The Dime 10/28 (Monday)
The END of SPOOKY SZN
The S&P 500 hit ALL TIME HIGHS today. It’s like investors don’t see a recession coming at all. The whole market is being pulled up by majority tech stocks which is interesting especially when technology is getting the most amount of public scrutiny right now. Whatever tho. The Dow only inched 0.5% higher and the Nasdaq pushed up about 1% too. It’s great energy but it’s scary too. I’m guessing its the litness before the storm.
Tiffany got the wild crazy offer from LVMH today. LVMH offered too buy Tiffany ALL-CASH for $120 a share which values them at $14.5 Billion. That’s alot to pay for some diamonds. I guess diamonds really be forever. (I hope you like what I did there lol). News Update: Tiffany has turned down the offer.
POPEYES CHICKEN SANDWICH BACK
Popeyes Chicken Sandwich is back this Sunday. As excited as I am about the return of my beloved sandwich what I’m more interested in is the stock. The Company that owns Popeyes chicken is Restaurant Brands international (QSR is the ticker symbol) and I’m thinking that profits will make a killing. Popeyes had one big problem before though… Supply. Supply for the breaded chicken sandwiches was low before which put Popeyes in a crunch. It appears that they may have solved the problem. I’m going to do some research though to see if I can make a bigger flip off of this activity. I’ll likely publish it here but it’ll always first go to my #Blacklist members. Either way… Keep a close eye on em and remember who you’re making rich when you buy them.
Blackstone is increasing it’s bet on Warehouses and I love it. If you’ve been a reader of The Dime you know we’ve been covering how eCommerce is making warehouse properties more profitable. I’ve listed out some plays in my playbook to get into the warehouse game but I ain’t ready to share it until I’m super sure. But Blackstone def is… Warehouse rent increases have jumped 37% this year and as the eCommerce space becomes more crowded I think there’s room for more growth there. I’m taking notes.
The Federal Reserve is frustrated as hell. Why? Because inflation won’t budge. As they keep pumping more money into the economic system inflation itself won’t increase by the rate they’ve expected. Before the financial crisis inflation was expected to increase 3% per year. But now people are banking on 2.3% (down from 2.4%) per year. This is still above the Federal Reserves target (2% per year) but they want people to expect more. Why? Well if people expect higher inflation, then they are more likely to negotiate for higher raises… which would lead to higher wages in the long run. I could explain what the FED’s jobs are but that would be hella long. If you want that detail text me… The text link is in my bio.
The Super Ritzy private club Soho House just raised $100 Million to double the amount of venues they have worldwide. This is CRAZY. They have now become a $2 Billion company. I never thought that an expensive membership club group would be able to raise this much money and run a business that attracts such lit investors.
At least 7 coal companies have filed for bankruptcy since last October. The industry is getting BODIED right now. It’s crazy because Trump ran on “saving the coal industry” and they doing worse than they did under Obama. Be careful of the master you choose because they could end up being your maker. The largest issue facing coal companies is that natural gas is selling at a much cheaper rate, its cleaner, and it costs so much to get coal out of the ground it almost makes no sense to be in business. Obama wasn’t their problem… The free market was their problem.
OVER $2600 FOR SOME SHOES?
In China, sneakers are going for such expensive prices that it’s actually looking like a Sneaker Bubble. I never in my life thought I would see a “Sneaker Bubble” People in China getting money because a pair of Travis Scott Jordan’s just moved for over $2600. All I gotta say is y’all wildin. Me and my homies used to collect sneakers and it never got that crazy. Word of advice though… If you sell sneakers… Try to get into the Chinese market and beat them in the head bro.
Obesity is becoming a problem in China. More than a quarter of Chinese adults are either overweight or obese. When you count children, the number of overweight or obese is about 1 in 5. In 1995 that number was 1 in 20. If you’re a trainer…. CHINA IS YOUR NEW MARKET. GET BUSY HOMIES.
GO TO JAPAN AND GET A FREE CRIB
The town of Okutama, Japan is giving away FREE houses. There’s a catch though (there’s always a catch lmao)…. You have to live in the house for 15 years. Japan has been dealing with population decline for a while. People aren’t having sex (or children) at a pace to increase the population and also the economy hasn’t been doing well enough for people to stay (or come back home after going overseas). This is a big deal, but also a big opportunity for those who want to give living somewhere else a try.
