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Frank Curzio: What’s going on out there? It’s Thursday, May 12th. I’m Frank Curzio, host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where I break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets. So, I’ve got a great interview set up for you today, with the editor of the best performing newsletter, most likely, in our entire industry. Actually, I’ll put her up against almost any single hedge fund manager right now and mutual fund. That is Genia Turanova of our Moneyflow Trader newsletter, which is a newsletter that focus on buying long dated puts. You guys should be very familiar with this product, because I put it in front of you at least four times since November. And that’s when the Fed decided to do a 180 on interest rate policy. I said, “This time is different. There’s a fundamental change in the market. You don’t have the Fed punch bowl anymore. You need to protect yourself. This is the best way to do it, where you’re not going short, getting crazy.”

Frank Curzio: And since September, she’s closed out numerous winning positions. And her portfolio today, she has eight positions, one she just closed out of, where two are down and combine 31% for a loss, the other six are up an incredible 467% in this market right now. Think about that for a minute. So, buy long dated puts. Pretty easy options strategy, one anyone could learn, you could do right through your online brokerage account. It’s not shorting, where your loss is unlimited. When you buy a put, your loss is limited to the amount of money you put into the trade. Today, Genia’s going to break down the markets, tell you how far lower this run can go. I’m telling you, you’re going to be very surprised with her answer, considering the type of newsletter she writes. You think like, “Oh. It’s typical.” Right?

Frank Curzio: If you’re a perma bear, you’re a perma bull, you have one level of thinking. No matter what happens, nothing changes. So if you’re a perma bear, the market goes down 75%, you’re like, “It’s going to crash even further.” And if you’re a perma bull, the market goes… That’s the way you are. Doesn’t matter what the data is, that’s the way you are. So, just be surprised when she tells you where she thinks the markets go. And also, she’s going to discuss one of her favorite put positions and share two new picks she loves in this market. Here’s my interview with Genia Turanova.

Frank Curzio: Genia Turanova, thanks so much for coming back on Wall Street Unplugged.

Genia Turanova: Hi, glad to be back.

Frank Curzio: So, you went from being kind of unknown to like a rock star now. Right? Is that correct?

Genia Turanova: Well, you tell me. I’m just happy to pick stocks, and I’m happy to be right.

Frank Curzio: No. It’s cool, because I kind of threw you in the fire there, when you took over the Moneyflow Trader. And this is a few years ago, and this is a product where you buy puts. You’re betting against the markets in a safe way. Well, you’re not… You’re only limited to the amount of money you put in. Right? You’re not shorting stocks where it could really… You can get wrecked, especially in a market that’s so volatile. But it was a tough road because markets continued to surge. And we showed everyone how to use the product, use it as like an insurance and put a certain part of your portfolio in there. And if that’s not doing well, then… If you’re losing money on that end, then you’re going to be doing well, because probably the rest of the stocks are going high with the market higher.

Frank Curzio: Now that the market has changed so dramatically, especially since November and especially over the past couple months, the positions in your newsletter… I would probably say, you may have one of the best performing, if not the best performing newsletter in the entire industry by a mile. But it just goes to show you that, in this market, that may confuse people. And they may say, “Well. How is that possible?” And that’s what I wanted to go over today. Because I’ve had you on a couple times, Genia, and I feel like a lot of people don’t get it. But the testimonials I’m getting right now from my subscribers…

Frank Curzio: Which is amazing. Right? That’s what we’re about. One of the hardest, the smartest people, the best people and the job you’ve done is incredible. Let’s talk about buying puts and start from scratch. Some people listen to this podcast all the time, listen to it religiously, and they’ve heard this before, and other people maybe just listened for the first time. So let’s start there, about buying puts. And that’s just one aspect of this newsletter, probably a very big component. You do go long stocks, but talk about buying puts and why that strategy’s been so great in a market like this.

Genia Turanova: Well, it’s very hard to time the market, as you know and everybody knows. You can be right, and you can be seeing this bubble coming for years and years in advance, and you may be right in principle and wrong in details. And those are the details that would be killing you for years, if you are short or just out of the market. So the way to deal with it, as we did this with your strategy and with the Moneyflow Trader strategy, is to take positions in longer dated puts. And it’s really a relatively safe strategy. And the safeness of the strategy is related to the amount of capital you put at risk. With options, you’re really limited to the amount you invest. That capital at risk is the amount you invest.

