Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Oil 101 and How the War in the Middle East Affects the Market with Legendary Oil Trader Mark Fisher

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Even if you don’t work on Wall Street, if you want to be a savvy investor, or, even if you just own a car, you need to understand the oil market. Today, Nicole is decoding that sector with a legend in the oil trading world, Mark Fisher, CEO of MBF Clearing Corp. Mark explains how to understand the oil market, how the election will affect the industry, and how the war in the Middle East will affect the price of oil. For more of Mark's work, click here: https://www.mbfcc.com/ceobio.html

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to

line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no

maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A.

Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Even if you don't work on Wall Street, if you want to be a savvy investor, or even if you just own a car, you need to understand the oil market. And it is a weird one. It's a tricky one. But today we're decoding that with the legend of all legends in the oil world. Mark Fisher, CEO of MBF Clearing Corp. Mark is a big deal in this space, and he's the perfect person to explain how the heck the oil markets work. What are the variables

affecting it and what's going to happen with the election and the war in the Middle East? Whether you're trying to be a day trader or just get really smart about the forces that move the markets, this is for you. Mark Fisher, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you for having me. Fish, I can call you Fish. Everyone else does. Okay, so originally, we were going to chat on Monday a couple weeks ago when the market was freaking out. The market has since recovered, actually, and then some, but you still see lingering effects of this mess, or do you think the worst is still to come? The worst is always still to come. It's just a matter of how you define the worst, Nicole, because what happened a couple of weeks ago when the volatility spiked

and everything else is the market has these uproars all the time. It's just a matter of how you define the uproar. But this is going to happen time and time again, especially with all the chaos in our election process, chaos in the environment, chaos going on in Israel, chaos in Russia. This is just the opening act. So how do you define the worst? The worst to me would be something that, you know, has not happened, which would obviously be nuclear conflict.

Besides that, you know, everything else, the markets basically digest everything. Because what typically happens is, think about what happened a couple of weeks ago. The minute Iran started lobbying missiles at Israel and everyone thought the price of oil was going to go bananas, it didn't. Why? Because Saudi Arabia and the Middle East doesn't want the price of oil to go up right now for a lot of reasons. One, they want U.S. protection. Number two, they want to make sure the markets remain calm, right? So basically, anytime Saudi Arabia wants it,

they can cap the price, which is what they did. The only way that couldn't happen is if Iran was to close its trade of Hormuz. Besides that, they have the ability to cap the price of oil. Saudi Arabia is a swing producer, and they have all the incremental barrels. Currently, right now, with the political election coming up,

and with Saudi Arabia wanting to get a security agreement with the United States, there's no way they're going to allow the price of oil to get above, you know, in the United States, above $80, $85 a barrel until after the election, number one, when this is a real test show, like, you know, if Iran or the Houthis close the Strait of Hormuz. Other than that, the price of oil is going to get capped. On the other hand, once, and hopefully sooner rather than later, when there's a peace agreement or a ceasefire in Israel, right, and Gaza has to be reconstructed, who's going to pay for the reconstruction of Gaza? It's going to be the oil consumer, because they're going to end up raising the price

of oil by $10 a barrel, at least, to go ahead and ahead and pay you know whether it be your consortium of the uae saudi arabia whoever it may be united states it's all going to get raised to the price of oil and that's going to raise the floor of the price of oil but for right now barring a disruption in the gulf and also barcain which would affect the refineries in our gulf right price of oil is stuck in the range but again again, this is not going to last forever. Okay. Well, I'm so glad you're here because you will forget more than anyone I think will ever know about energy. That's your thing. So let's step back because you gave us a lot of good information about the Strait of Hormuz and all the things, right? But if you could tell listeners

just a little oil 101 first. Something I hear from new investors a lot is that they don't even know how to check how oil is doing, right? If you want to know how Apple stock is doing, you type in AAPL, you see what Apple stock is doing, and that's it. But if someone wants to temper check what's going on with oil, how should they start? If I was a novice investor, the easiest way to do is to go to the CME website, Chicago Mercantile Exchange website. That's where I started my career. Type in the price of oil or go to the Intercontinental Exchange, type in the price of Brent or crude oil, and you'll get all the prices there of what