The Dime 10/30 (Wednesday)
Markets is wild right now. The S&P 500 touched all-time highs again growing up 0.3%, the Nasdaq matched their energy and moved up the same amount too. Dow Jones moved up 0.4%. But the real drama is on its way. Keep reading…..
The Federal Reserve cut the fed funds rate (the economy’s key interest rate) down to the range of 1.5% to 1.75% Down from 2.0% to 1.75%. This may sound small but what it actually adds up. This means ALOT for the economy. It means banks CAN lend at lower interest rates. Most people take this opportunity to refinance their mortgages, get new credit cards at lower interest rates and transfer their balances, or just get their small business loans at lower interest rates. Just because banks CAN doesn’t mean they will though… Sometimes banks keep their rates the same and pocket the difference. I’m watching bank stocks real closely (like I always do).
The NCAA finally lettin my young homies get paid. The NCAA has declared that they will start making steps toward allowing collegiate players to make money off of their names and likenesses. This is a big win for America as a whole. College players don’t have to sign up for slavery just to get into the league anymore. The wealth is spreading and I love it. Jay-Z is celebrating right now because RocNation Sports is about to be all over that. Shoutout to Rich Paul for moving the needle. If you’re an agent or someone who is thinking about getting into that industry you better start making relationships with these D-1 (bound) high school athletes.
RIP TO THE BIG HOMIE
RIP to the big homie John Witherspoon. A true legend in the game. You were a leader, someone who gave us confidence, someone who made us laugh, and more importantly someone who taught us what true manhood is. You will always be remembered King. Rest easy. Make my Dad laugh while you’re up there he loves him some jokes.
Ironically, Europe is having them some America problems. Companies are hiring, but the workers aren’t ready. Specifically in Italy, 1 out of 3 young people are unemployed. The problem is that many of them aren’t going into vocational school. There’s a bunch of factory jobs available and young Italians aren’t filling them. It’s because they went to college instead and don’t have the necessary skills to fill the factory jobs. Unemployment right now is 9.5% in Italy and because they’re in the Eurozone economy it affects the rest of the countries in the zone. A shortage of filled jobs actually stunts production and currently this effect has cut production by 17% in the Eurozone. This problem sounds eerily familiar (more college graduates in liberal arts than in math/science/business in the US.)
MTA’S FARE WAR
So the MTA has been trying to fight fare evasion for the longest. I personally think the MTA should be free and they should just raise taxes on us (but whatever tho), but instead the MTA just wants to let loose and have cops point guns at people and charge fines. The ads have actually been really trash (if you live in NY you’ve seen em). They say things like “were stepping up fare evasion enforcement” and “we’d rather your $2.75 fare than your $100 fine” it’s super threatening. Well the MTA finally gets it after doing some research and they plan on changing the style of the language. Instead of the current ads they basically are going to champion those who paid the fare and say that those who didn’t pay are “cheating the system” I doubt it’ll work cause tbh those who paid, didn’t want to pay, and those who didn’t pay don’t give a f*ck. Just fund the system instead of letting real estate developers make money off buildings and pay no taxes for 20 years.
Since were on the subject of NY real estate… There’s a whole bond market in Israel for NY apartment real estate. Many landlords been moving bonds there for years. They’ve been doing well since landlords have been able to fill apartments at a decent rate so the bond hustle has been good. Let me tell you the hustle real quick. Basically people buy a building, rent the units, take the leases from the rentals, package them into a bond, and sell that bond in Israel. That’s been great until this year when the New York rent control laws changed and effectively limited the growth of rental prices on a large amount on NY rentals. The law affects a large majority of rent stabilized apartments (tbh I think all of them). Since then the bond prices have been taking a slight dip. To add to that many apartments (specifically in the new tax abatement buildings) have been unsold/not rented. In June alone the bond prices of the Pinnacle Group (a prominent rent stabilized NY real estate group) fell 13%. It’s gettin crazy in NY so if you’re thinking about getting into NY real estate I’d tread lightly. Make sure the units you renting aren’t rent stabilized. See a real estate lawyer before making moves (you should be doing this anyway). Any experts in this space please hit my DM’s tho because I’m only on the financing side of this game not in the actual foot on the ground side. Make it make sense for me cause this money not looking good.
Facebook stock jumped today as revenue grew 29%. Revenue was $17.65 billion in the 3rd quarter alone. They’re still in the middle of the storm with their ads and with public scrutiny. Through all of that the stock is up 44% this year (Thank God because y’all saw that I bet the house on FB when I posted it in IG stories a while back lol). Am I going to hold on to it? Hell yeah. Election cycle is only going to heat up in 2020 and people gonna be running more ads on there trying to convince me to vote for them or commit to a cause. The game is the game. If you’re gonna use me as a pawn, I’m gonna make sure I cash out on you.
