Transcript was automatically generated.

Frank Curzio 00:00

What’s going on out there? It’s Wednesday, April 29th.

Frank Curzio 00:04

I’m Frank Curzio, you’re just watching my podcast where I break down headlines and, uh, tell you what’s really moving these markets. Mr. Daniel Creech, what’s going on, man? Not a lot going on in the markets these days, huh?

Daniel Creech 00:20

No.

Frank Curzio 00:21

Especially this week.

Daniel Creech 00:22

Nothing, Frank. Happy Wednesday, sir.

Frank Curzio 00:23

Good. I think there’s a million companies in the S&P 500 reporting. A million of the, uh, of the 500 are reporting. This week you have, what, the, uh, four largest hyperscalers reporting after the close. You have the Fed meeting. And before we get to all that, I will say this, and thank you, Veronica, because I always forget. She’s like, “Mention this on the podcast.” Uh,

Frank Curzio 00:42

our Curzio One Wealth Conference is taking place October 25th, 27th. Last year was the first year we had it, uh, this early bird registration. Um, it’s now open. It’s at Pier 66, Hotel Fort Lauderdale. If you are a member to Curzio One, uh, you can go to curzioconference.com to register for your discount.

Frank Curzio 01:03

And if you’re not familiar with One, it’s a membership for credit investors. You can invest alongside with me into private placements, private deals. I vet them. I interview the CEOs. Uh, we take care of a lot of the stuff for you, put everything in DocuSign, make it very easy. You have access to me directly. Again, I don’t get paid by these companies. You’re just investing 100% alongside with me. And then at our Curzio One conference last year,

Frank Curzio 01:24

we had pretty much almost all the private companies we invested in. I interviewed them on stage, and you get to have one-on-ones with them. You get to ask questions, hang out. So, uh, you know, they give you an update on, on, uh, you know, their growth trends, their KPIs, and stuff like that. So, uh, this year we’re going to have a great list of speakers. I locked in Andrew Horowitz, which is awesome. I have another four speakers that all said yes,

Frank Curzio 01:42

but said, “Just before you confirm, let me make sure, double-check the availability.” Uh, really great lineup. I’m excited to announce these names. I’m not going to announce them, though. Uh, maybe I’ll announce one of them. Ivan Bebeck. Ivan Bebeck is a legend in the mining industry. Uh, you know, there’s a lot of other people I reached out to that said, “Yes, yeah, that’s great. I’d love to speak.” And, you know, word got around.

Frank Curzio 02:02

That conference was really good, and a lot of people had fun. All one members loved it. Uh, there’s really a lot of interaction, and it’s, you know, this whole community. Everybody checks their ego at the door. Last year, I would say there’s a billion and a half dollars in that room. Some companies were able to raise money and do deals. Companies were still, still had some of their, um, offerings open. Uh, and some of the other members that weren’t able to invest at the beginning,

Frank Curzio 02:22

they were able to invest now. So, uh, it’s a lot of fun. It’s really cool. Lots of ideas, and a lot of ideas that we discussed at that conference, uh, including one of them, which is Bloom Energy, continues to be a massive winner. We are up. Bloom Energy is one of them. We’re going to cover that in a little while. It’s up 22%, 277.

Frank Curzio 02:42

Uh, we’re up over 1,100% on this stock in our AI portfolio, uh, which is fantastic. I, I just, you know, this isn’t a pat on the back. I, I love to see investors making money. I know a lot of people own this, especially if you’re at the conference. We talked about this technology and fuel cell. It’s scalable compared to a lot of other, uh, technologies that are not scalable yet. They may be in the future, SMR and all this stuff in the power industry.

Frank Curzio 03:02

But this is a name that, uh, we were early, very, very early. I think we recommended it in, in, in the low 20s, right? So it’s really nice to see, uh, something like that happen. But, uh, just listen, the conference is awesome. Uh, we discussed lots of ideas. Everyone has a voice there, and, uh, it was really, really cool. And we were going to do, uh, like we did last year, a live podcast,

Frank Curzio 03:22

uh, on the final day where everyone gets to participate and stuff. And it’s really, really cool. So, uh, you know, questions come, let me know. If you’re interested in joining once, I’m going to email it to supportcurzioresearch.com. Again, it’s going to give you access to really, again, really, really good private placements. Uh, we just got really good news out of Shigafina too, which is a private place when we invested in. And, uh, I’m going to report back to my, uh, subscribers with, with that report.

Frank Curzio 03:43

Uh, just, um, they’re going to be going public pretty soon, hopefully in the next three to six months. But they just got a private valuation, which they do every single year, which is now, I think, uh, you know, over $150 million. And we invested pretty early in that stock as well. So it’s very, very exciting what they’re doing, what some of these companies are doing, and really, really good deals that I vet and I go in personally.

Frank Curzio 04:02

So it’s for Curzio One. So there you go, Veronica. I mentioned it. I hope you’re happy. But, uh, I should be mentioning it more because, uh, yeah, we want to get more Curzio One members. It just, you know, that, that reached, Daniel, right? I mean, we were at the conference. It was, it was amazing to speak to everyone and, uh, you know, one-on-one and just hang out and everyone, different backgrounds and,

Frank Curzio 04:21

and, you know, from data centers to, to high figures in politics and things like that. It’s just, uh, that we have in that membership. It’s, it’s really, really cool. It is across all industries, and it’s just this big, massive network, uh, of ideas, which is a lot of fun. So, uh, anyway, let’s get to some of the things going on. Daniel, Michael Jackson. Did you see that? Michael Jackson.

Daniel Creech 04:41

Was he alive again?

Frank Curzio 04:42

Yeah. Michael movie generated $218 million. It’s opening weekend. Biggest opening for music bio, uh, beating Bohemian Rhapsody straight out of Compton. Uh, I mean, not surprising, right? I mean, I grew up in the ’80s. What I don’t understand is, is don’t call me crazy. I, I love Michael Jackson. I love his music, right?

Frank Curzio 05:02

I don’t even say I love Michael Jackson. I love his music. I grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s, and just to see, you know, everything, I like just changed the face of just pop music. However, there’s a big asterisk there that nobody wants to talk about anymore. I mean, I don’t get it. I mean, are they going to make a Harvey Weinstein movie pretty soon too? And it’s going to do what? I just,

Frank Curzio 05:21

I, I don’t, you know, the child abuse stuff came out and they didn’t address it in the movie. And they made sure that the movie only covered till 1988, which was five years before the child abuse stuff came out. And, um, his settlement agreement with, I think it was a Chandler family back in the 1990s, specifically said that they prohibited him from, you know, depiction or mention in the, in of that case in any film.

Frank Curzio 05:42

So I don’t know. It just, it just, it just mind-blowing to me as someone that has kids that someone, that everyone just turns a blind eye to it with Michael Jackson. I mean, he, he gets a pass and that’s okay. And, and I guess it’s okay for some people. For me, it doesn’t really get a pass, but I guess a lot of people just wanted to see it and get a nice, you know, that feeling.

Daniel Creech 05:59

What did he break records for? I didn’t even know there was a movie out.

Frank Curzio 06:02

Yeah. So Michael, so it’s, it’s the, the, the, the biggest, um, music.

Daniel Creech 06:07

Is it a biography?

Frank Curzio 06:08

Yeah, basically biography. Music that folks on music like, you know, so it beat out Bohemian Rhapsody straight out of Compton, uh, but $218 million for an opening weekend for that. It’s incredible. And it’s doing well. And I think it got mixed reviews, but still doing very, very well. And, uh, yeah, I was just, yeah, when I heard the movie coming out and everything, I thought it was going to be about, you know, talk a little bit about his whole life, I guess. You know, maybe not.

Frank Curzio 06:26

Maybe just leave out all the, the, the bad parts and stuff. But, um, look, I’m just saying what it is. Uh, again, I love his music and stuff like that. It’s just surprising how it’s weird how some people turn a blind eye to certain things and other things you can’t. Uh, yeah, I was like, I Kevin Spacey. I started watching House of Cards again. Kevin Spacey’s an amazing actor. And I think he got accused of something a little bit.

Frank Curzio 06:47

And they threw that guy right out of Hollywood. He’s gone, right? Academy Award winner, everything. And he’s done. You know, it’s just, it’s amazing how sometimes you can get a pass and sometimes you can’t. It just depends, I guess. I don’t know if it’s sentiment. I don’t know if it’s the people in Hollywood that say, nope, this person gets a pass. It’s okay. And this person doesn’t. Just weird how it operates in that world, to be honest with you. It is pretty crazy.

