Wall Street Unplugged
Episode: 1180October 2, 2024

What the U.S. port strike means for the economy

Inside this episode:
  • A remarkable experience talking with our investors [1:10]
  • The VP debate brought back old-school politics [8:06]
  • Why didn’t moderators ask about these topics? [9:41]
  • What run-away deficits mean for the market [15:50]
  • Breaking down the U.S. port strike [17:37]
  • Two catalysts poised to send stocks higher [32:47]
  • Is Nike a buy after its disastrous earnings? [34:19]
  • Will the China rally last? [39:46]
  • RIP John Amos, Dikembe Mutombo, and Pete Rose [52:09]
  • Why all brands should speak directly to investors [55:23]
Transcript

Wall Street Unplugged | 1180

What the U.S. port strike means for the economy

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

How’s it going out there? It’s October 2nd. I’m Frank Curzio. This is Wall Street Unplugged. I bring you the headlines and Tell you what’s really moving these markets. So today I have Daniel Creech here to talk about stocks, debate, politics, China man a lot going on right now, considering that it’s in the middle of earnings season, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. But, Daniel, how’s it going? I know you spent some time with your family this week. It’s good.

0:00:46 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, got some family in town. My parents are down here staying on the beach. They dodged the. It was crazy, I mean, man. Prayers to everybody in the path of the storm, not only from Florida but all the way up the Midwest. There’s a few routes, you know. You can take different routes to get to different places. And I said, hey, you guys go east and then come straight down. Well, thank goodness they did that, because you literally can’t get here from a couple of the other routes, so that storm has just wreaked havoc. But, um, yeah, they’re, they’re enjoying the beach and uh, so I’ve worked from home.

0:01:15 – Frank Curzio

You know everybody’s rolling their eyes on that, but it’s good to know you you it is. Everyone is coming in for our capital raise. We’re raising $5 million for our company, seeing lots of growth. I spoke about this on Fast Podcasts and it’s been good, so you know. If you want details, frank@curzioresearch.com, we’re paying a 10% dividend with the option to convert it back into our token, which is an equity stake in our company, which trades on T0.

But when people email me, they’ll send them all the documents and then I have a link that sets up about 15, 20 minute phone call. If anyone wants to do one-on-one has questions. And those phone calls I have to tell you, especially this round. I did this when people came into some of our newsletters when we were selling newsletters and said, hey, you get a 10-minute phone call with me and I really like the hands-on approach because the network man I’m starting to really get to know a lot of you and it’s remarkable, especially with this round where people are coming in. I have to say 95% of people I talk to come in. They ask great questions about everything about dilution, fundamentals, what are the growth plans for the company, every single question. And it’s not a sales call If you say, well, I don’t want to do it. I’m like, okay, right, we’ve seen strong demand well over 2 million. I think we started really officially like in two weeks ago. But the people, Daniel, I have to say.

One of them helped build data centers for the hyperscalers. Another one works at Oracle. Another one works at AWS, higher up in Amazon’s division. Another is a software guy, mathematician, who’s into trends and big crypto investor. He’s in his 60s man, just the people that I’m meeting. Someone owns their own construction company in South Florida. Another one owns his own shipping company in Hong Kong. How important is that? Right, we’re going to talk about the strike in a little while, just to see what’s going on and getting the inside scoop. Another is Energy Trader, one of the biggest sell-side firms. Just people who sold their company and then their wife will come in and say hi because they feel like you know, it’s just.

You know the personal experience is great, but just the network is amazing and when I get off the phone with them, if you see anything within your industries, I’m not looking for inside information, but they see things first, before anyone else. That’s what you need real-time information, because in this market, everything is lagging. You see the data points on jobs always getting revised. But you know, we’re seeing lots of things and that’s how I report to you on this podcast is what I’m hearing. It’s not a bias, it’s not, like you know, by. You know the hundreds of thousands of people that listen to podcasts. You times it by, goes up to 125 countries and man it’s. You know the network and the hands-on is really really cool and getting to know you know some of these people investing in my company and just subscribers is really amazing. So you know, if you’re still interested in that guys, it’s still open.

I’m going to start going. I’m probably going to go to T-Zero, start going to a lot of bigger fish outside our list. But if you’re interested, you need to be a credit investor. It’s a $25,000 minimum. Everything is very straight up, straightforward.

I’m going to talk about our business, Curzio Research, which is doing very, very well right now. We’re growing, not, no worries, it’s perfectly fine. I just want to make sure because the terms are really good. I came in a hundred thousand dollars into this round and I’m a 60% or already. And people are like did you do it? At check off a box, I said no, I’d like the dividend. The dividend is really nice, which you’re paying annually and it’s a cash dividend. But if you’re interested, give me a shout. If not, it’s good terms. I want everyone to participate in the growth of the company, especially since we’re at the very early stages here.

If this does work out right, it’s going to result in it could be life-changing for you. If I do my job and things go right, of course, if I walk out, my name’s on the door, if I get hit by a tree, a tree falls on me, whatever, of course, there I’m going to highlight the risks as well. But if you’re interested, yeah, definitely give me a shout. It’s really good terms. If not, no worries. But I just want to make sure everyone has the option to see it. With that said, a lot going on, and yesterday was big news with the debate, right, what did you think of the debate? I mean, everyone has their comments and everything. I watched the whole thing. I was very entertained.

0:05:26 – Daniel Creech

I didn’t catch the whole thing. I was impressed. I thought both of them did very good. I thought I was talking to my parents and they were asking me some questions. And listen, this is all very scripted and I’m not saying what I’m about to say doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or bad. So when I say this, I’m not, I’m not taking a shot at them, I’m just trying to dumb this down to my level here. You know, politics is much like WWE. It’s very scripted. Everybody has their talking points. You want to get across, you know, stick it to the other guy. The difference here is the WWE champion of the world doesn’t impact everybody’s Florida lives like the president and vice president does. Okay, so that’s that’s why you ought to pay attention.

But quickly, I thought both of them did very well. Um, I think Vance is a better speaker. I thought he handled himself better on the debate scale or stage than Waltz did. But I don’t think Waltz did terrible. He had the one bad comment where they were talking about school shootings and guns and stuff and he says oh, I’ve made friends with school shooters. I’m pretty sure he meant victims and things like that. But if no offense, if that’s your big old crap moment or hey, I put my foot in my mouth, which is going to happen. You and I know anytime you speak a lot, just like on these podcasts or wherever that kind of stuff happens. So I didn’t think there was any. I didn’t listen to the closing statements, so those you know. I should have done that. But overall I thought it was very good. I thought each one of them did good. They made their own talking points that they needed to.

My big thing is for the consumers and the voters out there. I just hope that they’re paying attention from an economical standpoint. So you can always argue facts and figures and say, oh well, inflation was 2% or 1.7 or whatever. That’s not what I want to talk about. What I think hits people well is what we’ve seen post COVID and the injection of money and stuff is, I hope, when people listen to policies, whether on Trump and Vance or Harrison Waltz. I hope you understand by now what those impacts would be. So when they talk about putting $25,000 into everybody’s pockets or and he Waltz tried to walk that back and say, well, it’s not the down payment, we get it back in interest and all that the point is is that COVID should have taught you hey, when you give money directly to a segment or a group of people for a certain thing in COVID’s case, everybody for everything you’re going to have inflation.

