Wall Street Unplugged
Episode: 1008February 15, 2023

Big changes coming to Wall Street Unplugged

I start today’s podcast with a major announcement: We’re launching WSU Premium soon. I share some details about the features we’re introducing that will make the podcast a “must listen” for every investor. Learn more here.

The latest quarterly 13F filings are starting to come out, giving a look at what the biggest money managers are buying and selling. 

Daniel and I highlight some of the moves that stood out to us—including a ton of buying in Big Tech stocks. We break down why Nelson Peltz and David Tepper are building positions in Disney (DIS)… and what the company needs to do to get back on track. And we discuss Cathie Wood’s recent moves in Coinbase (COIN)… and whether it can survive the crypto bear market.

Next, we cover the latest earnings reports. Daniel shares why he wouldn’t invest in Hanesbrands (HBI) for at least six months… a tech company catching his attention after posting profits for the first time in 20 years… and why he’s not worried about the 10% drop in Devon Energy (DVN) today.

I go over the incredible earnings from Roblox (RBLX)—and what it means for the metaverse trend… And I explain how Ford (F) is dropping the ball when it comes to electric vehicles.

Today’s show is a sneak-peek into the kind of in-depth analysis we’ll be providing in WSU Premium. I’d love your feedback, so shoot me an email.

  • What to expect from WSU Premium [0:30]
  • The latest moves by big money managers [6:43]
  • What needs to happen for DIS to return to glory [13:00]
  • COIN will be a crypto survivor [19:04]
  • Don’t buy HBI right now [25:50]
  • RBLX’s incredible quarter [31:25]
  • Why F is overvalued [37:20]
  • Why DVN dropped 10% after earnings [43:07]
Transcript

Wall Street Unplugged | 1008

Big changes coming to Wall Street Unplugged

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.

Frank Curzio: What’s going out there? It’s February 15th. I’m Frank Curzio, host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where I breakdown the headlines and tell you what’s really moving with these markets. Well, it’s Daniel Creech Day. How’s it going, bud? How’s everything?

Daniel Creech: I’m well, Frank. How are you?

Frank Curzio: Well, before we get to anything, so Daniel Creech Day.

Daniel Creech: Uh-oh.

Frank Curzio: Big changes to your day, Daniel. More responsibilities and a big deal because, as you know, I wanted to give you guys a heads up. We are coming out with a product, which is called Wall Street Unplugged Premium. So, this podcast that Daniel and I do is going to be behind a paywall going forward, so it’s no longer going to be free, going to be charging $10 a month, and it includes this podcast, which will be much more detailed. Going to give you an example of it today. In terms of analysis ideas, every single week, we’ll have a new recommendation that goes into our Dollar Stock Club portfolio. We used to have that set up where we used to take a pick from our guests, but we realize some of our guests are not analysts all the time.

Frank Curzio: Sometimes they’re CEOs, and they can’t talk about that company. We don’t want to recommend their company all the time, or we might have them on every six months or so or nine months. But not everyone is able to give us a stock pick depending on who we’re interviewing, especially in different industries, if it’s crypto or metaverse. So, Daniel and I are going to actually have analysis, a stock pick that we have every single week now. So, this includes a trading idea. It’s going to be trading, but we’re buying puts against Ford or Disney, which we talked about nine to 12 months ago, which we didn’t really put in the portfolios, which you’ll be doing very, very well on. Those stocks did come back, but we’ve been negative on those two names for a very long time. I’ll talk about Ford later. It could be crypto ideas, it could be just regular long picks, but basically names in the headlines that we’re going to have a trade around. And Dollar Stock Club is going to be part of this membership. Not only that, Daniel will be doing a portfolio update. Daniel, ready for this in video format?

Daniel Creech: Yeah. Absolutely.

Frank Curzio: So people, unfortunately, you’re going to have to see Daniel’s ugly face just like you see my ugly face. I always give him compliments.

Daniel Creech: If we’re not doing well on picks, it’s going to be even worse. You can look at anybody when you’re making money, but boy, if we come out with some bad ones.

Frank Curzio: I know, pretty much. There’s a reason why we both do this in radio. We do video tape it, though it’s on the YouTube page. So, video updates of the portfolio, which is going to be every two weeks, where we’re breaking down, talk about these positions and what to do with them. And that’s just the beginning of this membership. Many of my interviews are industry insiders, heads of state, billionaires, economists, CEOs. A lot of that’s going to be part of Wall Street Unplugged Premium as well. I’m also going to have special videos and interviews when I’m taping because I’m on the road a lot, whether it’s at the CES or mining conferences, biotech conferences, touring facilities, which I’m going to do an Amir pretty soon. That’s also going to be part of Wall Street Unplugged Premium. So, to subscribe to this, you can go to www.wsuoffer.com.

Frank Curzio: Again, it’s only $10 a month. You can cancel any time. So if you believe, especially over the past few years, which I think all of you’ve been listening, some of you’ve been listening for 10 years, 20 years, and you’ve been, well, it’s been 15 years, but you’ve been listening to me and following me at TheStreet.com before that, and even with my dad through his company, but the podcast, in the past 15 years, but especially in the past few years through COVID, post-COVID, if you feel like I provided more than $120 a year in value with my recommendations, analysis, market forecasts, then it’s a no-brainer. If not, still going to be doing a monologue every Wednesday for free, which will be about 20-minute podcasts. But I’m really excited to launch this product, and we thought about it for a while. It’s going to provide tons of value to our most loyal subscribers, which we want to do.

Frank Curzio: It’s going to include access to our Frankly Speaking podcast every Friday as well, since you’re going to be a paid subscriber. It’s going to include a lot more education, which I think is why you listen to this podcast and teach you the reasons why we’re recommending stocks and breaking them down and talking about, most importantly, which I don’t see anyone do out there, and I freaking hate, when we’re wrong. We have to be right more than we’re wrong or no one’s ever going to listen to us. Unless maybe that’s not so true because some people have followings than they’ve been wrong for the last 10, 15 years. But that’s how you learn and you’re always going to make mistakes in this, right? Especially the ones that you have the most conviction on. That’s when you have to be careful, and I’ve learned that throughout the years and explain that to you and helping you become better investors and helping you provide more value and taking our jobs very seriously because what we do here, people listen.

Frank Curzio: You listen, you go out and buy stocks. You want to improve your lives, you want to build your wealth, build generational wealth, which is your families and kids, and it’s a big responsibility. So, we realize a lot of people are doing free stuff, more free stuff than by far anyone in the industry, probably anyone that I know. A lot of those people were emailing them the most. And for us, we want to really focus on the people who are our most loyal subscribers and provide that through Wall Street Unplugged Premium. So, a lot of stuff is going to be added to that going forward and that’s what has me really excited. So, if there’s anything that we’re doing, if there’s research reports or certain things that I want to mention, a lot of that is going to go into Wall Street Unplugged Premium going forward. So, lots of education, a pick every week from Daniel and myself. But it’s a product that we continue to add that amazing content forever and that’s what has me so excited.

