Wall Street Unplugged
Episode: 672June 5, 2019

Mark Skousen: Three events that could derail our 10-year bull market

Mark Skousen

Dr. Mark Skousen, free market economist, financial advisor, professor, and award-winning editor of Forecasts & Strategies, joins me today for an incredible, wide-ranging interview [13:02]. He gives us his take on current economic conditions… three macro events he believes could derail our bull market… and some of his favorite income ideas today.

Dr. Skousen is a legend in the financial newsletter industry and best-selling author of over 25 books. He’s lectured in over 70 countries and taught economics and finance at numerous colleges, including Columbia Business School.

He’s also producer of the annual FreedomFest, “the world’s largest gathering of free minds.” (I’m honored to be speaking at the festival next month in Vegas.) We discuss FreedomFest and reminisce about the old days in the financial newsletter industry—back when you had to actually stuff envelopes.

In my educational segment [48:16], I pound the table—once again—on an investing strategy anyone can use… and how it helped us close out another big winner in Curzio Venture Opportunities.

Transcript

Wall Street Unplugged | 672

I haven’t been this cautious in six years

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

Frank Curzio: How’s going on up there? It’s June 5th. I’m Frank Curzio, host of The Wall Street Unplug Podcast Live break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets.

I’m such a big fan of this historical part of the financial newsletter industry and you guys know by now, I talk about it a lot. Maybe sometimes too much but I grew up in this industry. My dad ran his own shop for over 25 years. It’s called FXC Investors, initials of the same name. He managed money and it wasn’t a big shop. I think we got up to about $125 million that we imagined, which is I guess a lot of money at that time and 25 years ago. He also wrote a newsletter for over 20 years called the FXC Newsletter. We had a little bit more than 10,000 subscribers. My dad charged less than $100 for the newsletter.

For me, I remember walking to the office in Queens, New York. It was a 10-minute walk. It’s a small office, similar to what I have now. Not modern or anything, you’ll see you come in. For me, just take the fancy desk and big pictures and all your accomplishments and everything. I guess that was passed down to me but I’m just more of a show me guy than just … I don’t know. Everybody watching every day … I don’t know. I’m just not … The accomplishments and trophies. Even when I got trophies I never really displayed them. It’s just wasn’t me. It’s more about me inside than it was showing everybody and I guess again, that was passed down.

I remember so much back then and even my dad traveling to different areas to get the scoop on different stuffs, a lot different it was today. We have social media. You don’t worry a think. There, you really had to a boots on the ground approach. I remember him going to Texas to get a closer look at a company called Texas Pacific Land Trust that I mentioned to you guys a lot. He recommended that in the single digits. It was over $800 today or whatever. It’s on my mom’s portfolio actually which is really cool. She passed down.

It’s eight-page reports they need to be written on a typewriter so he would write them out by hand in pencil in case he’s made a mistake and then he’d give it to my mom it was a fast typewriter in world. Just forget it. Typists [inaudible 00:02:43] is unbelievable. It’s amazing. You have to see it in person.

She would type it up and then you have and then you’d have to bring it to the printer. There’s no email or anything. You used to look at the best colors that would fit and everything and it’s just this whole entire thing to the point where we got our own printing operation to make things easier at one point.

[inaudible 00:03:04] newsletter was awesome. Yeah, like three separate to three segments was an income and growth, targeted … The portfolio is regressive and everything was balanced, which was a mixture of the income growth, aggressive and everything. I like the way he did that because it appealed to all kinds of investors. He basically have closed-end funds that pay dividends income, growth stocks, conservative and very aggressive names like TPL at the time, another one Canada Southern Petroleum, Magellan Petroleum. It’s probably 2% of the people out there that know those stocks because they follow my dad such a long time and continue to follow me, which is amazing when I get those emails.

People love those names but he’s just have a mix of different portfolios for different people. If you were balanced, you’d have a couple of aggressive, a couple growth of income throughout the portfolio. That’s his business. He got credited for calling the 1987 market crash which I know every crash that happens everybody calls but he’s the only person that have done research on this that called it in writing and he put it in his September newsletter titled it Crashed: This Crash Going To Be Bigger Than The Three Previous Combined. One month later, we had one of the biggest stock market drops ever [Dow 00:04:27] and he had a ton news vans outside and everybody who’s …

Again, I described it as it looked like he just got busted at a big drug deal or something. It’s amazing. It’s just so many news vans, probably about six or seven, because back then it was different. There was only about 10 guys on TV or 10 people on TV that you listen to and when they were on, you really paid attention. It was kind of like how Cramer’s on today where you really pay attention when he’s on CNBC. Some people like the show Mad Money but he does a great job when you know he’s on earlier in the day and just breaks down what’s going on with stocks and everything.

Now today, we have what? Thousands of people. You don’t even know half the people. One guy goes on says, “Market’s going to crash 70%.” The other guy goes, “It’s going to go up 30% by the end of the year.” I mean, it’s just back and forth, back and forth confusion. It’s insane sometimes. You’re just watching so many people and … Yeah, you don’t even know half of these guys or their backgrounds or anything, it’s just crazy.

Back then, you knew exactly who the most important people, the most credible people were that’d been around for a long time.

Getting back to that newsletter, I remember being the office when I was young. We had to fold it, right? We did five different things and you take them, fold them, put postage on them, you stuff him at envelopes first, postal sign them then take them to the post office and used to mail him out. Even marketing was done through direct mail. Again, there’s no email. It’s amazing to see how much financial newsletter business has changed.

Hey, you had a great show. You have the MoneyShow which is still on today, which is pretty big. Big conference. In my day, you speak at events like that all the time. Two other people used to speak with are Mario Gabelli, Louis Navellier. I know you heard of those guys, probably both billionaires if that I guess by now. I met Maria Bartiromo when she was a kid because after my dad predicted the stock market crash of ’87, he was a fixture on everything. Bloomberg was just getting off the ground then. CNBC was just getting off the ground and Maria Bartiromo was a kid back then. I was just a little kid who had a [inaudible 00:06:38] across the street in New York City where he used to take me to all these interviews and sitting side while he was getting interviewed. They loved him there. It was great.

Now CNBC they did two biggest people on the show were Bill Griffeth and Sue Herera who are still on CNBC which is great to see and great, great people. Really, really cool people. They’re always nice. They always said hello, “How you doing? How’s your dad doing?” Just really, really good people and I’m glad they still have … They sell in CNBC. Smaller roles, probably by choice because they’ve been doing this for decades and decades and worked their ass off and done a great job.

