Announcer: Wall Street Unplugged looks beyond the regular headlines heard on mainstream financial media to bring you unscripted interviews and breaking commentary direct from Wall Street right to you on main street.

Frank Curzio: What’s going out there? It’s Thursday, March 3rd. 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, I have an awesome interview set up for you right now. I feel like I always say that, but I do have some awesome interviews. This one is with Harris Kupperman. You may know him better as Kuppy. So, Kuppy is the CIO of Praetorian Capital, author of the KEDM newsletter, which stands for Kuppy’s Event-Driven Monitor. Might have to change that name, although he is selling the crap out of that product. Really good. We’ll talk about it a little bit. If you’re not familiar with Kuppy, he is an absolute, incredible analyst, amazing investor, one of the smartest guys out there, has an incredible, incredible track record. Also, couple that with a funny personality, which you don’t see often from someone that interviews a lot of people. People have great personalities. Some people are analysts. It’s hard to get everything mixed in together.

Frank Curzio: But with Kuppy you get everything. It’s a fun interview where you get to talk to a smart guy. You’re getting good ideas all across the board. Checks off every single box. That’s why he is a big fan favorite, and we get tons and tons of downloads every time we interview him. This is the third time. I interviewed him during the credit crisis. I interviewed him a few months ago, where he was pounding the table, telling you to buy oil in the 60s. Why was about to surge, climate change initiatives, and then you’d throw in Russia and bam.

Frank Curzio: I mean, it went to 90 before Russia. Now, it’s over a hundred. But at $100 a barrel, you’re going to be surprised at what his forecast is. For me, I thought, “Hey, let’s take some profits. Pack yourself on the back, victory lap.” No, the price and the target that he has on oil is a target you’re not going to hear any place else. And he backs it up. He backs it up with a lot of analysis. He’s also going to break down some of his other sectors and ideas he loves right now. I suggest definitely paying attention. Again, Kuppy is very, very brilliant. He’s smart. He’s got a great track record. Someone that I follow all over, building a great following and you know what? Let’s bring him in right now. Kuppy, thanks so much for coming on Wall Street Unplugged.

Harris Kupperman: Hey, thanks for having me on. It’s been a while.

Frank Curzio: No mask today? You knew I was going to go there.

Harris Kupperman: We still have mask mandates.

Frank Curzio: You knew I was going to go there, right?

Harris Kupperman: I should probably be wearing it on my chin.

Frank Curzio: We’re in Florida, so we dropped that about eight team months ago. But I do enjoy your rants on Twitter and having fun with that. But let’s get a little more serious, because there’s a lot going on with the markets. Right? And I guess we’ll start with Russian and Ukraine where we all know about the invasion, but we’re at the sanction stage, right? Which Russia expected because that’s what we do every time, right? After they took over Georgia, they knew it was coming, right? So, they positioned themselves perfectly, but we’re still going to do that. However, those sanctions extended to Russia coming off the SWIFT payment system, where many bond credit guys that I know, and I’ve gotten emails from them saying that they are worried about counterparty risk. Something that we saw with Lehman. Is this something that worries you? I mean, we’ve seen the market really come down now. Is this on the table, the counterparty risk thing? Or is this just chaos and everything else that were talking about, higher interest rates coming, inflation, and just the uncertainty of war?

Harris Kupperman: Oh no, this is very real. I think we have another Lehman scenario. If you remember back to Lehman, the day after they went bankrupt, anyone who had collateral didn’t know if the collateral was still good. Anyone who had a trade with them didn’t know if they were long, if the trade was real, if this trade was going to settle. You didn’t know where you stood on anything, and it was a bankruptcy. So, you had no idea if you were going to be stuck in bankruptcy court for 10 years, if it was going to be rejected. You didn’t know if you put an order in with them and there your prime, if the trade went through, if was going to settle, if it was going to clear. The guy on the other side of the trade who did the trade, he didn’t know if he sold it, if he was going to get cash payment. The whole thing froze up it and everyone panicked and went to cash.

Harris Kupperman: I think the same thing’s happening right now. And with a little bit of a lag, it looks like the exact same thing, except this is really trade finance related. If you bought oil, are the Russians going to deliver it? Or, if you delivered cash to them, that isn’t going to get oil delivered to you. If you got oil delivered to you, will your tanker be willing to pick it up? Or, is it going to sit in a Russian port because your tanker has sanctions? They don’t want to do it. If you have a tanker in the ocean with Russian oil, will it be delivered to a counterparty. Go through every commodity. Russia exports somewhere between five and 40% of all the physical commodities that are exported globally. No knows where they stand. I heard today that the big move in oil was that someone had some oil deliveries and they had off take agreements for quite a number of months, and they had sold futures against it. And suddenly, they realized that no one wanted Russian oil.

