MM #240: 10 Stocks for 2025, Bitcoin’s Next Move, Tech Revolution You Can’t Miss, & Starting a Sports League

Summary

Market Mondays Episode #240 Summary Title: 10 Stocks for 2025, Bitcoin’s Next Move, Tech Revolution You Can’t Miss, & Starting a Sports League
Host/Author: EYL Network
Release Date: December 24, 2024

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1. Introduction In the season finale of Market Mondays, hosts Rashad Bilal, Troy Millings, and stock market expert Ian Dunlap delve into pivotal financial trends and opportunities shaping 2025. The episode covers strategic stock picks, Bitcoin's trajectory, the burgeoning tech revolution, and an insightful discussion on launching a professional sports league with special guest Chris Gotti.

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2. Market Overview and Predictions for 2025 The hosts kick off the discussion by analyzing last week's stock market movements, highlighting a slight downturn attributed to profit-taking, tax loss harvesting, and FOMC announcements.

• Ian Dunlap ([09:00]):
  “But the Christmas rally trade as we've known it, maybe how it was 10 years ago, traditionally is over and not as many people are into the market.”

• Troy Millings ([12:21]):
  “Which is ridiculous because it was 32 last year, which is like, you don't really see that. The S&P up 26, which is absolutely incredible.”

Dunlap reassures listeners that the recent dip doesn't signal a market crash but rather a normal market adjustment ahead of 2025, projecting continued growth in major indices between 11% to 15%.

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3. Bitcoin Analysis and Future Directions A substantial portion of the episode focuses on Bitcoin's next move within its four-year cycle.

• Rashad Bilal ([15:57]):
  “If history repeats itself once again, it might not repeat itself, who knows. But historically speaking, 2025 would be a great year for Bitcoin if it follows that same pattern.”

The hosts discuss MicroStrategy's ongoing investment in Bitcoin, noting their recent purchase of $500 million in Bitcoin, surpassing BlackRock's holdings. This positions MicroStrategy as a significant player in Bitcoin accumulation.

• Troy Millings ([17:03]):
  “MicroStrategy brought $500 million of Bitcoin which is the seventh week in a row where it's part of Bitcoin. But it's noticeably less than what they had been buying.”

---

4. Tech Revolution: AI and Its Impact on Investments AI's transformative impact on technology and investments is another key topic.

• Ian Dunlap ([35:43]):
  “A company like Stryker. Here's the big lesson I want everyone to know as we wrap up this year. Amazing technology will only help accelerate amazing companies. It won't kill it.”

The conversation emphasizes that companies effectively integrating AI will thrive, while those failing to adapt may falter. The hosts highlight companies like Nvidia and AMD as frontrunners capitalizing on AI advancements.

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5. CEO Departures and Corporate Performance The hosts address a notable increase in CEO departures across major corporations and its implications for the market.

• Ian Dunlap ([29:41]):
  “This is a recession sign for me, like when a bunch of golden parachutes come out is usually indicative of how well the economy is not doing overall.”

They discuss how a rise in CEO turnovers often signals deeper systemic issues within companies, potentially leading to broader economic downturns.

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6. Investment Strategies and Stock Picks for 2025 Each host shares their top stock picks for the upcoming year, focusing on sectors poised for growth.

• Troy Millings ([38:33]):
  “These are my picks for the year. And Kava is a fast casual Mediterranean... They have 0,000 debt. Zero debt. My favorite number, growing, expanding, zero debt.”

• Rashad Bilal ([04:21]):
  “300 pages, so that'll be out in two weeks. Get your pre-order... We're going on a five-city tour in five days.”

• Ian Dunlap ([39:15]):
  “OpenAI, Anderil and Starlink will be the most important of the remaining years of this decade for sure.”

Key picks include Nvidia, Amazon, Broadcom, Elon Musk’s ventures, and emerging energy companies essential for powering AI infrastructure.

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7. Preparing for a Possible Recession The episode offers actionable advice for listeners to safeguard their investments against potential economic downturns.

• Ian Dunlap ([25:42]):
  “The Russell 2000... You've seen massive growth and then we had a pullback and then we're seeing massive growth and back to back years. This is abnormal.”

Strategies include maintaining low debt, hoarding assets, and having reserves to capitalize on market dips.

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8. Guest Segment: Chris Gotti on Starting a Sports League Special guest Chris Gotti shares his journey in establishing the Clash Pro League, blending streetball culture with professional basketball.

• Chris Gotti ([66:34]):
  “I want those players to make money. Absolutely. They're the reason they're generating all the revenue.”

Gotti discusses the challenges of competing with established leagues like the NBA, emphasizing the importance of authentic streetball elements and leveraging technology for broader reach.

• Ian Dunlap ([104:25]):
  “We can make them into the next one. It takes you guys, social media. Come on, market them well.”

---

9. Streetball Culture and Innovations in Sports The discussion transitions to the evolution of streetball and its integration into professional sports, highlighting the need for authentic representation and marketing.

• Rashad Bilal ([85:51]):
  “Kids aren't watching. NBA is not skewing young. So, like, even my son, like, they watch like, Overtime Elite.”

The hosts emphasize the importance of capturing the raw energy and relatability of streetball to engage younger audiences effectively.

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10. Year-End Reflections and Future Plans As the episode concludes, the hosts reflect on the year's milestones and outline their aspirations for 2025.

• Rashad Bilal ([114:43]):
  “Being able to give a hundred thousand dollars in the name of Nip. Rest in peace to Nipsey Hussle. Marathon continues for sure.”

They celebrate successes like the Blackout show, book releases, and significant investment milestones, expressing optimism for the upcoming year.

• Ian Dunlap ([113:36]):
  “Red Panda... it's been a hell of a year. I will miss y'all next week. But we'll do a group chat and you know.”

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Notable Quotes:

• Ian Dunlap ([09:00]):
  “One of the best years that I can remember as an investor. So I think this is a sign of the opposite of what's going to happen in 2025.”

• Troy Millings ([12:21]):
  “So, highly the APIs are doing well, which is absolutely incredible.”

• Chris Gotti ([66:34]):
  “A lot of the CEOs who are currently running some of the bigger companies... if a company is performing that terribly, which is a global brand, what is a 700 or maybe 500 company in S&P doing?”

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Conclusion Episode #240 of Market Mondays offers a comprehensive analysis of market trends, investment strategies, and emerging opportunities for 2025. With expert insights from hosts Rashad Bilal, Troy Millings, Ian Dunlap, and guest Chris Gotti, listeners are equipped with valuable knowledge to navigate the evolving financial landscape. From strategic stock picks and Bitcoin’s potential to the integration of streetball into professional sports, this episode encapsulates the dynamic intersections of finance, technology, and culture.

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Stay tuned for the next season of Market Mondays, where the conversation continues to empower investors and entrepreneurs alike.

Transcript

[Rashad Bilal]

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[Ian Dunlap]

You know, when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself? Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them?

[Rashad Bilal]

Where do you even start? Talkspace.

[Ian Dunlap]

Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need.

[Troy Millings]

With Talkspace, you can go online, answer.

[Ian Dunlap]

A few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online.

[Troy Millings]

You don't have to take time off.

[Chris Gotti]

Work or arrange childcare.

[Rashad Bilal]

You, you'll meet on your schedule wherever.

[Ian Dunlap]

You feel most at ease.

[Rashad Bilal]

If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a.

[Ian Dunlap]

Relationship, or if you want some counseling.

[Rashad Bilal]

For you and your partner or just.

[Chris Gotti]

Need a little extra one on one.

[Ian Dunlap]

Support, Talkspace is here for you.

[Chris Gotti]

Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers.

[Troy Millings]

And most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed.

[Ian Dunlap]

Therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with.

[Troy Millings]

Code [e-mail] all right.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

Welcome back.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Market Mondays, man.

[Troy Millings]

We here. We here. We are here.

[Ian Dunlap]

Happy holidays, fellas. How y'all doing?

[Troy Millings]

Everything's good, man. How you feeling, man?

[Ian Dunlap]

I'm great, man. Feeling not as much. Coughing. Thank you.

[Troy Millings]

I want to thank you and your Hoosiers for visiting South Bend.

[Ian Dunlap]

It was a disastrous day. I know the coaches got an extension. You better go make an addendum. Blown out.

[Troy Millings]

Great year. Coach of the year, AP Coach of the year. Big Ten Coach of the year.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, Playoffs. Xander came in the room like, you know. Y'all that winner today, right? Okay, he was right.

[Troy Millings]

He was right.

[Ian Dunlap]

But shout out to my Hoosiers. I love y'all. Proud of y'all.

[Rashad Bilal]

Shout out to the Hoosiers.

[Troy Millings]

And so we move.

[Rashad Bilal]

Real boy story. The losers of Hoosier.

[Troy Millings]

We move on. We move on to.

[Rashad Bilal]

Wait.

[Ian Dunlap]

What you never heard?

[Rashad Bilal]

You never. You Never heard that.

[Ian Dunlap]

That's Cameron.

[Rashad Bilal]

He said I'm the real boss. Stories. Delusions of Hoosier. Because you know the dudes that the losers in the movie Hoosiers was like the cool kids.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So he was like, I'm. I'm the losers of Hoosiers. Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Used to move around in Indianapolis too. Y'all said y'all want to about Cam. But them Ohio, Illinois, Indiana lives. True.

[Rashad Bilal]

He got one with that Harlem joint.

[Troy Millings]

I like that back in Harlem.

[Rashad Bilal]

Hello. Shout out to Jimmy, man.

[Troy Millings]

We used to cop.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. Nobody loves Harlem more than Jim Jones.

[Ian Dunlap]

Facts.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay, this is the last show of the year. Market Mondays.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

We got a lot to talk about. Special guest coming on later. So I don't want to waste too much time. We can get right into it.

[Troy Millings]

I want to make sure that they see what that's. That number is. Y'all see that number? Don't do that. Don't do that, man. That's the rookie of the year. All you Eagles.

[Ian Dunlap]

No, your team cooking though.

[Troy Millings]

They look decent. 10 wins, man. We gotta celebrate that.

[Rashad Bilal]

And. And of course, do remember.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

You deserve to be rich.

[Troy Millings]

That's of course.

[Rashad Bilal]

Hard Copies is in.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hey, the A side and B side concept.

[Rashad Bilal]

Thank you.

[Ian Dunlap]

Fire.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, man. Hip hop, man.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, that's the. I don't know if you can see it, but yeah, that's the.

[Troy Millings]

Not up there.

[Rashad Bilal]

A side, B side. Just like an album would be. You deserve to be.

[Ian Dunlap]

That was tough.

[Rashad Bilal]

A black and gold. We got some people, they gave us some praise on the back of the book. Yep. Charlemagne.

[Troy Millings]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

Robert F. Smith, Steve Harvey. A few of our friends, you know. It's a lot. It's a lot. So. Man, it's a lot. A lot that goes into writing a book, you know.

[Troy Millings]

Tell me about it.

[Rashad Bilal]

Not as easy as it looks. Not as easy as it looks. 300 pages, so that'll be out in two weeks. Get your pre order.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

And UK. It's available in the UK too. Shout out to. We got a UK edition.

[Troy Millings]

That is a fact.

[Rashad Bilal]

The UK edition. So shout out to everybody in London and shout out to everybody in Manchester. Uk. Family. You know we love y'all. Hackney. All that, man. I know we. I know how we. I know how we.

[Troy Millings]

Brixton.

[Ian Dunlap]

What up?

[Rashad Bilal]

And y'all know I gotta get back to London, man. Damn.

[Ian Dunlap]

Summertime London.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's. It's overdue.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Overdue. But yeah, shout out to everybody that already pre ordered the book. Pre order the book comes out in two weeks. You deserve to be rich. Book.com.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Get your pre order torn away. Building up the momentum. Oh yeah. Get your tickets to the tour. Yes, we are going on a tour. Five city tour in five days. January 13th that week. New York City, Brooklyn. We're going to D.C. we're going to Atlanta, we're going to Houston, Texas and we're going to New Orleans. So get your tickets limited. It costs 35 to get in. And that ticket price gives. Gives you act, gives you a book. So man, it's gonna. We're gonna bring surprise guests every city that we go to. You know, you know how we do time a time will be at.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, you deserve to be there. So make sure you do.

[Rashad Bilal]

Mike. We might bring some. Some people.

[Ian Dunlap]

Friends of the show.

[Rashad Bilal]

Friends of the show.

[Troy Millings]

Friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

You never know.

[Troy Millings]

Fittingly enough, never know.

[Rashad Bilal]

You think Traeger pulls. You never know.

[Ian Dunlap]

All right.

[Rashad Bilal]

And don't forget, blackout is the last blackout I think of the year.

[Troy Millings]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

Wednesday, Christmas, Christmas Day. What a time we will be dropping blackout. The trap still open on Christmas day. So tell me and if you your.

[Ian Dunlap]

Girl not getting along, don't tune into this one because I'm gonna go crazy.

[Troy Millings]

Don't you worry. It'll be. If you a football snob, it'll be past the Beyonce moment. Don't Worry about it.

[Rashad Bilal]

10 o'clock, the nightcap nightcap edition. Get you. Get you your beverage of choice.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep. Your popcorn ready. Speech ready.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's gonna give you some courage because we got some things to talk about. I tried to update.

[Ian Dunlap]

I tried to be.

[Rashad Bilal]

I tried the political.

[Ian Dunlap]

No nuclear.

[Rashad Bilal]

Sorry.

[Troy Millings]

There's been some updates.

[Rashad Bilal]

I tried to be political last week.

[Troy Millings]

Based on last week's episode, there have been new revelations and updates.