Jim Cramer back then, he was managing Mad Money at the time and not such a household name yet. He was on a show, Kudlow & Cramer. Kudlow & Cramer that was a show I was on. Man, that’s got to be 15 years old now. They had Dad on that show before me like on a regular basis. I was on Kudlow, I think. It wasn’t on Kudlow & Cramer. Just when Kudlow has his own show. Kudlow & Company I think it was called, but it was Kudlow & Cramer, my Dad was actually on in his [Greenberg 00:07:41] on back then.

I remember going to Neil Cavuto where Neil Cavuto did a lot … It’s all stocks now. It’s got a lot of politics involved and Neil Cavuto, kind of amazing right? He looks like the same age as did 25 years ago.

Louis Rukeyser, huge name in the business. A show that my Dad used to be on all the time. Warren Buffett was obviously big but nothing compared to today. When Omaha and the amount of people that attend his event, the Berkshire. Annual that it’s crazy. My Dad wrote a small book at the time and it’s not so much relevant today because he was just saying, “Hey, you have to focus on the big four.” There’s a big four accounting firms. It was called Awareness of Indirection. It was a really good book but again, you look at the accounting firms and they’re all different today and different names and stuff but really, just a fundamental analyst. He wrote the book and it wasn’t that many pages. He sent it to Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett wrote a letter back to him and signed it with personal letters saying, “Hey Frank, thanks so much for the book. I enjoyed it. It was great.” I still have that letter today.

I look at the industry and where it was or what’s it becoming and just some of the people on TV and being involved, stuff like that always comes back to me especially when it’s coming to Father’s Day which is just a couple weeks away. These are the things I think about. You think about the good things and you’re making it that proud and everything and you want to raise your kids grade and all that stuff, but the things I look back is when I was working at the office, spending time with him and then the last few years of … He was really sick too where I started taking this very, very seriously and it was a good two-year period where he was just teaching me everything. I just asked him millions and millions of questions constantly because he knew was going to take over the business. Just really cool stuff.

When I look back at it all and just the historical angle of the entire industry, young growing up and it’s really, really, really cool. As you could tell, I’m getting a little choked up but it’s just cool when I think about where I was 25 years ago and sitting in the office and we have the courtesy of research logo everyplace and following my Dad’s footsteps is really cool.

I’m bringing this up because I have an amazing guest this week. It’s a first time guest but his name is Dr. Mark Skousen. Mark is an old school guy. He’s about four years’ experience in a financial newsletter industry, teaching finance and economics at numerous colleges over the past few decades. He’s written over 25 books. Man, I can’t even find the time to write one book. Twenty five books, lectured in dozens of countries, the producer of the FreedomFest Conference, very big conference and also the editor of the Forecasts & Strategies newsletter.

This is going to be a great interview. Mark’s going to breakdown the current landscape when it comes to the economy, tell us the three things that he believes could derail this 10-year bull market. I’m going to take a walk back in time some of things I just talked about because Mark, again, is an old school guy. A lot of the same people, people who paved the way. At least the way I look at for me, to become a financial newsletter writer. He’s going to talk about some of his favorite income and dividend paying stocks, and that’s the focus of his Forecasts & Strategies newsletter. Finally, Mark’s going to talk about the FreedomFest Conference were the biggest, held in Vegas. The biggest this year takes place next month, I think the 17th to 21st. We have a 250 speakers, that any got to be presenting. Those guys are the finance, and not just finance. I mean, you’re going to find billionaires, top CEOs, just free thinkers, even actors and really, really cool stuff. It’s an awesome conference because that lineup is incredible, you’re doing such a long time.

It’s even more incredible now because Mark, I’m very honored, and produce this amazing conference which by the way is going to have, if I have to guess, over 2,000 attendees but he invited me to speak in it and I accepted. He’s going to break down a FreedomFest. Tell you all about. Tell you can go if you’d like to see me speaking at it. A lot of people. A lot of fun. It’s a great, great, great interview coming up.

Then in my educational segment, I’m going to talk about a strategy that I mentioned a lot but I just don’t put a lot of emphasis on it and maybe I should. I definitely should because it’s going to make you a great investor. It’s simple, anyone could do it and I’m going to highlight an example that happened this week about how this strategy helped us, which when I say us subscribers to Curzio Venture Opportunities. Have a big winner in a portfolio and another 100% winner.

Several since we started, we’re doing very well with that newsletter and this company just announced that it’s going to get acquired by a larger competitor. I found it because of this strategy. Really cool segment coming up. Trust me it’s going to help you become a great investor.

Speaking of great investors, let’s get to my interview with the one and only Dr. Mark Skousen.

Dr. Mark Skousen, thanks so much for coming on Wall Street Unplugged.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Frank it’s a real pleasure. This is a first for me.

Frank Curzio: Well, Mark, let me tell you. You have a remarkable background and you wrote more than 25 books, consultants of Fortune 500 companies, lectured in 70 countries. You’re an economics and finance professor where you taught at numerous colleges; at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, UD Mercy, Rollins, Chapman College. Grantham University renamed its business school, the Mark Skousen School of Business which is really cool and you also-

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah, I should tell you by the way Frank that that usually … If you have a school named after you, that either means you’re a billionaire or you’re dead.

Frank Curzio: It’s nice to know that you’re a billionaire.

Dr. Mark Skousen: I’m [inaudible 00:13:49] make me a billionaire although it’s probably pesos, not dollars.

Frank Curzio: That’s great. Even with all of that, you find time to write several newsletters which is [inaudible 00:14:00]Forecasts & Strategies. These are just actually a few, Mark, of your accomplishments. Since this is your first appearance on a podcast, can you tell us or someone like me who’s been in his industry of such a long time and also learning from guys like you who’ve been doing this for 40 years, could you talk a little bit about your journey? Because over the past week I’ve got to know you and I could tell just by talking to you, you really still love this stuff don’t you?

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah. Finance in particular is fun because every day it’s different. You wake up every morning with new information that affects the markets. Wall Street exaggerates everything and some of the old saying on Wall Street and so every day is exciting and it’s challenging.

I got my start in the ’70s. My first job was with the CIA which was a really good experience working for the government and the bureaucracy and how it works and so forth. It wasn’t as exciting as it sounds because I was on the, what we call the overt side, the economic analysis but it was during a tumultuous time period of energy crises and inflation and recession and so forth. My first experience in the investment world as a managing editor … After I left CIA, I was the Managing Editor of an investment newsletter called the Inflation Survival Letter. I just got totally immersed in the Gold Bug environment of doom and gloom and alternative investing to stocks and bonds and looking at gold and silver and Swiss francs and real estate and that sort of thing. It’s a real baptism of fire.

