Transcript was automatically generated.

Frank Curzio 00:00

How’s it going out there? It’s Wednesday, January 28th.

Frank Curzio 00:04

I’m Frank Curzio, host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where we bring you the headlines and, uh, tell you what’s really moving these markets. Daniel Creech. How’s it going, buddy? How’s everything? Hello, Frank. Happy Wednesday, sir. Good to see you again. Good to see me again. Yeah, you’re traveling mofo, Frank.

Frank Curzio 00:22

I know, traveling like crazy. So I went to Vancouver. Beautiful, beautiful. If you haven’t been to Vancouver, definitely go. It’s unbelievable. Beautiful now, beautiful in the summertime. And I got very lucky with the storms. I thought I was, might not go. Went to the, uh, Vancouver Resource Investment Congress, or is it the conference?

Frank Curzio 00:40

I’m not too sure which one it is these days, but I think it’s the conference. But, uh, it’s all, it’s a junior miner conference. I used to speak at a lot. I used to go at, go to every single year. Uh, I haven’t gone in a while because mining’s been out of favor. As you know, we cover all sectors here. And this year I wanted to go.

Frank Curzio 00:56

There’s a lot going on, I would say, with gold a little bit higher, silver just a little bit higher. Uh, but, um, getting there was a real pain in the ass. I got lucky. No cancellations, no delays. I flew, uh, coming out of Jacksonville, you have to take two flights there.

Frank Curzio 01:11

So I flew into Denver, which is right on the corner of the storm. So I flew there the day before the football game, Saturday. And if you realize in the third, late third, fourth quarter was when all the snow came in. Mm-hmm. And got off without a hitch,right?

Frank Curzio 01:25

So if I flew into Chicago, any place else, uh, if that was my layover, it would have been a lot of trouble, especially Texas. Everything was closed in Texas. Everything, all flights were canceled, uh, also in Chicago. But I got there okay, got back okay, so everything’s cool. But, um, what a trip, man. What a trip. Uh, I’ve never seen this conference that packed.

Frank Curzio 01:43

It makes sense because of where metals are. Yeah. Uh, I took a lot of Ubers. I had probably about 12 meetings set up in two days. So this conference was on, uh, Sunday and Monday. And apparently in Canada, they don’t know American football too much. So they had it. It’s every Sunday, every year.

Frank Curzio 02:01

I remember going back. It’s on the Championship Football Sunday. And remember the three-hour difference? The conference takes place during those football games, which is crazy. Uh, which, you know, I snuck out and got a peek at some of them because I’m a big football fan. Uh, the Ubers that I took to each meeting, I was asking the cab drivers about the economy.

Frank Curzio 02:18

I would, what would you think how the economy’s doing over there with metal prices? Vancouver’s like the, the, the, the hub,right, of the mining industry. That’s like the, the, the capital of the mining industry. How would you think the economy’s doing there? Well, based on that, I would assume good, but I would assume it’s here. I, I would imagine they, they have a K-shaped economy. They have and have nots is widening.

Frank Curzio 02:36

I mean, every one of them was complaining how things are not good. Yeah. It’s, it’s different there. They’re fighting with the U.S. Obviously, you know, they don’t like Trump, but, and this just happened where I wanted to be careful and not get it beaten.

Frank Curzio 02:47

But, uh, you know, McCartney’s saying a lot of stuff that, you know, maybe you shouldn’t say on the world stage and poke the bear, but, uh, not doing that well. I mean, the taxes and the policies there, I mean, even at the conference, I saw that they have, um, gender-neutral bathrooms at the conference,right?

Frank Curzio 03:04

It’s just, and, and just the green energy policies, the things they do there. I think I got Chipotle one day when I got back later, uh, which isright across the street from my Hilton Hotel. I was staying downtown Vancouver. And wooden forks, you have, there’s no plastic, I think, ever. Like you can’t, you know, destroy the paper, whatever.

Frank Curzio 03:22

It’s, it’s, you know, it’s just weird. It’s a different environment there. It’s just, uh, you know, some of these policies, but you hear from them and even from, from the guys in the mining industry, 55% of their check, they take 55% there. Uh, and you see it just in Europe and some of these economies when you have these green initiatives and stuff, it, it, it’s a killer. I mean, you could have gold. On miners? 55% on miners?

Frank Curzio 03:41

Is that what that is? On, on, on basically if you make a certain salary. So a lot of those high income earners are, you know, yeah, high earners, not, not super rich, not everyone. So junior mining conference, unlike you saw, you know, the executives from someone, but you had great people, Rick Ruhl, you know, Corda Maine, Ross Beaty. I mean, I, you know, I, I don’t know Corda Maine well. I met him a couple of times.

Frank Curzio 03:59

Ross Beaty, I know well. Rick Ruhl, I know well. I was so busy didn’t get a chance to meet up with them. I met with Rick Ruhl at the New Orleans conference. And I’m hoping he’s going to speak at our conference, our next conference when we have it in late October, early November for the Curzio One conference this year. Uh, but all of them were saying something that was surprising to me.

Frank Curzio 04:16

They all said that, hey, you know, we’ve been through these bull markets and bear markets, and these are guys that have been in the industry for 40 years and they’re pretty much all billionaires. They were all saying to take some off the table. And I think they’re wrong. And I know it’s crazy. These guys have tons of experience.

Frank Curzio 04:35

I’ve been doing this for, for, you know, mostly in gold, silver, and, and know this industry very well for the last 15 years. These guys have been at much longer than me. But I think that’s also, I don’t want to say a problem, but they have different outlooks.

Frank Curzio 04:48

Like if you look at disruption, Daniel, it always takes place from the younger generation because they look at things differently than the norm, than what people who are experienced in the industry look at. When I look at this industry first, the downturn was one of the longest downturns we’ve ever seen. Outside of 2017, we look from 2012 to like 2021, 2022,right?

Frank Curzio 05:07

I mean, one of the most horrible markets that you could be in, especially if you look at uranium, you look at all this stuff,right? It’s just been a horrible market for mining. Now, the fundamentals, if you’re looking at what’s taking place, a lot of these guys are like, hey, it’s, and I’m not talking about silver. Silver’s parabolic, you know, be careful. You can see a 30% pullback in silver, still on fire,right?

Frank Curzio 05:25

I mean, it’s, it’s crazy with silver. But the move we’ve seen in gold, the move that we’re seeing in metals is being driven by forces that are secular growers. When you’re looking at defense spending, when you’re looking at AI,right?

Frank Curzio 05:39

So, so we’re so used to a cycle in this, kind of when we used to, we looked at energy stocks, when we look at, at, you know, maybe, uh, the electricity stocks,right?

Frank Curzio 05:48

We used to look at them and say, okay, these guys pay high dividends, they have high debt, but they dividends, these are safe stocks that you go into during, you know, market downturns and stuff, you know, and provide safe and, and for, for income investors. These are now growth stocks because of the changing landscape.

Frank Curzio 06:04

And if you look at what’s driving gold now, you could say, well, it’s the deficits. We’ve always had deficits. It’s not that. You’re actually seeing demand for a lot of these metals. Yes, you’re seeing, you know, the more cautious tone where, you know, there’s protectionism and more U.S. base is resulting in a dollar coming down, which is always great for these metal prices.

Frank Curzio 06:20

Uh, these are things, these policies are not going to change anytime soon. And I don’t want to say this is, you know, actually secular. Secular is long-term forever. It’s more than just, this is a cycle that’s going to be very, very long.

Frank Curzio 06:33

And, and, and I, I wouldn’t be so inclined to take profits here because also Ross Beaty was talking about an AI and these stocks are expensive and you got to be careful. And I was just like shaking my head going, don’t go there, please.

Frank Curzio 06:43

Uh, you know, with, you know, just with AI and you’re looking at this trend, it’s, it’s, it’s different from any trend we’ve ever seen in our lives, Daniel, because it’s usually when you look at a trend, and I always teach you guys this, I’m looking at total addressable markets, uh, you know, and that’s how

Frank Curzio 07:01

you determine, like if a stock is expensive or not,right? If, if your total addressable market’s much, much bigger than everyone’s modeling for, then you’re going to have more room to grow. When I look at the total addressable market or I look at scalability when it comes to trends, it’s such a big word. This is one of the only trends where scalability is infinite.