Genia Turanova: That’s the maximum you can lose. Your return potential is literally unlimited. You can of course have an unlimited return potential with stocks as well. That’s why stocks are so popular and investing over years and years and years can get you rich and can turn you into a Warren Buffet kind of investor. But options can help you do that as well. And with good options, you can actually create a safety net while being long in the market. And they will make you money when the market is just like this, like we see today.

Frank Curzio: So Genia, when we… One of the things… We spoke offline before we had this, and you said, “What do I think about the markets? And I told you… When I see people like this, who run these newsletters… It’s kind of like you’d say it’s a bearish newsletter, but not really because you do have long positions in as well. When I see some of the people out there, the Peter Schiffs, the Harry Dents, the perma bears. Right? Who… Usually when the market crashes like it’s crashed, and the NASDAQ’s down 25%, over 25%, they’ll come out and say the market’s going to go down another 90%. Right? It’s the same thing with bulls. Right? We could pick on the perma bulls who just say, as the market goes higher, they become more and more bullish.

Frank Curzio: But with you, and the conversation we had, let’s go over that. Because I was like, “Look, I just hate the uncertainty. I wish the Fed would raise rates a little bit quicker, and by more amount, this way they’ll have more ammo later on instead of just praying and hoping that inflation’s going to ease over the next three, four or five months. Which it will, but we don’t know if it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. And just this constant uncertainty of where you’re at, in terms of where the market is and being… Shrinking your balance sheet. Raising rates while the market’s getting crushed is unprecedented. And you could see it now where people are just like, “That’s it. I’m done. I’m running.” But when I spoke to you, what did you say? Because I’m surprised, having this type of newsletter, you would think like the market’s going to crash or whatever. That wasn’t your sentiment was it?

Genia Turanova: My sentiment was you try making money on the downside, start picking out investments that are getting ridiculously cheap. And my strategy, I would say I’m a very cautious pessimist. Well today, maybe a very cautious optimist. So, I like being a contrarian, and I like seeing what other people don’t see. That helps me a lot with selecting long and short sides of the market. So I don’t like saying that I’m a perma something. And I think anybody who’s a perma anything is probably going to run into a problem at some point, because the market is never perma anything. You want to be flexible, and I think our product helps us being flexible. Over the long run, you really want to be invested. And again, having some protection like put options, like our service, that does help you staying invested while making money on the downside. But again, if you preach being invested, when do you start picking out the cheapness of the market when there’s no hope? And that’s where we’re getting there.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. So, when we talked about this product over the last year or so, last two years, we were always saying how you could protect yourself. And I think in that way, maybe I wasn’t making it clear, but it’s not just to protect yourself. Because when you say insurance and you say hedge, it’s not a buzzword. Right? It’s not like, “Hey. It’s a greedy word. We could make this much.” Or it’s a fear word. When you say hedge, it’s kind of boring. I think people just didn’t take exception to it. Like, “Oh. Well, all right. Hedge? I don’t want to hedge my portfolio. I want to go unlimited gains. I don’t care.” Let me tell you some of these gains. Right? And I’m going to go with some… So DoorDash… I mean, talk about your DoorDash position, which I saw just one part of it.

Frank Curzio: I know there’re different parts of it. Up over 200 percent, bought the June 17th, 2022, $90 put for $5.25 cents, it’s over 17 now. But talk about that trade, because there’re different levels of how you sold, how you took profits and how you bought it. But talk about that trade. By the way, I’m not cherry picking here, because I’m going to go over. I think there’s either 10… So, there’s eight positions in your portfolio. There’s one that’s down 24%, and other down 7%, the rest are combined up 467% since September. Okay. There’s no one in the ballpark. No one’s even close to that during September. That’s where the market really… Like November, it really started to come down. So, I’m not cherry picking here, but that’s one example I want to show. What was your idea behind that trade, DoorDash? And it wasn’t just like, “Hey. We’re buying these puts.” Because there are certain levels, and you’ve taken profits. Take us through that, of how people could actually trade this like you trade in Moneyflow Trader.

