Wall Street Unplugged
Episode: 1178September 25, 2024

Are we facing a repeat of 2008?

Inside this episode:
  • From hurricanes to Diddy… the world is a crazy place [0:36]
  • Nearly everything is at all-time highs [5:18]
  • Why JPMorgan likes commercial real estate right now [9:23]
  • The market isn’t as expensive as you think [12:00]
  • Are we facing a repeat of 2008? [15:22]
  • Is it time to invest in China after its stimulus package? [23:14]
  • Why GM and Ford are in serious trouble [30:14]
  • This fine art dealer proves leverage is a double-edged sword [38:34]
  • The SEC’s war on NFTs [43:53]
  • The digital asset revolution is here [52:29]
  • An incredible deal for accredited investors [54:25]
Transcript

Wall Street Unplugged | 1178

Are we facing a repeat of 2008?

Transcript was automatically generated.

0:00:02 – Announcer

Wall Street Unplugged looks beyond the regular headlines Heard on mainstream financial media to bring you unscripted interviews and breaking commentary direct from Wall Street right to you on Main Street.

0:00:16 – Frank Curzio

How’s it going out there? It’s September 25th. I’m Frank Curzio. This is the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where I break down headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets. Bringing the one and only Daniel Creech. How’s it going, man? What’s happening? Frank, getting ready for the hurricane? No, I don’t like hurricanes, dodging hurricanes.

0:00:37 – Daniel Creech

And getting ready for the President’s Cup. You know the President’s Cup’s this weekend. Yeah, yeah, imagine hurricanes. And getting ready for the President’s Cup. You know the President’s Cup’s this week.

0:00:45 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, yeah, just a reminder. I was talking to the channels and saw it, which is pretty cool, so it should be interesting.

0:00:50 – In video

Yes, it should be interesting.

0:00:51 – Frank Curzio

We’ll see what the hurricane does, though.

0:00:53 – Daniel Creech

It’s supposed to make landfall and all that, but man watching the radar and stuff is just massive, and you see the satellite pictures. It’s, it’s crazy, it’s, it’s beautiful.

0:01:09 – Frank Curzio

Destruction Frank you know, didn’t biden give uh billions of dollars to like the weather service so they could predict weather in the latest? I’m not even kidding you.

0:01:18 – Daniel Creech

I think it’s a nice bill. Yeah, so the government gives billions of dollars to everybody it’s so.

0:01:22 – Frank Curzio

You know, when we first looked at the hurricane coming, it was looked like it was going to hit Tampa, and then we are on well in the east coast of Florida, north northeast right Jacksonville, and then you know it hits us, hits land, and then obviously it calms down and stuff so but we still get like a lot of wind and stuff. Now it’s being pushed over more into the, to the west, into the west, and it’s just a few days away. So we’ll see. So, yeah, praying for everyone, hopefully it doesn’t get too bad.

Yeah, tomorrow, yeah, it’s going to be a little insane. So I think tomorrow it’s going to hit, so hopefully everything’s okay. Lots of flooding and stuff like that expected to win. Hopefully it’s not too crazy. But yeah, definitely not crazy with the markets, right? I mean, look what we’re seeing pretty much everything at record highs. You got stocks at record highs, and this is all after the 50-base point cut by the Fed. Gold at record highs. You have small caps popping. They’re not at record highs, though, but they’re popping. Bitcoin surging again at 64,000. Remember it was below 50 not too long ago? Even altcoins are popping as well. Biotech so you know, it’s like a party now. It’s like a P Diddy party, right?

0:02:29 – Daniel Creech

Oh man See what you did there.

0:02:34 – Frank Curzio

I don’t know, about that.

0:02:35 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, that opens up a whole lot. That guy’s going to suicide himself. What do you think the over-under on that is when do you think he goes? The old Epstein route?

0:02:42 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, the old Epstein committed suicide route and nobody has film of it, even though I’m in jail cell route. I think he’s in big trouble because it kind of is like Epstein.

I mean, no, I think he’s in big trouble in terms, not trouble like he’s going to jail for a long time, when you have that kind of leverage to expose people. I mean, epstein, it’s about billionaires, princes and kings and whatever. Uh, you know, when you’re looking at all the celebrities, there’s a lot of stuff that is going on. People have been deleting twitter posts, executives have been suddenly resigning for different media companies. I mean, there’s a lot going on under the hood here and, look, I have no problem if they’re crazy parties and stuff like that, but if it’s trafficking and stuff, I don’t. You know, nobody really knows the full story. Everyone says they got videos and every time I look at a video, it’s like, you know, clouded with something not showing. But, uh, you know, his parties have only always been known for being crazy.

But you’re seeing a lot of exposure, even to justin bieber and and how young he was and put him, I mean it’s, it’s really insane and uh, the names in a list that he has and the people that are scared, and you know, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. It really is going to be interesting to see what happens. It really is going to be interesting to see what happens, the way things work and there’s so many conspiracy theories out there, like has Epstein with the information he had on the most powerful people in the world commit suicide in jail cell and still we don’t have any record, nothing, no film, no, anything right Almost never happens. If you can commit suicide in jail, I would think people who had that much trouble a lot of people would do it, but he was able to do it If it was suicide. It’s just crazy that what gets hidden and you don’t know the facts. But that’s a very, very big story. I shouldn’t even went there. That’s a whole podcast by itself, right?

0:04:11 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, yeah, that’s a wild one, it’ll be interesting.

0:04:15 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. But let’s get to the record part, because you know we cut by 50 basis points. People were worried because the last time the Fed cut by 50 basis points was perfectly positioned for the greatest story ever. For people to sell shit is right before the dot-com crash. There’s the last two times that they initiated when they first started that cutting and then we saw it and that was in what I think it was in 2000, might have been March. And then we saw that during a credit crisis which was in 2007. I think that was in September and everyone’s like look what happened afterwards and, comparing it, it’s a good story and it’s a good chart to see.

But what are your thoughts? Is everything okay now? I wouldn’t compare it to those markets just because it’s about credit spreads, which is a leading indicator. If you look at credit spreads, they’re still very, very low. People are still paying. Just seen delinquencies go high for subprime and stuff like that. We’ll get into that later. But it’s definitely a different scenario now with the banks and capital short up than it was back then. But it is interesting that everything is on fire. I mean, I don’t think anyone needs us anymore. I don’t know why? Don’t listen to podcasts. Just by stop by anything, by any, almost anything, almost anything, right.

0:05:19 – Daniel Creech

Yes, well, the um. The key player or the common factor here is obviously liquidity and the central banks all around the world. You talk about coming together, Frank. Not only is our Federal Reserve Bank, but you’ve got Europe and Japan, China, now China, China the Chai Coms that’s a tip to Rush Limbaugh, but everybody is just easing. You have M2, the money supply.

When you look at it from a macro perspective, it hit its peak in 2022. It’s drifted lower, but now it’s back on the rise, looking like it’s going to take out all-time highs, just like the stocks did. What’s wild is, Frank, the narrative has to shift here. I mean, as more data comes out, more events and movements from the Fed on policy, you have to keep shifting. So, remember, the narrative was hey, this market’s led by the Magnificent Seven or the top 10 stocks and all that kind of stuff. You have to see this broadening out.

Well, I think, as of yesterday, nvidia was off about 17%-ish from its all-time highs, but the other broad market the equal S&P 500, equal-based index and all that was hitting new all-time highs. But the other broad market the equal S&P 500, equal-based index and all that was hitting new all-time highs. And actually I saw a fun stat this quarter, the third quarter, is the first quarter in almost two years. If it closes out as is, that the other 490 stocks will outperform the top 10 biggest stocks in the S&P 500. Just a quarter, but it’s kind of fun to think about when you look at. Hey, everybody was always pointing and saying listen, this market can’t stand up because you only got a few guys pulling the boat and everything. Now, to Bull’s credits, that is actually broadening out, which is positive for markets and such in general. And then you had this September thing. Hey, historically, september sucks for markets.