Frank Curzio 07:18

You can’t see it because scalability and what AI provides is something that every business is in dire need for is productivity. And it keeps getting better and better and better and improving productivity.

Frank Curzio 07:35

And you don’t see the limit to that, which is why the biggest and smartest companies in the world keep spending and increase their spending on it, which goes into the metals and critical metals and things like that. So, so much going on at this conference. I just think it’s a different market.

Frank Curzio 07:48

It’s almost like how the economists thought that we weren’t going to see inflation after COVID, after we spent 5 trillion when we closed the markets, and then we reopened and we spent another 7 trillion,right? And they were like, well, we’re not going to see it because there was nothing.

Frank Curzio 08:02

I feel like economists look back at history to determine what’s going to happen in the future, but there’s no historical model to look at. Just like there’s no historical model to look at when it comes to AI. We’ve never seen a trend like this.

Frank Curzio 08:12

With a total addressable market, it’s literally 20 trillion because it’s every single stock, every single, everything across the board is going to be influenced by AI because every company wants to be more productive. They want to increase their margins. They want to lower their costs,right? So, and we’re not even close to being there yet.

Frank Curzio 08:29

So, you know, seeing how this impacts this market, they do cross and, you know, being, you know, it’s, you know, following AI for such a long time and speaking to some brilliant people and, and, you know, having great contacts across these industries.

Frank Curzio 08:43

If I’m in these metals industries, one of the speeches, if I was going to talk there and I didn’t want to talk, Jay Martin that runs this conference and I didn’t want to call him because he would probably ask me to speak because I speak there a lot. I would have said, guys, you know, strap on the seatbelt a little bit because I think this is just beginning. It’s not towards the end.

Frank Curzio 08:58

And yes, there’s nothing wrong with taking profits, but I think this goes, this has a lot more room to run here, Daniel. We just, well, some of these guys, just for context, they, uh, you know, take profits, maybe sell a third, sell a half. They’re not getting out by any means. Or I’m asking, I’m not telling you.

Frank Curzio 09:15

Like 25, 30%, 40%, I think Rick Ruhl, and he’s been saying this for six months ago, like, hey, you know, we’re taking a lot of profits in junior miners now because he’s been in it for a long time and he’s made a lot of money. That was my point. I mean, some of these guys have been in these stocks for years and to your point, saw this great downturn and then this sideways, this dead money, this lost opportunity cost.

Frank Curzio 09:33

That’s a big deal. There’s nothing wrong with taking, you know, a third or a little bit off the table off of massive runs because if you’ve been in that long, your cost basis has got to be just amazing. Um, so kudos to them for that. Uh, Frank, what about the, uh, crowd size? I got a few questions for you about the atmosphere.

Frank Curzio 09:48

I would assume, holy shit, obviously if there wasn’t a big attendance here, then there’s not ever going to be one. It took me 20 minutes to get the badge. They had a line wrapping around like they didn’t even have, they didn’t prepare for it. Like you have like, you know, those ropes, you know, that you see every place in airports or whatever. Uh, and they had it set up. The velvet ropes. Huh? The red velvet ropes. Yeah.

Frank Curzio 10:07

Those are the best. Those are the best. I love those. And they, they had, you know, laid out probably for about 50 people and it must have been 300 online when I got there. Uh, you know, so they just like, it wrapped around like in the middle of, there was no, you know, there was nothing, there was just people like wrapped around in circles and so they didn’t even know where to go.

Frank Curzio 10:24

And, you know, I was surprised. I mean, obviously people paid for this conference beforehand and it was a high price tag. It was 2,500. Uh, but, uh, uh, the crowd, it was absolutely jam standing. If you had to guess, I know this is a tough question. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but like if you had to guess how many people attended? If I had to guess, wow.

Frank Curzio 10:42

So like hundreds or like a thousand? I would say it was over a thousand. I would say it had to be over a thousand. I mean, it felt like that. And there was a lot, a lot of companies there. There must have been, man, over a hundred companies there and lots of deals, bankers, funding.

Frank Curzio 10:59

I mean, it’s, it now, you know, you went to a market where it’s impossible to get funding. This is the first time, even last year, they couldn’t get funding a lot of these companies. These companies are getting fundingright now. And they all need funding because they’re junior miners. They don’t generate revenue,right? So they have to, you know, drill a hole and say, these are our results. Hey, let’s raise money when the stock goes higher.

Frank Curzio 11:14

Except when they did that the past five, six years, which I felt like a lot of these CEOs didn’t understand is they report good results. The stock will go up 10% and then finish down to 15%. And they’re like, I don’t understand. We reported good results. I said, because people have been in your stock for seven years and they’re dying to get the fuck out. Yeah. Right?

Frank Curzio 11:29

So, you know, I understand that they’re taking some off the table. And the only way you could do that is if you have good news, because that’s going to require, you know, equal liquidity you need to get out,right? Otherwise, these guys with big positions can’t get out unless you have the liquidity without crashing the price. So when you have this good news, it pushes that liquidity, the stock goes higher, and that’s what they’re using to sell. Now it’s different.

Frank Curzio 11:48

Now you’re seeing this liquidity getting done, and those stocks are holding their value after they do these capital raises, and they’re getting fully funded now. And, uh, I think one of the biggest things is this happening the Friday at the close or Saturday.

Frank Curzio 12:02

Remember the conference is Sunday and Monday is Donald Trump came out and said, listen, the Commerce Department is taking a stake in another rare earth company. And this was USA Rare Earth.

Frank Curzio 12:18

They said they’re going to supply a $1.3 billion loan and 277 million in federal funding to help advance its manufacturing plant in Oklahoma. Now, why is this a big deal? And why is it great for investors?

Frank Curzio 12:30

And we’ve been telling you, if the government’s going to take a stake in companies, forget about what you believe where it’s like, this is wrong, this is socialist away. Hold up a fucking second. Go wherever you want. I don’t care. Do whatever you want. We want to make money for you. And you have to understand when the government does this, it’s absolutely great for that stock.

Frank Curzio 12:46

You can actually buy it after this stuff happens and you’re probably going to make a fortune on it because if you’re looking at mining, the biggest risk by far, someone who’s covered this industry for a long time is the risk of this mine actually getting developed. And one out of every thousand projects gets developed.

Frank Curzio 13:05

On average, one out of a thousand, these junior miners, one out of a thousand. Think about that. When you go there and see there’s over a hundred companies, chances are none of them, if they’re really junior miners, are actually going to see that mine go into production. And the risk is it’s a ton of money. It’s a very expensive process. It’s hard.

Frank Curzio 13:24

It’s hard to get mining permits. It takes over a decade and all this stuff. But now that you’re getting, you’re taking a major risk off the table, which is the funding risk. So now these companies become investable.

Frank Curzio 13:35

And after this investment, what happens is now it opens up the door for private investors to come in because now there’s lowered risk with the government behind you.

Frank Curzio 13:45

And for proof of this, private investors after this announcement, USA Rare Earth, are going to invest another one and a half billion on top of the 1.3 billion investment from the government, which the stock obviously surged higher. It’s up 30% and pops. And it’s pulling back a little bit. It’s down 5%. I would say, you know, buy this stockright now. Don’t buy a full position.

Frank Curzio 14:03

Buy a little bit here. And then, you know, if it goes down, buy a little bit more and improve your cost basis. But this is a stock that could absolutely take off from here. A billion dollars in funding, plus another billion and a half on top of that. Now you can get this done.

Frank Curzio 14:17

You have the government there pushing it, saying, no, we’re going to push this through the contract process, which usually takes a long time, environmentals, all the stuff. But that was a big deal and really pushed the whole market higher. And it was such a great catalyst to happen at the conference.

Frank Curzio 14:34

And these government stakes are so huge and it’s so great for investors. But, but Trump has the blueprint. And if you’re following this, what he’s doing is he’s investing in companies who produce critical metals.

Frank Curzio 14:49

And there’s 60 metals that are deemed critical by the Department of Energy and national security threat, stuff like that. And rare earths obviously is produced mostly by China. So he’s trying to change that. Why? Because we can’t get AI to its full potential unless we’re able to do this. And he understands that because he’s hearing that from who?

