Welcome back to another meet! Kevin Report: We are already on episode number nine and today we get the Employment Cost Index. We've also got a review of multiple different earning sets. The Uh Employment Cost Index, a pretty important measure of the Federal Reserve likes to pay attention to comes out in about 42 minutes. We'll be getting that survey says 1.1 for the quarter over quarter estimate and 5.1 percent for the year-over-year estimate 1.1 being slightly down from 1.2 uh from the prior read and 5.1 being slightly up uh from the Uh prior read so we'll see what we get.

Obviously a soft ECI would be very beneficial to keep the FED on the path of just 25. BP hike here and Feb maybe one more in March and then a nice little posi-dazzy in May that would be fantastic. Bed Bath and Beyond's closing 87 stores and five bye-bye baby stores those are being closed closed captioning not available Spotify Reported a slightly larger loss than expected, but its user growth actually grew. They grew about 20 percent year over year now at 489 million active users, which is remarkable.

Uh. what's also remarkable though is that this live stream gets now posted to Spotify Apple and Google podcasts within about 30 minutes after the end of the stream, which I think is quite useful. Whirlpool Uh actually gave us some uh positive Insight on inflation they expect to see easing raw material costs provide some relief in 2023. We've heard this a lot now that companies are starting to see that turn in inflation and by the second half of the year, they expect to be a lot more optimistic and or at least start seeing those green shoots material cost reductions.

They're already starting to see the beginning of those come through. Samsung Reported some pretty a weak earnings. Although this was widely expected, they reported their weakest earnings in eight years and the Samsung sees a recovery also in in the second half. With how many companies and earnings calls are talking about the recovery coming in the second half, I Can't help but think maybe just maybe we might actually end up being in a recession in this first and second quarter here.

and then maybe we come out of it. Uh, at um, essentially the third the third quarter. which is interesting because stock markets usually bottom close to the relative beginning of a of a recession. uh, being, uh, well occurring.

Uh, and so it makes you wonder. Would that potentially put us close to that December January time frame which stock markets also tend to bottom about six to nine months before the bottom in earnings. Could the bottom in earnings be the end of the second quarter sort of line up with about December Who knows. Arrival: The EV startup is slashing half of its remaining staff after having already cut a lot more staff.

They're struggling now now. struggling. Well, they've been actually kind of struggling. burning cash.

Uh, EV startup in the United Kingdom And they were originally going to plan uh to build multiple, smaller sort of micro factories I Always thought this was a little bit of a silly idea because the point of a factor is to have scale. not a bunch of smaller factories all over the world. But but anyway, now they've They've decided to ditch their plans to build a factory in the United Kingdom Instead, they're going to focus on building Vehicles out of a United States plant in South Carolina But that plant's not actually built yet, so that now they're not actually expecting to build Vans until the second half of 2024.. their quarterly spend though, is down to about 30 million bucks and they've got about six to seven quarters of cash as of December.

So I think uh, they're kind of going for the Hope strategy that maybe somebody will come buy them out, but uh, it ain't looking good. Block Five just got approval and Bankruptcy Court Uh, just yesterday to start liquidating mining assets, computer equipment. Uh, A6 thousands of mining machines? No, I it doesn't I Don't think they were a big actual Miner themselves, but they were a big financer of Bitcoin machines. so people who wanted to buy Bitcoin machines borrow money to be able to mine block five would would lend people money.

And so then when you repossess those binding mining machines because people aren't paying and now you get all the machines back. but now you got to sell them for potentially Pennies on the dollar at auction. Celsius is doing something similar to this as well. It's kind of a disaster.

Uh, Bitcoin by the way. sagging a bit after, uh uh, one of probably one of the most solid rallies we've seen uh from Bitcoin in a while. just uh, just in the last about maybe 48 Hours we've gone from that rejection at about twenty four thousand to now sitting under 23 000. Remember again, today is ECI day.

Uh, it's an important, uh, important Fed measure. It's probably one of the most important Fed measures that the FED looks at. Uh, so I I'd put a lot of uh, well, next to inflation obviously. But wage inflation and services based inflation because of wage inflation seems to be one of their biggest focuses right now.

and the ECS should give us some insight. It's it's an indicator that's not terribly heavily watched. But uh, it. it has become more prominent recently because Jerome Powell has made it clear.

Yeah, I I like the Employment Cost Index report, Uh, so we'll get that along with obviously multiple earnings. Uh, this week, uh, this, uh, this week in terms of earnings. Uh, today. like I had already mentioned, we had ups, but we're also getting Exxon McDonald's uh, Caterpillar General Motors coming out, we've got AMD after the Bell Snapchat EA Western Digital Striker Amgen Match Group Mondelez Uh boy, we got a lot of earnings.

Uh, then tomorrow we've got another big day. Tomorrow we've got. uh, actually. well.

oh so there we go. Uh okay, uh. tomorrow we have Altera We have. Oh, why did all of a sudden do that? Usually this sorts by uh, usually the swords by market Cap And all of a sudden it's sorting these alphabetically.

Uh, we've got T-Mobile Waste Management Peloton MBI Homes these are tomorrow and then that's tomorrow. before the Bell Tomorrow after the Bell we have let's see here: Facebook Ah, Facebook's tomorrow. Okay, yeah, that'll be interesting Facebook tomorrow after the Bell Vista outdoor Universal Corporation and uh, then of course on Thursday we've got the big boys Thursday We have of course 1-800 Flowers No, we have. uh, let's see here.

I'm surprised this is not sorting by market cap anymore. Microstrategy we have uh, Apple we have Amazon those will come up on Thursday So I wouldn't be surprised if markets are slightly tentative today. Uh, kind of like they were yesterday because you've got larger catalysts coming up over the next couple days that you may as well wait for I Think that's what a lot of Institutions do I Think that's what a lot of individuals do is. Ultimately, if you've got the FED Fomc meeting tomorrow uh, in their press conference at 11 30 a.m Pacific tomorrow, Why? Why would you load into stocks today? If you could just see what Jay Pal says tomorrow, our price is really going to be that different.

Probably not. Uh, and then. but then again, who knows. Depends what Jpal says.