0:07:06 – Frank Curzio

What happened to that? Well, that’s kind of shifting the narrative. Wasn’t September supposed to be the worst month to stocks? Wasn’t commercial real estate going to crash the markets?

0:07:12 – Daniel Creech

Well, and those cans are getting kicked down there. I understand your point about if everybody’s talking about it it’s already priced in. I do think there’s going to be a lot more pain in commercial real estate. I just don’t know how broad it’s going to be. But when you look at everything as a whole you have to say, hey, there is a lot of momentum here. You don’t want to fight that to your September comment. I don’t think that there’s a coincidence in it leading up to November I think October. I don’t know how you don’t get more volatility as you get closer and closer to the election. And then you know we’re entering that seasonal period for markets and stocks to go. You know, continue higher on a seasonal basis.

Frank, I don’t know if you checked the latest fact set earnings report. You know that comes out. But so for Q3 earnings are expected to grow 4.6%. Okay, that’s down from 7.8% earlier in the quarter. So expectations go down. You talk about that a lot. You got it. Yeah, now that’s 3.2% is what they’ve moved lower since the start of the quarter. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually lower than the five and 10 year averages. So to your point. You know it. You see the headlines hey, they beat or they missed, but what was the actual? Are they growing year over year and stuff like that?

0:08:25 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, they’re beating analyst estimates right, absolutely. The analyst estimate could show that sales year over year are down 25%. They’re beating the estimate, but sales are still down 25%, right? So yeah, that’s important.

0:08:36 – Daniel Creech

But when you look at Q4, earnings are expected to grow 15% in Q4. Q1 and Q2 of next year 14.6 and 13.7. Now, granted, those are going to come down as history, as any guide, but that is remarkable for this market in general. And you have liquidity. I’m not saying there’s no risk out there. There are. But you clearly have to say, hey, where are we at? Right now? We’re at all time highs, and here’s why and here’s what’s leading up to it. Stimulus, government stimulus, deficits in money is just going crazy. That’s not slowing down anytime soon. So you can go ahead and lighten up exposure at all-time highs, but you definitely have to be invested.

0:09:13 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, and there’s pockets too, because there’s a lot of risks out there. Remember commercial real estate. Remember, commercial real estate was going to destroy the market. It’s the next crisis. It’s going to bring down the whole entire financial system. That’s what we heard.

Here’s a note from JP Morgan and again, my job is not to promote either way bullish or bearish what I’m hearing out there, especially for my Twitter feed. You follow certain people, you’re in certain algorithms, so I could think things are great and you might think things are bad based on the algorithm that you’re currently in when it comes to social media, but I could tell you, with my feed, 90% of people are bearish and think the market’s absolutely going to crash, and they’re citing reasons that I just don’t get Like. Why? Because it’s a 50 basis point cut. You’re comparing it to other periods which were totally different than they are now in terms of the banking, in terms of when you’re looking at credit spreads, the markets, liquidity, I mean, these are below historical norms. You’re going to see that spike up tremendously. That’s the indicator that the foundation’s cracking and recession is coming. So there’s indicators we’re not seeing that.

Then you look at commercial real estate and I saw this JP Morgan note. I’m just reading a couple of past reports and it’s from May, which is not too long ago. I think it’s even better now. But they say and I’ll put it up here if you watch on YouTube says commercial real estate outlook for the second half of 2024 is largely positive. Multifamily continues to perform as industrial retail. But challenges could lie ahead, especially, they say, with the office. But now you’re looking at what Amazon, a lot of these companies, they’re telling you listen, you got to get back to the office, if not, you’re done. They say on the pricing side, it’s going to be a landmark year. Quoting them, quoting JP Morgan, who’s bearish on the overall markets, Jamie Dimon the interest rate is going to go a lot higher. He was one of the ones that were very, very cautious. He knows everything. By the way, jp Morgan was the only bank, I believe, that got the heads up from the Fed saying that, hey, it’s going to be a 50 basis point cut this time around, because they came out and changed it a couple of days before, which you’ll never, ever see, unless and again, the Fed does a good job in tipping its hat because they don’t want to surprise people. I get it, but these guys are ahead of the curve and they’re saying, on a pricing side, it’s going to be a landmark year of commercial real estate when it comes to price discovery, forecasting, transaction activity, loan originations, cmbs issuance to rise 25%, 30% relative to 2023 lows.

I mean you got to be careful what you listen to out there, because if you’re listening out there, you’re hearing all the shit, the debt concerns and everything and I pounded this, hopefully in the past 15 years of doing this podcast and even longer where deficits don’t matter, they don’t matter. I know it’s insane and you’re like Frank, you’re out of your mind. I know it’s insane and you’re like Frank, you’re out of your mind. I know we’re paying a trillion. It matters when you can’t pay it, when you can’t pay it and all we see in delinquency rides. We’re seeing it, but not on crazy levels. Still not too bad. You know we’re seeing it on subprime levels, which is fine. You know which is expected and I’m not telling you that everything’s rosy. I’m just saying it’s. People who are forecasting a credit crisis are out of their mind. Okay, they’re out of their mind. It’s a great story and they’re selling something likely.

But when I look at some of the details. Let’s take your earnings right. You said that I look at fact-set earnings, Daniel. So right now we’re trading at 21 times forward earnings. The 10-year average is 18. So, based on PE alone, we’re expensive. We’re trading at a 17% premium to the average. Based on PE alone, Daniel.

What do you think of when I say that? Because that’s another thing. I try to pound everyone’s head. When everyone just cites a PE as the only valuation metric, I don’t want to say they’re an idiot. I get pissed off because it’s meaningless unless you’re talking about the growth, because you could have a 30 PE and that’s cheap. We learned that 70, 80, 90, even 100 PE on NVIDIA was extremely cheap two, three years ago.

And look at the explosion in earnings. Now it’s trading at a 28, 30 PE, which is in line with Microsoft, which is in line with Apple. Yet they’re growing earnings by triple digits and expect to do that annually over the next two years. You got to look at growth, because if you just look at a PE, you’ll never own a growth stock in your life and you’ll never hit a grand slam. You’ll never hit a grand slam.

So let’s get back to the S&P 500. 21 times is that expensive? It’s a 17% premium right. So you’re right, but, like you said, with growth this year, earnings are projected this year okay, we’re already reported too this year earnings projected to grow 10% and in 2025, they’re expected to grow 15%. So when we look over the past 10 years, the average annual growth is around 8%. So we’re growing much faster historically than we’ve ever been and at least over the past 10 years and the next two years say, listen, 10% 2024, 15% 2023, let’s call it 12% annually. Average annually, we’re going to grow. That’s 50% greater than the 8% annually used to growing. So are we expensive based on PE loan? Yes, yes, but earnings are growing much faster, supporting this valuation, at least for now.

Could that change? Absolutely, I mean, I could tell you without a doubt, going back the past 20 years when I really really started focusing on earnings and loved it and earnings calls and really getting into it, I bet against a consumer several times in my career over that time frame, I bet against consumers and I also bet against the S&P 500 as a whole. When it comes out earnings projection, which, whatever it is now, it’s like 270. All the earnings combined for the S&P 500 companies. Even when I was on Andrew Howard’s podcast. We used to talk about it.

Every single time I bet against it my track record. That track record makes my Super Bowl track record look freaking, absolutely perfect, and I can’t pick a Super Bowl to save my life. I think I’m three for 10 in the last 13 years. Whatever it is Right, I’m horrible, but you’re always wrong. You’re always going to be wrong. For me, I’m always wrong on that. So when you’re seeing the earnings growth and I said it two years ago there’s no way you’re going to see it. This is before AI really took off. But look at the productivity gains. These guys are laying off employees, lowering their costs significantly and growing revenue right away. That’s productivity growth. They’re growing earnings. I mean, you see these companies and what they’re doing.

