Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
April 26, 2022
We've lost a legend. Mr. James Dines was your favorite newsletter writer's favorite newsletter writer. We commend him on a life well lived and a letter well written. Then right into macro commentary. Stocks earnings are falling as we said they would. Can believe we have to ask, but should you tan your testicles? Netflix has lost 60% of its share value as streaming services cannibalize themselves. Plus, we discuss why Dr. Larry Nassar's sexual assault victims are suing the FBI. Hint: it's because they could've stopped it and didn't. This is Bizarro World episode 166.
0:48 Saying Goodbye to Mr. James Dines
3:05 Macro Commentary: Stock Earnings, Rates, Gold
15:55 Should You Tan Your Testicles?
20:05 Streaming Services Cannibalizes Itself
26:22 FBI Gets Sued Over Handling of Larry Nassar Case
37:04 Jason Heyward's Donation to Rural Kids
39:18 Two Private Deals Open
Gerardo Del Real: Sell in May? No, no, no. We sell in April in 2022. Timberrrrrrrrrrr, markets are crashing. Yields are rising. We're supposed to get 1,050 basis point rate hikes between now and September. Good luck with that, Jerome. Uranium's crashing. The Nassar victims are suing the FBI for $120 million. We're going to talk testicle tanning if you can believe that. I am Gerardo Del Real along with my co-host Mr. Nick Hodge. This is episode 166 of Bizaro world, our therapy session. And man, is it necessary this week? How are you Nick?
Nick Hodge: I'm doing good Gerardo. How are you?
Saying Goodbye to Mr. James Dines
Gerardo: It's been a week, a lot of the background stuff. I want to take a minute and say, we lost an original in our space, and a mentor to a mentor of ours. We lost Mr. James Dines. We should all be so lucky to live the colorful, original, unique, long life that that man lived. I know he was somebody that was an inspiration to a lot of people way before my time. I'm 43 years old. In hip hop you say, Jay-Z's your favorite Rapper's favorite rapper? Well, in the newsletter business, he was your new favorite newsletter writer's favorite newsletter writer. That's who Mr. Dines was. And I want to send condolences to family and loved ones and friends on that front. It's been tough seeing. When your mentor looses a mentor, it's tough. We all live vicariously through the people that we care about. So condolences there, but man, what a life?
Nick Hodge: A long life, well lived, over 90 years old. And a fantastic newsletter, well written and well-published and long lived as well. I counted up the editions, monthly issues, of The Dines Letter since 1960, over 730 of them. That is some staying power. Had the courage to leave his Wall Street firm to write the letter to back the hard money movement. And like you say, I think every newsletter writer's favorite newsletter writer. I had the privilege of helping him market the newsletter in some of its later years. And of course we both got to meet him and colorful is the right word, for sure. Whenever you asked him how he was doing, Mr. Dines, at least to me, would say, "Never better, my boy, it's a great day to be alive." And on his voicemail message would encourage you to "Have a great rest of your day, no, have a great rest of your life." And so was always wishing the best for others as well. And that's part of the High States that he wrote about in one of his books. So, no, it's perfect to kick off with condolences and a semi tribute to Mr. James Dines. Well done.
Macro Commentary: Stock Earnings, Rates, Gold
Gerardo: Absolutely. Have a great rest of your life. That should be the title for this therapy session. I like it. Let's get right into it. Look, nobody told my IRA that the markets are crashing. So I opened my account and I'm like, woo hoo. My [inaudible Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) shares are locked up until at least December. And I'll likely hold through then. But those continue to do well. You got me into a uranium deal like a 10 cents. It's at $1.80. Nobody told that deal that it was supposed to be cratering. But boy, is there a lot that's down. The Dow is down a thousand points in a day again, down for the fourth straight week. The 10-year yield is flirting with 3%. I'm finally right about the dollar. It's at 101 looking like it's going to be at 102. And again, I've always said, I think what causes the Fed to pivot is going to be something breaking in the bond market. And ooh, it's getting sassy out there. It's getting sasy, I'd love your thoughts there, Nick.