Harris Kupperman: So, they’re short oil against nothing. And their risk guy panicked and forced them to cover tens of millions of barrels with a market order because they were short oil, and they couldn’t take delivery. You’re going to see all sorts of crazy stuff happen. I mean, I’ve heard the settlement issues with bonds. I’ve heard the settlement issue with brokers who put into orders to buy on the Russian stock exchange. I mean, you have shares now that are T plus two, T plus three. I don’t even know what Russia’s clearing is. And you’ve moved some cash over to them, or you’ve sold something. They owe you cash. Are you on the hook for millions, maybe billions of dollars to your client? This is totally unprecedented, what they’ve done. Putin’s a smart guy. He kind of knew that they’d sanction him. I’m sure he’s had 10 years to war plan this. And we don’t think in our country. We just kind of do stuff and are always surprised with the consequences. I assume it’s going to bankrupt a bunch of big financial institutions and he’s just going to laugh his ass off.

Frank Curzio: It is kind of funny. You are aware of this, but I don’t know if a lot of people are aware of this, but just the amount of treasuries that they sold over the past six, seven years to reduce their amount, knowing that all this is going to happen, the sanctions, get off the US dollar, and maybe that’s why you’re seeing Bitcoin gold go higher, but just being able to anticipate this. When you’re looking at just the past few years, just the anticipation of this event is pretty crazy. I am surprised that he actually invaded because you could have got anything you wanted by not invading, I think. I was just surprised at that. Maybe it’s just me. But regardless it happened. And one of the beneficiaries is oil. You were, I want to say one of the few recommending oil, very, very early, when I even thought it was a little crazy, a little too early. But now you’re seeing a hundred dollars oil, a trade that you’re super, super aggressive with.

Frank Curzio: However, I know you, I’ve spoken to you, we’ve interviewed a couple of times, follow you on social media. And you are someone who likes to… I believe, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. That buys stuff when nobody else wants it. I feel like everyone’s on this trade right now, but yet, where do you feel oil’s going? Because I heard and I’ve read through Adventures In Capitalism, your blog, 200, 300 could be possible later on, years from now. What are your thoughts right now on oil with the trade that you’ve been so right on? Are you taking profits or you think this is just the beginning?

Harris Kupperman: Oh, this is just the beginning. And thanks for the kind words. No, this is super early. I think what it’s going to do is it’s going to move the trade forward a bit, and accelerate the timeline. It may also accelerate the timeline of it coming back over the top. When the price of a commodity goes up, eventually they produce more of it and the price adjusts downward. So, it might just speed up the process of an overshoot, but in the end oil’s going to overshoot. I mean, look, short-term you have a bunch of traders panicking because they’re short oil and they need to change hedges. But big picture, the world’s using one or two million a day more than we produce, and we’re draining inventories. Suddenly, Russian oil can’t make it onto the global stage. We’re going to drain inventories faster. A bunch of countries today announced they’re going to let 60 million barrels go. I think the timing of that was that they knew some of their friends in Wall Street were in trouble and they announced 60 million barrels, which sounds like a lot, and oils up $10 anyway.

Harris Kupperman: And they’re just draining the SPR. And remember, the SPR is meant for a real emergency. It’s not meant for when some guys on Wall Street have a short they can’t hedge. It’s not meant to be done right in front of the State of the Union to make Brandon look better, and it certainly isn’t helping him either. I’m sure he was hoping to see $70 oil and brag about how he’s fixing oil. But no, I mean, in the end, commodities are very simple. It’s supply and demand. And if you use one or two million barrels a day more than you produce, and then you go to the world’s second largest producer and make it possible for them to sell oil, what do you think is going to happen to oil? It’s going to go absolutely crazy. And it’s going absolutely crazy. I think we’re super early in this.

Harris Kupperman: I think this is very much like March, February of 2020, when everyone’s watching this virus thing going around China and everyone was saying, “Meh, won’t come to America. Who cares?” And the stock market kind of went up and then you had that first day where the stock market got a little wobbly, and I just tossed everything I had. I had been trying to sell stuff and I just hit bids. And I just knew it was going to get bad. This is like the first day in oil where everyone starts panicking. I mean you remember, there’s a lot of guys in transport in shipping, in airlines that all need oil. And they’re all going to go out there and panic and start hedging oil at 200, and that’s what sends it to 500 or whatever the crazy number is. So, no, I think we’re super early in this, and it’s good to be validated, though, as right.

Frank Curzio: It feels good. Right?

