Transcript was automatically generated.

Frank Curzio 00:00

How’s it going out there? It’s Wednesday, April 1st, April Fool’s Day. I’m Frank Curzio, your host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast.

Frank Curzio 00:06

We’re breaking the headlines and, uh, tell you what’s really moving these markets. Daniel Creech, what’s going on, man? How’s everything?

Daniel Creech 00:16

Hello, Frank. Happy April Fool’s.

Frank Curzio 00:18

April Fool’s. Wasn’t April Fool’s when we saw a Tiger Woods, huh? I mean, how many car accidents are you gonna get into? I heard that road that he went down in Jupiter is so tight, like it’s like a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit.

Daniel Creech 00:33

Oh my God.

Frank Curzio 00:33

For you to flip that car and, uh, and drive that fast, it was pretty crazy. And I love that that it happened at 2:00 and then we got all these reports and nobody was saying anything. I’m like, here we go. It was like 5:00 to going to have a special report. So he got arrested for DUI. And I heard the last time he did this, it was the same thing. They took a, like, the alcohol test and it came in zero.

Frank Curzio 00:52

And they said, let me get take a blood test. And he took the blood test. And that’s when he got in trouble. And this time, I think his lawyer said, whatever you do, don’t ever take a blood test because at least you could deny it forever. And it doesn’t matter. You got to go to jail. But so he was driving under the influence. And now they said that there was hydrocodone pills found in his pocket. He was blasted and stuff. And, um, I don’t know.

Frank Curzio 01:12

What are your thoughts, man? I mean, does anybody really, I mean, it’s a story that everybody cares about, but is it ever going to stop anyone from watching Tiger Woods when he’s out there?

Daniel Creech 01:20

Oh, no. No, not at all. I mean, it’s a sad story. I mean, outside of the hilarious memes and jokes, because that’s what you get when you are part of the limelight and stuff. The guy is just, uh, well, I don’t know if he is, but clearly he has an issue with painkillers. And listen, my heart goes out to him. So putting jokes aside, because they are hilarious and all the stuff about all the, it’s a tight road and all that.

Frank Curzio 01:42

The Masters, the Masters with the plate. They play this song with the Masters and they have the car upside down in the middle.

Daniel Creech 01:47

The best memes. One of the best memes I’ve seen.

Frank Curzio 01:50

People don’t care.

Daniel Creech 01:51

It is, uh, yeah. Anyway, I won’t go into that. The thing that concerns me, and it is heartbreaking because it is sad. I mean, addiction sucks for anybody. And I have, like, I know about this. I was on these pills. I mean, oxycodone, best Florida thing in this world, takes it, makes you numb. I took them to the whites of my eyes turn yellow and then they kicked me off of them. That’s how good they are. The sad thing is, his mugshot, that’s funny.

Daniel Creech 02:13

Nobody has a good mugshot other than President Trump because it was set up and he used it for, you know, memorabilia. The picture of him going home, he’s in some kind of SUV. That is heartbreaking because that’s hours after, I’m sure he’s still got stuff in his system, but he had been in jail for a long, you know, hours. I say a long time.

Daniel Creech 02:31

He’d been in jail. And then he was getting out. And man, I tell you what, that’s just heartbreaking because that kind of pain, obviously the guy’s got to be in a ton of pain. He’s got a pill issue and all that. But, um, yeah, that, uh, but the memes, the memes are absolutely hilarious. So, and way to go, Tiger,right in front of the Masters.

Frank Curzio 02:47

I know, I know. He was maybe, maybe planning to come back. But yeah, listen, the addiction thing is for real, especially with painkillers. I mean, they set up those painkillers where your body tolerates them so quickly. I was on them briefly. And that’s why I tell everyone, listen, if you got pain, uh, marijuana is one of the best things. Like if you get a smoke at night and stuff like that, in terms of, you know, side effects are much, much lower.

Frank Curzio 03:06

You just, you know, in terms of addiction and stuff like that. And I went through that with my, with my back. There he isright there. With my back. And they give you, like, they give you painkillers. And I tell you, after a month, uh, I came off of them. I was shaking. I was a little shaking. And they make it so pretty much after a couple of weeks, you just, your body tolerates it next to people taking,

Frank Curzio 03:27

believe it or not, 5, 10, 20, 20 of these a day, 30 of these a day. And, you know, it’s just insane. So, uh, yeah, it definitely needs to get. I love when everyone says they’re going to get help after they get caught, though. It’s kind of like, you know, whenever everyone gets caught, they’re like, oh, I need help. I need help. It’s like after they get caught.

Daniel Creech 03:40

Brad Paisley. I know you’re not a huge country music fan. Brad Paisley wrote the easiest song about this, The Celebrity Way. It’s how you do it. Then you go on Opera. Opera still got her crying show that you go on there and ask for forgiveness and everything.

Frank Curzio 03:50

I haven’t watched that show in years.

Daniel Creech 03:51

You go to rehab, you come out, you make a statement. Yeah, you know, you cry. Same old, same old. But people love it. And everybody will cheer for him. And hey, I hope he gets better. Like I said, but everybody that’s saying, oh, he’s worth a billion dollars, hire a driver. Like that helps addiction people. Yeah, use your freaking brain. That’s retarded.

Frank Curzio 04:07

Oh, you should hire a driver. Okay. Hey, look, Scotty Scheffler got arrested and he got out about two hours before his next tee time. And he actually says joking around because he’s kind of like an introvert. And he was like, it was the loudest cheers I had ever heard in my life. He’s like, I had no idea why. I guess you’re more relatable to people. But yeah, hopefully Tiger gets better. And, uh, yeah, there’s no, no, I mean, people out there with those memes are pretty crazy. So, uh, anyway, let’s get to the market.

Daniel Creech 04:29

Internet is undefeated, Frank.

Frank Curzio 04:31

Finally, finally we have five weeks of the crappiest garbage market, everything getting nailed outside of maybe energy, a few consumer staples. I mean, it was horrible. Even if you’re, you’re like a conservative, if you’re in gold got nailed, everything’s getting nailed. Bitcoin, it was, there was not too much hiding,right? We always say it’s a bull market someplace. And there was, but, you know, there wasn’t a lot of places.

Frank Curzio 04:52

And then we saw a huge bounce in equities yesterday. And we’re talking huge. Just to put this in perspective, 2.9% of the S&P 500, Nasdaq up almost 4%. Chip stocks specifically have gotten nailed up 6% of the day. I mean, the Nasdaq up nearly 4%. The whole index up 4%. That’s a major move. This rally was different.

Frank Curzio 05:11

And Joe, if you could put up the Tick Index, I don’t know, Dan, you familiar with the Tick Index? You know what that means?

Daniel Creech 05:15

Negative.

Frank Curzio 05:15

So it compares the number of stocks moving higher than the New York Stock Exchange versus moving lower. When you look at this, look at it goes all the way back to 2007 and six. Look where that is. There’s just about 2,400 stocks in the New York Stock Exchange. So essentially 100% of them, of the 2,400 stocks in New York Stock Exchange ended higher,

Frank Curzio 05:37

which never happened before. That’s what Bloomberg is reporting. That never happened before. So that’s how oversold we are when you see every single thing go higher. And it makes a lot of sense. If you listen to us, we saw this rally coming and we said Friday, I posted on my Twitter account, X, starting to get some of our posts. Joe, what was our recent post that we talked about yesterday?

Frank Curzio 05:57

It was like breaking news for the straight. I think we have over 800,000 views on it. I mean, we’re starting to get lots and lots of traction. A lot of people listen to us. And, you know, we’re starting to put a lot of good information on it. In terms of, you know, X, again, it’s at Frank Curzio. But I highlighted a report early on Friday from Goldman. It was great of how U.S. pension funds, they needed to purchase a lot of U.S.

Frank Curzio 06:17

equities by the end of the quarter. Well, Friday gave it Friday, Monday, Tuesday,right? It’s the end of the quarter. So you had three trading days. And why do they have to do this? This is mandated. So U.S. pension funds, they need to maintain their target allocations in bonds and stocks. So just say hypothetically, if it’s 50%, 50%, it’s not, but it’s 50%, 50%.

Frank Curzio 06:36

Bonds went incredibly higher and that maybe went to 55, 56, 57%. And then, you know, there’s always like this little leeway back and forth, but stocks got hit so hard and bonds went up so much that they have to rebalance. They have to get back to that level. So they’re almost, they’re forced to sell bonds, pension funds only, not hedge funds, forced to sell bonds.