SLOWER ECONOMIC GROWTH
The economy grew at a slower pace in the 3rd quarter. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) the total of everything that is bought, sold, invested (from everyone & the government) plus the amount that is exported subtracted by the amount that is imported into our country… is the number we use to measure economic growth. In the 3rd quarter growth was only 1.9% because we had a fall in business investment and government spending. For my math heads the formula is C (consumption) + I (investment) + G (Government spending and investment) + (X -I)(X = Exports & I = Imports) = GDP. We get the change in percentage by comparing it to the last period we’re looking at. If you didn’t know that… You learned something new today. Either way that spells not so good news, but the federal reserve lowered interest rates today so let’s see if that changes anything moving forward. If this was a little crazy for you to take in… DM me I’ll try to make it make a little more sense.
AT&T (who owns HBO) is set to release HBO max for $14.99 a month which will just add right up on top of your bill. This is their answer to Netflix. I ain’t mad at it, I just find it funny how all these streaming services making it a war thing but if you sign up for all of them (netflix, disney, hbo, hulu, amazon prime stream etc) the amount just adds up to like $90 which is basically the price of a wifi combo cable bill. Y’ALL AIN’T SLICK I SEE THROUGH THE BULLSH*T. HBO Max will basically be HBO I think? Who knows whatever it is this streaming war getting kinda annoying.
The Dime (10/31) (Thursday)
Here we are. The last day of SP👀KY SZN. How did we do? Well it ended in a spooky ass way. The Dow slid half a percent (0.52%), the Nasdaq slid 0.14% and the S&P after a rockstar week closed out at 0.3%. For perspective though.... Let’s say you have index funds that follows the major indexes step by step and grows at the same exact rate as their movement in the markets. If you had the Dow, you’d be up a total of 3.23% this month. If you had the S&P 500 you’d be up 4.36%. If you had the Nasdaq you’d be up 5.34%. That’s actually not a bad month y’all. Through all the spooky shit I’m surprised things turned out that well. Lesson of the day? Ignore the noise and be confident in your picks. More importantly, always make sure your downside risk is limited
CHICKEN STOCKS (NO PUN)
Although not much news covered it... yesterday was chicken day. Chicken stocks were booming. Why you ask? Well since Trump hashed out that preliminary trade deal with China US chicken producers got the green light to move chicken in China. Since China is going through African Swine Fever (regular readers of The Dime💰 and #Blacklist members know the deal with this) their citizens are dying for alternative sources of meat products. It’s looking like chicken prices will increase in 2020 due to demand. Sanderson’s chicken stock had a 16% boost yesterday due to trade opening up in China. It’s👏🏾 about 👏🏾 to be 👏🏾 LIT.
China is making moves. Today they’re about to launch 5G for the first time. For those unfamiliar with 5G it’s a technology anchored to phones which will speed up cell phone service. It’s expected to be 100 times faster than the 4G network (currently most of our phones run on 4G or LTE). 5G technology is expected to boost the ability for driverless cars, robot operated factories, and internet connected pacemakers. By moving into 5G first China expects to be leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world in tech. Get. Ready.
Twitter is smart as hell. The watch Facebook get pressed by Congress on an issue and does exactly what congress wants them to do. Yesterday the Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter & Square) announced that Twitter would not be allowing ANY political ads on their platform. Literally ZERO. The only ads they’ll allow is ads that tell people when and where to vote. Big move and a smart one to get ahead of Zuckerberg who said he would still allow Facebook to run ads by politicians. Looking forward to see who wins the battle here.
Impeachment is becoming a real thing. The House of Representatives just passed a resolution to inquire about Trump’s relationships and conversations with Ukraine. Trump really going down for talking too crazy on the phone. He must’ve never read about Nixon. Those who fail to read history are doomed to repeat it.
Manhattan condo real estate is not looking good at all right now y’all. This year so far new developments sold slightly above 1500 units of condos which is way down from its high in 2015-2016 (about 2000-2500 units). Prices are high and the market knows it and some brokers are saying that it’ll be like that for the foreseeable future.