Harris Kupperman: It feels great,

Frank Curzio: But you’re one of the guys too that I’ve see you, even when you make mistakes, you’re like, “Hey, I was wrong on this.” If it was shipping or whatever, because a lot in our industry we only see people just, they love patting themselves in the back. Right? But we learn the most by the mistakes, right? And going forward. But this one you absolutely nailed, and just to see how bullish you are, I was going to say, throw out a number because everyone loves those type of things, right? “What’s the prediction? What’s the number? Where’s Bitcoin going?” But you did say 200 to possibly 500, which I don’t even think 200’s on the table for most people. I’ve heard that very, very rare, a few of those forecasts. But let’s talk about the policies, which love on your blog, and if you listen to me, I’m trying to get kicked off of Twitter. I just can’t get kicked off yet. I don’t know why. I’m just so sick of Twitter.

Frank Curzio: But I love what I love listening to guys like you and reading your stuff. But you’re looking at policy and you kind of make a joke out of it, but as you’re making a joke about how ridiculous about climate change over the top or whatever, you seem to be able to position yourself to take advantage of that. Could you explain that process? Because now, it’s not just oil. I mean, people aren’t unaware of coal. I mean, everybody’s going back to coal. What happened? Coal was the enemy, so much that people are looking at nuclear going, “Wow uranium looks pretty cool right now.” Now, you’re seeing uranium start to take off. But I mean, there’s a lot of things that are impacted here, just what’s going on with the market. But how do you figure that stuff out, and putting your emotions aside? Because everyone has emotions about politics these days, but yet you seem to use it to make money for yourself.

Harris Kupperman: Well, let’s take a step back a bit. 20 years ago, when I started this game, I did one thing and I did it really well. I found little tiny companies that were growing really fast and I bought them for less than five times earnings. It was the trick to making money. It just kept making money for me. You buy something growing fast at five times earnings, you make money. And ever since the great financial crisis, governments have started to directly intervene in the market, in the free market. And I mean, they always have, but they got more aggressive. And after COVID, they’ve basically just strangled the free market and made up their own rules, and they just keep making rules every week. And the thing I know about politicians is that they have a two-year election cycle, and as an investor, as long as I have a different timeline from them, I’m bound to make money because they don’t care about cause and effect if it’s after the election.

Harris Kupperman: And so, as long as I’m willing to hold something for a couple quarters past the election, and I can understand cause and effect through a free market lens, I’m going to make a lot of money. And I think the best thing I do to make money, I have a couple friends, we go out to beer, we make fun of the politicians. And this isn’t a poke at the current guy. We make fun of everyone on both sides. I hate them all equal. I don’t take sides in this. I’m independent. But we just make fun of the policy decisions, because all policy decisions always have winners and losers, cause and effect. And if you just sit around over a beer, you’ll figure out first order effect, second order effect, third order effect. And then you go home that next morning and you try to figure out how to play it.

Harris Kupperman: And if they make it impossible to produce oil in the United States, if they go out there and they cancel pipelines and cancel drilling permits, and make it carbon tax and talk about excess profits tax now, well who’s going to drill for oil? The price of oil’s going to go up. And you can see this in almost every aspects of policy. And so, we just sit around and that’s the starting point. Like I said, I used to read publications looking for cheap stocks. I used to read shareholder letters and write-ups, and now I just watch the news and laugh at these idiots.

Frank Curzio: It’s funny you say. I’ve been doing this for close to 30 years, small caps, and it’s funny how the market changed with SPACs, right? To me, it’s hilarious. I feel bad for retail investors with SPACs. I mean, they get so murdered and we’re seeing that now. But just that company that was privately traded… Oh, go ahead.

Harris Kupperman: Oh, I was going to say they just kind of deserve it. I mean, if you don’t do your work, you deserve to get used. I mean, Wall Street exists to separate retail from their money. And if you show up, it’s like showing up in the ring against Tyson in his prime. And you’ve got your Robinhood account and he’s going to pound you. And you should expect that. Well, what’s interesting is that for about a year, for the first time in my life, retail actually seemed to have the upper hand against the pros, and the pros got ran over shorting worthless stocks. In retail they kind of felt their oats and they pressed a little harder, and then the law of the jungle reasserted itself.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. It did, in a very powerful way. Absolutely. So, one of the things that I think we see, we talked about uranium. Uranium’s been a trade that you’ve been on for a while. I have heavy investments in your uranium. Haven’t been in too long, probably about three, four years, which in this market that’s like 10 decades, right? I mean, nobody holds stuff long term anymore. But you know what I mean? But I’ve been in it for a few years. We’re seeing uranium stocks really take off, and did pretty well in November, then pull back. And now, you’re seeing the rebound.