Some of my early experiences were with gold bugs and Cassandra’s who are predicting the end of the world. I’ll never forget the story of Jerry Smith, Jerome Smith who had predicted that silver would double and then double again. He was a gold bug that everybody really followed at the time. I remember in 1975 he spoke in front of a couple thousand people in New York and he said that within five years the dollar will be worthless. I wrote that down because I said, “Wow! What a prediction.” Five years later we still had dollars and this dire prediction had not come true.

I was sitting next to Jerry for dinner in 1980, five years later and I turned to him and I said, “Jerry, what about that crazy prediction you made that the dollar would be worthless in five years?” He says, “Oh Mark, you misunderstood what I said. What I really said was the dollar would be worth less.”

Frank Curzio: Yeah, we hear a lot about it. We hear a lot of those when it comes to predictions these days, don’t we?

Dr. Mark Skousen: Well, yeah. It really taught me an important lesson. In fact I was kind of excommunicated from the Hard Money Movement and the Doom-And-Gloomer when Ronald Reagan was elected and that’s the year I started my own newsletter called Forecasts & Strategies. I was really shocked how many of my friends like Howard Ruff and Jim Blanchard and Murray Rothbard and so forth, all these people were really down on Reagan and yet he made such a difference. He threw Paul Volcker, stopped inflation or … Not stopped it but slowed it down sufficiently, or gold and silver were no longer the big investments, that we returned to stocks and bonds. It was a real eye-opener to me.

My very first promotion for my newsletter, Forecasts & Strategies, the headline was The Financial Shock of 1981 and you opened up the envelope and it said, “Reaganomics will work. Sell your gold and silver and buy stocks and bonds.” Well that promotion failed miserably because people didn’t believe it and yet it turned out to be a great prediction. Ever since then while I’ve always been cautious from time to time and there have been major bear markets and crashes and so forth, overall the long-term trend has been upward and if you were a bear since Reagan was elected, you had your head handed to you time and time again because the markets have been up a lot more than they’ve been down.

I have changed my philosophy over the years and I’m more a believer. You asked me, one of your questions was about who has influenced me and even though I got started in this gold bug movement, I’ve since become more involved with a long-term perspective. My people of influence may have been Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School who’s written stocks for the long run, Burton Malkiel, Random Walk Down Wall Street, who talks about efficient markets and buying index funds. Sir John Templeton who I met several times because I lived in the Bahamas for a couple of years, he was a very long term bullish type of entrepreneur who believed in the American Dream and believed in capitalism.

That’s my background. I’ve been through the difficult time periods. I’ve been through bull and bear markets, through boom and bust, through crises and so forth. I tend to be more of an optimist now because of what I’ve witnessed over the years. It’s easy to get berries from time to time but I think the history is on the side of the bulls at least when it comes to the United States.

Frank Curzio: Well Mark, we’ve been in a 10-year bull market and I love it because you sent me copies of your newsletters, I’ve been reading it and I noticed that no, you’re not a perma-bear or perma-bull you’re just looking at facts and figures and numbers and that’s how you judge on what to buy selling your newsletter and how you make your forecasts.

We have a 10-year bull market right now. The past couple weeks, we’ve seen the market come down and trade wars and stuff like that but, what are some of the risks you see to the current bull market? Because I know you’ve written about this and I know … Like you said, you lean more bullish long-term but there are a lot of risks in the marketplace, I guess you could say there’s always risks in the marketplace but what are some of the things that can really derail this economy that you think?

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah. I do look at those things because my newsletter is called Forecasts & Strategies and there’s nothing more valuable than someone who can predict a crisis or a bear market, it’s difficult to do. I see three potential fears out there that could cause us to end as mother of all bull markets which I’ve been fully invested and I’m still 100% invested at this time. But the three fears I have is; one, is the Fed reversing from an easy money to a tight money policy. There’s some evidence that they’re doing that with the slowing of the monetary aggregates, the money supply as well as raising the breaks. Although they’re now tempted even lower rates and they’ve certainly postponed raising rates but Fed policy is always been the real negative, especially in inverted yield curve which we have a modest example of right now.

The second one is socialism. You see examples of this in Europe and certainly Venezuela is the worst case scenario. If there was a stock market Venezuela, it would be it would be down 90% at least. Regulations, high taxes and so forth and I think we need to be a little bit careful about Donald Trump being supposedly a very free-market capitalist type of guy. Some of the things he’s been favoring here with his protectionist measures and going after Amazon and attacking … Now, they’re talking about antitrust against some of these big tech companies. This is not the sign of a Pro free-market capitalist so I am a little bit concerned about that.

The third factor is the geopolitical crises that military action, wars, some type of action that could an outlier, an errant state. The instability that we’re seeing in Venezuela and in Iran and the [inaudible 00:23:18] views of China and North Korea, these are hot spots that we need to be concerned about that could cause the market to head south especially after, like you say, 10 years plus of a major bull market.

Bull markets climb a wall of worry. The market has not fallen dramatically but what we saw at the end of last year something that could happen if some unexpected event happens or the Fed overreaction or what have you.

Frank Curzio: Yeah, definitely a lot of risks in the marketplace.

I want to go back to the economics part because you discuss a few things on a macro level but I wanted to go back to … Because you’re currently teaching and for me, I’m a huge fan of economics. I’m a die-hard but when I was in college they would teach me things like bell curves, they would teaching me supply-demand, lines all over the place which isn’t bad for die-hards but boring for the average folks. When I look at economics and I say this a lot in my podcasts, it’s about everything you do in your life. If you’re buying milk, the price’s higher, there’s lots of houses for sale in your neighborhood or the more houses is less houses, your tuition, electricity, healthcare bills going higher, your neighbor’s buying new cars, stores packed with people, the stops at the place that you shop. I mean, it’s just so many things. Even when I get off a flight I’m always asking the cab drivers, “How’s business? How’s everything?”

When you teach it, I’m curious to know because it’s such a fascinating subject to me if it’s taught right where how the kids responding? You see more kids go into economics because back in my day, it was just … The way was boring but yet I just find it so fascinating that this is the feel that I think there’s so many, even the Millennials, could really get into and it’s also a good-paying job.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yes. I’ve been an adjunct professor. I have so many activities I’m involved in in the real world but I do want to do want to have one foot in the academic world and spend time with students. It does give me encouragement to spend time with young people and see their eyes light up when I’ve told them something that they hadn’t thought of before or I said, “Put your economic cap on and let’s analyze this statement by a socialist,” or somebody wants to favor the minimum wage or what have you. You see the light go on in their mind realizing that this is not something that would be a good thing.