Nick Hodge: A lot of macro market stuff you just mentioned there. So I'll try to get it all out of my mouth. Metals have been doing well, obviously, as the broader markets have not been doing as well. You said they've bee down four weeks in a row. We told you months ago, in fact, as early as February, that earnings were going to be not as good as they were in previous quarters because they weren't getting compared to 2020. They were instead getting compared to 2021 when people weren't locked down in their house. And so you're seeing that happen right now. Basically, one in five S&P companies has now reported. So that's 20% of the S&P 500 has reported Q1 2022 earnings. And you're seeing earnings growth at 6.6%, which will be the slowest we've seen since the last quarter of 2020. If you remember, it was double digit earnings growth for most of the last year or so. And that's what allowed the stock market, particularly the tech stocks and then high growth meme stuff to hit new highs and new highs and new highs. And we're not seeing that now, in fact, we're seeing the earnings starting to contract. And we were able to position for this, I guess, late last year. You mentioned that your IRA is doing well.
Gerardo: And they're not in an IRA by way, by the way. I just think it's a funny joke. Just to be clear before somebody gets all technical on me.
Nick Hodge: Because they're very small speculative stocks.
Gerardo: They won't take them, yeah.
Nick Hodge: And I guess what I was going to say is that, if you sidestepped this tech sell off, if you sold tech stocks, for example, maybe in December of 2021 like Foundational Profits members did, and got into gold as a bit of a pivot headed into this year. Then you're not feeling so bad either, as I'm sure some of these tech investors are when you see in Netflix, which I know we'll talk more about in this podcast, take the 50 or 60% haircut that it's already taken. And in a very real way, Q2 earnings could be even worse than Q1 earnings. So what else did you mention there? Gold and uranium commodities have done well. They're in a bit of a pullback. And last week you asked me, where do I see value in the uranium space? And I said the value was in pullbacks.
And so a couple of things I was writing about this week, one, I put out new levels for two uranium stocks and the pullback came within three pennies of both of them. Not hit yet. And then on the VanEck Junior Gold Miners (NYSE: GDXJ) my target was hit that I assigned over two weeks ago to Foundational Profits members. So they should have been buying GDXJ this week as I was. I was also buying more uranium stocks. I went into URA for example, this week, because why not? Just a week ago, we were talking about when to sell Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYBHF) at the highs. And a week later I'm talking about buying uranium stocks.
That's how it is in this market right now. And to put a finer point on it, that's how the rest of the market was before: sell the rips and buy the dips. And now that's on its head, you should be selling the rips in the broader market if you haven't yet, you should have already done that. And then you should be buying the dips and the markets that are going up, which are gold and commodities, certainly battery related stuff and the Platinum Group Elements (PGEs).
Gerardo: Aren't you glad you took your money back from your money manager?
Nick Hodge: So glad. Yeah, absolutely. The only thing I've gotten wrong has been bonds. Oh, that's the other thing you mentioned. What, are we getting 10 rate hikes? I mean, what the fuck and we getting? And how high are rates really going to go. And so that trade has been wrong, but everything else has made up for it, I would say, because I haven't lost money this year. And so anyway, that feels pretty good.
Gerardo: No, look, I was wrong about the dollar for a long time. And I said, look, when capital flees, that's where it's going to flee to. It's the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry basket. And yeah, it took a while play out, but it's playing out now. And so that's a long winded way of saying, "I don't think you're going to be wrong on rates for long." The Fed's talking about the potential for six to seven 50 basis point rate hikes between now and September. It's not going to happen folks. And if it does, you better have some liquidity because a market will break. If it's not junk bonds, like we talked about last week, if it's not one of these more speculative credit bonds, something's going to get sacrificed that'll give Powell cover to turn and pivot like he always does. And like the fed always does.
Nick Hodge: I mean, the Nasdaq's down 20% for the year stuff is breaking.
Gerardo: Yeah. Gold, this week, a lot of red, copper names. You would think gold was down to the $1,600 level. You would think copper was back at $2.50. Not the case. Can't stress enough the opportunity in some of the gold names. You and I had a conversation about Magna Gold (TSX-V: MGR)(OTC: MGLQF), offline. They started drilling La Margarita last year. They already have a maiden resource on that project with somewhere between 15 and 30 million silver ounces across all categories. And that's just based off of one tiny, small drill program. So kudos to Arturo Bonillas, the CEO and the team at Magna for adding value. The market was already giving that project a grand total value of zero. And then what it did this week after the resource was published is, it gave it a negative value as the stocks down to the 66 at level on the Canadian side of it.