So if you think housing prices are going to go down because you encourage more people to buy housing with less money out of their own pocket, I just agree to disagree and I thought that there were some fundamental takeaways for people to at least think about. Like, hey, all right, forget, if you’re listening to Vance or Waltz, don’t take them at face value. But, like what they said, I’m hoping, on the economy and people are thinking, hey, prices are high across the board. Will that actually work? Because COVID taught us a lot about what will and won’t work and I think there was a lot to take away there. But I thought overall, both of them did fine. Frank, what about you?

0:08:07 – Frank Curzio

You know, what I really respected is it went back to old school politics where you had two people that had difference of opinion. They didn’t hate each other and afterwards they shook hands and actually introduced their wives to each other, and that’s the way politics always used to be. It was never this. I hate your guts if you don’t agree with me. Shit, whether it is right now, which is horrible, and when I see the debate, I hate the fact. You know, I thought the moderators were terrible.

Again, I think CBS, you know, in terms of fact checking, I love the fact that Vance actually came back about Springfield and calling out and they were like you know, made it a point to say, well, you know, there’s no, he was talking about the legal immigrants there and said, well, not all of them, but but yet they provide a very easy policy and visas in order for him to get visas. And he called them out and they actually muted him when he was talking about. So you had someone fact check them. No, one really fact check on the other side. Again, it would be nice if the democrats went on a platform that was non-biased. Uh, I don’t know if they’ll ever do that, which really sucks and and I hate that part of it because you saw it but I thought Vance did a fantastic job. I think he won the debate. Waltz did very well. I didn’t think he did terribly. He was nervous at the beginning but I found it as Waltz isn’t a guy that you could hate. I don’t think Vance is a guy that you would hate after you walk away there, and I see that differently with the people that they’re representing, presenting running for president, where you know I think Vance did a great job of what Trump didn’t do to really explain that.

We have two track records here. And when I see the bias of what they’re asking and piss me off because there’s topics that and it’s a list that everyone knows on both Democrats and Republicans, of the biggest concerns and what we care about. Okay, right now, the biggest things are the economy, it’s immigration, it’s not really climate change. That’s low down the list, that’s like the 10th ranked. But when you’re asking questions about building new homes for people, childcare expenses, no one gives a shit about that right now. Okay, yes, there are concerns. I’m not downplaying that, but you know what? It would have been really, really nice if you asked, because it’s a really big fucking deal Can’t do that.

Or how about ask about Ukraine? How much money is going to go to Ukraine before you say enough? Because it’s like this black hole that we just keep spending and spending and spending. You got Zelensky Zelensky’s in Pennsylvania lobbying for the Democrats and he’s saying he said we’re so happy to sign a deal with Pennsylvania. What are you fucking talking about? How is that allowed? I, united States of America, not with Pennsylvania. That’s a battleground state. Why are you there? You know, we know why you’re there. So when I see this, it really pisses me off. I just went.

They wish that they had a platform that was non-biased, that asked real questions. I like the fact that they really got into policy. You can see the difference between both of them and again, I thought it was. I thought it was a good debate. Both of them respected each other, which is nice, and that’s the way it used to be.

It used to be like that in all politics. When I remember who was it Not Bernanke, but who was the old school Fed chairman, greenspan, greenspan, greenspan used to say you know your dad. When they used to like, just that’s when it really started. They started going after him. Politicians, grandstandings, like you know. I remember your father used to be nicer to me, but he’s on 60 Minutes and saying you know what? We would yell at each other and afterwards we’d go to the bar and have a drink. He’s like now these people really hate each other and you see that where they try to influence a hate on everybody else and it sucks. I love the fact. One of the biggest things that influences me and this is why I’m a registered Republican which is I would never tell anyone who’s a Democrat not to vote or try to change your mind or whatever. But I thought, you know, we really saw something that we’ve never seen in terms of you know, in our country’s history, suppression and even during COVID.

I was reporting with not trying to gain subscribers, but I had very, very important information before Johns Hopkins was even reporting their stuff right Before they put on all the statistics and everything and just from interviewing people on lockdown and leading doctors were listening to this podcast I mean, our numbers went up tremendously for our podcast. I was listening because we had access to data that I felt like it wasn’t being brought public and then, all of a sudden, a lot of the doctors were telling me you know what? You can’t use my name, don’t say anything. I’m like what do you? I want to source you, I don’t want to be like you know I’m this genius, and they’re like I’m going to get fired. I’m like what, what, what the fuck are you talking about? And then I saw when my podcast which this is on YouTube it got suppressed and I’m like I’m what really pissed me off in terms of you know, wow, how you, even if you have a different opinion, that’s freedom of speech, right? That’s the point. I mean, they have the right to burn an American flag, they have the right to say F you in your face or whatever. That’s what free speech is, and to suppress that because you think it’s misinformation, when it turns out a lot of that was not misinformation, especially on COVID.

That is a very, very big deal to me, in terms of tax dollars as well. I don’t think and I’m going to be honest with you, you see it right Probably definitely more than anyone, except for my wife and my kids. I work my fucking ass off because I love what I do, okay, and I’ve done well in my life, but I’ve done it because I really worked very, very fucking hard. And when people want to take more of my tax dollars and because I’m working hard, and give it to people who aren’t working as hard. That pisses me off.

Now, what about tax dollars that go to other things? I’m fine with that, but you’re you’re taking our tax dollars and you’re paying off student loans for people going to fucking Harvard. You’re taking my dollars, taxpayer dollars, and you’re giving it to Ukraine in this black hole, into a war that they can never, ever win, and they’re misplacing the money and said, oh, we don’t know where this 3 billion went or this 4 billion went. You know, that’s when I have my biggest differences. There’s some people that you know may have been involved. Like Wall said with his son right, and JD Vance was like I’m sorry, I didn’t know that about your son, like he was witnessing yeah, witnesses shooting, you know shooting and stuff so you know you’re probably against guns and you have.

You know most republicans pro. You know guns and it’s not the biggest issue for me, I know it’s a big issue for you growing up, montana and stuff like that and and and being I mean seriously guys, daniel’s awesome shooting redneck in ohio, and then, oh my, god, I mean for me.

When I first got a gun here again I live in New York and I was shooting, I was all over the place. He just takes a bad, bad, bad, bad. I mean I was like whoa, I was like I’m never going to yell at him or say anything.

0:14:10 – Daniel Creech

The best thing was we were dressed. We went golfing afterwards, so we were golfers in there and everybody’s kind of looking at us, and then we lit it up and they were like so if that happened to you in a school shooting, you might vote Democrat, and that’s fine.

0:14:25 – Frank Curzio

You have the right to do that. It’s just the suppression thing is really bad and that’s what bothered me the most. But I thought Walt held his ground. He was a little nervous at the beginning. He did well, but it was so much of a better debate than what we saw from the leading candidates, right, oh, absolutely.

0:14:40 – Daniel Creech

Trump. And.

0:14:40 – Frank Curzio

Harris and they really went into policy, they really talked about. You know you have two records here. This is what you have to look at and you know I thought they did a very, very good job. I just wish it wasn’t biased and you really ask questions that matter to most Americans, that they want to know about Really. They want to know about this stuff and you know they don’t going into other topics and it was just. But anyway, I thought it was entertaining, I thought it was good, I thought those guys did good. I think both sides could basically say, okay, hey, you know what. They have plenty of things to say. We did pretty well on.

