get rid of Bitcoin, rid rid of everything.

But she used that platform saying how Hamas has raised 130 million in cryptocurrency to fund its war about Israel.

So it was no surprise this week.

What did she do? She used that.

She used that and said, we’re calling for new regulation.

That’d be fair.

It’s not new regulation.

She came out with it a little while.

Like I think in June we got shot down.

So she’s reintroducing her digital asset, anti-money laundering act.

So it’s called, so it basically requires software makers, all crypto companies, ’cause most of ’em are software makers.

So this includes miners, validators, wallet providers even who do not take custody of assets.

And she’s forcing banking rules on them.

So they’re gonna have the same requirements as hedge funds banks, and make sure that every person and client they do business with has to register digitally with the government showing that they are a ML and KYC compliant.

You don’t have to do that for, for everything else.

I mean, it, it’s, you know, I understand securities business or whatever, but when it comes to the entire industry in doing, it’s going to really crush the industry, it’s gonna result in very little innovation.

It’s gonna result in all the crypto going to all the other countries, which we started to see earlier this year.

Now the US and ETFs coming and stuff like that, which are great.

So basically she knows that crypto, right? This technology, it’s fascinating, is extremely disruptive to the banking and finance industry, which has never been disrupted.

I mean, you look at the banking industry, they don’t create anything other than exotic products, right? Which lead us to, to credit crisis and stuff like that.

But they don’t.

They charge massive fees by being a middle.

They getting people together for the most part.

You look at their research divisions, what is it? There’s a reason they get investment banking.

It’s a pure conflict of interest to have a buy rating on a company.

And I’m looking to raise money, you have a buy rating.

I’m not gonna go to the idiot that has seller rating on me.

F you, you want my business? You better have a buy rating on.

It’s a total conflict of interest.

So much so that they have in disclaimers those fascinating biggest b******t industry in the world.

And it’s this boys club, right? You wanna push this industry back to allow the banks to play catch up.

Hey, that’s fine.

Similar to what the government did earlier this year to Silvergate and Signature Banks, who they put outta business.

These are Wall Street institutions to open a door for a lot of these other institutions, BlackRocks, bitwise, all these names coming out with Bitcoin ETFs, expected approvals.

But when you look at Silvergate and Signature, what happened, these were banks.

What they did was totally illegal, right? They’re being fought on this, right? They’re getting sued about this.

It was totally illegal what they did to these banks.

I mean, they shut down the banks with no evidence of fraud.

And it’s a lot easier to tell all the clients, everyone does business within these banks to say, Hey, don’t ever do business with them or we’re gonna audit you.

There’s actually emails of the government saying this, we’re gonna audit you if you do anything within crypto.

That’s why even the banks that had little bit of crypto, they got rid of it.

Even me, they threw me outta Bank of America because I had one transaction, a crypto transaction buying virtual real estate, which accounts for, you know, again, my businesses selling financial subscriptions.

They didn’t even gimme a chance to, to explain anything.

They just threw me off the freaking outta the bank in a month without any explanation.

I called, it was an answer machine and said, it doesn’t matter what you say, I played it, I played it for you guys on the podcast.

I couldn’t believe it.

But it’s a lot easier to tell the clients, Hey, don’t do business with them or else.

And they’re watching their bank ratios fall before below the required percentages, right? Those percentages created Dodd-Frank, which are very high.

So the banks are fighting for, to get them lower this way they could, you know, release more capital and, and do more stuff with the capital and balance.

She’s like keeping it on the books.

But now you forced them, you basically forced them into liquidation ’cause they couldn’t keep up with those ratios and regulations.

They knew exactly what they’re doing.

They forced them, they forced these two crypto banks into liquidation to shut down.

But this isn’t the banking industry.

It’s trying to target everyone.

And again, this comes from a person, Elizabeth Warren, who believes Americans should be taxed on unrealized gains.

I don’t know if you understand that or not.

I hope you do.

How ridiculous that is.