[Rashad Bilal]

We gonna get to.

[Troy Millings]

Real prayers for everybody.

[Chris Gotti]

Salute.

[Rashad Bilal]

Salute. At that. Thursday we gonna be dropping at Toby Wigway. Conversation that we had at Art Basel. Shout out to Toby, my guy, super dope, individual, incredible human being and just a funny guy.

[Troy Millings]

Incredible human God, they're hilarious.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. Okay. Ian, anything you'd like to say?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes. You want to get rich in the market? Go to ianvest.com stock club. Prices are in Kajabi. I think I did 60 prices this month. So I mean 60 stocks. So 180 different prices of where to get in. If you want to know where to get in, where to get out, what stock to stay away from, when to take profit. The best analysis on in the world, go to ian.invest.com join Red Panda. No stock club call this week. Holidays. We will be Back next week. I will be updating telegram every day. If I made you money, please put yes in chat. And if y'all up 40, 80, 100, 200. Let me see the percentages in chat. I love y'all.

[Troy Millings]

We love you too, man. Shout out to everybody in Red Panda. Shout out to all our earners in Eylu. Shout out to everybody that made that call last week. Incredible one. Hey, Ian, I seen it in the notes, man. You got one of. One of the ones. So we're gonna, we're gonna go back and forth about one of these. These not many people have been talking about. We definitely have. So let's start by doing a disclaimer. Y'all know how this works. Do your own research. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a professional connection with or independently research and verify any information that you hear on our show and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise. I know how this works. Do the research, Share the research, get credit where you found it and spread love. Let's make some money. Let's do this. Let's do this.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. Shout out to the EY University that, that investor called Dread. That was dope. I was on for like two and a half hours. There's a lot of information in there.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Talked about bitcoin, a few other stuff.

[Troy Millings]

You know, some stuff that I've. I've never heard before either. It was really, really interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

With that being said, the Dow Jones last week kind of recovered a little bit, but last week it fell. It was a down week for stocks last week. So is this a early warning sign of what could potentially happen in 2025 with the market?

[Ian Dunlap]

Nope. I. I'm make this very simple, very short. The Christmas trade is over. People have taken profits, people have been up all year, some tax loss harvesting, but also too, with the FOMC announcement, that had an effect. Also, futures expirations happen that Friday as well, so mark off every month when expiration begins to happen. But for those of you who are like, hey, the market's crumbling, the market's been doing great all year. One of the best years that I can remember as an investor. So I think this is a sign of the opposite of what's going to happen in 2025. But the Christmas rally trade as we've known it, maybe how it was 10 years ago, traditionally is over and not as many people are into the market. And lastly, there's no asymmetric risk to the upside. A great place to buy that's going to give me an amazing return in 12 or 13 months. So that's why the market slid a little bit. So. But also to a homework assignment that I put on IG write down what the point totals are every day. And if you were trading 2019, 2018 off that FOMC announcement, it was very similar to what happened this past Friday. So if you know what the point totals are, positive and negative for each day, you can go through your calendar like your own Farmers Almanac for the market and have an expectation for what the market should do.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, this is, this is easy. No, like you said, the. When Powell spoke, we saw a pullback and we kind of lose to it. Last week when we were talking about rate cuts, how they've kind of been quiet about how many they were going to be in 2025. There's now rumors that there's only going to be two, which is a decrease from what we had in 2024. Slight pullback, but it all, I mean, and I'm glad that that Chris shout out to Chris Johnson in that episode, if y'all didn't check it out, he said, look, man, people are going to take profit. In fact, if things don't sell off, there won't be new buyers to come in to add liquidity to a position. And so you kind of saw that when Powell spoke. But also right. We talked about quadruple witching. We talked about when it happens. Quadruple witching happened on Friday. And so when we're talking about options contracts, when you talk about futures contracts, they expire on the third Thursday of the last month of the quarter.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

So there's four quarters each year. So we have March, you got June, you got September, and you got December. The third, third Friday of those months is quadruple witching, where most contracts expire. And so you take that with the amount of increase that the NASDAQ has had, I think up 30 this year or 32.

[Ian Dunlap]

Amazing.

[Troy Millings]

Which is ridiculous because it was 32 last year, which is like, you don't really see that. The s P up 26, which is absolutely incredible. The Dow itself is up 25. These are ridiculously impressive years. Right. To have them back to back is incredible. To have them as a singular event would be incredible. To have them back to back is just absolutely incredible. So, I mean, you're going to see sell off leading into to 2025. But does that mean, is it an indication of what 2025 is going to look like? No, I think we still see growth. I don't know if it's in the 20s, I don't know if it's in 20s but I think we could be okay with anywhere between 11 to 15 growth in all the major indices. I'll be interested to see that at least for the first half of the year. We'll see what happens in the second half. For the first half of the year for sure. Yeah. So I'm not too worried about 2025.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. Dummy word. I'll put hold for a long period of time and I'm gonna, I know not the answer everyone wants but if you hold for a long period of time these worries go away. Think about it. When we first started to show the expectation for the indexes were 7 to 12%. Right now you could double your money in four years just by holding 2Tech2 index on stress. Hold for the long term, please.

[Rashad Bilal]

I think it's also be broke. That's the other option to think about cycles. So shout out to Josh Brown when he came on a long time ago we talked about, and we talked about this with a few other people as far as the political cycle. Yeah definitely what it has done for the market. So traditionally, usually in political cycles the first year of a presidency is relatively weak. The second year is the most volatile to the downside. The third year is the strongest and the fourth year is, is strong as well. It's good but not as strong as the third year. And that's kind of exactly what's happened with Joe Biden. Remember when we had that bear market that was in year two of his presidency and then year three of his presidency when stocks went crazy and then year four of his presidency this year when stocks they weren't, they did good as well. So if, if, if that's an indicator then stocks would be, it'll be a weaker year for stocks. But of course it's an unprecedented situation with Donald Trump coming in and so many new changes that's going to happen on a political landscape that that could potentially, you know, not carry suit. But traditionally that has happened. That's, that's what usually happens with the situation like that the first year of a preside these first year of a president's term is a weaker year for the stock market. That's just the historical if that means anything to you. And that's, that's interesting because we also talked about in the class, we talked about bitcoin and their four year cycles and shout out to Austin when he had mentioned the four year cycles of bitcoin. And in that situation, this year would actually be projected to be the best year for bitcoin in its four year cycle. Because usually bitcoin, the last year of the run is the strongest run. That's what has happened historically. And this would be that last year of the four year cycle and then 2026 would be the worst year. That that's how it kind of trades off historically.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So if that's of any indicator, then 2025 will be a great year for bitcoin. If history repeats itself once again, it might not repeat itself, who knows. But historically speaking, 2025, historically would be a great year for bitcoin if it follows that same pattern that it has followed for the last 15 years.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah. And even. And I think that's why it's important that we drew that parallel between Bitcoin and some of these stocks that are on the trading in nasdaq. Because the same energy that it takes to mine is the same energy that it takes to create some of these semiconductors. They all house inside of data centers. And so that infrastructure around who's creating it, who's having the power that runs through it, who has the connectivity that's going to it, all those things are going to matter. So you can see like even a company like Microstrategy.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

If Bitcoin is going to perform well, then this is another company that we presumably would perform well as well.

[Rashad Bilal]

MicroStrategy brought 500 million of Bitcoin which is the seventh week in a row where it's part of bitcoin. But it's noticeably less than what they had been buying and what they were projected about. I think they were projected about 1.5 billion or even 2 billion. So they did, they did continue, they continued their streak in buying bitcoin, but they did purchase lower. And think the average buy in for the last couple of weeks has been $106,000. So they brought at high prices. Yeah, but, but they have continued, they have continued to keep mine. So they bought $500 million of Bitcoin. Yeah, but that is, that is less than what they have been buying.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, which is interesting. If you watch the chart last week you saw that there was a pullback. Well, they sold shares to buy more bitcoin. And so that, that parallel, I mean it's interested. They now have passed BlackRock and ownership of Bitcoin, right. With the latest purchase which is like, okay, it's impressive. We're going for it. We're going for. I think they now at almost 500000 bitcoin and black rocks right around 472000 or something like that. Yes. He's going for it, man. He's going.

[Ian Dunlap]

Larry, you gotta hit that button like more than once. You gotta hit accept so the other orders go through.

[Troy Millings]

So he can do it.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep, yeah, that's all I gotta say about that. But next year revelation coming. But go ahead.

[Troy Millings]

More money to be made.

[Rashad Bilal]

Revelation. Revelation on what? For Blackrock, Satoshians.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep, yep. Shot the Langley.

[Troy Millings]

He gonna get a monument somewhere.

[Ian Dunlap]

Appreciate y'all. Y'all quit talking about my shout outs. I'm gonna shout out who I want to shout out and do what I want to do. When is microstrategy learning? Call again.

[Troy Millings]

I'll give you in two seconds.

[Ian Dunlap]

I want to see that profit. You're gonna look it up just to go see what the profit margin is. But no, I will give them credit for not buying as much for added such a hyper price. If it gets back into the 90s, I think they definitely should buy more.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, it's 90. It's 90s now.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Which is helpful because that. So I think it's 92, something like that. 93. 90. 92 ish. 93 ish.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So yeah, I think low 90s I think would be an attractive price.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right.

[Rashad Bilal]

If it gets to the 80s. You got it. You got it.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. Definitely a definite buy at that point.

[Rashad Bilal]

You gotta like it. In the 80s.

[Troy Millings]

We all circle 77. We heard a couple of people, we watch charts as well. But when we talked to Mike Novograss, he was saying that 77 number. And I went back and looked at the charts the same way that you. You read a stock chart is the same way you can look at bitcoin and you can start absolutely looking at what a pullback is going to be. You can start to see what support. Is that where resistance is at that 77 to 79 number?

[Rashad Bilal]

No, what he said was that he doesn't. He said if it gets to 77, that's something went wrong. He didn't think that.

[Troy Millings]

No, he said. He said it would pull back.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, he said he didn't think that it was gonna get his lowest. He didn't think it was gonna get to where it was pre election, which is 77. He didn't think it was gonna get there because he said he. Remember he Said if it gets there, something went wrong. I don't think it gets back to 77. That's what that was. He said he's like, he didn't think it was gonna get back to 77.

[Troy Millings]

Okay.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, I see it there. I mean, but that would be a hell of a buying price though, right?

[Troy Millings]

And I see it there.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Right. If you look, if you look at his lines of retracement, like it's there, you can see like there was support there.

[Ian Dunlap]

What will cost us to get that low?

[Rashad Bilal]

That was his thing. He was like something had to go wrong.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah. We don't know what, what causes it to go high. It's just one of these things.

[Rashad Bilal]

Like, I mean, of course it's to go high. Is that Trump's important. He's talking about a Federal Reserve.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. People front ran it.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. The most death row crypto, black rock buying ton of it. UAE buying 50 billion. Like that's what's causing it to go higher that that.

[Troy Millings]

But those things are kind of baked into it. Right. You can watch that climb. When they already started predicting this, when in September when we started saw it, it started to appreciate.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

With just the thought that he was going to win then you might name a czar.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

And once he actually won, it was like, all right, now let's take off. And then it was like, all right, well what's moving it now? Like what is the catalyst now?

[Rashad Bilal]

You're patient.

[Troy Millings]

That's it. That's what I'm saying. It's just hypothetically, like, all right, I.

[Rashad Bilal]

Don'T think it's hypothetically because like I said, you still see Michael strategy buying. You're had 2 billion, a billion dollars of worth of bitcoin every single week. That's, that's real. That's happening in real time.

[Troy Millings]

But they've consistently done that.

[Rashad Bilal]

They said UAE, but I'm saying they, they're upping their anti UAE. They said 50 billion. That's, that's a room. I don't know if that's true or not. Yeah, they said that. They, they just did that. Right. So now you're going to start to see nations, nations are catching fomo.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right, My bad. Go ahead.

[Rashad Bilal]

So, no, that's, that's things that's really happening in real time. And then like I said, the, on the political rhetoric, when Trump is saying that, you know, talking about a bitcoin reserve for the U.S. that's, that's a historic moment. And when he's appointing every single person in his cabinet is pro crypto and his son is giving speeches about cryptocurrency to foreign entities. These are real, like that's real stuff that's really happening. That could actually.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, from, yeah, what's the, what I'm saying, what's the measurement? How do we now gauge where it's supposed to go from that? Right, because we knew that that was the stance going into it. He's named people already. Yes, we're going to be pro crypto. We, we've, we've already established that yes, there will be more countries, but it hasn't happened.

[Rashad Bilal]

I think, I think what Ian is asking, like if for some. For it to go down drastically, what would happen? What would happen? Some it would have to be a government.

[Ian Dunlap]

And I think it's a great question for everyone watching for the downtrend go research also too. If every nation is starting to be pro crypto, that is a hedge for what is to happen over the next four years.

[Rashad Bilal]

Inflation and the, the devaluing of dollars across the world.

[Ian Dunlap]

That's all born tick tock do. Right. There you have it. Two big reasons.

