Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Nov. 1, 2021
Nick and Gerardo recap the New Orleans Investment Conference, where they both presented in October.
The theme of their talk was about green metals inflating, and that discussion continues here with lithium and copper as both those metals increase in price and related stocks go higher.
It’s possible to outperform the market on your own using these and other straightforward strategies discussed in this episode. Facebook is becoming Meta… But what is the metaverse, exactly? And how can we profit from it?
Plus: Kids ages 5-11 can now get the Pfizer Covid vaccine and kids aged 14 can work until 11pm in Wisconsin.
It’s all in episode 141 of Bizarro World.
Table of Contents
0:00 Intro
1:05 New Orleans Investment Conference Recap
4:08 Markets: Lithium and Copper Going Gangbusters, Fed Meeting
11:31 How to Outperform the Market on Your Own
26:50 The Metaverse
36:28 FDA Authorizes Pfizer's COVID Vaccine for Kids Aged 5-11
40:49 14-Year-Olds Can Now Work Until 11pm
46:15 Market Week Ahead
Gerardo Del Real: Welcome to the metaverse. We'll talk Meta. We'll talk Tesla. Everything's still awesome. Record highs in the markets. Bottom 95% of the world, how're you feeling? We just got back from the New Orleans Investment Conference. Nick and I will provide a recap of that. Lithium is surging. Gold is still boring. Crypto still looks good. Pfizer's coming to take your kids. A lot to get into.
I am Gerardo Del Real along with my co-host, Mr. Nick Hodge. This is episode/therapy session 141 of Bizarro World. Mr. Hodge, how in the hell are you, sir?
Nick Hodge: I am relishing the stock market at new all time highs as one told you would happen several weeks ago. I'm sure we'll talk about that. I'm doing great. Gerardo, how are you?
New Orleans Investment Conference Recap
Gerardo Del Real: I am excellent. Glad to be back home. I had a phenomenal time in New Orleans. Your presentation was one of the best ones I'd seen in a long time. We presented together afterwards, of course, and you're on a panel. A busy week. Before we get into the markets and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), and the metaverse and the number of things that there is to talk about, I would love for you to share your thoughts on the conference for those that are listening and maybe weren't able to make it.
We were able to catch up with several people there and connect in person, obviously. That was great. But there were quite a few also that weren't there that I'm sure would love to get a feel for what the week was like.
Nick Hodge: It was great to be back in New Orleans having taken 2020 off because it was virtual, of course, because of the pandemic. And it was in question whether it was going to be in person this year or not. It ended up being a hybrid event. You and I, of course, both went and a lot of people chose to go as well. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of people, attendees in the exhibit hall, and then the speaker hall. I thought that there was going to be less than or actually were.
I think the trend from 2019 continues as far as younger attendees, more female attendees. And people… I won't say less interested in gold, but more interested in other investments. Of course, crypto was mentioned a lot. But of course, we talked about critical metals and energy metals in our presentation. Obviously, there's room and appetite for that, given what's going on with the prices of those metals and the fundamental drivers behind them.
Then, of course, it was a great atmosphere for the free expression of thought and advocacy for sound, hard money, and common sense, frankly. A lot of good speeches about why costs are rising, why inflation isn't transitory, how this inflation is manifesting. And a lot of lamenting from the true gold bugs. They're being outperformed at least this year. But I've taken to reminding people as often as I can that gold prices did hit a record all time high.
Anyway, that's it in a nutshell. When is gold going to rise? Was the main question I'd say and enjoy the gains and everything else is another takeaway.
Gerardo Del Real: Enjoy the gains and everything else is right. Kudos to Brien Lundin and his staff, they did an excellent job navigating a very, very, very challenging environment with the recent hurricane, and the storms, and COVID, and vaccine mandates. I thought it was just incredibly well done. The coordination was excellent. It didn't feel different than any other year with the exception of the fact that some of the speakers and presenters obviously were there virtually.But kudos to Brien and the team. Thanks for having us out there. Again, look forward to it next year.
Markets: Lithium and Copper Going Gangbusters, Fed Meeting
Let's get into the markets, Nick. Look, there are a lot of ways to make money. If gold is your only move, sure, I feel for you a bit although there's been some winners in the space. But look, lithium prices. We're in a situation where in China's biggest lithium company just saw third-quarter revenue rise, 178%. Ganfeng Lithium also, 507% rise in third-quarter net profit.
Obviously that's trickling down to the bottom line. Companies like Lithium Americas (TSX: LAC)(NYSE: LAC), which we highlighted at the New Orleans conference. That's up, I think, 20% or 25%. That's after me trading in and out of it in booking a 75% gain earlier in the year. There are a lot of different ways to make money.