Daniel Creech 07:05

Yeah. We have different rules for different people.

Frank Curzio 07:07

Absolutely. Absolutely different rules for different people. Yes, absolutely. So, uh, we also have, uh, Fed Powell’s last meeting as chair. I mean, he could stay on as a voter. What are your thoughts? Anything? We’re going to see anything out today? I mean, I’m not sure. I’m, it’s a lot of people say it’s just going to be nothing.

Frank Curzio 07:26

That there’s a mutual respect there. When someone else comes in, you don’t want to take the spotlight and stuff like that. It’s usually like they pass. No, they do. They usually pass the baton and it’s, it, you know, he’s not supposed to say anything. And this is from people on the inside that are reporting. And, you know, the, the Fed always has their, you know, their outlets that they, you know, push information to before it’s released,

Frank Curzio 07:45

which is fine, uh, because that’s what the Fed likes to do. They don’t want to surprise the markets. But, uh, the places that report on the Fed are usually accurate at saying, you know, there’s not going to be a lot said today, uh, you know, other than, hey, we know we’re going to pass on the torch and stuff like that. But are you expecting anything? You expect anything? It’s going to be market moving.

Daniel Creech 08:02

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I think, uh, I think he’ll be market moving. I think he’s going to be very hawkish. I think that, uh, you will see the knives come out for President Trump. I don’t think he’s going to be able to hide his hatred for Trump anymore because he doesn’t have to. He’s out as Fed chair. He will dance around a lot of the questions. Now he’s in a tough spot from the media perspective because the media should,

Daniel Creech 08:22

in my opinion, ask him, hey, charges are dropped now. Are you going to leave once your Fed chair term is up? And he may dance around that, but they ought to press him on that because what he said, Frank, was, and I pulled this quote and this aggravates me. So.

Frank Curzio 08:37

Something aggravates you.

Daniel Creech 08:38

Pull me back from the, uh, jumping base cliff here. Powell said, I will make that decision. He was talking obviously about if he’s going to stay on after his Fed chair term is up. And he says, I will make that decision based on what I think is best for the institution and for the people we serve. Now, Frank, if that isn’t the most condescending, pointy shoes,

Daniel Creech 08:58

horrible suit-wearing tie line I’ve ever heard, that just makes me want to yell F-words. But I’m not going to. So, yeah, Frank, he is going to say, listen, he’s going to tout his decisions. He’s going to tell you about how good the Fed is and how they care so much about poor people, which is why they only want to inflate your money and, uh, lower your cost of purchasing power by 2% a year.

Daniel Creech 09:20

They’ve been off for five years in a row. Results don’t matter. He’s only worth $20 million. I think that pisses him off too because everybody’s excited about Warsh being worth $100 million.

Frank Curzio 09:28

Bonus for the next place he joins.

Daniel Creech 09:29

But he is a, he’s a poor guy in Washington, Frank. $20 million. Well, you know that.

Frank Curzio 09:33

That’s the bonus for joining, for joining Goldman Sachs is the day he quits. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Creech 09:37

You know, what? What do you need? A Carlyle guy? I think Chair Powell came from Carlyle.

Frank Curzio 09:42

I don’t know if he did. I’m surprised he’s only worth $20 million. Because again, he’s got that stint.

Daniel Creech 09:46

Well, he wasn’t very good at it.

Frank Curzio 09:47

Yeah. Well, he’s part of the Fed for a while too. So.

Daniel Creech 09:49

I’m kidding.

Frank Curzio 09:50

$20 million back then is different then.

Daniel Creech 09:51

Exactly.

Frank Curzio 09:52

We’re millionaires now today than ever, right? With the market’s all-time highs. But if I was him, I’d go out with a bang. I would, I would go after Trump, uh, and say, you know, this is what I did and I told you that we shouldn’t lower rates. And I was right. And look where we are right now. And, uh, you know, and just go after Trump a little bit.

Frank Curzio 10:12

And, and, you know, now they dropped the lawsuit and everything. So, uh, you know, just pound his chest a little bit. And, uh, you know, it just, his track record’s going to be tainted by, of course, that the inflation is transitory. But, you know, for me, and, you know, again, you’re going to think differently, uh, Daniel and me, but I thought he’s done an unbelievable job up to this point after that,

Frank Curzio 10:32

just for the fact that I think almost any of the Fed chair, and again, you vote on this when it comes to interest rates, but the fact that they weren’t able to really touch interest rates that much and leave them where they are and you’re seeing the market recover. You saw the market at all-time highs. You’re seeing, you know, the housing market is starting to tail off a lot more now. Uh, but a lot of people suggested two years ago that rates would be much,

Frank Curzio 10:52

much, they were predicting six, seven rate cuts easily two years ago, and he didn’t. And, and the market’s held up well in the face of this, meaning we have more ammo if shit hits the fan, which it can. I mean, we have, you know, more private investors owning treasuries than ever. We have lots of, of, you know, private credit right now. It is, is, you know, a disaster right now, especially for venture funds.

Frank Curzio 11:14

Like these companies, they can’t get them off the books. And, and the waiting period used to be seven to ten years, and now it’s like 15 years, which is crazy. And, and, you know, they’re not giving these, when you acquire these companies, Daniel, you acquire these companies, uh, off the market and then you build them up and grow. And what I’m hearing from great sources, and these are very good sources who are in this industry,

Frank Curzio 11:33

is now the CEOs of these companies that are under these umbrellas for these, you know, for these funds and private equity funds, they’re not giving them money to grow. So they want to separate, but they can’t because they can’t separate because then they’re going to have to mark to market their true valuation, which is going to be much, much lower than they have on the books. So now these CEOs of these companies are going, hey, you know what? We’re supposed to grow. We’re supposed to get this money.

Frank Curzio 11:51

We’re not getting any more money in. We’re not able to grow. But you just got to sit there until this market gets better, until we could somehow, you know, get out an IPO for you or sell us. And, and, you know, they’re not going to be able to sell, maybe an IPO, but they’re not going to be able to sell because they’re being valued much more than what they’re being valued on their books right now. So, you know, there is stuff that, that could really push this market lower. And if it does and the shit hits the fan,

Frank Curzio 12:12

we do have some more power in terms of, you know, being able to cut interest rates a lot more. But, uh, I’m with you. I see him being more hawkish. There’s really no sign that there’s going to be an end to the straight, uh, you know, to this war with Iran. And by ending, I mean opening of the Strait of Hormuz where things go back to normal, uh, and flow like they used to.

Frank Curzio 12:31

Uh, you know, inflation is surging right now. Food prices are through the roof. Oil prices, uh, you know, are, you know, at highs since the war, right? So, so you’re looking, I mean, oil prices are pretty, pretty much, I think that their monthly highs now, they’re closing their highs near the war pretty soon. Where’s WTI, Joe? I think it, what was it? Wasn’t $116 the high? And it’s, you know,

Frank Curzio 12:50

again, it’s pushing, uh, this is Brent crude, but if you look at WTI too, but, you know, it’s, I think it’s gas, gas prices are at the highest levels since the war. Gas prices, right? So, you know, we’re supposed to see this pullback. And these are everyday needs for people and businesses. And these prices are up substantially. At one point, they’re sticky, right?

Frank Curzio 13:09

I mean, this is $105. Yes, it went to $116, but look at, look at it. Look at that high from the 21st now going, you know, much, much higher here, right? So you’re looking at two inputs that are substantially high and how do airlines, how do cruises, how do trucking companies, which we’re already under pressure, Daniel,

Frank Curzio 13:28

we cover trucking companies for what, like the last two, three years, it’s been a shit show for them. They’re finally getting back into favor now, lowering their costs, doing better. And now you’re dealing with, you know, having to have higher fuel prices. How do these companies make their numbers or issue, you know, strong guidance? Consumer companies who ship their product. I mean, you look at a FedEx and UPS,

Frank Curzio 13:47

they’ve raised their prices by 6% each in January. Third consecutive year of hikes. Coke raising prices. Great quarter, by the way. I got to give them a shout out for CEO Henrique Braun, uh, who, you know, Coca-Cola saw strong demand and greater effort on cost cutting. Operating margins are good. Uh, OI Glass. Have you seen that company? You familiar with that company, Daniel?