I mean, probably the most idiotic proposal that you will ever, ever hear, ever out out of anything Washington and one that would absolutely crash the stock market crash asset prices like at the housing market, since you’re paying taxes on assets you didn’t even sell yet based on where they are in the market.

And they could be, could be high one year, oh my God, I gotta pay taxes and load the next year and then crash for three, four years and then go up.

I mean, s**t.

Imagine if Berkshire Hathaway had to do that.

Imagine if this was implemented 20 years ago and Berkshire Hathaway would be one 20th of, of the market cap is today.

If those laws were in place, I mean, you’re insane.

Anyway, Warren smart politician used the Hamas angle and the one 30, 130 million cryptos used to fund the war, right? That’s, she said to reintroduce this bill and say, crypto is a national security threat.

And whenever you hear national security threat, that’s a term used by the left one, they wanna cancel something or somebody, right? National security threat.

And it’s funny how Bitcoin fell 5% the day before this announcement.

I actually think it fell more than that.

And it came back, right? Recouped at least half those losses.

I think it was like down seven, 8% came back and bought 40,000.

Now I think it’s 41, 42 after being at 44.

But who caress about that? That came out the day before Warren came out with this.

But one problem with Warren’s statement about Hamas is it’s a total f*****g lie.

And she cited data from the article of Wall Street Journal, which leaned heavily on blockchain analytics firm.

There’s a big firm, elliptic, right? That was their source.

Now elliptic and also another firm called Chain Analysis, right? Their job is to help the government identify illegal activity on the blockchain.

That’s their job.

So they have a huge financial incentive to do this, to play up that link between crypto and criminal activity, right? That’s their job.

Yet both of these guys, both of these analytical firms came out and said that Warren and misinterpreted data from the Wall Street Journal.

So you had chain analysis.

I mean they had to, to, to say this was wrong because last month they published a report, and this is along the American Enterprise Institute.

They highlighted that crypto accounts for less than 1% of all illicit finance worldwide.

They published this a month before.

So they had to come out and say, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You know, Warren doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

So Elizabeth Warren clearly, clearly lied.

There’s evidence of it that she lied.

I mean these two firms are even citing it who are on her side and saying, no, no, no, no, that you’re misrepresenting this numbers doesn’t matter anymore, right? We live in a world where politicians can now lie.

You can go on camera, you could steal something, lie whatever, and get caught.

And you don’t have to apologize.

Never apologize, you’re fine.

No, I didn’t do that.

You don’t know what you’re seeing.

You, you didn’t hear that, right? That’s not me talking.

You also see this in journalism as well when it comes to major media enterprises.

And so I don’t expect an apology or or retraction from, from Senator Warn anytime soon you have the banks paying her a fortune lobbying dollars to stop this crypto freight train from running over the banks.

But you know what, they can’t, they can’t stop it.

And they’re starting to realize that it’s a big part of this theme, but the banks are being forced to adopt this.

Another story I thought was interesting regarding crypto was yesterday watched CNBC and the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald went on there and, and, and said he really likes Bitcoin.

You’re gonna be surprised this by, I like Bitcoin.

And, and, and he goes, not crypto it’s garbage, it’s just Bitcoin.

You could tell he really know what he’s talking about.

But he goes on, he goes, look, there’s this Bitcoin halfing coming up.

He’s explaining it where it reduces supply growth and, and Bitcoin always goes up into this event and after and, and I think it’s gonna go much higher from here.

You’d be smart owning Bitcoin and I think, you know, their firm takes custody.

I think of several, it’s tether or stable coins or whatever, but he was highlighting Bitcoin and basically s**t on everything else.

Like I say, you could tell he didn’t know too much about it.

I mean this is a catalyst I was highlighting five months ago when Bitcoin is at 28,000.

Uh, tell you why you should grossly buy it along with all the Bitcoin ETF filings coming, right? I’m not patting myself on the back, but I love to see people make money, right? That’s why you listen to this.

So that’s why I wanna help you.

That’s my job.

If not, you’re not gonna pay for my services or whatever.

