Frank Curzio 00:00

Good afternoon, there’s Thursday, September 3, and I’m Frank Curzio with the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, where we breakdown headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets. Welcome to the live event. Daniel’s here. Daniel, thank you for joining us.

Daniel Creech 00:19

Hello, Frank.

Frank Curzio 00:20

Going to be taking your questions in a minute. Got Joe doing everything behind the scenes. Joe, you’ve got to get a microphone and a camera so people can see you from now on, so I can make funny. When anything goes wrong, it’s Joe’s fault. joe@curzioresearch.com. Feel free to email him. So today’s an interesting event, and we’ve got a lot of traction on it, especially on X. People are, you know, worried about the markets, worried what’s going on. And people that know me, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I tell it how it is, right? There’s nobody above me, there’s no one I have to worry about, or, you know, just, yeah, an agenda to follow, right? This is totally unbiased. I’ve had podcasts, everyone has a podcast now, I had a podcast for, for 17 years we’ve been doing this, and I like doing it live, right? It’s just, Daniel, I like having fun and take lots of questions, lots of questions. But I wanted to go live because, as a person who doesn’t become bearish often, and it’s not because I’m this perma bull or perma bear.

Frank Curzio 01:13

My experience, really quick, my dad was an analyst, my late dad for 30 years. I learned from him. He was kind of like a perma bear. And then, you know, I worked for Jim Cramer for 6 years, 5 years. He’s, you know, a great friend, went to my wedding. I know people have the inverse ETFs, Cramer, and they’ll rip them apart. But our job as an equity analyst was to know every single stock in every single sector, and he is the ultimate bull. So, you know, having those two educations, what I realized is, and when the facts change, you have to change. It doesn’t matter if you’re bullish, you’re bearish, whatever. You have to go where the market’s telling you where to go. And right now it’s telling you that you, you, you have to, you have to be very careful here. I mean, interest rates are the ultimate wild card. And looking at these markets, look, you could say there’s bullish signals. We have midterm elections coming up, so the government’s going to do, the current administration’s going to do everything it can to get stock prices up, which we’ll talk about in a minute, because the House and the Senate are very close.

Frank Curzio 02:04

You look at Cauchy, you look at Polymarket, very close. I mean, the Democrats are projected to win the House, and I believe the Republicans are projected to win the Senate, but that’s a very, very big deal for the agenda for the Republicans, right? So they’re fighting right now. When I’m looking at some of the things bullish, before I get to the really bearish part, we have a strong economy, pretty strong, growing, going to be growing close to 3%. And yes, there’s a struggle between the high end and the low end, I get, but most asset prices are holding up pretty well right now. The market’s near its all-time highs. Massive AI spend billed, you can’t deny that, that’s real money coming into the market. Unemployment fairly strong, right? If you want a job, you can get a job. Earnings on fire. Joe, put up that earnings chart really quick. I think people need to understand this too, because the earnings growth that we’re seeing is unprecedented. And this is from Factset. Anybody could get this for free, it’s amazing.

Frank Curzio 02:55

It’s like a 30-page report they come out with like every 10, 15 days or so, and you just go Factset, search earnings, and it gives you this whole earnings profile. We know that earnings season just ended, really, just a couple companies reporting. I think it’s 90, 93, 94% of the S&P 500 companies reported earnings. On average, I’m going to ask this question, even Daniel, like, do you know how much earnings grow on average per year? If you’re dating back to the ’50s, normally?

Daniel Creech 03:21

I would guess 10.

Frank Curzio 03:22

It’s around 8%, 8.5%. These were projected to be about a year ago, if you look at a calendar year, which I highlight, 2026, they were projected to be around 16%, 17%, then they went to 19, 22%. Right now, for calendar year 2026, 31% earnings growth. That’s a very, very big deal. That means if we could really be trading at 25, 27 times forward earnings, and the market would still be cheap if you’re able to continue to grow at 31%, right? So when you look at P/E ratios, I say this all the time to people, P/E ratios, the P/E ratio is meaningless unless you know the growth of the company. I mean, the average P/E for a stock, say, for S&P 500, trades at 20 times forward earnings. If you’re trading higher, that’s a premium. However, if you’re growing much more than the market, then you’re going to deserve that premium, right? So if you’re not, a P/E ratio of 7 or 8 could be super expensive, even though it’s below the average for the S&P 500, if you’re not growing earnings year over year, right?

Frank Curzio 04:17

So, you know, we have that, and throw that, throw that screen up again too, because we have strong revenue growth. But the forward P/E, people are like, this market is so expensive. This isn’t about valuation. Valuation doesn’t matter. Yes, I’m an analyst, fundamental analyst for 30 years, valuation doesn’t matter until it does, because people are calling valuation being very expensive. People aren’t going to believe this when I tell you this, but right now the market is cheaper than it’s been any time in the last 5 years, basically. So if you thought the market was expensive today, you should have been selling 5 years ago, and look what the market has done since then. Why? Because we’re seeing this massive growth across AI that’s filtering now to all these sectors, all these companies, and everyone’s getting in on it and, you know, trying to cash in. How can we supply these big companies, these big hyperscalers that are going to spend literally $1.3 trillion next year? So when you look at an earnings, you’re saying, okay, you have the earnings growth behind it, so the market should be good.

Frank Curzio 05:05

That’s normal thinking. Let’s think now, because we’re in unprecedented times where, no matter what book you read, what we’re going through right now has never happened in history. Okay, we’ve never seen the spending that’s going on with AI, we’ve never seen $40 trillion in debt, we’ve never seen our government refuse to have a recession. We’re not allowed to have recessions anymore, the government has to intervene. We used to have recessions every 4 to 5 years, right? Which is freaking insane when you think about it. Recessions are good, they’re good. You have strong demand, demand goes up, then you oversupply, the market usually comes down, you have this recession that happens, you know, what, 5, 6 years, I believe. That’s fine, you have these ebbs and flows, but normally you have a market that, you know, in terms of equities, goes higher and higher. What’s different this time? Why am I having this, and why am I so alarmed as someone that’s never really alarmed? If you’re looking at interest rates, they are going very, very high. And if you got a 10-year, if you’re looking at the 10-year, you might be saying, okay, we’re at 4.7, 4.8, if we go at 5%, it’s, we’re going to be in big trouble.

Frank Curzio 05:59

And it doesn’t seem like it’s that big, because we’re at 4.7, we’re just 4.8 like yesterday, day before, but, you know, if you look back, we were at like 4.2, 4.3 a few months ago. So why is this such a big deal when it comes to the 10-year, and why should we focus on it? I don’t want to lose you here, because bonds and interest rates, I know people, especially retail investors, are like, Frank, just tell me what to buy, what to sell, and I get it. But you need to understand this, and why I’m so nervous, because, again, I’m never really nervous. When you’re looking at these interest rates, 4.7, 4.8, the US, it’s the highest in 3 years, and it’s not just the US, it’s going on globally. If you look at Germany, 10-year yield highest since 2011. Japan, 10 years at 3%, seems low, that’s the highest since 1996. The UK, highest yield since 2008. Now, why am I so worried? Because there are a lot of people that are predicting if 10-year goes higher, you know, there’s doom and everything, but I’m worried because our government cannot do anything to stop this rate from going higher, which is very scary.

Frank Curzio 06:54

So when I say government, I’m going to say the government and throw the Fed in there as well. It’s kind of the same. People will argue that, but it’s kind of the same. The Fed’s talking about raising short-term rates. We’re going to raise, we’re going to raise, we think we’re going to raise. Walsh is like, I think we’re going to raise, I’m not too sure. He just had the meeting, and everyone was like, oh, he’s, he’s, you know, talkish, means you’re going to, you know, raise rates. And he wasn’t as talkish, right? He was dovish, which means, okay, he’s probably going to keep rates steady. And then he just had Jackson Hole meeting, and now everyone, if you’re looking at, we price in the Fed funds to predictability of it, and now went from 30% that they’re going to raise rates in September, this month, in a couple weeks, we’re going to see the PPI and CPI release before that, which are going to be a very big deal. But it went from 30% to a hike to, after Jackson Hole, now it’s 60%. You don’t really see those odds go up and down that much.

Frank Curzio 07:41

The Fed’s job is really to, to predict to the markets what it’s going to do, and right now nobody really knows what the Fed’s going to do. So we need more information out of the Fed, that’s a different story. But when I see the Fed saying, hey, we’re going to raise rates, and usually when you raise rates, what happens? It tends to slow inflation over time, right? And that’s how it corrects itself. Higher prices really fix itself, because people like FU, just like we saw with Dick’s Sporting Goods. I put out something on Twitter showing, this is a real reason why, you know, last quarter, Dick’s Sporting Goods was like, everything is great, we’re awesome, we’re the best, and the analysts were high-fiving each other, and all of a sudden they lowered their numbers tremendously, and the stock crashed 30%. And I took a picture when I was in there with my daughter buying sneakers for a regular pair of Hokas with $230. This is why people aren’t buying sneakers. The higher the price, eventually people are going to give you the finger and say, FU, I’m not paying no more, and then you have a quarter like Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Frank Curzio 08:30

Getting back to high interest rates and what’s going on. The Fed has been saying, okay, we need to raise rates, and too you’ve been telling us, listen, you should be raising rates, but, you know, they’re saying they’re going to raise rates, and what’s happening? We’re seeing the 10-year basically say, FU, we don’t believe you. So then we had Treasury Secretary Bessent come out a few weeks ago and say, surprise me, and this drove the markets higher. The markets were down that day, it was about 2 and a half weeks ago, right? I think, Daniel? And Bessent came out, Treasury Secretary said, we’re going to double our purchase of long-dated bonds, because they’re going to buy the long-dated bonds. Now, someone who’s been in this market for a long time, that scared the shit out of me. For several reasons. One, why is the government interfering when the economy is supposedly, if you look at the Bessent and Trump, is strong? Stocks near all-time highs, we don’t see it. I mean, I see government intervention during the credit crisis, that makes sense, we had to do it, people, I didn’t want it, I hated it, but we’d probably have 40% unemployment rate and, you know, people would be, houses would be on fire right now.

Frank Curzio 09:28

We needed to do that, otherwise all the money in the banks, the whole global financial system would have collapsed. I understand intervening during COVID, we didn’t know the extent, especially at the early, the beginning, the first few months, and we’re locking down everything, we’re handing checks to everyone and stuff like that. I get it, and it was funny, transitory, and I don’t know why, you know, during a credit crisis it was a lot different, we handed money to banks, and banks determined who they were going to lend it to. In COVID it was a lot different, we handed banks, we handed checks directly to consumers, to businesses and PPP loans, and then we would, you know, the government, and the Fed was so surprised and Powell was surprised that inflation wasn’t going to be transitory, right? He’s like, it’s going to be temporary, when 10% went through the roof. But I understand we’re intervening there, even during the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which is kind of similar to now. Because Silicon Valley Bank was invested in 10-year bonds, and those treasuries were paying under 2% at the time, and then we saw them start paying 4%, and that, it was easy to have a leverage on that bank, and they intervened.

Frank Curzio 10:24

Even in that, I see it, you know, you don’t want a lot of banks to fall. But why intervene? When have we seen the government intervene when the economy and stocks are supposedly very, very strong? And that’s based not just on Bessent, you could listen to most economists out there, you can listen to most market pundits, very strong, huge spending, earnings are very strong, why is the government intervening? And that should have raised a red flag, and for us it did, and then what happened the next couple days, the 10-year resumed, it resumed going higher, and the market sold off a little bit. And I think that’s going to happen going forward, because how do we stop this? How do we stop the 10-year from going higher? And the bigger point, I think, you know, I thought Bessent’s surprised that 10-year, you know, and buying 10-year long-dated treasuries, the biggest surprise to me is, why did they have to announce that? Because usually during a credit crisis, during these things, they always go to private equity, they go to hedge funds, and say, hey, you guys, put them in a closed room, you want to buy this stuff, it’s going to be cheaper right now, it’s going to help us a lot.

Frank Curzio 11:25

They don’t want to intervene the government unless they have to, because it’s a big headline, right? Do you notice that they intervened in this, and they said, you know, hey, we’re going to buy some more long-dated treasuries? And I’m like, well, where the hell are the private equity funds? Or the hedge funds? Right? They’re always there to buy cheap shit from our government during a crisis. Well, Joe, put up that chart. When we look at hedge funds and treasuries, and how much they own. Look at this. They’re maxed out. They’re at 8%. You know how much that amounts to? That amounts to $6 trillion. So they already own a ton of it, and they don’t want to own any more. And then you look at private equity firms. Private equity firms, I was fortunate enough to know someone who’s very dialed in this market 3 years ago and said, man, these guys are really fucked. Excuse my language, they’re done. Okay, there’s right now 32,000 companies sitting on their balance sheets. What do private equity funds do?

Frank Curzio 12:18

They take over companies, they leverage themselves a ton, then they take over companies, usually they’re asset-heavy because they can leverage those assets. They fire a lot of employees, they restructure the company, and then they have this huge growth model where they come out and they IPO later at a higher price and they sell. When they sell, they get all that money, it’s called dry powder. And they do it, rinse, repeat, over and over again. Now they’re sitting on all these companies, they haven’t marked to market, and they’re supposed to get rid of these companies on average every 7 years, they’ve been sitting on their balance sheets for 10 years, 12 years now, and now the investors in their funds are like, we want our money back, and one person asks, two person, two person, I mean by large institutions. And all of a sudden everyone starts asking, and they’re like, well, we got to freeze redemptions. That’s pretty crazy. That’s telling you they’re in a lot of trouble. So you’re not getting any help from private equity funds. They have 32,000 companies on the balance sheets that they’re looking to sell, and that’s according to Forbes, 32,000 that they can’t really sell, because once they sell, they have to mark to market a lot lower, and they have no dry powder, and they’re not allowing redemptions.

Frank Curzio 13:13

That market is frozen, it’s broken, they’re going to be selling those assets at 10 cents on a dollar. We’re taking advantage of that through our currency of one membership, which is another company, separate conversation, which is open to credit investors, investing in private, just private securities. So if you don’t have private equity funds and you don’t have hedge funds buying, who is going to buy this? That’s why Bessent had to come in, and it was surprise. We’ve never seen that come to the markets for 30 years, we’ve never seen the government come in with stocks just off their highs. So the government couldn’t get anyone to buy these long-dated treasuries, so they had to do it. Now, the 10-year has been surging, right? Joe, you got that chart up there. And the 10-year, by the way, if you don’t know, is everything. It means everything. It’s what drives mortgage rates, it drives auto loans, it drives student loan debt, corporate debt issuance. It’s what we feel as retail investors directly, right?