Daniel Creech 14:05

I am not.

Frank Curzio 14:06

Okay.

Frank Curzio 14:06

When you punch this company up, I mean, this is a company that, that has gotten annihilated, uh, on their earnings. And OI Glass is a world’s largest manufacturer of glass containers and bottles for food brands. A monster company, 72 plants and 20 companies. And it’s at nine. Its stock was at 16.

Frank Curzio 14:26

But you’re looking at a company that lowered their full year guidance for 2026 from $1.77 to $1.25. That is massive and is 100% due to energy cost inflation. How do restaurants make their numbers with higher food and energy costs?

Frank Curzio 14:45

You’re looking at Domino’s, which is terrible, fell 9% after earnings, missed a lower guidance, second straight quarter of terrible results. Same store sales were going 3%, 4%. They’re going to grow less than 1% now. Clear sign that you’re seeing a slowdown in demand. It would be down even more, Domino’s, if it wasn’t for, uh, their $1 billion buyback announcement. Wingstop is another one.

Frank Curzio 15:03

Wing, if you put that up today, uh, down 11% after reporting earnings this morning. Uh, another name that would be down if not announcing, uh, a buyback on, you know, the bad numbers. But, and, you know, just to put in perspective, speaking of buybacks, I don’t know if you saw this stat because we get a lot of stuff emailed to us and we have access to, you know, Goldman Sachs,

Frank Curzio 15:22

stuff like that, and, you know, all of the research firms and their research. Goldman noted that $422 billion of buyback authorizations were announced mid-April. Mid-April. So there’s a blackout window where these companies can’t buy back their shares until pretty much it’s around after earnings season’s over, which is, you know, several weeks from now.

Frank Curzio 15:41

And then that window opens. Now, $422 billion, it’s definitely a tailwind where you have, you know, higher inflation prices. But to put the $422 billion in perspective, uh, last year, companies repurchased a record $942 billion. Um, when I say last year, I see 2024 because 2025 is just kind of like they’re just getting the last quarter numbers in, uh, for some of these companies.

Frank Curzio 16:02

And when all said and done in 2025, that number’s going to be $1.2 to $1.3 trillion in buybacks. In buybacks, uh, you know, you could say that’s a huge number. It’s still less percent, less than 1% of the entire, uh, S&P 500 market cap, which is about $64 trillion. But, you know, companies are buying back, uh,

Frank Curzio 16:20

you know, some are buying back more than 5% of their float, which is huge. When you look at earnings, it’s like this automatic earnings boost, right? And you could hate and complain about it. If you’re an investor, listen, there’s a track record going back for 25 years S&P 500 covers. This bought, companies that bought back their stocks have showed much better returns than companies that pay dividends in the S&P 500,

Frank Curzio 16:41

than the S&P 500 themselves. I mean, this is a direct sign that you have massive cash flow. It’s a direct sign your business is doing great. As huge free cash flow, you’re buying back stock. You just have to make sure you’re buying back at the right time, which, you know, stocks are near all-time highs. So for some names, that’s, that’s not, you know, the worst. But the point is, when Powell talks, I mean,

Frank Curzio 17:02

you can’t discount this higher food and higher energy prices and inflation because these expenses were supposed to be temporary. But blockades, that decision to blockade, Daniel, that’s, that’s not a, that’s not temporary. I mean, to me, that’s a cop-out solution of saying, okay, we just don’t want to bomb anymore. We don’t want to put any pressure on them.

Frank Curzio 17:21

But, you know, a blockade isn’t something that happens and there’s a quick resolution. A blockade is, you know, a long-term solution is something that we thought would be taken care of right now. And the longer this goes, it’s going to be harder for these companies to meet earnings. I mean, this is becoming a serious risk of people, you know, just being able to pay their bills and companies.

Frank Curzio 17:40

And this, this is an expense. Oil, energy is an expense for every single company out there, almost every single company. And, uh, it is starting to hit earnings for some of them, for some of these names.

Daniel Creech 17:49

Yeah. Uh, I agree that you’re not going to be able to ignore some of these inflationary pressures, um, but they are transitory, Frank. So he’ll, he’ll be able to say that right. Um, I would disagree with you on the blockade being temporary or not temporary. Um, depending on what your definition of temporary is, it, something will happen.

Daniel Creech 18:08

I don’t know good or bad. I hope good, obviously. Temporary is two weeks max. And the reason I say that is because if this blockade continues, if Iran is not going to be able to store all the energy they produce, all the oil, excuse me, and ship it out and transport it and such, something’s got to give within that.

Daniel Creech 18:30

Um, you could argue, hey, maybe we should have done this sooner. I’m not a war strategist. I don’t know if it’s because of missiles flying and all that kind of stuff. If you have to deplete them to a certain extent before you do this, I’m not sure. I will say, though, the next two weeks, no pun intended, are going to be full of fireworks. Um, Iran has to do something.

Daniel Creech 18:50

And what I think, and it seems to be our play is.

Frank Curzio 18:53

Why do they have to do something?

Daniel Creech 18:55

Because if you don’t move oil, you’re not going to pay your people.

Frank Curzio 18:58

They’re moving oil, apparently. I mean.

Daniel Creech 19:00

No, they’re not.

Frank Curzio 19:01

They’re not moving it to anybody. They’re not moving it to Russia and pipeline anything. It just seems like that they’re okay right now and they’re doing okay with this. Seems like they’re trying, they’re not, they’re not quick to sign a deal. They’re actually coming back with more terms. So it doesn’t seem like they’re desperate, as desperate everybody thinks. And in my opinion, I could be wrong. They could be super desperate and just, you know, putting on this, you know, this huge bluff.

Frank Curzio 19:22

But right now, the fact that it’s taken this, they’re just like, why wouldn’t it open? I mean, there’s a solution for everyone here. I don’t understand why this hasn’t opened yet, but it seems like, uh, you know, they could push this issue a lot longer than what everyone previously thought. I mean, maybe.

Daniel Creech 19:34

Yeah. And you got to take everything with a grain of salt. Um, who knows what to believe exactly? Like I said, we, we talked about this. Iran had two weeks’ worth of floating oil outside of the blockade. So let’s just say, and that two weeks really, I don’t think is up completely. Uh, Treasury Secretary Bessett has been very vocal on social media and such saying, listen, they’re going to have to do well shut-ins.

Daniel Creech 19:55

They’re going to have to do something because they’re running out of capacity now that they’re doing. So we’re looking from here out the next two weeks. And listen, I don’t know again, but if I just put on my thinking cap, Frank, if you cut off the revenue to these guys, then we get to the old Gordon Gekko greed is good thing. And this is why everybody ought to tip your hat to greed.

Daniel Creech 20:15

It’s a horrible emotion, but it can be used in good, like moderation. Not transitory, Frank, moderation.

Frank Curzio 20:20

Transitory.

Daniel Creech 20:21

Here’s why. Because if you’re dealing with a bunch of terrorists, let’s say, and you can’t pay them, Frank, how long do you think your best friend in the mafia slash terrorist isn’t going to kill you and try to take your spot?

Daniel Creech 20:37

So I think that’s the best plan you could do is take away their funding and just see how loyal everybody is to one another. I don’t think they’re very loyal. We’ll see how that plays. I just simply say, I’m not saying this is going to be the fix or the end, but I’m saying you cannot have a blockade for two weeks and not have a major event happening. Let’s hope it’s good. But I think,

Daniel Creech 20:56

to your point, it’s not a long-term solution, but we’re not going to need long-term because something’s got to give here soon.

Frank Curzio 21:02

Yeah. And if the missiles start flying again, you’re going to see this market come down. I don’t know how much the market could withstand right now. We do have very strong earnings. And they’re kind of strong. They’re not great. I’m going to cover that in a second. I mean, because you’re talking about, you know, oil and prices. And now speaking of loyalty, you have the UAE leaving OPEC.

Frank Curzio 21:21

They’ve been in OPEC for six decades, third largest oil producer in OPEC behind Saudi Arabia. I think there’s 12 members. Uh, and, you know, whatever, people could speculate. But when you’re tied to OPEC and they cut production, that hurts you, right? This is a country that can produce up to, I believe, they want to increase production up to 5 million barrels a day.

