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0:00:02 – 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.

0:00:16 – Frank Curzio

What’s going on there. It’s October 23rd and I’m Frank Curzio. This is Wall Street Unplugged, and I’m Frank Curzio. This is the Wall Street Unplugged Podcast. We bring you the headlines and Tell you what’s really moving these markets, Bringing in the best-looking, best analysts in the world Daniel.

0:00:38 – Daniel Creech

Creech. How’s it going, man? I thought you were talking about somebody else there. Frank, things are going good. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Happy Wednesday. How was your weekend? How’s everything? It was good. It was, uh. It was a good time on the weekend. It’s been beautiful. Since the storms, I mean, it’s been absolutely paradise. When people think of florida, they think of this weather we’ve been having, not the reality of bugs and train of sources and all that kind of stuff that you have down here yeah, it’s nice.

0:00:59 – Frank Curzio

It’s down like 60 and the high is like 75 and stuff like that.

0:01:03 – Daniel Creech

But there there was a cool car show on the island and a lot of old cars new cars too, but mostly older school muscle cars and things. So I walked around down there and saw some things. It was pretty neat to see all that. A lot, of, a lot of cool stuff. I wonder if anybody’s going to remodel or refurbish a Tesla in 20 or 30 years.

0:01:20 – Frank Curzio

Maybe 20 years Maybe.

0:01:21 – Daniel Creech

We’ll see, like you see a lot of these old 65, 70 core, you know whatever cars. It’s just, it’s amazing.

0:01:27 – Frank Curzio

No, yeah, no, definitely, definitely. I mean, how was your weekend, Frank? I thought you’d never ask. Thank you, I actually had a really good weekend. My wife wasn’t in town Ah, bachelorette, that’s not why, but I’m just joking but but she actually went to go see a mom, as you guys know you know, moms are doing too well and she took my daughter with her, my oldest daughter, who went to go see a Billie Eilish concert in Madison Square Garden, which she loved.

By the way, it was packed and they had no merch. Who Billie Eilish? Just pretend that, you know, because Eilish Eilish, yeah. Just say oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know she’s like massive, but it’s, uh, you know, not my thing either, but uh, yeah. So, anyway, she, she enjoyed it. Uh, yeah, the merch was almost sold out, which is, you know, selling shirts, and they call it merch now, which is so weird. I said I gotta get used to like the new terms. We’re getting old now it’s a merchandise, uh, it’s merch. You know, you sound cooler as an old dad, uh, but with a way, I spent a lot of time with my youngest daughter, which which is really cool. So I drove down to Tampa. We went to Howl Scream at Busch Gardens.

So, it’s like the same thing as the Halloween thing that they have in Orlando, where it’s universal and it was good. It was really good. It was scary. They had these haunted houses you went to.

0:02:40 – Daniel Creech

Tampa or Orlando, she’s the one in Tampa, the one in Tampa.

0:02:42 – Frank Curzio

It was really, really good. We had a great time and you know my daughter was screaming like crazy. We went on roller coasters at night. It’s open until 1 am. She just didn’t want to leave so I went on like four or five roller coasters. She went on one roller coaster three times, so you know not bad. I told her. You know I tried to pound her in, I was going on roller coasters, so we had a lot of fun. It was nice and I also got the chance to see my mom in the Villages, which was really cool. So I stopped by. I haven’t seen her in man, probably like two months, so I was looking forward to seeing her. And that place, Daniel, the Villages, if you retire, even if you’re single, go there. If you’re not single, I mean, they got it going on there.

They do, I’ve heard nothing but crazy good about them. It was remarkable just to see every night they have a band playing outside. They have places that you could they have outside drinks drinking outside. They have every restaurant is packed. They’re playing Thunderstruck Nice Thunderstruck, and it’s just. It’s set up, everyone’s happy, they’re dancing, it’s.

I actually took videos of it just to show my wife, because it’s amazing, like just how happy they are and how life’s supposed to be when you retire and if you don’t do anything it’s because you don’t want to do anything. They have anything that you want to do. You start clubs, for they celebrate everybody’s birthday month and everybody goes out to dinner and it just. You know it’s a remarkable place. So they all have these. You know golf carts. It’s like a golf cart community where everyone drives around. It’s massive, by the way, and the golf carts some of these are like really souped up, like you know. They look amazing, like just like really old, fancy cars and stuff like that. So a lot of people they’ll get drunk at night and then drive and crash these things, which is I mean, it’s just so much fun, right?

0:04:22 – Daniel Creech

They just have so much fun. You know what’s wild about that. You know one family owns all that.

0:04:25 – Frank Curzio

You know what’s wild about it Not only the one family owns it is that they set it up where I’m not going to say hurricane proof, but they have all the electricity and lines going underground. They have just flood zones where they’ll put on the sprinklers because they recycle the water for the lakes where they’ll drain them out. So this way when it rains it goes into the lakes and stuff, like it’s just, it’s. It’s amazing because outside of the wind and stuff, you never have to worry about flooding. You never have to worry. You know sometimes your electricity may go out, but a lot of this stuff is underground. It’s very well done and it’s massive golf courses anywhere, everywhere.

It just it’s really cool to see because what happens when you get older? You know empty nester, your kids go away and and you know sometimes you’re sitting in the same house that maybe you own forever and just to see all these people just having such a good time and friends. And you know they have places set up where if you’re sick, it’s okay, it’s comfortable. You know, it’s just. You know, uh, some people just wheelchairs or whatever. It’s just, uh, it’s really awesome. But I could tell you that every single thing that we did. It was packed, the packed, and man did they charge a freaking fortune for that Everything. They make you go on rides and they’re like, oh, you can’t bring your bag, you got to go into the locker, you got to put it in your locker. Okay, four bucks, I’m like for an hour. They just make sure, like they have Chick-fil-A there, which they for the fries, $6, $7 for the Coke right.

And it’s everything. They just, you know they pull it out of you, man, and it was jammed. It was jammed. It was just amazing that even the week before that, I saw with the economy, we go to this local fair, the Callahan Fair, which is, you know, they have rides and stuff. I get packed and you know like $40, I think $50 for a bracelet and just you hear stories about the economy not doing good. And even when I went to Vancouver, it was, it was crazy. I mean, it was a little dead, because it’s the mining industry which is weird, even though gold, silver, we’ll talk about in a minute. But, uh, went out with a couple of people and at a restaurant on Tuesday, we couldn’t get a reservation on a Tuesday until eight, 30 at night. I mean packed, packed, every table. I’m like holy shit. It’s just, it’s weird what I’m seeing.

I like to say this, I like to hear what you’re seeing because, look, a lot of people are struggling out there and we hear how bad the economy is. But every way you look, and what we’re going to talk about today, even with some of these companies reporting earnings, they’re reporting that things are pretty good. Man, it’s not just the companies, it’s this rush. I think, Daniel, that when you’re looking at Polymarket, which we talked about, trump is really kicking ass in that poll and that seems to be the poll everyone’s looking at he’s going to win more than 60% 61, 62% and you’re seeing a shift into certain stocks that benefit from his and sectors that benefit from his presidency. So now you’re seeing a big focus on everything going on with politics and stuff like that, which I guess we’ll start there.