Frank Curzio 06:56

And they had to buy stocks to the tune of nearly $14 billion. It might not sound a lot when you’re looking at a video with a 4.7 trillion market cap. This is a big deal when it comes to pension funds and buying an amount of money because there’s so much selling. It’s larger than 97% of all monthly purchases over the last three years. And pension funds,

Frank Curzio 07:15

on average, have been selling $1.8 billion in stocks per month since 2000. Why they continue selling stocks? Because as retirees, they withdraw money to pay their bills,right? This is what they’re living off of most of them retire. And we put out that note Friday and said, wait till the afternoon, a late afternoon, and stop buying. And Monday we came down a little bit more and then boom, like we saw this mass.

Frank Curzio 07:34

So, you know, we just needed a tiny bit of good news. And I think, you know, the trade turned out to be great. Markets are up again. The Nasdaq is up another and a half, one and a half percent as I talk, as we’re doing this midday. But, you know, you’re looking at the news as well with Trump. I think tonight at 8:00, he’s speaking to the nation and the world.

Frank Curzio 07:55

And, you know, they set this up, I think it was like 3:00 a.m. when I got an alert last night. And speculation says that Iran wants to negotiate, which may lead to the straight opening up. Doesn’t matter who wins, who loses, but it needs to open up. And a couple with that news, with massive, massive, just oversold stocks, we’re seeing this huge, huge rally.

Frank Curzio 08:15

And, you know, stuff like that matters, guys. If you follow us on Twitter, we have access to stuff like that, which is the X platform. Now we have access to the Goldman Sachs notes, to JP Morgan. That was a great note by Goldman saying, hey, pension funds have to buy them. They have to buy this back. And we’re so oversold, you know, this was a catalyst and we knew it would be big. And it was so big that we saw something that never happened in the history of the markets where,

Frank Curzio 08:35

you know, the Tick Index, which, you know, tracks those stocks in the New York Stock Exchange, all of them, of which ones go higher and lower, there was, there was basically relatively none lower other than maybe a handful, maybe, I don’t even know, 5, 10, 15, but every single one of them were higher. And that was a massive, massive rally just shows you how oversold we were.

Daniel Creech 08:55

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everything’s acting like a meme stockright now. Literally, you just have to follow Trump’s social media account and then enjoy the media saying the exact opposite of that. So if we’re negotiating with Iran’s president, the media comes out and says, well, that’s not true. So you clearly have a president in Iran, and then you have the regime in Iran. I still think it’s all about Strait of Hormuz. I think you’reright on the volume’s incredible and stuff.

Daniel Creech 09:16

But if they don’t open the Strait of Hormuz, none of this matters, in my opinion.

Frank Curzio 09:19

Now, and before we get excited about the surge too, you have to put things in perspective with the S&P 500. For the quarter, it was down 4.6%. That’s the worst quarterly performance for the S&P in four years. So, you know, to start this year, it’s been a bloodbath for everyone. We know it’s been a bloodbath for, unless you own energy stocks, which we do, of course, you know, many of our portfolios.

Frank Curzio 09:39

Also, I don’t even know if you saw the international markets. You thought we went up higher. I don’t know if you saw Japan gain 5.4%. South Korea was up 8.5%. I mean, Europe was kind of like in line at up 2.3%.

Frank Curzio 09:49

But, you know, as Trump talks to the nation about Iran, and hopefully this leads to the opening of the strait, I think really big news here is also the odds of a Fed cutting rates. So the Fed cutting rates is in 2026 spiked from basically maybe one.

Frank Curzio 10:09

And I know people are talking about that they could hike. They’re not going to hike. Those idiots are saying that, but potentially one cut to almost three now. And it’s a huge deal because we said this earlier, Dale, that the markets were not pricing this in. The markets were not pricing in. We’re pricing in where the S&P 500 is going to grow tremendously this year. So based on earnings and revenues,right?

Frank Curzio 10:29

We have a strong economy. That was all predicated that the Fed’s going to cut rates. You got a new chairman coming in. You know, Fed, again, it’s very linked to the presidency, the Fed, no matter what you say and what everyone wants it to be separate. It’s not. But, you know, Trump put a lot of pressure to lower rates, and that was being factored in. It wasn’t being factored in even at these levels in the market coming down five weeks.

Frank Curzio 10:49

It was mostly due to the war, conflict, Iran, you know, uncertainty, but also Jordan’s uncertainty where if the Fed doesn’t cut rates, we have to rerate lower. Now it’s back up. And I think that’s why you’re seeing this follow through even today, where, you know, the Nasdaq’s up tremendously as well. And you’re seeing, you know, the overall the markets are up. And I mean, look, we’re talking about major indices up over 5% each in two days.

Frank Curzio 11:08

I know they’ve been down. They’re down 5% in three months. But that’s, that’s an incredible move. You normally don’t see that unless you have crazy conditions. And that’s what we’ve been saying. We’ve seen a lot of stock. There’s so much mispricing in this market that we’re trying to take advantage of because some of these stocks, Nvidia should not be at a market multiple growing earnings and sales at 75% each,right?

Frank Curzio 11:28

It’s creating this buying opportunity. It’s almost a safe stock. It’s not even you’re buying for the growth. You’re buying it for safety,right? So, and those earnings, again, trillion dollars in sales coming in. There’s just a lot of good areas to look at. And, you know, the biggest thing for me too with the rate cuts is housing. I mean, housing is getting annihilated,right?

Frank Curzio 11:48

The job market overall remains pretty solid still at relatively low levels,right, Dale, historically. But the inflation component was at a whack with oil prices surging,right? Then you had food prices surging again. 30% of the urea gets shipped through the straits, which is, you know, fertilizer used to increase crop yields. So we’re seeing this inflation where it kind of handcuffed the Feds. This was a very big deal that this change.

Frank Curzio 12:07

And if the straight, if he comes out with good news today saying that it is going to open, you could see this market rocket a lot higher from here because there’s just so many catalysts, especially coming from the government, in terms of, you know, deregulation, lower interest rates, more money printing. And we’re just,

Frank Curzio 12:26

you know, for us to sell off that much in five weeks, it does create a great buying opportunity.

Daniel Creech 12:31

Yeah, yeah. Like I said, it’ll be interesting to see what the president says tonight. There are, you know, Trump, I laughed last week because Trump was talking to the media and said a day in Trump time is like eternity. And I know that aggravates the media and stuff, but it is hard to kind of sift through the clear as mud stuff here.

Daniel Creech 12:48

You know, Press Secretary was out just earlier this week saying the timeline is still intact for the four to six weeks things where basically day 31 or 32.

Daniel Creech 12:56

Trump comes out and says this new regime wants to negotiate, wants ceasefire and all that, announces this big speech tonight, however, still says we’ll be out in a few weeks, which leads me to believe I don’t know that he’s going to say anything worthy tonight. I don’t know what he can say. If he’s not announcing the Strait of Hormuz is open or he’s not announcing, if he’s just going to go on TV tonight and say,

Daniel Creech 13:16

hey, we’re going to leave in two weeks, we’re going to leave doing great. Well, that would be great. I actually think that would be perfect. I mean, nobody cares about NATO. Nobody knows anything about NATO. Nobody gives a fly in Florida and they shouldn’t. But the crazy thing here is, you know, he’s trying to talk markets up and I respect it. I’m fine with that. Every president wants to.

Daniel Creech 13:33

And the only reason I think there’s something more to this than the back and forth that we’ve had in the past is because finally oil stocks are actually moving lower. So if you look at Exxon, Chevron, Shell, they’re all down 1% to 4%. I know it’s only a day. They’ve had tremendous movements up and they’ve been a little volatile to the downside. But essentially, if you pull up any chart, they’re at or near 52-week highs.

Daniel Creech 13:56

Oil prices, I understand, are still elevated. We’re still around $90 or $100 on WTI. But to me, the most encouraging thing is to see oil stocks moving lower. I just, you know, I’m in favor of him. I just don’t know. I just feel like he’s continuing to paint himself into a corner here. So hopefully he says something,

Daniel Creech 14:16

you know, new tonight, I guess is my point.

Frank Curzio 14:18

Yeah, I mean, the Saudis want to join,right? Which is a big deal, a Middle East nation joining this,right? And I think that’s got to scare Iran because there could be others because they decided to just, you know, shoot rockets every place and bomb even their allies. Well, people that they get along with, I should say. So, yeah, it is a big deal. And the uncertainty, we say this so many times, millions of times, we’ve said this over 16 years.

Frank Curzio 14:39

We’ve been doing this. Uncertainty is the death of stocks. You have uncertainty, it kills you,right? Because, you know, even when you come out with a lawsuit on a company, the stock will go down. As soon as you settle it, the stock takes off because there’s certainty. Now you can figure out, you can model the numbersright now. And this is important. We’re going to get into this a little bit more because I want to start with Carnival. Carnival got hit on Monday.