Frank Curzio 21:42

But when, you know, you see UAE leave OPEC, this isn’t like a Brexit type thing. Okay, this is just a one-off. When you see one leaving because they’re saying, hey, you know what? We want to have control of our oil. We want to be able to increase it and lower it or whatever we need to do and, you know, make our own money, whatever we want. So the fact that they’re leaving,

Frank Curzio 22:01

they had a lot of respect for all the OPEC members. They just said, hey, you know what? We’re not out. We’re out of here. Uh, because they want the freedom to do whatever they want. Uh, I could see others leaving as well. Listen, OPEC doesn’t have the influence ever since, you know, the fracking. And this is probably 2010, 11, 12, when everything started going nuts where, yeah, Shania Energy, uh,

Frank Curzio 22:20

which is supposed to be an import facility for LNG, said, wait a minute, we have fracking and now we have massive money. Let’s change this to an export facility, right? Which took many, many years to do. It’s a big process. It’s not just like, hey, let’s turn this boat around. It’s not, it’s much, much more with trains and stuff like that that they have to, yeah, just basically a whole massive infrastructure process.

Frank Curzio 22:42

And that stock is unbelievable. Uh, we had Paul Kessler, who was the original funder of that deal, speak at our conference. And he’s huge in private equity, huge in Sugafina. And, uh, yeah, just, uh, that was great. He was at our conference and the one conference. But, you know, when you have OPEC, like somebody leaving OPEC, it is a big deal.

Frank Curzio 23:03

I mean, I just, I think it’s a big deal. I don’t know how it would impact oil prices as much. Uh, it just doesn’t give as much leeway to OPEC being the stronghold where, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, uh, we were very reliant on OPEC and they can cut, they could, uh, increase production, they could control the price of oil. We would basically,

Frank Curzio 23:22

you know, had to make sure that we got along with them very, very well because oil rules the entire world. As we all know, it’s factors in. Technology doesn’t work, nothing works. AI doesn’t work, nothing without energy. So, uh, but I thought that was a pretty big story. And, uh, you know, just a couple of headlines on it. That was it.

Daniel Creech 23:37

Oh, absolutely. This is a massive story. It could be the end of OPEC or the start of the end of OPEC, which, like you said, isn’t that big deal because they don’t have as much power over the market thanks to our fracking. Frank Barbet here, Saudi Arabia, obviously, biggest.

Frank Curzio 23:52

And then Iraq is next, I think.

Daniel Creech 23:54

Iraq. I would not have guessed that. I would not have, I would have lost the Barbet on that. Yep. United Arab Emirates is number three, Frank. Um, I think this is very easy. And I love how people try to be so diplomatic. You know, he could have, he could have told the truth and said, hey, we got missiles flying at us, you jerks, and you’re not doing anything. So we’re out of your little cartel group here.

Daniel Creech 24:13

But to your point, they’ve always been having to bend the knee to Saudi Arabia. Greed is good. Nobody likes that. So they’re not going to like that. They put up with it a long time. Frank, before the Iran War, they produced three-ish million barrels a day. They could, supposedly, this is AI, they could produce between four and five million.

Daniel Creech 24:34

And they want to be producing, supposedly. Now, this is pre-Iran War and any damage to facilities or production. But they want to increase that up to six million barrels per day by 2027. This is incredibly bullish for the world. This is incredibly bullish for lower oil prices. Nobody wants to give President Trump credit. But this is not only upending the OPEC situation.

Daniel Creech 24:55

He’s already made pretty good friends with Saudi Arabia and MBS over there. I think this realigns. This goes hand in hand with kind of President Trump wanting to bash NATO and talk crap about everybody that didn’t help us and kind of make these new alliances. Um, they’re not going to be able to turn production on right away and get to six million barrels.

Daniel Creech 25:14

I get that. There’s some issues with the Iran War. But overall, Frank, how is this not incredibly bullish for cheaper energy prices? If you’re allowing one of these guys to go ahead and produce as much as they want to within their own country and whatever their goals are as far as their community, their people, and their investments, that by definition is going to be good. I know it’s muddy with the Iran War,

Daniel Creech 25:35

but the media acting like this isn’t great for everybody else just shows you where the media is.

Frank Curzio 25:41

Yeah, yeah.

Frank Curzio 25:44

It just shows you, if you take, you know, a step back and look at it, it just shows you how much oil we have, right, in the world. Uh, you know, people want to say it’s not unlimited, obviously, but, you know, if prices go higher, you could drill deeper. And there’s areas in the Permian that you could drill deeper and even deep water, ocean, and stuff. And just, you know, the massive amount of crude that we have, we do have tons of it.

Frank Curzio 26:04

But for them to push away from this is a big deal. And it shows like just how much production they have, how much that they want to make off of that production, especially at higher prices, you know, and, you know, which is a great problem. Remember peak oil? Peak oil was a massive story in the ’80s and ’90s. Peak oil, peak oil, peak oil. Peak oil was the greatest oil out of peak oil, peak oil.

Frank Curzio 26:23

Until I really understood and visited every share line, I was like, these guys are absolutely nuts. They have zero. They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. And that’s why you got to go out in the field sometimes. When you go out in the field and you really see people and you meet people and you understand this technology, like fracking kills everybody and everyone’s going to die and shit like that. When you see that, you know, it can’t cause contamination unless water can magically, secretly go from 12,000 feet up into rock,

Frank Curzio 26:44

into 400 feet of water above it. You know, it just, unless someone just takes the chemicals and dumps them in a stream or something like that. But it’s just, it’s amazing and narrative and people would tell you until you go out in the field. And I’ve learned that by going out in the field. And it’s not a good opinion because people are just going to read. And it’s like having faith in God or whatever or whatever you believe in.

Frank Curzio 27:04

If you’re a Democrat, Republican, you’re never ever going to really change no matter what the facts are. But for us, it matters. The facts matter because it helped us generate lots of money in the oil sector for many, many years. It really helps you, you know, learn the stories behind sectors and what’s going to drive growth. And, you know, that’s why, you know, being in the room and getting out there,

Frank Curzio 27:22

we call it being in the room, being in the field and stuff like that. You see things that it’s totally different from what you hear in the media. It really is incredible. But, you know, getting back to OPEC and the whole situation we started with with the Fed, and I think he could be a little hawkish. I don’t know. We’ll see if it’s market moving. We’re taping this just before they go on. So we’ll see. But when you’re looking at oil prices and higher energy prices and higher food prices,

Frank Curzio 27:44

you are starting to see this filter down to many companies’ S&P 500, even though you wouldn’t think so because the major indices are trading pretty much at all-time highs right now. But I’m going to tell you what I mean because since the war began February 28th, S&P 500 is up 4.2%. The NASDAQ 100 is up 8.2%. Over that stretch,

Frank Curzio 28:04

82 names in the S&P 500 are up over 10%, right? Since February 28th, Daniel. So take a guess how many names are down over 10%. So how many are down over 10% since the war started? So there’s 82 names that are up in the S&P 500. You would think we’re at all-time highs. How many do you think are down over 10% since the war started?

Frank Curzio 28:24

And I don’t know if you want to guess on that, but.

Daniel Creech 28:26

150.

Frank Curzio 28:27

So 118 names, right? So more down more than 10%. A lot, like 20%, 20% more. And if you exclude the seven largest AI companies, which is the Broadcoms, Google’s, Amazon’s, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, if you exclude those, the S&P 500 would be negative since the war began. So two things. One, thank God for AI.

Daniel Creech 28:49

Oh, gosh.

Frank Curzio 28:49

Thank God for. See, if we didn’t have the AI trend, you know, we’d be down 20% in the market. You know that, right? I mean, that has really fueled the entire market since 2023.

Daniel Creech 28:56

What’s that saying? If my aunt had.

Frank Curzio 28:59

Yeah. If. But it’s big because, you know, earnings were topping out and then all of a sudden AI and data spend, the CapEx spend, you know, through the roof, CapEx trends that we’ve never seen in the history of the markets. You know, $600 billion is going to be $900 billion spent last year, next year. You’re looking at global funding for AI companies. What was that stat, Joe?

Frank Curzio 29:18

I think it was like over $200 billion just in the first quarter, which is more than all of 2025. So one, thank God for AI. Two, the market is not doing as great as everyone thinks with the major indices near all-time highs. And we’ll see what happens. Big news. We got the Fed,

Frank Curzio 29:37

of course, but big news where we have Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, all reporting today after the close. The one report that I want to see the most, I mean, the waitings for that, just the waitings of that is, let me see, if we add it up, 10, 14, it’s about 17% of the entire S&P waiting.