You know the reason why I’m citing this is not to sound like someone that’s super positive and everything. I always change. You guys know when the data changes, but there are positives out there along with the risks that I feel like. You know, if you’re mentioning the $500 billion in unrealized losses for banks, why don’t you talk about the other side, where they have $2.5 trillion of assets?

Nobody says that, right, because it’s not a good story. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants when people come to me. It’s so funny when people on the people come to me. It’s so funny when people on the street come to me. They’re like Frank and they find out like I’m into stocks or whatever which you know. A few people found out because I had a big party for my daughter. We met parents for the first time. They’re like you know what stock you like and I’m like NVIDIA and they’re like oh no-transcript. They go, you said the buy. They say there’s just no upside of my. I always tell them like the largest stock possible that’s doing well in the market, just buy that one, you’ll be fine. My point we’re paying $1 trillion just in interest alone on our debt, but we’re paying it right and now we’re seeing rates go lower.

I’m looking at the banks. I’m realizing losses. Yes, that’s if they had to sell probably all their short-term bonds right away, which they don’t have to do, which is fine. But I feel like when you tell this story, it’s not exciting. I think that’s why we get so many listeners to this podcast, because we don’t bullshit you right. So there’s positives out there, not everything I would be worried about software companies, cloud companies. I think they’re really being threatened by AI, but there’s so many pockets of growth out there that are really really working. Especially, you know, you have gold like through the roof. I think that’s going to do great, but you know I think biotech as well.

0:16:59 – Daniel Creech

One wild risk could happen next, uh, at the beginning of the month, with the uh shutdown on the longshoreman. And they’re talking about from Maine to Texas, the east coast, all the logistics and shipping. Did you know Brunswick, just north of us, is like one of the largest auto importers? Brunswick, you ever been up there?

0:17:19 – Frank Curzio

I mean it’s auto and really yeah, yeah, that’s anyway, but that goes into effect on the 1st of October.

0:17:25 – Daniel Creech

That is a risk because you shut off and kind of clog the supply chains. You’re going to have a lot of issues there. Now we’ll see what happens. It’s right before an election. President Biden does have the authority or opportunity to kind of step in and handle that, which of course, I think if I had to bet on he would before the election. But then you have retailers have already stocked up. Containers coming in were up 17% higher year over year to kind of get ready for this.

So it’s not. I like just mentioning it here, Frank, because you don’t hear a whole lot of that. I mean, I’ve seen some headlines, but the impact that it could have it should be just like the 2008 or whatever like that. So it’s not. And that really caught my eye more than anything else. Hey, there’s nothing we can do about it. In fact, that’s one of those situations like debt.

If the market does sell off because the strike goes into effect and you start seeing these fears about headlines and these supply chains ruining, you know, christmas is stolen and all this kind of stuff, that’s the time you want to go buy your names, because that’s an unrelated reason for equities to pull back. That’s kind of what you want to look at. But there are risks out there. We’re not. We’re not permables, of course, but again, just coming back to it, when you have trillion dollar deficits, Frank, I’m kind of tongue in cheek here because you’re right, we are paying our debt. We have a Florida printing press. Of course we’re going to pay our debt. I mean, we can pay anything. You just print it out of thin air. That will weigh. It does weigh on consumers. You’re seeing that. But yeah, it’s listen, I’m still nervous, which means you have to buy stocks here, because if I wouldn’t, if I was more confident, that market would probably crash.

0:18:58 – Frank Curzio

I mean look at oil, look at the energy infrastructure. In terms of data centers, which we covered, I mean look at AI it’s still growing tremendously. There’s no slowing down in CapEx, not even close.

0:19:08 – Daniel Creech

There’s just pockets here. Bank of America said we’re in 1996 of the AI thing, Frank, so you got plenty of time.

0:19:13 – Frank Curzio

I would agree with that. I think you have many. It might last a little bit longer, but 1996, think about. I remember in 1999, the market was incredibly overvalued to start 1999. And I’m like holy shit, this is going to end badly. Because, it doubled that year.

The NASDAQ doubled that year before it crashed, and then it crashed and it turns out okay, you’re right, it was overvalued, but it just shows you how far markets could go before they repriced. But you have a lot of earnings power behind this. You have a lot of cash behind this, right? So here’s a good example. You have interest rates going down and I think, Daniel, you made a great point of it where we’re looking at stocks at all-time highs and we’re cutting rates. Right, it’s usually the opposite.

0:19:53 – Daniel Creech

Right, it’s usually when we see yeah, markets and housing Right.

0:19:56 – Frank Curzio

But now look at the difference it makes when you’re cutting rates, and this is why it’s so big. And listen, they’re cutting rates because 15-year mortgage has a four-handle on it. It has a four-handle on it. Right now it’s under 5%. Did you see mortgage refinancing applications? They surged. They’re up 20% from the previous week.

Now you may say, well, that’s not a good sign because people may need equity. I’m going to put some perspective for you, because this is how you have to look at the market and this is how you make money in stocks. I’m going to put this in perspective for you. It’s very important. You could be pissed about the debt. You could say, oh my God, the consumer, my neighbor has two Mercedes. They can’t afford it. Whatever, you have to look at it from a different perspective because you shouldn’t give a shit about anything else other than you making money. And if you’re looking at making money, this is a very important step. Average person right now is sitting on $100,000 in debt and I don’t know if that’s an all-time high or whatever. They’re paying a crazy, crazy high interest rate on that debt, right? This is the average person in America. $100,000? $100,000 on average, $100,000. So you’re talking about everything, right?

0:21:03 – In video

You’re talking about student loans whatever.

0:21:06 – Frank Curzio

Yet that’s a lot of money $100,000. Do you know? The average homeowner has $300,000 in equity in their homes right now? The average person, that’s how much they’re sitting. So now they’re going to refinance because, hey, you know what we really need the money. I get it. You have a lot of debt.

So think about if you’re refinancing and you’re taking your current debt which you’re paying what? 22%, 23% interest on, probably, especially if it’s credit cards and things like that now you’re getting this massive cash infusion. Then you’re stretching that debt over many years while lowering your rate to 6%. It’s a massive, massive lifeline that if you’re an investor and you’re bearish on consumers and S&P earnings, growth and stuff like that, it’s huge. You can say, wow, they’re just doing nothing. Now, if home prices come down, whatever, I get it, but that’s something over the next year or two that’s significant. They’re able to put cash in their pockets. Some of them might not pay off their debt, but they’re definitely going to spend, because we know US consumers love to spend on the stupidest, dumbest stuff ever, like stuff at five below that basically breaks three weeks later. Crazy, stupid shit. But having that cash infusion is huge, right, and I feel like people don’t talk about that where, wow, I have all this debt. Holy shit, we got to watch out. Now you’re able to refinance 6%, 6.5%, now you’re able to pay off that debt, but that’s how much.

Home prices have gone up and, yes, they could come down, but I don’t think they’re going to come down because there’s not a large supply of homes. It’s why prices keep rising and it’s no bullshit. When it comes to prices, you can say, well, look at this area, look at the homebuilders when they report. Kb Home just reported. Every homebuilder reports tells you the average price that they sold their houses for that quarter and it just goes up every quarter. For KB Homes it was up 3% year over year. Okay, so it’s going up right. So even if they stay the same, even if they come down a little bit, they’re up so much. But that equity in the house they’re able to tap.

Again, I’m not trying to provide this smooth sailing. What I’m doing is, when everyone’s completely bearish, I feel like it’s our job, right, Dan, to just say, hey, not everything is horrible. Yes, we’re expensive, but we’re growing earnings much, much faster than we’ve ever been. I think people are bullish on China and the recent stimulus. It’s basically the biggest stimulus package to date. So they’re reducing their reserve requirements for banks, they’re freeing up money so that they can lend to consumers and businesses and also reduce interest rates on loans, because it’s a freaking absolute, like we said, it’s an absolute disaster. So what do we see?