Frank Curzio 14:01

When we see interest rates go higher and mortgage rates go higher, it’s based on that. Now, Joe, put up the margin debt now. Because now what are we looking at? If you put up that chart of US margin debt, US margin debt hits a record, 1.5 trillion. Okay, the markets are getting bigger, they’re going higher, so obviously this number’s going to get bigger, but what’s not anticipated is when rates go higher and higher, the cost of this debt also goes higher and higher. And it’s getting to the point where the government has to intervene because they’re going, holy shit, because the long bond, it’s telling you, I don’t care what the Fed says, I don’t believe that they’re going to do anything. Even if they raise rates, it’s going to take, probably it takes around 18 months to filter the first rate cut into the system. So even if they raise rates now, it’s really not going to make a big deal. So how do we slow inflation? Because a 2% rate, give me a break, I want to joke. Does anybody know? I don’t know, Daniel, you have that?

Frank Curzio 14:51

Like 2%? When’s the last time we had 2% on inflation? I mean, that’s their target, we’re never going to hit it again. I mean, just make it 2.5%, 3%. That’s our going target is 2%. You’re not even getting it close to 2%. Not only has inflation gone up 30% over a 4-year period, you’d expect it to go down 10%. No, no, no. We’re up 30% over that 4-year period from COVID, 4 years after 2020, 2024, and then now we’re still going up 2.5% going forward. And when does this inflation stop? Because it’s not going to stop, because what are we seeing with Iran? We all know now, finally, there’s no easy solution to a problem where all Iran has to do is get one drone through, or one mine through, that’s it, to damage one boat, and this continues. The headlines continue, continue, continue. Right? So what are we going to see? We’re going to see oil prices elevated for a very, very long time, even though our president said, hey, we’re going to bomb Iran, it’s going to be really quick. And again, I don’t want to get into politics here, but this is supposed to be a short-term problem.

Frank Curzio 15:47

Now we know this isn’t a short-term problem, this isn’t a week problem, this isn’t a month problem. Even though Bessent said, what did Bessent say, Daniel, yesterday?

Daniel Creech 15:53

We’ll get through this, Frank. Energy prices will come down.

Frank Curzio 15:56

Yeah, energy prices are going to come down eventually. What does that mean? Is that 5 years from now? Is that a year from now? That’s a pretty big difference. I mean, we were in the 50s and the 60s, and now we’re what, 85? So, you know, what does that mean? Like, when is this going to happen? But the fact is, one drone you need to get through to hit one of these ships, insurance rates go up, and then we have this all again, and then Trump’s going to bomb certain areas, and they’re going to go bomb certain, you know, US embassies in Middle Eastern countries, and over and over and over, and rinse, repeat, right? So you have to assume that oil prices are going to remain high for a while, because there’s no short-term solution to this. You know, you look at our margin debt, right? We just showed all-time record, and you throw in those higher oil prices, I mean, look at that debt, 1.5 trillion. So all of this massive debt, we’re more leveraged now than we’ve ever been in the history of our country.

Frank Curzio 16:45

Leverage is not a bad thing. All right? It’s not a bad thing if you use it correctly. If there was no leverage, no one would be able to buy houses. That’s how you get mortgages. It’s the over-leveraging. When we saw during the credit crisis, when the banks were leveraging 30 to 1, nobody knew what was going on, no one knew exposure went to GE, AIG, nobody even knew that stuff. They were just like, holy cow, what’s going on, right? Nobody knew, right? Everyone’s in cahoots, and then we saw the whole market collapse. I’m not calling for that now. What I’m saying is, if interest rates in this 10-year hit 5%, look out. Because when you’re looking at everything else going on, and I’m not even talking about September being the worst month for stocks, and then the midterm election cycle. Joe, put this graph up. A lot of people don’t know this. This is interesting. So this is the midterm. Blow it up a little bit. People can see it if you can. So the left side that I highlight, the average decline reached in midterm election years.

Frank Curzio 17:38

And when you look at that number, let me bring it up here on my screen. So this is going back to 23 midterm elections, right? So 1934. The average decline in a midterm election year, which we’re in, is 20.8%. Now, that average decline, if you read in the bottom, says within 12 months before the midterm election low. So you’re looking at taking that high, where what is the highest level that the market was at? So the market could be, you know, at 20% higher, and we’re fine, because it’s come down. So this is not like you’re going to see a 20% correction, it’s 20% off the very top of the market over the past 12 months. The very top of the market of the S&P 500 is right now. It’s like 1-2% off its highs. So if this holds true, again, I’m not looking at this and saying this is going to hold true, but we’re looking on average, dating back to 1934, during this period right now, we see an average decline reaching midterm election years of 20%, 21%. And if you look past that, I’ll get to that in a minute.

Frank Curzio 18:40

The market’s really surging after that, going into the next year. We have about a year. So we’re looking at a lot of things against us. And when I throw all this stuff in there, and yes, I’m highlighting the positives too, I’m not creating this scenario, oh my, I try not even to use the word crash. A crash is a 20% pullback in stocks. Or you could have a 10% correction. But when you say crash, it’s such a better word. Crash, oh my God, it could be 30%, 40%, the market’s going to end. No, the market’s not going to end. What we’re going to have is a 20% crash. Not everything’s going to get crushed. The higher leverage names are probably going to get hammered. And I’ll get through some of those sectors in a minute. But if you throw in that, and then constant disamount of money, throw in the, Joe, the CapEx chart, and the spending by AI companies. Do we have that? So this is from Goldman Sachs, which was two months ago, and if you know, Jensen Huang just reported on Nvidia, right? CEO of Nvidia, they reported earnings, and he actually came up and said 2027, this is 1 trillion, if you look, it’s going to be $1.3 trillion in spending in 2027.

Frank Curzio 19:37

So if you add all this to 2031, it’s 7.6 trillion, it’s probably going to be more like 10 trillion. Where is this money going to come from? Where are they going to raise this money? Now, you have free cash flow, these guys are generating, probably the hyperscalers I saw report, they’re generating $100 billion in free cash flow for next year. But they plan, they believe, they believe that that’s going to increase 5X by 2030, 2031. They may be right, but that’s a forecast, right? It means that they’re making money off of AI. However, they need to spend a shitload of money in order to get those returns. And that’s why you’re seeing a lot of these names in the credit default swaps, that’s basically like the insurance bidding against a company that’s going to default. They have gone high in Oracle, SpaceX, and some of the other hyperscalers, and that’s why you saw some of these names get hit. They’re reporting really good numbers, but they have to raise a shitload of money, and their projections were when interest rates were a lot lower, and now interest rates are going higher and higher, which means what?

Frank Curzio 20:32

Which means that no matter what, they’re going to have to cut down on the amount of money they’re going to spend, because a lot, 7.6 trillion, say, okay, 10% is for inflation over this time, or whatever it is, average 2% over 5-6 years, say 12%, it’s probably going to be a lot higher than that. So you’re going to look at these companies, get to a point where it’s still going to be gangbuster. We’ve been all over the AI trend, and we’ve made a lot of money for investors, 10X winners in BE, Celestica, I think 7-8X winners. Yeah, we’ve been all over the AI trend for the last 3 years, right? And we helped investors, and I’m happy to say that. Of course, we could always do better, but it’s what I do this for. I love when I see my investors make money. When the amount of money they’re going to have to spend, they’re going to have to raise a lot of this money. And if you notice, a couple weeks ago, what did Alphabet come out and say? And I thought that was interesting, because Alphabet came out and said, hey, you know what, we’re going to raise, I think they raised something like $50 billion in the bond market, or maybe it was like $30 billion in the bond market.

Frank Curzio 21:28

This was a couple months ago, and then a couple weeks later, they went to the equity market and said, okay, we’re going to raise another, I think it’s like $55 billion in the equity market. Meaning that the cost, why would they do that? Because the cost to raise money in the debt market is going higher and higher and higher, and that creates a problem, that corrects itself. So when I look at all this, and rates are going higher, and I know one question you might be asking right now, saying, Frank, listen, it’s 4.7, what’s a big deal about 5.0? It’s the world. And I’m not even talking about 5. What happens if we go to 5.5 or 6%? Look out below. It’s really going to get nasty out there, because we’re highly leveraged, and we can’t afford to make the interest payments on a lot of this debt. Okay? And a lot of people have student loans, 1.9 trillion in student loan debt. Last time I looked, it was a couple years ago. A couple years ago, I think it just broke 1.1. It’s 1.9 already. You wonder why these guys hate America, that’s why.

Frank Curzio 22:17

Oh, go to college, everything’s going to be great, it’s going to be awesome, and they’re sitting in massive debt, no assets. You know, inflation every time is a great for people who own assets. These kids don’t own assets. They’re sitting there going, holy cow, what are we going to do? And now AI’s going to take all of our jobs. You wonder why they’re awoke and so pissed off. There it is. Right? I mean, social security, healthcare, all this debt, $40 trillion in debt that we have. I mean, all the leverage that we have, we cannot have interest rates go higher. And even if they go a little higher, what’s the big deal? It’s psychological. And that drives the market completely. That’s why I said valuations don’t matter. People have been telling me the market’s expensive for 15 years, and I’ve made an absolute fortune. Okay? And all my subscribers have done incredibly well. Okay, as long as you’re growing, as long as you’re paying off the debt and the deficits, you’re fine. Deficits don’t matter. As long as you’re paying it off. Okay? Because I’ve been hearing that argument literally since the early 80s.

Frank Curzio 23:05

When I was a little kid, right? My dad, deficits, deficits, deficits. We’ve been hearing it the whole time. Devaluation of the dollar, all this garbage, right? All bullshit. If you just forgot about it, you’d be a millionaire right now. You have to worry about that when we can’t pay off the debt. And as interest rates go higher, that’s what you have to worry. But it’s the psychological effect. That’s what killed the credit crisis. That’s why we almost got annihilated, because everyone was like trying to get their money at the banks at the same time. Try to do that today. Imagine everyone going to the banks at the same time trying to get their money out. A lot of it’s psychology, right? And psychological, where that’s what drives spending. That’s what drives people to take out that extra credit card. If they believe the economy’s good, and they see their friends, everybody’s doing good, everybody’s doing okay, that’s fine. And they feel like, okay, everything’s okay, they’re going to spend more. But if they feel like, wow, I’m in a lot of trouble, things are bad, that’s when we hit 5%, it’s going to be everywhere.

Frank Curzio 23:54

If the 10-year hits 5%, it’s going to be in every newspaper, every single website, everything across the entire world. It’s going to hurt the global economy. That’s when you’re going to see stock prices really come down. I hope that doesn’t happen. What I’m saying is, you need to position yourself for if it does. Because right now, if you’re looking at the risk-reward, what’s the reward? Earnings growth. It’s priced in. I just showed it to you. If you’re reading it, it’s priced in. The economy’s doing great. We’re hearing the economy’s doing great. Okay. Inflation is kind of moderating. It’s moderating if you look at the CPI and the PPI over the past two months only. We’re going to get that reading next week, which is massive, to determine the Fed’s going to meet, I think the 16th and the 17th, Daniel? I think they’re meeting. They’re going to meet the 16th and the 17th to determine if they’re going to hike rates. That’s going to be determined based on what the CPI and PPI, which, if you’re looking, core excludes food and energy.

Frank Curzio 24:43

Without the core, you have energy. Energy prices are up tremendously over the past 30 days. Tremendously over the past 30 days. Right? So we’re going to see those numbers. They’re going to say, oh, they met estimates. Okay, fine. Who cares about it? They meet estimates, so everything’s fine. It’s not just meeting estimates. It’s going to grow. 2.5, 2.7, almost 3%. You’re going to be like, holy shit, what happened to that 2% number? So psychologically, if we go to 5, it doesn’t seem like it’s much. Two bips, we go up, okay, it’s not a big deal. Psychologically, it’s the biggest thing. That’s what drives the markets. It’s psychology behind the markets. People are going to be like, holy cow, these rates are so high. And just look out your window. You guys are all economists, you don’t even realize it. I wish I taught economics like this. But, you know, people selling their houses. Two years ago, boom, flying off the markets. Three years ago, flying off the markets. Are they flying off the market now?

Frank Curzio 25:30

I mean, I know people who have houses in neighborhoods, in Florida and in Texas, which are two hot markets, that can’t sell their homes right now. And they’ve been in the market for eight, nine, ten months. Right? So you can’t move sideways in a house. Meaning that if you have a million-dollar house with a mortgage in New York, and you hate New York, and you think the Muslims are taking over, and my nomi, oh my God, I got to get out of there before it’s over. Let me get to Florida. And let me go to Trump craziness. And Trump, Trump, if you want to do that, you can’t. Your interest rate’s below probably 3.5%. And you’re going to go to what? 6.7, 6.8% right now. You’re going to talk about your mortgage going to be 80% more to move sideways. To move from a million-dollar house to a million-dollar house, your costs are going to go up 70, 80% for your mortgage. That’s why nobody’s moving. If you have cash, cash is king. You can negotiate. It’s a good buyer’s market if you have cash. All this stuff is driven by the 10-year. Corporate debt, student loan debt, auto loans.

Frank Curzio 26:18

As this goes higher, everyone’s cost of living, most people are in debt, and it’s going higher and higher and higher. It’s just a matter of time before it hurts consumer spending. We’re seeing certain levels, Dick’s Sporting Goods, other levels. We’re seeing it at memory costs with AI, tremendously through the roof. This is the first time we’ve seen Apple come out and say, wow, we’re raising prices on iPhones and iPads now. Because of memory, we have to. They never said that. And they generate an absolute fortune. So we’re looking at a market, and I don’t know how we get interest rates lower, because the government intervention is not working. Yes, we’re going to have Trump do everything he can going into midterms to try to prop up the markets. We’re seeing that. But there’s a lot working against us, and the positives I feel like are already priced in. So let’s be smart here. Because if you’re looking at what sectors to buy, I really love, I mean, you look at Bitcoin, there’s a reason why Bitcoin and gold are surging. There’s a reason why healthcare, have you seen healthcare?