[Troy Millings]

I understand now.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

But, but okay, here's kid could be this, this could be a catalyst for why bitcoin's price could go down, especially short term. If Eli gets in the first 60 days and really shakes up things drastically and really looks like this budget, this deficit is coming down and he, and he's cutting billions of dollars from the government board, that's gonna be good for the country. But that, that could potentially be a signal that bitcoin's price could go down. Right. Because even when Mike was talking about it like that's the, the, the debt is actually beneficial for Bitcoin. So if, if Elon could really start to, if it looks like, because you're not going to cut, you know, the debt in 60 days, but if it looks like this is something that could really happen, like this debt could really start to reverse course and go down. And it's something that, you know, other countries start to follow. There are countries that have took in austerity measures, Argentina taking heavy austerity measures. So now if that becomes a new trend across the world where everybody's taking austerity measures and they're cutting Social Security benefits, they're cutting stuff like, you know, even when Macron tried to do in, in France. Yeah. If that becomes a global trend, then that theoretically could be harmful for the price of Bitcoin and that could drive bitcoin price down because now it's not the same. It's not the same hedge that it once was because the prices are not eroding at the fastest level. Inflation is not going up at that high of a level. So that's going to be harmful for the price of bitcoin going up.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. And one factor that we have to consider for what we're driving higher hedge funds can no longer give. I was talking to Asia about this the other day. If you're a fund manager, you can't give a 7 to 12 return anymore. You're going to lose all your clients. Like, I never thought I would see the day I have people in red panda asking me, like, when is the S P gonna give me 40 return? I'm like, bro, it's giving you 25 and 10 on the Orlando Magic. Like, we gotta have some range of expectation. And I know the shows had a big impact on that, but, like, the indexes are given blockbuster numbers. And then. But if bitcoin is doing 115 and now your clients want 50 growth a year over year stuff, it's over with.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's also ruined realistic expectations, even for outpacing assets like bitcoin. So, like, for instance, we talked about big, and then there's some people that's like, well, why are you talking about bitcoin? Now it's too late. And it's like, okay, $100,000, right? So let's say hypothetically, you invested at $100,000. Nice round, even number. And bitcoin is going to go up. It's just a matter of how long it takes to go up, right? So let's say it goes up a relatively. Let's say it goes up to 125,000 next year, right? Well, that's 25 that you earned on your money in one year. So, yeah, like you said, people are laughing at 20.

[Troy Millings]

The perception's just been skewed. Like you, somebody. I mean, you come from that background, right? You're telling somebody they can get 25. Ten years ago, you were a rock star. You're beyond a rock. You're a superstar. Like, you're out of here. You're a megastar. And. And that's. Now, if somebody gets. How do you even explain that? Right? I would. That would be a question. Like when. If you had a client, right? And they're like, hey, I want my portfolio to have bitcoin. It's averaging 29 a year. Why are we not in it? What do you say as to why you're not it have some type of allocation in It.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, you have to. What I'm saying is that people are looking at Bitcoin like it's too late because they look at it like, okay, it went up 3,000%, but okay, if it goes to 150. What I'm trying to let people know is that if it goes to 150, you made 50 on your money, and that's great. If it goes to 125, you've made 25 of your money.

[Troy Millings]

And that's great, too.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's not a, that's not a normal compound over the course of one year historically, for investments. So it's important for people to kind of just keep that in perspective. Because, because everybody's looking at it like, like Ian said, like, if you're not doubling your money in one year, then what are you doing? But that's not, it's not how things work all the time. No.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hold for the long term.

[Troy Millings]

Every class believe in 7%. That used to be the expectation. Yeah. 7:12.

[Rashad Bilal]

But it, but, but it is a new. But they do have to change the rules on this because now it is. Because what you have is technology that has outpaced the regular. And you. So you have, the market has changed because a lot of companies aren't doing anything. And then you got a few companies that's doing a lot and they carry in the whole entire market. So now it's like, okay, well, I'm just going to invest in those few companies. And if you invest in those few companies and you're going to earn more than 7% like for the last 10 years. So now that, that expectation of just earning 7% is kind of an outdated thing until you, until you lose. Until we have a bear market and you lose 50. But until then it is an outdated thing because they're looking at it like, okay, if you just invest in the top companies and Microsoft, Apple and Tesla and Nvidia and you're gonna, those are going to earn more than 7%. So they're not going to be happy, which is. Even S P didn't earn 7%. S P is up 20. Something 27.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, as I said 2022, you were down 25 of the S P 32 in the NASDAQ. Right. Like, if you started there, okay, then you, there's going to be a different perspective. Right. But if you start in 2020, you've seen massive growth and then we had a pullback and then we're seeing massive growth and back to back years. This is abnormal. Or maybe it can become a New type of norm, just not to this level of 20 plus percentages from all the major indices.

[Rashad Bilal]

We'll see. We'll see. Okay, so what about all the CEOs leaving? This is a trend that started back in 2010 and we reported it on, on our page today that, you know, it's been a record year for CEOs departing 8.6 increase from previous years. And this includes companies like Bowen, Nike, Starbucks. Nike guy got fired. But there has been a historic amount of CEOs that have left their companies in 2024.

[Troy Millings]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

What does this say about what do.

[Troy Millings]

You want to start with performance?

[Ian Dunlap]

I mean number one, I think we enter the era where in the same way the hedge funds have to give high returns, CEOs have to do a better job. Like no, I don't want to cast any aspersions against the Nike CEO, but I wouldn't have hired him to run my business, let alone Nike. So I feel like a lot of the CEOs who are currently running some of the bigger companies and okay, if a company is performing that terribly, which is a global brand, what is a 700 or maybe 500 company in S and P doing? How well is he performing? Most of these executives are not close enough to culture or their actual customer base to know what they need to make the adjustments on the fly. 2020 revealed that, then AI revealed that. I think we're entering a new era where it's like the way you led through executive leadership was probably great for the early 2000s, but we're in a different era. Even with Apple, even though they have had a record year, I do miss the guidance of like Johnny I've being there and Steve Jobs being there. I think most companies are not let. Well, they're not using their resources properly. Many companies who started the AI wave or were on this early didn't take advantage of it. And we're getting rid of the weak CEOs and making room for new ones. But combination of performance, not giving the products people the products that they want, but not to their customer. But this is a recession sign for me, like when a bunch of golden parachutes come out is usually indicative of how well the economy is not doing overall.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I think there's, there's three key issues. I think performance is one. And so the Nike one makes sense. Right? They're not performing. If you look historically what it has done over the past 10 years to what it's been doing over the last five, it's obvious, pretty obvious in that sense. I know Foot Locker was a part of that. There is the shareholder factor as well. So like when you think of the shareholders having a vote, them having access to the information, then they become very more opinionated and they may want a new CEO. Which kind of happened with Starbucks. If we look back to what happened with Starbucks over the past year is that. Then there's the piece about the. And the power of AI.

[Ian Dunlap]

Like a bunch of business.

[Rashad Bilal]

It.

[Troy Millings]

It has destroyed businesses which some companies haven't been able to recover from. And they think like, hey, the first thing is like, who's going to take the fall for this? There's going to be the CEO at first, right? So when you think of a company like intel, yeah, this is the power of AI, right. But not from the standpoint of them using it. The fact that they didn't adopt it when they were supposed to and they haven't created technology to pace to the future. Right. When we talking about what they're producing in terms of their wafers and the nanometers that they're using, completely different for what AMD and what Broadcom and what Nvidia using, they are doing. Right. They've completely lost their market share. Right. In AMD, where they were the, I mean, from 20 turn the century really from 2000 up until like 2016, there was intel, like, that's it. All right. And, and you can watch over the past 10 years what AMD has done, just eating in that space, even not.

[Ian Dunlap]

Acquiring AMD or Nvidia, you still acquire both of those and not sweat it one bit financially.

[Troy Millings]

Okay. And you can, you can see it like, it's not like they, it was. This was plain sight. You can see that this competitor is here and they're doing something, you're not doing it. And they're something that's going to be revolutionary and you're not part of it. Part of it. So that, that AI impact is, is a real thing. Yes. From a job standpoint. From all. From the top level exact on down to who's going to be working at some of these, these, these companies. So you got, you take those three things and this is why CEOs going like even Disney, right. Like we talked. Iger left, they had a replacement. Get out of here. We need. I go back, put this thing in order. We still haven't figured out who the next CEO is going to be. Sometimes shareholders have a. I mean, not sometimes. A lot of times shareholders have a lot of say in who they want to lead their company. You got the AI part and then Some again, performance. If you're not performing and we can see it right, how do you start to explain we've had eight negative quarters? Who's going to turn this thing around? Sometimes it's going to be a new voice.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. And for all my executives, spend enough time boots on the ground talking to your customers directly. And every day for all my entrepreneurs, write one idea every day that will put you out of business. My favorite exercise a IT allow you to see the threats that are coming in. You do a SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, threats, opportunities. Write every threat to your business, but it'll allow you to stop. Some of the attacks may come your way. But if you're not thinking about how you can put yourself out of business, someone else will. Like, think about Polaroid. They actually had the patent for the first digital camera and didn't do anything with it. Now you made room for this company to put you out of business and every other company by not innovating. Like, I'm gonna be honest, some of these CEOs just got lazy man and got comfortable intel. I love Mark Benioff, so I'll leave his name out of it. But there's a whole slew. If you go through the S P500, you can see that they're stuck in 2015, 2014, and they're not really innovating. So. But the ones that do, such as Jensen, they will have an amazing impact on the market and will continue to do incredibly well.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay. So will tech and AI being so dominant with infiltrating healthcare systems, is it even worth investing in companies like UNH with 3% profit margins?

[Ian Dunlap]

If the profit margins are that low, I don't like it. But I don't think AI will take over Lily. I think it may help Lily and some of the research, development. A company like Stryker. Here's the big lesson I want everyone to know as we wrap up this year. Amazing technology will only help accelerate amazing companies. It won't kill it. Even though Apple was behind the ball with AI, they're now using it to help bolster the platform. It's not going to hurt Lily. It's not going to hurt Striker. It may hurt Pfizer, but Pfizer made a bunch of other business decisions that led to them falling apart. A great company will never get killed by technology because they're going to find a way to adapt and use it. A horrible company will. So this is a lesson I want to stand for. The test of time. Like UNH had issues before the untimely death of their CEO profit margin being one of them. Eli Lilly doesn't have the same mistakes. Noble doesn't have some of the same mistakes as a result. So I wouldn't invest in UnitedHealthcare as a primary healthcare company anyway. But a company like Eli Lilly, it will help tremendously.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. And it goes up to the performance we talked about. Like, obviously there was an untimely event, but, like, there are dissatisfied people who have that coverage. Right. So what are we doing to make sure that our patients, number one, our customers, our clients are satisfied and AI is only going to help? Right. Like we. We talked about companies coming into the AI space. We talked about what Amazon plans to do in terms of healthcare. Apple's trying to get in that space as well. You have to use it to your advantage or you won't. You'll be the dinosaur.

[Ian Dunlap]

Absolutely.

[Troy Millings]

You will be the dinosaur.

[Ian Dunlap]

And going back to the brand I test, in all your years of living, have you ever heard one person say, I just love United Healthcare? Not one. Think about that. Not one person. You had other issues before.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

AI came into the building. Like, fix the problems in your business before technology. And often people use that as a crutch. Well, the tech killed. How about you denying 90 of people claims? That was a bigger issue. It may have made you money. I was talking to Todd about this earlier. Too many people are thinking about their brand in short term and how we can do well now opposed to a 5, 10, 15 year period. Sometimes you can think short term and that hurts you for the longevity of the business and you'll never be able to recover.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, for sure. That's a fact. Okay, let's talk about this. You know, I don't know if you're ready to do this, but I know, Troy, you had your stocks for next year.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, man, let's do that. Let's do that.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Give me one second. I'll pull it up.

[Ian Dunlap]

Square.

[Troy Millings]

First and foremost to the moon.

[Ian Dunlap]

Well, give me a game.

[Rashad Bilal]

To the phone.

[Troy Millings]

All right, let's do it. Y'all ready?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Troy Millings]

All right. All right. So last week I told you that TSM was one of my. Obviously, tsm, we're looking at it. Had a great day today. Shout out to TSM and everybody that's in that position. I don't think that it's slowing down. It passed a key threshold. When we talked about support resistance on the call, it was at a 202. So we saw it run up to 210 today, which is a great sign leading into the next year. That's on my list. It was my stock of the year last year. Somebody was in the comments like, you name it as your stock of year again. Yeah, I did. Because AI is still the story. All right.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Stop asking questions. All right. I think the obvious are on here. Asml, obviously, when we talk about everything AI and it being the, at the centerpiece of this, this revolution. I, I don't. I mean, they have monopoly. We always talk about having a monopoly. Like with Amazon. This is a monopoly, right? This space cannot thrive without that machinery that is provided to tsm which is going to manufacture the chips. Even with Amazon saying that they're going to produce their own chip, they've hired TSM as a manufacturer. So, okay, it's still the cycle.

[Ian Dunlap]

So we go to the other stock pick of the year, Amazon. It's good.

[Troy Millings]

Okay. At this point, that. That's always gonna be my stock. All right. So that, that one doesn't count. Broadcom is in, in my stocks of the year, I got a bunch.

[Chris Gotti]

I got.