Frank Curzio 15:07

From all the hyperscalers and saying, this is what we need. We can’t have restrictions. We can’t have someone else, you know, not sending us stuff. Plus defense spending, electronics, all this stuff we need. And this, you know, when we’re looking at this conference, Daniel, everyone’s like, gold and silver is on fire. Critical metals is rare earths.

Frank Curzio 15:24

Uh, it lithium, cobalt, copper, silver on the list. And of course, you have uranium. So when people are looking at this move in gold and silver, which of course dominates the headlines, I don’t think people have seen them move in platinum, palladium, copper’s at six, all-time high. Uranium is at $90 again.

Frank Curzio 15:43

So, you know, you’re looking at what was it? 17, 16, you know, not long ago, five years ago, whatever it was. Uh, this is a full-blown bull market in all commodities. And it’s driven by what?

Frank Curzio 15:57

Strong economic growth, huge defense spending, and especially the growth in AI, which is a secular trend, which I explained earlier, which is, you know, secular where we cannot see the end of it. It’s not like, you know, when I say that to understand when iPhones first came out, they’re like, now we know how to scale it.

Frank Curzio 16:14

We put it at theright price where people are going to buy it. Okay, here comes the scalability, but there’s a limit to it because only everyone in the world could own a smartphone,right? So you see it and you, and that, you know, could take whatever, seven years, eight years, nine years before everyone has a smartphone and then they upgrade the phones, whatever. But you see the scalability.

Frank Curzio 16:30

You can’t see where it ends. And that, the fact that the biggest companies in the world continue to increase their spending, and these are the smartest people in the world who hired the smartest people in the world that continually to increase their spending on us, which you’re going to see as these companies report,right?

Frank Curzio 16:47

Starting this week and through next week, they’re going to continue to increase their spending. While that’s happening, we need access to critical metals. And that’s driving this whole market. But I’m, I’m so happy for so many of my friends in this industry because it’s been shipped for such a long time.

Frank Curzio 17:02

And guys who I met with, Amir Adnani, UEC, and Daniel, I had at least 10 people come up to me during the conference saying that they own UEC from the low single digits, which we bought over 10 years ago. Nice. Uh, which, which I love. It’s, it’s 20 now. It’s a $10 billion valuation.

Frank Curzio 17:19

Uh, you know, Luke Norman, I met with, uh, US Gold, which, you know, both of those guys were at my conference. US Gold, I believe it was at 11. And, and Joe, where’s US Gold now? I mean, UEC was out also like at 10 or 11 and now it’s at 20. And this was in November. And both of these guys spoke at my conference.

Frank Curzio 17:39

But if you’re looking at, um, US Gold, I mean, what, I mean, just, you know, these are companies that continue to go higher that I’m very, very, very happy for. And, you know, for me, when I look at USAU, it is, Joe, um, you know, at $21 USAU and they just raised a shitload of money too.

Frank Curzio 17:55

Uh, I think UEC raised, what, 200 million. Goldman Sachs, you know, these are great companies. These are great people that I follow for a long time. Uh, you know, we’ve benefited and two or three guys are like, hey, you know, all my wealth is in stocks is because of you, because you were recommending these things such a long time ago.

Frank Curzio 18:11

And, and you know, it’s so great to see and so great to see that some of these people really did theright thing in this industry, Daniel, where when I look and see in a 10-year period where the market was shit and these guys are pitching me marijuana stocks.

Frank Curzio 18:26

I mean, your stock, I mean, your stock, it’s a mining stock, it’s a gold, a silver stock,right? And you know they’re pitching me psychedelic stocks. It’s pitching me, you know, biotech stocks. I’m like, you know, in the meantime, you got other guys like Amir who acquired seven, eight, nine different companies when the market was shit. He was grinding.

Frank Curzio 18:44

And now look where his company is today. And just the catalyst they have in the future, UEC, I can tell you honestly, UEC, it’s just getting started here. It’s just get, what you’re seeingright now is totally different from what you’re going to see three, four years from now in this company. Uh, this is going to be the premier player in the United States of America.

Frank Curzio 19:01

Uh, I think that the government’s eventually going to take a stake in UEC because they are the biggest and the best. No one’s even close to them in the US. Uh, it is a critical metal that that might be the next one to take a stake in, but this has a lot, lot more room to grow. And you know, they’re already funded, but it’ll be nice to get the government behind them as well.

Frank Curzio 19:18

Because like we said, when the government gets behind you, think of it as an investor. Don’t think about it as, you know, hey, you know, ideology, the bigger picture. And I don’t think this isright and they shouldn’t do it.

Frank Curzio 19:28

I’m just saying, even if the companies that they’re investing in, you have the backing through Trump, you have that access, you have funding, you have all, it’s great, great, great news for these companies. And more importantly, it’s great news for the investors.

Frank Curzio 19:39

Almost everyone that they’ve taken a stake in has gone through the roof and it’s going to continue and they’re just getting started, especially with critical metals because we’re in dire need of that stuff and we need to control that stuff in the US. What, uh, if the industry heavyweights and those guys were recommended taking some off the table, what about the, uh, rest of the room?

Frank Curzio 19:57

How was the atmosphere as far as the atmosphere was bearish and the outlook? Yeah. Were people like talking like, hey, gold’s going to 10,000? No, no. Or were they conservative or zero? So it wasn’t overly, no, you didn’t look at this like, oh man, this is like the top.

Frank Curzio 20:10

And it’s so funny because when gold was getting crushed and five, six years ago, you know, they were like, gold’s going to the roof, it’s going to 10,000. And now, no, we didn’t hear that. We heard that, I mean, most people got up there and said, you know, take some profits. Andrightly, we could see a lot of that. I know that, but like the crowd, like the people you’re talking to, they got to be crowd.

Frank Curzio 20:27

No, because they were asking who thinks that this is near a top and about 70% of the people were raising their hands. They’re investing or top. That’s a good contrarian. And I’m thinking like, what the hell are you doing here if you think it’s a top? Seriously, you’re at an investment conference where everyone’s pitching their stocks and you’re like, oh, I mean, you know, you could short in Canada.

Frank Curzio 20:43

It’s a lot harder to short in Canada because you could do naked shorts. You know, you’re not supposed to do it in the US, but you could do it. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I was surprised.

Frank Curzio 20:52

I was surprised that it, it, and it made me feel again, as a contrarian, everyone thinks they’re a contrarian, but they’re really not a contrarian because a contrarian would be buying the shit out of metalsright now, not taking profits. Because most people believe that, okay, this is done. Okay. We saw the move. It’s probably going to come down. And I, I think it could pull back. I said it last week.

Frank Curzio 21:10

You know, I, I think, you know, hey, it could pull back a little bit. Uh, but if you’re looking at the overall trend, like we saw with AI, we saw a pullback in early 2025. We saw a pullback in 2022 and look where we are now. That’s what you’re going to see.

Frank Curzio 21:21

And it’s going to give you opportunities to buy a lot of this stuff when it does pull back because of underneath the secular markets behind defense,right? With increasing, with doubling our, doubling our expense budget,right? To 1.5 trillion. And forget about the deficits. That was always a story with gold and silver and stuff like that.

Frank Curzio 21:40

Uh, de-dollarization and people moving away from the dollar. But just when you’re looking at the end markets and AI and demand and the government getting involved in this, that’s different from something different than, than we’ve seen, than we’ve ever seen in these markets. And I think that’s going to continue to drive commodities much, much higher from now. And even Chamath came out and said, who I respect a lot.

Frank Curzio 21:57

I just hate what he did with that one stock. I won’t bring it up again. But he said, AI, we can’t have AI without copper going incredibly higher. Uh, and, and copper is absolutely on fire. It’s $6 record high. And, and you know, there’s no slowing down.

Frank Curzio 22:12

I don’t think there’s any, there’s no slowing down, especially with copper and some of these things, especially in gold. Silver might be a little overdone here, but it’s not just some of those metals. It’s everything across the board. This is a full-blown bull marketright now in commodities. And I just, there’s nothing to tell me that this is going to stopright now.