Frank Curzio 29:59

17% of it in terms of market cap is going to report after the close just with those four companies. And Microsoft, I think, is the biggest deal. We want to see what’s going on with Microsoft. It’s down tremendously. I think, you know, Amazon is just on fire. I’d be surprised if they don’t absolutely annihilate the numbers and, you know, raise estimates. Now, a lot of these names have run up other than Microsoft into,

Frank Curzio 30:20

you know, with the, what is it, the Sox and up, you know, how many, 18 straight days easily, a record. But semiconductors and also AI companies in general have been doing great outside of, you know, the last day when we were just talking about OpenAI missing its turnover revenue estimates, which was reported by Wall Street Journal. But, you know, these are names that you really want to dig into. Meta,

Frank Curzio 30:39

when it comes to spending, Google, you know, just how Google transitioned is unbelievable. I mean, Google is 6.5% S&P waiting. Well, Microsoft is 4.8% now. Amazon is 4.3%, Meta 2.6%. And Meta is still this small company. I think it’s one of the cheapest among these guys. But Amazon, with their letter that they came out with,

Frank Curzio 30:58

their shareholder letter, which we covered, which is one of the greatest shareholder letters I’ve ever read in my life, you know, I’d be surprised if they come out and they don’t have super blowout estimates, especially since it looks like Microsoft is also taking a step in cloud, taking a step lower where Amazon’s cloud is really starting to grow again. So a lot of stuff to digest after the close.

Frank Curzio 31:18

You’re going to see unbelievable numbers. You’re going to see companies growing almost every single division by 20, 25%. They’re all going to talk about AI spend. They’re going to talk about the benefits of AI. They’re probably going to address all the layoffs that are going on, which you never see in history with stocks at all-time highs. Usually, when you have your profits and everything else at all-time highs, you’re hiring, you’re spending more.

Frank Curzio 31:35

They’re spending more, but they’re doing it with less employees and they start to let a lot more go. So, you know, it’s going to be interesting with those companies reporting after the close. It’s going to be extremely crazy, nutty, busy. And we’re going to be able to cover that, especially tomorrow on Wall Street Unplugged Premium and break down those four names and which ones are the best to own and which ones you maybe Microsoft you continue to have to avoid.

Frank Curzio 31:56

But Microsoft, this is a big quarter for Microsoft. Microsoft has to get out in front of a lot of things, separate themselves from all the other software companies because they’ve really been getting their ass kicked. And, yeah, I mean, you need to come out with something good here. You need to say something good. And, you know, we’ll see when they report because that company has been pretty much in free fall.

Frank Curzio 32:13

And, man, that chart looks ugly outside of the last month where everything kind of went higher in AI.

Daniel Creech 32:18

Yeah. I wonder if Microsoft’s going to comment on OpenAI. They better get some questions. Just like Fed Chair better get questions on what we talked about. Microsoft needs to get some questions from the analysts about OpenAI and stuff. Let’s talk about this massive spend here, Frank.

Daniel Creech 32:36

The AI trade has been ebbing and flowing like everything does. It was selling off for a while over the fears of high CapEx spends. We’ve talked about Oracle taking some beatings and such. And then the Wall Street Journal was out with OpenAI. And, Frank, I want to ask you a couple of questions about this.

Daniel Creech 32:55

I love the fact that it’s supposedly news that a CFO and a CEO, or I don’t know if he’s technically CEO, Sam Altman, runner of OpenAI, is it really that odd that they would talk and say, hey, you know what? We’re on the hook for $600 billion in future spend and we make zero profit.

Daniel Creech 33:14

We barely make any revenue to justify these numbers. We’re raising money like crazy and we’re not growing as fast as what we initially guided to. That’s common sense. And if that conversation isn’t happening, then what do people expect they’re doing, Frank? Now, I get it. They want to take it and run with it and act like it’s this horrible thing.

Daniel Creech 33:34

And you know me. I’m no fan of this bond villain, Altman. Okay? I can’t believe people trust him with a Florida dollar, let alone hundreds of billions and trillions or whatever. Is that crazy that the CFO and head of the company would have conversations like that?

Frank Curzio 33:48

I mean, the CEO, and what’s more crazy to me, and this is the Wall Street Journal reporting.

Daniel Creech 33:53

The answer is no, Frank. It’s not crazy.

Frank Curzio 33:55

No, it’s not crazy. They should have these conversations. Absolutely. But what’s crazy to me, and this is the Wall Street Journal reporting, is all this, they reported that OpenAI missed its internal revenue and new user growth estimates, which is fine. That’s okay. You know, meeting your growth estimates and saying the company’s going to grow, you know, 60% and you go to 55% is still massive growth, right?

Frank Curzio 34:14

Which is fine. You don’t want to see that trend of growth slowing going into an IPO. You don’t want to, but it could be very little. But the Wall Street Journal reported that CFO Sarah Fries said the company may not be able to pay for computing contracts if revenue does not grow fast enough. I mean, that’s an obvious statement, right? I mean, obviously, if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough, you need revenue to continue to grow.

Frank Curzio 34:33

It’s at $13 billion in an annual run rate for OpenAI for a while. A company that, you know, is, I believe, is, what, 2022, really? And Anthropic’s growing a lot faster and there’s competitors in the market. But they also reported that the board questioned Sam Altman’s push for more data center deals given the recent slowdown in business.

Frank Curzio 34:53

This comes from the board of directors. Okay? Whatever. It’s 12 people on that board. This is like that secret meeting. And yes, you have minutes and stuff like that, but these are your most trusted people that you get into that room who all have massive backgrounds of running huge companies, CEOs, like you see the CEO of Pepsi, CEO of Coke, on a lot of these boards and stuff like that.

Frank Curzio 35:13

You know, how this got leaked is an absolute disgrace. And the Wall Street Journal could, and that’s, I don’t understand the reporting part. And I’m almost like a journalist myself, right? And you have, you know, because our job is to, you know, I’ll go out and, you know, again, question employees, question CEOs, go out there, find the real story and tell you, you know, if we’re recommending a stock, right?

Frank Curzio 35:32

So I understand that integrity. But for anyone to say that somebody said something and I have sources, but I’m not going to reveal the sources and you just have to take my word for it, I mean, this is something that should have been in writing. If you would have saw it in writing, I would have believed it. I think this is bullshit. Both of them came out and said, this is horse shit, right? It’s garbage. This isn’t true.

Frank Curzio 35:52

I could see the revenue estimates. Yes, they have a lot of competition, maybe coming down a little bit. They’re still like the chief, you know, and now they broke up with their deal with Microsoft, which is going to allow them a lot more freedom to go, you know, to sign more customers, to do whatever they want. And they still have one of the best systems in the world, which is going to be updated. And yes, we know Anthropic just came out. We know Gemini 3.5. We know there’s great systems out there.

Frank Curzio 36:12

But, you know, OpenAI is still massive, right? So I’m not worried about, you know, these contracts. I’m not worried about the funding part. I’m really not when it comes to OpenAI.

Frank Curzio 36:21

I’m just surprised that, you know, how did this get leaked to the point where, you know, you need to find out that person who said it because it compromises your whole business because there’s a lot of discussions in boardrooms that take place at a crazy and stuff that’s going to come up in the future. And some of it’s bad, some of it’s good or whatever. If you’re leaking that stuff to the Wall Street Journal, you’re leaking it to something.

Frank Curzio 36:41

If that’s really true, I mean, to me, if I heard that, I would basically lock everyone in the room and say, no one’s going home and lock the door. I don’t care if I get arrested for kidnapping, but I need to know who that person was. I’m going to beat the shit out of everyone in this room because, I mean, that’s how serious that is. I mean, that is really privileged information. And that’s the only way this could have come down. But,

Frank Curzio 37:00

you know, Sarah Fries, you could say, again, listen, cures of research, if we don’t meet our revenue estimates, I’m going to have to let go of people. We’re going to have to stop spending. That’s every company in the world. Okay? That’s a broad statement. Okay? It’s not saying that they’re not generating revenue. It’s not saying they’re going bankrupt. It’s not saying that they’re not going to be able to fund whatever they need to fund. You know, when you have $122 billion coming into a finance round,

Frank Curzio 37:20

everyone that went into that finance round sees every single, single number, financial, everything before coming into that round. Okay? That’s what you do when you invest. Even with all private companies, we see everything. Everything’s under wraps. It’s a private company. But if you’re going to invest, you have to show that stuff, right? Because people want to know your growth. They want to see the numbers. They want to see the KPIs. So for me, I just think that this story is horse shit.

