Trump’Un The Worm, Facebook’s been MySpace’d, US Dollar rules and more

Here’s the transcript from the latest Trading With Cody Livestream Q&A. You can watch a replay of the Livestream on Facebook here or on YouTube here or you can listen to the podcast version of it on iTunes here or on Soundcloud here.

Welcome everybody to another episode of Cody Underground.

There’s a lot of stuff in the news, as always. Not all of it’s relevant. Not all of it really matters. Certainly not all of it matters to the stock market and to your portfolio. North Korea, being probably the single most biggest factor that everybody’s talking about right now with Trump having gone over there. He and his entourage, including Dennis Rodman, the worm. Wait, no. I guess the worm was sort of involved though. Dennis says that the White House called him.

Trump complimented his rebounding skills, but he also talked about North Korea. The reason I bring that up is it just sort of does underscore how seat-of-the-pants the whole thing with North Korea and the United States and trying to do a treaty was and is. Look, there are Trump lovers out there. Many of them used to be, or still are maybe my fans. That would be a sort of contradictory thought, to be a fan of mine and be a fan of Trump or Obama or Bush or Clinton or anyone in the Republican-Democrat regime. But I always do like to caveat my complaints about Trump these days, like I used to caveat my complaints about Obama by saying that I’m not for either party, ever. I know a lot of you watching are Trump lovers, or you consider yourself conservative even though you are Republican, which is a contradiction too.

So I’m going complain about Trump like I would complain about Obama, because I’m trying to be objective here. So you guys on Facebook especially, all you adamant angry Republican defenders, go ahead and get on mad right now, but let’s be objective right now because we’re talking about the finance and the stock market. The point being that the North Korea deal is indeed seat-of-the-pants. They didn’t come to a formal agreement. Trump’s stopped doing some of the South Korean war games.

Whether he’s doing those exercises or not in South Korea, I mean, does that really matter? Is North Korea gonna be more aggressive or less aggressive because he’s doing that? Not necessarily. But the Democrat side of the Republican Democrat Regime is now all like, “Well, he gave up that, but what did he get in return?” He didn’t give anything up. Neither side gave anything up. I’d love to see North Korea de-denuclearized because they’ve got the grandchild of the son of a maniac who was a son of a maniac. The grandchild, three generations of maniacs running that place.

How does that apply to stock market? You know, that stuff was probably already priced in. You saw it for the last year, the stock market deal with Trump and Kim Jong Un calling each other names and threatening to blow each other up and the market rose and crashed. Now, they made friends and they’re gonna go to lunch with Dennis Rodman and attend an NBA All-Star game. My prediction: 2022 reality show called “Trump’Un The Worm”. I need to think of what channel that’d be on. It wouldn’t be on Netflix, but it’ll be a reality show and Trump and Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman, like, running around going to basketball games or something. Maybe on MTV.

That kind of a show could actually bring MTV back. All you Republican Trump lovers who used to watch Fox News, and used to watch me on Fox, you guys can start watching MTV. It’ll be the new propaganda channel for Trump and the Republicans, instead of being propaganda channel lite for Democrats and so called liberals. It’s what MTV is been. And, it’s what most mainstream media probably is, you know, they …

Certainly there’s a point to be made that the media is biased, but it’s not biased against Republicans. It’s not biased against Democrats. It’s biased against anybody who’s not a Republican or a Democrat, anybody who’s a free thinker. It just assumes that everybody is partisan. I don’t eat at McDonald’s and Burger King.

I guess we should also just hit real quick on cryptocurrencies, because they have crashed and they’re continuing to crash. And, the thing that you guys know … That anybody’s been following me long time knows that number one, I’m a big believer in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

They will revolutionize the world over time. But, that has nothing to do with the near term. And, at this point, at this moment, as I outlined in my book “The Great Cryptocurrency Crash” (buy it on Amazon) which was published late December. This was a bubble, and it’s now crashing. And, look, I still own some of my Bitcoins and I recently started buying a cryptocurrency, a smaller one. I’ll still, over the next five or ten years be active in crypto’s, blockchain technologies, and investing in them. If you go to Trading With Cody, or you are a returning Cody subscriber you can ride the coattails. But, in the meantime stay the hell out of ’em.

The vast majority of you don’t know what a cryptocurrency is. You don’t know what blockchain is, and you’re out there risking your hard earned savings. Your capital.