NEW YORK LANDLORDS ARE PRESSED
Remember yesterday’s story about the real estate bonds doing badly in the Israeli market due to New York tenant law changes? Well there’s more where that came from. Some big time landlord equity groups have started missing their loan payments in their upper manhattan rental properties. They’re currently behind more than $200 Million. The plot thickens though. The loans themselves got packed into bonds and financed more than 600 rental apartments in Upper Manhattan. Shit is getting SPOOKY right now in NY real estate. Many of these properties were bought in the last few years with the hopes of renovating them and moving them out of rent stabilization into unregulated apartments but Governor Cuomo said SYKEEEEEE back in June when he passed a whole slew of new protections for rent stabilized apartments. It’s looking like real estate firms won’t want to buy buildings for a while since this law changed so its possible that the prices of these buildings will fall (especially the new ones). I’m going to have to link with my real estate homies soon to get the scoop. If I get new info I’ll def share it with y’all. With all these loan delinquencies I may have to do a career switch and become a bankruptcy attorney.
RIP BARNEY’S
After filing for Bankruptcy protection earlier this year, Barneys is getting sold to Authentic Brands. As a first move, they plan on closing a bunch of retail stores (which will lead to about 2000 layoffs). It’s actually looking like they’re going to close almost all of Barneys retail stores period. We will have to see how things play out. Barneys on Madison ave is closing, Barneys in LA is closing, they’re even closing this distribution center. The plan is to just license the Barneys name which to me looks like Authentic Brands is going to make a full on eCommerce move. This eCommerce thing is really the future y’all. DO NOT SLEEP. For those who don’t know who Authentic Brands is…. They own Nautical, Nine West, Juicy Couture, Tretorn, Elvis Presley Enterprises (so weird), Muhammad Ali Enterprises (even weirder) and a ton of other brands.
About a month ago, Andrew Wilkinson the CEO of a company who buys internet businesses wrote an article about Howard Stern and how he’s getting ripped off by Sirius XM. Essentially his thesis is that Howard Stern signed a 5 year $90 Million deal with Sirius but that if he had started a podcast and charged $5 - $10 a month combined with ad revenue he could make 10 times that. Yes. Over $900 Million dollars. All off of switching out of Sirius XM radio and building his own subscription model with under 1 million monthly listeners. He also says Joe Rogan could be the first podcast billionaire and modeled out how. It’s super interesting. If you want to read it hit the link in my bio and sign up to get the The Dime weekly. I’ll be blasting out all of the links along with all of The Dime’s from this week. If you can’t wait… just google it lol.
Digit has launched a feature to help people pay their student loans. It ain’t really that special though. Essentially it’s already what digit does (save your money without you knowing it) but it will focus your savings toward paying down your student loans. It’s not a marvel thing but I felt like the streets should know it since you know… mad of us got student loans and wanna pay it down while still being able to brunch every week.
The Dime (11/1) (Friday)
What’s good y’all. SPOOKY SZN is over. Markets took off on the first day of November. The Dow and the Nasdaq closed over 1%, the S&P closed at nearly 1% (0.91%). Markets really rallied around a really good jobs report and Trump came out with a bunch of tweets and “good news” around the China trade deal. He delivered in October, let’s hope he delivers again. I can’t front, there are a few things that make the stock market look good right now. The Federal Reserve is printing more money (usually leads to higher stock prices), more jobs are open (which usually leads to more pay/more consumer spending), but on the downside there’s less business spending on investment, high government and consumer debt and more importantly most of our trade partners aren’t looking good. I think November and December are going to be big months that will ultimately decide our fate.
THE NEW YORK TIMES IS STRAIGHT UP WILDIN’
The New York Times has been annoying me all week. First they opened up the week by giving the most legendary Steakhouse in America (Peter Luger’s) zero stars. Yes, 0. Now The New York Times makes hella mistakes but usually this is one where they don’t mess up. I’m not saying they’re right here, I’m just saying that the fact that they had the balls to follow through with this shows a shift in both consumer tastes as well as total disregard for older institutions.
The New York Times also f*cked up here….. A legendary screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wrote an Open Letter (that was published in The New York Times) flaming Mark Zuckerberg to pieces yesterday. It was like the white version of “Boy if you don’t get!” and I can’t front I was shocked it got published. The New York Times is super tired of Mark Zuckerberg and it shows because not only did the let Aaron Sorkin go ham on Zuck but they allowed Aaron Sorkin to publish with a bunch of misstatements and outright wrong statistics. It was so bad that today’s correction section under the article was the longest I’ve seen in a while. It’s almost as if he flamed Zuck so hard that the Editor for got to edit the damn article. Either way Mark Zuckerberg came back with the greatest clapback I’ve seen in a minute. It’s so special that I have to save it for the Sunday Dime Recap (If you want to receive it by text hit the link in my bio).
