BUSINESS NEWS: Consumer Sentiment Tanking & It's Time for a Plan - Ecomm Coming for more Retail - Your Next Investment Opportunity

Speaker 1 This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

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Speaker 2 Right about now. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now.
It's our weekly business news here on March 28th, 2025.

Speaker 2 joined as always by chris hansen down in miami what's up chris what's up brian how are you bro i'm good i'm good here in greenville south carolina our studios here on the swamp rabbit trail at social house chris is down in miami we're always here to bring you the news we take the bs out of news out of the news chris and you know we're going to be taking the bs today you know like if you listen to watch our show if you're not watching you need to get on youtube go check that out youtube or spotify you can watch see how pretty Chris is.

Speaker 2 You never know what he's going to be wearing. Always fashionable.
I'm trying to keep up with him. But in all seriousness, you know, we lean certain directions.

Speaker 2 I think we try to keep out of the politics and more of the policies of what we believe in. And I think when things are going good, we talk about how it's good.

Speaker 2 And I think when things are not feeling good, I think we've been talking about that. And today's episode, we're going to dive deep into some studies and surveys that go on.

Speaker 2 Some are yearly, some are quarterly, some are monthly, but it's really about consumer sentiment and about how people feel.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, I think the numbers probably won't surprise you. They didn't surprise Chris and I as we were looking at them.

Speaker 2 And we're going to dive deep into that because I think this administration has been guns ablazing in things that they're doing. And many of the policies, I think, we tend to agree with directionally.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, a word of caution has kind of been coming from us with things lately, how we've felt like, at least in our circles, things have felt.

Speaker 2 And the studies have come out on the overall consumer sentiment, how people are feeling, what they're, you know, how for both currently and future thinking, because it's also built into that, like, you know, what's your prognosis?

Speaker 2 Like, how do you feel about the future? And some of these numbers are staggering.

Speaker 2 And I think we're at a real pivotal point where the policymakers and the Central Reserve and a lot of people really need to take a look at this because

Speaker 2 people

Speaker 2 think with their head and they buy with their heart. And literally, people are not buying.
You've got money staying on the shelf if there is some. You've got tightening of the wallet overall.

Speaker 2 You've got interest rates that have been stagnant and real estate market that's stagnant in a lot of markets.

Speaker 2 And I think we're coming to a head with where if we don't get ahead of getting consumers feeling positive about the changes, feeling positive about the economy, feeling positive about the potential of real estate opportunities, we're in for a tough road.

Speaker 2 And the sentiment of the country drives the economic behavior of

Speaker 2 the country. And we're going to dive deep into that today.
But I think it's time that we really point out, hey, I talked the good, the bad, and the other. We take the BS side of stuff.

Speaker 2 We're going to take it out today. And so we're going to dive deep into some of these stats.

Speaker 2 I think some might be surprising, some might not be, and talk about a few other business updates of the day here on the business news of the week.

Speaker 2 Chris, I know, I mean, let's just jump right into it, man.

Speaker 2 We've been kind of talking about this, like,

Speaker 2 I think more our own sentiment, right? The last few episodes, like, eh, I feel like we need some good news. Feels a little gloomy, a little flat, a little stagnant.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 one of these, which is a survey of consumers from the University of Michigan, the preliminary results for March,

Speaker 2 looking at the index of consumer sentiment, how do they feel about the country?

Speaker 2 And it slid another 11 points. We're at 57.9 is the consumer sentiment, which is hovering right around, you know, half feel good, half feel bad.
And that's a 27%

Speaker 2 negative change year over year. In March of 2024,

Speaker 2 we were at 79.4.

Speaker 2 It's a big drop, dude.

Speaker 3 It's a massive drop.

Speaker 2 Not to feel it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, take the who was president out of it. It's just

Speaker 2 whoever's in charge needs to be paying attention.

Speaker 2 We can't just heads down to blazing, you know, getting all these policies, you know, all these campaign promises done without recognizing what is the sentiment of, and this is, this is covering Republicans, Democrats, everyone else.

Speaker 2 Everyone's just kind of eh, meh

Speaker 2 about the overall economy. A lot of money's staying put in the wallet, in the savings account, and it's a lot tighter for everyone else because inflation is still an issue.

Speaker 2 It's not good, man.

Speaker 3 No, I feel like we're in a heavy contraction. And when I look at the numbers, right, down 22% from December 24,

Speaker 3 when I read that, I'm like, that feels right. Or it feels like it's higher than 22%.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I don't know if it was the Christmas spirit that people are living in fantasy land, even though I do know a lot of people remember saying this deer felt weird at Christmas.