The good news for the near term bulls on cryptocurrencies is, you know, you get some of these emotions and you start seeing the headlines on MarketWatch, or CNBC, or Wall Street Journal, Yahoo and the word they’re using now is “crash”. “Cryptocurrencies are crashing again.”

Well, when it’s in the headlines you might at least in the near term reprieve. But, I still come back to this prediction that more than 90 percent of the current match of cryptocurrencies that you can personally buy are vetted to zero in the next two to five years. Some of them will survive and be huge, the Amazon’s of cryptocurrency. The vast majority of them will not be.

Alright. Let’s start answering some of these questions.

Q: Cody, could you please take a look at the big picture and share your opinion for the U.S. dollar, or the Euro/U.S. dollar if you want to be more specific please. During the next 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, and 50 years?

A. It’s kinda a specific question. I do get that. You are specific. You want me to look at the big picture and do so in tiny little micro shots, I guess. So, let’s try to do that. The U.S. dollar, the biggest story for the U.S. dollar as I’ve talked about in my professional career throughout, is the … long return, because of the petro dollar dynamic. The fact that if you want to buy oil from Saudi Arabia or anywhere in the Middle East, pretty much have to go buy the U.S. dollars first. You have to convert your currency to U.S. dollars and then go buy your oil. That provides a baseline demand for the U.S. dollar around the world. Not to mention the fact that the U.S. economy, and the U.S. dollar, and the U.S. political system as messed up as they are and as much better as they could be are still the best in the world relative to every other country.

And, that’s what’s important. It’s not like it’s a stock. Currencies including cryptocurrencies, at least most of them right now, are not backed by earnings, or assets, or value. They are backed by good faith. They are relative to other things. You have better faith in the U.S. government than you have in the Euro. You have better faith in the U.S. government than you do in Japan’s government. You have better faith in the U.S. economy than you do in China’s economy. So, the U.S. dollar relative to all the other fiat currency options including the Euro, which is what my man here is asking about, is going to be stronger. It will be relatively stronger than the rest of them. Over the next one, three, five years, though, I have no idea.

What I just said isn’t even applicable to that short of a time frame because over one, three, five years you can’t predict anything meaningful. You can have periods where the U.S. dollar does underperform. But, in my lifetime I fully expect that the U.S. dollar will retain more of it’s value than any other fiat currency.

Q: Cody, Can you please address Snap. They have amazing penetration and seem to have made strides on the redesign. Thank you.

Cody: I don’t like Snap’s management. That’s been the biggest problem on why I don’t own them. Why I’m not in it. I think you’re wrong about the penetration. I was just last night talking with my 23 year old nephew, Bryce. And, he was talking about about Snap and its redesign and how Snap Stories are over.

He started the conversation because he saw that I had written last week that “Facebook’s stock, FB would be at $50 per share instead of that almost $200 per share if Facebook was their only asset, if Zuckerberg had never bought Instagram and WhatsApp. Because Instagram is probably worth $100 per share while Facebook is a declining asset. Nobody under the age of 30 joins Facebook. They are all on Instagram. That’s why as a shareholder of Facebook I’m thankful that Mark Zuckerberg bought Instagram. As a citizen of the world though, it’s disgusting that we’ve got yet another monopoly built already that’s entirely in an industry that didn’t even exist 15 years ago. And, it’s not like it was a natural monopoly. The government allowed this guy to roll up his competition. We are all benefiting from that as a shareholder.

My point being that we were talking about that, and the fact that Facebook has been MySpace’d. People predicted that ten years ago and they were wrong, but it is happening right now. Facebook has been MySpace’d. I can’t even go on Facebook anymore, because I can’t bear, can’t risk seeing another tortured animal, which is what some of those people who are not my friends but made friends with me on my Facebook page over the years. Maybe they are my friends. I don’t even know. Maybe some of my friends are posting these incredibly violent, horrible images. It’s not only just animals, but whatever. The point being I don’t wanna see that so I am not … I’m off. I still post on Facebook, but I go to my page but I will not look at Facebook. And, I’ve already complained for months about how those incredible fake accounts on Facebook have spiked.

I’m still getting the barrage of fake friend requests from Russian’s or big boobed girls named Thomas, like, every day. Five or ten of these things.

So, it’s over for Facebook, the platform. But, the stock because Facebook also owns Instagram and Whatsapp and Oculus.