Everybody loves when we talk about politics, so I guess we could start there and filter in, because there’s a lot of companies that reported and a lot of stuff going on, including billionaires on CNBC making bold comments telling you their positions, which is pretty crazy. But, man, it’s heating up with two weeks left of the election and I think the latest news I heard is Trump’s going on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Friday and Harris hasn’t decided yet if she’s going. I think she should go, but that’s going to be interesting because you know very, very big audience and you know I’m looking forward to seeing it because you know, hopefully Joe Rogan doesn’t hold back because I like him. But just, you’re seeing this last two weeks and it’s going to get really dirty as well, so it’s kind of crazy.

0:07:45 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, it’s definitely the blitz here. I don’t watch a whole lot of TV so I get spared from some of the commercials. That doesn’t save me from when I’m in the car commuting and such, and when you watch live sports. Of course they’re going to really ramp up the ramp up the ads. Excuse me, but Polymarket we talked a little bit about this last week.

It’s only gone more in favor of Trump and remember, this isn’t the gospel here, so don’t take this too crazy, but there is over $2.3 billion in volume on these. Trump has a 64 to 36 lead on that. And you have seen this narrative of these financial media. Guys and the billionaires are saying, hey, the market is acting like Trump’s going to win the election. So the market and polymarket here are kind of leaning towards Trump. And you see gold at record highs, you see Bitcoin making a push near its record highs yeah, it’s down a little bit and certain Trump stocks. And that’s interesting because you have to balance that between you know, every morning you know I’m checking CNN, msnbc, yahoo, yahoo Finance, bloomberg, usa Today, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all of those are pointing towards Harris being in a huge 2-3%, 2-3%, but there’s so much more than that, and I feel like the media is trained there.

There’s no question who the media wants as a candidate and as the president. That’s fine. Everybody has their opinions. But you know, I seen this Yahoo article or somebody saying that in the younger generation, harris has a 20 point advantage. And when you dig down, it was only a survey of a thousand people. And so you have to kind of take that with some salt, just like this polymarket case. You know, yeah, there’s two points, some billion dollars in volume, but that doesn’t mean that they’re. You know, I like that, people are betting on it, but you just got to take everything with some salt.

And then you get into these the fun headlines. So Jamie Dimon has been thrown around as a cabinet member and possibly a Trump thing. He’s denied that and they said this. Now, supposedly, according to headlines, he’s supporting Kamala privately. He seems like he supported Trump publicly in a few statements and all that stuff back into Davos. But yeah, you diff. I mean, this is what makes a market. You have, you know, two tails. One’s going to be right and we have what? Two weeks from yesterday? Right, it’s when the election kicks off.

0:09:52 – Frank Curzio

So yeah, and yeah you said Trump did the McDonald’s thing, which is funny because hopefully he didn’t give anyone a quarter pounders. He called right, they just came out McDonald’s Stock’s not down too much and McDonald’s is going to definitely do the right thing on that. I don’t think it relates to stocks, but big deal for some people. It’s just amazing how you could see the same story in a video and how two stations have totally different opinion on it.

0:10:18 – Daniel Creech

It’s just crazy. Did you really think that that was just a random thing? I mean, those things have got to be staged. The guy’s been attempted to be assassinated twice. You don’t think they’re going to close?

0:10:28 – Frank Curzio

down the McDonald’s. Somebody was like, can you?

0:10:30 – Daniel Creech

imagine somebody’s reaction when they pull up President Trump. It’s like no, there’s nobody that wouldn’t.

0:10:34 – Frank Curzio

No, the crowd that was there beforehand. Of course it’s just listen, it is politics and stuff. But what I like on CNBC is they’re having some of the billionaires on. I think the other day they had Mark Cuban on, who was just. I thought he. Again. I’m Trump, I’m a Republican, you guys know that. It’s not that if whoever wins, I’m going to support them America first.

But I felt like he was really pushing against Joe, who’s the host, and I felt like Joe didn’t have a lot of comeback. So he was just, like, you know, harris, harris, harris, harris, pushing for Harris and stuff like that and all these policies and stuff, which is weird because he’s really pushing out of nowhere, right. And I feel like when you look at Elon Musk on the other side, I felt like he’s he was being, he got pushed to go to Trump. You know, like I don’t know, I don’t know, with, with, with Cubanan. It’s just weird. You know someone, I followed him for a long time for him to come out like just past two weeks. I feel like uh, like I said this, joking around, I don’t know if they got him at a ditty party or something like that, but uh, man, it’s uh, it’s pretty crazy.

But then they had they had today. They had Andrew Sorkin drilling. Um, uh, who was it? Bill ackman. Bill Ackman was on and he was like going off on him like he he was. Just how can you support Trump? It’s he pressed about Trump lying about illegal immigrants eating cats.

0:11:50 – Daniel Creech

Sorkin was pressing Ackman, Sorkin was pressing Ackman right.

0:11:53 – Frank Curzio

So he’s talking about, like you know, something about a deer I didn’t even hear about it that he lied about, and he’s saying, you know, well, this person says he’s a fascist, he’s Hitler, racist. And I’m looking at that and I’m just, you know, listening to it, going, wow, and he represents, like New York Times, Democrats, you know, left, I get it, you know, and I have no problem with that. You can support whoever you want, but the Democrats just don’t fucking get it. It’s not a character debate, right? You have both candidates that lack character. In certain ways, I think most Republicans would agree, even with Trump. And like you know, come on, what are you saying that? For? You know, this is not a character debate. Okay, this is about the economy, it’s about the border, it’s about America being safe, no wars, less taxes, low inflation yeah, those are a lot of the key issues here, issues that Americans saw when he was president four years ago. And when Harris is pressed on, she doesn’t give any substance and we’re seeing that even Democrats are saying that too Like she’s got to talk more and give more substance, because every time they ask her about something she’s like, well, trump is this and Trump is that. Trump was in an office for the past four years. Okay, you act like he’s been in office and all this stuff happens. So you know it is interesting to see. But I will say one thing about Ackman, because he said something that I think because if you’re a Democrat or Republican, you listen to this, you’re not going to change your vote, no matter what. There’s some undecideds right, which is key and it’s important. He said forget about Trump and Harris and look at their teams. So you have Trump, and then you have JD Vance and JD Vance capable of being president.

Everyone started starting to debate, listed him on the campaign trail. Very, very sharp comes. You know the background, everything is there. You know they have Elon Musk, you have JFK Jr, you have Tulsi Gabbard, you have Vivek and then you have. You know, on Harris’s side, you have Waltz and he goes.

This was a self-complained knucklehead which was a really bad. That was the first time I really listened to him and I was like he didn’t seem like a bad guy, but he was like after that, but he was like after that, who do you have? Who do you have? You know? So if you look at a bigger supporters, it seemed like these are big donors that want to remain anonymous. I mean cuban’s great coming out strong for her. That that was good. But even bill gates, I think, donated something like 50 million to campaign and then he was pissed off that actually got out.

It’s like they’re supporting her, but when I look at it, it’s people who are supporting, supporting Donald Trump, and they’re out there to love him. They love him. They’re like this guy’s going to save America. This guy’s great. Whatever the people for Kamala, they’re not really voting for her policy. They’re just voting because they freaking hate Trump. That’s a really big difference, you know.