happened that day. If I really want to go ahead and track the price of oil without looking at futures prices, on the New York Stock Exchange, there's a USO product that basically mimics the front month of crude oil. And you can just type in symbol USO, and that will basically track the price of oil, but it won't give you the price of oil. So that's a stock that goes up and down based on the price of oil, but it doesn't tell you the price is being $80 or $75 or $90 or $60. When you talk about oil, are you talking about crude oil? Can you define what that is? Yes, crude oil is what makes the world go round. Crude oil is the energy source

that we use to go ahead and that gets refined into gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel, and all those different products that everyday Americans and every consumer needs. Crude oil itself is just the input. It then has to be refined in a refinery different products that we that everyday americans and everybody every consumer needs okay crude oil itself is just the input it then has to be refined in a refinery and i think you live in california

right okay so in california there were refineries that owned by let's say chevron who just left the state by the way because of all the regulations in california which is destroyed for another time and these refineries crack, or basically in layman's terms, take the crude oil, process it, and make it into heating oil, jet fuel, synthetics, gasoline, and everything else. And that's what you buy when you go to the gas station. But without that input, you're not going to be able to produce that stuff. Right. If you're not an energy trader, you're going to get energy exposure through energy stocks, right? But there are so many and a lot included there. Can you give us some examples of the different varieties of energy stocks or how you can get exposure? There are big companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron that basically do everything.

There are companies that just participate in drilling. There are companies that just participate in refining the products, which are my favorites, like the Valero, Marathons, PBFs of the world. There's also MLPs, Master Limited Partnerships, that concentrate on different parts of the natural gas market, which is a different instrument than obviously crude oil. There's also people that actually make the drilling equipment to drill for oil, like Schlumberger and Halliburton and companies like that. So there's all different. It depends how general or how specific you want to get.

Why are refineries your favorites? And what are some of the tickers that you're talking about? Refinery is my favorite, and I'll tell you why. Everyone thinks that we're going to go ahead and go to clean energy in the next 15 years. I don't think so. I think it's going to take 50 years, if that much, because the price tag to go to clean energy

right now is still too high. So right now, if you're not going to have clean energy and you're going to still rely on what I call the old gas clusters, right? You need companies that take crude oil and refine it into the products, which we said, gasoline, heating oil and stuff that you use. However, there are not many new refiners ever being built because they know it's one, a very regulated business. The environmentalists are all over it. And who wants to go into a business

where 20 years from now you can be out of business? So basically, these refiners have a monopoly on what they do. A quasi-monopoly. You know,

they don't set the price, but there's nobody else coming into business. So if you were to go into a business, Nicole, where you know that there was limited competition

and the world thought you were only going to be in business for 15 years, but I think you only going to be in business for 15 years. But I think you're going to be in business for more than 50 years. And no one else is coming in. And everybody doesn't like you, but they need you. That's what's going to happen. And if you shut down, the world's much worse off.

To me, that's a business that long-term you want to be in. Now, can the refinery margins, the difference between the price of gasoline and the price of crude oil go up or down? Yes. Right now it's depressed. But inevitably, a business that you basically have a mode around it because no one's getting into the business. But everyone needs it. Right. Aren't those the best businesses to be in? Things that everyone needs, especially if you're the only, you know, if you're one of the only games in town. It's a little supply and demand. What are we talking about? Like what stocks and what companies? I don't like to recommend individual stocks because, you know, I'm not a stock guy. Right. But if you can look up the tickers, there's, you know, Valero, MPC, there's a whole bunch of them.

And again, I would encourage anyone to do their own research because I'm not hawking this. But the industry itself, to me, is a necessity. It's essential. And people think it's only going to be essential for 10 years. And I think that's for the 10, 15 years. And I think it's going to be essential for a hell of a lot longer. So if you feel that there's a business like that, that's why I think it's viable. And what about renewables? I don't know enough about renewables. But I can tell you one thing. Let's talk about renewables for a second. What happened in Texas three years ago, four years ago? So what happened in Texas was- What happened in Texas?

So the price of ERCOT, which is electricity and power, was, I'd say, about $50, $60 a megawatt, which is what it was during the winter. And then they had this crazy storm come. And everyone was saying, well, you're counting on the renewables, wind, solar. But what happened is they weren't prepared, and they didn't do enough maintenance on it. And the storm came. Oh, what happened to the wind turbines? They all shut down. What happened to solar?

It didn't work. And the price of power in Texas for that week went from $60 a megawatt to $9,000. So all these companies in Texas who were basically suppliers who were middlemen end up going broke. Now they've corrected the situation going forward so that hopefully won't happen to that degree again. But again, it's not about having renewables. It's about having reliable renewables. All these wind projects throughout the country are all shutting down because, A, number one, they're not reliable. Two, they're overregulated. And three, some of them just don't work, right? So yes, should we go to clean energy? Should we go to, yeah, but we need reliable energy. And I don't think we're yet there to do this. Think about this.

Solar power is great when the sun's out, but until there's a battery storage mechanism that can do it when the sun's not there, what happens? Right? Do we have enough reliable, clean energy? What happens to the most reliable, clean energy that everyone's scared of is, you know, nuclear, you know, and everyone's afraid of it. That goes under the slogan N-I-N-B-Y, not in my backyard. Everybody wants it, but nobody wants, nobody wants a nuclear power plant. Can you explain like what nuclear energy is and why people think that it's a nuclear bomb and are scared of it? Well, it's because what happened in Chernobyl, because everyone's afraid that,

you know, they're going to wake up and there's going to be a Chernobyl in the backyard. How the isotope works, I was a business major. I'm not an engineer. But obviously, it's clean energy, right? But everyone's afraid of a catastrophe. It's all perception rather than reality. I mean, knock on wood, we really haven't had an issue like that in a long time.

But that's the problem. That's the cleanest thing. And by the way, more and more companies and more and more countries are embracing nuclear energy. I think Biden just put out a platform about it just recently. And to do that, you need uranium. It says more and more countries now are embracing nuclear energy. What do you think is happening to the price of uranium in the past three years? It's gone up, right? So there's no free lunch. And anything we do in clean energy is going to cost money.

Anything in clean energy is going to end up costing the consumer more. It's going to be somewhat inflationary. And really, how much, you know, like, for instance, everyone talks about the electric vehicles. The electric vehicles themselves, the batteries and everything else that drive these vehicles to produce them, create, need a tremendous amount of energy to create them. And they have, you know, so there's all costs and benefit analysis of the whole process. Hold on to your wallets.

Money Rehab will be right back. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with

Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host, so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. One of the most stressful periods of my life was

when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime.

Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly

limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. And now for some more money rehab. let's talk about generally how energy stocks the sector moves um you know tech for example tends to go up when interest rates go down what about oil and interest rates and what about the relationship between oil and the dollar there's no there's no relationship between oil and that i know of but i think there's relationship between oil and recessions because obviously everyone thinks like for instance if we're going into a recession, there's going to be less usage of cars and people are going to cut back. So typically that's what happens. If you remember a couple of years ago during COVID, when everyone felt that there was an oversupply of oil and oil

prices went negative for a day, which is that thing about that they paid you to take energy. I mean, again, that happens a lot of times, by the way, in natural gas, which to me would be the solution because CNG, which is combustible natural gas, should be the way we should drive our cars, but the world doesn't really accept that because natural gas is much safer for the environment, much better than coal or crude oil. But yet again, the problem with natural gas is where we have it all, like in the Permian and everything else in Texas and other areas, you need to transport that

through pipes. If there's not enough pipelines mechanism to ship it, then it just lays idle and natural gas has gone negative. But if it looked like in Boston, do you have any friends in Boston? I mean, yeah, I have friends in all sorts of places. You don't have to tell me who they are, but okay, you have friends in Boston. But in Boston, there's no pipelines going into Boston. So there, in the winters, okay, the price of natural gas, when the rest of the country can be $3, the price in Boston can be $20, not because the country doesn't have enough natural gas, but there's not enough pipelines going into Boston. You have these shortages all the time. And then you have to ship it in by energy.

So it's a little complex, but it's also because there's not enough pipelines into Boston because of environmental reasons. But again, so you could have prices of energy in parts of the country being five times the prices of other prices in the energy. The same way, why does gasoline cost more in California than it does in, I don't know, Florida or Texas? Because we have a lot of regulations and stuff.

Right, there's a lot of regulation and there's no refineries and there's all the rest. Crazy story, in my middle school, there was like an oil rig on the campus and it was covered

and the kids painted over it. Yeah. Weird. And the reason that's because they got paid a royalty. You know, someone got paid a royalty every You know, someone got paid a royalty every day when they were taking extracting oil from that rig. Today, there would

be no way in hell that there would be an oil rig in the middle of a school. I don't think that's really safe. But anyway, there is, though, a clear relationship between oil and the dollar. Can you explain how this moves? Well, oil is priced in dollars right now. So let's talk about this. Okay. Let's talk about Japan. Up until recently, the Japanese currency has been getting walloped, right? Now the bank of Japan has stepped in to normalize that in Japan. But think about this. The yen has gone down 40% or 30%, some number in the last couple of years against the dollar. So if you have to go ahead and buy oil, which is priced in dollars, in yen, what's happened to the price of oil in Japan?

It's basically gone up 40% because people have to pay for it in a depreciated currency. So again, there's a big relationship. So if the dollar gets cheaper relative to other currencies, then foreign markets are going to go ahead and buy more oil because it's relatively cheap for them. If the dollar gets more expensive and you have to pay more yen or more euro or more, I don't know, Zimbabwe dollar for it or annual, that's a whole story for another time. Then you're going to cut back your energy use because you just can't afford it. You went on CNBC earlier this month and you said that we're approaching the bottom of the energy trade. What do you mean by that? And why do you What I said was that this was a very bullish period to trade, to day trade energies from

the long side. What I also said is that next year, we're probably going to go ahead and we've been stuck in a range, okay, of like 70 to 85. And I think next year, especially post-election, especially post, hopefully, some type of resolution in Israel, that the market's going to trade below 70 and above 85. Because once there's a, the whole market is short right now. There's nobody really long. Most of the speculators are short for the first time. And the market usually goes up the most when everyone's short, right? Because if everyone's long, then people get out. But on the other hand, I think that the market next year is going to get, at some point, is going to trade below 70 and above 85.

So this band that we've been stuck in for the past year and a half is going to go away. So which means it's going to be volatile. And if you're a trader of anything, I don't care if you trade stocks, currencies, Barbie dolls, whatever you trade. OK, you trade Legos. It doesn't matter. All a trader wants is volatility because the way you lose money if you're a trader is that things are just dead. You just want things to move. At least that's what we want. Not long term investors, but traders, to be clear.

that's what we want. Not long-term investors, but traders, to be clear. And by the way, don't no, no, no me, because literally the headline for closing bell was Mark Fisher says that this moment will be the bottom of the energy trade. So blame the copywriters. The bottom of the energy trade to me is when there's a ceasefire. Let's go through it, because again, play chess. There's a ceasefire okay and it's hopefully it holds okay now they have to spend what's it they estimate 70 billion dollars to reconstruct gaza and the west bay maybe where's that money coming from you think saudi or uae is just gonna say okay here's a check i think the united states is writing a check now i think israel's writing a check now so who's so in the end of the day, how is that getting financed?

That's getting financed because they're going to raise the price of oil. They're going to raise the price of oil by $5, $10, $15, whatever it may be. And you and I, along with everyone on your show, are going to pay that price. I mean, to me, that's just inevitable. But it's hard to predict what's going to happen there. I mean, doesn't the war in the Middle East make it difficult to predict where oil is going to go in the short term? That's why I say when there's a ceasefire, I don't know when it's going to be. Hopefully, you know, today, but it doesn't look that way.