Frank Curzio: So in two weeks, we’re going to officially launch this. Everything’s going to be for free this week, next week. But look around March 1st, that’s when we’ll change that over Wall Street Unplugged Premium where this podcast will be behind a paywall. Again, it’s only $10 a month, guys. You pay $10 probably for two cups of coffee in a week. But this is going to be much more detail. We’re going to give you a little example today of different things that we’re going to break down. You’re going to see us really breakdown stocks in general, educate you, and then come up with a pick. And then, that pick is going to be in Dollar Stock Club, which is going to have a stop loss. It’s going to have bullets and details. And more importantly, you’re going to have a video portfolio update going forward from Daniel every two weeks. So, we’re going to launch this on the first, March 1st. And on the second, is going to be Daniel’s first video, portfolio video. Be sure if you subscribe to that to make fun of him as much as you can. He loves that. Right, Dan?

Daniel Creech: I do. What is that day?

Frank Curzio: It’s Thursday.

Daniel Creech: Oh.

Frank Curzio: So, that’s going to be Thursday, Wednesday going to launch it. So, I just wanted to bring that up, guys. We were talking about it, teasing it. This has been something that’s been the works for us for about three to four months to provide value to our best subscribers. We notice that a lot of places do have memberships that charge much, much, much more than that, but allows us to really scale this operation. Again, we are a business and the value that we are providing for people, we want to answer the most questions and focus on our best subscribers that way. And this is the easiest way for us to do it, and the best way. And the value that’s going to be behind that paywall is really, really incredible, much more than you’re seeing right now. So, I’m excited to launch that. With that said, Daniel, it is 13F time, right?

Daniel Creech: Yes. This is a fun time for earnings and disclosures because the big dogs with a hundred million or more have to disclosure their positions about 40 to 45 days after the quarter.

Frank Curzio: Yes. And just for clarity here, everything that we talk about, a lot of these guys might not be in by the time… They could report and say, hey, they had this on the books a month ago and they have to report it, but now, they might be out of that position. Now, we know the portfolio managers where, I give Buffett as an example. Buffett doesn’t go in and out of stocks, but a lot of the people I wouldn’t disclose and wouldn’t waste your time on. The algo-trading firms, just go in and out constantly of all these stocks because their positions change pretty much on a daily basis. But some of these managers, they’ll take small positions and look to build them up over time. And that’s what we want to target, where these are guys that aren’t going to take small positions and initiate positions and then sell out of those positions 30 days later.

Frank Curzio: These aren’t those guys. But it’s interesting because… The reason why I like doing this, Daniel, is a lot of these stocks could be down as they’re purchasing them. And you know, a person like Appaloosa, which is David Tepper or Berkshire, Warren Buffett, that they’re going to add to this position over time and that stock might have gotten hit pretty hard and it gives you an opportunity to buy in at a lower cost basis than what they got into. It allows you to start looking at stocks and saying, “Hey, let me research. So, what are they seeing? You know what, this is pretty cool.” And maybe three months from now if that thing comes down and I know Tepper is behind that, that’s going to be buying the crap out of it. Or maybe you have an acted as this investor that’s really going to be busting their balls a little bit, and you see that stock come down, it really provides you, because we’re always looking for ideas.

Frank Curzio: And also with that, you’ll see some ideas, where I’ll see a symbol of something that comes up on, maybe it’s David Einhorn’s portfolio. I’m like, what the hell is this? And I’ll start looking at it and going, what is this stock? And it allows you to provide ideas and I’m always looking for ideas everywhere, wherever they can come. At the end of the day, it’s my research, it’s my job. But you have to be open to ideas from other people who are brilliant. And you could get into some of these things at much lower prices and you’ll see a lot of times we are getting in before these guys and getting out after them, making better returns than them, which makes me feel really good sometimes. But it’s important. 13F, I just want to give you that explanation, but they come out, pretty much they all disclose around the same time, which is like yesterday, today. And a lot of them will come out. Daniel, what stood out to you the most?

Daniel Creech: One of the things at first glance was that a lot of big funds are getting back into your big tech boring names. So, I saw Google pop up quite a bit as a new position, even Disney, one of your favorite whipping boys. And what I always like to do is the famous ones, Soros, they’re big traders. Berkshire’s, very slow moving. I’d like to pull up some charts and just look at what the stock has done recently in things and then especially those that are adding too. But when you pull up Disneys and Googles and everybody getting hammered last year in tech and everything going down so much, it doesn’t really shock me to see that. It just shows you how, in my opinion, these guys are buying this because hey, things just got too silly. Markets move too much in one direction, either the upside or downside. And I thought, man, these guys are probably just enjoying this, Frank. They’re going, hey, we can buy the biggest, boring names and hope for a pop. And that’s worked out really well if they’ve held through anywhere near the first quarter of this year. What I liked is David Einhorn from… Let me pull this screen up, Frank.

Frank Curzio: Greenlight.

Daniel Creech: Greenlight. I had this-

Frank Curzio: He closed out of his position in Intel, News Corp, Rivian. He closed, he had a position in Rivian, which I always thought was interesting, but small position, but he did close out of it. Okay.

Daniel Creech: I had this saved earlier and I apologize, I don’t have it in front of me. But it took him a couple years, but I believe it was David Einhorn who just recently passed his high watermark. And what that means is, when you give money to hedge funds, they have a high water mark, meaning they have to get the value of the fund to a certain level and until they reach that they don’t get their performance fees anymore. They still get their maintenance fees and things like that. Every deal’s going to be a little different. I’m painting with a broad brush. My point is that he’s been a value investor for years and years and years and it’s gotten absolutely smoked up until last year, basically, Frank. But he has made billions of dollars back and kind of surpassed that, which is a big deal. I say all that to say, he added to Southwest Gas, SWN. I don’t know if you have a chart up there or anything, but I’ve seen Southwest Gas, I’ve seen Carl Icahn talk about this. I don’t know if he’s still in it. But Einhorn added-

Frank Curzio: Southwestern Energy, right? SWN?

Daniel Creech: Yes. He added, he had about 6.1 million shares last filing. Now it’s bumped up to almost 9 million shares. If you look at that stock, it’s continuing to getting smacked. So, that goes up on a watch list to think, hey, what’s he see here, let’s go through this. They’re a huge provider of natural-

Frank Curzio: Natural gas.

Daniel Creech: Yes. And it’s absolutely tanked.

Frank Curzio: Natural gas, absolutely collapsed completely. But a lot of stocks, we recommend in a natural gas play that has down tremendously as well, because I just think it’s down 70%.

