Transcript was automatically generated.

Frank Curzio 00:00

How’s it going out there. It’s Wednesday, January 14th. I’m Frank Curzio, This is the Wall Street Unplugged podcast.

Frank Curzio 00:05

where I break down the headlines and, uh, tell you what’s really moving these markets. Mr. Dale Creech, how’s it going?

Daniel Creech 00:16

What’s happening, Frank? Another beautiful Wednesday. How are you?

Frank Curzio 00:19

Hanging in there.

Daniel Creech 00:19

Are you in mourning today from the NFL playoffs?

Frank Curzio 00:23

Yeah, the Eagles lost. Oh, what a waste of talent. It’s so frustrating. You know, I watched a lot of their games this year. It was just so hard to watch the offense, and they led the league in three and outs and just the second half, and they had the ball to win. You can blame the offensive coordinator all you want and stuff, but you had the ball to win and just the play calling and everything. It was disgusting. But I have to say that Jacksonville,

Frank Curzio 00:43

I’m really disappointed in because, I mean, you’re looking at the quarterback again. Same thing,right? Every time it’s a big game, you had two interceptions.

Daniel Creech 00:52

I didn’t see it. Did he lose it?

Frank Curzio 00:54

Uh, you know what? Yes and no, because there was like four lead changes in the fourth quarter. So he scored, and then their defense didn’t hold. Their defense was really good this year, and they didn’t hold Buffalo with Josh Allen. But, uh, yeah, Trevor just, uh, you can’t have those mistakes. You can’t have interceptions, and, you know, we had two of them in the game, uh, which were very poor throws, but he didn’t lose the game for them.

Frank Curzio 01:14

Their defense all they needed to do was stop Buffalo a couple of times, and they couldn’t in the fourth quarter. But, you know, now Jacksonville lost, and it was so good. The vibe down here, man, every place was busy. It was so great because you don’t see that with Jacksonville a lot,right? Because they’re not really, you know.

Daniel Creech 01:26

Yeah. You can definitely tell it was exciting around here.

Frank Curzio 01:29

It made to the semis a couple of years ago. That was a year that New England came back and beat them, and that was the Super Bowl I went to, which isright behind me, the picture, the Eagles.

Daniel Creech 01:36

Oh, you got to point that out.

Frank Curzio 01:37

Yeah, I love that. And, uh, but now without Jacksonville and the Eagles, I really don’t have any interest. I mean, you got decent games,right? I mean, San Francisco to Seattle, San Francisco, uh, Seattle’s favored by six and a half. You got the Rams and Chicago Bears. Rams are favored by four over the Bears at Bears. Uh, Buffalo Bills are favored over the Denver Broncos. One and a half.

Frank Curzio 01:56

I love Buffalo. I had the quarterback for Denver the whole year, and I don’t think Denver’s that good. Their defense hasn’t played well, uh, in the past, uh, last few weeks. I think Buffalo’s going to smoke them. And Houston, just that defense is pretty scary. So New England favored by three. I think we’re going to see if New England’s for real. Uh, I heard that they have the top 10 easiest schedule.

Frank Curzio 02:16

Uh, they didn’t have to play top 10 defenses this year. I think.

Daniel Creech 02:18

New England you’re talking?

Frank Curzio 02:19

Yeah, New England.

Daniel Creech 02:20

Okay.

Frank Curzio 02:20

Their last game against San Diego was the first time, but I think they had like the 10th overall easiest schedule in the NFL over the past like 25 years or something. So, and listen, they, you know, credit to them because everyone in front of them, they beat the shit out of. So you don’t know, but I think this is the game you’re going to see if New England is for real and not against Houston because Houston’s defense is amazing. If they could really light up Houston’s defense, it is going to be pretty amazing.

Frank Curzio 02:41

But, uh, you know, decent games, but it sucks that Jacksonville and the Eagles lost. So yeah, I’m a little pissed off and just terrible watching the Eagles with all that talent. They just can’t do anything. It’s a very fresh, very boring offense. And congrats to San Francisco. I just wish they were healthy because they’re not. And they have half of the, I mean, basically the Eagles lost to a high school team because they have, I think the sixth, seventh, and eighth linebackers were in sixth, seventh, and eighth linebackers,right?

Frank Curzio 03:02

That’s how the linebackers got hurt. The backups for the corner. You had the tight end that just got hurt. Purdy was out a lot, but you know, you’re playing against, you know, the best tackle in the history of football basically was out, Trent Williams. So, you know, they were playing against a high school team and lost that game, which is very disappointing, but there’s going to be big changes there. But what are you going to do?

Daniel Creech 03:20

You know, the fun thing about an outsider is for you Philadelphia guys, you burn down your city whether you win or lose. So the riots are just part of it.

Frank Curzio 03:27

Offense could be assholes.

Daniel Creech 03:27

We don’t.

Frank Curzio 03:28

I’d say 10% of the base.

Daniel Creech 03:29

Holly Market on those odds.

Frank Curzio 03:30

10% of the base. You know.

Daniel Creech 03:31

10% of the base.

Frank Curzio 03:32

Yeah, or a bunch of assholes.

Daniel Creech 03:33

I’m not throwing stones at it. I’m pointing it out, Frank.

Frank Curzio 03:36

Yeah, there’s a fine line between asshole and being an ass.

Daniel Creech 03:39

The same result.

Frank Curzio 03:40

Yeah, snowballs at Santa during Christmas is not a good thing. It’s not a good thing. So the good news is the markets. I mean, we’re kind of all over the place. The S&P, the NASDAQ got some good economic news. We’re talking about a lot of good stuff today, guys. A lot of good picks and stuff like that. But, uh, an interesting stat I want to start out with. The Russell 2000, year to date,

Frank Curzio 03:59

and I know we’re only 14 days in, year to date, the S&P and the NASDAQ are up 0.5%. If you had to guess, what do you think the Russell is up this year?

Daniel Creech 04:08

Well, I know like five or six.

Frank Curzio 04:10

6%. The Russell’s up today. The market, overall market’s down 1%. The S&P’s down 1%, and the Russell’s up today. And the NASDAQ’s down a percentage and a half. So, uh, just, you know, 25 years,right? We’ve never seen 25 years where the difference between, uh, the valuation between small caps and large caps, it’s never been greater than it’s been today.

Frank Curzio 04:31

Remember, these small caps have been horrible for several years where they’ve been restructuring operations, focusing on their growth model, doing everything they can, hiring theright people in place. Businesses get itright. These small, they’re small caps, but some of them have been around for 20, 30, 40 years. They understand the environment, turning businesses around, you know, cutting costs tremendously.

Frank Curzio 04:49

And now you’re going into an economy that’s pretty solid based on what we’ve seen with several readings, including the CPI,right? CPI came in strong, rose 0.3%, which is amazingly good now,right? Because everyone, because it’s 2.7% year over year. And as long as it’s under 3%, which is the big, you know, black eye that everybody sees, but well under 3% and definitely trending lower. Great sign for equities,right?

Daniel Creech 05:12

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what I think, and we’ve talked about this a little bit, but when you look at inflation expectations for the year, it’s somewhere around two, two and a half percent, basically two, two four to two six. And so as investors, what do you want to think about? You want to think if that’s too high or too low as you talk about a lot with earnings, Frank.

Daniel Creech 05:30

And I just continue to think that inflation is going to be lumpy and volatile, but I think overall, I don’t, I think the risk of a real high spike in inflation is a lot lower than what the streak thinks. So I would assume that the surprises will be to the downside. You notice how the media and everybody’s kind of like, oh, inflation’s come in lower than expected, or it’s not as bad.

Daniel Creech 05:49

Everybody’s still got the nervousness, for lack of a better word, from tariffs. And there’s a lot of moving parts. I’m not trying to, um, argue that there isn’t, but I just think that the inflation fears, and plus, Frank, we’ve talked about this, they reset, kind of like same store sales. Now, when you look at prices, and I’m not saying that this doesn’t hurt consumers,

Daniel Creech 06:09

but when they reset year over year, that change is going to be easily manipulated. So, uh, I just think there’s a lot of tailwinds here, including the CPI and PPI we got today. In line is what investors need to latch onto there.