The one negative I would say of Wallace is when they brought up the China thing and he was in China and he really fumbled that, like he didn’t know. You know I’m a knucklehead type thing was bad and I thought JD Vance which there’s one thing that you never do, which that you never do, which is sacred, is you never lie about your military record, and that’s something that he has done and a lot of people call him out on that and Jada Vance didn’t bring that up, but that’s obviously the negative point of that that I saw, which was a real negative, but overall I think he finished strong. You know you saw his points and things like that, but he came across as likable and not this asshole doesn’t care and just flip-flopping or whatever. But I thought the debate was pretty good. I thought it was entertaining, definitely better than the Trump-Harris debate, definitely.

0:15:50 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing on the deficits, I do give credit. The moderators did ask I forget which question it was, but it was about hey, how are you going to do all this and not blow out the deficit? So the moderators and they had a lot of loaded questions, you know, they would ask a question, they would give a ton of facts or say something like this you know, in the Middle East, well, the administration is, you know, built up troops and done everything they can to really blah, blah, blah.

But on the deficit side, in both, Vance and Waltz dodged it. Neither one of them answered it directly to say, hey, here’s what we’re going to do and here’s how we’re going to pay for it. But I wish the moderators at that time would have said, given if they’re going to give a lot of detail or info on other questions on the deficits they should have, they should have said hey, both Trump and Biden and Harris have huge deficits that we’ve never seen back to back to back years. What are you going to do to cut that? And the only reason I bring that up and again, both of them dodged it. I’m not, I’m not taking either side.

They both botched that, in my opinion. Why I’m bringing that up and telling you to the listeners here is because that is not going to change. Deficits are not going to change. And why do we keep pounding the table on this? Because that is a massive tailwind for higher asset prices, right, wrong or indifferent. When you have this kind of spending going on, it’s going to be very hard to have equity prices, housing prices, collapse. I’m not saying we can’t see a hard landing or whatever. It’s not all systems go. But just like David Tepper said, when you’re fighting the Fed, you’re not fighting. You’re not going to win a long or several round fight fighting that kind of spending. So just keep that in mind. I wish to your point. I wish they would ask more about the deficits and such like that. They did ask one question. It was a pathetic the way it was worded. Both dodged it. But just remember, as an investor, that’s a tailwind, it’s silly, it’s not right in my opinion, but that doesn’t matter. It’s positive for higher equity.

0:17:32 – Frank Curzio

And we’ll get more into that. So we’re going to talk about China too as well. I thought Kyle Biss had a great interview on Squawk Box, I think it was on Monday, but I want to get to the strike. That’s right, which is pretty big right. I mean, this is impacting a lot and this isn’t just a game, it’s not. You know, it looks like it could last a little bit longer. Where we have the International Longshoremen’s Association, ILA, it is going to impact companies.

You’re seeing that, in terms of retailers, this is a very, very big deal. I mean, when you’re looking at, we’re talking about 47,000 active workers. They operate 14 of the busiest ports around the country, everywhere New York, texas, georgia responsible of one third of exports. There’s estimates anywhere from you know, a billion to 4 billion a day being lost. I don’t know what that is, but I know right now there’s over 100,000 containers in New York alone that are in limbo waiting to be unloaded. No one’s doing anything. And right now we have a guy, which is Howard Taggart, that’s pretty vocal, saying you know that, saying exactly what’s on his mind, and you’re seeing that light up on the internet where people are really, really pissed off. I really get both sides of this, but I want to get your opinion first.

0:18:36 – Daniel Creech

I okay. My opinion first is I understand that you are pro uni. This, Harold Daggett, it’s Harold, right Harold.

0:18:46 – Frank Curzio

Daggett, harold Daggett junior I believe.

0:18:48 – Daniel Creech

But I understand his tough talk and saying listen, I represent this group of people. I question on how he’s doing it because I understand you’re not trying to. This is not like the election, so he’s not trying to get the votes of the average guy. So I’m kind of wrong in thinking wow, I wonder how they think or are perceived by the average worker. Because I was looking across Fox News, cbs, politico and Newsweek and you’ve got to take this with some grain of salt. And then even freight waves, because the ILA will come out and say listen, container ship prices have gone bonkers in just the last month or so and now they went from $6,000 to $8,000, $24,000, now $30,000 over just the last few weeks. Then you have FreightWaves, who I check often and they said well, according to XENETA, that’s way over, exaggerated. Prices are nowhere near that high. So take all that with a grain of salt. But what I’m shocked about is the language that he’s using, because he’s saying he’s going to cripple the economy. He’s on every and listen, I give the guy credit for preaching his book and standing up, but he is saying how cars aren’t going to come in, clothes, food, all these different types of thing, and in one interview he lays it out listen, come in. Clothes, food, all these different types of thing. And in one interview he lays it out Listen, construction workers, car salesmen, they’re all going to start losing their job. We’re going to show you who we are and it’s this us versus everybody mentality.

I don’t think that’s right, because when you look at some stats and then of course everybody’s going to look at this Do you have any idea what it’s reported that this gentleman Daggett makes? He makes a lot of money. I’ve seen reports of 700,000 plus. Yeah, he makes a lot of money, and what they’re asking for. Frank, if I was your business owner, if I come to you and say, hey, man, I’m demanding, I want 50% or seven, again, you got to take all this with a grain of salt. He turned down 50% raises. They want 77% raises, which is Basically it’s $5 across the board for every six years, consecutive years. But that’s not the kicker. The kicker is hey, frank, I don’t want you to ever use technology to hurt my job. I understand you want to protect your workers, but, man, you’re going to piss off everybody that’s not on your team and I don’t think that that’s the best way to handle this.

0:21:06 – Frank Curzio

Yes, I mean they’re making $20, $39, and they want to boost pay by over 60%, I think over a certain amount of years. Triple company contributions to retirement, improve health care. I mean just a few of the concessions. I mean it’s a little crazy. So when I listen to this guy, there’s a lot of comments saying you know what an asshole he is. And, by the way, I hate unions, I’m not a union fan, oh boy. So you know, I’m not. I really not. I just you know, because you should. I believe in competition, in the workforce. I mean, I always say this I don’t give a shit what school you went to, you just find me someone who’s going to work hard and I could teach you everything about my business and, daniel, you’re a good representative of that where you came in.

0:21:49 – Daniel Creech

Because I went to a school nobody knows about. Oh, I didn’t even talk about the school, and I mean that as a positive.

0:21:52 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, I don’t even talk, I wasn’t even mentioning the school. I just you know it was out of 50 people a day I got the job here and literally 50, then we narrowed it down. I could teach you anything if you work hard. I can’t teach you how to work hard. I just feel like sometimes when you’re in these groups, it doesn’t matter. I mean, look at even you know not comparing it but the post office with city jobs. I mean you know you don’t really have to do your job and you’re probably going to get paid where. You know I love the competition, I love working hard and, you know, getting further based on how hard you work and things like that. But you work and things like that. But you know what they’re doing and people were just like talking about the technology and everything.