Daniel Creech: They report earnings this week, by the way.

Frank Curzio: So for me, when I look at this and look, those earnings aren’t going to be good, but that stocks down considerably. But for me, I think natural gas long-term is going to go a lot higher than what it currently is and it’s completely, it’s crashed. And that’s when you want to buy a lot of this stuff. Yeah, that’s an interesting name. What else did you see?

Daniel Creech: Herbalife popped up again. I did like to see Elliott Management. Elliott Management is Paul Zinger, who is an amazing cutthroat hedge fund guy. He maintained his position in MPC, which is Marathon Petroleum. He owes about 11 million shares. I think that is an absolute no-brainer. We’ve talked about that company in the past, refining and stuff. We can go into that more detail some other time. Frank, did you see that Salesforce was another big tech company that a couple of hedge funds, and again, lazily I think, all right, these guys are just like, listen, these things have gotten beat up so bad. It just seemed like a good trade for a lot of these guys. And it’ll be interesting to see how many big tech companies are held in the next one or two filings.

Daniel Creech: Unfortunately, that means we have to wait, yeah, six months because they do this every quarter or so, a couple. But anyway, couple of the big things. I didn’t see anybody take a huge position that really startled me, but I haven’t gone through all of them yet either. And I’ve been looking at earnings and things, so bear with me on that.

Frank Curzio: So, a couple of the things that stood out to me is Peltz. Well, we took a position in Disney, 9 million shares. That’s a very big position. And then you had Appaloosa, Dave Tepper, I think he’s my favorite and someone that I love. I just think his outlook on the markets. December, he was kind of saying, listen, I’m leaning more short and the market has taken off, but his market calls in time are usually spot on and great. And he’s just amazing to me. And he took a position in Disney too, a lot smaller than Peltz. And I could tell you, from Disney, one of the things that I heard in and being fair, I don’t hate Disney. It’s not like this hate campaign or whatever. I hate the fact that Jacob was lying to you telling you how great this company was.

Frank Curzio: Remember, they got into streaming because they had to. This wasn’t some revolutionary everything. They’re like, holy shit, now we can compete and we get the multiple of Netflix, which that multiple came down tremendously and you’re trading at a high valuation in them. But the biggest thing for me with Disney is you have this amazing business. They’re the greatest marketing team ever. They’re the greatest storytellers. You have Marvel, you have Pixar. They’re going to make a hundred Star Wars movies, they’re going to make a hundred Marvel movies. They’re going to keep coming out. They’re coming out with another Toy Story, they’re coming out with another Frozen, all in the theaters. And then, you have they’re parks, which they have high margins, they have pricing power. You have this whole entire business and then you have streaming, which is complete shit. And you cannot, Netflix has figured out this model, almost everybody else has not.

Frank Curzio: But Disney cannot compete with these guys. They’ll never be able to compete ever because their newest content cannot go on that platform. Their newest content has to come out in the movies. Whereas, if you see new content from any of the other players, whether it’s HBO Max, whether it’s Paramount, whatever, you can go down the line, especially Netflix, their greatest series and the things that people want to see go on their platform first and you have to go to that platform and see it. That’s a significant difference. If anyone watches streaming, it’s not about watching. I throw this example out with Dumbo 20 times. Your kid’s not going to do that anymore because they’re more in tune with TikTok and things. And plus, if he goes to school or she goes to school and says, oh, did you see Dumbo? They’re going to be made fun of completely, right?

Frank Curzio: Everything is like what’s going on right now? That’s the future. That’s what kids, my kids want to watch YouTube, my oldest one watches TikTok, Snapchat, things like that that they’re going on. And that’s the future. It’s not the existing content. It’s all about new content. If you don’t have new content, you’re not going to get people to pay for this. And their newest content, their greatest content has to come out in the movies first, which means you can never ever compete. Iger said one thing finally that Hulu, which has been around since 2007, Daniel, and you’re looking at 15 years, and it still reports losses and that’s a great platform. It has like 47 million people on it, I think, or 43 million, whatever it is in the forties. Great programming. I think it’s generating 10 billion, it’s still losing, losing a ton of money. That just tells you how difficult it is to make money in this, and they don’t need to do that.

Frank Curzio: You have great content that everyone else is looking for that you could license out. And Iger said one thing, one, he said, we got to go back to storytelling, enough of the political bullshit, which I think separated a lot of the people going to their parks and things like that. You could do that with different platforms, ESPN or whatever. But again, when you talk about families, families want to go there and have a good time. They don’t want to be into politics. They don’t want to have shit shoved in their face all the time. That’s most people. So, it’s a family company, that’s what you built this thing on. And more importantly, he said that Hulu stake is up for grabs. So, they own 66% of that and Comcast owns the rest, and I think by next year, they have to buy it or whatever. And I said the one thing they need to do is sell it, not get rid of it completely.

Frank Curzio: You still have Mandalorian, stuff like that, but dial down, but you have to get out of streaming somehow because you can’t compete where these guys are spending $30 billion on new content. You don’t have $30 billion to spend so you don’t have the money to spend on this new content, but now, you’re going to provide a much shittier service for them because now what are you doing? You’re raising prices and you’re providing advertising, which provides a shittier experience for your consumer, when a lot of these people are on a platform for free and that’s why you’re seeing domestic average revenue per user, domestically, they’re losing subscribers domestically in the US and that’s the number because that’s where they pay $5, for a little bit less than $5, where it’s like a dollar in change for Hot Star. And that’s how you added like 50, 75 million subscribers. Nobody cared about average revenue per user a couple years ago. Get out of it.

Frank Curzio: And that’s what I think these guys are seeing. Appaloosa, they’re seeing it, but yeah, they said they’re going to be committed to streaming. And I was like, whoa, last quarter. Again, those numbers weren’t that great because they were dialed down significantly. Of course, they were going to beat estimates, but it’s still a very expensive stock. If they get out of streaming, you could open up 20 parks, start launching millions and millions of fricking movies because people love the storytelling. They’re going to be watching that stuff forever. You generate billions in the theaters. That’s a company that’s worth buying. That’s a company that goes at $200 a share. But if you continue to go into streaming, every time you’re going to talk about your parks and the pricing power and movies and look at the, and then you’re going to say the streaming business, lost a billion dollars for the quarter.

Frank Curzio: You got to constantly keep saying that and saying that because the only way you’re making money on streaming is if you pay more for the content. And it’s why even their best shows that they do have, Mandalorian and stuff like that, you’re not seeing famous actors on them or anything like that. They’re trying to scale back as much as they can in terms of costs. If they sell that Hulu stake to someone else, you’re going to bring in, I don’t even know how much is being valued at maybe 10 billion, 15 billion whatever it’s being valued at. But now you improve your balance sheet significantly. You start opening up parks like crazy, which Universal’s doing, that’s your bread and butter. You start launching these things, then movies, merchandise sales and everything. That’s where you see the massive growth potential. It’s just you have this huge drag and they continue to defend it.