[Troy Millings]

Usually it's five, but I said, you know what? There's just so many that I, I'm gonna go through more Broadcom, obviously, from connectivity standpoint inside of data centers and what it is partnership in inside of working with Nvidia is on there. Lily. I mean we speak about this all the time. We saw what happened last week. And if you weren't paying attention, Novo had their first trial with their spec, their weight loss specific drug and it didn't do as well. We saw Novo pull back. That increased the stock price for Lily. I think, Lily, is, is the problem with that pullback that they had was that the demand was so high that they couldn't figure out how to match the demand. I think they solved that. That issue they're going to outpace with more capacity, more spending inside of, of infrastructure to meet the demand. So Lily's on my list as well. We got Nvidia, of course. I think Nvidia still has an incredible year. Blackwell, we talked about Reuben. I mean that, that's an obvious one. I have AMD as well. I have AMD have a good year for a number of reasons. Obviously we talk about being number one and number two and I, I still stand by it. Right. Sometimes being number two in the spaces is okay. Obviously they, they're well behind Nvidia when it comes to the GPU market. I think Nvidia has like 87 market share. But that next tier, which is like that 15 to 17 is AMD. There isn't like another three competitor. So it is AMD. But what they have done is they kicked intel to the curb in terms of the CPU market. And so you have number one now, is AMD in that market? We saw some pullback with Micron last week because of the sales of computers and smartphones, which is a bigger story. Right. Like when we talk about Apple, what does that look like? So those things are things we should be looking at. What computer sales are looking like, what smartphones are looking like. Because all these things play a role. I think AMD is at a key threshold as more corporate accounts. The Amazons of the world, the metas of the world, the Microsofts of the world, Apple. The more Blackwell sells out, you're going to need a replacement. Yeah, you need a second tier. Now from everything that they've said, the the M1 300X which is AMD's new GPU, they said it's super powerful and super efficient and if it performs at an even somewhere close to where Blackwell is, you're going to see an uptick in their sales. So AMD is on the list as well. Let's see, where else did we go? That was those cases. I have Micron as well from a memory standpoint and it's interesting. I just read CNBC's Mark Companies of 2025. They had a list of which ones had the most probability likelihood. Micron was in there, it had a 30, 36 increase. Also in there was Western Digital. What are those two things have in common? They talk about the memory space, right? So we always talk about data storage. Data storage, Data storage. These two companies focus on memory which will be one of the stories of 2025 as well. MicroStrategy, of course. Right. If we're talking about this, if Bitcoin and I'm glad we had that class when we talked about the life cycle of Bitcoin and appreciation that 29 average, the fourth year of the cycle being the best. Well if that consistent then microstrategy is something that we definitely have to have on our list. And then the last three are all energy companies that have to deal with powering the future of the AI revolution. Vrt, write these down. Vrt, VST and gev. And GEV was a branch off from General Electric. This is more focusing on data centers. You've seen the energy flow going into data centers. We talked about Microsoft with their purchase of Constellation. We talked about Amazon. Everybody's trying to figure out how they're going to create their own energy source to now power the Next revolution. So energy is one of those big stories for me definitely in 2025. Those are my picks for the year. And Kava. Shout out to Kava. The more I have conversations with people, the less they are familiar with Kava, which is very interesting to me because if we, we watch their. I guess the, the fairest comparison would be Chipotle. Right? Chipotle's is fast casual Mexican grill. Cava is fast casual Mediterranean.

[Ian Dunlap]

Mediterranean, yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Or the store valuations is pretty interesting which tells me that there's room for expansion. I think Chipotle has over 3, 300 stores across America. Kava is trying to add 56 stores. 56. I think they have like 350 stores in existence. They're supposed to be adding 58 by the end of this year, which is this week. That expansion story is going to lead to more, more wealth inside of the company. Most important thing they have 0,000 debt. Zero debt. My favorite number, growing, expanding, zero debt.

[Ian Dunlap]

That's the blueprint.

[Troy Millings]

That's the blueprint. Yeah. They go my stock of 25.

[Ian Dunlap]

I'll have my stocks for 2025 for the top of the year. But I will say the three most important companies I think for this next half decade are OpenAI, Anderil and Starlink, which are not publicly traded yet. But I'll give my top three pictures 2025 in our first show of January. But OpenAI, Anderil and Starlink will be the most important of the remaining years of this decade for sure. And intel, rest in peace to your bum ass ship. Told you shout out to all y'all who'd be like yo, you don't know. Listen, I know I make it look easy because I've been doing this for a long time and sometimes I can be easy to criticize. You can say whatever you want about me. You can't say I don't know my.

[Troy Millings]

Here intel they got 8.6 billion from the government.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hell of a finesse on the exit out. That's the severance package. And I know it's a couple other companies that y'all love dearly. Is IBM going to lead the quantum revolution? No. Quit asking me that ass question. I don't care if we get demonetized episode. No, can we do the.

[Troy Millings]

Can we do the rest?

[Ian Dunlap]

You couldn't go to Watts when Watson came out. Shut up. Yo, can we do the rest of.

[Troy Millings]

The episode in that Star Wars.

[Chris Gotti]

Star Wars.

[Ian Dunlap]

Me get tired of them. Yo, yo, what you think about the potential techo man bro. Okay. What Jay Say I was doing this when you in Pampers. Come on, man. Come on, man. You don't gotta like me. That's cool. My takes be right.

[Troy Millings]

Tell it how it might be. Just tell it how it is.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hey, it is what it is.

[Rashad Bilal]

It is what it is. All right, well, we'll see.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes, I was wrong about square. Oh, square where it is? And oh, boy, keep making them negative review Instagrams to me so I can keep monetizing, please. I said, oh, this worked well. Oh, okay. Take what you said and put what I projected on the back. Oh, boy. Thank you.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fan. I forgot. So I was talking. This is good information for people to know, too, because when I was talking about how go last week, I was talking about gold, bitcoin. I was saying how gold got so expensive that they stopped measuring gold. Like how they used to measure it. Now it's just. They measured an ounce, and that's done to, you know, just have a more realistic measure of it. And somebody. I think his name was justice, shout them. He was in the comments, he was like, $2,000 is too much money to measure. Like, laugh out loud. And I'm like, that's crazy, because you actually just proved my point. Because to 2000, I think it's $22,060, something like that. 2600, something around that. But that's the price of an ounce of gold. But there's 400 ounces in a bar of gold. So like a bar. A bar of gold, like a brick that you see like. Like when they took Idris Elba to the. To England's vault and they had all those bars of gold. One bar of gold, one brick of gold is a million dollars. So that's like the bitcoin situation, right? Where. And like I said, that's what Hill Harper was talking about. One day we're going to be talking about bitcoin more in satoshis, as opposed to fractional shares, as opposed to the price of actually one coin. Because it does. Bitcoin sounds crazy at 100,000. But if you. If somebody said gold was worth a million dollars, that would seem crazy.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

2000 doesn't seem that bad, though. Yeah, that's more realistic. So. But the price of a gold bar is $1 million just for. For education, for references. So that's. That's just important to. To keep in mind when. When looking at large numbers, sometimes psychologically, they'll tell you a lower number to. To make it more believable, to make it more realistic, to make it feel less threatening, but that doesn't mean that it's any less cheaper or less valuable. They're just giving you a fraction of what this actually cost.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

If somebody said a million dollars for gold, like, the average person would be like, what? A million dollars?

[Troy Millings]

That. That. That psychology is why companies have stock splits.

[Ian Dunlap]

Absolutely.

[Troy Millings]

It's why Berkshire has two different. Right. Like, you're not. Not the. The one. It's like, all right, we're never splitting that, but, hey, you can invest in this.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hypothetically, if you had, like, 8, 000 of those bars stored in one place at some point, you would show that you had them. Right.

[Rashad Bilal]

You talking about Fort Knox?

[Ian Dunlap]

No, I'm not.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay.

[Troy Millings]

Lloyd's of London.

[Ian Dunlap]

Mike Knox, Lloyd Banks. What? The lawyers of London. Lloyd Banks.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Go scream from Fort Knox one time.

[Rashad Bilal]

But like I said, the. The vault of England. Actually, that was documented because they. They took Idris Elba. And it's crazy because. So the real question is, where they get the gold from? I know.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, yeah, Go watch that. Yeah. Where they get the gold? They'll tell you.

[Ian Dunlap]

Repatriation. Oh.

[Rashad Bilal]

Donald Trump said he wants to take back the Panama Canal. We're talking about that now or on blackout.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yo, we talk about it now. Go ahead.

[Rashad Bilal]

Is this. Is this a blackout conversation? I feel like there might be a blackout conversation.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Political. Next. Sponsors.

[Troy Millings]

Okay, no side note, robots.

[Rashad Bilal]

Robots are very close to exploding. What companies?

[Ian Dunlap]

The sector. This is like.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Like, not, like, physically, like, blowing up.

[Ian Dunlap]

James, I see you Pro. Elon. Gotcha.

[Rashad Bilal]

What company should you invest in to take advantage of this robot wave?

[Ian Dunlap]

Sometimes the best answer is the simplest. Tesla. End of discussion. Yeah, everyone who keeps searching for the new Steve Jobs, new LeBron, new Michael Jordan, new Michael Jackson, new Chris Brown, you never find it. Sometimes there's a thing called patent restrictions that once a company makes something incredibly great, between patents and trademarks, you can't go make that thing the way that it looks. So given that Vice President Musk is currently aligned with President Trump, you won't be able to make a better robot than his. It may look better, but the marketing and branding and global expansion will not be there. And when you have commercial use and military use in combination, it's a hell of an offer. Sometimes the easiest and best answer is the simplest one. I know Marvel may make a robot that y'all gonna fake care about, but the leader in the space is the leader. And that's. And that. And this is not for my opinion. Just go look at market Share. If you go Google robots right now and whole brand is associated with that, it's Tesla. So yes, they may explode, especially when he puts them in other countries for war purposes. Shout out to Andrew, go look up the history of Lucky Palmer versus Mark Zuckerberg. I'm done talking about rap beef in 2024 and part of 2025. That's the real battle you need to go look at. But Tesla's going to be the formidable leader in that space for a long period of time. And if you're coming to cyber truck too, I know y'all gonna go out of copter. She's fast as hell.

[Troy Millings]

I wrote down Tesla because I knew you would say that. But here's what I'm gonna say. Nvidia, right? You can build a robot, but if you don't have the semis in there to control it and you don't have the memory inside there. Right. To have it have its own automations to. For it to remember and for it to now assimilate and now to talk back and function.

[Ian Dunlap]

You want a robot that you buy to talk back to you?

[Troy Millings]

Well, I mean that's allegedly, that's, that's what the, what they called it. What was the Tesla one called again? Yeah, I mean so you're gonna need all those components inside of it. And so again, the robots are one thing. Look at the economy that's going to be built around it and that's going to be put inside of it. Now there's some of you that are going to be like, well, I really just believe in robotics and I believe in AI. So I would not invest in a singular company. Company that just does specifically that.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

That would be too specific for the sector. So there are ETFs, there are some ETFs that you can put if, if you are a Die Hard robotics person or enthusiast. AIQ is an ETF that you can look at and it's had a pretty good year to date. Bots. B O T z is another ETF. And then Ibot. Ibot. Those are three really good ETFs that you can look and look inside their holdings. If you are a Die Hard robotics fan, look inside the holdings, look at how they've allocated to each of the positions. Make a decision.

[Rashad Bilal]

Rocket Life.

[Ian Dunlap]

You could be a Die Hard fan or something. And then your portfolio die investing in it.

[Troy Millings]

That's right. I don't want to do that.

[Rashad Bilal]

Rocket Lab's been going crazy. Elon actually spoke about them. Okay, okay. Apple, Apple has been consistently making New eyes. Why hasn't it's been getting a lot of attention?

[Ian Dunlap]

Because they. I don't think they've unveiled anything that's been tremendous in the. The iOS update is. I don't want to upset them anymore. This year has been not their best offering but a valiant effort at best. What do you mean so. But the positives are profit margins are amazing. They still have. They pretty much are the biggest mass luxury company in the world. And the retention rate inside of the ecosystem between the AirPod usage, iMessage usage, the acquisition costs for new customers come down I think 3% which is amazing for a company of that scale. So the profit margin is really saving them and we have to still. I mean even though they're not at their peak they still are one of the top three brands in the world. So the Apple intelligence is okay. It's not as good as I thought it could be but they've done an incredible job about building the fence around some of the user base over the last 20 years as a result. I do want to see. I'm not going to see Tim leave yet but I do want to see more leadership added to help them expand in that AI effort and help them focus a little bit more. But the stock has performed incredibly well and it goes back to the power of holding. Like next year would be five years. If you don't hold a stock for five years, don't talk to me about it. I don't care about no short term flips. I don't care about zero day expiration. I don't care hold for five years. If you won't hold it for five years it's not a good company. And this company has done incredibly well for sure. Up $122 the last two years out of a three trillion dollar company. This is still it's a blockbuster number going back to expectation like a company printing 35 or 30 a year. Amazing. What more can you ask for?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I'm just interested in what's leading the momentum right now. There's been like misreviews about the sales of the iPhone. Obviously that still represents 50 of of the the profits.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep.

[Troy Millings]

There's been some saying that the 16 has outpaced. There's some that said that they lack lots of sales. I guess we won't know until they report. The the Apple intelligence thing really hasn't panned out the way I get. I'm assuming that they anticipate it. I still, I, I mean it's not really incorporated in the phone just Yet I think we still got to wait on it. It's supposed to be in the new MacBooks, but we have to wait till next year for that. So is the momentum being based on maybe expectation of what those things are going to do? Is that how you feel? Because we've seen a new record four times in November and December combined.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

And now we're approaching 4 trillion when at one point we're like, yo, Nvidia is going to be the one that gets the 4 trillion. Definitely looks like it's going to be Apple now. Like what's leading the momentum, Future expectation.