Frank Curzio 22:28

When people say, well, valuations went up a little too high, that’s not the reason for this to stop. There’s not a fundamental reason for this to stopright now. Fundamentals behind it are driving this growth through secular trends. And I think it’s going to continue and we’ll see that going forward, at least over the next few years. I’m going to say this.

Frank Curzio 22:43

So that means that the, uh, commodities will pull back immediately. But I agree with you on this time being different. And the reason I agree with you is twofold.

Frank Curzio 22:52

And one, I, I know you’reright and I know you’re not dismissing it as if it’s not important, but the bear market thesis or for the country and the bull market thesis for gold on debts and deficits and all that, it has been basically like beating a dead horse for a long time.

Frank Curzio 23:10

However, I will give them some credit while they were early. And yes, they were wrong in a lot of aspects, opportunity costs and such. The fact that deficits are what they are now, trillion dollars, that inflation because of the post-COVID and what you talked about, how they got a completely wrong day, the Fed and all the economists.

Frank Curzio 23:28

What’s different this time, in my opinion, is uncertainty. Because I like your rants about gold during inflation and deflation or not inflation, high interest rates, low interest rates. I really think that when people are worried about crap hitting the fan, you buy gold and you buy commodities and all that. I’m with you on the industrial side and the AI side. I think that’s absolutely spot on.

Frank Curzio 23:46

What I like about the gold sector and commodities is you do have this oh crap fear because Trump is an absolute Florida wild card and then some. Frank, you ever play Uno or like fun cards where you get? Of course. You ever make up the rules like, allright, twos are wild. Well, Trump makes up rules and every card is wild.

Frank Curzio 24:04

Whatever he gets up, I got the wild cards. Like, look at this. Okay. And what I mean by that is if you look at the US dollar, it’s tanking. Okay.

Frank Curzio 24:14

And now don’t get too overfeared about this and all that kind of stuff, but just know when that momentum to the downside is going down, the upside to commodities, gold and such, that just tilts the scale. And I don’t know if you saw President Trump’s comments about the US dollar, Frank. He wants to go down. Yeah.

Frank Curzio 24:31

But he said, ah, it’s not going down that much. You pull up a chart. This thing is tanking. Now, perspective matters, people. You know, you pull up a chart and I don’t know if you can pull up a chart, Joe, of the US dollar. I’m sorry because the symbol is so different on different ones. If you do FinViz, I think it’s a backslash. But anyway, it’s breaking.

Frank Curzio 24:49

If you look at a chart, it’s breaking out to lows. It’s on, it’s around 96, 95 ish. You got to go back a few more years to see the low around 90. The point is Donald Trump, love him or hate him, is being vocal and he is not going to do a darn thing to stabilize the free fall of the US dollar on the chart.

Frank Curzio 25:06

He thinks it’s a good thing because things get cheaper. Right or wrong, we’re not arguing that. We’re simply saying you have the president pulling a China shop saying he wants a lower dollar, which by definition is going to be momentum to the downside for that. And to your point, Frank, massive momentum on the upside across copper, all that kind of stuff.

Frank Curzio 25:23

And I even got this dead wrong because I believe we are going through a shift in monetary policy and consumer sentiment. And what I mean by that, Frank, you don’t go down this road of debts and deficits and what we’ve done and not have major changes. I think we’re at a crossroads of major changes. It’s not a reason to panic. It’s a reason to pay attention.

Frank Curzio 25:40

But the reason oil stocks that I got wrong, Frank, are going higher is because in my opinion, that falls into the basket of assets, real estate, commodities, all going higher on this kind of lower dollar mentality.

Frank Curzio 25:53

So I think it’s great to hear about the sentiment and the atmosphere there because if everybody was going, hey, gold’s going to 10,000 and Bitcoin’s going to zero, holy hell, we’d be back here and waiting for everybody to do stock offerings and tank the retail investors. But I agree, these are new times ahead. Yeah. And it’s not the worst thing.

Frank Curzio 26:09

You know, a lot of people, it’s, you know, our exports become cheaper, they become more competitive. Uh, you know, our markets do great when, when, when the dollar does come down. Uh, you know, that’s why Trump embraces it.

Frank Curzio 26:20

And, you know, again, it’s not like it’s crashing, but it’s, it’s, you know, again, it has come down, but still this is, you know, and Trump has said this even in his first term,right? Our dollar’s too high. But yeah, and that, and that leads us to the Fed meeting, which is happening today, which is amazing considering, remember how big of a deal these used to be,right? Yeah.

Frank Curzio 26:37

And this is, I mean, the top 15 stories, if you go on CNBCright now, none of them are talking about the Fed meeting today. Uh, you know, and then it’s supposed to keep rates unchanged and, you know, Fed fund between three and a half, 3.75%.

Frank Curzio 26:50

But it’s, it makes me think thatright now the markets are a little bit higher today that we could end the day lower. Let’s see the time of list of this podcast. You could, you could see if that’sright or wrong.

Frank Curzio 27:00

But, uh, what he is going to say, you know, Powell’s going to, going to talk today, it could be market moving, some of the comments, especially if he’s extra hawkish or says that, you know, we, we see no reason to lower rates anytime soon. And I think that’s a very, very big mistake.

Frank Curzio 27:18

And people may be looking and saying, okay, the job market’s good. We have assets near all-time highs and things are okay. Look, look, if you see the latest statistics on housing, mortgage demand dropped close to 10% as rates started increasing again. Refinancing dropped 16% last week.

Frank Curzio 27:34

Also, data showing that sick, this is important, 16% of home purchases, these contracts, the home purchase contracts in Florida, not in Florida, but in the US were canceled in December, meaning that they had a deal in place, but then the buyers decided that they didn’t want to go through with it. They backed out of the contracts.

Frank Curzio 27:54

When you’re looking at the expenses with that interest rate, it’s the housing market is going to be frozen. You’re seeing prices come down. You’re seeing condos start getting wrecked in Miami.

Frank Curzio 28:03

You’ve seen it a lot of different places, even in Texas and Florida where places in Arizona, the places that, that were very good tax, you know, in Vegas and stuff like that, places where you can get benefits for taxes. But housing is a huge part of this economy.

Frank Curzio 28:18

You also mentioned the deficits where, you know, again, we know the economy is growing, we know stocks are all-time high, but you know, we need these lower rates to sustain this growth because even with our deficits, we’re talking over 1 trillion just in interest payments on a 38 trillion plus national debt, which is now 125%

Frank Curzio 28:36

plus GDP and growing. So when you look at those statistics of why we need lower rates, I understand where people say, well, look, you know, assets are really high and usually, you know, again, it’s the economy’s chugging along. We’re doing good. And you know why lower rates for? But when you’re really looking at this market, this could deteriorate.

Frank Curzio 28:54

And remember, they’re reactionary. They’re not, you know, they just, they don’t know how to be proactive and do things after, you know, they need to see stats. That’s what these guys are. They did, did, you know, just data nerds that look at constantly at data and data and data. And most of the data they freaking look at, unfortunately, is two, three, four months old. And they always make decisions very, very late.

Frank Curzio 29:12

But if you’re really looking at housing and you look at the markets and you go out there and talk to people, we need lower interest rates now. They need to go lower or just the trend of, hey, we’re lowering them over a period of time over the next year, a quarter point here, a quarter point there. But if he comes out and says, hey, you know what, we’re fine. We’re okay. We don’t need to do thisright now. Be careful.

Frank Curzio 29:31

This market could really, you know, we could see a pullback over the next week or two, uh, uh, considering that, you know, we’re off to a pretty decent start, especially when it comes to small cap and risk assets. But these risk assets could sell off pretty hard if he comes out and says, hey, you know, there’s no way we’re going to be lowering rates anytime soon. Who knows? And I might be political.

Frank Curzio 29:49

That might be how he feels. But you know, we, we really need to lower rates because housing is a very big part of this economy and our deficits are out of control. That, that will sustain this longer term over the next few years. Uh, and you know, again, that’s going to happen when he’s no longer the chairman and Trump has his guy in there.

Frank Curzio 30:06

Uh, you’re going to see lower rates in 2026. But I’m curious to see what he says and the fact that no place on CNBC, if you look and just scroll that down, if you can put that up there and just scroll down a little bit. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Like, look at the latest stories. Look at all the stories on there.