Frank Curzio: And for the first time in a year and a half, Disney came out, it was because of Iger and he said, you know what? Who’s up in the air? We don’t know yet. And I said that. You sell Hulu, try to sell Hulu. And I hope he does because if he does, and you don’t have to get rid of streaming, but dial it down so it’s not a billion dollar loss every single quarter, which you’re going to see. Because in order to generate money on that platform, you have to spend money on new content and all your new content comes out in the movies. That’s how I feel about Disney. So, I’m not surprised to see this. And it’s just a couple of bites right here. Peltz said he is already in it. Couple of things really quick. Cathie Wood, Ark Investment bought 14,000 shares of Coinbase today, which is up 8%.

Frank Curzio: Coinbase was on a tear, Daniel, I don’t know if you saw it. So, Coinbase was as low as the thirties. You’ve heard me talk about it positively numerous times because this is a company that we now have a business account with. They put us through the grinder, everything we have to show, KYC AML, all that stuff. But they’re one of the last men standing. This is where the institutions are going. This is a company that’s compliant. We have FDIC insurance on accounts that we have money with them. We could accept crypto payments and things like that. These are the guys that are regulated. It’s a publicly traded company, and you saw what happened to everyone else in the industry. Granted, this thing came out of IPO where everyone got fooled and came out crazy valuations when crypto is highs, but it went down to about $30 a share.

Frank Curzio: And from 30, from 40, 45 to 30 to 30 the whole entire time, this is a stock that’s in our crypto portfolio. It’s up 10% today. But it did go really quick, guys. This is a company that from the beginning of the year started 33, it went all the way to 80. And this is in February 2nd, it’s at 80 and then you’re looking, it’s just February 15th, two weeks later, it went down to 55. Good job by Cathie Wood adding more shares so it’s 64. I think this is a $200 stock pretty easily. These guys are going to generate a shitload of business. I know the staking and stuff like that. And the regulatory concerns hit them a little bit. They are dialed in. This is a survivor. If you look at Bitcoin, which is up today, Daniel, Bitcoin’s up again. So, I have 22, closing at 23,000. This was 15,000.

Frank Curzio: Think about what’s happened in that industry over the past 18 months. Look at the bankruptcies, look at the leveraging, look at the fraud, all that took place. Look at the regulation, government regulation. Look at SEC saying more regulations coming down the pipeline, and Bitcoin withstood all of that and continues to pump higher, continues to do well. But if you haven’t scared people out of Bitcoin with everything that’s happened in 18 months, you are not going to scare them out because it’s not going to get worse than it was the past 18 months. It’s just not. And I’ll tell you, for me, I’ve always said Bitcoin is going to a hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know when the time is. It could be four years, it could be five years, it could be two years, but it’s something that you should be buying on pullbacks, and I continue to believe that as well as Ethereum, the number one smart contract maker in the world with NFTs and things like that. It’s huge. But it’s just to see where these things are going. And having Coinbase on an island by themselves.

Frank Curzio: If you’re a believer in Bitcoin, this thing’s going to 200, it will go to 200 in a couple of years, I believe. It is in our portfolio at a low price, we’re up a lot on it now and I think it’s going to continue to go much, much higher from here. Again, it’s going to be volatility, you’re going to see volatility with Bitcoin and stuff like that as the SEC regulates this industry. But Cathie Wood, good job on that. She also bought two other stocks, which was Joby Aviation and UiPath, which I don’t know those. Let’s see, I’m sure both of them up a lot today since she bought some.

Daniel Creech: She’s moving…

Frank Curzio: Joby … Well, let me see. I don’t even know what the symbol is for Joby. But so Joby Aviation, so this is looking up JOBY and it’s up like 2% today. Joby Aviation is a $4 stock. I don’t know too much about this. So, built fully electrical, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to be used. So basically, it’s like autonomous airplanes. That’s what this is.

Daniel Creech: That’s a hell of a story.

Frank Curzio: So, it is a $2.7 billion market cap even though it’s a $4 stock. This is a name that was $7 and it’s $4. But obviously, this thing pulled back and she bought it. And also the other one she bought was UiPath. I like Cathie Wood. Sometimes, you need to understand the economy. You need to understand how these things grow. And when you have a market, guys, that have zero interest rates to flood funding the market with cash, anyone can raise money. It’s easier for these growth trends to accelerate. Now what are you seeing? Much higher interest rates. We just saw a CPI number that was much worse than expected, which tells you that the Fed’s going to continue to raise rates, and they’re not going to lower anytime soon through this year, which provides a much tougher environment. In an environment when earnings are usually growing by 8% annually, they grow a lot faster than that.

Frank Curzio: You can take out even the COVID years, they’re doing very, very great, very, very good. But now, you’re seeing earnings decline, and we’re going to have three straight quarters of earnings declines, and they keep accelerating lower, they’re getting revised lower and lower and lower. It’s not a market that you go all in on growth. You got to pick and choose. And with that said, I love that. Hey, she’s going to do what she’s going to do, and this is it. She’s not wavering, and I love that and I respect that. With that said, just be careful because you know want to be buying these things on pullbacks and a lot of these things have come in and she was an aggressive buyer, I believe at Tesla when it came down. I think that’s up like a hundred percent, something like that off of its lows, which is doing very well. But that’s what I noticed with Cathie Wood.

Frank Curzio: Real quick here, a couple of others, Daniel, as I break this down. So Duquesne Capital, that’s Stanley Druckenmiller, someone I respect as well. New position at AT&T. I told you that is an unbelievable company right now. Right now… I know people are going to look at the past and say, this is shitty. Look at their numbers. Look what they did. They’re growing in so many different aspects. They’re dividend’s safe, generating mass amounts of cash flow. It’s a good stock in this market. It’d be a lot higher if the whole entire market hasn’t gone up, especially risky stocks. This is a name that’s now a growth company paying a very, very huge dividend. Was it five, 6%? I like that buy. He also got into Cameco. So, we’re very bullish on uranium now. If you heard the interview with Amir Adnani, a lot of those interviews going to be behind Wall Street Unplugged Premium now.

Frank Curzio: Anything else here? Let me see. I don’t know if you had anything else that you saw. But look, Greenlight Capital, David and I getting out of the Intel position, News Corp, Rivian, but I think that’s kind of most of the positions that I covered. It wasn’t anything that really stood out other than the ones I just mentioned. The CRM position by ValueAct, so Salesforce, and again, it’s been bad news, bad quarter, and people have been ripping that apart and activists and investors have been coming in. Just to see a lot of these guys coming into Salesforce was pretty interesting. But I don’t know if there’s anything else that you saw. But, guys, pay attention to this stuff. This gives you ideas.