I wished everybody could take courses in economics especially from free-market economists. They aren’t enough of them, I’m afraid. But business and finance in particular I think is the area to go into. Economics is unfortunately become a sideshow of mathematicians. I think that’s really hurt the profession in terms of its practical value. The introductory and courses are really valuable to learn supply and demand and the importance of economic growth and what drives the economy.

Of course I’m arguing that on the supply side of conservative free-market economics so what drives the economy is entrepreneurship and savings and capital formation and technology and that comes on the supply side. I use the example of Seattle where you look at companies like Boeing and Microsoft and Starbucks and Amazon, that’s what’s made Seattle prosper. It’s not that they pulled out their credit cards and went out on a spending spree.

It’s important to teach these principles but I think it’s a little bit of an uphill battle when you see that 30 states recently had referendums raising the minimum wage and they all passed. It just demonstrates that it’s going to be difficult to teach people sound economics from time to time.

Well one of the reasons I do my FreedomFest conference is we get a lot of students who come to that, a lot of adults where they can learn. We need to come together to learn more not just give speeches and give our political views but we can actually learn new ways of thinking and become more intelligent in our decision making whether it’s in business or politics or in life.

Frank Curzio: Yeah Mark, let’s talk about your FreedomFest Conference, okay? You called the world’s largest gathering of free minds as thousands of people that attend this conference. You’re the producer this event. I guess before we go any further, talk about how this whole thing started and how humbled are you? How big this conference has gotten over the years as actors, billionaires, market experts, historians, leading CEOs. Your line up of speakers at these conferences is absolutely incredible.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah, including yourself coming for the first time. We’re very excited to have you.

Frank Curzio: Thank you. Appreciate that.

Dr. Mark Skousen: As a matter of fact, I felt for some time that we were gradually losing our freedom whether its financial freedom or political or economic freedom with higher taxes and regulations where everything is … We live in a world where more and more, everything is either being regulated or prohibited or we’re being forced to … Or mandate. We’re being squeezed from both sides from prohibitions and mandates.

My thinking was, “Why don’t we have a national convention where we address these issues and it’s all about freedom and we call a FreedomFest?” I started this when I was the President of FEE, the Foundation for Economic Education. We had our first conference in Las Vegas. We had 750 people and now it’s grown. It’s not part of FEE anymore. They’re one of the people invited along with Cato and Heritage and Reason and all the other freedom organizations; Students for Liberty, Americans for Prosperity, Heartland Institute, the Manhattan Institute. It’s just a wonderful gathering of free thinking individuals gathering the usual suspects, if you will in it, and it’s really growing. We have 2,000, 2,500 people coming from all over the country and all over the world and we have it in Las Vegas. It’s an intellectual feast in the entertainment capital of the world. Nobody’s ever bored because we have numerous breakout sessions, we have debates, we have a mock trial, we have the Anthem Film Festival. We have music and dance. We celebrate liberty. We’re there to learn from each other. We’re there to network. We always have top entertainment and keynote speakers.

We’ve had William Shatner. We’ve had George Foreman. Three or four years ago we have Donald Jay Trump himself, the beginning of the election. We have over 200 speakers every year. We have all kinds of activities.

The idea is there’s strength in numbers and a lot of get pessimistic that we can’t make any changes but when you gather together, the brute lightness in Vegas and we’re coming up next month in July 17th to the 20th at the Paris Resort. We’d love to have all of your listeners sign up and join us hear you, myself. We have Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank as our keynote speaker. John Mackey the CEO of Whole Foods Markets is there all three days. We have Steve Forbes. We have three-day investment conference that is really tough to beat.

I mean, it’s just a wonderful experience to meet people. People go to freedomfest.com and look at our website and looked at the quotes from people and all the different line up of speakers and panels and debates, it really is an incredible event. We are approaching a thousand people already. We usually double that. It’s amazing how many people sign up at the end. Our hotel room block is filling up. It’s going to be filled in the next couple of weeks. It would be great to have everybody who’s interested to join us at that point and be a part over this big event.

Frank Curzio: You do the job where you said the networking and also the entertainment part, which is important because so many of the conversations, you’ve seen so many speeches too. Sometimes people just read off their slides.

You have the entertainment factor. Talk about the theme which you’re excited about which is the Wild West theme.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah. Every year we have a theme that’s different. One time we did Orly Rome, the other one was we’re headed for American or French revolution. One time we had one on the American Dream, is the American dream still alive. This year our theme is the Wild West, which I think is a great theme because with Donald Trump in office it is kind of a wild west. You never know what’s going to happen next.

It is exciting time period. We’re having quite a few western type of themes. We even have a square dance. We have the first Saturday night banquet. We have the Amish Outlaws, rock and roll band that’s playing real great dance band.

I’m going to give a talk on Jack London, the Call of the Wild and we’re going to talk about the history of gold mining, how the west represents freedom, moving away from government control and so forth. We have the free market environmentalists coming from Perk in Montana.

We have a lot of debates. We’re going to have what we call the libertarian duel in the sun between John Mackey of Whole Foods and Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank. For those of you who are familiar with Shark Tank, you know that Kevin O’Leary calls himself Mr. Wonderful it’s really Mr. Shark who says, “The only purpose of business is to make money. If you want a friend buy a dog.”

He’s a really interesting hard hitting … He is giving a talk called The Cold Hard Truth about Money and Business. Then, he’s going to debate to John Mackey who says that business has a much higher purpose, that it’s about the heroic, the beautiful, the true, the good and it’s not just about making money. That’s going to be a fun debate as well.

We’re going to have a debate on the trade war between Steve Moore who is defending Trump’s trade war and GMU Professor Don Boudreaux who is pretty much against it. We’re going to have a food fight between vegans and those who eat meat. We’re going to have a God, no God debate between a believer and non-believer. We’re going to have Justin Amash coming who is going to defend his argument that Trump has committed impeachable offenses.

A lot of people find him to be very controversial. He’s going to be there as well Candace Owens who is Black conservative, who has taken on Congress and Democrats there. Our mock trial is on the Second Amendment.

We have a lot of fun things that we do at the conference. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it and everyone … We have people who come back year after year because of how everything is so different.

My original purpose is to create a conference that I would like to be at because I’m sure you’re aware, you’ve been to many conferences, you’re bored to tears with the speaker and you go out and just spend time in the exhibit hall because … But at FreedomFest people are … We have 10 breakout sessions and they’re all on different topics so there’s something for everybody.

Frank Curzio: I want to talk to you about that really quick because as someone who’s been in this industry for such a long time, fellow economics, politics, Washington. The lineup that you have, you just mention a lot of people; there’s die-hards, there’s gold bugs, there’s people, no regulation ever and conservatives, people right or left-

Dr. Mark Skousen: Anarchists, we have them all.