Frank Curzio 30:21

Even if you go to the latest news over there, there’s nothing like the Fed’s meeting today. There’s nothing here anywhere. And that you can go to, to, to Fox Business, all these, but there’s nothing there. Like I’ve never seen this before. The fact that nobody’s really paying attention, nobody cares. I know it’s earnings season. There’s a lot of shit going on. Commodities are all-time highs, gold and all this stuff.

Frank Curzio 30:39

Uh, I’m just surprised that, uh, the fact that this is nowhereright now that we’re taping this podcast, uh, a couple of hours before this meeting makes me think that this could be market moving because no one’s expecting it to be market moving. That’s a good point. I do think the, one of the biggest reasons is because there’s no way they move interest rates today.

Frank Curzio 30:57

You know, if there was a potential or a chance to cut or there was some uncertainty, but they’re not going to do anything. So then it kind of gets swept under the rug because now you just have to listen to the press conference and all that kind of stuff from Fed Chair Powell, which I think he’s going to be hawkish. And again, Daniel Creech is very political. I look at the world the way, um, I believe in reality.

Frank Curzio 31:15

Everybody’s political, crazy things. It seeps everywhere, people. And if you don’t think that old Powell going to the Supreme Court to listen to his pal, Lisa Cook, and all that kind of stuff, um, I, I think he’s going to be dove, or excuse me, I think he’s going to be a little hawkish.

Frank Curzio 31:31

I, I do think, I think it would be great if we could point in this instant gratification world that we live in, Frank. I actually hope that he’s a little bit hawkish. I hope he pushes the market down. This is hope, people. Listen, this is hope. Okay. Because that would give us a chance to scale into some names.

Frank Curzio 31:48

Um, you know, I do think it’s a coin flip, but I think he errs on the side of hawkishness because, you know, that’s what I would do if I were Fed Chair Powell. I would be a prick and, uh, show Donald Trump that I’m here to stay. And I would even, uh, we’ll, we’ll see. I think he’s going to play itright and he’s going to play it down the aisle.

Frank Curzio 32:04

However, you know, he’s going to get one of the questions about when he’s not Fed Chair anymore, if he’s going to stay on the board. I think he’ll avoid that politically, but if he doesn’t, that shows you where he’s at in this game of chess. Yeah. And that’s going to be the Q&A. I’m just going to be surprised to see the minutes or what they’re talking about and what he comes out with the speech first before he gets to the questions. And of course, Steve Liesman always gets the first three questions.

Frank Curzio 32:22

So it’ll be interesting what he says. And, and you know, nowadays they want to, the story is the politics,right? That’s the headlines. People want to, want to read that, that gets the click. So of course that’s going to dominate. What about the president and, you know, all this stuff and, oh yeah, and yeah.

Frank Curzio 32:36

So yeah, I will say, uh, quickly the reason or argument to cut rates, and I keep pulling this out and I want you guys to check it. True inflation, Frank, what do you think? And this is updated daily through thousands and thousands of channel checks and prices through all kinds of companies and stuff.

Frank Curzio 32:54

What do you think the consumer price index, inflation index is showingright now in a percentage for the, for your, the gauge that you, that’s updated daily. What do you think it isright now? I mean, it’s been below 2%,right? It has been. Yep. It was like 1.7, whatever. It’s 1.16right now. Wow. Okay.

Frank Curzio 33:11

And I, I don’t know if we’re logged in, so don’t worry about pulling it up just yet, but January 10th, it was 1.88. Wow. So it’s gone down from 1.88. There’s no reason why we, we can’t, I mean, that’s my point to all this real quick is the BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, just showed the recent reading of 2.7.

Frank Curzio 33:28

So 2.7 to 1.16, that’s a 57% difference. That’s massive. The only reason I point that out is because you can check true inflation in real time all the time. They break it down. They’re transparent. Is it the gospel? No, but it’s something different than what the data as Frank talks about is what the Fed’s looking at.

Frank Curzio 33:44

This is going to be one of the biggest and lowest hanging fruit changes for the new Fed Chair and the new Fed to make that the Trump administration wants to fundamentally change. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett has been absolutely clear and transparent about fundamental changes at the Fed.

Frank Curzio 34:01

I believe that’s going to be data, data sourcing and all that kind of stuff. This is an absolute easy argument to be made. True inflation is catching off, uh, catching on. It’s going around. I see a lot of social media, a lot of people smarter and richer than I am, Frank, are quoting this. That makes a lot of sense. Allright. So let’s get to some of the stock movers today.

Frank Curzio 34:17

And one of them I want to mention, which we’ve been on board is Starbucks. Uh, I love the quarter. Uh, so the street last time we looked, it was wild. It was up. It’s only up 3% now. It was up 10% at one point. And I’m loving this that it’s actually pulled back. It’s going to give you even a better opportunity to purchase it.

Frank Curzio 34:32

So I can see, you know, the reason why it was up 10%, the reason why I pulled back a little bit. So let’s, let’s cover it because if you’re looking at global comps are up 4%, revenue up 5%. Uh, and this is led by transaction growth, which is returning in the US, and that’s for the first time in eight quarters.

Frank Curzio 34:50

Now, what does that mean? Because when you look at transaction growth, a lot of companies are seeing revenue growth because they’re raising prices. They’re raising prices. When you’re looking at the transactions, it means that more people are coming into the stores, means that you’re getting higher traffic. People are coming back to Starbucks, and that’s why you saw the stock go up.

Frank Curzio 35:08

Uh, even better, China is coming back with comps in China. China, up China vibe is up 7%, which marks the third straight quarter growth in China. And remember, China was a company’s growth model for what, seven, eight years ago and saying, okay, we’re going to grow tremendously.

Frank Curzio 35:26

We already have a shop on like two shops on every block in the major cities. Okay, where’s the growth going to come from? And they’re like China, and it was growing. And then you had, you know, the slowdown in China, real estate, property markets, and then you had COVID and, you know, it hasn’t been that good. So now you’re seeing it finally come back.

Frank Curzio 35:41

And I love what they’re doing because you’re going to see this growth accelerate even more because of their deal with, it’s called Boyu Capital, who’s acquiring 60% of the Starbucks China retail operations. And Starbucks is going to retain 40% their IP, their ownership, brand, and also licensing control.

Frank Curzio 35:58

So they’re de-risking this part of China while still maintaining the huge growth catalysts in one of the biggest markets in the world. So you’re looking at Brian Nichols. He’s an absolute rockstar. Okay. He took over this company and it was, it was done. It was like complete shit. And we, we highlighted this,right?

Frank Curzio 36:16

We would get, we said this for a long time with Starbucks. You know, these guys are in a lot of trouble. Uh, the pricing power, they, they don’t have as much anymore.

Frank Curzio 36:23

You’re looking at, at so many different coffee chains opening up and the fact that you would order coffee in the morning and anyone could order whatever they want, even if it’s 20 different steps to make these things, it resulted in you going there to pick up your coffee when you ordered it online and it wasn’t there. And that’s, that, that’s, you’re talking about people not getting their drug fix,right?

Frank Curzio 36:42

And if you don’t get your drug fix in the morning, they’re going someplace else immediately because people need their caffeine. It’s just a fact. And now he’s getting these people back. And he even added the former chief technology officer from Amazon. So the stock’s upright now 3%.

Frank Curzio 36:57

It was up a little bit more probably because they didn’t raise guidance, which I love. More conservative, taking a conservative approach. But you’re looking at the stock probably up around 11%, 12% in the past month with the S&P basically flat. This is a company that I think goes incredibly high. It’s nice to see it. It was just back over a hundred.

Frank Curzio 37:15

It’s like 98 now, but you know, we have this in a portfolio. We’re doing well on it, but this is a stock that can go incredibly high. This is what you want to see. This is a, is it perfect? No, but it’s the first time,right? Even last quarter, what we saw is it was different. We saw optimism. We saw a future with Starbucks.

Frank Curzio 37:31

We saw, now you go to Starbucks, you see even today I went to Starbucks, actually Starbucksright here. I just went, I really went to Starbucks. And you know what they had? They actually like, like Chick-fil-A. They had someone, I didn’t go through the drive-through. I usually go in, uh, in the drive-through. They had somebody outside in the drive. They never had that before,right? Because just to speed up operations and make it more better for the consumer.