Genia Turanova: Well, DoorDash is one of those companies that is big enough, so it’s liquid enough. And I bet that… Everybody knows it, but I also bet that not everybody understands that it’s hard to make money being this big and running this many little businesses, which every Dasher, as they call them, is a small business. They’re not really employees over at the company, they’re almost like independent contractors. So, it’s weird… In the sense, it’s a weird business model, that we are also now with Uber and Lyft. And the market was giving DoorDash a lot of leeway, in the way that they have the entire market of food delivery almost to themselves, no other competitors are coming close in the market share, and just give them time, and they will corner the market, and they will be able to charge pretty much anything they want. It turns out, that’s not really the case. And charging anything they want to turn the company profitable will not be acceptable to the customers of DoorDash.

Genia Turanova: And that’s how the company is getting really into trouble. They’re running a lot of promotions, they’re selling DashPass, they’re booking record revenues, and they’re further away from being profitable than they were during two years ago, during before COVID. So it’s ultimately, they have to change something. And a company that wants to change something, they will tell us, tell that to investors, and DoorDash doesn’t really. They like what they’re doing, and the stock market does. So, that’s the ultimate bear case for the stock, in a nutshell. And the way we traded it was really to pick out early, step by step. And then stock rallied, we said okay, we’ll trade. And when the stock rallied again, we doubled down. You have to be confident to do that, but I was.

Frank Curzio: So, when you’re looking at DoorDash… Just one of them, where I look at, you bought Tuttle Capital Short Innovation ETF, which is… That’s ETF, so it’s not puts. Right? So, you’re basically shorting Cathie Wood, I think it’s ARK innovation fund. I know you talked to me about that. You said, “Hey. What do I think about it?” I don’t know what I said, but I’m glad… Hopefully, if I said that, “Ah. It might bottom out,” that you didn’t listen to me. I don’t know what I said back then. But that’s up 64% for you. Another put you purchased, I don’t want to give away too much, in April is up 92%. So again, those eight positions, there’s two that are down. There’s one down 24%, one down 7%, which I think they might actually be up today. And the rest are combined over 460%. And that doesn’t include the Invesco NASDAQ Next Gen 100 ETF put you closed out for a 100% gain. New Relic put, you closed out for a 165% gain. You’re in a market where it seems like…

Frank Curzio: It doesn’t seem like, but if you look over the past 10 years, you could have just took a dart and threw it any place, and chances are the stock’s going to be up. Do you… It seems… Over the past few months, it’s been the opposite market, where you could have shorted almost anything and you’re going to be making money. It turns out technology has underperformed much more than everything else. Is there a sector out there, maybe like energy, that you think… Energy I’m bullish on. Not crazy bullish, but I’m just a bull. It has gone up a lot. But is there a sector right now that people really think that, “Hey. You know what, this is kind of a safe haven,” that you’re like a little worried about maybe.

Genia Turanova: Well, I think energy is a safe haven sector that they’re selling off today for a good reason, because it was overextended. I think the consumer staples is not really cheap. And you want be very careful when they pick out their consumer staple for long-term. At these values, although again, it is one of the best performing sectors over the past few months, because again, the market is looking for safety anyway it can. Some of the utilities are getting crushed, and they’re getting overvalued as a group and that’s the reason they’re getting a little bit sold. And as a rule, the utilities don’t like higher interest rates, it’s a very capital intensive business.

Genia Turanova: So, I would be very careful with utilities. Again, it’s a one-by-one basis. Because if you seriously look at the market, there’s always something to be worried about. And for some stocks, sometimes they get so cheap, the risk is becoming worth it. And you understand the company, you understand the business, you do see a long-term business model and the stability of that business model over a longer cycle, a few years at least. And that’s where you start picking out those stocks, especially the ones that pay dividends. That’s the one that would get you out of this hole. And again, you start investing… If you don’t know where to look, you start investing little by little into those value stocks.

Frank Curzio: And you also run a portfolio for us in a newsletter called Unlimited Income. What are some of the names you could throw out there, without giving anything away, from your newsletter? Are there names that you like, that you’d say, “Hey. You know what? This is an area that you really need to buy this.” Again, we don’t know what’s going to happen the next week, the next month. But overall, if you’re a really long-term investor, this is a no brainer.

Genia Turanova: Well, if this is a no brainer type of stock, I think you want to buy something that’s not going away any time soon. And you don’t want to go for something that’s cheap just because it is cheap, trading on the low priced earnings multiple. But you also want to look into a long term expectation. “Is this going to be around if the economy crashes and is this going to be around a few years from now?” Stocks like Intel, Philip Morris probably. I’m not in love with Philip Morris, but people will go into stocks, especially if an economy is crashing. They kind of are in stocks that will go on to survive. This type of firm might be a very good place to start looking. That’s where I would start.