Speaker 3 Because even then, things were still tight.

Speaker 3 But I had a conversation with a friend of mine last week. Two different friends, actually.

Speaker 3 One launching a company, one, her company that she was working with is shutting down.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 it's kind of just seems to be that's the rhythm right now: is people are contracting, even entrepreneurs I know are contracting, right? I know we've pulled in on some things we do. It's like

Speaker 3 everyone's kind of huddling up a little bit.

Speaker 3 And obviously, I always say this, I feel like the new administration, like the coach has made the calls on the play, but there's no action on the field yet.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like,

Speaker 3 or maybe there's there's some action on the field, but there's no points on the board.

Speaker 3 And I mean, we all understand

Speaker 3 you can't turn a ship around overnight, but I think the administration could do a better job and maybe some messaging and just informing people of what's going on, right?

Speaker 3 It's great we know these executive orders and whatnot, but

Speaker 3 I mean, I think back, like put someone, I think back at Kaylee McEnany, like doing daily updates, you know, and the, when she was press secretary, like bring back that, you know, exactly people, uh,

Speaker 3 just some more up-to-date stuff. And I would say,

Speaker 3 because there's so much information overload, false information, misleading information, all the above,

Speaker 3 like get out there and tell us what's going on, right? Because

Speaker 3 like you said, I got another buddy just got out of the mortgage business, right? Can't deal with the pressure. I got a family.

Speaker 3 commission only can't do it switch to a w-2 job so and i don't necessarily want to see people doing that either right I want to see people trying to build themselves and work for themselves. But

Speaker 3 same with the job market. Another friend went to college with her.
She told me last week, I ran into her

Speaker 3 trying to put in resumes. No one's calling, getting no callbacks.
Smart girl, well educated. So

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 3 we're in an odd time.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I like data and facts, and right, you know, so we've been talking sentiment, talking things like perceptive.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, you look at this data and, you know, back to the White House, like, I think there's got to be some balance here.

Speaker 2 Like, we can want to do the tariff war and it can have positive long-term effects, but it's got to be balanced out with the realities of today and the sentiment today, the inflation of today.

Speaker 2 And again, I'm not going to sit here as an

Speaker 2 economic specialist to tell you whether that long-term benefit outweighs the short-term pressure that we're feeling. I'm not, I don't know, that's past my pay grade.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I will say, but I will say, you can't ignore how the majority of America is feeling.

Speaker 2 It's just reality.

Speaker 2 And this was the biggest thing. I mean, look at this.

Speaker 2 Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10% decline in their expectations index in March. So, this isn't partisan.
This is everybody. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, especially when the market takes a hit, right? I think of the retirement generation. I don't, it doesn't matter what political class you are.

Speaker 3 If the market goes down and you look at that retirement account as down, you're not going to feel good, right? Especially if you're on,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 what do they call it? Like set payments, right? You're on a

Speaker 3 lot of

Speaker 3 money,

Speaker 3 fixed income right market goes down then you look at the grocery store right and that's still hasn't really eased up much pressure as far as inflation goes there

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 i have an example but i can't remember it now

Speaker 2 it'll come back i'm gonna go through a couple of these other things

Speaker 2 while current economic conditions were little changed expectations for the future deterioration deteriorated across multiple facets of the economy including personal finances labor markets inflation inflation, business conditions, and stock markets.

Speaker 2 Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors. Frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers

Speaker 2 to plan.

Speaker 2 There it is, right there. You know, like that's it.
That's kind of what you were saying. Fixed income, you got this stuff going on.
You want to plan.

Speaker 2 You can't plan when you don't know what the impact of these things are going to do. So there needs to be more discussion about short-term, long-term.
And hey,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 and this ain't cutting it. There'll be a little pain in the short term.

Speaker 2 Define what that means, please.

Speaker 3 What is short-term?

Speaker 3 So an example today, I did see, and I was digging, right? Because we do the show.

Speaker 3 I saw that India basically was kind of lightening up on the tariff war and they had said they would drop a lot of the the

Speaker 3 tax on imported American goods. So it looks like positive news there, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But we haven't seen that on any headlines, right? No. No one's talking about that.
And that's where,

Speaker 3 hey, if you're the administration, be shouting these wins from the rooftop because you know that everyone else is hating on you for the tariffs. And now when you've got everyone in America, right?

Speaker 3 Even like you said, the Republicans with their expectations,

Speaker 3 that should be a signal, like, all right, guys, we need to do a little PR, right?