Frank Curzio 37:49

And I think they kind of forgot that with the last management team. This is what Nichols focuses on. That’s why he’s a rockstar. This guy doesn’t have to work for the rest of his life. Look what happened to Pulley as soon as he left. Look, look at the stock. Allright. This, this management matters in these businesses. Yeah, for sure. And this guy’s getting it done. And this is just the beginning. This is what you want. Is it perfect?

Frank Curzio 38:06

No, it’s far from perfect, but it’s, you’re seeing positive comps. You’re seeing more traffic come in and you’re just going to see this get better and better and better and better. Cause he looked at all the risks and said, how do we make this better one at a time? And even China’s coming back. This is going to continue to come back. I think this stock’s going to go through the roof pretty soon. Uh, and it’s going to be a lot higher.

Frank Curzio 38:24

It’s still expensive on an earnings per share basis. That’s fine, but you’re going to see earnings grow, cash flow grow. These guys have hit bottom. Now finally they’re looking up and what you want to see, you make the biggest gains. Not when things are better, when you go from worse to less worse. And that’s what’s happening with this company.

Frank Curzio 38:41

You’re seeing it get better and better and better. And they’re still at the early stages. And this is going to continue here, which, uh, I really like Starbucks here and great job by Nichols. What, what a CEO, what a CEO. Yeah. He’s definitely a, uh, uh, a rockstar in the industry. This is a turnaround story. It seems to be turning around. Uh, they had positive, uh, sales in the US for the first time in eight quarters.

Frank Curzio 39:00

That’s two years. And listen, the back to Starbucks, it’s an execution story and you want to bet on a rockstar. I will say with, um, um, one thing I liked about it, Frank, is the conversation it creates, because you’reright on an earnings per share or a forward PE, you could say, hey man, this thing is still expensive.

Frank Curzio 39:18

However, rockstars, great leaders, CEOs deserve a premium. Now what that premium is, is up for debate. You can say too high, too low, whatever, but this is the guy that you want to bet on to say higher. And so yeah, I, like I said, this is an execution story and, uh, you want a rockstar like him when you’re betting on execution.

Frank Curzio 39:36

Another company that’s good. We were early. We’re up four or five percent now. So this helped us out. We were a little early, but the thesis is alive and well. So this is a stock you should ownright now. This is definitely a stock you should ownright now. It’s got a huge, huge upside potential. Uh, Boeing’s another one, uh, in a portfolio. Great, great quarter as well. Near 52 week high, 245.

Frank Curzio 39:54

Uh, I don’t know if you want to start with it. I have lots of things to say about Boeing, but man, this company’s on fire. I don’t even like Boeing. You put this in the portfolio. This is all you. We’re up 38%. Um, this stock’s at 240right now. In great 24 months, it’s going to be at 400. See, that’s why I leave it to you. Okay.

Frank Curzio 40:12

And I could tell you it’s the momentum on this name is absolutely insane. And I consider this company, it is the NVIDIA. Like NVIDIA is the hub of AI. This is the company that, that is the hub of the airline industry. And I don’t know if you guys have seen what’s going on with the airline industry. I fly a lot.

Frank Curzio 40:30

I mean, it’s an absolute fricking fortune. They have massive pricing power. They’re getting new fleets. Everything. I mean, the amount of money that these guys, United seeing record revenue, Americans seeing record revenue, Delta’s on fire, global airlines are on fire. How on fire are they?

Frank Curzio 40:43

Global airlines are set to report record profits, not revenue, profits of 40 billion in 2026. Every one of these airlines needs to upgrade their fleets. They have two choices: Boeing and Airbus.

Frank Curzio 40:58

Airbusright now, a lot of people don’t know this because it’s mostly Europe and a lot of stuff going on. Just like with Boeing, everything crazy going on with Boeing the past few years. That’s what’s happening to Airbusright now. They’re shitting the bed after recalling 6,000 of their A320 planes due to a software glitch. What does that mean?

Frank Curzio 41:16

I’ve done studied a lot in the airline industry. I’ve been to the Everett plant in Washington. This is what I knew. Like, holy shit, these guys are accelerating tremendously. We went there, I think in 2017 or ’18 with Marin, Doug Casey, uh, Frank Holmes, one of the greatest trips you can go on.

Frank Curzio 41:32

And the A320 is one of the top selling planes. It is a top selling plane in the world. They have over 11,000 commitments, which they can’t deliverright now. Think about Boeing. When they couldn’t deliver it, a lot of those orders went to Airbus because these guys needed the planes.

Frank Curzio 41:46

Now it’s a high selling plane, the A320, which is Airbus next to Boeing 737 MAX. When you put these planes side by side, the 737 MAX is much better than A320 when it comes to efficiency, when it comes to the weight of the plane, when it comes to actually saving these companies more money and creating higher margins for them. But Boeing dropped the ball completely.

Frank Curzio 42:05

We all know the story. They only have 7,000 ordersright now because of all those problems they had since COVID. Those problems are gone. And now that they’re gone, they’re gone at a time where the airline market has never been stronger.

Frank Curzio 42:20

And this isn’t a secular, this isn’t a cyclical market,right? Oh, okay. The cycle’s goodright now. They cut. This is secular. This is a secular growth, record cash flow, record profits. Just like you’re seeing AI, massive spending.

Frank Curzio 42:33

It’s going to lead to even more spending on these new planes that create much more efficiencies than the older models. And a lot of those older models, I’ve taken some of those freaking planes that are 25 years old that don’t have Wi-Fi still,right? Which is amazing. That’s why when you upgrade the first class for 150 bucks, you’re getting exactly what you pay for.

Frank Curzio 42:50

You’re like, holy shit, like the armrest doesn’t work,right? You look at some of these JetBlue planes, you’re lucky if that they start direct TV and that direct TV, you know, you got to shake the wire for both ears to work,right? So these are very old planes that need to be upgraded.

Frank Curzio 43:03

And now these companies have enough money easily to leverage those profits, to leverage that cash flow. I mean, Boeing’s free cash flow alone is going to hit 3 billion in 2026. A company that was burning cash for how many years? Four or five years because of all the problems they had.

Frank Curzio 43:18

And that 3 billion includes a 1 billion charge associated when they incorporate Spirit AeroSystems. They’re about to deliver their first 777X next year. 737 production increasing from 42 to 47, increasing production of its 787 due to increased demand.

Frank Curzio 43:36

Every single line on this company is on fire. Okay. They have a strong runway, no pun intended. Uh, more than five years out at least. And these guys are rocking and rollingright now. As long as they don’t have another plane where something breaks down and something happens.

Frank Curzio 43:52

And I’ve been through that because we recommended Boeing before and I’m like, this company’s tremendously undervalued, but we saw that happen several times, Daniel. Yeah. As long as these guys stay the course, this is a stock that’s going to be 400 in 24 months. They’re rocking and rolling everything. They’re in theright industry.

Frank Curzio 44:07

Like Intel, we have all these companies having to spend more and more money. All the airlines having to spend more and more money. Right now, there’s only two players in the industry. One of them is not doing well, recalling their best planes, which means all these orders are going to go to Boeing. And that’s what you’re starting to see. I mean, if you look at the news, they’re getting orders after orders.

Frank Curzio 44:25

It seems like every week, every few weeks, they’re getting more orders. It’s going to continue for probably the next five, seven, ten years. And this is a company that’s been out of favor for a long time. And I think that’s going to change going forward. It is changing now. And the stock has a lot more room to run.

Frank Curzio 44:38

Who was the gentleman a week or two ago that, you know, forrightly, uh, reasons, he was upset during the whole fiasco the last couple of years? And, but then he just put a big order for their planes. I think it was Alaska. Was it Alaska? Yeah. Because somebody like that wanted airlines and they wanted to. It was basically two years ago where he was like, hey, we’re not doing anything until you guys get your act together.

Frank Curzio 44:56

You should be the greatest. You can’t kill your tobacco companies are the only people that can kill their customers, people. That’s it. And look how great the industry is allowed to do it. And look how great they rebranded to say, hey, you know what? It’s, you know, smoking’s bad, but vaping’s really good. And let’s get some flames to get rebranded. Younger generation.