Frank Curzio: And where do you see… And of course, this is a coin flip, really nobody knows. But yeah. What are your thoughts in terms of how far… You were saying, “Okay. We could probably pick away, it looks pretty good here, and there’re valuations and value stocks and stuff. But how far could we come down? I mean, that’s the question people are worried about. I mean, it’s like a level… And people say technical levels, and they bring out technical levels until they’re broken. Right? They’re usually always broken and they’re like, “They’ll have another technical level.” But what are we looking here, in terms of the Fed, inflation? I mean, when do we draw the line in the sand and say, “Enough’s enough”? Is there something that we need to see? Because we’re so used to the Fed being there for us all the time, over the past 10 to 12 years, and buying bonds and keeping rates low.

Frank Curzio: And those two things are gone. Now, there’s a lot of companies that extended themselves. We’re seeing that with SPACs. SPACs are basically a completely dead market now, a lot of these things are getting crushed. But I mean, how low is it just… Is it going to be like a bigger separation than what we’re seeing, where these aggressive names, high debt, not expected to generate earnings anytime soon… I mean, we’re going to have to see some of these things go bankrupt before we hit a bottom. Like, what are some of the things that you may have seen over your career, that you’re saying, “Okay. We’re getting close.” I thought it was a nine to one down market, VIX going past 35. That apparently is not it right now. So, I was just curious if there’s something that you would like to see and say, “Okay. We should be getting closer than you think we are right now.

Genia Turanova: I would like to see small caps turning. That’s something that would be very positive for me, because in the year 2000, in the dot-com bubble, small caps actually did really well. They were a different story, because they were really cheap coming into that bubble. But still, small caps are indicative of the economy. And if they start turning, that would be a very positive sign. So, that’s something I would like to see. I would like to see bonds a little bit, at least showing some signs of life. Because as you probably know, this year was brutal for both stocks and bonds, which again, made it brutal for everybody. And I want to see some bonds turning around just a little bit, which would mean that the rates are stabilizing. That would be also good for the economy and for the market. But I think small caps… Keep your eye on small caps.

Frank Curzio: That’s interesting, small caps. So, broadcasting from Staten Island in New York, I really appreciate you doing this. And for me, I just wanted to give people another update, because when I hired you a few years ago, again, to run this newsletter, I said earlier that I kind of threw you in the fire because the market did go up and it was tough. But you were able to adapt, and I’ve always respected that, because I was put in that position when I was an analyst at TheStreet.com, where it was stocks under 10 and there was great stocks that were like 13, 14, 15.

Frank Curzio: I stayed away from that double and triple, and I said, “Listen, you’ve got to take the handcuffs off and we got to be able to adapt and change.” Now, I’ve seen you recommend a couple of things on a long side as well, whether it was gold, whether it was silver, in particular sectors. But just to see how you adapted with that, and maintain still the put buying strategy here, and the performance and really all the testimonies that are coming in. I just want to say thank you very much, that’s what our brand’s about. It’s really helping out the individual investor and you’ve done an incredible job, especially through this, through all the craziness. And yeah, I know the subscribers appreciate it very much.

Genia Turanova: Thank you. I appreciate the nice words. Thank you so much.

Frank Curzio: All right. Thanks for coming on. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks, Genia.

Genia Turanova: Was fun. Thank you.

Frank Curzio: Man. Genia is incredible. I mean, I got very lucky in hiring her. After talking to her on the first call… And it was funny, I think I was in New York at the time. I was talking to her and I remember getting off… I think I was with Veronica, she’s our publisher. And I was just like, “Holy shit. She’s really smart.” And I don’t really say that often off of a first phone call with anybody. And maybe that’s because of the brilliant people I talk to. I didn’t know Genia at all. And when I spoke to her, I was like, “Wow. She just really got it.” She kind of blew me away. But just the job that she’s done has been incredible for us. Right? Incredible for subscribers. In both of our products, Moneyflow Trader and also Unlimited Income.