Frank Curzio 37:39

Plus the Wall Street Journal, which, you know, lost a lot of credibility for me, especially during COVID and lately. So with this story, I think it is more like a DeepSeek, like, you know, which stole all of the other AI models so it couldn’t grow without that. And it crushed the whole market. And everyone was like, this is all horse shit. And now they know when you ask things for DeepSeek,

Frank Curzio 37:59

it actually copies the same thing as some of our US systems, right? So it’s a whole copy thing. So surprised China’s stealing our technology. So surprising. To me, I think that this is a BS story. And, you know, you can confirm with literally 50 other companies when it comes to data centers, when you’ve seen the demand, you’ve seen the money there,

Frank Curzio 38:17

you’ve seen the power deals go on, you’ve seen the reflection of how this is generating revenue for companies now. It’s why they’re laying off employees. Operating margins have never been stronger. You’re seeing, you know, AI filtered down. I mean, wait till you see the results from the four companies and you’re going to tell me like, oh, they’re spending too much and we’re not seeing that, you know, ROI. You’re going to see it in these four quarters.

Frank Curzio 38:37

Wait till you see the numbers that these guys present and announce at $50 billion buybacks and stuff like that. You’re going to see these numbers. You’re going to be like, you’re going to be like, holy cow, these numbers are real. It’s filtering down. We have people across, you know, the whole entire industry, nuts and bolt plays, all the way to building data centers. And the amount of money pouring into this is absolutely real. So to me, with this story, if you hate Sam Altman, I get it.

Frank Curzio 38:57

There’s reasons why you should hate him. He’s kind of shady, definitely. It’s why he got kicked out of the company. And then all of a sudden they’re like, oh, maybe we should bring him back. But, you know, and a lot of that was trust issues. We don’t trust him. So he’s a very shady guy. I get it. But with that said, you’re looking at OpenAI is a great company. You’re going to continue to see the funding. They need more and more capacity.

Frank Curzio 39:18

They need more megawatts. They need to sign more and more deals. They’re going to continue. And, you know, yeah, I wouldn’t worry about this being a big deal or the top in AI or, you know, OpenAI is really in trouble from going public. I just don’t see that. I just, it’s such a broad statement that it’s kind of disappointing that they reported on that.

Daniel Creech 39:36

I don’t think it’s the top necessarily. And I think it’s a good, I think it’s a good conversation starter because people should be talking about the spend and stuff. And you’re right. The money is flowing into it. And I don’t think it’s wrong. And I’m not saying you’re making this argument, but what is OpenAI’s plan?

Daniel Creech 39:54

Like, and maybe you don’t know, and I genuinely don’t know, but is it, hey, we’re going to sell so many subscriptions to ChatGPT that through businesses and individuals, they also, well, they do that already. So that’s part of it. They want to sell subscriptions. But then they’re a big moneymaker.

Daniel Creech 40:14

You know, they’ve teased, they brought that one gentleman on to make some revolutionary product. And so obviously they’re going to go to market with some consumer product and do that. But it is a fine question to be like, hey, you know, you’ve talked about spending one to one and a half trillion dollars. You’ve dialed that back. Now you’re on the hook for $600 billion. How are you going to pay for that?

Daniel Creech 40:33

And maybe it is ChatGPT subscriptions and maybe it is some new awesome tech. Do you know? I genuinely don’t know.

Frank Curzio 40:40

So here’s the deal. When you look at this business model, it’s a great conversation. When you’re looking at this business model, it’s all about agentic AI. It’s creating these bots. It’s allowing companies to pay a fortune for this. And, you know, we’re going to talk about Etsy in a minute, who signs, you know, these companies are signing deals with AI because it’s building sales, but more importantly, it’s lowering their costs, right?

Frank Curzio 40:59

So it’s increasing productivity. That’s what Palantir does to all these businesses. And you look at Etsy that reported and this in our portfolio and we’re up about 20, 23% on this stock and everybody laughed when we bought it. It was because they signed a whole bunch of AI deals recently going in. And now it’s massive for them. And what you need to understand about ChatGPT is they did the smartest thing on the planet.

Frank Curzio 41:21

They said, here’s our model and got it out there, right? It was ready, fire, aim. And the reason why I say that is because just throw it out there. And everyone was like, oh my God, it changed the landscape of the industry. Now what happened during that timeframe, Daniel, every single person in the world, billions of people, probably at least, even the free people on the site, right? They’re typing in every single question.

Frank Curzio 41:40

And that’s where they gain the advantage because one, you have to sign up. Now you have your names. Now you have all the data. But it’s, AI is all about data. Not only is it about data, you have every single person that you know being since, they had a good year head start of everyone, year and a half head start of everyone, that everyone is putting every single question, everything that they do, every,

Frank Curzio 42:00

you know, equation, problem, and learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. This is why Google caught up so quick because it has the information of everyone in the world asking Google everything about search. Where’s this? Where’s that? How’s every single question you’ve ever asked? They have all that data. And when you have the data and you plug them into AI that can analyze stuff 1 million times faster than anything you’ve ever seen before,

Frank Curzio 42:22

now it can give you an absolute, you know, analysis on the future based on everything that people have been, you know, asking of it in the past. So when you have ChatGPT that was early to the party and you have, you know, Google who has all this data and then you have Meta that has all this data, these are the huge winners because they have a massive amount of data.

Frank Curzio 42:42

When you have Microsoft, okay, where’s their social media presence? LinkedIn, not as big, right? And you’re seeing them fall off. Look at Amazon. Amazon’s been analyzing spending trends for 20 plus years of everyone that’s bought every single product in their lives, right? Constantly, everything. So when you have that data, now you could sell this to advertisers. Now you have, you know, so many different outlets.

Frank Curzio 43:02

And the agentic AI part is, you know, having the data and being able to sign up with ChatGPT, being early to this market, they have to continue to innovate. You could see someone fall behind like you’re seeing Microsoft fall behind. You’ll see Meta fall behind. They just have their new version of Llama. They thought they were going to, you know, they weren’t going to have any new models because they fell behind so fast. And Llama’s okay, the new model.

Frank Curzio 43:22

But to me, that’s where you’re going to make the money is agentic AI is how you’re building bots around all this stuff that you already have the data for. And once you’re giving them the API, you’re giving like an Etsy and say, or Reddit and saying, here, here’s my entire list. Show me how I can make more money off of this. And they’re like, okay, you just have to use our cloud system.

Frank Curzio 43:39

Google benefits because now they get more information on all the clients that they already have in their database, right? Now they have even more data through Reddit, through Etsy. That’s where you’re making an absolute fortune on this. And I think that’s under the hood that people don’t see. But to say, you know, you have to be asking those questions. Absolutely. I just don’t like the way the Wall Street Journal put it out there.

Frank Curzio 43:56

Like, you know, Sarah Fries says a company might not be able to pay for computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough. Revenue is growing very, very fast. I don’t know if they met their internal targets. And yes, you have to question the spending. And people have been questioning the spending, right? They have been. You’re good. This company, believe me, if there was a problem when you go public, you have to report every single number, every single penny, right?

Frank Curzio 44:17

This company would not be going public if you’re seeing this type of slowdown because you have to show all your numbers. And if anything was slowing down, the last thing you want to do is go public. Everyone sees your numbers and says, wow, this is dog shit. And your stock’s going to go down 25% a couple of weeks after the IPO. It’s kind of happened with Meta, right? At the beginning, before they figured out advertising. But for me, that’s the biggest story here. So if this company said,

Frank Curzio 44:36

hey, we’re pulling our offering, we’re not going public, that’s the red flag for me. I don’t see that happening. And this is too broad. And the fact that, you know, again, you’re not supposed to reveal your source, but, you know, both of them came out immediately. They said, this is BS. That’s not what we said. So for me, I just think the story is completely overblown. And you’re seeing it. The market’s actually coming back. A lot of these names have pulled back on this news.

Daniel Creech 44:56

Yeah, it is a knee jerk. But to your point, they have to sell this data. I get it. They have a lot of data, but they have to sell it. So they have to sell it somehow to generate revenue. And like I said, time will tell. But it’s a great question to be like, hey, how are you going to generate all this revenue to pay for this?