We have a Fed meeting next week that everybody is cautioning may have a negative effect on the gold price. I actually find that as very bullish, one, because I'm a contrarian. But not just for contrarian's sake, because of the fact that I feel that's baked in. Any thoughts on the Fed meeting next week? Does it matter, Nick? I mean, is it not obvious what's going to happen in the way that it's going to play out regardless of what he says — or does, possibly — next week or the month after, the year after?
Nick Hodge: We're going to see. I mean, we really think he's backed into a corner and the stock market’s not going to let them taper. The economy is growing quite well. If you look at the indicators of GDP, household wealth, et cetera. I mean, they might get a little bit of hesitation from the jobs report. But I'm not sure it matters. I mean, do you think they're going to taper next week?
Gerardo Del Real: No.
Nick Hodge: Right. Right.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. I think they'll talk about it a little bit more and give team transitory, maybe something to cheer about for a day.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. The cheerfulness is going to be transitory, I think. Because I think at least until Q1 '22, Q2 '22, the growth is going to be such that — and we can talk about earnings growth in a second — that the direction is set right now. I mean, that's, of course, when you get something out of left field, but I don't know what that would be. As I see the market right now, it's the stock market at all time highs. A continued weakness in the dollar and rates continuing to go up while bonds get their ass handed to them
Gerardo Del Real: Yes. That's exactly right. I won't even get into the broader markets, because I think you said that well. Let's talk copper. We mentioned lithium. Copper has to be mentioned as an energy metal. It's obviously critical. Any thoughts on the copper space and the copper price?
Nick Hodge: On lithium, too. I'm going to kick the horse for a long, long time, because it's been coming for a long, long time, and it's here, all sorts of stuff. I told you that China was running out of bullets, even before that a couple of weeks ago. Told you for years about the electrification of everything, and the fact that there wasn't enough copper supply, mines being developed to meet that supply, and that there was going to be consequences.
You're seeing those consequences right now. Jeff Phillips who you’ve been interviewing a lot, I was talking to him the other day. He was saying, "We're in such a bizarre world that there's so many things out there that would typically be black swans, that they're not even black swans, or you don't even hear much about them." There was disorderly trading on the London Metal Exchange last week. They had to step in, because they didn't know if they were going to run out of metal.
It's all playing out.
You were mentioning lithium prices. I think you get this trend until the ... You know how it goes, Gerardo. The price stays high enough to incent the new supply to come online and the drivers aren't going away. They're having the climate meeting this week, which I mentioned in some editorials — $88 trillion is the number of assets they're trying to get committed to decarbonisation.
Then I saw you put the Tesla thing on there. This is where I laugh a little bit, because they announced the deal to sell 100,000 cars to Hertz (NASDAQ: HTZZ), the electric cars. Hertz was almost bankrupt last year, if you remember. But anyway ...
Gerardo Del Real: I remember.
Nick Hodge: ... put that aside. Tesla's going to sell Hertz 100,000 cars. It's a $4 billion deal. The company's collectively added over $100 billion in market cap. When I think about that, I guess two things. One, you might be a little jealous, if you're not invested in Tesla. Or maybe jealous isn't the right word. You might wonder how that's possible. Then on the other side ...
Gerardo Del Real: The Death of Elon!
Nick Hodge: The trillion dollar market cap, Elon. But then, at the same time, I think about, man, how stupid it is that their value goes up that much just on a press release. I'll wait for the batteries to be built for these 100,000 cars. Because I know that's where I'm going to put my coin in my pocket. I've been talking to my wife about it. I've been increasingly vocal about how natural resource owners are going to be the green barons of the 21st century.
I mean, it's Standard Oil all over again. Every announcement I see it's a dollar signs in my eyes. New batteries... new solar fields... this company commits to getting rid of internal combustion engines... It's like, "Okay. They're already out of metal on the London Metal Exchange. Let's fucking go."
Gerardo Del Real: Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. If there's not enough cha-ching in your portfolio, and look, we don't get them all right. I certainly don't get them all right. Nobody does. But as far as themes and overall portfolio performance, and personal portfolio performance, you could do a lot worse than me and Mr. Hodge have. I mean, Nick and I were joking about our champagne problems when we ... I, at the very least, didn't realize just how many checks I had written for companies that were private and going public eventually.
I looked one day, and I think there was eight or nine of them. It's just stock certificates sitting in a box somewhere. I started thinking and looking at the deals I'm looking and I'm going, "Well, uranium, uranium, copper, copper, copper-gold, gold," and then a smile came on my face, and I was so happy. There's so many ways to make money in the market right now, overall indices, cryptos, the battery metals.
Again, I mean, I don't know what to tell anyone out there. Uranium, I don't know what to tell anyone out there. That's not in the game. If they're able to be in the game, I completely understand. If you have a situation where you just don't have the extra $1,000, $10,000, $50,000, been there, been there. I didn't grow up with much.