[Ian Dunlap]

And even though they aren't number one in brand cachet, you can't name me six companies better than Apple. Like if your life was on the line and everybody that you love, life is on the line and you have to park, let's say it was your last hundred thousand. It's very hard that you very unlikely that you'll get a negative return investing in Apple. So it's coming down to who is a good investment versus who gives me more risk. And Apple is still still an amazing company. It's just not. Once again, if this, we were talking about this five years ago, they would probably be the most favorite stock in the world right now. Nvidia just came and they outpace those gains. But 100 return is not normal even for bitcoin. This run that I had this year is not normal. So I think they've kind of got lost in a way like, like remember how Tim Duncan was like amazing and will beat the Lakers but he was still underappreciated. It's the same way that Apple is right now. People don't talk about Tim Duncan having a historic run inside of other people's historic runs. Just overshadowed because it's kind of boring. Same thing. Apple's a boring company, quote unquote. That's rinsed and repeated some of the product cycles over and over again. But they're incredibly reliable and the returns have been there. So I think that's why they've been overshadowed a little bit.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, maybe this is that Tim Duncan. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair.

[Ian Dunlap]

Shout out to all you good dudes who are boring. Like they get overlooked this Christmas holiday.

[Troy Millings]

His Christmas Wednesday.

[Ian Dunlap]

We'll talk right on Christmas.

[Rashad Bilal]

What's three things that people can do to prepare for the next recession?

[Ian Dunlap]

Now I will mark off all the companies that you think are going to have a tremendous impact post recession. So if you believe IonQ is going to leave the quantum race, I don't Think it will, but the returns have been great. I will mark off the levels that I want to buy in. Going back to zero debt. Find out a way to get into zero debt in your business and personal life as quickly as possible. And then third, find ways to borrow money at a very low interest rate to be able to buy all the assets you want. If I can do anything over in 2020, like my biggest mistake of this half decade, I should have borrowed $15 million at 1% interest and bought up everything I could, every stock, every piece of land, everybody publishing, life rights, autumn only fan girls who started they look, I should have just bought every. I want one of these, one of these, one of these. I'm anti debt. But if I can get the debt at a low enough price, if I can get it at 1% interest and I know it's going to yield me 30 or 40%, I would do that a hundred times over. So find a lending vehicle that will give you money at a low interest rate, prepare for the companies that you want to buy at a tremendous price. And then I will hoard assets for a five or six year period after I got them. But what would you do to prepare? And I know some people gonna say it's not realistic. Pick whatever loan amount that is significant for you or viable for you.

[Troy Millings]

That sounds like a great payment. I was going to say, yeah, figure out how to hoard assets. There's, there's nothing. And we kind of can relate to this. It was like 2008, we saw a crash 2020, it was like, all right, we got some capital. We in 2008 we were like, oh man, if we had capital 2020, oh, we got now what?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep.

[Troy Millings]

I would say make sure to have reserves. Any events. Every time we talk about prices and people say, oh, it's too high, it's too high, too high. Then a recession comes and it's like, well, is this the bottom? I, I don't want to invest if it's not the bottom. Well, this is how this thing works. Right. So having reserves is going to be important so that you can invest in the companies and some of the asset classes that you wanted to invest in. Whether it's Bitcoin or whether it's an ETF or whether it's a stock or an index. You got to be prepared for it. So always have reserved plan to make actual items like this is the time, I'm doing it now, I'm not waiting. Here's the moment. Moment.

[Rashad Bilal]

So the real question is, when is it going to happen. Right. So I think you said 2027 history will point to 2026. Some people say 2025.

[Ian Dunlap]

That's tight window.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, yeah that's the real. That's the real question.

[Ian Dunlap]

We we may see industry related next year. When would they announce full recession that going back to the caveat of will they actually announce it because they did in 2022 but probably tail end of 2026 going into 2027. I think by March of 2027 they will have like announced it. So I hope we don't. I really do. But it's looking. If you look at the debts GDP ratio, the entitlements that are old no one's still talking about that issue that's going on in Chicago. There's a few and if you look at it in the stock market imagine if we didn't have Nvidia, Apple and Bitcoin and now microstrategy in the market. What the market would be doing. Have you heard anybody mention the Russell 2000 to you in the last 18 months?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, it gets brought up. I. I don't know anyone who invests.

[Ian Dunlap]

In it rare that so Mark is a little toppy pause. So when it falls over in 26 or early 27 that's going to be the time.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Would there ever be that time like when it's like oh we got to get these small cap companies and like that becomes. I just can't see it with the.

[Ian Dunlap]

Way I think because the emergency. Yeah. Because of crypto it took all. And this is why I go back to say everyone's your competitor. Like the those outsized games used to be reserved for the Russell 1000 or 2000 or S P400 or you will look to Japan or China for those kind of gains and you will find a small cap stock that could go up 400 now why have to risk it if you have Bitcoin or Ethereum. So it's a very interesting times when everyone even amongst the hedge funds there used to be value funds they used to be value sectors value ETF, value investors. Everyone wants 50 gains now minimum for the year. Everyone's eating everyone's lunch and it's going to cause a collapse in some areas as inflation continues to get pace higher.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah yeah. A Correlation chart from 2014 Bitcoin to.

[Ian Dunlap]

The Russell 2000 that'd be interesting graph to see.

[Troy Millings]

And volume. Volume as well.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Troy Millings]

And obviously we had those crypto winters did we see a spike in the Russell. Right. Like as opposed to now when we see this run, this bull run in bitcoin.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

How many people are investing in that?

[Ian Dunlap]

Especially everyone in crypto that, that hold for five years. That matters probably more than you with the, the value that is printed every year. Like when you go look at those four year cycles of five year periods, even for like Ethereum or XRP or Solano or Hex, like, man, missing out on a five year run, you're missing out on a run that'll change your life. Change your life. Yeah. I say the same thing in media. Like have you guys interviewed anyone that has done well? And it's like after year five was like, it, I'm done. I'm selling every business, every asset. I'm gonna just chill on the beach. Nope. Find more assets. Great interview with Common, but I started to look the timeline of when he went to reinvent change sound, change performances, change acting. Talking about the fitness and how he invested into his body to be able to perform like dog. Everybody on earth was great. They're looking at things in four or five year cycles, but they're holding those assets for a long period of time. That's never going to change. Never gonna change.

[Troy Millings]

Appreciate that.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

All right, all right, so now we're gonna bring up special guest.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Friend of the show, our guy, Chris Gotti. Hey, bring Chris up.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Thank you.

[Chris Gotti]

First person to do a full incredible day.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, for sure, man. That was, that was, that was definitely a dope, a dope thing. I got to see it on YouTube. For anybody that's not familiar, the Clash pro league, something that we've been champion for a while. So it was an idea to actually blend street ball culture with professional basketball and they created like a professional league and really dope idea. They had a draft combine, whole situation and it was a whole season playoffs and yesterday was a championship game. I didn't get a chance to make it. I was watching on YouTube it was crazy. Shout out to Twins, Zion and the.

[Troy Millings]

Whole, and the whole, yeah, the championship remains in Harlem.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah, Harlem kept the twin shout out.

[Rashad Bilal]

But it's a dope conversation. First and foremost, congratulations on the season. It was dope to watch. But from, from a business aspect, I think it's interesting because we talk about the NBA ratings is down 48 since the early 2000s and they struggling, trying to figure, figure things out. You started a league, right, A professional league which essentially combines street ball, like you have streetball elements to it, but you're running it like a real league. Do you see this, do you see this as something that over the course of time can actually, you know, pick up steam and momentum and kind of take from some of the. The. The lackluster viewership that, you know, people have for sports these days when it comes to professional level.

[Chris Gotti]

Well, you know, I first, I want to start by saying, and I'm not really trying to compete with the NBA in the sense of at the moment especially, they get the best athletes. That's the. That's period. How can I compete in a basketball game? And they have the superior athletes. They get the absolute. The cream of the crop. But the reality of that is, If I gave 50 players, how many players? 450, right. Players. $10 million, $50 million, $100 million. How many of them are showing up to work? How many of them think they are an employee and not a boss? And that's the real problem that the NBA doesn't want to address. But that is the facts. And I want those players to make money. Absolutely. They're the reason they're generating all the revenue. But the fact of the matter is that's. That's just human nature. You give someone that kind of capital, that kind of money, they're no longer an employee. They're a boss. So they don't want to show up to work. They may not want to feel like playing practice, you know, and doing the things they need to do to accelerate their game. And to me, the league knows that. And change the rules, made the game a very light game. Fouls are very simplistic, like, very easy to flopping. They're trying to stop flopping. All the flopping that goes on, that doesn't make it good for a fan to watch. And that's the reality of why the league is probably dropping the ratings. The competitiveness is not there. That toughness that a fan wants to see is not there.

[Rashad Bilal]

But then also another aspect of that, some. That somebody brought up to me yesterday to piggyback on this, before we go to another question, another aspect of it is that kids aren't watching. NBA is not skewing young. So, like, even my son, like, they watch like, Overtime Elite. And there's there's other. Where Overtime Elite is a. A league that's in high school, that started like a professional league in high school, that started in Atlanta, and they got Jellyfam team. Like, they got a Jellyfam team, right? Then they got a Rod Wave team, and they'll bring, like, you know, celebrities in and all that. So it's like, that's more realistic for those kids to watch those players because they relate to it in real time. It's fun. They, they have different colorways on the jersey, stuff like that. As opposed to. When we grew up, we was watching the NBA as like the high. So I say that to say your league could provide some level of that in a sense because it's like it's an alternative off brand situation where it's not politically correct all the time. Right. You're gonna have people that's gonna curse. You're gonna have different. You got a announcer on the microphone at the whole entire game. So that's part of it too. Like the NBA has got so far removed from the ground level that the new alternatives are starting to pick up momentum.

[Chris Gotti]

But absolutely, that is a huge problem with the kids. The disconnect. But it is still the number one sport that is watched and growing from a market. Not watch, sorry, marketing. From a marketing standpoint, it's the number one growing sport that's growing the most. Basketball. It's the number two sport in the world behind soccer. And we have the kids, they do. They're just not watching games. It's not about. They don't watch maybe a highlight, but they're not watching the games. The games is really. Is a combination. It's too long for these kids. Attention spans today social media changed that forever. They don't have the attention span to sit and watch a full game. They just want the highlight of it. But they are very in tune to it. And yes, they watch the kids. And the CPL league is going to create the CYL League, which is going to be the Clash youth league. And we're going to start doing the same thing with the Youth this year, 2025 coming up and start promoting and bringing that into fruition with the kids to get the kids involved, engaged. And we'll kind of cipher them right from there right into this class pro league to let them follow their careers. Basically. Some of these kids that get to, you know, the next levels and so on and if they don't make it to the NBA, they're gonna have a home here at the cpl.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, what you're saying makes a lot of sense when, when you look at the demographics from social media. Basketball by far outweighs any other sport because of that highlight factor. But social media doesn't pay the bills. Right. They need people to watch the games. They need. Right. So you can get the big TV contracts from the Peacocks and Amazons of.

[Chris Gotti]

The world, which is why it's funny enough bring them up only because those Are non traditional networks. You didn't mention the CBSs, the ABCs, the NBC's. NBC, you went to Peacock. And that to me is the changing of the guard. Right?

[Troy Millings]

That's why, that's why I wanted to go with it. That's exactly why I wanted to go with it. Right. Because we grew up, we watched NBC or we watched abc. ESPN played a. It talks about the disruption inside of the space, right? Like there's a traditional model. The CPL is not the traditional model. For those who don't even know what the cpl, give them a breakdown of what it is, how many teams. I know this is the first season just came to an end, but there's going to be more seasons. Talk about where we're going with this team.

[Chris Gotti]

When we first start, when we first started this league, it's only eight teams. Like we have to start somewhere. You know, the NBA is at what, 32 teams, I believe. They don't. They, they got there, they didn't start there. They had a bunch of expansiones, they had a bunch of down years of growing. We're no different. That's all we're building a business, an infrastructure. And the, the beauty of what I have is I could actually look at the, the NBA and I can look at what's happening overseas and I'm a kind of a morph between the two. And I understand the challenges that they're all going through and we could kind of fulfill some of those voids that are not available for them in those markets. And growth is everything. So we're watching our leagues grow. We have a network called Clash tv. You watch it on there, you can watch it on YouTube. But we're looking at partners from a distribution standpoint like X, the Twitter, they're huge in sports and people think they're politics. And we're in conversations as we speak to bring us on to an X which is a non traditional platform that could do everything that these networks are. And that's to me where the kids. That kind of goes right back to the kids. Kids are not watching tv. So to put it on network and they don't watch it. Here's the way to get to these guys. We could go through a different channel, a different way to actually stream it to them. And they'll be like, they'll watch it from there. And that kind of goes hand in hand with that last question as well.

[Ian Dunlap]

If I wanted to get drafted, well, not me, because I don't play ball like that. But if I was like a baller when I wanted to get drafted, what's the process for getting recruited so I can be in the league?

[Chris Gotti]

No different. We have a combine that we had over 300 plus players that came in and tried out for the first initial week. Now mind you, no one knew what CPL is. I'm kind of crazy in the sense I just said let's started thinking my word of mouth is good. And we had over 300 plus basketball players that signed up, but we only could accommodate 100 in the combine. The rest of them was on a draft board. The other 200 was on the draft board. And then we did one additional draft in the middle of the season. After the third game I allowed because a lot of players that was OCS that now started seeing us doing it wants to be part of it. And we had another 120 plus basketball players that signed up for that. And we picked up another in our league we added about 20 new players that actually got put into teams which was a great again to me that's proof of concept. That's proving the demand. They realized that it's a real thing. They seen the the videos of it on the Clash TV and they wanted to be part of it. A bunch of them was like I could make the same money as if I was playing overseas, but I'll be here with my family through the holidays. It was a bunch of different reasons why they came in to play. But that's how you get in. If you're a player, you there's a combine you can put on draft and then again just like a job. If you didn't get to the combine and the coaches didn't see you, you your job should be soliciting the coaches saying hey I'm really nice. I'm him. Look at my highlights. Showing him, right? See that's the difference between us and let's say a league like an NBA where you have an agent that does that for you, that probably doesn't do it the best for you all the time. He might send it in but he's really not out there fighting. You could fight for yourself here and tell the coaches here's my highlights. DM them, email them all the information listed and all you have to do is DM or thing and then if they see you they could pick you up. And that's to me your that's on every player that's their job.