Frank Curzio 45:09

Yeah.

Daniel Creech 45:09

So.

Frank Curzio 45:09

No, absolutely. Because the spending is insane. They’re spending, they are spending, and, but they’re locking up assets and computing power. And when you’re locking up and you have the power, you’re God in this industry. Okay? We need more power. You are the God in this industry.

Daniel Creech 45:23

You can pay for it.

Frank Curzio 45:24

When you lock up the power, all right? Okay. So, I mean, if you’re locking up the power, someone’s going to pay for it, right? Google’s going to pay for it. Someone’s going to buy it off of you. It’s the most valuable asset you could own right now. And the fact that you’re locking all these contracts with power, and I’m not talking about locking them up with Oklo and some of the stuff that you’re waiting for these technologies to build in SMR technology, you know, Bloom Energy and things like that,

Frank Curzio 45:44

you know, which is definitely, you know, doing great and fantastic for us. But for me, that’s the big thing where, okay, what happens? Say the spending slows, you still have all this power. You could easily sell it. But, you know, this is a company I think is doing well right now. They’re growing like a weed. You compare it to Anthropic. Anthropic’s really good in Google. But, you know, for me, if this company decides to pull their IPO and says,

Frank Curzio 46:04

hey, we’re going to wait a little bit, that’s the red flag. Other than that.

Daniel Creech 46:08

Are they supposed to go this year?

Frank Curzio 46:09

This year.

Daniel Creech 46:10

Is it final? Okay.

Frank Curzio 46:10

Yeah. I mean, that’s what they said. Yeah, this year. SpaceX.

Daniel Creech 46:14

SpaceX.

Frank Curzio 46:14

Yeah. It’s supposed to be like 120 IPOs are coming out this year for the rest of the year, I think Goldman said. Very, very, very big ones, obviously, right? So it should be pretty cool. So let’s get to a couple of companies too. Starbucks. We’re going to get more into that because that’s in our trading portfolio. You know, Brian Nichol is a rock star. I mean, this guy’s a rock star. Bring up Starbucks if you can.

Frank Curzio 46:35

And just put up a year chart. I mean, you’re looking at this stock. I mean, over a year ago, this company was, I just, the brand was so damaged. You know, people go in there, they were losing people, right? And I get it. You were ordering drinks and, you know, you order, you know, seven different types of things and then you drink and it was hard to fulfill.

Frank Curzio 46:54

And then you go there in the morning, your drink’s not there. I mean, people get pissed off and they left Starbucks. But, you know, to change this brand around so quickly, first earnings beating five quarters, second straight quarter of traffic growth, meaning you’re getting customers back into the store, which is, you know, ultimate, you know, to a great CEO. Margin expansion. He has this less than four-minute policy when you’re ordering the store.

Frank Curzio 47:15

I’ve been going to Starbucks lately. It is very quick. It’s much better. It’s friendlier. They have like the Chick-fil-A person outside on the drive-throughs with an iPad to make it quicker. Punch up Chipotle, Joe. CHI.

Frank Curzio 47:31

There you go. I mean, when you look at this stock and put up like, you know, man, put up a year chart on that baby. I mean, this is a stock that was dog shit. And we let you know, like we let you know, as soon as they announced that stock split a little bit before that, we let you know how this company was in a lot of trouble. I go to, and I love, you know, I still love the food.

Frank Curzio 47:50

I still like, I go there probably once every two weeks, but it’s a different experience. The prices are freaking insane. The experience isn’t what it used to be. And, you know, this is a name that has come down tremendously, right? And right after this guy left, he left at the perfect time. So, you know, this guy is a rock star. He turns this, to turn around,

Frank Curzio 48:10

and listen, the turnaround’s not done yet, but to really see like revenue growing again, you know, coming off a low basis and stuff like that. But seriously, you’re bringing traffic back of customers that were really pissed off at you. That’s just a testament of how great the CEO is. And we’ll cover this more, but, you know, we recommend Starbucks. I don’t, you know, we’re doing well with it. And it’s a nice move today and deservingly so.

Frank Curzio 48:29

And, you know, he took that victory lap on CNBC. He should. But this guy’s a rock star. This guy’s really a rock star. He knows how to manage companies. And more importantly, he knows how to manage teams, which is why Phil Jackson is the greatest coach that ever lived. You could say, well, he had Kobe and he had Jordan. You have to get these guys to play together. To get Jordan to say, hey, we’re not going to give you the ball as much.

Frank Curzio 48:49

Share it with the triangle offense. To get, there’s a lot of people that tried to coach Rambus. A lot of people tried to coach Kobe and Shaq. They couldn’t do it, right? But he did it. So being a CEO isn’t just, you know, hey, the numbers and everything. It’s having your team really believe in your vision. And that’s what he’s changed at Starbucks. And good for him, man. I got to give him credit. We saw this coming and, you know, this is stock in a portfolio we’re doing well on.

Frank Curzio 49:09

And I think this is just the beginning. I think this stock’s going a lot higher from here. Although Kramer might have gave it to Kabash, right?

Daniel Creech 49:16

Yeah.

Frank Curzio 49:17

Kramer’s like, I love it now. I love it. At least we’re above it. Obvious, I’m just, a lot of people, the inverse Kramer stuff and everything, they get all over him. But although Kramer did recommend, you know, all of these hyperscalers about, you know, 15 years ago, 17 years ago, and they’re all 10,000%. But, you know, I got to give him credit where credit’s due.

Frank Curzio 49:36

Everyone wants to rip him apart, but, you know, if you look at.

Daniel Creech 49:38

Because he talks about everything.

Frank Curzio 49:40

That’s the thing.

Daniel Creech 49:40

He talks about everything and then can take credit for everything. That is not, that is so pathetic.

Frank Curzio 49:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s what he does. Yeah. Yep. I hear you. I hear you.

Daniel Creech 49:48

Frank, it’s going to rain sometime. We’re in a big drought here for you, non-Florida people. Big drought. It’s going to rain sometime. So I’ll take a victory lap when I say, when it rains.

Frank Curzio 49:54

When it rains?

Daniel Creech 49:55

That’s genius.

Frank Curzio 49:55

Well, you know what? You’re going to become a good analyst in this market. Seriously, that’s what you haven’t seen before. The market, hey, it’s over. It’s going to crash. It could go high at first, but it’s, I love when people say that. I’m like, really?

Daniel Creech 50:05

It’s going to rain.

Frank Curzio 50:06

Where’s the added value in that?

Daniel Creech 50:07

Might even rain this weekend. But if it doesn’t, it’ll rain maybe next week.

Frank Curzio 50:10

It’s May. It rains like, it’s not really like every other day in May.

Daniel Creech 50:13

It’s not valuable. Not valuable at all.

Frank Curzio 50:15

Should. I don’t know. Anyway, let’s get to a couple more companies here. Got a few minutes. We have Bloom Energy. What a quarter. Massive growth. Feels like technology is absolutely real. 24%. The shorts keep piling on this stock and getting annihilated. That’s why you saw the stock up 24%.

Frank Curzio 50:31

It was up like, when you see a stock up 8% after they report and then all of a sudden it’s like 12% and it’s up 24%. These are the shorts like saying, okay, they’re choosing the park bench they’re going to sleep on because they’re all taken these days. So they’re saying, okay, no, no, no, that guy’s got the park bench. We got to get another park bench to sleep on. Stop shorting this company. Although, you know, we took profits several times.

Frank Curzio 50:50

We still have it in our portfolio. We put it in this portfolio, an AI portfolio at $21.57. And what are we, $2.80 today? This is a, you know, 11, 12X winner for us. And this is why we do what we do, man. We love this stuff. I love, I love when seeing, I mean, this takes care of your portfolio.

Frank Curzio 51:10

We have stop losses and sometimes we’ll stop out. You know, this is what the AI portfolio is about. This is what the whole portfolio is. And this is why we’re changing the dynamics of our company because we have people in CVO and that’s killing it. Small caps are leading the way, outperforming every major industry by a lot this year. Up double digits. We’ve been kicking ass. We told you that small caps are, you know,

Frank Curzio 51:28

in the past two years that, you know, there’s big disconnection between small caps and large caps for 20 years. And now’s the time that these companies would catch up. They basically restructured their operations for two, three years in a row. Just shitty performance. And, you know, we killed it. But if you have the CVO portfolio, currency venture opportunities, you don’t have this Bloom Energy. And for us, we’re consolidating all the products,

Frank Curzio 51:47

which as a business model internally, people would be like, why would you do that? You could open up new products and sell to the whole audience and continue to generate revenue and revenue because we know, even from our competitors in that model, and we closed a couple of products that, you know, when you close them, you lose that credibility because now you’re forcing them into another product. And we always take care of our people whenever we close a product and we close it for good reasons.