Frank Curzio 27:05

Have you seen J&J? Through the roof. You’ve seen a lot of these names through the roof. AI is going to help that sector more than it’s helped any sector. Okay? As someone who covers AI, look at robotics and systems and stuff like that, healthcare is going to be the biggest breakthroughs that we have with AI. And just, I mean, there’s millions of compounds on the shelves of these companies that cost $2 billion to get them through phase three and get them to the market, and 12 years, and they’re like, it’s not worth it. Now those costs are going to go down by 80%, and the timeframe is going to go down by 70%. Now you’re going to see more things, more drugs come to market, which is great for humanity in general, but also great for a lot of these companies and lots of stock picks. That’s what you’ve seen show up on our Alpha portfolio. You know, healthcare is great. Be careful of the companies that are leveraged. Companies that are leveraged even to AI that are promising, hey, I got all these contracts, and things are great.

Frank Curzio 27:50

Now, if that stock is down 40, 50%, that’s fine. A lot of that could be priced in, but be careful with the leveraged names. They’re going to get hit the hardest. Oracle’s gotten hit. I kind of like it now. Amazon, I like as well. I don’t like Google and Meta as much. I think the digital ad business is in big trouble, and that’s their core. You know, Google’s done great on cloud, which has saved them, but Meta is off its highs, underperforming the most out of, I think, almost all the hyperscalers. Be careful with SpaceX, too. A lot of debt has to be taken out for that company going forward to build. I know that it’s great. I told people to buy it when it came down to below 110, because a lot of lockups and stuff like that was factored in. When you have risks, and everyone’s talking about them, they’re factored in. Okay? With this, I feel like we’re not factoring in a 10% rate in terms of, or 5% rate on a 10-year, in terms of what it’s going to cost, how people are going to pull back, the psychological effect.

Frank Curzio 28:44

And when I look at the markets right now, it’s not saying, hey, we’re 20 times full with earnings. Earnings are growing 30% this year, which is insane. Which makes it that that’s below the five-year average, trading at 20 times, 20.5 times earnings, is below the five-year average. So I’m not telling you that stocks are expensive. I’m just telling you that you’re going to see a risk-off market. It’s going to benefit some sectors. Banks do very, very well, usually a little bit later in the cycle, because higher interest rates. Look at the net interest income on JP Morgan. Remember, rates were supposed to be higher three years ago, and they haven’t been. Rates were supposed to go lower for the last three years, and they haven’t been. Higher much longer than people expected, because the market’s been chugging along, and the Fed’s like, let’s not touch it. Everything’s okay. We’re still moving high with stocks, still moving high. Unemployment rate is good. We’re doing okay. Inflation is a little high, but we’re okay here, and the market’s going higher, so let’s keep interest rates where they are.

Frank Curzio 29:33

So they were expecting net interest income to come down, right? What they charge is basically their interest rate and what they lend out, right? So what they’re able to borrow, what they lend out. That’s massive. So as rates go higher, they’re going to be making more money. And JP Morgan, what was it, Daniel? $100 billion. They’re expected next year to generate just in net interest income. $100 billion. If I had to guess, it’s probably a bigger market cap than probably two-thirds of the S&P 500, maybe. One and a half of the S&P 500. $100 billion. Not market cap, just in net interest income. So banks are a good play. The ones you want to avoid are the highly leveraged names. Be very, very careful. But we’re going into a market into kind of went from a Tina market into a Tata market. This is a real thing. So a Tina market was, there’s no alternative to stocks. And that’s what happened in 2010. And we became very bullish. And I want to thank David Tepper, because he went on CNBC, and I’m listening, and this guy was like, bearish is how I love David Tepper, one of my favorite investors.

Frank Curzio 30:35

And he’s sitting there going, with the Fed intervening, keeping rates at zero, and it’s not just going to be for 2009, 2010, it’s going to be 11, 12, 13, which he predicted, and he was right. I think it was like seven years of basically 0% interest rates. He goes, you know what’s going to go higher? Everything’s going to go higher. Everything. And he was right, because there’s no alternative to stocks. You can’t put your money in park at some place where you’re going to make a nice interest rate like you did in the 80s, and your dad would tell you, well, my mortgage rate was 15%, and you’re only at 6%, so stop bitching. Now we’re going into a Tata market where there’s thousands of alternatives to stocks. Because when you see interest rates go higher, right now you can earn a 4% yield risk-free in your Interactive Broker account. If you have over $100,000 in it. 4% is a great rate. That is an awesome rate. I mean, it’s better than buying stocks in a crazy market that are going to go down 20, 30%, right?

Frank Curzio 31:24

So that is a really good rate for people who are incredibly wealthy. You know, what are we getting? 0% rates, 1%, 2% for such a long time. Even some of the biggest banks, why stablecoins are going to rock the market, it’s going to be great, because they’re going to provide higher interest. Right now we have 6, 7 trillion sitting in banking and checking accounts for the biggest banks in the world that pay like 0.2% interest, which is a joke. That’s highway robbery. That’s why they’re lobbing so hard against stablecoins that are going to pay a high interest rate. Regardless, now you have options to say, okay, do I want them? I’m usually, you know, 8% returns are great, but those aren’t risk-free returns for the markets. When I average 8%, 9% returns since the S&P 500 became 50 companies, 500 companies in the 50s. It’s around 8, 9% return. That’s great, along with that strong earnings growth over those years. But if I can earn 4% risk-free, that’s a really good rate. That’s a good alternative.

Frank Curzio 32:13

And now you’re seeing alternatives, right? Which is Tata. There are thousands of alternatives to stocks. We were going from a market that was teenagers. There’s no alternatives to stocks. You had to put your money in stocks. It was forcing you. That’s why we had one of the biggest bull markets ever since the credit crisis. Last thing I’m going to say before I take your questions. Again, on the X platform, ask questions. Anything you want. Daniel and I are going to be answering in a second. When you’re looking at these markets, it’s not so much what, holy shit, we’re going to get a 20% crash. You got to get out of the market. You got to position yourself in the right places. When this happens, what have we seen since the credit crisis? I mean, even since the dot-com era. The dot-com, the Nasdaq collapsed 70, 80%. It was over a three-year period of this recession. Oh, this is terrible. We have a market where our government doesn’t allow that anymore, because they know that people vote with their wallets.

Frank Curzio 33:00

So they’re always going to intervene. So what happens when we saw the credit crisis? What was it? Like nine months of a 35% correction, and then what do we see with the biggest bull markets ever? And then I did the government, which is the worst thing that ever happened in the government’s history, is they made money off of everything they bailed out. Because now they feel like, holy shit, we can enter the market whenever we want. We’re going to make money off it. All the real estate, all the options, all the warrants invested in banks, AIG investment. They made an absolute fortune on all this. Fannie and Freddie are still printing billions, tens of billions of dollars, right? All that money that they made, putting all the bank loans in those things. The government’s making a fortune. They’re still in conservatorship. Then we see what happened during the credit crisis. Same thing. Credit crisis was one month. One month of a 30% pullback. And then all of a sudden, boom, right? So even though I’m predicting this, and we’re going to see a pullback, and you got to be careful here, know that it creates a massive opportunity, because this is probably going to be short term.

Frank Curzio 33:50

Every correction we have is immediate. It seems like it’s less than a month, this big crash. You know, that’s something that could push rates lower. We get a bank failure, something big, right? A devaluation of a currency. We need something to happen. Just like Silicon Valley, when that went bust, rates started going higher. The 10-year was at, I believe, 4%. And they had all these loans, a 10-year that they were loaned out for less than 2%. And then when they were forced to cover, they got wrecked. And what happened? The Fed was actually, I think the odds for rate in 2023, March 2023, correct me if I’m wrong on this. The Fed’s odds for a rate, a 50% basis hike, were 70% going in. Before that happened to Silicon Valley. And then you know what the rate, know what the percentage was? It was zero after that, because the market corrected itself. And that’s, we need a correction event. It’s either going to be a pullback in stocks, because the government can’t help us. The government can’t buy more treasuries.

Frank Curzio 34:45

If they announce they’re going to buy more treasuries, we’re going to see the 10-year shoot past 5%, because no one’s going to believe them. And the fact that they’re intervening in a market where everything’s supposedly fine, earnings growth is huge, the market’s in your all-time highs. That’s something we’ve never seen. That is a big red flag. That’s why I’m nervous. Be very careful. We’re doing this with our portfolio in Curzio Alpha. Curzio Alpha, we decide to take all of our newsletters and condense them into one. And it covers every single thing. So you can go to curzioresearch.com to see that. Now it’s just one newsletter. We have screening features. It’s awesome. So you have any, wherever we want to go with the market, we go. We don’t have 20 newsletters like our competitors and charge you $15,000, $5,000 for each of them. It’s just one newsletter. We cover all the markets. And we have crypto in there. We have AI in there. We have healthcare in there. Every single sector, everything we want to do, one portfolio.

Frank Curzio 35:34

That’s the way we want to run our business going forward. This way it’s very easy. One newsletter covering all this. That’s where we’re shifting our money right now. Being very careful, not coming completely out of the market. Investing in the right sectors that are going to benefit for higher interest rates. And then being very, very quick to have cash on the sidelines. Because if I’m right and this thing corrects before the midterm election into November, into December, what we see usually during that timeline, during those midterm elections, which is a 20% correction during the midterm corrections dating back to 1934, we see a huge snapback. And it’s going to provide great opportunities like during a credit crisis. 70% of the stocks in the S&P 500 trade under $10, which is insane. Right? So, you know, you’re looking at great, great opportunities. If you’re prepared, be prepared. Because if we hit 5% here, which it looks like we’re going to do, the markets are going to come down. If they do, you want to have some dry powder, because it’s not going to last long.

Frank Curzio 36:26

That’ll get us into a lot of stocks, new ideas, and I’m already preparing for that part. So with that said, Daniel and I, we’re open to questions. Let me know what you thought about the presentation. Again, everything is live here. You can see what time is it? 11:36. It’s fully live. So we’re going to have fun. Answer some of your questions. Joe, you want to start the questions? Daniel, you can start asking them. Daniel, I’m going to make answer some of these questions. But let’s go. Shoot, guys. On X, free. Take advantage of it. No holds barred, no bias, no nothing. I tell you exactly how I feel. And you can even ask some of the questions that are in our current portfolio, which I’m sure we’re going to get. So with that said, thanks for listening to the presentation. Let’s get some of your questions. It’s going to be the fun part.

Daniel Creech 37:06

And you can send questions on X or askcurzio.com. Frank, we got a question from the Netherlands. Subscriber, Core. Says, “Hey, Frank. Thanks for discussing offshore in general and blue energies during the episode of June 8th. As a private investor, he also invests in VAL, NEODL. Those are exploration and drilling companies. He said, ‘I’m wondering what type of businesses potentially could gain more from the expected growth in offshore. Is it going to be service companies, drilling companies, or exploration companies like Blue Energies?’ It would be great to discuss this. Thank you. Kind regards from the Netherlands.”

Frank Curzio 37:43

Good question. Look, Blue Energy is a company that we work with, with marketing. We do that only with certain companies, which is a shift in our business model. We only work with great, great companies who want exposure in small caps. Companies that I’m taking invested in personally. I’m invested at $50,000 investment in this company. Personally, I’m going to be adding more here. Blue Energy, there’s a massive boom. It’s being overshadowed by AI, basically, for offshore drilling. Offshore drilling is now cheaper than it is to drill in the Permian. That’s a crazy stat, right? I bet you a lot of people didn’t know that. If you look in offshore, Africa is one of the best places to drill right now. All the countries there, the governments are saying, “Hey, there’s a win-win for everyone.” If you’re worried about geography or that kind of risk, look, the majors have been drilling for 100 years. They’ve gotten killed in some of these things, working with the wrong governments. They’re going all in.

Frank Curzio 38:32

If you’re looking at BP, you’re looking at, what’s the firm out of Brazil? The big oil firm out of Brazil. You’re looking at Total. Chevron with Venezuela, too. So they just came out. CEO did a great interview with Venezuela. But that’s where the most undiscovered multi-billion barrel oil finds are still left, one of the few areas. And then Blue did a good job four years ago, three years ago, just building up and saying, “Hey, we’re buying property off the coast of Liberia.” And now Total has not only bought all the property around, announced two months ago that they’re going to spend $200 million developing each block, which is literally like right around Blue Energy’s property in the Harper Basin. But they took a 65% stake in the Harper Basin. And Blue Energy owns the other 35%. It’s a small company. Not liquid. It’s going to be liquid. It’s going to be everywhere. But this is a company that I think could be a 20 to 30 XER. Buy a small amount, right? It’s risky. Buy a small amount. And in 10 years from now, maybe even five years from now, you owe me a six-pack.

Frank Curzio 39:35

And we’ll drink it together. Trust me. So I have my own money. I put all my money into all the stocks that you’re probably going to hear that we recommend and stuff like that. My own money is invested in this. Unlike a lot of other people, they’re going to tell you the stocks go up 30, 40X, and they don’t have it for themselves for some reason. But no, that’s one that I like. And offshore is really on fire. Some of the other companies really quick. We invest in Technip. I don’t know how much we’re up on that, right? We’re up a ton on Technip. Schlumberger is another one. I like the service companies. I mean, I want to see how much exposure Halliburton has to offshore, but that’s a $30 billion market cap. Baker Hughes is another one. These are the companies that the majors sign. And now you see massive, massive increase in spend offshore drilling. And I think oil prices, listen, they can come down 20, 30% from here, and it’s still economical for them to be drilling offshore. And I think oil prices are going to stay higher for longer.

Frank Curzio 40:23

And that’s going to lead to a lot of fuel in this way. You’re going to see lots of cash flow, lots of earnings. And there’s already been massive discoveries in Nimbia and Ghana. You know, offshore, seriously, start looking into it. It’s one of the biggest trends. It would be the biggest trend in the world right now if AI didn’t exist. And nobody’s really talking about it, because it’s just getting overshadowed by AI.

Daniel Creech 40:41

AI.

Frank Curzio 40:42

AI.

Daniel Creech 40:43

All right. Chelsea says, “Hey, Frank. I have a relatively small portfolio and have trouble knowing when the right time to sell a stock. I’m relatively new to investing in stocks, but I’ve been holding Micron Technology for quite a while now and up 138%. Well done. Well done. This stock makes up nearly 30% of my portfolio. Should I sell or continue to hold? I have trouble selling because it’s doing so well, and I don’t know what I would turn around and put my money towards.” Good question and well done, Chelsea.

