The Wolf Of All Streets - Living The American Dream | Charles Payne, Host Of Making Money

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

At the age of 14, Charles Payne knew he wanted to work on Wall Street. After years of hard work, cold calling, and slowly building an empire, Charles became an icon in the financial space. Today, Char...les is both an inspiration and source of knowledge to millions of Americans who tune in to hear him talk everyday at 2pm est on Fox Business Network. As the host of “Making Money,” Charles is regarded as an expert in all markets, but considers himself a student of the game, always seeking improvement. - Build on Harmony, run on all chains. Harmony is your open platform for assets, collectibles, identity, governance. Be the ONE to bridge to all blockchains. Harmony is an open and fast blockchain. Their mainnet runs Ethereum applications with 2-second transaction finality and 100 times lower fees. Harmony’s secure bridges offer cross-chain asset transfers with Ethereum, Binance and other chains.  https://thewolfofallstreets.link/harmony  -- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworks.co ーーー Join the Wolf Den newsletter: ►►https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen/members

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Harmony. Please stay tuned for more information about them later in the episode. What's up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, and this is the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast, where twice a week I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, and politics, basically anyone with a good story to tell. Now, if there's one thing that unites everyone, it's desire to make money. Today's guest is the host of Making Money on Fox Business Network at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, where millions of people from around the world tune
Starting point is 00:00:34 in daily to hear Charles's thoughts about financial markets. I was fortunate enough to be featured on his show twice, and Charles interviewed me on the crypto market. But today, I have the luxury of flipping the script and putting Charles in the hot seat. So without further ado, Charles Payne, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. It's great to be on. Thanks. So listen, when you interviewed me on Fox Business, you asked me about PayneCoin. You had the logo up and everything. I've been trying to get my hands on some. Where can I get some PayneCoin, man? I'm looking at it, my man. I'm looking at it, especially now. Crypto is really coming on. I mean, I think it's so weird because all those regulatory issues, we know they're out there. We know government's going to push back.
Starting point is 00:01:10 They want to defend fiat currency. We get that. But I feel like it's a locomotive right now. I agree. And it's interesting to hear you say that because I think there was sort of a mainstream, certainly media slant that it was over. Dropped from 65, went to 29. It kind of eliminated, it was eliminated from the news cycle. So you think that it still looks like it's coming on strong? It really, I look at Coinbase's earnings report, 68 million users, you know,
Starting point is 00:01:38 three to one ratio institution over retail. I look at the first half of this year, 52 billion in venture capital. Remember, venture capital, when they put in a dollar, they expect to get back a thousand. If they put in 52 billion, then add another eight zeros to that. I mean, really, when you see that kind of commitment, you say these are brilliant people. They usually have the inside knowledge. And, you know, listen, they're the ones who contribute money to these politicians who ultimately kind of do what they want them to do, no matter what they tell the public. There's going to be some more bumps in the road, obviously. You know, I think there'll obviously be a tug of war over who wins, who doesn't. You got over a thousand names out there. It reminds me now of the automobile industry back in 1900. You had over a couple hundred car makers. And what people don't realize when I talk about this sometime, I think it was around 1900, you had three categories. The number one market share was electric. Number two was steam. Number three was the combustion engine. So obviously during,
Starting point is 00:02:42 after a period of time, we forgot about steam and electric is all of a sudden brand new. But it just goes to show you now people should be focused on who might potential winners be. But the crypto blockchain defy, I don't think I think is a juggernaut that can't be stopped now. It's interesting that you use the parallel to the automobile industry, because Binance has had regulatory issues all around the world. And CZ, the CEO of Binance, made the same comparison, but sort of in a different regard. Really? Yeah, he said that his view was that being in exchange was like the automobile industry in that you just threw people out there in cars, then people got in wrecks, so they added
Starting point is 00:03:16 seatbelts. And after seatbelts, they made traffic laws and things like that. And so in a nascent industry like this, basically, it's the Wild West until the regulation comes. That's the good part of regulation sometime, right? But we know that a lot of this sort of regulatory push is not because they're looking out for people for seatbelts. And, you know, they're actually just looking out for the only ride there is right now, and that's fiat currency. They don't want an alternative. Eventually, obviously, it'll be digital. You know, we see China pushing hard. It's so funny. The Fed's timeline went from,
Starting point is 00:03:55 we'll look at it in a few years. We'll look at it in a few months. And like, damn, we're late on this thing. We better get hopping. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly my take as well. So I think last time we talked, it was probably right after the launch. But you said you were looking at Coinbase stock at 250. Yeah, I've got subscribers in the stock. We're actually down a little bit right now. But I've played crypto via the stock market, I guess, because I'm a stock guy. So I've been at MA, RA. I've been at Riot, Square.