Nick Hodge: And which is a market cap of what?
Gerardo: C$55 million.
Nick Hodge: Right.
Gerardo: They're generating more cash than that. And sure there's cost and everything, but they're generating a lot more cash than that. If you just want to buy and wait, Magna's as good a name out there as I can find. I'll give you another freebie everybody, Revival Gold (TSX-V: RVG)(OTC: RVLGF) marching towards 5 million ounces. You'll be at a site visit there soon.
Nick Hodge: I had a trade executed today in Revival Gold.
Gerardo: There you go. You're going to get a bunch of free names today. Here's another one for you guys and gals. Kutcho Copper (TSX-V: KC)(OTC: KCCFF). We talked Kutcho Copper last week and the week before. It's pulled back a little bit. This is a stock that was a C$1.10 with Wheaton Precious (NYSE: WPM) getting their shares at 90-something cents if I'm not mistaken. Exercising options at 95 cents or at 91 cents. Kutcho is now sitting here in the 50-cent range. Again, feasibility stage deposit, a lot of copper and zinc, exploration upside, deep pocketed partner, good community relations. They just had some warrants that are coming in and that's going to last for another couple of weeks. That's an opportunity. So when you look at the broader indices, folks, and you see a 20% haircut, you mentioned Netflix, 50% haircuts in big, big blue chip stocks. There's ways to rotate capital into absolute bargains that are steals. The Netflixes of the world aren't it even after the discount? There's much-
Nick Hodge: No, they can go down more. That's what I was saying. Earnings can be worse in the next quarter. Yeah, for sure.
Gerardo: Absolutely. So that's a long winded way of me talking my book. The resource space is my bread and butter. But man, I am champing at the bit on, on some of these names and there's a lot of bargains out there. Use the weakness to your advantage. You touched on uranium and we talked to uranium. Uranium Energy (NYSE: UEC) was $6 or $7 like a week and a half ago. Now they're closer to $4.50. I got to look. But I mean, that's when you should be buying UEC. Those are opportunities. You got to take advantage of those and it's a greed and fear game. This is the fear part. That's usually when you should be buying, right?
Nick Hodge: No, no doubt. UEC is, I'm pretty sure in the Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE: URA) that I was buying today. I just told you everything I was buying today, I was buying the Global X Uranium ETF, I was buying VanEck Junior Gold Miners, and I was buying Sibanye Stillwater (NYSE: SBSW). I don't know if you've looked at that one recently. But you can get one of the largest gold and PGE miners in the world and they're yielding over 6%. So there's plenty of stuff out there to buy and things that are actually in a bull market and not a developing bear market. Yeah, you say you can't stress that enough and that's right. Like the broader stock market is not in a bull market. Like the earnings are going to continue to slow, and so there's no other way to say that, reduce your exposure if you haven't already increased your exposure to the things that are doing well, not just minors.
I'd also say that we own utilities and we own a couple of REITs that have done okay. And so that's the other thing that points to rates not going up. I don't know if we've mentioned this on the podcast or not, but those are rate sensitive industries, the utilities and obviously real estate. And so if those sectors are some of the best performing S and P sectors so far this year, just underneath energy, of course, then that means the market's not really super scared about rates going much, much higher. So anyway, I keep that in the back of my mind, when I think about the 10-year approaching 3%. Large market sectors don't believe that to be true. And so I think we got a pretty firm handle on the direction of the market here and maybe sound like broken records. Because I know we mentioned some of this stuff last week, but it is what it is, especially when you have the opportunity to execute on some of that stuff like you saw this week.
Gerardo: Me, myself, I can't complain about a broken record that continues to pay out.
Nick Hodge: Sure.