So it is going to be interesting what happens. There’s a lot of politics involved. There’s a reason, there’s only one reason why you let so many illegal aliens in right. There’s only one reason you would do that. There’s only one reason why you wouldn’t have people give you their license to vote right, which you know is pretty easy and you need to show your license and everything. But you know, let’s see what happens. It is going to come down to just a few states. Other states, it really doesn’t matter. It is tight, it is close, but I want to see if Polymark I hope this if this, if Trump really wins by that percentage. It’s going to open up the door to, like, this whole decentralization, blockchain, all this stuff that comes through there that can’t be hacked Because when you look at these polls, they’ve been wrong on both sides.

If you look at the interim, we were supposed to see this massive red wave. We didn’t see it. Then we were supposed to see this Trump get crushed against Hillary and that didn’t happen. I mean, the polls are just so biased and so wrong that it’s been crazy. But if you see what Polymarket is and they’re showing him very, very well ahead in all the swing states, really like 60 to very, very out far in front right now Again, still two weeks to go It’ll be interesting.

But it is influencing where money is going to stocks and you’re seeing that, and over the past two, three weeks we’ve seen it even in banking. You know it’s going to be less regulation. You know crypto is going higher and stuff like that. So you know you’re just seeing some of the areas. That makes sense if Trump’s going to win. Let’s see what happens two weeks from now. Everything could change.

But I’m curious to see if that polymarket poll holds up. It’s going to be a big deal because I think you can just forget about every other single poll, because I’m sick of hearing them. I’m sick of them coming out, everybody just like. I think there’s 1,000 freaking polls, right, there must be 1,000 of them. Oh, this poll, this poll, audience, what do you think the poll is going to register, right? Republican? If you have CNN and MSNBC asking, what do you think it’s going to register? Democrats? So some of these polls are just, and how they conduct them and how I think people really don’t want to say who they’re voting for. Because you brought up a good example. Hell, no, you yelled at and labeled.

Look what happened to Jamie Dimon? Oh, no, no, no. He said good things. Trump wasn’t a bad president. Right, he said good things, Trump wasn’t a bad president. He said that at whatever the Davos he said he wasn’t wrong about several things.

He wasn’t wrong about several things and then right away, he’s a Trump supporter. He’s like, no, I’m not a Trump supporter. Okay, now a Trump supporter, that means you’re and he’s defending. And it feels like, even if you’re a public figure, a CEO, and you come out, you’re you really get wrecked. But anyway, let’s see what happens Again. We’re going to construct the portfolios accordingly. I think we’re well positioned. We’re doing very well in a lot of portfolios. Market’s still very, very close to all-time high. It is earnings season, but yeah, this election thing is going to get really ugly over the next two weeks, so definitely be prepared.

0:16:57 – Daniel Creech

Learn to laugh at it. It’s okay Speaking of billionaires. So Paul Tudor Jones was on CNBC earlier this week and this is a tough one. I wanted to ask you about this because everything he says is true and you can’t deny it. The problem is and the great question is when. So he was talking about how, if Trump gets elected or whoever gets elected, we’re going to have this reckoning and this bond revolt or something where yields surge and obviously we want yields to go down to help consumers, help the economy. Essentially like that. The Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates Okay, we all know that.

But what I respect about PJT P-T-J Frank, as they refer to him sometimes so he’s a billionaire, so we give billionaires a different respect here. We listen to whatever they Frank, as they refer to him sometimes so he’s a billionaire, so we give billionaires a different respect here. We listen to whatever they say because they’re billionaires. And I like how he’s calling this out and he’s saying listen, we are broke, we are going to be broke and we have these huge deficits. He points out the one point eight trillion dollar deficit. The US government ran October to October this last year and, for the first time, the interest on the debt surpassed everything but Social Security. So it’s bigger than defense, it’s bigger than Medicare. The only item is Social Security. That’s higher than the interest. He’s correct, Frank, on saying about the debt and the deficits. I even think he’s correct on the bond market going to really go against the Federal Reserve wishes and we’ll get to more of that as this conversation unfolds To play Jeopardy here.

The answer, Frank, is to be hedged Gold, Bitcoin, commodities, which Mr Jones says all that. The issue, Frank, is when is this going to happen? Because I know you like to rant about the gold bugs and these guys have been right for pick your timeline. They’ve been correct. Government spending is out of control. We can’t do this forever. It’s causing inflation, it hurts the little guy, All that’s true. But, Frank, as they say, you ain’t stopping this train and outside of a global war where we lose and I’m not being funny here, I don’t know what and while you should be hedged, you just can’t let this fear get in front of you and push you out of markets just yet, and I’ll come back to that, but I wanted your take on that, Frank. What do you think of his call about the bond market revolt against the Fed?

0:19:27 – Frank Curzio

I think that you’re crazy listening to Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley what Druckenmiller. Yeah, don’t even listen to them. They have no idea what they’re talking about well, we can’t talk about drunk stanley, yeah both of them, because we’re seeing a lot of them come out.

But I’m going to tell you something about Paul tody jones and obviously I’m joking because here’s a guy that I’m not kidding here so you’re looking at 19 annual returns over 40 years. I mean, holy, holy shit, right. So you know these guys, when they’re putting their money in certain things or they say something, definitely listen. Of course they’re going to talk their book and of course they’re going to be wrong time to time. You know we’ll get into Druckenmiller as well, because they both pretty much have the same take yeah, where you know, Druckenmiller is one of the greatest investors of all time Four decades the greatest investors of all time, four decades of 30% average annual returns, right? So which is insane, insane guys, really insane. I mean the market’s usually around 8%, 8.5%, dating back to like the 50s, with dividends as S&P 500. So you know these guys, clearly right, are ahead of the trends. The fact that they’re both really shorting the bond market I see a big sell-off in the bond market is telling. And what does it tell? It says that inflation is coming, that inflation is really going to start running higher again. And I have to say, when I’m looking at the data and seeing what’s going on, Daniel, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to support this. I mean, what do we have? The Fed just cut rates by 50 basis points. When was that? I think it was September 16th. The 10-year was trading at 3.6. It’s 4.2, pushing 4.3. That is a massive. That’s like a stock going up 30, 35%. And we’re talking about a month, a month ago, right? So while they’re lowering, you never see that, right? Usually, with the Fed’s only short-term reach, you’re going to see rates come down. It’s telling you that inflation is starting to move higher. And when we look at the data and we look at the companies, all the companies that are reporting right now are saying that they’re raising prices still, and we’re still seeing it. Have you seen anything that’s telling you that prices are going lower, which is insane because they’re up? What? 25, 30% over a four, four and a half year period, right, across the board, when you take a basket of goods, right? So it’s well over 20%. I don’t know if it’s at 30%, but it’s massive, right? So now we have inflation. Okay, it’s not going to, it’s going to go back to 2%. It’s still growing. On top of that, You’d think it would come down where I’m like okay, we’re going to save Every bill, everything that I’m paying for is much, much higher and you’re still seeing people pay them, which is crazy. So you know.