Starting point is 00:04:20 I don't think I'll ever sell. I've always had four or five never sell stocks. I'm looking at elevating that to something that just ride an occasional missed earnings report here and there, but stay with it. I'm actually shocked, to be honest with you, how little, how flat-footed traditional banks have been. I really am with this whole fintech era. And I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, if I'm someone at one of these places,
Starting point is 00:04:45 I'm looking to buy Square. I'm looking to buy PayPal. I'm looking to buy, you know, maybe the riots and things like that, as opposed to try to, first of all, they're trying to sick the regulators on them, right? Every time they have to talk about it, they whine about the rules they have to follow
Starting point is 00:05:00 and that these other wild, wild west, to your point, folks don't have to follow. When they find out that that's not going to work and that these market capitalizations just keep going up, I think a few will bite the bullet and start making these acquisitions. Do you think that banks have been handicapped by regulation at all? After what happened in 2008, obviously, the whole landscape for banking is different and what they can even gain exposure to? Or do you think they just didn't take it seriously and they're, they're lagging? If I had to rank the reasons or the rationale for them being so far behind the
Starting point is 00:05:30 curve, I would say first and foremost is arrogance. You know, honestly, it's they didn't learn a lesson, right? You know, they did the collateralized debt obligations. They packaged and repackaged all this stuff to the point where they were ticking time bombs. They're always in a lab trying to create the next thing that will make them rich and put the whole world on the edge of a cliff. So, you know, I don't really give them a lot of credit for, you know, somehow saying, oh, well, you know, we want to kind of walk the straight line. I don't think they're too afraid of regulatory issues, particularly in
Starting point is 00:06:04 crypto, because there's not a lot of regulations out there. I just really think it's been arrogance, which, by the way, happens not just with any one industry, but any large industry when you get just a handful of players. And that's why eventually Sears went out of business. At one point, they controlled everything. I don't know if you ever heard of A&P Supermarkets. Of course. A lot of people haven't because it's mostly in the Northeast. At one point, they controlled 70% of the food in this country. There were congressional hearings to break up A&P. And the reason I bring it up is now they're the struggling chain that used to be amazing. In fact, the stock symbol GAP, G-A-P, you know, they couldn't get GAP for a long time
Starting point is 00:06:47 because it's still for Great Atlantic and Pacific. So the point I'm making is these large lumbering giants in every industry throughout history always fall into the same trap of complacency and arrogance. That's so true. I think it was in Jeff Booth's book, The Price of Tomorrow, or one of the books I was reading recently, and he makes the point that the 10 largest companies in the world 10 years ago, none of them are even basically on the list anymore. Kodaks, the Sears, as you put it, maybe 20 years ago, even the blockbusters of the world, they got too big basically to pivot and keep up with the technological age. Yeah. I mean, it happens over and over and over again. So I love what you said about VC when I was asking about the bear market and crypto,
Starting point is 00:07:26 because it seems like we had a bear market in price, but not anywhere else in the crypto space, right? VC is pouring money in. Like you said, you see these companies hiring double and triple. You see the Coinbase numbers. So that to me, that's the real bull market. It really is. I mean, that's your real measuring stick.