You have to understand this guy’s coming from. I mean it’s very predictable, right, and he’s, you know, I don’t know how old, I’m pretty sure he’s like well over 60, 65, because he’s been in the industry for 50 years. So you know he’s fighting for his job. He doesn’t really care about what anyone else thinks and I respect that. Ok, it’s not that I agree with it, I’m not saying I agree with it. I like it, even when michael sayler goes all in on bitcoin like you could hate the guy, but that guy’s put it if, if bitcoin crashes, you know the guy’s gonna get wrecked, he’s gonna lose billions, right? So so, bernie sanders, I always said I respected him, even though you know he’s like socialism is the way to go. He truly believes that. He’s not just saying it where, okay, I respect it. That’s your opinion. I totally disagree with you. I think it’s a disaster if our country ever went that route. But yeah, this guy is talking to you know, is representing his audience, and he’s worried, very, very fucking worried.

Because if you look and I post this video on frank curzio, it’s it’s uh for um on uh, I was gonna say uh, it was twitter, it’s on twitter, I posted it, but it’s a tiktok video, right, which is x, but it’s tikt. I posted it, but it was a TikTok video, right, which is X, but it was a TikTok video. And some guy is like filming the automation that’s going on there and the automation, the robotics combined with AI. This is the industries that I follow, that I see we have this company like this in our portfolio that does logistics and things like that in our AI portfolio newsletter. So I’m very familiar and they should be scared shit, just like Hollywood would scare shit, which is why they went on strike and said we need to get this taken care of. So I get why he’s doing it With that said, you know it is hurting the economy.

Hopefully you know they’re going to give him a good enough wage, but it’s not about everyone else and the whole world get pissed about him. That’s not what he’s focused on. He’s focused on his 45,000 guys and saying let’s get them a raise because we’re going to be in big fucking trouble pretty soon. That’s an industry that’s really, really going to get impacted by robotics, by AI, and you know I see why he’s doing it. That’s all I’m saying, and he’s very aggressive. It’s almost like this guy’s in a mob and saying I don’t care about the economy.

I know how people see it. I’m not agreeing with that. I’m just saying I like predictability. I never have problems with people where you can predict them. That’s the way they act. They could be an asshole, they could be really cool, but you know exactly what you’re getting. You always know what you’re going to get from that guy, and I just respect that part. Do I agree with it? Not necessarily the way he’s talking to people.

0:24:46 – Daniel Creech

But it does provide an opportunity, because Bush did this at one time to avoid this, I believe, which is essentially. You say you have to go back to work and then there’s a 90-day period and stuff. They’re already out in front of that, saying the White House should stay the F? Out. They actually put that in a press release from the Teamsters. I was hoping that was fake news. That kind of shocked me. But again to your point you have to come out there, you have to hit hard and be bold. I respect that as well. A couple other things he said, frank, that took me by surprise. After midnight when the strike officially started, he was out there and he says we’re going to show these greedy bastards you can’t survive without us. Again, that’s a good rallying cry. But when you’re out there touting that you, about half the world depends on them, and I, like I said, I just wonder about that approach. But again, he’s not. He’s not running for office. He doesn’t have to get over middle America. He’s made so much money for his guys.

0:25:38 – Frank Curzio

Absolutely, he’s going to be able to retire pension. He’s got, he’s fine. So being that aggressive makes sense, and I and the timing makes sense too, because you have 45,000 workers and you have two candidates, where you have battleground states and things like that, and I don’t know to say it now and try and say, oh, I don’t care about the White House or whatever, but I’m sure, just like what both candidates did with crypto, there’s an opportunity there to really be in the media a lot to do the right thing, to say, hey, this is what we’re doing with workers. But you have to be careful, because what you’re going to give them is going to result in you talk about inflation and wage inflation. I mean you are giving them, you know, in a place where we want to see inflation come down.

This could set precedent for a lot of other unions to strike when their contracts are up, because you know what you’re giving them is a significant raise and you know it is interesting to see how both parties would handle it or just sit back and not worry about it. But when you look at 45, I think there’s 80,000 plus members altogether, 45,000 active. I think. Right, that’s what I’m reading Again, I want to make sure.

0:26:35 – Daniel Creech

Well, and the East Coast is completely different than the West Coast because they already signed a deal which is crazy.

0:26:38 – Frank Curzio

But the economic impact, listen, it is going to impact certain stocks. We’ve seen that before. You know, in terms of supply chains, when there’s companies that do great, the orders did horrible. They didn’t lock in with suppliers. They didn’t lock in with Taiwan Semi and lock in you know space, which the technology companies operate their business models totally differently. They saw it and they locked in a lot of the you know in terms of you know that capacity, of how much capacity they can lock in from their suppliers and lock it in and pay a little bit more well ahead before the auto store. That’s why, if you ordered during COVID, it took, you know, six months, nine months. You know you couldn’t get anything. I mean, it was so bad that your vehicle I mean, think about it, your vehicle basically was a 2020 and you’re looking in mid-October, right, and then that’s when the 2021 vehicles come out and you’re saying, okay, you have to book eight months in advance for 2020. And then that’s when the 2021 vehicles come out and you’re saying, okay, you have to book eight months in advance for 2020. The new models are coming out for 2021.

It was a difficult situation for the auto companies. Again, they were caught off guard. You’re going to see companies caught off guard and they’re going to be talking about it in this quarter when they report in a few weeks and I know Abercrombie talked about it so that stock got hit. I think Gap coming in a few weeks, right. So this is going to impact that, where that’s a lot of money they generate and then that’s over.

So if you’re looking at certain periods, you know, like the back-to-school period, which was just a couple months ago, right. So you know when you see that and you miss that period, that’s different in terms of inventory levels and stuff. But if this gets solved in the next week or two, it could be a buying opportunity for all these companies. I don’t think it’s going to impact demand too much. It’s like more like you know. You know how we always like push forward or push up demand, right and push forward. That’s what it’s really going to be. So you’re going to probably see companies say, hey, we’re warning, but maintain their annual guidance and they’re probably going to make it up on the other end, and if you see the stocks you know go up or down, based on that, it could mean it’s going to create a good buying opportunity. Some of these stocks get hit if they’re able to solve this quicker.

0:28:41 – Daniel Creech

Something to definitely look at especially within retailers, because you’re seeing reactions couple here. So Academy Sports, aso Frank is the ticker, academy Sports and Outdoors. So they and excuse me, they and Dollar Tree which Dollar Tree we’ve talked about in the past has gotten absolutely annihilated. Goldman’s put out some good reports. They basically have a lot of reliance or impact from the East Coast ports. Okay, so you want to pay attention to that, see who’s affected by that. And then on the other side, you look at Targets and Costco’s. They’re both out saying, hey, we get the most imports from the West Coast. Not that they’re not going to have any impacts at all from the East Coast, but that’s how you want to look at that. So you know ASO and Dollar Tree are more impacted by East and are more impacted by e-sports. And there’s several more. Maybe we’ll get into those tomorrow.

0:29:29 – Frank Curzio

Well, you see like a 10% impact for some of these companies when you look at five days.

0:29:32 – Daniel Creech

And that’s huge.

0:29:33 – Frank Curzio

There was 60, and this is leading up what people worried about and it was trading at around $60. And then you see, right before the strike and thought it was going to happen, it starts coming down. So you’re going to see companies again 10% decline. If this comes back online, it’s probably going to be a good buying opportunity for a company like this.