Frank Curzio: But let’s talk about uranium, the commodity, not really the stocks first, because what we’re seeing right now with natural gas prices, what we’re seeing in terms of oil prices going through the roof, people are pointing to different measures of what we could use, but it seems uranium is the obvious choice. We’re seeing prices rise. There’s already been a supply demand imbalance. What are your thoughts on uranium here? Because you were right on oil and you can claim victory on that, and you’ll claim even more victory if it goes higher. I feel like we’re still in the very early stages of this rally in uranium. Am I right or wrong?

Harris Kupperman: Oh yeah. Yeah. Uranium’s just starting. I got into uranium last summer when they first listed this fraud entity, and I just realized that it was going to Pac Man all the physical supply. It reminded me a lot of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust where every day it issued shares to buy more Bitcoin and eventually it kind of constricted the free flow, and then it started marking the price up. And then when the price goes up, retail always chases it, and then they issue more shares, the price goes up, they issue more shares, the price goes up. And I see a very similar thing with what’s happening with Sprott. And it took some time. There’s a lot of, I guess more than I thought, inventory. It had to chew through that. It’s chewed through about 30 million pounds now. And suddenly, it’s starting to hopefully run out of warehouse space where there’s not a lot of free pounds out there.

Harris Kupperman: And once you get rid of the free pounds, the next marginal pound is going to be a lot more expensive, but it’s going to be very reflexive just like with Bitcoin because that next marginal pound, it’s going to come at a much higher price. And when something starts going up, retail starts chasing it. There was a period of time where Sprott wasn’t issuing any shares. Some days it issued a couple hundred grand, maybe a million dollars. I mean, we’ve had two days in a row where it’s done 30, 40. I mean, it starts doing that, it’s going to clear all the uranium. And it has a simple mechanism: Issue shares by uranium. And so, it’s not price sensitive. It just has to buy it. That’s the way the document is written.

Harris Kupperman: And so if it takes in money, it’s going to buy uranium. And I think it’s just going to be this giant whale just consuming all the world’s uranium. Meanwhile, the utility’s going to stare on and watch in shock. I think what happened with Russia that was really important, and I don’t think people appreciate this. Russia is one of the world’s large producers of uranium, but just as importantly, Russia is one of the largest enrichers of uranium. And if you can’t enrich your uranium, it’s worthless. And so there’s going to be a shortage of enrichment capacity, and it’s called separate of work units. And if there’s a shortage, the price of separate of work units, SWU, goes higher. And they’ve had this thing called underfeeding for a very long time where… And I don’t want to get into the math of it, but basically excess uranium is produced, and they’ve been selling that into the secondary mark and that’s been holding down the price.

Harris Kupperman: Suddenly, if you start overfeeding, which is because it’s a calculation ratio based on the price of physical uranium and the price of SWU. If SWU spikes, because there’s a shortage of SWU in Western countries, then they’re going to start overfeeding. And what that’s going to do is it’s going to pull millions and millions of pounds of annual supply off the market. What it’s also going to do is that a lot of these enrichment facilities pre-sold a lot of this uranium. So, think of them as being short. If SWU spikes, suddenly they’re going to produce less uranium, and they’re effectively shorting uranium, they’re going to have to be the open market buying uranium. It just adds another buyer. I think people are also going to worry about what’s happening in Kazakhstan. Kazatomprom is the world’s largest producer. They have already said they want no part of this war that Putin’s doing, but countries have a way of getting dragged into stuff sometimes.

Harris Kupperman: And Kazakhstan sells a lot of their uranium directly to Russia for enrichment. So, a lot of these supply chains are going to break down, and I think if you’re a Western utility, you’re going to start worrying about where your uranium comes from. And you’re going to say, “I have two years of inventory on hand, maybe I should have five.” And it’s going to send people into the spot market, into the term market. I think you’re just going to see this catalyst that’s going to get a lot more incremental buying. And that’s at a time when Sprott’s just chomping away at it. So, I think the price of uranium is about to go absolutely crazy. You have this reflexive thing with Sprott, plus you have this supply interruption, and I think it’s just going to be great. I’m bullish. I have a max position in this. Sprott physical uranium is my biggest position right now.

Frank Curzio: I was going to say, how are you going to play this? I mean, are we going to see pre-Fukushima price, you think? Which is-

Harris Kupperman: Oh yeah.

Frank Curzio: What are we talking about?

Harris Kupperman: Oh no, I think this goes to a crazy price. I mean, whereas oil at some price level, you stop consuming as much. You find deficiencies, you consume less, there’s some switching you could do for energy sources. You drive less, whatever it is. With uranium, you have a five, $10 billion power plant and the uranium’s one, two percent of the cost of operating the plant. You literally don’t care because you pass it consumers anyway. It just goes into the rates that you charge. So, they don’t care what price they pay. They just don’t want to run out. And I think there’s going to be a real risk that some of them run out, and as a result, I think they’re going to panic. I mean, I don’t think they’ll actually run out, but I think just the fear of running out forces them to panic.