Frank Curzio 41:11

Chelsea, I want to work for you. 30% of your portfolio is in a stock that’s up 100 and what? 30-something percent? That’s awesome. I’m going to answer this question. If you ask any financial advisor or anyone else, they’re going to tell you, “Well, you need to diversify. You should sell some of it.” I’ve been fortunate with my podcast, Wall Street Unplugged. I think I met like eight to nine billionaires. Not one of them is a billionaire because they diversified. So that question’s up to you, right? And I think that’s important. It matters your age, right? If you’re younger, you have more working power. You know, you’re looking at Micron. The one thing I don’t like about Micron is Micron reported the best quarter that you’ll ever see this quarter, just about, right? And I mean, the numbers blew out by like 20, 30%. You have this long run of long-term contracts where this isn’t cyclical anymore. You got a five-year, full five-year run. But they just reported earnings that are the best earnings that you’ll ever see.

Frank Curzio 42:03

And this company was 1250, trading at 1250. And now it’s at 948. What’s going to drive this stock higher? They already reported the greatest earnings that you could ever see. What drives the stock higher is you need to see a bull market, right? We need to see an overall bull market, and this is going to outperform. That’s what I’m worried about with Micron. So if you could, you know, short term, if we see a correction, Micron’s going to come down along with most other stocks. And, you know, again, part of the AI trade, AI trade will get hit. These are where most expensive stocks and high leverage stocks are if the yield goes to 5%. But Micron, I mean, I’d have to say it’s up to you. I mean, how much risk do you want? Because if you have a three-year time frame on Micron, I could see this going $1,500. And that’s not a bullish forecast. I bet you at $1,500, if you look at all the analysts, I’d probably say there’s 30 sell-side analysts covering it, like the Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan. I can guarantee that the average price, target price is probably above $1,500 on this stock based on earnings.

Frank Curzio 42:56

Joe, scroll down. Just before you even go to scroll, right? Stay right there for a second, guys. What do you think Micron is trading at, right? This is a high growth, super high growth company. You’re probably saying, “Wow, this is probably trading. The market’s trading at 20 times, probably trading 30, 35 times.” Scroll down. Look what the PE, the FOD PE is. Right? You have a FOD PE of 6, 7, 6.5, which is insane, right? The NTM stands for next 12 months. That’s the FOD PE. The TTM stands for the trailing 12 months. That’s 21 times. That’s how fast this company is trading at seven times FOD earnings. So you’re trading in a company at a massive steep, this is rare, to buy a company at a steep discount. Usually, a steep discount means the company’s a piece of dog shit, right? That’s why you trade at these levels, like a four or something like that. We’ll get into EVs. We’re not getting into EVs afterwards. So it’s a back and forth, right? When you see a company like this that’s growing much faster than the overall market, even though the market’s growing earnings at 30%, they’re growing faster than the overall market.

Frank Curzio 43:50

Even Nvidia, Nvidia is like 22 times FOD earnings and growing those earnings, I think, 75%. They said they would grow at 100% if they didn’t have supply constraints. But this company is growing like a weed, growing much faster than the market, trading at a huge discount. This is one of the best stocks you could own in the market right now, but you need the market to be steadier going higher overall, and this thing will outperform. But that’s up to you. I mean, normal you’d say if you’re up 100%, sell half. This way, your cost basis is relatively zero, not including taxes. Meaning that if the stock goes to zero, you put $10,000 in, right? You made $10,000 off of it, right? Because it doubled. So basically, if it went to zero, you’re even. And what you want to do is you want to take that money and maybe go into other positions. Maybe see what’s, maybe you like the memory, you go into Sandisk or whatever. But that’s up to you based on your risk tolerance. I’m just telling you that I have people who own Bitcoin all the way through, and man, they have some bulls.

Frank Curzio 44:42

I’m talking about going from 100 to 30. I mean, we’re at, what, 80,000, wherever Bitcoin is today. It was 120, down to 50, and they continue to hold it. But people are telling you, “You’re an idiot for holding Bitcoin at 100, at 1,000, at 5,000, at 10,000. We started owning at 6,500. We have it in our portfolio at 6,500. It’s 80,000 or close to that.” I mean, that risk tolerance is up to you, but you do own a really, really good stock there. And maybe take a little bit off the table if you see other things you want to buy. But really good stock to pick, and I’m happy that you’re up. I love to see people make money.

Daniel Creech 45:16

Yeah, well done. All right, next question is from Alan. He says, “UVC and uranium in general seems to be lagging behind other commodities. Have you had a chance to talk with Amir Adnati? Ask him what he feels about the future for uranium prices in general and UVC.”

Frank Curzio 45:35

And UVC. So UVC, yeah, UVC is a great company. And I know Amir personally. And yes, I talked to him. If I talked to him now, if I talked to him 10 years ago, if I talked to him five years from now, he’s going to say the same thing. He’s going to say, “Uranium prices are going to skyrocket and go a lot higher.” This company, he spoke at my conference through a stream. We streamed that at my conference, the Kersey One Wealth Forum. And this stock, I think, was like 17, 18 at the time, last October. And he’s doing his job by saying uranium prices are going higher. That’s what the CEO’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be optimistic. There’s a time to buy uranium and a time not to. Right now is the time to buy uranium. We just recommended a uranium-based company in our energy company for Electrisity in our Alpha portfolio that I love a lot more than UVC right now. But UVC at $11, if you have like a two-year time frame. I’m surprised because we have a massive electricity problem. We need more power.

Frank Curzio 46:29

I’ve been saying that for two years. We’re going to see blackouts. We need it so much. We have a thing. I don’t know, Joe, you probably can’t even do it. We have a soundboard that goes, “More power!” And every time I say it, because I say it so much. And uranium now is supported by both sides of the government, right? We just need processing. We need to be able to process this stuff. And that’s a big, big deal for the US. But uranium right now, you want to buy when it’s down here. I feel like there’s so much optimism when these things take off and so much pessimism when they’re down. But just go against your true feelings. When these things are down like this, I think this is a steal at $11. Uranium royalties is another one that I like. Also, a byproduct of what Amir is doing, spend out of royalties. Again, he was a little early to that, but I love that because now you’re actually going to be generating free cash flow in that name. I think we might get a question on that. I think, again, everybody loves that company as well.

Frank Curzio 47:18

But uranium energy, I think, is a steal at this price. And don’t buy a full position. Buy a little bit if it comes down, then just buy a little bit more. This way, you lower your cost basis. But if you have a 12-month plus time frame, I can’t see how these names are not higher because of the massive demand for electricity. And uranium is the easiest, best 24/7 baseload power. It’s not like solar you need to sun out. Wind, you need the wind to blow. This is baseload power working all the time. And it’s cheap, clean. And now, for the first time in a long time over the past year, both sides, Democrats, Republicans, both support it.

Daniel Creech 47:51

Both sides. There you go. All right, Frank, one of the most talked-about questions, stocks, interest on the internet is Vivo Power. They’ve come out with some big news.

Frank Curzio 48:02

Where’s Vivo today?

Daniel Creech 48:03

Waiting to tease this announcement for its lease. And then, “Hey, we got a partner, but we’re not exactly naming it.” Your thoughts, what the heck is going on here?

Frank Curzio 48:11

I love this company. They’re just doing so much stuff right now. Look, we’re up 100% on this. Put a year chart on it. This one and another one is DGXX. So when you see these stocks, you think, “Wow, it traded at 7 and it’s down at 370.” I mean, we’re in this at 2. And I know there’s going to be ups and downs because a lot of these, what this company is doing, they’re doing something different. It’s not like a DGXX. It’s not like a Bitcoin miner where they’re building the whole entire system. They’re just creating like the shell behind it and saying, “Hey, we have access to the grid.” All this access that they have, I think it’s one, what is it? In terms of gigawatts, it’s massive. It’s absolutely massive, the amount of gigawatts, not megawatts, gigawatts that they have, that they’re able to sell. But they’re doing it through the Nordic region, right? And the Nordic region has some of the cheapest power, which is great. That’s what you want. You want power to be very, very cheap. And they bought up all this power.

Frank Curzio 48:59

They’re going to have access to the grid. Also, being a Nordic-type company, they don’t have really exposure there. So they want to list on those exchanges as well, which is going to be great for their current listing right here in the NASDAQ. These guys have grown tremendously. They’re in great shape. They don’t have the whole cost where they’re building all the rack systems and everything. They’re like, “Hey, we have access to the grid. You want it? Sign a deal.” They signed a deal. I don’t like what management did. They said, “Hey, we’re going to announce it. We signed a big deal. We’re going to announce the terms later on,” which is like six weeks ago. And they didn’t announce the terms. So that’s why you’re seeing a little bit of a sell-off. I think it’s going to be a billion, a multi-billion dollar contract. They just have so much power. I think they’re negotiating like how much power does this one customer have? I had a guess. I mean, OpenAI, Cerebras is very, very big. You’ve seen some of the biggest companies, Meta, they’re all going to the Nordic region right now to get their power because it’s less political, which we’ve seen with building new AI centers with the states on both sides because it’s a hot topic for the midterm elections.

Frank Curzio 49:52

Both Republicans and Democrats are saying, “Hey, you know what? We’re going to do studies on environment to see how these things, whatever.” It’s all political, right? But when you’re going outside of that, that’s why a lot of these oil companies have spent a shitload to go offshore. The politics are a lot different. It’s a lot easier. Not as much red tape. And I really like Vivo. I like it long term. If you follow us, again, we’re in since 2. Yes, it was 7 briefly and came down. You’re probably like, “Oh, shit, it came down.” If you’re following our advice, though, you should own this well below this. Our cost base is much lower than this. And I like it. And that’s why it’s important to really get in the right companies at the right price because they’re going to be volatile sometimes, especially small caps. This company has a huge, huge, huge runway. And I think this is a double-digit stock going forward. You’ll probably see that within 12 months.

Daniel Creech 50:38

A lot of questions.

Frank Curzio 50:39

And the CEO of this company is actually going to be, if it’s not the CEO, then it’s going to be the CFO, but they’re going to be, I think they’re going to be sponsoring my event in October. They’re going to be there, Vivo. And I don’t allow people to just go up there and do presentations. I interview every single company on stage that we have on our conference. And Vivo just confirmed before I came on here that I think it’s a CFO that’s going to be at the company because the CEO is going to be in Europe at the time.

Daniel Creech 51:04

Oh, look at that. Breaking news on that.

Frank Curzio 51:05

Breaking news.

Daniel Creech 51:06

All right, we’re getting a lot of great questions. Keep them coming. We’ve got several questions on cash and allocation. So Scott sent in a great question. Jennifer has a good question. If you’re talking about this pullback or this crash or however you want to do that, you mentioned how you can earn a competitive interest rate on your cash. So give us some percentages. Now, this also depends on if you’re retired or a young investor and such, but how much are you keeping dry? How much do you want to put in cash to earn an interest rate?

Frank Curzio 51:32

I mean, I covered it before. 4% cash is very, very good. I mean, people are like, “Oh, you shouldn’t put in cash because it gets destroyed by inflation.” It’s better than buying the market going down 10%, right? 4% is a very, very good rate. I mean, that’s above the inflation rate. So your real interest rate is higher than that.

Daniel Creech 51:49

Right, but how much, what percentage? Like 10, 20, 50?

Frank Curzio 51:53

Again, that depends on everyone. Right now, I would say 20 to 25% cash right now to have in the sidelines would be really good because I’m predicting this market. If it doesn’t, that’s fine. We’ll see rates come lower and the rest of your portfolio should do okay. And position in healthcare, I think healthcare has been so depressed that I think it’s going to go up in any type of market right now. And I hate saying that. I usually never say that. There’s got to be conditions where you go down, but there’s just so much fuel within AI and the healthcare industry is underperformed by a mile. It’s really good. But in terms of cash and the percentage, 20 to 25%, I think until the end of the year, until we get more clarity. I mean, I just don’t know what’s going to push stocks up considerably here because everything that I could think of, I know of, it’s already factored in. I mean, you’re looking at valuations are pretty cool. We’re not too expensive. You’re looking at huge earnings growth, which we saw.

Frank Curzio 52:39

Lots of great spend with AI. Again, all that’s on the table. If I’m talking to you about it, I’m reading it, and you could read hundreds of articles, that means it’s factored in. What’s going to drive us higher compared to what could drive us lower? And I think those factors outweigh the bullish side by 5 to 1 right now. And that’s why I’m playing the odds, saying, “Look, there’s a bigger chance now that we can go lower.” So, Joe, you could read that question if you want. I can’t really see it from here. There’s another one that you’re highlighting right there.

Joe Davide 53:02

Bernardo. How about gold and Bitcoin? I have long-term business. Gold. But particularly would gold be a good place to park cash instead of money markets during the…

Frank Curzio 53:14

Would gold be a good place to park cash if you didn’t hear it instead of money markets? And also, he likes Bitcoin as well. Parking cash, I hate gold to park cash. First of all, if you park cash in gold, get rid of it. That’s not why you should own gold because gold doesn’t pay an interest. And now you have high interest rates, right, which defeats the purpose of buying gold. So why is gold going higher? And I’ve studied gold for such a long time. And I hate going to gold bugs because they’re going to say, “Gold’s going higher during a recession. Gold’s going higher during inflation every time.” Gold’s going higher no matter what. And it’s bullshit. There’s times to own gold and there’s times not to own gold. Gold’s going higher right now because the government debt is out of control and they cannot control interest rates right now. And most importantly, if you want to buy an asset, you want to get an asset that’s going to be bought more than it’s sold. It’s that simple, right? It’s economics. And right now we’re seeing over the past few years, what have we seen to push gold up to 5,500?

Frank Curzio 54:02

It’s pulled back all those highs. Now it’s 4,500. But what have we seen over the past couple of years that’s different is central banks are buying the shit out of gold now. Why? Because when Russia went to war with Ukraine, what we did was something that was not supposed to be on the table. We shut the SWIFT system off. We pressed a button and said, “Okay, Russia, you can no longer deal with any of our banks.” And that scared the shit out of every single country going, “Wow, what happens if the US has a woke policy we don’t agree with? Are they going to press that button and then shut us off to all these banks?” We need alternatives. Let’s sell treasuries, which we’re seeing with China dumping their treasuries. Let’s go into Bitcoin. And that’s why we saw Bitcoin rise a lot. Yes, it’s pulled back a lot, but still, it’s up tremendously over the past few years. And now we’re seeing this rise in gold. Not because you want to don’t store money in gold. Don’t ever store money in gold. It’s a waste.