Starting point is 00:07:42 That's your barometer. And again, I think the thing that stood out for me, the two things that stood out for me in that Coinbase report was just the spike in institutional users and also the spike in Ethereum, which, you know, obviously have been coming on strong. But wow, a real, real challenger. I mean, I don't think it has to be either or, but I think you probably have portfolio Ether and Bitcoin, but it's pretty intriguing. Yeah, I agree. I was pleasantly surprised, I guess, to see that Ethereum trading volumes were higher than Bitcoin's on Coinbase last quarter. It'd be interesting to see if that trend continues. So listen, you have a Wall Street background, right? But you're obviously very critical of the banks of Wall Street. So I'd love to just get a taste of your backstory and hear how you ended up where you are.
Starting point is 00:08:32 Golly, it's it's a long story short. I had two childhoods. Scott, I was I grew up on Army bases the first 12 years of my life. My dad was in the military, career military, fought in Vietnam. And every year we moved. And so, you know, I lived in New York three times. I lived in Pittsburgh. I lived in Texas three times. I lived in Germany, Japan, North Carolina, Virginia. I loved it. I really did. It was amazing. And I got to be honest, it was different. It was an oasis almost in the 60s and 70s. It shielded me from so many realities that other people were going through that most Americans were going through. You know, you live in an army base. It's manicured. It's police. It's no crime. You know, I would go outside with my friends. We'd play, come back in, make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, go back out and play again.
Starting point is 00:09:20 It was the kind of life I lived. And then one day I came home from school to our two-story house where I had my own bedroom. We had a guest room. We had a den. My mom said, we're leaving, just like that. I know that my parents had problems, but we left. It was my mom, me, and my two younger brothers. We got on a bus, a bus to go from Fort Lee, Virginia, in this wonderful two-story house with this huge yard. We never locked the doors to Harlem. And this was in the seventies when it was the most dangerous, poorest neighborhood in America. And we went from this setting to where all four of us lived in a room. So, and, you know, so it was, you know, the crazy culture shock. I mean, just the first, I mean, it was so crazy because some things are
Starting point is 00:10:00 fascinating and weird at the same time, like, you know, going into a building, right? The first apartment building we lived in, the people we stayed with lived on the fifth floor. So we got in the elevator, which blew my mind. Like, golly, you get to take an elevator to your house? But then the smell of urine also, like, what the hell? Who's peeing in the elevator, right? So these kind of things. But the two things that immediately changed my life. Poverty, abject poverty. I never thought about money a single day in my life. Not one single day that I think about money. All of a sudden, it was four of us in a room with nothing. I had to start hustling immediately. I was the oldest. It was my responsibility. So I would do it. I would go out and take paper towels and clean windows at stop signs.
Starting point is 00:10:48 I would shovel snow. I got a job at a bodega and the crime. You know, I just never knew or understood that that people could be. You just have no idea, you know, to watch, you know, to see murders, to see people stomped. Like I had a few fights in my life before then, but you know, it was kind of, kind of fight. You have a fight and then five minutes later, you're like eating ice cream together. I, you know, I, these fights were to the death, every single encounter. Like it was just that kind of, that kind of ruggedness that it just reshaped me. So obviously, you know, I'm looking at my mom, I got to help. And I'm like,
Starting point is 00:11:25 well, how do I make money? And everyone thinks about Wall Street when they think about money. I don't care who you are. And I think it all starts at that age. So I started reading the Wall Street Journal. And I told my mom when I was 14 years old, I'm going to work on Wall Street. I bought my first mutual fund when I was 17. She had to co-sign. I joined the Air Force when I was 17. When I was 18, I bought my first stock, which is a company called MCI. Back then, I loved it. It was a Maverick who was running it. This is why I love the Apes. This is why I love the Mavericks. This is why I love the individual investors. I've always been that person. My first investment was a guy, I read this article about a
Starting point is 00:11:59 guy in Time Magazine who was taking on the world's largest corporation, AT&T. You know how he was doing it? He was connecting rooftop antennas. He was using them for his network to take on the largest corporation in the world. I said, I love this dude. I'm in. The stock did very well. I was already hooked, but then when I made money, I was really hooked. When I got out of the Air Force, I joined the Air Force. When I got out, I got a job at EF Hutton, which was cool. It was a low paying job, but it was a job. It was high paying to me at the time. Let me tell you, still, when I got the call that I got the job is still in the maybe top 10 moments of my life. Thirteen thousand a year. At that point, it was like all the money in the world. Yeah. And I got to ask questions. I got to learn.