Gerardo: Play that thing all day and night long, play that one as often as you want and let it rip all night. So yeah, look, I think April's the new May. I think whether it's the broader indices HCA Healthcare (NYSE: HCA), that's a big company, which is down 20% in a day. It's trading like Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF), which is also down some 15% in a day. So when you have a Chakana Copper trading like HCA Healthcare, one of those is not sustainable. And I would say Chakana Copper is a better opportunity at this point once they get some clarity on financing. They did extend the payment with Condor Resources. They pushed the payment out. That'll give it some financial flexibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they did a streaming or royalty deal that's not dilutive, at least not as dilutive as a straight up financing. But a lot of you have asked about Chakana Copper. Still love the story but they under-delivered on the resource.
I think people expected more. It took a while. I think you wrote that well, Nick. It took a while for them to get to that resource. But I think to me it has always been an exploration story with the potential, with all these breccia pipes, to deliver multimillion ounces of gold and billions of pounds of copper, potentially. I think the market doesn't look at it as an exploration story because of the focus on the resource. And I think it believes it has to go to the market to finance. So we'll see how that plays out. But I think once that's behind it, whether it's dilutive or not, then we can get back to unlocking the value that's there. And then it's in Peru, so that didn't help any, right?
Nick Hodge: Sure. There was certainly a lot of excitement around the drill holes and those rocks haven't gone anywhere. So with time and a little bit better execution we'll see what Chakana can get back to.
Should You Tan Your Testicles?
Gerardo: That's it. I can't continue this episode without asking about why testicle tanning is on my list. I know it's been a busy week. There's been a lot going on in my end of it, but I didn't put testicle tan on the list, did I?
Nick Hodge: I don't know how long this is going to take to cover. Mr. Tucker Carlson was interviewing this gentleman about alternative medicine for men. I don't know if you've seen recently that Fox News has been catering to this certain persona of the white male. They run ads with shirtless white males chopping wood and doing very manly things. The demographic they're catering to is the demographic with the thin blue line hats.
Gerardo: Come and take it.
Nick Hodge: Yes. And the Black Rifle Coffee (NYSE: BRCC), which we've talked about on this podcast. And I actually bought some of that stock because if people are going to spend their money on that, then why not? But anyway, so Tucker Carlson was interviewing this guy, I don't know if he was a doctor or just alternative medicine guy, about how men can be more manly by increasing their testosterone and stuff. And so let me set the broader picture here. First is that you've seen, certainly with the pandemic and things like that, the willingness to embrace pseudoscience. And not just the ivermectin, but the steadfastness with which people oppose the vaccine, even though they weren't preventing infections as much, they certainly were preventing death. Anyway, there's been this general pushback against the science. There are things they got wrong for sure. I've been vocal with the masks and things. But this is one of the right's tenants. You can see this brewing. I don't know if I'm articulating that wel
Gerardo: You are. Absolutely.
Nick Hodge: So anyway, this guy is talking about how you can increase your testosterone. And he starts to disparage the experts. He says that there's this research out there that's being overlooked. That's not getting a lot of credit. And it's about tanning your testicles with a laser to increase the testosterone. And so he's advocating testicle tanning to become more manly.
Gerardo: A guy named Tucker wants you to tan your testicles to become more manly. And that's who you should listen to, folks.
Nick Hodge: Tucker and his sockless Docksiders.. So it gets better. There's all these urologists and things on Twitter saying, "Nope, Nope. That's not the thing. Shouldn't be doing that." So the best part was the name for it. This guy, instead of homeopathy, he was encouraging people to embrace bromeopathy and tan their testicles. This is a Tucker Carlson interview, canvas directors' chair, face-to-face, interviewing the man about testicle tanning. So anyway, journalism.
Gerardo: #journalism in 2022. I don't know where to go with that one. Let's pivot to Netflix. So there is no good segue from testicle tanning and a guy named Tucker telling you to tan your testicles and call it bromeopathy.
Nick Hodge: Laser eyes.