How to Outperform the Market on Your Own
But if you're in a position where you're actually looking to diversify, and you're looking for a hedge, and you're looking to somehow protect your wealth, and preserve your wealth, and maybe even multiply your wealth, there's so many ways to do it. I hate to call it easy, because the market has a way of making fools out of people that make predictions. But it's not hard right now. Is it Nick?
Nick Hodge: No. Whenever you think it's easy, like you say, is when trouble looms. But here's the thing, it's not easy. It's not easy to identify those trends and to have the wherewithal to sit out the periods when the metals haven't been ripping like they are, and to buy in bear markets, and to buy as a contrarian head of the herd. It is hard. It's hard for average investors, and certainly hard for institutional and institutionalized investors to see that.
You know and I've written that I keep some money with a money manager. I had my meeting with them this week. The only thing I wanted to talk with them about was allocation. I knew what they were going to say. They said exactly what I thought. But I was telling them about how they primarily had been allocated to a fund that was mostly in tech stocks... and how that had worked previously. I know. That's why they're doing it, because they back test it.
But that's not what was working now, which is exactly what they told me. Like, "Well, this didn't work in the back test that you're proposing." I said, "Yeah. But when I email you in April, and I tell you that energy and real estate are about to outperform, and you keep me weighted in tech, then we have a problem. Because I'm telling you what's going to go up and you're not doing it."
I knew what they were going to say to that. “What? Do you think you can do that every time, every time a sector turns?” The answer is no, of course. But I also wouldn't own a fund that was not performing at least the S&P. They use these, whatever, Goldman Sachs or First Trust funds that are actively managed. It's not even performing the S&P. "You could literally just own the S&P" is what I told them and "You'd be doing better than you are doing."
It's weird for lots of reasons. It's weird, because we're in unprecedented financial territory. No one's seen this monetary intervention before. I'm sure some of their guys. I don't know for sure. I could be making this up. But we aren't around for the global financial crisis. Haven't seen markets trade in cycles. Of course, it's all programmatic or algorithmic. There's no room for thinking.
They plug in your age, and they plug in your thing. It's like, "Okay. You're going in this allocation." Even though it's "aggressive allocation" with no bonds, you still have to be able to allocate and rotate into the sectors that are outperforming.
“Is it hard,” was your question. That is quasi-hard. It takes a little bit of dedication. I've tried to explain this in Foundational Profits and it's been my mission with my monthly service ever since it was called Like Minded People is to not actively trade your account.
But to use that to make the positioning decisions that will let you do better even if you're not trading in an active brokerage account, even if you just have a 401(k) or an IRA, and you have a limited set of funds, you can use the information we provide to say, "Okay. I'm not going to be in whatever, this consumer discretionary fund this quarter. I'd rather be heavier weighted to energy, because I see that inflating more."
In that sense, it becomes easier. It's easier for an individual to do it, because you can do it yourself. Whereas an institution, you're just a number to them, literally. They're institutionalized. They follow formulas, and they don't think independently, and all that stuff. If you really want alpha, if you really want to outperform the market, even while it's setting records, then I think and I've been convinced of this for a while that the best way to do that is yourself.
Gerardo Del Real: Go get your money back, Nick, one. If you're listening, fund, sorry. You're the one who's fucking it up. Two, I think every newsletter, regardless of what the newsletter is about, should be called Like Minded People.
Nick Hodge: That's good name, right?
Gerardo Del Real: It's a great fucking, damn. Everybody, this will be a not safe for word podcast. I'm back to my usual self. I had to behave myself a little bit when I was in New Orleans, at least out in the mic, because we want to make sure that we're professional. By now that you know this is called Bizarro World. But I did try to keep the F bombs to a minimum while I was there. I am back and uncensored now. This is your warning.
Nick Hodge: One more thing before you get uncensored.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Hodge: Just one thing is they don't understand what I do.. what we do. A lot of people don't. But they're starting to, because I've been with them for almost a year. For the first 12 months, they didn't want to count my private placements in my financial plan.
Gerardo Del Real: I remember the story.
Nick Hodge: This year, I go back. He's looking at that account again. He's like, "Wait, how much did you make?" He's said, "What's your cost basis on that?" Then I could just see it in his eyes, like, "Oh, you do know what the fuck you're talking about, right?" It's like, "Man, I could do this for myself." Anyway, "You can do it for yourself, too," is I guess what I'm saying to the listener.
Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. That was the point that I was trying to drive home. Yes. Should you compare information and research from multiple sources? Absolutely. Should you just take Nick's word or my word for it? Absolutely not. You could do worse. But you should absolutely do some comparison shopping. But I remember when I got curious about resource stocks, and started getting into the space 14 years ago... 15 years ago.
I remember a mentor of ours told me, "Listen, if I were you, I would take $10,000 and just subscribe to 10 different newsletters annually, if you have that, and just compare everybody's work, and then see who's performing, see who's outperforming, see why, and then come up with your own model." That's what inspired the approach that I take now and the multiple disciplines, whether it's trading or investing for cycles, or the private placement approach now that we're in the sandbox.