But when that ceasefire occurs, 48 hours after that, to me, would be the bomb. That'd probably be the bomb to buy energy stocks and everything else. By the way, you know one thing. Whatever people think works in the market, whatever makes sense doesn't make money. Because if everyone can make money with what makes sense, we'd all be multi-zillionaires. The same way that if everything made sense and everyone went to Harvard or Wharton or Yale or Stanford would be a multi-zillionaire, and that's not the case. It's thinking out of the box, thinking six steps ahead, right? You know, if I said to you,

if I called up 20 traders and said, why is oil up today? Or why is stock X up today? And they all gave me a reason, right? It's not going up much more. But if I called up 20 people and said, why is stock X up today? They say, I have no idea. That stock's usually going up a lot more. It's when people figure out why it's going up or something's going up, that usually that's the time. I mean, I'm all convoluted because I'm a little insane, as you can probably tell, but that's the way we think. I'm well aware that you're insane, but I also really think that your thoughts on energy are super spot on. And we could ask a lot of people, but we're asking you because of that. Also, you mentioned the election. Obviously, there's always volatility on election years, regardless

of Trump or Harris's actual platforms on oil. We haven't really seen much clarity there. The street expects oil to go up when a Republican generally is in office. Is that the same case? No, not with Trump, because everyone thinks that with Trump, he's just going to let drill baby drill. You know, although we are with drilling, we're drilling as much, we're producing more oil now than we've ever produced, even under the Biden administration, you know, it's going to come down to the swing producers. It's also going to come down to what happens in Venezuela to some degree, you know, Venezuela, what's going to happen in, I mean, for a while there, it looked like we were going to go ahead

and somewhat normalize relations in Venezuela to Maduro, you know, went off the reservation again in this last election, right? So that, you know, it's what's happening, you know, in Guyana, where they have, you know,

where they have, we found this huge oil find that they're now just putting the pellets on the metal to reduce as much as possible. But I don't necessarily think that the market thinks that if, that if Trump wins that, you know, the price of oil as possible. But I don't necessarily think that the market thinks that if Trump wins,

that the price of oil is going up. I think they feel if Trump wins, volatility everywhere is going to go up because of the wild card of what would happen under his administration. But I think that would happen under whoever's the president. That's going to happen. It's just a regulation question. I think businesses that get regulated end up having to unnecessarily charge more money

for the same product that they have because they get regulated to death. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be oil or anything else. You mentioned some index funds. If there's a new investor who wants to dabble in energy, what are some of the basics that they should take a look at? Not that you're recommending them.

I know you're insane. You're good. If you want to trade the price of oil, you trade USO. If you want to trade an index of stocks, you trade XLE, right? Which is an index of energy stocks, right? That's what I would do in that case. Do you want to play a game with me? Why not?

I'll sound so excited. This is a game called bullish or bearish. Oh, no. You're going to tell me, are you bullish on this, bearish on this? And why? Right. OK, good. Petroleum. Bullish or bearish? Bullish. Get the game. First solar. The solar industry itself. Bullish. First solar.

I don't know individual stocks. Gold., bullish. First solar, I don't know individual stocks. Gold. Definitely bullish. Silver. Not as bullish as gold, but usually when gold goes up a lot, silver has these crazy periods of time. Crude oil. Crude oil is energy. Okay, up.

It's the same thing as the coal. Keep going. You know why gold is going to go up, right? Tell me. Because the world's- Because it's all going to Armageddon. No, because gold is the world's anxiety index it's all going to Armageddon. No, because people, gold is the world's anxiety index. Yeah.