[Rashad Bilal]

So talk about like running a league as far as a professional league knows a lot. You guys pay pretty competitive compared to like a lot of players overseas.

[Chris Gotti]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

So you pay, you pay the players, you pay the coaches, you have announces, you have videographers, you got to pay the gym. Like, you know, as a startup. Yeah, talk about that. As far as like raising money and getting investors to believe in a situation and stuff like that, that's.

[Chris Gotti]

That's everything. Just like any entrepreneur starting a new business, we have proof, concept, we have the idea, we. We bring it out to different people, different investors that are interested in the, in the space and we get started. And that's what I did. I raised the money to get started, and then now I'm raising even more money for the next two years and then I'll raise even more money after that. Raising money only ends when you're at a very high profitability from the company. There's so much growth and expansion that we still could do. That's why we can't stop raising money. I mean, I have so many areas I could go into in this CPL that I have to keep raising money to build out those areas, those different verticals inside of this one umbrella called the cpl. But that's what we do. We raise money. Like minds. Like minds typically start you in a race for any business, it doesn't matter.

[Troy Millings]

I was watching the post game interview from the championship and it was interesting. The players are talking about the opportunity that this is presented. There's never been anything like it and they were so grateful for it. One of the other things that wasn't talked about though was that development piece that they're actually playing team ball. But off the court, you're preparing them for life in a professional atmosphere. You're teaching them how to interview. You're showing them what it's like to interact with fans. Talk about that, that development piece that most people, you know, they kind of neglect, but it's so cute.

[Chris Gotti]

We have a guy named Larry Berger who's from the NBA that did all the development developmental work with all the players. He works with class. He's part of class. He's part of the team. I've known him for years. I was able to bring him in and work. He does interviews with him. He teaches him how to do interviews. Again, it's preparing them for next levels. Not saying CPL isn't the next level, but we're not at the moment. We can act, we will become that. But my goal is really to help them get to another level to make money to feed their families. And that's really the goal. No matter what. If it's CPL that's what it'll be. But if, for now, if they had to, if they end up getting a bigger job overseas or getting a NBA deal, that's what it's about for me. We're going to have trainers, we're going to have a arm that just focuses on growth and development of players. What's interesting, the TBL came to me during playoffs. I don't know if you're familiar with the TBL. That's the basketball league. They have 47 teams in this in the country. They're another professional league in this in the United States.

[Rashad Bilal]

Tmt.

[Chris Gotti]

No, tbl.

[Troy Millings]

That's the one that runs in the summer.

[Chris Gotti]

The basketball league is the name of it. And you know what's funny? It was coming to steal players from it, to bring it to their league. One of our players, Ja James, played in there and he was one of the leaders, won the chip over there, did really well. But that only tells me one thing, that we're. We're way better than they are. And not trying to down JA James, but we have players that is above Ja in abundance. Like, that's doing really well. That's just as good, as talented as Jock. And for me, I. Right away I went to them, but they wanted to do exhibition game with CPL maybe versus TV tbl. And they was like, Clash is streaming. And I told him right away, let's put up some money, because that's another way we can raise money if I beat them for some real money. And that's something I put on the table. So we'll see if they took that. Take the offer.

[Ian Dunlap]

As a founder, of course, vision is incredibly important when it's all said and done. Like, what's the ultimate vision that you hope, hope the league Chiefs. And if people want to invest into the league, how do they do that?

[Chris Gotti]

Well, this. My expansion is. Man, it's. The sky's the limit. I said, I'm not competing with the NBA because we're street ball. We do things differently. Just we should never forget that basketball is entertainment and we're entertaining. That's why I have an announcer like Chiching on the court. Court, who's the best at it. We have a dj, a live DJ that's interacting with Chiching while he's on court calling the game. And, you know, there's no, there's no limit to where we could take it. And it's never been explored in this. In this capacity. So I. For me to tell you how far I could take it is it's just pure guesstimation. I But I don't see a limit really. I don't. I could do everything the NBA is doing more this. You know, you ufc. What's. What was the UFC L with Herschel Walker. Jim, man, those guys were number one draft picks coming out of college. They went over there to play uf. Usfl.

[Troy Millings]

Yep. Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

USFL got it.

[Chris Gotti]

They went to go play over there. It's just they didn't work out. There's no reason I can't work out. Especially with the new way you could make money from different distribution outlets. There's nothing that could have can't happen right now. There's no more barricades for me. Right. Maybe the USFL had barricades with the NFL that was put up in fences and gates that you couldn't get over around. But in basketball today or in business today with Live Stream, even my network class tv, I don't have have to technically leave. If I built that out.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Chris Gotti]

And get the viewers right there. All the sponsors will come and all dollars will be owned by us. So when you say that it's like when you see the money that's generated, mind you, they're far in it. And what did it was huge stars that was marketed outside of basketball. Not just basketball. You know, Michael Jordan's acceleration. In my opinion, aside from being the. The goat. I know you might have people that don't.

[Ian Dunlap]

I agree.

[Troy Millings]

No argument. Chris.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, I agree. But shoddy may differ.

[Chris Gotti]

It was really Gatoradem and Brian Jordan that made him the goat. Aside from not counting his play because people have better numbers as we know in different things. But what made him the goat was those commercials and the mindset it did to the people. That's what marketing is. And that was what happened to the NBA. By the grace of God. It was first Converse with Magic and Larry Bird and Dr. J. And that's the early days of them just breaking even as a company. It was Converse though that did it for them. Their play is to me when I talk about basketball, you have to be. I can't talk about you as a player if you're not great. That is just what has to happen happen. Right. That is a given. We're going to have great basketball players in these leagues. So the NBA had great basketball players, but the marketing took them to another level which brought the fans and everything else that made them profitable. I'm no different with cpl. I have to do the exact same thing. I have to turn Doozy who's my mvp, Right. That's Zion Styles. You know, his nickname is Doozy. That's who has to become a star. He's the best player in my league. He needs to be a star, and that's what I'm going to work on. Getting him brand opportunities, you know, maybe nil situations, and just creating content for him to help him blow his own brand up.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, I think that. Because. Speaking of, let's have a broader conversation before you leave about street ball culture in general, because I know you're deeply entrenched in street ball culture, as I am, and the peak for street ball was 2000s, early 2000s. That's when you don't agree with that early 2000s.

[Chris Gotti]

I was the one that did it.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, you. You have. You had. You, you, you tell. All right, You, You. You had the story with Kobe. You brought Kobe to the Rocker.

[Chris Gotti]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

Right.

[Chris Gotti]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

You got the sneakers.

[Chris Gotti]

I still got sneakers. Signed sneakers in the glass case. What is it worth?

[Rashad Bilal]

You got. When Kobe came to the rucker, he scored 80 points.

[Troy Millings]

No, no, no, no.

[Rashad Bilal]

How much you score?

[Chris Gotti]

It started raining in the third quarter.

[Troy Millings]

Kevin Durant put up 60, 66.

[Chris Gotti]

Kevin Durant put up 66. I brought Kevin Durant to the park.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Chris Gotti]

So that's not the heyday of.

[Rashad Bilal]

Of.

[Chris Gotti]

Of the street ball. That's later, right? The heyday is the Kobe time. It's right there with Baron Davis, Coutino Mowley. You cannot talk about that streetball coach without talking about a fat Joe. Right. And what he did. Terrence called with the amount of. He used to walk in the park with six pros, NBA players for his team to place Rucker Park.

[Rashad Bilal]

And I would bring two.

[Chris Gotti]

I would have two to three.

[Ian Dunlap]

You know, Derrick Anderson, man, Derek was nice.

[Troy Millings]

Y'all was legend.

[Chris Gotti]

Legend played for me again. I used to bring so many different plays. Lamar Odom, I mean, the list is so long. And that's the heyday because we brought that star power and celebrity to come play and let the. The street baller play against them. You know, a butter. You know, I named my MVP trophy after a whole lot of games because of his impact on street ball. So.

[Rashad Bilal]

But also. But it was a combination because you had Kobe, and Kobe played in low top Air Force ones.

[Chris Gotti]

Yes. No, no, we gave him. It was high tops.

[Rashad Bilal]

High top Air Force ones.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

All right, so Kobe, you had Kobe, you had all these players playing, but then you had street ball players who became legends. Like. Like a butter. Yeah, right. Like a Ali moe. The best. The best free ball player of all time is skipped by Lou because he transitioned and made it to the league.

[Chris Gotti]

And did the same thing. Shout Out Rayford.

[Rashad Bilal]

And then you got. And then you got N1 mixtape. They play a major part and then they got hot sauce and white chocolate. So. Yes. So that's. That's the element that's missing right now. There's nobody who has that name. Right?

[Chris Gotti]

You know, again, those names, that is prior to social media. So they may have a name, but because of social media it's like a needle in a haystack. Because John Doe that could fool you because he makes a video and it looks that. And he could get views more than you can and things of that nature. You don't realize that that's the. That's what's going on. A lot of those influences that does over of those things come to the park and get destroyed. But they have a name because they knew how to work the system. And that's. That's part of the challenge.

[Rashad Bilal]

Isaiah Washington. He's the last one.

[Chris Gotti]

He's the last one. Jellyfish Jellyfam. No question. That's nephew. When he come to the park, two 3,000 cases pulling up. Again, that's the fact he's the last one of the street bowlers that had that name in recognition. But he did it on social. Social media first. See, it comes from that. It's not from actual. And I'm not taking away from his game because he created Jelly, right? He laid it.

[Troy Millings]

He.

[Chris Gotti]

He lay you up, you know, and that's it. But at the end of the day, that social media aspect is what took him to the heights that made him become. Look Nas. Nas Reed and with the Timberwolves, his Jellyfam, he's punching underneath. He's underneath him. You know, these guys used to all be together. These guys were incredible players on the court.

[Rashad Bilal]

So can you create the next Jellyfish? Can you create the next Skip to my little Alimo Jellyfill.

[Chris Gotti]

The only. Of course I'm gonna. That comes with. That's like a trick question, you know, that's Jay Z and Dame Dash make another. But when I say of course they. The player, it starts with that player. They have to be of that talent already. You cannot fake that talent. Now that's why I said those influences that have those big followings that pretty much fake that talent with inferior players they play against. And then it came to the park and play against real street ball.

[Rashad Bilal]

We got. We got one. We got one. Money Line Meech.

[Troy Millings]

That's a name.

[Ian Dunlap]

Moneyline Meech That's a name.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah, but what are you saying? We can make. Can't we make them into the next one. It takes you guys, social media. Come on, market them well.

[Troy Millings]

He with the right team already. He already with the right team.

[Chris Gotti]

You gotta start with the talent and then you can make a name. Those guys earned their names. None of those street bowlers didn't earn a name if like I said, Black Widow was one of the early guys, you know, Alamo, that was one of the early guys that I used to. To go watch the games. I've been going to street ball since I was 15. I'm 57. That's 42 years in street ball culture. And I helped build the number one park and Rucker in the world and the number one park in the country with diamond with Ken Stevens. So Greg Maris I helped. And then Ken Stevens I helped. You know, I named my trophy for the championship trophy is the great marriage trophy. You know, it's not the O'Brien. You know. Does anyone know who O'Brien is?

[Ian Dunlap]

Who.

[Chris Gotti]

Who O'Brien is by any chance for the NBA? The Larry O'Brien trophy. You know who that is?

[Troy Millings]

I think he's a former commissioner.

[Chris Gotti]

Yes, he is. Good answer. You're a smart man. But what I'm saying is what the former commissioner of a losing franchise.

[Ian Dunlap]

How about that?

[Chris Gotti]

Because David Stern made it profitable. Larry O'Brien. But they gave him a name of a trophy. But that's what they do over there. I don't do that. I time I gave it to the. The fault. The godfather of Street Mall. Like, and I had a sister there to honor her and the family. That. That's what I wanted to do for their legacy and for great. And you know, it was a. It was a beautiful thing last night for the championship.

[Troy Millings]

Guys, season one is. Is over. I know there's people that's like, yo, I live in Philly, we can hoop. Yo, I live in Baltimore. We can hoop.

[Ian Dunlap]

Chicago.

[Troy Millings]

Chicago. Weaker hoops. When is season two coming? Are we going to a different city? What does this look like going forward?

[Chris Gotti]

If you want. You want the politically correct answer? You want the answer?

[Ian Dunlap]

I want the real answer. Come on.

[Chris Gotti]

Listen, the politically correct answer. That's real. Is again, we're a fall winter league. So it would come back in the end of September, October, and finish out in December just like it did again. The reality is, because I'm a very aggressive leader and I believe in what I'm doing, I'm looking to raise the money now and start up in, let's say, February, March and finish before summer. So I would love to do two leagues, two seasons per year, fiscal, year. So one in the, let's say spring and one in the fall, winter. And that's how I want to build this out. And then when you mention other cities, I'm going to say we're pretty close to closing the deal for Baltimore and we'll do Baltimore if we. Again, the right way I'll do it is without getting. If I don't get the acceleration that I'm anticipating, I'll just do Baltimore at the same time as the New York league and I'll do it in Saturdays in New York on Sundays. Does that make sense?

[Troy Millings]

Gotcha.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, it makes sense.