We don’t get paid like companies we’re independent.

So I highlight being right, it’s ’cause I’m excited.

It’s ’cause I love making you money.

That’s my freaking job.

So you’re paying me for, we also recommended Ethereum in early November, up over 20% on it.

Galaxy Digital, another one we recommended based on, on, on, you know, Bitcoin ETFs coming and that big catalysts of 40% of us in in Dollar Stock Club.

If you’re a Crypto Intelligence member, Ethereum is something that we recommended in, I believe it’s 2019, early 2019 up over 1400%.

I mean, how many stocks can you say that about in your portfolio? And maybe if you bought something at the absolute bottom during a COVID crash or something in a small might see a couple of small caps that rallied over a thousand percent.

But even if you bought large cap tech stocks, when they pull back significantly Meta pull back to what? Like a hundred, I mean Nvidia pull pullback sharply.

I mean if you bought those, you’re up a hundred percent.

I mean 200% Nvidia, right? It’s the best performing the S&P 500 this year.

But I’m highlighting this for several reasons.

So number one, you’re gonna see this massive marketing blitz everywhere from the trillion dollar asset managers who are about to get their Bitcoin ETFs approved.

Massive.

It’s gonna start in January.

It’s gonna through March 13 of the asset managers launching Bitcoin ETFs.

It’s BlackRock bitwise iShares arc.

Arc and grayscale are probably gonna be first, let’s see, Franklin Templetonton and iShares.

I mean that marketing’s gonna be very, very, very good for crypto.

And it’s also gonna be fueled by the Bitcoin halfing.

So the Bitcoin halfing, Bitcoin ETF approvals, you know, we’re under the impression, okay we are li are these two catalysts are are really gonna send Bitcoin, Ethereum higher.

And that’s correct, but it’s not just gonna be, it’s not limited to them.

You’re gonna see more money pour into this industry and when that happens, it’s gonna start flowing to a lot of other cryptos.

Especially since a lot of the garbage is gone.

There’s still garbage in there.

But man, you had a seat 8, 7, 6, 5 years ago, three years ago.

I mean, just on every podcast I would just 10 fricking, it’s not that the technology wasn’t great, but there was no link to their token.

And unis swps a huge name, their token is absolutely worthless.

You get nothing from holding the token, nothing, absolutely nothing from holding the technology’s amazing.

So there’s a big disconnect there.

The token is actually worthless.

There’s no utility feature, it’s worthless.

And I’ve seen so many of these, but now you have FTX gone, you have Celsius, you know, Binance, CZ, step down.

Not so much us, but you know, forcing if you are gonna work in the US more regulation, transparency, you know, you’re looking at at at dozens of other cryptos that are gonna see gigantic moves over the next Probably over the next six months.

And it’s not just gonna be limited to, to, you know, okay, 12, 24 months, we’re talking about five years, 10 years.

And there’s a fundamental change going on with this.

And the amount of people, tens of millions of new people, IRAs, 4 0 1 Ks are gonna have exposure.

You’re talking about tens of trillions of dollars having exposure for the first time.

You don’t need a large percentage coming in from that.

But we’ve seen some amazing moves just over the past four or five months.

We’ve been very aggressive with crypto, which was hard because we got the s**t kicked out of us like everybody else while all this took place, right? How many bankruptcies and the bank failures and all this nonsense and look with crypto like surviving that is unbelievable.

There wasn’t easy to be pushing that and saying, look, there’s a lot of catalysts coming up, but it’s not just those two.

It’s gonna lead to so many more things.

And it’s industry like Ethereum, ETFs are coming, structured ETFs within crypto are coming more innovation, more technologies.

I know there’s a lot of crazy stories out there in crypto and, and you hear the negatives more than the positives.

So on Tuesday, December 19th, this is 7:00 PM guys holding a special event called Crypto 2024.

It’s live, it’s free and you can register at www.Curziocrypto.com.

Again, it’s free.

So during the event, I’m not gonna be holding back and it’s gonna be live.