Also, a good indicator is, you know, showing inflation, and you know these guys talked about deficits, right, what did you say, Daniel? Like you know these eventually gonna happen, or what happened. I mean, look it, it’s hard, because what I like to see in the market right now I’ll give you my expert opinion is I always love, if I’m bullish on the market, that I see a lot of bears coming out and pounding the table. I hate when everyone leans to one side, which we saw in 2022 before the market crashed. It’s nice, but everything that the bears are citing are things we know and we see. We know the deficits are high. We know that they’re through the roof, which is incredible. We’re at $1.8 trillion, almost 10% higher than last year. No signs of spending slowing down.

Everybody’s saying that these politicians don’t give a shit because there’s no repercussions, they’re not going to be held accountable, there’s nothing that happens to them. They don’t have checks and balances like corporations do. If you don’t, you know you got to cut employees. You got to make sure you’re getting profits and figure things out With them. It’s just like it doesn’t matter. This is taxpayers’ money that’s free to them. We’re just going to keep handing it out to everybody.

A good point, because if it wasn’t for Joe Manchin, the Build Back Better bill would have got passed on top of the Inflation Reduction Act and he was saying you know what inflation probably would have went to 20%, but they wanted to pass that thing as well. Right, and you can go back to every president. This isn’t me picking on the current administration. You go back. It’s just. You know the Fed’s like pushing Trump was pushing the Fed. You got to lower rates. Got to lower rates. Got to lower rates. Got to lower rates right, when they started raising during his term. And what Trump’s talking about is lowering taxes on tips on this, on that, and it’s like okay, well, what we usually see, what’s normal in regular markets, is when the economy does well, that means the receipts are bigger, that are coming in. That means usually deficits go lower. We’re seeing deficits skyrocket at a time where the economy is doing good.

You have economists and I say it’s doing good by the measures. I’m not saying it’s doing good by everybody out there. No, some people are struggling. I get it. I’m saying economists are raising GDP estimates. Okay, when we go into a recession, what the hell is going to happen? Now, you don’t see all those receipts coming in. So that’s what they’re seeing, and I get it.

And look at what gold is telling us, Look what silver is telling us, look what Bitcoin is telling us. All those things running considerably higher. Gold at a record high. It looks like Bitcoin is going to pass through its record high and silver is just surging. How do you argue against them?

But I will say this the bears are citing things that we all could see, that we all know, and what scares the shit out of me doing this for 30 years is the things you can’t see. Okay, we saw that recently with Japan and the carry trade. Holy shit, what was that about? That’s why the market came down a lot and it rebounded pretty quick. Covid, holy shit, you’re really going to lock down the world. Nobody saw that coming.

Okay, fine, the credit crisis. It wasn’t subprime that caused that, because, oh, subprime, that wasn’t subprime, it was. They leveraged subprime 30 to 1, right, so? And they did it through entities that no one knew existed. I mean, even when shit was blowing up you’re looking at the Fed, you’re looking at our government they didn’t even know that AIG was covering all this shit. They had no idea what was going on right, and nobody really did so. When you see things like that, you have to worry. It’s the things that you can’t see and you’re citing things that have been citing since the 70s, with higher deficits. It just keeps going higher and higher, but there’s got to be a time where you’re going to have to make it painful. It’s got to be painful for investors. You’re going to see a pullback, you’re going to see higher interest rates and I’m going to say this, Daniel, this there’s a zero, zero, zero chance of this happening. There has to be odds and because it’s definitely not zero anymore, the Fed could actually raise rates next year zero chance it raises.

I bet you, a month ago there was a zero chance, now there’s. I mean, you’re seeing inflation go up across the board in a lot of different areas, right, and they were like, okay, we’ll cut by 50%. How could they cut rates at their next meeting? What supports another-?

0:26:01 – Daniel Creech

They’re independent, you’re right.

0:26:02 – Frank Curzio

But what supports the rate cut? How could they justify cutting rates? Just name a data point of them that justifies cutting rates. Because inflation you’re seeing it starting to go back up, we’re seeing it. They’re getting lucky with oil coming down. That’s fine, that’s one thing. But, man, you’re seeing it across the board, even with companies. And when you look at what these guys are doing and how the 10-year guys this is something when shit happens for the first time you got to pay attention Usually means it could be something broken underneath, something under the hood that we’re not seeing. You don’t see the surge like this while the Fed just had I mean, cutting by 50 basis points, which is very, very big for them. Right off the start, you don’t see that happening and you have to ask yourself why. And for me, I’m talking to people, I’m talking to great bond investors and trying to uncover this but there is something going on. But underneath all that, what are we looking at? We’re looking at interest rates or short-term rates. The Fed is kind of in easing mode still, even though I just said I don’t know how that could be, but they are. They plan on easing.

Earnings are very, very strong. They continue to hold up well. So when you see those types of things and do you really want to get in front of a train? Because I’ve been listening to these bears especially come out over the last eight, nine months and the market’s up tremendously since then. So even if we get a 15% pullback from here, they’re still wrong. So do you want to get in front of that train where momentum is good? You’re seeing strong earnings and we’ll talk about some of these companies, but from what I think here is you got to pay attention, you got to be cautious. It’s very good that you’re cautious, but also you got to be long, which we’ve been saying for a while now because you’re looking at those factors that are driving the economy. People are spending, whether it’s debt or whatever, and these earnings are being backed. These earnings are strong right now, with the Fed that’s saying, hey, we’re still going to cut. I mean, inflation will move higher, and I agree. I think that comes a little bit later.

0:28:03 – Daniel Creech

But right now you just don’t want to get in front of a freight train, and that’s why our portfolios are doing so good, because we’re positioned well. But we are very, very cautious because there’s things that are happening that never really happen, and that’s when this mindset and they have great power I mean they are unchecked they print money out of air just thin air. And here’s what’s crazy is that if interest rates continue to rise like they are and, let’s say, the 10 year or the two year gets to four and a half or close to 5%, what scares me is that the Fed is not going to allow any pain to happen for any length of time. That’s their new goal. And this really happened more not Greenspan started it, bernanke really took it and Fed Chair Powell is running with the torch like he’s in a freaking Olympic race. And what’s going on here is that you’ll see the market sell off, equities, pull back, and then Wall Street and everybody will clamor and raise and scream and say well, what is the Fed going to do? How are they going to save us? And they can do yield curve control, they can do all kinds of things, and that’s what’s nerve wracking and that’s why you can’t just sit on the sidelines. So, yes, be hedged commodities.

One thing I wanted to ask you, Frank, is I liked how? So? Stanley is supposedly Druckenmiller is supposedly short the long bond from what I’ve read in a couple articles I don’t know the details he just I’ve seen 15 to 20% of his portfolio. He’s betting against the longer bond, so he’s expecting rates to go higher, with inflation to go higher. So was Paul Tudor Jones.

What I liked is Paul Tudor Jones just said hey, I don’t have any fixed income exposure, I’m not messing with it, and Stanley’s going after and he’s going to go short it. I’m not that smart, but I would play that somewhere in the middle. I don’t know why you’d lock up interest rates for any length of time when you can get short term treasuries paying good percentages and then you can look at dividend stocks and you can just be hedged. I really think that’s going to work and that doesn’t work or that doesn’t change under either candidate, because they’re all just hey, we got your back, we can guide everything, we can control everything, we’re big, powerful and and that’s not going to work long-term, but it’s sure as hell working right now.