Frank Curzio 54:48

Store your money at a bank. I mean, I know if you listen to gold people, they go off the deep edge. Again, I’ve been listening to Shift for 30 years and these bearish guys. And most of those guys have said, “Never buy US stocks ever.” And you’re sleeping on a fucking park bench right now. So when you’re looking at gold, you don’t want to park money there. You want to park money where it’s working for you. Where is it working for you? You could actually buy real estate in certain areas right now because you’re going to get really good prices if you have cash. Think about parking money in real estate for how many years, what that would have done for you, right? I’m not saying go and buy the top markets right now. We’re going to see prices probably decline a little bit with the housing markets not doing too well. But if you talk about parking money, don’t park money in gold. Put it in gold because you think it’s going high because the central bank buying, because we have massive deficits. And then we notice, look at the push up in gold, right? Put a three-month chart on that, Joe.

Frank Curzio 55:35

Okay. Look at the spike in gold since August, right? That’s where Bessent came in and said, “Hey, we’re going to buy it.” So they’re interfering in the market and people are like, “Holy shit, okay?” Because this isn’t just a US problem. This is a global problem of everyone trying to get their interest rates lower and they can’t right now. I mean, Japan has done everything it possibly can. 10 times more than us. They can’t get that rate lower. Again, the highest rate since what did I say? 1996, right? So the more intervention that we see, which is likely because I don’t know how they’re going to get long-term rates, maybe they announce, “Okay, we’re going to push further.” Daniel Lewis jokes around like the government just is insane. We’re just going to do a little bit. They’re probably going to look to buy even more treasuries because they can’t get anyone else to buy them now because most people sell the treasuries. So yeah, that rate’s probably going to go higher. If that rate goes higher, gold’s a good investment. I love gold, but don’t store it. You’re better off putting it in, again, it’s not just you need 100 grand and maybe you listen to this and you don’t have that, but there’s avenues where you can get a 3% interest rate, 2.5, 3% interest rate to put some of your money.

Frank Curzio 56:28

And that money market fund at your E-Trade, Fidelity, they should be paying a very high interest rate. If not, go to Robinhood. Robinhood pays a very high interest rate as well. And innovative company, really good, lower rates, disrupt the entire industry. Good for Robinhood. But put it in an area, put it in a brokerage firm, they’re all going to have access pretty much to the same things. If you go to international brokers, you have access to a little bit more international and stuff like that. But they’re all kind of doing the same thing. They’re all charging, again, based on the prices they’re getting you with stocks. They’re not really charging you for trades. Go in the best place that you’re going to get rates. It’s about you. Don’t be like, “I’m loyal to Fidelity. I’m loyal to here. I’m loyal to there.” No, you’re loyal to your interest rate. You’re loyal to your money. F them. If they’re not paying you a high rate in your money market account, get the hell out of there. There’s a lot of brokerage firms that you can go to that are paying a very high interest rate when it comes to cash.

Frank Curzio 57:15

Just don’t park money in gold. Buy gold because you think it’s going to go higher for central bank buying and more government intervention, which you never see when the market’s at an all-time high. And that’s why this whole presentation, I’m doing this because that’s a big red flag for me. A big fucking red flag.

Daniel Creech 57:30

Huge red flag like bull. All right, let’s lighten it up here. You talk about AI a lot and we talk about it a lot. Ed, this is a great question. I like Ed’s sense of humor. Ed says, “Why isn’t AI controlling stoplights? Why does every stoplight have one to six cameras, motion sensors, probably radar? But I have to stop at a red light when I’m the only one at the intersection.”

Frank Curzio 57:55

Great question. I hate it. I hate it. There’s a mall by me that has like four or five lights and every one of them is different. I mean, it’s so easy to use AI to manage your traffic flow. And it’ll take you two seconds to throw that in Claude and see what you can do because I have road rage. I mean, I put my fist through. I shouldn’t say that, but I’ve had road rage. And if you look at Itron was a company that I recommended that’s really into smart everything. If you’re looking at the sprinkler systems, you’re looking at lighting within parks, all that has changed through AI, right? So if you look at the sprinkler system, it comes on, right? You could obviously come on whatever, but it also shuts off when it rains, when it’s predicting rain forecast. Why am I going to use water when it’s already raining? You see that with so many houses where it’s downpouring and they have the sprinklers on at night and shit. It’s funny, but that with lighting as well saves them a ton of money. I don’t know why they don’t use it.

Frank Curzio 58:43

I mean, they should be using it. And again, what’s scary is even scarier is they have cameras every place that they know every single thing. Holy cow. I mean, there’s a reason why if you talk about it and then you go on a TikTok or something like that, all of a sudden it’s something that you research and next thing you know, especially don’t take a picture of it. They don’t have access to your pictures and everything. Next thing you know, you’re getting office for something that you just talked about. You’re like, “Holy cow.” Well, I think I need a vacuum cleaner. You get it all out of nowhere. If not, you get something. So just the cameras and everything, the fact they could track this with the lights and everything, I just believe that it should be done. I wish it’s done. It should make things a lot easier in terms of traffic. I don’t know why they don’t do it, but again, I mean, I know why. It’s the government, right? The government sucks at running every business possible because it’s not their money. That’s why the post office loses what, 6, 7 billion dollars a year. And you have what, FedEx, UPS, right?

Frank Curzio 59:30

All these companies generating a shitload of profits, but our post office can’t generate profits because it’s run by people who don’t care because it’s not their money. So if you want to know why it’s like that, it’s because the government’s running and the government has never run anything good ever in history. But even Itron, ’96, we had a really, really low. Put a five-year chart on that. This from going to Consumer Electronics Show. Yeah, from going to Consumer Electronics Show for such a long time. We had this thing a lot, lot cheaper. We did very, very well with this going forward. And yeah, that’s a good name. I might want to revisit. Real quick before you go, folks, I’m looking at the Twitter account. We’re getting tons of questions on DGXX, Digipower X. The CEO, I visited three times in his house before I recommend that company. This is a company I recommended at 2. It’s up 10% right now. This is a name that’s going to be in the double digits. These guys have done everything they said they’re going to do.

Frank Curzio 01:00:19

Michelle’s CEO and Michelle Lamarre, great guy. And this is a name that they’re building. If you go on there, so they’re already generating. This is one of the few companies that were in Bitcoin mining. So all the Bitcoin miners, if you don’t know, if you’re looking at Iron, you’re looking at Riot, you’re looking at DGXX and the other one, all of them have access to this power and use it for Bitcoin. And now when Bitcoin came down, they’re like, “Wait a minute. We’re sitting on this massive power that’s in huge demand by hyperscalers that have billions of dollars.” So now they transferred its call from tier one to tier three. So tier one’s Bitcoin, tier three is AI. So they were on this trend two years ago when I recommended. We recommend the stock at $2, right? So another one that’s went up to 7 bucks around and it’s down. But when you’re in at 2, I love it. They haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just AI names, small caps have gotten hit. These guys have a great balance sheet, no debt, doing everything right.

Frank Curzio 01:01:18

And they signed a deal, which was it was Cerberus, I believe. It’s like a $1.2 billion deal. This is one of the only companies I know that’s generating money off of AI right now. Everyone says they’re going to transition. They’re signing contracts. They’re going to do this. They’re going to do this. And eventually, well, they generated last quarter their first revenue off of AI. This is a name that’s pulled back to this level. I have a lot of money invested in this stock personally. And to be honest with you, on the forum, right after this, I’m probably going to buy another 25, 50,000 dollars worth on the forum. I like this company. If you get a hold of, again, it could go down at 350, could go down at 325. I’ve interviewed the CEO of my Wall Street Unplugged podcast many times, as well as the Vivo CEO on my podcast. These are names that I’m into, that you see me into. This isn’t just like, “Oh, buy this. I have money in this.” And again, I love the fact where I’m in at this price. And I think this thing goes a lot higher.

Frank Curzio 01:02:07

Again, up 10% today. I think this thing could really take off. These guys, just look at the videos. They’re building all this stuff. That $1.2 billion contract could scale to, I think, $2.5 billion, which I think it’s going to scale because these hyperscalers are in dire need. Cerberus, remember, is kind of like working within OpenAI. And OpenAI is like, “Hey, Cerberus, you got to go out and get as much power as you can for us,” kind of thing. And there’s just a dire need for power. The only way we grow AI is through electricity. And we don’t have the infrastructure. We don’t have the people. And that’s creating just this unbelievable pricing power for people. They own their own power. They own their own power on their sites. This is 400 megawatts of power. If you do the math, I mean, this company alone, based on the 400 megawatts of power, and even they could scale up for that, I mean, $10 million per megawatt, conservatively, easily. I mean, mine used to cost even 7 billion, 6 billion.

Frank Curzio 01:03:00

I mean, you’re talking about a $2 billion plus market cap for this company. Where’s the market cap right now for DGXX? Did I have it listed on CNBC? They don’t have the market cap. So I think this market cap is probably around 400 million. I mean, this is something that could easily go 10X just based on the value. I’m surprised that someone won’t come over there and take them over because they actually own their own electricity that they’re filtering through. And this is a guy that went into Bitcoin mining 10 years ahead of everybody else. I mean, very, very sharp guy. A little bit on the stubborn side, which is good. It’s not terrible. But I love this company. I feel like it’s a name that few people have heard of. A lot of you own it. You should own it much cheaper. It doesn’t mean maybe you bought it at 5, 550, whatever, and you’re pissed because it’s down. I just like this name. I’m going to be adding a lot at this price because, again, I don’t like the fact that it’s come down, but we’re in at a good price.

Frank Curzio 01:03:45

I think it’s going to go a lot, lot higher. Everything’s still there. The story’s still intact. These guys are building. They’re generating money off of AI. One of the few Bitcoin miners that transitioned so fast. That’s how early they generated their first revenue off of AI this quarter. And that’s going to continue and surge going forward over the next 2, 3, 10 years. And I really like this name.

Daniel Creech 01:04:07

Yeah, that’s another talked about stock. All right, Tony asked.

Frank Curzio 01:04:10

Big Tony.

Daniel Creech 01:04:10

Where Tony says, “Hey, I’m a happy Alpha member.” You already touched on Alpha in the one subscription thing, but then you mentioned Curzio One. And Tony says, “Hey, happy Alpha member. How can I invest in private placements like Phoenix Biotechnologies?” That he sees emails.

Frank Curzio 01:04:26

Good question. Joe, can you bring up our site and go into the members area for Alpha? So what Alpha has, what our Curzio One membership is for credit investors only. It’s $5,000 for the membership, and you get to invest in private placements alongside me, the names that I’m going into. Okay? I don’t get paid by these companies. You could choose and pick, right? We do all the paperwork for you, basically. We send everything in DocuSign. It’s one of the great services. But what’s happened over the past three, four years with this, the quality of deals that we’ve gotten, like Phoenix AI is one of those. So our Alpha members get to see this. And then if you click Phoenix, it’s going to say, “This is for,” it has the one on there, right? So Phoenix is an AI startup that’s dealing with cows. That’s what I thought when I first heard about this. If I looked at the numbers, they were doing $400,000 in revenue nine months ago. They’re doing over 10 million. So what they do is they have a whole breeding system based on AI, cameras, and everything where they run the entire farm for you.

Frank Curzio 01:05:21

I’m not talking about your little farm. This is a guy, younger investor, going for his PhD. He went for his PhD at California Irvine, MBA, and grew up on a farm and hated the fact how farmers were treated and all this stuff and came up with this system. And he’s focusing on the biggest farms in the world that probably deal with over 600 cows or more. And the female cows, you want more female cows, right? That’s where you make the most money. You only need one bull. You need all these female cows. Now they have it down to a science where when to feed, when to breed, which is everything in this industry. If you want to compare it, look at horse racing, why breeding is so important. If you look at the best horses, Golden Temple, Renegade, they’re bred through Curlin. There’s a reason why breeding is so important. And same with this. So the amount of money it saves them and how much they can make, they make like $35 a cow. We’re talking about the biggest farms in the world. I did a ton of research on this because I was fascinated.

Frank Curzio 01:06:12

It just shows you where AI could go. These farmers are stubborn. When he gets there, he talks about stories. I interviewed him. He’s like, “But when you’re showing the results and now it’s word of mouth that it’s spreading so much, this is a company we invested in. It’s kind of like a little bridge round before the Series A.” For what I’m hearing out there, don’t know if it’s true, but I got eated around a little bit. Sequoia, you’re looking at, I don’t think this thing goes IPO, right? And you’re investing in it. It’s either you want an IPO as a payback period for a private company or you want them to get taken over. I think this is going to get taken over. Kind of like the deal we just saw with, what is it? Hugging Face and.

Daniel Creech 01:06:47

Nvidia.

Frank Curzio 01:06:48

Nvidia, who just bought them, right? For 12 billion. And why did I buy them? Because there’s a level of growth you could achieve, and then there’s a super level of growth. And it’s why Coca-Cola, my friend Micropole, sold Vitamin War for billions of dollars. Then he sold, what is it? Body Armor for billions of dollars. Coca-Cola again, two different companies. Guys were doubles you billionaire. There’s another level to these big companies where they could take it. And when you see these private equity guys, what do they want to see? Or these venture funds, what do they want to see? They want to see companies that are growing. How many companies you know go from a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue in nine months to 10 million plus? This is the person that’s going to be speaking at my conference. Again, so you get to invest in this deal. It’s closed now. We got a million dollars or $3 million that we’re raising. Again, because of the great context we have in this industry over many, many years, we’re getting into unbelievable deals.

Frank Curzio 01:07:37

And when you see these companies circling and they get into this, they’re going to get into it at a good price. They come in with board seats and they’ll usually take them over, help them grow tremendously, kind of like what Peter Thiel did with Facebook. That’s a good example, right? I mean, his job is to grow. Yes, he sold, but that’s his job. It’s to grow this in, make a shitload of money, and then go on to the next idea, not really to hold these things long term. When you see that kind of revenue growth, when you see it in a sector that kind of has very little disruption and these guys are in it, few competitors, the sky’s the limit for this company. We raised $1 million. When you become a one member, right, you get access to our entire Curzio Alpha portfolio, which we sell for $2,500. So you get that for free for the year. And then if you want to invest in this, you get my phone number personally and you get to talk to me. So I feel like if there’s a credit investor that are trying to get into private names, you’re investing alongside me.