Speaker 3 Like, you're a marketing guy. We do marketing.
It's like, do some damage control. Let's get this sentiment up.
Let's, let's make people feel good again.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Cause I'm looking for the silver lining.
Like, you know,

Speaker 2 like, I, I'm like going, okay, I, I agree with like fundamentally with the policy,

Speaker 2 but I need to see a little silver lining short-term, long-term plan because it could come off, like this article, you know the summary says as a little bit of uh gyrating

Speaker 2 like i it's kind of pew pew but you know we're shooting bullets and it's like it's great but it's kind of like fire aim ready

Speaker 3 and i feel like we've just been getting

Speaker 3 the trump elon show since the election the inauguration and the Doge stuff. And it's like, that's all great.

Speaker 3 And that is definitely part of, you know, balancing the budget is definitely an important part and cutting waste but even when i go on twitter i'm like all i see is

Speaker 3 elon arguing with people about government policy and

Speaker 3 yeah there's no

Speaker 3 game plan

Speaker 3 yeah like or it's not clear right and even if it's just hey we're we're doing the tariff war and we're we're holding firm and we're going to hold our hand

Speaker 2 i mean you need to bring jobs back to the us we need higher page

Speaker 2 yeah we need all of that

Speaker 2 But what's the balance of the long term and the short term? And a little bit of pain is not a balancing plan.

Speaker 3 Sell me on why I should keep tolerating this pain, right? Convince me. Soften it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or get the damn inflation down and get, you know, the interest rates cut.

Speaker 3 Almost like in the election speeches, right? When you're campaigning, we're bringing jobs. Keep reiterating that.
Where are the jobs going? Where are we doing mining? Where's the plans?

Speaker 3 I know personally that there's plans for these things. And I know guys working in those industries that tell me, yeah,

Speaker 3 red tape's being cut, projects are being opened.

Speaker 3 But I don't think the general population knows that. And I think whether that's the mainstream media obviously hates this administration as part of the problem,

Speaker 3 but I think the administration can play some offense a little better on just communications 101.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. And because I'm not sitting here telling you that

Speaker 2 I know that the enactment and the things that are happening are going to cause necessary short-term pain.

Speaker 2 But what I am telling you is in my wheelhouse, which is marketing, and back to the buy with their heart,

Speaker 2 if you want this economy to keep moving, you need this consumer to have an uplifted spirit and a belief in what is happening.

Speaker 2 And you got to get them to buy into that and understand

Speaker 2 what's happening in the short term to assist them

Speaker 2 in sustaining either through that short paying

Speaker 2 or to get them off the, I think we got a lot of money that's kind of getting a little shrunk back up. Like, oh, oh, I'm putting, you know, getting tight.
All this buying gold because,

Speaker 2 you know, even in my own mind, I didn't think my crypto would double in a month, but I sure as hell didn't think it'd be down 33% in three months.

Speaker 2 I bet you didn't, Chris. Oh, no.

Speaker 3 I don't think anyone planned for

Speaker 3 anything that's going on, even in the stock market, guys, with NVIDIA, for example, you know, that big debacle. It's like.

Speaker 2 Because tell me what's good right now, Chris. Stock market's down.
Crypto's down. Trading cards, apparently.

Speaker 2 That's why we're talking trading cards. That's the only thing that's up.

Speaker 3 I'm sitting here realizing today I've been in the wrong investments the whole time, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I don't, and I'm not sitting here blaming the administration for all of that.

Speaker 2 It's really

Speaker 2 regardless of the administration,

Speaker 2 but it is what it is. Whatever caused it caused it.
Maybe it was already built in. These next six months were going to happen no matter who's in office or what's happening.

Speaker 2 But the sentiment sucks right now. And so this administration's job is to make it not suck.

Speaker 3 You have to give us a narrative, you know, give us the roadmap. Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's like

Speaker 3 a run. If you're going running, it sucks a lot less when you know, I got one mile left, as opposed to, hey, Chris, just keep running.
I'll let you know when we're done.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because my concern is less as an entrepreneur,

Speaker 2 I'm going to figure mine out.

Speaker 2 I don't need the administration to figure it out for me. But here's the thing:

Speaker 2 anything I sell

Speaker 2 is going to be bought by consumers or businesses that are impacted by this sentiment.

Speaker 2 So I need the sentiment to be higher, not because any administration or policy is in my personal way as an entrepreneur, but

Speaker 2 I just know things move. The money moves, the sales moves, everything moves better

Speaker 2 when this is where it needs to be.

Speaker 2 And that's the point of this

Speaker 2 rant, if you call it, is

Speaker 2 somebody's got to take accountability, responsibility for driving this up because

Speaker 2 it's a slippery damn slope.