Frank Curzio: Yet you can have them on stage and have a cool conversation where they’re not going to kill each other which that’s what they’re for, you want to hear different opinion than what you have. Maybe you don’t agree with it but you respect it and you have this whole conference.

Why is a conference like this, you could see that happen and almost throughout anything? You could see that happen where there’s negotiation and you respect people’s opinion but now, when it comes to politics, how bad is it today? Because for me I’ve been arguing that this is one of the biggest risks Washington where nothing is going to get done, where these two sides actually hate each other. I don’t know if it’s driven by the media, whatever but even the heated conversations you have with friends these days, it’s so emotional right now. Have you seen that in your career? Has it been this bad?

Again for me, I’m pushing 50 and really study politics the last 20 years but for someone who is followed Reagan, who followed Presidents in the past, have you seen it this bad where people actually … There’s so much hate when it comes to politics. No negotiation, there’s no fun. People can’t discuss and debate.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah, that’s another reason we started FreedomFest is because we wanted civil debates. We actually have Paul Krugman come and debate Steve Moore on economic policy and he was … It was a formal debate where each one made their points. They didn’t talk over each other. They didn’t interrupt each other like they do in Fox News and CNN. In fact, Paul Krugman left that conference with a very much more positive view regarding Libertarians who are respectful and civil.

We try to avoid labels as much as possible. We avoid the left, right dichotomy and try … If we believe in individualism then why shouldn’t we treat people as individuals?

We have people of all different beliefs and we, right from the get-go tell people to be civil with each other. Sometimes it does get out of hand and politic is one of them. We’ve had some brouhahas over Trump and so forth but they’re memorable and people enjoy the debates. They don’t go away angry at the world.

That’s one of the real positive things. You walk away with a very positive feeling about America and where we’re headed after coming to FreedomFest.

The other thing that we do that’s really unique is we have no green room. Speakers or attendees and attendees or speakers, you may sit down next to Steve Forbes or John Mackey at a session. We really encourage our speakers to attend. I know you were planning to come for the entire conference to get the whole experience so we prefer that.

Yeah, we have a few people coming and give a speech and then leave but Steve Forbes said, he was going to do that initially. The very first time I invited Steve Forbes his secretary said, “No, no. He has to come in and give a speech and then leave. That’s his mantra.” She called back week later and said, “Mr. Forbes has looked at your schedule of all your speakers and he’s changed his schedule and he’s attending all three days.”

That was a really endorsement of the program that we have. I think you’ll find some real optimism there while people will disagree and so forth. There’s a feeling of warmth and camaraderie that has been missing in politics and in congress certainly for some time. I’m looking forward to getting your response.

Frank Curzio: No. I think you’re going to get response from our list because I know there’s a lot of people are interested in this conference. I know they talk to me about it and they’re really excited that I’m speaking at it.

I want to end with this, Mark because we didn’t get a chance to talk about your newsletter which is Forecasts & Strategies, which is a cool newsletter with an income focus. I like reading your macro thoughts and your comments and how it filters down to the micro and individual names to pay dividends.

I guess talk a little bit about that newsletter because I looked at some of the things that you’re investing in and I was wondering … Just an income side which you know interest rates are low, it’s not as easy to find great stocks that pay high yields because there’s a lot of money pouring into them and they’re going to take a little more risks, they’ll a little expensive because interest rates are so low and people are buying for yield.

Yet you found a lot of interesting stocks that have done well. Talk about a little bit your strategy with that newsletter.

Dr. Mark Skousen: I am concerned you mention that the dividend stocks are very popular these days. I speak at the money shows and the New Orleans conference and my own conference and so forth. It seems like everybody is talking about dividend paying stock, people are seeking income. Why? Because the alternative of treasury bills is not very appealing, it’s hard to begin to keep up with inflation even when the rates have gone a little bit.

I think you have to be very selective. I have a program where I look for three things. One is quality. They have to be quality companies that are making money and are in a growth industry. That’s really key, so it can’t be in dying industry.

Number two I want an above average yield, which is not difficult since the average yield is 1.8% on the SMP500. Two or3, 4% I find ones with 6% that are sustainable. That’s really key. You have to make sure that the dividend isn’t going to be cut.

Then the third criteria is I look for a rising dividend policy.

When you put those three together, I think you come closest to peace of mind investing. You sleep well at night investing. It’s not going to protect you completely from a bear market but it’s going to cushion to fall and to know those dividends are coming in is going to be very positive.

I reduce my portfolio to four or five stocks. There aren’t very many out of all the ones with criteria that are in a burgeoning market, making money, above average yield and a rising dividend policy. When you put all those criteria together, how many stocks qualify?

Now granted I don’t get in on Amazon. I don’t recommend or I didn’t get into Apple and so forth because for years, they didn’t pay a dividend so I missed out on those opportunities but a lot of people don’t realize that forever Apple or Amazon, there are hundreds of so called growth stocks that go nowhere or who run out of money and go out of business. We avoid those kinds of situations.

It’s a really good strategy for people who are looking for income, for retirees, people who have been successful in business and don’t want to lose it because I meet a lot of people who are very successful in business and then got into the wrong stock or a money manager that managed their money till it was all gone, that’s really a sad situation. I’m sure you’ve met people like that who have really been hurt because they thought that making money was easy in the stock market and it’s not.

Frank Curzio: No, it’s definitely not. I guess we’ll end with this because we talked about certain risks that you see in the marketplace but where do you see the market even a couple years from now? Because I know that you consult for Fortune 500 companies. You’ve done in the past. Where do you see … You see a long term bullish old world but where do you see the markets going long period if you would advise your clients over the next three to five years? Because we have trade which probably this problem may not exist a year from now just like sequester and all that like disappeared. It’s just amazing the risk that we see that we amplify so much. Probably that can be risk a year from now. I’m just curious what you see with the long term … Of course, you’re looking at Fed policy and things like that but what’s your prediction, which is hard, but for next three to five years?

Dr. Mark Skousen: I look at the megatrends and in fact that’s going to be our theme for 2020 at FreedomFest. Since it’s 2020, what are we going to focus on the future? I try to gather together all the forecasters who have done a good or a decent job for predicting the future. All the doomsday crowd is going to be harder to find, to invite them-

Frank Curzio: Exactly.

Dr. Mark Skousen: … to this conference because they’ve been wrong for so long but nevertheless, you do want Cassandra who have done a good job in predicting these things.