It's a different approach for each of those disciplines. But it's very doable. I didn't go to a university to learn this. They don't teach you trading in school. They don't teach you ...
Nick Hodge: That's it.
Gerardo Del Real: ... natural resource stocks in school. You can have an MBA. We're fortunate enough to have people that work with us that do. But that won't teach you how to identify in front-run a trend and it really won't teach you how to be a contrarian and maximize the profit potential during that cycle. I would encourage you ...
Nick Hodge: That's what the MBA sitting across from me. That's exactly it, because he's like, "How do you know this?" Like, "You're just investing based on what you see in the world?" I'm like, "How do you invest any other way? You're just looking at a spreadsheet and allocating?" I told him about Mr. Dines.
Gerardo Del Real: What did he say about Mr. Dines?
Nick Hodge: I was like, "Don't think, just look at what's happening." He doesn't think that's going to happen all the time. I think the conversation trailed off after that, because I was telling him about how like staples weren’t a good place to be allocated because people weren't going to buy Honey Nut Cheerios if they could switch to the generic. He was like, "You can't invest on stuff like that." I was like, "You think I built my net worth, son?"
Gerardo Del Real: I'm worth more than you, bitch. The fuck is your problem? Step your investing game up and get better returns on my money, motherfucker. That's what I would have said. But that's why I didn't do that. Let's talk about what we're seeing, Nick. What we're seeing is, again, a continuation of stuff that we've been telling you about for years on end. But it is accelerating. The Hertz order for 100,000 electric vehicles that they're getting from Tesla, half of those will go to Uber (NYSE: UBER).
You can see the writing on the wall. That's going to introduce Uber passengers to Tesla's. I actually see the sense and the logic behind it. I think soon you'll have multiple fleets of just electric vehicles, whether it's Tesla, whether it's another company. It makes perfect sense. I mean, there's only so many moving parts on an electric vehicle, and you're going to far, far outperform in regards to safety, in regards to performance, and in regards to efficiencies as it relates to servicing these vehicles.
That's going to have a material impact, but not just on Tesla, and not just on Hertz, and not just for Uber… for copper companies, for battery metal companies. Look at what's going on in Europe. General Motors (NYSE: GM) and General Electric (NYSE: GE) just announced that they're going to partner up and look at ways to develop a supply chain of rare earths and other minerals to make electric vehicles and renewable energy equipment.
These are companies with billions on the balance sheet. This isn't a small $50 million company that's doing an LOI with a $10 million company… issuing each other a bunch of shares, and flipping it in a year. These are companies that are legacy companies coming in with treasure chests built to be disruptive. They're, I think frankly, tired of waiting on the European region to get off its ass and do it. It's been a lot of talk. It's been some capital allocated.
But the bottom line as far as Europe goes, is it hasn't backed the conversation up with as much nimbleness and capital as I hoped for. It's not a coincidence that companies like Leading Edge Materials (TSX-V: LEM)(OTC: LEMIF), which has one of the few world class rare earth deposits in Europe, if not the only, that can actually provide some of these materials for magnets and for electric vehicles at all. They also have a graphite plant that's fully permitted and built and just signed a joint venture.
It's not a coincidence that stock after years of being in the portfolio, not doing a damn thing, is finally breaking out, and is up 25% to 35% over the past week. I think it's early days, I think it goes a lot higher. That's a freebie. That's a free name. You can look at Leading Edge Materials. Great company, great management, great assets, been asleep for years. I think it'll be worth the wait when it's all said and done here in the next year or two.
But these are the things that as a speculator, and as a contrarian or as an investor, these are the things that you should be paying attention to, because these are not trends that will be fly-by-night trends that would disappear in a year or two. These are decade-long trends. You can make money like you call it, Nick, inflation profits. You can make money from inflation, and the electrification of everything for decades on this thing.
We've been doing it since 2016. Highs and lows, but I'll tell you what, the last couple of years, high-highs, high-highs.
Nick Hodge: We're really hitting the mainstream now. Like you said, multi-hundred million dollar, billion dollar deals in the resource space. First, I was going to tell you that the Hertz rental thing isn't a new idea. You and I know a gentleman that has a Hertz Rent-A-Racer. They used to do this back in the '60s and '70s to advertise fast race cars, Shelby Mustangs and things to kids. Hertz would buy them so you could rent them and drive them just for a little bit.
That was, just as you're seeing now, to help sell Shelbys, because once you rent it you would want to own one. This is just that coming full circle. But more than that, as you're seeing a bigger resource deals announced as well, you were talking about the earnings of like Ganfeng, for example. But you saw Sibanye (NYSE: SBSW) this week or last week come with a billion dollar deal in Brazil. They announced this earlier, months ago that they were starting to pivot away from Golden PGMs and add in battery metal stories.