Frank Curzio 06:22

Yeah. Look, the biggest threat, the number one threat to the equity markets and stocks is inflation. It’s the number one threat that could throw everything in the tailspin. No matter how much you’re pushing behind it, no matter, you can’t really spend more money if you have inflation. That’s what happened when we had 9% inflation. You can’t have government spending massive, massive, massive amounts of money,right?

Frank Curzio 06:40

You’re going to see interest rates turn where they got to go higher,right? Inflation is the biggest threatright now. And when you’re seeing it go lower, even your true inflation number is well below 2%,right?

Daniel Creech 06:48

Yeah, the true inflation number.

Frank Curzio 06:49

Which is more of a real-time, uh, one of the services that we use is. But when you see inflation trending lower, it’s fantastic for equities. Uh, it’s much easier to lower rates in 2026 when you’ve seen inflation come down. Uh, and now that you’re taking the biggest risk of the equity market, if this continues, uh, we’re looking for a good 2026,right? The next 12 months.

Frank Curzio 07:09

And we may still see the markets come down through the year. You know, people might say, well, valuations are kind of high a little bit, and we may see a pullback. And we’re seeing this sector rotation really out of like big AI names and technology and stuff like that, but into other sectors that are workingright now, especially healthcare. Uh, biotech, JP Morgan Healthcare Conference going onright now. But when you look at evaluations, they’re really not high.

Frank Curzio 07:29

Uh, I mean, if earnings come in the way they’re supposed to come in, and they’re projecting 14% growth in S&P 500 earnings, which we covered last week, and this is facts set. This is a consensus estimates of all the major firms that have produced our estimates. On average, you’re looking at 14% growth. And if that’s the case, where we’re trading on the S&P 500,

Frank Curzio 07:50

22 times forward earnings, it’s exceptionally cheap. And you need to understand that. Okay, this is a lesson I’ve learned for, and I’ve gotten wrong for so many years. I never bought, uh, for the first 10 years, I’ve been doing this for 30 years. The first 10 years, I never bought these crazy stocks that were trading at 30 times earnings, 40 times earnings, or 75 times earnings, becauseright away I just looked at that number and said,

Frank Curzio 08:09

holy shit, this is really expensive. You have to look at the growth. You have to look at the total addressable markets when you’re analyzing stocks. But looking at this as a whole for the macro part, I mean, we usually trade at 18, 19 times forward earnings if you look at a 10 year, like past 10 years. And that’s just with 8% earnings growth. We’re trading at 22 times forward earnings with 14% growth.

Frank Curzio 08:29

If earnings don’t come in that way, we’re going to see the market pull back. If earnings come in at 14%, we still have a lot of room to run, especially with all the positives where we’re seeing lower inflation, which is going to mean, you know, more rates, more cuts in rates, probably maybe mid-2026 into the election in November, uh, for the midterm elections. You have deregulation coming.

Frank Curzio 08:48

The economy is relatively strong. Uh, you know, there’s a lot of, a lot of positives here going into next year for equities, but you’re removing one of the major risks, inflation, because it keeps trending lower, and that’s a huge positive. But, uh, uh, you know, and speaking of that, how much will rates come lower? Because we have the Fed. Are they going to lower rates?

Frank Curzio 09:09

Maybe, maybe not. Uh, the current Fed chairman, because now we look going into next year, and we’re speaking of the Fed, Trump just launched a criminal investigation into Powell, and it’s all over the place. This is based on a $2.5 billion that Powell is spending to renovate the DC headquarters. Uh, guys, $2.5 billion for renovations, first of all.

Frank Curzio 09:30

Okay. And I’m going to go on both sides of this. So this has nothing to do with politics. I’m just saying, yeah, the Hard Rock Casino, which is in Fort Lauderdale, any casino that was just built, uh, the big guitar, it costs $1.5 billion to construct the entire thing. It’s one of the best casinos ever built. I mean, the Fed is kind of a casino anyway, but $2.5 billion just for renovations. I mean, it’s easy to pay that much when you’re using other people’s money.

Frank Curzio 09:51

So taxpayers on the hook for that. So I get Trump’s frustrations, Daniel. I want to talk to you about this because I know you have strong opinions, but launching a criminal investigation is just idiotic because you just made Powell a martyr. And every Fed member, bank member, insider, they’re coming to his defense. Also makes it easy for the entire media to push this agenda that, you know, the Fed’s losing its independence.

Frank Curzio 10:11

I’ll get over why that’s a bullshit story, but, you know, the Fed’s losing their independence and it’s every place that you see. But why do you need to mix this up? I just don’t understand this criminal investigation. So, you know, I don’t agree with it. I think it’s nonsense. It provides a little bit of uncertainty with the markets. I don’t think it’s going to do anything. I really think it’s smoke and mirrors. But I want to hear your thoughts on it,

Frank Curzio 10:30

especially the criminal investigation, because that’s everywhereright now and everyone has strong opinions. And opinions I hear are mostly bullshit.

Daniel Creech 10:36

Well, I will say, I got to give Fed Chair Powell credit because this was a brilliant move politically. Because what it’s doing is it’s distracting from a lot of issues in the economy and it’s keeping this narrative going on. Is the Fed independent? Or I’m sorry, the narrative is the Fed is independent. That’s a lie. That’s never been the case, but that’s a different conversation.

Daniel Creech 10:57

The narrative is around the Fed has to keep its independence and this angry orange man, Frank, that walks around with a hammer and looks at everything as a nail. Okay. That’s the big point here. And I understand what your point is about the messiness.

Daniel Creech 11:11

I think Treasury Secretary Bessa is on record, or at least there’s rumors and reporting around that he said this was not a good idea and this is going to cause mess. Politically, it was brilliant because this circles the wagons to your point. And everybody has an ego, especially the guy talkingright now. Frank, if you’re on your way out now, you want to keep everybody on their toes.

Daniel Creech 11:30

And this is the easiest thing to do because now all the media channels, mainstream media is circling. You have the global Fed governors, central banks. You have previous Fed chairs, Bernanke, Yellen, all writing letters. Remember the letter like the Hunter Biden laptop?

Daniel Creech 11:50

Kind of like those letters. You know, everybody comes out and circles the wagons. Everybody makes you this big superstar. You’re standing up for the little guy. And the best Florida irony in the world is, Frank, this guy, every Fed chair is responsible for absolutely putting the boot on the neck of the poorest among us. And they absolutely do it on purpose.

Daniel Creech 12:10

Remember, our goal is to only have 2% inflation. That means they only want prices to rise at 2% every single year. There is no talk of prices going lower, only by politicians. And I get that.

Daniel Creech 12:23

The idea that the gentleman sitting in the Federal Reserve is going to be pronounced and praised to stand up against the president of the United States for the little guy is beyond baffling. And we ought to just enjoy the show. It’ll delay rate cuts. There’s no rate cut in January now. Odds are against it. Jobs aren’t going to fall off the, uh, beaten path that quickly, in my opinion.

Daniel Creech 12:45

But any pullback around any kind of volatility around this is a buying opportunity because you do not change directions here. You can slow the speed down, but rate, rate cuts are coming, excuse me, because debt and deficits are exploding and nothing stops this train, Frank.

Frank Curzio 13:00

Yeah. And the reason why I said this too with tariffs, I said this in tariffs in 2017, 2018, you know, millions of stories were written about it. I said, listen, just, just buying the pullback if you did, you did fantastic. I said the same thing when they, with Fed and, uh, the tariffs and the market pullback. Uh, but I did get a little nervous on that call because I didn’t think Trump would try to negotiate with every country at the same freaking time,

Frank Curzio 13:21

which, which I think Bessent said, look, the bond market’s cracking. Don’t be an idiot. And he’s like, allright, well, we’re going to hold off for six months and we’re going to allow concessions and stuff like that. Good for him. This is the same thing. You know, it’s exciting to take a strong opinion on this,right? Politically or whatever. You want to look, our job is to make sure you’re making money,right? We want to make sure you guys make money on your stocks,

Frank Curzio 13:40

equities, your portfolios, and things like that that you’re in. And this, this is a non-factor to me. In terms of the Fed independence, first of all, how can the Fed ever be independent if the president nominates the Fed chair? I want you to think about it for a minute. The person is hiring you for the most important job in the world by far. I mean, this person has the ability, the Fed chair, to destroy the world based on policy.