One of the long term trends that people are ignoring is the huge pool of savings that are developing from the baby boomers. They are saving a lot more than they’re spending. According to a number of studies, this trend could mean lower interest rates for quite some time that we may not have seen the bottom of interest rates, believe it or not, that this is just jump up. You’ve already seen long term rates dropping again. That’s very bullish for once we resolve these trade policies and maybe some of the geopolitical crises. I mean, how low can Venezuela get? It can only get better at this point because it’s a disaster.

I do think that we have potential for another spurt in the stock market and we maybe in the middle landing instead of the end of the ball game, so to speak. I think that’s a really positive factor here. There’s always some things that you never want to put everything in a bullish scenario. You do want to hedge your position because it’s hard to predict the unpredictable whether it’s crises of one sort or another or Fed making a bad mistake. Nobody likes to see their portfolio lost 50% of its value and that seems to happen once every decade or so.

I’m cautious. The best I can recommend, we do have a gold position but it’s in Franco, Nevada which is a finance company of mining and so forth. It has done well recently. We do protect their selves or we hedge our position but we’re staying primarily in these income producing investments. I think that’s your most conservative strategy right now.

Frank Curzio: I love that forecast. Lower interest rates, longer term because you’re not hearing that really any place. You’re hearing, “Well, they’re low. They might be low for a little bit but long term [inaudible 00:47:29] rates are going to be much higher.” I actually love that forecast which is great.

Now, if someone wants to find out more information about you, Dr. Skousen, how could they do that whether it’s your newsletter or the FreedomFest Conference?

Dr. Mark Skousen: Well for the FreedomFest Conference, if they go to freedomfest.com they can get all the information about that. My newsletter if you go to markskousen.com, the last name is S-K-O-U-S-E-N, markskousen.com that gives them all the information on my newsletter.

Frank Curzio: Mark, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I’ve learned a lot. Hopefully you join us again and I’m really looking forward to attending your conference. I want to say thank you for letting me speak at your conference and look forward to meeting you in person.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Great. Thank you, Frank. See you in Vegas.

Frank Curzio: All right. Great stuff from Mark. By the way if you do register at FreedomFest Conference next month, before you check out there can be place you can use a code. I’m not getting paid for this. I always try and negotiate deals for you guys where you probably get charged cheaper prices for newsletters or anything. They were nice enough to provide me a code with is FRANK in capital letters and 50, so FRANK50 and you can use that code to get $150 off the full price of FreedomFest. Instead of paying $695 per person, $995 per couple; it’s $545 per person, $845 per couple. Again, that code is FRANK50 if you register. I’m not getting paid a dime for it but I wanted to … I like doing that for you guys and shows us the podcast, we find the best deal as possible.

People are going to talk about their conference and I’m giving them a chance to talk to my audience, I want to make sure that they provide special deals for you because, again, we’ll in this to learn about the markets, to learn … It’s a great conference like he explained where you’re going to get different opinion. You’re going to have great debates where people aren’t killing each other and arguing and things like that and I’m really looking forward to speaking at this conference. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Also I’m meeting Mark in person because I know so much about him. It was great to really talk to him this week and get to know him and get him on to be speaking at that conference with a lot of really, really great names.

Again if you guys register for that and you go to freedomfest.com, just make sure you use that code, FRANK50, this way you get $150 off if you decide to attend the conference which again is being held in Vegas.

I love having old school analyst on the show because I grew up industry and a lot of those great players, legends, still get to see them on TV sometimes. They don’t make big appearances. A lot of fun and I like Mark a lot. Very smart guy. Again, looking forward to his conference. With that said … Listen, this podcast is about you, not about me. Let me know what you thought about it, interview it. Frank@CurzioResearch.com, that’s Frank@CurzioResearch.com. Let’s get to our educational segment.

Hey Gary, did I say that twice in there when I said, “With that said”? I feel like I said that twice. If I did, could you take one of those out?

Gary: Yeah, sure.

Frank Curzio: Right. It’s all in that one segment. I might have said that twice.

Gary: Yeah.

Frank Curzio: Okay. I’m going to keep going. I said now, let’s to the educational segment.

Okay. Here we go.

Cypress Semiconductor is one of our holdings in a portfolio, recommended in January 2017. It’s a company that was very, very high on, that I love. It’s a semiconductor. When it comes to the semiconductor industry you have to be careful because you’ve Nvidia who basically makes parts for graphic gaming cards and stuff like that. Now it’s a big mark especially during Crypto they were getting an extra bonus and they were increasing market share, because you need the top of the line fast computers to really mine for cryptos.

Again, that cooled off a lot over the past 2018 and 2019, but still that’s high end where it’s not so much … Because eventually these things, it’s almost like a commoditized business and prices go lower, lower and lower so you always try to find new ways to improve those margins, new products or whatever. But Cypress always had a great balance sheet, a great management team and they were in the key areas, which is important when you’re investing in chip companies.

Like Intel had been a big fan of and it trans during … Again, it’s an old school and computer stuff like that and PCs and getting more into AI and a whole bunch of other different markets. It’s slow and I thought [inaudible 00:51:53] fast that’s why stocks got hit lately but long-term that’s what they’re doing.

Cypress right now is one of the key players in autonomous driving industrial which is smart factories which are being built like crazy by Fortune 500 companies, biggest companies in the world, and most important it’s one of the best place specifically on the internet of things because they make chips or the best chips in the industry that basically if you look at that, they help every device connect to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The reason why the best-in-class is because they found a way to have these chips where they’re using very little power which helps conserve battery life and we all know that’s a big deal considering most phones have terrible battery life.

Anything that connects to the internet almost, anything is going to have you know Cypress chips in it so they can have exposure to. When I went to the conference which is a Consumer Electronics Show which I go to every year and I think it’s like seven or eight years we’re on, I always stress the importance of boots on the ground and what does that mean?

That means traveling to places, talking to people. The CES is cool because you have all these companies and again, so many of them and that been going so long, have great contacts and they tell me exactly where to go; what’s the most important technology is? What’s getting the biggest buzz? Which winning the CES Awards and getting into meetings thanks to you because the podcast is getting bigger and bigger that I may be able to get a media badge. When people see media, they always want to talk to you. You can cut lines and talk to the main people and try these technologies out which again, time is a viable commodity. I want to see as many companies as I can. This way I can report back to my subscribers.

Having those boots on the ground and going to Alaska, going to Switzerland, going to Europe, traveling, just being in the room speaking at conferences, that’s allowed me to build my network over 25 years. It’s very big now because I interview a lot of great people on the podcast and they become friends for life and analysts across every single industry, of entity billionaires, heads of states, CEOs, yeah everything across the board which is great but it always leaves lease new ideas.