They bought a nickel asset a little bit ago. But in the past couple of weeks, they deployed a billion dollars into Brazil to further go into that avenue of the resource market. Yeah. Europe wasn't the only one who didn't put the dollars behind it. The entire world is late to catch up to this. We know why because setting goals is easy, but extracting the raw materials, refining them, turning them into the compounds and composites and magnets needed to make these batteries and transistors, et cetera is very difficult.
That's where the money is about to be made, has been made, and is going to continue to be made.
Gerardo Del Real: I know people still spending 2010, 2011 rare earth money. They haven't blown through all the money they made back then. This trend, this one right now is a whole lot more sustainable and real than it was back then. That was someone that was really brilliant in catching the wave very early and seeing and looking forward and saying, "Hey, buy positions now, it's so new to the market that the market is going to go gangbusters." Sure enough, it did.
You have companies that were 12, 15, 16 cents that went to highs of $20, $21, $22 at their peak. These are people that owned tens of millions of those shares at 16, 20, and 25 cents. Look, there's a lot of ways to make money right now. Hopefully, people that are able to are taking advantage of what I described in New Orleans as almost criminal activity by the Fed in regards to how it treats the wealthy versus how its policies treat everyone else.
Nick Hodge: Literal criminal activity and how the Fed governors profit from their inside information.
Gerardo Del Real: These motherfuckers, yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, look, the timing is great, too. Look, just breaking news, Amazon reveals a 20% stake in an electric vehicle maker. Amazon doesn't take a 20% stake in something that's just going to fizzle the next year. Again, just look, as Mr. Dines would say, "Look, it's right there. It's in front of you. It's a lot of ways to make money off this trend. Hopefully, you're getting some of that."
The Metaverse
Let's talk the Metaverse. This was a stupidest fucking corporate things I've seen in a long time. Corporations do a lot of stupid fucking things. Any thoughts on this? Does Mark just think that if you just call it Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: FB), everybody will forget how toxic it is for kids? Don't forget about the testimony that the whistleblower gave with facts and timestamps and receipts, by the way, about how the company knew how toxic it was and didn't care?
I mean, I don't know. Again, I am not the big corporate guy. You tell me Nick. You do other sectors other than the resource space. I thought it was the stupidest fucking name change I've ever heard.
Nick Hodge: It's nuanced. My take is nuanced. I don't really like the name. I totally see why they named it that and why they were desperate for a name change. Similar to Alphabet, similar to a Comcast positioning as Xfinity for example. They're trying to get away from that Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Instagram stuff that's been going on lately. Look, we try to be ahead of the herd. It's nine years since I've been off the Facebook, could see how toxic it was for the culture and kids and self-esteem and misinformation, et cetera. Nonetheless, Facebook's grown into an absolute behemoth.
Mark, as you referred to him, has been trying to create an internet within the internet, the so-called Metaverse, and has done well at doing that. Trained a whole generation and perhaps beyond how to think of themselves as avatars and in terms of digital profiles, and even in terms of digital assets. I've long written about Farmville, since before this podcast, since before this publishing company, I was writing about how Farmville was training people to trade US dollars, the actual greenbacks in their account for assets on the internet, which would now be called assets on the metaverse. I'm talking about buying cows 10 years ago on Facebook through Farmville, for example. But that's now going all the way to where we are now. Facebook is trying to own that. Facebook is trying to own that internet within the internet. Except I think there's going to be a lot of backlash to it, because the whole point…
But one of the prime tenets of the metaverse is decentralization. To have the metaverse owned, named, by one corporate entity is the antithesis of what the metaverse is intended to be, especially when that centralized entity’s only goal is to monetize it for their shareholders. I think there's going to be backlash to it in that respect. Those are basically my thoughts on Facebook.
Setting Facebook aside, I wanted to talk more about the metaverse in general, because it's the perfect time to do so, since they just named themselves that. Sorry if I'm going to go for a second, but these would ...
Gerardo Del Real: No, no, no. This is great. I asked you.
Nick Hodge: You sent me a video, your son, the other day who just critiques and overviews and plays video games and does those reviews on YouTube and gets significant, significant engagement in real time. I was amazed to see over 100,000 views the day he posted it, and the live stream of comments that were associated with that. These online environments and communities are increasingly being created, of course, MySpace, Facebook, et cetera.
But now, and you and I have talked about Minecraft, for example, and how you can spend money there and how they monetize their user base, but also how ... A couple of things. Musicians are starting to hold concerts in the metaverse. Artists are having concerts in Minecraft, for example. You pay for a ticket because they can sell 10 million tickets instead of 10,000 or 15,000 in a single venue.
The scale becomes so much greater, because it's global, and it's all digitized. Then, sorry, I got to keep going, because I'm trying to tie it all together for investment and lifestyle purposes, is you have an online persona either in the game you're playing — live action roleplay, whatever it is. That avatar that you have, owns things in that game, buys things. You and I have talked about this, going all the way back to like crypto jockeys and crypto horses, for example.