Frank Curzio 14:01

And you say, well, it has to go through the governors, but he has a lot of influence over those governors,right? So, uh, to sway the board. But if someone hires you for the most powerful position in the world, you’re going to be super loyal to that person, to that president. So it’s hard to maintain that independence. Uh, the reason why it’s not a big deal in terms of impacting your portfolio is if you’re looking at this,

Frank Curzio 14:20

and this is why I think it’s funny that they’re talking about Fed independence. So the criminal investigation seems like Trump’s trying to get him out of there earlier than May, which is horseshit,right? It’s two totally different things. Because if you’re looking at the average DOJ criminal investigation takes over two years to close. He’s gone in May. Allright.

Frank Curzio 14:39

So he’s not launching this to say, I want you to be out very, very quickly, which is where all these stories are coming from, where where’s the Fed independence if the president is attacking the Fed,right? So, you know, for me, I don’t understand it. Powell’s out in May. The criminal investigation is not about getting him out earlier or moving for the board, uh, after his chairman title ends in a few months. It’s a personal vendetta from Trump against Powell and,

Frank Curzio 14:59

and, you know, against something that’s not really needed. Uh, on the bigger front here, Daniel, we need to lower ratesright away. And we could say, well, the economy’s doing good and you don’t really have to lower rates while the economy’s doing so great. And the market’s pretty much at your all-time highs is doing well. Uh, we got lower inflation. You know, it’s just a lot of things going on. The job market’s pretty solid.

Frank Curzio 15:18

Why would we lower rates now? Because we’re sitting on $38 trillion in debt, which is $1 trillion in interest payments a year. We have a housing market that has tons and tons and tons of buyers in the queue. They’re waiting for these interest rates to come down because they can’t afford it. They can’t afford it until we see lower mortgage rates. The only way we can lower our deficits,

Frank Curzio 15:39

the only way, only, only, only way we can lower deficits is through strong economic growth. Okay. We can’t pay it down anyway. We can’t make money. I mean, it has to be brought on by lower rates, which will significantly lower our interest payments and then encourage even faster economic growth. It’s the only way we could do it. And you look at 38 trillion, to put in perspective, Trump is celebrating the money we’re making in through tariffs.

Frank Curzio 16:00

Tariffs are great. This is awesome. Look how much money we made. We’re going to give this back to the taxpayers away. It’s $200 billion in 2025. Okay. It’s 0.5% of our deficit. $200 billion out of thin air he created. It’s 0.5% of our deficit. So, you know, when I look at how the deficit, how do we lower it? The only way we can do it through strong economic growth, which is lower rates.

Frank Curzio 16:20

That’s why we need to lower rates. We need to lower rates. They’re going to be lower in 2026. I don’t know much lower they should be if inflation comes down. But, you know, again, a lot of this stuff is personal. And are they going to lower rates early on in the first quarter with, with, with Powell there?

Frank Curzio 16:36

Uh, well, you launch a criminal investigation while the whole world is basically talking about it and talking about Fed independence. A lot of this is BS, but what you’re doing is you’re creating this circle, this powerful circle around Powell and the Fed, which I think Trump would kind of want to avoid where he wants to kind of change his thing up, put his own guy in there.

Frank Curzio 16:55

But he’s getting like everybody in the Fed, all the Fed governors who are going to be on that board anyway, no matter who he elects, kind of pissed off at him. I just don’t understand why you would announce this. I could see if you announce this after May, you’re not going to get him out before May. Why announce it now? But, you know, this is a person who’s taken on 50 different things, wars everywhere, doing this stuff.

Frank Curzio 17:14

I love what he’s doing in most areas. This I just don’t understand. I don’t know why you have to rock the market for this, but I think it’s a non-story because it’s not going to result in Powell leaving early. It’s not going to result in a change of interest rates early on, but we’re going to see lower rates mid to late 2026, especially heading into the election year.

Frank Curzio 17:31

But I wouldn’t really pay much attention if the market does pull back on this story and Fed independence bullshit, which, which again, it’s 100% bullshit. Uh, I would be adding to your favorite positions here.

Daniel Creech 17:41

Yeah. Well, you answered your own question there. Why is Trump doing it? It’s because he’s an egomaniac. And I mean that as a compliment. The guy likes to stir the pot. He likes to fight everybody over every little thing. This is the absolute poster child for taking the high road. Not going to happen. Yeah. If somebody insults you, you say something back. You cannot have, it’s, it’s childish, I imagine.

Daniel Creech 18:03

I, I admit, I, or at least that’s my take on it. Quickly here on the Fed independence, real quick here, Frank, if you go back to 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, when you look at the broader Fed staff and employee donations, some of this is making a round on the old intranet. Would it shock you to hear that this is politically split?

Daniel Creech 18:21

90% plus of donations from Fed staff and employees go to which party?

Frank Curzio 18:26

Let me guess.

Daniel Creech 18:26

The Democrats. Because it’s allright down the middle there, people.

Frank Curzio 18:30

It has nothing to do with Fed independence.

Daniel Creech 18:32

Absolutely. Now, another independent Fed during COVID or the housing crisis. Do you think that theright hand and left hand, meaning the Treasury and the Fed, that are so independent, these guys are on record for having lunch all the time, the two head of the departments.

Daniel Creech 18:45

Frank, do you think it’s just blind dumb luck that during those market crashes, you had one entity lower rates so that the other entity could borrow at very low cost? Do you think that’s a coincidence or do you think that’s a plan?

Frank Curzio 18:58

Yeah, no.

Daniel Creech 18:58

There’s no independence here, people. Stop falling for that. Now, the other thing I will push back on, Frank, is we got to look at poly market for something like this. Because I like this idea because I’m cynical.

Frank Curzio 19:09

We’re going to get into that poly market part with crypto and everything.

Daniel Creech 19:12

Yeah, but I’m talking about Frank. I’m talking about this. He’s not leaving in May or he doesn’t have to. He can decide to stay on until like 2028 as a member of the governor board. Now, he doesn’t have to typically in the past. I think I was looking around. I don’t think it’s been done since the forties, give or take. However, those are fun odds to me.

Daniel Creech 19:29

Because if Powell really wants to make a stick and this is the way you do it, the media gets in your head, they build you up, they make you feel like Robin Hood or Gladiator or pick your favorite movie star. Yeah. You want to be the rock, you want to be Hulk Hogan or whatever. But anyway, if they can gum him up to say, listen, you could go down as the guy that stood up to the great orange man,

Daniel Creech 19:49

will lie and cheat and steal and make you look really good on paper in front of everybody. That pads the ego. So I’m not, Daniel Creech hasn’t dead said he’s leaving when the May Fed chair term expires. But I’ll be interested in your take if you want to go on with that.

Frank Curzio 20:01

I just think, you know, look, I think it’s wrong. I think Trump’s stirring the pot here. It doesn’t do any justice, especially when you want the Fed on your side. One. Number two, I think Powell should answer 2.5. How do you pay 2.5 billion in renovations? I mean.

Daniel Creech 20:16

Well, it’s not about the renovations. It’s the overrun. He’s a half a billion over.

Frank Curzio 20:19

This is going to cost you more than you could afford. Yeah. That’s like 3 billion, 3.5 billion in every 15. But, but this is, I mean, what are you doing? Are you building like seven new buildings? I mean, you know how much money that is? And it’s so easy. And I hate that shit because whenever it comes to taxpayers’ money, and I see that in so many industries that I cover, I see what Axon, Axon with Tasers. Allright. They sign you up to Tasers. They get all the cameras and everything.