Speaker 2 Let's just say that

Speaker 2 with where things could go because people start tightening up on everything, and your interest rates don't go down.

Speaker 2 Just be careful in the short term while you play the long term.

Speaker 3 We need that morale up, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. We uh

Speaker 2 it's kind of like uh the old team, you know, you got a team of players out on the court. I mean, everybody, like if you can't make them believe,

Speaker 2 no matter how good, bad, or different it is, they're never going to play well.

Speaker 2 And we need to get some uh cheerleaders.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I, you know, again, I like the theory of what I'm hearing Elon's doing.

Speaker 2 It sounds great,

Speaker 2 but I don't know that he's the cheerleader.

Speaker 2 He's a pioneer and an innovator, but I don't know if he's going to lead the rally of

Speaker 2 the sentiment.

Speaker 2 I think you're going to have to have somebody else doing that. And I think it's going to have to be driven by, okay, the enactment of certain things, both telling the plan,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 we need those interest rates to go down. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And if you still have inflation hovering, they're not going to want to do that, but

Speaker 2 need money. That loosens up money in the market.
We talk about that a lot. And, you know, refis and sales.
And

Speaker 2 because that's the biggest transaction most people have.

Speaker 2 And so it's the moment in time when their most amount of money in one direction or the other goes in and out of hands. and

Speaker 2 the residual leftover of money made on a sale refinanced is when you get that injected into the overall economy

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 it feels stalled right now as much as anything it's like i don't i don't personally feel

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 I see like the doom and gloom. It's more of this really hard pause that's happening right now.
It just feels like we're in a, like, if you were walking,

Speaker 2 we're stuck in mud.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 uh,

Speaker 2 when you're stuck in mud, you take one step forward, you think you're out of the mud, you're kind of still in it. It's kind of like the crypto, you know, up 10% one day, down 11% the next.

Speaker 2 It's like, all right, can we get unstuck here a little bit? Can we get a little ride of

Speaker 3 good news?

Speaker 2 We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 I'm going to jump ahead here. A couple of retail things.
I don't think are necessarily related to this economy. I think this is more trends overall, Chris.

Speaker 2 But Forever 21 and GameStop, both closing retail stores. Forever 21 expected to close all U.S.
stores.

Speaker 2 That damn Sheen and Timu.

Speaker 2 The cheap e-comm

Speaker 2 came and got them.

Speaker 2 I do see Sheen everywhere,

Speaker 3 right? It's all over the place. The ads are everywhere, and it's so cheap.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I've never purchased from it, but I know it's very popular with the ladies.

Speaker 2 I've bought a couple things like two years ago, maybe, and at the time, I thought it was pretty decent. I mean, it's like a $10 t-shirt or something, and it was like

Speaker 2 more of a fashionable type t-shirt. I was like, this is kind of cool.
But

Speaker 2 I'm a double XL Slim Fit.

Speaker 2 so I'm a

Speaker 2 weird, a weird uh size fitting, and it did okay, not perfect.

Speaker 2 I had to buy from certain companies to get the fit I want, but I was impressed with the overall quality for like a ten dollars, it was better than I would have thought. So,

Speaker 2 I mean, it's hard. Like, we joked about the malls closing, it's like, but you know, this generation, my kids still love to go to the mall, the mall rats.

Speaker 2 I don't, but the thing is, I don't know if anybody's buying at the mall anymore. You know, like when you and I went to the mall, maybe like 30, 20, me, me 30 years ago, you 20 years ago like the

Speaker 2 the parents were at least buying you know and the kids may have just been walking around being mall rats but someone was buying because e-comm wasn't what it is today

Speaker 2 it's like can the malls

Speaker 2 can they survive

Speaker 3 i mean even now when i'm in the mall now i'm like can i find this same thing online for less money you know yeah

Speaker 2 well they become the

Speaker 2 window shopping for online buying, right? Yeah. A little bit, especially if it's the same brand.
Because if you go look at something,

Speaker 2 you go, like, I don't know, like an Express or some store like that, where maybe they don't have your size, but you can go look at the actual quality, like the exact item or something, then you buy it online.

Speaker 2 And I mean, Express is still getting the sale, maybe,

Speaker 2 but that brick and mortar is not.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I don't think we've seen the end of this bloodbath of stores.

Speaker 2 I don't think all stores will go away. I just think you're going to see this centralization of, okay, Walmart superstores,

Speaker 2 which is the equivalent of, you know, gigantic Amazon store. But like,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 discount stores like that, I can see doing well. Large stores where you can get lots of different things, convenience, still a factor.