[Chris Gotti]

So I'll be traveling from Baltimore Saturday, then back to New York Sunday, and we'll own the weekend in basketball oils. Fall, winter.

[Ian Dunlap]

With NIL being so big in college, have you thought about ways to integrate name, image and likeness into your league? And if so, can we invest in it?

[Chris Gotti]

You're spot on. Everything is. Absolutely. We're building out the NIL arm right now. It's part of what I'm looking to raise more money for because I want to bring in more talent for the NIL and the collective agreement or collective deals we could do with different brands and partnerships that we're going to partner together and lock in. And we're adding the youth league, so it makes even more sense. So I'm going to be taking kids right from high school, right through college, right to the league, the CRASH pro league, you know, but that's really what we're looking at. And when you talk money, like I said, when I mentioned Hershey Walker, I just bring him up because he was the Eisenhower Trophy winner and he went to a. A different league other than the NFL as well. Huh.

[Troy Millings]

Eric Dickinson as well.

[Chris Gotti]

Eric Dickinson, exactly. That's how I look at where I'm heading for now before I take over and actually become the solution. Like the NBA has a huge problem again and I want those guys to make money, but guys are going to be making a billion dollars in four years for four years, guaranteed money, if you have a child. Right. This is a question I'll ask you. If you have a son, how are you not telling them to pick up a basketball and make him his. Make that his number one objective, not being a doctor or lawyer. Right. It's. It's just as hard to be a doctor or a lawyer that. Right. It's just think about what I'm saying. Like in Everyone says, oh, it's only 450 jobs. I get it, I understand. But if you make it, there's nowhere else that you could get that kind of revenue from anywhere. Except maybe. But in the sport, let's say in.

[Ian Dunlap]

A sport, I mean, a lot of players making more than hedge fund managers, these new contracts, you know, I know.

[Chris Gotti]

I think me and Rashad, we talked about that. I think he did with Harden and he said that they, he didn't make more than the play. The, the plays don't make more than the ownership. And I, I believe they do. Some of them, not all of them. The highest, the high paid players do. He doesn't realize maybe that these owners don't just generate a billion dollars every year. They have an evaluation of a company that's worth X and then they could leverage and do things to make deals, deal flow. But they're not sitting on a cash flow every year of $100 million or something like that, which these players with, with their endorsements and everything is making close to that every year.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Chris Gotti]

That's crazy. That's real, real money.

[Rashad Bilal]

Before we leave, I gotta ask this question. Going back to street ball thing.

[Chris Gotti]

Sure.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay. The landscape has changed because there's a lot of money that's, that's involved now. Right. So Queen of Harlem tournament blowing up in Harlem and she, she shook up the landscape last year by offering $50,000 to the winner of her tournament. And this year she, she offered, she upped it to a hundred thousand dollars. Yes, that changed everything. Yes, that changed the landscape of everything when it comes to street ball in New York. Talk about, talk about that.

[Chris Gotti]

I'm gonna, first I want to shout out Michelle Hunk, you know, all of those guys over there that run the Queen on the ball and up in Harlem tournament. That's a, you know, we, you know, let's, I want to just divert off of it for one second to say like Kovik, the drug, you know, the, the vaccination. We won't know what the effects of that vaccination is for years to come. That's how, that's how I look at what she just did from a streetcar. Because we don't know. I believe Ferris, shout out Ompie and Kev. You know what I'm saying, Higgsy? Because I believe a park like that, that's an emerging part. That's incredible, incredible vibe, environment I love so much. I believe they're going to be the ones that hurt from it the most. Because I keep hearing from the players, they don't want to play in all these parks if there's not a significant amount of money put on the table. And I believe that's going to hurt the culture for other parks in other places. Hopefully not. But I just feel in my, my gut, my gut tells me just hearing the people constantly talk about things and what it's about, I think that's going to be a problem.

[Troy Millings]

Or it could be an incentive for some of these brands to figure out their new grassroots program.

[Chris Gotti]

I talked about the brand.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, right. Puma, Nike, all of them. If you look at Nike's and this goes into like a deeper conversation of the stock itself, if you look at it, the sales have been down. Number one is that aren't buying shoes, right. They're using. But if you get grassroots, right, and you can have the product in the parks, that changes things. And so maybe rather than saying, hey there, that was a hundred thousand, maybe this is the start of something to say the way we've been spending is not effective or it is no longer as effective as it used to be. Here's a new thing I'm talking about for a place like Ferris.

[Chris Gotti]

Again, that's, that's a very accurate assessment. The ish. The issue goes back to Nike, not the park. It goes back to Nike saying, I could spend my money more wisely. Okay? They're looking at digital ways. They're looking at things of that nature. Like I'm inside of all of these brands. The marketing comes that represent the brands. I mean, I talk to them all the time. The problem with the parks is we're what I call hood business. Let's call it that for now. They already been raping and pillaging all hood businesses. They do it constantly. So if, if they put your, your bar here in the hood business, how hard is it to take it to the next level? They never let you. You do it because they're going to tell you they got you at a below average number already for what you give them. And then they're going to tell you if I raise it up 10% and you're still not nowhere near what it should be. That's the reality that all of these parks face. And I really felt and believe that it's clash as the savior. And why do I say that? Because we're not hood business. We're live streaming. So now we could tell them, pay like you wait, pay the proper amount, and then I can still go back to every part and overpay them. And it's better for each one of them at a 50 deal that I have for them.

[Rashad Bilal]

Talk about hood business. Ian, before you talk about your hood.

[Ian Dunlap]

No, no, good point.

[Rashad Bilal]

You talk to me about that a lot. Hood business. Then there's another name that we probably can't say on this, on this program.

[Ian Dunlap]

Thank you, Gotti.

[Troy Millings]

That's Wednesday show. That's not Monday.

[Rashad Bilal]

Talk about break. Break that down. Hood business. Because you come from. You come from the music business, which is the ultimate hood business. Well, rap, Rap.

[Chris Gotti]

Not all music business. Rap music is hood business.

[Rashad Bilal]

People don't understand. Talk about the. How difficult. Talk about how difficult it is to try to be a businessman in the hood business.

[Chris Gotti]

You know, it's extremely difficult because the powers that control those dollars in the business side of it that you're trying to get into, they look at you again. One of the most racist things I, I dealt with in music was, that's a lot of money. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, that was so offensive to me because it's not a lot for you, Mr. White man, but it's a lot for me coming from where I came from. And I, I would be so offended. I'm like, that's not a lot of money. Then you take it. I don't. It would turn me so off of the deal that they would say that. And I mean, you would be surprised. They say it all the time. They look at, look at what you're doing. That's a lot of money for you. They don't even realize how they're lowering your value when they do it, and it's disrespectful. So when I, when I say it's the same in every hood business, and we have a lot of them out here, but in basketball, a company like Nike knows exactly what you're worth and does not pay you even close to it. And then when you take it, which most of the parks have to do to survive, they just take it. It. Oops, pardon me, and they take it. The reality is they'll never get to the number they want. And how interest Clash tv, a live streaming company that presents a whole different way of generating revenue and eyeballs for them. I don't talk hood business. I'm talking real business. And if they don't talk to me, I pass on the deal. See, a lot of people wouldn't pass. They'll just take the shorts. But if I want to go up, once you take that low number, you'll never get to know you're stuck. And that's what every park, whether they Ever had a deal or not? So Ferris May never had. They didn't get a deal with Nike. They're being. They're stuck based on what Kenny did. What Ruckus. Giving what Gersh is getting. They're stuck because of that. So there's a value already set in the marketplace. You cannot change that value without doing something different or drastic. And that's what Clash will do. But I need them to be able to say, I'll stand with you if they don't stand with me and have the autonomy. You know that. That takes guts, right? That takes, you know, balls. Big kahunas, bro. So it doesn't matter. I'm gonna stand on what's right, not what's wrong. And that's it. I stand on what's right. So I'm always on the side of the right. And what's right is take care of the people. That's taking care of you. And that's what the brands that are coming into hood business, which want. Want all of that, that they don't know how to get our culture, they just don't know how to do it. So they have to have someone that allows them in. And the people that's in the positions are letting them in at very low value.

[Ian Dunlap]

I find a question for you. My apologies. No question. Yeah. Two parter. Are stars born or are they made? And then if you have to break down the elements of what a star is, what makes a person a superstar? Because you've been around a lot of them and you're on yourself.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah. That's again, coming from music. I'm a star finder. That's how I looked at myself. Right. I find stars. So it's two. It's both. You could manufacture a star. I've seen that happen. But they have to have still. There's still something that has to be in them. And then the ones that have that in them, naturally, a superstars, they're Kanye West. That's the difference. So, right. He's not manufactured.

[Troy Millings]

He's.

[Chris Gotti]

He's a star. If that make, you know, again, I could say a Jay Z. If I use music, these guys are stars. Ja Rule was a star. He was not manufactured.

[Troy Millings]

He's.

[Chris Gotti]

He. He had something in him. It was just different. But then you get the guys that are very good. All right, so let me ask you a question. Is Jadakissa Star Star? This is what I'm saying. You know, there's no disrespect to them. They work their asses off.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Chris Gotti]

And became It. And they have that core thing in them that makes a star. Like everyone doesn't have that.

[Troy Millings]

It.

[Chris Gotti]

Let's call it that it.

[Ian Dunlap]

Factor it back to.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah, they have that effective. But they figured it out from work, from time, over time, over time. It happens in sports. You know, I could actually argue like a Kawhi Leonard. If he's not fully manufactured, you tell me who is. That's he's worked his way to where he's at. Yeah, right. That you could tell in his game, the way he plays. It wasn't just natural. He just worked. And he's gifted athletically. Right. You know, it's. It's all there. To me, I could spot it easy just looking at people watching them if they have that from doing it so many times over, over and over and over. So, yes, it's both. That answer to that, those two part questions is it's both.

[Rashad Bilal]

All right, Chris, always a pleasure, man. Tell the people how they could download the app and how to stay in tune with what you got going on, man.

[Chris Gotti]

Just go get it, man. Class tv. Get the app. As simple as that. And make sure you watch the game on Clash street ball channel on YouTube. That's where all the games are on. You just go watch it. All the games are there. They archive, catch up, binge watch, do what you have to do. And man, enjoy. Enjoy the views and then just come back and support. All I'm looking for is the support.

[Rashad Bilal]

There you have it.

[Troy Millings]

I appreciate you, my guy.

[Ian Dunlap]

Appreciate it, appreciate it. Thank you always.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

Gotti. Gotti, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, they gotta love Gotti, man.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

When you, when you're creating a company, man, you want to make sure that you have technology incorporated. Basketball is something that is spread throughout the world. Like you said, it's the number two sport in the world having a technological component with grassroots in it. That's something that's sustainable throughout the year. Yep, it's a great idea.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, it's a great idea. I'll play. I got a couple ideas to go.

[Troy Millings]

That's the only thing with summer league is that it ends in the summer, but not. Not with this. Right. You get that same feel.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's a culture and, you know, it's something that people. You can't. You can't replicate that. Like being. I was talking to sticks out, the sticks talking about the NBA and their problems. And he was saying, like, you honestly, he's like, I go to NBA games all the time. Like I go to Dyckman. I. I have more fun indictment than I Have in the NBA games. Because it's that energy.

[Ian Dunlap]

You can't replace it.

[Chris Gotti]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Somebody cursing at the rap. Somebody they smoking in the background. They got the music playing.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hunger.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. That and you can't. It's not the same. So I definitely think that. And that's. And Honestly, that's how N1 became 100 million dollar company 20 years ago is because they. They captured that. They were like the first commercial brand to actually capture that. And nobody knew what. And one was like. Not like there was Nike or something like that. And they made a ton of money because they captured that street element. And whenever you could capture the street element.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep.

[Troy Millings]

Package it. Get a few stars around it.

[Ian Dunlap]

Reebok with the whole campaign around AI same issue. Like. Like, great points you brought up. Nike needs to tap in. I mean, whatever. Sales are down and you need to find another market to navigate to. Don't be a colonizer, but be an ally too.

[Troy Millings]

Please.

[Ian Dunlap]

Even in the NBA, everyone plays alike.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

At least you get to see some individualism, some creativity. Like, interesting.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. I think Kobe said something. Resin piece of Kobe. He's like. It's predictable ball. So like you come down and you can figure out who's gonna shoot the three. Who's gonna shoot. Every team is the same thing. Where it was like there was a team that won because they shot threes. Right. And then everybody tried. Which was the Warriors. And now everybody tried to catch that. That. And now everybody just shoots threes. They had a stat. It was. I'm obviously a. And they said that. And when they obviously different game. In the 90s, they averaged five three pointers a game.

[Ian Dunlap]

I remember that. Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Five a game. This year's team is averaging 44 attempts a game.

[Rashad Bilal]

But that was a whole different.

[Troy Millings]

I'm just saying 44 attempts.

[Ian Dunlap]

Mine was 183 shots. Yo.

[Troy Millings]

The other night, they missed the most threes in the history of the NBA. They had a game. I think they played the Hornets. They missed the most threes ever in a history of the NBA in a game. I think it was like 77 threes combined.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's crazy.

[Troy Millings]

Who wants to watch that?

[Rashad Bilal]

I mean, Steph Curry. You want to watch Steph Curry, right? It's a gift and a curse. The game became more exciting when the average people relate to Steph Curry because he's the average everyday man. He's not six, seven, he's not 250 pounds.