0:30:16 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, and one thing I’m going to disagree with you on is when the Fed could control. Everything is always there and they prevent the recessions, bailouts and stuff like that. It’s very easy for the Fed to do that in a non-inflationary environment, right, because the tools in the tool chest really everything that they’re going to do in bailouts it’s basically printing money, lowering rates. Right, these are tools to stimulate the economy when things are going shitty. But now, when you have inflation coming back into the market, we can get into that right now. But just, you know, what higher rates do I mean? Look at the housing market. I had the 10-year rising. Now you’re looking at, you know, mortgage rates starting to surge. Okay, to surge. 30-year fix is over 7% again, which is crazy because you still have home prices are rising. They’re rising up 3% year over year and that’s a 15 consecutive monthly increase. When this is happening, what else do you have? You have inflation, where all the costs are outside of your mortgage, surrounding your house. Insurance is surging, you’re going to buy furniture for your electricity, property taxes, cable streaming bills Everything continues to move higher to the point.

I’m going to give a shout out to Charlie Biolo here, who’s really good if you follow him on Twitter, he just provides really good stats on the market and stuff. The median household income necessary to purchase a medium home right now in the US is $120,000. That’s 40% higher than the current medium household income of 85,000. So you’re being priced out of buying houses and by far the most unaffordable housing market in history. And I actually yeah, tell me about it, Frank Holy shit. And I have a picture of this too. If you’re watching on a YouTube channel, I mean all you have to do is look at this freaking gap, holy cow. I mean it’s insane, like we haven’t seen anything, and I think this chart goes back probably to 2000, maybe, and it’s incredible. It’s just yeah, how do you? With rates going higher?

We’ve set up the CPI. The government set up the CPI so it could never show inflation, right, and it’s always going to show low inflation. That’s why they have real estate in such a big component, especially rental income, because usually rental income doesn’t skyrocket like it happened to do out of nowhere, and that’s really what causes inflation going at 7%, 8%, 9%. We’ve always known that we had inflation in the markets. We’ve all seen it through our bills, but they’re always like, hey, it’s at 2%. It’s at 1, 0.3%. You know our costs would continue going much higher than that.

But now, you know, with inflation out there, could the Fed actually come in and do something about this? Could they bail out everyone, you know? Because it’s going to result in more inflation, right? So, which is scary? So they always have tools in the shed, believe me, they can go. You know things that they could do, but you’re running out of the security blanket and that Fed put that you always had. I just don’t see how they could lower rates going into the next meeting. I don’t know what evidence is going to be present for them, because you’re seeing inflation across the board move higher and that is evident just by the earnings that came out. And I want to talk about just a few of these because we cover really in detail on tomorrow’s podcast, which is a Wall Street Unplugged premium podcast. Know we could start with, uh, with starbucks. I mean, did you see starbucks? Starbucks was down 10 after they reported and now it’s flat that’s more telling than anything else.

0:33:23 – Daniel Creech

But the new ceo came out and just lowered the bar, right saying hey, this is the bar. This is my, this is my game now.

0:33:31 – Frank Curzio

He basically said he basically said this company I went to was a big mistake and I really fucked up under his breath. That’s what he said. He goes. What the hell was I thinking? What the hell was I thinking? Going to this company? He’s gonna get paid a lot of money, but the credibility part’s gonna be tough. So here’s what Starbucks said. That’s the the fact that the stock is flat. This is an uninvestable company right now. It’s uninvestable at this price. You can’t go near it. Don’t go near it.

Same store sales fell. Usually you see any company say store sales. You see 3%, 2% up down, 5%. They fell 7%. They’re a consecutive quarterly drop in same store sales. Listen to this Lowered their estimates for next quarter, which they’re coming out this is Q4. Their estimates for next quarter, which they’re coming out this is Q4. They’re coming out on the 30th. They also removed their guidance for 2025. So they told all the analysts we have no idea what’s going on. We have no idea what’s going on right. Weakness everywhere 6% decline in the US, driven by 10% decline in transactions. China’s same-store sales declined 14%. Those of you think China’s coming back and everything’s good again. We’re not hearing that from any company yet. This was in the face. What did Starbucks do? Starbucks raised their prices by 4% and they still reported this garbage. Now, when you look at the CEO, Brian Nicol, who’s a superstar, he actually came out and said we’re losing the occasional customer as demand for our products are falling, and he said the company needs to fundamentally change our strategy so we can get back to growth. Do you know how hard it is to fundamentally change a strategy for a company that big? That’s losing its customers? And, by the way, I’ve probably been to three Starbucks in the past two, three weeks. Every one of them was a terrible experience. Still, I couldn’t wait on the drive-thru because there was too many cars, because they were too slow. I went inside. I had to wait 15 minutes, right, and I’m talking about getting like not even like coffees. I got these lemonades, one for my daughter and myself with a couple pastries, right, we were there for like 20 minutes. Every one of them, every single place, was a disaster. Still, and I don’t know it’s because it’s very hard to make those drinks, so you need specialized employees and it’s tough to get employment. It’s a broken model where you lost customers. When you lose customers like that, it’s so hard to get those customers back, especially since you talk about coffee lovers, which is a drug. They go to another place and they find another place and they settle and now do they want to come back? No, now they’re used to their new place. So when I’m looking at this company, the stock was down 10%. Again it’s flat. Now it came back, which is insane. I never seen that happen in my life as an investor, no matter how low expectations are, when a company for the first time removed their full year guidance and did not see a significant pullback in the stock. So when I look at it now and where this name was, look, it’s $96 right now. It was 75. Before nickel came on right, it was getting beaten. Okay, back then it was trading about 19, 20 times forward earnings. It’s trading at 26 times forward earnings at a company that’s declining. Same store says every aspect of their business is down. They’re raising prices in the face of customers that are pissed off at them because they just don’t like the experience anymore. So what do you do? They like Disney. Hey, let me raise my prices. That’s why Disney stock is dog shit, which we’ve been saying, when everyone was pumping the shit out of it at 160, 170, and 180. We told you right and told you about Disney, in terms of streaming, how they couldn’t compete. Their new content does not come out on streaming first, it comes out in the theaters first and they have to raise prices significantly and their service is inferior to almost everything out there. It’s not about the library, it’s about new content. They don’t have a lot of new content because all that great new content comes out in movies first. Starbucks is a very broken company, trading at 26 times earnings. This stock should be trading at 20 times earnings. I would say it’s 75. I probably wouldn’t buy it, but this is a name I was surprised at. They got away with raising prices and still reported these results while raising prices. On the flip side of that, if you look at Coca-Cola, coca-cola beat their earnings, beat their estimates. That’s what you see. That’s the headlines. The reason why you listen to this podcast is because they don’t like really looking into numbers, be both on bottom and top line, which means the top line is sales, the bottom line is earnings. It wasn’t driven by demand. Case volume was down 1% in North America. Globally it was down 3% Across the board. Sports drinks, coffee, tea products, even energy drinks were weak. That’s supposed to be a big growth market, right? Which is also confirmed by Pepsi in energy drinks Bottled water, globally for them down 6%. I mean it’s because the bottles don’t stand up anymore because they’re eco-friendly and even when you grab them, whatever you want to call it, it’s not the wrapper, but it just falls off. Right, it’s like the label around it just falls off. Maybe that’s it. But you’re looking and you’re saying how did they beat? They beat because they raised prices, right, inflationary, every environment. I thought this was done. They raised prices. They had to raise them significantly because volumes were down. And if you’re looking at it as an investor, you see it. Because if you’re going and say you’re a coca-cola fan, you’re looking at a coca-cola case. Coca-cola is like nine dollars. Okay, used to be seven dollars, like a year ago. Hey, buy soda at a restaurant, Daniel. What’s your favorite soda? Crazy, diet Coke, diet Coke, fountain, right, what do you? Do you go to a gas station? How much do they charge at the gas station?