I LOVE ELIZABETH WARREN BUT SHE WORRIES ME
Today spicy as hell lmfao. I can’t handle it. Elizabeth Warren decided to finally let us see and understand her #MedicareForAll plan (after months of dodging) and I know I’ve been saying she’s the most qualified…. but this plan makes her look like a rookie. Like super rookie. Either she sees something I don’t see or she’s straight up buggin. After you do the math, the costs of her Medicare For All plan will cost the country $52 Trillion over 10 years. She really thinks she’s going to take $52 Trillion from companies and rich people. Dawg. She must’ve forgotten that rich people will either cut the value of their assets to avoid the taxes or renounce their citizenship altogether. There’s no loyalty in the game of money. Elizabeth Warren has written the most legendary books on Commercial and Bankruptcy law, but I don’t think she ever played Monopoly with a group of kids from Canarsie, Brooklyn. Things can get real crazy, real quick. I may still vote for her though because she says she’s wiping a majority of the student loans and I’m not trying to see my homies struggle anymore.
That last dime was so important I had to rant some more about it. So here’s some details on the plan (if you don’t end up reading it on Sunday’s recap). She plans on putting everyone on Medicare. We all pull up to the doctor and don’t even take out our wallets. Whether you’re pulling up for a check up, have cancer, have foot fungus, whatever bro don’t even come to the doctor with a wallet, just bring your ID. She plans on having employers contribute $8.8 Trillion, $800 billion from banks, another $1.25 Trillion from large companies, $3 Trillion from the 1% rich folks, another $2.3 Trillion from folks playing the tax game, taxing overseas profits another $1.65 Trillion. Elizabeth Warren looking at rich people like they soft. As if they didn’t get rich bending laws in the first place. I know you wrote the books on the game but come on. She acting like rich people don’t have some of the most elite lawyers period. I feel like somewhere in her game plan is closing the carried interest loophole (y’all should google that). If it is… then all of this makes sense.
CHINA BANK RUNS
There’s been some real trouble brewing in China…. For the last week there’s been a run on China’s banks and today depositors were at it again. It’s really looking like some great depression activity dawg. Today the Henan Yichuan Rural Commercial bank got PRESSED by depositors for their money. They’ve spent some time using different tactics (like releasing videos showing money, having managers negotiate with depositors to hold their money for a few months) to prove that they are solvent, but guess what…. consumers are like “you gotta be smarter than that.” People are pulling up in droves to ask for their money and it’s only a matter of time until the bank says “yeah we don’t have anymore.” Clearly SPOOKY SZN just started in China.
Apple launched Apple TV+ today and joined the streaming wars with Netflix, HBO, Disney, Hulu, and others. If you have a new iPhone or other Apple device, there’s likelihood that you’ll get the first year free. After that you pay $4.99. Oprah’s on it. If you love her and have an iPhone to listen to the bars….. you should.
The Hong Kong protests have led to a recession. People are scared of the beef. Hotels are empty, tourists ain’t linking. Literally the economy is shirking at 2.9% on a year to year basis. Businesses are struggling, people are hopping on Hong Kong social media to beg consumers to buy their products. Since Hong Kong is a big tourist city the lack of travel to that city has been killing them. I’m praying things will get better soon.
Beto O’Rouke has dropped out of the Presidential Race. This is the first major name to do so. That’s 2 L’s in a row for that man (he ran against Ted Cruz for Senate and lost). He doesn’t plan on running for any other seats in 2020. I don’t blame him. Dude needs a break. He’s been running on 1000 for the last 3 years. Regrouping is necessary, but one thing I can say though, I think he can actually win that Senate seat in Texas. Many people from up north have been moving to Texas due to jobs and mass immigration has been changing the electoral makeup of Texas. I wish him well.
The Jobs report was pretty lit. We added 128,000 jobs even though the unemployment rate went up to 3.6%. But listen, it didn’t go up because the economy is dead in the water, it went up because more people who weren’t looking for jobs before are starting to look for some now. This is a good sign. So most of the job openings are in leisure/hospitality as well as healthcare. If you’re looking at which moves to make/the best way to present yourself in the eyes of healthcare companies, there’s a Raising Benjamin #MoneyMail for that. I had my homie (who’s pretty high up in the healthcare sector) work with me on the tips and tricks you need to get some good jobs in healthcare.