So look what's happened. Over the last three years, gold has gone up because every central bank outside the United States has been increasing their reserves of gold, whether it be China, Far East, everybody, except for the United States. Maybe, we don't know. At the same time, all the ETFs that hold gold, the spectators have been getting out of their holdings. So you've had the price of gold go from $1,500, $1,600 to almost $2,500, and yet there are less investors in gold. So what's going

to happen when everyone panics and they say, uh-oh, we need more exposure to gold? Then the price is really going to take off. I see that the street thinks gold's going to $2,700. Gold can go a lot higher than that. Okay, well, Bitcoin was supposed to also be a store of value or a safety. Oh, you know, it's interesting because Bitcoin, to me, has become a store of value because it's perception. Everyone views it as a store of value. Okay? it's perception everyone views it as a as a store of value okay i don't really understand everything else but bitcoin because everything else to me is

a digital credit card like ethereum i know people who tell me but i don't really because i think those are digital credit cards i know they have a lot of applications and i'm not smart enough to understand but bitcoin has become like digital gold so So bullish? Yeah. Tesla. Who? Tesla. I don't know. If you ask me electric vehicles, if you ask me electric vehicles in general,

yes. Is Elon Musk a genius? 10 times smarter than anyone I know. So probably Tesla will keep going up. Yes. Wind energy. Wind energy, I think is,

is, is, is a very hard, I think I'm negative. Bearish. What? Bearish. This is a bull I'm negative. Bearish. What? Bearish. This is a bull or bear game.

Bearish. Okay. What stock or sector are you bullish on? This is the final round that I didn't mention. Besides you mentioning? Well, all the gold miners. Insurance. Insurance, I'm negative.

I think that's going to be the next regulated industry. And that actually is a good point, because look what's happening now. OK, the state of Florida has a condo crisis, and that's going to morph over into California, anywhere there's New York, anywhere there's condos, because of what's going on with the insurance prices. If you live now in the state of Florida, condominium prices, especially near than 15 miles of water, insurance has gone up 50, 60, 70%. And you can't go ahead and have a mortgage unless you have insurance. The crazy part is that now insurance in a lot of places

costs more per month than your mortgage costs. And people are getting killed on this. So when the general population is getting killed, it's going to get regulated i don't know how it's going to get regulated but somehow someone's going to put a stop to it you know i i told your executive at this point that seven years ago when hurricane karma happened and i and my wife made me escape to new york during the hurricane i came back my house almost flooded because i have these sliding glass doors you know with like i don't know if you know what sign that starts but they sit on a track and no matter how well, well, how well your doors are, when there's a lot of wind and water, especially at our, you know, higher elevation, the wind and water pushes right through the track and creates, you know, disasters inside

your apartments. This almost happened to my house. You didn't, yeah, you didn't have an apartment. You had like a chateau. Okay, whatever I have. It doesn't matter. It's true or false? I don't know. So much true. It doesn't matter. Okay.

So anyway, with that being said, yes. So my house almost flooded completely. So we came up with a solution actually for this problem, at least for us, that took us about seven years to do and about a gazillion man hours. But in about four weeks, it's going to be at Home Depot about five weeks so that people can go ahead and mitigate at least this part of the phone, which is a big deal.

Total big deal. Fish, we end our episodes by asking all of our guests for a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. Did you have a final tip about energy? Yeah. Wait till they, there's a good ceasefire in Gaza. Hold your breath.

There'll be one more battle sign and then you can buy it. It's sort of like what happened when... Remember when... Well, again, when they caught Saddam Hussein, right? I don't know if you remember that. I do.

I was on the air. Where were you? I was at... Well, Osama bin Laden, I woke up at 2 a.m., went to CNN. This is before. I know. Before that, I was at CNN well, Osama bin Laden, I woke up at 2 a.m., went to CNN. This is before. I know. Before that, I was at CNN with Saddam.

Really? Everyone thought when Saddam Hussein got caught, right, that the price of oil was going to go down, right? Because, you know, the whole thing was over. If you bought energy 10 hours after he got caught, what do you think happened to the price of energy over the next six months? Went straight up. When this conflict, hopefully sooner or later,

it's somewhat of a resolution. If you close your eyes and wait 24, 48 hours, I mean, and I'm saying this now, I'll probably be dead wrong because usually I'm either dead wrong or that things are dead right. There's no like middle with me. I'm either, wow, you were really right

or wow, you suck. Okay that's my bet. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.