0:38:39 – Daniel Creech

It’s $1. Well, it’s $0.75 for a refill and it’s $1.27 for a medium at the gas station. It’s minimum $3 at every restaurant, oh yeah.

0:38:49 – Frank Curzio

So it’s coffee Minim’s $3 to $4, right, which is crazy. So Coke’s like, hey, if they charge you $4, we can raise our prices, right. So when I see these companies and they’re raising prices and every company I feel like is coming out is raising prices, it’s crazy. And Coke is the same thing. They’re raising prices. They’re not seeing volumes go higher. Same with Starbucks.

You’re not seeing this brilliant quarter or anything, but for them to remove guidance and I don’t know what they were thinking. I have no idea what they were thinking. I don’t even want to put an analogy on it because I’m probably going to insult somebody. But why would you raise your dividend? I mean, what does that do Like? Are you really going to buy a company? I mean, good luck. I don’t even know what their dividend is. Go get it, because whatever it is, subtract 15% returns from that and that’s going to be your returns over the next year. Why would you raise it Right now? Spend on finding great talent out there. That’s underneath you that you’re going to need at a company that big. Spend money on different initiatives.

Nobody’s buying Starbucks for a dividend right now because it’s super crazy expensive. You never want to buy a dividend stock of a company that’s seen declining sales, declining earnings, everything. And they remove their guidance, which means they could be down 20%, 30%. You have no idea. And from a Wall Street perspective and analyst, they hate that because their job is at risk, right? That’s why you see all these target prices and their models. When you hear the conference call, they’re all asking about oh well, what about cost of goods? Little things that they can update their model with. And when you don’t give that to them, they’re forced to guess. And what are they going to guess? They’re going to guess the worst right now. And that’s not priced in because the stock is trading. What? 20%, 20% higher than when the CEO came on board. And that was what? Just what was that a month ago, a little over a month ago.

So none of this is his problems, but for those that think this is going to be fixed, like within three to six months, you’re out of your mind. You’re out of your mind. I mean it’s going to take a long time and, man, it’s going to be painful. This guy’s going to be working three times harder, four times more hours than he worked at Chipotle, which was pretty much a business chugging along and doing well, again, he probably. I don’t know what his compensation package is, but I’m sure under his breath he’s like holy, like maybe you should have took a better look at what was going on before going there, because it’s not going to be pretty, it’s going to be really. I feel like it’s Iger going back to the company, going I have to come back for this shit. I got to cut everybody, I got to fire everybody. I got to cut costs completely and get out of the leftist mindset that the company’s like. You know it’s nice to go into a company and fine, you know you try to build it up or going to be anytime soon.

0:41:28 – Daniel Creech

Speaking of earnings, I want to get to GM, but quickly here. Frank, this is a stock that I’ve glanced at here and there. You know I’ve been on this kick where I screen for different components of stocks cash flow, cash, whatever but then I also look at the price, because what drives me crazy is looking across the media Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance and all that. Essentially, when you watch these programs and listen, I get it. They have a job to do. We all have to fill a 24-hour news media cycle, but you don’t hear a lot about the higher price stocks. And I don’t mean valuation. I mean like $200, $300, $400, $500, because individual investors don’t mean valuation. I mean like $200, $300, $400, $500, because individual investors don’t care for them. So I pay attention to some more of these because these are great leaders.

Packaging Corporation of America reported strong earnings. Frank. The stock is up about 5%. Right now they’re the third largest producer of container boards. So just think of the boring shit you ship everything in. They have seven mills and then 86 converting operations, but if you look at the stats on this, it’s trading at about 19 times forward earnings in line with the market. Next year from 2024 to 2025, they’re supposed to grow earnings 24%, and then I don’t want to get crazy and look too far out but then another 12% in 2026. So if you have a company trading at a market valuation that doesn’t get a lot of press and is also growing much faster than the overall market, that should get your attention.

I want to dig further into this because what is driving this? Well, obviously you have the big boys and all this container board is used in the shipping which is not showing any signs of slowing down. And if you have a sluggish or growing economy, that’s good for this type of stuff. And, as Frank’s talked about earlier, with interest rates and different things, you’re going to see these cycles. So we’ve seen housing and stuff like that DreamFinders, homes that I’m a huge fan of, based out of Jacksonville. Here they pulled back with rates going higher. Shouldn’t surprise anybody, but can still set up for a trade.

But Packaging Corp of America is a great find in what I would think is a stagflation economy. So if shipping really falls off the hills, then hey, you got bigger problems. This is just a good monitor on the overall economy and from you know, glancing at it, I’m telling you, in a down market like today. Like today, Frank the market’s down three days in a row. Pack your bags and let’s go do something else, because the world is coming doing that three days in a row for crying out loud. But uh, they’re putting up a good day up five percent. They were the last time I looked, so check out yeah package before you get the gm.

0:43:57 – Frank Curzio

I want to mention this quick educational part here is when Daniel says that market multiple, it means a market multiple means with the S&P 500 trading. So when we say the S&P is trading at 21 times forward earnings, that’s collectively the average multiple of all the S&P 500 companies, right. So when you say if it’s trading at a premium to that which Starbucks is, which we talked about, it means that Starbucks should be growing earnings faster than the overall market, which is what Daniel About 10% right now, with other projections maybe 10, like you know, double digits, I think. 10, 11% growth this you know. Next 12 months and I think sales growth is like 6%. So if you’re growing sales and earnings higher than that, you should command the premium, a higher multiple, maybe 23, 25. That’s why you see technology companies it’s all about growth. When you’re growing you’re going to get a higher multiple. It’s going to be more expensive but you have more potential for growth.

And when you see companies like Starbucks that we were talking about, starbucks is seeing growth slow down dramatically and they’re trading at a premium, that’s when you have to worry. And what you were saying about Patch Cope America, which is trading pretty much at a market multiple. They’re growing their earnings and sales much, much faster, which is something you want to look at, and a lot of people will be turned off by that stock. Why? Because when you see the price, it’s $2.28. How am I going to make money on $2.28? Guys, 10% is 10%. If you buy a stock at $1 and it goes $1.10, it’s 10%. If you buy this stock $2.28, it goes up $28. 10% is 10% because if you look at every company, you’re going to buy less shares but you could put the same amount of money into it. So if you’re buying 10 shares, you’re buying 50 shares.