Frank Curzio 14:58

I think it recouped most of those gains now in the last two days, but the stock was down from 34 to like 26. I think it went down to 24. They reported Q1 results. And, you know, the quarter measures the past three months, which was a record in terms of revenue, and also reported really strong margins, backlog, everything. However, it’s the future guys that drive stocks.

Frank Curzio 15:18

No one cares about the last three months. Yes, you could beat those earnings, but if you won or lower estimates for the full year, and they reported Q1, and then for the full year, what they did is they lowered their guidance. And when you do that lower guidance, your stock is getting hit because stocks trade on potential on the future of what’s going to happen,right? Not the past. And Carnival lowered their guidance, their full year guidance to $2.21,

Frank Curzio 15:38

where analysts were expecting $2.33. But here’s where it gets interesting, which is a no-no. Okay, you want to lose credibility. So you have your analysts where they listen to management and management puts out their numbers. And then, you know, they’re like, okay, this is what we see. An analyst, then they have a consensus, you know, the mean, and that’s the number that you see on TV, which happened to be $2.33.

Frank Curzio 15:59

That’s the analyst number. That’s what they’re expecting. And you get ported to $2.21. Okay, not really a big deal. Management was more aggressive than the street. And if management is more aggressive with the street, which we see with Palantir all the time, but Palantir always meets their numbers. Their estimates, the management’s estimate was $2.48, higher than the street’s $2.33,

Frank Curzio 16:21

and they reported $2.21. So that’s a credibility problem, which, you know, I don’t like to see at a management team. You know, if you have the consensus, the consensus is forming their consensus because they’re listening to you through the quarter, speaking to you behind the scenes. You have these analyst meetings and stuff like that, and you always have access. And they’re modeling based on what you’re saying. And you’re saying, wait a minute, they’re wrong.

Frank Curzio 16:40

We’re going to go even higher than that. And you missed by a mile then. So the reason why they lowered, getting to the point here, is because of oil. And the number was $1.6 billion in terms of fuel costs that they expected for the year. They raised that by, you know how much? $500 million.

Daniel Creech 16:58

Geez.

Frank Curzio 16:59

35% increase in fuel costs. Now, some people might look at Carnival and say, well, is that a big deal? I mean, their revenue is so high. They generate $36 billion. What’s $500 million?

Frank Curzio 17:09

Okay, Carnival generated $2.8 billion in net income over the past 12 months. This comesright off that line. So this is close to a 20% hit in that, in those earnings just for fuel, which seems like, obviously, it’s not hedged when that’s a major, major cost to so many companies. And this is where I want to get today.

Frank Curzio 17:27

I want to get your thoughts on this too, because here’s why you should be concerned about Carnival. Carnival is not going to be a one-off. Fuel impacts almost every company, tons of companies, retailers with large fleets. You’re looking at Walmart, you can get Target, Costco, impacts every chemical company, agriculture company, mining company, electricity, data centers, AI. And speaking of AI, did you see the helium thing?

Frank Curzio 17:49

This is a great note. I forgot where I saw this, and I posted this on X. We told you about helium, how it’s necessary to develop like the AI chips. And you need a special type. It’s grade A, where this helium can’t be refined through shale oil, which means we have to get most of it. It’s more than a third. I think it’s a third that we get through the strait, which is from Qatar.

Frank Curzio 18:10

And their largest facility got hit, which is an LAG facility used to, you know, helium’s byproduct, was bombed. And they said it’s going to be offline, not for months,right? Daniel mentioned the other day, it’s going to be offline for years. Now, listen to this. And I don’t know if you may be able to report this. So helium, it’s pretty insane.

Frank Curzio 18:28

They have 200 containers of liquid helium that are strandedright now in the Gulf. And each one of these are cooled to -269 Celsius. So it’s one degree above absolute zero. Now, there’s no refrigeration. So it’s not like you have refrigeration. There’s no refrigeration. It’s just insulation that holds that together. Well, that insulation only lasts for about 40 days.

Frank Curzio 18:50

Maybe it could last to 45 days. And then what happens? It vents into the atmosphere. And we’re talking 41,000 liters of helium is going to be gone forever. That date that it’s probably going to happen is between April 6 and April 16. This is big news here. Now, why is helium such a big deal? Because it’s used to manufacture and help the manufacturing process.

Frank Curzio 19:11

It’s a necessity for chips, which are used for data centers. And they’re about to lose a massive supply pretty much in a week from now if we don’t get this settled. And that’s not, so I don’t know, even if they don’t settle this today or whatever Trump says, if he’s like, well, we’re going to let a few ships go through or whatever they have to say, it’s going to be a big deal.

Frank Curzio 19:30

Because if there’s more conflict, it gets worse. And you’re not turning this back on. Daniel, you and I talked about this. This doesn’t get just because you open it up, you’re going to have 20 to 30 days before everything gets back to normal. But you have LNG facilities that are out for years, years for repairs, you know, and the safety checks you have to do. This isn’t like, oh, you know,

Frank Curzio 19:49

someone blew up your garage and you’re like, ah, we still have a house. You got to go do millions of checks. We’re talking about something that could blow up like, you know, 10% of a country. You got to be careful when it comes to this stuff with the fuel coming through there. So, you know, the longer this goes on, the more uncertainty you have. And man, these, you know, you’re looking at Carnival.

Frank Curzio 20:10

Analysts are behind the curveright now. And they weren’t expecting that weak guidance, which the company got hit. So earnings season three weeks away. And I could tell you, analysts have not lowered their estimates. We expect it to grow 15% this year and sales by 7%. And those numbers were before the Iran conflict. And as a CEO, I mean, they need to come down because if you’re a CEO of a companyright now,

Frank Curzio 20:30

what are you going to do? There’s no way you’re going to get aggressive with your estimates for the year. That’s why they lowered their estimates for the year. Maybe oil prices come down to 50 and Carnival is going to beat. But you can’t come outright now as a CEO and say, okay, for the full year, we’re raising our guidance tremendously because it’s very dangerous unless you’re in the super hyper market. That’s great.

Frank Curzio 20:49

So we’re going into earnings season. Analyst estimates, to me, are still too high. And you could see a lot of companies get hit because that guidance is probably going to be a lot weaker than most are expecting.

Daniel Creech 20:59

Yeah, that’s a good point. I agree with you. If estimates haven’t come down, that’s going to be a raised bar.

Daniel Creech 21:05

I do think we’re still in the window, if you will, to look through higher energy prices. But that’s got to be going. And the only thing I’ll say about the helium thing is that good. That’ll give all the greenies something to really complain about if we lose all the helium and what that could end the world and global warming BS. So don’t worry about that.

Frank Curzio 21:24

Yeah, it will be interesting. But yeah, there’s just lots of effects. It’s more than just oil. We talked about it. We talked about, what is it, CF Industries, if you want to pull up a chart of that. I mean, it should be down today because mostly oil’s down and people are anticipating that we’re going to have good news later. So again, still 126. We were talking about the stock before 100. I think CNBC talked about it when it’s at 115 and everybody else.

Frank Curzio 21:45

So for us, just looking at different stocks that benefit from this and that can continue to benefit and have higher pricing, have pricing power because of these supply disruptions is huge. You’re still going to see that even with a good deal. But now you have sentiment that’s going to change. You’re going to see more money coming to that. That means when sentiment changes, what happens? We’re looking at short positions that are near record highs.

Frank Curzio 22:05

And you’re going to be forced to cover those. And that’s why you saw like how many people were offsides on this. And when you see all the stocks in New York Stock Exchange going up, it’s not because, well, we’re just oversold. It’s everyone’s leaning to one side. There’s massive algorithms, huge shorts, and you’re forced to cover. And then you see a major index go up nearly 4% in a day,

Frank Curzio 22:27

which is extremely rare when that happens because everyone needs to reposition. And you’re going to see a lot of repositions. If there’s positive news today, which people are anticipatingright now with the market being up even today, following through on yesterday’s huge move. So it is really interesting what’s going on. But just be careful going into earnings season. We love earnings season. We cover all these stocks.

Frank Curzio 22:45

Banks are going to report. We told you early, and I think it was last week in the podcast, I’m worried about banks. I think that they’re going to have to lower their earnings. I mean, there’s such a big threat to their bread and butter, which is, you know, getting deposits. You have these deposits that you pay zero interest, and then your net interest margins are so massive.