I don’t care.

But I’m not gonna hold back on on just debunking a lot of the BSS you’ve heard from Jamie Dimon regulators trying to shut down the industry and how it’s terrorist organization gonna cover.

While every bank is scared shitless of crypto right now because right now this is their uber moment, it’s a moment that the taxi industry saw Uber’s model and realized, holy s**t, we’ve been fricking robbing and scurrying investors, or, or or clients for such a long, long time.

People jump in the cab, they used to freak, you know, just take ’em wherever they want.

The thing used to run.

Now when you go to airports, notice if you take a taxi that it, you know how much you’re gonna get charged before you even go.

So I mean it, it’s not safe.

You don’t know who you’re getting in there with.

There’s the medallions, the whole like, you know, boys club within it and now you have this thing that was simpler, that was easier, that was cheaper and they’re like, holy s**t, this thing’s gonna scale well out of trouble.

That’s where the banks are right now.

’cause again, the banks don’t create anything.

The banks are middlemen and middlemen have, they have incredibly high margins, haven’t been disrupted and now you’re finding a new way that’s faster, easier, safer on the blockchain.

Not talking about the hacks that happen during bridges and stuff like that.

That’s the technology that’s allowing blockchains to talk to each other and communicate each other without having the bridges, which is where all the hacks take place.

This is fascinating.

So why Swift is currently using this technology, that’s the biggest banking digital bank system in the world.

Transfer payments, global payments, And not only that, it’s gonna cost much less than what banks are charging.

That’s how you disrupt industries.

So Crypto 2024, I’m gonna be showcasing how this time is different now.

You used to these ups and downs and ups and downs in crypto.

These massive boom and bust can make you crazy.

I who up average position on Crypto Intelligence newsletter was up over 600% average position.

And it wasn’t like couple, I mean we’re talking about lots of positions.

I think 15 to 17 were in that portfolio.

It was like rocketing and then we went from that to, to a massive collapse in the industry, which is terrible.

But you’re not gonna see this going forward.

And the fundamental secular cha, it’s, it’s an inflection point.

Again, tens of million people, tens of trillions of capital gaining access crypto the first time.

But you have to get out of the notion it’s just gonna go into Bitcoin, Ethereum, they’re going to benefit.

But in the finance industry, you’re talking about hundreds of trillions of dollars at stake to find a better place.

Where could you earn more interest? Where’s the easiest transfer of payments? How is it safer? How is it quicker? How is it cost less? I mean it’s gonna be big names that capitalize off of this.

Again, you look at the bond market, you look at the real estate market, you look at tokenization.

That’s why all the major banks are launching their own blockchains.

Why p*****g all over the industry? I mean come on, look about hypocrites.

We gonna share lots of names with you.

The best technologies funded by some of the biggest and best venture firms, billionaires.

There was the best token structures.

Again, gotta pay attention to that lot of companies.

And if I’m right, especially on some of these names I’m gonna share, it’s gonna lead to potential gains that could be life changing.

I don’t say that lightly.

Again, I’m talking about something that you can register for free here.

I’m not selling anything.

’cause in the eight years covering this industry, I’ve said this over and over again, every investor should have some exposure to crypto.

I’ve been doing this for 30 years in the stock market.

I’ve never seen gains that I’ve seen within crypto.

And that’s what you want with your speculative capital and take away your capital and throwing in it and then say Frank’s an a*****e.

I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about taking 10% of your speculative capital that you go into small capital whatever and throw it into crypto.

’cause that’s the lottery ticket.

Except you’re not gonna have the win lose 100% downside maybe in some of these things.

But you wanna limit your exposure and try to limit your risk.

Maybe take small position sizes, things we do in our Crypto Intelligence newsletter, but the gains that you can make in this sector, you can’t make in the stock market.

I’m not just like cherry picking, it’s hundreds of names in this space of seeing gains, of a thousand x more 5,000 x more.

I’m saying why? Why are they up so much? Because you could invest in many of these names at 20 to $50 million valuations to become billion dollar companies.