It’s so important when it comes to boots on the ground because you got to get out there. You’re not going to find new idea by sitting behind a desk and you listen to somebody who has somebody probably has a huge stake on it. You want to get out there and see these technologies. Sample them. Talk to the people. Because when you go to consumer electronics show you have all these booths, all these displays and of course you have the booth babes. If they have intel or any big companies, I’ll have 20 girls who are all models and some of them, very few of them, know about the company but as soon as you’d go up to them they’d be like, “Hi, I don’t know anything. Let me introduce you to somebody.”

Get away from the booth babes. If you like that, you like that. That’s fine. I’m talking about stocks and making money here. You want to get past them and when you get past them, the employees in there are brilliant. They’re running separate divisions or maybe the Vice President of separate divisions but they’ll sit there and talk to you and the information you could extract for them. That’s their job because it’s an electronic show, they want to tell you everything about their new products is absolutely amazing.

I remember 2013 when I went to the Ericsson booth and I talked to leading engineers there, a great guy. I was like, “You know, where are we in when it comes to Cloud computing?” Again, few people knew what Cloud computing was back. I think it was 2014. He’s like, “We’re not even in the first inning. We have no idea.” I said, “Really?” This one, AWS was really smaller, not really taking off where Azure Microsoft and Cloud in general how big it’s gotten but I was just surprised that he said that. He’s not talking his book or anything he works at the company but it’s not like he has a massive stake in all these Cloud computing companies or anything. You’re just saying, “Hey …” He was real. You could tell. He was just like, “It’s very early and people don’t understand how this is going to be the future.”

I would have never learned that less I go there. Now when I look at company Cypress Semiconductor, it just got acquired they can be [inaudible 00:56:01] for $23 and change. It’s a site that we had in our newsletter and I think that cost based around tenant change so it’s more than 100% winner. That tenant change includes the dividends which we’ve had since 2017. It does pay a solid dividend. Great casual growing. One of the cheapest stocks and three months ago or four months ago, I actually wrote to my subscribers saying, “Look at this level, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone comes in and takes them over,” and that’s what happened because they weren’t really getting fair value of what this company was worth and they put themselves up for sale. There was rumors. It went from 14 to 17.

Then Infineon came in and said, “We’re going to pay over $23 a share for you.” I always thought it would get more than 20. Almost $24 a share it is it’s a great find.

Now when I went to the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2017, the biggest theme by far was Alexa. You say, “Well, Alexa was 2016 almost 2015.” You’re right, but 2017 from someone that’s been going to these conferences, you had you know Google’s virtual assistant, you had Apples. The year before, they displayed all three and you saw all the products whether it’s Honeywell, how to display there. Any of the smart cities … Everything with … You could use those devices, it’s a really program and use them through … Which creates smart homes and things like that. It was a big deal, the virtual assistants in 2016.

2017 big deal for me is there was no Google Home there, very few. Apple is gone and nobody’s paying attention. Everything, everything, everything was Alexa. Everything. Everything. No matter what technology came out, it works with Alexa. We have smart faucets, bathrooms that are smart, works with Alexa. Every part of the house, anything that plugs in, anything that uses batteries, it works with Alexa. That’s 2017.

For me, one is Amazon was … You could see the clear leader. Now they’re into growth market where every home’s going to be smart eventually because everything whether it’s washing machines, refrigerators, they’re all becoming smart and they’re going to be able to connect to Alexa if you want the Alexa. Some people so scared and whatever.

When it came to Cypress not only they in Alexa, which was selling record amount of device in 2017, but they’re in just about any device it’s going to connect to the internet and everybody was connecting everything to the internet with the Internet of things technology and using Alexa. Cypress, when I went back and looked today said, “Wow! This is the best play by far on this and they don’t have to worry about handsets, mobile phones.” That’s a mature market. You want to be careful.

In 2013, Cypress reminded me of Skyworks because in 2013 I saw Skyworks it was about $20, $29 a share and I just came back, I think it was 2013, 2014, and that’s when the internet things trend first started. Skyworks was really into mobile, mobile is growing. Iphone’s going crazy. Samsung as well. Recommended Skyworks and it went over $100 all to share. It was a big winner for us.

The reason why I like Skyworks is because I had a couple bad quarters before and it fell. It was trading I think $50, $60 and it fell. Same as Cypress. The company fell. It reported bad quarter. They were just restructuring and the restructuring, when I looked at the numbers, margins going to explode higher, earnings were going to surge like they’re growing five times faster than market going forward. It was a dirt cheap stock and you don’t see really dirt cheap stocks that are expected to grow and have huge growth potential. You don’t see that. Usually they trade at more expensive valuations.

I felt the value would eventually get recognized. I thought it’d be 18 to 24 months and it took a little bit longer than that but we made out and it was a great game compared to the overall market. We’ve taken about 115% percent returns on it, I think.

I’m not here to pat myself on the back and tell you that I had a winner. It’s more about the importance of being in the room because you could all do that. I’m not talking that you have to really go to attend all these conferences which can be expensive but even when you’re recommending a retailer, go to the stores. Ask questions with the employees, they you know a lot of stuff no matter what it is. If it’s a supermarket, go there and ask things … I mean, so many products sold through these stores. Are they selling more of them? Ask a lot of questions.

When you get off a plane and you’re taking an Uber or a taxi, talk to the driver, “Hey, how is it? Is it busy?”

“Yeah, it’s crazy here.”

For me with all the emails that I get from everyone and a lot of you are business owners, and the reason why I’ve been so bullish on this market over the past five, six years is from hearing from you, “Business has never been this great. It’s awesome.”

You get tons of customers. You generate more revenue. In 90% of the emails and we’re talking about thousands and thousands of emails have come in and when I travel, I’m talking to these cab drivers, “The conferences are packed and hotels are packed, construction everywhere.” Maybe this blows up in your face later on but having that real-world analysis and being able to talk to so many different people and email me it’s … For me, I’m reporting the data back to you and saying, “Hey, guys. Listen, the housing market’s great. There’s low inventory. People try to buy homes and they can’t. Home prices are going higher.” Telling off a little bit now but having that network is absolutely amazing.

For you, just get out there and ask a lot of questions. It’s important because also in that issue I recommended another stock and it was a trend that I saw which was getting very, very big and that’s drones. Around that time, this is 2017, so the year before it really got crazy there was drones everywhere. Huge, small, cameras and you saw drones showing up at Walmart’s, Targets so the consumers started to buy them. Then I said, “You know, let me look a little bit more into this trend.” I looked and I found air environment. The stock just got hammered down I think 40% from its highs because the company said, “Look, we’re not going to focus too much on the consumer market because we don’t think that’s a big growth market,” and they were right. People not buying tons of drones right now. You saw them. I probably see less now than I did two years ago.