Frank Curzio: We’ve made money off a lot of stocks that we recommended where we found ideas. We might’ve bought them later on or we might’ve bought them even when they’re a little higher because this is something I didn’t really know about when I learned about and saw the growth trend. I saw whoever was buying it, if it’s Einhorn or Third Point we were seeing. But it’s a good way to look for different positions and find just some of these diamonds in the rough because these guys have a lot of money and some of these managers go in and they take small positions and then every single quarter they’ll build up those positions for over a year, which gives you this nice floor underneath, especially if these companies are buying back stock. So, pay attention. But Daniel, I don’t know if you wanted to finish up there and see if there’s anything else you want to talk about with 13Fs, since I’ve been talking for like 20 minutes. Sorry.

Daniel Creech: No, you’re good. The 13F, one 13F, and one non-13F that caught my eye. Soros, who is a big trader like we’ve talked about, sold out, closed his entire position, very small position for him in Hanesbrands, HBI. That caught my eye. I didn’t buy that. I didn’t like that stock because he was in it. I liked that stock a long time ago because they control about 60 to 70% of their manufacturing and their supply chain. I thought, a year or so ago, that would be a big tailwind for them. Can control cost, manage inventory better than other apparel stores and things like that. It’s been an absolute dismal performance lately. They recently came out with terrible earnings, terrible guidance, cut the dividend to shore up their balance sheet and pay down cash. If you pull up HBI, I think it’s under $6, $7 of stock now. It’s gotten absolutely hammered.

Daniel Creech: I was wrong on that with the timing there. I still like it. It’s been on my watch list ever since I made a small trade and lost it. What I like about looking at this is it’s not going away. Hanesbrands is a very popular brand. It’s a very strong brand. They have an international exposure. This is the easiest layup in the world, no pun intended. You just bring back Michael Jordan, have a few commercials with him. Your stock will pop to $10 easily. No problem. Probably got to give him a lot of options, but that’s okay too.

Frank Curzio: Yeah, no, and I appreciate you mentioned that.

Daniel Creech: That’ll come up. At some point, Hanesbrands, in my opinion, will be a great trade, possibly a great investment. They talked on their conference call about not getting through excess inventory, having a lot of, they don’t really get to lap year over year comps, meaning until this coming December, damn near year away, they don’t really get to start comparing year over year to favorable numbers until then, getting through excess inventory, shoring up their supply chain. They didn’t talk a lot about changing their supply chain or their manufacturing, which makes me a little nervous. One of the good analysts calls on the conference call, Frank, was like, “So, you guys have basically run this into the ground. What gives you any positive momentum or any belief that you can turn this around?” My point is that this continues to be on a watch list because at some point, like I said, this will be a great trade and or investment on that once they shore it up. But that’s going to be several months. Waiting is the hardest part in our business, Frank. Can I keep going outside of that?

Frank Curzio: Yeah. This going to be the podcast, Wall Street Unplugged Premium.

Daniel Creech: You sparked something on the Hulu and being how old and not turning a profit. Palantir, I didn’t realize this until I listened to the conference call. I didn’t realize they had been around that long because they went public during the fiasco of 2020 or 2021 or whatever. They’ve been around since 2003. They just recorded their first GAAP, general accepting accounting principle profit ever in about 20 years. Now, we’ve talked about this in the past a little bit here and there. I like Palantir because you go from Disney and happy-go-lucky and family, this is the dark side. This is the completely one other. If you listen to this CEO, Alex Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer, he does not mince words at all. He talks about how the world is a dangerous place. They’re trying to save lives, generate money to save lives and continue building a business.

Daniel Creech: It’s a very us, meaning the US and our allies versus them mentality. I don’t know of a more clear, easy, one click way to invest in what these guys perceive as good versus bad in the stock market. Does that make sense, Frank?

Frank Curzio: Yes.

Daniel Creech: Now, the reason I’ve been a big fan of this is that this is basically like a Lockheed Martin. I don’t see how this isn’t incredibly bullish for the rest of my lifetime, for lack of a better word or term. What I didn’t know about this until I listened to their conference call was, a, they have over a billion dollars in cash and no debt. So, you don’t have to worry about anything there. It’s still a very cheap stock. Even though the stock’s up last couple days.

Frank Curzio: Peter Thiel is big owner, billion dollar plus owner in this too.

Daniel Creech: Who?

Frank Curzio: Peter Thiel.

Daniel Creech: Yeah, Peter Thiel. I think he was part of the founding. Stanley’s in that as well. He mentioned in a, I didn’t see him on the filings, but he mentioned in an interview not too long ago I listened to, said he is been an investor ever since they’ve been around. They have the government contracts, the war kind of contracts, the life or death situation, what they do on technology, but they’re also branching into healthcare and every other corporate that you can imagine. And they’re shifting their income to where the majority of their income is now coming from the US. Yeah, they’re still international, but the US is a big driver there. They’re going to have reoccurring revenue. They’re a software platform, so their margins are great. And again, they have over a billion dollars in cash and no debt. We don’t have to chase it right here. I talked about this around six-

Frank Curzio: This is 7% still in the middle of a-

Daniel Creech: Yeah, but yesterday it popped probably 20. Anyway, reading through and listening to that conference call was fantastic. That’ll definitely be on a shopping list. But that’s why this time of year is so excellent, because not only do we get to see 13 filings, but there’s a ton of earnings and things going around right now as well.

Frank Curzio: And big government play with software services and stuff that work with governments. That’s half of the business. And then, the commercial segment of software. But these guys, they’re very transparent. They’re always on when they miss or not, but this was definitely a good quarter for them. And you’re seeing it run higher by 8%. It still is, the highs are close to 15, the lows are around six and now it’s at 10, right in the middle of that. So, a good name. You’re seeing momentum. This isn’t like, oh, we’re covering shorts. This is a really good number, which is really cool. But let’s go over a couple more companies here because one of those is Roblox. Roblox, we recommended in our crypto portfolio based on a metaverse play and this company has gone down incredibly. What were the highs that you said? 100 or something? I don’t know, I could pull it up. But the all-time highs for Roblox are insane.

Daniel Creech: I don’t know about all time. I know it was over 140 at one point.

Frank Curzio: Yeah, it’s not that old of a company. So today, it’s up 25% reported earnings. So, we’re up probably about 15 to 20% on our position almost, I think. We bought this and then went a little bit low. We averaged down our position. This has a high of 73 in a 52-week range, but if you look it was 130-ish. And you’re going back to when they went public, which was March, 2021. Roblox. So, Roblox is this incredible platform. Anyone who has kids, I would say under 13, 14, I used to say that under 13, 14 is exactly what Roblox is, because your kids go on. It’s pretty cool. But I wanted to talk about some of these numbers that Roblox reported today and the reason why it’s up so much. This is a company that reports losses. So, they’re in the growth stage, and it’s hard because we’re in a market where a lot of those companies have gotten hit.