0:29:55 – Daniel Creech

And quickly. I know we have two holidays or events before Christmas, but this is my Christmas wish list Because the conversation that could be happening around what’s going on is a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion. So the unions are on strike because wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living, but we’re not talking about what causes the high cost of living and inflation, we’re just talking about the anti you know it’s these greedy bastards versus the working man and all that. That’s the frustrating thing to me, because we could, and we do, have a great opportunity right now to say hey, okay, why are you so pissed off as a union worker? You know the average union worker, according to different reports, makes about $81,000. That’s minimum.

A lot of these guys like everybody else no offense to them. A lot of people work overtime, Okay. A lot of people work a hell of a lot more than 40 hours a week, and that’s fine. But then if you pick up extra shifts, a third of these ILA workers make 200 grand a year. Now, that’s all relative. You make 200 grand in Miami. That’s different than the Midwest or different in New York, Like you joked about, you make $150,000 in New York, or 250, you’re not living large, you’re not, no, you’re not.

You’re, you’re middle to low, and I’ll be honest because I, because I’ve never been there at first I hear I think, well, that sounds nuts, that’s a ton of money. But when a freaking parking spot, if you have one, costs I don’t know how many thousands of dollars a year that you can’t even really use, you start thinking, oh okay, well, maybe that’s crazy. So again, that is aggravating that we’re not talking about the cost of living. Why that is deficits and silly spending. But anyway, we’ll help you navigate that. There will be some opportunities through stocks, but we’ll get into more of that tomorrow possibly.

0:31:25 – Frank Curzio

But I just thought that was good on that. And tax code is a big deal. I mean, when you’re taking 50, 55% of everything when you’re living in New York City or San Francisco, it’s a big deal compared to Florida, right? I mean you’re almost getting a 20% bump, you know, moving to Florida. So the cost of living really it sounds like if you’re listening to this in Midwest, you’re like really $250,000?.

Both of them work, they pick up their kids from school and they barely get dinner on a table because they’re so busy. But their lives are stressful. It’s crazy. It’s just a matter of where you’re living sometimes.

I wanted to turn the page and talk about the markets. Stock’s been pulling back the past few days to start the new quarter, oil finally starting to rally where you’re seeing, unfortunately right tensions are heating up. It’s getting a little crazy. I don’t think it’s ever a good time when you’re seeing you know, especially watching CNBC when you’re seeing missiles right going back and forth Israel and you know Iran and things like that. But overall, when you’re looking at the markets and how we ended the quarter, you’re seeing this rally broaden out and it’s a lot of stocks that are doing well. Not everything, I mean. I’ve found a bunch of stocks, if you’re looking at it from last quarter alone. If you’re looking at Moderna, supermicro, dexcom, dg, you know different industries there. They’re down around 40% for the quarter. So it’s not like you could just close your eyes and buy. Like we said, it’s definitely a stock picker’s market. We’ll go into lots of ideas tomorrow on some of these topics in our Wall Street Unplugged Premium Podcast.

But I will say this is important to note is with October. October is usually the end of the month. It’s the end of month of the fiscal year for most large mutual funds I think it’s like 30% of the largest mutual funds, meaning that that’s when they’re going to adjust for tax losses. So maybe they’re going to be selling losers rebalancing to the winners and they call that window dressing. This way, when you send out everything, it shows that, hey, I owned NVIDIA and I own this and I own that and all this stuff.

But you could see, towards October, which is not a good month, we see a lot of crashes happen. So you’re going to see, I just think it’s a dangerous game. We know the risks. We highlight all of them, daniel, and I highlight all of them. Right, we’re very aware about risks, rewards, stuff like that. But it’s very difficult to short a market where interest rates are going to go lower and earnings are still going higher for the average S&P 500 company. It’s very difficult to short a market like that. But when it comes to October, you could see a lot of the underperformers go even lower because they’re going to sell and take tax losses on them, and maybe you’ll see some of the ones that have gone higher, you know, push more money into them and that’s a trading opportunity. Just to let you know, sometimes we’re not traders here, you know, just one of our portfolio.

0:34:03 – Daniel Creech

We do trade, but just to know that you know.

0:34:04 – Frank Curzio

But just to know that that happens a lot and it happens even with your portfolios. You’re going to sell a loser, that’s down, especially if you have a big winner. Right, just say, okay, I just sold a big winner early in the year and now I’m sitting on this stock. I like it long term, but okay, let me sell it for tax purposes and buy it back whatever 30, 45, two months later You’re going to see that a lot get into nike because nike was a fucking disaster. Holy cow.

I lost a few thousand dollars last quarter. I said nike is the best at manipulating earnings and they did a good job manipulating earnings. But the stock actually went down, went up first and I said let me buy some calls. I lost a few. I like listen what I tell you to do. I do myself a lot of times, so you know I lost a few thousand dollars on that. I didn’t make money because stock went up and then crashed. Nike was a disaster and I posted this on Twitter and reviewed the quarter. And this was right before. It was about 5.15 yesterday pm before their call and it came out that we’re suspending our guidance. Brilliant, holy shit. And then, right after that, the stock was down 2% and right after I posted not that it was a big deal and not milk, I’m just saying literally 10 minutes later the stock was down 78%, which is down 78% now. I don’t know if you saw Nike.

0:35:15 – Daniel Creech

Did you see it? I didn’t. I was grinning ear to ear. I read the bullet points and I knew that you’d want to talk about this. But I have to say, if I’m the new CEO, this is exactly what I would have said to do Suspend it, get ready for the kitchen sink quarter if you want. But I just thought this was good politics on the business side. I’m not saying it was a smart move or if they’re being shamed. I’m simply saying when I saw that I thought, wow, the new CEO is going to be like, yes, give me the easiest runway to where I can set it up for future success.

0:35:52 – Frank Curzio

See, I disagree, I disagree, you’re the new.

0:35:54 – Daniel Creech

CEO. But if you’re the CEO, wouldn’t you want that? I’m just saying I would want that runway.

0:35:59 – Frank Curzio

To me. I think the CEO lost a lot of credibility yesterday.

First of all, he didn’t get on the fucking call. Right, he didn’t get on the call, and I know you’re the new incoming CEO, but it’s nice to be like, hey, this is the plan. You have excitement, you’re getting on there, you have the opportunity to jump in front of everyone. To me, that was a real negative of, oh okay, well, let’s just, you know, suspend. You didn’t have to suspend guidance. Most people expect you to bring down guidance. Bring down guidance and make it super conservative, but when you suspend it, lower the bar. Yeah, hate your guts. Because their job is to basically get their model right and now they have no clue what’s going on. They have absolutely no clue. So when you remove guidance of a company that always reports guidance, it forces all of these guys to basically say, hey, you know what, we have to cut our projections dramatically, we have to downgrade the stock because they’re operating in the dark. Ok, and that’s their job. Their job is to provide that great advice based on the information they usually have access to their CFOs and know what’s going on again with their models, to come up with it with their target price. You basically everyone that follows you has a buy rating on the stock you just gave the finger to and those are your allies.