Frank Curzio 23:01

And everyone’s attacking that from crypto to these new savings agents that are going to be able to automatically place your money almost on a daily basis a week into the highest area where you earn the most interest instead of just having it sit there. A lot of this stuff is massive disruption. The banks are really worried about it. And look, they’re going to make massive profits. They’re huge.

Frank Curzio 23:20

I think they do. I might have heard this stat from Warren Buffett yesterday. What did he say? Did he say that they do like, I couldn’t believe it. So it may be wrong. $10 trillion of business a day or something like that, I think he said, which is JP Morgan. JP Morgan, $10 trillion of business a day. JP Morgan. So, you know, they’re big.

Frank Curzio 23:39

They’re huge. They generate fees and have trillions of assets and management, especially the Big Four. But, you know, they have bread and butter. And the reason why those stocks have really taken off is their net interest income has absolutely skyrocketed to the point where JP Morgan says it’s going to hit $100 billion this year. I think he’s got to dial that back this quarter. And let’s see it. If he does,

Frank Curzio 23:58

we could see the banks get hitright to start earnings season. And again, it’s going to be lots of opportunities. We still expect a lot of callous going forward. But earnings and these CEOs are probably going to be more conservative than expected and probably just lower their earnings a little bit. And I don’t see that factored. I’m not seeing analysts lower their estimates quick enough. I’m just not.

Daniel Creech 24:16

Quickly, for me, Warren Buffett is arguably the greatest investor of all time. He is slipping. Take everything he says with the grain of salt. He is partnering with Steph Curry to do some stupid lunch. That is pathetic, Frank. That’s all I got.

Frank Curzio 24:28

Why is that pathetic?

Daniel Creech 24:29

Steph Curry. Give me a break.

Frank Curzio 24:31

You don’t like Steph Curry?

Daniel Creech 24:31

No, I can’t stand that guy. NBA.

Frank Curzio 24:34

Why don’t you like Steph Curry?

Daniel Creech 24:36

Because he’s an outspoken. Listen, he’s just one of those preachers that happens to play basketball and teach their own freedom of speech. I’m just calling it out. So take Buffett with a grain of salt because he’s a silly guy.

Frank Curzio 24:48

You know what I don’t understand about athletes and.

Daniel Creech 24:50

No, we don’t have to get on a big table.

Frank Curzio 24:52

And entertainers. No, what I don’t understand is like, even with Tiger Woods, I don’t care if he gets 40 DUIs or whatever. I love watching him peg off and that’s it, you know? And just with some, like, everyone’s like, oh, well, they got to be a role model. Well, that’s up to you if you want that person to be a role model. They don’t have to be a role model. It’s up to you. If you want to look up to that person, a role model, then go do drugs and turn your car over like Tiger Woods.

Frank Curzio 25:11

That’s your role model. That’s fine. That’s up to you, though. But it’s not that person’s responsibility to be a role model. It’s up to them. I think it’s your responsibility to be yourself. And if people see that as a role model, it’s fine. But when I see, you know, Steph’s all over the place, Steve Kerr’s all over the place, and, you know, a lot of people say a lot of stuff. But I just love watching him play because holy cow, it’s incredible.

Daniel Creech 25:29

And don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to speech and all that. I’m just saying.

Frank Curzio 25:33

Just for me personally, I don’t care.

Daniel Creech 25:34

I’m just saying that. I tell you what, I take Buffett with a grain of salt after he’s partnering with him for lunch. So that’s all I got to say.

Frank Curzio 25:42

Buffett’s 70th career out the window.

Daniel Creech 25:44

Oh, no.

Frank Curzio 25:45

That’s a great headline.

Daniel Creech 25:46

That’s a great headline.

Frank Curzio 25:47

Daniel Creech says, we’re going to do that headline. I’m going to put that out. And yeah, I’m going to CC everyone.

Daniel Creech 25:51

Very few people go out on top.

Frank Curzio 25:53

Everyone’s going to be CC CNBC. Buffett’s done. Daniel Creech, written by Daniel Creech. I’m going to put that out. Did you see?

Daniel Creech 26:00

I’ll tell you, CNBC, what a horrible headline. In fact, I took a screenshot of it because it’s just, and listen, everybody’s in the business of clicks. I get it. But listen to this value headline on CNBC yesterday. Warren Buffett says, Iran bomb would make nuclear disaster harder to avoid. There’s breaking news, people. That’s how valuable we areright now. Unflawed to believe.

Frank Curzio 26:21

Oh, I have another one of those reports that I’m going to highlight that I saw. It’s the same thing. So this is a Disney note from Wells Fargo. And I don’t mean to pick on it. I really don’t. I wish they said.

Daniel Creech 26:30

Oh, yes, you do.

Frank Curzio 26:31

Wells Fargo reiterates Disney as overweight. So I love this note because what Wells Fargo did is they said, we’re maintaining our buy rating on Disney. We’re maintaining it. That’s what everyone has been doing since stock was 180. But we’re lowering our price target on Disney to 150 from 148. They lowered it by two bucks.

Frank Curzio 26:46

Like, what change in your analysis that you had to put out a note that you’re lowering your target at two bucks that people are going to be like, oh my God, Wells Fargo, they lowered it by two bucks. Oh, it’s crazy. I just want to see where Disney is with that 150 target, which is pretty crazy because it’s under 100 and you have a 148 target on this thing and you’re lowering it by two bucks. So this is the best part,right? One is, you know, maybe the analyst is bored.

Frank Curzio 27:06

Felt like I haven’t put out a note on Disney in a while. I got to put something out for a $2 price change. But Wells also said a positive new leadership change could provide an opportunity. And we expect growth to pick up in the second half. But you know what they said about Disney? Disney suffers from a lack of excitement in a narrative. Disney is a market company.

Frank Curzio 27:27

Their entire model is built on excitement. How could you have a buy rating on Disney when you’re saying they lack excitement? Their job is to create this massive excitement all in the movies, everything they do. This is what Disney was built on, this massive brand, the greatest marketers in the world. They lack excitement. I mean, it’s like saying, you know, Tesla’s robots and EVs are no longer exciting.

Frank Curzio 27:47

So, you know, who’s going to go out and buy them? I mean, you’re telling us that the main reason to buy Disney is because of the excitement, because of all the great movies, because of new Avengers coming out, all this stuff’s coming out, and you’re saying they’re lacking excitement and you have a buy rating on them. I mean, you want to talk about talking about both sides of the amount. I mean, what a, like, some of these notes, I mean, these guys, some of these guys are really smart. Don’t get me wrong when it comes to sell-side analysts.

Frank Curzio 28:06

But this is just a complete waste of everyone’s time to read this note. How do you have a buy rating on Disney and you say it lacks excitement? I mean, how do you have a buy rating when a target price sets 50% higher than when the stock is tradingright now? Anyway, that’s my little rant. I’m not going to rant too much. But did you see Nike’s numbers?

Daniel Creech 28:24

Yeah, I did. Good call on that. You said stay away. You called that it was still trading at a premium on a forward priced earnings ratio. That was a good call. Yeah, I was much lazier on it to stay away from that. But yeah, you look great. He’s down 14%. Talk about a Nike show.

Frank Curzio 28:40

I mean, you want to talk about Nike. I don’t know what the market cap is anymore. What’s the market cap? $67 billion.

Daniel Creech 28:45

You going to buy here, Frank? You picking the bottom?

Frank Curzio 28:47

No, not even close. So you got $166 was the high in 2021. It’s $45. You want to talk about a brand like this? Isn’t like an IBM losing its footing. It’s not like a Microsoft that lost decade. You know, you see some of these companies that just, yeah, this company, I mean, it’s been a shit show for a while now.

Frank Curzio 29:08

And when you’re looking, I mean, this company’s just been going straight down, straight down, straight down, straight down, 2023, 2024. And, you know, people are saying, well, you know, Nike all the time for 40 years, you know, it’s always like, hey, Nike always wins. No matter who goes up against them, Nike always wins. It’s always bigger than everybody else. So it’s going to win. And now this isn’t just a company that’s seen its stock go down,

Frank Curzio 29:30

they have problems. Their problems are very serious. And the reason why we talked about this wasn’t last week, Daniel, when we talked about the podcast, when I said, you know, Nike is going to project to generate earnings. I said, listen to what they’re expecting from China. So remember, when you look at comps, it’s one of the biggest things you can look for for retailers, for, you know, anyone that sells anything, you know, it’s, you know, they have same source sales,

Frank Curzio 29:49

which measures, you know, the monthly sales from that period. So say, you know, this March from last March or this quarter from last quarter. And when you do that a while and you have big declines,right? So say if you have $1 billion and last quarter was, you know, $800 million,right? Stay with me here.