Frank Curzio 52:07

If we have to.

Frank Curzio 52:10

And when we see other businesses do that, I feel like sometimes they don’t give a shit about their customers and they’re like, oh, we’re just throwing you here, whatever. And, you know, so for us, I want everyone to have access to every one of our picks because sometimes small caps are going to do great. Sometimes AI is going to do great. We do have a crypto portfolio that did shit along with the rest of the crypto portfolio. And Hood reported terrible earnings.

Frank Curzio 52:30

You know, so we want everyone to have access to all of our stock picks. And that’s where you’re going to make the most money because this is how I invested my whole entire life. And just to segregate a lot of that stuff that Daniel and I do and putting it into one portfolio, this way you have access to everything at one price. It’s a much better service for our customers.

Frank Curzio 52:48

And people are going to complain because it’s going to have a price tag of probably $3,000, maybe discount $2,500 when we launch. And people are going to be like, well, I was paying, you know, $100 for those days are over. You know, we’re not charging $100 for our newsletter. Our research is too good. We’ve made you guys a lot of money for 30 years. That’s the way it is. And, you know, if you’re upset at that, that’s fine. But,

Frank Curzio 53:06

you know, you’re going to get a product where Daniel and I are going to be reporting on it. You know, we’re going to have, you could set up to where it’s going to have a screening feature where you could say, okay, I want a small cap portfolio. I want a balanced portfolio. I want a large cap portfolio. It’s going to give you all the stocks that we recommend. Say if we have 25 or 30, and it’ll give you like a balanced portfolio, a large cap portfolio, because we’re going to put everything,

Frank Curzio 53:25

even cryptos and stuff like that in there. It allows us to go everywhere because certain times uranium, you know, outside, like three years ago, we saw this boom in uranium two years ago. Before that, it was 12, 13 years of nothing. Same with mining stocks from 2012 to 2021. Nothing, right? And if you have a newsletter focused on just that one sector, you can get annihilated while the rest of the market goes higher.

Frank Curzio 53:46

This is a better service for all of our customers. This is a better service for real investors. You’re going to get, you know, much more of Daniel and I in this product as well. Much more updates, much more focus. And, you know, that’s what we’re looking to do. We’re going to be launching this thing pretty soon. We’ve been talking about it. Just finished up the final touches, but that’s what we want to do. We want to provide that type of service for you, which you have access to all of our products and services,

Frank Curzio 54:07

not just some because you chose the wrong newsletter to, you know, buy, right? It’s not right. And for us, we want to try to provide the best performance. We want everyone to have access to Bloom Energy like this. Look at that stock, right? We want everyone to have Celestica, which is, you know, again, we recommended and did well again, but that was a company I think we recommended at $40, Daniel, and sold at $300. You know,

Frank Curzio 54:26

again, I think we might have taken profits on the way up on that as well before we sold the final position. But this is the access that you should have to all of our stocks and services and all of our big winners and stuff. And, you know, I think people who are really diehards, who really love our research, who want to make money, who trust us and want to watch our videos.

Frank Curzio 54:45

And, you know, we cover this and teach you how to invest and do 30-minute videos. It’s going to be a fantastic service for people who are serious. But of course, it’s going to piss off a couple of customers because we’ve been giving some of these newsletters away almost free for a long time. But, you know, with the performance, everything going on, really happy. Can’t wait to launch that. So any other stocks that you want to cover, Daniel? I think it was.

Daniel Creech 55:03

No. Okay.

Frank Curzio 55:05

We have one more. We got a little bit of, we got a couple more minutes here, right? It’s Etsy. So Etsy, we talked about just a minute ago. I want to bring that up. That’s up, what is up, 10%. Another name in our AI portfolio. And you say AI, yes, because if you look and look at the news of the deals that they signed, and now when you want to,

Frank Curzio 55:25

you know, buy something that anything relates to Etsy through Google or through, I think it was three different AI companies that they signed up with. You know, and we’ve seen this with other companies that do this. And we’ve seen it even with Under Armour now, which is, you know, we’re up like 30% on Under Armour. So, you know, yes, that Under Armour, that’s really, you know,

Frank Curzio 55:43

if you owned it anytime then before we recommended it, you’ve gotten annihilated. And, you know, we’re looking at Etsy here where last quarter they sold the Deepop division for $1.2 billion. They said that they’re going to use some of those proceeds to add to their already huge buyback of $750 million. I mean, you know, we’re up over 20% on this stock already because they changed the landscape of their company because they’re changing the,

Frank Curzio 56:05

you know, and they’re using AI where it’s going to increase productivity tremendously, which is lower cost, higher sales. And that’s what you’re seeing. I mean, you’re seeing a company that, what is it, $70 bucks? This was a $130 stock in 2023. And I think we could revisit that because of AI.

Frank Curzio 56:25

But you see sales estimates called for $621 million. It came in at $631 million. Already you’re seeing that sale increase. And you’re going to continue to see it with these companies because now they’re getting smarter. They’re starting to use AI. And if they haven’t figured out AI, they’re just going to say, hey, you know what? Here’s all of our list. Here’s our keys to the kingdom. There it is. Our API, everything to a Google, to a ChatGPT.

Frank Curzio 56:46

Run our whole system for us. And these guys get discounts on their cloud services. But, you know, they integrate everything. And I’ve learned this from Reddit because I missed Reddit and Reddit absolutely took off as soon as they decided to sign that major deal with Google. And that stock absolutely surged. And I think it pulled back a little bit, Reddit. I don’t know where it is today, but that was a really big deal. So lots of names, lots of reporting. We’re going to see lots of names tomorrow.

Frank Curzio 57:05

We’re going to cover a lot of this stuff on Wall Street Unplugged Premium. Other than that, Daniel, for Wednesday’s podcast, the next Wednesday, I’m not going to talk to you by then, Kentucky Derby. Kentucky Derby’s on Saturday. I’ll break this down. My favorite play is on tomorrow’s Wall Street Unplugged Premium, which would be pretty cool. And my friend Mike Ripoli has Renegade, unfortunately,

Frank Curzio 57:25

drew the one post, which we know the one post on a two post hasn’t won since. I think it’s 86. But a lot of interesting horses in this race. I think Renegade at 4-1 is an absolute steal. It’s the best horse in a race. Yes, he could get trapped. He comes from the middle of the pack, but you do have the greatest jockey on the planet, I read, on him.

Frank Curzio 57:43

And, you know, they have a whole entire plan for that. So, and he’s never won the Kentucky Derby. This is the best horse he’s ever ridden. I think if they all went out of the same post, I think Renegade’s one of the best, one of the best names here. But a couple of other names that you want to look at is Intrepid, Intrepido, the three horses.

Frank Curzio 58:03

This is what I’m going to give you. I’m going to cover it tomorrow. But last note, Intrepido just ran because they run four to five furlong workouts. His fourth furlong workout, Intrepid, is 50 to 1. Furlong, and it is a long race, very much longer than that. It’s the fastest time in the last 20 years for the four furlong and the five furlong. I’m just saying if he gets out like that, it’s going to change the whole landscape of the entire race.

Frank Curzio 58:24

The fact if he gets out that fast and wants to run it, I don’t know if he’ll be able to finish it. We’ll see. But at 50 to 1, you know, a place bet would get you probably a good $15, $20 payout on that, which is much better than if you had Renegade to win at 4-1, which is going to pay $10 bucks. So I’ll cover a lot more. I have a lot of sleepers there.

Frank Curzio 58:43

And I think it’s going to be a really open race because you got the favorite there and there’s, you know, a lot of good horses, but it should be pretty cool. I’ll cover that tomorrow. Other than that, Daniel, any other comments that we have the Fed reporting that you want to take any more shots at Powell, your best friend?

Daniel Creech 58:57

I’ll wait till tomorrow.

Frank Curzio 58:59

I’ll wait till tomorrow. All right, guys, that sounds good. Listen, Daniel and I, we’re out of here and we’ll see you tomorrow at Wall Street Unplugged Premium. Take care.

Announcer 59:05

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.