Starting point is 00:12:44 You know, one thing people do is they love to share, right. Or, you know, Hey, what's that? What's the M2? Come here, kid. Let me show you. So I learned a lot, but I wasn't making any money. Then I had a chance to become a broker and I seized it. I said, okay, I'm going to do this. Even though it was 100% commission. I took the test. I blew the test away. I just crushed it. I became a broker. And let me tell you something.
Starting point is 00:13:09 That was really, really like cold calling, old phone books. You know, in the back room, they had a whole bunch of old phone books. They said, just grab a phone book, my man, and start calling people. And you just call people. Hi, this is Charles. Every time. Hello, this is. Hi, this is. So one thing that really changed helped me so much early on, like my first or second week,
Starting point is 00:13:34 I call up a guy and I'm pretty sure it was either a doctor or a lawyer, but I think he's a lawyer. And anyway, I go through the pitch and he says, well, you read very well, but what do you want? I thought about it. I threw away the pitch after that. And I says, well, you read very well, but what do you want? I thought about it. I threw away the pitch after that. And I just started calling people and talking to them. My first full month in the business, I opened more new accounts than anybody else in the office. But it was hard. It was really, really hard. It was a lot of ups and downs. What I did discover early on is that it wasn't the Wall Street of my dreams. It wasn't like the job where you went home and you study quarterly filings and you found the best investment. It was more like, hey,
Starting point is 00:14:11 this is the best stock in the house. If you sell it, you make more commissions. And I was discouraged from that. So after a while, I took my passion for research and my knowledge about the market and I started my own research business. And what did that look like? When was that? And what was the goal of the research business? There was a lot of, a lot of, first I sold my research to other brokers because there was a lot of people who were discouraged, just like I was, you know, like, you know, you come in and it was stock du jour. This is the stock everyone's pitching today, but they didn't have any alternatives. So I said, you know, I'm going to start my own research product. It was tough. It was real tough. I was the researcher at night and the salesman in the daytime. Back then there was a directory. They might still have it. It was
Starting point is 00:14:55 a gargantuan directory of all the brokers. We called it the Red Book. And I would just go to the Red Book. And so I would put the product together at night and pitch people in the daytime. I started out of a one-bedroom apartment in Harlem. This is like when crack was raging. So it was like rent was almost free, honestly. I think that same building today, it was a brownstone. It was a one-bedroom brownstone apartment. And I mean, I was paying a couple hundred.
Starting point is 00:15:22 It's probably worth $9 million, that same building. I probably could have bought it for like 30 grand. So anyway, you know, soon somebody said, okay, I'll buy it. Then someone else said, oh, I'll give it a shot. You know, just your typical growth kind of pattern. And then I just, I went down, I finally had enough sales to get an office on wall street and started hiring people. And then after about a couple of years, I got a real good network going. And in addition to my research, people would call me with these like all kinds of ideas and different things that were happening. And people would like hear a rumor and say, hey, you know, give me a call. You got to check this out, this out.
Starting point is 00:16:01 Then I would mention it, you know, and a lot of it happened. Right. So people are like, damn damn this guy knows everything it was it sort of became sort of that proverbial hockey stick kind of thing you know but it was except that it was the maybe the other way around like the long part was if at least it felt longer like the stick was laying down and then it shot up but eventually it shot up and i gained some traction and and um uh you know eventually one day cnbc called hey, we've been hearing about you. Can you come on?
Starting point is 00:16:30 Come on the show. And I was like, oh, hell. And it's so crazy. That day, let me tell you, that day I ran up to where I bought my clothes at the time. And so that day when I got there, there was like 200 people in front of the store. I'm like, what the hell's going on here? So I weave my way to the front. I knock on the glass and the guy lets me in. I'm like, what's going on? I look over, says, Mike Tyson's here. So I'm in there. And then Mike Tyson is like, at some point asked,
Starting point is 00:17:00 I'm like, yeah, who's this dude you let in with me, right? He's like, he's a great customer, yada, yada. And we start talking. We talked for like 40 minutes, me and Mike Tyson. I was in the back trying on shirts and he was leaving. I said, take it easy, Mike. He walked all the way from the front of the store. By the way, I did not like Mike Tyson. I thought he was a bully.