Frank Curzio 30:10

And now you’ve projected $1 billion and you say, okay, we’re going to lower our estimates to $900, lower estimates to $850, lower estimates to $800. The comparisons get better and better. Usually the comparisons are going to get better because, you know, you’re down so much. And after four or five years, basically since COVID, China’s been their growth market and it’s been down so much.

Frank Curzio 30:27

So Daniel, I highlighted, and I asked him a question and he thought exactly what I thought. I said, what do you think they’re expecting for the sales of China year over year? And he said, down, probably up, probably. I said, I would think maybe up a down a tiny percent. They’re expecting China sales to decline by 16% year over year, which means this total collapse in China when no one’s buying their stuff and they haven’t been buying their stuff for a while.

Frank Curzio 30:47

This isn’t just temporary. This is like a change in habit that they’re not buying it. And I thought that was insane. Now, China actually came in for the quarter better than expected. They only saw a 10% decline. But here’s what Magic said. It was a horrible call. They said China is going to continue to be terrible basically through 2027. We’re in 2026right now through 2027.

Frank Curzio 31:09

And the turnaround in China, they said, is still at the very early stages. So they also said next quarter they’re expecting revenue to fall 3%. So when you look at Nikeright now, Joe, scroll down to see where it’s trading. This is what we highlighted as well. It’s trading at 22 times forward earnings, 22 times forward earnings.

Frank Curzio 31:29

That’s higher than the S&P 500. Yet their projected revenue to decline 3% to 4% when the average company S&P 500 is expected to grow 7%. So why do you buy Nike if it’s trading at a premium multiple and growing much, much, much slower than the overall market?

Frank Curzio 31:44

And until that changes, I don’t see, I don’t see a short-term fix or getting in somebody newer here or, you know, all of a sudden they got a new sneaker. I mean, this has been a trend that everyone’s eating their lunch, especially with their bread and butter, which is sneakers. You know, lots and lots of work to do here. Inventory levels are still high.

Frank Curzio 32:03

International markets are still weak. Overall weakness in sportswear, which is probably the most saturated market in the history of the world. I think everyone has sportswear. You literally can go to like 200 different companies to buy sportswear. And their sportswear is just not that good because I used to buy when I was a kid. I still play sports and I don’t wear Nike at all. I don’t like their clothing at all. I haven’t liked it for 15 years.

Frank Curzio 32:23

No innovation, no nothing. I don’t know. Maybe pay Jordan to get him out of retirement. I know you’re marketing his products, but make him more of the face of the brand or something because people still love him, especially when he’s doing an F1right now. He’s everywhere. Get him back involved, whatever you need to do with commercials or whatever. But this company, holy cow, I mean, you’re still trading at a premium.

Frank Curzio 32:42

You’re still trading at a premium. It’s like software companies. Software companies, you think they’re down 30%. They’re rerating. They’re still trading at a premium. And a lot of these names are not going to be growing as fast as the market, which I can’t tell you to go in and buy it here. I mean, maybe it goes up, you know, in between quarters. But until I’d rather see this company turn around, see this stock go from 45 to 50, 52 with a base.

Frank Curzio 33:01

Hey, China’s done. We’re ready to rock and roll. Hey, we got a new sneaker line. It’s going to compete better than everyone else taking market share from us. The international markets are firming up, which, by the way, all the international markets were near all-time highs. They were surging, absolutely surging before Iran,right? And how are you not seeing that international growth in Nike? It shows that the brand is broken.

Frank Curzio 33:20

And I don’t know if you see that much pain from this price, but I just, this just, I would buy Under Armour. Under Armour is a much better stock here, using AI a lot better than Nike. And it’s just been so depressed. And again, that stock is getting hit today. And we’ve been all over Under Armour. We’re up nicely on this in our portfolio, even after this stock has declined. But, you know,

Frank Curzio 33:39

Under Armour has been doing well for us and we almost bottom ticked that. But, you know, Nike, just more pain ahead, man. I don’t know. I don’t know if you have different feelings than I do on that.

Daniel Creech 33:46

The only thing I’ll say is that kind of your playbook of what not to do as a CEO, the guy that they brought back was talking on the conference call last night. And I thought he made a big mistake because, just to your point, expectations, you know, overpromise, underdeliver is not a good idea. They said he was talking about this quarter on the conference call.

Daniel Creech 34:07

And he says, you know, last quarter we told you that we were in the middle innings. Everybody likes these baseball analogies, I guess, because it’s started now. So we’re in the middle innings and, you know, all this kind of stuff. Well, if you’re in the middle innings, then you should be making progress. And then he comes out the day or yesterday during the conference call and says, well, you know, it’s taking longer than we expected. And there’s, you know, then he kind of backs that off. So to your point, you just,

Daniel Creech 34:26

it just shows you how out of touch some people can be and give this guy a little bit of grace. I mean, I don’t know. I think they pulled him out of retirement or something. He doesn’t want that job. He just wants the options and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I don’t know why anybody, yeah, it’s fun to have you rant about it, Frank. But yeah, don’t catch a falling knife at Nike.

Frank Curzio 34:42

No. So I want to talk about OpenAI. We brought up last week, they were raising money. They were supposed to raise $110. That was a figure. They raised $122 billion. I think I saw it was record funding for a private company in around $122 billion. Makes sense. I mean, how many companies have a $100 billion market cap? I mean, not many.

Frank Curzio 35:02

And they give an evaluation of $852 billion, now led by the usual subjects, Anderson Horowitz, D.E. Shaw. You know, what are your thoughts here? Because I was under the impression that OpenAI may have had trouble and Nvidia was thinking about investing. Obviously, now they invested. I mean, they raised this $122 billion pretty easily.

Frank Curzio 35:24

I’m going to tell you why I think they raised that much money. But it’s crazy to see the amount of money that’s being raised in the private marketright now. And then we had, who’s the girl from ARK Investment, was on TV this morning on Squawk. And I like her. I respect her.

Daniel Creech 35:37

Cathie Wood.

Frank Curzio 35:37

Yeah, I like Cathie Wood. I mean, she doesn’t, she’s, you know what you’re getting with her? Yes, you know, innovation and stuff like that. And they would say, well, the NASDAQ 100’s outperforming you by a ton. And she’s like, it’s not really a benchmark. Those are large caps. And I like to get in more of smaller caps sometimes, even though she’s been in Tesla for a long time. But you know what you’re going to get with her,right? It’s not, you know, no BS or whatever.

Frank Curzio 35:56

But, and I think she was in the OpenAI raise as well. But, you know, what are your thoughts on this? Because the amount of money raised, and she’s talking about, hey, we can get more people into private equity. And one thing I’m going to say with this raise, $122 billion, was surprised the hell out of me. $3 billion was from individual investors. $3 billion. But what do you think about this? And, I mean,

Frank Curzio 36:15

OpenAI felt like everyone else was surpassing them. But after this, I mean, holy cow, it seems like, you know, everything’s ready to rock and roll. Those guys do their due diligence before they invest. And they were happy to invest. And, you know, oversubscribed, oversubscribed.

Daniel Creech 36:29

Yeah, the numbers are absolutely impressive. I mean, it’s crazy. And I can’t even fathom these. It’s hilarious, especially when you have a lot of fun and you look at the revenue run rate. I think they made this big announcement, Frank. They’re doing $100 million if you annualize their revenue. So that justifies $850 billion valuationright there. I don’t know why anybody’s upset about nothing. I continue to think Sam Altman.

Daniel Creech 36:48

Hey, listen, I’m on an island by myself. You know.

Frank Curzio 36:50

You love that guy.

Daniel Creech 36:51

You can’t call the crash. I’m not, what’s the gold guy’s name you like so much? Peter.

Frank Curzio 36:56

Schiff.

Daniel Creech 36:57

Schiff. I’m not going to call this crash and then take credit if it happens in 10 years. But it’s not a far limb to go out on and say, listen, not all these investments are going to work out. And Sam Altman will be at the Florida center of the big blowup, Frank. Let me just say that. Low hanging fruit here. I don’t, again, so impressive. These numbers are hilarious and crazy.

Daniel Creech 37:17

This round, I think, is even easier because the rumors they’re going to IPO. So why wouldn’t you throw money in if you think there’s a chance to get money back out in an IPO, Frank?