And then of course, you've got earnings substantial earnings this week. and so if all goes well, hopefully hopefully the shackles on the market could be removed. Uh, by the end of the week. It's somewhat to me, like what happened with Tesla where it's almost like it doesn't really matter how bad the news is, the market just wants the news.

and once the market gets the news, the market can breathe the sigh of relief because even if we have bad news, at least we know I Think the worst thing the market hates is the uncertainty of not knowing. The not knowingness is something that creates a lot of anxiety and in individuals in their lives. And no surprise, the stock market is a graph of human psychology and so we have a lot of tentativeness before uh, earnings and and other catalysts. Not a big price.

Welcome aboard, by the way, thank you so much for joining as a member here on the channel. Appreciate it! TC Financially I Will be talking a lot about uh, the wage price spiral in just a moment. Unpopular opinion companies buy back stocks to drive prices higher. So Executives get awarded chairs.

Not because the stock is undervalued well, but you know it could potentially be an argument that it's a percentage of both, but I would agree with you. Uh, Kyler Kevin I Joined the Real Estate Investing course a few days ago I Love The way you teach. Your ability to conduct information is amazing. Oh thank you Thanks! Kyler Appreciate that morning from Maine you're about to hit the slopes Oh I'm jealous.

That's amazing. This mug says super Restore Potion by the way that I'm drinking coffee out of now 1-800 Flowers Reminder to send Lauren flowers Yes, Thank you. All right? So now, uh, let's see here now we're going to talk. Uh, we've got a few different things.

Jim Cramer Okay, what? what are you doing? Uh, hold on a second here. So Jim Cramer just tweeted the following: Jim Cramer tweeted I Have to hand it to Kathy Wood and her buying of Teledoc. She is not phased by anything including her own poor performance. Ouch.

Radically strong. Okay, well, the problem with Teledoc and I don't love Teledoc personally. But one of the things that drives me nuts about Teledog was a few, uh, months ago. They actually probably about six months ago.

At this point, they reported earnings and they and they cut down their uh Goodwill estimates substantially massive cut down on uh, on their Goodwill and Goodwill was basically a brand definition, right? So if you say oh, we have five billion dollars in Goodwill The The idea is that oh, it must mean your brand value is worth that. And really, what it does is it tends to prop up the balance sheet of a company and it makes a company potentially look a lot more financially stable. Uh, than it actually is. Because really, what the companies can do is, they can say, well, look at all the assets we have and so individuals who even bother to go look at the financial statements, if they happen to make it to the balance sheet, they might see.

Oh look, we have so many assets compared to XYZ debts. Uh, at least the assets are so large. But the problem is, if there were ever an issue, the balance sheet does you very little good if a lot of it is, you know, basically built into Goodwill because that money can't be liquidated, it's it's essentially worthless. Uh, money.

Uh, that's tied up into Goodwill especially if a company starts performing poorly. If anything, it could be argued that that Goodwill is actually worse, not better. Uh, which. Obviously, nobody wants to consider that the the company's Goodwill might actually be less, uh, less than it's expected or promoted to be.

But uh, looking at, uh, the uh, Teledoc balance sheet right now it looks like Teledoc has. Let's see here we have. Let's go ahead and pop that up on screen here. There we go.

Here's the balance sheet that we have right now. We're looking at Teledoc Goodwill Sitting at 4.8 billion dollars, they previously had it as high as 14.5 billion dollars. So uh, they've They've really cut down their their Goodwill estimate for what they have at their company, but it's still remarkably high. and I think what they've done is they've said well, our Goodwill is lower because our stock price is down Peak to where it's now.

The stock is down over 90 percent. about 90.5 percent over the last five years. The stock is down 21, so it's down even worse than than Coven uh, or or um, pre-covered which is kind of remarkable. But uh yeah.

the the balance sheet here, the Theta the the estimates that they leave on Goodwill I Think they evaluate how much their brand is worth based on their their actual market cap, which is not how it's supposed to work. especially since right now the market cap of Teledoc is actually 4.5 billion dollars here. Let's label this: this is the Tdoc Q3 uh, earnings report and we're looking at it today. so you've got 4.5 billion.

Oops. Not just a silly iPad Here, you've got 4.5 billion dollars of a market cap for this company, but they're saying their Goodwill alone is worth 4.8 So in other words, the company from a Goodwill perspective is worth more than the actual market cap. And really, market cap should have nothing to do with Goodwill. But I find it kind of remarkable that they still have this sort of insane accounting going on here, propping up essentially their total assets right here.

Right here. your total assets sitting at about eight billion dollars. Now, if you look at debts, you've got. uh, let's see here.

total current liabilities? Actually not terrible. You've got total current liabilities sitting at about 411. You've got a total current assets and cash. You've got about 900 million dollars, which is nice.

It's got about twice as much cash as they have current liabilities, which is good. And then they don't have too many long-term debts. In fact, most of their long-term debts are convertible senior notes, which basically just turn into stock. It's uh, it's essentially, uh, stock dilution.

Uh, but that's okay because usually once those convertibles are announced, the stock market already adjusts for that dilution. And that's why we have two types of stocks that we show. We generally show an outstanding amount of stocks and we show a diluted amount. And that's why generally we get two reads for a stock count.

but uh. but anyway. the uh, the the the company itself is, uh, still losing money from operations and it hasn't gotten any better over the last year. We look at Revenue at the company, it is up roughly about 19 Revenue increase here.

But as Revenue has gone up about 19, it looks like their amount of advertising spent has actually shot up out about 60 percent. So about 19 boost in? Revenue. Uh, Coming out of obviously and assumptively here, the the crazy coveted comps but they're advertising exploded about 60 percent and they're just not able to get those sales to keep going. In my opinion, that gives you.

That gives me a little bit of a concern that what if they've peaked out right? What if you've maxed out potentially and uh, and you're not going to be able to continue uh to to actually grow to where you could Escape shape your operating costs. Remember, the goal of a company is to grow their revenue minus their cost of goods sold. So basically their gross profit more than their operating expenses. That way, they can actually have a profitable company, but they don't have that right now.

In fact, right now, the company is losing about 73 million bucks a quarter. That's not to you know, be confused with this insane Goodwill impairment of 9.6 billion dollars that they wrote in over here personally. I Think it was almost nearly fraudulent to suggest that their Goodwill was that large. Uh, and then they just took a massive write down on it.