Harris Kupperman: And once again, it’s very reflexive. Let’s say you have two years of inventory, and you decide you want to have an extra two years of inventory. So, you go out and you start trying to buy tens of millions of pounds. Well then, your utility buddies, they realize that you’re out there trying buy the spare pounds, and they try to front run you. And it just kind of overshoots, which is what happened last time. And I think a similar thing will happen. I think there is no price. Theoretically, it can go to almost any price. I don’t think it’s going to go you crazy, crazy, but couple hundred. I don’t know. I think it’s going to be a great trade. It’s a great deal.

Frank Curzio: I like that. I never thought of it that way too. I mean I knew accounted for such a small cost, easy pass off, but just seeing the front running part of it and I know a lot of electricity do not have that supply, right? And we’re wondering why they were waiting so long at 30, $35 a pound. Now, it’s pushing in 50, a 10-year high, but I guess prices as they go that’s when everybody wants to buy, buy, buy, buy. So, it will be interesting to see. Now you say you’re playing this through Sprott. Is there any other ways that you’re playing it? Would you recommend stocks? I mean UEC, uranium royalties, Cameco or anything like that? Or is it just that’s the best way that you’re playing it?

Harris Kupperman: So, I don’t recommend anything, but I’ll tell you that I own some Kazatomprom, and it’s the world’s largest producer. It’s one of the lowest cost producers. It’s unusually cheap, cashflow, dividend, everything else. If you plug 50 uranium in, it’s probably a double digit dividend yield. You inherit some geopolitical risk, you inherit corporate governance risk. Kazakhstan just had a revolution and my stock is down by half from the peak. But I’ve bought a lot more here in the low 30s, high 20s, and I have quite a lot of it. And it’s a top five position for me as well. That’s the other way I’m playing it. I want to play producers. I want to avoid geology. I just want to focus on cashflow.

Frank Curzio: No, definitely makes sense. Definitely makes sense. Which is hard to do when it comes to those stocks. Right? So, outside of commodities, right? We basically spoke about commodities. Is there anything else that you’re seeing early stage, and not that you got to give anything away that people pay for, and we’ll get to your newsletter in a second, is there anything else that has you excited right now? Because we are hearing in the uranium story out there, anyone who has a Twitter account that and folks on the markets, you’re seeing energy, oil, right? I get aluminum, platinum, palladium, but anything outside of that’s exciting you that maybe somebody’s not talking about. I know that’s kind of a tough question, but yeah let me try to pick your mind a little bit.

Harris Kupperman: So, let’s be contrarian here. What’s the most contrarian thing you could do today in the market?

Frank Curzio: Sell oil.

Harris Kupperman: I think you should go buy some Russian equities. Go buy Russian equities. If your broker will let you. I mean, it’s pretty much assured that they’ll halt trading in the next couple days. I mean, by the time people watch this they may have already been halted. Like SpareBank, my broker won’t let me buy anymore. These things are all down 90, 95%. They’re great businesses. They’re super profitable businesses. They’re dominant businesses. They have a lot of energy, commodity. It’s exposed to an export commodity economy, and commodity prices are going crazy. What do you think their profitability’s going to do? The ruble’s collapsed, their costs have collapse and their profits have exploded. I don’t think Putin’s going to nationalize the asset, though anything’s on the table. So, you use money you can lose, but these things are down 95%.

Harris Kupperman: I got a good feeling that they’re going to be halted. It’s going to sit in your brokerage account for a couple months, maybe a couple quarters, maybe even a couple years. But these companies themselves, I mean, investing is just about owning part of a company. The companies themselves are going to keep producing profits. They’re going to pay dividends. Maybe as Americans, I won’t get any dividends, but good things will happen. I mean, Putin’s no dummy. He halted the stock market in Russia for a couple days. They can’t trade it. In the US, the prices collapsed. In the UK, where there’s a bunch of GDRs, the prices collapsed. He just announced today that, I think it’s the state pension fund and some other government entities, they’ll be there to stabilize the market, stabilize the market when trading reopens. It’s brilliant because he’s going to basically buy back all the shares that all the pension funds, all the ESG guys, all the ETFs, all these US entities that suddenly can’t own Russia because of career risk or political risk, they’re all going to sell.