[Ian Dunlap]

Everybody's not stepped though.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's why I said to get to the curse. But people started to. Kids started to relate to stuff. They watched him. They grew. A lot of kids grew up on Steph Curry. So it's like, yo, this is my pathway forward, because I'm not gonna be LeBron James, but I could be Steph Curry. I just gotta work on my jump shot, so. And it's exciting to watch somebody shoot threes that hit. If you hit the three, it's exciting to watch that.

[Troy Millings]

It's great to watch. But they're not making them. This is what I'm saying. Like, they're not making them.

[Ian Dunlap]

It.

[Troy Millings]

That's the issue. Like, yes, Steph has revolutionized the game with his shooting. Proud, like, but he's an anomaly, actually. Maybe he's not.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

I just seen Wemby has hit more threes than him and Harden in his first two.

[Ian Dunlap]

That's amazing. What Steph is.

[Troy Millings]

Steph, yo, he's hit more threes already than. Than Harden, who's number two, and Curry, who's number one in his first two years. That's crazy to me. I mean, Wemby is, too, though.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, we'll be one of the greatest. He's gonna be one of the greatest players of all time. He's in my top five right now.

[Troy Millings]

Trajectory.

[Rashad Bilal]

His trajectory. He's gonna be in my top five.

[Ian Dunlap]

You think he leaves San Antonio, goes to LA at some point.

[Troy Millings]

They won't let him.

[Ian Dunlap]

I love you from a home.

[Rashad Bilal]

You know, Shout out to papa. How long does Pop have left? Once Pop leaves, it's over.

[Ian Dunlap]

It's over with.

[Troy Millings]

So the.

[Rashad Bilal]

He's gonna leave.

[Troy Millings]

What's San Antonio?

[Ian Dunlap]

Get on the phone.

[Troy Millings]

I think they got. They got that type of culture, like what Miami has. When it was like, it was Riley, and then it was like, oh, it's over. And then you get a sponsor. And now, like, his run.

[Rashad Bilal]

The thing behind that is Pat Riley's still there. Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

I think he'll have a job in.

[Ian Dunlap]

The front office if he wants.

[Troy Millings]

I know he's physically.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, I'm just saying physically, he might.

[Troy Millings]

Not be able to.

[Ian Dunlap]

And.

[Troy Millings]

And prayers go out to him. I think he just had a battle, a health battle. I think he had a stroke or something like that a couple months ago. Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

I'm saying he's not physically. So once he leaves. And who. I mean, come on.

[Ian Dunlap]

Time out. You right? But we try to make the. The numbers go up.

[Troy Millings]

You right. We're not alienating any markets.

[Ian Dunlap]

Anybody.

[Troy Millings]

We got that river run, right? The River Walk. The River Walk.

[Rashad Bilal]

Houston. We met a couple artists from San.

[Troy Millings]

Antonio, that's a fact. That's a fact. The Riverwalk looks like a nice thing.

[Rashad Bilal]

Salute.

[Ian Dunlap]

Salute to San Antonio boy. Victor about to be la realy menace.

[Rashad Bilal]

76 in the highlight room. All right. All right. Well, with that being said, it's been a hell of a year. This is the last market Mondays of the year.

[Ian Dunlap]

No.

[Troy Millings]

Of 2024.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yes, sir.

[Troy Millings]

Yo, man, 51 weeks. It's crazy.

[Rashad Bilal]

We could do it next week if you want. If you want to do next week, it's up to you.

[Troy Millings]

Shoot you the satellite.

[Ian Dunlap]

Sick. Fake sick again.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

I appreciate y'all. It's been a hell of a year. Thankful for y'all. Y'all are amazing. Thank you to everybody in red Panda, all the earners, everybody who tunes in every week. I will miss y'all next week. But we'll do a group chat and you know.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Debate, sports or some.

[Troy Millings]

We still speak when the camera's on on y'all.

[Ian Dunlap]

We're not breaking up. I know some rumors.

[Troy Millings]

A hell of a year. Obviously the market has. Has been incredible.

[Ian Dunlap]

Amazing.

[Troy Millings]

We had an election this year. We watched bitcoin hit a hundred thousand this year.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

I mean each of our major instances hit their all time highs. It's been. It's been a while. 2020.

[Ian Dunlap]

I've opened on a tear with autumn bad rollouts.

[Troy Millings]

Nvidia was up 174.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Troy Millings]

Shannon Sharp did 70 million. Invest Fest. 50. It. It's been a wild, wild 2024. 2025 is gonna. I already know from the things that's kind of been lined up, it's going to be just as crazy. So I'm looking forward to it.

[Ian Dunlap]

What's your favorite moment of this year? It's a lot of them, right?

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, it's a lot.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, it's a lot.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. Investors adult moment from a variety of standpoint. From opening having blackout the first blackout live with Shannon Sharp. Legendary competition Blackout.

[Troy Millings]

That just happened this year.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, that was this year Blackout legendary. Post post election interview, viral moments, facts. Getting a. Being able to give the Nipsey Hustle thing. That was dope.

[Troy Millings]

That was going there.

[Rashad Bilal]

I was going shout out to Sam, shout out to my brother Sam.

[Troy Millings]

I was going there.

[Rashad Bilal]

The whole unit, man. Being able to give a hundred thousand dollars in the name of nip. Rest in peace to Nipsey Hussle. Marathon continues for sure. 50 shout out to 50. That was crazy. It's been a lot. It's been a lot.

[Troy Millings]

Come on, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

Come on.

[Troy Millings]

Yo, we was in Ghana this year. Think about that. We did Carnegie hall again this year. You turned 40 this year, man.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, yeah. Pinks and Prince and Minx turn 40 this year.

[Ian Dunlap]

Princeton, right?

[Rashad Bilal]

We can't make Legendary.

[Troy Millings]

We can't miss that. That. That marathon moment is probably at the forefront. It's not even what y'all saw on stage. And somebody has a footage. I, I, I'm really interested in seeing it. When we had that meeting at the back, we were trying to figure out who was going to be the winner, and the entire family was. There was Lauren, the kids, his pops, his sister. Everybody was huddling, trying to figure out who it was. It was just like a special moment that sticks out for sure. 50 Cent was absolutely ridiculous.

[Ian Dunlap]

Legendary.

[Troy Millings]

That was ridiculous. Even the process of getting 50 to get to investors was like, yo, we got to take this trip. You know, we got to spend the day. In my end, it was like a whole thing. Shout out to Terrence J. I know we're part of all that. Eylu the Earners is back running. It's been. There's a lot to be grateful for, man. I'll be honest.

[Rashad Bilal]

Shout out to everybody that's been tapping in the Blackout. For sure. That's something that appreciate y'all started and, uh, just kind of cultural phenomenon. Like I said, a lot of people watch Blackout. Like, that's their Quietly too. It's their primary show that they watch. Like, yeah, Mike Rashid, he was like, I, I watch Blackout. Like, that's my show.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So, yeah, that's been dope to start that, that, that new entity and to get such warm reception. Very, very thankful for everybody that's been checking out all of his shows. But like I said, especially Blackout, since that's the newest, the newest addition to the family. What about you, Ian?

[Ian Dunlap]

Addition to Blackout. Invest Fest performance was amazing. How much closer we've gotten. Just like, seeing Xander growing, developing, and playing ball. That's been, like, fun to watch. Expansion of Red Panda, like, that's been fun just being, just being solid, full of integrity. Every decision is a good decision, right, Rashad? I love For Real Shook Shoddy. And watching you strategize this year, I call you, like, hit me with the Kobe. I got it, baby. So off the pod talks. Oh, baby.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

Pay per view.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

Pay per view. So I got Ty Red Panda. The sports edition has been been fun and interesting. So I'm excited for 2025, man. 2025 is gonna be amazing.

[Rashad Bilal]

A lot of good sports takes lately, especially on Blackout. We've been covering sports a lot. Those Those have done well on social media. So, yeah, definitely. Maybe something we can. We can continue that going into the new year, for sure. But in the comments, drop what you would like to see from us in the new year. Some guests. What guests you would like to see.

[Troy Millings]

First and foremost.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. What. Guess you would like to see what topics you would like us for us to cover. Of course. We got the Mastermind January coming up.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So everybody that got their tickets to that, y'all yelling for a treat. But let us know what you. What you would like to see us expand upon.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

In 2025.

[Troy Millings]

And shout out. Shout out to. To Mike. Shout out to AB. I know the people y'all don't see. My wife Danny. To hear every Magda, everybody. I don't see that. Make sure that this. This engine continues running and going in the right direction. Shout out to y'all. We. We don't get here without y'all. So we appreciate and love everyone. Yeah, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

I'm sad.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's been. It's been real. It's been real, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

Oh, and what additions do you want us to make next year? I may start off the year doing Cash apps. I may bring that back.

[Troy Millings]

Bringing that back.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. Just for maybe for like, one episode. If the numbers do great, I may do it more than once.

[Troy Millings]

But, yeah, somebody brought up the. The. The. The time when we did the Cash app and it went to the wrong lady.

[Ian Dunlap]

Oh, she gave us the wrong crazy work. Your mistake.

[Troy Millings]

That was class. Somebody made some money that night.

[Ian Dunlap]

Somebody.

[Rashad Bilal]

Imagine that's been watching Market Mondays religiously. Cult following. And everybody that's, you know, champion Market Mondays. Sure appreciate it.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Everybody that's. That's watching high level conversations.

[Rashad Bilal]

Shout out to. High level.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Shout out to our brother Keys, man. Another. Another crazy year for this guy.

[Rashad Bilal]

He had a dope show yesterday.

[Troy Millings]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

That actually. I actually got a chance to check out. I was home.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So shout out to Keys and shout out to his guests. Actually, I spoke to her, and she's dope. I wasn't really too familiar with her beforehand, but she's super dope. Gen Z model that is a Christian that talks about spirituality from a different standpoint. So that was an interesting conversation because for a few different reasons as far as the spiritual aspect, the age aspect, it was good to see Keys kind of interact with, you know, the younger generation.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

He was listening and he was talking. I feel like he was talking to, like, give her information. It was a good. It was a good conversation.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Shout out to Keith.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, and his whole team, too. I know they. He started some shows this year. Him and Stevie got the show. Matthew's always, you know, behind the scenes, making sure everything's happening, man. A lot, A lot of good work this year, man. Shout out to my brother and to.

[Ian Dunlap]

Those of you who may not have loved me or loved us. And you fell off.

[Troy Millings]

We're gonna pray. We're gonna pray for you.

[Ian Dunlap]

We're gonna pray to fall off.

[Troy Millings]

We're gonna pray for you. You don't want these prayers. We still gonna pray.

[Ian Dunlap]

I got prayers for you, my boy.

[Rashad Bilal]

The fall off, legendary Shout Out.

[Ian Dunlap]

And my friend, you died.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yes. First book coming out January 13th.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, look at that.

[Rashad Bilal]

You deserve to be rich. Yeah, man. Shout out to everybody. Shout out to Ghana. More. More updates on that coming soon. But real soon. Alvin. Shout out to Kwame. Shout out to Shaka bars. So, yeah, man, you know, it's a lot going on, but yeah. Stay tuned. Blackout this Wednesday. So Blackout's the last. Oh, actually, Thursday, we're gonna have a special, special drop for you guys. Day after Christmas, we got Eyo. We're gonna do our conversation with Toby Noigway.

[Ian Dunlap]

Oh, okay.

[Rashad Bilal]

Some special content that. We did that on Art Basel. So that's just. That's just some special virtual content just to kind of, you know, conversation. Some holiday. Holiday jingle to your life.

[Troy Millings]

He put out his new track. You saw it.

[Rashad Bilal]

The Jesus.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

And shout out to. Yeah. Blackout. Blackout.

[Ian Dunlap]

This is going crazy on Blackout.

[Rashad Bilal]

Christmas, Christmas Day. Christmas Day. When you. After you're done. You know, everything. Got some eggnog.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hey, tune in.

[Troy Millings]

I got the Hennessy in it.

[Rashad Bilal]

Blackout. Christmas edition.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, man. Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact.

[Troy Millings]

Yo, have a good. Hey, hey, hey. Shout out to Scissor. Real quick. Let me just get this off. Shout out to Scissor, who put out an incredible body of work. At this point, I'm gonna. I'm gonna have a bold take, but I don't think that there's a better songwriter in this generation than her. She's absolutely ridiculous.

[Ian Dunlap]

She's phenomenal with the pen.

[Troy Millings]

The music she put out is ridiculous. I'm a huge fan. If you haven't listened to the line of deluxe, go listen to it. Incredible, incredible, incredible work. She's up there, man. She is super, super special and talented.

[Rashad Bilal]

Salute to Scissor.

[Troy Millings]

Solana.

[Rashad Bilal]

Salute to Scissors. Salute to everybody. I put out music. I think Fat Joe put out some music. Oh, I ain't.

[Troy Millings]

Check it out.

[Rashad Bilal]

He's in a low situation right now.

[Ian Dunlap]

But just about, boys, they're in the hot matter. Fat Joe Hefe, I rock with you, but I got it.

[Troy Millings]

I missed it.

[Ian Dunlap]

18Th one, Martin Luther King Day. After that, I'm. I'm back rocking. But for right now.

[Troy Millings]

Shout out to Joey. Ah. And condolences. Man. I know he lost his brother recently.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. All right, guys, it's been real Love Tap in next year.

[Ian Dunlap]

And if the aliens look like that scissor cover art, y'all can go ahead.

[Chris Gotti]

And.

[Troy Millings]

Let it happen.

[Rashad Bilal]

Man, let them in.

[Troy Millings]

Let it happen.

[Rashad Bilal]

Let him in, Scotty. All right, y'all.

[Troy Millings]

Peace.

[Rashad Bilal]

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