Now, it's being developed and monetized into many more millions and billions of people. I'll try to tie it together fast... the systems to organize this and if there's real money going into it, which there obviously is, is on the blockchain. If you're going to have an avatar and it's going to buy a house in ... What was your son's game called? I wrote it down. Let me see.
If you're going to buy a house in Honkai: Star Rail, you're going to want a digital record of that. How are you going to pay for that? Maybe the game has its own cryptocurrency and blockchain where that's all tracked. Maybe they use the Ethereum blockchain. I don't know. I'm not that smart. I'm still learning about all this. But that is what's happening. Not just in video games.
MasterCard announced a big program in the past couple of weeks to make a foray into cryptocurrency. We, of course, have been talking about decentralized finance. All that to say ecosystems are being built and not just by Facebook. This game that your son was playing is going to be played by tens of millions of people. They're not going to be doing that on Facebook.
Anyway, there's going to be leaders, and there's going to be winners, and there's going to be losers, just like there is at the onset and the development of any industry. You and I have been through some of that already in the first iteration of the crypto wave in 2016, 2017-ish. Now it's coming back again. Even as far as OnlyFans and stuff like that, and I'll talk about Playboy (NASDAQ: PLBY) for just one second.
But OnlyFans has been a huge thing. People spending more time online. Everybody wants a side hustle. This is part of the metaverse. The companies that can create the sticky ecosystems where, again, Playboy, you can buy an NFT from them. You can have your avatar that's ... What did I say they were called... Rabbitars.
Gerardo Del Real: Playboy creating a sticky ecosystem is great by the way.
Nick Hodge: No pages to stick together anymore, Gerardo.
Gerardo Del Real: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut in. Okay. Couldn’t help myself.
Nick Hodge: No. That's it. I was almost done. Companies like Playboy and others, even Dolce & Gabbana had an NFT auction, for example. When you bought a high-end clothing or purse or whatever, you had a digital record of it. I don't think that's going away. I'm keen to learn more and more about it. It's developing right now. There's plenty of ways to make money on it. Whether it's video games, whether it's Playboy, or whether it's MasterCard, that's all over the place.
Anyway, it's a real thing. I feel old. The New York Times had an article yesterday saying how why 37-year-olds in the workplace were afraid of their 23-year-old counterparts. That was literally the headline and it was a little too close to home, because I'm 37 years old.
Gerardo Del Real: This is what we've learned thus far, everybody. You can't just invest or speculate your hard-earned capital through an algorithm. I'm going to give you an example of why that doesn't work. Are you familiar with Pussy Riot, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Not real familiar. But I know what it is, the group. Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. They are Russian feminist protests punk rock and performance art group. I love these little ladies. These women are incredible. They did time for their beliefs. They stood up to Putin and were willing to go to jail for it. Long story short, I follow them on Twitter. When this whole metaverse thing broke, Pussy Riot decided that they were going to go ahead and change their handle to @PussyRiot and then put a “wet wet” sign and then Pussyverse. I tweeted, meta should have been called or named the Pussyverse, instead of the metaverse. Now, the algorithm tells me I might like @HandjobFacefuck, and ...
Nick Hodge: Give ‘em a follow...
Gerardo Del Real: I might like @handjobsexvideos. Or this was interesting, I might like @weedporns.
Nick Hodge: It's funny. Cookies are tracking you.
FDA Authorizes Pfizer's COVID Vaccine for Kids Aged 5-11
Gerardo Del Real: The cookies are tracking me indeed. Speaking of tracking and chips, and all of that, Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) coming to take your kids. Hide the babies. Oh, you got to tell me about it. I don't think I know about this.
Well, they're not really coming to take your kids. But the FDA just authorized Pfizer's COVID vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11, with shots rolling out as early as next week. I'm sure we'll get a week of outrage by everybody on the left and the right and the vaxxers and the anti-vaxxers. Yeah. But that just broke here a couple of hours ago. That is official now. Any thoughts on that? That actually will tie in to the next thing that I want to talk about a bit, because it also deals with kids.
But any thoughts on the Pfizer vaccine and 5 to 11 years old? I mean, the science says that the kids should be all right. But then, as a parent, you want to be that parent where either they have an adverse reaction to the vaccine, and they were going to be healthy? Or they would have been protected and now they’re in the hospital and something happens and you feel horrible as a parent?
I mean, I guess there's not really a right answer in my head other than look at the science and do what's comfortable for you, depending on the material that's available to you?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. We haven't come down on it yet. Our oldest kid is a five and a half. There hasn't been talk of it in the school yet. I haven't given it too much thought. But I'm like you, I'll look at the science at the time and make the decision that we feel is best for us and our family. The only other things I would say is the science is really interesting. Do you know who's turning out to be the most, whatever, protected, is people that have caught COVID and gotten one dose of a vaccine.