Speaker 2 And, but then these kind of niche things, when you can get it online and the tools for buying online have gotten so much easier and the shipping's gotten better.

Speaker 2 And really, the overall expectation, people have just gotten used to what to expect buying online.

Speaker 3 And price-wise, you know, like I know for these Timo and Sheen, Shine, whatever you call it, it's definitely super cheap.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 3 and you, it's not even like nowadays, most people I don't even think are necessarily always buying because they're looking. There's just ads going constantly as well.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Here's what it said: Forever 21's brand name and international business will come under Authentic Brands Group.

Speaker 2 Our U.S. licensees, decision to restructure, presents an opportunity to modernize the brand, possible revival if a new U.S.
operator takes over.

Speaker 2 We've lost over 400 million in the last three years, including $150 million in 2024 alone.

Speaker 2 jumping ahead here. The

Speaker 2 GameStop closing a significant number of stores and will invest heavily in Bitcoin.

Speaker 2 It's an interesting headline for a company, right? It's like, well, how is one related to the other?

Speaker 2 Massive store closures. A thousand stores shut down globally in the past year, 590 in the U.S.,

Speaker 2 320 in Europe.

Speaker 2 It's now at 3,200 stores, Chris, down from 6,000 a decade ago. So cut in half.

Speaker 2 Probably cut in half again.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 2 It says consumers moving to digital game purchases and streaming. Part of a broader retail decline with brands like Joanne, Forever 21, Kohl's, and Macy's also closing stores.

Speaker 2 GameStop to invest a portion of its cash reserves in Bitcoin.

Speaker 3 Probably smart move.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The pivot to Bitcoin is really a defense against irrelevance.

Speaker 2 It says

Speaker 2 an odd thing is it's basically saying the strategy isn't retail, but to act as some kind of cryptocurrency investment vehicle.

Speaker 3 That's where they're smart because gaming is combining with blockchain and all that. So they might

Speaker 3 be extremely forward-thinking with this and pivoting.

Speaker 2 It is interesting because then it becomes

Speaker 2 if you're buying the GameStop start, oh,

Speaker 2 GameStop stock. It's hard to say.
Two words, GameStop, stock.

Speaker 2 Why not just buy crypto then? Like, if, like,

Speaker 2 if the whole company is, if they're putting reserves in, their value will be driven by whether Bitcoin grows. It's like, you're kind of, what are you buying into?

Speaker 3 They have such a cult following, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 From the Robinhood to box.

Speaker 2 Kind of like a reseller of this,

Speaker 2 you know, you can buy direct.

Speaker 2 You buy it through GameStop, who's investing. I guess you still have the side of the business that is retail.
So I hope that it pivots to something different.

Speaker 2 I guess as far as

Speaker 2 knowing that they won't go bankrupt would keep your interest in the stock, I guess. But at a certain point, you know, you can't spend half your money on Bitcoin.
And

Speaker 2 then why not just buy Bitcoin versus buying GameStop?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 However, if you were holding GameStop when this news came out, you could have made 16% that day if you're a day trader, which I think a lot of the GameStop guys really that fall that are like the swing traders.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Because I mean, you had that whole

Speaker 2 stock jump on this thing.

Speaker 2 It's crazy.

Speaker 2 Talk about sentiment driving behavior. You know, like that's a whole

Speaker 2 case study in itself. Emotional levers pulling it.
Yeah, GameStop shares soared 16% in pre-market trading.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 hey, close some stores and your

Speaker 2 stock goes up.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's all about profitability. I get it.
It's just, it's

Speaker 2 do you get happy about the stock going up, or you get sad about the stores closing?

Speaker 2 You can't fight.

Speaker 2 I'll answer my own question. You can't fight the reality of online and especially this, like digital games, like you can download them.
Like you don't need the physical.

Speaker 2 I hate the, like I was the first guy to get rid of every CD and DVD I owned, you know, before there was Netflix.

Speaker 2 Like it was like the moment that I could do digital, like hard drive driven, all my stuff, I was there. It's like, get rid of this.
Those racks. You remember those racks?

Speaker 2 The racks, everybody had them in their house. Racks of CDs, racks of DVDs.
It was almost like a, I don't know, a trophy of, of, of, all right, look at all those DVDs. Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 You got that whole collection. All right.
Yeah. It's just collecting.
One more thing you have to dust off. Yep.
Or not dust off.

Speaker 2 If you're a college kid, like I was.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 oh, look at all that CD collection, man. Let me go through your collection.
Think how foreign things become like as technology changes. It's like, you know, like, oh, let me see your CD collection.