Once this announcement was made, which I felt was kind of expected, they just went a little bit more than people thought. We saw a lot of ADRs of stocks that trade here, china-based stocks go much, much higher, right, and Shanghai Index really took off. So it’s going to make it a lot easier for consumers China consumers to invest in real estate, right, because now you’re reducing right when it comes to how much the loans are, right, it’s going to be cheaper, right, and you’re cutting interest rates. But I have to tell you, did you hear about that story that’s out Wall Street Journal, the good job, about the economist that disappeared? Did you see that the China economist who was basically like lee’s she’s I mean, she’s right, like not right hand, but that was like the main economist and he was talking bad through on whatsapp, which they monitor, right, everything they monitor so and then saying, like you know, she’s policies are horrible and, and you know, basically gone. He disappeared. He disappeared, he’s good, no one could find him right, he’s gone, right, he’s, he’s, has all meetings set up and he’s just and he’s gone.

Now people might say, well, is this the time to invest in china? And I have to tell you, if you’re gonna invest in shit, there’s one thing that’s key. It’s the foreign capital. Foreign capital used to flow like insanely to china and you used to figure it’s kind of like the mob. When you skim off the skim, you’re like all right, china’s going to fuck us for about 10%. Our profit margins are still going to be really good, right, that’s how companies probably look to invest in China. Now it turns out that it’s a lot worse than that and over the past couple of years you wonder why. What are the stocks are at where they were, where were they 10 years ago? They just can’t invest there anymore. Because of the current regime. They can’t invest there anymore. It’s like it’s uninvestable China for foreigners. So unless you see that change, no matter what policies they have, it’s not going to come domestically.

Maybe we get lucky if the incoming president, whoever it is, signs deals with China partners. We’re going to have so much leverage of them. They lower tariffs, make trade easier. I mean, there’s so much that we could do with China. They have rare earth metals which are critical. There’s so many things we can do with China because they’re so weak right now and we’re so strong that we could sign great deals and have partnerships that benefit us much more than them.

Aside from that, you need to see foreign capital coming into that nation before you really decide to go all in. It’s a nice pop, but that’s something I’m still negative on that. I think, listen, if you’re like China’s coming back, China’s not coming back for a while, guys, I don’t care what they this is like. Several times they’ve done this. They lower the reserve requirements. They just there’s just no capital. They’re trying to stimulate it. Let’s see if this stimulates it at all. I don’t even think it’s going to matter. I really don’t think it’s going to matter for China and you’re them, and no one’s really going to invest there. So, listen, enjoy the trade. I wouldn’t say, hey, china’s back at all, but that’s something I’m negative on.

But again, we want to bring you a lot of the facts, a lot of the data that we see, because if you don’t listen and you don’t hear what some people are saying you think commercial real estate’s bad, the debt is out of control, the dollar’s going to lose its reserve currency status. Get all your money out of the country immediately. Get the hell out of here. You’re going to die. And it’s not the fucking case. And I read this shit. I’m like Jesus. I mean, really these people are really allowed to say they’re killing? How many people have been saying buy gold, the market’s going to crash, de? You’ve been out of this market because you’re listening to some idiot who just has an agenda. Who, by the way, while you were not in stocks for the past 20 years, this motherfucker made so much money, so much money over those 20 years and you guys know exactly what I’m talking about. They made a fortune while you’ve gotten crushed. You know it’s crazy. So we want to try to bring in the facts and say look, don’t jump in front of a moving train. You got a lot of momentum in the stocks, interest rates are coming down, there are positives I wouldn’t say the markets itself. All together, Daniel, they’re all going to go up together, but I’m seeing a lot of pockets with lots of ideas, lots of growth within markets.

Again, oil, natural gas. How is it this depressed when you have this energy boom? That’s where it’s going to come from. Yes, uranium is great play, but man, natural gas is huge. LNG huge these markets. There’s a lot of places, a lot of stocks to invest in. And now you’re seeing oil come down, with balance sheets on oil companies Fantastic. They’re raising dividends.

Usually, when you see oil prices come down, you see these guys are so leveraged they’re going out of business. They learned their lessons over the past 15 years Through the credit crisis, through COVID, and now they could turn on and turn off oil very, very quickly. So when prices go up and rigs get out there, it’s very easy to turn the faucets on and very easy for them to shut it off when things are bad. I think oil prices are going to go a lot higher. I think natural gas prices are going to go higher. I think that market’s ripe. I think gold is ripe. I think Bitcoin you’ve seen all coins go higher. Now you know there’s a lot of positives in this market where you could still make a lot of money.

0:28:19 – Daniel Creech

Oh, absolutely. And the energy. I mean we’ve talked about energy quite a bit and I’ve been wrong on. Here’s a good learning experience that I’m living out in front of the listeners’ eyes and ears. I have been wrong on the direction of energy prices with oil and natural gas, but we’ve still had a lot of winners in the energy patches and that’s kind of funny to think about because I was assuming that oil would stay above, you know, 80 to 85, let’s just call it 80 to 95. And here we are at 70, I’ve already dipped into 60. But, as you said, the strong balance sheets in these companies.

Quantum Energy CEO had an interesting comment and he said, you know, speaking of using your language, Frank, about not so much doom and gloom. But he was saying that, listen, the shale oil revolution has peaked and when you look at what that means, he’s not saying that shale and fracking and all that is going away. But if you look over the last couple of years, you have to tip your cap to the oil industry. For here in the United States I mean you more than doubled oil production, tripled natural gas production. I mean you know you can use whatever timeframe you want. The point is to think about doubling energy.

Energy production from current levels over the next year is silly, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to continue to maintain. In fact, we’re just off record highs for production in oil and we’re back to what? 2022 levels, so it’s flattening out. But you just had and I’ll get into more of this tomorrow on Wall Street Unplugged Premium. But you just had Microsoft sign a 20-year power purchasing agreement with I just wrote it down Constellation. I mean that’s massive, that’s a huge. And you go down that rabbit trail of data centers and all that and back into nuclear and things. So, yeah, energy has so many tailwinds, not to mention the geopolitical risk, but if you don’t have exposure to energy, you haven’t missed anything. Prices are still suppressed and the companies that can make and generate cash flow at current prices are just. I mean it’s hard not to be more bullish on that.

0:30:15 – Frank Curzio

So yeah, and switching tones here where what did we warn you about a month ago? Yeah, Autos.

Autos. And why? Because I went to five different, six different dealerships with my daughter trying to get a new car. You guys know the story. And then I was like, holy shit, the amount of cars on these, the inventories, is insane. So now, because of you guys and I have, you know, a great network I’ll go out there. And there’s a lot of people that sell cars in the industry that listen to this. There’s a lot of people within the industry all over the place and I’m saying, hey, you know, I’ve never seen inventory levels like this. I mean there was so many freaking cars, it was insane.

And then I started really digging into the research, started using contacts, and then I said, guys, I mean the day supply is so much higher, and cited the companies Ford’s in a lot of trouble, GM’s in a lot of trouble, A lot of these companies are in trouble. Toyota’s not as bad, they’re in much better shape. And what happened today? Morgan Stanley came out and downgraded Ford to neutral, GM to sell, and they also downgraded Rivian. What did they say? Surging inventory levels? And they said day supply. That’s what it’s called. Day supplies are quickly approaching pre-COVID levels, which they shouldn’t be at those levels because demand is not there. That should sound familiar, right, and that’s what we like doing. I could tell you that the research report Morgan Stanley put out is very, very good. We have access to it. We have access to all these reports and Adam Jonas did a good job on this. So he says affordability is stretched as prices are still high. What credit losses and delinquencies are rising? He’s right, especially for the subprime.