Frank Curzio 01:08:25

So if this doesn’t work, I’m getting nailed. Usually, these deals are $25,000 minimum. I’ll invest up to $100,000 in some of these deals. But we invested a million dollars and our investors came in probably within four days and we filled that. And that’s what our Curzio One investor conference is about. Because every company that I invest in, I actually interview them on stage in front of everyone and they show the new technologies. They show everything. I got shot by rap. We had another company that did acrobatics and stuff and fighting and stuff like that. And we had the whole display during dinner. It was absolutely amazing. So I’m interviewing these guys on stage and you get to meet these guys personally. And I’m investing personally in these. So we can come up with Phoenix Bio and you might be like, “Well, I’m not too crazy about it.” Cool. There’s no pressure. You’re in the membership, $5,000 a year. That gets you entitled to these. And another one’s Savvy, which is a guy who had an eight-figure exit, a nine-figure exit in the hospitality industry.

Frank Curzio 01:09:18

And now he created a no-fee platform to compete against Airbnb and Vrbo. Because if you know those companies, if you invested in those, or if you’re basically, if you’re going into, if you get apartments through those and rent them, you could see the costs have skyrocketed. Now he created a no-fee platform where based on the SEO, that’s how you make more money if you want more views and everything. And he has, I think, the former CEO, I think it’s of Expedia. I mean, he’s got rock stars as advisors. And again, has seven-figure, eight-figure, nine-figure exit in this industry. And he says this one’s going to be a 10-figure. He spoke at my conference. These are the deals that we get in. Everyone wants to get into this shit, which is very dangerous. I hate the fact that people want to get because the terms of these deals could be garbage, especially with SPACs. We saw so many SPACs. 90% of SPACs are down more than 95% because they’re structured shitty. It’s not because the business is bad.

Frank Curzio 01:10:08

It’s because you’re paying $80 for a Snicker bar. It’s a good candy bar. You don’t want to pay $80 for it. So for me, my job is I’m looking at all this stuff. I’m doing all the research for you. I come out with a presentation. I interview the CEO. I put it in front of you and say, “Hey, this is the deal I’m investing in. How much I’m investing in. You want to follow me here?” And if you say yes, we send you everything in DocuSign and you get access if you want to go to my conference to talk to these people. It’s one of the best services that we have. Having our first conference last year in October, Pier 66, we’re running it back there in Fort Lauderdale. I mean, 100% of the people, it was unbelievable because I was nervous. I don’t like my name all over the freaking place and everything. It was just a huge networking event. Brilliant people there. Almost $2.5 billion in a room of credit investors. Everyone checks their ego at the door. It was all ideas. I was Q&A in the audience and mingling with everybody, the CEOs of these companies.

Frank Curzio 01:10:57

What a great service. Everybody loved it. And that’s what we want, right? We want to know what we’re investing in. We want to be able to talk to the CEO. You want everything to be easy. You want someone to look at these deals. So if they go down and they don’t work out, you need one of the 10 or one of the 20 covers a lot of these things. But one of these things goes down, or any of them go down, I’m getting hurt as well because I’m in it. And that’s really what you want. I have stake in the game and you’re following me. So it’s not like, “Oh, I’m recommending all this shit.” Whatever happens, happens where we see PermaBears telling you to get the hell out of the market for the past 20 years. Notice how they’re pulling up in yachts to these conferences. They have fucking Lamborghinis and shit and they’re pulling up and they’re like, “Yeah, things are great.” All right, you’re freaking rich while everyone else you told to get out of the stock market is on fucking Park Bench and they can’t even afford a blanket to keep themselves warm. So when I look at that, I hate that. With this, I like to invest in things where people have stake in it.

Frank Curzio 01:11:43

I make sure every round that they’re coming in, management’s coming around in that round as well. This way we’re all in the same boat together. So if it doesn’t work, I’m losing money too, which is what I want to see if something doesn’t work because we all have investments that don’t work out, right? I’m not going to sit here and bullshit you. My track record is great. That’s why I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’d have to be doing something else. No strikes against our license, everything. People know me. Open book, free podcast, Wall Street Unplugged. People have followed me for a long time. When it comes to this stuff, credibility is very, very important. And you want to follow that person that’s going in it. So if these things don’t work out, I want to follow the guy. Okay, if it didn’t work out, at least I know that they lost money as well. And that’s not the case in a newsletter industry anymore. It’s amazing. All these guys, “This is going up 20X. This is going up 50X.” So you own it? No, my company doesn’t let me own it. Okay, so why wouldn’t you just buy it and not recommend it?

Frank Curzio 01:12:31

You’re going to give me a 50X when you don’t even know me? It’s like, yeah, it’s so funny when you hear this bullshit. It’s why the newsletter industry is a massive secular decline. But we’re doing well, we’re growing, we’re fine. But this is our one membership, man. I’m going to get out to a lot of people. Everyone has joined, has great things to say. You get to talk to me before you even come in. I turn people down because they’re like, “Maybe I can invest in one deal.” No. You got to be able to invest in three deals a year if you want this membership at least. And I’m cool with that. I don’t want to want you to sign up for five grand and be like, “Oh, this isn’t for me. And can I get out of a deal? It’s a waste of my time.” I make sure you’re prepared. You have access to ask me questions about the deal and I’ll get back to you within 24-hour notice. It’s a really good service. The benefit to me is I get to meet all these people at my conference. And man, that’s where I’ve gotten by Celestica. Great idea. Up tremendously, Celestica, because of someone I know who helps build these data centers for AI companies and said there’s a massive shortage of switches.

Frank Curzio 01:13:22

I started looking at companies and I looked at Celestica, recommended it and 600, 700%. Bloom Energy, another one. This is what the network’s about. People across all these industries that are brilliant. Everyone’s brilliant at something, but just getting all these people locked in a room and sharing ideas, that’s where we have our biggest ideas from. And it’s getting into so many really, really good ideas. So Bloom Energy, I think we came in at, don’t quote me on this. I think it was 30 and we sold it like well, well over 200. It went to 300 and then it pulled back. But we made a fortune on this stock. And I think it’s going to below 200, this thing’s a steal. Bloom Energy, you have the chart up there now. But that’s our one membership. Sorry to go on a little long with that.

Daniel Creech 01:13:59

If you’re interested in that, email Frank, email Curzio. Get a call.

Frank Curzio 01:14:03

Yeah, frank@curzioresearch.com.

Daniel Creech 01:14:04

Schedule a call with him.

Frank Curzio 01:14:05

You get to talk to me personally. And again, make sure you’re a credit investor. Don’t waste my time. I’ll know in two minutes. It’s like a 10-minute phone call. Don’t ask me, “Hey, the eagles look good this year.” I’m hoping you’re right. I’m an eagles fan. But yeah, this is really, if you really care about this and you want to ask questions of people like, “All right, maybe it’s not for me.” That’s fine. But everything’s pretty straight up. It’s good because there’s no pressure. I might put a deal in front of you like, “You know what? I’m not too crazy.” Cool. There’s no pressure. You’re in the membership. You could invest in any single deal you want, right? I’m going to give you the facts. I’m going to tell you how much I’m investing. And that’s cool. That’s what you want. You don’t, “Oh, you better get into this deal right now or it’s done.” No. It’s up to you which deals you want to get into. That’s the membership. And that membership is growing tremendously. The conference is growing tremendously. It’s a lot of fun. We have entertainment there. I’ve been to conferences. Most conferences suck. Really, really bad. I mean, I got to go to these conferences all the time.

Frank Curzio 01:14:51

These conferences suck now. I mean, you get the CEO up there. They just talking. They got a PowerPoint slide. And this gold is going to go up. I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s a killer.” No, I’m interviewing these people on stage. It’s fun. It’s a Q&A for the last 10 minutes. You’re asking questions. And these CEOs hang out. They don’t sneak out the back door. They’re talking to the investors in the room, hanging out, having fun, lots of laughs, lots of networking. That’s what a conference is supposed to be. You should walk away and be like, “That conference was awesome. I learned so much.” And that’s what conferences should be. I’ve been to so many of them and man, I tell you, 90% I wish I didn’t go to.

Daniel Creech 01:15:23

There you go.

Frank Curzio 01:15:23

Next question.

Daniel Creech 01:15:25

All right, all the conference talk, we’ll keep it lighthearted with this one. Mike says, “I know it doesn’t show on the podcast. Seeing Frank at the last Curzio One conference, you’re incredible. You are in incredible physical shape.”

Frank Curzio 01:15:37

Nice.

Daniel Creech 01:15:38

Hopefully, you’re doing well mentally as well.

Frank Curzio 01:15:40

Jesus. You know what?

Daniel Creech 01:15:41

What is your workout routine?

Frank Curzio 01:15:44

I’m bluxing right now just to show you. My workout, it’s very simple. Get divorced. If you get divorced, you’re going to, everyone who gets divorced, lose weight, man. It’s the best thing ever. Seriously. You could be fat your whole life as soon as you get divorced.

Daniel Creech 01:15:56

You didn’t start smoking cigarettes, did you?

Frank Curzio 01:15:58

No.

Daniel Creech 01:15:58

I tell you what, I’m 40. I’ve had more inclination to start smoking cigarettes lately than ever. I don’t know if I’m supposed to bring it back and be cool.

Frank Curzio 01:16:03

I know. We smoke cigars. I love cigars, right?

Daniel Creech 01:16:05

That’s true.

Frank Curzio 01:16:06

You smoke hardcore. It’s the same with you. You guys smoke like hardcore.

Daniel Creech 01:16:08

Back to the deep. Nothing about me, Frank.

Frank Curzio 01:16:10

Anyway, honestly, in all seriousness, I mean, kind of honest with divorce, but I was in good shape for the past few years. I mean, there’s 40 years where it wasn’t, but I tried every die in the world. Nothing worked. To me, it’s all about I eat what I want to eat. It’s in moderation. So if I’m going to eat pizza, I’m going to eat like one slice of pizza. If I eat cheesecake, I’m having like a quarter piece of cheesecake. And you don’t want to eliminate everything at once because it makes it impossible. So that’s the best thing for you. It takes a while because if you’re heavy, it’s so easy to be like, “Oh, why are you eating so much?” Try not drinking coffee. If you’re a coffee drinker.

Daniel Creech 01:16:46

We’re going to end this podcast right now.

Frank Curzio 01:16:48

It’s basically your brain’s a habit. Some people’s metabolism are different. When I was growing up, people could eat two Big Macs. If I ate like one French fry, I would gain weight and they’re skinny because of metabolism. So getting your exercise in, of course, is important. But the most important thing by far, which I realize, is I exercise all my life, play basketball all my life, and I’m still heavy, is the eating, is the moderation and making sure you’re not eating late. You’re eating, eat what you want, but make sure it’s in moderation. And then keep a scale away yourself every day. I’m between probably, I’d say, 210 to 220. And whenever I hit 220, I freaking know. And I’m like, “Holy shit, man. I’m going on a diet.” So I know at 210, it was pretty cool. And then I know, all right, maybe I’ll eat, I have a piece of cheesecake. So I can go on forever with this. But thank you very much. I don’t know if we’re all in great shape and stuff. You make it feel like if I gain weight, shit, that’s going to suck.

Frank Curzio 01:17:38

But I appreciate that. Thank you because it’s not easy to do. It’s very hard, but I feel healthy. And plus, I’m older. I have two beautiful daughters. One of them going to college now. The other’s in 10th grade. And I want to spend a lot of time with them and make sure I have a lot of years left to do that. So for me, I’m eliminating all the stress out of my life. No more stress. People who are negative out of my life. And that’s it. It’s pretty cool.

Daniel Creech 01:17:59

As a single guy, I’m probably the best qualified to say this. Maybe divorce is good for weight loss. We do not recommend that for your portfolio. Losing half of everything is a tax. It’s kind of like a 50% loss. So stuff like that. Anyway, moving on.

Frank Curzio 01:18:16

Joe, you have another question there? Something you’re trying to signal us on? What’s going on?

Joe Davide 01:18:21

Yeah.

Frank Curzio 01:18:23

Oh, that’s Daniel.

Daniel Creech 01:18:25

Oh, yeah. Let’s rub this one in. He sent it to me. We can ask him.

Frank Curzio 01:18:28

I don’t rub it.

Daniel Creech 01:18:28

Then I got one more on.

Frank Curzio 01:18:29

You killed it. We sold it.

Daniel Creech 01:18:31

Frank, anytime something rallies 80% when you sell it, it stings. Jesse says, question on Palantir. I’ve been buying since ’66. Well done, sir. If I had a head on, I’d tip it to you. Have some more shares at 92 and 142, considering market pullback, what we’re talking about. Should I trim some shares that I bought at 142? Stock is what? 180, Joe? Ish?

Frank Curzio 01:18:58

Palantir. Yeah, it came all the way back. I mean, we sold it lower, but we had massive. When did you recommend it?

Daniel Creech 01:19:05

We were in around 25. So I’m not saying we didn’t make a great move.

Frank Curzio 01:19:09

And we sold it.

Daniel Creech 01:19:11

Give or take 100.

Frank Curzio 01:19:13

All right. So we had a massive win on it. Yes. And it came down. It went to like this level. Then it pushed back tremendously and now it’s back to that level. I’m going to say this before Daniel answers it. Never beat yourself up by taking a big winner. Ever. Okay? Of course, you want to buy it at the lowest price and sell at the highest price. It’s rarely ever going to happen. Ever going to happen. Okay? And I’ll tell you why. Just psychology. It’s like when it’s at its all-time high, everyone’s talking about, like right now, Palantir’s the greatest thing. It’s AI. Software’s back. Got it because of software. Now it’s back. And they’re in the Trump circle. We know the theory. But you always hear the most positive when the things at it’s high and you’re going to hear all the negatives when it’s low. And that’s why we’re programmed to do the opposite. We’re programmed to do the opposite. We’re programmed to sell when this thing is getting crushed and then buy at its highest because we’re reading about it and getting excited.