Starting point is 00:17:18 And so he walks, this is before our conversation, right? So he walks all the way to the back. And I was like, wow, okay. He came all the way back here to shake my hand. So I went to shake his hand and he hugged me. And it just, it was one of those lessons in life, Scott, where you just don't know people, you know what I mean? You know, the media's perception, like this is a guy everyone was using everyone, every woman he was with his manager, his crew, that store, they, that store must've sold him millions of dollars worth of crap.
Starting point is 00:17:48 I mean, everyone's ripped him off tremendously. He was a generous person. And it just was another one of those lessons in life. Hey, you know what? As I was going to make my TV debut, I felt like that was a message for me to always keep a certain amount of humbleness and never to look down at people. I don't know. I just connected the two.
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Starting point is 00:18:46 slash harmony. Build on harmony, run on all chains. It's a great message. And you said something earlier that, you know, you were basically selling all day and doing research all night. I would imagine that context, as you said, you pretty much knew everything. Like you got the reputation that you knew everything, you were the guy for it. And that's what always impressed me about people in your position now. How do you know everything? You do this every single day, weekday, 2 p.m. Your guests talk about a myriad of topics. How can you possibly do enough research and have enough knowledge to be able to talk about every single market every day? Well, one thing you got to do, two things. One, I never tell anyone I'm an expert per se. I always consider myself a student of the market.
Starting point is 00:19:36 So I'm always learning. Every single day I'm trying to learn. But I do have an accumulation of 35 years of knowledge. And this is not just book knowledge. This is like, oh man, I remember when this happened to me and I waited and I lost everything. So I've got some real practical experience under my belt. And it's what I do. You know, I mean, if this if I wasn't doing this professionally, it would be my hobby. So my general day starts around four in the four in the four a.m. hour and I'm doing research all morning long. And then after the show, I usually do research until 6, 7 o'clock, maybe 8 o'clock at night. I'm literally working around the clock. I have my own
Starting point is 00:20:11 research team as well in my firm because I still have my research firm. I'm really kind of blessed. I am really quick at connecting dots. I see things. I like to have fun connecting dots. And I see things are, you give the example, and I like to have fun with things too.
Starting point is 00:20:28 My thing is drilling. I tell people who work for me, every time you seek an answer and you get that answer, with that answer, it should be a new question. So I'm the guy who's always drilling down. And yesterday the CPI number came out
Starting point is 00:20:41 and everyone's talking about inflation. You know what I use the CPI number for the most? Defying investment opportunities. It is so amazing. It's so simple. I look at these areas with the biggest price increases and I find out the best stocks in those places. It works like 85% of the time. It's mind boggling. It's mind boggling. Yesterday, I had some fun. I'm going to do it on the show today. Going back to work. Our dry cleaning bills went up the most. They've gone up month over month since 2008. Women's dresses have gone up the most. They've gone up since 2012. Like it's fun, trivia stuff, but also maybe I might want to own something like a Capri or maybe I may want to own something like a tapestry or, you know, whatever, you know. So it's fun for me. I think it makes fantastic stories. It always reflects Main Street.
Starting point is 00:21:34 And you can make money from it. So it just keeps my interest. Well, you mentioned inflation. I'm curious what your take is on the longer term implications of what we're seeing now. Obviously, the Fed says it's transitory, temporary. Everybody has their own definition of transitory, by the way, it would seem. But then it's temporary and not going to, you know, see hyperinflation or risk to the dollar or anything. So I'm curious your take. Well, you know, all inflation is transitory. And like you said, it depends on the definition. If it's one year, it's transitory. If it's 10 years, it's transitory in the grand scheme of things.