He says China, and this is interesting. Okay, he says China is going to produce 9 million more cars than it’s going to sell domestically. So what do you think they’re going to do with those cars? They’re going to flood the markets with those cars, just like when they flood the markets with steel and flood the markets with other commodities and things like that. And it’s going to Europe, it’s going to go to US and wherever. But it’s going to result in what? When you have more supply in the market, it means that prices are going to come down. It’s going to lead to much higher inventory levels for the Fords and the GMs, and that’s what you’re seeing within these companies. Now. He also said their capital discipline has been basically terrible. They haven’t cut back enough on CapEx after going crazy on their EV strategies, but also when he looked at the CapEx and this is critical. This is critical to understand the money they’re spending is not going into innovation, it’s not going to autonomous vehicles, it’s not going into AI.

So the two things if you read the report, they have it on CNBC, you can pay for a pro membership. If you see the headlines, they’re going to talk about this. I’m going to tell you two things in the report that nobody’s talking about. That’s most significant. That’s what you get from this podcast. Okay, really quick here.

So Ford and GM got downgraded? Yes, but Morgan Stanley, I looked at how much they cut the estimates on Ford. Okay, so Ford, I think they downgraded to neutral GM to sell and they cut their earnings forecast of Ford by 15% and cut its earnings forecast for GM by 17%. Guys just know those are massive numbers. Those are massive numbers. Sometimes if you miss by a little bit, a couple pennies or whatever, and you issue a weak forecast, that is a massive, massive cut. Okay, it’s a massive cut. I put it in perspective it’s like cutting your target price from 100 to 82, 83, 84. That is massive. That’s huge. And they just started cutting. Now that’s one thing. Another thing is it says, the biggest winner in all of this is who which is outside the scope and he’s a bull on is Tesla.

Now, what was Elon Musk doing? What was he doing a year ago which I criticize the shit out of him, by the way, for doing? He was lowering prices tremendously ahead of China, lowering their prices just again, pricing all these major guys out of the market. Then he comes out and says listen, we’re investing $10 billion just through Tesla alone with an AI, which is significant, right? And what does he talk about? He’s always talking about the future, the future, the future, and everybody makes fun of this guy the future, the future. That’s why, Right.

So, to put in perspective, when you look at $10 billion on AI, GM’s spending around $2 billion on self-driving cars. They have yet to disclose and this is from this report, they have yet to disclose any details of any AI strategy. All right, that’s GM Ford. They don’t have an AI strategy or budget allocated to anything within AI, right? So these guys, with their capital discipline, they’re just cutting costs and saying, wow, we need to cut costs. But what you have with Tesla is they’re cutting costs and they’re taking that excess capacity for CapEx and they’re throwing it into like the next wave of innovation and it just shows like how different management teams think and how Ford and GM and these guys are so far behind. Like, Rivian has an AI strategy, that’s fine.

Again, it took a while for them to get ramped up in EVs, but then when you’re looking at Ford and GM here, yes, you’ll see you know mid-single-digit PEs, but these guys you can’t touch them here. They’re in a lot of trouble. I’m telling you they’re in a lot of trouble. Ford put out to try to alleviate a lot of these concerns. I said it was bullshit, but I mean, how long can these guys remain competitive with Tesla, who’s just been light years ahead of the rest of the competition for the past 15 years? And, more importantly, Morgan Stanley is just the first of many, many firms. Because now this again. I like doing this a month ago. I’m going to pat myself on the back because we always admit we’re wrong.

0:35:31 – Daniel Creech

Take a bow, Frank.

0:35:31 – Frank Curzio

I’m taking a bow because I love helping subscribers. I don’t want you to lose money on shit because you’re reading bullshit reports, but I can tell you now that this is much more highlighted than my little tiny podcast. When Morgan Stanley that report is everywhere, you’re going to see all these analysts start lowering their estimates tremendously and you’re going to see a lot more downgrades. This is just the first of many, many reports that you’re going to see from sell side analysts that are going to come out, because it’s really really bad in the auto industry right now and I feel like nobody’s really telling that story, so just be careful there. But yeah, it was interesting that they came out with that report today and hopefully you guys listen because you definitely you know you save money by getting out of Ford and GM.

0:36:08 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, yeah, both have been trending lower. Both are down four to 5% today.

0:36:11 – Frank Curzio

So, and they even said with GM, right, we know Jim’s buying back a shitload of its stock and even they mentioned that. They said is that the best use of your capital allocation? Because, while you’re doing that and you’re using that money, buy back your stock, Tesla’s using that money to invest in AI into the future. And it makes a good point where buybacks are cool If your stock is cheap, if you’re buying back your stock. I mean, Leon Kubin was on TV today. He did a great interview. He said you know, listen, buybacks.

Ed Bath Beyond was buying back its stock. Intel was buying back a shitload of its stock. It’s not always the greatest thing, right? Unless you’re buying back your stock, stock’s not cheap. I don’t think they’re crazy expensive here, like we just said, but are buybacks the way? It depends? If your stock is cheap and you’re growing, that’s fine. But with these guys again, even with that buyback in place with GM, they have a sell rating on it. It’s interesting to see what’s gonna happen to the audience here. I think it’s gonna be a lot more pain and you’re gonna see a lot.

0:37:11 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, so stay away from Ford and GM.

0:37:13 – Frank Curzio

Stay away from them, Whatever you do don’t.

0:37:15 – Daniel Creech

I’ll tell you a quick little rabbit trail story here. So I needed to get my oil change and stuff in the truck and I went and got it done because a friend of mine went to this same dealership and got whatever done tires rotated and all that kind of stuff. He was pulling his boat because everybody but me has a boat, Everybody but me and Frank have a boat in Florida and his front tire comes off of his truck, Comes off, Comes off the whole tire, the whole tire. And this guy is the best and I say this as a compliment because I’m one of them at heart this guy is the best redneck. Like when you think of redneck, this guy is it. And so he’s telling me he says, oh yeah, I walked it. You know, I had to get the truck towed back to it.

Truck towed back to the Ford dealership and he said they were real accommodative, they did everything for me. And I said, yeah, I bet you could have killed somebody, died all that. So when I went there I said, hey, you know he was there, he had to come back. But I triple checking everything. Now’s the time to go get your car worked on there. So good thing that my friend was doing all right. But yeah, that’s my fun Ford story.

So but yeah can you imagine pulling a boat and having your damn tire come off? Holy cow, that’s insane, that’s insane.

0:38:25 – Frank Curzio

Wow Nuts.

0:38:27 – Daniel Creech

So after an accident like that’s when you want to go to the service dealer, because then you know they’re all dotting their I’s and checking their.

0:38:32 – Frank Curzio

T’s. That is crazy, that’s insane. So yeah, speaking of insane, it’s the story of Wall Street Journal which I thought was fascinating is Sotheby’s. So Sotheby’s is owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi and the Wall Street Journal reported of how Sotheby’s is in a lot of trouble. And Drahi is a leveraged guy. He owns Altice, which has $27 billion in debt, and Altice, which has $27 billion in debt, and Altice, basically he can’t pay it. So he offered to buy back this debt $0.60 on the dollar, which I found interesting and then the creditors countered and said well, here’s a different deal and it includes you, with no control anymore, but he owns Sotheby’s. I don’t get this story because Sotheby’s was bringing in $7 billion in annual sales the past few years. I don’t know if that number is right, but that’s what they said in the story and now they’re running out of cash. They said they’re pushing off payments to art shippers and conservators by as much as six months. They gave IOUs to employees instead of their incentives that they make.

0:39:29 – Daniel Creech

Don’t get any ideas.

0:39:30 – In video

Frank.

0:39:30 – Daniel Creech

So, IOUs.

0:39:31 – Frank Curzio

So, Daniel, I owe you some money.