Frank Curzio 20:38

They make the money off a cloud,right? Off of the storage of all that data of all the cameras. You know what they charge? They charge the police departments 13x higher than the market price. And you know what the police departments do? They don’t give a shit. They’re like, oh, what’s the, okay, we’re not funding it. It’s the taxpayers that are funding it. So that’s why the post office is broken, losing five, six billion. You got UPS generating profits. You got, yeah, FedEx generating billions in profits.

Frank Curzio 21:00

When there’s no accountability for the government, uh, you know, you’re going to charge whatever you want because it’s taxpayers’ money. And, you know, that might not be a big deal to somebody or a few people because they don’t care. You work something like 140 days for free. Do you know that? Like something like 140 days for free. Don’t call me, it’s around that, that all the money you make for that 140 days goes to your taxes.

Frank Curzio 21:20

And it’s even more if you live in California and, and, and New York. Well, that’s your money. I mean, if it’s going to schools, if it’s going to paved streets, it’s going to really good things. If it’s going to safety and cops and stuff like that. We’ll talk about defunding the police. We’ll talk about, you know, all this bullshit where, you know, where’s this money actually going? Two and a half billion to renovate, you know, it’s just insane to me.

Frank Curzio 21:41

So, so that bothers me a lot in terms of taxpayer money. It also bothers me that launching a criminal investigation. I mean, you know what’s going to happen when you do this. And that’s what happens. It creates uncertainty. We hate uncertainty in the markets. And then you have the media taking it where it is, the Fed independence. It has, he’s not trying to get him out. He’s not going to get him out before May, no matter what. I mean, it’ll be two years before they solve this shit.

Frank Curzio 22:00

He’ll get off, of course. No politician ever, ever gets arrested ever. I mean, you have, I mean, how many people lying under?

Daniel Creech 22:07

Trump got arrested. They arrested him.

Frank Curzio 22:09

Yeah. They, they got him arrested. Yeah, they did. But they always get away with it. No one ever does jail time.

Daniel Creech 22:13

I want to see Powell come out.

Frank Curzio 22:14

I mean, you can lie under oath. Everybody lies under oath. It’s not a problem.

Daniel Creech 22:17

I want to see Powell come out to twisted sister. We’re not going to take it. Next post comments.

Frank Curzio 22:21

Did you see when, when they went over that? They did that live thing on CNBC and they were like together and they were hanging out and, and I think they were at that, at one of the places that they’re renovating. And they, they, they hate each other. I mean, they had them live and they were, they were like bickering on live TV.

Daniel Creech 22:37

Oh, you’re not allowed to walk through Trump and Powell.

Frank Curzio 22:38

You know, walk through and he was like, well, the, and, and Powell was like, no, they’re not. That’s not how much it is. He’s like, yes, it is. And I’m like, no, it’s not. And they’re like, big, like those guys really don’t like each other, which I think is funny. And, and none of them.

Daniel Creech 22:48

That’s good. We shouldn’t, we shouldn’t have best friends in politics like that. That’s good for the people.

Frank Curzio 22:52

Yeah. I mean, it’s entertaining a little bit too. So which is cool. Uh, the banks just reported earnings, opening up earnings. I remember when Alcoy used to open up earnings season, no more. It’s now the banks are opening up earnings season. Did you see the banks’ numbers? This is something I cover every quarter, guys.

Frank Curzio 23:06

And because there’s so much nonsense that goes around the banks and so much commentary that goes around the banks, it’s such a great story that one of the big banks are going to go under, which can never, ever, ever happen because we knew it, we know what happened when that almost happened in, in during the credit crisis. And they spent so much money, our government to, to buy, you know, just flood these banks with capital to get all kinds of warrants,

Frank Curzio 23:28

uh, bailing out AIG, Fannie Freddie, and the government made an absolute fricking fortune off of it. So, you know, they’re not going to let a big bank fail and crush the entire economy because all this shit is linked together. So I just, I laugh when I hear about the derivatives and all this debt and stuff like that. Did you actually look under the hood and, and see what these companies reported? Daniel, did you get to that part yet?

Daniel Creech 23:47

No, because I knew you were.

Frank Curzio 23:49

You know, okay. So, so some of these stocks I hit after earnings because a lot of them have run up so much into the quarter.

Daniel Creech 23:56

Yeah, absolutely.

Frank Curzio 23:57

So, so, but when you look at a JP Morgan, JP Morgan, 46 billion in revenue for the quarter, total client assets up 20% year over year to 7.1 trillion. 20% a year, their client assets up $7.1 trillion. Bank of America, 28.4 billion in revenue.

Frank Curzio 24:18

Wells Fargo, 21.2 billion in revenue. Citigroup, 21 billion in revenue all for the quarter. So collectively, these banks who people are so worried about, I see so many reports on them. And oh my God, what these big banks are going to fail, you’ll see. Collectively, these banks generated $117 billion in revenue and over 31 billion in profits for the quarter.

Frank Curzio 24:38

For the quarter. Okay. Now it gets better. It gets much better. Now, net interest income. Okay. Net interest income is the interest earned on loans minus the interest it pays on its deposits. So it’s basically the spread or income the banks generate on savings, CDs, borrowed funds, and they’re making an absolute fortune.

Frank Curzio 24:58

When you look at their net interest income, which is supposed to come down, it’s supposed to come down sharply,right? Because interest rates are going to go, uh, lower. The net interest, the combined net interest income was $69 billion for the quarter. Just the net interest income. Remember, the profits are 31 billion.

Frank Curzio 25:17

Net interest income, 69 billion. JP Morgan loans predicting over a hundred billion from net interest income in 2026. And I was like, okay, let’s put that in perspective. A hundred billion. What does that mean? JP Morgan and NII, net interest income in 2020, 2021, they generated only $50 billion in net interest income.

Daniel Creech 25:37

2021?

Frank Curzio 25:38

20 and 2021, around 50 billion, just over that. So profits have increased 20% annually over the past five years just from net interest income. And this is why we were saying for at least the last five years, you have to have one of these big banks. You have to own one of them, pick and choose. You can, and we said this a ton of times, even since the credit crisis, because all laws were easy.

Frank Curzio 25:58

They got bailed out and these guys are going to make a fortune. And then it’s, they’re more too big to fail than three, four X the time, the size that they were when all this shit was put in place to try to help them not be too big to fail. So when you’re looking at the banks, I need you guys to understand this. Lower rates are good for large banks because usually the economy is doing great.

Frank Curzio 26:17

More borrowing for mortgages, more M&A, which big banks offer. The big banks offer, not really community banks, much more fees on everything. So they do pretty well. Banks are also a nice hedge when rates are going higher because their net interest income surges,right? So it’s kind of like this hedge where they might not go up as much, but it still goes up.

Frank Curzio 26:35

So when interest rates go higher, the big banks, a lot of money pours into the big banks, which we’ve seen. We’re expecting rates to come down a lot more. If you look in two, three years ago, we thought they’d come down tremendously. But what happens is we were able to keep rates relatively high and still see the economy grow. This is rare. This is where it’s very rare where the stars align,

Frank Curzio 26:54

where the perfect, the absolute perfect environment for banks is when you have higher rates, but still have strong economic growth. It’s exactly what we’re seeing today, pretty much what we’ve seen over the past 12, 24 months. That means, pay attention to this, banks make money from everything, every single fricking thing they do. Remember Tepper?

Frank Curzio 27:13

What did he say? What’s going to go higher when, when, with the, you know, flooding the market with cash and lower rates, zero, everything’s going to go higher. Banks make money from everything. Look, look at, look at their reports. Just put in Q4 earnings for JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and just look at that report that they put in. I mean, it’s absolutely incredible. So you got net interest income absolutely surging.

Frank Curzio 27:32

You have M&A, which is on fireright now, which leads to massive investment banking fees. Then you have huge management fees. Why? Because your assets under management are surging along with the market. So as that happens, you have more money. If you go up 20%, say from, you know, whatever, 10 billion to 12 billion, now you’re generating those fees on 12 billion.