Starting point is 00:22:06 Listen, there are certain things that are going to be that will be embedded. The higher wages are here. You know, wages aren't going to go up and then go down. So those higher wages are here. And that means profits margins could be squeezed in certain areas and some they won't be. I'm more concerned, actually, about some of the things that are driving wages, particularly federal spending, and also some of these programs that are lurching us closer and closer toward a society that doesn't believe that either A, can, or B, has to pull itself up by the bootstraps. You know, so we're bringing back the Great Welfare Society. The universal basic income thing is coming in. This whole theory of modern monetary theory about printing money and giving it to people is we're already in the midst of that. And it buys votes. It appeases a lot of folks, but it makes your country weak. It makes a kid,
Starting point is 00:23:00 listen, I wouldn't have been where I am now if I didn't have to go through hard times. There's no way. If I just would have continued growing up on Army bases, I think I would have had a good life. I would have gone to some kind of college, got some kind of degree, and I'd be doing well. I wouldn't be making the money I'm making now. I wouldn't be the person I am now. I wouldn't have been able to help the people that I've helped in my life, which is one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given me. But it was because I had hard times. I had to learn I had this inside of me. I didn't
Starting point is 00:23:25 know. I had to learn that I could be this person the hard way. And where we're going now beyond this inflation story is more frightening than that, where we just have a society that doesn't learn, doesn't go through this adversity. When you hear about livable wages and all these kind of things, I think it's to a degree a smokescreen. We became the greatest country in the world in a very short period of time. There are countries that have been around thousands of years. And you have to say, why did we do that? How did we do that? And it was through adversity. It forged still those diamond hands that folks talk about. We're a diamond nation. I don't want to give that up. So the inflationary issues, I'm not as concerned about as I am with hollowing out who we are as a nation.
Starting point is 00:24:10 So effectively, people never see real adversity. People being born, you know, that that those kernels, those nuggets, those gifts that we have, sometimes you don't even know we have them. And certainly we won't ever nurture them. It's it's it's misplaced. And, you know, I always tell people, look at Japan as the best example of that. Twenty over a little over 20 years ago, Google anything. Japan was going to overtake America. It was just everyone everyone knew it. And they didn't, right? And then they went on this spree to kind of keep it up, keep the facade going, if you will. And, you know, so they have all of this debt and they created a nation with young men called grass eaters. They don't want to do the two hour commute. They don't want to
Starting point is 00:25:00 work for the same company for 20 years. They're not even interested in sex. They're going to go from 120 million to 80 million people population. You know, yeah, it's a wealthy nation that doesn't fade away, but it doesn't grow from here. There won't be any new, fresh prosperity there. And that's the, that's, that's unfortunate for them because you know, and let me tell you something, the guy in China, President Xi, he sees this. You know, this war he has against video games and technology and a recent article that called it an opium because China lost its place in the world when it became addicted to opium. China was the greatest economy. They were so much more advanced than the rest of the world in the 15, 16, 1700s until, well, the British showed up. They started to trade, which was great, but they ended up with all the world's silver. And then they lost it all because instead of exporting jade, silk, and all those kinds of things, they ended up importing opium to the point where all of the
Starting point is 00:26:02 silver started leaving the country. And of course, everyone was addicted. And when it was time to fight the war, they lost the first opium war. Then they lost the second opium war. And they were so weak. They had the Boxer Rebellion. And the government was so, so weak. It had to go to eight nations, hat in hand, and beg for money. They got the money, but at usury rates that humbled them and embarrassed them. To this point, that is what every leader over there talks about and they're afraid of. So he's watching what's happening in Japan, and he wants to control it. We're not really watching it, which is fine, but we're going in the wrong direction in the sense that we don't believe that we have what it takes,
Starting point is 00:26:41 that everyone out there can't pull themselves up by the bootstraps, then we're in trouble. I'm not saying it's a level playing field. Believe me, I know. I will never say that. I am saying, though, I believe the average American, though, has what it takes to change their lot in life, particularly if the backdrop is low regulations, low taxes. And now with technology, you can log onto a laptop and start a business. Are you kidding me? I say, let's go for it. Let's seize the moment. Let's seize the day. Imagine if you had had these resources when you started.
Starting point is 00:27:10 Yeah. Instead of, you know, all night long, I'm calling people out the Red Book. I'm writing things up. I got writers cramped. Email 200 people. BCC had said your whole day is done, right? Yeah. It's really crazy.