Frank Curzio 45:12

And, and you know, that’s how they make profits and they rebranded and, and look what they’re doing now. So good for them. Yeah. Don’t, yeah. Keep all your doors on. Life is good. You mentioned, uh, Intel. Intel, Intel, uh, blew it out of the water recently with their performance.

Frank Curzio 45:27

So the stock reported they beat on earnings per share and revenue guidance. And the stock sold off 17%, Frank. Why? Well, because as you say, you want to look at forward guidance. Obviously, the estimates matter, but you want to look at guidance. So guidance came in a little bit weak for Q1. Intel guided earnings per share to zero.

Frank Curzio 45:45

The street was expecting at least six cents. So that hurts a little bit. Let’s put this in perspective, Frank. How much did the stock run up from mid-September of last year to earnings, do you think? 50, 100%, or 120%? From mid-September? Is that when they took the stake? No, I’m just picking a spot on the chart. Picking a spot.

Frank Curzio 46:03

I mean, look at that. We’re on the podcast. 100%. See, I set you up. 120%. See, that’s what you get. So the stock ran up 120% basically in the last few months on this. Why? Because this is a Trump story. This is a Trump circle pick.

Frank Curzio 46:18

This is B on theright side of politics, as Frank has been saying, because it is way ahead of itself just by the numbers on a fundamental reason. But that’s okay. This is kind of an awkward turnaround story, uh, public-private partnership all in one here, Frank.

Frank Curzio 46:33

So the positive side here, and everybody wants to pay attention to the data center and I and AI, that was this really only segment that showed growth, Frank, 15% sequentially. That means from quarter to quarter. That’s a positive. However, the client computing group was down. Um, the foundry system, this is great.

Frank Curzio 46:50

This is, this is some funny numbers for you, Frank. Foundry is the, uh, the chip manufacturer. So Taiwan Semi is the dominant player in this, but a foundry is just this giant, beautiful, clean room that makes all these semiconductors and expensive microchips. Revenue reached four and a half billion dollars. That’s up 6% quarter to quarter. That’s awesome.

Frank Curzio 47:07

Lost two and a half billion dollars, Frank. You want to talk about a great business? Pour more money into it and light it on fire for crying out loud. Now the stock is rebounding already today. It’s up about 9%. Now, outside of Q1, disappointing guidance, everything else was allright. But here’s the story on this. This is a Trump story.

Frank Curzio 47:25

This is not a fundamental story. And if you don’t like that, I completely understand. I don’t have a gun to your head. Go, go somewhere else and invest. Do not worry about it. But do not talk about fundamentals. Don’t talk about valuations with this. This is the idea that Trump is reshoring critical minerals and supply chains that they deem important.

Frank Curzio 47:45

Chips, manufacturing chips fall into that. Semiconductors fall into that. Uh, they got a new ER CEO. They areright in the ship. They got a big investment from NVIDIA, $5 billion that closed at the end of the quarter. But the real news here, Frank, I want to tell you this. I want your opinion.

Frank Curzio 48:00

There’s rumors, Bloomberg, whoever, doesn’t matter, that NVIDIA will shift some production from Taiwan Semi to Intel. Now, is this in 2028? That’s a long time off. Markets are forward-looking, but bear with me here.

Frank Curzio 48:13

That’s important because Intel already invested $5 billion and it closed after the Trump administration took one. So NVIDIA invested in Intel. Yeah, NVIDIA. Yeah. So, and that closed. They talked about it in the earnings release. So the idea that NVIDIA might shift production in the future isn’t as crazy because you have a $5 billion stake. They actually have money where they’re talking about.

Frank Curzio 48:31

So that makes sense. Also, and I like this, stock runs up, pulls back 17%. CFO comes in, buys a quarter of a million dollars. Yeah. Not bad. Um, I think from a trading perspective, from a political standpoint, I think this is a buy on this pullback. I think this story is alive and well.

Frank Curzio 48:46

Again, email me if you want to, but don’t expect a reply on this fundamental story. That’s not where we’re at here. And if you don’t like it, that’s fine. Pay attention to what the game gives you here, Frank. I think the funny joke, scroll down a little bit if you can put that chart up on the screen, the Intel. Keep scrolling down. I just want to see the fundamentals on this thing. So where’s it trading on a forward PE?

Frank Curzio 49:05

I think it’s in the 40s. Okay. So that’s 100. That’s the next 12 months. Yeah. That’s just like charging stuff like that. I wouldn’t really worry about that. Uh, you looking at what’s the market cap on the two. So this is a $240 billion market cap company, which is, I mean, where are we looking at with AMD? It’s probably triple that.

Frank Curzio 49:23

We’re looking at four and a half trillion plus for NVIDIA. Okay. So what is going on here? One is the company got smoked, uh, because of their guidance. And that’s okay,right? And they, and their guidance was low across the board in sales, earnings, and margins.

Frank Curzio 49:39

And the stock was trading about 54, went to 42, and now you’re seeing it’s up 10%. When we came on, it was up 3%. Now it’s up 10%right now. Uh, and it makes sense. So you mentioned these catalysts where that’s not a rumor. That is actually being reported by good outlets,right? Saying that, that, that shift in production in video, they plan to shift chip production to Intel in 2028.

Frank Curzio 49:57

Why is that important? Even though it’s not, it’s 2028, because it’s a, when’s the last time Intel had a positive long-term catalyst that investors could look forward to? Probably 20 freaking years ago. That’s how horrible this company was. Now you’re talking about the biggest company in the world with an investment in this, with the government backing behind it,right? Which is going to make things a lot easier.

Frank Curzio 50:15

They’re going to be introduced to every single country as AI goes bigger and bigger and goes global,right? Intel’s going to be introduced. Now, when you look under the hood a little bit, and this is why probably the CFO bought $250,000 worth of stock at 42 and it’s 48. Nice job. Maybe you should sell it since he’s up a ton, uh, in like a day.

Frank Curzio 50:32

It’s not a bad move here. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Disclosure tomorrow. Yeah. You got to sell 270,000. He’s like, oh shit, honey, maybe we should just sell the stock and, uh, buy another house. That’s a good idea.

Frank Curzio 50:42

But it’s, if you’re looking under the hood, data center and AI revenue grew 15% sequentially, meaning from last quarter to 4.7 billion, and that was driven by strong demand.

Frank Curzio 50:52

However, that number would have been much, much, much more because they have manufacturing constraints on AI-based CPUs, which makes sense because this company had no idea what they were doing a year ago and all, all the way through 20 years ago and saying they weren’t preparing for massive demand,right?

Frank Curzio 51:08

They missed everything from smartphones to cloud to, to now AI. And now they’re, now they have manufacturing facilities that can be used. Again, those are fabs that are worth an absolute fortune that take, you know, hundreds, I wouldn’t say hundreds of billions, but you’re looking at 10, 20, 30 billion.

Frank Curzio 51:24

Look at, you know, Taiwan Semi moving their operations to the US and how much that costs. These things are built already,right? So, uh, you know, now the manufacturing constraints are going to change. They’re going to be fixed through 2026, 2027. So now they’re going to benefit tremendously. You have NVIDIA as a partner. You have the government as a partner.

Frank Curzio 51:42

I mean, and now they’re going to be cash flow positive this year. They’re going to be retiring $2.5 billion in debt this year, which was a concern for this company in terms of the balance sheet. So you’re removing the balance sheet risk. You’re removing the risk. Hey, we’re now in AI. Now you have the government’s partners. You have NVIDIA’s partners. You have SoftBank as partners. I mean, this was a layup.

Frank Curzio 51:59

I would have bought this personally if I wasn’t away, but seeing the stock crash the way it did on that, I mean, you’re looking past those estimates are very conservative. If you’re looking at Intel for the first time in 20 years, it has a future. It has a future. They’re in theright trend and they have theright partners and they have the government backing.

Frank Curzio 52:16

And that’s why this stock, you see it snapright back and it’s going to goright back past 52, probably in the next couple of weeks and a lot, a lot higher from here. Probably a good buy. That government support is huge. We’ve been talking about that with every stock.