Harris Kupperman: I mean, if you were to nationalize the foreigner’s ownership, he’d be in court for the next 20 years over that. Here, all these guys are going to plaster the bid at five cents on the dollar. And these companies were really cheap to begin with. So yeah, I think over the next couple days the stocks will halt, and you got to use money that you expect to lose. But I don’t think there’s anything more contrarian than buying Russian assets. Lukoil, SpareBank the fertilizer company, I don’t know. I got a basket of these things. Gazprom. Buy the big ones, buy the famous ones. Those are the ones that they probably don’t mettle with. I just think it’s going to turn out okay. And if it does, I think it’s five, 10, 20 bagger. And if it doesn’t, well, I didn’t need that money anyway.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. I was trying to bring up a chart of the ruble because every single time this happens, right? It’s funny because you’re saying, “Well, the currency. Russian currency is down 25, 30%.” It’s the same playbook when they took over Crimea in 2014 and Georgia, they knew exactly what was going to happen. Right? So, it’s like, the playbook is there and they say, okay, all these sanctions are going to come in. When our currency crashes, then this is what we’re going to do.” But it just seems ahead of the curve, not to the point that I’m praising them, right? Because again, people are dying and war and stuff like that. But it’s amazing how ahead of the curve they are compared to a lot of people running the show over here, where some of this stuff was pretty easy to see what they’re doing.

Frank Curzio: They’re definitely taken advantage, with oil prices going through the roof. Right? Which is funny. You’re putting sanctions on that raise the price of oil and they’re one of the largest oil producers in the world. I don’t know. And hurting everybody else. Anyway, we won’t go there. You can have fun with that. I know you love having fun with it on Twitter. I want to talk about your newsletter. And I think it was probably last time I had you on, I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this, but it was a newsletter when I was like, “Man, you better be charging a lot of money for that,” because it’s an idea generation newsletter. And I want to say it’s over like… How many pages is it?

Harris Kupperman: It’s usually over a hundred pages.

Frank Curzio: Over a hundred pages, and it’s called Kuppy’s Event-Driven Monitor. I’m going to bring it up here. Talk about it because it’s getting a lot of traction, and this is something that I love. I’m interested. I read it. And this is pretty cool, but talk about this because I know you’re excited about it.

Harris Kupperman: So yeah. Click the cavum there. So about a half ago, I realized I’ve been trading event-driven strategies for my whole career, and I realized I was missing stuff. And I thought I was missing five, 10% of the opportunities. And I had my analyst start building a giant database to keep track of stuff, it was an Excel spreadsheet at the time. And what we learned very fast is I thought I was missing five or 10%, and in reality, I was only getting five or 10%, and I was just leaving tens of millions of dollars a year on the table. And so, we built this thing. It started as an Excel spreadsheet. Eventually, a lot of my friends asked for it. We started emailing the spreadsheet. There were 200 people on the spreadsheet within a month on the distribution list.

Harris Kupperman: And then, my analyst said that, “I can’t cover it all. There’s just too much here.” Because a lot of this stuff, you want to track IPOs, there’s a place you can get IPO data. But if you want CEO turnover, you want privatizations, you want cluster insider buy, contingent value rights, there’s no service that tracks any of this stuff. And we had to do it manually. And so, we hired some people, which got kind of expense, and I decided that we’d charge for it and we’d basically crowd fund my research function. And so that’s what happened. We put the paywall down in June of last year, and it’s been growing quite rapidly in terms of total readers.

Harris Kupperman: I think it’s great. I just want the data myself. I don’t even care if it makes a profit or not. But as the readership keeps growing, we keep adding more data sets and we’re always looking to add and remove data sets. But effectively what we’re tracking about 25 event-driven strategies, and just getting the data means you’re not going to miss it. You know, “Hey, this is happening this week. This is happening next week.”

Harris Kupperman: The first couple pages usually are some commentary by myself on geopolitics or trade ideas or just what I’m seeing in the world. And then following that is a list of all the cliff notes, we call it, which is all the interesting stuff happening. And we try to basically make this easy so you don’t have to go through a hundred pages of it. We do that for you. But anyway, if you’re an active trader, go to kedm.com and give it a try. There’s a four-week free trial. And I actually think that once you do it, you’ll never go back. I can’t imagine not having this. And like I said, I built this because I wanted the data. And I’ve absolutely made a fortune since I started using the data. We’ve had multiple five and 10 baggers flagged through it.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. What I love about this, I remember when you first launched it, I’m like, “Man, hopefully, you’re going to charge a lot for this.” Because not only is there a lot of data, but you make it pretty simple. You make it simple where when people say, “Data and driven events,” but I don’t know the way if it’s written or just the charts, it’s an idea generation newsletter where you could see buybacks, just everything going on, like the IPOs and spinoffs or whatever it is.