Starting point is 00:27:24 But China's smart enough to own our debt yeah yeah they got over a trillion dollars worth of it um you know listen it's it they're they're they're pretty smart they've been paying attention to history they get to do some things as a dictatorship which i don't i don't think we we ever want to be but um you know sometimes it's good to look at why they're doing certain things, not necessarily how they do them and pay attention that way. I mean, even anecdotally, I live in Florida and I have friends who own restaurants and they literally can't find staff. They can't find people who want to work. I don't know if it's because those people are getting,
Starting point is 00:27:58 have gotten stimulus checks, which maybe will run out, but it's a real problem on Main Street. It is. It really is. I read the, the federal reserve comes out with the regional manufacturing stuff reports. You got to read them. I mean, it's just like they do these surveys and they talk to these business owners and they're like one I was reading, I think it was the Kansas city fed or Richmond fed recently guys says, yeah, we have 30 interviews a week. Like a third of those people show, maybe don't show up.
Starting point is 00:28:24 We ended up hiring a couple of them people show, maybe don't show up. We ended up hiring a couple of them and 95% are gone in a month. And you saw this week with the NFIB, the small business survey, they got record amount of job openings. You've got a record amount of small businesses hiring people and giving them raises, but their number one issue by far, I mean, significantly, almost 60% say they have few or no qualified applicants. So essentially they are paying people who can't even do the job. They're overpaying them. That's how desperate it is. I'd say the greatest worker, this is the greatest era, right? The greatest working era right now, jobs market ever, but it's being met with the greatest de facto general strike ever.
Starting point is 00:29:09 And I don't, I don't begrudge anyone for trying to get more money, but I do think it might end up backfiring as companies say, okay, there's only one alternative and that's computers, robots, artificial intelligence. So don't, I just don't want to see people push the envelope too far or get too hooked on their freebies. Yeah, well, because then you get deflation, right? I mean, inherently, inherently, AI robots and technology taking your jobs lowers the price of goods. And you have a lot of people with no money at all. And deflation is a lot worse than inflation. Yeah, certainly. Nobody wants a Great Depression. I don't think you know that that's bad. So I'm curious, moving on, you interview people from literally every market, every single walk of life. And I watch your show religiously. You have the crypto people on.
Starting point is 00:29:50 What do you make of our community to think that we're different, unique? Well, definitely unique. You know, I love it. First of all, you got to be very forward looking, right? You've got to be forward looking. You got to be sort of you got to buck the trend. I like people who get out, who like to get out of their lane. I like I like folks who like to do their own research. I like folks who believe in empowerment.
Starting point is 00:30:14 I generally find, you know, that there's a realization that things are wrong, that fiat currency has led everyone astray, that things have changed. You know, you go, you know, we're coming up next week on the 50th anniversary of getting off the gold standard in America. You know, and people talk about what you could buy with a dollar 50 years ago versus what you can't buy with it now. So I think it's a revelation. I just I for the most part, I really enjoyed the community immensely. Yeah. It's definitely, definitely a unique place. I love every time you have Jason Williams on, he always makes me laugh one way or another. He definitely makes me laugh every time we've had him on the show too. He's, he's great. So listen, I'm curious what you think of markets
Starting point is 00:31:01 for the rest of the year. Do you think we see a continuation of stocks only go up? I mean, they're going to print. They, you know, what's interesting though about that whole thing is they've gone up. The indices have gone up, but this market, particularly in the last three months, has been real tough. And the breadth, I look at the breadth every night.
Starting point is 00:31:21 And, you know, if you look at advancing stocks versus declining stocks, if you look at new stocks versus declining stocks, if you look at new high versus new lows, if you look at up volume versus down volume, it's been a tough market for about three months. It's starting to broaden out right now. But, you know, because the way these markets are configured, you just get 10 stocks that do very well and they can mask 490 that aren't. So it hasn't really been an easy market per se.
Starting point is 00:31:46 My whole thing is I'm more of a, I like people to pick individual stocks and manage their own portfolio. And so I'm extraordinarily bullish, but I'm almost bullish all the time. I'm bullish when it's going up and when it crashes, I'm even more bullish. So, because I'm like, look at my chops when they crash, because I, you know, listen, it's over a few hundred years. It's for the most part, it edges higher. You know, for me, it's the dream of owning, being part owner of great companies. It's my chance to own great companies. I look at a company, I think it's great and I think it's undervalued.