Frank Curzio: Listen to these numbers. People say, well, they benefited through everyone staying home, and more kids were home from school, and they were playing and got nailed along with some of the other companies. But I always said Roblox should not be on the surface of a lot of these other technology companies that got killed, that are bullshit companies, because it’s a company that actually generates revenue. Listen to this. Bookings rose 17%, it’s for the Q4 to $900 million. This is for the quarter. Active daily users. So, this is the average daily active users or 58 million, up 19% year-over-year. Hours engaged 12.8 billion, up 18% year over year. That’s for the quarter. Average bookings, so this is for the daily average users is $15, which is, think about the streaming platforms and how much these guys are generating. So now, they came out with a January metrics. There’s one company that reports monthly metrics, which is cool, more transparency.

Frank Curzio: So for January, listen to this. Estimated bookings, 270 million. Think about that because for the quarter they did 900. So, just in January alone, 270. So, they’re on pace to do very, very well. Up 20% year-over-year. Average daily, these are daily active users, daily active users, 65 million. 65 million, up 19%. Hours engaged, 5 billion for the month. Again, you’re looking at 12.8 billion for the quarter. Now you go monthly, if you times that by three, now you’re seeing the more they’re going to be engaged, the hours engaged, 5 billion. The more they’re online, the more money they’re going to spend. So now, you’re providing this guidance from January that’s incredible. And that’s really moving the stock higher.

Frank Curzio: So the company said, and this is meaningful, this is why, really, when you look at the details, they said bookings up, quoting, “Accelerating meaningfully in December and January with year-over-year growth exceeding 20% in both months. Growth was strong across all geographies and age groups with particular strength among users above 17 years old. As bookings re-accelerate late in 2020, we saw immediate improvements in adjusted EBITDA margins.” But listen, growth was strong across all geographies and age groups, particularly strength among users above 17 years old. What does that tell you? It tells you that the metaverse is alive and well. It got beat up and people hate it. But the 17 year and older crowd is from Roblox creating platforms for everybody out there. And you could say, well this isn’t really Web 3, it’s kind of Web 2 because it’s not in this 3D graphics and stuff like that. But this is what the metaverse is about, it’s about bringing together communities and they’re using Roblox to create. And Roblox, you can create your own platform, your own games, different things. My daughters are on 20 different, 50 different games they could choose from much, much more than that.

Frank Curzio: You could build it, but they’re building for so many Fortune 500 companies and now they’re providing different services, different discounts, different things you could do in there for retailers and stuff like that. You go in there, I could tell you, my kids ask me for $5 here, $3 there, $4 every freaking day on Roblox. So, they do a great job. But you’re seeing that part of the market that they’re starting to see more and more people go into these sites to see, hey, look what’s going on here? And that’s important when you think about it because everyone’s like, all right, the metaverse is bullshit. It wasn’t bullshit. Everybody thought in today’s day and age, we think that a trend’s going to accelerate tomorrow and it’s not. It takes a long time. Well, I’m going to talk about Ford in a minute. It takes a very long time.

Frank Curzio: But to me, when I see that stat, that’s a difference maker. That’s a game changer. That’s a fundamental change in what’s going on with Roblox. This isn’t like, let’s see how much money we can get out of the existing crowd. No, the numbers are going up daily. Average users are going up, the more time spent online is going up. And now, they’re targeting a market that wasn’t part of the total addressable market before, which is under 17 and now over 17. Now, you increase your total addressable market, it’s lights out. This is a company that could easily go, could double from here very, very easily in a few months. And the momentum behind here, I don’t know, I think you’d be crazy to short this stock with these kind of metrics, showing this kind of growth and saying that bookings last two months were strong, super strong.

Frank Curzio: So, what do you think is going to happen? It’s very difficult to look at this company and short this company or bet against it going forward with these kind of metrics. There’s a lot of companies that are up, Daniel, that we saw that do not deserve to be up. And I got to talk about Ford in a minute, which is one of them. I don’t know why it stocks up 10% this year, and I’m going to break that down. But this is a company that has the numbers behind it, the growth behind it, everything behind it. It’s not moving up because of the market. It was up about 20%. It has moved up in the market. This is different. The numbers that they reported, the data that they reported is the reason why the stock’s up 25% and could probably go a lot, lot higher from here. That was an amazing number. I want to talk about that. I know you wanted to go into Devon, right?

Daniel Creech: I can. Yeah. Do you want to go into Ford?

Frank Curzio: Well, Ford, okay, so-

Daniel Creech: I don’t know what you’re going to say about Ford.

Frank Curzio: Well, here’s the deal with Ford. When I look at Ford, we still come out one of the worst quarters out of any S&P 500 company. And they said, well, it’s all fault and we left 2 billion on the table. Whatever. It’s terrible. And it highlighted how horrible it was based on what GM did to show how far behind they are. But their entire growth model on Ford, just like when you look at Roblox and they’re building, and it’s this whole gaming platform and stuff and people going on there. You know the growth model. You know the growth model of Palantir. You know the growth model for whether it’s a cloud company. Ford, 100% their growth model is based on EVs. Yet, you just lower prices. Why? Because you’re seeing slower demand, not to better compete, because if you’re able to sell your product at much higher price, you’re going to sell at a high price.

Frank Curzio: You did it because you’re starting to see slower demand across the board, which I’m seeing in a lot of statistics. Now, they just came out yesterday. They hold the production of their F-150 Lightning due to battery issues. The funny thing is they won’t describe, they won’t go into details of what those issues are. So now, you’re like, holy shit, what’s going to happen? Are you actually holding production for months, for a year? Is it going to be for a day? What kind of issues with the battery did you report? Because it could be something very simple that could be fixed or it could be something where you need new batteries completely. And we know one thing, which I know about Ford is, they do not have the technology behind their batteries to scale. They do not have that. But they’re going to likely recall all their F-150 trucks that they already sold. But the point here is, Ford still does not have the battery technology to scale EVs. That’s why they plan on spending more than any 50 billion over the next few years to develop this.

Frank Curzio: You’re seeing demand for EVs fall off a cliff right now. Prices for these vehicles are sky high. Ford is losing money already on every EV it currently sells. You saw the former Ford CEO get on CNBC today, you should listen to that interview. He’s saying that EV affordability issues have worsened because you have rising interest rates for loans, economic pressures, much higher cost to produce, but the prices for these vehicles, he said, are way, way too high still. And they can’t make money currently selling them, where they are and they don’t even have the battery technology. So, he said the middle class is being priced out of this market, which is what this is about. That’s how you sell the most cars to the middle class. And he also talked about having significant strains on an electrical grid that a lot of these companies aren’t identifying, if this trend happens to scale even three years, five years from now, everyone thought it was going to be this year.