0:39:33 – In video

It’s six months. That’s a good idea, man.

0:39:35 – Frank Curzio

Wow, Sotheby’s is so innovative. Holy shit, what a great idea. Man, I got to call it a drug. Get him on the podcast. What a great thing. But seriously, how is Sotheby’s not the most highest margin business in the world? They make 10% on everything that they sell and they’re kind of a middleman, but then-.

0:39:50 – Daniel Creech

Well, at least some of them are a lot higher than that.

0:39:52 – Frank Curzio

Well, they said on average. I actually looked that up. It’s an average. You’re right, it could be higher, but yeah, so then, what did? What did they do?

This guy’s a leverage guy. This guy’s a leverage guy and I love leverage guys because it’s kind of funny, right? So the business model now includes financing. So are they buying the art themselves and trying to flip it? No-transcript, that’s where all the billionaires go to sell all this stuff and to buy all this stuff. Right, when it comes to art and stuff.

But the leverage game is amazing because you want to grow the company much, much more, which, by the way, it’s not the worst strategy in the world. It’s why Warren Buffett is who he is today, because he was smart, because he took these massive pools of money when it comes to insurance and Geico and everything else that he bought, and then he leveraged those pools. Incredibly, because if you look at insurance no offense, Daniel one of the biggest industries. I’m not going to say it’s a scam industry, because it definitely helps you, but I’m going to say that it’s one of the only businesses where you have to put all this money up front for something that probably is not going to happen. And now you’re sitting in these massive cash pools, which is why they created these reinsurance companies, hedge funds because they could take that massive pool of money, invest it and leverage the shit out of it.

Now, leverage is a great thing for these people. Why? Because they’re leveraging your money. They’re not leveraging their money, they’re leveraging your money right. So when they blow up, it’s not a big deal. You see, these guys blow up. They’re already. This guy’s already a billionaire.

Say, if he blows up Altice, he blows up Sotheby’s, it’s fine. Three months from now, both those businesses are gone and he’s going to be able to raise probably another 10 billion and start another company. That’s the way it works with these guys faster. That’s why hedge funds love taking over shitty retailers that own their own real estate, because now they can leverage that real estate tremendously and build a brand. And then you know again, take it private, then go public at a much higher Again.

It’s all it’s not like about this vision of growing a brand. It’s just hey, you know what? We can leverage the shit out of this and make the most money possible for me. And yeah, if shareholders make out, that’s great. If I don’t make out and I’m wrong, then everyone’s going to get just like the banks in a credit crisis, right? Who got stuck with the bill? You, me, taxpayers, right? And what happened to them? Nothing. Now they’re still three to five times bigger than they’ve ever been, but the leverage game is interesting just to see what happened there with Sotheby’s. But, man, you’re sitting on a good business model, and why did you have to leverage it for of these that was in trouble? I had no idea until that story.

0:42:14 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, I, um, just quickly, for me this is I know this is boring Um, it is kind of a surprise, but it just proves there is nothing new under the sun here. Leverage is such a two-edged sword it’s not funny. You can use it to grow, uh, manage it effectively. But, into your point, this guy isn’t going to get hurt, he doesn’t. You know, I don’t want to say he doesn’t care, I don’t know, but this is the oldest trick, the oldest story in finance. I mean, you grow. You think, hey, I can do this, blah, blah, blah. I give him credit for and I should have done this, uh, telling on myself here, I and it’s easy to play money morning quarterback.

But when I moved here, Frank, first time at the end of 2017, I wasn’t in a position to buy a house, but I was. By the time I could have bought in a house a starter home, or whatever you want to call that in 2018 and 2019. And I knew I didn’t know if I would have known exactly, I would have obviously leveraged up. But you know, when interest rates are crazy low, that’s the time, you know that doesn’t mean get over your skis to where you can’t afford your payments, but that’s when you want to absolutely leverage up, when the market is kind of giving you a fat pitch. And I didn’t do that and of course you know you would have made a killing on any real estate and then I could have sold that and go live in a box and, you know, be good.

But seeing this, just reading that article you passed to me, I mean it is it just kind of makes me laugh, not in in joy or anything that somebody is getting hurt, but it’s just like man, no such thing is enough and you just think, oh, I’ll leverage this, and then you know it all comes crashing down. So I love the line who says when you owe the bank a million dollars, you got a problem. When you owe them a billion dollars, they got a problem.

0:43:45 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, exactly Exactly, that’s how you use leverage If?

0:43:47 – Daniel Creech

you’re going to borrow get so freaking over leveraged that you’re going to destroy the entire company.

0:43:51 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, no, I hear you and you know what. When you talk about Sotheby’s and collectibles, it’s a good segue into NFTs, because NFTs are non-fungible tokens, which is basically digital contracts showing ownership of something, so it could be digital art. You could use these to have special access to something collectibles, any asset and two weeks ago, the SC, gary Gensler, sent a Wells letter to OpenSeas out of nowhere, which is the premier platform to buy and sell NFTs, and they basically said that these are securities. NFTs are securities and, in fact, they just settled its first NFT case with a company called Impact Theory, another platform, who paid the SEC $6 million for selling unregistered NFTs. So they’re saying NFTs needs to be registered and I thought this was interesting because this is the SEC.

It’s what I hate about them, because they on purpose provide vague regulations, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology that it allows them to target anyone they don’t like and you could sue whoever you want because the rules are so vague. And even if you look at the definition of security based on the SEC, it’s an asset you buy that you think you’re going to make money on. That’s promoted by a third party, that’s by sneakers right? I just bought sneakers yesterday, I think it’s Hoka is the name. Holy cow, they’re amazing. They make you taller anyway, but not that I wanted that. I didn’t even know that.

0:45:13 – In video

They make it taller, but they have like technology that you know.

0:45:17 – Frank Curzio

I never realized it because a lot of pressure is on the front of my foot and I’m, you know, again, you kind of get used to it or whatever. But they have technology where and the guy was explaining it to me and they’re very nice sneakers, how?

0:45:27 – Daniel Creech

much are these sneakers? I like how you say sneakers. By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say shoes, sneakers, there’s sneakers and there’s shoes.

0:45:34 – Frank Curzio

There’s two different things, right? Oh, that’s a different topic.

0:45:36 – Daniel Creech

Anyway, how much are these sneakers?

0:45:38 – Frank Curzio

$150. Oh, that’s not as much as I thought.

So I usually pay, you know, and these are like sneakers that I just walk around in which I’m wearing right now, but I usually pay $75, $80, but I’m going to have them for a while and months and months and stuff like that. So it’s definitely worth the investment. But, wow, I could see a difference in comfort where it shifts that weight and the balance and again I have to backstreet. Anyway, I could take those sneakers and, according to definition of SEC, it is a security which is interesting, right? Because hey, I bought these sneakers and you know what, maybe I believe they’re like air jordans, where people buy them and they could be worth more money.

I only wear them once and it’s a special edition or whatever. And I go on facebook marketplace and say, hey guys, you want to buy these sneakers for 180 dollars, I bought it for 150, technically based on the definition. The sec can come after me and and find me, because that’s security based on the definition, which is insane. Now I want you to listen to this exchange, because what was it, Daniel? You said that I only saw Gary Gensler in this. He was on the Hill, but you said all the SEC.

0:46:36 – Daniel Creech

No, all five. What’s the word, commissioners?

0:46:39 – Frank Curzio

Yeah, commissioners. Hester Pierce was on there, who we interviewed who’s in favor of crypto. She was great. I actually had a great interview. I’m going to try to get her. But this is a back and forth between Gary Gensler you know, he’s on a hill testifying, whatever and Richie Torres, who’s a representative Democrat in South Bronx district in New York and he’s 36 years old. He understands the NFT market. He’s in the NFT market. If you look at people under 40, they understand like cryptos, NFTs a lot more. It’s like you know, again, that’s what they’re growing up with. And he started questioning him about the difference between a Yankee ticket that offers some access to something and an NFT, and he gave an example of seeing stoner cats that also give people access to their animated web series and I found this fascinating and I just wanted to play this for you really, really quick so you can listen to it. Can we just bring it up and go right here?