Streaming Services Cannibalizes Itself
Gerardo: Oh God. So good. Let's talk streaming services, Nick. I know you wanted to talk about the business cannibalizing itself basically, which is what's happening. And I'll preface the discussion by saying that in my 43 years of watching TV, call it 39 that I can recall, I've never seen as many quality shows. I know you don't watch much TV, but man, there's some quality stuff out there from stand up comedy to movies, studio produced movies direct to streaming, to series originals. I'm watching The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers on HBO. And whether it's accurate or not, it's so entertaining. It follows Magic Johnson from college and Jerry Buss buying the LA Lakers and just how difficult it was for him to do that. And anyhow, we've talked about it before, but there's so much quality television. It's hard to keep up. There's a list of shows that I can't wait to watch. And it seems like every week I have friends saying, you haven't seen this, you haven't seen that. And I'm like, I watch a good amount of TV. The wife and I, every evening we'll sit down for an hour or two, have great conversation and just put a show on. There's just not enough time in the day to keep up with everything. So to your point.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. And some of those shows and movies are coming from different houses these days. Everybody's got their own production. Netflix is cranking out content. You mentioned HBO. There's Paramount Plus there's Disney Plus, HBO Max. There's one with a Peacock. There was someone that started with a Q that failed recently. I forget what the name of that one even was. And consumers are reaching fatigue. So we just mentioned that Netflix has had a 60% haircut in its stock. I think they lost like, $30 billion in market cap this week if that number sticks out in my head correctly. And it lost almost a quarter million subscribers, over 200,000 of them. So they're talking about cracking down on the password sharing.
Gerardo: They say that's like a million subscribers. If you count everybody who shares their password.
Nick Hodge: Crazy, right? So, yeah they're trying to crack down on that. But they're also going to bring back, it sounds like, advertisements. And so, I wanted to talk about the industry as a whole, because I mentioned this before. Everybody was cutting the cord. And that was fine when you were just going to Netflix. But it's not fine when you've got eight other bills that are $9.99 a month on your credit card, then you didn't cut the cord at all. In fact, you might be paying more. And then you have to keep track of those things. So that's what's being reached. They're dubbing this 'subscription fatigue' or 'streaming fatigue.' Everything is a cycle or comes full circle. So if they reintroduce ads, how is it any different from the cable that you were so desperate to leave? It seems to me that it's basically the same as it was. It wasn't cord cutting at all.
So those stocks are having a really rough go of it. I mean, they're going to have to reintroduce ads and like you said, they could go down further. So Disney's (NYSE: DIS) had a rough go if you look at that chart. It suspended the dividend a couple of years ago. It's fighting with Florida about tax stuff. These streaming digital companies are basically in for a rough go, is what I wanted to say. And bigger than the fiscal irony of that is the the philosophical irony, in that everybody ran away from cable to run to these things that is now turning out to be just like cable was. And streaming companies are now having to embrace the same model cable did to be monetarily successful. So I just thought that was a little bit funny, I guess.
Gerardo: Yeah. I was sitting here and I was thinking about the evolution of some of these streaming services. I did it. I have YouTube TV. I do that now. I have a Showtime subscription, an HBO subscription, ESPN plus, and a Disney plus. But initially the appeal was, okay, I don't mind paying specifically for what I want if I'm going to be able to dodge the ads and not worry about any of that. Because, again, there's not enough time in a day. So I'll pay the premium for it. But now that they're reintroducing the ads into some of the premium services, I feel like they're setting us up for that next tier. Where it's like, okay, well, you already are paying a premium price for a premium subscription... We're going to make it less premium and then sell you another tier.
And then at what point am I a sucker? Because I don't mind spending. I love spending money. You can't take it with you. Denzel Washington's got that great line recently where he said, "Have you ever seen a U-Haul behind a hurse?" He's like, "Yes, save some, but also, have some fun with your money if you're able to do so." And so I don't mind spending, but I hate getting suckered, Nick. And man, it really does feel like they're setting me up for that next top tier of whatever. You talked about the Lightning Lane at Disneyland and how, when we didn't have as much money, we didn't even know about the Lightning Lane. This feels like they're setting us up for a Lightning Lane.
Nick Hodge: Well, and speaking even more broadly, partly paradles principle, 20% of your customers will likely always pay more to be in a higher tier. And then 20% of that 20% again, will do the same. But also this society reflecting that growing wealth disparity, if there's a category of people who will pay that next tier and then have a coin to do that, of course companies are going to cater to that. I saw this week rental price for a house in the Hamptons for a month, do you know what it is to rent a house in the Hamptons for one month?