Frank Curzio: He also said there’s a limit to how fast you could charge these batteries, which I never knew about. So basically, you think, oh, it’s going to get better and better. He said it is going to get better over the next decade, but right now, there’s a limit. So, charging already provides a major inconvenience for anyone. You got to pull over for 30 minutes to charge your car. And yes, Tesla announced that they’re going to be sharing some of those things, but it takes less than two to three minutes for anyone else to fill up your tank with gas from a gas station that’s everywhere. You have access to immediately. But after the halting production news, which is major, and I feel like it hasn’t got a lot of attention. For me, I look at 40 should be trading in the single digits.

Frank Curzio: It’s hovering around $13 a share. It’s up 10% this year. Even though it reported one of the worst quarters, Daniel, this earning season. Go back and listen to it. Of any S&P 500 company and didn’t really get annihilated on it. Something that should have pushed it down 20, 25%, pushed it down, I think like four or 5% that day. Slowing demand, halting production, likely recalls on the way. You’re lowering prices for brand new products, which is always like a big red flag. You don’t see Apple lowering. They’ll lower maybe a little bit for their new iPhones and stuff like that, they have the carriers able to give away and provide special deals, which they did, which they kind of never do. But you could get an iPhone 14 for free almost with a lot of these carriers. So, demand is starting to fall, but that’s not a good sign.

Frank Curzio: They’re continuing to lose money on every EV sold. They’re spending 50 billion on battery technology over the next few years. Much, much, much more than anyone else. All on a trend that’s now going to develop much, much slower than almost every industry analyst and automotive CEO predicted. We were saying 65% of the cars in 2030 were going to be EVs. That was last year. This year, it’s gone down tremendously. They’re saying it might be 35% in one year. That’s the difference of about 25 million cars, which is huge. So, when I look at Ford, I don’t know why it’s trading at these levels. Maybe it’s because the market is just overly high, but this is a company that has bad fundamentals. Their growth model is flawed. They still don’t have the technology. Nobody knows what happened last quarter. They’re not being transparent now with their battery issues.

Frank Curzio: Is it a big issue or not? I think shareholders need to know that. Why specifically are you halting production? Do you have to rebuild these batteries? What are you going to do with these? Do you have to replace every single one, which is going to cost a fortune, as anyone knows with a Tesla that had to replace their battery or do anything. It’s a fortune to do. What is up with it? Is it something that, hey, we just got to fix it and it’s a tweak and it’s fine. That’s okay. But you halt the production on your F150s, which is the face of the EVs. Yes, they have the Mach I, the Mustang. To me, this is a disaster. I can’t find a reason why you would be purchasing Ford here at these levels. I just can’t, unless Tesla’s going to come and scoop them up.

Frank Curzio: But yet, they will provide zero value to Tesla because they don’t have the battery technology, they don’t have the right technology to make these cars and scale it. They don’t have the battery. When I look across the board, it just doesn’t make sense to me. So, unless you’re hoping for a buyout from someone, which I don’t see with the Ford family, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I can’t see a reason why to buy this stock when your growth model is completely flawed right now. This is a stock should be trading significantly lower. Daniel, if the market goes higher, it’s going to go higher along with all every other stock. But if the market comes down, this is going to come down much, much more than the overall market. It’s a reason why you saw Tesla up hundred percent. GM reported blockbuster numbers, is ramping high, which is on our portfolio. And Ford is starting to sell off now a little bit. It should be down much, much more. I’d be very, very careful. That’s my analysis on that.

Frank Curzio: Now, I know you wanted to talk about one of your favorite stocks, which is Devin, right?

Daniel Creech: Yeah. Which is getting smacked today, down over 10%. They reported last night they missed earnings per share estimates. They missed by nine. They reported a $1.66, that was lower than the estimates of a $1.75. Revenue was flat year over year. What I like about Devin is, they’re in a safe jurisdiction. All their drilling and stuff is here in the United States, so they don’t have to worry about governments and such. They’ve gotten their act together along with other oil companies. They’re very disciplined. I’m going to go over and listen to the conference call. That was this morning. So, I just went through some of the numbers.

Daniel Creech: I’ve liked this a long time, so I don’t mind this small pullback. It’ll be interesting to see if it holds above the $55 level, just looking at a chart. Frank, they recorded a record $6 billion in free cash flow in 2022. That was 106% increase from 2021. They have a wonderful policy in place where they have a variable plus a fixed dividend. So, they raise their fixed dividend amount by 11%, and then they are up to 50% of free cash flows during the quarter goes towards an adjusted dividend. So, they came out with 89 cents. I would bet that that’s a little bit lower. I’ll have to compare that. Again, I want to go through the conference call transcript later this morning.

Frank Curzio: Do you have the price where it’s trading at right now?

Daniel Creech: 55-ish, 56.

Frank Curzio: It’s funny because-

Daniel Creech: 66.71 is what I got right now.

Frank Curzio: I read an interesting stat, really quick, to add to the thesis of Devin here. But like 70% of the volatility is coming from options, and a lot of that is coming from short-term options now.

Daniel Creech: Oh, okay.

Frank Curzio: Seeing a lot of people with short-term options. And it’s interesting because right before they reported, day before, you saw Devin, February six, seven calls seeing huge interests. We have access to this. We’re briefing.com. Again, we don’t get paid by them, but briefing.com. Just volume 2,310, open interests 13… Implied volatility, 66%. So, you saw a lot of people betting long into the quarter and that’s probably why you’re seeing it again because the numbers weren’t too bad. They missed by 9 cents. That’s not a big miss for them because you’re looking at a $1.66 instead of $1.75. You’re not looking at like 20 cents, and they reported 11 cents or whatever.

Daniel Creech: No, I think a lot of the volatility is, they’re only growing production by about 5%. The first quarter’s going to be a little slower because they have some maintenance and some weather issues and all this kind of stuff. So, there’s going to be some movement around on the numbers on that side. And honestly, I think Wall Street is getting greedy as they should be. That’s their job. Listen, when you’re putting up the numbers that oil companies are right now, what do you want? You want more. You either want more dividends or you want more buybacks or you want a special dividend or anything. So, there’s always going to be this push and pull between, hey, you’re not doing enough to reward us and management needs to do this and that and the other. I’m not concerned about that. You got to pay attention to the trading price, obviously.