0:47:40 – In video

Why is a Yankee ticket not a security? It’s really a question and the courts have been clear on this is the offer and sale.

0:47:48 – In video

Specifically with a Yankee ticket, though. When you’re buying a Yankee ticket, though what? When you’re buying a Yankee ticket, what are you purchasing? You’re buying Access to a Yankee game. Is that fair to say?

0:47:59 – In video

I understand it’s been a while since I went to a Yankee game.

0:48:01 – In video

You’re welcome to a Yankee.

0:48:03 – In video

I used to live in New York and my three daughters were all born in New York, so in the Stoner-Katz case, the creators were selling an NFT that offered access to an animated web series.

0:48:16 – In video

From the standpoint of federal securities law, is there a legal difference between buying a Yankee ticket that offers you the experience of a Yankee game and buying an NFT that offers you the experience of an animated web series?

0:48:29 – In video

Again, I don’t want to comment on any one specific Well it was a settlement, it’s a fait accompli.

0:48:35 – In video

It’s not an ongoing litigation. You can comment on it.

0:48:37 – In video

But it’s about how is something offer and sold, and is it offer and sold as an investment contract? Are individuals looking to a common enterprise, anticipating profits based on the I’m familiar with the definition.

0:48:51 – In video

You’re avoiding the question.

0:48:54 – Frank Curzio

I mean, I found that fascinating because it was such a great question. I bring this up all the time in terms of like sneakers and how vague the definition is. But I’m glad he brought that up because it is vague. You need regulation around this and it’s why, even with the crypto industry, when you look at it, it makes it’s, you know, it makes it so tough a capital flow into the industry If you’re not able to define capital or not. But it’s crazy. I thought that was great. I just thought that was a great exchange and he had to. You know, again, ask him. Ask him that question directly. Nobody wants to ask. You have Jamie Dimon on. Ask him questions. That’s what he’s there for. Don’t give him layups. Oh, what do you think about the consumer? What do you think about this? What do you think about that? You know, seriously. Ask him questions like detailed questions about commercial real estate, about debt, about delinquency rates, about. You know why does he hate crypto so much and crypto’s done so. Have you changed your mind? Just ask here, you know.

0:49:47 – Daniel Creech

Yeah, I’ve gotten through about half of that. I didn’t get to that part, but maybe not half, but yeah, it was mostly grandstanding, but that was a good exchange. I mean that’s great. Listen, this is just terrible. They are a political organization, you know I won’t rant about this, but you can clearly see through them dragging the feet, enforcement through fines and litigation and stuff is not a business pro-friendly environment. That’s to protect those that they serve. On the banking side, I get that crypto kind of bust that wide open. We all know that story. Crypto is winning to a certain extent, but we’ll just see how it plays out here. But for as long as I’ve been following Bitcoin at all, the biggest risk will continue to be the exact same thing, and that is governments, and that’s unfortunate, but that’s where we live in.

0:50:32 – Frank Curzio

Even with our security token. I launched it because not even based on a definite I mean, if you’re looking at the crypto markets not what we did where we have our CRUZ token, where we tokenize it and you’re getting equity stake in our business, you go participate in our growth. But when you’re looking at the utility tokens, which no equity value, that basically the value is based on the utility feature, I thought all those are going to. They are securities, right, people buy them to make money, those securities. I thought that was going to go away because once you announce the securities, I would say 90 of the industry is gone because they’re not going to disclose the shit that they do when you have, how much they’re selling and all the stuff where the money’s going to that they. You know if you did ICO, which is like an IPO, but they call it initial coin offering in that industry, that’s a means of security, right? So and this is significant, and why T0, a couple of weeks ago, receiving its special purpose license, that broker license, it’s a game changer. I mean, it’s going to ignite tokenization, the fractional ownership, an industry literally in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

When you’re including real estate, you’re including bonds, any asset in the world, you could sell a fraction of to hundreds of millions of investors that never had access to it before. Maybe commercial real estate, maybe bonds, right? Well, again, those are institutional markets. It makes a lot of sense. I mean even your home value. What do you have to go to the bank for? Imagine if you could sell off a piece of your home and pay interest on it. Now I own it, you’re paying interest on that. You could pay whatever interest rate. Say, if you have several homes and you’re using them as rental properties, you’re paying that rental rate. Say if you’re paying 10% and you have homes of $5 million, just say oh, it’s a $10 million. Now you’re selling off 2 million of that. You’re going to get a check for $2 million, which is great for your investors. Now that part, just like a stock, a portion of it, those shares are going to be trading and that’s going to determine the value. And now people can invest in these houses. Not only that say, if you sell all your commercial real estate at a much, much higher price, the people who have the fractional ownership, just like a stock, are going to make out. It just makes so much sense to me. But tZERO receiving that license the second company in the United States that received a license the other companies trading utility tokens. So you’re looking at tZERO being on this island by itself, where you’re going to see a massive inflow of digital assets flowing to this.

I’m already getting calls from people saying, hey, Frank, I know you did your token and I want to get your advice. How do I do this? Because now this is opened up and now you have a clear path because there’s regulation that this special purpose license to trade digital assets it’s providing. Now they can have custody. Now they can do peer to peer trading. Now you have automated trading. Now they can raise money just like a typical and it’s SEC FINRA related. So now you have a structure, whatever it is, even if you over-regulate a little bit. When you have the structure, what does this do? Now the outside capital of tens of billions that wants to flow into digital assets? They know the structure. Otherwise they’re putting this money into these platforms, into security tokens or whatever, and they don’t know the fucking rules because the SEC doesn’t define it. Now they know the rules. So when I see this and what they did, and again our token trades on this exchange, I’m very, very happy. And it’s limited to five or six of them for such a long time and they had their hands tied Already they’re starting to raise money for companies.

It’s really exciting. You’re going to see this revolution take off. I mean, I could see hundreds of these things trading on T0 in two to three years and it’s going to result in explosion of liquidity. Of these things trading on T0 in two to three years and it’s going to result in explosion of liquidity. And if I look at the two major headwinds of this industry, Daniel, it’s regulation and liquidity. That’s what prevented scale, and now regulation is no longer an issue with the special purpose broker deal license. It’s going to pave the way to tens of billions of new capital flow into the industry. But now liquidity is no longer going to be a headwind. You’re going to see more people file for this, more people to do this, more people on the platform, which is huge because, doing this the past four years with my investors, it’s tough not having liquidity. You should have the option to sell or buy based on whatever, and now you’re going to have that opportunity. So it’s going to pave the way for the digital security revolution.

I would hold on for the ride. I think it’s finally here. I was early to the party. It’s really really exciting and it’s great news to come out since, as I said last week, we are doing a capital raise which we’re doing great on. It’s fantastic. You have the option to talk to me Again. You’ve got to be a credit investor, unfortunately. That’s how it’s structured.

Anyone’s interested in seeing I put together a nice video, all the details and the facts and everything, and we also have the terms, the agreements. If you’re interested in seeing that, and after you do that, if you’re like, hey, I still have further questions and you’re really serious about it, I have a link to my calendar where you set up a one-on-one call. I have to tell you, man, I think I’m on like I think, 40 calls so far. About 90% of them came in, and then I have all calls set up, you know, for the next two weeks. Which is really exciting because you know the terms of this deal is a 10% dividend that we’re going to pay, with the option to convert it back in a token at 350.

So, and a lot of good things going on for our business. So, if you’re interested in that Frankcursorresearchcom but man, that news came out. It’s a real positive in the middle of what we’re doing, because that’s what I want to see my investors, people who back me, my investors back me on this idea when they really didn’t understand it. I’m like dude, I really want to make this work out for you Now. The company doing really well right now, things are flowing and launched a new division which is doing well already. It’s really exciting times for us.