Frank Curzio 37:26

Yeah. And I’m going to tell you why you’re seeing this valuation. Because they have 900 million weekly active users, okay? And they have 50 million subscribers, but they have these active users. Now, what are these active users doing? They go into ChatGPT every single day. Even when you go on Siri, whenever you ask it just a mildly tough question,

Frank Curzio 37:46

do you want me to ask ChatGPT for you? Every time you put whatever you want in there, it’s recording you. They know everything about you, every single possible thing. The more data from the biggest data points, you know, it’s unbelievable the data that they’re able to collect. And I can’t explain it. I can’t even put it in words of how quickly they can get your entire profile,

Frank Curzio 38:08

your whole entire life by doing that immediately, by tracking everything and how fast it’s done through AI. I mean, you could ask AI to create, you know, and I do it for my daughter, you know, a 30-question multiple choice test on, you know, whatever, you know, book she’s reading. And I put in like seven or eight different prompts. And unless it’s like a second and blah, blah,

Frank Curzio 38:26

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, it’s insane of how quick this happens. And 900 million weekly active users, it’s the same as Facebook. Of why they’re a trillion-dollar company is because when you’re giving a company all access to all of your information for free, it’s not really for free. They’re taking this information.

Frank Curzio 38:45

And what are they going to do? Well, they’re going to sell it to advertisers, which is the holy grail of an advertiser because their return on ad spend gets better and better and better the more they could spend the money and know exactly that they’re talking directly to you. And they know that you could be a client of their business or you have been a client or you’re in theright industry. It’s not like you’re watching TV on a golf channel. You have no idea who’s watching.

Frank Curzio 39:04

It could be little kids that kept changing channel, whatever that records. This is different. Advertisers are going to know every single thing about you when you buy. All your habits, we’re all creatures of habits, but 900 million weekly active users just recording this information every single second is worth trillions. If you’re looking at Meta, it’s worth trillions.

Frank Curzio 39:25

If you’re looking at Google,right? So this is really big. And you look at the numbersright now and say, how could that be justified? You know, what Google showed what they could do with that account. And now it’s whatever, $3 billion monthly active users or whatever it is that they have. Like, you know, almost 50% of the population, 45% of the population has an Instagram account or Facebook account or whatever.

Frank Curzio 39:45

But even Google, I mean, when you have this many, you’re talking billions, and yet you have the data and what they’re capable of doing with these own systems. This isn’t someone that just has a big file. These people have big files, have AI all over this that is spending literally $100 billion plus a year going forward just so you could analyze every single thing that these people do every single second of the day.

Frank Curzio 40:05

You don’t want to hear that, I know. But if you’re on the internet, they have your whole freaking life. I mean, you got to get used to that. They have your whole freaking life. Don’t ever commit a crime. Don’t ever look at anything on the internet and stuff like that. It’s pretty crazy because you’re going to get caught in two seconds. There’s no way of getting out of it now. So $100 billion value, what is it? What’s the value? $852 billion valuation,

Frank Curzio 40:25

raising $122 billion. But like I said, $3 billion was raised from individual investors. And that’s what Cathie Wood was going at. Like, oh, we’re going to open up the markets of private accounts. And it’s so freaking dangerous to do this because they highlight this. Like, you can get into OpenAI.

Frank Curzio 40:41

And they highlight the examples when 98% of these companies that raise money go to shit,right? And what happens is they don’t have liquidity in the private market. So they want to get the retail investors in, not because they care about you, not because they want to get you in so you could participate. They want to take all the profits themselves. They want to get in because they want to dump this garbage to you. They need someone who doesn’t know better.

Frank Curzio 41:01

And people are going to get so excited and they’re going to get annihilated from this because it’s going to be so much dogshit that’s going to be sold to them. And they don’t realize it. And that’s what happened with SPACs. They didn’t realize that you’re buying shitty, crappy deals. These companies are totally overrated,right? They’re completely overvalued. These guys are in at $1, $1.50. You’re getting at $10, buying at $13, $17. And then they’re happy to sell it to you.

Frank Curzio 41:20

They’re making a fortuneright away,right out of the gate,right? So, you know, when I look at this, it’s one of the reasons why I started the Kersee One membership is, you know, we opened that up to private investors. We opened up to credit investors. And the deals that we’re getting and the flow that we’re getting, we’re just closing out of the cash redeal now. You know, we’re starting to raise really good money for these companies and several million dollars, anywhere from $2 to $4 million that we’re raising for each of these companies.

Frank Curzio 41:41

But I vet these companies. I don’t get paid by them. You’re coming at the same terms I am,right, to this One membership. That’s just one of the perks. We have access to all our products and services for free. Also access to our One Wealth conference, which, by the way, that’s only for One members. And go to kerseeconference.com if you’re a One member. Early bird registration.

Frank Curzio 42:01

It’s going to be from October 25th to the 27th last year. I mean, you could see the testimonials there. I hate to say this because I’m going to build up expectations. So I hate building up expectations. I like to be below expectations. We didn’t have one member there that complained. I think there’s 125 people. It’s probably a billion and a half dollars in a room. All the private companies that we invested in, we were able to interview the CEOs on stage.

Frank Curzio 42:21

I interviewed them. I didn’t just go up into a presentation and you fall asleep. It was good questions. It was funny. I made it interesting. You had a Q&A. And then those CEOs were in the crowd talking to everyone. And people love that because, you know, you want that. You don’t get that all the time, especially with private investments. Nevertheless, publicly traded companies with their CEOs, they usually talk. They, you know, go out the back door, the stage, wherever.

Frank Curzio 42:42

So it’s going to be Pier 66 again, an unbelievable venue in Fort Lauderdale, October 25th, 27th. Early bird registrations now for your interest in joining One. You could send me an email at support@kerseeconference.com. I talk to everyone. You get my phone number. And you’re going to have access to a lot of private placement deals, which Cathie Wood is just closing out now. And very happy to be invested in that company.

Frank Curzio 43:02

I think it’s one of the highest risk rewards that I’ve ever seen in a private company where something that’s not just going to take some of a total address on market, it’s going to disrupt the entire industry, what they’re doing in terms of using enzymes to take the caffeine out of coffee, which is this massive archaic system, which is insane. And they can disrupt the whole entire system. That’s why everyone’s in talks with them from Starbucks to Pete’s Coffee,

Frank Curzio 43:22

who, you know, they have these advisors and all these scientists. It’s an incredible company that we’re coming in at a $20 million valuation. Yes, there’s risk. But if they do this, you’re talking about a company that could have a billion-dollar valuation. That’s life-changing for most people. So if you want more information on the One membership and you want access to our Kersee One Wealth conference, again, registration is going on. Early bird registration. It’s going to be from October 25th, 27th.

Frank Curzio 43:43

It’s kerseeconference.com. And you can go there and register there. Looking forward to seeing all of you. I met so many great, great people, long-term subscribers and One members. And it was a lot, a lot of fun. You had access to me for three days. I was on the floor talking to everybody the whole entire time. It was a lot, a lot of fun and great interviews. So hopefully we’ll see you there. So with that said,

Frank Curzio 44:02

Daniel, I have a couple more things I want to talk about.

Daniel Creech 44:06

Shoot.

Frank Curzio 44:07

Do you know a company called Argan?

Daniel Creech 44:09

No.

Frank Curzio 44:10

Okay. Me either. AGX. What I did notice is in a crappy tape in the market, and this was Monday and everything was horrible, AGX surged 30% on Monday. And it was pretty close to an all-time high already. And they reported blowout numbers,right? So you’ve seen a stock that’s $573. I’m going to show you a little lesson here because people are like, this stock is so expensive. It’s crazy. Bring up PWR, it’s in the same industry.

Frank Curzio 44:32

I’m going to flip back and forth here. No, no, just bring it up on top, PWR,right there. Okay. So this is Quanta Services. And where’s that stock trading? Almost had to say it’s the same level, $560. Go down and look at the market cap. The market cap of this company is what? $84 billion. Now go back. And it’s same price,right? Same price, $564. And people are like, that’s expensive.

Frank Curzio 44:50

That’s too high to pay for a price. Okay. AGX is around the same price. Look where the market cap is. It’s at $8 billion. Okay. There’s a big difference because it matters how many shares are outstanding,right? That’s the value of a company, is the market cap, not the price. And sometimes, you know, again, if you’re an experienced investor, you know, you know this stuff. But if you’re not, never think a stock that’s at $573 is expensive because if you look down the line,

Frank Curzio 45:11

this stock was trading at $200. And you probably thought that was expensive earlier. This stock, put up a chart of the S&P 500 comparison. This stock, I think, is up well over 300% for the year. Okay. Unbelievable. I mean, this name is incredible. And what do they do? They’re focused on engineering and power infrastructure for AI and data centers. Margins are expanding.