Frank Curzio: But it’s very easy to find these things where anyone could, and from someone that’s a data person that doesn’t happen often. Usually, the stuff I love nobody else likes, and stuff you love nobody else, because it’s really detailed and you get into it. But this is something I think that’s appealing to a lot of people and I definitely want to give you time to talk about it because I really like the product. So once again, guys, Kuppy’s Event-Driven Monitor, KEDM if you want to. And if people want to learn more about you, I mean Adventure In Capitalism, I guess. And why don’t you tell us also your Twitter handle.

Harris Kupperman: So yeah, Adventures In Capitalism, that’s where I write some comments on stuff. I’s free, so you get what you pay for. It’s a collection of trade ideas and macro and some vacation picks. And then my Twitter handle is @HKuppy. Only sign up if you like getting offended.

Frank Curzio: Yeah. You know what I was going to say? It’s the only site everybody I have on that you don’t have a picture of you from 20 years ago that you’re really young. Everyone I see, it’s the first thing I make fun. I’m like, “Come on, man. They see you and then they see that picture when I put it up.” But you don’t have even have a picture there, which is cool. So, you don’t need it. And your Twitter handle, once again?

Harris Kupperman: @HKuppy. And I tweet dumb stuff. I don’t know. Trading is you sit at home, or there’s a couple people in my office, and it’s nice to reach out to the wider world. So, I just throw stuff out there.

Frank Curzio: And it’s entertaining. And man, seriously, you build up an incredible following. Your deserve it. So, it really is cool.

Harris Kupperman: Thanks.

Frank Curzio: So good for you. All right. I want to say thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate you sharing ideas. I love having you on. I like to offer the newsletter too to a lot of our people, which I’m always interested in passing on great stuff to my file and my people listen to me. And this is one of the things I don’t do that often just to say that Kuppy. I don’t really pass a lot of things often.

Harris Kupperman: I appreciate it.

Frank Curzio: This is something that’s really cool, I think could benefit investors. So, we’ll see if that people are interested. But thank you so much for coming on. Hopefully you join us again. If you need anything, just give me a shout because you’ve done plenty for me. So yeah, in terms of coming on the show and taking you the time I can do the same. If you need anything please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Harris Kupperman: Hey, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on. I enjoy coming on. This is fun.

Frank Curzio: All right man, take care.

Frank Curzio: Wall Street exists to separate retail from their money. What a line, and how correct that is. I always tell you, I’ve said it numerous times when I describe it, I say that Wall Street, they will take everything for you. If you’re lying there naked in the street with just one sock on, they will rip the sock off and leave you there for dead. That’s Wall Street. That’s who you’re playing against. And they don’t lose. Very, very rare. There’s rare periods, the meme stocks that Kuppy talked about that you guys know about. Put a couple hedge funds out of business and they’re shortening garbage and these guys made that garbage go up, the Reddit crowd. You’re not hearing much about the Reddit crowd today. A lot of people aren’t trading anymore, leverage coming out of the market, bullshit stocks no longer going up that have five million in sales and 10 billion valuations, especially you a lot of SPACs. It’s a different market right now.

Frank Curzio: Love having Kuppy on, really, really great stuff. Love his analysis on uranium, how price can go parabolic from here, and just explaining that for me. Look, I love doing these interviews because I’m always learning. I’m always learning from people. And I went back and look at videos and I do a ton of research. If I could say, if you are a young investor and you’re going into a meeting or you want on a job and interview, whatever, do the research. Do the research on the company, do the research on the people. If you do interviews, do the research on the person that you’re going to interview, know everything, everything that they’ve written, everything that they spoke about over the last six months. I mean, I follow Kuppy so I know everything he’s talking about, even on Twitter and things like that, but just go to certain videos and him explaining his thesis.

Frank Curzio: And one thing that he said, and I went to a video and this is about seven, eight months ago. And I do this with every single interview. I’m very prepared. That’s why people love coming on because they’re like, “Holy shit. You know so much about me.” And for me I’m like, “That’s my job. I’m supposed to know a lot about you. Right?” But I’m fascinated because I want to learn. I want to learn. And that’s how you become better investor, especially listening to people who have other opinions than you, which is great. Because I didn’t like that oil trade. I wasn’t too crazy about that oil trade when he mentioned it, and it was longer than six months ago. I was like, “Man, I think you’re just a little early to this.” He turned out to be dead on. Right? And he made people a lot of money who listened to him.

Frank Curzio: But when I look at Kuppy and just his style of investing and how he finds new ideas, and even through his newsletter, the KEDM newsletter, it is pretty incredible. And I’m really happy for a success. I love his analysis and how he breaks things down. And again, from someone that’s been this industry for a long time and me doing the research on him, including going back nine months ago and watching a video that he did. And I think it was another podcast, and him breaking down why oil should go higher, and it was simple, and it made sense because he’s like, “Look, when we started fracking, whatever 2011, then seven, eight years ago, when we hit a hundred dollars a barrel, we came off a hundred dollars a barrel.” But when you’re looking at inflation, just inflation adjusted, he’s like “This should be going to 150. Without war, without anything just inflation adjusted, it should be at 150.”