Uh, it. It just feels quite misleading to investors, but it's not a company that I've been very, very excited about. Uh, personally at least, and you know, who knows, maybe their growth will end up picking up again. We can get them from a net loss to a positive.

Let's look at their cash flow statement for a moment. So if we actually look in operating cash flows, you're positive: 123 million dollars. That's because you're adding back things like Goodwill impairments and stock based call and when we look at Investments that the company is making uh, they're relatively nominal so you don't have a you don't have a lot of Acquisitions or or expenses here into investment. So their free cash flow is roughly about a hundred twenty million dollars.

So the nice thing is they are generating cash. I mean some of their expenses are going to things like depreciation and stock based on, so you probably don't really have a balance sheet issue here. The big question is just is the company going to be able to grow like people expect personally not the biggest fan? Uh, again. I Think this this was something that really exploded during the Covet era.

But the experience is that at least we've had with Teledoc or Lauren specifically have been. It almost has felt like the doctors that you get on Telidon and it's you know. I'm sure it's not their fault that it's probably just the company systems, but they they seem to need to assembly line people and you kind of lose that whole like oh my doctors like you know my doctor, he or she. They know me right.

You lose that kind of connection and it's sort of like, all right, what are your symptoms All right? Here's your solution: Get out of here, you know, Uh, and you know what? Maybe Maybe that's good for many things, right? I Mean, think about it like you know? if you have an ear infection, you're like I know I had an ear infection? do you like yo? Can we just get prescribed some antibios over here I Know it's not supposed to work that way and somebody's probably gotta stick a scope down your ear. But the point is, if if you know you got an ear infection and you're like oh my gosh, I Really don't want to go to the doctor or sit in the waiting room and spend two hours of my day hoping that I get my anti-bios and you could just get that over Teledoc? Hey, that'd be awesome. But we also know there are a lot of things they can't do. uh and then a lot of things do take.

um, in-person video things. Yeah, so uh, I don't know I you know I'm not I don't know how I feel about the potential trajectory of Teledoc. but I guess everybody would have their own individual opinions on that. If we do look though at uh, Teledoc on sort of a five-year trend of Google search Trends we get a little bit of insight uh in that in 2022, you've certainly had more people use or at least search for Teledoc uh than you had in 2021 or before 2019.

But uh, that also then makes me wonder if if there's no clear Trend to the upside and if we stay around here and they only grew at about what 19 or so last year, does that potentially end up leaving Teledocs stuck in the mud where their growth ends up flat and they're losing money and they've got some funny accounting practices I Don't know. Uh, for me, it's it's not. uh, it's not one of the most exciting place I Imagine they'll uh, they'll do their best to, uh, expand their growth. but again, a big red flag that I regularly look at when I do fundamental analysis.

Especially when we do these fundamental analyzes with course members is we look at how much are they growing revenues and I never actually calculated it I just sort of mental math That you know, 611 is slightly about 20, about 100 ml more. But see if I actually do the math, it's not 19. As I earlier said, it's actually only 17.2 percent Revenue growth, right? So you've got 17.2 percent Revenue growth quarter over quarter and I can tell you if that's speeding up or slowing down. Financial statements can tell you so much.

I'm a big fan of fundamental analysis. Yeah, it's actually slowed down. So you were growing at 19.6 percent the first nine months of 2022. Now you're actually growing at 17.2 percent.

yet you're spending 60 percent more. uh on Advertising Uh, And so to me, uh, personally, just as an investor I look at that and I think to myself, that's a little bit of a red flag. You have a company that's essentially spending to try to induce growth, but it's not able to do so that sends a signal to me that they're good or their service is no longer that that self-fulfilling Network effect style service where you can kind of get the flywheel in motion and then the product just sells itself. This actually turns into a product you kind of have to really actively and heavily sell to people or companies.

Uh, who who end up with company-wide subscriptions for Teledoc and all their employees. and uh, and that gets very expensive because employees and sales people are expensive. especially I mean it's great. if they work on commission in theory then they should make you money, but they're often base salaries involved in benefits.

Sales is expensive. Uh, but it's also critical. Ideally, the best form of sales is where you advertise once uh, or or you have a product like I'll create an example I know I always go back to Tesla but you make an example like Tesla Uh, you you sell someone a Tesla and they buy full self-driving They tell everyone around them. oh man, you want to go on a ride.

You want to see Full self-driving Look at what techno and people were blown away. That's basically free advertising, right? You don't get that so much with a company like Teledoc where it's sort of like oh yeah I Went on a Teledoc. Doctor was okay, had to go to the doctor anyway. or I don't know, they're kind of mean yeah.

I Don't know. And negative news. Negativity always spreads like seven times faster than good news or positive things. Kind of sad, by the way, about social media.

You get that a lot in social media as well. I Think people are, uh, generally, uh, uh, more interested in negativity than positivity. but that's you. know that's that's drama after all.

That's why and how uh uh news news gets to spread pretty quickly. Which actually reminds me of oh, hold on, they can and do write prescriptions over Telehealth Very urgent care who rarely writes scripts. Shocking I know, But yeah. I I Believe that they can write certain prescriptions, you know? I think if you come in and and give them the very clear symptoms of an ear infection, do they really need to see you to prescribe you amoxicillin? Probably not.

Should they? Probably because we overuse antibiotics? anyway? Probably. but uh, hey, you know what? Uh, good luck Kaladoc! Now though, we've got to talk about Pfizer Pfizer Just reported earnings this morning. But we also got a little bit of insight not just into the Pfizer earnings, but until what happened with Pfizer's response, what some of Pfizer's response means to the allegations against them and what YouTube was doing in response to Pfizer. In my opinion, this is shocking because the shockingness of YouTube censoring Pfizer Selective Censoring Advisor Censoring Project Veritas blew my mind.

I'll pull that up and we'll get started on that. All right one second here. I'm surprised I didn't Well, I partially got censored, but I'll tell you in a moment. All right here we go.