I mean name the last company.

I mean very few of them.

I mean there’s some that come in IPOs you’re not gonna hear of.

But most of the high growth names and whatever technology that they’re into are gonna come out in multi-billion dollar valuation trading at 20 times sales.

Again, that’s a liquidity event.

They’re gonna do a marketing show, a roadshow, hype the s**t out of it this way.

Investors are buying it post IPO while those insiders are selling it to you.

But you’re buying these things at multi-billion dollar valuations.

Wouldn’t it be better if you bought it a lot of earlier? That’s what crypto has to offer.

I’m gonna show you how easy it’s to open account on real platforms.

They’re gonna dial it down.

’cause this technology, a lot of this industry, I have to read this stuff three, four times to understand it.

But it’s fascinating.

It’s fascinating.

So it’s not gonna be this, what the hell’s going on.

You’re gonna dial it down.

Make sure it’s very easy for you to understand.

Again, event’s called Crypto 2024.

I don’t do this often.

We don’t hold live events often.

It’s live, it’s free.

And you can register@wwwCurziocrypto.com.

So again, show to register.

We have hundreds of people already registered, which is really cool.

Happy to see it.

But also you’ll be able to send in questions ’cause we’re gonna do a q and a and it’s gonna be fun doing it live.

You’ll see it live, you’ll see the timestamp.

It’s gotta be cool.

I like doing it live.

Hopefully the technology holds up and nothing goes crazy.

But right now we’re seeing, you know, hundreds of people come on.

We just started marketing it.

But you know, you have a week, so definitely register, send in some questions.

I know you have lots of questions, but you know, this time is gonna be different.

It’s the industry that, that I’ve follow a long time is gonna be, you know, again, it’s not gonna be straight up or anything, but this isn’t driven by hype.

This is driven by fundamental changes of trillions of dollars going to have access to this industry for the first time and disruption.

And, and, and you can’t stop it anymore.

They try to stop it.

They’re trying to, now they’re gonna start regulating a little bit more, not through Warren and lies and b******t of Hamas and, and $130 million in, in, in, you know, terrorist funding and stuff like that.

Again, she’s gotta tell you lies to get her point across, but she got called out by almost everyone in crypto.

You can go and and Google it and, and she hasn’t retracted, she hasn’t said anything, which, you know, again, even the people that that had the, that actually published that data, so you’re misinterpreting it and she hasn’t come back and apologize about it.

But again, it’s all about politics and things like that.

Use it to your advantage.

’cause as you know, Bitcoin took a little bit of a hit on that.

It was able to buy it.

It’s up now.

I think 2024 is gonna be an incredible, incredible year for crypto and going forward.

And there’s still a lot of great names in this space that are trading down 70, 80%.

The Microsofts, the, the, you know, the, the Nvidia of the space, great technology, great management teams that had just got annihilated because a ton of forced capital, right? You had forced capital where places were closing capital, coming out of these names to cover margin calls and things like that.

You no longer have that.

You no longer have that.

That’s why you see most people on Bitcoin are people have been holding it for a long time.

It’s at the highest percentage that it’s ever been.

So over 72, 70 3% of people who own Bitcoin are people who have held it for a long time and they don’t plan on selling it.

That’s why when you’re looking going forward, I mean the can fit share guy is right, but that’s a story that’s been, you know, around for five months, easily and even longer about the Bitcoin haling to reduces supply growth.

But a lot of catalysts coming up in this industry.

I wanna try to position you, and help you out and answer your question.

Just, I’m getting a lot.

So December 19th, You know, we don’t do events like this often, so I’m really excited.

I like to do live stuff.

So you make a mistake.

You guys can make fun of me or whatever, but hopefully it comes out good.

Have a lot of great details, information, stuff I’m gonna cover.

And again, I’m not gonna hold back.

So to register, Curziocrypto.com.

So guys, that’s it for me.

Questions to comments, frank@curzioresearch.com and Wall Street Unplugged Premium members, see you guys tomorrow.

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.