Speaker 2 Go through it, man. Oh, that the cranberries.
That was a good, you know, they got that one song. That's a good one.

Speaker 2 That linger.

Speaker 2 Dave Matthew.

Speaker 2 I had like 50 bootleg Dave Matthews CDs like every concert. Like, I was like on the, I was, that's how I used the internet when it first started is just in college trading live Dave Matthews shows.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I was a pioneer.
oh i had tapes i had oh i had a tape collection like a hundred tapes according to the dude

Speaker 2 oh yeah i was pirating there you know but dave didn't care because he was smart that's why he got so big because he didn't they didn't police that they let it happen naturally the story there that's an economic story right there how how to get big don't get in the way of like spreading the news because we still went to all the concerts bought the t-shirts did all the stuff they made all the money by not getting in the way of the spread of people getting to hear their music.

Speaker 2 Anyway, I already digressed. Oh, man, that brings back some memories, dude.
Oh, the

Speaker 2 work involved, man, with tapes and CDs burning and failing. Oh, God.
How bad was it when you'd be burning a CD? And how many times would like it fail in the burn? Like the fact that

Speaker 2 the fact that there's a laser in your computer burning a CD, I guess it's not different than the hard drive now, like saving shit, but it's just the

Speaker 2 wild times, man. I've lived there.
Analog digital, man. I'm on like all sides of it.
Like it's analog digital conversion.

Speaker 2 Crazy. And that's what really we're talking about with the stores and retail and e-comm and all that is this movement from physical to digital.

Speaker 2 But we do still have to wear the clothes.

Speaker 2 You know, so whether it's Sheen or it's done in order to e-commerce, until we're living, the day will come, Chris, where it's just a digital close because you never leave your house except digitally.

Speaker 2 That's the shit that gets scary, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't want to live in that world.

Speaker 2 I don't either, but you could, can you not? It used to be a time where I couldn't see that coming.

Speaker 2 I could,

Speaker 2 I'm not saying that I'm going to embrace wanting to do that, but can't you see that I can totally see that now?

Speaker 3 I mean, it's here to a degree with all the metaverse stuff. You have people that don't leave their house and they just live online gaming, you know yeah

Speaker 2 and it will matter what your skin is and all that i mean my kids already care you can like i will watch my kids playing uh

Speaker 2 fortnite and they'll spend as much time playing the game as they do picking out their skin before they go and who they're going to be like literally sitting there going through it like toiling over it like i'm like

Speaker 2 That really matters to them.

Speaker 2 That's how they show off. You know, know, me growing up, it was wearing my Air Jordans for the first time.
And they care about that stuff too, which is, you know, it's more money.

Speaker 2 But it's that skin on Fortnite, dressing up as a, you know,

Speaker 2 Wimby or something, like playing Fortnite as Wimby, like, or one of the NBA players or LeBron James or a

Speaker 2 banana character, which my oldest son does, which kind of trolls everybody. He likes to just kind of do the stupidest shit.
And because he

Speaker 2 he wants people to think that

Speaker 2 he thinks that that's cool when he doesn't, he's actually, it's reverse psychology, like he wants to do the stupidest thing.

Speaker 3 He's smart.

Speaker 2 This is what you have. Look forward to, Chris.
You have kids, if you have kids

Speaker 3 to be determined.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Never know.

Speaker 2 What else we got in the news today?

Speaker 2 Any other big news? Boston Celtics was sold for a record-breaking six of a billion dollars.

Speaker 2 Boston Celtics have been sold for 6.1 billion big ones, setting a North American sports franchise record.

Speaker 2 Led by William Chris Holmes, a billionaire from private equity. Of course, he is.
Includes Robert Hale, current Celtics investor, and Bruce Beale.

Speaker 2 Bill is a terrific person, a true Celtics fan, born and raised here in Boston.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 Grossbeck bought the team in 2002 for $360 million.

Speaker 2 That's a nice investment there, Chris. You bought it for $360 million.

Speaker 2 By math, what, 23 years later, you sell it for $6 billion?

Speaker 2 It's a nice return on investment. Heck yeah.
Was that 30x?

Speaker 2 That's nice, man.

Speaker 3 Nice turn. 100%

Speaker 3 increase.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 6,000%. Is it 30x? Isn't that like, I don't even do that math.
This is a lot of numbers, man.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 $6 billion is a lot of damn money.

Speaker 3 Especially for the sports team.

Speaker 2 It is, but, I mean,

Speaker 2 they make a lot of money, man.