Frank Curzio 52:25

If you follow our advice and said, follow the government, even if just who’s ever in Trump’s circle, even if you didn’t take a stake in these companies, if you looked at 10 to 12 since the Middle East and that meeting and him bringing his posse there, all these CEOs, everything, everything, just look at what those companies have done. Every one of them has close ties to the president.

Frank Curzio 52:42

It means they have close ties globally to every single country that spending is going to use those companies here in the Trump circle. And that’s what you want as an investor, not politics, whatever. You could have any side politics you want. I’m just saying as an investor, that’s where you want to invest.

Frank Curzio 52:57

Even if it’s Biden, if it was Clinton, if it was Obama, when you’re a part of the government and you’re able to get those contracts and you know, you’re removing that overhang and that risk, it’s absolutely huge to business. And you’re seeing it even more with Trump because Trump is not just saying, hey, these are my friends.

Frank Curzio 53:15

He’s starting to invest in a lot of these companies, which Intel’s one of them and also critical metals. Uh, with that said, we’ve got a couple of minutes here, covered a couple of stocks. We’ll cover a lot more, get much more detailed into, uh, some of the companies that are going to be reporting today, tomorrow, uh, and tomorrow morning in our Wall Street Unplugged Premium podcast.

Frank Curzio 53:33

But I want to talk about the Savvy private placement that we’ve been pitching. We are almost at the full raise. So we’re very, very close. We still have a couple of spots left. Make a one last push.

Frank Curzio 53:44

We’re probably going to close it this week, if not this week, a little bit into next week, unless they pretty much raised a whole 10 million. I think they are up to like seven or eight, and then they’re going to take out the rest. Well done. Very, very, yeah. I’m very, very happy about that. And if you’re not familiar with Savvy, I mean, you have to be a one member to get access to it.

Frank Curzio 54:02

It’s run by Eric Goldreyer, who spoke at my conference. Eric is a superstar in the hospitality industry, founded Bed and Breakfast.com, sold to HomeAway in 2010 for an eight-figure exit, co-founded Turnkey Vacation Rentals, sold to Vacasa in 2020 for a nine-figure exit.

Frank Curzio 54:18

So he knows, he’s an entrepreneur that knows what the big companies want. Similar to a friend of mine, Mike Ripoli, who if you know him in Kentucky Derby and has one of the biggest stables right now, but started Vitamin Water and sold Coca-Cola. Then it was Body Armor, and he sold that.

Frank Curzio 54:32

He sold it for 4 billion to Coca-Cola, the first one, uh, Vitamin Water and Smart Water. And then Body Armor was a billion dollars. He created that and then sold it to them. Why? Because these big companies have trouble innovating, a lot of bureaucracy.

Frank Curzio 54:47

And Savvy is the same way with Goldreyer, you know, with Eric Goldreyer is the same, doing the same thing with Savvy where he’s disrupting a market that is becoming broken, which is Airbnb and Vrbo.

Frank Curzio 54:58

And anyone that uses those services knows that the prices on those things have gone up insane and it’s hurting the customers and also hurting the people who put those properties on their sites. And now Savvy, you can go and look, it’s a site that’s already created, but he started this company. We’re investing at a very early stage at a great valuation.

Frank Curzio 55:15

Uh, I’m very excited. He had to be an accredited investor, uh, to to invest in this and again, a One member. And you know, if you’re interested in in in investing in this or learning more, you’ve becoming a One member, email me, frank@curzioresearch.com.

Frank Curzio 55:29

It’s only $5,000 for the year and you get access to private placements, which I think a lot of people are trying to doright now, but the circle that we have with private placements is is unbelievable. The deals that we’re getting, deals like this, when you’re investing behind a Pete Attila, it’s been there and done that. Uh, you know, the Twitter founder, it’s been there and done that with so many deals.

Frank Curzio 55:48

Uh, you know, Eric Goldreyer has been there and done that. He knows what these big companies want and you’re going to see the same thing. Also, if you’re familiar with Noble, which is everywhere now, which is Mike Ripoli, uh, another company, he said this a year ago, everyone’s going to hear about it.

Frank Curzio 56:02

I predict that Nike’s going to buy that company, which he has Tom Brady behind the brand wearing Noble, everything, and you see him all over social media sites and clothing and athletic wear and stuff like that and sneakers. Uh, again, you’re going to have these companies that fail to innovate and have trouble innovating where he’s building a company.

Frank Curzio 56:19

He’s not trying to replace these companies, which is what a great entrepreneur does. What he’s saying is he wants to take just a few percentage points, two percentage points away from this market, and this is going to be his first 10-figure exit. And that’s what he’s doing. And he’s got the investors lined up.

Frank Curzio 56:32

He’s got, I believe, Travelocity CEO, former Travelocity CEO, also former Expedia, uh, CEO who are advising this company. And I love where it is and I love where we’re raising money for this company. And I put my own money into this, a hundred grand.

Frank Curzio 56:47

So if you want it to $25,000 minimum, let me know, but you need to let me know pretty much by the end of this week if you’re going to come in, email me, frankherzaresearch.com if you’re a credit investor and you’re interested.

Frank Curzio 56:57

And we have a great deal coming up after this, a really, really great deal that comes from a person who, uh, is part of the SlimFast Fortune, which was bought for, I think, $2.5 billion dollars a while ago and, uh, by Unilever.

Frank Curzio 57:13

And this company, I’m very, very excited about, so much so that I think he’s only raising 5 million and he’s putting a million and a half money of his money in it personally. And there’s also another million dollars coming from the insiders. Again, these guys have founder shares and they’re raising at, I think it’s going to be a $20 million valuation.

Frank Curzio 57:31

And for them to be putting this much money into this valuation, into this round is is a huge endorsement of where they think this company could go. That’s the next one coming out probably in a couple of weeks that I’m really, really excited about. So giving you access to this, this is some of the stuff that I’m doing. This is where I generate most of my wealth, uh, in the private markets.

Frank Curzio 57:48

But some of these private deals, everyone’s looking to raise money. It’s very, very dangerous. It’s a dangerous market. That’s what the service is about. It’s me going in here, helping structure these deals, making sure you’re getting good deals, deals that you’re investing alongside I, along me and myself, and you’re getting in the same terms.

Frank Curzio 58:05

Uh, but this is getting to be a lot of fun. This is where our One conference came in November. We had amazing people there. We had all the CEOs of some of the private companies we invested in. Uh, you got to meet these people personally. They all hung out at the conference. It was a lot of fun, but that’s a special group that I’m really, really proud of.

Frank Curzio 58:21

Uh, and that group is growing tremendously, which I want it to continue to grow. This way we’re able to fund and create more and more, you know, as we get bigger, bigger deals, we’re getting more quality deals from great guys like Eric Goldreyer and lots of great biotech deals as well. So this is an exciting time. If you’re interested in joining the One membership, Curzio One, email me, frank@curzioresearch.com.

Frank Curzio 58:42

Email me for fun things and critics. Yeah, don’t email me about Savvy.

What’s your email again? Daniel@curzioresearch.com.

And if there’s any problems with the charts that you see coming up, joe@curzioresearch.com.

Or if any of our stocks go down, it’s Joe’s fault. Yeah, throw him under the bus. Yeah, I got to throw him under the bus. Don’t email me. It’s not my fault. I only do the winners here.

Frank Curzio 59:00

Everybody, the losers, you can email Daniel, email Joe. Okay, that’s fine. Best to you. So guys, nice to be back. Lots to talk about today. And tomorrow will be a great podcast as well for Wall Street Unplugged Premium. If you’re interested in joining that, just go to our website. It’s like $10 a month. It’s curzioresearch.com with Daniel.

Frank Curzio 59:15

I break down, uh, a lot of companies, tell you where, you know, some of the things that we’re investing in. We have a portfolio tracks it, more of a trading portfolio, uh, which we’re very excited about. So, um, yeah, we’ll have a lot of stocks to talk about since it is earnings season. So that’ll be a lot of fun tomorrow. So be sure to join us. Other than that, that’s it for us.

Frank Curzio 59:32

And we’ll see you tomorrow. Take care.

Announcer 59:35

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.