Frank Curzio 45:30

Backlog is absolutely surging. Again, the stock is up. What does that say, Joe? 330% or something over the past 12 months continues to hit new highs. Now I’m bringing this up because we talked about AI power infrastructure. That trend is real. You have these companies spending. People might say, well, they’re spending and they may cut back spending for the hyperscalers and all this craziness. And some AI, you know, some AI names are down so much.

Frank Curzio 45:51

You can’t. That spending has to go someplace. And it’s flowing down to these companies where you don’t have to look at the core weaves. You don’t have to look at NVIDIAs and stuff like that. You don’t have to look at AMDs. The power infrastructure, they need power. AI doesn’t work. And they don’t have enough powerright now. So you’re looking at Maztech who does this as well and Quanta Services.

Frank Curzio 46:11

Maztech, if you want to put up Maztech.

Frank Curzio 46:15

And then Quanta Services. Again, Quanta Services, which you put up, is at an all-time high. And so is Maztech,right? So the high was what? $339. It’s $338. It’s at an all-time high in a market that’s terrible. Yes, we’re good the last two days, but we’ve been down for five straight weeks because these guys continue to print money.

Frank Curzio 46:32

And they’re going to continue to do that as long as the hyperscalers continue to massively increase spend on AI and data centers. This is one of the biggest winners by far. But this is how you look at the markets where I’m like, Argan, what do they do? It’s up so much. And then sure enough, I saw it. And I’m like, okay, this is in the market where we just told you to buy Maztech and Power pretty much months ago. And these stocks have done fantastic in a tape that’s terrible,right?

Frank Curzio 46:54

In a tape that a lot of stuff, we have AI names as well that got hit. A lot of names, small caps, have gotten hit. You know, we’re not immune for that. We make mistakes sometimes. The overall market’s getting crushed. But these are names that are automatic. They have to see the money flow to them. They can’t have data centers being built without the Argans, without the Maztechs, without the Quanta Services. And yes, there’s other names in there. But Maztech and Quanta, two names that I love.

Frank Curzio 47:15

But, you know, I could dug a little deeper, maybe found Argan a while ago. But they just really like getting a huge, massive push into AI and data center and power infrastructure and stuff where they have so many contracts. And it just keeps increasing and increasing. But this is only an $8 billion company, even though it’s trading at $573.

Frank Curzio 47:32

And man, those tailwinds are not going away anytime soon. And, you know, those three stocks, I think, are going to continue to do really, really well. So, you know, that’s one area that, you know, has been doing good for us, even though the market’s been kind of shitty for the past five weeks, other than the past two days,right?

Daniel Creech 47:49

Yeah, pretty much. Yep, absolutely.

Frank Curzio 47:53

I can keep going. I got one more quote. Sony, PlayStation. So Sony’s going to hike their PS5 prices by up to $150, citing pressures in the global economy. Did you see that story?

Daniel Creech 48:05

I did. They’re raising them $100 or $150 because I thought it said between there.

Frank Curzio 48:10

Up to $150, up to $150.

Daniel Creech 48:13

What’s a new console cost? Are they still around $500 bucks?

Frank Curzio 48:15

Yeah. So the disc edition is going to jump from $550 to $650. That’s a $100 increase. And the other one’s probably going to be the Pro Sony, most palpable version, is going to go up $150 to $899. I could tell you, I don’t, this strategy is crazy because it makes me want to sell my Sony PlayStation. And because that’s how much it’s worth,right?

Frank Curzio 48:36

Because, I mean, buying it at this price is insane. But the current ones that you own, I mean, you could pretty much sell it and get what? $200 less for this. But you’re going to get more money than you paid for it. I mean, I don’t know if this is a great strategy by increasing it that much.

Daniel Creech 48:50

You can’t play, Frank. What are you going to play?

Frank Curzio 48:52

What?

Daniel Creech 48:53

You sell your console. What are you going to play?

Frank Curzio 48:54

I know. I know. But they got the internet. You got, you know, mobile phones and stuff like that and King and all that. You know, you have so many, you know, game services and Apple Gaming Service. You pay whatever, $9 a month, you get a million games and stuff.

Daniel Creech 49:08

Right. You do not just compare Apple Gaming Services with Sony.

Frank Curzio 49:11

I could tell you, man. You can’t crush.

Daniel Creech 49:13

You’re killing me.

Frank Curzio 49:13

Look at the numbers on Candy Crush. You think it’s crazy?

Daniel Creech 49:15

Candy Crush, Manny Crush. Frank.

Frank Curzio 49:17

Candy Crush, Manny Crush.

Daniel Creech 49:18

Frank, Grand Theft Auto hasn’t come out with a new game in 10 floor to years. You know why? They’re not on Apple Games. Get out of here with that.

Frank Curzio 49:25

Yeah, they’re coming out. They’re coming out. I think that they don’t have to.

Daniel Creech 49:28

They don’t have to. I don’t know why they do. They just keep using it.

Frank Curzio 49:30

You don’t think about it because they said they’re coming out last year. And they always do it later. I covered Take Two for a long time. It’s been a, you know, holding. I recommended it in the mid-single digits when I was at the street. And that stock is incredible, Take Two. And it’s out at Bargainright now. It was at $198, down from $264. I’d buy the crap out of that thing,right? Actually, I’m going to buy it in my portfolioright after we offer this.

Frank Curzio 49:49

But AI, I mean, think about that. They were coming out with these estimates that they’re going to release this new version of this game, which every time they release it, by the way, it becomes the highest-selling entertainment product in history. And that includes movies, books, or whatever. And they do them one-day sales, five-day sales, weekly sales, five-week sales. That’s how many people buy this freaking game.

Frank Curzio 50:07

It’s awesome. And, you know, AI now has, over the past three years, changed the whole landscape of their developers and coding and everything. So it’s interesting to see, you know, what they’re going to do. This is a name that got hit along with games and stuff. But you can’t duplicate that game. I mean, when that comes out, it’s going to be enormous. And it’s finally coming out probably by the end of this year.

Frank Curzio 50:27

And you don’t have to wait for the day it comes out. As long as it’s coming out in the next 18 months, this stock is dirt cheapright now because you’re going to see the numbers absolutely explode. Absolutely. I remember they were generating like a billion and a half dollars in revenue for the year. And when they released that, I think it generated well over $2 billion in revenue, like immediately for them, like in like two days or something. I mean, it’s a game changer for this company.

Frank Curzio 50:46

It’s like, it’s unbelievable. It’s not like an iPhone or a car that come out every single year. People are anticipating this. They signed up probably over a year ago. And everything else is working for Take Two as well. It’s a really, really good company. But Sony, PlayStation, increasing it by that much, I could see people actually selling their Sony PlayStations now and being like, okay. I mean, you could play, you could actually play,

Frank Curzio 51:05

you could play that on your mobile phone, Grand Theft Auto. You could play a lot of these things on it. Not that I would, and it’s not going to be the same thing. But I’m just saying, it’s at that price, you’re going to increase it. Who’s going to pay $900 for a freaking system because you didn’t stock up on memory chips? Anyway, maybe you should have a little bit more because memory is getting more expensive. And that’s why they’re getting crushed.

Daniel Creech 51:24

That is a heck of a price hike, though.

Frank Curzio 51:25

That’s a heck of a price hike for a system that’s been out forever.

Daniel Creech 51:27

Yeah.

Frank Curzio 51:28

I mean, are people still buying like Sony PlayStations today? Are they still buying them? I figured like everyone, it should be a saturated market. To buy an iPhone 15, 14. I think everybody has an iPhone 14 or betterright now. Anyway, so let’s end with this college basketball. Did you see the UConn game?

Daniel Creech 51:45

I did. It was amazing.

Frank Curzio 51:46

Oh yeah. That was one of the greatest games you’ll ever see. Yes, you could say Layton or I just, I feel bad that, you know, and I don’t like Duke. I never liked Duke. But you feel bad. You know, the Blues and Brothers are great players. But just to see that, you know, that’s going to be played for the rest of that kid’s life. You know, I’m glad his team is there for him and everything. But you can go with the coaching part.

Frank Curzio 52:06

Like, just hold it. Just hold the ball. You got to hold the ball. I think John Schei was telling him to throw it, actually. So they weren’t, it wasn’t even, it’s just such a disconnect where I know you’re trying to keep away and run the clock out. You don’t need to do that. You don’t need to run the clock out because all you need to get fouled, you hit two foul shots. They got to take the ball out on the other side of the freaking court with seven seconds left. They can’t win,right? Even if you hit one or none,

Frank Curzio 52:25

it puts them in a tough spot. But for that to happen, you kind of get in. It’s UConn, what? Illinois and then Michigan and Zona. And man, Michigan and Zona, wow. Holy cow. That is a heavyweight fight. I could tell you that Michigan matches up very well to Arizona’s strengths. Arizona is very big.