Okay, now, when I look at Nike, this isn’t a company that’s doing bad because of the economy. This is much, much, much, much bigger than that. Nike’s in a lot of trouble. It’s a lot of trouble. I think Nike right now is uninvestable Uninvestable to the point where it should be trading a lot lower. This is not a cheap stock. This is still with today’s move. It’s still trading at 25, 27 times forward earnings.

Why the hell would you buy Nike right now? And I’m going to throw some numbers out to you. Okay, when you look at Nike across their divisions, and how terrible they did, I mean every single one of their divisions, every single one of their divisions across the board were negative. If you’re looking at China, you’re looking at Nike Direct, all of them negative, negative, negative, negative, negative. North American sales were down double digits sale. So you know, the report said okay, we beat earnings again. They’re great at manipulating earnings. They’re seeing earnings and sales continue to decline year over year and they’re trading at a premium multiple which makes zero sense. I told you, 25, 26 times average sp company trades around 21 times, 21 and a half times. You deserve the premium if you’re growing tremendously, that’s fine. You’re not an expensive stock if you trade at 40. If you’re growing earnings, that’s fine. You’re not an expensive stock if you trade at 40, if you’re growing earnings by 20%, this is a company that’s not even growing earnings and sales and you’re trading at a massive premium. Why the hell would you own this instead of Meta, that’s trading at a cheaper multiple. That’s growing across all of its divisions. That’s in AI, it’s in now. You’ve seen the metaverse start ramping up again. They’re in every single major trend.

With Nike, you are looking at a company that’s losing market share and it’s not because oh, the economy, people don’t want to pay sneakers. They’re paying for sneakers. They’re paying for Brooks. They’re paying for Hoka. They’re paying for Asics. They’re paying for On. I just bought two pairs of sneakers. I didn’t even go near the Nikes. Okay if basketball yes, you’re still okay with basketball, but running they’re losing market share tremendously and it’s not like people are undercutting them with price. These are just better sneakers. I’m wearing them right now, which are awesome. I mean these are better sneakers. I mean, yeah, I mean these are on sneakers or these are-. Look at this, people Were you expecting Frank to shoot off.

0:39:00 – Daniel Creech

These are great, I mean you’re seeing, more comfortable.

0:39:03 – Frank Curzio

I just bought these. I bought two pairs of these, okay, and it was amazing, and usually I’m buying Nikes. I wear Nikes all the time. I didn’t even plan to do that. I’m just saying that when you’re looking at a company where your clothes aren’t selling, your sneakers aren’t selling, you used to have this competitive advantage and this moat where people are like, okay, nike beats everyone, that’s gone. What the CEO is looking to do here? You have to change the culture. You, what the CEO is looking to do here. You have to change the culture. You have to change everything around Nike.

It’s going to take a very, very, very long time. 27 times forward earnings. I mean, you know Apple, you’re talking about a company like Apple and Meta trading the same multiples, but yet they’re in AI. They have huge balance sheets. I see negative returns also, which we’ll get into as well is China? So everyone’s China’s back, china’s back, which we’ll get into as well is China? So everyone’s China’s back, china’s back, china’s not back for Nike, right? You’re going to see that with companies. That’s where you see if China’s real and it’s not just this BS and we can get into that right now. But would Nike be very, very careful. It’s a company I filed for a very, very long time.

Everyone says you know, whoever goes up against Nike, nike eventually kicks your ass. There’s something structural. The foundation is cracked with Nike. This isn’t, oh, economic. No, there’s companies that are doing good, that are selling sneakers. There’s consumers that are spending. They are not targeting them, they’re not making money off of them, and right now it’s a total disaster there.

And for the CEO not to get on the call and just introduce himself and say, hey, this is what we’re doing. We know things are terrible, but here’s the plan and this is what we’re doing and we’re getting on. I’m working my ass off. You had the opportunity to do that and what did you do? You remove guidance. You, you actually had what is it that? The annual conference, or whatever day they call it right, they, they canceled that investor day, investor day, whatever it was. They canceled that as well. I mean I. It’s a total disaster. I don’t know why anyone would invest. People are looking to bottom fish here. It’s a very expensive stock here. I think it creates so many better names that I would invest in, compared to this one.

0:40:51 – Daniel Creech

The last thing on Nike that cracked me up is because and I liked your structural problems here within the company they’re bringing back Elliot Hill, who is a veteran. So it’s not like they’re grabbing a new CEO or whatever, which even was more surprising to me and made me laugh out loud about this pulling guidance and all that. It’s not like you just grabbed a new Joe off the street or a new you know same industry guy. You didn’t steal anybody from a competitor. You brought back Elliot Hill, a big time veteran. So anyway, let’s get on to China, because I know China you want to talk about China, china, china.

0:41:26 – Frank Curzio

love when he jumps to China, the China horse, china. China is on fire by the way, on fire right, you’re seeing stocks up, I think 20%, 25% in the past couple of weeks.

0:41:35 – Daniel Creech

Well, the Shanghai composite, the entire market, is up 18% over the last month. Most of that is just over the last two weeks.

0:41:42 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, go ahead. Csr. Listen, when it comes to China as a trader of momentum, you don’t want to jump in front of a moving train, so you’re probably going to see it go higher. But I want to bring out a couple of statistics here that are interesting, because everyone’s talking about this bazooka stimulus and China has been trying to stimulate their economy for well over two years with similar measures. So what did they do? They lowered short-term rates. They also said okay, we’re going to provide special lowering borrowing rates for consumers A lot of the consumers there.

You don’t see a high debt to GDP in China. That’s because a lot of people who have money, they have it tied up in their real estate. But real estate is getting annihilated. You’ve seen real estate come back just off this rally again a little bit. They’re lowering the reserve requirement ratio for banks. Everyone’s cheering that, but when we put in perspective, you know these are the measures I’ve been doing for the last two, three years. So when you look at the reserve requirement ratio, it was 17,. Basically, the amount of capital you keep right and you keep on this. It’s like a cushion for banks. Right, it was 17 in 2018, and it was 10 before this. Now it’s nine.

0:42:45 – Daniel Creech

You last loaded in February, which is huge.

0:42:47 – Frank Curzio

Well, it’s a big move but it’s done nothing up to the point, only because you’re saying, well, this is a bazooka stimulus and now it’s time to invest, right? This is what Tepper’s saying Again. This is the bank’s cushion that they have if things go into the shitter, right? So, basically, money on hand to withstand dire economic conditions. You hand to withstand dire economic conditions. You have dire economic conditions. They’re dire, holy shit. I mean, when you’re looking at China, they have a debt crisis. They have a real estate crisis. China banks, they say, have 500 billion in non-performing loans. That’s what they report. Most economists say it’s past 1 trillion non-performing. So this isn’t 1 trillion in debt, this is 1 trillion in loads that are not being paid back. This is about six to seven times more than you’d see at the US, and it’s massive, and that again, economy is a little bit smaller than ours.