Back to Snap though, my nephew Bryce says to me, “You know what’s amazing, Cody, is that Snapchat at this point is dead for its stories. As far as stories goes, none of my friends post stories on Snapchat anymore.” If he’s sending pictures or communicating one on one maybe you use Snapchat. But, Instagram stories is where people post their stories. Not on Snapchat. And, I think that’s true. And, I think that’s a death knell for the stock.

Snapchat doesn’t own Instagram or anything else. All it’s got is Snap. They got the Spectacles which they’ve tried to redesign. Have you ever heard or seen anyone wearing the latest Snapchat Spectacles? Video recorder on sunglasses? I haven’t. Maybe I should order them. Actually, it would be sort of fun. I do think there’s a future … I’ve talked about this for years, the fact that people holding a cell phone up to watch a triple crown winner cross the finish line when you’re there in person has to add. You’ve got to figure out a way to record these selfies and the stuff that you want brag what you’re at a better way. And, that’s gonna happen. I think the Spectacles might be a step along that way. Google glasses were too. To go back to the question, man, I’m not in Snapchat. There is a chance that Snapchat can turn it around. But, if I had to bet id short Snapchat at 13, or wherever it is right now rather than buying it.

But, I am not shorting it by the way. I’m just not going to invest in Snapchat. I might eventually. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Put that on the white board. Snapchat short — let’s remember I’m going to do some research on that idea.

Q: Cody. Any thoughts about adding to the Pandora short position, or maybe buying some Pandora puts?

Cody: No, not right now. I still think Pandora’s headed much lower. I doubt that they can survive in the world of Apple music. Amazon music. Spotify. That’s the killer. Spotify’s a dominant …

Cody: “Alexa, play Geronimo’s Cadillac by Michael Martin Murphy on Spotify.”

Alexa: “Playing, Geronimo’s Cadillac by Michael Martin Murphy from Cody’s Spotify.”

Cody: See that interaction there? It’s Spotify, and Amazon. I haven’t bought Spotify yet. I’m surprised none of my subscribers have been asking about that one. The valuation’s a little stretch for me.

Love this song though. “Geronimo’s Cadillac.” Michael Martin Murphy, sung this 1972, his first solo album. I just heard this song randomly on Spotify Discover Weekly list that they put together. That their algorithm’s put together based on listener’s styles. So I heard this song. Couldn’t believe that this wasn’t a number one hit. Seems like this would be a huge country western song. I asked Lariat Geronimo, Geronimo’s grandson, if he knew the song. We met up a couple weeks after I heard it for the first time. And, he’s like, “Yeah, I love that song man.”

Cody: “Alexa stop.” You’ll notice I didn’t ask for that on Pandora. And, once again, as I’ve been saying actually for five years now, Alexa is the winning voice platform.

It has hit critical mass. It has reached de facto, standard status. You got to own Amazon if only for Alexa. I love you Alexa.

Watch me pull up the stock market on my projector TV here now using the Amazon Fire TV stick, which is a low margin product. Amazon might not even lose money selling these as cheap as they do. Maybe they just barely make a profit. But, it is pretty great. Now, here’s something else. I own Sony. Trading With Cody subscribers know this. I bought it around $15. It’s around $50 right now.

Sony has PlayStation Vue. PlayStation Vue. I was really excited about this, because I’m able to watch it here at my office. And, by the way, Pandora has an app for this Amazon Fire TV stick but I don’t use it. I do use Spotify on here though.

Anyway, PlayStation Vue allows me to watch all of my channels over the top of the internet. When I first signed up for it I really got excited. You know, $40 bucks a month or something. I could conceivably replace my $200 dollar a month satellite subscription. And, it was great at first. But, the interface is awful, number one. Number two, you can’t get local stations, at least not here in Ruidoso NM.  The point I’m trying to make is Playstation Vue TV is just okay. I’m about to try out YouTube TV, but it’s not available here at all yet. So, that’s unfortunate. But, you know what? All of those services will be delivered over the Amazon Fire stick. Amazon platform. Amazon Alexa.

Alright. Peace, love, and happiness.

Q: I will be traveling so will only catch the notes. I wonder if Cody might say a little more about the QQQ our position he nibbles on a week or so ago – is he adding here or holding steady? What would cause adding more if he’s steady?

Cody: Look, I’m almost always just hedging the portfolio when I do something like buying puts like the QQQ, or the DIA puts, or the SPY puts. The QQQ represents 100 of the largest technology NASDAQ stocks. The SPY, that’s the S&P 500.Thats 500 of the biggest companies in the United States. The DOW, 30 of the biggest “industrialish”. DOW Jones Industrials. It is 30 stocks of giant companies. So, one of the biggest and most important lessons that I learned from a mentor of mine, Noah Blackstein, that if you’re buying the triple q’s, if your investing in an ETF that is a basket of stocks like that, that you’re lazy. That’s the easy way to do it.