Gerardo Del Real: Of course, because that's the way the universe works. I mean, yeah, absolutely. I was actually reading that yesterday.
Nick Hodge: It's very interesting to me. Then last thing on COVID is cases are falling off very, very fast, fallen in half since September. If it was a stock shot chart, it would be a short. And I'm obviously not a virologist or a doctor, and I don't know what variants are going to come next and where that chart is going to go.
But delta is certainly waning. That's allowing more opening up, which is further good for the economy and growth. Yeah. I don't know about the kids get, Gerardo, when we have to cross that bridge I'll let you know. But I will say this, actually. We had to take our son to the emergency room the other night because he got a vaccine. Not the COVID vaccine. He was just go into the doctor, the pediatrician, for his two and a half year checkup. They were giving him routine shots.
He had a reaction to that. His leg swelled up and was turning red and was warm ...
Gerardo Del Real: Oh, man.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. We called ... It's actually good. We have good insurance. We provide our employees and ourselves. We should pound our chest. I've been meaning to do that.
Gerardo Del Real: Yep.
Nick Hodge: Our employees don't pay for their insurance. We pay 100% of the premiums. It's a good nationwide plan. Anyway, my wife called. They have a 24-hour nurse you can call. The nurse was like, "Yeah. You should probably get him to the hospital to be on the safe side." Anyway, it was all fine. He just had ... got a little infection from the shot, had a bad reaction to it. They gave him some antibiotics and monitored him for an hour. We were home. Got back home. The swelling went down and it was all good.
Am I an anti-vaxxer dad now? No. Am I going to get my kid his next round of shots? Yeah. Probably. That's life. You deal with things as they happen and you make the best decisions, like you were saying, that you can with the information you have. Then when shit pops up or when life happens, you deal with that. But that's no reason to be a bigot or to never change your mind again.
Gerardo Del Real: Imagine that: listening to a doctor to help cure an illness. Crazy. Crazy. But Joe Rogan, and then everyone ignores the fact that the treatment that Joe Rogan has, because he can afford the best healthcare, as well, was given to him and prescribed by a human doctor. It was human medicine. But anyhow, hey, you all do what you want. Be safe out there and be kind about it. That's it.
14-Year-Olds Can Now Work Until 11pm
Wisconsin, the Senate, keeping the theme to kids. The Senate of the US State of Wisconsin has now approved a bill that allows 14-year-old kids to work as late as 11:00 p.m. What do you think about that, Nick? I have a split mind on this one. As someone that has worked from a very young age, when I lived in Chicago, I lived in not the nicest of neighborhoods. I remember at nine ... No, I was eight years old. I was eight years old. At eight years old, I was downtown. I was uptown, actually. A lady came up to me and said, "Hey, I'll give you $2 an hour to pass these flyers out for the next five hours."
Me and my little friend couldn't have been more thrilled because we were saving to buy a Walkman from a local pawn shop up the street. That was until 11:00 p.m. But I was out there three, four days that week. As soon as school got out, I'd meet this lady. She'd give me all these flyers. I don't even know what the hell I was handing now. I may have been handing out flyers for an abortion clinic. I couldn't tell you to be honest with you.
But at the end of that week, we were pretty close to being able to go by that Walkman. That was one of the most satisfying things as a kid. It taught me about work ethic, and just being able to participate in an opportunity, even if by society's judgment and standards, maybe that lady exploited us. I got to enjoy my Walkman all summer. Fuck that. With this bill, I'm aware that 14-year-olds tend to need 8 to 10 hours of sleep, and they should be in school as well.
If you're getting home at 12:00, and you're 14, and your family needs the money, and you need the money, and you're contributing, that part of it is great. I don't know that as late as 11:00 p.m. makes me as comfortable as being allowed to work to help your family get ahead in a society where it's becoming increasingly difficult to find upward mobility. This kind of where we're at, in large part because of central bank policies. I'm back and forth on this one. Thoughts on your end of it?
Nick Hodge: I'm not sure. My parents made me get a job when I turned 14. They said, "You're old enough to work. You got to do something." Just for the structure and the work ethic of it. I did. My first job was working for the local department of parks and rec. When you're 14, they’ll hire you to teach the seven-year-olds little soccer clinics and stuff or whatever. I did that.
I also chaperoned dances. Parks and rec would put on dances for elementary and middle school-aged kids, the parents would obviously come. But they would have the parks and rec staff, me, and 14-year-old kids just standing there to make sure the little elementary school kids didn't start throwing bows or dancing in too close, or whatever it was. Some of those ... I don't think those dances went to 11:00 p.m. But they probably went to 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.