Whatever, it’s a $5,000 investment. It doesn’t matter if it’s going into a dollar, so many people believe. Oh wow, I could generate so much more money than this If I put in a dollar. It can go to 10, 20, 30. Usually, if it’s trading. I’ve been there, I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I made those mistakes. I don’t think I’m some kind of genius, but Passion Corporate America at 230 bucks and all time high here, looks like a steal because the valuation is still very, very cheap. It’s trading at a market multiple when it’s growing much faster than the overall market.

0:45:55 – Daniel Creech

And to your point, it’s just money is psychological. People, including me, you’d rather buy more shares than less. But put that aside. Understand that that’s an emotional part of money and don’t let it influence your decisions. Because, like you said, if you put $10,000 into something and you make 50%, it doesn’t matter how many shares you have. You still made 50% on 10,000. Yes, so so GM.

All right, go get them. Go get them, baby. GM Listen, I’m I’m in Frank’s camp. I’m not a big fan of these autos. I don’t want to put words in Frank’s mouth. But looking at GM, it rallied to a 52-week high. Yesterday it was up 9% on what I think is very strong earnings. I have one caveat. But when you look at these earnings let me pull this up here Revenue jumped 10%. That’s pretty damn good. Sequentially, it jumped. That was pretty good. And the headline that everybody likes to talk about is, for the first time, ice, internal Combustion Engines. Frank did not outpace EVs.

0:46:52 – Frank Curzio

EVs outpaced. They sold more EVs than gas cars. That’s right, which everyone thinks the EV trend is over. I told you it’s all about pricing. I mean, I bought an.

0:47:01 – Daniel Creech

EV and I’m totally against it.

0:47:02 – Frank Curzio

A lot of people are saying that you know, look at his diet. Like so many people, like they just think, even with the Apple Watch, when the estimates were crazy in the first three years and it came down, it builds up over time. Sometimes you’re too quick and pricing solves everything where I would have never, ever bought, you know, an EV and I bought one for my daughter because it was dirt cheap.

0:47:25 – Daniel Creech

It was cheaper than the gas vehicles I was looking for. So, yeah, and they are doing some pricing now, and they price them accordingly so that the customers can get this $7,500 credit from the Inflation Reduction Act or whatever BS program from the government there. Here’s the caveat, though so they’re still losing money on EVs, even though they’re ramping up production and sales. So you got to give them credit, because just because they’re losing money now doesn’t mean they’re going to lose money forever. From what I can tell, they lost about 800 million.

They talk about this 2 billion to 4 billion increase or betterment, so they’re not going to make 2 or 4 billion. They’re going to lose 2 to 4 billion less next year on EVs, and they even said this I don’t have in front of me. I apologize, but they said something about variable profitability, which means they’re not going to be profitable quarter after quarter after quarter. It’s going to be very lumpy. Now they’re doing a lot of things and you can argue hey, they have a lot of levers to pull. Frank, do you know how many shares they’re buying back?

0:48:27 – Frank Curzio

That was one of the things that I said, Like one of the things with GM and buying back their stock. Their buyback is massive, massive and pay attention to this segment. Okay, it’s what More than 10% right?

0:48:38 – Daniel Creech

They reported third quarter earnings. So year over year, from last third quarter to this third quarter, they bought back 19% of the shares outstanding of the company. During this quarter this recent quarter that they reported just yesterday they bought back a billion dollars. They have roughly 1.12 billion shares outstanding. They want to get that to a billion. So they want to wipe out another 120 million-ish by the early 2025. We’re in the last quarter, so they’re going to have to spend a lot more than a billion dollars in the next quarter or quarter and a half to get to that share count reduction. And Frank, the beautiful thing here unless you bomb, who is it that bombed the five below or five? Who’s that retail company that we had fun with when they?

0:49:19 – Frank Curzio

bought back a ton of their shares reported terrible earnings and then the shares collapsed, or David Buster is one of those.

0:49:24 – Daniel Creech

Somebody. Okay, so there is a good and bad way to buy back shares. The blessing here the GM has is that you don’t know if they’re wrong for the future. So buying back all these shares right now, well, it looks great because the stock’s at a 52-week high. We’ll see how this unfolds, how the economy. But I’m not a fan of GM, fan of GM. I still wouldn’t touch this company. If you’re in it, congratulations, you’re making some money and, like I said, it’s at a 52 week high. I’m not sold on this because of all the levers they have to play with and pull to get these solid numbers. Plus, China is still a mess. I’m not a believer in EVs, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be successful. But again, this is a buyback story, not just a earnings growth story.

0:50:04 – Frank Curzio

Listen, I was saying avoid these stocks, avoid. Gm mentioned the buyback’s. Really good for it, wouldn’t short it. Ford’s different Ford is 30% off its highs. This company, looking at the numbers, look, this is a company I wasn’t crazy about. They blew it out. I mean I was looking for holes and there wasn’t a lot. And driven by what? Higher prices, still raising prices.

Every company listen to that theme during earnings season because that’s going to show up inflation when In the next couple of months in inflation reports. Right, so you know, while past inflation report, hey, Frank, when I show up, remember it’s a lagging indicator. But if every company is telling us that they’re raising prices, they’re raising prices. We’re hearing that. I mean three of the major companies that we’re not cherry picking. Those are three companies we were looking at, every one that we looked at today. We’re going to really dig into details tomorrow and have a new recommendation or whatever, but every one of them, it doesn’t seem they’re all raising prices.

Inventory was down. They sold a lot of inventory down 50% since the start of the year. That was one of the biggest concerns I said with inventory. How are they going to get off the books? We’ve seen it at Ford, which is bad. We’ve seen it with a lot of dealerships. I mean holy cow Revenue, like you said, growing 10%.

And then the huge buyback. What does it do? It puts a floor under the stock. Now, big buybacks when your stock is expensive. You got to be careful. You don’t want companies buying back. I think Snowflake did that, a couple of other companies we highlighted. We hate that.

When you’re looking at a company with this big of a buyback, when it’s more than 7% of the float and GM is more than that buyback is great. It’s much better. There’s charts out there. I’ve done tons of research on this guys. It’s much better for a company to buy back their stock than issue a dividend. Much, much better. The numbers support that. These are companies.

Because if you’re buying back stock, what are you doing? It means that you’re generating a shitload of cash flow. It means things are really, really good at your business. You have no place else to put the cash and you’re lowering that float, which that’s all you care about. You could argue the politics about it and money about it and the money they save do tax receipts or whatever, and Trump lowered taxes and that’s what they used it for. And buyback Whatever it is. Your job is to make money on stocks.

I could tell you one thing For those who are citing that the market’s going to crash while we’re seeing very, very strong momentum here, we’re seeing a Fed that’s fixed on lowering rates where we’re seeing earnings very, very strong buybacks. Right now, us companies are playing the buyback. You want to guess this number over the next 12 months, Daniel? No, $1.1 trillion. $1.1 trillion, that’s a record. Last year it was $943 billion. It’s a huge catalyst for many of these stocks.