But we’ve always said this at least I’ve said it that deficits don’t matter. And I know people are like Frank, you’re out of your mind. I’m just telling you. I’m telling you. I, frank, you’re out of your mind. I’m just telling you. I’m telling you, I’m telling you the truth. Listen, I’ve heard these stories from the 80s. Yes, that’s how old I am. Oh my God, the dollar’s going to lose reserve currency status. Holy shit, you got to worry about Gold’s going to go through the roof. It doesn’t matter. The deficits don’t matter. What matters is if you’re paying that debt and we’re paying the debt. So if you’re paying the debt, it doesn’t matter. That’s why AT&T so many people said AT&T is going out of business. They never talked about the $30 billion in free cash flow that they generate every year, recurring revenue, almost guaranteed from the contracts they sign throughout whatever cable and phones and stuff like that. And it was like they have $150, $200 billion in debt. What was it? Their debt to capital ratio, I think, was 2.3, 2.4. Their debt to capital ratio, I think, was 2.3, 2.4. And they say if it’s over three or four, it’s higher. So when you’re only looking at one side, right, if you’re saying, oh, how much debt is there. When you’re looking at deficits, they don’t matter. What matters is when they’re not getting paid. And in China. That’s why it matters, because you’re seeing a lot of companies. You’re seeing people laying off employees. They’re saying they’re giving IOUs, talking about some of the biggest companies around in China again following the story.

So when you look at last stimulus, daniel. This was in July. They cut lending rates. They injected cash through reverse repo Again, this was in July and none of that worked to stimulate the economy. But all of a sudden, this works and you’re injecting $300 billion into a $20 trillion economy. This time around I don’t know if you you know, you’re a numbers guy that’s 1.5% of GDP, so I don’t know how much follow through we could see from this. It’s nice I see more of like this dead cap bounce which we saw two big major moves in 2008, which people forget of the stock of stocks going up 20% and then, towards the end of the year, they went up before they crashed one final time.

Now, when I’m looking at how much money is being injected, I want to put this in perspective as well. So the US was injecting money into their economy and if you look at in 2020, fine, no one knows what’s going on. You injected the money with COVID, I get it, but then you injected $4.5 trillion, $4 trillion more into the economy when assets at the end of 2020, everything was at all-time highs. It turned out to be $9 trillion. You know how much that is. That’s 55% of GDP. That’s why economists were like, oh, inflation is going to be transitory. You know, fuck that. Are you out of your mind? Like, just forget about everything you learned historically. You’re handing this money directly to people. It’s not going to the banks who decide, like it was 2008, 2009. You were going to see massive inflation. You were wrong. I felt like we were dead right on that 55% GDP.

You’re looking at China injecting 1.5% of GDP and these stocks are going up tremendously. Now you had Kyle Bass come on TV yesterday, which I thought was fantastic. I thought it was a great interview. He was talking about risk-reward, basically. So he said GDP for China is up 500% in 15 years and yet their stock market, even after this move, is at the same exact levels. It hasn’t moved. Now, to put in perspective, us GDP increased 75% over the same time frame. The S&P 500 is up 400% after reinvesting dividends.

So from a risk-reward perspective, when you say, oh, this is going to stimulate China growth, it usually doesn’t benefit the stocks because a lot of those numbers they’re full of shit anyway. They don’t really report them, right. So what does this mean? If you’re looking at a risk reward, this is a great trading opportunity. If you want to trade it, trade it.

But when it comes to risk reward, it’s the most important thing and most I’d say forget diversification, forget invest in what you know. Invest in good, strong businesses. I am where I am today because of how I invest, because of risk reward. Okay, if you have $10,000 to get rid of and you’re like, hey, I want to invest in something and the reward is 10 X, that that’s a good risk reward. You can lose all your money, but that’s a good risk reward. You don’t want to risk $10,000 and lose it all and get 25%, 30% returns. So risk reward is all about like, okay, how much am I willing to risk? And that return better be much, much greater. And if I’m investing conservatively, you want to make sure those returns are great. Like right now, I think generating pretty much a 5% return on yields, if you can get that which you can get in money market account in interactive brokers, is a great return Risk reward because you have real interest rates. When you look at real interest rates and inflation that’s above that rate. So at 5%, that’s not a bad return, right. Risk reward, right, you’re not risking really anything, right, and the reward is pretty great.

When you look at the risk reward in China. Even when their economy does great, their stocks particularly don’t do that well. Now we have ADRs here, that trade here. That’s differently. So you’re seeing stocks continue to move higher. But just be careful.

And what people are talking about? This bazooka stimulus? I don’t know why they’re calling it a bazooka. They’ve been doing the same shit for three years, so it’s coming off really really depressed lows. Doing the same shit for three years, so it’s coming off really really depressed lows. And I get it and go higher, not telling you not to buy, but just be careful, because this could turn right away. And there’s still a lot of stuff going wrong in China that they haven’t fixed yet and I don’t see that changing. The way you’ll see it changing is when Nike reports, okay, more declines in China. Let’s see what Starbucks says about China. Let’s see what Yum Brand says about China. Let’s see what Levi’s says about China.

These companies have big operations in China. All of them have been warning and saying things are worse, much, much worse from the consumer the consumer, no matter what kind of deals that you’re giving them. Their wealth, most of their wealth in China is tied to their real estate and real estate has been going down tremendously. So, sentiment-wise, they’re still scared, they still feel like they can’t spend, no matter what the lending rates are. Just be a little careful. It’s different from stocks going up and being driven by fundamentals. It’s not being driven by fundamentals, it’s being driven by momentum. It could go higher, but just be very, very careful. And that’s just my two cents. I mean you could have a different opinion, daniel, I don’t know.

0:49:32 – Daniel Creech

No, I don’t. I mean I wish I did for the back and forth on the debate podcast for fun. I’m kidding, I couldn’t agree more. I mean it’s a trading opportunity, not an investment. I mean the shortest, you made some really good points there. I would just highlight that they’re freaking communist. That’s why you trade them. I mean it’s just ridiculous. So, yeah, but enjoy the ride if you’ve been there. But K-Web we’ve talked about a lot Baidu, tencent Holdings, jd, baba all of those are at, or very close to, 52-week highs and again, that’s because of the last two weeks of trading. I mean, they’ve absolutely exploded. So if you’re in it, if you want to buy on a pullback, if you think this is going to continue, great. I do think that the bazooka stimulus I love those stats about the 1.5% GDP is all they’re doing. But I do think the bazooka stimulus is correct and what you say, it’s a sentiment, it’s about what people feel or what’s going on and that’s important. Money’s emotional, stocks are emotional.

0:50:24 – Frank Curzio

But yeah, there’s no way in hell this guy would invest over there and I want to see what Tepper does here, because, Tepper, you know you talk your book and that’s great, and he was talking this. A imagine the millions, if not billions he’s already made.

What I want to see is what Tepper’s thesis is and what my thesis would be is okay, the China stimulus is great. We’re already pushing to these stocks. They were in the past two quarters and we’re looking at 13 Fs. But when you look at that thesis, especially for a lot of hedge funds and how big they are, they’re not really looking for doubles in stocks. Sometimes they look for 25, 30, 40% gains, especially in two weeks. You’ve got 25% in two weeks.

I wonder if he’s going to back up on those positions. Is he adding more in those positions? Because you were right and you made money on it Is 25%. The return you’re looking for Is 35% return. You’re looking for 40% Because you’re close to that in some of these stocks, getting them in a couple of weeks. I’d like to see if he dials back, if he’s still keeping them, and if he dials back, it’s telling you that, hey, the guy who was right on this and smart on this early on is basically telling you not to buy because he’s taking profits here. So pay attention to that, which I like to pay attention to Again. He’s a brilliant guy. He’s my favorite hedge fund manager in the world.