This is YouTube's internal leaked memo on why Project Veritas's release on Pfizer related directed Evolution and a covid vaccine uh, sort of experiments was censored uh Pfizer Uh, obviously we know this has responded. We'll reiterate some of their response in just a moment. but just to give you a little bit of background before we go through this essentially project Veritas set up. somebody who apparently works at Pfizer is a director of research there Pfizer has neither confirmed nor denied that that person actually works for Pfizer Though you would think if they didn't work for Pfizer they would say no, we don't know that person.

So I think it's safe to assume the person works at Pfizer and project Veritas had one of their employees basically set up a grinder date with that individual and on hidden camera. Talk to that person about what Pfizer does when it comes to EXP experimenting with vaccines and this is where we found that there are three kind of things that you could do with viruses. to try to study uh, vaccines, or preemptively make vaccines. There is something called uh, genetic, uh, engineering and and this could be uh, you know.

For example, the example I always like to use is taking a watermelon and breeding it with seedless watermelons and then breeding the result of that with other seedless watermelons. So you selectively engineer a watermelon that doesn't really have seeds. That's how we've gotten seedless watermelons today. Then there's another version of genetic engineering which is going into somebody's DNA and trying to slice out the DNA code that creates asthma let's say, and then replacing that for DNA code that doesn't create asthma and then hoping your body replicates that DNA code throughout your body and and hopefully curing asthma that doesn't exist yet.

The technology to do some of that exists, but to actually make it function wide scale that we're not there yet. So so so that sort of genetic engineering and crispr Gene editing technology. Then uh, we have this uh, this thing called Gain of Function research and and this is like the Hot Potato right? This is. this is like hey, look man, if there's a virus that can only infect bats, don't mess with it.

Okay, just just leave the virus be. please don't touch it. Uh, and if you happen to genetically, uh, alter the state of that virus. and now all of a sudden that virus doesn't just infect bats, but it infects humans.

you have given it a new function that is called Gain A Function Gain A Function Research. You've provided a new function to that virus. Uh, and now Pfizer has responded uh. They issued a large press release on their website uh and their response was essentially uh, the following: it's it's on screen here and the company talks about how they want to set the record straight and clarify Gain of Function versus directed Evolution.

And what they say is that Pfizer has not conducted Gain a Function or directed Evolution Research Now, directed evolution is basically just the first one that I talked about. It's genetic engineering by selecting uh, a a certain virus or certain Uh strategy over and over again. So for example, with a watermelon example, you're picking the seedless watermelon over and over and over again. And so you're directing the watermelon to evolve in a way that it doesn't grow with seeds.

Uh, The allegation that uh or I I suppose I should say what the individual said in the project Veritas leak video was that Pfizer promotes uh directed Evolution research. They don't publicly want to say that, but basically they'll infect a monkey with a virus and then they they sort of pick the more aggressive virus and put that. or let's say they infect five monkeys with a virus. They pick the one that has the most infectious version and then they take that monkey and let it infect other monkeys.

So that way they can kind of continue taking the most aggressive strains of the virus. And essentially the argument is hey, well, let Pfizer do that to come up with vaccines against the aggressive forms of viruses, which would obviously be very profitable. Uh for for Pfizer And it is a company that does make a lot of money. In fact, they they actually missed on earnings today.

Uh, Pfizer a missed analyst expectations Their total revenue came in at 67 billion dollars versus 71 their earnings per share. Guidance was for a midpoint of about three dollars and 35 cents per share versus the 431 expectation. Uh, that's a pretty big Miss Uh, from expectation points of view that that's about a 20 Miss And uh, part of it is because of a Miss on how many packs loaded treatments they expect to sell only eight billion only 8 billion still up versus 9.18 expected and uh, probably quite frankly, fewer coveted vaccines. Especially since the bivalent boosters, at least according to an expose by The Wall Street Journal are probably not as safe and effective as previously thought.

You could actually watch that video type into YouTube meet Kevin Covid Vaccine Wall Street Journal flips and you'll see that video. A lot of people are sharing that video and they're enjoying it. Uh, and it goes into detail about uh, how essentially the CDC and F uh, uh, Food and Drug Administration the FDA approved the bivalent vaccine boosters before knowing if they were truly safe and effective and usually an effective vaccine. Ignoring the safe part for right now again, myocardia is probably a topic for a different video.

Uh, the effective part of a vaccine should generally be 55 plus efficacy. uh for something to be deemed effective, but Uh studies ended up showing that the vaccine the bivalent booster was only about 23 to 43 effective for a limited period of time potentially as little as two months, which is not great. But now, uh, it's worth taking a look at this potential document here that looks like it is from YouTube. Now it's worth noting that we do not know uh if this is indeed, uh, from YouTube Uh, we believe that this is from YouTube but we do not know if this is from YouTube So I I always like to be clear about that.

uh project Veritas shared that uh YouTube uh breaking YouTube Insider Leaks urgent guidance document sent to employees on how to handle Project Veritas's Pfizer Directed Evolution research effective immediately January 27th Now it's it's worth noting that what I've described to you for directed Evolution I I Don't know that Society has come up with a very definitive answer in terms of what Society wants based on obviously the backlash that Pfizer has gotten it up here years that most people are not okay with directed Evolution and most people I think it's safe to say are certainly not okay with gain of function research that again, is the oh the bat can now infect the human. for example, where it previously could not I Think it's safe to say that most people are not okay with gain a function but directed Evolution Some folks might look at that and go well. we do want research, right? so maybe we do want to direct Evolution But then again, Pfizer saying they don't do that, but the Project Veritas video says they do that. So what's actually happening I Personally think ultimately this is something that our government uh, should should provide guidance and regulation over based on what the people want right? After all, Congress is a representative of the people and uh, Congress should listen to what people want and uh, and then Congress should Implement rules around exactly what people want.

But anyway, here is what YouTube Decided So so what, A clip uploaded by Project Veritas featuring a Pfizer official is rapidly spreading on the platform. The video, when uploaded in its entirety, contains a time stamp that violates the coveted misinformation policy. It shall that that basically for making a categorical claim that Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective and so, but they're basically saying, hey, we don't want claims on the platform that all Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective. Now this is not to say that you can't talk about.