Frank Curzio: He was talking about this when it was at 40, 50. And that made sense to me. He’s like, “You had the whole shale revolution. Yes, and now, we’re at that next stage.” He’s like, “If you account for inflation, we should be at 150.” And he was saying that nine months ago, and now look at everything that happened to really push oil prices higher. But I love listening to people who have other opinions than me and he did, when it came energy. I know he follows me as well on Twitter. But that’s the respect we have. We all want to try to get it right, and to get it right, for me, I want to listen to many smart people as I can. He’s one of the smartest. I enjoy the conversation.

Frank Curzio: He’s going to be in Miami and going to meet up with him. And he’s also talked about going to Buffet’s annual event that he is going to be there and hang out with a couple of his friends. So, I might meet up with him in person, hang out, take some videos and have some fun on TikTok, YouTube videos, and stuff like that. But just great having him on, really, really great. About his newsletter, he got to change that name, KEDM. That’s okay. But I’m going to work out a deal to get you a special price on this letter, and the only reason why I’m saying that because it is a hundred pages and you’re going to think you’re going to get overwhelmed, but it has certain screens in it that you’re not going to see any place else. And these screens highlight symbols and stocks. It reminds me of like a briefing.com, which I tell everyone.

Frank Curzio: Again, I don’t get paid for briefing.com. Remember buying it, it was $200 a year. Now, I think it’s like six, $700 a year. It’s probably going to be even more. It just provides all this information, and what you want to do is have a cliff note version of finding ideas. That’s what you want. Kramer wanted it. Every great analyst wants it. Hedge fund guys will pay 40,000 to $100,000 for a new idea, which is nothing to them. They will. I’ve seen them pay it before. So, you need one good idea. But how do you get those ideas? It’s being able have access to the right sources, the right people. And this podcast is one source. So, having newsletters and me have access and doing this for such a long time and building up a network, but this is different screens, different places.

Frank Curzio: And for the ideas that I’m seeing on this, you’re not really going to see every place else. And it’s just like companies hated Stock Monitor and stuff. And how they’re just now, it’s a hundred million buyback last week. So this is a really cool newsletter. Don’t get it yet. It’s expensive, and I told him when he asked me about it, he said, “What do you think of this? I’m thinking about giving it away for free.” I said don’t. I said, “You could charge a fortune for this. And I think you easily could get thousands and thousands dollars for it.” Sure enough he did that. And now that newsletter is doing well, and I think he generated over a million dollars on that newsletter. There’s a reason why. People subscribe. They continue to subscribe.

Frank Curzio: So, I’m going to work out a deal with him because I spoke with him before we did that interview about an hour earlier, a half an hour earlier. And I want to work out a deal because this is a product that I really like that I think you are going to like, and it’s going to compliment everything that you do. And I’m sure he has money back guarantee or whatever. So, if you’re like, “Frank is full shit,” or whatever you get your money back. But really, my job is to bring good people in front of you, good products in front of you. I don’t often sell other people’s products. I don’t do affiliate deals because a lot of shit that people are talking about, I feel like I was talking about nine months ago, a year ago, two years ago, and I’m not going to put crap in front of you.

Frank Curzio: This isn’t crap. This is really good. And I think it’s something that you can definitely benefit from. So, if you’re going to buy it, don’t do it. Next week, we’ll talk about it and I’ll mention it on the podcast and see what price they can provide and hopefully a discount to Curzio Research followers, listeners, and things like that, because that’s what I want to do, provide you guys a great research at as cheap as price possible so we can all benefit from those ideas. So, thanks so much to Kuppy coming on. I love that interview, but let me know what you thought, right? This podcast is about you. It’s not about me. I say it all the time. It’s about you. Anyway. Let know what you thought, frank@curzioresearch.com. It’s frank@curzioresearch.com. Really appreciate all the support. All the emails.

Frank Curzio: I know it’s a crazy market. I know you’re nervous right now, but there are things that are working, which we covered this week. There are things that are working and some of those things we are into within our newsletter. So, that’s what I’m happy about when you’re seeing the rest of the market really get crushed. At least you diversified in Bitcoin, in gold, in uranium, in different things that we’ve been talking about, which is really, really cool. And again, it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be volatile. It’s going to be crazy. We’re going to be here for you. Again, questions, comments, feel free to email me anytime. And guys, I’ll talk to you next week. Take care.

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 guest. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money and your responsibility.