I don’t know if I can claim that he was necessarily right on this yet. He was right. But he’s been in these stocks on the way down as well. He’s been in them for a while. But I’m curious to see what returns he’s looking at, because he’s definitely up on these investments. He has to be. I mean, they’re up tremendously but I know he was down a little bit, going into, you know, this whole massive stimulus announcement by you know the central bank of that are adding and going to China stocks Again. That’s an area of the market where it’s even driving materials. It’s driving a lot of different sectors. It’s driving you know that was a negative. On oil, is China really coming back? Let’s see what oil. We haven’t Oil declined. It was still declining before. We saw missiles on TV being shot back and forth right Israel. So you know we’ll take a look there. But I saw a lot of deaths this week, you know, of people, that is, you know sports figures.

0:52:19 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, chris Christopherson, not sports figure, pete Rose.

0:52:24 – Frank Curzio

Pete Rose passed away as well. You know you look at Dikembe Mutombo.

0:52:28 – Daniel Creech

Oh, I didn’t hear that.

0:52:29 – Frank Curzio

Mutombo passed. Mutombo passed away brain cancer and I love Dikembe man he was great the finger waving.

0:52:33 – Daniel Creech

that’s hilarious.

0:52:39 – Frank Curzio

One of the best defensive players and shot blockers that we’ve ever seen, and I love his personality. I remember he was on a talk show. It was a great night show. I forgot what it was. He was sucking helium out of a balloon, trying to do like three studios.

0:52:46 – Daniel Creech

What was it like? Backwind, so like Leno or Letterman it wasn’t Leno.

0:52:50 – Frank Curzio

It was a guy whose own show is still around. What’s his name? God, I like him too. I got the red hair late night. Oh, oprah Conan O’Brien.

0:52:58 – Daniel Creech

Conan O’Brien yeah, and if?

0:52:59 – Frank Curzio

you see that on YouTube and take that whatever you watch, right? It was pretty funny when he sucked the balloon.

0:53:03 – Daniel Creech

He has such a deep voice, but he was very funny.

0:53:05 – Frank Curzio

He was cool, him and George used to go back and forth. I respect him a lot, yeah, but Maybe it’s time for him to get into the Hall of Fame. I mean, come on.

0:53:16 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, do you think?

0:53:17 – Frank Curzio

that— I think they’ve got to do it. They should do it. They should do it right away. I mean, that’s what they were really waiting for, right.

That’s what it sounded like, and listen you know, I get it, I get his personality and everything and I get why. But, man, you talk about say that Mets, by the way nice, win first round of the playoffs, but it’s, you know you’re moving if you’re using different balls, if you’re moving in the. You know the walls and stuff like that. I remember the first Mets stadium when they their new stadium, which was you know whatever, how many years old now, 10 years, whatever but you know their outfield was really deep and they moved it in right. So stats are different, different. You know steroid era and things like that, but man, you know the stats that he has in terms of hits, games played. It’s just incredible. I think he should make it. And also RIP to John Amos John Amos, so actor. I met him personally when I was younger.

0:54:07 – Daniel Creech

Why do I know he was a guy in?

0:54:08 – Frank Curzio

Coming to America.

0:54:09 – Daniel Creech

The father.

0:54:11 – Frank Curzio

Man, I didn’t hear that either, and I met him in Disney when I was probably about 14, 15 years old, I think. Coming America was there and I was just like hey, he was so nice, he was so cool, he’s a great actor. I liked him a lot. So, but, yeah, you just see that, and it’s one of the things that you suck as you get older. You see a lot of that and you know around you too as well. So, um, but yeah, pete rose, just a great baseball player who’s awesome. Yeah, he made mistakes. Everybody fucking makes mistakes. All right, get over it. Uh, to canada tomo was great, you know just. Uh, yeah, really great basketball play. Enjoyed him, he was fun, he was cool, great attitude and everything. So, um, yeah, unfortunately, I just wanted to end the podcast with that. Rest in peace and stuff like that, and just appreciate life, man, you never know. So, uh, that’s right cheers it.

Don’t get caught up in all craziness and anger and shit like that. That’s what everybody else wants you to do, but most people, like we saw yesterday with that debate, I really appreciated that afterwards they shook hands, they introduced each other’s wives. They they had showed compassion, but yet they were competitive. That’s the way it used to be in politics. It’s not we freaking hate you because we disagree with you. And again, that’s the rise that a lot of people want. That I don’t think any individual outside of politics wants. It was kind of nice to see that yesterday.

Anyway, guys, questions, comments I’m here Again. If you’re a credit investor, I’m going to start sending that deal out to a lot of bigger fish. Now Give me a call if you’re interested. Frankcurzioresearchcom an email. Again, I can get on a call with you if you have questions. After I send you all the paperwork, everything financials, everything you need to know about the company.

But you know really good times and met a lot of great people over the past few weeks probably 40, 45 investors I spoke to. We have a lot of calls set up too. You get access to my calendar. It’s a 15, 20 minute phone call but it’s really cool meeting everybody and talking to everybody one-on-one, just the people behind it. If you have a company, do this, because what you’re seeing right now I didn’t want to go here for this, but what you’re seeing right now is especially companies that just have you know online operations, right, they have a phone. They don’t even have a phone number. You got to email some of these people, right, and when you talk to people, it puts in perspective where, holy shit man, I better get this right, because people are depending on me, where they actually lose their hard-earned money if we get this wrong. Daniel, and I think everyone in our industry should really fucking do this and I don’t think they do, because if they did, they’d change their practices and think about their business a lot differently and they’d have more loyal subscribers and people to follow them for decades, instead of one year or two years based on some kind of crazy claim that you’re making that you know could never come true, just to generate money.

So I would say that for all businesses, get to know your clients. It’s great. The biggest thing is the network. The network is massive. It helps us out tremendously. It leads to so many ideas, because I’ve been covering all these industries for all my life and hearing from you guys helps me out to really dial into some companies that are going to benefit, and a lot of times it’s companies that they’re not even mentioned. They just give me a macro perspective of what’s going on in their business. Helps out tremendously. Love to hear from you guys, frankcurzierresearchcom, and just want to say thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Daniel, follow-up thoughts, anything, email, whatever. What’s your email? Again?

DanielCurzierResearchcom this again. You’re getting a lot of compliments, Daniel.

0:57:17 – Daniel Creech

I don’t like that, but you’re getting lots of compliments. I love Daniel All right next guy talk some crap about me I know.

0:57:22 – Frank Curzio

Can I get someone that says you know what? Danny’s a piece of shit, he’s terrible.

0:57:25 – Daniel Creech

He’s horrible.

0:57:26 – Frank Curzio

No, but it’s really good and Daniel’s been doing a great job and really appreciate it. Fixtures to this podcast and podcast and you’ll see a lot of structural change in our business really exciting stuff for our most loyal listeners and followers, which is coming down the line in the next couple of months. So definitely stay tuned and, as always, we’ll be back to you soon. 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 of 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.

0:59:17 – Announcer

Wall Street Unplugged is produced by Curzio Research, one of the most respected financial media companies in the industry. The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its host and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money, and your responsibility.

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