Daniel Creech: However, I’ll wait to go through the conference call transcript. I just like this name again, because of its assets. They’ve lowered their production cost to around $40 a barrel of oil. We’re at what, 75-ish right now. Of course, that’s volatile. My point is, is that all oil companies across the board, and even oil services companies like Halliburton and Baker Hughes, they’re all getting this more mature mindset when it comes to capital allocation and balance sheets. That’s going to be a huge tailwind for a long time. I don’t want to say investing cycles, it’s going to be a long time. A huge tailwind for a long time for the oil and gas industry and that’s why I’m sure everybody is sick and tired of hearing it. So, if you have exposure to oil and gas, congratulations.

Frank Curzio: Congratulations.

Daniel Creech: Because you’re making money.

Frank Curzio: And we covered a lot there. So, this is notice that this podcast, we usually keep the 30 minutes and we’re at 45. It’s going to be longer now through Wall Street Unplugged Premium. Again, we’re going to launch that in two weeks, so March 1st. So, it’s wsuoffer.com, if you’re interested. Again, it’s going to be $10 a month. You can cancel at any time. This podcast, though, is only going to be available going forward to paid subscribers. But what we’re going to do with this is, if you noticed, is that we’ll be talking about Devin, Hanes Brands, Disney, Ford. Have we really, really dug in? And now, we’re going to talk about why we like these things. So, we’re going to use all of our resources that we use, which we pay easily over a hundred thousand dollars for the research engines that we use, which we’re going to be sharing our research with you and showing you exactly why we’re buying these things, why we’re selling.

Frank Curzio: We’re going to have pick every week. Again, a portfolio update with Daniel. That’s going to happen on March 2nd, that’s going to be the first one. Every two weeks for Dollar Stock Club and you’re getting access to that. So, this is what’s going to be behind that paywall, this kind of analysis where we won’t do it here because this is the free version. We’re doing this for this week, next week. And I think the following week is when we start, you see these behind the paywall. But then, we’re going to break down and say, okay, here we’re going to go with this pick, and this is what we’re doing. And then we’re going to have a one page write up, but we’re going to be breaking it down in the podcast of why we like this stock, why we don’t like this stock, why we may use puts, why it may be a crypto.

Frank Curzio: Again, we’re going to go anywhere that we can and trade things that we’re seeing come out in the news, and earnings season, and things like that because we talk about that all the time. But we’d never had a newsletter, a really product like that. We had Dollar Stock Club, which was based on picks from other people that we interviewed and different ideas they shared. But this is going to be much more direct in which I love about it. Where we could say, okay, this is what we’re doing. We don’t have a product like that at all, and now we will. So, this is going to be an actual trading product. I know people trade, you’ll look at our industry, guys, and I know if you subscribe to our newsletters, you subscribe to other people’s newsletters within our industry, that’s normal. So, the person that pays over a thousand dollars for a newsletter pays for five of them.

Frank Curzio: We know all the statistics, we break it down. Data analytics and stuff. Trading newsletters go for a thousand to $5,000. This is going for $10 a month and that’s just part of it, where everything else that you’re going to get behind a paywall. So, this is something we’re really excited to launch. We broke down a lot of stuff. I’m sure you have questions or comments because you’ll also, through the paywall, through Wall Street Unplugged Premium, you’re going to have access to our Frankly Speaking podcast. That’s a Q&A podcast, me answering subscribers questions that you email in to frank@curzioresearch.com, and now you’re going to be able to email some of those questions. To who? Daniel, which your email address?

Daniel Creech: daniel@curzioresearch.com.

Frank Curzio: You ready for the portfolio updates?

Daniel Creech: Sure. Oh yeah.

Frank Curzio: All right. It’s big time now, buddy.

Daniel Creech: Big time.

Frank Curzio: It’s great when your face is out there. Now the responsibility increases, and now, you got to get the emails when you mess up, which is cool. You should.

Daniel Creech: You know how you boost or tear down your self-esteem, see if you’re worth $10 a month.

Frank Curzio: It’s much more than that. You get so much more than that. But seriously, I love that. People hate that criticism, but people pay for my products, they pay for me. And I always love that about Michael Jordan, because Michael Jordan used to say, talk about it in terms of, this is my job, this is what I get paid to do. I get paid to win games. So for me, you guys pay me based on my stock picks. So, if they’re not right, hey, bring it on. I get it. The criticism, you’re right. You’ll see me say, hey, you’re right, I got this one wrong. And people are like, “Frank, you’ve been right before. I’m just saying I’m pissed off. I had a lot of money in it.” But that’s part of the job. That’s why you pay for our services. That’s why I’ve been doing this for a long time because we’re right more than we’re wrong. The day that that changes is the day I won’t be doing this anymore.

Frank Curzio: But I’m glad to be launching Wall Street Unplugged Premium because it’s going to be really exciting. It’s going to be more of a community. Going to be doing probably live events as well. Special AMAs where it’s ask me anything. Those are huge. We’re going to have a big community. I want people to get to know each other. That’s literally what I want with this product. And looking at it, I’m not looking at it, wow, look how much money we’re going to generate. We’re not going to generate a lot of money, $120 per person. But I think over the next five years we’re going to try to build this community to over a hundred thousand people. And that’s going to be exciting because now we have a massive community. It’s very, very powerful. Focusing on different ideas, learning from each other as well, because some people work, some of you work in the industries or the companies I recommend and have amazing access to certain things.

Frank Curzio: Again, it’s all about information, not inside information. Just information and idea generation. And that’s what I’m trying to do with this product, so it has me really excited. So Dan, thank you so much for coming in.

Daniel Creech: Cheers, everybody.

Frank Curzio: Daniel Creech Day. And real quick, I want to say, how’s your golf game doing, buddy?

Daniel Creech: Terrible.

Frank Curzio: How is it terrible? You hit the ball so well.

Daniel Creech: I don’t know. The only thing good about that is the weather.

Frank Curzio: Isn’t it weird, golf? It’s not like I could play. I played basketball all my life, and it was never like three, four months where I couldn’t hit a shot. I’d be off some games, but with golf, it’s like you can go out there and there’s days that it’s like you’d never even played golf before.

Daniel Creech: Yeah, there are.

Frank Curzio: If you’re a competitive man, that is the worst sport. That’s the worst sport. Don’t ever take it up if you’re really, really competitive because it is the hardest sport out there. I’ve never seen a sport where you get more pissed off the better you get. That usually doesn’t happen. Anyway, thanks so much, Dan, for coming in. That’s it for me and I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Take care.

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.

Frank Curzio
Frank Curzio, founder and CEO of Curzio Research, is one of America’s most respected stock experts. His research is regularly featured on media outlets like CNBC’s Kudlow Report, The Call, CNN Radio, ABC News, and Fox Business News. His Wall Street Unplugged podcast—ranked the No. 1 “most listened-to” financial podcast on iTunes—has been downloaded over 12 million times.
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