I want to put this on steroids, which is the reason why we’re raising money. We’re not raising it just to show up a balance sheet or pay employees or anything like that. No, this is pure growth and the fact that this news came out is really, really exciting. I think investors are going to be pretty happy. So exciting stuff. But anyway, just that SEC conversation and just how he was stumped and again, I don’t know if you could see, if you listen to iTunes, but I actually played it and showed it and you just see Gensler going. I don’t know. He just doesn’t know the difference. And it’s on purpose, right, it’s done on purpose. So I just don’t.

0:56:16 – Daniel Creech

He knows the difference. You just can’t say it out loud.

0:56:18 – Frank Curzio

You don’t want to say the quiet part out loud when you’re part of a scam, Frank Pretty much Pretty and it’s interesting to see, if Trump does get elected, what he’s really going to do for crypto, what he said, because now we know that the other side is trying to. I think they met with Galaxy Digital Novogratz they met with. Who else did they meet with? Who’s the guy that have had?

0:56:39 – Daniel Creech

I didn’t see that. I didn’t see him meet with Novogratz.

0:56:41 – Frank Curzio

And they met with Mooch and this guy, mooch, who I had on the podcast, who I like. You know, I just I don’t like that. You got mad at Donald Trump and change your whole philosophy on life. I mean you could hate a guy and still be, you know, have the values that support what side you’re on, whatever that is. I mean you know, and that’s fine, Whatever you’re going to vote for, vote for, but you know for these guys who? They revolve their businesses around, crypto and they’ve gotten annihilated because of the current regulation which is illegally going after the banks and crypto. And now you’re getting promises only because money’s coming into the sector. At least Donald Trump, when he was president, he didn’t go after these guys. He just said oh, you know, I think Bitcoin’s bullshit and he switched because of the money. Fine, good job. I just hope that both of them.

I mean the path for crypto to disrupt finance, which is the biggest boys club. It’s right in front of us and it’s going to be massive, but you have to have the right person that’s going to allow it, and I feel more comfortable saying that Donald Trump is going to be very, very, very good for crypto and it’s still a question mark on the other side. But if Trump gets in, you are going to see innovation in the crypto industry. That’s unbelievable. The companies that I have in our portfolio, the stuff that they do, things, terms you never heard of, like DAO, and it’s just the ownership structure, the community structure where licensing data center and GPU capacity to outside sources at cheaper prices I mean it’s just remarkable. The innovation that takes place when it comes to the blockchain and comes to some crypto companies because, man, it’s really incredible, but there is a lot of shit in that industry it will unleash this whole innovative trend and really disrupt finance. What do they do? Do they create anything? No, they just charge massive fees and are middlemen or everything. Let’s face it, that’s what it is. And then they pay tons of lobbying dollars, right, so you can see why the politicians are protecting them. But I think this is going to change. Let’s see.

Hopefully it doesn’t matter who gets elected, I don’t know, but I hope it changes, because crypto is really about to go higher and that’s why I think Bitcoin is going to surge again. And you’re seeing it. Everything says Bitcoin should be under 50,000 right now and it’s 63. Every time you get this head fake, it goes right back up. I don’t think you’re going to get the head fake this time. I think from here on in I think by the end of the year you’re going to see a nice surge in Bitcoin, and now you’re starting to see it filter over into a lot of other tokens, good companies and tokens that have gotten annihilated, and that’s why I basically have been pushing my Curzio Venture newsletter Not the Curzio Venture, but also the basically all the newsletters and small caps that are going in there. It’s really exciting times with digital assets. It really really is. So, yeah, looking forward to it. Lots of ideas in that space, lots of ideas.

0:59:20 – Daniel Creech

Yep, yeah, the tZERO. Hopefully that opens up the floodgates and we get that surge of investors and liquidity. So cheers to that Cool liquidity.

0:59:32 – Frank Curzio

So yeah, cheers to that. So man covered a lot. Tomorrow’s wall street unplug premium microns reporting right we got some news coming out tonight.

Yep, that’s gonna be interesting report. It’s amazing because you wouldn’t think it’s really sharply down from its highs but been running up to into this quarter. So expectations are high. Let’s see what they say, especially on the AI front. Some companies like salesforce, some companies like snowflake are getting killed with ai, even though they say we’re ai, we’re AI and you can tell by the big investments that they make. But it’s going to be interesting and we’ll get into more detail on plays on stocks within a lot of sectors that we mentioned today. What could be plays with a little bit of China exposure.

Do you want to get out of some of the stocks? So we really talk in depth in that podcast. And that podcast, enjoy it now because it’s going to change, because the price is $10 a month. But it also includes Dollar Stock Club, which is pretty cool and that’s a trading newsletter and Daniel and I usually have an idea a week and usually it’s based on what we see in the markets and what we just talked about. But we’re probably going to separate that newsletter out of that. But you know. So if you’re going to enjoy it, enjoy it now. It’s $10 a month.

It I don’t mention that a lot or enough, because it’s a really really good podcast guys and you can subscribe. I think I think we had to especially for like a dollar and if you don’t like it you can cancel. But I was saying, anyone who subscribes really, you know, subscribes long-term because you get a lot of value out of it and it just we’re unleashed, we don’t have to hold back anything and we tell it how it is. Some stocks in the portfolio and things like that, which is a lot of fun. But other than that, enjoy the President’s Cup, enjoy football. That Eagles win was really impressive. Holy cow, did you watch football this week, Daniel, or no?

1:00:58 – Daniel Creech

I saw some highlights. Yeah, I saw a little bit of it. I didn’t see the Eagles.

1:01:01 – Frank Curzio

The Eagles should have crushed.

I mean, I think New Orleans is for real but you know, I did see the one long run I saw that play. Yeah, Barkley’s amazing. But yeah, it’s crazy with the Eagles, because if you have Hurts throwing an interception, I think it’s seven straight games and he also fumbled and they still beat them at New Orleans. It is interesting A lot of teams, a lot of good teams lost, especially in the NFC. They were supposed to be really, really good out of nowhere. So it’s just, I love football. It just changes week from week and anyone can beat anyone. So it’s a lot of fun. President’s Cup Enjoy, but for you, Wall Street Unplugged Premium members, we’re going to see you tomorrow. Any parting thoughts, dan? No, nothing from me.

1:01:39 – Daniel Creech

I love when you say that. See you tomorrow.

1:01:40 – Frank Curzio

I love when you say that All right, guys, we’ll see you tomorrow, take care. Love this episode. I love Wall Street Unplugged Premium. The Wall Street Unplugged Premium is my members-only podcast where I dive even deeper into this week’s events. Well, I’ll do even more than tell you what’s moving these markets. I’ll tell you specifically what moves you can make today. So this is going to be about trading.

Put big money in your pocket right away due to the inconsistencies I see daily in the market. I’m talking about specific investment ideas. I’m recommending and tracking each week that I believe will be impacted directly by everything I just talked about today. Plus, you’re going to get the chance to go even further down the rabbit hole with me and my co-host, Daniel Creech, as we discuss which of these week’s trends could turn into massive windfalls, could the big trends that we see lurking on the horizon.

Also the news we’re picking up from our network of insiders, which has gotten bigger and bigger thanks to you and so many people listening to this podcast in over 100 countries, and you’ll get a chance to talk to me directly in my special Ask Me Anything Q&A session. All that and a lot more like premium interviews with world leaders in finance, technology, industry and politics. This is all part of Wall Street Unplugged Premium, and becoming a member is super simple and super cheap, so head on over to WSUOffer.com to check it all out. Sign up today and you won’t miss a thing. That’s WSUOffercom. That’s WSUoffer.com.

1:03:09 – Announcer

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

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