Frank Curzio 52:45

I think Michigan’s also big. They’re fast. But the big difference here is Michigan has a better offense. They move the ball better. And they could hit threes where Arizona, I think 22% of their points or something like that come from threes and not a three-point shooting team. It’s rare to see that a non-three-point shooting team with a high percentage win the national championship. They better be hitting their threes,

Frank Curzio 53:05

Arizona, because they’re playing, you know, Michigan. This, I think Arizona was favored by one and a halfright off the bat. Now Michigan’s favored, I think. So on the other side, I don’t think it matters who wins. They’re going to get annihilated in the final. I just think, you know, again, anyone could win anything. But I’d be surprised if that spread is under six or seven points, no matter who wins that game. It’ll be higher for UConn if UConn wins.

Frank Curzio 53:25

But UConn’s on a highright now. They don’t have the talent. Neither of these teams in the match. I think the only ones that get great talent, but finally that they’re playing defense. They’re known as one of the best offensive teams. They played good defense, but they played good defense against, you know, decent teams. And when it’s for real, they’re definitely for real. But, you know, when I look at that bracket and where they came from,

Frank Curzio 53:45

look, it’s just, I really like the winner of Arizona-Michigan. It is just much better teams than on the other side. But man, that UConn game was great. My bracket was busted. I had Houston playing Ohio State, but playing Iowa State. So I got busted. But who’s the girl on CNBC on Squawk Box?

Daniel Creech 54:03

Yeah, she said she has all the final four.

Frank Curzio 54:06

She has all four teams. Are you kidding me? She’s got all four of those teams. It’s not easy to get Illinois there. I mean, that’s.

Daniel Creech 54:09

And she said she needed Arizona to win it.

Frank Curzio 54:12

Arizona to win, which is good. But yeah, she’s got the final four. I’m not saying it’s crazy. You got three number one seeds there and a three seed. It’s not crazy. But, you know, a lot of people had, I mean, so many people had Florida in there. And I thought that’s why it was good after Sweet 16 that Florida lost. But it should be a great tournament this weekend. They’re playing Saturday Championships on Monday. I’ve been to the international championship to watch Kansas win in New Orleans.

Frank Curzio 54:32

It was one of the greatest experiences ever. So good luck. And if you’re a fan of one of these teams and they make the championship, please spend the money to go. Work overtime. Work whatever you have to do. It’s one of the greatest experiences you’ll ever be at, especially if your team wins. But just, you know, do it because it’s a memory. And you don’t have a lot of those in life. You don’t have a lot of those moments. You know,

Frank Curzio 54:51

when you think about things that went on with your life and everything, when you think back, this is one of the things when your favorite team is there. And if they win, if they lose, you’re going to have a good time. Even if they win, it’s something that you remember for the rest of your life, which to me is priceless. At my age, it’s priceless. Having those moments at 53, like having, like you look back at the greatest times you had with your friends and stuff like that and all the crazy.

Frank Curzio 55:10

This is one of those times where you’ll look back and be like, holy shit. Like I went to the Eagles and they won, every time I went with my favorite team, I’m jinxing the shit out of myselfright now. Every single time I went to a championship that my favorite team played, they won. Eagles beat New England Patriots in the Super Bowl and then Kansas beat North Carolina. If they’re being down, what? 12, 13 and a half. Unbelievable. Holy cow. I lost my voice.

Frank Curzio 55:29

But yeah, it’s pretty incredible. If you have an opportunity to go, definitely, definitely go. It’ll be one of the greatest experiences ever. And you just got to work a little hard. Make up that money. It’ll be expensive, but it will be worth it. So enjoy.

Daniel Creech 55:40

What credit cards are for, Frank?

Frank Curzio 55:41

Exactly. Yeah, credit cards.

Daniel Creech 55:43

I haven’t been there.

Frank Curzio 55:44

30%? 35% interest? What’s that?

Daniel Creech 55:46

I haven’t been there in a long time. But when I went to the Final Four years ago, it was in Indianapolis. And it’s just a fun area. It’s neat to be in a city where it’s kind of like Vegas. Vegas is good, in my opinion, because it caters to whatever you’re there for. And everybody can be there for different reasons. But Indianapolis, when they do the Final Four there, again, it could have changed. I doubt it because they keep going back.

Daniel Creech 56:05

But the whole downtown experience, or not downtown, but the whole area and around the arena is really cool. The only thing I will say, Frank, and I wanted to ask your opinion on this, easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Didn’t have a dog in the fight. Just wanted to watch a good game, which it ended up being. Although in the first half, when Duke was up 19, I was kind of like, allright, you know, thank goodness I had a full cigar left or I would have left.

Daniel Creech 56:24

I was just being honest because I was like, I just want to see a good game. I knew enough about UConn that I figured they’d make a run. I didn’t know they’d come and hit a, you know, like that. The big thing, though, is, and I could not believe this, not a Duke fan, not a Duke hater, how in the hell, Frank, do you let your guys run around and go to the end with a timeout?

Daniel Creech 56:46

That’s on Duke. Duke’s coach should have called a timeout. That is the easiest. I was wiping my glasses trying to figure out if I could see or not. They had a timeout left. Your guys are clearly scrambling.

Frank Curzio 56:58

And they really need to call timeout because they got the, they passed the ball. They passed it. It was in their own hands. It wasn’t like he was trapped. It was in his own hands.

Daniel Creech 57:03

They were kept with you. You know that.

Frank Curzio 57:04

They were trying to foul him.

Daniel Creech 57:05

You can’t take timeouts to.

Frank Curzio 57:06

They were going to foul the crap out of him. He decided to throw the ball. And it was just like, man.

Daniel Creech 57:10

I think that’s on Duke’s coach.

Frank Curzio 57:11

Do you see Blues’s, do you see the father?

Daniel Creech 57:13

No.

Frank Curzio 57:13

Oh my God. So, so.

Daniel Creech 57:15

Well, I’m sure.

Frank Curzio 57:15

When they were up by four,right? When he was on the line, they were up by, was it four points? And then I forgot what it was, but he had like 25 seconds left or something. It looked like the game was over and he was waving bye. It’s like, bye-bye. He’s going bye-bye to two.

Daniel Creech 57:31

Well, he was doing that to St. John’s. Did he do that again?

Frank Curzio 57:33

Yeah, he did that again.

Daniel Creech 57:34

Oh, okay.

Frank Curzio 57:34

Yeah, he should have cried. Did it again.

Daniel Creech 57:35

That’s what you get. But anyway, I thought that was a, I thought that was a big mistake on Duke’s coach. So, but hey, it happens.

Frank Curzio 57:44

No, it happens. Definitely happens. So I would say last side here with Arizona-Michigan, they’ve beat their opponents, I think both of them by an average of more than 20 points each. This is a heavyweight fight here. This is going to be an insane game. Two teams that match up well. I just think that, you know, Michigan just, yeah, they match up really, really good.

Daniel Creech 58:00

Allright, Frank, that’s enough about that team.

Frank Curzio 58:02

It’ll be, yeah, at least I’m not a Michigan fan. I don’t want them to win. But man, I mean, incredible tie. I will say one last thing is the NBA talent that’s coming out this year is going to be the greatest you’ve ever seen, especially from the freshman class. You’re going to get like Dwyane Wade type people in the second round. That’s how great this draft is going to be. The kids here,

Frank Curzio 58:21

and you’re seeing this highlighted with Illinois has someone great on that team. You got Michigan as well. Arizona, who’s like the big man, who’s just incredible. I mean, these guys look like they’re 40 years old when they’re playing with these children. But it really is incredible. So it’s going to be awesome. Not including Kansas Peterson, not including the other guy’s name from BYU, not including Akuna, who’s the best point guard.

Frank Curzio 58:40

Unbelievable. I mean, the talent in this draft is going to be incredible to see these guys play. So hopefully that results in more people watching the NBA, which I doubt.

Daniel Creech 58:47

It won’t.

Frank Curzio 58:48

It definitely won’t. So guys, that’s it for us. If you are a Wall Street Unplugged Premium member, happy Easter. Actually, I should say if you’re not a Wall Street Unplugged Premium member, happy Easter, right? So because we have Wall Street Unplugged Premium, there’s just tomorrow. That’s our premium podcast where, you know, we get more detailed into stocks and recommendations. I have a portfolio attached to it. So I’ll see you guys tomorrow.

Frank Curzio 59:06

Without that, have a great Easter. Enjoy it. Enjoy college basketball. And we’ll see you guys next week. Take care.

Announcer 59:13

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.