Speaker 2 All the rights, all the stuff.

Speaker 2 It is huge business.

Speaker 2 Especially those sports cards.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's what it is for the sports cards.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 1,600% increase in value over 23 years. All right, there's the math.
Not bad. Not bad.

Speaker 2 That's what I need a crypto to do, Chris. What's the plus XRP? I'm going to look it up right now while we're doing it.
I'm going to see it.

Speaker 2 I got so tired of looking at like seven things that I only had like a little bit in, I moved it all to XRP. Just so I had one thing to look at.

Speaker 3 Consolidated.

Speaker 2 I just consolidated it.

Speaker 2 Let's see where we're at today.

Speaker 2 Bear with us here. Up, down,

Speaker 2 yet again.

Speaker 2 On the week, we're down 4.74%.

Speaker 2 We're sitting at,

Speaker 2 yeah, we're down seven cents today, 1%.

Speaker 2 Chris, I mean, it's just like, oh, up, up. This chart's like my EKG.
You know, it's like,

Speaker 2 up now, like, you know, like, why is she yelling at me?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 3 it's uh, that's why, I mean, like you, I just, I don't pay attention to much of the market stuff right now.

Speaker 2 No, I look at it like that's the first time I've looked at it

Speaker 2 like once a week. I take a peek.
I'm like, all right, whatever.

Speaker 2 It's, but I wouldn't

Speaker 3 move, you know, and that's an indicator of everything. Like you said, you feel like it's just on pause.
You're like, all right, everything.

Speaker 3 I guess we'll just go to the gym, like, not going to have any entertainment from this today

Speaker 2 yes it's these three words that i ask and everyone should ask themselves to what end

Speaker 2 everything we do every dollar we spend you know like not psychoanalyzing everything but like to what end like to what purpose

Speaker 2 and that's what we're asking

Speaker 2 you know we've been doing all sports cards

Speaker 2 lately and i you know i want to be equal opportunity because the kids are into everything and we've been doing the uh whole thing on trading cards.

Speaker 2 We're starting a series on the trading card business with our guests, so we're going to be having some big guests in uh on the show in the trading card business. Got some good names lined up.

Speaker 2 We'll be announcing that shortly. We're starting recording next week with some of those.
Talking about the business of trading cards, it's all it is like the stock market in a lot of ways for uh

Speaker 2 another potential investment avenue, but also fun. And we've been doing sports cards, but today, hey, I'll go tell you this much, Chris.

Speaker 2 If you want to know the one thing sold out at every store, it'd be this guy right here.

Speaker 2 Pokemon.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 I thought this was like a thing like 10 years ago. Like that.
Now

Speaker 2 you go to a store, every freaking Pokemon rack is empty. I know because my kids are into it and I'm looking to it and maybe I'm into it too, but I like the sports cards better.

Speaker 2 But, but the kids, my kids like the sports cards, but their eyes line up, light up for the freaking Pokemon.

Speaker 2 Yep. Were you ever into Pokemon, Chris?

Speaker 3 I was not, but I do have a memory being on a school bus in fifth grade with a kid who had a Charizard card. And I remember those were like

Speaker 3 big money cards back.

Speaker 2 Now there's like a hundred thousand different characters, but

Speaker 2 you get these tens, they get two packs. And look, man, they they got all these series.

Speaker 2 Prismatic series is the hot ones right now. These 151s, just trust me.
If you see any Prismatic or 151s and you want a good investment, if you see them for sale, buy them if it's retail.

Speaker 2 Because let me, Chris, if you find them retail,

Speaker 2 the certain ones, I mean, they're four or five X. This particular one

Speaker 2 goes up a couple bucks. Like, you can buy them retail.

Speaker 3 You'd have to send me a scouting list so I can go scour Miami for Pokemon.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Because, dude, these prismatic cards, they're like $5 for a retail pack if you find them. You can immediately sell them for $15.
It's 3x your money immediately. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 Like, I've even got a dealer that will buy them for me double. Like, usually you can't make any money selling anything to like a sports card.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 This guy will pay. Like, if I buy him for like a, like a two-pack thing and I find him for like 10 bucks.

Speaker 3 he will immediately give me 20 for everyone i can find tell me this though is there a problem like if i were doing ebay is there a lot of fakes?

Speaker 2 Uh, there's some, but there's it's police, eBay is pretty good. Like, we've been selling some of our stuff, and you can see everything that we have at breakingrad.com.
Yeah, that's creative.

Speaker 2 You like it. Uh, breakingrad.com and our eBay store is breakingrad.com.