Starting point is 00:32:21 I get a chance to become part owner. And that's just an amazing thing. So when you see that dip, are you looking for sort of the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater sort of opportunity? The entire market goes down. Why is Amazon going down? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it's all emotionally driven at that point.
Starting point is 00:32:38 Right. So you're looking for something that was sold off but the value hasn't changed. And also, I'm putting on my gear because i got another hit coming up also also it's emotionally driven but it always it always overshoots it always overshoots you know so if for whatever if you thought the market was over overvalued by 20 it's going to go down 30 or it's going to go down 40 whatever you know and that's where i think a lot of people get frustrated or move too quickly like you know and it's it I think a lot of people get frustrated or move too quickly. Like, you know, and it's always a, it's always folly to try to pick the bottom anyway.
Starting point is 00:33:12 But I think that's the one mistake. Some people say, well, I've tried to buy that dip and I lost money or I didn't make money. It kind of always goes much further down than you think it's going to go. Now, the good news is though, it's because it takes the elevator because it takes the stair steps up and the elevator down. Wherever it needs to go, it usually gets there quickly. It's painful. Okay, let me tell you, there's going to be some serious dust and a few bruises, but at least we get to there on the downside and we can start to find our way back up.
Starting point is 00:33:38 Absolutely. Well, I know you got to run momentarily. I just want to ask one more question. That's the rise of meme stocks, man. What do you make of retail's power in the market right now? I really love it. I really appreciate it. I think it's something that's so powerful and I respect it. You know, I hate that they're called dumb money. I hate the way they've been treated by financial media and by Wall Street. Listen, a lot of these are young are young people who their dad and mom, someone told them, all right, buy these blue chip names, pick up some GE, 50, pick up some IBM. I
Starting point is 00:34:11 mean, think 20 years ago, all these blue chip names that they bought that are down 50%, 40%, 70%. These were blue chip stocks. This is how you play by the rules. They were smart money told them to do this. So also another thing is that no one knows, right? I don't know where AMC is going to be in five years. It could be significantly higher. A year and a half ago, two years ago, I don't think there was a single firm on Wall Street with a buy on Crocs. I'm serious. It was like, it was nothing. It was languishing. It was dead. In the last year, it's up 1200%. It's 1200%. I got a list of these. I'm working on my third book. I got a list of these names. I can't wait to put some of these examples in the
Starting point is 00:34:51 book. But these are names that Wall Street said were written off. They were done. They were dead. Best Buy was a showroom. Stay away from it. I mean, these are names that have turned around and become juggernauts. And whoever bought it when it was down, they were dumb. So it was the dumb money that made 1,200% on Crocs. And you know who knew Crocs? And knew Crocs was going to be fantastic. The mom who a year ago went and bought four kids all pairs of Crocs. The nurse who bought a pair. All of these people knew, but they did not have the confidence to buy the stock. They did not have the wherewithal to open an account. That's why I love the so-called mean community. They are saying, okay,
Starting point is 00:35:31 we're going to try to take our collective knowledge. We're going to try some things differently. We're going to get in there and be a part of this thing. And their approach is not always my approach, but I love them because they're in the game. They're determined. And I hope that it's a lifelong endeavor for them. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:48 And it's sort of been this grand awakening for retail people that never even thought about markets, I think, in the last year and a half really are. And they watch guys like you on TV. Yeah, I hope so. Dropping bombs all the time. So where can everybody follow you after this and check out the show? WStreet.com is my website. I got free commentary.
Starting point is 00:36:07 Go there every single day. Follow me on Twitter, CB Payne. And of course, my show every weekday, Making Money, 2 p.m. Eastern time on Fox Business. I love what you do, man. Honor to have you here. And I know everybody's going to get a lot out of this. We're going to have to do this a few more times down the road. All right, buddy.
Starting point is 00:36:25 Appreciate it. Thanks. All right, buddy. Appreciate it. Thanks. See you, Scott.

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