Gerardo: Probably $150,000.
Nick Hodge: One million dollars
Gerardo: To rent it for a month?
Nick Hodge: Yes.
Gerardo: Man, it must be a hell of a house.
Nick Hodge: It's crazy, right?
Gerardo: A million dollars. Huh?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. People have it is the thing with this growing wealth disparity and like you say, are willing to spend it. Easy come, easy go. And so anyway. Yeah, all very interesting.
FBI Gets Sued Over Handling of Larry Nassar Case
Gerardo: Yeah. Now you know what else is interesting to me? Thirteen sexual assault victims from the USA gymnastic team, who were assaulted by Dr. Larry Nassar, just filed a claim against the FBI or claims. Each of the thirteen victims is seeking $10 million each, totaling $130 million. We talked about this before, how the agents involved turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse. He did this for decades. And so there was a report, an Inspector General's report that was independent. And it basically laid it out. It said that senior officials in the Indianapolis FBI office failed to respond to the allegations. They made "numerous and fundamental errors" when they did respond and violated multiple FBI policies when undertaking their investigative activity. This is a failure from top to bottom.
Girls were assaulted. Underage girls were assaulted. It went on for decades. The claims went largely uninvestigated. Forget the lawsuit. Somebody needs to go to prison for this. Listen, I have a niece who's in gymnastics. If a report is made, if it got to a report, let me say that. Let's assume we went the law abiding way, and not the Old Testament way. If a report was made to law enforcement, that something happened to her or someone on her team, and nobody did anything about it, and then it happened again and it happened again and it happened again. And then we find out that the same agents who are turning a blind eye are pitching jobs, looking for positions, more lucrative positions, with the same group that they're turning a blind eye to, the Olympics? Boy, there would be a lot of Old Testament going on.
$10 million each, $130 million, that's not going to undo any of the pain. There's no amount of money. But God, I really do hope that these young ladies clean up. And I hope somebody goes to prison because this is absolutely horrible. Mind you, this is after the USA Gymnastics and Olympic and Paralympic Committee and and their insurers already agreed to pay $380 million in a lawsuit with Nassar, but the FBI should absolutely be held accountable. And just like we praise our law enforcement when they do great things, this was not so great. And it directly led to the abuse of many, many people. And it didn't need to happen. So yeah, let's see where that goes. I'm curious to see that.
Nick Hodge: What was the rationale? Remind me for the neglect?
Gerardo: Well, there were different instances. I don't recall the specifics of every one. I know in one situation, the Indianapolis field office captain, that was in charge of the investigation, was just not following up at all on the reports. And then simultaneously was pitching the Olympic committee for a position within the Olympic committee where he would've made more money, had more prestige, had more benefits. So, I don't know if it's a case of the bad apple that happened to have all the strings tellinghis field officers, "Hey, don't touch this, I'm on it. Leave it alone. This isn't for you." And then not doing anything. And if that's the case, send him directly to prison. And if you put him under the prison, I wouldn't shed a tear. But I'll follow up maybe next week or the week after we'll, we'll do a follow up and we'll dig that back up and we'll see exactly why that was compromised. But yeah, ugly stuff.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. Worth mentioning the pain killer fallout. I was reminded of that while you were talking. That continues to go. So speaking of neglect and taking forever to get justice, and people doing things to get ahead at the very clear expense of other people's happiness and physical and emotional wellbeing. So we learned recently that McKinsey was consulting on both sides of the issue. Consulting with governments about the issue, and then consulting with the drug companies and advertising their government consulting role to companies, as a way to basically say, "Hey, we can help you figure out how to get these pills more widely prescribed." So that's the McKinsey. Like the global consultant McKinsey. And then there was Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) now who's trying to settle, and they agreed to pay $99 million to settle opioid related claims in West Virginia, and West Virginia told them to go pound sand.
Gerardo: Good for West Virginia.
Nick Hodge: They were like one of the most hardest hit states. And so that continues to go on. How many years has that been? And you're at a place now where you're over 100,000 overdose deaths in the US every year and struggling to find accountability there. So I saw both those stories, the Larry Nassar one and the opioid continued fallout. And of course, we always talk about this, the changing of the institutions and the need that we have for a better justice system. And those are two very glaring examples.
Gerardo: Yeah. And let's not even save it for another week. I was able to pull it up while you were sharing the story about these companies that keep bribing themselves out of prison somehow. Meanwhile, if you're in the street selling marijuana and it's not decriminalized your state, you're going away. You can believe that.
Nick Hodge: And Congress has no interest in changing that either. We're not going to get that this year, but anyway-
Gerardo: Yeah. I don't think we get that with this administration to be frank. But that's another conversation for another day. Pivoting back. So the Indianapolis field office, special agent in charge, because we like to make sure that we highlight again and credit the people that were responsible for this and not paint with a big brush. It was W. Jay Abbott, and another unidentified supervisory special agent. And the Inspector General report says that they did a limited follow up investigation in 2015, that included only a handful of email exchanges. This is after accusations were reported to the FBI, and five pages of handwritten notes. The officers also neglected to interview two of the three accusers who were available for interviews. So can you imagine your daughter, your family filing a claim, the courage it takes just to even, as a young lady, as a parent, put that out in the public domain, you file a claim.
You go to the FBI, you explain what's happening. And these assholes don't even interview her. It gets better. So not only did they not interview two of the three accusers, the Indianapolis field office did not advise state or local authorities about the allegations, and then did not take any action to mitigate the risk to gymnasts that the doctor continued to treat. They didn't tell the state troopers, they didn't tell the city police department, they didn't do anything to remove this guy from a position where he would stop abusing these young ladies. Put this Abbott motherfucker under the prison. Put him under the prison.
Nick Hodge: It's crazy when you see how fervently we police other things. You mentioned marijuana. I could think of selling loosie cigarettes or trying to pass off a fake check for under $100, for example. How rigidly we police those to the point of taking peoples' lives while trying to arrest them, using police force. And then you have this, documented allegations against the children in our community. And there's no urgency to act at all. That juxtaposition to me is unsettling to know that that's your law enforcement and that's what happens. I have two daughters. If I were to report to something like that, and there was no follow up, I would be absolutely off the walls. And so it doesn't bode well for the confidence that people put in law enforcement when you truly need them. Not when someone's left turn signal is out, but when there's true crime going on, that they don't show up.
Gerardo: Yeah. And to wrap it up on this one here, the job you was soliciting is Abbott jerk. The job that he was soliciting was an Olympic security detail when he retired. And so during the eight months that the FBI was supposed to be investigating these gymnasts' claims, Abbott met with a high ranking official with the USA Gymnastics organization at a bar to discuss a potential job offer. So, again, you're just not going to make me believe that there wasn't some sort of quid pro quo here with the Olympics Committee. This is why they paid the $380 million, I believe. You can't make me believe they weren't telling this agent in charge, "Hey, just don't go there. We don't want the liability of around this. This is messy. This isn't good."
And him shaking his head, well, "I'd really love a high ranking security job with the Olympic Committee when I'm done here. You know I'm retiring soon, right?" And them going, "Okay, we'll definitely look into that." And then this guy going, "I'm not even meeting with the accusers. I'm not even interviewing them." Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting. Put them under the prison. Put them under the prison. Yeah. Horrible.
Jason Heyward's Donation to Rural Kids
Gerardo: Let's switch gears. And this is a quick one, right? This isn't anything that I'm going to rant about. Everybody knows I'm a die hard Cubs fan. Jason Heyward is a player that is an outfielder team leader, great citizen. And every year, he's nominated for being one of the most involved members in his community. And it was really neat to me this year that, he not only made a point to make donations to inner city kids, but he combined that with donations to rural kids in Illinois.
People forget that Illinois for the most part is, Land of Lincoln, a lot of cornfields and a lot of other stuff. And so I thought that it was neat to see the mix, because I think oftentimes when we talk about disenfranchised youth and disadvantaged youth, I think typically for me and maybe because I grew up in the inner city and grew up broke and trying to figure life out. I think the city. And I thought it was neat for Jason Heyward to say, "We need to do a better job of including rural disenfranchised people or disadvantaged people that don't have the same resources. Let's also pay some attention out there because that's also important." And I think as a country and we could do a better job. It's great to see an athlete take a stand on that and use this platform for good.
In that sense, we hear so often in the news, they told LeBron James to shut up and dribble as if you can't have a thought about something outside of dribbling to basketball. We all know what that meant, "Know your place, black person." That's what that was. But it's good to see athletes do some good with their platform in a way that isn't clickbaitish or is it just for publicity's sake. Just a good citizen, doing good by his community and communities outside of the immediate community. And we should all do more of that while we're around if we can.
Nick Hodge: Go Jason Heyward. Yeah. That's good stuff.
Gerardo: Go Jason Heyward. Mr. Hodge. That's all I got, man. Anything else you want to get off your chest there? We gave a bunch of free names out. We did some macro take. We talked about who should be put under the prison. We talked about testicle tanning. Anything else on your end of it?
Two Private Deals Open
Nick Hodge: Last thing for me is just a bookend on private deals. So I told you about one last week I was writing a check into at 20 cents. I believe that stock was up to 26 cents already. So you can write a check into a 26 cent stock at 20 cents and get a full warrant at 40 cents. That's open until the end of April. I'm personally writing a check into that. Members of Hodge Family Office are participating in that as well. And I've heard the response was decent. And then next week I'll be putting out another private deal, not in the resource space. And so I think that's worth taking a look at. I'll set the stage just for a second. It comes from a group that's given me a number of deals over the years. They didn't all work out. No one's deals always work out, of course, but some of the ones that worked out, worked out fantastically.
Like ImmunoPrecise (NASDAQ: IPA), for example, I believe remains the best private placement check I've ever written. I made over 3,000% returns. And I still own some shares in that. That was like 10 cents to $20-some last year. So this new deal is in the nanotech space. And it's in the coating space. And they can prevent windshields from cracking. They're working on a coating that will prevent frost from forming. And they can even inject this nanotechnology into military uniforms so that the uniforms don't show up on infrared cameras, for example. And that's very important because they already have a military contract for that. They already got their foot in the door. And in the bidding process for that, no other company met the objectives, basically. There's no competition for that on the military side. And they can coat hard surfaces as well. And, oh, I should also tell you that their sort of sister company that went public before this, was financed at 20 cents and then went on the Nasdaq to over $120 last year.
So that's the pedigree of the deal. It involves getting insurance to pay for some of the costs, and that's a very big deal. And so I'm writing a check into that as well. It will be out of subscribers next week. And of course you got to be a member of Hodge Family Office to participate. But a good way to get a little bit outside the resource space, to get in a technology that is being adopted, and to diversify a little bit with a group that has had some really big winners. I only mentioned two there, but there were some others for sure. You have to be accredited of course. And I continue to say that that's how I've made the bulk of my investment wealth, is writing checks and private deals. This one is not even public yet. You'd be in ahead of the IPO round. So worth checking out for sure, I'd say.
Gerardo: Listen folks. The last time that Mr. Hodge sent a deal my way that I wrote a check for it, went from 10 cents to a $1.80 and two weeks. Was it two weeks Nick or something stupid, like 13 days or 12 days or something like that? I literally sat there. I thought I had the wrong ticker symbol for a while because the company changed names. And then you brought it back up. I was like, oh, that is the company. I'm like, well, that's neat. That was great. So they don't all go that way. But you have a pretty darn good track record Nick, and absolutely worth the price of admission. I would also so say look out for a resource deal here in the next couple of weeks in one of my favorite resource companies. I sense a placement coming up. That will be maybe the last time we get in at these levels, if I'm correct. So we'll get that to you in a couple of weeks.
Mr. Hodge, that's all I got. Thanks for the therapy session. I am Gerardo Del Real, along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was therapy session, otherwise known as Bizarro World, episode number 166. Do not tan your testicles because a guy named Tucker tells you it's the bro thing to do guys. Be kind to each other.
Nick Hodge: See you.
Gerardo: Have a great rest of your life.