Maybe how the boosters are less effective as long as you're actually providing sufficient data like EDSA I Believe is educational, documentary and scientific. I Will verify that quickly here. Yeah, Educational documentary, Scientific and artistic content. So as long as it's educational enough and it's in a documentary style or scientific enough, it's okay.

So there's there's a lot of Uh you know to be be subjected to the opinion of the reviewer as to whether or not the content violates the coveted misinformation policy. So the argument here is when reviewing any re-uploads of the Pfizer content, be sure to confirm that the following violative timestamp is present and if it is present, you would remove the video or Undercover the quote is: our undercover journalists asked Walker how Pfizer is handling the fact that their coveted vaccines are ineffective against virus variants. What he said is disturbing. Listen to this.

I think YouTube's problem is the word the fact because it can be Uh argued that the original vaccines are actually quite effective against the original strain of Covid the Wuhan variant when Uh. And and of course, there's always the argument that can be made that while the original studies were rigged, but originally we found that the MRNA vaccines were in excess of 90 effective, which was insanely good. Now that was for the original Wuhan strain, future boosters are believed to be less effective. potentially.

at least that's what the Wall Street Journal reported because of this weird biological circumstance known as imprinting where your body is more likely to create more antibodies against the original exposure to the Uh to the virus and not subsequent variants. And so I think YouTube's problem here is the fact that without providing additional data, the video clip says the fact that and so that's probably the big issue here. But what's happening is if individual individuals who are covering this content do not provide enough educational, documentary, or scientific or artistic data around uh, this this video, then uh, the the individual uh, Channel or content creator could receive a Content strike now. uh, and if it is approved then then essentially no action should be taken now.

I responded to this because other creators whom I know have had content strikes put against their Channel essentially deleting the video and the individuals have received a Content strike for covering the project Veritas video and uh, what's happened is uh, those individuals if they get three strikes in a row could end up getting banned from the platform. Uh, and that makes obviously people a lot uh, quite nervous. Uh, we don't necessarily want. well, you know, we don't want people getting banned from the platform.

Uh, we want, uh, we want to be able to share perspective now. Uh, so other people on YouTube that I know have gotten strikes for covering this information including project Veritas received a strike for this. I actually replied to this and I said I made a video on this which did not contain the time stamped part YouTube was removing videos for. however, YouTube still decided to remove advertising revenue from my video essentially monetary censorship.

uh and then I provided the screenshot for that. This was my video when I covered it. the project: Veritas Pfizer vaccine Scandal The Media Massacre And you can see here it has limited uh, advertising or monetization. So this is something that uh, you know I I wanted to just bring some light to.

uh I I you know I I'm not here to defend uh, ever censorship. In fact I I think it's it's a very appropriate for uh, this information to be shared and that's why I'm talking about it I think it's a very uh, great that on Twitter you can freely share this information and then doctors and and other experts and scientists can share their opinion. uh YouTube Though and again, this is not a defense of YouTube It appears they've They've got some kind of policy that they've enacted and we don't know why or or who motivated that policy or what connection there is to the CDC after the Twitter files. This is probably a CDC directed policy I I Don't know that YouTube itself is trying to shut this down I think YouTube is probably just listening to the government contacts that they have saying you need to shut this down Uh, that scares me more or on one hand, obviously you know it's like hey, well well YouTube should just not listen to those rules but then also on the other hand, YouTube might be getting their arm.

Twisted Remember Google which owns YouTube is under now a Department of Justice investigation over them potentially being in the advertising Monopoly when when the reality is they they control substantially less of the advertising uh and media spend world than uh then is actually true. You know YouTube or or is alleged YouTube controls maybe uh or I should say Google uh and YouTube control maybe 20 to maybe up to 25 of advertising spend. the rest is spread amongst other companies and and corporations or advertisers. Uh, whether that's trade desk or Disney or Hulu connect to TV uh, TV spent whatever.

So again, in no way should this be misinterpreted as suggesting there's a defense for for YouTube here. But what I am suggesting is it's probably the government that has somehow put YouTube into between a rock and a hard place. And that is actually the more scary part to me is that it's really the government coming down in my opinion. I Obviously don't know this with fact, but just based on putting together the pieces of puzzle here and what we've learned from the Twitter files, it's probably the government telling YouTube something to the effect of hey uh, you know we want this uh, content removed from your platform.

You know? Uh, we do have that Doj investigation going on and obviously you know we'd want to be able to put in a good word for you, right? That's scary. That should not be happening And I think that's the that in one part is probably phase one of what's very scary with what's going on with the Project Veritas video. But the second thing is, you've got uh, massive media organizations that are not covering this story at all. Uh, I Tweeted that uh, and there are more than uh than these, but it's also quite scary.

I tweeted the following: The biggest fraud of the Pfizer and Project Veritas expose was the refusal by mainstream media to cover the project Veritas story The New York Times The Wall Street Journal The Telegraph The Washington Post The Financial Times Bloomberg The list goes on Fox News was essentially the only one who covered it uh, mostly via Tucker Carlson Uh, but but then you know they've kind of purposefully segment some of those things. which is also weird how they purposely segment some things just to Tucker Carlson And because they they suggest that he's more of a an opinion anchor rather than a news anchor. That's at least what Fox suggests. So I do think it's interesting that even Fox themselves kind of segments uh, the Hot Potato if you will.

So those are the two scary things for me: government's involvement and censorship. uh. and then the second is the lack of willingness of mainstream media to cover this sort of information and content for me. I Find that scary and not very good for really the the future of uh, uh, free speech and discussion in America And so that's quite scary Now folks.

we have to cover the ECI which we're going to do in about 20 seconds. And how do I meant Cost index? By the way, when I take a brief pause, it's because I'm writing timestamps. Uh which even if you watch uh, the podcasts and the descriptions of the podcast, you can see the time stamps or at the bottom of the YouTube video. After I post it, you can see these.

which is kind of cool. All right here we go. The Employment Cost Index report is coming out in about 10 seconds. We are looking for a survey of 1.1 This is probably going to move the stock market Today we're looking at 1.1 or less.

1.1 or less. Anything above would probably be bad news. We need to see Employment Cost one percent. Let's go.

Good News Good News Good News Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Oh, that's great. Uh, that is below expectations. Again, the prior report was 1.2 percent. Now we're at one point.

uh, last, Um, or the survey for this report was 1.1 percent. We just got one percent. Thank you. Oh, this is actually really great.