But, if you really want to outperform you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and find specific companies. And, that’s what I do. Right? As you dear Trading With Cody subscribers know. We’ve got our Nvidia, or Facebook, or Google, or Apple, or AxoGen, or Twitter. (I’m gonna start promoting that using Twitter is part of our marketing materials. The stock has gone from 14 to 45 since we’ve bought it. Still own it.)

That’s what I want to do. I want to find those kinds of companies. I want to be able to buy them when they’re crushed, and not just ride basket. But, there are times when I’ve had a huge run in my portfolio. The markets are up through the roof. Or, there’s something else that makes me a little bit bearish. Even if it’s not the near term, and it’s just some consciousness. I’ll take a little bit of capital, a tiny bit and put it to risk in some puts. They are a hedge. And, I frankly almost hope that I lose money on those hedges, because that means that the rest of my portfolio’s probably working and going up even more than the little bit of stock I put in the hedges.

So, I can tell from the tone of the email, frankly, that that is a new Trading With Cody subscriber. Long term, long time Trading With Cody subs aren’t … They, first of all they know. I will always update you. I send you a trade alert if I do anything with any of my positions. And, number two, they know that it’s a hedge and it’s not like we’re focused on that. Just a little bit of a hedge guys. Don’t think that we’re going to try to make a bunch of money buying puts.

Q: Cody, Bitcoin (and the other purchased TWC cryptocurrency) are ranked a 5 & 6, what would you rank Ripple & Ethereum and how likely do you think that these two will survive The Great CryptoCurrency Crash?

Cody: This is a smart Trading Cody sub. He knows I’m doing this on public forum today. Doesn’t want me to accidentally reveal the cryptocurrency that we have recently bought at Trading With Cody. Great question, and my short answer is Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and the other one that I’ve been recently buying are the four most likely in my mind to survive and thrive and become … and fulfill a lot of that vision for cryptocurrencies. I still think there will new cryptocurrencies that haven’t even been thought up yet that are being created in a barrage right now that will ultimately dominate. But, there will be more than one. I think those four, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Stellar Lumens are all good options along.

Q. “Cody. Glad to hear that your little one is back home. You are a devoted father indeed. What is the upside that you are looking for in Stellar Lumens. Are we going for a 100-bagger or 1,000-bagger.”

Cody: Yes, I am devoted to my children. They’re pretty awesome. And wife, she’s awesome too. So, anyway, let’s just temper it down a little bit. Look, investing in anything that goes a thousand fold is very hard to do! I think I’ve had a couple investments go up 10,000 percent or more since I’ve been investing for the last twenty-five years. And, tBitcoin had actually gone up 20,000 percent after I bought it at $100 and it went to $20,000. And, Apple which is at $190 … is up 19,000% since I bought it at a dollar per share back in March 2003. I hope I have another few like that in my lifetime.

But let’s be real — most hedge fund managers, mutual fund managers, Wall Streeter’s, the best of the world don’t get two or three 10,000 percenter’s in their lifetime. I’ve got at least two that Training With Cody subscribers that have been riding with me. And we’ve got several 1,000 percenter’s. But, if you’re looking for a 10,000% move, well, man, that’s tough. Look, if you wanna have a basket we will eventually one day have a basket of cryptocurrencies. Five to ten of them. Maybe one or two will end up going up maybe a 100-fold. I hope so. Maybe they’ll go up 10-fold. Maybe they’ll all go to $0. Maybe I’m wrong about cryptocurrencies. Maybe the governments around the world will unite to outlaw them. So, let’s just temper it down. I’m not expecting 10,000% gains very often.

Q: What do you think about Teva Pharmaceutical’s? Teva, t-e-v-a.

Cody: Israeli based generic drug provider. And, number one, I very, very rarely invest in any health care related companies. The whole industry is controlled and funded. Well, the whole industry is funded by your tax dollars or your future generation’s tax dollars, while we’re borrowing trillions. And, controlled by lobbyists and government. And, I don’t like that business. I do not like the pharmaceutical industry. So, I’m probably never going to invest in Teva, Teva. Maybe if they [inaudible 00:26:12] and still found a reasonable upside potential. But, no. Not from me man.