Frank Curzio 01:20:00

We nailed this one. This was really good. Of course, we would have loved to sell it higher, but no way. I mean, when we buy Palantir, we’re getting shit. Everybody was shitting on it. Palantir, they suck. Oh my God. I mentioned this when I went to National Security Seminar in Pennsylvania when I was invited, special invite, one of the greatest experiences of my life when I went there. And everybody there hated Palantir. And Palantir, I think it was below 20 at the time. It’s like two years ago, below that. And I said, “Palantir is a great one company that’s actually using AI and making a fortune off of it that could actually make money off of AI.” Everyone else says they’re going to use AI, but this is a company that was actually using AI two years at a time, light years ahead of everyone, just contracts everywhere. And this company’s been on fire ever since. But we took a lot of shit for recommending this company, which, by the way, if you recommend a company, you tell your friends about it and they rip you apart and think you’re an idiot, 99% of the time you’re going to be right.

Frank Curzio 01:20:47

Whenever I recommend a stock and I get emails saying, “Frank, great pick. That’s awesome.” I’m like, “Oh, shit.” I’m like, “We’re done.” Because you want people to disagree with you. When they do, it usually means you’re going to be right because they’re not seeing what you’re seeing. But when everyone’s on the same side, “That’s a great pick. That’s awesome. That makes a lot of sense.” I’m like, “Shit.” I’m like, “Oh, no. I said maybe we should trim it right away.” That’s just from experience of doing this for 30 years. Again, Palantir. Go get them, Daniel.

Daniel Creech 01:21:08

Yeah, quickly for me. I mean, learn and listen to the best. In my opinion, that’s Stanley Druckenmiller. Be able to change your mind quickly. I had some questions about this, so I can talk about it in general. When we say to sell something and take profits, that does not mean that it’s over and you can never look at that again. And so what I keep coming back to, and I’ve mentioned this on previous podcasts, is, “Hey, do I wish we still had it from the return standpoint?” Of course. But don’t look at this stock and think, “Oh, well, I missed it and everything.” If you still believe in the AI trend and the TAM, total addressable market, and the growth here that Frank and I have talked about, yes, we’re talking about a pullback right now. So worst-case scenario, if the market does pull back, have a short list of stocks you want to buy. Remember, the world is not ending. Okay? And unless the world ends, it doesn’t matter. Okay? So always bet on the world not ending because World War V breaks out.

Daniel Creech 01:22:01

Okay, great. Buy stocks. If the world ends, who cares? Nobody’s going to be bragging around it anyway.

Frank Curzio 01:22:05

It’s a great point, too, that you make. It’s not like we’re telling you, “Get the hell out of the market.” Oh my God. And you hear that with Craig because they want to fear you to death to buy a product, right? Like, “Get the hell out of the markets.” We’re going to see a correction and it could end up to be a crash of 20%. And what’s the cure for that? Higher rates is the cure. Higher the rates makes companies pull back. The leveraged companies get nailed. You said I see a couple of companies come out with announcements, “Holy shit.” Maybe a bank or something like that. But that’s where it cures itself, like it did with Silicon Valley. And once it does, then it comes. And we’ve seen this with AI. In 2022, we saw AI come down tremendously. AI’s done. And we came out and we bought the shit out of this market because every contact that we have within this industry of people building data centers, people within this industry are saying, “We cannot take on any more demand. We have no people. We can’t even hire workers.

Frank Curzio 01:22:50

It’s never been this busy.” Now they slow down AI because of the states coming out because it’s all political. I’ve heard from my contacts saying, “Thank God.” They’re not CEOs of these companies, of course, but they’re like, “We can’t keep up. We can’t keep up.” I mean, when Nvidia is telling you, “We would have grew at 100% if there wasn’t supply constraints.” Dell said the same thing. There’s not a company within AI that has said that they’re not seeing incredible demand and there’s no signs of slowing down. When it does, I’ll let you know. There’s no bias here. I’m not like, “Oh my God, I’m tatting myself on a permeable, permeable bear.” I’m usually bullish telling you that the markets, the risk-reward is not favorable for you right now. Maybe we go higher. If we do, we still have exposure to some stocks that will go higher. But if you’re looking from a risk-reward standpoint, it doesn’t look favorable over the next few months for the stock market because we’re just at very high levels.

Frank Curzio 01:23:36

And a lot of the pros with strong earning growth and all this stuff, a lot of this is priced in right now. And we’re more leveraged than we’ve ever been. We can’t afford for interest rates to go higher. And that means the market is going to correct. And when it does, it’s going to create a great buying opportunity. It’s not like you got to sell your house. Oh my God, you’re in trouble. Just be prepared. If it comes down, don’t panic because you’re prepared. I mean, that’s the greatest thing in the world. A market crashes. That’s what Warren Buffett would tell you. It’s the greatest thing in the world because it allows you to buy asset prices much, much cheaper, sometimes pennies on a dollar. If you’re prepared, that’s great. If you’re not prepared, you’re going to get fucked. We’re trying to tell you, just be prepared. And if it comes down, be happy about it. You want to see it because you’re going to be sitting in 20, 30% cash being like, “Holy shit, I could buy Palantir at 120 now. I could buy freaking Nvidia like 30% lower.” That’s great. These are great assets that are growing tremendously. Just be prepared. If you’re prepared, you have nothing to worry about.

Frank Curzio 01:24:23

If you’re not prepared, good luck.

Daniel Creech 01:24:26

Good luck. Last thing for me on this is listen to the best, learn from the best. So take AI, the king of AI is Nvidia. And Nvidia’s CEO has been saying that they can build AI everywhere because of two companies, Dell and Palantir. We had Palantir. We took good profits. We still have Dell. We’re up over 100 and some percent since April.

Frank Curzio 01:24:44

Not Wii U. That was your pick.

Daniel Creech 01:24:45

This is a Wii program, Frank. Michael Dell was amazing.

Frank Curzio 01:24:50

It was my Dell I had.

Daniel Creech 01:24:51

There you go. We give you the best deal in the world. When we get it right, we give everybody else credit. When we get it wrong, it’s my fault. Daniel@curzioresearch.com. Back to Jensen really quick. The whole point here is forget market pullbacks and such. If you believe in AI and you want to have exposure to AI, then you need to have exposure, in my opinion, to the best. You want at least Nvidia, Palantir, or Dell. Two out of three ain’t bad is a fantastic country song. And that’s what we have right now. We have Nvidia. We’re up, I don’t know, 30-ish percent recently. That’s very good. Dell, I said, is knocking out of the park. And we sold Palantir. But my point is, keep it simple. I almost dropped your F-100.

Frank Curzio 01:25:25

And we had Google.

Daniel Creech 01:25:25

Keep it Florida simple. Yeah, we did. Just listen to Jensen. And if you want to have exposure to AI and you believe in that trend as we do, and yes, we’re not talking day trading here. We’re talking longer term, then keep it simple and have some exposure to those amazing companies.

Frank Curzio 01:25:40

And if you’re new to this and listening to this, I don’t know how many people are listening to this, but if you’re new, you’re going to see us cover our losers and our winners because I’m a competitive fuck. And when I get it wrong, it’s great because for me, again, I check my ego at the door. I’m perfectionist. I want to be great and continue to be great. So that helps having great contacts. I mean, our podcast gets downloaded over 130 countries. I get emails all over the world with new ideas and stuff like that, which is great. Or if I’m wrong on something, which is great. But just going through this, you’ll hear us cover our losers and our winners, which is a no-no when it comes to marketing. We could talk about Dell, massive gains. Celestica, massive gains. Blue Energy, massive gains. Gains enough that could pay for our newsletter for the next 20 years for you, right? Just those three stocks. I mean, having Google as a 100% winner, getting in before Ackman and then selling it before Ackman sold it.

Frank Curzio 01:26:27

And again, I don’t like Google going forward. Some of these big names and getting in them and being able to capture these gains are great. But when we have losers, we’ll come in and we’ll say, “Hey, this is the mistakes we made. This is what we did wrong. This is what I didn’t see.” And you have to be able to embrace that to become a great investor. That’s how you become great. Learning from your mistakes, even if someone’s been doing this for 30 years. I don’t care if you’re Teppa. I don’t care if you’re Buffett, Paulson, anybody. If you see, a lot of us get fooled sometimes. And that’s why the biggest thing that I could tell you, biggest lesson learned in stocks is always make sure you have a stop loss because you’re going to be wrong and then you’re going to be emotional. And when that stock comes down, you’re going to want to buy more. It goes down and that’s going to take all of your focus. You’re going to be focused on this one freaking stock when you have the rest of the market and so many things doing great because you have so much in there. Sometimes it’s good to just have a 25% stop based on how much you think it’s going to go higher, a 50%.

Frank Curzio 01:27:14

We’ve gone high as 50%. If we recommend small caps that I think could be a 5X to 10X, then I’ll say, “Okay, here’s a 50% stop. I want to be in this thing for a while.” Take half positions. Don’t take full positions or a third position. Scale into your positions over time, which help out tremendously. And make sure your thesis is intact. And that’s worked for us for 30 years. Like I said, DGXX, we’re in at a great price. Yeah, there might be a few people that are in a higher price and I get that because they’re not subscribers to our newsletter. They just go on all of our free stuff when we talk about it. But our thesis is still intact. I’m buying more on this pullback and I think it’s going to go a lot higher. Same with Vivo.

Daniel Creech 01:27:48

All right, approaching an hour and a half, Frank. We’ll take at least two more because this next question I want to chime in.

Frank Curzio 01:27:54

How’s your traffic?

Daniel Creech 01:27:54

See how that goes.

Frank Curzio 01:27:57

Is it still high? It’s still high? All right, let’s stay. Let’s keep with it, man. If you guys are going to listen, I’m going to call.

Daniel Creech 01:28:03

Can you believe it? Yeah, Bryant, this is a great question. Assuming devaluation or inflation is going to stay above the arbitrarily acceptable 2% rate the Fed and other central banksters, this guy pays attention. I like that. Around the world have been trying to achieve, I think, high-quality property and casualty insurance companies are attractive. Would like your thoughts, Frank.

Frank Curzio 01:28:28

Bryant is, I’m pretty sure this is a one-member, very, very sharp and smart. It’s given me ideas. I’ve done very well for my subscribers. Buy insurance companies no matter what because insurance is probably the biggest scam that you’ll ever see in your life. And it’s the best. Imagine, let me say this. I know you’re in the insurance industry, Daniel, so you might come against me on this back in the day. Imagine if you pitch this to Shark Tank insurance companies. We’re going to get a pool of money for all these people. And we’re going to only pay out when something that happens to them that’s probably not going to happen. Well, how do you know? This is before. They had all models. Now you have AI that can figure this stuff out now, right? Which, how much you could pay out, whatever. So we’re going to get all these pools of money. We’re going to take this money. We’re going to be able to do whatever the hell we want with it. And then when it’s time to pay out, I could picture the sharks being like, “Okay, when you pay out, then how much are you going to pay out?” We don’t have to pay out the full amount.

Frank Curzio 01:29:15

We could just think about it. We could maybe think about the guys in LA with the fires. I know two, three different people. And this is what, two years ago? And have you seen these things being built that didn’t even being built yet? They’re still having trouble. And guys are fighting with insurance companies, right? So you have these insurance companies and you’re going to make a shitload of money. Then they grow so much, you have these pools of money that you’re going to sell them to hedge funds because hedge funds, that’s how Warren Buffett made his fortune. Takes this, he’s like, “Wow, we could leverage this shit out of this because I’m a great investor.” It’s not because he bought Bank of America, American Express. No, it’s bullshit. Stop reading those books. It’s because he bought GEICO and leveraged his insurance pools of money times whatever because he knows how to play the markets and has a great rate of return. So he leveraged his shit out of these. And then if you get in trouble, well, let’s create reinsurance, which is insurance on insurance. That’s even better. Okay, what happens if we have small payouts, right?

Frank Curzio 01:30:00

I could picture a shark going, “What happens if we have small payouts?” Oh, don’t worry about it. We’re going to create deductibles. This way, we don’t have to touch them. I mean, the fact that you get the government to force you to pay for auto insurance and health insurance is an absolute joke because whenever you have the government, you want to know how much of a joke it is. Go in next time you have an appointment. If you’re just going to get it like a blood test or something like that, go in and say, “I don’t have insurance.” You’re probably not going to say because you don’t want to pay more. They’re going to be like, “All right, it’s $150, $200.” If you tell them you have insurance, go back and look how much that costs. It’s going to cost like $500, $600 automatically because the government’s going to pay for it. So Al Gore is the biggest genius in the world with climate change. Something that, remember what it was called? It used to be called global warming. Then it got colder. He’s like, “No, no, let’s call it climate change instead.” This is where we get money no matter what, forever, trillions, right? California is supposed to be underwater by now. It’s supposed to be done, right?

Frank Curzio 01:30:45

What he did is create a system where the government has to pay for everything that we say. And we could take that money and leverage and do whatever we want. That’s money constantly coming into politicians. And it’s a reason why every politician comes in and makes $200,000 a year. They come in worth half a million dollars. They leave like 30, 100 millions, right? All this money, where’s it coming from? Offshore accounts. Nobody wants to examine it. It’s okay. That’s our government system. But when you look at all this shit that goes on and all this corruption, it’s the smartest thing in the world. And then you make sure that you can’t go against it because if you do, we’re going to come after you. When you have the government, that’s our taxpayer money that automatically is going to pay for shit. It’s a greatest thing in the world. So my question, not even a question, the answer to your question, insurance companies, you should own insurance companies. It’s the greatest business ever. I mean, you see these things. And better yet, if they’re tied to one area and there’s like a tornado that rips up the area, they go bankrupt and don’t pay you.

Frank Curzio 01:31:34

It’s like, what? It’s like, what? Like if you’re a shark, you’re like, “That’s illegal. We’re going to arrest you.” They’re like, “No, no, these are really businesses that work.” Like if you discover the insurance industry and pitch that to Shark Tank, that’s what it would be like right now, which is crazy. So yeah, I think you should be insurance companies because they’re very favorable dynamics for you. Again, deductibles are the greatest word ever. Back in the day, 15, 20 years ago, you didn’t have to pay for anything. You didn’t have to pay for subscriptions. You didn’t have to pay for doctor visits. Now you got to pay for this. You got to pay for that. Oh, you could only use our select doctors and stuff. Like it’s getting worse and worse. And just the doctors, the hospitals, the insurance companies, they all say, “Holy shit, we’re not making money.” Somebody’s making trillions. And I know it ain’t us because our insurance is through the roof. And it’s not even good insurance anymore through companies because they just keep raising and raising and raising. And then they’re offering less and less and less.