We want to see a softening in employment cost. This is probably the most important Uh report going into the Federal Reserve meeting. Uh, this is very, very good news we are seeing Now the NASDAQ going from negative to Flat. Uh, you've got uh, only a slight boost on certain stocks as it's not the most widely reported piece.

But I wouldn't be surprised that as the day goes on, this actually ends up softening uh, the Federal Reserve stance and this could end up boosting stocks today. So I'm very optimistic about the Employment Index report coming in at just one percent. This is great news. Uh and uh.

and it's something that even Nick T reported is something that the Federal Reserve is going to be paying attention to. And that leads us to obviously needing to have an inflation discussion. Which let's go through an inflation discussion and see what some of the risks are for inflation and the market. Uh first, I will just highlight the importance of ECI by showing you Nick t on Twitter Saying Fed officials have said they pay close attention to the Employment Cost Index a comprehensive measure of wage growth.

Q4 Figures just out aren't likely to change the outcome of the Fomc's meeting, which means we're still going to be getting the 25 basis point hike, but it could be important in shaping the Outlook. Well folks, Nick T often deemed to be the Federal Reserve's mouthpiece is basically telling us hey, Jerome Powell might be nice to us at the Federal Reserve meeting tomorrow, which is quite bullish, but it does stand in the face of some not so bullish information and what I'd like to do is in the most unbiased way possible. Try to go through some things that are good news. some things that are bad news and just realistic information regarding inflation I'll also provide you insight into what's going on with what layoffs tell us.

in terms of where in the recession cycle we could be a lot to cover. Let's get started. The first thing that we have to remember is we have seen a deceleration and a reduction of inflation risks. However, there are a lot of companies that are reporting dangers to us.

For example, Procter and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson both reported that inflationary pressures are still elevated, and if anything, they are worse on a month over month and week-to-week basis at the beginning of 2023. But they do give us hope. They give us hope that by the second half of the year we could actually see those inflationary pressures subside. Now that's a really big deal because it's also similar to what now.

Brand new reports out are telling us from Whirlpool Whirlpool expects to see raw material costs provide relief in 2023, and they're already starting to see material cost reductions. So while we're getting this sort of initial good, like bad news that, oh no, costs are still running high now. More and more companies are reiterating inflationary costs seem to be coming down. In fact.

Nick T The Fed's mouthpiece just posted another piece saying Whole Foods asks suppliers to lower prices as costs ebb. The grocery store stain their chain says it wants price tags to reflect easing inflation. in other words, whole paycheck. In other words, Whole Foods is suggesting hey, it's time to start reducing prices, which would actually be disinflationary or potentially deflationary.

One of the biggest complaints that I get every time: I Talk about inflation potentially easing as individuals tell me: Kevin that's great That whirlpool and Procter and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson are starting to see some of their costs come down. But when are they actually going to reduce prices for us? Because when we go to the grocery stores, when we go to Target and we go to Walmart we spend money. We're still spending a lot more money than we used to and it's a pisser. And it's true.

You're totally right to be pissed. But the good news is, finally, the companies are starting to wake up and realize crap. we're going to have to reduce prices and pass these benefits on to customers to actually help. Boost Retail Sales Again, retail sales would also include discretionary sales.

That's usually where your margins are as well, right? Your margins for Walmart or Best Buy are going to be on some of those discretionary things. It's not the the one product you're going in there for because you need it. You're going in there because you need, uh, you know, a USB cable Best Buy doesn't care about that to try to get you in the store. So you go buy a TV a new computer, an Apple a computer so they can get their commission or you go buy a washing machine and then you use their higher margin Geek Squad or or or their their services their install services to go install that for you right and and then sell you warranty plans and insurance plans and those are extremely high margin.

Those are like 90 plus percent profit right so or sell you gift cards which most people don't redeem their full gift cards so companies want you to come into the store. But the problem is people have been so squeezed and retail sales plummeted last month in December especially when you adjust tested for inflation. We had a horrible retail sales report with downward revisions for the prior month. Uh, companies are starting to realize we need to drop prices otherwise people are going to stop spending.

Now this is a good news. This is very good news. I think I mean listen to Whole Foods is asking suppliers to help the retailer bring prices down on packaged groceries. As inflation moderates, they want to bring down retail prices in its store aisles so as their own costs start to decline as Food suppliers have raised wholesale prices citing higher Transportation labor and production costs Supermarket Operators say they have passed those increases along to Consumers This was previously as prices have increased after more than a year of price increases Shoppers have been cutting back on purchases which is what I've just described buying cheaper versions of groceries and seeking out deals across Supermarket aisles.

Some people: I actually used to do this when I had no money I would look at the circulars to see where grapes were on sale like who had the best sale on grapes and I have a certain area where there's trade Trader Joe's would sell grapes for say 2.99 Vons would sell grapes for 3.99 a pound and I'd hop on over and go to Ralph's and get them. when they had the 99 cent per pound special and they had like a lot of grapes, you know, so you know I I Some people argue, hey, was that really worth your time Look back then I was working for seven dollars an hour. The answer is yes, it was worth my time. But the point is, that's what people do when they don't have a lot of money.

It's very normal. That's what I did as well when I didn't have a lot of money. we know our customers are weighing the impacts of inflationary pressures the company has worked over the past year to absorb. Rising Food costs, offer new promotions, work with suppliers Whole Foods Rate of price increases have has been lower than the industry average.

Yeah, probably because you started a lot higher. The spokeswoman said, adding that the chain has lowered prices on some items including cereal, bread, and sparkling water and the company is in committed to ensuring that prices reflect easing inflation. Now this is great. Overall, inflation is starting to cool.

A prices of fresh fruits uh Fish Seafood fell in December from November levels. Obviously, we still have issues with things like eggs. Doesn't help that apparently an egg manufacturing facility uh, burned down in America that that hurts. So certain things are clearly still hot spots.

But look, yeah, we are still seeing some uh, strong indicators that are getting stronger and stronger. Fortunately, that inflationary costs are expected to plummet and that's good. That's very good, especially if those benefits get get passed on to Consumers. Now, while inflation is a decelerating, there are red flags.