But he said, “You know what? What we’re going to really focus on government orders and building drones for governments and governments that are friends with us as well as the U.S. where these drones have capabilities that have eye recognition technology on their cameras that could do face recognition from a mile away and they have missiles and could blow up a terrorist or blow up something. You have counter drones.

When you look at the defense spending, which is something I always focus on because even when it came to the sequester, I don’t want to get too far off point here, sequester is basically cutting the budget in the government and a lot in the Defense Department but one area that they’re spending a ton of money on is drones. Why? Because you could send the drone there and you don’t have to worry about anybody dying and they could create a lot of damages. It’s just an area in defense where they were spending a ton of money on. I’m look at air environment going, “Wow, this company’s taking one step back to go five steps forward.”

We recommended that company the same issue and that sucks up 150%. We took profits when it was up about a 105% to cuff off the table, the half’s up 150% a little more now. The only reason why I found those two stocks and we’re able to research them is because I went to Consumer Electronics Show which I do every single year.

This year I went again and I recommend another stock and it’s a stock that I’m sure nobody ever heard that’s in the portfolio, that’s doing well. It’s doing a lot better but look, the last six weeks everything’s down other than the past few days but long term, it’s just a fantastic company. It’s unbelievable. It’s something I never heard of. It’s a foreign company that has an ADR that you could buy but it’s just … The technology that they have is unbelievable and they just came out a new device that is a backlog for nine months, 10 months which is unbelievable but it’s … Listen, it’s a great company. It’s awesome.

The importance of this segment is, guys, it’s very easy to do this. It’s just a matter you putting the time in. Remember, you’re investing your money. This is your money that you want to build up. You want to retire. Hopefully a big enough nest egg you’re going to leave it to your children, generational wealth. When you think about that way, you want to do everything you can to know all the information possible on what you’re investing in. Do that. Make some phone calls. People love to … Especially die-hard departments, investor relations, call them. Ask questions. Talk to them. See if you get someone on the phone. What’s the worst they can say to you? “No, you’re an idiot!” Big deal. All right. You hang up the phone and fine. You go eat popcorn and watch TV.

But you’re going to get that guy to come over the phone or that girl come on the phone and give you a ton of information about the company, maybe invite you to their next annual meeting, you get to learn a lot, meet new people, networking but that’s how you find the best ideas. You can’t do it sitting behind a desk.

We saw that with these two companies and again, I talked about my losers just as much as I talk about my winners probably even more but I can’t stress the importance of this. I say it all the time, time boots on the ground and being in the room. Marin Katusa says as well. I can’t stress the importance of that because you see the difference in your portfolio because you’ve done more work on these stocks than anybody else in these investments. For me, I’m always comfortable giving these investments out because that’s how much research it takes to really dig in and find good ideas but that happens … Really, most of those ideas that I’m finding is because I’m out there, speaking at so many different conferences, visiting these companies.

In Vancouver, three or four times a year. In New York probably five, six times a year. I always meet with hedge fund managers, different people, finding new idea. That’s what we do and that’s what I want to bring to you with my newsletters, which by the way I’m still getting a lot of calls and emails, mostly, you know calls for customer service where frankly speaking we put behind a paywall so we’re just getting, a lot of questions from a lot of people who don’t own any of our products and I’d rather just focus on the people who really pay for our products. Our cheapest product is theCurzio Research Advisory and we have an offer, it’s an curzioresearchoffer.com and charging $49 for the year for that newsletter which I assure you we’re not making a ton of money on but for me I like … More an introductory product where you’re going to have lots of new picks, pretty much mid-cap, large-cap picks in that newsletter. See a great research, 10-page research reports. For me I like charging that price because during my 25-year career, the way I was able to build up my network is by doing the right thing. I had a little bit of rant on that a couple weeks ago at Dominican Republic. My daughter got sick and they didn’t do the right thing. When you do the right thing for me, it always comes back 10 times over.

For us charging $49 for the year for that newsletter and also gives you that time of being able to ask me questions. I’ll take those questions at some on frankly speaking but frankly speaking is behind the paywall now because I’m still getting some questions, “Where is it?” For the free people.

Well, if you’re a paying subscriber you have access to it. It’s on our website. Guys, feel free to ask me questions. You guys are subscribers. Send them in at Frank@CurzioResearch.com.

Getting back to the boots on the ground thing, guys, you know how important that is. Everyone can do it, anyone could do it but make sure you put that time in especially when you get a buys. If you’re trader, it’s different. You’re looking at just … You don’t care what the company does, you just look at the price levels or whatever but from a fundamental side you want to get out there.

[Mike Alkin 01:07:35] does a great job as well going different car lots and then saying that the car companies and the suppliers are going to get crushed and the whole Tesla thing. The amount of research that he’s done and I’d love to see that in our industry because you see that in hedge fund world, you don’t see it too much in financial newsletters where … Look, people just writing to you and new ideas and that didn’t get them anywhere. It’s good to see pictures of that editor that you’re following that’s in the field, he’s giving you information you’re not seeing anywhere else, it’s original. But that’s what you want and the only way you get that type of research is if you get out there, if you’re in the room and you have your boots on the ground.

Guys, pretty cool podcast today. Talk about a little bit old-school. Sorry if I got a little bit emotional there but you know how much I love this industry. Mark’s a great guest. Looking forward to FreedomFest Conference. If you guys want to register again, you can go there make sure you use that code Frank 50. If not, no worries. I’ll see if I can get a replay of it or whatever but I’m not sure that could happen but for those you going to Vegas, definitely stop by. Say hello. I love speaking to subscribers in person. It’s actually an honor, it’s something I love doing.

With that said, that’s it for me. Thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate all the support. I’ll see you guys in seven days. Take care.

Announcer: The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its hosts and guests. You should not base your investment decision solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money and your responsibility.

Wall Street Unplugged produced by the Choose Yourself Podcast Network, the leader in podcasts produced to help you choose yourself.


Editor’s note: Curzio Venture Opportunities subscribers had the chance to bank 110% on another small-cap growth stock this week—the fourth triple-digit winner since the launch of the service—thanks to the incredibly powerful strategy Frank explains on the show.

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Takeaways from last night's presidential debate—and why markets are so volatile today… How much the Fed should cut rates by next week… Will Ally Financial's (ALLY) warning trigger a banking crisis? … And what tZERO's SEC approval means for crypto.

Nvidia

Is Nvidia a monopoly?

When it pays to be a contrarian… Why the manufacturing slowdown is actually good… Is Nvidia (NVDA) a monopoly? … This Friday's job data is critical for the Fed… An alternative to stocks… And some opportunities as stocks fall.