Frank Curzio 27:52

So you don’t even need more assets to come in. You just need the market to go higher, which has been hitting highs every single year for the past four years, basically. So now you’re seeing the assets under management surge, like we said, 20% surge in clients’ assets to 7 trillion year over year for JP Morgan. Uh, you’re seeing strong loan growth,right, in this market. Butright now, and basically the past 24 months,

Frank Curzio 28:11

I would argue, Daniel, it’s been the greatest market conditions for banks in at least the past 30 years. At least the past 30 years. It doesn’t get better for them the way the market conditions are. With not super high interest rates, but interest rates are high enough where net income is absolutely surging. It’s double for JP Morgan.

Frank Curzio 28:31

It’s on fire. And those telling you out there and writing about this, the banks have too much leverage and derivatives are in the trillions and bonds are underwater. Just, it’s total bullshit that makes me want to laugh because you need to look at both sides of the balance sheet, which people don’t do. And they tell one story, and I know it sells newsletters and they’re like, this bank’s going to crash.

Frank Curzio 28:51

So it’s going to destroy the whole system. But buying my newsletter, which is based on buying stocks, which I don’t get because if the whole system collapse, the whole market’s going to be down 40%, 50%, 60%. Right? So, so this whole game that, that I see in the newsletter industry where people are just, you know, beating the shit out of banks, I would love for them to come to the podcast. I’d absolutely destroy them. Uh, you know, just because they’re looking at one side.

Frank Curzio 29:11

It’s easy to look at one side. The bonds are underwater. Okay. What if they hold the bonds to maturity? It’s not as bad. But you need to look at both sides of the balance sheet because business is absolutely booming. So much so that loan loss reserves, this was an interesting stat. I don’t, I don’t remember seeing this in the past few years, Daniel. Uh, loan loss reserves,right? They always go higher.

Frank Curzio 29:30

They’re going higher. More people are struggling. For all four major banks went down. And you could say, well, it didn’t really for JP Morgan, which hurt profits this quarter, which is why that stock fell 6%. But the reason why it went up was strictly because a 2.1 billion reserve that was established for the FOA commitment for Apple’s credit card portfolio, which is a one-timer, which is not a big deal. If you remove that, it went lower,right?

Frank Curzio 29:51

Without that, the provisions for credit losses will lower year over year. But provisions for credit losses, and this is a big surprise to me, will lower for every major, for Wells, for Citi, Bank of America, year over year. That means the customer is stronger. They’re not accounting for more losses. They’re not anticipating more losses. We haven’t seen that in a very, very long time.

Frank Curzio 30:12

If you still own one of these big banks, on our recommendation, you’re kicking ass, you’re destroying it, continue holding. They have so much money they don’t know what to do with. They’re going to be buying back so much of their stock. They’re going to be increasing their dividends. They’re likely going to outperform the market or stay with the market going forward. The bigger gains are going to be seen from the mid-tier, smaller banks. You’re going to see that showed up in our portfolios, uh,

Frank Curzio 30:32

where so many huge positives, new channels for growth that never existed as deregulation kicks in. That’s going to help these companies tremendously. Uh, these mid-tier, smaller to raise their assets tremendously and not be so localized to their community. That’s where you’re going to see these things really, really grow. But what a great, like, when it comes to banks, the market conditions have never been better.

Frank Curzio 30:52

And that’s why these stocks are on fire and basically all of them trading at all-time highs. Our favorite has been Citigroup. Uh, if you drop a chart on there, Joe, for Citigroup and the four, and this is the last year performance. Uh, if you’re looking at it, we see pretty much 16% growth. Uh, it was, uh, most of these stocks are 16, between 16 and 26%, uh, outside of Citigroup.

Frank Curzio 31:13

And Citigroup is up 55%, uh, which is much more than almost double than the next bank. So we were really on Citigroup because they have a big international component. Yes, they dialed down a little bit, but all the international markets, the stock markets are much higher. Citigroup is, is just, it’s still cheaper than the rest of the banks term, uh, of, of book value.

Frank Curzio 31:33

Uh, they’re growing a lot faster. Uh, I, this used to be the fourth largest bank. I think it’s going to surpass Wells Fargo as, as, and going to the third position. They have everything going well for Citigroup. I think all these banks do well going forward. I still love Citigroup here, who’s buying back much more of their stock compared to everyone else. And we’ve liked Citi for a while. We’re up and running the portfolio.

Frank Curzio 31:52

But, you know, again, if you own any of these banks, continue to hold them, just the dividends alone constantly is just going to come in. They’re going to be buying back their stock, which artificially is going to raise their earnings anyway. Uh, but they’re just, uh, you know, the mid-tiers are really where you could do great in these banks as deregulation comes. And that’s going to happen throughout 2026. So.

Daniel Creech 32:10

Yes, sir. Yeah. Don’t, um, like I said, they’ve had such good run-ups. They’re all down the day. Citigroup’s pulling back 4%, 5%. Um, maybe a little further to fall. But if, if you like that idea and what Frank just explained, that’s not changing. So use that pullback, uh, to your advantage.

Frank Curzio 32:25

Yeah. Remember, these things are up tremendously. It’s taken a breather. That happens with a lot of stocks after earnings. NVIDIA, a lot of times after earnings. I mean, we saw 20%, 25% declines in NVIDIA after reporting strong earnings. Most of these are pretty solid. A couple of them, JP Morgan came a little bit lighter than expected, but overall, just the, the current environment’s going to stay. We’re not going to see interest rates come down tremendously, but they are going to come down a little bit.

Frank Curzio 32:46

Net interest margins are, you know, income is expected to be higher. I mean, even JP Morgan’s predicting, uh, you know, 5%, 10% growth next year. And you have this M&A activity, all the fee structure, everything is working, every single model, every single division within the banks. I feel like I’m looking at Meta when they report, or I’m looking at Amazon, where, or Microsoft,

Frank Curzio 33:05

where every single division, up 30%, up 25%, up 17%, up 25%, every single one of those divisions. I feel like that’s the banks today. And, and if you’re looking at AI, which is the biggest growth market in the world, this is going to impact these things positively more than almost anyone. Uh, and yeah, just the, the banking industry, look for people that,

Frank Curzio 33:25

that are beating the crap out of it, telling you to worry about it. You know, this has been one of the biggest growth markets. Hopefully, listen to us. You should be up a lot, a lot of money buying the banks, owning those banks and owning those stocks. So, uh, I want to talk about Bitcoin a little bit. 97,000 out of nowhere. Pretty surprising,right? I mean, we’re looking at the eighties.

Frank Curzio 33:44

They’re looking at, you know, this huge sell-off. What was it? 126, under 26,000. But if you look at the past month, uh, Bitcoin is up 20%. Ethereum up 14% over the past month. And this is one sector,right? Because risk definitely coming back into the market, which is crypto. It’s one sector, one of the few that would decimate in the back half of 2025.

Frank Curzio 34:04

I see a lot of growth. The best names in crypto underneath Bitcoin, Solana, and Ethereum have gotten annihilated. If you look at the next 50, and those are really good companies that do great business, that have good utility features for their tokens, those are real companies that have just been washed out along with the rest of the industry. Those are names that can go up 2%, 300% very, very easily.

Frank Curzio 34:23

They’re down tremendously. We have some of those names in our portfolio. And, uh, you know, it’s nice to see crypto popping back up. Is it going to stay though, Daniel? You think it’s back or, you know, what are your thoughts?

Daniel Creech 34:34

I’m, well, I’m dead wrong on this because I thought we were going to see Bitcoin go back under 80 before it rallied back towards, uh, 95. So that got taken out today. But, uh, I’m happy to see it. I am. So there’s two things here going on. They’re end of year, new year. I’m not so sure what’s different about the calendar reset. But when you look at inflows,

Daniel Creech 34:54

and Frank, we’ve talked about this in the past, but SOSOValue.com is a great, uh, website to track this. But when you look at inflows, Frank, we had, um, a great start yesterday, or we’ve had a good start to the month in January, but yesterday, $753 million flew into just Bitcoin ETFs.

Daniel Creech 35:13

And they have some cool charts here. So when you’re looking at it, uh, year to date, and I know we’re only a couple of weeks into January, but there’s over 600 million money, uh, dollars flowing into Bitcoin ETFs. And of course, you, you continue to see MicroStrategy and other crypto, uh, treasury assets buy them. What I’m surprised on, Frank, is have you looked at a chart of Bitcoin?

Daniel Creech 35:34

So that 95, if you’re looking at a yearly chart, the 95 is a pretty strong level. So for it to break 95, um, I’m not a chart professional, but that definitely has my eye. So watch the 95 level. Um, there is some back and forth between this clarity act and the markup that’s potentially going on in Congress, Frank.

Daniel Creech 35:53

I don’t know how much, I, I want your opinions on this, but I will say I’m a little nervous about the Bitcoin rallyright now because I understand the O aspect of it. So gold, silver continue to race because President Trump continues to be volatile and, you know, disrupt and yell at every sector and every part of the global,

Daniel Creech 36:14

uh, the globe. Okay. I get that. But if this rally is built on, and I’m not trying to pour cold water on this, but I’m probably going to feel like I am, Frank, if this rally is built on potential legislation around the clarity act, Senator, uh, Cynthia Lummis, uh, is taken to X and social media talking about this.

Daniel Creech 36:34

They were supposed to have some sort of a meeting tomorrow and then a markup where they get back and forth. I was reading about this quite a bit the last few days, Frank. Next week, you’re going to have to talk me back off the ledge here, Frank. Politically speaking, why, if you’re a Democrat, would you pass anythingright now on the midterm side?

Daniel Creech 36:54

And we can get into more on this clarity act and the back and forth because I think there’s a great story on the banking side. However, um, I think this is a great rally. I, I’m not going to act like I know exactly what’s behind it. I look at inflows and charts and stuff, but if it’s around this legislation, that makes me nervous. Do you have anything to say about that?

Frank Curzio 37:10

I don’t know if it’s about this, this legislation. I think it’s more where if you look at what happened during the credit crisis, uh, where, you know, the markets fell tremendously, uh, where you looked at, at a point where, you know, 35% decline, uh, in the S&P 500, I mean, small caps got annihilated.

Frank Curzio 37:30

And what was that? That was a deleveraging event. So when you have this deleveraging event, everything, it doesn’t matter who the CEO is. It doesn’t matter what business you have. It doesn’t matter even if you grow on revenue. When you see this deleveraging event, the whole entire sector gets annihilated. And that’s what happened with crypto. So a lot of the leverage, when you remove it from the market, you get all these assets that are down tremendously. And we’re still down tremendously,right?

Frank Curzio 37:49

We’re talking about, what was it? 126. It’s, it’s 97. Yes, it was 80 and it’s back up. But once you get that leverage out of the market, now you have this real buying coming in. And, uh, you can’t deny when it comes to a lot of positives. I mean, you’re looking at one thing is, uh, the predictability markets involving crypto, especially when it comes to, to the brokerage firms there.

Frank Curzio 38:10

Uh, you know, you look at Coinbase and Robinhood alone, they’ve seen a 10 times increase in predictability contracts in just the past nine months. In order for this to work and be part of this, you need liquidity. Without liquidity, it doesn’t work. It’s like AI when people, when startups say, “Hey, we have AI,” and they have no data, just, you know, just being like, “You’re totally full of shit.” Right? That’s all AI is. AI is being able to analyze,

Frank Curzio 38:29

taking all this massive data that they used to think was meaningless and now turning it into something that’s actually being able to predict what customers are going to do and consumers are going to do and create these efficiencies,right? And it could do it a million times faster than the average person or average software systems that we had.

Frank Curzio 38:43

Uh, when I looked at predictability markets, which is involved in crypto, I mean, this isn’t from a small base when you’re seeing a 10 times increase in predictability contracts. This is, this revenue is now up to 450 million over the past nine months. This is a revenue stream that didn’t exist 12 months ago,right? So when you’re looking at that part of the markets, now it’s integrated with crypto. That’s a positive.

Daniel Creech 39:04

Do you think that’s pushing Bitcoin higher?

Frank Curzio 39:06

No, no, no. I’m saying the positives coming in. So that’s, that one positive is you have another growth market within this that that’s going to work, especially when you’re growing Coinbase, you’re growing Robinhood. Those are the two biggest, you know, the two biggest when it comes to crypto. But also, did you see the following for Bitgo?

Daniel Creech 39:20

No.

Frank Curzio 39:20

The IPO? I mean, Bitgo’s one of the leading digital asset infrastructure companies. They offer everything. They offer trading, staking, wallets, settlement service for cryptos, you know, DeFi, NFTs, and everything,right? So this IPO is expected to come out September. They just announced it, and it’s going to come out on New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BTGO. Very creative there. They’re raising $200 million with a valuation of about 2 billion.

Frank Curzio 39:43

Okay. Yeah. You say that’s a small cap. Did you see the companies that are involved with the book running? And this is key. Goldman’s acting as a lead book runner. Their lead manager.

Daniel Creech 39:53

Goldman, Goldman.

Frank Curzio 39:54

Citigroup, Deutsch, Mizuno, Wells Fargo, Keith Boyd Woods, Stifel, Canaccord, and Canter are also acting as book running managers, while Clear Street, Compass Point, Craig Hallam, Rosenblatt, Webbush, and SoFi are acting as co-managers. What does that mean? We talked about the importance of this industry where it’s just retail.

Frank Curzio 40:16

Institutions are pouring into this industry. And now when you have the deleverage, a lot of leverage out of the market, the institution, I mean, the institutional support just behind this name is incredible. I mean, I would say this, this Bitgo’s is screaming by at the open as long as the stock doesn’t open up 80%. But the institutional research, the support, the funding they’re going to have from growth,

Frank Curzio 40:36

it’s unlimited for this company with the biggest and best institutions pushing the shit out of it,right? So when I look at this company and you see the institution, this, this never happened. One, Bitgo or whatever company, a lot of these companies outside of Coinbase, they would be like, “Okay, we’re creating our own token. We’re going to trade on Coinbase.” Now they’re going to the capital markets because the laws allow that.

Frank Curzio 40:55

Now you have all of these majors. We’re not talking about crappy little firms here. We’re talking about Citigroup, Goldman, Deutsch, Wells. These are massive firms. Canter, even the smaller names, Webbush, SoFi, they’re all pushing this. They’re going to get behind these, which means what? More institutional support. This is what drives stocks.

Frank Curzio 41:15

It what drives industries when you have this kind of liquidity and the liquidity coming in from institutions now that the laws are much more clearer where you don’t have to worry if you get into this stuff, that the SEC is just going to find you and go after you and punish you for no reason when they actually said, “No, you’re okay. You don’t have to do anything.” And then they went off to all these firms and the Biden administration. The fact that you’re seeing this many institutions,

Frank Curzio 41:37

this is just the beginning. The amount of institutions coming in, we’re talking about trillions and trillions and trillions of assets going into something that’s what, a $2 trillion asset in Bitcoin. It’s going to filter down to Solana with ETFs coming out. Morgan Stanley is launching ETFs around Solana. I mean, it’s, it’s not just Solana. You think it’s going to end Solana and Ethereum and Bitcoin? It’s going to keep going to like the top of these.

Frank Curzio 41:56

Maybe it goes into like the Chainlink or some of these others,right? Uh, Zcash has been doing great. I mean, there’s so many of them,right? The top hundred are really good names when 90% of this industry is really garbage. But my answer to that question, Daniel, is just you’re seeing the institutional, uh, amount of money coming into this market after this deleverage event is a very good sign. So that’s why I think this could continue.

Frank Curzio 42:16

We might see a little bit of a pullback. It’s a nice breakout on technicals, which technicals work until they don’t, which could be tomorrow. You know, then it was like, “Oh, it broke through the support. Now it’s above the support the next day.” You know, so you love it, you hate it, you love it, you hate it, depending on what timeframe. I mean, whatever timeframe you put on a stock, you could basically say it’s a buy or a sell when it comes to technical trading. Uh, you know,

Frank Curzio 42:35

not saying anything bad about it, but what’s fundamental, what’s real is the amount of money from institutions that’s pouring into this industry. A lot’s going to be in Bitcoin, a lot’s going to be Ethereum. I think it’s going to filter down to a lot of others because these, these are technology companies. These are software companies with amazing software that disrupts the banking industry. That’s why you saw such a push in the Biden administration to shut it downright away.

Frank Curzio 42:56

Now the banks have caught up a lot. They’re partnering with a lot of these guys with Chainlink, with a lot of these, these other names, uh, and the Bitcoins and Ethereums. But I really like where we are with crypto and I think we will see this go higher. It’s going to be volatile, but I, I think we kind of hit bottom at the 80,000 level. I thought it might come a little lower, but I think that’s the bottom. So again, that’s a little bit to answer your question, but you still think it’s going lower, don’t you?

Daniel Creech 43:17

Uh, well, it’ll have to, I mean, price will tell. I thought it was going to go lower. Not if it holds 95. No, I mean, I’d have to reshape, but I was, I, I did think we would see a breach below 80 before. I, I didn’t expect this 95, uh, rally, but no, I don’t expect it to turn around and go straight down from here. Um, we’ll just have to see what the price action does. Quickly, did you see the,

Daniel Creech 43:37

uh, there’s a big vote coming up with, uh, Bitmine Immersion, which I don’t even know what that name means, but it’s the Ethereum treasury company run by old Tom Lee, B M N R. They are voting to authorize an increase in shares from 500 million to 50 billion.

Frank Curzio 43:59

It’s not like a split. Those guys are great.

Daniel Creech 44:02

And his reasoning, which I have to appreciate, I had to, I laughed and chuckled a little bit. I’ll keep my professionalism under wraps here, but it’s because, Frank, if Ethereum, which they continue buying, I think they’re trying to buy at least 5%, if I’m not wrong. Tom Lee says, “Listen, if Ethereum hits targets like we think it’s going to,” I’m paraphrasing,

Daniel Creech 44:22

of course, people, “then we are going to need a lot more shares ready to do stock splits, Frank. We are looking so far into the future. We think where Amazon’s, Meta’s, Netflix is already, we’re going to have to do stock splits in the future and we need more shares.” I’ll say it’s not about dilution, but it’s about being able to use it as a currency,

Daniel Creech 44:41

you know, buy other people with your stock as it appreciates. But 500 million to 50 billion, that’s a big increase. You got to like old Mr. Lee going all out. He swings for the fences, that guy.

Frank Curzio 44:51

I mean, this is, you know what the 52-week range on this stock is? It’s 32right now. $3 to 161. I don’t think I’ve seen a bigger range, a 52-week range on a stock in my life. Seriously.

Daniel Creech 45:01

Well, just look at the other cryptos.

Frank Curzio 45:04

I mean, yeah, with other cryptos, but, but I mean, this is even with other cryptos, I mean, you, you probably see it like, you know, 7 cents to like $3 or $4, but 320 to 161 is a stock,right? And what I think is important when it comes to these treasury companies is, you know, you’re leveraging,right? You’re leveraging. Uh, and the bottom line is you,

Frank Curzio 45:24

you need to see the underlying currency, which, which is, you know, these companies are backing go a lot higher. Why not just own Ethereum? It’s going to provide a lot less risk. You don’t have to deal with all the bullshit, all the dilution that’s actually coming for these stocks. Uh, you know, if you really say, “Well, Ethereum is going to rule the world,” then it’s the greatest thing in everything. You, you can now buy Ethereum very easily.

Frank Curzio 45:43

You can buy Bitcoin very easily, probably through your own brokerage firm that you’re using. But, you know, if you want to do these, this totally leveraged strategies, that’s fine. You know, then you look at MicroStrategy.

Daniel Creech 45:52

Yeah, they’re about traders and stuff like that. Absolutely.

Frank Curzio 45:54

But, you know.

Daniel Creech 45:55

Just to outperform is the goal.

Frank Curzio 45:56

Yeah. And a lot of these things, you know, you have like one or two of them that, that, you know, have really good names on them. And I get it. And it’s tough. And if Ethereum goes higher, these are going to go higher. But I don’t, I like to see, let me see if I can see a comparisonright here, um, to Ethereum. Uh, so just from a performance base. So Ethereum over the past six months is up 11%. This is down 20%. If you look at the full year,

Frank Curzio 46:17

um, you know, this is up tremendously because this is when they first launched this thing, when it was like $6, $7 and it wentright to like 161. But like the last six months of trading, you know, when you’re looking at this, uh, you know, the bottom line is when you see Ethereum go higher, you’re supposed to be making more money on this. And that’s not the case.

Frank Curzio 46:37

So Ethereum’s up 11% and it’s down 20%. You know, this should be outperforming Ethereum. And it’s not, it’s not doing its job,right? It’s not, it’s, it’s almost like an inverse ETF of two times that’s not really doing its job. So something’s wrong, uh, you know, because the market’s coming down. If it’s inverse or even if it’s a two times plus, you know, and the market goes up 5%, you know, most of the time it’s supposed to double in the short term,

Frank Curzio 46:56

those returns, you’re not seeing that. So Ethereum is going higher. My question is, you could buy Ethereum, take on much, much less risk andright now earn better returns. So why would you even own this? You know, why would you own this? Why take on all the risk, all the bullshit, everything that’s going on? Will it go higher? Could it go to a hundred and go to a hundred very easily?

Frank Curzio 47:16

I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m just saying it, this is a plan on Ethereum going higher. Andright now Ethereum has, is up 11% over the past six months. It’s up a lot. If you look on the past month, it’s up 9% and this stock’s down 7%. If you look over the three-month period, um, Ethereum is down 22%. This stock’s down 43%.

Frank Curzio 47:36

So, you know, this is supposed to be anchored to Ethereum and outperform Ethereum when Ethereum goes higher. And, you know, it might go down a little bit more because your leverage, if Ethereum does, but Ethereum has gone higher over the last six months and you haven’t seen the gains in this, which tells you that the structure’s wrong. They’re going to fuck it up even more with all this dilution. I didn’t see that story yet or anything. I think it’s hilarious.

Frank Curzio 47:54

So, you know, again, this, a lot of this is bullshit. That’s why so many people try to get in. It’s kind of like SPACs, like towards the end of SPACs, you had all these like ACMEN and stuff like that going like, “Holy shit, man, you could really rob retail investors and we can make hundreds of millions of dollars like in a minute by, you know, doing pipes at 50 cents a dollar and putting this thing out at $10,” which no one’s going to look at the valuation.

Frank Curzio 48:14

They just see the price. It’s $10, so it’s cheap, but we can buy it. That stock could be 20 billion valuation or a billion valuation. Most people don’t know that,right? So they preyed on these retail investors getting into this stuff. The first batch worked. The second half was terrible, but 95% uh of those SPACs are down more than 90%,right?

Frank Curzio 48:31

And they’ve got annihilated, but you know who didn’t get annihilated is all the people who created these things.

Daniel Creech 48:35

Chamath, that’s who did get annihilated.

Frank Curzio 48:37

300 million he cashed out. So did, so did Branson. 300 million each,right? And where is that? Where is that freaking stock? Is everybody still going to space? What is it, Virgin?

Daniel Creech 48:46

SpaceX? No, no, that’s Elon.

Frank Curzio 48:47

Everyone’s going to space. We’re all going to Virgin Galactic is at $3, three bucks.

Daniel Creech 48:52

That’s got to be up from previous.

Frank Curzio 48:53

I mean, the low is 280. The high this year was 664. If you look at the one year or you look at the, the five year, um, I mean, this stock was after everything was a thousand and it’s three bucks, which all splits and stuff. I love it. I love it. And the best is he was like, “This is a value play. And this is, if it’s such a value, why the hell isn’t Chamath buying it here?

Frank Curzio 49:14

Why wouldn’t you buy it at three?” If you really thought this was the greatest thing, which you sold, you told everyone on live TV, “This is, this isn’t just a regular play. This is a,” but he actually said it’s a value play and said, “Everyone’s going to space.” And they did this big presentation. They were sitting across from the New York Stock Exchange. And I think all the hedge funds were like, “You got to be kidding me. I can make 300 million off of the retail investors and fuck them.