Be sure, if you’re going to shorter stock which I know a lot of you don’t do and I wouldn’t suggest it because Ackman gave up on it and you have Chanos giving up on it and it’s just very, very difficult because all you need is a little bit of a short squeeze and you could be right on a long-term thesis. But if you’re wrong right away, you’re going to be sleeping on a park bench. I mean, it’s a game. Especially with a Fed that’s fixed on always propping up the market, it’s very difficult to short. Maybe you just say you avoid, or maybe you use ETFs or something like that where you don’t get annihilated. But make sure you look if that company has a big buyback in place, because what’s going to happen if that stock gets hit on earnings? It’s probably going to go down, but what’s going to happen? They’re going to turn around and they’re going to buy back their stock.

Right, and that’s why I think, instead of raising a dividend at Starbucks, if you think your stock has that much value, forget the dividend. I mean, buying that stock based on them. Raising the dividends is crazy. Maybe they think it’s cheap. Obviously they don’t, because they remove guidance. But yeah, I’d rather keep the cash in a balance sheet.

But for me, when I look at companies, it’s much, much better, much, much better to buy back your stock than to increase your dividend. And I know a lot of companies have to do it because they’re on the dividend aristocrat list and there’s 25 years and every single year. I don’t give a shit about that, I don’t care, because what they’re doing is just checking off a box. What’s the best value for your money? What’s going to benefit the shareholders? And benefiting the shareholders these buybacks you see time and time again. It’s no surprise. When you look at the companies that are buying back their stock, they outperform the overall market by a mile, by a mile. I provide statistics like that up to, I think, a year and a half ago, and it’s even greater now. But pay attention to those buybacks. That’s a huge, huge catalyst. $1.1 trillion is a lot of money. So if you’re thinking the market’s going to pull back, what do you think a lot of these companies are going to do? They’re going to be buying back their stock at cheaper prices, and it kind of puts a floor underneath them. So definitely pay attention to that.

I think we covered everything Cover. I think we covered everything Covered a lot today. That was a good podcast, right? Yes, sir, through everything. I like to hear the political debates. We always get some emails on that, which is kind of funny, which is cool Again, which is really cool. But again it’s about your portfolio and how you’re going to construct it, obviously with Polymarket, and you’re seeing Trump. You’re seeing the sectors that he supports through his campaign and plan. You’re seeing those sectors actually do very, very well, especially over the past two weeks, which means what If Harris happens to win, you’re going to see that unwind. So something to pay attention to.

0:54:50 – Daniel Creech

Tomorrow I’ll get into my conspiracy tinfoil hat wearing idea. You have a conspiracy theory? No way.

0:54:55 – Frank Curzio

I’m going to tell you if the market crashes? No way, no, I can’t believe that. Anyway, we’ll end with this. Guys, listen, thank you so much to everyone that’s come into the CURZ offering so far. We raised money because we’re growing and the company is a lot of fun here now. Uh, great team. We cut costs about 12 months ago and, you know, not only have we cut costs, our sales have gone higher, which is great, especially for the first four months of the year, our last reporting date, and now we’re seeing more traffic across our platforms. We’re able to use AI, which is working for us. Daniel and I are going to cover that tomorrow on the WSU Premium podcast… how companies say they’re using AI and they’re actually benefiting from AI.

It’s a huge, huge difference, because now you’re seeing separation in those companies the ones that aren’t benefiting from AI that said they were, they got that premium and are getting nailed and the ones that are benefiting. You’re seeing those companies really stay at these valuations and even go higher after earnings. But we offered a convertible into our token, which represents an equity stake in our company that pays a 10% cash dividend annually. It’s a really, really good deal. Happy for everyone that came in, and I’m just saying that it’s going to close. So we’re going to close in two weeks.

If you’re interested, you have to be an accredited investor. It’s a $25,000 minimum. Again, you can set up a meeting to talk to me. We send you a link to my calendar. We talk about it in a whole video that you can watch to get the details, and then a lot of people have follow-up questions. You can arrange a call directly with me.

I would say about easily over 90% of the people that call me invested in a deal and I’m not selling you the deal. I’m saying, hey, these are the facts. If they’re like, well, I don’t want get this right and things. We have a lot of momentum right now and a consulting business that we just launched is already signing clients and doing great, which we’re really excited about. It gives you a chance to really have gains that you can’t really get in a lot of companies these days and IPOs, because you can’t really invest in the ground floor right. These companies come out of IPOs that come out at such high valuations where this, if we really get it right and we turn this into a $20 million, $30, $40 million revenue generator, which, for the first time since I started this company, I see that I really do. And it’s exciting Again.

If I walk out of this building right now and get hit by a tree, that’s different. Right, there’s a lot of risk there. You could lose your whole investment and we have great people here and stuff like that, but you know the person’s name on the door and you know again, it’s a big deal and every company who’s an entrepreneur who started, which are big companies that’s the case with all of them. We highlight all the risks, right, but for this deal and being invested in lots of deals where I made most of my wealth and investing in companies in early stages and being a credit investor, this is one of the best deals that you’ll see and that money is going 100% to growth. It’s not going to raise salaries, it’s not going to pay bills, shore up a balance sheet. It is going to growth because, for the first time, we’re seeing almost everything that we’re doing really growing fast right now. So if you’re interested in getting into that deal, let me know, because we’re closing in about 10 days from now and, again, the response has been unbelievable. I talked to so many amazing investors I just went to lunch with one yesterday who already invested and just brilliant, brilliant people and great people, which is really really cool, and I appreciate all that support. So if you’re interested, reach out to me, Frank@curzioresearch.com. I can send you the details. If not, no worries, it’s just for our file and people that follow me the most. And again, it gives you a chance to really get in a company on the ground floor, if we get this right. There are risks there, but it’s something that I want to offer and I want all my investors to participate in, because things are really good right now, so really really excited.

Well, and with that, Daniel, any parting thoughts? No, you always say no. I don’t know why I ask you that. See you tomorrow. It’s so hard when you’re doing an interview. It’s like doing an interview you ask a guy a question and he goes no, no, yes, I don’t want to talk about that. Okay, he’s not giving you anything Next. No, nothing, nothing. But anyway, we’ll have a lot to talk about tomorrow. Guys, on Wall Street Unplugged Premiums, definitely join us then and see you. The Wall Street Unplugged Premium is my members-only podcast where I dive even deeper into this week’s events, where I’ll do even more than tell you what’s moving these markets. I’ll tell you specifically what moves you can make today. So this is going to be about trading. Put big money in your pocket right away, due to the inconsistencies I see daily in the market.

I’m talking about specific investment ideas. I’m recommending and tracking each week that I believe will be impacted directly by everything I just talked about today. Plus, you’re going to get the chance to go even further down the rabbit hole with me and my co-host, Daniel Creech, as we discuss which of these week’s trends could turn into massive windfalls the big trends that we see lurking on the horizon. Also, the news we’re picking up from our network of insiders, which has gotten bigger and bigger thanks to you and so many people listening to this podcast in over 100 countries. And you’ll get a chance to talk to me directly in my special Ask Me Anything Q&A session. All that and a lot more like premium interviews with world leaders in finance, technology, industry and politics. This is all part of Wall Street Unplugged Premium and becoming a member is super simple and super cheap, so head on over to wsuoffer.com to check it all out. Sign up today and you won’t miss a thing. That’s wsuoffer.com.

1:00:03 – 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.