Frank Curzio: She doesn’t sugarcoat anything, she’s not a perma anything, she’s a data analytics person, someone that has a pulse in the market, knows how to trade and make money off of it, which you guys know from following her. The testimonials that have come in… I mentioned this before, have come in recently. And these are testimonials that we don’t ask for, these are people actually writing in to us to tell us and say, “Thank you. You saved our portfolio. Best thing I ever did is subscribing to MFT.” Which is Moneyflow Trader, praising her. It’s something that I’m very proud of at Curzio Research, because my job is to put great people in front of you. And I think a lot of people would say that with their company and hire great people. And sometimes you get it wrong. You think you’ll get it right, and sometimes you just get it wrong.

Frank Curzio: And that’s one of the ones I definitely got right. It always doesn’t work out that way, unfortunately. When you’re hiring new people, and things could be different, and everyone says the right thing when they get hired and everyone’s always happy. Then you realize, after a while working closely with them, they’re like, “Wow. This is a lot different.” With Genia, it wasn’t like that. With Genia, it worked out amazingly and even much better than I ever thought. So, I know that… I’m very glad to have her on a team. I know that subscribers feel the same, and they’re happy. And I wanted to get her on to just show you, “Hey. You know what? The market’s terrible right now. I can have anyone on and they’re going to tell you a whole bunch.” Whatever. “This is what you need to do with inflation and all this stuff.”

Frank Curzio: Here’s someone that’s actually making money in this market. It’s a product that we have under our umbrella. It’s a product that I put in front of you many times. If you want it, you want it. If you don’t, you don’t. That’s perfectly fine. But please, I mean, you need to learn how to protect yourself. And maybe I didn’t do a good job, where… Our job is to get someone excited about a product. And we have an offering coming up, which is very exciting. And we’re getting lots of people saying, “I want to get in this.” It’s a deal for our company, and it’s going through our subscriber base first, so I can’t really talk about it too much. Just my subscribers are starting to learn about it, and we’re going to come out for our company and raise money.

Frank Curzio: But when I say the word hedge, like I told her, it’s not like a buzzword. And maybe that’s my fault, but this isn’t like a hedge. This is making a lot of money when the market’s coming down. I mean, this is almost like a greed product. Right? There’s one thing to make money alongside everyone, and there’s another thing to make money, and not just preserve your capital, during these times. Where you’re able to make money at a market like this and just off of these little protections and stuff, which again are very easy to do. That’s how you make an absolute fortune in this market and you position yourself perfectly. And instead of having her on and just saying, “Oh. The market’s going lower and lower and lower.” Which most people do, because once they make a bold call and they’re right, they double down, they triple down and that’s when they get FU’d. I won’t even say it.

Frank Curzio: But for it to be like, “Hey. We’re getting to levels where…” No. No. No. It makes it start picking away and giving you long names now, when back 4, 5, 6 months ago, she’s buying puts saying, “Hey. We should be careful of these names.” Right? So, it just shows how she lets the market… She looks at the market, she analyzes the market and that’s how she determines where she wants to go with her strategy and how to make money off of it. It’s not like a closed mind policy. And I’ve seen it, because I always say I was fortunate to work with my dad and I was always fortunate to work with Jim Cramer. Because my dad was a pure value guy, and my dad was a pessimist and he was kind of like a perma bear.

Frank Curzio: And Jim Cramer was an optimist and he was a perma bull. And it was one of the greatest educations I could learn. And by having both of them, it didn’t pin me down to one strategy. It’s, “Hey. There’re certain times to be bullish, there’re certain times to be bearish and you’ve got to protect yourself.” We’re in a market where you had to protect yourself. Did you try and protect yourself? Yeah. Did we think it was going to come down this much? No. But that’s why you have products like Moneyflow Trader. When it does come down this much, this is how you make an absolute killing.

Frank Curzio: So, I just want to thank Genia for coming on, really great stuff. And yeah. That’s it for me. Questions or comments, especially about Genia, about Moneyflow Trader, feel free to give me a shout at frank@curzioresearch.com. That’s frank@curzioresearch.com. Enjoy the weekend, guys. And if you are a subscriber, paid subscriber, you get Frankly Speaking tomorrow. Definitely listen up, especially to that idea I’ve been talking about. But now it’s official and we’re launching. So it’s great stuff, and I’ll have more details and everything for you tomorrow. But for those who are not paid subscribers, you’re not going to get Frankly Speaking, because that’s not on iTunes. And unfortunately, you’re going to spend the whole weekend without me. You’ll see me on Monday. So take care, and I’ll see you guys next week.

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 decision solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money and your responsibility.