Speaker 2 Uh, they have an authenticity guarantee so that, like, if this card is a certain value, it gets sent to the to the authenticity person first,

Speaker 2 authenticator, or whatever. And so,

Speaker 2 I feel like they've got some stuff to where

Speaker 2 you could pull that trick like once. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Like you might can get away with one sale. And it's like, okay, is that worth it? So anyway, we're opening.
This is the Scarlet and Violet series.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you what, you got to be watching the YouTube. You're doing this.
You got to see the pack opening.

Speaker 2 Powdy on Fates.

Speaker 2 My kids were here. They tell you everything about this particular series and everything like that.
You're hoping for these one special cards.

Speaker 2 The one thing I don't like about Pokemon Chris, and I hope I'm not like jinxing myself. Maybe I'll get the greatest card ever, but the hit rate is pretty low.

Speaker 2 They're only the back cards, they are good. They're kind of get this shiny.
You'll see the difference in the cards.

Speaker 2 You probably see this if you're watching YouTube.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 oh, there's a little EX. That guy's pretty good, actually.

Speaker 2 That's a, I think that's at least a $2

Speaker 2 card, might be higher.

Speaker 2 That might be pretty decent one there, Chris. I'm sitting here knocking them and then

Speaker 2 so funny though. You can see the shine on the card.
Can you see that? Are you seeing that, Chris? Yeah. Oh, fancy, right?

Speaker 3 Nice holographics.

Speaker 2 Put that here on our play button.

Speaker 2 YouTube play buttons got to be good for something.

Speaker 2 Then these energy, like this whole trick, this whole thing is a playing game. Like you can play these cards.
If there's a card game, I mean, I open it for the cards and the investment.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my kids don't even play the game either. I don't know what percent actually play the game, but you can go to some of these stores, and there's kids like literally just playing that game.

Speaker 2 The problem is, if you play the game with the cards, the cards get beat up and they're not worth as much. So, I don't know what you're in it for, all right?

Speaker 2 So, I mean, there's all these characters, they're cool looking,

Speaker 2 but none of these cards are worth anything until you get to the back.

Speaker 2 This guy that looks cool, but there's a single gold star. That might be worth something.

Speaker 2 You see these stars at the bottom? That's what'll tell you whether or not it's anything good.

Speaker 2 This trainer,

Speaker 2 I don't know who that is, but this might actually be something.

Speaker 2 My kids are going to have to, like, you know, some of these things I can look through and know if I'm seeing something good. My kids have to tell me some of these Pokémons are any good.

Speaker 2 But anyway, crazy.

Speaker 2 It's a whole thing. If you get on Facebook Marketplace, they're freaking everywhere and like for sale because people are just raiding the freaking Walmarts and Targets and everything else.

Speaker 2 So, the word is out, the word is out. There's our hits.
I think both of those are pretty decent.

Speaker 2 That might be, I could be anywhere from the funny thing about these Pokemons is these could be like one-dollar cards, or these can be like 50 to 100 cards. You never know, pretty much hard to tell.

Speaker 3 You got to get your boys to come verify for you.

Speaker 2 I know we're going to get them on Clayton, Hudson, Hogan, or Nash. Check us out at breakingrad.com or breakingrad

Speaker 2 underscore

Speaker 2 on

Speaker 2 Instagram. See everything we're doing.
It's having fun. Teaching my kids business through sports cards, or they're teaching me business.
I don't know which one it is, Chris.

Speaker 2 Teaching me the business. Hey, that's it.
Hey, no doom and gloom here. Getting into sports cards.
We're giving you alternate investment. This is all about alternate investment avenues here.

Speaker 2 You know, like

Speaker 2 I will say, the sentiment meter on sports cards is up. Like, everything else is kind of stagnant.
Everything else, trading cards is kind of up a little bit, especially in Pokemon.

Speaker 2 It's like the craze is out there, dude. We'll see what happens.
Any final words today, my friend?

Speaker 3 Hey, get you some Pokemon cards. Get those prisms.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Hey, and hey, let's get the sentiment up. But we, hey, let's let's get some, let's get the interest rates down.
Let's get some plans in place, talked about.

Speaker 2 And we're going to do nothing but keep the bullshit out of the business news. That's what we do.
That's what we're here for. Go to ryanisright.com.

Speaker 2 You'll find the highlight clips, the full episode, links to YouTube, links to trading cards, other alternative investment routes, and links to Chris on Instagram.

Speaker 2 Even if you came here just for that, it'll be there. We promise.
Chris, I appreciate you, brother. We'll see you guys next time on Right About Now.

Speaker 1 This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening.