This transcript was automatically generated.

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

Let’s get on with this. It’s July 10th and I’m Frank Curzio, host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where I break down headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets. So Creech joined us today, senior analyst at the best firm in the world, Curzio Research.

0:00:38 – Daniel Creech

What’s going on, man? How’s everything? Hey, what’s happening, Frank? Happy, happy Wednesday. As always, Happy Wednesday. Things are great. I’ve been going down rabbit trails. I can’t wait to talk to you today. I’ve watched testimony from Powell, comments from Yellen Brendan Carr. I know you don’t know who that is, but he’s at the FCC. So yeah, I’ve been sitting with the suits and ties via streaming.

0:00:59 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, it puts you right up front. You know, for me the past couple of days, you know I’ll tell you one story, one story that I need advice on how to handle this, because I just put these really nice lights up on my house. They’re called jellyfish lights. They’re, like you know, new lights and I’m proud of it because there’s so many things that they’re called jellyfish lights.

Jellyfish lights. They’re amazing. So, basically, you put these bulbs on your house and people like that light up their houses or whatever they have like in the trees and stuff, and they have them underneath the house. These go around the house and you could provide like every single bulb, right, you control, and any single color you could put it. It’s the most amazing thing ever, right? It really is. It’s unbelievable. So, one thing on my house so far that’s gone right and I just got them installed. Everything else I’m like with the lights. It’s great, I can do anything I want, right? I can put any Christmas lights now forever, whatever, but you know you dim them normally. You know this way it’s not an eyesore.

Well, anyway, for 4th of July, I thought it would be a good idea to red, white and blue there for like two days right, july 4th, july 5th, and one of my neighbors called the hb hoa nice, and they actually the hoa called me. The girl called me. She’s nice, though. She called me. She’s like oh, I got some bad news. I’m like bad news. I’m only in a neighborhood for a little while. What happened? Well, uh, a lot of people complain about your lights. I think that’s code, like they have to say a lot of people. But they said people are sending in pictures of your lights and it looks beautiful. It really does. I mean every day that that’s combined. I know a lot of my neighbors. They’re all like where’d you get those lights? Those lights are cool, it’s, it’s. Yeah, it looks really good. I don’t have colors going like all the time, just during holidays right and I did.

0:02:34 – Daniel Creech

You’re gonna ruin my day here. I’m sorry to interrupt, but is this like clark griswold, like your house is like lit up?

0:02:39 – Frank Curzio

no, no, no, no, it’s very classy meters doing no no, it’s classy, it’s just along the top of the house right.

0:02:45 – Daniel Creech

The outline the top of the house, yeah, the outline of the house and then the bottom. So they’re not complaining about the lights, they’re complaining about the color display and what you did? I didn’t complain.

0:02:52 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, the color display right, but it was 4th of July and I know this one neighbor because I know most of my neighbors, but Tim Tebow is actually one of my neighbors and I know he didn’t complain, and this person, the neighbors that I know who are cool, when I first met them they all said watch out for this neighbor, watch out for this neighbor. It’s like this old couple that just you know, they hate everyone, they hate everything, right, they all have problems, like they try to sue people or whatever. And apparently he called like three or four times and the old me would like go there and probably cut his trees down and have them fall like diagonally, like can’t do that.

Here in uh, florida, they’re crazy about trees here yeah, I mean, I was just, you know, the old me. The old me is like you know, but it bothered me so freaking much I don’t know why it turned over a new leaf at his 50s.

It’s probably 40s, you know, even you know maybe, but it got a little mature a little bit. But yeah, my idea, like my wife is like, oh you know, she gets pissed off. And then my kids are like pissed off, my daughter’s like 16. I’m like, how would you handle? I just want to hear how she handles. I’ll go over to her, you know, and I’m like you know, maybe I should just go over there with some cookies and say, look, you know, sorry about the lights, and if you have any problems, like you know, they can handle it that way.

But I’m I don’t know why it bothers me so much. But why would an asshole just like, why is it bother you? For two days that I, it wasn’t like it’s massively bright, it’s pretty cool. It’s celebrating America, right? People put flags out. He has a flag in front of his lawn too, and I’m like, but this guy, just it’s a guy that just the hatefulness of people and and I mean it’s your neighbors, right, you want to get along with your neighbors.

It’s the closest to your house at all times, right it’s? Yeah, I always make it a habit to get along with neighbors. I always make it a habit to tip the people who are around my house, whether it’s, you know, a landscaper or it’s someone who you know, whatever. If you live in a gated community, which you know, whatever it is, you know you want to make sure you take care of the mailman. But why are people so pissed off? Like how? People so pissed off? Like how does that piss someone off for like two days? And he’s like five or six pictures and she’s like you know, well, there’s a couple of them. I said is it really a couple? I know there’s one asshole. She’s like well, you kind of live on the asshole block, we get the most complaints there. That’s what she said to me I’m like really that’s great to know, by the way.

Like, but you got nothing better to do. It’s not like I have lights shining in your window all the time, but I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I need advice on that. So give me a friend, curzioresearch.com. Well, I handle it like I didn’t know.

0:05:05 – Daniel Creech

You lived in a communist neighborhood, frank. You built a beautiful house in a gated community of which the golf course isn’t even open, so I can’t even mooch off of you and take full advantage of that yeah, are you doing a golf?

0:05:14 – Frank Curzio

I’m not very happy with them either, no, but I’m just, I’m just pissed. I’m like, come on it’s. You know the whole privilege thing and stuff, but why does that piss you off? Just be happy, or even better. This is what New Yorkers do.

0:05:25 – Daniel Creech

But what if they don’t like America? What if they don’t like celebrating it? There’s a lot of people here like that. He had a flag.

0:05:30 – Frank Curzio

He had a flag in his front yard, but you know what, knock on my door and say, hey, you know what, those lights are a little bright right now. Whatever it is, whatever it’s like what, why? Why piss off the people that are closest to your house? For, like, if that guy has a heart attack, I’m probably not gonna call anybody. I’m gonna be like you know what?

0:05:54 – Daniel Creech

the hell, you know what you’re an asshole you know that’s how I really feel.

0:05:58 – Frank Curzio

I’m sorry. I feel like people gonna be, like that’s that really you went out of your way to be. I’m not even gonna curse, I’m gonna say really bad word to be a whatever to me. You go out of your way like you didn’t. I don’t know for me, just stupid little things, like like it’s a pet peeve of mine, like just be up front with people, just say, hey, I would have been nice about it. But I don’t know, I’m probably gonna handle it the nice way. The old me would have done something stupid, and you know I don’t want to do anything stupid, by the way, but uh, I don’t want to do anything stupid, by the way, but I don’t know.

0:06:23 – Daniel Creech

These things are always easy. From the outside, looking in, I can give you great advice. I don’t know if I could follow it, but just kill them with kindness. You’re right, take the high road.

0:06:31 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, and I think that’s the best way to do it, but yeah, it’s so frustrating. I mean, not too many things get me really, really frustrated.

0:06:37 – Daniel Creech

I live in a chopped up house and I guess there’s four areas, so that means there’s at least four renters I’ve met one. Haven’t met the other two. Probably never will. That’s just the way I roll. I’m a ghost.

0:06:53 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, it’s not like you have to go to your neighbors and say but you usually like wave and say hello and these people like don’t even wave. I just they hate that these people like you know why go on, hey, some people are grouches, so kill them with kindness.

Smile at them if you’re gonna be miserable. Just, I don’t know, we’re in another country, I don’t know, I don’t know. Okay, anyway, sorry, I just. I like this podcast because sometimes it’s like therapy for me. But calm before the storm, let’s get some serious.

The conference, because you have earning season beginning this week with the banks. The banks, no surprise, if it’s too big guys, I’m telling you know, we’ve been highlighting how you know it’s a boys club and people worried about this whole credit crisis and show you how much debt, hundreds of trillions of debt, are on the balance sheet. They don’t talk about both sides of the balance sheet and how strong the banks really are. I mean they have enough capital to withstand I brought this up numerous times A 55% drop in equities, right, was it 30, 40% drop in home prices or whatever? It’s just the capital that they have and the regulation they have protects the big banks. It’s protecting them because no one can. It just provides this moat that’s even bigger.

And they’re all 52-week highs. No surprise, the biggest banks. So it’s going to be interesting to see. Maybe they pull off a little bit, but the bank’s got to come out with earnings, the expectations are sky high because they’re all after the stress test that they just passed. A couple weeks ago they all announced big dividends, of course, and hikes into dividends and buybacks and stuff like that, and everyone’s worried about them. You don’t do that unless your company is generating a shitload of cash flow, which these guys are Massive amount of money. But also we have the CPI coming out, ppi coming out, so it’s a little bit of a slowdown, but we’re seeing some earnings come out here and there, where Helena Troy was horrible, yeah.

0:08:24 – Daniel Creech

Holy shit, I mean it got I was going to ask you about that. What stood out to you there on Helena Troy?

0:08:32 – Frank Curzio

What stood out is it’s the same as Nike. To me, the conference call it wasn’t like oh well, you know what? There’s a little bit of a setback. I mean they’re like things are terrible, they’re horrible and they didn’t provide anything to do anything about it. Like there’s no, like okay, well, they’ve already been cutting costs. Most companies have been cutting costs We’ll talk about that because Intuit just announced a major cost cutting initiative. But you’re looking at companies going into this earnings season and watch out, watch out, because now you have very super high expectations when you have an economy kind of rolling over. And you’re looking at the markets and people are like well, frank, the market’s doing great, the economy’s doing great. The NASDAQ is up 23% year to date. The S&P 500 is up 17%. Do you know what the Dow’s up?

0:09:13 – Daniel Creech

No, 4%. I know the Russell. I know small caps are flat 4% and small caps are flat.

0:09:19 – Frank Curzio

Do you know what mid caps are? Would you take a guess on mid-caps? Oh, they got to be down. No, they’re only up like 3%, I think they would be like mid-caps are, I think would take a little bit of advantage.

I mean, you know, but you know. Again, s&p and NASDAQ. Really, you’re seeing them dominated by the top 10 companies, which account for the highest amount by far and was it 38%? Top 10 companies account for 30%, the highest percentage of the overall S&P 500. And the concentration is horrible. The breadth is horrible.

Also, you have Biden talking about the economy is strong as ever, and most economists suggest as well. Well, unemployment is strong. I mean, if the economy is strong as ever and I post this on Twitter there’s no way that you would see these best of breed companies and you heard of all of them trading at 52 week lows. This is surprising. Mcdonald’s, lululemon has gotten absolutely destroyed. You’re looking at John Deere, las Vegas Sands, nike. I mean five stocks that tell you if you really think the economy is doing great, those five stocks should be doing great as well, and they’re not, and they’re not at 52-week lows.

So when I look at things like that and seeing like going into this earnings season, I think you just got to be careful because there’s going to be companies in your portfolio that are going to be down 20% right at the earnings immediately, right off the bat and some of them, if they’re right and they produce strong guidance, you’re probably going to see 5% moves because they’re already at 52-week highs. So the risk-reward going to is not favorable. And be very, very careful. I’m very mindful. We avoid a lot of minefields but I’m nervous going in because it’s just if you have one company that everything is good like a Levi’s, wow, you turned around, everything is good and then they report the quarter and the company gets annihilated out of nowhere. You have a China slowdown. International is horrible. I mean, you’re not really seeing strong demand internationally from anyone right now. But this earnings season is going to be interesting. Earnings are probably going to be stronger than expected, but remember those expectations are sky high, right?

0:11:08 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, expectations have moved up. I know we’re going to get into more of that tomorrow, but it’s not out of the ordinary, for I’m impressed that earnings are as high. Expectations are as they will. I’m like you, I think it’s I’m more nervous this earning season, and so that means that you can buy anything and it’s going to just go straight up, because anytime I get nervous seems to be uh, we have another 10% right around the corner, like Tesla, of 50% in a month. We’ve we hit that out of the park. Who would have thought? Making 40% under three months like golf you could have done a lot better.

0:11:46 – Frank Curzio

You know it I talk about. You know, when you look at tesla too, it’s just um, it’s kind of amazing when I see what’s going on with that stock and and you know we took advantage of it because it was just you know this you’re looking at sentiment was so terrible on it, right, it was just so terrible on it and we recommended it more of like 40 and we took this is like two months ago, right, when reported earnings around maybe two months, a little bit over that, but they reported earnings. And when I look at that stock and see how that stock is still going higher and that’s why we sold it and we sold it last week in Dollar Stock Club, it was a good win for us a couple of months. But you’re looking at a stock that’s seeing margins decline, getting crushed. Actually. You’re looking at declines in units, decline in sales, right, they’re like oh, they beat expectations. They’re down 5% year over year. They’re supposed to be down 6%. They’re only down 5%.

You don’t see that kind of company moving the way it’s moving in this type of market, right? You really don’t. I mean you see NVIDIA moving because they’re putting up the earnings. You see Microsoft moving. They’re putting up the earnings. You see MetaMovie they’re putting up the earnings. Netflix is putting up the earnings. They’re putting up the numbers, they’re growing. This is a company that’s not growing. They’re not growing, they’re shrinking right. You see, margins are getting crushed. They’re lowering prices right now and the stock is. You know, I thought it should have been up 25%. We got 40% out of it, but to see it’s probably up another 7, 8% after that man, the. The expectation is high and what?

0:13:06 – Daniel Creech

happened. Bill Gross came out and said Tesla’s a new meme stock. Did you see that? I did see that headline. Yeah, I didn’t know it was Bill Gross. I saw the headline about it being a meme stock. Yeah, it shows you how far behind the times he is. It’s the original and ultimate meme stock. What a knucklehead.

0:13:14 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, so he says-.

0:13:15 – Daniel Creech

Elon Musk has been meme before. Gamestop was even a we agree with, and that’s why we took profits on it for sinking in two months.

0:13:22 – Frank Curzio

But then he goes and compares tesla to chewy and gamestop tesla comparing to chewy and gamestop. Okay, uh, to me listening to bill gross and, by the way, if you don’t know bill gross and you know you just in the markets for last five, seven years this guy’s a god, a legend. Bond market. I mean someone that—.

0:13:45 – Daniel Creech

He was the bond king until Gunlap right. Yeah, pretty much.

0:13:49 – Frank Curzio

I mean, he was amazing. He was amazing. I think he went a little crazy at one point.

0:13:54 – Daniel Creech

A little crazy. The guy blares Gilligan’s.

0:13:56 – Frank Curzio

Island music over his head. I’m being nice, I don’t want to turn a guy.

0:14:00 – Daniel Creech

He’s a child, I’m a child.

0:14:01 – Frank Curzio

A lot too, you can make fun of me, but he’s a child. You’re right. He’s a big, rich child. I’m not arguing with you, I just don’t like to throw people under the bus.

0:14:08 – Daniel Creech

You’re just talking about your prick neighbor. What are you talking about? Kill him, with kindness.

0:14:11 – Frank Curzio

I’m going to throw him under the bus.

0:14:18 – Daniel Creech

I’m not even going to kill him with kindness.

0:14:20 – Frank Curzio

Anyway, bill Gross, don’t be blind to the bust of dessert, but but you know he was like a god, right, and you know one of the biggest names, uh you don’t see empire yeah but he is a bond specialist, right, knows very little about equities, very, very good, so.

So listen to girls talk about tesla’s like listen to michael john talk about ping pong, you know, and when he’s saying this stuff and I’m looking at him like yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s just funny, when you know, yeah, you’re right, you know, I, I agree with the fundamentals, but comparing it to GameStop and Chewy is just a joke. Tesla, it’s amazing. But also the note of the day we’re breaking down some of the news stories that we’ve seen Again. It’s going to get really crazy over the next couple of weeks and Daniel and I are going to really cover earnings tomorrow on the Wall Street Unplugged premium and certain things you have to look for. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Recomm great new name, by the way, uh, but goldman came out note of today, I should say the meaningless note of today. So they came out with tesla and they raised their target.

0:15:11 – Daniel Creech

Guess what percentage they raise their target the way you’re asking that, something silly like five percent, forty percent, forty.

0:15:19 – Frank Curzio

They raise it forty percent. Look at the vampire square 40% to 243, but maintain their neutral rating. You can’t make this stuff up. So imagine we tell our subscribers that we’re covering this stock and we’re getting paid by this stock to cover it. Right, and we provide investment fees for them as well. But don’t you dare buy it. Don’t buy it as a neutral rating. And then it goes up 40%. We tell them yep, listen, it’s worth that, right, we’re going to raise our target on it, but still don’t buy it.

Yeah, the value of that note to your client is like it’s almost like you’re robbing them and then, before you go and they’re on the floor and they gave you everything, you come back and kick them in the face. For no reason is I just laugh at the sell side. It’s like you know, across their chain, like a Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, like they’re brilliant because they make money across every part of their stage. It’s like, okay, here’s the roadshow for a company. We’re going to take a percentage of your company, we’ll get shares, right, we’re going to raise money, we’re going to get percentage. Whatever is that? They all say this is conflict of interest. Conflict of interest, right, they disclose it in our industry. As long as you disclose it, you’re fine, right, I’m going to rob you. I disclosed it, you’re fine, right? I told you I was going to rob you, all right. So, and then all the way through the whole entire process, right, they make money on every single step of the way.

And now for Tesla, it’s funny because they raise a target by 40%. I don’t know, I just think it’s kind of funny. The Wall Street game. However, some of these guys provide amazing research, especially initiations, and they get access to the company and CEO and they provide like 50-page initiation reports. Like sell-side research is very valuable, but when it comes to their target price, it’s absolutely fucking useless. Like, don’t even bother. Don’t even bother. I mean, you could change it seriously. The discounted cash flow model you change a few numbers around and you’re going to get a target that’s 20% over 15%.

Even when you listen to the conference calls, the questions that these guys ask, it’s all about their model. It’s not about really the company, their model, depreciation rate, who cares, who cares, but the target price that they come up with. It’s amazing. It has nothing to do with anything and it’s kind of funny. That’s why you look at NVIDIA. They keep raising the target every quarter, every quarter. There’s not one guy that said, okay, when it was. Whatever. You know what is the trade now? You know, after the split, was it 1?

0:17:39 – Daniel Creech

130-ish give or take Whatever right, I mean.

0:17:41 – Frank Curzio

Mean it’s not like when it was at 60 people, like it’s going to 130, right, it’s like it’s going to 80, it goes to 80, it’s going to 95, it goes 95, it’s going to 105, like 132 87 you know it’s not proactive, they’re just reacting to it, which is kind of funny. But yeah, tesla’s an interesting story, right? Yeah?

0:17:54 – Daniel Creech

I got a couple of uh useless things as well.

If we’re going to go on that topic, yeah, number one things yeah, yeah, um, the helen of Troy, quickly on this, because there’s some outliers that not everybody reports during the same window of earnings. So there’s some outliers now, but really, officially, banks are kicking it off on Friday. But the Helen of Troy, the thing that caught me. I don’t know much about this company and I haven’t followed it completely. I mean it comes up across some screens but, frank, if you could pull up a chart of that, because that has been in a severe downtrend, like you said, they’re already cutting cost and you and I are big on buybacks, right? I mean, when, done correctly, you buy back shares, you shrink the number of shares. That means earnings by default grow. Each piece of the pie gets bigger. But you don’t want to do it and you’ve talked about this in the past. That, I think, is is very well said.

On Nike, just because companies are buying back stock doesn’t mean it’s good in and of itself. You want to have a strong balance sheet, you want to have a management buying back at good prices and such. If you have the chart of Helena Troia, what I noticed and I saw some great research on uh X, formerly known as Twitter, and uh, so I was searching through different buybacks, frank, so they missed the quarter. I mean earnings per share guided, I mean everything was pretty bad. That’s why the stock really sold off, according to Capital IQ, which is a service we use they have about I’m rounding up 17. Let’s round up to $20 million in cash. Okay, quite a bit of debt. $20 million in cash, frank. They bought back $100 million. Oh my God, a hundred million dollars in. Well, look at your chart over the last quarter. Over the last quarter million dollars in the quarter wow.

0:19:39 – Frank Curzio

So let me just like this is. This is interesting. Really, did they wow that?

0:19:43 – Daniel Creech

I didn’t know that’s a good stat, man a hundred million probably over 90 bucks, it’s 60 first quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to fiscal 2024. Rep repurchase 1,011,243 shares of common stock in the open market for $100 million. Holy shit, Now they did produce some free cash flow. I think free cash flow was $16-ish million. But, Frank, you buy $100 million worth of stock, you report the earnings you do, and then your stock drops. What 20-ish percent, if not more? How?

is that good capital allocation. As Warren Buffett says and everybody likes to quote Warren Buffett and I get it one of the main jobs. One of the many reasons that gentleman is so brilliant is because he pounds the table on. One of the most important jobs for a CEO of any company is money, is allocating capital. That is a huge, huge job.

So, as big as we are on buybacks and we like to see people buying back large amounts of shares, but only if business momentum is in their favor, only if you have a strong balance sheet and you’re growing earnings or you’re doing it for a reason to prepare for the future. You don’t just buy shares, like you say and how Nike does, to quote unquote legally manipulate your earnings. But, man, if, if you’re holding a hell of a Troy here and I thought that was a misprint I thought there’s no way they got 16 million left in cash and they spent a hundred million and all that. But I tell you what this is a poster child for useless management and or capital allocation. That is absolutely awful, and the good news is you don’t have a gun to your head. You don’t have to buy into these. If you were short, as some of the people I was reading, tip my hat to you, you know, congratulations. This thing you talk about, just an absolute shit show, frank Wow.

Yeah, this is a freaking disaster, but I didn’t really analyze it Again when you see big buybacks, don’t just and I’m guilty of that too, when I run certain screens you get excited. And then you start digging into some companies like this and you think, man, this isn’t a good idea when your management team has a terrible track record of buying high. That is not what you want to do. You want companies that are buying a hundred million in the quarter and it pops or whatever, and you don’t have to time it every time. Listen, these are, they’re not buying back shares for the next quarter per se. This is a capital plan or a longer term plan, you’d like to think, but it is not a cheap shot to look at this company and see how they are misallocating capital in such a significant way for shareholders. So if you’re holding onto this thing, I hope cheers to you, I hope you have a cocktail to numb your pain, but that is just that stood out to me. Frank, and buybacks are something we discussed quite a bit.

0:22:11 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, and that’s a good point too. Right and same with levi’s. Like, you see this turnaround and the company’s getting nailed and all of a sudden it gets momentum for two quarters and you’re like, okay, here it is and that and even for traders traders usually okay, hey, here’s the breakout and they’re getting wrecked. Well, helen troy, this it’s amazing because this is a consumer brand product. There’s more going on, like in terms of the economy. You, you have to focus on here, because this is like VIX, oxo. They have a lot of consumer products. 40% of their revenue comes from Amazon, walmart, target, right, so selling to third-party retailers. And what are these third-party retailers doing? I mean, think of the supermarkets, right, they’re pushing you to other brands that are cheaper. Maybe they’re brands that they create or whatever, especially when it comes to it comes to the Publix or some of these stores. But even the Amazon, walmart, target, they’re trading down that. Maybe they’re not buying like VIX. They’re buying alternative, right, something that’s cheaper.

One of their biggest segments is health and beauty, wellness, and that’s getting crushed, it’s getting destroyed. Sales fell by 12%. Their guidance was horrible. Their guidance was. Their guidance was man. What was it? It was expecting earnings of $7.750 for 2025. It was supposed to be like $9. I mean, and not only the buyback, but what’s crazy is when you’re looking at this company and you’re seeing it, not only is the buyback. What I like to look at is this restructuring, because when the restructuring takes place and you cut costs and then you see demand come back, now you’re very lean, demand comes back and earnings absolutely surge. Right, and so many analysts, I feel, are too conservative in their estimates. Right, because once you’re finishing with that and once you get that going that cost-cutting program and then you’re focusing on your main divisions, that growth comes back, earning so for these companies. But I’m going to tell you something. I mean, this is a company that had a massive restructuring plan in place. They actually named it. Whenever they name it, it’s a big deal. It’s called Project.

0:24:02 – Daniel Creech

Pegasus right.

0:24:03 – Frank Curzio

We’re doing Project Pegasus, we’re going to cut costs. So annualized profit improvements 75 to 85 million by the end of 2027, with 35% savings to be achieved in 2025. They were in the middle of this. They were in the middle of this and buying back stock and that’s where you see a 30% decline, because now everyone’s caught off sides, because even the people you’re not going to short the stock because they have a massive buyback they’re restructuring tremendously. You’re seeing this company get hit a little bit, but it’s still. You know, I think it was 120, went to 100 a little bit, then it fell to like 90. You’re like, okay, I think I’m okay, it’s not that. But when you have these in place and you have a sea of the same, hey, we’re buying stock and we have this project Pegasus and everything, and you give this outlook, that’s great and this is what analysts hate and that’s where you see, with Helen Troy, but just-.

0:24:53 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, just be cautious on buybacks. It’s not just a complete positive, so you got to be careful.

0:24:57 – Frank Curzio

That’s a good lesson, but even bigger. Here is, guys, the economy, right? I mean, I just told you about the names of how bad some of these stocks are doing, even great names like Nike, las Vegas Sands, john Deere 52-week lows when the market is high. But I don’t know if you’ve seen what credit card debt is right now $1.2 trillion, right, two months ago it was $1.1 trillion, so going up, you know, basically $100 billion every like two months.

0:25:23 – Daniel Creech

But what’s the delinquency? Because, like you said everybody, if you’re paying it, it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter.

0:25:27 – Frank Curzio

So now you know why is it going up so high. First of all, it’s because the rates are at 22 plus percent. That’s average percentage rate. That’s what? $250 billion to just $60 billion just in interest payments for consumers, without them even lowering their debt. They’re just making their payments. But 10% are now delinquent right now and 1.5 have maxed out their credit cards. You also have rising order delinquencies, Job markets, layoffs revised lower, sometimes much lower, for five straight months. You know this.

Housing is rolling over. I mean, how does Powell, how does the Fed not start lowering rates, start cutting? I think we’re going to see at least two, probably three this year now. But you’re starting to see a lot of stuff roll over and it’s being masked by. You know, the unemployment rate is still you know whatever 4.1%. It’s not that bad.

Our housing prices are staying up a little bit and this is all based on surveys. When you do housing, they ask like 1,000 people, even rentals Okay, are you going to? You know, what would you charge for your house? That’s what they do and that’s how they base it. Oh, you know, rent. It’s so backwards looking, especially with AI and what we have now of how they calculate this data. Hopefully it gets better but it economy. Especially when you’re looking at a market that’s up and it’s due to really 10 stocks I mean you can say it’s really due to five or six stocks and you’re seeing some big, best of breed, awesome names trading at 52-week lows. You’re like holy shit, there’s a lot going on under the hood here, which is really scary.

0:26:41 – Daniel Creech

One of the things that’s crazy about to predict the economy. It’s impossible. It’s because the economy is millions, billions of people if you want to go worldwide, but just here in the US it’s hundreds of millions of people making individual decisions to better their lives. That’s why you can’t, and economists and all that are full of crap. But CNBC to your point about debt at the end of June, I remember the headline 36. So let’s just say 30, because 30 is a big number, but it was 35 or 36. People surveyed and again there’s some salt you need to take with surveys. Americans were planning on taking on debt for a summer vacation. So that has to explain why you have record travel. Did you see Sunday? This past Sunday was the record for TSA. They screened over 3 million people.

0:27:37 – Frank Curzio

And we talked about the record.

0:27:38 – Daniel Creech

That was just a couple weeks before that, yeah, and I believe, if memory serves me correct, nine of the 10 busiest travel days have happened this year already, and it’s I mean, hell, it’s June 10th or July 10th, I mean. Think about that. So you do see that pent up demand. I think money is emotional. I don’t think that. I know that.

One of the reasons to point to that is, to your point, with credit card rates, 20 plus percent. I mean, it’s very easy to say, just like your neighbor, you’re an idiot for going into debt to take on a family vacation. Now, I’m not saying right or wrong, but the other side to that is, hey, you know what you only live once. I got family. I want to experience this and this is this value that I get from experiencing this, and spending time with them is worth a little bit of credit card debt or whatever. So I’m not saying you’re Frank’s neighbor if you do this. I’m simply saying that shocked me that 30, 35% of the people willing to go into debt for a vacation. That that did surprise me and that just tells you that water can be pushed uphill.

So and I know you’re not saying this, frank, I’m not putting this on you, but just because you see headlines about high interest, debt or whatever doesn’t mean that this party is going to stop. The music can keep on playing. The concentration is going to continue to get more and more narrow, just like the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer. That’s on purpose. So don’t expect that not to play out in the stock market, where you can have again. We already have it. We have a handful of stocks representing the majority of all gains in the stock market, and that’s okay, because most people are in ETFs or mutual funds and you buy the market and, hey, it can be crazy, but you’re up 15% to 20% depending on if you’re in the S&P or NASDAQ.

0:29:14 – Frank Curzio

Just this year, and just the way the system is set up. Now it makes sense to continue offering more and more credit to these people, right, even student loans. You know they’re not going to pay them back, but you know what the government’s going to pay them back Exactly and you have the government back. That’s the thing where, when the government made money off everything they did in all the ballots in 2008,. Now it provides a lot more companies to take on even more risk. It’s tough for the banks with the laws in place, but now you’re looking at credit card companies. You’re looking at companies that provide this debt and student loan debt and auto debt and stuff like that. It’s very easy for them to get out of hand and get a little crazy because they’re like well, if you know, gets any worse, we got the government there, don’t worry about it, right? So so it is crazy. I, I’m not surprised. I know you’re surprised. I know people.

It’s very easy to take out debt and money that you don’t see, you don’t care, uh, and you, just, you know you, and not only that, it’s the conditioning of people. Okay, when you’re conditioned a certain way, like it’s power. That’s why you’re looking at politicians, are going to fight to them, no matter what they’re going to do. They don’t never want to give up power, right? You never want to give that up ever. It’s the most again, what power people like. Power provides everything that you really want in terms of your ego, whether it’s you know, women, whatever it’s money, it’s you know, access to everything. Right, that power, nobody wants to give it up. And it’s like this drug. When you have a market from 2020 and COVID and you hand the money directly to people and then you open up the economy, you’re still handing money to people PPP loans, everything. We’re bailing you out. We’re going to pay student loans. Now you’re giving money away free.

These people I mean, the spending that took place is why the supply chain was out of whack, right? I mean we’ve never seen this much demand ever. Right? We doubled the demand in like in a couple of months. Right, like a six month period, because we open everything up and then we provide trillions of dollars. You know, because we didn’t know when we’re going to open up, but we kept spending, right?

So now you have these people buying you know who don’t deserve that to have Mercedes, that don’t deserve to have spending $600,000, $700,000 houses, when maybe their salary is like $80,000 are in debt. But once you have that, you’re conditioned you’re spending that much money. And now you’re like, holy shit, it’s hard to get off of that. It really is, and I’ve seen that with people. I’ve seen it with family members. I’ve seen it when they spend money. It’s addicting, right, you keep on spending. It’s so hard to get out of that hole because you want to provide for the lifestyle that you had recently. It’s so hard. Imagine having a great lifestyle and everything and buying whatever you want, and then all of a sudden you have to cut back tremendously and you have kids and you got to take them out of a private school. It’s not easy to do so I’m not surprised at that. But what is surprising me is on a political front, which we need to talk about, and I love talking about this stuff, even though we get the most emails.

But yeah, with Biden Biden after the debate. We all know that the debate was a disaster. But afterwards he did some interviews to basically leave concerns and those interviews didn’t go well. I think one of them was Stephanopoulos’ interview. There was another one. To me, when I looked at those interviews, it didn’t persuade 1% of the people that saw that Not even 1% were like oh, I’m okay, it was just a bad day. You don’t have a bad day when you can’t speak. You have a bad day when you’re maybe off topic or you just got in a debate. You got the shit kicked out of you. It’s fine. It’s like a basketball game. You’re a great team and a crappy team could beat you on any given day. I had a bad day when you can’t speak and have your thoughts when you’re the most powerful person in the world leading the free nation. So when you went on these interviews, it’s very important to say okay, listen, it’s not as bad as you seem, and you know now that we’re seeing that.

It’s interesting to see the transition of what’s coming on, of how you know, is biden going to get replaced? Is he not going to get replaced? If he gets replaced, you could only do it with kamala harris. Otherwise you’re to have to give back a billion dollars in funding. I mean, he already has a delegate, so it’s up to him. It’s really 100% up to him. It’s either he steps down or he doesn’t. Right, if he doesn’t choose to, then you can’t get him out of there because he has a delegate. So you know the chance for Newsom or outside, or Whitmer or I don’t see, but party that’s really going crazy right now. It’s like you know. Half of them are coming out publicly.

Even stephanopoulos came, came out and said uh, um, you know, look it’s. Uh, I don’t think biden could serve for another four years. He actually said that. And what did abc do? Abc immediately, immediately, came out with a statement that said you know that that this is not our position to the network. That’s why I love being fucking independent, because we say what we want to. It’s not like we work for a company that everyone has to follow. I don’t tell Daniel Daniel, you can’t say this. You say what you say. We’re independent. We want people to be independent here and say your true feelings and not be bogged down by politics. It’s just so funny. But this is Stephanopoulos. It’s crazy when you think about it, but it’s something that’s going to affect investments. They’re pricing in and even you see some of the markets for a Trump presidency. They’re moving in that direction. That’s going to happen. What are your thoughts?

0:34:02 – Daniel Creech

I listened to the Stephanopoulos interview and then he also President Biden also called into Morning Joe, and that was about an 18-minute interview. He called in though, so they just put a picture up and he was talking. The Stephanopoulos interview, I thought, was I thought George was a lot more stern and hard hitting than I expected to be, and everybody’s biased. She got right, left and independent and even socialist and all that kind of stuff now, but I was impressed on how George Stephanopoulos kept hitting Biden on. Are you able you know, yeah, all the stuff that you’re bragging about but that takes a lot out of you Are you able, from here this point forward, the next four years? And the funniest thing to me that stood out was I don’t know if, frank, are you a movie? Are you a superhero movie fan? Do you like Christian Bale Not?

0:34:53 – Frank Curzio

Christian Bale. Is it Christian Bale and Batman? Yeah, yeah, Batman.

0:34:56 – Daniel Creech

So the Batman where I’m a Batman fan, don’t get me wrong but one of the Batmans he gets this deep, angry voice and you can almost not understand Batman and it drove me nuts. And there’s a big line like where is he? Or you know where they do that? Biden, during the George interview. He sits up in his chair one time and does the best Batman voice impression I’ve ever heard. He gets up, his tone completely changes. I’m going to try to find the clip and post it on Twitter. X, x.

He gets up in his chair and he gets this growling voice about watch me, you know, and he’s going to do all this kind of stuff and it just cracked me up. That stood out to me. But what I’m with you, I don’t think. I don’t think he changed any minds and honestly, what’s crazy to me is that, listen, I have an 86-year-old grandfather I talk to at least once a week, okay, and I love the guy to death and he’s dealing with older age and memory and all this kind of stuff and he told me this is the kind of guy where I will call him at 11 o’clock on a Sunday and by 12 or 1230, an hour, hour and a half later he doesn’t recall talking to me. Okay, so that’s the situation and you know just the way it is. We’ve been very blessed he’s doing well overall.

I’m talking to him last weekend, frank, he says you know what the best thing about Biden is? Hell, I could be president. People are realizing the good thing about it. And listen, I’m not a fan of President Biden’s policies, but what I think is really showing what I think is impressive on a bigger macro scale here is that there is no way the average person can sit here and look and think that guy is calling and running all the shots, which means there’s either a person or a group of people actually running the day-to-day operations.

That’s nothing new, but a lot of people deny that. If you use words like deep state or sub-level governments or, hey, special interest groups calling the shots and all that, people kind of say, oh, you’re a conspiracy theorist, blah, blah, blah. There is absolutely no way you can see the gentleman talking to anybody right now and think, yep, every decision that needs to be made is going through that guy and, honestly, as sad as I think that is from a macro level, that is good, because the more awake or aware of your individual voters, the better, and I still think that personally, I think he’s going to run. He’s been very adamant. I don’t think anybody gives up power willingly. I don’t ever see that in history. So therefore, I’m a young, dumb, boring kid Frank, and this time is not going to be any different.

0:37:37 – Frank Curzio

You know, when I look at moderate Democrats and Republicans, so these are people that like each other, that talk to each other, that joke around about their politics and stuff, so they’re not extremists like the far left and the far right, but I post this on Twitter. It’s very hard right when I look at that, but I post this on Twitter. It’s very hard right when I look at that. And when I look at moderate Democrats, how could you vote for a guy to run America that you would not trust to babysit your dogs, right? And if it was reversed and this is how I feel, I’m probably I don’t know if I’m alone, I don’t know if I’m going to piss people up. I’m a Republican. I’m not in certain policies. I don’t hate the. I hate the left, actually, and some of that policy.

Don’t have hate in your heart, which is a joke, but it’s. I understand moderate democratic policies and I understand more taxing of rich people and climate change and stuff. Fine, right, there’s always those you never debate, like the safety of your children before, and that’s some of the debates right now. But if it was reversed and Trump was out of it just like Biden is, which we all know I would be scared shit to see him in office running the most powerful military in the world. This is a guy that he’s talking to world leaders. We’re talking about dictators.

Look what China is doing. They’re basically with Taiwan. They had their boat circle in Taiwan and stuff. They don’t care. They’re not scared of us at all. Russia not scared of us at all.

We could have did so much more, right? Even Kyle Bass talked about this on CNBC. We could have really increased sanctions. We could have really made it very difficult for them to sell oil outside the market, right, we could have made it really difficult for them much, much more difficult, but we didn’t, right. And now they have no incentive to stop the war, right, they’re not scared. There’s nothing that we could do, no matter what the weapons we provide. It’s just a half-assed strategy that keeps them doing what they’re doing. You look at Iran. How did Iran become a powerful nation all of a sudden? Right Now they’re supporting Hamas, so nobody fears us right now, which is very scary when you’re dealing with dictators.

And for me, if I saw Donald Trump like that, I’d be like as bad as the policies are, and I disagree with, I think, a lot. The policies are really crazy and I know Donald Trump doesn’t have the best fans, but I’d rather deal with someone who’s an asshole, who pisses people off, who says stupid things, but who’s ran the country for four years and we were okay with no wars and my kids were safe. That’s one thing you could say. Under the borders are safe. I know that all those policies are great, but even if it was reversed and say, if you replace Biden with Obama or Biden with Clinton, I would be more comfortable with Clinton than voting.

I wouldn’t vote. I wouldn’t vote right, because I’m a Republican, but I wouldn’t vote for Trump. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in myself voting for Trump knowing that that’s the state of his mind right now and again. I might be alone with that and I know you’re laughing, but I just I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t. For me it’s it’s much deeper than that, and maybe it’s just. I believe in more important topics than that, but I, just for me. I really give a shit about that. Like we have someone who has dementia that people are going to vote for just because they want a Democrat, just because they don’t like Donald Trump and they hate him. Well, like, how can you vote for this guy when you know he has fucking dementia? Like how could you vote for someone that has dementia? This is a leader of a free nation. We’re talking about the safety, right Again. If it was reversed, honestly, I would stay home. I wouldn’t vote for Trump. If he was senile, like what I saw on that stage, I would be like no freaking way.

0:40:55 – Daniel Creech

I was like holy makes me think Frank. And President Clinton would say Frank, I appreciate that man, I really thank you that you’d vote for me, but I’m retired, I’m doing my own thing and oh, got to go. Hillary’s here. I know a lot of people would like old slick Willie back in the office. No, but yeah, I know a lot of people would like old slick Willie back in the office. No, I think people were driven by hatred.

But quickly on the markets here. I think that, as bad as it sounds, frank and you know you could take a cheap shot at me, not you, or well, you can, and anybody else at Daniel Curzio Research. But chaos is good for markets and unfortunately I’ve been beating this like crazy. But I don’t know how. Frank, a guy asked me the other day if I think a correction in the market’s coming, which means a correction like 20% or more, and I just told him I said you know, I honestly I’m not smart enough to figure it out and I’ve tried a little bit here I don’t think you’re going to have a significant correction in markets when you have deficits in spending at the levels we do. I think it’s almost mathematically impossible. I really do. And the chaos between the presidential election coming up and the running and the. What am I trying to say? What’s coming up, where they actually name the candidates, the the?

0:42:09 – Frank Curzio

primaries or no. The conventions, the conventions, I’m sorry.

0:42:12 – Daniel Creech

The conventions are coming up, so we’re going to have this whirlwind. But gridlock is good for markets and spending is good for markets, not right or wrong. But if you have trillion dollar deficits, which there’s no way in hell Trump is going to slow spending at all. I just don’t understand how the chaos and how silly it is, with the presidents on both sides and their policies and their ranting and raving. I don’t understand how that’s not good for markets. That makes me a little nervous. But you cannot have record liquidity, money printing and deficits and have lower asset prices in a significant way. It is damn near impossible. So enjoy the ride while it is, but that’s not a sustainable market. That’s kind of like a hell on a Troy game plan. Hey, right now we’re going to do this, but at some point it’s going to smack you in the face and you’re going to be down significantly. But I just don’t see how that happens anytime soon, which makes me a little hesitant.

0:43:06 – Frank Curzio

It depends what we talk about too, and I’ll spend more minutes. I want to get into two more topics here. It depends what we’re talking about here, because we’re talking about, I mean, you know, tell it to people, to investors who own Hella Detroit last week yeah, there’s no way in hell, the market’s going to come down.

0:43:17 – Daniel Creech

The market’s actually I’m talking the market though. The markets are at all-time highs, they’re going to continue grinding higher. The 10 stocks are going to grind higher.

0:43:26 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, you know that’s what it is. It’s 10 stocks because the Dow Jones is up 4% for the year. So it’s being masked by these companies that are just so big and generating massive profits and profit machines and cash flow. This isn’t driven by hype. These are great companies that deserve trillion-dollar valuations based on the growth they run the world. But you’re seeing it with the economy, it hasn’t happened. Where is it? Are we going to be able to keep pace with the money that we’re spending right now, which is crazy? But even if we cut back a little bit, but higher interest rates are really hurting the consumer right now. You’re seeing it with individual companies. You’re seeing it with the Nikes. You’re seeing it, you know. Just, people are trading down a certain brand. You’re seeing it across so many companies, so many conference calls. That’s why, if I had to guess, you’re going to say well, 75% of companies are going to beat earnings because earnings are going to be down. But even though they’re going to beat those earnings like Tesla, oh, their orders were better than expected they’re down 6% year over year. Okay, so they’re not as good. As you know, meta, who’s growing earnings, whatever 15, 20% or whatever they’re growing at? So you know it’s a different scenario. I think you’re right.

I think it grinds higher. I saw interesting stuff from canaccord saying that there’s only, I think, 12 times in history where in the first half of the year since the s&p 500 was created that it rose 15 in the first six months of the year and 100 of the time. For the second half of the year it went up. Some of it went up one and a half two percent. Other times went up like five percent. So I think it’s on average. I think it was something like seven or eight percent. It went up on average. I think it was something like 7% or 8%. It went up on average, but into the election year and stuff. So you’re probably going to see this grind higher. You’re going to get a little positively as the Fed’s going to cut rates this year I think it’s a guarantee. But next year I’m worried. Next year, what are the catalysts? But we’ll see. I wanted to get two more things really quick and cover them quickly, which is Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been down a lot.

Uh, we produced our uh crypto intelligence newsletter and I didn’t have any recommendations on my crypto intelligence newsletter, and I think I was two weeks ago maybe, and I said, look, you know, no recommendations, because you know I think bitcoin’s gonna get hammered here because we have two things, two events. We have mount gox selling right, which is, you know, they basically, um, you know, have nine billion dollars in bitcoin and finally they’re going to be giving this back after 10 years to, which is they basically have $9 billion in Bitcoin. And finally they’re going to be giving this back after 10 years to investors. So, as soon as you give it back, it’s like giving someone a will. If they get a will and they’re young, they’re going to sell whatever it is right away. So you’ve seen this selling.

Then Germany, or a state of Germany, is selling crypto. They compensated from a crypto company that was laundering money $3 billion worth, and they sold about, I think, two-thirds of that all at the same time. So I said, look, just be patient here, because we’re probably going to see in the next 30, maybe 45 days, we’re going to see Bitcoin come down hard and Bitcoin, I think, was at $64, $65 at the time. But when I look at Bitcoin right now, what we’re seeing this is a forced liquidity event, and I know you got your comments on this, daniel, but really quick. When you have forced liquidity events, it creates one of the greatest buying opportunities that you’ll ever see, and here’s why we saw this during a credit crisis. Right, all this selling where nearly 20% of the S&P 500 traded for under $10 a share, which is insane. I don’t think you’ll see a stock that’s traded under $10 a share in S&P 500. I think you’ll see a stock that’s trading on the $10 share and S&P 500. Just massive annihilation. I mean, the average index, I think, was down like 35%, but many stocks were down 70% plus and you were able to buy a lot of these During COVID, right Names fell 50% 70% from their highs rightly so. Right, it was just like you know, it was crazy. We closed the whole economy. You know, if you bought some of these companies, especially like consumer-related stocks and even discretionary stocks, there were thousands of percent.

Since then, you have these rare circumstances where you have forced selling, where you’re looking at it like you own a biotech company and a fund has a massive margin call because they have five positions and three of them blew up and they’re forced to sell because of redemptions. You’re going to see this forced selling, you’ll see good names sometimes really get annihilated. It provides like I don’t want to say once in a lifetime, but once in a decade opportunity. I think that’s what we’re seeing with Bitcoin right now. I think buying it right now you’re probably going to risk, maybe a little bit, the massive demand you’re going to see for Bitcoin going forward. Bitcoin is a new gold. Okay, the massive demand you’re going to see from institutional money coming, which you’re starting to see.

I think it’s a very rare opportunity to buy Bitcoin right now. You’re going to own one of the greatest assets in the world at a dirt cheap price and I don’t think you’re going to get it near this price anytime in the future. It might go a little bit lower. There’s a little bit more selling coming out of Mt Gox, maybe a few more billion dollars, but after that, I think you’re going to see this tremendous uptrend in Bitcoin and it’s going great time to buy it. If it goes out a little bit more, I’d be adding to it, but this is a good price. I really don’t think you’re going to see the 50s you know that much longer, especially 55, 54, 53. You’re not going to see these levels too much longer.

0:48:08 – Daniel Creech

It’s going to be a good opportunity. Now it’s time to buy with Bitcoin is and, to your point, the selling pressure and all that kind of stuff, but how the market would react or how individuals would react. Of course, your diehards, they’re not phased by this at all post-halving and such. But, frank, I just Googled crypto ETF inflows. Just throw that in there. The Block reports US spot Bitcoin ETFs record 216 million in net inflows, continuing positive inflow. That was from nine hours ago. Cointelegraph says Bitcoin ETF investors buy the dip. Daily inflows hit 295 million. That was a whole day ago. Coindesk, bitcoin News, cryptoslate, cnbc.

What is impressive to me, and what I think is different this time than previous sell-offs, is people are understanding the narrative of going okay, we’re about to get a dump of Bitcoin, supposedly because of these confiscations and things like that, and yet you see money flowing into the ETFs, which typically is supposed to be your smart money, your boomer money. So if boomers are behind that they’re not younger kids and I’m not being funny here on an age but if boomers, if boomers are behind that and they’re not younger kids and I’m not being funny here on an age, but if boomers and ETFs are behind that? What does that say about the mentality and mindset of buying when a asset, which is very volatile by nature and history, goes down about 20% over the last month? And then you couple that? And I don’t know if you have any charts up, frank, but I just pulled up Coinbase and, yeah, coinbase has been going sideways, it’s sold off, but I’m impressed with Galaxy Digital, coinbase and even some of the miners. Coinbase didn’t even trade down and, again, I don’t have a crystal ball, so anything could happen. But Coinbase made a recent low between May and June of around let’s call it 190. It didn’t. Even. Its recent low with the Bitcoin sell-off is about 210.

Okay, that’s significant because when you don’t see the follow-through, when you see the underlying assets selling off, but you don’t just see, oh you know what, bitcoin’s down, so every crypto or every stock related to crypto is going down today. That’s how it has been for the last couple of years, or so it’s felt. And so if you see this divergence where you can have the asset drop but people are really stopping to think and not just react and think, okay, is it Mt Gox and is it Germany and all this doing stuff, and does that change the narrative over the overall thesis. Does that increase the amount of Bitcoins that are ever going to be available? Does that increase anything else? Or does it decrease security or whatnot?

And that is impressive to me. So to see the quote unquote Robin Hoods and Coinbases and things like that not sell off as much as crypto, I think is a tell. Of course, I know we’re both bullish on this In the 50s. I’ve not been this bullish on Bitcoin Again. I get a little nervous on that, but I think that this is a fantastic opportunity to add to crypto and crypto-related stocks. To be honest with you, no, definitely, definitely.

0:51:02 – Frank Curzio

And one more topic I want to cover outside of corning raising estimates. That’s another. I mean, our portfolio is doing very, very well in our trading portfolio, so much so that we’re probably going to raise prices in it because we almost give it away for free at $10 a month, along with Wall Street Unplugged Premium. But the form has been really good. We’ve got some big winners. I told you about a quick 40% gain in Tesla. Corning was another one that popped. They raised their estimates. Just a great AI player that’s under the radar Also has a very small market cap compared to most of the big AI companies. I market cap compared to most of the big AI companies. I think there’s a lot more growth there, but you don’t walk a lot on that too, in just a short period of time. But another company and this is one of the last ones here is Intuit. So did you see Intuit? Did you see that they announced a restructuring?

0:51:43 – Daniel Creech

plan, so they just came out. I did not. I know the name, but I couldn’t even I’d have to guess at what they did.

0:51:46 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, so just taxes and stuff like that and planning software. But they announced a restructuring plan and I want you to keep in mind this is a stock that’s up 40% over the past 12 months. Please, please, please, please, please, listen to what I’m going to say here. Okay, listen to what I’m going to say because I’m going to save you your job. Okay, ceo just sent a letter to his employees saying that they’re cutting 10% of its workforce. Again, stock’s up 40%. Or or they’re communicating to 1,800 employees right, they’re communicating to them. They said that they will be leaving into it. That’s what they said to them. Okay, we’re communicating to 1,800 employees and they’re going to be leaving into it.

0:52:21 – Daniel Creech

That’s a nice way to fire you.

0:52:23 – Frank Curzio

Also cutting time aside of his executives closing a few offices overseas. But they also said this, which I found fascinating the headcount is going to increase in 2025 because they’re hiring more people for engineering and sales markets with, basically, ai. In fact, this is what the CEO, and I’m quoting right. It says Intuit is at a critical moment in our history. The era of AI is one of the most significant technology shifts of our lifetime. This is truly an extraordinary time. Ai is igniting global innovation at an incredible pace, transforming every industry and company in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Still quoting here, companies that aren’t prepared to take advantage of this AI revolution will fall behind and, over time, will no longer exist. Okay, get used to this.

This is the reason why you’re seeing, for the first time in history, we’re looking at a market at its all-time highs, and what’s it be driven by? It’s driven by 10 companies, most like six or seven especially. And what have all those companies doing? They’re all laying off employees. They’re all laying off employees and you’re going to see earnings go higher. When you do this, you take restructuring charges, like this company’s going to take restructuring charges. They’re giving out like four months of benefits and four-month pay pay package and, I think, six months of healthcare benefits. You know they’re providing a great package for them, so they’re restructuring. They’re telling these 1,800 employees you’re not doing your job, get the hell out. But we’re going to hire more people on top of you that know AI right. So my advice to you and it’s the reason why all these companies are laying off and now their earnings are going high. Their sales are going higher, so they’re seeing productivity gains. Their top lines are going higher while they’re cutting employees. You should see a top line go low, but your earnings will go a little bit higher because you’re cutting your costs. Get used to this. Okay, please get used to this. You’re going to see this from numerous companies, even happen within our organization.

Okay, learn everything you can about AI. I don’t care if you think you’re an editorial. I don’t care if you think you’re writing. I don’t care if you’re in customer service, which AI is going to totally dominate. Learn how AI is impacting that industry, because the more you learn about AI in your job and how you could use it to improve your productivity, even if you’re one of these industries, the chances are not only are you going to get kept. You’re going to get a raise. If you don’t, you’re not going to have a job. You’re not going to have a job pretty soon.

I mean you have to see what’s going on in robotics. You have to see what’s going on in humanoids, right? I mean, who published a report? I got this report. I’m just digging through it. I think it was JP Morgan. Holy cow, it was JP Morgan, or I mean they would talk about 2030. I mean, and then they went into like 2050 estimates and something like you know, tens of millions of humanoid robots are going to be taking the place of people. Learn everything you can about AI, because having robots taking a place in customer service or having robots taking a place in different areas of manufacturing what does that mean? It means you don’t have to pay them benefits and they work 24 hours a day. The productivity you’re going to see is absolutely insane. Learn everything you can, especially the industry you’re in, about AI.

This is why we started Curzio AI newsletter. It’s just focused on small caps that are making this transition. Small caps haven’t been doing that good, but we’re getting at decent prices. We’re holding our own, but you see the developments in AI and how they’re transitioning their business. These companies could go up fivefold if they get this right.

Ai is changing the world. It’s a real trend. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life of how it’s impacting so many industries. And right now you’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. You’re just seeing oh my God, I can put this in and look. It spits out and corrects it and it’s able to write for me. That’s nothing, that’s a half a percent of what it’s capable of doing. It’s the inference part. It’s what it’s going to be able to predict and do and help you tremendously. I mean tremendously. I mean you’re gonna have humanoid robots in in, you know, for the elderly right, there’s elderly that you know don’t have anyone to talk to. You’re gonna be able to have conversations with them, real conversations, not like oh, what do you want? No, I’ve been studying robots. I’ve been going to consumer electronics show playing ping pong.

yeah, I played ping pong against robots, you know, which I have videos of on on youtube and stuff. I mean I’ve, I’ve, i’ve’ve saw this year the Consumer Electronics Show and what you’re going to see going forward, it’s freaking insane. It’s like you don’t even know. You don’t even know you’re talking to a robot. They’re going to ask you, like, detailed questions. They’re going to talk about your feelings. It’s unbelievable. The technology of where this is going right now Really, really is this insane.

But, guys, seriously learn everything you can about AI within the scope of your job, and those are the people. Not only that, these employees are going to keep, but you’re probably going to make more money by learning this and if you don’t, you’re going to fall behind. I mean companies that this is quoting from Intuit, major company. Companies that aren’t prepared to take advantage of the AI revolution will fall’ll fall behind over time. We’ll no longer exist.

Okay, this is very, very real, guys, and let me talk about this a lot. So I thought that was interesting that I wanted to bring up. I don’t know if there’s any final notes. We covered a lot of topics going into a very busy part which starts tomorrow right, cpi, then PPI and then earnings season with banks and man admit it’s going to get crazy. This is where Wall Street Unplugged Premium. We have a lot of fun, we really dig in more into details of individual names, we provide value for you and the portfolio is doing great, which I love to see people making money. Preparing going in is very important because it’s going to be a very volunteering season, right.

0:57:25 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, kicks off with the banksters, so enjoy.

0:57:28 – Frank Curzio

Enjoy. So, guys, that’s it for us. Hopefully you enjoyed the podcast. Questions, comments feel free to email me at frankcurzioresearchcom. Daniel email.

0:57:36 – Daniel Creech

Daniel at curzioresearchcom and again.

0:57:37 – Frank Curzio

We’re going to be hosting WSU Premium Wall Street Employee Premium tomorrow. So if you’re a subscriber, I’ll see you then. If not, you can visit wwwwsupremiumcom. You can be a subscriber Again. We’re going to restructure that part of the business because it’s a trading portfolio. You’re getting picks every week. Performance is great. Take advantage of it now. But we’re very happy that that portfolio is doing good for everyone. But if you want to learn more, just sample it. It’s a dollar Just to sample it and see what it’s all about. It’s really cool, especially access to that podcast that we have, where we have a recommendation almost every single week and a new one coming out tomorrow which is going to take advantage of. What trend, daniel? What’s that record? Yeah, record airline demand.

0:58:19 – Daniel Creech

It’s not airlines, but yeah, taking advantage of record travel.

0:58:21 – Frank Curzio

It’s not airlines, it’s not hotels, but someone’s going to benefit tremendously because of that demand that we’re seeing, and it’s a really good name. I think it’s going to do very, very well over the next couple of months. So I guess that’s it for us and we’ll see you tomorrow. Take care, love this episode of Wall Street Unplugged. I think you’ll really love Wall Street Unplugged Premium. 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.

1:00:02 – 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. 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.