One of the biggest red flags is what some folks are calling the potential for a second wave or a second chapter of inflation. This is what Michael Burry's been warning about. Michael Barry's taking a little step further He suggests. Look, the Fed's going to ease, the fed's going to pause, Then they're going to reduce rates, They're going to cause another wave of inflation, and boom, we'll be right back to where we started.

Another disaster where the markets have to fall I Personally don't necessarily agree with that assessment, but that's okay. We'll leave my opinion out of it for right now. Another second chapter version of inflation, though, is a concern that in some areas outside of the United States you're actually starting to see inflation. surprise again.

For example, the Spanish Spain's Consumer Price Index report just came in at 5.8 percent versus an expectation of five percent. and this is suggesting that in some Emerging Markets we're starting to see inflation become synchronous throughout the world over time that higher prices in one country lead to higher prices in another country. And the implication of this could be that eventually as we see inflation go through a second chapter in the rest of the world, we could see upside risks to inflation in America. Some of those upside risks to inflation in America might be that Medical Services could jump Medicare payments will increase at their highest rate in 14 years that's already expected.

We see the expectation that maybe rents or owner's equivalent rents could stay higher for longer. That yes, used car prices are going down, but if that decline goes away in February which is a five percent wait for inflation, is it possible that other aspects like rent staying higher longer or medical services staying higher longer or Rising could actually lead inflation to mist to the upside? especially with the fact that in January we get new CPI weights which we won't see until the February a report on inflation which will look at the schedule of releases for when we get the January report of inflation, we get the January report of Inflation on February 14th. Some mark your calendar for that, but the question here is how will those new that's Valentine's Day By the way, how will those new weights affect how and inflation is calculated? Especially since we're moving from a two-year waiting measure to just a one year waiting measure that's likely being done to get rid of the 2020 pandemic distortions that's putting on the best case scenario here, not the tinfoil hat scenario. Tin foil hat scenario of course, being.

oh, of course, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is going to manipulate the data to make inflation look like it's artificially lower than it actually is. That's the more tinfoil Hat Direction But anyway, the the concerns are that we could be facing a second wave of inflation, not just because of Emerging Market Risks: whether it's Spain or other countries or medical care services stay higher longer, Rents stay higher longer, used car prices stop falling which hurts with the the deflation fight or disinflationary fight. But then you've also got the Chinese reopening. Now we've talked about the Chinese reopening ad nauseum on the channel, but I'll just give you the quick.

Bottom line: Uh, the Chinese consumer is only about 32 percent of the Chinese economy compared to 70 percent. that is, the consumer of the United States economy is 70. So the consumer makes up about twice the inflationary pressure in America than it did in China or does in China. And so this idea that the consumer going back to spending and traveling is going to drive substantial oil demand and inflation makes sense.

but I think it makes more sense as a trade than the reality that's going to create inflation. In fact, just consider for example, my rubber band thesis that a lot of companies are willing to provide substantially more goods and services. and they have excess capacity, which could actually absorb a greater increase in demand. And one of the easiest places you could see this is by looking at the chip sector.

you've got companies like Micron Western Digital Uh, the South Korea I can't pronounce this one, but it's like high Nix all of them, including Samsung. They're all lowering their output because they're seeing massive deflation in in the chip sector. specifically in memory. Companies like Intel got out of memory.

Companies uh, like Nvidia have much less exposure to memory, more exposure to Gpus and servers. AMD has a little bit more exposure to PC market. so we might see a hit there when AMD reports. But a point is you, you have a lot of potential excess capacity.

Uh, at a lot of companies throughout the world, we've hired substantially to make sure that when people want to spend, we're able to absorb their spending. So that's something that could put a lid on Chinese inflation. Also considering the fact that Chinese excess savings are only about 500 per person relative to the excess savings that we had in America after the Covid lockdowns ended of about six thousand dollars per person, that's a massive difference of about 12 times per person of a difference. so a substantially less of a of a of an inflationary.

Catalyst I Believe in China But it's something that individuals are still concerned about. And look, Spain's missed. To the upside is a red flag. On top of that, you also have what some folks call The Tinderbox time bomb that we might face the Hedge Find a hedge fund advisor excuse me? uh, who? uh advised the author of the book The Back Black Swan uh Naseem Taleb He suggests uh, that uh that uh.

So in other words, the author who advises hedge funds let's get that clear. Uh, and author of the book of The Black Swan is providing a substantial warning that it's not just a second chapter of inflation that could really hurt Uh, even if it's just sort of temporary misses to the upside. But it's also that ballooning debts across Global markets could end up wreaking havoc on our markets. and He suggests that the greatest Tinderbox time bomb in financial history is all of the debt that countries like the United States have accumulated through the covet pandemic.

And He suggests that if the credit bubble pops because maybe we hit a second wave of inflation and then the credit bubble pops, we could end up seeing a financial crisis substantially worse than the Great Depression of the late 1920s that we are going to see the most catastrophic market failure that anyone has ever in their lifetimes read about. And in his warning, he says Corrections were once natural and healthy in economies, but now a correction of the magnitude of the debt cycle correction that we need he argues could create or become a quote contagious Inferno capable of destroying the system entirely that the world is just too leveraged. Today, that the debt construct is just too big. That's scary.

Those are some scary phrases and scary words. So this is why this sort of second phase or second wave of inflation is leaving a lot of people very nervous. even. Paul Krugman Who believes that disinflation is coming? He's a New York Times Writer: A lot of people don't like him.

A lot of people do like him. He's an economist. He says that look, even though his base case is inflation coming down, there could be a self-denying prophecy that could end up reigniting inflation. Now, this is really weird because usually we hear the word.

self-fulfilling prophecy is usually what we hear, but a self-denying prophecy is basically one where we say look, it is not a problem. Uh, to to worry about inflation because inflation's already trending down, there won't be a second wave of inflation. Michael Burry will be wrong. and look.

too many companies like Whole Foods Procter Gamble Johnson and Johnson a Whirlpool are all suggesting that we should see disinflation by the second half of 2023.. So we're good. Well, Paul Krugman says that if ultimately we deny the potential for inflation, then we could reignite inflation by just starting to spend again and not worry that the Federal Reserve is going to crimp us uh And and to crimp inflation out. And this is why I Think the Federal Reserve is going to be forced to keep sort of that hard face on to make sure that uh, inflation doesn't get out of control and financial conditions do remain at least somewhat tight to prevent inflation from reigniting.

So far, though, the data suggests that a lot of this could just be fear, uncertainty, and doubt, Consider again, retail purchases have fallen for three out of the four last months spending on Services rent haircuts and the bulk of this sort of services style inflation was flat in December. Now what we also see is that really consumers, especially poorer ones are being forced to pull back on overall spending as well. not just Services inflation or Services based uh spending. We also know uh, that uh.

Ultimately, as unemployment starts Rising the number of spending we expect to see should plummet. uh. And that is what we are also seeing as a potential Catalyst for the bottom of the market. Now this is an interesting one.

There's an argument that industrial layoffs. This is a report put together by Rbc's head of Equity Research as reported via barons. Uh, this report by RBC suggests that one of the ways that we can determine where the bottom of the market is is when we look at a spike in industrial layoffs. Now, this is interesting because Dow Chemicals and 3M just reported that they're both starting to trim their workforces Dow Chemicals just reported 2 000 layoffs, and Rbc's Head of Equity Research suggests that industrial layoffs are one of the best indicators we can pay attention to to suggest that a recession is either already here or around the corner.

And generally we know this stocks tend to tend to bottom when the recession begins because stocks tend to pull us out of a recession. In fact, what they've done is they've looked at the last two recessions and they suggested that ignoring covet. They suggesting that suggested that the.com bubble low of the stock market coincided with a peak in industrial job losses. They also suggested that the Great Recession low came right after a peak in industrial job losses, and they see that happening now as well.

So personally trying to put all of this together, you've got hawkish. Folks At the FED, you've got bearish. Folks at the FED you've got lail Brainard Suggesting look, there are lagging effects we have to pay attention to. We've probably got to cut here eventually or at least pause Bloomberg on their front page suggests that the FED points towards a pause in May once hikes have time to sink in, which would basically price in 25 basis points for February that's pretty much guaranteed for tomorrow and another 25 basis point hike potentially in March.

But let's try to put all of this information together because all of this is obviously spawned by yes, an ECI report that has turned indices positive which is fantastic. But what do we want to pay attention to as investors? Well, in my opinion, to string all of this data, we just got on inflation together. My strong opinion is that the best thing we can do is be patient. Be very, very patient because I believe we are going through a Nike Swoosh style recovery uh in the stock market.

I Do not believe we are getting a V-shaped recovery like we got after the covet pandemic. I Think we are going to go through a Nike Swoosh very slow and steady recovery in this market and I believe that we are already off the bottom. However, I believe there are going to be plenty of opportunities in these sort of oscillations here. Oscillation? Whatever.

Uh, these oscillations to basically buy the dip on individual companies that you're trying to increase your exposure to. My favorite kind of companies to increase my exposure to are companies that I believe have long-term Innovative Pricing Power Pricing. Power Uh being defined as something that over the next uh, decade, certainly over the next five years, have the ability to sell Hardware at higher margins, to sell software at higher margins. However, companies that are also limited to being able to uh, uh or or limiting myself to companies that also have the ability to survive during a recessionary environment.

So companies that have high free cash flow, right? low debt relative to the cash they have Uh, and sort of these Innovative plays. Whether they are Asml, a company that has a 90 market share, Stranglehold on the advanced chip manufacturing equipment sector, whether it's uh, potentially, uh, uh, a bet on Taiwan Semiconductors, and even maybe a hedge of Intel against Taiwan Semiconductors Yes, I know Intel which got out of the memory chip business a few years ago and their valuation is plummeted because their their earnings have been terrible. Intel's roadmap for actually competing under the Chips act with massive subsidies to actually buy equipment from Taiwan Semiconductors and manufacture it as their own manufacturing Uh facility or within their own manufacturing facilities in the United States is actually very impressive. Very impressive roadmap, and they probably will be a substantial competitor Taiwan Semiconductors in the future, but these are sort of Chip companies in my opinion.

Substantial pricing Power Specific specifically amongst Taiwan semiconductors. Uh, Nvidia and Asml Uh, phenomenal pricing Power: You could look at a company like Tesla to say relative to being within their own industry, highest amount of pricing power for vehicles and then the potential software throughput. One of the big dangers of only investing in software though is that you end up with companies that are losing money or a free cash flow. negative which I think is a very dangerous investment to make during a recession.

especially during what I think will be very sort of bumpy road out of here so so my belief is. Oh and then of course you have the inner energy sector which would be companies like Enface I think dip opportunities or opportunities to add even though they could be in a downward trajectory which which I've been calling for for over a year that as residential spending declines, these companies will probably see declines. but companies like Solar Edge or End Phase which have very very high margins on their inverter businesses but are also part of a highly subsidized industry uh are part of the green energy Trend uh and have high margin and have pricing power for their products. These are in my opinion, companies that we want to be paying attention to now.

I Obviously am not here to give you personal financial advice for your portfolio even though I am a licensed financial advisor and I run an actively made of Gtf and I sell programs on building your wealth and uh, sort of fundamental analysis, technical analysis, whatever. Uh, my thesis is that through this fear all of this fear, uncertainty and doubt that will probably continue for the first half of 2023. I Think the stock market is poised to slowly Trend up with a lot of sort of like trepidation in the meantime. So I think there'll be plenty of opportunity to sort of add to positions slowly.

I Don't think you have to be very aggressive and I Also, don't think that you want to be all cash right now I Think you? you should have probably already started allocating Uh, but I I Don't think we're in sort of an environment where it makes sense to YOLO margin I Don't think we're anywhere close to YOLO yoloing margin. Uh, as much as I would like to go back to those 20 20 days, I would personally advocate for staying away from yoloing margin. Anyway, those are my thoughts on inflation, the Employment Cost Index report, and again very clear expectation that the Federal Reserve is going 20 or is going for a 25 BPI tomorrow. But the most important thing is going to be that Outlook obviously I will be covering it live.

So I encourage you to be here when I cover the Fomc meeting Live. We'll be going live at 11 Pacific