I guess, I took a different view towards it. I wasn't thinking of exploitation and kids having to work on weeknights, though, obviously, that's what this would ultimately be used for. This is for the kid who's got to work in the McDonald's drive-thru line till it closes down at 11:00, or whatever it is. Yeah, where do I fall on it? I'm not sure.
I guess, if the kid’s willing to do that, and that's what they got to do to make ends meet, it's really unfortunate that he's got to be in that situation. But at least now he's got the ability to do so, is maybe what I would say.
Gerardo Del Real: I agree. I agree. Again, they're not forcing the kid to work. They're providing that option. Yeah. Talking it out and talking it through here a little bit. I can see that. I guess the one thing that I would say is that it's a damn shame that ...
Nick Hodge: Right. No. It's not an optimal situation.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, it's also a way to circumvent increasing wages for the workers at the lower end of the pay scale, because that's a part of why we have a labor shortage. I don't want to touch on that too much, because we talked about it two weeks ago. But in a perfect world, that 14-year-old kid has the opportunity to work until 11:00, but would also be compensated so well, that there would be competition for that job. Because benefits and pay would be fair at the very least.
I think this is a way for the State of Wisconsin to tap into a labor pool that allows for businesses to not do like we do and pay 100% of medical premiums. It's a damn good plan as well. I think that part of it, I lament a little bit. But yeah, I found it interesting.
Nick Hodge: Hopefully, that 14-year-old can negotiate his or her ass off and take advantage of the labor shortage to give himself a salary that's competitive, or an hourly rate, at least.
Market Week Ahead
Gerardo Del Real: That is it. Absolutely. I mentioned Leading Edge Materials (TSX-V: LEM)(OTC: LEMIF) as a company that I like, because of the graphite asset, the rare earth asset, and some assets in Romania that if they ever are worked through the court system, which is slow as molasses out there, are pretty attractive, uranium and cobalt assets. But I think that company is an attractive speculation. I mentioned Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: RGDCF) a couple of weeks ago. All that's happened since then is it's gone down. They haven't announced the financing that I suspect they're going to announce. I'm waiting for that. I still think at current levels, and it's pulled back quite a bit in the past three, four weeks. It's given up most of its gains. I think it's a hell of a speculation right now. Drilling for copper and lithium up north, assays expected in the next couple of weeks. Then news flow, I think, all the way throughout. The press released that they're going to have a pretty aggressive marketing campaign to go and coincide with that.
I don't think in my mind of minds, I wouldn't suspect that they're going to get aggressive on the marketing side, because they believe that they need to go promote dusters. I think they may be on to something out there. That would be another name. Anything on your end of it that you're watching? We've seen a little bit of a pullback in the uranium space. I continue to believe that's an opportunity. It hasn't been much, but it's definitely pullback a little bit the last few days.
Nick Hodge: This is a pullback to buy. I've cued up some Denison (NYSE: DNN)(TSX: DML) today. Yeah. No. You could peck away there. You could peck away at the rare earth names. I was talking about Neo Materials this week, Neo Performance Materials (TSX: NEO)(OTC: NOPMF). The chart looks the same as MP Materials (NYSE: MP). I mean, that's how I think about these things. I think the small caps I've been writing about, we bought a fund in Foundational Profits.
I've been going into individual small cap names. I mentioned Playboy already on this call. I'm not going to give them all to you. But one I'm looking to reenter is Eastside Distilling (NASDAQ: EAST), for example. I sold it a couple of months ago and it skidded down hard. Not only is the small caps coming back into favor, but it's starting to execute and it's got what should be some good sales in Q4 ahead of it. When I sold it, it's the same thing… being able to change your position and change your mind. It was the right call to sell it. It went down afterward. We made money. Now, it's the right time to buy it again. Anyway, I’ve been trying to continue to reiterate that. You don't have to be glued to positions and that there's ... What did we talk about a couple weeks ago? Lots of ways to skin a cat.
Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well said, Mr. Hodge. That's all I have. We'll talk Prince Andrew next week, because I want to see if he actually responds to this criminal complaint. We'd record this on Friday as you all know. He has until the end of day today to respond to a criminal complaint that he sexually assaulted an underage girl. We'll see where that goes.
Again other than the girlfriend and Mr. Epstein, I haven't seen any of Mr. Epstein's buddies get arrested or indicted yet for the nasty shit that some men and women obviously do. Curious to see that. Should be upon ...
Nick Hodge: Mr. Leon Black was back in the news this week, too. We'll follow up on both of them.
Gerardo Del Real: I like it. I like it. Should be a fun week. We have a Fed meeting. We have a new month. Mercury's out of retrograde. We've been out of that for a week and a half or so. Things are feeling great. I am Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was episode 141 of Bizarro World. Be careful with that sticky ecosystem, everybody.
Nick Hodge: Happy birthday, Gerardo.
Gerardo Del Real: Thank you, sir.
This transcript is unedited. Please excuse grammatical errors and run-on sentences.