Frank Curzio 49:33

I’m not going to get in trouble.” And I feel like that’s what you’re seeing too with a lot of these, you know, these Bitcoin treasury companies where do we really need 10 Bitcoin treasury companies like all doing the same exact thing? So, you know, this is a hedge fund just trying to make a lot of money off people who, and these hedge funds, a lot of them don’t even understand crypto. They’re just like, “Wow, we can make a lot of money because retail investors,

Frank Curzio 49:53

we could just sell this and we’re not going to get in trouble at all,right? The SEC will never come after us because the SEC doesn’t really even understand this shit.” Who got arrested for SPACs? Anybody? I mean, every retail investor got annihilated.

Daniel Creech 50:03

Well, like you said, it’s not, it’s not illegal. You’re not going to get arrested for doing stuff.

Frank Curzio 50:06

Nothing,right? I mean, isn’t it illegal to say this is a value play? This is the greatest play ever. Then you sell it at three. It comes down to three and you’re like, “Why wouldn’t you buy it? Why wouldn’t you take that money and put it back in and say, ‘Well, now I think it’s a value’?” Obviously.

Daniel Creech 50:18

You never had to change your heart, Frank.

Frank Curzio 50:19

Right from the beginning, he knew this was bullshit,right? Right from the start. So, you know, and I like Chamath. I do. I just, you know, this is a black eye for him and good for him. He made 600 million. I know he’s getting sued to probably pay 5 million. That’s the Wall Street way. Just like, you know, who’s the other asshole in Merrill Lynch? What’s that guy’s name? Started Business Insider.

Daniel Creech 50:37

I don’t know.

Frank Curzio 50:38

That guy that had all the $5,000 targets on Amazon and stuff like that. Same thing. They threw Merrill Lynch threw that guy into the bus. They made probably about billions and billions of dollars. He made hundreds of millions of dollars. He got fined a little bit. And then, you know, so you got to be out of the market for a little while. Now he started Business Insider and Merrill Lynch, what, still around, still perfect.

Frank Curzio 50:56

Everything’s good. You know, just, you know, they make, you know, it’s all calculated. It’s like a car company when they know there’s defects. Like they’re like, “Okay, if we get sued by the people we’re going to kill, it’s going to be probably about a billion dollars, but we’re going to make $6 billion.” So, allright, it’s worth it. Doesn’t matter if the people that are dying are going to sue us. That’s seriously. That’s really risk management. They have these at these firms, which is insane, which again, pisses me off.

Frank Curzio 51:16

And you could see I can go on and on about this, but hopefully a lot of you guys know this shit. This is my job to know this stuff. I do. That’s why I avoid a lot of this stuff. But who knows what’s going to happen with that company? I think it’s funny. Uh, I think we have a couple of minutes left here,right? Joe, how much time we got left? A little bit? Yeah. He shakes his head. Yes. You could say how much time though. So Joe’s my nephew.

Daniel Creech 51:35

Are we keeping it to an hour?

Frank Curzio 51:36

I don’t know.

Daniel Creech 51:37

You got eight minutes.

Frank Curzio 51:37

I don’t even know what we’re doing.

Daniel Creech 51:39

Eight minutes.

Frank Curzio 51:39

I don’t know what my name isright now, but Joe is just, yeah, Joe. So my nephew’s working on this and he brings up like a big TV screen that we could see with all the stuff. And he’s handling all the operations because I used to handle all the operations, which is really cool. But I did want to say one thing, uh, you know, about the Netflix deal. That’s in the news too. Netflix increased the, I don’t know if they increased their offer, but they said they’re going to.

Daniel Creech 51:58

We might close out of that today.

Frank Curzio 51:59

2750. Uh, when I look at Netflix, you know, what are you doing? I mean, why don’t you just let this go? First of all, I don’t know if you’re actually going to get it, even if the board approves it, because you know, you have the CEO really talking.

Daniel Creech 52:12

The big newsright now is they’re catching everybody up. They’re going to an all cash deal.

Frank Curzio 52:15

An all cash deal.

Daniel Creech 52:16

To speed up the, uh, process of.

Frank Curzio 52:19

And they need to speed the shit up because their stock was 134 and it’s 88,right? And this creates this uncertainty. Are you going to buy it? You don’t buy it. If they don’t, if they buy it, it’s going to be great for the company. You won’t see that greatness. You won’t see that come to the bottom line probably in over 12 months from now. I think the stock could be tremendously higher what this company does. I think it’s a screaming buy, but you know, Netflix was just on fire.

Frank Curzio 52:39

A great name. And then getting caught up in all of this, the back and forth. I mean, at the end of the day, I know the properties. I value the properties of Warner Brothers. It’s streaming. You got to be careful. I mean, almost nobody makes this market work,right? Almost nobody. And you could say, well, Disney is making it work. That’s because they cut content and they raise prices by 10X and they don’t let anyone,

Frank Curzio 52:59

you know, cancel their platform. And that’s why, you know, that brand is dying. The stock hasn’t moved forever. Uh, you know, Netflix, Warner Brothers, Paramount are kingright now in this industry. But man, it’s just, I don’t even know if Netflix, if they get approved, they’re saying, well, they could get a vote on this in the next month or so, month and a half. Now it’s all cash. The longer this plays out,

Frank Curzio 53:18

whether they get it or not, it’s just Netflix is a dead stock. It really is. It’s frustrating because it’s such a good name, but the uncertainty, people are like, allright, I’m pulling my money out. I’d rather go someplace else until this is settled, till we actually know the news, till we know how they’re going to integrate Warner Brothers, how they’re going to make money advertising everything. Butright now, the back and forth, well, you don’t even know if they’re going to buy this massive asset. You don’t know if the president’s going to get involved,

Frank Curzio 53:38

which he’ll get involved if it’s Netflix. We have Paramount, you know, those guys donating a lot of money to Trump’s campaign when Netflix, you know, the leader, even when he came president, he never switched. He talks a lot of trash about retastings. He talks a lot of trash about President Trump. You got to be on theright side of politics, whether it’s Biden, whether it’s Trump. They’re not Netflix. So let’s see,

Frank Curzio 53:57

even if this deal, if they vote for this deal to go, it’s interesting because CNN’s involved there, all the stuff that Trump hates. And again, more uncertainty with the politics in this. But you know, at $82 near, you know, it’s 88 now. 82, it’s a 52-week low.

Frank Curzio 54:12

It was 134, but it’s so sad to see a good company go through this and probably not a good decision to really go through this. Maybe it’s a good long-term decision, butright now, holy cows, that stock has gotten annihilated. Let’s see what happens over the next couple of months.

Daniel Creech 54:24

Yeah. To your point, the 82, 52-week low was in March of last year. And it went from 82 in the end of March through the end of June to the 134, 52-week high. So from summer of last year, it’s gone from 134 to just a slow grind lower and sideways, which is painful.

Frank Curzio 54:42

We’ll look at December. December was 110 in December, December 2nd. Okay. So, so we’ll look at a little over a month. It’s 88right now. And the market, that’s what? That’s up a little bit from then. So, you know, pretty crazy stuff. But guys, we covered a lot. Covered the banks. Hopefully you guys are making money, especially through our portfolios, which have done very, very well. I think crypto is going to make a big comeback. So we’re really happy with our portfolios, especially with small caps.

Frank Curzio 55:03

We’ve really been killing with small caps in our portfolio. Really been killing it in our AI newsletter, avoiding a lot of the names that have pulled back and just specialized names within power and stuff like that. Really nailed a couple of big ones that were sitting on in that portfolio that we started a year ago. So hopefully you guys had a great 2025. We’re looking to carry that performance over to 2026. Any questions come, I’m here for you. Frank@curzioresearch.com. Daniel?

Daniel Creech 55:24

Daniel@curzioresearch.com.

Frank Curzio 55:25

Allright, guys. That’s it for us. And we’ll see you tomorrow on Wall Street Unplugged Premium. Take care.

Announcer 55:29

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.