Frank Curzio 01:32:20

And that’s the system we’re in. But that’s really good for insurance companies, health insurance companies, all insurance companies, travelers, AIG. I mean, constant massive profits going forward for these companies. And again, you’d always talk to interest coverage ratios and stuff like that and get more in-depth in it. But it’s an industry that’s almost guaranteed to make you profits no matter what the outcome is.

Daniel Creech 01:32:38

This is a great business model, as Frank said. What you want to pay attention to here quickly, like a cheat sheet, is management. Because when you’re looking at the property and casualty, forget life insurance. Everybody dies. They got to manage it well and pay it out. Property and casualty, not everybody has claims. And they get to reinvest that, as Frank said. But management needs to be disciplined. And you have hard and soft markets because there’s no barrier to entry. So anybody can come in. It’s like cutting your lawn. If you’re cutting lawns for $20, nothing’s stopping somebody from coming in at 18, 15, 12. Eventually, low prices are a cure for low prices. They go bankrupt. And the guys that were disciplined stick around and get your lawn back. Same thing in property and casualty. So look at Chubb Insurance. That’s an old pick. I love that one. We made money in that. CB is the ticker. Cincinnati Financial, CINF. Another great well-run company. Look at that long-term track record.

Daniel Creech 01:33:29

And then you have WR Berkeley. I’m just naming a couple. Combined ratio is the other thing you want to look at. 100 means break even. That means you are essentially taking in the same amount of premiums that you’re paying out in claims. So under 100 is good. Over 100 is bad. The lower, the better. And then I will finish with this one. Joe, if you would, pull up KNSL. Now I’m switching gears here a little bit. They are a property and casualty insurance company. However, they also look at excess and surplus. Okay? So think of rich people like Frank and private jets and all that kind of stuff. Now this company hit $300 and I wanted to recommend it. I didn’t. But when you look at their company and read through their conference calls, this management team is incredible. They love to use AI. They’re tech guys. They’ve been in the industry. They have incredible track records. But their combined ratio is so low, it almost looks fake. And the sell-off there was because they are turning away business as competition heats up and they’re not going to write bad policies.

Daniel Creech 01:34:29

If you had a gun to my head, I would buy some here and then look to add to it, either higher or lower. But yes, love the industry. Love the business model. Just pay attention to management. Management matters all the time. I need to do better in the future about preaching about this. Management really floor to matters in insurance.

Frank Curzio 01:34:45

Oh, put a oil chart on that. Yeah, look at that. Bang. Well, the insurance company is just great. Yeah, you’ll see this pullback a little bit here and there, but man, holy cow, these are just great businesses. Again, what do we got? One more? Two more? How many questions?

Daniel Creech 01:34:59

We can do one more. You already kind of covered uranium. Sam, we got to give a shout out to Sam. He says it’s a great day for a Q&A. It’s his birthday. Happy 4th birthday, Sam.

Frank Curzio 01:35:07

Happy birthday, man.

Daniel Creech 01:35:09

I do like this. He says, “You said to ask about anything, stocks, comedy, sports, anything to throw at me.” He says, “I don’t remember you ever talking about comedies. Have you seen anything funny recently?” Then he asked about Uroi’s latest soda ash acquisition. But I like that comedy question, Frank.

Frank Curzio 01:35:24

You know what? I mean, there hasn’t been any really funny bullshit.

Daniel Creech 01:35:27

Hollywood sucks.

Frank Curzio 01:35:29

Right? And that’s why I spent like at least a half an hour on TikTok because I like watching skits from comedians, which are great. I love watching. There’s so much funny stuff. I love when people mess with other people and stuff like that, which is cool. But I find myself in the right feeds that I’m laughing a lot on TikTok. And I need that. So it’s not like I’m going social media and going to Fox or CNN and just getting off that thing. I want to shoot somebody. I shouldn’t say that online, but you know how I feel. They’re playing your emotions that you want. You just hate.

Daniel Creech 01:35:54

Comedies.

Frank Curzio 01:35:54

You hate, hate, hate.

Daniel Creech 01:35:55

Comedies.

Frank Curzio 01:35:55

That’s why I’m on that. So when I’m on that or Instagram or something like that, just look at reels and stuff. It’s really cool when you get into just a lot of comedians. Matt Rife is really funny. I mean, I love Joe Rogan too. He’s funny. Just in terms of content and some of the comedians he has on and stuff like that. But yeah, there’s such a lack of funny movies though. There hasn’t really been funny movies. I’m a Naked Gun fan. Who was the one when those guys went on the bachelor party?

Daniel Creech 01:36:23

Hangover.

Frank Curzio 01:36:24

The Hangover and stuff. Just things that make you laugh out loud that are hilarious. I haven’t seen a lot of them because you always have to cross over certain things that you shouldn’t cross over. And now comedians are getting back to that. Remember, comedians basically were handcuffed by the woke stuff and you can’t say that or you’re going to get thrown off. And now you should be able to go off at anything. Make fun of every race. Make fun of everybody. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be edgy and stuff like that. But now the comedians getting back to edgy is getting a little more fun. So come on, you party. Uroi, listen, good company. I like the acquisition. This is a company that was set up very early on. I was in the early financing, I think, at 25 cents. And because of Amir and stuff like that. And just this is a name that’s great. I mean, I sold it. I sold it and made a lot of money on this thing. But this is a company. Look at that nice spike right there. But this is a company that now finally, right?

Frank Curzio 01:37:11

You set up these royalties. And if you look at royalty companies, it’s a low-asset business model. Basically, they’re financing, right? They’re financing and saying, “Hey, if you produce uranium here, we’re going to take a piece of this at this price and we’ll give you like 100 million or 200 million to finance this property.” So this is filled with finance people. It’s not filled with people that are it’s not a mining company where you have all that risk of drilling and costs and raising money and stuff like that. They’re taking pieces of different company. And now uranium has been on fire that some of these things are going to be producing. And now they’re going to be generating a shitload of free cash flow. That’s what happens with Franco Nevada, Silver Wheaton, Royal Gold, just amazing business models that did very, very well, even when gold and silver didn’t do that well because they didn’t have to worry about the high interest rates and all this stuff. And interest rates does affect this business. Don’t get me wrong. But when you see that free cash flow constantly coming in, it feeds itself.

Frank Curzio 01:37:59

And they take that money and then you’re investing in more stuff. And if those deals don’t work, these finance guys have clauses saying, “Okay, if you don’t have this built at a certain time, say if it’s a gold company, we’re able to we’ll give you $100 million to build this up. And if five years you say this is going to be producing at $4,500 an ounce, if you don’t do it, then we get to buy that at $3,500 an ounce. If it’s six months later, we get to buy it $3,000 an ounce.” And then when they produce, they’re basically getting gold for $2,500 an ounce when it’s $5,000 an ounce. That’s where these companies make a lot of sense. But it took a long time. This company didn’t really make much sense to buy now that you see a lot of these projects coming online and producing outside like Cameco and stuff. They have stakes in Arriva. Those are two of the biggest in the world, Kazakhstan and stuff like that. Now you see where this stock is going. These guys are doing a great job. And the guy who runs this, Scott Melby, I just went to dinner with him.

Frank Curzio 01:38:49

I love him. He’s the most positive guy. I’m usually positive. He’s the most positive guy ever. And it was great. His wife’s awesome. And he’s a really, really good guy. And just one of the negatives really quick with uranium is there’s all dinosaurs in it. And there’s not a lot of new people coming into that industry, right? So with him, when I interviewed him, I had him on my podcast. I’m like, “What’s different with you?” He’s like, “I’m never leaving this. I love what I do. This is great.” I mean, he feels younger than ever. And I love that about him, right? He’s not looking, “Oh, let me build this up and sell this company.” He’s in it. This is his life. His whole life is uranium. Again, has great connections politically as well. But I really like Scott Melby. He’s a great guy, great person for this company. And now he’s seen it, right? Uranium hasn’t been doing too good. Look at the chart of that one. It’s been doing pretty good. A really good name. And we’ve done well in the past recommending it in the newsletter, so.

Daniel Creech 01:39:34

Absolutely. All right, Frank, I’ll let you wrap it up here. But as a reminder to everybody, we didn’t get to all your questions. Keep them coming. Askkersio.com. You can email us personally as well. Just remember, on Thursdays, we’ll come back. We’ll do this more on X. But on Thursdays, our podcast is more of a Q&A. We talk about some topics, but it’s also a Q&A. So tune in next week as well. We’ll get to more of your questions in the archives. But Frank, take a minute.

Frank Curzio 01:39:58

Good point. Wall Street Unplugged Thursday. So we have Wednesday, Thursday. Thursday, the questions that we didn’t get to. Again, we’re on for two hours. We’re going to do this for an hour. We’re pushing almost two hours now, which is cool. I like doing this as long as there’s traffic. It’s fun. It promotes our brand, right? So it’s really cool. But it gives you a better feeling for us and what we do here, where it’s no BS. We’re going to tell it how it is. And a lot of times that gets us in trouble and people get pissed off. But if we tell the truth, we stay true to ourselves, right? Which is really cool. We have our newsletter where we just restructured our business and we’re doing very well. Fastest growth that we’ve seen probably in six, seven years. And I said, “To hell with it with this business model of having 10 different newsletters in different industries. Why don’t we just condense it into one called Kersio Alpha?” And anyone that’s new who wants to try this newsletter, I’ll make you a deal. And Veronica’s going to kill me. So she’s everything behind running operations.

Frank Curzio 01:40:44

Veronica@CurzioResearch.com. I’ll give you 50% off to any new subscriber that comes in if you’re brand new. Just email her and you’ll get a 50% discount right away. That’s nowhere on our website, nothing. I just came out with it now. So Veronica’s going to kill me. She’s probably going to text me right now and be like, “You’re an idiot because we got to set up everything behind the scenes to do that and credit card processing and stuff.” But I’ll do that for you. If you’re new, this way you could see it. Just like the Wall Street Journal and everybody else does for first-time subscribers, we’ll lower that. This way you could see what we’re about. But most of the people who subscribe to our stuff stay forever. And now we have a product that just is awesome. It covers everything. One product for everything. And I said this because we had a crypto product and we killed it in crypto for such a long time. Then we had a year-and-a-half stress that didn’t do well. And we canceled that product and gave everybody whenever we cancel a product or shut down a product, we give people all of our services, right?

Frank Curzio 01:41:30

We always do right by our customers. And I said, “If you own AI, we had an AI newsletter, you’re on fire. Our small-cap newsletter, on fire. Massive gains, right? Huge freaking gains in some of these newsletters, which are great.” And I’m like, “If you decide to purchase the wrong newsletter, you’re fucked.” And I’m like, “Why should that be?” Because now we have everything in one spot. We have Robinhood. We have Bitcoin in this newsletter. We have Galaxy in the newsletter. Again, these are higher prices. And then we have healthcare. We go anywhere we want with the market. And that’s the way it should be, right? Because the other way, that profit stream is for the company. It’s not for the customer, right? If you have 10 different newsletters and you’re paying all this money, there’s going to be some places that don’t work. Instead, we have one newsletter. And we’re doing really well. We sign up a lot of new people. And we said, “Hey, let’s just charge a good price for this newsletter. It makes sense because it’s a lot cheaper than the five, six newsletters that we had.” And we call it Kersio Alpha.

Frank Curzio 01:42:18

And then for those accredited investors that want to go to the one membership, you get to talk to me personally. And we’re signing up lots of people for that, which is a lot of fun because we have great deals. People want to get into private deals that people that could trust. Believe me, that industry, I know you want to be in it, but be very careful of who you’re following or a fund that you’re going into to get into these private deals because these deals’ structure is the most important and you have to look under the hood. And that’s 30 years of experience of looking at this shit where they’re going to give you bridge loans, 12% interest. This is great. And you notice that it’s a bridge because they’re going to run out of money and that 12% is nothing. They’re backing their assets by a company and their technology that they’re bleeding it dry in a biotech company or a mining company. They’re not going to tell you this shit. I see this shit a mile away and I’m investing my own money in it and that’s the one investment and the one membership.

Frank Curzio 01:43:05

So I love the way our company is structured that way and working with really good companies as well, like Blue Energies and also with and who else are we working with now? Blue Energies and Copernico. Did we answer a question on Copernico? There was a couple of questions. Copernico, which is.

Daniel Creech 01:43:20

There’s one about that where we didn’t get to.

Frank Curzio 01:43:22

It’s on fire now. Copernico. Listen, if you get a chance, buy Copernico. This is a company that we’re working with. We actually recommended this before we started working with them. And because I know Ivan Bibik and I’ve made a lot of money off him in the past through his recommendations and 10 years building this company, I’m glad that we weren’t in it the last 10 years. Everything’s going great. Massive property in Peru. And this thing has been on fire. And these guys, now they finally got their permit. You re-rate when you get your permit. And they finally got their permit. They thought they were going to get it a few months ago and the stock got hammered. They finally got their permit. You have TechWorld, one of the largest investors, one of the best companies in the world investing in Newmont’s investing in it. They follow this guy because he knows what he’s doing. 10 years to get through the politics and everything in Peru. Very exciting stuff. Then they got their permit and this thing’s starting to take off. And it’s very, very early. You’re looking at a project that he has that could be one of the biggest copper projects in the world.

Frank Curzio 01:44:10

And it’s not just one project. They’re drilling in seven different areas and all seven of those could qualify as a massive copper project. So I like investing in stocks like that where if they get it right, it’s a 50X. If they don’t, it’s fine. That’s a good risk-reward where you want to put a little bit of money in Copernico. We did get some questions on it. I saw that we didn’t get to. But other than that, guys, listen, thank you so much for joining. If you’re interested in Alpha, you want to learn more. A lot of the stocks we talk about, individual stocks, we really cover. I do videos. Daniel does videos on our website, curzioresearch.com. If you’re interested in subscribing, if you’re brand new, never subscribed to any of our products before and you want to test us out, I’ll give you a 50% discount. Email Veronica@curzioresearch.com. Anything else? One membership, frank@curzioresearch.com. Daniel, what’s your email?

Daniel Creech 01:44:49

Daniel@curzioresearch.com.

Frank Curzio 01:44:50

All right, guys. Thanks for joining. And I’m probably not going to see you tomorrow. I think I might take off tomorrow. We’ll see. But have a good weekend. Enjoy football, college, pro stocks next week. Thanks for tuning in. I’ll talk to you guys later.

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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.